Mixing, Mastering & Production

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. I working a hybrid setup. Analog has it beauty of saturation and color while digital is fast and surgical. I believe combining the realms gives the most ideal sound the large majority of the time.

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

A: I will 100% work with the utmost attention to your track as I possibly can. I have no interested in being hired and shorting your track. This is my reputation and your creations. Believe me, I want this just as bad as you.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I get to meet and work with so many different people. Hopefully sound better will expand that. I am joining because I want to grow outside of just my local network.

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

A: Q: How long will it take? A: I can have a mix ready to send in a 1-3 days. If anything needs to be changed you have 4 revisions. I like to get all the revisions done within a week

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

A: People think mixing isn't a creative process. They think it all has to be the technical decision. While yes, there are fundamentals, that doesn't mean you can pickup "Mixing for Dummies" and have a grammy winning mix be completed. Mixing is painting a sonic palette and providing content to listeners in the most appealing way possible.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What songs have you recently listened to that got you excited? What vibe are you going for? Have you had something mixed before that you really like? If so, can you send it to me to reference?

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

A: Don't just look for the dudes sitting in front of large consoles. Also, feel free to reach out to the service providers and see if its a good fit. No harm in just dropping a line.

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

A: MacBook, Apollo, SM7B, acoustic guitar, and Akai MPK249

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

A: I have been independently mixing music for the last 5 years. Within my time, I have studied at Berklee College of Music, interned at a commercial studio, and ran my own private studio. This is my absolutely passion.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I would describe my style as adventurous. I love to try new things and development new techniques. Im not opposed to crazy parallel options and wild sounding effects. I like to try stuff and see how I can be creative on the mix side and make the track sound as original as possible.

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

A: Man... In the pop world, someone like Ed Sheeran would be amazing to see work. Writing is so natural to him and I would love to get an inside look at what his process is since he moves so fast.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: If its not adding to the song, get rid of it. This took me awhile to understand. Everything we do should be to serve the song.

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

A: Honestly anything I can. I really like to be well rounded and I think it helps me make my mixes more interesting. I do more pop or indie than anything.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Mixing drums. Nothing is more exciting than mixing live drums. Its something that I have spent a lot of time understanding and working on. Please let me mixing your DRUMS!!!

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring clean sounding audio tracks that all fit together, while adding a great level of excitement. I love listening back to a song that has fun moving elements and has exciting percussion elements. I mix songs to make them sound as interesting as I can, not necessarily as "correct" as I can, if that makes sense.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I always start my mixes in mono and first moving to the percussion elements. I set all my levels first and being to do some cleanup EQ and compress where necessary. Once I have the groove moving, I will then move into the bass, followed by any guitars, pianos or synths. Once the foundation is in, I will begin working with any special effects or textures to fill out the space. Once everything is sounding solid in mono, I'll being my panning. Once we have a solid musical bed, I will lay in the main vocals and start to manicure the mix to the main vocal. I'll clean up all the tracks and make necessary adjusts as we go. Lastly, I'll add all my effects. I wait until the end to add reverbs, delays, and all other time based effects because it can hide a lot of issue with your tracks that create mud in the mix.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I run a hybrid system with Logic and ProTools with a UA Apollo front end. I have a slough of outboard eq's and compressors that I use, along with an analog mix buss chain. I feel hybrid gives me all the options of adding the analog domain to a digital platform to give some richness and warmth that we have all come to know and love over the years. I feel both analog and digital has its place and should be utilized when necessary.

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

A: Some of my biggest inspiration comes from Jacquire King, Vance Powell, F. Reid Shippen, and Ryan Hewitt.

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

A: I tend to mostly find myself mixing or mastering songs for clients. For local projects, I do a lot of recording and producing as well.