Bastian Hanschitz

Mixing keys and other stuff

Bastian Hanschitz on SoundBetter

Mixing keys and other stuff Tuning, breaking, shuffling, fixing, ... available too. Heavy Metal Flying

I'm a lifetime keys guy turned audio engineer.

I play Pro Tools HD, Logic, RX Adv, drumatom, Melodyne, AutoTune, Sibelius, and keep 84 EQs and 143 Dynamics tools hidden in a dark cupboard and only let them out when they are needed.

A few drives full of samples share their fate with the EQs and Comps.

My favorite saturation tool is South African Red Wine.

I play p, key, org, synth, church org, acc, melodica; dr, perc; a little b, bv.

Influences from Bach, Beethoven, Adams; early Jazz to Elvis, Clapton, Deep Purple, Blues Brothers, Tori Amos, Steve Wilson, RPWL, Nightwish, Opeth, ... Allergic to EDM.

So if you care for some (virtual) fun, pick me to mix your tracks to satisfaction. 'Well done' is the only option.

Oh, and I share another passion with Chris DeGarmo (of Queensrÿche) and Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden):
I can also FLY heavy metal ;)

Click the 'Contact' above to get in touch. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Interview with Bastian Hanschitz

  1. Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

  2. A: Recording and mixing a cover of "Ein Geschenk" ('a present') from Ewig. A young lady did this mostly as a present for their parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Turned out beautifully :-)

  3. Q: What are you working on at the moment?

  4. A: getting more clients

  5. Q: Analog or digital and why?

  6. A: Almost completely digital. But I do use analog summing and a 2buss comp to glue things together. ITB is easier to recall and sounds just about as good as analog. I do manually ride automation though with my S3!

  7. Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

  8. A: If your song has a soul I will find it and bring it out any make it shine. Songs without soul don't really interest me. I will tell you.

  9. Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

  10. A: I can't hear my XYZ, turn it up. -Yes master ;) (Why I like unattended mixing session) What jets do you fly? - A320 and A330 Can you add another Chorus? - sure, you're the boss! But should we, really? We need a new breakdown. - give me a day! Can you make this 20bpm faster? - ahmmm. really??! Did you tune the vocals? - No! (Melodyne is almost maxed out :) Are you also a CFII? -yes

  11. Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

  12. A: I've played music since I can remember, made it to become the go-to keys guy in our town but then was not quite brave enough for a full on career in music. Studied for a while (astrophysics, CS) and eventually became a pilot. Our 10-souls soul-band eventually broke up when the last finished university and we all got 'real jobs'. I decided then to pick up audio engineering training, so that I could work with music on my own terms and not have to gig on weekends. Last year my airline went belly-up and I really want back in with the music. Hence, here I am!

  13. Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

  14. A: Steve Wilson. Bach to Jon Lord, Einaudi to Opeth. Keith Jarret to Ayreon. All things Funk/Soul

  15. Q: What do you like most about your job?

  16. A: creativity, the people (most anyways)

  17. Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

  18. A: Music flows from the soul to the instruments to the mics into the ears back to the soul. Even the best tech can't fix a sub-par song or recording and is only a crutch along that way!

  19. Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

  20. A: A macbook with logic, akg812, a keyboard, sm57. Solar panels!

  21. Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

  22. A: Steve Wilson. Not only because he's a genius!

  23. Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

  24. A: make sure you speak the same language music-wise and in general. \m/

  25. Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

  26. A: the reason for the job: demo, indie, major (haven't had many of these yet...go ahead, change this!) previous releases vision steps up until now deadlines the weather

  27. Q: How would you describe your style?

  28. A: burgundy - like a good red wine.

  29. Q: Can you share one music production tip?

  30. A: mono eq to death!

  31. Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

  32. A: hand made

  33. Q: What's your strongest skill?

  34. A: Selective hearing, while everyone else around me slowly goes insane!

  35. Q: What do you bring to a song?

  36. A: a lifelong interest, craving and love for music.

  37. Q: What's your typical work process?

  38. A: I listen to reference tracks before and while mixing, so I check them out at the beginning. Then I load up a template with all groups, VCAs, routing, etc. set and import the tracks. Do a first listen, then a fader up, then mono EQ (takes forever and a day!), ride volume, compress, pan, saturate, modify, mangle, wrangle, undo, restart, go insane

  39. Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

  40. A: It's a small but beautiful ITB setup. With some occasional analog cheating on the 2buss...

  41. Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

  42. A: Make sure they bob their heads when they hear the track. Aka mixing.

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Terms Of Service

Revision policy: like chess. After 3 repeat positions it's done. First version after about 3 days. No data storage or backups! Final medium is a wav file, not the session.

GenresSounds Like
  • Green Day
  • Ayreon
  • Joss Stone
Gear Highlights
  • Lifetime music junky
  • Pro Tools HD|Native
  • Omni
  • HD 16x16
  • S3
  • SPL MixDream Summing
  • elysia 2buss
  • 2x SPL Frontliners w/Transformers
  • Neumann KH310.
  • a bunch of mics (U87 / TLM49 / CV4 / C414 / sE RN17 / CM3
  • ...)
More Photos