ADAM “NOLLY” GETGOOD: The State of Metal Production, Dolby Atmos, and Mastering the Craft

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 are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line. Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. You know who my guest is. You know him very well. Nonetheless, I'm going to intro him. Adam Nolly. Getgood is a musician, engineer, producer, mixer, co-founder of Get Good Drums and a mastering engineer Throughout an incredible career, Nali has worked on a tremendous amount of projects from his own efforts such as Periphery to working with some of the best artists in Metal such as Animals as leaders, Devon Townsend and a Ton More. Dude is a great mixer, a great guitarist, a great bassist entrepreneur, very cool guy too. Always a great conversation whenever I talk to him. It's just always a great conversation. So it's a pleasure to welcome Nali back to the URM podcast. Let's do this. Adam Nolly Getgood. Welcome back to the URM podcast. Thanks,

Speaker 2 (00:02:32):

Il. It's great to be connected again. It's been a while.

Speaker 1 (00:02:34):

It has, but lot's been going on. It has been a huge

Speaker 2 (00:02:37):

Amount going on, hasn't it? And what I was thinking, our last conversation was also with Erman on the line, which is great,

Speaker 1 (00:02:43):

But

Speaker 2 (00:02:43):

A little bit less personal between the two of us, if that makes sense. Another person in there.

Speaker 1 (00:02:47):

Yeah, he's also had a lot going on,

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

No doubt. Yeah, it's been a while since I caught up with him, but I know he's had a huge, huge change in terms of way he's living and some of what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (00:02:56):

Are you feeling good about where things have been ending up for you recently since the pandemic with your changes and I think prolific level of output, but how are you feeling about, I don't know, your life post pandemic?

Speaker 2 (00:03:16):

That's a big question. Yeah, I know. No, no, no. It's cool though. It's been really interesting and knowing we were going to do this interview, I've been reflecting and thinking a bit more about all the changes. It has been really big. I think we first taught quite early on in the Pandemic and I was already kind of focusing more on product design kind of stuff than working for clients. And that's pretty much continued actually. It's just been such a lifey period of time. There's just been so many major life milestones, both good and unfortunately bad has happened to all of us to deal with plus the pandemic. And there's just been so many changes, not in the least the fact that my wife and I and our parents, we've got a little one as of the beginning of the year to look after, which is just, it is an incredible journey to go on.

(00:04:00):

It's been an amazing period of lots of reflection, lots of personal growth, lots of enjoyment of things outside work, and I definitely don't feel like I could have kind of maintained working with clients. I think there's too much of responsibility there in terms of their deadlines and being accountable to them when you sign up to work on a record or something like that. So that's kind of my output dropped significantly on that side of things. However, I was able to kind work more on my own schedule and develop all sorts of products that I'd had in the works for quite some time to look back. It's crazy. I mean, yeah, I've got signature pickups,

Speaker 1 (00:04:38):

There's so much stuff

Speaker 2 (00:04:41):

And plus GGD products, which are all kind of little personal projects of one sort or another.

Speaker 1 (00:04:46):

That's interesting that you phrased it about their deadlines versus yours. That actually was one of the reasons that I wanted to get out of production was I was having a hard time, I guess committing myself to other people's deadlines. I had my own timeline on things that I felt needed to happen, and you really do have to accept somebody else's deadline and throw yourself into it and let that become your life. You have to, that is part of the job of being a producer or a mixer. I mean, if you don't do that, you're going to get fired or not hired again. At least you can't do that. You have to take people's timelines and deadlines very, very seriously. You have to take them as seriously as if they were your own because they are your own. And if you can't really do that for whatever reason, whether your life has just evolved or you have other things you want to do, it's very important, I think, to be honest with yourself about your ability to do that or not.

Speaker 2 (00:05:59):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you're expressing is something which I hear, I've listened actually to plenty of your podcasts through the pandemic as well. It's been a great companion when doing stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:06:07):

I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:06:08):

No, no, it's great. It's great. And it's awesome everything that you've achieved with Nail the Mix and all of the other projects. Thank

Speaker 1 (00:06:13):

You.

Speaker 2 (00:06:13):

You just hear time and time again producers talking about either how long the hours that they need to work are or just how much projects always require more energy than you expect them to. How clients always manage to somehow, and it's actually not their fault, but you end up receiving your work either ahead of time or late and never kind of on time or things stretch out, and you always invariably end up with more on your plate than you anticipate. And it just seems to be a given in any kind of creative industry. And I think it's only fair to your clients, but also to yourself, to your family if you have one to the people that you're responsible for to try and not overcommit because it doesn't really help anyone. I think that's where you lead to getting burnt out with work, where you lead to getting burnt out mentally yourself, where you lead to catastrophically letting down the people that are close to you. And it's just a tough thing to manage now, I think.

Speaker 1 (00:07:08):

Yeah, you're actually perfect example. When I've had producer friends approach me for advice really on starting businesses, the first thing I always ask is, do you want to produce less? Because you're going to have to, so are you okay with that? Are you okay with that no longer being 90% of your life or 95% of your life? And if so, if you're ready for that, then okay, then I'm happy to talk to you about this and give you my thoughts. But if you're not ready for that, then maybe find a partner or revisit the idea later or whatever. But otherwise, there's just no way. There's no way to really get something off the ground without committing yourself to it. And we just don't have enough hours and energy in the day to be that person for artist clients in the studio and then also an entrepreneur. It's just something has to be reduced. There's no way around it.

Speaker 2 (00:08:16):

Yeah, I agree. And whereas maybe in the past it was more feasible to work fewer projects and as you kind of go up the rungs, you're going to start earning some serious money. There was so much more money in production before that maybe you could claw back that balance there. I feel like now it really has to be something that you're super passionate about, not just making things sound good, but the whole thing. Being in contact with a band or being in very close communication with a band for a month or more, and really just being super passionate about making that record as good as it can possibly be, and navigating the personal relationships involved in that, which for me personally is not something I'm always up for. There's some people who just, they absolutely love that. You interviewed Dan Weller recently, who's someone, he's a hero of mine and he's kind of become a friend and I know him, his personality and from hearing directly from him that it's just best thing in the world to go into a studio with a group of people and figure out how to get the best out of them and what makes them all tick.

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It's like the whole package of making a record is awesome for him and for me, it never really was that. So it all kind of goes a bit hand in hand really, where I just love getting sounds I love and being in studio situations with people that are cool and easygoing and friends or that become friends over the process, that's amazing for me. But just the daily grind of working and constantly forging those relationships or working through tricky personal circumstances and just working through whole records. I find doing a single or two is amazing fun, but it's a different kind of work once you get into track eight of a metal record. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:09:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:09:54):

The tones are there. There's only so much experimentation as far as tones go, and it's a grind at that point. Or if you're on a deadline, it's a grind. And some people love it. They thrive on it. And for me, I'm already, I kind of want to just dial in tones again for the next thing.

Speaker 1 (00:10:08):

See, that's why I think what you have thrown yourself into makes perfect sense by creating new products and doing a select number of productions or mixes and GGD, just all that. It basically allows you to keep the passion up. I mean, of course it's a lot of work, but it doesn't allow it to ever get to that point where you are track eight on a quad track metal record where it's basically literally just factory work at that point.

Speaker 2 (00:10:43):

No, exactly, exactly. And I feel very, very grateful and lucky to be in the position I'm in where I can do that. And I would really like to think that we're kind of living in a time where there is a paradigm shift around production. And the pandemic I think has sped it up. But I think there's also this confluence of all these companies like Neural DSP and Tune Track and ourselves and all the other kind of companies that have been cropping up and offering these amazing tools where I feel like for me at least, and I think lots of other people are the same way in the metal community, we've kind of been living this collective trauma of trying to figure out how to get things to sound like those golden era metal productions in the two thousands where it felt so distant and impossible to achieve those tones. And there's just so much kind of mythology and mystique around all of it. And you could buy a 51 50 and a Messer cab and a guitar with active pickups and a 57 and mic it up, and it still didn't sound like

(00:11:40):

It's an evil or Richardson or whatever. And for me, that just drives me up the wall. I hate when I have all of the constituent parts and the result isn't coming out right. It's like the scientist in me feels like there should be a scientific method that gives you a defined result and when you follow the steps and it doesn't work, I'm just like, what? What's going on here? And I end up getting really obsessively down that rabbit hole and I feel like I'm not the only one. I think there's a lot of us that came up on the sneak board that were just trying to figure out why does our shit not sound right?

Speaker 1 (00:12:10):

Oh yeah, totally. I mean, that used to drive me insane,

Speaker 2 (00:12:14):

But basically I feel like we're now at the point where it's like, okay, cool, we can actually breathe a sigh of relief. I'm really proud of the GGD product we put out last year that was all these amazing sounding messa boogie cabinets with vintage thirties that actually do sound like those classic recordings. And it took a huge amount of detective work to figure out that it's just about having the right era of speaker and whatnot. We can talk about that if you want, but it's like actually now people at home can make metal recordings That sound amazing. And while we've had great software for well over a decade, I think it's now really at the point where the core raw sounds that people can access at home are on the level of really high budget productions.

Speaker 1 (00:12:54):

It has definitely turned the corner.

Speaker 2 (00:12:55):

It really has, isn't it? And whereas in other genres, I feel like they've maybe been there sooner because there's less of this kind of specific vision of sound that everyone's trying to achieve. It's a bit more experimental within metal. It's always rooted in these sounds that we've heard for quite a few years and want to hear on our own productions. And I'm really excited to see what happens next because I think in some way we're going to transcend all of that as a genre in all of its sub-genres. And I'm interested to see, sorry, this is a really rambling answer I guess. Just got lots around

Speaker 1 (00:13:26):

My head. No, it's an interesting topic. I think about it too. Well, the thing that I have come to the conclusion of though, because I agree with everything you're saying, but I have this unique vantage point that we're on year seven now of nail the mix where we've done the mix competition monthly. So that's thousands and thousands and thousands of mixes that we've heard. And what I'm noticing is if you compare the mix poll mixes now versus the ones when we started in 2015, it's night and day. They're so much better now. It's crazy how much better they are. And I think it's everything. The technology is better, the education, what we've been doing has been out there long enough. There's all those things. The community is bigger, there's just so many things going on at the same time, allowing for the bar to be raised.

(00:14:31):

However, I'm still hearing great stuff as infrequently as before. So what I'm hearing is that the median line is higher, so just your everyday stuff is just better than it ever has been. And so it's way easier to get to that B plus level. It's way easier to get out of the suck at everything phase. People don't have to remain in that sucking phase for very long. They can get to a competent phase pretty quickly, but still truly great stuff, at least from what I'm hearing, it's still pretty rare. That gives me hope. It just gives me hope in that not in people aren't great. Way more, it's still special. I guess it's still special doing something truly great, it still stands out. And the reason I'm saying that is just because I think everybody has recognized that the bar is up and that it is way easier to get decent or good sounding results.

(00:15:46):

And I think that some people have been very depressed about it even or scared about it because there's some tough questions you got to ask. Well, as a mixer or a producer, you would be dumb to not ask yourself, well, what's my place in the world then? Am I necessary? Because back in the day, it was impossible for people to get even, okay, sounds on their own. It was impossible to get anything but total garbage on your own. So it's gone from that to, it's pretty not easy, but it's pretty possible to get decent sounding stuff on your own. So what's a producer's role in it? And the thing I'm noticing though is still, like I said, the great stuff is still rare. And so I feel like there's always going to be a place for the truly exceptional, and I think that that's what's going to end up guiding

Speaker 2 (00:16:43):

Wherever we go next. Well, I think that's great personally. I agree and it's cool to have your insight too, but I think what I hope is with this kind of collective trauma thing I was referring to being resolved to an extent, it's like cool, now we can actually crack on with putting the focus on what's interesting. And I put a question out on my Instagram a couple of months ago now that got loads of responses, genuinely very interested in this, which is like, okay, if everyone's stuff sounds good, you're describing what defines quality, what I mean, what is a high quality production? Because it used to be like you say, everything was rubbish until you got to a certain level. And it was like if everything sounded good, that was like cool, that's high quality. Now even people in their bedrooms doing their first EP can have something that sounds way better than loads of stuff that was out on labels 15 years ago.

(00:17:36):

So what is it that's quality in a high budget production, no longer just the sounds? And I think for me the answer is character and uniqueness. And you can only really achieve that with people that are going the extra mile that are doing things in an interesting way that are perhaps spending the time which is necessary to follow rabbit holes and try different things and experiment. And I think that's really exciting. I think that's perhaps now from this place, we can go to a point where top level bands are putting out more interesting sounding records and we get more diversity again, and more appreciation of every kind of production, whether it is the really sample replaced super gridded stuff, which suits some styles or whether it's modern music, modern metal musics being produced with a more organic feel with more live recording or more room sounds or less sample replacement. And there's always been plenty of that going on, but it's kind of been more on the fringes and it's kind of cool to hear in some ways some of those things coming back into or coming towards the modern metal genres and being embraced as wholeheartedly as the really heavy, heavy edited kind of sound.

Speaker 1 (00:18:46):

Well, the thing is that these tools don't give you your ideas. They're just tools. They're better than ever, but they're just tools. It's still down to the people to have that divine inspiration to do something interesting and cool with them.

Speaker 2 (00:19:05):

And that takes time and experience, doesn't it really? Or it just takes an absolute maverick vision. Some people just are that way and maybe they're also the kinds of minds that wouldn't sit down and really be studious about proper engineering technique. And now they've kind of got access to great sounds. It's like great, we get to hear their creative genius sounding great,

Speaker 1 (00:19:25):

But it makes me wonder production like Bohemian Rhapsody, something like that back in the day, what would it be like now with the current technology? I

Speaker 3 (00:19:36):

Dunno,

Speaker 1 (00:19:36):

Other than sounding CRISPR of course and all that, how different would it be?

Speaker 2 (00:19:42):

I dunno. I dunno. It's hard to know how much of that creativity was born out of limitation or restricted by the limitations of the time. How much crazier, yeah, would their vision have been if they had access to these talk? I dunno at all. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:19:56):

How much craz can it get?

Speaker 2 (00:19:59):

It is pretty crazy, isn't it? Some of those old productions.

Speaker 1 (00:20:03):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well I think of stuff like that because the music itself by any standard is still crazy back then and they figured out how to basically duct tape the technology together to get it across. So I just wonder, would the difference now be that they would just have an easier time in the studio basically with the same basic vision

Speaker 2 (00:20:31):

Or

Speaker 1 (00:20:31):

Would it be totally different? There's

Speaker 2 (00:20:32):

No doubt that they are slash very visionary group of people, so I'm sure. Well, yeah, I just dunno. So

Speaker 1 (00:20:41):

But when you think of the visionary artists of our time period or the past 15 years or something, when you think, I don't know, a muse or something like that, I could imagine some of the more visionary artists of now existing in that old time period too, and still putting out great stuff regardless of the technology.

Speaker 3 (00:21:05):

To

Speaker 1 (00:21:05):

Me that's kind of the thread I guess that is independent of technology is how good are the ideas and how much do these ideas stand on their own outside of the medium that they're presented in?

Speaker 3 (00:21:22):

And

Speaker 1 (00:21:23):

The stronger they are, I think, well that's when you start to enter into the timeless category. And with that timeless category, I think that that's where technology stops mattering. It matters a lot more for stuff that is not in that timeless category where you need the tools of the day to just be able to pull it off and you can't pull it off without the tools of the day.

Speaker 2 (00:21:47):

Yeah, I do get what you mean. I do get what you mean. And I do wonder how different metal production is going to sound like 10 years from now in some way. How much better can it get? I mean I'm not saying that I don't believe it can possibly get better, but it's just difficult to imagine the frequency range that we're using is so much expanded compared to 10, 15 years ago that the big thing for me is how much less harsh everything is. And I do think Soothe has a lot to

Speaker 1 (00:22:12):

That

Speaker 2 (00:22:12):

Flow is a paradigm shift for sure. But even without that is just having more EQ bands and stuff and people's general hearing, smoother sounding productions, I think then informs other people's productions to be smoother as well. So thinks a general kind of move towards that. But

Speaker 1 (00:22:27):

What's interesting is back in 2008 seven, I remember hanging out with OV when around when he was doing the Barrier Your Dead Productions, and those had just some of the biggest guitar tone at that time and they sounded monstrous. And I don't remember if he said it or I said it or someone else said it, somebody said that it's like car stereo test music because of how big it sounded. And at the time we felt like how can it get bigger sounding than this? How can you use more frequencies, how it was hard to imagine, but yet here we are and stuff sounds bigger, so I wonder if it's the same sort of thing that just we're, we are living within the constraints we're living in, so it's hard to see how much bigger things can get.

Speaker 2 (00:23:21):

Yeah, I

Speaker 1 (00:23:22):

Agree. But how can they not get bigger? That's what they do.

Speaker 2 (00:23:26):

Yeah, I dunno. So tell me this. Well firstly an observation in my work I've seen for sure the amount of tracks that are being added to metal music and I mean like synths and strings and effects. It seems to only be going up or only becoming more dominant, supplementing that kind of core band of guitar, bass, drums, vocals. So I think that's one way that things can get bigger and then the more you try and cram into the production, I start to wonder, and I would like your opinion on this, how much do you see things like Atmos being the future for Metal specifically?

Speaker 1 (00:23:58):

Good question. Okay, so did you by any chance watch the Atmos nail the mix? We just did.

Speaker 2 (00:24:04):

No, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (00:24:04):

Okay, so well, we just did one with Carson and Grant for the ERA mix. Dolby actually got involved with it and did a presentation. Basically it was a two day nail the mix or day one was the regular stereo mix, just standard Nail the mix. Day two was the Dolby day where Dolby basically did an hour and a half explaining how it works and just showing everybody. And then Carson and Grant did a Dolby version of the air mix. And what I noticed when the dude from Dolby was doing AB comparisons and also Carson Grant abed between the stereo version and then their Dolby version, the difference is not subtle, the difference in how big it sounds, it's pretty, it is pretty extreme. It sounds way bigger with the Dolby Atmos mix now there's problems and it's got to be figured out and there's phase and it's not a perfect technology and it's still very much in its Wild West period where there's no set standard yet.

(00:25:17):

People are still figuring things out. But when done well, it sounds way bigger. And the thing about it too is that it doesn't require this massive expensive setup. It's not just for rich people. The way that surround sound used to be, you don't need, what is it, 7.1 0.4, all you need are AirPods, there're Soundbars that do Dolby. It's not some crazy thing. So the fact that it's so accessible, I think that is what makes it seem like maybe it's not like the future of music people are saying, but I also don't think that it's going to be what surround sound was, which is just for DVDs and just for the odd band here and there and just for Rich people's movie rooms, I think that you're going to see a lot more of it, and especially people are working very hard right now to establish a standard for it.

(00:26:17):

That'll happen pretty soon. And I think once that happens, once you start seeing it in cars, it's already, I believe that in China there's already cars with it. Once that becomes the norm, I think that that's, it's going to change things also because everyone can check it out. Artists are going to hear the difference and they're going to want it the same way that the loudness wars were artists and labels hearing other people's work and saying, well, we have to be louder. I think people are going to hear the Dolby version of people's mixes and say, oh, our stereo mix sounds puny compared to that. I think that that's where it has to go because the technology is accessible. If it was inaccessible only for these movie theaters or rich people, then maybe that would be one thing. But since everybody can do it, that's a whole other thing I think. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (00:27:17):

I'm undecided really. I think there's certain sub genres of metal that maybe would benefit from having more space, but I can't really imagine hardcore bands with, oh no, of course not everyone. But for example, I guess I could ask you, I know you're working on the Darth record at the moment and I know that's very production heavy. Are you contemplating having an Atmo Smith stun of that record? Have you thought about that?

Speaker 1 (00:27:40):

I didn't think about it until we did that nail the mix and then it definitely crossed my mind. It's one of those things though where just because of the unique situation of Dot coming back after so long, I need to make sure that I'm not wasting my time. So to put the music out and make sure that it's not a sad trombone and that nobody cares. But if people do care and it makes sense to keep going, then absolutely for sure because

Speaker 3 (00:28:14):

Now

Speaker 1 (00:28:15):

That I've heard what it can do, it wouldn't make sense to me not to do it, especially because do is so layered for me. I've always written stuff with 17 guitars and synths and just counter melodies and just tons of shit going on at all times that's supposed to work together. But still sometimes a stereo mix is limiting. I personally never felt like they were bad arrangements. I felt like the medium was limited with orchestral music, it always worked. It should work with this tube, but there's something about the stereo metal mix that it made it not possible to really get across properly. So now that I've heard what Dolby can do, I'm like, okay, this actually, this seems like the answer to getting my music heard properly. So yes, actually I have thought about that. It needs to make sense, but let's just say that it does make sense and people like the new stuff then yeah, most likely. Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:29:15):

Yeah, I think it does make sense. I mean it's more places to put things, right? That's the problem. It's like where do you put it in stereo? But it's going to be interesting and I think that maybe that's going to be another kind of division between the big leagues and the people doing stuff at home. I know obviously consumers can access Dolby very easily, but to have a great monitoring situation

Speaker 1 (00:29:37):

With

Speaker 2 (00:29:37):

That many speakers is definitely going to be something limited to only people with some serious budget.

Speaker 1 (00:29:43):

Totally

Speaker 2 (00:29:43):

Part of me wonders. I know it is really impressive, but I feel like it is somewhere now for high-end studios to invest a lot of money that they feel is going to kind of give them that edge again. So I wonder, it feels like there's quite a lot of movement happening for that reason. But I mean, plus I think that for other genres and other styles and soundtracks and things like that, I think it's a no brainer that that's going to become the new thing. Just as VR is likely to become the dominant force in visual media.

Speaker 1 (00:30:08):

It's one of those things that until you've actually heard it done or with VR experience, the real thing, you might not realize just how good this stuff is. I was super skeptical about VR until I checked it out. I remember VR from when I was a kid being a joke, but then I checked it out, the modern vr and I was like, oh, okay, we are living in the future. And I felt the same way when I heard the Dolby stuff. It was like, okay, this is actually great. This is not bullshit at all.

Speaker 2 (00:30:41):

Yeah, well that's great. It's cool to have that insight and I do wonder how much harder it's going to make things for people getting into the industry. I think obviously you can take a stereo mix and pan some stuff around and kind of enjoy the extra space of Atmos, but I think it'll be interesting to see how many people have the creative vision to intentionally utilize that technology within their creative vision at the start of the process within Metal, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (00:31:06):

Well, I think that that's actually what's going to be required. So on the Dolby site, they have these case studies of artists that created productions with Atmos in mind. And I actually, I think that that's going to be the best case scenario. Kind of like with vinyl and stuff. The best sounding records on vinyl are the ones that were created with vinyl in mind. Something is always better when its final Medium is taken into consideration. Like watching a Chris Nolan movie at an IMAX theater is the best way because it shot a certain way to be presented like that. It's still good at home, but it's a whole other experience. It was created for that experience. I think once metal bands start arranging their songs and the producers start approaching from the ground up with Atmos in mind, that's going to be when it really comes into its own, I think. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:32:05):

I think so too. You know what it is within Metal is apart from finding more space for things, and that is a big one, it's difficult to see what problems it solves. It's very cool. But for something to get adopted in the mainstream, that's a new technology. It kind of needs to solve an existing problem. And I can see in soundtrack music and electronic music, all sorts of other styles of music, it's super cool to have such a sense of space. I dunno, I dunno, it'll be interesting to listen back to this conversation in a few years time and see how things are developed.

Speaker 1 (00:32:34):

Well, the thing is metal. I think that even though there's more and more tracks in a lot of it, metal still comes down to two guitars based drums, vocals at its core. That's really what it is.

(00:32:46):

And that really hasn't changed ever that it's still that same basic format. And yeah, some bands dress it up more, but I do think that that smore the exception. And you and I we're in this bubble of being around crazy musicians and insane artists, but I don't think that that's the norm. I think that it's a very, when that's who you're surrounded by, it's easy to believe that that's what everyone's doing, but it's not. And I think that this crazier kind of music, it's not the norm. I think the norm is the more simple, straight ahead, stripped down arrangement type metal that's borderline, that's more in the border with Hard rock or something. And with that it is hard to see exactly what problem the Atmos thing solves besides just the issue of how do you make it sound bigger, which is something that any radio band wants, right? Any hard rock or radio metal band, they always want to sound bigger. So that is one way to do that. So it does solve that problem, even though they don't have 8 million things going on at the same time, they still do want to sound as big as possible. It

Speaker 2 (00:34:08):

Makes sense. And I mean for me, I forget if we spoke about this last time, but for me, the sound, the emotions that metal invokes, it's very much like a visceral thing for me. I liken it to going on a rollercoaster where it's like you get to experience a little bit of what it would be like to be in an out of control vehicle or something like that. And I think metal production, funny you've put it that way, or skydiving or something, instead of actually jumping off a building, it's like you get to experience that thrill that would normally end in death, whereas it's like

Speaker 3 (00:34:43):

Within

Speaker 2 (00:34:44):

Metal, it's like you're trying to expose yourself to these sounds which you perceive as being just completely overwhelming, don't you? I mean that's how it is for me, and that's what draws me to metal is the feeling I get of excitement and

Speaker 3 (00:34:56):

This

Speaker 2 (00:34:56):

Sound like being close to a volcano erupting, yet you're not actually being covered in lava. You know what I mean? It's like just enough distance away from that thing that you get to experience it without experiencing any kind of discomfort. And I know some metal people would really take offense to that. I know some people that like the raw production style would say, well, it's supposed to be angry and harsh and unpleasant because the music's designed with rage and anger and mind. But for me, it's not so much that it is about softening transients and stuff so that it's not drilling into your ears. It's making it so that you can actually take it all in at once without being knocked back by the volume or the harshness. So there is to me a sense that more immersion in the sound could heighten that experience. You could make it even bigger and closer to being overwhelming without actually reaching that point. And that's exciting.

Speaker 1 (00:35:55):

That's exactly it actually. That's what I see the benefit as now that I've experienced it. That's totally where I see it headed. Hey everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration 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 Lamb of 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.

(00:36:55):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Matson, Andrew 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 like gain, 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. 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 and 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 M Academy to find out more. Can we talk about the key monitors?

Speaker 2 (00:38:16):

Sure thing. Yeah, I'd love to.

Speaker 1 (00:38:17):

Yeah, I don't know much about them. I just know that it's not a typical thing. You hear a lot about Amon, you hear a lot about Gen X, which are great monitors, but you don't really hear much about Keys is because they're mostly used by audio files in Hi-Fi listening type situations, not necessarily studio monitors. So I'm curious why you're using them and more than anything, why, yeah, why are you using that and not regular studio monitors?

Speaker 2 (00:38:53):

Yeah, that's a good question. And it is interesting. They kind of market the same product to both audio files and studio people, but they literally have 'em as two separate pages on their website, but it's the same speakers. So as I mentioned, we moved house and I kind of had the opportunity to decide how I wanted my home studio to be. I knew I didn't want to have a separate facility. I really love working from home. I love being able to just walk into a room and sit down and work and leave again and spend some time with my wife or whatever, take the dog for a walk. So for me, I decided actually it's time to kind of go all in on the minimal thing for me. That's always been the way I've done things. And that kind of came up from having to work on a laptop and not having a studio.

(00:39:37):

And I kind of realized I'm probably never going to own a traditional studio and it's probably not the greatest investment now to go down that route. So I thought, well, the one thing which I want to make sure I have in my home studio is just the best possible listening experience because it's clear to me anyway that the tools we have now that you can access within your computer are more than good enough to do top level work. And really the only limitation is how well you can hear what you're doing. So I had in mind that I was going to go down the route of getting some really high-end analog monitors like ATCs or pmcs end game analog monitors that really are the kind of top end studio staple stuff. But I'd seen a few reviews of these key monitors that were just people being absolutely blown away by, blown away by them, and not necessarily YouTube people, but people in magazines.

(00:40:24):

The Sound on Sound guys talked about how they were the best kind of near-field monitors that'd ever heard. And to be honest, I dislike how they look. I'm looking at them now and I had to really like how they sounded because I wasn't sold on the little aesthetic. But they have a few things that I really, really like. As you can see, I'm not in a very big room. I'm in a room that's probably close to the kind of worst possible dimensions for monitoring. It's got a hell of a lot of treatment in it. But the thing these monitors do is they kind of use fancy DSP and digital stuff, which I kind of didn't want to get into, but to cancel out the sounds around the sides and back of the monitor. So basically you get rid of a loss of the reflections that you would normally get from the back.

(00:41:02):

So in many ways it makes the room far, far more doable. Whereas with analog monitors, probably if I wanted to achieve this kind of listening situation, I'd need to properly acoustically design this room and probably want someone with bigger dimensions and never be quite sure. These just give me, I mean, put it this way, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed listening to music as much as on these, and I'm endorsed by them. I don't have any kind of affiliation with them. But for me it is kind of like that difference when you hear Atmos or surround sound because everything is so, so clear and coherent and the transient response is so aligned, it is literally aligned by the DSP inside that it's like there's a sense of depth that I've never experienced before. You can hear the tiny quiet things in the background at the same time.

(00:41:48):

It's the loud things at the front, so it kind of feels like you're looking into the mix. They don't have a sub, but I've still got more low end extension than I had with my old setup with the sub as well. So for me, it solves a lot of problems with the room. But then on top of that, for me, the sound is just, for me, it's just a hundred percent trustable and it's just so enjoyable to listen to. So my concern was whether or not it was just going to be way too annoying to mix on if they'd be way too finicky. But actually I just found that it was like, no, you just hear what you need to do and you do it and job's done.

Speaker 1 (00:42:17):

I mean, isn't that what's supposed to happen?

Speaker 2 (00:42:19):

Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:42:21):

I feel like you're not supposed to fight your monitors.

Speaker 2 (00:42:23):

No, they're just supposed to tell you what's going on really, aren't they? And I think the only thing which I found with them is the clarity is such that I tend not to need to push volumes on things to make them audible. Things like a lead vocal or a guitar solo. It's like I can hear it perfectly well when it's a little bit more tucked into the mix, so I kind of learn to just automatically bump the fader up and other DB also on those things before printing a mix down because I know that other people's systems don't translate as clearly and their room, their speakers are going to kind of wash out the middle of the mix that bit more to where they need a bit of extra volume there. But it's been amazing for me and I found I've used less EQ probably on my mixes currently, and because of the way you can hear the transients, it's like you can kind of massage how close and far away things are with more kind of compression or just balancing rather than using EQ to make things cut through. And that's been really exciting and really enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (00:43:12):

It's cool that you did that just because I think people are afraid to go off the beaten path with what they listened to. And I really think that what matters most in monitoring is can you hear what you're trying to hear and are you able to listen for long periods of time? Those two things mattered, I think more than anything, how long can you go for? If you're getting fatigued within two hours, that's probably not a good thing. And if you're not hearing what you need to hear and it's not translating properly, that's a problem too. But since everybody's hearing is different, just because something works for somebody does not mean that it's going to work for anybody else. I think it's great for people to hear as someone that they respect going off the beaten path. Cool. Thank

Speaker 2 (00:43:59):

You. Yeah, I mean it was a risk, to be honest. I saw a really good deal on some B stock kind of X demo ones come up and I went and I bought them knowing that I could probably sell them on for what I paid. So I mean they're very expensive, but I kind of decided to order them in just to try. I say they weren't my first choice, but once I heard them I was just like, yeah, this is me set. I don't need to worry about this now that's done. And before I was using Sonar Works, which I think is amazing as a tool, especially for people at home, but you're still limited by what's coming out of your speakers. If your speakers aren't able to give you that transient information, sonar Works isn't going to fix that. And if your room is clouding up certain things, it can go a long way, but it's never going to make things come out of your speakers that your speakers can't produce, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (00:44:42):

Yeah, that does make perfect sense. I think that Sonar Works is probably one of the best things that's ever been invented or recently when I think of things that have been invented recently that have made a huge difference. We were just talking about Soothe. I think Sonar Works is one of those things as far as tools that really do make life easier for people. I do think that's one of 'em.

Speaker 2 (00:45:06):

Yeah, I agree. I'm struggling to think of more products than that.

Speaker 1 (00:45:10):

What

Speaker 2 (00:45:10):

Than Soothe and Sunna works that have come out in the last five to 10 years that have really changed the game? Can you think of others? The Kemper? Yeah, I suppose so.

Speaker 1 (00:45:19):

Evert Tune.

Speaker 2 (00:45:20):

Yep. In terms of coming out with something that's a completely new idea. I mean, I feel like, well, I guess the Kemper did come out with the profiling.

Speaker 1 (00:45:28):

That was a major one.

Speaker 2 (00:45:30):

But no, I agree. I think Cerner works has made production possible for so many people, including myself for a long time without being in an amazing studio and the number of times I've been in great studios and ended up using Cerner works in there because I wasn't confident in the monitoring and then hearing the difference and being like, yeah, I really need this. It is like a proper acoustic space, but the clarity that you get in the middle of your mix, especially when it sorts out the timeline between your speakers and kind of figures out where stuff's washing around in the room is pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (00:45:59):

Yeah, man, I'm still trying to think of other inventions. I'm still on that thought.

Speaker 2 (00:46:05):

It's like certainly within the software world, don't get me wrong, there's amazing software out there, but ones where it's like you just know that there's productions happening that could not have happened without it. It's difficult to think.

Speaker 1 (00:46:17):

It is more that everything that already was invented is just getting better.

Speaker 3 (00:46:23):

There's

Speaker 1 (00:46:24):

That. So with Amp Sims for instance, it's not that Amp Sims were invented in the past 10 years. It's it got really good in the past 10 years and they're a major game changer. So really in the past five years they've gotten really good. I think that that's more it is that it's less the number of new things, but more how much of things that already existed have improved.

Speaker 2 (00:46:49):

Have you messed around with spiff a lot?

Speaker 1 (00:46:51):

The other Oak sound? I haven't, but I have been meaning to have you.

Speaker 2 (00:46:57):

Yeah, I really like it and every time I use it, I think I should be using this more frequently than I'm, and whenever I use it, it really solves a problem as we were describing before in a way that no other tool does for me. It took me age to get what it is until I realized it's a frequency dependent transient designer, so you can kind choose where it's acting, but that it's kind of utilizing that same technology as soother. It's got, I forget how many bands under the hood. So it's able to really just affect the frequencies that are there in the enhance the frequencies that are there rather than doing a global shelf kind of thing, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm not describing it very well, but if you use it as a transient designer on a snare drum, it actually makes it sound like it's being hit harder. I think. Not a hundred percent. Well, but if you take, I do lots of drum sampling. If you take one drum hit and compare it to the next level up and then that lower drum hit with spiff on it, it does a pretty good job if you set it right at approximating the in-between, as in it actually changes the frequency response as well as the transient kind of level.

Speaker 1 (00:48:03):

That sounds kind of magical. It is. I mean, yeah, that sounds like magic.

Speaker 2 (00:48:08):

Yeah, I'd love to be able to describe what it does better or for them to describe what it does better because it took me ages to figure it out and start applying it.

Speaker 1 (00:48:16):

So you know what that sounds like to me. Okay. So that sounds to me like this unit, I had JCF audio, this dude is a genius and he makes these hardware pieces that are kind of magical

Speaker 2 (00:48:29):

Called

Speaker 1 (00:48:29):

The AD eight, and it's a converter and it has this technology in it that he invented called pep. It stands for power equalization processing. And when you put PEP on, it does this weird thing, it's magic. It's hard to explain because it changes how the EQ and the transient, I don't know how to explain it. So how they fall over time, but not

Speaker 2 (00:48:59):

So

Speaker 1 (00:48:59):

Suddenly drums will feel like they're hitting harder and more in the pocket. It's subtle of course, but I couldn't figure out what it was doing. It sounds to me like spiff is one of those things. It does something kind of like that where it's affecting the frequency response to some degree. It's affecting the transient to some degree, and there's some magical formula going on that makes things sound just more musical or something hard to explain.

Speaker 2 (00:49:33):

Yeah, well I hadn't heard about that talking about magic about 88. I'll have to look into it. I think if you think about what Soothe does where it's able to generate these dynamic notches, imagine that you can boost or cut those same frequencies, but just in the transient portion of the signal

Speaker 1 (00:49:48):

Just

Speaker 2 (00:49:48):

In the band that you want.

Speaker 1 (00:49:49):

That's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:49:49):

So it's, it is kind of dependent on the frequency content of what you're boosting rather than just this kind of global EQ boost, which you see in some multi-band transient designers, which are really cool tools, but I dunno, give it a try. You can do all sorts of cool things. You can make a shallow snare drum sound like it's two inches deeper by kind of focusing more wallop in that kind of low mid area. And especially when drums, you can just really revoice things in a cool way that I haven't found elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (00:50:18):

I love intelligent plugins.

Speaker 2 (00:50:21):

Me too, me too. I hate automation.

Speaker 1 (00:50:24):

Yeah. Oh, I remember on your nail the mix you were using Vocal rider.

Speaker 2 (00:50:30):

Yep, that's true. Which I didn't think I've actually used since, which is interesting. But

Speaker 1 (00:50:34):

You haven't used it since.

Speaker 2 (00:50:35):

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like

Speaker 1 (00:50:37):

That's funny. So many people probably started using it as a result.

Speaker 2 (00:50:41):

Really? That's hilarious. Yeah, I mean that was a problem solving device tool in that situation, but I think what it is is that so many of these automated plugins and things are getting smarter and better, and I think automation's really important, don't get me wrong. Global automation like riding things. So you get bigger impacts and dynamic shifts on a macro level is cool, but trying to fix issues on a micro level using a manual automation thing just always feels like a very blunt tool or just for me generates so much doubt as to whether you're actually compensating correctly or overcompensating or under compensating, especially if you're having to go through and level of vocal word by word or consonant by consonant, which I have done.

Speaker 1 (00:51:27):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:51:27):

It's just like the world of doubt that you're open to is a mixer there and how much it takes you away from the actual mixing process.

Speaker 1 (00:51:35):

And then there's trends. So since you're doing stuff in micro word by word or syllable by syllable, you might not realize that you're gradually just making the vocal louder over time because you're just going word by word. So you're listening to how one word works with the one before it and you're, it's very easy to lose the big picture. And that world of doubt sucks. I definitely think that the intelligent plugins that really zero in on these issues are that's something that really is a game changer.

Speaker 2 (00:52:14):

I agree. I think, for example, fab Filter Pro Q3, being able to make any band dynamic

Speaker 1 (00:52:20):

Amazing

Speaker 2 (00:52:21):

Is so good. And I used to use the multi-band compressors a lot more in the year before Pro Q3 came out. I remember using that a lot on Devon Townsend stuff and periphery stuff to make it so that things maintained a certain level of fullness rather than having to make just a static cut into something or split a track. The classic one for me is strings on top of a metal mix. You always have to cut midrange and low end, and then you get to a break when the strings are isolated and suddenly they sound rubbish. So you kind of have to put it all back in again or split have a separate channel of strings that's got a different EQ on it just for those moments. And I mean, that's fine, but these dynamic tools I think do so much of a better job and especially where you can side chain from other things. And I've no doubt that increases the listen ability of things. Golfo too. You ever mess around with that?

Speaker 1 (00:53:14):

Yes. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:53:15):

Yeah, that's more subtle I think. But it is great.

Speaker 1 (00:53:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:53:18):

I dunno if I could say it's like a paradigm change in the same way as some of these other tools. But yeah, I mean I think doing things with confidence, being able to do things with confidence. We were talking about the new monitors, all these tools. I think that really helps in any creative endeavor to be able to do things and not second guess yourself and not doubt. And that also comes with experience with anything you're doing. I think that experience leading to you being able to do things with intention, see the result that you expect and move on, I think that's one of the best things that comes with time actually. The more you do something, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (00:53:50):

Yes. I mean, I'm noticing that actually with the music I'm making now, it's not that I am less crazy, but when writing it, but I am way less doubtful and am much quicker to know when something's good or bad. And so it's way easier for me to just say, Nope, on an idea or no. Yes, this idea is we're pursuing. Whereas in the past I definitely more, I guess, confidence issues with it. Like I second guess myself a lot more. So I feel like just knowing what's good and having confidence in that or knowing what your tools do and having confidence that they work just it makes all the difference in the world because you have to be able to make bold choices. I think that when creating art, whether it's a mix or writing a song, if you're in your own head worried about something not working, is it good enough? Not can we make it better? But is this even working too much of that will take you out of that creative headspace, I think, and it will kill that momentum. I think almost any of that will do that.

Speaker 2 (00:55:12):

Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. And it is funny, I was talking to Ben in the pre-interview about this kind of little motto that I've been having in my head for the last year or so, which is this incredibly, incredibly bland sounding phrase, which is repetition leads to predictability, which I was thinking about. Practice makes perfect the saying, and I was thinking how vague that really is when you drill down. For me it's kind of

Speaker 1 (00:55:38):

What does it even mean?

Speaker 2 (00:55:39):

Yeah. What is practicing and what is perfect? Ultimately, maybe in the Victorian era school system it makes sense or in some kind of training someone to do something in a very robotic way. Maybe that makes sense. But in any broader sense, that's kind of what I build it down to is like, okay, what are you practicing? What are you doing when you're practicing? You're repeating something. You might not be actually repeating what you think you're repeating. You might be repeating an error over and over again or repeating something that's not training you in what you're trying to train, but you're repeating something. And what happens after you do it a lot is you're able to predict the outcome or achieve a predictable outcome more consistently or more predictable outcome.

Speaker 1 (00:56:19):

What I heard is people start saying, perfect practice makes perfect, which is basically the same thing you're saying.

Speaker 2 (00:56:24):

Yeah, but I think it's basically something which underpins almost everything we do, and what I like about that phrase is how neutral it is. Predictability can be a good thing or a bad thing, predictability in the context of your life. Maybe you don't want to have a completely predictable day every day of the year, every year of your life. Maybe that's going to going to be boring, and you therefore can think, okay, what can I not repeat? Where can I make changes so that I get unpredictable results in a way that's going to satisfy my curiosity for life? And on the other end, when you go into a production, if you haven't repeated things and you don't know predictably what's going to happen, if you reach for an EQ and boost any given frequency on this source sound, you are going to be risking ending up with an unpredictable result, which again, might be fine in the context, but in the context of a metal producer or a producer working with a client who needs to get something done on time, you need to know exactly what's going to happen within a certain degree of accuracy when you make anyone move.

(00:57:26):

That's how you get from A to B in a production is making lots and lots of tiny decisions and you can't be second guessing all of them. If I think about an amazing chef could come into your kitchen with your equipment and with your ingredients, cook up a really great dish, maybe not Michelin ade dish, but they would just know exactly how finely to chop things, exactly which tools to use, how much heat to apply for, how long, when to combine things, the order to do things. And you could look at the recipe that you could write down notes of what they did, but there wouldn't be any magic in there. You wouldn't be able to look at any one step probably and be like, oh my God, this is that one thing he did that led this is the thing. Yeah, exactly. And I mean it's the same as nail the mix. Somebody can copy down snare cue settings that an experienced producer used on something, and there's probably not very much magic in there. Most people are probably boosting a bit of low end cutting a bit of cardboard mids and boosting some top end and doing some, you know what I mean? It's not like there's a difference of a few hertz in where you boost in the top end that's going to suddenly

Speaker 1 (00:58:28):

Nope. It's all the little things put together.

Speaker 2 (00:58:31):

Exactly. And the only way you can do that is kind of EQing things a lot.

Speaker 1 (00:58:35):

Yeah, and what's interesting too is with the predictability, that also it leads to a confidence not just in knowing something's going to work and making confident decisions, but it also leads to confidence in knowing when something is wrong, which is just as important I think. So being able to cut an idea off or stop going down a certain path quickly, you need to be confident enough to say no, that's a bad path. And I think that through lots of repetition and predictability, it's a lot easier to know, well, I've done this a thousand times and I know that when I do this, that's what happens and that's not what we want, so we're not going to do this thing.

Speaker 2 (00:59:24):

I think that's huge, and I mean that's something very much you can apply to your personal life too. We all have patterns of behavior that maybe aren't serving us super well or that lead us to places that we then regret later in our own personal lives and relationships to others. And if you can recognize the things that you're doing the same every time that's leading you down that path and decide, figure out where the earliest possible point that you can introduce a change is so that you kind of get a different cascade of scenarios. You can over time start to avoid some traps that you know can fall into. But yeah, the same, I guess it's life experience, it's life. At the end of the day, you learn to read people, you learn to know what's good for you. In any given situation, you need to learn what you need to prioritize. It's all because you've probably messed up loads of times. You've repeated the scenario over and over again and kind of the things which work carry on through, so in the future you can make the right decisions when they come up quicker and just kind of sail through things a little bit easier.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):

That's why when you're younger and you don't have kids or a family, a mortgage and all that, that's when you should be putting in those 12 hour days practicing

(01:00:38):

Because what we're talking about getting to that point is only really possible through the repetition. At some point you have to put in those hours, and I think the 10,000 hours thing is a total myth. It's more like 30,000 hours or something. It's way more than 10,000 hours. So I think at some point people do need to put those hours in on that repetition and just do the reps. Same if you're learning an instrument. I mean, if you want to get good, you are going to have to put your time in with the basics, with the metronome and just do the thing over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):

I think it's important to repeat the right things, right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. And repeat them a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):

And if I think about what you guys offer with nail the mix, I think, well, if I reflect on two sides, if I look at my own personal development in what I do as a mixer or a product designer or a guitarist or a bassist or I look at what you're offering and nail the mix, I think a common thread is repeating things on my own time or you are offering the ability to people to repeat things in their own time. If you imagine 20 years ago you get a job to work as an assistant in a studio and you want to become a metal producer one day you're a fan of metal, you get to work on one metal band every six months or something that just happens to come in into the studio, you don't get to flex your chops, you don't get to practice that stuff. It's going to take God knows how many hours of working in that studio before you'd be able to apply any of your knowledge to successfully create a good sounding metal recording. Whereas now with Nail the mix, people can sit at their own home and work on track after track after track from different sources and put in less than 10,000 hours on the specific thing that they're trying to get better at, and kind of get this very condensed learning experience. And I think that's super important.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):

It's actually a really good point. I've talked about this a lot, is if you're going for an internship, say with a producer that you really look up to, say you learn something from them or they do something that you want to adopt, you have a limited amount of times that you can ask them to repeat themselves. If you didn't catch something, depending on who it is, you can ask them again. But there's a limit to how many times you can get the same information out of somebody. So in person, you have to be able to just get it pretty much the first time and then somehow know it, which some people do. Some people are that quick. I think that that's why these high level producers go through interns and assistants so quickly is because that environment is not suited for most people and how they learn.

(01:03:26):

Most people need the repetition. And so the learning on your own time and being able to rewind, watch again, practice some more, rewind, watch again, practice some more, that's crucial. It's crucial. Most people can't just learn things the first time under the pressure of a major label situation and produce and then just suddenly know how to do it right from then on forward. And not being able to just do that shouldn't be why you don't have a future in this. I think most people can't just pick things up that quickly. Most people do have to do that extra work on their own, and you just have to figure out how to do that extra work on your own. So I think the online learning does provide that. I think that is a big difference between now and even 10 years ago. That's one of the reasons people are getting better is they can do this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):

Same with learning and instrument. I think it's really important with anything you're doing to also ask yourself the question, why not? Why are you doing it? But why are you getting the result that you're getting? Because even though there's such a base of information out there on the internet, it's so easy to get answers that don't really apply to you. And the why is what dries everything. Why does my guitar not sound like Andy sleeps even though I have the entire rig supposedly the same. You have to kind of go piece by piece and figure out, okay, what is the thing that I need to change here? What's not the same that's causing this different outcome? Why can I not trem low pick super fast? Why can I not feel relaxed in a situation in the studio where things aren't going as I intended them to go? This is all these kinds of mindset things or physical things or kind of scientific things where you kind of need to reflect on the outcomes you're getting. I see quite a lot of the time in all sorts of scenarios, people, they put together the raw components and just assume that the outcome is right. And a lot of the times it isn't. You know what I mean? Or it's not as good as it can be, or they're overlooking something that they could be doing better.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):

How did you develop that? I don't mean how did you develop your skills, but how did you develop your ability to look at something and realize it could be better or something's off? The reason I'm asking is because what you just said, which I've noticed, is that many people will assemble the pieces, get the result, and maybe recognize that it's not as good as they expected, but just accept that. Just accept that and then do it the same way the next time,

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):

Or weirdly get stoked about it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):

Yeah, because it's close, weirdly get stoked about it because it's like closer to that thing they were going for than what they had before, but not totally there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):

I mean, the answer is definitely not in any conscious way, at least for the first 25 years of my life or more. I think it's probably something to do with being an only child, having a lot of time on my hands, maybe just a certain mindset. My dad's kind of engineering minded. My mom's a linguist and very intelligent and always have all sorts of, we had very kind of intellectual discussions at home as a kid. I know you did as well with your parents. Are you an only child by the way?

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):

No, but I'm the oldest.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):

Okay, so you had a bit more time then for whatever reason, I'm just wired a certain way. What tends to happen is I'll have some benchmark experience, an emotional experience where you hear a piece of music as it was for me within whatever music I get into, and it just lights some spark inside where it makes you feel a certain way. And I just want to be able to repeat that experience, something which you fall in love with, which is ultimately what gets you into any kind of profession that you do, where you're doing what you love, you kind of need to fall in love with it. You need to have some experience that drives you into that. Otherwise, you're just not going to be asking yourself that way. You're not going to be comparing where you are to that benchmark that inspired you to that length.

(01:07:20):

So it's taken a long time for me to come to round to the idea that maybe this thing is, it's kind of an emotional story really, of trying to recreate a certain feeling and it not happening, and the frustration gets born out of frustration really. And it's not like, I dunno, it's just a desire to be able to have that experience again. And then that kind of scientific methodology thing, which I kind of alluded to before. It's like people are telling you this is the way that you do the thing. So you follow those instructions and in the beginning you kind of go, well, I'm not very good at this yet, so I'm probably not doing it. And then over time you start to be pretty sure I'm doing exactly what these instructions are saying and it's not coming out. So that just, again, that's frustrating to me. It's like I'm so desperate to relive that experience that I fell in love with in the first place, and I'm not getting there even though I'm supposedly doing the thing. And yeah, I really think it's born out of frustration.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):

So it's almost like you're just wired for this.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):

Do you think so?

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):

Yeah, I think so because man, I've wondered a lot. What is it? Well, I do think there's a nature and nurture thing going on, but I think that people either have that chip built in that makes them have that reaction that this is the thing I'm going for and I'm not there, not stopping till I get there, or they don't. And I've noticed that you can't really instill that in somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):

It does make sense. And

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):

I've tried. I've tried, believe me, I have tried, but you can't. And then everyone I've met who's like that, they were already like that when I met them and when I started working with them. And no matter what age they're at, they're already like that. You didn't have to train that into them or anything. The only thing you can train are specific skills, but not like their character that's just there or those types of personality quirks are just there. I think they happened way earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):

Listening to you saying that, I kind of said it without thinking too much, but I think that benchmark is super important to me, and I can understand why. If you can't instill that in someone, you can't make them fall in love with a certain experience. Maybe they think they want to be, I'm not talking about anyone in particular or any particular experience, but maybe you've got someone in the studio who thinks they want to be a producer, but they haven't actually fallen in love with the craft in such a way that they're then going to want to pursue it, to pursue the challenge of reflective improvement. They kind of just like some aspect of it, and it's not actually the being a producer or being a musician.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):

Yep, totally. I mean, that's me when it comes to production. I realize it for me, me

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):

Too. I think really I'm glad that I'm working with fewer bands because I think if I were to work with more bands, I wouldn't be doing the best job for them because ultimately I need to work with people that have a shared vision with me. Otherwise, I'm kind of just trying to use them and their music to make myself feel the feeling that I want to feel. Which is fine as long as you're aligned, but it's really frustrating when you're working with bands who you're not on the same page with. It's really difficult, at least within metal, I think, where there tends to be less emotional expression tied up in it lyrically or something like that. I can understand. I love listening to people like Rick Rubin talk about production and working with artists that feels like real creativity, real human expression. And somebody like Rick Rubin I think is a connoisseur of emotion of human experience, and he's just trying to translate that into an art. And it's not about any of the things that we talk about when we talk about producing metal mixes. It's just about art.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):

No, but you know what? The engineers he works with do talk about those things.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):

So someone on that team does talk about those things.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):

No doubt, no doubt. But I'm just thinking of if you want to be able to work on music and connect emotionally with people, I think metal's probably not with people's expression, and you want a diversity of that, then maybe metal isn't the first genre to look at.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):

No, I totally agree with you. Can we talk about the cabs for a little bit coming close to the end of our time, and I want to make sure that we talk about that. I want to hear about them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):

Yeah, sure. I am sorry, I'm not really watching the time. I kind of feel like we're just having a chat. I feel like this could probably go on for ages.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):

Yeah, which is awesome. I just want to make sure we talk about the cab some.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):

Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):

I know they're awesome. Thank

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):

You.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):

And I know that you don't just throw shit together.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):

No, no. It really does state back to again, there's falling in love with a certain guitar sound, which made me fall in love with guitar and want to play guitar, and then made me want to be able to replicate that. I'm talking years before I ever did anything with production. I'm talking about early teens without really knowing what

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):

You just wanted to sound cool, right?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):

Yes. Even I know you don't mean it like that, but it's not even about it being cool. It's just like it moved something in me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):

No, no, cool. To you not being cool in a popular sense. I mean, you wanted to make things that you personally thought sounded cool.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):

Yeah, exactly. And just not achieving it and being really frustrated with it. And specifically, so much of the voice of metal guitar for me comes back to the vintage 30 speaker and typically a Messa Boogie cabinet. And I deep dived into it. I think last time we spoke, I'd already started this journey, but

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):

I think so, yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):

I'd gotten a messy boogie cab and it just didn't sound anything it was supposed to, it just sounded wrong. And that kind of, again, that's like, why doesn't this sound right? I'm laughing. I feel your pain. Yeah, I mean, I think it's the pain of so many people, so many guitarists in metal is like, why doesn't my stuff sound? Why don't I have that perfect guitar to, and I've got every ingredient to do it. And yeah, just asking those questions, why in investigating, I started to be like, well, okay, maybe it's to do with the speaker because if you move a speaker around different cabinets, the overall sound doesn't change that much. Not the fingerprint, not the part of the sound, which I'm really focusing on that the presence of it and the fizz on the top and just having that nice gnarly kind of character to it that seems to be very much the speaker rather than anything else.

(01:13:29):

And I read online, and I'd known for a long time about this UK versus Chinese vintage 30 thing. So I started collecting them up and I quite quickly realized that it wasn't really about UK versus Chinese, it was just about a specific era where they just sounded different. And I managed to get a contact at Celestine who was able to confirm certain details even though they typically don't confirm those details. And so that just led me down trying to figure out, and I'm lucky enough to have the time and the means to kind collect up all these calves. I ended up with 14 or 15 Messa, four twelves at any one. That's ridiculous. I actually just bought another one yesterday, so amazing. I swore myself off cabs amazing. But when I see now, I know from the serial number on the cab, whether it's from the golden era, which means it's not the cab, it's the speakers that came in it, which are kind of from a different date whenever they got made at Celestine and shipped over.

(01:14:18):

And I kind of feel like speakers, they're these completely unique creations. They're all snowflakes in their own way. They're such a kind of rudimentary system with this paper cone that's really variable. And depending on how it's glued in really minute ways just really changes. Well, the formula and then the minutia of its construction lead to a unique result. So when I see a cab out there or a speaker out there that I knows from that golden era, I kind of want have it just to protect it from time and in the future. I know that's a unique sound I can go to. And it was very satisfying and I bothered Andy sleep about it a lot. And I think he thought I was a complete weirdo for being so obsessed with this messy boogie cab. And another thing I should say about this kind of obsessive nature is it's not necessarily that I think that that's the only cool thing. I'm just stuck on it because the formula's not working. But once I achieve it, I'm kind of like, oh, cool. And along the way, I might come across perfectly good other sounds, but until I achieve that benchmark, I feel like I don't have the right perspective to judge other things. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):

Yeah, totally. And benchmark, that's a good word to use. We know that there's this, I don't want to say perfect, but there's this iconic, universal amazing tone within this combination of tools that has been revealed and unlocked by other people. And when you're trying to get it and you're not quite there, it's super frustrating. And why even fuck with anything else until you've got, I feel like it's a distraction to set a goal and then start working on something else.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):

And for me, it is an obsession.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):

Accomplish the thing you set out to do, then do something else.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):

I really agree. And for me, it is very much a kind of, there's a certain feeling that I get from that initial experience and I want to recreate that, but it's not necessarily, I'm not saying I need to have the guitar sound from a specific record. There'll be something about that where when you have that piece of the puzzle, actually the whole world opens up again because you know how to achieve that one thing. And actually, I'm not as rigid as people might think I am. It doesn't always have to be exactly Andy sleep settings with a tube screamer with a cab. You know what I mean? I know if I have that speaker, it gives a certain voice that I really like and I tend to find it quite frustrating when I work with people that are incredibly obsessed with a perfect sound. I don't necessarily think those exist. And for me, if I'm getting the right feeling from something that's cool, I can accept it not being identical to this other thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):

It's just about it reaching that benchmark. I do think benchmarks may be a good word. It's not about trying to achieve some platonic ideal, which doesn't really exist anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):

This stuff is hard to explain.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):

When I think about a lot of these things, the kind of thing that comes into my mind is a bit just wanting to see a map complete, being able to, if you imagine if you make an analogy of trying to get a guitar sound in the studio as trying to get from A to B, walking through countryside and they've got all sorts of different terrains, you've got to traverse.

Speaker 3 (01:17:32):

You

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):

Kind of know where the start and the end point, well where you're supposed to end. There are certain points where you say you need to cross a river. You need to make it to a specific point across this bridge. And if you don't make it to that point, you're just never going to make it across to the next side. The more times you kind of walk that same terrain, the more of a winding path you can take. The further away you can go, you can explore areas you've never been before, and yet your vision of the map in your head is so complete that you can always get back to those important points so that you can make it across to the next point. You can make it to the end without getting lost and spending all of your time trying to figure out how to get over the first hurdle.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):

Well, kind of back to what you said about repetition, right?

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):

Exactly. Yeah. And I think that is an analogy that works for me where it's like now having done all of the neural cals or most of the neural cabs, having developed the GGD Cali stuff, having worked as a guitarist and dialed in tones, it's like it actually feels very open and easy to achieve a guitar sound that I'm happy with, and I can achieve it in many different ways. There's certain things where I just know you were saying, this isn't working, okay, this needs to be changed for this other thing. And then actually the rest of the space is really open and fun and creative. And that's, I think the beauty of achieving experience in something and the joy of it in pretty much anything you do. It is that freedom that it gives you once which pieces of the puzzle need to be in place. It's the freedom that you then have to explore everything else, that you can come up with unique and surprising results that still always, you've managed to get from A to B,

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):

And it's only doable through erotic obsession with all the little details for a long period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):

Or I think just living life, how long it takes, depends on how much repetition you do and how effective your repetition is. I think some people on their deathbed kind of realize certain things about their lives and other people before they hit their twenties are wiser than 99.99% of people. And it's about the experiences that they've had and their ability to reflect on it and the ability to kind of figure out what works.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):

It took me a little longer than my twenties, but

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):

Oh, me too. Me too, man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):

Yeah, I feel like I've only started to do that in the past few years, but me too. We all go at our own pace, but I think this is a good place to end it. I want to thank you for taking the time to chat. It's always, always a pleasure. And it's so cool watching you and everyone in your camp just do cool thing after cool thing after cool thing after cool thing. It's like you and your people are constant inspiration for me just because of the prolific level of output and then the quality of that output is just cool. It's really, really cool shit.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):

That's immensely kind of you to say thank you, man. And as you know, things always, they're quite different on the inside. You see from the outside all the achievements and life is a lot more mundane than it probably appears from the outside. But I'm incredibly grateful to really just that life has given me the opportunity to indulge these obsessions. I'm also grateful to be able to then have a platform very grateful to the people I do business with. My team at GGD, who really fill in so many of my blanks in terms of actually putting things out there because I do feel like it's for the general good to have people be more satisfied with the music they can make at home. And I do feel quite proud and grateful to have the opportunity to help people out with that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):

It's a great thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And you too, man. Everything that you've achieved with nail the mix and now all of your other endeavors as well. And I'm excited to hear Darth with Modern Production and unfiltered.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):

Thank you

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):

Al Nurse. I think that's going to be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):

Well, thank you very much. Hopefully it's awesome. We shall see. Well, I hope I get to hear it anyway.

(01:21:16):

Well, thank you, sir. Oh, my pleasure. Alright 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 and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy and of course tag our guest as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to me at al at M Academy. That's EYAL at M dot aca DMY. And use the subject line answer me Al. Alright then. 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.