Episode 7
Show Notes
Live With Matt Rad #7
July 7, 2020
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 7
Show notes by: Bradley Will
200-400Hz on Ozone Exciter in warm mode for some midrange warmth.
Environment affects our creativity.
What about limitations in our digital environment? Delete all of your plugins except for one of each type that you would use (one saturation, reverb, delay, EQ, compressor, limiter.) A lot of people don’t ever allow themselves to overuse just one plugin and really get to know it.
Jon wants to give people challenges and see what they can take away from it.
Quickness of results and proper workflow is super important to free you up to make more and better choices. Limited choice. Ease of use. Meditation. Exercise and diet. Be prepared.
Pro engineers think they need every plugin. Jon let’s his assistant with every plugin bounce down the session so that Jon doesn’t have to face their messy shit.
Jon is at a place where he only uses 4-5 max of every processing tool:
EQ:
1. FabFilter Pro-Q3 for subtractive,
2. Soundtoys Sie-Q for top end boost and sometimes mid crack,
3. Ozone Vintage EQ for colorful lower end boost or smooth high end boost
Saturators:
1. Decapitator
2. Saturn 2
3. Neutron Exciter
4. Ozone Exciter
Compressors:
1. Ozone 9 Dynamics only.
He used to Use Pro-C2. It makes up gain weirdly so Jon stopped using it.
Limiters:
1. Faraday Limiter - warm slider has a really cool sound. Sounds good on bass.
2. Ozone Vintage Limiter by Izotope,
3. Fabfilter Pro-L2. He uses them on vocal busses in Transparent mode to get them loud and up front.
Final master limiter is an Ozone Vintage Limiter in his master buss. Max 2dB of reduction on a kick.
Reverbs:
1. Seventh Heaven
2. Megaverb
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Using your ears and truly paying attention for what you’re hearing is the only way that you can be yourself and eventually find your own voice. You can’t “out-Jaycen Joshua” Jaycen Joshua. Use your ears and develop your taste.
Neil Gaiman commencement speech in 2012: How to be a creative person in a capitalist world. “You don’t find your voice until you’ve sounds like a lot of people”
It’s not hard to develop taste. It just takes time, commitment, and focus.
MS/Stereo widening: Jon does side transient detection on the sides so that the lead vocal pops out a little more. It’s a subtle way to create width. Jon is very against the use of stereo widening tools as a whole. He uses them subtly and carefully. You can never hear it. He goes to where he can hear it then he pulls it back a few clips. It fucks with the phase. Be careful. Let a professional do it if you’re second guessing how you’re doing it. He NEVER uses it on the mix buss.
Panning is a good alternative to widening.
Jon doesn’t mono low end. He gets rid of stuff on the sides if he needs to.
M/S EQ is fine. It’s mostly surgical with Jon. It should only be used as surgical moves. Most mixes he does don’t have any M/S EQ.
Jon really hates Barefoot monitors because they distort and they make you think something sounds good when it doesn’t. There are phase issues with the left/right ports. They sound awful outside the sweet spot which makes them poor for collaboration.
If you have the money to buy Barefoots, you can A/B them. PMC will lend you some speakers for a week to A/B against your speakers. Use your ears. People don’t know how good things sound when they use Barefoots.
Some people make great records on any type of speaker.
