Mix & master, electronic dance

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Hybrid, and I'm not religious about it. Analog on the mix bus for glue and weight — the Xpressor and the UVEQ earn their place. Everything surgical happens in the box, because it's faster, recallable and more precise. Anyone telling you the format decides the quality is selling you something. The room and the ears decide it.

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

A: A mix that stands up next to current releases in your genre, on time, with your notes actually addressed rather than politely ignored. And if after three revision rounds it still isn't right, you get your money back. I'd rather lose a fee than have my name on something that doesn't work.

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

A: That mastering fixes a mix. It doesn't — it finishes one. If the kick and bass are fighting, a limiter just makes the fight louder. The other one is that loud equals competitive. Streaming normalises playback, so a track squashed for loudness arrives quieter and flatter than one that kept its dynamics.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Three. What are your reference tracks. Where is this going — label, self-release, DJ sets. And what specifically bothers you about how it sounds now. The third matters most: if you can tell me what's wrong in your own words, I can usually fix it in one pass instead of three.

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

A: Pick someone who works in your genre. A great engineer in another lane will hand you a technically clean mix that still doesn't sound like the records you're being compared to. And ask what they'd change about your track before they're hired — the answer tells you whether they actually listened.

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

A: The Neumanns and one sub, because without them nothing else matters. The RME. The Xpressor. And a pair of AirPods, to keep me honest. I know that's six. The AirPods are small.

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

A: Backwards, compared to most engineers. Thirty years DJing, twenty producing electronic music, and twenty in professional radio production — writing, recording and mixing to broadcast standard on daily deadlines. Five years ago I decided to learn mixing and mastering properly rather than by instinct, and took the CRMixMaster course and SAE's Secrets of Mixing. I came to engineering from the music, not the other way round.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Check your mix on a phone speaker before you call it finished — at conversational volume, from across the room. Most electronic mixes fall apart there, because the kick lives below what the speaker reproduces and the bass carries nothing with it. If it still has groove and energy on a phone, it will work everywhere else.

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

A: House, deep house, tech house, afro house, melodic techno, progressive, indie dance. If it's built for a floor, it's my lane. And if it isn't, I'll tell you to go to someone else. Club music is the only thing I've spent thirty years listening to closely enough to have real opinions about.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Low end in electronic music. Kick and bass sharing the same space without either disappearing, and holding up on a club system and a phone at the same time. Thirty years of hearing what a kick actually does on a floor is worth more here than any plugin.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Perspective from the dancefloor, not just the console. I've spent thirty years watching what makes a room move and what empties it, so when I mix I'm thinking about where your track sits in a DJ set — not only how it looks on a meter.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: 1. You send stems and a rough mix, plus two or three reference tracks. 2. I listen to the references before I touch anything, so we're aiming at the same target. 3. First mix back in 5-7 days. 4. You send notes in plain language — "the kick disappears in the car" is more useful to me than "cut 200Hz". 5. Up to three revision rounds. 6. Master and final files: 24-bit WAV, 16/44.1 for distribution, MP3 reference, plus instrumental or DJ edits if you need them.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: The money went into monitoring, because that's what decides whether a mix translates. Neumann KH150 II with a KH750 sub, calibrated. RME Fireface UCX II. On the mix bus, an Elysia Xpressor and an SSL UVEQ. Everything else is software — UAD, SSL, FabFilter, iZotope, Sir Audio Tools. I'd rather have an accurate room and a few good pieces than a rack I can't hear properly.

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

A: Paul Kalbrenner, Faithless, Swedish House Mafia

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

A: Mix and master for electronic dance tracks that are finished but not competitive yet — the arrangement is there, the sounds are chosen, but it doesn't sit next to the releases the artist is being compared to. Usually that comes down to low end, front-to-back depth and the top octave. Mostly single tracks, some EPs, occasionally a remix.