The Slammin' Mix

Over the past week, I've molded Funk Worthy's cover of "If You Want Me to Stay" by Sly and the Family Stone into a very punchy tune.  I'm happy with where everything is sitting in the mix.  

​To help me achieve balance, I employed some parallel compression on the drums.  I'm running all my drum mics through a vacuum tube compressor/limiter plugin called "Bud Driver."  This really helps to add punch without a perceived increase in volume.  On my kick and snare, I chose to use Waves H-Comp compressor coupled with the Waves H-EQ.  I find I can get great drum sounds when using the H-series plugins from Waves.  With just a touch of reverb on the snare, my drums are done.  For the bass that was recorded clean with a DI, I ran through the CLA Bass plugin, then an H-EQ, a Sans-amp , and finally crushed it with a Waves CLA-2A compressor.  For the guitars, I chose to gently run one of the two mics on the amp through the CLA Guitars plugin.  The other I chose to simply EQ since I enjoyed the tone I heard from the mic without any further treatment.  For the guitar DI track, I chose to reamp through a Roland amp so that I could get a real twangy funk tone.  I felt that the saxophone was a bit harsh, so I chose to introduce some harmonics by employing the saturation knob plugin in combination with some basic EQ.  For vocals, I relied upon EQ, moderate compression, and again some excitement from the saturation knob plugin.  

For effects, I chose to apply a gentle chorus to one of the guitar tracks, as well as slight reverb for another guitar track.  I am continually impressed by Lexicon's MPX-L reverb plugin, so I decided to insert it into my vocal chain.  There is also slight vocal delay from Native Instruments Replika plugin.  I had a lot of fun mixing this tune, and hope to record and mix more with Funk Worthy in the future.  Enjoy the final mix below!

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