Dave Reitzas

Mix a Big One 1999

Dave Reitzas, The Enterprise recording studios, LA 1999

(L-R) Lionel Richie, David Foster, Dave Reitzas, The Village, LA 1998

Your education included music, harmony, percussion. How important is that training for an engineer?

It’s very important—our job is to capture music and for me having a musical background is a necessity. We’re called engineers but there is really a musical aspect, as well as the functional and the sonic aspects. Sound is so subjective, so it’s very important to be musical—where you punch in, where you punch out. It’s so helpful when you can subdivide for punching or timing, and you can tell when something is in tune, or you can talk in the right language. If the artist says, “Get me in on the G,” you don’t have to look at your numbers to know where the G is.