Written by Shan Zhi Liu 06/07/2024
I think it's about time. We all know you wanna know how our mixing engineers mix the tracks that will very soon become your new favourite songs ever (hopefully). Over the next two weeks you'll learn all about how our four engineers tune their songs to perfection for your listening pleasure.
Starting off strong with Team Lead Shan Zhi Liu (moi!) As most of his experience is focused around years of using Ableton and mixing larger than life EDM music, there are a few habits that translate over to his mixing work across both Ableton and ProTools.
Anyone who knows Shan Zhi will attest to how much he absolutely stands by using stock Ableton plugins within Ableton. The stock compressor is incredibly thorough, and the stock EQ has 7 fully customisable bands. Plenty of the Softube plugins especially, namely the Glue Compressor, have simply been incredible time-savers for his workflow that also save so much CPU power.
But obviously they cannot be used in Pro Tools. That is why across all of his mixes, Ableton or else, some of his favourites include the Brainworx Purple Audio MC 77 and the Universal Audio LA-2A Tube Compressor, some absolutely solid pieces of analog compressor emulation. Across almost all of his mixes too are the Soundtoys Little Radiator which he got for free for some simple but effective harmonic colouration, the Apogee SoftLimit which does just as the name suggests, and several Fabfilter products like the Pro-Q, Pro-MB, and Pro-L for surgical clean processing.
The thing that really creates a unique sound for Shan Zhi's mixes is his favourite choice of reverb and delay plugins: Valhalla VintageVerb, and Valhalla Supermassive. VintageVerb has lots of versatility, and Supermassive is a remnant of his EDM mixing that he applies to anything that needs a creative sound design reverb/delay combo. Dallas also introduced the South Bound crew to the Klanghelm Tens Jr. Studio Spring Reverb, which Shan Zhi has been loving as a new favourite.
The preferred workflow of Mr. Team Lead is top-down mixing, starting from the top of the mix and working all the way down to find little things to work upon. One of the workflow habits that Shan Zhi has learned to apply across all of his work, is that he is absolutely a hater of the solo button to an extreme. In specific exceptions, the solo button may be used to double-check certain mix decisions, or to surgically fix something. Other than that, all mixing by Shan Zhi is always done in context to the rest of the track.
Keeping the train going is none other than our Chief Sound Engineer Dallas Lander himself. As the engineers that we are, mixing purely in the box, Dallas absolutely loves to have his fair share of lots and lots of analog warmth in his mixes. The astute readers among you may remember the Thermionics Culture Vulture that become an analog harmonic distortion phenomena of a discovery within South Bound.
At home Dallas has a few go-to favourites within his mixing signal chains. With the theme of classic analog emulations, Universal Audio is one of his good friends. The API2500 Bus Compressor, 1176LN and LA-3A make up some key workhorses of his compression tools, which in combination with other options gives some real variety to his work. The HitsvilleEQ and Mäag Audio EQ4 are some of his favourite EQ's that add delicious colour and character to his mixes, and the Slate Virtual Mix Rack is a notable favourite of his too. Some time-based effects that round out his mixes are the Lexicon 224 and the Studio D Chorus as go-to vintage time-based sounds, along with the Fabfilter Timeless 3. His tasteful choices in plug-ins make for some well and truly timeless sounds to his mixes!
With lots of continued adaptation and iteration upon his workflow, it took a while for Dallas to stumble upon the concept of middle-out mixing. The top-down mixing concept has been well-known for a long-time amongst the circle of mix engineers, however this is a variation on that. Rather than thinking about working through a mix all the way from the top at the master bus down to the individual sources, this is a less extreme version that involves starting at the clips and gain staging, then moving to the mix busses, to the master, and back all around and through in circles. Dallas always felt what he did was slightly different to everyone else's work practices, and his individuality and discovery of favoured workflows defines his sound and his work.
These blogs have been great to keep up with you all, and giving you guys an insight into what goes on behind the scenes is really. Please consider following us on our website and socials for all the updates regarding our upcoming songs, the album release is slowly arriving so please stay tuned! Next week we will have a look at the mixing habits of our very own Amadeus and Julian.
As always, inviting you down South. 🇦🇺
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