Mixing, Mastering, Production

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

A: A project we worked on tirelessly was Matthew Joseph's album "You Make My Soul Sing". We worked hand in hand through this incredibly sensitive project and created what we believe to be a great product of passion, beauty, and a perfect sound for the artist. We produced, composed, mixed, and mastered the album. To this date it is one of our proudest achievements.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: We are currently working with a local artist in both the creation of their music and the mixing/mastering of their projects.

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

A: Unfortunately there are no soundbetter services that we personally know. Fortunately, this is a great website for finding what you need and our recommendation is to browse that various and vast talent that exists here.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both, we believe there is no black and white to the analog vs. digital debate. Some analog gear brings character and beauty to a product, while some just offers noise and expensive maintenance. Digital gear is the wave of the future and offers a ton of new, never-before-heard benefits that aren't possible with analog gear. So yes we are diplomats in this debate.

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

A: We promise that we will represent your creation in its best possible form, and we will do our best to achieve that. We sincerely believe that the art deserves to be respected and represented in its best possible form.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: We love the end product. Of course that's the most obvious answer but it's the truth. We love stepping back and hearing the difference and we especially love delivering the final product to the client. We live for the best possible representation of art, and we love giving that to our clients.

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

A: Could I mix and you master? The quick answer is yes. The long answer is that we have a lot less control once we hit the mastering stage, so make sure your mix is pretty much what you want and we will make sure we give you the best possible version of your mix.

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

A: Mixing is moving faders up and down, slapping some fancy effects on, and charging an arm and a leg for basically nothing. In reality we work tirelessly to find the perfect balance of all elements and this comes from years of experience.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: We ask a simple question, what do you want your music to say? Our job is basically a buffer between you and your listeners, so we want a clear message to translate in to your creations.

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

A: Have a vision, a clear vision. We want nothing more than to bring that perfect picture you have in your head to the lime-light. If you tell us exactly what you want for your creation, then we will do everything we can to make it happen.

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

A: An acoustic guitar, a field recorder, a set of really nice headphones, a laptop, and an audio engineer to tell us how cool our gear is.

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

A: We come from backgrounds of music and studio, this meaning that we all have a great deal of professional experience on both sides of the stage. We are musicians from a young age and professional audio engineers who have worked in world class facilities for the better part of our lives.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Our style is a mix of pure artistry and method. By this we mean we find the art in traditional methods. We have a strong knowledge of how things are meant to be done, and we like to ride the line of following these guidelines and finding ways we can use them as a starting point for more inspired, artistic methods.

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

A: An artist our team would love to work with is Shakey Graves, from Texas. We believe artists such as himself, with a prolific library of songs, would be a joy to work with and understand better.

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

A: Typically we work on a wide variety of genres and types of music. Our most common genres are Indie/Folk/Singer-Songwriter and Modern R&B. With that being said, we have worked on a vast scope of genres from Country to Heavy Metal and we always treat music, no matter the genre, with the upmost respect.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Our strongest skill is our ability to hear a song and know what it needs. Basically we see a song as more than just sound, but an entity that has wants and needs. A song speaks for itself, it can tell you what it needs, and we believe that we've gotten very good at listening to what a song has to say.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Here at Illium we like to exceed expectations. We bring what we believe to be the missing piece, or the final element of any song we work on. We focus on making a song as complete as it can be and we strive to bring the best elements out to help them shine.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Our work process is that of balance. We strive to turn a song or project around as fast as humanly possible while maintaining a great deal of attention to detail and ensuring each project gets the attention it deserves. We put 105% in to every project we work on and it ensure no creation is ever neglected or mistreated.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: We have a world class facility in western Canada that's been meticulously engineered to harbour excellent sound and unique character. Our walls are made of multiple materials to both trap and diffuse sound and eliminate any artifacts evident in most rooms. Our monitoring is balanced, tweaked, and tuned to perfection to ensure music is heard as it is meant to be.

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

A: We find inspiration everywhere, from the old greats to the modern masters of new innovative genres. All in all we like to think of ourselves as always progressing and finding new sources of inspiration.

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

A: Our most typical work is mixing and mastering. We are passionate about the mix, we believe that a good mix is like processing a rough diamond, polishing and cutting it to perfection to represent its form as it was always intended.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Don't use plug-ins as a crutch. Sure you can load up a bunch of cool toys but nothing can ever beat a good mix.