Rob Dixon on SoundBetter

Mixing Mastering Although I have a full barrage of skills from artist to engineer. I'm limiting my works here to doing simple mixing and mastering jobs to help get people from the tracks stage to the demo stage. My prices will reflect the effort required. I will still give constructive and progressive advice so we can work again knowing it's a tea

Studio set up is flexible with specific equipment/DAWs/Plugins to suits a variety of recording and production situations and sound-booth available.

As I love what I do this is still a hobby to me, money is not the driving force although anything earned will be reciprocated with care and attention to the project commisioner. Helping you achieve your goal is more important than commercial viability therefore I hope one day to have a network of people I love working with time and again (i.e. keeping it fun).

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Interview with Rob Dixon

Q: What are you working on at the moment?
A: Some of my own material from the past and each week write/produce a track, to sharpen my skills, for GYAWS (Get Your Ass Writing Songs - FB closed group).
Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?
A: Not yet just got here.
Q: Analog or digital and why?
A: I'm hybrid so I can only answer the 'and' version of this question. Analogue source is fine but getting it to a WAV file means going digital at some stage and it pays for it to be early on especially if dithering required when rendering.
Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: Honesty and commitment if we agree to work together.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: Taking an idea from one stage to another and then sitting back, listening and reflecting when it's all done.
Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?
A: Q. What can you do here? A. If you have the ingredients and presentations skills, I can cook it.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: I can do magic tricks but I'm not a magician.
Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?
A: Where would you like to take this? What quality are you looking for? How long are you expecting to wait? Are you prepared to pay this much based on your answers to the above?
Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: If you know how to communicate what you'd like to achieve with your idea then talk to me. don't expect miracles unless you are actually related to god.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: Acoustic guitar, spare strings, plectrums, pencil and paper.
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: I've been into music big style since the late 70's, then singing/playing in 80's bands, 4-tracking in the 90's and then found myself in a technical heaven after the naughties (00's). This isn't exactly a career to me (as I'm a Electrical Engineer in another industry) - more so a fortunate groove I fell into and don't want to leave until it no longer appeals.
Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: A up and coming yound local indie rock band with a very tough timeline needed a guide demo track in preparation for their grant funded big studio recording so I rigged up the quickest but best way to record them raw and then worked with their manager to express edit/mix/master their demo. Off they went happy and so was I. Role - Studio jack of all trades.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: Casual Smart Grunge Dad like
Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?
A: Noel Gallagher
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: Always listen to mixes and masters on alternative mediums before commiting them to be the final render.
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: Pop/Rock/Alt/Country/Folk/Indie
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: Knowing what's good for commercial and non-commercial productions. Not everyone wants to be in the charts but likes to chronicle their art and I know when this is the case. Ironically a few of these off-beat quirky artists become more popular than the commercialised ones!
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: A vision and a path to the songs destination plus all the fiddly knob and mouse click bits inbetween.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: Depends on the project but I always start with the source material and work on from there. I don't like finding I missed out a stage so have a flow for most situations which aloows for the happy accidents. Being a robot doesn't appeal, I will take a break for the benefit of the product but if it's good I won't want to.
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: 1x Control Room & 1x Sound Booth - both acoustically treated and ARC2 tuned. Mainly better than average recording equipment whether it be analogue or digital. Presonus 24.4.2 mixing desk integrated for use with Studio One, Sonar X3 or Logic Pro X. Roland TD-30KV -vdrums, Native Instruments Kontrol series S61, Komplete 10 Ultimate, iZotope mixing and mastering suite and lots of guitars. Drinks fridge, lava lamp & sofa too - of course :)
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: I'm normally 10 years behind anything current as I like it to sink in but I still love the the anthemic and psychadelic 90's sounds and those artists who have perservered. Era wise though I've been exposed to a great deal from the 50's until today with a specific focus on mid 70's to mid 90's. Ian Shepard is my production professional and communications god!
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: Backing tracks and missing tracks for singer songwriters, lyric and delivery refinement, arrangement, editing, mixing and mastering.