Shane Anderson

Recording Connection Mentor Shane Anderson On Hiring, Working With Talent, And Launching W.O.M.P VST!

Recording Connection mentor Shane Anderson

Recording Connection mentor Shane Anderson is committed to providing musicians with the environment, professionalism, and music production expertise they need to realize their vision and make their art. He’s also an avid believer in learning audio and growing the skills, awareness, and etiquette it takes to succeed in music through hands-on, in-industry education. We recently caught up with Shane at the helm of Unique Recording Studios, located in Sacramento County, CA, to get his insights on working with artists in-studio, find out why he made the choice to hire his former student extern Collin Jacka, and about launching a new VST, W.O.M.P!

What got you into audio in the first place?

“When I was about 13, I signed my first demo deal doing demo vocals for a hip hop label. So I was doing a bunch of demo vocals and I was on the other side of the glass recording vocals, and I was always thinking as a teenager how cool it is that the guy on the other side of the glass was like the rock star. He was the dude that was always making magic. So at a very young age I was like, ‘That’s so dope. I want to learn that.’”

How would you describe what you do? What various hats do you wear?

“I’m a recording artist, mixing engineer, producer, and songwriter. I do the gamut of everything.”

How do you go from playing the role of recording engineer for a band that just wants to get a song laid down, to being a full-fledged music producer in which different skills are being asked of you?

“When the bands come in here and they record, the biggest thing that I really focus on is I want to always make sure that I’m honoring their art. So if I’m just recording them and I’m not putting in so much of my input and [I’m focused] more so on getting the best sounding recording, so it’s a different direction. Whereas, as a producer you’re helping achieve that art through the process of giving them pointers, and you’re influencing the direction…A lot of times what happens with new engineers is they try to input too much into the art of the client, whereas the client is trying to make their art, and we have to elevate their art.”

If the audio engineer or music producer has a big ego or is very self-centered, can that detract from the session?

“That’s a big thing, understanding and being mindful of the fact that every artist is unique and has their personality. When they’re in the room, they’re the most important person in the room…you’re the magician, you are, you’re the rock star behind the glass, yes, but if the artist doesn’t think they’re the rock star, the artist doesn’t think that they’re the artist, then their performance diminishes. So sometimes as crazy as it might sound, sometimes we have to feed into that ego for the artist to get the best out of them…The artist is the person of the day. They’re the ones you’ve got to put all that effort into making sure that they shine. Your actions should always speak volumes so you won’t have to put the glitter on you. Your shine is when they’re sitting there behind you smiling, dancing, happy about their song.”

Why do you choose to mentor for Recording Connection?

“I look at the Recording Connection as a new way to encourage students with one-on-one training. So a lot of times in a classroom setting, I know this from first experience just being a student in high school, you can have someone telling you, ‘Hey, you need to do this, you need to do that,’ but it’s that one-on-one mentoring that’s really, really important. It’s critical I think, because you’re getting one-on-one time with someone who’s been in the industry, who knows how to guide you, and is not going to just tell to a group of people, ‘This is how you do X or this is how you do Y.’ You’re actually in there, hands on, in the trenches, learning the ups and downs of recording. You’re learning everything about the process and what it takes to get to the next level.”

What made you decide to hire your former extern Collin Jacka?

Collin Jacka and Shane Anderson

“So Colin, the main reason why I hired him was because of his work ethic. He came in, he was positive, he wanted to learn, he wanted to be a part of something, and not just be a part of it for the recognition of being in a studio. He actually wanted to know the details of why a compressor works. He wanted to know the details of why we should EQ a certain way and why to organize files the way that we do here at Unique Recording Studios… So all of that he really took notice of and he really wanted to be part of something 

with a work ethic and not just go like, ‘Oh, I just want to get hired by a studio.’

…Most people that are in the industry, time and time again, it’s going to be the people that show up, the people that actually are committed to learning the craft, and that’s what is the most important, because a lot of people get into the music industry to be rock stars. And they get in for the wrong reasons, like, oh, I’m going to go make money doing this.

Money comes, but it’s really hard work. So people don’t understand that part of it, and with Colin, he understood. Everything that I was speaking on, he was writing down. He must have, like seven, eight, nine, 10 composition books full of notes.”

Do you think it’s a good idea for students to have their own projects they’re working on at home and on their own time?

“Absolutely. I think that it would be a problem if people didn’t. I think the more you know, the more you grow, right? So the more you’re working at home, the more you’re focused on your craft, the better you can be. Then when you’re learning stuff in the program, then you can go home and apply those things you’ve learned in a home setting and really dive-in deep and take what you’ve learned and progress to the next step.”

Switching gears a bit, why did you decide to make a new VST with so many other options out there already?

“As a producer I know the feeling of scanning through endless preset after preset on numerous VST’S to find that one sound that works…but then still feeling like stock presets don’t give it that feel and vibe so I then end up spending the time tweaking the original sounds to arrive at a sound I am happy with. Being in the industry you have to be efficient and able to produce and arrive at decisions quickly…time and creating trends don’t wait for you. You want to have radio ready quality sounds at your disposal with the click of a button. I decided to change the playing field a little bit by creating W.O.M.P 

(Weapons of Mass Production).”

Why is W.O.M.P different from other VST’S? What does it sound like?

“The Vibe! It’s just a different animal…but to start…W.O.M.P is 100% original no copied sounds no gimmicks. All sounds have been recorded, processed in house @ Unique Recording Studios through an analog chain process to include console saturation, gain staging, compression, eq, effects and various saturation circuits with a little bit of magic dust… Every sound is rich and harmonic and vibey…We are not trying to be the PRETTY & CLEAN VST! We are all about creating a VIBE and FEEL. We have all the flexibility like the other VST’s but it’s our sounds that make the difference. I wanted to create a VST where you would just load a preset and you have the VIBE loaded and ready to create your next hit! In our totally biased opinion we also think the VST is sexy and cool to look at! take that you other dull uncool VST’s!”

How were the sounds made? What inspired the process?

“We spent over 400 hours in R&D to make sure that this VST brought something special to the table. I also am a big opponent to following rules. Rules are meant to be broken in the music industry. This directly impacted the sound of W.O.M.P. an example of this is we recorded a drum hit by recording a playground slide being hit from the bottom of the slide with my hand. We then pitched it down, removed the attack and release of the sound itself providing a tighter thump sound, we then processed it with some console saturation, eq and compression and that magic dust and created from this process a banging kick! We did this with over 700 sounds to create W.O.M.P – All original All VIBE!”

“With 700 sounds… this must take up a ton of memory and hard drive space?”

Nope! We will leave that up to the other VST development companies. We wanted to create a VST that was not going to slow down and kill the VIBE! There is nothing more frustrating than having to wait for a 3-4 GB piano sample to load in the middle of creating a hit record. We wanted this VST to be the producers/music creators main tool for creating music when inspiration strikes so we wanted the sounds to be high quality but also be able to run multiple instances of them at once. More important to us is allowing creativity to flow!

“Will this work on MAC/PC and on any DAW?”

W.O.M.P VST will work on both MAC/PC across all DAW’S. Again we wanted to create a VST that was the go-to for every producer. We don’t discriminate over here. It does not matter what DAW you use…for us whats important is using the tools and workflow that helps you create your art efficiently. W.O.M.P is the missing piece in that workflow.

“What’s the deal with the BIG KNOBS?”

Inspiration is what those BIG KNOBS are about! We created over 40+ combos at Unique Recording Studios that just had a vibe and meshed well together…We then wanted to help create unique sounds that the end user could manipulate them as they see fit Just another way of helping you create your ART!

“I’m Sold! So what is this going to cost me? When will it be available?”

We wanted this VST to be affordable for everybody from the bedroom producer to the industry veteran. This amazing VST is going to cost only $124.99 with expansion packs costing $39.99 as they roll out.