In Phil Harding's excellent book 'Pop Music Production - Manufactured Pop and Boybands of the 1990s' Phil outlines his tried and tested 12-step top down mixing technique. But it's not top-down mixing as in starting with your two-bus processing first. That's silly. No, Phil means top down by starting with the most important element of your mix, often vocals, and building the other instrumentation around it to support its lead role. Not silly!

We suggested to Phil this would make an excellent video, and he agreed, and so we headed off to J.A.M.E.S. accredited Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, to film it in front of a small audience of students. And here's the full two hour session in all its glory!

We highly recommend you pick up a copy of Phil's book as it's a fascinating read, even for those not into pop music production per se. You can grab a copy directly from him at:

http://www.philhardingmusic.com

Find out more about J.A.M.E.S. accreditation at:

https://www.jamesonline.org.uk

We'd like to extend a huge thank you to Phil for giving up his valuable time to give us this masterclass, and to the fantastic staff, assistants, and students at ARU for hosting us!

0:00:00 - intro
0:02:15 - Phil's background
0:12:19 - Top down mixing
0:16:17 - the project & template
0:23:30 - a guide pad for the vocal
0:25:45 - vocal processing
0:38:50 - backing vocals
0:47:00 - bad drum recordings
0:48:30 - additional keyboards
0:49:56 - forming and leading a team, and using Belinda's guitarist
0:52:24 - organ
0:53:42 - synth melody
0:55:32 - guitars
1:03:18 - mixing piano using the 'split' method
1:12:05 - the importance of leaving things out
1:16:37 - bass
1:19:38 - drums
1:26:00 - referencing "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" and chorus at the front
1:28:35 - play through
1:30:50 - other artists on the project
1:36:08 - Q&A

Credits:

Belinda Carlisle - ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’

Guitars / Bass - James Nisbet
Keyboards - Julian Wiggins
Drums - Simon Dalton
Backing Vocals - Melissa Wiggins

Extra cameras - David Johnson & Oliver Horn