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Eric Prydz Mixing and Mastering (pg. 4)
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| music2dance2 |
LOL this topic again, guess its only natural.
From the horse's mouth on an interview he did. Which can be found here.
Here are the parts in question relating to his mix process and set up he had then (November 2007).
| quote: | Originally posted by iammesol
Eric Interview:
Sam:
Alright, while we're on productions this is one thing that you've been famous for by so many people... your mixdown process. Everyone of your tracks sounds like gold. How do you do that, who do you work with, and how do you work with them?
Eric:
I do everything myself. I think that a lot of people tend to think that I have this massive, really expensive studio. And a lot of people think that it's the mastering guy that does it all for me, but when it comes to mixing music in the mastering process, you're really limited because the track is one file. The only thing you can do in the mastering process is raise or lower the volume of certain frequencies, so you're very limited in what you can do. I think the strength in my productions is kind of the separation, and how all of the sounds are mixed together, and that's something that I kind of put a lot of effort into, because I always wanted my music to sound you know, really really good in a club. If you have a really good idea for a track, but it doesn't come across well on a big system, it sort of gets a lost in a way. So I would say 50% of a track is the actual mix of it. You have to make sure that you can hear all of the different channels clearly. I always try to make my tracks sound like this big powerful pack of muscle sort of thing you know, and it's kind of hard to explain how I do it because I use my ears, and I know how I want it to sound. Over the years I sort of learned how to get it to sound like that. Nowadays I don't even need to master my tracks after I'm finished, because I do the mastering, but while I'm doing the mixdown sort of thing. I never actually EQ the track on the master; i do it in the actual track with the elements, because that is how you get a good result really. So no, to answer your question again, I do everything myself. The only mastering that is done on the tracks is for the actual tracks that are gonna' be cut on vinyl, because on vinyl, you cannot have the music sounding as it does digitally. If you want to cut out music on vinyl, you need to cut out certain frequencies. You need to have the bass sound in mono, because if you have it in stereo then the needle is going to jump around a bit. And they do cut out a lot of the high-end as well, everything over 15,000/16,000 Hz, something like that. It's kind of a science in itself to get the level of the vinyl as high as possible. But they don't do any physical mastering of the track. What they try to do is cut out frequencies and press it as loud as possible on vinyl. So that's how it works. All the tracks on beatport and stuff like that is my own mastering really.
Sam:
Well another question long awaited... we have many of these, almost done though. What is in your studio? You said before that you don't have a massive, bombtastic studio. What's in it?
Eric:
I would say nowadays, 80% of my tracks I make on my laptop with a pair of headphones. That's it. Or maybe 70% because I'm traveling so much, and I rarely have any time to spend in the studio. The laptop I'm using is an old crappy PC from 2004. I mean it was kind of state of the art back then; it's kind of a custom made laptop from Frost Network, which is made for making music on it basically. It's running a really old version of Logic. I think it's 5.2 or something like that. But I sort of like being limited, because then you... I don't know. Instead of trying to figure out how all the synthesizers work, you can work with a few instruments and try to make as much as possible out of that. As for my studio, I'm running a Macintosh with Logic 7, and like wavs, plugins, and I do have the Korg bundle as well. And then, I have one synthesizer I think which is a Korg MS-2000. I think it's MS-2000B. It's the new version. It's the one with the vocoder thing. Apart from that I don't have anything. It's like microphone preamps, microphones, stuff like that. But as I said before, I really like to keep the setup as small and compact as possible. It's not really what kind of fancy equipment you have, it's how you use the stuff that you actually have, you know. And I'm doing fine with the small setup I have, and I don't have any plans of getting a big show off studio. I don't need that.
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| dan123 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
Ok this is something I've been pondering as my natural inclanation is to keep the drum side very tight and clean, yet so often on feedback people say add more precussion, but to my mind that often then clutters the sound. |
Try using some delay on some key percussion. The delay doesn't necessarily need to be a feature of your drums but it can be more underlying and used to add a bit of fullness and texture to an otherwise dull drum section. |
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| dan123 |
| quote: | Originally posted by music2dance2
You have to make sure that you can hear all of the different channels clearly. I always try to make my tracks sound like this big powerful pack of muscle sort of thing you know, and it's kind of hard to explain how I do it because I use my ears, and I know how I want it to sound. Over the years I sort of learned how to get it to sound like that. Nowadays I don't even need to master my tracks after I'm finished, because I do the mastering, but while I'm doing the mixdown sort of thing. |
He talks about it without giving anythig away. I'm sure he has some tricks he uses like whats in his master chain, how he applies compression, does he use much limiting etc
| quote: | Originally posted by LoveHate
if anything there should be a thread made about radioslaves mastering.. |
The title shoudl have been just "mixing and mastering" but i thought there'd be too many "you need outboard gear to sound professional" responses so i used eric prydz as an example. I'm sure the process is very similar or they at least acheive a common goal. Both artist's tracks sound very clear and powerful and its how they do this that is the question so if you have any advice, please share it. :) |
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| beniii |
| quote: | Originally posted by deadmau5
well, yes. i mean by cancellation... of course, "phase issues" dont always result in 2 clashing signals simply cancelling themselves into complete silence... it can also be nearly inaudiable and more often than not "trick" the limiter / compressor PLUGINS into weird peak levels that trigger the comp and limit / compress stuff that shouldnt be. I hear it alot in demos... point is really, to just keep an eye on your phase.. obviously mostly in the low / low mid end.
and as a rule, yes. always a good idea to keep a mono monitor on the master just as a quick ref from time to time.
something i actually enjoy talking about... makes me wanna write up a biblical production tip thing. |
Thanks for the tips m8, definitely something i will start looking into from now on...
Mono monitor would be good if our tracks ever got radio play as well :D |
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| dan123 |
| quote: | Originally posted by deadmau5
well, yes. i mean by cancellation... of course, "phase issues" dont always result in 2 clashing signals simply cancelling themselves into complete silence... it can also be nearly inaudiable and more often than not "trick" the limiter / compressor PLUGINS into weird peak levels that trigger the comp and limit / compress stuff that shouldnt be. I hear it alot in demos... point is really, to just keep an eye on your phase.. obviously mostly in the low / low mid end.
and as a rule, yes. always a good idea to keep a mono monitor on the master just as a quick ref from time to time.
something i actually enjoy talking about... makes me wanna write up a biblical production tip thing. |
How do you generally overcome phase issues? Is it just a matter of adding more extreme sidechain to the bass, or extra panning of certain elements, or EQing the clashing frequencies, or a combination of all? |
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| music2dance2 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dan123
He talks about it without giving anythig away. I'm sure he has some tricks he uses like whats in his master chain, how he applies compression, does he use much limiting etc
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He doesnt but you'll find it hard to get that sort of info until he does one of those "In the studio" video's.
From that interview it seems theres nothing on the master out, he does all that on the individual tracks. |
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| dan123 |
| quote: | Originally posted by music2dance2
He doesnt but you'll find it hard to get that sort of info until he does one of those "In the studio" video's.
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Even though i doubt he would give away all his secrets to how he works, I'm sure there are some people on this forum who have tried something and thought, "wow, that sound half good", or "so thats how they do it" sort of thing.
| quote: | Originally posted by music2dance2
From that interview it seems theres nothing on the master out, he does all that on the individual tracks. |
Really? I would have thought at a very minimum there would be at least a compressor and limiter. |
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| music2dance2 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dan123
Even though i doubt he would give away all his secrets to how he works, I'm sure there are some people on this forum who have tried something and thought, "wow, that sound half good", or "so thats how they do it" sort of thing. |
Thats true, he wont but they share enough to give you an insight, thats what I got from other "Studio" vid's
| quote: | Originally posted by dan123
Really? I would have thought at a very minimum there would be at least a compressor and limiter. |
Well its just a guess, he said he doesnt use EQ on the master. I assume he probably does use comp on the master but its just the way he explains it. Who knows man lol. One day it'll appear in some interview/video or something or someone will ask him that question. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by deadmau5
well, yes. i mean by cancellation... of course, "phase issues" dont always result in 2 clashing signals simply cancelling themselves into complete silence... it can also be nearly inaudiable and more often than not "trick" the limiter / compressor PLUGINS into weird peak levels that trigger the comp and limit / compress stuff that shouldnt be. I hear it alot in demos... point is really, to just keep an eye on your phase.. obviously mostly in the low / low mid end.
and as a rule, yes. always a good idea to keep a mono monitor on the master just as a quick ref from time to time.
something i actually enjoy talking about... makes me wanna write up a biblical production tip thing. |
Absolutely true - the amount of tracks I hear that have spread delays and width fx (especially on the low end) that just disappear when played on a dual mono system (i.e. most clubs) is ridiculous.
There's a few was to not fall foul of it.
1, always check and double check in mono. In logic, put the gain plug on the master and hit the mono button. IF it cancels or phases, time to change your pan and mix.
2, check sounds with panning or stereo field against each other with a correlation meter. Again the multimeter plug on the master channel in logic has one built in.
3, You can use the vectorscope in logic too. In most cases, stereo tracks have a random pattern - mainly taller than wide. Vertical patterns mean left and right channels are similar (approaching mono, which is a vertical line). Horizontal patterns mean the two channels are very different, which could result in mono compatibility problems.
By the way, I know for a fact Eric reads TA and got lot of laughs out of the last "discussion" about his mixing/mastering techniques ;) |
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| Richard Butler |
| I bet most pro's keep thier secrets, well, secret, just as KFC, Heinz and Tabasco keep thier recipies nice 'n' close. |
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| RichieV |
| ii feel like that was the case around 2000 but I think everything is sort of out of the hat now. I rarely hear anything that makes me scratch my head which is sort of disappointing because i used to love that feeling of not inspiration not knowing how to do something. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by RichieV
I rarely hear anything that makes me scratch my head which is sort of disappointing because i used to love that feeling of not inspiration not knowing how to do something. |
Same! |
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