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Two highlights that stand out are producing, engineering and mixing "I Can't Handle Change" (Certified Platinum) by Roar, and then recording basic tracks for "Harmonia's Dream" by The War On Drugs. In both cases it was a really magical and profound experience witnessing those songs come together in the studio. I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to explain it. This might sound a little spacey and out there...but in both cases I felt almost like a tangible sense of tapping into some greater musical universe that was able to be channeled through everyone involved with those sessions.
I'm particularly proud of "I Can't Handle Change." It was a project I recorded way back in 2009 at the very beginning of my production career. Recently, the record was kind of re-discovered and Roar has grown this massive amazing new fanbase. I'm really happy for Owen Evans, who is the mastermind behind Roar, and really happy that his music has been resonating with so many people.
My main roles are as a producer, engineer and mixer.
My roles when producing can vary depending on the artist. For some projects I might be digging in to co-write songs with an artist and work up arrangements, and in others, they may just need a more hands off collaborator, and I might just help guide the recording process or help give some structure to a direction the artist wants to explore. In either case, the end goal is always the same, and that's to deliver a really compelling record.
In the engineering and mixing roles it's typically that traditional job of playing in the sonic sandbox and thinking about how to craft sounds and balance sounds in a way that best reflects the ideal feeling for any given moment of a song.
My earliest music memories are of my parents playing Beatles records and classical music. I first started playing trumpet in the school band, but quickly put that on the back burner when I heard Nirvana and all the alternative bands that were coming out in the early 90s. By high school I had started my first band, The Spinto Band, with my friends at school and my favorite bands were The Flaming Lips, Pavement and Beck... with that healthy bedrock of The Beatles still going strong as well.
By college, I was hanging out with so many music fiends, that the sky was the limit music wise. I'd be hearing all sorts of things from old weird 60s records to new indie hip-hop. I went to college in Washington, DC and it was also fun to be inspired by the punk scene down there, and the recording community that revolved around Inner Ear Studios.
I also have to give a special mention to my bandmates' dad's who were in a really great local americana band called The Sin City Band... so there was some nice old country and western music peppered in there as well.
Well, speaking of The Sin City Band, they were pretty influential because they gave our band all of their old hand-me-down equipment! So my bandmate Thomas Hughes had this great studio set up in his basement with all their old equipment! We'd spend pretty much every weekend of our teenage years bouncing between the basement studio, and the upstairs Nintendo video game vortex.
Around this same time the Beatles Anthology documentary came out... so all of a sudden I was seeing all of these amazing studio pictures and hearing people talk about making records and the recording process. This lit a fire in me and I became a studio rat almost immediately.
My other bandmate had an uncle down in Nashville named Robin Eaton, who owned Alex The Great Recording. My band eventually went down there to record and that became a really eye opening experience on how to make records. Sometimes it was a bumpy ride down there, but it definitely was an important moment along the way.
My band eventually set up our own studio, where we made our later records, and that was a pretty influential time just having a DIY studio clubhouse to run wild in. As that band became less active I switched to doing recording full time, and that has been the path I've been on ever since.
Oh, and I would like to mention a more recent friend and mentor of mine: Damian Taylor. Damian has been really influential in helping me navigate some important (but easy to overlook) aspects of being a recording freelancer... everything from dialing in a healthy studio headspace and life balance to giving me fresh perspectives on the business side of our world.
Hmmm, well, speaking of Damian, one of the sayings that comes up a lot in our conversations is: "You either get the result you wanted, or the lesson you needed."
Whenever I do a kinda "post mortem" on a frustrating time or a failure, I always try to walk away with some lessons. Then through a combination of determination and curiosity I try to figure out ways to better navigate that situation if it were to happen again.
One instance that comes to mind is that I once had two sessions with the same band a few months apart, and for the first session, the rough mixes felt great, but for the second, I felt like they were really not up to snuff. So it really got me thinking about what the differences were in those two scenarios... so I started making a list... were their technical differences? Were there process and approach differences? Were there significant differences in my mindset in each scenario? I kinda took stock of all that and then would do some deliberate practice to test out what scenarios lead to the best results. Then afterwards I would take stock of the practice and think about ways I can apply any lessons learned from it to future sessions.
This might be kind of a cheeky answer, but my go-to piece of gear is my notebook and a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil! I take tons of notes during a session, especially notes on different takes during a tracking session. I love how taking notes can not only be a way to help you organize a session, but it is also kind of a constant reminder to keep your focus.
I'm always listening and focused enough to make notes about a take... and it keeps me right there in the midst of the music. The notebook is useful during a mix too, and I like to use it as a place to jot down gut thoughts on a mix, or a rough mix. That way I can reference back to those notes if I ever feel like I need to check my perspective on a tune.
My dad was a paper conservator, so I definitely have a soft spot for archiving things in a paper notebook!
Be extremely curious and don't ever stop being curious. If you fail, always look for the lesson you can teach yourself from it. Also, try to be a positive person... this line of work can be a real grind, and it is too easy to encounter negativity.
Try not to dwell on outside factors (or place blame on them) but rather, focus on things you can take action on yourself to move your career forward. I wish I could go back in time and drill this into my younger self... and I know it is also sometimes easier said than done, and it is something I'm still trying to get better at now.
I've been using headphones since my earliest days in the studio, but I feel as though I've come to use them as a specific tool a little more recently. I like to have a set of headphones I am familiar with that I can bring around to varios studios... that way I have a familiar point of reference to check a recording on if I'm in a new studio.
Also, since a lot of my casual music listening takes place on headphones these days, I like having that same set of headphones be both my casual listening headphones and my studio listening headphones. That way whatever sort of sonic memories or specific feelings I have from the casual listening get the same headphone reference point when I'm working on a session. Using the same headphones helps translate those memories and feelings more easily into whatever I'm working on.
The MM-500s are now my go-to reference for monitoring in a room I'm not familiar with. I've been using them for a few different mixes now, and have really been enjoying them. They sound great, and I feel as though my gut sonic instincts are matching up well with how the MM-500s are presenting the music. I've also been bringing them along to tracking sessions.
Lately I've been using them on some mixes by the bands French Cassettes and Fellwalker. I'm also about to travel for a new tracking session with Roar, so I'll definitely be packing the MM-500s to use as a reference for those sessions.
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