As one of the most in-demand mastering engineers in the world, Brian Lucey works with musicians of every level, from bedroom projects, to top charting records from world-renowned artists such as: Depeche Mode, The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys Liam Gallagher, Royal Blood, Marilyn Manson, and even movie soundtracks, such as “The Greatest Showman” which went to #1 in over 70 countries.
In this pureMix.net exclusive, Grammy Award WinningMastering Engineer,Brian Lucey, discusses his philosophy to mastering, where it fits in the production process and how he approaches his art to establish a connection between the artist and the audience that has an immediacy and timeless result.
Brian discusses:
The Seven Step Production Process
His highly customized and tailoredmastering chain
How to choose and utilize reference tracks
Key tips to improvingyour room’s acoustics and placing monitors for a sound that is tailoredto the way you hear music.
Watch Brian Lucey break down his philosophy and techniques, only on pureMix.net
00:00:08 Hello! My name is Brian Lucey
and we are at Magic Garden Mastering.
00:00:13 We're going to talk about
what is mastering in my view,
hopefully clarify some things,
and introduce some ideas
and some inspirations.
00:00:22 Mastering obviously is the last step
of the production process.
00:00:27 In my mind, it's a seven-step process
that begins with a moment of inspiration,
the arrangement,
pre-production,
tracking,
mixing,
mastering.
00:00:38 They're really four musicians steps
and three engineering steps,
and the seventh one is mastering.
00:00:44 At every step there is
a potential for pitfalls,
but there's actually greater potential
for something good to happen,
and the best records in the world
go through all these steps
with more good happening
than bad being lost,
more of a positive compromise
at every step.
00:00:59 My role as a mastering engineer
is to make sure that,
number one, there is a positive situation
that happens at my step,
a bigger gain than a loss,
and I mean that in musical terms.
00:01:12 For me it's kind of a healing step
because the process of making
records, as we all know,
it can be messy, it can be fun,
it can be a lot of things,
but when it gets to mixes
being done it's usually,
we're tired, we're over budget,
and we're...
00:01:27 maybe we're thrilled, and maybe we're
frustrated, and hopefully we're excited
to move on and to get it done.
00:01:35 And so mastering is really
the threshold between what we thought
we were going to make
and what the world will hear
and judge us by forever,
and that threshold
is where I live every day.
00:01:48 What I'm aiming to do
is a combination of immediate impact
and a timeless result.
00:01:54 That's what great mastering should be.
00:01:55 It should have an immediate impact,
but also a timelessness to it.
00:01:59 And the way that I get there
is partly to do with the room,
which we will talk about in a bit,
but it really begins with
an understanding
of what is music fundamentally,
and for me, music is a global language of
intimacy,
connection,
elevation,
and community.
00:02:22 An artist connects
with one person at a time.
00:02:25 It's not a million people,
it's not five hundred people.
00:02:27 A song is made for one person
to feel and to hear.
00:02:32 I'm looking to enhance that bit.
00:02:35 And through that connection
comes an elevation
where the other party,
you know, feels better.
00:02:41 So intimacy, connection, elevation,
that leads to community.
00:02:44 You go see a show or you talk online
and you're excited about an artist.
00:02:48 That makes community.
00:02:50 Music is a place where we come together.
00:02:52 It lifts us up and brings us together,
so when I'm working in mastering
I'm not working with EQs
and compressors necessarily,
although those are the tools
along with limiting and what have you.
00:03:04 I'm looking at this world of connection
between artist and audience
and having that immediacy
and a timeless result
that's going to elevate everyone involved.
00:03:17 How do we do that in terms of
more technical things?
The first thing is, obviously,
for those of us who do it, but maybe
not obvious to everyone else,
it's the room.
00:03:30 The room has multiple roles
for any mastering engineer.
00:03:35 The first role is
to show them what's there.
00:03:39 There are many different ways
of doing that
and every mastering room
that you'll ever be in
is unique.
00:03:46 You can't do what we do
unless you have the room, for starters,
skipping the skill.
00:03:52 Let's talk briefly
about this actual studio.
00:03:55 Where we're sitting here is
on the ground floor
of a four-story concrete structure.
00:04:03 Space is actually quite small,
it's only 12 x 15 feet.
00:04:08 If that was the enclosed
dimension of the space,
which is, you know, a perfectly nice room
for a lot of folks in the current era
who are doing things at home,
you really couldn't trap enough
of the bass frequencies
and the low end energy
and the low mids energy
to do mastering.
00:04:28 It couldn't happen, so if you go
into most mastering rooms
they're going to be larger
because "proper studios"
are a room inside of a room,
and you're dealing with frequencies
in that in-between wall section.
00:04:40 Why is that the case?
Well, it's important to understand that
when we talk about frequency
we're really talking about a wavelength,
a length of a wave,
so the lower the tones go
the wavelengths are physically longer.
00:04:56 What ends up happening
is they bounce around,
they end up in corners,
and if they have concrete,
or drywall, or something
that's fairly solid,
very little of it escapes, this low end.
00:05:08 I mean, if you're in a car,
or let's say you're next
to someone in a car
who is thumping out the sub,
it goes right through the car
into your car
because they've got a little bit
of metal and a little bit of glass.
00:05:19 But in an enclosed space
— concrete, drywall, etc. —
you're not having that happen.
00:05:26 It can't escape.
00:05:28 And so you're left
trying to trap the bass,
and it's just impossible to do.
00:05:33 Physics matters!
There is no way to put
enough bass traps in a 10 x 12,
or in this case, a 12 x 15 foot room
to deal with the low end properly.
00:05:46 So what's happening here
is that we have free-standing walls
that are six-inch walls,
but they're not really walls
because the sound is going through.
00:05:55 It's going through the walls
and up into the entire building.
00:06:00 I'll just play something
just to listen to some low end.
00:06:11 Now, if I turn this down,
you know, the low end is going to go down.
00:06:15 Hopefully it's nice and even.
That means it's a good room.
00:06:20 If I turn it up, which I don't
normally do, but we'll do it one time,
I'm going to turn it kind of way up.
00:06:31 If you were here, which you're not,
you would be able to hear
that that low end
is not blowing up the room.
00:06:38 That low end is
just escaping out.
00:06:42 Let's say you're in a small room,
let's say your room is 10 x 14',
or 12 x 16'.
00:06:49 You always want to throw the long way
of the room, if you possibly can.
00:06:53 You want to keep in mind
that your first reflection point,
meaning where the tweeter hits the wall
and comes back and hits your ear,
is a spot where you would like
to dampen that.
00:07:02 So by dampen I mean get a full absorber,
not a bass trap
but a high frequency absorber.
00:07:08 Have a friend take a little mirror,
stick that mirror on the wall,
slide it around.
00:07:13 When your eye can see the tweeter,
that's going to be
your first reflection point,
and if you can cover that general area
with two or four feet
of high frequency absorption,
you're going to be in a lot better shape.
00:07:24 The speakers that I use here
are really not well known.
00:07:29 They're made by a very brilliant
German guy named Joachim Gerhard.
00:07:32 When I bought them, the company
was called Sonics by Joachim Gerhard.
00:07:35 Now you would buy these
in an upgraded form
from a Hi-Fi company,
I would say, called Canalis.
00:07:43 It's just two 8" drivers,
a 5.25" mid,
and what's really interesting
is the tweeter.
00:07:49 The tweeter has a metallic center
with a cloth surround,
and that tweeter
is what drew me to the line.
00:07:55 Metal tweeters to me,
across the board, sound terrible,
but I like the concept of a metal tweeter.
00:08:00 It sounds good on paper.
00:08:01 So what you have here is a cloth surround
for the low end of the tweeter,
if you will,
and a metal center for the extension
that you get from very thin metal.
00:08:14 So that's what started my interest,
it was the tweeter,
then I learned more about
the dynamic nature of the drivers.
00:08:21 They move a lot and they move quickly.
00:08:23 Those speakers,
in conjunction with a very linear
tube amplifier,
is my idea of the right sound.
00:08:33 Tube amplifiers tend to be often mushy,
single-ended triode, no, it's not that.
00:08:40 Class A, push-pull, linear,
technically right,
but still full of the tube
kind of euphonic quality,
which gives what I like to describe
as a 3 or 4 foot image depth.
00:08:55 The people are in the room,
it doesn't go back forever.
00:08:59 There are amplifiers that are
solid-state that are amazing,
but I end up focusing on reverb details.
00:09:05 These amps give a palpable realness
to the image,
and again, this is just my room.
00:09:12 A lot of people like Class D,
a lot of people like
different kinds of speakers
that have a D'Appolito setup,
and there's all kinds of ways to do this,
but for me it's a floor-standing three-way
with a tube image
that is palpable and real,
in a room that's intimate
in terms of the setup,
with drivers that are very dynamic.
00:09:30 The ability of a small space to be used
where the low end and the low mids
and the big long waves
don't have to be trapped
only in the room.
00:09:45 Going on a little more with the room,
Bricasti DA conversion,
I switched to it about a year ago.
00:09:51 This is the M1 Special Edition,
and that's used for Pre and Post.
00:09:56 So, Pre and Post
should probably be explained.
00:09:59 What I'm saying there is,
the Pre is the actual mix file,
and the Post is the processed
mastering file.
00:10:06 This is the Pre,
and this is the Post.
00:10:09 And this has a nice feature
where I can actually press it,
get it blinking,
and turn this up in 1 dB increments.
00:10:17 I wish it was 0.5 dB, but I've learned
to live with it being 1 dB.
00:10:20 Dave Hill, I love you.
00:10:22 So,
when we're listening
we want to use the same converter,
and we want to have the same
volume level as much as we can
to compare,
to make sure that we're
moving the ball forward,
to make sure we're making
a positive compromise,
to make sure that
more is gained than is lost.
00:10:41 And if the level is in between that dB,
I will make the mix the louder one,
because if I can beat the louder one,
then I'm good.
00:10:54 The analog chain here is,
again, very simple.
00:10:57 Sequoia 12 to the Mytek 8x192 DA,
Focusrite Blue 315,
the Elysia Alpha,
Fairman EQ,
Pacific Microsonics,
the L2,
and then from there
into the Crane Song HEDD,
and then we come back into Sequoia.
00:11:14 This Focusrite Blue 315 Mk II,
to me,
a really kind of horrible-sounding
piece of kit
as it was made stock.
00:11:25 Lots of 5534s,
a very cheap jellybean chip.
00:11:29 This one has been modded
with some OPA627s
which are like 15 bucks a crack,
there are like 60 of those,
and we took out 40 capacitors.
00:11:36 So what you get out of this EQ
is a very pleasant
slightly forward solid-state sound.
00:11:44 Solid-state is slightly forward.
00:11:46 Complementing that is a tube sound,
which is slightly back,
and so this is a phase-correct
very clean tube equalizer,
but this has 22 tubes.
00:11:58 Lundahl transformers, so it's very clean.
00:12:01 It's been upgraded by me
with some better sort of
high-temp capacitors,
but mostly with tubes in each band.
00:12:11 For example,
we have a high shelf,
and that's Telefunkens
because they have a nice, clean quality.
00:12:18 We've got low mid boost,
we've got high mid boost in here.
00:12:23 They used to be Mullards,
now I'm using Miniwatt,
which has a similar kind of juicy midrange
whether it be low mids or high mids.
00:12:31 And then the low end,
either Telefunken again
or something like an RCA Black Plate,
or maybe a Sylvania
which is a little less vibey,
but it's a nice, clean low shelf,
because you don't want your low shelf tube
to be adding a bunch of junk
on top of its technical function,
whereas you kind of like
that junk in the mids.
00:12:53 And then the output stage of this,
probably the most important,
I'm always driving it 3 to 5 dB.
00:13:00 And in this piece of gear,
if you're a tube nerd, it's an EF86.
00:13:06 I particularly like Amperex Bugle Boy,
and only from like '57 to '62.
00:13:13 If I don't have a Bugle Boy EF86
from '57 to '62,
it doesn't sound like my work,
as crazy as that sounds.
00:13:20 And yes, as people often ask,
I do have a bunch of spares.
00:13:24 So we have the slightly forward,
the slightly back,
both EQs operating in a boost capacity.
00:13:31 In between them, I have the Elysia Alpha.
00:13:33 This is actually serial number #001.
00:13:35 I use it mostly in the Mid/Side mode
because that allows me
to trigger compression
if needed, and I don't like to compress.
00:13:43 I prefer to just EQ and limit
and call it a day.
00:13:45 But if I'm going to compress, I like to
trigger it with the Mid energy only,
and then sometimes
I like to do some Side EQ'ing
where I'm changing the shape of the 'V'.
00:13:58 What do I mean with this shape
of the V thing? I'll talk about it.
00:14:01 Well, if we have a very narrow V,
this would be pop music, a dance track,
so all the low end is just kick and snare.
00:14:09 There is nothing that's panned out
that's got any kind of meat to it at all,
and what you have panned
is high sparkle stuff
that gives you a sense of width.
00:14:20 The phrase 'overproduced'
comes from the shape of the V
being too pop for what their
expectation is for the style.
00:14:29 Altering subtly
— not pissing off anybody —
the shape of the side low end,
literally the shape of the whole mix,
so that it becomes more produced, or less,
is part of the gig.
00:14:43 So I did the pop V.
00:14:45 Let's do this kind of V.
00:14:47 This would be like,
I don't know, modern rock,
Back In Black, Audioslave,
where you've got some girthy
kind of low end
going out on the sides,
but not so much that you
destroy the punch.
00:15:00 And then you've got, sort of,
maybe alternative music
or some kind of more
experimental-sounding things
where you really lose
the punch in the center
because you're interested
in these very real
low mids and low end on the sides.
00:15:15 From a production standpoint,
that's very important to think about.
00:15:19 How are you shaping
the low end in the mix?
Does it suit the style
of the single and the artist?
How do the different songs
on the record vary
in how that low end is panned and cut?
And how does that interplay
with how people perceive?
You know, back in the day,
the punk rock quip about something
was, "Oh, it's overproduced."
What that basically meant
is that it was, like, too clean.
00:15:46 The files begin in Sequoia.
00:15:49 I use Sequoia 12.
00:15:51 The file goes to the Mytek,
Focusrite Blue 315,
the Elysia Alpha,
Fairman EQ,
into the Pacific Microsonics at 44.1 kHz,
and then,
the lowly L2.
00:16:07 Now, here's the thing about the L2.
00:16:09 Up to maybe 0.5 dB of limiting,
it's pretty invisible.
00:16:14 From 0.5 dB up to about 1.5 dB
it has a little midrange pop,
a little vocal range pop
that I really like.
00:16:24 And over 1.5 dB,
it's just destroying things.
00:16:27 They have a bad reputation
because, of course, today
we have so many better limiters,
but I really like what it does for 1.5 dB.
00:16:36 This is permanently set at 1.4
with a quick, unlinked Release,
and I print at -0.03,
so just a little below zero.
00:16:45 So we are clipping the converter usually,
and it clips beautifully,
it's high headroom, Class A,
a good clipping converter.
00:16:51 We do a little L2 at a fixed setting,
and then from there
into the Crane Song HEDD,
Digital In, Digital Out.
I'm not using the conversion.
00:17:01 Good converter, but I'm not using that.
00:17:03 I'm just using a sprinkle of the knobs
to give a little bit of life
back into the digital file
which has been smashed twice.
00:17:17 So we were clipping,
clipping,
rounding,
and then we come back into Sequoia.
00:17:24 We've got some meters here,
those are actually API console meters,
they have really nice ballistics.
00:17:31 That's my meter
for my sense of where
something needs to be
and where it's going into crazy land.
00:17:38 The Pacific Microsonics
converter is so great.
00:17:42 A really great converter at 44.1 kHz
in a mastering application
does the trick.
00:17:49 There's no gain for me
going to 96 or 88.2 kHz.
00:17:53 The thing about the higher sample rates
is that it works really well
with a cheaper converter.
00:18:00 You know, if you go to Guitar Center
or your local shop
and you get a $200 converter
that does 24/96,
and it's $150 bucks,
and you compare that
to my converter at 44.1 kHz,
it's a joke. It's not even close.
00:18:17 That's sort of the high end
and the low end.
00:18:18 And now, if you get in the middle,
what ends up happening
with sample rates is that
it brings up some more detail
as you get into the higher rates.
00:18:28 Higher rates equals detail.
00:18:30 The lower rate has the benefit of density.
00:18:33 Converters sound like themselves
at all times.
00:18:37 As you go from 44.1 up to 96 kHz,
you shift from a focus
on a little more density
to a little bit more air,
and, you know, if you want air
as part of your thing, great!
I like density, and I EQ air.
00:18:53 I don't need people to be focused on
reverb tails and details
as much as I need them to feel the Africa.
00:19:02 I need them to feel the groove,
I need the low mids and the low end
to be represented in a way
that's engaging and musical.
00:19:09 When I'm asked by labels to deliver
hi-res files, I send 44.1 kHz.
00:19:13 If they demand 96 kHz
and they send three emails,
I'll upsample it with dBPowerAmp
and send the 96 kHz file.
00:19:21 What matters in a converter
is the analog chain,
the chip,
the clock,
and the filtering.
00:19:30 The chip and the filter
are often one thing,
but some people will split them out,
and on cheaper units
the filter will come along for the ride.
00:19:41 In the higher end units
the filtering is done intentionally,
and for example, the Bricasti DAs, the M1,
has 16 internal filters
that you can choose from.
00:19:51 I use their Minimum 0 filter.
00:19:54 If I use Linear Phase 2,
it would sound very similar to the Mytek,
so filtering is a big deal.
00:20:00 Even with all the component differences,
the filtering is a big deal.
00:20:04 For me, I don't touch files
that have been printed.
00:20:08 I re-print.
00:20:10 Why? Well, what I've found
is that anything I do,
including a volume move of,
you know, let's say 0.05 or 0.1 dB,
it destroys what's there,
so, okay, no problem.
00:20:24 So all recalls for me are re-prints.
00:20:27 The frame of reference is huge.
00:20:29 It's very hard.
00:20:30 It takes time.
00:20:32 You're going to struggle.
00:20:33 You're going to think this next pair
of speakers will do it, and it won't.
00:20:37 You're going to think this next room
tuning will do it, and it won't.
00:20:41 And you'll keep going
until you get to where you actually know
that what you're doing
is objectively a certain thing
that will always sound like it sounds.
00:20:54 That's what we do in mastering.
00:20:55 We know that we deliver something
that's going to be consistent in the world
because we all have a good sense
of frame of reference.
00:21:05 So, how can you help yourself
to learn a frame of reference
short of a million trips to the car
and to somebody else's house
and all that?
Which is a perfectly good way to go too.
00:21:20 You make for yourself,
I'm going to say a dozen,
ten or twelve reference tracks
that you have in a file
that you bring up
at the start of every session.
00:21:35 Reference tracks
can be as varied in concept
as mixing styles.
00:21:43 Some people might have reference tracks
because they like the kick drum,
they like the snare drum,
they like the vibe.
00:21:47 Those are production references
where you look at a detail
or you look at a section
of the overview and you say,
"Oh, that's a cool thing,"
or, "I like how they did that."
So those are production references,
not a mastering reference.
00:22:01 A mastering reference for me is a track
that defines the edges
of — let's call it the circle.
00:22:10 Because once you know the edges,
how far you can go
with sibilance,
low end,
dynamics,
you name it.
00:22:21 Once you know the edges,
you are free to play
inside the fence.
00:22:28 There is no freedom without a fence.
00:22:30 When you set out to find references,
the way to do it is to listen
in a place that has
some really good monitoring,
and try some things,
and try and find
some tracks that represent
polar opposites.
00:22:47 Like, here's a really midrangey thing,
or here's a really scooped thing,
lows and highs, no mids.
00:22:53 Here's a thing that's got
a really sibilant vocal,
and here's a thing that's got
kind of a darker, buried vocal.
00:22:59 You don't have to listen to every song
all the way through.
00:23:02 Just click through
and feel the vibrational changes.
00:23:07 Listening is not a mental experience,
listening is a full-body thing.
00:23:13 Those low tones,
they hit you.
00:23:16 You feel them.
00:23:18 So you want to listen with your whole body
and you want to listen
kind of quickly to your references
to sort of get your brain to say,
"Okay, this is the high end limit,
this is the darker high end,
and this is the low end limit,
and this is the fatter low end,"
or whatever.
00:23:34 You know, get yourself into that fence,
and then, throw those away,
and go and do the thing that feels good,
go and do the exciting thing.
00:23:45 Usually with refs people refer back
in a one-to-one way,
they're like, "Oh, let me check my thing
versus that thing."
That's more of a production ref
way of thinking.
00:23:52 What I'm talking about here
are mastering references
which can be used in mixing
as a sort of speaker/room
frame of reference to the world.
00:24:02 I had a dozen songs or so,
I've got Björk's Homogenic from '95,
I've got Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball,"
some hip-hop and R&B tracks.
00:24:13 I don't listen to them anymore,
but sure enough, they're there.
00:24:15 I just turn them...
And they're in my session,
because they are in all my sessions.
00:24:19 That's a really helpful thing.
00:24:21 Don't follow me in terms of
what songs I just mentioned.
00:24:25 Follow you in terms of
what you're drawn to
and describe your fence in your own way,
and through that process there is a chance
that you'll make something
the world has never known.
00:24:38 So let's talk about
setting up the speakers in a room.
00:24:42 The goal is
an even frequency response
from top to bottom
and the right balance
of middle-to-side information
coming out of the speaker,
which has to do with the width
of how they're placed.
00:25:00 You're going to put them in the room,
firstly, where it's practical,
but some things to think about.
00:25:06 Generally speaking,
you'd like your ear to be
between the tweeter and the driver
that's under the tweeter.
00:25:13 From there, you can move
the height up and down
to adjust the balance.
00:25:19 As your ear is higher with the tweeter,
you're getting more tweeter,
as your ear goes down lower
into this driver,
you're getting more of that driver.
00:25:30 Another thing to think about
is the tweeter angle.
00:25:32 Again, the blanket statement of "aim the
tweeters at your head" is just plain dumb.
00:25:36 That could be, in many cases, too bright,
so you can try that as a starting point,
but if you're hearing a balance
that doesn't work,
then, you know, turn the speakers
more outward,
turn them out like this.
00:25:50 As they turn further outward,
the converging point becomes
past your head, not at your head,
and you get a different response.
00:25:58 Now let's talk about moving
the speakers in the room.
00:26:00 As they go outward towards the side wall,
you're going to hear
the probably low midrange change
every couple of inches out,
every couple of inches in.
00:26:12 It's because the frequencies
that are bouncing around the room
are interreacting in different ways.
00:26:18 That's a way to play with the low mids.
00:26:20 It's hard to say what it's going to do,
you have to just try it.
00:26:22 Front-to-back in the room,
as you get closer to the wall,
you're going to be interacting
with low frequencies
that are already built up there.
00:26:31 They go out here, and they end up
in corners, they end up in walls,
so you're going to get close
to that boundary
and then you're going to get
more sort of low end mess,
which may be cool,
and it may give you a bump you like,
or it may get out of hand.
00:26:43 So you have this kind of
front-to-back motion
to play with the low lows,
you have this sort of left-to-right motion
to play with... let's call it low mids.
00:26:53 This tweeter angle
to bring the high end more to you,
or a little less high end.
00:26:59 You have the up and the down part.
00:27:01 Sometimes you've got to lay them
on the sides.
00:27:03 You got to take that into account.
00:27:04 That's a totally different diagram,
you'll work that out on your own time.
00:27:07 But this next thing is something
that will help just as much
in your decision-making,
and this is the width of the speakers,
just this way.
00:27:17 Skipping all the other factors,
just the width.
00:27:21 When the width is just right,
you will naturally
produce, engineer, and mix something
which has the right amount
of power in the middle,
the right amount of spice on the side.
00:27:31 If they're too narrow,
you're going to overpan,
you're going to recess the middle section,
it's going to be not as punchy,
not as interesting.
00:27:39 The opposite is true if they're too wide;
you're going to underpan,
and you're going to have a mix
that is mono for...
00:27:46 not really mono, but it's more mono
for most of the world when they listen.
00:27:52 We're going to play the track,
it's a snippet,
you're going to loop this snippet,
and then you're going to hit Mono,
listen in mono,
and then you're going to
take it out into stereo,
and you're going to listen in stereo.
00:28:07 And what are you listening for?
Well, when it's in mono,
you're listening for the power,
the volume,
the actual amount of energy that's there.
00:28:18 So we'll give that a number
and we'll call it '0'.
00:28:20 That's our baseline.
00:28:21 Once you get comfortable with that,
you know what that is,
take it out of mono, and go to stereo.
00:28:26 Now you're going to listen
to three things:
the left-side energy
as if it was a thing,
that middle energy that you
were just listening to
as if it was still a thing,
and the right-side energy.
00:28:39 So you're going to listen now
not to music per se,
but to the energy broken up
into three power bands:
left, center, right.
00:28:49 So this is your middle,
it's putting out energy,
you're going to call this '0',
and then maybe these
are going to be, like, up 1 dB,
or maybe they're going to be up 2 dB,
or maybe this goes up 1 dB
and these are at 0.
00:29:03 So there are different relationships there
based on these three references
that I'm going to play,
and I'll tell you what you should hear.
00:29:12 And then, in order to get that,
you're going to move things
closer or further apart.
00:29:16 The listening level is around 85,
that's dBA weighted,
so, you know, I have the trusty
$39 RadioShack sound level meter.
00:29:27 Let's start with this first thing,
"Everlasting Light," track one
from the Brothers record.
00:29:33 We're just going to loop
a couple bars here,
and we're going to do it in mono,
and we're going to stay focused
on that middle energy.
00:29:42 We're going to call that '0',
and then let's see what happens
with the stereo.
00:29:47 Do the sides get louder?
Do they go back?
Do they get a little louder?
Do they get a lot louder?
What happens to that '0' number
on the sides?
Starting mono,
get comfortable,
then switch it to stereo.
00:30:49 If your width is right,
what you will hear is that in stereo
it's a little bit louder coming out
of the left and right
than coming out of the center,
and the center is staying at 0.
00:31:04 In other words, the center energy
isn't going backwards,
and it's not coming forwards.
00:31:10 The center stays at 0
and the left and the right
are a little bit louder.
00:31:14 They're a little bit forward of 0.
00:31:17 And now I'm going to do this track,
Björk's Homogenic,
mixed by my friend "Spike" Stent.
00:31:23 Same thing here.
00:32:03 This one is very interesting.
00:32:05 When we go stereo,
the center is actually coming forward,
and let's call it a +1 or a +2,
and the sides are about equivalent.
00:32:17 We've provided some examples
and hopefully that helps
to play with the width
and get things in the ballpark.
00:32:27 More importantly, it's a good way
to begin thinking about music
in terms of left, center and right.
00:32:33 It used to be that consoles
would have a LCR switch,
and that was it! There was no pan pot.
00:32:38 You know, there was no digital
hundred numbers.
00:32:41 And LCR records are beautiful
because their phase is accurate
and they're simple and they're great.
00:32:47 It's more than just a historical novelty
that thinking about music in terms of
the center power and the side spice
is a very powerful
creative mixing tool.
00:33:00 You've got to have
the meat down the middle
driving the emotional and the
physical message at all times,
but you've got to have
things getting interesting
out to the sides,
and that interest needs to ebb and flow
through the track
in the same way that the music
ebbs and flows
through changes or dynamics.
00:33:20 Literally, the composition
of faders and pans.
00:33:23 That is the
beautiful compositional musical part
of the technical gig of mixing,
so getting the width right
goes a long way
to having your intentions
and natural inclinations
just work out when the mix is done.
00:33:42 To wrap this up,
obviously,
I've hit a lot of things here.
00:33:47 My suggestion would be to
revisit the ones that are interesting
to you a couple times,
let it sink in.
00:33:54 You can get frustrated with it.
00:33:55 It's a lot of pieces to a puzzle
that adds up to being really powerful
and musically successful.
00:34:04 So, I hope you've enjoyed it,
and I hope it's some good
food for thought,
and
thank you so much for listening.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Award-winning Mastering Engineer Brian Lucey is one of the most prominent Industry Engineers and has worked with renowned artists such as Depeche Mode, The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys Liam Gallagher, Royal Blood, Marilyn Manson, “The Greatest Showman” and more.
He is well-known for his philosophical approach to mastering, mainly focusing on emotions, feelings and how your body responds to the sound.
Brian believes that mastering is an important part of the music creating process and that it should have an immediate impact on the listener while also maintain a timelessness aspect, that "the world will judge us by forever".
If you've watched Brian's video on pureMix, you will understand that a great mastering engineer knows how to combine subtle technical moves in order to deliver the artist's music to the world in the best possible format.
Enjoyed Brian's delivery of listening techniques and technical information. Helped me adjust my room and listening position for enhanced left right center clarity.
Thanks Brian!
rm8x
2020 May 18
a must watch
SilenceStudios
2020 May 03
Thank you for opening your mind to these spectacular explanations, today I go to bed knowing many new things.
Thanks again!!
saul.r
2019 Jul 30
Beautiful!!
Andrew55
2019 Jul 04
Thanks, Brian! great video!
robinsutherland223
2019 Jul 02
Great stuff from Brian, but the gating on the dialogue was a bit suffocating.
beschornermusic
2019 Apr 19
The LEFT CENTER RIGHT idea and the meaning behind is so great. Thanks a lot for this thoughts!
BosoxBiker
2019 Mar 19
I've never, ever, ever listened to music in terms of boundaries to stay within. This thought is still resonating a month or so later. That's just one of many pearls he gave us with this one. This is one of those occasions where kicking back and letting the masters ramble/chat is priceless. I hope he does some more for PureMix.
Aethertapcreative
2019 Mar 15
wow, more from him please! very insightful
sonicdiscovery
2019 Feb 12
This single video was worth my year membership price.
NickyFrenchy
2019 Feb 12
Thanks, Brian! That was really good.
ericsd
2019 Feb 06
so how does he print from hedd to computer?
rlowe
2019 Jan 30
Lavishly-generous with your knowledge, know-how and insights on the mastering process. So much so that I am now convinced that all ‘really good music’ deserves—and should be—mastered with the professional care and heart-felt passion you have demonstrated in this video. Very best regards!
tomas.darthes
2018 Dec 30
Very Good!
jwebsmall
2018 Dec 01
The V shape exercise switching between mono and stereo demonstrates monitoring placement and room issues crystal clear to me for the first time.
The goal in mastering of achieving immediate impact but timeless impression without sacrificing too much of the song and its performance inspiration gives me an entirely new perspective on tracking, mixing, and mastering. Thanks!
Chrisoz
2018 Nov 20
Thank you. This is a really good video that got me thinking hard about my setup. I found many of the points very valid for mixing and mastering. At least my speakers seem to be in the right place :)
Stephen Moniz
2018 Nov 07
Glad to say I was happy to notice the difference between mono and stereo even on a laptop.
Star Jee
2018 Nov 04
Excellent !!
Some Guy
2018 Nov 03
Lots of interesting things presented here, could easily be several separate videos going into more depth. Is there a book version? I get the feeling a book by Brian would probably be really great.
Musiqman95
2018 Oct 24
Wow Man!! “Listen with your body”. Never heard it put like that. Very though provoking process unlike how I have heard it presented before. Very appealing for me!!
Lysandrix
2018 Oct 23
Wow the sample rate piece was really good
AMP Tracks
2018 Oct 10
I hope this is the beginning of a long series about mastering with Mr. Lucey!
Arnold Vigh
2018 Oct 09
Finally, someone who made the sample rate topic clear! I'd like to work with this guy... ;)
Fergie77
2018 Oct 07
Great video! Well explained. Loved the LCR Mono/Stereo portion. Very insightful.
Pearlpassionstudio
2018 Oct 07
This has to be one of the best explained tutorials I heard. Everything Brian stated really hit home to me. Very well explained, really interesting to listen to. Thanks
Magnus
2018 Oct 06
Very Interesting and helpful! Thanks Brian and Puremix
jessrho
2018 Oct 06
Goddamn that was interesting and helpful! Thanks Soo much Brian and puremix, insightful, eloquent, humble and helpful. 5 stars for sure!
MarcoPolo
2018 Oct 05
This is one of the most interesting and informative mastering discussions I've heard. I'd love to observe Brian in an actual mastering session, now!
Electric_Company
2018 Oct 05
Great Brian, thanks very much for the many nuggets here within.
It's good to here your take on music as a whole seen through a technical lens as well.
Some more videos on mastering would be welcome.
Cheers from Scotland,
Robert
BenCharbo
2018 Oct 05
super amazing
PoPe
2018 Oct 05
Love this guy. Such a gold mine. Can't wait to see more videos with him.
cem.arapkirlioglu
2018 Oct 05
Such an humble guy, very comforting way of transferring information. I liked the concepts he talked about, but I'd prefer to see him use the tools and explain maybe even just a bit, how he would tackle a need of EQ or why he feels like there is a need of EQ instead of showing off the gear in the 1/3 of the video.
JAW_007Mix
2018 Oct 04
Great view into Brian's mind. Love the concept of LCR energy. Thank you for the quick audio playback with explanation! Priceless.
