Barton Fink Final Mixing and Mastering

Throughout the mix I EQ'd certain elements like the footsteps to boost frequencies that really make the human hearing system feel irritated. I boosted below 50Hz, 1kHz-3kHz and above 8kHz. This removed warmth and inviting qualities and made the hotel cold and noticeably sharp and noisy. This gives the hotel and negative feeling as it sounds like it would feel uncomfortable.

I balanced all the levels to get the mix that I desired that accentuated many of Barton's movements and interactions with the hotel. Many of the objects in the hotel were made quieter to add depth to the mix and again focus on Barton. I wanted to make him seem like he had dragged all his problems into this place and everything and everyone in the hotel was aware of it. As well the subtlety in the ambient sounds with the EQ helps to make everything uncomfortable, but not enough for it to be completely obvious and thus achieving that feeling of not liking a location just because you get a funny feeling that I was trying to get.

After all the mixing was done I put maxim on the master fader and boosted it to give the mix more headroom and limit the level of the audio volume stopping distortion or peaking.