TWO’S COMPANY

As always the Duet 3 is the epitome of design. Apogee were somewhat cosy with Apple back in the day, and take a similar approach to design. The Duet 3 measures about 155 x 100 x 17mm, and presents with a sleek piano-black upper surface with silver Apple-esque underside. It’ll match your MacBook Pro or iMac nicely.

The only control is a single 55mm rotary encoder which doubles as a push-button for switching between headphone/main levels and input levels, and is under-lit with delightfully dulcet blue LEDs. It looks superb, as is the feel of the rotary encoder. The underside is rubberised to minimise slippage on your work-surface.

To the rear of the Duet are three connections: two USB-C ports; one for connection to your Mac (or Windows) DAW, the other for additional power if your computer USB ports aren’t delivering enough. Apogee supply a USB-C cable that incorporates a USB-A adaptor if you’re connecting to older machines without USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. A final mini D-Sub-style connector adorns the rear for the breakout cable. Yeah, I know. Breakout cables. I’m not a fan of moulded-plug squid cables either, but these days those little moulded plugs seem to last a lot longer than they used to. However, if you really can’t stand the breakout cable scenario, Apogee supply an optional ‘Duet Dock’ which replicates the breakout cable connectors with ‘real’ connectors – well worth the additional expense.

Connection-wise the breakout cable provides two XLR mic inputs, two high impedance instrument jack inputs, and 1/4-inch TRS jack left and right monitoring outputs. If you stump up for the Duet Dock you’ll get a 1/4-inch headphone jack thrown into the bargain – arguably, a superior option to the front mounted minijack headphone socket.

So now we’re here, a word on compatibility. MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) or later is supported on both Intel and M1 processors, along with Windows 10 20H1 “or greater”. I couldn’t tell you when Apogee commenced Windows support but for a good while Apogee clobber was a Mac-only affair. Maybe it’s an inclusionary thing – I dunno. Anyway, the Duet 3 functioned admirably on my Catalina system, and was recognised natively prior to any driver installation. Windows 10 played happily with the Duet 3.

DSP TIME

Any audio interface manufacturer worth its salt these days builds onboard DSP into its gear. In that light, I’ll proffer Apogee has included something quite special. Included with the Duet 3 is Apogee’s Symphony ECS Channel Strip. This is no slouch sonically, offering a tidy channel strip scenario. The Symphony ECS Channel Strip incorporates an LA-2A-ish compressor 3:1, 5:1, and 10:1 compression ratios with a wet/dry mix, high-pass filter, low-shelf variable EQ, mid-peak semi-parametric with narrow or wide-band Q, and a variable high-shelf EQ. This is rounded down into a final ‘drive’ circuit and overall output level.

This DSP setup is accessed via the supplied Apogee Control 2 mixer software and can be ‘printed’ to your record channel or not. Bear in mind this DSP is only available via input to the Duet 3. But it’s low-latency processing right there at input. Whether it matters to you or not, the DSP has been ‘tuned’ by Bob Clearmountain, and Bob’s included a bunch of presets, too. Cheers Bob. If you’re after the same plug-in for your DAW, Apogee is offering a software version to Duet 3 owners for fifty bucks (I assume USD).

Apogee Control 2 also provides access to instrument/mic input channels, gain, phase, 48V phantom power, panning, levels, along with headphone levels, sample rate (up to 192k), metering characteristics, +4/-10 output level, monitor dimming… heck, you can even control the brightness of the dashing blue LEDs beneath the controller knob. Swell! Incidentally, if your DAW habitat is Logic ProX you’ve got access to input gain control directly from within the Logic Pro X channel strips – even sweller.

SOUND COMPARISONS

As alluded to, Apogee doesn’t muck about with sonic quality, and the Duet 3 seriously won’t disappoint. At this price point, however, Apogee don’t give away any real-world empirical specifications – so there are literally no numbers and measurements to report. That said, I’d propose, no complaints with the mic preamps. Dynamic, condenser, ribbon; there’s ample of gain for all. Then whack a bit of drive via the Symphony ECS Channel Strip to guitars via the instrument inputs and you can possibly forego some hefty outboard. In terms of monitoring, whatever Apogee is doing with the Duet 3 trumped my Apogee Ensemble (Firewire) in spades. A splendid stereo image, consolidated bottom-end, and a silky top end.

At this end of the market you’d be pushing to find a more compelling option. Not only does the Apogee Duet 3 look and feel good, it sounds great. It’s portable, comes in a sweet travel case if you’re the laptop type, and takes up only a modicum of space at your workspace. Get the Duet Dock if you’re keeping it in situ, though.

MIMIC NO GIMMICK

For me, the highlight of Reason 12 is the new creative sampler, Mimic.

It’s not like Reason didn’t previously do sampling, but if you look at the NN-XT, NN19 traditional samplers and the (gloriously shagadiciously named) Dr Octo Rex loop player — none of them could be classified as ‘fun’. This always struck me as paradoxical, as Reason Studios (or Propellerhead as the company was known) made a name for itself with ReCycle, a creative sample-chopping piece of software that changed the way drum loops (especially) were sampled and therefore changed the way music was produced. 

Anyway, Reason knows a thing or two about sampling, clearly. And I’m delighted to see the release of the creative sampler, Mimic — it’s a super-solid addition to the Reason arsenal, a genuine keeper.

Mimic provides just enough tools for it to be creative but not intimidating. 

There are modes for mapping a sample across your keyboard, another for chopping up a loop, and another for assigning (up to eight) samples across different notes. The looping modes, filter, effects, and modulation sections are all there with a creative bent. If you’re looking to meticulously multisample a Bösendorfer, then there are other tools, Mimic is designed to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks.

Reason has heard its user base and Mimic will, no doubt, add some new features in coming updates. REX file support is a common request, for example.

Prior to Reason 12 I was messing with samples in a Korg Gadget plug-in, but Mimic will definitely be my go-to weapon of choice from here.

COMBINATOR TIME

Reason 12 has super-charged its Combinator. What you can do with a Combinator is really quite astonishing. Not only can you package up sound sources, effects, modulators, mixers, arpeggiators and more, you can now customise the controls and skins of your Combinator, providing you direct and easy access to any of the key elements within the package. The Combinator really is a Reason drawcard and enormously powerful. If you want a taster, Reason 12 packs loads of new Combinator patches. It’s worth checking out what’s on offer, it provides a glimpse into where your own sonic peregrinations can take you.

LOOKIN’ GOOD

Reason looks better than ever. Some of the older synths and effects have taken on a new lease on life in glorious super-hi-definition. It’s sometimes easy to leave older inventory languishing on the shelf because a newer, shinier synth or compressor has arrived but very little of Reason’s mainstays are in any way redundant and the makeover reminded me of that. Thor is still a monster, for example.

ROAD MAP

It’s the era of ‘road maps’, and Reason has released its own. The head honchos at Reason Studios are being refreshingly candid in what to expect over the mid term. The biggest blip on the radar for me is Apple M1 chip compatibility. Reason’s DAW performance on my 2020 MacBook Pro feels worse than on my old 2016 MacBook Pro — which has been dispiriting. I really cannot wait to see some M1 performance improvements unleashed before the end of the year.

As a Reason true believer I’m cheering on Reason 12. As much because I genuinely believe that the enhancements are worthy of a ‘full integer’ upgrade, as I’m personally invested in Reason’s longevity. Long live Reason. 

Text: Joe Matera

APPROACH TO IP

AV: At the core of remote production is the movement of media over IP networks. Can you give us a sense of how Lawo has been moving in that direction over recent years?

Phil Myers: If you look back to 2009 or 2010 Lawo was already making steady IP audio progress with Ravenna. Then in late 2015 into 2016 customers started acquiring the appetite for video on the IP layer as well as audio. When I joined in 2018, my focus was on devising an IP solution that wouldn’t require a degree in rocket science to build it. Operators need to use the system not IT engineers. It needs to be as easy as possible to maximise the use of the technology, and not be completely swamped by the technology.

We’ve worked very hard on ease of use over the last few years. In April of this year we introduced something called Home. It’s now a core technology across the Lawo portfolio, with our audio production products the first to benefit. It allows operators to easily discover, connect to and use Lawo hardware on the network, regardless of whether it’s sitting next to them or thousands of miles away. 

Adopting IP into products was just the first step. Now we’re going to start seeing real innovation in how we allow operators to utilise the technology in a far more efficient way. 

MORE ON IP

AV: We’re making IP infrastructure work and work well, but how inherently suitable is the IP layer for moving audio and video around?

Phil Myers: With IP media transport we come back to the same constraints: whether it’s audio or video, we have a really low tolerance to latency — whether you’re matching audio with video or you’re trying to listen to a return and you don’t really want to have seconds of delay. If we look at video, the network infrastructure simply hasn’t been there to transport large payloads of video. So you were always forced to compress it and compression results in latency. If you look back to around 2015 or 2016, that was a real tipping point. We started to see larger networks becoming available. Since that time, we’re seeing 25, 50 and 100 gig networks, in fact, we’re now talking about 400 gig. So the IP infrastructure, or the pipes that we move this stuff on, is more than capable of transporting uncompressed video, even though we’re still increasing the amount of bandwidth we need, thanks to 4K and a future involving 8K.

SYD MEL. NEP REMOTE

AV: Not so long ago NEP built two hubs in Melbourne and Sydney. These were hailed as breaking new ground, worldwide. Can you explain why it was so significant?

Phil Myers: NEP routinely deals with such vast distances in Australia. Historically, you would fly a production crew hundreds of kilometres to the venue; drive the OB truck for days; and potentially drive it just as far again to another job straight after the event. With all that time and expense of moving the equipment and the personnel, there comes a time when you ask, ‘why don’t we just back haul the signals to a central position?’.

The remote production model in many cases is a better utilisation of your technology and people. It allows you to use the talent where they’re based — Sydney and Melbourne, in this case. So in that way it was really groundbreaking. Not only was it one of the very first large-scale SMPTE 2110 installations, but it showed people that you can work remotely; it’s possible to backhaul signals; and it’s also possible for crews to work remotely together in a collaborative way.

In the last 18 months, many customers have looked closely at the NEP model because it provides a blueprint. In fact, we’ve now seen some customers go one step further where they take the replay controllers or the audio console and put them in operator’s houses. The replay operator or the audio operator doesn’t necessarily even have to go to the facility! 

RIP OB TRUCKS?

AV: If operators barely need to get out bed to produce a show, are the days of OB trucks now numbered?

Phil Myers: An OB truck’s life expectancy is around five to seven years. There are plenty on the road and most of them aren’t IP based. So OB trucks aren’t going away anytime soon. What’s more, some customers will still want the trucks to be at the venue, even if they are IP based. Some directors insist on being on site because of the atmosphere and they believe it rubs off on the production. But when you think about a large sporting event where there are multiple trucks, multiple broadcasters, providing all the world feeds, in that circumstance you might find the world feeds get back-hauled to the broadcaster rather than the broadcaster sending a truck to the event itself.

Everyone will feel their way in a manner that best suits them. Some people will really embrace remote production — send the cameras to the event and back haul everything. Some customers might decide to send the cameras and take a small crew and then do some of the replays back at base. And then we will have some customers continue to take the entire truck and do the production that way. 

HOME ECOSYSTEM

AV: You mentioned Home. Can you elaborate on what you set out to do with it?

Phil Myers: We started the Home project in 2018. I gave the engineering team a very clear goal: to build a platform upon which we would add future Lawo products and technologies; and a scaffold that would allow customers to build an IP system without all of the complexity.

My challenge to the team was: if I have a bundle of our ‘box’ products, how quickly can I take them out of the box, connect them to a switch and have them routing audio and video through the system. After all, that’s the customer expectation: take a box, rack it, cable to the switch, and turn on the services.

Home is also built to make it easy to manage an IP-based system. Our products are now reprogrammable, are regularly updated, and all have user licenses. You need to be able to manage and track user licences. And so we wanted to provide a mechanism that allowed customers to manage all of that themselves. It can save them the time it takes to phone us to upgrade the system safely or move their licences around.

AV: That’s the customer’s experience of Cloud, but what were you doing under the bonnet?

Phil Myers: From a technology perspective, I wanted the team to build something that is good for today, but also good for the future. And so it’s built entirely in microservices where each element is, effectively, its own service. This means that when we want to modify, update or repair any service, we don’t have to tear down any of the others or do regression testing to any of the others — it’s more flexible and agile.

The other side of that is Home can run anywhere. So today we run the microservices on a gate server inside the console. If it’s a standalone console, that’s really easy to do. Or we can run it in a cluster using Docker or Kubernetes, or we have customers that want to run it in a hosted environment. So you can use Microsoft as your containers, or AWS.

Customers are going to run the services where they want to run them and it’s not up to us to dictate that. And, with services decoupled, you can even choose to run some services in one location and some services in another — again, it’s highly flexible and agile.

When we looked at other open standards we couldn’t see how they were benefiting from some of the developments happening outside the entertainment space. And so all the technology we have in Home is built on open source technologies that you will find predominantly in the cloud environment — cloud native technologies. We didn’t want to build any proprietary technologies. We wanted to utilise technology built for scale, built for security, built for resilience. And that was really important to us.

AV: Being based on open standards are you leaving the door open for others to play in your Home?

Phil Myers: Yes. The second side of it is the ecosystem piece: how do we allow others to play in the Home environment? We’ve already made some advances and some progress with a number of the other manufacturers to implement the technology in the Home environment. And we have some announcements coming early next year about adding support for NMOS within Home. You can either be a complete first-class citizen, a Home native, or you can bring all of your NMOS devices directly into the system.

I suspect we will implement other discovery mechanisms in the future, given the industry’s appetite for other technologies like Dante and NDI, just to name a few. And because of the architecture of Home it’s not too hard for us to build an NDI service or a Dante Service to complement the NMOS service.

It’s really about having the ability and a common user interface that allows you to see, discover and manage all of your content securely, no matter which way it’s transported or discovered at a technology level.

AI: USEFUL?

AV: I’ve heard you talk about Lawo’s research into the application of AI in your products. Any more developments?

Phil Myers: I’m always a big fan of of looking at how a technology can fix customer’s problems. It’s not enough to latch onto a buzzword, ultimately, it’s got to provide a material benefit. So we’ve looked at AI in a couple of spaces. 

The first is in audio applications: how AI can assist in auto mixing and control of audio signals coming in. 

The other one is around pathfinding: looking at the network and understanding how you can move signal around the network.

Our Kick product is an interesting one where we use the tracking data from around the football pitch to intelligently bring up the pitch mic levels. I think that concept ,with some additional work, actually provides us a good foundation.

You will see some new things in this space next year. It’s a little too soon to announce anything but certainly I would expect by the middle of next year you’ll see something. 

AV: You mentioned pathfinding. Is that a fertile area for AI?

Phil Myers: No. We feel it’s better to go with a more traditional algorithmic approach, because there are some operational concerns, where things might move around the network by themselves, in a way that’s undesirable. It’s really comes down to identifying the problem areas and seeing what is the best technology to fix that problem.

BECOMING IP & IT

AV: Do you hear concerns expressed around audio and video systems being run by IT people rather than audio and video people?

Phil Myers: Will IT engineers replace the broadcast engineers or the audio engineers? No, an IT engineer is very good at understanding the IT infrastructure but in most cases, they won’t have any concept of how to look at video or measure it or monitor it or listen to it. What I see with the large broadcast clients, is they are bringing the engineering resources together and they’re trying to pass the skills back and forth. It means you end up with a hybrid combination of skills. You have IT engineers with an understanding of video, and you end up with audio and video engineers with an understanding of IT.

That’s one of the reasons why we developed Home, because we don’t want highly-skilled audio and video engineers being burdened with a load of IT detail to get something to work. 

Having an understanding of IT is definitely beneficial. And I think you’re probably going to see that with a lot of customers, and how they hire. They’re going to ask for a basic level of networking knowledge.

LAWO IN A VENUE NEAR YOU

AV: I’ve noticed Lawo audio consoles popping up in larger installations. Is Lawo interested in expanding its house of worship and theatre market share, for example?

Phil Myers: We are and the new MC2 36 Mk2 audio console bears witness to that. What we call the ‘application’ segment is much more sensitive to price and complexity. So we’re starting to produce products for that space. We have been focussed on the premium end of the market, but we are also building the product portfolio to scale it down to make that top-end technology more accessible. We’ve got some new products coming along for our radio portfolio at the end of this year, which will also allow us to use some of that technology for those segments as well.

STAYING ON TRACK 

From his The Hallway studio in Los Angeles, Braunstein acknowledges that the band and he are “extremely excited” about Spiritbox’s success so far. He was involved with the band from its beginnings in 2017, initially mixing and mastering their material, and from 2019 onwards also engineering sessions, producing and helping the band with songwriting and defining their sound. When the entire album project was thrown into chaos because of the pandemic, Braunstein was instrumental in keeping it on track. 

Braunstein’s involvement with Spiritbox was based on his track record as a rock and metal producer, in part with his former band Volumes, and also producing rock acts like Silent Planet and Dayseeker, and even an indie pop act like Emotional Oranges. Braunstein grew up in LA, learned to play piano, violin and guitar, played in bands, and recorded them on his mother’s 4-track TEAC tape recorder. Following this, Braunstein did a Recording Arts degree at Loyola Marymount University, and after completion, in 2012, set up The Hallway recording studio. In 2018, he partnered with Zach Tuch, and each of them now have their own control room and live room inside their facility. 

“My set up is pretty simple,” explains Braunstein. “I have a 500-series rack, with some API 512c mic pres, which get mostly used for DI, two Avedis MA5 mic pres, a UA 610, a Retro STA Level compressor, Empirical Labs Distressor, Apollo 16 interface, and Barefoot Footprint01 monitors. My main microphones are a Pearlman TM-1, which is a U47 clone, and a Bock 195. It sounds similar to the Neumann U87, a bit dryer, and the big transformer smoothes out the sizzling top end that U87s tend to have. I used this microphone on Courtney’s normal vocal for the Spiritbox record, and a Shure SM7b for the screaming.”

MASTERING ALL TRADES

When Braunstein and Spiritbox started work on ‘Eternal Blue’, in 2019, the producer would regularly fly to Canada. “Mike and Courtney live in Victoria, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I’d set up a studio in their house, and we would write and record the songs there, and I’d mix them back in my studio. The writing process with them is really fluid. Mike and Courtney are amazing writers, and we all click together. Sometimes Mike brings in an idea, and I add the production, and then Courtney adds her vocals. Sometimes I bring in a song starter idea, and Mike will write guitar parts to that.

“In most projects I work on, I co-write, produce, engineer and mix, and often I’ll master as well. These things go hand-in-hand these days, because it’s so easy to do everything with the technology. You don’t need to have a producer sitting on a couch and an engineer sitting at the desk and then send what you have done to a mixer anymore. And as a musician, I’m involved in the writing process. On top of being a guitar player, I’m also a piano player and a drummer. I’ll start song ideas by programming drums, or with a synth line, or by pulling in a sample and chopping that up.

“My main tool for creating song ideas is Ableton. Although I use Pro Tools for recording and mixing, I’ll rarely start an idea that way. Ableton is much quicker and much more flexible. The time between having an idea and it being fully realised is much shorter with Ableton. It is almost like an instrument. Inside of Ableton I often use Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Xfer Serum. Sometimes I find samples or loops on Splice.com. I also use Spectrasonics Keyscape a lot, as well as the Arturia V Collection, and Spitfire, plus the Output stuff like Signal, Exhale, Substance, and Analogue Strings.”

JAMMING ON ZOOM

According to Braunstein, LaPlante, Stringer and he started co-writing songs like ‘Holy Roller’, ‘Constance’ and ‘Blessed B’ “from scratch, sitting in a room together”. And then, the pandemic hit, and the company had to figure out how to continue working together, despite being physically separated. “We had this catalogue of songs we had started, and we wanted to finish them and continue to release singles, and eventually, of course, the album. We decided to begin with finishing ‘Holy Roller’, which is their craziest, heaviest song, with all screaming.

“Finishing that song was the first thing we did via Zoom, using AudioMovers. Mike normally uses Reaper, but for these sessions he got a copy of Pro Tools Ultimate and also loaded that on his computer. Via Zoom I then controlled his computer, and did the vocal recordings and production remotely. We also continued writing remotely, with him sending me riffs and I’d add something and send that back. We wrote a couple of songs via Zoom in real time, with both of us playing.” 

DESERT SOUNDS 

Come 2021, everyone was getting frustrated with working remotely. Because Braunstein could still not go to Canada, Spiritbox decided that the solution was for them to come to the US. “They rented an awesome house called Old Heard Ranch close to the Joshua Tree National Park, where we stayed for the whole of February 2021 — Courtney, Mike, [bassist] Bill Crook, and I. The property is on 26 acres of grounds, and the surroundings look like a different planet, with giant rock formations everywhere. We really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.

“For all of us it was about the experience of how cool the place was, and the fact that we were finally able to sit in the same room together for the first time in a year! It’s only a couple of hours from Los Angeles, so I brought my Barefoot monitors, Avedis mic pres, Sta Level compressor, Bock microphone, MIDI keyboard, computer screen and laptop, and all the necessary headphones, headphone mixers, mic stands, cables and so on. They brought their Apollo Quad interface.”

“Like before, we did all Mike’s guitars DI, using the Neural DSP Archetype Nolly plugin, which we basically used as an amp. The Neural DSP amp simulations sound better than real amps 90% of the time. Plus I’m able to be so much more creative during the mix when I have the guitar DI at my disposal. If I wanted to pitch shift a note, which we did all over the place, I can do that with the DI recording, and it will not sound weird.

“Mike also played the basses, because when one pair of hands plays all the rhythm instruments, it creates a certain sound. On top of that, Mike and I write drum parts together, and the drummer would play those parts on an electric kit, and he’d send the recordings back. I then quantised them 90-95%, so the end result is a hybrid of programmed drums and a real drummer playing those programmed drum parts.” 

CIRCLE ROUND

In contrast with the relaxing natural surroundings at Old Heard Ranch, Braunstein was at full stretch. “It was a lot of work. When we arrived we did not have an entire album of material written. We had maybe nine or 10 song ideas that we started with, and went from there. At one point Mike kept saying that we needed an extra song, a heavy-hitting banger, and he looked at this song starter idea of mine that had been lying around for a while. On February 14th, I went to LA for one day to be with my girlfriend, and when I came back, Mike had written a song to it, which was ‘Circle With Me’.

“We completed the recordings for the song the next day. We were inspired. That was really cool about living together: every time someone had a spark of inspiration, we could just record it right there and then. You can hear those magical moments on the album. We did have a routine, though, which is that during the day I usually worked with Mike, on instrumental parts; in the afternoon we’d go on outings; and in the evening I’d work with Courtney, laying down vocals. We made a make-shift vocal booth for her with a reflection filter from Amazon. I knew we had everything to get good quality dry recordings, despite the fact the acoustics in the dining room were terrible!

“Most of my time was spent sitting with the gear at the dining room table! Keeping track of everything was an enormous amount of work, and I kept saying that next time I’d bring an editing assistant! We had so much to do that we completed work on the album by the skin of our teeth when the month was over. One of the consequences of the bad acoustics was that I did not use the Barefoots very much. I only used them for moments when the entire band wanted to blast music, instead, for most of the time, I had to use headphones.”

MONITORS V HEADPHONES

After the sessions at the Ranch, Braunstein returned to The Hallway for final mixdown of all the material. It turned out that the dining room acoustics led to an unexpected hurdle that directly affected his mix process.  

“The headphones I almost constantly used at the ranch were my wired Bose QuietComfort 25 Noise Cancelling headphones. I used them so much that I went out and bought a bunch more! I did all the pre-mixing on them while at the ranch, and when I sat down to mix in my studio and listened to the songs through my speakers, my ears were confused. I was totally disorientated. Going from headphones to speakers was a totally different experience. It’s something about the wideness that you get when working in headphones.

“I did some mixes on my speakers and sent them to Mike, and he said, ‘this does not sound right’. It just sounded totally different and Courtney’s vocals were way too loud. So I had to mix the album on the Bose headphones! Over the weeks that it took me to do the final mixes, I tried to gradually wean myself off the headphones. It wasn’t until the very end, when the band came over to my studio to do revisions in person, that I was able to lay the final hands on the mixes using my monitors.” 

CLARITY V VIBE

Braunstein’s ‘headphone versus speaker’ issue clearly was not only due to the fact his ears had grown accustomed to the Bose headphones during the month, but also because he had already developed his rough mixes at the Ranch to a large degree.

“When I came back to The Hallway, he could not restart the mixes from scratch. Essentially what I ended up doing was simply refine what I already had. I tried to make everything more precise. The other general mix challenge was to get Courtney’s vocal to sit in the right place, with the guitars and all the atmospherics, while still retaining clarity.

“The latter challenge was in part to do with the fact that we like to put cool ethereal backgrounds in the music, which consist of almost dissonant melodic elements like drones, or an ambient piano or synth, often things with lots of reverb. They make the tracks sound really full, and the band really wanted these elements, but naturally the downside is that you get a lot of frequency masking. All this beautiful ambience can destroy the clarity in your mix. So for me the mixes were a constant battle between clarity and vibe.” 

As Braunstein set about “refining” his rough mixes, he mixed with all tracks in. “I am pretty against soloing when mixing. I have ruined too many mixes doing that. I’ve learned that when you focus on one thing at a time, when you then put everything together, it usually doesn’t work. Mixing is about sounds relative to each other. It’s an exercise in condensing many things into one stereo file. You’re never going to hear all these things individually.

“I don’t want to put the process before the result, because only the results matter. So when I mix I want to hear the result all the time. I want to listen as a listener the whole time. For this reason I will also rarely loop sections while mixing. I’ll normally listen to the whole song from start to finish, and then I go back to the beginning and do it again. I’m very aware that your ears get used to things and you stop having an objective view of what’s happening.”