Shane Kelm

Producer and Mixing engineer, owner of Shane Matthew Studios, @Shane Kelm is this month SoundGym Hero..

I believe I started around June/July of 2017. I played for two months and then I took a break, but I took many mixing courses and mixed a lot of material during my Soundgym break. I started back up again around April of this year. On my profile it says I have played 83 days and I have 65 full workouts.

What was your first connection to music?

I remember listening to Taylor Dayne and Fleetwood Mac on the radio when I was very young and I really enjoyed the way they sounded.My parents were always playing some kind of music for my sister and I, classic rock and country was a lot of what I was exposed to when I was young. My first connection to a musical instrument would be when I was 13 I started playing drums and I joined the High School drumline as second bass and snare for 3 years. I went to New Mexico State University to study Entrepreneurship where I also played in the marching band for 4 years on snare drum. Even though it wasn't my major through school, practicing hard and performing well was a huge priority to me. 

DId you get an official Sound/Production education?

I attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2008 and finished in 2009. The school gave me a great start in the industry, but I have taken many online courses that have given me much more understanding and experience that the school and books couldn't teach. Graham Cochrane was one of the first online mixing engineers I followed who has some good advice. I have also taken courses from Mixing Issues and Björgvin Benediktsson, which has some good information as well. My favorite courses and memberships as of late are Hardcore Mixing by Jordan Valeriote, and Nail The Mix/Unstoppable Recording Machine by Eyal Levi, Joey Sturgis, and Joel Wanasek, I cannot recommend courses by these guys enough. They have improved my mixing/audio game immensely this past year. I have also taken a course from Brian Hood called The Six Figure Home Studio which has really helped me understand the business side of running a studio or booking gigs.

Tell us about Shane Matthew Studios?  

Shane Matthew Studios is my home studio in the second bedroom of my apartment. I wanted to build a lean studio and keep it mainly for practice, and when I got good enough I would start selling my services as a mixing engineer, my father helped me get some gear after I built my PC. I love mixing and I want it to be a priority with my audio career. I also use the site to book myself as a live sound engineer and technician. My main income comes from live events, I work as a freelance contractor, I maintain and book labor and services for Santa Ana Casino Hotel, https://www.santaanastar.com/,  but I also work as an employee with Audio Excellence Productions and Stage Services here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Audio Excellence Productions, http://aeproductions.net, is a full production company putting on shows at venues and setting up shows with mobile stages, while Stage Services books technicians at various venues across the city including Popejoy Hall.

Who have been the biggest musical influences for you?

When I first moved to New Mexico in 1993, I was 6 years old, I listened to a lot of country music, and to this day a lot of late 80's and early 90's country songs still sound great to me, Garth Brooks, Shaniah Twain, and Brooks & Dunn were some of my favorites. I really started getting into the late 90's alternative rock movement with bands like Third Eye Blind, Lit, and Matchbox 20. In high school I listened to a lot of various music from Dave Matthews Band to Linkin Park to Slipknot. In college I fell in love with bands like Saosin, Chiodos, Underoath and August Burns Red, I was exposed to so much metal and metalcore music in college, it was the first music that actually made me want to move around, August Burns Red and Protest The Hero were big influences there. At the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences I was exposed to Muse, King Crimson and Rush. After I left the Conservatory I was exposed to a lot of electronic music, producers such as Zomboy and Seven Lions, and labels such as Monstercat, were big influences on me. Anything that catches my ear I love listening to and analyzing.

Every one of my music instructors and all of the people I have played with has taught me something valuable and has influenced me in some way as well. I wouldn't understand audio as well as I do if I didn't have previous experience with learning to play an instrument. 

Have you made music today?

I played around on my drum pad and I played an hour and a half of Soundgym. I produced some EDM music a couple years back that I might revisit one of these days. It ended up being a mix of Trance, Future Bass, and Dubstep, not sure if that is the musical style I want to pursue but it was a great learning experience and I will write some more music this way some day. You have reminded me to pick up and play my guitars again, thank you.

What have you been working on lately?

My Soundgym SPI :) Really the first week I used Soundgym I noticed a difference in how I hear music, I started processing audio different almost immediately, I noticed EQ holes in my live setups that I have been using for years. I am currently getting my computer back up and working, I had a motherboard failure and hard drive errors a couple months back and I have been trying to fix it. I am trying to get more work, either Live sound or mixing in the studio. I am currently trying to build a reputation for myself as one of the best live sound engineers as well as studio mixing engineers in the area. I mastered some of my friends bands tracks last year when I was learning some mastering techniques, I have a couple tracks up there, https://soundcloud.com/kickaction-collective. I have been helping a couple local artists with their own productions lately, Psilocyben, https://soundcloud.com/psilocyben, is a good friend of mine and he has been producing for a couple years now and I have been helping him out a little bit along the way with the mixing process and mix critiques. I am helping a co-worker Jared with his music projects, https://soundcloud.com/thisbeautifulromance, I just started working on his mixes this past week and it looks like it is going to be a fun project. 

Tell us a bit about your workflow at the studio?

I have a Universal Audio Apollo Quad connected to my custom built windows PC. I like to work completely in the box because of the price and convenience, but I will definitely look into getting outboard analog gear if and when I upgrade my studio. In a live sound situation I usually play some reference tracks and get a main EQ that sounds good to me and then I process all the individual instruments as I get them, completely depends on the event. I can work Front of House and also monitor world, both have their challenges, but I enjoy both. Live mixing and studio mixing are very similar processes to me. It all has to sound good at the output in the space that the output is in, whether that is a studio monitor, a stage monitor, a main speaker array, or a cell phone speaker. Your processing can be similar but could be very different in each situation and it will change according to the musician, the instrument, the space that its in, what kind of processing options you have, your outputs and how your ear hears the audio. 

Any habits you have before starting a session?

Mix Preparation is just as important or even more important than mixing itself. I balance out my ears with pink noise, sometimes I listen to some reference tracks. Mixing is a meditation for me, I like to get in a zone of relaxation and focus before I start making moves. It would be the same kind of zone a musician gets in before a performance. The engineer is extremely crucial to the sound of the band. Many people don't realize or even understand what engineers do live or in the studio to get the music to sound the way it does.

What is one of your favorite production techniques?

Parallel processing was always fun, duplicating a track and crushing it and blending it back in, sounds great in many situations. Many live consoles have built in mix percentage option which makes the process so much easier and quicker live. 

One Free plugin that you recommend?

The stock plugins that come with your DAW  and your ears. Most stock plugins can do an incredible job by themselves.Third party plugins are used for their coloration or for some specialty which can be very useful, but learning and using the stock DAW plugins can get you professional results as welll.

Which 3 plug-ins you can't live without?

Oeksound Soothe and Gain Reduction Deluxe by JST have stayed in my projects a lot. Waves, Slate, and Softube make some great plugins that I use a lot as well.

What does the future hold for Shane Kelm the music industry?

I want to mix for local, regional, national, and then international artists. Live and/or in the studio. Any genre, any style. Send me your multitracks, I'd love to mix anyones project! I love all music and want to work with any kind that I can. I have never had this kind of confidence in my engineering skills until this past year of taking courses and working Soundgym. I feel like I can impress artists of the highest caliber here very soon and I can become one of the most sought after engineers. I will get back into guitar and productions of my own again, I am mainly focused on mixing at the moment, but when I get some more free time I would love to start writing my own music again. 

Last question, What is your favorite SoundGym Feature and why?

Obtaining and maintaining sensitive, balanced and tuned ears. Its not really a feature, more like a side effect of working the games all the time. I love being able to instantly tell if an instrument or mix is missing or has too much of a certain frequency range. I now understand Equalization a whole lot more now because of Soundgym, I use the equalizer in my mixes a whole lot differently. The games have increased my hearing range this past year by a lot, I hear so much more detail in music because of Soundgym. Favorite game would be EQ Cheetah.