Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Abramson.
Hi Jake, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Ever since I was little, I loved music. I would listen to CD’s on my Walkman and sing as a little kid. I’ve played guitar and written songs for many years, but never did anything with it. Then one day I met a friend who showed me music editing software. It was all that I could think about and I ended up purchasing it and spending lots of time trying to learn it. At that time I was attending college as well, but I found that I lost all interest in everything else and wanted to just pursue music. I stopped going to the college I was going to and instead I went to the music college that my friend graduated from. I studied there for an intense year every day, learning music theory, production, songwriting, and ultimately mixing and mastering. When I originally went into this, I wanted to actually be an artist. I wanted to be in a band or perform in some way, but after falling in love with the mixing and mastering side of it, I ended up changing directions completely. I pursued becoming a mixing and mastering engineer, and ever since then, I have been finetuning my craft, working with clients and creating an iconic rock sound that the bands are looking to me to achieve.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been a very tough road, as it is for most musicians. There’s a lot of rejection, a lot of “no’s” and sometimes people not liking what you create. It took many failed attempts at songs and starting over and over and over until I got it right. It’s learning multiple programs in order to achieve all the things that I want to achieve. One time I had a major computer crash and lost everything that I had ever made for the first four years of music. It doesn’t make much money in the beginning and it took a long time before I started to even see anything at all. But after all these experiences, I am now at a place where I have built a brand and a sound that is now a career. The mistakes and learning experiences have really helped me connect with the artists and bands that I work with because I understand both sides of it, not just the engineering side.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What I do is I take a song that a band or artist has recorded, and I fit everything together like a puzzle, using only my ears. I carefully construct a pocket, a place and a space for every aspect of the song to achieve the artist or band’s vision. I specialize mainly in rock music. I focus all of my time, energy and practice in perfecting that sound. I love big punchy drums. I like when someone can feel it in their chest . . . when the kick hits and when there’s an impact in the chorus that makes someone want to start a mosh pit. I am most proud of my hearing ability. I take very good care of my ears and I can determine frequencies just by hearing them and where they are on the sonic frequency spectrum. I can close my eyes and find problems in the music just by listening to it. I have trained myself and studied music to the point where I am able to make these distinctions, and that ability has helped me create many happy albums and songs for artists to be proud of and to show their music off to the world.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Well, if I had to start over, and I was strictly going for mixing, I would tell myself not to go crazy with plug-ins and effects first but really take time to dial-in where everything sits in a song first before doing anything else. That would have saved me so many projects! It gets very easy to listen to it loud while you’re mixing and then fatigue the ears to make bad decisions or get carried away. Listen under 75db to keep from making mistakes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.treatedsound.com
- Instagram: @treatedsound
- Facebook: @treatedsound
