Jeff Juliano on Mixing Big Records in a Small Town
[Michael Duncan interviews Jeff Juliano, who has worked with artists including Train, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, O.A.R., Lifehouse, Shinedown, Satellite, Paramore, Dave Matthews Band, Twenty One Pilots, Miley Cyrus, Bruce Hornsby, and more.]
Jeff Juliano
For over a decade, Jeff Juliano has been mixing up a storm in a very unexpected place — Delaware. Even though none of his clients actually live in the 96-mile-long state, that hasn’t stopped his phone from ringing.
Early on, Juliano was lucky enough to cut his teeth alongside well-known producers like John Alagía, David Bendeth, and Machine. But after working 18-hour days in studios everywhere from New York to Los Angeles, he wanted a change.
“There’s something about saltwater air,” he says. “There’s life in that for me.” So he packed up his racks of gear and set up a home studio.
If it wasn’t for his rule about taking the weekends off, you might think he doesn’t know how to stop mixing. Whether it’s one single or an entire live record, he doesn’t shy away from a challenge.
Right before digging into the new We the Kings record, Jeff was kind enough to chat with us about his start in the industry, his diverse discography, life in small town America for a creative professional, and the future of mixing.
How did you originally become interested in recording and mixing?
It’s kind of my mom’s fault. She bought me a 4-track when I was probably 14 years old. It was a birthday present or something: “Here’s a 4-track. Why don’t you record your own music?” I was playing guitar at that age. I thought, “Oh, wow, I can record my crappy band.”
“Guys, we can finally hear how crappy we sound!”
Yeah, it was terrible. I was a guitar player in a band; I was in several bands growing up. The first time going into a recording studio and I was done. Going in to record a demo on an analog 8-track—I remember that day—I remember leaving after recording my parts and going, “That’s what I want to do. That’s it.” Just headstrong into it since then.
I started recording bands with what little gear I could buy with my crappy job. I didn’t go to college. I was an auto detailer, a repo man — you name it. I worked for anybody in the world who would pay me and understand if I needed a couple of days off to go record an album.
So, that’s what I did. I started acquiring gear here and there to record bands. I would go to rehearsal spaces; I would go to their parent’s basement; I would go to their garages. I didn’t have a space, so I would go to wherever I could go to record music.
Eventually, my stuff got heard and I started working at the studio in Falls Church, Virginia. And then I met this producer John Alagía in a music store one day and he heard some of my stuff and started hiring me for sessions here and there.
We were both kind of doing the same thing: working out of other spaces and houses and never really a formal studio. It was always a real ghetto setup somewhere and we were making it happen. It was great. Then, he hired me for a particular record. I remember the day he called and said, “Hey! I got a real record if you want to come? It’ll be a month out of town.” I told him I had to call my boss real quick and he says, “Why? You have another job?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m actually going to call my boss and quit my job.” And I never went back. That was around 1994.
Do you remember what that job was that you quit?
[Laughs] Yeah, I was doing accounting for a guy with an Internet company. But I was also repossessing cars for another guy. I remember calling him and telling him I had to quit. He asked “why?” so I told him “I’m going to be working on a record” and he said “great, but can we still hang out?” I still know him to this day.
Did this album with John become your first paid recording gig?
No, no. I got paid for other gigs. I would be the guy who would come to you with a Mackie mixer, shoebox full of microphones, and four [Tascam] DA-88s. That’s reaching back. You may not even know what those are. But I would come to you with my gear and I would record your whole record and mix it for like a thousand bucks. All you needed to provide was the space.
And actually there was a period of time when I had a small space rented that I built into a studio in Fairfax, Virginia. I had it for about six months and it had no ventilation. So in the winter, it was freezing cold. And in the summer, it was a hundred degrees. It was a basement storage spot in an office building. I would have drummers in there wearing ski parkas, like North Face coats, doing the track. You’d be able to hear the guy’s jacket in the overheads. But then that place flooded and that’s what got me out doing the mobile thing.
It was a really guerrilla bootcamp situation for many years. I would go anywhere. Then, when I met Alagía, we started getting hired to do some big records together. We started working with O.A.R. and John Mayer [on Room for Squares].
Those records we did in proper studios to start, and then we would always go back and finish the album somewhere else. Alagía had a beach house in Maryland. We’d do the drums in a real studio a lot of times and then we’d go back to his house and finish all the overdubs and mix in the living room. There was always this homestyle recording setup that we would fallback to because that’s what we were comfortable doing.
We made a lot of records in that house that way. Records that sold millions of copies that were mostly done in a living room. It was an extremely relaxed environment. We would cut vocals, go water skiing, and come back and finish guitars. Every artist that we worked with in that house felt like they were on summer vacation.
That’s the best way to do it.
It really is. When you’re working with someone on a creative level and really trying to get a vocal performance out of someone that’s singing about some really hard time in their life, it’s imperative that they’re comfortable in their setting. If you’re stuck in the sterile environment of a studio sometimes, you can’t get that emotion out of a person as easily as you could if they were in their living room.
Totally. I always hate the idea of people thinking they’re on the clock.
Yeah, it can be a stressful thing. Also, back then, a $300,000 budget was not uncommon. I remember making records at Electric Lady and I’d be there for six weeks in a studio that costs $3,000 a day and the label had no problem paying for that. They would pay for me, my gear, and I would even have an apartment for the entire time I was there.
The music industry, as you know, has completely changed on the business model. With records not selling, people don’t put money behind them the way they used to. But I’m glad that I learned the process during a time when traditional studios were the norm. I really feel like that helped make me understand how to do things properly. Having those experiences in these world-class studios with amazing musicians and being up until 4 A.M. with incredible talent and doing whatever it took to get a performance out of them.
When I hear those records today and I hear the vocal pass, I’m thinking, “I remember that. I remember that guy wanted a shot of Jameson and a beer when he cut that verse in that house on that microphone.” It’s photographically imprinted in my brain. Those experiences really helped me.
I think younger engineers these days have been cheated out of this awesome process people of my generation grew up on. Everyone’s got an Apollo and a laptop, which are great tools, but there’s no cutting a piece of 2” tape to make a drum fill work from another piece of 2” tape. The whole technical side of engineering from the early days is kind of gone. There are certain things I grew up on that I feel are missing now. I can hear it, especially in recordings.
People are less focused on learning those skills and more interested in playing with some new product by a company like Native Instruments.
I think those are brilliant tools. Those are creative music-making tools. What I’m kind of bashing on is when I get a guitar track I’m trying to mix a song where the guy can’t get the right sound with one [Shure] 57. He read a Gearslutz post where they said you had to use two Royer mics and a 57 and there’s no phase coherency behind the tracks, there’s clipping of the mic pre, and the gain staging is all wrong. I’m getting a lot of those these days. Probably every one of my engineer friends tell me the same thing on a daily basis. I think there almost needs to be a reeducation of everyone. “Here is how you record music…”
Could it be because everyone’s trying to be the engineer now?
Yes! A guy I know who’s a really big deal mixer, I really trust his ears, he does some great work. I won’t mention his name, but he put it perfectly. I was complaining about a set of overheads on a drum kit or a vocal being distorted and he said, “Well, the problem is that people are recording music — not engineers.”
Part of my job is putting the puzzle together, so no matter what I get handed I try to make it work. On the flip side, some of the digital tools we have these days are incredible for repairing bad tracks. Whereas back on SSLs, Neves, and tape, if someone handed me a distorted vocal, there’s only so much I could do with it. Now, I can really utilize today’s tools to fix it. But I still don’t like fixing stuff. I’d rather be mixing than fixing. [Laughs]
What led you to decide to focus solely on mixing?
I had to get to a point in my career where I could do that. When I made the transition, it was 2004. I had just finished a Lifehouse record with John and I remember him calling me for a Liz Phair record. And I said, “I’m not gonna do it. I gotta mix.” He said, “What do you mean?” And I told him, “If I don’t do this now, I’m never going to do it.” I literally had to say I’m not going to engineer anymore.
But I really had to build my career to the point where I had enough under my belt, enough experience, and enough trust from people to mix their record. I shut the door on recording, opened the door on mixing, and thankfully for 11 years my phone has not stopped ringing.
Is there something specific you enjoy more about mixing than recording?
The whole sculpting of sound turns me on. It’s the building of a puzzle and the end product. We all got in this business to create something that gives you the goosebumps. And I’ve always been fascinated with sound. Just making what’s in front of me sound the best it can, in my opinion.
It may not be what someone else likes. Sometimes I’ll throw a mix and the client will be like, “Sounds great but it’s not the vibe we’re looking for.” That happens every once in a while. Not often, but it happens.
It’s just always been a passion of mine. I’m not a songwriter. I think I’m a really good engineer but I’m best suited as a mixer. I really can’t explain why. Put me in my studio and I can mix your record. That’s what I feel comfortable doing.
Right. I always say, “I don’t want to be in a band and make a few records. I want to work on hundreds of records by all different people who are way more amazing musicians than I could ever be.” Do you feel the same?
Yeah, and sometimes they’re not as good as you. [Laughs]
If I have a whole record I’m mixing, that’s two weeks of my time. Well, usually now it’s EPs and singles—There’s not a whole lot of records being mixed by one guy anymore, unfortunately.
I miss those days because I love records you can listen to from start to finish and actually have sonic cohesiveness and glue and a vibe. Those days unfortunately, due to the business side of the music industry, are kind of gone. Whole records are being made by five producers and four mixers. That kind of sucks but you can’t change it. It is what it is.
But what I’m getting at is that one day I’ll mix a single for one band and the next day I’ll mix a single for another band. Two totally different things. It keeps it interesting. Whereas, when I would engineer a record, it was two or three months with the same ten songs and same four guys. Which was great, but when you’re mixing, you get to change things up.
Absolutely. And you can get burnt out so easily living in a studio for a month straight.
Right. I was at a point in my life where I was burnt out. I was traveling for years and working 18-hour days making records. It was catching up to me. I really felt like I needed to have more of a life and step out of that.
You lose perspective on life and people have problems in relationships. I know so many guys that are divorced three times that are great engineers but they can’t keep their life together because they’re always somewhere in some studio.
I straight up don’t work weekends. I firmly believe that you must have a life. There’s so many people out there that wake up and they’re 60 years old and they’re alone. They’ve got a bunch of Neves but they’re miserable. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my family.
Lots of people work on only studio albums while others do primarily live albums. What made you want to do both?
That was something else that started with John Alagía. He started doing live albums with Dave Matthews Band. He called me to help out on one of them and then we started doing more together. We did a ton of those together. As I went on my own, it was something I knew how to do.
Live records are a pain in the ass. They can shave years off your life. There’s no rewind button with a live show. There’s no fix for the engineer who put the mic facing the ride cymbal instead of the snare drum. The quality control going into a live album is more crucial than a studio album because of all the variables. At the end of the day, as a mixer, you gotta make it work.
I’ve done some recent live stuff for Twenty One Pilots that came out really cool. But the last big DVD I did was O.A.R. at Red Rocks. I know the band really well. Those guys are like brothers to me now. They called me and said, “We’re dong this DVD and want you to mix it.”
I told them I wanted to be there to record it and be on the truck getting levels. I was able to actually find an amazing live truck for that gig from these guys at Colorado Sound. They were incredible to work with. But I’ll never do a live record again where I can’t be on site to record it. Fly me there. I want to place the mics and make sure it’s done right. You can’t undo that stuff. I obsess over this stuff more than the average guy would.
So, at a certain point you didn’t want to live in NYC, L.A., or Nashville. You moved to Delaware. How did that happen?
[Laughs] I don’t like being landlocked. I love being near the ocean. There’s something about saltwater air. There’s life in that for me. I’ve always been drawn to it. My wife and I lived in Maryland, but we wanted to move closer to the ocean but still be close enough to see family. So, we moved to Delaware.
There’s a bunch of touristy stuff here but it’s only during the summer that it’s kind of crazy. We really like it. It’s one of those things where you can live near the ocean and the cost of living is real cheap. You can get a lot for a little here.
I’ve always feared overhead my whole life. My studio is in my house. When you shut the door, you feel like you’re in a really cool studio without feeling like you’re in someone’s house. I built and designed it that way. I wanted it to still feel creative and a studio environment but be inside my house. I don’t want to have the overhead of having a building somewhere and all that. For what I do, it’s perfect.
In terms of living here, we just like it here. I used to come down and vacation here with my parents. But it’s a gamble too, because none of my work comes from here. If I relied on networking in my own state, I’d be screwed. I’d be homeless. [Laughs]
That wouldn’t be too fun.
It’s one of those things where we battled back and forth on it, because Nashville would be nice too. I really want to make a country record. But they’re so closed off there. Unless you live within the city limits, you don’t get the work from there.
They keep it closed, which is a great thing for my buddies who live there and work there and are awesome at what they do, but it’s really hard for a guy like me in Delaware who really wants to mix country records.
Cracking that code has been a bit difficult but I think I’m on to something. I’ve got a record coming out now that’s going to do very well and hopefully change that. Anyway, we wanted a slower pace of life and this is where we landed.
What is your process like when it comes to finding new gigs? Do you have a manager?
Yeah, Matt Feldman. He’s in Brooklyn. He’s great. He’s the guy who knows who’s making a record and knows their manager or A&R guy. He usually knows enough dirt on somebody to blackmail them. No, I’m joking. [Laughs]
He’s very cool and laid-back. I’ve had a couple of managers and he’s been the best. He’s like an extension of myself. We get along great but he really knows the right people and who to schmooze. Most of the business is word of mouth and it has been for years.
He gets me gigs too, but a lot of it is still word of mouth and crossing your fingers and hoping the phone rings. It’s kind of like how it’s been my whole career. Having a manager is fantastic for the negotiation process, because the last thing I want to do is talk about money with anyone I’m working with creatively. That’s the worst.
The only thing I want to talk about is the music. I never want to talk about money, deposits, or points. None of that. I love the music part but I don’t like the business part.
There are a lot of students graduating from audio schools each year. Do you ever feel a sense of competitiveness with them? Is the industry over-saturated?
I think we’re at the point where anybody with a laptop and Apollo calls themselves a producer, engineer, and mixer all at once. That’s a problem. And it’s been a problem coming since the Mbox came out. That started it and it’s only gotten worse.
There’s too many out there wearing the hat and saying they know what they’re doing, but there’s such a small percentage of them doing it well. What I bring to the table is experience. There isn’t that with a lot of new engineers. I think they’ll get there, but there’s so many people doing it and most of them haven’t had enough time to learn how to do things properly.
On the slip side, there are some guys who are young and super-talented. I’ve worked with a few producers these days who are in their earlier twenties and they hand me tracks that blow me away.
There’s one guy in particular named Blake Harnage and he produced this band called PVRIS. I love that record. There’s very few records I work on that I want to go back and listen to a bunch but there’s something about that record. Blake is a flat-out genius. He’s one of very few in that pool of young engineers and producers lightyears beyond everybody else.
What were your requirements when it came to your own at-home studio?
Well, I’ve been in a lot of rooms that are either too big or too small, so I spent a lot of time designing this space. The room is extremely important in any situation.
I’ve also gone through a lot of gear in my studio over the years. A lot of studios have maybe 20 different compressors, 3 of which they use, and 10 of which work.
My setup is a complete hybrid. I use Pro Tools, but I also use analog summing on the whole mix. I really try to just have what I need—Not too many choices. To me, it’s about finding that gear that works for you with how you work.
Every single vocal isn’t going to work through the same compressor so I have three different options in terms of outboard gear. Similarly, every single EQ isn’t going to work so I have different EQ options.
What turns me on in my personal studio is having the right gear for the right job. And plugins are great, but for the meat and potatoes of any given mix, the stereo buss and analog summing makes such a difference. I cannot mix completely in the box. There’s an instant satisfaction about analog summing that plugins can’t get.
What’s the future of mixing? Do you think it will ever be somewhat automated?
I hope it doesn’t get to that. If it gets to that point, I’m dropping out. I’ll retire and work at a bait shop. I’m serious. There is still a need for another human being with a completely outside objective opinion. It has to be a human being.
What has been the most challenging thing for you career-wise?
That’s a good question. Every day is a challenge. It really is! Because every day is something new. The biggest challenge has been and always is taking a really brutal recording and turning it into a great mix. “How am I going to make this listenable?” That’s a hurdle but I get it done. If something is screwed up in a song, the public can’t know. I’ve got to make it work.
Do you still feel like you need to prove yourself to new clients or have you reached a point beyond that?
No, no. The day you feel that way is the day you should leave the business.
Every time I send a mix out to someone, I’ll go hang out with my wife and she’ll say, “You haven’t heard back yet, have you?” I’m always thinking, “Oh God, they’re going to hate it. I screwed up.” I’m confident in a few things in life, but my confidence still hits the floor when I send a mix out.
As a mixer, people send you tracks that you’ve never heard before, but they’ve been listening to that same song and have every single part engrained in their brain. They’ve probably listened to the rough mix a thousand times and love it, but they don’t always send you the rough mix, so you have no idea where it’s headed.
Here comes a sports reference: you’ve got to hit the ball and at least land on the green. If it doesn’t—and this is the top of a ten-song record and you miss—the trust goes out the door.
It’s really about trying to figure out the vision right after pushing up all the faders. And the longer you spend on it, it can work against you. That’s why people love rough mixes so much—it’s a gut instinct. When you overthink a mix too much, you can lose that rawness. But I’m always nervous. I’m nervous right now talking to you about it. [Laughs]
[Laughs] What’s the most important thing to remember when mixing?
I buy records for the way snare drums sound but the world doesn’t do that. Young girls buy records to sing along with the lyrics. I always remind myself to check the vocal and make sure every bit of it’s heard and feels good.
Another thing I always do is make sure the overheads of the drum kit are heard. Cymbals are a really big part of the balance in the high-end of a track. I want to make sure I can hear the air around the drum kit. The vocal has to be the showstopper, obviously, but overheads are a big deal to me.
Poorly recorded drum overheads are like the devil in my studio. It happens so often. I always check the air in a mix. I never want it to sound choked out. It always has to have dynamics and space.
Is there anything that you haven’t mixed and want to mix? Or people you want to work with that you haven’t before?
Some of my friends give me a hard time about this, but I’m a sucker for country music. And here’s why: I love the story. Who doesn’t want to drink beer and talk about their dog? And the musicianship is incredible. The only place you’re going to find that caliber of musicianship is in country music. That’s it. I would love to mix country records from here on out for the rest of my career.
Wow. I’m surprised.
I love the diversity in what I have now but I crave that simple hook—hearing four musicians who really know how to play getting it done, all in a three-minute song.
My discography is really diverse and really cool and I have no complaints. I love the daily challenge. But I crave the glue of real musicians playing songs. That’s a rarity these days because everything is so programmed and manufactured.
I miss the basics: a great drummer, bass player, guitarist, and someone singing something that makes sense to me.
I assume that’s the kind of music we’d find you listening to typically?
[Laughs] Yeah! But actually I don’t listen to a ton of music outside the studio. My wife kind of tells me what’s cool. She’ll walk into the studio when I’m working and say, “Oh, this sounds like this person or that band.” She’s hip to that.
My manager sometimes gives me a hard time because of it. As you know, you’re in the studio all day long, so the last thing you want to do when you get out is listen to music.
Totally. I enjoy listening to podcasts as a way to escape music for a little while.
That’s my speed. I’ll listen to talk radio or watch the news. Something the polar opposite of music. Or I’ll watch Pensado’s Place, which has everything to do with music, but is more about the creation of music.
How would you like to see the future of the industry? And how would you like to see yourself in it?
Wow. That’s a loaded question.
[Laughs] It’s a big one. Sorry.
I would like to see the business come back around to where artists are selling records again. That’s a big deal.
I think records need to be appreciated again like they were when I was a kid. I remember waiting in line for a new Van Halen record and taking it home and reading the liner notes while listening to it. That sadly is gone.
People don’t even know who worked on records anymore. I want to see it get back to that. But I don’t think it will. Bookstores are gone, record stores are gone, why would they bring them back? Still, I would like to see artists selling again. There’s a lot of people I know struggling financially and it’s because of the current model.
Unless I talk about it on social media, no one knows what I’m doing. It used to be that if you could get a credit on the back of a CD or record, that was your business card for the next 12 months. That’s gone.
Unless you tell people, they won’t know, and then you’ll just fade away. I just hope to see myself keep doing what I’m doing.
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