You don't want to cut corners.

Hello Daniel, thank you for sitting down with us! What is your main field of interest within the audio segment?

I’m a composer, mastering engineer and co-founder of an upcoming plugin company called FlickSwitch Audio. I’m based in Sydney, Australia and have been working in the industry properly now for six years.

 

I always like to ask about our interviewees' origin story. What is yours?

My musical roots start with guitar, I’ve been playing since I was 6 years old. Growing up I just listened to whatever music dad would play in the car. Twisted Sister - especially their song, I Wanna Rock, - Nirvana and Radiohead are things that stick out in my memory. 

To be honest, I’ve kind of just fallen into this. I started doing a progressive instrumental metal project called MYOORA but it’s been other people who have given me opportunities I didn’t even know existed and here I am getting to work with amazing teams across the world.

 

So your musical taste was mostly sculpted by your father? I can relate to that :) Did you take any kind of formal education in music?

Yeah, definitely my initial taste in music maybe till I was 14-15 was almost exclusively from my dad then I started playing guitar in ensembles and bands at high school and just jamming with more friends and my tastes expanded. Now I listen to almost everything.

I don’t have any formal education in music at a tertiary level but I’ve had so many amazing teachers for guitar, drums, vocals and more. Without them I definitely would not be the musician I am today.

 

Is Myoora still around?

Myoora is… let’s just say resting for now. I did initially leave the project a few years ago completely to focus on other avenues of music but we’ve since had discussions about what doing a full album would look like and we do want to do it, but we want to do it when we’re in a position that we can just throw the investment needed at it without it being too much of a burden on us.

Making a metal/prog record is a lot of work, and you want to bring in the right people to make it amazing so you don’t want to cut corners which we didn’t but when you start a project like that it’s a bit of diminishing returns especially in your early career.

 

Other than metal, what are your musical preferences?

I love ambient music and rock, enjoy dark pop and orchestral hits right at the top of the list as well.

 

Are these the styles you prefer working on?

I’ve worked on a wide range of music over the last few years but those would definitely be my favourites.

It's so interesting to see how metal lovers can be attracted to ambient as well, which is pretty much the other side of the musical spectrum. I can relate to that too. 

Opposites attract right! So many people I know that make the heaviest of heavy music love soft felt piano and ambient sounding music.

 

What are your most cherished projects?

From a nostalgia point of view as it was my first proper project, my old band’s metal EP ‘Moon Grotto’ always has a special place in my heart. One of my earliest placements a track called ‘I Am A God’ was the first opportunity I got to work with Backchat, Jesse Chisolm who has become a really great friend and colleague of mine.

More lately I completed my first short film score for a project called ‘Julia’, directed by the awesome Ralph Hutchins at the end of 2025.

2026 has been a lot of customs, mixing and learning new tools like Wwise so there are lots of projects I’m doing right now that I’m loving but aren’t out for the world to hear.

 

Tell us about scoring for this film!

It was a lot of fun, my first film project. I loved it something so different. Ralph Hutchins the director is a really great guy and funnily enough we met at London Heathrow airport just in conversation in early 2024.

It was awesome to get to just try music concepts out for a few months before I had visuals. He’s based between LA and the UK so we did script breakdowns and post-production spotting all over WhatsApp and Zoom. 'Julia' is currently doing the festival circuit; I spoke to Ralph a few days ago I don’t think it’s anywhere to view for the public but I’m sure at some point it will be.

It’s a total mindset shift where some scenes the music is really secondary and other times it’s the building mechanism that makes the scene what it is. I’m looking forward to hoping to do more as my career grows.

 

Were you sitting in the studio chair for 'Moon Grotto' as well, or that came later?

Primarily just writing guitar parts, additional programming and using a lot of guitar pro 8 to get my ideas out of my head and onto the page. My work in really refined productions and mastering has definitely come post-Myoora.

 

What is your Buso desk of choice?

I’m using the Buso Master 2 as the basic framework of my desk but I did have some custom dimensions added into my build to handle a bigger keyboard tray and deeper computer room so it’s not stock.

I also have a sidecar to hold my Shadow Hills and some extra utility pieces of the studio.

Prior to this desk I had a Buso Producer 61 which was awesome and so sturdy and well-built but it was too much desk for my room. Once my ATCs arrived I realised that I wanted to acquire some analog gear and I wanted to be able to walk around and easily access the back of my desk.

So I actually went with a smaller desk but with rack room as a priority. It’s also one of the few mastering desks out there that has a keyboard tray which as a composer not just a mastering engineer was a non-negotiable.

Quite a clear vision on the layout! It's also interesting that you mentioned your ATC's "got you into" analog. Could you expand on that?

I think it’s always daunting to invest that sort of money into equipment, even if you are working on awesome projects, it’s a big leap. Once I got the ATCs in and I saw how much easier working on projects became I started to really think what pieces of gear would improve my workflow and pieces of gear that could be staples for the rest of my career. Now I have an awesome hybrid setup that has my plugins, hardware and quad cortex all patched in together via the Wolff ProPatch.

 

What were your thoughts on analog before?

I don’t think I had any hesitations about analog beforehand it was always the goal but it’s justifying it that’s always hard. I achieved a few goals and saw the validity in it, I’m still in my early career so these pieces will be with me for a very long time.

 

 

Name some of your main influences in music!

It’s definitely evolved over time, growing up like I mentioned, whatever my dad listened to was essentially my music taste – Radiohead, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath - who were my first concert - all stand out to me as key inspirations.

As I started to play with more guitarists my palette expanded into Dream Theater, Periphery, Rodrigo y Gabriela and then Guthrie Govan.

Guthrie really changed the way I viewed guitar he really expanded my mind to how guitar could be used. As I started to get more into orchestral music I did the classic Hans, John Ludwig binge everyone does. I love Bear McCreary, Anthony Willis and anything the Riot Games team does.

 

What about main influences from the audio world?

In terms of people I don’t know, Serban Ghenea and Chris Lord-Alge are just peak in my mind. I have a lot of people I’m lucky enough to call friends who I look at, who are deeper into their audio career than me and I see what they’re doing and it’s just amazing.

My friend Jesse Zuretti who just did the 2XKO music for Riot Games, there are other people that I talk to every now and then, Joseph Holiday (Snakes of Russia) just did some stuff for Resident Evil Requiem he’s such a nice guy.

The team at Remedy, I know their audio director Richard Lapington and the work they’re doing and have done is just unreal, having recently played through Alan Wake 2 in full finally, it’s pure art.

I know a lot of amazing people, doing amazing things, I see that and it’s inspiring to be around that.

I really love how you weave game music into your influences, it's really something that's rarely talked about, while being a gamer myself as well, we do know how big of a difference can a good game soundtrack make. Senua's Saga, Alan Wake, Clair Obscur, The Elder Scrolls series, etc. I'm loving this angle!

Tell us about how you got into scoring for games as well!

Scoring for games is an ultimate goal of mine, I contributed a few tracks to the soundtrack of Donuts! a small indie by some students over in California which was really fun and I’ve been diving into learning Wwise for implementation which I’ve really enjoyed but as of right now scoring for games is still a goal, something I hope to achieve this year to start on a project like that.

The desire for it really came from my trips to America, being around people in that space then going to Gamescom and Devcom in Cologne, Germany was just next level.

Game developers are so passionate and I love games just as a gamer too.

 

Give us the gear-tour!

Quick breakdown of all my current gear: ATC SCM25a Pro mk2, Trinnov Nova, Prism Titan, Wolff Audio ProPatch 64, Maag Eq4M, Alan Smart C1T, a pair of Empirical Labs EL8-XXX Distressor 30th Anniversary Editions, Maselec MPL2, Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, Quad Cortex Mini, Sparrow MIDI controller, Ollo Audio X1s.

That’s my mixing/mastering gear. Every piece of gear I just love, brings something different to the studio and helps me get the most out of my own or my clients music. I only made the transition to utilizing analog gear and this hybrid model in the last year it’s just been a slow acquisition of this stuff. Sometimes the gear doesn’t get used, quick 24hr turn arounds on a custom I don’t use it because there are so many revisions that printing stems genuinely will take up too much time but when I get to put them on a clients album or a project like that, it’s so much fun.

 

 

Quite an amazing array!

But when you need to work fast, you rely more on in-the-box?

If I’m working on something for a publishing house or whoever where I know there are going to be heaps of alt-mixes, I might do 9-10 alt mixes or cut downs of tracks then for the most part I’ll avoid hardware. My hardware I use on my artist clients, my own compositions, tracks that I know don’t need to be mixed down to 10 different versions because that will add a lot of time to the process when you’re trying to move through the process. I could add up to 5 hours of print time to a project when it’s all said and done depending on how many different versions I’m doing so there’s definitely scenarios I know when not to use my hardware just from a workflow point of view.

 

What brought you to your gear of choice?

Time, for me everything is about a path of least resistance to get to my end result. I don’t want to be working against my gear and having any studio issues. I know that some of the pieces I have are very high end and that often warrants a high price tag but if it helps me get a consistent and controlled environment that’s what’s worth it. Especially when we talk about speakers, headphones and room correction. I just want the confidence to make audio decisions based just on the audio not on whatever flaws my room might have.

 

 Jumping back a little bit, we haven't talked about HOW you got into deciding with professional audio.

Was it a conscious choice, or more like a process?

Definitely a process, not a conscious decision. I think when you’re in the pursuit of a creative career you start with one image in your head and as long as you’re ending up in some relatively near location to that and you love the kind of work you’re creating then you’re doing good. I think I’ve said before to a few people who are even younger than me trying to get started in the space fresh to not listen to anything that will deter you from creating because a lot of people are more happy to criticise you than support you these days.

 

Give us a closer look of your workflow! 

I like everything to be accessible to me easily and within seconds, that’s both my hardware, session routing and also the storage and organisation of my gear. Buso just makes my studio an organised place to be which I really like that’s super important to me, if I were to sit down and things be everywhere I wouldn’t be able to work. The desk accommodates my needs as a composer and engineer and that’s all I’m after. I also don’t stress the desk will collapse because some of my gear is super heavy, really well built.

 

You're well versed in a lot of segments within the audio, whether it's production, mixing, or music writing or creating VST's....how do you balance your time, being this versatile?

I used to do a lot more, session playing, trying to have vocal and drum lessons, doing artist production, doing generic open briefs not specific things and hoping things would stick plus everything I do now. Then I got great advice to just pick the core things. So, I just decided music for screen, mastering other people’s music and having my own audio company were the three buckets and if the work doesn’t contribute to one of those buckets I don’t do it. Obviously within those buckets it’s broad strokes and there’s a heap a person can do but as a practicing audio professional, I’m just focused on improving as a composer, nailing down my Wwise skills and improving as a mastering engineer.

As a business owner, I’m really fortunate to have a really amazing team that’s based across the world. We have one of our agencies based across Scandinavia, main dev team and marketing in the United States, my co-founder and I are here in Australia. It makes it really easy for me to delegate what needs to be done to everyone and just know things are happening over a 24hr period. So that’s been a really exciting and stressful part of my life for the last year and we’re excited to launch very soon.

 

Tell us a bit more of the business side! There was a plugin mentioned as well...

It’s a whirlwind, it’s been a goal of my business partner and I for a long time to have an audio company. Many years of just occasionally discussing things, ideas, what we should/shouldn’t do but this last year and a half we’ve put plans into action and it’s been crazy.

Getting to lead an international team, we’ve got people from the USA, Norway, Sweden and here in Australia all working together I think the total amount of people have touched this plugin in one way or another is 8 directly involved and that’s not including testers, artists and just friends who have given ideas as we’ve gone through development. It’s a huge undertaking and we’ll be launching our first plugin in May/June.

I enjoy it though, founding a company is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Merging my love for creating music and creating a culture of excellence is the mentality I take into FlickSwitch Audio. Actions with intention at every step of the way. Our company ethos is ‘Designed With Intent. Executed With Purpose.’

 

Previously we touched on getting musical education. What about education in audio, did you get any, or you were mostly self-taught in your endeavors?

Self-taught is a stretch; have I ever gone and paid for a course specifically at a college or institution that was about mixing or production or recording – no.

Have I passively and actively been shown and taught things by my peers and friends in the industry – yes. For that I am forever grateful for the people who have seen moments of potential in me since I was a teenager and were willing to teach me things. For that reason I am always willing to pass on what I know to people as a way to pay it forward like they did for me.

 

 

In your opinion, is it hard to make ends meet in the audio world these days?

I recently was playing golf and was paired up with a stranger and he was telling me about his son who was a few years older than me but hadn’t really had any opportunities to write music for any major projects and I told him yes, it’s definitely possible to have a career in music.

 I have had amazing months this last year and then other months you’re working on stuff that are long term and you might not necessarily be getting paid or if you’re getting placements I have waited up to nearly a year before some of those payouts.

But money aside, I think if you approach networking as how you would make friends, just being a nice person, being fun and chill to work with but then also backing that up with the skillset needed to be an asset to whatever it is you’re trying to do then you’re giving yourself a good chance.

Being in Australia I feel like networking has to be a skill I needed to have otherwise it was going to be near impossible to work on really meaningful major projects and I’ve now participated in writing camps, conferences and projects in person across Europe and the United States.

I think if you’re a nice person, you care about your music and you just want to keep learning and improving things will fall into place.

 

That is really a nice way of summarizing the "skills" needed here. Digital has been around for quite a while now. How do you see the future of analogue equipment?

I mean I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, you get a lot of people on forums saying that an emulation plugin is just as good as the hardware it’s based off which I can speak from experience and say that isn’t true, but the accessibility of plugins has opened up professional sounding quality for people in their bedrooms which I think is great, that’s how I started before I had any hardware.

I think more recall functionality is how analogue gear might progress, audio companies like Wolff Audio continue to push the bounds with their ProPatch systems.

These days we’re also seeing even small studios integrating DANTE and other systems to expand their hybrid setups too so I think small studios will start to play around with much more robust setups.

 

AI is gaining more and more ground these days in our industry. How do you see its role in the future and how do you see it affecting the business?

I think first thing is that I don’t use AI in my music, mixing, or mastering. I know people who do and the reality is that their music is not something desirable and over time they will lose the abilities to have creativity on command and act on their moments of inspiration. I think AI, like a lot of industries has its pros and cons, you could save hours having AI doing metadata and work that no one enjoys doing from a business point of view and I do see some use cases like that but I also see people trying to “create” with an AI at the helm.

I think AI like every tech innovation will find its natural place in the ecosystem of our industries we’re already seeing new laws and legislation here in Australia and around the world combatting AI music taking revenue sources away from original artists. Clients will not pay these massive trailer houses and labels huge amounts to have music that isn’t guaranteed to be bespoke to them. I also think we’re going to have a lot of really amazing and really poor plug-ins enter the market as well.

 

Thank you Daniel for having this chat with us! It is now my honour to ask you to contribute a song to our Buso playlist!

“I Am A God” by Backchat and I, one of the first placements I landed, it was for Riot Games at the 2024 League of Legends World Championships and it was used for the T1 and Faker walkout in the arena they were competing in over in France. First time seeing my music used in a stadium like that was pretty surreal especially since it was something we just started in Backchat’s studio in Queensland and finished off here in Sydney.