Chords for Mastering ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams

_ _ So now what we're going to do is listen to the mix completely flat, no processing at all.
We're going to listen to the choices that Leslie made, how he presented it for mastering, and
also gain a whole lot of insight in terms of what the artist has been living [F] with and what the artist has approved for the
mix process.
And now it's ready for mastering, so let's check it out. _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [C#] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C#] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C#] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [C#] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ [N] _ That's a great mix.
You know, it's funny, audio [A] professionals, mixing and [G#m] mastering engineers and producers,
we can have all types of conversations describing what we can do,
but it [N] really comes down to what it sounds like.
All of the real
information that I'm going to get has to do with just that process.
Listening to the mix down flat gives me all the information and
it allows me to put myself [G] in the shoes of the mixing engineer and operate from that place.
[E] A pro like Leslie, if you look at the mix, it's very dynamic.
He hasn't necessarily gotten a whole lot of [G#m] buss compression, at least if there is buss compression.
It's not really, really gluing things together.
[A] He's left it nice [D#] and open,
anticipating the mastering process.
It also, for that reason, has a little bit of a [F] classic feel, you know, in terms of not [D#] going
so heavy-handed with compression.
It's not that it's such a technical [G] technique as [N] much as it's really a creative technique.
It's a creative technique in the sense that this mix hasn't been stepped on.
It hasn't been glued to a place where it loses its
danceability, its musical feel.
If not [E] handled properly, you could very easily
[F] lose that in the mastering process.
Unexperienced engineer might try to
juice it too much, get too much [E] compression, too much hype, and it might end up feeling like it's being pushed on to you.
You could [G#m] end up with a result where you just don't want to get up and start dancing.
This song needs to be led in its feet.
It needs to encourage [Gm] you to get up and move, and [F#] too much processing could end up creating a departure from that.
What I'm feeling with this is I would like to get into some glue, some
connectivity, with some tube compression, and I want to EQ into some tube compression.
Specifically, I want to rely on
the manly for that.
There's other options.
There's other tools.
There's other paths
we could go down, but a good experienced [F] mastering engineer will have a very good sense of [D#] how
he or she wants to introduce the various processes to get the most out of the music [Dm] and also create a
great finished result that
everybody involved is going to love.
The more you do this, the more you understand how far you can go before you start taking a
departure from what the mixer [F#] left you with.
So [F] all of that we [G#] have to take into account.
Like I said, this mix is nice [F#] and open, and the elements within the mix have a lot of space around [N] them.
The claps are
nice and out front.
Background vocals have a lot of space.
It's really ripe for digging in with some tube compression.
So I already have the setting recalled that we did originally
[G#m] on the analog console.
I'm going to flip over to it, and I'm going to play it down.
Now, understand also that, and this is
something that a lot of people are surprised by, it's never for us one setting from the beginning of the song to the end.
We're making manual rides and interacting with the [A] song as it goes down.
A lot of times
we'll be riding bus level from verse into chorus, left and right.
There's various techniques to do that in a way that feels very musical.
A person listening [D#] to the end result would never be [E] conscious of
these moves being made.
It allows us to, you know, get in to maybe back off a bridge and then [G] come back
into a chorus, and then it blooms and comes back [N] with impact in a musical way that
only enhances the musicality of the song.
And it's not just level.
We'll be riding EQ into the compressors.
So all of the processes within the global process are interrelated and work together as a whole.
You never want a [D#] situation where you take even nine steps forward and one step back.
You always want to take ten steps forward.
You always want to make sure that all your processing ends in a place
that's net positive.
And it always has to do with
where the mix is as a starting point, a hundred percent of the time, ending in a place that feels musically balanced in a way
that you can connect [E] with the music _
emotionally.
The song is called [F#] Happy.
It needs to feel happy.
So let's take it there.
I'm going to play you now
while monitoring through all the processes as a global process [F] on the board.
And then I'm going to flip between before and after so you can get a really good idea of what we're doing
as a starting point.
So actually I'm going to start with flat again,
and I'm going to flip over to processed and you can hear what we're introducing. _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [Fm] I don't care.
Baby, by the [C] way.
_ [C#] Clap [Cm] along if you feel like a room [F] without a roof.
[C#] Clap [Cm] along if you feel like happiness [F] is the truth.
[C#] Clap [Cm] along if you know what happiness [F] is to you.
[C#] Clap [Cm] along if you feel like that's what you want.
[F] _ _ [C#m] So what [G#m] am I doing?
Let's break this down step by step.
I'm going to first put everything in soft bypass, all the pieces in the signal path in soft bypass.
And I'm going to introduce them one by one to describe what [F#] it is that we're actually doing.
Now this piece right here,
this is a very, very important piece for how we like to shape EQ into the compression.
Sometimes we take it out entirely and not use any type of EQ like this because it does add a certain texture and saturation,
specifically [G#] because post this EQ, we're [F#] attenuating by a dB.
We don't need to and sometimes we do run this EQ in the circuit [C#] with no attenuation,
but [F] adding a dB of attenuation post will allow us to get a little bit more saturation,
which has a textural feel that's pleasing to us.
This piece by itself,
generally we boost all frequencies or you know, sometimes we cut a few,
but if you were [D#] to measure the overall [Gm] gain of this piece and how the gain structure moves throughout the [A] chain, this piece in particular
gives you about 2 dB.
To break it down even more specifically and the way [E] I'm using this on this song,
I'm emphasizing 120 a little bit ahead of all the other [C] cues on this 5-band [F#] EQ and maybe a little less emphasis around 60,
3k, 6 and 10 relatively, but overall this is giving me about 2 dB of gain.
It's not simple gain, it's EQ'd gain into the various other processes.
What I'm [G] doing with this piece right here is a solid state EQ.
It's great for very [F#] transparent, but
specific work in terms of how to shape the frequency spectrum.
It's very very [Em] precise and oftentimes [E] we like to work these two EQs off each other.
In this particular case,
we're doing a half dB [D#m] cut at around [F] 30 and a half dB boost at around 45.
It tightens it and it [G] shifts it and it creates a nice support.
It almost shifts it upward and if you notice what I'm doing with this 2BQ is that, but a little bit higher on the frequency
spectrum.
So I'm taking the bottom, I'm tightening it and I'm shifting it slightly upward, which allows you to
get a little bit [F#] more dimension, depth of field and then how that integrates into the compression is also key.
The tube compressor that comes right after is there to absorb.
It's not to achieve level,
it's for musical purposes and it's completely about how we EQ that frequency shape [E] into the tube.
Whenever we introduce
compression, depending on the compression that you're introducing, it can shift the overall frequency balance.
[F#] So we have to be aware and conscious of how that shift takes place and what [N] we need to do in terms of EQ
feeding into that tube compression to create a correction for that shift.
It follows into how we deal with the high frequency limiting that comes after that to soften the information and perhaps control the
information up top.
Maybe soften the edge a little bit, especially if we're working on
digital sources.
And then we can then open it up with some 2BQ to create this counter
process [B] that also feels very musical.
[G#m] And then at the very end,
we're going to be using this Alan Smart [G] C1,
just to make sure that everything feels really [C] nice, tight and punchy and focused and controlled.
Gain structure throughout the chain,
how much gain is coming off this versus how much gain is coming off this, all of it is very, very important.
If you don't quite have that working musically, it can be a hit or miss. _