I think the only thing I really have
is just probably a hundred thousand hours of listening to records.
When I was a kid - and there are many people like this
- kids who are drawn to music, but they don't want to be a musician.
They have zero appetite to learn to play an instrument or sing,
but they are crazy about records. They are born music listeners.
Those are the people who become record producers.
Sometimes they become A&R executives, or they become DJs.
They have a relationship with music but it's not learning chords and scales.
It's the art of the record.
It's an ear for a multi-timbral signal.
It's an ear for music as a whole and we get really good
at hearing performance gestures such as timing and phrasing in vocals.
I hear this way better than my students do.
I can describe to them the effectiveness of a vocal
in terms of its relationship to the beat.
Like in this section - we want the singer to be a little bit ahead of the beat,
and in this section we want the singer to be a little bit behind the beat.
When the singer is ahead of the beat and the snare is a little bit behind the beat,
it gives this feel when you swap that relationship
and you push that snare and you pull that vocal back
it gives the song a different subtext.
So that's a kind of listening - the expertise of performance gestures
- that's probably similar to an orchestra conductor.
Where you're listening to these sections and you're pulling up and pushing down
just what you want to hear, selfishly.
I've seen engineers that literally don't touch their outboard gear
have plug-in, you know presets saved
things that they've designed saved and that's their sound.
Or you know, guys will rearrange tracks to make sure that
this thing is going into this and there's a cha... - I don't do that.
Because no two songs are the same.
Or when people are like well, what was your EQ setting on that?
And I'm like, why would you ever want - like you would need the exact same vocal
recorded at the exact same level - it means nothing.
I listen. I'm not a numbers guy.
I can work an SSL blindfolded.
So I'm really listening to what's going on instead of me concentrating on numbers.
I'm listening, because I come from that thing of when there was no computer screen there.
If clients come to attend the session - which I do try to encourage people to attend mastering.
Especially initially when you're getting to know a mastering engineer,
I think it's really good to go there rather than just sending something
and it being an abstract thing to meet people and communicate is a lot easier.
So we'd do a playback session and I'll literally sit on the sofa
and play the project. I won't play it with the view, technically.
I want to listen to it. Just how anyone would listen to it.
and then if things feel awkward to me, I'll make notes.
So, you know often when we're listening in that way, we're relaxed.
It will be more obvious what I need to do.
And then I'll discuss with the you know, it could be the artist
producer, mix engineer, A&R guy, whoever attends. It could be all of them.
We would have a discussion about what I was thinking, what I was hearing,
what the album was about for them.
If we have the artists there often we need to go through
the journey of the whole concept of the album.
If it's a mix engineer, we might just talk
about technically what they've done.
So it really depends on the project and then I'll start to master.
One of the hardest things is actually - you need to listen
and you need to listen again. You need to keep listening,
you need to listen to every one of those kick drums and check
that one of them hasn't distorted or clipped or peaked.
So yes, it's intense. Yes, it's boring.
Yes, It's Relentless.
The need to constantly listen and re-listen and not switch off
and sort of be engaged with the process.
And of course one of the best ways of doing that is
with having somebody else in the room.
Particularly when it comes to writing, you see how they do things.
I think I'm sometimes so overwhelmed with vast amounts of music
that, that sometimes becomes frustration.
And usually on Monday I have the day of silence,
just have to let my ears rest.
And you start to enjoy and appreciate music in a different...
And I'll hear something on the radio or something always...
How can I incorporate that? What section could I...?
Sometimes it's just nice to switch off and remember
that music's just meant to be listened to and enjoyed.