Today, we are joined by the Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum-selling mix engineer Jeff Braun (Jason Aldean, Elle King, Nelly) as he shows us his current must-have pieces of kit and the plugins that never leave his chain.
From the Fearn VT7 Compressor and its ability to effortlessly unclog nasty mid-range frequency build-up to the Kirchhoff EQ, a natural, more musical sounding EQ that is an integral part of Jeff’s mixing workflow.
#NerdingOut is where we visit studios around the globe to ask producers, engineers and artists about their favorite tools of the trade.
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TRANSCRIPT
My favorite pieces of gear right now are the Fearn stuff, I’ve got the VT7 and then the VT5 is coming. They’re building it right now.
It’s like this intangible 3-5% percent that just feels like it kind of unclogs some like nasty mid range buildup effortlessly. You don’t have to do anything. It just, by nature of the tubes, it’s just kind of what happens.
So you get things to sit nicer together. It feels like things kind of have a little bit more depth and they’re not all in the same plane. So things just settle into like their own pockets and you don’t have to do anything. You just buy it and then run it through it. So that’s why I love it. I love pieces that make my life easier.
Other than that, I’m pretty much all in the box. So I would say the Kirchhoff EQ has got to be a big tool in my toolbox right now. If you A/B it to any similar EQs, it’s more musical, more natural, sounds tighter, not as bloated in the bottom.
You don’t hear as much ringing or resonance that can kind of get nasty in the top when you really start opening things up. It’s got a bunch of curve shapes that are super musical. And you have attack and release control on the dynamics section. It sounds incredible.
