JF Dagenais is the guitarist for Kataklysm and an award winning record producer.
We’re thrilled to have JF Dagenais on the podcast today. He dishes on getting his start in the studio, how he approaches dialing in and tracking such punishingly deadly guitars, and how he used his career in the band to feed his studio work, and vice versa. If you love learning about how producers get genre specific tones, this is the episode for you!
“When you do good work, I think that your reputation precedes you. The word that you’re doing a good job, or not moves really fast.” – JF Dagenais
ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:
5:55 – How Montreal, Canada is a mecca for metal music
7:11 – Moving to Dallas, TX and how JF was able to continue his career there
10:03 – If JF was concerned about bands starting to do more recording on their own about 10 years ago and how he adjusted for it
13:47 – Getting enjoyment out of helping bands improve and what his favorite process of making music is
19:08 – How simplicity is the answer
21:18 – How having two careers helped JF make his move to Dallas
25:46 – Why word-of-mouth is one of the best way to get work and why it’s good to be entrepreneurial
31:00 – Trying to live out your passion and continuing to learn
35:46 – Earning trust with clients because of knowing what it’s like to be in a band
36:52 – How JF got his start working in a studio
42:10 – How the other members in Kataklysm viewed JF since he also produced and when they had to have someone else mix their records
47:26 – Where JF started with his guitar tones versus where he is with them now and working with profiles
56:36 – The state of mind of not being satisfied with where you’re at and continuing to get better
1:00:32 – How JF approaches riff tracking
1:06:11 – Where bass fits in for JF and how it’s hard to get right
1:11:50 – If JF gets his guitars set up by a pro guitar tech before tracking
1:13:21 – Having the mastermind mentality, being able to get your ego out of the way, and knowing when to delegate
1:20:26 – Where the extreme metal kick drum lands and how JF approaches it
1:24:42 – How JF stays sane and balances his life so everything gets the attention it needs
1:28:34 – Knowing when to not spend too much time on something in the studio
FIND JF ONLINE:
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