Sound producer Yurii Barybin: It is very easy to work with Stevie Wonder and Elton John
- Dasha Diachenko
- Jan 24, 2018
- 3 min read
We have a chance to talk to well known sound producer, live audio engineer and production manager Yurii Barybin who works with world famous musicians. He is the founder of the Diversity Source Monitor Audio Mixing Technique that helped many musicians to get a perfect sound on stage and improved their performance qualities. Yuri shares his experience and gives some advices.
How long does it take to master the art of sound production?
If the person has a good musical taste, knows and feels how instruments, vocals and overall mixes should sound, it will take about a year to study intensely the technical aspects and characteristics of concert or studio audio, methods and techniques of mixing. Then practice using different kinds of equipment is essential. It is better to start from good ones to understand how it should sound, and then try poor quality equipment, in order to be able to get out of difficult situations. Also sound engineer or sound producer needs to know basics of music science.
It is not necessary to graduate from conservatory, cource of music theory and harmony would be quite enough. In general, it will take several years to reach more or less stable level. Than with every project, tour, concert, album there will be a feeling that there is still a lot to learn.
Despite such a rich professional experience, do you still continue to study special literature or attend master classes?
Sure. New technologies, software and equipment appear on the market every day, that significantly expand possibilities. Music trends constantly change. We need to keep up and never stop lerning. Every year the world-famous exhibition NAMM Show takes place at Anaheim Convention Center, here the leaders of the show industry present new equipment, music instruments, technologies and held master classes. I try to visit it every year. In 2017, AVID presented an updated S6L console, SHURE - Axient Digtal wireless systems, Universal Audio - high-quality interfaces and plug-ins. This year my production company provides technical support for the Native Instruments pavilion.
What main mistakes do seasoned sound engineers make?
Lack of development, use of the "old-school" concepts and techniques that do not correspond to modern styles, slow working pace.
Which of the Ukrainian artists was the most difficult and the easiest to work with?
The hardest is to work with bad musicians. Fortunately, I did not work with such.
There were some technical difficulties due to the complexity of the show production for the Okean Elzy, Tina Karol and Dan Balan, but we coped with issues and their performances had huge success. They all are great artists, professional musicians and worthy people.
What about American musicians?
It is very easy with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Jesse J. I was warned that Courtney Love could be hard to work with, but it turned out to be quite opposite. Erika Badu is a little unpredictable, but I just needed to find an approach.
What is the main difference between Ukrainian and American sound engineers?
Ukrainian specialists are more savvy and universal, Americans - will strictly perform only their function, but very qualitatively. Speaking about sound: Ukrainian sound producers often bring up vocals to much, reverberation could be more than necessary and many instruments that sound in the same frequency range, that is much less common in American mixes.
Could you give some advice to those who want to become a sound producer?
Listen to good, but different music. Experiment a lot, but not during a concert or right before album release. Love your job and always try to do it as good as possible.
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