Mixing & Mastering Engineer | London | Rap, Soul & Electronic

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

A: If I'm on a desert island, I don't think Ableton Live is going to be all that useful. I'll just take a Kora and learn how to play that.

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

A: Started in the late 90s working in and around the UK underground hip-hop scene, which was a proper education — low budgets, high standards, and artists who were completely uncompromising about how their music sounded. Built up extensive credits over 25 years across independent labels and majors.

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

A: I'd love to work with more artists that use live instrumentation.. Soundtracks etc. Artists pushing that territory interest me the most.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Reference tracks are underrated. Before you start any session — mixing or mastering — find two or three records that sound the way you want yours to sound, and listen to them on your monitoring system. Don't copy them. Just use them to calibrate your ear and set a target. It saves hours of second-guessing. Also don't be scared to try and remake or rework a particular song that you really love. Sometimes you learn a lot from actually trying to replicate which you can then use on your own productions in the future.

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

A: Primarily hip-hop, rap, and soul. A significant portion of my work has been UK underground rap. I also work regularly in electronic music, R&B, and on soundtracks and brand campaigns where the brief is more varied. The common thread is music with serious attention to sonic richness.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Making records feel like records... not just audio files. There's a texture and coherence that comes from 25 years of experience in understanding how frequency, dynamics, and space interact. I'm particularly strong at low-end management in dense, layered productions, and at getting mixes to translate consistently from headphones to club systems.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I like to keep it simple and communicative. The client sends files, I listen through without touching anything first to understand what the record is trying to do. Then I work. I send a first version with brief notes on what I've done and why, and we take it from there. Revisions are standard — I'm not done until the client is genuinely happy, not just satisfied. Most jobs are completed in 1–2 revision rounds.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: London-based setup running multiple DAW and bespoke software processes for speed and accuracy. I also run a Tascam tape deck for analog tape mastering — a genuine lo-fi treatment that's increasingly in demand. The monitoring setup is optimised for the kind of music I work on: detailed, accurate, and honest on the low end.

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

A: The High Focus Records work over the years has been consistently satisfying — a label that took the sound seriously from day one and allowed me to build and learn as it grew.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I mainly work 'in the box' in order to keep my prices low and accessible for everyone. However I also offer genuine analog tape mastering through a Tascam deck.

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

A: That I will be honest with you. If your mix needs work before mastering, I'll tell you. If a different approach would serve the record better, I'll say so. My job is to get you the best possible result, not to tell you what you want to hear.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: That I'll treat your record with the same attention I'd give to a major label release. Every job gets a proper listen, a considered approach, and unlimited revisions until you're genuinely satisfied. You're not a number in a queue.

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

A: "How loud should I make my master?" The honest answer is: loud enough to sit comfortably alongside other records in your genre, but not so loud that you're sacrificing dynamics. Streaming platforms normalise loudness anyway, so the loudness wars are largely irrelevant now. Focus on dynamics and translation across systems — that's what actually matters.

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

A: That mastering is a magic fix for a weak mix. Mastering is a finishing process — it optimises a good mix, it doesn't rescue a bad one. The other misconception is that you need to spend a lot of money to get a professional result. You don't. You need a good engineer who understands your music.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What does the record need to feel like? Who are you making it for? Do you have reference tracks? What stage is it at — stems, a rough mix, a final mix? And what's the deadline? Those five questions cover 90% of what I need to get started.

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

A: Be specific about what you want the record to feel like, not just sound like. Reference tracks help enormously. And don't be shy about saying what you don't want — a clear negative brief is as useful as a positive one. The more context I have going in, the faster we get to a result you're genuinely happy with.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Precise but not clinical. I aim for mixes that feel detailed on close listening but also hit hard on first play. The goal is always a record that rewards repeated listening — where you're still hearing things on the tenth play that you missed on the first.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Clarity and warmth in the low-mids — the frequencies that make a record feel substantial and physical rather than just loud. I'm also strong on vocal placement: getting the lead vocal to sit in the mix rather than sitting on top of it. After 25 years, I've developed an instinct for when a mix is translating correctly across different playback systems.

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

A: On the engineering side, I've always been drawn to the work of people like Bob Power, Martin Hannett. Creatively, the records that shaped my ear are late-90s Rap Music, classic soul, Post Punk, Jungle, and the dub and reggae dancehall tradition. Engineers like Steve Albini, who believed in serving the music rather than imposing on it, had a big influence on how I approach sessions.

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

A: The most common work is mixing and mastering for independent artists and labels — usually hip-hop, rap, and soul records. A client typically sends me a finished instrumental with raw vocal stems, or a full session in stems, and I build the mix from there. I also do a lot of standalone mastering for artists who've mixed elsewhere but want a professional finishing pass before release. Fast turnarounds are the norm — most masters are back within 24 hours.