Pro Techniques 9.2003

 

Pro Techniques from Elliot Mazer

By Randy Alberts

   
 

Elliot Mazer
Did The Last Waltz, Cheap Thrills by Janis Joplin and Big Brother & The Holding Company, or Leonard Bernstein's Concert For Peace have an impact in your life? How about Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, Gordon Lightfoot, or The Band? Do you still get emotional when you hear Michael Hedges' soaring guitar lines or every song on Neil Young's Harvest?

If so, you owe a musical debt of sorts to Elliot Mazer who produced and recorded these and dozens of other classic records. And if you currently own or plan to purchase a DVD-A player, your present and future listening pleasure also owes a tip of the hat to the work of this acclaimed studio talent. Check out his 5.1 surround remixes of Harvest, Sinatra At The Sands, and the forthcoming Supernatural and Shaman from Carlos Santana, and you'll see what we mean.

"I use Pro Tools|HD to do 5.1 mixes for DVD-Audio and SACD projects," says Mazer. "The first DVD-A mixed in Pro Tools was Sinatra At The Sands, which will be released by Warner Brothers this summer. I decided to purchase an HD system when I found out that it could work at 192 kHz. Pro Tools|HD gives me all the major advantages that I've been looking for: The audio quality at 192 kHz is superb; Pro Tools remembers every static and dynamic thing I do; and it's very stable and easy to use."

Can You Hear the Real Me?
Since 1989, Mazer has headed new business development at RCS, a leading software products and services provider for radio, Internet, music, and television. In addition to his role with RCS, he works on select DVD-A and SACD projects with his wife, Diana Reid Haig, a musician, producer, engineer, and brilliant editor in her own right. They use a Pro Tools|HD 3 rig, a DTS encoding/decoding system, a large SCSI/FireWire array, and a NHT 5.1 Pro Monitoring system in Haig's Monster Cable-connected private studio.

    

Elliot Mazer remixed Harvest, Sinatra At The Sands
 

Mazer and Haig's past work has attracted recent clients such as Pete Townshend. "I'm advising him on the Tommy DVD-A remix," says Mazer. "He liked what we did with the Harvest DVD-A, which was originally produced by me, and he has purchased two Pro Tools|HD systems for his DVD-A projects in Oceanic studio. He's remixing Quadrophenia for DVD-A release, as well. DVD-A albums are for people who want to hear better sounding versions of their favorite music. Anyone hearing a 24-bit/192kHz recording can't believe how great it sounds."

Coming from an analog recording master like Mazer, these comments are no small potatoes. "When I get music into Pro Tools|HD at 192kHz with external converters like the Universal Audio 2192, it sounds analog. Analog to me is not hearing the system, it's music that sounds natural. I'm no longer distracted by the limitations and distortions of low sampling and bit rates. Pro Tools|HD is my choice for all my work. I love that every static and dynamic move is remembered and replayed whenever I open a session."

"I have great sounding plug-ins, too," he continues. "I use the Focusrite d2 EQ, the Sony Oxford and GML 8200 EQs, Universal Audio's 1176 and LA-2A, and I am very happy with [Digidesign] Reverb One. I love that I can build or modify a room to suit a specific mix requirement with Reverb One. Recreating space is a big part of 5.1 mixing, and Reverb One lets me do this. It sounds great."

Still, there are differences between recording, editing, and remixing with Pro Tools and with an analog tape recorder running at 15 ips. As Mazer notes, "Every once in a while you must remember that you are using a computer. Stop what you are doing and make a backup."

 

Pro Technique 1 —
Creating a Convincing 5.1 Environment with Reverb One
    
 

Digidesign Reverb One
It takes a whole lotta gear to create a great sounding 5.1 mix when starting with sixty or more 96 kHz tracks, but Mazer says all the "gear" he needs is inside his Pro Tools|HD 6.1 system. "We find that Reverb One is a superb tool for creating artificial spaces. Cool DVD-A mixes make the listener think he is hearing the music come from a room. Reverb One allows us to build an appropriate room to accomplish that."

After opening Reverb One within a surround mix, choose an appropriate Reverb One preset for the track, route all audio sources through the plug-in with aux sends, and then start tweaking various controls to create just the right aural landscape.

"Size lets you adjust the distance between the walls," says Mazer. "The yellow tools on the display can be moved left-right or up-down to allow you to color the room and get the tail of the reverb just right. Once you've built the basic space, drop in a stereo EQ plug-in like the Focusrite d2 following Reverb One, and EQ the return while listening to the entire mix. This really helps to create appropriate colors."

Pro Technique 2 —
Panning in a 5.1 Space
 Mazer says the 5.1 panner in Pro Tools can use a lot of DSP horsepower, and suggests the following tip for reducing that drag. He creates a 5.1 output with sub outputs for LCS, Quad, Front, Center, Rear, Left, and Right in his I/O setup screen.

"This lets me position things appropriately without eating into my DSP resources," concludes Mazer. "If I want to feed the LFE [low frequency energy] and include the center, I choose a 5.1 panner. The Quad panner uses the joystick with no center or LFE feed, just like the 5.1 panner, and adjusting the Left/Right controls lets me put things on the side walls. Using an aux bus for the center channel, I can sneak things into the center. This allows me to push things away from the middle of the room or to bring them forward."