I'm just always amazed by how much people rely on turning up frequencies as opposed to really examining what's going on.
Well, that happens when I get a mix with a ton of low end, like what happened? I never EQ this much, but I'm EQing out 5 dB of low end. When you do that, you're also affecting everything else on the top end. They've been over-compensating on their end, most likely because their room is not accurate and they can't hear what they're really doing, so they add low end and then they add a bunch of top end. It can be a mess. I have to get over it when they can't change the mix, work with what they sent and take out that low end. I also have to cut the top end, which is so counterintuitive to me. I have such a hard time even doing it... it's like, "Oh, the air, the breath, the life of the track!" I'll sit back and listen after I've made the changes, and it's still good. It's as good as it'll get.
I know clients will be like, "It's not as bright," even though you've fixed a lot of problems for them.
It becomes a dance. Sometimes I'll be rolling off a shelf at 7 or 10 kHz. That's crazy. It might just be a half dB, or not quite a dB, and then I'll try to bring a little bit out at 4 kHz to kind of give a bit of sparkle back. There are all these little things that you can do that end up adding to the big picture.
What are some of your favorite projects you've mastered in the past few years, as far as musically or as a job too?
Prior to this year, I mastered a great album for a band called Title Fight. They're in Pennsylvania. This engineer's name is Will Yip, and he works at Studio 4 in Philly. He's a young kid who works with all these punk rock and hardcore kids. He has amazing sounding mixes. He wants to keep recording these bands that have little money in this awesome sounding control room. Title Fight's Shed, that was a really great album. Another project from McKenzie Smith at Redwood Studios was Basko Believes which sounds really great. I did another project Ryan Freeland for The Barr Brothers, and of course this amazing project with Bettye LaVette which was just mind-blowing. It's still on repeat in the car.
I've seen her live. I bet that was fun.
I try to do my research on someone who I'm not totally familiar with before I start working on their project. I saw a video of her online at the inauguration for Obama. I was just looking at her like what? An amazing voice coming out of that lady.
What's the most unusual or atypical thing you've ever had to master?
I'd have to really think. I have this gentleman, who's a repeat client, who records and writes by himself, mixes all his own songs, isn't even going to sell the album to anybody but just has all this stuff. I think this past album he was really excited, because he had someone help him mix. He said the mixes sounded perfect. He's just doing it for himself, not for anybody else, so it's kind of out there with the lyrics and the sound. But you try to connect with them and do right by them. Obviously he's able to recognize that mastering is important, which is unfortunately becoming rare these days.
We mentioned credits on our panel earlier. What steps do you take to let people know you'd like to get credits?
Maybe I make too much of an assumption that they just will. Maybe I'll change my ways and become more vigilant about it. People are nice, and they'll say yes, but they might forget. Then what do you do? They apologize, but there's still nothing they can do. That happened with a recent vinyl release. What do I say? "I'm never working with you again?" No, I'm not saying that... I do what I can to promote my work on my website and Facebook page to compensate. I guess sometimes you can make updates to AllMusic, so if you find an album you worked on that's missing credit, you can submit to them to have them adjust it. I just want someone to come up with a database like CDDB. That thing works. Why can't you get that to work for credits?
Craig: The problem is we're the only ones who care.
Well, I think people do care. They just never get to look at it. People who look at the record start to scan things and take a look at the names. There's no artwork anymore though. People just get the download and there's nothing to look at anymore. Buy more vinyl. I read all the credits for everybody, even stuff that I didn't work on.
It's still amazing how much is left off of those. Interviewing Richard Dodd last night, I asked him where Wildflowers was mixed. That wasn't on the album.
It's crazy. The major label projects I've worked on, the sheets that they send out from the label, like who worked on it and where, I thought it was so crazy. Why can't everybody do this? It was awesome. They'll have all the credits lined up right, but then they'll put 28 minutes on a side of an LP. There's always a drop-off somewhere.
Where does your main work come from?
Most of my work comes from engineers. There's another engineer from Denton, Texas. He's the drummer from the band Midlake. His name is McKenzie Smith, and he runs a studio, Redwood. He started engineering and sending stuff to me when I was at West West Side. He was new to engineering, and I've kind of grown with him. Now that he has his own studio, he's sending me his stuff. He sent me this really cool project by Sarah Jaffe. I sent it here to Cameron [Henry, at Welcome to 1979] to cut for vinyl, and it turned out amazing.
Craig: Doesn't he own a bar now, too?
Yeah, the Paschall Bar in Denton TX. It's the whole band (Midlake). They own the bar and they own the studio. It makes sense.
I think a lot of us engineers who are working constantly really need to form those kinds of relationships.
It's the best, it really is. You learn from each other, and you're not afraid to help each other become better. If things get screwed up, you just fix it and send them the right mix.
You kind of get to know what their mix is going to feel like.
Absolutely.
