Mixing Engineer

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

A: Aurora - that girl is pure magic, I just love her personality, energy, voice and music

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

A: Andrew Huang - the amount of creativity and positive attitude accumulated in this one person is out of this world.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Honestly it doesn't matter. What matters is the final effect on the listener. Nobody cares what gear was used, while listening to a song. You could have a million dollar studio and still make crap sounding mixes. Nice gear is fine, but it's made for supporting great skill, not replacing it. In the end If it sounds great it sounds great, that's all there is to it.

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

A: I'm commited to my craft, and I live and breathe music. I can promise, that every song I work on I will treat as it was my own. I'll be in contact with you along the way, open to suggestions and feedback, so in the end you'll be satisfied with the result.

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

A: If you love what you do, you are proud of your music, but don't have the budget to hire award winning big shots, don't be affraid of passionate "little guys" like me. Take a listen of my work and if you like what you hear, contact me and you can be sure that I'll work my ass off to make your music sound great.

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

A: I was playing guitar since early teens. Then I started to play with music production. My mixing journey began when I started a band with my friend. Then it really pulled me in when we recorded our EP in 2014. After hearing the results of my work I was hired a few times to do some recording and mixing by some local bands. In 2018 we played a Sofar Sounds gig, and after listening to the first mix I asked the organizers if I could mix our performance instead, as it would be quicker than adressing everything we would change and revising. They agreed, and later were so satisfied with my mix that they offered me to join the team. I was very exicited and eager to give my best, so I mixed all the overdue performances that they had. It didn't take long and the crew started to treat me like lead mixing engineer. That was a very educating and eye(ear?)-opening experience, working with recordings of live performances of all kind of artists in all kind of strange places. It went on until the pandemic hit and Sofar Sounds Wrocław kind of stopped in its tracks unfortunately. Since then I ocasionally did some work for independent musicians locally. It never was my day job, more like a passion. After years of working a tedious job I decided to give it a try, and put my skills to good use out there in the world:)

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Natural, dynamic, musical, soft, detailed

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Attention to detail and clarity. I always make sure that nothing gets lost in the mix.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I always try to make the mix sound as musical as possible. I personally hate turbo-compressed, lifeless mixes that assault your ears with non-stop "turn it up to 11" sound. I love dynamics and natural feel in the music, drums sounding like an instrument and not a machine, emotion in the voice, subtelties in the arrangement. I'm always trying to make all the tasty details shine, and make the listener come back just to find something new even after listening for a few times. Sometimes I add some subtle and tasty effect, instrument part that weren't there, or some unexpected vocal edit if I feel it could enhance the song (it became sort of "my thing" over the years, although I always ask first before doing stuff like that).

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I try to divide my sessions in segments, and take frequent breaks, so my ears are always fresh so to avoid wasting time and making wrong decisions. First I do the "boring" stuff, like organizing the session, naming the tracks, the routing, cleaning up the tracks, gain staging. Then with that out of the way I listen with fresh ear and start to work on volume and panning balance, to create basic static mix. After that I dive deeper, and depending on what the song needs I apply more advanced processing, effects, automation and so on. After I got my first draft, I check the mix on different sound systems in my house, many sets of head- and earphones, take it for a spin in my car and take notes. Then I come back and make adjustments. Rinse and repeat until I'm satisfied. I always try to have a good sleep and a make-sure-it's-ok-check with really well rested hearing, before sending a finished mix to the client. I'm always open to the feedback and always work with the clients to keep them happy with the end result.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I work in the box, that's how I always did it, that's how I learned and I'm feeling confident doing it that way. I always focused on developing my skills rather than collecting gear. My setup is simple, a good PC to handle the processing, an Audient audio interface, Presonus monitors, and Beyerdynamic headphones. My DAW of choice is Presonus Studio One.

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

A: I'm proud that I was welcomed to the Sofar Sounds, had the privilege to work with myriad of artists and was very quickly looked up by the crew, as the "nothing is impossible" guy. But my biggest achievement has to be releasing my band's first and only full length album in 2022. We are a bunch of friends, all of us self taught and self motivated, we did everything ourselves. We didn't have producers, studios, managers, only us and our determination. I composed first drafts of all the songs, played guitars, sang backing vocals, recorded us, produced, mixed and mastered everything on that record.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Satisfaction, the feeling when my client tells me that it sounds better than they imagined. I love taking the raw art and giving it the polish and shine it deserves.

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

A: Probably that I can always "fix it in the mix". I'm pretty confident in my skills, but I'm not a miracle worker. I'm working my ass off to make everything sound its absolute best, but sometimes I can only do so much. The quality of the original raw material is key.

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

A: Honestly probably my acoustic and classical guitars, with cases and large supply of strings since there wouldn't be any electricity anyway;)

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

A: I work mostly with raw tracks sent to me by clients. I edit, tune (if needed or wanted to), and mix.