All language subtitles for 1. Session overview, production, metering, headroom, summing, vocal chains, mix buss processing_EN

This is Matt Schaeffer in an undisclosed
location in LA somewhere

with Mix With The Masters,

and we're going to talk about
"All the Stars,"

by Kendrick Lamar and SZA
from the Black Panther soundtrack.

I grew up here in LA.

I started working in a studio
when I was about 15 years old,

I was an intern in Studio City.

From there I went to Berkeley,
played guitar there,

but really wanted to study engineering.

I did engineering
and film scoring, actually.

So it was pretty cool to work
on Black Panther

because it's the first
movie soundtrack I ever got to do.

All this stuff that you see at the top
is basically production stuff

that came from Sounwave
and another guy, Al Shux.

Basically, all that stuff
was just programmed and sent in

and we do a lot of editing
In The Box, so you can see

there are lots of edits and stuff.

But I didn't record any of that,
it's all programmed material.

All the vocals and strings we recorded.

The synth loop from Al Shux,
that's the top two tracks in the session.

Everything else basically
we got at the same time.

I think we did the vocals to a 2-track
of all the stuff dubbed down.

For the most part, we didn't do
a lot of rearranging on this session.

It's possible we might have added eight
bars somewhere in here for another hook,

but I can't really remember to be honest.

Some tracks we rearrange a lot,
right up until the last minute.

And it's like a constant process
where the entire song will be changing

right up until mastering, really,

sometimes even after it's mastered
once or twice

we'll go back and rearrange things.

But this one all came
together pretty easily,

so not a lot of rearrangement.

When I got the stems,
I think they were in a Pro Tools session

except for the synth tracks.

There is usually a folder of audio files

but in this case Sounwave was producing

and he would usually send me
a Pro Tools session.

Let's see, I don't know if
I really have much of a philosophy

except that I think you should do
what the artist wants.

Your vision might not be the same
as what the artist wants

so I think it's important to try to stay
within the artist's goal.

I don't really have
a very strong opinion about

In The Box versus
Out The Box either way.

So I'm pretty comfortable
mixing In The Box.

We mixed this one at Interscope.

They have a couple of rooms there.

I think we might have
started it downstairs

and moved upstairs
towards the end of it.

The plug-ins are the same
in both of those rooms

so it was kind of nice being able
to bounce back and forth between two rooms

and have the sessions work.

I think on this one the structure
was pretty much there.

The main thing that happened
over the course of the song,

I think, was adding
the string arrangement.

That would probably be
the biggest change that happened

over the course
of the production, but yeah,

there wasn't a whole lot of
restructuring with this one.

I think when we were tracking the vocals
we were working with the 2-track

and when you get the stems,
a lot of the times

the gain is too high for mixing
everything together as a multi-track.

So typically I start Clip Gaining
everything down as a mix preparation.

There's enough headroom
to mix everything together.

You can see it here,
everything is basically -13, -14.

I wouldn't say there's really
a specific number that I go for

as long as there's enough headroom.

But it's usually pretty low,
something between -10 and -18,

something like that.

Sometimes I'll put metering
on the mix bus.

It kind of depends on
what the studio is calibrated at,

but typically -18 will be 0 VU analog

so I'll try to go for there.

I don't really have a peak number
that I would shoot for

because typically you're
looking at RMS on an analog meter.

If you set up an analog-style plug-in
VU meter, go for 0 on that meter,

which is probably calibrated
to -18 or -16, something like that.

VU, analog.

So that's kind of what I go for.

I'll Clip Gain all the stems down,

start bringing up the faders,
and get a rough balance that way

and try and make everything
hit around 0 VU.

I'll usually start with nothing,
but I do have a few things

that I usually use, like on here,
SSL G Compressor,

and usually a Pultec EQP-1A EQ
on the mix bus.

Lately, I've been using
more OXFORD INFLATOR.

It's like a saturation-type plug-in.

Blend in at wet and dry.

I tried, actually, Decapitator
on the mix bus on this song,

it sounded pretty cool at first
and then we mastered it once

and it was way too much.

Everything got mastered
a couple times anyways,

so we had some room
to mess with things.

This top track right here
is where I print everything.

When I mix, I don't really
have a set template.

I usually set up
something similar to this,

it kind of depends on the track.

But In The Box I'll usually print stems
inside of the session

as opposed to bouncing stems out.

It makes more sense to me that way
because you can punch in on a region.

Then you can actually hear it in real-time
instead of bouncing offline,

then you have to go back
and listen to it again anyway

to make sure that there
are no errors in the bounce,

so I print everything In The Box
because of that.

And then just export everything later.

But yeah, this top track
is my print track,

so everything down here
is routed to some kind of aux,

some kind of sub-group,
and then all of that stuff routes up.

This is where most of the auxes are
and effects and all that stuff.

Routes out to the print track at the top,

first through this print bus
and then to this print audio track.

Here's what I have for SSL.

Slow attack, fastest release,
not really any make-up gain,

there might be a tiny bit,
and then a Pultec EQ

boosting a little low
and a little bit of top end.

Sometimes I'll go way more extreme
with the top end boost

but this one didn't really need it
so it's pretty subtle.

As long as you're leaving enough
headroom, it's usually okay.

Any mastering engineer these days is
going to be able to handle a loud signal.

They're used to everybody
giving them really loud mixes.

But everything about this one is digital,

there was no analog stage
because it's an all In The Box mix.

So as long as it stays digital,
even if there is intersample clipping,

it doesn't really matter
until the D/A stage.

So if you give an audio file
to the mastering engineer

they're going to pull it down before
it hits their D/A stage anyway.

It's really about
managing headroom for yourself

so that you have room
to turn things up or down.

These are console emulation plug-ins,
and basically what you do

is put an instance on each track
and then you can set up another one

on a bus track and it acts like
a summing mixer on a console.

And you can choose different styles
like this one that I have here,

I think, is the clone of an EMI console.

You can choose Neve or SSL.

I like this one because it has a cool
low end bump to it.

I don't think I used it on everything.

Sometimes I'll put one
on every channel

and then use the sub-groups
that are on it.

You can go to the VCA tab
and start pulling down, like,

if you have all your drums on one fader,
and bass, synth, guitar, vocals, reverb,

all that stuff on the other ones.

It's like an extra layer of faders to use.
So that's kind of nice.

You can turn stuff on or off,
or you can overdrive certain channels.

I guess the nice thing
about something like this

is if you load a separate instance,

each one is a clone
of a different channel strip on a console,

so they're not all exactly the same.

Each one has
slightly different characteristics

and they add together in a way that
doesn't make everything sound the same.

So I guess if you're mixing all In The Box
and you want an analog-type sound,

that's a good way to emulate it.

If you're looking for the sound
of overdrive on a console

you can get close with this.

All right. The vocals,
I guess we could start with the hook.

We went for a more robotic,
futuristic sound

so we used the Little AlterBoy
for some of that,

and then some of it was
Izotope VocalSynth.

I have the track frozen so I can play
the processed version for you by itself.

So that was the VocalSynth track

and then in parallel,
this is basically the same thing,

it's just duplicated.

I just used the Formant shift
on Little AlterBoy,

so together they sound like this.

So these all go to a hook bus
where there's some bus processing.

I boosted some top, cut mids,
cut some lows.

There's some compression.

A little more EQ,
and then some MicroShift

for more chorus-y type effects.

Then the backgrounds.

There's some auto-panning
to make it a little more interesting.

That part, when it's just up the center,
it kind of sounds a little boring,

it's not really moving or doing anything.

So with the auto-pan on
it just, I don't know,

makes it a little more interesting.

We got SZA's vocals.

I didn't really do that much except EQ
and compression, reverb,

that's basically it.

There's some delay too.

Boosted a lot of top,
around 16, with the Pultec,

with a pretty wide Q.

There's a lot of compression.

I like to use the 1176
on female pop vocals.

I don't know if I could really say why,
I just think they sound good for that.

The setting is pretty typical.

A lot of people use a setting
like this with a slower attack

and a fast release on the 1176.

But even with the slow attack,

it's still much faster
than most compressors.

There's also an LA-2A in the chain
with the limit setting

and emphasis on the high end.

Without compression,
it sounds like this.

It's kind of hard to tell because
it's not really level-matched.

I'm using the make-up gain
on the LA-2A, but with it on...

So the 1176 is really the one
that's doing most of the work,

and you can tell it gets around -7 to -10

at the second half of the hook
when she gets really loud.

Even more at some places.

And then the LA-2A is just
for a little extra smoothing out

and also for make-up gain.

I usually stack de-essers
and set them to different frequencies.

It's like a multi-band compressor, almost.

A little more EQ
where I actually cut some top end.

More de-essing, and then MicroShift.