Mix engineer and educator Joseph Chudyk chooses Focusrite RedNet components
When mix engineer and educator Joseph Chudyk first tried the Focusrite RedNet A16R, he knew instantly he had to upgrade the setup at his private studio in Rochester, NY. “The moment I hooked the A16R up and heard the conversion out of the speakers, I was sold—the sound quality was much better than what I had been using previously,” he says. The RedNet A16R offers 16x16 analog I/O to a Dante® network, providing superior performance and integration.
Outside of teaching recording at Nazareth College in Rochester, Joseph’s impressive credits include mixing immersive versions of hits by Kane Brown, Mitchell Tenpenny, Elle King, and Miranda Lambert.
Joseph reconfigured his home-based mix room for immersive work shortly after Apple Music announced the launch of its Spatial Audio platform. However, he had been battling some shortcomings in his converter system. When Focusrite Group offered to send him a unit to evaluate, Joseph made the switch, integrating three RedNet A16R units into his Dante-based studio setup. These units handle conversion between his DAW and outboard analog gear and interface seamlessly with his stereo and Dolby Atmos monitor systems.
“My whole studio is Dante-networked, so the ease of use of the A16R MkII over Dante helped as well, compared to my previous device,” says Joseph, who mixes both stereo and immersive projects. “At that point, I was starting to incorporate a little more analog hardware, so the ability to put the converter where the gear was, run a very short cable to the gear, then just run one Ethernet cable to another Focusrite unit or directly into my computer was a big sell for me.” He has since added a RedNetPCIeNX card, supporting 128x128 channels and upgradeable to 256x256, to his computer.
Reconfiguring his previous system often meant fiddling with software or rebooting his computer, but with the Focusrite units, Joseph notes, “You plug them in, and the channel count just keeps going up. There’s no configuration necessary. It doesn’t matter which device is first or second. They’revery simple to use, and they’re reliable. They always work; never once have I had an issue with any of them. I can even unplug my computer, take it into another room and plug it back in. All the units just reconnect without having to restart any application. I could not do that with any other piece of hardware.”
Joseph’s outboard processing racks, packed with a range of analog devices including DW Fearn tube equalizers and a Fairchild 670 compressor, have become essential to his immersive mixing workflow. “EQ and compression are like panning for me,” he explains. “They give 3D movement. It’s the same with stereo mixing. If you want to pull something forward, back, or higher or lower, you can do that with EQ, saturation, and compression. So, I’ve taken that same approach to Atmos.”
On a recent spatial audio mix, he elaborates, “I switched in my two beautiful DW Fearn tube EQs and the vocal went from sounding far away in the room to being pulled forward without changing any panning position. Just the right color for a vocal can pull it forward. One panning move can totally screw the whole mix up for translation between platforms, but an EQ is going to keep the mix consistent. If I boost a certain frequency on the vocal it's going to do the same thing in Spatial Audio, Dolby or Tidal.”
Joeseph does still pan to position elements, however, “I’ve found a template for where the vocals should be, panning-wise, that’s not too drastic and sounds great on all the platforms; same with the guitars and everything else. My panning is always set, and then I’ll play with a few little objects for movement if I need it. But where I really dive in, to move things forward and back, is with EQ and compression.”
Much of his immersive mixing focus has been on country music, thanks to connections through his Nashville-based manager, Dane Schmidt, who works with his brother, producer and songwriter Jordan Schmidt, and mixer Jeff Braun. “Jeff does the stereo mix and I work on the Atmos; we have a great little team,” says Joseph.
One of the first songs Joseph mixed for immersive release was Kane Brown’s “One Mississippi,” which achieved RIAA-certified Platinum status. “One of my favorite mixes I’ve ever done was Elle King and Miranda Lambert's ‘Drunk (And I Don't Want to Go Home).’ That just so happened to work really well in Atmos,” he says. “When you flip between the stereo and the Atmos, the Atmos almost sounds more open just due to the arrangement of the elements in the mix. I’m super proud of the mix, not even considering how popular that song was!” His extensive credit list also includes Teddy Swims, Ghost, IDK, Newsboys, MxPx, Nathaniel Rateliff, Joe Pug, and The National Reserve.
Joeseph also uses his Focusrite RedNet converters with monitor control software to manage his separate stereo and immersive speaker systems. “I can switch between speakers and headphones. Then, in combination with that, I can switch between the stereo master reference, the 2.0 re-render, the Spatial Audio and the binaural. I can even have the Spatial Audio playback on speakers if I want to. I can hear the full range of what a mix will sound like and can make some different decisions based on that versus just using headphones.”