John Merkel on SoundBetter

Your Vision, My Mission.

"Don't do anything small." I make this a reality in everything I do. My mission is to bring your vision to life with this same passion and dedication.

My journey in Audio Production began after a decade of playing the guitar. For the past 10 years, I’ve refined my ability to translate a musician’s perspective into creating audio program material with depth, clarity, and control.

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

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Interview with John Merkel

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: To be for you. To work with you to achieve the sound in your head. Sometimes that comes quickly and easily. Other times it can be an uphill battle. In any scenario my promise is to serve you and your vision.
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: I started working in live sound about 10 years ago off the recommendation of an engineer I was recording an album with. I almost immediately fell in love and never looked back. I've done predominantly live but find a different thrill and enjoyment out of working on studio projects.
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: I have a small space in my home thats well treated and equipped with great sound gear. I use Genelec monitors and UA interfaces/DSP.
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: Noah Gundersen is the first artist that pops into my head. Him and the team he works with excel at creating really unique, almost 3D feeling soundscapes that really draw the listener in.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: Wizardry. A mix or mastering engineer can't fix poor decisions that have come before them. At most we can make the best out of a bad situation, but it will never live up to the sound in your head.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: Macbook Pro, Apollo, SM7, Guitar, and my pedalboard!
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: MAKE DECISIONS! I can't recount the countless hours I've wasted on the minuscule that ultimately doesn't effect the end product. If it sounds good it's good, be confident in that and move on to the next thing.
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: Indie, Rock, Worship
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: I utilize a pretty sizable template I've built around a concept of creativity inside of healthy boundaries. It's preloaded with all of the tracks I typically see from a client with some choice plugins instantiated, effect and summing busses setup, and my typical LR chain. This setup allows me to work really quickly to get files ingested and start working without having to mess around with routing and setup. From there I'll go through the stems to get an understanding of everything going on and then start putting it all in place.
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: Predominantly mixing services. From time to time I have the opportunity to produce/engineer a project and it's a lot of fun. I especially love producing electric guitars.