Music producer

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

A: About 12 years. Everything started with a guitar my father’s friend gifted him. As soon as I saw it, I really wished to play it, but my father didn’t want me to. He appreciated the guitar so much, that he worried I could break it as a child. Ironically he has never touched it nor learned how to play it :) After all my father couldn't resist me and bought me my own guitar. I started with the basics in learning how to play the instrument. My path as a producer and mixing engineer started years after when I decided to buy my first external sound card and mic to record my first song. After a while I understood that recording isn`t enough. That day I started to learn the whole process of making music including all nuances. Soon my work started to bring amazing results, I was working as a sound engineer and soon enough already as a sound director of short films with a lovely team. Sometimes I have also been working as a DJ for one of the biggest foreign communities in my city. Now I'm focused on working on my own projects in free time from my studies and freelance on jobs I am hired for from companies in Brno, like Soundwaves, Fascinum and others.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I`m currently working on my own project and preparing to shoot a clip.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Immediate feedback. Adjusted a knob? Hearing the result straight away. That`s why my work is never boring.

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

A: The biggest misconception occurs when people interpret my music successes as a consequence of a talent, rather than countless nights without sleep and days spent learning.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What are the deadlines for completing the task? Which instrument you wish to see as a main (lead) and what you want to highlight in your mix? Which sound feel you prefer: retro, warm, big, modern, etc.? What the mood and the style of the song? Any other preferences?

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

A: In the first place I’ll recommend them to figure out what exactly they want to get. For example they can provide me some references to help me understand what sort of impression they want to achieve from music.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Through color and warmth of great collaboration between synths, electric guitars and drums I try to share my life experience and thoughts about the world we are living in.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Each of them are very individual so it requires special approach to breathe some life into it.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: First of all I pre-organise my workspace — shuffling tracks by the name, type, timbre and so on. Route buses, FX-channels and pre-master channel to work with the reference tracks. And this is where the work starts: First I do time-stretching for all instruments and tune vocals if needed. Building volume levels balance among tracks and then I start processing drums and bass with EQ/compression. Same process is applied to other instruments in the mix. Next step is to correlate timbre of some separate instruments with saturator, chorus, phaser, flanger and other FXs. Then I do bus processing for drums, bass, leads, pads and vocals, like adding some glue compression and EQ if needed. Afterwards I work on space with panning, adding some delay and reverb on instruments, which i want to place/put in a appropriate environment. Meanwhile I compare the sound in progress with references and adjust the volume balance. After the whole process I make a break till the end of the day and start double-check all the mix in order to fix the rest of minor stuff on a next day. However, the final result depends on customer preferences and all of the above concerns only technical aspect.

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

A: Mostly its mixing/mastering, arranging parts of certain instruments or full song/track/OST, recording dialogues, audio processing or editing.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Never stop learning and don`t overdo it.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Analog and digital with their best conjunction.

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

A: I will do my best to complete the work as good as possible.

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

A: Mick Gordon because the music and the way he does it, which inspires me a lot.

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

A: Electronic genres like Synthwave, Retrowave, Witch House and OST`s, ambient or sound design in general.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I observe new knowledge every day from everything I do.

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

A: Mick Gordon, Rudy Mancuso, Andrew Huang are producers who really gave me some breath in music production scope. Martin Garrix, Daft punk, Powernerd, Wolf Alice and lots of others inspire me on their own example.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: PC: CPU: Intel Core I7 6700K. RAM: DDR4 3600MHz 32GB. SSD: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO PLUS. HDD: 4TB Seagate BarraCuda. Headphones: Beyerdynamics DT 1990. Microphone: Audio-technica AT2035. MIDI controllers: Faderport 16, Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol MK2, Presonus ATOM. Amplifier: JDS Labs ATOM.

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

A: It would be a guitar, a few classical instruments like drums and piano, a recorder working on solar power and note sheets.