Mixing and Clean-up Engineer

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

A: I worked on a Hard Rock single with a friend and fellow musician, it was the engineer as well as session guitarist for the project. it was a fun project to be a part of.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I am working on a personal composition project to build my composition portfolio.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I would love to have an all analog studio but the cost of a full analog studio is almost unattainable for most engineers that are not independently wealthy. I do like the convenience of digital as I can do almost everything i need to within my computer except the interface and speakers.

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

A: I will, to the best of my ability and knowledge, provide you with the highest quality of product I am capable of turning out.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I get to do what I love, I get to see results come to life and I get to make customers happy.

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

A: That we are specialists in every area of audio. I happen to have experience in other areas beside mixing but that is not common with other engineers that i know, they typically pick one area and stick with it.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What sound are you going for? What do area do you want to come out the most in the mix? How will you be sending the audio to me (Cloud, Google Drive, Flash Drive, etc)

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

A: Be clear and concise about what you are looking for, provide references from artist you are wanting to sound like, or in the case of church post production, provide links to another churches livestream that you want yours to sound like.

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

A: a power source, a computer, an interface, headphones, and a microphone.

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

A: I started in High School when i took my school Entertainment Productions program and learned about Pro Tools, interfaces, different kinds of microphones, amplifiers, etc. From there I got my own interface and recording rig, and its grown more and more since then. I have been a movie composer, short term professional musician, live sound engineer, and broadcast engineer. I have been working in audio since 2011.

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

A: If I could work with one artist, I would love to work with Unleash the Archers. I love their music and style, I love the contrast between their lead vocalist and their backup vocalist who does the harsher, metal vocals. i love the melodies between guitar and bass, and of course the drums are just a masterpiece to listen to.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away for a couple hours, go do something unrelated to the project, let your mind rest, and then go back and take another crack at it. You will be surprised what a difference that makes in the overall process.

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

A: Metal and Hard Rock are my preferred genres to work on, but lately i have done a little bit of everything from Country to Pop to Hip Hop and Folk.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My strongest skill is audio clean-up. Removing unwanted noise, getting the right timbre from each instrument and voice, making sure the final track is the highest quality possible for my client.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Experience in two disparate genres of music (metal and pop) has helped me use out of the box ideas for many genres to get the intended sound and feel to the track. I'm not afraid to try new things when a client wants a specific sound for their track or project.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Depends on the job but it usually involves an initial listen to the audio just to get an idea of the content. Then I will take a reference mix from a similar project of mine or a reference mix of an artist to match the track to and listen to what some of the audio highlights are. After that I will mix/edit/clean-up as needed to provide the best quality track possible for the client.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: i have a pretty small but effective set up. I use Pro Tools and Logic Pro for my mixing and editing, RX7 and Ozone for cleanup and mastering, and then I have SSL complete for specialty plug-ins. I use Adam Audio Monitors and Focusrite interfaces.

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

A: Engineers that inspire me are Tom Dowd, Geoff Emrick and Sylvia Massy. They are engineers that have stepped outside the box to create sounds and mixes like no one else, and they have enabled multiple generations of engineers to push the bounds of the current technology.

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

A: I have most recently worked closely with churches who are wanting to bring their productions to a higher level of quality. I enjoy working with churches and worship teams to get them the highest quality product possible before it gets posted online, or sent out to be mastered/distributed.