Syllous Mai Dreams of Earning a Grammy Award as a Mixing Engineer

“A key to standing out on TikTok for my client Haoran is creating and posting high quality violin performances. Nowadays, artists can post a tune on TikTok to promote themselves rather than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars. Social media, like TikTok, has helped promote artists and has offered a new platform for artists to showcase themselves to the world.”—Syllous Mai

Audio engineer/sound editor Syllous Mai has been making herself known for her outstanding “sound” skills at cutting edge Hollywood studios like Light Sonic Division and Igloo Music. Her work alongside music and film award-winning experts—like chart-topping rapper/producer Belly who has written with The Weeknd, and mixer Nicholai Baxter, who has worked on big movies like La La Land and A Star Is Born, has produced some of the most outstanding work the industry has seen in years.

Along with having done work as a sound editor on numerous renowned Netflix and Amazon Prime shows, Syllous has also used her cutting-edge knowledge and extraordinary skills in various areas within the entertainment and music space. Most notably, she has been the powerhouse behind the recording, mixing, and production of content for individual artists like TikTok violinist sensations Haoran Dong, who has built a strong reputation and large following throughout Asia, and in particular, in China, in addition to the talented US-based songwriter/singer Jihae.

Guangdong, China-born but now LA-based, Syllous speaks on her experience working with successful artists and productions alike, saying, “I really enjoy the process of being in the studio and seeing some great live performances getting recorded; mixing for me is the process of making that ‘recording’ sound better; and, my engineering responsibility includes all of it, recording, mixing, and mastering.”

As a result, she explains, “I record, mix, and master TikTok content for a celebrated violinist Haoran Dong, who has over 1.4 million followers. With my collaboration with Jihae, I was inspired by one of my favorite songs called ‘Nothing’ by R&B artist Bruno Major. Pop/R&B is one of my favorite genres of music—even rapper/producer Belly, who I work for at LSD, grew up being influenced by R&B.”

She continues talking about her collaboration with Jihae on the song, ‘Home,’ which she produced, recorded, and mixed for the singer: “This R&B influence is especially pronounced on ‘Home’, which was released last July with the talented artist Jihae. The composition extends to various facets of my creative process, encompassing melody, lyrical depth, instrumentation, and arrangement. The simple use of instrumentation in ‘Home’—including vocal, piano, upright bass, and solo trumpet—and the direction of mixing, was clean and light-weighted. Overall, for this song, I tried to create an almost dreamy mood for the audience in order to lead them into their vision of home in their mind. To do that, I applied multiple layers of reverb and delay effects, especially for lead and background vocals and trumpet. By combining multiple layers of reverb and delay on these key elements, the goal was to weave a sonic tapestry that guides the audience into a mental space akin to that dream of ‘home.’ The intentional manipulation of these audio effects served not only to create an illusion of space but also to evoke a specific emotional response from the listener, enhancing the overall story narrative and mood of the song.”

And, they do a bang-up job, evoking a sweet, poignant tone and memorable tune.

Moreover, Syllous is a huge movie soundtrack fan, and one of her favorite composers is award-winning James Newton Howard (King Kong, The Dark Knight, The Hunger Games, Fantastic Beasts). In fact, Howard was in the audience during the concert at her Berklee Commencement: “As a track producer for the concert, I worked with an arranger to produce and mix tracks for strings, woodwinds, and brass in order to make the orchestral sound fuller. At the end of the performance, Howard himself came on stage with all of the performers, arrangers, and track producers. I had the privileged opportunity to talk to him about my understanding and appreciation for his music, he complimented my work and also gave me some invaluable feedback and advice.”

Syllous has other dreams to continue her important work as an engineer with high profile music artists and productions, explaining, “I dream of earning a Grammy Award as a mixing engineer. And, also working with other artists that I admire like R&B/Soul artists Bruno Major and Daniel Caesar.”

Looking ahead, with her broad skills and distinguished industry achievements as both a sound mixer and sound editor, Syllous welcomes the future, including using AI as a beneficial tool: “I think human touch is always needed when it comes to creation like music. AI for sure can makes the process faster when I make a demo, but AI cannot replace my styles or music, or other artists’ styles.”

Drop in on Syllous Mai’s website and on IMDb, and check out Home, her collaboration with Jihae, on YouTube, Apple and Spotify.