Mixing “Sick In The Night”
Hey, this is Aaron and I wanted to share a little story about a fun mixing project I did recently. While I have been mostly mixing my own work and some projects for my label, I took on a remote mixing opportunity recently and I am pretty proud of how it turned out.
For those who don’t know, pre-COVID I was on tour with my friends in Young Culture supporting the nation-wide Have Mercy Farewell tour. On the last night, the Toronto venue’s FOH engineer had recorded Have Mercy’s entire multi-track performance on to his laptop and wanted to give it to Brian. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a hard drive with him, so I offered up mine. Immediately, my mind started playing with the idea of mixing the stems. That was the first project I took on once I got home.
Fast forward a couple months, I tripped over Brian’s Instagram post looking for someone to mix one of his songs. Around that time I was in between mixing my own songs for my quarantine session series so I was feeling pretty confident about my mixes. I hesitated for a few seconds, but responded with “Hey man, I would love to mix this for you. Can you send me the stems?”.
Before he’s sent the link, he asked “Are you sure? It’s 30+ tracks, including a string section.”
Then it hit me. What did I get myself into? But of course I responded with, “Yeah dude that’s cool.”
My own project files were way over 30 tracks, but I didn’t take into consideration that mixing a song for someone else with that many tracks would include mix notes, multiple mix drafts, and sending back and forth files to get it sounding just right.
To my surprise, Brian loved the first mix I sent him. He didn’t really have any mix notes for me. Eventually Dillon, the tour manager on that trip, stepped in to provide a few minor adjustment notes, as he was also on the track singing backup vocals. And we even played around with the mix running through a Tascam 4-track tape deck. But in the end, the original digital mix, with just those minor adjustments, was the one they seemed to love the most.
Some time passed after sending them the final and I honestly had forgotten all about the mix. I was locked in my work with Geskle and Five By Two sessions and pushing out final mix notes of my own to Jay Maas for Circus Trees. Then I saw it, Brian had posted out a teaser of the song on his Instagram story. I couldn’t be sure, at first, whether this was my mix or not, until I saw the liner notes. My name, in there supporting this artist whose talents I really respect. I reached out to him to thank him for the opportunity, and he said it was sent off for mastering and was waiting to hear back from his team for a release date.
I’m really proud of this project and cannot wait for you to hear the final product. I look forward to doing more of these, so if you like it, or you like the stuff I’ve done for Geskle or The Light Inside Me Is Dead, feel free to hit me up.
Aaron Pillbook PLBK
