Toronto-born, songwriter and producer Matt Genovese shares how his desire to build the skills necessary to better express himself as an artist eventually led him into the worlds of music production and mixing, and building his analog-only studio.
The path to a successful music career isn’t always a straight ‘A to B’ journey. In Matt’s case, he saw building up his skills as a necessity to making progress.
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TRANSCRIPT
“You can’t learn 10 or 20 years of recording experience overnight, but you can learn a lot about gear and engineering in six months or a year.
I originally started as an artist and I really started learning this side of it because I wanted to better express my ideas to producers. So I thought I should learn how to use logic or Pro Tools or Ableton.
I would over produce almost because the song just didn’t sound like I wanted to, the kick drum did wouldn’t hit hard enough, so I would add another kick drum and what was really happening was the mix wasn’t good. And I didn’t know how to mix.
So then I realised that and I was like ”I need to get better at mixing just so that I can make my own stuff sound better’. By the time I figured that out, I had gone down such a rabbit hole with my analog stuff, that for me to send somebody stems to mix my song that I did, it just never comes back the same way and I have such a fixed way of doing things that I just started mixing everything that I do.
Eventually, it just got to a point where I just didn’t need the producer or the mixing engineer, I could just do it myself. In my early 20s I moved away from being an artist and just became full time producer, mixer and songwriter.“
We’re taking a look back at Abbey Road Studios and Music Tech’s series Ask Abbey Road, and up next is recording engineer, John Barrett.
John’s recent discography includes being the score mixer for Jonny Greenwood’s Oscar-nominated Phantom Thread score, recording the score for Steven Price’s Our Planet, as well as Michael Bay’s action thriller Ambulance. John has also recorded sessions with artists including Metronomy, Shygirl, George Ezra, JP Cooper, Slaves and Krept & Konan.
In this instalment, John is asked about when you know a mix is finished, his favourite mics for recording vocals and the common problems when recording an artist.
Is there a point at which you can say “this mix is finished” and how do you decide when that is?
I don’t think I’ve ever really finished a mix. I’ve just run out of time! I’m saying that to make a point, but it’s one of those things where you can go down a rabbit hole. However, there’s usually a moment when it all falls into place and you feel happy with the mix.
The other great thing about in-the-box mixing is that you can come back to it at a later stage with a clearer head and revise things that you may have missed. With an old-school analogue mix, you rarely have the time to go back and recall it, so it means that you’re committed – which is a good thing – but it also means you don’t get that flexibility to come back at a later stage with fresh ears.
We know that fresh ears are among your best friends. You can be mixing away for hours and you walk out of the room for 20 minutes and get a coffee. Then, when you come back, you do the most productive hour of the mix, because you have a new perspective.
The other thing is that when you’re mixing on a console, you tend not to solo things as much as you do in the box. I don’t know why that would be, but that’s a real danger, to solo things. You can get your drums sounding great in solo, then you put the bass in and it competes.
Getting a static balance and trying to approach it more like an analogue mix is crucial. Maybe you could start by putting a channel strip plug-in on every single channel and setting up your DAW like a console. Then set up a few utility reverbs and delays rather than putting a reverb plug-in on each track. It’s all about approach.
I’ve been fortunate because I started off working in the box and then came to Abbey Road and got my hands on a desk and enjoyed doing that. Then I’ve gone back and it means that I can get those colours that I would do on an analogue desk, but in the box. You can hybridise your workflow and start thinking of it more as if it was a desk mix.
What is your favourite microphone for recording vocals?
Again, this is about being prepared. Generally – and this is going to make me sound like a total charlatan – but the one that’s plugged in and working is a good place to start. As much as I’d say: “I’d love to use mic X,” if it’s not set up, and somebody wants to record the vocal quickly, there’s mileage in not being too precious about saying it has to be a specific microphone. So that’s my mantra: the one that’s plugged in and working is generally a good place to start.
That sounds a bit flippant, though. We’re lucky at Abbey Road because we’ve got the best choice of mics in the world. And we have a full-time guy called Lester Smith who looks after all of our mics for us. We are in a very privileged position. I’ve been through the locker and I’ve played with many different mics, so it would be quite uncommon to have a vocal recording session here without having a U 47 or U 67 up. Having said that, sometimes an SM7 works well. Sometimes a Sennheiser MD 441works really well. Sometimes an SM58 is all you need.
It ultimately depends on the purpose. I’ve recorded excellent-sounding vocals on an SM7, but I’ve also recorded bad vocals on a U 47. It’s not as crucial as people think. If I were in a situation where I had to get one mic, I’d try and get a utility mic that would cover all bases. Even if you’re just recording vocals, you’d want something you could also record a tambourine, acoustic guitar or bass with, too.
I think there are so many great mics out there, for a very reasonable amount of money, the quality of the mic is not going to be a limiting factor like it would have been 20 years ago.
What is the most common problem that you come across when you record an artist?
Something that’s a real bugbear of mine is guitars. It always makes me feel slightly nervous when a guitarist starts changing strings just as you’re about to record. I’m a recovering guitarist. I was into guitar worship for years before I started playing around with faders and microphones. I always think you should bed your strings in before you come into a recording session. So, change the strings a couple of days before to give them a chance to settle in. Otherwise, you’ll have to sit there tuning up after every take.
More significant is dealing with peoples’ nerves. It can be a bit overwhelming sometimes coming here and recording at Abbey Road. You get two kinds of people: you get those who rise to the challenge and embrace it, and those people who get a bit overwhelmed.
It’s essential to create a comfortable environment that’s calm and relaxed. And, if things go wrong, it’s up to you to reassure people that it will all be okay – to take a breath, to take five minutes. The number of times when you’re recording a vocal, I genuinely believe that there’s a strange phenomenon that if you haven’t got a vocal within the first five or six takes, it’s going to be 30 takes.
Naturally, this isn’t set in stone, but there’s something psychologically where you either do a few takes or do loads of takes. There can be many takes in the middle that aren’t great because the performer is overthinking it, or getting stressed about it. Alternatively, sometimes there’s a certain magic that’s been lost. By the time you’ve got round to take 30, hopefully, some of that has come back again.
Or you could take a break. A favourite of mine, especially with singers, is to get them in to do a couple of warm-up takes and then go and get a cup of tea with them. Because by that point, they’ve settled into the headphones and the mic, and they’ve got their initial nervous energy out. They calm down, you go and have a chat with them by the coffee machine.
Then you go back and record the vocals and it seems to work. Sometimes, people want to carry on and you can see that it’s a stumbling block. That’s when it’s time to say: “Let’s just take five minutes and it will be okay.”
The psychology of it is the thing. Taking a break is sometimes the best course of action. Guiding people through that is one of the most common problems that you face. Navigating your way through something that might seem quite daunting at first, but ultimately, it’s meant to be fun.
Alina Smith delves into her experiences of working with the biggest labels in k-pop, including singer-songwriter, record producer and record executive J.Y Park.
Initially drawn to k-pop music due to the expression of musicianship that it allows, songwriter and founder of LYRE MUSIC GROUP Alina Smith has built her rep working with some of the biggest names in the genre, including Itzy, Red Velvet and SUNMI.
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TRANSCRIPT
“I don’t find it challenging to deal with labels because they’re really good at communicating.
I like K-pop, I think it’s really musically interesting. You can just kind of show off musically. Dealing with labels in Korea, it’s not that difficult. They’re very fair to writers I find in most aspects. They communicate very well, if they want any tweaks or changes.
Obviously, the higher level, more advanced source promotion project you’re working on, there’s going to be more label people involved. I’ve had the head of a record label, J.Y Park involved in a song that I worked on.
They can be quite intense with changes and requests and I see it as a positive thing. If I see a bunch of change requests, I’m like ‘Oh, they want this and they like really want to try to make it work’.
As writers, we just have to match that energy and it works. It’s not it’s not that hard. You just have to have a good attitude about it.
Grammy-Award-Winning mixer Jesse Ray Ernster (Burna Boy, Doja Cat, UMI) tells the story of how utilising remote collaboration technology allowed him to honour his commitments to his family and his clients simultaneously.
Striking the right balance between work life and family life is a challenge many people working in the music industry face.
When tight deadlines and childcare responsibilities came to a head, Jesse turned to remote collaboration software to tap into his studio set up from home.
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TRANSCRIPT
“This album could not have happened the way that it did without Audiomovers, it just wouldn’t have worked. We had a couple of rush delivery albums come in. One was the Burna Boy album, but a few days before that, this ‘Forest In The City’ album from UMI, we had 10 songs to mix for that.
We don’t have childcare and I was watching my kids. I love that, I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. But my studio is also very dangerous. It’s not the best place for me to be locked in on the screen, while a toddler and a baby are running around getting into things and strangling on my cables.
So the quick solution was instead of bringing in the computer, the chassis for the UAD, hard drives, the server rig, monitors and amps, i just brought my laptop. It’s 10 years old, it works. It can connect to the computer with remote desktop. We used Audiomovers to stream the audio to it. So the studio stayed outside, I brought the laptop in, hung out with my kids and made some mix moves.
We did it together, headed in the kitchen, we’re cooking, we’re playing catch and reading books and just the process of going back and forth with the client that way. It really empowered me to be there and not sacrifice the family life while fulfilling this job for the artists and the team.“
Our Head of Product and Audiomovers co-founder Igor Maxymenko joined renowned mix engineer Dave Pensado (Beyoncé, Usher, Mariah Carey, Elton John, Michael Jackson) and show creator Herb Trawickon the legendary podcast and YouTube series, Pensado’s Place.
Discussing all things Audiomovers, the trio delved into the inception of the LISTENTO plugin and how we strive to maintain Audiomovers’ core value of simplicity on future product updates.
For over 10 years, Pensado’s Place has revealed the secrets behind some of the most successful records, providing in-depth tutorials in production and featuring the engineers and mixers that dominate the industry, including our collaborators Jesse Ray Ernster and Bainz.
Watch the full video below:
We’re taking a look back at Abbey Road Studios and Music Tech’s series Ask Abbey Road, where the esteemed in-house engineers at the studios answered a variety of recording mixing and production-related questions.
In the first instalment, we call on the knowledge and expertise of engineer Chris Bolster. Chris joined the team in 1998 and has since engineered for countless artists (The 1975, Architects, Foo Fighters and Kate Bush) as well as recording the scores for huge soundtracks including 12 Years a Slave and Punch Drunk Love.
Take a look below at Chris’ essential recording tips and techniques.
What is your ‘essential’ mixing hardware rack?
How big can my rack be? There’s just so much to choose from, and I would definitely change a few items depending on projects, but most-used are as follows: compression:Urei 1176, Teletronix LA-2A, LA-4A, Fairchild 660, Smart Research C1 or C2, ADL 1000, EMI TG12413, dbx 160X. EQ: Neve, SSL, Pultec, Helios, API, Prism. Effects: EMT plate, Lexicon 224 and 480 or Bricasti M7, AMS RMX-16 and DMX, Eventide H3000, a good tape delay and spring reverb unit and definitely some guitar stomp pedals. See, that’s more than a rack already!
What’s the most important piece of gear a bedroom/home-studio producer could invest in?
That’s such a difficult question. There are just so many different elements needed to compete with a pro studio. This is why studios are there, so you don’t have to be purchasing, updating or maintaining gear continually to compete. Someone’s done all the hard work for you.
But, yes. A good mic, a good preamp, compressor, EQ, effects are all useful tools, not to mention the computer, converters, software and monitoring system! It’s all about budget and requirements for what you are looking to record.
Also, there’s the problem of needing different tools for different jobs. So a few multipurpose items are going to be your best bet. Or, before you know it, your bedroom/home studio will be a fully loaded professional studio with all the bells and whistles.
Could you give us some kick drum tips?
The best tip is simply to get a great-sounding bass drum. Shells, sizes, tuning, skins and any damping are the keys to a great drum sound. And don’t forget a good or sympathetic-sounding space to record it within.
Hopefully, you have an idea of a basic sound or vibe that you’re looking for. Also, you have possibly heard recordings made within the space that sound good; perhaps you’ve listened to an instrument played in the space, giving you an idea of tonality, reflections and decay time. This is based on size, shape, building materials, and so on. A microphone and processing are only there to capture and excite the sound and not the key to achieving a desired tonal outcome. But, placed correctly, ie, put where tonally the microphone and its personal character sounds best, you will be off to a great start.
I have tried loads of ideas over the years; AKG C547 BL, Neumann U 47 FET, Beyerdynamic M 88, Neumann U 67, Neumann TLM 170, DPA 4006, AKG D30, STC/Coles 4038, Audix D6, Electro-Voice RE20, Sennheiser MD421 and loads of variations of the NS-10 speaker idea [This is a classic studio trick where a Yamaha NS-10 driver is wired as a microphone and placed in front of the kick. The signal is usually blended with another mic to enhance the low-frequency thump of the drum – Ed]. Mic choice is always dependent upon the sound of the instrument and any additional production notes.
I suggest always using a good amount of processing to sharpen or soften transients with compressors. Boost missing frequencies and cut exacerbated frequencies. Also, just try a few crazy ideas every now and then. For me, this sometimes involves using ribbon mics – just having them close enough to overexcite the ribbon, but not blowing them up. Or over-use of hard compression to achieve low-level saturation or distortion.
But mostly, I’m excited about achieving monster sounds through the selection of drums, skins, dampening and tunings. Mostly, I go through a Neve or SSL preamp or channel with a Neve or SSL/Smart compressor, 1176, 660, or dbx-160. For EQ, I use Neve or SSL again, or an API or Pultec.
My choice of compressor is mostly based on what’s available and/or best for achieving the type of compression desired. Mostly, I would use something with adjustable attack, release and ratio. The thing to remember is that you constantly need to be improving the overall sound, not adding something that degrades the transients or tonality. Just listen, try lots of different things and then recall these ideas in different scenarios.
Head to the link here to read all three parts of the Q&A with Chris.
We are thrilled to be joining an impressive line-up of brands to support the audio programming community at the Audio Developer Conference (ADC), taking place online and in-person between 14-16 November in London.
Now in its eighth year, ADC gives audio software engineers a unique opportunity to focus on recent developments, frameworks and audio applications.
Audio innovation is at the very heart of our business, and we are proud to sponsor the event bringing talent together, as well as support the ADC Celebrating Women in Audio initiative.
Come and find us to chat all things tech, streaming and job opportunities with the Audiomovers team (#WeAreHiring).
In time for Halloween, we teamed up !llmind for the finale of #HorrorStories, as he reveals the moment he learnt to make failure his friend.
Having his beats met with indifference by his hero in their first session together, the two-time Grammy award-winner shares how a situation he initially perceived as his greatest failure, became the driving force for the culmination of his success.
Full transcript:
“I was like ‘Fuck, he doesn’t like any of this shit, like, Dre hates my beats’.
Back in 2013, I got a text from a friend of mine. His name’s Tyhiem. And he was like ‘I’m actually up the block from you. I’m with Dr. Dre.’ I did double take on my phone. I was like ‘Dre? Like Dr. Dre? Okay, cool!’
Tyhiem and Dre walk to the studio and he’s like ‘Yo, plug in. Let’s hear some stuff’. I’m playing beats for like 10 minutes and I glance back and I see Dre sitting down on his phone, with his head down, like not moving at all, just bored.
I stopped the music. I turned around and Dre was like ‘Yo ill, your stuff was cool. But it wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before’. I felt like I really failed in that moment.So I went back to the studio and it gave me that extra fuel to go a step further with my music.
A year later, I got a call back from Ty and he was like ‘Yo, we’re in the studio with Dre, he wants you to come over.’ I was like ‘oh shit, perfect’. So I ended up being in the studio with Dre and we ended up recording like three songs.
So it worked out in the end, but it was a super big learning lesson for me and I’ll never forget that.”
Picture this. You’ve produced a track packed with potential to realise you’ve later deleted the entire project. Many may abandon it, however Alina Smith from the production duo, LYRE MUSIC GROUP, proves just why you shouldn’t in her edition of #HorrorStories.
After losing the session files for one of her tracks, she reveals how remaining positive and deciding to rebuild the song from scratch allowed her to achieve a better end result than she initially expected.
Full Transcript
“About a year ago, I wrote this song for a YouTube collaboration. So it was part of a video. And I accidentally deleted the session.
Inever ever do that I have everything backed up like 17 times, but I think it was in the folder with the video files. And I usually, you know, delete old videos that already were posted.
Months later, I looked for it and was like ‘oh, yeah, this was really good. I should like finish this for real as a real song and pitch it to Kpop’ And then I was looking for a session and it was gone. It was not anywhere.
But I asked a collaborator of mine to rebuild the track around the mp3 that I had. And he did such a spectacular job. It ended up being so much better than the original version. You know, something very positive came out of me losing these files and being really upset about it.“
Legendary producer, songwriter, and educator !llmind, tells the story of sending beats to Kanye and the moment he learned one had made the grade.
“It was one of those moments where preparation and opportunity meet”. At the time making five to ten beats a day, !llmind has a tireless work ethic. So, when the call from rapper Rhymefest that he was with Kanye and needed beats came through, !llmind was ready, sending dozens of beats for the session.
Full transcript:
“I think that was one of those moments where preparation and opportunity met.
In 2010, I created an album, and one of the rap features on that album was a rapper named Rhymefest. And then around 2011, he hit me up and he was like ‘Yo !llmind, do you have any beats? I’m with Kanye.’ And I was like ‘Absolutely!’.
Thankfully, I was prepared due to the fact that I’d just been making beats every day, you know, like five to 10 beats every single day, like non-stop, no sleep.
So I sent him like 30 or 40 beats, and then one of them ended up getting in the studio. Then he recorded it and you know, he texted me like ‘Yo, Raekwon just jumped on the song.’ And then he was like ‘Yo, Pusha T’s on the song. I was like ‘oh shit, this is actually happening’.
Diving into it too, I think what helped me in that moment was not overthinking. The beat that Kanye chose, I did not expect at all. Those melody and synth lines, I never knew were ‘Kanye sounding’.
From there, it was kind of like ‘okay, I’m headed to like the next phase of my career’.
