But at the end of the day, we don't have his "ears". I don't see Dr.Dre as a producer snice they "got" Em. It's some type of hybrid exclusive producer. Focus... worked for Dre used to repeat the phrase a lot " like you build a house, it starts from the bottom to the top".
its all ear. its also breaking rules. people who talk about "loudness wars" always criticize Dres masters for being so loud YET hes constantly praised for his sound quality. Most achievements require rule breaking. So props for Dre for establishing his sound. @@khoivinh3402
I worked as a staff producer at Deathrow and left when Andre created Aftermath Entertainment. AND THIS IS THE TRUTH that you're sharing. BUT,... the combination of all the gear he ran hits sonics through was the overall sauce, before the AD/DA flow during mastering. Key is, Dre knew he wasn't a mastering engineer and he allowed those engineers to do what they did,... YAHDIG! Great post George T.
If you worked there, you are a part of a legendary record company. Would love to hear some insider history about anything…why wouldn’t you make an interview with anyone?!? Go for it!
I feel like I literally learned nothing except a piece of equipment that Dre uses. I'm pretty sure that thing alone is NOT solely responsible for Dre's iconic sound!
Of course not as he provide no explanation of the *why*. The device is the Lavry Gold, a super expensive A/D converter, the „secret source“ tho is the soft saturation or better soft clip feature. It shaves the peaks of the signal and adds saturation in a very nice sounding way. Clipping is the „secret“ way to get your mixes louder, as you feed a more condensed signal into your compressor or limiter. They can also add very clean punch and grit to your signal without distortion when done right. And Saturation is the key if you want a clean low end to translate well to all speakers, even if they are not capable of reproducing the low frequency content. But obviously the sound selection and mix needs to be top notch before, the device won’t make a bad mix great. Nowadays everyone and there mom uses clippers, without them the loudness war wouldn’t happen, but at this time very few people knew about it and even if a Amateure engineer couldn’t afford a 8000k converter anyways.
Basically the technique is a blend of hard clipping the audio by turning the sound into the red on the mixer then use a compression with a fast attack to round off the clipped audio wave form. Now this only works without becoming a muddy distorted mess because of the sound selection an a EQ mix which put the audio of each element in it's own frequency space. This is why Dre regularly used the same basic sounds about 8 in near,y all his beats which includes a Mini Moog style bass, leads, pads with piano and trumpet. Try it your self use a basic grand piano sample, trumpet and a basic synth bass and se e how easy it gets loud without distortion vs a project full of ofher sounds.
@@tobimontana61 All true however your missing something which is sound selection and Dre using sounds that already have there own sonic EQ space. Piano, Mini Moog bass and trumpet sonically work very well together from the start. Dre used those same exacts sounds in most of his tunes.
Yep that iconic album was a result of outsourcing almost everything. Dre didn't even wright most of the rap lyrics either, He got other people to wright it.
@@HOLLASOUNDS This video title and your comment is a massive face-palm. Almost EVERYONE who releases music on a serious level uses a mastering engineer, that's why they exist. It's like $100-$200 a track. So of course dre does as does everyone even remotely close to his level
It was the studio with the ssl boards where Bruce Sweden made it happen first. Don't forget the Sony C800g microphone for the clean vocals.The chronic is sonically made after thrillers production.
he is right about the vocals - once you go to the mastering and you boost the lows they sound really low - its all about balance - strategy - contemplation - knowing steps ahead what you should do before the end - EXPERIENCE !
Everybody talks about mix and mastering but the real reason he's a legend is the songs themselves, the melodies, drums, vocals.. all of which were done by other musicians. This equipment won't make you great and it's not made or engineered by him anyway. Not to mention that the quality of mix and mastering is foremost determined by the arrangement and choice of sounds at the beginning, you shouldn't place so much importance on post production, very unhealthy trend nowadays.
Dre mixed analog, there is no secret voodoo sauce to it, Akai samplers going into Solid State preamps on the SSL mixing desk or later on the Neve 1084 box he had in his home studio (you see it when Eminem is there recording Slim Shady ep), the G-Series Eq's and onboard channel compressors, hitting the 2-inch Reel to Reel tape machine hard (probably Studer), the choice of Reel Tape brand, different reel flux have different sound qualities. His sound was pretty dry but he surely had some Lexicon Digital reverb to hand as you see the PCM on his own or the studio's mixing desk in photos of the time. The rest was the Mastering engineer and his custom setup.
100% ... hard driven tape was THE sound of his drums. Tape also adds incredible depth and distance without need for reflections. Thats why he needed very little reverb just to fill out the gaps. All of his tracks have a longish reverb acting as a drone, it helps with the flow of the dry uncomplicated rhythms.
@@pac0rewait can you elaborate on that a little more so I can go listen for it? long reverb as a drone? are you telling me that everything is going through a subtle ass reverb the whole track?
that all sounds right but Dre wasnt the only one rockin the G series. Dre would use the same sample as someone else but on their record it sounded like a shitty sample & on his record it sounded better than the original. i know they used the same mpc60 that premier & everyone else used, I kind of have to assume the same s900/s950. I understand Dre plays that EQ like its an instrument lol but it has to be the compression right? that hes doing & then naturally to the tape as well
To me, it was the first "Chronic" album that is his best production. Next, to the second NWA album It has the perfect dynamics of all the sounds, BUT still has that strong bass with good clarity The "Chronic 2001" seemed like it just made the drums louder, but it took out the other instruments' dynamics, which is why I don't think it's better then the first Chronic album. Still good, but if a producer can recreate "The Chronic" with todays technology, it will change the game cause back then music was mastered for vinyl, which means the bass couldn't get loud if you have a lot of other instruments in the mix, but Dr. Dre made it work Today, you can record in a high bit rate, which means you can leave the bass loud, and still have room for other instruments, to give a nice dynamic between instruments
When I listen to Dre's most recent projects, 2015's Compton and the The Contract EP, something about the sound is off to me. The high frequencies are almost piercing as opposed to the more balance eq spread of 2001 and The Chronic. I'm assuming a few things, these newer projects are during the loudness wars and also, like most rap projects I hear today, tone-wise there seems to be a heavier focus on the mids. The mids are really dominant today I figure because tracks nowadays need to translate even more to weaker speakers like laptops and phones.
@@Sance21 music always had to translate to smaller speakers. Listen to Billie Jean on a smartphone. You can hear the kick. I think what is happening atm is a LACK of midrange. there are no melodies in the midrange anymore. So they have to fill it with saturation and you end up with a harsh top-end
@@Jaburu I’m a little familiar with this. I remember one of the big reasons was that if there was too much bass, the vinyl needle would jump the lacquer.
Amazing custom mastering consoles in Bernie Grundman’s place. They look like they’re made by api because they’ve got the same knobs but they just happened to get their knobs from the same place api did. Really good custom circuitry in them.
Another “secret” is that these albums weren’t made in a digital environment….digital music can’t even come close to the hardware inspired music of the past because it doesn’t have a limited space in a digital environment…..these albums were mixed and mastered at real studios with real hardware pumping sound through real equipment.
Great point. I'm an 80s baby & there's a significant difference in how songs sound since digital replaced analog. The decreased use of the Roland, Triton & Motifs which had a much higher quality of sounds & instruments to use over these sample packs producers buy nowadays...& also the lack of session players recording live licks.
@@bles05 exactly….not to mention the consoles like the ssl G4000 or like a Harrison 32 C which would add even more personalization and bend….i really need to express the “limited space” of Analogue over the limitless space of digital….in a limited space it’s almost like you produced the final product inside of a box 📦 and everything was mixed inside the box and you had to make it sound perfect to fit into the box….these days if you listen to a vocal it doesn’t sound like the voice is coming from a person standing on the ground….almost like there is just a voice coming from some place…..thanks for understanding my thought.
it’s a hidden trick in the thumbnail Dr Dre uses the ssl compressor on slowest attack fastest release which are the same settings in the thumb. And in the vid Danja talks about the compressor so you can reverse engineer that to the thumbnail. Making y’all work for these tricks 😃 💀😂
Not related to mastering, but for drum tracks and I guess others, he use to record them to tape then leave the tape out for a few days to get a touch of deterioration on the recordings before recording back into his session. They would come back bigger and grittier that way.
Chronic 2001 is the best sounding hip hop album of all time - they play the beats at lakers / rams games and they sound clear through the tv and live mics it’s insane
Chronic 2001 was loud and punchy and big for the early 2000s. I actually think Jaycen Joshua mixs kill Dre's now though. Even Mike Dean's mixs on Kanyes albums are more advanced then Dre. But that Lavry Gold is still a beast now
@@RedLuxeStudios hated that albums mix, i couldnt tell u if it was the mastering or dre, but I feel like they made that album on beats headphones 😂 as a teen when i used to mix on them my mixes sounded thin af too and i didnt know why
@@Qmayb balance it by ear, there’s ballparks but there’s no magic ratio. I mix hot, I like my kicks and snares around -3dbfs, ALLVOX peaking at -3dbfs w a limiter at the end just catching peaks, melody bus usually about -6dbfs and 808 tucked around -3 to -6dbfs depending on the sound. Hi hats bus around -6 to -9dbfs. This is very genre dependent for hip hop but I hope this gives you ballparks for reference. I willl say don’t mix as hot as I do, I would recommend taking the figures I gave you and keep the ratios but gain stage down at least 3db across the board.
Just like Andrew Sheps, I mix on a pair of Sony 7506 headphones with no headphone software. If they're good enough for him, then they are certainly good enough for a nobody like me.
I swear on (pro quality) headphones anyways. You cut out all the possible interference from a room and you train your ears and brain to instantly recognise any subtle change in the audio spectrum... because you KNOW the headphones sound completely.
An MPC3k and an SSL console didn't hurt anyone.... I think that combined with the SSL Bus Comrpessor (the one from the console) Plus the converters are the real trick to his sound.
To me Dre and Timba nailed the sound…actually Timba got there first. No one got that clarity and definition and after Timba and Dre everyone else followed. What the did, defined the sound of everything!
Only on the thread what John shared! In summary he is very simple in processing the sounds, and has the tools anyone of us can have! Ott and maserati on mixbuss are wht Max uses and i think Serban doesn’t remove them when receiving mixes from him! I tried my self and i can admit that these 2 plugins gets me closer to Serban’s sound more than anything else!!! But guy is a genius!!!
Yeah, Oxford Inflator being a plugin that was created in the mid/late 2000's was obviously the vital part of Dre's sound. Come on bro. Dre mixed analog, there is no secret voodoo sauce to it, Akai samplers going into Solid State preamps on the SSL mixing desk or later on the Neve 1084 box he had in his home studio (you see it when Eminem is there recording Slim Shady ep), the G-Series Eq's and onboard channel compressors, hitting the 2-inch Reel to Reel tape machine hard (probably Studer), the choice of Reel Tape brand, different reel flux have different sound qualities. His sound was pretty dry but he surely had some Lexicon Digital reverb to hand as you see the PCM on his own or the studio's mixing desk in photos of the time. The rest was the Mastering engineer and his custom setup.
These are all proven geniuses with a million times more knowledge than I and a proven system, BUT... mixing your vocals higher than what you actually want them seems... flawed. It seems counterintuitive to produce a +final mix+ that doesn't sound accurate to what you +actually+ want? Shouldn't a mastering engineer be able to compensate for this, themselves? ...I'm missing something.
The gold clip plug in sounds nothing like the lavry. The magic in the lavry is in its design and analog components and the sound of it has more to do with the conversion more than just the soft clip feature.
the gap is closing tho. i have goldclip bought it for 200$ . a aquintance has lavry gold. obvisiouly analog with has its own machine will sound better but i can sureley say a listener doesnt care what clipper you bought on it or how much db+ higher the vocals are to the drums. they just want it to sound good. thats what i mean buy the gap is closing,
@@VersatyleMusicGroup plugins have successfully molded other analog equipment. The Lavry Gold aint that special. It's 2024 anything can be replicated now
And dr Dre destroyed the original sound of rap and forced all rappers into large expensive studio,s before that you could rap on a 4track and put a song. Out.
@@MaruBen27 pushed rappers and upcoming rappers to think they have to record in a million dollar studio. Rap was supposeed to be music that can be recorded cheaply , now its turned into pop music cost
@@MaruBen27 most studio were setup for Rock , singer , big bands , then when rap hit the scene you really didnt need all that becaise the sound was supposed to unfilted and street syle , the big studios saw they were losing money due to the decline in Rock genres come the 90s , so they needed a new customer based , and used Dr Dre as the ambassador for all this technical studio stuff.
comeon man that shit is slimy! theres a pic of a ssl bus comp and the secret the whole time is that he hired a mastering engineer... (yeah, lavry converter duuuhhh)
So the “secret” is get a 9000$ converter use a top shelf mastering engineer after you use most of hip hops top producers to help you write your album. Got it. And i’m not dissing dre because that would be dissing myself.
The burl is very nice. It has a transformer in front of the converter so it will give a slight color and saturate a little bit but it will also add some weight if the mix needs it. The conversion is very very good as well. Lavry is definitely more detailed tho. Like lavry is like a fucking mirror of the source. I've never heard anything literally not lose anything when printing in the A to D accept a few converters like pacific microsonics, prism dream converters are close and the Lavry gold. Lavry gold is def the cream of the crop and is like 15 to 20 for the converter I believe.
@@VersatyleMusicGroup Thanks for the info. I actually first had a Focusrite 18i6 for many years before I realized what a crappy converter that was when I finally went hybrid. I moved up to a Lynx Aurora N, very transparent but you can’t push it much without unmusical distortion. I heard the Burl on Mixanalog before purchasing it so now my Lynx goes into the B2 as an option for weight. I got an EP mastered recently by a facility with the Lavry Gold and those are the best masters I find personally.
hmmm 🤔 one of those topics...i hope kids watching this understand there's no preset for this Dre Secret Sound...it also comes to Sound Selection Mixing...Level Balancing and Clipping individual Sounds, Groups and Master...its Balance Act and on Top were Talking about a Record made 25 Years ago...So just watch a Young Beat Maker UA-cam Producer...watch the amount they Clip especially the 808 that is pure ridiculous lazy kids BS...Today there's a lot of great converters with nice Clipping/Saturation but its harder than ever to Sound decent when Volume is sooooo important
(THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA) yeh just peak the vocals and then smash the crap out of it in the master Or.... create energy and dynamics in your mix and use a clipper instead. That way your transients don't get smashed into oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised if the mastering engineers were using individual track stems for every instrument on ever song for the record.
@@rjmprod how the hell is it trolling if i'm telling you what everybody already knows. Who doesn't know Dre doesn't use other producer's music??? And secondly what does THAT have to do with his mixing? LOL I swear folks like you just say anything for drama.
The “secret” that has been explained in countless other videos about dre. Dre clips his mix on the ssl board………..thats……..about it. 6min video just for that one piece of info 😂
Dr. Dre's mastering secret is that he hired a professional mastering engineer to do the job properly.
yea, that's the wrap. wanna sound pro, hire pros
one of the most expensive mastering engineers at that. lmfao.
🤣🤣🤣
But at the end of the day, we don't have his "ears". I don't see Dr.Dre as a producer snice they "got" Em. It's some type of hybrid exclusive producer. Focus... worked for Dre used to repeat the phrase a lot " like you build a house, it starts from the bottom to the top".
its all ear. its also breaking rules. people who talk about "loudness wars" always criticize Dres masters for being so loud YET hes constantly praised for his sound quality. Most achievements require rule breaking. So props for Dre for establishing his sound. @@khoivinh3402
I worked as a staff producer at Deathrow and left when Andre created Aftermath Entertainment. AND THIS IS THE TRUTH that you're sharing. BUT,... the combination of all the gear he ran hits sonics through was the overall sauce, before the AD/DA flow during mastering. Key is, Dre knew he wasn't a mastering engineer and he allowed those engineers to do what they did,... YAHDIG! Great post George T.
Preach
Dmn your bot lying gets pathetic.
Thanks for the insight fam, all the best to you and yours.
If you worked there, you are a part of a legendary record company. Would love to hear some insider history about anything…why wouldn’t you make an interview with anyone?!? Go for it!
Speak❤💪♥️🔥💯
I feel like I literally learned nothing except a piece of equipment that Dre uses. I'm pretty sure that thing alone is NOT solely responsible for Dre's iconic sound!
Of course not as he provide no explanation of the *why*. The device is the Lavry Gold, a super expensive A/D converter, the „secret source“ tho is the soft saturation or better soft clip feature. It shaves the peaks of the signal and adds saturation in a very nice sounding way. Clipping is the „secret“ way to get your mixes louder, as you feed a more condensed signal into your compressor or limiter. They can also add very clean punch and grit to your signal without distortion when done right. And Saturation is the key if you want a clean low end to translate well to all speakers, even if they are not capable of reproducing the low frequency content. But obviously the sound selection and mix needs to be top notch before, the device won’t make a bad mix great. Nowadays everyone and there mom uses clippers, without them the loudness war wouldn’t happen, but at this time very few people knew about it and even if a Amateure engineer couldn’t afford a 8000k converter anyways.
Basically the technique is a blend of hard clipping the audio by turning the sound into the red on the mixer then use a compression with a fast attack to round off the clipped audio wave form. Now this only works without becoming a muddy distorted mess because of the sound selection an a EQ mix which put the audio of each element in it's own frequency space. This is why Dre regularly used the same basic sounds about 8 in near,y all his beats which includes a Mini Moog style bass, leads, pads with piano and trumpet. Try it your self use a basic grand piano sample, trumpet and a basic synth bass and se e how easy it gets loud without distortion vs a project full of ofher sounds.
@@tobimontana61 All true however your missing something which is sound selection and Dre using sounds that already have there own sonic EQ space. Piano, Mini Moog bass and trumpet sonically work very well together from the start. Dre used those same exacts sounds in most of his tunes.
The secret to a great master is great mix to enhance from
100%
100% agree!
Crappy mix, crappy master!
the space he left in the production makes the biggest difference
His mastering secret is giving the job to mastering engineers.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
😂1
Yep that iconic album was a result of outsourcing almost everything. Dre didn't even wright most of the rap lyrics either, He got other people to wright it.
Looking like NASA motherfuckers. Hell yeah
@@HOLLASOUNDS This video title and your comment is a massive face-palm. Almost EVERYONE who releases music on a serious level uses a mastering engineer, that's why they exist. It's like $100-$200 a track. So of course dre does as does everyone even remotely close to his level
It was the studio with the ssl boards where Bruce Sweden made it happen first. Don't forget the Sony C800g microphone for the clean vocals.The chronic is sonically made after thrillers production.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
On Thriller they used a Shure SM7 mic for vocals. Now that is silky smooth!
he is right about the vocals - once you go to the mastering and you boost the lows they sound really low - its all about balance - strategy - contemplation - knowing steps ahead what you should do before the end - EXPERIENCE !
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
thinking when you boost the low end in mastering and lost vocal present you can compensate it by boosting the high end.
not so effective cause with that you also boost the highs of drums synths etc etc stay humble listen to the pros !@@WadadaMusiki237
@@WadadaMusiki237 Not without adding unwanted sibilance.
I love the way Eminem Relapse album is mastered and Kendrick Lamar DAMN.
The two best mastered albums in my opinion….Chronic 2001 and the 8mile album.
Everybody talks about mix and mastering but the real reason he's a legend is the songs themselves, the melodies, drums, vocals.. all of which were done by other musicians. This equipment won't make you great and it's not made or engineered by him anyway. Not to mention that the quality of mix and mastering is foremost determined by the arrangement and choice of sounds at the beginning, you shouldn't place so much importance on post production, very unhealthy trend nowadays.
I love this holistic approach
Dre mixed analog, there is no secret voodoo sauce to it, Akai samplers going into Solid State preamps on the SSL mixing desk or later on the Neve 1084 box he had in his home studio (you see it when Eminem is there recording Slim Shady ep), the G-Series Eq's and onboard channel compressors, hitting the 2-inch Reel to Reel tape machine hard (probably Studer), the choice of Reel Tape brand, different reel flux have different sound qualities. His sound was pretty dry but he surely had some Lexicon Digital reverb to hand as you see the PCM on his own or the studio's mixing desk in photos of the time. The rest was the Mastering engineer and his custom setup.
100% ... hard driven tape was THE sound of his drums. Tape also adds incredible depth and distance without need for reflections. Thats why he needed very little reverb just to fill out the gaps. All of his tracks have a longish reverb acting as a drone, it helps with the flow of the dry uncomplicated rhythms.
@@pac0rewait can you elaborate on that a little more so I can go listen for it? long reverb as a drone? are you telling me that everything is going through a subtle ass reverb the whole track?
that all sounds right but Dre wasnt the only one rockin the G series. Dre would use the same sample as someone else but on their record it sounded like a shitty sample & on his record it sounded better than the original. i know they used the same mpc60 that premier & everyone else used, I kind of have to assume the same s900/s950. I understand Dre plays that EQ like its an instrument lol but it has to be the compression right? that hes doing & then naturally to the tape as well
I’ve used a genuine SSL Bus comp and they’re incredible.
Yea whole different game compared to the plug-in. the real one will put the entire record in focus with no gr
Learning to mix in high quality. Quick question, is the SSL used for the Master track? Which includes entire mix?
SSL G+ compressor. API compression. Great bits of kit. The native and older non native SSL plugs are pretty good as well.
I like to use for the drums group in the mix and later in the masering of the whole ttrack with a slow attack@@romance27
To me, it was the first "Chronic" album that is his best production. Next, to the second NWA album
It has the perfect dynamics of all the sounds, BUT still has that strong bass with good clarity
The "Chronic 2001" seemed like it just made the drums louder, but it took out the other instruments' dynamics, which is why I don't think it's better then the first Chronic album. Still good, but if a producer can recreate "The Chronic" with todays technology, it will change the game cause back then music was mastered for vinyl, which means the bass couldn't get loud if you have a lot of other instruments in the mix, but Dr. Dre made it work
Today, you can record in a high bit rate, which means you can leave the bass loud, and still have room for other instruments, to give a nice dynamic between instruments
When I listen to Dre's most recent projects, 2015's Compton and the The Contract EP, something about the sound is off to me. The high frequencies are almost piercing as opposed to the more balance eq spread of 2001 and The Chronic. I'm assuming a few things, these newer projects are during the loudness wars and also, like most rap projects I hear today, tone-wise there seems to be a heavier focus on the mids. The mids are really dominant today I figure because tracks nowadays need to translate even more to weaker speakers like laptops and phones.
@@Sance21 YEP!
@@Sance21 music always had to translate to smaller speakers. Listen to Billie Jean on a smartphone. You can hear the kick.
I think what is happening atm is a LACK of midrange. there are no melodies in the midrange anymore. So they have to fill it with saturation and you end up with a harsh top-end
@@Jaburu I’m a little familiar with this. I remember one of the big reasons was that if there was too much bass, the vinyl needle would jump the lacquer.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
"They're just brining frequencies up"
"Wow"
I'm done bro LOL.
it's a best kept mastering secret
Amazing custom mastering consoles in Bernie Grundman’s place. They look like they’re made by api because they’ve got the same knobs but they just happened to get their knobs from the same place api did. Really good custom circuitry in them.
Another “secret” is that these albums weren’t made in a digital environment….digital music can’t even come close to the hardware inspired music of the past because it doesn’t have a limited space in a digital environment…..these albums were mixed and mastered at real studios with real hardware pumping sound through real equipment.
Great point. I'm an 80s baby & there's a significant difference in how songs sound since digital replaced analog. The decreased use of the Roland, Triton & Motifs which had a much higher quality of sounds & instruments to use over these sample packs producers buy nowadays...& also the lack of session players recording live licks.
@@bles05 exactly….not to mention the consoles like the ssl G4000 or like a Harrison 32 C which would add even more personalization and bend….i really need to express the “limited space” of Analogue over the limitless space of digital….in a limited space it’s almost like you produced the final product inside of a box 📦 and everything was mixed inside the box and you had to make it sound perfect to fit into the box….these days if you listen to a vocal it doesn’t sound like the voice is coming from a person standing on the ground….almost like there is just a voice coming from some place…..thanks for understanding my thought.
Who clicked because of Waves SSL?
Yeah we got click bated 😂
@@babar141it’s not tho bc Dre also uses that with a slow attack and fast release to get more transients
I clicked because of George T
@@user-th6rh8zp3t just checkin, me too
it’s a hidden trick in the thumbnail Dr Dre uses the ssl compressor on slowest attack fastest release which are the same settings in the thumb. And in the vid Danja talks about the compressor so you can reverse engineer that to the thumbnail. Making y’all work for these tricks 😃 💀😂
Not related to mastering, but for drum tracks and I guess others, he use to record them to tape then leave the tape out for a few days to get a touch of deterioration on the recordings before recording back into his session. They would come back bigger and grittier that way.
what is everyones opinion on dres mixing? not a fan personally, sounds thin and sharp to me but he’s undeniably the goat to a lot of people
I agree with you. That Compton album was SHARP as hell. Pierced my ears.
Chronic 2001 is the best sounding hip hop album of all time - they play the beats at lakers / rams games and they sound clear through the tv and live mics it’s insane
Chronic 2001 was loud and punchy and big for the early 2000s. I actually think Jaycen Joshua mixs kill Dre's now though. Even Mike Dean's mixs on Kanyes albums are more advanced then Dre. But that Lavry Gold is still a beast now
2001 is one of the best sounding records to this day, even Doggystyle has that lush warmth and clarity, that was 92/93
@@RedLuxeStudios hated that albums mix, i couldnt tell u if it was the mastering or dre, but I feel like they made that album on beats headphones 😂 as a teen when i used to mix on them my mixes sounded thin af too and i didnt know why
mike bozzi still kickin it mastering records on that same modded lavery gold at bernie grundman mastering.
Dre's secret is turn your snares up loud af, turn your vocals up to match, then turn your snare up even more 😂
but on perception, rms, lufs or decibels?
@@Qmayb balance it by ear, there’s ballparks but there’s no magic ratio. I mix hot, I like my kicks and snares around -3dbfs, ALLVOX peaking at -3dbfs w a limiter at the end just catching peaks, melody bus usually about -6dbfs and 808 tucked around -3 to -6dbfs depending on the sound. Hi hats bus around -6 to -9dbfs. This is very genre dependent for hip hop but I hope this gives you ballparks for reference.
I willl say don’t mix as hot as I do, I would recommend taking the figures I gave you and keep the ratios but gain stage down at least 3db across the board.
@@kenny6105so should we mix by ear or by knocking off 3dbs from those figures you gave after saying we should mix by ear?
Teddy Riley was doing the same thing. He said that's why Michael Jackson wanted to work with him in the first place.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
Well... I use Personus 22v saturation unit, it has 189.6 kHz frequency spectrum. lower mid to lows Just mix it on parallel with master.
Bro this video is like a self help book that’s 90% anecdotes of how the book changed people’s lives. 10% some basic ideas.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
Just like Andrew Sheps, I mix on a pair of Sony 7506 headphones with no headphone software. If they're good enough for him, then they are certainly good enough for a nobody like me.
I swear on (pro quality) headphones anyways. You cut out all the possible interference from a room and you train your ears and brain to instantly recognise any subtle change in the audio spectrum... because you KNOW the headphones sound completely.
Gem at the end just lit up a light bulb in my head
Acustica Audio Ash has a model of the Lavry Gold fyi
The AD-24-200 Savitr
An MPC3k and an SSL console didn't hurt anyone.... I think that combined with the SSL Bus Comrpessor (the one from the console) Plus the converters are the real trick to his sound.
So basically Dre a mix nothing he had a group of people who assisted the mix
Lol like the rest of “professionals”
To me Dre and Timba nailed the sound…actually Timba got there first. No one got that clarity and definition and after Timba and Dre everyone else followed. What the did, defined the sound of everything!
I agree 100%
Yeah with Timbaland he used Jimmy Douglas to mix his early(big) tracks
The Infamous - Mobb Deep (Q-Tip/Leon Zervos). there is no hip-hop album getting close productionwise in the 90ies
@@HAYDENMUSICTV mix or master?
@@amazeus1980 mix...cos Dre is not doing mastering thats outsourced.
where is the clip of him on the videocall from?
I leaked pierre bournes mixing + mastering too if ur interested :)
I always knew it was something uniquely special about Dr. Dre's sound. Then I dealt with Brian Big Bass and learned a ton of secrets.
I was 13-14 listening to the chronic and the main thing I wanted to know was how dr Dre got the sound 😂😂😂
Not gonna learn any secrets from this kid on youtube, that I can assure you.
😴
maybe when Dr Dre was making music you needed special converters. i just dont buy it anymore.
another common W for george
nice job splicing in ireelevant clips about dr dre and making it look like a youtube documentary fucking hell
Could you try n find some about Serban Ghenea?
Only on the thread what John shared! In summary he is very simple in processing the sounds, and has the tools anyone of us can have! Ott and maserati on mixbuss are wht Max uses and i think Serban doesn’t remove them when receiving mixes from him! I tried my self and i can admit that these 2 plugins gets me closer to Serban’s sound more than anything else!!! But guy is a genius!!!
This whole album is in the red and clipping and was the beginning of the loudness war that's ruining recorded music.
Good shit, this video was helpful 🙏🏽
Kudos to you Dr Dre for still making music to this day (:
I died when he said he hit that magic button.... the compressor 😂
This weak af bruh if you want actual sauce i leaked it, all of it (808s, mastering, vocals, all of it)
SSL gbus compressor and Oxford inflator are two vital parts to Dre’s sound. More during the mix, not master.
Yeah, Oxford Inflator being a plugin that was created in the mid/late 2000's was obviously the vital part of Dre's sound. Come on bro. Dre mixed analog, there is no secret voodoo sauce to it, Akai samplers going into Solid State preamps on the SSL mixing desk or later on the Neve 1084 box he had in his home studio (you see it when Eminem is there recording Slim Shady ep), the G-Series Eq's and onboard channel compressors, hitting the 2-inch Reel to Reel tape machine hard (probably Studer), the choice of Reel Tape brand, different reel flux have different sound qualities. His sound was pretty dry but he surely had some Lexicon Digital reverb to hand as you see the PCM on his own or the studio's mixing desk in photos of the time. The rest was the Mastering engineer and his custom setup.
thank you for your help
So basically he used soft clipping.
GOLDCLIPPING sweatheart
@@rickythethirdDIAMONDCLIPPING
EtherClipping!!
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
whats his sauce@@prod.alexmadeit
compressors and soft clippers is the answer?
dre probably loves fruity soft clipper
Well... if it is on UA-cam, it is not really a secret, now is it?
We poor bedroom rappers/producers mix and master with a cracked t-racks
Yo George would you get a Neve 1073 or a bae 1073? After all your research, which one is being used more by all these pros?
BAE
They only talk about saturation, i believe you can just use the clipper on the master and thats it
Dre's beats hit differently and are a million times better than 99.9% of the trash @ss rap beats of today 👊🏿
Its like when soutside was talkin bout fl sounding better but not knowing the fruity limiter on it
Which Lavry Gold model?
SSL itself is not the secret, but what he does with it
These are all proven geniuses with a million times more knowledge than I and a proven system, BUT... mixing your vocals higher than what you actually want them seems... flawed. It seems counterintuitive to produce a +final mix+ that doesn't sound accurate to what you +actually+ want?
Shouldn't a mastering engineer be able to compensate for this, themselves?
...I'm missing something.
Pierre bourne is one of the best mastering engineers, i leaked his whole sauce thank me later :)
this felt like an ad
You definitely earned a sub with this video
Interesting info... but... There's definitely a lot more going on that gives his mixes and productions their depth...
Lavry Gold = Gold Clip Plugin for the all my producers who can't afford a 8000$ converter.
Doesn’t sound close unfortunately. Does weird things to the low end
The gold clip plug in sounds nothing like the lavry. The magic in the lavry is in its design and analog components and the sound of it has more to do with the conversion more than just the soft clip feature.
the gap is closing tho. i have goldclip bought it for 200$ . a aquintance has lavry gold. obvisiouly analog with has its own machine will sound better but i can sureley say a listener doesnt care what clipper you bought on it or how much db+ higher the vocals are to the drums. they just want it to sound good. thats what i mean buy the gap is closing,
@@rickythethird exactly the gap is closing. In blind tests most are gonna be hard pressed to find big differences. I'd say Gold Clip gets close enough
@@VersatyleMusicGroup plugins have successfully molded other analog equipment. The Lavry Gold aint that special. It's 2024 anything can be replicated now
And dr Dre destroyed the original sound of rap and forced all rappers into large expensive studio,s before that you could rap on a 4track and put a song. Out.
I don't know man, sounds like he pushed rappers to be better.
@@MaruBen27 pushed rappers and upcoming rappers to think they have to record in a million dollar studio. Rap was supposeed to be music that can be recorded cheaply , now its turned into pop music cost
@@MaruBen27 most studio were setup for Rock , singer , big bands , then when rap hit the scene you really didnt need all that becaise the sound was supposed to unfilted and street syle , the big studios saw they were losing money due to the decline in Rock genres come the 90s , so they needed a new customer based , and used Dr Dre as the ambassador for all this technical studio stuff.
nerd lies
How can i get Bainz Recording template? Your discord link is down...
So dynamics, saturation and processing?
I didn't quite get it. Which is the super-sounding album? Chronic or 2001?
Can one archive with plugins
so whats the a to d converter called
10 percent. 4 percent… makes it seem like you’re throwing random numbers out for no reason
Dre is the Goat period
Thank you bro
comeon man that shit is slimy! theres a pic of a ssl bus comp and the secret the whole time is that he hired a mastering engineer... (yeah, lavry converter duuuhhh)
So the “secret” is get a 9000$ converter use a top shelf mastering engineer after you use most of hip hops top producers to help you write your album. Got it. And i’m not dissing dre because that would be dissing myself.
Alway thought he used expensive Reel to Reel tape machine and compressor devices
Come on man!!! Instead of getting to the point, it was more of a damn infomercial!! 5% content, 95% nothing!!
go watch pokemon you bulbasaur
@@DeejayRach0he's right tho
How does the Burl B2 ADC stack up against the Lavry?
The burl is very nice. It has a transformer in front of the converter so it will give a slight color and saturate a little bit but it will also add some weight if the mix needs it. The conversion is very very good as well. Lavry is definitely more detailed tho. Like lavry is like a fucking mirror of the source. I've never heard anything literally not lose anything when printing in the A to D accept a few converters like pacific microsonics, prism dream converters are close and the Lavry gold. Lavry gold is def the cream of the crop and is like 15 to 20 for the converter I believe.
@@VersatyleMusicGroup Thanks for the info. I actually first had a Focusrite 18i6 for many years before I realized what a crappy converter that was when I finally went hybrid. I moved up to a Lynx Aurora N, very transparent but you can’t push it much without unmusical distortion. I heard the Burl on Mixanalog before purchasing it so now my Lynx goes into the B2 as an option for weight. I got an EP mastered recently by a facility with the Lavry Gold and those are the best masters I find personally.
Not used the burls but just wanted to add that the Gold really adds colour to the mix so idk about it “mirroring” the source
Who was the man on the phone?
Cool from cool and Dre
sweet
hmmm 🤔 one of those topics...i hope kids watching this understand there's no preset for this Dre Secret Sound...it also comes to Sound Selection Mixing...Level Balancing and Clipping individual Sounds, Groups and Master...its Balance Act and on Top were Talking about a Record made 25 Years ago...So just watch a Young Beat Maker UA-cam Producer...watch the amount they Clip especially the 808 that is pure ridiculous lazy kids BS...Today there's a lot of great converters with nice Clipping/Saturation but its harder than ever to Sound decent when Volume is sooooo important
I would take a JCF converter over a lavery gold any day of the week..
Secret sauce: practice
As usual, it’s just click bait and nothing we didn’t already know 🙄
Cap
Straight up
(THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA) yeh just peak the vocals and then smash the crap out of it in the master Or.... create energy and dynamics in your mix and use a clipper instead. That way your transients don't get smashed into oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised if the mastering engineers were using individual track stems for every instrument on ever song for the record.
I know Dre’s secret is, he uses a ghost Producer…!
😂..include Scott starch
@@sevenhxrecords677 No Starch on my dress shirts thank you…!
thats not a secret... everybody already knows this... secondly this is about mixing, not production
@@dpmusic21 so your the one upsman troll they warned us about…. Nice to make you acquaintance….
@@rjmprod how the hell is it trolling if i'm telling you what everybody already knows. Who doesn't know Dre doesn't use other producer's music??? And secondly what does THAT have to do with his mixing? LOL I swear folks like you just say anything for drama.
I like the 1st chronic mastering better.
I'm gonna make a song with Dre one day. Mark my words.
no you not
Def not my guy..
Even if you do it most likely will never drop 😂
Dubba you Dubba you dot
That’s what’s up
conversion as a whole is a lot better since the lavry gold though. Dont yall run out and buy a lavry gold now. lol
Kazrog True Iron?
Why people sleeping on organize noise,@dungeonfamily!
Dr Dre is a GAme changer frfr
💎💎💎
Ash & Stillwell
2001 is not sonically better than chronic and doggfood
4 sho
So what was the secret? Yall got it?
The “secret” that has been explained in countless other videos about dre. Dre clips his mix on the ssl board………..thats……..about it. 6min video just for that one piece of info 😂
He didn't tell you much on this post !!!
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Dude Dre wasn’t all that. There were other producers from that era Dre couldn’t touch.
Its a little trick called SKILL 😂