Mixer and engineer Tobin Jones knew he wanted to work in the recording industry from an early age. “When I was a kid, I would look at the back of my dad’s records,” he remembers. “I’d see people’s names: assistants, runners, all sorts. And I thought: ‘At some point I will be able to pull a record that I really love off the shelf, and — however small — I will have been involved in some way.’ That was my only real aspiration.” Sure enough, he soon began recording rappers in his bedroom, before moving on to assistant and technician jobs wherever he could find them. Fast‑forward to the present, and Jones has worked with a raft of boundary‑pushing artists from electronic powerhouse Powell to Japanese psych‑rockers Bo Ningen.
At the moment I can’t stop listening to…
You just want one? A record I’m really enjoying at the moment is by Party Dozen, Crime In Australia. They’re Aussies. It’s a two piece: drums and sax. It’s really cool. Like, vocals going through the horn so she’s playing through loads of effects and things. And that’s where the vocals come from. It’s all quite rough and ready but it’s really vibey, really intense. It’s quite unique, but also kind of familiar at the same time, really energetic. I would definitely recommend seeing them live! I think Nick Cave did the vocals for a track on one of their last albums.
The other one I’m listening to is much heavier than I would normally go for, a band called Sumac; their album The Healer. It’s only got four tracks and I think it’s over 60 minutes long! It’s got some elements of free jazz mixed with, like, heavier stoner‑y doom metal. From what I can tell, it’s pretty much all recorded live — maybe with some overdubs. It’s heavy, but not in a way that I would describe as metal heavy. It’s tonally heavy. It’s absolutely amazing.
The artist I’d most like to record
There are probably quite a few. One that springs to mind, just because I think she is like an incredible artist and very interesting, is Tanya Tagaq. She’s a Canadian Inuk throat singer, from northern Canada — well within the Arctic Circle. And she does a lot of throat singing, but mixed with electronics and brass. It’s absolutely incredible. I’ve never heard anything like it. She’s extremely creative with it. She’s amalgamating this experimental electronic music with band music, and mixing that with this incredible throat singing... and she’s got a conventionally beautiful singing voice as well! She’ll go from very high sung notes into this amazing drone that goes on in her throat. I also find her book Split Tooth very inspiring. It’s sort of semi‑biographical, but also quite dreamy. I find her very inspiring, I think she’s an artist who is doing something completely different to anyone else. When I hear people making music that doesn’t sound like anything else, something that I really don’t understand, it makes me want to know why. And it makes me really want to get behind it.
The first thing I look for in a studio
For me, the number one thing I’m asking is: how do I feel when I walk in here? Is this somewhere that I would like to make music, or would like to be with someone else making music? Is it going to inspire people to make music? Does it feel comfortable? It’s all about the atmosphere. There are of course go‑tos that I like to use, in terms of equipment. But to be honest with you, if a studio that had the right feel didn’t have any of that equipment, I could just hire it in, you know? But the thing that I can’t get from anywhere else is how the environment makes you feel. And that might change for different records: like, some records might really suit being made out in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere, away from people, with beautiful vistas and things like that. And other times I’ve made records which are really dirty records, where we’ve been in, like, a basement, almost in a squat, and that has become a whole part of the record.
I will say, I also like to know if the people who are running the studio are decent people. That’s very important. There are a lot of studios run by people who I might not describe as decent. But when it comes to what I look for inside the studio, the environment has a really big impact on creativity. And surely the most important thing is to create. I suppose if there was one thing tied to that, equipment‑wise, it would be the question of, ‘What is unique here? What is here that I have never seen anywhere before? What’s this? What’s the history behind it?’ Those kind of things, I think, really help make a place.
The person I would consider my mentor
I don’t think I’ve ever had a real mentor, as such. I guess Jim Anderson was a big mentor for me in like my earlier career. I started as his assistant. But I think most of the people I would say are mentors don’t necessarily do what I do! It’s more that I’ve worked with artists who have ended up being like mentors because they’ve let me in on on a piece of their process which has inspired me. For instance, I’d say [electronic artist] Powell is sort of a mentor — not that I go to him for advice on engineering, but I feel like the records we have done together have helped to shape the way I look at other records, that I do with other people. I think, working with someone who does something that’s quite different, it does shape the way you look at records that maybe... aren’t so different.
My go‑to reference track or album
You know what: I really dislike reference tracks. Often if I get asked to mix a record, I won’t ask for references. I mean, if I’m asked about it, people can tell me what they’ve enjoyed listening to, but what I generally ask for from people is why they wrote the song, how they felt when they were writing it, and how they would like other people to feel. When someone just gives me a reference, it’s not really a reflection on their song, they’re just telling me about a specific sound that they like in another record. But that could be completely out of context. It’s like, ‘OK, you like the sound of this record. And so do I. Does that tell me anything about the emotional intention of your song?’ and that’s usually why I ask people to try and dig into the reasons why they actually wrote the song. Sometimes a musician might have had a song for a decade; and even though they’re recording it, the reason why they wrote the song in the first place might almost have become detached. The whole process might have been really fraught, but it has become completely separated from the original emotional intention the song. So I do find that asking about that can help bring them back into that place. Almost like listening afresh.
My secret weapon in the studio is
I have this tiny Fisher‑Price kids’ radio and mic set. It has an AM receiver and an FM receiver, and then it has this tiny little blue mic, and a little handle and a speaker, and you can sing into it. I think the idea was that kids could sing along with the radio. But what I’ve found it works really well for is guitars! So if I’m doing any kind of distorted guitars, or anything kind of heavy, I’ll usually have a Royer R121 and a beyerdynamic M 201. But then I will stick this mic from this tiny radio on the cab as well. It means I get all the weight and power from the main mics, but sticking this Fisher‑Price thing on gives all this amazing fizz and energy on top.
The studio session I wish I’d witnessed
A record that I really enjoy is Mogwai’s My Father My King. It’s one track. Twenty‑five minutes long or something. Steve Albini recorded it live in one sitting. And I think it sounds incredible. I think, the reason I would like to sit in on that one is because it’s just one song played well, straight to tape, and I think it would have been a great performance to see in the studio. So that would be one I would love to see. The other one I would love to see is Dopesmoker by Sleep. I think it would have been amazing: a 63‑minute performance, just straight down. Yeah, I think the ones that I would really like to sit in on are ones where it’s really a performance that has been captured really well.
The producer I’d most like to work with
I think my number one, who I have always found quite inspiring ever since I discovered what engineering was, and realised I wanted to be an engineer, was Sylvia Massy. I think she’s amazing. The fact that she was working on some incredibly heavy records, in a very male‑dominated period for music — and the music she was working on was even more male‑dominated! I found her whole process and ethos very inspiring. I think she’s someone I would love to be able work with. I’ve met her once before, through an amazing engineer I have worked with called Lisa Murray. She was Lisa’s mentor. We had pizza together! She’s incredible.
Tobin Jones: The studio sessions that have really taught me the most were the bad ones. The ones where I was hardly paid anything, where the musicians couldn’t play particularly well, where time was limited.
The studio experience that taught me the most
I would say the studio sessions that have really taught me the most were the bad ones. The ones where I was hardly paid anything, where the musicians couldn’t play particularly well, where time was limited. Not particularly nice experiences, you know. And I don’t do many of those any more, but those were the ones that taught me so much and made me a much better engineer. When I then came to work on bigger sessions, maybe with more established or more able musicians, those things I’d learned made me a better engineer for those sessions. I feel if I’d only done sessions with incredible musicians, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard. Really having to try to get the best out of someone’s performance, for instance: that taught me a lot for when it came to getting a good performance out of someone who is more experienced, maybe more accomplished.
The advice I’d give myself of 10 years ago
I’d say: you are good at what you do. Don’t be scared to do something that you know nothing about, because before you know it, that chance will have disappeared. So take the chance, and just enjoy it!