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Kevin Kadish at The Carriage House.

Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Channelling their shared love of ’50s kitsch, Kevin Kadish and created 2014’s ‘’ Written by Meghan Trainor & most talked-about hit single — and turned Kevin Kadish Trainor into a superstar overnight. Produced by Kevin Kadish

Paul Tingen song, its celebration of big bass, aka big song contest at the age of 17. booty, aka big bum, proving the source of In the Spring of 2013 her publisher Carla eghan Trainor’s ‘All About endless controversy. Wallace had the bright idea of introducing That Bass’ has topped hit The song’s staggering success has Trainor to musician, writer, engineer, mixer M parades in two dozen countries, catapulted the two protagonists behind it and producer Kevin Kadish. Wallace must including the US — where it went four from relative obscurity into the limelight. still be feeling pretty pleased with herself, times platinum, with well over four million Singer Meghan Trainor was only 20 when for a couple of hours into their first writing sales, and was recently nominated for two it was released, and had until then not session together, Trainor and Kadish had Grammy Awards — and the UK, where really aimed at being an artist. Originally co-written and recorded most of ‘All it went ‘only’ platinum with more than from Massachusetts, her ambition was About That Bass’. half a million sales. During its extended to be a , and she was signed Kevin Kadish’s rise to the top has also reign at the top, ‘All About That Bass’ to Big Yellow Dog Music, a Nashville been the subject of a sizeable number also was the world’s most discussed publisher, after winning the 2011 Sonicbids of articles, with the press sometimes

20 February 2015 / www.soundonsound.com No Concept, No Song

Over many years as a professional songwriter, Kevin Kadish has evolved his own methods. “I keep a list of all the ideas I get, at any point, wherever I am, which mostly consist of titles, a few lines or concepts that I think could be a good idea for a song. In some cases I also may have a melody, but for the most part they are lyrical concepts. If there’s no concept, like just a word that sounds cool, I don’t keep it. I need to know what I am writing about, what I am going to do. If you’re going on vacation you don’t just hit the highway and drive in whatever direction. You could drive for hours and still not arrive anywhere worthwhile. The destination is crucially important. These titles and concepts serve as sparks of inspiration, and they will morph into something bigger. And then the hard work comes in: they say that songwriting is five percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration, and I think this is true.” presenting his as a rags-to-riches tale. On the phone from his Nashville studio, Kadish admits that the success of ‘AATB’ has turned his life upside-down, but stories of a dramatic transition from zero to hero have been greatly exaggerated. “This is my first global number one, so yes, it is a life-changer! And yes, I may have slept on friends’ couches and been totally broke at one point, but that was a long time ago. The success of ‘All About That Bass’ did not Kevin Kadish: “There were people in Epic who asked whether our version of ‘All About That Bass’ should be sent to a top mixer or tweaked in other ways. But LA Reid just said: ‘No, don’t touch it! Just master it.’” come out of the blue. I’ve been making a living for 15 years as a songwriter and a producer and even before the release of ‘All About That Bass’ I had sold around 15 million records and had enjoyed several hit singles, including top five and top 10 songs.” Don’t Worry About The Radio Kadish’s studio, called The Carriage House, is a state-of- the-art facility located in his property near Nashville. It’s professionally designed by Ross Alexander and fitted with exquisite kit, such as an 8:2 tube Dymaxion sidecar desk made by Ian Gardiner of Boutique Audio & Design and Steve Firlotte of Inward Connections, as well as mic pres and compressors by Chandler (LTD1), Daking (52270), Burl (B1D), Classic API (VP28), Tube-Tech (CL1B), and outboard by Retro Instruments (Sta Level), Empirical Labs (Distressors), Helios (F760), Chandler (TG1) and more, plus Adam S3A and Yamaha NS10 monitors. Born and raised in , Maryland, Kadish studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the University of Maryland, graduating in

www.soundonsound.com / February 2015 21 inside track Kevin Kadish • Meghan Trainor

Management. As an artist in his own right, Album. In addition, Kadish has co-written an EP of music inspired by that era for a he toured in support of some pretty big songs for and with a wide range of artists long time. Meghan and I bonded over our names in the ’90s, and he got his first from to , and Joe mutual love of the Jimmy Soul song ‘If You big break when meeting producer Matt Jonas to Skillet. Want To Be Happy’, and we decided to do Serletic (Cher, ) in 2000. He Kadish moved to Nashville in 2006, and an EP inspired by the 1950s and then find worked with Serletic for 10 years, acting as it was here that the magic that resulted out whether anyone would like it.” the producer’s staff writer and co-writing in ‘All About That Bass’ took place. “The songs for the likes of and thing with Meghan happened completely The Reluctant Engineer Stacie Orrico (including her worldwide out of the blue,” recalls Kadish, “and the “I am primarily a guitar player and singer,” hits ‘(There’s Gotta Be) More To Life’ and songs also came out of the blue. She did elaborates Kadish. “And I can program ‘Stuck’. Kadish also collaborated with not have a record deal, we just wrote drums and keys. I learned engineering out on the latter’s Mr A-Z album in songs that we liked, and didn’t worry of necessity. I got my first Pro Tools rig 2005, which earned him his first Grammy about the radio. I love 1950s and early when working with Matt Serletic, a Digi Award nomination, for Best Engineered 1960s music, and had wanted to make 001. I had never used Pro Tools, or really

22 February 2015 / www.soundonsound.com The complete Pro Tools session for ‘All About That Bass’. Drum parts are at the top, followed by an audio render of the all-important upright bass track, the other pitched instruments, then the four lead vocal tracks and, finally, vocal harmonies.

do is retro. I can do retro, or non-retro, in my studio, as I prefer. “More often than not people come to my studio to work with me, but it is not a requirement. For me writing here is easy, of course, because I have all my favourite gear. I often start with programming a beat so I know what the groove is going to be and it helps to keep the melodies consistent phrasing-wise. You want to make sure that things are not dragging. These days I program drums in Native Instrument’s Maschine. I make my own kits, using my own samples, and I love it. It has taken my drum programming to a whole other place. I work with both the software and the controller, and I exclusively work in Pro Tools. Also, I don’t have an assistant. I do everything by myself here, writing, recording, editing, and mixing.” A Chorus Of Choruses Because Kadish and Trainor were under no pressure whatsoever, they felt free to experiment, leading ‘AATB’ to be, in Kadish’s words, “sort of an anti-chorus song. There’s no clear structure to the song. The first verse is nothing like the second verse, the two are completely different rhythmically and melodically. The ‘all about that bass’ line is a chorus, but really it functions as a breakdown chorus every time. The most traditional part of the song is the pre-chorus. So the song is sort of free-form. I think it was something that was new for Meghan as a writer. As a typical it is hard to do, but it might be part of the reason the song worked, because it is so unpredictable. “I think it was Clive Davis who once said engineered, before that. I had owned desk, which has eight 610 preamps that that your first verse should be a chorus, some ADATs and four-track cassette sound incredible and Abbey Road Studio your chorus should be a chorus, your pre- recorders when I was at high school, but airplane-style faders. I use it purely for chorus should be a chorus, your bridge never considered myself an engineer. But tracking. I also am a fan of the Classic should be a chorus, and so on. In other since that first Pro Tools system I have API stuff, which comes as a kit and you words, every part of the song should be definitely learned a lot about engineering, then have a tech build it for you. These memorable. That is what makes a hit song. and what I like and don’t like. Classic API kits sound incredible. But do I It’s true, and I feel that it’s the case with “As a result I now have a setup that need all this gear to make records? No. I ‘AATB’. Lyrically too, it is very memorable. could be considered old-school in that it’s personally just like having the options of “I had put up a beat before Meghan not a laptop studio but actually a proper the preamps and compressors and mics. came into the room. I did not know what , with a full tracking I tend to track pretty clean. I like to get kind of song we would be writing, I just setup, including a drum room, a vocal good sounds at source and if I want it thought, ‘I like this groove, and let’s see booth, an amp booth and so on. I love distorted or otherwise processed, I can do what happens.’ I had my acoustic guitar, to my analogue gear and my Dymaxion this after the fact. Also, not everything I add chords and give things more structure,

www.soundonsound.com / February 2015 23 inside track Kevin Kadish • Meghan Trainor

Kevin Kadish makes extensive use of the Metric Halo Channel Strip plug-in, as here on the upright bass track. and when she came in we went through my title ideas and then it just sort of happened. We just jammed in the room. ‘All Bass No Treble’ was one of the song titles on my list, and I knew that bass was about booty. But my thinking was that the song idea was for a male rapper or urban artist of some kind. I nevertheless mentioned the title for her, and she was like, ‘Yeah, for sure,’ and just started , ‘Because you know I am all about that bass,’ and I went, ‘No treble!’ We were just riffing and having fun. impressed with Meghan. She was seen as vocals I added my favourite guitar, which is “We finished the lyrics and writing the purely a songwriter when I met her, but on a Fender Custom Shop Telecaster. I played actual song in a couple of hours, and I hearing her sing I was like, ‘You also need it through an At Mars Specialist head into then programmed an upright bass part, to be the artist; your voice is incredible!’ a Mojotone 1x12 with a Scumback M65 and after this she sang all her vocals to the speaker, and recorded that with a Shure upright bass and drums. She did the lead All About That SM57, going into a Classic API VP28 mic vocal and we cut her backgrounds right “I programmed the double bass in pre, no compression. I used a Lightfoot after. Everything was done very fast. I went Maschine. The gist of the bass is sort of a Labs Goatkeeper pedal to get the tremolo back in later on and arranged a couple loop, but it’s not very consistent because effect that I was after. of things, but not much. What we did the it gets a little busier in places and there “My next step was to send the session day that we wrote the song is pretty much are some transitional notes to keep to a buddy of mine, Dave Baron, who lives what’s on the record. I might have taken a the rhythm going and to get from one in New York, and regularly works with word out here or there, and I might have section to another. I recorded Meghan . I have an exchange with edited some of her harmonies, maybe I put with an AKG C12VR mic, which I think him: when he needs me to play guitar or them on the second pre-chorus but not went through the Chandler LTD1 mic pre sing on something, he sends his sessions on the first, things like that. But they were and then a Tube-Tech CL1B compressor, to me, and when I need someone to play just minor things. The essence of the song and then straight into the Pro Tools 192, keyboards or program things I send them was recorded that first day. And I was really at 48kHz/24-bit. After we laid down her to him. We just send the song and the other person arranges as he sees fit. In the case of ‘All About That Bass’ I asked him Why Can’t You Say That? to add keyboards and sax, and he sent me back B3 organ, and baritone As mentioned in the main article, there’s quite line that she was uncomfortable about, which sax parts. He played through the entire a bit of controversy regarding the big-booty- came from me. But I have heard skinny girls song, and I chopped and rearranged his celebrating lyrics of ‘All About That Bass’. call other girls ‘skinny bitches’ — it was not Kevin Kadish reflects: “To me the whole idea meant to be mean. It was meant to be funny, parts the way I wanted, but his original that the song discriminates against skinny and guess what, it is funny. inspiration is still there. I wanted the song people is people totally over-thinking things. “Maybe some people just need to grow to build, so until the vocals come in it is We were not being mean. We did not write a sense of humour! I’m very surprised that essentially just drums and bass, and then the song for overweight people or to target people are more offended by the song than the Tele enters, and still later the piano and skinny people. We wrote it for Meghan, and they are by, say, shaking her baritone sax, and finally towards the end we did not know that she was going to get a behind in a video, and literally talking about record deal. In fact, we did not think anyone genitalia in her lyrics. I would much rather that the organ. was ever going to hear the song apart from us my kids hear ‘AATB’ than some of the other “The final mix did not take long, and friends and family. We wanted the song things that are out there. And for Meghan because I mix while tracking. When to be funny, and fun. We just wrote it. At one it’s a great song. When I look at her I see her overdubbing I want people to play or sing point Meghan was like: ‘You can’t say that!’ as the fun Adèle. I love Adèle’s music, but to what sounds like a finished record. I And I was like: ‘Why? It is our song, why can’t it’s intense. By contrast, Meghan’s stuff is want them to be inspired by what comes we say that?’ I think it was the ‘skinny bitches’ light-hearted.” out of their headphones. So I get the

24 February 2015 / www.soundonsound.com inside track Kevin Kadish • Meghan Trainor

sounds I want and add EQ and effects as I go, and that seems to work well. The thing that is important is to know when the record is done and to stop adding stuff. When I feel that there’s nothing more to Photo: Sarah McColgan add, the final mix is more a refinement than a final stage in itself. I may filter some low end out that I had not done before, or add some multi-band compression on some stuff. It depends on the kind of music that I am doing. This song was very easy to mix, because there’s so little musical information in it. It’s not like I have 80 background vocals and 15 pairs of guitars or keyboards!” Nuthin’ Fancy As Kevin Kadish indicates, the ‘All About That Bass’ Pro Tools session is nothing if not simple. At the top of the Edit window is an effects track with a vocal sample, followed by 13 drum tracks, which are bussed to one drum master track. The ‘music’ tracks consist of upright bass, baritone sax, piano, organ and Telecaster: five in total. In addition there are four lead vocal tracks and 10 backing vocal tracks, bringing the grand total of audio tracks to 33. Not the most Spartan session that has ever made an appearance in the Inside Track series, but certainly economical! Below the audio tracks are master tracks for the backing vocals, for all Dave Baron’s material (DBU), two aux tracks, a master track and an output track. Going from top to bottom through the session, Kevin Kadish reveals all the sweaty details: “The first thing I did when I got to the mixing stage was to burn all the MIDI tracks to audio. After that I got my level on the drums as a whole, and ran them through a stereo bus, with a bit of EQ from the Metric Halo Channel Strip and some distortion from the SoundToys Decapitator, to make the drums a bit edgier and dirtier. It gave the drums some extra punch. Because I had been mixing while recording, the levels were kind of there already. If an outside mixer had received this track, he’d have gone through the tracks one by one, starting with the drums and then adding instruments one by one. But for me the session was already 90 percent the way I wanted to hear it. My main focus during the final mix was to ride the vocals, making sure you can always hear them, and once the vocals were in a good place, I’d focus on the instruments. If there was a moment an instrument needed to shine, I’d pull it out a little bit. “You can see in the Edit and Mix

26 February 2015 / www.soundonsound.com inside track Kevin Kadish • Meghan Trainor

window screenshots that the Metric Halo Channel Strip and Decapitator appear a lot, they are on almost all the tracks. The Channel Strip is a really useful EQ for me. It is my main in-the-box EQ. It has a great EQ, and also compression if you need it, and side-chain and a gate. I use the Decapitator a lot because I would rather that things sound too dirty than too nice. But it gives different degrees of distortion on every track. The drum bus also has a send to the Altiverb aux track at the bottom, which was set to the Bill Putnam echo chamber in Cello Studios. In fact, I also had another Altiverb reverb set up at the bottom of the session, with an EMT 250 plate, as well as a slapback echo from the standard Pro Tools Extra Long Delay II, set As well as compression to 68.58ms. from McDSP’s Compressor Bank, “Just above the drums, right at the Kevin Kadish used top, is the effects track, which is just a Nomad Factory’s vocal effect, ‘bassbassbassbass’ to create Retro-Vox plug-in some interest, which has the [McDSP] to provide additional CB1 CompressorBank on it. I did that in dynamic control on Maschine, sampling a vocal and giving it Meghan Trainor’s vocal. different pitches.” the piano pretty Upright Top Ranking high, at 500Hz, the “Below the drums is the upright bass track, Nomad Factory and just like the drum bus just above it, E-Retrovox set to it has the Channel Strip, the Decapitator limit mode to add and a send to the Altiverb Putnam echo some compression chamber. The bass is pretty much the and character, and most prominent instrument in the track. It the Nomad E-Tube sounds big, even though I am filtering it Tape Warmer, below 100Hz. The sample was a bit boomy for some tape and as a result the whole bass part a bit saturation. The piano is sent to the 68.58ms several plug-ins to improve her vocal woolly below 100Hz, so I took it out. But slapback echo and the two Altiverb sound. The Retro-Vox functions as a gate I still had to EQ the kick drum to make reverbs. Incidentally, I just purchased some and the compressor catches the peaks space for the upright bass. It’s not only the Bricasti M7 units, with the M10 controller, while the Decapitator once again adds level of the bass that makes it important in and I love them. They sound incredible. The some grit. All the lead vocal tracks are the track, but also the fact that it’s upright, next Meghan record will be Bricasti all the sent to the slapback echo and the Putnam which adds a lot of character. Meghan’s way! Finally, the organ has the CraneSong reverb. I didn’t treat the harmony vocals touring band tried to play our songs with Dark Essence, just to darken it and take individually, but on the BV bus I had the an electric bass, and it did not work. The off some brashness, and the Tele has the Channel Strip, the Decapitator, and a send sound of the upright is just too distinctive, Decapitator and the Putnam echo chamber. to the Putnam Altiverb. and really fits the musical direction we “The lead vocals are split over four “At the bottom of the session is the took. I think I used it on every song on tracks, and have the same effects on each, master track, on which I have the Waves Meghan’s album. which is the Channel Strip, the Retro- L2, bumping the level up, and after that “The next track is the baritone sax, Vox, the McDSP CN1 compressor, and the stereo mix goes out to my outboard which has the Waves Puigchild 670, just the Decapitator. They all have the same SSL XLogic G–series compressor and then to smooth it out a bit, and then again settings, apart from the output of the my Behringer Edison EX1 Stereo Imager, the Decapitator, to add some extra grit. Decapitator which changes a little bit. both used very sparingly. When I am The sax is sent to both the EMT 250 and When I tracked the vocals I did not pay a mixing in the box, these two units help the Putnam echo chamber. Then there’s the lot of attention to the sound, I just used entire mix to feel a bit lighter and more piano, which has the Channel Strip, filtering the microphone that was up, so I applied open. After this I fed my mix back into Pro

28 February 2015 / www.soundonsound.com Tools and monitored through that, again very validating to have this happen after single, ‘’, and her debut with an L2, because the mix was still a bit all my years of writing songs and making album, called Title, was released in January quiet. I took the L2 off when I sent the records. For every song you make that of this year. Kadish, meanwhile, has signed track to .” Bad Medicine Kevin Kadish: “When I tracked the vocals I did Kadish and Trainor wrote and recorded not pay a lot of attention to the sound, I just three songs during their first set of writing sessions together, and both then went used the microphone that was up, so I applied their own ways, having no inkling of what lay around the corner. Kadish began work several plug-ins to improve her vocal sound.” on the second album by rock band New Medicine (released in August last year as works there are five that don’t. And this a worldwide administration deal with Sony/ Breaking The Model). While working on worked in a really big way!” ATV Music, and his phone hasn’t stopped that project he received a phone call from Since the release of ‘All About That ringing. We are sure to hear a lot more Trainor, saying, “You need to sit down Bass,’ Trainor has enjoyed a second hit from these two. when you’re hearing this: LA Reid has just signed me because of ‘All About That Bass’, and we have to go into the studio and write an entire album!” “So we did the rest of the album while ‘AATB’ was climbing the charts. The ‘AATB’ session was the template for maybe three or four songs on the album. But I did not want to do the same thing 11 times, so the songs are all very different, although all songs are inspired by the 1950s. Some of the songs are lusher, with a track called ‘What If I’ having live drums, recorded in my studio, and strings that are both live and programmed.” LA Reid, who currently is chairman and CEO of , is one of the biggest names in the American music industry, and he took one momentous decision which Kadish still admires. “There were people in Epic who asked whether our version of ‘All About That Bass’ should be sent to a top mixer or tweaked in other ways. But LA Reid just said: ‘No, don’t touch it! Just master it.’ Paul Pontius, the A&R guy, did call me and asked me whether I had any tweaks, but I said, ‘No, this is my mix.’ So it went out exactly as Meghan and I had done it during our initial writing session. That was a good call. I mean, to take a risk like that, and not feel like he had to put his thumbprint on it or micro-manage it? That’s impressive. I owe the man a nice dinner! Is the mix perfect? Technically, I don’t know. But for the song, yes, absolutely. The whole point is that it has to feel right. You can take the life out of things by over-analysing them. In any case, for me it was exciting to know that something that Meghan and I had created worked on such a big level. Particularly with this being a 1950s record, it was also

www.soundonsound.com / February 2015 29 Mix with the best!

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This article was originally published in Sound On Sound magazine, February 2015 edition

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