Client Spotlight - One Sixth (Pang Productions)

One Sixth - Electronic Mail
Pang Productions

Occasionally, I like to spotlight projects that I work on that are not only dope in terms of flavor, but that also have great Sonics. I wish I could do one on every project that turns out sounding great, but time and other constraints don’t allow it, but I think whenever possible, it’s important for me to point out these kinds of projects, to show that Mastering isn’t the only phase responsible in making something sound great as it’s sometimes wrongfully assumed.

This time around, the spotlight is on Melbourne, Australia’s 1/6 (One Sixth) and his latest album, “Electronic Mail” produced, recorded and mixed by Mata & Must of Pang Productions. The mixes came in with at least 6dBs of headroom, and I was able to work with Must on a few mixes and tweak some of the elements slightly (foreseeing how the tracks would turn out after mastering) and in the end, the album ended up sounding amazing; under these kinds of ideal situations, I like to aim for what I consider an optimal balance of sonics for digital formats, where you have the expected analog flavor optimized for the maximum headroom we can get in digital (in other words, audiophile-grade Hip Hop).

Below is the official video for “SMS (Six Million Stories)”, followed by audio of the original mix and waveform, to see how much headroom was left for me to do my thing at Mastering.e on the MCing path, should take notes:

Pang is a Melbourne-based independent label. Its founders, Producers Mata & Must met in school back in ‘96 and these cats have been playing instruments since they were kids, as Must reports “I started playing jazz in primary school. I learned Clarinet and Saxophone all through school and later played drums in a band we formed around the time we finished high school in 2001. The band was more a funk/metal type of thing. Around the same time Mata and I started writing our own beats using fruity loops and writing raps. A year or two later I had Pro Tools, and had dropped out of Uni to study sound engineering by 2004.”

While working on this project, I noticed the same kind of cohesion that I hear when one producer or production team produces an entire album; it’s a type of cohesiveness
that comes through in the recordings.

Mata & Must met One Sixth at an open mic they were hosting back in 2004. A friend of theirs brought him over to their studio and they all started collaborating soon after:

“Our mate Yaps brought him back to the studio one Wednesday night and he freestyled for about 15 minutes straight, and got chopped in his crew Microphone Addicts on the spot. We released the first verse he properly recorded on the Microphone Addicts track 'Rhymin' Raw', on a compilation called Studio Therapy, which we put out in 2005. One Sixth wrote the hook and came up with the concept for the track. There was a case of beer. There was an awesome vibe and it's still one of the most memorable sessions I've ever worked on. We've been working together ever since.”

Now for the techy part of this Spotlight: Some of the key production tools used on this project were the MPC 2500, Pro Tools 8, Microkorg, Fender P Bass, Ashton Jazz Guitar, Falcon 490/G, Avalon 737 and Technics 1200s.

On my end, three tools that were used on all the mixes at Mastering to give the project that warm vibe were the UAD Precision EQ, UAD Ampex tape emu and the HEDD 192 process.

Pang Productions is steadily working on other projects. They’re currently working on The Must Volkoff production album featuring emcees from Australia and the UK, the new Mata & Must album, The Koots album (another member of the Microphone Addicts) and they also work independently; Musty is currently working on producing tracks for other artists/labels, such as Fluent Form (Crate Cartel), Kingz Konekted (Class A Records), Mantra (Obese Records), Downpat (Rawthentic Records), J-Mac (Rawthentic Records), Jornick Joe Lick and others.

Check out Pang Productions at: pangproductions.com.au/

This is how the HEDD process was dialed in for "SMS"
below, the UAD Ampex emu (456 tape at 15ips, 1")