How about a long term relationship with music? Meet Paul Waller who has been sharing one for years now... CE catches up with the mixer to learn about the importance of a music producer who is often under appreciated
CHENNAI: What makes an amazing producer and mixer? Is it their technical know-how or the ear to spot the next hit track? Or is it the ability to reproduce an artist’s sound just as they wished? The one thing that we do know, is that they play a massively important role and are often under appreciated. Paul Waller, tutor, producer and mixer speaks to us on this as he prepares the students at Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music for an intense seven-day mixing and mastering workshop.
“Mixing is something that takes time to get good at. It doesn’t matter what kind of music it is, but you have to have a system,” he opines. So what is his process? “It’s very complex. You need to be good at compression, EQ and you need to use reverb and delay carefully. If there was a magic formula, I would tell you!” he smiles. He mixes in the box; it is 100% digital. He insists that practice is key. “You need to get it wrong a whole bunch of times before you get it right!” he laughs.
One thing he does while teaching is to help students understand how the music industry works. “It all starts with the ears, and you always need to learn from an expert and spend time experimenting,” he says, as he talks about his favourite mixer, Serban Ghenya. “He is the man behind 90% of all the hits today, and nobody has even heard of him!”
Ask him about his opinions on musicians having a strong online presence and he says it is important. He talks about sharing your own music on SoundCloud. “It’s a great promotional device. You don’t really expect to make money out of this, but it’s to get noticed,”
Calling himself a musically eclectic person, Paul says that his dream project is one that would make him a multi millionaire. “I like all kinds of music and work with everybody from Eric Clapton, BB King, Massive Attack In many ways, I think I have the dream job,” he smiles.
To his list of merits, Paul has several records including Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy, Bjorks debut album, working with Spice Girlsm All Saints among others. We ask him what the best thing was that happened to him professionally. “I feel very proud to have worked with BB King before he died. We became very good friends, and worked on a couple of albums together,” he remembers.
In a world where there is a new single everyday, we ask him about creating a long term relationship about music. “Even if it’s not your kind of music, you find out whats good about it by working on it. That’s what you’re looking for when you’re producing or mixing,” he smiles.