I use them to make sure that individual tracks accomplish what they need to before hitting my analog chain.Ĭan you describe a stem mixing situation? With stem mastering in particular, I rely on them quite a bit. I mostly use plug-ins when I work on stem mastering, stem mixing, or multi-track mixing. When a project calls for me to rely on plug-ins, they play an important role - and they can sometimes do the job more easily, and with more precision, than my analog equipment. What role do UAD plug-ins play in your work?
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That said, even a full album coming from the same producer, engineer and mixer, with all of the tracks having been recorded in the same room with the same gear, could still come out sounding totally different from mix to mix. When it comes to multiple producers on the same project, however, having that kind of variety can make things interesting and fun for me as an engineer, just because it’s not the same thing over and over again. It’s all hit or miss, even to the point of knowing whether one song on an album will be up to snuff with the other nine or ten. Maybe over those two years, the producer or artist’s mindset and vibe changed, and the people working on it interjected themselves into the process in ways that wouldn’t have happened if it all had happened at once. At that point, it can be quite focused and refined, which is great, or sometimes it can sound incredibly different from track to track. Sometimes people will spend inordinate amounts of time - years, even - mixing and remixing, before I hear it. It depends on the album and the point at which it gets to me. When an album has multiple different producers on each track, as opposed to one producer working on the entire album, does it make your job harder? “UAD plug-ins give me more options than I’ve ever had before.” If I don’t have that information in advance, it’s a fascinating puzzle for me, just trying to figure out what’s happening only by listening to the mix. Maybe they inherited a project midway through and had to take it in a different direction, or some element was recorded in an unexpected way. There’s always an interesting story there. Once you’ve worked with someone for a while, you can hear similarities across their work, though sometimes I will get tracks from producers or engineers who I know that don’t sound like them. The mastering engineer’s job is to help “fix” any of those little, problematic trees, and present a bigger picture to the listener.Īt this point in your career, can you tell who produced or mixed a project that lands on your desk, just by listening? Sometimes the artist's ability to hear where they want a project to go can get lost in the muck and mire of the entire process - focusing on one or two trees instead of seeing the forest. So you help give perspective, among other things. I want to help find a unique and specific sound for an album and tell its story sonically. All of those elements come into play when you’re working to create the bigger-picture story for an album.īut beyond that, I also try to facilitate what an engineer, artist, or producer can’t do on his or her own to get a project to where it’s really meant to be.
On the most basic level, the process involves balancing the many different qualities of any project - EQ, compression, volume, editing, flow, and even album sequence. Normally I start out by saying that a mastering engineer’s job is to make a musical project sound better and to make it viable for commercial release. How would you describe what you do to someone who isn’t really familiar with mastering? Here are Lazar’s thoughts on troubleshooting at the mastering console, the sculpting power of UAD plug-ins, and the philosophy and practice of crafting platinum-destined masters, time and time again.
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She has also mastered audio for numerous movie soundtracks including Training Day, Sound City: Real to Reel, and American Psycho. In fact, as the final sonic craftsperson to lay fingers on projects for many of the world’s top musical acts, Lazar has played a key role in creating some of the most popular and influential albums of the 2000s.Īs the founder and chief mastering engineer of The Lodge in New York City, Lazar’s resume consists of well over three thousand albums, including projects for the likes of David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Sia, Vampire Weekend, Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Lou Reed, Depeche Mode, and many more.
Though mastering engineer Emily Lazar may wryly refer to herself as an auditory “input-output machine,” her true role in the studio is far more nuanced and important than such a phrase might imply. “But sometimes it’s necessary to bring out the big guns.” “Most of the time, I’m more of a scalpel than a hatchet,” says Lazar.