Acoustic Guitar: Fixing At SourceĪs it happened, I was happy to encourage the idea of replacing the original guitar part, as it didn't seem strong enough, sonically, to fulfil its vital function as the harmonic backbone of the track. That said, James had already made some edits to adjust the pacing of the musical links between the song's main sections, and was keen to re-record his vocal and his acoustic guitar performances to improve the expression and groove. The outer bands of this instance of Universal Audio's Precision Multiband were used to tone down string-damping thuds (low band) and pick noise (high band) on the acoustic guitar recording.The original version of the song was recorded professionally at Cookie Marenco's OTR Studios in California, so I was confident that most of the existing multitracks would be in pretty good nick - as, indeed, they proved to be once I'd imported them into my Cockos Reaper-based mix system. This gave us the opportunity to head off potential mix problems at source, as well as exploring some fresh arrangement ideas. He felt that this tune was one of his strongest, but was dissatisfied with a previous version he'd released and had resolved to rework it to do the music more justice. This month's project was a pleasant change, then, given that SOS reader James May contacted me for advice while still recording and arranging his song 'On The Line'. Most people who send mixes in for Mix Rescue question their mix technique, when it's primarily their arrangement and recording decisions which have stymied them.

This month's Mix Rescue submission comes from SOS reader James May Don't be scared to trash something you've already recorded if it helps you to achieve a better end result.

My music rescue