Aidan Cunningham - Mixing Engineer

Aidan Cunningham is a great mixer, in my opinion. 

He’s taught me a lot over the 10 + years I’ve known him . 

Learn some of his techniques and perhaps more importantly, how he thinks about mixing in this podcast. 

If you'd like to buy me a coffee -  Many Thanks ...

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/GeniusMove

Transcript

Room Acoustics in Mixing

Paul Brewer 0:00

Our guest this episode is mixer Aiden Cunningham . Aiden's background is a noisy metal music . Dealing with that sonic denseness in metal , I believe has helped him become one of the finest mixing engineers in Ireland , but now encompassing many genres . We recently sat down to chat in my studio in Tullamore . How's the studio going ?

Aidan Cunningham 0:19

The studio is well , it's in the build of it . To me , yeah , it's . I send people 99.468% there .

Paul Brewer 0:29

All right .

Aidan Cunningham 0:30

So it's done . Apart from the moving in of the last bit of furniture and then rigorous acoustic testing Like the right , this is the final , the final testing . So initial tests were done And what I thought would be maybe a four or five months project is now on month 12 or 13 .

Aidan Cunningham 0:51

And that's down to a lot of that's down to slow up in materials and get things delivered , And but then also just needing to look at it for two weeks and going is this actually , you know , consider it Yes Careful , And you go so far into implementing something , then going actually , I need to sit with this now for another week And then that caused the delay and a thing .

Paul Brewer 1:10

So yeah , i'm , i'm always changing things around . Yeah , i feel like you kind of need to .

Aidan Cunningham 1:17

You need to set yourself up to be able to do that . Right And not box yourself in Right , like you know . If I need to move this monitor four feet to the left , is that going to now block a light switch ? Or just little ergonomic tactile things that are actually really important in the place . Yeah , working or not , so very nearly there . Very much looking forward to it .

Paul Brewer 1:42

Talk to me about the room and monitors . What is the combination You use ? Amphion , is that right ? I ?

Aidan Cunningham 1:50

am Amphion . I am Amphion until I die unless something else comes out , but I can't hear anything else better at the moment . Right , amphion 2 , 18s of the model I'm using at the moment Right , which aren't huge They're . They're tall , like , they're not . They're not huge in like mega stack Yeah , massive , but they're actually quite tall . Yeah , they're very slim and tall , but they're they're a nice big . They're still a near field monitor . Yeah , i just love mixing on that near field , punchy , close to my ears kind of feel . Anytime I've heard those . I've heard you on the flush mounted systems like the massive fixed in I've . They're flattering and they're like , wow , they're loud and the low end Oh , my God , it's rumbling my chest , but I never felt like I could mix on them . Right , i know they're probably more for checking on or what they call them , the A and R speakers , if someone's coming into .

Paul Brewer 2:35

What sort of rooms have you listened to them in ?

Aidan Cunningham 2:38

I would have heard them . Flux Studios , new York , atomic Studio in New York . The Grouse Lodge has a pair there as well , so just they're known as kind of the A and R speakers .

Paul Brewer 2:48

Yeah , so someone comes in and you crank it You go .

Aidan Cunningham 2:50

Yeah , that's good , but I'm definitely near field Kind of guy , near felt till you die , near field and I'm feeling till I die . But to the question of the relationship of the monitors and the room , well , i kind of have come to view them as one , yeah , and I feel maybe that's a downfall of not to say a downfall , but it's something a lot of people don't consider And it's something you learn by fire , by doing . I used to mix in a very small squareish two-bedroom .

Paul Brewer 3:20

That's true , and it was very , very concerned .

Aidan Cunningham 3:23

Why is there no low end in my mixes now , but there's loads in here . You just didn't realize that . He didn't think about it . Yeah , and again , then you go through it and you go through learning . You got advice and plenty of advice from you And remember , you suggested to me , i think , why don't you just hold the cloud up over while you're listening to me , while you're listening , like getting an acoustic cloud , and hold it up and just listen And you could hear it . You could hear it happening in real time . The difference It's like okay , okay , now I need to learn more about this , possibly . Well , i actually I'll say even more so than the monitors you're using . I think the room is the biggest impact on how your mixes will sound . Yeah , more so than the monitors you're using , and certainly more so than the compressor or the plug-in or the EQ or whatever you're using . Yeah , now , it's probably the hardest thing to change . Then as well , it's not the crux of it . Yeah , if you have your room and you can't really go , you know what ?

Paul Brewer 4:18

today I'll move the wall . Yeah , move the wall . I made her , yeah .

Aidan Cunningham 4:21

I seem to notice this almost headbutting with physics . So someone might ask for advice on hey , could you give me tips on how I could fix my 4 meter by 4 meter by 4 meter room ? Yeah , and you kind of go well , you can't really . But they're like what do you mean ? you can't really . Of course you can . Surely there's a thing .

Aidan Cunningham 4:38

Surely there's a gadget ? Surely there's a . There are some gadgets that may help somewhat . You can't fight the physics . Yeah , that seems to be , and if someone's listening to this maybe wondering what am I talking about ? Are you talking ? you certainly know more about it than I do , but the physics is that the boundaries of the room and the dimensions and the relationship of those boundaries your floor to ceiling , your wall to wall all that will skew your perception of the mix if the both the frequency , content of the room and the reverb time in the room and the relationship of those is distorting what you hear . And I say to people , it's the closest thing like putting on the wrong prescription glasses and trying to paint or trying to read , Or taking the wrong prescription to the medicine .

Paul Brewer 5:22

yeah , Yes , you will be somewhat altered .

Aidan Cunningham 5:26

And at best it's guesswork then . So like if you've got the wrong glasses on and everything's fuzzy , you can kind of see okay , i'm using a green paint here and I'm painting a hill and I'm kind of painting a house . But if you can't actually see what you're doing , it's guesswork at best .

Paul Brewer 5:40

Yeah , because the other thing I was thinking about that now relatively recently was the idea that an experienced engineer can sort of semi-mix blind . Somebody in your own position could come in here and do a reasonable mix in this room . You could just do it because you would know it's roughly this And that's the thing that's missing from the early learner , because they haven't actually seen or heard what it can be . Yes , that's a very good point And that's the thing that we're always sort of . When you're talking to the lad with the 4x4 room looking for advice , you have to explain there's no way around it .

Aidan Cunningham 6:21

There is no way around it So almost the people who need the lovely rooms best are the people starting off like because then they can hear . This is how it should be .

Paul Brewer 6:30

Yes , and that was always my thinking , with colleges as well , because they should have the rooms to perform and to let everybody know that this sound is the 10 sound and you will always be certain for that .

Aidan Cunningham 6:44

Well , you hear of other engineers or I've been in some very nice rooms in studios around the world . people have been in million dollar rooms that sound terrible , the fanciness and the cost of it , or you could just be lucky in your room . If you buy a house or you rent in a unit in a building , your proportions happen to be good , or at least a good starting point . It's an easier fix .

Paul Brewer 7:11

Absolutely . And smallness is the killer , absolutely the killer . Even if you operate in just a bigger room , that will straight away make it better .

Aidan Cunningham 7:21

You're compounding the issue . the smaller you go , the more help it needs . And again for maybe people listening who aren't exactly sure what we're talking about , the room should almost sound like nothing . Exactly That's what you're looking for , And that's actually why I love the Amphion monitors as well . I almost feel like there's no monitors in front of me .

Aidan Cunningham 7:39

Whereas traditionally , if you have your monitors in front of you and you pan something left or right , it's like , oh , there's that sound in that monitor in front of me on the Yes , the Amphions feel like there's nothing there .

Aidan Cunningham 7:48

It's like I'm mixing in air . I think where it's very important to have a really good room is if you're kind of expected to be mixing a song a day or so and that just has to be right . You're not spending two weeks on it and one out of the car and listening to it and going back and checking it .

Aidan Cunningham 8:05

On this There's a certain amount of checking . I will do 100% , i'll do a mix . I get what I'd say a 95% me being happy with a mix in a day , like in a pass And either I will send that off for comments that evening or maybe , depending on the schedule , i'll come back the next day myself , spend another half an hour with fresh ears . That could be on different monitors , different headphones , different things , and it's that objectivity where the 5% of magic happens in . Yes , because I kind of feel in the first pass we've established the aesthetic of the song . This is the feel of it , this is the verse , this is the chorus , this is the drum sound , and I very rarely go back and be adjusting kick sounds or snare sounds . It's how do you make it move in the last 5% ?

Paul Brewer 8:54

of automation , whatever the fresh listen gives .

Aidan Cunningham 9:01

But that's really only possible in a really good listening environment , because you're removing the guesswork .

Paul Brewer 9:08

So at what point do you think you should have learned that You understood the value of a room ?

Aidan Cunningham 9:17

Oh , when I got my room to a state that I was stopping having to do guesswork . And then suddenly , if you look at it , yeah , living out of the car , which is never , i never found that a great anyway , that's another discussion in a minute . If you look at it purely as a business , scalable , economic thing , if I can mix a song in a day versus three days , there's the scalability . I can now do more albums per year or more songs per year , and that's I'd never . It's not about what we just say , an assembly line or doing something faster .

Paul Brewer 9:52

But if I'm getting there faster . Exactly The value of doing it faster makes you better as well , and that makes the song better .

Mixing Art, Avoiding Technical Overload

Aidan Cunningham 10:00

The comment you made before was radiation , mixing radiation , so when you open a session to mix , pretend it's radioactive And the longer you are in there your ears are going to mess Your ears are going to decay .

Aidan Cunningham 10:16

So another bit of advice I give to people is let's say you have a song to mix . Maybe it's a home project or whatever . Instead of spending a week mixing that song , mix it seven times in the week , like , just go for it And like , just whatever happens , it doesn't matter , particularly if you're practicing yourself . Yes , don't spend seven weeks butchering it to death , because the listener doesn't spend seven days going . Well , they might listen to it if they love the song , but they're not listening to it . A thousand times a day for seven days going , is that tambourine a little bit too sparkly ?

Aidan Cunningham 10:48

They got a feeling from the song and you need to mix as if you're enjoying the feeling of it A puncture Yeah . And that's . I would be of the opinion that I never mix foreign audience , but you should listen as a music listener . What ? right , so I don't make decisions going .

Aidan Cunningham 11:05

I think the general public would like it if I made a snare sound like this But you make the song feel exciting or sad or happy or whatever the emotion supposed to be , as a listener of music would enjoy it . Not . did he use an 1176 compressor on that , under snare mic ? Nobody cares , it doesn't matter .

Paul Brewer 11:27

I don't care anyway . Yes , in terms of EQ is the obvious one , because it's there in front of you . Compression might be the next one and saturation might be the three ways , excluding time related effects and stuff like that Might be the three ways of affecting a tone , a recorded tone . So would you go with saturation first ?

Aidan Cunningham 11:53

Right , or is it totally variable ? Do you know what it is ? It's completely what I feel in the moment Right , and I maybe used to be a bit more process orientated , because you're maybe learning and you're like , okay , i'll EQ before I compress and then I'll , then I'll saturate , then I'll send it to a delay .

Paul Brewer 12:08

That's the EQ before the compression , compression before the EQ , etc . Whatever .

Aidan Cunningham 12:11

Yeah , exactly Like , okay to answer that probably more often than not would EQ . I got EQ into compression , yeah , but I really don't think about that . Yes , i go , okay , i pull up a fader . What's this ? It's the bass guitar , right , you know it's a bit flubby . I think I'll attack that with some compression because in that moment , right there , and then that feels like the appropriate response because , but if you , The appropriate response .

Paul Brewer 12:36

Does that come from experience , then ?

Aidan Cunningham 12:39

The idea of mixing .

Paul Brewer 12:41

You know , mixing in a bad room , for example , how you can go get around that sort of thing .

Aidan Cunningham 12:45

I think so . I think you get to the decision of what needs to happen a lot faster from experience , right , whereas I think someone practicing could get there , but it just might take them a few days of thinking about it and listening . And you know , if there is a skill to mixing , which I would hope to believe there is , it's being able to just make quick decisions and like being confident in your ability to know ah right , that needs a bit of . That needs 12 decibels of treble , which might be a mad thing to do to a learner Like you . Can't turn up that .

Paul Brewer 13:21

Yes , indeed , you can only turn it up one db .

Aidan Cunningham 13:23

Whatever it might need , just quick decisions And then maybe then come back from another past to refine that . But the idea of an order in which to do things , i'm not thinking about it . But I would say if you looked at one of my sessions and then looked at another song , it would probably be somewhat similar . But I'm really trying to avoid engaging the technical part of my brain as much as possible , right ? So I've studied my AQ , i've studied my compression , i've studied all the really important sound engineering things , so as that they're in my brain to a point of muscle memory . Yeah , So when I need to then listen to music and decide , does the backing vocal need to feel a bit further away in dollar ? I'm not starting to think about frequencies and hertz and Yeah , and maybe that's where I see people , like when you see learners kind of getting stuck at that point where the technical side of it overrides the creative side . Or maybe people get obsessed about gear and like , oh , i'm not just pre-amping this compressor And we all love it .

Aidan Cunningham 14:30

We all love mics and it's great fun . But if it doesn't make the music like , how does that relate musically ? That's what I'm interested in . I don't really care if you've got a special tube in your compressor that makes it say like whatever , what does that make the vocal ? what feel more forward back ?

Aidan Cunningham 14:51

or bright , more excited , like that's unless it's relating to musical useful information . So when I'm mixing a song , another thing I'll do is I don't Like , if I'm sending songs to mix , i'm sending files . they'll come in in many different formats , maybe audio files , maybe a pro tool session , whatever , depending on the artist . But one of the first things I will do is remove any sense of too much information from it . So if it says in the audio file guitar Fender Twin amp SM57 microphone .

Aidan Cunningham 15:25

I'll rename that Jangle guitar or I'll rename it Sparkly synth or lead vocal , verse , vocal , backing vocal , not U87 into an EVE pre-op , Because that just I start thinking about it .

Paul Brewer 15:37

then I don't want to think about that , and I guess those terms might be terms that an uneducated might describe it It's a Jangle guitar , it's a Sparkly synth . So , we're taking the technology away from the music .

Aidan Cunningham 15:51

The struggle with mixing . One of the hardest parts of mixing is holding onto the objectivity , the objective listening , the musical fun listening while you're working on the song , and that's a hard place to get to . Yeah , it's kind of okay . Let's say you're growing up and you're a fan of music and then you decide I want to learn about sound engineering and mixing and producing and recording . When you open that world and you start playing with EQs and compressions , it almost it can ruin music for you for a while . Yes , suddenly it's all you can hear . You can just suddenly go oh , i can hear the reverb , i can hear the . It's like the you see behind the curtain or whatever . You see how the sausage is made , whatever it might be .

Aidan Cunningham 16:30

But the hard part then is getting back to where you were as a fan of music and being able to switch between the , the critical listening , as you'd call that , been able to identify okay , that's a Fender Telecaster plugged into a Marshall amp with a 57 , versus that's an exciting guitar sound . Yeah , like getting back to the objective listening . As a music fan would listen to it And it's easy to go oh , look at my technically proficient mix , isn't it brilliant ? I recorded everything , as the manual said I should , and that was great and I used the correct EQ on that , but it might be the most boring flat thing in the world .

Aidan Cunningham 17:09

If it's not musical , it's not enjoyable .

Paul Brewer 17:11

That idea . Does that mean that you've cut down on products you use As in ? you know , like the FabFilter is a very intuitive set of tools .

Aidan Cunningham 17:25

Do I venture out more from that ?

Paul Brewer 17:26

Yeah , Like is that a way of doing that ? You know , just having the same EQ , the same compressor .

Aidan Cunningham 17:34

I was never one for going crazy with like thousands of plugins , having unlimited , just as the general way I work . I like kind of creative limits . I think humans are the most creative when you give us a kind of a creative boundary to work within , Like maybe even in recording here's eight tracks that you can only use eight tracks , like on a tape machine or something . Here's a not so great drum kit .

Paul Brewer 17:58

Make a song , yep .

Aidan Cunningham 18:00

You will make something a million times better than here's all the options Yes , unlimited tracks , any guitar sound you ever want in a digital guitar amp or whatever it might be . I feel like the chances of you just working with that would better . So I kind of like that mentality . When mixing , i certainly have a lot of plugins . You know I have a nice selection of plugins Ditto .

Aidan Cunningham 18:20

But , yeah , but not to the level some people do , definitely not . And I find myself , if I had my FabFilter EQ , some sort of multiband compression , maybe like a FabFilter saturation , and an access to like an 1176 style or an LA2 style plugin , i'd get an awful lot done with that . Right , i'm sorry . I should say maybe like an SSL style channel strip as well . I like that because you got your compression , your EQ . That's my musical EQ . I'd call that .

Paul Brewer 18:47

A reduced palette , as you say . Could you envisage a scenario where you would use stock plugins ?

Aidan Cunningham 18:54

Yeah , i think , for a kind of a uniformity and a uniformity for you to work with , in like almost a constraint , now some stock plugins just then , on the sonic quality of them , i'd be like , hmm , they might let me down a little bit , depending . But think about it this way Now the channel strip is amazing , but if you're just mixing on an SSL console , you've got 2448 , 96 channels of the same tools And , yeah , ok , you'll have some outboard gear or whatever , but that'll all be limited enough . You can only send one base to the thing or whatever . Yeah , it's indeed So you don't need to have 12 different plugins on every channel . If you get Pro Tools or Logic or whatever , what you have built in is definitely enough to mix . Well , it's just when you some of certain advanced features like multi-bank compression and saturation that's where I like which will do some nice finishing work if you like . But to get a good balanced mix , there's certainly kind of most of what you need

Mixing Engineers Enhancing Songs

Aidan Cunningham 20:00

is there .

Paul Brewer 20:00

Would you ever mix with Essentially no plugins or less plugins , or , you know , would every track have a plugin on or anything like that ? Not necessarily .

Aidan Cunningham 20:10

Yeah , i still believe mixing is about balance . That's the key thing , right ? Doesn't matter if you've got the best guitar sound in the world or whatever . It's balance and it's balanced down to maybe 0.5 of a dB . Like 0.5 of a dB , something being louder or quieter is significant , like it's . Maybe the average punter wouldn't notice that necessarily , but in terms of the feel of a song , that's the level of OK , very carefully balancing things . So not every track in a session would have a plugin on it at all . It's definitely about balancing and if needed , you'll address a track . If there's something OK that's not quite sitting right , or it's too bright or not bright enough or not exciting enough or not it's too dynamic , then that would be addressed with processing Right ? Yeah , often guitars like your left and right guitar might just be straight up left and right and nothing . They're just hitting the mix bus , that's it .

Paul Brewer 21:08

It depends .

Aidan Cunningham 21:08

It really depends on the session .

Paul Brewer 21:09

Could you envisage a scenario where you might be doing much treatment ?

Aidan Cunningham 21:16

Yeah , well , like a well produced song has a production baked into it .

Paul Brewer 21:20

Right , i love that .

Aidan Cunningham 21:21

Yeah , that's absolutely my favorite type of thing to work on . Not just because some of the work is done , it's not that , it's just that I can hear where they're trying to go with it Right And they just need some help with just getting it across .

Paul Brewer 21:33

Right .

Aidan Cunningham 21:34

They're getting it stuck , sometimes clashing , sometimes not working . There's something needs to be resolved . But a well produced song will have , if you put all the faders up to maybe zero we're , like you know , relatively up to zero you'll have a good sound and a good feeling song . It's just , the emotion of the song might not be exactly , you know , how it transitions into the verse in the chorus , might be right or how it's impacting the listener . But the idea of pulling up all the faders and everything is dull and flat and straight off the mics and that's still needs to be , that's not produced , then That's not recorded properly , i would think Right , and that's fine , like there's nothing wrong with that , there's no rules to any of this . But you'd see people saying , ah , but you're all these top mix engineers Should . The stuff they're saying to mix is already sounding fantastic . Like well , yeah , that's what production is Like , that's what it should be Absolutely .

Aidan Cunningham 22:27

That's . And then they need a mixing engineer , just to they're too closer at that stage . Right , The band , the producer , they've been in the studio working on it for however many thousand hours , Yeah , And they've . They hear that tambourine one more time . They're going to get sick like the cats . They've lost the objectivity . So they say , well , we'll ring up all the aid in there and Yeah , is that part of the reason why people would employ you ?

Paul Brewer 22:51

The objectivity .

Aidan Cunningham 22:53

I would think so A lot of the producers I work with .

Paul Brewer 22:55

There's nothing technical that you're doing , that they couldn't do . It's just the clear view you'd have .

Aidan Cunningham 23:01

Effectively . If someone hires me as a mixing engineer , they're hiring me from my opinion on how I think their song would be best sounded . How I feel , yeah , and I've sent you a message about it the other day . But there's the new Peter Gabriel song , a song mixed by Spike Stent the full album and then also mixed by Chad Blake , and both that we released to enjoy as a different version . It's very interesting .

Paul Brewer 23:26

Yeah , i had a quick listen to that and I sort of thought that they sounded like did Peter leave it ? Well , look at , there's a load of tracks , there's all our ideas . You mix it , you make the decisions , you know .

Aidan Cunningham 23:37

I'd . Yeah , i would probably think a lot of them are in there and often a mixer's job and I always feel it myself is kind of a you're a little bit of a filter in that , an editor And like as in not necessarily editing arrangements , but as in that doesn't need to be in the chorus .

Paul Brewer 23:52

Right .

Aidan Cunningham 23:52

The seventh synth that you can't hear anyway because there's 14 guitars . This is taking up room . The song , i'm just going to mute it , i'm just going to . You know you're kind of the way I view a mixing engineer in the most pretentious way possible , but I know genuinely what I think it is is . You are being handed the song by the producer to give to the listener . So , like the band and the producer say , okay , and here's the song . We want you to present this to the music fan , using my taste as a music fan Right To decide what you know . What do I like about this ? what's exciting , what's not ? But the interesting thing about that Peter Gabriel stuff is each mixer was focusing in on very different things .

Aidan Cunningham 24:33

Absolutely Yeah , and so where and that happens to me the whole time where I might , there might be a guitar doing a lead line in the background . I think that is brilliant . That should be the hook . Oh , that should be upfront . And they're like oh , we didn't , we forgot , we sent you that . Yeah , that was just a little thing in the background Could you maybe look at the synths a bit more . It's like sure , fine , Whatever . Maybe I went too far on it on a person .

Aidan Cunningham 24:56

Yeah , But then bands often love that They're like oh , we never thought that could be the forefront of the song .

Aidan Cunningham 25:02

Brilliant , we love it , it's great . So I very much react as a What would I think , what do I feel sounds good ? Not what do I think the public would like , because then you're not serving anybody . You know , i'm just giving my flavor on what I think this should be And if I love music enough and I feel like I know enough about it or different styles and music , that I don't think it's going to sound bad , i don't think I'm ever going to send someone to make this like oh , that's awful . I would hope not . Maybe I'll be proven wrong , but it might be the right mix for the person you know . And that's the idea that 10 different mixers will give you 10 very different songs . It's a very important stage of how a song feels given to the listener .

Paul Brewer 25:49

That was like it was planned at the beginning . They planned in the studio to hand this out , extend the creativity by the individuals involved .

Aidan Cunningham 25:58

Very much And that's Spike's scent and It's Spike's scent Chad Blake has . So the Spike's scent is on a bright side mix . Chad Blake has done the dark side mix which is supposed to do the moon , I think . Bright side , dark side of the moon Not necessarily . It's not like a brighter mix or a darker mix In the name , it's not that , It's just the approach . And then there's actually an atmosphere called the inside mix Someone else has done .

Paul Brewer 26:18

Oh , right , okay , which I haven't heard , that .

Aidan Cunningham 26:19

Yeah , but I think that whole album is based off perception and how humans perceive things in the lyrics . So that's a very clever idea to have two completely different mixes on it , yeah , but I definitely know which ones I prefer because they find them much more exciting .

Spike Stent and Chad Blake Mix and Engineering

Aidan Cunningham 26:37

And all the verses smaller in the chorus are huge . And that's the Spike's scent mix . Yeah , and I think Chad Blake is an amazing mix and engineer . He's really good , but whatever he's focusing on tends to be more the little tambourines and the sub-percussions and all that kind of stuff . It's really interesting , it's bringing it out . But just , i'm a sucker for a scent mix . Where it's Yeah , it's a great point And it's a big chorus and then the verse comes down . You know it's a really Yeah , it feels really good What he does .

Aidan Cunningham 27:02

He's what he does And he does very well .

Paul Brewer 27:05

So that's Aidan's way to do it . Many thanks to him for taking the time to chat . Do visit GeniusMoveie to find out about recording choruses to suit you . Thanks for listening .