Tag: online mastering

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17 Years Of Fat As Funk Mixing & Mastering!

fat as funk mastering 17 years old

They say time flies when you’re having fun. Never truer than when spending the last 17 years working on amazing music.

I don’t really talk about myself much at all (ever really), but 17 years is quite a while to be doing a job, so this post is a little bit about my journey so far.

Firstly, It’s been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work on all your amazing tunes over the years. I appreciate every one of you, from those just starting out in the game, through to some of the biggest independent labels, artists, sync agents, music libraries and pressing plants in the industry. I’m very glad to have made some real friends along the way too.

Far too many to name in this post without excluding others, but you can check out my (probably very incomplete) client list.

The Journey So Far

Fat As Funk was one of the very first mastering companies to offer a free taster back in 2006. This approach combined with trips to numerous music conferences and networking parties got me a lot of clients quite fast, and off we went. 17 years later and I’m not quite sure where the time has gone!

It’s really satisfying to help a new producer get their first release sounding as good as their inspirations, and hearing just how thrilled they are – wonderful! Take that enthusiasm forward and blow up your scene! Likewise when a band like Bilk drops their debut e.p. and it exceeds all expectations it’s great to have been a small part of it.

Also very satisfying seeing some tracks I’ve worked on getting major radio and DJ support all over the world, including several times the number 1 slot on Spotify for their genre, or a couple of times Radio 1’s “Hottest Record In The World Right Now” (Tommy Farrow “Let’s Just” and Prospa’s “Prayer”). Recently I noticed my regular client Lau.Ra did her first BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix. As a huge fan of the series growing up, this made me smile.

Occasionally walking into a shop and hearing something on the radio, like the ubiquitous “Another Lifetime” by Luxxury & Scavenger Hunt and”Keep It Together” by Kraak & Smaak which I keep on hearing in unexpected places a couple of years after their release.

Hearing my work in an A-List Hollywood trailer or movie is a buzz (especially when I’ve also helped land the sync placement, but more on that later).

A few times, artists have sent me a reference track to emulate for their mastering, and I come back to them saying “I mastered that one” and we have an instant “Ayyyyyyy!” Bro moment 🙂

I lost track of exactly how many tracks I’ve worked on a while back, but it must be well over 14,000 now. I’ve worked on music from literally every continent, and feel lucky to hear what’s cooking in the underground in some of the most far-flung corners of the world.

“The Underwater Hunter” by the Industrial Battle Orchestra. Mixed and Mastered by Fat As Funk.

Music S.O.S.

I get a special warm fuzzy feeling from rescuing old treasured recordings, sometimes for the families of people who have died, or an old-timer wanting to get their legacy in order and sounding great for their grandkids. They are so overjoyed to hear these wonderful memories restored, it makes me emotional every time. These jobs don’t happen very often, but they are always special when they do. I am currently cleaning up and augmenting some folk songs by a guy in the US which were recorded “on a $25 tape machine many years ago” including a song he recorded for his wife who died. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house if you heard it.

Likewise when the itch to scratch some vinyl comes around, but artists only have their masters pushed hard for digital use, and without access to the unmastered files we step in to solve the problem. Although people do sometimes risk pressing super-pushed masters on to vinyl, it is not recommended as they will often not translate brilliantly, and can even run the risk of making the needle jump if there are low frequencies out of phase. I have done a tonne of pre-vinyl rescue work over the years including for superstar Sophie Ellis Bextor and recently the controversial but critically acclaimed UK rapper Potter Payper.

We can optimise any tracks for the best vinyl results. Vinyl is so expensive to get pressed, there’s no point taking a risk at the last stage.

It’s a pleasure to make people so happy with their music. You can read some testimonials to see some nice things people have said.

Moving In Sync

I have also been working in the sync world for a while, visiting Los Angeles 6 times to hustle up direct connections in Hollywood and setting up a 3rd party licensing agency Rinse The Sync. This went pretty well, getting my artists music placed on many shows and films like Royal Pains (NBCUni), The Driver (BBC), A Hundred Streets, Spotless, The Five, Underworld:Blood Wars (trailer and movie) – all Fat As Funk mastering clients.

I have since moved away from 3rd party representation, and instead have set up a sync-focused music library Alternative Reality Music which has been picking up speed. It’s still fairly new, but I have a great sub-publisher based in LA, and we are starting to get placements on Netflix and other platforms. More of a slow burn, but also more sustainable.

I am looking to sign material in all genres for the library, and have signed up lots of tracks from Fat As Funk’s roster already for the catalogue. There is more chance of your music being noticed and pitched from a smaller library like ours than one of the huge ones with 6 million tracks. I am also gathering tracks for a different flavour library with a grittier, harder electronic edge. If you are interested, send me an email for more details (but use a different email address to the mastering one please: publishing (at) rinsethesync (dot) com )

I’m lucky to have had some of my own music placed too. Most notably landed some music and sound design in the international trailers for Alien:Covenant, Antlers, a Sprite advert, The Driver, had some of my sound design in the Logan trailer and music in The Book Of Boba Fett promo with a track I composed 50/50 with a buddy.

Some TV and Podcast Work

I came to the rescue for two series of wellness programmes on Sky TV “Feel Good Factor” on recommendation. The producers were having a nightmare as the sound recordist had ended the relationship on bad terms and left them with a load of extremely messy audio. Some of which was horrifically recorded, and they could not re-record the interviews due to Covid. I came in around part way though the first season and made the audio broadcast quality.

I have done various other TV mixing and post production, including remixing Ludacris’s tracks for the cool Netflix kids show Karma’s World for seasons 1 and 2. The same agency commissioned me to edit the music for a pilot cartoon show with Ronaldo and Messi called GOAT, which I don’t think ever came of anything, but was a fun job anyway.

I’ve recently been working on some spoken word audio including the excellent “Pitch Masters” podcast which is nominated for the MR2023 Podcast award. As a complete contrast, late last year I edited some rather fruity “adult” voiceover for the female-centered erotic story company Emjoy. Never done that before, but it was great fun! Never a dull day in the studio.

Final Thoughts

What I am most thankful for is the vast majority of my clients are regulars who come back time & time again, and most new clients come from their recommendations.

This means I have not needed to advertise at all for many years, and it also buffers against my rubbish social media presence haha (phew!). As I say every year… I must do better on the socials haha. Maybe this year will be the one…. Now that I mention it, If you would follow/like/share and all that stuff it would be appreciated. I often send out exclusive discounts on services to my email subscribers too.

As a lover of the countryside, I haven’t been tempted to move to London (although I do love visiting it), so have been able to keep my overheads low, and my prices extremely competitive. I truly feel Fat As Funk offers the best value:quality ratio in the business, and I’m very proud of that.

If I can help with mix evaluations, mixing, mastering, sync advice, vinyl optimisation, podcasts or anything along those lines, feel free to get in touch.

Likewise, if you have some excellent back-catalogue sitting around gathering dust consider sending it over for consideration into the library. Or you could write us something fresh!

So once again, thank you for being such awesome people. Keep the music coming! We’ll make it Fat As Funk together.

All the best,

Loz.

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Free Stem Mastering Upgrade until July!

stem mastering mixing or stereo mastering

Try our stem mastering service for free with the purchase of stereo mastering !

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(or email links to loz@fatasfunk.com)
Make your musical ambition a reality, and start by getting your audio quality slick and professional. In this email I give some tips on stem mastering, and when it’s most needed.

Add 2 x FREE stems per track (£14 value) with code: 2022FreeStemsOffer
Order “Stereo Mastering” then select “Add Stems” and use the code at checkout to get 2 x free stems!
(You can use the code up to 5 times! Get 5 x stem mastered tracks done & save £70! Code doesn’t expire until the end of June 2022. Scroll down for more details)
Topics covered:
What is Stem Mastering?
How can it help improve your music productions?
How is it different to “regular” stereo mastering?
The difference between a good master & a fantastic master is subtle but important…. A great one just has “something special” about it, which noticeably adds to the overall impact of the track, but isn’t always easy to pin down why. It just sounds “quality”! Labels, sync agents, music supervisors and playlist curators notice the difference.Mastering is like most things in life – the better the input, the better the output.
So today we are going to talk about Stem Mastering, which can help optimize a few of the most demanding parts of a mix as an integral part of the mastering job.

What is Stem Mastering?
Stem mastering is like a mini-mix combined with mastering. It can optimize a mix that’s already great, or correct a few difficult elements and rescue a mix that would otherwise have major issues.A mediocre mix will be massively improved by an experienced mastering engineer anyway, but think how much slicker the end result would be if the tricky mix elements were perfected.Stem mastering is the process of sending certain parts of your mix separately, so the mastering engineer can adjust key elements individually during the mastering process.Often during mastering certain elements get highlighted and mix flaws revealed. It’s really useful for the engineer to be able to adjust these aspects on the fly to get the best end result.For example, there may be an instrument that overlaps the frequency band of a vocal performance, and during the mastering process the vocal needs a little EQ tweak… but this makes the other instrument sound harsh. Or vice-versa and adjusting a harshness in the other instrument then dulls the vocal. It would be helpful to be able to adjust these elements with a little more separation (there are A.I. tools that can be useful, but they are hit-and-miss sometimes).

When do you need stem mastering?
Low-end problems (kick, bass, sub):Many technically excellent, talented producers don’t have the luxury of a fully accurate listening environment which can cause problems balancing their low-end. Matching the kick & sub levels between each other is a very common problem which relies on both accurate monitoring AND environment.There are a few A.I. driven tools on the market which are helpful, but in my experience they don’t quite get it right most of the time. I often use one in my chain, but the majority of the time (90%+) I don’t actually follow its suggestions completely, and use it more as a quick way to check another approach, like a second pair of ears to ask an opinion of. The neutral room + human ears still give the best results tailored to your track.Vocal balancing:A vocal is one of the most tricky parts to make sit naturally inside a mix, and because we all know the sound of a human voice intimately, a vocal that’s not quite blended perfectly is the easiest way to make an otherwise amazing mix go downhill. So many talented producers find getting the vocal to sit right the most challenging part of a mix. If this is you, you are not alone!The highest level mix optimisation:Even if your mix is pretty damn great already, and you just want to get the most optimized mastering possible, then stem mastering can make that happen. It gives the engineer full flexibility to tweak micro aspects of the master and get really precise for ultimate results.Weak sounding drums:A classic problem, especially when using live drums. The track is banging, guitars sound huge, vocal is great, bass is thumping, but the drums sound weak and let the whole track down. By sending the drums as a separate stem we can give the extra push needed to fatten them up in the mix.Any instrument that isn’t “sitting right”:Don’t let it annoy you. Send it separately as a stem and let the engineer fix this in the mastering.

How To Set Up A Stem Master:
It is good general practice when mixing a song to group various elements to different subs/buses before the master output fader. This is helpful for many reasons: You can pull down just 1 fader to adjust all the drum channels for example, or effect all vocal channels with 1 effect. Or send different parts of your track to 1 reverb… Or many other cool things beyond the scope of this article! Sending grouped parts to buses is also useful in optimizing your gain structure to avoid clipping. It’s generally a good habit to have when mixing.When you export your mix, you will choose the option that exports all these different buses separately – these individually grouped wav files will be your stems.
There’s no specific rules for what parts to use as stems – it will vary depending on how many instruments are causing issues, or how complex your track is.Often you will only need 1 or 2 stems to get an optimized result. Vocals and Drums are common choices in this scenario.

For a rock stem mastering job, you might have the following stems:
vocals
drums
bass
rhythm guitars
lead guitar
synth
Or for an electronic track:
kick drum
other drums
bass sounds
soft sounds
hard sounds
This is a common stem setup for a dance track:
kick drum
Bass sounds
everything else
Tricky vocal?:
lead vocal
backing vocals
everything else
(also makes it a breeze to bounce an instrumental master version at the same time)
Lots of options! Note how sometimes I’ve grouped them as “hard” & “soft” sounds – really it depends on the track and what elements work most naturally together.

Once you have chosen the best stem configuration for your mix, export them (“Export – Buses” or similar), then load them up in a new project and check to make sure they play back exactly the same as your normal stereo mix.

Feel free to reach out to us for advice if you have any problems making stems.

Send them all separately in a zip file to us HERE, along with a regular stereo copy of your full mix as a reference so the engineer can check all is correct.

Final thoughts:
Stem mastering is not essential for every track. But on a tricky or complex mix it can make the difference between a good final result and a fantastic final result.

It doesn’t have to be expensive either. For example, at Fat As Funk Mastering, you can add a stem for just £7 on top of the mastering cost (or free with this offer!).Try stem mastering on your new track and see how much difference it can make.

Try our stem mastering for free: Add 2 x free stems per track with code: 2022FreeStemsOffer (Order Stereo Mastering + Add Stems, & add the code at checkout for the 2 x free stems discount per track. You can use it up to 5 separate times to get 5 x tracks stem mastered & save up to £70! Code doesn’t expire until the end of June 2022)
UPLOAD YOUR FILES
(or email links to loz@fatasfunk.com)