Episode 57
Show Notes:
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 57
June 8, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 50
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Q: What is the optimal UAD console chain to print with and maintain flexibility?
Matt:
I try not to use UAD because it’s a pain and I want to maintain flexibility at the end of a project.
Q: At what point in your career did you say “I made it”?
Matt:
There were 3 pivotal signpost moments in my career:
When recording on my Tascam Portastudio and realizing that I could record stereo guitars and sound like Nirvana. It was the first time I realized I could accomplish making the music I was listening to.
Street to Nowhere - Miss Rolling Eyes. I recorded their album. The drop into the last chorus on this song has this big downbeat that felt amazing and gave me chills.
The first big One Direction song that I had. It wasn’t a validation creatively, but business-wise it was something that got recognized and made enough records to confirm that I can make enough money and have a career doing this.
It’s important to make things that make you believe you know what you’re doing. You’ll make a lot of things that people won’t understand. It’s important to remember and feel those moments where you make something you’re really proud of. You’re gonna have to do this over and over in order to make a career out of this.
Jon:
An album of a friend I worked on. It was the first time I did an album from start to finish and it went on iTunes.
My first Grammy nomination for Khalid’s ‘Free Spirit’ record. Also a record that I worked on from start to completion. It sounds how I want it to sound.
I don’t feel like I’ve made it in my career because I’m not consistently working at the level I want to be working.
I am just starting to live life simultaneously with a career. Once I can do that I’ll know I’ve made it.
Question in the chat: “Do we need to make it?”
Jon:
No. I don’t think there is one outcome that is superior to another. The journey is the “it”.
One of my favorite feelings in the world is when I get the drums and the bass locked together. There’s not much that compares to that feeling. I do it for that every time.
Matt:
A big part of doing this professionally is to continue to dig and find out why you are doing it over the course of your career. These reasons will change.
Paraphrasing Penn Jillette: People say “The ends justify the means”, but there are no means. You have to enjoy the process as it’s happening.
If you’re only doing things for the money it’s a very dangerous trade to make. Because you are trading the love you have for making music for money. Be careful about that.
Q: Any advice for new studio owners doing mostly hip hop?
Matt:
Think of yourself not so much as being in the music business as it is being in the client booking, rental and hospitality business.
Jon:
My studio failed because I did not treat it in the way that Matt just said.
We built my studio for no reason other than for me to get better. Not to make money. I went against that and the studio suffered financially.
Ask yourself if you’d rather work as a mix engineer or if you want to bring a suite of rooms to a community.
Pick which one you want to be.
If you want to be an engineer. Don’t build your own studio. Or at least set it up in your house.
Owning a commercial studio is a tough business.
Q: Do you believe that engineering is the most financially stable space in the music industry?
Jon:
No. When it comes to mixers, yes it can become stable, but only for a few.
There are 5 people mixing most of the big records:
Then there are 15 who are mostly mixing everything else.
However there are then 10,000 people who want to be doing this.
The consistency of the job only comes when you hit that top 10-50 of mix engineers.
Matt:
It’s really tough. Engineering as a gig has been so tied to commercial studios, but commercial studios are declining due to home rigs. Therefore the need for staff positions has gone down.
It’s important for new people to understand that mix engineers are the most financially stable once they come into consistent work. But also, you don’t get the same potential back-end of a producer or songwriter.
Alex Tumay in the chat:
We’ve all got to charge more and mix less so that there are more opportunities for mixers to work.
Jon:
If a client can’t meet my budget I will forward it to Ingmar or someone else who needs the work.
Q: What’s been the biggest change to your workflow this year?
Matt:
Using Audio Movers to send a mix to my phone to reference mixes far quicker.
Jon:
Devoting a very specific time of day to mixing has helped to focus me. It keeps me from tinkering.
Q: Time-based effects. On the Mereba record (AZEB EP) what was your approach to lead vocal reverb on ‘Rider’?
Jon:
Probably the Seventh Heaven Reverb. Her voice is very dry and the reverb is like a dark backdrop. It’s supposed to add mystery and that dreamy sense.
I’m probably chorusing the reverb so that L/R channels shift subtly.
I’m trying to fill the space with a verb that’s a little longer than the tempo.
On more up-tempo records I might go “Kanye” with no reverb.
I’m really into automating. I don’t just put verbs on and leave them set that way for an entire song.
I’ll automate filters on reverb if I don’t want to automate the length. I’ll LPF the verb if I need it to end quicker.
I treat it more like sound design.
I do a lot more delays than verbs. Delays are cooler. Quick L/R moves are cooler.
No feedback and fast delays are cool
I leave the verbs for the slower, more dreamy, tracks.
Jon:
My mix template is very simple:
Editor’s Note: Jon goes into great detail on this in Episode 50
Seventh Heaven Verb
MegaVerb - For weird distorted throws
1/2, 1/4, 1/8 Delays
A mono slap
They are a minimal set of tools that allow me to quickly try out a few things before I implement them with a more specific tool.
Sometimes I bring the threshold of the Faraday Limiter down all the way to squash it and see how much I can get out of a sound.
By smashing the sound it lets me hear what happens if I go very crazy with the sound.
It shows me everything that is in the sound and what I need to remove or want to accentuate.
I break sounds apart to see what’s in them.
How do I make every sound full spectrum?
Not every layered sound is going to fit in a mix. Quite often you only need 1-2 of the layers and can leave the other 18 behind.
Every parameter that you add on any tool that you have, turn it all the way up, always.
Subtle moves are good, but I do them when I’ve heard the extremes of what the tool is capable of.
Matt:
If you want to make a small EQ move, boost/cut a ton and see how it feels. THEN turn it down and do the small move once you know the extremes.
I go to extremes with tempo too to know what too far is. I go too fast and then bring it back down. I also slow the tempo down a lot to feel the extremes and see what I can discover about the sweet spot for the song tempo.
Q: Who’s your favorite mixer who isn’t in the Top 15?
Jon:
Ingmar Carlson. Get him while he’s still affordable.
Q: How do you treat heavy pop background vocal layers?
Matt:
I classify and treat them in different ways depending on the type of vocal part they are:
Some examples:
Gang vocals.
Doubled, tripled, quad layered vocals are another.
Multiple lead vocals
Jon
I cut between a lot of 1-2k out of my background vocals because that’s where I want my lead vocals to sit.
Line up your consonants. Mute unnecessary breaths. Glue them all together somehow with a saturator, or a limiter, or a quick slap that puts them all in the same space.
You want them to be tight, but a little ambiguous.
Oversampling can be good for sounds that need to live in the back because it dulls and obscures transients subtly and they won’t interact with the lead or any “direct” sounding parts.
SC the background vocal bus to duck when the lead vocal comes in.
Try lining up the consonants and fading into them a little bit. That sounds punchier than cutting off the consonants entirely, as someone in the chat suggested.
