Serban Ghenea’s studio is a 25-minute drive from his home in Virginia Beach. “Otherwise,”The prolific mix engineer speaks over the phone “I would never be able to stop working.” His commute notwithstanding, Ghenea’s productivity is tremendous. His unerring mixing touch has landed him just below 200 No. Singles and albums No. 1, 18 Grammys and three Latin Grammys.
Seven of this year’s 25 most consumed songs have been mixed by Ghenea: the Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears”And “Blinding Lights,” Doja Cat featuring Saweetie’s “Kiss Me More,” Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” “Leave the Door Open” by the Bruno Mars/Anderson .Paak duo Silk Sonic, Ariana Grande’s “34+35” and the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay.”These songs have been streamed more that 19 million times by 2021.
Ghenea was a mixologist who compiled 10 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 charts in August 2021. Ghenea can now claim the No. 1 song of Billboard’s Greatest Songs of All Time Hot 100 Chart, the Weeknd’s aforementioned “Blinding Lights,”You can also see his remarkable credits.
“The Weeknd sounds amazing,”Ghenea speaks highly of the stems that he gets pre-mixed. “He sounds like he sounds. He’s very specific and particular about what he wants to hear, and that’s most really great singers. They know how they want to come across.”
Ghenea had his first chart-topper in 1996 with Blackstreet’s multi-platinum “No Diggity,”He began his career with Teddy Riley, who was also his producer. Ghenea, who has been mixing for over a quarter of a century, has been the preferred mixer for a wide variety of artists including Ariana Grande (Backstreet Boys), Michael Jackson, Mark Ronson and BTS. Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift, Britney Swift, Britney, Britney, Britney, Taylor Swift, Britney, Britney, Britney, Demi Lovato, Britney, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson.
“I learned early on that if you try to put a specific sound on something, you end up shortchanging yourself and dating yourself,” says Ghenea. “Having worked with so many artists from the beginning of their careers, helping them shape their sound and develop their signature, it’s a matter of making sure you are getting people to where they’re trying to go without imposing your sound. That way you don’t get dated and nobody’s tired of your sound.”
Ghenea is competing with himself by mixing three songs, vying to win the Grammy for Record of the Year. “Kiss Me More,” “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”And “Leave the Door Open.” He is also in the running for album of the year with Doja Cat’s “Planet Her (Deluxe)” and Lil Nas X’s “Montero.”
Doja Cat and Lil Nas X are among the newer artists on Ghenea’s clientele list. About artists with whom he doesn’t have history yet, Ghenea says, “You’ve got to be a little more careful and try to figure out what it is they’re trying to do.
“If it’s someone you’re familiar with, it’s not that difficult because you know what they like and what they don’t like, what sets them off and what they’re expecting, and what they should sound like — and if they don’t like it, they’ll tell you. Ariana, certain things bother her. She might get irritated with certain frequencies in her voice. I remember those things. Bruno, certain notes he likes to hit, I want to make those pleasing to him. A lot of times, the first pass is where the mix ends up, then I tweak things along the way.”
Ghenea works with Mars since “Uptown Funk,”He was the last of a series of mix engineers. He has been part of Mars and .Paak’s Silk Sonic project since December 2020 with “Leave the Door Open,”It took several months of trial-and-error and rerecording until everyone was satisfied with the final result.
“It was one of those things where you knew it was cool once you got there,” says Ghenea. “A lot of people use the mix process to figure out what the production needs to be, especially when you’re carving a completely new sound or doing something fresh and different. You don’t really know what it is until you find it, and sometimes, you don’t know how to explain it either. It’s like a big exploration.”
Ghenea uses analogy to compare mixing/recording and painting walls. “You touch things up on one wall, and the worst scuffs are fixed, but then the lesser scuffs become obvious, so now you have to fix those. When that wall is fresh and new and shiny, whatever was next to it doesn’t look so good anymore. In the process of mixing, the things you thought were cool before, when you keep going, you realize, ‘Oh man, I don’t know, I think we need to redo those.’”