I mixed this album in Patric’s studio (he’s a recent convert to Nuendo) using N5.5 and the SmartAV Tango console. The original recording was done in Pro Tools at a studio in Toronto, and I imported the session files into the Nuendo project and began the process of conforming the best ‘takes’ to assemble the best version of each track/section. Patric and I then went through and did a really detailed analysis to try and balance each part (there were close mics, room mics, and a room split between percussion and the other instruments) as well as tailoring the artificial reverb with what was recorded in the rooms. We ended up using the “Medium Hall” REVerence preset for the project, which seemed to match well to the small seating overall tone of the performance/recording.
We ran stems out by ‘section’ into a Dangerous Audio 2-Bus LT using Nuendo’s “Direct Out” and then re-recorded back to a stereo track. Then we assembled all of those pre-mixes into a single “mastering project” in Nuendo to run one last time through iZotope’s Ozone 5 for consistency track-to-track. As it turns out, we had all of Ozone 5 turned off except for the dither, which we used to create the final CD-master tracks and MP3s. I’m really pleased with the way it sounded, in particular how the 2-Bus really improved the staging and seemed to put a bit of air in the mix. And of course, barring a few idiosyncrasies Nuendo performed well.
