After receiving a bachelor's degree in music engineering from Berklee College of Music (Boston), Bryan Cook worked as a staff engineer at the legendary A&M studios in Hollywood from 1998 to 2001. Since then, he has freelanced with a range of artists, including mainstream rock acts, bluesy vocalists, punk groups and indie pop bands. Most recently Bryan has engineered and mixed Michael Andrews, Gary Jules, Inara George, Cheap Trick , and Suicide Machines. He has also worked on older albums by Green Day, No Doubt, Fastball, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Aimee Mann, Dandy Warhols, Korn, Macy Gray, Ozzy Osbourne, New Order, Duran Duran, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow and The Wallflowers.

1) What are you currently working on?

I just finished mixing Gary Jules second record. then I mixed a really fantastic up-and-coming new artist who goes by "Buddy." I am also doing overdubs and mix for a local band called Willoughby, led by Gus Seyffert. I am recording Inara George's 2nd album and will mix it later this year. I did one mix for a great artist named Waz who used to play with Pete Yorn and now is doing his own solo project. In a few weeks I am tracking and mixing a record for a woman named Amelia June from Brooklyn, NY. during all these music projects, I am also recording and mixing a Warner Brothers movie score for a children's christmas movie called "Unaccompanied Minors."

2) How did you get into the business? What roads did you take, and what has changed since you first started?

I was a jazz saxophone player, doing gigs at restaurants and art galleries. I was frustrated that there was such a demand for smooth jazz when I really loved more progressive, avant garde jazz. I went into a recording studio for the first time when I was playing in a band in high school and I was hooked on the sonic painting that goes on in the headphones. What amazed me was how the right sounds and textures can could make me play better, and intensified my enjoyment of the music. I realized we were paying someone on the other side of the glass and if he could make a living doing it, why couldn't I? Engineering and mixing make the perfect solution for me because they combine a lot of things I love (music, science, interacting with people) and allow me to work on styles of music I like, but don't know how to play. I currently listen to a lot of music that has no saxophone.

When I first started in 1994, ProTools was hardly used. My training was all based on analog tape and focused on microphone choice and placement, analog gain staging, etc. I think having that background has been very helpful. Some protools operators turn into engineers by default 'cause they are the only guy in the room, but don't have this meat-and-potatoes background to real engineering. Although they know all the quickkeys and shortcuts, they can't help you get a good drum sound. Of course, if someone has a great personality and makes everyone feel comfortable, that could help create an amazing record. It's possible to clean these things up when it comes to mixing. I'm a big fan of a great songs and performances, even if the engineering is a bit questionable.

Something else often missing in protools-operators-turned-engineers is musicality. I think it's important to think about how the sections connect and where the song goes. It's not enough to focus on a small section and just make that great. What good is an amazing measure of music if the way it links up to the surrounding measures is so unnatural, unmusical and distracting? A lot of people who are used to digital workstations and skipping around from section to section focus too much on a moment in time without paying attention to the context.

Recently I've been thinking about the drawbacks of non-linear workstations like ProTools. Like rewind time. That gives you an opportunity to "come down" off of the fun you just had, decompress, get back to normal mentally and make an intelligent decision about what to do next to the song. Immediate access to any part of the song is a bit fatiguing and people often forget to take a break, getting barraged by sound all day long over and over and over with constant sound. It's important sometimes to just stop and appreciate the negative space. It's tempting to fall into the workaholic mode because it's exciting and you have a lot of ideas to try. But try to resist the urge to work non-stop because you will eventually get fatigued and be less productive and creative, in my opinion.

I love big studios for the acoustic decay in the recording spaces and technical accuracy of the control room. The downside is being stressed out by the clock ticking and money draining away. I love home studios for the free-flowing inspiration and freedom they provide. But with no time constraints you sometimes belabor the point and wear down your "mojo" to the point of making the song incredibly unexciting. There is nothing worse than spending years on a project and calling it finished because you can't think of anything else to do to it. Talk about anti-climatic! Contrast that with finishing a song in one day and the buzz you get from hearing the fresh realization of vision! Like a live concert but it sounds better sonically.

3) How has music and music-production changed since the explosion in "home studios" and recording-related software?

I feel it's changed for the better on the musical and writing side. The technical side suffered greatly for a while when we were using 16 bit ProTools and ADATs. Even though the consumer still gets a 16bit format, working in 24bit makes the blending of parts and dynamic treatment -- such as fader rides and reverb tails -- a whole other world. If we had to work at the same 16bit quality today, it'd still be better because converter technology has improved so much. So it's a double wammy on the technical improvement. Analog/digital converters were incredibly harsh and hashy in the early days.

I have little to no problem with the current state of digital recording, such as 24bit, good converters like apogee, db technologies, etc. Even the new (well, not so new anymore) PT HD 192 has decent converters. Also the digital clocks have continued to improve. Early converters used to skimp on the clocks, which caused jitter. It used to be that an external clock made a huge difference in making a substandard converter sound better. But not so anymore.

Software is always getting better, too. My knowledge is specifically related to ProTools where you can do a lot more things on the fly now without stopping playback. That helps you keep the musical flow, as well as stay up on the housecleaning aspects, such as making sure the edits are solid and there are no clicks or pops. There were lots of bad edits in the early days of ProTools because people didn't know they needed to check their edits/fades and couldn't fix them on the fly. Then they either were lazy or ran out of time to fix them later.

ProTools has incorporated Auto Delay Compensation (ADC) which makes a night-and-day difference in mixing because it keeps everything time aligned. That makes phase solid and the stereo image and tonal quality clear. Tracks that have phase-related issues have a hollow sound because the waveforms are adding up slightly offset which cancels out certain frequencies. This gives the sound a very unnatural dip in random areas and we hear that deficiency as hollow. Different plug-ins have different delays, which makes the phase between different tracks problematic (for example, an acoustic guitar with two microphones recorded stereo, or the relationship between the snare and overhead mics). This ADC time alignment keeps the phase between multiple tracks of the same performance in tact and contributes overall to a much more focused, tighter, punchier sound. Phase issues really can make things smeary and vague very quickly.

4) What's the single biggest problem you see in home studio recordings/mixes?

Misuse of compression, which causes distorted sounding tracks. When in doubt keep it simple. Don't over process because you can't remove compression.

5) What are the advantages/disadvantages of commercial studios vs. home?

Advantages of commercial studios: great sounding recording spaces, accurate control rooms, tube gear, well-maintained gear in general, natural reverbs, support staff to assist you with things like getting food and setting up microphones and generally keep things moving. Disadvantages: worry about money, which can affect their performance because people can't work quickly enough. Also, some people have stormed out of studios because they are too anal.

Advantages of working at home: an ability to work with artists with less funds, who often have amazing songs and performances but no one putting any $$ behind them. There is definitely something to be said for originality and heart, sometimes without a budget. I think music fans really appreciate hunger and that appreciation can potentially make for a very valuable product. Disadvantages of working at home: being mislead by the sound in the room. Things can sound great in your bedroom control room and absolutely terrible in the car. Also, sometimes you only have one microphone, so there are less creative engineering options. Another disadvantage is you often work in recording spaces that have strange natural decays and that gets recorded. You are then forced to use a drier version of a sound or add artificial ambience which is never as good as the real thing. Another disadvantage to working at home is being too comfortable that you get lazy and work too slowly.

6) How much does gear matter (a loaded question)?

It matters a lot. But sometimes you have to weigh the artistic quality versus what you'd like to record that artistic process with. You have to choose your battles. Amazing gear doesn't make a crappy song listenable. I'll take great songwriting and performances over the best equipment any day. I love great gear and will use it any chance I get. But I won't turn down a great project because they can't afford to work on great gear. More often than not, the ability to work with the best gear is reserved for people with medium to large budgets. However, medium to large budgets do not equal greater talent.

7) Name one "go to" or essential trick you've learned in the studio that you didn't learn in school or a book.

Any acoustic instrument with a resonant cavity (like an acoustic guitar or drum) has one sound when a person hears it across the room and another sound when a mic is recording it up close. You will hear an overbearing frequency on the recording that will overshadow the rest of the tone. When you find that resonant frequency with a very narrow bandwidth eq, you should cut it. That really opens up the sound and lets you hear the rest of the upper harmonics. This is also true (although less dramatic) when you record in a room that isn't acoustically designed. Sometimes some notes pop out more than others and you need to correct for that by notching out a resonance, trying not to affect the neighboring frequencies.

Bonus tip: another great technique is de-essing sends to delays and reverbs. Reverbs and delays are the last things you want to be ringing out sibilant or high-pitched frequencies. The decay and sustain of reverbs and delays exacerbates the harsh quality of high frequencies. Sometimes de-essing the send is the way to go, other times, especially with delays, you can just filter all the top end off of the delay return. These techniques allow you to monitor these effects louder without being grating.

8) Describe a recent epiphany and/or positive studio experience you've had:

When i recently mixed Buddy's record, the songs were written well, produced well... it made everything so easy to mix. And everyone respected everyone else's ability to do what they were supposed to do, so no one micro-managed me during mixing. It was very easy going - I would do a mix and post it online. The producers were touring all over the world so they would check it while i left it up overnight. They would give me their comments and i would come back to it in the morning with fresh ears. Then it was done. there is no substitute for coming back to something with fresh perspective. You always know instantly what needs to be done, as opposed to wracking your brain for hours after you've created the nuts and bolts of the mix for the previous 6 hours. Just walk away and get some objectivity! Don't work too long without enjoying life or else you loose what really matters- the spontaneity and freshness.

9) Can you have a personal/family life and work the kind of crazy hours the music business demands?

Absolutely! Start early. End early. Don't work 12 hour days, it's no good anyway for the creative process. 12 hour days are only good if you are shoveling dirt or something else repetitive with no creative need. I think working 10 to 6 or 11 to 7 is plenty. I think you get more done and better quality work done working those kind of hours. Plenty of people will disagree with me, but that is how I feel. I think this 12 hour day baloney is a holdover from the big studios charging you an insane amount of money for a 12 hour max lockout. Then you feel that if you pay that much, you need to use all the time possible. I can sort of understand it when you are paying big money for 12 hours. But overall, isn't the point to get the project done as well as possible and in a reasonable amount of time? If you work better for the first 8 hours of the day, that's when you should be working. No point in burning out, it won't help your project.

I am a firm believer in staying healthy mentally so that you can contribute more and do a better job when you do work. I think you need social skills to do this job well, so you need to actually go out with your friends. It sounds simple, but a lot of people work themselves to burnout, and then are frustrated why the music doesn't sound exciting. duh!

10) Where do you see the future of professional music production headed? How is it compatible with the "home studio" revolution?

Professional music production is trimming the fat these days. Gone are the days of putting drugs on the studio budget and marking them down as "drum heads" or something. And the home studio "revolution" is putting better tools in the hands of creative people to capture the early inception of an idea. Those early ideas so often have a vitality that will never be improved upon and often will make it all the way to the finished product. For these reasons the pro world and the home studio world are slowly merging and that is nothing but a good thing for creativity. People are quantizing and editing less. They are embracing the technology as a tool and not using every bell and whistle just because its there.

It's great that you can track drums in a great studio, do the vocals at home, then mix at another great studio. The technology is all compatible, and you can travel around easily with an entire record. Just make sure to have a backup or two!! (Ed: I 2nd that emotion!)

It's nice that power has shifted to the people. But you can't buy a mic at guitar center and call yourself an engineer. I still think you need to train with someone who knows what he or she is doing. Although really you can't mess up a classic song, you can certainly flatter it with good engineering and production from an experienced professional.