Vocal Mix Engineer

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

A: At the moment no because I’m still new to the platform

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital, it goes back to doing the best you can with what you have. I never had the money growing up to afford expensive studio equipment. And while I may use paid for plugins that can emulate some analog gear, I still hold true to the idea that it can we can make things happen without it’s.

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

A: I promise to remain diligent and always remain a student of the craft. I don’t know everything, but I’m not afraid to admit that and I’m not scared to seek information and answers from more knowledgeable sources.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I love the process of chasing a pristine sound at the start of a mix. The guestemations on how to tackle a problem and finding out that I was correct, or that I wasn’t. It’s all fascinating to me. I just love being able to transform a sound!

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

A: Yo is that with no autotune? Me: No, there’s autotune on it. It’s just not aggressive Can you take it off quick? let me hear it Me: yeah, sure Aight you know what? Can you put it back on? Me: yeah, sure

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

A: I’m not sure.

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

A: Communication: Let me know what you’re aiming for and let me know if you want anything fixed or changed after I send it to you! I’d rather fix it than leave you unhappy with the outcome.

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

A: Audio Technica Ath-m50x, laptop, Behringer UMC202HD, AT2035, and a midi controller/keyboard.

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

A: Started recording my acoustic projects with my cousin around 2009. Few years later, I began recording a good friend’s rap projects. From a few songs here and there, to entire projects. I spent many long nights working on my craft and learning as much as I could. And once I finally finished a mix that sounded professional on low budget equipment.. I was hooked. I fell in love with the process of doing the best I could with the tools I had. So much so that I even recreated mixes that I did with Slate Digital and Waves plugins, with stock plugins on Reaper and then giving it a go in Pro Tools with stock plugins as well. Just to see if I could get the same result.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Simple and subtle. Subtle because I don’t like for fancy effects to overwhelm a mix. I heard a quote once that always stuck with me: “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” Simple, because I like to stay very organized from the DAW to the filenames and folders that the projects are saved to. One should never be so disorganized that they become lost in their own sauce.

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

A: J Cole. Why? Because he’s a great lyricist and he knows about audio production so I could definitely learn a lot from him in the session.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Master the basics. Once you have a solid understanding of the basics, and you address the basics first in a mix, everything else will tend to follow nicely.

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

A: Normally I work on hip hop and rap. I have some light experience mixing pop rock, and hardcore metal.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: A fine tuned ear, and mixing at a lower volume for most of the mix so that my mixes are translating well and audible at lower volumes without necessarily having to CRANK it.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring to a song clarity, tone, and balance.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I start with the basics. We gain stage, and we switch to mono. We’re dealing with unwanted noise, quieting or removing the breaths of the vocal take, and then we remove any troublesome frequencies. Then we’re going to get into preamp emulation, compression, some additional eq, and de-essing. Once I have a good sounding dry vocal that’s when I start adding busses for effects like reverb and delay and a few other toys!

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I mix in the box. I have the Slate Digital plugins, some UAudio, and a ton of Waves.

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

A: Noah Shebib, Dave Pensado

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

A: I primarily focus on vocal mixing