Episode 1
Show Notes:
Live With Matt Rad - Episode 1
May 17, 2020
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 1
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Mixing/Starting Out
Q: I’m starting out mixing. How I do learn it? How do I get better at it?
Jon:
To learn how to mix one needs to find a mentor.
It doesn’t need to be a 1:1, in the room, day-in day-out relationship.
Jon’s mentor Tony Maserati says he had many mentors who were unknowingly his mentors. He would observe them as a fly on the wall during his time working in studios.
They should serve as a source of refined information that will help you separate the good information from the overwhelming amount of poor information in the world.
Matt:
Matt mentored under Eric Valentine.
Matt benefited from having a specific mentor and learning a very specific approach.
He also had the opportunity to apprentice under a few other well known engineers who had vastly different approaches.
Professionalism is probably the thing that mentorship teaches you more than anything else, because in the end you have to find your own approach to making records.
Watching someone work and being a fly on the wall will teach you so much. It will teach you to have patience and poise. How to be hard on yourself and when not to.
These are undervalued skills nowadays. Especially since the systems for mentorship don’t always formally exist in recording studios today.
How to Be A Professional:
Jon:
The lessons that Jon took away from Tony were primarily about how to be professional.
Jon learned that if someone wants to return to a particular version of a mix you should be able to recall it in less than a minute.
If someone requests stems from you for a four year old project, you should be able to still deliver those when they ask.
If you’re the eccentric writer/producer type who are all over the place then you need to need to have an engineer who has that brain and can organize your stuff.
Matt:
The eccentric disorganized people are not going to be successful without learning organization and having someone who takes care of it.
The role of ego in being professional:
One of the things that’s been hardest for him, that he’s getting better at, has been the emotional attachment to things that he’s working on.
It used to bother Matt when an artist would have him do six different versions and then go back to version #2. That was frustrating for him.
Matt now realizes that the people who are the most successful and have the longest careers are those are easy to deal with and are consistent. Who just want to help their collaborators/clients get the best things, above all else
As a mixer/producer if you’re coming in towards the end of the process you need to remember that everybody else has very likely been extremely stressed on-and-off for a very long time. Not only is it good to be super flexible and easy and reliable about what you provide for them, but to realize that you’re coming in to put the final touches on a much longer process that you haven’t been a part of.
You being that easy, neutral, party tends to help a lot.
Distortion:
Jon:
He rarely gets raw tracks to mix nowadays. When he does, they’re usually a mistake and were sent to him in error.
He sometimes likes to get a raw vocal track to use a reference and ensure that there is no unwitting “bad” distortion happening that can be avoided.
He doesn’t want raw vocals unless they were never mixed to begin with and didn’t have any intention. That’s rare, though.
What Jon is usually going for when he mixes is not to re-invent what they’ve done but to elevate the sound choice of the producer or artist. Elevate their intent.
He’d never push a sound so far that it was unrecognizable.
Professionals will have reference points for popular music that they can then use to convey their choices to their clients.
If it sounds like a client is going for an early 2000’s Timbaland snare then you can use that knowledge to explain your choices to the client.
In a sense that’s your job. To know what the client is attempting.
If something is already fully realized then get out of the way and let it be. Work on something else.
With the size of the teams that are contributing their opinions to a song (manager, A+R, friend, family) and are already in love with it; it is now Jon’s job to understand what is so lovable about it and what is not.
Matt:
On some level, everyone is a mixer nowadays, even if they’re not the finishing mixer, like Jon.
Nobody is thinking like Quincy Jones these days and crafting their arrangements first. They’re sculpting the sounds as they go.
References
Jon:
For Jon the rough mix is a huge part.
Jon is constantly switching back and forth on his monitor controller to his mix and the rough mix.
He relies on this mostly for extremely dense pop music.
In his opinion, someone can be considered a mixer only once they’ve seen an entire record through completion from start to finish. At least one released album.
You should have been relied upon to have delivered final released versions.
Matt:
The role of a mixer is no longer the “sonics” guy. It’s the person who understands what it is to finish a record.
Matt loves referencing stuff as he’s producing/mixing.
Q: How does a mix translate?
Spotify’s algorithm is currently measuring “replay gain” which is the equivalent to -14 LUFS.
Replay gain is a standardized format that you can read about.
Spotify is probably the worst sounding platform
Amazon sounds alright.
Tidal sounds the best, but nobody uses Tidal.
We’re mixing for the future and future platforms, not for today. We’re mixing for both, theoretically.
Jon thinks he has an artist mentality to agree but he decided to double down on mixing for the last few years because he loves releasing stuff.
Jon is thinking more in terms of density. Density of arrangement and sonic density.
It can be formed, or reformed, with proper gain-staging. With a technical brain.
Density is the key. You have to make something feel as though it is loud and not be loud for it to work on Spotify and Apple Music with normalization turned on.
Khalid’s ‘Talk’ is at a -12 LUFS. That is why it is able to have so much low-end.
As an engineer we’re supposed to know the limits of technology.
Jon is done with providing a limited mix for the client and an un-limited version for the mastering. He provides one mix.
The decisions have been made, therefore that is the mix.
To take off the limiter would get rid of so much glue.
If he says he’s doing a -10 mix, that could mean that his temporary max loudness is a -8 on the final chorus.
Jon’s Views On Compression:
Jon doesn’t usually compress
We don’t have to rely upon it as often anymore.
Jon would challenge anyone to mix a song without compression and see what they get.
What do we like about an 1176? The answer is usually that we like the way it distorts
There are better saturation tools out there than the 1176. We can saturate and get the quality we like with another tool while maintaining transients.
What most people don’t know about compressors is that as soon as they are engaged at the slowest/lowest setting you are automatically losing 1/3 of your transient.
Jon believes that transients and saturation are the future to mixing music, instead of compression and EQ.
Tubes:
Jon only uses tube outboard gear.
It has even-order distortion that boosts fundamentals.
Jon is looking for gear that emphasizes the fundamental harmonics in a given signal.
Jon recommends saving your money and not buying lesser tube gear until you can afford something really good.
Stick to software until you can afford excellent hardware.
Bad hardware can do more harm than a mediocre plugin.
Saturation Plugins:
Izotope Neutron Exciter
Warm mode is the closest to tube harmonics he’s heard.
Izotope Ozone Exciter
Triode mode is cool for upper-midrange stuff.
He wouldn’t use it for low-mids. It can get a little murky.
Wow Ctrl is fantastic
Jon doesn’t like the way that tape sounds in general.
Jon has a screen saver that he engages after every move.
After a bold move, or not, he’ll turn on his screen saver and just listen through the entire section to make sure the move is good. Then he’ll then disable the move and double-check that it was the right choice.
This also keeps him from looking at Pro Tools as he listens.
Rumor has it that whenever Michael Jackson added a small Chorus 3 part he would still listen to the song from the top in order to get/maintain perspective.
If you make a 60Hz boost on an 808 that you’re excited about you may not actually like it once it gets to the 3rd chorus and there are three more synths and a guitar with low-end.
Jon has a theory about time as a 4th, temporal, dimension of mixing.
Once Jon can get through a song from top-to-bottom without making a change he’ll know that he’s nearly done.
Even if his trouble-area is in the bridge he’ll at least start from the 2nd verse. He is constantly listening all the way through the song.
Jon never mixes in mono.
He spends 0 time in mono.
All of the low end from his snare, kick, and bass is in mono.
He thinks most low end should exist in the center.
You should always have a bass, kick, snare, and a vocal in the center. You can stereo image these things, but no jazz-panning.
