Woodland Hills, CA (November 6, 2018)—Jason T. Miller may have co-written and produced tracks for Grammy Award winners Kanye West and Keyshia Cole and co-written a song for Reba McEntire, but he also does a lot of scoring for television and commercials. The key to managing all those projects, according to the composer, producer and session guitarist, is workflow—and ensuring that it keeps on flowing.
Inspired by his father, TV and film composer and arranger Bruce Miller, the younger Miller has a track record as a songwriter and record producer, and also has wielded his axe at many sessions, including playing on TV episodes of Frasier and Becker while still at UCLA.
“When scoring for television, time crunch is usually an issue,” he said. “You get an episode to mix, and you have to deliver in two days. You have a lot of people waiting for the finished product, and if you don’t deliver, you’re out of a job. It has got to be done right and quickly the first time.”
To achieve that rapid workflow requires a well-organized and efficient studio, including fast, complete control of the monitoring system, which he centered around a Mackie Big Knob Studio+ monitor controller/interface. “One of the biggest things when getting set up in this room was having everything available,” said Miller. “When things aren’t available or within your line of sight, you forget about them. No one wants to sit around and wait for you to find the right sound or the right gear. It’s got to be there for things to flow. So I’m constantly going to my Big Knob—it’s become a staple of my workflow.”
While it’s all about workflow, a fast turnaround means nothing if the results don’t work outside of the Miller’s studio; that would mean redoing the work or just losing the gig outright. Miller says, “I do most of my own mixing, and to feel confident that what I’m doing is going to translate to other people’s systems and speakers, it’s really helpful to go down to mono, to A/B speakers, and to monitor with and without the sub. Without the Big Knob Studio+, that would be a challenge.”
Mackie • www.loudaudio.com
