Jah Mandela - Post 3

FINISH

Once I had my layers all together and the instrumentation slotted in place, I began the mixing process. The music (all though not exactly dub reggae) definitely carries similarities in the way of instrumentation and effects processing. 

I used an EQ lowpass sweep to create my deep sub bass that along with the drums, set the foundation for the mix. I wanted to create space where possible so I panned guitars, organs, drums hard to each end of the stereo field and I left my lead guitar and organ melody tracks in the centre, as a driving force for the track. It’s the “driving force” tracks that set the vibe of the music and I wanted the attention directed at them. 

My additional drums tracks like the sub fx and the additional snare drum, were used to create the similar features found in a reggae/dub track. I automated all my effects, volume changes and panning as a producer/engineer would have done 30+ years ago… only in the tangible world it’s “fader riding”.

The majority of the mixing process was completed in the SSL room; equipped with three (L+C+R) Dynaudio studio monitors and a 300watt sub. I wanted a studio environment that could project every audible frequency and could make you feel the bass in your chest. I mixed the track down to how I wanted to hear it: With a tight/subby low end, clear pronunciation in the top end and a clear low/mid. 

Once mixing finished I moved onto mastering, which I also completed in the SSL room. Continuing with running theme of creating a space; I didn’t want to compress the hell out of it and lose its dynamic range that plays a very vital role in moving the track from one area to another.

I spoke with Brandon Knights (a dub reggae engineer) who said to “create space so you can make a sound bigger, not louder”. Interpretable as “don’t over compress and lose the life in the track”.

 I will usual master projects to -12LUFS with exceptions to pop music that goes a little closer to -9. But with the aim to preserve some of my dynamic range, I mastered “Jah Mandela” to -14LUFS (integrated). I used “Ozone 7” and “Insight” as my means to master and measure the properties of the track. I used a dynamic EQ at the beginning of the master chain to help settle the low end a little. Pulling the reins a little closer on the low end helps prevent unwanted compressor/limited activity later on the mastering process. It also tightens the relationship between the kick and bass. I also removed a little bit of 300Hz/mud pool to help create some space between the two contrasting frequencies that I wanted to shine (my punchy low end against my “pronounced” high end e.g cymbals, guitars etc).

I then inserted an exciter to add harmonic distortion to the low end and the high mid. It’s very subtle, but I used it to help add some life to the track as it’s primarily a product of MIDI. I used the Tape setting for both low and high mid as its add a warmer distortion which contributed to the humanisation of the track. 

I finished with the maximiser plugin to set my ceiling and set my dynamic range. I master to -1dB as a rule of thumb (like many engineers). Lectures during my first year taught me about inter-sample peaks, quantisation distortion and how allowing 1 decibel of head room can help reduce this distortion during data compression. So all my tracks have a limiter ceiling at -1. I enabled true peak limiting to give me full control over the master and used the analogue setting which added “a richer sound”. I used the threshold toggle to increase my “maximising” while referring to “insight” to view the analytic aspects of the master track.

Not only is “insight” far more accurate at metering (Logic true peak claims the music to be -0/9dB when I have an Ozone ceiling set and insight says it’s -1) but it’s also a fantastic visual aid. The spectrogram, soundfield and level windows give a fantastic insight into whats actually happening to the master channel after all the processing. 

Bounced down as a 24bit/44.1WAV file.