Thomas "Plec" Johansson on SoundBetter

Unlock the Potential of Your Music with Plec, Ranked Among the World's Top 200 Most Streamed Mastering Engineers. Join the Ranks of Artists like Soilwork, Mayhem, Floor Jansen, and H.E.A.T. – Elevate Your Sound Today!

Greetings, I'm Thomas "Plec" Johansson, founder of The Panic Room AB, a multi-Grammy, platinum, and gold-awarded mastering and mixing engineer. I've had the privilege of shaping music to the artists' vision since 2001, driven by an unwavering commitment to excellence and a deep passion for music. I invite you to join our collaborative journey in crafting your musical masterpiece!

Testimonials:

"There are few studios in the world that make me comfortable. The Panic Room is one in a million – excellent monitoring, a beautiful console and some tasty outboard! A world-class mix-room run by world class people!"
/ Max Norman
(Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth, Lynch Mob, Y&T)

"It is a true pleasure working with Plec. He always brings such a positive energy with him in to the studio. A true pro is an understatement, he keeps me on my toes! An overall great engineer, musician and person.
/ David Castillo
(Opeth, Bloodbath, Dark Tranquility, Katatonia)

"Before I met Plec, I was positive that mastering was an obligatory process you ran through to make your music sound worse. Needless to say, he showed me the effect that a professional, experienced ear can have on music. The techniques we developed and shared with each other further helped to enrich my own career in the years to come. Plec is the man!"
/ Ermin Hamidovic
Systematic Productions (Periphery, Devin Townsend)

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Interview with Thomas "Plec" Johansson

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: Very much enjoy to do Soilwork sessions where I act as producer, recording, mixing and mastering engineer. It's just a lovely experience through and through.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
A: That's confidential information so can't relay anything about that.
Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?
A: I can't make any recommendations at this point since we're very new here, but ask again in year! :D
Q: Analog or digital and why?
A: Both! Best of both worlds.
Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: You'll be 100% happy with the work you get from our studio.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: It's varying and you get to hear a lot of new music all the time which is very exciting!
Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?
A: Q: Do you need more or less low-end to start with? A: I need as much low-end as you think sounds good. Period. Q: What levels should I send for mastering? A: As long as it doesn't clip, you're fine and also there's no reason to send very low-level files as well. Q: What resolution do you want? A: I want the highest resolution you have, that being 24b or 32b float, and then the sample rate that you've been working it. Leave sample rate conversion to the mastering engineer. Q: Should I limit my mix before mastering? A: If you think it sounds good, it's part of the mix and you can do whatever you want. If you want mastering to have all possibilities, please send an unlimited mix but also make sure to send settings of what you used so that it can be repliacted in mastering as a starting point.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: That it's all about processing. Mastering is not just processing your mixbus if that makes sense? It can be part of it but what we do is so much more than that.
Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?
A: Are you already happy with what you have?
Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: Work on everything very hard and up to the point that you don't think you'll even need to hire me. Then you're in a good spot to get the most out of the project.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: My speakers and monitoring.. for sure! So I guess that would be two pairs of speakers, computer, ADDA converter and a Sontec EQ. I'd be in a happy place with that stuff. :)
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: It's been 20+ years at this point and actually got started in mastering and then worked my way backwards to mixing, recording and production so everything is happening here but mastering is the main focus.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: Pleasing, loud and effective.
Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?
A: Going totally out of the box and do something with Bjork would've been really great!
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: Don't go by what you think is right, go with what you feel is right.
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: Mostly it's aggressive, in your face and attention grabbing but at the same time we do a fair share of jazz and chill which requires another set of ears.
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: Hearing what a client is going for and helping them achieve it.
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: Emotional impact, for sure. When someone puts on your song you want to catch their attention quickly and then you need to keep it there as well. We really specialize in getting the most emotion and attention out from of a piece of music.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: We start by evaluating a mix, taking care of any overlooked issues first of all and then we go ahead and enhance the material until it sounds its very best.
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: We have three studios here, that being Mastering Studio A and B plus a mixing room. Mastering is very much built on exceptional monitoring so we have PMC MBD XBD-A in our main room and ATC SCM50 PRO ASL in studio B. We have a nice assortment of analog gear collected over the years like the Sontec MES432, Thermionic, Summit, Great River, Cranesong, API, SSL, Focusrite etc.. and run either from a set of Lavry Gold or Forssell MADA2a converters. Plus we have all plugins known to man as well. Mixing is also a hybrid setup with analog summing by the Neve 5060 Centerpiece. Analog gear you can find here is also Neve 1081'a, API 550b, 1176's, LA2A's, SSL, Alan Smart, UREI, Summit, Empirical Labs.. and capturing the mix is done with a Forrsell MADC2a back into the DAW.
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: There are so many, but of course what comes to mind are some of the giants who got me into this in the first place that being Bob Ludwig, George Marino, Ted Jensen, Bob Katz.
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: We do mostly mastering work here but also a great deal of mixing. Currently being among the 200 most streamed mastering engineers in the world and among the top 500 most streamed mixing engineers according to MUSO.AI.