Immersive Audio - Dolby Atmos

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

A: Surely it was a live by Dee Dee Bridgewater, a famous American singer in the jazz field. A concert of a few years ago, in an old theater in the city of Salerno. She sang with a big band. I did the F.o.H. engineer and recorded the entire concert in multitrack, I then did the mixing and mastering in the studio. The promoters then published online a video with the highlights of the live using my mix and master.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I'm on different platforms and I work everyday on different types of projects. However most of the work is mixing and mastering.

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

A: Actually no, I know there are many good professionals but I don't know one or more than one in particular.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I have several analog outboards but I tell you digital for life! The quality of digital is now high and the management of projects with digital is magnificent. Especially when you are working on more than one song at the same time. Finally, the development of some plugins in recent years with specific and particular functions create sounds that are practically impossible to have with analog.

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

A: Actually no promises. At least I don't think that work should also be based on promises. When I interact with a potential client I provide him with a lot of my material so he has a clear idea of what quality I can provide.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The vibrations. From an early age I was fascinated by the vibrations that music creates, having the volume knob in my hands is something fabtastico, something almost personal that goes deep into me up to childhood memories.

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

A: I can't answer you on this, there are many things related to the pitch of the voice, to the editing, to the details of the mixes. In general nothing so particular as to remain so imprinted in my mind

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

A: Hard question! It is impossible to generalize, however an interesting aspect is that trust. Online it is difficult to have the customer's trust right away. Fortunately, once the first master is delivered, the client listens and understands that he can feel comfortable and that we can work together.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I usually ask clients to give me some reference tracks to understand immediately, in practical terms, what their reference are in terms of sound so that I can understand what their expectations.

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

A: I would like to advise him to look for a positive experience as well as quality, which means looking for a professional interested in him and his music, capable of understanding his point of view and guaranteeing a job well done.

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

A: Pro Tools on M1, SoundToys Devil Loc Plugin, Grado Headphones, Dangerous Music Source Converter

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring my experience and my knowledge, guaranteeing the professional quality that every artist deserves. Each song can have a huge improvement. Mixing is not just balancing volume and tone, but it is setting yourself a goal in terms of sound and getting something unique out of the piece.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: If we talk about mixing and mastering, my work process is based on simple but specific points: first of all I try to create a relationship with the artist, to understand his needs and put him in a situation of comfort by offering maximum attention and guarantee a great experience. I get the multitrack from the client and check that everything is ok, otherwise I provide further assistance to get the best files for the work. I proceed with the mix and the master and in 5/6 days I send the song to the client, from here the revision phases start: I collect all the customer's information and feedback, even the smallest details and I make the necessary revisions to achieve the highest quality that the client wants. Usually in 3 or 4 rounds of revision we get the goal

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio setup is very simple, I work mostly 'in teh box'. I use pro tools and a very large range of pluigin to satisfy all the needs of the different musical genres I work on. I chose a top-level digital-to-analog converter (dangerous music at 192khz-24bit). The studio monitors are genelec 1030As, to which I recently added a presonus subwoofer to work well on genres like edm and hip hop. I work in an acoustically treated direction that refers to the AES-Socity audio standards

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

A: There are so many good professionals who inspire me a lot. One above all is Serban Ghenea, a mixer engineer who works with the best pop artists on the planet. The sound of him is formidable and is a great inspiration to me.

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

A: In recent years, I am mainly working with online mixing and mastering. Also full productions, using my professional studio and a network of professional musicians for the recordings that the client requires. I spent 2 decades on stages as an f.o.h. sound engineer, stage engineer and stage manager. In the last few years, for various reasons, I have dedicated myself more to production and post-production in the studio.

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

A: At 14 I started studying guitar, at 17 I had my first cover bands and we often played around in pubs and festivals. At 18 I started recording my first analogue works. From here began the passion for professional audio: I attended several courses of Sound Technician, at 21 I started my first professional activity, I worked as an assistant in several recording studios and finally in 2014 I opened my own studio. I have been in business for over 20 years already!

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: "Schematically creative"; may seem like an contradiction, but actually it's the basis for a great mix: basically, in the mix I apply well-established techniques and processes, following a precise work scheme and then I switch to experimentation, that leaves total room for creativity.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: I have no preference. I believe that with all artists, both professionals and amateurs, you can have important and constructive experiences, always learning new things, modifying established techniques and applying new experiments.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: I really like, especially for EDM and HipHop, to use the ISOL8 plugin to split the bass on two separate tracks: the first one works on the range 35-85hz, the second one from 85hz up. In this way I can always find the right bass tone giving the mix as much depth as possible, which is essential for today's music genres.

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

A: I work in all genres: hip hop, EDM, pop, rock, also Jazz and Folk.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I guess patience! The client may ask me to raise the voice by only half a db and then, in the next revision, ask me to do exactly the opposite, namely to lower the voice by half a db: I will always be happy to do so. Creative processes involve easy mind shifts, so the key to having 100% satisfied clients is patience. There are many technical skills to be used for good work, but the human side is equally important.