A Conversation with Rob Mathes, Co-Producer of Sting’s Symphonicities

By James Beaudreau | Published: July 16, 2010

Rob Mathes

Rob Mathes

Rob Mathes is a musician with a very broad set of talents: he’s a celebrated composer, arranger, and producer – and those are just his main gigs. Rob has a number of critically lauded albums to his name, including the cult favorite Evening Train, as well as many production and arranging credits with high-profile artists such as Lou Reed, Bono, Panic! At the Disco, Tony Bennett, Elton John, and Rod Stewart.


But Sting’s new album Symphonicities, which Rob co-produced, is — even for an artist as successful as Rob — something different. “This is easily the most significant project I’ve been a part of,” he says. “It’s very difficult to describe — it’s incalculable how important Sting’s music was to me coming up.”

Symphonicities features Sting singing in front of orchestral treatments of some of the greatest songs in his canon, arranged by some of the best arrangers in the business, like David Hartley, Steven Mercurio, and Rob Mathes himself.

Rob brought Symphonicities to Scott Hull here at Masterdisk for mastering, so we’ve had the pleasure of being able to work on this remarkable record, and also the pleasure of working with and talking to Rob, who is as gracious and humble a guy as you’ll find in the music business. On a break from his current project — producing the debut album from Glee star Matthew Morrison — Rob took some time to discuss Symphonicities.

I asked Rob what it is about Sting that made him such an important influence.

He has this extremely rare thing: the whole package, the presence and charisma of a rock star but alongside superb and deep musicianship. From a musicological standpoint, he understands rhythm so deeply, and his melodic sense is incandescent. Listen to some early Sting records; they have beautiful melodies. Take the melody out and it’s beautiful on its own. He had the foresight to collaborate with Stewart Copland and Andy Summers and to marry that amazing sense of melody with the exciting punk rock and reggae rhythms in The Police. Like “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”: alongside the ferocity of that groove, the melody is like Gregorian chant! And then to see Sting grow, and leave The Police, and then write songs like “They Dance Alone” and “We Work the Black Seam” …he’s amazing.

Symphonicities

Symphonicities

Rob’s involvement in the Symphonicities album came about in a remarkable way. Chris Roberts, the president of Universal Classics and Jazz, made the initial introduction. Chris had been talking with Sting in the early stages of the project, and suggested that he meet with Rob based on his broad experience in both classical music and pop. So they did meet, and they discussed the music, and Sting asked Rob to show him some arrangements. Typically, at this point, an arranger would either produce a printed arrangement to be performed remotely for the artist, or he’d produce a demo recording using high-quality digital samples of orchestral instruments. But Rob did something remarkable.

This is Sting. There is no freaking way I am going to write arrangements and send them out to be performed without my being there. You put the chart on the stands, and it can sound OK, but it will probably need some work. And your typical demo recording, even with the greatest sample library in the world, wouldn’t be effective enough. The first impression is everything. So something in me said “I already have a session booked at Abbey Road in February…”

Rob had the studio time booked at Abbey Road for one of his own projects.

I know the results I get at Abbey Road — the quality of the sound. I’ve recorded easily one hundred projects there over the last decade. I adore that room, the sound of it — it’s legendary. Just put a microphone above the orchestra; it sounds like God. So my gut reaction was that if I could create the tracks exactly as I wanted them, Sting would get a truer picture of what I could do to bring a legitimate symphonic approach to his canon.

So I went back to my hotel room after the meeting and I asked my wife, “Would it be insane to ask Sting to pay for the studio time and musicians so I can record these arrangements for him? I’ll pay the travel costs and do the work for free. He can pay me if he wants to use my stuff, otherwise, he doesn’t have to pay me anything.”

Rob told me, “honestly, if he hated what I had done I would have wanted to pay some of the studio cost back to him!” Sting, remarkably, agreed to the plan. “Sting saw the fire in my belly”, said Rob. “Going out on that limb is the reason that all this happened.”

Sting

Sting

I asked Rob if he had always conducted his career with such confidence. He said:

That was the boldest suggestion I ever made to an artist. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that it altered the further course of my life. I mean, the idea came out of the air. It was almost a God thing. Some people were skeptical about me doing it this way – they said that it was going to be an awfully expensive demo. But with all of the extraordinarily gifted people on the planet, the only way to get yourself heard is if you’re insanely passionate about what you do.

Symphonicities was released digitally and on CD this week, to strong sales and critical response. Before our interview, early in the morning on the album’s release date, I had read the first three reviews I could find, and they were all positive. But Rob knows that some negative opinion is an inevitability, especially on a project that orchestrates rock songs.

My approach was to meet Sting’s records directly face to face; not try to cop them but to create an orchestral version with the energy of original. But if critics say anything mean, can I learn from it? One example is a criticism I received of the arrangement for “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”. The critic said that the track was a little “Disney” in a few moments. That’s not what I was going for! So I listened to it again, with this in mind, and realized that I had always had a suspicion about the chorus. There are these underlying Cuban rhythms there in the song, but I hadn’t really brought them out; I didn’t go for the jugular there. So, I went back into the studio and added percussion, and fleshed out what was just implied before. I’m proud of it. This new version, which is going to be called the “Bronx Street Fair Mix” should be available on an upcoming vinyl edition of the album. So in this case, a negative review turned into something positive.

Now that the record is finished, Rob still has nothing but praise for Sting. I’ll wrap up with a few quotes plucked from a post on Rob’s blog, dated July 15, 2010.

He is constantly learning and endlessly curious. [Sting] recognizes the gift he has received: the reality that so many people want to hear him sing these iconic songs. He just wants to keep it interesting. I admire him for it and working on this project was a privilege. Above all listen to that voice. Just extraordinary!

Rob’s blog writing is full of insight and energy. Read it here: www.robmathes.wordpress.com. And his website has some great content, including video and music samples. Visit here.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Albums, CDs, Scott Hull | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Masterdisk Neighborhood: Hells Kitchen, NYC

By James Beaudreau | Published: July 1, 2010

While I’m working on a couple other stories for The Masterdisk Record I thought I’d put up a quick post about Hell’s Kitchen, the neighborhood Masterdisk calls “home”. No, it’s not a very nice name for a neighborhood, but don’t let that fool you — we’re in a pretty cool part of NYC. We’re just a block and a half away from the restaurants and hustle & bustle of the Theater District, and in the other direction we’ve got the Hudson, riverfront parks, and a few… boats.

First, here’s a look at where the two Masterdisk locations are. “A” shows our main location over at 545 W 45th Street, and “B” is the location of Howie Weinberg’s room at 321 West 44th Street. Note, for purposes of some photos below, the spot on the left where it shows the Intrepid, and the dashed line that runs vertically between 10th and 11th Avenues — that’s the West Side Rail Line, which runs under street level.


View Larger Map

Here’s the facade of the 545 W 45th Street location:

Masterdisk HQ

Our studios are actually in the rear of the building, on the 5th Floor.

Masterdisk entrance

The entrance at 545 W 45th Street.

Masterdisk Office

Looking west out of the Masterdisk office windows. Note the ship in the red circle.

Other ship

Here's that ship you could see from the office window -- it's not the Intrepid; it's a ship that was docked here for Fleet Week. This view is from the east side of the West Side Highway.

The Intrepid

And this is the Intrepid. It's rather large.

Stable

Across the street and a little east from us are some horse stables.

Bridge Paintings

Further east on 45th Street, but looking west, is this nicely decorated overpass. The West Side Rail Line runs below -- currently used by Amtrak.

west side rail line

The West Side Rail Line. It runs under the streets, and under some buildings too. This is looking south from 45th Street.

cook

One of the panels on the overpass. Hell's Kitchen, presumably.

birdland

Lastly, for now, here's the view looking east from 321 W 44th Street. We're right next to Birdland. You can see the Met Life building in the far distance and some theaters in the middle ground.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in NYC | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Masterdisk Podcast: Mastering Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 with Tony Dawsey

By James Beaudreau | Published: June 18, 2010

Jay-Z The Blueprint 3Tony Dawsey is a Masterdisk mastering engineer with a long list of hit records under his belt. For our first podcast, I talked to Tony about his experience mastering Jay-Z’s 2009 hit record, The Blueprint 3. Click on the player below to listen. (Total time 5:54.)

Contact Project Coordinator Erin Hungerford at 212-541-5022 ext.103 or erin@masterdisk.com to book Tony for your next project.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Albums, CDs, Mastering Sessions, Podcasts, Tony Dawsey, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

MASTERING AN INDIE PROJECT: The Diary of an Obsessive Artist, Part III

By James Beaudreau | Published: June 10, 2010

This is the third and final part of an article about the mastering process by singer/songwriter Kirsten Thien. Read the first part here: MASTERING AN INDIE PROJECT: The Diary of an Obsessive Artist, Part I. Visit Kirsten online at www.kirstenthien.com. -James Beaudreau

Modern Mastering Miracles
 In my song called “You’re Not Mine”, I was the “engineer” (with my Mbox, laptop, and hard drive) for the electric guitar session (at my guitar player’s house). We got a great performance and it sounded clean at the time, but with the dump trucks and other outside noise coming in the window of the “monitoring room” (a.k.a. the living room), I had recorded a couple of short, but detectable, channel overloads that I never heard until we got to the mixing studio. At the mixing stage, we tried and tried to fix the distortions with Pro-Tools but just could not do it. Re-recording was not an option for us from a time/budget standpoint, so I had to live with it. When mastering time came, I wanted to make sure, at the very least, that Scott had heard the crackles so he could make sure that his mastering didn’t do anything to accentuate them. Of course I also asked, “is there anything you can do to make them less noticeable, or even disappear?” Scott zoned in to the track for about ten minutes to see if he could mitigate the problem. I stayed quiet as he worked in this weird “hi-frequency-only” mode that literally made me feel dizzy. He went to headphones and I was out of the loop, until he switched the mix back on and played me the two “crackle segments”. I was speechless. The crackles were simply gone! It was a miracle. Now that I know this little trick existed, my mind raced to all my annoying mouth pops, and a drum-punch clip that we could never fix, and I knew I had a few items to attack using this little trick later!

Kirsten Thien

Kirsten Thien

Miraculous Limitations
 Even though I was thrilled to have my channel overloads and a few other similar annoyances fixed, that type of surgery can be time consuming. Ten minutes here and there add up, so the best thing is to come in with the cleanest mix you can. However, when you’re mixing and your mixing platform and engineer can’t seem to fix some pop, click or momentary distortion, consider trying to handle it in mastering. Be wary of trying fixes if heavy reverb, delay or other effects are applied around the problem. That will make the fix more difficult, time-consuming and possibly not even feasible.

Song Order, Gaps in Between and We’re Done!
The last thing we did was clean up the beginnings and endings of every song. We set the final order and began working on the appropriate time delay between each song. At this point Scott had a suggestion about switching the order of songs two and three, putting the slower “You’ve Got Me” third, and the more up-tempo “Thank You for Saying Goodbye” second. Having already decided, then re-decided my song order about seven times before walking in the door with my drive, I already knew that in the pre-mastering environment, putting “You’ve Got Me” after “Thank You” just wasn’t working. For some reason, one of my strongest tracks, “You’ve Got Me”, just sounded momentarily disappointing coming after “Thank You”. I thought it was the tempo, or going from one key to the other that was creating this little let down. But when we tried the order post-mastering, it was incredible to see that problem disappear and the song really represent well in that very same order I had rejected at home! I can’t put my finger on exactly what made it work, but something we did in mastering made those two songs work in that particular order.

We were done! We stayed pretty much on schedule after subtracting lunchtime and some extra chatting here and there. Scott explained that he would keep the “real-time master”, which is the best copy that can be made from the computer. His assistant would create four reference copies for me to pick up in a couple hours or the next day. I could then listen and “live with the master” for a few days or as long as I needed to decide if we wanted any touchups or to change a song order. When I was ready to pull the trigger, Scott and his crew would handle sending the best copy to the manufacturer. (And of course I asked him if there were any particular manufacturers he liked.)

After-Hours Chat
 I asked Scott a few questions I had been mulling over during the session. I wanted to know how much time he spent on a big-budget album compared to an indie project. His answer surprised me: unless there are major problems with a mix, he usually finishes any LP master in about the same time frame — a one-day/8-hour session. It’s the revisions and multiple mastering sessions that drive the prices up. At its most extreme, Scott divulged an experience he had with an unnamed Grammy-winning artist he worked with years prior. Having already re-mixed several times and re-mastered over the course of two weeks, the album was finally sent off to manufacturing. A few days later, during a mastering session to prepare singles, the artist turned to his producer and said “Why didn’t we put background vocals on this song?” He began singing a harmony part and it was clear that it was important enough to act on. Calls were made over the next few hours, and within days, the presses were stopped on the CDs at manufacturing; background vocalists, producers and engineers flown in and out of town quickly; and the background vocal track was actually laid over the mastered track right in the mastering studio before the master was sent back out for replication. That last-minute change cost them, but the song and the album went on to win several Grammy awards.

I hope to someday have a budget that allows me to follow my creative impulses at any point in the process, but that’s not today. If I want to win a Grammy on my budget, preparation, good research, and being willing to spend money on the important things are the only way. In the end, I got the same mastering treatment as the Grammy-winning artist — the same ears, experience, skill, equipment, and listening environment. My record sounds polished, ready to be heard anywhere, and I’m I’m proud to present them to my fans. Now, everything I’ve lived and breathed for over a year is sitting in my little hand, and I’m faced with the question that Scott says he hears often as the mastering session winds down: “So what the hell am I going to do with myself tomorrow?”

A FEW ARTICLE “BONUS TRACKS”

How Scott Fixed the Clicks
 Clicks and pops are mostly isolated to the high frequencies, so Scott isolated everything in the mix above 15k. He generated a soundwave of just that frequency range, so that he was able to see and manipulate the problem area in Sonic Solutions. His adjustments were done at a level of precision that we would never get in the Protools environment. Sonic Solutions and his other gear used in the mastering process are designed for this type of precision. At the same time, the problem has to exist in a pretty narrow EQ range and if there’s heavy reverb/delay on the problem, you can’t isolate it as well. In layman’s terms, average harmonic content is figured for the problem region and for a small region before and/or after the problem. Using mathematical algorithms, Sonic Solutions generates a mirror image of a specified range of the sound wave and reforms a single non-clicking wave using “interpolation”. (Get your old math books if you don’t remember that one.) The tool is very different from anything that is done in the recording studio environment and “should not be tried at home”.

Some Factors that Make Mastering More Important than Ever
 MP3s – Especially for indie artists, the first listen that many people will have of your recordings is from a super-compressed MP3 file, and possibly through computer speakers. If you do not master your tracks, you have less control over what will “pop” out in this format.

Home recordings and traveling hard disks – Many, if not most of us, nowadays do some recording or editing of our tracks in a home or project studio. We record and mix in a number of different locations before the project is done, adjusting as we go along. Drawing all these disparate sounds together into one cohesive unit is a major task of the Mastering Engineer.

More competition through greater access to recording gear – Almost anyone can come out with a CD today, with very little expense. The barriers are down, but the desire for the best quality music hasn’t gone away. People make decisions very quickly (like, in seconds) when it comes to judging new music. Don’t let some funky frequency, disparate volume levels, or a mix that sounds right only in your own studio be the cause of your music or artistry being dismissed too quickly. Other artists, producers and even industry folk may see through this to your undeniable talent, but the general public is not as forgiving. Make sure they want to buy your next CD too!

I hope you enjoyed our presentation of Kirsten Thien’s excellent article about the ins and outs of the mastering process. Check out the album which was the subject of the article, You Got Me, here.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Mastering Sessions, Practical Tips, Scott Hull | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

MASTERING AN INDIE PROJECT: The Diary of an Obsessive Artist, Part II

By James Beaudreau | Published: June 9, 2010

This is the second of a three-part article about the mastering process by singer/songwriter Kirsten Thien. Read the first part here: MASTERING AN INDIE PROJECT: The Diary of an Obsessive Artist, Part I. Visit Kirsten online at www.kirstenthien.com. -James Beaudreau

People Get Ready
Preparation is key for staying on budget. When you consider the hourly rate you’ll pay for a good mastering facility, your preparation becomes exponentially more valuable than it was even when you were preparing for studio recording or mixing time. Even if you negotiate a day rate, you will pay more if you go over a certain amount of time — or you’ll have to cut corners when you run out of time. My biggest fear was running out of time or money because of things I could have avoided. Here are a few things I did to get ready.

Kirsten Thien

Kirsten Thien

    • Talk to the engineer: I found out his process for using alternate mixes. Could he work directly from my stems in Pro-Tools to create alternate mixes on the spot? Or is it better to have important alternates already bounced down to stereo mixes? What is the fastest way for him to get the files into his system? Tell them the bit depth and sampling rate of your highest-quality mixes. (If you’re mixing in 24-bit or higher, don’t compress to 16-bit for the mastering engineer. His equipment for doing this is much better than yours and he should do it after other mastering techniques have been applied.)
      Prepare Files: I created a folder on my hard drive called “All Master Mixes” that would hold individual folders for each song. Within each song’s folder was a Pro-Tools Session of the master mixes of that song, along with the associated audio files. This is where all my alternate mixes were. All of these files and folders had already existed in different places on my hard drive, depending on when or where we mixed it. But I copied them all over to this one “All Master Mixes” folder so my mastering engineer didn’t have to search around the hard drive to find the files he needed. (This came in handy later, as you will see.) I re-named audio files to names that make sense, like “Vox Up”, “Bass Down”, etc. (Be careful not to accidentally disassociate your files from your session if you rename.) Finally, I also added one additional folder that had a Pro-Tools session with the choice mixes lined up in order on a single stereo track (45 minutes long), and copies of the choice mixes only in the session’s “Audio Folder”. This is where we would start off our mastering session and where the engineer could grab all my audio files to drag to his system.
      Alternative: If you’re not working with a hard drive and have CD’s or DVD’s from several studios and mix sessions, try to at least make a screen shot of your various file structures and make notes on each alternate mix for each song. Give this to your engineer as reference so he’s able to see his options on each song as he masters and as “problems” present themselves.
      Song Order: I’m a big believer that song order on an album is super-important. There are the commercial goals of the record to consider, but, more importantly, it’s your last chance to affect the flow of your tunes and how they affect listeners who hear the album as a whole. I spent hours listening through to different song orders and making notes. I also got some outside advice because by this time, I’m sure I had lost my objectivity! Even if I didn’t stick with the “final” order I came up with (we eventually did change the order), I was sure of why I picked this song order and its advantages and drawbacks compared to other song orders. Mastering would affect how each track sounds next to another, so anything was possible when we got to the end of the session. Nonetheless, we had a really solid starting point.

    • MASTER CLASS – DAY OF THE SESSION

    I eventually chose Jigsaw Sound in SoHo because their new engineer, Scott Hull, came highly recommended. [Scott was at Jigsaw in 2005. -Ed.] My research on him made him my top choice in my price range. It turns out that the fit was more than serendipitous. I chatted with co-owner of the studio, Dave Ares, before the session and learned that he and his partner Mike Iurato started jigsaw in 2001 specifically to fill a need they saw in NYC. “We were seeing so many indie records that weren’t even being mastered b/c the budgets wouldn’t allow it.” says Dave. So they created a top-level mastering environment, and offered it in a price range that made it accessible to indie projects. Over the past 3 years, Dave has seen many an artist come through the doors with anticipation on their faces, and watched them leave, sometimes ecstatic and dying to get their product out, and other times devastated and wondering what they did wrong. I thought this was a good person to get some advice from, so I asked him for some tips on preparing for a successful mastering session. He came up with some great ones.

    Inexperience with the process will cost you time (and money you don’t have): Even if it’s your first session, do some research ahead of time so you’re not completely surprised about how the process works.

    • Don’t be too attached to your mixes: You’ve been listening in your project studio, on headphones, on many systems. Be open to what the mastering studio environment reveals about your mixes and be prepared to hear EVERYTHING. It’s a vulnerable place to be, but you’ll have to quickly face your mistakes and work with the engineer to make your mixes and your album the best they possibly can be at this stage. That is, unless you have the cash to go back and do some re-mixing or re-recording.
      Be open-minded, but don’t go with too many choices to make. Have your song order picked out ahead of time. Have your “choice mixes” decided on. Song order, or which mix you master from can easily change during the session but your familiarity with your choices will save you time (read, money) during the session, and ultimately, it helps you get toward the best product you can achieve on your particular budget.
      Listen to your engineer’s advice. He knows this room better than you do, and he should know how masters from the room sound all over the outside world. If you agree on vision with your engineer, his input can be very useful at this point; so make sure you listen.
      Keep track of time and the big picture of your album: “I’ve seen lots of artists get too zoned in on one small piece of the whole album in the mastering session”, Scott tells me. “You’re dealing with a stereo mix at this point, so there’s a limit to what you can fix without messing up other parts of the album”.
      Get some rest the night before your session, and especially let your ears rest: I agree! If you haven’t attended a mastering session before, I probably cannot convince you of how draining and demanding it is on your ears and your brain. If you have attended a session, you know that at the end of the day your ears physically hurt and you’ll be more tired than after running 10 miles. So get some rest and don’t listen to loud music the night before your session.

    • Scott Hull

    Scott Hull

    SCOTT HULL –- Quiet Please. Mastering Session in Progress.

    When you walk into a well-designed mastering room, the first thing you notice is that it is completely and utterly silent (except for the ringing in your ears). You almost feel like you’re in outer space, and the words you speak just disappear the minute they come out of your mouth. This environment is created to be the most unforgiving, transparent, and revealing listening environment on Earth. Be ready to hear every little thing when the music comes on.

    Scott and I said hello a bit, plugged in my hard drive, and started the session off with opening up the tracks in my ProTools session. We started listening to the songs at a low-to-medium volume. While the music played, we talked a little about the goals of the project. “A lot of times, the music tells the story on it’s own, but one thing we have to talk about is the ‘volume question’.” Scott explained.

    If you hadn’t already noticed, do an experiment and play (in chronological order) some CDs that you’ve purchased from 1995 to today. Especially in the last few years, you’ll hear a noticeable volume increase over time. Pop music, particularly music that is driven by radio play, is getting louder and louder. The loudness does not only affect the actual and perceived volume, but also the overall sound presentation because of the extensive compression and limiting that is used –- it’s crunchier, there’s less “space between the notes,” and there may be less overall dynamic range because it starts out loud so it only has so far to go. The “volume question” is one that even the big-budget producers and artists are grappling with. We indie artists who want to compete with the big boys need to give some thought to the question and work with our mixing and mastering engineers to make sure that our intentions for both commercial success and artistic expression are carried out.

    After he had listened most of every song, Scott had a good idea of where the mixes and album were going as a whole. He found some areas he knew he’d want to work on to improve the overall sound. And then he got to work on Song #2. “As I listen through,” Scott told me, “the starting song sort of picks me.” It turns out that a lot of times, the 2nd song is a good place to start because it gives some guidance as to how far you can push the envelope on the first song. You want the first song to pop and attract attention, but if it pops too much and Song #2 doesn’t lend itself to that treatment, you could end up making it sound a little flat.

    When we got to Song #3, I noticed Scott looking around on my drive while the choice mix was playing. Next thing I know he turns and asks me if I mind if he checks out the “Bass_Reg” mix. When he heard a “problem” with the mix I had chosen, he went straight to my drive to scan my alternate mix choices for the song. Since they were all in a folder named after the song, and had file names that told him what made the mixes distinct he was able to find his alternatives very quickly and keep us moving forward. I took a moment to pat my self on the back, feeling at the height of organization!

    We mastered a couple tunes, and I could totally start hearing a major difference. As the end of Song #3 played, the bass was ringing oh-so quietly for what seemed hours after everything else died. I had never heard that before. Easy to “fix” in this case, but Scott told me that one of the most common mistakes made in studios is either abruptly cutting off quiet parts at beginnings and endings, or, alternatively letting something very quiet (chair creak, voice click) stay in the mix that shouldn’t. The mastering environment is unforgiving in its exposure of these little bits. In a recording studio, with computers and gear whirring, there is a limit to what you can hear through the speakers. Before you print a mix, make sure to listen through headphones or you might end up in mastering and find all sorts of little sounds popping up or disappearing inelegantly.

    We’ll post the final installment of “Mastering an Indie Project: The Diary of an Obsessive Artist, Part III” tomorrow.

    • Share/Bookmark
    Posted in Albums, CDs, Mastering Sessions, Practical Tips, Scott Hull | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment