ANSSI KIPPO: Why Analog is Faster, Recording Without Clicks, Producing Children of Bodom

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. My guest today is Anssi Kippo who is a producer, mixer, live engineer, blogger educator and musician who owns and operates as studios in southern Finland. And he's a platinum selling music producer who's been at the heart of tons of incredible albums, including three children of Boem albums and various songs in EP through the years, and I mean he's worked on hundreds and hundreds of records and even though he has a deep knowledge of digital recording, he has been beating the drum of exclusively analog production for quite some time by moving over to magnetic tape recording and even participating in research with the local university on the sound differences between analog and digital.

(00:02:30):

This was a great episode. I hope you enjoy it. Here it goes. Anssi Kippo, welcome to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:37):

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (00:02:39):

Pleasure to have you here.

Speaker 2 (00:02:40):

Pleasure to be here. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (00:02:41):

So just out of curiosity, because I know that you are very much still in the analog domain, was it harder for you to do work during the past year and a half?

Speaker 2 (00:02:56):

Yeah, the situation has been quite complicated I think on no matter what platform you work, especially as I've had clients coming to me for sessions from all over the world and since now you can travel, I've had to rely on the local musicians only,

Speaker 1 (00:03:12):

Which is kind of a change, right?

Speaker 2 (00:03:14):

Yeah. Then again, it's pretty cool also that way, but then again, you can definitely feel the change.

Speaker 1 (00:03:20):

It seems like it's probably starting to go back to normal, right?

Speaker 2 (00:03:24):

Yeah. But let's see how it goes. Because a couple of busloads of Finnish people went to see some football in the Russian side and now we have the Delta version going on in Finland, so we don't know how it'll be.

Speaker 1 (00:03:39):

Yeah, okay. So dealing with people that are geographically near you sounds like a good solution, but what about with mixing projects for instance? How would you go about handling that?

Speaker 2 (00:03:52):

I've had very strict policy because in 2017 I made the transition from digital recording to analog recording only, and since that I haven't accepted any files for mixing. Every two weeks I get a request. Banks ask for a quote for an album mix, and unfortunately I have to tell them that I can't do that anymore, but they are very welcome to me for a tape system.

Speaker 1 (00:04:17):

That's what I was curious about because I know that you made that transition and I think it's very interesting that you made that transition because most people go the other way.

Speaker 2 (00:04:25):

Yeah, I did too. I started recording in 93. I started with the full analog tape machine and then from upgraded to Adot system, which is digital tape and then to door. And after years of comparison, I just couldn't go on with digital recording anymore and I had to make the transition. Why not? I can definitely hear the quality and yeah, because I didn't feel the music. I thought there was something wrong with me and I couldn't feel any emotion. I was listening to my favorite music from the teenage years and I still couldn't feel anything like everyone else. I was blaming myself that I become so emotionless and cold and nothing kind of touches me anymore. Once I started studying the differences between the analog and digital and especially the full analog signal chain, then all the emotions came back again. I felt like a little child again who first time hears the music in the, like we heard the music when we were kids.

Speaker 1 (00:05:27):

This is a very interesting topic to me because people feel very differently about it. There's very strong opinions and I think that people on both sides have great arguments. And for me, after speaking to hundreds of people about this and also doing my own productions, I've come to the conclusion that overall the most important thing is that people work on the system that allows them to do their best work, whatever it is that makes them feel the music the most and really get into it the most, that's the best. And so if that's all analog, great. If it's all digital, great, but what really, really matters is that you're working in an environment that allows you to do your best work. In my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:06:20):

That's words of wisdom.

Speaker 1 (00:06:21):

So do you think that's kind of what it is? It's something about the analog process that unlocks your creativity

Speaker 2 (00:06:28):

Can do that as well, but it makes me feel music more. It's not only that I hear it, but I sense it kind of within my body and it's kind of the bodily sensation alongside with what you hear.

Speaker 1 (00:06:43):

I had this really awesome producer named Josh Schroeder on Nail the Mix back in February, and he's a very creative guy and he does a hybrid, but he's very much into using analog systems for many things. And his philosophy on it is one that I agree with. I've just never heard anybody else say it. I'm curious what you think. He said that the reason that he uses the analog stuff is not because he personally thinks that it sounds better or worse. It's not that, but what it does is the actual process of using it engages his brain in a different way and he makes different types of decisions based on how you actually work with the gear. So the decisions that he would make if he was messing with a plugin would be very, very different. Then the process of messing with knobs and plugging things in. And he says that the way that he feels the music, like you said, and the way that he thinks about the music is so much more creative and so much more emotional when he's doing it with actual gear that that's why he does it. Not because he feels like one sounds better, but at the end of the day he feels like it ends up sounding better because it allows him to make better decisions.

Speaker 2 (00:08:20):

I can very, very easily relate to that because you have a totally different approach in the digital domain. You can do almost anything. You have so many options, but when you work with analog gear, you don't have that many options, which kind of your options are so limited that it makes the working pretty easy. You can do this, you can do that, and then instead of endless editing and endless vocal tuning and endless copy pasting, we end up getting the energy right and concentrating on moving people. When people listen to the music, they start, they can't help it. They just have to start moving because there's something that grabs them.

Speaker 1 (00:09:00):

Where do you think that comes from?

Speaker 2 (00:09:01):

I think there's something in the analog which kind of is not within the hearing range, but it's within the feeling range.

Speaker 1 (00:09:10):

That makes sense to me. If

Speaker 2 (00:09:12):

The difference was in the hearing range, we would've found it already, but there is no difference in that specific area. But then again, I dunno if you have the heat wave over there, we have a huge heat wave in Finland. We are used to almost partying with the polar bears and now we have extreme heat. It's like in Texas, it's

Speaker 1 (00:09:31):

Actually the opposite here. It's been a cool summer, strangely enough.

Speaker 2 (00:09:35):

Okay, so here it's way too hot for the Finn people to handle it. And if we talk about the weather and if we only say that, it's like, it doesn't matter if it's Celsius or Fahrenheit, but if we say the temperature, we don't know if it's this temperature, but it feels like another temperature, which is pretty common in here, how moist it is, is it raining or is it sunshine? And I often describe that the hearing range frequencies, it's like the temperature, it's needed, but then there are so many more kind of things you need to have in the sound which digital is not focusing on or allowing to come through, maybe

Speaker 1 (00:10:19):

Not capable of reproducing it.

Speaker 2 (00:10:21):

Yeah, because we cut out everything above and below the hearing range.

Speaker 1 (00:10:26):

So those elements that you're talking about that are in the feeling range because you can't actually hear them, what are you relying on to know that they're there?

Speaker 2 (00:10:38):

Bodily sensations as simple as that.

Speaker 1 (00:10:41):

Do you find that your clients respond as well?

Speaker 2 (00:10:44):

100%.

Speaker 1 (00:10:45):

I'm

Speaker 2 (00:10:46):

Teaching them this way of kind of, well, I can say it's a new way of listening to music, but it's kind of put the focus over there and check this out and it's pretty easy to help people notice these things. And I'm doing research with the local university, the professors ask me to give, not a lecture, but kind of a demonstration at the university. I went there and did two, a couple of hour demonstration sets and since then they've been visiting me pretty frequently. It's pretty interesting stuff. I hope we can get some papers released soon.

Speaker 1 (00:11:19):

Could you tell me a little bit about what goes into that or what's the purpose of these lectures? What are you trying to get through to the students?

Speaker 2 (00:11:29):

I'm showing this difference between the analog and digital.

Speaker 1 (00:11:32):

Got it.

Speaker 2 (00:11:34):

This is the whole topic and as you said, there's so many kind of against and with, and I go there and I show some examples and then we discuss why is it So

Speaker 1 (00:11:47):

One thing also that I feel that older records had that got lost for a while, and actually I know that now there are ways that producers will bring this back, but one thing that I felt was part of why records were great pre-digital was the timing. They weren't playing to a grid and so maybe they played a metronome sometimes, but in general it was free and because of that, the music, the tempo and the feel would adjust properly to the way it was supposed to be. And make a great example. I don't know if you like this band or not, but a great example in my opinion is the first Slipknot record, which is all over the place timing wise, but it's a huge, huge record. It connected with millions of people. And I really do think that one of the reasons is because the timing on it adjusts itself per part.

(00:12:54):

When the energy needs to go up, you can tell that Joey JSON is rushing the beat and rushing his fills. And it's something that if you're playing to a grid, people would edit that or would make the drummer redo it, but there was something in that feel that just made it sound like it was exploding. And lots of older records have that nowadays. I know that what lots of producers will do is, for instance, if the drummers good enough, of course will record without a click, and then they will conform the click inside of the DAW to the performance so that they can still get their delays on time and still easily work within the daw, but instead of conforming the drummer to the click, that conformed the click to the drummer and in an effort to bring that back, and it works pretty successfully for some people.

Speaker 2 (00:13:54):

Totally understand. And that's one of the topics which I read on my blog about when you are using a click track, the drummer is tied to the click track and that kind of takes away the energy. And I think that's a very, very good example, the Sleep Note album. And one also pretty good example is Pantera. If you listen absolutely and check out Walk, especially the solo part, it's definitely everything else except it's on the beat. And still it sounds purely awesome because the drums just like they flow and every drum field is a little bit too fast or a little bit too slow, and it's kind of completely off the click. It comes down to the human factor, which is polished away on the albums or recordings that are done nowadays. And on the older albums you could not polish it away. And that was part of the kind of, that's so cool to hear that it's human playing now when everything's like perfect in pitch, perfect in time, it doesn't sound human. It's the uncanny valley. Once again,

Speaker 1 (00:15:02):

I do think though there are some genres of music where that's the goal artistically. Some electronic music for instance, needs to sound like it's not a human and that's what makes it work. But for music that is supposed to sound like humans played it that has human energy, you're taking away something very vital to it by making it sound like a machine. But I can tell you, man, I really do think that what happened was that the digital technology came out and people jumped on it and overdid it. So it's kind of like when you get a guitar player in a band who buys the digitech whammy pedal and then they try to put it in every single song instead of the one song on the album that could really use it. They try to put it every single place because it's a new toy and they're going nuts with it. So I believe that overall, if you look at metal producers as one big collective unconscious organism, I think that they did that on a grand scale with feel they got these new toys and just went nuts. And I think that there's been a backlash against that, and so many, many people are trying to find a way to keep things modern, but to bring back those old things that were lost feel. I see a lot of people focusing on that these days.

Speaker 2 (00:16:31):

Yeah, that's totally correct. And for example, when I was recording the first Children of Ham album, we didn't use any click track and there's a huge amount of energy, like everything is flowing and going faster and slower and all over the place, but still the energy is coming through. Then again, on the second album, I forced the drummer Yas to play to a click track, and that's much more, it's more strict and we got stuff more solid when it comes to kind of how tight they played. But then again, I think something was lost.

Speaker 1 (00:17:05):

Did they feel like something was lost?

Speaker 2 (00:17:08):

I feel now that something was lost back then we were of course excited about that.

Speaker 1 (00:17:12):

Okay, so it's kind of what I was saying is this new thing, so people get excited by it and in some ways, man, I don't think that that's a bad thing to get excited by learning how to do something new and then using it. I mean, that's how you get better. But at some point, once it's not new to you anymore, you need to step back and think, how much of this do I really need? Did this improve my work? Did it detract from my work? Or is there something about it that's useful that I can use when necessary and other times where I shouldn't use this tool

Speaker 2 (00:17:52):

Exactly, because we always, what is the most important part is the song, and we always need to listen to the song, but the song tells us does it need this? Is it good for the song? Is it making it better? Many times we can put a lot of hard money parts and kind of doublings and whatnot to triple all the parts, but then again, is it necessarily needed and are we putting that stuff there only because we can or only because the song must have it?

Speaker 1 (00:18:18):

And is that also something that you go via bodily or emotional sensation? How does that process happen for you? The decision, if the decision to use a tool or not use a tool or to decide it needs this?

Speaker 2 (00:18:36):

Well, I don't know how other people approach it, but my approach on many things is most likely a little bit different than my goal is to get in the flow state of mind, or you can call it zen. I usually don't know how things are happening because I'm not in a trance, but kind of going with the flow and because I know my gear inside out, so sometimes I just see that stuff is happening, I'm plugging this there, I'm doing it like this and I have no idea why, but it sounds awesome. And also when we are adding, for example, a harmony part, we can easily record the harmony part. Then we listen with and then we listen without. If the song tells us that this part is needed, it's a vital part of the song, then we will keep it. If it sounds like so-and-so it could be there or not, then we delete it. It's very simple.

Speaker 1 (00:19:30):

So if it's a maybe it's a no. It has to be a definitely fuck yes,

Speaker 2 (00:19:34):

Exactly. On everything we do.

Speaker 1 (00:19:36):

I think that's a good philosophy. It's different field, but a friend of mine who worked in counter-terrorism in the field, he said to me that their operating philosophy was, if there is a question, there is no question and obviously different kind of work, but it sounds to me like it's the same thing. If there's a question about this part, no question

Speaker 2 (00:20:01):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:20:01):

Don't keep it

Speaker 2 (00:20:02):

Exactly very simple. And the more simple we make our workflow and everything related to recording, mixing, and mastering, I think the better it gets.

Speaker 1 (00:20:11):

So you spoke about knowing your tools inside and out, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you think it's more important to no matter how much gear you have, that the gear that you do have that you are completely intimate with it, rather than having 8 million different options that you kind of know how to use, take what you do have and learn the absolute shit out of it.

Speaker 2 (00:20:36):

Exactly. You don't even need that much gear and you just know what works and what doesn't work. It takes years or even decades to use stuff in different situations, and then you start understanding the character, how they work, then it's very easy, just like this part must have this kind of character. So I will go with this microphone or this compressor or do this kind of trick to make it work.

Speaker 1 (00:21:02):

And this is true for writing music also, I think and playing music or really anything creative. I think that having limitations forces us to be creative.

Speaker 3 (00:21:14):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:21:14):

Too many options actually isn't necessarily a great thing. You're laughing why?

Speaker 2 (00:21:20):

I totally agree. When you have kind of gazillion plugins and only to choose which to use will take so much time, but when you have a handful of compressors, you can try them out and it only takes a minute or two and then you're done. And the more limitations you have, more creative you need to be and more faster the work gets. And you don't get kind of side laned how you say it when the beer,

Speaker 1 (00:21:48):

Yeah, sidelined. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:21:50):

It'll take so much time. And for example, when I was still working on the digital album system would be one month or two months. Nowadays the normal album system including recording, mixing, mastering, is like 10 days.

Speaker 1 (00:22:04):

Wow. That's fast.

Speaker 2 (00:22:05):

Back in the days when I still accepted files for mixing, it was usually one full day to make mixing for one song. Nowadays it's a full album mix, it's going to take two days. And previous session I was mixing five songs in 11 hours and a couple of weeks ago we did a black metal album. It was eight very long songs and it was like one and a half days, approximately maximum two days.

Speaker 1 (00:22:33):

That's interesting. You mentioned in the pre-interview that your production time with analog is several times faster than with digital, which is actually the opposite of what most people say or think. Whoa, look, most people say that the reason that they switched to digital is speed, because the requirements from labels and the speed at which people need things now is so fast that they felt that analog was slowing them down. So what I'm curious about is what about analog helps you speed up? Because that's a very, I've never heard someone say that.

Speaker 2 (00:23:10):

Cool. Yeah. Every single session that I've done is super fast and we concentrate on the pre-production. If something is not correct, we will fix it. Before the band interests the studio, I will be listening the live recording from the rehearsal place and giving them instructions, Hey, pay attention to this one, this particular thing or the template needs to be slower here, whatever it takes. And when the band enters the studio, they are completely ready. And then we just kind of concentrate on logging in to get the groove. And yeah, stuff is super fast to do,

Speaker 1 (00:23:50):

I guess there's not much fucking around.

Speaker 2 (00:23:53):

We do have time for laughs and pull out jokes as we did. We've been always have been doing. But then again, if you consider the time spent on combining the takes, checking the cut between the two takes to combine them, making the cross fades, doing the copy paste, putting the drums on grid, cleaning up the Tom tracks. I don't have any of that. And that's what takes a lot of time.

Speaker 1 (00:24:21):

Okay, so you don't do those things. The bands that come to you though, do they care

Speaker 2 (00:24:25):

When it's the first season? They're a little bit scared how they can do any music when you can't edit, when you can't tune the vocals, when they come for the second season, they have none of the fears because they understand how it is. And for example, many people think that especially modern metal, you can't record it on tape because it needs the drum samples, it needs the vocal tuning, it needs the modeled guitar amps and whatnot. On January, I did an EEP with a band that plays modern metal and on tape full analog system, and they were totally blown away and definitely are coming back for more.

Speaker 1 (00:25:05):

So do you think that the modern metal sound is more about understanding how to dial that in rather than dependent on which tools you use?

Speaker 2 (00:25:17):

I don't think I can answer the question because I don't listen to any modern metal. Well, I mean you

Speaker 1 (00:25:24):

Listen to the modern metal, you record.

Speaker 2 (00:25:27):

Yeah. Well, to me that sounded great and the guys had a huge kind of, how would you say they were blown away, how easy it was to record on tape instead of computer. And they had the drum technician with them who was a recording engineer. And during that session he quit like me, he quit the digital recording and bought a tape machine. He's the second sound engineer who has visited me and done the same.

Speaker 1 (00:26:02):

Wow. You just don't hear this very often anymore. Alright, so then here's another thing that lots of people say and which you said the opposite of, people often think of tape as being significantly more expensive to work with, but you are actually able to save a ton of money on sessions with tape.

Speaker 3 (00:26:23):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:26:24):

How are you able to make that economical and accessible to modern bands or artists that don't have insane budgets? I mean, look, I can tell you that even getting some bands to buy a set of drum heads for every song or whatever can be a challenge with some bands, let alone tape. So I'm just wondering how do you make that more economical?

Speaker 2 (00:26:48):

Well, if wine drum heads is a huge obstacle, maybe those guys need to consider another hobby.

Speaker 1 (00:26:56):

Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 2 (00:26:57):

Maybe they are not meant to be musicians. I think there are no obstacles when you want something and when you know how to get it. And for example, I had a band coming in all the way from Texas to Finland in the middle of winter to make a recording of their recording mixing and mastering for the album. And yeah, the distance wasn't that big of a deal for them. I've had banks contacting me and saying that, oh, you live 20 miles from us, that's too far. We will go to the locals. So it all depends.

Speaker 1 (00:27:31):

I agree with you that if you want something, there should be no obstacles. Yeah, I feel like if you really, really want something, you'll do anything.

Speaker 2 (00:27:41):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:27:42):

Anything needed,

Speaker 2 (00:27:43):

Anything needed. And the bands who I work with, of course they understand that tape is expensive and they don't want to spend a lot of money on tape, especially on extra tape. So we will use as little tape as possible. But then again, they've also experienced the mixing for two months, getting the mix version 11 and still being not satisfied with the result. And it takes long time, someone has to pay. And that's also when we do the tape system, it's fast. And during the, I would say three or four years already, every single time without any acceptance version number one has been accepted about when we talk about mix.

Speaker 1 (00:28:29):

So then the way that you make it more economicals by the speed at which you work.

Speaker 2 (00:28:34):

Yeah, exactly. Speed. It's fast. And we don't need to make tons of mixing s because mix number one is going to be the final, which sounds maybe a little bit strange, but that's how it's been.

Speaker 1 (00:28:46):

That makes sense. Now, as I'm sure you've noticed, there's a lot more people getting into production now than ever before. It's prohibitively expensive for some people to learn on tape at least at first. So it just makes sense if you think about it, a teenager who doesn't have money of their own, who wants to get into production, the most simple thing that they can possibly do at first is to get something like Reaper that's free and a cheap interface and some amp sims and just start doing that. And I'm not judging it, I just am acknowledging that it's the path of least resistance for many young people. So what I'm wondering, in your opinion, someone who starts that way, which is almost everybody these days, how do they go about transitioning to a more analog approach?

Speaker 2 (00:29:47):

As I mentioned, I've read the blog, which has on the best week, 5,000 readers.

Speaker 1 (00:29:52):

Your blog is great, by the way.

Speaker 2 (00:29:54):

Oh, thank you very much. And since the C 19, I made a transition to Finn blog posts only. So I hope at some point when the borders are opened, I will translate the newer posts also on English, and there will be separate blog posts about these two guys who made the transition. And they both are so young that they haven't had any previous experience with the analog tape. They've started with digital systems. That's a very good question. I need to ask them how they feel about the whole situation. But then again, as they visited me for a season and they saw how fast the process is and they saw how little processing is needed for the tracks. For example, yesterday morning I completed the mixing for Last Strong for the session we did. And on the mixing console, I only had EQ on the vocals and on bass drum and snare parallel compress tracks. That's all the EQ I used.

Speaker 1 (00:30:51):

And is that because you did the heavy lifting during tracking?

Speaker 2 (00:30:56):

During tracking? There was no e EQ on bass, no EQ on guitar.

Speaker 1 (00:31:01):

But I mean, you dialed the sound exactly the way you wanted in production, so it didn't need more, right?

Speaker 2 (00:31:07):

Yes, because with tape you have limitations. If you know that you want to have a bright guitar, why would you record a dark one? And my way of working even during the digital recording era was that we would only record when the sound would be as final as possible, like listening the album and every single band who came to me for recording, they loved the approach because it's not like, oh, now it sounds like crap. And it'll change during mixing, but then again, it'll change to how will the frequencies react together, how it'll be. And I started at very early age, I started recording as final sound as possible. And throughout the recording process, we are hearing 95% the final mix, which makes things faster. Every single band loves that approach.

Speaker 1 (00:32:05):

When we had Tom Lord Algae on now the mix, he presented a term that I've never heard of and he said documents and he considers a lot of modern recording to be documents. And I was like, what do you mean by documents? And he said that what he means by documents is that people will give you these sounds that are completely, they have nothing on them, they're just the most basic recording ever, and they expect you to then turn them into something else in the mix. And that bothers the shit out of him. He really, really thought that it was better when the sound would be created in the production and then that informs the way that the mix is supposed to go as opposed to getting a series of documents that he then has to interpret.

Speaker 2 (00:33:00):

Yeah, very. He describes the situation very well.

Speaker 1 (00:33:07):

I thought that that was an interesting way to call it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:09):

Yeah, that's so common that with this, I do not mean to push anyone down or judge anyone, but the younger generation recording engineers think that they can record anything and it can be fixed in the mix. But then again, if we go back to the golden eighties or even nineties, when the sound was super good on the Big Rock albums, for example, and the bands chose the studio, which had the recording engineer who knew the equipment inside out, and they didn't go there to get as neutral sound as possible. They didn't go there to color this recording as little as you can, but total opposite. They went there, they wanted the drum room, they wanted to do what he does the best and kind of tweak the amp to make it sound like hit it on the albums, which led the band to him.

Speaker 1 (00:33:58):

It's a different way of working. I think also though, and this is probably important in earlier time periods, musicians didn't typically have a way to make things sound at least decent in the nineties, what would people record their demos on? It would be like a cassette four track or put a Walkman in the middle of the room and hit record. And so demos sounded like shit always. And so they would have to go to a studio to even make them sound remotely like music. Whereas I think that now it's very easy to make something sound at least mediocre, at least decent, at least sound like you can tell what's going on.

(00:34:47):

It's very simple to do that. And lots of people who are first starting, they learn how to do this almost immediately. And so I think that that changes the expectation of what they want out of a producer to a degree. I'm wondering, so when you are dealing with that resistance initially when a band comes in who is used to the modern way of doing things, like you said that yeah, at first they're scared by the second session they're not, but how do you approach it? How do you approach them with your communication style to help them feel more at ease with the situation? Or how do you approach getting them to go along with your way of doing things in order to help them be more comfortable?

Speaker 2 (00:35:42):

That's a very good question. I have several blog posts at the moment only in Finn language where, for example, we go through a tape session step by step, and it has lots of comments from the bands who have experienced it. And all the musicians say that, oh, this was our expectation, but this was the reality and this is how much time we used to spend on mixing, and this was how it was done at Astia. And I sent links to the bands who contact me that, Hey, go read this stuff because it's explained kind of with easy steps and they'll understand better what to expect and how things are going to be

Speaker 1 (00:36:23):

And do they actually read it?

Speaker 2 (00:36:24):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:36:24):

That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:36:26):

The blog has opened a lot of doors and people seem to love it. And my blog posts are not short and they are not easy to read. They're a little bit more demanding, which I like. If it's too complicated for someone, I think they can go someplace else.

Speaker 1 (00:36:48):

Well, the reason I was asking if they actually read is because noticed that people these days don't read much. So the fact that you have a written blog that people actually read is in and of itself kind of amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:37:02):

Yeah, that's cool. And for example, today, this morning I released latest blog posts about locking in this magical moment when every single note is to a millisecond on correct time, and it can be explained very easily, but I gave it a shot, and I have lots of comments from the musicians who I've done sessions with, and they try to kind of open up this kind of locking in which most musicians say, oh, of course we know that. But no, it's not the reality. If you would know it, then the recorded music would sound a lot better. And there is a way to get the musician to play so that every note is to a millisecond millisecond correct to the kind of backing track.

Speaker 1 (00:37:48):

Let's talk about that for a second because can't just bring that up and not talk about it because this is something that people will do inside the DAW when they're, for instance, lining up samples to the drum. They get down there to the milliseconds to line things up, and they're editing, people will look in the milliseconds, and it's usually something that's thought of as something you do after the performance to fix things up. How do you approach it when you're not doing that stuff? How can you even tell?

Speaker 2 (00:38:26):

Well, for some reason I'm very sensitive to saying things, and in 2002 when I was producing and recording a Children of Burham album, hate Crew Death Roll, that was the album which got Alex Lejo, the guitar player and vocalist nominated as the best guitar player in the world on several, mostly all over the world. And the way it was the first Burham album, which was recorded on DW, and even though we recorded on do, we did not use any editing, and we used it like a tape machine. We just record it, record it, record it until it was right. And that kind of, at the time, the band members sometimes even got pretty angry, isn't it good enough? And I told them no. And later on I have understood that I was all the time after the locking in, and that's which kind of raises the hair on your body up and it sounds magical when it happens.

(00:39:25):

And now as I've kind of started to understand the phenomenon more, I teach it to every band who visits me. If it's one day session, usually we don't have the time to go pretty deeply into it, but when it's a 10 day album session, then basically if it's a decent musician, it can be he or she can learn the lock in and we get pretty amazing results because there is no editing involved on a tape machine. So we need to find better ways of making things sound as tight as possible, and that's the ultimate way of sounding as tight as possible.

Speaker 1 (00:40:04):

You have to have really good musicians. I think.

Speaker 2 (00:40:07):

Actually, no,

(00:40:08):

You can even have a beginner if they are kind of able to relax, if they know their parts, if the musician doesn't know their parts, then it's impossible because they will make lots of mistakes and the magic won't happen. And that's also on my, one of the blog posts about the tape recording myths. You don't have to be a world class musician to record on tape because with tape, there is actually this kind of fixing factor, which I can't explain, but as I've recorded dozens and dozens and dozens of times, the same take when the band is playing live, singing live, all live, and I've recorded it on the digital and on tape, and when we compare on the DAW recording, the drummer tells me those two bass drum hits, you need to either move them or we need to record again, the guitar and bass player tell me that there are a couple of chords which are not in sync, and we need to either copy and copy paste or we need to record again, the vocalist tells me the notes, which he wants to be out.

(00:41:15):

But then again, when we listen, the very same take on tape from tape, the drummer tells me that, oh, I can't find the bass drum hits, which had some timing issues. The guitar and bass player are saying exactly the same like, Hey, it sounds like it's totally correct, and the vocalist tells me that we are not recording, definitely not recording the vulu again, because it sounds perfectly in tune. And when it repeats and it repeats, and it doesn't matter which band, I try it and we get the same result. It's kind of, there's something on the analog tape which is forgiving.

Speaker 1 (00:41:53):

Do you think also it has something to do with you knowing how to communicate with these musicians in a way that facilitates them doing their best,

Speaker 2 (00:42:03):

But it's the same take and on different medias it sounds different, so fair enough, it can't be plausible and it can't be that I'm so good brainwashing people that they start believing that tape is better, because that's just facts. When I show this to people and when it's kind of repetitive, then it tells that there's something there.

Speaker 1 (00:42:26):

Interesting, because there's this idea out there that ears and hands, for instance, are much more important than gear. When you think about guitar players, we know that put two different guitar players on the same rig and it's going to sound completely different. You put two different drummers on the same setup, it's going to sound completely, completely different. And so based on that, because I remember this one session I did many years ago where there was a big band who had booked the studio and the drum session just went long. The drummer needed more time, and there was another band that came in that was also already booked. We had a conflict, and so the way we worked it out was that the drummer from the bigger band allowed the other drummer to use his setup as long as nothing was moved. So same microphones, same everything sounded completely, completely different Based on that. And the guitar example, I've noticed that one of the biggest factors is more so than any gear I've ever used is who it is that I'm recording. Do you think that that's true?

Speaker 2 (00:43:44):

Completely, completely true. I've done a YouTube video with pretty good drummers, like the top drummers in Finland, and we use the same drum set. Nothing is changed except the drummer. And yeah, they sound completely different, not only groove wise, but also the sound changes a lot, even though there was nothing was changed in the tuning or in the settings,

Speaker 1 (00:44:08):

It's almost like every step of the process, which decision you make about who's playing, how you're recording it, all those things, all of those make the biggest differences in the world. But I guess what I'm wondering is when it comes down to it, what do you think is more important? The recording medium or the person you're recording

Speaker 2 (00:44:29):

It? Little bit depends. The person you are recording is definitely the biggest factor, but then again, if you want to capture more than meets the ear, then I think the medium plays a big part too. If you play that on Malach video, eyes like plates and you are not blinking at all, and if you capture it on DAW, it sounds, yeah, quite okay. If you capture the same take on tape, it gives you chills. Then again, I think they both play an important role.

Speaker 1 (00:45:01):

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(00:45:54):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, toy Madson, 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 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 and enhanced.

(00:46:48):

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 URM Academy to find out more, what are some of the other things that you think are crucial to doing this correctly? So you definitely think that the tape approach is just superior for all the reasons that you outlined. You think that the right player is crucial. What are the other crucial elements in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (00:47:33):

I think locking in a groove. If the band is not locking in, if the groove is not right, then yeah, it's difficult to make it work because even earlier on, like, I dunno, 15, 20 years ago, I started noticing that when a band, when the musicians play super tight together when they're logging in, it kind of improves the sound. When I played them, the recording, which the logging in was happening, everything was kind of super tightly played together. Everyone said, oh, this sounds so cool. And then when I played more sloppy playing and people told me that this doesn't sound correct, so if you want to improve the sound, then you should make the groove and the timing of the musicians as good as possible. And the best option for that is to make it not by editing, but by playing it until it sounds right.

Speaker 1 (00:48:26):

Now. How do you get that without a drummer playing to a click

Speaker 2 (00:48:30):

Easily? On Sunday, I have a session starting where the band demands that they get to play to a click track, and they are super good professional musicians, so people record to a click track. Other than that, I've only done one song during the past four years where we have used the click track.

Speaker 1 (00:48:48):

Okay. First of all, this is so interesting because I'm sure you remember that once Upon a time, many years ago, getting a drummer to use a click was the challenge.

Speaker 3 (00:48:58):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:48:59):

Most drummers were afraid of it and they wouldn't, man. I remember when I was putting my band together, I needed a drummer that could play to a click because we had backing tracks like synths and orchestra and all this stuff that was programmed, and we couldn't take an orchestra with us on tour. So we had backing tracks and we needed a drummer who could. We also had lights at one point that were completely synced to midi. We needed a drummer who could do all that to a click and man in the early two thousands, it was close to impossible to find someone who could handle that, at least in Metal. I know that in some other genres where drummers actually were serious, I don't think metal drummers were all that serious at the beginning. It wasn't hard, but in metal, it was close to impossible. I feel like now finding a drummer who won't play to a clique is the challenge. Have you noticed that?

Speaker 2 (00:50:09):

Yeah. Mostly all the bands who contact me, well, especially the Phoenix bands, they've read My Plug and all the blog posts about writing is about click track and how it kind of puts change on the tremor. And they ask me, is it true and how is it going? And so on. And I tell them to kind of go to the rehearsal place, only get the two bars of click in the very beginning of song because when you are recording, if you take five takes or even 10 takes, the tempo will be faster unless you have the two bars of metronome in the beginning of the song every time, then it starts with the same tempo and I tell them, go to the rehearsal place. And when the kind of slower part comes where you go on half field, drop the tempo like 10 BPMs, see how it feels and play the part to get the tempo. And I encourage the bands to kind of make it more alive. And that seems to work usually quite nicely because then they send me messages how cool it's to play the drummer, especially because he is not listening to a click track, but he's getting a chance to listen to the other guys.

Speaker 1 (00:51:20):

One thing I did on my band's final record was we definitely wanted to record to a click again of all those backing tracks and stuff, but we also wanted it to feel like a Slayer record or Slipknot or Pantera or Morbid Angel, those bands from the nineties and late eighties that had that loose but awesome timing. We wanted both. And so then the question was, well, how do you get both? Because this was 2010 and the idea of conforming the clique to the music, we weren't thinking that way. We were thinking, how do we get this tight to the click so that we can have everything else we need in there? And then also have it fluctuate when you go to a slower part, 10 BPM less or something like when you have a fill that's leading into a blast beat, we want to feel like one of those Dave Lombardo fills that speeds up or something.

(00:52:27):

How do we do that? And so what we did was we programmed the click tracks to fluctuate through the entire album. And I mean, not just from RIF to rif, but even within the rifs. So halfway through a fill or something, bump it up, 2.5 BPM, things like that. Maybe we want the R to slow down gradually so that it's five bpm slower by the time the riff is over than when it starts and just program that in. And it took forever and it came out great. And the way that we found the tempos for it was through just playing the songs and finding the way they were supposed to feel tempo wise, recording that and then analyzing that. So if we were to play a song 15 times and we were to notice, okay, this part always slows down. It feels best when it slows down and start tapping that out and figure it out over the course of about five months, we figured out all those tempos and it worked, but man, it was really, really hard. The way you do it sounds easier.

Speaker 2 (00:53:47):

It's a lot easier. I've been there, I've done that too. And for example, the head Deral Journal of Ham album is good example of that. We didn't do a five month analyzing, but we did every part had their own temp, and we program the metronome, and sometimes it gets faster and sometimes slower, but they're doing it without the metronome Lobar did. I think that's easier. And yeah, it sounds natural, but then again, especially easier when it comes to how much time you spend on stuff and talking about spending time nowadays when bands are releasing albums, I don't know, it takes years between the albums and

Speaker 1 (00:54:27):

Back

Speaker 2 (00:54:28):

In the days, let's say in one and two, they were released on the same year, kind of how to make the process as fast as possible to get the classic albums kind of done and not have to wait for 10 years for the next album. So tape is also good on that department.

Speaker 1 (00:54:45):

The time between records used to be pretty short.

Speaker 3 (00:54:50):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:54:50):

However, though, one of the critiques on Older Records is for every one of those great records that we're talking about are great bands. It's easy to point out Slayer and Pantera for Slipknot because these are classics, but I'm sure you remember in the nineties buying an album because you heard a song or two and then everything else is garbage.

Speaker 3 (00:55:16):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:55:17):

And you always heard that. Well, they had to rush into the studio. They toured for a year and a half and then had two months to write the album, and then all this pressure to move fast, move fast

Speaker 3 (00:55:29):

Prevented

Speaker 1 (00:55:29):

Them from being able to do their best work.

Speaker 3 (00:55:32):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:55:32):

So that I feel so while I agree with you about the speed being important at the same time, I also remember how many times I felt like I wasted my money and was pissed off buying CDs and being like, holy shit, there's 10 songs and eight of them suck.

Speaker 2 (00:55:52):

Exactly. Yeah. That's definitely not what we want. Then again, when the band is on the road, they should also spend the time on writing new songs. And sometimes when you get the creative face going, I always tell the bands who I work with that take advantage of it. Sometimes if you manage to compose a song in a day or maybe even two or three songs every day for a month or two, use it compose as much as possible because the dry season is coming, and then when you try to force something out, it'll not sound that great. So also it's good to kind of have as many good songs done when you get the creative face going.

Speaker 1 (00:56:33):

Yeah. So take advantage of when you're feeling it.

Speaker 2 (00:56:36):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:56:36):

I mean, that's the theory for why so many bands would have great debut albums and then shitty albums after that is they had the time to put them together years, and then they only had a couple of months. I believe it was Mick Gordon, the composer I had on the podcast once who said that amateurs wait for inspiration professionals get the job done. And I agree with that. However, I also agree that you have to be very aware of when you can write your best stuff or produce your best stuff or whatever it is that requires the inspiration. You have to be aware of when that is and then be ready to capture it.

Speaker 3 (00:57:17):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:57:19):

But at the same time, that doesn't mean that you should just never work when you're not feeling it. Because first of all, one thing, and I'm sure you've noticed that sometimes you might not be feeling it, and then you sit down to work and within 15 minutes you're feeling it.

Speaker 2 (00:57:33):

Exactly. Never know when the inspiration comes.

Speaker 1 (00:57:38):

Exactly. You never know. So it's important to give yourself as many chances as possible to let it happen. However, how the hell does a band really find the time to write on tour? I tried doing that and it was really fucking hard. And I know you've toured, so how do you see that happening?

Speaker 2 (00:58:00):

From 98 until 2002, I was also mixing children of boredom live, and sometimes when the inspiration comes, which we were laughing all the time, that was one of the rare bands didn't have any conflicts within the band, and they just had a blast, and they knew that the work, the music was kind of the top priority, and many, many times on the road, I saw the kind of magic happen or something, the inspiration struck, and yeah, then you have to take advantage of the moment,

Speaker 1 (00:58:33):

And they did. I think a lot of people will get those moments of inspiration and then not do anything about it because they didn't decide that it's the priority or it's kind of inconvenient. And I've noticed that there's some people who when they decide it's their priority, they'll stop everything in order to follow that inspiration. One thing that I used to do when I was a guitarist and with my band was I was the main writer in the band, but the band also is a very technical band, and so I needed to maintain and improve a guitar, and it was hard to balance between getting really good at guitar writing, like 85% of the music, doing production work, pretty much managing the band. It's a lot of different stuff. And so I've always done a lot of different things. Now is no different two podcasts than the riff hard site, the nail of the mix, URM, I've always done a lot of stuff, but the way that I did it in order to be able to capture inspiration was I would start by practicing guitar and trying to get better, and then there would be some days where you're practicing and it's 30 minutes in and you're getting warmed up, and then suddenly bam, ideas are happening, and I would stop practicing and start working on those ideas immediately.

(00:59:56):

Now I know people who they'll be practicing and then the creative side will come on, and then they'll ignore it because they decided that they needed to keep on practicing, and then they'll go write music at a specified time when it's time to write music, and they'll have a hard time with it sometimes. Sometimes they'll write cool stuff, but other times they'll have a real hard time with it when they had all these opportunities to create great songs, but just decided not to because they had to finish practicing their scales. And so I made the decision to always follow the inspiration when it hit. I mean, I would also sit down and write at predetermined times, but if I was practicing and the inspiration hit fuck practicing. Exactly. Going to work on writing,

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):

It's all about prioritizing, and that's the way you should do, because what is more important than getting the inspiration and getting new music done?

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):

Nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):

It's an interesting thing because I do agree with people who say that writing is a discipline, right. You make it a habit and you don't wait for inspiration or motivation, you just do it. But I also know that the best stuff comes from inspiration.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):

And so you have to find a way to balance the two

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):

Words of wisdom once again.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):

Well, thank you. So I'd like to talk a little bit about your touring and why you stopped. I stopped too. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. So I'm just curious for you what that was all about. Why?

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):

Yeah, completely understand it. I started very early on in 93 when I started the studio work. I also started the live sound work and my first car was a truck, my second car was a bus, and we did all the children of boom shows using my gear in Finland. And I was not only mixing, but also I was the tour manager, bus driver, putting up the PA system and lights and setting up the back line for the band and whatnot. All the chops possible. When we were touring abroad, of course it was only mixing, so it was pretty easy. But then again, huge loans from the bank to pay the studio. We have two fully equipped big studios in the osteo studio facility. And when we are touring, it's a little bit more complicated than harder compared to sitting in the control room for 10 hours and Moyo did it. Then I had to make a decision that touring didn't bring in enough money and touring was way too well. There was alcohol involved and it was hard work and it was hard partying. So one of the best decisions in my life was to kind of concentrate fully on the studio work.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):

Man, the touring lifestyle is not healthy.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):

It's kind of amazing because I was never an alcoholic or anything like that, but I definitely drank on the road. I don't not drink now, but I don't really drink very often. The party days have been long over, but one thing I noticed is that what was normal on the road alcohol wise was completely different than what's normal in real life. So I would come home from a tour and then hang out with some friends that have normal lives and our approach to alcohol was very, very different. And again, I was not addicted to alcohol. It's just the culture on the road is way more unhealthy than I think people realize. Look, I remember sharing a bus with this legendary, legendary metal vocalist. He was an older guy who was an alcoholic for a long time and this was his clean tour. And so no liquor or beer was allowed on the bus, but he still had wine delivered and he would drink four bottles of wine a day and that was his

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):

Clean tour.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):

That was the clean tour.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):

Whoa. Yeah, yeah. Completely understand. It's completely different world when you are touring. It has nothing to do with the reality and consider the time spent on waiting and waiting and waiting and traveling and waiting and waiting. That's endless.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):

And so that time spent waiting, I think you can make the decision. You can make the decision, alright, there's going to be a lot of boring shit. I need to have a plan for what I'm going to do at that time. So some people, I know this one guy, do you remember that band Kymera?

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):

For people who are too young to remember, they were a pretty big metal band in the mid two thousands. Their sample keyboard guy, Chris Cusa, we toured with them a couple times and we're still friends to this day. And I remember that he would always be just working in the green room on his web design stuff. He decided he was going to learn how to do web design. He was never partying, he was always just working on that. We'd arrived to the gig at 11:00 AM or something and they would play at 11:00 PM and he would spend all that downtime just working on this stuff. And now that's what he does. He's very well paid and made a serious career out of it. And I've seen a few people do that. Okay, I have all this downtime, I'm going to use it to practice guitar. Those are the ones who maintain their improvements. And then I've known people who did not know what to do with the boredom. And so got into trouble with drugs and alcohol and bad behavior and that never works out. Did you feel like the lifestyle was just incompatible with you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):

It depends a little bit. At the time when we were touring, there was no mobile phones, for example, and we really had to spend the time together because there was nothing else to do. So that was also, which was cool on my opinion about touring. And I wouldn't miss because we were a family every touring, touring band with the crew. And so it was kind of difficult for me to kind of live the tour life in that sense. But then again, don't miss the alcohol and don't miss the staying up at nights and hope that answers the question. It

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):

Does. It's not all bad. I think that that aspect of it is really cool. It's like you and this crew against the world. It does kind of become a family. I'm talking about this stuff for people who are wanting to do that with their futures. I know that there's a lot of people listening who are trying to get their bands signed or they want to do sound on the road or whatever. And what I really hope for them is the ones who will end up doing it is that they go into it knowing this, knowing that there's going to be the opportunity to make really bad decisions or the opportunity to have a lot of time to do something really good, get really good at something or learn something. There's a lot of time involved. So that said, we have some questions from listeners for you that I would like to ask you. A lot of these we already covered, but some of them we didn't. So man, this guy, Gerardo Cervantes has like five questions. He's very interested in what you had to say. So start with this. How do you approach the vocal production between melodic death metal and black metal differently?

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):

I don't think I approach it very differently. Well, I don't know how other producers do it, but I always start with the text. And it doesn't matter if I'm recording a gospel band or a black metal band, how the text is going. The vocalist must convince me. And if I'm convinced, the audience will be convinced. And if there is something how say I don't know, sacrifice, whatever the text will be, I have to feel that the vocalist means what he's saying or she's saying, and the very same when it's the gospel pen and they're singing some positive stuff about Jesus and whatnot, I must feel like when the person is singing that I want to be part of this church or this religion, I think that's always been my approach being as convincing as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):

So the authenticity is what matters. That's what you're looking for. It needs to feel real.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):

And when it's fake, if we are recording and we feel, I don't believe what that dude is saying, then I don't think anyone else will believe. And we need to kind of get to them no matter what the style or the text. But it must be convincing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):

Yeah, I think that what it takes to be a great vocalist is very similar psychologically to what it takes to be a great actor.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):

For

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):

Instance, even though an actor is saying something that somebody else wrote, well, I mean sometimes vocalists sing something that somebody else wrote, but the difference is that the actor is involved in a story that's not real. And you want the vocalist to be communicating something that has some reality to it to them. But what's the same is that the great actors, it doesn't matter if the dude's dressed up like Batman, which is fake, you need to believe. You need to believe that it's real. You need to believe them and yeah, you need to believe the vocalists. That's what makes a great actor. And I think that's what makes a great vocalist too. I think about John Davis from Korn and that first Korn album where he's crying and reliving trauma, it's not the most amazing vocal performance ever pitch wise. I don't even know what the pitches were in it, but it's so fucking real that that's why people latched onto it in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):

Exactly. And imagine Kurt Cobain if his vocals were out of tuned to a correct pitch. I don't think they would've sold any records. No, not at all. But when it's as authentic as possible and the person singing is meaning every single word with every cell in the body, then it can't be any better. I hope that Gerardo answers the question correctly, but yeah, my approach is very simple.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):

Well, I think that's a great answer because if he was looking for a technical answer, I approach black metal with this gear and melodic death metal with this gear and this mic and that mic, they're missing the point.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):

One thing I must add in the vocal booth, I have some photos on my blog about this when I was recording impaired Nazarene band and the vocalist Micin, he's not singing, he's a screamer. He told me that I need a wedge in the vocal booth. And I was like, what a witch. Yes, a we from the live stage. And I told him that, no, no, no, it'll be the headphones, which we are using. Not any wees. Oh,

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):

A monitor wed, I thought you meant like a witch, like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. I was like, wow. Extreme,

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):

Yeah, would be kind of within the norm with the band. But yeah, a monitor wedge, and it was a strange question, but of course I delivered and he told me if he will be shouting, standing on two feet on the normal standing position, he can shout only for 15 minutes and then his back will be hurting so much that he won't be doing any vocals for the rest of the day. But if he has to monitor vege where he can place one foot, he gets to the correct position and he can scream all day, all day. So ever since that, I've had the monitor bench on the vocal booth and I instruct every vocalist to put one foot on the monitor bench and then kind of imagine themselves on stage. That helps.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):

That's great. I think that that's always the philosophy that I've taken for headphone mixes, for instance, is give them what they need in order to feel like a rockstar when they hear themselves, whatever it takes, they need to feel the way they want to feel on stage when a show is going great to give them that confidence so that they can do what they need to do.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):

Exactly. And for example, with Alex Ejo, when we were recording turn of ham vocals, he always wanted to have the delay in the headphones and that kind of made him feel like he was like, when I was mixing them alive, I sent the delay from the front of house mixing console to his monitor bitch, so he would kind of be more excited because I used a lot of vocal delays and also during recording we were using that to get him more pumped up.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):

Yeah, it works. Yeah. Okay, well on the children of Bodom tangent, he has a question about them. So he says, how much did you need to work on the arrangements in hate breeder or did the band come up with that before the recording?

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):

So that was the second album, the green one. We did demo stuff with them between some live shows and they played as they kind of had imagined it. But when the kind of album recording started, we did a lot of small tweakings and some parts I did some more kind of was involved more and on some parts less, and I can't recall exactly what we did, but for example, a lot of harmony parts were created in the studio between me, Ajo and Alexander Ella, the guitar players at the time. Got it. And for example, the solos, especially on He Deral, we did a lot of stuff in the studio kind of like Alex Ihu might be warming up and he was doing his, how would it Translate? It would be distracting the spider maneuver on the GI Harnick. And I was listening to him warm up and I was like, whoa, that's both sounds and looks so cool. What is that? And he was like, it's just warmup. And it ended up on the album and lots of that kind of catching the moment kind of thing. We had no idea what's going to happen. And then something happens and it escalates from there. Somebody gets an idea and another one lifts it up a couple of notches and the third person comes in and it escalates and that's what you hear on the albums. Great,

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):

Scott. And is wondering, what do you think it was about children of Boham that resonated with so many people and was it special to be part of their story and legacy?

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):

It was super special. I recall the very first time when Alex Elihu and the drummer Ya Island arrived to me. It was 90, maybe five, and even 94, I can't recall the year, but I recall the event they came from, I dunno, 150 miles away from the capital of Finland Helsinki. And they knocked on my studio door, which at the time was located in the basement of a local church at the band rehearsal place. And they told me that we are from the capital, we have a middle band, show us what you've got. And I showed them some of the recent stuff that I've done and they loved it and they booked a session and when they arrived to make the, at the time they were not called Children of Boredom, the name was in Earth and I did the second album for the band called ko, absence of Remission. And during the recording I was like, whoa, this is so cool. These guys are so cool and the music has some special element to it. It would be so cool to do more this kind of stuff. So sometimes wishes do come true.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):

Very cool. Charlie Williamson is wondering, how would you say the European metal sound differed from what was happening in the US during the nineties and two thousands in terms of production?

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):

When I was in Taiwan with a ven metal band called North, I was mixing them live there. The local promoter after the show we started talking and he told me that he has this kind of theory about metal music and how in Sweden they're a little bit more south compared to Finland and they have Abba, the pop band from the seventies. And most not all, but kind of in general, the Swedish music is very happy. It has the positive vibe to it. And when we go more north to Norway, we get the burning the church black metal as dark as possible because they don't get to see a sunlight that much he said. And Finland is somewhere in between and it kind of has the black metal elements of the Norwegian when the sun doesn't come up at all. So it's super dark and super cold. And then again we have a little bit of the south side with the Swedish melodies, so it's kind of a strange mix and he saw it as a geographical thing most, which I found very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):

That makes sense though. I feel like different scenes end up having different characteristics to them. Much like Seattle had its own sound

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):

For

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):

Grunge, then there were characteristics to those bands that even though Sound Garden doesn't sound like Nirvana, doesn't sound like Alice chains, they still had something in common that helped you identify them as from there in that time. Okay, so question again from Gerardo, which is what was your approach when working with Behe and Hona and also how did you get the guitar tone in Beins ritual Satan?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):

Oh, that's so long time ago. Unfortunately, I have no idea

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):

Which guitar. How long ago

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):

In the late nineties maybe?

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):

Oh, how are you supposed to remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):

What I do remember is that, for example, some of the Hona stuff, we were recording the whole album in a day and it was all live recording. And after we recorded on the very first take the whole album, then we recorded all the vocals most likely on one take from beginning to end. We did some doubling, some back vocal and in one day the album was done and I don't think Bex and used much more time. So it was done very fast. The band had their tone set up. We might have used the same Guitar amp, which we used on the first year of Bud album, the P-E-V-E-V-H 51 50, some special system. But other than that, unfortunately I have no memory whatsoever. Only thing which I do remember is that it was not done during mixing. I just captured what the band, how the band sounded.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):

Yeah. Well, okay, so speaking of gear, Jay Ruhi is wondering what is your personal favorite starting point for Amp Cabin mic selections for high gain metal tones? Not in terms of the settings, but do you have certain go-tos that are a great starting point?

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):

Usually I request that the band will come in with their gear so that we would not be using the gear, which I have at the studio because I do not want bands who I work with to sound like me. I will rather adapt and kind of find what's their strong points and lift it up and kind of make them sound as much them as possible. And Marshall JCM 800 is definitely one of the best ones. I have very good modified version, which sounds pretty okay. And we always do comparisons. We never go like, we will only use this one when the band brings their gear. We will test with the stuff which we have at the studio and we will choose the best one. Usually it's the combination, it's like one guitar will be done with the, and they will bring, and the second guitar will be done with, we have at the studio for example. And it'll be usually on the basic Marshall, four times, 12 inch speakers. And the microphone, I've experimented with lots of microphones and lots of micro positions and I have come to the conclusion that the best way to capture as authentic guitar sound as possible is to have sure SM 58 with the grill remote and you take the microphone a little bit less than two feet away from the cabinet, the speaker, and that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):

Boom, simple,

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):

No eq, no compressor. If the sound is too dark, you will tweak the amp. If it sounds great in the room, but it doesn't sound right in the control room, you will move the mic. And usually I don't have to move any mics. It's like on the first go we get exactly the same sound with how the amp sounds in the room, how it sounds in the control room.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):

Great. Will Duff says with your philosophy of focusing on analog recording, how has your process evolved over the years with the improvements in digital technology? I think that what he means is since you do the analog thing and you made the switch to primarily analog in 2017, is there any aspect of digital that is still part of your workflow?

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):

I use 4 8, 6 old PC computer from 1990s for the VCA automation, but it's not the digital audio, but I have the automation on the mutant Fader automation, which is pretty nice to have on an analog disc,

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):

A 4 86. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):

Yeah, that's like pretty computer still works and when it dies I would just recap it and it'll work again. That's so cool. Thing about the old equipment, they just keep on working. Other than that, that's not even something which would be there. I have the option to sync the tape machine to door if it's needed, but I just don't see any point why. So only place where the digital really comes into the signal path is after mixing, once I record on two inch 24 track, I mix two quarter inch stereo tape deck, and from there I will take the stereo file stereo sound and kind of convert it to digital. I will also cut with the eraser, the vinyl masters, which will be full analog signal path releases. And especially nowadays, we've also been doing the cassette master on the type four metal tape.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):

I mean, so basically at the end, at the very end it goes into pro tools or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):

Yeah, it goes to the digital and I will make the mastering using digital equipment for CD and streaming streaming services. Is

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):

It pro tools or just a standard D?

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):

Actually, I've been a digital performer man.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):

Oh wow. That's what I learned on.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):

Oh, cool. I still use 4.61 and I still use my Macin, which is my a studio computer. Is the 2004 model still working? I have a spare when it dies and yeah, older. I don't even know what the operating system I have, but let me tell you, it's old. It's like ancient amazing. I tried the Digital performer five, I tried the six and they both sounded like crap. No offense motor guys, but I noticed the difference. So I reverted back to 4.61 and I've stayed there since.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):

Man, I was just talking to somebody the other day wondering who uses Digital performer now because the person I was talking to is a guy named Michael Keane who's in the band, the faceless, he's used digital performer forever. Okay, cool. Digital performer is what I learned on. I had to switch to Pro Tools when I started working at somebody else's studio, but digital performer was my thing till about 2010. I still think it's a great,

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):

Definitely, and so especially the older models were so simple, there was nothing extra. Once again, we go back to the limited options you have.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):

Yeah, I mean, man, it really is true that limitations help. I really do believe that. I mean, having some options is good, but too many options leads to analysis paralysis.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):

Yeah, exactly. There was one question about the children of Bono and if it felt special, and I need to add, when I was working with Children of Boham on Something Wild, the debut album, we were completely sure that no one would love the album. No one would ever buy the album kind of like that. It would be way too black metal for the melodic metal fans and it would be way too melodic for the black metal fans. And still, we didn't care because we thought it was the best music ever and we loved every minute of doing it. We loved every note on the album and still the expectation was like there would be no sales at all.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):

You guys were wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):

Definitely so wrong. That's honestly what we thought. We even called it the crappy album. The shitty album. If you can say that on the podcast, that was the nickname for the album.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):

Use any language you fucking want. I remember hearing them back in the day and thinking, I don't know how to, I don't really care about classifying bands, but I remember thinking, I don't know how to classify them because there's this element to them that's super evil and then there's this element to them that's super melodic and I don't want to say happy, but super melodic and pretty, and I felt like it's not enough of one thing and not enough of the other. And so there's going to be people that hate it. And I think that first of all, the band was badass, and I think Alexi was so charismatic and badass at guitar and everything he did that the classification didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):

Exactly. He was so many times, even, especially during the early years, asked what genre are there? And he always replied, we are metal. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):

That's a great answer. Plain

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):

And simple, because what does it matter? Kind of like if you're black or white or Chinese or whatever you are, it doesn't matter because it changes. Nothing to say that, oh, we are this metal or dark coated, blah, blah, blah. It's metal, it's music. It's simple as that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):

Yeah, I mean, and not just that is badass. Yeah, I only saw him live once, but he was so great, such a great performer. So much charisma and he's so good at guitar. It was very impressive. I still remember it was like 2003 or something.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):

Oh cool. That early on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):

Yeah. It was that early on, but it was clear that I was watching one of the greats for sure. Well, I think this is a good place to end the episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out and be so generous with your answers. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):

Likewise, and thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):

Anytime, man. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some of 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 [email protected]. That's Eyal at urm. Do AC A-C-A-D-E-M-Y and use the subject line, answer me a. All right, 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.