Re: A mix using EZmix

[Scott]

I’m on my laptop and not in the studio but I’ll see if I can remember…

First, my studio computer is a dinosaur. It’s a P4|3gHz|XP|2GB RAM running C4.1.2. Before I started the EZmix version, I was hopeful that I wouldn’t run out of CPU before the mix was done. I was happy in the end as I ran all EZmix instances I needed and the meter in Cubase was around 65-70%.

Now, EZmix was used on everything. Individual drum kit pieces (kick, snare, toms) as well as some busing I did (parallel drum compression where I sent the kick, snare and toms for more compression). I used multiple instances on some things like I used a preset that have compression on the snare and then another instance with an eq preset. I think this is important.

Anyways, there is a couple of EZmixs on the bass. One I use for compression/limiting and one for eq shaping.

Clean electric guitars had a guitar preset that worked. IIRC, the one I used had the shape and blend faders in use (blend controlling reverb) and I pulled the reverb off totally in that preset.

Vocals had a couple of EZmixs as well as a UAD de-esser. I used an EZmix preset that had tape sim as well as slapback echo.

I set up a few FX channels and inserted EZmix. One was set to a snare reverb. One was a small room verb that I sent all the drum sound to as well as the clean guitars. I set up a bigger vocal reverb as well as a vocal delay bus. There were also slide guitar reverb and delay FX channels set up so I could feed the various slide guitar track to them.

I also put an EZmix master preset on the mix bus. This had limiting and tape simulation.

For me, I really was digging the tape delays. They have a nice, vintage sound to them. That kind of ‘each delay repeat gets dirtier sounding’ vibe. I was also impressed with the tape simulation sound. It gives you that tape ‘hiss’ sound as well as a nice saturation sound. I think I may use it on the mix bus and not use the limiter part and just the tape sim on other projects (Shape fader adjusts limiter and the Blend fader adjusts tape sim for that preset).

Some of the talk about this plugin around other forums seems to think that a monkey can use this and mix a hit record! Even though EZmix is preset based, it still takes skill to select the right preset and tweak it to get the sound you want. The right preset may not even be what you think. For example, maybe using the ‘Kick 1’ preset might work for the bass guitar. Or the ‘Guitar’ preset may work for the vocal. You get the idea.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor