This will have to be a recap. It's Sunday morning, and the daily mix sessions have been going great. Wednesday the 18th we finished "Night One". Despite the length of the song and all the different parts, it wasn't that tough of a mix. Once Dave and I were in, we made some suggestions about the long bridge section and how to play all the atmospheric elements against each other. After that, a pass with the Flamethrowers, and we were done.

Thursday the 19th we mixed "Listen".

Friday the 20th we finished "Teahouse of the Spirits", and did a "recall" on "Listen"...

A recall is when you get the mix home and something can still be improved, or maybe something was overlooked. Thursday night, when I got in the car and played "Listen", the tribal drum kick-in seemed a little soft, as well as the song's final moments: when the main riff is played all in unison by all the instruments, it should have been louder, more triumphant.

After listening to a song over and over, sometimes your objectivity can get fuzzy, and clearer ears will give a better take on what is missing. Mixing is an extremely important part of the process; details can be lost or featured, whole song dynamics can be made better or worse. "Listen" was really really good, and 99% of people would never hear a difference, but to Dave and I felt that it's was just about right, but it had to be perfect. After Friday's work on "Teahouse" was done, we brought "Listen" back up and fixed those few small changes.

Saturday we got "Left to Lose" done. This was one song that we kept the original Virtue version that we recorded at Henson studios. We had some company at the studio, so it was a good social gathering. After L2L, we did a recall of "Bloody Mary". After living with it for a couple days, we were agreeing with Josh Abraham who had thought that the snare should have been kicked up a notch. I took the opportunity to jump into the vocal booth and sing one more harmony in the chorus as well. As I have been driving around listening to "Bloody Mary" I keep hearing a harmony in my head that I had never sang. It seemed like a perfect bit of happenstance; the mix was back up for a recall, so I added a small harmony to the "Mary's got your medicine tonight" line. So glad I did that, that would have fucking bugged me forever if I hadn't put that bit in.

Today we do the a capella song, "Lie Next To Me". This should be fun. I've never done a song using only vocal tracks, and this was an experiment in the first place, but it came out really nice. Dave is away at Sundance, so Ryan and I will finish up "LN2M" and "Blue Bruises".