JAY RUSTON: Getting Killer Bass Tones, Why Modern Records Sound the Same, and Building Your Career

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners. And if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:55):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share post and a tag. Now let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. My guest today is literally one of my favorite mixers on earth right now. His name is Jay Ruston, and his body of work is just ridiculously great. He has spanned multiple genres and he's made records for some of the greatest bands and artists, including Diana Ross, anthrax, steel Panther Stone, sour Bowl for Soup, avatar, Amman, Marth, cataclysm, and many, many more. I'm going to shut up now. Let's get started. Well, Jay Russ and welcome to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:00):

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:02:01):

I'm glad that we could work this out. I've been wanting to have you on for a while. I've been following your work for years now, so it's cool to have you on. Thanks for taking the time. How's this Corona situation going for you?

Speaker 2 (00:02:16):

Pretty good, to be honest. When it first started, early March, at least here in Los Angeles, I had just finished, well, not just finished, but I had basically the end of January, I finished recording the new avatar record. We had done a month in LA in December, which was a first for them to record outside of Europe. And then I did two weeks or three weeks in Helsinki in January with the singer who lives there to do vocals because we record the whole album live in Burbank, and then over dub all the vocals

Speaker 1 (00:02:51):

Live as in everybody playing at the same time in the room.

Speaker 2 (00:02:55):

And we kept everything

Speaker 1 (00:02:56):

Awesome

Speaker 2 (00:02:57):

And we recorded on tape. So that's a very long story, but I'll finish the Corona bit first. So basically I finished tracking their record, took a little break, did the whole nam thing, and then I had basically a month or six weeks to mix the record, which I really wanted to just take my time on it. So when the Corona thing kicked in, it was like, oh, well, I'm mixing anyway. And first it just sort of felt pretty normal to me, and I finished that by mid-April. And yeah, it was just sort of a strange thing to not feel that different, but at the same time, seeing all my friends completely suffering and be miserable, especially my touring friends, it's just been devastating. So yeah, absolutely. At first it didn't affect me too much, but it's affecting everybody that I work with and love and it's just, it's brutal. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:03:43):

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. Part of me feels a little bit guilty because we weren't affected by it at all, actually, URMs grown, which makes sense because people are home.

Speaker 2 (00:03:54):

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. And the phone's definitely been ringing to do more recording and whatnot this summer, so I'm happy and excited to be able to work. I just wish that a lot of other people in the music industry could come back sooner than later.

Speaker 1 (00:04:09):

Yeah, I don't think they're going to be able to tour till next year.

Speaker 2 (00:04:12):

Looks like it.

Speaker 1 (00:04:13):

Yeah, it's crazy. But I do think that once things get going again, it's going to be an explosion of work basically.

Speaker 2 (00:04:22):

It's going to be a little crazy. Yeah, I think people need to be prepared for that, which is good. I mean, it'll come back and I think people will, I think music fans in general clearly want to get out and go to shows now, and maybe that's not the best idea, but I don't know. I'm not a scientist, so I'm just kind of relying on them to tell me what's best to do. So

Speaker 1 (00:04:43):

I'm not listening to anything I hear on the news, just I ask doctors and if they say it's cool, then I'm cool with it. But I feel like paying attention to the news is just asking to get pissed off and misinformed.

Speaker 2 (00:04:58):

Yep. I agree.

Speaker 1 (00:04:59):

The thing is, how different is your life though with this? Mine's pretty much identical minus the travel.

Speaker 2 (00:05:06):

Yeah, I work from home a lot. My mixing studio is in my backyard and I have a bunch of dogs and they're all seniors, so a quarter of my day is taking care of them anyway. And then I get to work around noon or one every day and work till 11 or 12 at night, take a dinner break or something and enjoy my little kind of compound here in the city. So you're right, it's not that different if I'm not producing a record and I do a lot of mixing, probably 75% of my year is mixing and I'll produce one or two or three records a year, which takes up the other quarter of the time. So I think that it's fairly consistent, just it's what I do and I'm alone a lot anyway working. But I do miss meeting up with friends in the city and other music industry, people going to shows and traveling for sure. Sometimes I travel to make records.

Speaker 1 (00:06:02):

Is that ratio of mixing to production, was that kind of the goal eventually? Or did you start doing more production?

Speaker 2 (00:06:10):

I started doing production, mostly producing and sometimes mixing my own stuff when I was in Canada in the early years. But when you're younger and you're starting out and a lot of times someone else ends up mixing it or the threat of someone else ending up mixing it is always there. But as I got more experienced and got older and got better at mixing, I definitely focused on mixing, if that's your question. I wanted to be great at mixing and I wanted to not have albums taken to somebody else and then listen to them back and be disappointed, which would happen on a few occasions. But luckily in my early days I didn't have that happen too often. And then I got to the point where just I always mixed everything I did. And by the time I moved to LA in 2002, I think I was mixing everything I was doing anyway.

(00:06:57):

And so then for about three or four years in LA when I was working under other producers, I would do a lot of mixing and you learn how to get better much quicker in a heavy environment like Los Angeles than say in small town Canada. So for about 10 years I really mixed more than anything, probably 90%. And then I started producing more and then it got almost to be like 50 50 where I was half the year producing. And then of course mixing those projects and then mixing other people's records as well that I didn't produce. And it just sort of depends on the year, to be honest. The last couple years I've been producing a lot and maybe that ratio has lowered down to like 50 50, but in general over the last decade or 15 years, definitely been a little heavier on the mixing side. And I love mixing. It's definitely something I focused on and wanted to really try and be great at. But producing, they're very different jobs and it's like one is a brain surgeon and one is somebody painting a picture. They're just so different. So I like to be able to flip those hats. And I also like to do different genres of music.

Speaker 1 (00:08:13):

That's actually one thing I wanted to ask you about, because you do so many different genres of music from death metal to pop to rock to whatever. Do you get into a different headspace when you're working on Cataclysm versus Diana Ross or do you just approach it the same way?

Speaker 2 (00:08:30):

I really don't because it depends on what I'm doing in those jobs. Like Diana Ross record, I was working under a producer named Peter Asher, who is a legendary guy. He worked with the Beatles as kind of running Apple Records and he discovered James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. So working under guys, that is a very old school approach, which is extremely valuable. So you learn how to set up a whole band and make a record in one day because the band comes in with charts, it's like sort of a Nashville kind of thing. So in that case, you're basically working for a producer trying to make them happy, and you just want everything to sound great. And I think great engineering can be applied to any genre of music. And if I'm trying to make an a mono marth record and get great vocals out of Johan, I'm also trying to do the same thing when I'm working with Wilson Phillips. It's the same process, the same coaching, the same, try to get the best out of them as possible. The engineering might be slightly different. The tones obviously are different, but you're still trying to make a piece of art that the artist is in love with that you also think everybody else listening to it will love.

Speaker 1 (00:09:41):

That makes sense. Speaking of small town Canada, what is up with the amount of awesome producers that come out of Canada? There's quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (00:09:52):

It's funny, I mean I love them all too. My mentor early on was Jack Richardson who did all the Guess who stuff. And then of course his and Alice Cooper and he discovered Bob Ezrin, another Canadian producer, and then of course Jack son, Garth Richardson who did Rage Against the Machine and all that stuff. And then you have the West Coast guys like Randy Stubb and Bruce Fairburn and Bob Rock, of course. It's just crazy. Now you've got the C Chicos of course. So it is pretty amazing. And there's lots of Canadian producers that stayed in Canada and have amazing careers there that a lot of people around the world aren't necessarily aware of. And then you have superstar guys like Daniel Lando that just are on a whole other stratosphere of everybody else.

Speaker 1 (00:10:36):

What do you think it is about Canada that pumps that kind of talent out? I know what you mean about LA kind of being a pressure cooker in that if you don't get good, you're not going to survive and you're going to have to leave basically or just quit.

Speaker 2 (00:10:50):

Pretty much. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:10:53):

In LA either you get good or you're waiting tables forever or you leave Canada from what I understand, doesn't have that kind of pressure to it. It's much more of a chill place from my experience. What do you think it is that fosters that kind of talent a lot for the population density, that's a lot of great talent.

Speaker 2 (00:11:15):

If you think about Australia or South Africa or places like that of you got Kevin Shirley coming out of Australia, mutt laying out of South Africa. England of course is pumped out. Obviously hundreds of amazing producers, some of the greatest of all time, Martin Birch and George Martin and people like that. Canada, I don't know what it is. I think that maybe it's the underdog thing. And it's the same with music that comes out of Canada. The bands in Canada that become successful become incredibly successful like Alanis or Nickelback or Rush or Neil Young, I mean just Celine Dion, they become like superstars. It's a strange thing. And then the artists in Canada that don't become superstars are still pretty damn big on their home turf. Like the Tragically or Devon

Speaker 1 (00:12:02):

Townsend

Speaker 2 (00:12:03):

Devon, exactly. People like that who, or they become really big overseas and aren't really well known in Canada or just didn't like Danko Jones. He's huge and amazing in Europe, but doesn't get a whole lot of love in Canada, which bums me out. But he's great.

Speaker 1 (00:12:19):

It's kind of an interesting thing. I always wonder if there's something in the water, kind of like in Sweden.

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:12:25):

The ratio of awesome musicians and producers to the population is really, really high. And then if you compare it to the other Scandinavian countries, it's not like there's no talent there. There's some great producers and great bands, but there's something about Sweden where there's just a lot more of them.

Speaker 2 (00:12:42):

Sweden's a magical place. Yeah, I love going there. I love working there. I love the bands. I love the attitude. It's just a great place. My family history is from Sweden as well, so I feel very connected when I'm there. Sometimes I blame it on the weather that six months of dark and cold. It just makes people be creative. It certainly would explain all the creativity that came out of England and Birmingham, especially in the metal scene and Canada too. But how does that explain all the amazing stuff that came out of California? The weather's perfect all the time, so maybe it isn't a weather thing, but certainly in those places it might be.

Speaker 1 (00:13:19):

How did you end up going to la? What led you to leave your gig in Canada and give the LA thing a shot?

Speaker 2 (00:13:26):

I sort of have a strange connection to Alanis Morissette, and I've never even met her. I was working, after I finished college and mentoring under Jack Richardson, I moved to a city called Ottawa because a studio there that was pretty much the only really pro studio in that that city was looking for a house engineer, basically somebody just to record whatever comes through the door. And it was owned by a guy named Leslie Howe. And Leslie had discovered Alanis when she was 16 and did her two dance pop records in Canada that were platinum in Canada, and nobody in America knew she even existed. She left Canada, came to la, wrote with hundreds of people, and finally her and Glen Ballard make jagged little pill and she becomes a worldwide phenomenon except that she owed that guy in Canada, two more records on her record deal with him.

(00:14:17):

So he had a very small piece of jagged little pill and did pretty well financially. And he decided to move to LA and build a studio in Studio City. And he reached out to me after being down here for a few years and said, instead of hanging out in Ottawa recording bands that aren't worldwide phenomenon, why don't you come to LA and give it a shot? And I loved my time working at that studio and all the bands were amazing. But yeah, it's hard when you're in a small town like that. And when I say small, a million people, but it's not the same as America or London, England, and I wasn't in Toronto and Toronto had become a very sort of hipster scene, which just wasn't the kind of music I wanted to record, and I just sort of dropped everything and said, yeah, let's just give this a shot.

(00:15:09):

And so I moved to Studio City and got a work visa through the studio and just started recording whatever came through the door just like I did in Canada. And the thing about LA and probably Nashville and New York and play anywhere where there's a music hub is you just start immediately. I meeting people and they connect you to somebody who then connects you to somebody who then connects you to somebody. It's really incredible how that works. And I can trace all the great records and great happenings and meetings down to one or two people who were very helpful to me early on when I was in LA and introducing me, and it's pretty amazing. I was very lucky and fortunate to just meet lots of great people.

Speaker 1 (00:15:53):

That's actually the part of succeeding at something that I do consider luck. I'm not like one of those luck dudes. I think you kind of make your own luck, but there is the luck factor and it's generally who you happen to meet.

Speaker 2 (00:16:06):

Correct.

Speaker 1 (00:16:07):

And what their headspace is at that point in time, and whether or not they feel like connecting you to somebody, that's the luck factor.

Speaker 2 (00:16:14):

Well, the first question I asked Kevin Chico when I met him, and he's an awesome guy, I really enjoy talking to him, was how did you meet Mutt Lang and how did you get that gig? Because he basically came from the same place I did opposite side of Canada, but small town, small city, recording whatever came through the door. He was basically recording Christian rock bands and his brother got the gig playing guitar for Shania Mutts engineer wasn't working out. Boom, there's a connection. It's like you just never know what's going to happen. And so then of course he moves to Switzerland and starts working with Mutt for many years, and Kevin then becomes a world renowned producer. So it's just like you said, right place at the right time, being good at what you do, having a good attitude, schmoozing and getting out and just talking to people is so effective, especially in this city.

Speaker 1 (00:17:03):

The idea is to set the stage for which opportunities can take place in, because obviously there's no way to really force them to happen, but the more people you meet, the more involved you are with people, the greater the likelihood is that something will come together, especially if, like you said, you know what you're doing and do a good job and people like you. I think a lot of people get that side of it wrong in the socialization part in that they try to force things too much. And what I've noticed is that it mainly just comes from not necessarily always being friends with everybody, but being friendly with most people and having just friendly, good casual relationships with a bunch of people that aren't really goal relationships. It's not like I meet this person and hoping to get something out of them. It's just meet this person and be cool, and maybe in a few years something will happen.

Speaker 2 (00:17:58):

Well, that's a good attitude to have and I've had that attitude since I came to LA and some of the relationships and people that I work with we're 10 years in the making. Certainly my relationship with Corey Taylor went over a decade really from the first time that I met him to actually working with him was maybe about six or seven years. But you just never know how those things are going to happen, so you just meet people and someday your paths may cross again.

Speaker 1 (00:18:25):

I can tell you that some of the most successful relationships or deals that I've made or whatever have been with people that I've known about that long, it's always been people that I met in the early two thousands and we were just kind of friends, fell out of touch, got back in touch things, and then eventually there was just an opportunity that made sense for us to collaborate on. It's very rarely ever been from that scenario, like at Nam where you get introduced to somebody right away and then something awesome happens right away. That's not my experience at all.

Speaker 2 (00:19:03):

No, no. It's always a long build.

Speaker 1 (00:19:06):

Yeah, that's why I try to tell people who are trying to get in that, I mean, obviously skills aside, they have to have an insane amount of patience.

Speaker 2 (00:19:15):

Absolutely. Oh, I've actually met many engineers that were honestly quite average at their job, but they were so easy to work with and so good with the clients that as long as they're willing to learn or try something new, I was more than happy to try and improve their situation. Whereas I've worked with engineers that were absolutely brilliant at getting tones, but just had horrific bedside manner. And it's just what's more important, and I'll take the personality nine times out of 10,

Speaker 1 (00:19:48):

Lots of people who have come on the podcast have said the exact same thing. I guess you can teach skills. Skills are learnable, but the human part of it is, that's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (00:20:02):

You can't really teach somebody how to just be a normal good person by the time they're in their twenties, thirties or forties, that ship has sailed. So you just have to hope. If you find somebody that's good with people and session etiquette and all that, then yeah, you train 'em.

Speaker 1 (00:20:21):

So on that topic, and I'm not saying this so that people hit you up, so people listening, do not hit Jay up about this. I'm just curious, when you're looking for an assistant or an engineer or an intern, what are the kinds of things that actually get them through the door with you or get you to actually give it a go?

Speaker 2 (00:20:42):

What I normally do is I work alone here at my studio and for any editing or chop shop stuff I need to do, I farm some of that out to a couple different people. So I never really have anybody sitting next to me or in my room prepping mixes or anything. I've always just worked alone, but when I'm recording a record, I rely on the studio engineer and very rarely do I, who that engineer is, do I get to make that choice? First of all, budgets just aren't what they were, so I don't bring my own engineer with me too often. Once in a while I get that opportunity and it's fantastic, and I'll have two or three guys that I can lean on for that. And I like to split the workup a little bit, keep everybody busy if possible. Here in LA there's two studios that I use a lot and they both have fantastic in-house engineers, so I know what I'm getting and who I'm dealing with, and that's great.

(00:21:41):

Overseas obviously, it's a different story. You show up if the person's great, they're great. If they're not, you just deal with it. And if I could bring my engineer everywhere around the world with me, I would, and maybe someday the music business will allow that, but at this time I think it's somewhat cost prohibitive for two people to be traveling around, at least in the budget range that I work with. But my favorite engineers, I just sort of repeat what I said earlier, are great at what they do, but also just great with people. And I have an engineer that I use in Burbank. He's French English from, he worked at Sphere in the UK and he's at Sphere in Burbank now, and he's fantastic. He's too quiet. I have to beg him to speak. And sometimes you get assistants that are too chatty and throw their opinion out to the artist, which might not be welcome, depends who the artist is of course.

(00:22:37):

But I'm just old enough where I grew up in the old studio atmosphere where the assistant sat in the corner and kept his mouth shut and ran the tape machine and plugged cables in and just literally was running the whole day, never stopping, and the producer and the engineer were at the desk and that was it. And then obviously all that's changed with once Pro Tools came in and once budgets were cut to 10% of what they used to be, all that kind of stuff changed. So I'm lucky that I'm young enough that I've learned all the new way of recording, but I'm old enough that I also witnessed and worked quite heavily in the old system as well. So I'm just at that perfect age.

Speaker 1 (00:23:17):

Do you have a preference?

Speaker 2 (00:23:19):

Well, like I was telling you earlier, with Avatar recording on Tape, tape has its benefits and I will only use tape on specific bands that I think it will help. And with them, they basically told me that three records ago, which was the apocalypse record, which was actually the first time I ever worked with them. They had recorded that record in Thailand.

Speaker 1 (00:23:42):

Man, that base tone is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:23:45):

It's something else. So the producer, Tobias Lindo, who makes plugins, he had done that record and they recorded that fully live. Some of the songs were like 30 takes, and they really wanted to just record the band live and they rehearsed and rehearsed and just went nuts, nailing it over overdubbing guitar solos and vocals of course, but just the core track. So then they did a couple records where they didn't do that and kind of do the drums over dub the bass over dub the guitars, blah, blah, blah. And when we came and I had mixed basically three in a row for them and some production as well. So when it came to this new record, they were pretty adamant about wanting to go back to that, the apocalypse vibe of nailing a best one or two or three takes and maybe comping those together a little bit, like use a bridge here or a chorus there, but no real heavy editing or anything like that.

(00:24:36):

And no click on a lot of it as well. Then we create a click tempo map after the fact to the band's tempo. And so it was a real treat to make a record like that because they rehearsed for about a month, eight hours a day in Sweden, like all good Swedes do, and showed up in Burbank ready to go. And man, it was such a pleasure. I think we did the whole thing in less than three weeks. The way I make records is I do one song at a time. Basically we start at noon and by four or 5:00 PM we have the basic track guitars, bass and drums, whether it's live or some overdubs or some fixes. And then we start in on vocals and background vocals and if we have time, we'll hit the guitar solos or maybe we'll save those for another day.

(00:25:26):

But then when we come in the next day or a day and a half later, we start a new song. I really like to just focus on the song. I find when you track drums for a week and then bass for four days and then guitars for a week, just I get bored and I think the musicians get bored and people tend to be repetitive with the ideas they interject and you sort of forget, well, what did we do in this song or that song? It was never appealing to me because that's not how records were made for 50 years. Records were made the other way where you just finish a song and then finish another song. But all that change with digital where it was like, oh, we can spend weeks just on the guitar and all that kind of stuff. And I feel like we got away from making records that way, which makes it a little less creative I think, in some ways and a little too perfect. And when you hear the new avatar record, it sounds tight and the band's great, but it doesn't sound like it's a perfectly chopped and edited record covered in drum samples. It just doesn't. That's not what we did, and that's what the band wants and that's what I like to do. And my idol is Martin Birch and those Iron Maiden records sound like a band playing in a studio, which is exactly what it was. And I try and make a more modern version of that.

Speaker 1 (00:26:47):

When a band says that they want to do that though, does it scare you ever as in just because so many bands can't?

Speaker 2 (00:26:54):

Sure, yeah. I mean, not everybody can do that. Yeah, I, and I'm lucky that I, and maybe it's just the bands that gravitate towards me or vice versa, but I recorded Stones Sour that way. I recorded Steel Panther, black Star Riders, Uriah Heap, avatar, even am Mono Marth. We tracked the whole band live, which they hadn't done ever, I don't think. And then we just fixed what needed to be fixed, and that was extremely technical record. So obviously we focused more in overdubbing some of the more intricate guitar parts. But I remember the guitar player turning to me and saying, wow, hearing drums in a room next to me in a studio. It's been a long time. I think people just get locked into a way of doing things, and that's fine. It doesn't mean that the other way isn't successful, obviously it is, but it's just how I like to work.

(00:27:43):

But yeah, there's certain bands that probably can't do it, and sometimes it's not because of their ability, it's the style of music. Could an extremely technical death metal band do it? I don't know. Maybe if they were rehearsed for two months straight or literally walked off stage off with three months of touring, playing those new songs every night. But nobody does that, so that's tough. But when it's rock and roll and I make a lot of straight up rock and roll records where it's not that crazy technical, it's much easier. And all the country stuff I've done over the years, yeah, it's all

Speaker 1 (00:28:16):

Live. Speaking of rock and roll, I've noticed that your mixes kind of have a rock sound, even on the extreme metal side of things. They have the clarity of rock records. They're still heavy as fuck, but they have a rock sensibility to them, which I think is really cool. That Cataclysm, for instance, it doesn't sound like one of those scooped ass death metal records. It sounds kind of like a rock band playing death metal, which I think is really cool.

Speaker 2 (00:28:47):

Yeah, I don't know how to do the other thing you're mentioning in the guys that can do that I get envious of because I listen to their stuff and I'm like, I don't even know how to get some of those sounds. And maybe some of it's samples and some of it's in the editing. But yeah, I guess that's maybe because of my age or whatever. It is hard for me to make a record that really sounds like that. I suppose maybe it's just what, I always go to live amps. I use a lot of old Marshalls and plexes and things like that, but then usually the guitar players on the more metal stuff will bring in more modern amps. And then for me, that's a learning experience too. I can see what they sound like, but then turn them onto some of the older stuff. And with am Mono marth, we used a brand new Hugs and Ketner, which had that really scooped heavy sound, but then we blended it with a Marshall Jubilee that we rented, which actually belonged to Dave Murray from Iron Maiden. So it gave us a very unique guitar sound. We got the clarity in the notes from the Jubilee, but we got the heaviness from the Hughes.

Speaker 1 (00:29:51):

Do you ever find that the bands that come to you, they're coming to you because of what you do, they wouldn't come to you if they wanted that thing that you just said that you don't really do. Do you find that typically they're coming to you because of that rockish kind of sound that you bring to the table?

Speaker 2 (00:30:11):

Absolutely. Yeah. I've had a lot of bands come to me wanting that sound and then realizing that it might not work for them. We all do test mixes. We all try working with bands. I think I've test mix for Kill Switch, engage two or three times now and never ever got the gig. And it was always the same response from the band. We love it, it's great, but Andy Sneak does exactly what we want. I'm like, great use Andy because he fucking rules. They shouldn't bother going to me because Andy's going to nail it. You know what I mean? So that happens. And even cataclysm, I think at first they might've been a little taken aback by how the mix sounded, but they were pretty adamant that they wanted it to sound like their band, like how they would sound live, I suppose. And I think we did it.

(00:31:00):

And at the time, they seemed to be happy. Whether they still are, I don't know. I haven't talked to them in a while, but I think, yeah, bands certainly go to me because they decide, okay, we've done this, we've tried that. Let's go and try something like that with him. And it doesn't always work out. I mean, I think years ago when I was doing an anthrax record, the Shadows Fall guys hit me up to mix a song and same thing, they heard it and they were like, yeah, it sounds good, but it's not what we're looking for, and that's fine.

Speaker 1 (00:31:30):

It's just not us.

Speaker 2 (00:31:31):

Yeah, I get it. It's not always that thing. And sometimes I just say no. I'm like, I am definitely not the person for this. And they're like, no, no, please, please. And I'm like, trust me, you think you want that, but by listening to your previous catalog, I can really tell you, unless you absolutely despise what you've done up to this point, I can't see why you'd want to make such a drastic sound change.

Speaker 1 (00:31:56):

Was it harder for you to say that when you were younger? Is that confidence with age sort of thing?

Speaker 2 (00:32:02):

Yeah, when you're younger, you just say yes to everything, which is a smart thing to do because I made opera records, I I'm a Christian Church choir records, doing all those different weird things really helps you learn the craft of record making and engineering. I made a record with a Canadian band called Junkyard Symphony where every instrument was junk. He literally made instruments out of garbage,

Speaker 1 (00:32:31):

Actually junk.

Speaker 2 (00:32:32):

Yeah. And it was fascinating. And he was a genius because we would take a weird instrument and he would make a loop and then he'd just keep making loops and he would build notes out of it and chords. And it was, I mean, I learned more probably in three weeks of recording garbage than I did on many other records. So it was pretty fascinating experience and it taught me how to, that was in mid to late nineties, so it taught me really how to utilize midi and loops. And back then we were using outboard samplers and you had to trigger sample loops with midi notes and nothing like now, and then bounce it to the tape and hope it all lined up and synced up.

Speaker 1 (00:33:13):

That's another thing that I tell up and comers is don't be choosy. I feel like being able to say no and having more of a choice over who you work with is something to aspire to.

Speaker 2 (00:33:27):

Correct.

Speaker 1 (00:33:27):

It's something that you build towards, but at the beginning of your career, I think that it's so almost suicidal to say no to projects before you've even developed your own sensibilities, your own tastes, your own sound to just say no, because you happen to be a fan of a certain style or something.

Speaker 2 (00:33:46):

Yeah, I mean if would've only growing up, I only listened to metal, I listened to Iron Maiden, Pantera, Metallica, and then some more rock stuff. Obviously Van Hale and Led Zeppelin Sabbath of course. But if I only wanted to record those types of bands, I'd probably be in my parents' basement. You have to learn how to do other things, and that's where you learn everything is working with something you don't understand and with somebody who knows a hell of a lot more than you. And that's why mentors are super important. And it's harder these days because everybody's at home alone. They're just in their cave. But YouTube has sort of become the mentor and all the different online stuff, the mix with the masters and all that kind of thing, what you guys are doing, that's basically how a kid in the middle of nowhere is going to have a real mentor is going to, I didn't have any of that. I would literally have to read Mix Magazine to figure out how Andy Wallace had his SSL bus compressor set if they even told that secret.

Speaker 1 (00:34:53):

Yeah, that's kind of the whole idea with URM is with the big studio industry, not existing the way it used to. I think the opportunities for mentorship and real life are, they're just not what they used to be. And not only that, I also remember trying to find information on how to make heavy records. And it was like having to be a forensic detective or something. I just wanted to help fill that gap a little bit for people. I still think that nothing replaces in person, and I'm saying that owning an online platform, and as much as I believe in it, I still think that there's a limitation. You can only go so far online, you got to do this shit in real life. And if you can get a real mentor in real life, even better.

Speaker 2 (00:35:46):

Well, it's like any recording school is going to teach you the technical basics. And even as great as my school was and as great as the teachers were and the teachers at the school I went to, it was the only one in Canada at the time in the early nineties, and they had all made hit records, which isn't as prevalent these days in a lot of these recording schools. So I was very lucky. But again, a year out in the field working for real, that's where you really learned and you applied those technical things you learned from school, but you learn how to make records and making records.

Speaker 1 (00:36:21):

So speaking of making records and making all different kinds of records, how did you make sure that your vision was aligned with the artists, especially when you're doing oddball shit like the garbage album or an opera record or next day a death penalty record. How do you make sure that you're aligned?

Speaker 2 (00:36:40):

I just ask them a lot of questions, really, and it's getting into their head and just finding out exactly what they're trying to achieve. And usually they have a record that they love that they reference all the time. Oh, this record speaks to me. And it might not even be the sound, it might be the feeling or the vibe it gives them. And that's very helpful. I think Johannes from Avatar sent me a playlist of about a hundred songs before we made this record. I really want to get inside his brain on this record,

Speaker 1 (00:37:10):

A hundred songs.

Speaker 2 (00:37:12):

It was just this killer Spotify playlist songs he grew up on, and it was everything from Swedish Death Metal to kind of English goth rock. And I helped introduce him into British New Wave and things like that because a lot of the stuff he was doing was reminding me of Peter Murphy or Bauhaus or psychedelic Fs. He has this kind of baritone Peter Steele esque voice if he wants to. And I didn't know if he had even been exposed to that kind of music and he really hadn't. So it was sort of, I guess maybe he was getting it out of being a huge typo negative fan. But Peter Steele was listening to eighties goth music, so you can always keep tracing it backwards. So that was very helpful listening to what he listened to growing up, some of which I was very familiar with and some of which I wasn't familiar with at all.

(00:38:08):

I did not grow up listening to Death Metal and certainly not Scandinavian death metal. So I learned a lot about all those bands and that kind of music. And mostly it was like an energy he, he'd play me a record by the haunted and say, this isn't necessarily the best sounding record, but man, when I put it on, I just want to break shit and go nuts. And I got that totally when I would hear the song and I'm like, okay, now I understand what you're hearing in this. And so that was all really helpful. And same goes for every other style of music. I usually ask for references. What records do you love? What would you like this to sound like? And that can sometimes be silly because you're never going to sound like that band. I heard a great story of Steve Stevens, Billie Idol's guitar player. He went into Compass Point in The Bahamas to record a record in 1982 or something, and ac DC had just finished back in black at that studio, and the engineer played him a couple of the rough mixes and Steve was like, wow, we're going to sound just like that. And of course they didn't. They sounded like shit because that was ac dc and Mot Lang and he was in this new band and he was like, oh, okay, now I get it. It's about practice and playing and writing great songs and having a great producer.

Speaker 1 (00:39:24):

I think I read Bob Rock say that after the Black album, everybody wanted that. Even pop rock bands wanted to sound like the Black album. It's like, it's not going to happen. You're not Metallica.

Speaker 2 (00:39:37):

No. It's funny though. He did spread that snare drum across First The Cult, then Dr. Feelgood, then the Black album. It's literally the same snare sound. It's a good one. It is. But it's funny.

Speaker 1 (00:39:49):

So have you ever had this scenario where, okay, you're asking for a reference and the band gives you something that is just so not what they're about. It's a pop rock band and they give you a slip, not record, we want to sound like this, but it's like you can't sound like that. Do you ever have that sort of scenario where the vision is kind of

Speaker 2 (00:40:14):

100%?

Speaker 1 (00:40:15):

Yeah. Well, how do you deal with that?

Speaker 2 (00:40:16):

Well, I'll give you a perfect example. Actually. I did a meatloaf record with Desmond Child Producing. They had brought Jim Stein back to write all the songs who wrote all the best meatloaf songs. It was the Bad Out of Hell three record I think in 2005. And we are at a big beautiful studio and we had these amazing session players. We're recording live, everybody's going to tape. It was just fantastic. And we get to this song that they had co-written with John five and I think maybe even Nikki six or something. And Desmond puts on a Slipknot song and plays it for a bunch of these country guys, and we're kind of listening to it, and I'm familiar with it. I know the record, and they're just all kind going, why are we listening to this? But he was playing it for them, and I thought this was brilliant because he wanted them to understand aggression.

(00:41:04):

And he's like, I know this doesn't sound anything like Slipknot, and we're doing a meatloaf record. He goes, but listen to what this band is doing. And it worked. The drummer went out and he was hitting harder and he was pushing the time rather than laying back. And it was a really interesting experiment. Obviously that's not the artist bringing me something, but it was just an example of how something completely out of left field can make you look at something a little differently. And sometimes a band will bring me a reference and I'll be like, well, you're playing me an orange and you're asking for an apple. So I'm not exactly sure how we're going to go about that, but then I try and dig in a little more and figure out why they like that. And sort of like with Johannes and playing Me the Haunted or something similar, he didn't want his record to sound like that, but he wanted his record to make him feel like that. So I had to figure out how the hell to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:42:00):

It's kind of basically being a translator

Speaker 2 (00:42:04):

Basically, and psychiatrist, translator, mind reader.

Speaker 1 (00:42:09):

Speaking of Avatar, I have to ask you what is up with the base tone on how the apocalypse, how did that even happen? That base tone is insane?

Speaker 2 (00:42:18):

Well, with most records, I treat the bass pretty similarly in that if they give me a di and a bunch of amps, most of the time the amps don't sound that good. They have weird low mid mud or they're distorted too much or they're just farting out, wrong mic on the speaker, whatever. There's usually impossible to get in phase, all kinds of issues. Or they'll do a di and then they'll reamp it seven times and give me all these different weird sounding base amps, none of which are useful, not that that happened with that, but basically from what I read.

Speaker 1 (00:42:58):

But that's what typically happens

Speaker 2 (00:42:59):

Typically very often with that record in particular, I remember a fairly simple setup coming in. It was a di and an amp, and he plays specter bases, which are great. So usually what I would do, especially back then before the Dark Glass base plugin came, I would use the Sans amp plugin on the DI and just add some distortion and usually add about 12 or 15 DB at one K just to get that gnarly grind. And then I'd shave off the top end down to 4K or something pretty steep curve so it doesn't get all clack and he plays with fingers, so it can be clack, but most likely that's probably what I did. And then favored that DI over the amp and maybe just use the AMP for bottom end, really

Speaker 1 (00:43:45):

Pretty simple approach, which means that very simple, the playing had to be right on.

Speaker 2 (00:43:49):

He's a fantastic musician and that's really what makes the difference. And I did something very similar on the First Stones, so record I mixed, which is the House of Golden Bones record, they used Rachel Bolen from Skid Row on bass because their bass player had left and they made the record basically without a bass player. So they had him come in and to play the bass, and I had no idea what an incredible bass player that guy is and plays with the pick has a, I don't know, a 69 or 1970 P base. Walked in, plugged in and David Bottrell was producing and captured a great di and then sent me seven amps and none of it was really working. So I literally muted all the amps, I threw the sand amp on the di, put a bit of distortion on it, cranked up the mid range, and I remember Monty Connor calling me and going like, holy fuck, how did you get that base out?

(00:44:43):

I'm like, I literally just turned up the DI with a little sand ZZ on, and that's Rachel. It just sounded amazing. But it really comes down to the player and the groove and simplicity. I take a very simplistic approach to the bass, but if you're going for a really extreme distortion or something, that can be a little trickier. One of my tricks when I record bass is a clean, a nice micd up amp at a very low volume, usually a guitar amp, like a small clean high watt or a Clean Marshall at low volume. And then I'll use a very small, heavily distorted guitar amp with a 57 on it that's just literally just fuzz and put that on its own track. So then if I need bass fuzz, I just pull up that fader and there's the grind and it sounds better than any pedal or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (00:45:32):

The thing that I've noticed about your mixes is that for heavy mixes, the base is way more prominent than you normally hear. Typically in metal, even if you can hear the base, it's kind of just adding teeth to the guitar in a way, adding teeth and rounding it out. But in your mixes it does that too, but it's also its own instrument. You can hear everything the bass player is doing. But what's unique about it to me is that usually when you can hear everything the bass player is doing, it's a shitty mix and the person didn't know how to get things to blend together. It sounds awkward, if you know what I mean. It doesn't marry the guitar to the kick drum the way it should, right? There's something about your mix is where the bass stands out yet it totally fulfills its role.

Speaker 2 (00:46:24):

Well, I am a bass player, so maybe that makes sense. That's part of it. And a lot of producers are bass players funny. A lot of Canadian producers are bass players too, but I think that people underestimate how important bass is in the mix, especially in music that isn't metal. The bass is as important as the guitar, especially when it's a bass player that's moving. Or adding melody like John Paul Jones or the bass player from Stone Tup Pilots is unbelievable the way he mimics vocal melodies on his bass and he's also writing the songs. So maybe that's part of it. But for me, a lot of the bottom end in the mix comes from the bass. A lot of guys like to pump up all that sub on the kick drum and everything. To me, especially when it gets into double bass that just turns into mud. I prefer to get my bottom end from the bass guitar usually, and I don't add any, it's just turning it up a ladder and the mix perceives more bottom end.

Speaker 1 (00:47:20):

Do you think that because you're a bass player also, especially when producing bass players, you just have more of an understanding of how to get what's needed out of them?

Speaker 2 (00:47:29):

It can be frustrating sometimes when you're working with a bass player who doesn't know how to mute his strings or just isn't playing something the way I would've played it, and I'm an average bass player now, but when I was younger, I was good. I practiced all the time. And any good Canadian was obsessed with Rush. And it's just, yeah, that definitely has a huge part of it is getting a great bass home when producing a bass player and coaching them on how to play bass, at least in my opinion, correctly or better. And honestly, most of the guys that I've been lucky to work with in the last few years are all great and have great technique, but everybody does things a little differently. And some people bend strings too much or they don't know how to mute the strings. They're not playing. And that can be subtle stuff that live doesn't matter, but when you get in the studio under the microscope, it's like, oh, I've been doing that wrong for my entire career. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (00:48:23):

Yeah, absolutely, man. I really do think that bass is the secret weapon and heavy records, a great bass tone makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 2 (00:48:34):

Well, certainly with a band like Am Mono Marth, the bass player was pretty used to just having this low rumley, non-existent, defined tone in the background underneath the guitars, and he was just okay with that.

Speaker 1 (00:48:45):

Well, I mean that's so standard in metal,

Speaker 2 (00:48:48):

But I put a specter in his hands, an 85 Specter that just had that Rex Jason Ted Grind, and he was like, oh, that's a bass sound. Wow. Yeah, I mean, we went for that kind of garage days, chunky specter bass sound, and he loved it. And you can hear it on the record, I tried to make it fairly audible, which just probably was something else they weren't really used to. And yeah, he was quite happy with it.

Speaker 1 (00:49:18):

Yeah, I don't think that most metal bands are used to that, but it's not because it can't be done well, like I said, I think your mixes are perfect example of it being done well, but it's just typically not done well.

Speaker 2 (00:49:33):

It's not easy, that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (00:49:36):

Yeah, it doesn't always play nice. You've mentioned in other interviews that you had to make the discovery that less is more and emphasize the need to nail tracking at the source as opposed to leaning on lots of edits. Was that something that was kind of a product of the time period that you came up in or something deeper as in it's just always going to sound better if it's done better at the source?

Speaker 2 (00:50:05):

Yeah, I mean that definitely comes from age and just working on tape. And I worked with this producer Nick Laguna quite a bit. He did a couple Deep Purple records and I think he did the BGS Saturday Night Fever, which was passed around between multiple engineers. And his thing was always like, this tape is going to fly around the world and lots of engineers are going to pull it up and if my tones aren't gold, I don't want to be that guy that they're bitching about. And that was a concern back then because a lot of times you started with the tapes and the tapes went to somebody else to finish or add stuff, and you wanted people to pull your tracks up and be like, okay, this is great. I don't need to fix much. And so it was ingrained in me pretty early on to get killer tones to tape make decisions and not leave too many questions Later.

(00:50:55):

When I get multi-tracks now I get one guitar track can be six tracks. It'd be like a di and three cabinets with three mics or sometimes, so a song will have 140 guitar tracks and it's only three or four parts, and I just don't do that. I might have two or three amps and two or three cabinets with two or three mics, but all that gets bused to one track and I might keep a DI depending on who it is and how confident I am in the tone. So then maybe each guitar party is at most two tracks.

Speaker 1 (00:51:29):

So you commit

Speaker 2 (00:51:30):

All the time. I get the phase perfect and I'll have all the amps going sometimes, or in certain songs, I'll mute one of the amps or I'll pull out some of the mics. I'll have eight or 10 mics up on the console, and I'll literally just move those faders around, tell me and the guitar player like that blend, and then we commit that to a track and then take the DI just as a precaution in case there's something weird later. And then, yeah, that's basically it. So same with really everything. I don't do anything too risky with drums. I always split the top and bottom snare mics onto different tracks. I've had nightmare scenarios where the engineer has combined the top and bottom to a track, which is fine. There's no law against that, but if you don't get them in phase, that's really bad.

Speaker 1 (00:52:15):

There is a law against that.

Speaker 2 (00:52:17):

Yeah, exactly. And I used to bus all the Toms to two tracks, especially if I, in the early days doing metal, I only had 24 tracks and maybe we had an extra eight or 16 synced up still, you didn't want to use six or seven tracks for Toms if the guy had a shitload of Toms. So it was just something we did. And so you make sure you get great Tom sounds and not too much symbol leakage, and you rode the crap out of those faders during the mix.

Speaker 1 (00:52:50):

When you get tracks from another producer and it is like eight tracks for one guitar, that sort of thing, does it make it harder to approach because they're kind of not giving you any real vision? It's kind of like, here's just basically a diarrhea of tones do your thing.

Speaker 2 (00:53:09):

It's not that it makes it harder, I guess it just makes it take 10 times as long. And probably my hardest thing and why it wouldn't work out with certain bands like say Kill Switch or anything anybody like that is they would send a lot of tones and basically leave it up to the producer. Well, I would trust Andy Snes here on that from day one. He just knows that's his thing, which is probably why they work with him so much. But for me it was like six amps, they all sound great, which one of 'em to pick. I mean, that's really objective. So yeah, I'd much prefer somebody just commit and send me something they love. And a lot of times it's because the band has recorded the record themself or with an engineer who they're not fully confident in. So they're sending it to me going, look, we did this just in case. That's fine. It's not like I get annoyed or anything, it's just it's more work. But usually what I'll do is I'll pick the best sounding pair and go with that. And during the mix, if I feel like, oh, the chorus needs a little more, maybe I'll slide in one of the other amps or something. But rarely will I spend the time rebalancing all their amps and bouncing that to one track or whatever. I'll usually just create a blend and go with it.

Speaker 1 (00:54:24):

Okay, so typically they're doing that to give you options because they're not necessarily confident in what happened. It's not necessarily just a sprawl of tones because they're disorganized or something.

Speaker 2 (00:54:38):

Correct. It depends. It all comes down to who it is. Right now I'm mixing the new Mr. Bungle record.

Speaker 1 (00:54:43):

Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:54:45):

And both guitars are one track each and that's it. They did supply a di, but I of course do not need it because Trey and Scott have killers tones, and the bass is one bass amp, one di, and then Lombardo of course. It's great. And they went for a very specific sound, and that's what I'm capturing. It's live as fuck. It sounds like a punk band in a garage, which is exactly what it should sound like. So there's nothing fancy going on. They just knew exactly what they wanted. So it's glorious. It makes my job very easy.

Speaker 1 (00:55:19):

I think that band's glorious

Speaker 2 (00:55:21):

And the live shows that they did a few months ago were fantastic. And this basically sounds exactly like that.

Speaker 1 (00:55:26):

Did you ever see them back in the day by any chance?

Speaker 2 (00:55:30):

I did actually, because this record's like a thrash metal thing basically. It's like redoing,

Speaker 1 (00:55:35):

They always do something different.

Speaker 2 (00:55:36):

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I saw them, I think it was on the second album. I don't even remember the year, but it was a long time ago. And I'm a big Mike Patton fan. I saw Faith Lemore on the Angel Dust tour in Detroit in late 92, so I'm a fan.

Speaker 1 (00:55:51):

Yeah, I think that they're weird to say underrated because people who know them realize how great they are, but I think they're one of the most underrated bands ever. They're so fucking good.

Speaker 2 (00:56:03):

There's some musicianship happening and killer lyrics and just, yeah, I mean, yeah, they're great.

Speaker 1 (00:56:10):

I just got excited that you're doing that. I had heard that they were making a record and then COVID happened and I didn't hear more about it.

Speaker 2 (00:56:18):

Yeah, they vaguely posted about it on social media a little bit, some and whatnot from the studio. And I think they recorded at Dave Grohl Spot 6 0 6, which is actually a really great studio I've recorded in there as well. Really nice drum room. And of course the Sound City Neve. So yeah, it's hard to go wrong in there.

Speaker 1 (00:56:37):

How often does that happen though, where a band comes in with just that kind of vision that's that defined?

Speaker 2 (00:56:43):

It depends on the band. A lot of the stuff that's the veteran bands, older bands that come to me for just mixing have pretty much know what they want. Of course some of the younger bands do too, so I can't really define it by a generational thing. I think it just depends on who the band is and how confident they are where they are in their career and their sound. And I'm not going to mess with Anthrax too much, although I'm producing that as well when I'm with them. They just have a sound. It's not like something that needs to be fucked with. So it's more about just best songs, best performances, all that kind of thing. But I think a lot of stuff that comes to me, at least on that level, has been pretty well figured out.

Speaker 1 (00:57:28):

Do you prefer that as opposed to say when you get something and you kind of have to invent the direction?

Speaker 2 (00:57:35):

Inventing direction is fun if the artist is open to that. And I've had those scenarios where they're like, do whatever the hell you want. We really don't know what this is. We just like our songs. Here's a bunch of tones. Just

Speaker 1 (00:57:48):

Make it cool.

Speaker 2 (00:57:49):

And that usually works well because then I can get creative and not worry about people freaking out if something's not exactly the way the demo is, because the other way around can be worse when it's hardcore has to be just like the demo. And that is impossible to deal with almost. And I've had that a lot too, where it's like, this is just like, this has to be this veered from the demo. Why are we doing that? Well then why are we making this record? Just release your demo.

Speaker 1 (00:58:17):

How could you make it sound like the demo? It's like it's impossible. It's impossible.

(00:58:22):

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

(00:59:13):

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

(01:00:05):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes at Fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. One thing that I've heard, I forget who said it, but I really agree, is that the mark of a really great producer or mixer isn't just being able to make things sound great, but it's also knowing when to get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):

Yeah, that's something that took a long time to learn and that whole less is more approach. When I'm producing a record, it's very rare that I have to get super involved. I'm not that guy that's rewriting the songs and writing everybody's parts and picking up the guitar and playing things. That's just not what I do. So I tend not to work with bands that need that. And there's producers out there that do that and do it great, and that's why they exist. So bands I tend to gravitate towards, bands that don't need that kind of intricate help, they just need a tour guides more or less like trusting the process, making the record, getting great performances, helping them pick songs, fixing arrangements, adding interesting ideas, that kind of, which is definitely a very old school approach, but that's just what I grew up doing. And it's same with mixing. I used to eq the crap out of everything, soloing each instrument, and now I don't even touch an EQ or compressor. I literally just push up all the faders, balance the whole mix as best I can then start EQing stuff while listening to everything.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):

How do you figure out in advance if the band is going to need that kind of handholding? What's the process like for you to determine, this band's not suited for what I do. Do they come to you and say, we want help writing the songs, or is this something you kind of got to deduce?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):

Yeah, it's figured out pretty early on if they come to me and they also want co-writing, which isn't what I do, I usually suggest that they either work with a writer I'll suggest or a producer that writes. And if they're like, well, we really want you to produce, okay, fine, then here's the writers I would suggest, or here are writers I don't necessarily know, but maybe you could reach out to. And I don't do that as much because certainly in rock and metal, there isn't a ton of co-writing across whole records like in Pop where there's a different person on every song. And those records tend to be more complicated and some of the more alternative pop rock records I've done, there's definitely been multiple writers and producers, and then I'm kind of just overseeing the whole thing and trying to tie it all together. Or if I'm just mixing it, it's like collecting tracks from three or four different producers, which is always a challenge, but can be done.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):

So something I'm really getting from you is that you're very, very clear what it is that you bring to the table. It seems like you expect everyone you're working with to be on that same page that if they're looking for stuff that's not what you bring to the table, then no problem, but figure that out in advance and let's not get any false hopes going or false expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):

Well, exactly. If you don't figure it out at the beginning, it's going to cause nothing but trouble later and you don't want bad blood or people unhappy. And the best way to avoid that is to figure it all out from the start and not move forward. If anybody feels like there's going to be an issue,

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):

Do you just handle it through conversation or is it sometimes you got to get started?

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):

Yeah, yeah. Not usually get started, but usually it's like a band will reach out either directly to me or through an a r person I know or my manager or whatever, and they'll start sending demos. And if I click with the demos and think I hear something, then I'll respond and say, yeah, there's something here. We should talk. Then it's a phone conversation, then can I actually add anything to what you're doing? And sometimes the answer is no. I've told bands, I don't actually think I can do much more for you than you're already doing yourself. You just needed somebody to get a great recording. If you want me to mix it, sure, but as for production, I think you're there or maybe you need to work with this person. I'm pretty honest about whether I think I'm the right person for the job or not. And it took a long time to figure out, but it's like I don't like to be in that situation where I feel like I'm not the right person because I wouldn't call Daniel Landau to make a death row metal record. I would call him to make a YouTube record, but because what he's amazing at, and some producers like the Rick Rubins and whatnot, they can do multiple genres, but they're also very hands off. They're not technical. So I think if you're an engineer and a producer, it's a little different.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):

You said you like to do one song at a time. You know how one of the complaints about modern heavy music is that it all sounds very homogenous, basically. I don't think it all sounds the same, but I get where people are coming from in that you get records where you could take one riff from one song and paste it into another song and you wouldn't even know the difference. Or take a section from one record and put it on another band's record and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. That does happen,

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):

Certainly

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):

A lot more than it used to. Do you think that that's one of the byproducts of that style of chording where you do all the drums and all the guitars?

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):

Certainly. Because what happens when you go one song at a time is you can just start changing everything. Let's use different Toms, let's change out the snare that kick drums weird. We should have a fluffier kick drum. Or I'll totally rebalance all the mics on the guitars, like with am Mono Marth, every song, I would change the microphone balance so that every song had a different sounding speaker or a different sounding microphone. One might've been two 50 sevens, another song might've been a 4 21 and a M1 49. Just make each and in the end, do they all sound different? Not really. They sound pretty similar, but it's different enough that the texture of the record at least has somewhat of a different feel because if you just do all the guitars for a week straight, you're pretty much going to get a tone and you're going to stick with it and you're not going to mess with it too much, most likely. I think most people take that safe route.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):

Whereas I'm like, let's mess with it. Especially if you're doubling and you get the main track. Usually what I'll do is if I have three microphones and they're balanced a specific way, I'll swap the balance for the double and just see how that sounds. I dunno. I just mark everything on the console with a grease pencil, and if we have to go back and fix the other track, I just put all the faders back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):

Okay, that was my next question was how do you keep consistency if, first of all, if you don't like where you went, and also just overall, where does the cohesion come from?

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):

Well, I don't take much notes because usually there's an assistant there. I just have 'em take photos of the AMP settings, take photos of the fader settings, mark the amp settings, mark the microphone placement, mark the console, so we can generally get back to where we were if we come back the next day and decide, oh, that was a mistake. And usually the guitar player is happy to replay it anyway. Or sometime I've had moments where, well, we have the di, let's just rebalance the mics and just send the DI back out off Pro tools or off tape back through the rig and just reprint it with a better mic balance. And that happens once in a while, but pretty rarely.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):

I kind of wish that more modern producers took that approach of trying to make every song have its own identity. I think there's been problems in the music industry due to technology, and I actually think it's on an upswing now, but I think that part of what happened isn't just that the technology killed the sales. I also think that the monotony killed the sales, the monotony of the sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):

Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):

You can't just blame it on huge corporations. It's also the musicians and producers started making stuff that just wasn't as interesting to the public.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):

I agree a hundred percent. And I found a lot of the bands that were getting signed or promoted just weren't making music that was maybe more the cool factor than the actual just great songs. And that's a pretty massive discussion about the entire music industry's direction in the early two thousands. But yeah, downloading was only a part of that problem.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):

Yeah. Another thing was too many bands were getting signed bands that just did not deserve to get signed, basically glorified local bands. It was just like there was a wave of bands that should not have had budgets, should not have had tour support, just shouldn't have been signed.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):

Yeah. They had one song usually, and it was the label managed to make that song a huge hit. And then they're gone forever and it's just a different time. When I was younger, the bands that were getting signed had everything, great performance skills, musicianship songs, live show. They had to have all those things to be worthy of all that money being poured into them.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):

So speaking of old days versus new days, something that I've noticed is there's a divide between people who came up through the old studio system is a lot of people didn't adapt, and I feel like those are the dudes who may have had a lot of work back in the day, but kind of don't anymore. And then there's a school of people who have all the old skills but adapted with the times, and so they combine all those old school sensibilities with the modern technology and modern efficiency. I think that that's the ideal, really. But how did you take to the transformation?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):

Yeah, I agree. I think you have guys like Joe Buri who obviously started off in tape and old studios, and he's one of the most successful guys on the planet right now in the modern world. It's just he's

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):

Killing it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):

So you have to be able to make that transition. And you're right, some people weren't able to do that or at least adapt to it. And when I left Canada and was flying to Los Angeles, I was reading the Pro Tools Manual. I'd never used it, and this was in 2002. A lot of guys had started using Pro Tools in the late nineties and probably even earlier, to be honest, I had used Logic Audio, which it was called Logic Audio in the nineties, and I used that for MIDI and Digital Performer I was using. And

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):

I remember that one

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):

That was just for MIDI basically. And then I did use Nendo a little bit in 2000, 2001, but the studio I was at had it, but I just used the tape all the time. It was just easier for me. And so yeah, I read the Pro Tools manual on the plane and I got to the studio in LA and opened a session and started learning how to mix and use Pro Tools on the spot. So it was literally, I had no choice, just figure out how to use it and make records on

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):

It, sink or swim,

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):

And that was great. I'm glad I did. And certainly I've done everything much later than everybody else. I was in, I was 30 I think when I came to LA and I was never used Pro Tools. It just wasn't what I was doing. So I figured it out as quick as I could.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):

What was it in you that made you do that? Why do you think that you saw the light as opposed to resisting it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):

You mean learning Pro tools?

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):

Yeah. Yeah, learning pro tools, going digital, all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):

I think it was appealing to be able to do more to things because to edit drums on tape or punch in and make stuff as tight as possible. It was hard. Recording was very difficult on tape and it was stressful, and cutting tape was a nightmare. I would have dozens of drum fills taped up on the wall and which one was good and okay. And you'd have to splice 'em in to see if they worked and to edit one good drum tape could take all day, now you can do it in 20 minutes. And so I think that part of it appealed to me, but at the same time, it also makes people work way slower. They tinker for hours and hours and hours on shit that doesn't need to be messed with. And so in some aspects I do less because it's like, oh, you don't need to tinker with that.

(01:12:42):

You just get it right and move on. But certainly with editing and making things better and tighter is just obviously so much easier to do. So I embraced that side of it fairly quickly. It just took a while for me to get used to the sound because I was so used to recording something and hearing it on playback always sounded different. Tape changes, it changes the bottom end, changes the top end changes the mid range, mostly in a pleasing way or sometimes not pleasing if you hit it too hard and it distorts or whatever. So it took some getting used to the sound. And this was back when we had those 8, 8, 8 eights, I think they were called those black digit design converters, and then we had the Apogee purple ones. Those actually sounded really good. So things started to improve and I got used to the way it sounded. And then of course things got crazy loud and mastering, and that just was a whole other conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):

Did you see it as kind of a necessity?

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):

Yeah, because especially in LA everybody was using it. Obviously people were still making records on tape, people still do. But everything I was starting to do, and most of my first five or six years in LA was mostly pop music. I was working with Desmond Child and I was working with these Swedish guys, Andreas Carlson, and we did some Katy Perry stuff and Leanne Rimes and American Idol and all that pop stuff. It was a hundred percent pro tools, hundreds of tracks, gazillions of background vocals like programming coming in from all over the world and midi sync issues. And this guy's using Logic, this guy's using performer. You just had to know all of that stuff, which I had to learn pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):

Can we talk about your drum sounds a little bit? Sure. I remember you told me something like seven years ago or something. It was a long time ago. I think we were talking about the hell, the apocalypse or something. And you mentioned that your goal is that if you do have to use a sample, you don't want anyone to know that it's in there. Does that sound like something you said? I feel like you said that to

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):

Me. Yeah, I mean I still have that attitude now and I think that that works for me. It doesn't work for all the bands. Sometimes I've had drummers especially who are used to having their records, have a lot of samples, hear it back and go, yeah, maybe that needs more sample. And I'm happy to oblige if they ask for that. But I think you have to have a drummer that is into not having a ton of sample or if it is there, it's there for support and or ambiance. I use a lot of ambient samples, especially kick and snare. I don't use Tom samples generally unless the recording is bad or sometimes in the mix. It just, if you need more power, sometimes Tom samples are helpful. I don't use 'em that much. I like to add a snare sample that's literally just a ring.

(01:15:49):

There's no attack to it. It's just a big obnoxious ring that most people would try and get rid of. But I like to have my drums wide open, no tape, no moon gels, usually when I'm tracking just as ringy as possible because once you pile a bunch of guitars on top of it and vocals, unless the drummer's playing by himself in a section of the song, most people are never even going to hear that. But it gives the snare a lot of body and depth. And I think a band like Rammstein is a perfect example because the drummer snares pretty ringy, but it's also tuned pretty high, but it still sounds powerful. Why is that? Because he's hitting it correctly. It's got a nice ring to it, but you have these absolutely monstrous guitar sounds that are just unbelievable, but the drums still sound pretty good.

(01:16:37):

So the drums aren't the focus in that band. The guitars certainly are, but it still works. And when you go see them live, same thing. He hits that snare and that stadium and it's like ping for three seconds it feels like, but it works for them. That works. But I've always liked a big open sounding drum kit, and I love big drum rooms and the samples are absolutely necessary and have their place. And I think some people rely on them probably 75 or 80% of their drum sound, and I'm more the other way around. I like the live kit to be 85 or 90%. The samples are just there to, as you said, I said, it's there, but I don't want you to know it's there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):

I'm positive you said it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):

Yeah, and it means a lot of automation too. Every snare fill, I go in and intricately design the automation on the snare sample so that especially on press rolls, if he's starting soft and getting loud, the sample's never going to, even with the best velocity and the best design sample, it's never going to sound correct to me, at least anyway. And so getting that right is important.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):

So what do you do when you're given something to mix and the drums just they're done in a small room, shitty mics, bad tuning that scenario that happens,

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):

Happens a lot. And it happens in great studios with great drummers and bad engineering, more than you would know. That makes it really tough. I usually spend a good amount of time making those drums sound the best I can possibly make them with parallel compression eq, notching making, obviously spend a long time on phase, just making sure that the live kit sounds as best as possible. Then I'll usually bring in the other instruments and see how much better or louder do I need to make these drums. So I will then start bringing in the samples very slowly, very quietly to see how little I can use before it gets to where it needs to be. And sometimes it ends up being more than I thought it would, and it surprises me even if I just saw the kit. But as long as it doesn't sound like that when all the instruments are

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):

In, so you're still kind approaching it with the same aesthetic goal, even if it's a shitty recording.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):

Absolutely. Because I just don't like hearing it sound like all fake drums, but I've had situations where I've just had no choice. The drummer has even said to me, I couldn't get a good drum sound. We didn't have the budget. Just use a bunch of samples. Okay, fine. We know that going in, so that's fine. And there was a record I mixed about eight years ago that was like that. The drums were recorded in the guy's basement. He did his best, but the guitar sounds were great, the singing was great, the bass tone was great. So I just used more samples than I normally would use, and it turned out fine.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):

So speaking of great vocals, when it comes to approaching vocals, whether you're producing or mixing, do you have a tried and true approach or does it change drastically between projects? Is it like with the guitar thing where you're dialing a different tone per song, or is it kind of like this is just the way we do vocals?

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):

Generally for a record, I'll get a pretty consistent vocal sound unless we have a specific idea. The good thing about Pro Tools is you can manipulate vocals later, which is incredibly easy. So I would tend not to mess with it going in. I love U 60 sevens. I love stressors. Not too picky about mic pre on vocals, I'll use whatever's in front of me. I'm not too picky about gear in general, to be honest. I'll walk in a studio, I don't know, model numbers, I don't care. Whatever's there I'll use. And people are very specific about which need That's cool, which need they love and oh, the Sound City Neve, nothing sounds like it. I recorded on the Sound City Neve a few times. Does it sound fantastic? Yes. Does it sound way better than any other Neve? Probably not, but a lot of hit records weren't made on it.

(01:20:51):

That makes it cool. But lots of Neve sound amazing. So yeah, I just use whatever's in front of me. And if there's a 10 73 or a 10 81, sure, I'll use that, but if there's an API, I'll use that too. I also love Tridents. I have a Trident console sitting next to me, so it's just whatever's in front of me. But microphone wise, I do have specific vocal mics. I really like U 60 sevens. I really like Elam two 50 ones. Now, those are both incredibly expensive microphones and not everybody has those. Most big good studios have at least one or two of those, but I'll use TL M1 oh threes, U 80 sevens. I have cheaper mics too. The Aston Spirit is great. I think I have five or six of the studio projects, C ones, which are basically U 87 copies. All the warm audio mics are great, so I'll use the warm audio 87, sometimes U 47 can be great on vocals, but again, I'm not too picky about it. If I walk in and the options just aren't there,

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):

You'll make it work no matter what.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):

I never, ever, ever will use an SM seven. Everybody uses 'em. I get records with them all the time, and I instantly know when the vocals been recorded with an SM seven, and I just put my head in my hands and

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):

That's the line You will not cross.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):

Never. I never understand why people, I understand why Screamers use it, they can hold it and it sounds fine for death vocals and screaming, it's totally fine, but for singing,

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):

It hides the shitty part of a screamer voice in a weird way

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):

Probably. Yeah, it's got a weird scoop in the mid and it's got a nice bump at, well, a nice bump I say at three K, which is nice for their voice. But for singing, it's absolutely atrocious. Probably the worst sounding vocal mic I've ever heard. And it just bums me out so bad when I get a multi-track and I can tell all the vocals we're done with it because I know I'm going to have to wrestle with it, where if it's any other mic on the planet, I can pretty much deal with it fairly quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):

It's interesting that you said what you've been saying about gear that besides SM Sevens that you're cool with what's there. And I feel like the gear thing, there's a lot of hype behind it, especially online, and I think a lot of the gear myths about it making this massive, massive, massive difference. A lot of it is perpetuated by people who have never tried the gear and have just read what other people have said. And there's certain things like the cool harmonics that an API gives, they're cool and all. It's super subtle, but when you hear people talking about it online or in interviews, they make it sound like it's this game changing thing where in reality it's like 2% difference.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):

Oh yeah. A lot of that stuff is total voodoo and I've never fallen for it, especially plugins too. I've never spent any of the money on the universal audio or any of that because I've tried it and it sounds good, but it doesn't sound any better to me at least than a lot of the other stuff that's out there. Some of their effects plugins are really cool, like the Roland Chorus and things like that. But compression and eq, a plugin's a plugin, and if you can hear the difference between the waves SSL and the Uua SSL, then good for you. But it's all about twisting the knobs and making it sound the way you want to sound. And same goes for outboard gear. I blind tested about seven converters. I've been using the old 1 92 forever, and I did a blind test, bounced a mix through seven converters and sent it to five or six engineers, and I would say four of the six pick the 1 92.

(01:24:40):

So I'm like, if these goldener dudes can't hear the difference, what am I worried about? I did end up buying a Bur bomber because I could actually hear the difference. I liked the way it sounded. I do like that the 1 92 has a soft clip and you can hammer it pretty hard and the burl does not. So my mixes are quieter probably by two db, but who cares? I'm not into loud. My records are quiet. So that is the one piece of outboard gear that I have purchased in the last few years, but I don't buy much gear or get too crazy about plugins. I think a lot of it just is a waste of money and doesn't really sound any better.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):

I know you love the Bomb Factory 1176,

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):

Still use it every day on lead vocals.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):

That's a great plugin. How old is that? It's like a 20-year-old plugin, right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):

At least. I mean, whenever Pro Tools started, I guess I don't even know. I I've been using it since 2002 and have I tried all the other ones? Yeah, absolutely. I have the CLA one from Waves. I've got the purple audio one, which actually does sound really cool, but it just sounds different and it's really what you want. I find the UA ones, they're slow. I don't know. They don't feel good to me. And I don't know what it is with the 1176 in particular, but I don't know. It's just the bomb factory one can do what I need it to do

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):

And that's what matters.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):

Yeah, and I've used other compressors as well. I'll route the vocal out of my pro tools into a live distress sometimes if I am really not getting what I need. And I'll compress the vocals in the mix without board gear. But not too often these days,

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):

Since I wasn't doing this in the nineties or eighties, I don't know if it was this way, maybe you can tell me, but I feel like one of the problems nowadays is people get too obsessed with plugins or gear. They worry more about getting that piece than about what their actual vision is for what they're working on. And it just seems like their priorities are wrong. Was it like that in the nineties too with gear? Was it like, oh, this piece of gear is going to make all the difference in the world. My mixes are suddenly going to be really good if I just get this compressor or something?

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):

I think probably to an extent, but everything was a lot more expensive back then. And most people didn't have their own studios. Very few had quality home studios. It was usually very demo type home studios. So you walked into a big studio, you hoped that whoever put that studio together had enough sense to have the usual suspects. And if you walked in and there was some nice TLA audio like tube compressors or an SSL bus compressor or a GM eq, maybe some drummer Gates, the old days of having to use stuff like that, then sure, you felt pretty good. And a lot of it you did on the console anyway, EQing and whatnot. So I think it was less of the case. It was when people started putting together pretty good home studios that a lot of that gear obsession, at least with engineers started to happen.

(01:27:51):

And a lot of the old school engineers have tons of their own gear. They'd come across something they found interesting, like Joe Buri probably has more gear than anybody on the planet. Does he use it all? Probably not anymore, but I'm sure he did at one time. And I think it just depends on, people tend to find something that works for them and they stick with it. And that's what I've done for a long time. And if I find something new that truly improves my workflow, then it's worth the purchase. But that doesn't happen that often. I do find cool plugins once in a while and that's cool. But

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):

What's a cool one you've discovered recently?

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):

Recently more on the amplifier plugin side. I like what the neural DSP guys are doing. Yeah, they're good for amping. I found some stuff. I love all the Plugin Alliance and brainwork stuff. Their console emulations are really nice. I use the SSL 4,000 on my subgroups that go out to my Trident. So even though I'm hitting a real console with my subgroups, I still emulate the SSL also, which is fun and gives a whole nother texture.

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):

But it sounds like it's nothing crazy though.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):

No. I mean, there's been some distortions and things, and I mean, I'm not a super new user to decapitate. I've been using it for a while, but I was definitely a late discoverer of stuff like that because I would just use other things to distort. But I use that a lot for distortion, and I love the micro shift for vocals and for guitar solos and things like that because the micro shift was something that we used in the H 3000, so that was a staple for guitar, solo tones, and for lead vocal spread. So the fact that they turned it into a plugin was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):

Was there a time period where you were more obsessed with gear and then you learned it didn't matter as much as you thought? Or have you always kind of been like this?

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):

No. When I was younger, I definitely thought gear was way more important because I didn't realize that playing and performance and great songs was the most important thing. That's the one thing coming out of engineering school is I think I thought gear was way more important than it was. And it's not that gear isn't important, obviously it is, but I realized that so many other things are just as important.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):

The reason I bring it up is just because I just want to help people prioritize better, focus more on the things that make the biggest difference. Like you were saying with samples versus live tones, there's a ratio there. And I think that there's a ratio of, in terms of the quality you're going to get of how much the gear's going to impart versus what the music itself and the performances are going to impart. I think if you do a bad job engineering and the band sucks and you put it through a $2 million rig, it's just going to sound like a $2 million piece of shit, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):

100%. And I think that's the part that gets past a lot of people. And I did a record with sort of a super group called The Damn Things, and we piecemealed that record together just when we all had time. Some of it was done in Joe Truman, the guitar player in his basement studio. Some of it was done in my garage in my little vocal booth. Some of it, the drums were all done in a nice studio, but the differences is they were all great players, great songs, great musicians, good enough gear, and it turned out amazing. I love the way that record sounds, so I just work with what's in front of me, to be honest. And I don't get too crazy. I don't travel with any gear when I go to studios. I rarely bring anything unless it's specialty. But I just kind of work with what's in the room. And if I'm going to a studio I've never been to before, I'll look at their gear list and make sure at least that they have the basics. And if I feel like something's missing, I'll make a request maybe to rent something. But generally I'll walk in and use what they have.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):

Makes sense. So I don't want to take up your whole day, but we do have a few questions from our audience for you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):

Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):

And one's from our friend Josh Newell. Two are from Josh actually. He's saying one of the things I love about Jay's mixes is the low end, the kicks, bass, and guitars all sound big without stepping on each other or losing clarity, what is your approach to keeping the low and thick but clear? Well, I could see how this might be easier to achieve with a steel Panther mix like 17 girls in a row. How do you make it work for busier songs like Anthrax is fight until you can't?

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):

Well, I sort of take the same approach that I do with every style of music. Even pop music that has crazy eight oh eights and stuff for really good bottom end, I go really deep. I'll do like a 40 or 30 hertz shelf and down, and I'll EQ maybe in the analog domain sometimes. And in the digital domain on the stems that go out to the console, I'll add maybe three to five DB boost at like 30 hertz and down just so you get this rumble. But it doesn't, once you start getting up around 90, a hundred, 120, that's Mud City, 200 hertz, that's just like in your car. That'll just sound like there's a tissue bag over the speakers. So bottom end is so hard. I either have not enough or too much. It's like the constant struggle, mid range top end. I can usually get that pretty quickly.

(01:33:10):

But usually what I'll do is I'll mix the whole song and balance everything really well and get it happening and then realize there's no bottom end. So then I'll be spending two, three hours resculpting the eq, or I do a lot of overall EQ these days and much less individual eq. You can go through my mix sessions and see some of the instruments don't even have a single plugin on them. It's just if the tone is there, I don't mess with it. I just do an overall EQ on the stereo mix and on the subgroups, and it saves time. And a lot of the same EQ approach can work on the same instrument if the record was recorded all by the same person with the same mindset and the same studio and the same gear. If it's all recorded in the same studio using a lot of the same mics, it's usually going to have the same problems. A hump at 200 hertz or a dip at one K or something weird like that. It's funny how that works. People don't realize how much the room can affect everything.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):

Oh God, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):

But with bass guitar, sometimes I'll use the sub harmonic generator just to get real deep subs, but I don't really add bottom end anywhere where you would think like 60 to 150. I don't touch that. Just the instrument itself. I just let it do it. And if I want more bottom end or more bass, I usually just turn the bass guitar louder in the mix rather than EQ it. Same with drums like kick drum. I don't like the Subick mic. It never sounds good to me, so I don't use that very often. I'll usually stick a U 47 outside the drum and something inside like an Audix or even a 57 has killer attack inside a kick drum. Garth Richardson used to use a 57 and a 4 21. I think that's what he used on the rage record. Again, it's more just overall EQ I suppose. I don't know what I do necessarily other than it's just constant fiddling where the EQ point is. And sometimes I'll add a little 90 hertz and down maybe a DB or two to the whole mix if I feel like it's missing a bit of thud. But usually it's low 50, 30, 40 and down kind of area.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):

And just obviously every situation's a little different.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):

Sure. And writing a lot of automation that anytime there's double base, either EQ automation or Fader or level automation.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):

Okay. Well actually Josh's second question we already talked about, so I'll skip it. Bass Peters says, Hey Jay, love your work. I was wondering what the guitar chain was like on high crimes by the damn things. If you can still remember, I love how modern the records sounds while the guitar still have that vintage rock sound. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):

I can tell you exactly what it was. Joe Truman recorded most of those guitars himself for his parts. I should say. I recorded Scott Ian's parts. Scott's was just his 51 50 micd up with a pair of 50 sevens, one straight on the cone, one at a 45 degree angle, and I think on the rhythm channel. And then he's pretty much straight up the middle in the mix. And then Joe's doubled. He plays harmonized to himself a lot. And he played, he had some weird guitar, not a Manson or Mace, those metal guitar, I forget what they're called. I think the guy from Muse has one. I know he had one of those. And then he had an old Les Paul Jr maybe, but he played through a Freedman and we micd it with a Tu TUL. I dunno if you're familiar with these mics, but

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):

I've never heard of a Tull.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):

Tull mics are incredible. They used to make a snare mic, which was basically two 50 sevens, one direct and one out of 45 degree. And the same thing for the guitar mic. So it's basically two 50 sevens in one mic, and it sounds absolutely fantastic. I don't know if they still make the snare mic. Somebody told me maybe they didn't. But Francesco over at Sphere has one of the snare mics in. It just sounds amazing, especially when you pair it with another with an actual 57. But the tall guitar mic, you literally just point it directly at the center of the cone for the best results. And it's got one little switch on it for dark or bright, and it just sounds amazing. And that's all that guitar sound is, is just that one mic on that one speaker on that one amp. And he basically played it twice, one with some harmonies on the right side or the left. And that was it when I was working on the drums and the bass and getting all the vocals with Keith and everything. And then Joe would send over his guitar tracks, I'd be just like, wow, these guitars sound amazing. He did a great job. And then Scott's always easy to record because his tone just always crushes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):

Isn't it amazing how simple it is when you're working with people who just have their shit together as musicians?

Speaker 2 (01:37:54):

Absolutely. And when they come in, the first Steel Panther record, the guitar player walked in. He didn't even own an amp, he literally had his guitar in his hand, not even in a case. And that guy's one of the greatest musicians on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):

God, he's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):

He is ridiculous. And he can play anything, funk, blues, I mean, you name it. And most people just see that band and think he's just a shredder. But he's so beyond that, he just assumed that the studio would have a good amp. So we ended up calling Jeff from Armored Saint and getting his vintage JCM 800 from the late seventies or something. And that's how we got the guitar sound on the first Steel Panther record was I think a pair of JCM eight hundreds and maybe a PV 51 50, I think. But it just didn't matter what he plugged into, it was going to sound amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:38:39):

That's the thing about great players, that they're going to sound great no matter what they're plugged into and they're going to sound like themselves. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):

Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):

All right. Let's see here. Lindsay McDonald was wondering, are there any tips you can give to musicians to help them work better with producers during a recording session? I guess tips for people going into the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):

Sure. I think that you need to trust the producer. And if you're going to choose a producer, don't fight them on everything and argue with them about stuff that you're paying them to help you with. And that happens a lot. You'll get hired to do a record and then they'll just fight you on everything. And it's like, well, why did you hire me? You're wasting both of our time at this point. Don't hire someone unless you 100% trust their opinion and trust their ability. Otherwise, you're better off doing it yourself until you get to that level where you can afford to hire the person you truly believe in. And that trust between the artist and the producer goes both ways because I listen more than I speak in sessions, but the artists trust me just to get the job done because they know what I will give them. So it has to kind of go both ways. But yeah, I never understood that. Hire somebody and then fight with them the whole time. And luckily it hasn't happened to me too much, but I've seen it happen a lot when I would engineer for producers and the artist would just be

(01:40:06):

Combative the whole time. And I'm like, why did you hire this amazing producer who you're not listening to?

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):

That's happened with some people I've worked with where it's like they wanted somebody else's sound. Why did you hire this guy? They wanted to sound like some other dude who's making big records in the scene. Why didn't you just hire that guy that's making those big records in the scene? You can afford it. Why are you here?

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):

Yeah, exactly. Never

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):

Understood

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):

That. Well, people just make strange decisions, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:40:36):

Yeah, I guess some musicians don't understand that a certain sound, if a producer mixer is known for a certain sound, that's not the gear they're using is their brain. It's their brain and their ears. Correct. You can't recreate that. You can't go to somebody else and get somebody else's sound.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:40:56):

So alright, last question here is from, man, I can't pronounce this last name so I'm not going to even try William, no last name. What was the inflection point in your career in which the level of your clients, basically the quality of your clients, started to level up? When did you start working with bands that you're really into and are major bands?

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):

Probably after I did the first Steel Panther record, that kind of sucked me back into rock and metal because before that, like I said earlier, I'd been doing a lot of pop music, working under producers, engineering, editing, mixing for other people basically. And then I had the opportunity to produce and mix the first Steel Panther record, and it kind of reignited my love for recording rock and roll and Hard Rock and live bands. And had been a few years since I got to do that. And I had done it here and there my first few years in la, but a lot of it was pop music. So after I did Steel Panther, I think I went right into the first Anthrax record I did with them. And it just kind of kept going from there because people were liking what I was doing. And the phone just started to ring a lot more for a rock, hard rock and some metal. And that's still kind of just continued on, to be honest. That's obviously the genre I work in the most, but I still do other things and people from my past will pop up. The Swedish pop guys literally call me yesterday to mix something that sounds like Billy Eilish. So I'll mix that soon as well. So I think it just depends on what you love doing. And I love making rock records, so I focused on that for a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):

How did the Steel Panther thing come up if you were working on other kind of stuff? What led to them wanting to give you a shot?

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):

When I was working with Wilson Phillips on their reunion record in 2003 or oh four, I met a drummer named Peter Burke, and Peter was the original drummer in Steel Panther when they did the Danger Kitty TV commercial. And they were playing the Viper room for a hundred people back in 1998 or something. So he was friends with all those guys and he had a rock band in LA called Paperback Hero who were really good. And they would open for Steel Panther at the Key Club every other Monday. They were like the staple opening band. So I did a few songs with them that turned out really great, and then they played those demos for the singer and Steel Panther, and he was like, holy shit, this sounds great. Can I meet this guy? We want to actually record some original material. And that's how I ended up doing Field of Steel. And we initially did six songs, like Death Dah, but Metal and Community Property, and then they got the universal deal and we did the rest of the record. So yeah, it was just again, who meeting people who then meet other people who then introduce you to other people and so on and so forth,

Speaker 1 (01:43:43):

And how they feel about your work.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):

And then eventually it comes down to your work. But at the beginning, it's all relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):

That's what I try to tell people without relationships. It doesn't matter how good your work is.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:43:56):

Yeah. Nothing's going to happen because you need people to say yes to you in the world or you're not going to have anything to work on.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):

The relationships are the biggest, most important part of it, and that's all, assuming that you're good at what you do. If you're not good at what you do, the relationships are important, but you're not going to get very far because people are just not going to work with you. But if you're semi good at what you do and you're really nice to work with and easy to get along with, then you're going to be busy.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):

A closing thought, I just want to say this. I think how people say that production is super oversaturated, tough business to get into.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:44:33):

I think there's some truth to that, but I think that that's kind of bullshit too, because of what you just said. The amount of people who actually are good and also know how to hang out with people are actually really rare. There's not that many people who actually have both of those things going on. There's a lot of people who are trying to get into it. That's true. But I don't think that those people are competition. If you're cool and you know what you're doing, there's a very, very short list of people who are also cool and know what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):

I agree with you on that. And there is actually a lot of producers and mixers that are very hard to get along with and have notorious personalities, but they're still successful because their work is so excellent. And so you can't deny that, but you hear the rumors and you hear the stories.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):

But I think they're the exception.

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):

They are definitely the exception.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):

They're the exception

Speaker 2 (01:45:29):

Because a lot of the people that I know and work with, and I'm friends with lots of producers and mixers, and they're all generally pretty easygoing people and laid back and everybody's got their opinion, but it's the personality side, as you said, is so important. And yeah, saturation is one thing, but that's when being really good or great. You just stand out. There could be a million producers in America, but a hundred of them can probably make a world-class record. So you want to try and be part of that a hundred

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):

And about 50 of them can even hang out in a room with other people.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):

There you go. Exactly. So that nails the personality side of it. Yeah. And that can be said of any creative environment. Probably film directors too. A lot of them are insane, but they're so great, but they're hard to work with. And there's a lot of producers you'll notice only work with a band once, but that one record is huge. And if you look at certain bands, especially look at their catalog and look who the producers were and if they worked with a different producer on every record, there's probably a reason because they want to be creative and try different stuff and not get locked in. But the producers they worked with absolutely beat the crap out of them and made an amazing record, and then the band was like, fuck that. I'm not working with that dude

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):

Again. Well, I think with movie directors too, you hear the stories about someone like Stanley Kubrick, but more often than not with great directors like a Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorsese, everyone that works with them says that they're demanding, but super easy to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):

Yeah, I mean there's a difference between being demanding and being an asshole and

Speaker 1 (01:47:13):

Being a maniac.

Speaker 2 (01:47:14):

Yeah. And I've seen both and the guys that were an asshole aren't working anymore, at least from the guys that I mentored under that are say, 10 years older than me that are in their mid fifties, they're just not working. Very rarely the ones that were assholes. I mean, because that attitude and that scream approach in the studio and being a drill sergeant, that just doesn't work anymore. And we don't have the time or the budgets or the patience, probably the cocaine they were all doing to get through those types of records and patience. Exactly. So those days definitely are over and those guys aren't working. But the ones that had, as you say, the great personality or the easy to work with sort of attitude, they're still around.

Speaker 1 (01:47:58):

Okay. So I've done, I forget which episode number this is, and like 70 nail the mix episodes. In those five years, I've only encountered one dickhead.

Speaker 2 (01:48:09):

Wow. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:48:11):

Only one dickhead came on the podcast once. It was so early on that I was shocked. I didn't know what to say. I would've just put him in his place if it happened now. But it was a pretty legendary dude, and he was just such a fucking dick. But dude, that's the only time It's happened in five years, and we've had a lot of people on, and they're all people who have done very well for themselves and the thing that they tend to have in common, they all have different aesthetics, different visions for everything, different career paths, but they're all generally pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:48:45):

Yeah, I mean, I think for the most part, you're not going to make it very far with that bad attitude. And the ones that have, as you said, are rare. The bad attitude and successful is only because they made a couple really huge records. So people put up with them, and if they still make huge records, then I guess you just keep putting up with them.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):

And I will say that you're also right. This dude is also older. I'd say he's in his sixties, so he comes from that era. Something about that era, man, people were a lot meaner in the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:49:18):

They lose their patience for good because they made so many records with so many knuckleheads in between the great people that it's really hard to hang onto that patience for decades. I think when you start off, you have a lot of it, and then you have a little less and a little less and a little less to the point where you just can't be bothered anymore and you just turn into cranky old man. And

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):

If I'm being honest, one of the reasons that I stopped producing and mixing and pursuing that and I decided to do this instead was that was happening to me.

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):

Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:49:51):

And this was in my early thirties. I was starting to notice I was starting to hate the bands. That patience. I can't imagine being in my mid forties and just continuing down this path of hate. No. So yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:05):

Well, that's why you got to take breaks, and that's why I do a lot of mixing because then you start to miss being in the studio with people. And even if it can frustrate you, sometimes those breaks are good, but it's tough. I just always constantly remind myself that the band might not have seen all the annoying things in the studio happen that I've seen. And I got to remember that for them, this might be the first time. So I got to

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):

Be, and it's not their fault.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):

I got to just be patient with them and explain to them if they're feeling a certain way about something, why that might be the case, and that I've seen it happen a lot. This is why blah, blah. And if they listen and get it, great. If they don't, then I just have to grin and bear it and sit through it and wait until they figure it out on their own.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):

I will say, conversely, I have experienced bands coming into the studio who had basically studio PTSD from coming in with a shitty producer. I don't mean shitty as in quality sometimes they'd come from really awesome producers who were just maniac tyrants, and they would bring that baggage into the session and then expect it to go the same way. So then it would be a situation of having to get them to understand that you're not in the same place, you're not dealing with the same people. So a whole new situation

Speaker 2 (01:51:21):

That's hard to break for sure. And whenever bands leave us the end of a record with me, oftentimes they'll say, wow, that was really fun and one of the most easiest experiences I've ever had in the studio. Okay. Mission accomplished. That's what I try and do. Make it easy and fun. It's still hard work, but there's no reason to be a dick about it or yell and scream just as long as everybody's trying their fucking best and giving me their all. It's cool. And leave here with a smile on your face and excited about what you just created.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):

Well, I think that's an excellent closing statement. Jay, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been a pleasure catching up with you again. It's been a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:52:03):

My pleasure. Happy to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:52:05):

Okay, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at ar Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.