Producer / Mixing / Mastering

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

A: I would HIGHLY recommend reaching out to Justin Magnaye or Talyana on SoundBetter to write / topline for your productions and music. They are extremely talented vocalists / songwriters and will put their best foot forward when working on your music. Definitely check them out!

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

A: I work on everything except country. I grew up on pop and hip-hop, so those really resonate with me. But then again, music production for me started with EDM, so I also love working on that as well. I was also in a rock band in high school, so punk rock/rock is also an area I'm somewhat familiar with. Oh, and K-Pop is my new specialty and it's been such a fun experience to produce something so diverse and complex.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: For a full run-through from start to finish: I start with production, getting the beat done. Then, I send it out to the client to write over, waiting for vocals to be delivered. Once they're delivered, if it's a song with melodies, I go straight to pitch editing in Melodyne. If it's a straight rap, I go to time-editing in Ableton Live 11. If both, I combine the two processes together. Once the vocals are comped and edited, I export the vocals and production stems into Logic Pro X, where I start to mix. After three to twenty mixes, I set up my mastering session and boom, the track is done.

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

A: A lot of my fellow peers and mentors inspire me to be better and constantly work towards getting a better mix. Some of these people include BABYBOYBLUE (Amanda Yang, Delly Flay, Justin Magnaye, Rachel Bochner), Ben Thomas (Lil Uzi Vert, Post Malone, NLE Choppa), and Ryan Schwabe (CL, Joji, Ellie Goulding, REI AMI).

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

A: Mixing. It's such a vague job description that not many people understand exactly what these engineers do, so they downplay its importance. Let me make this very clear: Mixing is one of the most important steps in the music creation process. It can literally make or break a song. People are like "Can you mix my song for $50" and for me, that's honestly ridiculous. For the amount of work I put in to make your track sound nice and professional, spending hours tweaking the stems to get them right, and referencing them on various speakers and devices, it definitely takes a lot more time than $50 to do all of that. So mixing is a very important step in the process of music creation, despite what people might believe to be otherwise. And if you can't afford to pay the money for a solid, decent mix, then save your money to hire me to do it, because a quality product is worth more than a cheap, rushed, not-so-great sounding product.

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

A: I promise to my clients that they will always be satisfied with their product. My services aren't cheap, so I want my clients to make sure the record they get is up to the quality of standard that they paid for. I will always work closely with the client to ensure that their vision is executed through the production/mix/master!

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My strongest skill would definitely have to be production. I grew up from painting/art/drawing, and music production is essentially that: It's painting with sounds. I love creating vibes and sounds, experimenting with different sounds to evoke a certain type of feeling, or transforming sounds into weird elements that work in the production. It's all experimentation to me, and sometimes beautiful things happen on accident, and that happens all when I produce, so I love it.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I like to bring a story in my productions. If there's a song about surfing, for example, I'd want to maybe add waves crashing in the background or seagulls to set the atmosphere for the record. Basically, I like to put little details in my production that will push the record to become more exciting and unique to the client. The same idea goes for mixing.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio set up is very simple: A laptop, two monitors, and a pair of Audio Technica MTH50x monitor headphones. I work very in-the-box, because as a college student, I can't afford a lot of expensive outboard gear, so I use more software, and hey, it works - and it's helped me throughout the years to just mix/produce on the go.

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

A: I usually do production, mixing, and mastering for many of my clients. Rarely do I ghost-write or song-write, as I like to leave the lyrical creativity to my clients.