Mix & Mastering Engineer

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: (Probably) my ability to eat fried chicken. I’m always mixing and/or mastering a couple of EPs and singles from clients (recently, Cloud Factory & Leïla Six under my pro-bono project). I’m also working on a short audio drama, and on coding a mix-bus-processor plugin, plus my third album. It’s been a busy few months!

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both! Analog used to be the only way to do things, and was all about getting top-quality processing and recordings on the way in (i.e. in the recording/tracking stage). I feel that today, analog has a different value: since the majority of clients' work is all-digital (and there's ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with that!), analog equipment spread over stems & busses has the power to add a nuance of all the buzzwords we like to use when talking about gold-standard audio engineering ('glue', 'punch', 'detail', 'warmth', etc, etc, etc) to a track in the most efficient and holistic way possible. For me, this gives you the best of both worlds: digital offers clean reliability, and immensely powerful multiple-realisability of processing, while a curated suite of analog gear gives all those beautiful plugins the unique character personality that rock music thrives on.

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

A: I won't produce beats for your rap songs.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Saying no to people who want me to produce beats for their rap songs.

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

A: Q: Can you produce beats for my rap song? A: no.

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

A: People have a hard time understanding what mastering really is. There's this idea that its just something to do with making music louder, or its just some process that commercial music has done to it. Even worse, there is a misconception that is is something which can be done with a single plugin or 'ai' processor! Most people aren't familiar with the discipline, don't understand its (fascinating) history rooted in vinyl cutting, and don't know what modern mastering entails, or what it can bring to a mix.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What was your recording setup like? What is your creative vision for the project? How do you want to make an audience feel? Why did you make the project/what was important to you? Which (if any) of your influences should I consider when working? Are there any planned release dates we need to aim for?

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

A: To get the absolute best out of any mix engineer, you need 2 things. You need to be communicative, and you need to have decent-quality recordings and arrangements before you hire them!

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

A: A chicken, a water filter, a fire starter, a decent knife, and the SPL BiG 500-Series.

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

A: I've been mixing for the last 4 years, while also studying my postgrad, and playing in multiple bands. For the last year, I've also been running a pro-bono mixing project for smaller & aspiring artists.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: To work with: relaxed but efficient -- I pride myself on my fast turnaround times. Sonically: dreamrock (psy-rock + classic + alt + indie + shoegaze)

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

A: Mazzy star for the vibes (RIP David Roback).

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: There is a lot of very useful general advice out there already, so I'll go with a specific one instead: Send instruments which occupy similar areas of the frequency spectrum to individual busses (e.g. guitars & vocals to a 'mids' bus, shells & bass to a 'lows' bus, etc), and a use parallel processing on these busses to bring out the best characteristics of your composition. This gives you efficient & powerful top-down processing over the tonality of your entire song, while adding glue and detail throughout. (BONUS tip: you can automate the instrument sends to these busses to make things hit EVEN harder at more impactful points in your song!).

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

A: I work on pretty much any guitar-based music!

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Specialising in stem & mix-bus processing, my strongest skill is squeezing character & detail from my clients' recordings.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: The digital world has worked wonders for audio engineering -- smaller bedroom artists have access to the same professional top-of-the-line software that myself, and other professional engineers use every day -- but with that advancement, I feel modern engineering has lost some of its individualism and personality. What helps my studio stand out in today's engineering scene, is the unique personality I bring out in my clients' work through careful use of analog equipment. I use a range of modern, vintage, and custom hardware inserts at every stage in the engineering process to help ensure each track leaves my studio with impact & character.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: The first stage of my work is a detailed conversation with the client. As a qualified (MSc) Sound Designer, I'm passionate about the emotional and aesthetic power of not only music, but all sound. Consequently, the first thing I like to know when a client comes to me with a project, is why they made the art in the first place, what they want listeners to feel when absorbing their work, and what influences they considered when the made the tracks. After receiving all the necessary tracks & stems for a project, I edit, clean, and trim all the audio, typically taking under a week to get a first mix together. The mixing process involves using a range of professional software & analog equipment in a hybrid workflow to crystallise the client's (and my own) goal for the project. I am always keen to make edits/revisions to mixes, so only move onto mastering when both myself and the client are as happy as possible. Mastering is an entirely different discipline to mixing, and I take care to keep the two jobs separate. The majority of my mastering is done via analog hardware processing, but also commonly includes appropriate digital processes like M/S filtering, multiband stereo imaging, upward compression, etc.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio is set up for a hybrid workflow. On the virtual/software side, I primarily use Logic Pro, but also work in ProTools & Reaper for more sound-design-based work. On the hardware side of things, I use primarily mix bus & stem-focused analog gear to help add a professional studio flavour to all my clients' recordings.

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

A: My fixation with audio engineering started with The Stone Roses. The grainy, faded psychedelia & true rock spirit just melded together so beautifully. I've spent years trying to capture that energy and put it into my work.

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

A: I mainly work on mixing and mastering finalised arrangements. Typically, an artist/band will come to me with an arranged and recorded song. I take all the stems & recordings (as well as a demo mix for reference), and get to work! Other times, bands/artists will come to me with recorded demos, and I'll take a more central role in the production/co-production of the track(s), helping write & record instrument parts, and hammering-out the arrangement.