Tell me about your mentors

I started out in the country. I had no studios or knowledgeable people around me at all. When I first started, I just experimented until I thought it sounded good. The internet was not yet available so I had a few years of playing around until the internet actually started filling out enough to have information on recording. Most of that information was simply "go to a studio" and maybe a little of the "place mic, then move it until it sounds good", good information yet absolutely useless to those who don't even know what good sound is.

So years later, I found myself reading these magazines and books and websites and watching youtube and it was all pretty much the same rehashed armchair engineer drivel as we see now. I tried this stuff and listening back today, I see the further I went following this information, the further away from optimal sound I ended up.

That was until I stopped doing that and started relying on my instincts and spending long hours trying to replicate what I heard on CDs. Instead of spending hours listening to folks on youtube give me tricks and tips that don't work, I spent money to buy CDs that embodied the sounds I wanted to recreate with recording. I'd buy one CD for the guitar tones, another for drums, etc. I'd then listen to single parts of songs over and over and over while A/B'ing my track and making small adjustments, then tracking it again and again.

So without someone to guide me, I've figured out how to make things work, but it's been a extremely long and arduous process that should have taken 1/4th the time and money to get through.  I really really wish someone had been there to teach me early on in the process, or at least guide me better.  At least then I wouldn't have thought I knew it all and refused later information that would have probably propelled me even farther.

And don't even get me started on the tangents that were Gear Acquisition Syndrome or Gear Modification Syndrome. Total wastes of time and money. I went through a period where my ego was bigger than my skillset and I was buying into the marketing horseshit that certain gear would be a gateway to unleashing my "skills". It wasn't. I'd buy gear and still be disappointed and most of the time end up even further from where I wanted to be. I ended up selling tons of mics and gear and vowing only to own industry standard, quality equipment.

I couldn't have made a better choice, and ultimately it was the choice that saved me from quitting recording entirely. I did this because it forced me to focus on learning the proper utilization of the small amount of gear I had instead of the hopeful pipedream that having tons of choices so the "right" mic or the "right" preamp would bring Angels down from heaven to bless my recording.. (they didn't and still don't) At least now I've learned the gear well enough to know that turning a knob one more click will give me more color, or that moving the mic in front of the guitar amp another 1/4" to the left will give me the bump in the high frequencies I need. With too many choices and too much time being wasted researching the next miracle mic, I would have never sat down long enough to figure this stuff out.

"I'll be the one to make this work, even though so many have failed before me!" I used to say all the time when others would suggest I was going about it all wrong. It was egotistical and foolhardy, at least I see it now. It's sad but I still see others saying/doing this every single day, and as much as I speak up and try to get folks to listen, they act exactly like I did back then.

I've got a couple.... what I've learned from all of them is that you take some things away that you remember and use, and then there are times when you can see things they may do that you don't necessarily want to include in your style. For instance, I first started out in a studio that did nothing but southern gospel music. Some could look at that as "poor guy" but let me tell you, these people work fast, and the engineer I was under showed me how to move quickly. The studio was set up to what you would typically find in Nashville, so I got to learn how at 21 years old how things work in a fast paced environment, what was important to these people as well, and how to deal with problems and make it seem like there was none. We didn't have time for no stinkin problems! I'll call this studio A.

Then I moved on to a more modern studio. They didn't use the Nashville way, it was mostly bands, and when you would get them in the studio it was too difficult to try and have them all track at once... probably because they'd never heard the song the way it sounded in reality, and it kind of freaked them out, so it was mostly overdubs. It wasn't as fun really, even though we had a deal with Atlantic and some of the bands that came through would bring back all the hotties to be in the studio after they gigged at their venues in town, but I got to see some crazy stuff go on. Particularly the guy I worked for here didn't put much importance on incoming signal processing, so we had to deal with mostly dry, raw material. He liked to do all the processing in mixing. He also wanted to try and rush the bands, and I saw how that was a negative. But the guy was as smart as they come, and he taught me a lot about how to deal with record labels and the business side sof a studio. I'll call this studio B.

While I was at studio B, the labels wanted a heavy hitter producer to come in and start working with these bands, the owner, who I was learning under, became a great friend/mentor to me, still is. They brought in John Kerzweg (Creed, Puddle of Mudd, Jewel, etc.) and instead of making me into some kind of runner or something, the owner put me in the seat next to him, and told me watch everything he does, learn everything he does, ask as many questions as you can until he starts getting annoyed (if you know John, he loved and I mean loved to talk about what he was doing and never got tired of questions). This is when I started to really learn about how to gain stage properly, how to hit compressors the right way, and how using EQ as a way to make this and that fit in a mix, rather than make them present, if that makes sense. I had always heard the "carve things out with eq" but never understood this until I started learning under John, he did most of it on the way into protools, and he also taught me a lot about how to make mixes be up in your face, and how to hit the buss compressor in the SSL the right way. John was brilliant on an SSL, he knew exactly how to get the levels hitting the master section from the channels so that it got in it's zone. It was a 6000E, and I'd never understood how amazing those consoles were until John showed me the proper way to use it. John was also incredibly meticulous, he'd have a drummer play over a track 25 times if he had to, and 24 of those times might be so that the drummer was doing the right thing just on the hi hat. He was this way with every instrument, so I learned that no matter what, always get the recording perfect, and never settle on the arrangement. He also taught me a lot about that as well, how to arrange a song so that you didn't need 4 stacks per side of guitars to make a wall of sound.

After that I got into my own place and focused on what's really in my soul and that's country music. I was raised listening to it, and I can feel myself sort of space out when I'm mixing it, and that's what I like. I have problems all the time though, there are so many things I don't know, and you'll see me asking questions to people like Cowboy and whoever else all the time about somethings that might be considered rudimentary. But I found that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that you can never ask too many questions, and never stop learning. So that's my story.

This man..



Otis Lynn Dillon

Has owned and operated a little backwoods studio nearly all his life.  Recorded more country and bluegrass hit makers than I can count.  It's not often that big timers go off the beaten path to record at this place or that but they did for Otis.  I started hanging out at his place back in the 80's when tape was the medium.  Awestruck, rubbing elbows with the likes of Keith Whitely and Ricky Skaggs.  And to Otis's credit, he never asked me to leave.  He knew I loved making music and was always eager to teach me how to record and mix.  Got the opportunity to turn the knobs on some big budget stuff and stuff he'd do practicaly for free because people couldn't afford to pay much.  


He is a master mixer and musician.  One of the most talented men you've never heard of and if not for this post, probably never would have heard of.  



He was a patient man with me.  I was young and hard to teach.  Things he taught me 25 years ago, I still think about nearly every time I mix.  And I hear him saying things to me in my mind like; "the best sounding reverb is the reverb you don't realize your hearing".  Or, "if you can convince a vocalist to not swallow a mic, you can cut great sounding vocals".  Or, "needs more room in that mic, go out and pull it back a foot or two".



I could go on and on but many will know what I mean when I say that no knowledge learned from reading or forums or anything like that can compare with being in the same room with a master day after day.  



I'm very fortunate to have met this man and I thank God for it.