JORDAN VALERIOTE: The Signal Flow Hierarchy, Less Is More Guitar Tones, and Vocal Comping on the Fly

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Bala ga Guitars. Founded in 2014, Bala ga guitar strives. To bring modern aesthetics and options to vintage inspired designs, go to bala ga guitars.com for more info. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by Fishman inspired performance technology. Fishman is dedicated to helping musicians of all styles achieve the truest sound possible. Wherever and whenever they plug in. Go to fishman.com for more info. And now your host.

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Eyal Levi. Hey, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and this is a very special episode. I've got Mr. Jordan Valeriote with me from hardcore tracking, who's also a producer in his own right credits like Silverstein and Neck Deep and intervals and counterparts and more plural bands. I think. I feel like we've all recorded lots of the plurals.

Speaker 3 (00:00:58):

Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:00:59):

And the plurals give you credibility.

Speaker 3 (00:01:01):

Definitely.

Speaker 2 (00:01:02):

It's

Speaker 3 (00:01:03):

Instant credibility.

Speaker 2 (00:01:04):

Yeah, and that's why we're talking because of the P double.

Speaker 3 (00:01:07):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:01:09):

Triple dude. So Jordan's here because if you're hearing this, we're going to go back in time. That means that hardcore tracking has been released, and it is kind of like for those of you who are familiar with my work, if you're familiar with my creative live bootcamp with monuments and you liked that, it's kind of along the same lines. It walks you through every step of the process in tracking a band all the way from obviously Jordan's philosophy on tracking, which is a good philosophy to choosing drums and everything you would want to know with drums is replacing heads and on and on and on, all through guitars, vocals. And the reason that we're kind of getting behind this is because there's not too many educational products out there that will teach you how to track heavier music properly. There's a lot of stuff out there for general recording, but at least when I did my bootcamp over a year ago, the idea was to finally be like, this is how you track heavy music for real. And I haven't really seen anything since.

Speaker 4 (00:02:41):

This

Speaker 2 (00:02:41):

Is the first thing I've seen since. And so I kind wanted to just get on record and be like, it is good. People check it out.

Speaker 3 (00:02:50):

Yeah, appreciate that, man.

Speaker 2 (00:02:52):

So you put a lot of work into this.

Speaker 3 (00:02:53):

Yeah, I mean, as you know, having done something similar, I think the reason why there's not much much out there is because it's hard to do. It's taken, I think I started planning this at least last summer, started basically doing a whole written outline, all the surveying people who follow my stuff and say, asking, what do you want to learn? What do I need to cover? All that stuff started over six months ago, and then booking the studio, finding the band, going in and actually filming it, and then all the editing and everything after the fact and just getting everything prepared and ready to share with people has also been months and months. So yeah, it's not easy to do and I think that's why there's not a lot out there. So yeah, just like you said, I thought it was a need. I've been teaching a lot of mixing stuff for a while, which is great, but I think anyone who gets beyond the beginner stage a little bit starts to realize pretty quickly that the tracks you are capturing at the source really are the main factor that determines the quality of the final mix and the final product.

(00:04:00):

So I definitely wanted to get something out there on that.

Speaker 2 (00:04:03):

I totally agree. And it's interesting, something I've started to think lately, and I mentioned it in another podcast, is that when you have a favorite mixer of yours who just delivers the goods almost every time, and then it's like they have this mix that's just not up to par, and it's like, what happened? Or two mixes? And it's like, was he drunk that day? What's going on? And then you hear through back channels that the production was a complete disaster and that he did everything he could to salvage it. And that the fact that it sounds, as good as it sounds is a miracle.

Speaker 3 (00:04:47):

Yeah, yeah, totally. That's happened to me before for sure. And I think what you just said about your favorite mixers who just constantly pump out great sounding stuff and everything is always great, aside from the situations you mentioned, my goal with this course is to get people to that same level, but from a tracking standpoint so that no matter who comes through your door, no matter what you're working with, you get the same level of quality at the tracking stage no matter what. And that just automatically sets you up or whoever's mixing it up for a killer mix, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:05:24):

So let's talk about that in actual practice. I know for a fact that the people listening to this are going to experience a wide variety of clients in terms of quality, everything from guys who are going to do a record that some unnamed record that we all are looking forward to versus some guys who are recording things for the very first time ever. So it's a tall order to try to get everything to the same place where it's mixable. So I want to hear some of your thoughts on some of the things that you feel every tracking engineer or almost every tracking engineer should be doing, at least from the get go going in.

Speaker 3 (00:06:11):

So there's kind of three different things that I consider the core pieces of this course and what every tracking engineer really needs to kind of master in a way. The first thing is kind of the obvious technical stuff. So signal flow, basically how to do signal chain and routing and all that stuff. And then it's the mics, choosing the right mics, knowing how to use them, knowing where to put them, all of that stuff. And then that's the technical recording side. But in some ways I almost see that as one of the, I dunno if I should say least important, but it's not any more important than the other two things, which are the instruments and themselves. So knowing how to set the instruments up and then also knowing how to get the right performances or great performances. So I think all of those three things work together and people focus way too much I think on the actual physical gear and the mics and all that. And you need to know where to put the mics to get a good sound, but it's only one piece of the puzzle, and it's super logical. If you don't have a good sounding guitar, then it doesn't matter where you put the mic. If your snare drum sucks, it doesn't matter how well you mic it or what preamp you use or whether or not you compress on the way in that stuff is secondary to the actual instrument itself. And then even backing up before that, it's secondary to the performance.

Speaker 2 (00:07:36):

Yeah, it's interesting, me and this guy named Matt Brown who's an excellent drum tech engineer who we actually have a drum course coming up with later on in the year. He and I did these shootouts at some point, one of various experiments just to see how much a preamp really mattered, how much a mic really mattered. So we would try to swap out every single possible factors, the drum head or the hoop or the preamp, the stick, the player. And at the end of the day, we discovered that the gear, while it does matter, it does matter. It would be dishonest to say it didn't matter. It doesn't matter that much. Agreed. Not compared to the other parts of it. You put a bad player up and it's almost all for shit.

Speaker 3 (00:08:40):

Yeah, no, I totally agree, man. When you're talking about working with inexperienced bands and amateur musicians especially, it's like I can't tell you how many times I've been in the studio with a band and I tuned a drum kit and I'm kind of messing around and I'm not a great drummer by any means, but I'm playing it. I feel like, all right, this kit sounds good, let's do it, let's record. And then I hand the sticks to the drummer and he starts playing and it sounds completely different. And all of a sudden it's not up to par at all. And it just goes to show you that's just like the way someone hits a drum, the way someone strums their guitar or picks a note is it has a way bigger influence over the sound than the mic and preamp and converters and that stuff like you, you were just saying.

(00:09:29):

And that's kind of like at the very start of this course, one of the things I talk about is just your mindset when it comes to the whole signal flow of getting to track down. And there's a little signal flow chart I put out a couple of weeks ago actually, but it's in this course too, and there's some videos talking about it, but it just is a graphic illustration of the, I call it the signal flow hierarchy, where the most important thing in your chain is the player first. Number two is the instrument. Number three is the mic. Number four is the preamp and any outboard you have. And number five is the converter. So I think of that as the stuff at the start of that is what has the biggest influence on the sound and the things at the end, like the preamp and the converters, they have the least influence over the sound. And like you said, it does matter. It does have influence. But if you're having trouble getting a good drum sound changing, the preamp isn't going to do anything to fix that. You've got to go further back and at least address the player and the instrument first and then the mic before you get into preamp and converters and all that stuff. And I think people often it's easy to focus on the gear and kind of get that backwards.

Speaker 2 (00:10:34):

Well, it's almost like a procrastination method in a weird way because it makes you, if you focus on the gear and do all this gear research and gear this gear that it's almost like you can trick yourself into thinking you're being productive in reality, you're not actually addressing the problem,

Speaker 3 (00:10:58):

Which

Speaker 2 (00:10:58):

Is what's creating the sound in the first place. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:11:02):

I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (00:11:03):

So I'm going to take a quick moment here to say that if you at any point decide that you want to pick up hardcore tracking, how many days do they have? Today is May 1st.

Speaker 3 (00:11:15):

Today's May 1st. So it's closing May 5th at midnight, so till Friday at midnight. All

Speaker 2 (00:11:20):

Right. So go to hardcore tracking.com/m, and if you actually type in that slash urm along with it, you're going to get some cool stuff from us. We're going to give you our guide to amping with Ryan Fluff, Bruce, which is a 50 minute video on how to reamp. And I actually learned something from it. I was always wondering why the signal was messed up on amps, why we were always losing at least a DB or two. And he solves that. So I actually learned something and then his guide to recording and mixing with Amp Sims, which is a two hour class, then Matt Brown and I put together our own little drum cheat sheet. It's a little different than Jordan's, just a different perspective. Not right or wrong, but just a different look at setting up drums. And then finally, yeah, if you get it through the slash URM link, you get a free copy of my drum Forge ELE expansion pack, which is a hundred dollars set of badass samples designed for metal, any style of metal. And if you want to hear what they sound like, just go to drum forge.com/ble, but it comes with it. So now back to your regularly scheduled programming. So let's just say that people do start to get the mindset of worrying about the source. Does that, what happens when, okay, so now they're aware that this is very important, but suddenly the reality of the world that they live in dawns on them and they realize that the bands they're working with suck.

(00:13:25):

What

Speaker 3 (00:13:26):

Happens then What happens then? Well, then it comes down to, okay, that's why, like I was saying before, I believe it's really important for an engineer, if you're serious about this, you want to do this in the long run, being a master of your mics in your audio gear is important, but you need all these other pieces so that when that happens, exactly what you're saying, when the band sucks, when they can't play. And let's be honest, like you said, it's the reality of the world you're living in. I'll be honest, even records that I've done for labels, there's guys in the band who can't really play. Sometimes those are worse. Exactly, yeah. So there's no guarantee. I think sometimes people message me and they're like, oh, it must be so great working with such and such bands or at this level you don't have to deal with the crap anymore.

(00:14:15):

And I often say, you know what? I'd say overall, yes, for the most part, once bands get to a certain level, they can't really get to that level if they suck for a long time. And usually bands that even if they start out sucking, if they have success, they tend to progress like we all do. But it's by no means a guarantee that you all of a sudden get to work with amazing musicians all the time. And there's always going to be stuff that comes through your door that is less than ideal, shall we say. So anyway, that's a bit of a tangent, but that's why you need to have the knowledge to get the source in terms of setting up instruments, replacing drum heads. Because honestly, 90% of the people you work with the drummers, they're not going to know how to tune their kit or they're not going to think they should put new drum heads on or all that stuff.

(00:15:07):

And if you don't have any knowledge about that, then you're kind of screwed because you're basically just at the mercy of whatever's coming in. Whereas if you take the time to learn that, to learn how to tune drums, at least decently, you don't have to be an expert, but you've got to have the basics down. And then stuff like guitars, intonating the guitars and making sure all that is set and making sure you're using the right strings if you don't pay attention to that stuff. And if you don't try to get a grasp on that, then yeah, you're just kind of at the mercy of whatever's coming in. So that's on the instrument side. And then there's a lot of things you can do on the performance side also to overcome those issues. But again, those are things you have to know about. And I think that the best way to learn that stuff is just to watch a record get made and see how someone solves these problems that come up and the guitar player can't play a riff without getting that nasty noise in between these two notes.

(00:16:03):

What's the solution? What does the engineer do to get around that? And that's the kind of stuff I show in this course. It's supposed to be as if you're kind of a fly on the wall or an intern in the studio just watching the tracking take place. And I always think that that's the best way to learn is just to watch and observe. And then obviously as the process is going on, I'm also stopping and explaining everything I'm doing. So not only do you get to see and hear it unfold, but I'm also explaining everything that's inside my head as it's happening.

Speaker 2 (00:16:33):

And let me just point out that when I talk about the old mentorship system from the big studio world disappearing, I talk about that on the podcast a lot. That's the kind of thing that is very hard to come across, and that is the kind of thing that was actually one of the most valuable things about having an internship. It wasn't that you get to learn how to make coffee. I mean, we all love coffee and certainly appreciate clean toilets. I mean, come on, we're all civilized people here, but the most helpful thing for an intern is getting to be mentored, getting to watch how things are actually done. And now it's very, very hard to come across that. So this kind of replaces that in a way.

Speaker 3 (00:17:29):

Yep, definitely. That's always been my goal with anyone who's been following my stuff or has any of my other courses, I always talk about that of how the old days used to come up mentoring under someone watching what they do day in, day out, and you just soak that stuff in and it has a huge impact on you. And that's how I learned. I mean, I started out completely on my own and I barely progressed for two years in recording and mixing. I'd say my quality barely changed within the first two years, and I was just trial and error reading on the gear SLTs forums, stuff like that. Very, very slow progress. And then I went and got an internship at a bigger studio in Toronto, and it was hard work. I commuted like three hours a day, mostly seven days a week, long days, but it was worth it.

(00:18:14):

I did that for six months and in those six months I improved exponentially versus what I'd done before. And I wasn't sitting in a classroom learning theory, I was just in a studio watching someone who knew way more than me make it happen. And there are some specific experiences where some big name producers and bands came through and I got to watch how those guys tracked a record and it completely changed everything for me. And a lot of what I've put into my courses and especially this tracking courses come out of those experiences. And yeah, it's super important. The good news is, I mean, the bad news is that those experiences or opportunities don't really exist that much anymore. Maybe you don't live in a city where they even have a big studio, and if you do, it's super competitive to even get that spot. But that's the beauty of the internet, is that through the stuff that you guys are doing and other guys and myself, you do have access to that information in a virtual way and you don't have to move to a different place or work for free for a year or any of that stuff in order to get it. So I think it's an awesome opportunity for any up and coming engineers today.

Speaker 2 (00:19:30):

Absolutely. And that's also one of our main goals is to replace that. I think that we're spirit brothers in that goal. So let's talk about maybe share a tip or something like something from inside the course, just something that happens when you do have to say a performance out of a drummer. It's just not happening. Just think of something like something cool.

Speaker 3 (00:20:00):

Okay. Let me think.

Speaker 2 (00:20:03):

Not to put you on the spot there. Yeah, no pressure or anything.

Speaker 3 (00:20:07):

Yeah, no, that's cool. I think, so for drums, lemme give two tips. Let's give this scenario of a decent drummer or a really good drummer and you're trying to get the best performance. I think obviously when you're tracking drums, one of the main things you're listening for is the timing, right? You're making sure they're on the click, they're not rushing or speeding up or any of that. But I think sometimes what people kind of let get away from them and that whole process is the dynamics and the feel of how they're hitting the drums and stuff. And especially after a long day of drum tracking towards the end, I find one of my biggest roles as an engineer and producer tracking drums is as the day goes on, I'm constantly telling them, Hey, timing was great, but you were hitting the snare way too quiet there.

(00:20:50):

Or that was a great take, but that Tom fill the floor. Tom was just, you didn't hit it hard, so we got to do it again. And it's just that attention to detail is super important and it's up to you as the engineer or engineer slash producer, it's not the band's responsibility to make sure that the takes are great. I think that it's your responsibility, so you've got to pay attention to that stuff. And it's not just about the timing with drums, it's about how they're hitting the snare and the kick and making sure they're hitting it as hard as they can every single time and making sure the symbol dynamics are consistent and just making sure that you don't get to the point where you're mixing afterwards and then you're trying to get, let's say a huge breakdown or a huge course to come in heavy and you realize that the drummer was tired and didn't hit the crashes very hard at that part.

(00:21:36):

And it's just like, what are you going to do about that? Aside from going down a whole path of replacing everything, that's the stuff you really got to be paying attention to. And then if it comes, you're in the situation where the drummer can't really play what they wrote. There's also some kind of drum hacks and tricks that you could do that way, let's say tracking without a kick or just being strategic about how you're miking up the kit, which is kind of a bonus thing in this course is basically called drum tracking hacks. It's another lesson I put together going through some different scenarios, but my main tip for that is to start with the end in mind, and this goes for all instruments, but definitely drums. Spend some time listening to the drummer play and pay attention to where their strengths and weaknesses are because that actually can have a big influence on how you approach recording the drums.

(00:22:32):

So let's say the drummer can't, he's got lots of double kick, but he's sloppy on his kick drum. So how are you going to mic that? How are you going to approach that? I mean, if it's really, really bad, you might just program the kick, get rid of the kick drum, use a practice pad. But if you know you're going to have to do a lot of editing on the kick specifically later, to me, that always influences how I record because now I'm going to deaden the kick a lot. I'm going to try to basically make the kick quieter or just have less of it bleeding into the mics. I'm going to mic symbols closer. I'm going to change how I'm using the room mics because I know that after I track when I'm doing all the editing, I want to make sure there's the least amount of kick in all these other mics as possible. So that's just an example of starting with the end in mind, trying to take, tailor your approach to the musician that you're working with and the material, the genre that you're working on, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:23:22):

Absolutely. So it's interesting, the role of the producer in music is a little different. I think about it as if you want to relay it to film, almost like if you combine the producer and the director into two roles because the directors there calling the shots, planning the shots and making them happen. Generally producer oversees the big picture. And in this case, as far as approaching the drums, what you're saying, and I agree because I approached it like this too, is you got to know the big picture of what you're working with so that you can set yourself up for success.

Speaker 3 (00:24:02):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:24:03):

Basically,

Speaker 3 (00:24:03):

Yeah. You got to start with the end in mind.

Speaker 2 (00:24:05):

Yeah, if you don't do that, you might luck out. Sometimes those stories of we just set up and hit record and it was magic. Yeah. One out of 20 times. Maybe let's move on to talking about your guitar and bass tracking strategy.

Speaker 3 (00:24:26):

Yeah, sure. So you just want some tips on there as well, like we did for drums?

Speaker 2 (00:24:32):

Well, with guitar and bass tracking, I feel like this is one of those areas where there's a lot of voodoo involved because there's the basics that we always tell people, which obviously if you're teaching a course on guitar and bass tracking, you have to include this stuff. You have to include how to properly set up the guitar and make sure that nothing is ringing out and all that stuff. And if you don't include that, it's not a good guitar course. Yeah, I agree. And I know that you've included it, but you've gone a lot further than that. And I want to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that you covered that deals with. Once you have that stuff out of the way, how do you then go about getting the better tone, that banging tone or those banging takes

Speaker 4 (00:25:34):

That you

Speaker 2 (00:25:34):

Hear on the records you love?

Speaker 4 (00:25:36):

Because

Speaker 2 (00:25:38):

I know that I've had experiences where I do all that stuff, all that prep, and it still kind of sounds sad, however, it would've sounded way sadder if I didn't do that stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:25:51):

Sure, yeah, I, but I

Speaker 2 (00:25:53):

Want the sadness to go away.

Speaker 3 (00:25:56):

So my approach to guitars for a long time has been less is more, and that goes from tone to layers and all that. So when it comes to tone, I am a really simple guy, and this is what I show in this course. Simple guy when it comes to recording, I should say, I don't like this stuff that I see online and other people doing about putting four mics on a guitar cab and blending them all and setting up multiple heads and cabs and miking them all up and blending all those tones. To me it's just like, it's what a headache. And to be honest, even when I'm just mixing a record and someone sends it to me and there's three mics on the cab, I'll just pick what everyone sounds best and I delete the rest. So it's like all that work for nothing. So now I rarely use more than one mic on a cab. So in this course I do show how to use two mics. So I have 57 and a ribbon mic, and I show how to set up the phase and align it and what it sounds like those two blended and there are cases where that's a good way to go.

Speaker 2 (00:27:02):

You got to know how to do that.

Speaker 3 (00:27:04):

You should know how to do that if you're an engineer. So I do show that, and then I show it, and then I say, you know what, again, it's with the end in mind. I know what I want this project to sound like. I'm not going to use the ribbon mic, I'm just going to use the 57 and get that right. So because again, my goal is to show I didn't want to make a course that shows techniques of like here, you've got to have two or three different mics in order to get a good guitar tone. That's not what I believe. I think you can have a good amp, put a 57 in the right spot, spend a few minutes dialing it in, and you're good to go, dude,

Speaker 2 (00:27:35):

If you need three mics, there's something wrong.

Speaker 3 (00:27:39):

Yeah, exactly. So that's the point I'm trying to make. And so yeah, less is more. You don't need three mics, you don't need three amps. And then when it comes to the performance, again, it's all about the tightness of it. And when it comes to layers on all of the records I've done that you hear it's literally just a track on the left, a track on the right. That's the main rhythm guitars, and then any layers we add on top of the middle or wherever they need to be in the mix. But the rhythm guitars are just one left one. And I think that's surprising to people. They hear these big guitar tones and they think, I used to think this way when I was just starting out that to get a huge wall of guitar sound, you had to stack four and six and eight layers of guitar and switch up the amp and all that stuff.

(00:28:24):

And it's just not true. The bigness doesn't come from layer upon layer. The bigness comes from stuff being clear and tight and hitting at the same time. That's what makes it sound big. It's not about the layers at all. So yeah, I really demonstrate that with guitars, how less is more in all those stages and how it's really just about getting those tight performances that are really in tune and just covering all the little tweaks and tricks that you can use to help you in that process to save you time and frustration and overcome problems. But in the end, it just comes down to a good tone, simple good tone, and great performances.

Speaker 2 (00:29:05):

I find that there is a little bit of truth to the four guitars thing, however, and there's a huge, however monstrous, however, is that you have to spend so much time on it that it's just not worth it. And I mean an insane amount of time to where it's not that much better anyways and you don't know in advance if it's going to be better. Sometimes it's not, and the level of tight that it's got to be is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:29:45):

Yeah, I think that's part of the problem is you might set out with this grand idea of I'm going to do four guitar layers, I'm going to get it really, really tight. But then you realize that it's taking you two days to finish one song, and then it's really hard not to start letting things slide a little bit from there.

Speaker 2 (00:30:00):

Exactly. And that's the killer with four guitars is you can let anything slide on my own band's record that we did with Jason Soff in 2008, we quad tracked everything and is some pretty intense stuff. It took us one month to do all the quads because we weren't letting anything slide. We were being maniacs. And so to get it done, that's just what it took. It took a fucking month and did it necessarily sound better than two really well tracked? I mean that same year, black Dahlia murder tracked at the same studio and sounded just as good as we did, if not better. So yeah, with you on that, less is more the right kind of less. Another thing that I think is interesting is that the four guitar thing, I feel like got big in an era where music wasn't quite as technical. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:31:12):

I think that's true,

Speaker 2 (00:31:13):

Especially in metal. And so maybe our ears were okay with guitars, coring a little or not being quite as, not hearing quite as much articulation as you hear now because you go back to a lot of records from 2005 or whatever, they have their sound and it's cool, but they don't compete with the clarity and the punch of modern records.

Speaker 3 (00:31:41):

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think some of the old kind of attitude just kind of carries forward and people like the one downside of all this stuff available online is that someone might read something, so they might go and come across something that's like quad tracking, you must quad track for big guitars, and they just accept that as the truth and don't really go any further. And that kind of stuff just gets carried forward and applied to the wrong situations. But yeah, I think definitely back in those years you were talking about, that's what I was seeing all over the internet is just, and I used to do stuff like that and then I discovered a better way,

Speaker 2 (00:32:24):

Dude, but it also, these records, people would spend three months straight in the studio tracking in those days. And I don't mean three months spread out over weekends, I mean like 90 days. And some bands might do that now, but that's just not reality for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (00:32:49):

No.

Speaker 2 (00:32:50):

And again, it doesn't necessarily sound better,

Speaker 3 (00:32:52):

Right? Yeah. What's really delivering the result want right, is there's probably a better way to spend that time in most cases.

Speaker 2 (00:33:00):

Well, I think what's really delivering the result you want is a simple, good tone tracked really, really well. One per side. And if you want an 80 20 this or 90 10, I think that'ss your answer. So you should get really good with that. I just wanted to reiterate what you were saying about the one mic thing. As an engineer, you should know how to use multiple mics, just it will come up however, 80 20 if 80% of the time or even 90 10, you're not getting the tone with one mic. There's a problem at the source that is earlier in the chain than the actual microphone. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:33:47):

Yeah.

(00:33:48):

Agreed. It was one of the things that was a big light bulb for me when I kind of learned this whole one mic thing is when I was interning at that studio I was talking about, and it's kind of funny, but I was there when the Jonas Brothers were tracking a record and the producer John Fields is there, he's an amazing producer, and I know it's Jonas Brothers, you think Disney Pop, whatever, but this is a rock record. It's real drums, real guitar, real bass. It's a rock record pop rock. And anyway, he's setting up the guitar cab and we didn't have a ribbon mic at the studio, so I actually brought in my ro ribbon mic and he throws that within a 57 beside it on a cab. And I'm like thinking, I know what's going on. Oh yeah, that's the classic go you setup.

(00:34:33):

Everyone uses a 57 and a Royer blended together. But then when he went to track guitars, I noticed that he'd go to track apart and he would basically listen to the guitar tone for five seconds on the 57 and then five seconds on the Royer. And then depending on the arrangement of the song and what the part was, he would just choose one. So it was like he would just put the fader all the way down on the Royer and then just record the 57 and then for another layer in the song, he would do the opposite. And he never, never blended the two together. He just chose which one was right for the part. That blew my mind because up until then I was kind of in my studio again using multiple mics, thinking I needed to blend these two mics to get a great tone and watching him do that, and it sounded like a platinum record right off the bat.

Speaker 2 (00:35:22):

That's such a good story, just a good piece of knowledge or wisdom that applies across so many different recording instances. I can think of two right off the bat. There's times where sometimes they'll set up multiple overheads, like a close kind of a stereo pair and then also kind of close mic the effects symbols and then also then maybe do an XY several feet up or something just to get a kit picture version as well. And people are like, dude phase problems. It's like, well, we're not planning on using them at the same time. We want to get different options on the kit. And then also this most recent, now the mix, we actually did four country tracks, but we included a metal track for the metalheads. And I remember that when I originally mixed it, I laid 10 tracks of samples just because I couldn't figure out what I wanted. And I went with one sample, one sample and a top mic, bottom mic side mic sample on the snare, one sample on kick, and then no samples on Toms. But I think I gave them 10 tracks of snares, four tracks of Toms and five different kicks to choose from. And people were freaking out. They're like, my DA is not even working with this. What do I do? How do you get it to work? It's like, dude, pick one. Pick one, and go.

Speaker 3 (00:37:19):

Yeah, totally. And that's so often what I do when I get sent stuff like that as well, I just usually choose the best one. I also want to say, I know we're kind of talking about all this stuff and my thing is there's not really any rules. Sure, there are things that are proven over time to work best, but I'm talking a lot about how you don't need to multi mic everything and to keep it simple. And I a hundred percent believe that. But like you said, will there be times when that is the appropriate or best approach? Yes, for sure. There might be those rare times, but to me it all comes down to why if you're putting two sets of overheads or two mics on a cab or on anything or doing anything in the studio, you have to have a good reason why.

(00:38:05):

And you just have to have a reason for the way you're approaching things. And with the drum setup I show in this course, it's like overhead's in a very specific way for a very specific reason. And room mic's put in a certain spot, again for a very specific reason. I have specific things I'm trying to capture from both of those, which influence where I'm putting them and which mics I'm using. So I find that a lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of times, especially for more intermediate or beginner engineers, they just do stuff because they see someone else doing it, but they don't actually know why they're doing it. And if you're ever doing anything without knowing why it's kind of a recipe for probably not the best result

Speaker 2 (00:38:49):

Or for stunted growth,

Speaker 3 (00:38:50):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:38:51):

You're not going to get much better. I mean, alright, if you're driving a car, you don't necessarily need to know how it works, but if you're recording a band and you're just throwing mics up just because you saw a picture of it or you watched one of our courses, but you didn't hear the why, you're not doing yourself a service, you're not getting

Speaker 3 (00:39:11):

Your

Speaker 2 (00:39:11):

Money's worth.

Speaker 3 (00:39:12):

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:39:13):

Because when the scenario changes slightly, if you don't have that why in the back of your head you're not going to be able to adapt. And one of the most important things that, and I think this is true for any audio person, this is true for musicians, mixers, whatever the good ones or the great ones, the ones who are in the game for years are the ones who can adapt to whatever scenario gets thrown your way because there never is an ideal scenario. And okay, let's just say that there is an ideal scenario, it's just a product of randomness that you randomly got an ideal scenario. It will never be a normal thing.

Speaker 3 (00:40:00):

Yeah. I love what you just said about adapting and something right off the top of this course I talk about, it's like I think today with the advantage of being able to see everything on the internet and the software tools we have, it's awesome. I'm totally an in the box guy. I love all that. The only thing is I know there's people out there who are probably interested in this course and other courses like this, and let's say for whatever reason, whatever situation they're in, they don't have the ability, the gear or the space to record a real guitar amp, but they're getting really good at using amp sims and they're making good signing records with Amp Sims. That's awesome. If you can make great signing records with that stuff, great do it. But like you said, if you can't adapt and kind of know how to approach different situations, because what if a band hires you and they're a great band and it's going to be huge for your career, and they're like, yeah, we want to do this more organic.

(00:40:53):

We want to have real drums, we want to have amps in the studio. And if all you've ever done is spent your time just in one specific really narrow thing, you're kind of sunk there. You do that project, you're not going to be able to go into a studio and mic up a cab the way they want. Or let's say you get sick of metal and you want to do a country record or a pop rock record. If you don't have kind of the basic engineering chops and skills under your belt, you're not going to be able to move through those situations and have a lasting and diverse career, you're saying,

Speaker 2 (00:41:24):

Yeah, it's going to be tough and let's talk about base.

Speaker 3 (00:41:27):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (00:41:28):

I think that base is the hidden weapon or the secret weapon in a good heavy production.

Speaker 3 (00:41:36):

Yeah, it's definitely something that has to be, it kind of separates the men from the boys.

Speaker 2 (00:41:40):

Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those things where the cliche that the cliche term that you might not hear it, but the moment you press mute, you'll definitely notice it gone if it's done well, that's absolutely true, but I find that base is one of the areas where up and comers mess up the most.

Speaker 3 (00:42:04):

What are the kind of specific things that you see them mess up on?

Speaker 2 (00:42:08):

I find that the tightness, they don't understand, let's just get down to arrangements. They don't understand exactly how to arrange a bass part to go with the guitar part. They don't understand how hard you have to hit the bass

Speaker 4 (00:42:25):

In

Speaker 2 (00:42:25):

Order to get it to sound good. They tend to mess up the phase part of it when they start to add multiple things because a lot of people like to split the tone or

Speaker 4 (00:42:37):

They

Speaker 2 (00:42:37):

Like to have multiple amps or amp plus di. They don't understand the phase relationships there and how you can make or break your low end. Oh man, I could just go on and on, but it seems like base is the area where most people fall off the map with their mixes and productions. It's like they can't get it to sit right? It's like either this clang distorted mess or it sounds like a clean melon that eats the whole mix.

Speaker 3 (00:43:10):

That's a great analogy. Yeah, it can be hard for sure. I think a huge thing is the arrangement you hit on there. There's been so many times where I'm tracking a band and just the base part that they're playing is maybe it's too complex or they're just trying to do exactly the same as the guitar and it's a complex riff, whereas if they just ride on the root note, the whole mix just comes alive. That's a huge part of it is just having the right part, the right arrangement, and that goes a long way. And then like you said, the player, how they're hitting the strings, that's a big thing for me with tracking base is consistency. Like you said, a lot of guys don't hit it hard enough. They're not picking it hard enough to get that strong, solid base tone. And even in the course you'll see it where I'm saying, that take was good, but you played it too soft or that note was too soft. And we do it again until it's right. And that's how you end up with a solid, consistent base stone.

Speaker 2 (00:44:03):

Do you ever find, at least I found that when the base sounds good, it's almost like the production comes to life. There's this,

Speaker 4 (00:44:16):

You

Speaker 2 (00:44:16):

Want to fucking get up and jump through a wall or something, it just happens. It's like the missing puzzle piece.

Speaker 3 (00:44:26):

Yeah, I think so. I mean, to me it carries the song. It's how you hear the chord progression and all of that. And especially if you have anything melodic, the chord progression underneath it, it's anchored by the bass because when you've got heavy distorted guitars and there's not a lot of low end there, it's like you're not really hearing as much of the fundamental notes and the progression of the chords and everything and the song and the bass. The bass needs to be that. And that's always how I approach bass two, like you said at the start, was when you mute it and things all of a sudden fall apart. To me, that's when I know I've done a good job on the bass, both at the tracking and mixing stage is when I have it at a level and its tone and everything that's sounding great. It's not jumping out of the mix. It's not like you're listening to it and being like, oh, there's the bass guitar. It's all cohesive. But then if you mute the bass, the entire mix falls apart. It just sounds horrible. That's kind of what I go for. And that just proves how important the base is in a track.

Speaker 2 (00:45:29):

And what are your thoughts about overcoming tracking difficulties in it? Because I find that that's one of the instruments that tracking wise tends to present the most problems for variety of reasons.

Speaker 3 (00:45:46):

Well, I would actually say for me, guitars are the hardest to track. And one little tip I would give is I always track the guitars first. And the reason is because I find it easier to basically fix an issue with tuning or arrangement or whatever on a bass after the guitar is tracked. I mean, let's picture if you're just tracking bass to drums, okay, sure you tune the bass, but what if the intonation's slightly, slightly off as he is moving around the neck? If you're just tracking hearing bass and drums, usually the bass sounds really good, it's all you've got. But then you start adding guitars on it and it's like, oh no, this bass note was a little bit sharp. Now we have to try and match all the rhythm guitars in the lead guitars to this slightly sharp bass note. It's a nightmare.

(00:46:35):

Whereas if you do it the other way around, undo guitars first, let's say this one bass note is just sounding a little sharper flat. It's really easy to just tune that one note on a bass versus three or six notes on a guitar and fix it there. So I find that, yeah, it can certainly, cause there can certainly be a bunch of issues and problems when tracking bass, but I at least find it easier to solve those. And when it comes to tuning and all that stuff, it's usually a little bit less of a headache for me versus guitars.

Speaker 2 (00:47:08):

Well, I guess what I mean is I often find myself replacing the bass the most.

Speaker 3 (00:47:14):

Well, yeah, I think that's like the classic, how many times is the bass player only in the band because he's friends with the guys and they need someone to play bass, right?

Speaker 2 (00:47:25):

Yeah. It is funny that band Kyira took it to the next level back in the first part of the two thousands. I don't know if you remember them or not, but they were a pretty big band and their bass player is a really cool guy, but he sucked. And now they, I'm not talking shit. They were very open about this on their DVDs and stuff. They made a whole thing about him sucking the fans, knew it and everything. And it turns out that he's the one who had all the relationships

Speaker 3 (00:48:05):

That

Speaker 2 (00:48:05):

Would get them their tours. Interesting. He's the one who knew the guys in Slayer.

Speaker 3 (00:48:09):

Yeah. Well yeah, that happens. I mean, I've been involved in records that are fairly well known where the guitarist tracks the bass and the bass player could care less. So it happens.

Speaker 2 (00:48:23):

Yeah, absolutely. So, alright, moving on. Let's talk about what you've got in store here for people vocal wise, because there's a lot of different elements to tracking good vocals. I mean, I know that you're covering singing, you're covering doubles, harmonies screams, but let's get into it. Let's talk a little bit about what people can expect.

Speaker 3 (00:48:48):

So vocals, again, simple approach. I'm not going to show you what the vocal sounds like, shooting out three different mics to me, that's not what I'm trying to accomplish with this course. My goal and my promise of this course is that you can watch all the content, absorb it, practice it, and basically after you go through it, be in the position where you could go into any studio and just do what I show you here and come out with a pro sounding record. So that's my approach with vocals too. So I'm not shooting at a bunch of mics. I do talk about the difference between dynamics and condensers, but for me, I've gone through spending thousands and thousands of dollars on vintage mics and tube condensers and all that stuff, and I ended up just getting rid of all of that and I track all my vocals within SM seven B.

(00:49:35):

It sounds good on everyone. It always works in the mix and it overcomes a lot of problems that I can often get with really nice, really sensitive condensers. So again, it's like the guitars, I'm showing you a really solid go-to approach that's just going to work for you every time and going through the whole vocal chain. And then also I think the workflow and the strategy about how to tackle vocal tracking is kind of unique and I have a way of doing it that I don't know if I've really seen anywhere else. I just kind of came up with it over the years, but I call it just comping on the fly and I think it saves a lot of time.

Speaker 2 (00:50:18):

Did you say comping on the fly?

Speaker 3 (00:50:20):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50:21):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:50:21):

Yeah. So I really demonstrate that in the course. And to me it's all about getting great performances quickly, not burning out the vocalists, staying in that zone where their voice is warm and they're fired up and they're giving good performances and not just committing to stuff is a huge thing. And so I do together multiple takes, but it's not in the traditional way of having five or 10 different tracks of vocal takes of the same line and then going through after and picking what the best one was. I don't do that at all. I have a really different approach that's streamlined and just kind of gets, it allows us to track very quickly through the song. Dude,

Speaker 2 (00:51:01):

I think that that's gold because it's, man, it's so tough in my opinion, getting through this particular hurdle of a production because every single vocalist out there has this problem with the stamina problem. And I mean, whether one can last four hours or one can last one or different vocalists need different recovery times. That doesn't change the fact that they all need the recovery time. And they all, once you start doing a vocal session, the hourglass has started, the sand has started shifting to the other side.

Speaker 3 (00:51:50):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:51:51):

And you only have a finite amount of time. This is true of every record involving vocals that you'll ever do. And yeah, you can tune vocals somewhat, but you don't have the same kinds of tools for vocals that you do for drums. In my opinion. Yes, you can tune vocals and all that, but it starts to sound like garbage if you use it too much. There's a threshold there. They really only sounds good if the singer's close, in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (00:52:33):

So

Speaker 2 (00:52:35):

We don't have these tools to completely transform a vocal. And I mean, unless you're dealing with a total nondescript generic vocalist, which does sometimes happen, it's not like you can just hand the vocals over to somebody else.

Speaker 4 (00:52:51):

Now

Speaker 2 (00:52:52):

I've done that with my engineers sometimes where we are dealing with a generic shitty vocalist and who's got no stamina. And so we'll have him track the main lines, and then my engineer would do the doubles and the harmonies, and no one would know better. But that's not something you want to do on a real record, and that's not something you want to do with a good vocalist. And so the guitar player's arms are tired. You just come back the next day. But vocalist starts to get seriously sore. You might need to be done for multiple days.

Speaker 3 (00:53:27):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:53:27):

So learning how to get through the session quickly and effectively is not just better for the brain workflow wise, but it's in some ways crucial. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:53:40):

I totally agree. And even just getting the best performance too. One way I think of it is, I think the classic vocal tracking workflow that's taught is record three or five takes of the same line, keep 'em all move on and then go back later and comp together the best. I've tried that before and it takes for one thing a really, really, really long time. But for the other thing, you don't necessarily get the best takes because you're not even thinking about quality and what you need. It's all about just volume of takes. It's this mindset that, okay, I'm not sure about this vocalist or this part, or if they got it good enough, but I've got 10 takes, so I've got to have a good

Speaker 2 (00:54:17):

Combination in there somewhere in there,

Speaker 3 (00:54:18):

Which is not true at all for me. It's like I'm going to keep doing it until it's right. And sometimes when the vocalist is in the zone, that could mean one take. And honestly, again, for all of this, I feel like a common theme is just committing and knowing what you want as the engineering producer. Because honestly, I'm not afraid. If I'm tracking the vocalist and we're working on a line and they do the first take of this line and it sounds awesome, I'll just be like, great, next line. I'm not afraid to do that and commit with that. Whereas I think people get afraid and they second guess and like, whoa, that sounded great, but that was only the first one, so we better do five more.

Speaker 2 (00:55:00):

It's not real unless we do five times the work.

Speaker 3 (00:55:02):

Exactly. And that's again, going back to burning out the vocalists, taking them out of the flow. And again, I find the faster you move, the more you stay in the same zone. If you don't have to do the same line 10 times, then why do it 10 times? It's only going to have a more disjointed feel of the performance throughout the whole song versus just kind of going as quickly as you can through it. And when I say quickly as you can, I mean getting the right takes, the right performances, great ones, but then not overdoing it, not wasting time

Speaker 2 (00:55:32):

Quickly as you can. Not rushing.

Speaker 3 (00:55:35):

Not rushing, yeah. But yeah, just not wasting time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55:38):

Yeah, man, I have learned this one the hard way by, I will take the blame sometimes for vocals, never getting done on an album or the vocalist totally burning himself out. In some cases where I should have known better, I should have been able to call it when I was younger. Now I would know what to do, but this would've saved me some serious headaches to understand I wish that I had a workflow like this. So we wrap this up and why don't you wrap it up by telling us what this, maybe give us an idea for what the big picture is. What's everyone going to get? I'll finish up after by adding what our bonuses are, but what's everyone going to get from you when they buy hardcore tracking today or in the next few days?

Speaker 3 (00:56:47):

Yeah. So overall, they're going to get a framework, a strategy, a mindset for approaching tracking and engineering that is just going to allow you to get good results, great results, no matter what you're faced with. And it's going to give you the skills and the knowledge to be really versatile and be able to adapt to different situations in terms of the actual content that you're going to get. There's some mindset stuff like that, stuff about how to set your vision and what your basically workflow for tracking should be. And then the really bulk of the course is called Tracking expose. The song we recorded is called Expose by a band called Kingdoms. And so this section of the course is all of the recording process captured on video as I'm explaining every step along the way. So that goes from everything from choosing the drums, the sizes of drums and symbols to use, replacing heads, which heads to use, how to tune them, how to replace them, hearing the drums in the room, miking up the drums, signal chain for each part of the drums, checking the phase, adjusting mics based on what you're hearing in the control room before you start tracking.

(00:57:53):

Then there's the actual tracking, getting performances, even drum editing is in there. Basically everything from start to finish on making a great sounding professional record for drums, guitars, bass. Any question you're asking based on the free videos you saw, it's covered in here. So all the way through from Genta Focals, we've also got some written content, like I said, so I kind of wanted to make sure I provided some of the foundational knowledge when it comes to signal flow different types of mics, what they are. Just in case you're jumping into this and you're a little bit more on the beginner side, I want to make sure that you don't jump into these videos and feel overwhelmed by, well, what's the difference between a condenser and a dynamic, or what's a ribbon mic? Or why is he putting it into this at mic level instead of line level?

(00:58:44):

All that stuff is covered in this guide I put together called Real World Recording. So it's basically a PDF ebook that you get and it's very in depth and that covers lots of things, like I said, from signal flow, all that stuff. Also has some helpful little sheets on my suggestions of go-to gear you should have in your studio as a project studio owner, some basics on how to treat your room, stuff like that. Just kind of fleshing out all the fine details. And then there's also some bonus lessons on how to track drums in a small room. So in the main course content, we tracked a pretty nice studio, but I know that one of the big questions that's going to come up is, what if I don't have access to a nice studio like this? What if I have a really small space to track drums in?

(00:59:30):

So I tackled that head on. I went and recorded drums at a different studio. It was very small and I showed you how to approach that. And a lot of it is very similar. I take the same approach in both rooms, but this extra bonus lesson proves that. And also lets you see some different drum mics and a different drummer and see how I approach that. There's some bonus videos on cleaning up the guitar and bass editing, vocals and tuning, and then the drum tracking hacks, which basically how to overcome sketchy drummers if they can't play what they wrote. So that's all included in the course. You're also getting private Facebook group where anyone who's part of this course can go in there, and it's an awesome group. Now I've got close to a thousand members in there now, and a lot of them are great full-time engineers and people do mixed critiques and it's super helpful, very positive group, which I think is really a big bonus in moving forward in your engineering career.

(01:00:29):

And then I'm also going to be doing some, I call 'em office hours, basically live q and a calls. So if you go through the course and any questions come up for you, we're going to have for a couple months after this sale, I'm going to be jumping on to group calls with everyone to basically answer questions and make sure that everyone, I want everyone to see huge success from going through this course. So I want to make sure I'm available. That's why we're closing it down on Friday at midnight, because I don't want to have to keep pushing this and keep selling it. I want people, if you're in, then jump in. Let's do it. I'm going to work with you, answer all your questions and make sure that you get the result that I'm promising out of this course. And then months down the road later this year or something, I'll open up again. But we're really committed to making sure this course has a huge impact on you. So I want to work closely with everyone that way. So that's all the details.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):

Yeah, it could be confusing and not as impactful of various people are starting it at

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):

Various

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):

Times, so the whole group starts together.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):

Yeah, exactly. I find it just leads to a really high quality group of people and everyone can kind of go through it at the same time and kind of share what they're learning and that just doubles the value of it. And to sum it all up, I mean, I created this course because I want you to start getting tracks during the tracking stage to sound as good or better than the final mixes you're getting right now. And I say that because that's what happened to me when I was struggling with mixing recording. And when I started learning how to get it right at the source, how to get the right performances, learned, how to set up the instruments, all that stuff started paying way more attention and putting way more effort into the tracking stage is seriously when everything started to change. I started hearing the rough mix out of my speakers in the studio with the band, and it was sounding better than the final mixes I was doing before. And that's kind of when things started to click for me and I started getting better projects and having way more consistent work and consistent quality. And that really kind of is when my career started to take a turn for the better. So that's what I want to provide for anyone listening here.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):

And I want to echo how important this is because those of you who are subscribed to Nail the Mix, a lot of you have told me or have mentioned that now the mix is awesome and thank you, but that you're kind of bummed because you're getting the best mixes of your life with the material we provide you. But then you go to the stuff that you tracked and the mixes aren't as good. And if you're mixing Gera or Shuga, of course it's going to sound better than your tracks because those are some of the best bands in the world tracked by some of the best people in the world. And it goes to show what a big difference the production makes if you're getting these skills to where you can take these really badass tracks we provide you and keep them sounding badass. Well, you are coming along as a mixer, but if then your own tracks sound like poopy, maybe you have some work to do on the production side.

(01:03:52):

And that's exactly where this course comes to play. So if you're noticing that problem, I highly suggest this course. If you bought the Monuments Bootcamp I did, and it's been over a year now, I think it's time to add something new to your arsenal there. And you should go to hardcore music.com/urm. We've got some of our own bonuses as well. One of the things that Jordan did not really cover is amping, and it's a pretty common thing that's going to come up. And it's not as simple as just plugging into a Reamp box because there's problems that you have to learn to account for level differences. And so we got our buddy, Ryan Bruce, otherwise known as Fluff from his YouTube channel, beards and Gear, I believe, and he met us an hour long amping guide and you'll get that. And we also have a two hour long guide to getting the most out of amp sims, and it covers various amp sims, some of them that people consider to be rather lower end.

(01:05:05):

We cover some of the expensive ones too, but kind of everything between and show that you can get good results even if you don't have a Kemper or an ax effects in the digital Amp department. We have our own drum tracking cheat sheet that was written by Matt Brown. Matt Brown, for those of you who did see the Monuments Creative Live bootcamp. He was the drum tech on that. We have a drum course coming out with him later this September. It's super, super comprehensive, and he is one of the most gifted drum geniuses I've ever encountered. And when I say that, I mean not just playing, I mean engineering and tuning and just a drum. He's a drum bible basically. And so his little cheat sheet is just a cool other perspective on approaching drum tracking. And then finally you get a copy of the Drum Forge, ELE that stands for a L Levy expansion. It's my drum forge expansion pack, and it's three drum sets tailor made for mixing any genre of metal. They are mix ready out the box and have lots of tweak ability with the metal mix in mind. So lots of the things that you would automate in a metal mix are the types of options that I give you. So it's very, very effective. All in all, you get this, you're going to get a lot better hardcore tracking.com/urm and you have until May 5th at midnight, so get on it. Right

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):

On.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):

Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about this. I'm super excited and wish you all the success in the world with this course. I hope you sell 200 million copies.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):

Yeah, thanks man. I appreciate you guys getting behind it and the opportunity to try and help out your followers here. So thanks. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):

The

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):

Unstoppable Recording Machine

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):

Podcast is brought to you by Bala GE Guitars founded in 2014, Bala GE Guitars strives to bring modern aesthetics and options to vintage inspired designs. Go to bala ge guitars.com for more info. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by Fishman inspired performance technology. Fishman is dedicated to helping musicians of all styles achieve the truest sound possible wherever and whenever they plug in. Go to fishman.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit nail the mix.com/podcast and subscribe today.