Category: Season 4 – April

Susan Rogers is a neuroscientist and professor at Berklee College of Music and a mixer/engineer who’s worked with legends like Prince, David Byrne, and Barenaked Ladies among many others.

We’re thrilled to have Susan on to talk about music from a very different angle than what you’re probably used to: a deep dive on how to understand music on a neurological level, how she got her start working with Prince, how the definition of “success” can vary wildly for every one of us, and much more.

Susan’s unique point of view is thought provoking, refreshing, and guaranteed to give you plenty to think about. So if you’re ready to put your brain to work, press play on this episode and enjoy the ride!

“Too many artists are concerned simply with themselves and with getting the product on the shelf. They should be a concerned a lot more with the consumption of it. Who’s consuming it and why?” – Susan Rogers

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

1:40 – How to find the line between self-confidence and self-deception

9:35 – What evidence you can look to in order to know if you’re on the right path

16:10 – How artists should think about their audience, and what they can (and can’t) control about how people consume their music

23:48 – How to know when it’s time to put 110% effort into your work, and when it might be smarter to back off

32:50 – Why the concept of long-term thinking is such a struggle for most young people

35:38 – What we can learn from Prince’s approach to creativity

43:14 – The critical role of luck in your career, and how to create your own “luck”

45:24 – How Susan started with Prince in her late 20s, and why she saw the opportunity in it when others didn’t

59:12 -What Susan learned from going to college for the first time at 44 years old

1:04:27 – Why you must be willing to admit that you’ve changed your mind about what you want to do with your life

1:12:41 – Susan’s doctoral thesis on consonance and dissonance

1:17:05 – How the work from her thesis translates into making music

1:21:08 – Should musicians take the opinions of non-musicians seriously? Can non-musicians be successful producers?

1:33:38 – How our brains process music, and whether that’s changed over time

1:41:23 – Why being “tone deaf” is an abnormality

1:44:22 – The scientific point of view on why listeners lose interest in a song

1:51:55 – How to train your “auditory memory,” and how to reset your perception to regain objectivity while mixing

1:56:33 – Prince’s drum machine settings & his favorite guitar pedals

 

Susan Rogers On The Internet:

Susan’s Berklee page 

 

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review on iTunes!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Meshuggah, Gojira, Machine Head, and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Leave any questions, comments, or feedback in the comment section below.

 

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Eliran Kantor is a prolific artist who has worked with bands like Testament, Hatebreed, Thy Art Is Murder, Fleshgod Apocalypse,  Bloodbath, Andy Black, and many more.

Eliran Kantor is known for bringing a unique and truly dark look to every album cover he creates. We discuss how he got his start in art, what led him to working with Testament, and how he never gave up on his passion. He also talks about what it’s like to be a team player when his personality doesn’t always naturally play well with others.

“Be in a genuine position. Work hard to get yourself to a place where you don’t need to fake being excited about working on this team because you really want to be there. You really want to work with these guys because you appreciate them. You appreciate the music. You appreciate their craft and you’re excited about doing it together.” – Eliran Kantor

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

3:52 – How long Eliran has been an artist and what led him to it

8:32 – Getting to work with Testament and how Eliran quit his job to work on art for bands

14:06 – Getting good at your craft and how that will allow things to fall into place

20:02 – How to know when you’ve taken the obsession too far and just need to work on something else

22:58 – When you know that your career path is going to work out for you and how failing is just more experience

29:01 – How long it takes to get a finished product and when he sets expectations

33:21- Inappropriate requests and experimentation

44:01 – The competition within music styles and how it’s changed with modern production

50:04 – Competing with people who aren’t as good because of how much easier and cheaper it is for others to get involved in creative work

52:23 – Being a team player even though you’re singularly focused. Being genuine with others

1:03:11 – Fighting for your ideas when you know they are right

1:04:20 – How moments in your life can influence what you’re working on

1:08:30 – Working with an artist because you know they’ll bring their own interpretation to it

1:14:55 –  What Eliran does with the original artwork that he creates and how he’s been displaying art at festivals

1:19:34 – How to get yourself started when you’re not feeling inspired or excited

 

Eliran Kantor On The Internet:

https://www.elirankantor.com

Photo by http://www.vollvincent.com/

 

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review on iTunes!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Meshuggah, Gojira, Machine Head, and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Leave any questions, comments, or feedback in the comment section below.

 

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Tom Lord-Alge is a legendary mixer whose credits we simply can’t do justice to in this format: He’s worked with a massive list of household names like Marilyn Manson, Sum 41, Green Day, Korn, Blink-182 and Weezer among countless others, and has maintained his position at the top of the audio food chain for well over three decades.

We’re thrilled to have Tom on the podcast to talk shop, including how he got his start, what role his brother Chris has played in his career, how his process has evolved over time to incorporate both digital and analog, and many, many more lessons he’s learned over the course of his incredible career.

Needless to say, with so many years in the game, Tom has a wealth of knowledge to share and we’re barely scratching the surface here– we could have talked to him for literally days. That said, listening to this episode is the closest thing you’ll get to downloading Tom’s experience directly into your brain, so you definitely don’t want to miss this one!

“Generally speaking, a good song is a good song is a good song. I’ve been very fortunate throughout my career to have some great songs on my console. And all my job was to make them sound really good and exciting and to bring out the key things in the songs to make them even better.” – Tom Lord-Alge

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

2:49 – Why Tom got into recording and where his love for music came from

12:15 – How Tom deals with turnaround times and and getting needed feedback from his clients

18:26 – When he realized that there comes a point when you get diminishing returns on your work

20:21 – How Tom communicates with musicians despite not being a musician himself

26:05 – How Tom got his start in the studio even though he wasn’t always a mixer

32:30 – Getting into using MIDI in the studio

39:58 – Working on “Higher Love” with Steve Winwood

51:14 – The story of Tom’s first hit and how he transitioned into mixing

1:00:52 – How Tom’s relationship remained strong with his brother Chris over the years

1:04:54 – Tom’s go-to gear and the role it plays in his process

1:13:17 – Why recalls never sound exactly the same in the analog world

1:16:52 – Tom’s requirements for every session that’s sent to him

1:26:24 – The critical role of reference mixes in Tom’s process

1:29:21 – How Tom works with repeat clients, and how to bring something new to the table for them

1:31:02 – The answer to ear fatigue

1:35:17 – How Tom approaches mixing a live album

1:42:24 – The mistakes and distractions that hold people back from making audio a lifetime career (and how to avoid them)

 

Tom Lord Alge On The Internet:

http://tomlord-alge.com

http://spank-studios.com

 

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review on iTunes!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Meshuggah, Gojira, Machine Head, and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Leave any questions, comments, or feedback in the comment section below.

 

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In this episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Patrick Stump (vocalist of Fall Out Boy) and Sean O’Keefe, who produced the debut Fall Out Boy album “Take This To Your Grave” as well as their “Lake Effect Kid” EP.

They have a ton of history together dating back to the early days of the band, but what makes this such a cool and fun conversation is that it’s not just a nostalgia fest. They’re able to compare the past to the present, talk about what they learned along the way, and touch on a few of the things about the old days that they’ve kept alive even as their careers leveled up.

Patrick and Sean dive deep on how it felt to be reunited for “Lake Effect Kid” years later, how they met, how they’ve grown as creators and some fun things that you probably didn’t know about “Take This To Your Grave.”

It’s a rare opportunity to sit down with a band that’s gone from playing to a dozen people at a bowling alley to playing the Super Bowl twice AND a producer who’s worked with them at both points in time, so don’t miss out on this one!

“Basically it was just a huge learning experience for all of us. I know for me it was, that’s for sure. We were really learning how to make a record. We had some resources and a crap ton of energy and determination.” – Sean O’Keefe

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

1:23 – How Patrick and Sean met and started working together

4:33 – What it’s like being a multi-instrumentalist

17:32 – What drummers have improved on over the years, especially when it comes to playing to a click

19:44 – The story of how Sean learned that Patrick was a singer

21:03 – When Patrick worked on the Knockout record and how they were the first band in Patrick and Sean’s friend group to get a record deal

23:38 – How Sean first learned that Patrick was a singer

31:53 – How most people don’t think of vocals as an instrument and Patrick learning more about music theory in recent years

37:38 – Harmonic knowledge and a talent for writing being independent variables

42:07 – What you need to know when working with an orchestra

43:47 – How Patrick convinced people to let him do vocals in the first place

51:38 – What microphones Fall Out Boy could use when recording scratch vocals for Take This To Your Grave and what that recording experience was like

58:43 – How Fall Out Boy proved themselves and recorded the album in different sections

59:54 – How some files from Take This To Your Grave were lost

1:04:09 – Whether or not Sean remixed the songs at the very end

1:08:04 – Patrick running into limitations at the last minute in the studio when he tried to continue to sing for lengthy periods of time

1:12:54 – Improving the most when you’re under pressure and how Patrick doesn’t really do many vocal sessions

1:14:23 – What it was like for Sean and Patrick to reunite on “Lake Effect Kid” and the recording process for the song

1:23:44 – When Fall Out Boy did a record with Babyface and autotune was part of the vocal chain

1:25:57 – The extra instrumentation on “Lake Effect Kid” and Patrick’s experience working on films

 

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review on iTunes!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Meshuggah, Gojira, Machine Head, and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Leave any questions, comments, or feedback in the comment section below.

 

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MIXCRITMONDAY IS THE SHOW WHERE WE CRIT YOUR MIXES!

On today’s episode we crit URM student submitted mixes for Fall Out Boy’s “Lake Effect Kid.” These mixes are picked at random from our private student only mix crit group on Facebook.

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

3:38 – The importance of great melodies

7:22 – Getting the vocal balance right

14:41 – Where guitars take a backseat to the vocals

19:44 – Overbearing kick and the snare that relentlessly beat you down

31:00 – Why it’s bad to over compress and how the piano can be tough to deal with in a mix

37:52 – Phase problems

42:50 – Loud drum rooms that ruin a mix, and going hog wild with the mastering chain

46:55 – Getting one-on-one help with your mixes will go a long way to helping you in your career

 

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review on iTunes!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Meshuggah, Gojira, Machine Head, and State Champs. Join now for instant access!

Leave any questions, comments, or feedback in the comment section below.

 

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