My job during this stage is to get everything into Pro Tools, and I'll be making extensive notes and I'll also be polishing the sounds in the box, using EQ and compression and so on. Many of the sounds needs some massaging to get the blends right. I generally use a Neumann M49 on Justin, and if we don't have one, a U87, going into a Neve 1073 mic pre and then a Tube-Tech CL1B compressor, going straight into Pro Tools, which was running at 44.1/24. We don't do vocal comps, because Justin knows what he wants. He listens to himself, and when he wants to touch something up, we punch him in and we move on. We don't end up with five takes of the same vocal. This makes working with him very fast and very easy. Two massive hit albums in a year was a pretty good return on 20 days' work for Justin Timberlake, producer Timbaland — and engineer Chris Godbey. On May 30, 2022, Burnham uploaded the video “Inside: The Outtakes”, to his YouTube channel, marking a rare original upload, similar to how he used his YouTube channel when he was a teenager. In general I’m still more a fan of hardware than of plug–ins,” says Dave O’Donnell, “although during the last couple of years plug–ins have become significantly better, and there are some newer companies making things that are more interesting than just analogue gear emulations. This week I’ve been trying out some FabFilter and DMG plug–ins, which to me is the way to go, to some degree using traditional analogue principles but not necessarily trying to emulate specific gear. Though the danger with some of these plug–ins is that you end up mixing with your eyes, rather than your ears! When I mix I have my screen off to the side, so I can listen without seeing things, because no matter how experienced you are, looking at what happens on the screen changes the way you hear it.

Traditionally educated in the art of recording, Bainz has had to adapt to Atlanta rap’s studio culture. Here, he talks us through his mix of Young Thug and Gunna’s hit single, ‘Ski’.Born in New Delhi, India, Bainz got to his position as chief engineer and mixer at YSL in Los Angeles via Australia, Florida and New York. He recalls, “I never played an instrument, but got into DJ’ing and I was into electronic music. I went to Melbourne to do a bachelor degree in something, I can’t remember what it was, but I hated it. I dropped out and then enrolled in the School of Audio Engineering Institute in Melbourne. I was always into the technicalities behind music and there I realised I wanted to be an engineer. This view of the Pro Tools Edit window shows some of the beats, which were programmed in some cases by cutting and pasting audio clips rather than using MIDI. Although the vertical waveform zoom level has been raised to make the contents of each clip visible, Pro Tools’ Clip Gain feature has been used to reduce most of them in level by up to 15dB. Then in 2010, when I was 22, I moved to Toronto. I had a room at Dream House Studios, and behind every wall another producer was creating music in a different genre, which made me feel very uncomfortable, as I was working my way through a lot of insecurities. During that time I went to LA to have meetings with people, but nobody was interested. No matter what music I was working on, it wasn’t going for me. The main thing I did during this period, and still afterwards, was developing my techniques. At one stage I was mapping out the different frequency octaves in different keys of songs, and I would visually approach mixing with these different frequency ranges in mind. It was like maths. I literally had vocals rolled off at certain frequencies because it opened up for this other sound to come in. I drove myself absolutely mad! I don’t do that at all any more, but I had to go through it. It was a step along the path.” It’s easier and more flexible to work in the box, but it does mean that I spend a lot of time making sure the programmed stuff sounds less sterile. One way of doing that is by adding grit. Distortion is a big part of working in analogue, and the way you hit the console can make a big difference. You don’t have that in the box, but you can simulate it. I’ll use various plug-ins to create grit in the box, like the SoundToys Decapitator and sometimes the Waves NLS console emulation plug-ins.” The Member’s Newsletters are the ultimate way to get well researched and consistently profitable selections. The “Hints & Tips” section provides the best trading opportunities of the day and the “B2L” section provides selections based on a unique formula only available on InsideTraxs.

Engineer, mixer and producer Carlo Montagnese likens his work with the Weeknd to painting — and he’s not afraid to use plenty of colour! James wanted to have a sense of what he had,” recalled O’Donnell, “which was many musical ideas, including melodies, but only a few lyrics. Steve has worked with James since 2000, and Jimmy since 1991, so they are familiar with James’s music and approach, and part of James’s vision was to have these guys play his stuff. Basically he comes in, plays us what he has and they listen and then start to join in. In 2010 we tried a lot of arrangement ideas, and laid them down, after which James went off and wrote lyrics and more music.” In The Barn Carlo ‘Illangelo’ Montagnese is the musician, beatmaker, producer and mixer who has played a central part in propelling the Weeknd to worldwide fame. He’s also a man who’s happy to answer any question put to him — until I ask what hardware he uses in his studio and on the road. This elicits a long pause, and the thoughtful reply: Now 28, Carlo ‘Illangelo’ Montagnese takes the modern approach to making music to an extreme, with every significant move done in software. Unsurprisingly, Montagnese also learnt his skills in typically 21st-century fashion: he’s self–taught, and the Internet is his main source of information. As Chris Godbey mentions in the main article, the other big hit from The 20/20 Experience 1 of 2, 'Suit & Tie', was written Compared with the sessions for 'Mirrors', the stem session from which 'Suit & Tie' was mixed is relatively simple.

the inside track

Thug or the other rappers work out their rap in the control room, which usually is full of people, because it adds to the vibe,” Bainz explains. “No words get written down or entered into a phone ever, by anyone. You will be surprised at how fast the rappers move! Sometimes the entire vocal is laid down in less than an hour. It’s about the energy in that moment. Our job is to capture that, maintain sonic integrity and make the end result sound as amazing as possible. The art of music production lies in serving the song — and working with James Taylor, Dave O’Donnell felt that modern production trends would hinder his aim of capturing emotive performances. Because of the way James’s schedule went, we ended up mixing everything at his and my place, on my Yamaha DM2000 desk. It has four banks of 24 channels, and 48 channels at 96k, plus some very good internal EQs and effects, like reverbs. For me it’s great to be able to work with faders, and although we went digital through the DM2000, I think it did sound better than just staying in the box. In general, going out of the box will give you a wider image, with more depth, and the Yamaha will also do that. Particularly for a project like this, going through a mixer sounds much better. I plugged analogue outboard into the Yamaha console inserts, and also connected outboard to the Pro Tools hardware inserts. Some of the hardware included my Vertigo VSC2 compressor, which I love, and the TC Electronic 4000 as my main digital reverb.” In The Mix

The music: iZotope Ozone, Cable Guys Volume Shaper, UAD MXR Flanger, API 560, EP34, Brainworx BX_solo, API Vision, EL7 Fatso, AMS RMX16, Pultec EQ & API 560, SoundToys Decapitator & MicroShift, Waves Renaissance Bass, L1, L2 & Reel ADT, FabFilter Volcano, Pro–Q2, Pro–G & Pro–MB, Audio Ease Altiverb, Sugar Bytes Artillery 2. Bainz has an impressive credit list. In addition to the artists already mentioned, he has worked with Juice WRLD, Sia, Mac Miller, Quavo, Machine Gun Kelly, Prateek Kuhad and many others. When asked why he thinks he managed to be so successful in a relatively short space of time, he reflects: “I guess I’m really fast on Pro Tools, but also, I’m very adaptable. When I met Young Thug, I really immersed myself in his culture. This is really important. When you work with an artist every day, you have to know where they’re coming from, and how they move. You need to know the technical stuff as well, and if you communicate that with them, it’s the best marriage.” YSL Studio There has been a 13–year hiatus since Taylor’s previous album of new material, 2002’s October Road, punctuated only by an album of covers called, well, Covers (2008), a few live albums and a Christmas album. In interviews, Taylor indicated that modern life was simply too busy for him to take the time off he needs to write. The other major challenge for any older artist is to come up with something that’s not only relevant today in terms of music and lyrics, but that can also compete in today’s sonic landscape. After finishing college I had a production-type room for a while, which led to me going to work at a big studio in Dallas, called the Dallas Sound Lab. I hooked up with a gospel artist there called Kirk Franklin, and we worked together for seven years and won two Grammy Awards [for Franklin's albums Hero in 2005 and The Fight Of My Life in 2007, both in the Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album category]. Because of my connection with Franklin I recorded mainly Christian albums for many years, but around 2007 some musician friends of mine hooked me up with Timbaland, which is how I got to work with him. Since then I am wherever he is, which may be in New York, Los Angeles, Miami or his studio in Virginia Beach.” 20 Days I’m Thug’s full‑time engineer, but also sometimes record Gunna, though he has his own engineer, Flo Ongonga. In the past, when Thug and Gunna were in Atlanta, Flo would record them, and here in LA I’d record them, and neither of us would sleep for days. But since Covid, with them working so much, I go to Atlanta to work with Flo and when we work here in LA, he comes over to work with me, so it’s both of us in action at the same time all the time.”

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When collaborating, people who use other DAWs simply send me WAVs, and I then load these into Cubase, and that’s when my work begins. It’s a process of chipping away at things and building them out. I’ve worked in Cubase for 12 years now, and I’m incredibly fast and efficient with it. I do everything: all my writing, producing, recording, tuning, editing and mixing in one session. Cubase is the one thing I couldn’t do without. But I’ve recently also been playing with Ableton, and that’s fun. I can work in it without looking at numbers or graphical interfaces, I’m just creating and throwing things together without quantising or treating them. After that I Rewire things in Cubase, and get into the technical side and zone in on the details. It’s become an incredible workflow for me. From comparing the amount of money placed on a horse versus the total on the race you can tell if a horse is overweighted in the market or underweighted.