A renowned music producer, sound mixer, and photographer based in the greater Los Angeles area, Peter McCabe has worked in virtually every popular music genre over his 30-year career. He has recorded and mixed more than 100 platinum and gold artists for some of the biggest names in the music business ranging from Willie Nelson, BB King, Paul McCartney, and Kiss to Puff Daddy. More recently, McCabe moved into sound mixing for cinema and television, although he’s still actively involved in music producing. “I got my start in the 80s, hanging out with some awesome musicians and bands, and I’ve been at it ever since,” he says.
McCabe notes that the past decade has been a time of significant transition for the business of music and sound mixing,
both technologically and economically. With the global financial crisis in 2008, he and many other music professionals were at a crossroads as large studio clients negotiated permanently lower rates. “Along with many of my colleagues, I realized that I had to find ways to work ‘leaner and meaner.’ For me, it meant closing my studio and moving my operation into my home,” he explains. “So much of the work of sound mixing is a one-man operation that completely lends itself to a home-based facility, and you don’t really need to carry the overhead of running a studio. Plus, with the tools and systems we have at our disposal now, I can do almost anything out of my house that I was previously doing in the studio.”
One approach that McCabe has adopted for his home operation is a pair of “smart” professional studio monitors that can be calibrated to provide a frequency response equivalent to any mastering lab or full-on studio. Another key technology development is the evolution of software tools and plug-ins that work in the Avid Pro Tools environment. “These tools make a home-based operation possible because they let me work faster, easier, and with more precision, but without sacrificing creativity,” McCabe says. “I can work much faster than I could 10 years ago, and in some cases I can perform tasks – such as monitoring an output mix and correcting it on the spot for compliance — that weren’t even possible before.”
A Pro Tools plug-in that McCabe uses practically every day is Visualizer, NUGEN Audio’s analysis suite and real-time comparison toolset for recording, mixing, and mastering. “One of the things I appreciate the most about Visualizer is its excellent graphical interface, which gives me an at-a-glance view into what’s going on technically with the signal,” he notes. “For mixing, I can access views and tools for tasks such as low-end control, masking, hidden frequencies, and stereo placement. And for mastering, Visualizer supports a wide range of views such as stereo spread, phase relationships, and EQ distribution.”
Besides Visualizer, McCabe relies heavily on two other NUGEN Audio music plug-ins: Monofilter and Stereoizer. “Monofilter is a fantastic low-frequency management tool that enables me to define, sharpen, and add clarity to my bass lines. Although other vendors make similar tools, what stands out about Monofilter is the design of its graphical user interface – which makes bass work much more intuitive and interactive,” he says. “With instant feedback that shows me how I’m affecting the mix and lets me make adjustments with each step, Monofilter makes it easy to root the bass line solidly in the mix and give it real power and definition.”
McCabe uses the Stereoizer high-specification stereo image manipulation tool to naturally expand, reduce, and introduce
stereo width at any state of the mixing process. “Again, the brilliant design of the graphical user interface makes this process fast, easy, and intuitive by representing the mix exactly as it might be perceived by the ear,” he comments.
In recent years, McCabe has expanded his horizons into recording and mixing for cinema and television projects, including documentaries and TV shows for the Discovery Network and video work for U2. He’s also the content manger for the start-up Focus@Will, an online music streaming service, enabling subscribers to create playlists that are scientifically optimized to boost concentration and focus. To address loudness management for these projects and produce mixes in compliance with global loudness regulations, McCabe has recently adopted NUGEN Audio’s Loudness Toolkit 2. “With Loudness Toolkit 2 I’ll be able to integrate a near-seamless loudness measurement and compliance workflow into my existing Pro Tools environment and make both program and short-term loudness corrections on the spot. Like the other NUGEN Audio plug-ins, Loudness Toolkit 2 will allow me to tighten up my audio engineering pipeline significantly by providing full wraparound solutions from monitoring to problem correction,” he says.
Peter McCabe websites:
About NUGEN Audio
NUGEN Audio’s award-winning tools for audio analysis, loudness metering, mixing/mastering, and tracking are used by the world’s top names in music production, broadcast, and post-production. For audio professionals, NUGEN Audio’s mix and mastering products offer market-leading fidelity and unrestricted creativity in every situation, providing an easy, direct, and natural way to work with sound. NUGEN Audio tools have become critical for some of the biggest names in the industry including Michael Brauer (Coldplay, The Rolling Stones), Robbie Bronnimann (Chicane, Paul Van Dyk), and Mr. Mig (Beyonce, Akon). For more information, visit www.nugenaudio.com.
Credits:
Music
Ricky Martin
Roger Daltrey
Kiss
Paul Rogers
Puff Daddy
Steve Miller
Bowling 4 Soup
Barry Gibb
Smashing Pumpkins
Jennifer Lopez
Beck
Katie Melua
Paul McCartney
Billy Joel
Willie Nelson
Chrissie Hynde
Alice Cooper
Kelis
Heart
Jamie Cullum
Perry Farrell
Booker T Jones
Brian Wilson
Yosuf (Cat Stevens}
Cheap Trick
Joe Elliot
Owl City
Vintage Trouble
Harry Connick Jr
Corinne Bailey Rae
Airborne Toxic Event
Toots Hibbert
Everclear
Slash
Ramones
Bone Thugs & Harmony
Matthew Sweet
Sugar Ray
Cheap Trick
Billy Currington
The Smithereens
BB King
Violent Femmes
Tracy Byrd
Billy Idol
Sublime
Robi Rosa
Mark Wills
Helmet
The Toadies
Presidents of the USA
Neal McCoy
P.M. Dawn
Smokey Robinson
Frente!
Dion
Ivan Neville
Allen Toussaint
Alien Ant Farm
Peter, Bjorn & John
Divinyls
Guru
RuPaul
The Living End
Dig
Tripping Daisy
Wax
Anita Cochran
Graveyard Shift
The Murmurs
The Plimsouls
Big Red Button
Merrick H-Town
Semisonic
Dusty Drake
Jeff Carson
Hagfish
Phantom Planet
Mark Chesnutt
Eve 6
Fu-Schnickens
Tag Team
Jimmy Wayne
Brian McKnight
American Hi Fi
The Goops
Collin Raye
Charles and Eddie
Mad Cobra
Rickie Lee Jones
Tracy Spencer
Brian McComas
Mary Lou Lord
- Kelly
Nancy Wilson
Lillix
The Donnas
Liz Phair
Scatterbrain
Ednaswap
Portrait
Face to Face
Crystal Waters
Collective Soul
Baka Boys
Jimmy Page
Johnny Gil
Tom Morello
Krazy Bone
Bizzy Bone
Leon Silver
Reverend Horton Heat
The Living End
Shabba Ranks
The Temptations
Flesh-N-Bones
Coolio
Domino
Brad Wolf
Price
Ronnie Spector
Pete Yorn
Darlene Love
Bizarre
Ian McCulloch
J Kwon
Wanda Jackson
Film
“Just Like Heaven,” Dreamworks
“Nancy Drew,” Jerry Weintraub Productions
“Say Anything,” 20th Century Fox
“Clueless,” Paramount Pictures
“Speed,” 20th Century Fox
“Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” 20th Century Fox
“Bull Durham,” Orion Pictures
“Billy Madison,” Universal Pictures
“Encino Man,” Disney
“Black Circle Boys,” Alliance Entertainment
“Bio-Dome,” Universal Pictures
“P.C.U., ” 20th Century Fox
“Detroit Rock City,” New Line Cinema
“Girls Room,” Menemsha Entertainment
“Addams Family II : Family Values,” Paramount Pictures
“Friends and Neighbors,” Polygram [ produced end credit song ”My Hollow” ]
“Minus Man,” Artisan Entertainment [ produced 3 songs w/ Kitty Bank]
“You’re in Charge,” Harmonic Pictures Associate Producer /Post Supervisor
Television
Discovery “Airplane Repo,” Audio/Camera
Discovery “Unlikely Friends,” Mixing and Colorist
Produced and co-wrote theme music for A&E “Evening at the Improv”, “Comedy Album,” and
“Comedy on the Road”
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