JOEL WANASEK: Producer Health, Starting a Career Late, EQing Boxy Guitars

Speaker 1 (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, Joel

Speaker 2 (00:33):

Wanasek. Hey everybody, how are you doing? I am Joel Wanasek and you are listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, the hardest hitting, most extreme, exciting, and brutal hour of audio podcast on the internet anywhere, anytime, any place. Well, maybe not, I don't know, but that sounded like a pretty cool intro. So I said it anyways, so this is a solo episode. If this is your first time, hopefully it's your best time. But if you want to submit questions, it's Joel at URM Academy. That is Joel at URM Academy. Hit me up with the subject line Dear Joel and I will do my best to answer your questions, go on epic rants and give brutal, ridiculous answers that hopefully not only entertain you but are somewhat information of, I can't even speak English today. Somewhat useful and full of insight, so not editing that one out.

(01:27):

So let's do it. All right, so a couple of things I want to talk about tonight before we get started and get into your questions. I want to talk about Nashville. So I was just in Nashville a couple of weeks ago with Billy Decker. Now it sucks for me because all my guys, Joey and Al, they get to travel every month and go and hang out and do all this stuff. And I'm a married dude, so I got to stay home with my family and be a dad and all that crap. And I kind of want to get on the plane and go have fun and hang out and do cool stuff too, but it doesn't get to happen very often. So I finally got to go out last weekend. I went to Nashville and we had an awesome time and we did something really cool there that was really exciting.

(02:02):

We've been doing these meetups, so people come in from unstoppable recording machine and there's meetups happening all over the world, all the major cities. It's crazy how many places we have where people have physically done a meetup here. And I've been to one and I think maybe Al has been to one and maybe Joey's been to one in person, but we've never all been in the same city at the same time and at the same place. So we had one in Nashville and a whole bunch of people came out and it was insane. Even Billy Decker came out and hung out and it was so cool of him because Billy's a busy guy and such a badass mixer and just inspirational dude to be around. Absolutely top of the game, top tier cream of the crop dude, just amazing human being. Love him to death. I'll tell you guys, Billy came out, we were all there.

(02:46):

And to see you guys in person and get to interact with you is just absolutely incredible because we sit here, we do this every month, we get on the mic, we talk about audio and nerd stuff, and we hang out and have a good time and we see all the stuff going on, the Unstoppable recording machine, private producers chats and the private producers club on Facebook, and we're interacting. We see your stories and it's really inspiring and awesome, but when you get to sit down and hang out with people face to face and say, Hey man, what's going on in your life? What are you working with? What are you struggling with? What are you doing? And to see such a group of motivated guys just hustling, grinding, working hard, living the dream, it's so inspiring to be around and so awesome to interact with you guys.

(03:28):

And I think we're going to start a precedent now where we're going to be doing these meetups every time we do a nail the mix. So if we're coming to a nail the mix city and you're in town and we're in your city, you should come out to a meetup because we'd love to hang out. Maybe drink a beer if you don't drink, that's fine. We can just hang out chat shit, have a good time and rock and roll. So man, I just want to say URM Nashville, you guys were awesome. Billy Decker month was incredible. One of my favorites, Billy is one of the swell, coolest dudes. And man, his drums are metal as hell and he mixes country hits. So I love it. It's so cool, man. So came back from Nashville, just totally jacked, totally inspired, totally ready to go. So I just can't wait to do more of these things.

(04:14):

I think this went, we're in LA with a boba she and we're doing sales in and next month, ooh, I'm not going to give it away, but if you guys are subscribers, you know who we've got. We've got a really sick and really popular metal band on and a really badass mixer. So regardless, alright, let's dig into the stuff. One more thing I wanted talk about real quick is that we finally have unstoppable recording machine merchandise. So if you go to unstoppable merch.com, you yourself can get a no small time. And I'll tell you what, if you wear a no small time to our URM meetup and I'm there, I'm going to give you something special. So don't be small time. Get the only shirt that tells the world that you are not small time and I'm getting one myself so we can be dorks together.

(04:58):

So first and foremost, I want to start out today before I start answering questions. Boy, I just keep going, man. It's just endless, right? You can't stop. So first and foremost, I want to talk about a little bit of a rant here because something happened to me a few days ago that really kind of shook me and it made me think and reflect deep. And I've talked about this before because you guys know I'm kind of a health nut and I try to live a healthy lifestyle overall. And sometimes now I don't get any sleep, I'm going on vacation. But I try to balance and I try to eat a really good diet and eat a lot of good variety of foods and I don't do soda or anything like that. I try to eat a large variety of healthy foods and stay away from stuff that's bad and live a reasonably healthy lifestyle, be active as much as possible, which is pretty hard in this business.

(05:48):

So something happened to me, somebody close to me, I'm not going to say who because it doesn't matter here because we're talking public and I don't like mixing private and public, but let's just say somebody I know really well and I definitely care a lot about, they came down with a type of cancer. So something, again, it doesn't matter the type, I think everything's going to be fine with them and but it really kind of like I sat down and I thought about it and I thought about the person's age and health history and just genetics and all that, and I was just like, holy shit. It really kind of hit home to me. And because again, it's somebody I know really well and I definitely care about, it was kind of a shock and it made me think about health and it made me think about the sedentary lifestyle that we live as audio people, people that are in the music.

(06:38):

Even if you're playing in a band sitting around on the tour bus all day waiting for the show, you get your half hour or maybe two hours if you're in a huge band of exercise at night. And then the rest of the time you're standing there signing autographs or hanging out in the back, sitting in a chair. So all day we're sitting, the human body is not designed to sit, which is very hard to do when you work in this industry, especially if you're behind the glass, making records, living records, working ridiculous hours. It's really hard. Going to the gym for a half hour or an hour a day does not offset the damage you are doing to your body, your skeletal structure, your muscle systems, your posture, your entire health of your entire organism. So it's very important to space up your day and break it up and get out and do stuff that's good for you, that's healthy for you.

(07:29):

Because lots of talk about healthcare and health insurance right now in the United States, and I don't do politics, period. We're just not going to discuss it because no matter what you say or believe, it doesn't matter. It is bad for somebody and it's good for somebody else. You know what I mean? So it it's a no go. We don't talk about it. But one thing I will say is that I think about health and I think, okay, I'm in my thirties and if I live a healthy lifestyle now, hopefully that will pay massive dividends when I'm 60 or 70 or 80 or if I get that old and I'll be really stoked that I did. And I'm lucky because my wife is somebody that's a health nut and she knows more about it than most doctors I've ever met in my life. I mean dead serious, she doesn't have the md, but all day long podcasts, books, just, she's just into, it's her thing.

(08:23):

And I've learned a lot from her and we've read a lot of stuff and it's just been a common shared interest. And I feel like I've been living a pretty decently healthy lifestyle for many years, minus sitting in the damn office all day, grinding ridiculous hours, running multiple businesses, being a crazy person, mixing songs, just being ambitious. You know what I mean? Now the eustress part of that I think is good because you're always jacked. You're doing what you love, you're always in a good mood, you're excited. But on the same side, there's the whole sedentary thing. Sedentary thing where you're sitting down all day in a chair and the body is not designed to do that and there's nothing you can do to combat it other than try to be active multiple times during the day. So it's important to be cognizant of that because guys, time spent now investing in your health, meaning eating good quality foods.

(09:10):

For example, before I got on the show, I went and I grabbed a nice bottle of juice from the organic store that opened literally a block from my studio and a block from my house. It's right in between. So it's the perfect location. I totally lugged out. I went and got some stuff and every day I go now and try to get a nice healthy lunch and breakfast and stuff like that. So it's important to eat really healthy and really good foods because you're going to have a lot more sustained energy. You're going to be able to act and perform at your peak, which is really important when you're doing a creative job because you need to be able to be creative at two in the morning, just as good as you are at 7:00 AM after you have a nice full night of sleep or as much as 2:00 PM or any other time of the day.

(09:49):

And if you can't have that energy and you're not eating good foods and not getting rest and not getting some exercise, you're not going to have that energy. You're not going to be jacked, you're not going to be ready to go, you're not going to be primed, you're not going to be creative. You're not going to be inspirational to be around and who wants to be all those knots that shit's small time. We're not interested in small time. The no small time attitude is we really want to come in and we want to kill it at everything we do. We want to be always full of energy, always full of life, always performing at our peak, being the best that we can be, always pushing ourself, getting that nice positive tress going in our life, being really excited and passionate about what we're doing because the people that are working with us are clients.

(10:29):

They're going to feel that energy, they're going to feed off it, it's going to come in, it's going to be part of their performance. They're going to get that vibe from you and they're going to be like, I like being around that dude, that guy, he's got that spark. There's something about him. And they feed off that. And you get that creativity and that ebb and flow. And that's so important when you're working with a client or working in the studio or doing anything creative, having that vibe and that chemistry and just being a positive upbeat person is important. And the only way you can be that person is if you're feeding the machine necessary. If you're not eating good foods and you're sitting around and you're not getting any sunlight and vitamin D and you're not doing any exercise, you're going to be sitting there depressed and you're going to be tired and melancholic and you're going to feel like crap and you're going to be that dude.

(11:13):

You know what I mean? You're going to be that person. And it's important to break those habits because you can control what you do every day. You can decide to go out and exercise. You can take the stairs instead of the elevator, like all the lazy asses you can get up and you can go for a walk for five minutes, no matter how busy you are, because hey, if you're creative and you got to sit in a chair for 16 hours, it's going to help anyways because think about it. So you're sitting there and you're two or three hours in, you're a little burned, you're a little bit really focused. Sometimes you get up, you go walk outside, get 10 minutes of air power, walk around the thing. And again, when you're walking, you can make little healthy choices. So you can choose to walk a little bit faster to push yourself physically.

(11:51):

You can choose to when you're at the grocery store, hustle up and grab stuff and get through the checkout line instead of loaf around and take your time. You know what I mean? And all that little bit of positive stress in your body, that small amount synergistically builds up I believe over your entire life and will pay dividends when you are older. So I just want to say guys, that experience made me think about my own health and the vulnerability of our bodies and the organism that we are, the human being that the flesh and blood that we are. And it's just like guys, we're fragile. If you've ever taken a combat or a fighting or anything like that, like MMA or Russianist systema or Kraft Maga or anything like that, you know how fragile the human body is. It's not hard to break people's joints if you know what you're doing.

(12:40):

It's not hard to use leverage and force, and it's really crazy how fragile and frail the human body is, no matter how strong big you are. So you need to protect your health. It's the most important thing. It does not matter how much success, how much money, how much anything you have in your life. If you are sick and you are really sick, you are sitting there and you feel like shit, there is nothing you want more than to get healthy. I'll equate it like this. Here's the analogy. We've all had a night, well, maybe not all of us, but most of us, maybe not like straight edge people, but most of us have had a night in our life where we've sat down and we have had too much to drink. And you wake up, you puke all night long, you feel sick, and when you're sitting around the toilet, you think of this podcast right now, the next time this happens, hopefully it doesn't.

(13:26):

But you sit there and you think of this podcast in this moment right now, and I want you to think that how are you feeling at that moment? The last thing you want to do you care about is how much money is in your bank account or what client you got or what mix you turned in or what mix off you want, or what girl you met or whatever you're focused on. One thing, I feel like shit and I need to get better. I feel terrible. I just want to roll up in a ball and die. I just want the pain to end. So the human body is built to avoid pain and suffering. So you know what guys? You, you got a deal. So take care of yourself because if your health goes wrong, if you have a problem, I passed a kidney stone once.

(14:09):

I remember sitting on that couch for two hours, nonstop, constant pain, just sitting like this really sucks. And at that moment right there, nothing else that you're doing in your life matters to you. You do not care about anything else other than getting better as fast as possible and making that pain end. So it's important. Take care of yourself so you have less of those moments in your life. We are living that sedentary lifestyle. You got to get off your ass, get out of the studio, get some exercise every day, push it a little bit, work a little bit harder, take the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Just little things like that. Hustle through the store a little bit faster. Run or jog instead of walk somewhere, you know what I mean? Just find ways to push it and get your cardio up and just get your overall physical conditioning.

(14:54):

So I dunno, that's a long rant, but I felt like ranting, so I'm sorry, but it's my show so I can rant. Ha ha. Alright, so let's start with the questions and the first one here is a long one. Hey Joel, I always see you referencing books and podcasts that are more on the nonfiction business and personal motivation types, a lot of which I've taken your advice I've read or listened to. With that being said, do you ever just read books for pleasure or is there anything besides the business mindset involved? The same goes with other aspects of your life being a dad, husband. I know you've said things about taking time to travel, but is there anything on a daily basis that you do also when it comes to being creative? Where do you find inspiration? Movies, non-business books, long walks in Wisconsin. I dunno about long walks, but brisk walks with how busy you guys are and how disciplined it must be.

(15:48):

Discipline must be to run a business. It doesn't have to leave. Okay, I see what he's trying to say. Okay, must be difficult to run a business because it doesn't leave much free time for anything else. Really love what you guys are doing. Long time. Nailed the next subscriber. Learn so much and thank you Matthew. Alright, Matthew, well I'll start off at the top here and we'll work down your questions. So first and foremost, do I ever read books for pleasure or is there always a business mindset involved? Well, I'm going to be honest. What if I told you that I read only business books that have a mindset or a motive or a goal, but I find a lot of pleasure in doing it, which is maybe sadistic, maybe weird, maybe it's like a mental disorder or something. But I love business. I love the excitement of it, I love the hustle of it, the competition of it, just the changing the challenge.

(16:35):

It's so exciting and so inspiring and so I love reading about it and learning about it. And anytime I'm learning anything, I'm stoked. It just gets me totally jacked up. So I try to listen and read a lot of things that are positive, things that are going to get me fired up and things that are going to make me feel good because it's like getting that mindset. If I want to talk to guys that have that mindset, I can't just go down the street and go to the bar or I can't call up a friend or whatever, I have to call my business partners and I have to be like, yo, Joey, yo, yo, what's up man? And we just get fired up and we're just totally stoked. So it's like I don't have a lot of people that I can call and talk about things that I'm really passionate and interested in.

(17:13):

So it's nice to have some really good friends like those guys that not only do I work with every day, but that's it. So I will say the stuff I read usually has an objective and a goal, but I love reading it and it's fascinating to me. So it's for pleasure and I've been trying to explain this to my wife. She's like, why don't you read something practical? Or why don't you read something that's like a story or something? And I'm just like, well, I could, but I have so much to learn and so many things I don't know and I need to know about this. And this is so interesting to me and this is interesting. So I try to read things that help me grow because like I said, when I am growing, I'm getting pleasure out of it, if that makes sense.

(17:52):

So hopefully that helps. I know some things aren't that interesting, but when it comes down to survival like, Hey, I got to understand my tax situation getting crushed on taxes better, then all of a sudden you find this amazing motivation to get really into tax law you never knew you had, so you'd be shocked. So necessity sometimes creates excitement and motivation and pleasure. Okay, so the next question part here, he says, Matthew says the same goes for the other aspects of your life being a dad and a husband. Okay, what kind things do I do on a daily basis to do that? Okay, so I think what he means is, okay, so a big thing for me with having a family or any type of significant other, so if you guys have a girlfriend or if you're a female, if you have a boyfriend or whatever, whatever's going on in your life, you got to take some time when you're with those people to be with them.

(18:43):

And I know it's hard, your phone is, so turn it off. And I've said this many times before and I violate this all the time, but it's always on the weekends where I'm sitting down and I'm chilling and I turn my phone off and I don't look at it until Sunday night that I get true relaxation. I feel great. Go do something like yard work or spend time with your kids, whatever, get you stokes friends. Just go do something with people that isn't work, that isn't studio that isn't recording and get out and just experience life, real life, not life in the studio. What a concept, right? So I think that when you're doing that sort of thing, like family or whatever, you have to dedicate your full mindset to doing it. And you have to just totally block out all distractions if you're with your kids, be with your kids if you're with your business partners be doing business.

(19:32):

So you got to balance. It's really hard, but you definitely have to balance. And I think it's important just as much as to take initiative in business and to take initiative in your career and things like that, and your own learning and personal growth as it is to take initiative in your relationships and try to improve them and make them better. And I think that's out of all the things I do in my life, I think this is the thing I struggle with the most. I definitely, when you're a parent, you try to be the best parent that you can be, but no matter how hard you try have, sometimes you try one tactic and it doesn't work, and then the next day it works and the kids are really sassy one day, then they're really, it's all over the place and it's an emotional rollercoaster.

(20:14):

So just you got to enjoy the process. I think that's the most important thing, Matthew, I think if you sit down and just take it day by day and really take the time to just soak it in and enjoy it while you're doing it. So if you're sitting down on a hill and it's your day off and it's a beautiful day outside and the air is fresh and you're in a great location, sit down and take a couple of deep breaths and smell the air and look at the sky and enjoy it and take it all in. And don't just be like, all right, where am I going in 10 minutes? I got to go do this, I got to go to that. So learn to slow down and it's really hard, especially in this lifestyle where everything's a status update or a social media thing or you know what I mean?

(20:51):

It's a nonstop barrage of sensory input. It's more important than ever to sit down and find that space where you can just turn all that crap off and just be like, this is what's happening now. Right now I'm podcasting, so I'm enjoying it. I'm living in the moment right now, but as soon as I lay down and go home, I'm going to sit down, lay down in bed, and I'm going to really enjoy laying down and enjoy the feeling of relaxing and sleep. You got to make a conscious effort to really just not go through the motions in life, but sit down and be cognizant and realize what you're doing and why you're doing it. So balance, man, you just got to balance it out. Hard to do, easy to understand. It's one of those things. Alright, so the next part of the question is, okay, also when it comes to being creative, where do you find inspiration?

(21:37):

Movies, non-business books, long walks, et cetera? So I get inspiration from, I dunno, this is a kind of a weird topic because I feel like I'm a naturally inspired person. I don't know what it is. I don't know where it comes from. I mean, I think I know, but I'm not fully sure because I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, but I just am excited. I can't explain it. I love what I'm doing. It's actualizing, it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's like I'm living at the top of my pyramid every day and I'm enjoying it. So I just get inspired because I'm doing something that I love and it's on a larger scale than when I was just making records and I'm still making records and mixing stuff and things like that. But doing all this stuff we're doing at Unstoppable Recording Machine in Drum Forge, it's really cool.

(22:25):

My friend of mine that I really respect and that I've looked up to for many years, hits me up and sends me an email bla says, dude, I really love this plugin that you sent over. It's really awesome. And I didn't ask him to his opinion, he just let me know because it's really helping them make better music and that's amazing. Or going to a meetup and seeing all you guys at URM and just hanging out and seeing what's going on in your lives and seeing how hard you're working and seeing how you're getting through problems and struggles and achieving things and having your victories and setbacks and I don't know it, it's just cool to see things happening, if that makes sense. So I get my inspiration just from life every day. Just do live everything to the fullest and if you feel down, you feel weird, find something that gets you jacked.

(23:09):

Okay, so what are things that get me jacked? Well, I love podcasts. Again, reading motivational stuff or inspirational stuff, books, things like that. So I love just surrounding myself with some sort of positivity. But I also like to, when I chill, do things like I love to watch movies, so I like to go places like museums and art galleries. So places like art is cool and beautiful and I like the colors and I like all the interior design aspects of it and how it plays with the eye. Or if I go to the museum the hell of history and you think about things like what was it like when dinosaurs or the Roman Empire or Ancient Egypt or the Persian Empire Battle tactics or whatever. That stuff is really fascinating to me and I love history and I think it's so cool. So I love going to places that inspire a sense of wonder and connection with humanity.

(23:59):

It's cool to know that we have this little short lifespan, but so much has happened before us and so much will happen after we're gone. And just to be part of that continuum, so do things that give you a sense of wonder and imagination and inspire you. That's a great place to find inspiration and that could be anything. I mean hell, even reading like a National Geographic magazine about ancient Babylon gets me totally stoked and jacked and I'm like, man, I want to go do archeology. So maybe someday I'll go and take a week off and go help out on a dig or something. Just find something that gets you excited and do more of it. If you're doing a lot of things that gets you excited, you're just going to be jacked all the time. And it's like I said, that positivity, it just rubs off on people because everything is so negative.

(24:45):

You turn on the damn tv, it's just straight negativity and bullshit. You open up your feet, everybody's so negative all the time and it's just like somebody's got to be positive. So why can't that person be you? Why can't that person be me? There's no reason We need more positivity in the world. And the world is a very negative place and it's easy to get upset about a lot of things that happen in the world, but you know what? You can't control everything, but you can control how you feel about it or how you interact with it and you can control that at least to some degree. So focus on that focus doing what you can do, and I think that you'll feel pretty good doing it. Alright, next question. Corey is asking, how do you deal with vocal tuning artifacts when they arrive already edited?

(25:29):

For example, on a track I'm mixing this month, I feel like I'm hearing some tuning artifacts throughout the vocal tracks, so there's no chance to reedit how you could handle this so it doesn't distract the listener. Well, Corey, that is quite the problem. If you can't retune something and you can't go to the tracking engineer and say, Hey dude, you screwed this up. Or sometimes the tracking engineer will get back to you and he'll be like, dude, no, no, no, no. If you heard the singer sing, understand. So just this is the best it's going to be. So there's a couple of things you can do. If there's a lot of artifacts and stuff like that, sometimes depending on the syllable length of the part, you may be able to stretch it or cut out little things. If you watch Joey's fast track for URM enhanced guys and guitar editing, you'll see how you can elongate things.

(26:14):

And the same things work for vocals. You can elongate certain syllables and words and sounds that come out of a singer's mouth. So sometimes you can replace that stuff and sometimes you cannot. You got to be careful. It's hard. It's difficult. Yeah, I know, I get it. Another thing you have to realize is loud and proud. You and I might hear autotune because we're trained professional. I'll tell you my mom, when she listens to a pop song and I'm just like autotune, she's just like, oh, I love this song. Oh, that voice is great. This is such a great melody. I can't get that song out of my head. I love these lyrics. This is a great song. And she doesn't care if there's autotune. Either she likes this song or she doesn't. So most people don't care. You got to understand that's a really important distinction.

(26:52):

We care because we're trained to care, we're told we need to care. It's cool to care and be like, oh, autotune blah, blah, blah. But reality of the situation is Corey, dude, seriously, no one cares. I mean we care, but how many in the people in the world are there that are like us versus the people that listen to the actual music? We're a majority so small in statistics, they would call it statistic insignificance because we're too many standard deviations away from the mean to even matter. So we're like the fringe outlier. I mean it's just laughable how many audio engineers there are versus listeners. So you got to understand that you can just do go loud and proud and sometimes you can hide it with a little bit of a fax or something like that. You can always do a throw or bring up the delay or the reverb or something or bring up a harmony or whatever.

(27:43):

A lot of harmonies can really duck bad singing. I was mixing a pop song recently that it was not tuned very well and the singer was very shaky on the pitch and thankfully there were 20 tracks of vocals. So I was just like, when you put it all together, you can't hear that every single one of them is terrible, but as a whole they sound great. So just try using some strategies like that. But at the end of the day, dude, just don't beat yourself up because you didn't tune it. You're just mixing it and most people do not care. Alright, next question. Dear dark Lord of no small time, there aren't enough hours in the day to get all the things I want to do. I want to get done. So help. How can I be more efficient, Steve? Alright, Steve, I got a couple thoughts on this.

(28:33):

First and foremost actually what's funny is you mentioned this because ironically I was on the phone last night talking to Joey about this for a while. We were kind of laughing because our lives are very similar and very weird compared to how most normal people live their lives. A lot of people, they get off at five or six o'clock, they come home from work and they have free time and they just do whatever they do. They go to bed, they code to work, they put in their hours, they're off on the weekends. As for us, every single minute of our lives is calculated mine especially because I have kids. But so I wake up at a certain time every day, no matter how late I'm up or how tired I am or what I want do or how I feel about it, I get up at a certain time, I go through the routine, I get them to daycare as fast as I can.

(29:16):

I get my butt over the studio. I optimize all my time as much as I can there. And when I'm going to feel non-productive, go do something like get some air or go to lunch or something and get out. And until I get that inspiration back and I'm effective, go home, pick 'em up, do that stuff, and then either go to sleep or go back to work and grind it out. But more importantly, I take every single opportunity that I have to sit down and optimize whatever I'm doing. Now, don't get this wrong because there's going to be that guy out in the crowd. He's going to be like, oh, well you got to learn to slow down, man. You got to learn to relax. Yeah, okay, I'm talking about optimizing relaxation too. Get it right. So not only am I optimizing everything I'm doing from a business point of view or okay, so I'm going to go to the store, I've got 10 minutes down, I'm going to power through this so I can get the health boost of moving fast and getting the hustle on.

(30:07):

But not only that, I'm going to go in and I'm going to throw on the podcast and listen to something really inspirational. So I'm going to learn something, I'm going to a little stoked and jacked about that and I'm just going to be totally in the zone and I'm going to get my shopping done. I'm going to go back and then I'm like, alright, tonight I'm going to watch a movie. So I'll sit down and I'll figure it out and I'll optimize it. So if I'm going to relax, I'm going to relax and I'm going to relax with the most passionate enjoyment of that moment possible. If I'm like, okay, I'm going to get a bunch of stuff done when I'm shopping, then I'm going to get a bunch of stuff done. So you have to be really audit your life, I guess is what I'm saying.

(30:45):

Look at places you can have opportunities. You're going to sit down and be like, alright, I got this much time right here. I could be doing this. I got a 30 minute commute every day, so I'm wasting 60 minutes in the car there and back. So what am I going to do? I'm going to learn something. Am I going to get on the phone and do business deals and have all my meetings and conference calls? What I'm driving, how can I make my day more efficient so I can get more stuff done more efficiently and be most importantly, more effective at doing it? Because you can work a lot of hours in a day, but I'll tell you guys, the amount of hours that you work is not important. It's what you do with those hours while you're working. You could work two hours in a day and be more productive than somebody that works.

(31:23):

16, it's easy. You just got to be really focused. So it's all about effectiveness. If you're really efficient at being effective, you're a beast. You're killing it. If you're really efficient, you could be really efficient at something that isn't effective and you're effectively play on words wasting a ton of time. So think about that. I mean it's a really, really important distinction. So I would say you want to try to look at your day, Steve, and you want to optimize every minute of it to be moving towards some kind of goal. Like I said, that goal could be relaxation. That goal could be spend time with family or a significant other. That goal could be like, alright, I'm going to learn. I'm going to hustle, I'm going to go do this or that. So find the time. If you got time to sleep, you're not working hard enough.

(32:12):

No, I'm just kidding. You need to sleep. We're going back to health, one of the most important things, but seriously, there's no reason you can't sit down and use the bathroom and be taking a shower. And while you're doing that, sit down and think about, okay, here's my day plan. Here's how I'm going to do this. I'm going to get this done. Boom, you're out of the shower, you're going through this stuff all mentally, you get in the office and you just start checking things off your list right away. You come in, you're fired up and ready to go instead of sitting there and be like, oh, it's a bar of soap. I'm going to wash my arms now I'm going to wash my ass. Alright, that was oo man, I'm tired today. I'm going to drink coffee. See, you're wasting all that time right there.

(32:52):

You could be doing something with your brain, even if you're sitting there just meditating, that's doing something productive. I'm going to relax. I'm not going to think of anything. I'm just going to concentrate on my breathing. I'm going to take a shower. I'm going to enjoy it. Live in the moment. You know what I mean? So just think about what you're doing, what you're trying to do and what you want to get out of it and break it down. So I don't know, maybe it's not for everybody that's pretty machine-like, but Joey and I are weird dudes and we're kind of freaks of nature like that. We calculate every minute of what we do. I dunno, we're weird. So don't be weird like us. Alright, next question. Dear Joel, I'm almost 27 years old. I've been playing guitar since I was 14 and I was in a band since high school by rural high school standards.

(33:35):

Our band was fairly successful. However, somehow it was wired into my brain that music is not something that you can do for a living. You have to go to college and get a job though college was always stuck in the back of my mind. And it wasn't until recently that I realized that if I didn't at least try, I am going to be really deeply regretting it. To make a long story short, I recently had become obsessed with music production. It's the only thing I truly get excited about. However, I'm coming to this realization which has caused me a lot of anxiety because I feel like I'm 10 years behind where I should be and it causes me to obsess even more because I feel like I have to make up for lost time. I'm a couple years away from my thirties with a full-time job getting good at seems daunting to say the least.

(34:21):

Alright, Ryan, here's the deal. My man, anybody who says you can't do this for a living is full of shit. Because if I can do it, and I'm a guy who came up from cornfield, okay, literally, I had no mentors. I came from Hubertus, Wisconsin was my first studio. Look that one up on a map, and if you can find a city anywhere near it, I'll be impressed. So I built and broke a career from a basement literally surrounded by cornfields in the middle of fucking nowhere. Excuse my language, Wisconsin. And I'll tell you that if I can do that there, you can do it too, okay? Because your path may be different than mine. There's a lot of ways to make money and make a really good solid living doing music, whether it's recording, even playing in a band. You have to be smart.

(35:11):

I mean, guys, there are people on YouTube that make great livings. There are people that run businesses, people that make software. There's people that play in a bam. There's people that record and produce. There's people that just master. There's people that press discs. There's people that do pr. There's people that manage bands. There's a huge industry of people that make a living in a really good one doing this stuff. So anybody who says you can't obviously is hung out with my mom. They must be really good friends because I don't know, just don't let the skeptic get you down. You got to be your own cheerleader. And I'm here to tell you from personal experience, because I did it when no one said that I could and it was impossible and I need to do this. I need to move to LA or Nashville. I need to blah, blah, blah, do X, y, z, get a real job, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(35:59):

You know what? They were all wrong and I proved every single one of them wrong and I enjoy every second of it. So you can too and you will if you really want to do this period. And I mean you have to really want to do it. So Ryan, I'm going to tell you when it comes to lost time, don't feel bad. I didn't really start getting serious about producing and mixing and stuff until I was maybe I want to say around 27 years old. So I was already kind of recording and I quit my job and all that stuff, but it wasn't until probably I was about 27 years old that I, maybe 28 that I got out of my band and I said, okay, all I'm going to do is this. So if I started getting serious about it at 28 and made an awesome career and I was able to finance three kids daycare, which in America, for those of you who are four and costs like 30 grand a year, plus all the extra taxes you have to pay when you own a business, it's expensive as hell.

(36:53):

And I was able to finance all that by a ton of gear, like a shadow Hills, smashing compressor and a massive passive and six figures worth of equipment. And I was able to do that just recording local bands out of a basement in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields. You can make a comfortable living and buy a house and all that shit and do well. If I can do it, you can do it. And not only me, but the guy across the hall, Eric did it. Eric records still only local bands and things like that. And dude, he's making a great living. So not only does he, LeBron City makes a nice paycheck too doing it. So you know what I'm saying, guys? It's doable. I know so many dudes that are doing this stuff for a living in different ways, capacities, and some of 'em are making more money or whatever.

(37:37):

But as long as you're making enough to live and more importantly you're doing something you love, that's it. So yeah, I know the feeling of feeling like you're a little bit behind and you got to catch up and it puts a lot of anxiety and pressure. But you know what? It's good because that's you stress, that's turn that anxiety into something positive. You stay up for an extra 30 minutes or get up an extra half hour an hour earlier and study harder or mix more. You know what I mean? You can do it, man. It's out there. I'm telling you, you can do it. It's never too late. I mean, it also depends what your end goal is too, because I feel like some people are like, well, if I'm not working on really huge major league famous bands, I'm not successful. Well, that's also a load of horse shit.

(38:16):

Success is really what you define it. And as much as I like to say no small time, it's not about the level of achievement. It's about doing stuff that makes you happy, that is fulfilling to you that you're saying, Hey, I'm successful. I'll give you an example. My wife said to me once, she considers herself very successful and I asked why. I mean I agreed with her obviously, but I asked why. And she said, well, I've got a job. I'm married and I'm not divorced. I've got a few kids, I've done really well. I'm proud. She was really proud of herself, which she had accomplished and that was her definition of success. And I think that's great. So it doesn't matter how famous you get as a producer or how big or what bands you work on or how famous they are or how big the paycheck is, or the question is, are you doing it on your terms?

(39:11):

Because let's take your worst case scenario, okay? So say you have a full-time job. I'm sure you're not working seven days a week, so you're probably putting in 40 hours a week if you could keep your full-time job and all that and then maybe 10 hours a week do recording and record bands or whatever and make a bunch of extra money. It's like you could probably make an extra 10 to 30 grand a year easily on the side doing that, which in a corporate job, that's a major fricking raise. You just jumped to an NBA. You know what I mean? You don't just get raises like that, that's like, Hey, I got a job and now I'm the supervisor, before I was the clerk and now that I'm the district manager, that's a massive jump in responsibility. So in two or three years of working hard and going out and getting clients, you could build a little side business.

(39:58):

If you're working 10, an extra 10 hours a week, dude, you could turn that into a lot of extra money if that is your worst case scenario. Even if you hate your job, that is not a terrible life, okay? Because getting to do at least some of what you want on your terms, you get to buy a bunch of cool gear, get the tax advantages, write it off, yada, yada, yada, all the good stuff and all the benefits. So it's okay if that's your worst case scenario. That is not the worst thing to be in. The worst thing to be in is living in a cardboard box in a third world country with no running water and rampant disease and war and stuff like that. But if you're writing this to me right now, are not living that reality it sounds like. So that is not the worst possible scenario that's winning for a lot of people.

(40:46):

So take it with grace and that's your starting point. So if that's your starting point, you can only look upward from that. So you don't just enjoy it for what it is. I think that's what I think. Just enjoy it for what it is. See how far you can take it and enjoy it. Because sometimes I'll say that when you get what you want, sometimes it's not really what you want forever. I'm like, I want to work on sign bands and I started working with sign bands and I'm like, the paycheck's a lot bigger, but it's harder to collect on and it comes with a lot more stress and a lot more up and down and sometimes it's really stressful and it's really difficult. So you know what I mean? There's a balance. I mean, when I was just doing local bands, Hey man, they always paid on time.

(41:31):

We had a lot of fun. Not all of them cared, which frustrated me, but at the same time I learned to love it and have fun with them and realize that hey, these guys don't want to be big or whatever. They just want to come in and play music on the weekends and have fun, record some songs and have a good time. So I'm going to hang out with some dudes, make some music and have a great time doing it. And that's awesome. It's so much fun and it's super rewarding. And hey, you're also getting paid to do it. So it's like going to the bar with some buddies and talking about music and getting paid for it. How the hell can you complain? So Ryan, don't stress yourself out, man. No need for anxiety. You want turn that into eustress, turn it into something positive.

(42:06):

I feel like your future and your outlook is pretty damn good. You're not late, you're just starting. Life is young, you're young. Life is just beginning. So be stoked, be optimistic, everything is going to be awesome. Alright, next question. Hey Joel, time here. Love everything you guys are doing my question. I find myself going through a lot of information because I'm in love with this stuff. I consider myself a beginner, although I've been watching recording and mixing stuff for years now. The problem is that whenever I start going through tutorials, I just seem to be going forever. And the more I watch and start going through new titles randomly I'm an enhanced member. I have subscriptions to group three, Mac Pro video to learn about logic and I don't get much work done. I feel like I need to watch and learn more, but I also need to start mixing more.

(42:55):

How can I balance the learning versus practicing? Do you incorporate daily schedules? Alright, Tom, so here's what my thoughts. I learned most of the stuff that I learned by doing it, okay? We didn't have things like nail the mix or URM enhanced or any of this other cool stuff that's out there. We didn't have any of it. So I think is most important maybe to do either a 70 30 or a 60 40 ratio or maybe 80 20, whatever. But if you have eight hours, spend six of them working or five to six working and two or three to learning. You know what I mean? Or work eight, make time to learn for an hour, two hours a day. You don't want to get overwhelmed and saturated. All that information is going to go up. You got to review it. Sometimes you got to let some of it sink in and watch it a couple of times.

(43:45):

It's like when I go through a bunch of power podcasts, when I'm powering through 'em, when I'm listening and shopping and things like that, what helps me is if I hear something really good, I'm like, man, that was a great podcast. I'll listen to it like two or three times over a couple of days. Then it gets stuck in my long-term memory and the kid to getting something in the long-term memories. You have to do it every day for four days approximately. So I hear and read and from experience I also agree with. So just do something kind of like every day and review some information. So I understand the feeling like you got to know everything you do. There's so much information, but regardless of whether you're practicing versus learning, the more importantly is time you are growing. So everything you do, you're getting better and that's the critical key component to all this.

(44:26):

You got to get some hands on time, but you also got to get some theoretical time. You just want to balance it. So at worst case scenario, I would split it half and half, but I feel like it's better to be doing and learning slightly less, if that makes sense. Because again, it's not how much you're watching and learning. It's more important to sit down and learn a concept and go through it a few times and really absorb it, then put it into practice. I would go, when I used to work at a bank and I would read gear slots, I'd read about something cool if you're sifting through it for eight hours, I'd write down three or four things, I'd go home and I'd try 'em. And some of 'em I was like, this is really cool. Some of 'em are like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

(45:01):

Why would you do that? So you know what I mean? You got to go through it. You got to have those moments because you may, for example, watch a mixed rescue and see how I approach a snare drum and say, dude, that doesn't work for me. I don't get it. This dude's crazy. This is the dumbest way to approach a snare drum. You should do it like this. So there's no right way. What's important is you are developing your own style, your own method of solving problems. That's the thing. I always say this, we're not teaching presets, we're teaching concepts. And most importantly, problem solving. This is about getting better at solving problems. Because if you can mix slay one mix, that doesn't mean you can slay 30 more because 30 more mixes are 30 more problems, and each song is its own set of challenges.

(45:44):

So it's very important to sit down and take each song and look at it and say, okay, I got to solve X, Y, and Z. Now I got to do A, B, C in this song. So it's not one size fits all and it takes time to develop. If you've seen Billy Docker's nail the mix, it's to get to a level where you can have a template that it can take that level of stuff thrown at it and still stand up and be robust is pretty damn impressive. It takes many, many years of refining to get something that works 80% of the time. So you got to practice as well as learn. I definitely would weigh a little bit more of the actual practice as opposed to learning. So it's important to do both, man. Just keep absorbing it. You're going to get it. Don't stress out.

(46:27):

Okay, next question. Dear dark Lord of no small time and epic rants. I've been listening to the podcast for a little bit now and I've become a big fan and thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Know, thank you so much for listening, Jack, you are awesome, and I appreciate every single one of you guys and gals that are listening to the podcast. I like you guys and girls, you're all awesome. Thank you so much. Love being here and doing what we're doing and the fact that you're all getting something out of this is, it's pretty cool. We really appreciate that you listen to us. Idiots talk. So Jack is asking, I've been producing metal for a while and I feel like my biggest weakness is six to 800 on rhythm guitars. Man, that's a really hard spot to get right? I'm just going to go off the record and say that here for a second.

(47:20):

But I aim for clarity in my technical rhythm guitar tracks. I feel like if I EQ the boxiness out of six 800, I lose a lot of clarity and it becomes primarily 2K and a lot of one 20. I've tried using different tones and I'm just not feeling it on any tone. So my question, how do you go about achieving a clear metal rhythm guitar sound that also has a huge and unboxing when you make those mid range cuts? And what do you do to listen to determine how much gain to slice jack? Okay, this is, when it comes to guitar is not only a question, but one of the questions you have to solve. And it's very hard to talk about it on a podcast and give you the best advice. It's much easier to show you. But regardless, the format right now is audio and it's a podcast.

(48:05):

So I would say a good rule of thumb, when you're pulling out any range on guitars, any type of boxiness or hokiness or whatever, like 500, 801 K, make the cut if you feel it needs to cut. And then when you feel like you've gone too far back up a bit and then right at that spot, if you're finding yourself overdoing it, because again, it could be your listening environment too. Back up a little bit more to where it starts sounding a little bit uncomfortable again. But when you, sorry, if you bypass that EQ point, what's going to happen is it's going to hit you and you're going to be like, dude, it sounds way wrong and you're going to put the EQ back in and you're going to be like, oh, that sounds a lot better. And then your ear will automatically be adapted to the new change in the mid range.

(48:51):

So just under compensate a little bit, if that helps with EQing. So get it down to where you're like, that sounds great, but now I feel like I'm suffering in these other areas. And then bring it back just a little bit until it starts getting uncomfortable, bypass it, unbias it, and then just move on. And you can always go back and adjust those cuts if you get into it later and you're like, Hey, I feel like I've tightened up the guitar, but I just pulled too much out. So then you don't go back to that guitar and just minus 0.5 DB or reduce the gain by a DB or something like that. Just ease up on it a little bit on the mix when you're listening to it. And if it helps add more clarity and more glue and gel, keep it. If it doesn't, well maybe it's not that area.

(49:36):

Maybe you have to look somewhere else. So I could see what you mean about 2K guitars are, pain in the ass is basically everything from one 20 to, well, you filter everything sometimes like 80 to one 20, and then you have that whole one 20 to 4,000 area that's just gone, and then you got the really high stuff you filter out and what's left, nothing. So it is really frustrating. Every frequency and guitar kind of sucks. Maybe. I would say also, if you're struggling in that range, maybe try bumping it up. Maybe if your cue is at say 700, or sorry, your frequency, move the band up to like 800 or 900 and do the cut there and see if it cleans up some of the mid range. Maybe you're hearing one K. Like I said, it could be monitoring or just training your ear.

(50:22):

Try moving it up to a little bit of a higher frequency, doing the same cut that you did there. And again, just bypass it and then put it back in. So your ear is like, ah, okay. And see how that feels in the mix. So you got to experiment with it. There's no precise method to say, cut this much out here, do this, slide this. You know what I mean? It's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of frustration. All I'm going to say to you, Jack, is this, do you think for one second, the dudes that are the best in the world at this stuff that ripped the sickest most metal, awesome guitar tones have done anything less than develop or spent years and I mean years of long work study and effort trying to achieve amazing tones. They trained that stuff for one, two, who knows, maybe even three decades.

(51:08):

It just depends on the person. So they didn't get there by accident is what I'm saying. They got there through hard work. So it's frustrating, but if it's frustrating you dude, and you're working at it, you're progressing. And if you're progressing, you are improving. And that is the most important thing because over time that aggregated out, you are going to get better and you are definitely growing. It may not feel like it. You may feel frustrated, dude, just keep going and keep banging it out. That is the key in my opinion. So I think it's time to wrap it up. Thank you guys so much for hanging out and listening. If you want to submit questions to a future episode of Dear Joel, it is Joel at urm Academy. That's Joel at URM Academy. I am Joel Sek. You are listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. Thank you guys so much for listening. Head over to unstoppable merch.com and get some really hot, no small time stuff. But aside from that podcast theme, go, the

Speaker 1 (52:04):

Unstoppable Recording Machine 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.