Remote Hip Hop Mixing

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

A: Growing up, blues artists such as B.B. King were always played in my home alongside classic rock. This led me to having a foundation of music including the aforementioned B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Johnny Lang, The Beatles, Santana, etc. Around 5 I found hip hop with Jay-Z and Eminem songs being played in the morning before school on MTV. This started a lifelong love of the genre. When I would come home I would put on the radio hoping to hear Eminem, not knowing the station or anything. As I got older I became a Kanye West fan and learned through him what production even was. In middle school I got into more hiphop with Aesop Rock and Cannibal OX, and Gorillaz. Freshman year of high school broke my idea of what music could be with the introduction of Math Rock to my life and I fell down a years long rabbithole of pretentious progressive-rock love. Around this time Tera Melos, MF DOOM, Madlib, The Mars Volta (Anything by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez really), and Animal Collective became my favorite artists. As High school was ending, people like Danny Brown, Kendrick Lamar, and A$AP Rocky were blowing up, leading to the most impressive mainstream rap offerings in years. I spent a long time after that hating anything with Autotune but working in the studio broke me out of that mold. As I spent my early adult years going to shows, hanging out with new people and making my way in the world I deiscovered that I love electronic music, especially chill stuff like Toro Y Moi, Flume, and Porter Robinson.

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

A: The most common type of work I do for my clients is recording and mixing hiphop/rap vocals. Clients come in, I set up the Avalon pre-amp and the height of the mic, and add autotune if needed. After tracking the vocals I will then edit the underlays or adlibs, process the audio through my vocal chain, and bounce it for the clients when we both are happy with it. Next time they come, we attack any tweaks needed on the last mix before hopping into a new track.