Travis Scott is a producer/rapper who’s unique sound is composed of heavy autotune, deep 808’s and lively synths. Birds In The Trap Sing Mcknight is Travis Scott’s second album and American engineer Mike Dean is responsible for the mixing on this album.

Today I did some research on Mike Dean and his techniques used for Travis Scott’s vocals and I found a Twitter conversation between Mike Dean and a fan talking about  Travis Scott’s Vocals on the album, from reasing this Twitter thread I have identified two main things valuable to my research.

Image sourced from (https://twitter.com/therealmikedean/status/771856313383026688)

Firstly it is clear that Mike Dean intentionally made Travis Scott’s vocals the most noticeable part of his mixes. By allowing the vocals to have more dynamic range, it places emphasis on Travis as an artist and forces the listener to acknowledge his voice is the main instrument used in his music. This relates to learning outcome three and I will be incorporating this technique of vast dynamic range on the vocals for my Travis Scott inspired track.

Secondly I find Mike Dean’s response very interesting, it shows that even as a well established audio engineer with years of experience,the final sound of the music is ultimately the artists decision’s and as an engineer Mike Dean has to respect how Travis Scott wants his music to sound and be consumed. This relates to learning outcome one, as it gives me a prime example of how professionalism extends beyond mannerisms. Being a professional audio engineer means you have to listen to the artist you are working with and respect their wishes when it comes to the overall sound of their music.

This post relates to Learning Outcomes 1 & 3