Used on the vocals for "When the Curtain Falls", as stated by mix engineer Al Sutton in this January 2019 Sound on Sound interview.

"The main lead vocal, track 48, has the Opticom for some compression, and I'll always have a parallel lead vocal channel next to it, called 'smash', again for parallel compression, and it'll have tons of plug-ins and I'll just crush it to pieces, almost to the point of distortion, and tuck that underneath the main vocal. The plug-ins on the 'smash' channel include the Waves SSL Channel, Waves CLA-76, Waves DeEsser, Waves H-Delay, and the Soundtoys PhaseMistress. The latter is to get the choruses to sound wider, and the track has some automated delays. For vocal reverb I use the Echoplate 2 [plate reverb] with a Delta Labs Effectron II for pre-delay, and depending on the song either a Lexicon Primetime II or Fulltone Echoplex for slap-back delay.

"Finally there are the backing vocals, on which I had again the Waves SSL-Channel, CLA-76 and DeEsser, and then the Waves SuperTap delay, for stereo delays in the choruses, also to get them to sound wider. I do the vocal blend in Pro Tools and, depending on the parts, will send the blends out on one of the two stereo outs. In this case I had two sets of stereo outs to the API and I compressed each pair lightly with the Inward Connections TSL3 and TSL1."

To glue everything together, Al Sutton once again employs parallel compression. "The API Legacy has an A bus and a B bus, and I'll put a Shadow Hills compressor on the B bus. I'll blend that back in with the A bus, and I'll print that back on as a stereo track in the session. I'll print a brickwalled track as well so we can hear the mix really loud, and get some idea of where we'll end up. But I'll send my mix uncompressed to mastering, which for this album was done by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound. I leave loudness up to the mastering engineer, because I don't want to play that game any more. It just ruins your mixes. If you can get at a competitive volume without having all the dynamics smacked out of your mixes, I think it will resonate more with people."