Brooklyn MixCon Preview: J. Chris Griffin – The Mainstream Pop Mix

Brooklyn MixCon is coming up on December 6 & 7! Five workshops & Q&A’s organized by genre, at the Living Room in Brooklyn—Presented by SonicScoop and the Deli Magazine.

Each day this week, we’ll take a closer look at the mixers who will be sharing their secrets: Matty Amendola (Indie Pop Mix: Focus on Drums);
Marc McClusky (Indie Rock Mix: Focus on Distorted Guitars);
Kevin Killen (The Sparse Mix: Ballads/Clean Instruments);
J. Chris Griffin (Mainstream Pop Mix: Focus on Separation);
Ariel Borujow (EDM Mix, Low End and Loudness)

Experience this mixer’s wisdom in person at Brooklyn MixCon! Visit here to RSVP.

Mixer Name: J. Chris Griffin

J. Chris Griffin will be at Brooklyn MixCon on Monday, 12/7.

Website: ThePopVocalStudios.com

Location: Financial District, Manhattan

Clients/Credits: Madonna, Kelly Clarkson, John McLaughlin, MTV, Just finished a record with Vietnamese superstar Thuy Top. In the middle of a 12-song production deal with Warner/Chappell Production Music.

Focusing on The Pop Vocal Academy; a curriculum of vocal instruction prepping students for professional success. Producing beautiful songs with exceptionally great artists that no one will likely ever hear – just like everyone else in this industry.

My Mix Angle: I’m all about the language of art and music. My job is to discover what the music is already saying and make the mix communicate the same emotion.

It’s great when the push/pull of a mix matches the dynamic of lyrics and performance. Clients may only be aware of level matching, EQ or compression, but there is so much emotional material available in the mix itself. If an artist is aware of this artful process, magic can happen.

For Example: My whole Soundcloud thing just needs an overhaul, but here’s something that demonstrates the balance between beat and emotion. Check out “Hopeless.”

At Brooklyn MixCon, I’m Focusing on The Mainstream Pop Mix: Separation, Because: There’s so much under the hood of a pop song.

The target audience includes new listeners as well as seasoned artists, so the musicality of a presentation has to appeal to everyone. It’s like a movie for kids; there has to be enough material for the parents to enjoy too.

Every artist has a goal of separating each musical element and making sure it gets the time or space it deserves, but there are only two speaker monitors for playback – left and right. We don’t have the luxury of spreading sounds across a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker array. How does one cram everything into two earbuds or two bookshelf speakers? How do we stay musical and accessible at the same time?

Lyric, bass and beat, the core elements of a Pop song, have to remain prominent. Harmony, counter-melody, musical fills and “candy” also have to be balanced at a high level. Everything can’t be featured at the same time – the medium is too limited (as is the capacity for attention).

Furthermore, size and texture of recorded sound has increased with technology. The job therefore is to balance “largesse” with intimacy, harmony with “candy,” beat and boom with melody. We want an epic experience with personal communication by the performer.

That takes skill and technique, and I continue to learn more with each mix.

Sneak Preview: I’d like to showcase how reverb and effects can glue a mix together. I use a template of effects that I assembled many years ago on the Harrison and SSL. Having a palate of effects across the track completes the illusion of a band performing together in the same room, even if the track is all electronic.

Second, one of my core beliefs is the idea of a Trinity in music. We exist simultaneously as physical, emotional and spiritual beings. A song reflects these parts of our humanity better than any other art-form.

We have Rhythm (physical), Harmony (emotional) and Melody/Lyric (spiritual). Production and Mixing exists, in my view, to balance these elements properly and present a work that lasts through the ages. In other words, we have to get each different element of a modern production telling the exact same story.

Without attention to musical language, communication of emotion breaks down; the audience senses this and moves on.

I Love Leading Audio Workshops Because…: We have witnessed two fundamental shifts in the way music is written and recorded in the last 20 years.

First was the Pro Tools/Home Studio renaissance with modern digital audio workstations. Manufacturers finally delivered on the promise that a modest home studio could rival large production facilities. The second shift is only now mature – that whole home-studio thing just got crammed into a modest laptop. In 2016 they hope to cram it into an iPad with no audio compromise (that’s the idea anyway).

This has opened up the door for so many new people to be involved in music production and has obliterated the way we educate the next generation. Sure there’s online learning, YouTube (Pensado’s Place for example) Sonic Scoop, college classes – but these new options are not curated by hitmakers. In other words, there is a marked difference in the way we make records for radio or for major distribution, as opposed to music for friends and family or local talent.

I dedicate my Fridays to teaching a class at NYU showing these tricks and practices and take every opportunity to demonstrate and discuss how I make records. Mine is certainly not the final authority on mixing and production, but I truly believe that the laptop musician/producer/engineer is the bleeding edge of music production leadership for the next 20 years and I make it my business to participate in this movement.

Spending time with these future leaders insures listenable music for the coming decades. I take every opportunity to do that.

Brooklyn MixCon is made possible by SoundToys, Focal, iZotope, Universal Audio, SPL, B&H, & Eventide.

Don’t miss Brooklyn MixCon, December 6 & 7 at the Living Room!

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