Episode 2
Show Notes:
Live With Matt Rad - Episode 2
May 19, 2020
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 2
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Having or making deadlines for yourself is a difficult thing to do. It’s hard to self-motivate.
Reliability and Professionalism:
Jon:
When you’re up against a tight deadline, communicating with your collaborators, voicing your needs, and announcing your expected delivery times will give the next person in the chain time to prep their own deadlines and be ready for the hand-off as soon as you are.
Matt:
A lot of professionalism is just being reliable. You get that call from your client because they know you can deliver and won’t add any extra stress to their process; and the end of the process usually is stressful.
They’re hiring you not just because it will sound good, but because you’re pleasant, on time, and you won’t add to their stress.
Jon:
He learned from Tony how to call people up and talk about their needs. Tony always got on the phone with the artist, producer, or A+R if he had questions about the project. He’s so personable.
Be personable. Jon prefers attended mix sessions. Nobody wants to deal with an asshole hotshot mixer.
Specialization:
Jon:
Why is the mixer not a part of the artists’ team/squad? Why are they usually outside of the conversation?
Matt:
Things are becoming more team-based these days for an artist.
Compression:
Many people learn that compression is just something that you do, so they automatically apply compression when they need something to be louder.
Jon:
That’s not how you make something louder. To make something louder you turn up the gain.
With poor monitoring and too much compression, 9/10 times you’re making the sound smaller.
Compression also changes the feel of something, so you need to be sensitive and asking yourself, “why am I changing the feel of this producer’s hi-hat pattern?”
Jon is not using his Unfairchild as a compressor. He’s using it for tube coloration.
Matt:
The thing that took me the longest to hear is compression.
50% of the time when he’s producing a project he ends up mixing it. The other 50% of the time it’s because there’s already a mixer attached to the project.
What he expects when sending his mixes to a mixer he’s expecting their objective ear and their expertise.
Jon
Demo-itis is a disease.
Jon rarely changes anyone’s levels, he rarely compresses, and he EQ’s very judiciously. So what does he do? He adds an emotional depth to records. To make the song more tangible and so that you can reach into the music and touch it.
Jon tries to back off the limiting and carve out the sounds so that the transients can smack in a more tangible way.
Jon knows how to use a compressor but he knows ways to get what he thought he was getting out of a compressor with other tools.
Minimum Effective Dose:
Matt
You need to learn the rules in order to break the rules. So that you can then make decisions on what not to do.
You need to learn how to go extreme on everything in order to pick the rare cases that you want to go extreme.
‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ is one of his fav arrangements because it’s so sparse and only has 6 elements in the entire song.
Q: Are there records that you go back to that stick out to you as being impressive?
Jon
Usher’s ‘Confessions’ record comes to mind.
You can turn up the volume as loud as possible and it just feels better and better.
That record sounds better than most records that come out now, from a mixing perspective. It would still hold up against anything that comes out today.
The drums on this record HIT. The drums on an Al Green record HIT, although in a different way.
Matt
Q: What is the difference between the Usher records and a 70’s Funk/RnB record. What is tangibly different between these two types of record?
Jon:
Everything is played on the 70s record
Samples are consistent, but the performed instruments flam against each other and have differing dynamics from hit to hit.
Q: When getting stems. Do you ask for dry versions of the stems, or do you want them wet?
- Sometimes Matt will take his plugins off the vocals before sending to Serban for a mix because he wants to Serban to do his thing on the vocals.
Jon:
You think that you want us (mixers) to do that, but the artist wants it to sound like it’s sounded for the last 13 versions.
Jon doesn’t want to do his thing to their vocal. He wants the artist to love his/her vocal. And that has already been decided on before he gets it. He doesn’t want to have an ego about that.
Matt:
One of the Lord-Alge brothers has mentioned clip-gaining every word on the vocal to normalize it and THEN added compression, if necessary.
Matt is always surprised to rediscover the merits and power of basic, well-done, engineering technique: Mic technique, mic placement, coaching the singers to adjust their performances. This is everything.
Jon:
If a singer is too close to the mic you get too many low-mids from the proximity effect and you have to take out too many of them, and you lose fullness in the vocals. Now you have too much high-end and sibilance that will make them sound thin. Everyone is too close for every polar-pattern type. They should be at least 6+ inches back. At least.
If the singer is getting too close to the mic turn down the instrumental so that the singer doesn’t have to lean in to hear themselves.
Sort out the vocalists’ monitoring levels in their headphones before you start, which will go a long way to solving your singer’s performance issues.
Monitoring:
Matt prefers multiple monitoring sources for himself for his production work.
Jon:
Jon monitors on his PMC MB3-XBD’s and his AirPods Pro.
Sometimes he’ll monitor on his phone as well.
Jon doesn’t necessarily subscribe to having multiple monitoring sources on your console.
To paraphrase his friend Ruiari: “If three people give you three slightly different sets of directions to travel to the same location and they give you three slightly different lies. Who gets there first?”
Jon mixes pretty loud because wants to have fun on a daily basis with what he does.
Regarding long periods of loudness: Jon is thinking about turning his speaker down because of the research results that show that high SPL’s lead to greater instances of cortisol secretion. He wants to minimize that effect to the naturally occurring instances that we feel in the morning only.
Jon loves low end. He dials that in first along with the right amount of high-mids and highs that will feel competitive when played on the radio or playlists. That informs his overall approach to mixing.
Jon wants to mitigate cortisol as much as possible in his life, so that means less high volume mixing and eventually less coffee.
It’s very important to walk around the room when he’s listening on a mix. It helps to give him perspective.
Matt:
Jumping between songs or taking breaks to clear your head is hugely important to maintaining perspective when making choices.
Jon:
Jon takes ear breaks between each song.
He’ll meditate or do pushups between songs.
Jon will only A/B a song against the rough mix, unless he is mixing an artist for the first time and he will listen to their discography to see what they’ve approved in the past.
Matt:
He will check the vocal sound when he listens to see how the singer is used to hearing their voice.
He has learned simplicity from Jon in regards to how he works. The simplest most effective version is usually the best.
Jon
Jon sends .mp3s out to people to listen to, so he listens to his mixes that way.
He always does 16bit/44.1kHz sampling rate
Jon has his assistant down-sample everything to 16/44.1kHz. Jon doesn’t hear it any other way.
Meditation and Low End:
Q: How often do you meditate?
Jon had meditated every day for the last year.
Matt has been meditating for an hour each day.
Q: How does meditation inform the practice?
Jon is very deliberate about his moves. He knows where he’s going.
Usually his first mixes in the morning after he meditates are his most effortless.
Meditation helps him to distill all of affect of the outside world and decide where to focus his energy.
If Jon is trying to get something to sound modulated and not so sterile in the box he’ll reach for the Goodhertz Wow Control plugin to modulate L/R so that it’s moving around a bit.
Matt:
Meditation can train you to realize that you have automatic habits and recognize that they exist so that you can continue to do them but make more deliberate decisions to choose what you intend to do.
Jon:
For expansive low end you need to make room for it in the mix.
If you want richer, deeper, low end you may have to turn down everything in the mix by 6dB, which can threaten to upset the balance of the mix and is harder to do.
Where most record makers are constantly trying to turn things up to make them clearer, Jon’s approach is to lower things to give them room to breathe.
When somebody tells Jon that the vocal needs to be louder his response is to ask “What is in the way of the vocal?”
Q: Is mixing a form of meditation?
Absolutely. Any creative process that can get you into a flow state is meditative.
As soon as you realize you’re in a flow state you’re out of the flow state.
You want to ride that flow state as long as possible. If you can you’re going to get the song done faster.
That’s the job of any aspect of creative process. Not to let that feeling go away.
Jon aims to hit that flow state as often as possible.
Jon:
I fall in love again and again with the process.
Q: How do you go back to that?
Not sure. I’m just lucky to get to do what he loves every day.
His cooking is very similar to his practice as a mixer. That re-inspires his mixing with the insights he gets from cooking.
Matt:
It’s really good to have a counterpoint to the main thing that you are doing. A different psychological outlet with different stakes.
If he’s making records and it’s very involved it’s important to have some other process that he can use to bounce off of it.
Jon:
Every time I send a mix I get nervous that they’re not going to like it.
Matt:
“Be impatient with action. Be patient with results” - Naval
If you have the anxiety of fear, understand it, let it motivate you, and then let it go.
3 Habits to Improve Your Life:
Jon:
Have a good morning routine. It’s the most important thing he thinks you can do.
Give yourself X amount of minutes to exist in your space every day when you wake up.
Punctuate your day with time for yourself somehow.
If you’re not feeling up to doing your best work in time to meet a deadline don’t be afraid to check in and see how firm that deadline really is. It may not be so strict and you can have extra time to get something done a little later when you’re feeling better and can give your all.
Usually the hardest songs to get across the lines are the ones that you have friction with because you don’t feel passionate about them.
Matt:
Meditation is like stretching for your mental health. You should do it when you’re feeling low and when you’re feeling good
You need to prepare yourself to be in a position to do your best work.
More and more it’s about habits and setting yourself up to do your best work.
Doing great work is way more important than rushing stuff, if the deadline isn’t firm.
Everybody wants the best work. They’ll forgive you if you’re late and the work is superb.
Usually Matt can’t do his best work if he doesn’t feel passionate about it.
