We sat down with Grammy-winning engineer Ryan Hewitt (Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Avett Brothers, Oasis, the Chicks) to talk about his stellar career in studio and live sound – and what an interview it was. Ryan got his start in 1969, joining his father on mobile studio recordings and forging a strong work ethic. More recently, he’s spent 18 months reverse-engineering Oasis’s iconic albums for Atmos. A firm believer in creative constraints, Ryan explains why fewer options often lead to better results, sharing his philosophy on console versus in-the-box mixing and discussing the dangers of unlimited plugin choices.
Highlights include behind-the-scenes tales from the Oasis archives; mixing the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a console with limited channels; what happened when Rick Rubin told him to make Anthony Kiedis “sound younger” and why “perhaps you should try something different” became his career-defining catchphrase. He also reveals why his PMC 6-2s make the speaker itself disappear from his mixing process: “It’s just music. You don’t hear a speaker anymore.”
Watch the video below:
