Inside Tracks

Product Information

I’m Thug’s full‑time engineer, but also sometimes record Gunna, though he has his own engineer, Flo Ongonga. In the past, when Thug and Gunna were in Atlanta, Flo would record them, and here in LA I’d record them, and neither of us would sleep for days. But since Covid, with them working so much, I go to Atlanta to work with Flo and when we work here in LA, he comes over to work with me, so it’s both of us in action at the same time all the time.” Verse lead vocal: Antares Auto–Tune EFX, FabFilter Pro–DS, Pro–Q2, Pro–MB & Timeless 2, Waves Vocal Rider, H–Delay & Doubler, UAD API 560, 1176 & EP34, SoundToys Little Radiator & MicroShift, Audio Ease Altiverb.

My job during this stage is to get everything into Pro Tools, and I'll be making extensive notes and I'll also be polishing the sounds in the box, using EQ and compression and so on. Many of the sounds needs some massaging to get the blends right. I generally use a Neumann M49 on Justin, and if we don't have one, a U87, going into a Neve 1073 mic pre and then a Tube-Tech CL1B compressor, going straight into Pro Tools, which was running at 44.1/24. We don't do vocal comps, because Justin knows what he wants. He listens to himself, and when he wants to touch something up, we punch him in and we move on. We don't end up with five takes of the same vocal. This makes working with him very fast and very easy.

James Taylor (left) and Dave O’Donnell at work in the former’s Barn studio. Photo: Spencer Worthley

From comparing the amount of money placed on a horse versus the total on the race you can tell if a horse is overweighted in the market or underweighted.Justin Timberlake's album release schedule appears to be inspired by the proverbial English buses: you wait ages and then several come along at once. Before 2013, the singer had released only two albums in a decade: his 2002 debut Justified, and the follow-up Futuresex/LoveSounds in 2006. After that Timberlake became preoccupied with his acting career, though he remained an active chart presence by guesting on other people's hits, such as Madonna's '4 Minutes', TI's 'Dead And Gone', Timbaland's 'Carry Out', and Jamie Foxx's 'Winner'. By the way, the above vocal treatments are not part of a template. Every song is different. I cannot stress this enough. Vocals are different, and in general I like to change tools with every song. I might have gotten a new plug‑in that I like. I love new technology, so I like to try things out! We are working hard to get the remaining issues brought over as soon as possible but this conversion and reformatting will take time, due to commitments to producing the new issue each month. O’Donnell recorded all the material for Before This World to Pro Tools at 24–bit, 96kHz: “I was never a big fan of 44.1, and I feel that 96k is definitely better for acoustic music. With 24/96 I thought for the first time that digital sounded good.” Be Prepared

This is exactly the course I was looking for. I don’t use Logic and I am not a huge fan of Tech House. But Jono explains music production and mixing techniques in such a way that it really dosent matter the type of genre or the DAW you are using. He explains why he is using a certain plugin, why he is making the changes etc

As a producer I see my job as making sure the songs are great, by getting great performances, and doing whatever it takes to achieve that,” explains O’Donnell. “It can include choosing the songs, and working on any aspect of them: the tempo, the key, the lyrics, to the structure, parts and so on. With a different artist it can mean a lot of guidance, but with an artist like James you know the songs and the performances will be there; it’s just a matter of capturing these the best you can.”