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The ultimate goal is for your clients to become your friends,
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to work on projects that you would listen to their music whether
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00:00:08
you worked with them or not. That's engineer and mixer Brendan Decora. Brendan's worked with
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some of the biggest names in rock, including artists like Trent Reznor, Foo
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00:00:14
Fighters, Stephen Wilson, and muse. Since Brendan and I both started
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our careers at iconic Los Angeles studios and have since moved to be
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freelance, I thought that could be a great topic for discussion. So this one
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is about everything. Freelance, from finding clients to remote
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00:00:29
collaboration. We get into stuff like why big credits don't matter as much as you
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might think. Credits don't matter big, you know, stuff you've worked
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00:00:36
on. At the end of the day, doesn't matter because there's still going to be
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a mountain of people that want to work with you because you are who. You
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are, when to consider what types of gigs are actually in line with your
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goals. There's so many projects that I took on in the past
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that, you know, I did because it was a great opportunity. But
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looking back, it wasn't a great career choice. And why it's important to have
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clear communication and understand expectations when working remotely. If
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you're expecting the mixer to add doubles or create harmonies
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or change arrangements or those, like, those things are
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production choices. If you're a freelance engineer or producer or want to make the move
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to become a freelancer, then you're definitely going to want to stick around for my
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interview with Brendan Decora.
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So there are a lot of people that want to transition to engineering production full
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time. You and I both worked in major studios and now are lucky enough to
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do that. What's your advice for someone that has a job? Maybe
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it's music related, maybe it's not. And how to, you know,
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become a full time freelance engineer. I mean,
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it's kind of an ongoing process, honestly.
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Okay, fair enough. I agree. I. The biggest thing that I've learned
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recently is it's about the relationships.
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It's about your personality. You know, you think about, you know, oh,
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I wanna. I wanna niche down on a genre, which is very important,
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but a lot of times people forget that it's about niching down on a
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certain personality type as well. And that the idea that, you
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know, the ultimate goal is for your clients to
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become your friends. Yeah. To work on projects that you would
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listen to their music whether you worked with them or not. Yeah. You know,
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that's the ultimate dream of every ideal client is
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that. And so it's figuring out how you
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can show that to the world, how you can
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show your personality, show your
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preferences, your musical tastes, that kind of thing. Because
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it's similar to, like, a session drummer, for example.
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There's a thousand session drummers out there that can do the job.
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Right. Why would they hire this guy? Because they're cool.
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Because they're a good hang in the room. Because they have cool ideas, they have
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unique perspectives, that kind of thing. It's all those pieces that
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really set it apart from the rest. Niching down on a
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personality type is like, I've never heard anybody phrase that
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that way. That's so true, because there's a
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lot of great situations where I've been where you just, like, don't want to work
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with the person. Right. You know, and the music was cool and it came out
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good, but everybody knows that, like, once we walk out the door, we're not gonna
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work together. We didn't really like each other. Right. Obviously, that can't
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be every gig, of course. How do you approach trying
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to tap into finding people that
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you relate with? It's something that I've been working on
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myself even recently, to be honest.
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But I think that a lot of it is
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in about the content that you put out, and
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showing that side of you to the world will attract those people
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anyway. I agree with that, you know, and so, you know, it's
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difficult, especially if you are working at, as an assistant in a big
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studio. You're the fly on the wall. Often you don't even
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allow to talk to people. Like, it's the engineer and the producer that are the
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main interface for the artists. Making that
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change of, you know, becoming the fly of being the fly on the wall
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to being the engineer producer, or whatever it is.
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It's a, it's a personality change as well. So it's a lot about, you know,
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everyone says this business is about psychology, but the more I've
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learned about psychology, the more I realize that that's actually true, you
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know, so it's interesting I drifted from your
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question, but, yeah, no, it's funny. I just had a conversation
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with some, uh, with somebody else who also has a podcast. We should tell people
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that you have a podcast. Uh, and we'll talk about that more later. And,
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uh, we were talking about the advantages of making
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content as, like, a music producer engineer. And you, like, really tapped into
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something about putting your real, authentic self out there,
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which is something that I've, like, pushed on the podcast for a long time.
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But I think that's super valuable now, because
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in our coming up, I would walk out the door. Capitol and
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Studio B, and walk into studio C and say, hi, you were at east west
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Glenwood place. You could do the same. Now you don't
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have that. Everybody's working at home. If people can find a way to
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understand who you are and if they click with you, I think that's just
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a really powerful, I hate to say marketing tool, but it's a
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marketing tool, and if you're authentic, it should be fun. I'm
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sure you enjoy doing your podcast. Exactly. Because they're hard. If you didn't enjoy
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it, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, for sure. Going
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freelance. Is there something that caught you off guard
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about being freelance? Like something that you didn't expect to be a big
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responsibility or a big challenge? I mean,
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other than finding a gig? Cause everybody would answer that. Yeah, of
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course. I mean, it kind of goes back to that
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first topic of, you know, figuring out
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the personality match. Yeah. And seeing,
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you know, and really kind of discovering what their vision is for the
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song and talking to the clients and figuring out how much
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they like the rough mix, even, you know, like so many times,
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you know, I'll get a project and I'll send over the
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rough mix, and I think it sounds pretty good.
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And they're like, yeah, this is. I hate this. This is totally the wrong
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direction. We need to go in this other direction over here. Or the opposite. You
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know, there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. So it's figuring out, you
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know, where their. Where their journey is, what their goals are,
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and really trying to align with that as well. Yeah. Communication is
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probably the. I mean, everybody says
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communication is important, but I don't think, like, when you're starting out, like, when you're
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a runner at the studio and you're just, like, getting coffee orders, I don't think
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you understand to what level. Right. Communication is important.
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It's like, might as well be, like,
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vibe in a room. Communication,
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then maybe skillset after that, maybe. I don't
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know, but vibe in a room. So your experiences working in the big
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studios, when did you kind of, like, connect
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the idea that being the best guitar player, the best drummer wasn't
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necessarily why those people were in the room? Well,
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as you know, people come through the door and they're
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frankly not great musicians, but they're the nicest people
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you've ever met. Yeah. You know, it's like, they're super cool. They're super
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nice. And sure, they get the job done on their
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instrument, but it's about the hang. It's about the
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feeling of it. It's about the friendship about it.
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So that's obvious. If this business was about your
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skillset, then it would be a completely different world,
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you know, so very different.
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Very different. And obviously, we're not talking about, like,
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the classic studio musicians. Of course, the session
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players are the exception. They have both these guys that used to play, like, three
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sessions a day all through the seventies. Like, they have such
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a chill vibe. Right. And are just absolutely
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00:08:03
ridiculous. And I don't know if you've ever had this. I had it with
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it with Dean Parks. Yeah. And he was doing a
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nylon part, and I was, you know, I was putting the mic over here,
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you know, like, around the 12th fret. He was like, on this one, we do
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it here. And I was like, okay,
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you know where it goes on this one. Done. Yeah.
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Well, okay. That's actually an accidental segue to another question I had, which
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is the importance of getting the production and the sonics
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right from the beginning. Right. That's something that
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you and I have experienced working in big studios.
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We've seen people go down the rabbit holes of trying even different
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strats, not different types of guitars, different versions
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of the same guitar. Do you have any thoughts that you can share with the
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bedroom producer about the importance of making those decisions
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early and how that benefits the process in the long run?
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I think part of it is just a lack of knowledge on
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certain techniques and that, you know, oftentimes
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bedroom producers will try things out because they don't know,
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you know, the different tactics. They've never been to studios. They haven't seen other people
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do it. And so they're just kind of figuring out based on what they're hearing
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on records. And, again, with music, there's no. There's
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no correct answer. You know, there's a lot of times
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really odd things can work really great. Yeah. But
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often what's tricky is when people
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will send me a mix and they say, oh, okay, cool. I want this to
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sound like x number band.
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That's huge. And they've spent six months in the studio, and they
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doubled and tripled everything and have harmonies and have all this production stuff going
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00:09:49
on, and they send me a track with one guitar on it. Right. It's like,
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well, I can't. You know, this is so not the same thing. Not the
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same. Yeah. And so it's. It's a little bit
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tricky because, you know, oftentimes those people
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00:10:04
don't understand that's what that was, because they've never seen
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00:10:08
that. They've never experienced that. Yeah. And so it's about learning. And,
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you know, obviously we'll have conversations. We'll talk about, like, okay, well, if you really
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00:10:15
want this, then put some doubles on there at least, you know? You
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00:10:19
know, so we can pan it out, whatever it is. But
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I hesitate to say YouTube, because YouTube is
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such a. I don't hesitate to say it. There's a lot of amazing
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00:10:31
information on YouTube. There is. And I've learned a lot. Yeah. But there's also
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00:10:35
a lot of information that I guess it's hard to
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00:10:39
always know what information is correct or not.
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00:10:43
So it's difficult to know who to listen
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to, who to not listen to, you know,
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00:10:50
because on the other extreme, I've gotten projects where, you
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00:10:53
know, it's clear they. They watch YouTube a lot or
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00:10:57
try to learn a lot themselves. And they've sent me things with, like, every trick
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00:11:01
in the book. You know, it's like all these different, you know,
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00:11:04
techniques. It's like, oh, okay, they saw this video on this, or
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00:11:08
they, you know, someone told them to do this, and. But it's
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00:11:12
like everything all combined, and so it's like, well, if you just
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got great sounds in a room with a great player and a great
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00:11:19
instrument with a good sounding room, that would
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00:11:22
be better than all these tricks. Right. So it's,
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00:11:26
you know, sometimes the basics are more. More easy to get great
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00:11:30
results than all the fancy stuff, you know? Yeah. There's a lot of
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00:11:34
things I want to say about what you just said. Oh, okay. I wanted to.
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00:11:36
Let's go back to the YouTube thing, because you're probably watching this on YouTube,
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00:11:40
not you, but you. Right. There's a difference
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00:11:44
between information that's regurgitated
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00:11:48
and put out versus information that's based on
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00:11:51
experience. Right. And I think that's where the disconnect
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00:11:55
is, because it's not like, there's not a. There is bad
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00:11:59
information, but there's not a lot of, when it comes to, like, eqing, there's bad
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00:12:02
tricks. Right. But you're talking about people that maybe just haven't
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00:12:06
made records for 20 years. Right. You know, and
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00:12:10
also, the people that made records for 20 years
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00:12:14
probably aren't that good at sharing that knowledge in a way that
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00:12:17
connects with a hungry, wanna learn
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00:12:21
audience. Meanwhile, there's somebody else that can regurgitate that information in a
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00:12:25
format that people enjoy. Right. And
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00:12:28
so, yeah, I mean, I love you, too. I've learned something. We were talking about
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00:12:32
cameras before we started. Like, I've gone so deep down the rabbit hole,
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00:12:37
you can learn so much stuff for free. But I also want to touch on
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00:12:40
the fact that I think it's our responsibility
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00:12:44
as engineers and mixers in the room to
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00:12:48
educate people on what they want, which is you were touching on.
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00:12:51
And that goes back to communication. Be like, well, I can't give you
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00:12:55
the vocal sound that you want, right. Because it's
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00:12:59
just not here. But if you want to jump back, go turn your computer on
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00:13:02
and put a couple more doubles down, that's going to get you what you want.
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00:13:06
And I think that's something that
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00:13:09
is really important to do as an engineer, is to share
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00:13:13
that back with people and bring everybody up along the way.
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00:13:17
Yeah. And I guess one thing I wanted to say, too, is with the
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00:13:20
misinformation on YouTube, I guess there was one example recently
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00:13:24
where this friend of mine sent me this clip on
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00:13:27
Instagram that was about getting great top
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00:13:31
end in your vocal. Right. Okay. And so they basically went
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00:13:35
through keying the, you know, like a dynamic EQ
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00:13:39
keyed with a. With all the top, all the bottom end rolled off. And
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00:13:43
it's like, well, he's just made a deesser. And, you know, then you
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00:13:47
boost it after. It's like, it's not. It's not that complicated. You just put a
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00:13:49
deesser on it and turn one knob and then do the same thing. So it's
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00:13:53
like, things like that where, like, people are trying to get sensational, you know, like,
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00:13:57
oh, this amazing, really cool trick. It's like, well, if you just knew a little
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00:14:00
bit about how things work, then you see that that's not really. You
Speaker:
00:14:04
know, oh, yeah, that reminds me of, like, some of the things that would come
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00:14:07
up when I was in school. Cause I went to engineering
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00:14:11
school, and it's like, let's make a deesser on the SSL
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00:14:15
channel, right? You have to figure out how to do it. Or like, let's. We're
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00:14:18
gonna record this in Ms. And you need to decode it, right? And you're like,
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00:14:21
you know, you pass your test and then you realize, like, I don't need to
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00:14:24
know these things ever again. This is pointless
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00:14:28
information. Now we're kind of touching on this. And this
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00:14:32
is another question that I had. Do you think
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00:14:35
that newer artists overweight
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00:14:39
the result of a mix? Are their expectations?
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00:14:43
Because you and I both do a lot of remote mixing, do they put too
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00:14:47
much weight on what they believe is going to be the outcome of that mix,
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00:14:50
whether that be a sonic change or even a popularity
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00:14:54
change? I would say yes, absolutely.
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00:14:58
It all depends on how much experience the artist has. I agree with
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00:15:02
that. Newer artists that may not have been through the process that don't
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00:15:06
understand there is a lot of that expectation,
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00:15:09
and I've even considered doing
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00:15:13
more production work because I get those clients
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00:15:17
that want me to mix something, but really, they need a producer
Speaker:
00:15:21
and not a mixer. Yeah. And so, you know, it's
Speaker:
00:15:25
about learning. I mean, it all comes with
Speaker:
00:15:28
experience, really. Once you go through the process and you get a mix done by
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00:15:32
a professional, you can see what they can and can't do. And,
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00:15:36
you know, sometimes, as you know, you can take a
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00:15:40
song very drastically in another direction with a mix. It can
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00:15:43
go a very, very long. Way, and it can be a miss. And it can
Speaker:
00:15:47
be a miss. Yes, we've all done that. Yes. But at the same
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00:15:50
time, it's, you know, learning that
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00:15:54
how much you want to change it with the mix. And, you know,
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00:15:57
whether that's, you know, if you're expecting the mixer to
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00:16:01
add doubles or create harmonies or change arrangements
Speaker:
00:16:05
or those. Like, those things are production choices. Yeah. You
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00:16:08
know, like, one client I had recently,
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00:16:12
you know, sent me a some. I've
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00:16:16
been working with them, kind of helping them with production
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00:16:20
choices and say, okay, well, you know, is this guitar sound cool? It's
Speaker:
00:16:23
like, oh, it's a little bit darker. Let's. You know, why don't you try this,
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00:16:26
and then we can go from there. Okay, cool. I'll change that and rerecord a
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00:16:30
bunch of stuff. And then. But they asked me about
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00:16:34
this process where they were going to, you
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00:16:37
know, add doubles and harmonies on all the vocals, on
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00:16:41
all the songs of. I'm like, well, yeah, I do encourage
Speaker:
00:16:45
doubles and harmonies, but not everywhere. For every note of the song, like,
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00:16:49
you know, choose the chorus or choose certain things you want to highlight. You know,
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00:16:52
make those production choices right before you send it to mix, instead of sending
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00:16:56
me everything with everything and expecting me to chop
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00:17:00
through and create what you want based on that, you
Speaker:
00:17:03
know. Yeah, yeah. That goes back to the. To
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00:17:07
the communication. But I wanted to ask you about navigating
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00:17:11
that additional production. Like, when you feel like something needs
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00:17:15
a boost and you're willing
Speaker:
00:17:19
and think that you're the right person for it, how do you navigate that with
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00:17:22
an artist to be like, I think we need an extra step in here. Are
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00:17:25
you open to working with me in this capacity? It's always a
Speaker:
00:17:29
fine line because, you know, growing up in
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00:17:33
big studios like we have, we've seen producers and engineers,
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00:17:36
and there is a very distinct line between those two roles. There
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00:17:40
is. Or there was back in the day. Yes. Yeah. But now it's, you
Speaker:
00:17:44
know, especially when people, like, we were just talking about with a mixer that they
Speaker:
00:17:47
want to take the song further or whatever else, like, you
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00:17:51
know, there's ways where, you know, I'll always
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00:17:55
mention if I hear something that can
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00:17:58
help the song align with their vision a bit more, you know? Of
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00:18:02
course the artist always has veto power, right? It's like, hey, like, I have
Speaker:
00:18:06
this idea. You said you wanted this reference, and you said you wanted it to
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00:18:09
sound like this. I think we need to do x, y, and z in order
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00:18:12
to get there. You know, do you want to go back and do this, or
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00:18:15
do you want to create this? Or how do you want to. Do you want
Speaker:
00:18:18
to just not do it at all? It's all about how you phrase it and
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00:18:21
how you. How you walk that line with the artist. And if you
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00:18:25
say it in a way where, you know, you're just. Clearly, you're just trying to
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00:18:28
help the end result, you know, instead of like, okay, I'm just
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00:18:31
gonna do this, and then if you like it, cool. But if not,
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00:18:35
then I think it sucks, you know, like, obviously that's not the way to
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00:18:39
do it, but, you know,
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00:18:42
so there's. There's a fine line to walk. Yeah. Well, I think
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00:18:46
if. I guess for, for an artist or producer that's listening,
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00:18:51
I think if you're willing to share work in progress with somebody you're thinking
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00:18:55
about working with as a mixer and you're open to being like, hey, what do
Speaker:
00:18:58
you think? Am I going to be able to get what I want? Right. That
Speaker:
00:19:01
can be a really amazing way to split the difference. I know some people don't
Speaker:
00:19:05
like to share unfinished work, but, I mean, would you agree that that can
Speaker:
00:19:09
be a massive benefit to the final product if they're
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00:19:12
willing to have a conversation of, do you think anything's missing?
Speaker:
00:19:17
Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, too, because, you know,
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00:19:20
people will do that, but then I'm still
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00:19:24
just the mixer role. Right. So it's like, well, are you
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00:19:28
asking me to my production choices? Cause they're working with a
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00:19:32
producer. I don't wanna step on their toes. That's true. That's true. So one
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00:19:36
thing that I've actually started to think about recently is that, you
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00:19:39
know, I'm happy to do, like, co production.
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00:19:43
You know, like, if there's something I hear that could take it a little bit
Speaker:
00:19:46
further. Cool, I'll mention it. But I'm not trying to be your
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00:19:50
producer. I'm not trying to, you know, take over the whole project and
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00:19:53
start because obviously producers start before a note is recorded. You know,
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00:19:57
they go through the songs and, you know, choose keys and arrangements
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00:20:01
and all that stuff before anything's done. So I'm
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00:20:04
not trying to do that. But if it's already to the point
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00:20:08
where everyone's happy and then it's like, oh, well, what if you do this one
Speaker:
00:20:11
thing or these two things? Cool. Like, that's an idea
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00:20:15
that may or may not work, but I, I'm open to
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00:20:19
my creative input as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, no, I. Yeah, you
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00:20:23
don't want to, you don't want to step on, on toes. I do. I do
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00:20:26
agree with that. Since we're kind of talking remote
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00:20:29
collaboration, do you have any
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00:20:32
tips for successful remote mixing? Like, if
Speaker:
00:20:36
you're, you're living in Indiana and you want
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00:20:40
to up your mix game, like, do you have, whether it be a
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00:20:44
technical thing or a communication thing, anything that you would tell that. That
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00:20:47
person we talked about a little bit before, but I am all
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00:20:51
about actually talking to people. Yeah, you know, it's easy to
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00:20:55
do remote mixing and just all over emails and texting
Speaker:
00:20:58
and things get lost. Yeah. You know, I think we were
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00:21:02
speaking before we started recording that. You know, sometimes
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00:21:06
there's projects where the artist will, you know, say, oh, you
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00:21:09
know, can you turn the kick drum down? And then it's like, yeah, cool.
Speaker:
00:21:13
Here's the version of the kick drum down. Oh, that's better. And then three days
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00:21:16
later, oh, can you turn up the low end on the cake? Like, well,
Speaker:
00:21:20
I just turned it down. Like, yes, I can turn the low end, but, and
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00:21:23
it's just a slight miscommunication where if you get on a call with someone,
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00:21:27
I'll often do, like, a video call with high definition
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00:21:31
audio. There's numerous platforms to do that
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00:21:35
so we can work together and actually stream my mixed and to their
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00:21:38
studio and I can explain, like, oh, well,
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00:21:42
you asked for more low end on the kick, but really it's, you know,
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00:21:45
because they were hearing it in their smaller car or their phone or something and
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00:21:49
they weren't cutting through. It was like, well, it's, you know, it's, I actually need
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00:21:52
to do this. And so this is the correct solution,
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00:21:56
you know, that I think you should do. And so it's easier to just talk
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00:21:59
through those things in five minutes instead of like, oh, but I did this. We're
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00:22:02
going in circles, like, why are you. And then that's a miscommunication.
Speaker:
00:22:06
And people are upset. And it's so much easier to just talk to
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00:22:10
people in person. Yeah. And it's about
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00:22:13
understanding the intention. I'm sure you've done this, but.
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00:22:19
I. Used to send an email like, oh, here are the five things. This is
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00:22:22
how I addressed your notes. And I don't do that anymore. I'm
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00:22:26
just like, hey, I hit all your notes. And then I made this change that
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00:22:29
I thought, like, if somebody asked for the vocal up, it might not necessarily be
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00:22:33
that the vocal needs to be louder. It might be that, you know, the guitar
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00:22:35
needs to be a little darker and the vocal needs a little bit more top
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00:22:39
or something like that. Because we all know if you send a mix with vocal
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00:22:42
too loud, you're never going to turn it back down once
Speaker:
00:22:46
it's already too loud. The singer's always going to love it loud. Yeah,
Speaker:
00:22:50
yeah. No, I think that's great advice. I think using tools. What was the one
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00:22:54
that you, I. Like to use one called session wire. Which I'm not familiar
Speaker:
00:22:57
with. It's kind of like audio movers and zoom put
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00:23:01
together in one platform. So you have video chat. There's a
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00:23:05
talkback channel, and there's a high definition channel. Cool. And there's
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00:23:08
like an auto mute thing for the talkback. And it's. It's
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00:23:12
their whole goal with it is making it as if, you know, like, you're in
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00:23:15
the studio and there's a piece of glass between. They're just standing right there. You're
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00:23:18
talking back and forth. Play the music. It's really seamless.
Speaker:
00:23:22
Nice. So I've been liking it a lot. Nice. I use something similar called
Speaker:
00:23:26
authentic audio. Okay. Basically, we're talking about the same product,
Speaker:
00:23:30
more or less. I'm not. I haven't used session wire, but you just described the
Speaker:
00:23:33
features of authentic audio. Awesome. So I want to backtrack
Speaker:
00:23:37
back a few minutes to where we were talking about, you know,
Speaker:
00:23:41
getting it right in the studio. Right. If I remember correctly, you
Speaker:
00:23:44
are a drummer, as that's your. My first instrument, yeah. Okay.
Speaker:
00:23:48
Do you jump in when you're recording and get into drum
Speaker:
00:23:52
tuning? Like, what are your thoughts on drums? Is one of those things that has
Speaker:
00:23:55
to be, if the instrument sounds fucking great, the recording sounds fucking great.
Speaker:
00:23:59
Yeah. Tips for great drums. Do you, what do you think? Do you get in
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00:24:02
there in tune? I typically don't. I mean, I'm at this
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00:24:06
point, I'm probably 95% of my work is mixing, but when I was doing
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00:24:10
more engineering, I was working in big studios, and so
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00:24:14
I had the luxury of working with great drummers that often even brought drum
Speaker:
00:24:18
texts and all that where you didn't have to, you know, on
Speaker:
00:24:21
rare occasions, yes, I'll get someone that comes in with the crappy sounding
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00:24:25
kit and I'll try to tweak it a little bit
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00:24:29
if the drummer isn't willing or capable or whatever to do
Speaker:
00:24:32
that. But even that's kind of walking a
Speaker:
00:24:36
fine line because I don't want to insult the drummer. It's like,
Speaker:
00:24:40
oh, can you tune this up a little? And then they try and it still
Speaker:
00:24:43
sucks. I'm like, well, could I do it then?
Speaker:
00:24:47
What do you, you know, so it's walking a fine balance.
Speaker:
00:24:52
But obviously, if you can get great sounding
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00:24:56
drums tuned up well and drummers that can play
Speaker:
00:24:59
them well, that's 90% of the battle. I
Speaker:
00:25:03
mean, obviously we have the luxury of working in these amazing
Speaker:
00:25:07
studios, and so you push up the fader and it sounds great. It's not always
Speaker:
00:25:11
the case, but drums is a large topic, so it's hard
Speaker:
00:25:15
to answer this question. No, totally. I set you up for a big one.
Speaker:
00:25:20
Let me share a story real quick. Okay. So I was on this project
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00:25:23
where there was, it was a. It was an interesting project because it was
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00:25:27
like lots of different bands coming in and playing on the same backline.
Speaker:
00:25:30
Okay. And it was like a project
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00:25:34
where it was a bunch of, like, newer artists
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00:25:38
and, you know, younger musicians, but it was
Speaker:
00:25:42
with established producers. And so,
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00:25:45
you know, the whole day, you know, the producer and the engineer
Speaker:
00:25:49
were trying to get it sounding great. The drums were
Speaker:
00:25:53
not really that great sounding, and they keep cranking on the knobs and creep
Speaker:
00:25:57
trying all these things and wasn't really that great. And then at
Speaker:
00:26:00
1.1 of the producers that came in was a drummer,
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00:26:04
like a famous drummer. And just for fun, he sat down on the drum
Speaker:
00:26:08
kit and started playing and it sounded amazing.
Speaker:
00:26:12
So it's like, you know, like, well, that's the answer. Like,
Speaker:
00:26:16
all these people were not playing hard or solid or
Speaker:
00:26:20
it's, the player is a large part of the sound as
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00:26:23
well. And so that's, you know, I hate
Speaker:
00:26:27
to turn it back on the artist, but at the same time,
Speaker:
00:26:31
a large part of great sounding recordings is
Speaker:
00:26:34
great performances. And yes, there is a lot we can
Speaker:
00:26:38
do to fix things nowadays. We
Speaker:
00:26:42
can tune things, we can time align things, we can do all that.
Speaker:
00:26:46
But if the original source of the
Speaker:
00:26:50
performance is not great, I mean, yeah, we can even put in samples if
Speaker:
00:26:53
we have to, with drums. But even then, as a
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00:26:57
drummer, I honestly try to avoid using samples. Because
Speaker:
00:27:01
to me, it starts to make it feel fake,
Speaker:
00:27:05
you know? And obviously it's a balance. Like, if you keep them low enough, you
Speaker:
00:27:08
can still, you know, have that natural sound, but then it doesn't
Speaker:
00:27:12
quite. You can't quite change the sound enough if they're too low. Yeah. And
Speaker:
00:27:16
so it's. It's always a balance. So I. You know, if I had to choose,
Speaker:
00:27:19
it would be an amazing drummer in a great room, tuned well with,
Speaker:
00:27:23
you know, obviously who wouldn't choose? Who
Speaker:
00:27:27
wouldn't choose that tough, tough decision. It really is
Speaker:
00:27:31
true that there is a lot, like when somebody is really
Speaker:
00:27:35
honed in their craft, you know, the consistency that
Speaker:
00:27:39
a great session drummer will hit the snare in the same
Speaker:
00:27:42
place. Right. That's why, you know, you walk into a place like
Speaker:
00:27:46
east, west, and somebody has, like, a U 67 on the
Speaker:
00:27:49
snare and you're like, whoa, what's going on here?
Speaker:
00:27:53
You have a session where the person's not going to hit a. That microphone, that
Speaker:
00:27:56
drummer doesn't hit mics. You know what I mean? Yeah, but, yeah, the
Speaker:
00:28:00
consistency that they hit with, or even guitars. Like, I've handed
Speaker:
00:28:04
my guitar to a friend who's an amazing player,
Speaker:
00:28:08
right. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, that
Speaker:
00:28:11
sounds fucking amazing. Oh, wait, it's my
Speaker:
00:28:15
fingers that aren't great. It's like, your fingers are different than
Speaker:
00:28:19
mine. And the way that you hold those strings down is like. It just sounds
Speaker:
00:28:22
so much better. Yeah. You know, there's so much. So much to just
Speaker:
00:28:26
honing your craft. When did you come to Los
Speaker:
00:28:30
Angeles? I came to LA in 2001. 2001?
Speaker:
00:28:33
Okay. I came in 2006. Okay. Would you tell
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00:28:37
a young engineer in 2024 that it's a good idea
Speaker:
00:28:41
or a bad idea to move to a major music hub like
Speaker:
00:28:44
LA? When you look at the cost of laden and how
Speaker:
00:28:48
tough it is to. Break in, I would say it's
Speaker:
00:28:51
about where your career goals are. I like that answer.
Speaker:
00:28:55
I think that there's a mountain of people out
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00:28:59
there that work in small towns, that have little
Speaker:
00:29:02
studios, that work in their home studio or in their house
Speaker:
00:29:06
or little local studios, and they all have great
Speaker:
00:29:09
careers, frankly. And it's a different,
Speaker:
00:29:13
different kind of life. You're probably not going to work with
Speaker:
00:29:17
Beyonce or a super a list celebrity,
Speaker:
00:29:21
right? That would be probably rare. But
Speaker:
00:29:25
like I said, there's many people that have great careers, and
Speaker:
00:29:28
so it's a little bit different because I would
Speaker:
00:29:32
say it's different now as to early two thousands,
Speaker:
00:29:36
because the prevalence of home studios has, you know,
Speaker:
00:29:39
gone through the roof, exploded. Everyone has a home studio. Yeah. Or two.
Speaker:
00:29:43
Or two. And quite frankly, you can get amazing results at home
Speaker:
00:29:47
for a fraction of the cost of a big studio. Oh, yeah. And so
Speaker:
00:29:50
that if anything has, you
Speaker:
00:29:54
know, increased the argument for not doing this, you know,
Speaker:
00:29:58
and just doing it in a small town and setting up a studio yourself and
Speaker:
00:30:02
doing it. But the idea is that if you're doing it yourself
Speaker:
00:30:06
and not working for a studio, you then have to learn all about business,
Speaker:
00:30:10
because you're opening a business for yourself. Yeah. Marketing and everything
Speaker:
00:30:13
else. And that's the same if you do it in LA or any of the
Speaker:
00:30:17
big, big hubs, you know, because ultimately.
00:00:00
The ultimate goal is for your clients to become your friends,
Speaker:
00:00:04
to work on projects that you would listen to their music whether
Speaker:
00:00:08
you worked with them or not. That's engineer and mixer Brendan Decora. Brendan's worked with
Speaker:
00:00:11
some of the biggest names in rock, including artists like Trent Reznor, Foo
Speaker:
00:00:14
Fighters, Stephen Wilson, and muse. Since Brendan and I both started
Speaker:
00:00:18
our careers at iconic Los Angeles studios and have since moved to be
Speaker:
00:00:22
freelance, I thought that could be a great topic for discussion. So this one
Speaker:
00:00:25
is about everything. Freelance, from finding clients to remote
Speaker:
00:00:29
collaboration. We get into stuff like why big credits don't matter as much as you
Speaker:
00:00:32
might think. Credits don't matter big, you know, stuff you've worked
Speaker:
00:00:36
on. At the end of the day, doesn't matter because there's still going to be
Speaker:
00:00:40
a mountain of people that want to work with you because you are who. You
Speaker:
00:00:43
are, when to consider what types of gigs are actually in line with your
Speaker:
00:00:46
goals. There's so many projects that I took on in the past
Speaker:
00:00:50
that, you know, I did because it was a great opportunity. But
Speaker:
00:00:54
looking back, it wasn't a great career choice. And why it's important to have
Speaker:
00:00:58
clear communication and understand expectations when working remotely. If
Speaker:
00:01:01
you're expecting the mixer to add doubles or create harmonies
Speaker:
00:01:05
or change arrangements or those, like, those things are
Speaker:
00:01:09
production choices. If you're a freelance engineer or producer or want to make the move
Speaker:
00:01:12
to become a freelancer, then you're definitely going to want to stick around for my
Speaker:
00:01:16
interview with Brendan Decora.
Speaker:
00:01:22
So there are a lot of people that want to transition to engineering production full
Speaker:
00:01:25
time. You and I both worked in major studios and now are lucky enough to
Speaker:
00:01:28
do that. What's your advice for someone that has a job? Maybe
Speaker:
00:01:32
it's music related, maybe it's not. And how to, you know,
Speaker:
00:01:36
become a full time freelance engineer. I mean,
Speaker:
00:01:39
it's kind of an ongoing process, honestly.
Speaker:
00:01:43
Okay, fair enough. I agree. I. The biggest thing that I've learned
Speaker:
00:01:47
recently is it's about the relationships.
Speaker:
00:01:50
It's about your personality. You know, you think about, you know, oh,
Speaker:
00:01:54
I wanna. I wanna niche down on a genre, which is very important,
Speaker:
00:01:58
but a lot of times people forget that it's about niching down on a
Speaker:
00:02:02
certain personality type as well. And that the idea that, you
Speaker:
00:02:06
know, the ultimate goal is for your clients to
Speaker:
00:02:09
become your friends. Yeah. To work on projects that you would
Speaker:
00:02:13
listen to their music whether you worked with them or not. Yeah. You know,
Speaker:
00:02:17
that's the ultimate dream of every ideal client is
Speaker:
00:02:21
that. And so it's figuring out how you
Speaker:
00:02:24
can show that to the world, how you can
Speaker:
00:02:28
show your personality, show your
Speaker:
00:02:31
preferences, your musical tastes, that kind of thing. Because
Speaker:
00:02:35
it's similar to, like, a session drummer, for example.
Speaker:
00:02:39
There's a thousand session drummers out there that can do the job.
Speaker:
00:02:43
Right. Why would they hire this guy? Because they're cool.
Speaker:
00:02:46
Because they're a good hang in the room. Because they have cool ideas, they have
Speaker:
00:02:50
unique perspectives, that kind of thing. It's all those pieces that
Speaker:
00:02:53
really set it apart from the rest. Niching down on a
Speaker:
00:02:57
personality type is like, I've never heard anybody phrase that
Speaker:
00:03:01
that way. That's so true, because there's a
Speaker:
00:03:04
lot of great situations where I've been where you just, like, don't want to work
Speaker:
00:03:08
with the person. Right. You know, and the music was cool and it came out
Speaker:
00:03:11
good, but everybody knows that, like, once we walk out the door, we're not gonna
Speaker:
00:03:14
work together. We didn't really like each other. Right. Obviously, that can't
Speaker:
00:03:18
be every gig, of course. How do you approach trying
Speaker:
00:03:22
to tap into finding people that
Speaker:
00:03:26
you relate with? It's something that I've been working on
Speaker:
00:03:29
myself even recently, to be honest.
Speaker:
00:03:33
But I think that a lot of it is
Speaker:
00:03:37
in about the content that you put out, and
Speaker:
00:03:40
showing that side of you to the world will attract those people
Speaker:
00:03:44
anyway. I agree with that, you know, and so, you know, it's
Speaker:
00:03:48
difficult, especially if you are working at, as an assistant in a big
Speaker:
00:03:51
studio. You're the fly on the wall. Often you don't even
Speaker:
00:03:55
allow to talk to people. Like, it's the engineer and the producer that are the
Speaker:
00:03:59
main interface for the artists. Making that
Speaker:
00:04:03
change of, you know, becoming the fly of being the fly on the wall
Speaker:
00:04:07
to being the engineer producer, or whatever it is.
Speaker:
00:04:11
It's a, it's a personality change as well. So it's a lot about, you know,
Speaker:
00:04:14
everyone says this business is about psychology, but the more I've
Speaker:
00:04:18
learned about psychology, the more I realize that that's actually true, you
Speaker:
00:04:22
know, so it's interesting I drifted from your
Speaker:
00:04:25
question, but, yeah, no, it's funny. I just had a conversation
Speaker:
00:04:29
with some, uh, with somebody else who also has a podcast. We should tell people
Speaker:
00:04:33
that you have a podcast. Uh, and we'll talk about that more later. And,
Speaker:
00:04:36
uh, we were talking about the advantages of making
Speaker:
00:04:40
content as, like, a music producer engineer. And you, like, really tapped into
Speaker:
00:04:43
something about putting your real, authentic self out there,
Speaker:
00:04:47
which is something that I've, like, pushed on the podcast for a long time.
Speaker:
00:04:51
But I think that's super valuable now, because
Speaker:
00:04:55
in our coming up, I would walk out the door. Capitol and
Speaker:
00:04:59
Studio B, and walk into studio C and say, hi, you were at east west
Speaker:
00:05:02
Glenwood place. You could do the same. Now you don't
Speaker:
00:05:05
have that. Everybody's working at home. If people can find a way to
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00:05:09
understand who you are and if they click with you, I think that's just
Speaker:
00:05:13
a really powerful, I hate to say marketing tool, but it's a
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00:05:17
marketing tool, and if you're authentic, it should be fun. I'm
Speaker:
00:05:21
sure you enjoy doing your podcast. Exactly. Because they're hard. If you didn't enjoy
Speaker:
00:05:24
it, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, for sure. Going
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00:05:28
freelance. Is there something that caught you off guard
Speaker:
00:05:31
about being freelance? Like something that you didn't expect to be a big
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00:05:35
responsibility or a big challenge? I mean,
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00:05:39
other than finding a gig? Cause everybody would answer that. Yeah, of
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00:05:42
course. I mean, it kind of goes back to that
Speaker:
00:05:46
first topic of, you know, figuring out
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00:05:50
the personality match. Yeah. And seeing,
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00:05:54
you know, and really kind of discovering what their vision is for the
Speaker:
00:05:58
song and talking to the clients and figuring out how much
Speaker:
00:06:01
they like the rough mix, even, you know, like so many times,
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00:06:05
you know, I'll get a project and I'll send over the
Speaker:
00:06:09
rough mix, and I think it sounds pretty good.
Speaker:
00:06:13
And they're like, yeah, this is. I hate this. This is totally the wrong
Speaker:
00:06:16
direction. We need to go in this other direction over here. Or the opposite. You
Speaker:
00:06:20
know, there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. So it's figuring out, you
Speaker:
00:06:23
know, where their. Where their journey is, what their goals are,
Speaker:
00:06:27
and really trying to align with that as well. Yeah. Communication is
Speaker:
00:06:31
probably the. I mean, everybody says
Speaker:
00:06:34
communication is important, but I don't think, like, when you're starting out, like, when you're
Speaker:
00:06:38
a runner at the studio and you're just, like, getting coffee orders, I don't think
Speaker:
00:06:42
you understand to what level. Right. Communication is important.
Speaker:
00:06:46
It's like, might as well be, like,
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00:06:50
vibe in a room. Communication,
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00:06:54
then maybe skillset after that, maybe. I don't
Speaker:
00:06:57
know, but vibe in a room. So your experiences working in the big
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00:07:01
studios, when did you kind of, like, connect
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00:07:04
the idea that being the best guitar player, the best drummer wasn't
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00:07:08
necessarily why those people were in the room? Well,
Speaker:
00:07:12
as you know, people come through the door and they're
Speaker:
00:07:16
frankly not great musicians, but they're the nicest people
Speaker:
00:07:19
you've ever met. Yeah. You know, it's like, they're super cool. They're super
Speaker:
00:07:23
nice. And sure, they get the job done on their
Speaker:
00:07:26
instrument, but it's about the hang. It's about the
Speaker:
00:07:30
feeling of it. It's about the friendship about it.
Speaker:
00:07:34
So that's obvious. If this business was about your
Speaker:
00:07:38
skillset, then it would be a completely different world,
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00:07:41
you know, so very different.
Speaker:
00:07:45
Very different. And obviously, we're not talking about, like,
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00:07:49
the classic studio musicians. Of course, the session
Speaker:
00:07:52
players are the exception. They have both these guys that used to play, like, three
Speaker:
00:07:56
sessions a day all through the seventies. Like, they have such
Speaker:
00:07:59
a chill vibe. Right. And are just absolutely
Speaker:
00:08:03
ridiculous. And I don't know if you've ever had this. I had it with
Speaker:
00:08:07
it with Dean Parks. Yeah. And he was doing a
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00:08:10
nylon part, and I was, you know, I was putting the mic over here,
Speaker:
00:08:14
you know, like, around the 12th fret. He was like, on this one, we do
Speaker:
00:08:17
it here. And I was like, okay,
Speaker:
00:08:21
you know where it goes on this one. Done. Yeah.
Speaker:
00:08:26
Well, okay. That's actually an accidental segue to another question I had, which
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00:08:30
is the importance of getting the production and the sonics
Speaker:
00:08:34
right from the beginning. Right. That's something that
Speaker:
00:08:38
you and I have experienced working in big studios.
Speaker:
00:08:42
We've seen people go down the rabbit holes of trying even different
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00:08:46
strats, not different types of guitars, different versions
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00:08:49
of the same guitar. Do you have any thoughts that you can share with the
Speaker:
00:08:53
bedroom producer about the importance of making those decisions
Speaker:
00:08:56
early and how that benefits the process in the long run?
Speaker:
00:09:00
I think part of it is just a lack of knowledge on
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00:09:04
certain techniques and that, you know, oftentimes
Speaker:
00:09:08
bedroom producers will try things out because they don't know,
Speaker:
00:09:12
you know, the different tactics. They've never been to studios. They haven't seen other people
Speaker:
00:09:16
do it. And so they're just kind of figuring out based on what they're hearing
Speaker:
00:09:19
on records. And, again, with music, there's no. There's
Speaker:
00:09:23
no correct answer. You know, there's a lot of times
Speaker:
00:09:27
really odd things can work really great. Yeah. But
Speaker:
00:09:31
often what's tricky is when people
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00:09:35
will send me a mix and they say, oh, okay, cool. I want this to
Speaker:
00:09:38
sound like x number band.
Speaker:
00:09:42
That's huge. And they've spent six months in the studio, and they
Speaker:
00:09:45
doubled and tripled everything and have harmonies and have all this production stuff going
Speaker:
00:09:49
on, and they send me a track with one guitar on it. Right. It's like,
Speaker:
00:09:53
well, I can't. You know, this is so not the same thing. Not the
Speaker:
00:09:57
same. Yeah. And so it's. It's a little bit
Speaker:
00:10:00
tricky because, you know, oftentimes those people
Speaker:
00:10:04
don't understand that's what that was, because they've never seen
Speaker:
00:10:08
that. They've never experienced that. Yeah. And so it's about learning. And,
Speaker:
00:10:12
you know, obviously we'll have conversations. We'll talk about, like, okay, well, if you really
Speaker:
00:10:15
want this, then put some doubles on there at least, you know? You
Speaker:
00:10:19
know, so we can pan it out, whatever it is. But
Speaker:
00:10:24
I hesitate to say YouTube, because YouTube is
Speaker:
00:10:27
such a. I don't hesitate to say it. There's a lot of amazing
Speaker:
00:10:31
information on YouTube. There is. And I've learned a lot. Yeah. But there's also
Speaker:
00:10:35
a lot of information that I guess it's hard to
Speaker:
00:10:39
always know what information is correct or not.
Speaker:
00:10:43
So it's difficult to know who to listen
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00:10:46
to, who to not listen to, you know,
Speaker:
00:10:50
because on the other extreme, I've gotten projects where, you
Speaker:
00:10:53
know, it's clear they. They watch YouTube a lot or
Speaker:
00:10:57
try to learn a lot themselves. And they've sent me things with, like, every trick
Speaker:
00:11:01
in the book. You know, it's like all these different, you know,
Speaker:
00:11:04
techniques. It's like, oh, okay, they saw this video on this, or
Speaker:
00:11:08
they, you know, someone told them to do this, and. But it's
Speaker:
00:11:12
like everything all combined, and so it's like, well, if you just
Speaker:
00:11:15
got great sounds in a room with a great player and a great
Speaker:
00:11:19
instrument with a good sounding room, that would
Speaker:
00:11:22
be better than all these tricks. Right. So it's,
Speaker:
00:11:26
you know, sometimes the basics are more. More easy to get great
Speaker:
00:11:30
results than all the fancy stuff, you know? Yeah. There's a lot of
Speaker:
00:11:34
things I want to say about what you just said. Oh, okay. I wanted to.
Speaker:
00:11:36
Let's go back to the YouTube thing, because you're probably watching this on YouTube,
Speaker:
00:11:40
not you, but you. Right. There's a difference
Speaker:
00:11:44
between information that's regurgitated
Speaker:
00:11:48
and put out versus information that's based on
Speaker:
00:11:51
experience. Right. And I think that's where the disconnect
Speaker:
00:11:55
is, because it's not like, there's not a. There is bad
Speaker:
00:11:59
information, but there's not a lot of, when it comes to, like, eqing, there's bad
Speaker:
00:12:02
tricks. Right. But you're talking about people that maybe just haven't
Speaker:
00:12:06
made records for 20 years. Right. You know, and
Speaker:
00:12:10
also, the people that made records for 20 years
Speaker:
00:12:14
probably aren't that good at sharing that knowledge in a way that
Speaker:
00:12:17
connects with a hungry, wanna learn
Speaker:
00:12:21
audience. Meanwhile, there's somebody else that can regurgitate that information in a
Speaker:
00:12:25
format that people enjoy. Right. And
Speaker:
00:12:28
so, yeah, I mean, I love you, too. I've learned something. We were talking about
Speaker:
00:12:32
cameras before we started. Like, I've gone so deep down the rabbit hole,
Speaker:
00:12:37
you can learn so much stuff for free. But I also want to touch on
Speaker:
00:12:40
the fact that I think it's our responsibility
Speaker:
00:12:44
as engineers and mixers in the room to
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00:12:48
educate people on what they want, which is you were touching on.
Speaker:
00:12:51
And that goes back to communication. Be like, well, I can't give you
Speaker:
00:12:55
the vocal sound that you want, right. Because it's
Speaker:
00:12:59
just not here. But if you want to jump back, go turn your computer on
Speaker:
00:13:02
and put a couple more doubles down, that's going to get you what you want.
Speaker:
00:13:06
And I think that's something that
Speaker:
00:13:09
is really important to do as an engineer, is to share
Speaker:
00:13:13
that back with people and bring everybody up along the way.
Speaker:
00:13:17
Yeah. And I guess one thing I wanted to say, too, is with the
Speaker:
00:13:20
misinformation on YouTube, I guess there was one example recently
Speaker:
00:13:24
where this friend of mine sent me this clip on
Speaker:
00:13:27
Instagram that was about getting great top
Speaker:
00:13:31
end in your vocal. Right. Okay. And so they basically went
Speaker:
00:13:35
through keying the, you know, like a dynamic EQ
Speaker:
00:13:39
keyed with a. With all the top, all the bottom end rolled off. And
Speaker:
00:13:43
it's like, well, he's just made a deesser. And, you know, then you
Speaker:
00:13:47
boost it after. It's like, it's not. It's not that complicated. You just put a
Speaker:
00:13:49
deesser on it and turn one knob and then do the same thing. So it's
Speaker:
00:13:53
like, things like that where, like, people are trying to get sensational, you know, like,
Speaker:
00:13:57
oh, this amazing, really cool trick. It's like, well, if you just knew a little
Speaker:
00:14:00
bit about how things work, then you see that that's not really. You
Speaker:
00:14:04
know, oh, yeah, that reminds me of, like, some of the things that would come
Speaker:
00:14:07
up when I was in school. Cause I went to engineering
Speaker:
00:14:11
school, and it's like, let's make a deesser on the SSL
Speaker:
00:14:15
channel, right? You have to figure out how to do it. Or like, let's. We're
Speaker:
00:14:18
gonna record this in Ms. And you need to decode it, right? And you're like,
Speaker:
00:14:21
you know, you pass your test and then you realize, like, I don't need to
Speaker:
00:14:24
know these things ever again. This is pointless
Speaker:
00:14:28
information. Now we're kind of touching on this. And this
Speaker:
00:14:32
is another question that I had. Do you think
Speaker:
00:14:35
that newer artists overweight
Speaker:
00:14:39
the result of a mix? Are their expectations?
Speaker:
00:14:43
Because you and I both do a lot of remote mixing, do they put too
Speaker:
00:14:47
much weight on what they believe is going to be the outcome of that mix,
Speaker:
00:14:50
whether that be a sonic change or even a popularity
Speaker:
00:14:54
change? I would say yes, absolutely.
Speaker:
00:14:58
It all depends on how much experience the artist has. I agree with
Speaker:
00:15:02
that. Newer artists that may not have been through the process that don't
Speaker:
00:15:06
understand there is a lot of that expectation,
Speaker:
00:15:09
and I've even considered doing
Speaker:
00:15:13
more production work because I get those clients
Speaker:
00:15:17
that want me to mix something, but really, they need a producer
Speaker:
00:15:21
and not a mixer. Yeah. And so, you know, it's
Speaker:
00:15:25
about learning. I mean, it all comes with
Speaker:
00:15:28
experience, really. Once you go through the process and you get a mix done by
Speaker:
00:15:32
a professional, you can see what they can and can't do. And,
Speaker:
00:15:36
you know, sometimes, as you know, you can take a
Speaker:
00:15:40
song very drastically in another direction with a mix. It can
Speaker:
00:15:43
go a very, very long. Way, and it can be a miss. And it can
Speaker:
00:15:47
be a miss. Yes, we've all done that. Yes. But at the same
Speaker:
00:15:50
time, it's, you know, learning that
Speaker:
00:15:54
how much you want to change it with the mix. And, you know,
Speaker:
00:15:57
whether that's, you know, if you're expecting the mixer to
Speaker:
00:16:01
add doubles or create harmonies or change arrangements
Speaker:
00:16:05
or those. Like, those things are production choices. Yeah. You
Speaker:
00:16:08
know, like, one client I had recently,
Speaker:
00:16:12
you know, sent me a some. I've
Speaker:
00:16:16
been working with them, kind of helping them with production
Speaker:
00:16:20
choices and say, okay, well, you know, is this guitar sound cool? It's
Speaker:
00:16:23
like, oh, it's a little bit darker. Let's. You know, why don't you try this,
Speaker:
00:16:26
and then we can go from there. Okay, cool. I'll change that and rerecord a
Speaker:
00:16:30
bunch of stuff. And then. But they asked me about
Speaker:
00:16:34
this process where they were going to, you
Speaker:
00:16:37
know, add doubles and harmonies on all the vocals, on
Speaker:
00:16:41
all the songs of. I'm like, well, yeah, I do encourage
Speaker:
00:16:45
doubles and harmonies, but not everywhere. For every note of the song, like,
Speaker:
00:16:49
you know, choose the chorus or choose certain things you want to highlight. You know,
Speaker:
00:16:52
make those production choices right before you send it to mix, instead of sending
Speaker:
00:16:56
me everything with everything and expecting me to chop
Speaker:
00:17:00
through and create what you want based on that, you
Speaker:
00:17:03
know. Yeah, yeah. That goes back to the. To
Speaker:
00:17:07
the communication. But I wanted to ask you about navigating
Speaker:
00:17:11
that additional production. Like, when you feel like something needs
Speaker:
00:17:15
a boost and you're willing
Speaker:
00:17:19
and think that you're the right person for it, how do you navigate that with
Speaker:
00:17:22
an artist to be like, I think we need an extra step in here. Are
Speaker:
00:17:25
you open to working with me in this capacity? It's always a
Speaker:
00:17:29
fine line because, you know, growing up in
Speaker:
00:17:33
big studios like we have, we've seen producers and engineers,
Speaker:
00:17:36
and there is a very distinct line between those two roles. There
Speaker:
00:17:40
is. Or there was back in the day. Yes. Yeah. But now it's, you
Speaker:
00:17:44
know, especially when people, like, we were just talking about with a mixer that they
Speaker:
00:17:47
want to take the song further or whatever else, like, you
Speaker:
00:17:51
know, there's ways where, you know, I'll always
Speaker:
00:17:55
mention if I hear something that can
Speaker:
00:17:58
help the song align with their vision a bit more, you know? Of
Speaker:
00:18:02
course the artist always has veto power, right? It's like, hey, like, I have
Speaker:
00:18:06
this idea. You said you wanted this reference, and you said you wanted it to
Speaker:
00:18:09
sound like this. I think we need to do x, y, and z in order
Speaker:
00:18:12
to get there. You know, do you want to go back and do this, or
Speaker:
00:18:15
do you want to create this? Or how do you want to. Do you want
Speaker:
00:18:18
to just not do it at all? It's all about how you phrase it and
Speaker:
00:18:21
how you. How you walk that line with the artist. And if you
Speaker:
00:18:25
say it in a way where, you know, you're just. Clearly, you're just trying to
Speaker:
00:18:28
help the end result, you know, instead of like, okay, I'm just
Speaker:
00:18:31
gonna do this, and then if you like it, cool. But if not,
Speaker:
00:18:35
then I think it sucks, you know, like, obviously that's not the way to
Speaker:
00:18:39
do it, but, you know,
Speaker:
00:18:42
so there's. There's a fine line to walk. Yeah. Well, I think
Speaker:
00:18:46
if. I guess for, for an artist or producer that's listening,
Speaker:
00:18:51
I think if you're willing to share work in progress with somebody you're thinking
Speaker:
00:18:55
about working with as a mixer and you're open to being like, hey, what do
Speaker:
00:18:58
you think? Am I going to be able to get what I want? Right. That
Speaker:
00:19:01
can be a really amazing way to split the difference. I know some people don't
Speaker:
00:19:05
like to share unfinished work, but, I mean, would you agree that that can
Speaker:
00:19:09
be a massive benefit to the final product if they're
Speaker:
00:19:12
willing to have a conversation of, do you think anything's missing?
Speaker:
00:19:17
Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, too, because, you know,
Speaker:
00:19:20
people will do that, but then I'm still
Speaker:
00:19:24
just the mixer role. Right. So it's like, well, are you
Speaker:
00:19:28
asking me to my production choices? Cause they're working with a
Speaker:
00:19:32
producer. I don't wanna step on their toes. That's true. That's true. So one
Speaker:
00:19:36
thing that I've actually started to think about recently is that, you
Speaker:
00:19:39
know, I'm happy to do, like, co production.
Speaker:
00:19:43
You know, like, if there's something I hear that could take it a little bit
Speaker:
00:19:46
further. Cool, I'll mention it. But I'm not trying to be your
Speaker:
00:19:50
producer. I'm not trying to, you know, take over the whole project and
Speaker:
00:19:53
start because obviously producers start before a note is recorded. You know,
Speaker:
00:19:57
they go through the songs and, you know, choose keys and arrangements
Speaker:
00:20:01
and all that stuff before anything's done. So I'm
Speaker:
00:20:04
not trying to do that. But if it's already to the point
Speaker:
00:20:08
where everyone's happy and then it's like, oh, well, what if you do this one
Speaker:
00:20:11
thing or these two things? Cool. Like, that's an idea
Speaker:
00:20:15
that may or may not work, but I, I'm open to
Speaker:
00:20:19
my creative input as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, no, I. Yeah, you
Speaker:
00:20:23
don't want to, you don't want to step on, on toes. I do. I do
Speaker:
00:20:26
agree with that. Since we're kind of talking remote
Speaker:
00:20:29
collaboration, do you have any
Speaker:
00:20:32
tips for successful remote mixing? Like, if
Speaker:
00:20:36
you're, you're living in Indiana and you want
Speaker:
00:20:40
to up your mix game, like, do you have, whether it be a
Speaker:
00:20:44
technical thing or a communication thing, anything that you would tell that. That
Speaker:
00:20:47
person we talked about a little bit before, but I am all
Speaker:
00:20:51
about actually talking to people. Yeah, you know, it's easy to
Speaker:
00:20:55
do remote mixing and just all over emails and texting
Speaker:
00:20:58
and things get lost. Yeah. You know, I think we were
Speaker:
00:21:02
speaking before we started recording that. You know, sometimes
Speaker:
00:21:06
there's projects where the artist will, you know, say, oh, you
Speaker:
00:21:09
know, can you turn the kick drum down? And then it's like, yeah, cool.
Speaker:
00:21:13
Here's the version of the kick drum down. Oh, that's better. And then three days
Speaker:
00:21:16
later, oh, can you turn up the low end on the cake? Like, well,
Speaker:
00:21:20
I just turned it down. Like, yes, I can turn the low end, but, and
Speaker:
00:21:23
it's just a slight miscommunication where if you get on a call with someone,
Speaker:
00:21:27
I'll often do, like, a video call with high definition
Speaker:
00:21:31
audio. There's numerous platforms to do that
Speaker:
00:21:35
so we can work together and actually stream my mixed and to their
Speaker:
00:21:38
studio and I can explain, like, oh, well,
Speaker:
00:21:42
you asked for more low end on the kick, but really it's, you know,
Speaker:
00:21:45
because they were hearing it in their smaller car or their phone or something and
Speaker:
00:21:49
they weren't cutting through. It was like, well, it's, you know, it's, I actually need
Speaker:
00:21:52
to do this. And so this is the correct solution,
Speaker:
00:21:56
you know, that I think you should do. And so it's easier to just talk
Speaker:
00:21:59
through those things in five minutes instead of like, oh, but I did this. We're
Speaker:
00:22:02
going in circles, like, why are you. And then that's a miscommunication.
Speaker:
00:22:06
And people are upset. And it's so much easier to just talk to
Speaker:
00:22:10
people in person. Yeah. And it's about
Speaker:
00:22:13
understanding the intention. I'm sure you've done this, but.
Speaker:
00:22:19
I. Used to send an email like, oh, here are the five things. This is
Speaker:
00:22:22
how I addressed your notes. And I don't do that anymore. I'm
Speaker:
00:22:26
just like, hey, I hit all your notes. And then I made this change that
Speaker:
00:22:29
I thought, like, if somebody asked for the vocal up, it might not necessarily be
Speaker:
00:22:33
that the vocal needs to be louder. It might be that, you know, the guitar
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00:22:35
needs to be a little darker and the vocal needs a little bit more top
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00:22:39
or something like that. Because we all know if you send a mix with vocal
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00:22:42
too loud, you're never going to turn it back down once
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00:22:46
it's already too loud. The singer's always going to love it loud. Yeah,
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00:22:50
yeah. No, I think that's great advice. I think using tools. What was the one
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00:22:54
that you, I. Like to use one called session wire. Which I'm not familiar
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00:22:57
with. It's kind of like audio movers and zoom put
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00:23:01
together in one platform. So you have video chat. There's a
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00:23:05
talkback channel, and there's a high definition channel. Cool. And there's
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00:23:08
like an auto mute thing for the talkback. And it's. It's
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00:23:12
their whole goal with it is making it as if, you know, like, you're in
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00:23:15
the studio and there's a piece of glass between. They're just standing right there. You're
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00:23:18
talking back and forth. Play the music. It's really seamless.
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00:23:22
Nice. So I've been liking it a lot. Nice. I use something similar called
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00:23:26
authentic audio. Okay. Basically, we're talking about the same product,
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00:23:30
more or less. I'm not. I haven't used session wire, but you just described the
Speaker:
00:23:33
features of authentic audio. Awesome. So I want to backtrack
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00:23:37
back a few minutes to where we were talking about, you know,
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00:23:41
getting it right in the studio. Right. If I remember correctly, you
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00:23:44
are a drummer, as that's your. My first instrument, yeah. Okay.
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00:23:48
Do you jump in when you're recording and get into drum
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00:23:52
tuning? Like, what are your thoughts on drums? Is one of those things that has
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00:23:55
to be, if the instrument sounds fucking great, the recording sounds fucking great.
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00:23:59
Yeah. Tips for great drums. Do you, what do you think? Do you get in
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00:24:02
there in tune? I typically don't. I mean, I'm at this
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00:24:06
point, I'm probably 95% of my work is mixing, but when I was doing
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00:24:10
more engineering, I was working in big studios, and so
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00:24:14
I had the luxury of working with great drummers that often even brought drum
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00:24:18
texts and all that where you didn't have to, you know, on
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00:24:21
rare occasions, yes, I'll get someone that comes in with the crappy sounding
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00:24:25
kit and I'll try to tweak it a little bit
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00:24:29
if the drummer isn't willing or capable or whatever to do
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00:24:32
that. But even that's kind of walking a
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00:24:36
fine line because I don't want to insult the drummer. It's like,
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00:24:40
oh, can you tune this up a little? And then they try and it still
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00:24:43
sucks. I'm like, well, could I do it then?
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00:24:47
What do you, you know, so it's walking a fine balance.
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00:24:52
But obviously, if you can get great sounding
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00:24:56
drums tuned up well and drummers that can play
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00:24:59
them well, that's 90% of the battle. I
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00:25:03
mean, obviously we have the luxury of working in these amazing
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00:25:07
studios, and so you push up the fader and it sounds great. It's not always
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00:25:11
the case, but drums is a large topic, so it's hard
Speaker:
00:25:15
to answer this question. No, totally. I set you up for a big one.
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00:25:20
Let me share a story real quick. Okay. So I was on this project
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00:25:23
where there was, it was a. It was an interesting project because it was
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00:25:27
like lots of different bands coming in and playing on the same backline.
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00:25:30
Okay. And it was like a project
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00:25:34
where it was a bunch of, like, newer artists
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00:25:38
and, you know, younger musicians, but it was
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00:25:42
with established producers. And so,
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00:25:45
you know, the whole day, you know, the producer and the engineer
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00:25:49
were trying to get it sounding great. The drums were
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00:25:53
not really that great sounding, and they keep cranking on the knobs and creep
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00:25:57
trying all these things and wasn't really that great. And then at
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00:26:00
1.1 of the producers that came in was a drummer,
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00:26:04
like a famous drummer. And just for fun, he sat down on the drum
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00:26:08
kit and started playing and it sounded amazing.
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00:26:12
So it's like, you know, like, well, that's the answer. Like,
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00:26:16
all these people were not playing hard or solid or
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00:26:20
it's, the player is a large part of the sound as
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00:26:23
well. And so that's, you know, I hate
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00:26:27
to turn it back on the artist, but at the same time,
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00:26:31
a large part of great sounding recordings is
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00:26:34
great performances. And yes, there is a lot we can
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00:26:38
do to fix things nowadays. We
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00:26:42
can tune things, we can time align things, we can do all that.
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00:26:46
But if the original source of the
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00:26:50
performance is not great, I mean, yeah, we can even put in samples if
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00:26:53
we have to, with drums. But even then, as a
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00:26:57
drummer, I honestly try to avoid using samples. Because
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00:27:01
to me, it starts to make it feel fake,
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00:27:05
you know? And obviously it's a balance. Like, if you keep them low enough, you
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00:27:08
can still, you know, have that natural sound, but then it doesn't
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00:27:12
quite. You can't quite change the sound enough if they're too low. Yeah. And
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00:27:16
so it's. It's always a balance. So I. You know, if I had to choose,
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00:27:19
it would be an amazing drummer in a great room, tuned well with,
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00:27:23
you know, obviously who wouldn't choose? Who
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00:27:27
wouldn't choose that tough, tough decision. It really is
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00:27:31
true that there is a lot, like when somebody is really
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00:27:35
honed in their craft, you know, the consistency that
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00:27:39
a great session drummer will hit the snare in the same
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00:27:42
place. Right. That's why, you know, you walk into a place like
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00:27:46
east, west, and somebody has, like, a U 67 on the
Speaker:
00:27:49
snare and you're like, whoa, what's going on here?
Speaker:
00:27:53
You have a session where the person's not going to hit a. That microphone, that
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00:27:56
drummer doesn't hit mics. You know what I mean? Yeah, but, yeah, the
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00:28:00
consistency that they hit with, or even guitars. Like, I've handed
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00:28:04
my guitar to a friend who's an amazing player,
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00:28:08
right. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, that
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00:28:11
sounds fucking amazing. Oh, wait, it's my
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00:28:15
fingers that aren't great. It's like, your fingers are different than
Speaker:
00:28:19
mine. And the way that you hold those strings down is like. It just sounds
Speaker:
00:28:22
so much better. Yeah. You know, there's so much. So much to just
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00:28:26
honing your craft. When did you come to Los
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00:28:30
Angeles? I came to LA in 2001. 2001?
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00:28:33
Okay. I came in 2006. Okay. Would you tell
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00:28:37
a young engineer in 2024 that it's a good idea
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00:28:41
or a bad idea to move to a major music hub like
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00:28:44
LA? When you look at the cost of laden and how
Speaker:
00:28:48
tough it is to. Break in, I would say it's
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00:28:51
about where your career goals are. I like that answer.
Speaker:
00:28:55
I think that there's a mountain of people out
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00:28:59
there that work in small towns, that have little
Speaker:
00:29:02
studios, that work in their home studio or in their house
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00:29:06
or little local studios, and they all have great
Speaker:
00:29:09
careers, frankly. And it's a different,
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00:29:13
different kind of life. You're probably not going to work with
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00:29:17
Beyonce or a super a list celebrity,
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00:29:21
right? That would be probably rare. But
Speaker:
00:29:25
like I said, there's many people that have great careers, and
Speaker:
00:29:28
so it's a little bit different because I would
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00:29:32
say it's different now as to early two thousands,
Speaker:
00:29:36
because the prevalence of home studios has, you know,
Speaker:
00:29:39
gone through the roof, exploded. Everyone has a home studio. Yeah. Or two.
Speaker:
00:29:43
Or two. And quite frankly, you can get amazing results at home
Speaker:
00:29:47
for a fraction of the cost of a big studio. Oh, yeah. And so
Speaker:
00:29:50
that if anything has, you
Speaker:
00:29:54
know, increased the argument for not doing this, you know,
Speaker:
00:29:58
and just doing it in a small town and setting up a studio yourself and
Speaker:
00:30:02
doing it. But the idea is that if you're doing it yourself
Speaker:
00:30:06
and not working for a studio, you then have to learn all about business,
Speaker:
00:30:10
because you're opening a business for yourself. Yeah. Marketing and everything
Speaker:
00:30:13
else. And that's the same if you do it in LA or any of the
Speaker:
00:30:17
big, big hubs, you know, because ultimately.
