Los Angeles, CA (August 31, 2015)—Richard Furch, who mixed Tyrese Gibson’s latest—possibly last—studio album, Black Rose, in its entirety, ran all of the lead vocals through his hardware Tube-Tech CL1B compressor.
Black Rose made its debut in early July 2015 at the #1 position of the Billboard 200, the Top Hip-Hop/R&B Albums and the Top R&B Albums, as well as on top of the album charts on iTunes in 15 countries and on the new Apple Music service. It was preceded by its two chart-topping singles, “Dumb S**t” and “Shame.”
For the last four albums Tyrese has reportedly been wedded to tracking with a Sony c800 tube mic paired with an Avalon mic pre/compressor (with the “Babyface” mod for faster attack time). “That combo is very popular, and it gives the vocals a good, ‘forward’ sound,” said Furch. “However, it also gives them a rough, brash-sounding high end.
“I’ve found that if I just tap the Tube-Tech CL1B—just 1 dB to 3 dB of gain reduction—it makes the vocals leaner and beautifully highlights all of their details. It’s like it puts a satin glove on the high end. In addition, using the CL1B made Tyrese’s vocals so articulated and smooth that they required less equalization as a result. All-in-all, the Tube-Tech CL1B puts a ‘blanket of awesome’ on vocals.”
Because he’s almost always using compression to bring elements of a mix forward, Furch favors fast release times, and his use of the CL1B is no different. For Tyrese, he used a medium attack time with a mild ratio in the neighborhood of 3:1. He configured all of his settings in manual mode.
“More and more pop and R&B artists are starting to track with the Tube-Tech CL1B to get that particular sound right from the start,” says Furch.
TransAudio Group
www.transaudiogroup.com
