Seoul Man
Born in Seoul, Taesub Lee started his musical career playing guitar in bands. He moved to Moscow with his parents when he was 13, and attended Moscow State University there. Ten years later he was back in Seoul, where he first did military service, and then went to Seoul Jazz Academy, the most prestigious music academy in South Korea. He studied there as an engineer because “there are so many great guitarists in the world, it’d be impossible for me to do that for a living”. After completing Seoul Jazz Academy, Lee worked at two different studios before joining JYP as chief engineer in 2013.
There are seven mix engineers credited on Formula Of Love, including two American star mixers, Tony Maserati and Kevin ‘KD’ Davies, while Serban Ghenea’s right‑hand man John Hanes has an “immersive mixing” credit on ‘The Feels’. Lee mixed three tracks. For him to be asked to mix the lead single of the album in this stellar company seems quite an achievement, but Kim stresses that it’s quite normal, and in part because Lee is known for a “specific unique sound” which fits the bass‑heavy nature of the song, in part due to Tommy Brown’s hip‑hop roots.
“I like rock, and I am very inspired by that,” says Lee. “So I like things to sound loud, and noisy, but also to be well‑organised and in the right place. The tracks need to be very balanced. When dealing with a hip‑hop‑influenced track, I think of the directness of rock. I always try to not bring out the voice too much, but emphasise the kick and the snare, to make it sound more like rock music, but in a hip‑hop context.”
Out Of The Blue
Some of Taesub Lee's outboard gear in his Blue room.
Lee’s mix room houses an enviable collection of outboard, much of which found its way onto his mix of ‘Scientist’.The Blue room is Lee’s mix room, where he conducts his mixes using the aforementioned Amphion monitoring system, and an impressive amount of outboard including a Manley Massive Passive EQ, Burl B2 and Crane Song HEDD Quantum converters, Tegeler Audio RaumZeitMaschine, Bricasti M7 and Yamaha SPX990 reverbs, Chandler EMI TG12413 and Neve 33609J/D compressor‑limiters, an SSL Fusion analogue colouring device, Focusrite’s Red 3 dual compressor‑limiter, a Thermionic Culture Vulture Mastering Plus compressor, a BetterMaker Darth limiter, a McDSP APB16 analogue plug‑in box, and Empirical Labs Distressors and a Fatso.
“I love the Amphion monitors,” Lee explains, “They sound very clear and very flat. With some speakers you get distracted when the room conditions change, but these remain very stable. I always use some analogue outboard in my mixes. I started using analogue gear on my mix bus seven years ago. Plug‑ins are nice, but you can’t really add enough coloration to textures with plug‑ins, so I use my outboard for that. The Culture Vulture is important for adding different colours, as well as the SSL Fusion.
“These outboard units are adding just little bit of compression, but that gives me a huge amount of satisfaction. The Raumzeit is a reverb that I can control in the box, so it’s very easy to use, and sounds fantastic. It sounds totally different from other reverbs. Very spacious but not like a hall or stadium. It’s really different. I don’t use the Massive Passive very much any more, because the plug‑in sounds as good and is easier to recall.
“I tend to mix several songs at the same time every day, switching between them as I go. I receive all vocals tuned and comped. In-house we use Melodyne for tuning. Tuning is the most important part of vocal producing these days. When we do the tuning here at JYP, the producer, Jane, the vocal director and the girls and myself all listen, and decide what needs to be done. Because of the pandemic we communicate via text!”
'Scientist' Pro Tools Session View
With 160 tracks to navigate, a well‑organised session is essential! (Download the ZIP file for a larger, detailed screenshot.)
inside-track-twice-mix-session.jpg.zip
The Pro Tools session for ‘Scientist’ is a whopping 160 tracks large, and is one of the best‑organised that has ever featured in the Inside Track series. Lee makes extensive use of folder tracks, and groups and colour‑codes everything in such a way that it is obvious what you are looking at with one glance.
At the top of the session are five sound effects (swooshes, risers, and so on), grouped in and sent to an ‘FXFX’ folder track. The same is the case with the pre‑chorus bass and the main bass tracks.
The drums are organised in subfolder tracks, with six kick and snare tracks going to a ‘KS’ routing folder, eight hi‑hat and cymbals tracks going to an ‘HHHH’ routing folder, a fills folder track, and three percussion tracks going to a ‘RHY’ routing folder. All folder tracks go to the main drums folder track, which is called ‘DRDR’.
Below this is an instruments section, followed by the Lead Vocals. These consist of 18 audio tracks going to an ‘LDV’ routing folder track. The session continues with three VCA tracks for volume control, and then a whopping 70 backing vocal tracks, grouped in three sections, with backing vocals by TWICE, Sophie Pae and Melanie Fontana. Finally, at the bottom are 10 aux effects tracks, two parallel compression tracks and the master section.
“Organisation is very important!” stresses Lee. “I have various templates. I have template tracks for vocals, for background vocals, and several reverb and delay aux template tracks. I also have specific presets for TWICE, like for fast songs, slow songs and different genres, for example with a focus on sung vocals, or a focus on rap vocals. Because I’ve been working with them for so long, I know what works. But I change these presets every two or three years, and will adjust the EQ and compression depending on the song.”
I always use some analogue outboard in my mixes... Plug‑ins are nice, but you can’t really add enough coloration to textures with plug‑ins.
Plugging In
There are very few plug‑ins in the ‘Scientist’ session on the drums and instruments, but quite a few on the lead vocals, and the backing vocals by TWICE and Sophie Pae. The template origins can be seen in the fact that the signal chains on each of the audio tracks for each group are almost identical. On the lead vocals it consists of the Waves CLA 76 compressor and FabFilter Pro‑Q 3 EQ on the inserts, and four sends to the aux effects tracks: ‘Doubler’ with the SoundToys MicroShift plug‑in, UAD Lexicon 480 reverb, TC Electronic 2290 delay, and an eighth‑note delay from the Waves H‑Delay.
“I was fortunate that I did not have to do much on the production in this session,” says Lee. “I did a few small things, like adjust the balance of the kick and the bass a little, and some EQ here and there to make space for the vocals, but that was all. By contrast, there are other sessions in which the instruments need extensive work!
“In this session my main concern was that I was dealing with 100 vocal tracks, which is a lot. With regards to the lead vocals, it’s definitely different mixing nine different singers rather than just one lead vocal. I need to make sure that the individual voice and character of each voice shines through, yet also that there’s a flow from the beginning to the end, and you don’t lose the attention of the listener. A lot of that is about riding the volume of the vocals.
“With regards to the treatments, I started the mix from Nayeon’s hook part, and then adjusted the other vocals from there. I have the Waves CLA‑76 with a slow attack, set to 3, and a fast release, set to 5. My standard setting is 4 on the attack and 6 on the release, but I had to adjust it a bit here. The Pro‑Q 3 is on a fairly standard setting, with a high shelf adding lots of high end. There’s an additional Waves CLA Mix Hub plug‑in on a couple of the tracks, which is for a radio voice effect.
“All lead vocals go to a folder track, which has the Sonnox Oxford Inflator, to make the lead vocals sound fatter. Below are the TWICE backing vocals, on which I again have the CLA‑76 and Pro‑Q 3, on different settings, as well as the SSL Channel, the FabFilter Pro‑DS de‑esser, and the SoundToys Devil‑Loc. The latter is to get these vocals to sound more crunchy, so they have a different sound from the lead vocals. These backing vocals also have just one send, to the UAD 480, so they are in a different space. Sophie’s vocals have a similar chain, with the addition of the Waves S1 Stereo Enhancer, to spread them wider and make them sound fuller.
“At the bottom of the session, all tracks apart from the drums and bass go to the ‘RearBusL’ and ‘RearBusR’ tracks [153‑154], for parallel compression with the UAD 1176AE plug‑in. It’s something I adapted from Andrew Scheps. These two tracks then go the mix bus fader, with which I control the volume.
“All my tracks go to track 156, named ‘AD’, because it originally was a channel going to my Lavry 122‑96 MkIII AD converter. I didn’t use that in this song, and instead it has my outboard Neve 33609 and SSL Fusion as inserts. That track goes to track 157, on which I have an insert for my outboard Culture Vulture. It also has the Waves InPhase LT phase‑correction plug‑in, to correct for latency coming from the outboard.
“Finally, everything goes to the ‘All’ bus, in which I have the Waves PuigTech EQP‑1A and UAD Curve Bender Mastering EQ plug‑in, and then I print the mix. When I send out the mix for comments, I increase the volume with the iZotope Ozone 9, but I take that off when I send the mix for mastering to Nam‑woo Kwon at 821 Sounds Mastering.”
From where the track went on to make a splash around the world. As the Korean Wave continues, we’re sure to hear more of Lee, Kim and TWICE…