#215: How to Mix a Wall of Sound That Still Breathes with DRUMxWAVE and Brian Skeel

What does a true wall of sound feel like when the vocal still breathes? We sit down with vocalist‑producer Jay Cali (DRUMxWAVE) and mixer‑producer Brian Skeel to unpack the craft behind Severed, big drums, widescreen synths, supportive guitars, and why clarity starts with a shared vision before a single plug‑in loads.

We trace the journey from demo to master, beginning with an hour of alignment on emotion, references, and the “mountaintop” vocal image that sets every downstream choice. Brian breaks down how he builds commanding vocals without harshness: Revoice for doubles and harmonies that behave like real performances, meticulous cleanup, Slate’s processing for character and control, FabFilter DS for precision, and a touch of L1 to pin dynamics so automation can shape arcs. Width becomes a dynamic fader, verses intimate and centred, choruses opening with MicroShift for that lift you feel more than hear. Jay and Brian also reveal the “demon” breakdown: a vocoder moment sculpted with Baby Audio’s Humanoid, tamed by Soothe 2 and widened just enough to shock, then glide.

If you’ve ever struggled to pair synths and guitars, you’ll get a clear playbook. Guitars serve aggression rather than steal focus, panned L/R and low‑passed to make way for hi‑hats and vocal air. Synth choices lean on Serum 2 and ANA 2, with patches picked for fit, not flash. The top end gets the same discipline as the low: cut clutter above 10 kHz so the mix doesn’t fizz, a lesson that came into focus after upgrading monitors and hearing what the old room hid. And for loudness without lifelessness - around −7.8 LUFS - Brian details a reference‑driven, top‑down chain using Metric AB, soft clipping and bus moves to reduce limiter strain, and focused multiband to keep choruses powerful without pumping.

Along the way, you’ll pick up collaboration habits that save weeks: arrive with a concise brief and references, label stems to spec, and send specific revision notes. Ready to test it? Grab one current track with guitars, synths, and vocals. Try widening only the chorus vocal and low‑passing rhythm guitars until the breath returns. Hear the space? That’s what loud and open can sound like. If this resonates, follow, share with a friend who mixes dense productions, and leave a quick review so more producers can find these deep dives.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Follow DRUMxWAVE

Follow Brian Skeel

Listen to Chroma Cloud

Chapters

• 1:12 Host Welcome & Guest Intros
• 3:33 What You’ll Learn Today
• 3:59 Track Focus: DRUMxWAVE 'Severed'
• 4:59 Jay’s Sonic Vision
• 6:56 Translating Vision to Mix
• 9:46 Process, Revisions & Trust
• 9:56 Building Big Vocals
• 11:57 Tools: Revoice, Chains, De‑Essing
• 14:01 Vocoder Breakdown Moment
• 16:41 Guitars with Synths: Role & Tone
• 18:39 Monitoring, Top End, and Room
• 20:03 Synth Choices & Sound Design
• 21:30 Loudness, Dynamics, Referencing
• 23:27 Top‑Down Workflow in Detail
• 24:51 Artist–Engineer Collaboration
• 25:34 Advice for Indie Artists
• 26:26 Plugs, Links, and New Music
• 27:26 Listener Challenge & Close

Transcript

Brian: 0:22

I do the top-down approach where I kind of start at the uh stereo bus and kind of work backwards. I'll start at the stereo bust, do as much as I can there, go to my group stems. So like if all the drums need compressed together, I'll put a compressor on that. If all the vocals need uh like, oh my god, uh and and this happens to me all the time. Brian, when you sing, there's this like this weird 2K thing that happens everywhere. Okay, great, let's just put that on everything.

Marc: 0:49

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark 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 to Inside the Mix. In this episode, I am joined by vocalist, writer, and producer Jay Kelly, better known as Drumwave and artist, producer and mix engineer Bri Brian Skeel. And uh this is a first. Is it a first? It's been a long time. It's not a first, I should tell a lie. It's been a long time since I've had more than one person on the podcast at any one point. So, audience, do bear with me. I think it's been about two, possibly three years since I've had more than one person. So navigating that is gonna be quite interesting. But I'm excited for this one. Fellas, thanks for joining me. How are we today?

Jay: 1:53

Doing well, man. Thank you very much for having us. This is very exciting.

Brian: 1:57

Yeah, doing great. It's a nice sunny day out. And so naturally I'm in my dark basement in the air conditioning.

Marc: 2:04

I was gonna say that. It's a nice sunny day. And then if you're if you're watching this, you can see this uh viewers, listeners, you can see that Brian's uh sort of environment. It's quite dark, even though it is. But that that's that that is the life we lead, isn't it? In audio, you know, you lock yourself away when it's nice outside. So, folks, if you don't know Jay yet, he's the full-time touring drummer for Synthwave Legend Time Cop 983, and he's stepping out as drumwave, his first solo project, where he takes the mic as vocalist, writer, and producer. And Brian, of course, he's an artist and producer for Columbus, Ohio. One half of the Synth Pop Duo Chroma Cloud and a powerhouse mixing engineer who's worked with the lights of Cellar Dweller, Scandroid, and countless indie artists worldwide as well. And he's got credits on HBO, Netflix, and the CW. Forgive me, what is the CW? Brought that my notes, I didn't know.

Brian: 2:53

The CW is uh kind of a broadcast channel here. I guess they moved the cable, but there's lots of like drama on uh that network.

Marc: 3:00

Yeah. Yeah. I I've got in my notes, and I think I've got written here like question mark, but I never actually went and found out what it was. I thought, oh, I'll ask now. But there we go. Um, folks, before we dive into this, uh, so I just want to let you know by the end of this episode what you're gonna walk away with. So we're gonna go through some practical tips for keeping clarity and dense mixes. So we've got synths and guitars, uh, strategies for balancing vocals as well. So we've got with that aggressive sort of instrumentation and workflow insights to maintain punch and dynamics. If you ever struggle to keep your mix from collapsing, that's quite that's quite a strong word there, collapsing, uh, under layers of sound. This conversation is for you. But before we do that, if you love what you're hearing and want to support the show, please do join the Inside the Mix community on Patreon where you get exclusive content behind-the-scenes insights and help this podcast keep going strong. So click the link in the episode description. So take a breather. Um, let's start with Severed. Great tune, by the way, mate. I um when I was writing the notes for this, I was listening to it over and over. And there's a remix of it, right? As well, where it's it's sped up. Is that correct?

Jay: 4:04

Yeah, I for some reason when I wrote this song, I kept envisioning having a sped up version of it. Um, so when we were uh you know in the bouncing stage, I'm like, hey Brian, uh you think uh we can get get this going? He's like, Oh yeah, I do that all the time. So yeah.

Marc: 4:20

Nice, nice. It just when I was listening to your back catalogue as I do when I'm putting these notes together and the the outline for the episode, it just came out of nowhere. And I was like, I'm gonna have to go check out what that is. Uh it's good, it's quite interesting, it's quite cool, man. Um, so we're talking about the tune Severed, so it was kind of like behind the music, if you will. When you wrote the choke, when you wrote the song, Severed, what was the sonic vision in your head? Can you tell our audience?

Jay: 4:43

Oh wow. Um I just pictured like me standing on like a mountain singing, you know, just a wall of sound behind me. Um you know, just because the song is kind of like it's it's a cry, you know, from something that I've been through in my life, and I'm just kind of letting it out and letting the world know how I feel, but also in a moment of solitude. So, you know, I just wanted the song to be big. I wanted it to be emotional. Um, and you know, I just I I wanted it to just like kind of hit you, you know. So, so yeah, I mean, with that, you know, you gotta have super strong punchy drums in the mix. Um, you know, guitars gotta be sitting where they're where they should be in in the synths, you know, to kind of just you know accentuate that vocal, you know. So so that was it on my end. What what I um what I personally wanted, and obviously Brian could probably delve deeper into that on his end.

Marc: 5:45

Yeah, from the instrumentation side of things, before we dive into that, you mentioned synths, you mentioned guitars. Are you uh the player of all those instruments? Are you the the guitarists? Um VST synths or analog synths?

Jay: 5:59

Uh well so in the demo stages, I'm definitely just um using all VST like stuff um in like really crappy like guitar sounds on there. Um, and then when I send it all off to Brian, he's um kind enough to to put real guitars and stuff like that um on the tracks. So um it doesn't sound you know all wonky and cheesy. So yeah, thankful for that.

Marc: 6:21

I love that. And that's got that's a nice segue to my question for Brian then. So you got this this sonic vision. How did you translate that in the mix? Maybe just like an overall description of how that worked out.

Brian: 6:32

Yeah, absolutely. So Jay sent me the demo, and before I ever open Cubase or download stems or anything, I always talk with the artist. So uh we had like a you know hour-long conversation on the phone. Um, I work with people all over the world. Sometimes that's just like you know, hanging out on Zoom and chatting through the vision that they're local. We sit on the couch and pull up Spotify and just talk about emotion and sonic canvas and what we like, what we don't like. We'll listen to you know a couple songs that are like, I love the snare on this track here. Is there any way we can incorporate that in this? And so uh Jay and I were very, very on the same page with basically everything. It was like we were finishing, finishing each other's sandwiches at that point. It was it was great. So all I had to do was, you know, download the stems um and just see that vision all the way through. It was super clear.

Marc: 7:29

No, I like that phrase. Um finish finishing each other's sandwiches. Uh I like that one, dude. Yeah, yeah.

Brian: 7:35

If you don't have kids, that's from uh frozen. Who is it?

Marc: 7:39

Yeah, uh well, there we go. Uh I don't know that one then. Um, but it did stand out. So it's fair to say then that that conversation before you even sit down and open the DAW, import the stems into your door, that conversation is paramount. And both of you pulling in the same direction or heading in the same direction with the same vision or the the visions aligning into that one direction, which is paramount. Um, yeah, yeah. In terms of the actual process, was it sort of an asynchronous process? Or was Jay, were you able to be involved whilst Brian was mixing? Did you do it that way, or was it sort of Brian, you do your thing, send it to Jay for feedback? How did how did that process work?

Jay: 8:23

Well, um Brian does give you the option to sit in on the session um if you want to, but you know, I trust Brian, you know, to do what he does and what he's a pro at. Um, that's why I even wanted to work with him in the first place. So I kind of let him have his free reign, see what where his years are leading him. And then um, you know, when it comes to revision uh phases, you know, I could say, hey, you know, I yeah, I like this, or I think this needs to come up a little bit. You know, I I always send him paragraphs of notes, you know, like of things that, you know, I, you know, I try to be as detailed as I can, but um, you know, Brian's very talented, so like he's mentioned before, we're often like kind of meeting in the middle, you know, when it comes to um what he's hearing and and what I'm hearing and trying to like convey to him um as best I can. But yeah, so that's kind of what it's like for me on my end.

Marc: 9:15

Nice. Detailed notes is good though, man. Like yeah, the more the more detail, the better I find with these things for you to work off of. Most definitely. So, right in your initial description of your vision, you mentioned vocals, you mentioned standing on that sort of mountaintop water sound behind you. So, Brian, could you just walk us through like an overview of your vocal chain and how you put this together? Um this vision that Jay had for the vocal.

Brian: 9:43

Yeah, yeah. So uh I'm definitely a wall of sound producer. Like the last track that I did for my band ended up being like 300 tracks easy. Um, and so I'm always the guy that's like more. Um, and so Jay sent me these amazing sounding vocal tracks, and I'm like, but we need more. So there's a really cool tool that I've been using lately called Revoice. It's by the same people that make vocal line uh synchro arts, I think. And what it does is kind of re-like you can feed it a vocal and it will resynthesize a double. And so where Jay was sending me single tracks of a lead, I would feed it through that and come up with a double and just make it that extra, extra big. Um, and I did that throughout the track with like harmonies and leads. I was resynthesizing uh different harmonies as well and coming up with new uh arrangements for that, which was a lot of fun. But after that, uh it's any number of things. So I'll usually start with some kind of cleanup, uh, whether it's like, you know, RX, mouth declicker, or gating. Um, but then I'll usually run it through a this is getting really nerdy. I don't know how how nerdy we get on this. Oh, go for it, man. Keep going. Yeah, yeah. There are no rules here. Oh, great. So I'll I'll usually run it through like uh a series of um effects through the slate virtual mix rack. So standard like SSL EQ. Um I think with him I was using a 401 compressor. Maybe I was using a D uh distressor as like parallel compression. Um after that, I was definitely doing some DSing and I was probably using the Fab filter DS. Uh I love limiting vocals, so I'll always throw like a like an L1 somewhere in the chain just to like really pin it, really put it in place. So that way uh there's a really interesting sound that comes out of that plug and it's a little distorty, but you can definitely maintain clarity. But what it does is it pins it so that uh it's always in the same like amplitude all the way through, but then you can you know ride your automation and say like the verse needs to come down, uh, even though you know the the chorus is you know, we're we're screaming our guts out. Um I'm sure I used, yes, I used some uh parallel distortion, and that was likely heat from Joey Surgis Tones, which is a very underrated multi-band distortion unit. Uh very cool stuff.

Marc: 12:16

I love the distressor. The slate digital uh virtual mix rack is great, man. Oh my god, I'm a user of that myself. Uh I love it. And um the distressor in particular, I had the pleasure of using a distressor uh analog version in studio once, and it was so cool. But the the the slate digital one is fantastic. And the heat, I hadn't heard of that one. Is there a slate digital plugin called Heat? That's where I initially went with that. I could be I could be totally wrong. I might be totally wrong with that to be fair. Um, but it does it's something like that, yeah.

Brian: 12:45

Um, I could picture like a flame. I could be. And I just realized I could probably pull up the session and like give you an actual rundown. So I'm loading that in Cubase right now.

Marc: 12:55

Oh no, I mean if we've got time at the end, we'll we'll go through it. But like the brief overview. Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm being accurate. So no, no, I appreciate that. And revoice, I'm sure. I'm sure, I sure I've got like a list, right? Of plugins that I see, and I'm thinking I'll I'll I'll I'll have a look at that at some point. I'm sure revoice is on there. I'm positive it is. I think I saw an advert for it, and I was like, that looks pretty cool, man.

Brian: 13:17

It's an insane time saver. So like I use it a lot for aligning vocals. So like anytime Jay has like a stack of vocals, or even with Chroma Cloud, like this this last song we did, there was literally 120 vocal tracks all happening at once, singing the same thing. Bananas, yeah. And so I fed everything through Re Voice Pro. And even though everybody has a different tone and everybody's hitting consonants a little different, it's going to align the consonant together. It's going to make it so that the ends of words are lining up together. So it sounds like you know, everybody's intentional, uh, even though these are all recorded from different parts of the universe coming together. It just it's a one button click, and it's like, God, why didn't I think to grab this like 10 years ago? I I could have saved a year of time accumulating.

Jay: 14:06

That sounds great, man. I have um, I actually have vocaline uh re pitch and I think revoice. I did like some bundle where I got all three of them, but I haven't really messed with with revoice yet. But maybe when I get that new computer set up, I'll I'll dig more deeper into that.

Marc: 14:23

Well, yeah, it you've inspired me to check it out that I was working on the project just I think a couple days ago, and I was sat there using the flex tool in logic, just moving stuff around. And I'm thinking, I mean, I love getting granular and nerdy like that, but then I'm thinking, you know what? Time is precious. Time is precious, man. I shouldn't be sat here doing doing this, but I'll do it anyway, you know. Um, with regards to that, you mentioned there 300 tracks, right? Which to the audience listening probably sounds like quite a lot. Processing.

Brian: 14:52

What sort of rig are you running? Nothing great. And I was actually talking with Jay about this uh just the other day. Um, I bought an M1 Max Studio last year and 64 gigs of RAM, you know, it's it's uh it's the max core, so it's it's definitely awesome. But because of these sessions I'm running and I do a lot of orchestral scoring as well, it's it's really starting to choke. So Jay texted me, he's like, dude, I just got this M4, and I'm like, I'm gonna have to get one too, aren't I?

Marc: 15:25

M4. I the is I I'm I'm still at M2, right? I've got an M1 Mac Studio, and I knew I was aware of the M2. There's the M4 has been released now.

Jay: 15:33

Yeah, I got the Mac Studio M4. I it's in the box. I haven't even opened it yet.

Marc: 15:39

But oh man, I'm way out of the loop. I didn't know that was uh I'm assuming there's not an M3, they just went M2 to M2 there is an M3, yeah. Oh, there is. I'm way out of the loop when it comes to Apple products. I thought I was quite uh quite up to speed with it.

Brian: 15:53

You can't be on it all the time, you know. It's it's uh it's exhausting trying to keep up with this stuff.

Jay: 15:57

Well, this is true. I'm still on an iPhone 12 though, even if I have the uh the M4 behind me. I'm still like five generations behind on the phone, but it's yeah.

Marc: 16:07

I made the jump over it's way tangent now. I made the jump over to Sam Samsung a while ago. I think it was a protest by me because I had like a I had like a map, I had a MacBook Pro, I had an iMac at the time, I had an iPad, an iPhone, and I think it was just a protest for me, thinking, you know, I'm not gonna let them monopolize me and um and then realize it's an absolute ball ache when it comes to um syncing all the stuff together, but that was my own fault. So uh moving moving back to the vocals, so you've mentioned there about uh about revoice. So when you've got the sort of the the chorus vocal, you've got the verse vocal, can you maybe offer some tips, some guidance or strategies that you use in particular in this track to sort of separate the two and have so you've got that that greater impact in the chorus?

Brian: 16:52

That's a great question, yeah. So um I love using width as a dynamic tool. So, like keeping the verse, like if you're doing a double on the verse, you know, keeping them fairly mono, maybe take your double and bring it down a little bit, but then we get to the chorus, and maybe there's a double on that too, but suddenly it's a bit wider. And that can be done if you don't have a doubler, you can uh I'm sorry, if you don't have a uh double track, you can manufacture that with like a doubler. Uh, you know, Waves has one of those, uh Sidewinder from uh JST is amazing too. Um and actually I was using um I've got it pulled up now, uh MicroShift from uh Sound Toys. Um just mixing that in ever so slightly and giving it a little bit of a chorusy effect, but just moving it out a little bit so that uh, as you mentioned, when the chorus comes in, it feels bigger. You know, we've we've got all these other instruments that we have to contend with, and it has to be bigger as well, uh, in in my mind, because you know, bigger is always better, uh obviously.

Marc: 18:03

Yeah. And it certainly works. I love that the idea of using width. I think it's fantastic, and using that in particular to open it out in the chorus and get that just accentuating that that wall of sound. So, with regards to the vocal, another another point I made here is the breakdown vocal at three minutes 19. There's an effect there. Um, Jay, uh, maybe you could talk us through like your initial thoughts on what you wanted the vocal to sound like there, and then maybe Brian, how you implemented that.

Jay: 18:29

Yeah, so initially I I kept referring uh to that section as the demon vocal. Um, I just knew that like there was such a wall of emotion like leading up to that point. I really wanted to just kind of bring it down. It's almost like it's almost in my mind, it's me like having a sigh, you know, and I'm I'm I'm reciting the the chorus lyric. Um, but then like um originally I just kind of layered some vocals so it was really deep, and it was like I said the line, um, I'm playing with fire, whatever I say there. Um, but I think Brian just took that and he just made it gnarly. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. But yeah, that was the whole idea. I kind of wanted to bring it down emotionally a little bit, you know, it's a sigh. I'm just kind of singing, and then you know, just think of like my eyes opening and that voice comes out, and then the chorus just comes back in really big. Um, so that was that was my my vision in my mind for for that little breakdown.

Marc: 19:24

Nice, and then yeah, Brian, maybe if you could just talk through like what you actually did, what you used on that particular vocal.

Brian: 19:31

Yeah, so that is a vocoder, and for years I've been using the vocal synth 2 from Isotope, which is awesome. Um and I felt like actually, no, I recently got the baby audio pack. Uh I'm I'm such a glutton. Like uh getting all these plug-in packs and and subscription plans, and uh it's it's amazing I can, you know, uh stay afloat. But uh I I love this this pack from Baby Audio because it does everything a little left to center. Everything's really weird and awesome. Um, I've got a million EQs, you know, I can always pull something up or you know, a million compressors, but uh the way that they handle like reverbs or delays um is is very, very different and is very inspiring. So they have a really cool vocoder called humanoid. And the reason I gravitated towards that is because it gave like this really cool uh like TC helicon vibe that you know, if if you know Image and Heap, she's using that on uh hide and seek. I think Sleep Token's using that on um fall for me. Uh so I wanted that really gritty uh digital kind of sound, but it gives you a lot of really awesome control with like formants and uh width and tone and number of bands. It's it's really awesome. So I was I was using that. And then with any kind of vocoder, you've got to control it because those can get just nasty. So uh definitely used Soothe 2. Um, if you're not familiar with that, that is another great time saver. Holy cow! Um and then uh let's see. Another JST plug-in, which is a Howard Benson vocal multiplier just to give it some more width. And uh it's it's got this really cool low octave synthesizer. So it uh gave it a low end, like a bottom that it wasn't there to begin with, and just made it sound to to Jay's point, just just monster, you know, um, into a room reverb and then another doubler just because, you know. Yeah, why not?

Marc: 21:40

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh that's what I like about breakdowns in my own tunes that I produce. Uh with when it comes to breakdowns, I'm just kind of like, how weird. Maybe weird's the wrong word, but like depending on what the the where the where the track is going, I'm thinking what what can I throw at this to make it just sound really interesting? So it's not just a nice sounding vocal. You just gotta make it sound interesting, it's got to pull the listener, which is what it did because it made me write the note here. It's like, what is that? What have they done to that? But Soothe 2, man. Um, I made the jump over to Southeo probably about two weeks ago. Uh, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna give it a go and I'm gonna see what happens. And it is fantastic, ultimately. I was prior to that, I was using uh Isotope Sculptor, which is uh very much a water down, yeah. It's okay, it's not bad. Um, but Soof 2, the parameters and the control in it is just so good. Have you used somebody asked me this the other day? Um I want to say smooth operator, but that might be because I was listening to Smooth Operator is another baby audio. Um I'm thinking of Sarday, but yeah, yeah.

Brian: 22:42

Um I can't get it to work. I don't understand it. It's it's one of those plugins that like I don't know if Cubase hates or something. Um, but like I was like, oh cool, it's like a like an alternative to Soothe, but like um I'll use it and then I'll close the session, bring it back up, and then nothing goes through, like no audio goes through that change until I get rid of Smooth Operator. So uh baby audio. Uh let me try it again. Yeah, let's let's work together, you know?

Marc: 23:12

Yeah, yeah. I I can imagine it's it's one of those I was asked, I've been asked a couple times what my thoughts are with regards to comparing the two, and I've never used used that one. But I was speaking of Michael Oakley um on the episode on the podcast a few weeks ago, and um he's uh he he mentions using it, but couldn't tell you what door he was using though, to be fair. Couldn't tell you what door, but that's a pain in the ass though, if you got it and it doesn't work. Baby audio, sort it out. There we go. Well, this is this is true. Yeah, it is a fantastic plug-in. The the controls in it are so good. So good. Yeah, yeah. Um let's move on to guitars and synths. I think this is a good one to go into now. So, Jay, you're you're writing your tune, you're producing and whatnot. Synth wave. How do you fit guitars into your songwriting when paired when sort of paired with synths? Because I find with synth with guitars in particular, with synths as well, you gotta they've they've gotta work together. And sometimes you can go a bit overboard. Not yourself, but it it's possible to go overboard with the two.

Jay: 24:15

Yeah. Um for me, I I just I feel like when I'm writing, I just kind of go for what sounds good to my ear. And I never go in with the intention that guitars are like supposed to be like a big focal point of of the music I'm writing. Obviously, Sabbard's kind of an exception, Flames in the Sky kind of an exception because they're more rock-leaning tunes, but um, you know, they're they're meant to just kind of be a lair rather than super stand out. Um but yeah, I mean for me, it's just what sounds good to my ear, you know. I don't really like boxing myself in when it comes to you know having sense, you know, conflicting with guitar or what have you. It's like if it sounds good to my ear and we can get a good mix on it, that's that's that's good enough for me.

Marc: 25:06

So that's fair, man. When it when it comes to the guitars, how many tracks? Guitar tracks. So you got rhythm guitar? How many guitar tracks are you recording? At any time during this song, I'm just doing left and right. Nice, nice, nice. And what uh I haven't got this, I didn't prep you with this one here. Go what uh AMP SIM are we using? Uh for this one I'm using the uh uh Neural DSP Gajira X. Oh, good job. I haven't tried the Gajira one. I've got the Pritchucci and I think it was the I want to say the Pliny one. Did it? Was it Pliny? It might have been the Pliny one.

Brian: 25:41

I don't have either of those, but I'm super interested in the Pliny because the Cleans sound incredible. But I'm also a giant dream theater fan.

Marc: 25:48

So love his very good. The uh the cleans, the cleans for both are brilliant. I I I lent towards getting the Piucci one purely on the basis of the distorted the rhythm tones I thought were more inclined to what I was after at the time, but yeah, the Pliny stuff. I remember I first saw Pliny when I went to watch Periphery and they supported and admittedly never heard I hadn't heard of them before. It was fantastic, man. It was it was so good. Uh and then my friend and I were stood there and we were just like, Who what what who is this band? And they were just playing this really the the sounds coming out from the guitar. I was like, This is amazing. And that obviously Periphery came out, and I was just like, This is this is insane. Love Periphery. Oh my god, one of my favorites, yeah, so so good. And uh, I just reminded myself to go back and give him a listen, it's been a while. Um, yeah, the vocals, the vote, like some of the notes that that that dude can hear, and he did it live as well. There's what I cannot remember the track, but he hits a note on the recording, and I'm thinking, can he replicate that live?

Brian: 26:51

And it was just like Spencer is very disciplined when it comes to his voice. Like, I've I've got some vocal courses from him, and he like has tons of great secrets, and uh, but it's all about just like you know, using your voice correctly.

Marc: 27:04

Yeah, 100%, man. Warming up, which I fell foul of. I never used to do even though I'm not a singer, uh, I do the podcast, so I talk a lot, and uh it did have a detrimental effect on my voice, and now I've got to do vocal exercises every time I come to do these things, which is quite interesting. Yeah, yeah, man. I've I had to go see a vocal therapist and everything. So I've got all these exercises to do to um to stop me losing my voice. Well, this is it. Um with regards to the guitars then and and mixing, what's your approach to so you've got guitars synths uh uh uh playing at the same time? What's generally your I I suppose it depends on the track, right? But what's your approach usually to sort of balancing those?

Brian: 27:43

What's the and that? Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is priority. Um, so anytime I open up a mix, I I have to think about well, what is the focal point of the song? What is helping everything else, and what needs to be like more felt than heard? And based on Jay's vision, the guitars were definitely the the latter, which was that they just need to be felt, not heard, really. So just giving a little bit of extra aggression, just filling out a little bit more space. Um, so if you were to remove the guitars, like you could feel an absence, but it's also the the guitars aren't like a focal point in the mix. You know, we have all these synthesizers, we've got, and we can't let anything get in the way of the vocal because that is our like priority number one. That's gotta be like the the the first the first and last thing that the listener walks away with from the song. Um, and so I'm doing you know plenty of uh carving on that. Like I'm looking at my pro Q and I'm just like, you know, dipping like crazy. Um and uh let me see here. Yeah, uh really, really basic stuff, but just trying to try to get it out of the way of everything, especially since we have so many synth layers. Um now something that I learned when I started really uh working with uh guitars and synths together is like so if you've been mixing for any amount of time, we we all know to to high pass everything to get lots of room for the low end. You know, we gotta get that kick to come through, that bass has got to be uninhibited, those got to work together, and there can't be anything else there to muddy up that space, right? You gotta do the same thing with the top end, especially with anything synth-heavy. So we got all these airy uh sounds, all these pads, all these you know, boop boops and plucky plucks and and the sizzle from uh a guitar cab, you know, guitar cab. Um, and uh it can just be a mess up there if you're not careful. So, in addition to high passing, low passing as well, to make sure that it doesn't create this giant mess, but you're also making room for like your hi-hats, your cymbals, and most importantly, the clarity and the air of the vocal.

Marc: 29:59

Wise words, and I think it's one that is often not spoken of enough. Because I think there is a lot of emphasis on tidying up, cleaning up, however we want to phrase it, the low end. But maybe we're not paying as much attention as we should to the top end, as you mentioned there, in particular with the instruments that we're working with, like you say there with synths and guitars. So, audience listening. It's something to be aware of because again, not something I listen to a lot of audio podcasts and consume a lot of content, and it's not something that comes into much discussion. Maybe I'm maybe not consuming the right content, but something that I don't hear probably enough spoken of, I think. I don't know what you guys think.

Brian: 30:40

I couldn't speak to that, honestly. Um, I think the biggest change for me was when I updated my monitors. So I've been using Dynaudio uh BM5s, I think, for years and years and years. I learned how to mix on those and they just felt like home. Um and then I started hearing from some of my artists, some of the people that I work with, they're like, hey, I think we got to pay more attention to the top. And I, you know, that there's something going on there. And these are like the BM5s are pretty dark. So I ended up getting the uh the Adam A7Xs, which have those those ribbon tweeters. They're like they're supposed to go all the way up to like 22k. And I was like, my God, these mixes are a mess. And I'm I I had to email everybody and like, I'm so sorry, this is horrible. But and and so the point that I'm trying to make there is, you know, sometimes that's not something that we uh address in our mixes because we don't have the capability to listen to it. You know, a lot of monitors, you know, things like the uh the K rocks, you know, they're they're pretty scooped, they're they're pretty low end heavy. I haven't listened to them for years, but like what's the top end like? Um, and that's like the the I feel like the the speaker system that a lot of people will start out with. Um not all of us have, you know, $1,800 to to drop on these atoms, but being able to hear that, I think is really, really important to be able to diagnose and say, am I doing too much up here?

Marc: 32:16

Yeah. And also conducive to that is having a treated room and the environment you're in as well, right? With regards to that's because it is the analogy, isn't it? If you're if you're like a painter is not going to use a particular filter. If you're putting a filter on something that you're trying to create, this is a really poor analogy that I'm coming up with here. But it's gonna have a it's gonna there's gonna be coloration. There's gonna be coloration on whatever it is you're creating based on that environment. So yeah, very, very important, very important stuff. Um, but with regards to the synths, just bringing it back to that, Jay. Um, you mentioned that you were using VSTs. Maybe if you could name uh some of the your go-to VSTs that you're using.

Jay: 32:55

Um, right now it's it's really simple. Um, trying to build up my arsenal, but uh I'm using Serum 2 a lot and um Anna 2 as well. Um, and then I got you know just some packs um within that. Um one by uh vintage soundset. Um I got a couple of his uh synthwave um packs and he does a great job. So um yeah, always looking for new stuff, but that's kind of what you know what I've been using.

Marc: 33:21

Good choices, man. I used the same. I've got Anna 2, I've got Serum 2, uh both fantastic. Been using Anna 2 for years. I got it with the slate digital bundle many years ago, and then I've recently started using Serum 2. Uh I moved over from Massive, I was using Massive a bit, but stopped using that so much now. But no, Serum 2's great, man. Um, what what door are you using out of interest? Um, I use Logic Pro.

Jay: 33:46

Yeah, I'm out of Logic. Yeah, used Alchemy. Um, I I have, yeah. I don't know if I've used it in any actual tracks. Yeah. Um, but I did kind of go through you know some of the presets in there for way longer than I'd like to admit. Uh but um yeah, yeah, I've checked it out for sure. There's some good stuff in there.

Marc: 34:05

Yeah, it's it's interesting. It is a great plugin for a free plugin, it's super good. Yeah, I I find myself using it more for like if I want just random sound effects, if there's just some A-ton or something like that, some sounds in there. I find it's really, really useful for. Uh Jensen, in the interest of time, uh, because I don't want to keep you too long, I think it'd be quite interesting to move on to sort of the dynamics and loudness side of things as well. So I've I'm I hope I hopefully I'm right in saying this, Brian, but you also mastered the track as well. Cool, I got that right. Fantastic stuff. So I the master sits around sort of minus, I got here on my notes, 7.8 lufts around that sort of area. So, and it sounds fantastic, right? So, how did you keep it at because that's relatively hot, let's say. How did you keep it, get it to that sort of level, but like maintain the dynamics and the clarity in the tune, in the transcript song?

Brian: 34:57

Yeah, it's a great question. And and you know, thank you for the praise. Um I can't master anything. Full stop, just kidding. Um, I push buttons until things are really hot. Um, no, I can't master anything without referencing other material. Like, I I think that should be a rule that anyone follows uh forever, whether you're mixing, mastering, even production or songwriting. Um, but I have an amazing plugin uh called Metric A B. Um and it is by adapter, and it's uh if you remember uh Magic A B, it's the exact same. It was just like, you know, it they put a new finish on it. Um but what I can do is I have a button over here. I'll pull up a tune in the same vein. Like I'll go to you know, Bandcamp and you know purchase a track that were like, you know, hey, we we like this vibe, we like the loudness here, and I'll just you know back and forth A B that against the mix. And I'll start with the the limiter, try and get the choruses to kind of match in volume, and then we'll we'll start to look at things like tone, you know, globally. What does the the EQ curve need to look like? Then we get more granular, uh, you know, obviously some kind of bus compressor to give it some some movement and some uh energy and punch. Um but then when you start with your master chain, this allows you to hear problems or even see problems. If you're looking like at analyzers, uh, that you can go like, okay, now I have a checklist of things to go down. So starting with the master, getting it nice and loud, nice and hot, I'm I'm like, oh my God, this thing is doing like 10 dB gain reduction. My my limiter is on the snare and the kick. Okay, great. We need to soft clip those, or we need to find a way to get those to be more controlled. Um, and so you you constantly use metric A B so that you're still in line with what you're doing. You're constantly watching your uh uh your limiter to make sure that you're not just destroying the track, but then you use that as like a diagnostic tool. Um uh man, when the when the vocals come in, those are uh really eating up the limiter. Okay, maybe I should use a multi-band compressor before the limiter so that when the vocals come in, it's kind of gluing everything together, pulling everything down, but doing it so minuscuely that it's not like pumping or anything. Um, and then using like, you know, track space and and things like that is is really, really useful. Um, and I've just been rambling. I don't even know if I've answered the question.

Marc: 37:43

No, no, no, no. It's perfect, right? It it this is fantastic. So, with regards to that mastering process, are you have you got the limiter at the beginning? Are you working backwards from the limiter? Does that make sense?

Brian: 37:53

And then Yeah, yeah. So I love top-down mixing. Yeah. Um, so when Jay and I first started on this track, um to go back a couple conversations, I would send him like whips. So he asked me, Hey, can can we do extra guitars? Can we do extra production? Um, I was helping him beef up like the drum samples and you know, get some more uh body out of some of these, you know, synth bases. And so we'd be, you know, sending stuff back and forth, uh, like, hey, how do we like the vibe on this? That's production. I'm not looking for luffs, I'm not looking for everything to really come together. I am mixing a little bit as I go, uh, just to save myself some hassle uh further down the line. But once I mentally move from production is finished, we're now on to the mix, that's when I start top down. Uh because I'm mixing as I go, the flavor is already there. We're just getting everything to play nice together. So, yes, I do the top-down approach where I kind of start at the uh stereo bus and kind of work backwards. I'll start at the stereo bus, do as much as I can there, go to my group stems. So, like if all the drums need compressed together, I'll put a compressor on that. If all the vocals need uh, like, oh my God, uh, and and this happens to me all the time. Brian, when you sing, there's this like this weird 2K thing that happens everywhere. Okay, great, let's just put that on everything. Um, and then I'll get really modular, really micro, and then go to the track level if I need to. Like I was talking about, the kick is like really transient heavy. Great, let's soften that with some clipping. And so working my way backwards, but always keeping an eye on the stereo out and making sure that's hitting the references and the benchmarks that we're setting, setting. Yeah.

Marc: 39:45

Wise words, my friend. Yeah. Um the top-down approach is is a fantastic way of doing it. I really like it. And I think it's a good way of not over processing as well. Exactly.

Brian: 39:56

Yeah, I think really minimal with it. You can put out a ton of tunes if you start at the very end.

Marc: 40:02

Yeah, which it it does, it sounds counterintuitive, but it really does work. Because I think if you go the other way, I think particularly if you're unsure of what it is you're doing, then you can over I find that's where overprocessing comes in, is where individuals aren't necessarily sure if what they're doing is correct, and then you just do something because, well, because and it might not necessarily be conducive to the tune. But no, really interesting, interesting stuff. Um Jay, throwing this over to you. When it came to the mastering phase of things, did you have any um requirements? Was there a conversation, or was it just Brian? You know what you're doing, I trust you, do your thing.

Jay: 40:40

Um, there yeah, obviously was some of that, but um no, Brian and I, we have a very great working relationship um all through to the very end, you know, of mastering. Um I think Sebord had what, Brian, like maybe five. We did like what five revisions on that one.

Brian: 40:57

Yeah, and they weren't crazy, like yeah, they weren't crazy revisions, but I just you know, I just little things, you know, that I want to hear.

Jay: 41:07

Um, but but yeah, I think um yeah, we're start to finish, him and I are communicating, you know. Um in yeah, it's great. I love it. I love working with that guy.

Marc: 41:21

Fantastic stuff, guys. It's a it's a nice, nice way to end the almost end the conversation. So I've got one one other question here for you, Jay. Um, and this is what advice would you give to an indie artist working with a mixed engineer for the first time?

Jay: 41:39

Um I'd say probably try to be as prepared and thorough in what you're looking to get out of your project. You know, because when you have a clear vision of your destination ahead, um, that helps everybody, right? It'll help you because you know exactly where where you'd like to go. It'll help the the engineer that you're working with understand kind of like the artist that you are or aspiring to be. Um, and you know, there's there's always room to learn along the ro the along the way, right? So you don't have to have all the answers, but if you kind of have as clear of a vision as possible to where you'd like to go, then you're already 10 steps ahead. But yeah, just being prepared. Um, you know, trying to to if when you're sending over demos and stuff like that, just you know, if they got guidelines, like like Brian will send over a bunch of guidelines of how he'd like things, and that's great. Um, so just read, follow the rules, you know, make it easier for everybody.

Marc: 42:44

So fantastic. Brilliant. Uh wise words, Jay. Thank you very much. Uh gents, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today with regards to this. Uh no, it it has it has been brilliant. And I think the biggest, one of the biggest takeaways to take away from this is kind of echoing what you just said there, Jay, really, which is about the vision and communication. I think if you start off and you're both aligned with that in particular, then you're setting the foundation for something good, you know. I think, most definitely. Um, before we wrap up, I always do this with anybody on the show. Uh, maybe we'll start with yourself, Brian. Um, is there anything you'd like to share with our audience? And where can they find you online? If they want to think more.

Brian: 43:21

Sure. So, as Mark mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, I am one half of the synthpop duo Chroma Cloud. And we've got a song coming out uh this Friday, the uh the 19th. I don't know if the episode's gonna be gonna air uh before that or after that, but it's called Find Us. Uh, and you can find us. Terrible, terrible. Go ahead and cut that. Uh but you can find us on all the things. Uh Instagram, we're on Spotify, we got TikTok, we got presence everywhere. So uh if you like the kind of stuff that Jay does, uh check us out. We actually also did a collaboration with Jay with our song Flames in the Sky. Um and so if you if you like what Jay does, come check us out. Thank you.

Marc: 44:08

Fantastic. This episode is going to drop after that day. But what I will do is I always do, folks, audience listening, I will put links to the songs in the episode show notes. And in Spotify now, you can actually put direct links to the song in the podcast. So you can click on that without actually having to click a hyper link, which is which is fantastic. Thank you, Spotify. Thank you very much. Uh Drumwave uh I was gonna give you Cali then. Jay, uh, where can the audience find you online? Any news? What have you got going on?

Jay: 44:37

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at J Cali Drums, um, at drumwave, pretty much all across the board on all socials. Um, I got new music coming. You know, I can't say too much just yet, but it's being worked on uh with my boy Brian here. Um yeah, and there's definitely more to come on, you know, the the the playing front as well. Um, but I can't really say too much about that yet. But there's a lot of cool stuff coming for 2026. Um, I'm very excited. I'm excited to keep releasing music and to keep working with Brian. And yeah, it's gonna be great.

Marc: 45:13

Fantastic. Again, links in the episode show notes. Uh, audience listening, uh, one call to action for you guys. Uh, this is a challenge. What I want you to do is take one of your unfinished tracks with with guitars and synths and vocals, and then take one tip that you've learned from this podcast today, and then implement that in your project. And then send me a message. You can click the link in the episode description, send me a message with a link to that particular project or your discovery, your findings, and uh I'll give you a shout out on the podcast as well, and of course, pass it to um to Jay and Brian as well as feedback. But again, gents, a big thank you. Thank you very much for spending the time with me today. And uh, audience listening, until next time, stay inspired, keep creating, and don't be afraid to experiment inside the mix.