Thanks for the kind comments. Here's what I done.
Ok, here goes.....
I work in Cubase SX and pipe all the tracks out to a 24 channel Soundtracs Topaz Project 8. The control room is small, 8'x11' outside in walls, bass traps in the back corners, slope on the ceiling...sounds pretty good, anyway I'm used to it and know how things are gonna translate 95% of the time. My nearfields are Whafredale 8.2 actives, ideal for a room this size. My AD/DA convertors are M-Audio Delta (1x 1010 2x 410 for 12in/24out)
All Tracks were STEREO!?! not sure why so I pulled them all into audition and made them mono apart from the stereo drums.
Right, first thing I always do is import my tracks into the session and throw up the faders on the board to see what I've got...so I've got 2 stereo tracks of the same drums, a bass line, half a dozen guitars all fighting for space, some horns, a tambotine and two vocal tracks that have a LOT of background noise between phrases......ok, we van work with this...I'd have liked the drums as seperate tracks and I've already asigned the vocal cleanup as far down the list as I can at the moment but the whole thing has such a great groove to it I'm itching to get started.
The Drums:
I was sent two stereo files of the drums, one RAW and one "edited". Sounded like the edited drums had a bit of EQ and compression on them. The RAW drums I put a low pass filter on and totaly killed everything above 500Hz. That gave me my foundation to build from with a good solid kick and the lower end of the toms and snare. I ran BLOCKFISH on the insert with the "FAT DRUM LOOP" preset as a starter then tweeked to taste
The EDITED drum track got the reverse treatment. I ran a high pass killing everything below 400Hz. The track was already compressed so I just slid it in til it sat snugly with the RAW drums. I made a few EQ cuts on the board to get them to knit together a bit better.
The Bass:
I loved the sound of the bass on Snake's mix so I just slid it in as was with the trusty BLOCKFISH comp straped over it to tame a couple of peaks. It's sitting nicely with the drums now so I hit rewind and crank it and go give it the toilet test (this is crucial to all my mixes)...sounds good sitting on the throne with the control room door open so that means it IS good (tried and tested method) *NOTE* I go back to the bass after the guitars and fatten it up a bit with some board EQ and take away a bit of the string ping at the same time...it's just a bit harsh in places.... Again, the bass has been somewhat processed before it gets to me with some phaser/flanging round about the 2:50 mark...OH NO!! it's wahwah. All the bottom end...the whole arse just falls out of it, DISASTER! Maybe not...kinda sits ok when I bring the guitars in......whew!
The Guitars
Oh shite! 5 tracks of guitar...ok, gotta start somewhere... I constantly mix as I go trying to build up the big picture as soon as I can so I usualy pan things into place first then EQ the overlaps out
Rythm Crunch: prominent throught the mix so I'll start with this one. Panned to 10 o'clock, it's the opening riff. I've thrown it over there to balance the mix with the hihats on the other side and everything else right down the middle at this point. Sounds good but the bass has gone to shit, typical and I've still got another 4 guitars and the vocal to squeeze in here. I shave a big chunk off the bottom with the board EQ everything below 300Hz falls off the butcher block. I like it, the bass is back, hurrah!
Rythm dirty wah: Sounds a bit brittle and harsh so I rip a chunk out around 5KHz. It's tracked with a hint of verb but it needs some more just to put it back a bit, I don't want this one as up front. I reach for the DS stomp box plugs, cheap n nasty...ideal for the sound I'm lookin for so I drop the RV1 reverb on the insert...yeah I can hear you all now. REVERB IS A SEND EFFECT....I read that somewhere too but when you're running a hybrid of software and outboard I find it a lot easier to put verbs on the insert and tweak to taste in the software then it all pipes out the same channel to the board...just my way of working YMMV. So anyway, I've panned it to 1o'clock
Rythm Dirty: This one sounds good, maybe a bit on the bright side so I knock a couple of db off at 12K. Yeah I like this guitar..a bit too much so I brutaly subject it to a splash of small room verb courtesy of my nasty Alesis microverb III...yeah that's the ticket, I shave off some bottom......it's got it's own little space now. We can move on
Rythm Clean: Don't have to do anything much to this, I give it a room of it's own through the Lexicon MPX100 and pan the return back further out...or to the other side? can't quite remember...I just tried to make it sound a bit bigger than it was
Rythm dirty phase: Title says it all but it's coming in where that wahwah on the bass line is and they don't sit well. I drop the bass out all together to get tuned into what's happening with this one..sounds like phase and modulation sweep with distortion, delay...someone's thrown every effect in the book at this one...it's pretty mangled. Well if it was stereo I could maybe do something with it so I create a group channel in cubase and send it there panned centre. I drop the PSP84 on the insert..can't remember, think it was the "pink is dotty" preset that I tweaked and sent that back to two channels on the board and hard panned them with everything above 700Hz killed....it's like.....what's going on there? something happened in the mix...yeah it's kinda subliminal but I didn't wanna just toss it out
Drums bass and guitars...time for another toilet test..yeah it works....it really works! I'm diggin this big time but at the back of ma mind I still have the noisy vox to fix...do something else!
The Horns: I gave them a bit of high end sparkle with the board EQ and a bump further down to give them body but I can't remember exactly where (makes note...cue sheets, start using cue sheets). I used my new toy on these..the SIR convilution reverb (still can't believe this thing is FREE!) ok, what the fuck are horns? I've never mixed anything with horns in it before.....brass...yeah horns are brass. I've got the lexiPCM91 impulses loaded into SIR so am just goin through it trying stuff....brass plate...BRASS! yeah try that...that's the ticket, knock the pre delay up a bit so I'm not drowning the bloody thing...adjust the wet/dry ratio..sounding good!
Tamborine: I never know if am spellin that one right, that and rythm/rhythm/rythum, anyway.... I just knocked off some low end and fed some signat to the lexi outboard to give it a place in the mix.
The vocals: I pull in both tracks and fart around for about an hour with software gates...good job this is only a hobby for me or some poor bastard just paid an hour for me to dick around with my head up my arse. Save the session and close down cubase.......... I open up the main vocal in adobe audition and blow it up, I mean really BLOW IT UP and start punchin out all the crap between phrases and fading out the tails on all the phrases so they don't sound chopped to silence...sometimes you can get away with doing that but once you hit it with a verb it sticks out like a sore thumb at a blind cobblers convention. I do this with both sets of vocals then bring them back into cubase. They both sound really harsh...I'm pullin out 15db at 2-4K still nasty...sweepin for the culprit....I give it full swing 15db of gain and sweep the upper mids....7K! nasty nasty nasty! I can't pull all that out with the board EQ, DeEssing time courtesy of WAVES..I'm pullin about 22db out here then boosting at 12K on the board maybe 2-3db so I don't lose the edge...still sounds a little too thin...another boost in the low mids. I cut n paste the channel settings to the backing vox....BINGO! that's good enough for me. I send both vocal tracks to a stereo group in cubase and bring the group out to two channels on the board... both slightly left & right of centre in software and hard panned on the desk I strap the Waves C1 comp across the group buss in cubase. All's as well as it can be...SIR to the rescue PCM91 impulses again....long vocal plate with some tweaks and adjust the wet/dry balance
Full mix is cookin!...in a good way, not frying.....back to the bog.....the snare seems a bit dry from the throne position so I'm back in strappin SIR (did I mention I love this plug and it's FREE?) on the insert of the edited stereo drums..Lexi 960 percussion plate..tweak to taste...back to the toilet...tweak again.....kill the vocals and have a rerun....music is really happening..yeah this thing is KICKIN! Back in with the vocals...they're not really doing it for me the vibe of the original mix has gone...OFF with the C1's HEAD!!!!! It's just not working for me. I dig out an old plug I bought years ago, if plugins could gather dust in your computer this one had a mass of cobwebs over it..the
Yamaha vocal rack Nice compression on this it's got EQ, a gate and a DeEsser and a delay and a harmonic distortion thingamybopper, some compression and a little bit of harmonics brings it to life. I do the same as before and copy n paste the channel settings to the backin vox.
Yeah we're ready for mixdown. I've already bussed everything on the board, drums stereo, guitars stereo, vocals stereo, bass mono. I never used to do this. U used to just set the faders and have all channels switched into the L/R mix but things (to my ears) glue together better when sent packin on the buss. So I've got the main outs patched into 1/2 on the Delta1010 I arm a new channel in cubase, select the inputs and hit record
That's it...my mix is done. I pull it into wavelab to see how it's looking...not bad, I'm peaking at -4. It sounds good, but to the original it sounds clean, VERY clean...TOO clean. I drop the PSP Vintage warmer in..medium driven tape setting is always a good starting point but it's a bit on the heavy side here so I back off on the gain.....a few minor tweaks..drop in the ur22 and render the file.....
BINGO...we're done...time to hit the pub!
That's about it, probably a totaly unorthadox way of mixing, who knows. All I have is books, this website and my own trial and error over the years as a guide. I'd like to think I've done it justice. It's a killer track! I loved it from the first minute I heard the original and practicaly begged Snake to let me do this. Hats off to the man for giving me such a great song to work with. If I learned anything from this it would be CUE SHEETS....keep a bloody cue sheet...saves you rackin yer brain about what you done to everything if it's all on paper in front of you. Luckily it was only a week ago and I haven't suffered too much alcohol damage between then and now.
It's been a buzz. Thanks to everyone who took the time to listen and comment...and huge thanks to Snakedog!
Alec
Pleeeeeeeease put it back, please. You might even consider adding some lemons to the outro!!!! 
