Speaking of software emulating analog outboard gear, recording engineer Tony Maserati quickly sets the record straight: "I'm not interested in a plug-in because it resembles that analog EQ I own. I'm an engineer; I want the plug-in to serve a function, because they don't really color the way an EQ does, the way an LA2, a Neve or an API adds color."

It's from the Chung King studio Maserati shares with another NYC producer/arranger that he weighs in on analog vs. digital functionality and the current state of the music industry, including the rather changing role of the mix engineer. Working with some of the today's best-selling recording artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Destiny's Child, BeyoncŽ, and Jay-Z,

Maserati finds himself in various mixing environments, from L.A. to NYC commercial studios, to his own room at Chung King, to an identically equipped studio in his barn in the Berkshires. While assembling his go-to plug-in tool set for his three Pro Tools HD rigs is an ongoing process, the engineer has made some recent decisions. "Every good engineer comes up with a set--if they have an issue or run into a problem, to solve it they have 10 things in their pocket that they can try," says Maserati. "Plug-ins are just another one of those things to have in your pocket. As soon as I got my new rig, it was like I was starting with a clean slate. There were some I absolutely had to have, like the Waves bundle and the TC Works and Line 6 Amp Farm stuff."

Maserati very carefully assembles his sonic palette, sometimes putting a piece of gear through its paces for months before deciding whether it does or doesn't make the cut. "With plug-ins, it's an equally slow process--in the same way I don't integrate a piece of analog gear into my world until I've had three or sometimes six months with it." Quite recently, Maserati has integrated certain of Sony's Oxford plug-ins into his frontline toolset.

"I've primarily always used plug-in EQs for cutting, not boosting," the Grammy-nominated mix engineer explains. "I do a lot of dipping when I EQ. Rather than boost things that I'm looking for, I find the thing I don't like and I cut it, and then I find the things I like and boost them a little bit. I spoke with Rod Densham at Sony Oxford, and he gave me the technical rundown as to why the Oxford EQ might work better for boosting as well as cutting. The Oxford compensates for some of the sampling issues involved in DAWs. For instance, when you're boosting at 20 k, it's not like using a Neve that boosts out to 40 K when you have a shelf, because it can't. There is no 40 K. The Oxford compensates for that, and illustrates on a graph that the plug-in is actually doing that, as opposed to other plug-in EQs where there's no readout as to how much you're boosting. It wasn't until I started using the Oxford plug-ins that I actually starting pushing as well. I started boosting."

In both his Chung King and Berkshire barn studios, Maserati has identical Neve sidecars for analog summing. For extra analog inputs, he also has a Dangerous 2-Bus, and will reportedly be trying out some other new analog summing mixers in the near future.

"I'm just now getting what I use to mix on a daily basis together, turning to the same assembly of plug-ins on all my projects in whichever genre," Maserati shares. "Before, when I always worked on a bigger console, it was a bit more hit or miss, depending on the project. I'm also using a lot of internal reverb, which I've never done before. The Oxford reverb is actually quite nice. I also use the Oxford compressor and the Transient Modulator, especially on this recent project I recorded and mixed for [NYC indie band] The Savage Juliet."

Maserati's two new private studio setups figure critically into the engineer's career path with regard to some creative issues. "I'm trying to make sure that I'm doing what I want, working on projects I want to work on, and getting enough creative time in. I love what I do, and I love communicating with and servicing my clients, but the business side of it is so overbearing so much of the time that I feel like I'm losing creative time." Maserati describes a typical project, where within a 2-week schedule involved in mixing a single, one day gets dedicated to actually mixing, and the rest gets spent on the phone taking creative direction from various sources. Or it may be spent transferring files back and forth to producers and artists, making reference CDs, discerning between different refs, etc.

"At least with my own studio, I can experiment more, be more creative," Maserati explains, intent on improving that ratio, which has become so business-heavy in recent years. "I'm interested in the element of live performance. And what this is going to mean for the music business, which is in a real transitional phase. I want to understand that transition better, and come back to a place that I'm happy with. I want to take the dollar signs out of it, and see what is fun about music again." Maserati is up for a Grammy this year for his part in Usher's Confessions.

Janice Brown (Reproduced with kind permission from Pro Sound News USA)

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