RYAN “FLUFF” BRUCE: Leaving a corporate job for music, turning DAW skills into video, and YouTube secrets

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Eyal Levi. Hello there, Eyal Levi here. Happy to be podcasting again. Let me just tell you that I hate taking breaks. Glad to be here, and I am especially excited about this episode. This is my guest's second time on the podcast. His name is Fluff or otherwise known as Ryan Bruce, and he's a good friend of mine. I like to surround myself with people that I admire, and I've always kind of thought that it's never too late to pursue your dreams and it's never too late to try to make things happen. And he's a perfect example. The man had a career for 10 years at Boeing before he was unceremoniously fired, which we will talk about why in this episode. It's actually kind of funny just because it's to show though that something petty like that can completely destroy your career path. But into his thirties, he completely changed his life and started his YouTube channel, and now has an awesome career in the music industry and is well known and living his dreams, and it's never too late.

(00:01:42):

I mean, obviously it goes without saying that if you're 14 and living in a basement and 200 pounds overweight and have never worked a job in your life and you want to make 2 billion in date a movie star, well, maybe you should get a little more realistic. But outside of having completely unrealistic expectations like that out of life, it's almost never impossible to get started on a goal or to pursue something and to make your life measurably more aligned with what you wish it was. So without further ado, I introduced to you Mr. Ryan Fluff, Bruce. Alright. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and with me is my good friend, Ryan Fluff. Bruce, who you probably know either through his band rest for Pose, or through his wonderful YouTube channel, riffs, beards, and Gear, or just you've seen his Instagram or you've seen him anywhere online that showcases awesome riffs, awesome beards.

Speaker 3 (00:02:48):

Oh, you kind

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

And awesome gear.

Speaker 3 (00:02:50):

It's

Speaker 2 (00:02:51):

True. How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:02:53):

I'm doing good, man. I just got done wrapping up, shooting this week's in the studio for the JST side of things.

Speaker 2 (00:03:00):

Oh yeah. You also work for JST and make videos for JST and all kinds of marketing stuff. You basically are really good at lots of different things.

Speaker 3 (00:03:09):

Yeah, I always wanted to be the Chris Hardwick of the audio music industry world, if that makes any sense, because that guy's literally, he's everywhere. You know what I

Speaker 2 (00:03:18):

Mean? I have no idea who that is.

Speaker 3 (00:03:21):

Do you know who hosts The Talking Dead?

Speaker 2 (00:03:23):

No.

Speaker 3 (00:03:24):

Shit. Nerd podcast. He's in the Comcast commercials,

Speaker 2 (00:03:28):

I feel. I don't watch TV

Speaker 3 (00:03:30):

Way back in the day. He used to host, God, I'm just

Speaker 2 (00:03:32):

Striking out.

Speaker 3 (00:03:33):

He used to host, singled out way, way back in the day,

Speaker 2 (00:03:36):

And I had no idea what that is. It was an Mt V thing. I guess I need to look him up now because

Speaker 3 (00:03:41):

You do, because he's everywhere. I just struck out he's everywhere that you are not apparently

Speaker 2 (00:03:45):

Clearly,

Speaker 3 (00:03:46):

But he's an everything man. He's a jack of all trades kind of guy, and I always thought that's the way to go. Diversify.

Speaker 2 (00:03:54):

Well, I have no idea who he is. I just looked, but the point is that he has a great career without me even knowing who he is. And that says a lot,

Speaker 3 (00:04:03):

Right. Well, I mean, previous to this conversation, I thought you had to know you or you had to at least know the person in order for them to have a good career. Well,

Speaker 2 (00:04:11):

You see, that's what I thought too, and clearly, clearly not. Clearly not.

Speaker 3 (00:04:20):

Clearly not. That's

Speaker 2 (00:04:21):

Okay. But I mean if he wants to, no, nevermind. I was going to go down a dark path and we're not going to go down the dark path on the

Speaker 3 (00:04:28):

Podcast. Okay, fine.

Speaker 2 (00:04:31):

No Weinstein jokes.

Speaker 3 (00:04:32):

Oh my God. No, we should probably shouldn't do that. That's probably not a

Speaker 2 (00:04:36):

Good idea. Yeah, that's family friendly. No, but I mean, one thing that I want to bring up, and we did talk about this last time, but you're no dummy. You worked at Boeing for 10 years. You know exactly what you're doing, and you've taught yourself several disciplines from video to recording. I mean, you already play guitar, but you taught yourself how to play guitar in a way that you can play professionally for various different situations. If someone hits you up and needs a video for this, whatever it is, you know how to make guitar lines that will fit, whatever that situation may be. You've taught yourself marketing, you've taught yourself networking. Obviously, there's no way that you would be able to have a music career like you do without being a good networker. So you've kind of made it all happen, and you didn't come from a popular band or a music industry situation. You were due to Boeing who was working on airplanes, and then you made it happen in your thirties.

Speaker 3 (00:05:43):

Yeah, yeah. Starting when I was 31 late bloomer. Isn't that weird?

Speaker 2 (00:05:47):

Okay. Well, I don't think it's weird, but I think that a lot of people who listen who are above the age of 25 start to feel like it's too late for them or

Speaker 3 (00:05:58):

Something. Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, I hear about that a lot as far as people,

Speaker 2 (00:06:02):

Did you feel like it was too late?

Speaker 3 (00:06:04):

I mean, I thought I was late to the game then. Absolutely. When I started the YouTube thing, I was like, okay, there's no way anyone's ever going to watch my stuff, but I'm going to do it for me because I just really fucking love this, and I love always wanted to be in the music industry and always wanted to do that stuff. Music. I wanted to be a tech for a while just because such a gear nerd, and I thought it was way too late to the game at that time. I thought everything was too saturated, and then I just started doing it, and I guess I wasn't too late. It wasn't as saturated like it is now. I mean, Jesus, a hundred thousand followers or 30,000 followers used to be like, oh my God, you're huge. And now everyone has a hundred thousand followers on their YouTube channel. It's pretty crazy, it seems like. Anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:06:57):

Well, I believe that the director, James Cameron said this, I think it was James Cameron, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But he said that there's infinite space on the top shelf, meaning that if you're good at something and do a really good job, you don't need to worry about saturation.

Speaker 3 (00:07:19):

Oh, that's actually kind of a brilliant saying.

Speaker 2 (00:07:22):

I totally agree with it. And I just think that this whole thing about the industry being saturated, they're being edge limits. I feel like that shit's overblown.

Speaker 3 (00:07:33):

Well, I mean, I used to

Speaker 2 (00:07:34):

Completely overblown

Speaker 3 (00:07:36):

My dad when I first started this thing. I remember distinctly, my friends laughed at me, and I actually had one friend in particular who actually did, he toured the world three times. I had a close friend of mine at the time tell me I was wasting my time. And no one watches that shit. What are you doing? Don't be

Speaker 2 (00:07:55):

Stupid. What did he do? I mean, was he a YouTube personality telling you not to waste your time?

Speaker 3 (00:08:01):

No, he was in an up and coming band that had gotten signed by a major label and were touring the world and the band fell apart and he had to go back to his construction job, which he's still at today.

Speaker 2 (00:08:12):

Well, of course he's going to tell you that nothing's going to work

Speaker 3 (00:08:15):

Because

Speaker 2 (00:08:16):

His situation fell apart.

Speaker 3 (00:08:18):

It did fall apart, and I think maybe he was saying that out of his own bitterness or something, I don't

Speaker 2 (00:08:22):

Know. Sounds like it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:24):

But I remember my dad telling me, well, Rick Nelson was 35 when sheet pricks first album came out, and I thought, huh, you make a good point, dad. That's true.

Speaker 2 (00:08:36):

From what I understand, Dave Sato was 35 when he started mixing.

Speaker 3 (00:08:42):

Was he really?

Speaker 2 (00:08:43):

Yeah. From what I heard, also, several members of Slipknot were above 35 when they first got signed.

Speaker 3 (00:08:50):

Oh, I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (00:08:52):

Maynard James Keenan apparently was about 32, 33 or 35, something in that range when tool was first getting discovered. I mean, I did not know that Moby was 36 when he first broke big.

Speaker 3 (00:09:05):

Yeah, you're right. I turned 37 on Saturday, so maybe I'm not that bad. Happy birthday. Oh, thanks,

Speaker 2 (00:09:13):

Man. I just don't, my experience tells me that if you want to play music or do something that is sold specifically to 15 year olds, then yeah, maybe there's an age limit there, but 15 year olds don't make up the entire world of music consumers or music creators or people out there. There are other people too, who also love music

Speaker 3 (00:09:41):

And

Speaker 2 (00:09:42):

Love to consume things.

Speaker 3 (00:09:43):

How many young people, I mean, obviously there are some and there's a handful, but how many young people really can grasp and adequately take advantage of a good opportunity? I certainly couldn't when I was 22, 23, I don't know about you, but I was not of the mindset. I didn't have the mental tools to even handle any kind of opportunity. What has come out of the YouTube thing for me. So I'm glad it didn't happen to me then. I'm glad I'm not 23 right now. Having all this stuff, you kind of go nuts. And from my experience anyway, you see your friends just kind of go nuts, or you see the Justin Biebers of the world where it's like, dude, I'd be dead if I had a million dollars and I was 25 years old. You know what I mean? I would've died in a horrible sports car accident or something. So not that I'm Justin Bieber, or not that I have a sports car, but

Speaker 2 (00:10:38):

Overdose of mainlining,

Speaker 3 (00:10:40):

$8,000

Speaker 2 (00:10:41):

Champagne laced with designer meth.

Speaker 3 (00:10:44):

Shit gets crazy when you have real success. And not that I have real success yet, but I have come across a lot of really cool opportunities, and I'm glad I am of the age to really genuinely appreciate it and have some perspective on the whole thing. So it's been cool.

Speaker 2 (00:11:04):

Well, have you noticed that some dudes who get what you've achieved younger in life can become self-destructive and stupid?

Speaker 3 (00:11:15):

Yeah, I think that's just

Speaker 2 (00:11:17):

Young.

Speaker 3 (00:11:19):

Yeah, they just don't know how to deal. And it's kind of a weird thing to witness because you can see people, I mean, even if you don't know them that well, there's several other YouTubers that just go nuts. I mean, there's like gamers, the gaming community. I think the gaming community was really the platform from which the YouTubers, as we know it today, came from when you saw the real big online celebrities. They were gamers and they were pro Call of Duty guys that were the top players in the world. And there was a guy named X Jaws that he was a young kid and he had a pill problem, and then he got into Coke, and then he got into heroin and he lost it all. And now his challenge doesn't even exist. But he had millions and millions and millions of viewers every single video, and he wasted it all away on fucking drugs. So yeah, his first car was a Mercedes. He bought cash from Jesus Christ from his YouTube channel.

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):

Man. Another thing that having a little bit more age helps with is understanding the impermanence of all of this. I think that

Speaker 4 (00:12:38):

When

Speaker 2 (00:12:39):

You're 23, it's much easier to trick yourself into feeling like it's going to last forever. But by the time you're 35, you've had enough ups and downs in your life, you've had enough things fall apart to know or to really respect it when something's going well. For instance, with URM right now, we are crushing, and I've had enough things in my life go bad to where I am treating this. It is a gold egg that can just break.

Speaker 3 (00:13:15):

It can literally be gone tomorrow,

Speaker 2 (00:13:19):

Though. I don't think it will be. And I do think that I

Speaker 3 (00:13:21):

Don't either.

Speaker 2 (00:13:22):

We've built it in a way to where unless something crazy happens, really crazy, one of us hires a hitman to try to kill their wife or something,

Speaker 3 (00:13:36):

Or goes full Weinstein or something.

Speaker 2 (00:13:38):

Yeah, yeah. Goes full something insane. That isn't going to happen,

Speaker 3 (00:13:43):

Right?

Speaker 2 (00:13:45):

We've built it in a way to where it couldn't possibly just disappear overnight. But I mean, I still have that in my mind because I have seen people's careers disappear overnight. I've had my own career troubles at times where relationships I had are now gone. I've had things fall apart. And to really, really respect success, you need to experience a little bit of failure, I think. And so when you're young, you just haven't lived long enough to have your dreams crushed a few times,

Speaker 3 (00:14:23):

Right? Yeah. The life dick hasn't slapped you in the face enough times yet.

Speaker 2 (00:14:27):

Exactly. You do need to get the life dick to the face a few times to really, really appreciate how good it is now. Hey, young people under 25, I'm not trying to say that success is a bad thing. I wish you all the success in the world.

Speaker 4 (00:14:42):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:14:43):

But just remember that nothing in this life is guaranteed or permanent, and it can all go away. So I don't know, just FYI just throwing it out there. I mean, so do you think that your 10 years at Boeing working in the real world helped you appreciate this more?

Speaker 3 (00:15:09):

Yeah, I think what it really taught me, I get asked at family dinners and stuff like that. Whenever I see my parents or my grandparents or whatever, they always ask me, well, what are you going to do if at all, if the YouTube thing ends? And I tell them, well, so what if it ends? I've always used it as a jumping off point, not as the main thing. And the Boeing, the way Boeing is structured with jobs and how teamwork works and just the general structure of the company teaches you to always be looking, always stay hungry, always, always be looking to the next thing or diversify your skillset because your group maybe, I dunno what you call it, not laid off, just like, oh, those positions are now outsourced, so you need to find another job within the company and we will get you another job in the company, but if you don't have any other skill sets, then we will let you off kind of mentality. And I was a fourth generational Boeing guy, and so that kind of mentality you just kind of grow up with knowing dad could go on strike and lose his job tomorrow, it could happen, but so you always have to be just kind of on your toes about that kind of thing. So I think I took that with me when I left there. Definitely. I think last time I was on the podcast, I think, wasn't it like a few months after that at all happened?

Speaker 2 (00:16:38):

Well, the last time you were on the podcast, I believe we recorded it in March or April of 2016.

Speaker 3 (00:16:45):

Oh, it was? Okay, cool. Yeah, so I'd been doing it struck out on my own for about six months at that point.

Speaker 2 (00:16:52):

Yeah, you were fairly new. You had already experienced some success, but it was still a relatively newish thing.

Speaker 3 (00:16:59):

Yeah, I was. It totally was. I just remember at the time thinking, God, I hope this works out. When you guys were like, so how's it going? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:17:09):

Alright, well, hey, so since it has been about 18 months, how has it gone? It's been good. From what I've seen, it's been pretty good. I

Speaker 3 (00:17:17):

Still have the house, I still have my car. I have lots of guitars and amp still, and things worked out for the better for sure. Lots of tough times, but to be expected and yeah, things are good, things are good, can't complain.

Speaker 2 (00:17:34):

Toured a few times,

Speaker 3 (00:17:36):

Toured a few times. Let's see, I think at that time when I was last on the podcast, rest pose, just put out their ep. We put out a full length since then, we're starting to write for another record. We're going on tour in January right before Nam talking to a few record labels and just kind of doing that thing right now towards the end of the year since it's cold and no one really wants to go tour in the snow or anything like that. I think we're kind of on a longer break, which is fine. But other than that, just doing the YouTube thing and doing the working thing.

Speaker 2 (00:18:13):

And I've also seen you in various cities over the past year where we saw each other in dc, Nashville, la

Speaker 4 (00:18:23):

LA is so fun.

Speaker 2 (00:18:24):

So you're traveling a lot. So I mean, the reason I'm bringing this up is just to illustrate that you're really not just doing one thing, and even if your band isn't touring full-time, you're still finding ways to travel for work and for what you do. And it really isn't all just YouTube. It's various things.

Speaker 3 (00:18:46):

And it was from YouTube that I got the job at two notes, audio engineering, and then I was working the NAM booth at two notes, audio engineering, which is where I met Joey and then Joey, me and Joey hung out a few times. Then Joey was like, Hey man, you want a job? And then I went to go and work for Joey. And that's been absolutely life-changing. And

Speaker 2 (00:19:09):

Yeah, because you get to hang out with me more.

Speaker 3 (00:19:11):

I mean, I wasn't going to say it. I don't want to embarrass you, but

Speaker 2 (00:19:14):

Well, no, I mean a blush, but not be embarrassed. Okay,

Speaker 3 (00:19:18):

Well good thing, good thing. This isn't on video then, but no, that's been totally life-changing and all the traveling that you just mentioned. And then as a result of that, it grows and branches out and branches out and branches out. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and crazier and crazier. So it's just pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (00:19:39):

So one thing that I think I'm good at, really good at is spotting opportunity where people may not see it and knowing what to pounce on. I'll give you a for instance. So for instance was when I left Audio Hammer at the end of 2014 and left Florida. I told myself I was never going back to Florida again in my life because fuck Florida moving on. And then one

Speaker 3 (00:20:06):

Week later, and then a hurricane came and wiped it away, like, holy shit, you're God sorry

Speaker 2 (00:20:10):

If only if only, but one week later, Andrew Wade made a post that he was building a studio and needed someone. And I saw pictures of the build out and I was like, I'm jumping on that now in Orlando, the city. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, the city that I had sworn I would never go back to. It just my spidey sense went off and it was like, this is an opportunity not to pass up. I hit him up within 15 minutes of the post going up and was like, I want it. I didn't even know that much about it, but something told me this is going to be perfect For some reason, because I wanted a headquarters for U-R-M-U-R-M didn't even really exist yet in its current form, but I knew that we were going to need a headquarters. I knew that I was going to need someplace to put all my gear.

Speaker 4 (00:21:03):

I

Speaker 2 (00:21:03):

Knew that Andrew Wade is really good people and his partner was Jeremy from a data remember. So I knew that it probably wasn't going to go under. And it is just like, where else am I going to get an opportunity like this to get involved in a studio from the ground up where people who are in the industry are running it so you don't have to deal with bullshit from people who don't understand how things are done. And there's a certain understanding there that I wouldn't be able to have with just anybody. And Andrew Wade had done Creative Lives, so I know that he was cool with the education thing, which I know some people aren't, but just all those thoughts happened simultaneously in my head. I guess I didn't have to think about it. I just knew I need to pounce on this now and I got it and I paid for it for a year and didn't even go there. Now it's the URM headquarters people who watch Nail the Mix and some of our fast tracks recognize it. We filmed lots of those there. It's

Speaker 3 (00:22:09):

A cool joint. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:22:10):

Yeah. We built a whole little shooting studio and it's a great thing.

Speaker 3 (00:22:14):

I still need to come down and visit.

Speaker 2 (00:22:16):

You're about to, and we're talking about that in a second, but I've always been good at seeing an opportunity and seeing what it can be turned into very, very quickly and knowing when to jump. And I feel like in order to make things work the way that you're saying that it works for you, I think you need to be good at that and you need to cultivate, I guess, your sixth sense for which opportunities are out there. Has that been natural for you or is that something that you've developed

Speaker 3 (00:22:50):

Over time? No, it's been developed. I mean, there's been lots of times over the years where I'm like, oh, damn it, if I had only known or said that one thing, damn it, I find out after the fact that I don't know, whatever. Especially in the Boeing setting, like, oh man, I could have had that job. I just had to say I wanted that job. Fuck but

Speaker 2 (00:23:12):

Lose.

Speaker 3 (00:23:13):

I know dude. But no, it's that kind of thing. Few people I think have that naturally. I think that just kind of comes with time and experience and fucking up a lot like of things

Speaker 2 (00:23:26):

I didn't get perfect pitch or any of that stuff, but I got that.

Speaker 3 (00:23:30):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, well, yeah, I mean you did really. I didn't, so yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:23:39):

Okay. Well, okay, good. I'm glad you didn't because then we can talk about what it takes to develop it. For me, it's always been easy that the way that some people can just understand pitch and just see it. I've always been able to see the future in a weird way to where even if it's years in advance, I'll know that making a certain move will lead to this and this. So for instance, when I went to Audio Hammer, I knew within five years I would be out of there. I didn't know how I knew, I just knew, it just made logical sense in my head that I will be out of here within five years. I don't know where I'm going to end up, but all the equations in my head lead to this one outcome, which is that I will not be here in five years. And so I've always been really, really good at knowing what to jump on, how long to put in and when to start thinking of the next move. And it's like what's weird? I don't even have to really think about it. I just get it the way that some people hear a note and know what it is. So I want to know how you went about developing that.

Speaker 3 (00:24:47):

It's really taken, all it is is just taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. And sometimes if you stop and think, okay, I know what would be good for me now, but what would be good for me later, trying to see how things relate to each other. For example, I'll use taking the job with Joey and JST as the artist rep, as an example. I initially said no to that job.

Speaker 2 (00:25:20):

I remember

Speaker 3 (00:25:21):

Because

Speaker 2 (00:25:22):

I had to smooth talk you.

Speaker 3 (00:25:24):

I mean, yeah, I leaned on you pretty hard to kind of gauge what I would be getting into because I'd been burned so many times and I was just kind of tired. And I was with Positive Grid at the time. And you know what? That was a stable

Speaker 2 (00:25:42):

Paycheck. What I did tell you was that I was trying to replace myself. But

Speaker 3 (00:25:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:25:48):

I left that out, but I was totally, I still totally honest with you about what you could expect.

Speaker 3 (00:25:54):

Yeah, but I got catfished. Long story short, no, I'm just kidding. But I didn't want to move. I was like that hassle of like, yeah, I quit. I'm going to go do this thing and going into the unknown. But when I stopped, I mean, I was in California at the time, at my girlfriend at the time house on the phone with Joey, and I was just hashing it out and I was asking him the most ridiculous questions that I probably shouldn't have asked. I wanted to know financial stuff because I didn't want to start a job with the company and then have the company fold a month later or something like that, understandably. But I was asking him all sorts of financial stuff and real nitty gritty details that I probably didn't have any business asking him. But he answered everything honestly and forthcoming Lee.

(00:26:44):

And that was like, okay, well maybe I should actually reconsider. And so after initially turning it down, I took a piece of paper and I wrote out, I made a, so Boeing, there's these things called fish diagrams that you can make and various productivity diagrams that you can kind of use to hash out how things relate to each other and what the outcome will eventually be. Because at Boeing, I was an investigator, so we would kind of use this to boil things down and kind of drill down to whatever it is that you were trying to get down to. And with the job at JST with the diagram, it just made more sense. There was just way more pros than there was cons. There were very few cons. I don't even remember any of the cons, but with the current job that I was at with Positive Grid at the time, there's a lot of things I just didn't like. And okay, it made sense to actually take the job, even though I was still cautious for the immediate future. But I knew long-term being in that circle, being in the audio thing, getting to travel, and then glean information off of hanging out with these amazing dudes like Billy Decker and the bober shells of the world. I thought that would probably be a really good positive thing.

Speaker 2 (00:28:04):

Yeah, there's a lot of perks,

Speaker 3 (00:28:06):

Lot of perks

Speaker 2 (00:28:06):

To being in the circle.

Speaker 3 (00:28:08):

And I was like, okay, I should probably be on that team instead of this one. And so I took the leap for the fourth or fifth time in a major way. And yeah, I think it's just taking the leap, man, that's really all it is. Being willing to accept that, you know what, it might suck. It might bite you in the ass, but at least you tried kind of a thing.

Speaker 2 (00:28:31):

I was just talking to somebody earlier today who is a very good mixer, but he teaches high school and he really wants to transition from that into producing full-time. And he is more than good enough. He's been good enough for years. But he was telling me that he's just afraid of taking the risk. He can't bring himself to do that. And it reminds me a little bit of back in the day, I remember I got Ryan Knight, the gig in this band called ais, which he then moved on to Black Dahlia murder from, but he had a local band called The Knife Trade that he was in, and he didn't want to leave it. He just didn't. And I had to many, many nights of talking to him about how you don't even have to break up your local band, dude, just go join this band. You're finally going to get the opportunity for people to recognize what an amazing guitar player you are and then possibly move on to something else eventually.

Speaker 3 (00:29:36):

Dude, he's so insane.

Speaker 2 (00:29:37):

Do it. Yeah, he's great. He's always been great,

Speaker 3 (00:29:39):

And

Speaker 2 (00:29:39):

I'm glad he finally did it. But that wasn't the only time that I was in a situation like that where I had found a gig for somebody and had to bend their arm behind their back to disappoint their local band and go join a bigger band. And so I feel like it's the same thing that I was hearing today with like, dude, you just told me that you're only making 1800 a month from teaching high school. You're more than good enough to make well above 1800 a month producing. And at the end of the day how much, it's not even that big of a risk if that's all you have to give up, it's not going to happen unless you take the risk.

Speaker 3 (00:30:21):

You

Speaker 2 (00:30:21):

Have to take the risk.

Speaker 3 (00:30:22):

Well, I mean, you have to take it situation by situation, but from what little I know of his situation, if he played his cards, he could always go back to teaching. That's always going to be there. So

Speaker 2 (00:30:35):

Do it. Exactly. I mean, not talking, but also we're not talking ditching out on a six figure career

Speaker 4 (00:30:42):

For

Speaker 2 (00:30:43):

Something that may not or may not work out. We're talking about something that he can always go back to that's fairly above minimum wage

Speaker 4 (00:30:51):

That,

Speaker 2 (00:30:52):

I mean, do that shit while you're young. You're not going to ever be able to advance without, at least in this world, without at some point, taking a risk,

Speaker 3 (00:31:01):

Putting your balls on the fucking line.

Speaker 2 (00:31:04):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:31:05):

Yeah, totally agree.

Speaker 2 (00:31:06):

And I mean, don't do it blindly.

Speaker 3 (00:31:08):

No, don't be stupid about it, but God damn, you got to do it sometimes.

Speaker 2 (00:31:13):

Yeah. I mean, shit, man, starting URM was a huge

Speaker 3 (00:31:18):

Risk

Speaker 2 (00:31:19):

And oh fuck, I can't even imagine. Very scary. Yeah, I've told people that at one point I only made $1,300 one month in that first year, and that was a scary fucking month. It was so scary, and especially because I was killing it before in the studio. It was like, wow, my, how the mighty have fallen. But in my head, I knew how it would work out. And without taking that risk and going through the shit, we wouldn't be where we are now.

Speaker 4 (00:31:51):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:31:53):

You have to sometimes be willing to throw yourself into an uncomfortable situation to ultimately put yourself in a more than comfortable situation.

Speaker 3 (00:32:02):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:32:02):

Down the road. So speaking of you coming to Florida,

(00:32:09):

Let's talk about that. So to those of you who may not be aware, URM is having our first annual, and I say first annual because we're already planning the 2018 one, but our first annual summit, and it'll be the 2017 one. And basically between December 11th through the 14th us and about eight speakers and a hundred attendees are convening on the Double Tree SeaWorld Resort in Orlando. And it's going to be four days of recording master classes, career master classes, networking and hanging out. And Mr. Ryan here is going to be giving a lecture about how he used video and multimedia to not only launch his YouTube career, but how he's used it to sustain a profitable music career. And it'll be mainly focused on video, but it'll be expansive from what I understand.

Speaker 3 (00:33:20):

Yeah. It's going to be looking for avenues that maybe aren't the obvious ones to get into the music industry as a whole. And I'll go over what my own history was and how I kind of fell into it initially through video work and how, I mean, I haven't hashed all this stuff out completely yet. Shame on me. But

Speaker 2 (00:33:44):

No, you've still got a few weeks.

Speaker 3 (00:33:46):

I do. So I mean, I have it in my head, but actually you're hashing it out on a Word document or something like that. But using from my own journey was video, and I just kind of fell into it. But along that way, I've learned that nine times out of 10 when someone hires you for a gig and a gig is defined as video work, freelance photography, going to an amp show and playing a booth and being the guy that's showing the product or being a product manager, a marketing guy, nine times out of 10, they are absolutely never looking for the absolute best guy ever. They're looking for the guy who's dependable, who will kick ass the entire day and not bitch about it, and generally be reliable as opposed to, let's say you're hired to do a mix. The band that's hiring you would love for Chris Lord algae to mix your mix, but nine times out of 10, if you're on time, do an under budget and do a really great job that's absolutely just as good, and a lot of times more preferable to whoever hired you because they can rely on you. And that goes farther than I thought it would when I got into this industry

Speaker 2 (00:35:07):

That applies in so many different fields. Even with Nail the Mix, sometimes we approach mixers to do it and they'll be like, well, I don't feel like I have anything to teach. I don't think I'm that good. And it's like, dude, first of all, better than the students.

Speaker 4 (00:35:22):

So you

Speaker 2 (00:35:22):

Definitely have something to teach them. And second of all, Bob Rock's not returning my calls.

Speaker 4 (00:35:29):

Right, right, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:35:31):

So like, fucking come do it. It'll be awesome and have a little confidence that you've got more to teach than you might realize. But I completely agree. We taught this in speed mixing too, that yes, you're trying to be competitive with the best in the world, but start by being competitive with your local market.

Speaker 3 (00:35:52):

Yes, yes. Step up. It doesn't, there's a lot of other things you can offer besides, yeah, I've spent 30 years behind a console. There's other elements that go into, for example, working with someone and getting a mixed job than just time spent behind the console in order to get the work done. So if you're,

Speaker 2 (00:36:18):

Well, one thing that Joey said that he loves about working with you and people should take note, is that he tells you an idea and he doesn't need to then write out a formal assignment or due date or anything like that. He'll tell you ideas and then you'll just go get them done. You'll take initiative and get 'em done. And he loves that. And as someone who employs people, that's the kind of shit that I love too. And I know that as someone who's been employed by people, that's the kind of shit that people loved when I would do it.

Speaker 3 (00:36:50):

Yeah, they don't want to do the work. They want you to do the work. That's what they hired you for.

Speaker 2 (00:36:53):

Yeah, exactly. And the less you need to explain to someone, the better.

Speaker 3 (00:36:58):

Yep, yep. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:37:00):

So again, it's like you might not be the best mixer on earth, but if you're more liable than your competition, more dependable, easier to deal with, and you do as good or comparable of a job, then you most likely will get the gigs.

Speaker 3 (00:37:20):

Yeah. I mean, I am a testament to that, and it's not about being second best or anything like that. If a band wants it done now and they want it done cheaper and they want it still sound awesome, they'll do the record with me. And if they want some superstar name that they can just use to sell, they mastered the record or something like that, then they'll go to them. But I'll get that shit done and I'll get it quick and I'll get it done cheap. I have to,

Speaker 2 (00:37:54):

Man, having gigs is better than not having gigs.

Speaker 3 (00:37:56):

Exactly. You don't want to fuck yourself out of a gig.

Speaker 2 (00:37:59):

No. So let's talk about video a little, because obviously you started as a musician, right?

Speaker 4 (00:38:06):

I did, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:38:07):

Okay, so you're a musician first, but how did you realize that video was the future or what inspired you to conquer that

Speaker 3 (00:38:22):

Or

Speaker 2 (00:38:22):

To even do it in the first place?

Speaker 3 (00:38:26):

I don't remember the last podcast, but

Speaker 2 (00:38:29):

You talked about porn.

Speaker 3 (00:38:31):

Okay, so it all started there, and it started with working with Red Light District and Leisure Time. And I was in a small apartment in Calabasas, California, and the singer of our band at the time had been editing porn for a while, but this particular time, the director of this video wanted certain sounds edited out without messing with the video, and that was squeaks. They were various squeaks of the leather chair and moans and Spanx and farts and

Speaker 2 (00:39:16):

Farts. Farts keep saying farts

Speaker 3 (00:39:18):

And farts, various kinds of queefs. Oh my God. And our singer was befuddled. He didn't know. He didn't know how to deal with that. He was like, well, how the hell do I do that? I have to have some advanced equipment or software. Now mind you this,

Speaker 2 (00:39:37):

You have to get advanced fart removals

Speaker 3 (00:39:40):

Plugin. Is there a plugin for that? This is 2005.

Speaker 2 (00:39:44):

I like adding analog fart removal.

Speaker 3 (00:39:47):

That's going to be the next plugin. By the way,

(00:39:50):

You heard Air first, but this was 2005, and we were editing on Final Cut Pro five, I think it was, and it was kind of primitive, but they were still editing movies on it and stuff like that. And I thought, and I'd known how to edit video from what he had trained me to do over the previous few months, but the audio thing was totally new, but to me, in my mind, it was the same as video. I just had to split the track and kind of cross fade it and kind of remove the wave and then find some ambience and then blend it in. That was the same ambience as a silent part in another part of the video that we weren't even using. And so I would do that, and it turned out I was pretty damn good at it. But then a year later, I moved back home and I didn't touch a video editor or computer or anything audio until I had already gotten married and my daughter was living with me, and I was at Boeing, and I started doing the YouTube thing, and I thought, oh, I bet things haven't changed all that much.

(00:40:58):

I was really naive about it, although things had changed quite a bit in the 10 years that it had been. And I got Sony Vegas, which is a really shitty video editor, and I just kind of started doing it like that. But when I wanted to go record songs, I thought of the DA as a video editor, and that's kind of how I've always approached it. It's just a video editor without the video part. It sounds weird, but that's just how I look

Speaker 2 (00:41:28):

At it. And sometimes with the video part,

Speaker 3 (00:41:30):

And sometimes with the video part. And so they're similar in so many ways. One can really translate into the other very, very easily with just a few different tweaks. And actually, I have my keyboard shortcuts the same in logic as I do Premier Pro. So when I'm switching back and forth and editing stuff, it's all the same to Zoom in the track and slice and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:41:55):

So really what you're saying is if someone is proficient enough in a daw, there's absolutely no excuse for why they can't be proficient in a video editing

Speaker 3 (00:42:05):

No platform. There's no reason. And that will therefore make them make their skillset even better and more valuable and will make them more valuable to any potential clients that maybe want to record a song and also want to make a video to go along with it. Well, boom. Now you have a guy that can do both those things. So that's saving them money and getting you the gig at the same time.

Speaker 2 (00:42:29):

And I mean, say that even if you don't want to make music videos say that all you do is help the band film the recording process and help them make promotional videos.

Speaker 4 (00:42:41):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:42:41):

You can include that as part of your recording service.

Speaker 3 (00:42:44):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:42:44):

You have just given the band a huge value add,

Speaker 3 (00:42:49):

Huge, huge bang for the buck, a lot of value added, and that just equals more money for you. And then they're going to tell their friends, and then they'll tell their friends. And it just snowballs all because you can do two things instead of one. And

Speaker 2 (00:43:02):

It's not like you need, I mean, we've got really great cameras URM now, but we started to nail the mix with fucking GoPros.

Speaker 3 (00:43:11):

Yeah, yeah, you did.

Speaker 2 (00:43:11):

You don't need crazy shit,

Speaker 3 (00:43:13):

Dude. iPhones these days are 4K. There's no excuse. It's pretty cool. Oh, what a time to be alive.

Speaker 2 (00:43:20):

It is pretty amazing. I was thinking about that the other day. I was thinking that what we do with Nail the Mix is the kind of stuff that I wish existed back when I was learning how to record, but it would've been possible to do it back then anyways, because to get technology that could do that back then, you would've had to already be super rich. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:43:40):

You make a good point. Actually. I didn't that think about that. It's

Speaker 2 (00:43:43):

Only possible because of the time period that we live in. And you started with Sony. Sony what?

Speaker 3 (00:43:53):

Sony Vegas.

Speaker 2 (00:43:54):

Okay. Sony Vegas. So more proof that you, it's like you don't even need a really good editor, however, you can just go to Adobe and get the monthly subscription on Premier right

Speaker 3 (00:44:07):

Now you can. At that time, that didn't exist and Premier and Photoshop were all, you had to individually purchase them for, I think it was several thousand dollars a piece back then. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:44:20):

But now it's 30 bucks a month,

Speaker 3 (00:44:22):

So 75 a month for the whole suite.

Speaker 2 (00:44:24):

Yeah. But for Premier it's 30.

Speaker 3 (00:44:25):

Oh, just for Premier. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:44:27):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:44:27):

Which I would've gladly done then because at that time, Vegas was so bugging, my computer was so shitty. So I would hit render on a seven 20 P video, and God forbid if my mouse moved at all during the render process, my computer would shut the fuck down and I would have to reboot and recover the file and then re-render again and tell everyone to stay out of the room and don't bump anything.

Speaker 2 (00:44:54):

Okay. So we've come a long way.

Speaker 3 (00:44:56):

It was horrible, man. And that was life for a year and a half. It sucked.

Speaker 2 (00:45:01):

So does it piss you off when people tell you that they don't understand how to get started or it's too hard or they don't have enough money?

Speaker 3 (00:45:10):

No. I'm glad those people exist, because otherwise it keeps you a job. Yes. I love those people. I love the self-defeating, self-deprecating people who don't have any drive. They're my favorite kind of people because I'll exploit them until I die. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:45:27):

They won't be there to get in your way.

Speaker 3 (00:45:28):

Yeah, exactly. I'm glad they don't do that. It's going to make you wonder though.

Speaker 2 (00:45:33):

But seriously though, there's literally no excuse for not taking on video is something you do. And I can tell you engagement wise, online blogs for instance, I know there was a long time when people were like, you need to have a studio blog, or you need to do a blog, this blog that people don't really read those anymore. I mean, there are some that people read, but video has overtaken everything. And I'm sure that's old news to some of you, but to those of you who this is news, to pay close attention, video has overtaken everything. I mean, that's for instance, why Finn, our director of marketing, started making videos for punk rock, MBA, his own thing, when he originally was just writing blogs, and he's a professional writer, has been for years. He's a great writer, but he took on video because video is how things work these days. That's what people pay attention to.

Speaker 3 (00:46:31):

Yep. That's it. Because easily, I mean, it's easier to watch a video while you're pooping than sit there and read a blog on your phone, right?

Speaker 2 (00:46:37):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (00:46:39):

Or in bed or in the car or whatever. But yeah, the video thing is just going to get nuttier and nuttier as time goes on.

Speaker 2 (00:46:47):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:46:48):

Learn it now, kids.

Speaker 2 (00:46:50):

So when you say learn it, what do you suggest for someone who, okay, let's take someone who has done some recordings so they know how to operate a daw. They have some gear, maybe they have one or two or three clients, and they really want to improve their client experience and get more clients, and they're thinking about adding video, but they don't know where to start.

Speaker 3 (00:47:13):

YouTube, everything is on YouTube. I mean, there's still,

Speaker 2 (00:47:19):

Do you mean start your own YouTube channel or do you mean on YouTube

Speaker 3 (00:47:21):

Research? No, no, no. Go to YouTube and try to find some tutorials. Try to find, make sure it's really what you think you can handle and just slowly start to get into it. There's more now on YouTube than when I started, because I certainly needed a refresher after almost a decade away from it. And at that time, there was only classes that you had to sign up for on lydia.com, but there wasn't a ton of stuff on YouTube as I remember it when I was trying to find it. Then 2010 ish. But YouTube had only been around for three or four years at that time. But go to YouTube, start watching tutorials and basics, basic videos, and getting started with Premiere or getting started with whatever. It's all on YouTube. And then once you

Speaker 2 (00:48:16):

Watch or Creative Live, even

Speaker 3 (00:48:18):

Live or Creative Live, I mean, that would be a great, I was going to say, once you get a real sense of what you're going to get into on the YouTube side, I still think there's absolutely a good place for the really good educational courses. Obviously with Audio Nail the Mix and things like that, but the Creative Live and then nail the mixes of the world still absolutely have a place and video specifically. Definitely Creative Live. God, I wish there was something like that back then when I started out.

Speaker 2 (00:48:50):

Well, I know they do these fast start classes where they cover most cameras and all the different software. Really? Yeah. So most cameras, you can just take a four hour class and it'll teach you everything you need to know to be able to operate it and get some results. You can take a Fast Start class on Premier or whatever.

Speaker 4 (00:49:11):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:49:12):

I mean, you have to pay money for it. I mean,

Speaker 4 (00:49:14):

So

Speaker 2 (00:49:15):

Exactly the information is out there, but so you think, let me see here. Let me see. If they have an iPhone camera, fast start.

Speaker 3 (00:49:26):

That would be amazing if they did. I mean, how could they not?

Speaker 2 (00:49:29):

I don't know. Let's see here. I'm looking at their Fast Starts camera guides and tutorials. The photography starter kit for beginning beginners $49, Canon EOS five D Mark four, fast Start, $49, and there's so many cameras, knock on wireless flash, Fuji XT two, Olympus om slash D, Sony A seven. There's just so many cameras here.

Speaker 3 (00:49:54):

See, here's the brilliant part about all those courses though. Those cameras that you just named off are 2, 3, 4, $5,000 cameras. So why wouldn't someone that spent that much money already pay another 50 bucks to learn all about it? I mean, that's awesome,

Speaker 2 (00:50:10):

But I don't think they only have super nice,

Speaker 3 (00:50:13):

Oh, no, I know that, but I'm just saying that makes a lot of sense. If you were someone looking to get into it, absolutely. That's money or it's value added to pay 50 bucks to just learn the ins

Speaker 2 (00:50:27):

And outs. But check this out, they have one for Panasonic lumix, GX seven, that's $160 camera.

Speaker 3 (00:50:35):

Yeah, still.

Speaker 2 (00:50:37):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:50:38):

So I started out with my YouTube channel using a refurbished $50. Do you remember those flip cameras?

Speaker 2 (00:50:45):

Yeah, of course. I used to have three of those

Speaker 3 (00:50:48):

And they have no Flipout viewers. So what I would have to do with all my early videos is I would have to set it up and just in case the angle was good, I would film the video, I would stop it, I would look at the angle, I would get it down off whatever was set up I had, I would get it down, play it back, and if it wasn't good, I would then reset it and then do the video again and just kind of hope for the best and take it down, look at it again. But I always had to do it over and over and over again because if you had an awesome camera angle, well then you want to exploit that good camera angle. So

Speaker 2 (00:51:23):

I remember those. Oh, hey, check this out. I just found it. iPhoneography on Creative Watch.

Speaker 3 (00:51:27):

Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (00:51:28):

They have a class iPhone six s photography, 29 bucks. They have how to capture landscapes with your iPhone seven Simplus, 10 bucks.

Speaker 3 (00:51:37):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:51:38):

Adobe mobile apps, $17.

Speaker 3 (00:51:41):

How

Speaker 2 (00:51:41):

To capture action with your iPhone seven or seven plus $10, like room mobile, $17. Okay, so you have no fucking excuses people.

Speaker 3 (00:51:52):

Wow. That's cool. I'm actually going to go check that out after we're done. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:51:57):

We we're all on Team Creative Live. We love them.

Speaker 4 (00:52:01):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:52:03):

But I mean, say that. Okay, I'm just saying that yeah, YouTube has everything, but say that you get inundated with YouTube and you don't know what to look for, because a lot of people say that they really appreciate what we do at Nail the Mix and all that because they don't know where to look on YouTube because there's so much stuff. It's like, okay, so go to Creative Live.

Speaker 3 (00:52:24):

Yeah, I can see that too.

Speaker 2 (00:52:26):

Their stuff's all good.

Speaker 3 (00:52:27):

It's so flooded on YouTube, so you really got to know what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (00:52:31):

Yeah, I guess that would be the only problem, but I think that there's no reason for why people can't get started with this.

Speaker 3 (00:52:39):

Agreed.

Speaker 2 (00:52:40):

So do you still find yourself learning about video all the time?

Speaker 3 (00:52:43):

Oh man. About an hour ago, I was looking at the new features in Adobe Premiere, and I was watching a tutorial on how to improve your color grading. So yes, I'm always watching stuff. You have to always want to up your game because if you don't, the next guy will surpass you.

Speaker 2 (00:53:04):

Someone else is going to come drink your milkshake.

Speaker 3 (00:53:07):

Dude, that is so fucking true. I was not a shredder. I'm a songwriter, but not a shredding metal guy. I like songs. And so in order to maintain my place, so to speak, it was a very conscious thing that I actually went and I read up on classes on how to talk to a camera in public speaking. I was just talking to Finn about this yesterday, and so I was going to make sure that I was way better to watch on camera when I was talking to the camera for FAQ stuff for the YouTube channel, because some of those other guys are terrible to watch. It's so painful. And so I paid for some courses and I took some public speaking courses online and then learned how to color grade, and I just made sure my footage looked fucking great. So that was how I compensated.

Speaker 2 (00:53:56):

So you invested in your own education?

Speaker 3 (00:53:58):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:53:59):

Well, I think that the listeners of this podcast, most of them are okay with investing in their own education because they are subscribers to URM and now the mix. So it's not a foreign concept to them, but I just think it's good to hear from people that are doing what other people aspire to do. When you find out that those people who have the jobs that you want are continually upping their skills and investing in themselves and always learning,

Speaker 3 (00:54:32):

Buy the better computer, buy the better camera. It is just a step forward. A lot of these kids, and not even kids, full grown adults that have mortgages and stuff are like, yeah, but I don't think I'm good enough. I don't deserve that self-defeating guilt or whatever that is of, I don't deserve a nice camera like that yet. I'm not good enough. What? Yeah, you are. Buy the good camera. Why not invest in yourself, man, if you're really that serious, what a difference

Speaker 2 (00:55:00):

It makes

Speaker 3 (00:55:01):

Too. Oh man. Huge difference.

Speaker 2 (00:55:03):

But that's not to say that you can't start with something that's less than great.

Speaker 3 (00:55:07):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:55:08):

In fact, you should just start. I think that the hardest thing, I think the hardest thing about doing anything or getting anything done, accomplishing any goal, whether it's a New Year's resolution or just something that you've been assigned to do from work or whatever, the hardest part across the board for almost everybody is literally just getting started, planning your ass down

Speaker 4 (00:55:31):

And

Speaker 2 (00:55:31):

Fucking getting to work. Then it's like once you're working, it's almost like nature takes over or whatever, but the hardest part is momentum and inertia. Inertia is your enemy and momentum's your friend, and once you have momentum going, it's all good. But you should really just start with video, with whatever you've got. If you've got an iPhone, start with an iPhone and get the $30 premiere and just get started. Just do whatever you can just get started and then go from there.

Speaker 3 (00:56:07):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I started out with the Reaper as far as the da, when I finally made the leap to the daw, and I didn't know plugins existed. I didn't know any of that shit, and I just plowed into it. Just did it naively.

Speaker 2 (00:56:22):

So would you say that that's something that you've always kind of done in life? When there's something you want, you don't think about it too much, you just get started?

Speaker 3 (00:56:32):

Yeah, I mean, I did that with guitar. I make the decision. Okay, yep. That's a hard yes, I definitely want to do that. Alright, well, and it's just accepting that you're going to fucking suck for a while, but if you get over that, eventually you'll improve. We're humans. We're going to get better at it. So whether you pick up a flute, piano, start, I dunno if you want to be a lawyer, a doctor, all that stuff is all the exact same thing. You are going to suck at the start and if you put the time in, you will get better and you will get there to where you want to be. But I think now society teaches us today is teaching the kids today that it's this now, now instant gratification kind of mentality that's really prevailing instant access with the cell phones, how they are these days and stuff like that. Not to sound like an old man, but people don't want to put the work into, there's that, oh, what's that fucking app that, oh, I'm so bored with playing guitar or guitar. Pushing my fingers down on the strings is too hard. I wish I could play right now. That kind of stuff where it's like,

(00:57:44):

Don't develop the calluses, put the thimble things on the end of your fingers. Like what the fuck? Shut the fuck up and fucking get to work and develop the calluses. The rest of us like, fuck, I hate that shit. Just fucking work, man. Do the work.

Speaker 2 (00:58:00):

It's amazing how just doing the work will set you apart from so many other people.

Speaker 4 (00:58:07):

Seriously.

Speaker 2 (00:58:08):

Question about procrastination. I know we all do it, but is referencing back what Joey had said about how he doesn't need to ask you for things because the moment he mentions them, you're already on it. And I know from working with you on other things too, that you're definitely the self-starter type. Is that something that you have had to struggle with to instill as a habit? What goes through your head as far as overcoming procrastination? Or is that just not an issue for you?

Speaker 3 (00:58:41):

No, it's not really an issue. My sense of self-worth comes from my output, my productivity, and watching my old man just work his fucking ass off when I was a kid and he would come home after working 10 hours a day at Boeing and then he would have to work on our shitty ass cars that we had growing up and he be outside until 1130 midnight sometimes, and then get up at five o'clock in the morning and go back to work. And he would do that all week. Beast dude. Fucking super, super beast. He's my hero.

Speaker 2 (00:59:18):

I thought I was

Speaker 3 (00:59:19):

Well, I mean, you're my mom hero, my mom figure hero kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (00:59:23):

Okay, okay. That's fine. I can deal with that.

Speaker 3 (00:59:26):

But no, it's just I'm one of those guys that has a hard time taking a vacation because I just go nuts. I can't not do anything longer than a day. So I don't know, I just feel worthless when I don't do shit. And I think that's good. So I think that's probably a huge factor of why more people aren't doing these YouTube channels and shit like that because it just, you got to go, go, go, go. And that's not for everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:59:51):

So have you always tied your output to your self worth?

Speaker 3 (00:59:54):

Yes, always. If

Speaker 2 (00:59:56):

That's fortunate.

Speaker 3 (00:59:58):

At the end of the day, even when everything goes to shit, if you can at least look at yourself in the mirror and go, I fucking worked my ass off today. Well at least then you have something to hang your hat on, so to speak. You know what I mean? So I don't know, that's just how I kind of see the world. And

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):

You never needed to condition yourself for that, that's just how you are.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):

No, that's just how I am. And it served me really well at Boeing. I would just fucking kick ass and I would get promotions. I mean I got promoted all the way up into the salary from an entry level mechanic into a hundred thousand dollars a year job in salary in three years at Boeing with just a high school education.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):

Enjoy being a self-starter.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):

Yeah, just because I would fucking go when I would get done with my work instead of going, cool, I'm going to fuck off for the next four hours. I go, who else needs help? And I would just fucking go and do it because why not help people? Fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):

Okay. Alright. I want to get inside your head real quick about something. So Joey has an idea, let's just take that for instance, about a new type of video that he wants JST to put out.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):

What goes through your head right then and there and then between then and when you actually get to work, what goes through your head

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):

Of what would I want to see? What would be cool? Like, oh man, that's fucking cool. Because the good thing, the amazing thing about working with Joey is he really lets me kind of be creative in the space that he builds. So he is like, okay, here's the parameters, but within those parameters, go nuts. Go nuts, man. You do. And I think that really lends itself to just me being able to still feel creative, although I'm getting work done. So that makes it really easy. I'm going to fucking think of a rad video idea to convey a marketing plan for this new plugin for bus glue or something like that. Oh man, wouldn't it be funny if I went and filmed something with Jared Dines and did this and he's like, yep, go do that. Just do it. And so that, I don't know, it's a factor of fun, productivity and getting work done. It's like all

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):

A little better one. What do you tell yourself to get that momentum going to where you just get on it right away?

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):

I don't know, man. I think a lot of it has to do specifically with Joey because he just kind of, I don't know. Joey's a great boss in that you can trust his vision, but he will also listen to your input. And so when you feel listened to and when you feel validated in that makes you want to work harder, I guess. And so it makes it really easy to just fucking go and get it and just go and fucking kill it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):

And do you find that if you leave too much time between the idea and the action, that sometimes kills the idea a little bit? I find that

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):

Yeah, it will let you, I mean, but at the same time it will give you some perspective again that you may not have had if you just jumped right into it. So yeah, it can kill the idea if you don't strike while the iron's hot, so to speak. So time is critical when you're trying to accomplish something, but I mean, you can't say that all that's bad. I'm sure there's stuff that you've done where you're like, man, I'm glad that I let that simmer a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):

Well, I'm glad that we didn't put out speed mixing when we first shot it because I wasn't happy with it and I made us completely redo it from

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):

Scratch. I remember that

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):

And I'm sure that they hated me a little bit for that, but I know they love me now

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):

Because

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):

That thing crushed. But so I guess what I'm not saying, I'm not getting at being hasty with things and just not thinking things through, but I feel like there's a time when an idea has a spark and that's when you got to pounce.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):

You have that initial energy of the newness of it and that's what will push it through to completion. So yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):

So I kind of feel like if dudes out here listening are inspired to go add video to their repertoire or whatever it is that they want to get good at parallel compression or they finally want to finally get good at down picking whatever it is, start tonight after hearing this podcast,

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):

Do fucking go.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):

Yeah, just do anything. It doesn't have to be a completion of the entire mission, but at least do one thing putting you towards that goal. I always find that even if you don't get it all done, if you at least do one thing that takes it out of just fantasy and into reality, that that right there sometimes is enough to give you that momentum you need.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):

For me also, specifically with the video thing, I think it is so fucking cool that movies like Deadpool or I dunno if you've seen Mindhunter on Netflix,

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):

I've seen them both,

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):

Which I just got done with Mindhunter, but both those are edited completely. 100% in the box with Adobe Premiere and that right there, knowing that kind of stuff just makes me want to go fucking edit a video because holy shit pros are using this shit even obviously it's a pro software, but the big boys are using this shit that just makes me want to go and fucking do it myself. I dunno. That's awesome. I love that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):

Well, I mean the whole, if they can do it, I can too sort of thing. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):

Fuck yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):

Applies.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):

Yeah, you could do anything kids.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):

Well, it's funny, I kind of believe that and I kind of don't.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):

Yeah, it's somewhere in between. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):

It's somewhere in between. You can do anything and you can do nothing. So you can do some things.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):

I mean, not to get political, but I mean, look who our president is. You can absolutely do anything you want. Kids you

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):

That is love him or hate him. That is kind of true.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):

Right? That's exactly what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):

Yeah. Well, I mean I also know plenty of people who have unquote made it in the arts who aren't the most talented

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):

Dude.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):

They just had the drive,

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):

Right? Right. I mean, if anyone wants to follow this kind of thought outside of this, I highly recommend listening to some spoken word stuff from Henry Rollins because he was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast. I'm a big Joe Rogan experience fan, and he was saying people are always asking him how he's so successful. He's done movies, he's done books, he's done TV shows, he's done standup, and he's just like, I will never ever be the best at anything, but I'm tenacious. I don't know when to fucking quit and I'll just keep going and I will work my absolute hardest to do it. I was like, man, that is fucking brilliant.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):

And he also makes a point of letting people know that he's keenly aware of his mortality.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):

Yes, yes. I'd love that. I'm a big fan of Henry Rollins. If anyone is listening and wants to continue this train of thought, Henry Rollins spoken word stuff and go see him live if you can, it's really, really life changing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):

Interestingly enough of newer guy on the speaking scene, Gary V also brings up mortality a lot. Kind of like Henry Rollins, which is like, you are going to be dead one day, so fucking get to work.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):

Seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):

Yeah, that is going to happen. Whatcha are you waiting for?

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):

Yeah, no one's waiting for a royal invitation.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):

Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):

Take that fucking iPhone and shoot a goddamn video.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):

Yeah, just fucking do it. Be proud of it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):

So we've got some questions here from our audience for you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):

They were excited that you were coming on.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):

Oh, they're

Speaker 4 (01:08:05):

So sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):

Yeah, they love you. They love you. Here's one from Rodney.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):

Hi

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):

Rodney. He's a URM admin.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):

Yeah, what's

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):

That? And if anyone wants to know what Rodney looks like, watch the and nail the mix. He was sitting right next to me the whole time nervous, but I still love him. He was nervous. So it's EOS since his favorite band, so dreams can come true. That's

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):

Right. So

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):

Here it goes. I currently work for a speaker company that handles marine audio. Our YouTube social media presence is very lacking in my opinion compared to what I've been exposed to with URM and your channel. What advice would you give me? I want to help them better this part of the company without stepping on the toes of the individual in charge of the media department. I had a great conversation with the head of media and was a write some music for our demo videos, product videos. So I feel this is my opportunity, but I want to take that a step farther and basically guarantee me a step in that department. Can I say one thing before you jump in?

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):

Get the song done, they asked for first.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):

Yes. I have a thing I like to say to myself or what I tell friends who are in similar situations like get your foot in the door first initially massage them and make 'em feel good. IE do whatever it is that you've already committed to do, get the song done. It sounds a little situation specific in Rodney's case because obviously like he just said in the question, he doesn't call the shots for what gets put out and that is not in his control. The best he can do is have a conversation about it with the guy who does have the say so. But that's kind of a tough one. There's only so much he can do with taking the social presence in the step in the right direction because he can't tell the social guy how to do his job obviously. So I wouldn't say there was a lot he can do in the current situation, although he needs to use that song as a stepping off point

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):

To

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):

Then start building a repertoire and trust because success equals validity and if it does well, whatever they're using the song for, if that does well, that will suddenly give him leverage to then argue a point or have an idea and have it be valid to them. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):

It's almost like everything that he said that he wants to do. Thinking further as far as I'm concerned, that's the kind of stuff that if I asked somebody to do something like an employee or a potential employee and instead of doing what I asked for, they had a bunch of ideas for how to make things better, I'd get kind of angry,

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):

Fuck,

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):

Not angry, but I wouldn't want to deal with them anymore. No, hell no. It'd be like they can't follow directions, they're not doing what I asked for and they just think that their ideas are better. They don't know what I've done to get to this point. They don't know if I've already had their same ideas, they don't know what our challenges are,

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):

They

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):

Haven't been in my shoes, but the one thing I did ask them for, which will help, they haven't even done yet. So fuck this guy.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):

So

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):

Now I am just saying that that would be my reaction and I have had people like that as interns before and I never call them back because it's like I just asked you for one thing and you already want to take over.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):

This

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):

Is not going to work.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):

Don't be that guy. You don't know the best way, you don't know the proper social strategy because chances are you probably don't have the experience to even make those decisions yet. So just do what was asked and then go

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):

From there. And even if you do have great ideas, what difference does it make if no one's going to be receptive to them? So like flush said, get the song done, build that trust and use that as your in. But I would tread very carefully if it's somebody else's department.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):

Very carefully.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):

Yeah. Okay, here's question number two, man, I'm not even going to try with his name. So I'll just say Greg ORs high fluff. Currently the market of YouTube guitarists is quite full and it's really difficult to stand out. I have my channel where I put classical guitar arrangements of movie songs and metal arrangements of some popular radio songs and try to brand myself in these two paths. I have quite good quality in terms of music, a decent video, but I have a really hard time with gaining any audience. What advice would you give to guys like me besides one that we should do innovative stuff with good quality? Anything about branding, marketing and advertising?

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):

Well, it sounds like, so he does two different things. He does the classical guitar stuff for movie themes and he does metal versions of things as well. Is that what it said?

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):

Yeah. So I guess he does classical arrangements of movie songs and metal arrangements of pop songs.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):

I would say pick one focus on one of those things because when someone goes to your channel, they need to know right away what they're going to be, what they can accept or expect to see. Now, classical guitar thing that sounds kind of cool to me. There's a million channels doing metal versions of pop songs and chances are, I haven't even heard your stuff, dude. They're probably better than yours because there's other videos that are getting millions and millions of fucking hits because as we talked about earlier, there's always room on the shelf, I think is what you said.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):

The top shelf has infinite space,

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):

Has infinite space. So if it was really truly mind blowing, you'd be getting millions of views and not even asking us that question.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):

Perfect example is this month I nail the mix. Carson Slovak and Grant McFarland are the guest mixers. They did August Burns Red, but what little known fact about them is that they have a Star Wars band called Galactic Empire, which

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):

That's them.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):

That's them, yeah. Holy shit. Yeah, dude, that's their,

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):

That's fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):

Yeah, that's their joke band. I'm

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):

A big fan.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):

Yeah, they're really good. They are. Their metal versions of those movie themes are fucking good.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):

Fuck, they're so good. There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):

Probably the best one I've ever heard. They really do play those John Williams tunes really, really well.

Speaker 4 (01:14:41):

And

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):

They do the musical justice.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):

And so

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):

You take that on top of the fact that their outfits are fucking awesome and the video quality is great. Well boom, you have a success story.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):

So spot on.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):

But that's the top shelf right there. Yes. If you did something on that level, there's room for you up there. Absolutely there is, but it needs to be on that level.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):

So the other thing I would say is speed of output. And what I mean by that is my buddy Leo, who has a YouTube channel called Frog Leap Studios, he has exploded in the last year and it all began with a mega fucking hyper viral metal version of Adele's. Hello. And he came out with that right after the song hit radio. I mean, he was so fast on his feet with that metal version before anybody else. That fucking video got 8 million views the first fucking week it was out, it went mega viral and now he has, I think he just hit 2 million subs on his YouTube channel. And a year ago he had like 70,000 subs. I mean, he's gone mega, mega, mega hyper viral and he's the sweetest guy. But being fast. So if there's a huge song on the radio, the new Maroon five single just came out today, you better have a fucking video at tomorrow period.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):

I mean, much like the way that South Park about including current events,

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):

Dude, that's so crucial because again, you have that initial idea and you have that initial momentum that can propel you. But if you're waiting a month or two to cover that pop song that's on its way out on radio, no one's going to care.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):

No. And the thing with Galactic Empire, their first release came right as the new Star Wars was being released right

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):

After

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):

There hadn't been Star Wars movies, episode, movies, episode,

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):

Right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):

It was right at the same time on purpose, obviously. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):

It was right when the trailer hit, wasn't

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):

It? Yeah, that's not a coincidence. I think it was right when the movie came out or two weeks or something.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):

God, that was so good

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):

In December of that year,

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):

I would love to ask them about the costumes and shit like, oh man, those are so spot on.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):

Well, we're doing a q and a with them.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):

Oh cool, okay,

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):

On the 10th should

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):

Come

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):

And hang out, I'll

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):

Come hang out.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):

But yeah, but that's a perfect example of it being timely. So if you're just like, I don't know, I feel like it has to be spectacular. And I know that he was like, I don't want an answer of just doing better videos, but like, Hey man,

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):

That's it. Doing better videos. Sorry,

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):

You're going to get

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):

Well marketing all to get you so far. So here's the thing with marketing that a lot of people misunderstand, thank you, is marketing will get it in front of people, but if your shit isn't good or for whatever reason, they still don't have to like it and they still don't have to follow you and stuff like that. Okay, yeah, I can get it in front of 20,000 people by paying my $200 on Facebook by pushing it in an ad. That doesn't mean shit.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):

No.

(01:17:55):

Well, a perfect example also is what the kind of marketing that we do for now, the mix and URMI studied how to do it, fin studied it, Joey studied, Joel studied it. We follow very specific techniques and we study this stuff and since we study it, we know other people who try it and we have seen people use the exact same techniques that we do, but with shitty products that no one wants and they make no money, then they make no sales and nobody cares because at the end of the day, social media is just an infrastructure and marketing. It's just tactics and things you do, but people have to want what you're offering.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):

That's right. Sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):

Alright, so here's one from Marco and Gioni. Let's give this guy a good answer because he actually takes the advice. For instance, I did a one-on-one session with him a few weeks ago and I told him he was having, he's good, he's a good engineer and he's been at it a long time. He's got a very nice studio in Belgium. I believe he was having or den man or Denmark. Shit. I'm sorry Marco. I

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):

Forgot in an exotic location far away from

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):

Me in an exotic location far away from me. Yes. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):

And

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):

He was having trouble getting it booked and I was trying to help him figure that out. I went and his website was just, it looked, I mean I would say GeoCities, but

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):

It

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):

Was pretty rough stuff. So I was like, look, you need to go to Brian Hood's site and take his free website course and get a better website together and it needs to fall. You need to stop worrying about your gear, focus more on who you are

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):

And

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):

What you've done and all this stuff. I mean, we talked about it for 40 minutes and that night he went and started working on a site. Oh good man. It's way better site. And the reason I'm saying that is because a lot of people give advice to and then in one ear out the other. So what we tell him now, he'll probably do. So here's the question for Marco. Hi fluff. Any advice on how to get good personal connections even if you're not living near a musically active city or scene?

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):

Personal connections as in what other musicians or other studio guys?

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):

I think well, okay, so his situation is he lives kind of in the middle of nowhere ish and he wants more clients at his studio. So I would imagine that he means more just how to network more with bands so he can get more clients to a studio.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):

Honestly, what I would personally do is kick ass at a few records, but maybe take a cut in payment and instead have those bands share on their socials about your website or your studio specifically while tagging you use some leverage in exchange for your services kind of a thing. It sounds like visibility is the issue, not that obviously you said he's a good engineer, but it sounds like he's just getting killed on visibility and general traffic

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):

And he has barely had good pictures of his studio and his wife's a photographer, so it's like, dude,

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):

How

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):

Your wife takes some pictures, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):

Yeah, I would ask some bands to share my shit is what I would personally do in exchange for, and I have done that. I mean, I'll give you an example. I wanted to get out there in the early days and I had met a guy named Rob Scen at NAM 2014 I think it was. And at that time he had 35,000 subs and I was pretty heavy into the audio thing at that point and I had almost 10,000 subs and I thought this guy was a fucking superstar, and his stuff actually didn't sound great at all. His videos were funny, they were quirky, but the sound quality was not there and Rob could not afford to pay me. And what I asked for in return, which is still in agreement that we still hold up to this day is, except now he pays me, is instead of paying me, I wanted him to link to my YouTube channel in the description of every single one of his videos where I mixed the audio and it wouldn't be just a little blurb or it wouldn't be something at the very end of the description, it would be the fourth line of the description.

(01:22:35):

And that paid off huge when the first video we did went viral. And then the second, third and fourth videos also went viral with slay banjo thing and metal and inappropriate places and nine string metal and these kinds of videos. And so asking for promotion from other bands in exchange for your services, there's nothing shameful in that, that is savvy business in my opinion. And I'm not saying do an entire record for free or something like that, but maybe you give 'em a little discount to give you a few shoutouts. And there's nothing wrong with asking for some shoutouts structure it like you want a shout out twice a week for two months for X amount of money kind of a thing is what I would do. Also, get some nice pictures of your shit, man. Come on.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):

Yeah. Great. Thank you. Great answer. Okay, well you kind of already answered this question, so I'm going to the next one. This one's from Ian Babbitt Fluff. How do you prove to your potential audience, Hey, subscribe to me. I'm different,

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):

Actually. This is going to sound hilariously stupid and dumb. I've gone out of my way on my channel to never ever ask, please subscribe to me. I've never said it. I don't ever, ever ask anyone to subscribe to me and describe, leave a comment down below. Now I do ask, what do you think? Leave a comment down below in some of my FAQs. If someone writes in and says, what's a good entry level interface? I'll put my 2 cents in. And then I'll say, you guys, what are your guys' favorite entry level interfaces? Comment down below. But as far as actually subscribing and stuff, I have never ever actually said, please subscribe, like, and subscribe. I hate that shit. And for me, it always made sense. They'll stick around if they want to like me who these days goes, oh man, if he hadn't have said subscribe, I totally wouldn't have subscribed. You know what I mean? Let your work speak for itself.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):

You know what I mean? Thinking about when you put it like that, it's just kind of funny because you're right, that's never, I subscribe because I see a video that I like and I appreciate that

Speaker 4 (01:24:57):

A

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):

Guy who posted it made the video. And not only do I want to see future videos, I know that the subscribe count makes a difference. And so I hit subscribe. He doesn't need to tell me.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):

Right? To me, I always feel like they're treating me. I'm stupid a little bit when they say and subscribe. And the last thing I ever would want any of my viewers to feel like is that I feel like they're stupid because they're so fucking smart, intelligent, and I appreciate their time. Even if they're going to leave a shitty comment, I still really, really appreciate them taking the time to leave that shitty comment because they're still spending time on something that I did.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):

And then you have material to screenshot

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):

And to use at the end of the year and talk shit about them later. But still that's very passive aggressive of me. But still, yeah, I would just let the work speak for itself. I wouldn't say subscribe or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):

I don't appreciate the shit talkers. I want to jump at them with a fucking knife.

Speaker 3 (01:25:56):

No, man. So here's the thing with shit talkers. Shit talkers are hard confirmation that your stuff is reaching new audiences. That's shit talkers.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):

Oh no, no, I know, I know. Logically

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):

I

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):

Know. I

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):

Love it. Just no, I love the shit talkers.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):

Logically I know this. And sometimes it just depends what mood I'm in

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):

Sometimes. Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):

There's sometimes where it's just like, man, I wish you were in front of me,

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):

Dude,

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):

Because you'd be dead.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):

My day has been ruined a few times over the years and when I just let them get to me sometimes I'm like, God damnit. And then it's actually,

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):

It's hard thought to

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):

Dude, you know who actually talk talks me down is Joey. Joey. Joey is, Joey is fucking

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):

Amazing. I've had to talk him down a few times too. We talk each other down.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):

Dude, he's great for that though. He's just like, man, they're still coming to your channel and commenting on your shit, dude. And I'm like, God damnit, you're fucking right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):

It's true.

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):

It's so true.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):

Well, I've noticed that the people who are best at calming me down or those who have been in a similar situation, just that same way that I'm good at calming them down

Speaker 4 (01:27:05):

When

Speaker 2 (01:27:05):

They get it and they get mad because we've all experienced it. So we all know that sometimes someone makes that comment and it's just like, God, I wish he was laying down in the street and I had my car and I could turn him into fucking ground beef. But really all it takes is me telling Finn or Joey or something and they're like, it's a good sign. But I always tell them that too

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):

When

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):

They get mad,

Speaker 3 (01:27:35):

Right? We hope each other, man. We hope each other.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):

Alright, here's one from Austin Stewart when trying to create a YouTube series, how do you find an engaging way to talk to what feels like no one IE making it seem like the audience is directly there with you. Is there a script? Is it an acting thing or a personality thing?

Speaker 3 (01:27:55):

So it's a combination of several things. First I kind of touched on earlier, public speaking. And what I mean by public speaking is eliminating ums and things you kind of naturally want to do. Yeah, the filler you naturally will put in filler while you talk, when in actuality it's just best to be silent for a second while you formulate and think of a sentence that's first, second

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):

You just said.

Speaker 3 (01:28:25):

But yeah, but sometimes you can say it on purpose and it's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):

You're wrong. Just kidding. But

Speaker 3 (01:28:30):

Not if you go. And the turning point for me, there was one time I showed up to Thanksgiving and my grandmother had a tally of the amount of times I said in my newest video at that time, and it was something like 47 times in the span of three minutes I had said, and I didn't even know my grandmother knew I had a YouTube channel, right?

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):

Didn't you take a shot every time?

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):

No, no, but she,

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):

Grandma's drinking game,

Speaker 3 (01:29:02):

Jailhouse style, she put a scribble Mark A. Little wine on this piece of paper that was full of wines. You've been counting years in prison or something. And see, I said, she was like,

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):

Once you become aware of it,

Speaker 3 (01:29:13):

Yeah. She said, honey, you're great. I love what you're doing, but you really got to learn how to speak to the camera. And I thought, oh my God, she's right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):

Fuck you, grandma. I'm 16,

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):

Right? I do what I want. Fuck you, grandma. I'm 32 years old, I'm a man.

(01:29:32):

And so the second part of that to talking to nobody is you have to overcompensate. And the reason why you have to overcompensate is because you are reading normally when you talk to somebody, and this is all part of public speaking stuff and info, when you are speaking, you are reading and feeding off of body language. And when you don't have that, you have to annunciate and your body language has to be twofold because when someone goes back and watches it, they're obviously not having, they're on the receiving end of that. So they're not getting any body language from you in turn, in real time in reaction to what they're watching. So when you are talking to the camera first, it's weird. It's just weird at first. And you just have to get used to staring at the camera and not the side viewer, not the flip out viewer.

(01:30:22):

Don't look just off to the side of the camera. Look into the camera and you have to exaggerate everything, your body movements, your hand movements, the way you talk, your volume, your talking volume. But when you play it back, when you're just watching it in bed or whatever, it seems relatively normal because you're not there in person talking to me. So I think that's the thing that you kind of got to be aware of. When people meet me in real life, they're like, oh wow, you're pretty calm. I was expecting Mr. Slap sticky first question guy, but that's not how people are in real life. That's very taxing and it's very draining to talk to people like that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):

It's rough.

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):

Yeah. That's how you do it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):

One thing that me and Joey always say is, if you don't feel like a complete idiot when you're done shooting the video, you probably weren't expressive enough.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):

Dude, that's so true. That's so accurate. That's so accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):

I know for introverts like myself, learning to speak on camera is a tough thing. It's still is tough. It goes against every fiber of my being. So that's how I gauge it now is how ridiculous do I feel then I'm doing a good job.

Speaker 3 (01:31:38):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):

Okay, here's one from Renar. Magnusson, another URM Admin. Thank you. We love you. So hello Mr. Fluff Harington. I've been thinking about making some YouTube videos that show various things I've done to improve my DAW workflow over the years. They're very specific to my workflow, but I hope the videos can give people new ideas about how to approach their daws and what they can do with them. My concerns though is that I may be a bit narrow and not general enough. I guess my question is, should I only go for the few things that I find interesting or should I try to find a way to also go into related general subjects that might not interest me as much in order to reach a wider audience?

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):

I would say both. So when I first started my channel, I was strictly doing things that interested only me. They were just for me for my own interests. I was doing nerdy things like shooting out different overdrives and different microphones. I was being an TX I five and an SM 57 in front of the same speaker in the same position, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's some really, really nerdy shit. And not a lot of people are going to find a lot of information in that. However, once you put out your really specific stuff that you're really passionate about, definitely do expand and maybe build on that a little bit and have maybe a part two or whatever, I don't know the specific content relating to workflow improvement, but maybe have a follow up and have that be more generous. So then you can kind have your cake and eat it too, as far as the content. So you're just getting a lot of coverage, so you're also covering the really, really specific stuff. And then kind of the more general stuff that maybe the more casual user would still find valuable.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):

Let me just say one thing though that I think is that if you're new at making video, I'd say start with what you're passionate about. And then once you have that momentum, once you feel more comfortable making videos, then start going more general. I definitely agree with fluff about what your overall strategy should be. Agree a hundred percent. But I just think that if you're brand new at it, like we just said in the previous question, making videos kind of an awkward thing, so why not get comfortable with it doing stuff that you actually really care about.

Speaker 3 (01:34:03):

And

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):

Then once you're comfortable expand and

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):

People will react and feed off of things that you are passionate about yourself, so they can smell that you're not passionate about it a mile away and they won't fucking watch it. So I'm speaking from experience,

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):

That's why I'm saying that if it's a brand new thing and you're still got your training wheels on, you don't want to have to learn how to make video while talking about stuff you don't care about. People will overlook problems in video if you make up for it with your passion and quality of information.

Speaker 3 (01:34:41):

Right. I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):

Okay, here's one from Eric. Burt, what was your biggest fear when leaving your day job to pursue this? How did you overcome that fear? Didn't you get fired or laid

Speaker 3 (01:34:52):

Off? Yeah, I didn't have a choice. No choice. Well, actually, actually I'd gotten to this weird place right before. Oddly, I don't know if the universe just kind works this way. I fucking hated my job so bad. But I don't know, maybe I just gone through divorce three or four weeks before and I was in a really weird spot. And unrelated to that, I had a manager come after me because I had smarted off Adam, go figure. And that wasn't my manager. He was just some manager. And he had asked the company on his behalf that he thought I was up to something malicious because I had

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):

Malicious,

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):

Well, I was in charge of a lot of stuff and I had security clearances and stuff so he could request a full thorough investigation of me while they

Speaker 2 (01:35:40):

Didn't piss him off.

Speaker 3 (01:35:41):

Well, okay, well, he's retired anyway and fuck him. I don't care. So what happened was he kept trying to spy on me while I was working. And when I was working, I was working on engineering documents and things like that. He would sneak up around my cubicle and poke his head over and look over my shoulder in silence without me knowing he was there and spy on me to make sure I wasn't on the internet and I wasn't. He was also really short. So without asking, what I did in my cubicle one day is I rearranged my cubicle and I turned the whole fucking thing 90 degrees within the cubicle, so my desks and all that shit. So I was facing outward because he was too short to peek over the wall that was behind me, the divider for the cubicle. And that's eventually what got me fired because

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):

It was a big fuck you to him. And basically he asked to have me investigated and they didn't find anything malicious at all on me. However, there were a few times where they found that I went to amazon.com and it was not my lunch hour, and they fired me on the spot after 10 years of flawless service and

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):

For going to amazon.com for

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):

Going to amazon.com specifically. That's what says in my file. And no warnings though, nothing. They fucking sat me down and gave me my pink slip and that was it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):

Man, that's definitely crossing the line there,

Speaker 3 (01:37:15):

Dude. It was mind numbing. So I drove home and I thought, well, if I'm going to lose the house, I'm going to do doing something I love. So I'm going to start doing this audio thing and this YouTube thing for real. And the only thing I could think to do was I made a video that said, I can't even remember what it was called. I think it's called the Life Video or something like that. And I basically turned a camera on and I looked shell shocked to shit because I was, and I just turned a camera on and I just told everybody what was going on. That's all I could think to do. I just said, Hey, man. Hey guys. I was just fired today and I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to try my hand at doing this kind of thing and doing this video thing full time.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):

Can you give me a link to that video? I want to put it in the show notes.

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):

Yeah, yeah. I'll get you a link. I made a follow up a year later. Everyone kept asking how I was doing, but as a result of me doing that video, I had several companies reach out and offer me a job in the industry.

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):

Was one of them Lockheed Martin?

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):

No, they were Airbus Ever tune Positive Grid? Two notes. Oh,

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):

The music industry. Not music

Speaker 3 (01:38:27):

Industry. No, no, no. The music industry. I think in the video I say I want to be in the music industry. That's what I want to do. So I didn't really have a choice. Amazing. I don't know if I would've actually left a hundred thousand a year job to put a camera at myself and talk to it, because I did. Fuck, man. I mean, I probably would've eventually. I was so unhappy. So you,

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):

Well, that's kind of the thing is I was losing my mind

Speaker 3 (01:38:57):

Because

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):

I was so miserable. So I didn't want to make a hundred thousand a year if I was going to want to kill myself the whole time.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):

I was just getting to that point anyway. I think I probably would've eventually quit a few months later, or at least transferred or something. But I had two months basically to figure it out. And when I got fired, my insurance, they had told me my insurance because I was fired and not laid off. My insurance was terminated at the end of that month, so I had four days to get my meds filled and to go get my annual and to go to the dentist. It was fucked.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):

Okay, next question. Charles Osmond is asking, how do you like the Rev generator one 20, and what does it seem to excel at?

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):

I love the one 20 is awesome. I own the 100. The one 20 was what I demoed. That is owned by Trey from Gear Gods. The Rev stuff is extremely tight, really responsive, and I always tell people they're like a tone laser. They're so fucking just on it, and they're so immediate, but, and they have so much tuby goodness, they're just really full of attack and they're just perfect for anything even remotely aggressive, although they do prettier stuff as well, nice clean channels and things like that. But I think the brutality, the builtin brutality is what are best about the generator series in general from the revamps.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):

Alright, here's one from Sasha Riesling, which is how do you decide if you want to work with a brand or not?

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):

Good question. Usually I will. So basically how this works is with the YouTube thing, they'll email me, they'll shoot me an email from the website or from the channel directly, and they'll go, Hey, you want to check something out? It would be cool if you could make a video of it. And I don't normally commit to making a video of it until I've had a chance to play with it a little bit. Or if I know what it is, that's a little different story. If it's a specific guitar or something like that. But generally speaking, I'll have 'em send it to me, and if I don't like it, then they give me a return label and I send it back to 'em. And if I do like it, I'll make a video of it. It's really that simple. But the stuff that I don't like you generally won't ever see on the channel.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):

Fair enough. I mean, it's like a friend of mine who owns a really big media site says that if they really hate a band, the best thing they could do is just not cover them at all. It's not give them a bad review or talk shit. It's just don't cover them.

Speaker 3 (01:41:42):

Right, exactly. Just don't even give 'em the attention,

Speaker 2 (01:41:45):

Then they don't exist. That's

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):

Right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:47):

Okay. This guy has five names. Here's a question from Cornelius Lee, duke, Vernon Boose. Has YouTube's new policy on ads affected you in any way? And if so, are you considering moving on from YouTube into a standalone blog style thing or maybe just focusing on production?

Speaker 3 (01:42:03):

So what he is referring to is the apocalypse. And in light of all the terrorist acts and all of the PewDiePie thing, who's the most subscribed YouTuber on the platform and racist stuff and ads, essentially going, Hey, why are you advertising us on channels like that? So in true Google fashion, they've totally gone too far the other way. And now anything deemed even remotely controversial is being demonetized. And that has not affected me in any way, shape, or form because I saw that happening from years and years and years down the road. So years and years and years ago, I made the conscious decision to never cuss in my videos, and I would never talk about anything like directly racism or terrorist acts. I mean, that's just not really the format of the channel anyway. Thank God,

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):

Man. And how annoying is it when you go to a channel for something and you love them for something and they have to muddy the waters with politics or something like

Speaker 3 (01:43:13):

That? I absolutely hate that. And

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):

You despise it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:16):

It's just the worst. And I have a few really young nephews and cousins that I know watch my channel. And also for that reason, you will never, ever hear me cuss on my channel. I will bleep

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):

Save it for the URM podcast, save

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):

It for the fucking URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):

God damn it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:39):

God damn it. But no, I made a conscious decision to stay clean years and years and years ago because I wanted to be more advertiser friendly, brand friendly, and generally didn't want to say fuck cut and all that stuff, every five words, and limit myself because I don't ever want to limit myself.

Speaker 2 (01:43:59):

Fair enough. And last question, this one is from Benjamin Arthur Christopher. There's three names, A Fluff. How do you manage your balance of being in a band and working with clients?

Speaker 3 (01:44:10):

The band isn't as active as it may appear to be because everyone has a fucking side project or YouTube channel or doing something else. When we're touring, it's a little different story, but this past year was kind of difficult because before we took a really long break, we'd basically split up at the end of last year. And after Nam, we decided to go ahead and do the band thing again. And we did a record that I did. And before that had happened, I had already signed on to do two albums by with two local punk bands, and that's track produce, mix engineer. I mean, the whole deal was just me for these two full length albums, and I think there were 10 songs each, something like that. And then the band started to get back together and I had to do my own band's record as well.

(01:45:03):

So I had three simultaneous albums that I was working on at the same time for a span of I think five months. And that was hell. I would never ever want to do that again because it's a lot. Oh my God. I had such a hard time keeping track of like, wait, what the fuck are we, what are we tracking today? What song, wait, what album is that off of? Oh, sorry. That's the wrong band. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That kind of stuff. It really pays to be organized in those situations. And thank God I was, but my band's album took the most amount of time because you'll never get the amount of, I don't know, I guess you'll never get the amount of respect you will from your own band mates that you will, from people that you aren't in a band with that haven't seen you nearly piss yourself drunk at 3:00 AM in the middle of Arizona or something. You know what I mean? So my band's record took the most amount of time and the most amount of energy because they would ask for the most ridiculous changes at the very last minute after I'd already moved on from, sometimes I don't balance it, but other times I really try to be careful and really try to ask the band and our management, okay, do we have anything going on for this time period or something like that. And so now it seems to be okay, but that could change at any moment.

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):

So basically you balance it except for when you don't.

Speaker 3 (01:46:23):

That's basically what I, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:27):

Okay. Fair enough. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and hanging with me for two hours.

Speaker 3 (01:46:37):

Anytime, man.

Speaker 2 (01:46:38):

Very much looking forward to hanging out at the URM Summit in December.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):

Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):

And if anyone wants to go, I know that this podcast is going to be released before we finish selling tickets. Tickets will be on sale until November 10th, and this podcast is coming out, I believe on November 6th. So you still have four days as of the release of this to get your ticket. And I just want you guys to know that we only have three tickets left as of this podcast

Speaker 3 (01:47:12):

Being

Speaker 2 (01:47:12):

Recorded. So they might already be gone by the time this is released. But yeah, there's three tickets left. As of now. There might not be three tickets left next week. So if you want to go to urm summit.com, get a ticket, come hang out with us in Orlando.

Speaker 3 (01:47:26):

Come hang,

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):

Come hang.

Speaker 1 (01:47:28):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:47:29):

Man. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):

Thanks. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas, and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. To get in touch with the URM podcast, visit urm.com/podcast and subscribe today.