January 28, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of Inside The Mix, I sit down with Shane Slack, an acclaimed audio professional celebrated for his innovative approach to music production. Shane dives deep into the philosophy behind audio production, emphasising the importance of understanding the source material before processing and mastering the techniques that truly elevate your mixes.
This conversation is packed with actionable insights for producers and engineers aiming to achieve high-quality results in their music.
What You'll Learn:
• Should I mix or master first? Shane explains the benefits of a "mastering-first" mindset for identifying and solving issues in your mix.
• Why understanding your source material is crucial to avoid unnecessary processing.
• How the "Hippocratic Oath" of audio production—doing no harm—can transform your approach.
• The pitfalls of shortcut-seeking behaviour in music production and how to avoid them.
• Breaking out of the plugin chain trap: when less is more in your signal chain.
• Techniques for creating depth and movement in your mixes without overcomplication.
• Why critical engagement with tools and techniques is essential for achieving professional results.
If you want to refine your audio production workflow, elevate your sound, and embrace a deeper understanding of your craft, this episode is for you!
Wanna follow Shane? Click here
Got feedback? I’d love to hear from you! Click here to leave a review, share your social media handles or website, and get featured in a future episode.
Plus, one lucky reviewer will win a Starbucks voucher each month!
Book your FREE 20 Minute Discovery Call
Follow Marc Matthews' Socials:
Instagram | YouTube | Synth Music Mastering
Thanks for listening!!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shane Slack (00:00):
over processing.
That's a big deal right now inthe mix community that I'm just
kind of abashed by, because it'sjust like the further along I
got in audio and the better Igot at it, the less processing I
was doing and I was making alot better decisions and it was
not always like, oh, I need touse always Pro-Q3 or Kershoff or
Equilibrium or oh, I need touse X, y and Z all the time,
(00:24):
like there's not this, like thisbinary thinking that's
happening.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Marc Matthews (00:34):
Welcome to Inside the Mix, your go-to podcast for
music creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome back to theInside the Mix podcast.
(00:59):
In this episode, I'm thrilledto introduce my guest today,
shane Slack, founder and leadengineer of Mono Theory.
So a little bit about Shanehere.
So I've got his bio here, soI'm going to read from this.
He's got an extraordinarybackground, having established a
minority-operated audiofacility in 2021 and honed his
(01:19):
craft through mentorship withindustry legends like Matt Davis
and Bob Katz.
I love Bob Katz, love Bob Katz,and I've actually got his
mastering audio book.
It's always on my desk, satright there.
That was one of my Bibles whenI was doing my master's degree
Love it.
His unconventional career pathmastering before mixing which
we're going to touch on in thisepisode has given him
unparalleled skills in listening, analysis and precision in
(01:41):
audio production, and you'velikely heard his work on
productions for Apple TV, disney, marvel Studios and shows like
Ted Lasso Love Ted Lasso.
I recently got into that at theend of last year and, as a
football fan, I don't know how Ididn't get into it sooner.
Absolutely love it, shane,thank you for joining me today.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Thank you for having me Been along time coming.
(02:02):
It has hasn't it I always findthat when I do these interviews
and I talk to the individual,the interviewee and I put them
together months in advance.
So, looking forward to this one, we're kicking off 2025 with
this interview today, so in thisepisode, folks, we're going to
be mastering the thought process.
So this is all about problemsolving and audio production.
So Shane's got some top tipsthat he's going to go through
(02:24):
with us today.
So first question is aboutunderstanding the source.
So in the lead up to this, yourapproach emphasizes
understanding the problem beforeapplying any solutions.
Can you talk about yourphilosophy and why this is so
important and how you teachproducers and engineers to think
more critically about theirsource material?
Shane Slack (02:45):
Well, yeah, so, as I already kind of established to
you beforehand, I learned howto master before I learned how
to mix.
Back here, I was going toschool in Valencia, which is
here in central Florida, orlandoand I was picked up by Bob and
Matt and really was under theirtutelage immediately afterwards
and one of the things theyalways had was this Hippocratic
(03:08):
Oath when it came to audio,which is always do no harm.
Now, the way that theydeveloped the Hippocratic Oath
was that they are verydelineating and very particular
about the source material andany sort of nonlinear processing
or linear processing that we'redoing in order to make that
source sound a lot better.
And you know, one of thebiggest challenges I've noticed
(03:29):
with many engineers, like boththose that are starting out and
like those that have been like alittle bit further on in their
careers but maybe not at thelevel that they want to be, is a
tendency to kind of prioritizeshortcuts and presets and quick
fixes rather than kind of likedeveloping, like a deeper
understanding of, like thefundamental approaches and
(03:50):
techniques.
You know, something as simpleas, like loudness optimization.
We see a lot of people stillunder this colloquial, like
modality of just thinking like,oh yeah, let me make something
loud.
I'll throw like a compressor orlimiter on it and that, will
you know, generate like the RMSthat will generate the LUFS that
I'm really looking for.
Not really understanding, like,why am I reaching for that?
(04:11):
Why am I reaching for thisprocess?
Why is this process kind of thestandardization of it, like
what is developing loudness?
You know what is the science ofthat?
And again, working from Mattand you know a little bit with
Bob, like they really have abreakdown of this and trying to
(04:33):
really get to understand whythis is happening.
You know what is loudness?
Well, loudness is, you know,it's over a period of time of
time.
We can have a signal that'slike 125 dB, but if it's
accounting for like onemillisecond versus, like you
know, like a 90 dB signal,that's happening for three
seconds, just the way of ourthreshold of hearing and the way
that our ears works and ourfawns and the cochlea and all
(04:56):
that stuff, the way that theseare all reacting, that's how you
develop loudness.
It's over a period of time.
It's not an instantaneous thing, it's an over period of time
way of thinking.
Now, granted, this is not, youknow, the most immediate
knowledge that you would get outthere on like platforms such as
YouTube, instagram, tiktok oranything else like that, and,
frankly, you know, for a lot ofpeople it might be just way too
(05:18):
above level.
But the reason why I reallyenjoy that is that I can bring
it back down to a moresimplified level and just think
like, ok, you know, maybe Idon't need to reach for a
compressor or limiter, maybethere needs to be something just
happening over time, maybe awave shaper, maybe a clipper,
which can also, you know, changethe whole RMS and even the
(05:38):
crest factor over a period oftime.
And that may be even a betterway to do it.
It may be a less detrimentalway, but like, the scenario I
always talk to my students about, this is like imagine you have
to fix a piece of drywall or youhave to hang up a painting.
How are you gonna get that nailon the wall?
(05:59):
Some people are like, oh, justgrab a hammer and just do it.
Well.
It's like well, okay, but whatother factors are we on you?
You know a low bearing beam,are we on this?
Where is that?
But like, developing thatmodality and developing that
level of thinking is sotantamount to then becoming a
lot more successful in youraudio career and also removing a
lot of these like immediatequestions that you kind of just
start developing, you know yeah,it's uh, I I really like what
(06:23):
you said there aboutunderstanding what it is you're
trying to achieve and I thinkthat's paramount and important.
Marc Matthews (06:30):
And, um, going back to what you said about the
hippocratic oath, that it's kindof weird that you mentioned
that, because just off air, wewere talking about my trip to
coz and I went to um the tree ofhippocrates while I was there,
um, so it's kind of odd that youmentioned that, um, but I love
that, the idea, idea that youshall do no harm.
So you mentioned that aboutshortcuts and presets, and it's
almost like with our.
It might be a sweepingstatement, not necessarily even
(06:53):
generations, but everybody wantssomething really fast, they
want it done now, they want itquickly.
It's our attention span is whatI think I was getting at.
It's like when somethingdoesn't load a website doesn't
load I immediately just go toanother one If it doesn't load
straight away.
My attention span and myability to wait has decreased
(07:15):
throughout time.
Why do you think there is thisidea you mentioned about
shortcuts and presets?
Why do you think people arereaching for that first rather
than actually thinking?
You know what I really need tounderstand?
You mentioned there about thenail in the drywall first,
rather than actually thinkingyou know what I really need to
understand you mentioned thereabout the nail in the drywall
rather than understanding thealmost like the physics behind
what it is they're trying toachieve, why are they were
searching for these presets andthese cutting, cookie cutter
(07:36):
approaches first?
Shane Slack (07:37):
well, you see these presets and cookie cutters.
They do offer semi a guideline,and once people start getting
used to kind of seeing thesepresets or like kind of seeing,
like okay, this is what I'm kindof noticing in common they
think like, oh, that's just theanswer to everything.
The problem is is that likeeven something that's like a
vocal chain and I had to go overmy secondary engineer with this
(07:58):
too, like multiple times youknow your voice and my voice
sound completely different.
Now, the processing that workson your voice is not gonna work
on my voice and you know justanother analogy, because I also
cook.
You know it's almost likepeople get really mad at
vegetarian or vegan food and saylike, oh, this is nothing like
(08:22):
a burger or anything else likethat, because they're not
letting the vegetable be avegetable.
They're trying to make it intoa meat.
Conversely, with audio and withvocals, you're trying to make
my vocal fit into a cookiecutter mold or somebody else's
or your client's vocal, andyou're not really being
discerning and you're not beingreally qualitative in really
(08:44):
developing a personalized chainfor each section.
So it's like even my own audiosessions when I do my own
productions and a little bit ofthe mixing before I handed them
off.
It was just like the presetwasn't necessarily.
Oh yeah, my Pro Tools session.
I have all my drums going forwaves, nos, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, or all my vocals.
(09:05):
I'm running for an 1176,everything else like that.
My presets are moreorganizational but very blank.
There is no X, y and Z.
I'm going in there each timewith one refreshed and like
brand new canvas and I'mpainting with audio, completely
different each time, and I'mbeing like all right, where do
you want to take me?
(09:26):
Where does this want to go?
What am I missing in this?
And again, it's easy forpresets and we live in a
fast-paced culture nowadays.
Like everybody just wants toimmediately grab a preset
because they don't have time,but like you can't develop speed
without accuracy and you can'tdevelop accuracy without being
(09:46):
slow and you have to slow down.
And don't get me wrong, evenwhen I started out, I was
grabbing and downloading allpresets imaginable, some of them
great, some of them not sogreat after the fact.
But I remember, right when Istarted working with Matt Davis
and right after I graduated fromValencia, and really taking
(10:08):
some time to really slow downand really understand.
Okay, why do?
I constantly see this band at3.2K, what's going on there?
And then slowly reading Bob'sbook understanding okay, that's
where the presence is.
So instead of me just grabbinga preset of, oh, I need to
(10:29):
increase the presence of that.
I'm like, okay, I know it'saround 3.2K, now I can go for a
softer cue, I can go for a widercue, I can go for a little bit
of a dynamic, everything elselike that, and you start just
developing this vocabulary forunderstanding it.
And I really encourage all mystudents and everybody else to
(10:50):
just presets are fine, butreally dive deep into it and
really try to understand what isit it's doing at this point.
Marc Matthews (10:56):
Most definitely Excellent advice there, and I
think that's paramount.
And it's kind of like it almostechoes, in a way, the idea that
I've said this on the podcastbefore with other interviews,
the idea that maybe, rather thanreaching for another plugin and
another preset to try and solvea problem, maybe you need to
think about actually do I reallyunderstand what compression is,
(11:19):
bands and what I'm trying toachieve here, before you then go
online and you see an advertthat says this is the silver
bullet plug-in that is going toyou're going to put it on your
mix bus and it's just going tomix it for you, rather than
immediately fall into that trap,you know, to just really hone
in and understand what it isyou're trying to do.
(11:39):
And this kind of leads onnicely to my next question.
So you mentioned masteringbefore mixing as part of your
career journey.
So my question is how has thisshaped your perspective on
problem solving in audioproduction, and what can mix
engineers learn from masteringtechniques when analyzing a
track?
Shane Slack (11:56):
you know it's very funny.
So right towards the tail endof 2024 my colleague and good
friend, ian shepherd, on hismastering podcast, was actually
talking to an engineer whoworked at Abbey Road.
And at Abbey Road I found outthey kind of do the exact same
journey that I was in and Ididn't even realize it, where
(12:18):
they don't touch a mix, theydon't touch a recording.
They start with mastering, thenthey go to mixing, then they go
to tracking and recording andwhat I think this does is it
gives.
Instead of starting from asmall picture and going big
again, you're starting from themacro and going back down to the
micro.
So it's almost like you startfrom like a bird's eye view.
(12:39):
And because I learned andworked under a mastering
engineer before I even reallyhad a good grasp on mixing, I
was starting to see what thecommon imbalances and problems
and things that were happeningand maybe even occurrences that
the mix engineer is not evenaccounting for, like detrimental
(12:59):
monitoring environments and how, room resonance and modal
activities, having themovercompensate and compensate
and under compensate certainthings, or even like over
distorting.
You know there's a tendency ofmixing to just believe that all
saturation, all distortion, it'sjust gonna create like this
amazing tonality.
But then you take it into alike a laboratory environment,
(13:21):
like a mastering studio, aproperly calibrated mastering
studio.
You really start understandingthe issues of reproduction.
You know the reason why wedon't always just fuzz and
distort everything is that, like, playback systems are not
standardized.
You know you can go to a club,you can go to a different studio
and just the monitoringplayback.
How can you tell that thatdistortion is meant for the song
(13:42):
?
How can you tell if that'sbecause your woofer or your
driver is distorting?
And again, getting this bird'seye view of all these kind of
common issues and tonalimbalances and everything else
like that, it starts getting youmore aware.
So that way, when I started tolearn how to mix, I was a lot
more cognizant of these issues.
(14:04):
Like, okay, don't make surewe're not causing over presence.
Okay, even the very commonthing of checking things in mono
.
Master engineers check thingsin mono and especially for their
low end, because they need tomake sure that this is
reproducible, especially ifyou're coming onto a beats pod
or in a club environment in thegenre that you work in, like
(14:25):
even like you do dance music, Ido dance music like it doesn't
matter, like if the low end andthe infrasonics are not linear
and standardized coming out ofall speakers, that whole track
is just going to fall apart.
Or if it's overly distorted.
You know, woofers are verysubwoofers, are very keen on
distorting that down there.
Like how do we again, how do wemake sure and how do we
(14:46):
delineate from that?
But that's again, you startmacro and you start working your
way back down to micro.
But because you had theoverarching image and you had
developed just all theseobservational theories of oh
yeah, make sure that we're notoverdoing this, make sure that
this is giving enough room tobreathe all that stuff it can.
(15:10):
Just to me I feel like morepeople should go down that route
, which I was fortunate enoughto live in an area and work with
a mastering engineers in myarea and it's much harder
nowadays but like that's kind ofmy goal with my students is
trying to get them to think likea mastering engineer, so that
way when they mix and producethere's just they're way above
the threshold of excellencethat's usually coming out
(15:31):
nowadays yeah, that makes ahundred, that makes total sense.
Marc Matthews (15:35):
And I like what you said about the macro to the
micro.
And in my head I'm thinking thisis going back to my teaching
days when I'd put a presentationtogether and I'd start with the
conclusion and then workbackwards.
So I know what the end goal is,I know what my learning
objectives are Tenuous link butI'm working backwards to meet
that success criteria.
(15:56):
And I think it also helps withconversations as well.
So if you're an engineerproducer and you're interacting
with a mastering engineer, whenthey're having that conversation
with you, you're able to think,okay, yes, I know what LUFS, I
know what RMS is, I know whatLRA is, I know what they're
talking about and I know how tothen go into my mixing session
and make those tweaks andchanges if I do need to.
So my question to you withregards to that is, if you are
(16:21):
starting out and you're thinkingthe listeners are thinking,
okay, well, I'm going to startwith mastering now, I'm going to
move into that and just get myteeth into it and just
understand it a bit more, whatshould they start with?
What part of mastering shouldthey start with first, do you
think?
Shane Slack (16:35):
One of the things that I very much believe in and
I've even told some of my mixingclients before we moved them on
to different studios is I wouldalmost rather you do a mix on
your own, try to mix it yourself, but then go to a mastering
engineer, and the reason I dothat is because, again, these
(16:55):
are laboratory calibratedenvironments.
Every mastering engineer that Ihave had the distinct honor of
either working for, calling acolleague or even now, good
friends, they really do careabout the craft and a lot of
mixed engineers.
There's just a plethora ofinformation, a sea of
information online andunfortunately, some of it's good
(17:16):
.
Most of it is various levels ofwhat I would consider
inaccurate or just flat outwrong, but a mastering engineer,
they are so dedicated to thefidelity and the quality of the
craft that they're not going tohold any secrets.
They're not going to give youbad notes, or at least any of
(17:39):
the ones that I know.
They will tell you like hey,look, you have an overemphasis
on your mid-bass range.
Or hey, you have a lot of I'mguessing you have a lot of modal
activity, maybe because yourmonitors may not be aligned and
all that stuff.
But they will give youqualitative notes on where your
deficiencies are.
Mix engineers at least for theones that I've had partnered
(18:01):
with for times and periods oftimes.
They're very much about like ohyeah, it's my proprietary
secret plug-in chain.
They're very almost a littletoo braggadocious.
Some of it warranted, some ofit not, but you need to educate
your client.
If you can't educate yourclient on the problem, how can
you give them the solution?
And mastering engineers just dothat.
(18:21):
Now, if you're trying to getstarted in mastering engineers
or starting to be a masteringengineer, better grammar.
One of the best resources thatwe had is this forum on Facebook
that I was briefly a moderatorfor.
It called Mastering EngineersWorldwide.
Every single mastering engineerof importance is in that group
(18:44):
For various degrees of wantingto be or not, depending on where
it's at that day.
They're all in there, butthere's a plethora of knowledge
in there and there's just somuch.
And they're so open to talk toyou about it and they're willing
open to talk to you about itand they're willing to educate
you.
We have this like viewpoint thatmastering is this dark art,
which is kind of true, which iskind of a little bit of the
(19:06):
mastering engineer's fault forlike being a little too
secretive, but like that wholenomenclature and that whole
modality is changing now theyknow the importance of this and
they again, they care, careabout audio.
They care about it, it's noteven just the music side of it,
they care about the fidelity andthey have all this knowledge
that they're willing to spreadto the next generation.
And for me I just tell them hey, either go pay a mastering
(19:32):
engineer, whether a big one or asmall one, a legitimate one,
not a mix engineer that masters,a dedicated mastering engineer
to give your track a listenthrough and ask for notes back,
let them give you feedback back.
Or, if you're looking to be one, go join Mastering Engineers
Worldwide, or go pick up Bob'sbook, you know, and start
developing the modality to thinklike one.
Marc Matthews (19:55):
Indeed, I'm an advocate of all that.
Mastering Engineers Worldwideis a fantastic group.
I remember when I joined, andthen you see the names pop up
that we've mentioned today onthe podcast and they're just
randomly in conversations andother mastering engineers that
I've had on the podcast as well,like Ian Stewart, for example.
I see his name regularly cropup in that particular forum.
And the book as well.
The podcast Mastering Audiobook is is fantastic, but all
(20:19):
fantastic stuff.
There is a question that I hadoff the.
This is a slightly tenuous one.
I might be putting you on thespot here a bit, but you
mentioned about it's kind ofthat iceberg idea that all this
information on the internet andthat top tip of the iceberg
above the water is what's good,and then you've got all this
other, these other bits andpieces underneath that maybe
less so.
Is there a common misconceptionthat you see in terms of
(20:42):
information that is out there onthe internet at the moment with
regards to maybe mixing and ormastering?
Shane Slack (20:47):
again, I am putting you on the spot here, so I
appreciate if you don't have ananswer so at least for mixing at
least, what I'm a lot morecognitive of going back a little
bit to the shortcuts and goingback to like, oh, this is what
jason, jason Joshua does, orthis is what Josh Goodwin does,
or this is what you know X, yand Z does.
I feel like there's amisconception, that kind of
(21:09):
happens there.
It's again they fall into likethat preset, like, oh, we do
this at every single stage.
Having like briefly interactedwith some of these people, that
is not always the case.
Sometimes they have thosethings on, sometimes they turn
things off, but again we're kindof developing a very fast,
(21:29):
almost McDonald's fast foodmentality towards our processing
and there's not enough timebeing like, hey, let's turn down
the processing or even likeover processing.
That's a big deal right now inthe mix community that I'm just
kind of abashed by, because it'sjust like the further along I
got in audio and the better Igot at it, the less processing I
(21:51):
was doing and I was making alot better decisions and it was
not always like oh, I need touse always Pro-Q3 or Kershaw for
equilibrium, or oh, I need touse X, pro q3 or kershoff or
equilibrium, or oh, I need touse x, y and z all the time,
like there's not this, like thisbinary thinking that's
happening.
It's more like this is theproblem.
This is the solution I'mlooking for.
(22:12):
Or, you know, even in mixingright now I have a big thing
about like envelope, which whatI mean by that is why I feel
like a lot of people's mixes areso two-dimensional and so flat
sounding is they're not reallyaccentuating and adding back
like movement into that mix.
And I'm not just talking aboutlike just volume automation on
(22:34):
its own, like even like what isgroove.
I have a theory like groovetheory is envelope.
You know, I'll throw like LFOtool or like you know Devious
machines, duck on something andeven if it's like it's only
doing a one to two percent, likeyou know, attenuation or
anything else like that, that'sgoing on.
It starts creating like thesense of like feeling over time,
(22:57):
and that's where's where peoplekind of get a little bit more
locked in.
I've done it with vocals, I'vedone it with pads, I've done it
with my drums themselves.
I've dragged in drum samples,kick drum samples, and even if
the envelope is pretty good asit is, I'll still grab, duck and
have it be triggered every time.
And it's like all of a suddenand even my secondary engineer
(23:17):
and everybody I've shown it tohas seen it it's like, wow, that
feels a lot more locked in.
Or you know, even the other wayI've been creating depth, like
I've showed another colleague ofmine.
It's like how do you createdepth in the mix?
And they immediately reach forsaturation.
And I'm like, well, that's, youknow, that's an easy way to do
(23:40):
it.
Let's talk about a differentway.
What about bit depth?
And he was like what do youmean?
And I grabbed like an abletonredux because we were in ableton
at the time.
Usually I use d16's decimal,but I'm like your audience has
no idea what the bit depth ofyour sample of the source is.
So like what?
if I put my drums in 12 bit, andwhat if I put my my pads in 14
bit and all that stuff?
And I'm doing it in mono andhe's like, wow, why is it even
(24:03):
in mono?
It just sounds like there'slike a three-dimensionality to
it and it's like, well, becauseagain it's biasing against each
other, but now you're creatingdepth that works both in mono
and in stereo, and also becausethings that are a lot going to
be of higher bit depth are goingto feel a lot more defined and
you're going to draw youraudience's attention cycle
acoustically to that element.
(24:23):
So it's like I leave my bassesat like 32 or 24 bit and they're
like why does your bass justsound so much more in focus?
And maybe this is a little bitof my visual background and
videography as well, but it'sjust that same thing of a camera
lens.
It's like I want something tobe in focus.
Everything else in thebackground may be a little bit
out of focus, but this thing Iwant you to pay attention and
(24:45):
listen to or look at.
That's going to be in focus andthat's how I create depth.
And they're like, wow, this isgenius, no one's ever thought
about that.
And I'm like's you knowexperimentation and also just
thinking about like, okay, whatelse could I do to create that
sense of depth?
Marc Matthews (25:03):
Yeah, I love the idea of bit depth.
I'm going to magpie that, as wesay in a production I'm working
on at the moment, as soon asyou mentioned it and described
it, and I love the analogy ofthe camera as well, what you did
there.
When you're focusing because itmakes perfect sense, right,
you're focusing on something andeverything in the background
starts to blur.
And, yeah, the bit depth one,I'm totally going to steal an
(25:24):
audience listening.
If you do that as well, let meknow how you get on, because I I
really do like that idea.
When you mentioned the envelopethere, just for the audience
listening, you're talking aboutattack, decay, sustain, release
yes, or even like things overtime.
Shane Slack (25:37):
like yeah, just something happening over time,
like even, like, allow me to goeven crazier with it.
Marc Matthews (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, multi-band.
Shane Slack (25:43):
Like multi-band compression.
Everyone's just going to stillthink about multi-band
compression as, like you know,something that's going to change
, like the time and frequencyresponse of the source.
Why can't you use that as agroove accentuator?
You can.
What if you have it like again,you could sidechain it to your
clap, you could sidechain it orwhatever.
But what if you just have thisthing that's just ever so
(26:05):
slightly just adding you coulddo the most minute of gain
reductions.
I've done it on Pro-MB backwhen I used it down to half a dB
or dB and you feel it and it'slike again, why does this feel
more locked in?
But it's just a different wayof thinking about these things.
It's things happening over time.
That's what makes like a lot ofsongs or a lot of music or even
(26:28):
audio exciting, and it's justlike even in real life, things
are happening over time.
Nothing's at the stagnant, likesame level.
There's something alwayshappening and it's also part of
the reason why people likeanalog gear.
Analog gear is imperfect, butit's never constant.
Every picosecond, microsecond,all the stuff, there's always
something fluctuating and that'show you create that feeling in
(26:51):
the box.
Marc Matthews (26:52):
You know, just start creating that that makes
perfect sense and it the way youdescribe it.
You can almost visualize how itsuddenly is no longer
two-dimensional and it makesperfect sense what you mentioned
there, with the multi-bandcompression as well.
So lots to take away audiencelistening and to improve and add
groove, as it were, and justmovement and stop your mixes
(27:15):
becoming static.
So moving on to my nextquestion.
So excellent advice there,shane.
So this is we've already kindof touched on this a bit.
So this is avoiding the plug-inchain trap.
What's your advice for breakingout of this habit and
approaching audio problems witha more analytical mindset?
Shane Slack (27:34):
So what I did for myself was I only limited myself
.
I put like a little hard limitof three to four processes on
one vocal or one little source.
And one of the best things thatMatt did for me, especially
when I was interning for him, isI was going in there, you know,
all bright eyed, like wow, I'min an amazing studio working on
(27:57):
PMCs, all this gear, and I'mdoing one of my first ever
masters, and he comes in andhe's like, oh yeah, what are you
doing there?
And I'm like, oh, I think atthe time I was just like EQing
around like the middle 400, 500range and all that stuff.
But one of the things he keptasking was okay, why are you
doing that?
Now at first when you're a kid,when I younger, I'm like like am
(28:20):
I not supposed to do that, allthat stuff.
But like, the more experience Igot with him, the more I was
like, oh no, he's asking that tomake sure that.
Like I'm asking myself that,why am I grabbing for that?
Why am I doing it?
Can I explain what exactly I'mdoing?
If you can explain it, you canrationalize it.
And who, who knows?
You just have that phenomenontoo.
Where you're explain it, youcan rationalize it.
And who knows?
You just have that phenomenontoo.
Where you're now explaining it,you're like, all of a sudden,
(28:42):
like a new neuron in your brainjust decides to turn back on for
some reason.
You're like, oh wait, I couldhave also done this.
But the plug-in chain trap is soantithetical to that way of
thinking because it's just likedo this, don't think about it
Now.
Granted, there's times whereyou don't want to think about
things and over-analysis and theparalysis that can come from
(29:03):
that can be quite debilitating.
But really slow down, reallythink.
Why am I reaching for this?
Why am I doing this sort of EQmove?
Why am I doing a high passversus a low shelf attenuation?
Am I doing a high pass versus alow shelf attenuation.
(29:23):
What happens if I change thatout for that?
Okay, maybe the low pass soundsa lot more natural and maybe
that's what we're going for,something that's a little bit
more transparent.
When we put back in like a 18dB high pass, okay, it doesn't
feel as transparent, but there'sjust something going on in the
hypersonics that feels like alot better to me.
How do I start choosing betweenthe two?
(29:46):
Again, it all goes back toslowing your process down.
You develop your speed.
You're not going to hit thetreadmill and you're not going
to hit a 3K by sitting on thecouch and just immediately
getting up and like, yeah, I'mgoing to run a 3K straight with
no training.
This is training.
You have to train yourself andit's the hard work.
But all the engineers, all theproducers, who are really doing
(30:07):
incredible work in our industry,they've done that time.
They've done that work.
Don't let the videos onlinepublicly with a company or
whatever fool you.
These people know what they'redoing and they put in that time
to slow down.
And again, you're not going tothink about many years from now,
months from now, even weeksfrom now for some of you, when
(30:29):
you're at the level of waybetter level of success than you
wanted.
You're not thinking about, damn, I spent three days just
figuring out eq movements ordamn, I really just spent three
days like using my stockcompressor or like an 1176 style
compressor.
No, you're not thinking aboutthat, because this is all it
just becomes, not even just haveit.
(30:50):
It's just you enter like a flowstate with it.
Someone can throw something infront of me now and it's like I
don't have to think about it.
And if you would have told mein like 2018, 2019, that I would
reach that level, I would havebeen like I don't know, did I
hit like a hyperbolic timechamber?
Am I like on some goku stuffnow?
But like no, it's just you putin the effort and all of a
(31:11):
sudden, things just slowly,slowly build up.
So, and again, for anybodythat's listening, i'm'm not
against presets, I'm not againstlike some guidelines.
All I ask of you, the bareminimum, is, at some point
whenever in your day, before youuse this and before you apply
this to a client's mix, reallysit there and break it down.
(31:32):
Okay, why is he going twocompressors?
Why is he doing this?
Why is he doing that?
Why is this doing that?
What happens if I take this out?
Just start experimenting andstart understanding all the key
ingredients of that componentand slowly but surely.
It's not going to happenovernight.
You're not going to be at Mensalevel like I think Matt and Bob
(31:54):
are, but you'll startdeveloping it and you'll just,
it will be so conducive.
Marc Matthews (32:00):
I stress and beg of you, all of you yeah, yes,
100 and um, and I've got of allof that and there's a there's a
bit, a fair bit, to unpack there.
So I've made some notes, as you, as you were talking there, and
you mentioned there about time,and it's that compound effect,
isn't it?
It's like when you I'm aguitarist when I first picked up
the guitar, I was shocking andit took time for me to learn how
(32:21):
to play Probably still quiteshocking now, to be fair.
I picked it up in a while andit took time for me to learn
that instrument and get betterat it.
And that it's the same with.
It's the same with.
Any creative process really isnsort of financially invest in
(32:41):
that silver bucket, silverbucket, silver bullet to plug in
, or more tech.
Invest in time to actuallyunderstand what it is you're
trying to do and trying toachieve and this goes back to
your teaching as well, and Ioften find that you mentioned
that like it was Matt, wasn't itwho came into the room and said
why are you doing that?
I think, when you're at thepoint whereby you can articulate
(33:05):
why you are doing something, Ithink that then shows that you
actually understand what it isthat you are doing.
If you can confidentlyarticulate and have a
conversation about something,then that generally does show
that you probably have an ideaor understanding what it is
you're trying to achieve.
But I've been there.
I remember when I was doing mymaster's degree and I was mixing
a big band and I one part ofthat was I then had my tutor
(33:28):
come in and I was to then gothrough the mixing process of
why I've done xyz, and therewere questions.
He asked he's like why have youdone that?
And I was thinking, I don'tknow.
I read it in bobby azinski'sengineer handbook.
So I did it.
You know when I when I wasstarting out.
But as time progressed, nowI'll be able to say, well, I've
done it because of this and thisand this.
So excellent, lots of goodstuff in there.
(33:49):
Um, we are actually approachingthe end of this here.
I'll show you these.
I know these conversations do govery fast, so, um, I've got one
last question for you here, soI'm going to jump ahead a bit,
and this is to do with realworld applications.
So I thought it'd be quite niceto touch on maybe a project or
two that you've worked on in thepast.
So, as I mentioned in thebeginning, you've worked on
productions like guardians ofthe galaxy, and ted lasso had to
(34:11):
get that in there again.
Can you tell our audience aboutan example of a real world
problem you solved through thisthought first approach that
we've been discussing in thisepisode, and how it impacted the
final result?
Shane Slack (34:23):
Yeah, so I am grateful for the modalities I
picked up, both in audio,because even when I went to go
do more audio and visual, alittle bit more visual stuff
with Ted Lasso, with Deadpoolversus Wolverine and a bunch of
these other productions, justhaving that mindset helped me
problem solve so much I remember.
Let me make sure, before I saythis, that I won't get in
(34:45):
trouble under my NDA.
I'll just say, I was working ona certain IP for Marvel Disney
at the time in Burbank, inStudio City, and I remember we
had an issue with just MediaComposer, aligning not only the
audio, but then also we take theEDLs from media composer and
(35:06):
bring it into bass light andresolve to do our color grading
and all that stuff.
Now I remember there was thisissue that we had not only with
the sound and not getting theatmosphere to feel right, but
then also with a little bit ofthe color, and with the color it
was more like how do we bringthis thing out and back into
focus, like why does this notfeel like what?
I really want to draw theaudience to this, I'll start
(35:28):
with the sound and I'll go tothe visual.
With the sound, we wanted atthis certain point for the
audience to kind of feel asthough they were looking for the
character's vision itself andlike they were feeling and
hearing the sounds exactly likethe character was supposed to.
Now, again, I came from amostly audio background so I'm
(35:49):
like, okay, let me look into howdo I what's like
psychoacoustically happening tothat?
What?
What makes sound when it hitsour ears?
Like feel like that?
And I started going down therabbit hole relatively quickly
of like peanut filters andlooking at like chest bounce,
like what frequencies thoseaccentuate.
(36:10):
So I remember just putting anEQ curve that was a little bit
more automated for right thenand there on that exact channel,
that exact moment where we didlike these very sharp, like
peaks around six to 8K and allthat stuff, and you might be
coming from the mixing world andyou'll be like whoa, that's the
real harsh frequencies rightthere, what are you doing?
(36:30):
But it's like wait, wait asecond.
Based on how our ears work andhow do we echolocate for lack of
a better word any localizationof sound.
There is a chest bounce, Evenmy voice hitting this room,
reverberating off these walls,hitting.
It's also hitting my chest andit's hitting my ear because of
that.
And what do those resonancelooks like?
(36:51):
And I remember applying this andmy assistant director at the
time for that whole departmentwas like who taught you that?
And I remember saying no onereally taught me that.
I just started thinking aboutit and you know I also was like
a little bit more coy about it.
I was like, yeah, I'm a littlebit of a nerd.
So I feel like my free timespent looking up like new
(37:12):
properties for audio and thenfor the visual thing as well.
Maybe some craziness for peoplewho may or may not be doing
visual stuff, but, like, thingsthat are in the foreground
visually tend to be a lot warmer, so the white balance tends to
be a little bit more orangeyversus things in the background
which are going to be a lotcooler.
(37:35):
And just for the principles oflight, which I probably should
not even get into because I'mnerd out about that, but like
it's that, those concepts andagain, he was who taught you
that and it's like I rememberjust it was all just me thinking
and being curious enough to golook into it.
But I again thank Matt and Ithank Bob and I thank all the
(37:55):
mastering engineers that werelike my tutors or my mentors,
both those that I've met inperson, those I met only for
Mastering Engineers Worldwidehell, even some that were like
came up at the same time as me,for like always questioning and
always being like okay, so whatis actually happening here?
And that's just such an amazingquestion to constantly be
(38:18):
asking yourself, regardless ofit, like what should be
happening or why is thishappening, or what, why is this
occurring?
And again, you don't have to gomad scientist about it.
I know I'm a little bit of anerd and I like looking things
up.
But even just doing somecursory research or applications
and just asking what happens ifI do this or what happens, what
(38:38):
is this doing?
What happens if I turn this onor turn this off, it just
explodes your modalities and youjust feel like you're like wow.
Marc Matthews (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, so excellent stuff there, Shane.
And I think, to boil it down,folks, if you could take
anything from this, it's to slowdown and then question what it
is you are doing.
And I'm very much like you inthat I like to get into the
intricacies of why something isdoing something, and I do this
sort of forensically when I'vegot a reference track and I
(39:08):
start using frequency analyzersand highlighting certain
frequency bands and figuring outOK, well, that song's doing
that there.
I'm not going to match itverbatim, but if that's doing
that and I want to mirror thatand have that sort of same
effect and I can get veryanalytical and sometimes get
lost in the weeds when I'm doingthis I can get very analytical
and sometimes get lost in theweeds when I'm doing this.
And then I come out of asession I'm thinking I'm not
(39:28):
entirely sure what I've donethere, but somehow it's worked.
But folks yes, anything fromthis episode question what
you're doing and slow down aswell.
Can I add one quick thing?
Yeah, go ahead, yeah.
Shane Slack (39:39):
So to anybody listening too, we are working in
audio.
I would highly recommend thatyou get proper reference
material, and I'm not talkingabout going on YouTube, not
going on Spotify.
I would rather tell you go playfor a CoBuzz, go pay for a
Tidal, go to a Bandcamp, getoriginal Flax and Wave files,
(39:59):
because the other thing that'sreally happening right now is
that we're getting a lot of overprocessing over compression.
Another thing that's reallyhappening right now is that
we're getting a lot of overprocessing over compression.
It's because a lot of people donot understand what these DSPs
or sharing platforms are doingto the original source.
Go to Cold Buds, go to theirsubscription.
Not only do they pay artists alot more per stream like five
cents per stream but you'redealing with original flaks and
(40:22):
waveforms at the original studiosample rate that was delivered
and the amount of detail youcould hear on those.
Once you have a great likeframe of reference, even more
questions start gettingdisappearing and you're like wow
, wait a second, I'm a littledoing too much, but that's just
my quick tidbit.
You just reminded me no no,it's, it's very good.
Marc Matthews (40:42):
I'm glad you mentioned.
I'm glad you mentioned itbecause I don't think it's.
I've beaten the drum ofreference material on the
podcast many a time, but I'venever actually mentioned where
to get your reference materialfrom.
So fantastic stuff.
Shane, thank you for spendingthis time with me today.
I appreciate you're a very busyman, so it's been amazing to
deep dive into your problemsolving philosophy.
(41:02):
So, before we wrap up, is thereanything you'd like to share
with the audience?
And, and, or where can theyfind you online if they want to
learn more about what you'redoing and and just yeah,
basically, where can they findyou?
Shane Slack (41:14):
yeah, so they can find me at my secondary engineer
, noah drake hartman, over atmonotheoryorg.
Right now we are fixing up oursquare space and making it a
little bit more intuitive forclients to kind of come in and
book.
But if there's anything that Ireally wanted to like share with
the audience, especially in ourlittle niche and field, is like
I know it's overwhelming rightnow and I know that, like the
(41:36):
industry seems to be in a gianttizzy and modality shift across
the world, all I can say to youis the standards have gotten
higher.
We have to hold ourselves to ahigher standard.
We have to hold ourselves to ahigher echelon.
There's a lot of just fast foodout there, for lack of a better
word fast food engineering.
Fast food production beatswhatever the heck else of this
(41:59):
and you might just feel likedamn, I'm not at the level and I
think I should just go.
Do that.
Trust me, your integrity andyour consistency always pays off
.
I would not have thought Iwould be where I'm at ever.
I had no foresight, no ideas ofit, and it's just staying
consistent, staying active, staylearning.
(42:20):
Always be a student and evenmore than that, don't be afraid
to embarrass yourself or saysomething wrong and be corrected
, and especially be corrected.
That's the only way you'regoing to get better and, who
knows, maybe in a very shortperiod of time you're just going
to level up and now you'regoing to be in circles and be
(42:41):
whatever it is that you weresearching for, even something
you couldn't even fathom.
So please stay consistent in it.
Absorb as much material, makeas many mistakes, slow down, eat
your vegetables, drink water, Idon't know.
Marc Matthews (42:55):
Just yeah, yeah yeah, all of that and everything
in between shade.
Fantastic advice there.
I absolutely love it.
It has been a pleasure chattingwith you today and, uh, been a
long time coming, and I'll leaveyou now to enjoy the rest of
your day and I will catch upwith you soon.
Folks, before you go, I want tohear from you.
I want to know your favoriteepisode of the Inside the Mix
(43:16):
podcast.
Alternatively, you could justreview this episode, click the
SpeakPipe link in the episodedescription and you can record
an audio message detailing yourfavorite episode and why, and
also give yourself a shout out.
All you need is your mobilephone.
You don't need a SpeakPipeaccount.
You don't need to download anapp.
It's just like sending me anaudio message via WhatsApp or
(43:38):
whatever messaging platform youuse.
As soon as I get your audio,you will be entered in that
month's draw to win a Starbuckscoffee voucher, and if you don't
like coffee, just give it tosomeone else and pretend that
you bought it for them.
All you need to do is clickthat speak pipe link and send me
an audio message reviewing thisepisode or a previous episode
(43:59):
and give yourself a shout out.
over processing.
That's a big deal right now inthe mix community that I'm just
kind of abashed by, because it'sjust like the further along I
got in audio and the better Igot at it, the less processing I
was doing and I was making alot better decisions and it was
not always like, oh, I need touse always Pro-Q3 or Kershoff or
Equilibrium or oh, I need touse X, y and Z all the time,
(00:24):
like there's not this, like thisbinary thinking that's
happening.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Marc Matthews (00:34):
Welcome to Inside the Mix, your go-to podcast for
music creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome back to theInside the Mix podcast.
(00:59):
In this episode, I'm thrilledto introduce my guest today,
shane Slack, founder and leadengineer of Mono Theory.
So a little bit about Shanehere.
So I've got his bio here, soI'm going to read from this.
He's got an extraordinarybackground, having established a
minority-operated audiofacility in 2021 and honed his
(01:19):
craft through mentorship withindustry legends like Matt Davis
and Bob Katz.
I love Bob Katz, love Bob Katz,and I've actually got his
mastering audio book.
It's always on my desk, satright there.
That was one of my Bibles whenI was doing my master's degree
Love it.
His unconventional career pathmastering before mixing which
we're going to touch on in thisepisode has given him
unparalleled skills in listening, analysis and precision in
(01:41):
audio production, and you'velikely heard his work on
productions for Apple TV, disney, marvel Studios and shows like
Ted Lasso Love Ted Lasso.
I recently got into that at theend of last year and, as a
football fan, I don't know how Ididn't get into it sooner.
Absolutely love it, shane,thank you for joining me today.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Thank you for having me Been along time coming.
(02:02):
It has hasn't it I always findthat when I do these interviews
and I talk to the individual,the interviewee and I put them
together months in advance.
So, looking forward to this one, we're kicking off 2025 with
this interview today, so in thisepisode, folks, we're going to
be mastering the thought process.
So this is all about problemsolving and audio production.
So Shane's got some top tipsthat he's going to go through
(02:24):
with us today.
So first question is aboutunderstanding the source.
So in the lead up to this, yourapproach emphasizes
understanding the problem beforeapplying any solutions.
Can you talk about yourphilosophy and why this is so
important and how you teachproducers and engineers to think
more critically about theirsource material?
Shane Slack (02:45):
Well, yeah, so, as I already kind of established to
you beforehand, I learned howto master before I learned how
to mix.
Back here, I was going toschool in Valencia, which is
here in central Florida, orlandoand I was picked up by Bob and
Matt and really was under theirtutelage immediately afterwards
and one of the things theyalways had was this Hippocratic
(03:08):
Oath when it came to audio,which is always do no harm.
Now, the way that theydeveloped the Hippocratic Oath
was that they are verydelineating and very particular
about the source material andany sort of nonlinear processing
or linear processing that we'redoing in order to make that
source sound a lot better.
And you know, one of thebiggest challenges I've noticed
(03:29):
with many engineers, like boththose that are starting out and
like those that have been like alittle bit further on in their
careers but maybe not at thelevel that they want to be, is a
tendency to kind of prioritizeshortcuts and presets and quick
fixes rather than kind of likedeveloping, like a deeper
understanding of, like thefundamental approaches and
(03:50):
techniques.
You know, something as simpleas, like loudness optimization.
We see a lot of people stillunder this colloquial, like
modality of just thinking like,oh yeah, let me make something
loud.
I'll throw like a compressor orlimiter on it and that, will
you know, generate like the RMSthat will generate the LUFS that
I'm really looking for.
Not really understanding, like,why am I reaching for that?
(04:11):
Why am I reaching for thisprocess?
Why is this process kind of thestandardization of it, like
what is developing loudness?
You know what is the science ofthat?
And again, working from Mattand you know a little bit with
Bob, like they really have abreakdown of this and trying to
(04:33):
really get to understand whythis is happening.
You know what is loudness?
Well, loudness is, you know,it's over a period of time of
time.
We can have a signal that'slike 125 dB, but if it's
accounting for like onemillisecond versus, like you
know, like a 90 dB signal,that's happening for three
seconds, just the way of ourthreshold of hearing and the way
that our ears works and ourfawns and the cochlea and all
(04:56):
that stuff, the way that theseare all reacting, that's how you
develop loudness.
It's over a period of time.
It's not an instantaneous thing, it's an over period of time
way of thinking.
Now, granted, this is not, youknow, the most immediate
knowledge that you would get outthere on like platforms such as
YouTube, instagram, tiktok oranything else like that, and,
frankly, you know, for a lot ofpeople it might be just way too
(05:18):
above level.
But the reason why I reallyenjoy that is that I can bring
it back down to a moresimplified level and just think
like, ok, you know, maybe Idon't need to reach for a
compressor or limiter, maybethere needs to be something just
happening over time, maybe awave shaper, maybe a clipper,
which can also, you know, changethe whole RMS and even the
(05:38):
crest factor over a period oftime.
And that may be even a betterway to do it.
It may be a less detrimentalway, but like, the scenario I
always talk to my students about, this is like imagine you have
to fix a piece of drywall or youhave to hang up a painting.
How are you gonna get that nailon the wall?
(05:59):
Some people are like, oh, justgrab a hammer and just do it.
Well.
It's like well, okay, but whatother factors are we on you?
You know a low bearing beam,are we on this?
Where is that?
But like, developing thatmodality and developing that
level of thinking is sotantamount to then becoming a
lot more successful in youraudio career and also removing a
lot of these like immediatequestions that you kind of just
start developing, you know yeah,it's uh, I I really like what
(06:23):
you said there aboutunderstanding what it is you're
trying to achieve and I thinkthat's paramount and important.
Marc Matthews (06:30):
And, um, going back to what you said about the
hippocratic oath, that it's kindof weird that you mentioned
that, because just off air, wewere talking about my trip to
coz and I went to um the tree ofhippocrates while I was there,
um, so it's kind of odd that youmentioned that, um, but I love
that, the idea, idea that youshall do no harm.
So you mentioned that aboutshortcuts and presets, and it's
almost like with our.
It might be a sweepingstatement, not necessarily even
(06:53):
generations, but everybody wantssomething really fast, they
want it done now, they want itquickly.
It's our attention span is whatI think I was getting at.
It's like when somethingdoesn't load a website doesn't
load I immediately just go toanother one If it doesn't load
straight away.
My attention span and myability to wait has decreased
(07:15):
throughout time.
Why do you think there is thisidea you mentioned about
shortcuts and presets?
Why do you think people arereaching for that first rather
than actually thinking?
You know what I really need tounderstand?
You mentioned there about thenail in the drywall first,
rather than actually thinkingyou know what I really need to
understand you mentioned thereabout the nail in the drywall
rather than understanding thealmost like the physics behind
what it is they're trying toachieve, why are they were
searching for these presets andthese cutting, cookie cutter
(07:36):
approaches first?
Shane Slack (07:37):
well, you see these presets and cookie cutters.
They do offer semi a guideline,and once people start getting
used to kind of seeing thesepresets or like kind of seeing,
like okay, this is what I'm kindof noticing in common they
think like, oh, that's just theanswer to everything.
The problem is is that likeeven something that's like a
vocal chain and I had to go overmy secondary engineer with this
(07:58):
too, like multiple times youknow your voice and my voice
sound completely different.
Now, the processing that workson your voice is not gonna work
on my voice and you know justanother analogy, because I also
cook.
You know it's almost likepeople get really mad at
vegetarian or vegan food and saylike, oh, this is nothing like
(08:22):
a burger or anything else likethat, because they're not
letting the vegetable be avegetable.
They're trying to make it intoa meat.
Conversely, with audio and withvocals, you're trying to make
my vocal fit into a cookiecutter mold or somebody else's
or your client's vocal, andyou're not really being
discerning and you're not beingreally qualitative in really
(08:44):
developing a personalized chainfor each section.
So it's like even my own audiosessions when I do my own
productions and a little bit ofthe mixing before I handed them
off.
It was just like the presetwasn't necessarily.
Oh yeah, my Pro Tools session.
I have all my drums going forwaves, nos, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, or all my vocals.
(09:05):
I'm running for an 1176,everything else like that.
My presets are moreorganizational but very blank.
There is no X, y and Z.
I'm going in there each timewith one refreshed and like
brand new canvas and I'mpainting with audio, completely
different each time, and I'mbeing like all right, where do
you want to take me?
(09:26):
Where does this want to go?
What am I missing in this?
And again, it's easy forpresets and we live in a
fast-paced culture nowadays.
Like everybody just wants toimmediately grab a preset
because they don't have time,but like you can't develop speed
without accuracy and you can'tdevelop accuracy without being
(09:46):
slow and you have to slow down.
And don't get me wrong, evenwhen I started out, I was
grabbing and downloading allpresets imaginable, some of them
great, some of them not sogreat after the fact.
But I remember, right when Istarted working with Matt Davis
and right after I graduated fromValencia, and really taking
(10:08):
some time to really slow downand really understand.
Okay, why do?
I constantly see this band at3.2K, what's going on there?
And then slowly reading Bob'sbook understanding okay, that's
where the presence is.
So instead of me just grabbinga preset of, oh, I need to
(10:29):
increase the presence of that.
I'm like, okay, I know it'saround 3.2K, now I can go for a
softer cue, I can go for a widercue, I can go for a little bit
of a dynamic, everything elselike that, and you start just
developing this vocabulary forunderstanding it.
And I really encourage all mystudents and everybody else to
(10:50):
just presets are fine, butreally dive deep into it and
really try to understand what isit it's doing at this point.
Marc Matthews (10:56):
Most definitely Excellent advice there, and I
think that's paramount.
And it's kind of like it almostechoes, in a way, the idea that
I've said this on the podcastbefore with other interviews,
the idea that maybe, rather thanreaching for another plugin and
another preset to try and solvea problem, maybe you need to
think about actually do I reallyunderstand what compression is,
(11:19):
bands and what I'm trying toachieve here, before you then go
online and you see an advertthat says this is the silver
bullet plug-in that is going toyou're going to put it on your
mix bus and it's just going tomix it for you, rather than
immediately fall into that trap,you know, to just really hone
in and understand what it isyou're trying to do.
(11:39):
And this kind of leads onnicely to my next question.
So you mentioned masteringbefore mixing as part of your
career journey.
So my question is how has thisshaped your perspective on
problem solving in audioproduction, and what can mix
engineers learn from masteringtechniques when analyzing a
track?
Shane Slack (11:56):
you know it's very funny.
So right towards the tail endof 2024 my colleague and good
friend, ian shepherd, on hismastering podcast, was actually
talking to an engineer whoworked at Abbey Road.
And at Abbey Road I found outthey kind of do the exact same
journey that I was in and Ididn't even realize it, where
(12:18):
they don't touch a mix, theydon't touch a recording.
They start with mastering, thenthey go to mixing, then they go
to tracking and recording andwhat I think this does is it
gives.
Instead of starting from asmall picture and going big
again, you're starting from themacro and going back down to the
micro.
So it's almost like you startfrom like a bird's eye view.
(12:39):
And because I learned andworked under a mastering
engineer before I even reallyhad a good grasp on mixing, I
was starting to see what thecommon imbalances and problems
and things that were happeningand maybe even occurrences that
the mix engineer is not evenaccounting for, like detrimental
(12:59):
monitoring environments and how, room resonance and modal
activities, having themovercompensate and compensate
and under compensate certainthings, or even like over
distorting.
You know there's a tendency ofmixing to just believe that all
saturation, all distortion, it'sjust gonna create like this
amazing tonality.
But then you take it into alike a laboratory environment,
(13:21):
like a mastering studio, aproperly calibrated mastering
studio.
You really start understandingthe issues of reproduction.
You know the reason why wedon't always just fuzz and
distort everything is that, like, playback systems are not
standardized.
You know you can go to a club,you can go to a different studio
and just the monitoringplayback.
How can you tell that thatdistortion is meant for the song
(13:42):
?
How can you tell if that'sbecause your woofer or your
driver is distorting?
And again, getting this bird'seye view of all these kind of
common issues and tonalimbalances and everything else
like that, it starts getting youmore aware.
So that way, when I started tolearn how to mix, I was a lot
more cognizant of these issues.
(14:04):
Like, okay, don't make surewe're not causing over presence.
Okay, even the very commonthing of checking things in mono
.
Master engineers check thingsin mono and especially for their
low end, because they need tomake sure that this is
reproducible, especially ifyou're coming onto a beats pod
or in a club environment in thegenre that you work in, like
(14:25):
even like you do dance music, Ido dance music like it doesn't
matter, like if the low end andthe infrasonics are not linear
and standardized coming out ofall speakers, that whole track
is just going to fall apart.
Or if it's overly distorted.
You know, woofers are verysubwoofers, are very keen on
distorting that down there.
Like how do we again, how do wemake sure and how do we
(14:46):
delineate from that?
But that's again, you startmacro and you start working your
way back down to micro.
But because you had theoverarching image and you had
developed just all theseobservational theories of oh
yeah, make sure that we're notoverdoing this, make sure that
this is giving enough room tobreathe all that stuff it can.
(15:10):
Just to me I feel like morepeople should go down that route
, which I was fortunate enoughto live in an area and work with
a mastering engineers in myarea and it's much harder
nowadays but like that's kind ofmy goal with my students is
trying to get them to think likea mastering engineer, so that
way when they mix and producethere's just they're way above
the threshold of excellencethat's usually coming out
(15:31):
nowadays yeah, that makes ahundred, that makes total sense.
Marc Matthews (15:35):
And I like what you said about the macro to the
micro.
And in my head I'm thinking thisis going back to my teaching
days when I'd put a presentationtogether and I'd start with the
conclusion and then workbackwards.
So I know what the end goal is,I know what my learning
objectives are Tenuous link butI'm working backwards to meet
that success criteria.
(15:56):
And I think it also helps withconversations as well.
So if you're an engineerproducer and you're interacting
with a mastering engineer, whenthey're having that conversation
with you, you're able to think,okay, yes, I know what LUFS, I
know what RMS is, I know whatLRA is, I know what they're
talking about and I know how tothen go into my mixing session
and make those tweaks andchanges if I do need to.
So my question to you withregards to that is, if you are
(16:21):
starting out and you're thinkingthe listeners are thinking,
okay, well, I'm going to startwith mastering now, I'm going to
move into that and just get myteeth into it and just
understand it a bit more, whatshould they start with?
What part of mastering shouldthey start with first, do you
think?
Shane Slack (16:35):
One of the things that I very much believe in and
I've even told some of my mixingclients before we moved them on
to different studios is I wouldalmost rather you do a mix on
your own, try to mix it yourself, but then go to a mastering
engineer, and the reason I dothat is because, again, these
(16:55):
are laboratory calibratedenvironments.
Every mastering engineer that Ihave had the distinct honor of
either working for, calling acolleague or even now, good
friends, they really do careabout the craft and a lot of
mixed engineers.
There's just a plethora ofinformation, a sea of
information online andunfortunately, some of it's good
(17:16):
.
Most of it is various levels ofwhat I would consider
inaccurate or just flat outwrong, but a mastering engineer,
they are so dedicated to thefidelity and the quality of the
craft that they're not going tohold any secrets.
They're not going to give youbad notes, or at least any of
(17:39):
the ones that I know.
They will tell you like hey,look, you have an overemphasis
on your mid-bass range.
Or hey, you have a lot of I'mguessing you have a lot of modal
activity, maybe because yourmonitors may not be aligned and
all that stuff.
But they will give youqualitative notes on where your
deficiencies are.
Mix engineers at least for theones that I've had partnered
(18:01):
with for times and periods oftimes.
They're very much about like ohyeah, it's my proprietary
secret plug-in chain.
They're very almost a littletoo braggadocious.
Some of it warranted, some ofit not, but you need to educate
your client.
If you can't educate yourclient on the problem, how can
you give them the solution?
And mastering engineers just dothat.
(18:21):
Now, if you're trying to getstarted in mastering engineers
or starting to be a masteringengineer, better grammar.
One of the best resources thatwe had is this forum on Facebook
that I was briefly a moderatorfor.
It called Mastering EngineersWorldwide.
Every single mastering engineerof importance is in that group
(18:44):
For various degrees of wantingto be or not, depending on where
it's at that day.
They're all in there, butthere's a plethora of knowledge
in there and there's just somuch.
And they're so open to talk toyou about it and they're willing
open to talk to you about itand they're willing to educate
you.
We have this like viewpoint thatmastering is this dark art,
which is kind of true, which iskind of a little bit of the
(19:06):
mastering engineer's fault forlike being a little too
secretive, but like that wholenomenclature and that whole
modality is changing now theyknow the importance of this and
they again, they care, careabout audio.
They care about it, it's noteven just the music side of it,
they care about the fidelity andthey have all this knowledge
that they're willing to spreadto the next generation.
And for me I just tell them hey, either go pay a mastering
(19:32):
engineer, whether a big one or asmall one, a legitimate one,
not a mix engineer that masters,a dedicated mastering engineer
to give your track a listenthrough and ask for notes back,
let them give you feedback back.
Or, if you're looking to be one, go join Mastering Engineers
Worldwide, or go pick up Bob'sbook, you know, and start
developing the modality to thinklike one.
Marc Matthews (19:55):
Indeed, I'm an advocate of all that.
Mastering Engineers Worldwideis a fantastic group.
I remember when I joined, andthen you see the names pop up
that we've mentioned today onthe podcast and they're just
randomly in conversations andother mastering engineers that
I've had on the podcast as well,like Ian Stewart, for example.
I see his name regularly cropup in that particular forum.
And the book as well.
The podcast Mastering Audiobook is is fantastic, but all
(20:19):
fantastic stuff.
There is a question that I hadoff the.
This is a slightly tenuous one.
I might be putting you on thespot here a bit, but you
mentioned about it's kind ofthat iceberg idea that all this
information on the internet andthat top tip of the iceberg
above the water is what's good,and then you've got all this
other, these other bits andpieces underneath that maybe
less so.
Is there a common misconceptionthat you see in terms of
(20:42):
information that is out there onthe internet at the moment with
regards to maybe mixing and ormastering?
Shane Slack (20:47):
again, I am putting you on the spot here, so I
appreciate if you don't have ananswer so at least for mixing at
least, what I'm a lot morecognitive of going back a little
bit to the shortcuts and goingback to like, oh, this is what
jason, jason Joshua does, orthis is what Josh Goodwin does,
or this is what you know X, yand Z does.
I feel like there's amisconception, that kind of
(21:09):
happens there.
It's again they fall into likethat preset, like, oh, we do
this at every single stage.
Having like briefly interactedwith some of these people, that
is not always the case.
Sometimes they have thosethings on, sometimes they turn
things off, but again we're kindof developing a very fast,
(21:29):
almost McDonald's fast foodmentality towards our processing
and there's not enough timebeing like, hey, let's turn down
the processing or even likeover processing.
That's a big deal right now inthe mix community that I'm just
kind of abashed by, because it'sjust like the further along I
got in audio and the better Igot at it, the less processing I
(21:51):
was doing and I was making alot better decisions and it was
not always like oh, I need touse always Pro-Q3 or Kershaw for
equilibrium, or oh, I need touse X, pro q3 or kershoff or
equilibrium, or oh, I need touse x, y and z all the time,
like there's not this, like thisbinary thinking that's
happening.
It's more like this is theproblem.
This is the solution I'mlooking for.
(22:12):
Or, you know, even in mixingright now I have a big thing
about like envelope, which whatI mean by that is why I feel
like a lot of people's mixes areso two-dimensional and so flat
sounding is they're not reallyaccentuating and adding back
like movement into that mix.
And I'm not just talking aboutlike just volume automation on
(22:34):
its own, like even like what isgroove.
I have a theory like groovetheory is envelope.
You know, I'll throw like LFOtool or like you know Devious
machines, duck on something andeven if it's like it's only
doing a one to two percent, likeyou know, attenuation or
anything else like that, that'sgoing on.
It starts creating like thesense of like feeling over time,
(22:57):
and that's where's where peoplekind of get a little bit more
locked in.
I've done it with vocals, I'vedone it with pads, I've done it
with my drums themselves.
I've dragged in drum samples,kick drum samples, and even if
the envelope is pretty good asit is, I'll still grab, duck and
have it be triggered every time.
And it's like all of a suddenand even my secondary engineer
(23:17):
and everybody I've shown it tohas seen it it's like, wow, that
feels a lot more locked in.
Or you know, even the other wayI've been creating depth, like
I've showed another colleague ofmine.
It's like how do you createdepth in the mix?
And they immediately reach forsaturation.
And I'm like, well, that's, youknow, that's an easy way to do
(23:40):
it.
Let's talk about a differentway.
What about bit depth?
And he was like what do youmean?
And I grabbed like an abletonredux because we were in ableton
at the time.
Usually I use d16's decimal,but I'm like your audience has
no idea what the bit depth ofyour sample of the source is.
So like what?
if I put my drums in 12 bit, andwhat if I put my my pads in 14
bit and all that stuff?
And I'm doing it in mono andhe's like, wow, why is it even
(24:03):
in mono?
It just sounds like there'slike a three-dimensionality to
it and it's like, well, becauseagain it's biasing against each
other, but now you're creatingdepth that works both in mono
and in stereo, and also becausethings that are a lot going to
be of higher bit depth are goingto feel a lot more defined and
you're going to draw youraudience's attention cycle
acoustically to that element.
(24:23):
So it's like I leave my bassesat like 32 or 24 bit and they're
like why does your bass justsound so much more in focus?
And maybe this is a little bitof my visual background and
videography as well, but it'sjust that same thing of a camera
lens.
It's like I want something tobe in focus.
Everything else in thebackground may be a little bit
out of focus, but this thing Iwant you to pay attention and
(24:45):
listen to or look at.
That's going to be in focus andthat's how I create depth.
And they're like, wow, this isgenius, no one's ever thought
about that.
And I'm like's you knowexperimentation and also just
thinking about like, okay, whatelse could I do to create that
sense of depth?
Marc Matthews (25:03):
Yeah, I love the idea of bit depth.
I'm going to magpie that, as wesay in a production I'm working
on at the moment, as soon asyou mentioned it and described
it, and I love the analogy ofthe camera as well, what you did
there.
When you're focusing because itmakes perfect sense, right,
you're focusing on something andeverything in the background
starts to blur.
And, yeah, the bit depth one,I'm totally going to steal an
(25:24):
audience listening.
If you do that as well, let meknow how you get on, because I I
really do like that idea.
When you mentioned the envelopethere, just for the audience
listening, you're talking aboutattack, decay, sustain, release
yes, or even like things overtime.
Shane Slack (25:37):
like yeah, just something happening over time,
like even, like, allow me to goeven crazier with it.
Marc Matthews (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, multi-band.
Shane Slack (25:43):
Like multi-band compression.
Everyone's just going to stillthink about multi-band
compression as, like you know,something that's going to change
, like the time and frequencyresponse of the source.
Why can't you use that as agroove accentuator?
You can.
What if you have it like again,you could sidechain it to your
clap, you could sidechain it orwhatever.
But what if you just have thisthing that's just ever so
(26:05):
slightly just adding you coulddo the most minute of gain
reductions.
I've done it on Pro-MB backwhen I used it down to half a dB
or dB and you feel it and it'slike again, why does this feel
more locked in?
But it's just a different wayof thinking about these things.
It's things happening over time.
That's what makes like a lot ofsongs or a lot of music or even
(26:28):
audio exciting, and it's justlike even in real life, things
are happening over time.
Nothing's at the stagnant, likesame level.
There's something alwayshappening and it's also part of
the reason why people likeanalog gear.
Analog gear is imperfect, butit's never constant.
Every picosecond, microsecond,all the stuff, there's always
something fluctuating and that'show you create that feeling in
(26:51):
the box.
Marc Matthews (26:52):
You know, just start creating that that makes
perfect sense and it the way youdescribe it.
You can almost visualize how itsuddenly is no longer
two-dimensional and it makesperfect sense what you mentioned
there, with the multi-bandcompression as well.
So lots to take away audiencelistening and to improve and add
groove, as it were, and justmovement and stop your mixes
(27:15):
becoming static.
So moving on to my nextquestion.
So excellent advice there,shane.
So this is we've already kindof touched on this a bit.
So this is avoiding the plug-inchain trap.
What's your advice for breakingout of this habit and
approaching audio problems witha more analytical mindset?
Shane Slack (27:34):
So what I did for myself was I only limited myself
.
I put like a little hard limitof three to four processes on
one vocal or one little source.
And one of the best things thatMatt did for me, especially
when I was interning for him, isI was going in there, you know,
all bright eyed, like wow, I'min an amazing studio working on
(27:57):
PMCs, all this gear, and I'mdoing one of my first ever
masters, and he comes in andhe's like, oh yeah, what are you
doing there?
And I'm like, oh, I think atthe time I was just like EQing
around like the middle 400, 500range and all that stuff.
But one of the things he keptasking was okay, why are you
doing that?
Now at first when you're a kid,when I younger, I'm like like am
(28:20):
I not supposed to do that, allthat stuff.
But like, the more experience Igot with him, the more I was
like, oh no, he's asking that tomake sure that.
Like I'm asking myself that,why am I grabbing for that?
Why am I doing it?
Can I explain what exactly I'mdoing?
If you can explain it, you canrationalize it.
And who, who knows?
You just have that phenomenontoo.
Where you're explain it, youcan rationalize it.
And who knows?
You just have that phenomenontoo.
Where you're now explaining it,you're like, all of a sudden,
(28:42):
like a new neuron in your brainjust decides to turn back on for
some reason.
You're like, oh wait, I couldhave also done this.
But the plug-in chain trap is soantithetical to that way of
thinking because it's just likedo this, don't think about it
Now.
Granted, there's times whereyou don't want to think about
things and over-analysis and theparalysis that can come from
(29:03):
that can be quite debilitating.
But really slow down, reallythink.
Why am I reaching for this?
Why am I doing this sort of EQmove?
Why am I doing a high passversus a low shelf attenuation?
Am I doing a high pass versus alow shelf attenuation.
(29:23):
What happens if I change thatout for that?
Okay, maybe the low pass soundsa lot more natural and maybe
that's what we're going for,something that's a little bit
more transparent.
When we put back in like a 18dB high pass, okay, it doesn't
feel as transparent, but there'sjust something going on in the
hypersonics that feels like alot better to me.
How do I start choosing betweenthe two?
(29:46):
Again, it all goes back toslowing your process down.
You develop your speed.
You're not going to hit thetreadmill and you're not going
to hit a 3K by sitting on thecouch and just immediately
getting up and like, yeah, I'mgoing to run a 3K straight with
no training.
This is training.
You have to train yourself andit's the hard work.
But all the engineers, all theproducers, who are really doing
(30:07):
incredible work in our industry,they've done that time.
They've done that work.
Don't let the videos onlinepublicly with a company or
whatever fool you.
These people know what they'redoing and they put in that time
to slow down.
And again, you're not going tothink about many years from now,
months from now, even weeksfrom now for some of you, when
(30:29):
you're at the level of waybetter level of success than you
wanted.
You're not thinking about, damn, I spent three days just
figuring out eq movements ordamn, I really just spent three
days like using my stockcompressor or like an 1176 style
compressor.
No, you're not thinking aboutthat, because this is all it
just becomes, not even just haveit.
(30:50):
It's just you enter like a flowstate with it.
Someone can throw something infront of me now and it's like I
don't have to think about it.
And if you would have told mein like 2018, 2019, that I would
reach that level, I would havebeen like I don't know, did I
hit like a hyperbolic timechamber?
Am I like on some goku stuffnow?
But like no, it's just you putin the effort and all of a
(31:11):
sudden, things just slowly,slowly build up.
So, and again, for anybodythat's listening, i'm'm not
against presets, I'm not againstlike some guidelines.
All I ask of you, the bareminimum, is, at some point
whenever in your day, before youuse this and before you apply
this to a client's mix, reallysit there and break it down.
(31:32):
Okay, why is he going twocompressors?
Why is he doing this?
Why is he doing that?
Why is this doing that?
What happens if I take this out?
Just start experimenting andstart understanding all the key
ingredients of that componentand slowly but surely.
It's not going to happenovernight.
You're not going to be at Mensalevel like I think Matt and Bob
(31:54):
are, but you'll startdeveloping it and you'll just,
it will be so conducive.
Marc Matthews (32:00):
I stress and beg of you, all of you yeah, yes,
100 and um, and I've got of allof that and there's a there's a
bit, a fair bit, to unpack there.
So I've made some notes, as you, as you were talking there, and
you mentioned there about time,and it's that compound effect,
isn't it?
It's like when you I'm aguitarist when I first picked up
the guitar, I was shocking andit took time for me to learn how
(32:21):
to play Probably still quiteshocking now, to be fair.
I picked it up in a while andit took time for me to learn
that instrument and get betterat it.
And that it's the same with.
It's the same with.
Any creative process really isnsort of financially invest in
(32:41):
that silver bucket, silverbucket, silver bullet to plug in
, or more tech.
Invest in time to actuallyunderstand what it is you're
trying to do and trying toachieve and this goes back to
your teaching as well, and Ioften find that you mentioned
that like it was Matt, wasn't itwho came into the room and said
why are you doing that?
I think, when you're at thepoint whereby you can articulate
(33:05):
why you are doing something, Ithink that then shows that you
actually understand what it isthat you are doing.
If you can confidentlyarticulate and have a
conversation about something,then that generally does show
that you probably have an ideaor understanding what it is
you're trying to achieve.
But I've been there.
I remember when I was doing mymaster's degree and I was mixing
a big band and I one part ofthat was I then had my tutor
(33:28):
come in and I was to then gothrough the mixing process of
why I've done xyz, and therewere questions.
He asked he's like why have youdone that?
And I was thinking, I don'tknow.
I read it in bobby azinski'sengineer handbook.
So I did it.
You know when I when I wasstarting out.
But as time progressed, nowI'll be able to say, well, I've
done it because of this and thisand this.
So excellent, lots of goodstuff in there.
(33:49):
Um, we are actually approachingthe end of this here.
I'll show you these.
I know these conversations do govery fast, so, um, I've got one
last question for you here, soI'm going to jump ahead a bit,
and this is to do with realworld applications.
So I thought it'd be quite niceto touch on maybe a project or
two that you've worked on in thepast.
So, as I mentioned in thebeginning, you've worked on
productions like guardians ofthe galaxy, and ted lasso had to
(34:11):
get that in there again.
Can you tell our audience aboutan example of a real world
problem you solved through thisthought first approach that
we've been discussing in thisepisode, and how it impacted the
final result?
Shane Slack (34:23):
Yeah, so I am grateful for the modalities I
picked up, both in audio,because even when I went to go
do more audio and visual, alittle bit more visual stuff
with Ted Lasso, with Deadpoolversus Wolverine and a bunch of
these other productions, justhaving that mindset helped me
problem solve so much I remember.
Let me make sure, before I saythis, that I won't get in
(34:45):
trouble under my NDA.
I'll just say, I was working ona certain IP for Marvel Disney
at the time in Burbank, inStudio City, and I remember we
had an issue with just MediaComposer, aligning not only the
audio, but then also we take theEDLs from media composer and
(35:06):
bring it into bass light andresolve to do our color grading
and all that stuff.
Now I remember there was thisissue that we had not only with
the sound and not getting theatmosphere to feel right, but
then also with a little bit ofthe color, and with the color it
was more like how do we bringthis thing out and back into
focus, like why does this notfeel like what?
I really want to draw theaudience to this, I'll start
(35:28):
with the sound and I'll go tothe visual.
With the sound, we wanted atthis certain point for the
audience to kind of feel asthough they were looking for the
character's vision itself andlike they were feeling and
hearing the sounds exactly likethe character was supposed to.
Now, again, I came from amostly audio background so I'm
(35:49):
like, okay, let me look into howdo I what's like
psychoacoustically happening tothat?
What?
What makes sound when it hitsour ears?
Like feel like that?
And I started going down therabbit hole relatively quickly
of like peanut filters andlooking at like chest bounce,
like what frequencies thoseaccentuate.
(36:10):
So I remember just putting anEQ curve that was a little bit
more automated for right thenand there on that exact channel,
that exact moment where we didlike these very sharp, like
peaks around six to 8K and allthat stuff, and you might be
coming from the mixing world andyou'll be like whoa, that's the
real harsh frequencies rightthere, what are you doing?
(36:30):
But it's like wait, wait asecond.
Based on how our ears work andhow do we echolocate for lack of
a better word any localizationof sound.
There is a chest bounce, Evenmy voice hitting this room,
reverberating off these walls,hitting.
It's also hitting my chest andit's hitting my ear because of
that.
And what do those resonancelooks like?
(36:51):
And I remember applying this andmy assistant director at the
time for that whole departmentwas like who taught you that?
And I remember saying no onereally taught me that.
I just started thinking aboutit and you know I also was like
a little bit more coy about it.
I was like, yeah, I'm a littlebit of a nerd.
So I feel like my free timespent looking up like new
(37:12):
properties for audio and thenfor the visual thing as well.
Maybe some craziness for peoplewho may or may not be doing
visual stuff, but, like, thingsthat are in the foreground
visually tend to be a lot warmer, so the white balance tends to
be a little bit more orangeyversus things in the background
which are going to be a lotcooler.
(37:35):
And just for the principles oflight, which I probably should
not even get into because I'mnerd out about that, but like
it's that, those concepts andagain, he was who taught you
that and it's like I rememberjust it was all just me thinking
and being curious enough to golook into it.
But I again thank Matt and Ithank Bob and I thank all the
(37:55):
mastering engineers that werelike my tutors or my mentors,
both those that I've met inperson, those I met only for
Mastering Engineers Worldwidehell, even some that were like
came up at the same time as me,for like always questioning and
always being like okay, so whatis actually happening here?
And that's just such an amazingquestion to constantly be
(38:18):
asking yourself, regardless ofit, like what should be
happening or why is thishappening, or what, why is this
occurring?
And again, you don't have to gomad scientist about it.
I know I'm a little bit of anerd and I like looking things
up.
But even just doing somecursory research or applications
and just asking what happens ifI do this or what happens, what
(38:38):
is this doing?
What happens if I turn this onor turn this off, it just
explodes your modalities and youjust feel like you're like wow.
Marc Matthews (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, so excellent stuff there, Shane.
And I think, to boil it down,folks, if you could take
anything from this, it's to slowdown and then question what it
is you are doing.
And I'm very much like you inthat I like to get into the
intricacies of why something isdoing something, and I do this
sort of forensically when I'vegot a reference track and I
(39:08):
start using frequency analyzersand highlighting certain
frequency bands and figuring outOK, well, that song's doing
that there.
I'm not going to match itverbatim, but if that's doing
that and I want to mirror thatand have that sort of same
effect and I can get veryanalytical and sometimes get
lost in the weeds when I'm doingthis I can get very analytical
and sometimes get lost in theweeds when I'm doing this.
And then I come out of asession I'm thinking I'm not
(39:28):
entirely sure what I've donethere, but somehow it's worked.
But folks yes, anything fromthis episode question what
you're doing and slow down aswell.
Can I add one quick thing?
Yeah, go ahead, yeah.
Shane Slack (39:39):
So to anybody listening too, we are working in
audio.
I would highly recommend thatyou get proper reference
material, and I'm not talkingabout going on YouTube, not
going on Spotify.
I would rather tell you go playfor a CoBuzz, go pay for a
Tidal, go to a Bandcamp, getoriginal Flax and Wave files,
(39:59):
because the other thing that'sreally happening right now is
that we're getting a lot of overprocessing over compression.
Another thing that's reallyhappening right now is that
we're getting a lot of overprocessing over compression.
It's because a lot of people donot understand what these DSPs
or sharing platforms are doingto the original source.
Go to Cold Buds, go to theirsubscription.
Not only do they pay artists alot more per stream like five
cents per stream but you'redealing with original flaks and
(40:22):
waveforms at the original studiosample rate that was delivered
and the amount of detail youcould hear on those.
Once you have a great likeframe of reference, even more
questions start gettingdisappearing and you're like wow
, wait a second, I'm a littledoing too much, but that's just
my quick tidbit.
You just reminded me no no,it's, it's very good.
Marc Matthews (40:42):
I'm glad you mentioned.
I'm glad you mentioned itbecause I don't think it's.
I've beaten the drum ofreference material on the
podcast many a time, but I'venever actually mentioned where
to get your reference materialfrom.
So fantastic stuff.
Shane, thank you for spendingthis time with me today.
I appreciate you're a very busyman, so it's been amazing to
deep dive into your problemsolving philosophy.
(41:02):
So, before we wrap up, is thereanything you'd like to share
with the audience?
And, and, or where can theyfind you online if they want to
learn more about what you'redoing and and just yeah,
basically, where can they findyou?
Shane Slack (41:14):
yeah, so they can find me at my secondary engineer
, noah drake hartman, over atmonotheoryorg.
Right now we are fixing up oursquare space and making it a
little bit more intuitive forclients to kind of come in and
book.
But if there's anything that Ireally wanted to like share with
the audience, especially in ourlittle niche and field, is like
I know it's overwhelming rightnow and I know that, like the
(41:36):
industry seems to be in a gianttizzy and modality shift across
the world, all I can say to youis the standards have gotten
higher.
We have to hold ourselves to ahigher standard.
We have to hold ourselves to ahigher echelon.
There's a lot of just fast foodout there, for lack of a better
word fast food engineering.
Fast food production beatswhatever the heck else of this
(41:59):
and you might just feel likedamn, I'm not at the level and I
think I should just go.
Do that.
Trust me, your integrity andyour consistency always pays off
.
I would not have thought Iwould be where I'm at ever.
I had no foresight, no ideas ofit, and it's just staying
consistent, staying active, staylearning.
(42:20):
Always be a student and evenmore than that, don't be afraid
to embarrass yourself or saysomething wrong and be corrected
, and especially be corrected.
That's the only way you'regoing to get better and, who
knows, maybe in a very shortperiod of time you're just going
to level up and now you'regoing to be in circles and be
(42:41):
whatever it is that you weresearching for, even something
you couldn't even fathom.
So please stay consistent in it.
Absorb as much material, makeas many mistakes, slow down, eat
your vegetables, drink water, Idon't know.
Marc Matthews (42:55):
Just yeah, yeah yeah, all of that and everything
in between shade.
Fantastic advice there.
I absolutely love it.
It has been a pleasure chattingwith you today and, uh, been a
long time coming, and I'll leaveyou now to enjoy the rest of
your day and I will catch upwith you soon.
Folks, before you go, I want tohear from you.
I want to know your favoriteepisode of the Inside the Mix
(43:16):
podcast.
Alternatively, you could justreview this episode, click the
SpeakPipe link in the episodedescription and you can record
an audio message detailing yourfavorite episode and why, and
also give yourself a shout out.
All you need is your mobilephone.
You don't need a SpeakPipeaccount.
You don't need to download anapp.
It's just like sending me anaudio message via WhatsApp or
(43:38):
whatever messaging platform youuse.
As soon as I get your audio,you will be entered in that
month's draw to win a Starbuckscoffee voucher, and if you don't
like coffee, just give it tosomeone else and pretend that
you bought it for them.
All you need to do is clickthat speak pipe link and send me
an audio message reviewing thisepisode or a previous episode
(43:59):
and give yourself a shout out.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com