Do you see your primary focus as producing or engineering? How does one job inform the other?

These days I try to focus on production. Most of the time with budgets being what they are, I wind up engineering as well. I've worked a lot as a mixer as too - both single/radio mixes, as well as my own album productions. If I can afford to bring an engineer, or at least a Pro Tools guy, I know that I'll be able to bring more to the project. It becomes a matter of time and energy, and also depends on how quickly the project needs to get done. Trouble is, people know that I can do it myself and the engineer becomes an expense that can be eliminated...it's a tough balance for me.

Knowing how to mix is invaluable, even if I'm not mixing the record. I'm surprised more and more by people who make records that have no idea how to put together a mix. I'm not complaining - because it often gets me work. Certainly with really tight budgets and all the home recording technology, you now see many projects being finished by the artist, and you can't expect them to have the experience...but I find it really important to know how to put together the elements so that they make sense in the final mix.

How did you first get involved with music? How did you get your start in production and engineering?

I was always in punk bands through high school and college. There was a very DIY attitude in that scene which lead to me wanting to figure out how to record rock bands. Later, at college, it was all about using the studio as an instrument...more in a compositional capacity. Plus I'm a big geek. And I was determined to do whatever necessary to get the opportunity to help people make records. I interned and then worked at a studio called The Music Source in Seattle right after college, and then opened my own place with Stuart Hallerman in 1993. I did lots and lots of indie records. Things got too busy outside of Seattle after awhile and I sold the studio in 2000.

We have heard that you used to have a radio show. Tell us about that. Has that influenced the work you do now?

My experience with radio was via KAOS-FM on the campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington, which is a very unique place. It's community radio in every sense - from storytelling and spoken word to Hawaiian music. Lots and lots of alternative hippie crap. After 10 p.m. every night it went punk rock. Donna Dresch and I had back to back radio shows as well as playing in a band together and we would have live bands on the air pretty regularly - some touring acts and lots of local bands - one of which turned out to be Nirvana. At night it was radio anarchy. It was awesome. The underground was thriving while the rest of the world was celebrating hair bands and Phil Collins.

Your website features a number of striking close-ups of some classic recording gear (we saw a Roland RE-301 Space Echo among other things). Is this your studio? Tell us about some of your favorite analog equipment you've got there.

I sold my studio in Seattle a few years back because I was gone all the time, but I have quite a bit of gear that I bring with me for work. I'm addicted to these Ibanez AD202 analog delay lines. They're the closest thing to tape slap that I've found. I also have an AKG BX20 spring reverb that's like butter. If you need a big, long space, the digital stuff sounds like crap. That AKG was the main reverb at my studio forever. Also, Doug Messenger at Hard Drive studios in LA hooked me up with a Compex limiter for which I will be forever grateful. Most of my stuff, however is kind of basic. The older dbx stuff works great. I get to work in pretty great studios, so I'm spoiled with great mic pres, mics and a maintenance staff that can take good care of it. That's how you pick a studio: you look at their shop, and talk to the tech...

Where do you stand in the digital/analog divide? Are you mixing and matching between the two when you record and mix?

For the last couple of years I've been multi-tracking to Pro Tools HD at 88.2K/24bit. With the tape supply drying up and maintenance on machines getting spotty, it's been more reliable to stick with going straight to the computer (not to mention that it's cheaper and faster). A few years back I was printing to multitrack for the basic tracks and then bouncing in, but I've been finding that the 192's with soft limit work pretty well. I often still mix to half inch tape as well as digital, but lately it seems like the mastering guys are going with the digital source. On the last couple of things that I've done I've been using an Apogee Big Ben and distributing the clock, which seems to make going all digital less painful.

When you're working in the digital realm, what iZotope products have you been using and how have you been using them?

The first one was iDrum. Perfect. A cheap pattern based drum machine in software. One less box for me to carry around. Awesome, if only for a quick way to change the sound for the click track. Nothing worse than being stuck with the default metronome sound - and it's easy to quickly make a pattern that works better than just a straight click for the drummer. It's worth the price just for the samples!? Plus, it's great fun on long flights and you can easily run it alongside Pro Tools as well as Ableton Live. Ozone 3 is a godsend. Now I don't need my outboard unit to "fake master" the CD's that are going to the label. Another box I don't have to bring. It saved my ass recently when my gear was in L.A. and I was in Seattle and The Long Winters needed an instrumental mix of a song to be featured in the end credits on "The O.C." - and they needed uploaded to the mixing stage by 10 a.m. the next morning. And it needed to edit seamlessly into the mastered version from the album. And did I mention that it needed to be done by 10 the next morning? I pulled up the instrumental on my laptop and tweaked Ozone manually match the mastering process. Then I tried the auto EQ function to match the EQ curve to the mastered version from the LP...It worked flawlessly!

In the world of digital recording, what are some things that you'd like to see that aren't out there yet?

It's hard enough to keep up!? I love stuff that doesn't try to imitate an old thing, but that takes advantage of this new way of working. The interface needs to be clear and easy to manipulate. Also, lately I've been wanting some kind of digital version of test gear. Something to check as to whether everything is really doing what it says. Sometimes things are sounding different and you need to find out why...something for checking the integrity of the digital processes. Also, reasonably priced metering would be great. Something with an RTA, Phase scope, VU meter emulation and digital metering in a plug-in...

A number of your credits are in mixing. Tell our readers about what actually happens in a mixing session. Who is there and what kinds of decisions are being made? How do those decisions affect the song as we hear it on the record? How is a mixing session for Death Cab for Cutie different than a mixing session for say, the Wu-Tang Clan?

Lately a lot of mixing happens with no one around. Schedules get crazy, and budgets have already been spent - so then I'll mix with everyone getting files over email and putting in their two cents. That can be a bummer. If I've tracked the record then the band and I will all be on the same page at the end of the tracking and the mixing is just polishing it. Starting cold with someone over the internet is a different thing. I like to have the band around because I know that while I can make it sound great, there are a hundred decisions in every song that I would like to know what the artist thinks. Often, if they give me a rough mix I can figure out what they were going for, but sometimes you would never know that a little special something is buried in the track unless the guy who played it is in the room and asks to hear a little more of it. Plus, it's just more fun to have the band hanging around - most of the time, anyway.

Besides that, the job from artist to artist is procedurally pretty similar. Try to figure out what is exciting about the song and find a way to emphasize it. I'll start by sorting things out sonically. Get it sounding as good possible. Then if there are places where things get boring I'll look for a way to develop things, with an effect or by picking different elements to spotlight. With DCFC the instrumentation is something I'm very familiar with, so putting it together is pretty easy for me. With Wu-Tang, I had had a bit of history working on that kind of sample-based production, but it had been awhile. You are at the mercy of the sonics of the loop, so you spend your energy on that. You spend time re-enforcing elements with additional samples. Then you try all manner of EQ, compression, and side-chain tricks. Finally, you make sure that the voices sound awesome.

What attracts you to the bands you work with and what attracts them to you?

I'm always looking for the band that wants to push the envelope on the next record. Often I'm more interested in their ambition than their past releases. I'm always working, so it also becomes really important that they are decent people to be around personally. I don't want to spend my life with a bunch of jerks!

With Wu-Tang, how would you describe your experience working with the legendary RZA?

He was awesome. I have no idea how he keeps track of all of what goes into a Wu record. Each guy is a star in his own right, but RZA puts it all together. Clearly he's got the technology well in hand, but also has a real quick and natural way of working that makes it seem effortless. He's a heavy cat.

Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein said of you, "He is more interested in making a Sleater-Kinney record than making a John Goodmanson record, meaning he doesn't need to leave his imprint." There are a lot of producers out there that you couldn't say this about. How do you see your role as a producer when you're recording with a band?

I really believe in each record having it's own sound. I often say that it's a bad marketing plan - because I don't do the same thing every time out, but I'd get very bored of making records the same way all of the time. Hopefully, I can bring some experience from outside of what the band might have otherwise and make the project stronger for it. Too many people play it safe and don't trust their gut. They wind up doing the same things over and over again because it worked well for them in the past. If you do that, then you're not using each band's strengths to their best advantage. If I tried to make Sleater-Kinney sound like some other band it would have been disastrous.

Is there anything else you'd like to talk about that we haven't already covered or upcoming projects you'd like to plug?

Last year was great fun. I'm very proud of the records that I had the privilege of working on this past year: The Long Winters, The Blood Brothers, Mohair, Expatriate, and Sleeping at Last to name five. And I'm really excited about a new Autolux LP, which we'll be finishing in the beginning of '07...

To learn more about John's projects, visit www.johngoodmanson.com.