Currently one of my favourite deep house producers, Sydney based Pablo Calamari’s sample laced grooves are infectious, tight and sexy. You gotta love anyone that samples Saxon Sound System!!
Here’s Pablo’s top 3 tips to help you at the mixing stage.
Pablo Calamari 3 step Quick mix tips
“I personally look at mixing down a track like building a house. I start from the bottom and work my way up. Every house needs a good foundation. Then you build the rest of your house on a solid slab foundation. This has worked for me from personal experience. If this doesn’t work, seek professional advice. This is my quick broad 3 step Pablo Calamari Explanation.”
- Your concrete Slab
“For club based music your drums and bass are your support structure, I always have my Kicks and Snares in mono and depending on how many hats i’m using I always have my Open Hat in Mono too. Then any sub bass sounds are always in mono and in most instances I will side chain the sub bass slightly to get the bottom end frequencies to move well with the percussion groove.”
- Frame and wall structure
“Now that my slab is set. I start eq’ing and placing my hats and other percussive sounds with in the panning spectrum. Any kind of shakers and closed hat sounds generally sit quite wide and sometimes I’ll use and auto pan to get a little more movement. If I have a lead bass sound or sounds on top of my sub bass line I will also play around with either having them in mono or spreading them quite wide in the panning spectrum and I generally compress and eq some of the low end frequencies so the mix isn’t to cluttered so the sub bass can do it’s thing.”
- Lay The Roof and Paint The House
“Now for the final touches is all the Vocals, lead lines , efx’s. with Vocals I guess it all comes down to how much vocal content you have if you only have a small amount of vocals of a small Vocal Hook I generally have my Vocals wide in the mix and I’ll use Waves CLA to spread the vocals or a stereo shaper. My lead synth lines will be quite out the front in the mix and again panned around 50% each way. And with Efx’s depending on where they a placed , if there isn’t much else happening I will have the Sound effect loud in the mix and out front and If it’s in a section where there’s a lot going on its more of a back ground thing and they will sit quite low in the mix.”
