Mixing Lady Marmalade David Pensado’s mixing credits read like a US top 20. Richard Buskin gets a blow by blow account of how to mix perfect pop.

ince trading in his life as a successful musician, Pink – and then there was Missy doing little sweetening David Pensado [pictured left] has forged a repu- things like “yeah”, “mm-hm” and so on, which I made tation as a mix engineer of the highest calibre. sound like a radio voice and scattered throughout the Among his credits are records by Destiny’s song. Then, at the end of the song, you actually hear Child, Christina Aguilera, Coolio, Sisqo, Jessica Missy calling out everybody’s names. Simpson, Mel C, Boyz II Men, Tevin Campbell, Janet But all up I had probably 40 or 50 vocal tracks. They Jackson and Brian McKnight, and has recently been were recorded pristinely – the whole recording was enjoying chart-topping success with his mix of Lady pristine – but when you’ve got that many tracks the diffi- Marmalade – the first single from Moulin Rouge’s sound- culty of mixing is having to spend between 500 to 600 track, featuring the vocal contributions of Aguilera, Missy minutes listening to all of them. Elliot, Pink, Mya and Lil’ Kim. RB: Were you making hand-written notes? Having previously worked on Christina Aguilera’s DP: Well, that’s why it becomes difficult, because in order eponymous debut album, as well as on the productions of to mix you’ve got to have all of the elements in your head Rockwilder, Missy Elliot and, for the past 11 years, Ron so that you can pick and choose. If you don’t, then you’re Fair [pictured to the right of Christina Aguilera], it wasn’t not doing a great job as a mixer. In this case it took me a surprising that Pensado was asked by these three co- day just to memorise what I had. producers to mix their hip hop-flavoured remake of the Patti LaBelle classic. Putting Flesh On The Bones RB: So along with the instrumental tracks on top of the Diva City vocal tracks, how did you work your way through all RB: The recording features five vocalists. What were the material? you presented with? DP: Like any mix I do, I built my own outline mix that DP: Well, there were lead, backing and ad lib tracks by lets me know my major elements and what I’m really each of the four principals – Mya, Kim, Christina and trying to sell. With this particular song I had some of the

36 best female singers working today as well ballad. I knew the song would get a as one of the top five producers – Rock- lot of airplay, and so I wanted stuff wilder is just at the top of his game – so in there that you could discover the what I tried to do was outline the shapes twentieth time around. without colouring them. On a normal song RB: But mainly you wanted to that usually takes me about an hour, to an blow people away with it. hour and a half, but on this song it took me DP: Yes, the first time you heard it I about a day and a half. And, to compound just wanted you to go, ‘Damn it, that matters I didn’t have all of the vocals when snare and kick are loud. Man, I never I started. I had the bulk of them, but I was knew Pink could sound like that’. I still getting ad libs as I was mixing. wanted people to have that initial Having built my little skeleton mix I then reaction, and then after they’d seen knew the sonic direction that I wanted. I the video and had those images knew the main part just had to be in your burned into their brain, they’d be face, I knew the cowbell had to be in your interested in listening to the song and face, I knew the kick and snare had to hurt have something to sustain that you. I had such strong singers that, if any interest. One of the things I like doing element in the mix sounded wimpy, they as a mixer is having different layers wouldn’t be getting the right support. I like that, where you can hear it and therefore needed an aggressive track to go to different depths. A lot of people support the aggressive vocals, and at the who listen to my records don’t pick Mixing same time I also wanted each singer to up on the extra layers and the sub- Mixing have her own unique space. I didn’t want tleties, and that’s okay because I’ve the song to sound the same from start to got plenty there to hit them over the finish – so you’ll notice some sections head with, but I think the ones who where the cowbell is louder, for example. take the extra time to look for that Meanwhile, every chorus that follows a stuff find that it’s worth it. singer, her vocals are the loudest in that RB: You’ve used a SSL 9000J for Lady Marmalade background section, and then at the end I this mix. What role does a console just let everybody go for it. There are a lot like that have to play in these of subtle things like that which were very aims? time consuming, but when you know you’re DP: Given that the automation of going to have that kind of high profile that console is probably the most record it’s fun to do that type of stuff, intuitive and user-friendly of any I’ve partly to show off and partly to enhance ever run across, it really helped me the song. to blend the vocals. The 9000 allows RB: So you’ve got your outline, and me to be somewhat chameleon-like, rough shapes drawn in, what next? where I can tailor my mix to the par- DP: I then started to add broad swatches ticular producer style or artist style, of colour – the backgrounds and the main so I’m not limited to one or two or parts – while for the little detailed parts I three configurations. I knew the had nuances on organ, guitar and percus- producers liked a sound that wasn’t sion which allowed me to tailor each all digital and not all analogue. Also, section to the personality of the singer. If if I have to stop and think about a you were dressing for a formal event, those console then I’m affecting my cre- little things would be like your handker- ativity, but the beauty of the 9000 is chief, your cufflinks and your cummerbund. that its technical sophistication The main elements of the song pretty actually makes it simpler and less much flowed from start to finish, and the intrusive in the creative process. only elements I had to work with in order to provide scene changes every eight bars Dynamic Hypnotics were those little accents. RB: Having put together most of I wanted the song to be somewhat like a the song’s elements, what did you sledgehammer and not too finessed, while do next? at the same time repeated listenings would DP: Well, then I had to build in the accustom you to the hard elements and dynamics. In other words, I didn’t enable you to discover the finessed have the luxury of having a drummer elements. I didn’t want the finessed push the choruses or a guitar player elements up front, like they would be in a getting happy and loud. Every kick

37 drum and every snare was recorded at the exact same to differentiate the vocals? level, and so what I did was to add some other kicks and DP: Well, I like bringing a vocal up on three or four snares of my own that helped me to change the tonal faders. One fader will put the information through a real qualities of the drums as the song progresses. I put each hi-tech chain – so I’ll be using all plug-ins on that particu- kick and snare at its own level as if I was playing it live. lar fader. Then I’ll take the same exact vocal and run it The kick drum that I received from Rockwilder was through an all-tube chain, so when my singers get kind of incredible, but I just felt like I could use that extra octave loud and shrill and screechy I’ll pull up the fader that has below what he gave me – that sub which vibrates your rich harmonics on the tube stuff; while on the breathy, soft body. So, I added that component, and I felt that I could parts of the singing I’ll pull up the fader with the hi-tech get a little more attack, like the sound of a live drummer. stuff. Sometimes I’ll also pull up both. I’ll just sit there If you think about it, in a live with different combinations performance, the harder the on these faders, and each drummer hits the kick drum, word will have its own the more attack you hear, so character and flavour in the choruses I raised the depending on what I think attack a bit to give the sounds best. Then I’ll take impression that the drummer my effects, like reverbs and was hitting harder, providing delays and choruses, and that thud which makes you those are on separate faders, so angry when it comes from so each word will have its a car that pulls up next to own individual effects. you at the traffic lights. I had In fact, I’ll take different to have that, and the same parts of the frequency thing applied to the snare spectrum and put effects drum and some of the other only on those. So, for percussion elements. example, instead of putting RB: So obviously you a chorus across the whole believe that dynamic vocal, I’ll only chorus every- variation is important to a thing from, say, 10k up. That mix? keeps the mud out, and then DP: Hearing and vision are in the mid-range I might put interpreted somewhat the a nice reverb, and only put same way by the brain. If the delay on, say, the 1k to nothing ever changes in your 3k range. That way, instead living room, everything stays of getting cloudy mud and in exactly the same place, my effects swirling all over you never notice anything the place, I’m getting only there. But if after a year the best elements of the someone moves a lamp from one table to another you’ll frequency spectrum for each effect. I’ve found that gives immediately notice that lamp. Well, what happens with a me a little more space and clarity in the mix, and psycho- lot of synthesiser and drum machine-based music is that acoustically it gives me more width than I could get by by the end of the song you’re not noticing things like you applying effects to the entire spectrum. I not only do that should, so a lot of times I’ll just move a lamp from one with vocals, but also with drums, percussion, keyboards table to another and it’ll catch your ear and sustain your and stuff like that. interest. The musical equivalent is to just turn up a drum for one hit or crank up a guitar or keyboard part for one Outboard motoring lick. RB: So, what outboard gear did you employ in the mix? That’s one of the reasons why hip hop music works so DP: On the vocals I used a combination of the FilterBank well. When we hip hop we’re not trying to make a smooth P6 plug-in, Wave C4, DSP MC2000 and Waves de-essers piece of music – we’re letting all of the little warts jump on one chain; gates, tube compressors and Teletronix out. That has a tendency to sustain your interest, because LA2As on another chain, as well as the Fairchild emulator there’s always furniture moving around in the living room. on the CompressorBank. I used the real thing [vintage On a song like Lady Marmalade it was imperative to keep Fairchild compressor] on Christina’s vocal and I actually moving things around. If you listen to that song, there’s liked this better. For Pink and Maya I also used the SSL not a lot at the end that you didn’t hear in the first chorus, 9000J’s equalisers. Otherwise, for effects on the vocals I so the way to sustain the interest is to constantly keep used the Eventide Orville and Eventide 2016 ‘Stereo those levels moving around, and then your ear won’t hear Room’, as well as the ‘Silica Beads’ program on the it as a nuisance but as “Wow, that’s cool. I never heard Lexicon 480L. I also love the old Lexicon 300 reverb unit that cowbell before.” and the TC Electronic M3000. RB: How much did you rely on effects and processing For this project I also used the EMT 251 [plate reverb]

38 presets, and what I did was kinda always maintain mono compatibility. neat… Rather than bring a lot of “A lot of people On some of the percussion I used my reverbs back on the console in an old Roland SRV2000, while on stereo, I used two different don’t pick up on the keyboards I used board compres- versions of the same program. So, sion and board EQ, and on the bass for one program I brought back extra layers and for Lady Marmalade I used a Roland both sides hard left, the other Dimension D – a little trick which program I brought back hard right, the subtleties, and we use on that is to push in all four and I altered the internal parame- presets (you’re not supposed to be ters of each program a little bit so that’s okay because able to do that, but it works and it that it gave me a greater width. It’s sounds great). Another cool little actually like two monos, but of the I’ve got plenty there effect that I used on the bass was a same program, and that’s a really Zvex Seekwah guitar pedal. cool trick which I don’t hear a lot to hit them over the Basically, you’ve got eight taps on a on the radio. On background wah-wah that you can preset any vocals I used the Avalon 2055 head with” way you want. So as the signal parametric EQ and a $50 piece of decays then each part of the decay gear called a Boss EH50… Just hit the button ‘Expansion goes to a different wah, and you can have control over 2’ – don’t ever put it on anything else! It’s just a great box how many of those taps you want to use and how fast it for the money, and it enabled me to take off the top end gets to it. For the bass I also used an old club box called to send to the chorus. the dbx 120X, while on the guitars – even though they RB: And what about the drums and percussion? were synthesised – I used an old Korg A1 [multi-effects DP: On the kick drum I used a Pultec EQ. I parked one processor] because I like its spring reverb settings, as well frequency on 6k at about 5dB, and I parked the other as a dbx 163 compressor which I love because it has just frequency on 10k at about 5dB. I also tapped off a piece one knob that says ‘More’! On acoustic guitars I used the of the kick and ran it through a dbx 160XT compressor at Ensoniq DP4 – the preset was ‘Big Acoustic Guitar’ – and about a 4:1 ratio, and it compressed the crap out of it. as for the cowbell, I used the Lexicon PCM70 ‘Tiled Then I restored the high end and low end which I lost Room’. from that, basically giving me a thuddy sound, and I Finally, I used Emagic’s Sound Diver to control all of mixed a little bit of that back in with the original sound to my effects. Rather than sit there and go through 25 or 30 provide the mid-range punch. I also used this old LT pages on a unit’s menu, you can see the whole effect at Sound CLX compressor to really squeeze the crap out of one time, and that is just a godsend on something like the the kick drum, and all that came through was a little high DP4. frequency tick sound. I edited that back in to help your ear find the kick in the mix. Luvvies Are Lovely? To the snare I did something similar. I used a little bit of RB: In summary, what was the biggest challenge of this board compression, and then I tapped off a piece of that particular project? and ran it through a dbx 160XT and a VacRac TEQ1, DP: The pressure of dealing with so many personalities adding some 12k and some 3k, and edited it back in with and movie deadlines. Imagine five artists, five managers, the snare. (The compressors are always preceding the three producers and all of the movie people… It was EQs on my snares and kicks.) Meanwhile, on the bass I incredibly difficult, but I was blessed to have producers used an old Moog parametric equaliser that I bought 10 who were very generous and very trusting. Ron Fair wore years ago for 50 bucks, and then I ran that into an several hats – he was the A&R guy and the record [Empirical Labs] Distressor on which I used the optical company president as well as the co-producer – but he settings, basically emulating an LA2A. felt that unless he had each girl’s total blessing on the mix For percussion stuff I like little tight delays, running he wasn’t going to put it out. So, we had each of them their output through a SPL Spatializer which brings the come by, listen, give their opinions and finally their delay back outside the plane of the speaker. So if, say, I’ve approvals before we proceeded. Fortunately, they could got a little bongo hitting in my left speaker, I bring the only critique their own parts. delay back to the right and that delay is coming back The whole process with Pink took maybe 30 minutes; even wider than the speaker itself. On the other hand, for Christina had some very definite suggestions about effects a lot of the keyboards, if it’s a pad or a string sound I’ll and actual syllables, and we finished with her within an bring them back through an Edison made by Behringer; hour; Mya had some harmonies and different parts that she an incredible piece of gear that widens the image but still wanted us to amplify, and so we spent about an hour with gives you a good mono. Sometimes in ProTools, if I’ve her; Lil’ Kim took about 30 minutes; and Missy approved it got a good stereo track that I want to keep stereo, I’ll shift by phone. So, the process wasn’t that bad in terms of the the left side forward four or five milliseconds and shift the artists’ professionalism. Managers, on the other hand, right side backwards four or five milliseconds. That gives sometimes need crises to solve in order to look important, me a real nice delay. I’ll vary that amount so that different but that’s another story...! parts end up at different widths outside the speaker, and I AT

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