Inside Tracks

Product Information

The music: iZotope Ozone, Cable Guys Volume Shaper, UAD MXR Flanger, API 560, EP34, Brainworx BX_solo, API Vision, EL7 Fatso, AMS RMX16, Pultec EQ & API 560, SoundToys Decapitator & MicroShift, Waves Renaissance Bass, L1, L2 & Reel ADT, FabFilter Volcano, Pro–Q2, Pro–G & Pro–MB, Audio Ease Altiverb, Sugar Bytes Artillery 2. With more than 15 years of Betfair trading experience, the founder of InsideTraxs has made over 100 VIDEOS. These form the Betfair Trading Academy, which is now considered an invaluable resource to many traders whether Newbies or Experienced. Born in New Delhi, India, Bainz got to his position as chief engineer and mixer at YSL in Los Angeles via Australia, Florida and New York. He recalls, “I never played an instrument, but got into DJ’ing and I was into electronic music. I went to Melbourne to do a bachelor degree in something, I can’t remember what it was, but I hated it. I dropped out and then enrolled in the School of Audio Engineering Institute in Melbourne. I was always into the technicalities behind music and there I realised I wanted to be an engineer.

Engineer, mixer and producer Carlo Montagnese likens his work with the Weeknd to painting — and he’s not afraid to use plenty of colour!

Forty–seven years after the release of his self–titled debut album, James Taylor finally achieved his first American number one in June this year. His 17th studio album, Before This World, surpassed the chart placings of Taylor’s classic early–career albums Sweet Baby James (1970, US number three) and Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon (1971, US number two). Before This World also enjoyed notable chart success in several other countries, reaching number four in the UK, for example.

After finishing college I had a production-type room for a while, which led to me going to work at a big studio in Dallas, called the Dallas Sound Lab. I hooked up with a gospel artist there called Kirk Franklin, and we worked together for seven years and won two Grammy Awards [for Franklin's albums Hero in 2005 and The Fight Of My Life in 2007, both in the Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album category]. Because of my connection with Franklin I recorded mainly Christian albums for many years, but around 2007 some musician friends of mine hooked me up with Timbaland, which is how I got to work with him. Since then I am wherever he is, which may be in New York, Los Angeles, Miami or his studio in Virginia Beach.” 20 Days 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.According to Bainz, working on the album made little difference to his daily rhythm, apart from the complications of the epidemic. “Since I started to work for YSL, I have barely had any days off. I am Thug’s and YSL’s full‑time engineer, and they are in the studio every day. Because YSL is such a big camp, as a team and as a label, somebody is always working. They operate like a big family. I do mixes for others as well, sometimes, but I am on call all the time as an engineer. The only reason I can do so many mixes is because I have my room in the same facility, right down the hallway, so I can just walk over to help with recording when needed. It’s easier and more flexible to work in the box, but it does mean that I spend a lot of time making sure the programmed stuff sounds less sterile. One way of doing that is by adding grit. Distortion is a big part of working in analogue, and the way you hit the console can make a big difference. You don’t have that in the box, but you can simulate it. I’ll use various plug-ins to create grit in the box, like the SoundToys Decapitator and sometimes the Waves NLS console emulation plug-ins.” Based in Los Angeles, where he has his own studio, Bainz has been working for Young Thug and his YSL Records since 2017. One of his first credits with YSL was as engineer on the label’s Slime Language compilation album, released in 2018, and he engineered and mixed much of Young Thug’s debut album, So Much Fun (2019), which went to number one in the US. Carlo ‘Illangelo’ Montagnese is the musician, beatmaker, producer and mixer who has played a central part in propelling the Weeknd to worldwide fame. He’s also a man who’s happy to answer any question put to him — until I ask what hardware he uses in his studio and on the road. This elicits a long pause, and the thoughtful reply: