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Top 5: Richard Chycki

Multi-platinum mixer and engineer who got his start as a guitar player. Rush entrusted Chycki to remix the multi-million-selling 2112 and other releases in 5.1 surround. Here are his top 5 most indispensable studio tools.

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30 August 2022

BRAINWORX AMEK 250 EQ

I’ve been using the Brianworx EQs as part of my two-mix chain for a very long time. The Amek 250 is a remarkable emulation of the hardware Sontec 250 EQ. The Amek 250 and Sontek C432 are two of my all time favourite mix bus EQs. So, I’ve incorporated the plug-in 250 on my stereo bus since its release. It sounds incredible and it doesn’t have the operational difficulties of hardware. It is kind of like having ‘sound better’ spray for your mix!

D.W. FEARN VT-7 TUBE COMPRESSOR

It’s a great tube compressor that incorporates a unique solid-state PWM [pulse width modulation] design for the gain control circuit. I find is it is particularly effective on both the bass and vocals because you can use a fair chunk of compression, but it’s such a transparent compression you can get away with using a fair bit of it without the levelled result sounding squeezed and tight.

MANLEY MASSIVE PASSIVE EQ

EveAnna Manley really hit the ball out of the park with this stunning EQ. It’s strongly reminiscent of a super hot-rodded Pultec with huge amounts of control, making it a serious character piece for the 2mix buss. I have a tendency to use either the 250 or a Massive Passive, depending on the application. Both are very different sounding EQs, with the Massive Passive based on next level, total analogue tube technology. It’s great for adding that really pillow-y bottom end with warm, crystal high-end tops.

SMART C2 COMPRESSOR

Alan Smart was a designer/engineer at SSL so it’s no surprise that the SSL Comp mojo lives on in the C2. It’s more or less the next generation up from the SSL G384 rackmount compressor, using sonically-familiar quad-VCA technology. I cut my teeth mixing on a SSL analogue desk, the E-series, G-series, J-series and Duality. I appreciate the SSL compression glue-like character for my mixes. To use the C2 (and my other analogue gear), I do a conversion of my digital mix to analogue and I run the EQs and Smart C2 as a chain inserted into the two-bus insert. My mixing style has been in-the-box for a long time. I do enjoy the analogue processing for stereo mixes, especially for rock or heavier mixes. When I mix in Atmos, I rarely use analogue equipment.

SOLID STATE LOGIC FUSION

All the pieces I’ve mentioned so far are flavour pieces and the SSL Fusion is really no exception. It has very simple, broad EQ coupled with a high-end smoothing compressor and myriad saturation choices, to achieve lift and size that compression and limiting alone don’t achieve. So, the mixes feel bigger without sounding squished or overly compressed and limited. This way we can achieve a little bit more volume as well as get more warmth, more perceived brightness and width and all of this is within the analogue realm as opposed to using digital technology to achieve that. I generally use it for the stereo bus if I’m mixing. But I have been known to use it for tracking too, where I will use it for adding a crunch track to snare, hitting the Fusion close to the realm of abuse to get that pop and crunch for the snare, mixing the processed track alongside the clean track.

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