\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\n\tThese days, the Gheneas \u2014 who take on projects independently, though they informally weigh in on each other\u2019s work \u2014 both are based at MixStar Studios, a private facility in Virginia Beach, Va., operated by Serban and Grammy-winning engineer John Hanes. Recent MixStar projects include The Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cAngry\u201d (mixed by Serban) and Halsey and Suga\u2019s \u201cLilith (Diablo\u00a0IV Anthem)\u201d (remixed by Alex).<\/p>\n
\n\tAt this year\u2019s Grammys, the two have eight nominations between them \u2014 including competing nods (two for Serban, one for Alex) in the new best pop dance recording category. That\u2019s already cause for celebration for the duo, who are characteristically humble when considering the possibility of both father and son taking home trophies. \u201cWe\u2019ll figure that out if that happens,\u201d Serban says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to jinx it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAlex, you grew up in the studio, watching your dad. Serban, what did you think when he started to express an interest in the work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSerban Ghenea:<\/strong> From way back in the day, I would check my mixes in the car, listen to what I was working on the day before. It\u2019s part of the process. He was in a car seat, and he\u2019d be sitting there, listening, and asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s that sound?\u201d And I\u2019d be, \u201cOh, that\u2019s a triangle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tAnd he was interested in music. He played drums; he started playing early. By the time he was 16, I got him Logic and a Mac, just to learn to mess with it. I didn\u2019t expect much, but next thing I know, I come in one day and he\u2019s working on something that sounded familiar.<\/p>\n
\n\tAlex Ghenea:<\/strong> A Demi Lovato song.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> Yeah, \u201cSkyscraper.\u201d He found an a\u00a0cappella [recording] online and built a whole new track around it, just with Logic. I was like, \u201cHoly sh-t, what are you doing?\u201d He said, \u201cI\u2019m just playing around.\u201d I said, \u201cHere, listen to these songs and see if you can figure out how they make them and try to re-create it.\u201d And so, he did a remix. I never explained how to do that, and never expected it. We sent it over to Disney \u2014<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> It led to an Adam Lambert remix.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> That opened the door for him doing a ton of remixes.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> I think I was about 15 years old.<\/p>\n\n\tDid your dad have to explain to you that this wasn\u2019t the typical career trajectory?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> When I was a kid, I remember specifically, he said, \u201cForget about music; you should go study business or go be a lawyer,\u201d and I actually ended up going to business school and studying marketing and I married a lawyer. So, I kind of took his advice.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> He was on a path of doing remixes, and he was collaborating with a bunch of different people. Then, when COVID-19 happened, he was living in Los Angeles, and he came back [to Virginia Beach] that March and then the lockdown happened. He never went back to L.A. A lot of people that he was working with were writers; he would do the demos and rough mixes. So, when he was here, he just started to do that work, and it turned into mixing. And then, next thing you know, he was doing\u2026 What was the first big one?<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> [Blackbear\u2019s] \u201chot girl bummer\u201d with Andrew Goldstein, whom I\u2019d met many years prior, during a writing-producing phase when I was living out in L.A.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban, in what ways have you passed your craft on to Alex?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> The technical part of it he kind of just absorbed, being around and seeing it being done. I\u2019d let him pick apart sessions and look at how things were put together. And I mean, anyone can learn that. The hard part is the aesthetic and trying to figure out what you should do. What do you like? What do you think people like? What do you react to? You only get that through experience and through listening.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> Some of that early advice he gave me was, \u201cListen to a lot of music. Listen to stuff you like, listen to stuff you don\u2019t like, listen to new stuff, old stuff.\u201d You have to have a very wide palette of things to reference when you\u2019re working on all sorts of songs and genres.<\/p>\n\n\tHow much do you work together in the studio?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> We don\u2019t specifically work together, but now we\u2019re sometimes on the same albums. Like with Tove\u00a0Lo [Dirt Femme<\/em>], I did a good bit, and he did some. Troye Sivan [Something To Give Each Other<\/em>], that was about half and half. So, we\u2019re working on the same projects, but it\u2019s more of, I\u2019d say, a collaborative thing. If I\u2019m working on something and I\u2019m like, \u201cI think I\u2019m at a good stopping point,\u201d or, \u201cI don\u2019t know where to go next,\u201d it might be cool to go play it for my dad.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> We have the same manager, but Alex has his own clients. I have my own clients.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> The biggest collaboration is probably figuring out what we\u2019re eating for lunch at the studio.<\/p>\nSerban and Alex Ghenea have extensive mixing resumes \u2014 including shared clients like Ariana Grande, P!nk and Halsey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\tHow do you balance serving someone\u2019s vision with stretching yourselves creatively?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> It\u2019s so different now than it was when I first started mixing on a console. People are very attached by the time it\u2019s approved and ready for us to mix; the direction of the record is kind of set. You can\u2019t go crazy and take it off the rails, so you need to figure out, like Alex said, what needs to be improved. What do you not want to mess with, because you don\u2019t want to break it?<\/p>\n\n\tEvery song\u2019s got its own signature thing that makes it unique and attractive. Sometimes it\u2019s a little riff; sometimes it\u2019s the way the whole beat feels. Or there\u2019s a melodic thing in there, or the sound of the vocal, or sometimes it\u2019s all of the above. But, at the end of the day, you\u2019re just trying to facilitate and help get it across the line depending on what [the artist is] looking to do.<\/p>\n
\n\tSerban, you have seven Grammy nominations this year, and Alex, you\u2019re nominated for the first time. What does that mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> Back in the day, I was a guitar player. My perspective was always, \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be cool to do something as a musician and get a Grammy?\u201d I never thought I\u2019d be doing what I\u2019m doing now. It\u2019s the highest level of recognition. It never gets old. It\u2019s hard to describe, but it\u2019s definitely an exciting and appreciative feeling, because so many amazing musicians don\u2019t get the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> I remember at age 16 or 17, being able to go with my dad and see the whole thing and watch him win a few. Being around all the musicians and producers and seeing what that world is like, I remember always wanting to be a part of it, thinking, \u201cMan, I hope one day I get to be up on the stage, or at least have a shot at being nominated.\u201d To actually see that come to fruition is pretty humbling.<\/p>\n\n\tYou\u2019re up against each other for best pop dance recording \u2014 Serban for Bebe Rexha and David Guetta\u2019s \u201cOne in a Million\u201d and David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray\u2019s \u201cBaby Don\u2019t Hurt Me,\u201d and Alex for Troye Sivan\u2019s \u201cRush.\u201d How does that feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> Well, I hope he wins.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> Just to be up there with [nominees] Calvin Harris and Kylie Minogue and all that, that\u2019s already a win.<\/p>\n\n\tSerban:<\/strong> Yeah, the Grammy itself is not the end goal. It\u2019s a nice recognition and pat on the back and makes you realize that maybe what you\u2019re doing may be on the right path, but it\u2019s not the end-all.<\/p>\n\n\tAlex:<\/strong> It\u2019s confirmation that what you\u2019re doing is in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\tThis story will appear in the Jan. 27, 2024, issue of <\/em>Billboard.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As two of the music industry\u2019s most in-demand studio engineers, Serban Ghenea and his son Alex Ghenea are accustomed to being grilled about their signature techniques, as if making a hit record is about following some mysterious magic recipe. The truth, says Serban, 54, is both simpler and a bit more complicated than that. \u201cIt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kelsea](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n