Guy Massey (The Beatles, Ray Davies, Spiritualized)

Guy Massey is a Grammy and multi-Award-winning producer and mixer. He has a long history with Abbey Road Studios and is now based in his own Mix Room in North London. Massey has worked with The Beatles, Paul Simon, Ed Sheeran, Manic Street Preachers, Ray Davies, and Bill Fay, amongst others. Recent credits include an eclectic mix of Spiritualized, The Divine Comedy, Rocket Man, and Yesterday movies, Kylie Minogue, Michael Price, and McFly.

Tell us about your studio setup.

My rig comprises of Pro Tools Ultimate with analog gear including Dangerous, Al Smart, Thermionic Culture, Shadow Hills, and Overstayer Industries. My monitors are Unity Audio and Neumann. My go-to plugins include UA, Waves, Fabfilter, and Soundtoys.

Having worked on so many songs over the past few years, how do you stay fresh and excited about producing music these days?

I constantly listen to new artists and never tie myself down to one particular way of working. I never use templates when mixing.

How do you typically approach the producing of a song?

I listen to the song a few times whilst setting up my sessions and will ask the artist for any references I should listen to. I generally start from the bottom first. So I will get the drums and bass working together whilst checking all the other parts too to get an idea of how I’m gonna pan and FX tracks.

I always get a good vocal vibe going very early. Depending on what the style is, I’ll mix into an analog mix chain and then into Pro Tools with further processing there if needed.

Once I’m getting a good vibe, I’ll listen at home in the evening and in the morning, then once or twice on the way to work and make notes to fix the mix.