Original subtitles

I'm Kevin 'KD' Davis, otherwise known as KD.

I'm here with Mix With The Masters.

We're going to go over a song by Normani and Sam Smith called

"Dancing With A Stranger."

Started mixing in the studio or started as an assistant engineer in the studio

when I was 19, right out of high school.

Worked for a couple of studios around town for a couple of years.

And then one of the main studios I worked at was called Sound Castle.

From there on, I started gaining clients as a recording engineer

and started mixing people's records,

and then moved over to different studios around and gaining clients over the years.

And got a chance to mix on a bunch of different genres from rap to hip-hop

to R&B, to pop, all kind of records.

So just experience through the years.

Well, when I started, I was mainly an analog mixer

using analog consoles, the SSL, the Neves, that's primarily...

Most of my career, I was based in analog.

That was how everybody mixed back in the day.

So as time evolved and Pro Tools started taking over the industry,

I started really getting more into using Pro Tools

with both analog and Pro Tools together.

But now, I'm primarily in the box with some analog gear that I'm still using.

Different projects came to me different ways.

Mainly in the R&B, pop world is where I make my bones at.

Started working at different studios, gained different clients here and there.

Got a couple of records that did pretty well.

And the rest was history, it just kept growing and building as time went on.

So here in my room at Beach Way Sound, this was actually a room

that actually had a 96-channel SSL "K" in it.

This room was... actually, previously used to be called Pacifique.

It had been here since the '90s.

And it was very well built.

One of the best-sounding rooms, I'd say, in the city.

We got Augspurger monitors.

I'm currently using as my nearfield, some Focal SM9s, and the Yamaha NS10s.

I like using various different cheap speakers.

I sometimes monitor through my iPhone

or I'll use a little JBL little handheld party speaker

just to kind of listen to see what it's going to sound like

in a normal environment, in a regular environment.

I'm currently using a Slate Digital RAVEN for my monitor.

And some of the outboard gear I use are the NTI stereo EQ,

the Avalon 2055 stereo EQ.

Just different pieces of gear that have the signature sound that add

to some certain sounds that I like to use.

Mainly I'm using my outboard gear on vocals and the overall Bus Mix,

but most of my stuff is in the box.

When it comes to summing, I would think to each his own.

For me, I tried summing in a couple of different boxes.

And I did hear a slight difference, but it wasn't enough of a difference to me

to say, "This sounds dramatically better."

And for me, I work on a lot of records, so it's like I have to get to the next song,

and it was just easy for me to stay within the box.

So when I'm changing over different songs, I don't have to do as much

outside of the session to get what I need to get done.

But like I said, it's to each his own, some people like analog summing.

For me, it just it's quicker and it's easier and I'm able to achieve the sound

that I want within the box using different gear and just using different sounds.

I spend a lot of time just conditioning

the sounds that are really important, conditioning those so they sound good

before I even actually put in effects, getting anything to it,

just really the base signal, getting it sounded really good,

so when I get the final product, it feels like as if I mixed it on a board.

So as far as the outboard gear that I use on the Mix Bus,

the only really piece of gear that I use that's analog is the NTI Stereo EQ.

There's a setting that I have on there that I just... I don't really change it.

I just poke it in when the mix is close.

And I always find that when I poke it in and put it in the spot in the chain,

it just makes the mix wake up and open up.

It's a slight EQ, but it just does something to the overall mix.

And I don't really put that in until about 80% or 90% ready to go with the song

and I got it sounding pretty good.

I've never used the UAD version, but the EQ that I have,

I think it's slightly different than the UAD version.

It's one of the older models.

So I haven't seen this model in the UAD

but it's just something about running that analog, and maybe it's just in my brain,

but it just feels good when you're running the mix outside

and bringing it back in through an analog piece of gear.

It gives it a different character.

I actually use a couple of different frequencies on it.

There's a nice bottom end to it that it adds and a nice air bend

that the NTI's known for.

But there's also some midrange stuff that I dial in.

And I just find that when I pop it in on whatever song,

it just works, it brings the song alive.

Everything's really subtle.

It's not really over-dramatically EQ'd.

It's just adding different things in the chain

to see how it makes the song sound better.

And sometimes I might not use anything.

I might just slap NTI and some slight or nothing

and just let it ride if it feels good.

But it really depends on the song. Every song is different.

The other analog gear I use is the 2055.

And I primarily use that on vocals.

There's just something about the top end of that older EQ that sounds sweet.

I haven't really had a lot of EQs that duplicate that sound.

So what I'll do is I'll get a vocal, and I'll just listen to it raw

without anything on it.

And I'll start doing a couple of little things to it, which we'll go over.

And then I'll throw this EQ on it just to kind of... if it needs some more body

or if it needs some more top or whatever it might need, just a slight change to it

just to give me the character so I know I'll have something to work with.

Then I'll rerun that back and print that and then work off of the printed new vocal

to start the mix with.

So the song we're going to start with today is a song by Sam Smith and Normani

called "Dancing With A Stranger."

The first thing I do when I get a song, I just listen to the reference track.

And I go over that a few times as I'm playing in the background.

Just listen to it, getting myself familiar with it.

Because a lot of times, this is the first time I'm ever hearing the song

and the producer's been living with it for a while.

So I want to understand what they love about it, what I think could sound better,

but at the same time, keeping the essence of what they created.

So I'll go and I'll start playing the reference.

And as I'm playing the reference, I'm just listening to where the vocals are sitting,

I'm listening to how the kick and bass is feeling,

what kind of song it really is, what does it need,

what kind of energy it may need me to add,

what kind of energy it naturally has, and what can I enhance?

So as I'm listening to the reference, I'm listening to the melody,

I'm listening to lyrics, just seeing what the vibe of the song is.

Familiarizing myself with the song.

That's probably the first 30 minutes of the session.

I'm just doing that.

And then once I get that going, the first thing I start with is the vocals.

And I'll strip everything away and just use the vocal, the lead vocals

by themselves, just listening to what's going on, what may they need

just to get it to an area

where I can start really working with it within the mix.

So on this particular song, Sam Smith is singing the first verse,

and I'm just getting used to his vocal.

So right now we're monitoring the reference.

Just getting an idea of the spacing that I might need to add to the vocal

or to the song itself.

Now that I'm hearing what's going on, I'll just listen to Sam's vocal by itself,

just to hear what he's got going on, to see what I may need.

So I'm listening to Sam's vocal, just getting an idea what he might need.

He's got a nice round tone to him.

Kind of bring it up with a little bit of R-Vox just to bring his level up overall.

Very subtle. Nothing crazy.

And after listening, then I'll just move on to see if he needs

just any slight compression.

And I like to use the Softube TLA-100.

I used to use the analog version a lot for summing.

But this is very similar to the analog version.

And I also like to use it in parallel a little bit, so I'll add a little bit

of the original signal in with the compressed signal.

Again, nothing major, just some subtle stuff.

And then after that, I'll go to my analog EQ,

which is actually the Avalon 2055.

So that's actually sitting in my rack.

And so what I'll do is I'll go over and just dial in some top end.

I might dial in a little bit of midrange.

Just a little bit, nothing crazy, just to get it to where I know

that it's a ballpark range that I have something to work with.

So as I'm rerunning the vocal that I'm doing some work to,

I'll run it through the Mix Bus, but I won't have anything on the Mix Bus,

so I'll leave that just blank because I want to have it as close to the sound

that I made and I can always manipulate it later through the Mix Bus

within the mix session.

I'll usually bypass whatever I have on my Mix Bus channel.

And I'll rerun the vocal through the gear that I mentioned before and make a new,

fresh vocal stem for it, a lead vocal stem.

So I might break it up into sections like a verse or the chorus or a B section,

but usually, I'm doing a verse vocal or a chorus vocal.

I might do one whole vocal it just depends on how the song is set up.

In this case, we got one lead vocal for Sam.

He's got a little octave vocal that I'll make a stem for.

And then Normani has her lead vocal, and she has a slight

one little adlib track that we'll add.

So it'll be four vocal stems for the lead.

And then there's a couple of little background parts

that I will maybe do a stem part too.

But it's really two vocals, so I might not need to stem that out.

I might just bring that into the session as is.

So the process of me doing the leads will just consist of me running right back

through the Mix Bus and starting from scratch from there.

So once I've run all the passes, then I'll create what's called a mix stem session.

So I'll close this up.

So now that I have the vocals into my mix session, I'm still listening to the song

just vocals only, just seeing what's going on with it.

And I might add the drums and bass just to build a foundation.

Because to me, that's the foundation of the song, is the lyric, the melody,

and then the rhythm section.

And then we can put everything else around that afterwards.

All right. So now that I have the vocals in the mix session,

I'll start with the leads and put a little tune on it.

In this case, I had a little bit of Auto-Tune on there.

Then I followed it up with a little 1073 because I like the way

the midrange sounds on this.

And one of my favorite... Using combination EQs,

I like using the Neve 1073 followed by an SSL.

The Neve gives me the roundness, the nice round part.

And then I can dial in the top with the SSL.

So in this case, I'm kind of boosting a little bit of some lows in the 1073,

and a little bit of midrange around 3.2, and a little top end, and then after that,

I'll go into my SSL EQ.

And I'm boosting maybe a little bit of 800 around there,

just seeing what it sounds like.

So now that we're getting through it, I'll listen to see if there's any frequencies

that are bothering me that need to be tamed down.

So I like to use the Pro-MB by FabFilter.

It's real clean, real transparent sounding, but it gets the job done.

So right now I'm taking my little top off using it as DS'er.

And some of the high midrange.

So it's not as harsh in the high midrange area.

And then I'll actually put another DS'er just back there.

So I'm using it subtly because I think the song had a lot of SS going on

that I need to smooth out.

After that, I might follow it up with just a little bit of R-Vox just slightly

bringing the vocal now that I've got it where I wanted to.

Just bringing it together, kind of gluing it together like a slight glue.

Nothing dramatic, just all slight subtle things as I'm building the mix.

And so as I'm listening to the vocals and I add in the kick and the bass

and the snare just to build that foundation,

I'm just starting to throw in different sounds.

I might throw in the famous keyboard sound that they put in there

just to see how that fits in space with the vocals.

And then it determines what kind of verb I'll pick.

Because I want the verb to work with everything else that's going on the track.

So in this case, I used the Valhalla Dirty Plate.

Which is a great-sounding verb.

And I also use a little bit of slight chorusing to just make the vocal sound

a little wider, just a little...

so it can dominate the track a little bit.

I like this Valhalla Space Modulator.

This sound I got a little preset that I have on there that I like to use.

And I'll maybe take off a little high end and spread it a little bit.

Just give it its only little thing.

And what I found is it just gives the vocal that extra oomph

that it needs to just sit in the track correctly for me.

And then I'll just play with the levels and get a blend between

the foundational pieces, the vocals, the drums, the bass,

and then start adding stuff in as I go.