Mixing Engineer

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: A new-age meditative flute album, it's very interesting and beautifully performed.

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

A: Phil Madeira, he recommended this platform to me and he's always been one of my favorite musicians whom I've regularly worked with.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. This is a big and lengthy conversation. Analog is way cooler though, knobs, tubes, tape, vinyl...

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: It's always different, every song is different and when you're done it's done. I love the satisfaction of seeing something completed and an artist truly happy.

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

A: The amount of control in the mixing stage can drastically alter you music, it can make a rap song sound like a pop song or a country song sound like a rock song. It requires a lot of trust and an engineer that understands their objective role.

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

A: I got my first tape recorder when I was 7, I mixed my first record for my band in high school and it sucked pretty bad. I went to the University of South Carolina and studied under fantastic mentors. I logged countless studio hours, did live shows and began recording classical ensembles while in school. After graduation I found myself in Nashville working for a bustling multi-room studio and producing local artists on the side. I've been an audio engineer professionally for over 13 years.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Invisible.

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

A: I'd love to mix a record for Brittany Howard, she's one of the most dynamic artists of my generation in my humble opinion.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: One can only focus on so much at a time, less is more.

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

A: If I'm mixing, anything and everything. Check out my Spotify Playlist, I'm very proud of it's broad variety, I like to think it shows my objectivity as a mixer.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Listening. Listening to the artist and listening to the program material.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Nothing. Without a deep artist's trust, ongoing relationship and in-person sessions, I feel that objectively mixing on a platform like this is most appropriate. I simply want to make your sound balanced and fantastic sounding across every medium.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Talking. We talk about songs you dig, mixes that impress you, perhaps share a playlist. Discussing what mediums you're delivering to and who your base audience is. I like to ask questions and develop a trust. I prep and organize the session, listen, label everything, listen again, set things like HPF and gain structure whilst deciding what processes and algorithms I want to incorporate. I never use templates and start from scratch. Then I mix. I like to complete a mix between 4-12 hours depending on it's complexity and how finished it came to me. Every need is different so every mix get it's own special treatment.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My acoustically treated room holds a loaded Mac Pro (In Iso Case), UAD Octo Cards and Lynx AES16e Interfacing 16 Channels of Panasonic ADA96 Conversion, and Crane Song HEDD 192. Currently I mix in Pro Tools with every plug-in you can own, printing mixes through an analog stereo buss which has been evolving through the years, typically always with an API 2500 and Chandler Curve Bender. What never changes is my monitoring, ProAc Studio 100, Yamaha NS10 and Grado RS1e. Powered by Bryston Amplifiers and SPL Headphone Amplifiers. The cool stuff is always changing out, I love renting rad pieces that I don't have to maintain or pay for, especially microphones from one of the many rental houses here in Nashville, such as Blackbird which is right down the street. I can comfortably cut a 4 piece from my spot, but I prefer to focus on mixing and production from home base.

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

A: Nashville musicians inspire me, I've loved learning from and recording, what I believe to be, the best musicians in the world. I'm also inspired by artists that produce themselves and take the time to learn how to be decisive and true to what they wish to create, without outside voices. I also respect artists that learn to make records well and in this modern age of record production, they're doing it very well.

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

A: Honestly, for independent clients it's usually helping them finish a record another producer or the artist has left unfinished, usually a combination of production and mixing. For label clients it's typically been tracking, mixing or more specific tasks depending on the producer hiring, less direct with artists, lame, like record labels.