INSIDE TRACK

PAUL TINGEN

m 25, I have been doing this for

only seven years, and Im still
learning. I just feel blessed to
be here. But the response to Kendricks
album has been crazy, and that people
also notice the sound of the album, and
therefore my work, is just amazing!
Speaking from his Los Angeles home,
Derek Ali still sounds a bit overcome
by the success of Kendrick Lamars
third album, To Pimp A Butterfly, which
topped the UK and US charts and has
enjoyed almost unanimous critical
praise. A sprawling, intense piece of
work, with 16 tracks clocking in at
nearly 80 minutes, it is full of original,
played and programmed music as well
as samples, with the most important
influences being jazz and the funk and

94

Secrets Of The Mix Engineers:

Derek Ali
Kendrick Lamars To Pimp A Butterfly is one of the
most ambitious hip-hop albums of recent years.
Derek Ali was Lamars right-hand man during
its making.
soul music of the 70s. Many of the tracks
are stream-of-consciousness collages,
which unexpectedly change musical
styles, moods or tempi. The album
took more than three years to make,
involving multiple studios in LA, New
York, Washington and St Louis, as well as
Lamars tour bus.
Keeping everything together were
relative rookie Derek MixedbyAli Ali

June 2015 / w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m

and Lamar himself. The two have been

working together for Alis entire studio
career: he also engineered and mixed
Lamars first album Section.80 (2011) as
well as Lamars commercial breakthrough
and major-label debut Good Kid, M.A.A.D
City (2012). Alis rise to the very top of the
American engineering and mixing world
in the amazingly short time span of seven
years is, by any standard, a remarkable

the professionals did it. I did a lot of

research. I tried to learn everything I could
about recording, mixing and mastering
techniques. Being self-taught is a great
teacher. I often sat for 12-18 hours a day
to hone my skills.

Becoming Top Dawg

These Walls
Written by Kendrick Duckworth,
Terrace Martin, Larrance Dopson,
James Fauntleroy & R McKinney
Produced by Terrace Martin,
Larrance Dopson & Sounwave

achievement, especially as he grew

up in extreme poverty, in the Gardena
neighbourhood of LA.
I never had the patience to actually
learn to play an instrument or make
a beat, or something like that, recalls Ali.
But I was a curious kid, and back in my
neighbourhood there were these Nextel
cell phones for which people wanted
custom ringtones. Growing up there was
very, very hard, but I managed to buy
an Audio-Technica 2025 microphone
for 100 bucks and an M-Audio Solo
interface and I used them to record into
Fruity Loops and Cool Edit Pro in which
I created personal ringtones for people.
The fact that I could record somebodys
vocal and could manipulate it in all sorts
of ways really intrigued me, so I started
to explore engineering. The more I got
into it, the more I wanted to know how

To Pimp A Butterfly sounds like it had

a dyed-in-the-wool engineer and mixer
at the controls, not someone who very
modestly claims that hes still learning
his craft. Whats more, despite his
home-schooled audio background, Ali
prefers to mix in the analogue domain
rather than in the box.
I didnt really have one big break, it
all came through my work with Kendrick,
explains Ali. Weve been working
together for over seven years, and as his
career built, people wanted to know who
was doing all these effects on his vocals.
So I was gaining peoples interest through
their ears. When Kendrick signed with
Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), we had
our own makeshift studio at the house of
the companys CEO, which was just Pro
Tools with an Mbox, a PreSonus mic pre,
and a cheap little mic. I became TDEs
in-house engineer and we recorded at
least 12 albums for TDE at this studio!
Kendrick and I later started working
at Dr Dres studio. He is one of the
greatest, and he was super hands-on with
Kendricks M.A.A.D album.
But Kendrick has his own sound,
so when it was time to mix that album,
Kendrick said that he wanted me to mix
it. Dre appreciated that, because he liked
a young guy who wanted to learn the
art of engineering and mixing, instead
of wanting to become a producer or
a rapper. So he took me under his wing,
and showed me a lot of techniques that

you cant learn in books and that he

developed over the years, and that I then
made my own. I went from Pro Tools LE
with an Mbox to an SSL 4000 overnight,
and just watching Dre work and how he
got the drums and kick to smack and
so on was an inspiration. Since then Ive
always used a board when recording
and mixing.
People look at me as if I am crazy,
wondering whether desk does not take
longer and eats up the budget! But I dont
care what anybody says: you cant get that
analogue sound in the box, period. You
simply cannot recreate that sound with
plug-ins. Second, working on the desk
and with outboard gives you a hands-on
feeling with the music. Kendricks songs
have a lot of movement and changes
in them, and when I am working with
faders I feel like I am touching the music
and am part of it. I dont like looking at
a screen for hours. It makes me feel like
I am not free. I want to feel free when
I am working. I want to be like an artist in
a booth who can move his hands and feel
free and express himself. I dont want to
feel like I am editing a movie.
It may cost more to use a desk and
outboard, but you cant cheapskate
good work. In my experience, when you
are sitting in front of a computer, youre
missing out on something. Honestly,
when you are looking at a screen, you
are looking at numbers. Whereas when
you are on a board in analogue, you are
working with your ears. In digital you can
turn things up or down a specific amount
of decibels, or tune this or that frequency.
But how useful is that? It is a bit like going
to a school for engineering. You can learn
many valuable things there, but the one
thing that you cannot be taught is how
to hear something. Nobody else can

The Value Of Mono

One of the more unusual aspects of Derek
Alis approach to mixing is that he spends,
he says, about 80 percent of my time mixing
listening to just one Auratone speaker, so yes,
in mono! Dre always told me that if I could
get something to sound amazing on crappy
speakers, itll sound brilliant on normal
speakers. So I try to get a great mix on the
Auratone, and Ill then go to the NS10s,
and when Im in Tom-Tom, to their main
Augspurgers, with Bryston 4B amps. I make
sure everything is clear and crisp and Ill do
any edits on the NS10s, and then I play it
super-loud on the mains. I mix on just one
Auratone, because I like specific elements of

the mix to pop out, and listening in mono on

that speaker really helps me define that. When
I do my pans I often use the S1 Imager to get
things to sound even wider, with things going
round in a circular motion, and happening
behind your head. But its difficult to assess
your balance like that, whereas when you listen
in mono, you can gauge the true value of how
everything sits in the mix. I then reference
things in stereo again, but most of the time
Im in mono. Ive been doing this for the last
couple of years, and I know when tracks are
phasing in stereo and what to listen for in
terms of balance. Its something that I have
developed that works for me.

w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m / June 2015

95

INSIDE TRACK
DEREK ALI KENDRICK LAMAR

Most of To Pimp A Butterfly was recorded and mixed at Dr Dres No Excuses Studio.

teach you your own taste and tell you

what number is right. It is just a number.
Instead you have to train your ear, you
have to learn to notice the different
frequencies and sounds, and then let
your own taste decide.

Tom-Tom Club
Kendrick Lamar is, by all accounts,
a workaholic, who loves nothing more
than spending time in the studio writing
and recording. And so work on To Pimp
A Butterfly began at the end of 2012,
immediately after the release of and
promotional tour for M.A.A.D City.
Lamar and Ali spent most of their time at
No Excuses in LA, with the other studios
mentioned in the credits for the album
used only very briefly.
Sometimes Kendrick would do
a show somewhere, and after the show
he still wants to work, so we go to
a local studio, recalls Ali. Hes also
had a studio in his tour bus ever since
we were on tour for the first album. If
he didnt have that, hed be recording
in GarageBand! So we made it easier
for him, and set up this studio in the
bus, with a simple setup, consisting of
a Pro Tools HD rack, two mics, the Sony
C800G and a Telefunken U47 and an
Avalon mic pre. Nothing crazy, just stuff
that allows us to get down ideas. But our
main headquarters for the making of the
album was Tom-Tom (the nickname for
No Excuses Studio), which is owned by
Interscope. It has Dres former SSL 4000
G+, the last G-series ever built, in 1991.

96

He mixed his album The Chronic (1992)

on it and Eminems The Slim Shady LP
(1999), and lots of other famous albums,
so its a real classic board in rap history.
Far more live musicians and fewer
samples were used than is normal on
a hip-hop album. The main guys who
were there for the entire making of
the album were Kendrick, myself and
producers Terrace Martin, Rahki, Tae
Beast and Sounwave [the latter two are
members of the Digi+Phonics production
collective, the main in-house producers
for TDE]. That was the core personnel,
and we were involved from day one
until the day we finished the last mix.
We consider each other brothers, and
Kendrick does not look at this as purely
his album. When we were in the studio
he talked about it as our album. He
brought everybody in and we voted
on how things should sound and work.
When we played what we were doing to
people, many were just dumbfounded
and said that theyd never heard
anything like this before. For this reason
the other producers had to be around
and feel the energy and connect with
Kendricks vision.
The other producers came in when
Kendrick had ideas for working with
them, guys like Pharrell, Thundercat and
Flying Lotus. Boi-1da is based in Toronto
and he was one of the only ones who
didnt come over to the studio. The
general working method in hip-hop of
the producer sending over some beats
didnt work for this album. There were

June 2015 / w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m

INSIDE TRACK
DEREK ALI KENDRICK LAMAR

just a couple of songs on the album that

came out of people sending us beats. Like
Kendrick found this beat by Knxwledge
in his e-mail, and we were like, Whats
this? It just matched the aesthetic of
the album so well, and we used it for the
track Momma. But A&R guys sometimes
brought in producers or tracks and wed
just be sitting there looking at each other
and going, This has nothing to do with
what were doing at the moment.

Writing In The Head

Although Dr Dre is credited as the
executive producer of To Pimp A Butterfly,
Ali stresses that it was Lamars vision

98

that unified all the albums disparate

ingredients and contributors. Its almost
crazy watching him, because he knows
exactly what he wants. Big names mean
nothing to him. He may listen to the way
someone sings or plays, and if he likes it,
hell incorporate that into his project, but
in a way that fits his vision. He looks at
peoples vocals as instruments. Kendrick
knew what he wanted to talk about with
regards to the lyrics, and from there it was
a matter of piecing the music together,
and making that fit with the vocals. He
writes in his head, and hell hear a beat,
or a bass line, or an instrumental or
vocal melody, and hell build a track

June 2015 / w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m

from there. Like Thundercat may be

playing an amazing bass line in the studio
lounge, and Kendrick might be having
a conversation with someone else, but
a moment later hell write something to
fit that bass line, and five minutes later
hell say, Lets record that. With the track
i he was literally trying to play a guitar
to demonstrate what he wanted. He
writes all the words, of course, but is also
100 percent involved in the writing of
the music.
We recorded 60 to 80 tracks for
this album over the three years, and
This composite screen capture shows the full Pro
Tools session for the mix of These Walls.

INSIDE TRACK
DEREK ALI KENDRICK LAMAR

Kendrick tried many different concepts

and approaches. The final direction began
to emerge in the last year and a half or
so, with most of the tracks written and
played from the ground up. There were
many live instruments used, and thats
why we had our core team, with guys
programming drums, and playing bass,
guitars and keyboards, so we could
arrange the music in the studio, live.
Most songs would start with drums and
bass, over which Kendrick would record
a rough vocal. After that wed stack the
rest of the musical instruments on top,
usually layer by layer. He tends to mumble
melodies or harmonies for his roughs
on top of the drums and bass, and after
we recorded all the music, hed write
the actual lyrics and then hed record his
vocals again. It was kind of a backwards
way of working, but it was cool.
In addition to programmed drums

100

and electronics, the album also features

acoustic instruments like violin, trumpet,
guitar, double bass, saxophones, clarinet,
organ, piano, as well as extensive backing
vocals. Each song had its own sound
world and its own process, explains
Ali. The opening track, Wesleys
Theory, initially did not have the Boris
Gardiner sample, but was produced by
Flying Lotus, with Sounwave doing the
instruments. King Kunta is bass-heavy
and influenced by the West Coast hip-hop
from DJ Quik, who was big in the gangsta
movement of the 90s, and who had loads
of jazz and funk influences in his music.
Kendrick really wanted his sound for this
song, and he had started with doing
a vocal to a beat by DJ Quik. Sounwave
then later created a new beat to match
Kendricks vocals.
For Free? was produced by Terrace
Martin, who is a jazz player himself, and

June 2015 / w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m

who arranged the song for a live jazz

band. The energy of that session was
amazing. I had never seen anything like
that ever in my life. It got me into jazz,
honestly. Just tuning my ears for his album
Ive been listening to a lot of jazz albums,
and I kind of fell in love with it. In fact, this
album opened my ears to many different
genres of music. I come from a place
where there was no jazz; I was raised on
gangsta rap.

All About Feeling

As the main engineer on To Pimp
A Butterfly, Ali was responsible for
keeping track of everything and organising
the material, with the assistance of James
Hunt and Matt Schaeffer. According to Ali,
he and Lamar work in a very collaborative
way, with the artist relying on Ali to supply
him with sonic ideas that he then uses
for inspiration.

It Aint Over Til Its Over

Derek Ali brings to the mix process the same
almost obsessive focus that helped him develop
from teenage novice to world-class engineer
in the span of just a few years. The amount
of detail that is in this album, nobody would
understand unless you have the sessions in
front of you. The reason the initial mixes can
take me two days, or a week in the case of
Wesleys Theory, is that I get very passionate,
maybe a bit over the top!
Every mixer works on individual sounds,
of course, but for me every sound needs to be
perfectly in the pocket. Like the drums really
need to hit and punch in a certain way, and if
I have problems getting that, I wont move on
until I nail it. I start my mixes by working on
the drums, and Ill work on them until they
snap and punch the way I want. Ill then fit in
the bass, and then the vocals, and after that Ill
bring in the musical instruments one by one.
At every stage Ill work on an element until

In the quest to realise Kendrick Lamars artistic

vision, Derek Ali employs a lot of crazy plug-in
effects during vocal recording, some of which
later get replaced by hardware. This screen shows
some of the plug-ins used on These Walls.

With Kendrick its all about feeling.

If it doesnt feel good, its not going to
work for him. And what a lot of people
dont realise is that you can alter peoples
emotions with certain frequencies and
sonic textures. The fact that I can add
delays and reverbs and other crazy
effects to music or vocals and give them
extra emotion is amazing to me. Thats
what I do this for. Kendrick understands
this, and he may be midway through
recording a verse, and hell then ask me
to try something, like Can you add some
flanging, or some panning, or something
else crazy?
Weve been working like that for
years and it got my ears tuned to all kinds

of different effects. When its during

recording, I tend to do these effects in
the box. It might take me a few minutes
to set up, but its fun. In some ways the
engineer-artist relationship is like driving
a car, going on a road trip. The artist
knows where he wants to go, but it is up
to the engineer to take him there.
The whole recording process
was like filling in a check-sheet, and
Kendrick always knew what he still had
to finish or go back to. Towards the
end of the project it became more of
a mix-as-you-go situation, because of
deadlines, but in general, once all the
parts were recorded, and the song was
structured and edited and sequenced,
it was time to mix. Kendrick and I would
have already discussed the direction for
each song during the recordings, so for
me also its just a matter of waiting until
all the sounds are in, piecing and editing
everything together in Pro Tools, and then
Id wait a day, to give my ears a break,
and then it was time to do the final mix.
We did all the mixes at Tom-Tom.
The process was that after my day off Id
lay the mix out over the SSL, and then
Id spend one or two days on the mix.
Kendrick and the other guys would be
present with me in the room while I was
mixing, non-stop. I am blessed to work
with them, because they give me freedom
to do all this crazy stuff, because they
know what I am capable of. Theyre not
leaning over my back telling me what
to do. After the initial one or two days
mixing, Id spend a day living with the

I feel it is right. People often tell me, What are

you doing still working on this mix? It sounded
great yesterday! But theres something inside
me that tells me that the mix is not ready yet.
I like to take my time, especially with
Kendricks stuff, because I am so partial to
these records. I dont feel I can rush through
them. I may work on one instrument for
hours. I literally spent three 18-hour days
just mixing the drums for Wesleys Theory!
The guys often tell me that I am crazy, that
I got it 10 hours ago, but theres something
I am hearing that they are not hearing, and
I have to get it right. I do bounces every
two hours of where I am at, just in case I get
lost. I did 13 of these bounces of Wesleys
Theory after the mix was already approved.
When I played Kendrick these bounces in
sequence, he could hear the progress from the
moment he had already OKed the mix, to the
finished product.

mix, listening to it on all sorts of different

speakers and in different situations.
Ill listen in my car, on my little home
boombox speaker, in all sorts of places
where people will be hearing them.
Kendrick and I might also be listening to
it in my home studio, where I have a Pro
Tools rig, and Yamaha NS10s, Neumann
and Auratone monitors. Well discuss what
elements we want to bring out more. But
really, most of the mix is done after those
first one or two days. After that its just
a matter of adding a little bit of sugar and
spice. Id come back in the studio the next
day, and incorporate any final feedback
from the guys, and Id then print the mix,
back to Pro Tools via a Lavry Gold A-D
converter, and to half-inch analogue tape,
using an Ampex ATR102 machine.

Breaking Down The Walls

Ali elaborates on his mix approach by
detailing his mix of fan favourite These
Walls, which features rappers/producers
Bilal and Thundercat and singer Anna
Wise. Starting and ending with spoken
word, the song is otherwise one of
the most melodic tracks on the album,
essentially a medium-tempo soul ballad,
played by a band with live bass, guitars,
keyboards, saxophone and trumpet, and
produced by Terrace Martin, Sounwave
and Larance Dopson of the ensemble
1500 or Nothin.
The Pro Tools session is fairly
straightforward, consisting of about 90
tracks. At the top, in green, are tracks
originally programmed and played in

w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m / June 2015

101

INSIDE TRACK
DEREK ALI KENDRICK LAMAR

Ableton Live, including drums, bass

and keyboards, plus some effect tracks,
followed by guitars and trumpet; then, in
light blue, are visible a number of Alis aux
effect tracks, followed by two lead vocal
tracks, horn tracks and more effect tracks
in browny-green, and the guest vocal
tracks mostly in darker blue. It is notable
that there are hardly any plug-ins on the
drums, a fair amount on the other music
instruments, and a lot on the guest vocals.
t
Instrument tracks: SSL desk EQ,
API 550, Neve 2254, SPL Transient
Designer, Pultec EQP-1A, Waves
Doubler & S1 Imager.
Ali explains: This is actually one of my
cleanest mixes. I didnt do anything crazy
on the drums, just SSL desk EQ, plus
the API 550 EQ on the snare, and Neve
compressor as parallel compression on
the drums as a whole. I also used the SPL
Transient Designer on the drums. A lot of
Kendricks music is really bass-heavy, and
the API and the SPL allow me to get the
drums to sit next to the bass and vocals
in way that gets them to smack and be in
your face without overpowering the other
elements. Ill take out some mid-range

with the API, around 1kHz or so, and Ill

add high end, to get that high presence,
and Ill then take out high end on the SSL
again, so its not piercing your ears. I do
that a lot on snares in general. The API
gives me a really nice top end for that
smack, and the SPL gives me that thump.
I used that chain on a lot of the drum
tracks on the album. I like my drums to
be clear and to hit hard and be present in
the mix but not overpowering. I try to get
every mix to sound both dirty and clean, if
that makes sense.
The Neve livens the drums up with
some added body and mid-range. I also
use it on the vocal, the brass and the
guitars. In this song I had a Pultec EQ on
the bass. The plug-ins on the synths and
keyboards are mostly there to trim things,
taking out unwanted frequencies and stuff
like that. I dont like to boost frequencies
with the Waves plug-ins, because to me it
sounds like they are thinning the sound.
Ill add frequencies on the board and will
shape things there until they fit. Below
the instruments are a number of aux
tracks which I use in the third verse, where
I added a lot of crazy stuff. The [Waves]
Doubler acts on Thundercats bass, so

Miking Up
Derek Alis engineering skills were tested by
the amount of live recording that took place in
the making of To Pimp A Butterfly. I mostly
use our Stephen Paul-modified Telefunken
U47 to record Kendrick, going through a
Neve 1073 mic pre and then a Tube-Tech
CL1B compressor, which gives a great, fat,
warm vocal sound, especially in conjunction
with the U47. Sometimes Ill run his vocals
through a Pultec EQP-1A3. On Alright I
used a U67 instead of a U47 on his voice and
on For Free? two Electro-Voice mics, the
RE20 and the 666. We stacked the two EV
mics on top of each other, and this gave a
warm, almost distorted sound. I use plug-ins
on his vocals during recording, because its
easier and quicker, and they tend to be the
Waves Renaissance Compressor, Metaflanger,
De-Esser, SSL Channel, S1 Imager and the
[Avid] Air Chorus.
The jazz band was also recorded at No
Excuses. On the drums I had an RCA 77 for
the overheads left, and a Neumann U48 for
the overheads right, an RCA 44 in front of
the kit, and an AKG C24 as room mic, with
one side pointed at the drums and one at the
sax. The close mic on the sax was a Neumann
M49, and I had a Neumann U48 on the
upright bass, and on the piano AKG 414EBs
with C12 capsules. That was it. All mics went
straight into the SSL board, and I had mono
compression on everything.
The sax, trumpets and trombones on

102

the rest of the album were recorded with a

combination of RCA 44, RCA 77 and Royer
121 ribbon mics. We re-recorded the music
of That Lady, the Isley Brothers song that
was used for i [the albums lead single], and for
that I had an AKG D112 on the inside of the
kick and a Neumann 47FET on the outside,
Shure SM57s on the snare top and bottom,
Sennheiser 421s on the toms, Neumann
KM84 on the ride, Shure SM81 on the hi-hat,
Neumann 87s for overheads, and AKG C24
and [Telefunken ELAM] 251 as room mics
and the Neumann TLM170 as room floor
mic. The guitar cabinet had an SM57 and
Royer 121 in front of it, and the keys and bass
were DI.
Like every engineer, Ali does rough mixes
during recording, but he only used plug-ins
at this point. Because his final mixes were
done on the board using significant amounts
of outboard, the final mix was a very separate
stage. In some respects my mixes are like
reverse engineering, with me taking out
plug-ins, and replacing them with desk EQ
and compression and outboard. In some cases
I replaced the Metaflanger and the S1 with
the Eventide H3500, for my pitch-shift and
chorus effects. Other effects I often used
during the mix were the Neve 2254, for drum
parallel compression, Dbx 160x and LA3A
compressors, the Dbx 902, if I wanted to
replace the Waves De-Esser, and the Lexicon
480L for reverb.

June 2015 / w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m

Kendrick Lamar.

it starts to sound like its underwater,

giving a real funky effect. I also had
the S1 Imager on the bass, to give it
more presence.
t
Vocals: Waves Renaissance
Compressor, SSL Channel & S1
Imager, EMT 250, Empirical Labs
Distressor, Fairchild 670, SSL desk EQ &
compression, AMS RMX16.
There are quite a few plug-ins on
Kendricks vocal. He has a real raspy,
mid-range vocal, so I use the Renaissance
Compressor to smooth that out. I have
it in manual and opto modes, with the
threshold all the way down to -18, so if
anything in the mid-range leaps out too
much, it keeps that in check. I use the
SSL Channel strip on his vocals, just for
high- or low-pass filtering, because most
of my vocal EQ is done on the board.
I also like to use the S1 Imager, again
because of his voice being so raspy and
mid-rangey, and the Imager opens it up.
A perfect analogy is to think of a blanket
on a bed which is tied in a knot, and then
you open it up and spread the blanket
over the bed. The Imager opens up his
vocals and allows it sit on top of the track
in a similar way. For outboard I used
the EMT 250 reverb. The first time the
studio took that out, I was like: Whats
that? A refrigerator? I also like to use the
Distressor on his lead, because it adds
some grit and presence at the top. So the
RCompressor and S1 smooth and widen
out his vocal sound, and the Distressor
opens up the top end, making it crisp and

allowing his vocals to cut through.

The aux reverb tracks are mostly used
for the vocals in that final section. You
can hear I have vocals automated to pan
left and right, and the S1 Imager makes
them sound almost 3D, with stuff going
on behind you. The reason I did that is
because the song gives you a really happy
feeling in the first two verses, its like
a wedding party, even if when you listen
carefully, youll hear Kendrick is singing
about, excuse my language, pussy. But in
the last verse hes talking about people
in jail, and so I added loads of effects
to give you that feeling. As an engineer
you manipulate sound to get certain
emotions. For that reason I dont want
people to listen to my mixes. I want them
to experience my mixes!
Annas vocals were mainly treated in
the box, with minimal stuff done on the
board, just some shaping with the board
EQ. The same with Bilals voice. I did send
both their voices through an outboard
Fairchild 670, for parallel compression.
I didnt do much to Thundercats voice
either, it was mainly a question of trying

to get it to sound airy, and for that I used

a combination of SSL board EQ and reverb
from the AMS RMX16. I might have initially
done that with an in-the-box reverb, which
I removed during the final mix.
t
Stereo mix: SSL bus compressor,
GML 8200.
As I mentioned before, we mixed back
into Pro Tools, via a Lavry Gold A-D
converter, and to half-inch tape. Whether
I treated the two-mix depended on
how loud my mix was. If it is super-loud
already, I probably wont do anything,
but the majority of the time I use the
SSL stereo bus compressor, and I also
will often use a GML EQ, just to tune it
a little bit. The album was mastered from
the tape reels. Kendrick had been saying
from the beginning of the project that he
wanted a vintage 70s sound, and doing
my research I figured that mixing to tape
was the best way to achieve that. We tried
it, and we noticed how much warmer my
mixes came out when they were printed
to tape. Kendrick and I loved it. So in the
end what we did was a hybrid of new and

old approaches. You use the things from

the past, and then you modernise them as
best as you can.
We really want for people to listen to
this album from top to bottom, without
skipping songs. This meant that the entire
flow of the album had to be cohesive,
and build in a certain way. So after we
finished all the mixes we sequenced the
album in a new Pro Tools session using
the Lavry mix prints, and created a kind
of blueprint of the album, adding effects
and skits and bits and pieces to get the
songs to flow into each other. We then
replaced the Lavry mix prints in this Pro
Tools session with digitised versions
of the mixes that were mastered off
the half-inch tape, and did some more
fine-tuning. We had a lot of help with the
entire mastering and sequencing process
from our mastering engineer Mike Bozzi,
at Bernie Grundman Mastering. So the
album is one long piece of work from top
to bottom. Listening to the entire album
became a whole experience that makes
you think about things and the emotions
that are there.

w w w . s o u n d o n s o u n d . c o m / June 2015

103

Mix with the best!

Besides the excellent interviews and fascinating,
in-depth recording and mixing articles, Ican
always depend on Sound On Sound for
complete, unbiased reviews of the latest
pro-audio gear.

As aprofessional Iadmire Sound On Sound

as one of the most trusted and credible
sources of inspiration and information.

Bob Clearmountain, engineer, producer and

mixer, Grammy Award winner (Bruce Springsteen,
The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, INXS)

Jack Joseph Puig, mixer, producer, Grammy

Award winner (Rolling Stones, U2, Mary J
Blige, Black Eyed Peas)

The Worlds Best Recording Technology Magazine

This article was originally published

in Sound On Sound magazine,

June 2015 edition

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