Given that they don’t record or mix it, people often wonder what mastering engineers actually do to a track to make it sound better. Enter engineer Chris Gehringer, who’s been talking to Mix with the Masters about how he went about mastering Dua Lipa’s hit single Houdini.
In the sneak peek video above, Gehringer explains that the song was mixed by Josh Gudwin and that it was given to him with no reference track of how the artist and producers (Kevin Parker and Danny L Harle) wanted it to sound. This, he says, meant that he had free rein to do what he wanted.
We then get to listen to sections of the song ‘flat’ and mastered, so you can hear exactly what kind of effect Gehringer’s spit and polish has had. iZotope’s Ozone 11 is his software of choice on this occasion.
“Josh is a great mixer - I don’t need to do a lot,” says Gehringer, before going on to explain that he used a small amount of EQ for a “bump in the bass”. He also discusses his limiter settings and reveals that, once these have been applied, he sometimes has to go in and edit individual sections individually to fix distortion and other problems that the limiter is causing.
“Sometimes it’s tedious where it’s happening a bunch, but the limiter that you’ve chosen that has the best colour, the best vibe and the best movement, that to me is the most important thing,” says Gehringer.
Subscribers can watch Chris Gehringer’s full series on the Mix with the Masters website.
“No album in history has experienced such a swift and dramatic reversal of fortune": The great Oasis Be Here Now debate
“There was a Deluxe Reverb already there, turned everything up to 10, plugged the guitar in and said, ‘Roll tape!’ And that was it”: How Skunk Baxter grabbed a six-pack, a $35 guitar and tracked Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff in one take
