Micah Kohn on SoundBetter

I'm Micah Kohn, an NYC based mastering engineer and I’ve worked for producers of hit records from major labels such as Republic Records, Carl Sturken (Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson), Andy Cardenas (Madonna, Boyz II Men), and Aaron Hagan (Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez): “Amazing how you got this to sound. Right off the bat it is SO appealing."

AUDIO MASTERING:
I’ve mastered pop, rock, hip hop, jazz ensembles, and even full orchestras. I’m proud of my history of success working in a variety of genres.
Whether you’re wanting a loud, wide, competitive record for radio play, a tasteful addition to a film or anything in between, I strive to evaluate your work from both an artistic and a technically sophisticated perspective.

AUDIO MIXING:
A mix can make or break a record and I’m here to help see you bring your ideas to life.

AUDIO RESTORATION:
I can do anything from the removal of room noise, harsh “s/t/k” sounds, pops, clicks and even dogs barking in the background. I’m extremely experienced and comfortable with spectral editing. If the audio can be saved, I can save it.

VOCAL TUNING AND ALIGNMENT:
I tune vocals by hand to provide much more transparent results than AutoTune or even Melodyne. I also align vocals to create tight doubles and harmonies, providing a larger sounding, cleaner sound.

Every day, artists put their faith in me to not only understand their vision but to bring it to life. I’ve been doing this for years but I’ve never lost sight of what a joy, privilege, and responsibility that is.

I'd love to hear about your project and help you get it sounding exactly how you want and radio-ready. Click the 'Contact' button above to get in touch.

Click the 'Contact' above to get in touch. Looking forward to hearing from you.

4 Reviews - 2 Repeat Clients

Endorse Micah Kohn

by John P.
Verified
Came back to Micah to have him master a remix of a track he had previously mastered, and he delivered extremely quick results at a very high quality. Was well worth the money
by John P.
Verified
Best communication I’ve had with an engineer, plus amazing work. This dude really delivers, and is versatile, being able to handle many differ genres
by Nicole S.
Verified
Micah has extensive musical background and he is very informative about the foundations of making music. I have been able to jump start my music education with mini quizzes and techniques that have helped me to grasp some fundamental concepts. I will continue my tutoring and studying my notes, an awesome resource from our time together.
by Ethan S.
Verified
Amazing customer service, keeps in contact throughout the whole process, final project exceeded my demands

Interview with Micah Kohn

Q: Can you share one music production tip?
A: This is a tip I hardly hear people talk about probably because it isn't that exciting but it can be really critical. People take for granted that their recording is actually coming in on time. In reality, there's a lot of room for something to go wrong. If you're recording through a microphone, that microphone has to convert the sound pressure from the source to electrical current, your interface has to convert that electrical current into binary information for your computer, then your computer has to interpret that information and display it in your digital audio workstation of your choice. Just a little hiccup and things can come in out of time. So you can check that everything is working as it should by trying this. Take the headphones you're monitoring with and mute them so they aren't playing back what's going into the mic. Next, turn on a metronome, hit record and hold the headphones over the microphone while the click plays. Then go ahead and take a look at your waveforms in your DAW. If the transients (peaks in waveforms) aren't lining up with the grid that divides the musical measures into beats, you've got a problem. If the metronome isn't lining up with the grid in playback, that means that no matter how in time or perfect a take is, it's going to sound out of time. This can usually be fixed by editing the sample delay in the preferences. There are so many different things that can cause this I'm going to refrain from writing a whole paragraph. But there's a tip!
Q: What type of music do you usually work on?
A: One of the great joys of being a mastering engineer is that you get to work on so many different kinds of music. This means I get to immerse myself in different genres, cultures, states of mind, and worlds every day. I hear this phrase a lot and it's completely true, "Good sound is good sound". When something sounds right you can feel in your body, musician and non-musician alike knows when something is right. I'm also really fortunate to have built up a client base across different genres so I'll have someone send me a hip-hop track that needs to feel loud and aggressive, someone send me a live-recording that just needs to sound cleaner and then I'll have someone send me a classical recording that needs just a bit of finessing.
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: I'm fortunate to have been given a lot of wisdom from wonderfully intelligent people. It's helped a lot that I can do some coding and know what's actually going on under the hood of these various plugins. It's helped a lot that I did jazz competitions as a kid and have a really strong music theory background to pull from. My education around digital signal theory and physics of sound has done a lot for me. But the number one thing, is that I really love music. It sounds obvious and it sounds cliche but my love of all sound lets me become a fan of everything I'm working on. If I didn't have this, all my technical skills would be effectively useless.