0:22

You are listening

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to the Inside The Mix podcast

0:25

with your host, Mark Matthews.

0:27

Hello and welcome

0:27

to the Inside the Mix podcast.

0:30

I'm Mark Matthews, your

0:30

host, musician, producer, and

0:33

mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place

0:35

if you want to know more about

0:37

your favorite synth music

0:37

artist, music, engineering

0:40

and production, songwriting

0:40

and the music industry.

0:43

I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years,

0:45

and I wanna share what I.

0:48

With you. Hey folks, and welcome back

0:50

to the Inside The Mix podcast.

0:53

If you are a new listener,

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please do, uh, hit

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subscribe on the podcast. And thank you for

0:58

joining me today. I probably got that

0:59

around the wrong way. And if you're a returning

1:01

listener, welcome back to the podcast.

1:05

Now, in this episode, I am very

1:05

excited to welcome our guest.

1:09

There's a mixer, engineer

1:09

and producer Adrian Hall.

1:13

So I'm just gonna run through a. A bio here for the audience

1:15

listening if you're not

1:17

familiar with Adrian. So he's got a wealth of

1:18

experience working on all kinds

1:20

of projects with artists at all

1:20

levels of the industry, from

1:24

worldwide household names up

1:24

to up and up and coming onside

1:28

bands, equally at home, tracking

1:28

a live band with the studio

1:31

for the musicians, or being

1:31

left to mix tracks on his own.

1:35

Adrian is both a technically

1:35

adept and creative engineer,

1:38

and has worked with artists

1:38

such as Tori Amos, Depeche

1:40

Mode Gold Frat, the Black Eyed

1:40

Peas, Alicia Keys, robbery

1:43

Williams, Shakira, and. And, uh, and, and many

1:44

more on top of that.

1:47

And he's gonna share with

1:47

us some mixed engineering

1:50

pearls of wisdom that

1:50

will no doubt, inspire and

1:53

improve your next project.

1:55

Adrian, thank you for joining me today. And how are you?

1:57

I'm very well, thank you. My pleasure to be here, sis.

2:00

I'm looking forward to

2:00

this. It's gonna be fun. Fantastic. Yes, me too.

2:03

Me too. It's, uh, for the audience

2:03

listening, it was, um, Dom,

2:06

I think, who put me in touch

2:06

with you, if I remember right.

2:08

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's correct. Yeah. The Don Moley episode.

2:11

So after this episode, if you haven't listened to that, when did go chat that one out?

2:14

I think it's episode 56.

2:16

I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Yeah, he's

2:18

great, Dom. I mean, he's, he's brilliant. So we, we were a metropolis

2:19

together for many years

2:22

when we both, when we were both training. So, yeah, he, he's

2:25

great. Yeah. Yeah. Is it, that episode in itself

2:26

has proved to be a very

2:29

popular one, so no doubt

2:29

this one will be as well.

2:31

So I think it's quite cool. Adrian, if we just start

2:32

off with a bit of, um, your background, really.

2:35

How did it all begin? How did your mix

2:36

engineer journey start?

2:39

Um, I, I, I

2:39

went into it in a slightly

2:41

roundabout route in the, I

2:41

actually went to university

2:44

and studied, uh, acoustics,

2:44

acoustics and vibration.

2:47

I spent four years at

2:47

Southampton, um, and got

2:50

a master of engineering. , uh, and I was all set to

2:53

be an acoustic consultant.

2:55

You know, had worked in

2:55

my summers for the same

2:58

company, a really good acoustic consultancy, and I was all set there.

3:02

Um, but I'd always had this

3:02

recording bug, so, um, I kind of

3:06

gave it all up to make tea in a

3:06

recording studio, essentially.

3:09

Um, threw away a, you

3:09

know, i'd, I'd probably

3:12

be on a nice company salary now, a company car. Pension, and it all, it

3:14

all went out the window.

3:18

Really? For, uh, yeah. To, to make tea and mend

3:19

headphones in, in a studio.

3:23

Amazing. So with regards to, uh, it's

3:24

interesting you mentioned that

3:27

about the, the master's degree

3:27

because that's Southampton

3:30

stolen, is that correct?

3:31

Uh, no. South, there's University

3:32

of Southampton Place.

3:34

Southampton, yeah. The ISV R Institute of Sound

3:35

and Vibration Research, which,

3:39

It's like one of the, one of two

3:39

places in the country to study s

3:43

Yeah. Because interestingly,

3:43

I, um, almost went

3:46

down that route myself. So I remember did, I did an open

3:47

day down at Southampton Soland,

3:50

and um, I went in the, I can

3:50

never pronounce it correctly,

3:53

the Anec Anec Chamber. Yeah.

3:55

Ana never get it right. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Ana Coic chamber.

3:57

Yeah. You go in and the. It's dead, basically.

4:00

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had, we had one of those,

4:01

um, well, there, interestingly,

4:04

there were two rooms right next to each other. One was the Anaco Chamber,

4:05

which was, I think it's one

4:08

of the largest in Europe. It's pretty huge

4:09

to be honest, vr. So you walk in and, you know,

4:11

you are, you are, you walk in

4:13

on a grating, you're elevated

4:13

above six foot foam wedges.

4:16

And the, the room's huge

4:16

but completely dead.

4:19

Yeah. And you know, they'd

4:19

bring in whatever car

4:22

engines and loudspeakers,

4:22

whatever testament there.

4:24

But then right next, Which

4:24

I, people don't talk about

4:27

this so much, but there

4:27

was an echoic chamber.

4:30

Oh, okay. Which was like solid concrete

4:30

walls, hard plastered, uh,

4:34

floor and ceiling and walls. Yeah. So it's like a

4:36

huge squash court. Like, like if you snapped your

4:38

fingers in there, it sounded

4:40

like a gunshot gone off. Wow. It was cuz the, the

4:42

reverberation was so intense.

4:44

I, I forget how long the reverb time was. Something like 30

4:46

seconds or something. It's ridiculous.

4:49

Mm-hmm. . And the aim of that is to

4:50

create a diffuse sound field.

4:52

So you put something in there,

4:52

it makes noise and sound is

4:54

coming from literally all

4:54

directions cuz the reflections

4:57

are so hard and so strong. So yeah, right next to each

4:59

other, these completely different acoustic environments.

5:02

Yeah. Crazy .

5:03

Marc Matthews: I, I've it, considered it from the

5:05

other perspective of actually

5:07

creating an environment where it is so reflective. What is it like, cause I,

5:10

I, I know when you go into an an anoa chamber and.

5:14

, um, there's a certain feeling

5:14

about it when you go into

5:17

a, a, a room whereby you've

5:17

got all those reflections.

5:19

What, what is it like on like

5:19

your sort of mental, your,

5:22

the psychology behind it? Is it quite weird? It's, yeah.

5:25

I mean it's, it's, it's

5:25

really intense because yeah,

5:27

in an ACO chamber you get no

5:27

reflections coming back at you.

5:30

So if I'm talking to you and

5:30

you are 10 feet away, and

5:34

you turn around mm-hmm. and your voice is

5:35

going into the wall. You know, I really, it's

5:37

really hard to hear somebody,

5:40

even if they're talking

5:40

quite loudly, um, you don't

5:42

realize how much of your

5:42

environment and, and the, the.

5:45

In, in a studio or, or, or in

5:45

a control room, you're actually

5:49

getting from the reflections. Yeah.

5:51

Um, and obviously the

5:51

echoic chamber is the

5:54

complete opposite. It's really intense. Yeah. The smallest sound

5:56

is really loud.

5:58

Yeah. Um, so everything's

5:59

kind of magnified.

6:02

Uh, it's, yeah, it's,

6:02

it is, it is fun.

6:04

I mean, you know, you'd

6:04

never wanna record anything

6:07

in there, but, um, yeah, ,

6:09

Marc Matthews: it sounds, I, I, put that on my sort of bucket

6:11

list to go away cameras, cause

6:14

I'd never considered it before. It sounds interesting.

6:16

Do you, do you still do any of the, the acoustic side of things?

6:19

No. No, not at all. Not at all. Okay. They're all up.

6:21

So yeah, I mean, it, it helps

6:21

sometimes if I'm in a studio

6:26

and, you know, in a live room,

6:26

you can kind of suss out a

6:28

live room pretty quickly. Yeah. In the sense of,

6:30

okay, this isn't gonna

6:32

work for what I need. Let's put garbage down or baffle

6:33

this or do that, you know?

6:36

But no, all the testing side

6:36

of things and the math side of.

6:40

Totally don't use, you

6:40

know, it's all gone.

6:42

It's all gone. .

6:45

Marc Matthews: Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. I did, I ended up doing

6:46

a masters in music, uh,

6:48

production and en engine. Right. Music production and

6:50

audio engineering.

6:52

Um, so I tossed up between

6:52

the two and Bitly, I do use

6:55

it to be fair, but yeah, I, I

6:55

was so, I was almost, almost

6:58

there with the acoustics. I almost went down that route.

7:01

Yeah, I mean, af after that,

7:01

like when I decided I wanted

7:04

to do recording, then I did go

7:04

to, um, s SAE School of Audio

7:08

Engineering, which, which at

7:08

the time there was only one in,

7:10

in, in the uk it was in London. And it was, uh, you know, two

7:13

inch tape, uh, SSLs and Neves.

7:17

They, they had a knee

7:17

vr and they had, um, the

7:20

year I went was the first

7:20

year they got an SSL e.

7:23

. So, and they had a, you know,

7:23

two inch 24 track machines,

7:27

which at the time I think

7:27

Pro Tools at the time was

7:29

four tracks or eight tracks. Mm-hmm. . Um, so it was, you know, it

7:31

was still very much that world.

7:35

And I, I guess I was kind of

7:35

one of the last generation of

7:38

engineers to be trained on tape. Um, yeah.

7:42

So it was, it was during

7:42

that, , you know, when I

7:45

was at Metropolis, which I

7:45

joined shortly after that.

7:48

Yeah. That the whole transition

7:48

went away from 48 track

7:51

analog on a big SSL to, by

7:51

the time I left, people were

7:55

starting to mix in the box. Mm-hmm.

7:57

, um, but not quite, if

7:57

you know what I mean.

8:00

It was kind of, it was almost there. Yeah. You know,

8:02

so did they, in theory then, I mean, you're saying they

8:04

started to mix in the box?

8:07

Do they not, I, I dunno if you

8:07

know actually, uh, whether or

8:09

not you're still in contact with them, but do they not still teach that process

8:11

of using the, the larger

8:14

contacts and the 48 tracks

8:14

and then cutting it to tape?

8:16

Is there not a, a call

8:16

for them to do that?

8:19

I think I, I dunno,

8:19

very occasionally I'll go down

8:22

there, I'll go down to s a e

8:22

London and do a masterclass.

8:24

It's like one day a year or something. Maybe they'll ask me down or

8:26

go down, listen to some student

8:29

mixes and give some feedback. That kind of. . Um, I haven't seen a two

8:31

inch machine in there. It seems to be pro tools.

8:35

Mm-hmm. , which would make sense, you know, I mean, yeah. Two inch is such a specialist

8:37

thing now, um, that, I mean,

8:42

I, I don't think I've used two

8:42

inch tape in about a decade.

8:47

Yeah. Maybe half inch of, I've

8:48

mixed a half inch maybe

8:51

about eight years ago. Yeah.

8:53

But, uh, I don't have a tape machine in my studio. I, I'm pro tools, I'm

8:56

digital, you know, so,

8:58

Are you, I see some outboard gear behind you there.

9:01

Yeah, you have, you got like a mixture of the two then. Are you working some in the box?

9:04

A mixture of outboard and then digital?

9:06

Yeah, essentially. I mean, do you want

9:07

me to swivel around? I can show you a little bit.

9:10

Let's do it. Yeah, have a look. So, I mean there's, there

9:12

is quite a lot of outboard.

9:15

. Oh, yeah. Uh, so yeah, it's kind

9:15

of outboard racks.

9:20

Um, some SSL stuff

9:20

up the top there.

9:22

Fusion, manly, num, uh, and

9:22

then that's control surface,

9:27

SSL control surface, and

9:27

obviously pro tools and screens.

9:31

But essentially, I, I, um,

9:31

I'm, I'm mixing in pro tools.

9:35

Yeah. Uh, but I have 24,

9:35

24 IO on my rig.

9:39

Okay. So I use hardware.

9:42

. Mm-hmm. . So, um, so I'm using

9:43

pro tool, summing.

9:45

Yeah. But, but obviously like I'll

9:45

send the money channels, you

9:49

know, um, kick snare, bass,

9:49

lead, vocal, maybe a couple

9:54

of other little bits through

9:54

the, you know, through some of

9:57

the outboard and back in, and

9:57

either record it back in or,

10:00

or write down the settings. Um, but I mean, honestly, these

10:02

days, um, I can't really tell

10:08

if a mix has been done in the

10:08

box or if it's been done analog.

10:11

Do you know what I mean? The, the, the plugins

10:12

and what you can do.

10:15

I, in the box now is

10:15

sonically great, you know?

10:18

Um, So certainly for your

10:18

listeners that are worried

10:21

about, oh, I have to use analog,

10:21

have to do this, or I must use

10:24

analog summing, or whatever,

10:24

I, I can't tell the difference.

10:28

Do, do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's, it's more

10:28

a workflow thing. So if I'm going for a

10:31

particular sound, you know,

10:34

if I'm working with more of

10:34

a alternative rock band or

10:38

something, then you know, I

10:38

might, you know, run stuff.

10:42

Oh, make my hand go the right way. The, the, the ssl, I've got

10:44

a, a bus plus and a fusion.

10:48

So that goes across the mix. Yeah.

10:50

So you get that SSL flavor

10:50

across the mix straight away.

10:54

Or if it's a more soft acoustic

10:54

thing, then I might use, uh, the

10:58

manly new m and I've got a, I've

10:58

got a kind of, um, a designs

11:02

pool, tech stereo queue there. So, so just across the mix

11:04

bus, it's immediately softer.

11:08

Got some valves in the chain. It's just a. vibe to mix through.

11:13

Um, but nothing that you

11:13

c couldn't really recreate

11:17

with plug-ins, you know? I mean, obviously it's nice to

11:18

have the hardware and, and I love it, don't get me wrong,

11:20

but, um, but, you know, it's,

11:25

it's a, it's a subtle thing. Um, yeah, and like I say,

11:26

I can't tell, you know, you

11:29

can't listen to the radio and

11:29

go, oh, that's a analog mix,

11:31

and that's a digital mix. You

11:33

know? Yeah, it's

11:34

interesting, isn't it? I remember, I think I was,

11:35

I think it was when I was chatting to Dom, it might

11:37

have been Mike, actually. I chat to Mike Exeter as well.

11:41

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. A few weeks back. Yeah. And um, it's, I think the idea

11:42

summarized that ultimately

11:47

the listener, I mean, Isn't

11:47

too bothered about the journey

11:50

of how it got to where it is. They're just more into

11:52

interested in, I mean, you

11:54

get some, the audio files who,

11:54

who may be, but predominantly,

11:57

most listeners just want to hear something that sounds good, you know, in a

12:00

blind listening test. No, but you know, because

12:01

it's, it's an art form, right?

12:04

So there is, it's all subjective. So if, if you helps you get

12:05

you to where you want to go and

12:10

you want to use analog or half

12:10

inch or two inch or whatever,

12:12

or stay in the box, then fine. There's, there's no, there's no

12:14

right or wrong answer as such.

12:17

Mm-hmm. , um, You know, even if

12:17

you're deluding yourself,

12:21

, , there's a belief that this sounds better, you know? But if it helps you get there

12:23

and helps you create the music

12:25

and make the sound you wanna

12:25

make, you know, um, great.

12:29

Yeah, great. You know, uh, whatever

12:30

helps you create.

12:33

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Agree with that. Yeah. If it, if it, if it makes

12:35

your workflow more efficient

12:38

or, or it helps your workflow, then totally. Yeah.

12:40

Just start slightly off topic,

12:40

looking at the output behind

12:42

you there, cuz Yeah, it's

12:42

slightly Grady on my back here.

12:45

Is that a, are those distresses

12:45

at the top there though?

12:47

I see. Yeah. I thought

12:48

they were. I thought they were. Yeah. So there's, there's a pair

12:49

of distressors that, I've actually got three, there's

12:51

one down here as well because

12:54

I, I initially bought a pear. Yeah. And then one of them

12:56

was always on the snare. So I thought, well, I've

12:58

only got one spare one.

13:01

So yeah, I've got three of those. So, I mean, this is all stuff

13:03

I've collected over 20 years,

13:07

25 years of doing this. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

13:09

Uh, and the latest thing now

13:09

of course, is, uh, there you

13:12

can see the speaker in the sky. I dunno if you can

13:13

see that on you. Oh

13:14

yeah. I can see. Is that, are you mixing the 5.1?

13:17

Yeah. Well,

13:18

at Moss, yeah. Oh, at Moss. Yeah.

13:20

So my room's gone at Moss now, so. Ah, lovely.

13:23

Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll see. I mean, it's, it's amazing

13:24

whether, whether it stays

13:27

and hangs around as a format. You know, other surround

13:29

formats have come and gone. So we'll see.

13:32

But I mean, it's, it's great. It's great fun. It's great fun to mix, you know?

13:35

Yeah,

13:35

I can imagine. It's not something I've ever,

13:36

um, had the opportunity to, I,

13:38

I delved into ambisonics at one

13:38

point and by and roll, and then

13:41

looked at head related transfer

13:41

functions and all this sort of

13:44

business, uh, a few years back. But, um, yeah, it kind of fell

13:46

by the wayside after a while,

13:49

but it's really interesting. Yeah, I'm trying to, I did a

13:50

five, I did some 5.1 mixing

13:53

very crude mix is might I

13:53

add way back when, when I was

13:56

doing my master's degree, but. Yeah, I'd love, I'd

13:58

love to get back into

14:00

it again. Yeah, well you'll have to come down. Come down. I've listened . Oh, I'd love to.

14:04

That'd be brilliant.

14:04

Yeah. Out of interest,

14:06

where are you based? Where, where are you got this

14:08

one today? Sutton Southwest London. Oh, okay, okay.

14:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a fair amount of my

14:13

clients are still, you know,

14:15

in and around London, you

14:15

know, so, uh, I haven't moved

14:20

out to the country like, like

14:20

Dom and some others have,

14:22

you know, it's kinda . Yeah.

14:24

I notice it's a, uh, a number sort of move cuz I'm in the, so.

14:28

So there's a number of sort of

14:28

mastering studios and there's

14:32

loud mastering in Taunton, which

14:32

I know is quite a prominent

14:34

mastering and there's Yep. Super audio mastering in

14:35

Shafford, which is right.

14:39

I've been there a number of

14:39

times, so I can't remember the

14:41

gentleman's name, but he, uh, he

14:41

worked on the, I've got it right

14:43

in front of me here actually. He worked on sh label Bells.

14:46

Uh Oh wow. Okay. By Goldfield, so, right.

14:48

Yeah. They seem to come to, because

14:48

it is quite a nice part of

14:51

the world down in Southwest. I'm. But,

14:53

um, yeah, yeah. No, no, absolutely, man. I mean, I, I, a couple

14:54

of years ago I mixed an

14:57

album for Tori who was a

14:57

studio down in Cornwall.

15:00

You know, she's lived down there for, I dunno, 20 years or something.

15:03

Yeah. Um, so yeah, that, you

15:03

know, but to be honest, most

15:06

of my work now is remote. Um, people send me files and,

15:08

you know, I either send files

15:12

back or we do an online thing

15:12

where I can stream the mix

15:15

to them and we can, you know,

15:15

talk in real time about it.

15:17

Yeah. So, yeah, that re, that

15:18

requisite of having

15:20

to be in the same. you know, it doesn't, it

15:22

doesn't exist so much anymore,

15:25

which to, to be, to be honest,

15:25

I'm, I miss, I, I'm, I'm

15:28

not one of those guys that

15:28

wants to keep the band away.

15:30

Yeah. Um, far from it, you know? Um, cuz I think when you have

15:32

people in the room, there's

15:36

something to be said for that. You know, I, I don't necessarily

15:37

need the band there, what I'm

15:39

eq in the high hat or the second

15:39

rack, Tom, you know, but it's

15:44

that thing of actually, once

15:44

the mix is going, If you have

15:47

people in the room or you're

15:47

doing a thing online where it's

15:49

real time, then you can make 10

15:49

decisions in, you know, three

15:53

minutes, which would've taken

15:53

10 emails otherwise, you know.

15:56

Mm-hmm. . So there's something to be

15:57

said for that, you know?

16:00

Yeah.

16:00

That was gonna be my next question actually, with, um, with regards to

16:01

actually, uh, the processes

16:27

or what you're, the services that you're doing now. So you're not recording,

16:28

you're just doing sort of. Based mixing, um, with regards

16:31

to that remote based mixing.

16:35

Are you, cuz I know there's

16:35

a software and I've looked,

16:37

I I've briefly looked into

16:37

it myself whereby you can

16:39

stream the session and the

16:39

individual at the other end

16:41

can listen in real time. Yeah. Are you, are you offering that

16:43

sort of service or is this

16:45

sort of like, . Yeah. A a, absolutely.

16:48

I mean, uh, there's, there's

16:48

a few companies that, that

16:51

do, do that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. , I, I use a company

16:52

called Audio Movers. Yeah.

16:54

Uh, that plugins called Listen

16:54

to, where you just stream

16:57

it down a web, you know,

16:57

I put it on my Pro Tools

17:00

master bus, and it streams

17:00

directly to a web server.

17:04

. Um, there's a little latency. It's about like, kind

17:05

of 0.1, 0.2 of a second.

17:08

Um, but it's, it's, it's

17:08

basically real time.

17:12

You know, you couldn't record with it. It's not, you know, obviously

17:13

the latency's a problem there, but, um, but yeah,

17:15

certainly for streaming

17:17

mixes and, and communication,

17:17

it's, it's great, you know.

17:21

Um, but I mean, having

17:21

said that, I do have,

17:24

I do do recording. I have a little booth here,

17:25

um, and if I'm producing

17:28

an artist, then obviously. Depends what the budget is.

17:31

We might go, I, I've got a

17:31

small booth with, you know, a

17:34

vocal mic and guitar amps and

17:34

even a drum set in the corner.

17:36

But, but it's very

17:36

much an overdub room.

17:40

You have to record things one at a time. So if I'm working with a

17:42

project that's more, has

17:44

to be more of a live band,

17:44

then, uh, then we, you know,

17:48

we'll go to other premises. Um, But yeah, we can come here

17:49

and do overdubs and whatnot.

17:53

Um, but yeah, most of my

17:53

work, probably, probably 80%

17:56

of my work is, is mixing. Um, and probably 90%

17:58

of that work is remote.

18:02

Yeah.

18:02

Do you, this is an interesting question. Do you offer a mastering

18:04

service as well, or do you

18:06

just do the mixing and then

18:06

you've got a referer that, or

18:09

someone you refer the master to? Depending on,

18:12

I would much rather send it. One of the few mastering

18:15

engineers that I know

18:17

and trust mm-hmm. . Um, unfortunately these

18:18

days, of course, budget

18:21

doesn't always allow that. Yeah. So it's kind of a thing

18:22

if, if I'm mixing the whole

18:27

EP or whatever it is or

18:27

album and they want me to

18:29

master it as part of the. Thing then sure, I can give you

18:31

a loud master, you know, I can

18:34

run it through a limiter and,

18:34

and get it commercially loud

18:37

and match the level between the

18:37

tracks, you know, the stuff that

18:40

a mastering engineer will do. Um, but I think what the

18:42

mastering engineers are really

18:45

good at is that objective.

18:48

Third opinion. Yeah. You know, there's the artist,

18:49

the mixer, producer, whoever,

18:51

and then somebody who's never

18:51

heard all before and goes,

18:54

ah, you know what this needs. And obviously they have

18:55

great gear, great EQs,

18:58

amazing speakers so they can hear everything. Um, as much as I love my

19:00

room, you know, and it's

19:02

great having that, you know,

19:02

there's, there's only a

19:06

few I trust, to be honest. Mm-hmm.

19:08

, you know, there's, there's plenty of mastering guys out there who, you know,

19:10

are, are pretty good.

19:12

But I wouldn't necessarily,

19:12

you know, advise a client

19:15

to spend loads of money. because it's not gonna be much

19:17

different than what I would do. It's not to knock mastering

19:19

engineers, you know, the

19:21

good ones are really great

19:21

and, and they're magic.

19:24

It comes back and I think

19:24

mastering engineers hear

19:27

music in a different way

19:27

than mixed engineers Do.

19:30

You know, they, I, I dunno what it is. Obviously never trained as

19:32

mastering engineer, but if

19:34

I hear a mix, I'm thinking

19:34

about balance and, yeah.

19:37

The vocal sound and, you

19:37

know, rides and dynamics

19:41

and, and somehow mastering

19:41

engineers, couldn.

19:44

Just as a finished piece of music and go, you know what this needs, I need to take out

19:46

a little bit of 400 and add a

19:49

bit of seven K and it's better.

19:52

Um, and obviously as a mixer

19:52

you kind of do some of that.

19:57

Yeah. But they hear it differently.

19:59

I genuinely believe it's a different way. Their whole process of how they

20:01

interact with music, recorded

20:04

music and the finished two

20:04

track product they get given

20:08

is very different than what a mix engineer gets given. So, Um, yeah, a, a great master

20:10

engineer is, you know, when

20:14

it comes back it is, like I said, it's kind of magic. It's like, what have you done?

20:18

I don't understand what you've done, but it's better. That's, that's great.

20:21

You know, um, and other times

20:21

it comes back and it's a little

20:25

bit disappointing and not as good as the loud reference that I've created, so, yeah.

20:29

Um, so then we have a little,

20:29

you know, we make sure.

20:33

, it gets revealed, revised,

20:33

and is better than what

20:35

I could do on my own. Hopefully.

20:38

Yeah, it's ma mastery. I I guess that's why I

20:39

remember when I've spoken

20:41

to mastering engineers and

20:41

you, you hear the phrase, the

20:43

dark art of mastering not,

20:43

I dunno if they necessarily

20:47

like it described that way,

20:47

but, uh, it, it is, isn't it?

20:50

I guess it's, it's like you say that it's cuz you've got the objectivity and you,

20:52

you're looking at it from a

20:54

totally different viewpoint. as yourself.

20:56

And when I've done mixes,

20:56

you're sat there and you are,

20:58

you are invested in that mix. You know, the look and

21:00

the nuances and stuff. Whereas that third party,

21:01

you can just see it from a

21:04

totally different perspective. Yeah. So the, the audience that we

21:05

have with the podcast, um,

21:09

probably maybe fall into that

21:09

category where they, they may

21:13

be outsourcing, mastering, or

21:13

they're doing it in themselves.

21:16

If they are outsourcing,

21:16

mastering, what do you

21:19

think they should look for

21:19

in, in a mastering service?

21:23

Um, the

21:24

key thing, . I,

21:24

I guess, uh, I guess

21:27

it's, it's more about

21:27

what they're expecting the

21:30

mastering engineer to do. Mm-hmm. , do you know what I mean?

21:32

Cause the mastering engineer is

21:32

very much a finishing process.

21:36

So if your balance is not right

21:36

in your mix, the mastering

21:40

engineer cannot fix that. Mm-hmm. , do you know what I mean?

21:44

So, particularly with things in the mid. , you know what I mean?

21:48

So if you are mix overall

21:48

just needs a little tone

21:52

or shaping, or it needs

21:52

to be a bit brighter, or

21:54

you've been too heavy with

21:54

a base, so we need to tuck

21:56

some stuff, then that's what

21:56

mastering will sort that out.

21:59

And it's great, but if you

21:59

want your snare drum louder,

22:03

uh, but your vocals are

22:03

too loud or, you know, the

22:06

balance of the guitars against

22:06

the keyboards is not right.

22:09

Obviously a mastering engineer is gonna have, it's not impossible, but

22:11

it's very difficult to make

22:14

that kind of adjustment. So I think you have to be

22:16

very happy with the balance

22:20

of your music and the way it

22:20

makes you feel, or the dynamic

22:23

changes with your music. Mm-hmm.

22:25

. Um, because one of the first

22:25

things that when mastering

22:28

started to get loud, uh,

22:28

in the nineties, you know,

22:32

when I was training mm-hmm. , one of the first things you

22:32

realized what the limit did

22:35

was squash your dynamics. So, you know, In the studio,

22:37

you'd be going along in the

22:40

verse, you hit the chorus and it jumps up great. But obviously once you hit put

22:43

a limiter on that, the limiter

22:45

is gonna pull the chorus down.

22:49

Um, so suddenly your dynamic

22:49

range, your, your transition

22:53

from your verse to your

22:53

chorus is much less of a jump.

22:58

Um, so it might not have

22:58

the impact that you wanted.

23:01

Um, so what I do is I always.

23:05

through a limiter. It'll go on quite late in the

23:06

process, but I, I, as part

23:11

of the mixing process, I am

23:11

hearing what a limiter would

23:15

be doing that brings it up to

23:15

commercial loudness levels.

23:19

Mm-hmm. , if you, does that make sense? It does. Yeah.

23:22

Yeah. So I'm not, I'm not printing

23:22

the mix with the limiter on, or

23:25

rather, I'll print two versions

23:25

with them without the limiter.

23:29

but I, I have an idea of what

23:29

the limiter is gonna do to

23:33

the dynamics of the track. And I'm not worried about

23:35

multi-band processing and, you

23:38

know, mastering EQ and all that. It's just once I get it to

23:40

a le a certain level, uh,

23:44

and it's hitting my mix bus

23:44

how I want it, and the, or

23:46

the half inch emulation,

23:46

you know, it's zero vu.

23:49

Okay. Then I know that a commercial

23:50

release is gonna, Five DB

23:53

louder, you know, because

23:53

I'm referencing, right.

23:56

I'm pulling references into my

23:56

sessions so I know, okay, if I

23:59

turn down this commercial track

23:59

five db, then it kind of sounds

24:03

like my mix approximately. Cool. Great. So I know how much gain I need

24:05

to apply to the limited the

24:09

get up to commercial levels. Yeah.

24:11

Yeah. Is this making sense? It is, yeah.

24:13

And it,

24:14

so then, then I can put a limiter on and make it as loud as

24:16

commercial release and I.

24:19

How it's gonna feel going

24:19

into a chorus or dropping

24:21

into the second verse, or

24:21

do you know what I mean?

24:24

How Yeah. You gotta keep those

24:25

dynamics cuz it is part of

24:28

what makes music exciting. Um, if your verse comes

24:30

along and you just kind of

24:32

seamlessly blend into the

24:32

chorus and then back through

24:34

to the second verse, Dan,

24:34

obviously it's not gonna be

24:37

as exciting as it could be. Yeah. Um, so I, I need to know what

24:39

the limit's doing, even if it's

24:43

not, it's not me that's gonna

24:43

be applying the final limiter.

24:48

So, uh, I guess the thing is to

24:48

get your mix to a state where

24:52

it sounds and feels really

24:52

good without the limiter.

24:55

Yeah. You know, and then the

24:56

limiter really is only

24:58

just making it loud. You, you know, your mix

25:00

shouldn't like completely

25:02

fall apart if you take the

25:02

limiter off, which I've, I've

25:07

had, have had some rough mixes

25:07

that are like that, you know?

25:11

Um, because people are doing

25:11

too much of the limiter.

25:13

If you're doing kind of

25:13

10 or 12 db of limit.

25:16

To get it up to commercial

25:16

loudness levels, then that's

25:19

gonna massively affect the

25:19

balance of the mix when

25:23

you take the limiter off. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

25:25

Because the limit are squashing

25:25

everything, holding it in place.

25:28

Um, so my advice would be try

25:28

and mix without the limiter

25:33

and, and then the limiter

25:33

on the end is really only

25:35

doing, say, five or six dp.

25:38

Yeah. Um, and if you send

25:39

that to a mastering

25:41

engineer, then hopeful. It'll be much closer to

25:43

what you want it to be.

25:48

Your mix will be in a

25:48

better position going on

25:51

the way to mastering, um,

25:51

if you're not leaning so

25:54

heavily on the final limiter. Ah,

25:57

fantastic advice. It it, it echos a conversation

25:58

I had, um, about a month

26:02

ago with another producer. Cause we were discussing,

26:04

um, mix bus and what

26:07

is on your, sorry. Master bus, mix Bus, master bus.

26:09

What is on your master bus when they're mixing? And we had this exact discussion

26:12

about limiting and how whereby.

26:15

Um, we would put that on

26:15

the end just to hear, get an

26:18

idea of what it's gonna sound

26:18

like in the mastering phase.

26:21

Absolutely. And, um, I can't remember if he

26:21

said that he was mixing into it

26:24

throughout the whole session. You're probably like savi

26:25

It came in at the end. Yeah.

26:27

But, um, audience listening is,

26:27

is a great, great thing to do.

26:31

I, I

26:31

am, I am

26:31

mixing into a, a mix

26:35

bus chain from the. . So like I say, if I have,

26:37

you know, if I have a band

26:40

in and I want the SSL sound,

26:40

then I'll put that on right

26:43

at the start of the mix. Mm-hmm. , um, or even if I'm mixing in the

26:45

box, then, you know, there's a

26:49

few things in there to emulate

26:49

kind of analog saturation.

26:53

So as I mix. It, it's on all the time.

26:56

I might adjust it,

26:56

but it's, it's on from

26:58

the start of the mix. Um, and the limiter is on

27:00

there, but just bypassed,

27:03

you know what I mean? Yeah. So at any point I can just go,

27:03

okay, what's it sound like if

27:06

I crash this by five or six dv?

27:09

Um, but yeah, the, the,

27:09

the, the mix bus is more for

27:13

color and um, that kind of

27:13

thing of, uh, a little analog

27:18

flavor if you want it or not. You know, I have a tape machine

27:21

emulation, a u a D one, but I

27:24

mean, use whatever you like. Um, you know, so I can instantly

27:26

go, oh, does this sound

27:28

better at 15 ips or 30 YPs? Yeah.

27:31

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, you get a flavor through

27:32

the mix right from the start.

27:37

. Marc Matthews: Yeah. It's, so, I I, so you are

27:37

running that throughout

27:39

the whole mix process. Yeah. And then you are rendering,

27:40

bouncing, whatever it may be,

27:43

printing, printing the mix with all that

27:44

stuff on Yeah, with all that. Yeah. The only thing that

27:46

doesn't get printed is, is the final loud limiter.

27:50

Limiter, yeah.

27:52

Yeah. Fantastic stuff. I love that.

27:54

It's, it is giving three

27:54

for four now, cuz I, when

27:57

I've done mixes, I've,

27:57

I've, this, this, I've had

28:00

the, the tape emulation. But for whatever reason,

28:02

I take it off at the end, which is just gonna.

28:05

it's going to, um, it's not

28:05

gonna represent what I've mixed

28:08

into right at the end, you

28:09

know, think about that. I mean, it's, it's surprisingly,

28:11

you know, even, I mean, well,

28:14

what I found, and you know,

28:14

your listeners may disagree,

28:17

is, is that the tape I like

28:17

to use, I don't slam tape.

28:21

Like you would maybe

28:21

get away with in the old

28:24

days of a, if you had an

28:24

actual half inch machine.

28:26

Yeah. So what I find is if you're

28:26

actually pushing it into the red, then it doesn't

28:28

really distort like tape.

28:32

It's kind of like that. But I'm kind of using it where

28:34

it's designed to be used. The round zero vu.

28:37

Yep. Does that make sense? So you kind of, you know,

28:38

I'm not pinning the meters,

28:41

you know what I mean? Maybe plus one just

28:42

slightly into the red,

28:45

but I'm a round zero vu. That's where it's designed to

28:46

be hit on in an ideal world.

28:49

And it's one of those things

28:49

where it, what I want it

28:51

to do is I want it to be

28:51

disappointing when I bypass it.

28:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's not like, it's not like you

28:55

put the plugin in and you go, oh

28:57

my God, my mix sounds amazing. That's sorted out

28:59

all my problems. It's more like, oh, if I bypass

29:00

it, it just feels a bit, oh,

29:04

it's not, you know, it's better

29:04

with it in, it's just a little

29:07

bit of flavor, the little bit

29:07

of harmonic distortion that

29:10

our ears like, little bit of

29:10

saturation, but I'm not caning

29:14

it, you know what I mean? Um, and it's there from

29:16

the start as a flavor, you

29:18

know, I'm mixing into it. And if, if I want a more

29:19

clean mix, then I'll

29:22

probably be running at 30. Yeah, yeah. Or not at all?

29:25

If I want, if it's a pop thing,

29:25

I might not use the, the tape

29:28

machine, cuz it doesn't get

29:28

you that clean, super punchy,

29:32

bright, open pop thing. Then I'll be just doing

29:34

digital something. Yeah.

29:36

Uh, likewise, if it's an

29:36

organic band, then sure.

29:39

I might run it at 15 nips. They want it to sound like

29:40

their favorite records,

29:43

which, you know, don't

29:43

have that extended top end.

29:45

There's, you know, there's a

29:45

bit of high frequency saturation

29:48

that the tape is doing. So, you know, kind of, it

29:50

depends on the situation.

29:52

There's no one size fits all.

29:54

Yeah. That's the beauty of

29:55

music, I think in, in, in creating and mixing.

29:59

The fact that you can go

29:59

in and you can be creative,

30:02

you can try things and put

30:02

something absolutely plug in.

30:05

I'm, I'm speaking from the mixing in the boxing cause that's primarily what I do.

30:08

But you can put something on

30:08

something and there, there is no

30:11

hard and fast rule, um, in terms

30:11

of what you can and cannot do.

30:15

Absolutely. What you can create, which is the great thing

30:16

about it, you know. . Yeah. And the plug-ins are

30:18

so good nowadays. Yeah. The the emulators and, and, and

30:19

the, I remember when plugins,

30:23

you know, when I first, when they first came out, when I, you know, back in when I was

30:25

at Metropolis and we were mixing on analog consoles and,

30:26

and the plug-ins that they

30:30

all kind of sounded the same. Mm-hmm.

30:33

do, do you know what I mean? It was like, well, you know,

30:33

okay, this might look like

30:37

it's one type of EQ and

30:37

another one might look like

30:39

a different type of eq. But actually they were

30:39

all kind of doing the

30:43

same kind of things. . Uh, and if you match the cues

30:45

and the frequencies, they

30:48

weren't massively different. Um, which they are in the

30:50

analog world, you know,

30:52

like if you boost, you

30:52

know, three K on an ssl, it

30:56

sounds very different than

30:56

boosting three K underneath.

30:58

Yeah. You know, whatever they're doing. The bell shape, the curve,

31:00

the harmonics that generates

31:02

all that, it's very different. But the early days of plugins,

31:04

they were kind of all the same.

31:07

Um, and that's very

31:07

much different now.

31:09

Do you know what I mean? Plugins have color,

31:09

they have personalities,

31:12

or some of them do. Um, Uh, and likewise you

31:14

can get the super surgical

31:17

plugins that you couldn't

31:17

ever do with an analog eq.

31:21

Um, I mean that's an interesting

31:21

topic in itself actually, cuz

31:24

occasionally I'll get sent

31:24

proto sessions with, you know,

31:28

where other people have got

31:28

it to a certain level and they

31:30

send it to me to mix and they

31:30

send me their whole session if

31:32

they're working in pro tools. And one of the common things

31:34

I see is, um, a lot of EQing

31:38

of very specific narrow

31:38

frequencies that basically make

31:43

no difference when I bypass. So somebody spent an awful lot

31:44

of time and effort to pull out,

31:48

you know, tiny amounts on really

31:48

narrow Q bandwidths, uh, out

31:53

of, out of a vocal or something. And really it's like, hmm,

31:54

uh, this makes no difference

31:58

when I bypass it, so I'm just gonna get rid of the plugin. Yeah, yeah.

32:00

Um, so it, I think one, are the

32:00

benefits of, you know, coming

32:06

up with that training on analog

32:06

consoles is that actually EQ

32:10

primarily is a tone sculpting.

32:14

, you know, all the records,

32:14

you know and love from, well,

32:16

basically anything before

32:16

mid two thousands, which

32:19

were mixed on analog desks. Um, you know, the, nobody's

32:21

super fine sculpting vocals.

32:25

It's all big moves,

32:25

tonal control.

32:28

Um, uh, so yeah, you know,

32:28

don't, I would say to your

32:32

listeners, you know, if you're

32:32

EQing stuff, go for tone and.

32:37

Uh, the color that you want.

32:39

First big moves, broad cues.

32:42

You know, use the vintage style

32:42

leak cues first to to shape

32:46

the sound where you want it. And then sometimes there

32:47

might be some super specific

32:51

things you can notch out. But you know, don't waste

32:53

half an hour notching out.

32:57

six different frequencies

32:57

with a queue of 30.

32:59

Do you know what I mean? . Marc Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's really

33:01

interesting you mentioned that

33:03

because, um, I, I, I, I live

33:03

in the, the realm of TikTok,

33:07

et cetera, and on that, and

33:07

I've seen a video, I saw it

33:10

this weekend and it was a video

33:10

on, um, EQing vocal, right.

33:16

And there was the, the

33:16

roll off of the low end.

33:19

Sure. And then there was just multiple

33:19

tiny, like the tiniest cue,

33:24

uh, just dropping frequ. Yeah.

33:27

And I'm thinking like,

33:27

what is that doing?

33:29

Yeah. What could that possibly be

33:29

doing to that, to that sound?

33:32

And it's, and, and it kind

33:32

of leads me on nicely to this

33:35

next question in the, um, the

33:35

sort of like the difference

33:40

between sort of a novice

33:40

mix and a, or a beginner mix

33:44

maybe, and sort of a radio. uh, friend, radio friendly

33:46

or maybe a professional mix.

33:50

Yeah. Um, kind of everything

33:50

you've mentioned up until

33:53

this point, sort of like

33:53

leads onto this question.

33:55

What, what would be the primary

33:55

difference between the two?

33:57

So if you are just

33:57

starting out mixing, what

33:59

should you not be doing? , .

34:03

Adrian Hall: Um, I

34:05

obviously a, a big topic. Yeah. Um, what are the uh, I guess

34:06

the most fundamental thing?

34:09

Um, and there's a nice story, actually, I'll tell you about this.

34:12

It. It, it, the fundamental

34:13

thing is, is balance, right?

34:16

Um, and I remember this, this

34:16

was, I introduced to me very

34:19

early on in the game, um, cuz

34:19

I, I assisted, I had the good

34:23

fortune to assist, uh, a guy

34:23

called Bill Price, who is, who's

34:27

no longer with us, but he's

34:27

a legendary British engineer.

34:29

He's worked with everybody. He, he produced half of

34:30

nevermind the Bollocks

34:33

for the Sex Pistols. He produced the Clashes

34:34

Sand Easter Mixed Guns

34:38

N Roses back in the day. Worked with Paul McCarney, you.

34:41

Bri Bri, brilliant engineer. I think he was in-house at

34:43

Air Studios in the eighties

34:45

or something on, on West Six. But um, so I was assisting

34:47

him on a Clash Live album.

34:51

And part of my job at the start of the day was to put the reels on, you know, get the

34:52

faders up, check everything's

34:56

coming through the label, the

34:56

desk, all that kind of stuff.

34:59

And I remember some of these

34:59

live tapes, obviously they're

35:01

live recordings, so they'll

35:01

come through and they're

35:03

pretty ropey, you know. So I pushed the fades up and

35:06

I remember there was, I can't

35:08

remember which, which track

35:08

it was, but there was one time

35:11

when I went, oh, this one's,

35:11

this one's a bit of a mess.

35:13

Uh, you know, you, you'll

35:13

love fun with this one bill.

35:16

You know? And so, so I kind of, you know,

35:16

left him with the multitrack,

35:20

this is a metropolis, uh, went

35:20

upstairs, make a cup of tea for

35:23

the two of us and bring it back

35:23

down, you know, um, you know,

35:26

it took me five minutes, you know, so, but by the time I came back down, the multi-track had

35:28

gone from what I perceived to.

35:32

You know, a real mess,

35:32

real problem to solve,

35:36

to sounding like a clash

35:36

album in five minutes.

35:39

Wow. And I looked at the desk and

35:40

he'd barely done anything.

35:43

Um, it was just the balance.

35:45

It was all in the faders. Yeah. You know, he knew how to

35:47

balance the, the, the drums

35:50

and the bass against the

35:50

guitars and where the vocals

35:53

sat against all of that. Um, and Bill was.

35:57

You know, minimal mixing engineer anyway. But, um, it, it was just that

36:00

the balance was right for

36:04

that band and that genre,

36:04

and he knew how to get it.

36:07

, you know what I mean? My first instinct at that

36:07

point would've been, you know,

36:10

had, you know, I was still

36:10

training, would've been to dive

36:14

in with the EQs and fix stuff. Yeah, yeah.

36:17

Um, which, you know, obviously

36:17

he went into, you know, the mix

36:20

wasn't done in five minutes. You know, he went

36:21

into that later on. But it, it was just that

36:23

first impression of, oh wow,

36:26

this sounds like music now. Cuz the balance is

36:27

musically making.

36:31

, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah. The parts are all

36:33

working together. Nothing's swamping, nothing's

36:34

too loud, too quiet, you know?

36:38

Um, which is a testament

36:38

to the band too.

36:41

But, um, that, that was,

36:41

that was a real eye opener.

36:44

Um, and, and then later on as,

36:44

as, as my training progressed,

36:49

uh, and I assisted more and more

36:49

mixed engineers, it was that

36:52

thing of, um, like I would look.

36:55

People's mixes on the board. That's one of the benefits

36:57

of being an assistant. And the old way of training

36:59

is that, you know, at the end

37:02

of the night, it'd be your

37:02

job to recall everything.

37:05

Print the whatever, vocal

37:05

up, vocal down base, up, base

37:08

down, you know, instrumental

37:08

TV track masters At the

37:11

end, maybe the engineers stayed, maybe he didn't. So you got to see what,

37:13

what they did, you know,

37:16

and, and listen to, oh, what has he done with a vocal? Put the, put the EQ in and out

37:18

on the desk or on, you know, on

37:21

the outboard gear they're using. Oh, I see what that's doing.

37:25

And, and none of these guys

37:25

who were great engineers,

37:27

I assisted, you know, Alan

37:27

Molder, Steven Fitz Morris,

37:30

um, Jim Abyss, uh, so many,

37:30

so, you know, loads of great

37:36

mixes passed through metros. Um, and there was

37:37

no magic frequency.

37:40

There was nothing on the

37:40

desk that they were doing any

37:42

different than what I was doing. , but it was just that level

37:45

of attention to detail.

37:48

You know, it wasn't like a

37:48

mold's vocal sound or snare

37:51

drum sound was some magic,

37:51

f magic frequency in the

37:55

SSL that nobody else used. You know, everybody had the same

37:56

tools, do you know what I mean?

37:59

Um, which is kind of

37:59

like it is today as well.

38:02

You know, everybody's got the same plugins, more or less, you know, stuff

38:04

that does the same thing. So it was just the attention to

38:06

detailed and the, and the tiny,

38:10

tiny changes that, the 10,000

38:10

tiny changes that they'd done to

38:14

everything across the whole desk

38:14

or, or in the, you know, in the

38:17

box nowadays, there was no magic

38:17

secret source, which I was kind

38:22

of, you know, led to believe.

38:25

Oh, you know, maybe if I just

38:25

find that magic kick drum f.

38:29

, you know, is it 80 hertz or 90 hertz? Or maybe it's 65 hertz.

38:32

I don't know. Do, do you know what I mean? Yeah. There was nothing

38:34

like super special. It was, they were kind of doing

38:36

what everybody else was doing,

38:40

uh, which was, you know, a a

38:40

again, that was another lesson.

38:44

It was like, okay, it's actually

38:44

the reason their mixes sounds

38:47

so good is because they've

38:47

made 10,000 tiny decisions.

38:52

It's not like some amazing

38:52

secret that only they knew.

38:57

do, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Um, so again, I think, you

38:59

know, there's a lot of stuff

39:02

with the internet about, oh,

39:02

this is the magic source.

39:04

Yeah. Well, the silver bullet, yeah.

39:07

It, it might help you. I'm not saying it's not, but

39:07

it's not and and it's not

39:10

gonna apply in every case. Yeah. Do, do you know what I mean?

39:13

Um, depending on the aesthetic

39:13

of the band and, and, and what

39:16

the artist wants, whether they

39:16

want it to sound that way.

39:19

Do, do you know what I mean? Um, yeah. Yeah. If you are mixing the drums

39:21

for, you know, a, a super

39:26

hype, I don't know, a really

39:26

heavy rock band, as opposed

39:29

to mixing the drums for a band that wants to sound like Neil Young, it's gonna be

39:31

very different, your approach.

39:34

Mm-hmm. or should be different . So

39:34

there's no, you know,

39:38

there's no magic formula that's always gonna work. Yeah.

39:40

Um, so yeah.

39:42

Balance. Mm-hmm. , um, be, be bold with.

39:47

With your EQ and, and, and

39:47

tonal changes, you know,

39:50

if something wants to be

39:50

bright, then make it bright.

39:53

Yeah. You know, um, if something needs

39:53

to be, you need to pull all the

39:57

mid-range out of it, then do it. You know? Um, don't, don't be

40:00

too subtle with it.

40:03

I, I think somebody said that

40:03

to me early on when I was,

40:05

when I was, you know, still

40:05

in assistant metropolis, like,

40:08

they listened to one of my

40:08

mixes and he was one of the

40:10

other assistants actually. Um, and he said, oh yeah,

40:11

you, you're being very

40:14

conservative with your eq. and I kind of took,

40:17

I was like, okay. Yeah.

40:19

Um, particularly I, I know

40:19

like your audience, um,

40:23

there's a lot of synth Yeah. A lot of synth kind of

40:25

fanatics in, in your crowd.

40:27

And, and the great thing

40:27

about synth and, and in

40:32

instrumental music or, or

40:32

synth based type music is

40:36

that there's not, uh, your ear

40:36

doesn't know what to expect.

40:40

Do you know what I mean? If you hear somebody

40:41

singing, you hear a vocal or an acoustic guitar.

40:45

It kind of has to sound a

40:45

certain way because that your,

40:48

your ear is used to hearing

40:48

that in the real world.

40:51

Whereas with the synth,

40:51

you can, you can eq you

40:54

know, 20 db at three K into

40:54

it or pull out whatever,

40:58

completely roll off the top. There's, there's absolutely no

40:59

rules because there is nothing

41:01

natural, you know, sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:04

So, so, you know, particularly

41:04

with those kind of instruments

41:08

or synth drums, same thing. You know, there's no, it

41:11

doesn't have to sound a certain.

41:15

Uh, so you can be really bold

41:15

with the, with, with, with

41:18

the way you shape the sound

41:18

in the way that you can't, if

41:21

it's an acoustic kind of band.

41:26

Does that make sense? So it, it does, yeah.

41:28

And I, yeah, you can. You can be really bold with.

41:31

Yeah, I mean, like I've,

41:31

I've got sent some syn

41:35

type tracks recently, and

41:35

again, everything's really

41:38

big and wide and stereo. So if everything's big and

41:40

wide and stereo, then it's,

41:43

it's almost like giant mono. It doesn't necessarily feel

41:46

wide because you've got one

41:49

wide synth sound on top of

41:49

another wide synth sound.

41:52

Actually, you'll, it'll make,

41:52

it'll feel wider if you pan

41:54

one synth sound as a mono sound

41:54

all the way to the left, and

41:57

a completely different synth. As pan it all the way to

41:59

the right, both sides.

42:02

So you've got differences in the left and right. Mm-hmm.

42:04

. And that will make it feel wide. Yeah. Um, in a way that you

42:06

can't do if everything's

42:09

just coming up the middle. A hundred percent wide stereo.

42:12

Yeah. Um, . So yeah, you with

42:12

sin stuff you can really

42:17

go to town with it. There is, you know, there's

42:18

no need to be notching

42:20

out tiny frequencies and

42:20

getting specific with it.

42:23

, you know, be bold with it, you know? Yeah,

42:25

I I it's fantastic that you meant to know about the stereo width of

42:26

the symp track, cuz my question

42:29

was, you, you preempted my

42:29

question, which was gonna be,

42:32

how do you stop that wide stereo

42:32

spread from sounding mono?

42:35

And it's exactly like you said there is where you. You have the different tomber,

42:37

I guess you could call it,

42:40

of your synth instruments on the left and right. So yeah, to have

42:42

that, that difference.

42:44

A a. Absolutely. And I mean, uh, I think

42:45

it's, I think the temptation

42:50

is to go down the route of,

42:50

oh, I'll, oh, I'll, I'll

42:52

just use a stereo widener on

42:52

this center, not that one.

42:55

Yeah. Yeah. Um, the, I mean, not that

42:56

anybody's that bothered about

42:59

mono compatibility these days,

42:59

but it, it, it kind of still.

43:03

Does affect some

43:03

playback devices.

43:06

Um, you know, like, uh, my

43:06

daughter had a, uh, some kind of

43:12

boombox thing or docking station

43:12

and there was one speaker on it.

43:16

Do, do you know what I mean? So, yeah. Yeah. In, in, you know, 2020.

43:19

So you're kind of going, okay. Uh, that's, that's odd.

43:22

And obviously if you're listening out of a phone, it's effectively mono.

43:27

Or, or any other kitchen radio type source. And the thing, the danger

43:29

with stereo wideness is

43:32

that actually anything that

43:32

gets wider in stereo usually

43:35

cancels a bit in mono. Um, so you have to be careful

43:37

about using them because

43:41

something that you wanted

43:41

to be massive and wide.

43:43

Actually, if it's playback on something that's more like a mono device, like

43:45

I forget which it is, is

43:48

it an Alexa or a home pod? One of those two is

43:50

effectively a mono speaker.

43:53

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, even nowadays

43:54

there are mono playback devices.

43:59

So, uh, you know, you, you

43:59

should check in mono, really

44:04

just the check that's not

44:04

completely disappearing.

44:06

Mm-hmm. , uh, I mean, yeah.

44:09

It's, it's, it's tricky. It's tricky. Yeah.

44:11

What are your thoughts on mixing in mono. Out of interest.

44:15

Uh, I,

44:15

I don't mix in mono.

44:17

I, I check in mono. I I will definitely

44:18

check in mono. Um, but although I check

44:20

in mono, I, I, I have two

44:23

speakers, so, um, those are

44:23

my speakers, so, oh yeah,

44:27

you got the, the Gen X

44:27

that, uh, can, where is it?

44:32

You see that? Yeah. Yeah. So, so there you go.

44:34

That's the main Gen X. And then up here,

44:35

these little aton guys.

44:38

Oh, I've seen that. I've seen those in so many studios. The

44:40

little, yeah, little mix cubes, they're called.

44:43

Um, so I, I have two of those.

44:45

There's another one. Oh, there you go. That's much better set up.

44:48

Um, so the, the atones are

44:48

like, you know, the, the

44:53

crappy car radio or kitchen

44:53

kitchen hu kitchen stereo.

44:58

Um, so I use those

44:58

to a checking mono.

45:01

. Um, but I'm, I'm still

45:01

listening through two speakers.

45:04

Yeah. So it's, yeah. Yeah. It's mono through two

45:05

speakers, not, not true

45:07

single speaker mono. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I'll,

45:10

I'll, I'll check it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

45:12

For, mainly for things

45:12

like balance and rides.

45:15

So say for example, you have

45:15

a guitar or synth pan, one

45:18

side and your vocals coming

45:18

down the middle and it's

45:22

a call, an answer thing. I've just done this on a mix.

45:25

Um, so the call and answer

45:25

thing sounds great in

45:28

stereo cuz you can hear. , the, the, the counterpoint away

45:30

from the vocal very clearly.

45:33

Yeah. In stereo. Mm-hmm. . But if you put it in mono,

45:35

then they both sit on top of another one another.

45:37

So you have to make sure

45:37

that the guitar pokes

45:40

through where it needs to and the vocal comes back. Um, so that's kind of what

45:43

I use to, to check mono.

45:48

It's more that the

45:48

music still makes some

45:51

kind of sense in mono. Yeah. Yeah.

45:53

Do you know what I mean? The interplay between

45:54

the instrument. , uh, can I hear that bass fill?

45:57

Can I hear that guitar fill? Mm-hmm. , can I hear all the

45:59

lyrics on the vocal? You know, um, that's kind of

46:01

what I check in on usually

46:04

at quite a quiet level. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:07

Um, if that makes sense. It's so I don't mix.

46:11

Obviously it's, you know, 2023. No, nobody's mixing for

46:13

dedicated mono unless you really

46:16

wanna punish yourself, you know. So, , um, or, or the

46:17

aesthetic you're mixing

46:21

for is that it's mono. Do you know what I mean?

46:23

If it's, yeah. Yeah. I can't, I mean, I can't

46:25

even think of an example

46:27

now, but maybe some of

46:27

the retro type stuff.

46:32

I mean, I know DEP King's,

46:32

you know Mark Ronson's banner?

46:36

Yeah, yeah. Their stereo. Very much so.

46:38

But if you were being super

46:38

authentic or trying to recreate

46:41

something, you might mix for

46:41

Mono only, but I've never.

46:46

No, no

46:46

No, it's interesting.

46:48

It's a, I often ask these

46:48

questions a bit when it comes to

46:50

mixing, um, and mixing in mono.

46:54

Yeah. Because like yourself, I use

46:54

it primarily just to make sure,

46:57

like you mentioned there, about,

46:57

so everything has its place

46:59

and I can hear everything that

46:59

I need to hear when I should.

47:01

Yeah. And nothing's masking

47:02

anything else. Yeah.

47:04

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think actually

47:05

just, uh, I've just thought

47:07

of something like, I, I dunno if, if a lot of your listeners are mixing on

47:09

headphones or only or something.

47:11

Yes, yes. Yeah. I. It, it, it, it's great.

47:14

Don't get me wrong. The headphones are amazing,

47:15

um, for any number of things,

47:19

uh, particularly for checking,

47:19

edits and whatever, but

47:22

there is a danger with them

47:22

where it comes to, uh, Uh,

47:27

phase and the perception of

47:27

phase, particularly phase

47:29

cancellation on headphones,

47:29

like your headphones can

47:32

actually be completely out

47:32

of phase, which on a, on a

47:35

pair of speakers would, would

47:35

turn your head inside out.

47:37

You get that really uncomfortable feeling where, you know, there's nothing in

47:39

the middle and, and Oh, yes.

47:42

Yeah, yeah. Feels like you're half underwater. . Yeah.

47:45

That doesn't happen on headphones. At least not to my, my ears

47:47

like it, it's very interesting.

47:50

Like I can put a mix completely

47:50

out of phase and it'll sound

47:53

different, but it won't. Like, it's making me sick

47:55

in a way that it does

47:58

when your speakers are completely out phase. Yeah, do, do, do, do you,

48:00

do you know what I mean? You know that feeling?

48:02

Mm-hmm. . Marc Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been a very

48:03

long, long time since I've experienced it.

48:06

I think it was when I was at university and we, we did a trial just to see what

48:08

it, what, what it was like.

48:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, so, I'm, I'm,

48:12

obviously, I'm not talking about your whole mix being out phase.

48:15

Hopefully it's not, I'm talking

48:15

about individual elements within

48:17

that being out of phase or phy.

48:20

Yeah. It's actually quite hard to hear on he. . Yeah.

48:23

Uh, which is something that presents itself immediately on speakers.

48:26

So, you know, like I say,

48:26

headphones, I, I definitely

48:28

check my mixes on headphones. I spend a good amount of time,

48:30

you know, um, particularly with

48:32

vocals and editing and clicks

48:32

and pops and that kind of stuff

48:36

on headphones, you know, um,

48:36

because you are removing the

48:40

environment so you can have it

48:40

quite close to, you can hear

48:43

all that stuff in a really

48:43

detailed way, which is great.

48:46

Um, . But I think again,

48:46

sometimes when you're mixing

48:48

on headphones, because you can

48:48

hear all the detail, you're not

48:52

as bold as you should maybe be.

48:55

So the the trouble I've had

48:55

with headphones, if I do a mix

48:59

too long on headphones and then

48:59

I put it back on the speakers,

49:02

it always feels a bit flat. Mm-hmm.

49:05

because I can hear all

49:05

the details and I can hear

49:07

that second guitar part. I don't hear all the

49:08

vocal harmonies cause it's really close to my head.

49:11

But when you put it on speakers

49:11

in the real world, sudden.

49:16

E everything doesn't quite

49:16

pop out as much as you

49:18

were used to on headphones. Yeah, I

49:20

I guess it's, cuz it's with, with the headphones, it's inside

49:22

of your head, isn't it?

49:24

The sound is, is in here. Yeah.

49:26

Yeah. And usually it's a bit louder

49:26

and, and you have no real

49:29

world noise and distractions. Mm-hmm.

49:31

. So, I mean, don't, don't get

49:31

me wrong, it's, it's like

49:34

I understand it's a budget

49:34

choice as well for a lot of.

49:37

Um, and headphones are great

49:37

and you can get some great

49:40

headphones nowadays, but I

49:40

would say if, even if you

49:43

check your mixes on a pair of

49:43

budget speakers, it'll give

49:47

you a real world, you know,

49:47

kind of perspective on it.

49:50

Yeah, I mean, what we used to do in the old days was, you know, you'd classically you'd

49:52

spend all day in front of the,

49:55

on the SSL in front of the

49:55

speakers, you know, um, but as

49:58

soon as you walked to the back of the room and sat down on the. , you would hear your

50:01

mix differently. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

50:04

It's just a different

50:04

perspective suddenly, or,

50:06

I mean, amazingly like when

50:06

somebody else walks in the room,

50:09

even if you're sat in exactly

50:09

the same place, just having

50:12

somebody else in the room makes

50:12

you hear your mix differently.

50:17

even though it's not one of the band or the producers. Yeah.

50:19

I dunno if your listeners have

50:19

ever experienced that, but I

50:22

I'm not, is that, is that to do with the psychological of having

50:23

someone else in the room?

50:25

Yeah. Just, just there present

50:26

with you and Yeah.

50:28

Knowing someone else is there

50:28

and you start to perceive your

50:30

mix differently cuz someone else is listening to it. Yeah,

50:33

exactly. It takes you out of that focus

50:33

of you being so into the details

50:38

and suddenly makes you listen. From an objective

50:40

listener's point of view, you know, somebody who's

50:41

just walked in the room. Yeah.

50:44

Um, but yeah, you know,

50:44

definitely sit on the sofa at

50:47

the back or listen from the

50:47

doorway with a cup of tea or

50:50

something, cuz it will get

50:50

your head back into that kind

50:55

of fresh space where you're

50:55

not hearing it the same way

50:57

you've been hearing it for the last two hours with your head down in front of the speakers.

51:01

Yeah.

51:01

Um, oh,

51:01

great advice, great advice.

51:04

Um, ,

51:05

Adrian Hall: sorry I'm no, no, it's fantastic.

51:09

I've got, I've got one more question, and this question comes

51:10

from a community group.

51:13

So this is from a producer

51:13

from called Blockhouse.

51:16

I think his name's Nick, if I remember Right, right. Okay. Um, I'm gladly asked, asked

51:18

this question because it, it

51:21

touches on the Pache mode. Enjoy the silence Live in Berlin

51:23

video, which I have rinsed

51:27

and repeated so many times. It's so good.

51:29

. Um, and he says, uh,

51:29

he's interested in your,

51:32

uh, work recording live. Um, it says, in my own

51:34

experience, live performances

51:37

can lose something when they're recorded. So what do you do to ensure

51:38

that the recording captures the

51:41

energy and atmosphere of the

51:41

live show in the mixing process?

51:46

Okay. Yes. Um, it, it, it's interesting you

51:47

talk about the Depeche mode one

51:51

actually, because, um, before.

51:54

Uh, it was Daniel Miller,

51:54

who was the head of Mute,

51:56

who I, I did a lot of

51:56

work for at the time.

51:59

Um, uh, and he asked me

51:59

to mix the Depeche mode.

52:02

Mm-hmm. , uh, five one. I'd never worked

52:03

with the band before. Um, and his specific brief to me

52:05

was, I want to be able to hear.

52:10

The crowd interaction and

52:10

I want to hear the crowd

52:13

singing when they sing. Yeah. Because he felt that

52:15

was always lacking from, from previous versions.

52:17

And, and obviously if you go to a Depeche Mode gig, you know, there's a load of

52:19

hardcore fans down the front.

52:22

Yeah. Particularly with something

52:23

like enjoyed silence. So really it's part of that

52:24

atmosphere, um, the way

52:29

they interact, you know, not

52:29

obviously what makes a life

52:33

recording exciting hopefully. So his specific instruction

52:35

was, make sure you get as

52:38

much of that as you can. And at, uh, the, uh, in

52:40

Berlin that they were actually

52:45

doing two nights there

52:45

with a day off in between.

52:48

So we actually had the

52:48

benefit of being able to

52:50

put mics up on the first

52:50

day, and then I had a day.

52:53

Where, where I could listen

52:53

to the mixes, you know, do, do

52:56

some quick mixes and listen to the recording from the first night before we had, before

52:58

they played the second night.

53:02

So we actually changed some

53:02

of the mic positions of the,

53:05

uh, audience capture mics

53:05

of, for the second night.

53:09

Um, cuz we were trying to

53:09

capture that front row.

53:12

Yeah. So I mean this is very specific.

53:15

It in a venue sometimes, you

53:15

know, we, we put up extra

53:18

ambience mics hanging from the,

53:18

you know, upper balconies and

53:22

stuff and, and, and where the

53:22

front of house position is.

53:25

But they often, they're often

53:25

capturing the sound in the room.

53:29

So it's almost like you are

53:29

recording the venue, the pa.

53:33

Yeah, it's not actually

53:33

got that much crowd in it.

53:37

Does that make sense? Because the crowd It does. Yeah. The most interactive part

53:39

of the crowd is at the front of the audience.

53:41

So actually we had Mikes on

53:41

the stage behind the pa, just

53:45

behind the pa, but pointing

53:45

at the front row of the crowd,

53:49

um, which were immensely useful

53:49

for capturing that live energy.

53:52

Yeah. And it, it, it worked out well.

53:55

You know, it worked out well. Um, it, it capturing a good life

53:56

show is obviously, you know,

54:02

the, the band have to give it. And obviously Depeche Mode are

54:03

great, you know, the mm-hmm.

54:07

. Yeah. It's a fantastic, fabulous band. You know, the energy they

54:08

all have on stage from, from,

54:10

you know, Dave the singer to,

54:10

to Christian, the drummer,

54:13

um, Pete Gardino, plan Keys, you know, I mean, they're all, they're all brilliant.

54:18

So what, what they're giving

54:18

you is fantastic to start with.

54:21

Um, and then obviously if you

54:21

capture the crowd properly, then

54:26

you've got that interaction,

54:26

which, which is, is, is is gold.

54:30

You know, it's, it's is, it

54:30

is what you're going for.

54:33

Um, and, and then the only thing is not to make it sound too studio.

54:37

So obviously you want the

54:37

instruments to sound good, um,

54:41

but the, the energy from the

54:41

crowd, if you mix the crowd

54:45

too low, It's particularly on

54:45

a big stage like Depeche mode.

54:50

You know, the, the guitar amps

54:50

are 20 feet from the keyboards

54:53

and they're 20 feet from the

54:53

drums, so it's almost like

54:56

you're in a studio anyway. . Yeah. Yeah, because the spill, the

54:57

spill on stage is so low.

55:00

Um, so you're not gonna get that interaction. You need the audience

55:02

mics to make it f make

55:05

it have that energy. Um, and then you just gotta

55:07

be careful not to mix.

55:10

of the, of the, of the

55:10

final product, you know?

55:13

Yeah. Um, in, in a smaller

55:14

venue, if, if your audience

55:16

members are recording their own live gigs and things, then you know, like I say,

55:18

definitely try and get Mike's.

55:22

Maybe on the stage, but

55:22

pointing at the crowd,

55:24

if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and then the energy

55:26

of what comes down.

55:28

The vocal mic. If there is a vocal mic on

55:29

stage, like you're gonna

55:32

get a lot of spill from the

55:32

crowd down that vocal mic.

55:37

So again, obviously you

55:37

have to turn it down, but

55:39

don't completely gate it

55:39

out because it's gonna sound

55:42

really odd when it comes in and out, comes back in. Yeah.

55:44

Yeah, yeah. And, and actually you, you

55:45

do get a kind of certain

55:47

ambience from the crowd

55:47

going down the vocal mic

55:50

and then into whatever vocal

55:50

reverb you're using mm-hmm.

55:53

. So don't clean it up too much.

55:55

Yeah. It's, it's, it's tricky.

55:57

It's really hard. It involves immense

55:58

amounts of fader.

56:01

Like you look at the lead

56:01

vocal fader on, on that Depeche

56:04

Man thing or any other live

56:04

things I've done and you know,

56:07

it's, it's, I turn it down

56:07

maybe 10 db when it's, when

56:10

the singer's not singing and they're back up or whatever. But it's all about the

56:13

rides, the fader rides.

56:15

Yeah. Yeah. Um, . Does that that make sense?

56:19

It does, yeah, it does. It's all quite technical,

56:20

quite esoteric really. But, um, no, no, I

56:23

think, I bet you're exactly right. I remember when I played in

56:24

live, live gigs and we sometimes

56:28

record them and it, a lot of

56:28

it was, I remember we did one

56:32

recording and then it was mix. But it was mixed to sound

56:34

like a studio recording

56:36

and then Yeah, you just,

56:36

just, just lost everything.

56:39

The fact that it was live, it

56:39

might be cuz we played quite bad

56:43

, it's quite possibly what it was. Um, but yeah, I think capturing

56:45

the audience, it's, it's

56:48

huge and I think that's why

56:48

I love that video so much

56:51

cuz of the interaction in it. Did you replace.

56:54

Because I know you said you didn't have any issues with Spear.

56:57

Well, the, obviously the spill was minimal. Yeah.

57:00

But did you replace any particular sounds? Did you any overdubs in it?

57:03

Or

57:03

is it just all,

57:03

there are no overdubs in that.

57:05

That's as it came off stage. I mean, I, wow.

57:08

You know, there would've

57:08

been a couple of edits.

57:10

Mm. In terms of like, oh,

57:10

you know, I might've just

57:12

nudged a couple of things

57:12

because, you know, somebody

57:15

came in early or something. But there's no fixes with

57:16

a, with a band like that,

57:19

I mean, You know, they're

57:19

obviously great musicians.

57:22

They've been touring for years. They know exactly

57:23

what they're playing. Um, no, there's no, there's

57:25

no, I'm not, I'm not having to

57:30

conversate anything and there were certainly no overdubs. Um, You know, I mean, I think

57:32

albums in the live albums in

57:35

the seventies, you know, the,

57:35

there were a few notable ones

57:39

that kind of actually were

57:39

basically replayed in the

57:41

studio . Um, but not, no, no,

57:41

certainly not with Depeche.

57:46

Mad, no, no need

57:48

to do When you, when you, you've honed your skillset to

57:50

that extent, then Yeah.

57:53

Like I said, they've been playing for so long, it's, yeah, absolutely.

57:55

And absolutely it must have been

57:55

absolute joy to, um, to work.

57:58

Oh, it's a total pleasure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

58:00

yeah. It's a fantastic, I'm

58:01

probably gonna watch it again after this interview.

58:05

, I watch it quite frequently

58:05

cause, and it's, I don't,

58:07

I think it's also, it is gone off on a bit of tangent now, but it's the visual

58:09

in the background as well. Yeah.

58:11

It's kind of like you look at it and it's. It's the sound and it's the

58:13

visual and it's the performance

58:15

and everything in it.

58:16

That's, that's Anton Corbin. Obviously, he's a genius

58:18

what he does and, you

58:20

know, has had a alarm

58:20

collaboration with the band.

58:23

So yeah, the visuals

58:23

on that whole thing

58:25

were, were incredible. You know, the projected big

58:26

projector screens and stuff and,

58:28

um, yeah, it was, it was, yeah,

58:28

it was quite an experience,

58:31

you know, uh, I actually

58:31

saw their show in London.

58:35

Uh, the oh two first to meet

58:35

some of the crew and whatnot

58:38

and sort out technicalities. And then, yeah, I was

58:39

flown out to Berlin.

58:42

Spent three days in Berlin with them, but, um, yeah, I mean, yeah.

58:45

Brilliant, brilliant. All, all the crew around

58:46

them as well, you know, just first, right.

58:49

All of them. Stunning, you know.

58:51

Fantastic. Adrian, we're coming

58:52

up to the hour mark now, so, uh Oh, really?

58:55

? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I tell you, I've got all

58:56

those questions written down. I, I never get through them

58:58

all, but, which is fine. It's one of those

59:01

organic things. It's just conversation

59:02

and the questions come up.

59:04

That's why I'm sort of like

59:04

writing as you're talking.

59:06

Oh, I wanna ask that in a minute and ask that bit. Um, but once big thank you

59:08

for joining me on this today,

59:11

and I know the audience are gonna get so much out of this. These, these

59:13

interviews are great. When we talk top, when I

59:14

talk to, um, mix engineers

59:17

and producers and whatnot,

59:17

um, I, I almost wanna learn

59:20

a bit more about your work. Where can they find you?

59:22

Uh, I just through

59:22

my website, I guess, um, ww dot

59:26

Adrian hyphen hall, h a l o.com.

59:29

Um, it's got a list of

59:29

credits and whatnot and, and,

59:32

you know, various, various

59:32

music videos including the

59:34

Depeche Mode thing, I think. Yes, yes. Um, Yeah.

59:37

Yeah. But, uh, you know, I'm,

59:38

my email's up there as

59:40

well, so if they want to get in touch, feel free. You know? Brilliant.

59:43

I'm, I'm not at that level of

59:43

mix engineer where somebody's

59:46

screening all my messages and all that kind of stuff, you know, it's, it's just me.

59:49

So . Yeah. Yeah,

59:50

yeah. Brilliant. I will put that link in the,

59:51

um, the episode notes as well.

59:54

So,

59:54

uh, any

59:54

questions that people have,

59:57

you know, if, if people wanna ask me something, I'm happy to, as a follow

1:00:00

up. Brilliant stuff. Alright, I will let you enjoy

1:00:02

the rest of your Sunday today.

1:00:04

And, uh, once again, a huge thank you for joining me on today. Oh, thank you for having me.

1:00:07

Brilliant. Cheers buddy. Cheers, mark. Bye. Hi, this is Carl

1:00:09

from Neon Highway. My favorite episode of Inside

1:00:12

the Mix podcast is episode

1:00:15

46 with sunglasses kid. Sunglasses kid.

1:00:18

Absolutely has his finger

1:00:18

on the post I've synth music

1:00:21

and modern songwriting. In this episode, you'll hear

1:00:23

him walk through his approach

1:00:25

and his own experiences

1:00:25

with creating a name for

1:00:28

himself in the scene.