PETER TÄGTGREN: Writing songs in his head, his self-taught approach to production, and keeping the soul in modern metal

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording

Speaker 2 (00:00:02):

Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it and use the subject line. Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. This is one I've been wanting to do for a long time. Peter Rin is a Swedish musician, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He's the founder, main songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist of the band hypocrisy as well as the band pain. And through multiple decades, Peter has performance and production credits from some of the most iconic bands in metal history such as Immortal Amman, Marth De Dge, children of Bodom, and so many more. He's the owner of the Abyss Studios in Sweden, and he has devoted a lifetime to the pursuit of musical passion and excellence of fucking legend. Here goes. So Peter Tagtgren, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:02:28):

Thank you very much, man. Thanks for having me,

Speaker 2 (00:02:30):

Man. I've been following your work for quite a while. One of the things that I've always wondered is why you got into production, being that you're a songwriter and a guitar player. A lot of the times what I've noticed is the reason I got into it and why most of the people in Metal that I've spoken to got into it is because they went to local studios to record their metal bands back in the nineties or something and had a horrible experience and just figured, I'm going to do this shit myself. And I was wondering if that was at all why you did it.

Speaker 3 (00:03:07):

Well, it actually started after I was in America and came home and my friend, he owned a music store and a PA store and a studio downstairs. Somehow I convinced them that I could do some demos and shit like that. It was mainly I could sit and do my ideas in a sort of half decent studio where I could put my ideas together since I was the only person anyhow in the band at that time. So I mean in general it was just learning by doing and it was mainly just to get all my ideas down and then I could pay him by helping him recording local bands. But yeah, when I started the def metal production wasn't that good, so I also wanted to hear the bass for once. It was really always hard to hear the bass anywhere. It was mainly the guitars and drums. Yeah, I mean, it took me a long time to understand, because I live out in the woods, there's nobody to go and spy on to see how to put a microphone in front of an amp or whatever. It was just learning by doing all the way up till 2000 somewhere when you finally knew what the hell you were doing after seven, eight years or something like that, I would say.

Speaker 2 (00:04:27):

Did you get any mentorship at all from bigger metal producer at any point?

Speaker 3 (00:04:33):

No. No. No. There was no one around. I live in Hillbilly Town and there was no internet, so you couldn't really spy on anybody.

Speaker 2 (00:04:41):

It's funny, when Americans think of Sweden and the Swedish scene, they think everybody is together near each other. They don't realize that a lot of people are out there in the middle of nowhere. Completely isolated.

Speaker 3 (00:04:52):

Yeah, exactly. Sweden is a huge country, but it's only 10 million people in there, so there's a lot of fucking places where there's nobody.

Speaker 2 (00:05:01):

Yeah. You said that it took about eight years before you started to feel like, okay, I'm starting to know what I'm doing. Kind of

Speaker 3 (00:05:10):

At least a few years, like four or five years. Definitely. I mean, it took me a while after I did these two first hypocrisy albums. We went to another studio in Stockholm to do the third album. We were just mainly just trying to trust people, but we ended up with fourth dimension, something like shit kind of

Speaker 2 (00:05:33):

Because you do so many different things and have a really clear vision for what you're looking for. Do you think that it would be particularly hard for you to trust a producer? Well,

Speaker 3 (00:05:43):

For hypocrisy, one thing is for sure. I think we know what we need ourselves to be honest, in the beginning when I started, could I use some help? That's for sure. Nowadays you pretty much know what the hell is going on here. Yeah, like I said, in the beginning I had no clue, but there was no one around. So nowadays I know a lot more and I think I have my visions better when it comes to hypocrisy for sure. If it's other bands, sure I could use some help. You can always use some help for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:06:13):

Yeah, I completely agree. I think that the idea of an artist doing everything completely on their own forever in every aspect, it doesn't exist. First of all, I think everybody gets help at some point with something. There's always something we can get better at that we can't figure out for ourselves.

Speaker 3 (00:06:32):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:06:33):

The thing that I'm curious about working on your own, how did you figure out issues like phase? How did you figure out how to get samples working on the drums properly? How did you figure out double tracking, quad tracking, those things that are so technical that you have to get just right? I'm wondering how you figure those things out in isolation.

Speaker 3 (00:06:55):

In the beginning, you were running around trying to find the best trigger module because I wasn't using computers until maybe 2005. Before that it was a ds, so you couldn't really get into the programs by yourself, whatever you recorded, that was it. So to say, when you started with computers, you can go into every track, it's a piece of cake, but when it comes to doing it with adas, you needed the band to work perfectly. You needed the trigger to work together with the microphone on the base drum. It was a lot of things that had to click, so to say. So for me, it was just, yeah, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and this is in the beginning of the nineties. After a while it came out better trigger modules and things because if you record a band that's doing like 200 miles an hour all the time, you are more or less like, okay, how the fuck can I get a good sound? And the drummer was not really hitting that good, or you had to invent something to save the production. I did that with a lot of bands in the nineties because there was no other way out. Otherwise it would just sound like shit. And some

Speaker 2 (00:08:12):

Did. You had to at least try to not let it sound like shit.

Speaker 3 (00:08:15):

Exactly. You did everything you could in your spare time to figure out these things. And since there was no YouTube that you could do anything when the band went home, you had to go in there and try to figure out how to not double trigger or not to leave any hits out because only the microphone on the bass drum never worked with these bands. When it's this kind of fast stuff, it was a challenge to figure all these shit out and you got better and better at it.

Speaker 2 (00:08:45):

The reason I'm asking is because there's a lot of people who listen to this who are at the beginning of trying to learn production and mixing, and I've noticed that a lot of people are super impatient. I think that that's the worst thing you can be because this shit takes a long time,

Speaker 3 (00:09:03):

But not today. It's so simple. Today you have so much help from plugins and computers nowadays it's a total different day. It's a total different world.

Speaker 2 (00:09:13):

It's a lot easier to be mediocre.

Speaker 3 (00:09:15):

Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, you listen today to productions and stuff. I call them the typical laptop productions. They're stiff, they're all cut up, and there's not so much sole limit

Speaker 2 (00:09:30):

With modern gear. How do you make sure that the soul isn't taken away? Because I've noticed that oftentimes it's not that the musicians have no soul, it's that they want it to be as good as possible, and then in the process of working on it, they don't mean to, but they do it anyways. They take away every piece of life that a recording has in it by trying to make it better. And by being ambitious, that could be tighter. Let's make it tighter.

Speaker 3 (00:10:01):

Mainly they just quantize the shit out of everything, and you kind of lose your soul in there. Also, not everybody has access to a good drum room or whatever. They have to do what they have to do to record things, and so it gets a little bit stiffer in my point of view. I mean, everybody has to entitled to their own taste of productions and stuff. I guess I'm just old fashioned. I need to have some soul into it.

Speaker 2 (00:10:30):

So when you're working with another band that has a completely different aesthetic than your own aesthetic, like you're saying that, for instance, the formula for hypocrisy, and I know that pain has its very identifiable sound as well, and

Speaker 3 (00:10:43):

A band like paint that should be, that is a little bit more industrial. It should be quantized and be more stiff in the production, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:10:51):

But what about when you get a band that's nothing like your bands Dean of Borge or something like that, something that's totally its own thing. How do you make sure that you are not imposing your own vision as a musician on them? How do you separate and just be a producer? Basically,

Speaker 3 (00:11:06):

I listen to what they have and I listen to what they do. I take my conclusion to how it should end up. It was the same thing with when I did the possessed album. I wanted to go back a lot more into the eighties kind of sound, but I guess they want it to be a little bit more refined, more renewal. So in the end, we kind of met halfway with that production.

Speaker 2 (00:11:34):

When you're working on a production for somebody else and they have basically they want one thing and you as a musician hear another, is it a compromise? Do they win? How do you go about it where you fundamentally disagree with their vision?

Speaker 3 (00:11:52):

I think the most important thing is the outcome of the whole album. It doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, it's mainly really about getting the best out of the band. I think that's definitely the most important thing than anything else.

Speaker 2 (00:12:07):

So whatever it takes,

Speaker 3 (00:12:09):

Whatever it takes exactly. If I'm wrong, I'll right myself. If they're wrong, eventually they'll come around. So I mean, it's a give and take and it's only one mission is whatever is the best for the album.

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):

Do you have a strategy or an approach for presenting ideas to bands when this part fucking sucks? I have an idea for something better.

Speaker 3 (00:12:35):

I usually say what I think if I think something is wrong, and then try to really change it for the better. Sometimes bands agrees. Sometimes bands don't agree. I mean, it's the bands album. My responsibility is to get the best out of them. So it's also a lot up to the band itself, but I have to come up with the ideas and try to convince that I think this will be better for the song or better for the album. So it really, you have to have an open mind as a band and as a producer. I know a lot of producer besides, Nope, it's this or it's nothing. But I don't play like that.

Speaker 2 (00:13:13):

I think that bands these days also don't like working with producers who take that approach because it is a different world. It is a lot easier to change things in the studio than it used to be. And also there's a lot of great producers out there who do have a good attitude. So I think that that attitude, it's old school and bands don't put up with it anymore.

Speaker 3 (00:13:36):

No, I hope not. I never played that way. I always was there to support the band and nothing else. I have a job. It's not my money, it's the band's money. It's their investment. And if you start running over bands and at the end it turns out to something that you really didn't want as a band, then you have a big problem.

Speaker 2 (00:13:58):

One thing that someone or a few people actually told said that they do when they have an idea for changing a part, rather than try to explain it with words. Lots of times when people use words to describe a musical idea, it gets misinterpreted. They'll do it on their own time after the band goes home at night, and then just show them, be like, look, we don't have to use this if you don't want to use this, but here's the idea I had for this. And then play it for them. And either they like it or they don't like it.

Speaker 3 (00:14:30):

Yeah, I used to do that as well, save the stuff they did and then put in my ideas and then the next day they can choose. Because sometimes when you explain things before hearing it, it can be a little bit tricky to get your understanding through or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 2 (00:14:46):

Well, yeah, because expecting them to hear it in their head the way that you hear it in your head, which is impossible,

Speaker 3 (00:14:54):

And then you just go, what? You can't read my mind. So you really have to show it. And it's the same thing with riff sometimes. I was like, how about taking this tone instead or doing this instead? I think that will make it more interesting, and usually Ben takes it to them. Some bands comes in and say, help us out. We have no clue what the hell we're doing here. It would be great to get some guidelines and some band comes in, we know exactly what we want to do, help us fix it or help us create it. It's a matter of a give and take, and it depends on what band it is. Every band is different.

Speaker 2 (00:15:29):

When you get a new band, how do you initially figure out what the direction is that you're going to take?

Speaker 3 (00:15:37):

I don't listen to pre-production. I never do. I listen to it two days before we get into the studio or something like that. I can just listen fast through it. I listen to the song that we're going to record. That's as much as I want to hear about pre-production. Otherwise, if you listen to a pre-production too many times, you get used to all the problems because the first thing I hear that I feel is wrong is usually correct. When you start listening to it more and more after a while you get used to the things that you thought was wrong. It kind of gets in the system to be right instead. So that's why I really try to keep it very short on pre-production. Just go through the song before they're going to start laying down the drums or whatever and then discuss it. I think this is too many times. Maybe you should only do it four times or blah, blah, blah. It's just thoughts and what I feel and think. I never make any battles out of it. Oh, come on, you have to do it like that. It's more or less if the band gets it, then we're on the right way. If they don't like it, then okay, it's your album. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:16:40):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (00:16:41):

But I am there to help them, first of all, to get the best out of performance of them as a musician and then try to get the best sound out of it. Well, a producer is mainly just to produce really, and the mixing and sounds comes secondary. I guess. It's more to define things and someone else usually takes care of the mix afterwards when they're done with the performance and changes and shit like that. But I try to think about the sound, what happens when you do like this or do like that. At the same time as I also try to help them structure the song.

Speaker 2 (00:17:16):

So you see mixing and production is two separate stages?

Speaker 3 (00:17:20):

Yes, definitely. It's not many producers that's mixing. They're mainly there to produce the things, send it off to someone that they trust to mix it. Maybe come in afterwards and say, maybe you can turn this up or turn this down. But usually producers are never around to sit through mixing processes.

Speaker 2 (00:17:37):

I think traditionally that's correct. Usually it's two completely different people, two completely different processes. It's just a lot of younger producers mix while they go, and then by the time the production is done, it's almost like they have a mix close to final mix by the end of the production, which I think has its pros and its cons.

Speaker 3 (00:18:02):

Yeah, yeah. I mean the big boy producers, they sit on the couch.

Speaker 2 (00:18:06):

Oh yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:18:07):

Us small ones. I was always involved in putting the mic up in front of the bass drum or the snare or the guitar amp or whatever until it was sent to master controlling everything. It's different for different producers for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:18:25):

Do you having your stuff mixed by somebody else?

Speaker 3 (00:18:28):

I had some bad experiences, so not really, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (00:18:31):

It's a weird thing, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (00:18:33):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:18:33):

There's been a few times where I've had something I produced or recorded mixed by somebody else where it comes back and it sounds better than I could have ever imagined in my entire life. Oh,

Speaker 3 (00:18:43):

That will be a great one.

Speaker 2 (00:18:46):

It happened when Colin Richardson mixed something I did. It was spectacular,

Speaker 3 (00:18:52):

But he's top of the line guy,

Speaker 2 (00:18:54):

But yeah, yeah, that's what I was saying. That's like, of course it's going to be great when he does it, but there were plenty of other times where I got it back from other mixers and was like, oh man, they just don't get it.

Speaker 3 (00:19:06):

Yeah. I can tell you the same thing with the first Lindeman album we did when this guy mixed it and the record company loved it, and oh, it was so great and so genius, and I'm like, fucking idiots. And you just compare it to the first Lindeman and the second one and you hear a big fucking difference. But they saw it more as his prestige. I guess the guy who mixed it, he has a bigger name than me, and so therefore let's take his mix. I did two or three songs on the first album that I got through to them, but other than that, this other guy did it, and I think it was really awful.

Speaker 2 (00:19:44):

It sounds to me like you prefer to just mix what you've recorded

Speaker 3 (00:19:48):

Sometimes, but on the other hand, I wouldn't mind to give it away to someone that I can trust and feel like, okay, this is good. And most of the time you don't even have time to do that, so you're just going with your own stuff because you are always in a hurry because always with these fucking things, it's always in the studio. You never have enough time, so you really have to go crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:20:12):

What I found went wrong with mixers often, and I'm saying this so that mixers out there pay attention. When I would write stuff that had multiple layers beyond just two guitars, synth orchestra or multiple layers of guitars, like multiple of lots of different things. If you sent it to your traditional metal mixer, what you would get is a very loud snare, two super loud rhythm guitars, very cliquey kick, and then everything else was across the street basically. It didn't even matter.

Speaker 3 (00:20:49):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the feeling. I know the feeling.

Speaker 2 (00:20:53):

I mean, I figure you could relate to that because there's so many layers in the music that you write that can imagine if you sent a hypocrisy record to a traditional metal mixer, half of the stuff would be buried.

Speaker 3 (00:21:05):

Yeah, I've done a lot of mixes as well, that just comes into me. Someone sent it and can you mix this? And sometimes I maybe don't see it as they do since they're so involved in it. So they usually just send me notes, mixer notes like, Hey, can you turn this one up a little bit more here and this one a little bit more over there? And then when you do it, it's like, ah, okay, now I get it.

Speaker 2 (00:21:29):

That's what you meant.

Speaker 3 (00:21:30):

Yeah, exactly. So it's very hard to read someone's mind. It's better to get quotes on the first mix that you do to see where we really are.

Speaker 2 (00:21:40):

Speaking of mixes and arrangements, can we talk some about the way that you arrange hypocrisy songs?

Speaker 3 (00:21:47):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (00:21:48):

I listened to the new album and it sounds exactly like what I would hope a hypocrisy record sounds like. It just sounds like classic, but modern hypocrisy. I feel like I know what a hypocrisy record is going to sound like, and I mean that in a really good way. Not I don't mean that. Oh,

Speaker 3 (00:22:07):

Thank you. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:22:07):

I don't mean it. It's predictable and boring. I just mean I can identify it and identify it as very, very catchy, but super heavy rifts with a very great melodic sense and lots of choruses, and then also lots of very atmospheric, but epic sounds that you don't really hear anywhere else. You don't hear lots of bands will add epic layers with an orchestra, like a traditional sounding orchestra. I feel like there's some other way that you are getting that in with the synth. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how you blend that and how you keep the clarity and how you even approach it in the first place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:22:54):

Alright.

Speaker 2 (00:22:55):

For instance, the beginning of the arrival, born dead, buried alive. So that intro is kind of like what I'm talking about because there's so many layers, so many effects on it, and it sounds so epic, but the heavy guitars don't get lost. You can hear everything perfectly. So I'm just wondering how you approach those types of parts.

Speaker 3 (00:23:16):

Yeah, I usually write the part and then you just start putting on layers and layers and layers of things until you think, now I got it, what I had in mind, what my vision was from the beginning to make it very epic and big and bombastic. But the problem is the mixing part of that is so fucking insane. It's so hard. You can't have everything. You'd have to priorit things left and which one is more important than the other because if you put everything there, it's really hard. But I really try to do this kind of wall of sound mixes. I like it when it's fat. I like it when it's wide and give you a certain feeling, like an atmosphere of what you hear, you can see in front of you kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (00:24:06):

So you said that you have to choose priorities, which means that you're willing to sacrifice certain things.

Speaker 3 (00:24:13):

I mean, if there's melodies and shit like that, then you have to back off with the rhythm guitars because rhythm guitars takes a huge space in mix, so you have to lower it, maybe a half DB or a full db. So melody guitars can cut through the whole thing. There's certain things you have to adjust to it to make everything fit in there because you have a certain space and try. It's like Riz,

(00:24:44):

You can only fit so much no matter what you do, and the more shit you try to fit in there, the less you're going to get this defined sound of everything that's out there on the mix. So what is the most important thing here? Because you will hear the rhythm guitars easily, but if you start thinking about melodies and stuff, if you want to lower that, then you might have a problem to get the point of this. So the only thing I can sacrifice right now is the rhythm guitar, so they got to go down and things like that. It's theaters, all this shit is tanus.

Speaker 2 (00:25:19):

Yeah, they can't go down too much, then you'll lose the energy.

Speaker 3 (00:25:23):

Exactly. So you have to find the right place, and sometimes you can start thinking about maybe I should pan some stuff in different ways. Let's put the melodies a little bit slight, little bit more into one speaker and do the rhythms slightly more into the other speaker and things like that. You just have to come up with everything. You have to save the day. Sometimes it's very annoying when you can't reach what you really want.

Speaker 2 (00:25:54):

How much of it do you think has to do with the musical arrangement? Do you believe that musical arrangements, like good musical arrangements mix themselves or at least make themselves easier to mix?

Speaker 3 (00:26:06):

It helps. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it all depends how we're talking about these things. Arrangement in certain ways. I mean, for an instance, a lot of bass players, they always play as fast as the guitars, and sometimes it's better to do it halftime on a bass, for example.

Speaker 2 (00:26:25):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:26:25):

So those are a few tricks as well that you can learn from to not kill the tone in the bass when you're playing too fast.

Speaker 2 (00:26:34):

Man, that's one of the best ones, really. It's so simple, but it makes such a difference.

Speaker 3 (00:26:40):

Yeah, because when you're a bass player, you want to hit every note in the rhythm section as the guitars and stuff, but what you have to remember, the more things you hit, the more you kind of kill the bass tone in the bass. So I usually rather tell them to do sixteens instead of 30 twos when they play bass just to get more stable bass and it will sound much tighter. You can bring out the piano in the bass and you get a certain accent in it. That helps also to make the song more alive.

Speaker 2 (00:27:12):

What do you mean by bring out the piano in the bass?

Speaker 3 (00:27:14):

I mean, it's easier if you're not smacking it like in 200 miles an hour. If you only do it less, you can define the hits much easier.

Speaker 2 (00:27:25):

Got it. Yeah. Becomes much more of an anchor, I think.

Speaker 3 (00:27:28):

Yeah, there was a lot of, in the beginning when I recorded band, they were hitting so fucking hard on the bass. You couldn't hear any notes. You only heard the piano in it because it was way too much crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:27:41):

Yeah. I also think another one that makes a lot of sense, it's just so simple, but bands forget this is to keep parts away from each other range wise.

Speaker 3 (00:27:51):

Yeah. And also how can, if you're a musician and you haven't done too much recording, how can you know what is good or not? So I guess you have to trust the guy who been mixing it or been mixing bands and know what's going to happen if you do like this or like that.

Speaker 2 (00:28:05):

I really do think that musicians will get better by learning how to record themselves. I'm not saying they have to go down the rabbit hole of becoming a professional mixer, but I know as a guitar player, the moment that I started recording myself, I got way better as a guitar player because you don't actually know what you sound like until you hear yourself played back, because when you're playing, you're not totally hearing it because you're feeling it through your body. You're hearing pick noise maybe in the room if you're at a show, you're distracted by whatever the hell else is going on. It's just your attention is not a hundred percent on listening to what you sound like.

Speaker 3 (00:28:47):

Exactly. I mean, you pulling out so much energy out of your body that your ears just kind of get blocked in a way because you go in with it in your body. Instead you have the rhythm in the body, and sometimes it's not as accurate as you think. It's

Speaker 2 (00:29:03):

Have you ever had those takes where you feel it, you swear it's fucking awesome, and you hear it back and it's like, is that really what I just played? That sucks.

Speaker 3 (00:29:13):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:29:14):

It's interesting the moment that I started recording myself and I could hear the truth, there's two things that got better right away. One was my rhythm playing, and two was things like my intonation. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:29:27):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:29:28):

Yeah. Two really, really major things. Now, you said that after all this time you kind of know the formula for hypocrisy. Can you give any insight as to what that means for you and how you figured it out and maybe how maybe other songwriters and bands can get to the level of basically knowing their own formula?

Speaker 3 (00:29:50):

Oh shit. I mean, it's so personal, I would say.

Speaker 2 (00:29:53):

Well, how did you find it?

Speaker 3 (00:29:54):

Learning by do it, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:29:56):

Well, what is it? Is it something that you just know it when you hear it or is there has to be this number of choruses per song? Or could you define what the formula is, at least in your mind?

Speaker 3 (00:30:11):

I mean, like I said, I think in a certain way, everybody thinks in a certain way, I would say. So it's really hard to tell people how they should do their things.

Speaker 2 (00:30:22):

Well, how do you do your things?

Speaker 3 (00:30:23):

I am a drummer from the beginning anyhow, so I usually get a rhythm thing. I'm like, oh yeah, this is good groove. And then I start thinking about riffs or melody and then all of a suddenly, okay, this is cool. So I take the guitar and I try to figure out what the hell I was thinking in terms of rhythms or melodies, put it down into the computer so I have it, and then usually putting on a drum thing, a rhythm that I had in mind, and there from on, you start putting bass on, maybe put some melodies on the guitar if it's a cool riffing and stuff like that. You just start building and stuff and then you go, okay, is this enough for this riff? What kind of riff is it? Is it an intro? Is it a verse? Is it a chorus?

(00:31:13):

You have to play this riff many times and then as soon as it dies, you have to come up with a new part in your head, and if you don't come up with this part, then you're rather stuck. I've done it a couple of times. I don't know how to move on from this riff anyhow, when you move on or you find something else, you put that on and so on. So you have five, six riffs or something like that, and then you start thinking, okay, how can I do a song out of this? Which one is this verse section? Which one is the chorus section? Which one is the intro? And then you start moving them around puzzles until you get the way you feel like, okay, this is it. Now I feel this is smooth. It's good. We have good points in every riff in here, and then you put on vocals and then you see how it grows. And so yeah, that's all I can say. It'ss learning by doing it, and it's still Teris or Palo or whatever you want to say,

Speaker 2 (00:32:12):

But it sounds like it all starts in your head.

Speaker 3 (00:32:14):

Yeah, for me, I write everything in my head.

Speaker 2 (00:32:17):

So you don't generally sit there and riff out coming up with it like that?

Speaker 3 (00:32:21):

No. I remember when I was making Relia, the first album I remember I was laying in the bed, had this riffs in my head, so I had to jump out of bed, go and get my acoustic guitar, and then I had this cassette memory thing that doctors had to talk memory or what are they called? They call it something special. And so I recorded all these riffs like that, and then when I finally had time to record it on my porta studio, the four track I made a demo out of. So that's how I was writing pretty much all of the pedophilia songs that I did, and I did probably about 85, 90% of that album on music. So that worked good for me. So I just kept on doing that. Same thing with pain with this, shut your mouth. I had this melody in my head. I had to run down to the studio, record the melody, and then go up next morning. I listened to it, and after I listened to this melody, I had a vision how the song was going to be right away. So that was a piece of cake to write. Sometimes you get stuck and don't know how to move on. That's a different thing.

Speaker 2 (00:33:27):

I've always thought that being tied to an instrument is very limiting when it comes to writing. You're limited by what you see, I mean or what you hear with your hands basically, as opposed to your creativity with no limits, not limited by a physical object like a guitar. So I've always thought that having to write on an instrument is extremely limiting. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't, people should do whatever works for them, but I definitely think that you're obviously, you're limited by what you can do.

Speaker 3 (00:33:58):

Yeah, definitely. When you think it's no limit, but when you sit with the guitar, first of all, you feel like, oh, I don't feel warmed up, or I can't do anything and blah, blah, blah. So I mean, when I do the riffs in my head instead, there's no limits. Oh, I can't really play this, but okay, I know this rift that I want to do, so I have to practice and then I know it since I never practiced in my whole life, I only practice what I write, and when I have problems to play those things that I write, then I have to practice.

Speaker 2 (00:34:27):

How do you get the voice memos for things that are more complicated or does that happen later? So the voice memos are just a very simple basic idea, like a melody, like a rhythm, a groove, and then all the epic stuff, all the harmonies, all that stuff that's later.

Speaker 3 (00:34:43):

Sometimes I can write everything around this riff that happens often. This rift going in the background in my head, and then I try to figure out some cool melodies on top of it just to sprinkle it. It's like when you cook food, I am just trying to add some salt and pepper and things with my melodies in the music just to make it wider, make it more epic and give you a certain feeling. I would say

Speaker 2 (00:35:10):

What I think is interesting about what you said is that sounds to me like you don't assume the order of things in a song until you've really, really worked on it. I hear this a lot with bad local bands or people that are first writing is they just take the first idea they have and just assume that's the first riff, and then that second idea they come up with, that's the second riff, and then the third riff is the third riff, and that's how the song goes. I mean, we've all done it. Sometimes it works.

Speaker 3 (00:35:43):

Yeah, I've done it many times because sometimes you just have so many riffs in your head. You just lay them all out one after another after another, and you can build song like that as well. Just move them around until you feel the right flow in it. One riff sounds like this, and maybe you change the tone, so it's another tone in the riff and things. So you have to go with your own feelings. I always follow my heart. I write what I would like to hear. That's been my judge, so to say. If I like it, if it feels good, if it does something to me, then it's a song. If it doesn't really do anything to me, then I put it aside.

Speaker 2 (00:36:26):

What's your philosophy on deleting ideas or basically if you feel like an idea is not, if you're writing a new hypocrisy record and you come up with some song you just can't figure out how to finish or whatever, do you save it for maybe the next hypocrisy record or another project, or do you just throw it away?

Speaker 3 (00:36:46):

No, I usually use everything. And if it's not good, then I rearrange it and rearrange it and rearrange it again until I'm happy with it. Sometimes it can turn out totally different from what you had from the beginning. The whole song just totally changed, but the first idea is hardly even there anymore. But sometimes that's how you've got to do it. There is no real rule how to write anything, arrange anything. It's all about what you think is good. That's what makes it unique when bands are doing it in their way and how they think it should be. So I would say listen to your heart and balls when you're right.

Speaker 2 (00:37:28):

I know some writers, really good writers that don't throw anything away. Anything that they write, they will either keep for later or they'll work on it and work on it and work on it until they like it.

Speaker 3 (00:37:38):

No, that's pretty much me. If it's not good first time, then you rearrange until it is good. Everything can sound really good in your head, the ideas, but when you get it out in your instrument so you can actually hear it for real and not just in your head, and sometimes you don't hit it correctly, either you take it or you try to figure it out one more time what node is not right or what rhythm in the picking is not right, or you just go, oh, this is even better than I had in mind. So it's all about those things. There is no written law on anything. I would say. That's what's so good with music. You can do any fucking thing you want.

Speaker 2 (00:38:17):

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think there is any rules, but I do think that it's helpful to get inspired by how people who are really good at it work. It's not because you would want to copy what they do, but more. Because if you're listening to somebody talk about how they work, you get one idea out of it to try and that idea helps you come up with a badass song or solves a problem for you you were having with your mixing. That's great.

Speaker 3 (00:38:45):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, anything that helps when you're stuck, it's very nice, put it that way.

Speaker 2 (00:38:51):

So let's talk about getting unstuck. When you get stuck on a song, you just said earlier, you try to listen to a part many, many times and then the part stops and then you try to hear in your head what would come next. But what if you're just not hearing what would come next? Or does that just not happen?

Speaker 3 (00:39:09):

It happens many times. Sometimes you get stuck with one or two good rifts and you can't keep on going. Usually put it aside for later and work on something else and then come back to it. That's what I do because sometimes maybe you're not a hundred percent focused, so you can listen to it as many times as you want and you don't hear what's coming next, but it is not always that it happens like that. Most of the times it takes a couple of listening through from the beginning till where it stops and then I go my brain. Okay, cool. So you get the guitar and try to get it down and program the drum machine so you have something to go with and then get it in there and then put it on base, maybe melodies, maybe keyboard and thing. And then you listen to the whole shit from the beginning again, and when it comes in to this rift that you just did, it's like, ah, fuck no. Maybe let's change the tone in it, put it up one tone or put it down one tone to make it a little bit more interesting. Instead of having a song that every riff goes in E, for example, maybe you do this one in G instead and then come back to E, or you do it in a, but then it becomes a little bit bluey for me, so you have to figure it out. Maybe C is good to go to. You never know.

Speaker 2 (00:40:27):

I'm curious about something completely different. The fact is that you do a bunch of different things. You have several bands, the studio vocalist, guitar player, I didn't even know you were a drummer. How do you balance everything without losing your mind and also being able to give everything you're working on the energy and attention that it needs?

Speaker 3 (00:40:50):

When I do something for hypocrisy, I put my mind into hypocrisy. When I do something for pain, I start thinking in the pain vein. So for me, it's just really nothing incredible or any tricks or anything. I just try to think, what should I write? Okay, I'm writing for hypocrisy. Okay. So I put my head in the mood for that. Usually the riffing, the melodies becomes the hypocrisy thing. When I think about pain, it goes in that bait. So it is really hard to say how I come up with songs if I start thinking about which band I'm writing to or I just take anything and just put it into whatever. But the case is I have have to put myself in the hypocrisy mode and then get into it.

Speaker 2 (00:41:36):

But I mean more. But I think you answered my question. It sounds like when you're on a project, you're focusing just on that project,

Speaker 3 (00:41:45):

The newest hypocrisy album. I mean, we started writing for that 2018, 2019. We did two videos for the new album and a photo session and the cover. So we were like three years ahead because the way I was working was like, okay, let's start slow with the new hypocrisy. I started writing a couple of songs, then went on tour and then back and then releasing a Lindeman album, and then went on tour with that paid releasing that tour. These two last years, I've been jumping back and forth in between the bands, in between projects to finish the projects and stuff like that. That was kind of stressful. I'm not going to do that again. That's another reason why I didn't want to do the Linman shit again, is one of the reasons, but not the main reason, but I need to focus on two band, two bands is already one band too much.

Speaker 2 (00:42:41):

Okay, so there's a limit to how many different things you feel you can do. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:42:45):

Yeah. I mean, I can do shitloads of things, but I don't think it will be well, so I think every band needs its own moment and nothing around that's going to distract me, so I can just sit and be focused on that. It's much easier. It goes much faster.

Speaker 2 (00:43:01):

Something that really does work, it works for me and it works for lots of people. I know there's a million things we want to do in life, and there's a million things we could do, but you got to decide out of all those things you could do, decide on one or two things and just focus on those, and then eventually those projects or whatever it is, you accomplish them and then you can focus on something else. But I find that I fucked myself up when I try to do too many things at the same time.

Speaker 3 (00:43:33):

Yeah, definitely. I mean, of course it's good when you feel like I'm pretty much done right now. I can't get any further right now. Then it's fine to go out on the tour and do something else and then come back and then come up with some new stuff or more stuff. It depends if you need more songs or if you're just stuck in writing lyrics or whatever. It's good to take a little bit break, I would say. Then

Speaker 2 (00:43:57):

Do you record bands besides your own at this point?

Speaker 3 (00:44:00):

Not really. If I get an offer to do something that I think is interesting, then I'll jump on it. The last thing I really did was possess because I didn't really have time to do anything else. I've done a few mixes as well after that, but mainly if there's something that really makes me, yeah, let's do this and I feel that I can help the band, then I will definitely do it.

Speaker 2 (00:44:20):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multitracks to a new song by artists like Lamb of God, angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:45:12):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, Toi Madson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed and enhanced.

(00:46:06):

Members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. I have a question of the virus record because I remember when I heard it, I was thinking, holy shit, this sounds like it's exploding. It sounds awesome. I know that there's a lot of distortion on it, but not in a bad way. I know that some people don't like hearing that on Masters, but I've always thought that if it makes something sound like it has more energy, then it's a good thing. If it sounds right, and this is one of those records where I heard that it sounds like it's literally exploding and the distortion actually really helps it. That's what I thought. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on it, what you were going for, because it kind of has its own thing going with the mastering and the mixing. I think it sounds great as

Speaker 3 (00:47:14):

I wanted to hear. Nothing left for the master guy to do. When you mix like that, then you kind of put yourself in a really shitty situation, I would say, because there is no room left for compressed certain things. And I did that for a long time, unfortunately with the virus album. I can't remember who mastered it. I can't remember what's so special with it. I mean, that is distorting somewhere. I don't know. I haven't heard the album for a long time, to be honest. But most likely I would say that I really mixed it like we wanted it. And then I guess whoever mastered it kind of over cranked it. It sounds like it when you're telling me right now,

Speaker 2 (00:47:59):

Technically that's what I thought probably happened, but it's one of those instances where I feel like it actually helped it. Sometimes you hear that and it destroys a record, but there's other times where you hear that and it's like, this just gives it the extra little bit of juice. And lots of mixers do talk about proper gain, staging, never hit the red, always leave plenty of head room, don't reach a digital distortion, et cetera, all those rules. But then I've seen a lot of mixers work where they say, fuck those rules. I want to hit the red. I want this to sound like it's literally exploding. I want to push everything to the limit. I don't care if there's a little distortion I want to give it. I want what that distortion does, and I don't care what the fuck anybody on the internet says. And I've heard it sound great.

Speaker 3 (00:48:50):

Yeah, I mean, another thing that I had at that time, or I had from 97 to five years ago, six years ago, I had a Amec Angela Mix board, and with those, you had game buttons on there. So on a lot of bands that didn't really sound good on the vocals. I actually distorted it on the gain button just to get it more because the compression didn't help it, and you can't really put a distortion pedal on, insert on that. So I actually gained the shit out of the mixing console. So for me, that was a way to save someone's performance sometimes. So maybe you hear some squeaks in the vocals sometimes. I did it also in the bass to keep it linear in the sounds, just distort the shit to make it more even so to say. So maybe some of those things were in there. Maybe I overdid it on red. Who cares? I thought it sounded cool.

Speaker 2 (00:49:57):

That's what matters. Is that it sounds cool.

Speaker 3 (00:49:59):

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't really matter nowadays, you can sit with your stupid laptop and go and see all the wave fights. Oh, it's cut there. Oh, that's not good, man. Oh, what the hell? Well, fuck off if it sounds good. I don't give a shit what it looks like.

Speaker 2 (00:50:15):

Yeah, you're not playing a video game. You're making music.

Speaker 3 (00:50:18):

Yeah. So many people have such a little time or just only know one thing. I mean, for another stupid example, I give you one. Why do we do vinyl masters in 96 bits?

Speaker 2 (00:50:30):

I have no idea.

Speaker 3 (00:50:31):

Oh, it sounds so much better. It's so much more headroom. Are you stupid? This fucking album was recorded on a fucking 16 foing track. There is no fucking room in there. It's a tape that they did a digital master or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 2 (00:50:48):

I've never understood that.

Speaker 3 (00:50:49):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:50:50):

They're going to make this shitty sounding tape sound really like it wasn't a tape originally,

Speaker 3 (00:50:56):

And then try to explain, it doesn't fucking matter with the old shit when you record today. Sure. You pull it up to 32 bits or whatever when you record it, or even 96 if you have a very strong computer. But in the end, it's just numbers, man.

Speaker 2 (00:51:13):

Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I've noticed at the end of the day is it's kind of funny. People can't really tell the difference oftentimes between higher resolution formats, lower resolution formats. They often don't know what they're listening to. And I've had many great producers and many great mixers use MP threes, for instance, say that the musician wrote a synth part and bounced it out as an MP three. And then just use that and no one knows. And it sounds great. And until someone talked about it, no one would even know.

Speaker 3 (00:51:52):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you do 256 on an MP three, it's not so huge. I mean, you can definitely hear in the overheads and in the tightness of the kick drum and stuff like that a little bit, but I think there's other things to concern than these things. Of course, I would never do a mastery in an MP three version. Of course, of course. I'm just telling you, when I listen to things I do MP threes while I'm mixing and to take to my car or whatever. I just do. MP threes 2 56. It's okay because I know it will only get better when you get the final result anyhow.

Speaker 2 (00:52:31):

Yeah, I'm not saying that people should not care and just be cool with lower quality. I'm just saying that

Speaker 3 (00:52:38):

That me neither.

Speaker 2 (00:52:39):

Yeah, people can focus on the wrong things sometimes. Do we record at 48 instead of 44, or should we do it at 88 instead of 44? And as opposed to worrying about the best sound out of the performance as possible, worry about things that don't matter as much, basically.

Speaker 3 (00:52:57):

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's only about people who's checking in diagrams and things on things like that. I think you need to listen instead of watching. That's very important. And of course, I've done a lot of mistakes in my past with usually with the mass. I mean, if you listen to the first Dema Boer album that I recorded, the second one, spiritual,

Speaker 2 (00:53:18):

Spiritual Black Dimensions.

Speaker 3 (00:53:20):

Yeah, that one sounded so fucking great. But the problem was we were so late, the massive went straight to the nuclear blast. So I couldn't even listen to it before, and I was just fucking so disappointed when I came out. They crushed the shit out of it, and I don't know what the fuck they did. That was a huge problem. I found it that tape, DAT tape with the original, and I actually gave it to the drummer a couple of years ago and I was like, this is how it was supposed to sound like. And now it sounds like this, so I'm really sorry. But sometimes, yeah, you get fucked.

Speaker 2 (00:53:56):

Do you do your own mastering ever?

Speaker 3 (00:53:58):

No, I never do. I tried a few times. I tend to overdo it, so fuck it. It's good to have someone else with fresh ears to do it. Now. I got a new guy in Finland that I really like working with Charge Maker in Finland. He did Ramstein Lindemann and a few other things. He did the last few pain songs, and he did the hypocrisy album as well. He seemed to know what I want. He doesn't change too much shit in there. He doesn't make it. Wow. Or what happened with the snare or things like that. He just makes it louder and he doesn't really fuck up the transient and shit.

Speaker 2 (00:54:39):

So when you're mixing, do you mix a certain way for mastering?

Speaker 3 (00:54:45):

I do. Nowadays. I run the master through outboard with SSL Master because then I can set it in a certain way how it pumps, and therefore I can set the levels after that. And I do it pretty early after the recording is done and start to mix right away, I put in either that or a master plug in there. Now I know how it's going to be when they're going to put it together, so to say. It's funny, when you turn off the master plug, it's only kick and snare and vocals you hear.

Speaker 2 (00:55:18):

I know,

Speaker 3 (00:55:19):

But that's how you're supposed to mix it, I guess, if you're going to have a chance to do something cool in the mastering. But in the past, like I said, I was mixing. I would like to hear it was finished. So I guess that gave a lot of master people problems to do anything with it.

Speaker 2 (00:55:36):

The thing I used to hate before, it was a lot easier to have your own basic mastering chain going was to have to guess. It was just guessing. How loud does the stare need to be so that you can still hear it after mastering?

Speaker 3 (00:55:51):

Yeah. Mickey d always told me, because he did one song with pain and we were talking about this shit, what he did with King Diamond and how he did with the Motorhead and stuff like that, and he said he was always pushing for a louder snare than it was supposed to be. Always loud as snare because that will disappear in the master and he is right. That's how it's when you mix, keep the snare louder than you really want it because when you start squeezing it together and put compressions and shit like that on, it tend to disappear.

Speaker 2 (00:56:22):

Yeah. So now that you're using, I guess the fake master, you can make it sound the way you want it to sound and not worry about it.

Speaker 3 (00:56:29):

Yeah, exactly. And then when you bounce it out to send to the master plan, you just take it off and then send it and when it comes back, you go like maybe the snare was a little bit too loud and then you ask him, can you lower it or should I lower it? So you just compromise, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:56:47):

Yeah. I think that is one of the good things about the modern way of working. I feel like back in the day also, mastering engineers did not let you make revisions traditionally, and I think that nowadays they do.

Speaker 3 (00:57:01):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:57:01):

I'm curious when it comes to guitar tone, do you think it has more to do with hands or gear, just out of curiosity?

Speaker 3 (00:57:10):

A lot of hands. When I recorded Alex for instance, he has such a fucking, I think he hits so fucking hard and that makes the same with Gary Holt. They have a certain way of hitting it. They have a certain rum technique, how to hit the string. So yeah, it becomes something totally different. They don't have a lot of distortion on that, but it sounds like it because they hit it so fucking hard and it's just all about technique, I guess. So guitarist who doesn't really hit properly and not in the right way, it's a little bit harder to get a good sound.

Speaker 2 (00:57:47):

Yeah, I think it's 80% hands, 20% gear.

Speaker 3 (00:57:51):

Yeah, for sure. The

Speaker 2 (00:57:52):

Gear matters, of course, but it doesn't matter as much as people think it does in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:57:59):

Yeah, I would say if it doesn't play good and you have the best setup on your amp, you're still going to have a problem, so you're going to have to tweak it If you have the same setting and get another guy who can play, you can hear the difference right away. It's a lot in the hands in the wrists. Same with drummers. Drummers, the hits. Right? It's great. In the nineties I had so many drummers that was not hitting so hard and things like that, and it was really a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (00:58:28):

You being a drummer, did it make it easier for you to communicate with drummers in the studio?

Speaker 3 (00:58:32):

Yeah, for sure. It definitely did.

Speaker 2 (00:58:35):

Yeah. You would know how to coach them into hitting harder and playing tighter.

Speaker 3 (00:58:41):

Not only harder, but in the right way. A lot of drummers tend to hit in a certain way that they kill the tones, they leave the stick on the tom or on the snare or whatever, so it kind of kills the ping in it, so to say, because they leave the stick right on. Let's say for a floor, Tom, you hit the floor, Tom, you want it to ring, but when you put your hit it and then leave the stick on there, then it kind of kills the tone in it. So there's a lot of different ways to do different things, I would say.

Speaker 2 (00:59:15):

Do you find that you have to take a different approach? Every single different musicians just it's a unique approach with everybody?

Speaker 3 (00:59:22):

Oh yeah. All drummers are different. All the guitarists are different, all the bass player, all singers, everybody's different. So you to, I would say you need to get into their mode and you have to do the necessary things to adapt to them.

Speaker 2 (00:59:38):

Some people are going to be more sensitive, some people want you to push them harder. Some people yet to be more their friend, they just respond psychologically differently.

Speaker 3 (00:59:48):

Hey, you have to be a shrink. Sometimes when you push too hard, it makes it worse. You need to find the balance and you need to be able to read people how they work, how they function. It takes a few recordings with different people to understand because sometimes if you push too hard, it breaks and you get a worst result. So it's very important to be smart there and delicate.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):

Do you find that when you worked with someone like Alexi for instance, someone that's that good that you don't have to do as much work because they're coming to the table with at least their end of things totally handled?

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):

Yeah, I mean with this guy, he was a wonder kid from the beginning. So I mean these guys band like Sch Bottom doing the third album, they were pretty professional already. I would say there was not too much to change in things just to make sure it was tight and it was well played. Also with the bass, I put a lot of time to get 'em to use five strings bass, and that was my thing in the nineties, I forced all the bands to use five string bass to get the B tone or or whatever in there because normal tuning for me it was not enough, especially with black metal bands. If you listen to when I started recording Immortal or Borger and things like that, I made them play tuned down on the bass to give it another dimension in the sound.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):

Did they go along with it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):

Well, you heard the fucking productions. Yeah, of course they heard it. Also to crank a bee on a guitar, it's not so heavy, but if you put a low B string on the base on top of that, it makes a huge fucking difference.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):

And I guess back then that wasn't so normal.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):

No, definitely not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):

It's cool when you get a band that does have their shit together and then you can just focus on making them even better.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):

As opposed to them coming in and you just have to fix all the problems.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):

Yeah, you don't have enough time to think about the essential things you only can concentrate on. Try to get them to get the right takes that you could keep.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):

Yeah, totally. So we have a few questions from listeners. Is it cool if I ask you a few?

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):

Okay, so Charles Elliot says, what do you usually blend your guitars with? Some people have said that you use an HM two, but I've heard from others you use some sort of a rackmounted sand amp unit or a pod. You have had a very distinct guitar sound across most of your records since the nineties. I love it, especially for black metal

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):

With amps. I really like the JCM eight hundreds. If you put a tube screener with that or a TC electronic or an overdrive, you can manage to do it. I mean, you manage to get by not so many recordings I've done with the MEA Boogie. To be honest, if you use the MEA Boogie, you definitely need to use the MEA Boogie speaker cabin because put it this way, a Marshall cabinet has such a loudness curve in it. You have a lot of high ends, you have a lot of bottoms in there, but when it comes to a me Boogie top that already has this loudness output, they were so smart. So they did the cabinets a little bit more linear in sound, and that's why me top Meza cabinet in my point of view, then it sounds really good. So I mean sometimes I use 51 fifties, the first one with the block letter. Oh,

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):

Those are great.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):

Yeah, same thing there. I use either a tube screamer, tc, electronic or overdrive. When I do pain, I just plug into a amp plugin because it's supposed to be sterilized sound, but when it comes to hypocrisy here, I think I had four or five different amps going at the same time when I react to get one speaker in there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):

So you do a bunch of different things.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):

Yeah, I talk to my friends and it's always like this, it doesn't matter what kind of amp I have or speaker cabinet, I kind of tweak it until it sounds the same, everything else because you have a certain taste in your mind that you want, so you kind of tweak it out of any amp that you're using. So it pretty much become the same shit as you always have because that's the way your ears want it to be.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):

This is actually why I tell student mixers not to worry about buying new plugins all the time because they'll spend a bunch of money on new gear, new plugins, and then their mixes will sound exactly the same as before and they won't understand why. And the reason is what you just said is because your ear is what's guiding you. No matter what you're using, you're still going to tweak stuff until it sounds the way you want to hear it, until you develop your actual hearing and your actual taste, it's not going to get not change much.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):

Exactly. So the only thing I remember on catch 22, I also had five amps at the same time going when I reacted, I had a combo, I had sun stamp in there, I had a Johnson, I had 51 50 and a Marshall, all five of them hooked up to different cabinets and it takes a while with five speakers and five microphones, you're going to get bad faces and shit like that. So you start with one sound, okay, this one is good. And then you turn on the next microphone and it all drops. So you have to run in and move the microphone until these two work together and not against each other. And then you put on the third amp, the microphone, you turn it on and it's the same thing there. You have to move the microphone or just face it either way. So you do all these things till you have all the five speakers, the five microphones all working together, not against each other. And then I just addresses it down to one input and then I reamp it so it's only one channel.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):

So I guess my question is why five? Do you get one sound? That's pretty cool, but you feel like there's something missing. You add another one and it's a little closer, but there's still something not quite there. Yep,

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):

That's how it is. So

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):

It doesn't have to be five, it's just five, for example.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):

Yeah, the new album, I only use two amps, 1 50, 1 50 and one Marshall Hotted, JCM 800 from 85 86.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):

Yeah, I think that that's good to point out though that you don't just use five mics because it looks cool or because I'm saying this because I saw a post in our group the other day where somebody posted a picture of a cabinet and it had eight microphones on it, everything. It had the Fred technique and on one speaker and then three condensers on another speaker and then distance mics and room mics and played it and it sounded like phasey garbage.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):

Yeah, that's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):

Yeah, I was thinking you saw a photo or a video of somebody doing this and thought that that's what you should do when in reality start with one, get it as good as you can and then decide is it incomplete? And if it's incomplete, you start adding a blend. But it's entirely possible also that you might get the whole tone with one microphone.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):

Yeah, it all depends. The cabinet, it depends on the amp, how you set it. It depends if you are using a paddle with it, how you put that, and also in your arm how you hit it. So there's a lot of different things that needs to click to get a good sound. I would say.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):

Yeah, Charles is a great guitar player. Lemme just say, so Adam Levi says, did the range of your vocals take a lot of work? You go from super low to extreme highs, or did that just come naturally?

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):

I think that's something that grew as I was on stage. The problem was after the second album, we went out on tour and we had another vocal vocalists and he quit after four shows and we had six weeks with the Cannibal corpse and Fair Factory. Fortunately, I wrote most of the lyrics on the songs for the first album and things. So we said, okay, either we go home and we go bankrupt because we have thousands of tour shirts left or we go out and try to figure it out while me singing. So that's really how we became a three piece. And the first show we did was horrible. I got electrocuted plus it was so much guitars in my monitors and I had to stay at the microphone to sing, and every time I back down from the microphone, then I could hear the drums and then back in again into wherever.

(01:09:13):

So it was really fucked up, but after a while I got used to sing and I had just to learn from nowhere how to growl, how to scream and things like that. And I think I did that during the first couple of tours we did with hypocrisy, trying to find things because when you're on stage, you get a much better feeling. I can never get a feeling in the studio. I fucking hate to be in the studio and sing because yeah, I can't get it to groove as I do when I do live. So with all these high screams and shit like that, that just came naturally as another instrument sometimes in the music to get more dynamics in there and out of necessity. I mean, I didn't know that I could scream like a pig. So I mean that just grew out on stops and things like that and more like theater kind of feeling into it and more dramatic. So that's how it started. I would say. I always try to brush very low and shit, but sometimes you want some dynamics in there. So you start screaming high pitched or Yeah, it was just to put some color on it and learning by doing I guess

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):

Sounds like that's your method for doing just about everything is learning by doing. It's a good method,

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):

But it takes a long fucking time instead of if someone shows you how to do it, you can do it in a few weeks instead of a few years. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So the thing is we a lot do nail the mix and we have a bunch of tutorials and courses on production and mixing, and so I definitely think that people can get better faster, but it doesn't matter how many nail the mix episodes we do or classes we put out, people still are going to need to learn by doing. We might save them some time by suggesting, well, you should try this, but they're still going to have to try that thing and get good at doing it. You can't ever get out of that part, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):

No, definitely. You need to learn, you need to touch it, you need to be there. You need to understand what happens when you do these things and then to control them for the better.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):

Yeah, you can't skip that part. Question from Harry. Alas, and actually I wanted to talk about this too. I'm just going to say me not Harry. I love black metal and yeah, I've been a huge fan since the nineties, and so not very many people produce it. Well, you hear it either sounding like total fucking garbage, like so bad that it's like avantgarde noise or it sounds like a circus way too cheesy. So there's a really good, I know every band's different than you have a wide range of everything. Watain Borg gear to whatever is, they all sound unique, but there's a way of processing or there's a right amount of production to where it still sounds as epic and atmospheric as it needs to, but not over processed. And so I guess Harry's question is how do you keep a black metal record authentic and balanced without overprocessing or under processing?

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):

Oh shit, it's all about the ingredients in the music I would say. I mean, if you wanted to live sound like avant-garde or demo and distorted, the only band that I think should sound like that is Dark Throne. They have the right to sound like that because that is Dark Throne and nobody else, I would say so. I mean you just have to use your ears and if you start thinking it sounds silly, then you have to do something about it. If it starts sounding like a tiboli and things, I know what you mean. I'm not going to say any names of bands and stuff like that, but

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):

Yeah, no names, but you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):

Yeah, I definitely know. And then it gets really silly and then usually the vocals right in your face as well. But yeah, you have to use your own judgment and your own ears how far this tivoli feeling is going to go.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):

God. It's like when it's done just right though, it's amazing and it's one of those genres that can easily just spiral into total shit. But it's interesting. If you look at the great black metal bands, they all sound totally different and they all have their own thing going. If you look at a satir production versus edema production versus mayhem versus dark funeral, that's all vastly. I know that some people would argue what's true black metal or what isn't, and I don't care about those arguments.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):

I thought those days were over 20 years ago, but okay, yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):

That's what I'm saying. Those arguments are stupid, but all those artists sound completely unique and I think that that's the thing that people getting into whatever genre they're getting into need to remember is the artists they listened to did their own thing no matter what genre.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):

Yeah. All these bands have found their own identity and that's how they want to sound and that's what they stick to. I do the same thing with hypocrisy. You can definitely tell the new album, it sounds hypocrisy the first 10 seconds you listen to it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):

Yeah, that's exactly right. When I heard it, I was like, okay, yeah, I didn't need to know that. It was a hypocrisy record to know it was a hypocrisy record.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):

Exactly. Then I think you achieved something when you get your own sound out of all these millions of bands that goes around. So yeah, I mean all bands have their own identity. I would say the bigger ones and the ones that been been around for a while because it takes you, I don't know, five, six albums to find your own identity, maybe three only. It all depends what kind of band.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):

Yeah, I think that the question of under processing or Overprocessing, I think you answered it by talking about the identity of the bands. I think that what they're going for dictates how much processing basically.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):

Yeah, yeah. I mean if I would do an immortal band today, I don't want it to sound like anything else than Immortal, for example.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):

Yeah, absolutely. And

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):

I don't think they want it to sound anything different than Immortal either. So sometimes it's very easy to make up your mind what you're going to do when you record the next album for this band that you've been maybe producing a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):

So question from Paul Yge or Yage, I dunno how to pronounce it. How could someone move to the village that you are the mayor of? Are you the mayor of a village?

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):

No, I'm not a mayor of the village. I used to own a big part of one village. I sold away a bunch of houses and stuff like that and tear down a lot of houses and things. So it used to be an old hospital with working facilities around it. Kind of long story short, I don't know, you got a job to pay the rent. I don't even have anything vacant right now anyhow, so forget it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):

I had no idea about any of that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:01):

Yeah, no big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):

Marcus. Ed Ardon says, can you talk a little about the custom built tap amps you're using with hypocrisy?

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):

Yeah. A friend of mine from Next City, he hot rods my amps, especially Marshall Amps. I did one or 2 50, 1 fifties that he Hot rod as well, and then he came out with his own amp from scratch. It's called Tap amp, which is really good. I really like it. He's a good guitarist and he understands what he's missing of all these amps, so he kind of edit into his own. To make it a long story short, one of my favorite, I have his 51 50 block with his hot trotting on that I really like,

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):

Man, those 51 50 block letters, the modd ones. I have a Modd one too that obviously it's a different mod, but it just is a fucking beast and I just feel like a modd block letter with the right mod. I have encountered so many of those that are just, every time I hear one, it's like the best amp I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):

Yeah, it's got something in there both in the distortion and the tightness in the bottom end, but you have to make sure you go over six on gain if you want to keep base in the string. In the A stringing in the D-ring, if you go less than six on the distortion, you will only have the punch in the lowest string, unfortunately. So you've got to make sure you have at least six. Then if you put a pedal, you can adjust it. So it's not so much if you think it's too much distortion, then you just back it down on the level on the pedal. I don't know why it's like that, but I tried it with very huge speakers to sit and hit every string, boom, boom, boom. With this gain and having exactly the same level on the base, I see a very big difference. If you have less distortion, then you only get the low ends in the lowest string, but as soon as you come up to around six, six and a half,

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):

That's the sweet spot.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):

Yeah, it feels like it's punching every string but in a different frequencies. But the punch is there, so try that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):

So question from Greg Keenan. He says, we are often discouraged as engineers from mixing our own projects due to lack of objectivity. How do you maintain a critical perspective mixing your own music as compared to other artists?

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):

I would say I'm very stubborn. I never give up. I would say the first 10 years I should probably not being behind the desk and mixing bands because it was just learning by doing all the time. Now I know a lot more, but still don't give up. Redo, redo, redo, redo, redo until you're done. The problem is, okay, that was that album. Now a new sound on guitars comes in and other things, and then you have to kind of start from the beginning again. But the more you do these things, the faster it's going to go and all suddenly you understand how levels should be and how frequencies should be in different instruments to make it work. For me, it's just learning by doing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):

All right. Question from Marcus Ardon. Why did you sell your Amic Angela and move on to using preamps instead? And do you still gate drums with the drummer gate on the way in, or do you cut the drums in your DAW afterwards?

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):

I always use the key gate. I put triggers on the Toms and snares, not so much, but on Toms, and they go into key gate on the back of the gates just to control, so you don't get, like if you hit the symbol too hard, the gate opens. It's better to have when you hit the Tom, that's when the gate should open. And sometimes I'd rather do it but do it a little bit sloppy. So you still have some tail after the Tom don't overdo it. So it's like short leave a tail there and afterwards you can go in on the files and do your own fade on the Toms after they, they're done to take away leaks from symbols and things like that. So that's what I do and why did I sell it? Because it's just starting to fall apart. And so I just bought these lunchboxes with SSL 4,000 and it's not like a real SSL 4,000, but it's as close as I can get.

(01:21:45):

And I have eight channels on that that I use for kicks, snares, and Toms with key gates on. And then I use 40, 80 ones. I think I have 16 channels on that, which I run high hat symbols room through it. Plus I have a American brand of equalizer, API five. Oh, a equalizer. Yeah, five in a lunchbox. I have eight of them. I blend the sound there with the overheads and symbols, Hyatt's room, and then into the computer sometimes. Most of the times I do snare and kick through 1176. The real ones. You are right before it goes into the computer and I use, what am I using on guitar? Oh yeah, 10 80 ones, the old ones. Oh, those

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):

Are great.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):

Yeah, I run that through and into 1176 and then back into the computer. So a lot of things I do analog and then into the computer. Sometimes I do subgroups and run it through outboard things when I mix as well. It all depends what the mix is needing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):

Great answer. One more question from Marcus is how much do you EQ or compress on the way in when you're recording?

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):

Not so much. I need to take away the ugly frequencies, like in a snare somewhere around three 30 or something like that, 600 in the past, I never took away things. I just added, okay, it sounds like this. Let's smash up the high gains. Oh, now it sounds more brilliant. Oh, I need some more bottom. Okay, let's put on some more bottom. And that was it. Nowadays I listen to what it sounds like and I try to find the annoying tones in there. So I put the cue on very narrow and I go like 12 dvs, and then I start going with the hertz from whatever, from nothing up, and I try to go and then I hear, Ooh, this is the shit. Okay. And then I take it down and then I keep on doing that maybe three or four different bands, and then I feel like, okay, let's leave it for now. Now I've got all the ugly shit out of there, so when I start mixing, then I start putting on some high ends in there if I need it or mid, so whatever. So when it goes into the computer, take away the ugly shit as much as you can without losing the basic sound of what you have.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):

Yeah. Last question is from Danny Lucas, which is when mixing hypocrisy albums after so many albums, do you have a sort of a template or starting point to go from, or do you start the mix from scratch every time? I'm a huge fan of your work. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:24:54):

Thank you. Yeah, no, you always start from the beginning with everything. I mean, you can use certain plugins that you think helps you and certain outboard equipment as well, but there's no templates for me to, okay, you have this sound on here and you just pull up the faders and it works. It never works. I usually always start with the drums. I try to get as natural sound as possible, even though I put in some triggers under it just to stabilize, like for a kick for instance, I love the acoustic clicks more than I do in these trigger things because it's a little bit like lar jewelry, you hear when it hits the symbol because then it goes more clicky on the bass drum, for example, and it gives it more dynamic in the kicks and it sounds real, but in the bottom end sometimes you can't really find the right frequency in there.

(01:25:48):

It doesn't really matter how you move the microphone or if you put one inside and one in the gap and one a few feet outside and then you covered it with whatever you have to cover and shit like that. Sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes I just really go for the click in the kick to make it more human and then add under it a good stomp under it, so to say. And you mix these two together, take away a little bit on the acoustic base drum, take away a little bit on the trigger thing, and I usually never use any high ends in the trigger. Not so much. Maybe up to three, 4,000 k. That's about it. But the high brightness usually always comes from the real kick.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):

Makes sense. That's the opposite of how a lot of people do it. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):

I know. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):

It's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):

I'm not like everybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):

Oh, I know. I know. That's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):

For good or for worse, I would say

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):

You can only be yourself, right?

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course you can put these triggers on less sensitivity. You get the same thing, but still you don't. I feel.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):

Yeah, absolutely. It's not a matter of what's good or what's bad. It's a matter of what you're going for.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):

Yeah, exactly. And nothing is really good or bad in your technique. You just have to figure out what is the best technique for you to get what you want, and then what everybody else is saying, fuck him. If you like it, keep it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):

Yeah. My last question is have you always known what you wanted when you are working on something musical, even when you didn't have the skills? Did you know what you were going for?

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):

Sometimes in the beginning of nineties, of course you want it to sound like the Metallica Black album, but with guitars, you like the frequency range. You had a lot of high ends, good low ends, nice bass in there. Guitars was a little bit too far away, and sometimes you use that as a template. You were clicking AB between the CD player and what you were doing, and most of the times you didn't know that, oh, if I'm two DBS stronger, then the B and mine is going to sound better. And then when you get to CD afterwards, it's not even close to what you were comparing it to. So first of all, I think it's very good when you mix to compare with other recordings that you like just to see where you are in the high ends, in the low ends and in the midst, and even in levels as snare or kick or vocals and things like that. But you always have to make sure they both have exactly the same output when you listen to them. Otherwise you will be fooled to help. That

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):

Is the quickest way to make bad decisions, to have things at different volumes.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):

And the problem also, if you have no clue what you're doing when you're recording it and then come up with a bright idea, oh, now I'm going to compare it with this or this band to see if I can get a little bit like that. It can turn out really bad because your mix was not made in this kind of sound, so you're going to suffer with a lot of missing things if you're going to try to tweak it to the next thing that you like so much. If you want to copy something, you have to start from the beginning, I would say.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):

Yeah, you can only copy something. Exactly. Element by element.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):

Yeah. I only use other albums, just a reference I put on Spotify. I've tried to find something that sounds decent and good that I know works in my car or whatever, and then I just click it in between my mix and that, and then I can go like, oh, shit, I'm totally out. I'm not even close to where I should be with my levels. So it's always good to hear that something that you really like. It can be anything.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):

Yeah, I think that referencing, if you're trying to use a reference to match it exactly, you're missing the point. It's really to just give you an idea of if you are in the right range.

Speaker 3 (01:29:53):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):

Quality wise,

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):

Yeah. Is my symbol, are they bright enough? Are they loud enough? Let's hear what other bands sound like. Because when you're sitting there, you are in your own vacuum, so to say. You have no clue about outside, so when you start to find all the frequencies in all your instruments that you're going to mix, then you can put away the reference stuff aside I think. So it's a little helper, I would say that helps you move on faster.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):

I completely agree. Well, Peter Teran, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out.

Speaker 3 (01:30:31):

Thank you. I hope someone learned something. I don't know. I mean, it's so hard since I just do what I hear and I just start tweaking. It's really hard. I don't have any special techniques or anything like that. It's just tweaking by air. So I think a lot of people has to do that as well. Of course, you need to check how other people do it to get started, and then you have to follow your heirs in your heart.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):

Yeah, I completely agree. Well, I think it's good to just hear from people who do it, who have been doing it at this kind of level for a long time. It's just good to hear their perspective and even if their perspective is you need to find your own identity and do your thing and learn by doing. That's a great perspective.

Speaker 3 (01:31:15):

Yeah. Usually when you think about all these big producers that did so many good things and mixer people as well, when you ask them, you get surprised because most of 'em also say, I don't know. I'm just using my ears. I really don't know. This is how I like it. Of course, it's good if you know certain things, if you put on 170 hertz on the kick, it sounds pretty high, but it's going to come out in small boombox. It's going to come out even in your telephone if you just put it flat on the table, things like that. If you want the base to be more fat, it's not down at 70 hertz, it's up in 200, 250 range. It's so weird. But you learn that later on.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I mean, I do consider it a lot like being a chef with a chef. Salt is salt, right? Fat is fat. Tomato a tomato, but you give the ingredients to Gordon Ramsey versus someone who doesn't know how to cook, and you're going to get two completely different results just because his tastes are totally refined.

Speaker 3 (01:32:20):

Yeah, exactly. He sees it in a total different way than we do. I just see, oh, I can't taste any salt in it. I put on some more salt. That's all.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):

Yeah, exactly. Alright, man, well thank you so much. Thank

Speaker 3 (01:32:32):

You, man. Have

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):

A great rest of your day.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):

Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):

Alright then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post them to your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy, and of course tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to me at al. At m Do Academy. That's EYA [email protected] MY. And use the subject line Answer me Al. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.