Episode 76 - Teezio
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 76
Dec 28, 2021
w/ Teezio - Week 4
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Q: What is the feeling that motivates you to want to work all of the time?
Teezio:
It’s hard to say because it’s all I’ve known for so long, even since I started working with 3 Six Mafia.
It’s a competitiveness to stick around
Matt:
To young record makers: surround yourself with people who are hard working and positive.
Teezio:
Being surrounded by these types of people will make you want to work hard when you see them working and they see you.
It’s great to have a group of people who are all on the same page and feeding off on one another.
Q: How much of a 15 hr session is actually recording?
Teezio:
4-6 solid hours of recording, usually with a lot chilling.
Matt:
In those 15 hr sessions everyone else gets to chill, but you’ve got to be on it at all times.
Teezio:
You have to be the first one to the session. I would show up to my sessions an hour early
I’d get everything set up and test the mic and troubleshoot any problems that may have cropped up, or learn the setup in a new studio.
Sometimes the mic rental hasn’t arrived yet.
I found that the times that I arrive the earliest are the ones where I’m most grateful for having done so.
When I arrive an hour early I do this:
Find the assistant, who usually arrives 30 min before the session (after me), so I then have to find someone else who can help me set up or show me how the studio is set up.
Tell that person I want a particular mic, a CL-1B, a 1073 and to set them up.
I make sure the CL-1B and 1073 are set up near my chair, for ease of use. I make them pull it out of the rack and set it next to me, if it’s not nearby because the CLA-1B is not a set and forget kind of compressor. I have to constantly tweak it.
I will constantly be riding the gain of the 1073 into the CL-1B as Chris (Brown) is singing in order to hit the threshold in the right way.
If nothing is wrong in the studio I will usually have 30 min to acclimate to the room.
Chris is never on time. He’s usually late by an hour and a half. So although I show up an hour early to each session, I never make the mistake of showing up late, because the moment I do is the day that Chris got up early and is at the studio. I don’t try to cut corners.
Matt:
Your job is to be the most professional person around. His job is to be a rockstar, and your job is to be available for all availabilities of capturing what he does.
Q: Do you have a template for computer/headphone monitoring?
Teezio:
I’ll have the CL-1B at a 2:1 ratio because I don’t want to have a loud phrase pull too hard on the vocal. I want to get the tube sound and get just enough level that it doesn’t clip.
I always keep three record tracks:
1. An aux with auto-tune that is fed into one record track where it is printed on a record track
2. On the record track I only have an EQ, a reverb send, and a delay send. The EQ is an 80 cut and a little bit of 10k boost.
3. Once track 2 is printed I then drag it onto Track 3 that has compression, but I don’t hear this while Chris is tracking. I wait and listen to Track 2 as he’s tracking so that I can make sure it still sounds good before it hits the compression. Then after a take I’ll drag the waveform onto track 3 in order to hear the compression.
Chris is tracking line-by-line as he records. Once he’s satisfied it gets put onto Track 3 and we are building the comp as we go.
I playlist everything. There have been so many times in the mixing phase where the background vocals were low and I didn’t catch an unwanted pop or noise. The playlist allows me to go back and find an alternate take that doesn’t have the noise and comp it into the take.
Oftentimes Chris will hit the first word of a phrase too hard and I have to ask him to redo it. He will then sing through the previous line so that he can hit that word in a way that’s congruent with the overall phrase.
If they don’t sing from the line before it will sound like an edit.
Chris loves to hear his vocal loud while he’s tracking, so it tends to sit above the music while we’re in a session.
Q: How do you deal with extra noise from the vocal performance, like someone’s chains rattling or a chair creaking?
That’s definitely on-brand for rap artists, so it’s not as big of an issue if you can hear chains or them lighting up a blunt.
With Chris and pop music that’s less acceptable.
Chris doesn’t like any breaths on the record. So we cut them all out after the Heartbreak album. There are no breaths on his records now.
Cutting out the breaths allows us to omit most of the chain noise.
Chris will also step back from the mic after every line, like a pro.
Matt:
Nobody who loves a record is fixated on the sound of the snare drum or some other ancillary sound, but having all of that extra noise would still be distracting and detract from their experience.
Teezio:
One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is when there are music drop-outs on a record, but you can still hear the hi-hats bleeding into the vocal mic. That’s the worst.
As engineers that’s a huge pain in the ass.
I’ll do as much as I can to get those noises out, and then the rest is for vibe.
Q: How do you deal with an artist that wants to take one ear off with the headphones?
Matt:
I ask them to see if they can make sure the ear piece isn’t open or is resting against the back of their head.
Teezio:
I’ll ask them to hold it, so that it’s not open. Otherwise that’s gonna create problems.
Sometimes I’ll put a LPF on the track to dull the hi-hats and prevent hi-hat bleed. Or I’ll put a multi-band compressor to smash the top so that the hi-hat and snare get pushed down.
I just do this for the tracking process and usually the artist doesn’t care or notice. But I’ll often explain to them.
Eventually you build trust with the artist and they trust in your process and your instructions.
Sometimes your reputation makes the asking easy because people understand that you’re successful and are going to do what’s best.
Many engineers won’t voice their needs to the artist because it’s their session and they may feel powerless to ask.
Matt:
Oftentimes having experience will cause you to say things without any stress like “Hey, can you do this for me?” The confidence that you say it with will help to deliver the request.
Q: What is your monitoring setup and how did you arrive there?
Teezio:
I’m using the PMC 6-2’s.
Once I started working with Chris Brown I was mixing on some cheap JBL monitors. Then DG (Dakari: G-Eazy’s engineer) put me onto the PMCs first, so then I got some PMC TwoTwo 6’s.
I was finding that when I went to the car my mixes had too much low-end, so I eventually got a PMC sub, so that I could feel the low-end better.
Now my 6-2’s don’t need a sub. They’ve got so much low end.
Matt:
If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on speakers you should go listen to them in a well-treated room.
Tinnitus and Hearing Loss
Teezio:
I have a slight hearing imbalance in my left ear because I had a lot of ear infections when I was younger, so now the hearing on my left ear is about 1dB lower and slightly darker.
As a result I’ve set up my monitoring to compensate for the imbalance.
In the studio with Chris I will always put on Vic Firth drummer headphones to protect my hearing when he wants to come into the control room and hear it loud.
I’m not happy about it, but it’s something I’m gonna keep doing to protect my hearing into old age.
I can’t stand records that have a balance that hangs over to one side.
Matt:
The frustration of not having the hearing you want makes you focus even more on getting the sound that you want, and it probably makes you a better mix engineer.
Teezio:
What helped mess my ear up more was having the desk to the right of the desk and getting more speaker in my bad ear.
Every room has to have a talkback pedal under the desk so that I can keep my hands on the computer and the desk and still talk to Chris at the same time. This helps me to flow far better.
It drives me crazy when people use numpad 3 to trigger record in Pro Tools because it means they have to move their hand. Cmd+Space is the way to go so that you can operate faster.
Matt:
I always wear earplugs when I’m out in the world in order to protect my hearing.
Mixing 808s
Teezio:
I love bass and 808s. I love it when the bass is up and the kick is knocking. That’s an important part of any record.
If I can’t get the bass low-end right i’ll mute everything until I can get the phase relationship right in the low-end and rebuild it all.
Matt:
Getting the phase right between the kick and the 808 is far and away the most important thing.
Teezio:
Regarding saturation, every 808 is different. Sometimes it’s oversaturated and I don’t have to do anything. Sometimes the 808 is completely lifeless and I’ll put it in the Mike Dean plugin and crank it to try and get some juice.
Sometimes I’ll have to swap out the kick drum to get it sounding better.
Q: How often do you take breaks and rest your ears?
Teezio:
I am constantly taking breaks because I don’t want to be too deep into the record and get adjusted to the way it’s sounding. Leaving and coming back will give me more consistent perspective.
I feel that this actually saves me time because I have to make less changes after I do a mix.
Sometimes I’ll mix the drums, then break, then I’ll mix the music and break, then I’ll come back and do the vocals.
I’m constantly referring to the reference track and trying to match it or exceed it.
