Finest Worksong
Document | 1987
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Final Mix

When one area is down, another must come up. That is the balance of mixing.

This songwriting here itself demands balance and attention to detail.

The verses are one chord. B repeated. Which means the performance cannot rely on the chords alone. It must worrk harder to make a single repeated chord interesting.

Each Part Matters More

Each part must be exciting and precise. For once, I completely programmed the MIDI for the drums. The robot was not co-operating with half-time at 178bpm. High hat on one track, kick/snare on another, ride cymbal on a third. I was going to beef up the end snare like on the album, but left it alone. I did find a second sharper snare tone for the intro hit and some fills.

Bass on this one is very striaghtforward and anchors the entire thing. It’s likely why they let Mike go nuts with the end slap and pre-verse fills.

Guitar took me by far the most time of anything. I ended up using four different sounds acrtoss six tracks. I relly missed having a full-scale electric here. Still using the 3/4 scale intro -package strat I got Zoey for Christmas. It does the job, but I bet I’d get a lot more out of a full-scale.

Power Chord Vocals

This is up theere with “So Fast” and “Living Well” for power vocals. I stood a bit further back from the mic and braced myself against the back of the room to help with breath support. I think it worked.

I always thought there was a key modulation going into the last verse. Turns out that was just a trick of the ear by way of composition. That bridge drops the B drone down to A. Michael comes in so high and strong on that lift back to the B, it perfectly mimics a key change.

Final Tracks (20)

Vocals (4)

  • Main
  • Main Dbl
  • Harmony
  • Mills “All Your Hope”

Guitar (6)

  • Phased Electric Sustain
  • Panned Electric Sustain (2)
  • Single Note Main Riff
  • Ending Harmonics
  • Falling Verse CHords

Drums (5)

  • Kick / Snare
  • Hat
  • Ride / Crash
  • Tambourine
  • Vibraslap

Bass (2)

  • Bass
  • Ending Slap Bass

Other (3)

  • Piano
  • Full Brass
  • Trumpet

Faithful Cover?

I was shooting for pretty close on this one. The guitar stacks used would be too diificult to completely recreate. Otherwise, my version gels togethre quite nicely. Even the software horns didn’t end up so bad.

Learnings

  • On that first pass mix, the vocals are always too loud. Take them down more than you think.

Next Up

Sad Professor