I’m Gareth and I love working in music. I started playing piano and then guitar, and was in bands from the age of 13. As soon as I received my first four-track cassette recorder, I quickly realised my love for all things recording. I was the guy who recorded all the bands in the area, no matter their style, learning how to get the best from my small amount of gear.
The turning point into electronic music came early on, when I did live effects on stage with a producer friend: it was the early 1990’s, so he was using an Atari and I had a Zoom multi-effects. It was such fun. The equipment has changed but the love is just the same: I can still lose hours with a synth and a delay pedal!
Moving to Manchester to live with musicians opened my ears even more, to industrial music such as Skinny Puppy all the way through to jazz maestros like Jaco Pastorious. I’m no genre snob: I just like good music, and this has led me to work on a wide range of projects that ranges from pure electronic to orchestral, with all things in between.
This means I’m really well placed to work on music that combines elements: electronic music with live strings - I’ve got this! A disco track with stacked backing vocals, brass and electric guitar? - sure, no problem!
I still play live and love every minute of it, and have been lucky to play around Colorado and various festivals in the USA as well as all over England. I don’t mind if I’m playing cover versions of popular music at a private party, or if I’m playing a festival stage to thousands, I just love being immersed in music.
And it’s the same in the studio. I’ll lose myself into the music - so much so that I built a fully soundproofed and treated mix room at the bottom of my garden. It’s got a perfect balance of software tools and analogue compressors, EQs and summing, with everything at arms reach in front of me. I’m insanely proud that I build it myself and feel very lucky I had the opportunity to do so.
Like many in music, I’ve done my time as a teacher. I worked with some amazing people and teaching upcoming producers, performers and managers in Manchester, and was lucky enough to take 40 students to SXSW in Austin, Texas, for five years running. What a place!
I’m a social person, so for me building relationships is a major part of my work. I love that I can call many of my clients friends because we’ve worked so long together. Some are even coming to my wedding!
So, the combination of my years in teaching and my social nature are what’s inspired me to turn the usual mix engineer/artist relationship on its head. You simply cannot always “fix it in the mix”. So, I coach people through the before-mix stages, ironing out problems, pulling back on over-processing, and supporting them through it, providing a much better start point for the mix. And then I can have my fun!
