RSR342 - Ben Rubin - Mixing Workflow for Hip Hop and Jazz In Brooklyn with Soundflow
Recording Studio Rockstars
Lij Shaw
4.8 • 543 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2022
⏱️ 138 minutes
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Summary
My guest today is Ben Rubin a producer, mixer, bassist, and composer in Brooklyn NY. Whether he's melding hip-hop and jazz with legends like Masta Ace and Donny McCaslin, playing upright bass at the Newport Jazz Festival with Dred Scott Trio, remixing Karsh Kale or WuTang's Killah Priest, rockin' on electric bass with Marshall Crenshaw, or producing Peter Bernstein solo jazz guitar, Grammy-nominated producer/(re)mixer/bassist/composer Ben Rubin (aka Benny Cha Cha) is renowned for making records that are pure or genre-bending or both. Picked seven times as a "Rising Star Producer" in DownBeat Magazine's International Critics' Poll, Rubin has well over 100 album credits to his name. Lately, he has been working with a diversity of artists including Queen Esther, Erik Deutsch & Theo Bleckmann, Steve Conte (New York Dolls), Stripmall Ballads, Rachel Eckroth (St Vincent), Lower Power, Caleb Wheeler Curtis, Drifter feat. Lucy Woodward, Buzzed Armstrong, and Jon Irabagon, as well as labels like Ropeadope, Sunnyside and Imani. Most recently, Rubin's attention has focused on Analog Players Society at the Bridge Studio in Brooklyn with APS founder Amon Drum creating cut-up hip-hop instrumental records and jazz albums released on Ropeadope and described by Downbeat Magazine as "truly compelling." featuring legendary Juice Crew MC Masta Ace described as "in the direct lineage of classics like A Tribe Called Quest's Low-End Theory, and Guru's Jazzmatazz." Bens production and mixing credits include Walking Distance feat. Jason Moran, Grammy nominated composer/pianist Emilio Solla, and many recordings for Smalls Live Records releasing more than 30 records with jazz greats including Larry Goldings, Louis Hayes, Tom Harrell, Johnny O'Neal, Chris Potter, Tim Ries, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, Seamus Blake, and Cyrille Aimeé to name just a few. As a bassist, Ben has toured and recorded both upright and electric bass with a diversity of artists, including Dred Scott Trio, Patti Smith, James Maddock, Courtney Love, Mary J. Blige, Moby, Bill Frisell, and his own acclaimed, genre-bending band Mudville which I believe my brother Nate played in at one point. Ben has also composed scores for features and short films, including director Nelson Kim's feature film debut, Someone Else, which premiered at the Miami International Film Festival in 2015.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of recording studio rock stars is brought to you by OWC, Spectra-1964, Sampley, Carl Tat's design, and isotope. |
| 0:10.6 | In fact, you're hearing my voice right now through isotope RX and ozone, all recorded safely onto an OWC SSD. |
| 0:18.7 | So get ready to rock. |
| 0:22.3 | Back in the day, you know, it was like you mix a song a day, right? |
| 0:26.6 | You spend the day, you leave it on the desk, you come back in the morning, and you make |
| 0:30.5 | any tweaks and then you print. |
| 0:32.1 | You know, that kind of workflow doesn't really exist much in my world. |
| 0:35.7 | But I always find that when I put it down |
| 0:38.0 | and then I come back to it the next day, |
| 0:40.3 | I can make five moves in about 10 minutes |
| 0:42.7 | and have a significantly better mix. |
| 0:58.3 | Welcome to Recording Studio Rockstars. |
| 1:06.1 | I'm Lid Shaw, and this is the podcast created to help you become a rock star of the recording studio. If you are rocking a Mac Mini M1 in your studio, then you should definitely check out the new OWC Mini-Stack-Stack-S-T-X Thunderbolt 4 Certified Storage and Hub Expansion solution. |
| 1:21.6 | It's the perfect size to seamlessly stack with the Mac Mini and add storage and connectivity over Thunderbolt or USB. |
| 1:29.0 | Whether you have the new or old Mac Mini, nothing stacks up in your studio quite like OWC. |
| 1:34.3 | Find the new Mini Stack STX and all your storage needs at macsales.com slash rock stars. |
| 1:43.3 | Do you need to record direct stereo keyboards? |
| 1:47.0 | Spectra 1964 now offers the Stereo BBDI2, |
| 1:52.3 | with custom-wound Heisey Transformers for big headroom, |
| 1:56.1 | virtually flat response, and a 15-db input pad. |
| 2:00.3 | The Spectra-1964 BBDI Passive Direct box is also perfect for recording deep bass |
| 2:07.5 | that will make your mixes sound huge. |
... |
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