Pro Techniques from Sebastian Krys

"Compared to past records, this album is actually closer to who Gloria really is," says co-producer Sebastian Krys about Gloria Estefan's just-released album, Unwrapped. "Obviously she's been very involved with every album she's done before, but never to this level. Unwrapped is the first album she's co-produced, and she's been involved in the writing of all the songs, so I think it's more personal and represents her more than her past albums."

Krys (pronounced "chris") has worked on every Estefan record since 1992, when he was a green-eared recording intern at the legendary Crescent Moon Studios in Miami, owned by Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Jr. In addition to his work as a Pro Tools|HD producer, engineer, mixer, and songwriter within the Estefan family, Krys has racked up major credits with Roberto Blades, Celia Cruz, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Arturo Sandoval, and longtime Estefan collaborator Jon Secada.

"We expect Unwrapped would be a word-of-mouth type of project in terms of sales," Krys continues. "Gloria wrote some of the material for her past records, but most of the songs she's done over the years were her interpretations of others' songs. On this one she just ran with it herself, both lyrically and musically, including some new collaborations with Stevie Wonder and Chryssie Hynde."

A Big Fan of 96 kHz

Unwrapped was tracked at 96 kHz at The Hit Factory/Miami and finished up and mixed at Crescent Moon, and has already received critical acclaim despite its stylistic departure from past Estefan records. Largely devoid of Gloria's trademark post-Miami Sound Machine dance pop sound, this record is more like hearing the artist in a very personal mood at a local coffee house. Capturing that intimate mood with Pro Tools|HD at 96 kHz was important to the Argentinean-born Krys.

"This was the first time I had the opportunity to work at 96 kHz, and it made a huge difference. I think this is probably the closest to analog that you can get, working at 96 kHz or even working with smaller track counts at 192 kHz. Everything has a lot more depth to it, especially when you start doing overdubs. All the vocal and instrumental parts retain their fidelity, depth, warmth, and 'live-ness,' which is especially important considering how we add lots of instrumentation with all the percussion stuff we work with here in Miami."

Krys has been a Pro Tools user since graduating from Full Sail School of Recording in Miami 11 years ago. He describes himself as a "meat-and-potatoes Pro Tools kind of user" who regards his system as a kind of souped-up analog tape machine. Though he occasionally uses plug-ins like Line 6's Echo Farm, and often uses Pro Tools' DigiRack to reverse parts, Krys mostly focuses on songwriting, arrangement, and performance in the studio. "I don't necessarily use Pro Tools|HD as the end-all, be-all box that it can be," says Krys. "That can make you go insane. Unwrapped is a very simple record. The production is more in the arrangements and the color of the instruments than it is in the technology of Pro Tools. For me, the biggest advantage of Pro Tools is having the flexibility of working with 30 or 40 tracks at such high fidelity. That's where Pro Tools really shines — it doesn't sound like your typical digital recording. Every musician is aware by now of what Pro Tools, or 'The Box', can do."

Pro Technique 1 —
Be prepared for surround with two extra pairs of mics

Like many new records these days, Unwrapped was mixed in both stereo and surround. For this project, the latter version was planned in advance, but Krys suggests that engineers and producers should make preparations for surround production during tracking even if there are no initial plans for a record to be released in surround. He explains that the difference in realism gained by taking the time to set up two extra pairs of mics to capture additional live room sounds is like the difference between night and day when it comes to a surround mix.

"If you know you're going to mix an album in surround, then definitely record some stuff in your sessions that's designed to go to the back speakers in a surround mix," says Krys, who did all of his Unwrapped surround mixes in Pro Tools|HD at Crescent Moon Studios. "Even if there aren't plans upfront to do so, do it anyway, because it doesn't take long to set up a couple pairs of room mics. Then you'll have those tracks there, hidden in your session, just in case a project is later put into DVD surround or a movie track. People have to start thinking about tracking for surround ahead of time, instead of just doubling and tripling parts and then flying those around the room in lieu of real surround-miked parts. You've got to think about what you're going to do with tracks when they leave the stereo realm. It's always best to consider this at the beginning of a project, rather than treating it as an afterthought at the end."

Krys tracked all the drums for Unwrapped at Hit Factory in the center of a gigantic room large enough for an 80-piece orchestra. In addition to his individually miked drums and cymbals and such, he placed two microphones left-front and right-front, with two others placed in the right and left rear of the room. As he says, it's easy enough to pan conventional doubled tracks to the rear surround channels, but those results are far from the dynamic surround mix Krys envisioned for this album.

"It's pretty amazing when you bring those two mics into the surround mix. They really make it feel like you're sitting in the Hit Factory live room, listening to those drums. They're totally analogous to the way they sounded there. The cool thing about Pro Tools is that you can inactivate those tracks and just hide them until you need them for the surround mix. The same goes for guitars, or most any other instrument that some day might end up in a surround mix."

Pro Technique 2 —
A backup shortcut for fat 96 kHz sessions

Recording full-blown multitrack sessions with Pro Tools|HD at 96 kHz sounds great, right? Sure, but according to Krys you'll also need lots of FireWire drives, and you'll have to get crafty when it comes to managing files and backing up those ultra-high-fidelity sessions.

"The sessions get pretty big, which is why I need to use Pro Tools|HD more as a tape machine than the box of endless possibilities," he explains. "Even the shortest takes are like 40MB, and full songs can end up being eight or nine GB or more. It can take 12 minutes or more to back up an entire song. That's 12 minutes too long when we've just flown in a guitarist from the other side of the world to do a few overdubs at Crescent Moon."

Krys generally begins a 12-song album project with four 120GB FireWire drives. He puts six songs on one and six on another, while backing up to two other redundant hard drives. One stays at Crescent Moon and the other goes home with him every day, just in case the studio, God forbid, ever burns down. But instead of backing up an entire Pro Tools session after every killer guitar take, Krys uses this shortcut to avoid killing a great creative vibe that needs to continue flowing.

"I usually have no more than 35 or 40 tracks per song, but that really adds up when you're recording everything at 96k," Krys says. "Those Pro Tools sessions get gigantic, so it takes time to back everything up. Say you're recording guitars. When you've got your takes for one song and you're ready to move on to the next, first get rid of anything in the session that you're not going to use, like extra takes or effects or such. I just delete all the other tracks that are in the session and keep all the new guitar parts from that day, and remove all the sound files from my playlist. Then I do a 'Save Session Copy In' with just those new guitar takes left in it, as opposed to sitting there and waiting for the whole session to back up, since it has already been backed up in several places before. I'll save the session and the name of the song, then add 'guitar' and 'BU' for backup. So you're just backing up maybe a couple of guitar parts from that day, and not the whole song each time."

"So just back up the new stuff you do," concludes Krys. "It takes maybe 20 seconds to back up a few guitar tracks and saves a lot of time, especially when you've got people sitting there waiting."

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