Mix Notes From Hell

Special guest Will Sandalls shares his experience working on American Idol and Will Kennedy (Producer, Mixer, Engineer) talks about his recent experience working on a similar weekly singing competition TV show based out of Kenya called Maisha Superstar. We discuss the challenge of tracking vocalists of varying degrees of experience under severe time constraints and the challenge of having to mix super-fast. This leads to a more general discussion about the mixing process with some terrific insights from all. Enjoy and remember to like, subscribe and maybe throw us a review in iTunes!

Episode 16 - Marc and Phil talk Nashville In this Podcast, Marc & Phil go it alone to talk about a whole bunch of stuff that I (Kenny) haven't listen to yet. :) Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia http://www.kennymania.com Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html

Episode 15 - Kenny & Phil In this Podcast, Kenny & Phil go it alone to talk about creating Mixing tutorials, Kenny's new website and Mixing and ReMixing educational ideas along with Music and the Music Business in general. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia http://www.kennymania.com Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html

Berklee Remix

Episode 14 - The Great Matt Wallace - Part III We continue with Matt Wallace as he discusses his work with Maroon 5 and his more recent work with Live at the Redux and other exciting projects. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com

Episode 13 - The Great Matt Wallace - Part II We continue with Matt Wallace as he discusses his work with The Replacements, Train and Maroon 5. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com

Episode 12 - The Great Matt Wallace - Part I Matt Wallace joins the podcast and we discuss his early start, meeting and working with Faith No More leading up to his work with the Replacements. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com

Episode 11 - Piracy and Digital Consumption of Music We start off talking about the movie "Downloaded" which is the story of Napster and Kenny describes what he thinks piracy did to the business and how it cut out mid-level bands. Will adds on to the same theme where budgets were dropped and how the audience doesn't see any value in music and especially downloaded music and the rationalizations that go with it. Phil also brings up the same idea that bands need to reach out to the fans and let them know what's happening and how we've spiraled down. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com

Episode #10 - Major Market vs Big Fish - Little Pond Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Marc Lacuesta. http://www.marclacuesta.com/home.html Phil Dubnick http://www.phildubnick.com

Episode 9 - Producing vs. Songwriting - Turning in Masters We start by taking a reader's question regarding producing a record and going over to the side of songwriting and how to deal with the discussion of taking that credit and figuring out splits. Kenny talks about splitting everything equally when doing songwriting sessions. Will brings up the Wrecking Crew movie http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com and how session players can sometimes write parts that could be considered songwriting. Richard brings up how musicians are hired to come up with parts as well and how to deal with that. Matt explains that in general, this is work for hire. Will brings up the concept of bands sharing songwriting even when it's not the way the writing happens. For the sake and success of the band. Matt brings up the importance of pre-production and that's the time to be writing. We then shift gears and discuss handing in Masters to labels and artists and whether or not to share your settings and plugins. Thanks for listeni

Episode 8 - Spec Mixes - Working for Free We start by bringing up the idea of doing spec mixes or spec anything and what that means. Marc talks about not doing alot of these because he was taught early on to always be paid for doing gigs. Matt goes on to talk about working at a studio where he couldn't do spec work. Later on when he got his own studio, he was able to start getting spec work where he takes a piece of the artist. Kenny goes on to describe shootouts by major labels and the issues with them. Richard joins us from his German submarine and points out how politics become a bigger issue with shootouts more so than the actual mix. Marc talks about how to adjust his invoices to allow discounts for clients. Matt goes on to discuss contracts for spec work. Kenny discusses a few more horror stories. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.wi

Episode 7 - Risk Management - Great Music vs. Getting Paid We start by reading a question involving the balance of dealing with choosing the music we work with based on budget vs. how good the music is and what are the repercussions of each. Kenny brings up how hard it is to build a career recording music that just isn’t very good. Even if the money is there. We then talk about how much to charge and the positives and negatives that go with being expensive vs. being the “budget guy”. Matt brings up “vanity” projects that never seem to end. And cost you more in the long run. Kenny brings up the idea that if you’re stuck in a rut of recording bad music, you can’t expect to keep moving forward. Kenny talks about production costs and being able to charge a flat fee vs. a day rate. Thanks for listening!!!! Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://

Episode 6 - Signal to Noise Ratio on Forums and FB Groups We start by talking about the not so informed discussions on gear forums and facebook groups and the echo chamber created. Kenny brings up the idea that room treatment has become a lot more important to novices than most professional. Will brings up the idea that people are getting focused on small things and completely missing some big ones. Then Kenny brings up the over-importance of Mastering Engineers and how mixing is taking a back seat. And how Mastering engineers are being required to fix bad mixes. Kenny then also brings up what a Mastering engineer is supposed to be. Matt also brings up how much more sense it makes to make a 3 or 4 song EP instead of making full records. That's all folks. Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyprodu

Episode 5 - Mixer’s job - Create the Vision or Take Direction We start by reading a listener’s comment: “This whole obsession with you guys having to match what is on the radio to me means you have bought in to this arbitrary standard that usually sounds worse. Why not set the parameters and standards for what is actually good? Because people under 21 only listen to stuff in a crappy format that sounds like shit, why not nudge them in another direction instead of accepting what sounds bad?” Matt explains that this is a service business and that we can only do what the client wants. Our job is to make a great mix that the client is looking for. We discuss the days where taste makers decided what music should sound like. As opposed to today where it’s about creating what the listener wants. The fans create the demand. Next we talk about smashing masters again and where in the process this should take place and whether it should or not. Phil then fights with everyone over the idea that people can hear a 1

Episode 4 - Recording Schools - To go, or not? We start by mentioning we have a Facebook page and group. Please sign up. We then start talking about recording schools with Matt talking about how import mentoring and internships are. Will talks about having less studios with less upward mobility. Kenny brings up the inflated curriculums of recording schools to appeal to students or parents to entice enrollment. We then bring up Berklee and the famous Berklee “bell” that becomes a staple of this episode. Kenny discusses the importance of you vs. your gear. We then discuss our studios and whether they are personal or open to the pubic. Somewhere in the middle we begin our unpaid advertisement for Berklee School of Music. LOL. We then talk about how to get from being an assistant or a runner into becoming a recording engineer. Kenny brings up the importance of being able to get clients by putting yourself in a scene and bring artists to recording studios so you can learn how to produce by making those

Episode 3 - Expensive Thrifty-ness - Cutting Corners - Studio Musicians We start off discussing expensive thrift-ness or cutting corners to save money and having it hurt you in the end. Will tells us a story of why you need a producer. Kenny tells stories of working with great (studio) musicians and how important that is and how easy it is to record and produce records using them. Plus all the time it saves. We then talk about how novices might not know how a great record sounds without being there to see it happen. Will tells a story of how important pre-production is. The discussion moves on to discussing different types of producers and how to make sure everyone gets their ideas heard and when to have patience in the studio and when to move it along. We move on to discussing Mixing again and how we want our tracks to arrive from engineers. Finally we discuss getting tracks with FX printed vs getting everything dry. Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/author

Episode 2 - Self Producing as the Artist We start off this episode by introducing ourselves again adding Grammy Winning/Multi-Platinum Mixer Richard Furch to the mix or group. We then discuss more and more music being self produced by the artist and the positives and negatives of this situation. And the possibility of being able to record yourself becoming a part of the skill set in the future for artists. The discussion changes again towards discussing changing the tracks of the artists we mix without getting their permission. We then discuss the benefit of mixing as we go in the production process and how important the producer is. We also talk about having to produce and engineer at the same time. Richard Furch http://www.richardfurch.com Kenny Gioia https://www.facebook.com/kenny.gioia http://www.groove3.com/str/authors.php?authorid=7 Matt Hennessy http://vsopproductions.com Will Kennedy http://www.willkennedyproducer.com https://www.facebook.com/willkennedyproducer Marc Lacuesta. http://www.ma

Episode 1 - Notes for the Mixer We start off this episode by introducing ourselves and noting that Kenny doesn’t have a website and giving him a hard time for it. We move on to discussing “Mix Notes” and what’s the best way for engineers to communicate with their mixing engineer and vice versa to get the most out of this relationship. The discussion moves towards “Mastering” and how important that is with a great mix and how much to squash it and how much to leave it til that stage. Phil brings up the importance of having a mix sound good or translate on all systems. Next we discuss chasing the rough or having to match elements of the rough mix that the client loved. We move on to discussing how long it takes to mix and when you start to really “get it”. The discussion moves on with Kenny describing his childhood and how he built a studio with no knowledge of how to do it. Next we bring up the idea of Pro Tools rigs as a separate source of income and a Pro Tools operator or editor being a different