(Photo Credit: Sebastien Kohler)
Philippe Weiss has been earning his living for over twenty five years as a mix engineer, with indie clients like Selah Sue and superstars like Madonna. As a fan of the 2011 “Selah Sue” album that he mixed and mastered, I reached out to him to talk about his work, and the resulting four-hour discussion can be read below.
– I’ve heard that you started off by working as a DJ in Switzerland in the early 90s. Is that true?
Yes. I started collecting records at fifteen, as well as DJing, and had to find my own way in the industry because Switzerland is a small country with hardly any music industry. Because of my knowledge of electronics, I started off as a sound engineer, but doing that kind of work in Switzerland is only going to land you at a TV or radio station, neither of which suited me. So I left for London at the age of twenty and enrolled at SAE in 1993, which gave me a good basis for moving forward, although I should add that audio school doesn’t teach you the essentials of how to act in the studio as an engineer. You have to get that from working in the industry.
– Why do you think the Swiss music scene wasn’t accommodating for you as an aspiring engineer?
It’s a country with only seven million people and four different languages, so it’s a small place. Even back then, I was envisioning myself behind an SSL desk, working with musicians I admired, not with local Swiss bands that would never leave the country. So I left to work in the international music scene. There were only three or four successful bands that came out of Switzerland in the early 90s, and they always went to other countries to record and mix. So even the Swiss bands weren’t looking to support their local mixers and engineers, which is quite different from a place like Germany or the UK, where the bands use their local engineering talent to record and mix their music.
– So what happened when you moved to London and later Paris? What career developments took place there?
Whilst living in London in 1995, after I had finished SAE, I received a letter from the UK government saying that I had to leave the country because Switzerland wasn’t in the EEC. So I had to make a decision about where to move next. In those days before the Internet, there was a black book floating around the music industry with the names of many prominent recording studios in the world. It was called “Kemp’s Music & Recording Industry Year Book“. I went through it and sent out around 150 CVs to all of the studios it had listed from around the world. None of them answered, and so I decided to focus on moving to Paris because I was a fan of what French artists like Philippe Zdar were doing at the time. He had released some EPs with La Funk Mob on Mo’Wax Records, and some Motorbass music was on the way too. So I checked the Kemps book for studios in Paris, and the first name in there was Studio Davout. I gave them a call and said “Hi, I sent you guys a CV. Did you get it? “, and they replied, “Oh yeah, we got that. It’s right in front of us on the table. Do you speak English? If so, you can start next week “. It was completely unexpected, but I took the chance and moved to Paris to work there.
It was an amazing studio that’s unfortunately closed now, but it had four rooms, the biggest being 300 m², and could accommodate more than 100 musicians at once. As soon as I arrived, the studio manager, Olivier Kowalski, put me in a session with Sly and Robbie, with Dennis Bovell producing. So things were serious from the start, and I worked there as an assistant engineer for about a year.
It was an amazing experience. In their basement, Studio Davout had original tapes from artists like Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Prince and David Bowie, who had come through the studio in the past. So I had access to that, in addition to working with bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and with big orchestras too.
I was also lucky to learn the old -school way of recording, before Pro Tools became the standard. Analogue tape was on its way out at the time, but we had a digital 48-track tape machine, the Sony PCM 3348 and a two-track Sony PCM-340, as well as the Sony 1630 Digital Processor and the legendary Sony DAT PCM2500. Sony was really making quality machines at the time, and their audio engineering division was amazing.
After that period in Studio Davout, I moved to New York City for about three years.
– Did you have any mentors during those early years?
Yes I did. Studio Davout was also where I met my mentor, Tony Smalios, who taught me a large part of what I know.
There were two schools of recording in the early 90s: the French school and the American school. The first one featured minimal EQ and compression on individual tracks, with the result being a loud master that sounded quite clean. But the American way featured greater amounts of EQ and compression, and the end result sounded quite processed, especially considering that the source material for rap music was vinyl records that had already been processed through samplers. I adopted this method since I grew up listening to early hip-hop, and I had Tony Smalios as a mentor, who worked with the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, 2Pac, Biggie and Mobb Deep, to name a few.
(Below: Philippe’s mentor, Tony Smalios, talking about his teaching position at Blaise Pascal University in 2012)
– One of my past interviewees said that Daft Punk’s “Homework” was recorded to DAT and that one of the secrets to their sound on “Discovery” was the use of mastering units like the Universal 2192. As someone who’s worked with guys in the French house scene, do you know if that’s true?
I worked with a lot of the guys like Stardust, Martin Solveig, DJ Gregory,and Faya Combo but as far as DAT, I don’t know if Daft Punk used that, sorry. But “Discovery” was released in 2001, and “Homework” in 1997. The Universal 2192 didn’t come out until 2004, so it was quite late in the game. Secondly, I would never call the 2192 a mastering grade unit. The secret to that album’s sound lies elsewhere I’m afraid.
As far as Universal Audio goes, they make great plugins. I had all the machines their stuff is based on, and I know from experience that their emulations are well-made.
On a side note, I’d like to say that being familiar with music culture is very important when you work in this business. Ninety-five percent of the sound engineers I know don’t even have a record collection at home, and many of them don’t listen to the kind of music they record unless they’re in the studio. Daft Punk aren’t like that. These are guys who know everything about music, and people forget that.
– You mentioned that Studio Davout had digital tape machines, and that analogue tape was on its way out at that time in the mid 90s. Could you contrast the two? What difference in sound will you achieve using analogue tape versus digital tape versus a computer?
The effect of using an analog two-track machine like the Studer A820 or Ampex ATR 102 is like putting the music through a new process, because tape creates its own compression and boosts the low-end and high-end, meaning that you’ll end up with less mids. That sounds great on certain types of music, but I’ve moved away from that. It’s also hard to find the right type of tape, as well as having an assistant that knows how to work with the technical side of things, like tape bias, and the artistic side of how to hit the tape. I’m talking about differences of one millimeter when it comes to these things, which I can hear in the final result. It’s also very time-consuming.
Analogue tape also has its challenges. For example, before you mix on an SSL desk, you need to know which tape machine you’re going to print to, because the difference between a Studer A820 and an Ampex ATR 102 is huge. The first Selah Sue album, as an example, was printed on the Studer A820, and what you hear is the digital printing of the mix in soundBlade, not the analogue tape itself. Printing your mix to digital with a good converter will give you a cleaner and straighter sound than if it came straight off the tape machine.
For me, DAT always sounded better than the computer, because all DAWs sound different from each other. Playing a track in Pro Tools will give it a completely different sound than playing it in Cubase or Sequoia.
– I read in an old interview that Dr Dre would record straight to DAT for his “Chronic 2001” album. What are your thoughts on how “Chronic 2001” was recorded and mixed?
I don’t know if he recorded to DAT, but analogue tape is slow-sounding and DAT is fast, and when you listen to “Chronic 2001” what you hear is something very fast and less colored than what analogue tape would give you. I’m not talking about quality of sound, but just the sound of the mid-range frequencies.
He had the MPC3000, which I believe was modified. Also, he probably hit the desk in a certain way. Thirdly, he used an SSL 4000, which I think is the desk Kendrick Lamar is currently using. It’s the best desk ever created, in my opinion. There’s a type of crunch you hear in the high end on “2001” that comes from the SSL 4000 being driven to the limit; when you put a snare on one of the channels and drive it hard, that’s what you get. Also, he pushed the mid-range a certain way. Artists and engineers like to obsess over the bass, to which I say, “Yeah yeah, but listen to the mids. Those are the most important frequencies “. And for the guys who always say, “I love bass because I’m a fan of hip-hop music…“, I’m like “C’mon man. Sure, let’s put tons of bass on the mix“, but then they say “Hmm, it’s becoming muddy“. That’s because the critical stuff happens in the mid-range. Dr Dre knew that. He also had a great team of people around him who did good work.
– Because of your work alongside Tony Smalios, you were likely to have been exposed to the Bad Boy camp in the 90s. Can you tell me if Puffy was really doing anything as a “producer” in those days?
You have to look at him like a chef. The first chef isn’t the one necessarily cooking in the kitchen. He has a crew of people around him that he directs, and he knows what he wants.
– The reason why I’m asking about producers like Dr Dre and Puffy is because none of them seem to be able to replicate their former success or quality of music for the past fifteen years. Even Dre’s “Compton” isn’t as interesting as anything he did in the past.
But you forget something important because you’re in your 20s, which is that people age. When you’re young and hungry, with goals that are big and risky, you’re going to have a crew around you, and you work closely with them even into your late 30s. But if I were to talk to you in 20 years, you won’t be the same. Don’t forget that all these guys have changed their lives and goals since the 90s and the 2000s. Also, you have to remember the problems that come with being successful at that level: family problems, friendship problems, etc. So Dr Dre’s thinking “I gave you guys 2001, and now you’re breaking my balls for a new album. OK, here’s ‘Compton’ “. These guys don’t want to do the same thing twice, so what you got was an album that sounds very different from what he did before. And also, those guys used to work 27 out of 24 hours. You can’t do that when you’re 50. You’ll see when you get older.
– But Quincy Jones did amazing stuff with Michael Jackson as a man in his 40s and 50s.
Ok, but you’re talking about a guy who’s a producer in a completely different field, and not an engineer. The lifespan between the two are a bit different. Let me ask you something: can you name any 60-year-old producers who are currently on the cutting edge of music, outside of rock or jazz?
– RZA still has the ability to do great things. Alternative rock or not, Philipe Zdar did great work with Phoenix. His output is still good.
It is, absolutely. He’s an engineer who also happens to be a producer, not the other way around, as many people think.
Look, when you bring up names like Puffy and Dre, you’re talking about people that did a lot for this industry. But even Dr Dre is going to be tired at his age. Tired of criticism, conflict, the long work hours and things like that. Also, when you’re famous, unfortunately, it’s easy to surround yourself with people who only tell you that your work is great, and no-one is honest with you anymore. Even your friends will think “He knows what he’s doing, so why should I criticize his music? “. That doesn’t happen with someone like Philippe Zdar. If he messes up, his friends tell him. He also works on international music projects and that keep you sharp as an engineer. I’ll give you an example: I’m currently working on a project called Tiwayo that will be released on Blue Note. It was tracked by Mark Neill, who does tracking and recording for The Black Keys, and co-produced their album “Brothers“. So working on high-profile stuff like this keeps me fresh because I can’t afford to not deliver when I work with people like that. But in the case of Dre, it’s possible that “Compton” sounded the way it did because he was pushed into doing it.
– Fans weren’t generally expecting “Compton” though. We were all hoping for “Detox“, which he allegedly scrapped.
How do you know that “Compton” isn’t the same “Detox” album he had been working on all along? He could tell you anything, as far as “scrapping” it goes.
Look, I’m sorry to say it, but I think that era of classic albums as part of a wave of amazing artists is gone. The days of Led Zeppelin and acts like that are probably done. Look at the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love their music, and not just because I worked with them, but because I was always into their stuff. But when I look at what they’re putting out now, I have to remind myself that people’s tastes and work habits change. When you’re young, you don’t mind working five hours on your drums, but 20 years later, you might only put in half of that effort.
– I do differentiate between electronic and rock artists though, because the electronic musicians make their name off of saying they did it all by themselves in their home studio, with their samplers and vinyl. Rock musicians have always relied on engineers and producers to guide them, which I think is different.
I understand what you mean. That’s true, but I have to add something to that. Many electronic musicians say they did it all at home, and it’s not true. They may have created the demos or sequences at home, but many people had a friend or family member in the background that knew more than they did, and helped them out. Also, a lot of them rent expensive studios for their monitoring. They didn’t mix their record on a pair of small speakers in a home studio. I’ve had some well-known electronic artists rent my studio just for the monitoring, so I know this first-hand.
– I remember reading interviews given by well-known electronic musicians, and many of them had a rags-to-riches story about making their first album or EP on consumer-grade speakers, and mixing the album on monitors that were half-broken. They’re lying though.
Of course they’re lying. But we’re in a world where everybody lies. We all know it, especially when you’ve worked as an engineer or a mixer on someone’s project, and later read an interview they gave about how the album was allegedly made; you know what’s true and what’s false. All I can say is that as an engineer, you have to know where you want to be in the industry. You can’t obsess over what happens in the media and what artists say. I know that once I’ve done my job, I can move on.
– I read in one of your previous interviews that you listened to a lot of 70s music when you started engineering because you wanted to improve your abilities. What was it about 70s music that helped you as a mixer?
Well, I always listened to a lot of music, even today, whether I’m at home, or in my car. But when I was young, around 21, the only thing people let me work on was hip-hop. “Forget about mixing pop, jazz or rock. You’re not ready for that “, they said. But none of the older mix engineers wanted to mix hip-hop back in the day, so they left it to me, and I knew how to do it because I had been listening to both rap music and 70s soul music, which had been sampled on the rap records. There’s a direct link between the two. If you know what a soul record really is, you’ll better understand how to mix hip-hop. If you’ve listened to Blue Note records from 1958-1975, you’ll recognize a lot of the hip-hop samples used in 90s rap records. So by knowing that music, I knew where the drums came from, and the hip-hop producers liked that.
– It seems like you had success quite early by mixing Assassin’s “Undaground Connection“. Do you think your first mix would have been harder if you’d been given a rock record to mix, which has more dynamics going on?
Of course. If I had even been given a bad rock record to mix, it wouldn’t have helped my career. But by giving me someone who was already famous in hip-hop at the time, meaning he and his producers already knew how to make good records, I was able to work with quality material from day one.
I had been going to Assassin’s concerts since I was sixteen, and suddenly he was sitting next to me as I mixed his record. It was unreal, but I didn’t want to mess things up by overthinking, so I just went off my instincts for the mix, which is still how I mix today.
To be honest, I have over fifteen examples throughout my career where if things hadn’t lined up to the exact minute, where I met the right people or was given the right opportunity, things would have turned out very differently for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pwvFD01pc4
– What were things you learnt whilst working with Tony Smalios in New York that were the most valuable lessons for you?
He was a great human being, like a father to me. He taught me way more than just how to mix well. For him it was more about an overall attitude and mentality about how to approach the music, and he shared that mentality with me.
I learnt that talking to the producers was important; it made me realize that they were normal people. I used to have conversations with Ali Shaheed from A Tribe Called Quest, and he would say things like “Tomorrow I’m going fishing with my kids. It’s going to be great “. So I was reminded that rap personas and daily life were different.
I also discovered that there was a crew behind every record; there weren’t any one-man shows. There was always an interaction of people, with one person doing the bass and another person doing the drums. I had come from a school in France where one guy would do everything, and what I discovered in New York was the American way of using each guy for what he’s good at, and then the engineer would help everyone put it together.
The engineer is supposed to know how to help everyone with the technical side of things. I never saw an artist in the US have to explain to an engineer what his music was about. Things like that should be obvious. If you have to explain your song to an engineer or a mixer, your music is already dead. Just play your demo, and say where you want to go with it, but if I don’t get it on my own after listening to it, you should be worried. If I don’t feel that connection, I don’t mix it.
– It seems like in the 80s, artists were more honest about their collaborations. It was “DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince“, not “Will Smith The Rapper All On His Own”. Ice Cube and Public Enemy were always upfront about working with The Bomb Squad on “AmeriKKKas Most Wanted” and “Fear Of A Black Planet“. That’s gone now. Very few of today’s rappers are open about the crews that are making their music.
Yes, that’s gone. That’s why when you look at someone like Drake, for example, it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the background of his music unless you dig into it. The only impression I get is that it’s all done by him. His co-workers aren’t in the light. But do you think that’s a problem? I don’t. He’s the artist.
– I think it’s problematic if you want to take inspiration from today’s artists. There are a lot of young people who want to be like Skrillex or Drake, but they’re going to have a hard time understanding exactly how to recreate those sounds because there are so many lies to sift through. Back in the day you could read Dr Dre interviews and he would openly share what gear he was using. But today I’m reading a lot more stories about production that make no sense.
You’re right about that. When I work in London, I have an assistant in my studio. But when I work at my studio in Paris, I don’t, meaning I can’t teach anyone there, which I would love to do. There are a lot of kids going to audio schools nowadays who don’t have a good foundation. Sure, I started off at SAE, but before that I already had a background in electronic music. Also, the kids today are different than before. Everyone wants to be famous and recognized after their first mix. I don’t understand it. I never cared about that, so it’s strange, and the result is that it’s hard to learn how to do good things.
– So after your New York phase, what were the subsequent developments for you?
I returned to Paris, where I created my own room at Studio Davout. That was my first big studio, with an SSL 4000G, which I later switched out for a Neve VR. That was a bad move though, and actually lost me some clients. The Neve VR was a ridiculously slow desk. Oh my god. I mean, sure, the low end is big, but it’s slow, and I like hitting stuff hard, which I couldn’t do with that. I didn’t like the EQ either.
After that, I moved back to Switzerland, where I had a studio called, The Room, which was located inside another studio called Dinemecs, which was part of Phil Collins’ studio in Geneva. I stayed there for a year and a half, after which I had the chance to buy a studio in Paris that became Red Room Paris. I took that concept with me when I relocated to London and created Red Room London.
Currently, I have a new studio called The White Room in Paris and The Red Room is still in London, which is a commercial studio that gets rented out.
– My understanding is that Miloco helps you with managing your commercial studio. How did you partner with them?
I came to Miloco through Nick Young. He’s the person I contacted who was behind most of their ideas. I approached him when I had Red Room Paris, and the idea was to ask them to take care of my studio in 2009. I also wanted to find management outside of France, so I chose Nick, who was working at Miloco, and he primarily managed my engineering career. When artists from the US and UK wanted to find a studio in Paris to use that was semi-private, I became the guy they came to and we had a lot of clients. The last big project we had there was Frank Ocean’s, before we moved the room to London.
– I’ve heard you talk about things like cable length in a studio, the importance of modifying stock gear and how your SSL desk works. Can you expound on those things?
Sure. Firstly, I have to say that tuning and matching a room is very difficult. You have to do it by trial and error, and it’s important that you know what result you want.
As someone who mixes on an SSL, I never felt that your converter should be in the machine room, which means the audio signal goes into the console, then into the Pro Tools rig and back into the console, probably through a patch-bay. We’re talking about a minimum of 30 meters of cable for that. But here’s the thing: if you take a 30-meter cable and a 5-meter cable, connect them both into your chain and switch between the two, you won’t believe the difference in sound; it’s significant in terms of clarity and speed. So I said to myself, “Why should I put a 30-meter cable between my Pro Tools and my desk instead of a one meter cable? “. Then I decided to try different types of cables to better match with the SSL, which made another huge difference when I found the right one.
Following that, I had to examine the integrated circuits used in the SSL 4000. It’s basically a chip that acts as an amplifier on every channel, and honestly, it’s quite generic. I found that if you swap out the in-built ¢50 chip for a $2 one, it sounds way better and you gain a little headroom, which lets you hit the desk harder. That’s when I started wondering how many other engineers were making similar adjustments to their rigs, and I found out that many of them do! I talked to Michael Brauer about this stuff and I was like, “How do you make your SSL 9000 work the way it does? When I engage the fader on my desk, the VCA comes in and my mix collapses“. He was like “Don’t worry, I’ll help you with that “. He gave me the contact info for a guy who builds custom equipment, and that’s when I understood how the top guys work. So by trial and error, and by working with electrical engineers, I was able to improve my studio to the point where now I can’t work in other commercial studios because of how different it sounds.
I’ll give you another example of how I modified my gear: I have the Alan Smart Research C2 stereo compressor. It has a “crush” button on it that sounds amazing, but I said to Alan, “This button sounds great, but it only has an on-off setting. It would be great to be able to adjust the level of crush for each sound you put it on “, and he was like “Okay, let’s develop that “. So now I have a one-of-a-kind C2 that lets you customize the distortion. Even someone like Philippe Zdar does the same thing. We all know how the gear works and the importance of modifying it.
Classic labels like Stax Records and Motown never went to a store to buy gear back in the 60s and 70s; they had engineers who made it themselves. Even when I was working at Studio Davout, they would ask engineers to build them EQs for their sessions. So maybe I took inspiration from that. Stock equipment manufacturers always cut costs, and I know that for a fact. Look at Focusrite, which is an amazing brand. Their Blue Series modules are great, but if you switch out the power supply for one that offers five times more power, the effect on the EQ is unbelievable. I discovered this by accident one day when I plugged in a different power supply, and the entire low-end of my audio signal changed. I was like, “Whoa, how did I suddenly get sub-frequencies? There shouldn’t be any subs on that EQ! “. So I’ve always been mindful of modifying gear to get what I want, which is even more important if you have a mastering room like Sterling Sound or if you do mastering like Bernie Grundman.
– What are your thoughts on iZ Technology’s RADAR? I’ve been told in previous interviews that it’s the only digital format that sounds close to tape.
Absolutely. It sounds great. Mark Neill uses that. First he’ll use tape,and after that he goes to RADAR. I don’t use it myself, even though I was blown away by it. As a mix engineer who mostly receives Pro Tools sessions, using RADAR would be impractical for making edits if an artist wanted to change a vocal or send me a new bass track. I work with producers who are so thorough in their work that sometimes they’ll send me stems to mix, and when I send the mixed stems back to them, they’ll make production changes to my mix and send me the same stems to mix again. RADAR would make something like that incompatible.
– One of the most recurring items of our conversation is the SSL 4000. What is it about the SSL desk that’s so alluring? I hear other engineers speak highly of it, but they never give specifics. What is it they like about it? If it’s just about the EQs, can’t you just make a 500 Series rack of those?
If you take out the EQs and put them in a rack, they won’t sound the same at all. People who tell you they have a 500 series rack with SSL EQ modules from the original desk should be laughed at. Firstly, on the actual desk you have stages that the signal passes through before and after the EQ modules. If you remove those stages, the sound changes. Secondly, the power supply of an SSL is a huge rack with a lot of amps and current. It takes around 4000 watts just to keep it running, depending on the size of the desk. Do you think 4000 watts of electricity will give the same sound as the power in a 500 rack? It won’t. It’s the biggest joke in the world. You can’t get the same sound with a different power supply.
The uniqueness of the SSL 4000 shows when you hit it hard with your signal. Let’s get a little technical: The SSL is powered by +/- 18 volts, which gives you a swing of 36 volts between those two ranges. So when you hit the desk with an audio signal and push it like crazy, you’re going to be limited by that range, and it will start to distort, since you’re asking the desk to use more electricity than the power supply provides. But when you do that, a particular type of compression occurs prior to the distortion, which I like. Even when I use the latest SSL emulation plugin by UAD I get the same type of compression and distortion. Just one of those plugins eats up 25% of my processor, which is crazy, but they’ve managed to nail down the same type of compression effect, which the Neve desks don’t have because they have a higher quality power supply. So the quality problems with the components in the SSL desk are what gives it the sound we like: compression and fast mids.
– But Neve consoles are praised for what they do to drums because of the crunch you get when you drive it hard. That sounds a little parallel to what you’re talking about in the SSL.
There are two things I can say about that. Firstly, Neve desks are recognized for tracking drums, not particularly for mixing drums. Those are very different things. Secondly, can you answer me this: how many Neve consoles are there in the world that can do what you’re describing other than the 1073 or 1081? And how many studios have one of those desks? You won’t be able to name more than ten studios.
Everyone in the audio business knows that Rupert Neve left his company, Neve Electronics, around 1975. Anything that came out after that isn’t the original Neve; it’s either Siemens or AMS Neve. So just because a desk has “Neve” in its name doesn’t mean it’s from the original Neve Electronics. The classic Neve desk refers to the 1073 and 1081 module and their internal components like the 33609 and 2254 compressors.
I read your interview with Linn Fijal at Rixmixningsverket. She’s working on one of those desks, and they’re super rare.
– How would you rate a Harrison desk alongside Neve and SSL?
It’s amazing. I have a friend who’s an Italian producer that lives in Belgium, called Junior Jack, who has a Harrison 32C, and I love it. But I wouldn’t put it in the same league as an SSL console. The Harrison consoles lean more towards the Neve sound. It’s very musical; the SSL isn’t musical. You need outboard gear to achieve a musical sound with an SSL, in order to compensate for the kind of transparent sound it has.
– It seems like you have a fondness for mixing over recording, even though you have some impressive recording credits also. Can you compare mixing and recording, and talk about why you’ve chosen to focus more on being a mixer?
Being a recording engineer means you have to pay a lot of attention to the needs of the artists you work with. When you record someone, you have to be in a good mood and nice, and help the artist get the best performance. Sometimes artists aren’t easy to handle, or you’re not in a good mood, and then you have to wait for each other to be in the right mood. But a mixer is going to be sent files on a hard-disk with a simple question: “Can you mix it? “. Either he can or he can’t. So as far as choosing between the two, I want to do things my way and I don’t mind working alone. I do like to socialize and talk to people about music, but after three days with the same artist, it can get in the way of working, and after two months, it can get particularly difficult. So I’d rather focus on what I like to do, which is to mix. I don’t want to deal with the politics of showing up at a studio in the morning, wait three hours for the artist to show up who doesn’t apologize when he’s late, and still have to pretend to be okay with it.
Also, as a recording engineer, you’re never going to have the right balance of sounds coming out of the speaker, because you’re always working with a rough mix, and the producer will say, “We’ll fix it later in the mix “. I hate things like that. I’d rather work to make the mix better.
I have worked with recording in the past, like on the “Selah Sue” album. But what I did there was pick the vocal mic and the pre-amp, set up the vocal chain, and leave the rest to the producers. I always preferred helping with the overall picture, as opposed to minute details. I’m the guy who can listen to your track for less than three seconds and understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Then I can help you with that as a mixer if you want. But being an engineer is something else. I remember working as an engineer early on, and I never liked it. All the cabling and mics wasn’t my thing. Imagine working in a studio with 115 people in the room, all mic’d up, and one of the mics starts to fail. It’s always the recording engineer’s fault….no thanks.
(Photo Credit: Sebastien Kohler)
– So Ricky Ojijo was the main engineer on the “Selah Sue” album?
Yes, he did the recordings, and his assistant was Manu Schlindwein, who later became my mixing assistant at Red Room Paris. But the producer, Patrice, knew how to record too. I had confidence in all of them.
– But when I look at your resume, I see that you have credits for engineering Madonna’s “MDNA” album, even though you just said that you prefer mixing. Do you want to talk about that?
Here’s what I can say about that: One day I received a call from Martin Solveig, who said that Madonna wanted to do some tracks with him for the MDNA album, and she had asked Martin to bring his engineer and assistant. I was mixing for Martin at the time, and since Madonna preferred to keep her team in-house, I came on board as the recording engineer. Working with Madonna was something I’d always wanted to do, so I accepted the job even though it was an engineering position.
For those recording engineers who really want to be a part of superstar projects like this one, I suggest you think about what you’re asking for. You may not want to go there. If you don’t know everything about recording, down to how the electronics of your gear works and how to adjust them, you’ll have a difficult time achieving what the artist wants.
– But not even the artists themselves know anything about that stuff.
They don’t, but they’re still demanding. If you ever find yourself working with big artists, you might end up having to move three faders with one hand as you record, while using your other hand to control another parameter on the outboard gear simultaneously. So if you don’t know exactly how those parameters affect the audio signal, and suddenly there’s feedback in the artist’s headphones, you’ll be put on a plane home. And what do you think all of your friends and colleagues at home will say after you told them you were working on a major-label project, and then show up two days later? That’s not my style (laughs).
Even if the artist doesn’t know what they’re asking for technically, they have the right to be demanding anyway. The engineer has to be the technician. And let me ask you this: do you think it’s normal to be an accomplished engineer and not know the electronic side of how a desk works? It’s not. When you talk to all the big names in this business, they all know what’s inside a desk and why it reacts the way it does. Philippe Zdar is one of them. You can talk technical with him all day even though he’s not an electrical engineer, because he taught himself. Same thing with Michael Brauer. It’s because of the digital revolution that many younger people don’t care about these things anymore.
– How much of a salary difference exists between a recording engineer and a mix engineer?
There’s a huge difference. The mixing engineer takes way more. But I mean, I’m not talking about mix engineers in their 20s. I’m talking about those who are 35+. Not to say you can’t start young! I started at 20.
– But is this disparity in salaries a result of what labels have decided to pay, or are the salaries proportionate to the skills required? Because without a recording engineer, you don’t even have a record to begin with.
Wait a second though. Mixing is a huge responsibility, which is the only thing people hear on the final record. That means your EQ, your compression, and your final sound is key. It’s the mixer that ultimately sets the vocal in a way that people either love or hate. That shouldn’t be underrated. Listen, if you want me to track your drums I’ll put a mic in front of it, run it through a Neve 1073, then into Pro Tools…and then what? What more can I do? Nothing. The drummer has to tune his kit well, and the producer has to guide his playing. But the recording engineer just has to set up the mic, adjust the gain, listen to the producer and that’s it. But with a mix, I literally have to make hundreds of decisions per song, because there could be 100 tracks in one song and I have to make a conscious choice about all of them.
The difference in rates could be seen as unfair and I understand why. The industry goes for young guys in their 20s to do the recordings and then pays them nothing, which isn’t fair. But with mixing, they can’t do that.
– You’ve also said in past interviews, “Computers are shit…I use them because I have to“. Why do you feel like you have to use them? Can’t you avoid them if you don’t like how they sound and just use analogue gear?
I used to be critical of computers until Pro Tools 11 came out; it was terrible until then. But since Version 11, things have improved hugely because Avid created a better audio engine. But regarding why I have to use computers, it’s because people send me Pro Tools sessions, and they always want to make edits and changes. Imagine working with an artist who later goes on tour in Japan and calls you up four days later to ask for changes to be made in the session. If I was using only the SSL, I would have had to leave the mix on the desk for four days. Who wants to do that?
When you talk about digital versus analog, you also have to remember what today’s generation of artists like. I discovered this through first-hand experience. I’ve mixed records using only analogue gear, and then done another mix of the same record with only plugins, and the artists always choose the digital mix. Always. I make an exception with reverbs though, because digital reverbs aren’t to my taste. But when it comes to digital summing versus analogue summing, I always get a better response from the artist when I use the former. It’s clearer-sounding and the bass sounds faster to them.
– Interesting. Well, we’ve talked about everything except the album I reached out to you about. Let me ask specific questions about “Selah Sue”. How did you come to work with her and what was the overall vision for achieving the sound of the album in the beginning?
Things came together through her label, Because Music. They played me her demos, and their A&R asked me if I had any suggestions for a producer who could work with her on it, so I suggested Patrice, who in turn brought in DJ Farhot.
It was an amazing moment in time with the right people. The sound you hear on that album was attained using old gear and tube equipment, fully recorded to tape. Computers weren’t used until the end. The personnel was super knowledgeable about recording, like Patrice, who has his own studio with a Neve VR, tube mics and great pre-amps, and he knows how to use them.
– Most of the album was recorded at Supow Studios in Cologne, right?
Yes, that’s Patrice studio, with a Neve desk, Fairchild gear, tape machines, nice mics like the U47 and U67, Neve pre-amps, etc. Great stuff.
– This might be a side question, but when you talk about a studio like Supow and all of its vintage equipment, it sounds like a fool-proof way to record a great album. But how many times do artists and producers claim to record on SSLs and with LA2As, yet the album sounds as bland as if they did it on a laptop? Why is that?
It’s marketing. It seems appealing for people to say that they recorded something through a “tube compressor”, as if that means something. It means nothing. That’s just marketing. But the choice for Supow was less about gear, and more about it being Patrice’s studio, so we couldn’t have gone anywhere else.
The reason why “Selah Sue” sounded the way it did was because of the interplay between the producer and mix engineer, and the goals we wanted to reach. I mixed that album to fit Selah specifically. If an artist wanted to make a soul album, but his recordings didn’t sound like soul recordings, I wouldn’t mix it to sound like a soul record; I would have to create a sound that fits him, which is what I always do.
– Who was responsible for bringing in session musicians like Christopher Meredith on bass and Anthony Lewis on drums?
That was Patrice. All the music contacts came from him.
– If he had brought in the “wrong” session musicians, or someone who wasn’t competent enough, would you have commented on that?
No, because it’s not a situation I would have been able to anticipate. It never happens with Patrice.
– Your mixes sound very upfront and discernible on the “Selah Sue” album, so I’d like to do a comparison between two tracks to get an idea of how you think when you mix.
Let’s compare Majid Jordan’s “Day and Night” from 2016 to Usher’s “Seduction” from 2004. With the Usher record, the drums have an immediate upfront quality, along with plenty of low-end information, and the chorus have panned, layered vocals that surround the center take.
– But the Majid Jordan record has the vocals further back, and drums are heavily processed and sound a bit disjointed, as if the samples came from notably different sources. Can you comment on these differences and compare them to “Selah Sue”?
It’s easy to talk about other people’s music, and I don’t like doing it, but I’ll do my best here to be objective.
What you hear on records like “Selah Sue” and Usher’s “Confessions” is one mono vocal in the center that’s well-mixed with no unusual stereo effects. On the Majid Jordan record, it sounds like two panned vocals, with a stereo-effect on them that has something strange going on in the sides, and it hardly leaves anything in the center.
Beyond the vocals, they’ve made particular frequency choices with the drums: the kick is interfering with the frequency range of the vocal. You don’t hear that on the Usher record, where the kick has its own range of impact. The kick on the Majid Jordan record seems to have a bump at 2 kHz – 4 kHz that’s so loud that it interferes with everything else.
Also, there’s less emphasis on having low-end in the vocal in “Day and Night”. If you ever listened to the vocals on “Selah Sue” and suspected that I was pushing 30 Hz on that, it’s because I am, even if you don’t hear it immediately.
Another difference is reverb. With “Selah Sue”, I had five or six different reverbs on the vocal alone, even if you don’t hear them. Each of them is meant to do something different. On the Majid Jordan record, it sounds like they just slapped one reverb on the vocal because they think that’s what a reverb should sound like. But you have to understand that it’s important to layer the reverb with your EQs, so each one addresses a different frequency spectrum, or you won’t get a realistic effect. I use one reverb for the high frequencies, and different ones for the mids and the lows. I have a different reverb for the left side, and I might use a delay on the right. But you won’t hear it immediately. Then I’ll adjust the amount of reverb for different parts of the song, and I won’t have the same EQ settings though-out the whole song. Even the different vocal tracks have their own unique EQ that changes from part to part. So no matter what section of the song is playing, the vocals stay upfront and audible, because the EQ is always adjusting to compensate for the new elements that are brought into the song. I can hear on “Day and Night” that the engineer doesn’t have the same approach to EQing, which makes everything sound very bright. But it also comes down to what kind of artistic approach you want to take. The Selah Sue and Usher records are made more in the way of traditional RnB and soul, whilst “Day and Night” is more modern, and it comes with a loss of fullness of sound, which is why the vocal sounds thin. But it’s a matter of the taste and vision they had for the track. They mixed it like that on purpose, and the track is great by the way.
– A lot of music production education is happening through Youtube nowadays, and one of the things that has been emphasized lately in online forums and videos is that you should always EQ out the bass from anything that isn’t bass-centric, because it will interfere with the kick and bass. So slap a high-pass filter on your hi-hats. Have you heard of this?
I know they tell you that, but that’s how you lose the soul in a mix. It’s something they might teach you at school, which may be technically correct, but it’s why things sound less interesting to me on certain records, where the engineer was being technically-minded, rather than music. It’s like talking about dB level; there’s no “right” or “wrong” level when it comes to dB; you do what feels right. Also, if you’re mixing a recording of a live drum kit, and you put a high-pass filter on the hi-hat alone, you’ll get phasing problems. You can’t just EQ things without thinking about that. For me, the kick, snare and hi-hat are all one block of sound, even if they’re on separate tracks on the board. I can’t treat them separately.
– Let’s look at specific “Selah Sue” tracks on the first album. “This World” starts off with a vinyl hiss. Where is that coming from?
It came from the production team in the form of a sample that plays throughout the song. I also had the Ensoniq DP/4 parallel effects processor on the bass, set to a random phaser patch that created some odd noises, but I couldn’t take it off without killing the vibe on the bass, so I left it on.
– Can you talk about how you got such a full-sounding bass guitar sound on tracks like “This World” and “Summertime”?
I have some techniques for treating bass guitars. In Selah’s case, I processed the whole bass through an EAR 660, with a Pultec EQH2, and re-recorded it into Pro Tools before mixing the whole record. Of course, you have to realign the bass with the rest of the music after re-recording it, but processing sounds before mixing is something I do a lot. Even if I lose a little bit of resolution in the process, it gives an edge to the sound that I like.
– “Ragamuffin” is obviously one of the most famous songs on the album, and the acoustic guitar plays a huge role in what makes it an interesting song. How did you guys manage to make the “Ragamuffin” guitar sound so lively?
To be honest, that happened during the mix stage. If I were to play you the original sound I had, it would sound quite different. At this point, I can’t remember all of what I had to do to make it sound like what you hear now. I know that I sent it through an LA3A, and was EQ’d with the Neuman 495STB. Also, the original recording was done with only one mic.
– What about the drums?
On “Ragamuffin” we have live drums recorded to tape and a layered drum loop that I think was sent to tape as well, for a total of twelve tracks of drums.
It’s important to remember that a large part of the glued-together sound of the album is because we used tape. The 16-track Studer A80 two-inch has a great sound and its own unique compression.
– One of the defining aspects of the mix on “Selah Sue” is that despite a sparse arrangement, everything fills the frequency spectrum quite nicely and sounds very dense.
That’s mainly because of the production quality and music choices that were made. But another factor is that the recording was done to tape, which gave me a sound that was cohesive before mixing. What tape does is give all the sounds the same error, compression and overall low-end. There’s also Patrice’s and Fahrot’s music sensibilities; they were never people to make clean recordings, and always bring grit to their music. On my side, because there aren’t a lot of instruments, the vocals have to be the center of everything, which I worked a lot on.
I really enjoyed mixing “Selah Sue”. For some tracks, I had to do the mix nine different times. For others, it took one hour. “Black Part Love” took a lot of time to nail down.
– How did the mastering for the album go? Were you involved with that?
I was. We went through five different mastering engineers for the Selah Sue album. At the end of the day, I had to do it myself, which I’m not proud of, but we had no choice. I brought my Avalon E55 EQ and Pacific Microsonics Model One converters, and did my own EQ on the final master with the help of AVRM mastering.
– We’ve had quite a long talk, probably the longest interview on the site. Thanks a lot for all you’ve shared. What can you me tell about your future projects? Any coming developments?
I’ll always keep mixing, which is what I love doing. I also want to find a way to pass on what I know about mixing and music. But I want to do it in an effective way, and not just by filming myself with a webcam for Youtube videos. I also want to do more consulting work regarding product development for brands that are doing interesting things.
The most important thing in a recording studio is high-quality monitoring and very few people have it. I’ve developed my own amplifier and electronics, which is what makes my system unique, and moving forward I want to develop more things based on that. When producers or engineers come here, they often can’t believe what they hear.
Basically, most people in the music industry use active speakers with on-board DSP. But all the great classic records of the 20th century were done on passive speakers, which had great external amps. I don’t have a problem with my audio gear because I can modify it myself, but the monitoring was always a problem for me. I always used to ask myself “Why does one brand of hifi speaker or amplifier cost $100,000 and sounds great, but most people’s studio monitors sound so bad in comparison? Studio speakers are supposed to sound good too!”. I also had to ask myself, “Why should I use active speakers in my studio, which have an A-D converter, followed by DSP and then another coverter that does D-A? That’s two stages of conversion, so you’re not getting the direct audio signal! Meanwhile, a passive speaker only needs one external amp and uses no conversion”. So now the question for me is how can I make Red Room’s monitoring quality available on a wider level. I worked for a few years on this, and have now developed an amplifier that you can use with a speaker like the Yamaha NS10, ProAc Studio 100 or the Tannoy DMT 10 that will cost the same as a regular amp, yet is unmatched in quality.
I know a lot of manufacturers don’t want to develop passive speakers with high quality amps because of the cost involved, and frankly, if you wanted to buy an amplifier for your NS10s, you wouldn’t be able to find anything other than a very basic one. So I want to be able to make developments in the area of monitoring, and I have high hopes for that.
