The Mix Review | Sound On Sound

11.10.2016 11:26

The Mix Review

Commercial Productions Analysed
Comment / Opinion
Production
Recording
By Mike Senior
What Do You Mean?
With a singer like this, whose low mid-range warmth and upper-spectrum
breathiness are essential elements of their character, it makes sense to
construct your production around it. Notice here how the pianos thinned
low mids at 0:45 and 1:35 help minimise the risk of muddying the overall
mix tonalitys poptastic airiness, as does the staccato envelope of the
rhythm synth (first heard at 0:15) that offers the only real low mid-range
competition. The bass is also carefully sculpted to provide beef below
200Hz, as well as enough true mid-range to ensure small-speaker
compatibility, but with a suckout in
the 200-600 Hz low mid-range
danger zone. At the other end of the
spectrum, Bieber all but has the mix
to himself. The clock ticks and
backbeat are both so transient that
they dont hamper his intelligibility
or sheen appreciably, and neither
does the beautifully understated
shaker (first arriving with the hook
at 0:31), on account of its supersmooth tone and comparatively low
fader level enough to significantly enhance the groove, but not an ounce
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Sayfa 1 / 7

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more. All of which leaves a little 1kHz pocket that the rhythm synth and
twiddly lead-synth hook can both neatly use to anchor themselves solidly
in the balance. Mike Senior
Cant Feel My Face
Besides the great bass/drums
groove and top-notch vocal
performance, this production is full
of lovely little arrangement touches.
Check out the subtle vinyl crackle
bubbling up under the beat (most
noticeable when it first arrives at
0:44), which really gives the track a
cool atmosphere. The little Michael
Jackson-style background
vocalisations (starting with the
inspired uh... ah! during the vocal
drop at 1:03) also add significantly to the groove on an almost subliminal
level. And I love the way the choruss rhythm track subtly builds through
the song, first with the beautifully restrained shaker layer from 1:38, and
then by the addition of the second verses rhythm guitar for the final
workout.
The chorus backing vocals pull a couple of neat stunts too. Firstly, they
convert the lead lines straight rhythm into syncopation by anticipating the
main beats a great way of squeezing extra musical value from a single
rhythm-plus-lyric idea. But the way theyre cut dead mid-phrase at 3:18
also provides a fantastic little what the...? moment, which really drags
attention back to the beat for the outro. Maybe it just started out as a slip
of the Mute button (it wouldnt be the first time Serendipity had earned
itself a co-production credit), but seasoned producers rarely let good
fortune go to waste. Mike Senior
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Sayfa 2 / 7

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Writings On The Wall

Ill admit that this latest Bond theme
doesnt quite float my boat, because
even the opulent arrangement and
undeniably gorgeous cinematic
sonics dont quite seem to
compensate for the rather weak
parallel-octaves motion between the
bass and lead vocal at the onset of
each chorus. This is a clear no-no in
traditional harmony primers, and
while every well-known composer
flouts such textbook prohibitions
from time to time, theyre nevertheless there for a reason: parallel octaves
provide none of the chord-to-chord tension and release that typifies
classical-style harmonic momentum. Were this pure pop, it wouldnt
matter much, but within the Bond franchises old-school orchestral idiom I
think it falls a bit flat.
That aside, the scoring is admirable. Just to cherry-pick, check out the high
strings at the start of verse two (2:02-2:17), which exude an effortless class
I only hear in project-studio productions about twice a decade, sad to say.
The lead line is supported beautifully: the violins back off so the start of
each vocal line can pop through; theres a swell as the vocal intensity rises
through each phrase, and then you get thematically linked and/or just
stylish fills to hold the listeners attention whenever Sam takes a breath.
But the arranger is also capitalising on the unique expressive capabilities of
these instruments. Not only does slurred bowing give the fills their soaring
legato, but the fourth-beat bow-change at 2:09 stresses both the Bb notes
aching dissonance and the characteristically lugubrious finger-slide up to
the downbeat C. One word of warning, though: if you try to emulate the
fast runs of the second fill (2:15) with any amateur ensemble, theyll almost
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Sayfa 3 / 7

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certain sound scrappy its fiendishly difficult to play (and indeed

capture) those kinds of high flurries appealingly, because the metal-only
construction of the violins top E string (the other strings have a nonmetallic core) gives it a much more piercing timbre, especially on cheaper
instruments.
Although woodwinds are conspicuously absent, there are plenty of
arrangers friend sweeteners, such as harps, timpani, cymbal mallet-rolls,
and the sneaky bass synth lurking in the 40-80 Hz depths. While plenty of
classical instruments can put out those kinds of low frequencies, theyll
rarely give the kind of LF power you regularly hear in the charts.
Furthermore, low frequencies take time to build up in acoustic instruments
(and, indeed, their environment) so an orchestras low end will naturally
lag a little behind the beat. The bass synth (or the electric bass in Adeles
Skyfall, which I critiqued back in SOS June 2013) simply helps clarify the
harmonic rhythm for mainstream listeners.
Also like Skyfall, the CD single features an instrumental that neatly phasecancels against the full mix to isolate the vocalist. Fairly heavy piano spill
remains on the vocal mic, though, suggesting that a significant portion of
the line was captured with the pianist playing in the same room a
technique Steve Fitzmaurice mentioned when we interviewed him in SOS
September 2014 about working on Smiths debut album. Why mess with a
winning formula? Mike Senior
Talking To My Diary

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Sayfa 4 / 7

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Dr. Dres second solo album, 2001,

has been amongst my most valued
mix references for more than 15
years, and still knocks spots off most
commercial productions in sonic
terms. The bass and kick are
admirably tight and powerful; the
backbeats are so upfront they make
you blink; and the vocals are
beautifully clear and judiciously
balanced to maintain the power of
the beats. The translation is
ridiculously good to all sorts of different playback systems, and the depth
dimension stretches from the end of your nose to the far horizon. In short,
its a thing of wonder. Needless to say, its absolute purgatory measuring
any mix of your own against such a benchmark, but it doesnt half push
you to improve your engineering chops, which is the whole point.
So it was perhaps inevitable that 2001s follow-up, Compton, would fail to
live up to my hopes. Dont get me wrong, on a musical level its killer, full
of great beats (the kick and bass are still to die for), engaging textures, and
mad production ideas. But sonically things feel over-hyped for the most
part. For instance, take the single Talking To My Diary (amongst the new
releases sonic high points, to my ears), and put it up against previous-disc
cuts like The Watcher, Bitch Niggaz or Housewife. First of all the beat
feels over-squashed/clipped for the sake of loudness, with exactly the loss
of punch and power youd expect. Then theres a general trebly
abrasiveness to the upper percussion and vocal timbres that makes partygrade listening levels pretty cruel on the cochlea, as well as robbing the rap
performances of gravitas. (Other tracks, such as Deep Water, fare even
less well in this regard.) Plus, overall Im missing the same sense of clarity
and depth, as if too many aspects of the mix are competing to be up-front
at once and crowding out the longer-distance views. But isnt Compton just
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Sayfa 5 / 7

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reflecting contemporary tastes in that respect? I dont honestly think so,

judging by recent hip-hop productions I checked from Drake, Wiz Khalifa,
Kendrik Lamar and various others 2001 still seemed to make a better
impression by comparison.
Ho-hum. Well, at least Im not the only one who finds 2001 a hard act to
follow... Mike Senior
Adeles latest single (reviewed last
month) shares a title but precious
little else with this 80s smooch-athon, which helped propel Lionel
Richie and his perma-rolled sleeves
into the pop stratosphere. Returning
to the song after all these years (and
trying to put that hair/moustache
combo out of my mind), I was
actually surprised by how well the
production had aged. Yes, most of us
nowadays would shelve a bit of HF
off the reverb returns and fade those synth string pads down 6dB, but all
the main backing instruments still sound great, with none of that plastic
trebliness that so many 80s artists tried to pass off as modern hi-fi. The
acoustic guitar that arrives at 0:39 is gorgeous, for instance: very delicately
played so that you can really hear the string sustain in the mix, but with
great care clearly taken to avoid mechanical noises becoming a distraction
no mean recording feat. The bass and clean electric guitar are likewise
paragons of virtue in sonic terms, boasting richness, clarity, and (crucially)
not a trace of ham-fisted chorusing. Likewise, although the drums are
doing their best to sound like samples with their super-discrete panning, at
least theyre not submerged in nasty synthetic reverb. If anything, theyre
surprisingly up-front, giving as much of a nod to the 70s as to the decade
in which they were recorded.
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Sayfa 6 / 7

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But the forgotten highlights of this production for me are all those great
synth details. The recirculating twinkles that start the song and then adorn
the closing word of every chorus. The gossamer arpeggiations that flutter
over kissed your lips a thousand times in the first verse, and reappear for
heart will overflow in the second. And the intriguingly sporadic flutey DE-A fragment in the run-up to the solo.
Harmonically, this songs calling card is, of course, the choruss complete
falling-fifth cycle of root notes within the home key of A minor. Heaps of
composers have used this device, but what tends to differentiate their
approaches is how far they stray from the key scale during the cycle. In this
case, Richie first chooses to spring a surprise C# on us as the cycle starts,
by following Is it me youre looking for? with an A major chord, then
resolving to D minor and continuing the pattern through G, C, and F major
chords. But the real signature moment is where he flattens the supertonic
root chromatically to produce a momentary Bb major sonority, only to
snuff that out a moment later with the jarring first-inversion E major
dominant chord (giving rise to a splendid diminished-third bass
progression from Bb to G#) that pulls us back to A minor. Mike Senior

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Sayfa 7 / 7