Gasoline

On ‘Gasoline,’ I first started by making sure that there was separation between the bass and the low ambient pad playing behind it. I acheieved this by EQ’ing out some of the low end in the pad and boosting the highs while doing the opposite to the bass. I also cut out some buildup in both of those tracks at around 200Hz. 

Next, I worked on making sure there was separation between the kick and the bass by cutting out the fundamental frequency of the kick in the bass and slightly boosting it in the kick to make it stand out in the mix. Then, I added bus compression to the drums with Slate Digital’s version of the LA2A with some saturation to really beef up the drums. 

There were some piano sounds and a glockenspiel that plays in the chorus that I believe sounded too simple, so I changed their sounds to be more atmospheric and distorted to make them sound more distinct. I added a couple of different distortion plugins first to achieve the correct mix and then added reverb to take away some of the bite. I also added Crystallizer from Soundtoys on the glockenspiel to make the sound more ambient.

The main challenge with the song was attempting to mix the low lead vocals with the low backing track behind it. I started by adding a Pro Q-3 plugin on the tracks that were competing with the vocal and use its dynamic EQ function to create a multiband compression affect. I routed the lead vocals to that plugin and used it to control some more of the competing frequencies. 

Lastly, I wanted the final chorus to come back in with a lot of wet reverb and to sound larger than life. I started by reversing the vocal track and then bouncing out the reverb tail. Then, I reversed the reverb tail and mixed it in with the regular lead vocal to make sure the adlibs over the final chorus were dramatic and emotional.