Bass Music Mixing & Mastering

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

A: To be an impartial listenener before working on their tracks, and tell them what can be adjusted in the mixdown process before I start working on the mastering with absolute no compromise. Also to work on their tracks until they are happy with them

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I like to make tracks sound great. I love when a client comes back to me and tells that his track is now unbelievable compared to before mixing, mastering or both. I also like talking with clients about their music, this way i can know their universe andknow exactly what they are looking for.

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

A: "Can you make my master sound louder ?" hahah, this is the most common question, if the track allows me to go higher in terms of volume i'll do it (it's the client's choice) but i always tell them the louder i go, the more distorted their track can be.

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 laptop (of course), Audeze's headphones, a good monitor control (dangerous the source) or a good headphones amp, Solar power supply (i guess it can last long in the desert haha), and some stuff to get internet connection.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: When mastering, i'll say my style is "transparent", since i'm working on bass music mainly, people tend to want an almost exact retranscription of their mixdowns, they don't want "crazy" changes, so i mainly try to clear what's bad in their tracks while remaining transparent rather than adding lots of color. But if i think a track is too "cold" and sounding maybe too digital, i'll use some stuff to color it a little more and give a "analog" feeling.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: We've first (a good friend and myself) worked a few months to get a good acoustically treated environment, it took us so much time to get a nice balance especially because we handcrafted almost everything that's in the studio from the mastering desk to the absorbtion and diffusion panels (excepet a few diffusors we've bought). Then ,since analog outboard gear is expensive and because the studio is quite new (almost two years) I still don't have all the gear i'd like to. Actually i run a pair of PSI A215-M as my main monitors and a pair of Dynaudio BM 12 A, both wired to my monitor controller which is a Dangerous music D-BOX i also use it for analog summing. The main converter is a antelope orion 32 , i also use it like a digital patchbay. Then i have a Dangerous Music BAX EQ which is sweet as hell for bass music, Dangerous Music compressor aswell huge and transparent for bass music loudness war haha, and very soon a Stam audio SA 4000 (SSL X logic clone) and a Pendulum PL2. after that i'll have no money for a little moment but I plan to get more gear in the future. I think people should take in consideration skills rather than the outboard gear, not to say that i'm better but i've mixed some tracks when i had absolutely no crazy stuff that actually sounded better than what i've heard coming out of some studios with tons of analog gear (comparing the exact same tracks).

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both, i use digital for some stuff like precise cleaning eq's , stereo enhancing, low end stereo and phase correction and analog for coloring eq's , compression and summing.

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

A: I actually don't know anyone here, but who knows maybe i'll discover some great people and recommend clients.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I ask how they feel about their mixdowns, if they did the best they could and can't go further (based on their skills) or if they think they could still work a little more on it to get a better mixdown before asking for mastering services.

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

A: I've first worked as a music producer for various local artists, then i've expanded my game producing film music and doing sound design and mixing again for local people. Then i stopped to concentrate on audio processing and starting offering my services in this domain. I've created this mastering studio almost two years ago (half 2014) but into audio for almost 10 years now.

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

A: There is not really "one" artist i would like to work with but I would enjoy working with english speaking people a little more, the website is still in French so it tends to be attractie only to french speaking people.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: There's so many tips I could share but the easiest one would be if your mixing, please work with a calibated monitoring setup. Then regarding my part of the work another tip would be don't tell yourself "i want to sound loud at the production stage" this is absolutely useless, even at the mixing stade, sounding loud (if that's what you want to) is part of the mastering, but keep in mind that every aspect of the creation of a track will have an impact on the mastering and of course how loud you can go.

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

A: I work on various genres if needed but i'm specialized into heavy bass music such as dubstep, drum & bass, glitch hop, electro and trap.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I'll say it is critical listening, when i listen to a client's track, wether i like the track or not my listening is always impartial so i can make fast and great decisions when it comes to further processing.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I first download the file, create my client folder, put the file in and then crate the "work project". When done I import the file in my Daw and start my listening phase. I listen to the whole track 1-2 times to feel the track and hear what could be wrong and needs to be cleared or what's good and can be enhanced. If the client provided reference tracks, i listen to them aswell and figure how the client want like his track to sound. After this, I have an idea of what kind of processing the track needs, so I start doing my processing until i'm happy with it, capture the audio and then i always take a 5 mins break while it's recording the processing. I go back to my listening position, and listen the whole track again, if I think it's good I stop, if not, I adjust what can be adjusted until i'm happy with it. If the client provided a reference track, i compare it to the track i've processed with my calibrated monitoring system so i can see if i need to go louder or not. Once everything is done, I send 3 previews to the client (one "dynamic" master, a semi loud and a loud one) so that he can approve my work or not and choose how loud he wants his track to sound. If approved, I send the files to the client and if not I do the corrections until he is pleased with it. Then i send the whole file when i got paid.

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

A: It’s mostly regarding to music production not that much about mixing or mastering, so to name a few of them i’ll say guys such as frequent, noisia, virtual riot but there are so many others.

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

A: The most common type of work I actually do is Mastering single tracks for digital releases, even if I'd like to do more mixing, our clients know our studio for mastering at first so that's the thing I do the most. I'd also like to make more vinyl mastering and less but in this music scene, there is less and less vinyl releases so I stick with digital releases for the moment.