Mixing, mastering, production

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: That's probably my own music at the moment, 'cause that is always a great chance to develop a wide range of your skills: as a musician, composer, performer, producer, recording and mixing engineer and such, you know.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: There are 5 to 10 projects in progress usually (a couple of local bands I record and produce and the rest of the remote work).

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Yeah, I know well these guys: https://soundbetter.com/profiles/17235-maxim-kokarev https://soundbetter.com/profiles/7401-igor-korzhov They also do a great job.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I use both. I'm totally sure, that good quality may be achieved both by using analog and digital processing. The most important thing is skill anyway.

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

A: I'm interested in bringing your expectations to life. So you won't be disappointed.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I always try to get the highest possible quality of the material present and I become happy once it happens. :)

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: Q: Is reamping/MIDI parts handling included to the mixing+mastering price? A: Yes. Q: May we get some instrumentals of our release? A: Yep, sure. Q: May we get all of the DAW projects of our release? A: No.

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

A: Well, that's probably related to the non-audio production familiar people. They often think that I'm a live soundman, working at the concerts.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I usually ask to describe the genre as accurate as possible, to give some desired sounding references, desired time frame to be able to decide and plan a subsequent work.

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: There is a good chance to get a high quality recording as a result, do not miss it.

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

A: 5 pieces are not so few, actually. Well, considering these all should be a music/audio related gear... I'd take some power supply, a laptop with a sound interface, good monitor headphones and a guitar.

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

A: I've been working with music and audio since '99 (16 years already), starting with the home PC, DIY devices... Worked in Cakewalk Pro Audio DAW then. And now I have my small local studio, allowing me to record bands and do all the necessary stuff.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Modern and balanced sounding.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: There is no actual preference, really. I'm glad to work with anybody who wants to work with me.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Don't do a draft recording/composing, hoping it to be fixed later on editing/mixing stage. :)

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

A: Rock, Metal, Pop, soft music. There are lots of electronics in genres often.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Quality and striving to perfection.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: The goal is to understand what the musician wants to hear and to show in his song. My creativity is to bring some cool features to the arrangement or SFX, where I see them suitable.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: When I record a local band, there are usually such sequential stages: instruments and gear selection and tuning, recording the material (editing it simultaneously) and then, after some break, - reamping, mixing, mastering. I try to make some time gap between the editing is done and before the mixing starts to keep the sensing as fresh as possible.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I use few PC and Mac based workstations with Presonus intefaces and converters, KRK V8 and Adam A7 monitors. The DAW is Cockos Reaper (I found it the most convenient and efficient for me). Also there are guitar and bass amps (Kemper, Mesa, Engl, Marshall, Krank Custom, etc.) and microphone set for reamping (Neumann, Shure, Sennheiser, etc.)

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

A: I like CLA's and Joey Sturgis works.

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

A: I do mixing and mastering for rock/metal projects most commonly, including guitars and bass reamping and MIDI drums humanizing. Editing (such as vocals tuning and instruments quantizing) is done as well.