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The Complexity of Mixing | Behind the Scenes with Engineer, Richard Cleaver on NEW WORLD

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Many of us have absolutely no idea what goes on “behind the scenes” in mixing a CD project. Engineer genius, Richard Cleaver, has produced a very informative video of the intricate process he is undergoing right now in mixing the NEW WORLD CD project. Richard says:

“Although I don’t talk about the editing part specifically in [this] video, it is not unusual to spend several weeks per song on pre-production, bed tracks, overdubs and edits before the song is ready for mixing.

Once a song is ready for mixing, I may spend up to three days working on the mix. For the project in the video, each version of the mix is released to the team for feedback and another round of mixing takes place until we have a version that gets signed off. Once signed off, I hand over the pre-mastered version of the final mix to the mastering engineer”

The video also includes a “sneak peek” of two songs from the new album: “East of Sinai” (T. Dick) and “Change the World” (Eric Clapton). This video will be of particular interest to all those audio tech junkies out there! Enjoy! T

To read more on the making of this video link here.

Day 5 at Noble Street – “It’s a Wrap!”

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Day 5 at Noble Street Studios saw us work on some bass, piano and guitar overdubs/edits and record an “interlude” full band song clip called “Where Two Oceans Meet”  that will appear somewhere on the New World CD as joining material.

Everyone on the team were exhausted by the end of the week but exhilarated. As we listened through the “keepers” during the editing sessions I think it really began to sink in how much had been accomplished over the week and the great playing that had been captured off the Noble Street floor. This is going to be a special album – a “New World” of music for us and our audiences.

A big thank you to everyone on the team who worked so hard made this week happen so smoothly: The Technical Crew – Richard Cleaver (Recording Engineer), Josh Cleaver (Session Administrator “Minute-taker”), Kevin O’Leary (Noble Street Assistant Recording Engineer) and Trevor Anderson (Studio Session Assistant).   The Band – Steve Heathcote (Drums), Will Jarvis (Bass), Brad Toews (Piano) and Tony Lind (Guitar). I would also like to thank Noble Street Studios for making us feel so at home in their world-class facility. It was truly a wonderful, warm sounding space to record and be creative. Here is a group shot of the full team!

The New World “Dream Team” (from left to right): Trevor Anderson (Noble Street Session Assistant), Kevin O’Leary (Noble Street Assistant Recording Engineer), Steve Heathcote (Drums), Brad Toews (Piano),  Richard Cleaver (Recording Engineer), Trevor Dick (Violin), Will Jarvis (Bass), Tony Lind (Guitar) and Josh Cleaver (Session Administrator “Minute-taker”)

Day 2 at Noble Street

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Another productive day at Noble Street Studios, tracking the “New World” project. We were aiming to record four songs today, but completed three (“African Sun”, “Prayer for Peace” and “Perpetual Existence”)  for a total of five songs thus far. This is difficult world music material and we have been making some slight changes to groove and feel until each song sits just right. I am pretty tired today … a fair bit of soreness in my left shoulder (repetitive stress, rotator cuff pain etc) which I manage through stretching, self massage and some tylenol.

I tracked my new Cantini MIDI violin today on “Perpetual Existence” and was impressed with some of the fat tones I am getting. We certainly are getting a great sound at this studio … I continue to be very impressed. Here is my signal chain in photos.

VIOLINS -> PEDALS


PEDALS -> PRE-AMPS


PRE-AMPS -> MIXER (SSL 4056 E/G Console)


= GREAT SOUND!

Noble Street Recording Session :: Input List

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Yesterday, recording engineer, Richard Cleaver,  forwarded me the following working input list for the start of tracking at Noble Street Studios on Monday: an impressive list of mics and pre-amps – a good starting point!

The working title of this new recording project is NEW WORLD. We are feeling prepared and ready to go for the studio sessions. I will keep you posted with photos and video. Until next time … T