Part 2 of the interview is finally out! In the first part of our interview, we talked with Tonee Jukeboxx (Duo Mastering) about songwriting, arrangement, and his path into the music industry. If you missed it, here’s the link: Duo Mastering – Songwriting, Mixing, Mastering, and working with Mike Singer, Moe Phoenix, and Cro – Part 1 of 2
Today, Farzad Rahnavard (Duo Mastering) shares more about mastering, and what it’s really like behind the scenes of the music industry.
Come with us on a journey through projects with Cro, Moe Phoenix, Mike Singer, and more!
Duo Mastering - Im Interview Teil 2/2
Q: Hey Farzad, great that you found time for our interview today! How are you? Have you worked on a project already today?
Gladly, we’re excited for the interview! Today I haven’t opened a project yet, because my main jobs are still being a dad and a pharmacist. But honestly, I make music every day, even if I’m not working on a specific project.
Music thrives on finding a creative momentum, and some days you have more of it than others. If I have a melody for a chorus, I’ll listen to it several times a day, or I’ll explore music from other genres, click through tracks, and get inspired. That’s how we try to improve, because at some point you build up a personal “vocabulary,” almost like learning a language.
A rapper, for example, knows a lot of rhymes that can be pulled up in any situation, and it’s similar when you’re an engineer who understands many different areas. That’s also why I’m basically always making music, whether it’s a cadence or a chord progression I’m hearing and thinking, “That’s insanely good.” In between, I’ll sit down at the keyboard, or simply record a voice memo, and collect new ideas that way.
Q: Before we dive in, let’s do a quick studio tour! Tell our readers where you are right now, and what Duo Mastering is all about.
We’re here at the Duo Mastering studio in Rahlstedt! The studio was created together with Tonee Jukeboxx.
As a family man, I can’t really afford to sit with Cro in Bali writing songs anymore, or produce an album with Laith Al-Deen in Frankfurt, so I wanted a small space where we can keep doing mixing and mastering. Through our existing contacts, we’re continuing to establish ourselves.
Q: What (outboard) gear do you have in the studio, and how did you treat the room?
We’ve got quite a bit of outboard gear here, like the Dangerous Music LIAISON, which we use to patch our devices. We also have the API 2500 compressor, a Manley Variable Mu, and a lot more, but I’ll be honest with you: often it’s just one or two analog units that we use for mastering, because otherwise it can get too much very quickly.
We had the room treated heavily, and together with Markus Bertram from mbakustik, we got the best possible result out of the space. For example, we use a Trinnov system that measures the room acoustics with a measurement mic, then sets up and optimizes our studio monitors, the Barefoot MM 26, very accurately.
Songwriting and composing melodies has always been, and still is, what excites him most. The many industry connections Farzad has built over the years helped him establish himself. In 2018, he founded the mixing and mastering studio Duo Mastering together with Tonee Jukeboxx, and he also works as a lecturer.
Q: We’ll come back to producing, mixing, and mastering later, but tell us what you think about songwriting, and what your intention was behind the group We’r’Songwriterz.
The intention was to have a team of talented people, the way Max Martin has his team. We brought in the best people we could get, and we tried to make a hit out of every genre, every artist, and every song.
The supreme discipline of songwriting isn’t just producing a killer track, it’s delivering a song that fits that artist as perfectly as possible.
A few years ago, for example, when Usher released “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love,” it wasn’t just some random EDM track, it was produced specifically for Usher by Max Martin and his team, and it fit him extremely well!
Who knows where We’r’Songwriterz might take us. With a bit of luck, maybe one day we’ll knock on Max Martin’s door and write a few songs with him and Katy Perry in the studio.
Q: You’ve definitely had success with the group, and Tonee mentioned that you’re very active and communicative. Is that the key to success?
I’m sure it is! I think being extroverted is very important, because I’m an artist myself. Back in the day, I sang in a boy band and was signed through Otto Waalkes.
I didn’t even realize how fast things were taking off. Suddenly, at 19, I had a Skype meeting with Billy King, discussing upcoming shows. It was unbelievable what I learned from him during that time, because I was often in his Hamburg studio.
Only later did I find out that Billy King isn’t just close friends with Dieter Bohlen, he’s also the voice behind countless songs for national and international commercials! I didn’t understand back then how powerful those people are, but I’ve always been a people person, and I stayed warm and grounded.
A great example is also Nico Santos. He’s not only a good songwriter, he’s constantly on TV shows, building his name that way!
You always have to stay on it and keep raising the bar. There was this legend that Max Martin and his team produced 365 hits in a year, so we simply did 369 songs per year. We had folders called “Usher Raymond,” as if we were friends with him, and we filled those folders with songs. One day we met Usher’s DJ and played him our stuff. At first he couldn’t believe that sound came from Germany, so we showed him the stems.
Q: What do you personally prefer today, songwriting or mastering?
Honestly, I love songwriting!
There are no compromises, and you can control everything yourself. Mastering is a lot of fun for me when the material is already on point, or on the other hand, when the material is especially bad. That always feels like a challenge, and it pushes me!
Still, songwriting is the A and O for me, I am and always will be a true songwriter and composer. Where does the next note need to go? Do I offer a seventh, or do I stick to the fifth? It took me years to understand all of that, even though I had music theory as an advanced course and finished with full marks. That’s just my thing!
Stages of music production:
-
- Sketch or demo recording
- Production
- Songwriting
- Vocal recording
- Arrangement
- Mixing
- Mastering
Q: How did your connection with Moe Phoenix and other well-known artists happen?
The connection with Moe Phoenix, how could it be otherwise, happened through a chain of contacts. We moved multiple times with We’r’Songwriterz. Because I bought so much gear, I eventually met Thomas Römann from Digital Audio Service, and we became friends.
Later, he built his own studio in a studio complex, and we wanted to move in there together with a second songwriter group. In the end, the shared studio didn’t happen, the other group built their own studio there, and We’r’Songwriterz moved with all the gear next door into Thomas’ space.
The synergy with the other songwriting group continued, and when Moe Phoenix was in their studio to record a song, he also came over to my studio. He asked me if I had something for him, and I told him: No, but I can sit down at the piano and start right away.
That’s how the song “Bist du Real?” originally came to life, and we even broke Bushido’s record on YouTube with it. Imagine that! We write a track, and it comes out three years later, and only because Moe happened to be sitting in the studio with KC and told him about that song from Hamburg.
Q: How do you land mastering jobs for successful artists like Cro and Ziya?
Often by chance, and by the fact that you already worked for those people before, maybe even in a different segment, like as a songwriter, consultant, or composer.
At some point they believe in you and trust you, and maybe a friendship grows out of that. Then you master something here, mix some files there, and boom, you’re where you wanted to be.
Without all those steps beforehand, I think it’s not that easy to establish yourself as a mastering engineer. Sometimes you see people on classifieds or Fiverr offering masterings for 30 euros, and no major artist is lining up for that. Maybe they get one job a day, but you can’t really live off it, unless you do a hundred of those a month.
Q: What are your first steps in mastering, and which plugins do you use?
In mastering, I take a slightly different approach. First, I try to bring the music to a certain loudness, so I can grab it and understand it better. I want to know how it works at that loudness level. The track should translate as well as possible on speakers like Yamaha NS-10, MixCubes, or Auratones, because if a mix sounds good on a kitchen radio, meaning a mono box, and I can hear everything, then we’re already moving in the right direction in mastering.
Farzad’s quick mastering tips:
-
- Use a limiter with oversampling, otherwise aliasing artifacts can occur.
- The loudness war is still happening, just on a LUFS basis.
When you can see the solution in front of you, it’s simply easier to reach the goal. Think of it like this: someone gives you a few numbers and tells you the result, for example 25. It becomes much easier to combine the numbers and find the correct solution than if you don’t know the result yet.
This is even scientifically proven, which is why I often start with limiting, or by pushing the gain.
Before I do anything on the mix bus, I make sure all elements are properly EQ’d and compressed. In other words, I clean up the track the way I think is right, so unwanted frequencies and big dynamic jumps are no longer in there.
For that, I often use FabFilter Pro-Q 3, because it has some smart features. With the built-in analyzer, you can not only hear your spectrum, you can also see it. There’s also a cool trick most people don’t know: if you move the mouse downward, the analyzer stops and shows the peak frequencies.
That makes it very easy to pull down overly emphasized frequencies. In the box, I’ll also often do some density with a compressor, like the currently very hyped Unisum by Tone Projects. With this compressor, I can choose different algorithms and use oversampling without having to switch plugins.
Of course, I also route the stems into busses, so I keep full control over individual balance relationships. In the end, I only run the signal through my analog chain, but subtly.
So, to sum it up: I start with gain staging, then limiting or maximizing to a specific loudness target. After that comes the digital cleanup, and only at the end do I send everything through the analog gear, so it does what I want without lifting up dirt along with it. That’s where I get the analog character I’m after.
Q: What tips would you give beginners as a musician and mastering engineer?
Never give up, and listen to a lot of music! In the beginning, use reference songs and build a small playlist. Also important: understand your room, and develop a feeling for how it behaves. Even if your room isn’t acoustically perfect, you can deliver results that make people’s jaws drop.
Train your ears now and then, and play around with your EQ and the plugins you already have. Often I’ll sit at the computer and just test the features of my tools.
But the most important thing is: take a break from time to time, your ears and your files will thank you!
Q: Wow, thanks for this insight! Can you share what you’ve got coming up for you in 2022?
We’re working on growing, so we’ll see what the year brings! The jobs aren’t getting fewer, and we’re still hungry! 😉
Discography of Duo Mastering: Cro, Shindy, Capital Bra, Mike Singer, KC Rebell, Blasterjaxx, Ziya, Mrs. Nina Chartier, Morgen, and more.
Here’s the Duo Mastering website and contact details:
That was part 2 of our interview with Duo Mastering. If you want to learn more about songwriting and arrangement, take a look at part 1 of the interview.
