Over Critical Mixing

I have just got a job handed to me that will test my ears. To mix two separate voice tracks together, running at the same time, to create 1 commercial. Not hard you say. The thing with this one is that the two are meant to be a main read and a big ballsy over the top 80’s style announcer as the emphasis on the important words. Again not too difficult except it’s to go on AM radio as well as FM.

Here in lays the problem, AM loves the ballsy but loves the lighter thin eq too, so first job it to put a plug in on the master out to mimic the transmitter and the broadcast chain so I can hear the final product as I mix. When I am happy with that I can bypass those and we’ll be home and hosed.
And as the mix turned out, quite nice. Looking at the idea, its great & I’ll look forward to the time when i can use it properly, but as is the norm, the client went with the simple idea, even after an audio demo to clarify the idea.
This job falls squarely into the category of fight the battles you can win As this one was way too advanced for our client on his market.
I do so love flexing the auditory senses, and challenging myself to do this without sounding like an imagery piece.
Sometimes I love my job…