When I’m working on mixing songs I always check my mix against a variety of setups to ensure that it’ll sound decent on as wide a variety of systems as possible. My workflow will usually proceed as follows:

1. Mix on studio monitors
2. Run through pre-lim mastering process
3. Check mix again on studio monitors
4. Check mix on car stereo 1
5. Check mix on car stereo 2
6. Check mix on laptop speakers
7. Check mix on ear-bud headphones
8. Check mix on over-ear headphones
9. Check mix on shitty boombox
10. Repeat steps until mix is refined to final state

In my opinion, the car mixes are the most important as that where the majority of people tend to listen to their music. With such a large number of listening environments things can get disorganized pretty quickly unless you have a process in place. I used to carry around a paper notebook specifically for mix notes but I noticed that it tends to get a bit messy. Sometimes I forget if I’ve already made a fix I took a note on, sometimes I don’t have my notebook with me, etc. While I still keep the notebook around for quick notes now I’ve switched over to using Evernote. I first heard of ever note when I went out to SXSW in 2011. I used it at the conference to take notes on my iPad while on the go. Evernote stores all of your notes in cloud storage so you have access to them from any computer, tablet or smartphone. This is much better than copying files back and forth from a USB drive, you never need to worry about if you have the most recent version if you are making changes on multiple computers. They have native applications available for desktop, iOS and Android in addition to the website interface. Since Evernote worked so well for me at the conference I decided to start using it for other things as well, such as taking notes down on mixes when listening in my car. I can just update the mixnotes notebook from my smartphone and then look it up later when I’m in the studio. As I make the changes I just take them off the list. Next round of mix listening I take more notes from my phone or desktop and repeat. The free version only limits the amount of data you can transfer per month, since most of mine is text I have yet to really run into going over my allotted bandwidth.

Found this great video on YouTube today about the making of The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” and how you can reproduce the track using some samples and Ableton. Pretty crazy to see just how many samples went into the creation of this song, little snippets used here and there that the average person would never spot. The video is pretty spot on, I know that Liam used a Korg Prophecy run through an envelope filter (possible a wah pedal for this) for the acid bass line but here they show you how to accomplish the entire track strictly in software.

Keep watching, at the seven minute mark he shows the final track.

For another trip down memory lane I present to you Ogre of Skinny Puppy fame and Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) performing the song “Suck” together as part of Pigface during a tour back sometime around 1990/1991.

Paulie Lipman’s The Obscene Gravity of Silence was just released in March. I’ve known Paulie probably since the mid-late nineties. We’ve had numerous mutual friends over the years and he used to work at a coffee shop that my friends and I used to frequent called Cafe Netherworld. We have both been in bands in the industrial music scene and I’ve seen him perform his slam poetry a ton. I moved away for awhile to NYC and then moved back to Colorado in 2009 and started building a recording studio to use for bands on my record label and for my own music. Paulie mentioned to me in late 2010 that he was working on a new spoken word album and I offered up use of my studio for him. Over several months we worked on recording his new album, Obscene Gravity of Silence at my studio. We’d lay down vocals and then I’d help him record the backing music behind the tracks, mostly with selection of sounds and drum programming. He performed all of the instruments, I just assisted with the recording and mixing. In all we completed all of the recording between December 2010 and March 2011 with Paulie composing the last of the music using Reason and his laptop.

You can pick up his album on Bandcamp.

2011 has been pretty busy around here so far.. I have been working with Paulie Lipman recording a new album entitled “The Obscene Gravity of Silence”. It’s a mix of spoken word and backing music; I’ve been helping Paulie on the production and recording aspects of the album at my studio.  He is going to wrap up final musical composition and mixing on his new mobile rig.

Royal Dead are back in the studio recording songs with their new lineup. I spent the past weekend laying down tracks with them. We’re going to have some more recording sessions in February and have the release come out on Kheperi Global Media sometime in 2011.

Some photos from this past weekend’s session:

I’m also continuing work with Mad Wax from Vocode Records/Vocode Project on an eclectic electronic music project. We’ve discussed possibily pressing vinyl for this release. My wife Jolene has been sitting in on sessions and learning the ins and outs of the studio. We’re discussing opening up the studio to the public sometime later this year.

I just watched the new Keri Hilson video for her song “The Way You Love Me” and now I feel like I need to get checked for STDs. The music isn’t bad, the video production was alright but the lyrical content just doesn’t do it for me. I’m guessing she’s trying to go for shock value with all the “fuck me” and “pussy” talk but it just comes across as trying too hard. Yes, being an attractive woman helps to sell records but stooping to such gratuitously over the top lyrics is too obvious. It doesn’t come off as sexy to me, just nasty.

It might be a hit in the strip clubs.

Here are some tricks in Ableton Live that you may not be using currently. Check out the video.