Song Mixing and Mastering

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

A: I am proud of every project I have worked on, because even in the beginning when I was making the coffee and picking up the food orders, I was also the one setting up the microphones and everything else in the live room ready for recording. I was the one writing down the recall notes, and the one moving a mic in the middle of a 40-piece orchestral date for Burt Bacharach. I was there for the most important parts of making some amazing records, and I made it all that much easier for the musicians and everyone else involved to make that great album. I have so many great memories, such as building a drum hut around the drumset for a Ziggy Marley session and Santa Davis just walks in and starts playing before I'm done, and I get stuck out there next to him staying quiet for the take. Or being the only one left in the building after Beck left for the night, and getting to (shhhh...) sit down and play the Sea Change drumset for a moment before getting creeped out that I'm in a room where there's a saxophonist ghost haunting the iso room. I've tuned drums and selected my own personal cymbals that got used on a Weezer album, a Panic at the Disco album, used by My Morning Jacket, the Memphis Hi Rhythm Section, etc. If it's fun, there's always a good takeaway story from it.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I am working on my own songwriting skills every spare moment that I get where I'm not falling asleep or singing Disney songs to my toddler. The act of playing music is therapeutic, and the act of writing songs is a great brain exercise. Put them together and you get a human with a much lower rate of insanity.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both analog and digital are beneficial depending on the situation. But mainly digital these days, because for one, if I'm not the one recording it and it's not going straight to tape, then it is already in the digital domain, and going back to analog for mixing just means more D/A to A/D conversions, and muddying up those waves to 1's and 0's and back to waves and back to 1's and 0's. In the end, the thought of analog adding warmth and depth is just a cloud of mud and confusion.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I love hearing the before and after. I love organising the tracks and going through them one by one, focusing on what each sound needs. Whether it's a snare with a pangy pang, or a vocal with a hissy puhh, just making sure everything gets what it deserves. And then taking a step back and hearing it all come together.

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

A: The biggest misconception is that "there's a plugin for that". But even that is becoming more true now with AI. What can never be replaced is the human insight, to what might be a better sound for that so and so.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I ask what specifics they would like, such as "hey, can you make my vocals sound like I'm on a telephone?", or "I want this one guitar part to be way in the background with crazy reverb". Other than that, I just go based on how the song sounds and what it calls for.

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

A: There are soooo many of us available out there. I am just one fish in the interweb sea. You can only go off what information these folks give you, and then take a chance with them. And apparently get a refund if you don't like the outcome, so there's only time to loose on it. But mainly focus on their past work that is shared, and if it sounds good then go for it.

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

A: Well figuring there's no power or internet on a desert island, I would bring acoustical musical instruments to focus on writing songs. I'd bring an acoustic guitar, a solar powered battery pack (to power my third item), being a portable audio recorder with two mic inputs, and one microphone for my guitar, and one microphone for my voice. Not much else you could have on a desert island that would be of much use. I'm sure you can find objects of nature to use as percussion if you so desire. And you can always tune down your acoustic guitar as a bass for those bass parts.

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

A: I started as a teenager and into my 20's playing in bands around town, as much as 250 gigs in one year. I would always setup mics and record our live shows, making some pretty nice sounding live recordings (if only the band was a bit more rehearsed!). I then decided to go to the Los Angeles Recording School for Audio Engineering, and graduated in 2010. That's when I started working at Ocean Way in Hollywood, and Record One in Sherman Oaks. So many classic and amazing musicians came through while I was there, including The Beach Boys for their 50th anniversary album (I purchased the tambourine for that album). I then went freelance for a while, working in some home studios, until I eventually landed a gig to help build a recording studio from the ground up. It's a 10,000 square foot complex, two buildings, four studios. The main one being the holy grail laboratory, a 4,000 square foot live room filled with rare vintage instruments, amps, and gear. It took 6 years to build (3 years being covid).

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Don't use too many plugins. That's a bad sign.

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: I usually work on rock, punk, singer songwriter, jazz, blues, and funk.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I have a very planned out approach to mixing. I start with organising and labelling all the tracks in Pro Tools. I then go through one by one listening to each track, starting with the drums, then bass, guitar, keys, vocals, etc. I add EQ and compression where needed, and set preliminary levels as I go along, and then listen as a whole and go from there. Sometimes I hear specific things that pop into my head and I go, "ah! I should try running that through the so and so", that sort of thing. I then let the song sit overnight and I come back to it the next day fresh, and make any adjustments. If mastering is also requested, I then do a mastering process for the average streaming "LUFS".

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My home setup is just a Macbook with an Apogee Symphony, and some great plugins. I am a plugins minimalist, but I do like to have fun when it asks for it. I have really thinned out my home setup over the last couple of years since having a child, and it really helped me focus more on what matters most, (aside from my daughter) which is the music and the energy that already exists in the recording. I have witnessed many an amazing song be suffocated by being overly mixed, using too many plugins because they just don't know what they're doing, or because it's too easy to keep adding. If a song is well recorded then it doesn't need much at all, but if it's a great song, then it shines through no matter what. The main issues are background room noises and tuning (that includes stringed instruments and drums). On the flip side, my daily gig is running a recording studio which could be considered the best studio in the world. It is a private studio that has more than a museum's worth of rare vintage gear and instruments. I now balance my time between running this studio and being the house engineer, with mixing songs for clients via the internet.

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

A: When I started at Ocean Way (then called United, but now closed), I was so inspired by Jon Brion, who we had in the studio for about 8 months straight. He would start at 8pm and go until about 8am. He brought in so many amazing artists during that time. There was a handful of great engineers that I learned from while I was there, like Wes Seidman and Rouble Kapoor. I also worked at Record One, which was the home of Dr Dre for a decade just before I started working there. That's where he did his album 2001, and produced tons of artists.

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

A: The most common work is as the recording engineer in the studio that I manage. Mixing is the second most common.