DAN SWANO: The “Abba Trick” for Vocals, Bloodbath Guitar Tones, and His Shift to Mixing

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Jay-Z microphones. For over a decade, Jay-Z microphones has combined all the critical elements of World Press, microphone manufacturing, patented capsule technology, precision electronics, and innovative, and Gus Fuel design. Jay-Z microphone's deep understanding of technology is informed by their open-minded, innovative approach. Trust us, sound can be glorious recorded. For more info, please go to Jay-Z mike.com. And now your

Speaker 2 (00:00:33):

Host Eyal Levi. I want take a second to tell you about something that I am very excited about and it's the URM Summit. Once a year, we hold an event where hundreds of producers from all over the world come together for four days of networking, workshops, seminars, and hanging out. This industry is all about relationships, and think about it, what could you gain from getting to personally know your peers from all over the world who have the same goals as you, the same struggles as you, and who can help, inspire you, motivate you, as well as become potential professional collaborators? This year's summit is on November 9th through 11th at the Las Vegas Westin, which is just one block off of the strip and it's going to be even bigger and better than ever. We're anticipating even more producers plus a lineup of amazing guests like Jenz, Borin, Kris Crummett, Mac Machine, Forster, Seve, Michael Legian, DaVero, Billy Decker, Chris Adler, Mary Zimmer, Mike Mowry, Jesse Cannon Blasco, Jason Berg, Jessica Lohan and more. And of course, our musical guest, the one and only Arc Spire. So get your summit tickets now at URM summit.com and we will see you in Vegas. My guest today is a true legend in the Scandinavian metal scene. Mr. Dan Swano known for his work with bands such as Opeth, catatonia, bloodbath, and many, many more. I'm going to shut up and let you guys listen. Dan Swano, welcome to the URM podcast. I'm really, really happy to have you here. Welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:02:15):

Thank you. I'm really, really happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:02:17):

Yeah, I've been a fan and follower of your work for ages now, and I've always thought of you kind of a little bit like the Wizard of Oz behind lots of great bands and just great projects. You're one of those names that whenever I hear of some great band from Europe, if I look in their history, somehow you're there. It's kind of crazy. How do you define your own career? Because really unique. If you were to try to describe it to somebody, what would you call it? What is it that you do because you do so many different things, how do you define it?

Speaker 3 (00:03:04):

Well, it is really hard because I didn't really sit down with a master plan and say, oh, I am going to open a recording studio and simultaneously I'm going to be in really many bands and projects. And it just kind of happened, I guess a little bit in combination that I discovered stuff that was harder and faster than the average heavy metal that I was listening to, I guess up until maybe 87, 88. And with that came a whole new crowd and I just kind of fell in with a new group of people. And before we knew it, we formed the Edge of Sanity project at the end of 89. And I mean, we kind of started to exist during the demo recording of a crossover band that three of the other guys in Image of Sanity had. And I recorded them as a kind of a favor because that's just how I did.

(00:04:02):

And somehow it all kind of happened at the same time that I was recording everything and the projects just started to spread in the underground. And before you knew it, everyone was like, so what is it that you do? Are you having a studio or are you musician? So I kind of always saw them kind of intertwined somehow that since a really early age, I always wrote a song and then I just envisioned how it would be recorded. It was never that I think, oh, this is going to be so cool on stage or in the rehearsal. I always kind of wrote it to be recorded in the way I had it in my head. And then most of the time I wish we had kind of left the track in that recorded state because some of the tracks that were written were never really sounding that good on stage, and they were sometimes even kind of embarrassing to play because we didn't really do a good version of whatever we had put on vinyl or CD or even cassette. So I cannot really, it's kind of a multi-instrumentalist slash mix and mastering engineer. And in the first part of my career was also recording engineer, which I am no longer, so I wish it was an easier way, but some kind of musician slash sound dude,

Speaker 2 (00:05:23):

Isn't it disappointing with metal, there's, I feel like what you just described is so common in metal. It's hard to make it sound good live. It really is. It's almost a style of music that's not designed to sound good live. And I mean, there are some bands that do it, but typically those bands that sound the best these days, they have tracks running and I don't judge them for that. I understand why they need to do those sorts things live. Sometimes it's because they don't have enough musicians on stage to cover everything that they have on record. And in other cases it's just because if we're being honest, sometimes metal just sounds like shit live. And having some prerecorded stuff playing along with the band really helps it not sound like shit. But I always thought it was disappointing and I kind of felt the same way with my own band that it just never lived up to what I wanted to, how I had envisioned it when we would play live and we had great musicians, that wasn't the problem. It's just metal kind of sounds like shit in concert.

Speaker 3 (00:06:43):

Yeah, but it's also, I remember the way that where we did in the early Times of Sanity, it was the first band that I was only the singer and because sometimes the PA was broken or I just felt like I didn't want to do the growling part today because I was rehearsing with my progressive rock band later, and then I would just blow out my voice. So I sat there in the middle of two guitar players, bass played on the drummer, and we had pretty crappy gear, but there was always this kind of vibe that, okay, we have to simplify things because I cannot really hear what's going on in a rehearsal where I can actually pick a good spot. So why are you playing that and this guy? So we ended up doing a lot of, I don't know if I knew what I was doing, but I was kind of producing it to sound better in the rehearsal, but it also ended up being kind of cool for the live performance because I do remember there were a couple of times when we did a few gigs and I always went out on a crowd after and they said, yeah, the sound was terrible for the first three bands, but then you guys came on and the sound was perfect.

(00:07:56):

And I was like, okay. But we had the same pa, they just moved the mics to our little, we had this small combo amps from Yamaha because we heard that sunlight recorded using a PV bandit or actually a PV Studio 20, which was just one 12 inch cabinet. And you have a whole different bottom end in those compared to a four by 12. So we used these two Yamaha and we had our pedals, and I guess we were kind of engineering the music from the ground up with these simple melodies that kind of worked in the rehearsal room. And what I meant with me being disappointed with some stuff was, of course we had terrible gigs with the gear, but we did tracks like When All Is Said, which is a piano based doom song that lasts for almost like seven minutes, and we tried to do it live, but one of the guitars was playing the piano part and sometimes one fret too high.

(00:08:53):

And it was just so terribly inconvenient for me to hear that this guy's way off and he doesn't hear it because there are no monitors, and the crowd must think we are completely incompetent idiots. But I listen to it on the record, it's great, but not really. So sometimes stuff just didn't translate the way I was hoping it would. So when Edge of Sanity played Light, we did a lot of the stuff that worked in the rehearsal room and you kind of heard there in this mess that stuff was still working, and then you think what could be worse than in the PA and Edge of Sanity never had any double bass drums ever. So we didn't have that constant wall of kick drums that you're supposed to rise above with whatever guitars. And that was one of the key, we have a lot of space for stuff to go. And when I see some bands today or these big festivals, they have this huge kick drums just all the time and stuff is just trying to compete with that. And then you have this subsonic wave just throughout the whole gig. And I thought that was maybe one of the reasons why sanity had a pretty coup good live sound, and we never had our own sound engineer ever. We never even had a crew or a roadie.

Speaker 2 (00:10:17):

I think sometimes that wall of double kick hides a lot of just bad arrangement and bad playing, and it makes it to where you just can't hear those little details. And so it's almost like musicians can get away with murder, but there's something that you said that I want to key in on, which is the guitar player not being able to hear that he was a half step off. I think that lots of times vocalists get judged really, really harshly when you hear a live performance and they're just off and you hear the record and they sound great. And so people will say, oh, they suck and they're just tuned on the record and the blah blah, blah. The producer must have really had to make a miracle happen. And sometimes that's not what happens. Sometimes they're really, really good vocalists and they just cannot hear shit on stage end of story.

Speaker 3 (00:11:21):

It happens to me a lot of times actually.

Speaker 2 (00:11:23):

Yeah, they lose their, it's almost like when a pilot loses their orientation, which I mean shouldn't happen to a professional pilot, but that's something that pilots need to train against is losing their orientation when flying through clouds or flying over the ocean at night. It's the same sort of thing when you're a vocalist and you cannot hear what the hell is going on around you and you might not have perfect pitch. And so then in that case you're lost. And it doesn't mean you're a bad vocalist.

Speaker 3 (00:12:00):

No, no. It happens to me all the time. And there is this doppler effect related phenomenon with loud headphones that also kind of raises the pitch. I hear it all the time here, and I know that some people have this problem with in ears because when the sound comes from a monitor speaker, it's different. You can actually sing to this, but when you have in ears like almost every performer and you crank them up really much, you have them there, this pitch Doppler effect with the ear phenomenon. That's why you see so many singers having only one headphone and the other one is off the right ear or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:12:37):

Is it because when you have them in, you're hearing your own voice the way that you hear it in your head, which is different than,

Speaker 3 (00:12:46):

Yeah, there is just this, I had this vibe so many times. You crank up the headphones really loud and you sing a part on a record and then you take it down and you listen in the monitors, I think, fuck, I'm like 40 cents off what's going on in the headphones? I was so spot on that note. But the problem is that the way the ear versus really loud headphones, it just kind of raises the pitch. It's a known audio phenomenon and not many vocalists are aware of that. And I have seen bands that I know are still getting used to the in-ears because I know the guys in person and they say, oh, this fucking in yours. And I see them live and sometimes they're really out of tune and I know I record this guy, he's never out of tune. So there is always this, you have to adjust to this and keep leveled down.

(00:13:36):

And I found out that the way that I can avoid it is to use the old Apple, the very first iPod, but so what you call them. So I hear always myself acoustically and I never have me in the monitors, I only have the music at kind of normal volume and this phenomenon disappears altogether. I really, I mean I love the vibe of having really cranked up backing track and sing to it with myself super loud in the headphones, but it doesn't bring anything other than out of tune performances that I feel while singing were perfectly in tune. So that's really, really a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (00:14:16):

Interesting. So I should have realized that makes perfect sense, but I didn't realize that that's what happens when you completely eliminate hearing yourself acoustically.

Speaker 3 (00:14:29):

That is the problem.

Speaker 2 (00:14:31):

That's very, very interesting.

Speaker 3 (00:14:33):

Ever since I heard that Abba was actually recording all their vocals with monitors and then they had recorded a version of the song and they played all the time, exactly the same recording. And the girls from abba, they did their vocals with the full bleed from the speakers, and then they left the room and they played back the same track again through the vocal mic without moving it one little bit that would destroy the whole thing. And then they just took that track and put it out of face and put at equal volume to that of the raw uncompressed vocal track and the bleed just disappear and all you have left is the vocals because they too had problems with this headphone versus pitch stuff. And I've been trying to perfect that in the modern world because I love the idea to sing to speakers but don't have the bleed of course, all over the vocal take. And I'm going to work a little bit more on that in the future because I think it's going to work. I mean, they did it, so it's just a matter of not moving the vocal mic.

Speaker 2 (00:15:40):

Lots of great records have been done with just the monitors blaring. I know lots of vocalists, well, not lots, but some vocalists that actually are really good who just don't want to use headphones or buds in the studio. They just refuse because it screws them up. They know that it makes them sing worse, and so they just demand the monitors. And I've never actually used that trick. I've never heard of that trick. It makes perfect sense, but I always got away with it with just positioning the microphone so that its rejection is where the speakers are and then just deal with it. But that's actually a really great idea for eliminating the bleed. But I mean, I just know there's some vocalists, man, they just do a better job without having headphones on. It really kills it for them sometimes.

Speaker 3 (00:16:36):

Yeah. It's also the whole psychology of putting the singer up to the pop screen and here's this microphone, blah, blah, and just stand there and do your stuff. And I know for a fact that one of the reasons why I had great success with a lot of these crust core hardcore punk bands, also with growling like death metal bands in the early nineties when I still had this four track or eight track studio, it was that they said, yeah, we heard the rumor that you let the singer hold the microphone and run around and lie on the floor with the feet kicking in the air. And it's like, yeah, why not? That's how he is when he is performing. Why should he do the take of a lifetime in a way that he never did it before? Why should I put this excellent hardcore screaming singer like stand still and sing straight into the membrane, please.

(00:17:34):

That makes no sense. So I just gave them an SM 57 with a really big pop screen on it and a pair of headphones said, Hey, here's nine meters of microphone cable, just go bananas. And they were happy like picks and shit when they were ready. Finally, I nailed the energy I have on stage or in the rehearsal and you could just see the guys in the band. They were like, wow, he never sounded this good or this aggressive or whatever. And yeah, it was maybe not the ideal signal for me to work with, but you got the energy, you got that raw performance and yeah, it might have been a bit harsh in places or whatever, but you just couldn't put that guy down, so stand still here please now. And some really love that, just the fact that they could bend their neck down and growl in this position where they got the sound for me also growling standing straight up.

(00:18:32):

That was really weird. I always had a position for me to get the best growth and when we were recording the first time in Montezuma in their early nineties, they told me, no, I'll you stand here in the vocal booth and sing straight to the pop screen, and I just couldn't really get the sound coming out of me. It was super weird and I had to adjust to that. So it still doesn't really sound like I normally do when I can position myself and sing in a handheld mic. And on the later stuff I used the SM seven and I just kind of held onto it and just found that magic position and just went crazy also for normal vocals because it's just a vibe. You need to get in position some weird way.

Speaker 2 (00:19:18):

So I guess that we all know the reason that vocalists are asked to stay in one position is because, yeah, like you said, you get a less than ideal signal to work with if the distance, the distance and the angle is always changing. The best vocalists that I've worked with who refuse to stand in one place, they have this technique down where it's like the distance and the angle of the microphone doesn't change relative to their mouth, even if they're moving all over the place, it's almost like their hand keeps the microphone almost like on a gyroscope that stays perfectly in position no matter where they turn their head. So I feel like that's the biggest challenge is if you're going to let a vocalist run around and do their thing, they need to be super aware of not pointing the microphone at their forehead or something like

Speaker 3 (00:20:27):

That. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:20:28):

I do think though, that it's proven, I mean it's not a scientific kind of proof, but it's proven in terms of record sales and the fan reaction that it's a lot more important to have a great vocal performance than a perfect signal because there's so many great records that were recorded in crazy ways that, I mean, I think that the priority for sure is to get the vocalists to do the best to best that they can possibly do. And if that means running around, then that means running around, but how would you overcome the issues that it brings up? It does bring up issues. How would you deal with those?

Speaker 3 (00:21:11):

Well, I mean I don't really do that much recording anymore, but I think these days you have more dynamic tools that you can use. Yeah, it's a lot harder. The kind of post-production work is really hardcore compared to just having the traditional way. But I remember the one way that I used, I tried it for a while and it worked really well. I had a really high quality headset because I was a singing drummer for the pro band I was in called Unicorn, and I just took that one. It was an a KG thing and I just put it on the head of the singer and then they had the microphone, so I kind of recorded both. And one of the signals there was more Hi-Fi and sweet sounding, and I could use that pretty much all the time. And then they could do whatever they wanted as long as they were not singing so loud, that stuff distorted.

(00:22:03):

That was kind of my safety signal that they all felt a little bit like, I'm a punk singer. I'm supposed to wear a headset that looks like Sammy Hagar or whatever. But yeah, that's one. I've been thinking about this also to get this really extremely good headset from Crown or wherever and see how that sounds. But these days it's mainly for my own voice, but I got pretty good sounds out of the SM seven also. And I guess it's just trial and error with all, but I 100% agree that you must get the performance out of the artist and just make sure that they feel comfortable because singing is a very personal thing. And also the psychology of this being that take maybe that you have to live, it's forever there're on the record and then it needs to be more than just in time and in tune. You need to put that feel and vibe in it. And I still haven't found that kind of plugin that can make a performance sound like the guy is really meaning that line of lyrics. And I don't think technology will ever go there. So you have to, I don't know, just have to bring them in that zone where they feel that they can deliver. And if it means that you have to, I don't know, automate every fucking syllable or whatever that jumps out, then do it. The performance is key. Definitely.

Speaker 2 (00:23:27):

I've always said that mixing is just about solving problems. I mean obviously getting great sounds and all that stuff is a part of it, but you're not going to be able to actually successfully mix anything if you're not always able to take whatever problems come up and figure out a solution to them because there are no perfect recordings ever. It doesn't matter how big the budget is, how great the musicians are, how amazing the gear is. Every single session on the planet has problems. And I mean I remember when my band got mixed by Colin Richardson at some 1200 pound a day studio with a Neve in 2006 in London, and the Neve fucking broke after three days and lost all our recalls just like that, the end. And those three songs that we had done in those three days were not finished. Shit happens no matter, no matter what the session is. And so being able to solve problems is key. It is not enough to just be able to have cool sounds because you're never going to get a perfect situation where just having cool sounds is going to get the job done. And so you're right, if what you need to do is automate every single syllable because the performance is amazing but was recorded in a way that there's a little inconsistency, then that's the gig and you have to do it.

Speaker 3 (00:25:13):

Yeah, I've done a lot of live stuff. I was not in a position to say, oh, could you redo the vocal or whatever, and I just had to pretty much

Speaker 2 (00:25:23):

Just play the song again, have them play the same song about 19 times in

Speaker 3 (00:25:29):

One show. Yeah, live a buck in here, okay, we're going to do this one now 19 times in a row, hope you like it. No, but then you just had to somehow figure out a way to just work with what you had and you had also this gyroscope singer, but he got it maybe not always so correct. And there were some times where the spill was louder than what he was actually singing, and it's really not easy. So you learn a lot from your worst experiences and there's always a little bit to learn from that. Even when you get a super good vocal recording, you can apply some of that stuff. You learn from that super terrible recording because you might learn a trick or two, how you can actually get stuff to sound more natural without doing this or that. And you came up with a solution for something terrible.

(00:26:19):

But it also applies to something wonderful. And that's how my career have been. I've done some recordings in the early times that I've remixed lately, and sometimes it's like old analog tapes. They were transferred on the same type of machine but not really the machine they were recorded on. And somehow it was not really tweaked the same way with the bias or whatever. And there's just a lot of hiss and all the S sounds have turned into some kind of white noise mess. And I just had to find somehow a way to restore that. I want to remix this recording and I just finished pretty much all of it and I think it's one of the worst restoration jobs I have ever done when it comes to vocals. But now listening back to the tracks when it's all in the mix and I have pretty much copied and pasted whenever there was an S working, I put that on so many other places and this and that and it's like, wow.

(00:27:21):

But what you can do with modern technology, but the takes are great and unfortunately the transfer of the recording is shit, but you can make it to work. You just don't give up. And it makes me also, when I get a really good vocal recording when maybe there's a super much headphones spill for example, that's really been a problem a lot of times that they've used some almost open headphones and the singer just cranked it and there's this growling stuff and sometimes at the end of a growled, the spill from the guitars, it's just as loud as the voice and it's like, how do I do this then? And then you have to figure out all weird kinds of things to try to, because almost like a feedback thing going on then. But you learn from those terrible sessions that you get and you can also apply those tricks then for well sounding. But there might be some other problems, like I said, with spill or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:28:22):

This is why I encourage engineers to not get angry or complain when they get stuck with a bad session because all it is is an opportunity to get stronger. But if you can figure out how to make the most out of a bad session, everything that you learn from that is going to come in handy when you're working on the great sessions. It all makes you stronger. And I'm saying this because engineers love to complain, love it, love it. It's like their favorite sport who can complain the most about having the worst session. And in reality though, they should be happy about it because that is one of the best ways to get better is solving those problems. It's way better to know what to do when problems happen when you're on important sessions than not know what to do. I mean it sounds like an obvious thing, but that's how you learn is through going through the shitty sessions.

Speaker 3 (00:29:32):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:29:32):

Engineers stop complaining. Yes. So one thing I'm curious about with all the different things that, how do you manage your time? Do you make a schedule or how do you view it mentally?

Speaker 3 (00:29:50):

Well, I'm lucky to do mixing and mastering full time for quite a while now. And I work from home in the basement and there is this kind of vibe only that I live in some, it's not really chaos when it comes to my work, but when I tried to really open an Excel file and book these guys in May I have from that date to that date, that's the only time I was seriously worried that I would go out of business and shit would just happen because then these guys were delayed and they canceled and something happened with this. So I sat there for a couple of months. I had nothing to do only because I tried really to avoid that stuff got a little bit too much. I mean, there have been times when I've mixed seven records at the same time, plus a little bit of mastering on the side, but somehow magically it all worked out.

(00:30:48):

I always met every deadline to every project and everyone was happy and I managed to do it because I have a setup that is 100% total recall, and I've made sure that everything, I just open a project and it's all there. I don't have to do anything other than just fix that, tweak whatever they want and just fix it. So I just go a little bit and hope that it's not too much delays or cancellations or whatever. With the projects that I have going, and knock on wood, it's really, really working out that some bands get delayed, some are on time, some are even a bit early. I might get the drums for a record two months before they are ready with the final vocal. And in this time I have been able to prepare and experiment a little bit with the drum session from these guys a little bit.

(00:31:40):

When I am waiting for the corrections from that band, I can spend two hours with the drums, something I will mix two months later and just see what it's all about. So I just try to keep busy and have my 40 hour work week and do stuff all the time, but always take those ear breaks and also sometimes the mental breaks to not just work all the time because I do find that you lose sight of the big picture when you work too long. And I know Bruce Swine, I think he worked 40 or 45 minutes, then he had a break for 15 minutes and then he went working again. And I just felt that that's not a bad idea because it's just

Speaker 2 (00:32:24):

No, it's not a bad idea at

Speaker 3 (00:32:25):

All. It's as much of a deaf metal with heavy metal pedal sounds that you can take on any level. And then, I mean otherwise you start changing the mix or whatever because you are tired and you also come back. And then when you come back after the break, then this band is like, oh, with the mastering could you do this? Close that session, open the other one, fix a bit with the mastering, then you go straight back to the mix and then wow, the snare is really loud. How did I not hear that? Because something got used to it, but then you had another perspective for a bit and then you just crisscross between a lot of stuff. And as long as I meet every deadline and all is good, it's like I'm so happy because I do have that kind of a DD thing going on though I'm not officially diagnosed, it's pretty obvious that I just cannot focus too long on one thing, but I can focus extremely well on that thing for that period of time that I'm capable of.

(00:33:25):

But then I completely lose focus and then I focus on that other thing really much until I focus on that first thing again, it's just skipping from different things. And that's why everyone asked in the nineties, oh, you were in six different projects and some stuff were even bands with touring. How did you do all that? Yeah, but I didn't do all on the same day. I had a rehearsal with that band on the Monday and then I focused, that was my only thing. And then I had a rehearsal with that other band on the Tuesday and then that Monday band didn't exist. I didn't bring up what we did. You just skipped through all these projects and I could never just focus on the one thing. And I do know that people capable of doing that. Like my friend Mika Fel from ETH for example, he just focused solidly on eth or my friends in Millen Collin focused only on their band, but I could never, that's just not who I am from personality wise, but that's what you need to do to be a headline act still after so many years in the business, you need to super focus on that one thing.

(00:34:36):

But sorry, I just cannot, but it worked out anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:34:42):

It definitely worked out. The thing about what you just said about you work on the one thing and then you can't focus anymore, so you work on the other thing. I think where a lot of people go wrong with that is that when they work on the one thing and they lose focus, they don't then go work on the other thing. They just stop working. And that's typically where I think people go wrong. There's a lot of downtime in the music industry. Bands always have delays. Shit always takes longer than you think it will when you're waiting for people to send you stuff. Things always just take forever. And so you have all this extra time always, at least in my experience, there's always this extra time when waiting for things, for waiting for people that you could be using to do something productive. And if you were to use that time, you could get a lot more things done, which just sounds like that's one of the ways that you get everything done is by making the most out of that downtime.

(00:35:49):

That's just built into this industry because this industry is very inefficient and it's not just that it's inefficient, it's also based on art. And so art can't always work on a schedule, and so if you're working on art, it's going to take the amount of time it takes. And so if you understand that and are you efficient about the time, you can get a lot of things done without having to work 22 hours a day. It's just a matter of when there is a delay, what are you doing with that delay? Are you going and playing video games or are you working on this other project? I think that's the real issue when it comes to people who overbook themselves and then don't get anything done or don't meet their deadlines. The question is what are they doing with the downtime? I think that if people were to actually do what you're saying, they'd get a lot more shit done. That's my opinion on it.

Speaker 3 (00:36:51):

Yeah, there's also the aspect of always being mixing.

Speaker 2 (00:36:57):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:36:57):

I mean sometimes when I had a holiday for, I didn't hold a computer mouse for 10 days, I lose that flow. My shortcuts and what I do in certain situations, it becomes almost like second nature to me when I am right in the middle of one of those, I have four mixes and three mastering plus some of my own music that I like to work with. And I just feel like I am in a flow and now I sent those guys that file. Here's the link, bam, open the next project and then, okay, now I have 20 minutes, maybe I play a little bit piano and then bling. You got to reply from that. And that's just how I love to work. And I am so extremely grateful that I'm able to do that because I just have this, you need to communicate with your artists and your clients or whatever you want to call them.

(00:37:50):

All of a sudden I am working with a band and you think, I wonder why they didn't get back to me about that mastering thing. And then you see on Facebook, oh, they're in Singapore. Oh, that's why because they're touring and of course they cannot listen now about serious stuff. And then also, yeah, they are five members. They all have families and kids and day jobs because they could never make a living playing that kind of metal that they play unless they really went for it. And of course they cannot give me now within 25 minutes feedback on a mix and then it takes eight days for them to get back with a list of corrections or just say it's all good and I need to use that time to do stuff. And there is actually so that I could have four, five projects going on at the same time.

(00:38:43):

And there are still days when I open the email program and I have the day for myself because none of them were giving me any feedback on anything because maybe it's a Saturday or something and then I can work on my own stuff and then I make sure that there is never a dull moment here. I have transferred old analog tape so I can remix stuff from the late eighties, early nineties. I have my own record, which is kind of pump a OR project that I've been doing for almost 20 years now that it's never seemed to get ready. But I love to work on that one. It's just like my music straight from the soul and the heart and the mind all combined that's just like my precious, I have a copilot in this project and he say, oh, you are in Golum mode again.

(00:39:36):

Like my precious, I just do stuff edit and just have the best time. And I did read one time in I think mixed magazine that this really super famous mixing guy, whatever, they asked him, what do you think bands should do? And they said, yeah, you should always have a project that is not a deadline thing. It could be you could ask your friends for their last records files when it's already out there and just mess around with it. Try stuff, whatever weird ideas you get, have a multi-track song or a record and just mess around with it. Try out that new D eter plug on that session. Do not risk getting that. Oh, maybe that was not the best decision two weeks after you turn in the masters you just have to experiment and do crazy stuff. So whenever there is a new plugin or whatever that I like, I try it on that project and mess around with it and think, yeah, this qualifies.

Speaker 2 (00:40:37):

It's like when a guitar builder has their tester guitar, the cheap piece of shit guitar that they buy so that they test new guitar building or setup techniques so that they don't break.

Speaker 3 (00:40:54):

Yeah, the

Speaker 2 (00:40:54):

Good one of the valuable ones. What you're saying here is really just awesome to hear. It's awesome to hear because you're taking what annoys the shit out of so many engineers. And dude, I see this all the time because we have this community online for URM thousands and thousands of mixers and I know what annoys people. I mean, and I did this myself and I know what it is that pisses mixers off all the time. And one of those things is not getting their back on time, taking weeks to get notes back and not all that stuff, but you're seeing it as a blessing because it gives you the chance to do all the other stuff you want to work on. I think everybody listening needs to take that to heart and next time it happens, it is going to happen. That's just part of the gig when you're working with bands, these things happen to find a band who actually gets the notes back on time every time in 25 minutes and they're great notes, nothing stupid in there and it's just completely efficient. And not only is it efficient, but all the players were perfect. And not only were they perfect, but the arrangements were godly and not only were they godly, but the songs were great. This is a utopian situation that doesn't exist or if it does exist, it's like once every three years. So why be pissed off all the time? Should accept it and then use that time for other things that you want to get better at or finish. It's great. I think people should see it as a blessing. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:42:46):

Yeah, I do because I see it in some ways when I get those days or even those hours to work on my stuff, remixing old demos or remastering old stuff or whatever, I see it as, I get that kind of as a gift from the universe because it's, I make a good living out of this stuff and this is paid for. I'm still not saying no to mixing other bands for two months and just do my own stuff. No, it's just because that's the time it takes for them to collect the notes and get back to me. And I just get that day for free. I'm constantly checking the emails. I'm constantly trying to be as an alert, okay, now I got that back. Now I have to stop remastering my old stuff and I get back to work. But some days those notes just never show up. And I think it's so great. I am super efficient and I know exactly what I can do with my stuff and it keeps me sane because there is only so much def metal that you can mix before you need some kind of to work with some other type of music and there's no problem with def metal. But I need also to have this kind of more melodic

Speaker 2 (00:43:58):

Stuff. You can only take so much. You can only take

Speaker 3 (00:44:00):

So much. Then I have my own stuff from the past or also this project I'm working on and then I can get that. And when this begins to be a little bit like, because there's massive arrangement with backing vocals and there's this guitar orchestras and style of Brian May and just like, fuck, I cannot balance that shit again. This is, and then bling, oh hey, we're this grind band. Can you master our stuff? Yes, send me the files now. And then I just go full on grind core mastering and the contrast are cool to just switch between all this, your own past, your own present stuff. And then there's all kinds of music because it is both mixing and mastering. You get to work with so many different genres within a genre and it keeps it exciting and I'm really excited to be able to do this. It's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (00:44:50):

I'm just wondering personally, because for me the hardest part is momentum. So when I'm working on something, I get so much momentum that I don't want to stop because I just don't, I'm, it's like a train basically. I see myself kind of like a train. It takes a while to get going and when it's going it's very hard to stop. But I've tried to do what you're saying and when I've done things the way that you're saying, I've gotten so much done. It's crazy. So much done. Every time that there's a downtime and someone else's late with something, don't get mad, just get right to work on something else. And I love that method, but if I'm being honest, it's tough for me because of momentum. It's hard for me to just immediately get momentum with something else. How do you do that?

Speaker 3 (00:45:42):

Well, I must clarify that it's not about me writing new music a whole other universe. And I honestly haven't written that much music lately because I kind of emptied myself out with this massive release thing since I signed with Central Media. I did Nightingale retribution, I did two with Escape Full-Length and with Escape ep. And it was just like I took everything I had kind of saved up from the previous time when I didn't write much and I just released so much in a short time that I felt that now I need to focus a while on only working with mixing and remixing and mastering and stuff other people's stuff or my own stuff. And what happens subconsciously when you listen to your old, I mean I listened to the first recording I ever made period with my brother when I was six years old and we had a song together called Time to Die and it's like 30 seconds long.

(00:46:40):

And I just went and remastered that edited a bit and put it as the first track on a weird compilation I released through our fan merch homepage. It's selling, I don't know how many copies, but it's a fun do it yourself kind of thing. And I visited also the first thrash metal song I ever did in 1989, I think, and remastered that one and got that in shape. And subconsciously you are thinking, oh, maybe I should do a cover version of that, or that kind of riff is cool or I wish I had played that melody like that instead. And you take little mental notes and once you reboot the writing machine again, you have all those little balls that you throw up in the air. You can just pluck them down. And once you get in the zone, which I find also that your train thing there is really a cool description because I cannot write a song and be right in the middle of the chorus and get some really good writing done and then, oh shit, I have to go back to the mix now. That's what I cannot do. And that's one of the things that I find a bit strange because when I go full Gollum mode in writing music, I fear those emails from my clients, they disturb me.

(00:47:56):

And I don't like to think, oh fuck those guys, they want me to mix their record. Oh, I just want to write that fucking chorus to the end. So subconsciously I've kind of removed myself more and more from this full on writing with my setup. I still do play guitar, I still do play piano, and I have some really good kind of skeleton things for songs that I could work on in the future. But

Speaker 2 (00:48:22):

So it's like you've made the decision on what you want to prioritize because it almost sounds like it's incompatible to be mixing and mastering as much as you do and then also writing. So it sounds to me like you found the way that you're most effective, and so you're eliminating the things that get in the way of that.

Speaker 3 (00:48:44):

And the harsh truth is that I do make a good living out of mixing and mastering stuff, but when I see the royalty statements or the streaming things, what you call this, the kind of paperwork you get from the streaming services, how you get 2 cents for trillion plays, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:49:01):

38 cents,

Speaker 3 (00:49:02):

And then you think, I really cannot see that even when you get a good budget or so from a label to write 10 songs that I feel is just the best. They can be fleshed out, fully mixed. And so that was working in the nineties, but for me subconsciously, I stray away a little bit from that whole write a new record. So these days I'm actually happy when I think that I could write another song that I think is good enough to fit on the previous album I did with whatever project. And I'm not saying that I've stopped writing music, but I just have to find maybe a time when I could have maybe one mix going and then go full on writing and recording demos or so. But I, so I still get that really warm vibe whenever I get an email and say, Hey, we're a band.

(00:50:00):

We want you to mix our record. I just feel so happy because there's so many other excellent mixing engineers out there in the world, and I just think, wow, out of all they shows me and that just kind of blows my mind. And of course I want to work with them and that other band and they came back again. So there is never going to be that downtime when I can say, oh, let's do another writing session here, because I'm just so happy. And I just enjoy mixing and mastering so much. And I dunno how many songs I have written since I started doing it sometime in the early eighties, but it gets so much harder to write really good song that gives me goosebumps and I feel I want to play this to the world. This gets so much harder. But I feel that I get so much better with the mixing and the mastering with every project I do. So yeah, this is motivating me. I'm

Speaker 2 (00:50:58):

Just going to take a quick break and I promise it's going to be quick, but it's important. I need to remind you guys, so please forgive me. This episode is brought to you by the URM Summit, four Days of Networking workshops, seminars, and hanging out with your URM friends and dozens of the industry's best pros. It's November eight through 11 at the Las Vegas West and tickets are available right [email protected]. Alright, back to the episode. I feel like I'm getting repetitive here, but what you're saying also really resonates with me. I can really, really relate because I was very, very focused on writing for a long time. It was kind of my main thing. I learned how to mix and record so that I could get recordings done for my own band because I also envisioned them as final products. That was always the priority.

(00:51:54):

At first, it was the writing. And there came a point though where, and I remember it, it was a certain day in 2009 where I was like, okay, that's it. I said what I wanted to say. It was like the project of writing, I mean, which had lasted a long time, was kind of done in a way, it's not that I never wrote again, but something in me changed to where I was satisfied. I didn't feel like I had much more to say with it, and it didn't give me that same sort of feeling anymore. And lots of people ask me about it all the time. They want me to keep writing stuff and I have a hard time getting them to understand that I'm no longer that same person. Well, I mean I'm the same person, but I'm not in that same space anymore.

(00:52:49):

There's other things that give me that feeling. And so you pursuing the mixing because it still gives you that feeling. I think that that's key to having a successful music career is you have to feel that way about what you're doing. That's the only way that you're going to try hard enough to do a great job. If you're not feeling that way about the music you're working on, whether it's mastering or writing or practicing guitar or mixing, it doesn't matter if you don't feel that way about it, if it doesn't give you goosebumps and give you that warm feeling, what the hell are you doing? Because you're not going to put in the effort to make it as good as possible if you don't feel that way about it. In my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:53:33):

That's exactly the way I feel. And it's hard sometimes to respond to, I get lots of questions and emails and say, oh, it's the next withers scape album coming out, whatever. And it feels a little bit like, yeah, I'm not really, I don't know if there is going to be one ever or in how many years I might do it again or so because I also don't want to disappoint them because I really felt that the Northern Sanctuary is the best metal album I ever did and maybe the best one I could ever do because I put so much of me into it and I got so kind of carried away by the whole process and I just felt this is going to be the one within this genre and I cannot really, and you did it,

Speaker 2 (00:54:19):

There it is.

Speaker 3 (00:54:19):

Yeah. And the feeling you have is like, okay, another album of that kind of quality, I don't have it in me. Maybe I could muster up one more song or whatever. But also then I don't want to kind of disrespect the fan base by putting out some substandard stuff, like some tracks that were left off the album because I felt they were not good enough. I don't want to release them ever because they are not good enough period. Not to cover up like, oh, give me three more years. No, I don't have to because I am not making a living out of being a musician. But I do respect my past work, but even more so I respect the people that bought and listened to my music, and I don't want to give them stuff that I don't feel is the best stuff I ever did because

Speaker 2 (00:55:10):

Exactly

Speaker 3 (00:55:12):

That moment you deliver the record anything, wow, this is just so good. You can only hope that one or two persons in the world will feel the same way. And there were a bunch of persons who felt that about Nightingale's retribution or the Northern Sanctuary, and I just felt, wow, cool. We have some kind of cosmic connection because I feel so too. And yeah, there are some songs that are kind of being written in my head a little bit that I might work on someday, but like I told you, I need to feel that I get the same kick and vibe out of that song as I do about diving into the next mix or mastering project, or I just won't do it. It is just that vibe.

Speaker 2 (00:55:50):

Yeah, there was this record I did with Sean Reiner.

Speaker 3 (00:55:54):

Yeah, I know him.

Speaker 2 (00:55:55):

The Cynic Death drummer, and it's called Avalanche. Yeah, he's a legend and I think one of the best drummers of all time in Metal, so amazing and unique. But yeah, we did a record together called Avalanche of Worms, who's an instrumental record, and I just, yeah, man, when we were recording it and writing it, it was just like, this is as good as it's going to get from me. I kept thinking that. It was like, this is what I've been working towards all this time. This is the pinnacle of what I want to do with it and can do with it, and I just don't see it getting better. And that's it, the end. And I'm okay with that. I was totally okay with it. I think that respect for the people who love it is a big part of it too, because I never wanted to put out something that sucked. That would be terrible. I feel like that would be disrespectful to people who bought and loved stuff I did. And it would also be disrespectful to myself and it would be kind of shitting on everything that I worked for when I was working for that. It just why shit on your earlier work, if you feel like you did your best work or something you did was a pinnacle, why not just accept it for what it is?

Speaker 3 (00:57:20):

Yeah, that's what I have done at this time. There's always this, oh, when's the next record coming out and this and that. And it's hard for me to all the time have to tell people that, sorry. I was never really that much of a professional musician. I made my living recording mixing other bands since the early nineties. But some see me as this musician guy, oh, you must have a really big house or an expensive car, whatever, because you're a famous musician. And I know that happened to a lot of the Swedish bands also. It's like, no, it's not that We don't really make that much money, and in these days you make the money out of the touring and I don't like doing that stuff. So I just think that there are other bands out there that are on the top of their game and I'm just going to stay out of it. And like I say, don't shit on my own stuff unless I can feel that I can top that or making it kind of the same level of quality, which some writers obviously can do for some magical reason. But I do think that they are not constantly mixing and mastering stuff all the time. They're probably,

Speaker 2 (00:58:25):

That's right. They made the decision that writing was their thing. And that's also not to say that in the future you might not feel that way. You might feel in the future that there's something to write, an album to write that will be your best work. And who knows, you never know what the future holds, but if you don't feel that way now, then you don't feel that way now.

Speaker 3 (00:58:49):

So it is, and I've learned that I had one of those kind of periods of time where also did really not write any new music, but somehow you kind of heal a little bit and you get something changes in you during this time, and I know it'll be the same now. And yeah, like I said, maybe I will write stuff again in a couple of years because I've done so much mixing and mastering and I feel that I stay on a really good level. Even when I took some time off, I would still really be on that the best I can be, but I still feel that there is much to learn with the whole mix and mastering stuff, and that's really where I have that fire in me for that thing. And I'm just going to go with that now for a while.

Speaker 2 (00:59:30):

So speaking of people who have focused on just the one thing, you brought up ERT and O earlier and you were a big part of their early work. I think that it's interesting to point out that you said earlier that he made the decision to go a hundred percent opec. That's his thing. All the focus on that. I'm sure that he's talented enough that if he wanted to do other things, he could have done other things, but he chose that one path. I'm sure that if he wanted to be an engineer back in the day, he could have become an engineer. I mean, he is a talented, talented guy. Have you noticed that that's kind of something that these guys have in common who are in those bands that kind of become legendary, that they've kind of like a great mixer who's decided that they're not going to do anything but mix. They decided that this band, this writing for this band is what they do and it's all they do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):

I think that there is this one person in the case of eth, it's definitely Mike who's got that grand vision. And I was blown away by Opeth already when I worked on the first record with the Way, I mean, the music is completely unique on Orchid and it's also unique on It sure is their music was always unique and not kind of obeying any normal rules of the genre that they somehow still work in. And that just kind of blew my mind. So this band comes to my studio, haven't heard a second of their music. And the first thing was that all the members of the band, you had the vibe, you had known them for seven years, but you had just spent 15 minutes with them. Super nice guys. And then when they started playing the music, there was no normal structure, there was no chorus, no verse.

(01:01:32):

It was just like rifts magically intertwined for a minimum of 12, 13 minutes. And I remember just sitting there, I was like, what's going on here? That was blowing my mind away to the point where Edge of Sanity also did then kind of like an opeth tribute thing with Crimson because I just saw them throwing the rule book out and I think I want to do that too, but expanded into the kind of 40 minute albums that I listened to growing up with Michael Old Field or Jean Michel Jar or all those one song album, things that would be cool to do in the metal world. But that was just, and I knew from an early time that Mike, he was very determined, he's going to do this, he's going to do Opeth, he's not going to do it like I did. And then, oh, now we'll release an album with that.

(01:02:26):

I'm going to start this project and that project and let the band become a project. No, he was 100% focused on Opeth. And I mean even with the change in Style it, they're still there all the time and really selling well and being focused and I have so much respect for him for just following that dream or that vibe and through all the member changes and label changes and what he went through, it's wonderful. And I think you need at least one of those guys in the band, that guy who just think, I have a fire for this to be a musician, a professional musician. And I have no problem with touring, playing lots of gigs and writing songs, having writer's block coming out of the writer's block. That's like their dream. They're living their dream and it's all ups and downs and there's different types of vibes within those dreams.

(01:03:19):

But for me it was always like, okay, I see now that my dream is having this recording and mixing and having bands coming. But then I felt, what if I could only do it like Bob Clearmountain and this only do the mixing. That would be so cool. But you couldn't because there was no common format unless you were maybe doing this two inches 24 track tapes. And I, I did 16 track and it was only Sunlight Studio that was compatible with me. So that was just until I started again in 2004, there was this wave file that you could send over that was DVDs or hard drives. And later on over the internet it's like I could only do this what I always wanted to do, only mixing and mastering. I don't have to meet the guys. I don't have to be a part of that psychology where they cannot play the song anymore and this and that. Someone else do that dirty work. And I get only to do the fun part and I think this is too good to be true, but that's when I felt the fire just was light up again in me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):

You rekindled it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):

Yeah. And I felt this is what I want to do full time forever, not recording that other bit.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):

I think everybody needs to find that. And the thing is, some people are lucky enough to figure it out really early. It sounds like Mike figured it out super young. Just a thought came to me that obviously they have to have the talent to be able to pull it off even if they, no matter when they figure it out, you might figure it out super young that you want to have a band. Opeth going to be legendary, but if you're not as good as him, good luck. But I mean, assuming that there's some talent involved, assuming that the person has talent and a good work ethic and that stuff, let's just assume that it is important to figure this out, I think. But I also think that history shows that people figure it out at different ages. And for instance, the lady who wrote Harry Potter didn't write that shit until she was in her late forties. There's Anthony Hopkins, the actor, he didn't get his first big break until he was 41, I believe. So you never really know when that thing is going to happen, when the path is going to really get defined, but that doesn't change the fact that at some point you need to figure out what that thing is.

(01:06:06):

And so if you're 23 or 43 or 53 or 33, it doesn't, that part is variable, but what's not variable is that I think should always be hunting for what's that thing that makes you be at your best? And I think that that's what it comes down to because if you're not doing that thing that makes you, and I kind of said this earlier, but if you're not doing the thing that makes you feel that way, you're not going to do your best work. You need to find what it is that inspires you to do your best work. So you figured out that through lots of trial and error and lots of work that yeah, maybe doing the whole band psychiatrist thing isn't for you, and that's totally cool. It's not for everyone. I figured out in the past five years that recording and mixing is not for me. I wanted to start a business and it was a weird decision, but I've never been happier. It's almost like every single thing I did came together in what I'm doing now. It took until I was in my mid thirties to figure it out, but that's how these things go. But what's most important I think, is figuring that out. When did you figure out that mixing and mastering was your calling and not necessarily being the band guy or being the producer? When did you know that this is it?

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):

I think it was kind of early in my career that I felt that the recording part was something that, I mean, I always enjoyed the whole experimentation of the kind of soundcheck face where the tuning of the drums and you put different mics and different places and all that stuff. But once you had all the sounds and you started the actual recording process, I got easily bored with the thing. After we had done a couple of songs, if it was a full album, it was just like, oh, I wish someone else could do this, because I just wanted to start mixing. And that's the thing that I was looking forward all the time to doing the mix. But the way that recording went during these 13 or 14 days or whatever was almost like you had maybe two days to do the mix and sometimes the stuff was super complicated.

(01:08:34):

There was no automation and it was really like, oh, we have to do some really crazy shifts now with working 16 hours straight or whatever. And then the stuff needs to be mastered on Monday and then bam into production. So I guess already around 95, 96, I felt I want to do only this bit, but I want to have a day per song and not a whole album in one day, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't say to the bands, yeah, but you have to record with someone else and they have to have this fostex machine that I have and that brand that I use because my machine is kind of calibrated for 3M tapes, not for Ampex. That just didn't work. So I just have to wait it out. And eventually I got so fed up with the whole thing that I closed Chop in 97 and just got a job still selling studio equipment and always doing stuff on the side, minimum of one other album for another artist.

(01:09:38):

But during my holiday from my day job, but I got to learn so much from everything for those years that I didn't work full-time as a recording guy, I just felt that I healed inside a little bit. I got the vibe that one day I can do only that mixing and mastering. I just have to wait a little bit longer because I saw the ADAT machines, I saw that there will be some kind of format in the future, and once hot Disc recording really got stable and the computers got a little bit faster and also people could afford the better computers, the better sound cards and record themselves, I found myself back in business again. Really, it was November's Doom, an American band. They just sent me an email in 2004 I think, and they say, Hey, we want you to mix our new album.

(01:10:26):

And at first said, no, sorry I'm retired since a very long time, but they just want to take no for an answer. And I said, yeah, okay, let's do it in this way. Then you send me the files and I will mix it and we see what happens. And it turned out so good that we are still working together today, so many years later, and I just got other offers from other bands and said, yeah, we heard you're backing business with the mixing. That's great because we are recording in our rehearsal room because we have no budget anymore. We got dropped of that label or we got 10% of our old budget. And I said, yeah, I'm here. It just hit me up with the files and what kind of reference you want and let's mix. So I was sitting all my spare time when I did not work in the shop, I was mixing and mastering stuff and I got really not much sleep and came to a point where I went down halftime working in the music shop and then halftime or more like full-time mixing.

(01:11:22):

And eventually it just made it possible for me to make a living with full-time mixing and mastering. And then there somewhere around the end of 2011, I think then my just dream came true, full-time mix and mastering. And it doesn't mean that I have to work around other people's schedule. I can just put my own hours. I can wake up and just make sure that I do my eight hours. It's just a wonderful way and for me that it really is my dream come true. Others might say, yeah, I want to be number one on the billboard chart and tour around the world. So that's not my dream. It never was. My dream was this mix and mastering full-time and be able to do my stuff on the side and don't have to book a studio to remaster some old cassette that I transferred. No, I can do that with the same gear in the same place that I also do my normal job, but I'm at work doing my own thing and I still pay the bills. That was always my dream and I'm living it. It's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):

It's amazing. So I've got some questions here from some of our listeners that I'd like to ask you, if that's all right with you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):

Absolutely. I love those.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):

Okay, great. So let's see here. Ruben Sanchez, I was wondering what's the story behind that? Unusual guitar playing, playing left-handed, but with a right hand guitar without moving the strings? And also, well, you already talked about part two, the question part two was just your evolution from writing and all the way to mixing and mastering. So I already kind of discussed that, but yeah, so what's the story with Behind the Unusual Guitar Line?

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):

Yeah. Well, first of all, I am this one. I think it's called Ambidextrous.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):

Ah, okay. So it's not unusual then. Well, being ambidextrous is unusual, but still that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):

Yeah. So since was forever as far as I can remember, I was and still am in so many ways, a drummer and I played drums like everyone else with the right hand on a high hat and the left on the snares. So traditional drum kit set up. But for some reason my parents told me that the first time you picked up a guitar, you did it the other way around. You had the plectrum with the left hand. And the way my parents were like, oh, it's so cool that he is picking up a guitar. We don't have the nerve to tell him, Hey, it's the other way around. So they just let me, there's pictures of me getting these guitars, but I don't know, I was five or six for Christmas and already then I have it the Jimi Hendrix way, and I just somehow it was like I was always composing my first real band that did anything. It was called Ghost. And I composed all the stuff on keyboards because we were a duo. It was drums and keyboards and we shared the lead vocal duties and I just composed on keys. And then we made a decision

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):

Like Ghost the Ghost, we know now.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):

No, no, I mean the real ghost. That was my ghost from 1983 until 1988. It's actually released on

(01:14:38):

Both vinyl and CD now, all our old stuff. And that's also weird, but super dream come true for me. But anyway, so whenever I pick up a guitar, I would sneak into my older brother's room and he had this Yamaha Spanish guitar with no indication of this is up or down because here are knobs or whatever. And I just kind of pick it up, started playing. I wrote riffs, I wrote melodies, and then I wanted to show it to a guitar player and they were like, you're playing upside down with the strings upside down. What the fuck are we supposed to learn that stuff? And I was like, ah, it's not that complicated. The riff will sound pretty much the same when you play it. I just wrote it. I am the drummer. I wrote a riff on a guitar, learn it, and then we play together.

(01:15:26):

You play guitar the normal way and I play drums and I was never really considering myself to be a guitar player ever, really. It was like I am a drummer and I was then a singing drummer or I was only a singer. But then came the point where I started writing more and more stuff and I just felt maybe I should really play these guitar parts because upside down, you get another vibe. I can play chords that is really complicated to play the other way around because I like the sound of the open strings. And then you just have to copy your hand really weird when you play it on a normal guitar. So when Nightingale started doing stuff, I remember the first gig we were playing with Nightingale. I just went to the first rehearsal for it and I stood up with the guitar for the first time ever and it's like, oh, so this is how it feels to have it on a strap.

(01:16:20):

I cannot see shit. This feels super weird. So my guitar playing was used. I sit down, I have done the guitar in a really comfortable position, but standing up and then singing at the same time, I was devastated. This is going to sound really bad, but that was also learning by doing to stand up and play guitar and not look all the time on what you're playing. So I slowly became a guitar player and it was still secondary to me that I held it upside down with the strings the wrong way. I mean, there's plenty of other guitar players that actually play in that way that in really big projects, it's not many of us, but they are out there and

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):

It happens.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):

Yeah, it gives it another vibe because I hit all the time coming from the other way, and then my brother played together with me at Nightingale. He hit the strings then from up to down and I hit them from down to up, so to speak. And then you get just a normal fucking power chord. They're struck from two different positions, gives it a bigger weirder vier sound somehow because one note comes before the other in a way. And especially the bigger the chords get, the more you have that kind of change in timber or whatever, it just a magical sound when you mix that up. So all of a sudden I was also a guitar player and it's really complicated for me to find guitar that feels right somehow because I actually built a combination of a left hand body and the right hand stuff. The Floyd Row had to be from a right hand, but the body was left hand and it was really not turning out the way it should. And I still play a normal guitar, just flip it upside down, move the electronics behind the tremolo system thing. So it's not my arm on it all the time, and that's just the way I like to play the guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):

Wonderful. So here's one from Mateo Co, which is Please, please, please ask him a question that's been haunting me for almost 10 years. On the Odd Land debut, you produced the treachery of the Senses first track Above and beyond. As soon as the vocals enter the stage, you can hear the guitars moving out from the center of the stage, creating space for the lead voice in the center. How did you do that? Did you move the reverb or did you lower the Central Quad Track guitars? It's an amazing production and that moment felt mind blowing to me. First of all, do you remember what he's talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:18:55):

No, I'm terribly sorry. I do remember. I remember the mixing session. I remember they have some fantastic songs on that record, but that effect I cannot really remember, but it sounds like it's some kind of psychoacoustic thing I guess going on.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):

Kind of hard to remember an exact effect from 10 years ago, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):

Yeah, it's pretty hard. But I do have one of those signature moves, which you could call it when I have double tracked vocals. And there are some moments when I normally put them just on top of each other centered like becoming one voice. I do like it to start panning them from center two, one go to the left and the other to the right at the same moment just opening up something that comes. Then in the center channel, I do it a lot of it with long roll or whatever, but there's also those double moments and that that's a visual thing. You opening up something and then this other thing can just kind of come through there. And it's cool that they like it. I do not remember exactly how it was done, but it's wonderful that someone could pick such a detail that's just super lovely and I will have to listen to it after we're ready.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):

Well, I mean if you listen to it and it rings a bell, email me.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):

I will.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):

And I'll tell him. So from Ryan Johnson, here goes, Dan, you're one of my favorite producers ever. How did you get the guitar tone on Bloodbaths Resurrection through Carnage album and what did you do to Michael's vocals processing wise?

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):

Well, I actually do remember that one pretty well. Okay, here it goes. The sound, the guitar sound on Resurrection through Carnage is first of all, very importantly a shechter, cello blaster. It's a five string guitar. They manufacture for a short while that was made to be tuned like a cello, which meant it was a factory made with strings to sound really good, interesting in a only the string set alone was custom made for this piece of equipment and costed like five normal string sets cost. But they came with those strings and I think I got an extra set from the distributor because I was probably the only one ever to buy it or something. But I just felt that's the guitar for me. It's made to be tuned down. No other guitar that I could get my hands on at the time seemed to be when you do the intonation thing and you even saw that they had drilled the hole to put the string through was really much more behind the other one to make that hole intonation on the 12th threat actually working for a string that was like zero, 70 size, and it's like halfway through a bass that's like 0 85 or something like that when it's in a,

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):

I call them elevator cable strings.

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):

Yeah, pretty much. But it was kind of like a baritone guitar before I knew they existed, but only with the five strings. And that's the main key because you could just play an open power cord and it would intonate perfectly and the sustain would go on forever and you don't have any of that wobbling thing going on. And second, I did then into a heavy metal pedal, a boss original with all knobs on Max. This is like that has to be there. And then at the time I had a Digitech Gen X two I think it was called. It was one of those really sturdy metal things, and I was always trying to avoid real amps and real speakers because at the time I was having just a really, really small room in the flat, so I couldn't really make much noise. And I just found one, I think it was a Marshall Amp emulated and one cabinet that sounded like it was not coming from one of those processors.

(01:23:11):

It sounded like, oh, you micd up a cabinet. Cool. And that was all I needed. And then I played the opening riff to drowned from and Tombed with that sound. And then I took the actual recording from Drown from Intu, cut out that guitar intro alone. And then I used a software called Free Filter from Steinberg that was revolutionary to me because it's really much like EQ matching. Before I knew what it was, it could just take one sound and make another sound out of it and just sounded so extremely close when you played that exactly the same riff and just kind of referenced it with the software matching thing to the other tone. Unfortunately, the latency was like 400 milliseconds or whatever, so you couldn't really play with it on, but we had a really good tracking sound that was really focused on hearing, tuning and hearing stuff. But I mean, you scoop the fuck out of it with, I mean I haven't seen anything that scoops that kind of, you have two sounds on left-hand path. There's one Ds one in the middle that have a bit more mid range around four, 500, but those demon guitars from hell, that's like left and right. That's just the weirdest guitars and I'm constantly using that as a reference for as wonderfully fucked up a guitar can be. They vomit on you, these guitars, they just vomit in your face.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):

That is such a great way to put it. It sounds disgusting in the best possible

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):

Way, but the way that it mixed on left-hand path, it's got that high five vibe to it. There's no weird resonance, it's nothing, it's just like in your face. And then all other attempts of heavy metal pedal sounds, they never sounded like that. For me, that's just like the holy pinnacle. And there are a few moments on left-hand path where there are playing only those rhythm guitars. And I used, I think mainly drowned because it's the longest period and that's just how I did it. Then we played all the guitars and then I just free filtered all the guitars based on that kind of filter. You get this kind of offset, if you want to call it from me, playing drowned and tombed playing drowned. And I applied that to all of the guitars on the whole record and that's when it just kind of imploded in a nice way. Oh, you finally nailed that sound. And yeah, and that's how it is. I guess it's kind of the same way. I still do guitar sound these days, but I don't really use much hardware things. I love to use guitar amp software also, but I do a lot of this. There's an amazing software called Bel. I don't know if you've ever heard about it, but

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):

I have not.

Speaker 3 (01:26:08):

You can do tone matching that you can just forget all other that claim that you can match this and match that. Yeah, it's okay. It's somewhere in the ballpark, but with Bel it sounds so the same without any annoying pre ringing or whatever that sometimes I forget, which is the original. And when you turn off your filter tweak that you did, it's like a separate software and you have to draw the curve by hand with the mouse. It's like, what's the original here? Because once you mimic the actual vomiting of the guitar itself, it just sounds the same. It's really weird. So I can recommend that to everyone who wants to try out and really copy the sound of another guitar use Rebell. I've not endorsed or anything. It's just saved my ass so many times. A wonderful standalone software for EQ matching. And every mix I do still to this day, I open it up in Bel, I have my reference curved in and I have my mix in the green curve and I say, oh, there's a little bit more on 83 Hertz on that YZ Bogin mix. Oh fuck, I have to go back. Why is it so? What is causing my dip that should not be there? And then open it up and horrible again. And once the curves are pretty similar, I think, oh, it sounds great. The curves are very close to that of a mix. I know. Sounds perfect everywhere then I'm kind of ready. So yeah, it's a long elaboration. But

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):

No, it's a great elaboration. What about the vocals?

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):

The vocals are a road NT three handheld condenser thing that also runs on a nine volt battery. So it's kind of what is a small half condenser thing? Capacitor Mike, what they call it. And Mike held it with an extended pop screen. And there was actually a version of the album with Mike sounding a little bit more like he actually sounds when you record him that close to the membrane. And I played it to a friend of mine from a band called The Project Hate, and he told me pretty straight up, the vocals sound terrible. What the fuck are you doing? I said, oh shit, I don't have the processing power to do more to them because I was still on an old Mac or whatever. And I just constantly hit the max CPU and I think, oh, okay, what I do then. So I mixed the whole album without vocals and then I just opened the stereo file, added the vocals and found a preset in waves C four called Too Much Limiting. It's like the last preset on the list. Put that on Mike's vocal and bam. It's just, I don't know what it did, but it's just limited the hell out of four bands.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):

It did the right thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:57):

And I just remember this, whoa, I wish I had a computer so I could do this all the time to all tracks because at that point, waves C four, you bought it separately, it came in a box and it was like, oh, it's like my tc, but I can have two or three and this one band more like, wow, how great isn't this evolution of sound with a digital workstation and plugins. I love it. So yeah, that's it. It's like a handheld capacitor mic and then C four that press it. And I used it a lot of times on growling vocals because it's just kind of nuking, like low mids, mid range, the harsh mids and then you get the air for free because it's not much going on up there, but it kind of releases it into the wild because it's there and the limiter is only working sometime for some transient, so you bring that air out. Super.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):

Yeah, great answer. Okay, last question. This one is from Andreas lineman, which is the records you make share of death and tonality that often reminds me of the way great metal records sounded in the early nineties. I feel it has a lot to do with the way you use reverbs. What's your approach to using reverbs and metal mixes to create that kind of density and debt? Love your work. You're a huge inspiration.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):

Thank you very much. That's always good to hear. Well, I think one of the things I've been doing for the, I dunno past years is that I don't use any reverb on drums. I use ambience samples taken from other sessions from my latest love in the ambience is one specific recording of the Galaxy Studios in Belgium where I have kicks and snares and all kinds of Toms. And I read once that Bob Clearmountain distorted reverbs and I still remember why would you do such a thing, but if Bob does it, and I love his drum sounds, they're like the best. So I wanted to have that kind of vibe to it. And then I started experimenting with ambience samples. You just have to find a matching tuning. And then I distort them with a multi-band distortion thing and I back them down really low. So you get kind of a reverb that you have full control of and mix that in with a dry real drum rather than adding reverb to a direct signal.

(01:31:33):

Always sounds extremely fake to me because you don't hear ringing snares in a room when you put a reverb on a closed mic snare. It just sounds strange. So that's the key. You have full control and vocals. You just have to be careful that when you put reverb on the vocal, it doesn't really matter how the reverb sounds when you solo it, it needs to sound great together, the vocal. And that was my first problem when I went all in the box to find a reverb that sounded like my yamahas that I was using for the first part of my career. And I found out that all the reverbs I had in software, they were too good. They all sounded like super. So I did some testing and then I put my old lexicons and my old Yamahas or some kind of auxiliary through my workstation and then, oh, there it is, reverb the way I like it.

(01:32:30):

But when you solo that, it sounded really weird, but somehow blended perfectly with the vocal itself. So what I'm trying to say is that you should always just put on a reverb. And I like to use it with the wet and dry on the signal itself. Even when something is mono, I put it on a stereo channel and I put then an insert of a reverb. Like the EMT plates from universal audio is fantastic. And they sound not really that fantastic when you solo them, but together with the source, they just sound magic. So I guess that's what people are hearing. I get a lot of requests, all the Toms and storms of the light being out you do is, I don't even know what reverb I used, probably haul one from a Yamaha XP X 900 probably. It's just like I have here, I have reverb here, I have delay, end of story. And some of those algorithmic stuff that's been around for ages that just blend well with other stuff. And that's the key. Don't audition the reverbs too much based on you have white noise or whatever and listen to the tales and how nice. They're just find shit that works with the source. And you would be surprised how strange the solo reverb auxiliary channel can sound.

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):

Absolutely. Well, Dan Swano, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been fantastic talking to you and I'm just glad I finally got to talk to you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):

Yeah, thank you very, very much for having me. I'm super excited. I've been listening to this podcast for a really long time and you've had some of my heroes on it, still waiting for Chris. Lord Algae. I listened to his brother. He gave me some really good tips there.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):

Man, that was a good one, wasn't it? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):

With this, it's not the gear, it's the ears. It's like ringing in me. Why didn't I come up with that? That's the motto. Who cares the gear? It's like what you do with what you have and there's not much talking about what specific type of this and that. It's just like, I love it. And also my old friend, Jan Boian, the two podcasts from him also learned a lot. I bought a Wilkinson the bleeder plugin like 20 seconds after I heard it, and I've been using it ever since. It's super fantastic. And yeah, I just listened yesterday to this with machine and the guy from Lambert Guard. It's just so much to learn. I thought that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:05):

Well, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:35:05):

I was, I'm really late on catching up on the whole podcast revolution, but I do see it now as some kind of radio thing where you don't get edited or someone is telling you what to say.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):

And also you could go for as long as you need to.

Speaker 3 (01:35:22):

Yeah. So I think I'm honored to be in the awesome company of all those other engineers and also musicians and so yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):

It's been an honor to have you on.

Speaker 3 (01:35:35):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):

Yeah, my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Jay-Z microphones. For over a decade, Jay-Z microphones has combined all the critical elements of world-class microphone manufacturing, patented capsule technology, precision electronics, and innovative industrial design. JayZ microphone's, deep understanding of technology is informed by their open-minded, innovative approach. Trust us, sound can be glorious record. For more info, please go to JayZ mike.com to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.