The Affordable Mixing Engineer

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

A: Multiple projects for BBC Introducing. Recording and filming live up and coming artists for youtube. I was Chief of the audio crew and mixer for post on multiple projects.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: An album for stream with some production friends.

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

A: Not yet, but I'm excited to discover likeminded professionals to recommend.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Analog for the thrill! BUT... Digital until I can afford it :)

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

A: To talk in depth about your inspirations and ideas develop a strong intuition of the style of mix you need to make your project stand out.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I get to listen to lots of different creators and network with them. Hearing and mixing their music gives me inspiration of my own and delivering a great mix hopefully banks them as long term clients.

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

A: "Can you make me sound like ..." This question is very important and I invite all clients to ask this. Sometimes the answer is 'no'. Its important to me that I give you my honest projection on my abilities. That being said, If a really talented client comes my way (cough cough) and they have all the ingredients to sound like Kanye, yes thats completely possible. Its all about the combined talent of the artist, the recordings they have and the mixing engineer.

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

A: "Mixing engineers only turn volume knobs" Not quite, we actually do much more! Mixing is not a factory job where the same process are repeated over and over again and its not just about volume. Every project is approached differently and every one of them presents their own sonic hurdles that mixing engineers need to know how to get over. Spectral sound profiles, dynamics, harmonics, sound-staging are all attributes of different instruments that need to be juggled when mixing any project.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Are there any time constraints? This is a good way of assessing to what degree you will be able to revise your mixes. You can clarify to the client there may not be enough time to get to a version thats finalised and stream-ready. In lots of cases they may only be looking for a basic mix. What is the inspiration for this project? This usually provides a good general sense of what the client is after as a preliminary or final delivery.

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

A: If are new to this process and have never hired a mixing and mastering engineer before, try to understand that communication is the most important thing. Depending on the information the mixing engineer has to work with, the final result can be vastly different from what you imagined and you may be unhappy. Never feel shy to start exchanging ideas and drafting a proper plan with your engineer.

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

A: My Fender Stratocaster, my VOX tube amp, my wah pedal, my phone and some headphones.

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

A: I have been doing this on and off since I graduated in 2018 whilst producing my own music. Currently I have a network of mixing friends who also produce and hopefully we can start a production group one day.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: As a mixer, my style would be fairly fluid to give the client what they need and to make their work fit within its genre. But if I had to choose a pocket to snuggle into it would be akin to Ariel Rechtshaid and Rostam who mix for HAIM. The amount of texture their tracks have at one given time can be immense and these engineers manage to give space in the mix for all of them. Its a huge challenge that id like to be great at one day.

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

A: I would love to work with artists like Joji and Rich Brian! They produce really catchy and emotional pop and hip-hop. I think they inspire singers and songwriters to be more confident in their talent by showing how good simple lyrics and melodies can be sung. The composers of their music tend to write non conventional chord progressions that can really capture the melancholic vibe these guys love to express in their music. Great stuff

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Always complete your projects! No matter how great the song you have in your head sounds its unlikely to sound that way when you first start recording! Spend time building the foundational work for your songs and then the embellishments come later. You will be rewarded when your song sounds exactly the way you imagined!

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

A: My work to date consists of mostly live mixes for indie rock and and RnB, but I would love to start mixing more soul, pop and jazz.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Forming a good rapport with the client and identifying what they really want.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Just what the client wants. Often times clients have musical ideas that may be difficult to portray to a mixer or producer. My favourite way of extracting those ideas is to explore where they may come from. This can be a song, artist, album or even a TV show. Throwing out these examples really helps me and clients to latch on to a solid idea that we can then try to implement into the music. The final example is something evokes the emotions you intended from the start!

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Simple, every project I work on becomes my sole focus. Preliminary mixes with the foundational adjustments compression, EQ, stereo widening and ambience is what I prefer to deliver out the gate. At this point I can really talk with the client on a musical level and start to form more creative and complex elements and FX to use within the mix.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have a humble home studio that is acoustically treated and kitted out with professional equipment: - MacBook Pro 2016 with Logic Pro X DAW - Focusrite Clarret 4 audio interface - KRK Rokit 5 studio monitors - Audio Technica ATH-M50 monitor headphones - M-Audio Oxygen 25 and Komplete Kontrol S49 MK2 MIDI workstations All mixing is Plugin based of which I have a large library to provide you with compression, vintage saturation, drum, replacement, chorus and phase FX, auto-tune and more. If you need it, I probably have it :) - Waves Complete - Izotope Ozone 7 and RX7 - Soundtoys - Fabfilter - XLN Audio - Antares Auto-Tune - Vocalsynth Much more!

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

A: Great mixers like Bob Powers and Alan Moulder are my mixing idols! For pure musical genius I look to artists and producers over a wide scope; Mark Ronson, Charli XCX, Kevin Parker, Pharell Williams, HAIM and so many more! I could go on for centuries!

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

A: Clients most commonly come to me for mixing, but I have also provided sound design services for picture aswell as audio restoration and vocal separation.