Nashville, TN (January 9, 2017)—Mix engineer Billy Decker employed Metric Halo plug-ins on “Think of You,” the #1 hit duet by Chris Young and Cassadee Pope that was recently nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance.
“Think of You” soared to the top of the Billboard Country Airplay chart in May 2016 and earned a nomination for Musical Event of the Year at the 2016 Country Music Awards. One new trick that Decker, whose work has earned him 11 number-one songs and sales of over 25 million RIAA-certified albums, employed on the song was to put Metric Halo Character on the main output of the entire mix. He reportedly used the Transformer setting with default drive and gain.
“It gave the entire mix a hint of that analog console ‘smeary thing’ that results from that warm analog harmonic distortion,” he said. “Metric Halo Character is awesome for that, and I’ve used it plenty on individual tracks. Where other modeling plug-ins break up and fall to ugly-sounding pieces when I drive them, Character maintains its integrity and sounds awesome! In truth, I probably drive it harder than I should, but the sound is right, and that’s what really matters. However, this was the first time I used Character on the entire mix. I liked it at the time, but I really liked it when I heard it on the radio.”
From first opening the project to printing the draft he sent the producers, Decker reportedly only took 60 to 75 minutes. “I’ll use another successful song as the starting point for a new mix,” he said. “I always keep my favorite mixes and sounds as templates that I can grab as needed. It’s a great way to work. I also credit the plug-ins I use, chief among them Metric Halo ChannelStrip. Every single song I’ve mixed in the past decade—at least—has had ChannelStrip on it.”
Metric Halo
www.mhlabs.com
