Nick Mac on engineering for Post Malone: "I was destined to do something like this"

Sound engineer to Travis Barker, Yungblud and Machine Gun Kelly, Nick Mac explains how he works in the studio with Post Malone and how he prefers to do things a mile a minute. The trick, he says, is to scream into a pillow…

Nick Mac is a high energy person. “My friends say, ‘Your brain’s like a ping pong ball’’, he admits, talking in rapid, enthusiastic sentences until he runs out of air, before going again. “I bounce all over the place. I don't want to sleep. I just want to do all these things all the time. I am really passionate about living and doing things passionately. I love it!”

Mac channels that passion into his role as chief engineer at Electric Feel Studios in L.A where he specialises in recording live instruments, mixing, vocal production, and melodyne and vocal editing. 

In between hectic sessions or intense recording stints with artists like Post Malone, 24K Goldn and Macklemore on what he calls “quote-unquote, days off”, he spends time with his family near the beach.

“Or I just put my head in a pillow and scream. I'm just kidding,” he insists, holding his hands up. “I’m a beach person so I try to go surfing. It's a little more calm. I'm a body surfer, although it's hard to do with my schedule!”

His mother has been a strong supporter of his since he first expressed an interest in music. 

Mac vividly remembers first hearing a Queen song around the age of 11 (“I was blown away by it and became obsessed”), and seeing surf sequel film, The Endless Summer II when he was just four years old: “I'll never forget it. The reason I play guitar and the reason I do music is because the melodies have lived in my head longer than anything else. 

Those guitar notes, the way Gary Hoey played, the fusion of blues and rock…that just got into my head and was never able to go away. My mother rolled pennies to save up for my first guitar,” he says, pausing for a split second and apologising for getting emotional. Later, when he started to take recording seriously, his mother helped him get his first DAW in the form of Cakewalk’s Sonar.

“I got home and popped it open and I was like, ‘I can't do this. This is confusing. I don't know what I'm doing’. We tried to return it, but I couldn't because you activate the software so you can't take it back. I was like, ‘Alright, well. I don't want to waste this investment. I'm a good kid. I'm gonna figure it out’. And I figured it out. From there, it's been a constant trying to figure it out.”

At university, Mac started studying “astronomy or something” and then philosophy, but he always knew where his true passion lay.

“I was kind of spinning my wheels and was playing in bands. I thought, ‘You know what? I'm just not gonna go anymore’. My brain just doesn't function like that, if you haven't noticed,” he laughs. 

“It's like a ping pong ball. I was pulling out of the driveway to go to rehearsal and my mum said, ‘Don't you go to college anymore?’ I said, ‘Mum, I want to play rock and roll’, and I drove away and she just shook her head,” he says, grinning. 

“It's a little cheesy, but it happened! I'd like to think that I was destined to do something like this. I feel highly creative. I feel highly energetic. I feel so many different things, and when you're feeling so many different things, I think a path is the arts: living with purpose and feeling.”

An artist he’s been working closely with in recent years is Post Malone, including his role as an engineer on Stoney, the rapper’s debut album. The record was certified 5× platinum by RIAA and platinum by the BPI. Mac remembers the first time he met him:

“He came in in this big, furry coat looking super cool, and he’s super nice,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘Who is this guy? I like this guy!’ He started playing Stevie Ray Vaughan on the guitar in the live room. We share an eclectic music taste and we hit it off. 

"We recorded so many different ideas and songs and things of that sort. I've got the 3x plaque, and I'm super excited to have it. I'm gonna give it to my kids just so they know I was kind of cool at one point.”

In the studio, Malone doesn’t take a backseat:

“He is so involved in things, and he really cares about things to the highest degree,” Mac confirms. 

“He's a really fantastic musician as a guitar player and singer, and a producer as well. For instance during quarantine, he's like, ‘Bring the mobile rig that you built for my tour to my house; we're going to start the record’. So I did! 

"We had a station for him to make beats on and produce on his laptop – he was making beats and adding things over loops and recording over them. He's very involved – both feet in. That was a really interesting, collaborative period,” he reflects, adding that it reminded him of when they first worked on Stoney.

During this intense recording period in Utah, around 60 songs were whittled down to 16 for Malone’s new album, Twelve Carat Toothache (Deluxe). Six of the songs Mac recorded ended up on the record.

“I’d take one, you know what I mean?” he says with genuine gratefulness. “I'd take none and a high five! It's all good; I'm just happy to be there and in the room.”

Of the tracks that he worked on, his personal favourites are Waiting For Never and Hateful. He shares that the former holds a particularly special meaning to him, even though it’s hard for him to pinpoint exactly why:

“Without getting too emotional – I'm such an emotional person – it's a blessing and a curse,” he sidenotes, “but that was such an interesting time during the pandemic, and I was going through a lot of stuff personally, as I'm sure everybody was. 

"There was something about the sentiment of the song – it's really heavy. You go through things in your life with people that let you down. It's maintaining the person that you're supposed to be and remembering that you do have value, no matter what other people say. These tattoos will fade, I'm gonna be old and grey one day – although I’ve already got a little bit of grey in my hair – but I'm gonna be the same person. 

"I can't really put into words what it means to me, but that song is just very personal to me, and I didn't even write it! It is just my interpretation of it. Being there recording it was a whole separate thing versus the perception of the song. That was one of the first songs where I could hear that he was being ‘Post Malone’.”

Mac used a Focusrite ISA 430 Mk II channel strip for Malone’s vocals, which he also made sure to include in his mobile rig.

“It’s actually discontinued, but I bought that off of Reverb,” he explains. “I had just got paid from a mix session, and I was like, ‘Let's party! Let's just spend it.’ So I bought that, and when it came to Electric Feel, I brought it with me. I take it everywhere with me pretty much, but I'm using the ISA One a lot now, just for footprint and for all the other functionality. 

"I love the colour of the ISA stuff. It's my favourite – I really enjoy the sound. There's a lot of colour that you can get out of it depending on where you set different things, and I really enjoy the flexibility. It does this nice thing to the Sony C-800G mic because that's a pretty bright microphone and it rounds it out a little bit. I really enjoy the tone.”

Mac says he is sentimental about Focusrite gear in general. One of his favourite things about the ISA One is the VU meter, which he uses on every track he works on.

“I'm a big meters person,” he nods. “To have a VU meter on my box before it touches anything digital is indispensable to me. Also, the headphone amp on it is amazing. Being able to listen to the direct mic signals is great for troubleshooting. 

"That box is crazy and it sounds great. I ride the fader, so to speak, on pretty much any source I record just to try to find the optimal level, and it's all within an arm's reach. It's very tactile. I love it.”

Mac’s recording space is also home to a Clarett+ OctoPre mic pre, which he calls “a lifesaver” in the studio when he wants a quick eight channel expansion.

“It just made sense,” he says, highlighting the 1U form factor and his personal favourite: the Air function, which simulates the Focusrite studio console and the circuitry built into that.

“It really opens up your ability to do a lot of damage! It's easy to carry around, it's convenient, but quality and effective. You’ve got inserts on it, too, which is super crazy. It's awesome! I describe the Air function like a high end top sheen,” he considers. “It's not this harsh thing, it's this nice polish over the top that you can toggle on and off. It's extremely valuable. Very cool!”

With that, he has to leave as he’s got a 24K Goldn album to engineer, a Hollywood studio to renovate and some personal projects to get to. And screaming into a pillow?

“I like being stressed! I like screaming into a pillow,” he laughs. “If I can't do that, then what am I doing? My plate has become quite full, but I like it like that because if there's nothing to do, I get weird!”