Recording/Mixing Engineer on SoundBetter

Experienced mixing and recording engineer who's been working professionally for almost 10 years! My studio and sound is all about vibe, I love gear that imparts color, and have stocked my studio full of pieces that scratch that particular itch, things like outboard gear full of transformers and tubes, and a huge collection of vintage instruments.

I've been pushing faders professionally for almost ten years now, and have been into recording for 15. I went to the Hartt School of Music where I graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Music in Music Production and Technology. I'm also an accomplished guitarist and bass player.

I have my own full service studio in Northampton, MA, but also offer remote mixing and overdub services. I've got a huge collection of gear to draw on, as well as a full complement of the latest plugins. My studio is based around a Trident Series 70 console, I run a very hybrid setup, combining the strength and color of the console with the flexibility of mixing in a DAW. I offer guitar and bass overdubs, and have a large contingent of incredible session musicians I can call on to fill out any given song, drums, keys, banjo, you name it and I have someone I can call to lay in tracks!

In this brave new world we face, I'm finding a lot of artists have been working from home on their recordings, and are looking for a professional to mix their songs. Mixing is hard, and takes a lot of practice to become proficient. If this sounds like you, reach out! I specialize in bringing warmth and vibe to recordings.

I'd love to work on your mixes, and if you're nearby and want to record in a beautiful studio next to a waterfall with a huge complement of instruments, I'd love to have you come through!

Send me a note through the contact button above.

Credits

2 Reviews

Endorse Recording/Mixing Engineer

by Andrew Daly Frank
Andy is a super knowledgable and skilled engineer and mixer. Over the years, he's recorded and mixed my full projects; helped add overdubs that fit perfectly into my home recordings; and mixed my own home-recorded album and one I produced for another artist. He has a ton of great gear to add warmth and color, and knows how to use it. He's also a great musician. Highly recommended!
by Jake Klar
I’ve worked with Andy on over 10 projects over the years, full albums, EPs & singles. From sparse solo based acoustic songs to full production songs. He’s a versatile, talented, kind and hardworking engineer. Would certainly recommend working with him on your next project!

Interview with Recording/Mixing Engineer

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: I was the bassist, engineer, and co-producer on Izzy Heltai's Day Plan EP, a record that saw something of an unexpected and exciting boost in popularity a few years ago. I think we really found a great world for those songs to live in.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
A: I am wrapping up mixing on a indie-folk LP with lots of hand percussion and weird sounds that I am super excited to be a part of, and I am knees deep in another LP that I guess you can call Indie-psych or Indie-Prog? They're wildly different records and I'm having so much fun on both of them
Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?
A: There isn't unfortunately, but I'm interested in meeting the community!
Q: Analog or digital and why?
A: Both! Well I don't mess with tape, but I mix hybrid analog, tape is expensive and I haven't had the proper mentor to teach me how to use and calibrate a deck properly. But I definitely keep one foot in either camp while I'm mixing.
Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: I promise that I'll listen to you and do my best to see your project through to your vision.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: I love that I get to make music all day. I also really love that I found what I was put on this earth to do with my life and am able to do it every day to make a living
Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?
A: "How do you have so much gear?" I always tell them that in that moment, they're seeing the current end point of a 10+year long march of acquiring gear one or two pieces at a time, and that it takes a long time to amass a collection like I have.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: That mixing is something every artist should be able to do for their own music. Mixing is a fascinating blend of both art and science, a lot of artists I've worked with who have tried their hands at mixing their own music have gotten bogged down and frustrated when they discover that YouTube tutorials do a great job of covering the technical side of mixing, and a really poor job of explaining the artistic practice required to get mixes to where their ears hear their songs.
Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?
A: The first question I ask almost every client is "what music are you into right now?" I ask this because it immediately will help me calibrate what they may be looking for out of a project with me, as well as shed a lot of potential light on things they may be into, and if we're a good fit to work together.
Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: Make sure you find an engineer who is willing to listen to you about your goals for a project, and not just send it through their Standard Mixing Template.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: My console, my 414ULS's, a Hammond B3, my telecaster, and my Yamaha P Bass. I'm going with things that I know, I could make basically any record with just those tools and I'd be happy with it.
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: I went to college for recording and I've been picking at engineering for going on 12 years now, I went full time about 8 years ago as an engineer, I'm almost 20 years into working in audio in some fashion or another at this point.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: Vibey and clean, bearing in mind that clean does not me "sterile"
Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?
A: I'd love the opportunity to work with Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. I love his aesthetic sensibilities, especially when he gets more experimental with his sonic choices.
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: When you're trying to add parts to a song, think of the vertical range instead of just timbral range when deciding where to add a part and what instrument to add in. There's often an octave that is underrepresented in any given arrangement that you may want to choose to fill and haven't noticed before!
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: I mostly work on indie rock/pop/folk, but I'm comfortable in pretty much any genre
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: I'd say that in my general tracking workflow, my strongest skill is my ability to coach and communicate ideas to artists, in mixing, I think my strongest skill is making clear mixes that fit together with subtlety and allow every part the artist worked so hard to fit into their song to shine when it's appropriate for them to.
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: I like to think that my arranging and production ideas are a particular area of strength, I am also a fully qualified engineer, but I've always subscribed to the notion that I'm a musician first, engineer second. I have a deep knowledge of music theory and a very strong understanding of how to arrange parts for songs.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: Music is best made in collaboration! As engineer/producer, I work very hard to make a point that I'm not the hero of another artists song, my biggest focus is interpreting the artist and what they're hearing for a particular song in their head while we're working on it, and doing my best to get it as close to their vision of the song as I possibly can
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: My entire studio is based around a late 70s Trident Series 70 console, I both track and mixdown on it! It's my favorite piece of audio equipment I own, as soon as I got it installed, it felt like everything I had been chasing for ages before buying it fell into place sonically, and it was all right at my fingertips. Outside of the desk, I built my studio musician first, with an emphasis on great instruments and amp, I have something like 25 guitars, three drum kits, a fistful of basses, and a bunch of amps to work with and they all add up to recordings that I'm incredibly happy to be making
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: I love stylized recordings, I'm particularly a huge fan of the late 2000s indie mid-fi vibe, UMO, early Tame Impala, MGMT, Wilco, Beck, all the heavy hitters are among my favorites
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: As a studio owner, I wear many different hats and have worked on a huge variety of projects over the years, but I'd say that the most common kind of project I've been working on lately has been helping songwriters without a full band build a full band record from bare bones voice+guitar or piano demos. I have access to a wonderful cadre of session musicians, and play a wide variety of instruments myself. In pursuit of this, I find myself doing a lot of work helping artists see their visions through via arrangement and production choices