People & Music Industry

Manon Grandjean is a freelance Mix Engineer who has previously won three Music Producers Guild awards. In 2023 she's nominated for Mix Engineer Of The Year for her work with artists Flo, Fyfe & Iskra Strings and Milk & Bone.

Now in their 15th year, the MPG Awards celebrate the best British talent working behind the scenes in the music industry. The winners are announced at the MPG Awards on 27th April 2023.
Music Producers Guild

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:37 - Specialising As A Mix Engineer
01:49 - Mixing External Projects
02:39 - Having A Distinctive Sound
03:42 - Combining Outboard With In-The-Box
05:36 - Improving An Existing Mix
06:10 - Mastering Your Own Mixes
07:55 - Nominated Projects
10:06 - Working In Different Genres
11:22 - Following Music Trends
12:20 - Developing As A Engineer

Manon Grandjean Biog

Manon Grandjean is a French award-winning engineer and mixer based in London.

Manon has been building up her career in the music industry for the past 13 years, working initially freelance in renowned studios across London, and then for multi award winning songwriter/producer Fraser T Smith. During their 5 year partnership, Manon has worked on Brit winning and chart topping albums such as Stormzy’s 'Gang Signs & Prayer' and Dave’s 'Psychodrama'.

In 2017, Manon received the award for  MPG Breakthrough Engineer Of The Year at the prestigious Music Producer Guild awards, and went on to receive the award for MPG Engineer Of The Year in 2018.

Since 2020, Manon is freelance mixing and mastering in her studio at The Qube in London, working with a wide range of artists across genres such as AJ Tracey, Nao, Flo, Cat Burns, Fredo.. and had the honour to receive the award for MPG Mix Engineer of The Year in 2022.

So far Manon has been involved in 6 UK number 1s and 17 top 10s.

https://www.manongrandjean.com/

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

https://www.soundonsound.com

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

Creators and Guests

Host
Sam Inglis
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

What is People & Music Industry?

Welcome to the Sound On Sound People & Music Industry podcast channel. Listen to experts in the field, company founders, equipment designers, engineers, producers and educators.

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Sam Inglis
Hello and welcome to the sound on sound people and music industry podcast with me, Sam Ingalls. In this episode, I'm talking to some of the people who've been nominated at the 2023 Music Producers Guild Awards. My next guest is no stranger to winning MPG Awards. She's already won three of them, starting with Breakthrough Engineer of the Year. She then won Recording Engineer of the Year. And last year, she was Mix Engineer of the Year. She's been nominated in that category again. It's a pleasure to welcome Manon Grandjean. It almost feels as though we can follow your career path through these awards that you're winning because you started out as a recording engineer But now I mean, this is the second year in a row you're up for a mix engineer of the year Are you now a specialist mix engineer?

Manon Grandjean
Yes. So I was a recording engineer for about 10 years I mean I started as an assistant. Obviously, I wasn't a recording engineer straight away, but I started, I worked my way up from being a runner and assistant and then, and then an engineer in commercial studios. And then since 2020, I, I decided to, um, go full time mixing. So I wanted to focus on mixing. And I think there were a few parameters like COVID and all that, that kind of swayed my decision as well, because obviously We couldn't really go into studios anymore.

And so, so I could work from home and do all that. So it was not a good time, but it was the time to kind of switch to mixing. And I always wanted to go a bit deeper into mixing as well. I did mix before, but not fully. Like all the time I was maybe mixing 20 percent of the time and engineering maybe 80 percent and since 2020 I was like, that's it, I'm fully mixing now, this is what I'm doing, and I'm mixing and mastering.

So is it very different, a different experience for you working as a mix engineer on material that you haven't done before? Recorded yourself. It suddenly arrives. You get this multi track and you've got to make sense of it. Yeah, it is. It is very different Before I was mixing only Projects that I recorded so I knew And and we usually used to mix as we go along in the you know in the recording process So it wasn't There wasn't as many surprises.

Um, but now, yeah, now it's, it's only, um, external projects that I'm getting. So I didn't have anything to do with the recording. So, so it's just, it's just a new challenge, but most of the time things are nicely recorded and there's, there isn't too many problems to solve. And it's just getting the, the project to sound the best that it can be.

And do you think people come to you to mix because they perceive that you have a distinctive sound? Um, I think so, yeah. I do think that I have a sound because of projects that I've worked on, and I think a lot of projects come to me for that sound. And, and I also mix quite a wide genre of music. You know, it can be from, you know, rap or grime to indie to pop.

So even across the genres, there is still a sound there that sometimes people want and come to me for that. Definitely. Is that something that you consciously do, or is it just that somehow everything that you touch ends up having that sound almost unconsciously? Well, I, I'm always trying to, to adapt to what the song and the project needs.

Um, so I'm not trying intentionally to put my sound on it, but I think, unconsciously, it just With with the way I work in my taste as well like how I want things to sound it just goes through Into that project and are you mixing in the box or do you use a console and outboard? So I'm a bit of a hybrid.

I used to have a couple of bits of outboard Um, which I don't have anymore, but I still have the, the Mac DSP APB. What I've got two, so 16, which is, which is analog because of the technology. It is really, it's great for workflow when you're working in the box because it's, it's controlled on your door. So it's very transparent in, you don't have to patch anything up and recall anything.

So it's, it's great to keep a little bit of analog in. In being all in the box. Otherwise, everything else is in the box. Yeah, the MICDSP APB, for those that aren't familiar with it, is an amazing unit. Um, it's an entirely configurable analog processing box that you address. I mean, it is analog, so it doesn't, it's not like it feels like analog, but in the way, you know, when you tweak the, the, the plugin interface, the way it reacts, it really reacts like analog, which is, which is great.

Yeah, absolutely. And do you think the sort of heritage of working with analog is carried over into your working methods? I mean, do you still mix primarily with faders or do you do it in a more sort of a different approach? That's more DAW? Yeah, it's just. Because I come from a recording background, when I used to, to record, I used to mix, I barely look at the fader page in the, in the DAW, so I never look at that.

So it's all, I'm always looking at the, the, the, the arrangement page. And I do all my tweaks and my levels in, in there. And I think it comes from being a recording engineer. So you have to always have to keep an eye on what's going on in the song and where you are in, in the levels and, and all that. So I think I've took that on, you know, when, when mixing.

So, so I wouldn't say that it's the conventional way of mixing, but whatever, I think whatever works for you is. Is whatever works. And when people hire you to mix, are they usually looking for you just to sort of make the rough mix, but a bit better, or are they looking for something a bit more radical?

Usually it's, it's the rough mix, but better. Nowadays, it's, it's really, really rare that someone wants something radically different from the ref mix or the production mix. It's really, really rare. And you've talked also about mastering as well as mixing. Um, I mean, that's historically quite unusual for a mix engineer to master their own mixes.

What are the pros and cons of that? I think it's always great to have someone else. Perspective and ears on your mix and the plus side is that there is a pair of fresh ears, but then the the the downside is that sometimes they will do things that you maybe don't like, or you know, it's. It doesn't suit the track.

And sometimes the artist is like, what I preferred your limited mix then, then the actual master. So it's, it's a, it's a tricky one. I think I definitely feel like when it's a whole project. It's invaluable to have someone overview, you know, the whole, all the tracks, if they've been mixed by different people, uh, or even if they've been mixed by the same person, but just to have the, the last overview of to tie everything up.

But, but now, When I send, obviously, when I send mixes for approval, like every mixer, they are, they are at the master level. They are limited. We have a mastering chain already on the mix. So sometimes you're like, well, I love this. So it's like, well, what would we, that's it? That's mix and master. What would, what would we change it if?

If they love it as, as it is now. So you don't do a separate kind of mastering session where you take all the files and then process them again? If it is more than one track, yes. But if it's, if it's only like an individual track that I'm, that I'm doing only one track for that artist, then, then I would do, I would do it all in the same session.

That makes sense. So tell us a little bit about the projects for which you're nominated for the MPG Award this year. It's always difficult to choose, um, you know, which one to, to put forward, because there's been, there's been great, great projects this year. But I've put four words below. Which is a girl band, and they've won the Rising Star Brit Award this year.

Uh, they're really great, and it's R& B, and it's, you know, Destiny's Child kind of vibe, but more modern. And I really loved working with them on their, they did, they had an EP. So there was one project that I put forward, and I did put another track by a duo called Milk and Bone, which, they're from Canada, and it's, it's very sort of ethereal, vocal, indie type music, and, and I loved, I've done whole albums, and that's, I really enjoyed working on that, and they, they have two very distinct voices which work really well together.

So I wanted to have a different, like a different genre in terms of like projects that I was submitting. And then the last one was an artist called Fife is also a producer and is collaborating with a string arranger called Iskra Strings. And it's, it's a very sort of orchestral indie sound, which also like very different from the other two projects.

Really beautiful. So I wanted to put that, put that forward as well. So really showcasing a wide range of stuff there. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's, that's what, that's what I wanted to do. And that's what I did last year as well with, I did submit like some, some rap and. Some, you know, R& B and then the other one was kind of Swedish kind of pop, a bit like left pop, which was really, you know, really different as well.

So, so yeah, cause that was my thinking, um, submitting and I loved working on those three projects. I mean, I do love all projects, but, uh, Five album was, was the album, Milk and Bone was the album as well. So I mixed the whole album and mastered the whole album as well for Milk and Bone. It does feel as though at the moment we're in a time when pop music is quite exciting and there's a lot of, you can be quite experimental within the sphere of pop music.

Absolutely, yeah. And that must be a lot of fun for you. For me, it's great to keep that variety of music. I never wanted to, you know, to be doing only one genre, because I think I would, I would get bored, but, um, but I'm, I'm always, I'm, I'm very grateful, obviously, but yeah, to, to keep it varied for me is, it's great because I can apply some things that I've done in one project that, you know, that you would never think would work in on the rap song and oh, actually that kind of works.

And, and it's, it's what I've learned actually, when I was working with, um, Fraser Dismiss on, on Stormzy's album that we, we kind of approached the mix as, not as a grime mix, but as a pop mix. And I think that made that, that kind of gives like a new sound to the genre, I think on that, on his first album, um, which is now a bit more like grime artist or rap artist.

They want that sound a bit more. I don't really, you know, present vocals, right. They don't want that underground sound anymore. Maybe some of them, but so how is it how important is it for you to as it were keep your ear to the ground in terms of trends from underground music that are coming up and you listen out for things and think, okay, I see there's a trend there and people are doing this.

Do you need to stay on top of that? I definitely need to keep on top of what's going on. Yeah, definitely. And, and I regularly obviously listen to music, but also. Listen to mixes that I, that I like and what they've, you know, what they've been doing recently and what they're working on and the sound they've got.

And I think everyone's, everyone's sound evolves anyway all the time. But I think, you know, when I look at those very successful mixers, you know, in America or even over here, then you can hear what, what they're doing. Like, okay. I think that's, that's what's kind of. In at the moment in terms of mixing, you know, and I'm trying, trying to, to get into, you know, emulate what, what they, what they doing.

Uh, at the same time, I'm sure there are quite a few of them who are listening to Manon Grandjean mixes and thinking, ah, I want to get it to sound like that. I mean, we always, we like, I think it's, it's, it's natural to, to look at other people's work and be like, okay, cool. Like trying to figure out what they doing and, and especially things that you like the sound of then.

You know, doing a bit of research on, you know, what's been used and, and techniques and stuff, I think it's, it's very, it's very natural to, to do that. And it's, it, I think you have to always learn, you never, if you kind of stay set in, in the way you work, then it's. It can work for a few years, but then after that kind of the work will probably die down a bit So you always have to keep on top of things and and kind of evolve and reinvent yourself a bit Yeah, absolutely well I mean the fact that you've already won three mpg awards and you're nominated for another would suggest that you're getting that right and Congratulations and best of luck on the night.

Um, it's been amazing to talk to you. And yeah, I hope to see you at the awards Yeah, yeah, absolutely Absolutely. I think it would be a good night. And, and, you know, even I'm just happy to be, to be there. And, you know, if, if I win great, but if I don't have, I feel like the recognition of, of my work is, is already a win for me.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us, Manon Grandjean. Thank you. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Oh, and just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound.

com forward slash podcasts website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.