Thiago Baggio (Paulo Novaes, Arthur Nogueira)
Thiago Baggio is a five times Latin Grammy Nominated recording and mixing engineer based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Having started as an Apprentice in 2010, he got his first big break as an assistant engineer in 2012 at the renowned studio Nacena. Since then he has worked in various prominent companies in the market and has participated in over a hundred projects recording and mixing music for numerous artists and record labels such as Sony and Universal, some of which brought him diverse nominations to the Latin Grammy Awards including one for Best Engineered Album and most recently the title of Best Engineer in the 5º Music Pro Award. Thiago is also a voting member in the Recording Academy, Latin Recording Academy and Audio Engineering Society; member of the team of artists by Arturia, collaborates with other brands such as Sonimus, Process.Audio and Focusrite; and performs as a self-employed professional recording and mixing for several productions in different styles.
Tell us about your studio setup.
My current setup is completely in-the-box for now. I try to reach the most finished sound during the recording process using analog gear but I mix completely in-the-box mainly because I’m always traveling and working in different places and it’s much more practical to be able to open up my mixes anywhere if needed.
That said, I use Neumann KH310 monitors, an SPL Control 2, Antelope Orion 32 AD-DA Converters and Pro Tools. I have a great variety of plugins and I try to always experiment with new ones.
Having worked on so many songs over the past few years, how do you stay fresh and excited about mixing music these days?
When I feel I’m stuck in the same process, techniques, or even if I realize that I’m not doing anything very different from the other engineers, then I’ll go and look for other paths and ways to do my work. That’s when things get more interesting and challenging at the same time.
With the easy access to online information and the increase of online courses, many people simply copy other people and that’s ok, but I really try to always find my way of doing things.
I really am addicted to studying, so there’s always something new to experiment with in order to create my own style.
How do you typically approach the mixing of a song?
I start by preparing all the songs that I have to mix in a project beforehand so that I can only focus all my energy on being creative and mixing, instead of stopping every five minutes to fix problems which completely kills my flow.
I do have a template to ease things up, keep me organized and remember what effects I like to use, or would like to experiment with. Maybe I learned something new I would like to try next time so I add that to my template in order to remember that next time I open a new project. It’s very handy.
I usually take a song per day and send the mixes to my clients as I finish them. Whilst waiting for their notes I keep on mixing the next song and so on. It’s quite simple actually.
The important part of the job is communication before and during the project. Making sure every detail is aligned before starting a project can avoid a lot of trouble or having to re-do the work.
Having a rough mix to A/B is very important to me because I want to know what the client has been listening to and how attached he/she is to it. Maybe he/she took three days to make the song or maybe he/she took three years, you never know.
So that’s a very nice way to know how far I can go or if I just simply need to match and improve that rough mix sent to me. I also have a few commercial releases mixed and mastered by other professionals ready to use as a reference if needed. That all is routed to my SPL Control 2 and available at the click of a button for easy access.