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You won’t see Ryan Yang onstage. He doesn’t crave the attention, and you won’t catch him shouting his résumé from the rooftops. But if you’ve ever been moved by how clean the vocals sound on a live gospel track or felt like a concert’s backing track hit too perfectly, chances are Yang had something to do with it.
Based in Nashville but working all around the world, Ryan Yang, also known as Lei-En Yang, has carved out a reputation as one of the most meticulous and forward-thinking engineers in the game. His credits include a Grammy-nominated gospel album with Melvin Crispell III, stage playback for Adam Blackstone’s John Legend Christmas opener, and sonic contributions to names like Ricky Dillard and SINACH. In short: if it sounds like a spiritual experience, Yang probably dialed in the reverb.
In a rare sit-down, the recording and playback engineer walks us through his workflow, shares the plugins he can’t live without, and much more.
Walk us through your typical workflow when you first receive a project. What’s your process from start to finish?
For recording, I always make sure the input/output is correct because when the musicians can hear themselves correctly, that’s when they would give you the most of them. After that it’s dialing in hardware for input levels, EQing any source to taste, using compressors for controlling dynamic range, and lastly send some reverb etc…
Mixing is all about bring the elements into a healthy gain stage, balancing them into a great image and at the same time referencing the client’s mix and their reference tracks and deliver the final product.
Playback starts with building the session by ourselves. Importing the music director’s show programming 2 track to match the setlist of the show on grid in the digital audio workstation, then put the stems into where they should be in the session. Lastly, import the album 2 tracks and match the grid just in case the music director wants to use any of the original album sound during the rehearsal. Second stage would be at the rehearsal taking all the inputs from the live engineers and being able to record live programming or guitar/bass overdubs in real time. The last part would be recording all instruments and vocals from the rehearsal and mix it for everybody to be able to listen to what they did today and to practice and improve.
Are there any go-to tools or plugins you always keep in your mixing template?
Yes, I do have a ProTools mixing template. Some of my go to plugins are Fabfilter EQ, Ozone Maximizer, SSL bus compressor, Universal Audio analog models, Valhalla reverb, Soundtoys delay just to name a few.
How do you approach vocal mixing differently from instrumental arrangements, particularly in gospel music?
I feel like vocals are a very delicate sound. The dynamic range is very wide and just a tiny level difference of a word makes the emotional delivery different. I tend to start with EQing the vocal to taste, use 2 compressors to control the dynamics, de-Esser to take out harsh sibilance, a dynamic eq to tame stuff that’s not being processed, then a Neve Analog high shelf EQ for some cherry on top. After that I always do fader rides to make the vocal sound as natural as possible, sometimes enhancing the emotions, sometimes giving the vocal a more controlled sound.
Are there any new technologies or techniques you’re excited about integrating into your workflow in the near future?
Yes! This year Dante came out Dante Virtual Soundcard Pro which doubles the amount of inputs and outputs from the original Dante Virtual soundcard. This would be a huge improvement for live recording purposes even in the playback world. Very excited to see what could happen!
When people look back at the projects you’ve worked on, what do you hope they hear or feel in your contribution?
If it would be possible, vocal performances in front of the carefully selected microphone to all the delicately recorded instruments. I would love to share the idea or the thought process behind these because they are not just randomly picked hardware. Everything was chosen for a reason for the vocalists and the musicians to perform in the most comfortable way so that us audio engineers can capture their best performance.
