Southern Belle (category: "Kraftwerk Meets Swampy Country Blues")

[Craig Anderton]

Genre

Blues

Instruments

Cherry Audio Voltage Modular (synth bass)
TW816x (Gibson Les Paul bass samples)
Drums (Chris McHugh loop library and PreSonus Cadence loops)
Les Paul Slide guitar
Hohner Blues Harp
Microphone (UA DLX modeling mic)

Effects

Waves CLA-76 on non-Cadence drums, Waves MV2 for “drum extras” track
Red Light Dist on electric bass
Waves Renaissance Axxe on slide guitar
Waves Renaissance Vox on vocals
Rare Signals Transatlantic Reverb on vocals
Helix Native on harmonica
Fender EQ and Limiter

Mastering chain: Waves Vitamin Stereo + Pro EQ + Waves L3-16 (LUFS -12.5, LRA 10.7) True Peak -1.0)

Special techniques

(Page numbers refer to tips in The Huge Book of Studio One Tips and Tricks v2.2)

* All vocals except the background “oohs” and “ahhs” use the “Enhance Solo Vocals" preset (page 533)
* All Vocals used "Better Vocals with Phrase Normalization and Gain Envelopes" (page 513)
* Bass "Make Bass Pop in Your Mix" (page 485)
* The “Virtual ‘How Does It Sound in a Car’ Tester” (page 36) was essential to get this kind of ultra-sparse mix right. It’s the muted Noise channel to the far right of the screenshot.
* I wanted the “ooh” and “ahh” background vocals to have the vintage vocal vibe of the Jordanaires vocal quartet, who backed up Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Rick Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Jim Reeves, George Jones, etc. The group had a 65-year run, from 1948 to 2013. Pretty cool! The background vocals have hardly any effects – light reverb, and a low-freq rolloff to trim the proximity effect on the “oohs.” Pretty minimalist.

Released when

February 15, 2026

I never know where songs come from, and the songs – not me – determine the direction. That’s why my music is always so different. The track count is pretty minimal (check out the screenshot), so I used considerably more compression than normal on the individual tracks in order to fill the space. The Input Controls are visible to indicate the values that gave proper gain-staging.

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