Andrew Maury Productions

Haaaaaa... here's my take. Others might describe it differently. A compressor is a tool that allows you to change the energy of a sound. It can be used gently to help massage the balance in the mix, or aggressively to create energy where it is lacking. It tightens a signal's dynamic range and can help prevent things from sounding overly dynamic. When you push a compressor hard (lets say, over 15db of gain reduction), it has an effect of adding lots of drama and excitement to a sound. It helps to keep the signal focused in its moment-to-moment volume. Our ears and brain naturally compress sound when we hear things out in the real world. We're used to hearing some form of compression. Our eardrums physically tighten when we hear loud sounds and our brain allows us to focus in on quieter sounds that we are attempting to hear in more detail. Compressors help bring this familiarity to electronically recorded sounds.

gonna start adding dates to responses. things change fast these days, ppl. / 9.10.2019 / hi cian. shampoo is enemy - once a week or an "alternate" product. condition if i feel like stealing some of my wife's - a special treat. NYC tap baby. the bathtub is too small to use. had to google it, looks absolutely terrible. Decapitator is great - I think a "Decapitator II" would sling mad licenses.

Just a little bit of serial CLA76 and UAD LAD2A compression. Like, a LITTLE. Jeremy pre-mixes his tracks very tastefully before handing off to me. I'm not sure what he did but he has eagle ears and amazing taste. This is true of all his songs. Mixing his stuff is really only about setting a stage for the song to feel a little bigger and more 3D. All of the noticeable tonality/style/effect/compression is him.

That record and band are really special to me. That album turned out great. I remember when I got the rough mixes about a month before I started mixing, I listened to the songs to death because I really loved them. I even developed a fear that I wasn't going to do it justice. Phew. Dylan their bassist is a great arranger and producer. The puzzle of tones and rhythms across all the parts make a lot of sense and thats why its able to sound so clear. Its also a wide bandwidth production -- low lows and high highs are all musically considered.

This album was mixed when I was doing a hybrid ITB/OTB approach. I don't think its good BECAUSE of that though. Its just a context. There's a lot of hardware KuSh Audio Clariphonic mid+high boost on the mix bus. I might have overdone it because I remember having a revelation right before mastering that all the mixes sounded better when I added a pretty aggressive and broad digital EQ boost in the mids/low mids around 800hz. And then I remember getting the masters back from Dave McNair and thinking they were super bright again. But he nailed it. I dunno... good song, good arrangement, lots of conviction, like minds, get the right balance, EQ it until it works!!

In 2018, the streaming service auto leveling conversation got intense. Mostly about Spotify, whom impose the setting *on* by default. To date, they have not shared their leveling algorithm with the music making community. I was thinking about this a lot at the time, and was getting psyched out by numbers and technicalities etc etc. There are sites like loudnesspenalty.com that somehow give you information about what the services will do to the file.

Bottom line for me right now (2019) is that there seems to be a degree of loudness per song that really does the mix justice. Some songs feel best with clean headroom and a really open 3D soundscape. Some songs feel best creamed and distorted and flat right up against the glass of 0dbfs. There is a very specific texture that you get when a mix is “grinding” against the ceiling. Do not underestimate this. If you haven’t yet developed an ear for this, I recommend you work on it. Different limiters and saturators and compressors have different sounds. Building a master chain that complements the mix can be a complex art. Some mixers are skilled at getting a mix to sound complete without a ton of processing at the finish line. Others lean on it heavily. I use both techniques.

I weigh the moment in history we’re in... where cd loudness wars resulted in a taste for sound that is heavily limited and compact in dynamic range. Remember: the sound of popular music out in the world has created an expectation for the average person. This is a completely subjective thing that evolves slowly with time and artist trends. A lot of popular music is CRUSHED! The general public has no idea what RMS or LUFS or any of that is. They don't even know what a compressor is. Many don't even know the concept of how multitrack recording works. They just hear a song and the sound of that song. The mix should feel great. Smashing a mix into the ceiling is sometimes how I get that. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes I want the kick and bass to ring free with zero distortion or transient compromise. Those songs may need to be a little quieter. Listen to the relationship between density and transient detail and find the balance that animates the song best!

the numbers dont matter when you're under 0. no difference in sound quality if you deliver your mix at -20 or -2. a 24 bit audio file has an immense amount of perfectly clean headroom (140db from 0 to the noise floor)

SSL channel is always useful. Also a fan of Sly-Fi Axis for adding saturation+EQ. Soothe when the recording is really problematic / resonant. Sometimes Decapitator to add more grit/texture.

It varies a lot, but I have been a fan of what the API 2500 does generally. Sometimes I do a parallel "smash" of the drums rather than process the drum buss. Sometimes the UAD Studer A800 in 30 ips mode enhances the subs in a really great way. Pultec high shelf boosts. I notice a pattern that any time the drum bus gets loaded up with a ton of stuff (more than 3 plugins), I end up scrapping it for a more simple chain... it always seems to sound better with less processing.

I'd have to pull it up, but a lot of Shawn LP3 vocals have the waves C4 with the top boosted. Its quite a distinct sound. The "pop vocal" preset is a good starting place. Credit to the producer, Teddy Geiger, on that tip! The PT sessions came with C4 in the vocal chains. I had never really found a use for it prior, but I kept them as I reworked these mixes.

looking at the session, there are 3 verb sends that different tracks / sections use in different amounts.

Best case scenario tends to be that the artist signs off on the mix after 2 revisions. Worst case scenario... i've gone up to #18. With high revision counts, its often the case that I end up helping with the production, editing, arrangement, and integrating additional layers along the way. I think on average, I spend about 10 collective hours working on a song and its mix 3-7 that goes to mastering. I find it most comfortable when there is time to sit with the mix over the course of 2 weeks. With perfect ITB recalls, it allows me to chip away at a mix with a lot of fresh perspective.

Tim Pagnotta produced + mixed 4 songs on the record and Chad Wahlbrink mixed 1. I mixed the rest. We did not communicate with each other, but the album feels cohesive to me!

I have been mixing ITB exclusively since the end of 2016. I'll let you determine which of those releases count as "famous" :)

As I answer this question in October of 2018, yes. I usually mix in Logic because I prefer it and know it best. Sometimes I mix in PT if it seems like its going to be a smoother process to work from someone's production session file. I think arguing about the sound quality of DAWs is a massive distraction. I've done tests comparing PT and Logic with a routing scheme and array of many plugins that had identical settings. To my ear, there was no stark difference.

yes - theyre ASC Tube Traps. i have them configured in what is called an "attack wall." look it up!

i am

likely decapitor, yes!

born in '85