Episode 50 - Ultimate Q&A
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 50
April 27, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 46
Show notes by: Bradley Will
All the Questions Jon Usually Doesn’t Want to Answer:
Q: What Is Your Vocal Chain?
1. Filter on the vocal.
HPF up to 100-120 and down to 20k-25k LPF for focus.
This is all to filter out unwanted/unnecessary frequency information. This focuses the sound.
2. DW Fearn VT-7 or Unfairchild outboard tube limiters.
No ratio. Not for gain reduction. Simply for the tube sound.
If it’s a bad recording there will be some dramatic subtractive EQ before he runs it through the tubes.
3. Maybe a De-esser if it’s needed.
Pre or post analog gear depending on the source recording.
4. Then he clip gains the level of the vocals, to even out dynamics.
5. Occasionally he’ll throw in a Faraday Limiter to put a hard clamp on a recording that is way too raw or dynamic.
This is usually when he gets a recording from a bad vocal producer.
6. Transient shaper
To bring back any transients that may have been lost from the tubes or the Faraday limiter.
For the upper-midrange.
Has less phasing issues than Soothe.
8. Once he’s done all these broad strokes moves, he may add the Ozone Dynamics compressor before the transient shaper to give it that extra-clamped energy. This is only if he thinks the clients wants that very compressed sound.
He’s not looking for the sound of compression, he’s looking for the functionality of compression.
9. Spectre - Additive saturator
Placed after all of the subtractive moves.
For a midrange presence boost using “solid”, “warm”, or “clean” mode. Whichever pushes it forward without bringing back the things he just subtracted. He’ll use a large, wide, Q boost.
Jon is clip-gaining consonants and “esses” a lot.
Template Send/Returns
Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven - Reverb
Sunset Chamber preset.
It defaults to 1.8 seconds, but he changes the decay time on every song to match the tempo.
Jon uses a long pre-delay. 40ms.
Tape Delay setting.
1/4, 1/8 and 1/2 on his template for different purposes.
w/ some sort of phaser/modulation on it.
Very dense, distorted, and long reverb.
For throws. Ad-lib throws, wild stuff.
Eventide H3000 Microshift
+/- 9 cent preset for widening.
He defaults to +/- 9 cents, but has present for 6 and 3 cents for different vocal types. (Lead, bkgds, etc).
It’s always stereo.
Very large dip at 500-700 Hz. Very deep cut so that he’s not getting any buildup in the midrange and is totally out of the way of the mono vocal. Fully wide and very out of the way of the vocals.
The plugin sounds just as good as the hardware.
He uses it on keyboards/guitars, everything.
He uses it a lot.
Jon:
Be careful with redundant frequencies in reverbs, delays, and effects. For example. If you have a lot of 2k in a vocal, cut that from the verb.
Anything you add in one place you need to subtract in another.
Jon always mixes the vocal dry when he starts working. Turns off all verbs delays to start.
Q: What is your standard mixbuss?
1. DW Fearn VT-5 EQ
Low boost @ 20 Hz. Pultec style.
2-8 dB based on needs of the song.
This usually stays the same from the beginning. This is how he makes choices on his 808s and basses. He can’t go back and change it later on because it will undermine the foundation of the mix.
Mid Cut @ 400 Hz. -2 dB
High boost @ 16 kHz.
High Cut @ 28 kHz.
He constantly messes with this setting a lot.
2. FabFilter Saturn (v1)
In bypass mode.
In HQ/oversampling mode
When it is engaged and bypassed there is still something that it adds.
Seemingly a bypassed plugin is not true bypass.
Generally speaking you should be careful when you use oversampling on a plugin because it can mess with transients and punch in a negative way.
Only Saturn v1 does this. Saturn 2 doesn’t have this quirk.
If you un-bypass it, Saturn is terrible on the mix buss. So be careful.
3. Ozone Imager
Slight widening on Imager from 440 Hz - 2.5k and 2.5k and up.
It’s bypassed from 440 down. Jon doesn’t want to touch this area at all.
Jon never centers (monos) the bands.
The Stereoize is off. He’s only using band-specific widening.
Just a little amount. Very subtle. 2-4%.
Jon never uses Mid/Side processing. Especially not on his mix buss.
Between 2k - 5k.
He’s got it on as a handicap.
Using it subtly. The needle barely moves.
If he wants something to go warmer he’ll go lower on the tone control.
Set to -.1 on Threshold.
He’s using it for the ceiling to control the output into his clipper:
Doing a couple of dB in the clipper instead of a limiter to get things loud.
He’s adjusting the Ozone Maximizer Ceiling to have better control going into the clipper.
Q: How loud do you deliver your mixes?
-10 LUFS is his goal.
Q: What is the best way to add air to a vocal?
Filter the stuff you don’t want.
Take out all the stuff that’s not air.
You usually don’t need to add any. But if he does, he’d use clean or smooth mode on Spectre.
Q: What does a Jon Castelli mix cost?
Jon charges $3500 a mix plus an $800 studio fee per song.
If they want more than ten songs mixed he’s down to negotiate a deal on this rate.
Plus a 1% royalty.
The studio fee is the cost for the assistant. Stem printing downtime. Jon has to upkeep a studio, so the label needs to pay for that.
There are probably a handful of mixers who charge more than that.
Jon does not charge for revisions.
Jon doesn’t have a kill fee.
This devalues the work that people are asking you to do.
If the song doesn’t come out. You should still be paid.
The only artist that Jon would do a spec mix for is Rihanna.
Jon is open to talking about this more because nobody else wants to talk about it.
