Michelle Pettinato:
If you're recording yourself, the most important thing is starting with good sounds from the source. If you're recording live instruments, that's making sure the drums are tuned and the heads are in good condition, and your guitar tone is dialed in. Really putting some thought into what is the end result that I want, and putting the time into pre-production to make sure you have your sounds as crafted as you can before you even start recording. It's like the fundamentals, just understanding the basics of audio and music production. And how to get good sound from the source and then get good signal into your or into your mixing console. 

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and slowly getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so they can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, [inaudible 00:00:55] the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution with today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker. 

All right. So I'm really excited to be here today with Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato. She is a sound engineer who her first tour was with the Spin Doctors, with the Two Princes. As soon as I heard that that was a band that you went on tour with, that song, Two Princes, has been making a recurrence in my life. And I feel like I'm changing diapers and I'm doing what your dad says [inaudible 00:01:33] before you. [inaudible 00:01:36], she's also worked with Jewel, Gwen Stefani, Kesha, Goo Goo Dolls, many more artists. And she teaches mixing advice for producers, mixing engineers. 
And specifically, one thing that we had talked about that she really focuses on is EQ. It how you can leverage EQ so that you don't necessarily have to rely on things like compression that might kill your mix. So I'm excited to talk more today about some of the opportunities for how you can use EQ and use some of these difference production tools in order to grow your music career. So, Michelle, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today. 

Michelle Pettinato:
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So to start out with, I'd love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you got started with sound engineering and going on tour with all these massive artists. 

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. It's a long and twisted road. But it started out, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. A tiny little coal town. And music was always a big part of my life. I played piano since I was a little kid and took lessons all through school. And I played for the church choir, the school chorus and things like that, but I never really wanted to be a musician. I knew I just didn't have the chops. I could read music and I could play, but I couldn't just sit down and jam and pick out songs and things like that. But it was more of a, I did it for my own pleasure, but I still desperately wanted to be involved in music, in some form.

And it was back in, I grew up in the '70s and '80s where it was the days of vinyl. So I would spend hours in my room just listening to my records. And while I was listening to the records, I'd be reading the liner notes, from cover to cover. And the one thing I noticed was every record had this thing called a recording engineer. And I was about 15 or 16 and I had no idea what that meant, but I thought, "Well, whoever this is, they have to be important because they're on every single record." So I started to do a little research and find out what did a recording engineer do? And I'm like, "Oh, they make the records. Cool. Well, that's what I want to do." 

So it became time in high school to, "Well, what am I going to be when I grow up?" And I announced I was going to be recording engineer. And everyone from my family to my friends, to my teachers and school counselors were all like, "You can't do that. You have to get a real job." And people would ... I worked as a waitress through high school and everybody at work was like, "What do you want to be? A DJ?" Like, "No, I want to make records. I don't want to spin records." So it was a struggle to get people to take it seriously. And I had found ... I knew I didn't know anything about it. I had no idea how to get started in the business, I didn't have any technical background. No one in my family was in the music business. 

I mean, we lived about as far away from it as you could get. I had no musicians in my family. So I figured, "Well, I'm going to have to go to school to learn how to do this." Actually, at that time, there weren't very many schools that taught music production or recording engineering. There was a lot of schools like Berkeley and Juilliard and things if you were a performer, but as far as the technical side, there wasn't a lot of that. But I did find a school that had a recording arts program and I got accepted, but I think it was about a month after I graduated, we found out that the financial aid I was going to get wasn't quite enough for me to be able to afford to go there. 

I think it was a $12,000 a semester school and I was only getting $5,000 in aid. I'm like, "Oh, I don't have another 10 grand sitting around, so I can't do this." So I plan bid and enrolled in Penn State, which was the local Penn State campus for the first year, figuring I'll save back my money and then switch schools the next year. So while I was in Penn State, I was a music major and I had one music course. And I was just, "This is not going to get me where I need to be. And even if I go to the other school, this is not going to, learning history and mathematics and ... Everything else is not what I want to learn. I want to learn the technology." 

So, I started looking around and I found a school in Ohio called the Recording Workshop. And that was about a four week program and it was basic recording arts, and that's all they taught. So I enrolled there and I got a good background enough to get my feet wet. And after that, I got a job. There was a local radio station starting up, so I applied for a job. I said, "Hey, I'm a recording engineer. I want to make commercials." And they said, "Okay. Well, you have to sell them first." So I was basically selling radio advertising for, oh, I don't know, about six or nine months. And every once in a while, I'd be able to record commercials and do that kind of thing. 

So during that time, I had a cousin who had recently moved to Nashville. And she said, "Why don't you come down here and stay with me and try and get a job here in Nashville?" And this is back when Music Row was just lined with studio after studio, and bands were still going into recording studios to make records. So I took the bus. I still lived in Pennsylvania, so I took a bus to Nashville and I spent three weeks walking around Music Row, handing out my resume, which was ridiculous because it had the Recording Workshop and WMGH. Nothing basically. But I thought, I knew what I was doing and I'm knocking on every single door, handing out resumes, asking for a job and just being turned down left and right. 

And after about three weeks, I'm like, "Yeah, this really isn't working." I still don't know what I need to know. I don't know how to get into this business. I don't really understand how it works. So I went back home and then shortly thereafter, I heard about Full Sail in Florida. That's another big recording engineering school. And I enrolled there. And when I got to Full Sail, it was the first time that people actually said, "Yes, you can do this." Up until that point, everybody was trying to convince me to go back to college, get a degree, become a lawyer or a doctor or something that you can actually make a living at. And fighting me on my dream. And I was just headstrong like, "No, this is what I want to do. This is my passion. I can't not do this."

So when I got to Full Sail, I was finally surrounded by people who said, "Yes, this is a career. This is a possibility, you can do this." And when I was in Full Sail, about four or five months into the program, we had our class on live sound. And up until that point, it never even occurred to me that live sound was a career. I had been like, "I want to make records, I want to mix music." And even though I'd gone to tons of concerts growing up, I never looked at the people working that show as people that were working for the actual artists and traveling with them. I just took it like, "Oh, well, it's just the people that work here at the venue." 

So when I discovered that not only can you get paid to mix music, but you can get paid to travel the world, mixing music for artists, doing live shows, it was like a light bulb went off. It was like ting, ting, ting, ting, this is for me. That was it. I switched gears and decided to pursue live sound as my future career. And that was it. Once I graduated, I immediately went to work for a little local sound company and I actually worked for free for a couple months because I was interning. And so I was working for free, but I have a few guys that I worked with who would bring me out as a second on their show and pay me because they knew I was always saving their butts, because I would remember to pack the truck with all the stuff that they forgot and I was actually working my butt off trying to gain experience and just learn what I was doing. 

So they were making like 50 bucks a night, they'd pay me $10 and buy me breakfast at the end of the night because I worked so hard. But I did that for a while and then I moved around. I went where I could get work and I took every job I could get in music and audio. I did some assisting at studios, I worked for sound companies, I mixed local bands, I worked at nightclubs. I even worked at an AB department at an entertainment complex, but I did stagehand work. I just took every job that there was available to me that had something to do with audio. Not knowing that this isn't where I'm going to stay, but I'm going to learn everything I can while I'm trying to get on tour. And then my first tour came in 1992 when I got my offer to go on tour with the band Spin Doctors. And that was it. I never looked back. I've been touring full time since then, up until COVID.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Well, that's quite a journey and certainly a sweet gig. Traveling with your favorite bands, getting to be a part of that live musical to exotic locations. And one of the thing that really stuck out too with your story, and I think a lot of people listening to this can probably relate. I don't know. I certainly can relate to it. As you're early on, pursuing a career in music and dealing with the doubt both from family members or even sometimes there's some self doubts and just people who maybe they have the best intentions, but they don't necessarily just see that as a possibility. 
So I can actually relate with that. And I think that it's awesome that you had the drive and the commitment to be able to stick through with it. And I think that's one thing that's really important for anyone listening to this right now, is to know that it's normal, it's natural to feel resistance. And specifically in this industry, when you're doing something like this, where it's a passion as well as a career, it's normal to get resistance and you need to work on building that level of faith and belief and commitment to be willing to make it happen. So I think that's awesome. 

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. And that's a huge thing. It's like you have to believe in yourself. If this is your passion ... In high school I had my music teacher, when I told him this was what I wanted to do, he was like, "Why don't you at least go to college and get a degree in music therapy or music education so you have something to fall back on? And I just, my reply was, "I don't need anything to fall back on because I'm going to do this." And there was so much pressure. First, trying to convince me not to follow this as a career and then second, to have a degree to fall back on. And in my mind, I knew that nothing was going to stop me. That I was going to just keep going and persisting until I got to where I wanted to be.
And that's, I think it's important that people have to realize that you're going to have doors slammed in your face tons of times before somebody gives you that opportunity. And you can't just say, "Okay, I give up after the second or third person says, no, we're not going to hire you or we're not going to give you this shot." You just have to keep persevering because it's not that ... To me, I looked at it like, "Well, this wasn't the right spot for me so that's why the door was closed. And I'm just going to keep going until that right spot opens up and I end up where I'm supposed to be." And yeah, in the meantime, you also have the people who, a lot of people have dreams, but they don't have the confidence to go after those dreams, for whatever reason. 

They'd like, "I always wanted to be an artist, but I'm working at this factory because it's a regular job and I get a regular paycheck, but I always wanted to be a painter." So people who didn't have the courage to go after their dreams will be the first people to say, "Oh, you can't do that. You can't do that." Because it makes them feel less because they didn't pursue their dreams. So they get a lot of pushback from that as well. And it's a tough thing to deal with, because you've got to have enough confidence in yourself to know that, "Well, just because it didn't happen for them doesn't mean it's not going to happen for me." And it's a tough thing to persevere through.

Michael Walker:
100%. And I think that it's so valuable. One of the parts pieces in your story is really finding a community of people that you finally surround yourself with them and they supported your vision, your belief. And I think it's really important for everyone to be able to find those people that encourage you and that, especially people like mentors or people that have accomplished thing you want to accomplish, who just like who they are, is emitting the right frequency where it's-

Michelle Pettinato:
Absolutely, yeah.

Michael Walker:
It pulls you up. So having all this experience as a mixing engineer and now working with a lot of artists and other mixing engineers, and helping to support them in their careers, what are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that you see musicians making when it comes to mixing their music?

Michelle Pettinato:
It's funny because even with engineers and musicians, I see a lot of people, they go about it backwards. They think that they need to spend a lot of money on gear and plugins and getting the perfect listening space and the perfect listening environment. And that's all good if you have the budget, but even then, if what you're missing is the basics and the understanding of the craft. And without that, it doesn't matter if you've got a million dollar studio. If you don't understand the recording and mixing process, you're still going to end up with garbage. You need to understand things like how to craft your sound, how to get great sound from the source, how to get good input signal to your DOW, how to use EQ and panning and balancing your levels, and how to use compression correctly. The fundamentals of recording and mixing.

So I just see so many people thinking they have to have this piece of gear, that piece of gear, and it's not their fault because, honestly, everywhere you look, you've got somebody trying to sell you their product. It's like, "Oh, you need to have auralex and you need to have the waves, rise, and bundle, and the UA audio plugins, and this piece of gear and that piece of gear." And they're all trying to convince you that what you need is what they're selling, and you need that to be able to create a high quality product. So it's easy to fall prey to that. But it's a matter of if you don't have the basics, the gear is not going to fix a bad mix. The gear will only make a good mix better.

I saw a young woman post in a forum the other day about, she was so excited. She finally got her first DOW and she's setting up her home studio, and she has this interface and logic. And, "Now what plugins do I need to buy?" And she didn't have a clue. She didn't understand what game was, she didn't understand the signal flow of getting the instrument into her DOW, she didn't understand EQ panning. She was just looking for, "Give me all of the list of the software that I need to buy that's going to do all of this for me." And that's the problem. 

I think, it's the gear and the software is not going to do the job that you should be able to do. And when you have those skills, when you actually do learn the fundamentals, then it doesn't matter what gear you have. You can come up with a great quality product. So I think it's just, from the nature of consumers in these days, everywhere you turn, you're being bombarded with, "Buy me, buy me. You need this, you need this." You forget about, well, there's actual fundamentals that you need to learn. And when you have those, they will be with you everywhere. Even if you don't have that piece of gear, you can still make a great quality product.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. And what popped up in my mind as you're sharing that was having a really expensive guitar. I have a Martin guitar and I love my Martin guitar, but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing is, if you can play the guitar and you know how to ... The guitar is just a tool. And like you said, it's not going to fix, if you can't play guitar. If you can't play guitar, it's going to make it sound better. So I think that's a really good point, that you can get the fundamentals down, you can get really good with the certain plugins, and probably a lot of the plugins, even the stock default plugins, if you're really good at them, can do a lot of what the more expensive plugins can do too.

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. Well, it's funny too, because I'm always, I speak at a lot of colleges and I speak at Full Sail a lot, in different conferences. I always have students asking me, "Yeah, I'm getting ready to graduate. And what plugin should I buy?" And I tell them, "None." Well, they're like, "What plugins do you use?" And they're shocked when I say, "I don't use any plugins." When I'm mixing on tour, I literally use my desk and what's available on the desk. I don't have a rack full of plugins or outboard gear. I use proper gain, the EQ, some basic compression and gates and a little bit of effects. And that's it. I don't have racks full of, "Well, I've got this plugin for my acoustics, I've got this plugin for my overall mix. I've got five, six layers of compression on everything. It's pretty much, it's bare bones and it's ... If I can make a great mix with that for the artists I work for, then there's no reason that you can't do that as well.
And yeah, it's funny. It's like the talking about the guitar. I worked with Mr. Big, Paul Gilbert. I've seen him where, we had a support act somewhere in Europe somewhere, and it was a younger band and they were okay, but they weren't great. And the guitar player had a pretty crappy setup. And he's there and he's sound checking and it doesn't sound that great. But Paul picks up the guitar and it just sounds completely different, because you have the difference in the ability. If you're a great guitar player, you can walk in with a pile of junk and it'll sound amazing. But if you are just playing guitar for a year and you're still getting the basic technique down, it's not going to sound that great. Or you could be playing through a beautiful set up and it would still sound bad because you don't have the techniques.

Michael Walker:
100%. Awesome. So one thing that I know that we talked a little bit about, that you focused on a lot is EQ and how to use EQ properly. And I remember you mentioning some different exercises that ... I think you've said you can even do vocally yourself, that help you to train your ear. Can you talk a little bit about EQ specifically and what are some of the biggest challenges that people have or mistakes or misconceptions when it comes to using EQ effectively?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is, especially with the musicians, a lot of my musician friends, they tend to think EQ is this super technical, really difficult thing to understand. And any do linking of the younger sound engineers that are just getting started, they'll tell me, "Well, I know what EQ is, but I really don't know what to do with it. I don't know how things are supposed to sound." So, what I've been doing is teaching it in a three-step process. And the thing about EQ, it's really not that technical. There's a variety of different filters which have specific purposes, but you're technically just doing a little booster cut here and there. That's it.

The hardest part about EQ is learning the frequencies that you need to adjust. And that's where I think people struggle the most, is because a lot of people will use, there's all kinds of frequency training apps out there. And those are okay once you actually start learning frequencies to keep them fresh and to practice with, but when you're just learning frequencies, it can be really difficult because the apps are based on memorization. So what you're hearing is like a pure tone or a sign wave through the app, which is not the same as hearing. If you're hearing a 400 Hertz tone, that doesn't sound the same as you would if you were playing an acoustic guitar that's speeding back at 400. It's a bit of a different sound. 

So, I think that's where people will use the apps and they memorize these tones, but then when they're hearing that same frequency and music or a mix, it's different and it's not relating. So, one of the techniques I teach is using your voice, using your words to learn frequencies. There's a list of specific words that, you basically get a little RTA app, and an RTA will show you on a graph what frequencies are present in the sound that is picking up. So you can get one for your phone. There's a lot of free ones out there. And basically, you'll say these words, like who, and you want to say who in the low register. I'll back up a little bit. You always hear the sound person saying, "Check one, two into a microphone." Well, what most people don't realize is that they're saying those words for specific reasons. 

When you say check and check is in the high mids, around the four or five K range and that's where sounds tend to be harsh. And when you say one, it's in the mid range whereas 10, things can sound honky or boxy. And the two is usually in the low range, where things can sound muddy. So by saying check one, two, you're pronouncing those frequency ranges to find out where are the problems. So by using your words, you take the RTA and you say who, and you see what frequency that is in your voice and say that you see, "Okay. When I say who, that's 250 Hertz." When you're mixing and you hear something low and muddy and you're like, "I hear this frequency." And then I say who, and if it's that frequency, then you know, oh, it's 250 that I need to adjust. Or if it's close, it's a little bit higher or a little bit below, at least you're in the ballpark rather than just completely guessing, well, is that 400? Is it 160? Is it 800? 

By learning specific frequencies and how they correspond to certain words in your voice, it gives you a place to start. And it also gives you something tangible to relate to. Another way is by just learning the frequencies of sounds that you hear every day. If you have, say your doorbell is 630 Hertz, and you know that sound of your doorbell, whenever you hear something that sounds like your doorbell, you know, "Oh, that's 630 Hertz." Or your car horn is 1.6 K. So you know what 1.6 K sounds like because you can hear your car horn in your head. So, it's all about finding something tangible that you know what it sounds like and just learning what frequency that is.

Michael Walker:
That's super interesting. I never realized that the check one, two, that's what it was. I've done it with a microphone as a performer, but I never realized that that was something that sound engineers could specifically use to determine different frequencies. So you talked a little bit about, you kind of this three-step framework in terms of mastering EQ. So I'm curious, what are those three steps on that framework?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. So the first step is learning how to hear. You have to learn how to listen like a producer. We all use our ears every day, but there's a difference between hearing and listening. So it's like, it's ear training, but it's called critical listening. And that is being able to listen to an instrument or a piece of music or a mix, and really break it down to its finest little parts. The nuances of what is the snare tone sound like? What is the guitar tone sound like? The bass, is it fat and round? Is it a slappy sounding bass? Being able to hear all those really definitive characteristics, because when you can pick out what you like about a sound or what you don't like, then you know what you need to adjust.
So a lot of people will use reference tracks to do their mixing, but a lot of people don't know why they're using a reference track. And that's the thing, it's like, well, if you listen to, say you're trying to mix the next great pop hit and let's say, okay, well Dua Lipa is pretty huge right now. So you want to listen to what a Dua Lipa track sounds like. You're listening to it, but do you know how to translate what you're hearing to what you're mixing? So that's where critical listening comes in. Being able to learn how to hear. And that's also the first step in learning frequencies. Once you learn how to hear, what to listen for, it makes it easier to learn frequencies. 
So the three-step process I teach is the hit production process. The first step is hearing, the second is identifying the frequency that you need to adjust. And then once you identify that frequency, knowing how to tweak it with EQ. And then it's, like I said, the frequencies is the hardest part of knowing how to EQ. So once you understand what frequencies, you can recognize them, then you know exactly where you need to go in that track or that mix to make it less muddy or to add more punch or to open up space and clarity.

Michael Walker:
What's up guys. So quick intermission from podcasts. I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I want to share something that's not normally available to the public. They normally reserve for a $5,000 clients that will personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps to Explode Your Fanbase and Make a Profit with Your Music Online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel, that's going to allow you to grow your fan base online. And the system is designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music. We've invested over $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers, and really see what's working best right now for musicians. And so I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. 

And so if that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link you can click on to go get that. And the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating new podcasts, is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. And so that'll help us reach a lot more people. So if you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you click on the subscribe button. All right. Let's get back to the podcast. Cool. Awesome. So step one is really about mastering, actually listening, not just hearing, but actually [crosstalk 00:26:26].

Michelle Pettinato:
Critical listening. Yeah.

Michael Walker:
Critical listening. What's step two from there?

Michelle Pettinato:
Step two is identifying the frequencies. Yeah. 

Michael Walker:
Okay, got you.

Michelle Pettinato:
So first you learn how to listen and then once you start to be able to focus your hearing, then it's easier to learn the frequency. So you can identify frequencies that are clouding up your mix or causing a problem in your mix. Yeah. And then once you understand the frequency, then you tweak it with EQ and that's step three.

Michael Walker:
Okay, got you. Awesome. So it's like step one, identify, listen, critically hearing. And then two is about matching that with actual frequencies. And then step three is once you understand what the frequencies are, then you can start to play around with those. Awesome. So one thing I remember that you had mentioned briefly when we talked last time, was about compression and how compression is easily abused or it can be overused. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about compression as well and what are some of the misconceptions that you see with it and how can you really most effectively use it? 

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. Compression, for some reason right now, compression is like a, it's almost like a fad. Everybody is compressing everything. And there is a certain level of compression that's needed, but when it's not used correctly and when it's overused, it will suck the life right out of your mix. Compression, originally, it's to control the dynamic range of a signal. So say you have a bass player who is really dynamic. It's like some of the notes are really soft and then he starts digging in and it gets really sloppy, so what you're doing is you compressing that so that you basically limit the dynamic range, so that you still have enough signal when he's playing softly, but when he starts digging in, it's not going to clip your signal.

So you have a little bit smoother sound. Same with a singer. If you have a singer who goes from singing very soft to really screaming into the microphone, well, when you set your gain, the signal level for the soft parts, when they start really wailing in the microphone, it's going to clip and you're going to get distortion, which you don't want. So compression is used to smooth that out and pull things together. But I think people tend to, what they could be doing with EQ, they're trying to do with compression. They'll build a drum mix and then squash it with the compressor to try and get it more punchy. 

And what it does is it'll make it a little bit more loud, yes, but you can get that attack and that punchiness from EQ and still save your dynamic range and have a more open sound to your mix as opposed to something that sounds very compressed and boxy. And people will just layer and layer and layer compression on signals, which if you need two or three levels of compression, there's something wrong in your signal chain. Really one, maybe two, we know one to control the dynamic range and maybe one for a little bit of flavor or color, but two or three, when you get past two levels of compression, there's something wrong. 

I think it's because of, there's so many great plugins out there with, you've got the SSL compression, you've got this compression, you've got that compression. People want to play with the toys, which is great. But the thing is, is compression should be like the icing on the cake. Once you've got a good foundation and a good mix happening, then go in and add compression for creative effects or flavor, but you want to start with the good mix first. Otherwise, you turn your mix, that could be a big, wide, open, beautiful mix into something very small and boxy, that just doesn't breathe and has no life.

Michael Walker:
Got you. Okay. So it sounds like what you're saying is that your compression is, a lot of times it's better used as icing on the cake and not necessarily to make drums more punchy, because you can do that with EQ. And if you try to do that with compression, you can just crush the life out of it, or not really even fix the root through issue, but you're making it louder. So just out of curiosity, let's say that you're looking to treat a vocal, what's your go-to? And maybe this changes based on the source, but what would you say a normal signal chain in terms of, do you do compression? EQ first ... The very first thing you do is EQ, you fix any issues and then you do compression after that, and then you do another compression for flavor, or what would you say it's like a somewhat of a standard signal flow?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. So on a vocal, I would typically EQ first then compress, because I'm never adding with EQ on the vocal. I'm always ... Basically, with EQ, you really want to cut first before you boost. That's a rule of EQ. A lot of people tend to, "Oh, my vocals are muddy, so I'll boost the high end." But what you're doing is you're eating up the frequency range. So now you're taking up space for other things that would normally be present in those frequencies. So that's where your mix starts to get cluttered. So what you should do is first cut the mud. Cut out the frequencies that are muddy and then you usually don't need to add anything to get the clarity. Your vocal will just open up and be nice.

So I'll cut first and then do some compression just to smooth out the signal. A lot of times, especially when I'm mixing live, I'll use, my favorite compressor is always the Empirical Labs Distressor. So I'll set the compressor and do also a lot of writing on the fader, because I don't want to squash it. I still want to have that dynamic there and I'll find that I can react, especially when it's an artist I've been working for, for a while, I know how they're singing, I know their technique. I know when I'm going to need to pull them back a little bit. So rather than really crushing it with the compressor, I'll do a lot of manual writing of the fader in the mix. And then sometimes I'll do a little bit of compression over the left and right, but just to keep things glued together rather than squash it so I can crank it up.

Now, an example of when you would use compression before EQ, would be sometimes on your drums, depending on the sound of your drums that you're going for. If you're going to compress your kick drum, because that's a typical drum that can be very dynamic. You have a drummer who goes from soft to really hitting it hard. So compressing before the EQ, because a lot of times on a kick drum, you might cut the low mids to get rid of the boxness, but boost a little bit in the very lows for that thump and maybe a little bit on the highest for some attack. So if you do that and then you compress, you're going to be compressing those frequencies. They're going to trigger your compression. So you want to compress it, so you've got a smoother signal to work with first and then do your EQ because that's where you're adding the flavor, but again, you want to be just to where you're smoothing out the signal, not just crushing it.

Michael Walker:
Got you. Okay. That's really interesting. So I'm like an amateur, like mixed, when I've recorded demos, sometimes I'll mix myself. So this stuff is really interesting. So it sounds like what you're saying is with drums. It sounds like the case with drums, especially with compression, is that the compression can really affect the character of the drums, especially. And so you can do a lot creatively with the drums. Could you talk a little bit about that idea in general, with the attack and the release times, with the compressor, in terms of drums, how that might play across the different elements of the drum set like a kick and snare and whatnot?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. If you're, especially with instruments in the low frequency range, like drums and bass, if your attack and release is set too short, it can eat up some of that low frequency. So it's a tricky thing where it's all, you've really got to listen to it while you're adjusting. The best thing to do is just start with a medium attack and release. And then while you're soloing up that instrument and listening to it as you're adjusting your tack and release, you don't want to, very short attack and release, this can also create this pumping sound. So if the attack and release times are too short, you'll hear the compressor kicking in and releasing while it's kicking in again. It's like doubling back on itself because it doesn't have enough time to open fully back up before it starts compressing again.

And that's something with a bass that can happen very often, because bass player is playing really quickly, it's just not able to keep up with the signal. So it almost creates a breathy kind of effect. You can hear it breathing. It's a strange noise. So fine tuning those attack and release is important so that you don't create effects like that because they're unnatural and they'll ... You might not know what's wrong in the mix, but there's something that's off and you can't really put your finger on it. And that can create that kind of effect.

And snare drums too. If you don't want to cut off your signal by having the release be too short or too long, so now you're again, your snare drum, your drummers hitting the snare and you're releasing it before the next hit or ... It's a fine tuning thing. So it's definitely listening to each instrument while you're adjusting. Starting with, like I said, medium attack and release and then adjusting slightly either way for the sound that you're going for and for the particular instrument.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. So if I'm hearing you correctly and I remember in terms of the compression with that, so the attack is going to affect how sharp or how quickly-

Michelle Pettinato:
How quick the compressor starts working. Yeah.

Michael Walker:
And then the release is like the tail end. And so that's one question I had, is great. I'm just asking questions for myself and hopefully people who are listening to this do have the same kind of questions, but the release, I remember feeling a little bit confused by the release on compressors in terms of, do you want to fine tune the release so that it's really on a song by song basis with the BPM, where it's, you want the release for a snare, for example, to really last almost exactly to the next snare hits or? What's your process? When you throw on a compressor for a stinger, for example, and then you just, you take the attack and just feel it out, what are you looking for in that situation with the release and with the attack to make sure, is it just based on feel now, or you're looking to accomplish something specifically? 

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. No, I'm pretty much, when I'm using it on drums like that, it's more just to control the dynamics. And the release, it's not so much a BPM as it's just that, that's how fast, the release time is how fast the compressor stops working and lets the signal return to wherever it was. So if you've got a longer release time, it's going to keep compressing for a little bit longer before it goes back to just releasing the compressor altogether. And acoustic guitar is a good example. Longer release times will create a little bit sustain on the guitar, because it's still compressing while they're strumming and in a sense, it creates a bit of sustain. So if you've got a very dry guitar or something that's really dull sounding, you can actually add some sustain to it by longer release times.

In drums, I tend to probably knock out with real short because I don't want to cut off the low frequencies, but also nothing real long. It's probably medium to short that I use because of the nature of the drums. And honestly, I use as little as possible. I'll use, on a snare, I had a drummer that I worked with who did a lot of very dynamic stuff. He played a lot of ghost notes on songs and then really hit this, really hard snare hits on other songs. So I would tend to do more compression than I normally would, just because I needed to get those ghost notes out in the mix without killing people.
And he played the ghost notes, you could still hear them in the mix of the guitars and the keyboards and everything else, but then when he lay into the snare, it wasn't going to take people's heads off. So I would do a bit heavier compression in situations like that. But in general, I don't compress the snare unless the drummer is just very, very dynamic on it. Kick drum and toms, I won't compress them either. Kick drum, just slightly to smooth it out. So what I will do is build a sub-mix of all of the drums. Once I have all my drum levels equed, and the levels balanced, then I will put some light compression over the entire drum mix just to pull it together. But usually only a ratio of two to one. No more than four to one, depending on the drummer. Just very light compression that just glues it all together.

Michael Walker:
It's awesome. The stuff is super interesting. And I know that by design, in some ways, we're talking about this and I'm sure when you're in front of a DW and you're doing these and can listen to it, it's probably be a little bit easier to communicate. But I guess one last question for you that, because I think probably a lot of people who are going to be listening to this are musicians who, some of them are probably going to be super interested in production and mixing and entering themselves and other artists. 

And then quite a few of them I think are going to be mostly artists who are interested in mixing and interested in this as a way to create better demos or a way to improve their own ability to create music. What do you feel like, if someone had a limited amount of time and it's really important that they get the foundations or they get the fundamentals down, as in terms of a skill set, they want to create as high quality demos as possible for them. And then they might want to work with the producer, work with the team in order to take it to the next level. What do you think are the super essential skills that they should develop and focus on as an artist?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. I think going back to, again, frequencies and learning how to listen is hugely important. And it's one thing, even if you don't want to record and mix your own music, if you're in the studio with a producer, you want to be able to speak the same language. If the producer, you're mixing and you're dialing in your guitar tone, the producer is like, "Yeah, I think your guitar tone is competing with the lead vocal. So we should take out a little at 630." And you don't have no idea what that means. You don't want to be like, "Oh, yeah. Okay." And then be fumbling or, "What the heck does he mean?" And you're embarrassed because you're working with this big time producer who should, you think he should understand that.

So I've had people tell me that. I was like, "Yeah, I was so embarrassed because he's saying this and this and this, and I've just no clue what he's talking about." So being able to do critical listening, to hear those things and to know the frequencies, and it helps you get what you're looking for. When you can communicate and speak the same language, you can get what you're looking for and get the result you want a lot easier. So that's a huge thing. If you're recording yourself, the most important thing is starting with good sounds from the source. If you're recording live instruments, that's making sure the drums are tuned and the heads are in good condition. 

And your guitar tone is dialed in, you've got fresh strings, if you want that bright sound or if you want a couple of days in so that they're a little bit duller, depending on the sound that you're looking for, but really putting some thought into what is the end result that I want? What is the big picture that I'm going for? And putting the time into pre-production to make sure you have your sounds as crafted as you can before you even start recording. Starting with, it's the whole garbage in, garbage out. You take a beatable drum kit, it doesn't matter how much EQ and how many plugins and compressors you add to it, it's still going to sound like a beatable drum kit. 

So make sure your gear is in good condition and then choosing the right microphone. If you want a nice, big, fat, kick drum sound, don't put a microphone that has a roll-off in the lows, because you're not going to get any of that low frequency. So it's like the fundamentals. Just understanding the basics of audio and music production. It's not that difficult. There's plenty of information out there that teaches that and it doesn't take five years of going to a university or whatever to learn it. It's just understanding that signal flow and how to get good sound from the source and then get good signal into your DOW or into your mixing console.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. I love the way that you described that too, in terms of being able to just communicate with the producer and be able to speak the same language. Yeah. I think it's, especially for artists, if you have your own music business and you start to build a team around you, then you need to have at least the basics or at least the foundations of an understanding of something so that you can communicate with it. So I think that's awesome. And so for anyone who is listening or watching this right now, who's interested in learning more about this and diving deeper with mixing engineering and EQ and compression, I know you have a bunch of resources that help artists with that. So where do you recommend that they go to, to learn more?

Michelle Pettinato:
Yeah. My website is mixingmusiclive.com and I have a free newsletter that you can sign up for, where I send out lessons. And I have a blog with a lot of information on mixing studio and live. I have eBook that's the Five Biggest Mistakes You're Making with EQ, that will tell you how to get better mixes with just EQ. There's a couple of videos on gain structure and getting good signal into your DOW, things like that, but there's a lot of free resources there. And I occasionally have free trainings online as well. So mixingmusiclive.com, you can find all of that and you can also email me directly. 

Michael Walker:
Awesome. And so email you directly, what would be the email address?

Michelle Pettinato:
It's michelle@mixingmusiclive.com. And that's Michelle with two Ls.

Michael Walker:
Beautiful. Awesome. So like always, we'll put all the links in the show notes so that you can get there as quickly and easily as possible. That EQ, the five steps or the five biggest mistakes when it comes to EQ, definitely sounds very appealing. So I'd highly recommend you checking that out if you've resonated with any of this conversation. And then, Michelle, thanks so much again for taking the time to be here and to share what you've learned through your over 30 years of experience mixing sound. 

Michelle Pettinato:
Thanks for having me.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes, to learn more about our guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us and that really helps us out. And third, best of all, you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.