September 18, 2024 • 45 mins
Brendan Dekora is an engineer and mixer with credits with artists such as Trent Reznor, Foo Fighters, Steven Wilson, and Muse.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- What You Need to Know as a Freelance Engineer to Align with your Clients
- Why “Vibe” is More Important than Skills
- How Authentic Content can be One of Your Best Tools
- Tips for Remote Mixing and Collaboration
- How to Navigate Moving into the Co-Production Role
- Drum Tuning and How to Get Great Drum Sounds
- How Being in a Major Music City Can Shape Your Career
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Credits:
Guest: Brendan Dekora
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Stephen Boyd
Theme Music: inter.ference
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The ultimate goal is for your clients to become your friends,
to work on projects that you would listen to their music whether
you worked with them or not. That's engineer and mixer Brendan Decora. Brendan's worked with
some of the biggest names in rock, including artists like Trent Reznor, Foo
Fighters, Stephen Wilson, and muse. Since Brendan and I both started
our careers at iconic Los Angeles studios and have since moved to be
(00:22):
freelance, I thought that could be a great topic for discussion. So this one
is about everything. Freelance, from finding clients to remote
collaboration. We get into stuff like why big credits don't matter as much as you
might think. Credits don't matter big, you know, stuff you've worked
on. At the end of the day, doesn't matter because there's still going to be
a mountain of people that want to work with you because you are who. You
(00:43):
are, when to consider what types of gigs are actually in line with your
goals. There's so many projects that I took on in the past
that, you know, I did because it was a great opportunity. But
looking back, it wasn't a great career choice. And why it's important to have
clear communication and understand expectations when working remotely. If
you're expecting the mixer to add doubles or create harmonies
(01:05):
or change arrangements or those, like, those things are
production choices. If you're a freelance engineer or producer or want to make the move
to become a freelancer, then you're definitely going to want to stick around for my
interview with Brendan Decora.
So there are a lot of people that want to transition to engineering production full
time. You and I both worked in major studios and now are lucky enough to
(01:28):
do that. What's your advice for someone that has a job? Maybe
it's music related, maybe it's not. And how to, you know,
become a full time freelance engineer. I mean,
it's kind of an ongoing process, honestly.
Okay, fair enough. I agree. I. The biggest thing that I've learned
recently is it's about the relationships.
(01:50):
It's about your personality. You know, you think about, you know, oh,
I wanna. I wanna niche down on a genre, which is very important,
but a lot of times people forget that it's about niching down on a
certain personality type as well. And that the idea that, you
know, the ultimate goal is for your clients to
become your friends. Yeah. To work on projects that you would
(02:13):
listen to their music whether you worked with them or not. Yeah. You know,
that's the ultimate dream of every ideal client is
that. And so it's figuring out how you
can show that to the world, how you can
show your personality, show your
preferences, your musical tastes, that kind of thing. Because
(02:35):
it's similar to, like, a session drummer, for example.
There's a thousand session drummers out there that can do the job.
Right. Why would they hire this guy? Because they're cool.
Because they're a good hang in the room. Because they have cool ideas, they have
unique perspectives, that kind of thing. It's all those pieces that
really set it apart from the rest. Niching down on a
(02:57):
personality type is like, I've never heard anybody phrase that
that way. That's so true, because there's a
lot of great situations where I've been where you just, like, don't want to work
with the person. Right. You know, and the music was cool and it came out
good, but everybody knows that, like, once we walk out the door, we're not gonna
work together. We didn't really like each other. Right. Obviously, that can't
(03:18):
be every gig, of course. How do you approach trying
to tap into finding people that
you relate with? It's something that I've been working on
myself even recently, to be honest.
But I think that a lot of it is
in about the content that you put out, and
(03:40):
showing that side of you to the world will attract those people
anyway. I agree with that, you know, and so, you know, it's
difficult, especially if you are working at, as an assistant in a big
studio. You're the fly on the wall. Often you don't even
allow to talk to people. Like, it's the engineer and the producer that are the
main interface for the artists. Making that
(04:03):
change of, you know, becoming the fly of being the fly on the wall
to being the engineer producer, or whatever it is.
It's a, it's a personality change as well. So it's a lot about, you know,
everyone says this business is about psychology, but the more I've
learned about psychology, the more I realize that that's actually true, you
know, so it's interesting I drifted from your
(04:25):
question, but, yeah, no, it's funny. I just had a conversation
with some, uh, with somebody else who also has a podcast. We should tell people
that you have a podcast. Uh, and we'll talk about that more later. And,
uh, we were talking about the advantages of making
content as, like, a music producer engineer. And you, like, really tapped into
something about putting your real, authentic self out there,
(04:47):
which is something that I've, like, pushed on the podcast for a long time.
But I think that's super valuable now, because
in our coming up, I would walk out the door. Capitol and
Studio B, and walk into studio C and say, hi, you were at east west
Glenwood place. You could do the same. Now you don't
have that. Everybody's working at home. If people can find a way to
(05:09):
understand who you are and if they click with you, I think that's just
a really powerful, I hate to say marketing tool, but it's a
marketing tool, and if you're authentic, it should be fun. I'm
sure you enjoy doing your podcast. Exactly. Because they're hard. If you didn't enjoy
it, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, for sure. Going
freelance. Is there something that caught you off guard
(05:31):
about being freelance? Like something that you didn't expect to be a big
responsibility or a big challenge? I mean,
other than finding a gig? Cause everybody would answer that. Yeah, of
course. I mean, it kind of goes back to that
first topic of, you know, figuring out
the personality match. Yeah. And seeing,
(05:54):
you know, and really kind of discovering what their vision is for the
song and talking to the clients and figuring out how much
they like the rough mix, even, you know, like so many times,
you know, I'll get a project and I'll send over the
rough mix, and I think it sounds pretty good.
And they're like, yeah, this is. I hate this. This is totally the wrong
(06:16):
direction. We need to go in this other direction over here. Or the opposite. You
know, there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. So it's figuring out, you
know, where their. Where their journey is, what their goals are,
and really trying to align with that as well. Yeah. Communication is
probably the. I mean, everybody says
communication is important, but I don't think, like, when you're starting out, like, when you're
(06:38):
a runner at the studio and you're just, like, getting coffee orders, I don't think
you understand to what level. Right. Communication is important.
It's like, might as well be, like,
vibe in a room. Communication,
then maybe skillset after that, maybe. I don't
know, but vibe in a room. So your experiences working in the big
(07:01):
studios, when did you kind of, like, connect
the idea that being the best guitar player, the best drummer wasn't
necessarily why those people were in the room? Well,
as you know, people come through the door and they're
frankly not great musicians, but they're the nicest people
you've ever met. Yeah. You know, it's like, they're super cool. They're super
(07:23):
nice. And sure, they get the job done on their
instrument, but it's about the hang. It's about the
feeling of it. It's about the friendship about it.
So that's obvious. If this business was about your
skillset, then it would be a completely different world,
you know, so very different.
(07:45):
Very different. And obviously, we're not talking about, like,
the classic studio musicians. Of course, the session
players are the exception. They have both these guys that used to play, like, three
sessions a day all through the seventies. Like, they have such
a chill vibe. Right. And are just absolutely
ridiculous. And I don't know if you've ever had this. I had it with
(08:07):
it with Dean Parks. Yeah. And he was doing a
nylon part, and I was, you know, I was putting the mic over here,
you know, like, around the 12th fret. He was like, on this one, we do
it here. And I was like, okay,
you know where it goes on this one. Done. Yeah.
Well, okay. That's actually an accidental segue to another question I had, which
(08:30):
is the importance of getting the production and the sonics
right from the beginning. Right. That's something that
you and I have experienced working in big studios.
We've seen people go down the rabbit holes of trying even different
strats, not different types of guitars, different versions
of the same guitar. Do you have any thoughts that you can share with the
(08:53):
bedroom producer about the importance of making those decisions
early and how that benefits the process in the long run?
I think part of it is just a lack of knowledge on
certain techniques and that, you know, oftentimes
bedroom producers will try things out because they don't know,
you know, the different tactics. They've never been to studios. They haven't seen other people
(09:16):
do it. And so they're just kind of figuring out based on what they're hearing
on records. And, again, with music, there's no. There's
no correct answer. You know, there's a lot of times
really odd things can work really great. Yeah. But
often what's tricky is when people
will send me a mix and they say, oh, okay, cool. I want this to
(09:38):
sound like x number band.
That's huge. And they've spent six months in the studio, and they
doubled and tripled everything and have harmonies and have all this production stuff going
on, and they send me a track with one guitar on it. Right. It's like,
well, I can't. You know, this is so not the same thing. Not the
same. Yeah. And so it's. It's a little bit
(10:00):
tricky because, you know, oftentimes those people
don't understand that's what that was, because they've never seen
that. They've never experienced that. Yeah. And so it's about learning. And,
you know, obviously we'll have conversations. We'll talk about, like, okay, well, if you really
want this, then put some doubles on there at least, you know? You
know, so we can pan it out, whatever it is. But
(10:24):
I hesitate to say YouTube, because YouTube is
such a. I don't hesitate to say it. There's a lot of amazing
information on YouTube. There is. And I've learned a lot. Yeah. But there's also
a lot of information that I guess it's hard to
always know what information is correct or not.
So it's difficult to know who to listen
(10:46):
to, who to not listen to, you know,
because on the other extreme, I've gotten projects where, you
know, it's clear they. They watch YouTube a lot or
try to learn a lot themselves. And they've sent me things with, like, every trick
in the book. You know, it's like all these different, you know,
techniques. It's like, oh, okay, they saw this video on this, or
(11:08):
they, you know, someone told them to do this, and. But it's
like everything all combined, and so it's like, well, if you just
got great sounds in a room with a great player and a great
instrument with a good sounding room, that would
be better than all these tricks. Right. So it's,
you know, sometimes the basics are more. More easy to get great
(11:30):
results than all the fancy stuff, you know? Yeah. There's a lot of
things I want to say about what you just said. Oh, okay. I wanted to.
Let's go back to the YouTube thing, because you're probably watching this on YouTube,
not you, but you. Right. There's a difference
between information that's regurgitated
and put out versus information that's based on
(11:51):
experience. Right. And I think that's where the disconnect
is, because it's not like, there's not a. There is bad
information, but there's not a lot of, when it comes to, like, eqing, there's bad
tricks. Right. But you're talking about people that maybe just haven't
made records for 20 years. Right. You know, and
also, the people that made records for 20 years
(12:14):
probably aren't that good at sharing that knowledge in a way that
connects with a hungry, wanna learn
audience. Meanwhile, there's somebody else that can regurgitate that information in a
format that people enjoy. Right. And
so, yeah, I mean, I love you, too. I've learned something. We were talking about
cameras before we started. Like, I've gone so deep down the rabbit hole,
(12:37):
you can learn so much stuff for free. But I also want to touch on
the fact that I think it's our responsibility
as engineers and mixers in the room to
educate people on what they want, which is you were touching on.
And that goes back to communication. Be like, well, I can't give you
the vocal sound that you want, right. Because it's
(12:59):
just not here. But if you want to jump back, go turn your computer on
and put a couple more doubles down, that's going to get you what you want.
And I think that's something that
is really important to do as an engineer, is to share
that back with people and bring everybody up along the way.
Yeah. And I guess one thing I wanted to say, too, is with the
(13:20):
misinformation on YouTube, I guess there was one example recently
where this friend of mine sent me this clip on
Instagram that was about getting great top
end in your vocal. Right. Okay. And so they basically went
through keying the, you know, like a dynamic EQ
keyed with a. With all the top, all the bottom end rolled off. And
(13:43):
it's like, well, he's just made a deesser. And, you know, then you
boost it after. It's like, it's not. It's not that complicated. You just put a
deesser on it and turn one knob and then do the same thing. So it's
like, things like that where, like, people are trying to get sensational, you know, like,
oh, this amazing, really cool trick. It's like, well, if you just knew a little
bit about how things work, then you see that that's not really. You
(14:04):
know, oh, yeah, that reminds me of, like, some of the things that would come
up when I was in school. Cause I went to engineering
school, and it's like, let's make a deesser on the SSL
channel, right? You have to figure out how to do it. Or like, let's. We're
gonna record this in Ms. And you need to decode it, right? And you're like,
you know, you pass your test and then you realize, like, I don't need to
know these things ever again. This is pointless
(14:28):
information. Now we're kind of touching on this. And this
is another question that I had. Do you think
that newer artists overweight
the result of a mix? Are their expectations?
Because you and I both do a lot of remote mixing, do they put too
much weight on what they believe is going to be the outcome of that mix,
(14:50):
whether that be a sonic change or even a popularity
change? I would say yes, absolutely.
It all depends on how much experience the artist has. I agree with
that. Newer artists that may not have been through the process that don't
understand there is a lot of that expectation,
and I've even considered doing
(15:13):
more production work because I get those clients
that want me to mix something, but really, they need a producer
and not a mixer. Yeah. And so, you know, it's
about learning. I mean, it all comes with
experience, really. Once you go through the process and you get a mix done by
a professional, you can see what they can and can't do. And,
(15:36):
you know, sometimes, as you know, you can take a
song very drastically in another direction with a mix. It can
go a very, very long. Way, and it can be a miss. And it can
be a miss. Yes, we've all done that. Yes. But at the same
time, it's, you know, learning that
how much you want to change it with the mix. And, you know,
(15:57):
whether that's, you know, if you're expecting the mixer to
add doubles or create harmonies or change arrangements
or those. Like, those things are production choices. Yeah. You
know, like, one client I had recently,
you know, sent me a some. I've
been working with them, kind of helping them with production
(16:20):
choices and say, okay, well, you know, is this guitar sound cool? It's
like, oh, it's a little bit darker. Let's. You know, why don't you try this,
and then we can go from there. Okay, cool. I'll change that and rerecord a
bunch of stuff. And then. But they asked me about
this process where they were going to, you
know, add doubles and harmonies on all the vocals, on
(16:41):
all the songs of. I'm like, well, yeah, I do encourage
doubles and harmonies, but not everywhere. For every note of the song, like,
you know, choose the chorus or choose certain things you want to highlight. You know,
make those production choices right before you send it to mix, instead of sending
me everything with everything and expecting me to chop
through and create what you want based on that, you
(17:03):
know. Yeah, yeah. That goes back to the. To
the communication. But I wanted to ask you about navigating
that additional production. Like, when you feel like something needs
a boost and you're willing
and think that you're the right person for it, how do you navigate that with
an artist to be like, I think we need an extra step in here. Are
(17:25):
you open to working with me in this capacity? It's always a
fine line because, you know, growing up in
big studios like we have, we've seen producers and engineers,
and there is a very distinct line between those two roles. There
is. Or there was back in the day. Yes. Yeah. But now it's, you
know, especially when people, like, we were just talking about with a mixer that they
(17:47):
want to take the song further or whatever else, like, you
know, there's ways where, you know, I'll always
mention if I hear something that can
help the song align with their vision a bit more, you know? Of
course the artist always has veto power, right? It's like, hey, like, I have
this idea. You said you wanted this reference, and you said you wanted it to
(18:09):
sound like this. I think we need to do x, y, and z in order
to get there. You know, do you want to go back and do this, or
do you want to create this? Or how do you want to. Do you want
to just not do it at all? It's all about how you phrase it and
how you. How you walk that line with the artist. And if you
say it in a way where, you know, you're just. Clearly, you're just trying to
help the end result, you know, instead of like, okay, I'm just
(18:31):
gonna do this, and then if you like it, cool. But if not,
then I think it sucks, you know, like, obviously that's not the way to
do it, but, you know,
so there's. There's a fine line to walk. Yeah. Well, I think
if. I guess for, for an artist or producer that's listening,
I think if you're willing to share work in progress with somebody you're thinking
(18:55):
about working with as a mixer and you're open to being like, hey, what do
you think? Am I going to be able to get what I want? Right. That
can be a really amazing way to split the difference. I know some people don't
like to share unfinished work, but, I mean, would you agree that that can
be a massive benefit to the final product if they're
willing to have a conversation of, do you think anything's missing?
(19:17):
Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, too, because, you know,
people will do that, but then I'm still
just the mixer role. Right. So it's like, well, are you
asking me to my production choices? Cause they're working with a
producer. I don't wanna step on their toes. That's true. That's true. So one
thing that I've actually started to think about recently is that, you
(19:39):
know, I'm happy to do, like, co production.
You know, like, if there's something I hear that could take it a little bit
further. Cool, I'll mention it. But I'm not trying to be your
producer. I'm not trying to, you know, take over the whole project and
start because obviously producers start before a note is recorded. You know,
they go through the songs and, you know, choose keys and arrangements
(20:01):
and all that stuff before anything's done. So I'm
not trying to do that. But if it's already to the point
where everyone's happy and then it's like, oh, well, what if you do this one
thing or these two things? Cool. Like, that's an idea
that may or may not work, but I, I'm open to
my creative input as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, no, I. Yeah, you
(20:23):
don't want to, you don't want to step on, on toes. I do. I do
agree with that. Since we're kind of talking remote
collaboration, do you have any
tips for successful remote mixing? Like, if
you're, you're living in Indiana and you want
to up your mix game, like, do you have, whether it be a
(20:44):
technical thing or a communication thing, anything that you would tell that. That
person we talked about a little bit before, but I am all
about actually talking to people. Yeah, you know, it's easy to
do remote mixing and just all over emails and texting
and things get lost. Yeah. You know, I think we were
speaking before we started recording that. You know, sometimes
(21:06):
there's projects where the artist will, you know, say, oh, you
know, can you turn the kick drum down? And then it's like, yeah, cool.
Here's the version of the kick drum down. Oh, that's better. And then three days
later, oh, can you turn up the low end on the cake? Like, well,
I just turned it down. Like, yes, I can turn the low end, but, and
it's just a slight miscommunication where if you get on a call with someone,
(21:27):
I'll often do, like, a video call with high definition
audio. There's numerous platforms to do that
so we can work together and actually stream my mixed and to their
studio and I can explain, like, oh, well,
you asked for more low end on the kick, but really it's, you know,
because they were hearing it in their smaller car or their phone or something and
(21:49):
they weren't cutting through. It was like, well, it's, you know, it's, I actually need
to do this. And so this is the correct solution,
you know, that I think you should do. And so it's easier to just talk
through those things in five minutes instead of like, oh, but I did this. We're
going in circles, like, why are you. And then that's a miscommunication.
And people are upset. And it's so much easier to just talk to
(22:10):
people in person. Yeah. And it's about
understanding the intention. I'm sure you've done this, but.
I. Used to send an email like, oh, here are the five things. This is
how I addressed your notes. And I don't do that anymore. I'm
just like, hey, I hit all your notes. And then I made this change that
I thought, like, if somebody asked for the vocal up, it might not necessarily be
(22:33):
that the vocal needs to be louder. It might be that, you know, the guitar
needs to be a little darker and the vocal needs a little bit more top
or something like that. Because we all know if you send a mix with vocal
too loud, you're never going to turn it back down once
it's already too loud. The singer's always going to love it loud. Yeah,
yeah. No, I think that's great advice. I think using tools. What was the one
(22:54):
that you, I. Like to use one called session wire. Which I'm not familiar
with. It's kind of like audio movers and zoom put
together in one platform. So you have video chat. There's a
talkback channel, and there's a high definition channel. Cool. And there's
like an auto mute thing for the talkback. And it's. It's
their whole goal with it is making it as if, you know, like, you're in
(23:15):
the studio and there's a piece of glass between. They're just standing right there. You're
talking back and forth. Play the music. It's really seamless.
Nice. So I've been liking it a lot. Nice. I use something similar called
authentic audio. Okay. Basically, we're talking about the same product,
more or less. I'm not. I haven't used session wire, but you just described the
features of authentic audio. Awesome. So I want to backtrack
(23:37):
back a few minutes to where we were talking about, you know,
getting it right in the studio. Right. If I remember correctly, you
are a drummer, as that's your. My first instrument, yeah. Okay.
Do you jump in when you're recording and get into drum
tuning? Like, what are your thoughts on drums? Is one of those things that has
to be, if the instrument sounds fucking great, the recording sounds fucking great.
(23:59):
Yeah. Tips for great drums. Do you, what do you think? Do you get in
there in tune? I typically don't. I mean, I'm at this
point, I'm probably 95% of my work is mixing, but when I was doing
more engineering, I was working in big studios, and so
I had the luxury of working with great drummers that often even brought drum
texts and all that where you didn't have to, you know, on
(24:21):
rare occasions, yes, I'll get someone that comes in with the crappy sounding
kit and I'll try to tweak it a little bit
if the drummer isn't willing or capable or whatever to do
that. But even that's kind of walking a
fine line because I don't want to insult the drummer. It's like,
oh, can you tune this up a little? And then they try and it still
(24:43):
sucks. I'm like, well, could I do it then?
What do you, you know, so it's walking a fine balance.
But obviously, if you can get great sounding
drums tuned up well and drummers that can play
them well, that's 90% of the battle. I
(25:03):
mean, obviously we have the luxury of working in these amazing
studios, and so you push up the fader and it sounds great. It's not always
the case, but drums is a large topic, so it's hard
to answer this question. No, totally. I set you up for a big one.
Let me share a story real quick. Okay. So I was on this project
where there was, it was a. It was an interesting project because it was
(25:27):
like lots of different bands coming in and playing on the same backline.
Okay. And it was like a project
where it was a bunch of, like, newer artists
and, you know, younger musicians, but it was
with established producers. And so,
you know, the whole day, you know, the producer and the engineer
(25:49):
were trying to get it sounding great. The drums were
not really that great sounding, and they keep cranking on the knobs and creep
trying all these things and wasn't really that great. And then at
1.1 of the producers that came in was a drummer,
like a famous drummer. And just for fun, he sat down on the drum
kit and started playing and it sounded amazing.
(26:12):
So it's like, you know, like, well, that's the answer. Like,
all these people were not playing hard or solid or
it's, the player is a large part of the sound as
well. And so that's, you know, I hate
to turn it back on the artist, but at the same time,
a large part of great sounding recordings is
(26:34):
great performances. And yes, there is a lot we can
do to fix things nowadays. We
can tune things, we can time align things, we can do all that.
But if the original source of the
performance is not great, I mean, yeah, we can even put in samples if
we have to, with drums. But even then, as a
(26:57):
drummer, I honestly try to avoid using samples. Because
to me, it starts to make it feel fake,
you know? And obviously it's a balance. Like, if you keep them low enough, you
can still, you know, have that natural sound, but then it doesn't
quite. You can't quite change the sound enough if they're too low. Yeah. And
so it's. It's always a balance. So I. You know, if I had to choose,
(27:19):
it would be an amazing drummer in a great room, tuned well with,
you know, obviously who wouldn't choose? Who
wouldn't choose that tough, tough decision. It really is
true that there is a lot, like when somebody is really
honed in their craft, you know, the consistency that
a great session drummer will hit the snare in the same
(27:42):
place. Right. That's why, you know, you walk into a place like
east, west, and somebody has, like, a U 67 on the
snare and you're like, whoa, what's going on here?
You have a session where the person's not going to hit a. That microphone, that
drummer doesn't hit mics. You know what I mean? Yeah, but, yeah, the
consistency that they hit with, or even guitars. Like, I've handed
(28:04):
my guitar to a friend who's an amazing player,
right. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, that
sounds fucking amazing. Oh, wait, it's my
fingers that aren't great. It's like, your fingers are different than
mine. And the way that you hold those strings down is like. It just sounds
so much better. Yeah. You know, there's so much. So much to just
(28:26):
honing your craft. When did you come to Los
Angeles? I came to LA in 2001. 2001?
Okay. I came in 2006. Okay. Would you tell
a young engineer in 2024 that it's a good idea
or a bad idea to move to a major music hub like
LA? When you look at the cost of laden and how
(28:48):
tough it is to. Break in, I would say it's
about where your career goals are. I like that answer.
I think that there's a mountain of people out
there that work in small towns, that have little
studios, that work in their home studio or in their house
or little local studios, and they all have great
(29:09):
careers, frankly. And it's a different,
different kind of life. You're probably not going to work with
Beyonce or a super a list celebrity,
right? That would be probably rare. But
like I said, there's many people that have great careers, and
so it's a little bit different because I would
(29:32):
say it's different now as to early two thousands,
because the prevalence of home studios has, you know,
gone through the roof, exploded. Everyone has a home studio. Yeah. Or two.
Or two. And quite frankly, you can get amazing results at home
for a fraction of the cost of a big studio. Oh, yeah. And so
that if anything has, you
(29:54):
know, increased the argument for not doing this, you know,
and just doing it in a small town and setting up a studio yourself and
doing it. But the idea is that if you're doing it yourself
and not working for a studio, you then have to learn all about business,
because you're opening a business for yourself. Yeah. Marketing and everything
else. And that's the same if you do it in LA or any of the
(30:17):
big, big hubs, you know, because ultimately.
The ultimate goal is for your clients to become your friends,
to work on projects that you would listen to their music whether
you worked with them or not. That's engineer and mixer Brendan Decora. Brendan's worked with
some of the biggest names in rock, including artists like Trent Reznor, Foo
Fighters, Stephen Wilson, and muse. Since Brendan and I both started
our careers at iconic Los Angeles studios and have since moved to be
(00:22):
freelance, I thought that could be a great topic for discussion. So this one
is about everything. Freelance, from finding clients to remote
collaboration. We get into stuff like why big credits don't matter as much as you
might think. Credits don't matter big, you know, stuff you've worked
on. At the end of the day, doesn't matter because there's still going to be
a mountain of people that want to work with you because you are who. You
(00:43):
are, when to consider what types of gigs are actually in line with your
goals. There's so many projects that I took on in the past
that, you know, I did because it was a great opportunity. But
looking back, it wasn't a great career choice. And why it's important to have
clear communication and understand expectations when working remotely. If
you're expecting the mixer to add doubles or create harmonies
(01:05):
or change arrangements or those, like, those things are
production choices. If you're a freelance engineer or producer or want to make the move
to become a freelancer, then you're definitely going to want to stick around for my
interview with Brendan Decora.
So there are a lot of people that want to transition to engineering production full
time. You and I both worked in major studios and now are lucky enough to
(01:28):
do that. What's your advice for someone that has a job? Maybe
it's music related, maybe it's not. And how to, you know,
become a full time freelance engineer. I mean,
it's kind of an ongoing process, honestly.
Okay, fair enough. I agree. I. The biggest thing that I've learned
recently is it's about the relationships.
(01:50):
It's about your personality. You know, you think about, you know, oh,
I wanna. I wanna niche down on a genre, which is very important,
but a lot of times people forget that it's about niching down on a
certain personality type as well. And that the idea that, you
know, the ultimate goal is for your clients to
become your friends. Yeah. To work on projects that you would
(02:13):
listen to their music whether you worked with them or not. Yeah. You know,
that's the ultimate dream of every ideal client is
that. And so it's figuring out how you
can show that to the world, how you can
show your personality, show your
preferences, your musical tastes, that kind of thing. Because
(02:35):
it's similar to, like, a session drummer, for example.
There's a thousand session drummers out there that can do the job.
Right. Why would they hire this guy? Because they're cool.
Because they're a good hang in the room. Because they have cool ideas, they have
unique perspectives, that kind of thing. It's all those pieces that
really set it apart from the rest. Niching down on a
(02:57):
personality type is like, I've never heard anybody phrase that
that way. That's so true, because there's a
lot of great situations where I've been where you just, like, don't want to work
with the person. Right. You know, and the music was cool and it came out
good, but everybody knows that, like, once we walk out the door, we're not gonna
work together. We didn't really like each other. Right. Obviously, that can't
(03:18):
be every gig, of course. How do you approach trying
to tap into finding people that
you relate with? It's something that I've been working on
myself even recently, to be honest.
But I think that a lot of it is
in about the content that you put out, and
(03:40):
showing that side of you to the world will attract those people
anyway. I agree with that, you know, and so, you know, it's
difficult, especially if you are working at, as an assistant in a big
studio. You're the fly on the wall. Often you don't even
allow to talk to people. Like, it's the engineer and the producer that are the
main interface for the artists. Making that
(04:03):
change of, you know, becoming the fly of being the fly on the wall
to being the engineer producer, or whatever it is.
It's a, it's a personality change as well. So it's a lot about, you know,
everyone says this business is about psychology, but the more I've
learned about psychology, the more I realize that that's actually true, you
know, so it's interesting I drifted from your
(04:25):
question, but, yeah, no, it's funny. I just had a conversation
with some, uh, with somebody else who also has a podcast. We should tell people
that you have a podcast. Uh, and we'll talk about that more later. And,
uh, we were talking about the advantages of making
content as, like, a music producer engineer. And you, like, really tapped into
something about putting your real, authentic self out there,
(04:47):
which is something that I've, like, pushed on the podcast for a long time.
But I think that's super valuable now, because
in our coming up, I would walk out the door. Capitol and
Studio B, and walk into studio C and say, hi, you were at east west
Glenwood place. You could do the same. Now you don't
have that. Everybody's working at home. If people can find a way to
(05:09):
understand who you are and if they click with you, I think that's just
a really powerful, I hate to say marketing tool, but it's a
marketing tool, and if you're authentic, it should be fun. I'm
sure you enjoy doing your podcast. Exactly. Because they're hard. If you didn't enjoy
it, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, for sure. Going
freelance. Is there something that caught you off guard
(05:31):
about being freelance? Like something that you didn't expect to be a big
responsibility or a big challenge? I mean,
other than finding a gig? Cause everybody would answer that. Yeah, of
course. I mean, it kind of goes back to that
first topic of, you know, figuring out
the personality match. Yeah. And seeing,
(05:54):
you know, and really kind of discovering what their vision is for the
song and talking to the clients and figuring out how much
they like the rough mix, even, you know, like so many times,
you know, I'll get a project and I'll send over the
rough mix, and I think it sounds pretty good.
And they're like, yeah, this is. I hate this. This is totally the wrong
(06:16):
direction. We need to go in this other direction over here. Or the opposite. You
know, there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. So it's figuring out, you
know, where their. Where their journey is, what their goals are,
and really trying to align with that as well. Yeah. Communication is
probably the. I mean, everybody says
communication is important, but I don't think, like, when you're starting out, like, when you're
(06:38):
a runner at the studio and you're just, like, getting coffee orders, I don't think
you understand to what level. Right. Communication is important.
It's like, might as well be, like,
vibe in a room. Communication,
then maybe skillset after that, maybe. I don't
know, but vibe in a room. So your experiences working in the big
(07:01):
studios, when did you kind of, like, connect
the idea that being the best guitar player, the best drummer wasn't
necessarily why those people were in the room? Well,
as you know, people come through the door and they're
frankly not great musicians, but they're the nicest people
you've ever met. Yeah. You know, it's like, they're super cool. They're super
(07:23):
nice. And sure, they get the job done on their
instrument, but it's about the hang. It's about the
feeling of it. It's about the friendship about it.
So that's obvious. If this business was about your
skillset, then it would be a completely different world,
you know, so very different.
(07:45):
Very different. And obviously, we're not talking about, like,
the classic studio musicians. Of course, the session
players are the exception. They have both these guys that used to play, like, three
sessions a day all through the seventies. Like, they have such
a chill vibe. Right. And are just absolutely
ridiculous. And I don't know if you've ever had this. I had it with
(08:07):
it with Dean Parks. Yeah. And he was doing a
nylon part, and I was, you know, I was putting the mic over here,
you know, like, around the 12th fret. He was like, on this one, we do
it here. And I was like, okay,
you know where it goes on this one. Done. Yeah.
Well, okay. That's actually an accidental segue to another question I had, which
(08:30):
is the importance of getting the production and the sonics
right from the beginning. Right. That's something that
you and I have experienced working in big studios.
We've seen people go down the rabbit holes of trying even different
strats, not different types of guitars, different versions
of the same guitar. Do you have any thoughts that you can share with the
(08:53):
bedroom producer about the importance of making those decisions
early and how that benefits the process in the long run?
I think part of it is just a lack of knowledge on
certain techniques and that, you know, oftentimes
bedroom producers will try things out because they don't know,
you know, the different tactics. They've never been to studios. They haven't seen other people
(09:16):
do it. And so they're just kind of figuring out based on what they're hearing
on records. And, again, with music, there's no. There's
no correct answer. You know, there's a lot of times
really odd things can work really great. Yeah. But
often what's tricky is when people
will send me a mix and they say, oh, okay, cool. I want this to
(09:38):
sound like x number band.
That's huge. And they've spent six months in the studio, and they
doubled and tripled everything and have harmonies and have all this production stuff going
on, and they send me a track with one guitar on it. Right. It's like,
well, I can't. You know, this is so not the same thing. Not the
same. Yeah. And so it's. It's a little bit
(10:00):
tricky because, you know, oftentimes those people
don't understand that's what that was, because they've never seen
that. They've never experienced that. Yeah. And so it's about learning. And,
you know, obviously we'll have conversations. We'll talk about, like, okay, well, if you really
want this, then put some doubles on there at least, you know? You
know, so we can pan it out, whatever it is. But
(10:24):
I hesitate to say YouTube, because YouTube is
such a. I don't hesitate to say it. There's a lot of amazing
information on YouTube. There is. And I've learned a lot. Yeah. But there's also
a lot of information that I guess it's hard to
always know what information is correct or not.
So it's difficult to know who to listen
(10:46):
to, who to not listen to, you know,
because on the other extreme, I've gotten projects where, you
know, it's clear they. They watch YouTube a lot or
try to learn a lot themselves. And they've sent me things with, like, every trick
in the book. You know, it's like all these different, you know,
techniques. It's like, oh, okay, they saw this video on this, or
(11:08):
they, you know, someone told them to do this, and. But it's
like everything all combined, and so it's like, well, if you just
got great sounds in a room with a great player and a great
instrument with a good sounding room, that would
be better than all these tricks. Right. So it's,
you know, sometimes the basics are more. More easy to get great
(11:30):
results than all the fancy stuff, you know? Yeah. There's a lot of
things I want to say about what you just said. Oh, okay. I wanted to.
Let's go back to the YouTube thing, because you're probably watching this on YouTube,
not you, but you. Right. There's a difference
between information that's regurgitated
and put out versus information that's based on
(11:51):
experience. Right. And I think that's where the disconnect
is, because it's not like, there's not a. There is bad
information, but there's not a lot of, when it comes to, like, eqing, there's bad
tricks. Right. But you're talking about people that maybe just haven't
made records for 20 years. Right. You know, and
also, the people that made records for 20 years
(12:14):
probably aren't that good at sharing that knowledge in a way that
connects with a hungry, wanna learn
audience. Meanwhile, there's somebody else that can regurgitate that information in a
format that people enjoy. Right. And
so, yeah, I mean, I love you, too. I've learned something. We were talking about
cameras before we started. Like, I've gone so deep down the rabbit hole,
(12:37):
you can learn so much stuff for free. But I also want to touch on
the fact that I think it's our responsibility
as engineers and mixers in the room to
educate people on what they want, which is you were touching on.
And that goes back to communication. Be like, well, I can't give you
the vocal sound that you want, right. Because it's
(12:59):
just not here. But if you want to jump back, go turn your computer on
and put a couple more doubles down, that's going to get you what you want.
And I think that's something that
is really important to do as an engineer, is to share
that back with people and bring everybody up along the way.
Yeah. And I guess one thing I wanted to say, too, is with the
(13:20):
misinformation on YouTube, I guess there was one example recently
where this friend of mine sent me this clip on
Instagram that was about getting great top
end in your vocal. Right. Okay. And so they basically went
through keying the, you know, like a dynamic EQ
keyed with a. With all the top, all the bottom end rolled off. And
(13:43):
it's like, well, he's just made a deesser. And, you know, then you
boost it after. It's like, it's not. It's not that complicated. You just put a
deesser on it and turn one knob and then do the same thing. So it's
like, things like that where, like, people are trying to get sensational, you know, like,
oh, this amazing, really cool trick. It's like, well, if you just knew a little
bit about how things work, then you see that that's not really. You
(14:04):
know, oh, yeah, that reminds me of, like, some of the things that would come
up when I was in school. Cause I went to engineering
school, and it's like, let's make a deesser on the SSL
channel, right? You have to figure out how to do it. Or like, let's. We're
gonna record this in Ms. And you need to decode it, right? And you're like,
you know, you pass your test and then you realize, like, I don't need to
know these things ever again. This is pointless
(14:28):
information. Now we're kind of touching on this. And this
is another question that I had. Do you think
that newer artists overweight
the result of a mix? Are their expectations?
Because you and I both do a lot of remote mixing, do they put too
much weight on what they believe is going to be the outcome of that mix,
(14:50):
whether that be a sonic change or even a popularity
change? I would say yes, absolutely.
It all depends on how much experience the artist has. I agree with
that. Newer artists that may not have been through the process that don't
understand there is a lot of that expectation,
and I've even considered doing
(15:13):
more production work because I get those clients
that want me to mix something, but really, they need a producer
and not a mixer. Yeah. And so, you know, it's
about learning. I mean, it all comes with
experience, really. Once you go through the process and you get a mix done by
a professional, you can see what they can and can't do. And,
(15:36):
you know, sometimes, as you know, you can take a
song very drastically in another direction with a mix. It can
go a very, very long. Way, and it can be a miss. And it can
be a miss. Yes, we've all done that. Yes. But at the same
time, it's, you know, learning that
how much you want to change it with the mix. And, you know,
(15:57):
whether that's, you know, if you're expecting the mixer to
add doubles or create harmonies or change arrangements
or those. Like, those things are production choices. Yeah. You
know, like, one client I had recently,
you know, sent me a some. I've
been working with them, kind of helping them with production
(16:20):
choices and say, okay, well, you know, is this guitar sound cool? It's
like, oh, it's a little bit darker. Let's. You know, why don't you try this,
and then we can go from there. Okay, cool. I'll change that and rerecord a
bunch of stuff. And then. But they asked me about
this process where they were going to, you
know, add doubles and harmonies on all the vocals, on
(16:41):
all the songs of. I'm like, well, yeah, I do encourage
doubles and harmonies, but not everywhere. For every note of the song, like,
you know, choose the chorus or choose certain things you want to highlight. You know,
make those production choices right before you send it to mix, instead of sending
me everything with everything and expecting me to chop
through and create what you want based on that, you
(17:03):
know. Yeah, yeah. That goes back to the. To
the communication. But I wanted to ask you about navigating
that additional production. Like, when you feel like something needs
a boost and you're willing
and think that you're the right person for it, how do you navigate that with
an artist to be like, I think we need an extra step in here. Are
(17:25):
you open to working with me in this capacity? It's always a
fine line because, you know, growing up in
big studios like we have, we've seen producers and engineers,
and there is a very distinct line between those two roles. There
is. Or there was back in the day. Yes. Yeah. But now it's, you
know, especially when people, like, we were just talking about with a mixer that they
(17:47):
want to take the song further or whatever else, like, you
know, there's ways where, you know, I'll always
mention if I hear something that can
help the song align with their vision a bit more, you know? Of
course the artist always has veto power, right? It's like, hey, like, I have
this idea. You said you wanted this reference, and you said you wanted it to
(18:09):
sound like this. I think we need to do x, y, and z in order
to get there. You know, do you want to go back and do this, or
do you want to create this? Or how do you want to. Do you want
to just not do it at all? It's all about how you phrase it and
how you. How you walk that line with the artist. And if you
say it in a way where, you know, you're just. Clearly, you're just trying to
help the end result, you know, instead of like, okay, I'm just
(18:31):
gonna do this, and then if you like it, cool. But if not,
then I think it sucks, you know, like, obviously that's not the way to
do it, but, you know,
so there's. There's a fine line to walk. Yeah. Well, I think
if. I guess for, for an artist or producer that's listening,
I think if you're willing to share work in progress with somebody you're thinking
(18:55):
about working with as a mixer and you're open to being like, hey, what do
you think? Am I going to be able to get what I want? Right. That
can be a really amazing way to split the difference. I know some people don't
like to share unfinished work, but, I mean, would you agree that that can
be a massive benefit to the final product if they're
willing to have a conversation of, do you think anything's missing?
(19:17):
Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, too, because, you know,
people will do that, but then I'm still
just the mixer role. Right. So it's like, well, are you
asking me to my production choices? Cause they're working with a
producer. I don't wanna step on their toes. That's true. That's true. So one
thing that I've actually started to think about recently is that, you
(19:39):
know, I'm happy to do, like, co production.
You know, like, if there's something I hear that could take it a little bit
further. Cool, I'll mention it. But I'm not trying to be your
producer. I'm not trying to, you know, take over the whole project and
start because obviously producers start before a note is recorded. You know,
they go through the songs and, you know, choose keys and arrangements
(20:01):
and all that stuff before anything's done. So I'm
not trying to do that. But if it's already to the point
where everyone's happy and then it's like, oh, well, what if you do this one
thing or these two things? Cool. Like, that's an idea
that may or may not work, but I, I'm open to
my creative input as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, no, I. Yeah, you
(20:23):
don't want to, you don't want to step on, on toes. I do. I do
agree with that. Since we're kind of talking remote
collaboration, do you have any
tips for successful remote mixing? Like, if
you're, you're living in Indiana and you want
to up your mix game, like, do you have, whether it be a
(20:44):
technical thing or a communication thing, anything that you would tell that. That
person we talked about a little bit before, but I am all
about actually talking to people. Yeah, you know, it's easy to
do remote mixing and just all over emails and texting
and things get lost. Yeah. You know, I think we were
speaking before we started recording that. You know, sometimes
(21:06):
there's projects where the artist will, you know, say, oh, you
know, can you turn the kick drum down? And then it's like, yeah, cool.
Here's the version of the kick drum down. Oh, that's better. And then three days
later, oh, can you turn up the low end on the cake? Like, well,
I just turned it down. Like, yes, I can turn the low end, but, and
it's just a slight miscommunication where if you get on a call with someone,
(21:27):
I'll often do, like, a video call with high definition
audio. There's numerous platforms to do that
so we can work together and actually stream my mixed and to their
studio and I can explain, like, oh, well,
you asked for more low end on the kick, but really it's, you know,
because they were hearing it in their smaller car or their phone or something and
(21:49):
they weren't cutting through. It was like, well, it's, you know, it's, I actually need
to do this. And so this is the correct solution,
you know, that I think you should do. And so it's easier to just talk
through those things in five minutes instead of like, oh, but I did this. We're
going in circles, like, why are you. And then that's a miscommunication.
And people are upset. And it's so much easier to just talk to
(22:10):
people in person. Yeah. And it's about
understanding the intention. I'm sure you've done this, but.
I. Used to send an email like, oh, here are the five things. This is
how I addressed your notes. And I don't do that anymore. I'm
just like, hey, I hit all your notes. And then I made this change that
I thought, like, if somebody asked for the vocal up, it might not necessarily be
(22:33):
that the vocal needs to be louder. It might be that, you know, the guitar
needs to be a little darker and the vocal needs a little bit more top
or something like that. Because we all know if you send a mix with vocal
too loud, you're never going to turn it back down once
it's already too loud. The singer's always going to love it loud. Yeah,
yeah. No, I think that's great advice. I think using tools. What was the one
(22:54):
that you, I. Like to use one called session wire. Which I'm not familiar
with. It's kind of like audio movers and zoom put
together in one platform. So you have video chat. There's a
talkback channel, and there's a high definition channel. Cool. And there's
like an auto mute thing for the talkback. And it's. It's
their whole goal with it is making it as if, you know, like, you're in
(23:15):
the studio and there's a piece of glass between. They're just standing right there. You're
talking back and forth. Play the music. It's really seamless.
Nice. So I've been liking it a lot. Nice. I use something similar called
authentic audio. Okay. Basically, we're talking about the same product,
more or less. I'm not. I haven't used session wire, but you just described the
features of authentic audio. Awesome. So I want to backtrack
(23:37):
back a few minutes to where we were talking about, you know,
getting it right in the studio. Right. If I remember correctly, you
are a drummer, as that's your. My first instrument, yeah. Okay.
Do you jump in when you're recording and get into drum
tuning? Like, what are your thoughts on drums? Is one of those things that has
to be, if the instrument sounds fucking great, the recording sounds fucking great.
(23:59):
Yeah. Tips for great drums. Do you, what do you think? Do you get in
there in tune? I typically don't. I mean, I'm at this
point, I'm probably 95% of my work is mixing, but when I was doing
more engineering, I was working in big studios, and so
I had the luxury of working with great drummers that often even brought drum
texts and all that where you didn't have to, you know, on
(24:21):
rare occasions, yes, I'll get someone that comes in with the crappy sounding
kit and I'll try to tweak it a little bit
if the drummer isn't willing or capable or whatever to do
that. But even that's kind of walking a
fine line because I don't want to insult the drummer. It's like,
oh, can you tune this up a little? And then they try and it still
(24:43):
sucks. I'm like, well, could I do it then?
What do you, you know, so it's walking a fine balance.
But obviously, if you can get great sounding
drums tuned up well and drummers that can play
them well, that's 90% of the battle. I
(25:03):
mean, obviously we have the luxury of working in these amazing
studios, and so you push up the fader and it sounds great. It's not always
the case, but drums is a large topic, so it's hard
to answer this question. No, totally. I set you up for a big one.
Let me share a story real quick. Okay. So I was on this project
where there was, it was a. It was an interesting project because it was
(25:27):
like lots of different bands coming in and playing on the same backline.
Okay. And it was like a project
where it was a bunch of, like, newer artists
and, you know, younger musicians, but it was
with established producers. And so,
you know, the whole day, you know, the producer and the engineer
(25:49):
were trying to get it sounding great. The drums were
not really that great sounding, and they keep cranking on the knobs and creep
trying all these things and wasn't really that great. And then at
1.1 of the producers that came in was a drummer,
like a famous drummer. And just for fun, he sat down on the drum
kit and started playing and it sounded amazing.
(26:12):
So it's like, you know, like, well, that's the answer. Like,
all these people were not playing hard or solid or
it's, the player is a large part of the sound as
well. And so that's, you know, I hate
to turn it back on the artist, but at the same time,
a large part of great sounding recordings is
(26:34):
great performances. And yes, there is a lot we can
do to fix things nowadays. We
can tune things, we can time align things, we can do all that.
But if the original source of the
performance is not great, I mean, yeah, we can even put in samples if
we have to, with drums. But even then, as a
(26:57):
drummer, I honestly try to avoid using samples. Because
to me, it starts to make it feel fake,
you know? And obviously it's a balance. Like, if you keep them low enough, you
can still, you know, have that natural sound, but then it doesn't
quite. You can't quite change the sound enough if they're too low. Yeah. And
so it's. It's always a balance. So I. You know, if I had to choose,
(27:19):
it would be an amazing drummer in a great room, tuned well with,
you know, obviously who wouldn't choose? Who
wouldn't choose that tough, tough decision. It really is
true that there is a lot, like when somebody is really
honed in their craft, you know, the consistency that
a great session drummer will hit the snare in the same
(27:42):
place. Right. That's why, you know, you walk into a place like
east, west, and somebody has, like, a U 67 on the
snare and you're like, whoa, what's going on here?
You have a session where the person's not going to hit a. That microphone, that
drummer doesn't hit mics. You know what I mean? Yeah, but, yeah, the
consistency that they hit with, or even guitars. Like, I've handed
(28:04):
my guitar to a friend who's an amazing player,
right. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, that
sounds fucking amazing. Oh, wait, it's my
fingers that aren't great. It's like, your fingers are different than
mine. And the way that you hold those strings down is like. It just sounds
so much better. Yeah. You know, there's so much. So much to just
(28:26):
honing your craft. When did you come to Los
Angeles? I came to LA in 2001. 2001?
Okay. I came in 2006. Okay. Would you tell
a young engineer in 2024 that it's a good idea
or a bad idea to move to a major music hub like
LA? When you look at the cost of laden and how
(28:48):
tough it is to. Break in, I would say it's
about where your career goals are. I like that answer.
I think that there's a mountain of people out
there that work in small towns, that have little
studios, that work in their home studio or in their house
or little local studios, and they all have great
(29:09):
careers, frankly. And it's a different,
different kind of life. You're probably not going to work with
Beyonce or a super a list celebrity,
right? That would be probably rare. But
like I said, there's many people that have great careers, and
so it's a little bit different because I would
(29:32):
say it's different now as to early two thousands,
because the prevalence of home studios has, you know,
gone through the roof, exploded. Everyone has a home studio. Yeah. Or two.
Or two. And quite frankly, you can get amazing results at home
for a fraction of the cost of a big studio. Oh, yeah. And so
that if anything has, you
(29:54):
know, increased the argument for not doing this, you know,
and just doing it in a small town and setting up a studio yourself and
doing it. But the idea is that if you're doing it yourself
and not working for a studio, you then have to learn all about business,
because you're opening a business for yourself. Yeah. Marketing and everything
else. And that's the same if you do it in LA or any of the
(30:17):
big, big hubs, you know, because ultimately.
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