Mixing/Engineer, Metal, Rock

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring my experience. I like to constantly create nuances in my mixes, so that the listener should feel that the song is interesting to listen to.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: For the moment I'm working on a band from Poland called Soul Skeleton. Also working on the band Silvergime first full release.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. I like my daw for recallability and editing. I like my outboard for giving me 3D quality to sound. I don't miss the analog multitrack.

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

A: I promise that I will do everything in my power to get the clients happy.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I am addicted to music and sound so for me this is the perfect job. For me it's about creativity and to constantly bring new challenges to overcome.

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

A: They usually ask price and how many times I will mix a song before they are happy. Most of the questions concerns the uncertainty that I would change their sound that they long fought to get right.

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

A: The biggest misconception is that people believe that a mix engineer is a magician. As an engineer you can do a lot but if its not there from the beginning its not going to happen.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I ask what goal they have. Their wishes for sound. How much I can add without interfering with their artistry.

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

A: A Neumann U89, My Helios pre/eq, 1176 my daw and my monitors.

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

A: I started out as a drummer 1978, two years later i begun to play guitar. I started with recording 1985 on a small porta studio. A couple of years later I opened up my first studio called Smallhouse Recording. 1998 I opened a new full scale studio called Big House Studios. 2003 I relocated to a new place called Mixtrak Studios. Today I mostly mix but do record and produce occasionally.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: My style is powerful. interesting, enjoyable and hopefully long lasting mixes.

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

A: I like to work with artists who know what they want. They may well be good musicians and really have donated their lives to music.

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

A: I mix Heavy Metal, Rock and everything between.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I think my greatest strength is that I have a good ear for how things should sound. I am easy to work with and responsive to the clients. I always put the client first and deliver on time.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I'll start with listening to the song with all faders up to get an idea of the song and see what needs to be done. I always start with the drums checking phase, next step is eq and maybe compression on the drums. After that everything is floating. all the tracks get their treatment to fit the track. Every session is different but mostly start with what I said.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio set up is hybrid. That means I have 32 DA's routed from my DAW to different summing mixers . The tracks are summed in the analog domain and then mixed down to another DAW. On the way to the summing mixers I have a lot of analog equipment inserted in the chain. I'm coming from the analog era of recording and this is the way i prefer to work. Its more complicated but absolutely worth it.

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

A: I like the productions of Randy Staub, Bob Rock and CLA.