Fredrik Nordstrom: Creating the Gothenburg Sound, Recording Slaughter of the Soul, Miking an Orchestra

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Hairball Audio. For nearly a decade, hairball audio has been helping musicians and recording studios improve their recordings by offering high quality outboard recording equipment in Do it yourself kit form. Check out the full line of compressors, mic pre amplifiers, and do it yourself [email protected]. Hairball audio. Do It Yourself without compromise. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by Sure, legendary microphones, cutting edge wireless systems, premium earphones and headphones. Sure. The most trusted audio brand worldwide. For more information, go to sure.com. And now your host, Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:49):

Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. I am Eyal Levi and I just want to tell you that this show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring you one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like th God, Ms. Suga Periphery A Day To Remember. Bring me the horizon, opeth many, many more, and we give you the raw multi-track so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and Portfolio Builder, which are pro quality multi-tracks that are cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out more and nail the mix.com. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi and I am super excited about this episode because on this one I got to talk to one of my very own production heroes on today is, man, there really needs no introduction, but I'm going to do it anyways. It's Mr. Fredrik Nordstrom, who is a Swedish musician and record producer. He's one of the pioneers of the coveted gothenberg sound and he's behind some of the genres top acts like Diba Borg, gear Architects, arche Enemy, dark Tranquility at the gates and Flames, OPA soul work. I mean the list goes on and on and on. I'm going to quit talking and just get into the episode. Enjoy Fredrik Nordstrom. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:02:28):

Oh, thank you. It's nice to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:02:30):

I'm a longtime admir and I'll just go ahead and say fanboy of your work, and it's a big honor to have you here. Your work is some of the work that inspired me to actually go down this path for better or for worse, so thank you for that. I am wondering, what do you think of the production landscape nowadays as opposed to a decade or two ago? Did you envision it going in this direction?

Speaker 3 (00:03:04):

No, not really Negative wise. I think it's like for some of this recording industry has turned into more like a factory then it's actually a place where magic and art happened, if you understand what I mean. Yes, yes. So there is a little bit of factory thing that is not so fun, I think. But in the other hand, I think when it's coming to young musicians, many of them are really, really skilled, which I didn't see back in the nineties, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (00:03:36):

It seems like in the nineties, do you remember just trying to get a drummer to play with a click track or metronome was sometimes asking them to kill a family member, they mostly didn't want to do it or they're very, very scared of it Now it's like finding a drummer who doesn't play like that is what's rare.

Speaker 3 (00:03:57):

Yeah. I actually recorded an album three weeks ago with no Click Track and we ended up mixing with 100% acoustic drums.

Speaker 2 (00:04:08):

How did it turn out? Great.

Speaker 3 (00:04:09):

It's very Or organic. Yeah. Actually, my breakthrough album, the Slaughter of the Soul at the Gates, it's recorded without click track because Adrian couldn't play to click track.

Speaker 2 (00:04:21):

So the thing that's interesting to me is that I've never thought that it's necessarily a judgment of whether or not the recording is going to be better or worse because I actually think that there's a lot of benefit to recording without a click, and I think that there's something about those records from the nineties that were recorded without a click. There's a reason for why they connect with people a lot more and I think that it's because the tempos and the feel are so much more natural. They hit human emotion much more naturally, I guess, than an invented tempo.

Speaker 3 (00:05:02):

Yeah, you may be right with that, but using the click track in the studio makes so much benefits production. Yes. But yes, I myself be sitting there as you was talking about it just yesterday, where I'm sitting and keeping my remote control to my two inch tape recorder between my legs and just be on my to all the time just to be prepared to punch in on the exactly right spots. So yeah, it was different back then and the perfect tempo and everything you get from having the click track. Also, maybe as you say, reduce the interest for people to listen to the songs.

Speaker 2 (00:05:43):

I dunno, I feel like there's a marriage of Click track and feel that you can get through changing the click within the song from part to part or sometimes within a part to mimic that change of feel. But I really do think that one of those things that those older records have is it goes to this new part that's a lot more intense and it speeds up or it goes to this dramatic part and it slows down to make it that much more dramatic. That stuff is really important, really, really important. And you don't get it with if you keep to one tempo in a song.

Speaker 3 (00:06:23):

No, that's right. That's absolutely right. I never actually think about that. Maybe it's like because the album is recorded without the click track. Yeah, and you're right. I remember when we recording back in the nineties, click track was rarely something we used

Speaker 2 (00:06:39):

And drummers were afraid of it. I, so I wasn't recording pro bands back in the nineties. I was exiting high school and thinking about how I would get anything going in my life, but I remember I was trying to find drummers for my band back then, and I wanted someone who could play to a metronome because I wanted to have backing tracks and the idea of finding a drummer who could play to a metronome, it was I couldn't find one anywhere near me. I had to find someone that lived 500 miles away and convince him to move near me. And it was close to impossible. And I know that if I was 19 years old today, I wanted to start a band. I wanted a drummer who played to a metronome and we could do backing tracks and all that stuff. I could find 50 people near me. It's just a different time period. What's interesting, so you brought up at the gates and not doing that to a click. What's interesting is that those of us who heard that record were blown away by how tight it was.

Speaker 3 (00:07:47):

But that was the whole idea with that album. It's like we had a pre-production meeting and I talked to the band and for me it was also a big step in my sound engineer career because I get my hands off my 24 track, two inch tape recorder. I was recording to 16 tracks one inch before, and this was a heavy machine. It's like 244 kilos. Wow. And a lot of money, and that was the demand for the band that should have 24 track in the studio. And the idea with the album is it to sound like a machine. So we were a hundred percent sure that we're going to record this to click track, but Adrian, he couldn't manage to follow two bars maybe, and then he was lost and he said, I cannot do this. So we decided to make the drums super tight and it's punched in and punched in, and I promise you it was a hard work used to ate the drums. And then we were doing the same with the guitars, and then I think three weeks have passed, or maybe four, and we did the bass during a couple of days.

Speaker 2 (00:08:51):

Wait, wait, wait. Did you say three or four weeks just to do the rhythm guitars

Speaker 3 (00:08:54):

And drums.

Speaker 2 (00:08:55):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:08:56):

Yeah, that was a long time back then. Actually, to be honest, the most of the inflames albums are recorded in two weeks. Mixed also.

Speaker 2 (00:09:03):

Holy shit. I mean, that's fast.

Speaker 3 (00:09:06):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So more or less, back in the nineties from beginning of nineties to middle of the nineties, I recorded more or less 24 albums per year. So it's crazy. The punk album, we, we normally record them in five days, including mixing.

Speaker 2 (00:09:25):

There's some producers now that who've been on this podcast, they're doing very well, who record that fast sometimes like Kurt Blu for instance. But it's a totally different style. I mean, I definitely know people who now record who say that they can do five days or 10 days and it is what it is, but they're not doing the style of music that you got known for. It actually blows my mind to hear that you did these melodic death metal records in two weeks. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (00:09:56):

Oracle was like witty flames there. We actually asked for one extra week,

Speaker 2 (00:10:04):

So three weeks instead of two.

Speaker 3 (00:10:06):

Yes. Slaughter of the Soul was my first big production there. We spent six weeks.

Speaker 2 (00:10:12):

So what I think is really, really interesting is so you built that one piece by piece through punch ins, but it's interesting how that led to this trend of people recording to a click and editing everything together because they want it to be as tight as at the Gates record.

Speaker 3 (00:10:31):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:10:32):

I remember everything was looking back to that at the Gates record as this is the standard, it needs to be this tight, but it's impossible to actually be this tight. So that's where the whole, I feel like in metal, that's where the whole punching in two notes and then three notes and then editing those notes together. That whole thing came from trying to match at the Gates record, which was actually performed.

Speaker 3 (00:11:01):

It was performed, yes. But Adrian did hell of a work with the drumming, and he also developed a new technique for the two beats, which, because I was like, when you play two beats, I want a hard hit on the snare drum because triggering and stuff like that back then, for me at least, didn't work so well. So I want to make sure that I had a good acoustic drum sound. So he developed a technique where every time he should hit on the snare drum, he lift his right arm straight up, so he gets space between the arm to hit the snare drum hard, and it looked weird when he played drums, but he always had a consistent hard hit on the drum. And Anders, the twins, viol twins, they are, especially Anders, he's a downstroke machine. He's brilliant guitar player for rhythmic guitars.

Speaker 2 (00:11:53):

Hold on about this drum technique. So he was doing that even on the very fast beats.

Speaker 3 (00:12:01):

Yes. It's hard to explain how he looks. It looks like he was kind of swimming or something.

Speaker 2 (00:12:07):

What I'm trying to imagine is how high up did his arm go?

Speaker 3 (00:12:11):

He lift up his, what you call elbow, he lifted up more or less over his head to get space to hit the SNE drum hard.

Speaker 2 (00:12:20):

Wow. He must have really been moving.

Speaker 3 (00:12:22):

Yes, yes, yes. And he was sweating, I promise you.

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):

I can imagine.

Speaker 3 (00:12:25):

Yeah. It was like a full hockey team had been changing clothes for a match every time we pass that room, and we had to do that a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (00:12:34):

How many hours per day could he sustain that for?

Speaker 3 (00:12:38):

I think we went on 10, 12 hours days

Speaker 2 (00:12:41):

Because one of the things about that record that I remember people couldn't understand was how the snare sounded so consistent and everyone was convinced that it was a fake snare.

Speaker 3 (00:12:53):

It's not,

Speaker 2 (00:12:54):

But it didn't sound fake, but we didn't understand how it could possibly be so consistent that fast.

Speaker 3 (00:13:00):

If you're talking about the gear I used, I had a Mackey 32 8 2 console. I had a pair of GBL speakers, not Hanoi, some 18 inch stuff. I had a Clark Technique, stereo compressor. I had two DX 160 x compressors. I had a bearing air composer as a master compressor and a mastering studio did nothing with the master I sent to them. They just took the dot tape I sent to them. I just printed straight to the city. You can see it if you're taking that album into your door and you take a modern album and take it in and you will see it's actually not limited.

Speaker 2 (00:13:42):

Interesting. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:13:42):

So it's have, and you also, we notice there is no bass guitar more or less because Jonas was so tired of complaining on his band mates that they should play better. So he was kind of passed out with his time for the bass and he was like, bass doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (00:13:58):

That seems to be a kind of common thinking back then in a way, following the, I guess the influence of injustice for all. I feel like there was a time period after the late eighties into the mid nineties where bass kind of took a backseat in metal.

Speaker 3 (00:14:16):

Yeah, maybe. But it's always good to have a good bass performance of yes, it helps a lot, but actually year 2000, I think it was when we actually built our first real control room, then we actually hear the base in the proper way. I was sitting with shit gear. I had a shit control room, so to hear the base, I had to go into another room and standing in the corner. Or if I played on a certain volume on a what you call a ghetto blaster and it didn't distort, then I know it was not too much base because in a crap room it's hard to hear the base. So when we two build the first proper design control room, it was like, wow, this is base. And then we start to put attention on base.

Speaker 2 (00:15:02):

It just goes to show that you can make great records even if you have a shitty situation.

Speaker 3 (00:15:09):

Yes, absolutely. It's like what I say, it's like it's not a hammer who built the house, it's the carpenter.

Speaker 2 (00:15:15):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:15:16):

Yeah. So this tech shit, not shit, but tech

Speaker 2 (00:15:20):

Stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:15:21):

Yeah. People get so it, oh, I need this gear to do that. You don't need that gear, just do it. But it's like listen to the Pink Floyd album. They are amazing, and they didn't have any sample players or anything back then. They made what I want.

Speaker 2 (00:15:34):

I totally, totally agree. That's one thing that we try to teach our students at URM Academy as much as we can that it's gears cool and it's sexy and it's sexy to want all the latest stuff and to use what your hero used. But at the end of the day, the best producers and the best bands don't need that gear to make great records. You could take an amazing producer with an amazing band and give them an mbox or something and an SM 57 and some shitty drum set and a crappy guitar and tell them to make a record, and they will do something that sounds great because they'll know what to do with it. I mean, obviously it's cool to have nice tools and you put them in a beautiful studio with great gear and great design, that's all the much better. But that's not necessary at all.

Speaker 3 (00:16:35):

No, it's not. And yeah, I cannot more than agree with what you're saying because that's what I believe also that good tools helps.

Speaker 2 (00:16:46):

Of course. I mean,

(00:16:48):

There's nothing wrong with it. Absolutely. I mean, we all know that great sources through great gear with a great producer and all that, that all helps to create a magical product. But I also know plenty of people who recorded in a cabin or I know some people who recorded some vocals at the beach with a inbox and an SM 58, and those vocals ended up going on our record that went number one. And it sounds amazing, and I know so many of these stories of people making great records in really shitty situations that I just think that there's a priority and the priority is your skills and your ears, and then the gear is second. And the thing is that if you get your skills and your ears to a world-class level and you're making world-class records, you'll get the money to be able to buy the gear anyways, so the gear will come.

Speaker 3 (00:17:48):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:17:49):

Not the other way around necessarily.

Speaker 3 (00:17:52):

No. We actually had on a good recording school here in Sweden, and we went up there and break down some mixes we have done, and the teacher said, thank you for showing that you can use pro's, builtin plugins, EQ and Reverb to make an album.

Speaker 2 (00:18:10):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:18:11):

Yeah. Because they're only kids here talking about, oh, have you seen that new plugin? We need that plugin. They're just talking about the plugins they need. And there is a lot of cool plugins out there for sure. But my favorite EQ is actually PRS built in eq.

Speaker 2 (00:18:26):

It's really good. It works.

Speaker 3 (00:18:29):

Yes, it does.

Speaker 2 (00:18:30):

I love that you're saying that actually, because we get people asking us all the time, do I need to pay for all these plugins? Or what do I need to be able to do this? Or even just when joining nail the mix, do I need to have the exact same setup as the instructor to be able to mix this song and say, no, if you have a DAW, you have everything you need. Every DAW has its stock built in plugins, and they're all fine. They are. I mean, the ones in Logic and cubase are fine too. They all work, and I've seen so many great mixers take stock plugins and do great things with them that I'm convinced that you could make an entire record without purchasing a single plugin if you wanted to.

Speaker 3 (00:19:18):

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:19:20):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:19:20):

Like you say, a cubase today is tool wise, 10 times better. The one I used when I record the Slaughter of the Soul, the gallery, and so on, all these old albums.

Speaker 2 (00:19:31):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:19:31):

And yeah, I'm more like, I'm buying gears now. Plug is now these days when I find something that is unique, if you understand what I mean.

Speaker 2 (00:19:40):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:19:41):

I'm the kind of guy that put on a channel strip on a channel, and that's what I work with. So I used the SSL 4,000 channel strip, and that will go for the whole track,

Speaker 2 (00:19:53):

And you can do that. I actually encourage people listening to this podcast who don't believe us, to try mixing their next song with just channel strips and see what happens. Or maybe channel strips in one reverb as a send

Speaker 3 (00:20:08):

In

Speaker 2 (00:20:08):

An ox and see what happens. Challenge yourself to do that. And I know what you mean about new plugins that are unique, one that has come in the past two years that a lot of people are loving, but that is legitimately great, is a plugin called Soothe. Have you ever used it?

Speaker 3 (00:20:26):

Yes. I love it.

Speaker 2 (00:20:28):

So that's what I mean. I am assuming that that's what you mean, plugins like that, that are unlike anything else. And they really do something, like you said, unique and very useful.

Speaker 3 (00:20:39):

Yes. Yeah. You also have these sound radis stuff there. They're trying not to make a clone out of an old DBXA compressor. They're not trying to do a clone of the red series from Focus. Right. They're actually doing something unique

Speaker 2 (00:20:58):

In using the technology to actually advance the game.

Speaker 3 (00:21:02):

Yes. And I used the SSL channel strip that looks best because it looks best in my eyes, and then it sounds best because I think it looks best. And I was the same back in the days when I had this massive gear behind me. It's like the rack with space over 200 units and both the Tube Tech compressor because it looked good. I paid $4,000 for it because it looked good.

Speaker 2 (00:21:33):

I know that it sounds kind of funny what you're saying, but I totally understand because I've thought that there's a link between the way that gear looks and the way that you'll use it. I've thought that for a long time because there's some plugins, I'm not going to name them because I'm not going to, but there's some plugin manufacturers who make plugins that audio-wise sound pretty good, but their interface is so ugly that I think that that actually is interfering with their success as a company because people don't want to use it.

Speaker 3 (00:22:08):

No,

Speaker 2 (00:22:08):

People want to use things that they enjoy looking at, and I actually think that that's one of the reason that Fab Filter are doing well in addition to the fact that their plugins are really, really good. I think the fact that they're very easy to look at and it's like a spa for your eyes almost. I think that that's part of why they're experiencing so much success. It's a combination of a really good tool, but also it's very easy to look at.

Speaker 3 (00:22:38):

But it's like I have three different kind of SSL channel strips. One of those are actually from SSL itself. So for me it was like the natural choice, but after listen to it, I didn't like it. And actually that's one of the few times I used my ears. And then I have two other ones, and when I open the middle oldest one, the middle one that I used most before, I don't use it anymore because the new one I have looks so much better and it is probably a little bit better also. But I mean the middle one I had, I could probably use and get the same result, but the new one looks so much better, so I use it all the time.

Speaker 2 (00:23:22):

Well, we get a lot of questions about should I use this SSL channel strip versus this one versus this one, and it's like, you know what? They're all good and just use the one you like the best

Speaker 3 (00:23:32):

Except the SSL one. I think the SSL one is very digital in the mid range.

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

That's the only one I haven't tried actually.

Speaker 3 (00:23:40):

Okay. And it has a very nice highend, but the base control is like, I tried this on so many sources and it feels like they need to recap the channel strip. Do you understand what I mean? It's like,

Speaker 2 (00:23:53):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:23:53):

Yeah. Because that's what happened with an analog console. When the capacitors go old, it get bad in the base, and that's the same with that plugin.

Speaker 2 (00:24:04):

Maybe they modeled it after a console that needed to be recapped, maybe entirely possible. Imagine that all that work, and that's what it comes down to. So back to at the gates in the late nineties when you were working on those records, did you imagine that you would be, I feel like it's you, Andy sne and Colin Richardson who kind of defined where metal went extreme metal for the next till now almost. Did you think that you were working on records that were going to define the next few decades of metal, and would you have believed it if someone told you that?

Speaker 3 (00:24:52):

Absolutely not. To be honest. I remember when we were done with at Gates album, I invited my friends and coming from the pop scene, I was a pop guy from the beginning and I played the gay album Follow Me the studio, and they said, this is really good. They said, and then suddenly I get phone calls from around the world that people want to come to record in my studio, and I was stoked about it. Wow. It's just not the local guys who's coming here. And then I heard the FLS guys, oh, we want to sound like them. And then I realized that that album was something special, but it took some time before that happened actually.

Speaker 2 (00:25:31):

Oh, how old were you when you made that record?

Speaker 3 (00:25:33):

Oh, I was 94, probably 24, 25, and I have been working in the studio, to be honest, every day, 12, 14 hours, seven days a week

Speaker 2 (00:25:45):

For how many years?

Speaker 3 (00:25:46):

Several years I was in a divorce because I was never home and I had two children. I saw my oldest son went around when he was two years old, kind of first time I was in the studio all the fucking time I was so I going to learn this.

Speaker 2 (00:26:04):

That's very interesting to me because one of the things that I think that people who were trying to go into production really who were trying to go into anything where there's a lot of skill involved and uncertainty is that they're going to have to spend many, many years just getting good and then after they are already decent, and I don't even mean great, then they're going to need to spend many, many years just building up a reputation to where they might get an opportunity to work with an artist who is doing something that matters, that will matter. I know a lot of kids that they want it in the next six months, in the next year they want to be a big producer, and I try to tell them, well actually think more like five to 10 years and be ready to sacrifice everything for it.

Speaker 3 (00:27:02):

Yes, that's correct. Then today, it's even harder when you have, there is so many good tools to actually produce a good album by yourself in your home while you are there. So my job is not that wanted as it was for 20 years ago. So it's going to be even harder for young kids to actually make a career out of that.

Speaker 2 (00:27:26):

I think that what it will do is it's a lot easier to be mediocre now than ever. So back in the nineties, just being mediocre at recording was very difficult because you had to have all this equipment, I mean even the shitty equipment, you had to have it. You couldn't just do it on a laptop and you had to understand very technical things like tape, which are a lot more difficult than just hitting record on a track in a hard drive. So I think that there was a lot more difficulty to just get started back then. Just getting started was a lot harder. Oh

Speaker 3 (00:28:12):

Yeah. It's Monday wise also.

Speaker 2 (00:28:14):

Yeah, exactly. There were just way more barriers. But the thing that I don't think has changed is that to be excellent, amazing to be to one of the best. That's still very, very difficult. I mean, that still is going to take 10 years or something or more.

Speaker 3 (00:28:31):

Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe this is, like you say, it's easier to be mediocre today.

Speaker 2 (00:28:37):

And so for producers that are at that, and look, I think that there's nothing wrong with producers who make their career off of locals or smaller bands. That's fine. I am not judging. I don't think that the only valuable producers are the ones that work with the legendary bands, but I do think that it will make it harder for people that are not unbelievable at it. And also though, there's also things that will change about it because now that it's easier to be mediocre or decent at it, you're right, there's certain parts of a producer's job that not every band needs, but I do believe that no matter what, the thing that doesn't change is that artists will always need the leader who knows how to capture their ideas, who is outside of their little group. There's something about that relationship that I don't think will go away.

Speaker 3 (00:29:39):

No, you may be right. You may be right. For sure.

Speaker 2 (00:29:42):

Well, I mean think about the nineties. Even in the nineties you had those artists like Trent Resner for instance, who were their own producers or who were their own leaders. You always have had that type of artist who didn't really need to go to some huge producer to run the show. All they needed were good engineers. That always has existed. Trent Resner being a perfect example in the nineties of someone like that. So that type of artist has always existed and I think will always exist, but in addition to the Trent Resner of the world, but there will always be bands I think, or singers or whatever who need a leader in the studio, even if they know how to record on their own, they need someone to help make the right decisions.

Speaker 3 (00:30:33):

Yeah, you're probably right about that. The problem is, what I can see maybe in that case is with recording labels and so on, they don't have any money to spend on studios. Do you see the point?

Speaker 2 (00:30:46):

Yes, that is a problem.

Speaker 3 (00:30:47):

Yeah. My clientele can be 10, 50 years ago when the first time a band, if there was not doing a demo tape or anything actually doing an album, we paying from their own pockets. And I'm like, but you have a label and why do you pay it? The label should pay for it. No, we have no recording budget that force people, if they have a band, they get the signed with the label and they get no recording about it and they have no money. They have to record it by themselves.

Speaker 2 (00:31:17):

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (00:31:19):

I remember when this digital recording came and now everybody can do it by themself in their home, and many bands did that, and I remember the compilation series back then from I get from magazines and stuff like that. It was a nightmare to listen to. There's so many bad productions.

Speaker 2 (00:31:37):

There was actually, man, that's one of the reasons that I started now, the mix in URM Academy was because when this whole revolution of digital home recording started and the production started to get worse and worse and worse, it was also around the time period where the music industry thought that it was going to disappear. We thought that the labels were all going to disappear and that it was all headed towards the toilet. I started thinking that somebody needs to show these up and comers how to do it properly or we're all fucked because this great tradition of great sounding records in metal was starting to really disappear. And honestly, I think that productions are, I don't think we're entirely responsible for it, but I think we're part of it. I do think that metal productions are starting to get pretty great again. And I do think that there was that time period where it was pretty scary.

Speaker 3 (00:32:43):

Yes. I used to get the demo tape from the guitar playing the Crown Marco, his son is 16 years old and he play in a metal band and they had recorded this demo with his father where all drums are completely acoustic and you get that feeling of slayer rain in blood from a 60-year-old band from fucking Sweden. And I'm like, I was so happy when I heard it. It's just like nothing is perfectly tight and the guys in the band have invented metal again and when they're fucking angry. It was brilliant to listen to. I had to listen to it even two times because I was happy when I hear it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):

Well, one thing I'm noticing too is that now I feel like it's kind of come full circle. It's been so long now that we have digital recording and plugins and the ability to do it at home and this new technology and this new music industry, it's now been more than a decade. And so I think that the digital mania is kind of subsiding a little bit to where people are trying to make real sounding records again, at least to a degree. Obviously it'll still sound modern, but I think that people are starting to value real performances. Again, I'm seeing it more and more. I actually really do think that production is going to start getting awesome and that we're at the beginning of a newer and better revolution. Exactly. For the same type of reason that you just said what you just experienced. I'm starting to notice more and more and more also through our students and through talking to a bunch of mixers who come on now, the mix and just, I'm seeing it more and more that it seems like people are shifting away from the bullshit of about 10 years ago of replace everything, digitize everything.

(00:34:40):

It's okay to have a bad recording. That whole thinking is starting to change, I think, to where people are actually using the tools that they have artistically.

Speaker 3 (00:34:55):

Yes. And for me personally, I'm the guy, I can sit down and do 40 takes of a guitar until it's good instead of, oh, that's fine enough. I edit it. And for me, it's not okay if you understand what I mean. Some stuff you need to edit. If you do a methyl core band, that should be, need to be super tight. Of course you have to do that, but I always try to make sure that the recordings that leaving my studio is performed, not edited, and we get some really good people said that we had edited a guitar on Bring Me Horizon album so good. But it's not edited. It's performed and that's why it sounds so good because we have a good guitar player and we take our time to make sure that we have a good take. That's what I think.

Speaker 2 (00:35:44):

It's interesting to me that also I've heard that also about some vocals. Sometimes I hear vocals that people say that's so, and I know for a fact that the singer is amazing and that maybe there's a little bit of tuning, but not what the person's saying. That sounds so Auto-Tune thinks it doesn't sound good because there's a little bit of tuning on it. It sounds good because the singer is fucking awesome and there's a little bit of tuning on it just to help it a little bit because there's going to be a million instruments and it needs to all work together. But a lot of people think that if something sounds good and sounds like a good performance, that it's because it was edited that way. And I think that that's usually not the case.

Speaker 3 (00:36:37):

No, no, no. And also it's like some bands I have here, maybe they are very concerned, oh, it's not perfectly in tune. And then I normally open up YouTube and I type in Alicia Key No one, and I played a song for them and I said, listen to this. This is not one note that is in Key. And she have 358 million views and listeners, but the vocal is not in Key. You like it because it's a good song and you like her.

Speaker 2 (00:37:08):

It's funny, I got the Stems to a song by that band Muse from about 10 years ago, one of their really big songs. And I know that a lot of people who listened to them thought that they were the most unbelievable musicians and the Saviors of Hard Rock, all this, this kind of stuff. And so I got the track and I started listening to the tracks and there's some autotune vocals, there's some mistakes in the guitar solos, not huge ones, but just like if he's tremble, picking a solo and playing as hard as he possibly can. And sometimes the tremble picking will slip a little, but then he'll just keep going. And so it just sounds like someone going at 100% intensity. And it's not perfect, but it's awesome. And in the mix you can't really hear that. You can't hear those little mistakes, but they're definitely in there. And I always bring that up when people think that something that's awesome is a little too sloppy or not edited enough. It's like, look, that's not the way. Great. Music sounds great. Music isn't perfect, great music feels great and you love the songs that that's what makes it great.

Speaker 3 (00:38:25):

Yeah. But it's more or less how I say it. It's like, oh, you're Fred Nordstrom and you are like the founder of Guttenberg Sound. And I'm like, no, it doesn't start there. It start with a good songwriter. I'm just power to help. What is an album without a good song, good songs,

Speaker 2 (00:38:43):

It's nothing.

Speaker 3 (00:38:44):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:38:45):

Okay. So taking that into consideration, your priority on performances, I can imagine that the super complicated records you've made, the DMU Borge records, that must have been a lot of hard work, especially Death Cult Armageddon and Puritanical. Just thinking about what you're saying now about performances, I can only imagine that records like that with that much detail. How long did it take to do death called Armageddon? 10 weeks. Oh, that's actually pretty fast considering.

Speaker 3 (00:39:23):

But then we had double recording for two weeks, so it's 12 weeks. Maybe it's the right one, because after I went down to Prague and recorded the Sym Phonetical orchestra, I had to edit them because to be honest, Symon Orchestra are fantastic, but they don't understand metal music. And I was there and I was like, what is this? It's 1, 2, 3, 4, bum, no, no, no, no. We go, wha like this. So I had to sit it for a week and cut all that shit together to make it actually work with the music. The guys in the band were so disappointed When I hear it when I come back,

Speaker 2 (00:40:02):

Man, I am familiar with that orchestra because my dad conducted the Malte orchestral album and

(00:40:11):

I went to Prague with him and he worked with them and it was the same thing. And I remember Inve was so shocked and disappointed that he was expecting 1, 2, 3, 4, everyone goes, and that's not how they think. And it was very, very hard. It was a lot of hard work. And then also the fact that he played an E-flat and so all the scores were written in E-Flat band. They had such a hard time with the Key. Whereas for guitar, all it is is just tune it down, play the same thing, no big deal. But for an orchestral player who has to read something with six or seven flats, it was very, very difficult. It actually, I'm really, really lucky. I was 17 when I got to see this happen and it really educated me as to how this idea of putting an orchestra with a metal band is, it's like a great idea, but it's actually a very, very difficult fit. It's not going to just work. You have to really, really make it work.

Speaker 3 (00:41:24):

But it's like when I recorded my first album with my band Ring Evil, and I had the Gut Phil Orchestra there, and mainly for the Ballad, and I had recorded the demo for that song on a piano that was 8 cent too low, whoops. And it was time to record the album. And I was like, for fuck's sake, the demo is good enough, let's keep it. And so we tuned all the instrument down like 8 cent. And then the orchestra guy came and I said, this is tuning 432. And they were like, wow, that's not good because they have the tuning set in their head, but they sort it out after a while, but they have to retune their minds. I didn't realize that until then.

Speaker 2 (00:42:10):

And then the thing is that yes, they're professionals, so they'll get it eventually, but it's so expensive to have an orchestra too. So it's not like you can take five days or I mean maybe five days you can take depending, but it's not like you can take 12 weeks with the band. You have to get in and get out very, very fast

Speaker 3 (00:42:31):

Because

Speaker 2 (00:42:33):

I mean for people wondering, I don't know the exact figure just because it's not my business to talk about somebody else's budget on here. And I also don't totally remember, but I will say that the orchestral budget was for four or five days was tens of thousands of dollars. And that's what an orchestra costs.

Speaker 3 (00:43:00):

But that's so many people that need to have the salaries and they are working their asses off to keep that level of performance because more or less you can put the scores in front of the nose and they're playing it directly perfectly

Speaker 2 (00:43:13):

For the most part. Yeah.

(00:43:15):

Especially with music that's written properly for them, like a soundtrack. I think that when they get metal music, oftentimes it's not properly written for an orchestra. Like you said, you gave it to them 8 cents flat or whatever. I know that the inve stuff, they didn't take into consideration the tuning that it would be very difficult for an orchestra. And so it's not that inve should have changed his tuning or anything. If he wants to play an E-flat, he can play an E-flat, but they didn't realize that. So an orchestra and those players are fantastic at what they do, but it's what they're not fantastic at what they don't do. And if you're going to give them something that's outside their comfort zone, be prepared for however much time they need to learn how to do it.

Speaker 3 (00:44:12):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:44:13):

You already had some experience with an orchestra though, sounds like when you went to do the DMU stuff because of Dream Evil.

Speaker 3 (00:44:19):

Yes, but I did Death No Puritanical, whatever the full name of that album is

Speaker 2 (00:44:26):

Puritanical. Euphoric.

Speaker 3 (00:44:27):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:44:28):

That's a great name.

Speaker 3 (00:44:29):

And then we had the gut orchestra in the studio, so I had to learn how to mic this shit up and they were also judging me. They came to the studio, they look at the microphone setup and everything and okay, this seems to be serious, but they didn't realize how hard this was actually also to play the demon stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:44:51):

I could imagine.

Speaker 3 (00:44:52):

Yeah, because when I heard the music first time they were laughing and then they saw the scores.

Speaker 2 (00:44:56):

What was difficult about it for them?

Speaker 3 (00:44:58):

They didn't tell me, but I saw on them and the planned time we had for three hours ended up to be a full day and they become grumpy and they was renegotiating the money we should pay them and so on.

Speaker 2 (00:45:14):

Okay, so I have a question about that because I know that eventually DMU started working with a professional orchestrator.

Speaker 3 (00:45:20):

He was there the first time also. He

Speaker 2 (00:45:22):

Was there the first time. Okay. What I was curious was I know that sometimes metal musicians will write for orchestra, but they won't take into consideration the actual limitations of the instrument that they're writing for. So they'll write a riff on guitar and then translate it for a horn and not think about whether or not that actually is possible for a horn player. So almost the same as when a guitar player writes something on superior drummer for their drummer, but it would need a drummer with eight arms and two heads and nine feet to do that same idea of writing unrealistic things. I feel like metal guys will do for orchestral parts

Speaker 3 (00:46:11):

Yesterday also is like they can play orchestral on a keyboard. You play a piano, but that's not how it sounds. No, you don't have no. And they use a violin section. That's one finger, that's that section. And I put in six fingers, and I want this to sound realistic, but then you need to release five fingers and arrange is in orchestra. I think it's like the standard library you get in contact. I have done strings with that. That sounds super realistic because of the experience I had with this great arranger, gout steward, his name is, and this recordings I've done, I realized this is how they play. And if you start playing like you're playing on the keyboard, it's not going to be sounds like an orchestra. You need to know how it works.

Speaker 2 (00:47:06):

It's going to make it very difficult for them.

Speaker 3 (00:47:08):

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:47:09):

So you said that when you came back from having recorded the orchestra in Prague, the band was very disappointed, but you yourself, were you disappointed or did you know that this is what's to be expected and I can work with this? I just forget what the band thinks for now.

Speaker 3 (00:47:29):

No, I know for sure that I need to edit it, but so I said it's going to be better. I need to just bring it home and sit there on the evenings and do all the edits for this and it's going to be better. I'm sure about that. And we also had tuning problems on the first email album. I remember that. So I actually used Altitude and it worked.

Speaker 2 (00:47:46):

The tuning problems. Were they from the band or from the orchestra or just combining the orchestra with the band?

Speaker 3 (00:47:53):

No, it was the orchestra. They were so tired. So they was out of Key.

Speaker 2 (00:47:57):

Got it. That sounds like quite a potential disaster.

Speaker 3 (00:48:02):

Yes. But it was, I don't remember the song. It's one of those kind of industrial songs on that album. Start with the water drops.

Speaker 2 (00:48:11):

I know which one you're talking about. I don't remember all the song names so long. And they're all so long.

Speaker 3 (00:48:18):

Yeah. And so what I did, I actually ran the orchestra through Guitar Amplifier and before that I tuned them with altitude and I cut it up parts and took out parts and went back and forth.

Speaker 2 (00:48:30):

Why did you put the orchestra through a guitar amplifier?

Speaker 3 (00:48:33):

I wanted a different sound.

Speaker 2 (00:48:34):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (00:48:35):

Yeah. And also it's like, because it's like the altitude made the glitches sound and stuff like that, and I want to have it in industrial sound. I remember also recording this drops of water. We spent weeks with that just every day we tried out because it's actually from a kitchen in the studio, so we need the water to drop in the perfect timing. And even the Kibo player, he was standing with that crane every day and tried to get it perfect how he wanted it. It could be easy to sample a move, but he wanted to do it like real.

Speaker 2 (00:49:12):

And this is why you might have to go through divorces and not see your kids because getting the right water drop sound can take forever sometimes. I'm joking, but I'm not joking actually. That is the truth. Getting the art in addition to getting the skills and everything else that you have to do. Sometimes the art itself just, it happens when it happens. And that record came out great. It was clearly worth it. I have another question. Have you noticed this about orchestral instruments with metal? I've had some bands who have really wanted orchestral instruments involved because they hear your records and they think it's this big epic thing, which it is on those records. So then we end up hiring some strings and they're not ready for the fact that in a very basic way, when you just have some strings like a quartet and a metal band, the two sounds don't really mix together naturally.

Speaker 3 (00:50:20):

Oh no.

Speaker 2 (00:50:20):

It's almost like when you have clean base with metal, how it sticks out really weird sometimes. That's why you have to distort it and compress it and do all kinds of stuff to it to make it work. If you just put clean bass in often, I mean sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't. I feel like with orchestral instruments sometimes they just sound weird next to a metal band.

Speaker 3 (00:50:45):

Yes. For me anyway, it has been like I have to process the strings in the mix because it just disappear. It doesn't blend. Like you say, it doesn't belong there, but when you get it on place, it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:50:59):

So you're saying you like different things like putting it through guitar amplifiers. Do you remember any of the processing ideas?

Speaker 3 (00:51:07):

That was just for that song, but I used a multi-bank compressor from TC Electronics called X three. It doesn't exist anymore, which is bad because it was a brilliant product. I think it was harsh, made a lot of noises and stuff like that, but it was very good for music. But I stopped manufacture that. But normally it's like multi-bank compression eq. I need sometimes some river also to make it fits in the music and the multi-bank oppression is kind of very important for that.

Speaker 2 (00:51:46):

Makes sense. So question about the mix on Death Cult. Did you automate crazy in it?

Speaker 3 (00:51:55):

Not so much as you talked about in the,

Speaker 2 (00:51:59):

That's why I was asking because to me it sounds like a crazy amount, but then again it could just be really good arrangement.

Speaker 3 (00:52:07):

Yes. Because that's also one thing we started with puritanical. It's like even the keyboard player, I think he was a really important part to make this album sound like as they sound, I forbid him to use the left hand. So you don't use that hand, just use your left hand. So the bass is taking care about the bass player and we arranged all that stuff, the synth stuff and all the stuff with the mindset on the vocals. What kind of vocals do we have here? You understand? Yes, yes. We never did any crazy arrangement for synthesizers. Even if you get the id if there were vocals there and some stuff. I remember you talked about how the bass drum race went, DIC guitar went down and that's kind of happened by itself.

Speaker 2 (00:52:56):

Well, first of all, let me just say that I'm honored that you watched it.

Speaker 3 (00:52:59):

Yeah. But of course I was curious to see how you find out. But arrangement is very important. This sounds like a cliche, but I normally say that it's like it's true. A good arrangement makes itself. So I'm sitting here right now and have this crazy production. I love it. I think was the best album I heard in years. It's a Los Angeles band called The Offering And Nice by the way, say hello to you.

Speaker 2 (00:53:28):

Oh, I know who they are, please say hello back.

Speaker 3 (00:53:30):

Yeah, and it's kind of, if you get the mix right, then the song mix itself. But in this case, it's not the whole story because this is insane production, but it's very good, very, very good. So I can recommend it for you crazy people out there to listen to it.

Speaker 2 (00:53:48):

That actually makes me admire, I guess the arrangement and the composition on Death Cult that much more to hear that it wasn't as much automation as I thought then Yeah, that tells me that the way that it was constructed, it's almost in the DNA of the music to allow the right things to take center stage at the right time.

Speaker 3 (00:54:12):

The foundation of the album is like the guitar, bass and drums. It's more or less no automation at all. It's just like find the right levels of everything, find the frequency, that's my job, but also find a good arrangement for the stuff because it's so easy to overran music. The Invi thing more is more.

Speaker 2 (00:54:36):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:54:37):

It's not always the truth. It's like if you want to have a very good sounding album, you need good songs, good musicians, but you also need a good arrangement, which I think is very important. And your job to mix the album will be 10 times easier.

Speaker 2 (00:54:53):

Well, I mean a perfect example I think of what you're saying right there is those are good players, but the rifts themselves are not crazy. I think that if the rifts were super insane that it would probably be a lot harder to get that record to sound good. But the rifts, they're simple. Exactly where they need to be. Simple.

Speaker 3 (00:55:17):

Yes. And that's all. I think we're coming back to composition again. That's what I think is the genius with that band was you have three guys who writing riffs in the band and it's like one of the guitar player. He's the more technical guy and the other one is more common in his riffing style. And then you have the singer who also write riffs, but they are more simple, which, and then you have this excellent keyboard player on top of that, that doing insanely stuff that is great. And you combine all these elements and you get this, do you know how many tempo changes it was on every song? It's insane.

Speaker 2 (00:56:02):

Yeah. I believe it. Back to what we were talking about before, that it's tempo and feel is everything. I mean, it all starts with that. Yes. Can't forget the great drummer too. I feel like that was an incredible drummer as well.

Speaker 3 (00:56:21):

Yeah, he's the incredible drummer. The drums was actually recorded on Puritanical is completely meaty, but we never touch anything of his hands. We just moved the bass drum a little bit.

Speaker 2 (00:56:33):

You mean he performed it on a midy drum set?

Speaker 3 (00:56:36):

Yes. A very expensive midy drum set because it was like this, I dunno, you know the most exclusive drums I've seen in my whole life? Almost

Speaker 2 (00:56:44):

Midi symbols.

Speaker 3 (00:56:46):

No real symbols. It's real symbols. But he felt the Toms and the Kicks with pillows to make the triggers work. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:56:56):

Hey everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're remember, U already know how amazing it is at the beginning of the month. Now the mix members get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama God Eth Shuga, bring Me the Horizon Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song of the album and takes your questions live on the air. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics.

(00:57:52):

And Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use of your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those who really, really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain staging, mastering loan, and so forth. It's over 50 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-one office hours sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes on a live video stream, fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. If any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills and your audio career, head over to URM academy slash enhanced to find out more. It's interesting, I remember back then, so there were two camps. So we're talking about Nick Barker right now.

Speaker 3 (00:59:03):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:59:04):

And let me pause for a second, just a few things for people who are unfamiliar. The video that Fredrik and I were referencing that I made was called Metal Mix Hall of Fame, the Dean of Borge edition, which was I analyzed my impressions of one of the arrangement mixes from the Death card, Armageddon album, just if anyone wants to check it out. And then right now we're talking about the drummer, Nick Barker and Nick, I remember that there were two camps about him. I was always in the camp of, this guy is amazing, but there were some people who saw that he played with those midi pads and were like, he's faking it. And it's like there's no way he's faking it. Just watch a video. He's actually playing it. This is just the sound he prefers that guy is playing that shit. And also his beats are very unique.

Speaker 3 (00:59:54):

But on death, I was kind of horny to record those. Toms and the Snap, they're great. Toms. Yeah. Yeah. I have an acoustic sound. So on that album there is 50 50. So actually I took the work of repairing the missing media notes because, or erased them. Actually, that's what I had to do because I had to put the sensitivity so I get more hits than he actually played and then clean it up so I can use the acoustic Tom sound and acoustic snare drum.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):

Can we talk about those Toms a little bit, man? So first of all, I think that I emailed you like six or seven years ago to ask you about those Toms and you actually answered me. So thank you. But I've always thought that those Toms, and you can hear, I believe that there's a song Track five on Armageddon. Again, I'm not great with the song titles, just because they're so long and

(01:00:55):

Just like they're crazy song titles, so I forget them. But there's a song that starts with a drum fill, a super fast drum fill. And that's a perfect example of the drum sound on the record, but there's something that you did with his Toms that I just thought was, I dunno, it's just legendary sounding. You could think that they're fake Toms, but they're not. Obviously you can hear the dynamics in them, but there's something about them. They just sound perfectly epic and perfectly powerful and their own thing. So I just wanted to talk about what actually went into it. So you're saying it's 50 50, the midi pad and a real Tom or a trigger in real Tom?

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):

It's a trigger and real Toms, because I recorded the drums from my DDR trigger, so I recorded MIDI for the drums and also miking the Toms and the snare drum up with real mics. So in the mix I have his acoustic Tom. That is really nice drums. And I also have the sound from my D drum module I had back then.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):

So the sample itself is just off of the DDR module?

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):

Yes, it's a standard sound. I don't remember the name of it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):

Do you remember anything about how the Tom was tuned or micd or anything?

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):

I probably used Beta 56 for the Toms, I'm pretty sure about that because that's the only set of mics I have that I have six equal. Got it. And then probably when I recorded it, I probably cut out some three, 400 hertz and put on some more treble from the console I had. And then probably again in the mix I used my Lexicon four 80 and I used the medium stage hall because I remember that was my super favorite sound from that reverb. And I used a re EMT one 40 I had, and probably I cut out a lot of three, 400 again in the Toms, more bass and more treble and a little bit high mid frequency and then mixed them together on the console. So that's mixed on the console. That album

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):

Did you sum it down to one fader basically for per Tom,

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):

Because I only had 16 outputs on that pro patrol system. I probably took the Toms out on two tracks. Yes. And then had the acoustic drums on two tracks also.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):

Wow. So Death Cult mixed on a console. That sounds like even more insane.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):

Yes, but it's like we did the Clayman album. I didn't have 16 tracks in my Pru system because it was so expensive to buy more than 16 tracks. So I had drums was recorded on analog tape and then we transferred the drum to Aada machine where we recorded bass and all rhythmic guitars and we put away the two inch tapes for the mix so we shouldn't wear them down. And then we transferred these foundation into two tracks, Toru tools. So we had 14 tracks to record vocals and leading guitars and stuff that we know that we're going to automate.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):

And then in the mix I put on the two inch tapes for the drums. I had the that synchronized for bass and rhythm guitars and prole synchronized. So every time, and we did a shitload of keyboards for that one also that you probably don't hear, there should be a background filler. And I pressed play and it took 10 seconds for everything to be synchronized.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):

Wow. Okay. So you said that the production took 12 weeks. Is that including the mix?

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):

That's actually really fast considering the amount of stuff on it,

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):

But for Borger it's like you have two good guitar players, so the guitar don't take much time. Nick Barker was fast Also, we recorded the drums in a week or maybe less then you need the time maybe a couple of week for the keyboard stuff. The recording of the symphonic orchestra took one and a half day and then you spend two weeks with the vocals and also for the vocals on the Dimi Bogger album, because I didn't want to create all his vocals effects. That goes for all dmu album I've done. I didn't want to create the vocal effects while I was mixing. I want to create them as we recorded them. So we did new stuff every time. So I used to reset everything and he said, I have this idea. Okay, let's record it. And then we were sitting down, try different plugins, do new stuff all the time to make, otherwise it's so easy. You set up a channel for this spoken words or whatever you can call it like this effect box. And you just run it through there all the time and you get the same stuff on all his vocal parts. So always when we came to this vocal effects, I always find a sound that we liked for that part in that moment and then I print it to the hard drive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):

Did he ever perform the vocals through the effects or was it always

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):

Yes, yes, many times.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):

Did you find that that made it for better performances? He did a better job as a vocalist because he had the feel of those effects.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):

Yes, absolutely. But sometime we couldn't do it because there was a lot of distortion and he gets incredible feedback through his headphones.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):

Yeah, I can

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):

Imagine. Yeah. So we had to like, okay, is this the right pitch? Yeah, kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he did it and then he came in and we sitting down and I would put on distortion and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):

It's so fascinating to me that you did it this way. Okay. So I remember when I was first doing basic recordings with my band, that's what I learned. And we would do things like that too, is we would have a great idea for a vocal and just with an effect kind of in a similar sort of style where distortion or weird pitch shifting or just who knows, just all kinds of crazy vocal effects. But it was artistic. It was part of that actual part. The effect created the feel. It wasn't like reverb to give three dimensionality. It was more like an effect to create part of the feeling or the art of the whole part. And so you kind of have to do it in the moment because that's when it's happening and that's kind of how I learned to do it. And then I took some formal recording classes and people said not to do things like that, record everything as clean as possible and then you do that stuff in the mix. And then I always found that when I did that stuff in the mix that it could never come back to that original feeling.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):

No, and that's also why I think it's like the SM seven B microphone is so popular among singers because that was probably a popular microphone to use to do guide vocals. And then the performance that did in the control room when they recorded the song was so much better than when they put up the U 47 to do the real takes. So they actually started using those takes and people see that on videos and think that is a great vocal microphone, which is not, I think that microphone is quite bad for vocals. I think maybe 57 is better.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):

I think maybe it's just that it hides a lot of what's wrong with singers sometimes. Or maybe you're right that it just ends up being good for guide vocals and sometimes the guide vocals are just the best performance.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):

Yes, because I used a radio microphone and I'm instantly hearing when people call me with the SM seven B microphone recording. Oh, I hear it. I hear the microphone. Otherwise that's the only microphone I think I can spot out on the recording. That's a SM seven B.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):

It's got a very unique characteristic. So did you know that that record was going to get as big as it got in the us? I mean you had already been doing big records for a while, but I think that that was the first one to sell over a hundred thousand copies on nuclear blasts in the us. It was a big fucking record.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):

I didn't know that they won the Norwegian Grammy award with it. And even Norwegian people I speak to that are normal day worker, they know about the ary in Norway and I used to get a reward from Central Media when this happened with a hundred thousand cell copies. And I was like, wow, that's surprising. My copies

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):

And I mean I remember they went on Oz fast and it was like I know that some people are like, it's not true black metal, blah blah, blah. But man, to see stuff that extreme and that crazy get that big was unbelievable. And it was very inspiring also, I mean I love the record artistically is one of my favorite of all time. But just the fact also in addition to all that something that it's a crazy album and it's not commercial at all and the fact that it could get that big was it was just really cool to see that it's possible.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):

But if you compare to the previous album they did, I might think that if you see how from a technical musical way, that album is better.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):

Puritanical.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):

I love that one too.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):

Yeah. But I can see that this album we recorded this Symphonical orchestra for the Great of the Upper YPs. It was like one of the few movements in my life when I really get goosebumps. It was just like I was sitting in the studio tracking this guitar over and over again. I was like, guys, what is this? This is super boring. And they were like, yeah, but there's going to be keyboards on top of that. What keyboard? Oh, we don't know yet. Even he's working on it. And then hit even dropped more or less all keyboard recording for that album. So we actually didn't record so much keyboard, we just kind of repaired instruments in the orchestra that we couldn't hear good enough because this just like five mics and the spot mic was not that good. And we coming down to Prague and I start playing that amazing arrangement, which it is that gout did. I was like, wow, what is this? This is awesome. It's just my whole body was goosebumps everywhere. I just looked at this arranging guy and it's just thumbs up and Irving, he was lying in the studio while they were recording and he came in and was like, guys I have a heart on. It was a hallelujah moment when we did that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):

I mean it was incredible and I definitely think that it was a groundbreaking moment was I remember when I heard it, my dad's a conductor and so I went to him and I was like, listen to this shit. They finally found a way to do orchestra with metal properly, and he just said, it sounds like John Williams, but that's a big compliment. That was his only comment. But that's a huge compliment in my opinion. I thought it was pretty groundbreaking. So let's move on from that. You then started getting some American bands too, like Darkest Hour, I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):

Yeah, they were here. I didn't see them so much. It was in a very hectic period in my life, and I think it's actually a sound engineer that with the name Arnold Lindbergh, who took care of most of that mix and recording actually.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):

Got it. I remember there was when I was working with Soff, we spoke to you and you told me that you were doing something for Saab. Whatever happened with that, that you were doing super scientific recordings for car companies?

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):

No, I helped. It was actually Volvo. I helped them Volvo. Okay. Yeah, when they're releasing, they find out that YouTube was way more important than actually buying TV commercial. So they made a lot of commercials on YouTube and they hired local composers to do it and then they find out that the production sucked. So they send the music to me and I had to rearrange stuff and find new vocalists for if there was a vocal line because they needed original music. Because if you take music from another band, it's so expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):

Yeah. So that's what I was doing for them during that period. It was very nice for the wallet, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):

Sounds stress free compared to working on something like Death Cult.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):

The reason I'm bringing that up is because lots of our students, they want to look beyond just working with bands and they hear about these opportunities for doing commercials or doing production for a company that needs work, but they don't even know where to begin. So I'm just wondering how did that even happen?

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):

It was actually the film maker, Patrick gle, who had done the videos, my videos, influence videos and so on. He was a friend of that guy who owned a company that do all this production. So Volvo, you hire a special company to do all these YouTube videos, commercial videos, everything for it. And they are based in Guttenburg. And so he actually, they owner their contact Patrick and said, do you know a good sound guy who can sort this out for me? And then Patrick recommended me.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):

So at the end of the day, it is exactly like getting any other type of client, somebody that works with you or that likes your work recommends you to somebody else. And there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):

Yes. And that's what people ask me, call me, especially phone book company and all that stuff. It's like, do you want to do commercial? And I'm like, no, because the best commercial I can do is do a good job.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):

That's

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):

The only way to get a new booking in the studio is to make the one you're doing right now to make sure that it's as good as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):

I totally agree and thank you for saying that. It's funny, it's like every single time that you work on a project that is your opportunity to make a commercial for yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):

But it's like the most stupid mistake I did back in the days was to interfere with my biggest client. Me and Anders build a studio together and I know this is going to end up with, I'm not going to record him anymore. And that's also what's happened. But after the Clay Man, they went to this other guy and suddenly I had so much work because then fans of Inflames that played music realized, oh, the older album sounds much better than the new album in their ears at least. So I had for two years, the most people who came to me said, yeah, we came to you because we heard the new Inflames album.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):

How did you know that going into business with him would mean that they would stop recording with you

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):

Because sooner or later we are going to be a crash. And of course we built this really nice super studio and then in Flames took off and he was never in the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):

Oh, okay. That's interesting. I thought that you guys had done that after in Flames took off. I didn't realize that it was around before they took off.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):

We were planning the studio just when we recorded Colony I think.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):

And then we built the studio and he Clayman and then Boom and they out was out touring so much and he was never in the studio. So I can see that it felt like a super bad investment for him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):

I can imagine.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):

Yeah, because the studio is standing there and it's just costing him money every month and he couldn't use it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):

Yeah, because

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):

He was on tour.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):

I've always thought that starting a big studio is a bad investment for a professional musician.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):

It doesn't seem like it to them going in because it's like, well look, I won't have to pay for Studio anymore. But it's like, well actually that's not true. You might have to pay for it all year round depending on how well it does. And it costs so much money to get going and the maintenance is not cheap. I mean there's so much to it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):

Yes, yes, yes. So no, no, it was absolutely not a good investment for him, I think. And I had a lot of things to do. So we had a deal, we had the studio, we had two control rooms. The deal was like you have the control room one for two weeks, and I have control room one for two weeks and I had the smaller control room for two weeks. So we had this equal amount of time in both studios and plan work around that. And I'm trying to fill the whole studio all the time, but you don't have so much clients, so you can have two studio running to hundred percent

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):

And I guess you can't ever really know that a band is going to take off the way they took off.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):

No, no, of course not. But in the end, it's all good. He had this great success and they had made a shitload of money from the band

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):

And you got a ton of work. So

(01:19:26):

It all works out. So I have a question. You have had some phenomenal producers get their start by working with you or for you, Henry Good, for instance, who we had on now the mix a couple of years ago with architects. He's a phenomenal talent and I know a few producers such as yourself who have a history for their interns go on or their assistant engineers go on to be very, very good. It doesn't always work that way, but do you have a process for training or cultivating your assistance or your interns? What do you think it is about how you guys work together that helps them actualize their potential so much?

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):

It's funny. Hanky was a student for a long time and he liked him very much. Very cool guy. And when he went to his university for sound engineering, we actually wrote a recommendation letter to the school that if they don't take him in, because it was really hard to come into a school, they are completely stupid and talentless. So take him in. And I don't know if that was the reason he came in there and then the guy who worked for me before he stopped and that was a perfect opportunity to Hank jump on the train. And he was kind of nervous because that was not either his music, but I was like, you will learn Also, it's one thing that I probably do different from many producers. I'm very concerned that always push away the credit for myself and push it to him. The guy, it's like if I me and Hank mix an album, it's just like Put Hank's name first, then put my name because he need that credit that people will trust him. Do you understand what I

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):

Mean? Yes,

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):

That's really rare, by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):

Yes, I know. I know. Come on. I don't going to name any name, but I know people sitting and ghost mixing for producers here in Sweden.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):

He didn't fucking do that mix. There was another guy, but he take the credit and he take the money also. And I don't think that's fair. And it doesn't help people to come out more or less the whole Stockholm scene. I've been in a studio where a very famous song writer and producer sitting and do his music. Do you know what he does?

(01:22:02):

He's walking around in his house, do nothing. He have 10 studios where young artists sitting and writing music all day long and he just go either, listen, that's a good song. Okay, I take it, they get some credits for it, they get some money for it, but he take the big credit for the songwriting and that's how he gain his name. But he actually don't write any music at all. It's other people who write music for him. And I heard that there is more or less the same scenario in the Chaon studio where you have Max Martin and all this guy. There's

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):

A few places like that for sure. That same story, different players many times.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):

And for me, if I was like that, hanky should be none and that should not help him in any way. And I don't think it's fair. It's like the guy before him, Patrick, these took five years at least before people even know his name and starting to trust him. Do you understand what I mean? Yes. Yeah. So we thank you. It took long even he's a very good guy, but the name is not there. So that's why I'm being very important. Make sure that you credit him, make sure that you write his name. And if that's not happened, it's saying is mixed by Freddie Nordstrom and there is no, but Hanky was on that one also. So that's why it'd be very important for me to help him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):

So what I've learned through running a company is that the more that I empower the people who work for me to own their own ideas and to get credit for their own ideas, and the more I reward them for having great ideas with more money or more recognition or whatever it is, I can do basically the more that I allow people to win, the better of a job they do because they're more inspired, they'll work harder, they're more loyal and your relationship is a lot better. And that has made for some of our employees at URM to be really, really amazing and to make amazing progress at what they do and to really do some just some great things. And I really think that it was through the process of allowing them to take control and to get rewarded for having done a great job. And so I think that by you doing that, that right there is a huge inspiration to the guys working under you that if they do a great job, they're not going to be in the shadows.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):

No, but also like I say, if I die and that guy's sitting here in the studio and it's like I take credit for everything, nobody, the studio dies.

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):

True. So it's good to do that for him, but it's bad for my business if you understand what I mean when they leave this company. True.

(01:25:09):

But that's one thing it's has been for me with the recording studio. It's just like I prefer we don't talk money when we recording. Just like money is something you need to buy food, buy what you need. And if I have that, I'm fine. I don't need money on my bank account and stuff like that. I never cared about money. It's much more rewarding to have made a really good album. That's like when we did the architect's album and the guys asked me, what do you think about this? And I was like, I think I used to waiting for the CD to come out so I can take the fucking CD and put it in my car and listen to it. Because I think that album is musically, it's a super album.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):

Yes, it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:25:57):

Yes. And that's the music in there. And also it's like when Tom died, I was sitting on the motocross tracks with my kid and crying because that guy Tom, he was such a talent. And then he died only 28 years old and it was just like, it still makes me sad.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):

Well, it's a tragedy for sure. And it really was an amazing record and the guitar tone on it is spectacular

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):

And it's a Mesa boogie amplifier that I hate. Really? Yes. But I said they were like this amplifier work. And I was like, I tried so many mea Kevin heads and I never get it to work. But of course, should we try it? Yeah, but it sounds good. It sounds good,

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):

Dude. It sounds insane. Not just good. It sounds insane.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):

Yeah, but that's also, it's a performance thing. I know that Hanky and Tom was sitting for fucking two weeks tracking those guitars and they worked so hard with the tuning and everything. It's just like it's, I don't know the word for it. It's completely gay. Anyway, I know that tone was so picky with his guitar stuff. So lot of, yeah, but it's like everybody says like, oh, Mike Amos have a good, so good guitar tone. And then he just raised his left hand and way with the fingers because it sounds good when he play guitar. It's same with Lee in bringing it Horizon, listen to his fucking guitar tone. It's the same amplifier. Take the same sound and play. It's not going to be the same great guitar tone because it's in the hands. It makes difference even for heavy distorted guitars.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):

I'm sure that going back to at the gates, how we started this conversation, that part of those guitar tracks, like you said, it was one of those brothers is a down picking machine. I'm sure that that tone is, I mean lots of people talk about the miking technique and all that stuff, but I'm sure that a big part of it is the guy who played the guitar. The End.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):

Yes. You know what Gear Guitar Amplifier we used for that album, we used the Metal Zone, the most hated peril in the world

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):

Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):

And that was connected to a PV Supreme 160, the old ones with the Green.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):

Oh yes.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):

Striping on. And we had Anders homemade built two by 10 and two by 12 speaker with broken cones in it because they didn't have a grill on the front. And it has been destroyed during the tour. That's what we had to work with. And it was actually back then, I put up all kind of mics I had in the studio and I have learned this, what they call now this data, the Fredman technique. But there was a guy who was a producer, local guy who showed me that because he saw that in a magazine somewhere that somebody used that we put up all mics and we was trying back and forth for two days what mics, that's actually sounding best. And then we came to the conclusion for this album, these two 50 sevens sounds absolutely best.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):

It's just amazing hearing that the gear is what it was. Speaking of, we've been talking for a while, I know that it's getting late. I don't want to take up the rest of your evening. We just have a few questions from our listeners for you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):

If you don't mind, I just want to ask you a few of these before we wrap up. But on the topic of that album, Alan Sasha Lasko is wondering,

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):

I recognize that name.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):

You, he probably has asked you questions. Do you have a breakdown of the cab slaving multi amp technique? And also is Rob being a good little bitch?

Speaker 3 (01:29:43):

Actually, this is now these days well-known guitar player Gu G. Back in the days with our first album and all other albums we did, we recorded quad track guitar with left or right, one amplifier left or right, another amplifier to get a massive tone. But he was so lazy because he's Greek. No, he felt it boring to record four ISBE guitars. And I understand that. So I said, okay, let's try to record one guitar, but with two cabinets and two heads. And I connected through a split box to two amplifiers, but I didn't like that guitar tone and then record MO two tracks. Of course I didn't like that guitar tone because it sounded like there was two singers sing at the same time, if you understand what I mean. So I took the sand from the angle head, I used and connected it to return of my 51 50.

(01:30:49):

So I had one preamp, two power amps and two cabinets recorded these two cabinets to two tracks. And then I took one cabinet, like 70% to the left and another 100% to the left. And then we did the second track, we did the same but opposite to the right. And with that we get decent guitar tone and now we had a bigger guitar tone and we only recorded with two takes. Yeah. So that's actually how I do it. And I use the one amplifier, the I think sounds best for that project we are doing. And then I slave it from the sand of the amp to the power amp of another amp and a different cabinet. I used like a Marshall Vintage, blah blah, blah something for one. And then I have this old angle with also vintage cabinets. That sounds totally different. And sometimes we choose another cabinet because the cabinets makes a big difference I think for the guitar tone.

(01:31:48):

So try out, and I know we have done these camper presets and stuff like that, but for my studio, I'm like, to be honest, I think it's coward to record line signal even if I do it because it's useful sometimes. But back in the days, even if I had a digital recording with 2 million tracks, I didn't record any line signals for the guitar and I recorded two microphones on one channel because I don't want to have the option later on to choose sit aix. These two I have, I want to do it straight off. If the guitar tone is good, it's good, it's not good, let's do it again and find a better guitar tone.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):

Yeah. And the same thing goes while we did this with the di guys, I choose to print the sound straight off, do it now. And that was actually an old Canadian producer we named Eric Grief. He's told me, I did an album with him, he's a lawyer today. He's striker's lawyer. I think why do it later when we can do it now? He told me and I was like, yeah, you are a hundred percent right. So do it now.

Speaker 2 (01:32:59):

And I think that even nowadays, especially with the ability to redo things, people should try to commit as early as possible just because there is so much opportunity to ruin things or to go down an endless path of destruction with plugins. It's that much more important to commit early, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:33:22):

Yeah, I think that's the right thing to do. It's just like do it straight off. But now these days I record the line scene also because of the reason that maybe somebody in the band went drunk to the Friday night and went into the live room and kicked the mics and then they record additional guitar during the weekend and I came back coming back to the studio and find out that the mics is standing on the other side of the room and the guitar. That's a good fucked up.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):

Yes, that's happened to me.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):

Or something broke down. And people don't realize that. So then you can actually amp and save the recording without going back and rerecord all the guitars. So that's the reason why I do the line signal or I recording like metal core band with a lot of breakdowns. Then the line signal is very useful to edit the guitars because this music need to be lined up. It doesn't sound good enough if you don't be what I call a grid hooker and start using the grid to actually make music.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):

Yeah, I agree. So here's a question from Dave Vol. Has the popularity of the coined Fredman technique of miking guitars impacted you to any large degree? And if so, how?

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):

Yeah, maybe a little bit. But to be honest, we have done this test several times with several bands to find out what we think sounds best. And for those bands, we always come up with the conclusion that 2 57 sounds best. And sometimes I'm adding a condenser microphone and blending in a little bit and I switch around between speakers and I always take down all the microphones to make a new setup so I get a different tone because you just move a microphone, a couple of millimeters change the tone of the guitar. But yes, I was a little bit surprising when I saw this clip from Wilkinson Audio that he used my company name to sell a microphone holder. And especially when I get it in my hand, realized their angles completely wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):

Dammit. Alex Wilkinson fixed the angle.

Speaker 3 (01:35:35):

No, Fredman Digital will have one.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):

Okay, there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):

No, but I was like, why I tried it out. No, I'm never going to use this because it's wrong angle. And I was contacted by another company that do this similar thing and they asked actually for permission to do it and I said, yes, of course, but I then want to have the right angle.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):

Let me know when you have it and we'll help you get it out there.

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):

I have one here right now. I dunno what's happened with the guy who had the company, what's happened with him? I dunno if he died or something.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):

Oh, okay. We

Speaker 3 (01:36:07):

Have it soon. We have it soon.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):

Okay. Question from Leonardo Ani, which is, what was it like working with Remi the horizon on suicide season and there as hell, they've come a long way and are self-producing now with great success, but were they any knowledgeable back then or just a bunch of guys wanting to put heavy songs out but not knowing much about how to do it properly? How much of the final product did you help mold compared to what they came in with demo wise?

Speaker 3 (01:36:40):

I think the two album we did, this is a very developing band I should say, to be honest. Going from all his screaming, his sound he had back then with his screaming that I absolutely didn't like at all, that had become groundbreaking and now he sings clear vocals. He's just showing the development of the band. And to be honest, when I heard the first album, I was not impressed at all. The thing that impressed me with Bring Horizon was the amount of views they have on MySpace, which was just like, okay, let's book this band because they're going to become big. That was actually the one reason, and this is one of the bands that I didn't realize all the hook lines I had until I saw them live. That was just like, normally it's like I pick up hook lines when I'm asleep because hook lines is my thing. I'm a pop guy. But with that band, I missed that totally. That's probably not answer your questions, but the band itself became so much better just every year and how they find their path through everything

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):

And they're still developing.

Speaker 3 (01:37:58):

Yes. I think it's a very cool thing. It's a cool band. It

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):

Sounds to me they always, they started where they started, but always were trying to get better and better and better and better.

Speaker 3 (01:38:11):

But they asked to come to me to record because they were Inflames fan.

Speaker 2 (01:38:15):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:38:16):

Yeah. But they went far beyond that pretty fast, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):

They're huge. So here's one from Alan Vane, which is Hello Fredrik. Firstly would like to say thank you for joining us here at the URM family. And a question is, would you say age matters with regards to work in an audio environment as far as studio producing engineering in front of house, I'm 29 this year and still getting my feet wet and I feel old compared to some other people. I see.

Speaker 3 (01:38:52):

Oh, I'm 52, I still get my feet wet sometime. But now I don't think age matter, I don't think so. It's dedication. It's just like that's what you need.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):

I totally agree with you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):

You probably you need some diagnose from the doctor or something like that. When I built a studio where we recorded slaughter to Soul, I was recording in my old studio and then on the evening I went down and built my new studio. So I worked 17 hours per day, seven days a week. And finally ended up with me getting some kind of, no, I don't know what's happened. My whole body stopped working.

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):

Exhaustion maybe?

Speaker 3 (01:39:31):

Yes, but you need dedication for it. It's like Robbie, the little bitch, somebody asked before. He's doing great and he is smarter than me because he have this dedication, but he know, no, I'm not going to work this Saturday and this Sunday because if I do that I will crash and burn. So I day off and he's constructing a control room there next to me here and he's going to be fucking brilliant at control room. And I see when he work with his band, he's super dedicated. He's super into it. And I think that's what you need kind of more or less now these days I'm chasing the perfect take if you understand what I mean. I want to have to record everything perfect. I want to be old school kind of. I can do the edit sheet also if that's necessary, but I don't see that as an art to make a really good drum sound.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):

So you're still trying to make great records.

Speaker 3 (01:40:32):

Absolutely. Always. Every album has to be the best.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):

That's great. And I feel like that regardless of age, that's what matters is that type of attitude. Yes. One of the mixers that we're really good friends with, his name is Billy Decker in Countries has 15 number one hits and he's 50 I believe. And he didn't really start mixing professionally until he was like 36 or 37. And much of his success really has come in the past five or six years. So in his mid forties and now into his fifties. And his age hasn't really seemed to matter at all because his attitude is amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:41:20):

But also it is like something I've done since I started playing. It's like protecting my ear because that's, what do I say, that's my profession. I have to save my profession and I never play live without earplugs and stuff like that. That's very important to save your ear, I think. And also it's like try new stuff. I know metalhead, if metalhead, they are like, oh, they did that album there, let's go there. And the guy in the studio say, okay, I'm going to try some new things. And then the band would say, no, don't do that. Don't try any new things. That what I noticed when I do stuff. So I never tell anybody I try new stuff here. I just do it because if you cannot try new stuff, then you cannot develop. And that's why when I'm mixing, I'm okay. I use that snare drum on the previous album.

(01:42:13):

I'm not going to use it again. I'm going to try some new combinations here. I'm going to try some new combinations. And if I do triggering drums, for example, and especially for Toms and snare drums, try new plugins for the overheads. Try new stuff all the time. Try let's do this instead because it's so easy. That's what I said in the beginning. I seen some producers, it's just like I heard a band from Sweden, the new album mixed by somebody not far away from here. And it took me five seconds. Okay, that's the guy. And I talked with the guy in the band later on as we are friends, and I said, you went to him? Yes, I heard that straight off on that SNE drum because he used to same sne drum every fucking time. And I think that's not good for him and I don't think it's good for the band. And I had the same discussion with another very famous musician and he felt the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):

It's not good for production as a whole either.

Speaker 3 (01:43:21):

No, no, no. It's not good for anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):

Because it's like he said they had to put a promo package together for a tour, and that tour had three bands and the same guy had recorded and mixed their albums and he realized, oh, everything sounds the same and that's why I'm doing Hammer full album now also at the same time. And he asked me, are you going to use anything from the old mix? Absolutely not. I said, because it's like you writing the same song two times, is that fun? No. And it's not good for your album. So I always start fresh with everything that I think it's very important and stay away as much as possible from templates and that kind of stuff. Oh, I used that EQ said for the bass from there, and I used that sample for that album and it sounds awesome. Okay. I use it again. Okay. But don't do that. Try new stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):

One of the things that I think is human nature, and I'm sure that as we get older and we are creatures of habit, our habits get that much stronger and that much more reinforced. So if we get into the habit of using the same thing over and over and over and we reinforce it over and over and over, our willpower to find new things is going to get weaker. And I think that's the problem with age not ability. Because actually the older you get, I think with music, the more potential you have to do greater work. I know for instance, in orchestral music, my dad's world that people in their fifties and sixties are considered in their prime more than the 20 year olds, way more like conductors. They're not considered great until they're in their fifties or sixties generally. That's when all their experience and their skill and maturity can really come out. So I think with production that as long as you don't allow yourself to get stale, that age is actually a benefit.

Speaker 3 (01:45:30):

Yeah, I can feel that. And I also feel like the pressure of doing a job, it's not that hard now. 15 years ago I can actually, if it was, I can actually, because I put myself under such high pressure of performing that I could actually puke because it was, I have to fix this, I have to fix this. But now I have more experience, I easily attacking stuff and you make it works as I want to hear it. So yes, the age is actually, yeah, is for benefit, I think. So

Speaker 2 (01:46:08):

As long as you keep yourself healthy and all those things you don't let, so I think that as you get older, you have to obviously adopt, change your lifestyle some, you can't do the same things. You can't drink for five days straight like you did when you were 20, and then expect to be productive. So you have to obviously behave in an age appropriate way, but if you behave in an age appropriate way and your maturity is there and your experience is there, you should be a lot better at it now than anytime before. At least what I've noticed. And I got to say that also for me as I get older, the stress and the pressure of everything I do is a lot easier to deal with for sure. I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (01:46:53):

Yeah. But it's also like now I find new partners. I have a guy up here where I'm sitting, there's a lot of production studio up here, and I'm up with them on the evenings when I should actually be home. But I'm up there with my acoustic guitar and we are sitting and playing and making music and it's like the first time I was there, there was a guy coming in and we are sitting and jamming with acoustic guitars and bass and stuff like that and creating music. And this guy coming in and saying, you know what guys, this is the first time to the young guys. He said, this is the first time I see you actually smiling in here. You have fun. And I had a great fun and they are 25 years younger than me, but I bring my experience there and for them it's also release. So I'm up there a couple of times per week and we just take the guitar and playing some stuff and they're Oh, that's awesome because of my experience. But I feel the pressure because they want to make the success, but it's like my age with the young guys and stress release a little bit and they do great stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):

Sounds like a great combo.

Speaker 3 (01:48:05):

Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of fun. I love to go there. It's just like coming home 12 o'clock in the night with a big smile on my lip and fuck. That was awesome. Nice. Yeah. This is music. What? It's about to have fun. That's also easy to forget. The fun part. It's like I have a son, he's 16 years old now. He ride motocross and he was second in European championship and he was a youth national champion in Sweden. And then he decided to take the final step to go to get the elite sense to write the highest Syria. And then I saw on him, he don't have fun and I have to stop here now. Why are you doing this? Talked about it. You're putting too much pressure on yourself. You do this, you forgot what was all about. It should be fun. Take it easy. It doesn't matter what happened today. Make sure you have fun. And it's very important also with music

Speaker 2 (01:49:12):

And with that, I think that that's a great note to end this on because that's a great way for people to remember this podcast because I agree that if it's not fun, why are you doing it? There's really no reason. I mean, part of why we do this and we work so hard is because we love it and there's a deeper kind of fun in it for all of us, and it's easy to lose that if you're not careful.

Speaker 3 (01:49:41):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:49:41):

Fredrik Nordstrom, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:49:48):

I hope you get something out of this. Thank you. It was very nice actually to have some tech talk. It's always

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):

Fun. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Hairball Audio. For nearly a decade, hairball audio has been helping musicians and recording studios improve their recordings by offering high quality outboard recording equipment in Do-it-yourself kit form. Check out the full line of compressors, mic pre amplifiers, and do-it-yourself [email protected]. Hairball audio. Do it yourself without compromise. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by Sure, legendary microphones, cutting edge wireless systems, premium earphones and headphones. Sure. The most trusted audio brand worldwide. For more information, go to sure.com To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.