Richard Furch (Prince, Chaka Khan, Boyz II Men, Jay Z)
Richard Furch began his career in New York, where he worked on some of the most iconic albums of the 2000s, including Grammy Award winners Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast and Confessions by Usher. With 260 album credits and 25 million records sold, he has worked on six Grammy-winning albums. Furch has mixed music for legends like Prince, Chaka Khan, Boyz II Men, Jay-Z, The Weeknd, and Snoop Dogg.
Having Mixed And Produced So Many Songs Over The Past Few Years, How Do You Stay Fresh And Excited About Making Music Every Day?
As a pianist myself, music has always been the center of my life. Going from trying to be a rock star, like every teenager, to being a jazz composer, to be a professional mixer working with my heroes and other amazing musicians helping them craft their sound, is a dream that continues.
I don’t take it for granted. It’s my personal Sudoku daily to figure out what makes this song tick and what emotions I can find within the performances. It never stops and I’m grateful for the trust.
Tell us about your current studio setup.
I’m in a hybrid setup at this moment. I’m mostly mixing on the computer with a few choice pieces like the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor and the Black Box HG2. A Carl Tatz Phantom Focus System (the only one on the West Coast) based around Focal Twin 6 Be speakers are my main monitors, but ProAc Studio 100 and Bagend 18inch Subwoofers are also at the ready.
I love all things Brainworx, Waves, Metric Halo. I couldn’t live without Fabfilter and McDSP suites, either. I have a full ATMOS 7.1.4 setup and that’s a future for music, for sure.
How do you typically approach a mix?
Building a mix comes from the detective work of figuring out what has been performed and recorded and where the producer or artist has pushed it so far. Embracing that intention and then amplifying, magnifying, and enhancing it is the gig.
If it’s well arranged, a lot of things fall into place with levels and EQ alone. So I start there. Then I try to blow the record up part by part, experimenting with it while staying true to the original thought. Finding energy and focus points.
Most often, they are in the material but have to be brought out like spotlights that tell the audience to listen to this one part now, and that other part the next moment. All while the listener shouldn’t notice that that’s happening and just feels music as if the mixer never did anything.
What's typically on your mix buss these days?
Even though I use subgroups to feed my analog gear, my mix buss is fully digital. That way I can decide to keep a sound digital through the whole path or send to analog gear on the way.
I normally have the Brainworx Townhouse compressor, Ozone, Fabfilter EQ, and curve bender on the mix buss.
Then a limiter that changes by material. I like Lossless, Fabfilter Limiter, Masset 2007, and the tried and true Waves L2. They all have slightly different ways of limiting that can be used as colors.