Mixing “Lighthouse” by Stone Branches, Dax Liniere’s Puzzle Factory Breakdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybb376fSpLo

Mix Tricks You'll use On Every Session – Mixing Indie Rock With Dax Liniere (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybb376fSpLo)

“Lighthouse” is one of those tracks where the emotional arc is obvious within seconds. It starts intimate and weightless, then gradually widens, toughens, and blooms into a full band moment without ever losing its sense of space. In this Produce Like A Pro mix breakdown, Dax Liniere, working at Puzzle Factory Sound Studios in London, walks through how he built that journey, piece by piece, with a very modern mindset: control the annoying stuff, keep the life, and use colour and ambience like you would in an analogue studio with a room full of toys.

What follows is the story of that mix, told through the processing choices that mattered, and the philosophy underneath them.

Download the multitracks and cheat sheet here: https://producelikeapro.lpages.co/stone-branches-lighthouse-multitracks-form/

1) The opening guitar: remove the ringing, keep the beauty

The track opens with a gorgeous guitar part, recorded through a real amp, and Dax’s first move is the most important one in the entire session: surgical resonance control.

He points out something that shows up all the time in guitars, and also in strings like violin, viola, and cello: very narrow resonant frequencies that “ring” constantly. They are annoying, yes, however the bigger issue is what they do to the mix.

A constant ringing frequency reduces perceived dynamic range. Your musical notes can jump and breathe, however that steady resonance sits underneath everything like a ceiling, keeping the whole sound from feeling as open and alive as it should.

So he notches the offenders with tight EQ bands, and the difference is immediate: clearer tone, more depth, more movement.

Colour without obvious compression

Next comes Density, a compressor with a “colour” control. Dax’s use here is a theme throughout the breakdown: he is not chasing heavy gain reduction, he is chasing vibe.

He tends to run it barely tickling the meters, 1 to 2 dB at most, because he likes it as a colour box more than a leveller.

Echoplex as a tone shaper

Then an Echoplex tape delay simulator appears, however Dax is not using it only as a delay. He is using it as a tone rounding tool, softening top end and adding that tape personality. A key detail is the ability to set left and right channels independently, which gives him stereo control without extra routing gymnastics.

Soothe twice, for two different problems

He follows with two instances of Soothe:

one focusing on low mids
one focusing on higher frequencies

Two instances because the settings need to be very different. The aim is simple: remove needle sharp resonances that poke out randomly, without flattening the life out of the performance.

Finally, another touch of EQ, another notch, and that opening guitar is clean, warm, and ready to carry the entire intro.

2) Reverb as an analogue mindset: lots of small flavours, tuned in context

One of the most striking parts of Dax’s approach is his use of multiple reverbs. He is not stacking them to be fancy, he is mimicking the reality of an analogue studio where every box has its own personality.

Instead of picking one reverb and forcing it to do everything, he builds a palette and then “tunes” the blend by ear.

Across the session he mentions a range of rooms and plates, including:

vintage style room verbs
more realistic room engines
character reverbs with colour
classic plates
modern room and hall staples

A really practical detail: high passing every reverb send as the first insert. Some are around 70 Hz, others 130 Hz, depending on the role. This keeps the low end from turning into a cloudy mess.

A clever workflow move: “snare sends” bus

If he wants to automate snare ambience, and the snare is feeding multiple reverbs, he does not want to draw automation on six different sends. So he sums the snare to a dedicated bus and automates that instead. It is simple, fast, and keeps the mix decisions musical.

3) Swell guitars: gentle compression for longer tails and a wider bed

The next major texture is the swell guitars, played with volume swells on the guitar itself.

Dax cleans them with a basic high pass, then uses a lovely compression trick:

set the threshold very low
start at ratio 1:1
slowly increase ratio until it just begins to hold the tails

This keeps the swells floating longer, helping the track feel like it is expanding horizontally as well as emotionally.

Then he adds a subtle quarter note EchoBoy Jr in wide mode, plus a bit of EQ and resonance control, and sends them to a selection of reverbs for size and blend.

4) Bass: DI solidity, controlled grit, and kick driven movement

The bass enters with a DI track using a compressor and EQ to bring out mid range growl. Alongside that sits a bass amp plugin that becomes more prominent as the song grows.

Then comes a small detail that separates a professional mix from a distracted one: noise management. Dax uses a de noiser to remove a bit of hiss that interfered with quiet sections. His point is a good one, if the listener notices a technical distraction, they stop feeling the song and start analysing the sound.

From there, the bass chain gets more character:

Saturn for harmonic density
EQ moves that reduce mud and emphasise growl
Tesla SE used carefully, drive low, wet dry backed off
sidechain compression from the kick, with a range control so it never ducks more than about 1.5 dB

That last move is key: it gives the bass a subtle pulse around the kick, keeping the low end energetic without sounding obviously pumped.

He also sends a touch of bass to a room reverb, purely to stop it feeling like it is plugged directly into your brain.

5) The guitar interplay: compression, grit, and “reverb from the other side”

As the arrangement builds, we get the right and left guitar interplay.

For one lead guitar, Dax uses:

a notch EQ for a specific resonance
a 165 style VCA compressor for smooth control and extra attack
Tesla SE for grit
another compressor he loves for guitars
top end shaping EQ
parallel compression to lift low level detail
and a delay that is automated to rise on sustained notes for drama

The balance trick: reverb opposite the pan

Here is one of the most musical moves in the whole breakdown.

If the guitar is panned to the right, he sets the reverb send to mono and pans the reverb hard left. Dry on one side, space on the other. This creates balance and width without washing out the direct sound.

It is such a simple idea, and it works.

For another lead part, he builds an amp sim chain using a Bogner style plugin, a tube power amp stage, and an impulse response, then tidies resonances, adds subtle compression, adds saturation, uses Soothe, and finally high passes again at the end because distortion and compression can generate subsonic junk you do not want.

6) Drums: dynamic low frequency gating, parallel punch, and keeping the kit alive

The drums are where Dax gets very specific, and very clever.

Kick: dynamic low end control rather than static EQ

He starts with simple EQ shaping, then uses a dynamic approach: a FabFilter style dynamic EQ band configured like a low frequency gate.

The point is that the low end of the kick sustains too long. A static cut would remove weight and punch. Instead, the low end is allowed through, however it is controlled in time with fast attack and release, so the sub energy has the right length.

Then he uses parallel processing to enhance attack, including a DBX 160 style compressor and EQ to remove low end from the parallel path, so it contributes snap without adding boom.

He also uses a saturation capable EQ to add bite and character.

Phase is addressed pragmatically. He does not align everything by default. He only aligns when something sounds phasy, and he leaves “alignment” plugins inactive as markers for what is keyed to what.

Kick out mic is heavily filtered, gated, and keyed from kick in for tighter timing. A touch of kick sample is added and shaped for extra attack without excessive click.

There is also a smart move for controlling kick behaviour into a parallel limiter bus: sending an inverted polarity version of the kick to that bus, so increasing the send subtracts kick from what the bus is over emphasising.

Snare: resonance control, under mic taming, and reliable triggering

Snare top gets weight, resonance notches, and a touch of mid boost for attack. The under mic is high passed, saturated to smooth harshness, then gated and keyed from snare top so it opens exactly when it should.

A sample is blended in to support the sound, and all snare ambience is handled through the “snare sends” bus workflow mentioned earlier.

For triggering in complex ghost note sections, Dax uses a drum gate approach to create a super consistent trigger source, then feeds that into the chosen snare sample, then EQs the sample for weight and presence.

Toms: frequency selective gating to avoid sterile drums

This section is gold.

Instead of a normal gate chopping everything, he uses a band limited approach and tunes it to the fundamental frequency of each tom. The gate opens when the tom hits, not when other drums excite sympathetic resonances.

He cuts high frequency bleed far more aggressively than low frequency rumble because he wants the kit to feel like a real kit. The low rumble is part of life. Remove it entirely and the kit becomes sterile.

Then he pans toms using a panning plugin and uses a mono bass tool to keep low frequencies centred while the higher parts stay wide.

Overheads and front ribbons: tame wash, avoid phase fights

Overheads are cleaned for low mid resonance and cymbal wash, then gently rounded with saturation to avoid harshness.

Front ribbons are EQ’d heavily to remove honk and low end that could compete with kick and cause phase issues. He aligns them to the snare top, then uses Saturn’s dynamics control to do a touch of expansion or gating, then rounds again.

Room and parallel buses are blended carefully and automated, including small EQ automation. The drum sound evolves with the song rather than staying static.

7) The second half drop: arrangement and restraint

After the second chorus, the track pulls back. Dax highlights this as a genuine pause, and the mix supports it. Elements return gently, then harmonies appear, then the build resumes until the distorted guitars arrive and the track “goes for it”.

A key line in his approach shows up here: sometimes you have plans for parts, then in the mix you realise they are not serving the song. You remove them. Because the job is not to serve ego, it is to serve the music.

That is the spine of the whole breakdown.

8) Distorted guitars: mic tracks plus DI amp sim, blended for weight and control

When the heavy section arrives, Dax groups the distorted guitars into two main flavours:

mic tracks
DI tracks through an amp sim chain

Mic tracks get EQ, Density for colour, top end shaping, and resonance management.

DI tracks run through a chain that includes distortion, amp sim, tube power amp, impulse response, then Density, Saturn, EQ cleanup for sub build up, reshaping EQ, and alignment to the mic tracks.

There is also an overdrive flavoured set with its own distortion pedal style tone, amp sim chain, Density, and an Echoplex style unit used again as a colour box. Then surgical resonance EQ to finish.

9) Vocals: intimate lead, controlled sibilance, steady dynamics without killing feel

Matt’s lead vocal is treated with care. Dax keeps it intimate and present without making it feel “processed”.

He starts with sibilance control, then gentle compression, followed by an LA 2A silverface style compressor doing about a dB. Nothing extreme.

The heavy lifting comes from a compressor that can hold the vocal steady without sounding squashed when set correctly. Then dynamic EQ on low mids, because a static cut would remove too much warmth when the singer moves into different registers.

A final key detail: he uses a send EQ technique to roll off vocal highs before a specific plate reverb, because he still wants other instruments’ highs to hit that plate. He only wants the vocal to arrive darker.

That is the kind of routing decision that keeps a mix glossy without becoming splashy.

10) Backing vocals: heavy control, darker tone, lead stays on top

Backing vocals get more assertive compression, up to about 7 dB, because backing parts often need to be stable and tucked. He EQs them dynamically, controls sibilance, and uses Saturn to roll off top end so they do not fight the lead.

Echo is automated to appear later in the track, only where the arrangement has room for it.

He repeats the same chain across the different backing parts for consistency, adding Soothe for low register harmonies when needed.