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By the way, the above vocal treatments are not part of a template. Every song is different. I cannot stress this enough. Vocals are different, and in general I like to change tools with every song. I might have gotten a new plug‑in that I like. I love new technology, so I like to try things out! 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.

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. Engineer, mixer and producer Carlo Montagnese likens his work with the Weeknd to painting — and he’s not afraid to use plenty of colour! Blast Off built another room — I got to see how studios were built — which became my room. I worked with Wiz Khalifa there, and a whole bunch of Atlantic artists. Soon after that I met up with Michael Brian, and we started our own studio in SoHo. We got bigger and bigger and after eight years, in 2016, we decided to move the studios to LA. A year later I did my first session with Young Thug.” Ski’ was written by three producers, Wheezy, Outtatown and BabyWave, and rappers Young Thug and Gunna.“Hell yeah,” agrees Bainz, “that’s often my biggest thing! Some rappers get so married to the demo, knowing every sound, that there’s not much you can do. Thug spends a lot of time making sure that everything is the way it was when he was working with the roughs. So my job is to clean things up and make the beat sound better. But in some cases I may change things or clean something up too much and the rapper doesn’t like it. He thoroughly covers all the major aspects of music production that our students are constantly asking about. How do you get inspired to start an idea? How do you fully develop an idea and how do you mix and master that idea to a fully polished idea that is done?! All done in a fresh new way.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 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. According to Bainz, working on the album made little difference to his daily rhythm, apart from the complications of the epidemic. “Since I started to work for YSL, I have barely had any days off. I am Thug’s and YSL’s full‑time engineer, and they are in the studio every day. Because YSL is such a big camp, as a team and as a label, somebody is always working. They operate like a big family. I do mixes for others as well, sometimes, but I am on call all the time as an engineer. The only reason I can do so many mixes is because I have my room in the same facility, right down the hallway, so I can just walk over to help with recording when needed. Forty–seven years after the release of his self–titled debut album, James Taylor finally achieved his first American number one in June this year. His 17th studio album, Before This World, surpassed the chart placings of Taylor’s classic early–career albums Sweet Baby James (1970, US number three) and Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon (1971, US number two). Before This World also enjoyed notable chart success in several other countries, reaching number four in the UK, for example. 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.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

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’.That’s a lot of plug-ins for a handclap sound! Matt Schaeffer used multiple distortion and saturation processors in series to create the effect he was after.“Yes, there are lots of plug-ins on the claps! I added eight plug-ins to give them the right amount of punch and grittiness. The signal chain is the SSL E-Channel, UAD 610, SoundToys Devil-Loc, Avid DVerb, Valhalla Vintage Verb, UAD 1176LN, the SoundToys Little Radiator and SoundToys MicroShift. I like to boost the input with the 610 as well as the top end with its EQ, because that plug-in adds some pretty cool harmonic distortion. The Devil-Loc and the Little Radiator also add some dirt. I have the two reverbs on the inserts because I did not think I was going to use these settings anywhere else, and I like to compress after the reverb, here with the 1176, because it brings out more ambience. The MicroShift adds a stereo effect to keep the claps out of the centre, in this case to make room for the snare. With more than 15 years of Betfair trading experience, the founder of InsideTraxs has made over 100 VIDEOS. These form the Betfair Trading Academy, which is now considered an invaluable resource to many traders whether Newbies or Experienced. James Taylor (left) and Dave O’Donnell at work in the former’s Barn studio. Photo: Spencer Worthley Angad Bains, aka Bainz, works primarily in the Atlanta rap scene. There used to be a time when the red light ruled — make a noise or enter a studio when it is on and you’re dead meat — and artists would come into the studio with carefully prepared songs, with chords and lyrics written down and laboured over for weeks or months. But Atlanta rap culture completely ignores the old paradigm. A relaxed vibe is imperative, and sonic corruption a problem to be solved after the event.

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. My process is difficult to talk about, because I do everything at once,” explains the producer. “The moment I receive files, I am composing and treating things. I then record Abel raw, without EQ or compressors. His singing is extremely dynamic, based on feeling and emotion, and that is the take. We don’t go in again to try to recut a softer section or get something technically better. Everything is 32–bit, so the only thing I do is make sure he’s never clipping. Immediately after recording Abel, I am throwing on gated reverbs and delays and filters, and more, and arranging and adding things. Writing, producing, mixing is all one fluid process for me. There’s no separation between any of the things that I do.”

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. 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. 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. I had some plug–ins over the stereo bus, even though I have driven myself crazy over the years with many different stereo bus plug–ins, and in the end found that it doesn’t matter. You can get to the same point using different plug–ins. On this song I used the Slate Digital VTM virtual tape machine, which gives you the flexibility to decide how much you want to push the bass in the Settings tab, and which has very realistic hiss noise. On History Of Man I actually used tape, to hear what it would do to my sounds, and when I used the VTM, I found that they dialled that sound in spot on. I also used the Pro–MB, very subtly, just to glue everything together in the song.