Ross Newbauer on co-mixing One Republic's 'Secrets' in Dolby Atmos: "One of the coolest full circle moments"

L.A based mixer and engineer Ross Newbauer distinctly remembers the first song he ever bought with his own money: Buddy Holly by Weezer on his iPod Nano. As fate would have it, years later, and across the other side of the country from his native Ohio, he would go on to mix a song for that very band…

“That’s right,” he smiles. “I was the mix assistant on All My Favorite Songs (feat. AJR). Weezer are super cool, and AJR are like the next iteration of Weezer: quirky lyrics with this great young perspective on the world and a little bit of angst and quirky nerdiness – in a really charming way,” he adds. “I've admired their work for a while and I've been involved in two or three albums now.”

Newbauer had a keen interest in music history since he was young, and discovered what a DAW was around the age of 13. He didn’t know it yet, but in an instant he’d found his calling. He began multitrack recording an EP right away before graduating to Pro Tools later on when he started engineering for anyone he could that lived locally, although to his frustration, it was a service in Ohio that was not in high demand.

“I was obsessed,” he recalls. “It was just like, ‘Wow, I can do this; this is very cool’. I wanted more and was seizing every opportunity I had around me, but I wasn't in New York or Los Angeles; I wasn't in a big city with all these opportunities. I didn't have a family that worked in the music industry, so I had to make the opportunities that I wanted. 

"The level of ambition I had and the height of what I wanted my career to be, it sounded a bit…” he trails off. “I guess you could say, blasphemous to do it,” he laughs, half joking. 

“So when I told people, it would be like, ‘Okaaaay, see you when you move back here!’ type of energy. I'm sure anybody that grows up in a small area can understand that in their own way. But I fortunately had support and I had opportunities, and no one tried to tell me I couldn't, because I was already doing it before they had the chance to tell me that I couldn't,” he grins.

His ambitions saw him leave his Cleveland studio built within a 115-year-old school gym and begin engineering for mixer Joe Zook (Katy Perry, P!nk, One Direction), who he works with to this day – now counting artists as varied as Celine Dion, Biffy Clyro, Jacob Collier, The Goo Goo Dolls and One Republic amongst his many credits.

“Joe was one of the first people I connected with when I was looking for work when I moved to L.A,” he reminisces. 

“I was looking at the liner notes of all the records that I really loved the engineering on, most notably the One Republic records that I saw his name on. I was like, ‘I'll hit him up and see if he needs an engineer’, and fortunately, he did. 

"He brought me in and put me in front of the Pro Tools rig and quizzed me a little bit on my Pro Tools speed, like shortcuts and engineering things to show that I have some experience. There was one keyboard shortcut that I did that he didn't know, and it did something faster than how he knew how to do it.”

That one shortcut saw Newbauer beat three Berklee graduates to the position – “and I'm someone who didn't go to college!” he points out. 

“I love that story because I am just experience-based. The best part too is that I've met a lot of Berklee graduates since and I've made friends with a lot of my peers in the space. So with maturity, it hasn't become some sort of, ‘I'm better than thou’ thing, because there's a lot of really amazing, talented people in the engineering community here in Los Angeles. 

"We're all working together to teach each other the dumb little shortcuts or the things one person might know that I might not, and we're all thriving together.”

A recent project with One Republic saw Zook entrust Newbauer with co-mixing the tracks Secrets and Good Life in Dolby Atmos, and the irony of working with them isn’t lost on him.

“This is one of the coolest full circle moments because of course, these were some of the records that I had grown up listening to, and the reason I got to know Joe,” he nods. “So getting to work on this, I was like, ‘Whoa, okay, here we go!’ Secrets was the coolest one because of how dynamic and explosive it feels.”

Newbauer explains that his approach with every Atmos project is that it has to have good translation with the stereo mix.

“It needs to kind of feel like it's in the same realm,” he elaborates. “I don't like to make massive choices where when you're listening on binaural it feels different, so you really rely on panning tricks.”

Secrets’ cello-led intro lent itself conveniently well to the immersive format due to the fact that Zook had engineered and mixed it so that each cello note is on a separate track. 

“For whatever reason they did this special thing with it, and that was perfect for us later when it came to mixing it in Atmos because I could pan each cello note to a different speaker. As you're listening to it, the cello is surrounding you – it's going to the left side, the rear and back all the way around you, so literally each note is placed in a different space in the room. 

"Some of my favourite things about those early One Republic records are the drum sounds. Joe engineered the drum sounds so well on this that panning the room mics to the back of the room and stretching out the stereo mix into Atmos was incredibly easy because of how well it was engineered. Everything had its own space.”

The recent uptake in Atmos mixes means that Newbauer pretty much specialises in them these days; since 2021 almost everything coming from the major labels has required an immersive mix. Newbauer says that it’s key that the Atmos mix feels similar to the stereo mix:

“That's a rule I always go by, but panning-wise and movement-wise, for things that don't exist in the stereo mix, it's completely on the table,” he nods.

Working right there alongside Newbauer on the immersive mixes he’s churning out in his home studio (you’ll find the same setup at Zook’s studio) is a Focusrite Red 8Pre audio interface paired with a RedNet R1 controller – the latter which he says doesn’t get enough credit.

“I have been obsessed with the RedNet R1 controller, specifically,” he enthuses. “I showed my friends, like, ‘Dude, this is the most streamlined, fun device to use for monitoring’, which nobody says – that's a weird thing. But they completely agree and they're like, ‘Whoa! I can solo things, I can mute things’. 

"It's an inspiring little device, especially when we're mixing in Atmos or when we are playing back stuff to listen to – the fact that we can solo just the ceiling speakers totally geeks everybody out – in the best way.”

Newbauer shares that the Red 8Pre was the obvious choice due to using the RedNet R1 controller – adding that when he saw how well the combination worked at Zook’s studio, he knew he needed that exact setup for his home recording space.

“I can't say enough about how obsessed I am with the RedNet R1,” he stresses again, listing off his favourite functions: “The ease of use of programming, labelling things, the solo and mute functions, the expandability; it's just a really wicked, cool system. The R1 is the bomb! 

"I can jump between mutes and solos, handle different speaker controls and so many different input configurations, whether it's from my Dolby Atmos renderer or the playback system to listen back to things on Apple Music.

“I have it set up to automatically route the binaural playback to the headphone output on the controller so that I can very quickly toggle between speaker output and binaural, listening on stereo headphones," he adds.

"It's super intuitive, and the DIM controls can be toggleable to any amount that I want, whether it's 10,15 or 20dB, or even 17dB – whatever specific number you want it to be. It's a really well-designed modern controller. It's pretty amazing what the whole RedNet line will do and how expandable it is,” he considers.

“Right now my Atmos system lives separate from my stereo system, so they're separate rigs. But if I wanted to add anything more or even combine them or take them to another studio, I really trust that they will be completely compatible. 

"The Red 8Pre gives me the ability to check calibrations and all the really technical, boring non-creative stuff. I'm using 12 different outputs that all need to be perfect together, so having a quick way to view all of that and control that very quickly and easily is really wonderful,” he smiles.

Photo credits: Ben Kahn