#182: Are You Using Digital Distortion Wrong in Mastering? With Eric Mitchell

Achieving a polished, professional sound in mastering requires a deep understanding of digital distortion and saturation—but how do you use them effectively without compromising clarity? 

In this episode of Inside The Mix, I’m joined by mastering engineer Eric Mitchell to explore the fine balance between intentional and unintentional distortion, the role of saturation in mastering, and essential techniques to refine your sound.

Key Topics Covered:

• The difference between intentional vs. unintentional distortion in mastering
• How saturation enhances warmth and depth in a mix
• Essential techniques for managing loudness and dynamics
• Common pitfalls to avoid when using digital distortion
• The best tools for mastering and distortion
• Transitioning from analog to digital mastering—what you need to know
• Why trusting your ears is crucial in mastering and saturation

Whether you're a seasoned producer or just getting started, this episode will help you unlock the power of mastering while avoiding common mistakes.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Follow Eric at Eric Mitchell Audio
• Kaptive Audio

Got a question? I’d love to hear from you! Submit a question, share your social media handles or website, and get featured in a future episode. Plus, one lucky question will win a Starbucks voucher each month!

Transcript

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Managing Digital Distortion in Music

Eric Mitchell 0:00

And so I want to put this out there because it's what I always say to them , and I think that this is important for other people to consider too . It's like and I don't mean this as an insult , I just think it's the truth Someone who says that they can't do with plugins , what they can do with analog , is not speaking to the capabilities of the tools . They're speaking to their own capabilities . You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host , mark .

Marc Matthews 0:28

Matthews , welcome to Inside the Mix , your go-to podcast for music creation and production . Whether you're crafting your first track or refining your mixing skills , join me each week for expert interviews , practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry . Let's dive in . Hey folks , welcome back or welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast . Before we dive into this episode , I want to know if you've got a question , because I'd love to hear from you on the podcast . Click the speak pipe link in the episode description to submit your question , share your social media handles or website or whatever it is you're working on at the moment and get featured in an episode . Plus one lucky question or listener submission will win a coffee voucher on me each month , and I say you'll get to feature on the podcast . If you're unsure of the format , check out episode 175 and you'll get an idea .

Marc Matthews 1:24

So that aside , today I am thrilled to welcome back my guest , eric Mitchell of Eric Mitchell Audio . He's returning for his second stint on the Inside the Mix podcast and the episode last year so I say last year , so that was in 2024 , was episode 143 . The Art of DIY Mastering Tips and Strategies to Master your Own Music was in 2024 . It was episode 143 . The art of diy mastering tips and strategies to master your own music was actually the most popular episode of 2024 , so much so that we got eric back on today . So if you haven't heard up one before , do go check it out . Obviously , listen to this one first , then head back and listen to that episode . But that's enough of my rambling . Eric , how are you ? And thanks for joining me today great man .

Eric Mitchell 2:04

How are you ? It's good to be back yeah , I'm good .

Marc Matthews 2:07

I'm good , mate .

Marc Matthews 2:07

I'm getting in the swinger thing , a lot of interviews at the start of 2025 , so just greasing the interview wheels again , mate there you go , yeah yeah , I think this is the third or fourth one of the year , which is , which is great , enjoying it , getting back in the swing of it , mate , um , but yeah , so it's a pleasure to have you back on . So , for those of you who might not know , uh , or have not listened to episode 143 , shame on you . Uh . Eric is a true audio industry multi-hyphenate songwriter , producer , mixer , mastering , engineer , live sound expert and educator as well . He works predominantly with electronic artists and labels , and fans of the band glass jaw may well know his work on the live sort of scene . He's been responsible for their live sound since 2018 and also remastered their 20th anniversary vinyl box set .

Marc Matthews 2:54

So today we are going to be diving deep into the often misunderstood topic of mastering digital distortion . Now , we did allude to this in episode 143 and I said we were going to come back to it , and that's what we're doing today . So you mentioned in that episode about using distortion in mastering and it really piqued my interest . So how to use it creatively and also I think it's important to know when to avoid it . So I think it'd be good to start , maybe , if you could start by explaining digital distortion to our listeners and what they are , what to look out for and why it's such a nuanced topic in mastering well .

Eric Mitchell 3:32

So , just based on my past experience with clients , I think when you , when you say like digital distortion , there's probably like two , two like different applications of that terminology . One which I would consider is like intentional distortion or like saturation things , where you're trying to bolster the sonics on purpose . And then there's like digital distortion in like the artifacting sense , where there are like distortions happening as a result of processing that may not be intentional , and so I think it's like important to to talk about both sides there . Um , and so obviously like intentional distortion , um , you know there's saturators which distortion ? For those people who don't know , it's like when you hear a guitar amp and the guitar is all gritty and dirty . That is a saturation . If you didn't have that on there , the guitar is essentially going to be clean . So it's adding harmonics , even in odd harmonics , to the original signal . Well , even and or odd , depending on which saturator you're using , I guess . But and so that that's like the on the face , like application , I think . But in my mind , saturation is kind of almost happening everywhere .

Eric Mitchell 5:01

In in an example that I'll give you is like compression . I almost think of compression more as like distortion and color than actual compression , because , like all compressors compress right and so , like , what is the main differences between them ? Which is usually like their distortions or like the box tone that they're gonna add to your signal . So most of the time when I'm picking compressors , I'm not picking for the compressor itself , I'm picking for the , the color of the distortion that it's going to add to my signal in . You know so , certain compressors for drums , certain for guitar vocals , vice versa , and where the saturation that is going to add it will complement the signal .

Eric Mitchell 5:49

And on the opposite end , like managing , you know , unintended distortions , especially with within electronic music or any genre where , like super loud output is the desired end result , it's almost impossible to get such high outputs without introducing distortions from , you know , clipping and limiting and things like that . And so I found that using multiple stages of those things doing little bits rather than like heavy-handed processing um , allows you to manage the , the stages more fine-tuned and and manage where the distortion is coming in or , you know , minimizing it to a degree that it's not adding anything negative to the end result . Sorry , that was a long ramble . No , that's fine , I was just taking it in .

Marc Matthews 6:43

So what we have there is we've got two you mentioned there sort of intentional and unintentional distortion , so the intentional being saturation , rather than even and odd harmonics Put my teeth back in and then we've got digital distortion , so that's sort of like the non-intentional , almost sort of like destructive sort of distortion , so it uh sort of uh distortion .

Marc Matthews 7:03

So it's interesting there what you mentioned about distortion in series , because that's often the approach that I take with regards to compression . So it kind of marries in my thought process , that's and you you see that a lot as well rather than just being heavy-handed with one compressor , you do it in series , um , so can you elaborate a bit about how you use that creatively and mastering there ? Because you you touched on it there with regards to we're aiming for lap I say aiming for , I don't want to use the term aiming for , but obviously within electronic music it's got to be a certain loudness right for it to be competitive , especially when it's played out in a club environment or on a sound system . So how are you sort of using digital distortion in mastering to add character and sort of , let's say , emotion to a track ?

Eric Mitchell 7:43

well , lots of different ways .

Eric Mitchell 7:45

So like I can't remember if we went over this in the last episode , but so I don't want to be too repetitive , but I primarily stem master yes , I remember that , yep yep , maybe like one out of 100 masters is a stereo master , so it's almost all stems and so , um , I'm personally my workflow allows me again more control over where I want to apply saturation and distortion and mastering because of that , so I can use some saturation on the drum stem that's separate of the bass stem or the synths and I can really control the tones synths and I can really control the tones and so , um , generally I'm almost never adding distortion and stuff to to low end and , like the sub range , um , I try to keep the , the bottom of the mix , the master like , as clean as possible . Um , just because subs and everything needs , like that , room to breathe and so I don't want to compress and saturate and squish .

Eric Mitchell 8:48

you know that that range so much but generally speaking , a lot of times I'll look to distortion as almost like a form of eq , so like , let's say , there's like a , a synth stem that is a little dull , it's like sure , I can throw an eq on there and , like you know , crank a high shelf or find the presence range . But sometimes using distortion and tailoring the distortion with like a high pass or band pass and focusing it on just a certain range , you can bring that presence or the life into the signal without EQ , just by the distortion .

Marc Matthews 9:27

Yeah , yeah , no , that makes perfect sense and it's kind of like another . That's the great thing about music , in a way , isn't it ? You can do more than one , you can achieve a similar result with more than one sort of technique or tool , and that's exactly what you're doing there . It reminds me of a conversation I had with Shane Slack and he was talking about depth and how he used bit depth on his drums on a beat , rather than just going for the obvious sort of like compression or saturation , like you say . He was using bit depth to do that . So you mentioned saturation there . At any point . Are you actually sort of using digital distortion like overloading ?

Eric Mitchell 10:06

I said overloading , so yeah , yeah , go ahead , yeah yeah , so like , uh , when you get to the , the final stage of the master and you're getting like your final level output , for me , um , it's typically like the master processing and then I'll hit a clipper and two limiters and so in the cl clearly we're like pushing it over and clipping it , and so there are distortions that occur there and with electronic music especially , or any loud music , I guess where I've come to arrive is so I actually over-engineer the transients into the master , and the reason for that is because when I get to the end I'm going to clip and limit .

Eric Mitchell 10:49

I still want it to be punchy . But clearly the goal here is that we're clipping transients right Because we're trying to clip so that the limiter is not working too hard . So every time we're clipping off those transients we're going to get distortion . Clipping off those transients we're going to get distortion , but when done in the right way , that clipping distortion can actually add impact to the transients in the drum . So it's like a lot of people you'll say like , oh my god , like clippers they're killing transients . If you over engineer the transients and you're clipping them the right way , they actually bring some punch because of the distortion that occurs every time the clipper is clipping the transient .

Marc Matthews 11:30

Yeah , just to interject there . When you say over-engineer the transient , what is it you're doing there , when you're over-engineering the transient itself ?

Eric Mitchell 11:37

Well . So I like to think of mixing and mastering like I listen to two overall aspects . There's the balance of the mix , of course , like the total sonic balance , but then I also listen to the transient balance , and so what I mean there is oftentimes you'll get a mix in where the snare is ripping up here , but then the kick is only cutting through here , so the transient mix is not balanced .

Eric Mitchell 12:03

All the drums should be punching through and so when I say over engineer , um , if let's say at the end of the track , you know this is your , the main part of your mix , and these are your transients , that's where you want them to sit . Before I get to mastering , I'm engineering , like the transients , super exaggerated right , like way , way poking out of the mix so that then when I clip the mix down it's back more where the relationship I wanted . But then I have the the ability to control how much of that transient I'm clipping down into the mix you know what I mean ?

Eric Mitchell 12:37

yeah , I get you and then the other part of that is um

Avoiding Distortion Pitfalls in Mastering

Eric Mitchell 12:41

is ? I particularly enjoy using SIR standard clip which has a saturation option where it will apply saturation only to the signal when it's being clipped . So if you're only clipping your transients and then you just give the tiniest little bump of that distortion onto the clipped signal , it helps round the corners on the clipping , so it's not so sharp but you still get the nice punch . It just sounds like unclipped transients even though you're clipping . You know what I mean .

Marc Matthews 13:17

Yeah , yeah , that's the same clipper that I use . It's a very good clipper .

Eric Mitchell 13:21

Yeah , yeah , yeah .

Marc Matthews 13:21

It's a fantastic piece of kit , and it's super affordable as well . If I remember right , I think I paid about 20 or 30 quid for it , whatever the equivalent is in dollars . Still , it's very good , and you're only sorry , going back to sort of like the conversation that we had just now about doing it in series One clipper . Or are you finding that you're using multiple clippers in series again ? Or are you finding that you're using multiple clippers in series again , or are you just doing the heavy lifting with one ?

Eric Mitchell 13:48

It kind of depends on the track and how extreme of an output they're asking for . You get the standard loudness , but there are this handful of clients that it's like holy moly , you're trying to blow the speakers up with this output . So it really depends on that . But I would say like on average uh , one clipper , two limiters one clipper , two limiters .

Marc Matthews 14:12

I love that because that's exactly what I do , so I love , I love that you're saying that . Um , that's , that's great man . I was . I was thinking then when you were talking . Obviously he's paying attention , but it also reminded me of another podcast I was listening to when they were going through and they had audio examples of clippers , limiters , compression , trying to achieve a similar thing , and I think now in preparation , it would have been quite cool to do something similar . Maybe that's another one for further down the line again , get some audio examples .

Marc Matthews 14:39

I did something similar with Ian Stewart last year when we went through mid-side processing and it worked out really well .

Marc Matthews 14:46

So yeah , man , it'd be great if we maybe we'll get some , some audio examples so the listeners can can delve into that yeah , we can do that yeah , yeah , I think that'd be really cool to do , just so they can hear the difference , because I I found it really useful when I was listening to that podcast and I wish I could give it a shout out , but I cannot remember , I think it , think it was Sonic Scoop .

Marc Matthews 15:03

I could be wrong , I think it was Sonic Scoop Right on . But going back to what you said about you using STEM , and I remember the conversation we had now about STEM mastering , where often they'll send you the projects and you've got , if I can remember rightly , you've pretty much got every DAW set up ready to go in a hot site not using distortion on the on the low frequencies . If someone was to send you a stem not stem mix a stereo mix is it could you still do something similar ? Is it a similar process ?

Eric Mitchell 15:40

because obviously there you've got less flexibility in terms of how you can treat each frequency range yeah , definitely less flexibility in a stereo sense , but even there , like you know , the the tools that we have at our disposal now for adding and managing distortion are not most of them are not just wideband like you can tailor you know what part of the frequency you want it to be working on , like hd2 , for example , plug-in alliance I don't know if you ever use that one I don't think I've got a lot of plugins that plug in alliance plugins , but I don't think I've ever used that one I might .

Eric Mitchell 16:16

Yes , the hd2 black box .

Marc Matthews 16:18

It's a saturator oh , of course , yeah , I have .

Eric Mitchell 16:21

Yeah , yep , yep yep , but that one , like you can choose to do like a high pass and only saturate , you know , like the upper and or a band pass and just focus it . So , like a lot of times , I'm not doing just like wide band , I'm very specifically focusing where the distortion is being applied yeah , that makes perfect sense .

Marc Matthews 16:41

Thinking back to my question now , I probably could have answered that myself the way you described it there . Yeah , we've got more discrete control now , haven't we over the individual bands . Now we process them . So it makes it makes perfect sense . So this kind of segues on nicely to my next question , and this is going down the route of sort of like common mistakes producers , engineers , mastering engineers might make when using distortion in their mastering . Can you tell our audience how they can possibly avoid those pitfalls ?

Eric Mitchell 17:09

Sure , I feel like saturation and distortion to me is kind of like salt in food , right , like , most food needs a little salt to wake up the flavor , but you can very quickly and very easily over salt your food , right , and so like . The thing with distortion is it's kind of almost like blurring an image , right , so it's like if you have this signal that's very crisp and pristine , the more distortion you add to it , the more smeared and blurry that gets . Right , because it's adding all the harmonics . It's filling in all the space between the the original lines that were so clean , and so we talked about this last time too . Like the the original lines that were so clean , and so we talked about this last time too .

Eric Mitchell 17:55

Like the the in 2025 , this abundance of like bad audio advice on the internet , and you know how many instagram videos you'll be fed where somebody's like you want huge subs , throw on the distortion and saturate your whole mix and crank the load like , like . There's so much bad advice and so like . It's really just , I think , go again . Going back to what we talked to in the last one , too , is just like using your ears , right , because it's like you got to listen to what you're doing and not just be like doing these things because you know , someone a video told you , or , or you think that's what you should be doing . Obviously you got to experiment , to learn , to learn this stuff . But the pitfall here , I think , is like OK , I've distorted my subs , now I'm distorting my synths , let's distort my drums now to push them up into everything else , and at the end you've just got this big ball of distortion .

Marc Matthews 18:49

Yeah , yeah .

Eric Mitchell 18:51

You can't really . You know you don't want to go overboard with it , um , but a little bit goes a long way . I feel like , uh , it's an additive thing , right ? So like if you added a little bit here , a little bit there , by the time you get to the end , all those small things have added up to something significant and meaningful yeah , wise words , my friend .

Marc Matthews 19:11

I remember having that conversation about the , uh the whole like uh social media and uh yeah , various try this , this and this . And it reminds me of how I was , um , helping somebody out with some mixing and they , uh , they came in with a project and they had the uh , a plug-in chain . I was like , what have you got going on here ? And he was just kind of like , oh , this is what my friend told me to do because it worked for him .

Marc Matthews 19:36

And I was just like , yeah , that's good man , but I don't know if it's going to work in this instance . So you've got to like I like what you said there about using the salt and food analogy and how you've got to sort of like it's counterintuitive but pepper it , it in here and there and where it's needed , and I think it's . It's quite easy . I remember when I first started out , when I was producing and I would be working on something and thinking in in a silo , in like maybe I'm working on drums and bass and whatnot , and thinking I'll add a bit there and then do another bit and add a bit . But when you get to the end , that's when you realize you've got too much . So it's kind of like you need to think of the bigger picture if you're doing it individually , you're gonna , you can quite easily .

Marc Matthews 20:14

So you get that big ball of distortion . And it's kind of the same , I find , with time-based processing as well like reverbs . When people start sticking reverbs on every channel , then you get this big mono . It's almost like big mono , just a big reverb , exactly because you've just overdone it and I think it's so easy to do and it just I think that just I mean this is probably another episode in itself , but I think it's just overthinking it and thinking you've just got to throw the kitchen sink at everything . You've got all these tools with these plugins and these techniques , but you don't have to use them in every track , correct ?

Eric Mitchell 20:44

that's key yeah , and another thing you were just you just brought up there too is like , especially with like the reverb and distortion stuff like this , like for someone in a non-mastering context who's just like making the track or perhaps even mixing , some of that stuff is way less apparent before it's mastered , right , because it's it's . You know the background information and as soon as you make the track you know minus four luffs or whatever some stupid thing . All that stuff that was in the back is now just as loud in the front . So you've got cranked reverb tails , crank distortion . All this other stuff comes forward that you may not have noticed yeah , yeah .

Marc Matthews 21:24

Have you got any tips on , like , for those who are noticing that and getting feedback from mastering engineers or whatever it is they're using to to get that final master , what would you advise them do to nip that in the bud before it gets to the mastering stage ?

Eric Mitchell 21:41

so probably two things , like for myself when I'm producing .

Eric Mitchell 21:45

If for any of that kind of stuff like reverb is the is a wonderful example like that , I know in the end I it's more atmospheric and vibe and not supposed to be in the forefront , I'll put it where I think it should be and I'm like , okay , that's the level where I want it to be at the end and then I'll just bring it back a couple db because I know that it's gonna get lifted in mastering .

Eric Mitchell 22:08

Um , the second thing you can do and this is like dangerous advice because there's so many mastering engineers that are like don't do that . But like you can put a limiter on your master bus and like test , yeah , yeah , yeah , mastering , but like don't . I wouldn't say , throw that on there and work into it , just use it as like a okay , I'm going to turn this on and what does my mix sound like when I limit it ? Obviously , there's going to be way more going on when your track gets mastered than just a limiter being thrown on , but at least it gives you a quick little window into like what happens to my mix once things get kind of squashed yeah .

Marc Matthews 22:44

So the first one there is something I do as well as I like with reverb or and delay or to get it to the point where I can hear it , and then I'll just back it off , knowing that it's going to be where it needs to be further down the line . And what you mentioned there about sticking the limiter on the end is great . I think that's really good advice . To be fair , I mean , it's not going to replicate or it's not going to . Yeah , it's not going to replicate what it's going to sound like when it's finally mastered , but it out on what maybe needs to come down in certain , certain aspects . And I know some DAWs now . For example , logic has a built-in mastering assistance . You use something along those lines . But yeah , like say , it'll give you a good idea that reverb tails are sticking out too much , or maybe you need to dial the feedback on a delay or something yeah , I think it's .

Marc Matthews 23:26

I think it does work . So we touch in

Exploring Tools for Digital Distortion

Marc Matthews 23:30

a nice little segue . This moves on to the next part . So specific tools or plugins you'd recommend for working with digital distortion . You've already mentioned black box and where you and you've mentioned the standard clip as well . Are there any others ?

Eric Mitchell 23:43

yeah , a really incredible , uh , saturation tool by tone projects called kelvin .

Eric Mitchell 23:51

You familiar with that one no , no , I've got , so I've got a few time projects , uh , plugins yeah , they have that unisom compressor , which is awesome as well yeah , yeah but yeah , um kelvin and then um , acoustica audio has a master bus processor called snow which is emulating , I believe , the uh neve portico to master bus processor . But it has the uh , the two saturation distortion flavors in there the silk , like the red and the blue , um , which on the hardware is something that sounds magical and they capture that really well . So I use that a lot for , like , top end saturation and distortion . Dark glass , the bass plug-in nice .

Marc Matthews 24:48

I haven't heard of them . The last two , I haven't heard of that's by neural dsp oh no , I like the neural dsp stuff . I've got a , um , oh , which one have I got ? I think it's the portnoy . Is it the portnoy ? I can't remember . It's sidetracking now . It's making me think now , what , what guitar emulators I've got ? Um , but the neural dsp stuff's really good it's very good .

Eric Mitchell 25:08

Yeah , um , they made . They made the uh Darkglass bass pedal in a little plugin .

Marc Matthews 25:14

Oh , wow .

Eric Mitchell 25:15

Which has a very specific distortion sound that I use a lot on effects , sends and things like that .

Marc Matthews 25:21

Yeah .

Eric Mitchell 25:22

And their guitar amps . Actually I've used their guitar amps creatively a lot on synths and other things besides guitar Vocals , stuff like that .

Marc Matthews 25:32

That's made me think that I've never actually thought about doing that . I've only ever used it on guitar . Um , I've never thought of using it on a synth . I'm gonna do that on my next track , uh , and give it a go . Yeah , I've never thought of using it because some of the sounds and the just the patches in there are wild man yep , um , and they're really really good .

Eric Mitchell 25:48

I'm gonna give that and on brand with this episode , those amps . They're just distortion boxes . You know what I mean . So yeah , really , you can really get some crazy stuff out of your sense with some of the colors in there yeah , do you find that you ?

Marc Matthews 26:02

do you ever like limit yourself to how many you use in a project , or is it literally just down to if I feel it's needed , then I'll ? I'll stick , I'll use it yeah , no , no limits here .

Eric Mitchell 26:14

Like I I can't remember if we went over this , but I I run a hackintosh like I purposely built like this . It's like a 10 core , all cores overclocked to like 5.2 gigahertz so I can run just like , yeah , launch the , you know , launch everything in . I'll even still hit , hit ceilings with this , like I'm using stems and you know , you get a couple acoustica plugins and some soothes and spiffs going and it caps out pretty quick . But , um , no , I don't put a limit , it's more just like . But that being said , I will say I also don't struggle with like I see this come up a lot where people are like how do you know when it's done ? Like I don't struggle with that either , because I can just hear okay , it's balanced . Now , like I'm not hearing any more problems .

Marc Matthews 26:58

Um , so I just go until I don't hear any issues , I guess that's really interesting because that is like a common uh pain point that I that I get mentioned to me by like on instagram or whatnot by listeners of the podcast yeah sort of like you've been doing it for a while now .

Marc Matthews 27:16

At what point did you get where you were thinking to yourself . You know what . I trust my instincts . Now it's done . It's done , did it ? How long did it take to you to get to that , or did you do ? Was that like straight away ?

Eric Mitchell 27:26

definitely not straight away like for the first . Uh , I don't know , I'm just , I'm trying to remember and guess here like three to five years of doing this .

Eric Mitchell 27:36

I was still , you know , taking it out and doing the car test and and stuff like that and questioning you know my own judgment and feelings . But like , even before I started doing this , uh , as a career , I was doing it for myself in my band . So I I even had time before that too . But it's just like with anything right , like you , you do it long enough and you , you , you gain this like comfort and familiarity . That's kind of hard to to relay to anybody who doesn't have it , because the only way you can get it is by putting the time in . So it's like I think that's why it's such a pain point is because , like , if somebody who doesn't have that experience yet says to me , how do you know when the song is done ? And I say I just know they're like what the hell ? That's not helping me , you know what I mean .

Eric Mitchell 28:24

It's like it's it's hard to relay how you know , because it's your experience that's informing it .

Marc Matthews 28:30

You know what I mean yeah , yeah , when you know , you know sort of thing , yeah so , um yeah , I don't really .

Eric Mitchell 28:35

I don't really give myself any boxes or guidelines . I don't even use templates , like I don't like to approach a song with like a pre-built anything , because it's a new song that's never existed before and I want to treat it like uniquely and give it its own attention .

Marc Matthews 28:49

You know what I mean yeah , nice , I remember the conversation now . Then you get into mastering out necessity . Yeah , I think it was , wasn't it when you were working on your own tracks and then you sent it to ? Did you send it to an engineer we won't name names and then it didn't quite come back the way you wanted and then you moved into doing it yourself , if I remember rightly correct ?

Marc Matthews 29:07

yep , good memory , yeah , yeah you know what I mean the amount of interviews and people I speak to . I'm very surprised . I surprise myself sometimes with how I remember these things .

Eric Mitchell 29:16

I was going to say , with the amount of interviews you're doing , that's impressive man . Yeah , yeah , yeah .

Marc Matthews 29:21

It's when I say oh , did we chat about this ?

Eric Mitchell 29:23

And then I realize oh no , that was totally someone different , Then it gets really awkward and I have to just move on to something else . Really quickly .

Marc Matthews 29:32

Yeah , um , I did have one other question and I can't remember if I asked you this last time

Analog vs. Digital Mastering Debate

Marc Matthews 29:37

are you working ? Are you in the box , solely in the box ? Did you have any outboard gear ?

Eric Mitchell 29:40

I'm in the box now . I worked for a very long time , uh , with outboard , like you know , 50 , 60 grand worth of like the nicest analog I could get , like niff , vertigo , master , like all the the top shelf stuff and uh , the issue there was , like analog recall is a massive pain in the ass and especially for someone like myself you know if I'm doing you know , three to four masters a day . Someone like myself , you know if I'm doing you know three to four masters a day and these , these are a lot of like independent edm artists who oftentimes , again , we're you know we're talking about how they don't have the experience to know how the mix is going to translate to mastering . That can also result in a lot of times like I'm just trying to help realize the artist's vision and so I'm not trying to change like the mix or the balance . You know what I mean . I'm just trying to help realize the artist's vision and so I'm not trying to change like the mix or the balance . You know what I mean . I'm just trying to master it .

Eric Mitchell 30:34

But let's say it comes back and now like the reverb like we're talking about is cranked , so they're like oh , I didn't know the reverb was going to get so loud . Can you turn that down ? That's the kind of stuff that comes up a lot with these independent artists that may not have as so . That equals revisions , right , and so , like I'm doing three or four a day and they're they're coming back with , can you turn the reverb down ? I've already gone and mastered like three other tracks . Now I gotta go recall the desk to turn a reverb down like yeah , yeah , and so it was adding a lot of time in the day . So the way that I came originally , that originally approached that was like okay , analog revisions I have to charge for . Like in the box revisions are free . Analog revisions have a small fee attached and I was also even charging more for the actual master when it was analog , just for the added time . Soak , um , and as a result there were less and less people going for the analog because of the cost difference .

Eric Mitchell 31:35

And so I actually ran a test for like over a year where I just like stopped using my analog . I didn't tell it , and this was actually during COVID , right , so like there wasn't anybody coming to the studio anymore and watching me . It was all remote or like whatever . So I decided I was going to run a test , because you always have those arguments where people are like , oh , if you'd done an analog , that would have sounded better . But it's like you can't master the same song twice without being biased from the first master . So I'm like I'm just going to use the clients as the test , right ?

Eric Mitchell 32:09

So I stopped using my analog for a year and just went itb and I didn't tell anybody . And you know even some clients who I knew were only coming to me because they were like gear stops and they I want you to run it through the you know the niff tube like whatever , like tube compressor for the box tone like stuff like that , like real analog purists , yeah . And I did all of the masters itv and nobody said a peep , nobody said anything changed , nobody sounded said anything sounded different . There was literally not a peep . And so I was like okay , like that's enough for me , like I sold all my analog and I've been only plugging ever since . That was probably three years ago or so yeah , makes sense , doesn't it ?

Marc Matthews 32:54

it's kind of it's quite . You went down the route there to kind of doing like a blind test if you were just not exactly , yeah because you information bias , can't you ?

Marc Matthews 33:02

as soon as you tell somebody , oh , it's done a particular way , they're inherently , maybe consciously , subconsciously , they're going to think a particular way based on on the information you've given them . But yeah , you see more and more people doing that . I guess , like , and the information , like the recall element of it as well , makes perfect sense and I think , have you noticed I suppose you wouldn't , really , I don't know have you noticed a drop off or have you have you noticed an increase ever since in terms of clients , people coming towards you , since ?

Eric Mitchell 33:30

um , no kind of no change in either direction in that regard . Um , it was more just . Like you know , you mentioned the bias like . That obviously exists with ourselves too . So it's like , um , my own bias would affect if I was trying to decide , you know , which one of these workflows sounds better . Right , and so I was .

Eric Mitchell 33:49

That's why I'm like these are the clients , like this is their art , like they know it way more intimately . You know , I'm hearing it for the first time for a master . They've already listened to it like 300 times . You know to like . So it's like if something changes in a negative way , or like the quality that they expect from me after working with me for so long changes all of a sudden , they're gonna notice , right . So , and they didn't .

Eric Mitchell 34:12

And you know , ever since then , I've , you know , been on the receiving end of a lot of , uh , malicious online discussion in like mastering groups , where you have these guys that they have all the stuff , like I used to have , and you know they're arguing that it's superior , and so I want to put this out there , because it's what I always say to them , and I think that this is important for other people to consider too . It's like and I don't mean this as an insult , I just think it's the truth . Someone who says that they can't do with plugins what they can do with analog , is not speaking to the capabilities of the tools . They're speaking to their own capabilities nice , nice , I like that .

Marc Matthews 34:58

It's uh . It's going to be a good uh soundbite for for the episode yeah , we got a bunch more hate for that .

Eric Mitchell 35:04

Yeah , no no , I'd tend to agree and I specifically say that because I what I will say in defense of the analog guys is that it is a shorter path with analog right . So , like , if I'm trying to get to endpoint X , I can get to that endpoint with either tool set , but the analog one is shorter . It takes more plug-in processing to equate to the same Sonics in the end , but it's definitely possible . Now is what I'm getting at , and so , like , I think anybody who can't do that just hasn't explored modern plugins enough to figure it out for themselves . Yet you get what I'm trying to say I do .

Marc Matthews 35:44

Yeah , I do , I do . It's an . I have seen these conversations in various forums and I'm always a voyeur just looking at the comments and reading what people are putting in particular . Um , yeah , it's always interesting when you start that debate mastering engineers worldwide or something along those lines exactly that's what exactly I'm talking about .

Eric Mitchell 36:06

And you know and this is coming from somebody who , like a lot of times you see those conversations it's coming from the two sides of the people who own one or the or the other , or subscribe to one or the other , but don't have the cross experience . But , like , I worked for a decade on analog , like , so I'm someone , I'm someone who has had , who's already had all that , done both , and I'm telling you , the tools don't matter fantastic .

Marc Matthews 36:29

I think that's a great place to uh to wrap up the episode 35 minutes in man um so yeah , eric's been .

Marc Matthews 36:37

It's been a pleasure having you back on the podcast today to to go through the the distortion side of things , as we alluded to in episode 143 audience . Do go listen to that episode as well , because we do reference it a bit in this , in this episode today . So , before we wrap things up , is there anything you , uh , you're working on anything you want to share with the listeners or maybe I say maybe and also where they can find you online ?

Eric Mitchell 36:58

definitely , yeah , you can find any all my info at ericmitchellaudiocom . And then um . As far as what I've been working on that I'm most excited about to share is I actually have um like a audio desktop audio meter . I've been working on it's like a 11 function real-time analyzer , um , and I just launched that last month and so anybody who's looking for like a nice desktop rta um , you can get that at captiveaudiocom nice .

Marc Matthews 37:28

I will put a link in the episode description , both through the website and uh , also for the frequency analyzer as well I'm sure did you put posts on instagram .

Eric Mitchell 37:38

Uh , I'm sure I did see , so I see some yeah , yeah , I posted a few like um , just with the launch , but um , yeah , we just like put the pre-order up and then I'll be able to start shipping them like March , april-ish time . I've been using the prototype for like two years and I don't want to be without it now . I love it .

Marc Matthews 37:57

Yeah , yeah , it's so cool . Whenever I speak to guests and I always say , like , have you got anything you're working on or you want to share ? And some of the stuff is quite left field of what you'd expect . Sometimes you'd think it'd be like a release or some music . Yeah , it's quite cool . I was chatting to someone , um , who's another podcaster but also a producer as well , and they're releasing a chatbot and they've gone down that route . So it's really interesting to see how people are pivoting still within the music industry and music tech . Yeah , just slightly pivoting with regards to , like , either the technical side of things with ai or like you're doing yourself with regards to the analyzer and actually creating some sort of sort of hardware component that you can work with , which is really interesting . It's also quite inspiring as well . Makes me think I want to start to pivot in these different directions hell yeah , man , we are like .

Eric Mitchell 38:46

My parents raised me on the mantra that you should always have lots of irons in the fire . Indeed , yes , especially being self-employed , so it's like I'm always just trying to make sure my butt's covered , if you know what I mean .

Marc Matthews 39:00

Yeah , I bet you're spinning many plates , as we say .

Eric Mitchell 39:03

I don't know if that translates , but yeah , yeah , yeah . Many irons in the fire .

Marc Matthews 39:06

Indeed mate , eric . Eric , it's been an absolute pleasure . Like I said about that episode , in like a year's time again we'll do the whole . We'll get some audio examples .

Eric Mitchell 39:18

I think that'd be really cool .

Marc Matthews 39:21

Ace mate , I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your day and I'll catch up with you soon .