Audeze catches up with self taught audio engineer T-Cun

T-Cun is a self taught audio engineer that started trying to replicate Skrillex's sound when he was just 13 years old. Now he's a producer and studio/live audio engineer that dedicates full time to his love for music and sound.

"The MM-500 helped get everything clean and set the tone for the vocals very quickly, they are super reliable for the low-mids and mids and tell everything that's wrong with the bass and subs of the beat." - Oscar Perez

Here's our chat with Oscar:

Can you pick out any highlights from your work that you're particularly proud of? 

The song that I'm proud of the most hasn't come out yet, but I can tell you that it's with one of the hottest Spanish singers right now in the world. Also I released an EP with Poncelam (Vertigo) that I'm very proud of because we managed to get the sound we wanted in the mix. And talking of projects that are already out, one of my favourites is "Sportlife" with Ze Gueretti, that is a house street bangers EP.

How would you define your main role on most of the projects you work on these days?

In almost all of them I do all the engineering and producing, but with some artists like Poncelam, they help me with the production side.

How did you get started in music? What kind of music did you listen to while growing up and how has that progressed?

I started looking for information about music production when I first listened to Skrillex and the first big dubstep wave in 2011-2013 on a national radio called Flaix FM. I've always listened to rap and hip hop since I have memory, from 50 Cent to SFDK, but in that era I was really into deep house and electronic music in general and dubstep really blew my mind, but almost everyone else thought it was just noise. My musical taste has changed very much through the years, from flamenco to reggaeton, but it always comes back to hip hop and electronic music.

Can you name any factors that influenced the course of your musical life? Heroes, role models, moments, interactions, etc?

Listening to Skrillex on Flaix FM certainly changed my life.

Can you briefly describe a moment of frustration from your past work, and what you may have done to overcome the obstacles? Would you approach it differently now?

I used to hate spending hours tracking and doing 1000 vocal takes of the artist but since I started working more professionally I understood that sometimes is the only way to go to get a fantastic sounding song, since the recording process makes the mixing a lot easier when it's well done.

Is there any gear you find yourself turning to most when working on a project? What are some of your favorite tools/instruments recently?

I don't use any outboard gear while producing or mixing, but when recording I love the sound of the Neve pres. In the studio I work in, they have a Neve 4081 preamplifier and it sounds amazing with the Neumann U87. 99% of the work that I record is with that combination.

Do you have any words of wisdom for people who might aspire toward a similar path for their own careers?

I would only tell them to never stop doing whatever they do until they're the best in the world. And if they can, dedicate as many hours a day training, looking for information and meeting people.

How long have you been working with headphones, and how do you typically use them in your workflow?

Since always, my first pair of headphones were some cheap Sennheisers that my parents bought me when I was 15 or so. Then when I was 18 I bought some Audio Technica M50s, and last year I bought the Sennheiser HD650 which I love. Then I upgraded to the next level with some Audeze headphones.

How have your Audeze headphones affected your work? Can you tell us what you've been working on with them recently?

I normally start with the Yamaha NS-10's to set the busses and routings of the mix and start gain-staging comparing to a reference mix (today for one song has been The Weeknd's "In Your Eyes"), then I start mixing with headphones. I mixed almost everything with the MM-500 and then I checked how everything sounded overall with the Sennheiser HD 650 and the Audio Technica M50x, that are the ones I've been using for years and know their sound. The MM-500 helped get everything clean and set the tone for the vocals very quickly, they are super reliable for the low-mids and mids and tell everything that's wrong with the bass and subs of the beat. They feel to me like an overpowered version of the NS-10's from the sub-bass to the mids (since the NS-10's don't have any bass, these do have a lot), they are really revealing.