A Brave Mix

Welp, its been a massive 6 months for A Brave Mix and James (me).

Projects:
Closed out the mix for Numa’s “Greatest Of All Album” (Brisbane AU) and flew off to Seattle, WA to co-produce, engineer, and mix Foursquare United Generation‘s 2012 studio album “On The Rise”. After I returned from recording Foursquare UG I started mix on Perth rockers The Calling Of Levi‘s latest release “Movement”, then turned right back to Foursquare UG’s record and finished up that mix. All the while I have been participating in a 12in12 (one song every month for 2012) project for Nathan Ironside’s The Stirring. And most recently I was off to Hoboken NJ’s Water Music Studios Big Room to mix Adventure Land’s next single. And somewhere in there I hit up Miami to engineer an EP for Rendezvous Miami with Nathan Finochio producing.

Studio Upgrades:
Through this season we’ve been able to purchase some much needed upgrades. Among them, a new MacPro, SPL Mixdream XP, additional IO, Apogee Rosetta 200, SPL Transient Designer, and a plethora of plugins.

Recent Work

From the artist:

“James is every striving band’s dream. He was so determined to give us the best shot that we could have ever wanted, and he never fell short of getting us the best sound he could possibly get. He brought fresh ears, new ideas, experience and talent to the table and working with James has been an unforgettable experience for all of us. His exceptional mixing skills have inspired us to return with fresh ideas, and we all look forward to working with James once again.”

Possibly Fading
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So I’ve been out with Parachute Band for a week and a half (ps if you don’t know them… you should!) and have encountered a very wide range of PAs and desks… everything from a large D&B rig to tiny 6″ QSC boxes (no lie) and from Digidesign D-Show consoles all the way down to a unique Yamaha EMX5016CF (two actually)… The tools were definitely helpful on some dates in that they ‘were almost not even there’ enabling me to operate at my fastest and my best… and on other dates, like one with an LS9, they were very much in my face, slowing me down, or distortion was a default ‘feature’…. Here is what I brought away… Regardless of the tools or limitations of the PA is it always possible to think outside the box and achieve something great if you don’t give up or give into the situation. Whether its 2 faders, less than 5db headroom before clipping, and 2 hours of fader riding OR 192 faders of glorious digital console love, limitless plugin power, and headroom out the arse on a D&B rig ever fader under my control will ALWAYS get the same amount of love and attention until it sounds its absolute best… as far as I’m concerned… ‘good doesn’t cut it!’