KEITH MERROW: His DIY Career Philosophy, Unconventional Production Tricks, and Kemper Tone Secrets

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Ivans Guitars and Basses. Ivans strives to make high quality cutting edge musical instruments that any musician can afford and enjoy. Visit ivans.com for more info. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi and with me is an old friend of mine who is actually celebrating his birthday today. Mr. Keith Merrow. Happy birthday.

Speaker 3 (00:00:34):

It's not my birthday, bro.

Speaker 2 (00:00:36):

It's not. That's what Skype told me. Did it? Really?

Speaker 3 (00:00:39):

Well, it's wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:00:40):

Alright, well then fuck you Skype.

Speaker 3 (00:00:43):

It can be my birthday though. What'd you give me?

Speaker 2 (00:00:46):

I was giving you my voice for an hour and a half.

Speaker 3 (00:00:50):

I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (00:00:51):

And lots of love. I'll send it your way too. Nice to talk to you. I haven't talked to you in a while and I did check out the record you just put out, which I saw is killing it in the charts.

Speaker 3 (00:01:08):

Yeah, we're pretty surprised, man. I'm obviously, I'm really excited about it. It's a little bit unexpected for an independent release that's not on a label, not really having any kind of a promotional campaign behind it to actually get that kind of reach. So we're really excited about that.

Speaker 2 (00:01:29):

Well, I think that there's a tide shifting or maybe what people always used to say that you eventually wouldn't need labels. Maybe that's finally starting to be true because this is the second time in a few months that a friend of mine has had this kind of success from an independent release of this kind of music. So the other dude was Jason Richardson, his record with no label, mainly instrumental guitar stuff, killed it on iTunes.

Speaker 3 (00:02:01):

Yeah, I heard that did really well.

Speaker 2 (00:02:02):

Yeah, it did. And so now seeing that you put out yours in a similar fashion and it's killing it, maybe we are actually entering the era where a label is pointless.

Speaker 3 (00:02:16):

Well, I think to a certain extent they can offer certain things maybe that you wouldn't be able to do on your own otherwise. But I've always done everything DIY, and I've always just really been pretty adamant about not needing a label, at least for what I do. And actually labels have actually caused some issues for me in the past with other projects I've done. And it's just if you can figure out a way to make a name for yourself and get the reach and become a presence on social media or anything like that, I mean that's more than the label will do for you right there.

Speaker 2 (00:03:01):

Yeah, I was about to say, you do everything that a label should do on yourself. You know how to make videos, you know how to record. You already have your own reach out there. What else? You can fund your own recordings just fine. So what else really do you need from a label?

Speaker 3 (00:03:26):

Well, I suppose maybe tour support or something along those lines. Distribution in other countries if you want to do physical copies, which in my experience are a little bit irrelevant now unless it's vinyl, but there really isn't a huge need for it. If you have music that people like and you're passionate about it and you can do all those things yourself, then you're sort of doing all the things that they would be offering you anyway without having a middleman standing there with his handout. So to me, I've considered quite a few different record deals that have come across my way. And when you read 'em, you're just kind of like, why would I do this? Why would I need that? Or what benefit would it actually be? And there's really not much. So yeah, I mean I'm happy to continue on being DIY. Not saying that I wouldn't ever have any label affiliation, it would just have to be a situation that was beneficial.

Speaker 2 (00:04:36):

So the right label affiliation.

Speaker 3 (00:04:38):

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (00:04:41):

And listeners of the podcast, if you want to hear an episode where we talk about a very beneficial label situation, listen to the podcast with Misha Mansour where we talk about how periphery structured their various record deals. So I'm not saying that there's no way to get a good deal, but if you're in a situation Keith's it better be a good deal or else it's pointless. Now let me just say though, that for you to get to this point, it took years and years and years for someone who doesn't have an online presence or your recording skills or video making skills, maybe getting a label to help with that stuff is a good thing. Sure. You're not just able to succeed in a vacuum.

Speaker 3 (00:05:32):

Absolutely. But at the same time, if you're online and you're trying to do this and you're trying to make music, you probably know somebody who can do video or have some sort of resource to do those sorts of things. And you also have all the resources right there to learn and figure out how to do that yourself if you have the ambition to do it. And labels can definitely do all that stuff for you. But really I think it just starts now by why would you want to be on a label? You want to push your music out there, but it's almost the climate of things now is if you're an artist that people are interested in, the labels are going to come looking for you. You don't have to go look for them. And then at that point it's like, well then why do it?

(00:06:17):

What's the point? I'm not bashing labels and I'm not bashing anyone who's trying to get signed to a label or anything like that. It's just the benefits aren't really what they used to be. I don't think there's plenty of ways to get your music out there and even get it distributed on any platform you can possibly imagine without ever even contacting a record label. So it's just kind of up to you on how far you want to go and how DIY you want to be. And I've always been extremely DI, I mean, I changed the oil on my own car and mow my own lawn and all that stuff. That's just the way I've always been. So I also just really enjoy doing things myself. I like learning new things when it comes to doing production or video or anything of that nature. It's a lot more rewarding I think when you can step back and look at it and say that you did it yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:07:17):

And I remember when I stayed at your house when we did the bootcamp in Portland, that was a while back. That was fun. 2014. It was fun where, well, first of all, your house is gorgeous, but your little guitar toolkit area, like your guitar setup zone. Oh, the little work bench. The work bench. I wouldn't call that a little work bench. Just on the topic of you doing things yourself, that's one of the most well stocked, organized, and efficient workbenches I've seen outside of a shop when I've gone to people's houses and stuff, they don't normally have stuff like that that set up. And I mean, I realize that this is what you do, so you're just being professional about it. But I think that the level that you take it to, you say you doing things yourself, but I just want to illustrate for people that when you say you doing things for yourself, you really mean it and you really go all the way with it. You're not half-assing stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:08:33):

Yeah, it's definitely not an exaggeration. I mean, I've never had anybody work on my guitars or do setups aside from maybe a factory set up when I get a zech or guitar or even having work done on a guitar that I can't do have an evert tune bridge put in or something like that. There's certain things I won't DIY just because either just going to be too much of a pain in the ass or I just literally don't have the skill to do it. But when it comes to most everything that in this music world, I try to do it all myself if I can. It's more rewarding and it's fun to learn. Most of the time it's fun to learn and I'm usually more proud of the end result. So all the way down to setting up guitars and all that. So

Speaker 2 (00:09:24):

Do you mind if we post a picture of your workbench? Oh,

Speaker 3 (00:09:28):

Not at all, man.

Speaker 2 (00:09:29):

Okay. So in the show notes, guys on our site for this episode, we're going to post a picture of his little work area just so that you get what I'm saying. And from the time I've known you, the work that you put into that echoes the kind of work that you've put into everything else that I know you do. I know that you've been working on your mixing for a few years now, and every so often you'll hit me up with questions and they're super detailed questions and your mixes have just gotten better and better and better. I know that your story about when you went to school for video and you were excelling at video and ended up getting a job before you were done with school, I just think that that's just what you do. You just like to take things all the way. And maybe we can talk about that a little more. I just want people to get through their heads that if you're going to do something, you can do anything you want, but you really need to go all the way and apply a world-class standard to everything you're trying to do.

Speaker 3 (00:10:40):

So

Speaker 2 (00:10:41):

For instance, with video, talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:10:44):

Yeah, the video stuff, it's kind of funny because I had never intended our set out to do video. It just kind of came on as a necessity. Same thing with production and actually really just this whole thing and being in the music industry and working in the music industry, it was kind of a happy accident in a lot of ways. I was just working regular mundane jobs. I worked in the pool and spa industry for years. My dad was a swimming pool contractor and music was just my hobby and it was my passion. And I was sitting around one day just working on music for myself. Nobody would ever hear it. I would never put it online or do anything with it really. And a friend of mine convinced me to start using this new thing called YouTube. And this was a long time ago, and I was always kind of like, nah, I don't really want to be that guy who sits on his bed and plays guitar and has people critique it or whatever.

(00:11:55):

It wasn't really my speed actually, because a rather reclusive and introverted kind of guy. Anyway, he was just like, no, I think people would like these songs you should share. And so that's how it kind of started with just a really crappy old DV camcorder that was in my closet forever. I did a couple videos with that and I was really kind of surprised how quick something happened with it. I put 'em online and comments started coming in. It was slow at first of course, but comments started coming in and people were saying how much they liked it and they were asking how they could download it and find it. And I was just excited about that. I was like, wow, someone actually likes my music and wants to listen to it on their iPod or whatever. And so I just kept going. It was motivating to go further with it and see how much better I could get at it.

(00:12:57):

And things started when the economy crashed in the states here. I got laid off of that job I was working and I was like, well, I'm just going to go back to school and do stuff that I love to do and hopefully something will happen. So I went back to college for multimedia and went through the multimedia program at Portland College, and right away I was really into what I was doing and I was learning stuff about video and audio and having a lot of fun with it. And from there I just basically started doing projects on my own where through those initial videos, I had a few companies that had reached out to me asking if I'd like to try their products. And one of 'em was Seymour Duncan. And basically they sent me out a bunch of products just to try out in my guitars and potentially do some videos with.

(00:13:59):

And when I was in college, we had to obviously create a lot of video. So I was just kind of like, well, why don't I just figure out something cool to do with these pickups? And so I did a shootout video. It was the first video I did for them and they liked it a lot. So Seymour Duncan was stoked and the videos doubled as a college project, which obviously the college was pretty excited to see that they were doing well on the internet and they got a lot of response and they were impressed with the quality of 'em at the time, which I look back at it now and I'm like, wow, these are really pretty terrible. And then as a result of that, Seymour Duncan actually created a job for me and hired me before I even finished my college career. So that just kind of kicked off a lot of things for me and got my foot in the door in the industry from that side of it, the gear company side of it. So

Speaker 2 (00:15:07):

That must have been pretty cool. You go to school for something after getting laid off something that you really, really like and before you're even done, you're already getting job offers for positions that didn't even exist just on the strength of your video making.

Speaker 3 (00:15:26):

And it changed my life. And ultimately once you get a taste of that, that you've got your foot in the door and all of a sudden things are starting to look really good and you're doing things that you love for work, you get really hungry and you push harder to do better. And I want to be able to step back and look at something and say, yeah, I did the best I could with this and if I can't say that, then maybe I'll try harder. And I do that every time because I'm never completely happy with anything that I do. So it's always pushing me to do better or try harder. And that applies to pretty much everything that I do for my career and with audio and video and everything else, all the way down to guitar playing and everything. I'm always trying to improve and just see how much better I can get because if this is what I'm passionate about and this is what I'm going to do as a career, then I'm going to throw myself at it and do the best I can.

Speaker 2 (00:16:30):

Well, and I think that it bears mentioning, even though you've already said it, but I think it bears mentioning that to get good enough to the point where people would take the work seriously enough, you obviously had to put in the hours and the only way to, in my opinion, to really put in the hours is at something like this, is to be passionate about it. So I think that people listening, if you want to do this but you're not passionate about it, it might not be what you actually want to do with yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:17:03):

Yeah, it has to consume you completely. Yeah. I mean you really have to let it consume you in order, I think to keep that passion going. If you only do it halfway, it's never going to solidify into the big picture, I think

Speaker 2 (00:17:19):

Mean. But it sounds to me like it was never a willpower thing.

Speaker 3 (00:17:23):

No, definitely not. I mean, it's something I always wanted to do, but just didn't really put a lot of stock in it at the time. I mean, I'm getting older now. I'm almost 40 years old, so it was like I went a large portion of my working career, not in the music industry just because I know how tough this industry is and I know that you have to have that passion and you have to have that drive and you got to be good at what you do, or you're more than likely not going to make it anywhere because it's a tough landscape and there's certain qualities and certain types of people who succeed at this stuff, and it all comes down to that drive and that motivation and just being savvy about it. And if you don't really have all those qualities combined, it's going to just be a real tough thing.

Speaker 2 (00:18:15):

Well, yeah, because you not only are going to have to deal with just getting yourself to sit your ass down and do the work, but if your passion and vision isn't intact, what are you going to do when you have your first professional disappointment?

Speaker 3 (00:18:32):

And that happens, that happens to all of us. There's ventures out there and musicians take risks. I mean, that's what they do. I mean, look at bands out there, big bands all of a sudden they take a risk and they change their sound because that's what they wanted to do, and all the fans freak out about it and tell you it sucks and that you should have stuck to your original sound and all this stuff. It's like, well, maybe they should have from a business perspective because all these fans are buying it, but that's not what this stuff is about. It's about that passion and about taking those risks. You never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (00:19:11):

Yeah. A good example right now is the new suicide silence. They just

Speaker 3 (00:19:16):

Are

Speaker 2 (00:19:17):

Putting out with clean vocals and people are hating it. The level of hate is blowing my mind.

Speaker 3 (00:19:23):

It's kind of a bummer, really.

Speaker 2 (00:19:25):

Yeah, it definitely bums me out. I think they're really nice guys. But on the flip side of that coin, a band that I never really listened to, but still flip side of that coin was a band in this moment who started off as a metal core band and were the verge of disaster. They were at the verge of breaking up and they completely changed their sound, added electronic elements, changed their appearance, like a hundred percent change the lineup, and then they got huge. Suddenly they're like selling 20,000 copies first week and going on tour with huge bands. Sure.

Speaker 3 (00:20:04):

Well, part of that, you got to ask yourself though, is that a risk that they were willing to take or is that the direction that their label wanted to push 'em in? No,

Speaker 2 (00:20:13):

No, that was all them. I know for a fact that was all them. Nobody believed that it was a good idea and they did it anyways.

Speaker 3 (00:20:21):

Yeah, see, that's cool. That's what I'm talking about, taking those risks,

Speaker 2 (00:20:25):

Dude, they got dropped by their manager. They got dropped by so many people, nobody believed in them, and they made the change and they blew up. And so yeah, like you're saying, those risks are you have to take them, but they are

Speaker 3 (00:20:40):

Risks. Yeah. I mean they took the risks and they were also intuitive enough and savvy enough to make it work, so that's great. Those are the types of people who end up being successful.

Speaker 2 (00:20:52):

Yeah, I guess you never can quite know though, right?

Speaker 3 (00:20:57):

No, you never know. I mean, I just recently took a big risk myself. We were just talking about the job with Seymour Duncan, and I've worked with them for several years now, and I actually left that position in December to move on to doing some other things and working more for myself. Again, contracting out videos and things like that to other companies, but also just to focus on music. I went down this path with gear companies and doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff, especially these past couple years with companies working on products, product development, marketing, video content, other videos with other artists, things like that. I've done a lot of that sort of stuff and it sort of put a lot of weight on me, but also took a lot away from my creativity and my ability to make music when I feel like making music.

(00:21:58):

And that's why I got into this stuff to begin with. It wasn't to be a demo guy or to do stuff for other companies, even though that's very important. It was more just I like music and I like writing music, and I found that that was really kind of being taken away from me in a lot of ways, just not on purpose or anything. It's just the nature of the workload that I put on myself made it really difficult to actually focus and write music, and I just wanted to get that back. So I'm actually, I'm still going to probably be doing quite a bit of stuff with Seymour Duncan, but just as a contractor, and that also gave me the ability to open up a little bit more and work with other companies as well as a free agent.

Speaker 2 (00:22:48):

And you got to work more on music and your new band's record is killing it.

Speaker 3 (00:22:54):

Yeah, I mean it definitely helped a lot. Most of that music was written quite a while ago, and we had been sitting on that alluvial album for almost a year. It was completed for probably about a whole year, and we were just trying to get the finishing touches on it. Everything was written and I just had to mix it. And we had been entertaining different things with the project. Bringing in a vocalist for example, was one thing we kind of touched on briefly. Ultimately, we ended up releasing it as instrumental. We just sort of fell in love with the songs as they were. But yeah, we sat on that album for a while and it actually could have been out a lot sooner if I wasn't so busy doing other things. So yeah, I got bogged

Speaker 2 (00:23:43):

Down. There you go. There you go. You got to take risks. There's no way around it. I mean, I took a major one a few years ago when I decided to stop producing and to pursue the online education thing. I took a very lucrative career in production, which I think a lot of people would've been perfectly fine for, had a very beautiful big house, was making a very good amount of money, and I literally put the brakes on it and stopped. I dropped all the records I was working on and was like, I'm not doing this anymore. I am pursuing this new venture because I believe that this new venture is the future for me.

Speaker 3 (00:24:25):

Yeah. Well, it's a little cliche to say, but money isn't everything when it comes to this stuff, especially in this industry. I mean, it's a passion driven industry, and those who are worried about the money all the time are the ones who aren't having a good time doing it. You can't stress out about that because you basically have to do what you love and hope the money will follow. And what I've found being in this industry, you can't rely on music, especially in our genre. You can't rely on music to be what's going to pay your bills. Surviving this industry for me has been more about becoming somebody that other people or other companies will rely and depend on in order for them to make money and then you charge 'em out the ass for it. That's just kind of how it's been. So companies, oh, well, you're the demo guy for this company, or this company contracts you on a regular basis to do product demonstrations or help promote their products through using them or endorsements or whatever.

(00:25:36):

That's kind of how the modern musician, at least in our genre, needs to be in order to survive. I mean, you look at some of our colleagues, you'd mentioned Misha a little while ago. I mean, look what he's doing. He is got his hands in all kinds of different things. He's got his drum software, he is got his pedal company, he's got a new PV amp. There's all kinds of stuff like that, and that's kind of where the forward thinking musicians are succeeding are the ones who are doing those sorts of things. And you have to do that. You could be an amazing musician, make amazing records, and people will buy 'em and you'll make some residual income off that. But things have changed a lot in that regard. Obviously digital sales are what they are, but they're so far down now compared to what they used to be because of streaming services that it's almost impossible to make a good income off of it unless you're totally crushing it. So you have to find other ways if you want to survive it.

Speaker 2 (00:26:44):

Even then, man, and by totally crushing it, you got to be asking Alexandria,

Speaker 3 (00:26:51):

Bring

Speaker 2 (00:26:52):

Me the, you

Speaker 3 (00:26:52):

Got to be huge.

Speaker 2 (00:26:53):

Bring me the horizon. Yeah, bring me the horizon. Something like that to be able to make what I would call a really good living. You're not getting

Speaker 3 (00:27:04):

Rich, rich. Well, rich, just for an example, I mean just to give some insight into that, the last record I released before the alluvial record was that conquering dystopia record with Jeff Loomis. And when we released that, it almost seemed like the streaming services hadn't really caught on as much yet. They were there and they existed, but I don't think a whole lot of people used them. I think they were still using iTunes or Amazon, which obviously a lot of people still are, but the streaming services have grown so much. We released that alluvial record probably, I don't know, a month ago or something like that, and it's already up to over 30,000 monthly listeners on it, and that's 30,000 people who That's great. Maybe only a 10th of those people actually bought the album. So with Spotify paying out one sixth of a penny every stream, there's not much of a living to be made there. So you got to find other ways music do music, you love it, not you want to make money off of it.

Speaker 2 (00:28:16):

And I feel like the whole making money off music thing was misguided about 10 years ago, but now it's especially misguided. I think that now it's almost like the, and this is kind of freeing in lots of ways, but it's almost like the music is the advertisement for what you actually do to make money

Speaker 3 (00:28:40):

In

Speaker 2 (00:28:41):

A way. Absolutely. But that's freeing because it allows you to be more pure with your actual music.

Speaker 3 (00:28:50):

Yeah, well, the music is the vehicle to everything else that you're going to do in the industry. So you can do it without any preconceived notion that you're going to make money off of it. That should never ever be a motivation for making music. Obviously, if you're doing it professionally, you have to consider it and you have to figure out ways to optimize that and monetize your work the best you can. But there's not much meat on the bone, there's just not, especially in the metal world, it's very saturated. There's a lot of bands out there, so record sales, they're tough and you can't really rely on 'em. It's definitely a passion thing. It's not really, bands are a business, but I think the music is the vehicle that gets you other business.

Speaker 2 (00:29:45):

Alright, so let's change topics and talk a little bit about YouTube, if you don't mind. Not at all. Because I know that when you started it, when you started doing YouTube videos, that was virgin territory. There weren't a bunch of guys on there doing product demos or putting their music out on there. It was a fairly new thing and now there's a lot of people doing it, yet you have managed to still thrive. What do you think are some of the key factors to being successful on there? And especially for nowadays where it's a much more saturated field? Sure.

Speaker 3 (00:30:30):

Well, the surprising thing about that, you mentioned that it's thriving, but it kind of isn't anymore. I've really kind of fell into the background a lot these past couple of years by working on stuff behind the scenes with companies and doing stuff in the music industry that was sort of out of the public eye, I guess you could say. So I really hadn't been able to do very many videos to keep that channel fed and keep people interested in it. So it's actually kind of plateaued out and it's been sitting at the same subscriber base for quite a long time, and it's just because I've sort had to neglect it, not by choice, but just because of the nature of everything else I have going on. But when I initially started out on YouTube, it was kind of in its infancy, at least in that realm, the guitar player doing gear demo kind of stuff, realm.

(00:31:30):

I remember Ola England and I kind of started out at similar times doing similar things and we actually became friends through doing that. So a lot of it just came down to when we did it. I feel like if I was to start over and try to do all this today, it wouldn't work. I probably wouldn't have make it because I think in some ways, maybe some of that stuff inspired other people to try to figure out how to do that for themselves. And a lot of people have been really successful at it and they're excellent at it. So it's definitely a hard path to go down, especially if you're starting from nothing now, but it can definitely be done. Just the bar is really high, so you have to do really excellent work. I mean, I think that you guys are responsible for

Speaker 2 (00:32:20):

How high that bar is.

Speaker 3 (00:32:22):

Well, I don't know about that. I think we all push each other. Everyone's kind of always improving quality in various areas and we all learn and grow. I mean, it's just like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So you're kind of inadvertently raising the bar. But really for me it's just raising my own personal bar. I want to do better every time. And if that translates to making other people want to try harder or inspire other people to do it, then that's cool. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:32:55):

Absolutely. So I guess if you were to decide that YouTube was a priority, what would you do differently then? Now? Yeah, if you were like, alright, I want YouTube to be my priority, what's Keith Merrow going to do? Well,

Speaker 3 (00:33:11):

That's a tough one because unless you're really crushing it on there, it's hard to justify the amount of time and effort it takes to make some of those videos just to give some people an idea of the amount of work, some of that stuff actually is.

Speaker 2 (00:33:29):

Yeah, I'm

Speaker 3 (00:33:29):

Curious. Yeah, I get messages daily that are like, can you do a video with this? Or Can you do a video for this amp? Or it'd be really cool if you could compare these two products or something. And it's like, I don't know if they really realize what they're asking. Like these are a ton of work to do. At least the videos that I do. They can definitely be done easier and you can probably get just as an effective of a result out of it by not doing as much work, but writing the music, doing all of the audio, recording and mixing, filming all the videos, setting up all your shots, getting your lighting, a simple four or five minute video can literally take a week to make. It's really a lot of work and it takes a lot of time and dedication to do. It's almost like that's why my video output isn't very high is because I want to make videos that are good to look at. They sound awesome, they look cool, and the music is the most important part to me. Even if it's a stupid gear demo or something about a product that I don't really have much invested in personally,

Speaker 2 (00:34:42):

When you spell it out like that, it really illuminates how many different skill sets you need to be proficient with. In order to pull this off at a good level of quality,

Speaker 3 (00:34:56):

You got to wear a lot of hats. There is a lot to it, especially when it comes to doing, let's say a company contacts me and wants me to do a video for a pedal or something. I mean, they're expecting that the quality is going to be really high and it's going to favorably reflect their product. Unless the product is total garbage, it has to sound good, it has to look good, it has to be pretty polished. Otherwise, those companies wouldn't be approaching me to do it. So I really have to do that much work and you have to wear all those hats in order for 'em to be effective.

Speaker 2 (00:35:36):

I don't know, it's just funny to me, man, where people just think that you just put things together and it just wills itself into being, and it's not that it's years of work with each one of these disciplines equals

Speaker 3 (00:35:52):

This type of output. And I am definitely not saying that I make the best sounding and looking videos out there. Plenty of dudes out there do amazing work, but I really do put a lot of effort into it and it's a difficult thing to do. So in the end, it's only going to be as good as you make it.

Speaker 2 (00:36:13):

Okay. So I'm curious about your production skills because pretty damn good at it, and especially your mixing has come a long way. Have you ever been produced by a producer when tracking guitars or have you always just done it yourself?

Speaker 3 (00:36:36):

I've always done it myself, and thank you for saying that. I have been trying pretty hard to get better at it, and it's a long road, but no, I've never been produced by anybody else. I've always done my own tracking and recording, and I haven't always done my own mixes and stuff like that. But recently I definitely have.

Speaker 2 (00:36:58):

Well, and I know that it seems like your skills have leveled up considerably in just the past couple years because back in conquering dystopia, you didn't mix that, but this new stuff, the mixes sound great.

Speaker 3 (00:37:17):

Oh, well thank you, man.

Speaker 2 (00:37:18):

What have you been doing to up your game? Just been working at it a lot, but what specifically have you been focusing on? Well,

Speaker 3 (00:37:27):

It's kind of funny in terms of the alluvial stuff, for example, and the album you mentioned that originally came about, and I had been working on that mix for a really long time. I had initially wrote one song that actually ended up being the first alluvial song and sort of started tailoring the foundation of the mix based on that one song. And as the rest of them came along, I had kind of created this template based on that original song, and it just sort of morphed into the sound of the record organically over a couple years. So it was something that definitely, it didn't happen overnight. I had worked on that mix for a long time and tried a lot of different things, and I kind of used it to get all my experimentation out on trial and error, making it sound really terrible and then regretting it the next day and then trying to fix it. And it was a long process. And ultimately it was the first time though for me anyway, that I was able to get a mix that I heard in my head, if that makes any sense.

(00:38:45):

When I visualize this music, it does, when I visualize this music, and even during Pre-pro, you kind of have this sound that you want in your head, and I know everybody has it. That's the reason why they mix the way they do. They're trying to get it to sound the way they hear it in their head. And the alluvial mix was the first time that I was able to do that, and so I'm really happy with it and I was really proud of it. It's definitely not for everybody, and there's a lot of issues with it, I'm sure, and there's a lot of things that could be critiqued about it, but it was what I wanted, and Wes loved the mix as well, so it ended up being exactly what we had hoped for, but it was a process of a lot of trial and error that lasted solid two years.

Speaker 2 (00:39:31):

Well, one thing I've noticed about your mixes always noticed this even before they were really starting to sound like finished products, and I also noticed this from doing the bootcamp with you and just knowing you guitar tones are just ridiculous. You have a way of capturing emotion in your guitar tone. It's really, really weird. You know how to make a guitar tone sound like it has teeth. Oh, wow. Or make it sound evil or make it sound like it has aggression in there. And I remember when we made that one Kemper profile together, which at the time was the best Kemper profile I had ever heard. I know the one I'm talking about, the 51 51 that we made at that bootcamp when Kemper had released the new firmware where their low end was finally

Speaker 3 (00:40:28):

Fixed. That was the 51 50 that I brought to the studio, wasn't it? That was of the amp that I had, or was that one they had there?

Speaker 2 (00:40:35):

Yes, yes, yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 (00:40:37):

Well, that amps magical, but that same methodology kind of applies to everything, all the tones that I try to create, I kind of go for a specific thing with each of 'em, and I really try to tailor the tones to my sound and my playing so that they accentuate some of the things that I'm trying to do. You mentioned some of the emotion and the aggression and the sound and all that stuff. Obviously most of the tone's going to come from the player and the way that they're playing certain things, but I try to tailor the tone to accentuate that the best I can. And that's been a long process too. I look back on some of my older stuff, I man, like, dude, that guitar tone is fucking shot. It's like the worst thing, but over time

Speaker 2 (00:41:25):

You find things. When we made that tone, there were obviously the normal technical things happening. We tried out every speaker on the cab with multiple mics. We tested it out against multiple preamps and every combination. We did all those things. But then once we decided on what was the best speaker, microphone, preamp combination, then you started tweaking it and you tweaked it to get more aggression and anger out of the tone. I remember you saying that, and I remember we passed the guitar around, but I stopped playing guitar because my picking wasn't pissed off sounding enough. So we gave it to your buddy Chris Finster because it was hard for you to dial tone while picking at the same time. And Chris plays like a beast. And so that was also crucial too, that we put the guitar in the right dude's hand. So my picking wasn't strong enough

Speaker 3 (00:42:37):

To

Speaker 2 (00:42:37):

Get that tone. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:42:39):

And with that particular tone, and really when it came to making Kemper profiles for that session and pretty much any camper profile that I do, I have a few tricks that I like to do that have really sort of helped develop my sound and have actually kind of uncovered what I look for in a tone just by stumbling across a few little tricks that I found with the keer. When I dial in a tone with the amp that I want to profile, I get it to sound as good as I can, as clear and aggressive as I can. And there's one little thing that I figured out that if you turn the gain all the way down to where it's just barely breaking up on the amp and you just start to get that saturation, it almost sounds like there's just a layer of saturation on a clean guitar on the actual amp itself.

(00:43:36):

Yeah, on the amp itself, you roll the game almost all the way back to where it's just barely breaking up, but you get all that resonance that you hear in the low, the low mids, and then it's pretty clean in the mid range section. And then you have that nice sparkle on the top, just enough gain to where it just starts breaking up and that's where you profile it and then you roll that gain back in the Kemper. And for whatever reason, the way that it approximates that gain curve, it's probably not even correct. It ends up not really sounding like the way the amp responds when you turn the gain up on the amp, but what it does is it just increases that character that you had where you have that 3D kind of resonance in the low end and the sparkle in the top while keeping the clarity in the mids.

(00:44:26):

That's the trick that I have for getting those keer tones like that is you profile it when it's just barely breaking up. And I found a few other tricks that have helped that even more, forgetting that really 3D high gain thing where it's like a really teethy kind of tone, but you can hear it all the way to the pick it's, for me, it's a combination of that trick where you roll the gain way back. And then it's also all about the cabinet, obviously. And I've gone through a bunch of different cabinets, try a whole bunch of different speakers and cabinets and mics. And ultimately for my guitar sound, the core of my rhythm sounds, I have this old Randall ISO cabinet with just a single 12 inch.

Speaker 2 (00:45:16):

That's right.

Speaker 3 (00:45:16):

Yeah. Remember that thing?

Speaker 2 (00:45:18):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:45:19):

You

Speaker 2 (00:45:19):

Guys sounded great.

Speaker 3 (00:45:21):

And that thing, there's something magical about it, and we moted it pretty heavily. Those things by themselves as they just come off the shelf, they sound absolutely terrible. They're boxy, they're nasally, they're just gross. But what we did was ripped out all of the insulation and we fill it with a real dense insulation behind the speaker, put in a cream bag, celestion, and then lined the entire inside of the speaker area, including the lid with RL X, and then put a better mic mount in it, so it's more of an adjustable gooseneck type thing. And that same thing I was talking about where you get the amp to kind of break up and resonate to where you can really hear the separation between each of the frequencies like low, mid, and high. You do that same sort of thing with that cabinet and you just get it to sort of resonate and you can hear it doing it with the lid closed, and you find the sweet spot with the actual volume that you're pushing inside of that cabinet.

(00:46:26):

Obviously if you push it too hard, it's just going to sound like a mess. And if you're not pushing it enough, it's just not going to have very much aggression. So you can kind of tell when you have an ISO cab, it starts to resonate just right. It's kind of weird. It'll vibrate a certain way and you can just hear that low kind of woofing in there. And that's when that's the sweet spot to profile it at. So a lot of people when they heard, especially on the alluvial record that they were keer guitars, they're like, why wouldn't you just use the actual amp? That's stupid. Why did you use a digital modeler instead of using the source amp if you had it right there? And it's like, well, I can make the source amp in that cabinet sound great, for sure. Not a problem.

(00:47:14):

But there's little tricks you can do with the Kemper to really kind of make it better by profiling it a specific way and then letting the keer kind of pick up the slack and approximate the gain curve and it does something to that core sound. That's not the way that a lot of people use the Kemper. A lot of people want it to sound exactly like the source, and I have a lot of tones like that as well. But for me, I've figured out a couple little things that you can do to actually make it sound better than the source amp. And so that's how I do it.

Speaker 2 (00:47:51):

It's interesting that you say that because the majority of the Kemper tones that I have had success with have been tones where they do sound better than the source. And then the ones that I find myself not using quite as much are the ones that were more meant to be identical to the source, because I feel like if you want to get it identical to the source, it's almost like why not use the source unless you're in a situation where the source has been torn down? Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:48:21):

Yeah. It's also a convenience thing too. I mean, that alluvial record was, it came to be over the span of two years. I'm not exactly going to have the same amp rig set up with the same mic and every for two years sitting in the middle of my floor. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, I've used the Kemper a lot and I've really come to learn it really well and figured out how to profile things to benefit my sound. The first 15 minutes I ever spent with a keer, I was like, oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever done in my life. I love this thing. And it really did kind of help me find my sound and some of those tricks that I was talking about. I found those by accident, and that's kind of when it opened my eyes where I was like, you can use this thing to really try different things and experiment and come up with these tones that are just really gnarly. And it does end up sounding different than the amp, but that's okay. If it sounds awesome, then who the fuck cares?

Speaker 2 (00:49:24):

What do you think of the refining process? How do you approach that?

Speaker 3 (00:49:27):

I don't even do that,

Speaker 2 (00:49:28):

Dude. That's amazing because so many people think that that's where the kempert tone comes together.

Speaker 3 (00:49:35):

And it does. It depends though. If you're trying to get it to sound exactly like the amp, then yeah, refine the hell out of it, hit refine and sit there and play for 10 minutes and hit every note on the fretboard. And it'll more than likely end up sounding exactly like the amp, but for the way that I capture my tones and the way that I do my profiles, I almost don't need it. It actually almost takes away some of those qualities I was talking about. If I sit there and do the refinement, because that weird alien signal that the Kemper sends through the amp, if you have the amp set to where it's just barely breaking up and you're getting that 3D thing, if you go to refine that afterwards by playing guitar with that same tone, it just makes it sound really stupid.

(00:50:20):

It's like the alien signal goes through and all of a sudden it's like, okay, now you can go and turn up the gain on the Keer, and it approximates it in such a way that it sort of saturates a clean sound and just makes it super clear. But if you hit refine and you start playing guitar, it's really just kind of ruining that by making it sound really weak. So yeah, I mean, it depends. Sometimes I'll use the refined feature, and sometimes if I'm trying to get my rhythm sound, I won't use the refined feature. It actually makes it sound worse.

Speaker 2 (00:50:55):

Wow, that's actually pretty fascinating when you,

Speaker 3 (00:50:58):

It's really

Speaker 2 (00:50:59):

Weird. I know. No, but you do have your own sound and it's monstrous, so it's, and now you all know it's true though, dude. I'm not just kissing your ass. It sounds great. I just think it's interesting that you kind of figured out a non intended use for the camper. Well, thanks, man.

Speaker 3 (00:51:23):

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I swear by that thing, people are always asking me why I use the Keer so much, or do I like it more than the ax effects or it more than all these other modelers and stuff? And it's like, well, for that reason I do. It really helped me find the sound that I wanted, and it does it in a really cool way. So yeah, I mean, it's the trick to a lot of my guitar tones is doing that,

Speaker 2 (00:51:53):

And I think it's important to say that or to just highlight that you're not saying that it's the best amp modeler or amp sim ever made. It's the one that works for you, the one that you found your voice through. And I'm saying this because I don't want people listening to this

(00:52:10):

To suddenly think that they have to own a Kemper in order to find their own sound. No, definitely not. Keith is saying is Yeah, that's how you found your sound. But for instance, Joey Sturgis, my partner, he found his guitar sound through Amp Farm, I mean through Pod Farm, the Line six sim, which a lot of people hate and a lot of people love, but he have found a way to make it sound monstrous and that's what works for him. So I just want to reiterate that just because it works for Keith doesn't mean it's going to work for you.

Speaker 3 (00:52:44):

Well, and they're all just tools. And really there's a lot of this weird kind of competition, especially in the modeler world where if you bought an ax effects, then you automatically have to hate the Kemper or you have to hate the Helix or whatever. You just spent over two grand on this unit, so everything else is a piece of shit. And you have the best unit on Earth, and I've never really looked at it like that. They're tools to use to get a desired result. I have an ax effects. I like the thing. I use it for effects and specific things like a tool, and I use the Kemper for the core of my rhythm sound, which is based on an AMP that I use, and it's just tools to get the desired result. One's not necessarily better than the other. They all do different things.

Speaker 2 (00:53:36):

Absolutely. People get very Mac versus PC about it.

Speaker 3 (00:53:40):

Oh, big time. It's full blown Android fucking versus iOS all the way.

Speaker 2 (00:53:46):

Yeah, dude, the silliest one of those is when people get that way about their dws, I don't get it.

Speaker 3 (00:53:55):

And the funny thing about das is those all do the same damn thing, just in a slightly different way.

Speaker 2 (00:54:02):

Who cares? Seriously. Especially nowadays. Nowadays, okay. So I understand maybe 10 years ago when people were like, pro Tools is the industry standard. If you want to work in the world, you better know Pro Tools. Okay, maybe 10 years ago, but now and for the past five years, not the case. Not the case at all.

Speaker 3 (00:54:23):

Yeah, not really. Yeah, not really. I mean, there's obviously really big commercial studios are still all over AVID's nuts, but it's really just comes down to what works for your workflow and what you're comfortable using. They all kind of do the same thing. I mean, I use Persona Studio One Pro, and I've used it since the beta release of it, and I've dabbled with Pro Tools and Logic and messed around in pretty much every dog just to do it. But for what I do considering I don't really do mixes for other people, it's mainly for me. I found that I work best

Speaker 2 (00:55:03):

In Studio One. We have a few listeners who use Studio One and I'll use Studio One. Users seem to really love it.

Speaker 3 (00:55:11):

I do, man. I swear by it. And if there was ever a time I was going to get Mac or PC on anything, I'd be like, dude, studio One is fucking awesome because it is. It's got a lot of features that really help me in my workflow to get ideas out. It's very much a creator's D, if that makes any sense. Pro Tool's a great editing. DAW Logic is a good mixing D, but Studio One is a really good creative da. The workflow in it is super smooth and really intuitive. It has this scratch pad feature on it where you can basically add simultaneous timelines to your session and mess around with different tempos and mixes and all this other stuff without affecting anything on your main timeline. I think other dos have a similar feature, but the way that Studio One does it is really pretty cool and

Speaker 2 (00:56:04):

Isn't built into it.

Speaker 3 (00:56:06):

It is, which I don't really use. It's a little cumbersome, I think, but

Speaker 2 (00:56:10):

Well, melaine is cumbersome to begin with. So in my opinion, I've always used autotune, but a lot of people love melaine, and I just think that it's interesting that it's built in.

Speaker 3 (00:56:23):

Yeah. Well, I did use it on the alluvial record for one thing, and that was to convert my base DI to MIDI and then run that through JST SubD Destroyer for the very low end of the mix. Boom, right there. That's what that plugin is,

Speaker 2 (00:56:41):

Four actually.

Speaker 3 (00:56:42):

So you used it, right? Oh man. It worked great too. It really fills out the sub frequencies without really affecting the sound of your bass guitar. It just adds this layer of just massiveness to

Speaker 2 (00:56:57):

It. I think that a lot of people struggle with the base programming part of it, and it's like, just use Melaine boom.

Speaker 3 (00:57:05):

Yep. That's all I did. Basically, you can do it with one button. It takes your di, it analyzes it. It's never perfect. I mean, you always have to go in and fix shit, but it gets it really close, and then you just drop sub destroyer on it and there you go. You're done.

Speaker 2 (00:57:23):

Well, back when we did the bootcamp, I didn't know how to do that yet in Melaine, and I remember

Speaker 3 (00:57:30):

We had talked about doing that. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:57:32):

We program it from note by note,

Speaker 3 (00:57:34):

And then I remember later saying, you could do that with Melaine. And then we were like, yeah. And then I think that's when I started doing that was after that bootcamp. Like why don't I just do that

Speaker 2 (00:57:46):

Programming note for note in the piano role for music like yours is a cumbersome task. It takes a while, dude,

Speaker 3 (00:57:53):

Programming anything, note for note for any kind of music is the worst thing on earth. Well, you program drums. Yeah, and I hate it.

Speaker 2 (00:58:04):

Good answer.

Speaker 3 (00:58:05):

No, I mean it's not bad. There's some art to it, and obviously it's only going to be as good as you make it. So you have to have patience and dedication to doing it in order for 'em to sound convincing and powerful and believable. But it's definitely not the funnest part of the process.

Speaker 2 (00:58:26):

Yeah, I completely agree. So you've done something that reminds me of what I used to do when I was playing, which it was a strategy that I employed when I was finding the lineup for doth or when doing Avalanche Worms, was to try to surround myself with the very best that I could have access to, because I always figured that, well, I think you're a sick guitar player and better than me. But the point is that I never thought I was very good at guitar, so I figured that I should get with guys that I think are fucking smoking and that would elevate the project. And you've got in with guys that are just best in the world status, like Jeff Loomis or Wes on conquering dystopia, Alex Rudger. Was that always a goal to find the very, very best of the best for your projects?

Speaker 3 (00:59:27):

Yes and no. It's kind of a similar thing. I know my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to music and guitar, but when it came to conquering dystopia and alluvial and other projects, it was more just because those people have become my friends over the years and working with them is just more of an enjoyable experience. That's not to say that, yeah, they definitely elevated those projects to somewhere that I couldn't have taken it on my own, but that wasn't really the purpose of that. Doing the album with Jeff, we did that because we had been talking about it for a long time, and it was just something that we wanted to do for ourselves. And the same thing with Alluvial, with Wes, actually, that even predates conquering dystopia. Wes is one of the first dudes I even met in this whole game. He helped me get my first endorsement way back in the day when I very first started getting on YouTube.

(01:00:34):

We became friends really quickly through the internet forums, and we had talked about doing an album since then, all the way back in, I don't know, it was like 2007 or something. But that was more like something that we knew we wanted to do because we had a lot of the same interests. We even had a similar sound and style when it came to playing riffs and writing songs and stuff. But that ended up not ever really happening early on because Wes obviously has been really busy touring around with a lot of other bands and working on a lot of different things himself. But we always talked about it. We always wanted to come back to it at some point, and we ultimately ended up doing that. But the conquering thing that came about, because when Jeff and I first started hanging out and playing music together, it was just for fun.

(01:01:34):

And we were sort of doing small gear demos for companies that they'd send us an amp and say, can you guys do a video with this? And we would just write music that was very not serious. It was just like, oh, let's just make some really dumb, ignorant metal. And people liked it and they were like, you guys should do a record. And we heard that so much that we were finally just like, well, maybe we should make a record, but maybe we should take it seriously. And so we did, and it was an amazing experience. And yeah, I mean, working with guys that is humbling and it's difficult and it's rewarding all at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):

Do you feel like it makes you a better musician?

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it pushes you to try harder, because obviously both Jeff and Wes are at the top of the pile when it comes to metal guitar players in every aspect. So at times it could be a little bit demoralizing even. It's like, oh man,

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):

I know

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):

Jeff would come over and we'd be working on stuff, and before we're even set up to do any serious recording, he's sitting on the couch playing shit that you would try your entire life to play and never do. And he is just busting it out, sitting there, not even paying attention, like watching tv and you're just like, dude, can you care about what you're playing for five seconds? Devastatingly hard to do and I'll never be able to do it, so fuck off, go home. It's pretty gnarly, man, what those guys are capable of. That's

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):

What it's like being in a band with someone. Amil just, oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):

He's a fucking alien.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):

Yeah. And you say something like, what are you doing? And they just start laughing. I don't know. Just fucking playing. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):

Nothing. I was just noodling around and it's just like, what? Yeah. Now, Jeff, especially, man, I mean, when we were tracking that record, we would start in the morning really early, we'd get some coffee, he'd warm up for about a half hour, and we'd start going at it and he'd really start getting on fire about an hour in, and then by that second hour, he just sounds even better. And we tracked pretty much all the leads on the conquering record in one day,

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):

Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):

And so we started in the morning and we went for 13 or 14 hours straight. And by that 14th hour, you'd think most any guitar player would be burnout and be ready to just throw the guitar. They just don't sound as good as they did. Two hours, three hours in. He sounded just as good as he did, 14 hours in as he did two or three hours in. And I had to stop the session because I was tired of staring at the screen. I was like, man, my eyes are going to fall out of my head if I look at this DA any longer. And he just like, alright, let's go watch a movie. Hangs the guitar up and walks away. No big deal. So yeah, I mean, it's definitely humbling to work with guys like that because they're on this level that's just pretty mind blowing and it's inspiring.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):

I have a funny story about Jeff Loomis and Jason Richardson. Jeff did a solo for Jason's album, and it's on the last song on the album. It's a long solo too. It goes on for a while. Long song, long solo, and it's an epic, epic solo. And Jason has been selling tabs of his stuff for years, and I guess he also put together a tab book for his album, and he asked Jeff to send him the tab, and Jeff was like, I don't know what I played that. I forgot what I did. So Jason had to learn that Jeff solo note for note in order to be able to transcribe it, which is pretty harrowing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):

Yeah, that's a feat of strength right

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):

There and focus, God so many notes. But he figured it out. He said that it took a solid week though,

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):

And it's probably something that Jeff just busted out in an evening. What's really funny is on some of my earlier solo material, he did some guest solos and that's how that went. He'd do it in an evening, he'd sit down and he'd start ripping on the stuff, and then he would do two, three takes and send 'em all and be like, hopefully one of these works for you. And of course, all three of 'em are like, what the hell? That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. And yeah, it's just stuff that comes to him naturally and you can just do it. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):

So on the topic of recording guitars, how are you capturing your DI's?

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):

The way that I record my guitars is obviously I record a di and a wet signal at the same time, but I just run into a countryman type 85 and run one line out to straight to the interface, and then the other line goes to the Kemper, and I record both of those simultaneously. So I always have a DI for everything I do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):

Nice. So that's all there is to it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):

That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):

It's that easy. I know that it's that easy, but I just wanted you to say it because I think that lots of people overcomplicate it with how to get a good DI tone.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):

Yeah, I think getting a good tone really comes down to having a good DI box and then having a nice interface to plug into. For me, that's worked great. There's probably more detailed and better ways to do it, but that's the best result that I've found is just using a good DI box

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):

And good guitar and good pickups too.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):

Oh yeah. That's a huge part of it. Fresh strings.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):

Yeah, it's interesting. Normally when guys will be like, I don't know what's wrong with my DI's, they just don't sound that good. And then you find out they're using a $300 guitar with stock pickups and going into an inbox, it's like, well, what do you expect?

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):

Yeah. Well, I can tell you that over the years of working with pickup companies and working with Seymour Duncan and having tried so many different guitar pickups and actually helped develop a bunch of different guitar pickups, it's actually a really significant part of all of that. And it's a big part of getting a good di. It's a big part of getting a good guitar tone. I mean, any guitar player knows that the pickups, they make a difference, but finding the right pickup for the right guitar and the pickup that fits your sound, that's a big part of it. And that's actually one of the best things you could probably do for getting a good di is make sure that you have a really six set of pickups in your guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):

So how would you recommend someone go about trying to find the right pickups for them? Do you just say, just buy a bunch and get 'em installed? Or are there any guidelines that you would follow?

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):

Well, you could go to youtube.com/keith. No, I'm just kidding. Basically, it kind of comes down to personal taste. I mean, if you really like a sharp pick attack with a high resonant peak, you'll probably want a ceramic based magnet pickup. If you like it, a little bit more warm, little more organic, you might want an alco based pickup. You might want a super hot pickup if you play extreme death metal, or maybe you want one that's not, and you want more clarity and articulation out of it, so you get one that isn't quite as hot. If you have a really dark sounding guitar and you need to brighten it up, maybe ceramic is the way to go. And vice versa. If it's a super bright guitar and you need to tame it a little bit, then you might get something a little warmer. But it really just comes down to personal taste.

(01:10:01):

And for me, that process has come through a lot of experimentation, and most people don't have the luxury of doing that. I mean, working for Seymour Duncan, you could pretty much just get any pickup at any time and try it out. That isn't an option for everybody, obviously. So ask around, ask friends in the guitar community and look on forums and see what other people are digging and check out different videos for different sound clips, which sometimes that's an effective way to do it, but other times maybe it's a little misleading. It's hard to say. But yeah, I mean ask around, see what people are digging for, the kind of tones you,

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):

I think that at the very least, knowing what the different types of material will do for your tone is a good place to start.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):

Yeah, do a little research and figure out what makes pickup sound the way they do, and that'll kind of help steer you the direction that you want to go. And

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):

Now, do you have a set that you think are the perfect Keith Merrow pickups, or is it just not like that? They're just tools.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):

Surprisingly, I don't, man, out of all the pickups that I've tried and even ones that I've helped make, I've never found the one that I was just like, this is the end all. I'm always kind of playing around and trying out different ones. I've gotten really close for sure, the pickups in my signature guitar, for example, the Sentient Nasal set. I helped design those and helped voice those in my guitar. So they fit really well in that guitar and they sound good for my sound. But even at that, there's other things I would change, specific little things that I would maybe change here and there, but it changes from day to day. I might be like, well, today I want a warmer tone tomorrow. I want one that sounds like you got razor blades in your ears. Just depends. But I'm actually working on some pickup stuff at the moment, which might be a little bit more tailored to my ideal pickup sound. So we'll see where that goes. I can't give too much info on that, but fair enough. There's some stuff in the works. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):

So how do you feel about answering some questions from the audience? We got quite a few.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):

No, I got to go. Peace. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):

Awesome. I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):

I love you all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):

Yeah, no questions. See you later. Nice talking to you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):

No, I'd be happy to you, man. Let's do it. Alright,

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):

Some of these questions were actually things that I wanted to talk to you about. So the first question from Jimmy Glass was, how long and how tedious was your studio build? Great job with it because it's amazingly beautiful. Okay. So we know that it's tedious because anytime you go to build a studio, it's tedious. For instance, I have a brand new one with Andrew Wade, and it took a year to get constructed and it's gorgeous now. So yeah, I mean, anytime that you're going to build a room or a studio, it's going to take about three times longer than you think it will and cost about 50% more. So let's just start with the basic construction, what you did to treat it and whether or not you built special walls or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):

Yeah, well, the studio that you visited was the house I lived in before, and a lot of the room treatments that I had in that space have obviously been adapted to my new home. In terms of building the room, there wasn't anything specific I did to the walls or anything like that. I mean, I put a new flooring and all that kind of stuff, but that was more cosmetic than anything. The room treatment stuff that I have, I go through ready acoustics for my base traps and high frequency diffusers. They've always worked really well for me. I've had 'em for several years and Joel is over there at Radio Acoustics, has always been really cool about helping me with the placement of 'em and analyzing my room and things like that. But really the setup isn't that complicated, believe it or not. It's just some panels on the walls and I have a desk on the far wall with my Dow rig in it.

(01:14:35):

And in terms of the gear that I have, it's really tailored just specifically to what I do, which is primarily guitar recording. I'm not set up to do drums. I could be, but I'd have to give up the guest room that people come and sleep in, which I don't really want to do. But I really have a limited amount of availability to do big projects in here. It's more just for doing guitar, bass, vocals, things like that. And really only for myself and the friends that I work with. It's not really something that I do for, I don't do mixes and recordings for other people. Generally I have, and I've used it for that for friends and stuff, but it's really tailored for what I do and all the gear that I have or things that I use to do what I do. So in terms of building, it was pretty organic and a lot of the gear came from doing demos and working with companies and stuff like that. So the cost of it is probably not as much as most people might assume, just because a lot of it was trade and barter and doing work for it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):

And we'll put some pictures up also in the show notes for people, but okay, so I'm assuming I've seen pictures of the new place and it's gorgeous, but some of the things that I remember about your old place, which I'm sure you've improved on, but you didn't need to improve on was it's so damn organized down to how you use your monitors. The monitors you look at, not the ones you listen to, how you would have one monitor for a specific purpose, like programming drums. I remember that. And it was all set up to where you just had for what you do there. You had maximum efficiency with your tools. Nothing was in your rig just to be there.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):

Yeah, well, there's two reasons for that. The first reason is when I write, I don't really like to be obstructed in messing with stuff in the DAW and trying to switch windows and do all this other kind of stuff. I have to have everything right there and not be bogged down with the actual production process even when I'm writing. So that's just mainly for convenience and I put a lot of thought into that. How can I make my workflow more efficient so that I can get my ideas out without having to really think about doing all this other stuff that isn't musical? And that helps my process a lot. And I guess the other side of it is I respect it. I respect what I've earned and I respect what I've worked so hard for. And maybe I get a little OCD about it even at times where it's like, yeah, I worked hard to have this and I am going to respect it. I'm going to take care of it and keep it nice and keep it organized. And if you're proud of it, you're going to keep it clean.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):

For a lot of you mixers out there, the way that Keith talked right now about how he doesn't like to be obstructed by the doll, a lot of that are the same thinking that we have when we say to do your mix prep on one day and your mixing on the next day because it's more efficient that way that you do all your setup at one point in time and you take care of every piece of setup needed at once, so that once you actually get to mixing, you're not messing with any editing, any track naming, any routing, anything. You can just get straight to mixing and nothing's in your way because there's nothing like messing with a DAW or editing something to knock you out of that creative state you need to be in to make progress.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):

That's exactly what happens. That's exactly what happens is you end up going down this path where you're like, well, what is this plugin do? Or what is this going to do? And how do I get it to sound like this? Or how do I do this? And then all of a sudden you're out of that mode. Every guitar player who's written a song that they're proud of knows that feeling that when you get buried in it, you don't want to think about hitting record. You don't want to think about levels on your mixer. You don't want to think about any of that stuff. You want get that idea out and you want to be stoked about it. You want to feel like you're in this world that exists somewhere else. And you can't really do that if you're fiddling with your gear all the time.

(01:19:16):

And the prep is a big thing too. I mean that applies. Even when we tracked the alluvial record or any of the other things I've done, if I'm tracking Wes for example, he's got his little station set up where next to him, he's got coffee, he's got a tin full of picks, he's got a towel, he's cut masking tape, he's got all this stuff laid out right there next to him to where he doesn't really have to think about it. It's like if he needs it, it's right there. It's not going to hinder the creative process. It's not going to hinder his performance in any way. It's just all right there. And I guess it's just a matter of thinking about that stuff beforehand. It makes the process a lot more enjoyable, I think, when you're not having to go back and try to find something or mess with gear.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):

I think that flow state is a very delicate thing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):

It is. It's an important

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):

Thing. It's crucial. I find that the best writing or the best productivity happens in a flow state, but in order to be able to create that flow state more often, you'd have to have some pretty strict habits because if you just wait around for it to happen, you could be waiting forever. And then also, if you don't take it seriously and respect it, kind of like the way you talked about respecting your gear, you might be killing your flow state before you even get maximum results out of it. So it's almost like you have to set up your whole work environment around it so that when it does hit, when you're lucky enough to have it hit, you can make the most out of it because that's when all the good shit happens, at least for me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):

Absolutely. Well, and there's something to be said too of just about general vibe of your work area. This studio is somewhere that I spend most of my time in. At least while I'm working, this is where I'm at, and no one wants to work in a shit hole. So keep it nice, vibe it out, make it an inspiring spot to be creative. That's the main thing. I think anyone who's ever been to a really sick studio gets it. They're like, oh, this vibe. I would have such a good time writing music in this environment because it's just vibed out. It's got the right feel.

(01:21:53):

Nothing is slowing you down. All it is is just inspiration. So that's how I tried to do this spot. And surprisingly, I've actually had a few people tell me how effective that's actually been for them when they've come to this studio. My buddy, Doug Rappaport, for example, he's an amazing musician. He plays guitar in the Edgar Winter Band, and he's been over here and done a lot of different projects with me for Seymour Duncan and some other stuff, just working on music. He's a bluesy rock kind of player, just an amazing, amazing musician. And he's been to many different studios. He was a session player down in LA for a really long time. And so he is been all over the place and been to a lot of different big commercial studios. And he tells me that tracking here in my humble little basement is more enjoyable and gives him a better vibe and makes him feel more creative than any of those other studios did. So that's a really huge compliment, and it's also really cool to know that it's effective for other people besides me. So that's the main reason

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):

I do that. I thought that when I saw your old place, I remember that the vibe was just great. And I remember, well, lemme just say that. I also subscribed to that. I've always tried to keep my place as vibe friendly as possible. I remember when you came to record the conquering dystopia drums in my old place, you complimented the vibe and said that it was creative friendly or something like that. And that's something that I always try to keep in mind as well. It makes a big difference if you feel like you're in a place that you can be creative and that feels good and it's like vibey. That's great. As opposed to feeling like you're at a dentist's office in a strip mall.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):

Exactly. Well, and you can do that in so many subtle ways. I mean, a lot of guys out there, they just have a laptop in their bedroom and have headphones and stuff, and there's still ways you can make that environment feel more like a creative studio. And really it comes down to just ask anybody, would they rather track guitars in a really cool and classy studio, or would they rather do it in some dude's garage with fucking spray paint on the drywall? It's just like, what's going to make you feel more creative? What's going to inspire you? And I guess if you're playing crust punk or something, then maybe the garage is a better fit. I don't know, maybe actually, I might be kind of sick. I'll go with, I'm going to start kicking holes in the walls and throw beer cans all over the place. We'll be writing some doom albums in no Time

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):

Running business. I'll go with the Classy Studio though. I'm I'm spoiled. Here's one from Jack Hartley, which is, you seem to have an endless supply of amazing Rifs. Can you give some insight into your writing process? Do you sit on Rifs and let them develop over time, or do you demo them and start composing and arranging as soon as the inspiration strikes? That's a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):

Yeah. I mean, when it comes to writing riffs, I usually have them in my head before I play 'em. And I'll get out the idea for the most part on the guitar based on the way I wrote it in my head, and then I'll embellish it or make it better once I actually have the instrument in my hand. But it's definitely not an endless supply, not by any means. It's just like anything else. It's a difficult thing to get in the zone sometimes and to get a creative sounding riff and make it cool. But man, honestly, dude, I don't even know how to answer that. I really don't know how to answer that because it's like,

Speaker 2 (01:25:54):

It sounds to me like it's all of the above, honestly.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):

Yeah, I mean, I don't have an endless supply of rifts. They are a mixture of, sometimes I get lucky and I'll have a riff that I'm like, oh, I think that's a cool riff. And there it is. It just exists all of a sudden. But sometimes it's a longer process where I kind of have an idea or a direction I want to go in and it'll take me a little while to sort of develop it. And sometimes there's rifts that I'll write and then a month later I'll continue working on it and change it and make it better or whatever. So there really isn't a one solid answer for that. It's just kind like rifts are just what I do. I guess. I just like writing riffs and there's many different ways that I do it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):

It sounds to me like the answer is that you're consistent, so you just write a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:26:53):

Well, I only ever write what I want to hear. You know what I mean? I guess the riffs that I write sound the way they do, and they sound like my riffs because they are. And it's one of those things where I'm just kind of like, this is what I'm feeling and this is how I sound, and this is my kind of music that I want to hear. And so the riffs just kind of happen like that organically. If I'm going to ask myself, does this sound like one of my riffs? Does this sound like something I would play? And if it does, then I'm lucky. And if it doesn't, then maybe that wasn't the intention. Sometimes intentionally try to write stuff that doesn't sound anything like what I would normally do. And there's different reasons for doing that. Sometimes maybe I have to do a gear demo that's in more of like a do me stoner rock style or something. And so I got to shift gears into that mode. My native style, I guess is more of just like a technical death mey kind of thing with, I dunno, just modern metal, I suppose.

(01:28:08):

Yeah, I just write what I hear in my head and what feels right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):

Here's one from Bass Peters, which is what's in your bass chain?

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):

Not a whole lot, actually. This might be kind of interesting. The way that I record bass and we'll use the alluvial bass sound, for example. The way that I did that was I actually use the same profile that I did for the guitar tones and I split the DI out, run that into the daw. So I have a DI in there, and then I have the wet Kemper track, which in post, I cut out all the lows. So I just basically have the grit, the distortion of the profile in there. So that's how I get the bass distortion on there is through the same profile that I used on the guitars. And for some reason, for me, that's always worked really well.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):

That's clever.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):

Yeah, it's really worked well because there isn't this battle all the time between these frequencies. And for some reason, the interplay between that same tone on the bass as you have on the guitars, but you're cutting out all the lows of it. It just makes the guitars sound bigger too, because you have that same type of saturation and aggression, but on the bass as well. So I blend that in with the DI track, which I typically use EG SVX, and have more of a cleaner kind of bass sound on that. And then I blend in that distortion with that cleaner ameg type sound. And then from there, I would basically just mellod D the di and add the Joey Stirs SubD destroyer plugin on it. And that's my bass sound.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):

That's super clever. That makes a lot of sense. It works well, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's right or wrong. I'm not a pro by any means, but it's always worked really well for me doing it like that. And it's actually for your workflow too. It's really pretty sweet because I can pull up my mix template that I used for alluvial or whatever else, and I can write a riff and record left and right guitars real quick, and I can literally unplug the guitar, plug in the bass, record it without changing anything. I don't have to change anything on the Kemper or plug into a different rig or whatever. And all I have to do is just arm my two base tracks and record without changing anything. And there it is. It just works, so it doesn't hinder your workflow, and the result is usually pretty

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):

Cool for me anyway. That's great. So here's one from Brandon Folsom, which is why the hell haven't you made an eight string version of the KM seven mark two? Well, I don't really play eight string. That's a good reason.

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):

Yeah, I won't rule it out. I won't say that it'll never exist. Schechter has talked about it a few times, asked me if I wanted to do it, but their concern is that I don't play eight string, so it doesn't really make sense for it to be a signature instrument if I don't use it. But I am actually, I've been writing some stuff recently that does incorporate eight strings, so I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):

Here's one from Andy James. Do you know Andy James, by the way?

Speaker 3 (01:31:38):

I do,

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):

Yeah. Love Andy. Okay, cool. Yeah, he's cool and sick. So he said, I thought he was bald. Nice to know he could still grow hair. LOL. Is he and Loomis going to do another conquering dystopia album?

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):

Well, I knew I wouldn't get through this without somebody mentioning hair. That was bound to happen, and it had to be Andy. Good old Andy. Yeah, I mean, the hair thing, I mean, it grows. I let it, but yeah, Jeff and I have been talking about doing another conquering record, and we actually have a bit of material that we've been working on, a little known fact. But Alex Webster actually lives really close to me just a few minutes away, and he comes over and we work on since, since a little over a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, he moved out here to the area, the Portland area, and we get together and hang out, go out to dinner all the time and write music when he is home. He's obviously gone a lot, but we've been working on some stuff for conquering, and yeah, we will definitely have another record. It may be a while, but it's something we're working on.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):

It seems like everyone is going to the West Coast. I'm going there too eventually. It's just better out there.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):

Yeah. I don't know what it is about this place, but it draws people here and I love it. I mean, I don't think I'd want to go anywhere else. I grew up in California. I was born down in the LA area and spent most of my younger years down there and ultimately ended up in the Pacific Northwest, and this is where I'm going to be forever. I think.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):

I love it out there, man. It's gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):

It's just chill.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):

It's just chill. It's kind of more my speed. If you're a reclusive, kind of introverted type of dude, go somewhere where it rains a lot, and you don't have to force yourself to be inside. You just don't want to go outside. Shitty out all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):

Exactly. Well, I looked through all the other questions, man. And we actually covered all of that stuff during the podcast. We've been going for a while, so I'm going to call it because this is going to be a long one, and I just want to thank you. Yeah, well, feel free. Yeah, I mean, dude, feel free

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):

To cut anything out. That sucks, man. I mean,

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):

No, we're good. I just want to thank you for coming on and being so open with your answers. I know that the listening audience is going to love this, and thank you. Oh man, it was my pleasure, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Ivans Guitars and Basses. Ivans strives to make high quality cutting edge musical instruments that any musician can afford and enjoy. Visit ivans.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM academy slash podcast and subscribe today.