Engineer - ?
Producer – Tricky Stewart, The-Dream
Mixing Engineer(s) – Manny Marroquin
Mastering Engineer(s) – Chris Gehringer
Studio Recorded – Westlake Record Studios (LA)
Studio Mastered – Sterling Sound
For this mix analysis, I chose Rihanna’s 2007 hit “Umbrella.” The song was mixed by Manny Marroquin, who mostly works in the hip hop/urban genre. He is known for working on records for other top artists such Kanye West, Usher, and Alicia Keys.
For his approach to the mix, Marroquin says that, “something like Umbrella, I thought, needed to sound as warm as possible but yet aggressive as possible too.” With the vocals, there was a lot of emphasis on delay. On Rihanna’s main verse vocal track, there are two delays panned hard left and hard right (quarter note and eight note, respectively). On the return of the delays/reverbs, Marroquin used a doubler plug-in from Waves. This gave them a more “lush” as well as wide sound.
For reverb he went with outboard gear, specifically the Lexicon 480 and an AMS reverb unit. For compression used a Tube-Tech CL 1B and Avalon 2044. For EQ, he stuck with plug-ins from Nieves. With the instrumental, he EQ’d the sample so it wasn’t so surrounded by the drums.
The punchiness of the drums and the vocal effects makes this song compare to tracks like Alicia Keys “No One” as well as many other urban/R&B tracks.
For his approach to the mix, Marroquin says that, “something like Umbrella, I thought, needed to sound as warm as possible but yet aggressive as possible too.” With the vocals, there was a lot of emphasis on delay. On Rihanna’s main verse vocal track, there are two delays panned hard left and hard right (quarter note and eight note, respectively). On the return of the delays/reverbs, Marroquin used a doubler plug-in from Waves. This gave them a more “lush” as well as wide sound.
For reverb he went with outboard gear, specifically the Lexicon 480 and an AMS reverb unit. For compression used a Tube-Tech CL 1B and Avalon 2044. For EQ, he stuck with plug-ins from Nieves. With the instrumental, he EQ’d the sample so it wasn’t so surrounded by the drums.
The punchiness of the drums and the vocal effects makes this song compare to tracks like Alicia Keys “No One” as well as many other urban/R&B tracks.
Analysis:
:00 – Starts with drums, very punchy
:01 – Jay-Z intro, not much effects
:10 – Jay-Z verse, one main vocal track. Multiple Ad Lib tracks
:11 – Synth Line
:13 – Rihanna “Eh”. Multiple Tracks, Panned, Effects (Reverb, Delay)
:33 – Rihanna Verse w/ Reverb and Delay
:33 – Bass hit on the “one” of each measure.
:50 – High Synth
:55 – Bass Synth
:01 – Jay-Z intro, not much effects
:10 – Jay-Z verse, one main vocal track. Multiple Ad Lib tracks
:11 – Synth Line
:13 – Rihanna “Eh”. Multiple Tracks, Panned, Effects (Reverb, Delay)
:33 – Rihanna Verse w/ Reverb and Delay
:33 – Bass hit on the “one” of each measure.
:50 – High Synth
:55 – Bass Synth
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5MWmif7teM
Jeff - this is pretty good information. What about redoing this type of recording at TU?
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