#Izotope rx2 vs soundsoap series#

Whereas if you were to put me in front of an SSL, that’s like asking me to fly a 747: I’m probably going to crash it into the ground. For instance, if you put things through a Pultec or a Fairchild, you can’t get a bad sound out of them, you just get different sounds. So I like to surround myself with what I call ‘idiot boxes’, meaning pieces of gear that are so simple that you can turn the knobs any way you want and you’ll get a beautiful colour out of them - it’s just a matter of choosing the colour you want. I don’t know many technical things in the engineering and mixing process. The thing is that I’m not a great technician. “I use tape machines, but also computers. “I don’t think I am a vintage gear snob, who only uses gear built before the 1970s, or something like that,” asserts Augunas. The actual mix was done on Kevin Augunas’ custom-built monitoring console, visible at the front right. Idiot Boxesįairfax Recording’s control room is dominated by two pieces of gear which weren’t used on the Lumineers album: the Scully 16-track (far left, with remote at the left of the console) and Altec mixer (centre). The final mix of ‘Ho Hey’ took Augunas just a couple of hours, yet the results would go platinum in the US. The only effects he used were a Studer B67 for slap tape delay and the reverb from his studio’s echo chamber, and the only outboard was a Fairchild 660 compressor and a Pultec EQP-1A3 EQ on the lead vocals, and an old Universal Audio EQ on the stereo mix. His unorthodox mix process for the album’s lead single, ‘Ho Hey’ involved stripping away half the tracks, re-recording a few bits and pieces, and then laying everything out over his custom-made 16-track monitoring board which has only LCR panning and no inbuilt EQ or compression. The producer, mixer and engineer has worked with the Black Keys, Lostprophets, Melissa auf der Maur, Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, J-Roddy Walston and the Business and Jon Brion, and last year mixed the Lumineers’ self-titled debut album, which reached the US top 10 - an impressive achievement for the hitherto completely unknown folk trio from Denver, Colorado.Īugunas’ decidedly nonconformist working methods and choices of gear played a substantial part in helping to steer them to their breakthrough. However, some people still wave the flag for different ways of working, one of them being Kevin Augunas.

#Izotope rx2 vs soundsoap series#

Photo: Matt WignallĮvery month the Inside Track series poses the question “How did you mix that hit?” The answers given by different mix engineers can vary greatly, but nearly always involve a state-of-the-art DAW, hundreds of tracks and plug-ins, and frequently a massive automated mixer and a huge quantity of outboard gear too. Left: Kevin Augunas in his Fairfax Recording facility. Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Kevin Augunas Would you hire a mixer who doesn’t believe in panning? The Lumineers did - and were rewarded with a hit album.