Mastering ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams

so now what we're going to do is listen to the mix completely flat no processing at all we're going to listen to the choices that leslie made how he presented it for mastering and also gain a whole lot of insight in terms of what the artist has been living with and what the artist has approved for the mix process and now it's ready for mastering so let's check it out [Music] by the way [Music] if you feel like happiness [Music] that's a great mix you know it's funny audio professionals mixing and mastering engineers and producers we can have all types of conversations describing what we can do but it really comes down to what it sounds like all of the real uh information that i'm gonna get has to do with just that process listening to the mixed down flat gives me all the information and it allows me to put myself in the shoes of the mixing engineer and operate from that place uh a pro like leslie if you look at the mix it's very dynamic he hasn't necessarily gotten a whole lot of bus compression at least if there is bus compression it's not really really gluing things together he's left it nice and open anticipating the mastering process it also for that reason has a little bit of a classic feel you know in terms of not going so heavy-handed with compression it's not that it's such a technical technique as much as it's really a creative technique it's creative technique in the sense that this mix hasn't been stepped on it hasn't been glued to a place where it loses its dance ability its musical feel if not handled properly you could very easily lose that in the mastering process unexperienced engineer might try to juice it too much get too much compression too much hype and it might end up feeling like it's being pushed onto you you could end up with a result where you just don't want to get up and start dancing this song needs to be led in its feet it needs to encourage you to get up and move and too much processing could end up creating a departure from that what i'm feeling with this is i would like to get into some glue some connectivity with some tube compression and i want to eq into some tube compression and specifically i want to rely on the manly for that there's other options there's other tools there's other paths we could go down but a good experienced mastering engineer will have a very good sense of how he or she wants to introduce the various processes to get the most out of the music and also create a a great finished result that everybody involved is going to love the more you do this the more you understand how far you can go before you start taking a departure from what the mixer left you with so all of that we have to take into account like i said this mix is nice and open and the elements within the mix have a lot of space around them the claps are nice and out front background vocals have a lot of space it's really ripe for digging in with some tube compression so i already have the setting recalled that we did originally on the analog console i'm going to flip over to it and i'm going to play it down now understand also that and this is something that a lot of people are surprised by it's never for us one setting from beginning of the song to the end we're making manual rides and interacting with the song as it goes down a lot of times we'll be riding bus level from verse into chorus left and right there's various techniques to do that in a way that feels very musical person listening to the end result would never be conscious of these moves being made but allows us to you know get in to maybe back off a bridge and then come back into a chorus and then it blooms and comes back with impact in a musical way that that uh only enhances the musicality of the song and it's not just level we'll be riding eq into the compressors so all of the processes within the global process are interrelated and work together as a whole you never want a situation where you take even nine steps forward and one step back you always want to take 10 steps forward you always want to make sure that all your processing ends in a place that's net positive and it always has to do with where the mix is as a starting point 100 of the time ending in a place that feels musically balanced in a way that you can connect mute with the music emotionally the song is called happy it needs to feel happy uh so let's take it there i'm gonna play you now uh while monitoring through all the processes uh as a global process on the board and then i'm gonna flip between before and after so you can get a really good idea of what we're doing as a starting point so actually i'm going to start with flat again and i'm going to flip over to processed and you can hear what we're introducing it might seem crazy you can take a break [Music] [Music] that's what you want to do so what am i doing let's break this down step by step i'm gonna first put everything in soft bypass all the pieces in the single path and soft bypass and i'm gonna introduce them one by one to describe what it is that we're actually doing now this piece right here this is a very very important piece for how we like to shape eq into the compression sometimes we take it out entirely and not use any type of eq like this because it does add a certain texture and saturation specifically because post this eq we're attenuating by a db we don't need to and sometimes we do run this eq in the circuit with no attenuation but adding a db attenuation post will allow us to get a little bit more saturation which has a textural feel that's pleasing to us this piece by itself generally we boost all frequencies or you know sometimes we cut a few but if you were to measure the overall gain of this piece and how the gain structure moves throughout the chain this piece in particular gives you about 2 db to break it down even more specifically and the way i'm using this on this song i'm emphasizing 120 a little bit ahead of all the other cues on this 5-band eq and maybe a little less emphasis around 60 3k 6 and 10 relatively but overall this is giving me about 2 db of gain it's not simple gain it's eq'd gain into the various other processes what i'm doing with this piece right here is a solid state eq it's great for very transparent but specific work in terms of how to shape the the frequency spectrum it's very very precise and oftentimes we like to work these two eqs off each other in this particular case we're doing a half db cut at around 30 and a half db boost at around 45. it tightens it and it shifts it and it creates a nice support it almost shifts it upward and if you notice what i'm doing with this 2bq is that but a little bit higher on the frequency spectrum so i'm taking the bottom i'm tightening it and i'm shifting it slightly upward which allows you to get a little bit more dimension depth of field and then how that integrates into the compression is also key the tube compressor that comes right after is there to absorb it's not to achieve level it's for musical purposes and it's completely about how we eq that that frequency shape into the tube whenever we introduce compression depending on the compression that you're introducing it can shift the overall frequency balance so we have to be aware and conscious of how that shift takes place and what we need to do in terms of eq feeding into that tube compression to create a correction for that shift it follows into how we deal with the high frequency limiting that comes after that to soften the information and perhaps control the information up top maybe soften the edge a little bit especially if we're working on uh digital sources and then we can then open it up with some tube eq to create this counter process that also feels very musical and then at the very end we're going to be using this allen smart c1 just to make sure that everything feels really nice tight and punchy and focused and controlled gain structure throughout the chain how much gain is coming off this versus how much pain is coming off this all of it is very very important if you don't quite have that working musically it can be a hit or miss you

Channel: Mix with the Masters

Views: 841,292

Keywords:

Id: 9w6sdNs58tc

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/kowal89]

Let me guess, smile eq on the mixbus? He... He..

[u/RyGuyMcDaddy]

Great watch! Very philosophical in his approach. Loads to unpack here.

[u/smtgcleverhere]

Shout out to Reuben! Mastered most of my recent stuff - he definitely elevates the mix and can add a lot of analog flavor if that’s your jam. Relatively reasonable too.

[u/yoshipug]

Really interesting. Alan Smart C1 is the MVP in the chain by far. It’s sonic signature is the most pronounced in the master. Especially since he places it in the end of the chain. EQ into Manley for saturation and some additional RMS and listen for the C1’s response. I place my Manley at the end with a Black Box for additional saturation. But I think I’ll try to adopt his approach and place SSL G compressor as the final insert. He mentions a high frequency limiter, I didn’t catch which one he’s using. Maybe a Maselec. I would only high frequency limit in the end. I can’t grasp the benefit of placing before C1. It would make more sense to place it last to use it more sparingly. But then again the C1 is adding some crest factor and punch so maybe it makes more sense to place it before to roll off the the high frequency brilliance of the Manley. Definitely learned something from the homie homie. Thanks.