Chuck Ainlay (George Strait, Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler)

A pioneer in 5.1 surround sound, Chuck Ainlay’s acclaimed engineering career encompasses a diverse list of clients such as George Strait, Peter Frampton, and Dire Straits. He’s received multiple Grammy nominations and his long-standing collaboration with Mark Knopfler has resulted in two Dire Straits albums alongside credits on four of Knopfler’s multi-Platinum solo albums. Ainlay did the 20th-anniversary remix of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms.

Tell us about your current studio setup.

I have a home workspace that’s primarily intended for mixing, either stereo or immersive, that’s based around a Nuendo DAW and a Nuage controller.

I’m monitoring with ATC 25’s for stereo and JBL 708’s for immersive.

I have a ton of UA plugins and Waves, plus Massenburg DesignWorks and Lexicon, and I and use what’s necessary to get what I’m envisioning for the song I’m working on at that moment.

I also have a bunch of analog gear that is racked up and mobile, so I can work in the amazing studios that are here in Nashville and elsewhere. When mixing on an analog desk, I have a hybrid approach. But when mixing in the box, I generally don’t use any analog gear.

Having mixed and produced so many songs over the past few decades, how do you stay fresh and excited about making music every day?

I try to learn something new every time I begin a session. In general, I love making music and feel so lucky to get to do what I love to make a living.

How do you typically approach a mix: what's your process for setting it up? How often are you making big editing decisions in your mixing?

For the past number of years, most of what I work on are projects that I have a hand in producing. So the hardest thing about approaching a mix is trying to stay objective.

When I’m mixing something that has been handed over to me, I try to get an overview of the song and the weaknesses in the recording.

Then it’s about making that recording speak to me and create an emotional response. Edit decisions are made if necessary.

What's typically on your mix buss these days?

In the box, I’m generally mixing through an SSL compressor plugin, a Neve 33609 plugin, and finally a Steinberg Peak Limiter. The 33609 barely ever goes into gain reduction and the peak limiter only just catches a few overs during a song. What I send as a reference has additional gain using a Wave multi-band compressor and sometimes an Oxford Inflator.