Michael Bublé

"The first thing I do when I begin a mix is work on the vocal. I make it sound smooth and make sure the articulation is correct, and so on. I spend a lot of time making sure the vocal is in top shape, and I may use a little bit of Neve 33609 compression and my GML EQ — the GML is one of the most musical EQs ever built. Everything has to revolve and sound good around the vocal. When I've gotten the vocal to sound right, the foundation is there, and the mix becomes more fun and there is room to be creative and expressive with the rest of the mix.

(...) With songs that I have recorded myself I don't need to do much in the mix, it's more just a matter of balancing and placing things in the stereo spectrum. I mainly use the GML EQ and the Neve 33609 compressor, but very sparingly. I had both boxes on Michael's voice, and some reverb, and another EQ, that I don't want to talk about. I'm supporting kids that go to college!"

— Humberto Gatica, producer of Bublé's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and "Stardust"

"The first thing I do when I begin a mix is work on the vocal. I make it sound smooth and make sure the articulation is correct, and so on. I spend a lot of time making sure the vocal is in top shape, and I may use a little bit of Neve 33609 compression and my GML EQ — the GML is one of the most musical EQs ever built. Everything has to revolve and sound good around the vocal. When I've gotten the vocal to sound right, the foundation is there, and the mix becomes more fun and there is room to be creative and expressive with the rest of the mix.

(...) With songs that I have recorded myself I don't need to do much in the mix, it's more just a matter of balancing and placing things in the stereo spectrum. I mainly use the GML EQ and the Neve 33609 compressor, but very sparingly. I had both boxes on Michael's voice, and some reverb, and another EQ, that I don't want to talk about. I'm supporting kids that go to college!"

— Humberto Gatica, producer of Bublé's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and "Stardust"

An image of the console, which offers the features that distinguish it from other versions of the 33609, can be found here from the same source.

(...) With songs that I have recorded myself I don't need to do much in the mix, it's more just a matter of balancing and placing things in the stereo spectrum. I mainly use the GML EQ and the Neve 33609 compressor, but very sparingly. I had both boxes on Michael's voice, and some reverb, and another EQ, that I don't want to talk about. I'm supporting kids that go to college!

(...) For ambience I of course used the ambient tracks that I had recorded at the Warehouse, mostly from the M50. I used two other stereo pairs of mics, because I'd never worked in that room, and I wanted to cover my back. But there was a resonance in the air that was fabulous. I had the precision from the close mics, and then when you open up the room mics you get the depth. I also added some outboard reverb from the live chambers at Capitol. They were amazing. You can't top that. And my favourite reverb friend is the [AMS] RMX16. I love it, I love it, I love it, because I think it sounds very musical.

(...) I'd make stems of the saxophones, the trumpets, the rooms, the bones, the drums, the snares, the vocal dry and the vocal with reverb."

— Humberto Gatica, producer of Bublé's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and "Stardust"

"The Session of 'You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You', consisted of about 46 tracks. I mixed the whole album in Los Angeles, at Capitol Studio B on the old Neve 8068 there. It's a fabulous studio with a wonderful sound. I ended up so pleased with all my mixes on Crazy Love. They're all fat and well-defined-sounding, with incredible punch. I did a few things in Pro Tools, just a compressor here and there to get things to sound tight and to have more control, and I used the George Massenburg EQ plug-in to clean up some vocal proximity [low-frequency boost] and straighten out some other things. Michael sang some of the vocals in Vancouver and some in LA, and I needed to match these. But everything else in the mixes was done on the desk and with outboard."

— Humberto Gatica, producer of Bublé's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and "Stardust"

"There are some great-sounding new records, but in the past we made better-sounding records, with more soul. The higher sample rates help, so I've tried using 96k, but it's a pain. It uses too much space and slows down the session, and I like to move fast. So I'm now back to 24/48. I still think that the converters of the old Sony 3348 [digital multitrack tape machine] are incredible. When I worked on Michael's albums at David Foster's studio, we always went through a 3348. For my current studio I bought an old 3348, and I process my signal through its converters."

— Humberto Gatica, producer of Bublé's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" and "Stardust"