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One highlight for me would be working on the David Nail and The Well Ravens album “Only This and Nothing More.” I co-produced it with David Nail and Andrew Petroff, I engineered and mixed it as well.
I had a history touring with David, years prior, as his engineer on the road and Andrew was his bass player. The “Well Ravens” was a sort of an indie departure from David’s country career. It was probably the most freeing project with zero parameters I have had the pleasure of working on. It was very fun creating music with friends that had spent countless hours together on a tour bus. It might not be the most well known record I’ve worked on, but it was the most fun and gratifying.
These days I would say my main role is Mix Engineer for stereo and now more Atmos/Spatial Audio mixing. But I still do some tracking.
I was the lead singer and played guitar in a band in high school. I wanted to record myself and that lead me down an obsessive path of becoming an engineer to figure out how to make things sound “like a record.” I listened to a lot of jam bands growing up and I still really enjoy music that is heavy on the instrumental side. This has translated into my mixing work, in that I try to highlight specific instruments in a song, instead of a wash of sound. If the song calls for it of course.
I would have never gotten into recording and mixing if I didn’t learn to play guitar, and I can thank Dave Matthews for that. Obsessing over how he played certain riffs, and then attempting to record myself play those riffs when I got my first digital interface. I quickly realized that simply plugging in or setting up a mic on a guitar wasn’t all there was to it. It started a lifelong search to figure out how to make things sound like the records I liked.
I’m sure anyone who has attempted to mix a song has been through the frustrating scenario where you work on a song and print it. Then make changes to it to make it “better”, but then after hours of tweaking you realize you made it worse than it was before! A combination of ear fatigue and hyper focusing on one specific element for too long is what would do it for me.
Fortunately that doesn’t happen very often to me anymore and the way I avoid this is #1 always “save as” a version anytime I attempt to improve something so you can always get back to where you were. #2 take breaks, and then listen outside of the mix position and walk around the room or down the hall to see if it sounds right. A change of scenery and a different vantage point can do wonders to re-set your ears and brain.
Pretty much all of the Fabfilter plugins get used on a consistent basis. I could easily do a mix on just their plugins and a few stock plugins, which says a lot. I think of them as more workhorse/utility tools. I also use the Soundtoys line quite a bit to quickly dial in vibe and color.
I used to use a decent amount of outboard gear during mixing, and still do occasionally. But now that I bounce between a few different studios, it makes more sense for me to keep everything in the box.
Don’t let your ego get in the way of criticism and learning new things. I’m still learning new ideas and techniques all the time, even from younger or less experienced engineers. Basically, never have the attitude that you’ve “made it”, while maintaining a healthy level of confidence.
I have been using headphones as a reference for mixing and while tracking for the past 20 years or so, and still use those same headphones regularly. I never really trusted them as a way to mix from start to finish, but Audeze has changed that!
In my live touring days as a monitor engineer, I solely mixed on custom IEM’s, but that was a completely different scenario with its own unique obstacles.
The LCD-Xs have been great! They not only help my workflow for checking mixes, they are actually great for mixing from start to finish! This really helps me be able to finish mixes when working remotely. I can confidently send mixes when working outside of my studio. They have also inspired me to just enjoy listening to music, which has been very refreshing.
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