After getting a general balance and ideas in place, Tony turns his attention back to the vocals and continues multiple passes of the song through his first print of the mix.
See how Tony Maserati:
Quickly sets EQ and compression on the arp pluck to get it into the mix, the returns focus to the general vocal balance
Sets up a parallel vocal compression chain to add weight to the vocal
Revisits the vocal reverb automation pass with a more delicate touch
Automates the 1/8th note delay send on the lead vocal
Rides individual reverb sends to create new textures on the vocal in different sections of the song
Discusses doing multiple prints for his reference, and when he turns to his second engineers for feedback
Watch Tony Maserati, mix "Lifeboats" from Will Knox. Only on pureMix.net
00:00:00 So right away I'm gonna jump in
and start doing some quick rides.
00:00:03 Grab my fader,
move it around to where I like it.
00:00:06 Again, not tiny detail work,
just broad ideas.
00:01:01 I'm not mad at that,
it came in a little hot
and it's clear that this
guy has to be on that track.
00:01:07 So this guy can go away.
00:01:10 It's not gonna work.
00:01:12 So, let me get that right,
in the beginning we're still too loud.
00:01:16 So let me get that correct.
00:02:40 You know, we listened from the top,
it's doing something,
I still need some more rides,
the vocal is still a little too loud.
00:02:46 Some of these Verse vocals need work,
I still haven't figured out what
my EQ on the lead is gonna be
but it feels like we've
got something going.
00:02:56 It feels like we've got
a song that does a thing.
00:02:59 I wanna mess around with
this other ARP part
that has a plucking in it
and see
if I can come up with something
that's a little more interesting.
00:03:11 I think clearly it just needs
something to attach it to the
kick and the bass.
00:03:17 Let's see if we can do that.
00:03:19 I believe that might be a bit smarter.
00:04:05 So, I don't even know if I like that,
but I'm gonna keep working
because I can hear it
and there's something about it
I'm not mad at.
00:04:12 But I wanna keep working,
I wanna do some vocal rides.
00:04:58 OK, I'm not liking
anything that I'm doing.
00:05:00 So I'm gonna rush back
and grab a little vocal parallel
thing that I like to use,
see if I like that on this,
see what it does.
00:05:54 So, this is
showing me that I still
need to work on the EQ
of the lead voice.
00:06:00 But I'm not mad at this
parallel setup here.
00:06:03 I'm just going to,
just the Bomb Factory plug-in.
00:06:07 And it's just crushing it,
basically, so whenever it's happening
I'll lower the volume here.
00:06:13 You can see it's just pretty
much crushing it all the time.
00:06:16 And I would do this
with the CLA-76 as well,
I usually lop off some
of the low mid-range
just so it doesn't well up in here.
00:06:26 It's not a big deal and I
ride it sometimes as well.
00:06:30 Right away, what that's done is,
it showed me that
I need some more work on my EQ.
00:06:36 And
probably some stuff in here
that needs to be dipped a bit.
00:06:44 At a smaller 'Q'.
00:06:46 I'm just gonna throw that on for a minute.
00:06:50 I actually think it might be higher.
00:06:52 And overall, it just feels loud to me.
00:06:56 Actually, I'm gonna listen
from the top, to get a vibe.
00:07:49 Obviously, you can hear that,
this is gonna require quite a bit of work.
00:07:53 It's gonna require
quite a bit of detailing,
both on
how each delay
hits, if there's any delays at all,
or whatever that room is doing.
00:08:04 Right now it's happening
naturally and it's pretty much fine.
00:08:09 I mean,
I did a little bit of riding on it,
but I'm also feeling like
we're not quite getting
all the benefits of our juice.
00:08:18 And you don't wanna miss an opportunity.
00:10:23 Again, very rough bit there,
I just wanna push this before I forget.
00:10:44 That's it,
I wanna just make sure
we didn't forget those.
00:10:47 I'm gonna save,
because I'm not mad at that idea.
00:10:56 I'm gonna leave that
aside, leave that aside.
00:11:00 This, we've got action on, right?
So we've got look at that
in a more
careful way, so let's do that.
00:11:08 Let's see if we like what I've got there.
00:11:11 So, I guess that's coming here.
00:11:14 And we've gotta turn this guy on.
00:11:16 And we're just gonna go for it.
00:11:53 OK. I'm not sure yet.
00:12:21 I'm not mad at that.
00:12:23 And now, from there,
maybe we'll look at this.
00:12:26 And see if that helps.
00:12:28 So we just go back to that guy.
And there it is.
00:12:33 On my fader.
00:12:52 So, I just wanted you to
hear what we're working with.
00:12:55 So now I'm pushing a delay.
00:12:57 Previously I was pushing that
really short AMS RMX reverb.
00:13:01 Now I'm gonna push a delay a little bit
and see what I like
and what I don't like.
00:15:08 You can see that
I'm haphazardly doing this
because I know I'm gonna
want something
and when it's really bad I stop.
00:15:16 And when it's acceptable it's OK.
00:15:19 So that second verse, clearly,
we need to look at this guy
more than the other guy, so let's do that
because that's definitely necessary.
00:15:29 And you can see here,
we're pushing that guy
18 and here we're still way down at 28.
00:15:38 So, let's get that correct.
00:15:40 For that second verse.
00:16:36 So you can see that I'm also
pushing things beyond
where they were the last time
so that you feel the growth.
00:16:44 I probably didn't go far enough in fact
in this second Verse reverbs,
so I'm gonna redo that actually.
00:17:13 So I'm gonna hold on to that,
save.
00:17:16 You know, interestingly enough,
I am almost ready to actually
print something,
although I need to listen to that.
00:17:23 And again,
what I'd be doing is printing
so I can listen in different places
so I can pay attention or
one of my team members,
my second, whomever,
can hear it,
give me some ideas,
give me some advice.
00:17:38 "You are a little too
light here in the kick."
"You need a little more bass."
Or whatever it is.
00:17:43 OK, before I print,
I need to
check on this particular ARP sound,
because I don't think
I ever finished that,
not that I finished anything yet.
00:17:54 And I wanna see what it's doing.
00:18:30 I'm gonna do a little ride from the top
while I'm printing.
00:18:36 So let's try that.
00:18:38 Where I'm starting
the print,
this is actually
important because I want it
to start there all the time.
00:18:46 So there will be where we start
and we'll assume that this is
bar 4:1.
00:18:59 OK.
00:19:00 2:1
3:1, 4:1.
00:19:03 So we're gonna start printing there
and I'm gonna ride as we print.
00:19:13 So, I prefer to have every print
going to its own folder.
00:19:18 So, 24-bit masters, 24-bit references.
00:19:23 I call them L2s
from the old L2 that we all used to use.
00:19:27 So, I have two folders
and
each of those prints will
go into its respective folder
and that way I never lose anything
when the time comes
to be looking for stuff.
00:19:46 So now,
that's happening.
00:19:49 So, we're gonna go ahead and
print this, while it's printing,
so this is my guy
and I believe we are in a good
spot
and I'm gonna ride that guy
while I print.
00:23:54 So, a good first pass.
00:23:57 And now,
of course,
I have printed it,
I put it exactly where I want it
and now I'm gonna save it
so that I never lose it.
00:24:07 So, with my code,
I know the exact session file
that relates to
that print file.
00:24:15 Obviously it's time stamped as well.
00:24:17 But the session will never be overwritten.
00:24:20 So I'm gonna take a break briefly
and listen in different places,
get a sense of how it's feeling overall.
00:24:27 Listen from further away,
make sure that
it works in a room.
00:24:33 I realized I hadn't even focused on
my maximization at all.
00:24:40 I'm haven't paid much attention to
my mixbus
in quite some time,
so, there's quite a bit of work here.
00:24:47 We'll be back shortly.
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Tony Maserati is an American record producer and audio engineer who has worked with many mainstream artists including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Jason Mraz, James Brown, Mariah Carey, Notorious BIG, Black Eyed Peas, Destiny's Child and more. His work encompasses worldwide sales in excess of 100 million units. He won an Award for his work on Beyoncé Knowles' No. 1 single, "Crazy In Love", a Latin Award for Sérgio Mendes's Timeless (2006)
Maserati attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts for production and engineering. He relocated to New York City during the early days of the record-making business in New York City and was trained by the technical and engineering staff of legendary Sigma Sound Studios as well as the steady stream of R&B, Dance and Rock luminaries who booked the rooms there.
