Remote Mixing & Mastering

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

A: Amy Marriannes' last EP 'Never Mind' was a great project to be part of. She brought in the demos and we recorded everything from scratch. It was awesome to be involved in a project through the whole project, Amy is a hugely talented songwriter and musician, and I think the record we made reflects that.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I'd describe myself as a bit of a chameleon. I'm a real music lover, so getting to work in any style and really embrace its quirks and idiosyncrasies is something that keeps the job fresh and exciting. I'm a big fan of finding the positives in any capture, and trying to accentuate that, rather than immediately breaking out the razor blade and the surgical filtering.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: More is not always more! Try stopping, backing off your 6 Logic compressors and your really surgical EQ, see what the recordings do when you let them breathe.

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

A: It's super varied, recently it's been female singer songwriter material. Think PJ Harvey. dodie, Agnes Obel. Amy Marrianne and Siobhan Wilson were both big projects that I've undertaken recently, purely by coincidence. There's also been a lot of small string ensembles due to my time working at Edinburgh College of Art - the Composition for Screen students were always really eager to get their scores recorded in the concert hall with real players, and seeing their reactions to hearing their music outside of their sample libraries was always very gratifying. Given that however, I'm no stranger to punk rock and indie, I had some great times tracking Manchester band Cavana when they were in operation.

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

A: At the moment it's the remote mix and master. Clients send me their stems and I get to work gluing it all together. More and more I'm getting pop productions with sample based orchestration, and It's always satisfying to see the amount of realism that can be brought out of these great libraries with the right mix. Mastering and loudness standards are also a sort of misunderstood area, so as well as providing a well mastered product at the right loudness, I'm finding clients appreciating some info about the way loudness works, and why the loudest possible master isn't always the right thing.