VK Icons: Andrew Scheps

Andrew Scheps is a rare breed of audio nerd and music lover who combines acute technical mastery with a Zen-like ability to zoom out and focus on how a song feels, regardless of his attachment to the mix.

Whether he’s mixing chart-toppers like Beyoncé, Hozier, and Green Day; pouring his creative energy into passion projects like Low Roar; or sharing his knowledge via platforms like Mix With The Masters and Puremix; Scheps’ guiding principles never change: know your tools, be honest with yourself, and most importantly, “Don’t be a dick.” 

Andrew joined us from his home in the English countryside to talk about the philosophies that guide his work, walk us through his workflow, and discuss some of the creative triumphs and challenges of his career.

When did you first become interested in the sound of music and the technology behind it?

The first thing I ever heard that made me realize that records weren't just musicians playing was “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which is the last song on Revolver. I realized, “Wow, that's not just a band playing.” I was probably eight or something like that, and the sitar and loops really hooked me. I think I was always into certain things that just sounded cool to me. 

Then, in high school, I discovered what studios were. Some friends of my parents had a son who worked in a studio in New York City, so I took the train and went to see it. I saw the console, and I was like, “Okay, that's it. That's exactly what I want to do.” I knew I wasn't a good enough musician to be a musician for a living. I wanted to be in bands, but I was a brass player, so I thought, “Well, this is how I'm going to do it.” I was always a geek, so it felt like a way that I could be a cool geek for once.

Your career has taken you through some big shifts in the industry. You worked as a Synclavier tech during the early days of digital synthesis, you were an up-and-coming engineer during the transition from tape to DAWs, and later, you switched to a completely digital workflow. Now, you’re embracing immersive mixing. How have you navigated all of those changes, and what have you learned?

I've always felt like the gear is just something you need to know inside and out, and when the technology changes, that just means you have new stuff to learn. Moving from analog tape to computers, it was a lot of workflow stuff. Computers have freed up everything, and it’s incredible how quickly you can flip between songs. But I also used to love vari-speeding analog tape while recording just to get different timbres, and that’s not really a thing anymore. 

I think the biggest change that affected the industry—and it worked out in my favor—was when Pro Tools became ubiquitous. For a while, there was an engineer, an assistant, and a Pro Tools operator in every session. I was the Pro Tools operator on a lot of those, and I got to work with some amazing engineers and producers. 

When budgets started shrinking, people couldn't afford an engineer and a Pro Tools operator, so you couldn't be an engineer who didn't know how to run Pro Tools. Fortunately, I'd always been an engineer as well, so I think that gave me a step up because I could do both.

Was it always your goal to become a mixer and producer, or have your priorities changed along the way?

I think my overall goal was to be a producer. When I get to produce now, it's still awesome and I absolutely love it, but there are things I don’t love as much at this point in my life. You've got to be in a specific room on a specific day at a specific time. 

I had always wanted to mix, too. My wife constantly reminds me that one day, early on, I said to her, “I just want to mix.” But I couldn't—I didn’t have a studio, so if I was going to mix, someone would have to hire me. That was frustrating, and it’s the main reason I’ve had a studio at home since I could afford a couple of DA-88s and a Mackie 1604. 

These days, I can be working on multiple projects at once. When there's a gig, my questions are just, “When can I get the files?” And, “When do you need it?” If I really feel like I'm getting burnt out, I can take a couple of days off and know that I'm not letting anybody down. I love that part of it.

You've worked with a wide variety of artists across different genres and levels of fame. Have you noticed a difference in what people expect from you or how much creative freedom you're given, and does that change your approach at all?

There's never a change in approach; I’m always trying to make the best record possible. There’s that saying: “You can have something done good, fast, or cheap—pick two.” I love that, but good is always going to be one of the two, so it really is just speed versus money. If I'm doing something for free or for very little money and another project comes up, I'm going to have to take it to offset the time I'll spend.

In general, I've been really lucky. I haven't worked with too many people who have been difficult. It seems like the successful artists are usually pretty secure in what they're doing, and a lot of the smaller artists are just really passionate about what they're doing.

When I'm talking to students, I have two answers for every single question you'd ever want to ask. For all the technical stuff, it’s, “There's nothing that matters except what comes out of the speakers.” But for the personal side, it’s just, “Don't be a dick.” That's it. 

You need to be someone that people want to be in a room with. That's why you end up working on records. Obviously, you can't suck at your job, but that's a given. If you're a good hang, then that helps. 

You’ve been very open with sharing your knowledge and philosophies on mixing and production in videos with Puremix, Mix With The Masters seminars, and tons of interviews and podcasts. What sort of impact do you hope that has?

I love to get people thinking more about concepts and get them out of the mindset that it's just about the tools. I actually had a student once say, “The midrange in professional mixes is so different from mine. What's this plug-in that you guys all have that students don't?” That kind of thinking is such a time-waster for people who are trying to learn. 

A lot of people think there's some kind of voodoo involved with mixing; some magic that goes on behind the scenes. I want to be a voice to say, “There's no voodoo, and anybody can learn to use the tools.” It’s about how you hear and your ability to learn so that you know what to use when you hear something you don't like.

At all stages of a project, even in songwriting, you've got to be completely honest with yourself. Try to be objective as often as possible and not pretend that something's good just because you spent a bunch of time on it. You’ve got to walk in like someone else did it, and say, “Wow, it feels like shit going into the bridge. You're not done yet.” 

How did you arrive at that mindset?

It's just time. I mean, it's easy for me to say, “Just listen,” because I'm 35 years into this and I'm speaking from a place of privilege. I completely admit that, and I'm slightly embarrassed by it, but that's the truth. The earlier in your career that you can start thinking like that, the more musical you're going to be.

People look at mixing as a technical endeavor, but I always say that it's solving creative problems using technology. If I'm not getting goosebumps going into the bridge, I can’t just turn up the goosebumps. You have to do it with tools like compression, reverb, delay—whatever. Some combination of that is going to give you goosebumps when you go into the bridge. 

If you can learn to identify what's actually important in a mix and how to get there, that's going to cut your time exponentially because you're going to learn tools in a way that actually helps you get shit done. Not just, “Man, my snare sounds great,” because that may or may not matter.

And the artist doesn’t necessarily care what you’re doing to the snare, anyway. They just want their song to be great.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's such a gift to be in a position where you’re trying to realize other people’s artistic visions. They can't get there without you in some circumstances, so to be that big a creative part of someone else's art is incredible. 

I feel like I'm really good at working on other people's music, but I'm not going to make my own record. And if I do, it's going to be some crazy modular noisy thing. So to be allowed to really get inside other people's songs is amazing.

Speaking of getting inside other people’s songs, you’ve been very involved with producing Low Roar. How did that collaboration evolve?

Basically, a band called Audrye Sessions got in touch and asked me to mix their record. I had a listen and said, “Well, I can absolutely mix it. A lot of it's great, but I think we need to re-cut drums on a few songs.” In the meantime, I heard two more songs that were just rehearsal recordings, but they were better than most of what was already on the record; so I said, “When we track the drums, can we have one more day to track these two songs?”

That was when I met Ryan [Karazija], the singer, and we became really good friends. He and I sat in my studio working on the lyrics for one of the new songs as he was recording the vocals. We got along really well immediately, and there was nothing we ever disagreed about aesthetically. We would have friendly fights about little details, but at the end of the day, I think we both loved what the other did on pretty much everything.

They were a great rock band with great songs, and Ryan’s voice is incredible, but he always said that he wanted to do something different. He wanted to do this other, more atmospheric thing that would be more emotionally powerful by being less “big.” 

When Ryan moved to Iceland, he started sending me songs he was making on his laptop. He thought they were demos, but I said, “I think you're making a record, so let's finish the record.” We just started sending stuff back and forth, and that was the first record. He started the second record with an amazing producer and engineer named Mike Lindsay, who had a studio in Reykjavik, and then they sent it to me to finish. 

That's basically the way almost every record since then has gone: Ryan would record his stuff, then Mike would do his stuff, and then it would come to me and I’d finish it. I'd be playing instruments and doing string arrangements and all kinds of crazy shit, but it never had to go back around. It was as if we were all hearing the same record in our heads.   

On the third record, Ryan and I started in my studio in Los Angeles—that was the very last session before I tore it down to move to the UK. Then, at the end of the project, we actually managed to all get in a room together again. We spent five days at the studio where I had installed my gear after moving, and it was amazing. We had every instrument in the studio mic’d up and just wandered around playing whatever came into our heads.

When it comes to your day-to-day mixing work, how do you approach a new project? Is there typically a lot of back-and-forth with the artist, or do they just come to you and say, “Do your thing?”

Almost everybody has an idea of what they want, even if they say they don't. 

“Do your thing” is my least favorite phrase on the planet—every time someone says that, it's because they love the rough mix. There have been times when I know I won’t be able to beat the rough, so I just say, “You've got an amazing-sounding rough mix; have whoever did that fix whatever you don't like.” There's no point in me taking your money to just give you back your rough mix at the end of the day.

As for how much I think I can do, it's more about their production process. If I just get the raw tracks that made their rough mix, then I can do anything I want. If I get a session with a million plugins, there's not nearly as much I can do, but I'll still find stuff. The groove will be better, the transition into the choruses will be better, but it's not going to be wildly different.

If possible, I want the Pro Tools session that made your last rough mix. I can always take stuff out, but having to recreate other people's rough mixes is such a waste of time, so I always want to start from wherever they left off.

That's interesting. I think a lot of engineers would say, “Give me the rawest tracks possible.”

Yeah; there are a lot that do. I'm not good at matching mixes, so I'm always trying to keep whatever's already great, take away stuff that’s getting in the way, and then add more greatness. That's my theory on it.

I'm a fan of the big picture. Details are great, and you’ve got to pay attention to all of them, but I love the bigger picture of things. I love mixing in a context where I'm not starting all over with the kick drum. We've already mixed the kick drum. We're good with how the kick drum sounds. It's not about that anymore.

Let’s talk about workflow. Is it correct to say that you switched to in-the-box mixing in order to remove some of the barriers that were restricting your creativity and productivity?

Yeah; there were a lot of things. For one, I was sick of the way the analog gear was responding to some things. It didn't sound right until I was at a certain level, but once I'm at that level, then there's weird sound-staging happening at different frequencies, and that kind of thing. 

I wanted to be more flexible, too. I was really tired of mixing one song at a time. It was driving me crazy because people wouldn't get back to me, and at some point, I would have to take the mix off the console—but as soon as you do, that's when they get back to you.

The days of charging for every day in the studio are long gone, so now I'm getting a flat fee for a mix and the amount of time I spend on it is dictated by me, not the gear. I mix almost everything at home on my PMCs; and when I travel, I just bring my laptop, a UAD Twin, and a pair of headphones.

In terms of the analog versus digital thing, there's no point in even talking about it. They're both great. Whatever makes you happy is exactly what you should use. When I was making the transition, every question I had about “Can I do this in the box?” was answered by the fact that Tchad Blake was already doing it, and he won an engineering Grammy for one of the first records he ever mixed in the box. 

It's not what you use; it's about knowing your tools well enough to get what you want to hear. 

Bounce Factory is another example of removing barriers. You made a tool to automate some of the tedious parts of your job so that you could spend more time on what you do best. 

Bounce Factory was a huge one. I don't have an assistant because every time I get somebody to help me out, they end up being really good and then go off and have their own career, so writing Bounce Factory and some other utilities that take away pain points was absolutely huge. 

I hate repetitive work; it just makes you so uncreative and bummed out. I will stop in the middle of a repetitive task to write a script in SoundFlow so I never have to do it again. I'm all for things that make my life easy.

And in this business, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have an extra income stream.

Yeah, absolutely. Without Bounce Factory and the plug-ins I've done with Waves, I'd be in a much different position. I wouldn't really be able to turn anything down. I mean, Bounce Factory took me two years and I barely slept, but now it brings in some money each month, which helps so much. Otherwise, it's terrifying when you don't work for a bit.

I’ve been very, very lucky and I've had an amazing career, but there are lulls. There are times when all I've got is indie stuff—which I love, but it pays nothing. It actually costs me money to make the Low Roar records, but I'm in a position to be able to do that because I have other sources of money coming in.

So, yeah, having extra income streams and diversifying is huge. When you do it well, your career goes better because you can actually assess things objectively. “Is this going to be something that I'm going to get through? Is it worth it?”

In previous interviews, you’ve talked about not getting any work for three months after winning a Grammy for Adele's 21. What helps you get through the ups and downs of working in this industry?

I've had at least three lulls. During one of them, I started helping a friend of mine installing home theater control systems and crazy home automation. It was an interesting world that I didn't know anything about, and I even wrote software to do some of the home automation stuff. Another time, I started teaching at a UCLA extension. I just called them up and said, “I want to teach a recording class.” I really enjoyed teaching, and that led to all the videos and seminars and all that kind of stuff. 

When I wasn't working after the Adele record won a Grammy, I had two kids in college, and my deal with them was that we would get them through college debt-free. I can't tell you what those three months were like. I was getting ready to start selling gear. I thought maybe we could make it with just one car—serious downsizing stuff. It can be brutal, but you can't let a lull destroy your life. I mean, if it's going to destroy your life, then you just need to do something else. 

At some point, you have to assess and say, “Alright, I'm beginning to hate doing this because I don't like the work I'm getting and it's really frustrating.” Then, maybe you need to do it as a hobby for a bit. Go get another job that will free you up to start liking it again, because if you don't like working on music, it’s one of the dumbest businesses you can be in.

Do you have any wisdom for people who might be in a lull right now, or beginners who have the skills to do great work but aren't finding enough opportunities?

It's really hard for younger people. You've just got to go out and hear music and talk to the musicians and say, “I want to record some stuff with you.” Now, that's not necessarily going to cover your rent right away, but there's nothing worse for your career than sitting at home and being angry that you're sitting at home. You've got to get out and meet people. 

I would highly recommend joining NARAS if you're in the States or the Music Producers Guild if you're in the UK. Find groups of people who do what you do, and go hang out at the events they put on. Eventually, if you’re not being a dick, somebody's going to say, “Dude, great to see you. I've actually got this thing that I can't do tomorrow. Do you think you might be able to cover it?” That's never going to happen if you sit at home.

Want to hear more from Andrew Scheps? Check out Five Sounds With Andrew Scheps (Dolby Atmos Edition) on our blog!

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