Mixing A Rush Track With Richard Chycki
- Pat Wright
- 15 hours ago
- 2 min read
Clinic at LM Pro Mar 2026
It was our pleasure to have hosted Rich Chycki this past Monday, Mar 30, 2026 at LM Pro Bloor, Toronto.
If you haven't heard of this fine gentleman and, you are aspiring to be a serious mixing engineer, shame on you!! Haha we jest! But, here's your opportunity to follow and learn from one of the masters:
He is a multi-platinum mixer and engineer whose clients include such rock royalty as Rush, Aerosmith, Dream Theater, Skillet, Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper, Pink and many more.
Known for his pioneering mix work in multichannel audio, prog icons Rush entrusted Chycki to remix the multi-million selling 2112, their career pinnacle Moving Pictures, as well as A Farewell To Kings, Hemispheres, Signals, Snakes & Arrows and Fly By Night, as well as mixing Moving Pictures in Dolby Atmos plus releases for Evanescence and Alice In Chains. While rock acts Dream Theater, Skillet, Simple Plan and Our Lady Peace had also tapped his surround mix talents, other genres have caught word, most notably for DVD releases with Tyrese, Shaggy and Sean Paul.
Without a doubt, if you were ever interested in Neil Peart's recorded drum sounds, then this was the clinic to attend. Rich clearly described kick, snare microphone placement as well as kik & SNR mix layering, parallel processing and FX. We also got to get a peek at his go-to limiter plugins for Neil's thundering but quick and precise toms.
Geddy's bass... a special blend of three tracks and, how about some multiband processing on Alex Lifeson's guitar cabs so they'll fit ever just nicely in the mix, with the bass in mind.
Rich also shared some of his parallel processing, reverbs, delays and, what he did to set up the space the vocal needs for a Rush mix.
Secret Sauce?
Yes, Rich did offer up some of the secret sauce! How about just a dash of spicy limiter action here and there, a pinch of subtle Pultec on the mix bus, and, how about a savory tip on front loading the AMS Rev plugin with saturation... but why you ask?? Well, that would be from his many years of experience working with the real thing! Most of us just come across these great pieces of gear in the plugin world,
But, sonic choices this man and other greats such as Eddie Kramer, or Joe Barresi have made working with real pieces of hardware gear over the years, has informed them how the plugins and hardware differ, giving us real objective workarounds for achieving useful authentic tones in the box.
Giving Thanks
We'd like to give a great big thank you to Rich for sharing his time and wealth of knowledge with all of us this past Monday!
You can find him here:
As always,
Happy Mixing!
~ LM Pro
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