Mixing Engineer

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

A: Mixing "Vegas" by Shaboozey stands out as one of my proudest projects. It was an incredible experience getting to work closely with the artist as well as the producers and songwriters involved - their song creation process is so meticulous and detailed, nothing gets overlooked. It was humbling and inspiring to be part of that level of craft.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital, for practicality - an all-ITB Pro Tools workflow lets me deliver fast, consistent results for clients working remotely, without sacrificing the analog-modeled character in the processing.

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

A: I'll treat your song like it's mine - honest communication, no filler revisions just to seem busy, and a mix that serves the artist's vision, not my ego.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Watching a rough set of stems turn into a finished record an artist is proud to release - especially catching the moment in a mix where a song suddenly feels "done."

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

A: The most common one is whether mastering can fix a mix that isn't quite right. My answer is always no - mastering polishes a good mix, it doesn't repair a flawed one. I'd rather revise the mix first than have a client pay for mastering twice.

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

A: That mixing is just a emotionless, technical process or running a preset. A good mix is dozens of small decisions about balance, space, and emotion - it's closer to storytelling than button-pushing.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What's the song about and what feeling should it leave the listener with? Do you have reference tracks? What's the deadline? And is this headed to mastering after, or do you need that handled too?

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

A: Send reference tracks, not just genre labels - two songs that capture the sonic direction you want tell me more than "make it sound like pop." And be upfront about your timeline and revision expectations before we start; it saves everyone a headache later.

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

A: Honestly? My PMC IB1S-A IIIs, five times over. If I could bring five spares just to make sure I never lost them, I would - that's how much I trust them. Everything else is negotiable; the monitors aren't.

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

A: Almost 10 years ago I began my career training at Westlake Studios as an intern, eventually working my way up to a first engineer, and built credits recording artists like Selena Gomez, Camila Cabello, and Dominic Fike. I later moved into mixing full-time and I'm Dolby Atmos certified. My mixing credits include Shaboozey and many others.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Clean, punchy, and vocal-forward - modern pop/indie polish with enough restraint to keep things feeling human rather than over-processed.

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

A: Honestly, less about a specific name and more about the type of artist - I want to work with people who are incredibly passionate about their music, where you can tell they live and breathe it and it shows in every take. Just genuinely good people, too. Those are the artists I want to surround myself with, because that energy makes its way into the final mix.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Mastering isn't a fix for mix problems. If something's wrong with the mix - muddy low end, a buried vocal, harsh top end - no amount of mastering will save it. Get the mix right first; mastering should only be the final polish.

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

A: Primarily pop, dance, indie, folk, rock, R&B, and country, with some openness to adjacent genres depending on the project.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Preserving the integrity of the rough mix or demo - keeping the emotion and essence that made the artist fall in love with it in the first place, while enhancing the overall quality and making it feel bigger and more polished. A lot of mixing engineers strip that away chasing "polish." I'd rather build on what's already working.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Clarity and emotional impact without losing what made the artist want to make the song in the first place. I trained and worked as a recording engineer at Westlake before moving into mixing, so I think about the source material - not just plugins and processing.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I start with a full listen-through to understand the song's intent before touching a fader. From there: rough balance, vocal treatment, editing and tuning, bus processing for glue, harmonic saturation for excitement, then detailed automation and effects. I send a first pass mix, take one round of notes, and revise until it's right - clear communication up front means fewer surprise revisions later. Solid mix references are incredibly helpful and go a long way as well.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I mix out of a home studio in Los Angeles built around PMC IB1S-A III monitors and a UAD Apollo interface ecosystem. It's a treated room designed for accurate, translatable mixes - what you hear here is what you'll hear everywhere else.

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

A: Shawn Everett is a huge inspiration for me as a mixing engineer. His approach is so creative and unconventional - he's not afraid to break the "rules" of mixing if it serves the song, whether that's an unexpected effect, an unorthodox vocal treatment, or a totally non-standard signal chain. It's a good reminder that the goal is always the song, not following a formula.

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

A: Most of my work is mixing full songs for independent and signed artists in pop, indie, folk, and country. Clients usually send me stems from Logic, Ableton, or Pro Tools, and I deliver a polished mix ready for mastering - vocal-forward, radio-competitive, but true to the artist's original vision.