Royal Blood 'How Did We Get So Dark?' - mastering

Inside the mix

Episode 1

33m • 2019

English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese

In this Puremix Exclusive tutorial, Grammy Award Winning Mastering Engineer, Brian Lucey, opens the original mastering session for Royal Blood's hit record, "How Did We Get So Dark?" and re-masters it from start to finish; discussing every step of the process from both technical and philosophical points of view, breaking down his workflow in Sequoia, as well as his carefully curated collection of analog mastering gear.

Learn how Brian:

Edits the heads and tails of tracks.
Treats the record as a body of work, creating cohesion from the first track to the last.
Uses corrective linear phase EQ to shape mixes in relation to each other across the span of the record.
Gain stages his analog chain.
Determines the proper balance of low end between Mid and Side information.
Uses his modified Focusrite Blue 315 MkII EQ, Fairman TMEQ (Tube EQ), Elysia Compressor, and Crane Song Hedd to create the tone of the record.
Adds limiting and saturation to add dimension and character to the master.
Establishes artistic consistency both in tone and volume throughout the record.
Compares the demonstrated masters in the video to the original record.

This is a unique chance to learn Brian's personal mastering techniques and watch him work in the flow as he masters one of rock's largest records in the past decade.