Mat Leffler-Schulman - What Makes a Mix Great: Insights from a Mastering Engineer

I always master it for how it should sound. Good. If you are mastering for

Spotify right now, two years down the road, it's going to be something

else. So I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song

in sort of like its own ecosystem at any given

time. That's mastering engineer Matt Loeffler Schulman. Matt's worked with artists such as Jon

Batiste, Beach House, Nelly Furtado and Mary J. Blige. Today we're

going to get into what makes a great mix. But from the perspective of the

mastering. Engineer, mastering is sort of the end of the road. Like if you didn't

get it, good to begin. Some of his techniques for honoring the

mix while still elevating the master to the next level. If it's a mix where

the vocals are a little bit hot and you want the sides to be a

little bit more pronounced, you can compress the mid

but not the sides. So the sides stay nice and

doing what they're doing, but the vocal in the center gets a little bit more

tightened and in focus. How a condition called chromasthesia has become a tool for

his mastering process. There are shapes and colors and

they change based on frequency,

intensity and whatnot. And why he's not that concerned with

AI mastering. There is clearly a market for that and

I feel like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend

money with me anyways. A mixed engineer who also masters

their clients, that's where AI is going to take business away. So whether

you're here to learn more about the technical side of mastering or the business and

the philosophies behind it, this one is for you. Stick around for my interview with

Matt Leffler Shulman,

you've mastered number one top ten songs for Grammy winning artists. But

I don't want to talk about mastering first. I want to talk about mixing. What

is a great mix to you? When you pull something up on the desk, what

makes you say, whoa, this is awesome?

Well, there's many things. And when

I have sort of my mastering headphones or

glasses or that sort of focused on,

it's always been difficult for me to be able

to listen to the record as a whole. It's always been that way. Even since,

you know, I was a kid, I always like listened to the snare drum. I

remember, you know, going to a show and finally realizing

what drum the drummer was hitting and that was the snare drum. I was like,

that's crazy. But anyways, so what makes a great mix

for me is when I am able to just completely

forget about all those discernible individual tracks

and it's just like a whole

piece that just works together and I'm not sitting there like

nitpicking, well, man, the base, we should

have pushed that up a little bit more. And the sibilance is a little too

much. So really it's just a mix that

doesn't really distract you from anything. And I have to

pinch myself every day that I get to work with amazing producers and

mix engineers. So it happens

a lot where I really just kind of get lost in that mix.

And, you know, I know maybe the bar is really low, who

knows? But yeah, it's definitely. It's a special thing

to get lost in a mix, I think. But

I certainly appreciate it. Nice. So it's like basically when you

listen to the music and there's nothing in the mix that bothers you.

Exactly. Are you able to look past when something is

maybe a little low end heavy or like a

little harsh and you immediately know that's a solvable problem, but you're like, this is

a good mix. Other than this, like, little tweak, I. Want to make 100%. And

I think this goes back to how I like to work with,

communicating intensely with a mix

engineer or the producer or the artist. Just so you know,

they'll let me know ahead of time this is going to be a bass heavy

mix. Or the vocals are really loud in this one, but that's what we're going

for. So. Yeah. I do think

though, if I don't have those conversations ahead of time, that if there

is something that's a little like sort of outside of the

norm, my brain just will focus right in on it.

That might be parallel to how my synesthesia functions

in my brain. So, you know, with how my

synesthesia works, it's like there are shapes and

colors and they, they change based on

frequency, intensity and whatnot. And sometimes, you know, when that

bass is really hot and it's like the greens are

like really hitting me, like, that can be pretty

distracting. Right? Okay, I was going to ask you about that later.

Now we have to talk about it because there's somebody sitting somewhere that's like, what

are we talking about right now? So, so can you tell. Tell people what

synesthesia is? So specifically, it's chromathesia.

Chroma, which is where I, when

I hear sounds, it manifests visually

in sort of like my brain. It's almost like sort of like an acid trip,

I guess. In a lot of ways. Okay.

Yeah. Is that an advantage for you now, or is it.

Or is it a distraction? I guess you just said it was a little bit

of a distraction. If something's off, it can be a distraction. Where

it is very distracting is outside of music.

Like, if I'm at a club and I'm talking to a friend, and there's

just so much loud energy everywhere,

you know, frequencies and whatnot, that can get a little distracting. And

really, like, I have to sit there and focus on talking to the person I'm

talking to. Yeah. But I don't know.

I thought everybody had synesthesia growing up. I just didn't think

that it was that unusual. And then I read an Oliver Sacks book. I was

like, oh, so there's a name for this. And this is. Everybody doesn't have

this. That's wild. And it may have been my gateway

into working in audio. Who knows? Yeah,

that's. I just. I can't. I can't even imagine,

Like, I don't even know. I don't even know how to imagine what that would

be like. I mean, is it. Is it also pitch related or is it for

you. It's more frequency. Rel. So it. It is pitch related. Well.

And frequency. Yeah. I mean, I don't think correlate. Yeah. Yeah, I guess they would,

but I guess, like, bad singers, do

they trigger. Trigger something? Or is it more about, like, a whole sonic context?

It's. It's a whole sonic context. I don't feel like a bad singer. Are you

talking like an attitude singer? Yes, I guess, like people with perfect

pitch that go crazy when they hear, like, a siren or something. Yeah.

No, I do not have perfect pitch and nowhere even close to that.

I have worked with a couple people who have perfect pitch, and I

don't know that I envy them in a lot of ways. Doesn't seem like it's

fun. It sounds pretty brutal. I mean, the people that I've seen that can do

this, I'll literally, you know, play a

note and, like, pitch it up 3 cents and they'll

know it pitched up 3 cents. They can tell you that it's just. It just

to me, that seems like a burden. Totally. But

maybe to other people's synesthesias burden too. So, you know, I don't know.

Who am I to say? Does it play into you knowing when a master is

done? Like. Like, if I'm doing a mix, 100%. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a

feeling. You're like, oh, this is what I'm used to. Well, no, it's not a

feeling. It's more than a feeling. It's. It's. For me, it's almost tactile

visually. You just kind of know it's done. Almost like,

you know, when you see your house is finished, like, the

building of the house is done, it's almost like that.

That's. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to, like, think of, you know,

like. That's a good description, what you just said, because that makes sense to people.

Yeah. Or almost like an oscilloscope, when you see something in

phase and like, the sine wave's like, perfectly lined up, but it's not like,

cockeyed. Like, it's almost like. That

also has to be kind of aligned with, like, your preference.

Correct. Yeah. Like what you see as done

visually is based on what you like. Well, I don't know that it's

what I like. It's what my mind likes and how my mind

perceives it. I assume. I don't know if my mind likes it or not. I

mean, I assume it does if it's lining it up that way. Yeah. Right,

right. That's an amazing tangent. I'm sure that'll filter through

the conversation again. But I wanted to go back to the

mix. Sure. So it sounds like communication is huge for you, and I've

found that to be true, especially on the mixing end. What's your process like when

you're communicating with producers and mixers about what they expect from

you? Well, well, some are pretty

open with me from the get go. They'll send me mixes, you know, before we

talk, and they'll. They'll ask me. They'll say, hey, is there anything here that, you

know, stands out? And, you know, being a mastering

engineer or just being a third party, you get that

luxury of being able to hear something for the first time. And I feel like

that's such a benefit to a mastering engineer as

opposed to the mix engineer who's heard the song a thousand

times and they're just done with it. So I have those fresh ears.

I can listen to it. I can tell if there's an issue with it. I

can go back to the mix engineer and say, you know, let's

pull that bass down. Or those guitars are just, like, too cranked in the

side. Let's take out 3K3 and then we're done.

That's what I think a master engineer brings. Like, I don't really expect something to

be, like, super different when I send A mix off.

But I. I love the subtleties of, like, that person's taste mixed in

with it. And so I guess can you speak

to how you ride the line of

how much to do? Like, if a mix is good, how much do you do

or how little? Well, so. So this, for me, my instincts

are always, do no harm. Like, I really don't want to get in the way

of the mix at all. Like, it's sort of like, mastering is

sort of the end of the road. Like, if you didn't get it good. To

begin with, like, it ain't gonna get good now. I'm not gonna make it any

better. Like, a shit's a shit.

Yeah. I just. I don't like to get in the way. And there are mastering

engineers that love to put their stamp on it, and that's awesome, but that's just

not how I work. I don't. Without offending

anybody, I don't like that at all. Those people immediately go to

my list of, like, do not calls. Are you talking about the people

who just changed the mix that have a stamp? Like, I guess if you're. It's

easier in mixing, right? Because if. If you want Chad Blake sound, you go to

Chad Blake and you know you're going to. He's going to do something crazy and

it's going to be nuts. But you went there for that. When you.

You go through the revisions and you have an artist and a producer, everybody's happy

with a mix. I made it a little darker or

thicker than like, I normally would, and then I send it to somebody and they

just like, top 40 pop it and you're like, but

that. That's not what we gave you. Like, it doesn't resemble what we gave you

at all. Why would you do that anyway? Pet peeve of mine. Yeah. I feel

like you already made those sonic creative

decisions when you were mixing it, when you were even arranging it or producing it.

Exactly. So there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Yeah.

I do give the caveat, though, if there's communication

and, you know, the artist or the engineer

wants it to be drastically different if they want me to

saturate with the tape machine, you know. But those are. Those are

discussions you have, and that's where I'm very

big on just communicating. Yeah. I think it

is necessary. It seems so obvious,

but I feel like in our industry, a lot of what we

do, it's not rocket science. Like, anywhere anyone can put a

mic in front of a snare drum and get a good Sound like you don't

necessarily have to go to school for it. Like, you don't have to be a

mathematician. Like, you don't have to be a NASA engineer. Like, yeah,

it's not rocket science. So, yeah, it's communication, it's

vibe. There's. We all have the same tools now.

Some of us have more expensive tools, but the playing field is

pretty even. Let's talk about something weird. Okay.

AI we kind of talked about AI briefly before we got

on, and we'll continue that. But there

is stem splitting software that is becoming more

prevalent. More people have access to it. Do you see

mastering engineers using stem splitting software

on a regular basis in the future? And if so, what's the

ethical boundary about what to do? Like, what should you

and what should you not do? Since we're talking about respecting the mix. Right,

sure. And I assume you're talking about, like, Izotope's music rebalance or

something like that. Even logical split stems. Right. So if I'm

a mastering engineer, I could rip them out of logic, turn

the vocal down, re EQ the bass. Should I?

Totally. And I feel like if

there is a specific reason to do so. Like, I just got this mix in

from this band from dc. They loved the mix, but then they

realized after they sent it to me that the snare drum was too hot. Like,

it was just too loud. So they said, is there anything you can do about

it? And I was like, well, yes, there is something I can do about it.

So I did a little finagling, used the music rebalancer,

split out the drums, and then I was able to compress the snare a smidge

in that, like, drum bus. At the end

of the day, they went back to the mix engineer to get it done correctly.

But I feel like not everybody has a budget to do that. And I

feel like for those people that don't have the budget to do it, it is.

It's a solution. It's a means to an end. It's. It's a tool. And I

think, why not use it? Right? I don't disagree.

Yeah, no, I. I think as long as the tool's used in the right

manner, going back to people that maybe want to put their stamp on

something, I guess I'm. I have a different perspective as the

mixer. And let's rewind, too. When I had that mix with a

snare drone that was too loud, the artist said,

it's too loud, and they wanted me to fix it if it was. If it

came in too loud. I wouldn't have touched that plugin at

all. Same. Yeah. Unless that conversation just kind of came

up naturally. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't do that without their

knowledge. Yeah. If they want stem mastering, they'll call you for

stem mastering. Well, they'll call someone else for that. Are you

anti stem mastering? I'm not anti stem mastering, but I don't know that I'm

good at mastering from Stems fair. I certainly don't have experience

in it, so I don't know that I would be able to do a good

job. I. I've never sent stems to mastering.

I've never. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why anyone would need it

other than just sort of their, their

process of thinking maybe it would be able to sound better and

who knows? I guess you could AB it at one point, but, you know, who

has the time for that? Yeah, totally. Totally. Well, okay, let's. Let's go back in

the AI rabbit hole with what we're kind of talking about off air. Before we

started, you know, I said that I thought I would take your

job before it took mine as a mixer. And we kind of went back and

forth and. And you know, you brought up that there's a lot of value outside

of the actual technical skills of mixing and mastering. So

what do you. What do you think as the. Really? That's it. That's the question.

That's super. It's. That brought. So

just on a personal level, I think AI is fascinating.

I'm like, I'm kind of into it, so let's rewind a little

bit too. When I was like 25, I read an

article in probably a real paper and it said

that after 30, you don't listen to any new

music. You hit 30 and then everything prior to that

is sort of what you listen to for the rest of your life.

And I made it a point that that was not going to

become me. I wanted to continue listening to music,

continuing to like, know what was out there. Yeah. And you

know, I don't like it all, but I don't like all the music that came

out, you know, when I was a kid. So, you know, you can't like everything.

But anyways, I sort of take that methodology

with technology that comes out, so AI comes out.

And I think it's an amazing tool. My wife's a programmer

and she uses it all the time to sort of

set up these basic known things that

like, sets up these templates for her and it saves her so much

time. And I think That's. That's a valuable tool. Agreed.

I haven't figured out where AI would come in for me

where it could do that. Like, where it could set up,

you know, a Wave lab session and, like, line everything up and, you

know, do all the things and say, you know, do X, Y and Z. I

don't think we're there yet. Why do you not think that we're there yet? I

mean, what, like, why do you think that nobody has figured out what that tool

is? Because I agree with you. The things that I think would save me time.

I don't see anybody making that tool. Right. I mean, and I don't know how

you would get that AI tool to, like,

tie into the. To the API of wavelab. Like, I. I just don't know that

technology of how it would work. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would be

great if there was some AI out there that when I uploaded a folder to

my samply, that it would send an email to my client that, hey, this

is, you know, ready, and here it is to download. That would be a great

use for AI, but I just. I don't know how to hook that up. I'm

sure we'll get there. Yeah, but in terms of, you know, AI

mastering and, I mean, I don't. What

else? I mean, there's all these, like, they throw AI at everything,

and I feel like everything. I just don't know that

it's. It's really in the software that

we're using and how it's being marketed isn't necessarily true

to what AI actually is. But I don't know, I'm not like, an expert

in that field in terms of plugins and whatnot. For the most part, my

workflow is moving knobs around. So no AI other than

just, like. Mojo, you know, Talking about AI, I'm

surprised that Auto Tune hasn't advertised itself as

AI vocal tuning yet, because, I mean, I mean, in a lot of. Ways it

sort of is, right? It kind of is. Kind of is. I mean,

what's really cool is, like, I was watching a

video and it was like. And this was years ago, like a

couple years ago, and they were saying, you know, write me a song that's like,

you know, in a happy key and lyrics about, like, the Smurfs

or something. And, like, it did that. It was pretty, like,

rudimentary. And, like, it didn't sound incredible, but it was

like, it was half believable.

Yeah. Which to me is super cool, but also,

you know, a little too big brother and scary. And then also

you go into the whole intellectual property thing with, like, what.

Where it's learning all this information and getting all this

information from, and then are those artists getting compensated for.

That's my real beef with AI right now. Yes. Yeah. And

Jonathan Weiner talks a lot about that. That's going to be the thing of, like,

what are all these models trained on? This might be

partially incorrect, but I believe the EU passed something.

That's great. Where by sometime in 2026, AI companies

need to reveal or

disclose their training data. So does this mean it goes back?

I guess it would, yeah. Okay. So I kind of like,

there must be enough money involved for them to have a couple years to sort

the shit out and make it look like they're not going to get sued. Right.

But yeah, I mean, if you come out and say you trained your SUNO

AI training data on all of Spotify, like,

that's not something that you want to put in writing in front of a judge.

That's not cool. Yeah, I'm not okay with that. No, exactly.

Yeah. I think there's an interesting case for

having local models that are trained on your own thing. I brought this up in

another episode a few months ago. If Max Martin had the Max Martin

songwriting AI based on his own preferences, that kind of

stuff would be kind of weird, kind of fascinating. But

that has nothing to do with our conversation. Yeah, I mean,

that's fascinating. That's a totally fascinating sort of

idea. But I feel like we're not that

far from that, honestly. Right. Something that,

you know, studies your masters and your

preferences. And then you load it in and there's the

matte version. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then you can just click a starting

point for that. For that song is

kind of interesting and also disturbing at the same time. Yeah. I mean, this is

where I think, like, it could be really useful for a mix engineer.

Like, if there was a way that you could plug in AI so that, like,

it listened to all the individual stems, but then also listened to the mix

and was able to, like, go back and forth and say, hey, you know, I

want these drums to sound like the Flaming Lips. Like, do that for me. And

then it, like, sets up all the buses, gated verbs, rooms, and all that kind

of stuff. Yeah, I feel like that's a tool that's,

like, super useful, I would say, for.

I feel like I'm sort of walking back on this now because I feel like

it's super cool and useful for someone who already knows how to do that.

But for someone who doesn't know how to do that, I feel like

there's a missed opportunity of learning how

to do that. Yes. I think just regardless of whether it's music a lot

or not, that's going to be. I think the long

trail problem with AI is how many people just didn't

learn how to do something. And I guess that could be

okay because it's like we came up at a time or I came up at

a time where you had a console, you had gain staging. There were all these

different things you had to do. Right, right. But things, things change

too. And it's like you don't necessarily need to do all that kind of stuff

if you're just doing something on your laptop in the basement. Like you can still

make it sound amazing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't

know what the answer is. I don't think anyone knows what the answer is. Hopefully

somebody figures out before it's too late. But yeah. So,

okay, obviously the AI is a thing, right. It can

do things for people, it can make your record

brighter. There are websites that maybe quote, master your record.

Why? Why does somebody want to use a person? I mean, I have an opinion,

but what's the value of mastering multiple

songs with someone like you? Well, there's, there's many reasons, but it

also goes into. Mastering isn't

just two bus processing, which right now that's all

AI mastering does. That's true. Listens to your audio,

it probably generates like the genre it's in

and then sort of puts like these brackets around it and says like this is

what we can do within these parameters of the genre. Yeah. And I feel

like that's, that's cool. I'm into it

and I think there is clearly a market for that. And I feel

like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend money with

me anyways. So I feel like a person like me

isn't missing out on. I feel like a mix engineer who

also masters their clients. That's where AI is going to take business

away. I think the other part of what

mastering is quality control.

So pops and clicks and continuity and that sort of

thing. I feel like that's something AI should be able

to do, but for some reason that's

not what it's doing. Like I feel like that's sort of the most boring part

of mastering, but it's super important

and I can't tell you how many records I get

every day and there's pops and clicks all over it.

And it's like, if I wasn't there, if a human wasn't listening to it,

it would go out to vinyl. It would go out to all your digital distributions

with those pops and clicks. Yeah, yeah. You would think

AI should be able to figure that out. Like,

I maybe. And maybe Lander and all those automated

processing companies do that now. I don't know. I don't

know. But it definitely sounds like something that, like, that RX

should be able to do. Yeah. You know, it should be able to identify

the clicks. I mean, it can already do. Do so much manually.

That's what I pop it in, rx. I mean, I can just literally, like, scan

visually and I can see them like. Yeah, that's not rocket science, but

it takes time and it's something you need to do. So if AI could figure

that out, I'm into it. I'm down with that. I'm down with that.

Yeah. And for anybody listening crossfades, people,

especially on your, like, 808s and your basses, that's where these clicks are coming from.

Just do some crossfades and logic. Okay. I know. It's always like

at the start of a new region of a vocal, and plugins are all

popping on. Third core is copy and paste. The beginning of something

is clipped off. I know attention to detail, which is

like mastering. And mastering is attention to detail, in

my opinion. It's so much detail, it's hyper detail. Yeah. And then. And

then also the third part of mastering is assembling

the data and formats so it can go out

to the different distribution methods, like mastering for vinyl,

mastering for cassette. They're all different sort of parameters that you have to work

with. You know, different vinyl houses have different

requirements. You know, Spotify has a different requirement than YouTube has.

Not that everybody does a different master for different platforms,

but it's something you have to consider. Okay, so you.

You touched on the loudness. So we have to ask about what is your opinion

on how loud to make something? Are you

doing a streaming master? Are you just making it how it should. How it sounds

good. I always master it for how it should sound good.

Spotify is like a moving target. It's always going to be

changing, and what you master for now might

not. If you're, you know, if you are mastering for Spotify right now,

two years down the road, it's going to be something else. So

I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song in sort of

like its own ecosystem at any given time,

which is what people. Have done for like

80 years. Right. It was always, this sounds amazing.

Printed down to half inch tape. This

is the master. And then that format is going to be transferred to CD or

cassette or whatever it is. So I don't know, maybe it's

just the way knowledge flows through the Internet

now that people are hung up on it. But to me, I

agree with you. Whatever sounds best for the record is what sounds

best for the record. You can't chase something that is going to change, Especially tech

companies. I mean, Jesus, could anything change faster than tech companies, you know, for.

Well, I mean, yes and no. It's like they are kind of these like giants

that take time to make these

changes. But yeah, I just feel like

if every once in a while I do get a client that says,

hey, this has to be negative 8 lofts integrated. I'm like, okay, if that's what

you want me to do, I'll do that. But usually we'll have that

conversation and I'll ask the question, why? Yeah. So

I really understand what their intent is. Yeah. If I

understand why, it might be that they're just using the wrong terminology

or there might be a better way to do what they're talking about.

Yeah. So again, we come back to communication. Yeah. What's your

opinion on the level of mixes that you're getting to work with?

Like, loudness level? Do you wish there was more headroom? Are you getting what

you want generally? On average, yes and no. And I think

I've come to a happy medium with

making sure the mix engineer at sort of a bare minimum,

prints their mixes at 32 bit float, so that even if they are mixing

into a limiter and it's hitting zero, if there are

overs, I can always, you know, pull it down with, you know, gain

and there will be no, like, squared off waveforms.

That's like the genius of 32 bit float. That's true. That's

true. Yeah. That's great. Okay, let's talk about that.

Can you explain that a little bit further for people that don't understand

fixed versus floating? Sure. So you have

16 bit and

I think it's 96 decibels of

bandwidth. I think that's correct. From like the quietest point to the loudest point. And

then you go to 24bit and it's 144dB

from quietest to loudest. When you go to

32bit, the decibel level is from like

0 to like 1200 or something.

It's like something ridonculous. So

you. If, you know, your mix goes over a DB or two, or even just

like a couple little, you know, half DB trickles, like, you just turn your

gain down a couple DB and everything's fine. So

that's sort of where I am. I feel like.

I feel like a lot of people. I'd say it's 50. 50. I'd

say 50 people mix into a limiter. And

oftentimes, you know, I'll ask them, did you mix into the limiter?

Because oftentimes if you take that limiter off, the mix will just fall apart. And

it's pretty obvious when that happens. True. So if I get a mix and it

kind of feels like unglued, so to speak, I'll ask

them, hey, did you, you know, did you have a limiter when you were mixing?

If so, please put it back on.

Yeah. Which again, it's like, sort of counterintuitive to,

you know, sort of what I knew

and learned when I was hiring mastering engineers, you know,

decades ago. Yeah, well, it's. You know, as a

mixer, our side of the argument is that we have

to compete with, you know, crazy loud production refs. And so I

chase the same thing with rough mixes where I get

files and I'm like, are these even wet? And they're like, oh, yeah, no, it's

all wet. I'm like, what is on your master bus? Like, this doesn't even sound

anything like the reference. And so you end up

chasing that to get back to that. And I

don't like to. I mix with a limiter on, but I do 80% of

my mix without it. That's great. Yeah. But then I make sure that I do

work a good chunk and I do all my revisions with the limiter because if

it's not going to be my limiter, it's going to be your limiter. There's still

going to be a limiter. And it's good to approximate that. Exactly. You need

to know how things are going to. Are they going to break up? Is your

low end screwing you over? And it's crazy how different things are.

I used to not be an Ozone Maximizer fan, and I've recently

left Pro L2 and gone to the Maximizer because it feels cleaner to

me in, like, a pop vocal sense. I'm a big fan of the Ozone

Maximizer, but I'm also a big fan of stacking limiters,

too. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you need to

get. When you need to go loud, you know, letting you

know. I guess it's like. It's similar to, like, you know, you have two hands.

You can lift more weight with two hands than you can with one. Yeah.

You know, I'll do it where, you know, I'm. I'm getting 3dB

of gain reduction on one, and then if I start going

above that or below that, I guess if I'm doing, you know, four or five

decibels of gain reduction, that's when I'll bring in, like, the vice

limiter or, you know, the L2 or something like that. I mean, there's so many

limiters out there, and I feel like they all kind of do something different. So

we're kind of talking technical tips, right? There was one thing I wanted to ask

you. Width. Now, as a

mixer, this is probably one of the most sensitive

things for me. When a master comes back from a new engineer.

If it's really wide and the center

is phase, or the center feels down, like, if the snare and the vocal are

quiet, like, it's a. It's a trigger for me. I have

a really hard time dealing with it. So are you saying when the

mix is too wide, like, you don't like it, or. No, I love a wide

mix. I guess I should preface that. What I was going to say is that

I've been getting mixes back from most everybody that is mastering my

mixes, including yourself. We've worked together. You did amazing work. People should know that

they're really wide, and I love it, but when the center gets fucked with, it

makes me crazy. So, A, how do you approach width, and

B, what are the mistakes that a young engineer makes when it comes

to trying to make something go wide? Great

question. So, honestly, I rarely use the

width button or on my console, I have a width

knob, which is absolutely fantastic.

I mean, it's one of those things where you can just use it, you know,

put it to 10 and it's like. It just gives, like, a little push to

the sides, but it doesn't do anything to the center, which.

The Masalec. I don't know, he should make a plugin for it. He would make

so much money. Because I don't. I don't know what it's doing under the hood,

but it's magic. Okay, but, you know,

are you talking about, like, with plugins that, like,

make the things. Like the imaging thing in Izotope? Is

that, like, what you're. Or in an ozone. Is that what you're talking about? Less

specific about the tool. More specific about

how you think you can widen A mix up with the best

result. Sure. So generally I don't feel

like mixes need to be widened.

I feel like that's also like a mixed decision.

Unless the mix engineer says, hey, you know, can you do something about

this? You know, make it a little more wide. And oftentimes

what I'll do in widening is just work in the sides

in the mid side field. And oftentimes, like if it's a. It's a rock

mix, I'll like make the guitars sparkle a little bit more. But only

in the sides. Yeah. Or sometimes, you know,

if it, if it's a mix where the vocals are a little bit hot and

you want the like sides to be a little bit more, you know, pronounced. You

can compress the middle but not the sides. So the sides like stay

nice and like you know, doing what they're doing. But the vocal in the

center gets a little bit like more tightened in focus. Yeah, yeah.

So I feel like mid side is a really great tool for

that. That's what I have found that that's the width that I

prefer is some mid side work. So for anybody that's unfamiliar,

you're talking about compressors that you can switch to mid side and control the

sides separate from the mid. I think at this point everybody on the Internet

is hip to mid side. I hope so. Yeah. I mean my. I have an

ITI EQ right there and it's always in mid side.

And it's like that's my go to when we're talking

about that, that sort of width balance where you need to

sort of correct the equilibrium between the mid and the side. It's like, it's such

a great tool and the ITI is, you know,

pretty, pretty fantastic. Nice. Nice. Okay, well, okay, that's

kind of related to my next question. Is there. I'm going to leave this really

broad so you can answer it however you want. Is there one tool

that you couldn't live without? Gear or plugin or

whatever? Okay, I'm going to go with gear because

my Masalec MLA3 just

does everything. It's a multiband compressor.

I use it as a de esser. You can also expand channels. You

can compress and expand at the same time. Wow. You can

not do gain reduction but actually use it as like a very wide EQ

with changing the crossover points. What else can

you do? It has input gain, output

gain. You can solo all the different bands. I mean this thing does

everything. That's crazy. How many buttons does it

have? I mean, there's A lot of buttons, but,

yeah, it's just. It's one of those things that I use it every

day, and it makes my life so much easier.

And I've never found a plugin that could do just what it

does. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that box, but I'll be looking at

it as soon as we finish. It's fantastic. I feel like everyone

should have one. I mean, I wish everyone could afford one, but

I saved. I ate a lot of ramen noodles to afford that one.

Okay. So that's actually a perfect segue to my next

baited question here. A tool you couldn't live without. That's under

300 bucks. Well, I feel like a tool that's

free. Is a magazine called Tape Up.

I've been a subscriber since, like, episode two or

three. It's a long time. It's a super long time, and I feel like

I've kind of gotten out of it, and I don't. Because it's more focused on

recording engineers. So it's sort of, like, off my radar a little

bit more. But there's a. The back page, and

it's like Larry Crane, and he's sort of usually. It's Larry

Crane, and he. It's usually just sort of like a. You know, how to

keep your studio clean or you know, how to keep your clients happy. It's like

sort of. Yeah, it's like what you do on your podcast. It's like, you know,

talking about audio, but, like, also, like, the industry part of it and

like, running a studio, like, all the, like, sort of unsexy things in

a lot of ways that are more important, that are totally important.

And it's. I always say, it's like, you

know, you really don't even have to be a good engineer to be a good

engineer. You just have to be able to talk to people

and understand what they're going for. Yeah. I mean, not to, like, belittle what

we do, because it's like what we do is important to a lot of people

and takes a lot of skill, but I feel like if

you don't have that ability to communicate with

people, it's so much harder to succeed.

I think the only part of engineering that is difficult

is figuring out what your sonic taste

is and how that fits into the world. Right. And unfortunately,

some people have a sonic taste that just isn't popular at the moment,

but might be in the future. I don't know. That's. I think, the hardest part.

Right. The tools are whatever you Learn how to use anything. It's just eq. Does

it sound good? Compression? Does it sound good? Yeah. It's interesting you

mentioned that because, you know, for a long time I always

loved those huge bombastic, reverberant, almost

gated snare drums. Big drums. Yeah. And then,

you know, Andy Schouf, he came out with a record and it was just like

whop, whop. And I was like, what is this? Like

what are you doing? Like, this could be such a cool mix. And it was

just like this tight little tucked in mix

and it really bothered me. But then eventually like I came

around and I was like, oh, I get it. Like, this is just an amazing

song. He's a great songwriter and if the drums were huge, it just would have

been terrible. Yeah, yeah. So I've kind of come full circle with that

in terms of like what's popular now and what's not popular now. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so we were kind of on the

topic of the not sexy parts of

audio. Right. Can we talk about the mastering business? You run

a mastering house out of a non music hub, right? You're in Baltimore.

Do you spend a lot of time working on your

business as opposed to for your business? And if so, like, what are some of

those things you do to grow the business? To be transparent, I was

a studio owner producer for like 20

years and, and during that time my mastering,

you know, more and more people started to say, hey, can you master this record

for me? And you know, it grew and grew and grew and

then eventually, for all intents and purposes, I left

that studio and then I started my own

mastering exclusive studio. I used to

advertise a lot, but I haven't advertised anymore. I did a little

bit like on Facebook and a little bit on

Instagram, but I found

with advertising, it's sort of

not sort of the target market of what you're

going for. I feel like it's sort of like the people that

it grabs are the people that are going to hire AI

and Lander to do what they're

really looking for. And they're looking for sort of like bottom dollar price shopping. Boom,

boom, boom. I need it done like today because, you know,

it needs to be out on all the, you know, Spotify

this Friday for some reason. For some reason, everybody's waiting for it. Exactly,

yeah, totally, totally. So at some point I

just didn't have the time to do it and I also didn't need to do

it because I just got too busy for it, which

is good problems to have it was one less thing I had to do.

But I do feel like one thing that I do

is I'm active on Instagram, I post from time to

time, and I look at what other people are doing. I think that might have

been how I found you is on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, I think. And it's

like, sort of. I've always been a big fan of, like,

building a community. Back in the day, I worked in. At

Warner Brothers and I worked in their marketing department, and I was building

a community for this band that I was working with, you know, be it like

online message boards and like, I would just sort of like, massage

conversations. And, you know, a lot of that

translates to how I work as a mastering engineer and how I

either, you know, continue to work with the clients I want to work with or

work with, you know, larger clients, bigger clients, whatever you want to

call it. But, you know, just sort of putting myself out

there, I think is a. Is a critical step.

It's not sexy. I. Not sexy. I kind of enjoy

it. So maybe it is sexy. I don't know. But I know a lot of

other people don't enjoy it. And I think it can be

inauthentic very easily for some people, and I

think it can be inauthentic if you're not into it. And I

think people can see through that. I agree. I mean, at this point, this comes

up on every. Every episode of the show of late,

and it's. It's just like, it's. It's how people get to

know you, right? It's not just album covers anymore.

It's like, how does this person interact? Do I. Do I want to get on

the phone and talk to them about mastering my record or mixing my record? I

think I like this person. Let's hit them up, because we don't, like.

Like, when you were at Warner Brothers, you were in an office, right? There's people

around. You talk to them. Like, now everybody's by. I'm in my

backyard. Nobody comes over here. I know I'll have a

client come over, you know, maybe once a month, maybe a couple

times a year. But I'm a Gen Xer, so

I like to text that I'm cool with texting, and I text often, but I

also. I pick up the phone and I feel like you can really just

learn people just by talking to them. And you can

also, you know, tell if they're just full of too. Oh, yeah,

yeah. Whether you want to work with them, regardless of whether they want to work

with you. Exactly. And I. It's. It's funny. I was

a. Something about the Internet makes everything

transactional. Right. I was one of those people that kind of, for a long time,

avoided the phone call and avoided the zoom meeting. And then I think

the podcast and the pandemic kind of changed that for me. And I, like,

now I'm like, down, let's talk, let's talk. Yeah. But if I

sit down with a client, potential client, potential collaborator

or whatever, and have a conversation, I mean, it's almost a hundred

percent that I'm going to do that gig if I want to do that gig.

Yeah, exactly. Because you can have a conversation. You can understand what they want. Like,

you're talking about in the beginning communication. It's like, I cannot give you what you

need out of your mix. Or I can give you exactly that. And I would,

you know, emphasize this. And they're like, perfect, right? And then you can

move forward. And so, yeah, it's big. Talking to people

authentically and getting to know people is, like, way better than

just responding to emails. Totally. And some

people aren't cool with that, and I'm fine with that, too, if they just want

to text. Like, I'm totally cool with that. There's one client that I have

that only sends me audio

messages. Like, they talk into their phone and it's just like an audio.

Like a recorded audio message in Instagram, but that's how

they communicate. And it's like, cool, Whatever. Whatever floats your boat. It's awesome.

One minute at a time. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. So I know you've got a busy day. I will let you get back

to it, but I've got two questions. I know you listen to the show, so

you're probably familiar with what they are. Maybe you

prepared, maybe you didn't. I guess we'll find out. So was there ever a time

in your career that you decided to redefine what success meant to you?

Oh, of course. Yeah. And I did not prepare this.

So, yes, there was a point when I first

built. Built my first real studio, and this

was like, in, I don't know, 2005.

And both my wife and I were like,

if we can get a band that's, like, super successful

in five years, like, that's going to be it. But if, like,

we're a studio and we don't get a big band in five years, like,

it's probably not going to happen. And I was okay with it either way.

And it's like, we sort of, like, got in between that. I guess, in a

lot of ways, which I think is okay. And I think at

that point I realized that, you know, I'm

not going to be, you know, the next book Butch Vig or the

guy from the bleachers. Like, that's not going to be me. And I'm

okay with that. I became a working engineer.

Yeah. And to me, if I

can put food on the table for my family, we can go on

vacations once or twice a year based on the work that I'm doing.

Like, to me, that success. And I'm totally okay with

it. I love it. In fact, it's great. I'm with that. I'm with that.

That's like. I think there's a. I don't know when you got married, but when

I got married, that was like, that kind of. It was an immediate change. It

was like, I. I love what I'm doing. I don't know

why I was frustrated before. Right. Like, I make money, I make

my living working in music, and now I can carve

time out for my family at the same time. Like, that's. That's like, a huge

win. Fantastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. You know, it's like, best of both worlds, right?

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm with you on that. So, last question

is, what is your current biggest goal? What is the next smallest step you're going

to take to go towards it? Oh, I mean, I think it's a lot of

what I'm doing, I feel like, you know,

and maybe this has to do with more of the unsexy parts of my job

where I'm constantly looking at places

to streamline sort of what I'm doing and

just make the. Making the process smoother. Like, I know

it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, I'm sort of paying attention to, like,

how I can carve out an extra minute in terms of,

like, you know, sending the data to a client. Like, the master to a

client. Like, how can I sort of automate that or cut and paste data

and make it more simpler or simpler so that I have more time to work

on, like, the things that I like. Like, you know, playing with these knobs.

Yeah. So that's sort of my goal, I guess. I mean, you know,

everyone has the goals of just, like, working with bigger artists and, you know, more

successful mix engineers. But, you know,

definitely that. Of course, I'm not going to say no. I mean, I just did

a record and Chuck D. Is on it, and that's, like,

fantastic. Like, you know, 12 year old me is like,

what? But you know, it's just as awesome as

working with like a local band here in Baltimore. Yeah, it's,

it's awesome. And you know, I'm working in a field that I love,

so. Yeah, it's funny that that's what your goal

was, was optimization, because I was sitting here thinking, I was like, I should, I

should have asked him about automation and like systems before we, before we

ended. I love that. Is there anything that you do right now or anything that

you wish you could automate in your system? Like you mentioned the Wave

Lab. Right, Right. So there is an app I use called

samply, which is how all my artists listen to

my masters and preview. It's a great app.

It's fantastic. I love those guys. They are just. I'm like,

I'm the person who like picks apart everything and they are just so

stupidly patient with me. Like, I don't get it. I don't get why they put

up with me. Like, I just don't. But they're fantastic. It's a great

app. But there are all these things where I'm doing the same thing every

day. You know, I'm sending out a link to a client with

a mix or a master, a single, an lp,

like vinyl sides. And it's like that process is sort

of the same except for like one little link and then the

subject is different. So I'm using this app

called Zapier, which I'm trying

to like figure out how to get it to work with

Samply and work with like my databases

to do all that in the background for me. So yeah,

technology is great, but it's also like you almost need another like

engineer or tech person to sort of like walk you through that

process. Yeah. Like if you're outside the code world,

like just far enough, it can be confusing. Cause I definitely hit walls. I love

soundflow. I love samply. Right. And

yeah, being able to just know just enough

scripting to figure that out. But that's where ChatGPT has

been great. I've taken things out of sampling, like taking code, not, not sampling

code out of soundflow. Paste it in a chat. GPT said this, does this, I

want it to do that. And then it just spits it out and I paste

it and have a script. I'm like, this is amazing. Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. I don't think ChatGPT could actually write that

script, but it can analyze it. If you tell it what it does and then.

And everything that it spit out two or three things for me have all worked

perfectly. You would think it would be able to write the script because my wife

does that with like JavaScript all the time. She's like, make me a JavaScript that

does X, Y and Z and like, it'll just do it. I think there's aspects

of sound flow that it wouldn't know. Right.

Because I think it only goes back a couple years too. And soundflow, I think,

is a newer app. Yeah. Now if it was just a straight Apple script that

you were maybe going to fire in Keyboard Maestro, it probably could write that.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, an excellent nerdy

ending. Perfect for a mastering

engineer. If you enjoyed this one and you want to dig deeper on the truth

about loudness, normalization standards and where this whole -14 stuff came from,

then check out my conversation with Sam Fishman.