MONTHS TILL MIDNIGHT PT.2 (THE ENGINEER'S EDITION)

Sorry y'all (The people that do actually do give a damn about MY blog page) for being away for so long. School has started and I've been trying to get things together. Grad school application deadlines are approaching as well, so on top of the EIGHT CLASSES that I'm taking, I've got to get some portfolios and stuff together for my next step in higher education. Not to mention my BOXING regime (I'm trying to put LL COOL J out of business by JUNE). I promise I will not take as long to make another post again. With that being said let's get to the good stuff. Last time I posted, I informed everyone on the upcoming FSR album MIDNIGHT MOVIE.
This time, I got my man, my mellow, my ace, and my personal mix engineer, Adrian "187" Morales to write up some inside information on his mixing technique for the album. With no further ado, here is what he had to say:

Peace, y'all.


Upon sitting down with Cyrus and him discussing to me his latest project, its theme and how he wants to orchestrate it, the one thing that came to my mind when thinking how to go about the mixing process was the overall "ambience" of the record. I felt it not only had to be represented, but also had to be on the fine line between the "sound" of the theme at hand and contemporary musical standards... to an extent.


The sound to the music was practically identical to the theme that it's immitating: "gritty" quality that worked well(the theme of the movie filmed in the late 80's was based on low budget movies from the 50's and 60's, a lil FYI)... so how do I go about this being that Cyrus already had the "rugged, gritty" part down with his choice of instruments and already had the "feel" to the album down? "Add a little more to it", but make it "thumpable" (that word will be in the dictionary soon) so that it's listenable with good replay value wherever it's being played. The latter was the more important part for me, or any engineer in general.


I can write a whole blog by myself about specifics, so excuse the generalization, though I won't leave you short-handed and get to the point.


Usually engineers mix instrument sounds (primarily percussions) based on the frequency range, the pitch (sometimes) but mainly how they want the instruments to sound (depending on reverb and "roomy-ness", or whether they want certain things to sound digital or acoustic, OR whether they want it to hit light, thump, etc... you get the point) and try to acsenuate the specific frequency range by getting rid of the "muck" or "infamill" (Future, wtf) or parts of the sound that didnt make it "sound" like the instrument or would distract the "quality of the instrument" (depending, which I'll explain in a sec)... simply put: sound parts that "didnt need to be there". As gritty and rugged as the instruments and sounds that made up the music were, I simply took the advice of a great engineer and thought "the best EQ is no EQ", flipped it my own way and kept the "original ambience" of the sound untouched (since you DON'T want to take away from that with a specific album like this one), but I also wanted to make the specific instrument thump and get ITS point across, to give the songs a good feel. So, I didn't believe in "cleaning up" the sounds, I kept them the way they were, and added the quality it needed in order to give it the effect of the respected instrument by simply ascenuating the overall hertz of its frequency range, no more no less. This kept the "theme" or "ambience" of the album in tact, but at the same time gave it the "brightness, loudness and punchiness" that every good record needs... Yes, How's that for being general? i'll spare you more details or more info, but that's the focus I had while recording this album and mixing it.


No "morphing" or "beautifully bright" pop-quality sounds here... cuz you'll simply be flippin through your cable viewing different programs and commercials on different channels, but this will be bump-able and good for your ears. What Cyrus said about who and what "influenced the making of this album" definitely shows throughout the songs. Even though most of y'all reading this won't even care about the mixing to a point, when you get into the music and vibe to and with it, we'll know the work put into every single small detail of the album from everyone involved has paid off. Hopefully this album whoops your ass.

And that's from the MAN, Mr.187 himself. We'll be back soon for PART 3 of this post, with candid words from the VOICES of the FSR; THE MC'S (SHEEN PHILIPS AND FUTURE JOYNER)


(NOTE: THE PICTURE ABOVE IS OF ACTOR CLIFF CURTIS. TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT, I ALWAYS TOLD ADRIAN THAT HE LOOKED LIKE THE DUDE FROM "TRAINING DAY" THAT HELD ETHAN HAWKE'S CHARACTER IN THE TUB AT GUN POINT, AND THEN LETS HIM GO ONCE HE FINDS OUT THAT HE ACTUALLY SAVED HIS NIECE. YEARS LATER AND MANY BLOCKBUSTER HITS LATER, I FOUND OUT THAT THE "CHICANO" FROM TRAINING DAY IS ACTUALLY A SOUTH EAST ASIAN ACTOR BY THE NAME OF CLIFF CURTIS. I FIGURED THAT IT WOULD BE FUNNY AND APPROPRIATE TO POST THE PICTURE, SINCE THIS BLOG ENTRY PERTAINS TO MR.187 HIMSELF. AHAHAHA)