#225: Why Getting It Right At The Source Makes Mixing Easy with Will Purton (Master Your Mix Podcast)

If your mixes keep fighting you, the problem likely started before the DAW ever opened. In this podcast takeover, Mike Indovina (Master Your Mix) digs into a source‑first mindset with London engineer and mixer Will Purton (RAK Studios), unpacking the practical decisions that make recording faster, mixing smoother, and translation far more reliable. From choosing the right instrument and tuning it properly to mic selection, placement, and preamp saturation, they explore how each link in the signal chain shapes the end result, and how to make those choices with intention.

Will explains why ambience is a tool, not a garnish. He breaks down room miking that works in world‑class spaces and home studios alike: close‑spaced omni pairs that capture a coherent stereo picture without lopsided lows. They also dive into overhead strategy, using darker mics and adding top end with sweet EQ, to get shimmer without harshness. Throughout, the focus is emotion first: record sounds that make the room light up, then protect those decisions by committing on the way in so the mix becomes a matter of presentation, not repair.

Translation gets its own deep dive. Learn how open‑back headphones serve as a portable reference across unfamiliar control rooms, why acoustic treatment beats bigger speakers, and how to build a reference playlist that exposes strengths and flaws you can trust. They touch on quick genre ear training from TV sessions, the realities of large studios, and the discipline of sending pared‑down sessions that communicate vibe clearly to the mixer.

If you want mixes that travel from studio to car to earbuds without falling apart, start with better ingredients and intentional choices. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Listen to Master Your Mix

Follow Will Purton

Chapters

• 0:00 Festive Intro And CTA
• 1:29 Highlighting Master Your Mix 244
• 3:26 Meet Will Purton And Focus
• 6:39 Career Path And Studio Breakthroughs
• 12:03 Why Engineering At The Source Matters
• 19:00 Ambience Philosophy And Room Mics
• 27:46 Commit On The Way In
• 34:46 Genre References And Fast Ear Training
• 42:00 Overheads: Dark Mics, Sweet Top
• 50:53 Translation, Headphones, And Rooms
• 1:02:08 Reference Tracks And Learning Monitors
• 1:12:03 Tools, Budget, And Intentional Choices
• 1:16:40 Closing, Key Takeaways, And Coaching CTA

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:24

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. Hello folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix Podcast Festive. Cheer to you. A big welcome to the new listeners, and of course, a big welcome back to the returning listeners as well. We are now knee deep in the festive season. This episode is the third installment of my favourite podcasts that I'm sharing with you. And in this episode, it is the Master Your Mix podcast of my good friend Mike Indivina, who actually featured on Inside the Mix in episode 102. And that is titled, I'm looking at my notes here if you're watching this, Demystifying the Music Industry and Insight into Music Mastering with Mike Indivina. In this episode, we chat about networking and mastering in the music industry, uh navigating the studio industry, the role of a mastering engineer, mastering audio and production, tools for music production and mastering, understanding EQ and reference tracks, and mastering music tools and techniques. So do go and check that episode out. It's episode 102. Of course, do that once you've listened to this episode. And uh, whilst I'm giving you call to action to do click the link in the episode description and provide your feedback on Inside the Mix. Help me shape the podcast in 2026. What are you enjoying? What are you possibly not enjoying? What did you want to hear more of? Maybe what what do you want to hear less of in 2026? So click that link, couple minutes, saw what it's going to take, and help me shape the podcast in 2026. So let's talk about the episode I'm sharing with you of Master Your Mix. It's episode 244, where Mike virtually sits down with Will Purton, uh, a uh a fellow Brit who's based out of RAK Studios in London, a foggy London town in the UK. He's a recording engineer, mixer, and producer. I won't go into too much detail because Mike goes through this in the actual episode. But they touch on topics such as imposter syndrome, how to best capture room ambience, the hierarchy of your signal chain, mix translation, and how to trust that your mixes will sound good outside of your room. So lots of really interesting stuff in this episode. So without further ado, I've waffled on long enough. This is episode 244 of the Master Your Mix podcast with Will Purton. Enjoy, folks.

Mike Indovina: 2:58

Welcome to the Master Your Mix Podcast. This podcast is for you if you're a musician or audio engineer looking to create pro-level recordings and mixes from your home studio. My name is Mike Indevina. Let's get started. Hey, welcome to the Master Your Mix Podcast. My name is Mikey Novina, and thanks for hanging out with me today. Today, my guest is Will Purton. And if you're not familiar with Will, Will is a recording engineer, mixer, and producer based out of London. He currently works out of Rack Studios, and he's worked with artists such as Liam Gallagher, Sam Smith, Van Morrison, George Ezra, and a whole bunch more. And in today's episode, we dive really deep into the topic of getting things right at the source. Now, this is something we've obviously talked about on the podcast before, but I think it's worth bringing up again. And it's something that really needs to be emphasized because I hear so many people who come to me thinking that they have mixing problems and they're like, oh, I need to learn how to get better at EQ or compression, that kind of stuff. But then when you listen to the recordings, that's where the problems are. And it's not that they don't know how to mix, they've studied how to mix, but they're not getting great source tones. And with all of this stuff, it's a cyclical process, right? Where when you get great recordings, it makes editing a lot easier. And then when you edit things, all of a sudden mixing becomes easier because now you have more polished tracks, there's more space between everything. And as you go through this process multiple times with different projects, you start to get better at all of the previous steps, right? So for example, when you start editing projects, you start to find the things that you need to pay more attention to during the recording process, right? And then you start to see how down the line, all of these decisions along the way really impact the final product. So yeah, in this episode, we talk a lot about that concept of just really focusing on getting it right at the source and using that as your foundation and focusing on getting things like the feel, capturing tones that end up ultimately being the final mix sounds, and not needing to rely on fixing things in the mix. And we get into his process for all of that. We talk about how he likes to focus on even getting ambience right at the beginning. So he'll capture room mics, and we talk about his approaches for doing that. We talk about how he sets up drums and his microphone selection and why he's very intentional about choosing certain mics over others so that mixing becomes easier. We talk about different things to pay attention to during the recording process that end up ultimately making the performances and the mixing that much easier. So we dive into tons of great stuff about just really getting it right at the source so that, like I said, everything becomes way easier moving forward in the process. And in addition to all of that, we even get into some stuff about mixed translation as well, and how to make sure that when you're working between different studios, you have your ears calibrated to know that things are going to translate properly. But not only that, but how to make sure that even if you're working in a home studio, how to trust that when you take your mix outside of your studio to your car or any other system, that you'll know whether or not your mix is translating and how to identify when things aren't translating so that you know what to fix. So, yeah, this is a really great episode. I'm really excited for you to dig into this. So let's check it out. Will Purton, thank you so much for being on the Master Mix podcast. How's it going today, man? I'm really good. I'm really good. Really glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you here. For people who might not be familiar with you, can you give us a little background on who you are, what you do, and ultimately, you know, how you got into music production and all the cool stuff you're working on these days?

Will Purton: 6:18

Yeah, sure. So I'm I'm based in London, UK. I'm one of the in-house engineers at Rack Studios over here, and I've been there, I think like nine years now, which is like you always feel like you're like the new guy. Do you know what I mean? Like I can remember the day I walked in the door just being like, okay, like this is the real thing. But yeah, no, like I I guess I'm kind of one of the old hands now. But yeah, I started out like a lot of engineers playing music, first and foremost. I was like a pianist and then I played bass in a load of bands at school, and then I was that bass player who was like, hey, I want to be able to record us like as well as I possibly can. Why don't I go study that for three years? And then three years later, I hadn't written a song, I'd barely played a note in all that time, because I just really, really fallen in love with like microphones and recording and like diving into the like the how records were made more than like the kind of what people were playing on the records. And that was it. That was like 15 years ago I started kind of studying, and I'm just I'm here, managed to like make a career out of it so far, so good. Yeah, feel very, very lucky to be able to just like be in a room with musicians with great instruments, kind of like all day, every day. Could be worse, man. Things are going good.

Mike Indovina: 7:20

It's funny how that happens, right? Where it's like you get into it with this intention of just like recording yourself, and then all of a sudden it just becomes this like passion that leads you to working with so many other people. And unfortunately, sometimes that means that your own music sacrifices sometimes too, right?

Will Purton: 7:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, like I do try and do a bit of songwriting as well. Like you've got to have so many strings to your bow these days anyway, don't you? Like to be able to kind of like sit with people in a room and write or you know, produce and that kind of thing. I've been doing a lot more of that recently as well. Like, I mean, you can see my studio here. There's instruments, there's synths, there's all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I kind of try and scratch that itch when I can and be a bit more like directly musical. But yeah, most of the time it's like tech, it's like the other side of the glass, which is a great place to be too.

Mike Indovina: 7:58

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you you mentioned working at Rack Studios, and obviously that's a a very well-known studio. Lots of amazing artists have come through there. Like, how did how did how did you go from like learning this to ultimately ending ending up there?

Will Purton: 8:10

I guess it was one of those things, just one thing leads to another. So when I when I was studying, that was up in Liverpool at a place called Lipper, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and I got a job kind of straight out of there at a studio in Liverpool. There was this kind of like Mike Crossy used to be based there, actually. So he did some like Jake Bug stuff and like yeah, early in 1975 stuff up there, I believe. And I started there just after Mike had left. So it was me and this new engineer, we were kind of starting things out, like literally like tearing up the floorboards and like putting together a studio like directly, not just putting gear in nice places, like literally building the studio. And I was there for like two years or so, moved back down to London. I'm from here originally, so I was kind of living at home for a couple years, and just started working in kind of small studios. There's a place called Miloco. They've got a load of studios around London. It's like they're more of like a studio management company, I guess, but I was like one of their roving assistants for a long time. And then yeah, built up from their small small studios to their bigger studios. I had a friend who went on to work at Rack. They introduced me, started off at the kind of bottom of the pile there, and eventually worked my way up to kind of being one of the one of the kind of engineers. So yeah, it's just it was just kind of like a long, hard process, I guess, but just like anything in life, you just put one foot in front of the other, right? And if you're doing the right things, I guess, and with a good attitude and uh prepared to work hard and be really dedicated, eventually things will work out. But yeah, I guess because people ask me a lot, how do you start out? What should I be doing if I'm like just out of university, or maybe even if I didn't study, but I want to get into working in studios? And the answer is, I well, I mean, nobody knows. You just got to try stuff and see what works for you. But I think just dedication and just keeping keeping on knocking at it and not getting knocked down, not getting knocked back. You just gotta keep sending emails, keep seeing people, keep trying. And eventually, if it's meant to happen, it'll happen. But it it it can take a depressingly long time sometimes, can't it? Of course, yeah.

Mike Indovina: 9:58

But hey, I mean it's all part of the journey, right? And everyone kind of finds their own way in, right? You'd mentioned that you've been now at Rack for about nine years. Before we started recording, we were talking about how these days, like you're you're really doing a lot more engineering than than mixing and that kind of stuff. But you obviously still do a little bit of everything, but engineering seems to be the main focus. And I'm curious to dig into that a little bit too, because I feel like, you know, peep people tend to, at least like I tend to find a lot of people that are like, they get obsessed with the mixing side of it. It's like they love playing with the plugins, maybe having isolation and just like being able to work on their own and you know, fiddle around with different tools and whatnot. But the engineering side of things, like being like focusing on that is is also interesting too, because I think that that's something that some people just do out of necessity to get to mixing, but like being a dedicated engineer is a skill in itself. And uh it obviously, you know, for a bigger studio, you you need to have someone who truly understands that world very, very well. So, what was it about the engineering side of things that like really that you gravitated towards more than maybe, you know, say mixing or that kind of thing?

Will Purton: 10:59

I don't know. I mean, I guess like early on, I always thought, because like coming at it from a musician, I always thought of things as like that's where the music was, like you playing it and you writing it and you being in a room performing it. And so I was like, I just want to be the next step down the kind of the chain from that. I want to be like as directly involved, I want to be in a room with musicians. Because that's where you can, that's where I feel you can make the biggest changes. I mean, mixing is amazing, you can do all sorts of stuff, but like I still just have it in my head that that's where the core stuff is. And like if you want to get stuff right, that's where you start, as like as early as you possibly can. And like it might be that sure, sure, you swap out microphones, you swap out preamps, you'd all that kind of stuff. Like it makes differences, but not not nearly as much difference as like getting someone to like play a bit softer. It maybe that's what it needed, really, if you needed more low end in something, or like moving a mic or changing a drum skin, or like tuning it slightly differently. Like, those are the really big differences, and that's like the kind of stuff that whatever happens down the chain from there you're kind of stuck with. So I'm a big, big believer in just like you just gotta get it right. Like it's taking an hour or half an hour to fine-tune something in the room with people and then just record it, it will save you like five hours later. Do you know what I mean? It's just like it's it's it's it's time paid forward like a hundred times over. And also it's fun because like you just get to work with the people. You're actually there. You can really, you can vibe with them. If it was a great take, you can get excited about it. You can see how exciting the differences that you're making as an engineer make to them. Like if a band comes in and listens to like what you're doing in a room and it just feels like what they did, but just so much more exciting or whatever. That's just that's just really like really gratifying. Like you get that kind of like immediate feedback on like if you did a good job or not. So that it's just what always has excited me. I I really, really love that. I used to do a bit of live sound, which is a similar thing, right? You're kind of you're in the room with the people, you're micing stuff up and it's it's coming out the speakers directly. But like, honestly, that always just scared the shit out of me. I hate that. But like being in a studio, really getting into details and just being able to help people craft things from like the raw ingredients. Like, to me, that's just where it's at. That always just really excited me. And I guess I just got really lucky that I kind of got the chance to to do that. I mean, yeah. Like mixing is almost something that I'm having to learn kind of like later in my career. Like the technical stuff, it's all, you know, we all learn that, I guess, at college if we went to college, or kind of you can find that stuff out online, and that's great. But yeah, I guess I'm kind of like, as my career goes on, working my way down the processing chain, like of kind of in a room with musicians, compressors, microphones, that kind of stuff. And now I'm just like getting a bit of a better understanding and a bit more of a handle, I feel like, on like how to process that and present it to like a listener in stereo or in spatial or whatever. So yeah, it's interesting hearing you say that a lot of people think it's that the mixing is kind of first and then you engineer is like a necessity, and then maybe get into that later. But I guess that also is like a symptom of just like what it is now. So many people are recording themselves and they just need mixes.

Mike Indovina: 14:10

Yeah, I think that what it is is that like, you know, most people are getting into it as musicians themselves. And so they kind of see the mixing as like the end stage where it's like their their music can finally be done. So they're just so excited to get to that point where it can finally be done, you know, and and so they will rush through some some stage some stages to get to mixing. But I think that, you know, everything you mentioned there is absolutely true. It's like, you know, the the recording stage is so critical to everything else down the line. And if you don't get that right, then you're just working against yourself and you're making yourself work way harder and it's gonna take longer to fix things, and if you can fix them at all. And so I I would say that in your case, having really put a lot of energy into getting solid recordings and understanding the nuances between all the little things that can drastically improve a recording, I would say that you getting into mixing later is probably to your advantage because now you're starting with amazing source material that makes mixing a lot easier. Whereas if you if you're rushing through that process, then yeah, you mixing, you might not even you might think that you're like not a good mixer and that like, you know, you're you're you need to improve that, but really maybe it's just you gotta go back to the basics and record things better, and then all of a sudden your mixes become better. And maybe you do actually know what you're doing in mixing, right?

Will Purton: 15:23

Yeah, if you have the luxury of that for sure. But I also don't want to make it sound like unless you've been to a big studio and recorded things like and spent, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars, like you can't get good recordings. Like that that's that's not what I'm saying. You can totally do it at home. It takes a bit more thinking about in the same way that you can like you can paint your house and you can do a quick job and it'll be like okay. Or you can spend a long time studying how to paint properly and practicing a lot and doing that all. Okay, great, you'll end up with like a really nicely painted house. But you probably could have saved yourself a lot of time by just like going to a big place and getting a professional to do it. I guess like that's the trade-off. You can record yourself at home, it can be great. And also just like objective recording quality is not everything always. Like vibe is where it's at. Like people feeling something at the end of the day when they listen to your music is what it's all about. You can do it, you're just gonna have to like save yourself money by spending a lot more of your time trying things out and learning the theory. I guess that's the kind of that's the kind of thing.

Mike Indovina: 16:23

Yeah, I guess it depends on like what your goal is. If your goal is just to get the music out there and you're not really focused on trying to learn the craft, you just want it done, then yeah, going to a studio and getting someone to record it right at the source, all that kind of stuff, that's gonna make things go much faster. But I mean, there's obviously a lot of value in understanding the process and getting good at, you know, getting good at recording and all that. And I think that there is a luxury that people do have when they're working out of their homes, which is that you're not paying by the hour to be there. And you can spend all that time experimenting and you know, moving around microphones, trying different things, different settings, you know, you can mess up and it doesn't matter, you know, like as long as you're dedicating that time to just learning, there's a lot of positive things there, as opposed to like, you know, yeah, paying paying someone for that time at a studio or working at a studio and messing up someone else's projects, you know. There's uh there's that part of it too, right?

Will Purton: 17:15

Yeah, for sure. I mean, oh man, can I tell you like the most like pressure I've ever felt in a studio? I want to tell you all about like an email I got one day. This was like December, like two or three years ago. And it's like a pretty dead period, at least here in the UK, like studios are pretty quiet from like just before Christmas to like kind of midway through January. And it was like right in that period. And I got this email, and the subject line is Abbey Road, and you're like, huh. Okay. I opened it up, it's from this guy called Dave Giles, really, really cool guy. Never never met him before. Email completely out of the blue. Hi, Will. This is gonna sound like a real humble brag, I realize now. I'm gonna tell the story anyway. Like, hi Will, I'm recording an album, Abbey Road Studio 2, starting like next week. My engineer just dropped out. It we're doing like an all-life band, we're in there for three weeks, we're recording to tape. Someone sent me your email. Can you please please do it? And I'm just like, oh my god. This is the best thing ever. But equally, like, how much pressure? Like, this guy's saved up all his money for literally five years, like every spare cent he had he saved to put towards this project, like paying session musicians, paying for the studio time, like, and then you're there in the control room, kind of like with all of that under your fingers, like just trying desperately not to mess it up. Do you know, like, oh my god. When it all came off really well, I'm glad to say, but like, fuck me, I was sat up there just like sweating. Because you know, if it doesn't sound good, it's not the room, it's not the microphones, like, it's you. So yeah. I love that. But you gotta do that. Like, I mean, that's how you grow and get better, isn't it? Like pressure, diamonds are formed under pressure and all that stuff. Like, you gotta you gotta put yourself out there sometimes. So yeah.

Mike Indovina: 18:55

Yeah. No, I I love that. That's a great story. And I think that that's actually like very similar to like a lot of people getting into like getting their first clients, even if it's at a home studio, you know. It's like I think a lot of people, a lot of people don't get into it, or like they're afraid to get into recording other people because they're afraid of messing up someone's project. They, you know, and they let that fear hold them back from ever taking that shot and and doing something really cool. And I mean, yeah, like who wouldn't want it? Like that idea of working at Abbey Road, it's amazing. But yeah, I can see how that would scare a lot of people. I'd be scared to do that too, especially if it's a place that you hadn't worked out of before, right? I hadn't.

Will Purton: 19:29

That was my first time in there. And you like send that email being like, yeah, I'd love to. And then like the doubt starts and you're like the imposter syndrome kicks in. And I've been doing it like eight years at that point. And even like even then, you're going like, oh my God, like am I gonna get there and I'm gonna get like found out, or like maybe all the things I do only work at Rack, and like maybe that doesn't translate other places, or so like if you're feeling like that, I guess, and you're starting out, like litch literally everyone feels like that on some level, I think, until you get like really, really experienced. And you only get to be experienced by like doing it. You I think to get good and certainly to like get your foot in the door, sometimes you just gotta like take a punt. You gotta just take a deep breath, hope for the best, like trust that all the hours you put in kind of doing the theory, and also just being a person that cares about music, that that really counts for something. Like all the hours you put into all of that, like those will just come together and you'll be cool. Like, turn up. Like, no one likes a bullshitter, but like if you're gonna turn up and just like do your level best to do a really, really good job for people, then like you cut you just gotta do that. And it will probably go really well. And that might be a thing that leads on to more work, and like, so yeah, eventually you just gotta take the shot. You just you just gotta give it a go.

Mike Indovina: 20:40

Yeah, I I mean I'm like 20 years into this, and I still get scared every time I go to a new studio and it's like, oh, what if I don't know how this patch works or you know, how it's all wired or whatever, and it takes takes longer than a couple minutes to get something set up, you know? It's like all these things go in your mind of like ways that you could fuck it up. And you know, at the end of the day, as long as like you're you're taking your time and you're getting the right sound, that's all people care about, you know. And and just I think being honest with yourself and with your clients as well. Like if you don't know something, be honest with them about it. And you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work against you. It's it's gonna work against you more if you fuck it up than than you being like, hey, I need an extra couple minutes here to figure this out, you know.

Will Purton: 21:17

Yeah, yeah, exactly that. Exactly that.

Mike Indovina: 21:20

Well, well, speaking of engineering, one of the things that I wanted to dig into with you is that I know that one thing that you're pretty passionate about is recording with ambience and capturing ambience. And you're working out at some great studios. Obviously, like Rack is amazing. And if you're working out at Abbey Road, that's gonna be a pretty nice sounding room there too. Like, I'm curious to dig into capturing ambience in the recording stage, because I think that a lot of people tend to focus more on just close micing techniques. And I'm just kind of curious, like, you know, why is ambience such an important part of your sound at the source?

Will Purton: 21:48

Yeah, I guess like when I started out, I guess is kind of where this all kind of comes from. Like, I was always very like, because I played used to play a lot of jazz, and I was always had this thing of like, you know, I'd be like white gloves on, like the the sound is like sacred. You have to capture the sound exactly. And like obviously, if you spot mic something, that's not really what it sounds like at all. Like it can to me, spot micing is all about like doing a job in a mix. Like you need punch from something, or you need a bit of like proximity effect for a bit of boost in the low end and a bit of kind of like larger-than-lifeness. Okay, it'll it'll tick those boxes for you. But like, in terms of getting something actually sounding like it did in the room, you've you've got to like head back and you've got to capture a bit of kind of something else that's going on. And that's quite apart from the fact that like ambient sounds, you can capture them clean and they can just make something sound more natural. They kind of can take off that little thing that your ears do when you're hearing, you know, you hit like a mono source, just like pan somewhere, and it always feels a little bit just anemic and a bit small. You can just use ambience really subtly just to widen it out just a little bit, just to give like a little halo of something around the sound, and uh your ears will go, Oh great, I'm in a room now, I know exactly what's going on, and I can just relax and have an easier time just enjoying the music. You can do it to do just like a subtle job like that. Or you can, as we all know, just like smash drum room mics and get like more groove and more fun and more grit out of it. So like they're just such a versatile thing to take, I guess. But yeah, like in terms of recording it, like uh honestly, anything will do. I'll often put up like a load of different options and just pick what sounds best. I'd love to say, like, here's this one technique that always works. But it doesn't always, even if you are in the same room and like even as an in-house engineer or I get to work in like one place almost all the time, which is a great quality space with great rick equipment. Sometimes the the usual things don't always work. You've just got to try it's it maybe it's a different drummer that day, or just the air in the room is different that day, or like one particular mic is not not working that well with today. Like, yeah, if you've got the luxury of trying a load of things out, that's what I do. But like I'll tend to have some omni mics because they just sound like way more natural. Like, and rather than doing what I used to do, which is like space them like really, really far apart, like in different corners of the room or something like that. I really got into just having them like two or three feet apart. Because I just I have this thing of like the further away they are, the more wide your artificial stereo image is gonna be. But you go to a point and it kind of breaks down, the illusion isn't there anymore, and you've basically got two mono mics just picking up completely different things, which you're panning left and right. And that's a bit of a different thing. You might as you could just you could put any mics up and do that if you wanted to. But if you're trying to capture like a nice stereo actual picture of what's going on, like about a meter distant is kind of like as far as you can go, really, before things start just becoming really dissociated and really kind of I don't know, like I say, just two mono mics doing completely different things. You'll be into territory where like two different room modes are being picked up, and maybe kick drum is really loud in this mic, but snare drum is really loud in this mic. So like when the drum is playing, it's all like all over the place. So yeah, I could just keep things really, really, really tight, really close together, and just kind of space that a rake and like closer or further away from like a drum kit or whatever I'm recording. If you need more ambience, you can put them behind like baffles, something like that. But yeah, like any any omni mics, whether those are dynamics, like valve mics, like I mean, we've got M50s at Rack, so I tend to use those if I can, but that's only because I got them. Like if I didn't have those, I'd use whatever, like four and fours, like anything, really. And yeah, I just find that like that gives you like a really nice tight image. So if you're gonna get into really heavy compression, your drums or whatever you're recording will still sound like it's all panned the same. It won't start getting into weird, kind of soupy, lopsided territory. But again, like even if you're just gonna like treat those really naturally and barely do anything to them and just tuck them up gently in the mix to just give you to just get over that like fourth wall break I'm listening to a recording versus ah, I'm just enjoying a recording kind of thing that your brain does. Yeah, it can be really, really useful. So I tend to record this in almost everything I'm recording, if it's acoustic music. Obviously, if it's like a pop vocal for like a really heavily processed kind of like track, then then maybe that doesn't matter so much. But for acoustic recording, it can be really, really helpful to just have that little tiny little bit of realism that you can just bring in to just help out just a little bit.

Mike Indovina: 26:07

Yeah. So it sounds like you're applying, you're using room mics on like multiple instruments, it's not just like drum rooms, that kind of thing.

Will Purton: 26:12

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not so much to like make everything sound like it's in the same room. Like I used to do that a lot when I was starting out. Like you'd always send everything to the same reverb, so it would just have this kind of like shared sonic character. It's actually less about that and more about just getting over that unbelievability factor of just like when you listen to to mono mic things all mixed together, it all kind of can sound quite small and your brain's going, huh, that's weird. That acoustic guitar is sounds like it should be quite close to my ear because the mic was that far away from a guitar, but it's it's distant and it's over there. If you just bring in some ambience as well, it kind of just it makes my my brain just just switch off that little kind of question in the back of your head and just go, oh great, cool, I get it. Here's the context. And also that's a good way to just, if you want to set something back, yeah, just bringing up actual recordings of ambience just does such a better job of just tucking something into the kind of the mid or the background of your mix than trying to do that with like even like nice convolution reverbs kind of after the fact. There's always just this thing where it doesn't quite sound right. So if you are in a nice room and you have got the luxury of doing that with channel count and everything, like yeah, it's a cool thing to play around with.

Mike Indovina: 27:17

Absolutely. But I think that the way that you described your technique of having the mics close to each other, that's actually a really great thing, even for the people that are working out of their home studios, because you know, when when when you're in a nice studio, you tend to get a pretty consistent room no matter where you are in the room. But in a home studio where everything's gonna be very inconsistent from one corner to the next, you know, having the mics closer to each other is going to eliminate all of those other issues that you were talking about, where your left and right are left and right mics are gonna sound totally different from each other. You're gonna get more of a uniform room sound when they're close to each other there.

Will Purton: 27:47

So they'll probably be in the same like room mode, roughly. So like if there's anything that's any frequencies that are being boosted or cut, like at least it's consistent across both of them. So you won't be like tugging to the right or to the left. Like if you were recording a piano like that, like some notes might be really loud in one ear or the other. And I I just hate that. I find that really distracting. So yeah, you kind of get around a lot of that stuff, but you still get like a nice width and yeah, just like a nice, kind of pleasing kind of picture of that instrument.

Mike Indovina: 28:14

As far as like using those ambient mics, like I know that you're also a big fan of committing to sounds on the way in. So are you committing those room mics to like the the dry sound as well and just you know making that like what you end up with in a mix, or are you committing like a bunch of different close mics together and then leaving the room mics separate so that in the mix you get you have that adjustment?

Will Purton: 28:34

Yeah, I'll generally take my ambients kind of separately. I mean, if if you are working on tape, then yeah, you maybe want to kind of punch those down to like a stereo thing. But no, like when when I'm committing sounds, because I do think that makes a big difference too. That's that's more like choosing one mic over over another. Like I I tend not to multi-mic things now. The guitar cabs I do, sometimes acoustic guitars I do. But it's just that old adage of the more mics you have up on something, the more phase problems you're gonna run into. Whether they're like as aligned as you can get them on like one source, or if that's lots of mics on a drum kit or a piano or whatever, the the more you add, the more it's gonna boost some things but take away other things. And maybe that's just a headache you don't need, even if you've got like auto-aligned two or whatever kind of the l the less time you give yourself to think later, the better. And that's actually kind of what the committing is about. It's like, hey, all I need on this is just the 157. Maybe that's the perfect mic for this what this one thing. But it really works great if I'm boosting like 4 dB of 1.5 on on my API kind of EQs or something like that. Or it really sounds best if I compress just a little bit. Like those kind of things I'm committing. And as well as like, you know, driving pre's maybe a bit harder and turning down your fader on your console or your output kind of gain on your on your preamp to just get just the right amount of saturation and just the right amount of kind of like body and like thickness to a sound. Like those kind of things I'm committing on the way in. And like it's not always possible to have a Pro Tool session with nothing in, but like a lot of the time I'm I'm trying to do all my EQ, all my compression, all of that kind of stuff just before I record on the way in. And then when the artist comes in to listen, it's just all that Protools is doing is balance and pan and maybe a bit of effects, at least on a tracking session. You kind of go into things a little bit more in the mix, obviously, later. But yeah, like I just I got into this thing of like making decisions now is much better than making them later because you know why you made them now. Like if the guitarist was unhappy with their guitar sound and you boosted a load of something to just get the thing that they want, like don't don't leave it till later on where you might just bypass that plug in that was boosting that and go like. Oh hey, I don't like that. I'm gonna take that off. Like, no, no, no, like that needs to stay on. That was like a decision that was reached after loads of stages, and that like is keeping someone happy. And that's like you just got to capture what was happening in the room. That's where all the vibe was, that's where the mood was, and that's hopefully where all the stuff that a listener is gonna react to later, like hopefully you've got that. And then the mix is just like tweaking from there. So I mean I'll take that through as well. Like what you know, if I multi-mic things, you like kick-ins and kick-out mics and things like that, you might often take both of those. But if I'm sending a track off to be mixed by someone else, like, and I know that mostly the kick out is the sound, like I just won't send the kick-in. I don't I don't want someone to second guess the balance and the decision and the mood, because it'll just complete even though yes, they might want some flexibility to kind of change the sound in their context, like I I don't want decisions to be remade. I just want that to be stuck with. Like, yeah. Like so I'll said like quite a pared down session to mix without much in it at all, partly because a lot of the sonics have been committed, but partly because I've just made decisions and I don't want I don't want that to that kind of worms to be opened up again. So hopefully that's not like too restrictive for mix engineers, but like you can add a sample if you really are desperate for a bit more front on a kick drum. But like if the thing is like, no, this should be like a bit pillowy, this should be a bit Motowny, like the the punch of the kick is not what this song is about, like I'll just send a kick out and nothing else.

Mike Indovina: 32:02

Yeah. No, I think that that's actually a really cool approach because one one thing I hear from a lot of people is that they're afraid to commit. You know, they're afraid of making those decisions. And and I think that commitment is definitely something that takes confidence. And, you know, sometimes you have to build up that confidence by messing things up or whatnot. But but I think that the way you described it of just like really leaning into the feeling in the moment of like, this is what excites us. This is, you know, making decisions to like get yourself excited in the room and then preserving that. I think that's a that that's really what it comes down to. It's not about recording things to be technically a certain way. It's about like really leaning into what ultimately is getting you the sound that you want. And if you're getting that, then don't be afraid of it like later on, you know. Like why not just preserve it now? And and like you said, if you need to add a sample after the fact to to you know, switch the things up a little bit, then that's fine. But you know, why not just lean into what you're excited by? And that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day.

Will Purton: 33:01

Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean, it's just I I just think Eve hopefully you can you can nail the technical stuff and the kind of the feeling, the emotive stuff all in one by by doing that. Like at the start of my career, I would just keep everything and I would be left with these these mixed sessions with just so much stuff, like three or four mics on every guitar cab, and you're just like, I don't you don't need that. Yes, if you use all of those things, oh wow, you'll you'll gain like this this 0.1%. Like, wow, that's kind of interesting situation. But maybe you're losing out on just like, what are you actually trying to do with that guitar part? Like, what is the purpose of this guitar riff in the song? Which one mic does that best? And if none of them do it, then maybe you just need a different mic or a different amp, or like to change pickups on the guitar, or you know, some big picture thing like that. And once you're kind of in the ballpark, then I'm just like, great, that's done. Decision is made. That's now me in a week's time mixing this, or somebody else kind of mixing this, you can you can fine-tune the UQ, you can compress it a bit more, you can add some whatever you want to add. But like just getting the kind of the big picture stuff so long as you should be feeling what the song is meant to be feeling, leaving the recording session. And then if you've done a good enough job kind of like capturing everything, then then great. That's like 80% of the thing done. It's just now just giving that a mix and presenting it the correct way, hitting your loudness targets and stuff like that. But yeah, I'm aware that I have the luxury of like a lot of really desirable gear at my fingers a lot of the time. So maybe that's kind of easy for me to say compared to others. But I think you can still do that at home. If you've got like a couple different mics with just different flavours, if you've got like a nice condenser mic and maybe like a ribbon mic and like a 57. Honestly, 57s are some of the like the best, most used mics ever, and they really don't cost that much. Like, if you've got those three, then you've got enough to be starting to make like sonic decisions about which of those suits your thing best. It might be that for your song that you're writing now, like the 57 is the best mic you have to record your acoustic guitar. Like, maybe it wants to sound a bit janky, maybe it wants to sound a bit compressed. It's not always about just recording the thing like as as cleanly and as truth truthfully as possible. It's about getting it to feel the way that part is meant to feel in your song. And by by choosing that over like a KM184 or whatever condenser might you might choose instead, like you've already made a big step in like how that's gonna feel once it's mixed. And you you've saved somebody a lot of time trying to get it sounding characterful later on. You've you've done it. It was as easy as that, just making one decision then and you've saved like minutes of thinking time later. And unpickability. That's the worst thing. If you can send off a song to be mixed and it comes back sounding like just completely different, like perfectly nice, but different, like then all that time was kind of wasted. So that's what that's that's why I'm committing things. Like I don't want people to think about it. I think I want a mix engineer to open up a session and maybe there's only 20 tracks, but they're like, I see exactly what the mood is, I see exactly what the vibe should be, this should be clean, this should be punchy, or this should be like really dirty and a bit mushy. Like I don't want anyone to guess. I just want them to go, like, I got you, I'm gonna take it that extra like 30% now.

Mike Indovina: 36:12

Absolutely. Yeah, I think when you're getting started, like a lot of people tend to think that there is like a single way of recording things properly, and then mixing, you do the same thing. And then like mixing often ends up becoming this situation where you're like trying to fix it in the mix. You didn't get the right sounds at the source, and now you gotta fix it in the mix, where it's like a great engineer does it right at the source, so that there's no fixing in the mix. It's just the mix is almost already there because of the source tones that you've got. And I think that that's something that takes a while to develop and and to really understand like you know, the those nuances of what makes a great recording, you know, the different types of mics, the different positions, the different performances, like, you know, different ways to coach people through those performances, all the things that you mentioned earlier, right? You know, that takes time. But when you really master that, when you spend that time, yeah, mixing becomes this whole process that is a lot more enjoyable and you're not fixing things.

Will Purton: 37:03

Yeah, exactly. You're just kind of helping the song. But I mean, this is the thing, right? Like, how do you choose then when to make, when to record things like really, really classically nicely and when not to do that? And and if you're not gonna do that, well, what kind of way are we gonna have this not be perfect? Like it's all about the song. It's all about the performance. And actually, that's the that's where I'm really, really glad that I started out coming from like playing music before engineering is like you you suddenly you have a bit more of a sense or just an intuition about like someone's meant to feel sad listening to this, or like this is meant to get you a bit riled up and angry, or it's meant to make you feel just like really dancing, and you can then start to connect the dots with like, aha. So technically that's already putting me onto like these kinds of decisions, or we're gonna want these kind of guitar tones, or like what whatever, you know, even these kind of like preamps, do you know what I mean? Like all of those things will kind of like help or detract from that thing, but it all comes from the song. And so, like, because if there was only one way to record an acoustic guitar one right, kind of to your point, like everyone would just use the same one acoustic guitar mic. We'd all just have that, you wouldn't have to think about it ever again, you'd have sorted your acoustic guitars forever, and you'd also only ever mix them one way, right? Like, but it's not like that. It's not like that at all. And it's it's all about the music, the song, and songs, really to me, they're they're either about messages or they're all about feelings. So that's basically what it comes down to, like really human stuff, you know. Like, how are you meant to feel? Or how did you feel when this when the artist played you the song the first time? Great, you should be feeling that at the end of the record day. You should certainly be feeling that at the end of the mix, and all your decisions are kind of informed by that. And yeah, if you're if you're at home wanting to grab that, like there's probably a bit of trial and error. Just try things out, whatever equipment you've got to hand, it will all make you feel very slightly different. Or and placement as well, like however you're recording things, even if you just got one mic, where you put that one mic will have a huge, huge impact. But yeah, so that's that's where it all comes from. That's the like the North Star that I'm always following. Things don't have to be nice. But also, like, even if things need to be character for, like, you know, there's the right kind of character. And it's trying stuff out, having the benefit of like seeing kind of I think the best thing about working in big studios actually is that kind of when you're at the start of your career, getting to see people who already are doing this day in, day out, and the the different things that they're doing and the approaches they take and the results that that has, like, that's just such a good way to build up your arsenal of like, right, this particular producer does like punchy drums like no one else. I'm just gonna wholesale steal that approach at least to start off with, and then you start to iterate. But like it then it's knowing why. Not every song needs that. But when it does, then you've got that in your locker, and that's great.

Mike Indovina: 39:54

Yeah. Yeah, I I agree with that. It's like when you see other people working, you learn so much. Because like a lot of people learn like that that way that they think is technically correct, and then yeah, they see someone both like do something totally opposite, and all of a sudden, you know, it's just like it's it opens up this new palette of of sounds that you can get. I think I remember, you know, like you go to I went to audio college and they would always talk about like, oh, don't clip your mics and that kind of stuff. And then the first day I was at a studio, I saw someone like cranking an eve-pree, and it was just so, so distorted and dirty, and it sounded awesome. And I was like, what? Like we can do this. But it doesn't mean that I'm gonna constantly distort the mic every single time. But it's like knowing, like, okay, there was a conscious decision here being made about you know why we're distorting it and what kind of effect we're going for, that kind of thing. But but it just became this new thing where I'm like, okay, cool. I that's in my back pocket. If I ever needed that, I can do it again. It gives you permission.

Will Purton: 40:44

Yes. You've got to know the rules to know how to break them. But like once you've got that framework, you can kind of take it and run with it. I did this session. Um actually, this has happened a couple times now. There's this there's this TV show called Name That Tune. And I think it's on in the US, actually, more it's like a I think it's a Fox thing. But the the deal is it's a quiz show, all the questions are snippets of music. And you've got to go, oh hey, that's the four tops, that's whoever, that's the Beach Boys. And rather than have the band play live, here's the me lifting the the cover off the trade secret, all of that stuff is now pre-recorded. They they pay for the band to come into a studio for like literally months, and they record all the music they're gonna use over a whole series kind of beforehand. And so what you've got to do as an engineer is like they don't organize those three months by like genre or by era. You'll do like a beach boy song in the morning, and then it'll be like Ariana Grande straight away right next, and then it'll be something from some like pristine yacht rock, you know, right up next after that. And so you're you're flitting between all these different styles and sounds and approaches to recording. It is so good for ear training. Like, man, like by the time you you come to the end of that, you can not only listen to a song and go like instead of you'd listen to it and be like, oh, that sounds like sing a guitar. You'll be like, no, no, that's a strap. That's position four, that's like going into like a JC20 or whatever. But it's also great for like knowing how to like use and abuse things. Because like learning that like the Captain Beef art bass sound, for example, that's like a hollow body bass raging super hot into the pre. And like all of that, like that thickness and that fuzz and all that kind of stuff. It's like, yeah, that was happening on the amp, but like like set it where the gain's right on your knee, and then just go like three clicks more than that. And that's like, there you go, that's the bass sound. So yeah, a lot of a lot of it's I don't know, yeah. It's it's just so good for like having quick access to all those different sounds. I I was doing an album with a guy recently, which is very like yacht rock, and just being like, yeah, like now I know how to get that. Like, because we've we've tried that a million times. Like, here's the things that they just do to get that, and we can just again, it's in the locker. You can just kind of like try it out and get straight there without having to do much like trial and error.

Mike Indovina: 43:01

Yeah. I I think that's actually a good point to bring up too, which is like that idea of getting outside of your bubble sometimes and just experimenting with different styles of music and not being afraid to like yeah, not being afraid to experiment and you know, step outside of your world because you're gonna learn something new. And and that's gonna open up your eyes for something that you can do in a later mix. Like I remember like like for me working on a lot of rock music, like I'm not afraid of distortion. And then I remember I got thrown on some hip-hop sessions and like then I would distort vocals because I love the sound of it in rock recordings, and all the hip-hop guys are like, what the fuck are you doing? Like that's that sounds weird. But then they listen in the context of the mix and be like, oh, yeah, this sounds cool, you know. It works, you know. But like, but but those are the things like you just have to kind of sometimes go outside of your comfort zone and and try different things and see what works, and you can fuse different sounds together. And sometimes you get these happy, happy connections that that just work, right?

Will Purton: 43:51

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Or if you see people doing a certain thing in a different genre all the time and you're like, well, why are they doing that? Because like whenever I work in this other genre, that's not what they're going for at all. But then you try it and you kind of realize after a bit of time, you're like, oh, they're going for this. I got it. Like, yeah, that I mean, that can be really useful too, because then that's another thing you can bring in your arsenal back to home base, whatever your usual genre is or situation, and be like, actually, hey, here's a new trick. Like the whole um ambience not spacing things too far apart from each other. Like I went really deep on classical recording for a while. I was doing some work with um Max Richter, he's got his own studio up in Oxfordshire. Yeah, and just like going really, really deep into like the old traditional ways of doing things like physics-based recording rather than just like ah, we'll put this thing up wherever it sounds fun. And that yeah, that's a thing. Like, you if you've got omni mics, you you just don't put them too far away from each other because there's a point where the whole the whole stereophil breaks, and you're trying to create this illusion of some actual stereo capturing roughly what it would have been like if you were there in the room. Like it's it's you've gotta, you've gotta get out of your comfort zone, you've got to learn stuff. And also just like dive deep into the tech side of things as well. Like, you know, we're called engineers. A lot of the time we're really just there, kind of like capturing moods and capturing you know the vibe and the emotion of something. But like, you know, if you know that the big difference between this preamp and this preamp is like the transformer, say, and then therefore they're gonna like distort in different ways or saturate, or one's not gonna give you the transient response of the other, something like that. Like, that's all the more you can be doing that and just have that like as just second nature, kind of the better. Because that's when you get really quick at things. Just like, yeah, yeah, 100% done. I got that. Let's focus on the music now.

Mike Indovina: 45:33

Yeah, I think there's like there's probably more important things than like a preamp selection in the beginning, you know, like focusing on the technique and the actual mics and all that stuff. But then like as you start to understand that concept, then you move on to the next thing. And you start to, I find that you start to get a little bit more granular with your learning and like then it all of a sudden starts a click in in new ways, you know. So yeah, as far as like that hierarchy of the signal chain, I think obviously the performance is gonna be the biggest thing, and then you know, going from going down the road from there, right? And your instrument and your mics and all that kind of stuff.

Will Purton: 46:02

Yeah, you can literally follow it down just the signal chain. That's basically the order of importance to like where to focus your attention. Like, yeah, but like you say, the most important thing is the performance. Next it might be like, well, what guitar are they using instead of like you know, just any guitar will do, what strings, what pickup, whatever. And then it's like, what mic? Where? What preamp? Like all these things are making like smaller and smaller differences. But like once you've kind of maxed out one thing, then it's the next smaller decision down the line that's kind of your bottleneck. And so you've just got to keep going down that rabbit hole all the way through to like what converters you're using and then like what mixed treatment you're using.

Mike Indovina: 46:38

Yeah, absolutely. The things that make like point two of a difference. But when you understand it, why not lean into it, right? When you're butting against that, then that's the next thing to maximize to get the most out of, for sure. Absolutely. Well, to tie into some of the ambient stuff that we've been talking about, like one of the first things that I think of, when I when I hear the word like room or when I hear room mics as a word, you know, I immediately gravitate towards thinking about drums. And you know, obviously room mics play a big part in the drum sound, but another big element of the drum sounds is the overheads and capturing, you know, not just the sound of a microphone right up against a snare or whatnot. And and I was curious to dig into, I noticed that you put up a YouTube video recently where you were talking about your approach to overheads. And one of the things that caught my attention was that you actually recommended that people use dark sounding mics when it comes to overheads. And I was curious to dig into that a little bit and see if you can explain why you like to do that, because I think a lot of people associate symbols as being top end. And so they think that they need a bright microphone to get that top end. So, as far as going with a darker microphone, what's your reasoning for doing that?

Will Purton: 47:39

I guess I guess it's kind of like a maybe a question of like digital recording, right? Like we have no problem capturing high-end like really well in digital. Like, and often what they'll do with cheap microphones when manufacturers are making them, well, they'll build in this kind of like high, high bump, because it just makes things sound like initially quite impressive and initially like, oh, really detailed, and maybe that'll start to mask other things that are going on with that mic that it's not quite doing right. And so often if you put up those mics on overheads, I find anyway, and if you've got quite bright symbols, especially, is like things just get really harsh really quickly. And you're kind of into territory where like I often find I would be having to cut that high-end, like any way that I can. And I think there's just a subjective thing where like you can't necessarily tell listening to a sound, like how it's been EQ'd, but there's just this subconscious, like, if you've been cutting a lot of frequencies or something, it kind of just sits back a bit or it is a bit less impressive and involving. Whereas if you take a darker sound and boost high-end, that is just kind of like a more pleasant place to be. And especially because you can then choose, you know, your your EQ that you're using, because they're not all created equal. Like some of them are really harsh and cutting in the high end, like you know, the Marg airband, for example, is like really, really brash. But like something like a pull tech or like a manly, some kind of passive EQ, and it doesn't have to be the real thing, like plugins will do this too, like we'll just bring that up in a really like sweet way. And I personally find myself like for drum overheads, really preferring the sound of like cymbal detail brought up from a dark starting place with like ribbon mics on your overheads, but like brought up really sweetly, where you can really tailor that detail and kind of like come up, like you know, when you're tuning a guitar string, it sounds better if you tune up from under. It's kind of like I guess kind of like that. Whereas if you're like trying to tune down from above, it doesn't kind of sit properly in tune. It's almost like if I'm having to cut high-end out of really bright mics, I just end up at like a less pleasing finish point to me. Yeah. So it's kind of that, I guess. Yeah.

Mike Indovina: 49:43

So do you think that it's just because like with the dark sounding mic, you you don't have that detail there. So when you're boosting, it's kind of boosting all the other stuff around what would normally be harsh? I guess so.

Will Purton: 49:53

But I think the detail often is there. Like, unless there's something wrong with your mic and is literally like not recording something, like uh even ribbon mics, they're picking it up. They're just picking it up less. So you're just you're just boosting it up and rather than relying on the high end of how the mic sounded. And there are some mics which sound really, really beautiful in the high end, but maybe maybe too boosted for some things. Like you're you you're then relying on your EQ, which is something you can choose after the fact, to just get exactly the right kind of tonality in how that is boosted and exactly where that's being boosted. Because yeah, it's not like reminis mics, if they're working properly, they're definitely recording that stuff, but it's it's just like attenuated a little bit. So I guess that that's the thing. It's not it's not adding detail that wasn't there, it's it's kind of just finessing the detail that's there, but but a bit tucked.

Mike Indovina: 50:39

It's more enhancement as opposed to like correction or something like that.

Will Purton: 50:43

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mike Indovina: 50:44

Exactly. So then with with your decision to go with darker mics, do you have a preference for symbol selection then at that point?

Will Purton: 50:52

I mean, I kind of leave that up to the drummer, really. I I'll I'll take like a bit of a big pick because I I wasn't a drummer starting out. Like guitars, I'll I'll go in on because I I know it and I came up with that. Whereas like drums are no big picture stuff, like that's too brash, or like actually we need when you hit the bell on that ride, it needs to be a bit more defined. Like stuff like that, you know, I can contribute and I will just say that, rather than like, hey, you should be used why don't we try Zildjian K's or Zildjian whatever's like Sabian, switch to those. Like I I guess. Yeah, I'm kind of probably thinking of those same things just without the names on them. So yeah, I'm just thinking like listener perspective, like I need to feel a bit more clarity, I need to feel a bit more washiness or brashness from the symbol, whatever it happens to be. But I'll just be using I'll be talking of those kind of generalities, I guess, more than any particular thing.

Mike Indovina: 51:43

For sure. Yeah, I was just curious if like there was something like you you tend to favor brighter symbols to that match with the darker mics, that kind of thing, so that there is like, you know, so it's kind of compensating or something like that. I don't know.

Will Purton: 51:53

Yeah. I guess what a general big picture is like I just just warm things are often nice. Especially symbols, like we've, you know, because if you think of like the kind of drum kits we we were all like had in our bands when we were starting out, it was like cheap symbols, and they were just really cutting and brash and harsh, and like just being in like a garage with that going on when you're it just man, it just it's cutting, and I I just really hate it. So like maybe it's even just going back to that. Like now when I record things, like I just want I just want warmth and I want tone and I want just like stuff to be soft. Like you can you can brighten things up till the cows come home later, but just like having to dull off harsh sounds to to a warm place just that never sounds as good as like just bringing up a little bit of high-end from a warm place to just just kind of hit a sweet spot. So, yeah, generally warmer stuff for symbols for sure.

Mike Indovina: 52:43

That makes sense to me. And I feel like as a drummer too, like with my experience of trying lots of different symbols, I've always found that like a lot of the thicker sounding symbols, they they tend to have like really big resonant frequencies that jump out. And those things can be really harsh and and you you hear like a certain quality to those sounds. Whereas the darker symbols, yeah, it I guess it's kind of like what you were talking about with the ribbon mics, where it's like they're all the detail is there. It's just like you're bringing up the nice stuff and you're just kind of getting it to a point where it's nice and pleasing as opposed to like removing harsh frequencies and having to tame the sound and all that kind of thing.

Will Purton: 53:18

Yeah, yeah, exactly that.

Mike Indovina: 53:19

Exactly that.

Will Purton: 53:20

You want to be in a place where like the it recording is a bit like going shopping to cook a meal, right? You're going out and collecting the best ingredients that you can. And then when you mix it, that's like you're actually cooking the recipe. But you it depends on what you bought to start with. So yeah, and the less the less you're having to like just compensate for what anything, any kind of like inconsistencies or deficiencies in the kind of the original source sounds, like literally standing there in the room, I mean, like listening to the actual instrument, like the the better. And and generally I have I just find that I have more of a problem with things being overly brash with like than overly warm. Just seems to be like a bit of a universal truth, especially coming to like symbols. But you know, your mileage may vary. I think that's just me.

Mike Indovina: 54:03

Absolutely. Well, I mean, i this is all like going back to this kind of main theme that I feel like we're discussing, which is just like focusing on getting things right at the source, picking the right tools, picking the right instruments, and all these little details that kind of come together to make the final sound what it is.

Will Purton: 54:18

Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's it's it's it's literally all about that. That's where all my time is spent, like when I'm on a session, is just trying to trying to fine-tune things, get things exactly right. You know, maybe maybe you end up just needing like two or three mics for like a small style recording, but like finding exactly the right place for them and exactly the right treatment and not being afraid to go in quite hard on like say it's the perfect mic, but there's this one resonance in it. There's like this thing about like 5k or whatever, like just grabbing an EQ and cutting that out. You know, if if that mic is definitely the one and it's doing loads of great things, and that's the one the one little niggle you have, just cut it, man. Like if you can find it, rather than just leave it till later. It's just, yeah. I'd much rather just do the work now. And then the mix is just all about the musical stuff rather than the like compensating for issues. There's always there's always something, but like the more you're doing the big picture, I'm writing things for emotion, I'm just really trying to get people involved in this mix as opposed to like, oh wow, I'm gonna have to spend like six hours even like getting this listenable. Like, yeah, that that's where it's at. I just think you can you can spend your time down the line so much more like productively and and enjoyably if you get the chance to do that.

Mike Indovina: 55:32

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And yeah, again, it's just like what you talked about earlier. It's it's it's you know, having making it sound exciting in the room and whatever you know is pleasing to everyone in the band, then that's that's what's gonna matter. Yeah. Absolutely. This may be a totally random tangent aside from everything we've been talking about so far. But one one of the other questions I was curious to ask you about was that I was reading an interview with you recently where you were talking about the idea of mixed translation. And and and you were talking about how you you were noticing an issue back in the day where like when you move from studio to studio, you would find that sometimes mixes would fall apart or they, you know, they would sound different. And you mentioned that you like to use headphones as your solution to that problem. And so I was kind of curious to dig into that a little bit and learn a little bit more about what that process looks like for you. Because mixed translation is uh is another thing that I hear a lot of people that, you know, they they make a mix at home and then they listen to it in their car and it falls apart or something like that, right? So I'm curious to to know like how you incorporate headphones into your process with understanding mixed translation.

Will Purton: 56:31

Aaron Powell Yeah. So I guess headphones is just like they're a very good like reference point because it never changes depending on where you are. You can obviously m maybe this is super obvious to everyone listening, but like you take the same pair of speakers, which might be great, into different rooms, or you maybe move them in the around in the same room and they will sound completely different. Because you're just unless you're in a really, really well-treated space, like your room is adding a lot and it's subtracting a lot, and also just the reverberations of it are maybe covering up a lot. And if you're going to a new studio, like, you know, imagine me walking into Abbey Road for that first time, like you don't know how that control room sounds. You don't know how those speakers are set up, you don't know if the whoever was in there the day before did a weird thing that really works for them but not for everybody else, and hasn't moved those speakers back to maybe where they should be. And it's just a bit of a like, you're rolling the dice, maybe you'll get really lucky, but you'd be surprised how much like really big pro studios, like you know, expensive places, like the monitoring is not always really, really great. Like there are there are like maybe I can count on like one hand how many studios I'd be like, wow, I could just mix in that control room, that's amazing. So like I I'm not uh thinking of headphones as like a be all and end all, that's the only thing I need. Like, I do find I get better results on like good speakers in a well-treated room if I'm mixing, kind of at the end of the day. But when you're tracking, it can just remove a lot of questions where you're like, is that bass boomy? Because I'm just sat in a space in the room where there's a massive boost, or these speakers are not properly decoupled from the floor, or something like that. You can just throw on headphones. Like I well, yeah, I mean there are there are loads and loads of great brands out there. I don't think I should kind of name particular ones, but I've got a really nice set of like open back headphones that I really, really trust now that are just super, super flat, and they're great to just be able to throw on and be like, yes, the bass is boomy, I need to sort that. Or no, in these headphones, they sound fine. I'm just in a weird space in the room. And now I've learned a thing, that anything that sounds boomy, actually, maybe that's cool in here, because it won't be when I go back to my place tomorrow or to another studio to do overdubs with this same band kind of later down the week. So yeah, I don't I think they're just a great thing to have on your arsenal because they can just remove a lot of uncertainties and answer a lot of questions. And they just let you kind of move on to the important stuff and get on with things with the band much more quickly. But yeah, what you want to avoid if you can is like just trusting what the room is saying, recording things and you know, especially if you're going quite hard with EQ and stuff when you're tracking, like I kind of tend to if I can, you might be mixing into like a really weird sound without really knowing until you've like really learnt that space. So yeah, especially in a new place, but even in studio, I know really well. Like I have headphones there, it's just like a fail-safe safety net. I can quickly just throw those on and just be really sure about exactly what's happening tonally and then just then just take them off and be like, great, I can kind of move forward with the important stuff now. Yeah. So that was a bit of a like a revelation almost. It's like, great, I can answer all those questions I had finally.

Mike Indovina: 59:31

Yeah. Well, it's it's interesting because I think that that brings up a whole other interesting topic, which is that idea of like you're using headphones, it sounds like, as a calibration tool, so that when you go from one studio to another, you have this like constant thing that you know in different rooms. But as far as mixed translation goes, like there's that side of translation where you're bouncing between different studios, but then there's also like working out of your own studio and knowing that the sounds are going to translate outside of the studio to like your car or whatever, not necessarily working out of different spaces. And and I think in that case there, it's like whether you're on headphones or you're on monitors, like if you're still working on the same source, the same monitoring system, like I guess uh ultimately it just it becomes a mission an issue of just like learning whatever it is, your headphones or your monitors really, really well so that you know what that sounds like, and then you know, trusting that. And and you know, that that's maybe a whole other process in in just like learning speakers, right?

Will Purton: 1:00:25

Yeah, yeah. I feel like that's the main thing, really. But like I guess mixed translation, I mean I'm I'm still kind of learning on that road as well, but I'm finding I get better results when on the one hand, the room I'm mixing in I know really, really well. But on the other hand, just how you mix also like. I I used to be this one again, coming from like a jazz background, I'd be I'd be like not wanting to touch the dynamics of a mix at all. I'd want all the transients to be there, all this beautiful detail. But then like you take that into your car and you can't hear anything because the dynamic range is just too big. So like I had to learn to just like how to use compression but without it sounding really like pumping and like you know, just bring up the RMS of your mix kind of overall to just get the luffs into like a good place where like you the balance still works, it's still tasteful, it's still musical, but yeah, when you go into like a crowded place, it's it's actually that's a big part of translation. And like being a bit bolder with EQ as well, not just leaving things super flat, like trying to get like engineer stuff and mangle it into like certain frequency ranges where it's just like a heightened version of itself and it's doing a particular job in a mix, and you can fit that puzzle together, things kind of slot around each other. That helps with mixed translation. But yeah, I think you don't necessarily need great, really, really great, expensive speakers to do good mixes. If you're listening on speakers though, you need a really, really well-treated room. So, like if people are wondering at home what to spend their money on, like gear acquisition syndrome is like a really difficult thing to get away from. I was just trolling the internet before we got on, going like, oh yeah, if I bought that, maybe my mixes would be amazing. Like, well, that's all I need. That's not true. Like what you need is a good pair of ears and like some some knowledge of how to use the equipment you've got to do a good job, but then you need not to be having anything like hidden from your ears. And that's all to do with like, you know, all these you know, look at how many like panels we got on the wall both of us, like in our studios. Like, you've got to just get your room working for you. And that's actually not too expensive to do. Like, that's a really that's a much better place to spend your money than on like much bigger, much more expensive speakers. Like, yes, not all speakers do everything for everyone, not all speakers go down to like 30 hertz, so you can really hear what's happening in the low end, but like I bet your room's hiding a lot more than the speaker design is from you if you're just in your bedroom. And then, yeah, that's where headphones come in, because you can just cut all that out, and it's just what the sounds are, yes, you can dig into the tonality. Yes, you open up a bit of difficulty in terms of like kind of balancing things and stereo field and you know, all of that kind of stuff, but like at least you kind of have a bit of a baseline, a bit of a kind of safe home to kind of get back to. So yeah. Yeah.

Mike Indovina: 1:03:03

But even if you're adding room treatment to your room, like you you still have to learn what that room sounds like with that treatment, right? Like just having treatment alone isn't necessarily the the solution. You know, I can think of like recently I was uh visiting a friend at a mastering studio, and they had these like hundred thousand dollar speakers. And I mean, it's cool to say you listen to music on those, right? But like, and it's like this perfectly acoustically treated room, like you know, designed by like top studio designers, blah, blah, blah. And I and I, it took me a while to just like understand the room. You know, it was like, am I hearing things because these speakers are revealing them to me, or am I hearing it because this room has a sound to it? And and even just like walking around the room and you hear different sounds in different corners and whatnot. And like, you know, it's so like I don't think people need to spend a ton of money on room treatment or or fancy speakers. That's not my point here, but my point is that like when it comes to translation, you at the end of the day, you still need to learn your speakers. You need to understand what things sound like in your room. You know, you need to take time to learn that. You need to take time to learn your headphones if that's gonna be your your thing that you're gonna bring from studio to studio. So yeah. So as far as like learning specific sets of speakers or headphones and understanding how they translate outside of the studio, do you have any tips there?

Will Purton: 1:04:16

I I think that's just reference tracks, really. I mean, one thing is like once you know your room's in like a point where like enough of the kind of reflections and the room modes are being like tamed that you can actually listen to what your speakers are trying to tell you, then you're into like right learning the speakers' territory. And then, yeah, I've got like maybe 10 or 11 reference tracks that all have certain things that now they might not be like perfect sounding. Like one or two of them, I'm like, right, this is like an audio far quality, perfect thing. But a lot of them are like I know what the problems with them are. One of them is um Dark Side of the Moon, right? Like some of those recordings are like they're really pristine, the musical stuff comes through clearly, but actually if you listen on really beautiful speakers, like they're quite muffled sounding recordings. And if you really dive in, it's stuff like things on the drum kit, you can hear that like the kick drum is off to one side and the snare drum is off to one side. So I'll be using that record not to be like, hear something perfect, I'm gonna try and see if these speakers are perfect or not. I'm trying to see if the speakers can tell me what's not perfect. Like, is it sounding muffled? Is the sack sounding a bit a bit honky? Can I hear exactly where all these drums are placed? And if you can, then you know that they're not hiding anything from you. Whereas if if everything kind of sounds fine, then you're a bit like okay, well then what else aren't you telling me? Or just I know that I'm not in a very kind of detailed space here. You know, and so I'll have like however many tracks like that. This one should sound bright, this one the vocal should sound just a touch quiet, this one should be like really warm but detailed, you know, this one the bass should be should be just a little bit boomy at like 50 hertz, but nowhere else. So then if the bass is booming out at other frequencies, aha, that's the speakers or that's the room. But that's it's all just time, really. Yeah, I guess uh finding records that you think sound really, really great and listening to those in a l as many different places as you can. And even if you're in the same place, just on your headphones or different headphones, earbuds in your car, whatever, noticing what's always the same about that mix no matter where you go, like and then try and latch on to that. And if you go somewhere else and it doesn't sound like that, well then if that's like the ninth place you've listened to that record and that's the only time it was different, it's pr is probably hit something to do with here, whether that's the speakers or the room or just how things are set up. And again, like a lot of what we've been talking about, is kind of spending the time what so you have you have that, you'll have your repertoire of kind of reference tracks, just learning them really, really well, putting in the time, trying to get to as many different studios as you can to just really understand what's happening in them, and then you can start using them to like work out. Again, it's all about just setting that baseline. I know where things should be, and what am I hearing or not hearing kind of from that? Then you can start to learn kind of where you're at. But then it's also then just mixing. You've got to just try it, right? Like to this day, I still find it difficult like first time around to get like my vocals exactly at the right level and not to like kind of overcook them a little bit or undercook them. I've still got to take it out to my car or just like listen to it on my phone speaker or whatever, to be like, oh hey, actually, that is a little bit loud still.

Mike Indovina: 1:07:17

Yeah, it certainly doesn't hurt to have multiple systems to reference to, but you also you need to understand those different references as well, right? And I think it's what you're saying. It's like listening to different music that you know intimately and understanding what it sounds like on your monitors and then what it sounds like when you bring it to the car and like all those identifying all the differences between the the common sets of speakers that you listen to. If you can, if it sounds consistent amongst all those different things, then I think that's that's the goal there. And if something all of a sudden sound sticks out one day, then you know you have a problem in your mix.

Will Purton: 1:07:47

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever had that thing with like, I don't know if you use like 24 karat magic Brilliant Mars? Like that's that that makes it just sounds amazing. But it's almost like it sounds too good. Like everywhere you listen to that, it just sounds great. So it kind of doesn't really tell me anything about the system, other than like, oh, these are small speakers, so there's not so much actual bass here. Like to me, that's actually not a useful reference track. You need you need to have something where you know what to check out and you know what is either being hidden.

Mike Indovina: 1:08:16

Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that song because when I was at that mastering studio, we put that song on. Because like, I same thing. I was like, that song sounds great everywhere. And I was very underwhelmed when I heard it on these speakers. And and it blew my mind. It felt like the bass was super compressed. And and I was like, okay, is this the speaker telling me that this is compressed? Or like, you know what I mean? Like, so then we started listening to a lot of other things that I thought were very dynamic, and it was constantly that the low end was a little bit more squished than I thought it was. So, like the then I was like, okay, now I'm understanding these speakers. I understand what I'm hearing here, you know? And so, like, I it's this exact same thing we're talking about, which is just like having that reference of understanding what it should should sound like. And then when you hear that difference on another set of speakers, you're like, okay, like that's something I need to look out for. I guess that's the point here, right?

Will Purton: 1:09:03

Yeah. And another great thing, actually, I've had this once or twice. Like when I did go ahead and buy those open back headphones, like spent quite a lot of money on them. Hearing things in records that you know really well for the first time, you're just like, those drums are a loop. There's a click. I can hear the click that wasn't properly cross-faded. I never knew that. Like I had and I was like, right, buying these, done. Cause there's just a whole level of detail here that I didn't even know was there.

Mike Indovina: 1:09:27

So then it's also like, does that detail matter? You know? Like I also had this luxury of like listening to some some like $30,000 speakers, and I remember hearing footsteps that like I had never heard before. And I was like, okay, that's cool that I hear this, but do I need to hear that? Like you know? Yeah.

Will Purton: 1:09:43

Because it's almost like the more detailed the speakers are. I don't know if you find this as well. Like, actually the harder it is to just get the the general glue and consistency. You can hear all the things individually so clearly that it's almost hard to know when you're when the mix is working. Like, you're like, well, I if a mix on NS10s seems like you can hear all these things individually, though maybe that's not all kind of working together in a good way yet. But on speakers like we've got PMC sixes in here, which are just like that, they're beautiful. So so good. But like, yeah, it's really hard to just do the big picture, like kind of overall working together thing on them sometimes. For detail that they're just like phenomenal. Yeah, I love it. Not an advert, other speakers exist. That's what I'm liking in here in this context for me and my ears.

Mike Indovina: 1:10:28

So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, I I think that it's like when you get more experience with this stuff, you're unfortunately you start looking at more expensive equipment and lusting after more expensive stuff. And and then at the end of the day, even if you had that stuff, you still have to learn how to use it. It doesn't all of a sudden make everything click, you know. And I think that that's just going back to this translation thing. It's like you just need to understand the gear that you have better and how to make the most of what you have. Once once you get that, I think you could do that at a more affordable level, and you're gonna that that once you understand it, even with cheaper gear, it's gonna make such a massive improvement as you move on to like other tools. Yeah.

Will Purton: 1:11:07

Yeah, because buying a thing because you know you had a problem with something that you've got. You spent years with it and it never did a thing, and you identified that and you're buying in like an intentional way, like that's a lot better than just spraying and praying. Like, I'm gonna buy that and hope for the best, because it's more expensive. It must be better. Like, well, it's not always, because it's just so subjective. And you're right, it's these are things are tools, so it's how you use them that makes the difference, not just the fact that they cost you a lot of money, which is not what you would hear from like, you know, all the marketing emails you get. You know what I mean? Like, buy this, it'll solve your problems forever. It's like it's not that you gotta you just gotta spend time like everything in life, right? That's kind of like a universal truth. You've just got to put in the hours, learn it, and yeah, if it's still not doing a thing for you, then then is the time to upgrade. But at least you'd like you know you've exhausted all the options. And you've you developed your ears to a point where you're actually gonna get the benefit from that, I guess, as well.

Mike Indovina: 1:12:02

And I I'd much rather be an engineer who gets good results with cheap gear than poor results with expensive gear and a lot of debt, you know.

Will Purton: 1:12:09

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. It's it's just not all about the money. And again, like, you know, I I work in nice studios, and you know, look at me here with all these synths and things like that. Like, it's not about how much money you no one gives a crap about how much money you spent on stuff. They just care if it makes them feel good or not. And that goes for your your clients as much as it does for the for the listener at the end of the thing. They just want to feel the way the song's meant to make them feel. And like you don't need, you know, tens of thousands of dollars worth of microphones to do that. You just need whatever was the best thing that you had available to you at that time. So yeah.

Mike Indovina: 1:12:40

Absolutely. Well, I think that's a perfect spot to start to wrap things up. If people want to learn more about you, maybe even work with you, like what's the best way for them to do that?

Will Purton: 1:12:47

Oh, sure. Well, I mean, you can find me on Instagram. I'm just Will Purton on there, and I've got a website, willperton.com, and I've also got a YouTube channel now, which is quite a new thing for me. But like we're just kind of diving into recording techniques and gear reviews and analyzing kind of classic recordings, that kind of thing. That's uh Will Talks Recording on YouTube. So any of those you can uh get involved.

Mike Indovina: 1:13:07

Awesome. Lots of good stuff on there too, from what I've seen as well. So yeah, definitely check it out. Awesome. Will thank you again for for doing this. I really appreciate it. And yeah, it's been awesome to learn more about your your process and way of doing things. And yeah, I think there's a lot of great stuff that people can take from this episode. So thank thank you again.

Will Purton: 1:13:21

Well, man, thanks very much, Mike, and thanks everyone for tuning in as well. Like, yeah, really good to just like chat gear, man. Great to hang out.

Mike Indovina: 1:13:27

Love it. So that was my episode with Will Purton, and I really enjoyed that. What I really liked about it was just that theme of being very intentional with your decisions throughout the entire process and paying attention to all of the little details that go into it. You know, we talked a lot about that idea of the signal flow hierarchy and thinking about every little factor that is part of your signal chain, from the musician to their instrument to, you know, if it's their guitar to the string to the picks to the cables to the amps, like all of these little ingredients that make up the final puzzle. And when you pay attention to all of those things and when you analyze how each little detail can make a big impact, and how ultimately it can either make the process easier in the end or actually work against you if you're glossing over these details. So I really appreciated Will's perspective of like, you know, learning these details and how to go about training yourself to hear some of these little differences, but also just the more overarching thing, which is just like focusing on getting things right at the source, and then that just making your life a lot easier moving forward. And that's something that time and time again I see with all my coaching students, where when we really focus on getting the right source tones, starting with the right samples, the right drum kits and skins and strings and all that stuff, when you really focus on those little details, man, mixing it becomes so much easier because now you're working with better tracks. You know, like I've even heard people complain that, like, oh, so-and-so big mixer must have it easy because all the tracks that they work on were recorded in professional studios or that SoundPro were on the way in. So, you know, it's easier. It's like, yeah, so why not just do that for yourself? You know what I mean? That's the idea here is that you shouldn't just chalk it up to like, oh, uh, you know, my room is what it is. It's like, no, spend the time to get the most out of your room. Choose choose the right equipment, all that kind of stuff. So um, yeah, I I think that that's just kind of the really big lesson to take from this episode is focus on every little bit of the puzzle and make sure you've got the right ingredients. And when you do, things become so so much easier and you get better sounds as a result of it. Don't don't compromise with this stuff. Just be very intentional with every decision. So yeah, I'm really grateful that Will came on here and that we had that discussion because it's worth reiterating. It's something that I feel a lot of people gloss over. So, yeah, definitely worth covering again and really appreciate Will taking the time to talk about that with us today. Now, if you need help with this process, if you're not sure of like what you could be doing, or maybe more importantly, like what are your blind spots? What are the things that you're missing out on? And you need someone that can listen to your tracks and help identify those gaps in your process and then walk you through how to solve those issues and give you a repeatable beginning-to-end process for producing your tracks and getting pro results at the source, and then ultimately editing them and then mixing them to sound great. If you want one-on-one help with that process, I'd love to help you out. And inside of my Amplitude Coaching program, that's exactly what I do. I work with my students to help identify where their gaps are. And then we focus on mastering those processes and filling in those gaps to make sure that ultimately you're getting sounds that you hear in your head to come out of your speakers. So if you're interested in learning more about this program and you want one-on-one help, make sure to check out masteryourmix.com forward slash amplitude. And then on that page, there's a button where you can press to apply for the program. And I'd love to hop on a call with you. I'd love to give you a demo of the program, show you what it's all about, and to ultimately see how I can best help you. And if it seems like you'd be a good fit, then I'd love to invite you into the program. I only work with people who I truly believe I can help. So if you're interested, make sure to check out masteryourmix.com forward slash amplitude. And then with that said, we've reached the end of this episode. So thank you so much. And I can't wait to chat with you in the next one. We'll talk soon. Take care. Thanks for listening to the Master Your Mix Podcast. Please make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave a review. If you have any questions or comments for the podcast, send an email to questions at masteryourmix.com. And for more information on how to create pro recordings from your book studio, visit masteryourmix.com.