Mastering Engineer

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What's the story or feeling you want to tell with the song. Is there a specific sound you're after. Those kinds of things really.

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

A: It's always helpful to have a clear idea on what you want to get out of a mix or mastering session.

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

A: I've been working professionally in the music business since 2006 releasing music under my artist name "Qbical". Since getting my degree in Music Technology in 2009 I've been working as a mastering and mix engineer.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Watch your levels. In these modern days of DAW's everything is always turned up to the max which leads to distortion and less transparant results most of the time. Try using a gain meter on your individual tracks and keep your level at around -18dBFS by using a gain trim. It'll give you so much more headroom and clarity in your mixes!

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

A: Electronic Music, all electronic music. But coming from a Rock and Punk background I don't mind a band project from time to time :)

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: My goal is to emphasize the intended feeling or emotion of a given song.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Pretty straightforward actually, a client submits his song as a wav file or archive of wav files when mixing along with a description of the intended result in terms of sound. Always great to include some info on inspiration and things like that it will help me translate the story better in the mix or master. After I did my part I send the finished product back for review. If in any case there is a revision to be made the process repeats itself.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have a small but feature packed little project studio build around an iMac with a Apollo Twin. Mastering and mixing work features a lot of UAD stuff along with products from FabFilter and some 'secret sauce' processing. In my production work I love to use my analog synths, being a huge Dave Smith fan I own a Mopho Key's and a Tetra. I also use a small MFB Little Synth for the more dirty sounding synth work. For recording I own a couple of capable but not very special microphones that get the job done. For more elaborate recording I book another studio here in the area.

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

A: Music needs to trigger me on a certain emotional level to really inspire me. Artist that do this are for example the Chemical Brothers. Love how they use electronic gear to insert so much soul and emotion into their music.

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

A: It's always about finding the best way to get the most out of the recording. This could be mastering, a proper mix of the song or just giving pointers on how to improve the song by going in a different direction in terms of arrangement or sound selection.