Colin Kelly on SoundBetter

Make your rock and metal songs stand out from the crowd with a hard hitting, dynamic, and ultra thick mix. I have 10 years of mixing experience and I am also a recent graduate of Jordan Valeriote’s Hardcore music studio production course. My goal is to use my skills to make your music sound the best it possibly can.

Owner of Red Sky Recording Studio in beautiful Cape Breton Island. I have worked with bands like Fear and Filth (hardcore), 10 slip (modern fuzz rock), Conductor (70s hard rock) and more.

I'd love to hear about your project. Click the 'Contact' button above to get in touch.

Credits

7 Reviews

Endorse Colin Kelly

by Cameron
Aside from being one of the nicest and easy going guys you’d ever meet, Colin is not only a talented musician but also an extremely knowledgeable and professional recording guru. His work speaks for itself in terms of quality, but behind the scenes he is also incredibly delightful to work with; thoughtful, engaging, and motivating. Although having starting doing it recently, he is also extremely proficient in live music mixing as well. He is responsible for some of the best sounding shows I’ve attended.
by Fear and Filth
Colin has been involved with two projects for Fear and Filth over the last few months, and we have had nothing but positive experiences and results from both projects. Not only is Colin an excellent sound engineer who can put out quality work for any genre of music, he is also extremely personable and has been extremely flexible in terms of scheduling for both our projects. Our recent material would not sound anywhere near as good if Colin wasn't involved. You would be making the right decision by bringing in Colin for your next musical project.
by George King
Colin produced 3 songs for my band Notes Of Anderson. I don’t have much experience with recording so I didn’t know what to expect. I felt immediately comfortable with Colin and trusted what he was doing. He sent back the first mixed song and it needed nothing. I was blown away by the production and was thoroughly impressed with how the track turned out and was exactly how I wanted it to sound. Colin will be back recording us very soon and we will not use anyone else as long as he’s available to us. Everyone that heard it was equally as impressed with the tracks that have years of recording!!!!
by Kevin Green
Colin recorded some live off the floor music for my band Mud Monster. He brought an impressive amount of gear to our jam space, and really worked some magic in the mixes afterwards. He was a pleasure to work with and we look forward to doing it again.
by Gregor MacDougall
My band 10 Slip recorded our first EP with Colin. We had a vision for our EP, and Colin blew any expectations we had out of the water. He rolled with any idea we had, provided suggestions that greatly enhanced the project, and was overall amazing to work with. His mixing was fast, and he was able to tweak anything we asked with no issues. I would recommend Colin to anyone.
by Bethany June
Colin has recorded and mixed a couple of my YouTube covers, Dance Me To The End Of Love by Leonard Cohen and O Come Emmanuel. Every project I've had the pleasure of working with him on has me not only super satisfied with the end result but in awe of what we brings to the table. He has a way of bringing it all together that really honors the natural quality and vibe of the artist. His mixes are never over-produced and have such a beautiful balance. You can tell that Colin really treats your work as if it is his own and puts so much care and consideration into what he does. I Recommend to all
by Nathan Hines
My band Conductor recently recorded our first full length album with Colin and I couldn't be more impressed, not only is he extremely easy to work with but he is extremely professional and helpful with the entire process. With solid input and top of the line recording gear he understood the sound and style we wanted with our recordings and delivered with ease. On top of that fair rates and a flexible schedule really helped make the process zero stress and a ton of fun. I highly recommend checking out his work and working with him both in the studio and for live gigs.

Interview with Colin Kelly

Q: Analog or digital and why?
A: Why not both? I love adding a bit of real analog tape saturation to the signal for a bit of thickness. I also like to use my mixer to sum the elements of the track onto 4 or 5 channels and make some slight tweaks from there or just to add a bit of analog flavour.
Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?
A: I’d love to work with Mastodon. They seem like the most down to earth, goofy guys, but while being incredibly talented and they make some of the most important rock music going.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: Typically I will mix in the box. I start by balancing the elements to where I think the level makes sense and then I begin adding compression, eq, and other effects. The last step is usually automating all the elements to change throughout the song (for example, having Drums and vocals with more energy during chorus)
Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: The song Bloat by Fear and Filth. This was my first hired gig where I recorded and mixed the track all after just moving 2000km across the country with no knowledge of the area and the music scene. This was a big leap and it has lead to many great opportunities.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
A: 3 projects on the go currently, an album for Conductor, Cult Coercion, and the Wendigos, all from Sydney Nova Scotia
Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?
A: Elijah Macdougall is a great drummer out of PEI Canada
Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: I will treat every project with the same respect whether it’s a bedroom produced song or the biggest label project you can imagine.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: Mixing is so rewarding to me, it’s like the most satisfying puzzle and in the end it makes people happy to listen to it, win win
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: That I can take any sound source and make it sound like any other sound source
Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?
A: What style of production are you going after? What styles do you not like?
Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: Have a sound in mind that you would like to achieve
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: My pearl reference drum kit, that’s enough for me
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: I began as a multi instrumentalist in my parents basement, recording my own song ideas, learning drums, guitar, and mixing all at once. A recent move across Canada to the east coast has me starting a new career path in the studio working with other musicians.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: Modern without compromising the musicians integrity. I feel there’s a place for heavily processing mixes, but it’s not meant for everything
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: Heavy compression is your friend when it comes to bass and vocals. And parallel compression is your friend on drums.
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: I usually work on full rock mixes with acoustic drums and distorted guitar
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: I would boil it down to a keen sense of knowing what the song needs and what the strongest elements of a song are and therefore what should be emphasized
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: In a word, energy. The way I tend to mix involves a lot of parallel processing which lets me keep the integrity and dynamics of the sound while adding a lot of energy.
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: I mix in my home studio on NS-10s in an acoustically treated room. I use Reaper, and I mostly use plugins from Waves and Black Salt Audio. On occasion I use a hybrid setup with hardware inserts for projects where I want to limit myself and commit to sounds early on.
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: So many. Some of my favourites are: Joe Barresi, David Bottrill, Jesse Gander
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: I mostly record and mix full rock productions