Vincent – Make Brilliant Mixes Now with Harrison Mixbus (Mixbus Mania! 2020)

Vincent – Make Brilliant Mixes Now with Harrison Mixbus (Mixbus Mania! 2020)

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Not long ago, I had a moment..

You know, one of those “at a crossroads”, defining moments – the kind that cause you to take a long look at yourself in a mirror.

After days and days of hard work in my studio, I had just finished – hands down – my best. mix. ever. I mean I could barely stop myself from grinning when I played it back! This was gonna blow people away when they heard it – and I could not WAIT for them to hear it! I just had to do one final check against a reference to make sure levels were set and then I would let loose this amazing creation upon the world and wait for the compliments and awed reactions to roll in!

Except, what happened in reality was.. well let’s say.. a little different than what I’d envisioned.

When I A/B’d the mix against the reference – a killer mix by a well-known mixer who only worked in big money studios.. something was still missing. I dunno, I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly in the moment but I absolutely knew it right away when I heard it. It wasn’t quite there. Next to the mix I was referencing, it felt flat.. thin.. lifeless?

Just about then is when a sort of – panic, yes I think it would qualify as a panic – set in. I’ve been doing this a long time! I’ve studied hard, bought gear! Spent hours upon hours working in the studio, perfecting technique.. only to fall short, again?! Nobody was going to be blown away by this mix, that was for sure. Would they even finish listening to it? Ugh. My stomach dropped.

That was the moment.

I needed a break. Not one of those “step outside and collect yourself” kind of breaks. I mean, like, some real time away. Self-doubt was creeping in, big time, and I needed to get a plan. Either that, or I needed to give up on ever being able to get the sound I wanted so badly to get from my studio. It sounds melodramatic, I know! But that’s how much recording means to me.

37 days. That’s how long I didn’t set foot in my studio. Toward the end of that stretch, I started getting the itch. And I couldn’t help but do what I always do in times like this – try to find out, to learn more. Off to the gear sites I went – maybe there was a magic bullet here? Then, the discussion boards. And that’s where I first heard about it – a DAW that sounds like hardware. Harrison Mixbus. Being an engineer, it’s in my nature to be skeptical – and I was. Plenty of software claims to sound like expensive analog hardware. But, what the heck, I thought. I could give it a try to see what the hype was about. That’s what got me back into my studio.

One try was all it took. As soon as I loaded in tracks from my Used to Be Best Mix Ever, it was obvious. The difference was night and day. The sound I’d been looking for, it was right there! My old mix had console emulation plugins, tape saturation plugins, analog eq emulations – all great sounding stuff. The new Mixbus mix had.. Mixbus. And it won, hands down. And it seemed to come together so much more quickly and intuitively.

I immediately set out to learn how to use this thing.. but it was a little daunting. I’d come up on DAWs, not hardware, so strange as it seems, the analog console workflow was foreign to me! I soon discovered some great resources by Harrison and others detailing the usage of certain functionality.. But what I really wanted was for someone to connect the dots and show me how to use this great-sounding tool to mix. Like in a real mix, from start to finish.

That’s what this course is. So if you too have discovered Mixbus and want a resource like that to help you get mixing faster, I encourage you to check it out.

I carefully designed it to provide a comprehensive resource for people who want to get up to speed quickly and start making brilliant mixes using Mixbus. The first part of the course covers the basics you need to know to work effortlessly & efficiently in Mixbus, while the second part walks you through importing previously recorded tracks and completing a rich-sounding full band mix. With a few exceptions, only built-in Mixbus functionality and/or Harrison plugins were used to mix the song.

You will be able to follow along every step of the way as I create a session, import tracks, and mix a song from start to finish in Mixbus. In the process, I’ll get you better acquainted with how to get around in Mixbus and I’ll point out lots of useful built-in features, as well as valuable tips and tricks.

I’ll cover a lot of ground using a real-world full-band mix, and along the way I’ll provide links to in-depth resources that you can use to learn even more about key functions and concepts.

This course includes over 5 1/2 hours of video! Here are just some of the things I cover:

** Now including downloadable multitrack source files so you can mix along with the course! **

• Setting up a session in Mixbus
• Importing Audio
• Basic navigation in the Editor Window and the Mixer Window
• Creating groups
• Setting up mixbusses
• Routing channels to mixbusses
• Creating VCAs
• Sending channels to VCAs
• Creating track markers
• Cleaning up tracks using Strip Silence
• Parallel drum compression
• Using the Polarity Optimizer to find the best possible drum sound
• Mixing drum tracks
• Creating space & ambience using Harrison’s GVerb+ reverb plugin
• Using the XT-DC Drum Character plugin to get a big, punchy kick drum sound
• Mixing bass guitar and using Harrison EQ plugins to get it to fit with the kick drum
• Mixing keyboards and piano
• Manipulating room reverb sends to create ambience
• Mixing acoustic guitars
• Using phase correction plugins to polish stereo mic’d tracks
• Mixing electric guitars
• Mixing lead vocals
• Mixing backup vocals
• Balancing the mix
• Using automation to bring the mix to life
• Exporting the finished mix
• And a whole lot more..

If you are just getting up to speed on mixing music in Mixbus, you now have a one-stop resource to dramatically speed up your learning and get you making amazing sounding mixes, faster! I guarantee you will come away from this course ready to confidently make brilliant mixes of your own. And if you’re already familiar with Mixbus, I bet you’ll pick up a few things, too.

**Some basic editing functionality is covered in the course, but please note that since the focus of the course is mixing, editing is not covered in great detail. A full course on tracking and editing in Mixbus may be coming soon, so please stay tuned!