Remote mixing & audio work.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Analog, for sure. With all the talk of analog emulation, they still fail to bring what analog equipment brings, in most cases. The reason we started using digital is that it's cheaper and more productive. You can easily "recall" something without having to turn all the knobs back to the position they were in (which could take an entire day do to on a large console). Digital sure makes things a lot easier, but at the slight cost of losing that analog quality. Hybrid approaches are the way to go, and some companies now make analog gear that is digitally controlled in the sense that you can easily recall the settings you used on a particular mix. With a hybrid approach, you store the recording digitally, making it easy to edit and work with, but you mix it in the analog domain.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: This is also a form of artistry, and I love being part of this process of finalizing a creation, and being appreciated for the work I do. I honestly really love mixing. I have done a wide range of creative kinds of work in my life, from audio to video and graphics to game development and writing. Mixing is the one thing I love the most, I would say.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I want to know what they are trying to sound like, so providing a reference to some song or band or album is helpful in order for us to share the same vision. Aside from that, I want to know whether the client wants me to edit their performance, and to what degree. Some are sensitive to the idea of editing it, while others are not.

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I started buying recording hardware in the mid/late 90s in order to record my own music (and that of my band) at home. Back then, these things weren't as cheap as they are now, and other bands asked to record at my place, so I helped them. I realized how much I loved the technical side of music production, and I kept accumulating hardware and experience, but the main purpose remained personal use for a few years. My band sort of faded out and my studio was used more for recording other bands. From around 2010, home recording has become so cheap that there's not much of a market for recording, but because you can't buy expertise and experience, there was still a market for mixing, so that's what I've been focused on or the last decade or so. My official education is in music production and songwriting, from a fairly famous Swedish school called MusikMakarna.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: People think hardware matters the most when setting up your production space. But no, it's the acoustics of your room that will make or break you. I made the same mistakes for years, myself, and I keep hearing similar stories of people who finally realize that what they were trying to achieve wasn't based on a lack of gear, but a lack of good acoustics.

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

A: I was raised on Blues and Rock/Metal. I am interested in working in mostly any genre, but I have established myself specifically for heavier music, music with some attitude.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: "Heft", you might say.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: A pair of acoustically treated rooms, one being a recording room and the other the control/mixing room. I run a pair of Genelec 8040B's studio monitors. I use an Apogee Quartet that passes through an analog graphical equalizer before going into the Genelecs. The equalizer adjusts for inequalities in the EQ of the room to produce a flatter sound response in the room. Aside from large collection of various instruments (synthesizers, guitars, drums, amplifiers...), I have recently started buying some outboard analog gear for mixing. I mainly focus on compressors, because they're the ones that plugins can't quite simulate the sound of. As for equalizers, plugins are as good as anything but the most expensive equalizers.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Gregory "UBK" Scott of Kush Audio, Andrew Scheps, Trent Reznor.