Dee Kei (DK) and I sat down for an episode of Mixing It Up with Daddy D that started with mix-bus limiters and somehow ended up in the deep end — single-minded focus, marriage, parenting, faith, and the question that became the title: what is success? If you only have time for the technical bits, the first half is for you. If you've got the full ride in you, the second half is where it gets real.
If you're flying from LA to Hawaii, ninety-nine percent of the time the plane is going the wrong direction — but they're constantly readjusting. Little micro-corrections, and you finally land where you're going. Humans kind of suck at being perfect.— Jon Rezin
The conversation
DK: Welcome back, John — I haven't seen you in a minute. How you been?
Jon: Very good, man. Very blessed. Can't complain.
DK: Sleep some more — you could sleep some more. Are your kids young right now?
Jon: Oh yeah man. I've got an eight-year-old, an eleven-year-old, and a twelve-year-old.
DK: So you're just not sleeping because you're staying up late?
Jon: I hit my stride in the evenings. Once the kids are in bed it's my golden window for uninterrupted activity. It takes me about twenty, twenty-five minutes to get really rolling on whatever creative thing I'm doing — mixing, producing, even admin — and to have that uninterrupted, no one being like "Daddy, do this," I'm just way more productive when I'm not interrupted. Sometimes I have breakfast with the family. We roll until the deadline's met or until I can't hear anymore.
Mixing into a limiter
DK: You a big clipper guy? You like to clip a lot?
Jon: Yeah. For the longest time I was using the IK Multimedia Stealth Limiter — you can push it really hard. Mind you, I'm mixing with that on the master from the very beginning, when I'm getting my sounds. I've also got a multiband compressor before it for some overall sculpting. These days Jaycen Joshua's God Particle is ridiculous and does a lot of the same stuff. So now that's my main one, and if it has problems with limiting in a particular spot I've got the others daisy-chained right after, disabled, so I can swap to a different limiter for that scenario.
DK: A lot of people I know — and how I was trained — was nothing on the mix bus. I added it after. Why do you think mixing into a limiter is beneficial?
Jon: I did it your way for years. The thing that kept happening was I'd get a mix sounding luscious, send it for mastering or rough-limit it for the client, and the limiter would take all the dynamics out — squishy, nasty. So I had this inkling: if I'm going to be smashing it in the end, what if I mix through it? Then I end up with the dynamics the way I want, and the frequency spectrum the way I want — because limiting changes the perception of frequencies, especially the high end. So I sculpt into the master limiter at the level the record's going to end up at.
Jon: When the client approves it, I take the limiter off and print a limited and an unlimited version — instrumental, full, a cappella, TV — and I send the mastering engineer the bypassed versions plus a screenshot of my limiter so they can match the sound the client fell in love with. That came from mastering engineers calling me saying "we can't get it to sound the same as you did."
Jon: Around the same time I'd had this inkling, I was at a Manny Marroquin talk. He kept talking about "running it back in" and I asked him during the Q&A, "Are you mixing into a limiter?" And he was like, "Oh yeah, of course." That was confirmation: this is exactly what I need to be doing.
The right way in one song is the complete wrong way in another. So having a really firm grasp of your tools and techniques — you just shift.— Jon Rezin
Loud mixes are a mix issue, not a mastering issue
Jon: There's an importance to making sure your mix can stand up next to whatever it's going to play against — and that all happens in the mix phase. That's not a mastering issue. If you mix without that in mind, you'll get smashed and crushed but it still won't be loud.
Jon: If gain reduction is ridiculous and the vocal is pumping, that's not the vibe. So I'll take the limiter off the master and put it on an all-instruments bus — let the music get smashed and the vocal ride on top.
DK: What saturators are you digging right now?
Jon: Lots of randoms. The Xenon saturation in Kush Audio's Silika is one of my favorites. Mixland TILT — the saturation one is great. Decapitator is a classic I still pull up. Spectre — I use Spectre on every mix. It looks like an EQ but it's basically a boost-only EQ that boosts via saturation. FabFilter Saturn is in the rotation. Bob Horn's Oven I've used on the actual hardware unit at Bob's place — dude, it's so cool. As a plugin I've used it on three or four mixes — I want to live with it for a couple months on different material before I form a real opinion, but so far I keep giving it a try.
The reference workflow
DK: How do you use references? Like, do you load them into the Pro Tools session?
Jon: Yeah — I use ADPTR AB. I'll load my references for whatever genre I'm mixing — hip-hop, R&B, Afrobeats, whatever — plus the rough mix. I have to beat the rough mix every time, otherwise I don't work. I just pause, listen, and ask: where am I? References anchor me back into the reality of the world.
On single-minded focus
DK: You wanted to be a father when you were fairly young, you got married relatively early in your career, but you're creative enough and risk-tolerant enough to pursue music — that's the opposite of everything else. Do you feel like you were crazy at one point, or do you feel like you figured out a way to be creative logically?
Jon: I have a kind of single-minded focus that for most people seems unrealistic and verges on significant stubbornness. I know where I want to go and I will find a way to achieve it. There's a story I heard — probably the burn-the-boats / Cortés story. The captain lands his soldiers, then tells them to burn the ships. The only way home is on the enemy's ships. That idea really resonated with me.
Backup plans are for those who believe they're going to fail. That sounds really stupid when you have responsibilities — particularly to people who've taken very traditional employment options — but it's what works for me, and it fuels me.— Jon Rezin
Jon: When people are like "what do you do for fun?" I'm like, "I do music for fun." "Yeah but that's what you do for work." Exactly.
The Westlake gig and the right partner
Jon: When we moved to LA — my wife is from Kenya, so we had to wait on her work visa — I got a gig at Westlake Pro, which at that time was at Westlake Studios. Just offices; you go meet studio people on their turf. So I used it to introduce myself everywhere: "I'm Jon Rezin, I'm an engineer." People would have me come look at their setup, install it, then hire me to work on projects. It built. I was done after six months — as soon as I had enough clients I quit.
Jon: Getting married is all about finding the right partner. Around month four or five at Westlake I had enough clients, and my wife said, "you need to quit." I said, "But this is supporting us." She said, "The work visa is about to come through. This is not feeding your soul." That was it.
Green flags
DK: What are some green flags of a genuinely good person?
Jon: When I met you, for example — well-spoken, thoughtful, you care about doing the right thing, you're striving for excellence, you're a family man who cares about his family. They're not a burden to you — like the books you and your wife are writing about your kids. People whose compass in life is aimed in the right direction, or at least the same direction I'm striving toward — those are the people I want to keep on the inside circle. Sometimes it's almost an energy. You meet somebody and you feel like you've known them forever.
How do you keep your compass facing the right way?
Jon: Nothing is set-it-and-forget. It's constantly readjusting. There was this analogy I heard — if you're flying from LA to Hawaii, ninety-nine percent of the time the plane is going the wrong direction. But they're constantly readjusting these little micro-corrections, and you finally land where you're going. Humans kind of suck at being perfect — so we're always making mistakes, sometimes big, sometimes small, and always readjusting.
Jon: My wife and I consult a lot. We sit down and chat — what are we trying to achieve, how close are we, what needs to change in how we educate our children, in how I'm dealing with a difficult client, in the email I'm about to send. Consultation with people who have your best interest in mind and the capacity to assist — that's important.
A big part of the Bahá'í writings — that's my religion — talks about work done in the spirit of service is worship. So I'm always asking: my work has value, but how can I be of service with what I'm doing, to whoever I'm doing it for?— Jon Rezin
Defining success
Jon: Early on, when I was starting, I said I want a wife and children. I want a family. I could have done the whole grind and probably been "successful" in the career sense without those things — but that's not success for me. So having the full package, even though it meant a slower burn instead of breakneck speed — I have my goal. I'm working on great music, I'm working on stuff I really enjoy, people are appreciating my work, and I have an amazing family. I get to work from home. So even though I may not be "successful" in some narrower sense — I'm successful.
DK: How do we define success? Sometimes I define it based on: am I the type of person people want to be around, and am I the type of person who can take on responsibility and uphold it.
Jon: The challenge is that based on that definition I'm definitely not successful. I agree with you a hundred percent — but there's a point where the responsibilities mount up so much that the replies get slower, things slip through the cracks. My kids are avid swimmers. I have to be at the swim meet. So yes — maybe I didn't get back to you when you needed me to. Sorry, I had to make a choice. Right now the responsibilities are significantly more than the time I have for them, but somehow the things get done. It's not "easy breezy" — it's more like, "oh God, it's all on fire — how do I drown less?"
Communication and marriage
Jon: I tend to over-communicate — I don't know if it's possible to over-communicate, actually. Some people are like, "Why do you say all these obvious things?" Even at work — "Hey, I'm sending you that thing, please remember XYZ." And they're like, "Dude, I know that." I'd rather say it than have the expectation you're going to remember the one random thing I told you before, and then you don't deliver. So I over-communicate. And that's worked for me.
Jon: With my wife — we spend a lot of time consulting, sharing vulnerabilities. If I have a rough thing with a client I'll just tell her, "Hey babe, I'm feeling down right now because of this." She's like, "I got you. Thank you for sharing it with me." Sometimes nothing can be done — but it's important for partners to know he's on low fuel right now. So let me step up. And vice versa.
On staying present and grateful
DK: How do you actively stay present and grateful?
Jon: Present is hard for me — my mind is always scattered. Always thinking about things that have happened, things that are going to happen, of course what's happening right now. My wife is into mindfulness and meditation, so I'm absorbing some of that mojo. I'm trying to recognize moments as they're happening — and throwing up a prayer in those moments, whether it's a blessing happening, or whether I need assistance. I'm marking the moments.
Jon: As far as gratitude — every night the whole family does what we call blessings and prayers. Each of us goes through our day and lists what we were happy about: I got to play with my friend, mommy made an amazing meal — it's always mommy. We actively bring ourselves to account and recognize the things we're grateful for. It's served us well as a family. There's always stuff that's hard, but remembering what's a blessing keeps us focused. And we literally do it every single day.
Closing
DK: This has been amazing. We talked a lot more about audio than we usually do, and it was a very mindful episode. I appreciate you taking the time.
Jon: Real pleasure. I love the fact that we never know where the conversation is going to go — but it's always going to go somewhere cool.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Big thanks to Dee Kei and the Mixing It Up with Daddy D community.