I had the great pleasure last week of having an album that I co-produced/mixed get the mastering treatment from Brian Big Bass Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, and I was again reminded of how helpful an extra set of experienced ears can be in elevating a project. Since the artist was so kind as to let me post a few clips (and since I havent noticed any mastered vs. un-mastered listening examples in here) I put a Soundcloud playlist together. The 32-bit/un-mastered and 16-bit/mastered source files are available for download for those who want to play at home and see how close they can get :) The passages I chose were particularly heavy on sibilance (murderous, more verses than church services, you feel me?), which I thought highlighted the way the mastering job was able to smooth the rough edges while still keeping the top end airy. Josh shot a few videos of Brians mastering console during the session, which Ill try to post below, but his rig is mostly proprietary equipment built or modded by the wizard of all wizards, Thomas Beno May. I dont know what hes using for digital peak limiting so if anyone is familiar with his current setup Id love it if youd chime in. A few production notes: the vocals were recorded with a Michael Joly-modded AKG Perception 200 (oktavamodshop/product_info.php?cPath=1_46&products_id=164) running through a Focusrite Liquid Channel. The beats were produced in Ableton Live, and the final mixes were also done in Ableton, with external summing through a Dangerous D-Box (audio interface was a MOTU Traveler Mk3). The drum kit part for Substance was done with Native Instruments Vintage Drummer sample library for Kontakt. The beat itself is at 78 bpm, but we printed the audio at 82 bpm and then slowed it down using Abletons Re-Pitch warp mode to get that deep, dark sound. This is a fairly common technique on tape machines using vari-speed, particularly for guitars, but lately Ive been loving it for drums and percussion.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 01:19:54 +0000
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