Vocal Producer/Mixer/ATMOS

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My vocal editing rig is a MacBook Pro with ProTools 2020, Melodyne, Autotune Pro, WavesTune Realtime, VocAlign, and a few other goodies I've picked up over the years. I use Hafler monitors, and Sennheiser HD280 headphones.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: That you'll be happy with your results. How can I promise this? Simple. Unlimited revisions. Vocal tuning is highly subjective. Something that sound great to me, might sound a bit too tuned to you. Or vice versa. Its completely personal taste. I want you to love how you sound. So I don't mind going back and forth with notes a few times to make sure you're happy.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Getting to work with an extremely diverse pool of artists from around the world.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: That people like me make a living because people can't sing anymore. I've made more money working with artists that are fantastic singers than I have made with singers that can't carry a tune. It all needs to get edited to be competitive in today's market.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I usually need a bit more info about your track breakdown. How many doubles in the chorus? How many tracks in that big harmony in the bridge? It just allows me to get you the most accurate quote possible.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: MacBook Pro with pro tools, an sm57, a Neve portico channel strip, an acoustic guitar, and my Sennheiser HD280s. Is there wifi?

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Workaholic

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Yes, hire me to edit your tracks!

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: Everything. Literally everything. In the past week for instance, I worked on two records that are straight up pop, engineered bed tracks for an active rock band, composed and orchestrated a full orchestral accompaniment for a gospel/soul artist, and produced three songs for a country group. To me, its all just music, and I love being able to work on such a diverse array of music.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I can take your tracks and give them that tight sound that they'll need to be competitive on the radio. Everything on the radio today is quantized to the grid and tuned to (or past) perfection. How do I know this? Because I'm one of the few that do it for a living.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Usually I'll listen to a song through a few times to get an idea of how the vocal should sit and flow. How much to tune, and even what NOT to tune. How tight the timing of the vocal should be to sound good, yet not robotic. Then I'll usually do a minimum of three tuning passes, where I manually tweak things to sound their best. Once I'm happy with the tuning, I'll commit all my tuning work and start timing. I move things around with elastic audio, and then commit that. I'll then do a pass where I make sure nothing was negatively effected by the timing process, and fix anything that was. I use VocAlign to tighten any backgrounds or doubles to the leads, and give those a double check as well to make sure everything is sounding as good as possible. I'll do a final listen, and do a quick rough mix with some basic eq, compression, and fx so that you can hear the work in context.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: I do everything from basic drum editing all the way up to engineering full band live off the floor sessions, but by far the thing I'm doing most is vocal editing. Projects vary from salvaging a poorly recorded vocal, to polishing an already great vocal take. I always try my best to get you something that will make your song pop.