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When Lola Romero, now Senior Director of Audio & Technical Studio Operations at renowned label/studio EMPIRE, accidentally stumbled into an audio recording class on her first day at San Francisco City College, she had no idea that a few short years later she would be working closely with the likes of Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kanye West, and Anderson .Paak, winning major music awards, and even playing herself as an engineer in the iconic video game Grand Theft Auto.
As the three-time GRAMMY award-winner looks back at notable projects in her discography for our “Five Sounds With” series, what emerges is a portrait of a consummate professional, passionate about sound, dedicated to the craft, and committed to honoring the legacy of the great engineers that have come before her.
That song was done at Dre’s personal studio, and I used some of the classics, like the Sony C800 going into a Neve 1073 to a Tube-Tech CL 1B and then back out to an SSL K-Series console, which, truthfully, was the chain I used for a lot of the songs that I did with Dre.
Dre was kind of raspy the day we recorded this, and most people don't realize that's him on the hook; they're shocked when I say it’s him because of the raspiness and the high pitch, but when I heard it, I immediately was like, “Cool! I'm going to effect this a little bit, tune it, and take it a step further.”
I added Soundtoys’ Crystallizer on that. I duplicated his vocal to add a low and a high that I pitched up by seven semitones, and then blended that all in with his natural vocal. It gives it a little bit of an effect and works to amplify the higher pitch that he was already using. When it came to Eminem, he did his part at his studio, sent that in to us and then I dropped that into the song.
In terms of gear, the biggest contributor was the SSL K-Series, which does a lot of heavy lifting all on its own. The plug-in work was actually pretty minimal on this song, mostly EQ and compression, and then letting the analog warmth come through. I made small notches via plug-ins and then used a wide-band EQ on the console to even it all out and paint the picture, if you will, but really, Crystallizer was the star of the show.
The vocals are dynamic, but while recording, I'm actually using pretty light compression coming in, just enough to bring up the low stuff and tame the high peaks. On my lead vocal tracks, I use Waves’ Vocal Rider to give things an even level. I'm not pulling any vocal too low and not raising it too high; my threshold is in an even place versus pulling it down to get true compression.
From there, I'm clip-gaining every step of the way. As I'm recording, I'm listening and pre-planning my volume rides, so when it comes to a part of the song that’s more dynamic, with more volume, I'm already thinking, “This is hotter than the even part of the track, so I'm going to clip gain that down a little bit.”
To maintain clarity in a vocal flow that is so [kinetic], it comes all the way down to gain-riding syllables. So, for example, if the S is too strong, I'm pulling that down in the recording process and then fine-tuning it in the mix.
I've learned that by keeping my fader at zero and then having an appropriate amount of gain coming in, I'm able to use those gain rides along the way to keep it all sitting where it needs to sit. And then, it’s about putting the music behind the vocals a little bit and letting the vocal stand at the forefront of the music.
That one was super fun because that was the first song that I created in its entirety. I produced the beat, wrote the song together with ASTU, vocal-produced her along the way, and then mixed and mastered the song as well. It’s super special to me, so I'm glad you asked about that.
At the time, ASTU was working on a wide range of songs, including a dance record, but when she came in that day, she was like, “I just want to do something chill”, and I had literally started this beat the night before. She loved the vibe, so we decided to go for it.
She sat in the control room with me with an SM58, we played the song loud through the Augspurgers, and she was just mumbling along the way. In those mumbles, she really wrote the entire song.
When I'm working on a song, whether it's mixing, writing, or producing, I listen to it over and over again, so I was playing it on my way to the studio, on my way home, even listening on my AirPods while walking my dog. As I listened over and over, the mumbles were speaking to me; they became actual words, so each day I would come in and tell ASTU what I heard her sing in different parts of the song, and every time she was like, “I said that?” [Laughs] She was either very close to saying the words in the mumbles, or it was the feeling it gave, so the topic of the song just came naturally.
When I’m choosing samples or sounds for a song, I do it all based on my mood, really. At that time, I was grieving the loss of my grandmother, so I was pretty mellow. I had heard someone in an interview talking about how key relates to emotion, so I generally start there, the mood I’m in, and then what key I’m going to choose. I then move on to melodies, drums, and finally bass.
Getting the kick and bass to sit well together can be hard, and I hear a lot of people struggling with that. It was something I learned with Dre so thoroughly. He is the master of low-end. His kicks have a good slap to them, but then they're also so large in the bottom end, and then the same with the bass. I learned, just by ear, how to glue those together.
There are other tricks, too. Like, I'm super focused on the way the waveform of the kick and the bass play together. I make sure that at least that first wave is exactly on top of one another. After that, if the bass wants to slide or shift around, that's cool, but as long as that initial wave of the kick and bass are hitting with their peak at the same time, that usually solves a lot of problems.
Having some high-end on the kick is really important too. Quite often, I see producers and engineers putting a low-pass on the kick, but I have learned over time to add high-end to it. Then, on the bass, I just blow the low end as much as I can. I guess I am, in a sense, relying on the high-end of the kick for them to mesh well with one another.
The speakers that I'm working on most often these days are the ATC45s. Those are great because they have a very solid frequency response and curve that translates really well to most listening sources. I love those speakers, and I've learned to trust them; they hardly ever steer me wrong.
The main source that I'm listening to outside of my studio room is my phone speakers. If I can hear every instrument and every frequency, if the vocals are sitting right and nothing is too bright, and if I can create some sort of frequency response where I can still hear the low end on my phone, then I know that’s right. Listening in the car is really important too – the phone and car listen is a trick from forever for a reason. [Laughs] It’s also important to listen to your mix alongside other songs that are similar.
[Producer] Fredwreck made the beat and brought it to Anderson, who loved it. Just like the rest of the album, he came in, sang the song, and that was it. Later, as we were going through the tracks, Anderson was doing the same thing, listening over and over, dissecting the songs, making notes, and then coming back to fill out sections, add vocals and backgrounds, or even rewrite parts.
We were talking about features and what else the song needed, and I think it was Fred who said, “Let's get Smokey!” The album, Ventura, on which this song features, was a true R&B album, so it really made sense to pull in some R&B legends, and obviously, Smokey Robinson is at the top of that list.
Smokey came to Record One, which is Dre’s studio in Sherman Oaks, and actually, at that point, he was vocal producing Anderson, so he had Anderson re-record parts, really pushing him to get that soulful energy and tone across on the song. Then he did his part, and it was pretty quick from there. In terms of vocal chain, it was the classic Sony C800 going into the Neve into the Tube-Tech and coming out to the SSL.
Working with Anderson (on the song "Bubblin’" in 2018) was one of my first opportunities to work with a legendary engineer [Jhair “JHA” Lazo] and my very first opportunity to work on a final mix for a major [with Neal Pogue], and it was amazing.
Now that I’m running the studio at EMPIRE in San Francisco, when I'm introducing my engineers to the artists, or if I'm popping in on a session really quick to check on somebody, I make sure to bring up the other things that an engineer has to offer.
I am trying to encourage everybody that I'm working with at all times to become more confident, and doing the same for myself too when introducing myself to people. I bring that up for myself and for everybody else that I'm working with, and just try to change the narrative [that engineers are technical and not creative] as much as I can.
Music is so crucial to me, so while I may sometimes jump on a streaming platform and start clicking on songs to see if I like the overall vibe, when I listen to new music, I listen to an album from start to finish. When you’re just clicking on random songs, you're missing out on the overall creative story that the artist is trying to tell. As long as you give it a chance by starting at the top, you might be surprised when you listen to an album, and it actually ends up being a story.
On this project, we did one song a day until the album was done, and no song got cut; it was just so seamless. One of the coolest parts was when it came time to add horns to certain songs, Marsha sang the parts she wanted the horn players to play; either singing the note that she wanted them to hit or singing the progression. There was no sheet music; it was just Marsha singing on the mic, the players hearing it in their headphones and playing along.
The string parts were originally performed by a producer playing keys and using a breath controller to bring a live feel and sound to the strings, which played a huge part in the overall making of Casablanca. Once we had that in place, we went to United Recording with producer Ross Hogarth and composer Eric Gorfain to rerecord the parts with a 28-piece string section. That whole album was just a really, really cool process from the very beginning, and it was done in two or three months.
When it comes to working quickly in the studio, a lot of it is about muscle memory, and with muscles, you have to practice and train them. Early on in my career, I once had a class where we had to practice key commands over and over until it became muscle memory, and I really learned from that. That’s something that is pivotal to my entire career: I take a piece of information and use that over and over, whether it’s certain tools, advice from other people, or just things I pick up or learn along the way. Sometimes I can tell from the beginning that it’s important, and I just don’t forget it.
I’m also always reading the waveform, which I think is really important. A lot of my recording has been in the room with the artists, so I hear them in real time. I'm watching them as they're singing or rapping, and then looking at my screen, so I can hear the words and also see on the screen where those words are and what they are.
I’m reading the waveform and making a plan in my head while I'm already recording. When you start from a good point in your recording, you have your levels, you have a good template, and if you're organized, you can focus on what's being recorded, but also have some space in your brain to plan ahead.
It was quite the experience and was not something that I was expecting or anticipating!
I had recorded all the songs for Dre for this project, and one morning he called me and said, “We're shooting some studio scenes for GTA today, and they were going to hire somebody to play the engineer, but I think it should be you. Do you want to do it?” And I was like, of course!
So I drive down to Santa Monica, and we perform the scenes that are now in the video game. After they motion scanned us, we did our voiceovers at Dre’s personal studio, and that was where Rockstar Games became really involved in our recording process. We had the videos up on the TV, a mic in the middle of the room, and we were all watching the TV as we were doing our voiceovers.
Rockstar was on Zoom while we were doing the voiceover so that they could vocal coach us and lead us in the direction they wanted for the video game. I think it was Source-Nexus that we were using, so we were taking Pro Tools audio out and sending it directly into Zoom; that way, they could hear what was happening in real time and guide us. I recorded all the voice-overs for everybody else on our team who was in the show, and when it was my turn, my assistant engineer, Zumo Kollie, jumped in and recorded me.
In the game, they recreated Dre’s personal studio, so there was a small SSL console, and we actually used a U87 when we were doing the acting, even though, daily, we were using a C800.
So for the scene, I’m recording at my Pro Tools rig, Dre walks by, we fist bump, and then Dre walks to the board and starts giving me some feedback, saying things like, “I want a little more bass in my voice and a little more sizzle” and I'm doing that in Pro Tools, while he's standing at the board, listening. It was a super fun process from beginning to end.
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