Mixing, Sound Design, Teaching

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: How much do you charge? $25AUD per hour. How much do you charge for a lesson? $25AUD for per hour for the first session, $50AUD per hour for following sessions. Sessions are considered to be as many hours as they are within 1 sitting, including breaks. What time suits you? Any time in the afternoon or from 7pm AEST onwards. Why do you charge so low? Because I'm trying to build a client base, gain further experience, and not everyone interested in learning music or needing music services has a lot of money to spare currently.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: A sample pack of entirely synthesised drum hits, prepping music for a label release, working on new music for other labels, improving at mastering, laying foundations for improvised 170bpm bass music jams, structuring life around being self employed, and doing things to help the business.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Ben Safire, he's a staple for the Melbourne bass community. He runs his own venue here which is great for the community, as well as having his own studio where he does similar work to me however he's far more experienced and has some analog gear. I also recommend Royalston from Sydney as someone who is also incredibly experienced, has plenty of analog gear and teaches for Ableton Live School.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Workflow wise? Digital, as it's far more flexible, forgiving and can achieve the same sonic results as analog except for some very specific pieces of equipment, if you're after their specific sound, and there isn't a convincing way to get something exactly like it in digital. Pure enjoyment and creative practice? Hardware, analog or digital. It's funner working with your hands and having limitations and happy accidents.

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

A: I will try my best to do the best that I can. I will be transparent if I don't think I can do a task in time or to a particular standard and will suggest other engineers who may be able to help better.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Being able to uplift others and seeing their enjoyment as the reward for that.

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

A: Short form content often gives techniques which are cool, but are often overly complicated and beginners lack the contextual awareness, or the content creator doesn't state when they would be appropriate to use.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What are you wanting to learn? Do you have any tracks in mind for references? What is your intent with this? When do you want it completed by? What date and time suits you?

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

A: Modular synth rig, laptop, interface, active full frequency main monitors, generator + power board. Would be a great holiday!

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

A: I started Ableton in 2010 and started DJing drum & bass in 2012. I started taking music production and DJing more seriously after high school in 2016 while studying a Bachelor of Music at Univserity of Wollongong, a small city south of Sydney, then switching to a Bachelor of Digital Media since it covered wider aspects of audio. I released some music during this period on record labels and was being booked often in Sydney. I moved to Sydney in 2019 to start an internship at Studios 301 where I gained a huge amount of insight into making music that was more related to bands and vocalists, from recording to mixing to mastering and industry difficulties and ways to navigate. Simultaneously I worked part time at a music and audio equipment retailer in their back of house. I ended the internship to go full time in 2020. In 2022 I moved to Melbourne to assist the equipment retailer company in setting up a new store, and also to explore a new city. I ceased working for this company in 2024 to start Mist Audio, doing various audio services and teaching.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Be aware of what you're feeling as well as thinking, decide what balance of these you need to have while making and practicing music for your intention.

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

A: Music intended for dancing to in clubs, usually but not always at a faster BPM, that often has some kind of emotional element to it that needs balancing with the hypnotic, darker and functional aspects of the music. Sometimes the style of the track lends itself to being quite loud at like -4 LUFS and louder, but other times it's more reasonable at around -8 LUFS, short term.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Attention to detail, the ability to self reflect on my work and be critical of where I can do better.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Find out from the client what they're after, if there's any references they have in mind for what they want to achieve. In stages, I will sort out aspects of the mix, building a framework at the beginning using the most obvious elements so that the rest of the elements and more subtle processing can be built upon this. Once this is done, then I will refine the track by making adjustments to settings and especially visually and sonically comparing it to references. Then I will send a first draft to the client asking for feedback, making changes if required, going back and forth if need be, then delivering the files when the client is satisfied and I've been paid in full.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I want my studio to be as objective as it can be, in a way that's achievable for me, so I upgraded to the flattest performing monitors I could within my budget and treated my room with DIY 18cm glasswool absorbers (the build is on my Instagram). That being said, it's still important that atmosphere is still vibey so that it feels like I can be creative and not strictly analytical, as such there's windows that allows in sunlight behind the desk I don't want to block out, warm lighting with some cool lamps and some plushies to make the space more fun. There's also hardware to jam with, as well as to creatively process audio with. All other work is done in a DAW since it's convenient and I wouldn't enjoy the workflow presented by analog when mixing and mastering since I'm likely to want to adjust things that had been previously printed.

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

A: Phace, Billain, Blawan, Surgeon, Barker, Daniel Lopatin, Royalston, In:Most, Buunshin, Ryoji Ikeda, Brian Eno, Mala, Daft Punk, Eprom, Skeptical, AG Cook, Porter Robinson, Sophie, Iglooghost, DJ Hazard, Pasocom Music Club, Venus Theory, Klaus Heavyweight Hill, Danny L Harle, David Lynch. Mostly producers who's approach to electronic music was something new to me, broke the 'rules', or who's beginnings seem to reflect starting off small in an area where there isn't a huge community supporting a niche area of music.

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

A: Teaching Ableton to beginners, teaching mixing of bass music to brush up their skills, teaching drum processing and bass sound design, mixing and mastering for other bass music producers.