Throughout the mix process I plan to essentially follow these steps explained via Sound on Sound. Using the drums, bass and vocals as the backbone of the song and bringing everything else in around it.
“I felt that the drums and the main bass line formed the backbone of the song, so I balanced these first and then brought up the vocals. By getting these key parts to sit together, the other elements could be slid into place without too much problem.”
Adding certain aspects to each area of the song such as bass etc:
“To bring the bass more up to date, I added some sub-octave using Logic ‘s SubBass plug-in, then dirtied up the sound a little using Logic ‘s Phase Distortion plug-in, which gives sounds a kind of rough-edged frequency-modulation character”
Layering Backing Vocals down into the track and mixing them will be challenging due to the fact that I don’t have a lot of backing vocals to work with. I have tried shoehorning vocals into the tracks, but sometimes I think I’m putting it in for the sake of it rather than it needing to be there. I have tried the Max Martin method of pairing long notes with short notes and vice versa etc, but it doesn’t seem to work. However, the vocals that I do have will be balanced and ensure the reverbs/echos all work appropriately.
“Once I had what I felt was a good balance, I fine-tuned it using Logic ‘s mix automation, paying particular attention to the vocal balance. I also cut and pasted a few of the backing-vocal parts just after the middle of the song, running them beneath the first words of the following main vocal and giving them a long, decaying echo feel.”
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-rescue-synth-pop
