About a month ago I had the opportunity to attend another Mix with the Masters seminar in LA. This seminar was with the prolific and award winning mixer Manny Marroquin (John Mayer, Kanye West, Bastille, Sia, Imagine Dragons, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Keith Urban, and many others...)
At 9:30am, I met with 14 other mix engineers at Larrabee Studios in Los Angeles, close to North Hollywood. Larrabee has been Manny's primary mix studio for years. We were served breakfast and coffee, and the breakfast was a good time to get to know the other attendees. Manny arrived around 10am, and we joined him in one of the mixing studios.
Manny mixes mainly in 2 different rooms within the facility. Each room is equipped with an SSL 9000K console, his most preferred outboard compressors and EQs, NS-10 near field speakers, and Ausperger main speakers.
He introduced himself, and gave us a brief run-down of the day's plans. He began the first half of the day mixing a hip-hop track from an artist named Post Malone. The track was heavy on the 808...kind of a mid tempo, moody club banger. Manny listened through the rough mix only once, turned it off, and then began to bring up the faders on the console
Early on, Manny described his thought process when starting each mix. It soon became apparent that Manny is extremely philosophical in his mixing approach. He's a deep thinker and verbose in his explanations, while at the same time is deeply concerned with how he feels while mixing more than using any specific set of techniques.
When beginning a mix, he establishes a point of reference that "feels good" and "works for the song" based upon what he determines as the "essence" of the song (usually the 2-3 elements that are most important to the feel of the song). He keeps this inner feeling of comfort/confidence at all times. He refers to his point of reference and confidence in direction as his "comfort zone". This "comfort zone" is the culmination of his experience, his highly developed listening skills, his intellect, his emotional intelligence, his command of technical audio skills, and a myriad of other factors...most of which are intangible, taste-based abilities.
If he starts to feel he's drifted from his "comfort zone", he'll back track to what he knew was working for the song, spend some time letting the feeling return, and then carry on.
He likes to start by establishing the groove...which will most often mean starting with the drums. He joked, "I start with the drums even if there are no drums!" He builds a balance with those groove elements and handles any broad stroke EQ and compression changes he wants to make. Once the main groove of the song has a decent balance and is in his "comfort zone" for the song, he begins to pull up the faders on the other most essential elements.
He has a unique EQ technique that I found quite interesting and useful. As he adds each element, he will turn on the SSL channel EQ, boost by 15db, and very quickly sweeps through the frequency bands to search for particular parts of the frequency spectrum. He explained that he is searching for elements of the sound to either boost or cut, to get that particular instrument to fit in more appropriately.
Many times he cuts harsh or muddy frequencies when using this technique...but sometimes he uses it "just to see what's there". He keeps a running list in his mind of what he's found in each mix element. Then later on, if he wants to manipulate it in a certain way, his EQ is already set to do that particular adjustment. He just needs to then boost or cut the appropriate amount.
After adding the most essential elements to the established groove, he moves on to the other (less essential, more support role) tracks...all the while referencing his comfort zone. If he brings the fader up on a track and feels like it is fighting against the established feel, he'll quickly hit the mute and bring the fader back down. He'll revisit that later. It is more important to him to continue to build upon his "comfort zone" than to problem solve a track that isn't quite agreeing with aesthetic he has built.
It's hard to describe how quickly he employs these techniques. It isn't based on analysis, it is based on how those frequencies make him feel. When watching him do this, it's like watching a skilled artist sculpt a beautiful sculpture.
Here is Manny at work:
Manny talks a lot about the left hemisphere of the brain vs the right. (Our left brain being our logic center - where we analyze and problem solve...the right side our emotive functions - our intuitiveness and feelings). As you can guess, he encouraged us to mix from the right brain instead of the left.
Over the past few years of mixing and teaching, I've come to the belief that the best way to stay in the right brain when mixing is to be so proficient at the technical aspects of mixing (signal flow, troubleshooting, operation of specific EQ, compression, and effects devices, etc...) that they become rote...almost like muscle memory. That way, when employing a technique, the action itself is based off of the desired emotional manipulation of an element within the mix. If at any time you can't immediately figure out how to enact a certain manipulation, the problem solving left brain will take over and the emotional momentum gained in the right brain will be lost.
Manny uses his "comfort zone" as a reference to staying in the right brain. If anything happens during mixing which pulls him out of the right brain thinking (like a troubling element which will need a lot of "fixing"), he will ignore that element until later, take a break, or back track a few steps to regain his right brain momentum.
And of this right brain momentum, he is a master.
At 1pm we took a break for lunch. MWTM is always impressing me with the food and amenities they provide for seminar attendees. This time they brought in really great sushi from a place called Sugarfish.
After lunch, we returned to the studio, and Manny began mixing another song. This time the song was a new single for Alicia Keys. He hadn't yet heard the song, so when he played the rough mix we were all listening to it for the first time. The song was an emotionally charged pop tune, much different than the hip-hop tune he worked on during the morning.
Again, he played the rough mix once, and then immediately began acclimating himself with the multitrack on the console (where each element was placed on the console by his assistant). Although the song was very different, his approach and technique was the same...build the groove and then search for the essential elements - keep the right brain momentum.
He continued to mix, pausing to make remarks or answer questions, until about 6:30-7pm.
At around 7 we called it a day, and headed to dinner. Manny is in the process of building out and opening a restaurant next door to the studio. Right now, he is using the building as a pop-up restaurant and art gallery. Very cool space and idea. All 15 of us - Manny, and the MWTM guys (from France) - all walked together over to the space.
We were immediately served champagne, and then were seated in a dining room surrounded by art.
We were served an amazing meal, and I had a blast getting to know all of these engineers from all over the world! We spent the rest of the night drinking wine and talking about life, music, and mixing. At around 10:30, we went our separate ways. I hailed an Uber and headed to the hotel.
The experience was amazing, and MWTM always puts on a great event. Manny was engaging, encouraging, and inspiring. Hope to go to another event soon.
-Ty