Precision Mixing and Mastering

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

A: I have been doing production specifically for four years. I've been a guitarist for six years and have played in a few bands. Most of what I have done is out of pure passion as everything I have learnt has been from professional advice and an unquantifiable amount of dedicated research. Many of my friend are successful producers and musicians so I've asked them for advice and also given it out where It feels relevant. Nowadays - I teach music production and work with game companies to deliver AAA quality soundtracks. I get stuck in the Unity engine as well to mix all the sounds to my liking and act as the audio team lead at Futura Games.

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

A: I would LOVE to work with anyone who can sing with great emotional range. I think some Prog Metal vocalists are a good example of this such as Spencer Sotelo, Daniel Thomkins and heck, I wouldn't mind working with any rap artists who have a unique and brash flavour to their music.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: I have recently worked on the Original Game Soundtrack for Smash Track Drifters (Release in fall of 2022). Along with being heavily involved and taking a lead role in the audio department, I was also heavily involved in elements of game design. We have three musicians on the team (including me) so it was natural that we would want to release all the music in a Soundtrack format. I had an absolute blast and produced what is actually my favourite song of all time as of now. This song was for the 'Demolition Derby' game mode and aims to fuse together the aggressive production of the Doom Soundtracks with modern Drum and Bass. The track is titled "D3M0N DR1V3". Here's a link to the OST: https://open.spotify.com/album/2VJGGt32J646OiOeymjTGE?si=8PPpRqGzQnyO2_bPgLU0hw

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Currently working on sound for a few game projects. This includes sound design, audio programming, mixing and composing.

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

A: I think I know people but I need to double check if they are active still.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital, but using analogue emulation. This way you get the best of both worlds on top of being able to create dynamic mixes using automation.

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

A: That useful communication will remain throughout the duration of the job.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The instant gratification of making a satisfying auditory experience. Also helping someone to achieve their creative vision.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: "Will my mix and master be as loud/clear like the artists I like?" Yes, give me an example and I'll go off of that. "When can In expect the task to be done?" It usually takes about a day or two to do any of this kind of stuff. I'll keep you updated when I start working on it and I have free time available. Most cases, I'll tell you exactly within the next week that I plan to work on it.

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

A: That I will be able to "fix" a song.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Would you feel confident in showing someone your current project who doesn't already know about it or do you expect me to fix it so that you can? Do you have any reference material that I can look at (favourite bands etc.) to get a rough idea of what you are expecting. Is everything you are going to give me laid out in an understandable manner?

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

A: Mixing wise, to make sure that you feel confident showing someone your song as it is even unmixed. Also to try and bounce everything down into rendered out stems with the effects you've added, AS WELL AS sending the RAW/Only Slightly processed recordings. For sound design, just to have a clear objective in mind and to have reference material.

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

A: Laptop, Acoustic Guitar, Audio Interface, My Beherdynamic Headphones and an entirely solar powered modular synth rack.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Able to Dynamically change between Hyper Agression, and Soothing Ambience

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Step one of having a good end is having a good arrangement.

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

A: Mostly metal and electronic music, but sometimes composing calls for something like an orchestral or ambient track which I will also produce my self.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Aggressive sounds

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: What I do is make sure that each element in a song comes across in a way that best conveys what the artist intends.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: For mixing, I immediately start by categorising all the stems and colour coding them so that I get an instant overview of the project. This then helps me to visualise how different instruments and elements interact with each other as I construct my bus network (while also using a rough template for speed). I then apply some basic effects to the MixBus like compression to glue everything together so I know how it will sound when it hits the end of the plugin chain. From here, I then have 4 stages: -Making sure every element is as audible as it should be (mainly levelling) -Removing any instantaneous problems that may stand out to me (Gating Drum Mics, Harsh guitar Freqs etc.) -Using the grouping that I laid out to glue everything together in a way that is audibly satisfying (Bus Compression, Large EQ moves, touch of saturation) -Introducing parallel processing, transient shaping and considering the stereo image of the track so that everything meets the desired standard I will then test the mix on multiple monitoring devices like phone speakers, TVs cars, Bluetooth speakers to make sure that the song comes through with a desired clearness, punchiness and fullness. Sound design is a similar yet different beast to this. I first consider the transient of the sound. It's either an instantaneous sound, something that will have a more gradual attack or something continuous with no transient. After this, I consider adding layers to the sound so that it is audibly pleasing. After this, I add effects that I think differentiate the sound and make it interesting. This is then finally appropriately compressed and limited to the right level so that it can be quickly integrated into the desired medium.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio setup is currently a pair of 5 inch Presonus studio monitors along with a 10 inch active bass subwoofer. I use an Audient interface to give power to my microphone and Beherdynamic DT990 pro headphones to check binaural elements of a mix.

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

A: Mick Gordon for Sure! I just love what he's done with combining modern Metal and Electronic elements and his production work is always incredible. We are also in a similar situation where we both have worked on sound design for games so we know the ins and outs of it. Another artist inspiration for me is DeadMau5 as he thinks about elements of mixing in the compositional stage and isn't afraid to cross genre boundaries. In terms of mix engineers who have inspired me, I actually started out watching Adam (Nolly) Getgood's tutorials on how he mixes the Periphery stuff. His mixing process something that I know off by heart and it has proved super useful as a reference. There are also other great Metal/Rock producers such as Tue Madsen, Devin Townsend and Joey Sturgis who all do phenomenal work in the metal sphere.

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

A: The most common work that I do is sound design and mixing. My mixing is normally done based on stems that an artist will send me, along with the appropriate information such as BPM, Key and any other important details (e.g. Time Signature changes). I will then send them either snippets of the song at a higher quality, or the whole song with a lower lossless MP3 quality (and slight watermarking) based on what the artist prefers. For sound design I create sounds from scratch using both Foley and Synthesis depending on the style. I then standardise the loudness of each sound to an appropriate level so they can be put straight into the desired medium.