ANDREW WADE: Building His New Studio, Recording ADTR for $20 a Song, Production Secrets

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Focus, right supplying hardware and software products used by professional and amateur musicians, which enables the high quality production of music focus. Right? Sound is everything. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis. Joel Wanasek and

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi. Thank you. Yes. And with me is that voice that you heard say thank you. That's none other than my friend and I don't know, confidant, confidant and studio partner. Now, I guess in a weird way, it's weird. I'm never there, but Mr. Andrew Wade, also producer extraordinaire, guest mixer, nail the mix this month. Yes. He's been on this podcast before. He's done a ton of shit. You guys know exactly who he is, so welcome back. Thank you. It's good to be back, dude. Can you believe that? That was over two years ago, the last time we did this podcast. Yeah. So

Speaker 3 (00:01:09):

Yeah, if you asked me, I definitely would've said it was less than two years ago. That's pretty insane. I

Speaker 2 (00:01:14):

Know. Well, this whole studio thing took a year right? To put together

Speaker 3 (00:01:19):

The studio. Kind of put my life on hold for a little bit, but now I'm back in action a little too deep at times. But

Speaker 2 (00:01:27):

I think we should talk about the studio. I just want to jump right in. I've posted pictures of it and people have flipped out. I think that when I posted a picture of my control room and it got the most likes out of any picture I've ever posted in the history of me posting pictures. It was like thousands of likes, right? Yeah, yeah. It was in the thousands and I don't normally get thousands. So basically Andrew and Jeremy McKinnon built a studio together and they were nice enough to allow me to be a part of the studio. The studio took a year to build and it's absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (00:02:07):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:02:08):

And I'm not going to take any credit for that. I don't have anything to do with that. That's all you. So I want to hear about it, and I'm sure that this will be interesting to the crowd because there's some really unique construction going on. It's very well designed, and whenever people see pictures of it, they flip their shit. So let's get into it. First of all, what took so damn long? Why did it take a year?

Speaker 3 (00:02:34):

Well, we had the building and we literally sat on the building for a few months. I feel like when we first got it, we were trying to get the plans together. Let me rewind by saying I have never built a studio or anything of this magnitude. The entire building is 6,000 square feet. So as you can imagine, doing one or two rooms I've done before, that's not a big deal. This has three fully functioning studios, two live rooms, an apartment, a practice area, storage area, two lobbies, four ISO booths.

Speaker 2 (00:03:09):

And when you say the practice area, let's get a little more specific about that. It's not just a practice area, it's like a warehouse,

Speaker 3 (00:03:17):

Right? That's for a data member. They use that. They have, their guitar tech has a little spot set up in there so they can fix their guitars and amps and anything that goes wrong, which is really awesome. So we have access to some of that equipment if they let us use it, which is most of the time, and that's a really awesome benefit to the studio. But it took so long, we were planning the damn thing. We drew up a bunch of plans. It was me, Jeremy, we hired another dude, Alex Zeman, who owns a KT. I don't know if you've ever heard of that company, but they do t-shirt designs and printing and all kinds of stuff. I've heard of A-K-G-A-K-G. Yeah, no, this is a KT. Awesome dude. He helped us out because he's made, he has a 35,000 square foot building that his company runs out of Jesus, and he's the one that's designed most of it, probably all of it actually.

(00:04:16):

And he's done a ton of other projects like that. So he was the one who kind of helped us figure out what to do, where we can change the design just to save $10,000 here and there. He was such a great help. So we went back and forth with a bunch of designs and then we ran it by this really awesome guy who is the one mainly who built everything, and he's the dude who got all the guys together to build everything. His name's Joel Garcia. He's just a local guy. He's a genius as far as I'm concerned. He does not cut corners. He knows just how to do everything. So I had a bunch of weird requests whenever I was first building it, and everybody treated me like I was insane, but I don't think I'm insane. Neither will you.

(00:05:06):

Yeah, to make walls soundproof. You guys know about one of the biggest things in studios. Everybody's like, don't make parallel walls, which I understand it makes sense. We didn't actually do that. We have parallel walls, but we haven't had any problems because the sound treatment we've put up. But you know how weird the construction can get with recording studios? That's my point. We have slanted, the ceilings are slanted, which helps a lot. The dudes that were putting the ceiling up were making fun of me as they're putting it up. They're like, you designed this. I'm like, yes, just do it. Just put up the ceiling. It'll be cool when it's done. And it is, it's really cool. But inside the walls we have, so every wall where it needs to be soundproof, like the mixing room, tracking room, iso booths in all the studios, it has drywall, green glue, drywall.

(00:06:04):

If you don't know what green glue is, it helps absorb the vibrations between the two layers of drywall and then resilient channels, which is what the drywall hangs on. So it's not attached directly to the studs. Then we have the studs, four inches of mineral wall insulation, a one inch gap, and then the same thing repeats on the other side in the opposite direction. So all the walls are pretty thick, and then we have double doors that are completely airtight. Yeah, they're ridiculous. And so everywhere that it's soundproof is that plus more actually. So in the ISO booths, we have that already. And then on top of that, we have four more we inches of mineral wool and then pegboard and then acoustic insulation. And these rooms are totally dead. They sound awesome for vocals, have not had any problems. However, one of the biggest problems that I've run into whenever making rooms soundproof is the AC that it gets really hot in an ISO booth.

(00:07:12):

So we had to request that every single room that soundproof has an air send and return, which is a lot of complicated duct work. But if you don't have that send and return, you won't have a flow of air and it's just going to get super hot in that room. So as you can imagine, that's a lot of stuff. Now there are more steps we actually could do. We didn't build the floors up or anything. We still can do that if we want, but everything functions rather well. We have the three studios functioning at the same time. Nobody's bothered by sound, so it's pretty awesome. You got to have a full band playing in the other room and you don't hear it down the hallway. It's great.

Speaker 2 (00:07:59):

Yeah, I noticed that the noise wasn't an issue the times that I've been there. So what about the treatment in the walls? Because some people made fun of the fact that there's foam up and I've explained to people that, well, yeah, there's foam on the outer layer designed to take care of flutter, but there's a lot of stuff behind the foam too. Is that what you just described?

Speaker 3 (00:08:21):

Yes. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:08:22):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:08:22):

So I understand it's a bunch of complicated stuff, but so pretend you're in your room or wherever you are, blank drywall. So on top of the drywall, you take four inches of mineral wool or a rigid fiberglass, something like that to absorb the lower frequency that actually absorbs all the frequencies really high and low. Gets that low and mid range that boominess, that's naturally in rooms, it gets rid of that pretty well. But since we have it from floor to ceiling, I figured instead of making a ton of panels, we just put the peg board over it. And the peg board reflects a little bit of high end, but all the low end and mid range goes right through that. It's no problem to collect the high end. We have the two inch thick foam that has the, I don't know, what does it look like? How would you describe it?

Speaker 2 (00:09:21):

It's the accordion, the accordion pattern.

Speaker 3 (00:09:24):

And that captures all the high frequencies with no problem. We tried one inch, that didn't work very well. The two inch worked great. We got it off of Amazon. Those things, if you buy name brand, you will spend way too much. We found it on Amazon, you get a pack of like 900 and it was like a dollar something per panel, maybe a dollar 50, which is way, way less than anything else.

Speaker 2 (00:09:51):

That's kind of ridiculous because if you buy Oral X or something, you're going to be paying more than if you buy legit panels from GIK or something.

Speaker 3 (00:10:03):

Yeah, it's weird. I don't know why they charge so much, but these are one by one foot by one foot square panels. Really easy to put up just with

Speaker 2 (00:10:13):

A little bit of glue. And let me just echo or reiterate that. I was super skeptical when I saw that because so much work went into the studio and I just remember waiting a year for it to be ready because I wasn't even in Florida at the time. So it's just like, okay, I'm going to plan on coming to Florida to move my stuff in and waiting and waiting and waiting. And then I see pictures and there's foam, and I'm like, oh no. Oh no, understandably. Because

Speaker 3 (00:10:44):

Let me emphasize that those panels don't work by themselves. They literally are only capturing higher frequencies, like higher mid range and up,

Speaker 2 (00:10:57):

And that's it. When you see foam all over a studio, your immediate reaction is, oh, amateur hour. Right? This guy doesn't know what he's doing. But I got to say, those rooms sound incredible

Speaker 3 (00:11:08):

And they wouldn't, if it wasn't set up exactly as they are,

Speaker 1 (00:11:13):

You

Speaker 3 (00:11:14):

Can't just put those panels up, it won't work. And in the mixing rooms, we have massive base traps full from the floor to the ceiling with all the scraps left over from putting the insulation in the wall in the walls. So those corners are no problem at all. I love the way our mixing room sounds a all, I think yours is my favorite one, though. That room sounds great. Yeah,

(00:11:41):

It's so balanced. The ceilings are just a acoustic drop ceiling, but we filled them with four or six, probably six inches of more insulation above it. So the ceilings are completely dead and they're angled. So nothing reflects between the floor and ceiling. The only thing left we still have to do is make some diffusion panels for the back wall and the little bit on the sidewalls, but it's definitely working out in the area where you actually sit and listen. It sounds great. So all that would do is improve the room no matter where you're sitting. You know what I mean? And

Speaker 2 (00:12:25):

There's also a very, I guess, efficient design the studio in that any control room can use any drum room. I thought that that was very, very smart to be able to patch into whatever drum room you want.

Speaker 3 (00:12:44):

Yeah, so studio A and studio B are directly connected to a drum room and studio C is not, but Studio C can patch into A or B.

Speaker 2 (00:12:56):

Wait, wait, let me clarify. Studio A has drum room A and studio B has drum room B,

Speaker 3 (00:13:03):

Right

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

Directly connected to them, right?

Speaker 3 (00:13:06):

But you A can patch in to B, C can patch in A or B. Pretty simple, but it's awesome to be able to do that. Very awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:13:17):

Simple, but what a great detail. So, alright, so that took a while. What about the aesthetics? Because the place looks very nice and that's not, I mean, you don't find that too often. I find that with studios, they tend to look super gaudy or oh's over done or somebody didn't care, with the exception of the multimillion dollar places where obviously if you're going,

Speaker 3 (00:13:51):

They hired a designer or something.

Speaker 2 (00:13:53):

Yeah, obviously if you're going to a place like that, it's going to look like $10 million and that's great. But in general, you don't find studios with, I guess such an aesthetic quality to them. And it's all the way down to the thermometers.

Speaker 3 (00:14:15):

We made sure to pay attention to every detail. And I think Jeremy and I work really well together when we create anything because we really obsess over planning and making sure that doing mock, I did a bunch of mock designs basically of how the rooms would look, and I was like, what if we did this? What if we did this? And they got very, very close. I would think through, since I've done this before, I'm actually pretty decent at building things and hands-on stuff. So in my mind, I would kind of go over how it would actually be constructed. And I think that was kind of an advantage too. So I wasn't just randomly designing. I was also solving the problems as I was going, if we design it like this, then it'll be easier. We can save money here. If we design like this, it'll cost more, but it

Speaker 2 (00:15:06):

Might look better. But there's actual panels. There's acoustic panels with lights that change colors. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:15:13):

We have the fiber optic panels with the stars in 'em. Pretty simple construction, just a four by eight wood panel. They're only for diffusion, not absorption, only diffusion. I found on Amazon, there was a star field ceiling star field kit, and I just drilled 200 holes in each panel, carefully put the fiber optics through each hole and put a little drop of glue to keep 'em in place and hung 'em on the ceiling. They look pretty cool. You could check 'em out on the Wade Studio's Facebook page.

Speaker 2 (00:15:49):

Well, we can post pictures of this stuff in the show notes for this podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:15:56):

Oh, cool. I didn't know you could do that.

Speaker 2 (00:15:57):

Yeah, we will put pictures. I want people to actually be able to see up close what we're talking about. It's also the panels in drum room B are gorgeous. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:16:13):

Those were pretty simple construction also. Yeah, I mean, if you look at 'em, I feel like if you just look at a picture of 'em, you can kind of figure out how they, they're put together. But I'd never seen anything like that. And I just kind of thought it up one day. I thought it would be cool, and it worked

Speaker 2 (00:16:32):

Out pretty well. So basically they have LED lights in them. They're basically like a cloud, like an acoustic cloud, but they have LED lights in them that you can control. And basically they cast a gorgeous vibe in the room.

Speaker 3 (00:16:50):

It was really important to me that this studio looked good enough that you could be inspired, you could feel happy that you're here and you could just feel creative. You can tell that it's a creative environment.

Speaker 2 (00:17:02):

Well, that's so important. I mean, I think that it's important that you feel like you can be creative, but you're also in a badass place. And also that you're in a place where people care about it

Speaker 3 (00:17:14):

Enough

Speaker 2 (00:17:14):

To make it badass. I feel like that's inspiring as well. And I feel like a lot of people would've just stopped at the, okay, the rooms are perfect, sounding cool.

Speaker 3 (00:17:27):

Right, and that's the thing, again, Jeremy and I both are very similar in that we really want to make sure that everything has the best quality to it, whether it's the sound or the look. So

Speaker 2 (00:17:41):

The studio is called the Audio Compound,

Speaker 3 (00:17:44):

And it couldn't be called the Wade Studio because it's not just the Wade Studio. It's your studio's in there. What is your studio called?

Speaker 2 (00:17:53):

I don't even know. I don't have a name for mine. Dude is mine even. I don't even know what mine is. It's just, it's my control room. But I've been there four times. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:18:08):

Your equipment is set up. I've tracked a full length in your studio.

Speaker 2 (00:18:13):

Yeah, I mean, I love my control room. It's finally the control room I've always wanted and I never use it. Yeah, you should use it

Speaker 3 (00:18:23):

Sometime. It's pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:18:26):

Yeah, I don't know when, I mean, I haven't bothered naming it. It's not like I'm booking it or anything for myself. I mean, we've done nail the mix a few times there, but I feel like I should have a nice studio for when I need it.

Speaker 3 (00:18:42):

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:18:45):

I don't know when I'll need it, but I just feel like if I didn't have that available to me, that I'd feel kind of uncomfortable. Something that I will definitely need at some point, wasn't there? And it's not right. Used to having a studio,

Speaker 3 (00:19:04):

A thing where you have it and you're like, all right, I need it. Everybody get out.

Speaker 2 (00:19:08):

This

Speaker 3 (00:19:08):

Is my studio. Who

Speaker 2 (00:19:10):

Knows? It might be in a year, it might

Speaker 3 (00:19:13):

Be. Whenever that is. You'll absolutely have it. Exactly. At any point. Any point. Even if you want to just come over and sleep. I thought about that. You just come in, sleep, do whatever. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:19:26):

Get on Google, get on

Speaker 3 (00:19:28):

Facebook. Just Facebook in there,

Speaker 2 (00:19:31):

Whatever. So I want to talk about your relationship with Jeremy. And for those of you that are not aware of this, Andrew is mixing a data. Remember song on Nail the mix this month, right back at it again. And if you subscribe, you can download the actual raw multi-tracks from the song, do your own mix of it. And then at the end of the month, Andrew will show you how to actually mix it. He'll show you how it's done, but Oh yeah, oh yeah. But your relationship with them goes back all the way you guys kind of came up together. So I want to talk about that and I want to talk about this song as well, but

Speaker 3 (00:20:14):

Sure. So back at the beginning of time, back at the beginning of time, so we were both in bands together at the same time. Our bands were, we'd play shows together all the time. My band was called A Wish for Maryland, which is eerily close to a day to remember. Same number of syllables, a band it has whatever. But anyway, I just counted it out. You're right. Yeah, same number of words too. So I would just record bands locally in my room, just in my bedroom. How long ago was this? This was 2003 something, which,

Speaker 2 (00:20:55):

Damn, so that is the beginning of time.

Speaker 3 (00:20:57):

Yeah. It doesn't seem that long ago, but it really is. Yeah, it really is. It definitely is. Yep. But I recorded a bunch of local bands in my room and other local bands heard it, and they were stoked on it because all the other local studios were charging crazy amounts of money still. I remember there was this one local studio, this band I recorded, they spent $10,000 on their full length. It was the biggest pile of garbage I've ever heard in my life. I can't believe that people paid that back then.

Speaker 2 (00:21:33):

So $10,000 on a local level garbage record.

Speaker 3 (00:21:39):

Yeah, $10,000,

Speaker 2 (00:21:41):

Not $10,000 on something of the quality you would expect out of somebody. Good.

Speaker 3 (00:21:48):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21:49):

Jesus. God.

Speaker 3 (00:21:50):

I don't know how that deal ever came about, but it did. And I heard stories about that all the time, where the series would charge by the hour, but then they would delete people's tracks by accident. Accident. They would say, yeah, and Oh, sorry, all your guitars got deleted. We're going to have to retrack 'em all and the end product would be garbage. The studio scene in Ocala where I grew up was Ocala and Gainesville both. It was just atrocious. And they would take advantage of bands, studios would close down and bands wouldn't get their final product. So I really sounds

Speaker 2 (00:22:26):

Like a total shit show.

Speaker 3 (00:22:27):

It was. And I thought I really had a shot. I was like, I could totally, I'm an honest person. I'm not going to do any of this. I'm really consistent with how hard I work. You know what I mean? So there wouldn't be any problem with people not getting their tracks or anything like that. I was stoked to be doing this at all. So I would try to put them out of business, and I kind of did just

Speaker 2 (00:22:54):

By not being a scumbag.

Speaker 3 (00:22:56):

Yeah, it wasn't hard. I think Ocala being so crappy was one of the reasons that I was successful. It's almost like when you see a chance to take and it's so easy to take the chance, you're like, I could easily beat all of these people. I didn't know what I was doing if nobody would record with me today, if I was as bad as I was when I started. But even though I was that bad, I was still better than all the other people. So it was easy. And I guess it gave me the confidence

Speaker 2 (00:23:32):

To pursue it. I want to just say that one thing, we've talked about this on the podcast before, and Joel has said this a lot, that while you should definitely aim to be the best you can possibly be and have your sights set really, really high in all reality, what's most important is that you're better than the people you're directly competing with. First and foremost. Obviously if you want to be as good as CLA at mixing, that's a long-term goal. But in the short term, just be better than your local competition to start with.

Speaker 3 (00:24:07):

And for me, that was not hard. That was not hard at all. So I had a day to remember in there. And

Speaker 2 (00:24:15):

They were just a local band at that point, right?

Speaker 3 (00:24:17):

Yeah. They weren't signed. Nobody knew who they were. Nobody cared. But they liked what I did. I would always, since I did it in my bedroom, I would always, after the bands would leave, I would obsess over it. I would add things. I would edit things as much as I could. I took it really seriously and people could tell, especially the local bands, and people were familiar with my band and stuff. So that helped having friends. And I was charging, I think $20 a song. Wow. $20. $20 a song. And people were like, sure, alright, whatever. Can't

Speaker 2 (00:25:00):

Argue with that.

Speaker 3 (00:25:00):

Yeah. We did what we could. And Jeremy would tell people, he's like, if you don't record with Andrew Wade, you're just stupid. That's what he would tell people. He's like, if you go anywhere else, you're just dumb as a band. They had gone to all those other studios, they had been screwed over. So having me around was great for them. They saved money and they actually got a product that was

Speaker 2 (00:25:23):

Decent. So basically you're saying that you were super serious from the beginning about being as professional as possible and, oh yeah. Okay. When you first met up with them, were they as or was at least Jeremy as pro minded? I mean obviously he was totally green back then, but did he have vision like he does now for things?

Speaker 3 (00:25:51):

No, not as much. We all grow and develop obviously. But whenever he started, he was really insecure about singing and I was like, you're singing all this stuff low. Why don't you try singing it higher? And I showed him what his voice could sound like after I was like, I think you could sound really good. And I would try to sing with him and build up his confidence and he would project and sing with confidence and then I would tune it and show him how good it could sound. And he said that is what motivated him to start writing better. And that's what made him realize I do have some kind of potential. There is something here because I can sound good. So all the other places didn't have autotune. That wasn't a thing. Nobody did that. Nobody did pitch correction. I even called the studios myself. I was like, do you guys offer pitch correction? And they would get mad at me. They'd be like, if you can't sing, then you shouldn't come in.

Speaker 2 (00:26:58):

You can't sing it. I shouldn't record it.

Speaker 3 (00:27:02):

And they would get mad at me and I'd be like, alright, I'm shutting you down. And they went out of business. They all did. They didn't stay up with the technology. They just got stuck. That's such a shitty attitude. Yeah, it is. When people say, oh, you shouldn't have messed up in the first place. Okay, well, should be human. Sure, yeah. Thank you for the advice. It's never good advice. This is my favorite. When I go Google something, I'm like, what's the shortcut for this in Pro Tools? And then the first result takes me to a forum, and the top answer is, why don't you Google that? Don't be lazy. Google it yourself. And that's the answer to someone's question that was on a forum. Okay, glad. I'm glad it took me here to this asshole.

Speaker 2 (00:28:01):

I've trained myself to never give that answer anymore

Speaker 3 (00:28:04):

Point.

Speaker 2 (00:28:05):

I think it's years, it's point. It's pointless and it's a dick thing to do. I think that there was a time period years ago where it was on certain boards, on certain forums or groups. It was so tempting because the questions would be so retarded. But I've successfully broken myself of that. Yeah, it really isn't nice. It's

Speaker 3 (00:28:28):

Not nice and it's completely pointless.

Speaker 2 (00:28:31):

And

Speaker 3 (00:28:32):

When someone hears that, they're like, they literally ignore it. They don't think, yeah, you know what? I'll stop my search now. Goodbye internet. They will keep looking. It doesn't do anybody any good.

Speaker 2 (00:28:46):

I agree. Alright, so you were taking business away from these people. Jeremy's telling bands to not record with other studios and to record with you because otherwise they're dumb. So what's next? What happened next?

Speaker 3 (00:29:07):

The full length that we did? Oh no. They got signed to Indianola Records off of a, I think a five song EP that we did. And then they came back to do the full length, which is wait and their name was Treason. Yeah, that's what it was. And their name was Treason, which is also known as old record. That was all recorded in my bedroom. They got signed off of that. Other bands heard it, other bands saw that they got signed and it kind of all snowballed from there. I eventually started getting enough business that I was able to get my own spot in a, actually, I'm skipping a step. I went to school and I quit. I quit recording.

Speaker 2 (00:29:52):

Oh, for art, right?

Speaker 3 (00:29:54):

Yeah, for art, which was a horrible mistake. I spent all my money on rent and food. I couldn't find a job when I was in school, so I was losing money. I went broke, just doing that. Why did you quit recording? Oh, because everybody in my ear was like, you can't do that for a living. You have to go to school. And I had a full scholarship. I did well in school. I graduated with over a 4.0 I know nerd. And I had a full ride to school except for an apartment, obviously I had to pay for that. So I couldn't find a job when I was at school. It was at UCF in Orlando. So where I am now, where the studio is now. And so I went home on the weekends and bands were still recording with me and I was just recording out of some dude's little block house that was out in his backyard. I did that for about a year. It was full of junk. The power would always go out. There was a canoe, it was hot, it was horrible. And eventually I moved out of there and got a spot that was in a strip club, strip mall.

(00:31:07):

I did not get a studio in a strip club. That would've been a cool step. But that is not part of the story. I've never heard of a studio in a strip club. It could be a thing. It could be a thing. The owner of the building that we're in owns a strip club in Orlando. He owns a few actually. Interesting enough figures. Figures. You would. So there's a tie in. There's a tie in. There's a tie in there. So anyway,

Speaker 2 (00:31:32):

More bands kept coming. We recorded homesick there. So wait, wait, wait. So when they got signed, did they immediately start getting known or was it just like a local or regional thing? Like they're signed so automatically they are up a rung on the ladder, but it doesn't really matter. They're not actually, yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:31:52):

It was like that. And it was mainly local bands. I would be getting bands from all over Florida. It took a while for me to get my first band from out of state, which was, I'll never forget in Fear and Faith, that was my first out of state band all the way from California Damn son, just to record with little old Andrew Wade. But that was after Homesick and stuff. So it took me a while to actually, to get things going. I think a lot of people hit me up now and ask what do I have to do to be successful? Like, oh, here, just this one little piece of information and now you can be on my

Speaker 2 (00:32:37):

Level in one year's time. Yeah. So how long was it between 2003 and Homesick? Alright, homesick came

Speaker 3 (00:32:45):

Out in 2009, and it wasn't until after that that I got my first band from out of state. That was between 2000. I started recording, let's say 2002. I day remember, wasn't my first band I ever recorded. So I started recording around 2002 or so. And it wasn't until 2009 or later that I actually got my first out of state band. So I was at it for a while. There was nothing quick about it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:17):

Well, and I guess the thing when people ask you for that, the one trick to getting big or to be on your level, maybe the one thing they could do is put in the years,

Speaker 3 (00:33:32):

Take some time,

Speaker 2 (00:33:34):

Learn

Speaker 3 (00:33:34):

Your craft. People just think that there's always a shortcut for something. And then when someone tells you that there's not a shortcut, they're like, I think all these other people are saying that there are shortcuts, so I'm going to go listen to them. That's what I want. The same thing goes with diets. Everybody thinks that there's just some one diet and then you'll be in shape. And it's not like that. You have to put in the time to actually get there. And what people see is the end result. Because before the end result, nobody cares. Which is another thing that people have a hard time grasping. No one's going to care about what you're doing until you've done something that people care about. You can't just open a studio and everyone's like, oh, he's open to studio. So I immediately care

Speaker 2 (00:34:22):

About studio. You have to prove yourself, and that could take a really, really long time. And you really need to develop the ability to cope with the fact that nobody cares and that there will be a lot of rejection along the way. How did you get over that? Did it ever bum you out?

Speaker 3 (00:34:40):

Never or whatever? Never.

Speaker 2 (00:34:41):

Interesting.

Speaker 3 (00:34:42):

I never sounds funny, but I set my goals pretty low. I set my standards low. I won't name these people, but I had some role models that I was like, if only I could get to this person's point. And in my mind, I guess maybe subconsciously I did this, but they weren't the greatest, but they were better than I was. And I was like, if I can get to that point, I would be happy. And then I would just keep setting my goal higher and higher as I kept reaching these goals. So maybe if you set your site too high, it just seems impossible. So if you can see progress, you just have this one guy you look up to, he's your local hero. You're like, if only I can get to that, then I can see improvement. And then I can go from there and I can go to the next step.

(00:35:36):

And when I started recording, well actually when I quit school and started recording, I knew in my mind and my heart that I was going to succeed. There was not a doubt in my mind. I was like, I'm doing this and I'm doing whatever it takes and I will suffer and I will strive and I will do anything I need to do to make this work and it will work. And I've always had that goal. I don't care what I have to do. I never did anything to rip anyone off or you know what I mean? Anything nasty. I mean hard work. That's what I mean by doing anything.

Speaker 2 (00:36:13):

And it seems like you approached it very logically too, which is by taking it in bite-sized chunks and being practical about it, okay, let's get better than this guy. That's attainable.

Speaker 3 (00:36:30):

And what's cool is when you have those guys who aren't super famous, if you hit 'em up, they'll talk. If you hit up somebody who's really busy and popular, it'll be really difficult to hear back from them, but most likely impossible. So if you hit up your local hero, they'll probably respond. And I think it's really important to have a role model. I think it's really important to see what they did to get where they are. It is mysterious. You don't just go to school. You don't just record one record.

Speaker 2 (00:37:09):

Have you ever fallen into the trap? I feel like I used to do this and I've learned that it's never one thing, the trap of like, oh, after this project things will be better or things will be different. And it never works that way. It's always like a gradual thing, even though, I mean I've definitely had turning point projects, but it's never as glorious as people think it is. It's still, if you look at the overall trend, it's more of a gradual build over a period of years and not quitting when there's lulls. Just keep on going, keep on going. And it's more that once you have that good project and you work it into another good project and another good project and another good project, it's the consistency of good projects that equals the success. I think it's not just the one project.

Speaker 3 (00:38:08):

Yeah, it's true. And that's how you build a reputation for yourself. You can't build a reputation off of hardly anything. People have to collectively understand that, oh, this guy means business. This guy is quality. That's what he cares most about. But yeah, it's been like that. It's been slow. Sometimes you'll record a record for a band from a different city and they'll go back and show their friends and you might just get one other band who's interested. And the more releases you put out, the more your name just kind of keeps getting put out. So there've been a lot of times where I'm like, man, this record is so great. Whatever band at the time, I'm like, people are going to be flocking because of this one record. It's so good. And then nobody cares,

Speaker 2 (00:39:03):

Nothing changes. But I bet if you looked at that time period versus that exact same time period two years ago, you would notice a big difference

Speaker 3 (00:39:14):

That, wait, say

Speaker 2 (00:39:16):

That again. Okay, so you think you have this one record and you think that that one record is going to

Speaker 3 (00:39:25):

Oh yeah, I know what you're

Speaker 2 (00:39:27):

Saying. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:39:28):

If I think that now it's true and things happen back then what I thought was great wasn't actually great, and I didn't realize that. I think there's a really big, I don't know what to call it, language barrier between the smaller guys and me because I can follow my instinct and it'll be pretty accurate. But back when I started and I would follow my instinct, it was not accurate. Do you mean in the studio or as far as what gigs to take? Both. Both. So it's like whatever choices I make, basically if I do this, it will be more successful. Now I can say that, but if I give that advice to somebody else who's just starting out, follow your instinct. And if you think this is going to be better, do it. If you told young Andrew that it wouldn't work out, that advice wouldn't work out because I just didn't have that knowledge.

Speaker 2 (00:40:36):

You know what I mean? And also you may not have had the same opportunities in front of you. A lot of the smaller guys might not have opportunities that are so clearly beneficial,

Speaker 3 (00:40:50):

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you're just choosing, I don't know. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:40:56):

I know exactly what you mean. Well, I mean I think that there's definitely what you're saying is true that the further down the road you get, the easier it gets to make good decisions because you kind of get on a roll and your instincts get sharper and what kinds of people you should work with and you know how to read the market even a little better, and you just know these things. But then also at the same time, since you have a track record, you have the opportunity to actually make good on these opportunities who someone else might not get.

Speaker 3 (00:41:35):

Yes. And I've always thought, not always but recently thought about how all the failures have led me to this point and have helped my decision making. And without all of those failures, I wouldn't have known what I did and what I did wrong. Seeing people's reactions online, seeing the numbers of things, how many plays something has, seeing comments about specific say lyrics I wrote or some part in the song where I thought it should have been a certain way and then everybody hates it or vice versa. Everybody loves it. So I feel like the more you fail, the more successful

Speaker 2 (00:42:22):

You also become. What would you consider, you don't need to name the situation or anything, but give me an example of what you would consider a failure. What type of scenario?

Speaker 3 (00:42:34):

Well, all the times where you thought what we were talking about before, you think that a record is going to do great when you're first starting out and it ends up being really bad or everyone ends up hating the mix or talking about just how bad something sounds and you thought it was great or losing that maybe you do a test mix and you lose that. Something along those lines. So I feel like there has to be a certain amount of failure in order for you to achieve success. I've been yelled at so many times by, I remember whenever I submitted Adam D, the files for Homesick, and he just emailed back like, man, this stuff sounds really weird. You got, I hear all your edits. When I first sent the sessions, I didn't know about consolidating audio. I didn't know anything about what I was doing. I didn't go to school. I didn't have anybody to look up to. I got to a point where there was nobody to ask.

Speaker 2 (00:43:36):

You didn't have nail the mix. I

Speaker 3 (00:43:38):

Didn't have nail the mix. Yeah, what you guys are doing is great because people can actually hear these stories and learn from it. But there's certain things, all you can do is go on these forums. You don't know who these people are. You don't know if they've done anything and you try to follow their advice. But on nail the mix, you can clearly see who's done what. And it's like cool people, good info

Speaker 2 (00:43:58):

Was

Speaker 3 (00:43:59):

Slim Slim

Speaker 2 (00:44:00):

Pickens back then.

Speaker 3 (00:44:01):

Yeah. I remember one thing that everyone always said. They said never compress a vocal more than six db. Oh yeah. And that was a thing that everybody said. They're like, yeah, you can never do that. Never do that. I'm compressing 'em like 20 and then I'm compressing 'em 20 more. Shit gets crazy. So you can't always just listen to those sources. Now the mix is good. So did Adam d, was he nice about it? Yeah, he was making jokes about it. It was funny. He was saying that the edit sounded like R 2D two bleeps and Bloops R 2D two style, which people got to laugh out of. I felt pretty humiliated, but I learned from that. And there's a lot of things, I get interns in here all the time, they tell me, there's so many things I show them that they just never learned in school.

(00:44:53):

So had they tried to apply, let's say for a job, instead of actually being an intern first apply at a studio and try to get hired, they would look like an idiot. They wouldn't know what they were doing. You know what I mean? I'm not saying my interns look like idiots. Please understand. I'm talking about if they actually tried to do these things that I want them to do, they just don't learn it in school. So when you put yourself out there like that, you're going to experience failure. But I feel like all the times when I look back on all the times that I consider failing, like submitting the files and getting yelled at, I consider that me

Speaker 2 (00:45:32):

Learning. That's great though. I mean it's definitely, I know what it's like to have someone who's, like I just said a lot to have someone who's prominent in the scene like Adam d especially in that time period where he was basically the king. He still is a huge dude in the heavy music scene. But in around 2009, that was when Kill Switch reigned supreme basically. So to have someone that prominent basically put you in your place, I've had that sort of thing happen to me. And it's not fun. It's definitely not fun, but it definitely puts hair on your nuts. It definitely, it makes a man out of you. And it's really important to get checked like that, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:46:25):

You earn your stripes. Yes. And I always remember that. So whenever I have an intern or somebody doing something for me, I make sure to tell them what they have done wrong. Because if you don't know what you do wrong, you can never fix it. And that's why all those times where you fail

Speaker 2 (00:46:45):

Are so important. And I can say that you've done a great job, for instance, with Nick, your intern Nick, who I guess is beyond intern now.

Speaker 3 (00:46:54):

Yeah, I've been paying him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:46:56):

Yeah, he's graduated and I got to point out people who have been listening to the podcast or watch my creative lives and John Douglas, the engineer who I helped into a career, he has a lot of similar traits to Nick who has come up under Andrew. I just think it's interesting that these guys that I've seen come up from basically being interns into becoming engineers in their own. They have similar personality traits that they tend to not get emotional if they fuck up and they just want to know what they did wrong. And they're eager to learn and they don't complain about doing hard work. They're just always there ready to do it. Yeah, I

Speaker 3 (00:47:49):

Was the same way too. It sucked to be put in your place like that, but especially when you didn't expect it. But it's really important. I can't stress enough.

Speaker 2 (00:48:01):

So I feel like we were talking about a day to remember in you, and then we went on this awesome conversation about interns and success and failure. But I want to talk more about a day to remember and maybe specifically about the track that we're doing.

Speaker 3 (00:48:17):

Oh yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (00:48:18):

This month. So that's off common courtesy.

Speaker 3 (00:48:21):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:48:22):

So now I'm not, I'm going to just admit I'm not like a data remember fanboy or anything. I think that the shit's really catchy. Obviously it's awesome, but not a band that I've followed or anything. It's not my style. So I, I don't know much about how big they were when that came out or anything like that, but that seems to be one of the albums that people really love. Yeah. Well it came out after two of the albums that went gold so far. Okay, so they were already a prominent band. Yeah. I don't know when we got the first

Speaker 3 (00:49:03):

Gold record though. I don't know if it was. They were definitely a prominent band. We got the gold record not long after that. It may have been during that recording, I don't remember. But yeah, they were established and doing quite well.

Speaker 2 (00:49:19):

So basically in the early days you helped bring Jeremy basically out of Shell. How did that change in later years? Would you say that you guys grew together or did he still need that kind of help?

Speaker 3 (00:49:36):

No, he got a lot of confidence. And this happens with everybody when, and I love it too, when bands go on tour, when they become successful, they go on tour and they see the world, they see the country. It matures them so much and it's great to see. It's like you finally get to see how the rest of the world actually is.

Speaker 2 (00:49:56):

You

Speaker 3 (00:49:57):

Get to see how either terrible it is or how weird it is, or how your normal isn't necessarily normal at all. And they all grew so much from, they all got more confident. I mean, it's inevitable whenever you actually go do this stuff. So Jeremy had always had ideas, but he just got a lot more confident. And same thing happened to him where he got to see what people liked, what people didn't like as much, and he was able to hone in on his craft a lot more.

Speaker 2 (00:50:28):

So what type of suggestions would you be giving then? Because I guess at that point it's not, okay, this is what you could do to sound good. Is it more a creative type of relationship Between me and

Speaker 3 (00:50:43):

Jeremy? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50:43):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:50:45):

I mean, we're friends also, but I am taking the role that I've always taken and that is to say the things that are necessary to improve a record. So when he first started, I've just gotten better at it, that's all. When he first started, I noticed the problem and I pointed it out and I helped him along. So now that we're at a different point as I'm listening to a song, I might say, Hey, this doesn't flow here very well. I have an idea. Let's do this. Or maybe this part could use a harmony, this vocal part, or well, if you just change these lyrics a little bit, they might flow better. So I'm just always saying, I only chime in when I think I can improve something. And that's the relationship that I have with Jeremy. And it's always been that way. So whether I'm taking a backseat because everything's going well or I'm saying something because it could be better, it's all the same exact role as when I started, which is only chiming in when I can improve something.

Speaker 2 (00:51:55):

So the only thing that changed was the level that you guys are at and what types of things need the help?

Speaker 3 (00:52:02):

Yeah, we go deep now when we work on projects, we get into everything. There's so many more details than when you start. It's like you notice more things as you get more experienced. Obviously the pronunciation of words, the sound of a vowel. So we just get really nitpicky. Some people think we're insane when we point out certain things, but the end result I think

Speaker 2 (00:52:31):

Comes out pretty well. It's not insane. I know what you mean with people saying that. That kind of attention to detail is insane, but it's not. It's like, look at what you're talking about. One of the biggest rock bands around. It's not insane. That's what it takes.

Speaker 3 (00:52:48):

Well, I think when people come to work with Jeremy and I, for instance, when we work on a record together, they're not used to how we do things and it's so unconventional. A lot of bands are used to just go in the studio, alright, go track your drums. Cool. Drums are done. Alright, guitars, let's do that. Alright, cool, done. Track the vocals. Alright, finished. You know what I mean? But Jeremy and I dig deep into your soul. There is no stone left unturned. We get into lyrics, melodies, chord progressions, structure, everything you could imagine. So some people are caught off guard, but they get used to it. I think we do a good job caught off guard. In which way, just like, what are you guys doing? Why are we doing this? That's unnecessary. You know what I mean? And I liked it how it was that kind of a thing because they're not used to people being so I guess they see it as invasive. This is my creative baby, how dare you change anything. But we only change things for the better. And I think a lot of engineers kind of just, it's like, Ooh, let's make the drum tone sound good and that's it. That's the end. Of course we do that as well, but that's kind of like they're the engineer and they focus only on Sonics and that's it.

Speaker 2 (00:54:14):

But we dig deep making great songs. I think that that's, in my opinion, that's way more important than just Sonics. Yeah, I've heard tons of horrible sounding records that are amazing and I've

Speaker 3 (00:54:26):

Heard really good sounding records that are horrible.

Speaker 2 (00:54:28):

Yeah, I'd prefer the horrible sounding records that are amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:54:32):

Yeah, I mean the numbers show it. That is what most people prefer.

Speaker 2 (00:54:37):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:54:38):

Absolutely. I think. But people prefer the most good sounding record with good songs.

Speaker 2 (00:54:43):

Well yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:54:44):

That's definitely the goal. But if you had to choose it would definitely be the good songs.

Speaker 2 (00:54:48):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, think about when you listen to music from other time periods where the recordings weren't as good as they are now.

Speaker 3 (00:54:57):

Right. But it doesn't matter because it's like the beach. Oh, the Beach Boys. We're not going to get into the Beach Boys. But their shit sounds pretty amazing. It does. It actually does. But some of the early Beatles stuff sounds weird. Whatever. I don't want to talk about that. People could get mad. Let's just move on.

Speaker 2 (00:55:21):

If they get mad, they should shut up. Got a bunch of questions here from the audience that I feel like we should get into because there's a bunch.

Speaker 3 (00:55:29):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:55:30):

And they're about stuff you like that you like how I led that in

Speaker 3 (00:55:35):

Very specific.

Speaker 2 (00:55:36):

Yes. Thank you. They're about a lot about the song, the data, remember song that we're doing on now, the mix and just I guess general questions that people have about how you like to do things. But here's one from Lucas, which is Compressor. Do you use for vocal tracking and what are your go-to settings?

Speaker 3 (00:55:57):

Well, for that record, I used an 1176, which I have recently stopped using. You've been using My distress lately. I've been using your distress. I'm using it now actually for these vocals. Crystal clear. Hopefully when you get 'em, I'm also using your C four 14 because my U 87 has shit out. We're not going to go there. It's a sad story. But yeah, the 1176, how's my C four 14 doing great. I don't be mad. I prefer the

Speaker 2 (00:56:26):

U 87 for vocals, but Well, yeah, I actually don't like four fourteens that much. That's why I'm impressed that you're using it. I'm sure it sounds great. You just got to roll off some of

Speaker 3 (00:56:36):

The high end and put the presence in the right spot and it's fine. But I've also been using the SM seven B for vocals and stuff. But anyway, so that was an 1176. The preamp though was the Chandler TG two, the special edition or whatever, Abbey Road or something. Speaking of the Beatles and the settings, I'll tell you exactly, the attack is almost all the way down. It's around two, I guess that would be two. That would be two. And the release is set all the way to seven. I feel like on these, the release is backwards or something. I can't quite understand it. I know that sounds really bad, but I feel like the release is backwards. I feel like when I turn it all the way up, it's shorter. And then when I turn all the way down, it's longer. I could be wrong though.

(00:57:37):

It just doesn't react the same as other compressors I'm used to. Same with the plugin. I don't know. It's weird. But anyway, the ratio is pretty high. I usually use 12 or 20 and I'm compressing pretty hard about 10. That's not that hard actually, is it? That's about 10 to me. Seems like a good normal about the way I would use this was I would just control the dynamics. I didn't try to get the final polished sound of the vocals. With the Distressor, you kind of can get a lot closer to a final sound, but the 1176, I would always have to put another compressor on top of it in Pro Tools and that would usually be an 11 or a LA two A I like the one by waves, the C-L-A-C-L-A two A or whatever. Yeah, yeah. You can't go wrong with that. I like that one.

(00:58:30):

It's pretty good. It's not as good as a real one. I think it depends which real one well. Yeah, true. But the ones that I've used before or have seen in use or have tried to emulate in some way, it's still cool. So the combination between the two was plenty. But the stressor now to me gets the vocal to a better state and it also gives it a little bit of top end to it makes it kind of, I dunno, a little crystal clear. I like it. Sounds good. And that thing is compressing like 20 DB between 1720, somewhere around there. It sounds great when

Speaker 2 (00:59:09):

You go that hard.

Speaker 3 (00:59:10):

Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:59:11):

Yeah. So Ricky Whiteout is asking, what's your signal chain for recording guitar and Bass di the Chandler? Again,

Speaker 3 (00:59:18):

I've been stuck with this Chandler for a while. Jeremy and I both have Chandlers in our studios. He has a studio at his house. So yeah, just go straight into that for the di.

Speaker 2 (00:59:30):

That's it. Sounds good. Nice. Robbie Alexander's asking, what amp or AMP model did you use on right back at it again? It was a Bogner

Speaker 3 (00:59:40):

Ecstasy, the anniversary edition. And I do not know the difference between the regular one and the anniversary edition. I have the regular one sitting here. I think it's yours Ale. It is mine, and it looks like it has all the same knobs and buttons. So yeah, too many. Yeah, too many. An amp doesn't need so many. That's why I never use it. But I went through every setting and found my favorite settings on that amp. It took a long time, but whenever I've figured out the best settings on that thing, that was like my favorite amp for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):

It's still one of my top amps. I love it. It is a great amp. I just hate too many options in general. I don't like that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):

Yeah, I agree. Just make it sound good. How about that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):

Take all these off. Just make it sound better.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):

I like that idea. Here's one from Kike, which is, do you have any go-to snare samples for beefy and punchy snare drums for

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):

This? Right back at it Again, mix. You guys are going to be mad at me, but I made my own samples from Alex's kit and they sound phenomenal. I don't know if I'm going to sell them or give them to you at all, but they know great. And I'm pretty sure if you listen to, and I didn't send them either. I didn't want to send them, they're too good to just, they're yours to hand out in the session. So you guys will hear 'em live when we do nail the mix. And I'm sorry I can't give them to at least not his

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):

Time. You're not the only guy. I mean, when Kane Chico did Papa Roach, he didn't give out his proprietary samples that he and his dad made. They made them for their mixes

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):

And

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):

It is theirs.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):

There's a few slate snares. I don't remember what they are. And there's a few superior drummer snares that I use if I don't use my own sample, but I actually kind of forgot about that sample until we went into that session. I don't know why. I think I started building a studio and everything was on a different computer

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):

That'll do it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):

And I realized that as I'm building a studio every day that I'm working for free, if I'm building something, I'm losing that much money per day instead of working. So I'm not saving any money. I'm actually spending way more. There's a tip for you guys building your own studio. If you already have work to do, hire someone that can do it for less. You'll actually make more money. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):

Good tip. I literally only thought about that afterwards. I'm like, wow, I just lost $20,000. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):

I mean,

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):

That's

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):

Definitely a good tip.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):

Yeah. Even though you're not paying someone to do it, if you could be paid for something else and you can hire someone else to do it for less. Yeah, exactly. You should do that. It's much smarter.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):

Absolutely. So Ricky Whiteouts asking, do you use any plugins before going into an AMP sim? Like do compress or clip or transient design the di?

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):

I have tried all that. The only thing I like before the AMP is, I'm assuming that's what he is saying,

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):

Is

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):

Some kind of EQ pedal maybe and some kind of distortion pedal. That's kind of it. Clean tones. I might do some compression, but other than that, my favorite tones I've ever gotten have just been just a distortion pedal or an EQ pedal or something.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):

All right. Aristotle Mall is asking, what's the most enjoyable project you've ever worked on? Most enjoyable.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):

I kind of like, there's this one band I keep working with who I actually just got signed called Across the Atlantic. I think I might like working with them the most because they literally just let me do whatever I want.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):

That's nice.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):

And they got signed so good on them. They just got signed a sharp tone. Okay, good on them for listening to you. So take that. All the bands who want to interrupt me while I'm making your music better. So yeah, they're very pleasant to work with because there's like, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I like that. Sounds like a dream situation. Yeah. Could you ask for more? I mean, I think the times when the bands are less involved and I might get, a lot of people might hate me for this, but that's kind of when I like it the most because my standards are the only standards I have to worry about and they're most likely higher than yours. So let me try this, let me do this and things will be just fine. You'll be successful. I'll be successful. We'll all be good. You're getting paid for your

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):

Standards.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):

Right? Exactly. You guys sent me your demos. That was your attempt at your songs. I've heard it. It's bad. Let me make it good. That's why you're here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):

Amazing. So Ryan Bruce is asking, how do you decide on guitar tones for an album? Do the bands have input or is that something that's decided after tracking DI and during Amping,

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):

It's half and half. I've grown to hate changing the tone afterwards. I think it's a horrible idea. I think you should track with the best tone that you can get because you're going to Palm Mute differently. You're going to strum differently. You're just going to do things differently because of the tone sounding a certain way. So if you have some weird muffled tone while you're tracking, you might palm mute and it might sound huge, you know what I mean? Because it's super basey or something, but it's not ideal. If you had a nice crystal clear, but also full and tight tone while you're palm muting, you would do it differently to maximize the sound of the guitar. So I feel like it's really important to have the tone that you want to go for while you're tracking. That's only part of your question. So some bands don't care if I just get the tone, if I already have a tone that's pretty badass that I know people like, we'll use it and everybody will be fine. But then there are other bands who come in and they're ready to get their tones. A date ever was like that. The Ghost Inside was like that. It's usually the bigger bands. Wage war was like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):

Alright, Mickey Marlin's asking, what did the party look like the night you found out? A day? Remember Beat Victory. Oh, and what might preempted you use with the Paluso on vocals that

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):

Preempt was the Chandler again? The Chandler? Yeah. The party. I don't remember. I don't remember. I was really stoked. I didn't know what them winning the lawsuit even meant for me. It was just a huge relief when your friends, see if you can relate to this. When your friends are in a lawsuit with a massive label for millions of dollars and you don't know if they're either going to lose their careers or make a shit ton of money and there's no in between. Yeah, you have some stress on you. Even if you're not directly affected by it. My life doesn't change. Your friends are relieved and you're relieved for your friends. So that's the way it happened for me. It's not super relatable, but I

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):

Can relate to that totally.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):

You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):

Yeah, it

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):

Happens.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):

Absolutely. I mean, you want your friends to prosper in life.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):

And not that was a righteous lawsuit. I feel like that lawsuit was not just for a day to remember. I feel like even though a Day to Remember was the one band who could pull it off, it was, it was the voice of lots of bands in my opinion that Oh, I

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):

Agree. Long and coming. It's like the spark of hope amidst Trump becoming president. Yeah, basically. It's definitely that sort of thing. I remember seeing both sides of the lawsuit and I'm like, alright, every step along the way, I've seen what Victory has done and I've seen what a day remember has done and I've heard both sides of it. And in my head I'm like, there's no way that someone so evil will succeed. And then we had the whole Trump thing and I was like, you know what? Maybe they'll lose. It sucks. But when they won, I really honestly, my faith in humanity was restored.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):

Sometimes the good guys do win. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):

It's

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):

Weird. Yeah, it doesn't happen all the time. So Luke Mancel Ward is wondering, with the huge amount of backing vocals used on the track, was this a producer decision you made or was this the intention when the band walked in, I guess to have that amount of vocal on there and he said also, what's your process when it comes to choosing the harmonies you like without layering up too many? That's all me baby. I

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):

Just love harmonies and love layering it up. How do I choose? That's a great question. How do you choose something that sounds good. It's your tastes man. Yeah, there's not an answer to that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):

Well, one thing I always tell people is that if you want to get really good at this, in addition to the technical shit and the confidence shit, you really need to cultivate your tastes because at the end of the day, your tastes are going to be what guides every decision you make musically speaking. So you need to have good taste and you develop good taste by listening to good stuff

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):

And

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):

By internalizing good stuff. And that's what will inform those decisions. You don't have to, it's like you said, how'd you decide on what sounds good? You just do it because you know that taste inside of you will guide you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):

Yeah. What I would say is pick apart, there's two actually, there's two standout records for me, harmony and back of Vocal Wise that in my mind I always kind of think of or reference a little bit. Sen's album that has a Beatle on the front, I don't remember what it's called, but the harmonies and backups on there are so awesome. That was when that came out for me. That was something that I aspired to and they have so many all over it. I'm just like, man, that's so cool. I got to do something like that. So check that album out. And also Lady Gaga on some of her songs, the harmonies were just so beautiful. I was like, I have to do something that's inspiring. If you actually really listen to the harmonies on a lot of major pop albums, the harmonies are sometimes kind of strange. They don't follow the vocal. Exactly. So I don't know. I would say maybe listen to some successful pop albums. Also try to pick those harmonies apart and think about what you would've done versus what they did and what's the difference and maybe why did they choose this and why does it sound so good in the music? So I don't know, I would say just analyze that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):

Alright, Kevin Schlitz is asking bass tone. How do you get your base tone? So perfect both in the treble and low end?

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):

That base tone was, I think it was Amplitude Plus. Fuck, I don't remember. I think Plus. Fuck, I like that. Plus fuck's a great plug tune in to nail the mix when I show you exactly how I do that. But one thing I like about Amplitude is it keeps the low end really clear and big sounding. A lot of other plugins will kill it, but Amplitude does a good job of maintaining that. So for low end, I'll usually use that plugin and it does me pretty well. But the base playing has a lot to do with the base tone also and the strings and the pick and the position at which you play in relation to the pickups on the base. So there are a lot of factors there. If you don't have it tracked right, you're never going to dial that tone in the way you want. But Tom Denny tracked all that actually. He tracked all the bass himself at his studio, but he already knows how to play bass. He's

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):

Great. Connor Ings asking, when a band comes to you to help produce and co-write, what common things do you immediately identify that helps take their song to the next level? And do you have a signature writing pattern that you find yourself using with multiple artists?

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):

I think I just have a ton of patterns that I use if I would break it down, but it's probably hundreds of patterns. It's like the things that I've collected over the years that have succeeded. The things that when people's eyes light up, I'm like, oh, I did this and they liked it. But I mean it goes from transitions to lyrics to vocal sounds, to arrangements. There's no simple answer to that question. It goes so deep. But I think the biggest problem that I see when bands are writing songs is they're trying to write songs. I know that sounds kind of weird, but instead of writing really cool parts, they write songs. So for instance, they're like, okay, we know we need an intro, so let's do a ring out and do some double base Oh, oh, paint by numbers. And it's like, alright, there's the intro that serves as the intro. Cool. We know it's an intro that sounds kind of like an intro. Cool. Move on to the verse. Alright. This is basically a long boring transition until the chorus comes in, but you cannot think of it like that. You have to think of each individual part in the song as Would I ever play this on loop and enjoy it? The answer needs to be yes. If the answer is no, you failed at that part. It's not good. Every part needs to be lable and interesting. If it's not,

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):

Why the hell did you put it in the song? Have you ever had people try to tell you that in order to have a good song, some of the parts can't be winners? I've had some people say that to me when they were trying to tell me that I got too, I guess too nitpicky or wanted to change too much or whatever. And it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It's like, what do you mean? Every part shouldn't be amazing,

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):

Right? That's just flat wrong. That's just flat wrong. And when someone says something like that to me, the only thing I'd say is, look, you can do whatever you want. At the end of the day, you're paying me to do the job for you if you think it's right, that's what we'll do. However, all I can provide to you is my countless records where I have seen things succeed and I've seen the things that fail. And I know I can predict with pretty good accuracy how people will respond to certain things. So you can take my advice however you want, but I'm trying to tell you what the most successful outcome will be, the most successful way to get to that outcome,

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):

Which is what your job is.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):

But I think a lot of people just, they get uncomfortable with you changing their stuff. That's the bottom line. I think that's really what it is. And it's understandable. I

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):

Get it. I guess. I mean, I remember when my band went in to work with Soff and he cut so much material, so much music off, and it would hurt my feelings sometimes. But I got over it pretty quick because the decisions were great.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):

And you have to remember, it's not a random guy. It's not your friend down the street cutting your song apart. It's someone who's fucking experienced way more experienced than your friend down the street. Totally. This is a special person that's working on it. You can relax.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):

Yeah, exactly. So Eric Burt's asking, there's no kick in the overheads. So was there a v drum pad used to record the midi or was it programmed in later and the drummer just played the takes without performing the kick?

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):

He actually did not play the kick and he did not rehearse the songs for, he has his reasons and that's fine, but it was kind of because of the amount of time we had. So we just decided to leave it out because the only part that he didn't really have memorized was the kick patterns and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):

That's common though. And I feel like if somebody doesn't have that stuff down down, then it's better to not record it at all

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):

Once it's in the rooms or the overheads. You can't take it out if it's wrong. I mean, there are ways you can paste over a symbol where there wasn't a kick, but it gets really complicated for no reason. And it takes longer to track and it takes longer to edit and it takes longer to mix. So how about this? You just don't play the kick and everything will be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):

Totally best advice ever. So Matt Brown is asking, who is bone daddy and what does he do?

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):

Bone daddy is a legend. He's a mythical creature. No one is sure if he's actually ever existed. And that's all I can say.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):

So let me see here. Eric Kintyre is asking, do you use the space pair technique when recording overheads?

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):

I just put overheads closer or further away to symbols to make them sound equal and balanced. So

(01:17:29):

I don't have some technique. I don't just do like an XY pattern and just throw 'em up. I kind of move them around until the kit sounds balanced to me. And that usually has to do with how loud a symbol is or how often they use it or blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. So no, I kind of hear the drummer play and then I'm like, oh, well this symbol's too loud. I need to move the mic away from it. Or it's too quiet, I need to move it a little bit closer. But always trying. It's kind of impossible. The snare is always offset to keep the snare centered too. It's nearly impossible though.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):

It is kind of tough, but I like to try. I like to pretend that it's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):

Yeah, I try to because it upsets me when it's not. So Andrew, I'm going to end the episode with that question. I want to thank you for coming on. It's been great to have you, and thank you for sharing so much about your own personal story and the studio construction and answering all those questions.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):

My pleasure. You're an awesome

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):

Guest.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):

Thank you. You're an awesome question. Asker. Interrogator.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):

Yeah. Awesome. Well thank you. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Focus, right supplying hardware and software products used by professional and amateur musicians, which enables the high quality production of music focus. Right. Sound is everything. Visit focus right.com for more information, to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit podcast and subscribe today.