Freelance audio mix engineer
I'm Joe, welcome to my freelance service of mixing, mastering and other audio services.
Send me an email through 'Contact' button above and I'll get back to you asap.
Interview with Joe Hill
Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: Co-mix on an Indie Rock project set to release in September
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: The variety of different styles of music I get to hear/work on.
Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?
A: I offen get asked my personal opinion on the track. This can be touchy ground to be on, but I prefer to be honest. However, it's difficult to find tracks which I don’t like due to my broad music taste and variety of genres I work on.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: Although there are no rights and wrongs or do’s and don’ts in the creative world, there is such a thing as 'objective quality'. Biggest misconception, people not using they’re ears to guide them.
Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?
A: Look to find someone who will share the same passion as you to best reach the best final outcome of your song/ ep or project.
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: Thorough, with attention to detail of small aspects and how they affect the bigger picture
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: I aim to serve the song always but a particular strength in my work is to ensure competitive loudness levels while maintaining frequency balance, dynamic range and character.
Q: What do you bring to a song?
A: I always ensure to bring clarity, intelligibility and professional sonic balance the mix while making sure character and the soul of the track are still strongly present.
Q: What's your typical work process?
A: All in the box, I use Logic Pro, pluginwise mainly ranges between Waves and UAD. I begin loaded the track into my start up template with my effects and mix bus ready to go. I will start usually with a rough volume and panning mix and then tackle sounds and parts individually before mixing the rest of the track. I always work in comparison to the demo mix and references sent by the artist if there are any and work closely with them with multiple revisions to make sure the vision is being met along the way.
Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: Nice and simple home studio set up: two sets of studio monitors, ns10s and Adam audio mx2s in an acousticly treated room.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
A: Currently Audio mixing + plus sound design for independent short film.
Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?
A: No one in particular.
Q: Analog or digital and why?
A: To me, digital workflow is the modern way, it’s the way I’ve learnt and is much more efficient tangible to the rest of the world. Although sonically, analogue is essential to tone and character which can be mimicked through emulation or hybrid mixing.
Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?
A: Full dedication and attention to serve the project and reach the best possible final outcome, including communication during the process to make sure they are pleased with the creative direction, where I will cater best to they’re requests and what they want from the song.
Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?
A: What is the desired sound/ outcome from the song. What are their general inspirations. Any personal pet peeves of production and mixing techniques to avoid.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: Laptop, microphone, interface, set of monitors and headphones.
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: Have been making music as a hobby since self learning guitar over ten years ago where I worked on the music part time, producing mixing and mastering. I then went to university to study audio and music technology BSc. Since graduating I’ve worked freelance as producer/ engineer.
Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?
A: Yussef Dayes - more of someone who I love to listen to rather than aspire to work with but would love to as he’s an amazing drummer and the musicians he works with are incredibly talented aswell.
Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: When in doubt, reference.
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: Rock, prog rock, folk, rap, hiphop, r&b/ soul
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: Mixer inspirations: Chris lord-alge, Jaycen Joshua, Micheal Brauer and Andrew Scheps
Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.
A: Mixing for independent artists and bands, commonly genres of rock, folk, hip/hop, r&b and reggae
