Today, we’re joined by our good friend and Grammy-nominated engineer, Matthew Weiss of Weiss Advice.
Matt Weiss is a GRAMMY-nominated, platinum recording and mixing engineer who’s worked with artists like Akon, Swae Lee, Jeremih, Chris Brown, Sonny Digital, Nicky Minaj, Becky G, Anitta, Rick Ross, Farruko, and Ozuna.
Matt grew up in Philadelphia with creative parents: his mother, a doll sculptor, and his step-father, a jazz pianist. He had the opportunity to study a handful of different instruments, including clarinet, piano, drums, guitar, and voice. Out of all these, Matt really found an interest in the Roland Groovebox MC-303 — a classic sequencer — which his step-dad bought him one year as a birthday present. This was in part the beginning of his affinity for pop, hip-hop, and electronic-based music.
Mixing with Emotion and Finding Intention.
There are many videos that discuss how to start a mix. They vary from Top-Down mixing where you start with the master and only then start working on the smaller parts, starting from the vocals and building everything around and starting from the low end and rhythm section and putting everything in to place on top of it.
What if there was another way?
Matt Weiss starts from the part that gives the most inspiration – the most emotional tone and intention behind the track.
It could be an 808 or a vocal hook but in this example, Matt starts with the sample that gives a murderous, ominous feeling.
This sample gives the idea for the overall record -it’s creepy, grit, dusty and there is mystery.
How you interpret that, is up to you as a producer
Listening to the sample without any plugins it may sound rather dull and flat. Though as we feel that this is the main source of emotion in the track, we can work with it.
- OTT compression – aggressive. Brings out the grit.
- Waves’ MV2 is used to compress the strings tone to more them a little more obvious
- Low compensation EQ after the elements. Take out the low end and sub and brighten it further
Because of the nature of the record, grittiness and harshness is needed and is our friend.
Once the tone is set for the sample, then scope the rest around it
On vocals, Matt treats them with the following
- Bring in MetaTune by Slate Digital
- SPACE reverb gives it the 8mm film grain
- RC-20 Retro Colour to add noise, wobble, and distortion.
- Overloud Comp76 FET
- FabFilter Saturn2 to make the vocal feel fuller
- FabFilter ProDS
The backing vocals also have a grittiness to them with noise within the Reverb
The desert-like grit in the reverb really emphasizes the middle-eastern/African feel from within the sample’s progression.
If we came at this record from a vocal-first point of voice, we’d probably clean up the vocal to make it sound “good” when really what we have done is the opposite. We’ve mixed to complement the emotional pull of the track – the gritty sample
Ultimately it comes down to it feeling right to you as a producer and engineer.
When it feels right, that is what the listener is going to hook on to.
Learn from Matthew Weiss over at Pro Mix Academy
Watch the video below to learn more about mixing with Emotion
