Fantastic mix Mike! First of all, what was your thoughts when you first heard the material? He is somewhat unorthodox in his sound.

What involvment did you have, were you purely a mixer, or did you replace sounds and do other types of production work?

As a drum fanatic, I also have to ask, if you know what the drums are on that album.. Are they live?

And, as one last question, how many layers of guitars did you have to work with?

I have more questions, but I don't want to throw a request for a 5000 word essay at you as I know your a busy guy. LOL

Cheers!

Secondly, how do you deal with that many tracks? Andrew told me there were up to 100 vocal tracks on certain songs, something like 7 guitars, and a saxaphone doubling guitars on every song.

An extention of the guitar question could also ask, if it was on-the-spot chords, or were the notes of the chords single tracked?

Cheers!

Well Joe, it's truly a strange record but it was such fun to mix 'cos AWK is such a fun guy . There were so many tracks on each song and very odd sounds because he had recorded the album in a closet in his apartment!!! and on Cakewalk so it was of very dubious quality !!! He did the whole record on headphones .
I spent ages in the mix changing drumsounds and tightening up the gtrs because he had layered the gtrs with horns, synths, and anything he could to make 'em weirder but it only really works if everything hits at the same time cos it was all very loose and everything was "flamming" etc. Half the fun was Andrews mad ideas and much fun was had by all.
A record like that is so extreme that its a love/hate thing.

I could see how mixing that record could be tiring...

But in many ways, it is like a modern update of the "wall of sound".

Was it compressed that much in the mix, or was that the mastering? I have to say that it is one of the few records I have that I think benefits from the compression... it kind of emulates how your ears respond when you are at a live gig, and there is extreme volume.

It was just supposed to be loud and unrelenting in its silliness.