Calin Grajdan on SoundBetter

I’m an experienced producer & engineer that specializes in modern radio and pop music, hip-hop & trap, with a lot of versatility in other areas as well, such as TV Commercials.

In a bit over 8 years, I have been through and worked on multiple genres, from metal and rock to Pop & EDM, mixed and produced a few songs that went on to be featured on the radio, and also worked on the sound design and did the mixing for a lot of TV and radio commercials for brands such as Carrefour, Nivea and Garnier.

I have my own studio, where I’m almost daily except for Saturdays.

My main DAW is Ableton Live 11 and I’m mixing mostly using UAD plugins, on a UAD Octo and UAD Interface — currently the standard for loyal analog emulation. I'm also making use of Acustica Audio plugins on a regular. When I’m writing stuff I usually play them on my main keyboard, a Dave Smith Prophet REV-2. Mixing is done on a pair of EVE SC307-active&three way studio monitors.

Despite being self taught and valuing real practice & getting my hands dirty, I have also taken formal courses at the SAE Institute, learned a lot of stuff on Mixing with the Masters, and did a mentorship with a local engineer with decades of experience, who is handling the majority of local songs on the radio every day.

Expanded portfolio: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtLqpJjQbzT80Fo-HbZcP7yi-cljTLaBP

Click the 'Contact' above to get in touch. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Click the 'Contact' above to get in touch. Looking forward to hearing from you.

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Interview with Calin Grajdan

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: To keep in their mind that the quality of the production/recording is having a big impact on the final result. A good sounding song is not coming from the mixing&mastering stage, it's a combination of all the factors implied in the creation process.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: In your face & crystal clear.
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: For sure. Always pay attention to your kick: the lenght, the initial punch, the freq spectrum. If your kick is good at all these parameters, then you will have a very good foundtation. Both in production and mixing. The kick is much more important than you think. When doing that, you also need you have your bass in mind too. Always check their relationship. Use a frequency spectrum analyzer & an osciloscope plugin to visualise your kick, and a volume shaper/envelope plugin + EQ to tweak it. *aditional tips: -always make your kick have a good first transient/punch. Otherwise, you are compromised -EQ your low end with the bass relationship in consideration. Sometimes your kick may have too much low end/vice-versa -the lenght of the kick is also having a pretty big impact on the bass, so tweak that to your needs
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: I like to think that i bring that final touch the song needs, while keeping the original artistic vision of the song intact.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: Firstly, i like to talk with the client about their prefferences. A refference song could be also very usefull. Then, i start the work. I begin with routing & grouping the tracks, then the gainstaging takes place. I keep the demo from the artist always in my session, so i can mix around their vision. The rest is purely magic :)
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: First of all, i work in a fully acoustically treated studio room. As gear, i use a Universal Audio Apollo Twin for D/A conversion + a UAD Octo core DSP processor. The monitors i own are a pair of EVE SC307 - active, three way monitors. Can have acces to almost any analog piece of gear if the client asks. As plugins, a few examples are: Acustica Audio, UAD, Oxford, Melda Productions, FabFilter, Waves & more. Everything is fully licensed.

I was the Mixing & Mastering engineer in this production

Mixing EngineerAverage price - $200 per song
Mastering EngineerAverage price - $80 per song
Podcast Editing & MasteringAverage price - $75 per podcast
Game AudioContact for pricing

Depends on the specific service. Usually the turn around is between 2 and 5 days (for complex services) and you have 3 revisions included — just so every little detail is exactly as you want!