Pro Techniques from Cortez Farris

By Randy Alberts

"Now that we're able to create these kinds of sounds with these new tools, it's become more prevalent in hip-hop and other music styles," says freelance hip-hop engineer/producer Cortez Farris. "We never felt these frequencies before this technology came along. Before that we'd just EQ the bass as much as we could, which wasn't much, especially if a project was going to vinyl."

The sounds Farris is referring to are the sub-harmonic bass frequencies he creates with Waves' MaxxBass TDM plug-in. Starting out in 1998 as an assistant engineer at The Hit Factory in New York, he is now managed by SOS Management and does most of his Manhattan audio work on projects at Sound On Sound Recording. Farris, who has worked with Mary J. Blige, Eve, Beres Hammond, and The X-Cutioners, recently found lots of opportunities to spread out the low end on some recent projects with his favorite basso profundo plug-in.

"MaxxBass came in handy for the next Papa Roach single ["Anxiety"] that I worked on at Sound On Sound which was produced by Will I. Am of Black Eye Peas," says Farris.

Left to right: Papa Roach bassist Tobin Esperance, guitarist Jerry Horton, producer Will I. Am, vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, and Cortez Farris at Sound On Sound.

"That was a good crossover collaboration, and Will is so fluent with Pro Tools, too. He likes to do edits and things when I'm setting up mics or adjusting something else. Producers usually don't do that. That project also showed me how much sub-harmonic bass is being used now in all styles of music, not just hip-hop. But I'm able to experiment even more with MaxxBass when I'm working with new artists, such as Angie Stone and a new guy on Atlantic named Governor."

SOS Management, handling Farris' Manhattan session bookings, offers for rent the first fully mobile Pro Tools|HD rig in New York. Fully wired and housed in a pair of rackmount cases, the 48-input, dual-processor Apple G4-based "Super System" is fully outfitted with five HD process cards, five 192 I/Os, and virtually every TDM II plug-in available. Farris has worked occasionally with the mobile HD studio and he uses his own Digi 001/Pro Tools LE system when editing long into the night in his home studio.

Pro Technique —
Maximizing lows with MaxxBass
Farris uses a similar approach with MaxxBass for most every project that calls for it. He begins by copying a track's original bass part and pasting it into a new track in Pro Tools. He notes that the dynamics of the original part always dictate how he'll apply MaxxBass' sub-harmonic content and suggests that any signal in the 20 Hz — 40 Hz range, be it a bass part or not, is typically where he likes to start working with MaxxBass. In the plug-in's output section are toggles for Audio, Original, and MaxxBass signals, which Farris sets to Original. In the plug-in's input section, he sets "Input" and "Original" to zero and adjusts the MaxxBass setting somewhere between 9.0 and 9.7, depending on the feel and signal of the original bass track.

"Depending upon the actual tone of the source bass," Farris concludes, "I then set the Harmonics section of MaxxBass to "High Pass" and I set the Decay at about -15.0. Then, in the Dynamics section, I just have that set to a 1.00:1 ratio and I adjust the Response setting to about 20.0. I also use the DigiRack Compressor in tandem with the MaxxBass signal, setting the gain typically to 1.0 to give the sub-harmonic signal added roundness. MaxxBass is always my focal point for getting these incredible low tones, but I always use the DigiRack Compressor and [McDSP] Analog Channel in conjunction with it to compress just the sub-harmonic signal."

Cortez Farris is represented by SOS Management (a division of Sound On Sound Recording).
www.sosmanagement.net