Lucian Flutur

Audio and FOH Engineer currently located in Romania, Lucian Flutur is this month's SoundGym Hero!

Who are you?

My name is Lucian Flutur, I am an Audio Engineer from Romania, and I love music no matter what shape it has. I started to get involved in music ten years ago when I wanted to play the guitar.

I did not know what pandora box I was going to open, but this life is too much fun, and from that moment, there was no going back for me.

Tell us one interesting fact about yourself.

Fun fact, when I was young, I liked a band named Hara because they did a very unusual track, Muro Shavo. When I first saw it on TV, I loved it because they did something

different.

Time has passed, I became an Audio Engineer, and one day, I was asked if I would like to be the FOH Engineer for the band. At that moment, I started to remember songs that I was listening to when I was a kid, and the first show with the band was pure joy.

What is your favourite SoundGym feature?

My favourite feature is the Gym itself. I started using SoundGym back in the summer of 2016. It didn't have the Learning, Stats, Olympics, or the BeatRace section, but the Gym was enough.

All I needed back then was some ear training, and it helped me in my career because I always heard things more naturally, but I did not know what to do with them.

Having a sensitive hearing can be very useful as long as you know what to do with it. Knowing how to "listen" is one of the best skills an audio engineer or a musician can have.

One music piece that inspired you to be a music maker?

One track that changed my music path was Numb by Linkin Park. The moment I listened to it for the first time, I was caught for 3 minutes by the songwriting and the mix. It inspired me as a person, and it opened the door for me to the alternative side of the music.

Who is your biggest influence?

This question is funny because you may think that my most significant influence would be an engineer or maybe a musician. In reality, my biggest influence is my English

teacher from high school.

She is the person that helped me a lot in my early days, and thanks to her, I became the person I am today. What she taught me in those days was always to aim high and not be afraid of failure.

Those words are with me to this day, and when I started my company three years ago, I was still thinking about this. That's when I decided to put my token in the logo as a representation of how much I had to work to get where I am and why I started this, one guitar pick for each year :)

Your trick to get inspired and stay creative?

My trick to get inspired no matter what I do is never to stop listening. I am not just talking about music, sure, I hear a lot of music every day, different genres from different years, but the catch is when you start to listen to everything.

When I say everything, I mean everything, listen to music, friends, family, coworkers, a random person that gets your attention. If that doesn't work, grab an instrument or a personal token that has emotional value to you, and inspiration will come.

Tell us a bit about your workflow when making music?

My workflow when making music involves lots of hardware and software. It reflects my current state as a FOH, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering engineer. Let's start with the recording stage. If I'm tracking something these days, I'm using my WAVES LV1 Rig for routing and monitoring. All tracks go straight to Pro Tools, acting mostly as a tape machine and a playback system.

When it comes to Mixing and Mastering, I usually work in the box for portability reasons. If I am mixing a show recorded by me, I try to use only Waves plugins because after I finish the mix, I can use it again with my LV1 Rig and apply it in a live situation.

If I am mixing a material recorded in the studio by me or somebody else, I like to mix it differently. I would use plugins from different vendors, and if possible, I would use hardware, to have as many options as possible.

My workflow changes according to my needs and my client's needs, so right now, I may mix hybrid, but if the requirements are to mix with specific software or only in analog and print it at the end in digital, I will work like that. It doesn't matter what you use as long as you respect the only rule that matters. If it sounds good, it sounds good.

Any habits you have before starting a session?

Before starting a session, my habits are straightforward. Freshen up the air in the room I'm recording, mixing, or mastering because it helps me focus on my tasks and organize the tracks in the project.

If I do not have a clear picture of my session, I am entering some loops very hard to exit. When you have a clear picture of the session you are working in, you start creating and forget about the struggle that comes with a big randomized one.

Piece of gear in your studio that you have unique feelings for?

My Focusrite Liquid 56, is an old soundcard that I purchased when I was at the beginning, and it was the first audio gear that I got for recording more than two audio channels. I still have it to this day as a reminder of my work from back then, and I'm using it when I need to record something with Optical S/PDIF.

What does the future hold for Lucian Flutur in the music industry

The future holds lots of opportunities for me when it comes to the music industry. It's amusing to think about it because a couple of months ago I started so many new projects and now everybody wonders how the future will look.

I don't know what to expect because everything shifts at a variable rate bigger than me, but if it weren't so mysterious and hard to work with, it would be boring. One thing is for sure, anything that waits for me should get ready because I'm coming :)