Karen Kosowski
How do you handle creative disagreements in a session with artists and players?
Trust makes a session go well, whether you’re writing or recording, and it’s important to the creative flow to make sure the artist and the players feel heard. I know what it’s like to creatively shut down… if you feel like other people aren’t being receptive or trying to be collaborative, it can really disrupt the flow of a session. I still guide things in a way they should go - but if someone has an idea and feels passionate about it, I think it’s important to try that out and if it’s a bad idea, often it becomes obvious and it’s not up to me necessarily to say, “that was shit” haha - everyone kind of knows. Being collaborative, trying ideas, figuring out if they work, or not is more conducive to the overall creativity of the room and making sure that everyone feels like they can be inspired and get ideas. I don't want anyone to ever feel like they are ever shutting down creatively inside, because they feel like they can’t get their ideas out. Everyone loses then. I think it’s a win if you try stuff. It’s kind of like improv comedy. They say when you’re doing improv and someone says ‘here’s the banana’ you’re not supposed to say, ‘that’s not a banana”, you say, ‘thank you for the banana” and what that does is it keeps the flow going. So, at the end of the day, whatever keeps the flow going is really important.
While recording have you ever worked with artists or players who are too stubborn or bossy to listen to other people’s creative input?
For sure, I’ve definitely worked with artists who have strong opinions about their work, which can be a really good thing because they know what they want and what they don’t want and you’re able to see and understand their artistic vision. But it’s important for them to also be open and those are the artists who see greater success because they are able to incorporate other people’s talents and contributions with their own to support their ideas.
How would you describe your mixing style today and how has it evolved since you first started?
As far as my mixing style, I’ve always mixed in Logic Pro and mainly in-the-box, but what’s changed is that I’ve probably gotten quicker at getting where I want to get to- I probably have more self confidence in it than I did when I was starting out. Being self-taught, starting out I leaned a lot on presets, but now I have a lot more knowledge and experience and can trust my ears to dial things in and experiment. But again, depending on the record - if I’m going for something stylistically very different - sometimes it can really feel like I’m starting all over again. For example, I just did a Christmas record for Mickey Guyton - we really wanted to capture that nostalgic, classic “Home Alone” soundtrack meets Mariah Carey vibe- the songs that just immediately feel like Christmas when you hear them. Mix-wise, I really wanted to delve into some styles of tonal shaping that are different than my usual go-to’s… so I went on deep internet dives and researched a bunch of stuff for inspiration, and it was so much fun! I didn’t rebuild my mix template from the ground up, but I definitely incorporated a few new techniques and got into a few new plugins that I hadn’t explored before… which are carrying over into other projects now as well. I guess it’s an ever-evolving journey. But at the end of the day what hasn’t changed is that it’s still a creative thing, and we all know the creative process. “This is great, no it’s not - I suck - this is great!” haha the highs and lows.
When you’re working on a mix how do you balance the emotional / artistic side of the music with the technical side of engineering?
That can be hard, that can be really hard. Sometimes emotionally what I like to hear needs some tweaking from a technical standpoint. It’s also easy to go down that technical rabbit hole and start to drive past the house, emotionally. Taking breaks, stepping away from it, actually is one of the biggest tools to try to reconnect emotionally with something that I may have been crafting for a long period of time. Taking it out into the real world - where people are really listening to it as opposed to the sterile environment of my studio - works great to get a reality check! I’ll listen to it while driving around town, or throw it on while I’m doing something around the house, see how it hits me. Is it hitting me emotionally or is there something technical that is getting in the way of it? You try to keep that balance.
What are your thoughts on all of the attention surrounding women producers?
I think we are figuring it out as a society and as an industry. I just have to roll with it the best I can. I try to be cognizant of the fact that I never want to make it my identity and I never want to make it seem like that is the focus. You can’t have change without first drawing attention to an issue, so I understand and appreciate the efforts that are being made…and over time as more women get into producing, it will gradually become less necessary. Because in my opinion, the most useful and progressive thing is to be treated like any other producer.
What is your favorite studio/room to record drums in?
The room matters, but for me it’s less about the room and more about the people. I do a tracking sessions with David Kalmusky engineering. We’ve worked together for many years and he really knows what I’m going for. We’ve been doing a lot of work at Curb 43, he brings over some of his racks of gear - so we sort of do a hybrid situation there and I’ve been really happy with what we have been getting. However I think it’s as much about the drummer as anything else. When I get back to my own studio and I’m working with the tracks - It can be really different dialing in parts that may have been tracked in the same room, similar mic’ing situations, but with different players… the source is as important.
We also got great drum sounds out of David’s own mix room. We did a session - it was like an emergency session - back in January of this year. It was for Mickey Guyton. It was kind of a special situation because we needed to cut a cover version of a Ringo Starr song and we were on a deadline for release. So it was a big rush, first week of January and we were trying to find a studio to get into to cut this song. And, nothing was available. David suggested we could just set up in his mix room - the drum kit was right by the console. We squeezed the band in, we were all on headphones. And it worked out great! It was a smaller band, so we were still able to isolate amps and it just worked out, it was great - I was really happy with it. You just never know. Sometimes you just have to be creative.
Yeah, that is also the fun part too - when it isn’t just the standard ‘go-to’s” when recording…
Yeah, and I believe that some of the spirit of what we recorded captured the fact that it was such an unusual scenario… we came in late in the evening, trying to squeeze it in before the a snow storm started, and it was so fun to all be in the room jamming together, that everyone was like OK! We are making this work! A great vibe. It felt like we were just making music in a way that it doesn’t feel like when there is a glass between you and the tracking room. We were all just in the room together and it had special magic.