For episode 618, Matt talks with Chris Dacoron, a Bay Area mixing engineer working mainly in R&B, pop, and hip hop. Chris runs his mix business, Skye Heart Sound, out of his home studio in Martinez, California, and has been at it for over 20 years. The two met at a Bay Area Audio Nerds gathering. Chris started out as a singer in an R&B boy band that moved to Los Angeles in 2004, became an accidental studio assistant along the way, and switched to engineering full time when the group broke up in 2006. They talk about learning by level-matching his mixes against finished records, the Auto-Tune idea he shot down years before T-Pain, the artist vision form that cut his revisions to one or two, going hybrid after one hardware EQ changed his mind, saving rough iPhone vocals, why networking in person still matters, and how to DM artists without sounding like a car salesman.
In This Episode, We Discuss:
- Growing Up in the Bay Area Singing Along to Boyz II Men
- Forming an R&B Boy Band and Moving to Los Angeles in 2004
- Winning a Talent Competition and Becoming a Studio Assistant Nobody Was Looking For
- The Group Breaks Up in 2006 and the Clean Cut to Engineering
- Coming Home to the Bay Area and Building a Freelance Career Through Word of Mouth
- Setting Rates in the Middle Based on What Outside Engineers Charged
- Learning From Claudio Cueni, Tony Shepperd, and Ken Lewis
- Level-Matching Mixes Against Finished Records to Learn What a Final Sound Is
- Always a Student: R&B Sounds Change Every Five Years
- The Auto-Tune Idea Chris Shot Down Before T-Pain Made It a Hit
- The Artist Vision Form: Understanding the Artist Before Moving a Fader
- Handling Revisions as a Collaboration Instead of a Critique
- Going Hybrid After One Hardware EQ Changed Everything
- Making iPhone Vocals Sound Like a Real Studio: Silver Bullet, Saturation, and Expansion
- Matt’s Tip: Cleaning Up Rough Vocals With Adobe Podcast
- Money: Balancing Gear Spending With Marketing Yourself
- Try Everything: Networking Events, SoundBetter, Websites, and DMs
- Get Out of Your Herman Miller Chair and Meet People in Person
- How to DM Artists: Do the Work, Make It Personal, Don’t Sell Right Away
- Why AI-Written Pitches Are Easy to Spot
Matt’s RANT!: Stop Asking for Permission
Links and Show Notes:
Credits:
- Guest: Chris Dacoron
- Host/Engineer/Producer: Matt Boudreau
- WCA Theme Music: Cliff Truesdell
- The Voice: Chuck Smith
