Grammy award-winning mix engineer, Tony Maserati, has been integral to the formulation of the modern R&B/hip hop sound that dominates the charts today. Christopher Holder goes on a quest for big bottom. hen it comes to booty-shaking R&B or mixes with sprinkles of angel dust then best read on. Richter Scale-bothering hip hop, then few audio engineers have stronger credentials And the Winner is… than Tony Maserati. Back in the mid ‘90s When I gave Tony a bell at his home in upstate New York when he was hunkered down with Mary J I’d obviously caught him on a good day. To be expected, WBlige and Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs he drafted a sonic blueprint I guess. Only a few days earlier he’d won a ‘Best Contem- for hip hop/R&B that still exists today – gargantuan bass, porary R&B Album’ Grammy for his part in Beyoncé’s glossy highs, and dry upfront vocals. Tony’s credits roll out Dangerously in Love… and congratulations were definitely like a Playboy Mansion guest list – Beyoncé, The Black in order. Eyed Peas, Mary J Blige, R Kelly, Jennifer Lopez, James Christopher Holder: Tony, I gather congratulations are Brown, Ricky Martin, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac – and if you in order. want to know more about producing masonry-cracking Tony Maserati: Well thanks. Unfortunately I missed out

36 on the Best Engineer award – Nigel [Godrich] got that for the Radiohead album, while I missed out with The Black Eyed Peas album – but, I’m not complaining. It’s my first Grammy! CH: How does a Grammy change your life? TM: Good question. I don’t know yet. I don’t even own it yet. It hasn’t got here. CH: So you’re still dusting off the mantelpiece? TM: Well, my line is I’m going to get a big chain and put it around my neck. Why hide it in my house? I was talking to Michael Brauer who won one last year for Coldplay and he said for the first three months he just put it between the speakers on the console. I think I’ll just carry it around with me, put it on my car… make a hood ornament of it… CH: Tell me about the early days and how you saw the modern R&B/hip hop sound develop. It seems like Puff Daddy (P Diddy) played a significant part in the process? TM: He was a big part. I think we were a big part in each other’s lives in all honesty. He was just starting out at the time and I had been working in the biz for a while, doing a bunch of R&B things – Devante Swing, Jodeci and working with Heavy D and the Full Force production team. So when Puff came along I had all this experience and he was new at it. He knew what his audience wanted and I knew what the sound should be, so we made this thing happen together. It worked out great. We made some great, classic records. CH: What, sonically, set apart those early records as so revolutionary? TM: In basic terms, Puff wanted to make hip hop records with singing on them. And that was something no one was doing. R&B was one thing and rap was another. What Puffy did was bring the two together. He made Mary J sing over hip hop beats. That was a new thing. I was there because I had experience in R&B and rap as well and it was easy for me to put the two together. And I dug Puff because he pretty much let me do what I wanted. He had very specific ideas about where the parameters were as far as the drum sound and how hard it needed it to be, but he let me do my thing. Creatively it was fun. That second Mary record My Life was a big deal for me. I spent a lot of time and effort making that record and enjoyed every moment of it… I take that back, I’m sure that’s not true! I’m sure at the time I was pissed off about something or somebody! Probably mostly about scheduling. Puff’s notorious for his scheduling. He’d call me at two in the afternoon on my one day off – ‘can you come in tonight at eight?’. Then he’d fall asleep at the console or go to a [New York] Knicks game or something! CH: You’re two big credits at the moment are The Black Eyed Peas’ 'Elephunk' and Beyoncé’s 'Dangerously in Love'. Two quite different assignments I’d imagine? TM: Elephunk is a more aggressive record than a Beyoncé record. It’s a tough sound, in your face, and not a lot of subtlety to it. And that changed my approach to what technology I used to make it as well. I was very aggressive with my EQ’ing. I typically used anywhere from four to eight Tony Maserati at New York’s Hit Factory where he mixed Dangerously In Love using Studio 3’s SSL XL9000K.

Neve EQs per mix as well as two GML 8200s [parametric it should be buried a little bit, or on top of the track. So I EQs] on every mix… and not always in the same way… threw the kitchen sink at that album. I’d be experimenting and shunting them around all over CH: Okay, let’s take the example of Will’s vocal. Can the place. Often I’d use two different EQs on the same you talk me through the signal chain? channel. TM: It’d start at the SSL console. I’d bring tracks up and CH: Why the extreme EQ barrage? get a feel for the song and generally pull away the things TM: The Black Eyed Peas have so much variation in that that were problematic to deal with. But for Will’s voice album – live drumming with drum machines; live bass with it wouldn’t be long before I turned my attention to the synth sub bass, etc – so I spent a lot of time mixing things computer and ProTools. First up, I’d put a [Waves] Renais- up to come up with a sound that was tight, hard and in your sance EQ on it. Generally I don’t do a lot of boosting with face, but clear. It took me time to find a suitable mixing style. the plug-in EQs, but I’d do a lot of cutting. So I spent a For example, Will’s [Will.i.am] voice goes on and on and lot of time nipping out the things that I found abrasive you’re never quite sure where to put it in the track – whether by boosting suspect frequencies and finding the spot that

Tony Maserati & His Console of Choice

CH: You’re on record as being a real fan of what order… whole group of things that comprise an idea the new SSL 9000XL, ‘K’ series console. It CH: So things have changed considerably over and, like anybody who plays an instrument, obviously suits your purposes? the years? the ideas come to you in your head before you TM: I’ve been using the SSL since the E Series, actually implement them. The K and J make it TM: Right now the SSL automation is seamless really easy for me. through the G Series and onwards. To be honest, – it’s quick… you can just grab stuff, it’s intuitive. I didn’t like the SSL until the 9000J came out. Of I love the J and K’s computer. The K is smoking. CH: Oddly enough, for someone who’s so course, I used SSLs prior to that and liked them We’ve never had a console with a computer that associated with R&B/hip hop, the SSL name well enough to make a lot of records on them but was actually fast – heaven forbid. A computer isn’t traditionally synonymous with fat bottom I just didn’t like VCAs at all. in a console whose speed was rivalling the end. But has that changed with the K? CH: Why? computers we use on our desktop? Never. The TM: I think it actually changed with J and has TM: I don’t know. To this day I don’t like the G fact the K has a speedy computer is almost a improved further with the K. They gave it a bit Series without moving fader automation. I just laugh. It’s intuitive, it’s fast, I can’t even tell ya… more headroom in the mix bus and the centre don’t. Some guys like my friend Jean Marie it’s like another instrument to me. section is a bit better overall. In that respect, Horvat just kicks on it… Mike Gass kicks on CH: And being able to work with ProTools in yeah, it is better. it… Tom Lord Alge kills the G… I just suck the centre section? My impression is that you can hit the K harder at it. I think maybe the accumulation of 72 or TM: That’s like the icing on the cake. These than you can hit the J. Whether that’s techni- so VCAs didn’t work with my ears and soon days if I come up with an effect or a sound cally true or not, I don’t know. I hit the K real as I started using moving fader automation in my head, I can visualise the patching, the hard, and it takes it, it takes it hard, and I like – both on the Neve VR and the G Series with routing on the console, I can see the automa- it. If I could get SSL to give me one I could put Ultimation – I just never went back. Every time tion on the console, and I can see the plug-in it in my living room… to go with my Grammy, I have to work on a VCA console I just sit and the automation on ProTools. So it’s not but I get the feeling that they’re not giving around, complain and drink! I’m not sure in just the patch or an EQ anymore, there’s a them up.

38 After I’d done that I may have put a GML 8200 [paramet- ric EQ] on the insert and nip a few things as well as boost the top. I’d use the Neve EQ to boost 10k in a very broad way, and maybe only a couple of dB, but use the 8200 to hit the more airy stuff at 15k and in a shelf kinda way. CH: How much do you use mix bus compression? TM: I’d say that 50 percent of the time I use bus compres- sion. On The Peas’ track, Fire, I had all sorts of problems and ended up using a Waves L2 [hardware limiting device] over the mix bus. I still wasn’t entirely satisfied with the result at the time, but when we did a recall on that track some weeks later I got a chance to A/B it without the L2, and the L2 did just such a great job. But the point of that example is that if you’re going to use something that can change your mix so drastically, it really needs to be on the mix from the beginning. Whereas with the bus compressors I usually work with I know where I need to be on the two-mix to be able to put my Pendulum Tony Maserati with Beyoncé at New York’s Hit Factory. Hard work indeed. or Neve 33609 over the mix bus. I don’t like to use bus compression much because I fear was the most abrasive, then cutting it. I’d also apply some that it’s reducing my overall high frequency response. I find gentle compression at that stage, just so I was hitting the that the 33609 is quite good and my Pendulum is quite board the way I wanted to. At the time I was really into the good. The Manley Vari-Mu is really good sometimes, but McDSP plug-in compressor, which is really gentle. Then less of the time. at the point that the vocal leaves ProTools I’d go into a CH: I’m not familiar with the Pendulum compressor. Can Neve or API EQ and then into a compressor after that. you fill me in? Either it’d be a 33609 Neve compressor or into one side TM: It’s a tube stereo limiter/compressor. It has preset of a Pendulum compressor [stay tuned for more on the clicks for attack and release or you can put it in manual Pendulum later] depending on the performance. All that’s mode. Weirdly, Pendulum claims there’s no VCA or optical before I hit the console. circuit… which begs the question: what the hell’s doing Once I’d done that and got something that I thought had the compressing? But there’s something in there, if you some full body to it I would work with a LoFi [TDM plug- can vary the attack and release something’s got to be a in] track and have that coming out of a separate output VCA or some sort of optical thing. They won’t divulge from ProTools and put that right next to his voice on the that. Anyway, they have two versions, one with the old console. I’d also generally use a spreader for Will. I’d do Fairchild tubes and one with, what they claim to be, ‘more that with a TC plug-in and have that coming up another stable’ tubes. I haven’t A/B’d the two versions, if it works channel. Or I’d use a TC 1210 [spatial expander] in a it works. I dig the sound. It really helps me because it has regular analogue send/return configuration. The spreader an input adjust, a threshold adjust and an output adjust for is almost like a chorusing effect, with very little delay so each channel. Which is just great because the Neve 33609 you can barely hear it, but it allowed the vocal to fill the doesn’t have that. When you’re hitting the board too hard whole panorama – you really feel it in both speakers when and you just want to bring it down slightly, you can just use Will’s doing his thing. your output adjustment and bring it down a dB or two.

Some Tony Maserati career advice – studio juniors take note!

CH: In your experience, what makes a great doing the paper work is not the important part, Back when I was assisting and the engineer assistant engineer? the reason why you’re here is to listen.” left the room, as far as I was concerned I TM: I kinda turned a corner on my view of My favourite assistants are the ones who started being the engineer. I would make stuff this. I used to think being a great assistant when I ask – ‘is this any good?’, they say, ‘it up, play the tape… And in those days they came down to knowledge of the equipment. sounds like crap, man’, or, ‘it was better 10 didn’t want you to play the tape, nowadays But because the equipment changes so minutes ago’. They’re listening but still doing [with hard disk] it doesn’t even matter! Back fast nowadays, I’m not so sure that applies all the paper work and doing all the other stuff. in the days, I’d be coming up with a kick drum anymore. To me, the most important attribute They’re involved in all their work, but they’re sound or a reverb sound and the engineer in an assistant is their willingness to be involved paying attention. would come back in and – ‘what the hell are in the records I’m making. you doing?!’. Then he’d ask me – ‘I need a CH: While the technical proficiency, you got to sound for this reverb… got any ideas?’. ‘Sure CH: Enthusiasm? really assume is there…? I’ve got one right here.’ TM: Yeah, and attentiveness. Often I turn TM: Sure, but I find it amazing that someone So I’m fascinated when these young cats around to the guys and ask – ‘did you like can walk into my room, is hired by the studio, aren’t doing anything. I’ll show up two hours that?’. And they don’t know what I’m talking and doesn’t know the patchbay. And, what’s late cos of the traffic or an appointment, and about. I just spent, say, 20 minutes EQing more, is not spending every waking hour the dude is sitting there watching TV talking to the kick drum, and they’re watching TV or studying the gear. And, when I go into the his girlfriend on the phone! What’s that about? something. They just tell me they weren’t lounge and need to talk on the phone for an That’s lame. I just gave him two hours in a listening. “Well what the hell are you doing hour, they’re not playing with one of the pieces studio that costs 200 bucks an hour, and he’s here?! That’s the one thing you’re supposed of gear I’m not using. I find that completely talking to his girl?! That’s stupid. to do. Making coffee is not the important part, fascinating.

40 Beyoncé – Dangerously in the Mix get any fatter and bigger? CH: In the case of your mixing work on Beyoncé’s Dan- TM: Back in the days, Puff and I spent a lot of time gerously In Love album, can we take a closer a look at working on getting fat-sounding mixes. I used to think the track Me Myself and I? It strikes me as a great case that I was the fattest and the biggest, but there’s always study in how to work with vocals. somebody younger coming up and somehow squeaking TM: Beyoncé’s an extremely dynamic performer. Her out another dB of bottom end in there. I have to tell you: vocals were great, but they changed a lot, based on her I don’t care anymore – it’s no longer my main focus. In performance. That forced me to think about a variety the past I spent a lot of time focussing on it and a lot of of compression techniques. For the tracks where her time believing that it was a signature of mine, and a very vocals are really quite delicate I used the Urei 1176. important issue. Now I listen to the song and I want the When you use the ‘push all four buttons’ technique you song to be great as a song. Sure, if you’re making R&B/hip hop, it’s got to be fat in the bottom end too, but I don’t get a weird expansion-like, breathy thing going on. So I’d spend all my time thinking about it. But I pride myself in have the 1176 coming up another channel of the console my ability get fat bottom end. and when I wanted more energy I’d raise that up. So I CH: What are the secret herbs and spices? automated that fader. And by having the compressed TM: Firstly, use a couple of different kick drums and make vocal coming up another channel it meant I could EQ it sure they’re not cancelling each other out in any way. A separately to make it sound different to the main vocal. lot of the time I’ll get tracks where somebody’s added two In this case I made her voice sound full and rich on the kicks to a song which have been recorded at different times. main vocal track, then I EQ’ed the compression track So often they’re not quantised the same and on every third so it ghosted the main vocal in a way – obviously it’s in beat or so they’ll phase and you’ll lose bottom end rather the exact same phase, it’s not any way different in time, than gain it. That happens a lot. So I’ll take the second kick but it just sits there kinda like a shadow. I’ll also send my and I’ll use Sound Replacer to make it go exactly with the effects from that messed up compressed channel. So the first kick, so they never cancel. effects don’t necessarily sound like the natural one, and But, if you use two different kicks, then use one for the natural one does its own thing. For Beyoncé I always bottom and one for punch – make sure there’s something in use the TC 1210 [spatial expander], so I get a bit more there that gives it enough top end to get that beater sound, of her in the speakers [with extra width] and I’ll also use that clicking sound… that’s important as well. a non-linear reverb on her. The reverb time is very, very I also mess around with different compressions, and short. I tend to use one of ProTools’ on-board plugs to frequency-conscious compression. I’ve also found that the SPL do that – the d-Verb. It seems to be the only reverb that Transient Designer works really for bringing out transients. you can really pull in the reverb time – and even it doesn’t Then I’ll take splits [or mults] of the kick and bass and get as small as I want it to. But I put that on non-linear at I’ll EQ certain elements on one track, boost elements on its shortest setting and tuck it in behind the main vocal, another track, and compress them differently. So long as again, so it’s like there’s this ghost behind her. you’re conscious of the phase you can do anything you CH: So obviously the intention isn’t to add reverb to her like. I’ll even split lead vocals, EQ out all the top of the voice in a conventional sense? lead vocal and ride in bottom whenever I feel like the TM: That’s right. I like to use things that add an energy vocal sounds squeaky. Then I’ll compress the crap out of to the vocal so you’re not quite sure what it is that it and just ride it in the way I want to ride it. I do a lot of you’re hearing. I don’t want you hearing it too much. I’ll that stuff. They’re just tricks you learn over the years and be the first to admit that sometimes I just get it wrong from talking to a lot of people and working with different – sometimes you can hear the effect and that’s not good. producers. You come up with things to get around problems Sometimes I get it right and I think on Me Myself and I, I or to bring life into a record that, maybe in a section, got it right. doesn’t have life or energy. CH: Finally Tony, it seems like it’s difficult to read your Fat Bottom End name anywhere without some reference to coffee. Can CH: I can’t interview the ‘King of Bottom End’ without you give me a few tips? talking about eardrum-perforating bass. Can your mixes TM: About my coffee!? What I can tell you is that I can’t have Starbucks anymore because my girlfriend’s brother Hard Drives – Firewire Vs Fibre was making fun of them and they didn’t like that so they sued him. Can’t have Starbuck’s anymore. What you have CH: Are Firewire drives becoming an increasing part of your life? to do is bring your own cappuccino machine into the studio TM: I still use SNS fibre channel drives. Most people I know use 7,200RPM – which I do. Firewire drives, which I think is slow. The fibre channel drives are just off the meter CH: And it’s possible to get a decent expresso out of a for me – 15,000RPM, and transfer rates that are triple everything else. I can plug domestic appliance? two computers into a fibre channel array, and do my backups and access the four drives I have from different computers – to me that’s the way to go. But it’s also TM: Just make sure you buy an Italian model. And it’s all a lot of dough. So for the kids making their records and the producers trying to about the bean. Get that nice dark bean and make sure save their budgets, forget about it, use Firewire. In fact, I’m probably going to stop it’s ground up real fine. But I actually don’t do too much doing backups to AITs and just buy little Firewire drives and hand those into the anymore. Except for the morning… that’s when I have a label. It’ll be faster for me, cheaper for them. Anyway, it’s just costing me too much coffee. I used to drink coffee during the day, but I stopped time backing this stuff up to AIT and CD when I can just hand in a Firewire and say, ‘here make you’re own copies’. So I think Firewire drives will definitely have their doing that because I realised it was driving me crazy. place but I won’t be giving up my fibre channel drives in a hurry.

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