THE SONIC SECRETS OF LARRABEE STUDIOS
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- Опубликовано: 5 янв 2023
- Have the exact Delays and Reverbs of Dave and Jaycen with the Ultimate vocal effects Template: georgethompsonsound.gumroad.c...
Instagram: / georget_music
Waves Plugins: bit.ly/38LfoOf
Videos Used:
Sonic Scoop Manny • The Art of Mixing & St...
Produce Like A Pro Dave: • Dave Pensado Interview...
Produce Like A Pro Jaycen: • The Jaycen Joshua Inte...
Larrabee studios at one point during the mid 00's was home to Dave Pensado, Jaycen Joshua , and Manny Marroquin. These three mixers by many were considered to be the best of all time. In this video I am going to take a deep dive in to the secret mixing techniques used by larrabee studio engineer and mixing engineers jaycen joshua dave pensado and manny marroquin. 
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Have the exact Delays and Reverbs of Dave and Jaycen with the Ultimate vocal effects Template: georgethompsonsound.gumroad.com/l/cerod?layout=profile
2 distressors at the top of the rack. why would the distressors be at the top if not be use more often ?
Cool! Now you can sound like those old records...
I love this channel and watch it religiously, please never stop shedding light on the world of audio engineering! 🙌🏽✨
I was a runner there in 2018. Jaycen was primarily using the ssl just to run the tracks through and light compression from the g bus comp. He was really using lavery gold mastering limiters to get level. Manny has been sticking to using the board. Still had his assistants filling out recall sheets😅. Thanks for the vid!
I grew up visiting Dave at Lareabee and watching him mix was always relaxing
it's great to see Legendary Larrabee triple threat studios give themselves promotion the public would never realize because of all the "quiet" hustle behind the biggest names.
Its a good day when George T Music blesses us with knowledge and gems~!!!!
you’re awesome. this channel is so awesome. thank you George T Music 😊
Always bringing the 🔥 content!
The NTi EQ3 is the magg eq4 FYI
You are amazing for making this !
Thanks!
Very impressed by your research here my man, I worked at the studio during this time (as a tech, not as anything exciting lol) and I've gotta say you're spot on with everything! It was wild seeing some of my photos in here hahaha! I went to Larrabee to hopefully learn from Pensado, and I was a little crushed whenever he decided to stay at home and work in the box after his health scare. Studio 3 just wasn't the same. Again, great stuff...was like a time machine that took me back a decade!
Appreciate your insight and glad everything is at least somewhat accurate. It’s definitely a little unfortunate to see most mixers just moving into their home studios. I think at this point everyone except manny has been out.
@@georgetmusic it is a shame. Honestly, the only reason Manny hasn't moved on is because he literally owns a percentage of the facility...he keeps it quiet, but he bought into the ownership of the studio and now he and Kevin (I can't remember his last name now, think it started with an S) are essentially co-owners of Larrabee. Dude's smart, he's makin' money on the mix AND the room now...that's why he's still there.
Great work on all the research
"Being a musician isn't a career, it is a lifestyle. You need to be locked in your cave for most of your life." - Dave Pensado
So True unfortunately
Seems like parallel processing was a big part of their sound
great videos, thank you!!
love your content! thanks
Always look forward to you vids! Thanks again
Glad you enjoy them
word, these videos are gems man thanks George
@@georgetmusic About your templates ,could you create some for Ableton users ? Or create a PDF with all the Routings and plugins ,settings used ?
Bro thank you so much for your videos trying all this gear as plugins in uad is just amazing
Awesome VDO. Thank you.
This is GREAT video. I need to see more of your videos. 😍
Thank you so much!!
So good George T
Mustve been Larrabee North on Lankershim. I remember when there were only 2 studios at Larrabee North. 2 SSL 9000 J 80 input consoles. This was in the late 90s. Larrabee West on Santa Monica had 2 studios as well. An SSL G 4072 with 72 inputs and an SSL 4068 E series with a G computer and 68 inputs. Pacifique on Magnolia had an SSL 9000 J with 80 inputs and an SSL 9096 J with 96 inputs. Some of the greatest albums were mixed there as well.
When dave isn't showing you something.. It's dangerously effective lol.
Glad you have a place where you can record now. 😊
it's inspiring 🤣💖✌️ this video is so cool !!!
This was dope u gotta subscriber
Damn these guys are SWEETY sheesh 🥵 great vid btw
Yea mixing 17hours a day no joke
Love the vids bro, please look into some of the processing that went into the vox of Mafia by travis. So clean and creative. Great work !!
Mike Dean mixed that check out the video I did on him
great vid, would you have any interest in making a video about Digital - Analog conversion, and the gear that studios use for it like master clocks and summing hardware? thanks!
Your the man bro
Like always man, great work, one of my fav channels. Mixing engineers should be receiving more credit for their work 🔥
Yes it’s an underrated art
Its called the SSL Bus compressor and you can buy the rack version.
Yes, and the SONG. The Song.
Love this channel. Could you do something on the avantone mixcube? I've been getting so much good results on these lately x
I might do one on the cube. Derick Ali uses it a lot and I have a video about him soon. I have a ns10 video which is similar to the cube
DOPE !!!!!
Is this Larrabee in Lankershim Los Angeles ? I saw MJ there in the summer of 1991
idk what this is but i subbed quick af lol.
Nice video
Thanks
Bro can you do a video on Tory Lanez vocal chain?
🔥🔥🔥
Some artists I would LOVE for you to do videos on: Tory Lanez, Playboi Carti, The Weeknd. Really love your videos man!
Imagine , at any given time in that studio how much power and current their
using for all that gear . that's one expensive power bill.
power bill must have been legendary 😂
The only thing I don't get is their fondness for Yamaha NS 10's .. because I absolutely hate them and think they're not even close to being accurate or have flat response.. They must have theirs tweaked .. like they change the drivers or they know some eq curve some processor that they run them through.. NS 10's at least the ones I've used didn't translate well for me !
NS10 is a "reference monitor" or a "s**box" in less polite terms. Used to nail down the final balance of the mix, making sure that bass will be audible, vocal has enough bite, highs will translate, and identifying out of balance stuff, or catching things that poke out too much/too little. They usually sit on very fancy amps, with extremely low noise and distortion levels. Very useful - if you nail your mix down on these, it will translate to all "bookshelf speaker/radio boombox" type speakers. In modern era, you have to deal with soundbars that have excellent specs, airpods, and flat panel tvs, with no displacement for "proper speakers", so it is a bit different ballgame now.
I’ll remember to get back to this channel when I’m a millionaire.
Do a video on eestbound !
Can u do Jason goldbergs template
Whatever happened to simplicity? All those consoles, racks, gear... is all that really necessary to make something sound good? Have we lost our way?
Yes we have lost our way. But, consider the genres. For synthetic (artificial) music, you need synthetic “sweeteners.” Endless parallel processing. Besides, the studios are in bed with the equipment producers…and they help sustain each other. Everyone is in bed with each other figuratively and sometimes literally. Pop, hip-hop and edm are not “organic” genres, so why would you expect simplicity? This is not a mic’d up acoustic guitar and a good condenser mic on a singer-songwriter. This is sonic witchcraft with their own sonic “witch doctors” producing and selling their junk food to the masses sort of like sonic drug dealers. And people like junk, otherwise fast-food wouldn’t exist. End of story. If you want simpler, quality home-cooking, eat at home and don’t go through the drive-thru. Otherwise, enjoy the sonic version of crack and the complexities of its production.
@@azarlane9553 that makes a lot of sense! This music or "product" is a "sonic drug" being further and further refined by these mixing engineers into a more potent cocktail of dopamine-inducing aural excitement. I can't relate to it. None of it seems real to me. I can't wait for the backlash to all this overkill complex tech wizardry, myself. I think it's already happening, somewhere in tiny pockets of the world. I hope.
@@MrSeeker42 you bring up a good point as well. We consume much of entertainment for its instant gratification and dopamine-inducing ability. In other words, by analogy, it’s like synthetically processed food or drink. You now have flavor-enhancers, bioflavonoids and the like, which elicit a drug-like response by the body even though the food has been robbed of most of its nutritional value. Good quality and natural food, like good music, doesn’t give that same initial reaction yet is much better for you and is incorporated into your blood and has a greater benefit to your physiology, altogether. But it’s a prolonged, delayed gratification. The same with music. Overkill parallel processing does something similar to the synthetic bioflavonoids… but these genres are “cheap” to begin with and hardly promote anything above the waistline…they are low-vibration, so it needs the extra refining and processing because there’s hardly any real substance there at all, to begin with. No nutritional value - so to speak. All it has and all it contains - is empty excitement. So what more do you expect? Junk in, junk out. As long as they are getting paid and serve their money-god, these mixing engineers are “happy.” The better the quality of music, the less parallel processing it needs. The worse the music is - low vibration level - the more “help” it needs, synthetically. Endless plugins, endless compressors, endless exciters and limiters and enhancers becomes absolutely ridiculous.
@@azarlane9553 Indeed. I'll stick with my one compressor, my SSL2 and my DBX 286s. This is all I need for my music needs. Simple, I think. Lol.
Refreshing comments. I thought it was just me who finds music after say 2000-2010 sounds like ….. nothing. I’m near it I feel nothing. Don’t like it, dislike it. It just seems like sound. And I’m someone who likes everything from Bach to guns n roses to the prodigy to Tupac.
6:17 Dame Taylor; Monster sessions
Try the Ocean Way HR3.5. Worth every dime. Every days I’m glad. They’re for me not ‘the client.’
I wanna know the sonic secrets to arinna grande album dangerous women
I worked at Larrabee during this era.
Did you see any mixing tricks happen that you haven’t seen discussed online?
@@boglot Can't say for sure, but probably not. I remember that Dave pretty much used the same outboard effects (including the same presets) on every song. Manny was pretty secretive. Jason (Jaycen isn't the real spelling) was Dave's assistant most of the time I worked there and only just started to break out on his own when I left. I could tell you stories, but none of them will help your mixing most likely.
@@kingtriumph lol hell yeah, Dave was like “fuck it, it sounds good I’m gonna keep using it”
Do tell
@@georgetmusic When I started there as a runner in 2005, Jason was still a runner as well. A few months later he became Dave's assistant. Manny and Dave both had permanent assistants and only occasionally would someone be allowed to sub for one of them. Room 1 was not yet occupied by Jason, so it was just booked out to whomever. At the time, Room 1 also had a standard assistant, although there was a bit more opportunity to get a chance to assist on a session in 1. Eventually, Jason started branching out on his own, getting his own mixes. There was a decent amount of animosity towards Jason from the staff at Larrabee, but this is a complex subject and one that I've come to see in a different light as time goes on. When Jason moved up, there was a competition to see who would be Dave's next assistant, although it was really more who would be both Dave and Jason's assistant as they started the "Penua Project" around this time. I was part of that competition with about two other guys. I turned down the opportunity and so did the others and the job eventually went to this kid Andrew (who's last name I forget). Sometimes I regret turning it down, but the truth is I wasn't confident enough in myself at the time to say yes. At the end of the day, I'm happy for Jaycen and Dave and the success they continue to have. Jason absolutely put in the work to get where he is today and become Jaycen Joshua imo.
for a channel discussing mixing/audio your voiceover has a buuunch of parts that arent audible, you can put compressors on voiceovers too yakno? xD
Yea is ironic but I really have no idea how to mix good vo in final cut
pensado for president 20forever
Facts
Uau
lubie
huh?
I packed up my studio and quit working for cheap criminal wannabe gangsters.
Rap could have kept me fed. No thanks.
to bad you can do all that in your bedroom today.
The art of analog is dead unfortunately all the people in this video except manny are doing better mixes all in the box
Infamous means means famous for doing something not good.
Yes Ik for some reason my brain fucks that word up
why is the voice so badly edited?
The gear in this video was overused and abused. It is the reason why so many songs have sub-par sound quality.
If you record a drum set, you do not need to augment the sound of those drums through endless miles of box after box after box.
When you hear the drums live, you hear actual drums. You feel the impact. You feel the texture of the sticks.
After the signal is passed through the equipment in this video, you end up with drums that have little resemblance to how drums really sound.
The above goes for any instrument, and voices, too.
On a properly recorded, mixed, and mastered song, you will not hear the studio's equipment. You will hear only the band. What you hear will transport you to the studio, as though you are in the room with the artists while the recording is being made.
We have extremely talented musicians / artists, and their work is vandalized by studio personnel that want to put their signature on the work. They want to be sure that you can hear what they did. They want to sit in a room with their friends, point to aspects of the song, and say "I did that".
The studio personnel want to convince themselves that they are part of the band.
That is narcissistic and selfish.
The song should be 100% about the artists, and 0% about the studio personnel.
The highest complement I can pay studio personnel is when I listen to a song, and nothing in the song takes my attention away from the artists; when nothing in the song makes me think about the studio's gear.
For those that do not know...
Every piece of gear, that the audio signal traverses, adds distortion and coloration to the once (virtually) pure signal.
Even if you left every knob and lever in their neutral positions, the sound quality will change -- and for the worse.
The best sounding songs are the ones where minimal processing is performed.
We all have favorite songs, and nearly all of us base that on the melody.
Now imagine that those songs sounded twice as good; that those songs convinced you that you were there with the artists.
Well, the initial capture tapes (or their digital equivalent -- (perhaps called "multi-track masters)) have that to-die-for sound quality.
Then, that sound quality is chipped away by box after box after box at the studio.
We end up hearing what sounds like recorded music. Most of us do not notice, because all our lives that is what we hear. Most people never give it a second thought, that it is a far cry from the sound quality on the initial capture tapes.
We never (never, never, never) get to hear the initial capture tapes. The studio personnel do not want the public to hear how realistic they sound. The studio personnel do not want the public to hear the difference between what was initially recorded vs what gets shoveled out to the public.
And the studio personnel indirectly admit that they get it wrong, by way of producing remaster after remaster. They even have re-remasters.
If they got it right, they would not need to do it over. And the remasters are usually worse than what was originally released, because they have new studio toys that they add to the mix.
When a song is really done right, it does not sound like recorded music. It sounds scary real. You close your eyes and you believe that you can reach out and touch the band. Alas, nearly all songs do not give you that experience. That is evidence of a poorly mixed and mastered song. Please do not confuse your love of the song with the sound quality of the song.
Alas, we do not get that scary real sound quality, and it is due to what you see in this video.
Please do not be enamored by the space-ship looking control rooms in the studios. Focus on what will make the music come across as if you are with the artists.
That studio equipment distances you from that experience. It does not bring you closer.
There is a reason that you can tell that you are listening to a recording, and not hearing the artists as if you are with them. It is the abusive use of the gear in this video.
Wtf! Every single peace of gear and the use of it is to help the artist reach their vision. Music is meant to inspire and carry a message or a feeling. Everything in the chain is a tool to accomplish that... Not every artist has a band, not every artist wants a "you are in the room with the band"... You couldn't be more wrong about a lot of statements you made. I can understand in some styles or performances but man... Just placing a microphone in front of an instrument will change their tone and sound. We fight against this fact, we all know it is artificial.
Let me ask you a question: Do you like delays? Echoes? Are you telling me that if I use a digital or analog delay instead of taking the band go and record in a field with mountains I can't use delays?
I don't know man, it is art, it is subjective... I can not deny your opinion but I can point out some facts and maybe helps you develop or expand your vision in the art of music. I believe there is not "one way" of making music, and by your statements I have the feeling that you wanna constrict music, not making it wider
@@Justanothermusicproducer "Wtf!"
Excellent opening statement.
"Every single peace of gear and the use of it is to help the artist reach their vision."
The artist's vision, or the mixing engineer's vision?
If you were correct, we would have nearly no remasters.
If you were correct, we would not have so much mediocre quality sounding releases.
"Music is meant to inspire and carry a message or a feeling."
Correct. Which makes it a shame that the personnel in the studio (too often) take the music in the opposite direction.
"Everything in the chain is a tool to accomplish that..."
There are always exceptions. But by and large, the chain is overdone, to excess, and to the detriment of the sonic realism of the music.
'Not every artist has a band, not every artist wants a "you are in the room with the band"...'
I thought that every artist, from the beginning of time, without exception, has a band. Where have I been?
As to being in the room... that is probably true in some cases. But not in 90%+ of what gets released to the public.
"You couldn't be more wrong about a lot of statements you made."
Right back at you.
"Let me ask you a question: Do you like delays? Echoes?"
Yes, I do.
There is a place for artificial sound effects. Countless songs could not convey their message and feeling without sound effects.
Autotune has its place.
Double voicing has its place.
A singer with no distinct location has its place.
It varies song by song.
But those artificial enhancements should be used sparingly.
A singer with a beautiful voice should not have it "enhanced" with double-voicing, for an entire song. Her voice is captivating, naturally, and the studio gimmickry detracts from her natural beauty.
I could not hold a note if my life depended on it.
But process my voice through enough of that studio gear, and most folks would believe that I am a great singer.
Excessive studio processing has gotten so over done, that even South Park did an episode where the Randy character showed his son how he uses Autotune to create his Lorde singing artist persona.
'I believe there is not "one way" of making music, and by your statements I have the feeling that you wanna constrict music, not making it wider'
There should never be only one way of doing anything. There are always better ways to be discovered.
QSound is an artificial environment. But I like many of its aspects.
The journey for better sound quality should never forget that simple is often best.
My ears hear the results of countless songs, and my ears tell me that the vast majority of songs are compressed, congested, lacking a wide soundstage, lacking depth, lacking energy, lacking texture, lacking space, lacking realism, sound two-dimensional, and lacking dynamics,
Too many songs have the gain on the voices so loud that you can hardly hear the drums (and drums are loud), and you can't keep the volume up if you want to avoid hearing damage.
There are loudness wars, because there are those in the studios that believe that it increases sales, or they actually think it sounds good. Those songs sound awful. Shame on the studios for releasing such crap.
There are some amazing sounding songs. It is unfortunate that they are a rarity, and the world is stuck with the shoddy quality releases of so many hit songs.
@@NoEgg4u Sorry if I sounded disrespectful. It was not my intention by any mean... Maybe I took it too extreme and English is not my main language.
I think the real problem is the main stream of doing things and how it leads a way of doing things. Ultimately we as profesional deliver what the client ask... You want a overprocessed mix or production?... We deliver.
I personally love recording the band together, working the sound as it is while they perform... Let the artist use those tools to perform. I better insert and FX so the singer/guitarist/etc can use it to "play" and give something with meaning more than use it later to compensate the lack of energy or interest.
This engineers are perfectly capable of doing an exciting mix with little or non processing at all but once the client/AR/label or artist hears it they ask for the smashed full of "lies" of mixing or producing.
Maybe is just that you don't like this sound, the artist or just the art they deliver, there is nothing wrong. You have endless artist and songs from the past and present that goes other way... They may never be listened in the radio, get into the top charts or any chart and maybe, and just maybe you can find joy in those records or songs.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that those mixes or sound works very well in low quality systems... And to translate a powerful song into a little small frequency range system you have to smash it like crazy, and that leads to mixes that in a proper sound system doesn't sound as you wish or you believe it could have sounded right.
I don't know, I can not ask the industry to accommodate to my likes as a audiophile or engineer... I can only search for those sounds I like, those artist which I can relate or admire and admire those engineers with talent and craft... And those in this video, without a doubt are.
Best wishes, love the articulation an detail you put in your comments and sorry again if I sounded rough or disrespectful. I like to share thoughts and ideas (althought I fail trying because of my little experience or knowledge of English)
;)
@@Justanothermusicproducer "Sorry if I sounded disrespectful. It was not my intention by any mean..."
Thank you, and all is well.
"Another thing I'd like to point out is that those mixes or sound works very well in low quality systems..."
That is akin to saying that if you are on a smelly bus, a crappy sandwich will taste better than a meal prepared by a top chef.
Crap is crap.
A crappy sounding song will make a crappy stereo sound even worse.
A great sounding song will allow a crappy stereo to sound its best.
"And to translate a powerful song into a little small frequency range system you have to smash it like crazy, and that leads to mixes that in a proper sound system doesn't sound as you wish or you believe it could have sounded right."
In this digital age, why not make both mixes available?
Save the version from before smashing it like crazy, and make that version available to the public. I believe that when people hear both versions, most will gravitate to the non-compressed version.
I have had the good fortune to listen to stereos that I cannot afford -- not even close.
I have heard them in high-end audio stores.
One system was Vandersteen's flagship System Nine grouping.
It included Vandersteen's Model Seven speakers, with granite bases, dual subs, and monoblock amps (all Vandersteen products).
The front end was an Aesthetix Eclipse DAC, fed by an InnuOS Statement transport, as well as an Aesthetix IO Eclipse phono amp, Metis pre-amp, AMG turntable, Graham tone-arm, and Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge.
It was wired with Audioquest interconnects (not sure which model).
The above was in a treated room, mostly with Viscoustic panels.
All of the above was set up by personnel that are experts at high-end sound reproduction.
That stereo taught me a lot. I thought that I knew what sounded good, until I heard music on that stereo. It was a reality check.
On properly recorded songs, your eyes and ears were fighting over whether or not the band was there. They were carved out in invisible 3D. You could tell where each band member was standing, with precision. But that was only with exceptionally well recorded music, such as a hot cut RL / SS pressing of Led Zep II.
The speakers disappeared. If you closed your eyes, then your ears could not identify the location of the speakers.
There were sounds coming from several feet beyond the outer edges of the speakers, and there were sound coming from in the middle of the two speakers -- and all with spooky real focus.
For typical music, you could hear all of the equipment from the studio that degraded the sound quality.
Due to that experience, I became sort of an expert listener. I can hear flaws in music within a few seconds.
I doubt that the studio personnel in this video, or any other studio personnel, ever heard such a stereo.
I have heard stories of department store level speakers being used in some studios.
So it begs the question if the studio personnel even know what a wide soundstage sounds like, or have ever had their speakers "disappear". Even with proper gear, the speakers need to be expertly placed in a proper room.
I would love to have those folks visit someone with such a stereo (or visit the store -- it is in Verona, New Jersey). Perhaps they will have a learning experience and then use their skill in the studio to produce such great sounding songs for us to enjoy.
@@NoEgg4u wow! What a joy of listening experience!
I was not saying that because you listen into a crappy system you have to do a crappy job.
Everyone can benefit from such a experience, from "regular" people to great experts... But, you know that this people job is to create emotions thru a song, sometimes with what they think it should be done, and sometimes with what they are told to be done. I am not treating them as gods or perfect people, I just have great respect for their craft.
Perfection doesn't exist, you only do your best job with the tools, experience and time you have.
I know this professionals have listened to amazing systems but obviously they have to work with what they have and what they know.
It is more of a market situation than anything else. Nowadays if the song is not catchy in the first 10 seconds it will be forgotten. The same way you are a professional listener and you can identify flaws in the sound within seconds the rest of the world are professional casual pop listeners and will identify the lack of power, distortion, harshness or overprocessing within seconds.
I am totally with you that if everything could be done with the best equipment, investing countless hours/days/months/years for the composing, arrangements, recording, editing, mixing and mastering and people would invest their salary in a great system we all would enjoy a totally different experience but... This is not the world we live today, it is just an utopia we can dream.
I have my not perfect control room, with my not perfect speakers, my not perfect DAC, with my not perfect placement and not perfect acoustic treatment... I have a listening experience that 99,9% of people will never enjoy and will never care. I try to develope and deliver the best sounding experience to others in their systems with what I believe is the best job I can do in my setup. And if they press next I failed to captivate and catch their attention. All that by trying to help my clients to get the best result possible matching their vision.
A great audiophile listening system is not the same as a great working system.
Idk man, this people mix "POP" and we all know that a McDonalds hamburger is not as good as a 5 Michelin star Chef hamburger but they are very good at delivering a cheap, satisfying "meal".
I have recorded and mixed jazz trios that sounds (composing, performance, tunning, dinamic, sound stage, etc etc etc) that are a listening experience miles ahead of spotify top charts but... People goes to the drive thru and not to my restaurant, and I can not blame them.
They don't have a problem, I do.
My best wishes, I hope one day we will all can enjoy such a wonderful experience in a daily basis in our sound systems but today we have to try and enjoy this fast and mad world in some Bluetooth speaker with some McDonald's mixes!
Man I'm having real trouble understanding your speaking here. It's a combination of whispering and talking real fast and bunched together with big pauses inbetween the sentences. I'm thankful for the content but it feels like its running at double speed when you talk. Could also be many edits leave zero space between thoughts or sentences. Obviously you are knowledgable and thats coming from a 28 year studio vet and I appreciate you and what you are doing, just please slow down a little. People in our field have more attention span than it might seem.