TC Electronic Used To Mix 'The Voice'

Randy Faustino and Tim Hatayama from Creative Sound Solutions have announced they will be using a range of TC Electronic plug-ins to mix music for NBCUniversal's TV show The Voice.
The music talent show puts pressure on both the musical talent competing for recognition and the production team.
Music for each of the auditions and final interactive singing competitions is recorded and mixed by Randy Faustino and Tim Hatayama from Burbank-based Creative Sound Solutions, who turn to an array of TC Electronic plug-ins to streamline their well-developed process.
"For each season of The Voice we record between 100 and 150 artists during the pre-Turnaround sessions," Faustino explains, "using a 96-track Avid Pro Tools rig equipped with TC Electronic CL1B, Non Lin 2, DVR2 and VSS3 dynamics and reverb plug-ins that make our life a whole lot easier during tracking and remix.
"Tim and I have set up a number of multichannel templates that we use to drop compression and ambience settings on the vocals and instrumental tracks. It’s a process that lets us focus on creative mixing while recalling system settings at the press of a button; we can be up and running in just a few minutes for each session."
The duo also handles music mixing for the show’s live weekly contest broadcasts.
Both mix engineers use TC Electronic Tube-Tech CL1B compressor/limiter plug-ins on every vocal channel. "The CL1B is totally transparent and smooth sounding," says Faustino.
"The plug-in is often providing a lot of compression but you don’t hear it clamp down and damage a track."
The CL1B plug-in offers 30 dB of gain, with continuously variable compression of 2:1 to 10:1, with full metering of input, output and compressed signals.
"The CL1B never masks the sound," Hatayama states. "Because The Voice uses a mixture of wired and wireless live-sound mics – not high-end microphones – we need to ensure a clean, intimate, studio-like sound from the show’s set up. The CL1B literally covers all of the bases."
"We then use a choice of DVR2, Non Lin 2 or VSS3 reverb plug-ins," Faustino continues. "We use the DVR2’s EMT 250 Medium Hall with custom settings to achieve our 'signature sound' on vocals and other tracks. We use the Non Lin 2 on snare and rack toms for a bright, 'crisp' sound."
According to co-mixer Hatayama, "The stereo VSS3 reverb, which uses algorithms developed originally for TC’s System 6000 processor, sounds really lush and clean."
"And the reverb really sparkles, with a very natural reverb tail," Faustino adds. "Yes, indeed," Hatayama agrees, "the VSS3 is very natural sounding and not at all synthetic; in essence, we create a 'space' for The Voice with TC’s DVR2 plug-in."
"The VSS3 reverb works so well for TV broadcast, because it lets us put the vocal wherever we want it in the mix," Faustino concludes.
"The plug-in offers an extremely wide choice of options, with plenty of room for experimentation. They’re amazingly flexible, which is exactly what we need for The Voice."
Faustino and Hatayama have also been using a similar complement of TC plug-ins on American Idol, as have co-partners Butch McKarge and J. Mark King while working on music mixing for Dancing with The Stars, utilizing Creative Sound Solutions’ trio of similarly equipped recording/remix vehicles.
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