Pop Mixing

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

A: I don't personally know anyone on SoundBetter but the SoundCheck feature is pretty neat.

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

A: Communication is key. If I feel like we have extreme creative differences, I will let you know early in the process and discuss how we both want to approach the project.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Some personal projects!

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

A: Whether I can play every single instrument on a song - I can't. I can program it in for you though.

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

A: The majority of people believe mixing is an easy task, and SOMETIMES, it can be! Most of the time though, it is about enhancing the emotional feeling a track gives to a listener and there is no set procedure to explain what is needed for that to happen.

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

A: 1. Neumann U87 2. M1 Macbook Pro 3. Grand Piano 4. Headphones 5. Another U87 lol

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I try my best to make everything sound as organic as possible. Life changes every second and I try to reflect that in everything I create.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Most importantly, I bring the artist's vision to life. In addition, I also bring my expertise in all fields of audio. Having worked in soundtrack composition and post-production, I can use my creative knowledge to craft different sound designs and textures to create unique sound palettes for each song.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Currently, I work in-the-box with plug-ins I'm familiar with.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I always ask for a demo and reference track just to gauge a rough direction for where the song will go.

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

A: I started making music in 2012 using Garageband on my iPod touch. I then worked as a freelance soundtrack composer and mix engineer while producing music as an EDM artist. After that, decided to join SAE which has allowed me to level up my skills and learn the ins and outs of an analog console, the becomings of a studio personnel, how to record bands and artists, and diving deep into the world of post-production and foley. As a graduate, I've have now been making music for 12 years.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I'd like to think that having perfect pitch makes the mixing process a little easier.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I first listen to the rough mix and reference tracks to familiarise myself with the artist's vision. I then organise the session to the point which I know exactly where everything is and all colour choices make sense to me. I usually start by eliminating any jarring problems such as random resonances from the vocal mic, any blatant timing issues that stand out etc. During the actual mixing process, I start with low frequency tracks like kick and bass, then work my way up the frequency spectrum. I then move onto effects and at some point, I may add a few extra ear candy tracks here and there if I decide the song needs it.

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

A: Currently, I've been listening to a lot of Madeon. His album 'Good Faith' has a very unique sonic character.

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

A: I recently worked on a song called 'Kingdom' by Tiffany Zeta. I was the producer, recording, mixing and mastering engineer of this project. Tiffany came to me with a very laid back demo which she claimed wasn't even a full song. I decided to take this opportunity to produce a high energy pop track with heavy hitting drums, guitars and synths to bring this song to life. It was the first time in a while that I decided to care less and simply have fun during the process and I'm glad I took this approach. In my opinion, it is far too easy to get unnecessarily technical and dive too deep into JUST the engineering side of music making. I reminded myself that the end goal was to create a song which emotionally connects with the listener and sometimes, not everything has to be perfect for that to happen.

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

A: Owl City. The song 'Fireflies' is the entire reason I started producing music.

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

A: I work on pop music the most.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: If this is purely based on sound quality, I personally prefer analog. I find that there is little to no 'magic' in the digital realm - everything appears more black and white with hard edges, whereas analog has grey areas and smoother corners. For example, digital clipping vs. analog distortion. Although there are countless 'saturation' plug-ins, it is still physically impossible to accurately replicate a real world event on a digital binary system. If this is purely based on practicality, digital wins hands down. Recording to tape is a distinguished art form on its own. However, it simply takes too long. I enjoy the immediacy of being able to record an idea without worrying about whether there is still enough tape. I love experimenting with multiple instances of the same plug-in within a single processing chain instead of worrying about only being able to use a hardware unit once. This will be a never-ending debate and the most reasonable answer to give is both.

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

A: I promise to give each mix 100% and to deliver a master that sounds exactly, or even better than one they could've imagined.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I love the feeling I get when I bring the song to life!

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Not everything needs to be touched.

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

A: Music production, mixing and mastering.