Secrets of the Mix Engineers: Josh Gudwin & Andrew Wuepper
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INSIDE TRACK PAUL TINGEN Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: ince breaking through to an international audience in 2009 at Josh Gudwin & Andrew Wuepper S the tender age of 15, Justin Bieber has at times demonstrated how not to In a transition overseen by long-term collaborator grow up in public. Bieber’s fourth studio Josh Gudwin, teenage prodigy Justin Bieber has album, released last November, was thus a make-or-break proposition. Three years become a grown-up pop star. after his previous studio album, Purpose was to be his first fully fledged adult project, Kanye West. In the end, however, Bieber writers’ backing tracks, including Bieber’s and likely career-defining. reduced his team to the bare essentials: just vocals, mixing most of the songs, and in Unsurprisingly, Bieber’s manager, two guys with whom he felt entirely at ease. general being responsible for delivering Scooter Braun, and record company took On the writing side, this meant a central the album. It earned him an unusual ‘album no chances, and explored all possible role for Jason ‘Poo Bear’ Boyd, while producer’ credit. avenues to make sure the new album Josh Gudwin held everything together would be a success. Writing camps were on the studio and production side. This Solid Support organised, and Bieber spent time working involved logistics, taking care of album Josh Gudwin has been Bieber’s sidekick for with household names like Rick Rubin and A&R, engineering all the overdubs to the half a decade. The engineer and mixer has 76 May 2016 / www.soundonsound.com Producer, engineer and mixer Josh Gudwin has been Justin Bieber’s right-hand man for many years. From his home studio in Los Angeles, process of making the album and he has full Gudwin recalls the earliest beginnings of accountability on this one.” what was to become Bieber’s first adult album. “The sessions with Rick were Purposeful Scooter’s idea, and while he and Justin Gudwin, Poo Bear and Bieber engaged were working I was literally just sitting on a proliferation of songwriters and Rick’s couch and watching. Kanye and Justin producers in the making of Purpose hook up from time to time and develop big that is impressive even by the sprawling creative plans, but they both end up doing standards of 21st Century pop/R&B their own things, so nothing ever comes of albums. In addition to Skrillex there were them. We also did not use any material that dozens of others, amongst them Diplo, come out of the writing camps. It was just Ed Sheeran, Benny Blanco, Soundz, Mike Most of Justin Bieber’s vocals on a matter of seeing what was out there. In Dean, Michael ‘Blood Pop’ Tucker and Purpose were recorded in Studio 3 the end, Justin didn’t want outside people Ian Kirkpatric. Normally this would be at the Record Plant in LA. around who he doesn’t know that well, so I was fortunate to be in a position to really enjoyed a fairly meteoric career, studying support his vision and help him create at Florida’s Full Sail University during a solid body of work. 2005-2006, interning at Track Records “Poo Bear also was central in the Studio in LA, working with songwriter making of the album, and Scooter always Esther Dean, and most of all studying for gave opinions and suggestions. We had two years with America’s number one discussions along the lines of helping Justin vocal producer, Kuk Harrell. In the process to find his feet and direction, but a lot of Gudwin clocked up an array of big-name what we did was just writing and recording credits, including TI, Lionel Richie, T-Pain, new songs, and seeing what came out. Quincy Jones, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, There were some songs, mostly written Carly Rae Jepsen, Celine Dion and Pharrell by Poo Bear, that rose to the top, and we Williams. However, his first meeting with realised we had to build around them. It Bieber in 2010 proved the most significant kind of naturally progressed. In the end it of his career to date, and Gudwin has took Justin about two years to get clear ‘Sorry’ since worked with Bieber on studio, remix on where he wanted to go. Poo Bear and Written by Justin Bieber, Skrillex, Michael and compilation albums like Under The I knew what Justin liked, and we brought in ‘Blood’ Tucker, Justin Tranter & Julia Michaels. Mistletoe, Never Say Never: The Remixes, many other songwriters, and when Skrillex Produced by Skrillex and Michael ‘Blood’ Believe, Believe Acoustic, Journals, and came in it went one step up again. But Tucker. Live At Madison Square Garden. Justin was directly involved with the entire www.soundonsound.com / May 2016 77 INSIDE TRACK JOSH GUDWIN & ANDREW WUEPPER: JUSTIN BIEBER Andrew Wuepper “I have always known that I wanted to be a professional mixer,” says Andrew Wuepper, and he proved unusually tenacious and inventive in achieving his goal. Wuepper attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts in Arizona before moving to LA in 2006 with the aim of working at Larrabee Studios — where, at the time, three of the world’s leading mixers, Dave Pensado, Manny Marroquin, and Jaycen Joshua, were carving up most of the international pop charts between them. “I was, and still am, fascinated by how you can change the way a record is heard and felt by manipulating the sounds in them,” explained Wuepper. “That whole world was like a rabbit hole for me: I needed to find out how to do that. I wanted to work with the biggest mixers, and they were at Larrabee, so I sent my resume about 50 times to the studio. They turned me down every single time! Finally, at the 51st time, they called me for an interview about an internship. I got the job, and worked for about six months cleaning floors and the toilets, and doing anything I could to get noticed. One Mix engineer Andrew Wuepper was brought in by Josh Gudwin towards the end of the album of the biggest things I did as an intern was to production in order to meet punishing schedules. finally work out how to get the floor in one of the hallways clean. It was a concrete floor but also more general things like how to keep house. He plans to retain most of his outboard, with shiny paint to make it look like marble, files organised, how to deal with clients on the but not his SSL. and it always looked dirty. I looked up what phone, how to manage a really heavy workload, “I’m so comfortable mixing in the box now, concoction of chemicals would do the job, and and so on. Having that down is half the battle and have a Chandler summing mixer for a little I managed! It was a mixture of Pine Sol and to becoming a successful engineer and mixer, bit of that sweetness that sending the signal Windex. That got me on the radar. because it is a business too. When you have through electronics adds. But the plug-ins are “After about six months, Dave Pensado those things kind of on autopilot and you don’t so good today, there’s no benefit from working needed a new assistant, and there were five have to worry about them it leaves more space on a large console any more, other than that people in line before me to get that position — in your brain to be creative. Technically I was it’s fun. Recalls are a disaster, and it would the studio had six runners at the time. I didn’t doing everything for Dave, from setting up his have been impossible to do the Justin project think I had a chance to get that job. But Dave sessions to lining up the tape machines to laying on a desk. Producers like Skrillex and Diplo is very particular about whom he works with, things out over the desk, so that all he had to and Blood have like seven or eight synths all and the five people in front of me did not work do was come in and push up the faders and turn compressed together feeding side-chains to out in the first week. So he gave me a try, and the knobs.” something else and so on. With today’s modern two days later I was his new full-time assistant! After two years with Pensado, Wuepper production techniques, spreading things out It meant that I basically jumped into a hyper went on to work as producer Tricky Stewart’s over a console slows you down dramatically. mixing boot camp. It was straight into the engineer, gradually becoming his full-time Also, I am bouncing around studios all the frying pan. From my third week in I worked mixer as well, and clocking up all manner of time and need to be able to instantly recall 15-18-hour days, seven days a week, for nine big-name credits, including Beyoncé, Usher, mixes I did in one studio in another studio. months straight, without a single day off! Katy Perry, Michael Jackson and even one And finally, I am mixing five or six projects at “This was in 2007. Dave was mixing with Justin Bieber. Wuepper went freelance in 2011, the same time now, so I’m pulling up five or six Jaycen Joshua at the time, and they were using and set up his own studio, featuring an SSL songs every day, working on this for a couple of two rooms, so I was the assistant mix engineer desk and a wide selection of outboard gear.