Mixing Engineer

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

A: Music is a hobby

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio is called Sonark Media and we have 2 rooms there. The current B room is a mixing and mastering suite fully set up for all formats including Dolby Atmos. We are the only Atmos approved studio by Dolby in NC. It is a wonderful sounding room and is very acurate. I currently still work with my Neve Genesys and some select outboard gear, but pressure is on to move more to a complete in the box set up. The A room is a good size 16ft ceiling live room with 3 large booth and large control room. The console is a 60ch Neve 88R. We mostly record in Pro Tools, but also have a 24 track 2" tape deck and 1/2" 2 track mastering deck available.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I work with the song and the artist. I have a good feel for music and can help inspire artists while they are working. I try to stay away from micro managing mixes. I listen to it as an overall composition, a vision, a piece of art. What is he or she trying to say, how does that message reflect in the sonics? I am not too fussy about perfection, in fact I like imperfections. Sometimes those imperfections make music more real. It connects easier. Too perfect is not human right?

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I prefer to have pre-production or pre-mix meetings with my clients so I can better understand their vision and what sound they are going for. I try to avoid descriptive words that could be interpreted in subjective ways. My aim is to work with song examples as references instead of words. Words could be very misleading; like big drums for me might not be the same as big drums for you. I am amazed at the words that get used sometimes to describe sounds, swampy, muddy, fat, thin,... all of those can mean different things to different people.

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: Look around and find someone that cares about your project. Someone who you can work with and that you can talk to so you can share your vision and discuss it.

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

A: I have always had great admiration for Andy Wallace's work. I love the way he makes things drive, has total clarity to his mixes and they sound consistently great no matter where he mixes. Vlado Meller, who taught me how to master, is of course a fantastic inspiration. He gave me some great advice on working with labels and clients. In fact, I still talk to him now and then for advice. In more recent years, I have been greatly inspired by my friend Scott Solter (boxharp.com) who is amazing at building soundscapes and focussing on arrangement.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: H3000, U67, ELOP, Bricasti, 1176

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

A: I have been playing music since I was 12 years old, but only started professionally working as an engineer since 2013.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: energetic, driven, enthousiastic

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

A: Dave Grohl. Because he is a legend and a God.

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

A: I have a very diverse client base. I worked on metal, rock, jazz, edm, blue grass, americana, singer songwriter projects. All quite different with different budgets and objectives too. Most recently I finished a spoken word jazz album for Program for Jazz that was fun and then a complicated project with Indian composer Rajan that had a full symphonic orchestra score written to 2000y old poetry in the Tamil language.

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

A: Most of my work consist of recording, mixing and mastering services.