NOLLY GETGOOD & ERMIN HAMIDOVIC: The Periphery Workflow, Mastering Focus, Mixing on Headphones

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Drum Forge. Drum Forge is a forward-thinking developer of audio tools and software for musicians and producers alike. Founded on the idea that great drum sounds should be obtainable for everyone, we focus on your originality, drum forge, it's your sound. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Reporting Machine podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and this is a special episode because I said so. We've got two of my favorite people on here, Mr. Adam Nolly Getgood and Ermin Hamidovic. Welcome guys. Thank

Speaker 3 (00:00:37):

You. Thank you very much for having us again.

Speaker 2 (00:00:40):

Yeah, I thought it would be fun to just get on here and catch up. Recently, Irman, you won the nail the mix competition for architects month, and I need to tell you that your mix was pretty spectacular. I kind of knew it was going to win going in, and I thought it was very, very cool of you to have passed on the prize down to the person below you. You are pro at this point, so it was kind of unfair to have you in there, but it was great to hear your mix anyways, so I think it was a very cool thing of you to do to pass the prize down.

Speaker 3 (00:01:25):

Oh, thanks man. It was just a pleasure to mix that song in the first place. Just the fact that Henrik and the guys decided to share it, that was sort of like a prize unto itself and it doesn't make any sense for guys that do this for a living to come in and sweep all, hey, the prizes from the user base that are learning. So I hope the guys are enjoying their prizes. I mean, for me, the prize again, was doing the mix. I love doing it. So yeah, it's awesome. It was timed really well. It was just before my main stereo, DAC died on me, so I had a lot of familiarity with what I was hearing and I was a lot more comfortable working here than it presently is, as it's in the process of being repaired right now.

Speaker 2 (00:02:01):

What died? What kind was it?

Speaker 3 (00:02:04):

It's a bit of a story. If you guys have two, three minutes to spare, it's a bit of a funny one.

Speaker 2 (00:02:09):

Go for it. We have two to three minutes.

Speaker 3 (00:02:11):

Excellent. Alright, so it's the crane song adversary, right? So pretty great mastering grade converter slash volume knob slash routing system, and I noticed that one night my right channel popped out. I'm just like, well, that's really bizarre. That doesn't normally happen, but it's too late. I'm not going to deal with it now. So I shut it all down, came back the next day and everything ran completely fine. I'm like, oh, great, I've just got gremlins. This just kind of happens from time to time, so I'll just keep working. I'm mixing about a week later and suddenly this massive full level pop just comes from my right monitor. I'm like, I just screamed out in obscenity at the top of my lungs. I'm like, oh man, I've lost the monitor. I've lost the DAC, I've lost everything else. Something has popped, something has fried, and it kind of came back even after that point, but I was so hesitant to use it that I ran it through another attenuator at this point, so it could kind of attenuate the pop afterward as well.

(00:03:06):

Got in touch with the creator of the unit, et cetera, et cetera. Long story short, it turns out that what's been happening, having an exceptionally cold winter here in Melbourne, I've actually had a rodent sneak in and decide to make its temporary home inside the back of my rack. So as it's been toasty and warm on top of the aset, it's occasionally decided to take a leak into the unit. And because it's perforated, the case is perforated, it's landed on the circuitry, right on the right output channel. So as it's wet, it's short circuiting all this stuff causing pops and noise and all kinds of stuff. But by morning time it's all dried up so it works again. You can imagine my shock when I pulled the unit out and I discovered all that stuff in there, man, it's a bit of a cosmic joke, I think. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:03:53):

That's a good one. How did you realize, realize that that's what it was?

Speaker 3 (00:03:57):

I pulled the unit out. It came time to repair the right channel. I kind of worked out with Dave from Crane song and my studio partner, Andy, that we needed to kind of sort some stuff out, flip some components, and I pulled it out of the rack and I saw this corrosion on top and I'm like, what the hell is this? Is another unit leaking on it? Did someone spill coffee on it or something? And then I look closer and I see all these little pellets and I'm just like, oh no, that su man, that's not good. We took the unit apart. Whenever you shake it around, you hear the sediment moving around in there. Basically it's just full of mouse feces. It's gross. It's really gross.

Speaker 2 (00:04:31):

Oh my God.

Speaker 3 (00:04:32):

Yeah. So anything can happen, man. Don't write it off. You think you're sorted one day you got your mastering grade DAC, you're having fun, you're doing work. The next moment your speaker almost blows up and a mouse is pissing inside your unit. It's great. It's

Speaker 4 (00:04:46):

About as close to real life grammar as you can get.

Speaker 3 (00:04:49):

I know, right? Talk about bugs.

Speaker 2 (00:04:53):

I've never heard of that before. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:04:56):

I truly hope it's the very last time you hear of it as well.

Speaker 2 (00:05:00):

Yeah. So what are you doing to protect the gear?

Speaker 3 (00:05:03):

Well, there's poison literally everywhere. Now I'm being a bit more vigilant and I don't really know what to do from there. I don't even know how this thing got into the studio. It doesn't really make any sense to me. It's not like it's an unclean environment or something like that. So I mean, I think the rest of the units should be okay because they don't have perforated cases and they're not quite as critical as the aset was. But I'm just keeping a watchful line, just making sure that I lay out all the appropriate precautions to stop it from happening again.

Speaker 2 (00:05:33):

Wow. Good luck. Thank you. I kind of don't know what to say. Just good luck.

Speaker 3 (00:05:39):

Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 2 (00:05:40):

I hope that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:05:42):

I thought it would be an interesting, I'll be weird way to start this conversation. I thought the people out there might appreciate that literally anything can happen at any point in your career, at any point of your studio being set up.

Speaker 2 (00:05:56):

That makes my studio nightmares sound way less weird, like the lightning strike or a toilet exploding or

Speaker 3 (00:06:05):

Toilet exploding sounds pretty out there.

Speaker 2 (00:06:07):

Oh, it happened in the middle of the night four years ago. My girlfriend woke me up and she's like, the house is flooding. Your control room's flooded. And I just went to my control room and it was in two inches of water. Luckily, all the gear was elevated from there, so lost no gear, but the toilet had just kind of, I don't know. It exploded. We're on a well system and I don't really know what caused it. I was asleep. I'm just going to guess that a band did. But I mean, the bathroom was just like if someone had dropped a grenade in the toilet, it was terrible. Wow. It was absolutely terrible. We had to basically empty the house for an entire week because it was like a hazmat zone and had to get guys and the outfits in there to sterilize everything and we had to throw all carpets away, change a ton of furniture. It was a nightmare.

Speaker 3 (00:07:17):

My god, that really outdoes my experience. So props to you.

Speaker 2 (00:07:21):

I dunno, I kind of like your experience better. It's more funny, you're just sitting there at the back. I bet you have the craziest one of all.

Speaker 4 (00:07:29):

I really don't. I dunno if it's just by the fact that I tend to move around so much when I'm working between different studios and locations or what, but I don't really have any stories to contribute to this. The main studio that I use is when I'm tracking drums is a converted farmhouse and there are a few little harvest mice that seem to live under the floorboards. And sometimes if you're up late editing on your own, you'll just catch sight of one of them out of the corner of your eye. But they've been pretty harmless. I quite like having those little critters around.

Speaker 2 (00:07:58):

I mean, as long as they're not pissing in your gear, I don't see the problem. I

Speaker 4 (00:08:01):

Mean, if they are, they're making stuff sound better, aren't they?

Speaker 3 (00:08:04):

Well, I'm going to make him paranoid forever. He is not going to look at them the same way ever again.

Speaker 4 (00:08:10):

So far no issues at all.

Speaker 2 (00:08:13):

So Nali, it's been a while since you've been on. What have you been up to? I know that every once in a while I send you a text to find out if you sold that piece of gear or not and you send me drums you've been working on and they always sound amazing, but what have you been up to?

Speaker 4 (00:08:30):

I've been pretty lucky. I've been working with some really great clients. I've also been developing some new stuff for Get Good drums, which has been really cool. I think kind of equal to mixing or working with great bands. I think a real joy of mine is just kind of figuring out specific sounds that I'm really after and just going nuts on trying to figure out how they're created and then potentially turning them into products. So yeah, that's been a really enjoyable thing that I've been doing for the last few months. And apart from that, just living, I was just in the studio last week with a band that I really love. Dunno if I can say who it is. It's not like it's Metallica or something like that, but they're a fairly big band and had a really awesome session. Just great musicians in a setup that I'm really comfortable and I think it's probably my best work to date.

Speaker 2 (00:09:21):

But it wasn't Metallica.

Speaker 4 (00:09:22):

It was not Metallica, unfortunately. Well actually, I dunno, fortunately perhaps, but yeah, unfortunately I can't reveal what the band is, but I'm sure, I mean maybe I'm just being too cautious about it, but I'm sure it'll be out there pretty soon. It was just one song, but hopefully it'll lead to more things.

Speaker 2 (00:09:39):

That would be great. Let me just say congratulations on how well Get Good Drums has gone. Thank

Speaker 4 (00:09:46):

You, man. It's been pretty mind blowing for me actually. It's also kind of mind blowing that at this point with it having been out as long as it has that we still only released one product. We've managed to reboot our initial product with some enhancements and it's just been fantastic, the level of support we've been getting from users and from fellow artists too. So it's really boiled us up with enthusiasm. We've got some products in the pipeline as I mentioned that we're really excited to get out there. One of them is in beta right now. Again, I probably can't say too much, but suffice to say, I think it's something really cool. And to my mind, I haven't heard something of this quality out there yet on the market. So hopefully people will feel the same

Speaker 2 (00:10:28):

Hopefully. I'm sure they will. I know that one of our mixers on Nail the Mix one of our instructors, and I'm forgetting which one because it all blends together at this point. One of our instructors did use one of your snares recently on one of the mix episodes.

Speaker 4 (00:10:48):

Awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:10:48):

But I'm forgetting which one.

Speaker 4 (00:10:51):

That's

Speaker 2 (00:10:51):

All good. We've already done over 20 of them, so some of the details just kind of meld together. No,

Speaker 4 (00:11:01):

Of course I can completely understand that. And I mean the world is saturated with amazing drum samples, so it's an honor that people should choose to use the ones which I created with my team. So it is been very cool from now. And then we see emails coming through from names that we recognize, just saying they've enjoyed using the samples, and that's a really satisfying part of doing what we do, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:11:23):

I agree. I enjoyed making my drum Simple pack with Drum Forge and it sold pretty well and I just like it. I liked making the sounds and I like getting emails from people telling me that the sounds were on records. And you're right, it is kind of like another version of making music or something, figuring out how to make sounds that are really, really usable for other people. It's a fun process. So now that I've got the two of you here, I feel like we've discussed it separately, but a lot of people still are curious about how the, and I hope you guys aren't sick of talking about this, I have to ask. I want to hear about how the mastering process for the last Periphery record went in your guys' words.

Speaker 4 (00:12:20):

Yeah, I mean, I don't mind taking the lead on this to start off with. At that point I think Goman had already mastered, well, he had already mastered the previous release juggernaut and a few other projects that I've done too. And we've already had a very good rapport going for just our communication and knows exactly what I'm after. He knows my mixing style very well. He knows my usual plugin chains, all that kind of stuff. So it's really great to work with somebody that knows in such depth the way that I work, and furthermore that I really trust with the kind of final sonic vision of a record. So it was a complete no brainer to use him, however. Well, how did you guys meet? And I originally would've met on forums. So going back to the Andy Snee forum, the Ultimate Metal Forum, which weirdly is where I've met a lot of people that I still have professional dealings with now. And I think you were on there too, weren't you ail?

Speaker 2 (00:13:08):

Oh yeah, of course.

Speaker 4 (00:13:10):

Yeah. So I would've met who wasn't? Yeah, exactly. It was kind of this hub of, I guess people that were at that time, amateur who are now graduated to professional work. So it's cool. There's still a network of people that stayed in touch and continue to share the love between them. And Irman always stood out as one of the very best on that forum, particularly for his very analytical style of mixing and also describing what he's doing and teaching too through his manual, his systematic mixing guide, which if you haven't checked out, you absolutely should. It's been a few years since it came out now, but I'm sure it's just as relevant as it is, as it was back then. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:13:49):

Our students still recommended it to each other. It's a great book.

Speaker 4 (00:13:53):

Yeah, I mean in terms of what else is out there for this style of music, there's very little out there in terms of written format. Obviously things like Nail the mix that you guys are doing are also hugely influential, very useful tools for people to learn how to mix heavy music as seems to be for the most part on Nail the Mix. But anyway, thank you. I was always very impressed With's attitude to mixing, and it seemed to me that his skillset also lends himself very well to being a mastering engineer, even though I know and can talk about this, that that was never really his prime intention. It just seems to me that when somebody's that focused on the details and the minutia of Sonics that working in mastering is a very, very suitable realm. So yeah, the actual mix of Periphery three was quite tricky.

(00:14:43):

I was working in an unfamiliar environment, although it had some treatment. Misha's room is not particularly ideal. It's more kind of set out to be conducive to songwriting rather than kind of just zoned in on having the best possible sonics and particularly the low end I was finding very difficult to deal with and Irman really stepped in and I sent him some stems, just basic stems of bass drums and guitars and vocals, and he came back with me back to me with some really good feedback on just specific stuff I could do frequency wise to get the low end nailed. Even at that point, I think the band was still keen to hear some other masters done by other engineers, but after doing that process, it was clear that Monds was the best and most faithful to the mix too. So from my perspective, it was an absolute no-brainer to work with him. And since that point, he's mastered almost everything I've done too.

Speaker 2 (00:15:34):

Well. That's a good introduction. What do you have to say to that?

Speaker 3 (00:15:39):

Wow, what's there to add? Really? He's kind of covered the whole thing. Well, I mean, first of all, thank you so much for all the kind words covering that entire sort of dialogue that you gave. I mean, when you're working with a mix of such quality, there's really not much that can go wrong at the mastering phase. And obviously Nolie is always very conducive to the whole back and forth communication process. That always makes things so much easier if I can just get some stems from him. Only in situations where the room is less than familiar to him, we don't really need to do this on most projects, he's usually got it locked in quite well. The fact that we can get in there zero in on things makes my life so much easier in the mastering process because I don't have to go in with esoteric tools like multi-band compressors and all that stuff that we generally prefer to avoid in mastering. And I mean, three was just a really natural kind of a collaborative experience. I feel like it felt that way for the band, the way they were writing and recording, and it kind of felt that way for me with the mastering process as well. So it feels like the kind of attitude and mentality was kind of carried through from conception to the end.

Speaker 4 (00:16:43):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I can definitely agree with that. I mean, on my end it was quite a stressful mix mixing one's own band and arguably the biggest thing I'd done at that point. There's a lot of different pressures coming, whether it's just commercially or the fact that you have the weight of presenting the work of your band mates, your best friends on record and not wanting to mess it up. So having somebody else to be able to bounce ideas off and to be able to lend a helping hand at that final process was huge. I'm actually interested to know, Iman, if you apply quite a similar process to mastering all the stuff we do certain things, which I tend to do very similarly in most of my mixes. And I'm interested to know if you've kind of found a formula not to detract from your ability to determine what each mix needs, but if there is a kind of process that you've found that seems to be my taste and what works on my mixes the best.

Speaker 3 (00:17:36):

I think in a broad sense you could say that it would sort of depend from mix to mix. There are slight variances that happen, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you've started using an analog two bus compressor lately or something to that effect. Something a little bit different to what you used to use.

Speaker 4 (00:17:54):

Actually, funnily enough, I messed with that very briefly. And then I really liked how it sounded to me it wasn't a night and day difference. It wasn't something that I felt made my mixes objectively better and just even though now I'm way more at home than I used to be when I was starting with periphery, I still do weirdly, the majority of my mixing on my laptop with zero gear, just literally my headphones plugged into my laptop with an I lock. So I know that's not generally the thing to do, but it seems to work for me. And having to have outboard gear in that setup is quite limiting. I also explored UAD gear, which undoubtedly again sounds awesome, but just having to have a satellite box plugged in to be able to print my mixer seems like an additional step that I don't want to have to do. I mean, literally so much of my mixing happens on my couch with my laptop in my lap half the time, not even plugged into a power supply. So

Speaker 3 (00:18:48):

Well, you can argue with the results really, if it works for you.

Speaker 4 (00:18:51):

Yeah, I mean I'm very satisfied with it and I go through phases of worrying that maybe I'm missing something. And then the truth is I step away from it, come back to it and hear my mixes amongst my peers as mixers in similar genres. And I feel comfortable with how I mix a sound and the identity they have, so I don't really see the need to make myself less comfortable.

Speaker 3 (00:19:15):

See, that's kind of fascinating because I'm sort of coming from a completely different mindset where for me, even this loss of A DAC has completely flipped my world around. I'm so used to hearing something eight hours a day in the same room for five years since I bought the thing that any little loss in that chain and a little kind of deviation from my process is it's thrown my familiarity and my ability to make changes with absolution and without second guessing myself. And a big part of what I do is obviously mixing in the one room with this one set of monitors, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think I would trust myself to work with headphones in spite of the fact that it works fantastically for you. But to go back to your original question, I think there's definitely a pattern that's formed with the masters that I do for you, but it would sort of depends on the way the mix itself has come out. Usually if the stuff comes out sounding a little bit more analog, maybe you've used a bit more heavy handed on saturation or something like that. I'll tend to be a lot more digital in my approach. Whereas if the stuff is already very separated and very clear sounding, then I'll try and soften it back down with the analog gear. So I'm always open to whatever the mix needs. It's definitely not a set and forget not running a CLA kind of a pre patched output type setup here,

Speaker 4 (00:20:33):

And I wouldn't expect that you would be. But just to clarify, when you say digital, are you referring to digital outboard gear or for example, digital clipping or are you referring to plugins?

Speaker 3 (00:20:41):

Oh, I'm referring to plugins. Yeah. A lot of the mastering, so the mastering that I do is generally hybrid. I'll hybridize it between analog gear, whether it be hard clipping converters on the way in or soft clipping or all kinds of different clipping or maximization. But I'll kind of lean one way or the other depending on how the mix sounds and what it needs in general. I prefer to get mixes that are maybe very, very full, very together, very well balanced, but a little bit dull. I prefer to do kind of broad excitement and sculpting rather than getting a mix that's really abrasive and harsh and maybe peaky and nerdy, and I've got to really kind of pull that stuff back surgically. But again, those two processes lend themselves to completely different approaches. Not saying that you've ever given me the ladder, by the way, but I'm just saying that as things kind of vary in the source material, as does my approach depending on how I lean towards the one or the other.

Speaker 4 (00:21:32):

Right. Yeah, and I mean just to backtrack to the point you were making about how specific your setup is, I think one of the reasons why it seems to be a good combination of between you and I you mastering my mixes, is the fact that you have that added level of consistency and expertise in what you do. And I can kind of be a bit more wild, well, I don't even know that I'm being wild, but perhaps I can take this slightly more freeform approach to mixing and then you're there to kind of help me at the final stage, which is perfect. And in terms of top end, I think something which just in general with my mixing, I think what I aim for is at least cohesion through the frequency ranges. So for me, nothing kind of jumps out as living in a separate space in the rest of the mix. And I aim for a kind of global balance of brightness and low end. And then I notice, yeah, often you might bring out a little extra something in the top end or a little bit, you might tame those frequency ranges or contour them slightly, but hopefully what I provided you with was consistent with itself to the point that nothing then sounds like it's jumping out of the mix once you apply your process.

(00:22:35):

I hope that's the case. That's

Speaker 3 (00:22:36):

Such a key distinction for people to learn from here. What you said about cohesion, it's one thing that people rarely, rarely gather about mixers. So you can have a mix that's overall 60 B2 dull, it sounds like it's underwater, but if you've got a balanced well into itself within its own sound world, you send that to a mastering engineer with a quality outboard eq, he can boost that back in and will sound phenomenal or sound like a world-class record. But you can also have a record that's a lot more spectrally balanced to what might be a release candidate. But the levels are so uneven, the dynamics are out of check, everything's just out of whack and crazy and over compressed and you can't undo that sort of stuff. So I always stress to people to not over bake their music if you are not at a point of familiarity where you know what you're doing, it's always best to do less and then you can kind of make up for it later in the process. That's a really good thing that you brought up.

Speaker 4 (00:23:30):

Yeah, and I mean it's something that I'm very, very mindful of when I'm doing my mixing and I think it is possibly something I've spoken about before in the nail the mix or URM things that I've done. To me, I think I'd liken it a bit to, if you're watching a movie and you become aware that you're watching a movie, then the movie's failed. And I kind of feel the same way about mixing. If something jumps out to you, whether it's frequency or dynamic or transient character, if it takes you out of that moment, the musical or the music that you're listening to, then that's a failing of the mix. And as long as you can reduce those elements to a minimum, I typically find that the cohesion aspect is there and the mastering engineer can mold it to whatever final product they need.

Speaker 2 (00:24:13):

Well, nali at the very least, you're using the same headphones every time, right?

Speaker 4 (00:24:18):

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. At one of my checks is always to unplug the headphones and just listen to it on laptop speakers too. But I just got a new MacBook Pro that I haven't yet started using. I'm a bit concerned that the laptop speakers are going to sound different and ruin my game. I dunno if that's really the case, but

Speaker 2 (00:24:38):

Amazing. So I don't know. I feel like if you really, really know your headphones, even though it's not the traditional way to do it, I mean headphones are kind of like having a room on your head. So if you're using the same wands every time, I think that that kind of becomes what that sounds like. It doesn't matter if you're sitting on your couch or in your control room

Speaker 4 (00:25:05):

And if you reference things or where you're sitting.

(00:25:07):

Something actually that this band that I was just working with, they made a comment, I was putting a rough mix together on one of the last days in the studio of what we'd done. And I mean, they're pretty good friends. So they were joking with me about the fact that I was only referencing my own mixes and I wasn't referencing other people's mixes. But now I think about it. I think the point is, what I'm referencing is my mixes having been mastered by erman, so I'm kind of referencing against the idealized version of my mixers. So I feel very lucky that we've had the chance to create this collaborative team as it were, even though it's not set in stone. And that continues to be very useful to me and my mixing.

Speaker 2 (00:25:52):

So on the topic that Irman brought up that he felt like you had added something to your chain, but I guess it wasn't an external to bus, is there anything that you started doing differently that he would've picked up on?

Speaker 4 (00:26:09):

I don't think there's anything too large that I've started doing that I didn't do before. I think generally I have, for any given instrument, there's a range of different tools I might choose to appropriate. And I think as I've gotten more experience, a lot of it tends to be down to omitting things rather than overprocessing. I think perhaps it's just an evolution of my ear and just a desire. I do remember Erman commenting a few masters back on how he started to notice a trend that my mixers have a little bit more low mids in them than what they had before. Whether it's to do with, it could be just a static EQ thing, but it could be down to certain types of saturation or perhaps less use of multi-band compression or more use of multi-band compression. It's very difficult for me to know. And when you are mixing quite a lot of your time, sometimes it can be difficult to remember exactly what the details of any specific mix were, but to be honest, I don't think there's been any grand change and there certainly hasn't been the inclusion of any hardware during mixing.

(00:27:11):

Now when I track my own projects, I think I'm getting more and more bold in terms of tracking with more eq, more compression, but I think all that's doing really is reducing the amount of workload that I'm doing during mixing. And we're not talking about 10 DB of adjustment there. We're talking about maybe pushing three DB of EQ on my drums, on my drum shells, for example, on the way in. And just enjoying being that much closer to a finished mix. But I don't think there'd be anything there which we could point to and say that I'm applying a radically different process that's changing the general balance of my mixes.

Speaker 2 (00:27:48):

Tell me more about that. Were you, I guess, scared before of processing on the way in? What's changing? Do you just feel more comfortable with the source sounds that you're getting?

Speaker 4 (00:28:03):

Yeah, I think as you get more experience in these things, you start to see the patterns in what you end up having to do during mixing. And if you're using similar mic setups, for example, with drums is certain mics that I always use just because they are very, there's technical reasons why they work very well. For example, I have a right angle, modified old sure B 2 57 that I've used on snare drums now for nearly two years. I mean, I've used it before. I modeled it for probably a year before that too. So it's more to do with the hyper pattern there. I find that I get excellent rejection when I use that mic and I know what it needs frequency wise generally to account for the mic's own frequency curve. So I kind of see it as equalization in a true sense of trying to take that microphone's coloration out of the equation or at least enhance it in the way that that microphone tends to need.

(00:28:56):

And then I can get into the instrument specific EQ during the mix, like I'm talking about general top end lifts, maybe finding the nice attack frequency to boost in the drum and finding some beefy low end character too. But then ultimately the mid range character of that drum is going to be very different from one session to another, and I'm happy to let those decisions fall during mixing. So I think to answer your question, was I scared? I think I started out not scared because some of the people that I was looking up to when I started all committed to quite a lot of EQ and processing, presumably having reached a similar point to where I am now, where they're just very comfortable with their setup and then after trying to do the same or perhaps working with engineers who committed to a certain amount of processing and actually backed me into a corner.

(00:29:41):

There's one very specific case I can think of that wasn't to do with eq, but saturation where one of the first major records I did, the engineer had set up the drums the day before using a tape rig who was using that clasp system to dump simultaneously into pro tools. And he slammed the snare top to the tape so hard that there was no transient information left. And as you guys all know, if you've got nothing left in your snare top, you're pretty screwed. So after incredibly brutal lessons like that, I kind of went the other way and said, well, if I keep everything flat then nothing can go to wrong. But after a while, I guess you get bored of that approach. And like I say, as you become more with the equipment you use, you start to feel like you can start taking steps towards a more mixed sound on the way in.

Speaker 2 (00:30:32):

There's nothing better than opening session and levels up and it already sounds pretty much mixed.

Speaker 4 (00:30:41):

Yeah, I love that. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:30:42):

Love that.

Speaker 4 (00:30:43):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:30:45):

Actually the most recent L mix, the architect's one was pretty much like that is engineered so well by Henrik that, I mean, I think it was just a challenge of how to not ruin it, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:31:01):

Here's a bit of trivia, you might actually going back to get good drums and the architects mix. So I literally copy and pasted my get good drums mix from the recent silent descent record and pasted it into the architect's thing. And it was just that good. The sounds were that good. They just worked. I'm talking copy and paste. That's it, the end move on to guitars and bass and vocals. That's quite a testament to the quality of what he's created here.

Speaker 2 (00:31:30):

Oh yeah. He engineered a beast for sure. So have you guys ever met?

Speaker 3 (00:31:38):

Yeah, yeah, we've hung out here in Melbourne a couple of times. Yeah, we have met

Speaker 2 (00:31:41):

A couple of times.

Speaker 3 (00:31:42):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:31:42):

Okay. Well, I felt like I had to ask because in this future world we live in, we can oftentimes work with people for years and never even meet them, which I think is interesting.

Speaker 4 (00:31:54):

I think actually Iman was very kind to let me use his studio. I mean I guess that must be coming up to about four years ago now. I was in Australia for a few months actually, and Iman was very kind to let me use his studio when he wasn't using it. So we've definitely met and hung out plenty of times and shared our mutual love of coffee and audio. Of course.

Speaker 3 (00:32:16):

Yeah, that was actually my man's Andy's studio back in the day. Unfortunately closed now as many of the places around here are. But I think we're very lucky that Nolie always had the tour schedule with periphery, so we'd always come through town for a week at a time and we get to hang out and kind of show him all the hipster barista coffee places that have popped up around Melbourne since that's like an exponential growth around these parts. And he always seems to enjoy that.

Speaker 2 (00:32:41):

Absolutely. Well, I feel fortunate with the mix that I get to meet so many people that I guess I would only meet at Nam or I don't know who even knows. Right?

Speaker 4 (00:32:58):

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean mix engineers are not necessarily the type to go to Nam in the first place, are they?

Speaker 2 (00:33:03):

No, exactly. They're not even the type to get on camera usually. So lots of them are kind of an enigma and a mystery. So I want to ask each one of you guys what's something that's I guess come to you in the past six months that you think is kind of propelling your game forward? One thing

Speaker 4 (00:33:29):

Go for emin

Speaker 2 (00:33:30):

That you've discovered or that someone told you about, or just technique wise, do you want to take it?

Speaker 3 (00:33:39):

Yeah, God, I'm scrounging my memory, but there's no real single breakthrough for me. It's just an amalgamation of little things. It's always familiarity for me. It's like some little breakthrough here and there on top of a little, another breakthrough, whether it be changing an algorithm on a maximizer or using a different mode on ProQ or something like that. And all those little changes sort of add up to the next sort of level in processing. But if we were to take it back to, let's assume that for the time being that the architect mix that I did is the culmination of all the things I've learned about mixing over the last decade and a half, it is one of the most basic mixes I've ever done in terms of processing because the tracking is so good, and please pay attention to this guys who are tracking bands because the tracking is so good.

(00:34:26):

The only thing you really need to worry about is the broad tonal shaping of things. There's none of this parallel saturation. There's no parallel compression explosion distortion, there's no kind of upward this and that. It's just literally good sounds, good drum samples, courtesy of nly and just a lot of judicial sculpting where there needs to be sculpting and not being afraid to filter things quite severely if they need to be filtered quite severely. Knowing that, of course, each instrument serves its own role within the mix and especially across the bottom end, there are only so many things that you have the space for if you'd like a compact and economical mix. But yeah, sorry to sidetrack from your question, Al, but I don't think there's any one thing to be honest for me.

Speaker 2 (00:35:09):

I love your answer. And I need to also point out that Hendricks mix was also very simple. And one thing that I've learned, and I kind of knew this before, but I've really verbalized it lately, is that oftentimes the best mixes are the most simple ones. And I'm saying this now after having seen so many great mixers month after month after month after month, do what they do. And of course, once in a while you'll get a guy with crazy chains. That sounds great. But overall, the best ones tend to have very, very simple chains. They just know what they're hearing and they make moves that get the maximum result, I guess with the minimum effort instead of 19 EQ moose, they do the one that makes all the difference.

Speaker 4 (00:36:03):

That's very true. I would always use the analogy of cooking personally. If you give a great chef great ingredients, it's not like they're going to have some crazy technique of cooking with a pound on its side or some bizarre thing like that. They're going to do the same thing that you've ever, you've always seen people cooking the same way and they're not going to do anything different, most likely, and they'll create a meal that tastes delicious. And I think the point is the ingredients have to be perfect and the person has to know exactly what they're doing and optimize that, but ultimately there isn't necessarily a need for anything too complicated.

Speaker 3 (00:36:37):

No. Does that segue into your own answer to this question, Nolie?

Speaker 4 (00:36:42):

Actually, not really. If I struggled, I kind of feel the same that I couldn't come up with a technical response, but I do, actually,

Speaker 2 (00:36:50):

It was a bit of a trick question. I just wanted to see what you guys would say. What

Speaker 3 (00:36:55):

Actually have Sorry, go for it. No, no, go ahead.

(00:36:57):

I was just going to say to follow on from everything, if there's one thing that I've picked up, it's actually when to not use things. So my struggle over the last five, maybe to seven years has been to know when to use saturation when not to use it. That's been the final frontier for me. I think that final little tipping point, that breaking point that I needed to move through, and I've finally gotten to a point where I know how much saturation to use when and where under what circumstances. And it took maybe the better part of half a decade to get there, something that simple just to get the familiarity to know how much of it to use. So I think never underestimate how much you can refine your disciplines and the very basics of things. That's why we spend so much time just speaking about EQ alone.

Speaker 4 (00:37:38):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:37:39):

But yeah, please feel free to go on.

Speaker 4 (00:37:41):

Yeah, I guess my point is it's not to do with the technicality of mixing at all, but it is a really powerful one to me. And I think what has happened in the last six months is I think I've begun to get a much better grasp of the mental game, although I hesitate to call it a game, and it's something which I think translates to all aspects of life, but just working on general mental focus. And also one of the biggest things for me is not trying to multitask. I think multitasking is this thing that's lorded in our society. Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:38:10):

It's the enemy.

Speaker 4 (00:38:10):

Yeah, it really is, dude. It's

Speaker 2 (00:38:12):

The enemy.

Speaker 4 (00:38:12):

It really is. And just being able to stay focused and not listen to voices in your head that are telling you to think about other things when you're supposed to be listening to what you're doing for whatever reasons. Everything from ego to just fears about how people are going to react to the music you're working on or whatever it is, but just putting that stuff out of your mind and actually really being aware in the process that you are carrying out. And I think that's been a very profound change for me. I dunno if that means that my mixes are suddenly going to sound a million times better, but certainly it's helped me be a lot happier doing what I do. And I think it's a really important part of the game.

Speaker 2 (00:38:52):

I just did an episode with Mick Gordon, which I know you guys know each other, right?

Speaker 4 (00:39:00):

I met him one time very briefly.

Speaker 2 (00:39:03):

I dunno if I may know him.

Speaker 4 (00:39:04):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:39:05):

No, I thought that you knew him or something. But he's a brilliant guy and we actually talked a lot about focus and how you really should focus on one thing only. Get rid of all distractions, get rid of all multitasking, shut down everything that could possibly distract you and just focus on that one thing. And if you focus on that one thing, you actually typically don't need to spend as much time on it because you've got the full resources of your mind on it. I've been working a lot on my focus as well, and that's something that I've been trying to actually teach people about lately more than mixing techniques because I feel like that's getting in people's way more than anything because so much of the technical information is already out there and people know it in their heads kind of, but their own focus prevents them from actually realizing it.

Speaker 3 (00:40:08):

How do you guys, it's

Speaker 2 (00:40:10):

Actually hard to do.

Speaker 3 (00:40:11):

How do you guys maintain that focus in this world of multiple projects at a time? I mean, the way that the industry is sort of structured right now is that you're being sent stuff all the time. Do you just have a very clear cut schedule of how you handle things or do you just try and prevent multitasking at all costs between projects?

Speaker 2 (00:40:26):

Well, for me it's a little different than you guys since I'm not actually mixing right now, but I can answer this because I've got multiple people hitting me up all the time about multiple projects. We've got fast tracks going and we've got nail the mix to schedule and got larger courses to do. And then we have this summit we're putting together at the end of the year and then podcasts and employees and so much shit. It's crazy. And finding sponsors all this stuff and I have to deal with all of it every single day. And I have to remember when all of it has to happen and when all of it's due and get back to the right people. And it's a crazy, crazy thing. And I've noticed that unless there's an emergency, a real emergency, nothing is an emergency. And the best way to deal with all of it is to turn off my phone, close the browser, and just deal with one thing at a time because I can't possibly do two things at once in real life.

(00:41:36):

I mean, while mixing, maybe you can have one computer bouncing out track stems or something while you're mixing on another or something like that. But in reality, I can only focus on one thing at a time. And so I just make myself do that and I keep very good notes of what I owe to everybody. And every time that I finish working on something, I review what the big picture is and what I owe to who, so that I don't forget. Every once in a while things fall through the cracks. But I mean the big thing is to just shut off the world. I have to shut off the world if I don't, man, I just said that whole list of things that people are asking for, they all come in at the same time and I end up getting nothing done. And it was the same when I was mixing. It was mixing. You have the band I'm mixing on, then stems, I'm setting up for some mixer and then whatever band I'm trying to get in the studio next and all that stuff. And it would make me insane. And I didn't have these skills yet back then. So it really made me hate mixing a lot because I didn't know how to deal with so much input. But now, yeah, focus on just one thing, one thing only, get it done, move on.

Speaker 4 (00:42:58):

Nice. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:42:58):

That's what works for me.

Speaker 4 (00:42:59):

Yeah, and I'm far from a master, but I definitely echo what you're saying. I think what you described is something which is kind of on a macro scale, just days. Maybe one day you receive something, the next day you receive something else. But I'm talking more on a micro scale, just the concentration as ale is describing the thing at hand that you're doing right now. And if something else comes to your attention, just making a practical decision about whether it's something that you need to attend to right now or not. And if not, let it go from your mind essentially. And I think it's a very powerful tool, very powerful skill. As I say, still developing it. I am sure that as human beings we're doomed in our quest for perfect focus. But at the same time, I think the closer you can get to that, the more effective you can be at basically anything. And generally I think the happier you can be too, which is a really crucial thing.

Speaker 2 (00:43:51):

Absolutely. And it's definitely one of those easier said than done kind of things. It's easy to say, oh, just turn off your phone. But we all know that real life, we live in a world that's 24 7 and we're expected to be available 24 7. And sometimes we really do need to be around. And so sometimes we're working on projects that happen in real time and if we don't respond right away, the project can take on a whole other life or can start going in directions that may not be great or may be different than what was planned in the first place because you never got back. And then also just on a purely human level, it's very, very hard to shut down all the voices. I think what you're going to do for dinner that night, what video game you were playing? Oh, that girl was cute. Do I like this snare?

(00:45:02):

It's a mental game as much as it is a willpower game to turn everything off, it's kind of like a muscle that you develop over time. So my suggestion would be take the concrete steps to block everything out, like the low hanging fruit. You can physically turn off your phone without much effort. You can physically turn off the browser without much effort so that at the very least that stuff's not getting you. Because once you have that off, then you have to overcome the mental game of focus, which is when the voices will start trying to distract you. And there I try to look at it in terms of now I can go a few hours without it bothering me, but I tell people, set a timer and see if you can go for five minutes without shifting your focus. And once you're comfortable with that, go to 10. Just like if you're getting fast in an instrument or something, set the metron at a certain level once you're comfortable with that, bump it up. Same sort of thing. It's not going to happen in one day, but it definitely, like knowledge said, will make you happier and leads to better work.

Speaker 4 (00:46:19):

Yeah, I think another thing which is really useful is when you're working directly with clients, for example in the studio, you're interfacing, I hate to use that word, you are interacting constantly with

Speaker 2 (00:46:29):

Synergistic solutions interfacing

Speaker 4 (00:46:32):

Globally. I dunno if that's going to get cut, but for the record, that's not what my chosen word. Managing expectations. Yeah, you're interacting with people all the time and if your head's on other stuff, it's probably not going to be as positive as it could be. I found there's been a very, very true, yeah, there's been a very noticeable increase for me in the depth of the relationship that I have with those around me as a result of this. And particularly with clients, for example, in the studio, being more aware of their needs, being more aware of their level of focus as well and being able to stay more productive and empathetic to whatever it is that they're doing. And essentially you are dealing with an artist who's written some music which means something to them and they're trying to record that music and trying to create a permanent record of that artistic idea.

(00:47:21):

So I think it is really important to be very open to whatever their suggestions are and not instead be thinking about even if you're thinking about the project but you're distracted by your own idea of how the product should be or you're distracted by thoughts of whether this mix is going to generate more fame and money for you rather than for the artists. Those kinds of thoughts are pretty counterproductive actually. I think it's really necessary to be hungry for success in the beginning of your professional life. That's kind of what drives you to learn the skills. But I think there comes a certain point where you have to, if you want to be a truly good producer, be very aware of the clients that you're working with and be aiming for whatever it is that's their goal rather than your own personal ones.

Speaker 2 (00:48:02):

Do you, you know how you've managed to refine the focus if you had to, I know this is kind of a tough question, kind of esoteric, but can you think about what you do in your mind to get that focus? For instance, I know some people when they have a distracting thought, they physically, well not physically, but in their mind they physically imagine a volume knob or a fader where they turn down that voice and so they can see the voice, they can see the letters being typed across the inside of their mind basically. Or they can see who's saying it to them and they just turn down the fader and it seems silly, but they are making it smaller and take up less attention in their mind. And it's one of those things that over time you keep doing that and the voices really do get quieter or someone, A good technique for getting over something that you are say addicted to or focusing on too much is to try to make the image of it the way you see it in your mind, grainier less clear. Is there anything that you are aware that you do in your mind to phase out those distractions?

Speaker 4 (00:49:28):

Yeah, and it's neither of those two. I think honestly, it just comes down to very basic awareness of what your mental state is and being. It's very easy to get lost in thought for five minutes or whatever it is. You're still doing whatever it is, you're still editing drums or even talking with somebody, but your mind's in another place. And I think, well, for me, I should say this is something which didn't come through a desire to be better at work or it's something that came entirely from a whole other sphere of my life, which has become incredibly powerful and positive change for me in the last year or so. But I think it just comes down to a pure awareness, even if just for an instant that that's what's happening right now, that you're doing something, yet you're distracted by something else. And I find in that moment, if you actually try, I dunno, it just becomes very easy to shake that off because you become away like, oh, I'm just thinking about this because I'm worried about some stupid aspect of this project and that really is actually making me way less efficient in this moment.

(00:50:32):

Not even efficient. I kind of hate to use more technical terms for this because for me it's actually very much an emotional empathetic skill. So just becoming aware that you're not actually present with whatever you're doing. And I find that just that awareness usually triggers for me that kind of ability to drop that thought and to realize. But I think it just takes a certain amount of awareness and there's many different routes to that. And for me, it came from certain realizations, even dabbling in meditation, a few other things like that, which have enabled me to become more aware of my own mental state, which now as I sit here talking about this, it's kind of ridiculous to me that I wasn't that way before. But I think it's very easy in the society that we live in, as you've described, perpetually distracted by whatever the newest thing that's being thrown at you is, whether it's an advertising or social media or whatever it is that's kind of coming at you from a distance and it has nothing to do with your actual life in this moment.

(00:51:29):

It becomes very easy to just become a slave to that and to fall into just constantly being distracted by those things. But I don't think it's a very natural way for any of us to be. And I think it very directly leads to unhappiness on quite a deep level. So for me, it's become a very important aspect of my life and the positive effects have been felt in everything, which happens to include my work in audio and all the projects which I'm involved with. So I dunno exactly what the root for anybody is. Those ideas that you've described are very interesting, although to me it seems that they require an extra thought process, which is still removed from you actually being present with whatever the action you're carrying out is in that moment.

Speaker 2 (00:52:12):

However well they do. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (00:52:14):

No, what were you going to say? Sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:52:16):

I was going to say yes at first they do require an extra thought process, but it's all leading towards what you're saying. You're becoming aware of those voices, and so yes, you are adding an extra step by taking the action of turning them down. But then what happens over time is that they're not so loud anymore, so they don't really bother you anymore. They're not there to distract you. So it becomes something that over time you're not taking the step anymore. It becomes automatic.

Speaker 3 (00:52:55):

Yeah. So it's like a form of training essentially. It's like whether it be working out or whatever, really you're just kind of training yourself into a particular, not motor pattern in this case, but sort of a mental pattern. And then after a while it sort of takes hold and you automatically do these things. I think it kind of makes sense to me coming as someone who does the physical version of this on a fairly regular basis, there are certain patterns, motor patterns that your body, they begin to take shape and then you don't even realize you're not aware that you're doing them. Some of them might be negative, some might be positive, and when you become aware of them and what you're doing, you can emphasize the positive ones and reduce the negatives. So I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (00:53:34):

It's exactly that and it is very literally the same as learning any other skill. It's literally building a new neural pathway in your mind, which is just basically a recognition of whatever state you want to call it, distractedness, whatever it is, and just helping you to return to whatever it is that you're doing at the moment, which I think if you look at older generations, you can find I think a lot less of the kind of behavior that we're discussing because I think there's just simply less stimuli. And if you want to go really deep on it, this is interesting. This is an audio podcast, but I guess this is something very present in my mind.

Speaker 2 (00:54:08):

That's okay. We go anywhere.

Speaker 4 (00:54:10):

I guess these things are essentially learned patterns that as a species we evolved in order to be able to recognize danger. Like these fears would've been things that would've been very necessary for our survival, whether it's recognition of threats around us or worries of doing something which is outside the social norm of the group that you're with, which might cause exclusion and therefore death or whatever. It's at this point, they've been completely subverted by these social fears that we have now, which really have nothing to do with real threats to our existence and instead just serve to make us very unhappy. That's my opinion on it anyway. I'm really not trying to preach, and to be honest, I had no intention of going as far as talking about this on this podcast, but since you asked, I think that very much is the biggest change which I've seen in the last six months, which I could say has definitely had a positive impact on all of my work.

Speaker 2 (00:55:03):

I actually definitely agree with you that lots of our behaviors now are evolutionarily created and we don't necessarily need them anymore and would probably be happier without them because you're not mixing in the jungle, your control room's not in the jungle where you might get eaten by an animal. So you don't need to be aware of every single little thing that's moving around you at all times because you might get killed. So you said that you dabble in meditation. Could you talk about that a little bit? Because reason I'm asking is because so many people that I look up to say that they meditate at least a little bit, and I respect you very much and I just think it's interesting that you also now are saying that you at the very least dabble in it. Could you tell me about how it's helped you or what you do? Yeah, I mean

Speaker 4 (00:56:10):

In terms of what Herman was just describing in terms of going to the gym and practicing something, that's essentially all that meditating is. It's simply sitting and essentially practicing watching your thought patterns. It's just an introspective practice and through that you find that you can recognize how your brain gets distracted and all of us live in a state of almost perpetual distraction. It's very difficult to spend more than few, even a second of complete clarity with what you're doing before your brain starts up about some other subject. But it's just simply sitting and observing that and with time you become more skilled at recognizing that when it happens and being able to shut it off or at least just recognize it for what it is. And I generally find that as you start to observe the thoughts that are coming to your mind, they seem a lot less persuasive somehow to your attention and they simply kind of just come and go and you don't end up in these very long strings of one thought leading to another, which could be a very negative thing.

(00:57:08):

It could be a particular fear that you have that could be rooted in whatever, something very emotional in your childhood, whatever it is. We don't need to go to the depth of psychology on this one, but essentially you could find yourself in downward spiral of negative thinking. And in fact, I would go as for us to say almost all of us probably do this quite a lot on a regular basis where one thought perpetuates another, which perpetuates another, and before you know it, you're affected in that she a very physical way. Everything from body language to well, studies show all sorts of kind of developments within your body over time that can be very negative. And if you can simply recognize those earlier in the process and subvert them, you actually end up staying in a much more positive attitude. And the interesting concept is that happiness is not something which you achieve after lots of effort, but it's simply what happens when you can put aside all of those fears.

(00:58:05):

And that's something which I've begun experiencing and it's very much something which I had no idea I was going to get involved with. The whole thing to me seemed very much kind of like new age mumbo jumbo or at the very least something very tied to religion. And as an unreligious person, it didn't appeal to me at all. However, a few people that I look up to turn me onto this path and explained to me its power and the very real effects that have been shown in scientific testing. And furthermore to that, as I started doing it, I started seeing those myself too. And yeah, again, I had no idea that I was going to end up talking about this in a public forum because in many ways I don't feel like I'm in an appropriate position to do so. As many people out there in the world that are far more eloquent and far more experienced with this than I am, however, since you asked, I guess that's my experience with it. I think the reason why it's only something which I dabble with is I find that actually that's just, that would be essentially just going to the gym and then never doing anything in your life which necessitates that. You could argue that maybe you want to do that for aesthetic reasons, which whatever might be your reasons. But

(00:59:19):

I think the difference is doing that and then actually doing a lot of exercise in your day-to-day life so that practice that you're putting in the gym is reflected in everything else in your life and that your life becomes easier a result of the practice you're doing in the gym. The way I would say, and for me is I'm just generally trying to be more aware all the time. And while meditation can be useful from time to time, I find that if you are maintaining that kind of thought process the whole time or rather not thought process, sorry, if you're maintaining that action the whole time, it becomes something which there's less need. If you are entire day consist of going out and throwing rocks around and running up hills, you probably wouldn't need to go to the gym. No, probably not.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):

Speaking of scientific tests and meditation, I'm actually kind of curious if you guys know about a study that was run a couple of years ago where they allegedly took a guy who'd been meditating for three decades, a quote guru, and they compared his neural activity to a guy who had been mixing for a similar amount of time and they measured them while they were in the depths of their thing, whether it be mixing a record or whether it be in deep meditation, and apparently the neural activity was the same between the two.

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):

I mean, it would make complete sense to me. Essentially you're just talking about focus, and I think that it's exactly the same thing that we talk about when you talk about flow state or in fact so many different behaviors. Now I'm starting to recognize this all coming from the same thing. Even the concept of willpower for example, is just being able to shut out negative thoughts that might cause you to not do the thing that you're going to do. So for me, this, once you open this door, it seems that there's so much already out there, which may be under different guise, is talking about the exact same thing. And it's just that if you really want to get into the mode of how to do that, I think that subjects like meditation as a purely secular kind of just exploration of your mental processes is one of the very best ways of doing it. So

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):

I'm curious about this study. So the guy had been meditating straight for three decades or was a practitioner?

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):

No, he was a practitioner for about three decades. I don't remember the specifics exactly, it was something I read in passing a long time ago. But the general basis of it was that he was a guru at what he did and the mix engineer was also quite proficient and they wanted to measure that level of focus and mental activity or inactivity during in the heat of the moment at the very apex of what they were each doing. Fascinat. Yeah, I mean notice how I tried to bridge this back to audio for you guys. I'm trying to keep the flow of your program going. So

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):

Actually we don't necessarily always talk about audio on this. And actually sometimes I think that our audience prefers when we deviate from it because there's only so much that you can talk about what threshold you like on your two bus, but I find that what LY was just talking about about those thoughts that kind of chain to each other and start to spiral into something more negative. I find that that's something that I see a lot in musicians and other mixers when they're doubting themselves or when they're unclear of what an outcome, well, I guess that would be doubting yourself too, but when they're unclear about something or they don't totally trust a situation or themselves, they can tend to get into these negative spirals. What if I don't do a good job on this? Or what if this song sucks? What if the producer isn't into it and then he's not going to push me very hard, but I need to be pushed very hard because I'm not a self-starter and if I don't get pushed very hard, the audience is going to be able to tell and we're almost about to be dropped from our label, and if the audience can see through this, they're not going to listen to it and we're going to sell half as many copies and then I'm going to be out on the street because I'm not going to be able to go on tour, but I refuse to get a job just like you can just go anywhere with it.

(01:03:37):

And someone can sit there for 15 minutes totally psyching themselves out, causing stress reactions in their body and just completely ruining their own day

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):

Off

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):

Of a fantasy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):

That spiral is very, very real. Absolutely. I think it's one of those things that's exacerbated by what we are shown in this day and age because going back to evolutionary responses and conditioning, one of the things about us is that we're used to being in a primordial state and small tribal groups we're not really used to this amount of sensory stimuli. We're not used to seeing the people across the other side of the world allegedly living these perfect lives that we should all aspire toward. That's what makes so many people so predisposed towards spiraling in these depressive thoughts because they're constantly being bombarded with all this stuff that they feel they should be or a way that they should act and it's just not going that way for them. And then that spiral just perpetuates until things get really bad. And speaking as someone who tends to be predisposed towards depression, I've definitely felt it myself.

(01:04:40):

The people who aren't into meditation or things you might consider esoteric, one of the things that I would consider a really good baseline for managing it is familiarity, detachment, and routine. So for me, essentially when it gets really bad, I try and detach myself from the responsibilities that would kind of force me into that spiral. I get something I'm familiar with, whether it be let's say car racing or working out or something meditative in nature because I know we were talking about working out in the context of vanity, but there are a lot of very real mental and meditative benefits to it, which is one of the main reasons that I do it is actually to balance out my mental state. You pick something like that that you're familiar with and you stick with it and you kind of slowly dig yourself back up out of that hole.

(01:05:27):

And it's a skillset that you really need, especially in this industry where you're constantly being bombarded from different angles, different requests, different deadlines, it's very easy to get into a negative frame of mind. And the better you are at managing those negative times, the more productive and the more happy I guess you're going to be overall because the highs never last forever. I mean, I've learned that this year, whereas I've had a lot of lows was really bizarre. Technical issues, your health issues here and there, it's just things don't ever kind of stay at that apex. So you have to kind of capitalize on those moments while they're there, while also knowing how to dig yourself out of the lows while you're in there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):

Could you elaborate a little bit on that method, how it would actually look? I mean obviously don't talk about anything that you're not comfortable talking about, but if you could give us just a scenario for instance of how you would apply it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):

So one thing I would do is I would pull back from any active work, I'll try and push deadlines back, not on any active projects or anything like that, but if a band were to come to me for work, I'd say, okay, maybe in this many weeks or that and that I give myself a bit of a breather. I give myself some spare time, essentially like a ministry of vacation without necessarily going anywhere. And then I pull back into my own life and the hobbies and the things that sort of enrich my life outside of work, whether it be focusing on rally driving or going out to drag races or whatever your hobbies might be. And I get into the routine of working out and commit myself to that fully. The routine of eating a set amount of calories, pushing a set amount of reps, kind of generating a set amount of hypertrophy. And those processes, once you ingrain them, once you go through them enough times, they kind of pull you back, they pull you back to normality. And then once you eventually hit your baseline, you're much more equipped to go back and sort of deal with the struggles of the world once more.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):

So it's almost like you've developed a ritual to, not in a religious sense, but you've developed a ritual to bring you out of a hole.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):

That you can kind of summon on command.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):

And I dunno if it's contextually the same for nolie, but that's what I was feeling when he was talking about meditation and meditative states kind of keeping you more leveled out and more able to handle the world as it is rather than letting it get you down or get you into emotional extremes. I think it's much of a muchness. There are different ways of managing the same thing, unless I've mistaken it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):

I think you've got a fair point there. I think it is a slightly different approach, but you're also talking about a more specific condition and clearly you've found a system that works very well for you and when you feel that way, and that's great. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):

I think it'd be a great thing if more people had that routine for themselves. Obviously we've had this sort wave of celebrity musician suicides recently and it's very apparent that it's an ongoing condition and people have to stop thinking about it as something that they overcome permanently. It's something that you sort of manage for your entire life and if you're able to develop the tools to do that on a consistent basis, hopefully you'll have a better outcome than some of these unfortunate individuals who weren't able to handle it at a certain point.

Speaker 4 (01:08:44):

Yeah, and I mean I think for me, really what it comes down to specifically with what you're talking about there is just where one derives their sense of self-worth from. And if you only identify yourself as whatever it is that you do, then it's very easy for those hurdles to become things that greatly affect your life and perhaps, well, you'd very quickly find that even the greatest achievements that you can make kind of ring hollow after time, as you say, the highs never last and the lows always come back. So I think for me, the most important part if you're going to try and have emotional and personal stability is to really find your sense of self-worth from something which is not related to an action that you carry out. What would happen if you suddenly lost the ability to mix and to kind of asking myself that question there, would you still be able to be happy in this life or would you have just generated, have you kind of reduced your life down to this one action?

(01:09:40):

And I think we're going very deep there, and I'm not talking about anything religious, but I think they're questions which are worth asking oneself and figuring that out and really figuring out why it is that we do certain things that we do. Why, again, speaking of myself, might I take on another mixing job when I know it's going to lead me to be really unhappy with the amount of free time that I have? Is that necessary trade off? What actually am I seeking by carrying that out? Am I just trying to, am I playing out essentially some fear of not earning enough money from what I do or again, we're going very deep here, but I think it's worth understanding what your motivations are for doing something and not allowing essentially fear-based decision making to take hold of your life because inevitably, yeah, you are going to end up in this very up and down emotional rollercoaster, which probably is not going to end with happiness. That's just my opinion there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):

I can echo that because in the past few years I've done a complete career change from being on the artist side and I consider mixing and producing on the artist side, but from playing guitar in a band to being a producer mixer guy to now being a businessman. And the transition was actually slightly traumatic mentally because I realized that a lot of my self-identity came from those actions that I took to do music. And when you took that away for a second there, it was like, well, who am I really? And it took me a good year to overcome that. And so I can see that for all, for a lot of these musicians that have been doing it for years and years. When you take that away from them, we're seeing very publicly, maybe they're still doing it, but it doesn't feel the same.

(01:11:45):

You take away whatever that good thing is and the results are not, they're sometimes tragic. And so I think that actually what we're talking about is very important for people in the creative, the creative arts or the creative professions to come to terms with and to figure out who they really are aside from the work they do. Because like we just said, the work will go up and it will go down and sometimes even when it seems like things are going well, it doesn't feel right on the inside. And once again, we're seeing the effects of this kind of lack, I don't want to sound disrespectful, I guess this, we're seeing the effects of these problems created mentally play out in very tragic ways, very publicly. So I think it is very important actually to get a grip on it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:53):

Yeah, I mean I certainly can't pretend to be, I certainly can't diagnose the specific things that have gone on in these cases that we're speaking about. So

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):

Just to

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):

Be clear, I'm only talking in generalities. It seems to me that could be a potential reason, but of course we never know really what happened there. But yeah, I mean I can absolutely echo what you're saying 100%. And if I were to share something very honest on my part that would demonstrate that I made a decision over a year ago to stop touring with periphery. And I think a lot of my hesitation around doing so or my worries about what would happen when I do that were based around either things like losing a career and therefore money and therefore happiness and acceptance from people around me. I'm really kind of sharing inner monologues here that perhaps even I didn't understand at the time or for example, losing friendships of those people that I made a band with and not wanting to disappoint them, which is another fear essentially.

(01:13:47):

And of course what happened when I said that that was what I wanted to do is as my best friends, they completely supported me and we still continue to have a great relationship. Any of these fears could cause you to not take action that would actually lead you to be happy. And in a sense, what you're worrying about there, what's happening is you're putting a lot of stock in your ego. And I always thought of ego as a narcissism essentially. I thought they were one and the same, but if you look at it in its purest definition is just the self that you see of yourself, which is a reflection of how other people see you. It becomes very easy to become just lost in the winds of public favor or what people around you say or what you fear, they're going to think of you.

(01:14:26):

And I don't think that's a path to happiness either so that I could share those examples of things which might've prevented me from taking action that actually led to me being a lot happier. And if you can put aside those kinds of fears and recognize them from what they are, I think it makes it a lot easier to make good judgments about what you actually want in your life. And in turn, and I think this is a really important thing to me, is I see a lot of people talking about these kinds of things as kind of life hacks to become more productive or become better than other people around you. And that to me is kind of just an extension of ego too. But the point which I want to make is that through finding an equilibrium there, through finding if you like your true identity separate to what you do, I think that in turn leads you to be far more effective at what you do. I just do feel that it does ring a little bit hollow when I see this kind of being given out as life hack advice or whatever you want to call it. Words are failing me right now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):

I know what you mean.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):

I have seen it being subverted quite a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):

Definitely. I just want to say this is all easier said than done stuff, but what were you saying, Iman? Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):

I think we're all just alluding to very basic tenets of sustaining life, just balance in all things and it's very easy to get caught up. The ego is such a very dangerous thing because if you get caught up in defining yourself by what others define you as, that's a very, very dangerous place to be because as Noli said, you never know something might come along, you might get an illness that takes away your hearing or something like that, and then suddenly who are you? If you define yourself by the people who say that, well, you are nolie the bass player from periphery, you are the mix engineer, you are the guy who does get good drums and you can no longer kind of use your hearing and your main asset to kind of fulfill that role, then who are you? You need to have that fallback of you need to have a rock and a tether and a sort of identification mechanism that's separate to all of that. It needs to be deeper and it needs to be more. So I definitely agree. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):

I think for people in the creative arts, this is especially important though. Again, not to diagnose anything, obviously we're not professionals at that, but we know from being people in creative arts that what we create is it's very difficult not to tie that to who we are. It's very personal.

Speaker 4 (01:16:51):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):

So what we're suggesting here is it's not that easy to just do because people pour their heart and soul into music or mixing or whatnot. So how do you then just say, that's not me, that's just something I do. It doesn't come naturally.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):

I dunno. I think probably it probably is something that comes at the combination of quite a lot of introspection and I think something which I'd like to say too is I think a lot of, I would say in fact the vast majority of musicians, especially in our genre, not truly creating music from a place of trying to unleash some aspect of their emotional persona of themselves. I think a lot of it is if you look in metal, it's all about creating an aesthetic and making sure that everything conforms to sound and a style, and if you venture outside the genre, then you're going to get berated for it. And it's very important that your record is the biggest sounding record out there and it's very refreshing I think, and certainly it was one of the things that helped push me along this road that I now consider myself to be on, to work with artists, perhaps Devin, who I think could have some very interesting things to say about this conversation, but who is truly kind of using music to express something very deep within them and while they might have extremely specific things that they require sonically from their music, it's only to further project and support the emotional content of what they're doing.

(01:18:25):

And it's not simply just out of some kind of fear of not having the best sounding record or something like that. In fact, I think if we say Devin for an example, and I think this is an interesting segue back into mixing when we worked together before we spoke about his previous records and he explained how so many of the times his final records didn't come out sounding the way he wanted to sonically overall the low end and the high end and whatever you want to talk about in terms of the spectral balance. But they had to be that way because he just needed all the details to be just right. The relative levels of these things were so bound to the emotion that he's trying to express and the vision that he has for his art that that's far more important than it having the perfect symbol sound or whatever.

(01:19:14):

Of course, it's a slam dunk if you can get both things together and I think thankfully the two of us working together in a very oh and iin working too in a very kind of high energy way, we are able to get hopefully something which strikes a good balance of the two. It's interesting when you talk to someone that really cares about what they're trying to express, I think you find that a lot of the fear driven worries that you hear from other artists just kind of disappear and it becomes a much more wholesome endeavor somehow.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):

That was a fantastic segue. Back to audio Ollie. A full applause from here. Yeah, seriously, that was great. Thanks. And just really quickly before you guys to off, I love Devin. I love Devin. He is so awesome. I only dealt with him briefly when we were doing the mastering process for Transcendence and a few little things after that, but he's manic in all the perfect ways. He's just like a man after my own soul and he's one of the guys that I haven't met in person who I'd absolutely love to. I feel like we'd kind of hit it off and just nothing but love for Devin

Speaker 4 (01:20:18):

And as hard as he pushed both of us during that session, I always felt like it was for a genuine cause. It wasn't just somebody freaking out about stupid details that were just basically there to serve their own ego, and I think that was something that was really good to go through because it's very different than some other experiences I've had with other bands who of course I'm not going to name and who are perfectly lovely people and write great music too, but that are incredibly focused on details that arguably are nothing to do with the, I really hate to keep using this word, but the emotion that they're trying to convey or the art that they're trying to create. Everything is valid, but it's just a very stark difference.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):

I mean, the Transcendence Master was an exceptionally hard fought project for me, but I love that in the end, Devin sort of took it on the merits of whatever kind of translated to his intention the right way. So it was sort of an objective process at the end of things. It was done and executed based on its merits. So definitely gained me a lot of respect and I think maybe some mutual respect through over the course of that process.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):

Well, now that you've segued back to audio, let me segue into audience questions. Absolutely. Because I have a few and we've been talking for a while and I want to make sure that we get to these. So first swap is from Johann Martin and Dear Naali, can you sing? I

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):

Mean probably in the sense that most humans can. I am deathly scared of singing. My wife loves to do karaoke and she'll sit doing it on her own even on the PlayStation sometimes, and I would be terrified of doing that and I'm sure we could revert back to our previous conversation to try and unveil why, but it's something which I don't really do fully enough. I'm working with a band, I have no issues with kind of singing out a vocal melody or whatever to communicate, but I wouldn't want to sit behind a microphone or stand behind a microphone and do my best. I think that would be kind of the stuff of nightmares for me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):

Same here. Here's one from Renar and hey Erman, I recently saw you recommend Studio One for DDP creation. What makes it better than its competitors? I'm a Reaper user, but I'm thinking of getting Studio one for mastering if its workflow is better.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):

Yes, this is a really fresh one. It's something I just brought up on the boards the other day. It's because I got the Hoffer CD burner and DDP Maker software based on some guys recommending it, which is really fully featured and fantastic and pretty much do anything you want in terms of sequencing and printing out a Mastery CD or image or however you want to provide it to the pressing plant. The problem is that its workflow is a little bit limited for me. I don't feel very fluid using it. Everything took about twice as long as it should have and that's one area where Studio One just nailed it. Their feature set was never that fantastic, but just the workflow, it felt like working in a regular DAW like Cubase or something, had the same shortcuts, had the same ui, had the same kind of fluidity to it.

(01:23:26):

The great thing is with the new 3.5 update, they've actually allowed you to do some basic things that you never could set song start and end markers. So you can kind of choose start points from the song before if you need to and kind of get your transitions just right with the band without having to go back and re-export wave files. And that whole process can just take hours and hours as I've learned over the course of doing a few albums over the last few years. So I hope that answers your question. It's the workflow and now its feature set isn't bad either. The only thing that it still lacks, and I hope some guy from personas is listening to this, all right, when you go to do the digital release, when you go to export wave files, you guys need to give us an option to include the track gaps. There's no point sequencing a record and then exporting the wave files without the sequence gaps. Please give us that option. If I can add, I listening,

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):

I know nothing about this particular area of using Studio One, but I would say that if I was going to use one Door, I use Logic. If I was going to use one other door, I think it would probably be Studio One. I actually have a working copy of it and I've had half a mind to try and transition multiple times. It is just too much work for me at this point to do it, but I think it's genuine in Awesome Door and there's so many points, which I feel like if I could make the transition comfortably, there would be so many things that I'd be really thankful for in Studio One. It seems like a great door.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):

I had that same experience years back when it first came out, I tried to jump to it from Cubase. Unfortunately, the feature set wasn't quite there, but in terms of the workflow, if I was starting engineering again, that's where I'd put my money. That's where I'd allot all my time definitely in agreement.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):

And here's one from Jacob Turco Nali on Devon's record. Are those wide single vocals such as the storm bending verse double tracked? What is the process on those that they don't sound separated? Is it doubler widening, sending boats to one bus knee, queuing, compressing together as one?

Speaker 4 (01:25:21):

I have to admit that a lot of the vocal stuff, in fact, a lot of that record beyond the basic rhythm tracks Devin sent to me in stems, and that was kind of part of the way that we were able to get things to where he wanted because he has such a specific vision. So I would've said that in my session there would certainly have been a main single track. The double tracks often did seem to have some kind of doubling effect on them, some kind of coring effect. And there would often have been a combination of multiple delays, some of which ran throughout the song of varying lengths and volumes, some of which had a stereo on them as well. And then there would also have been a couple of reverbs. It's quite difficult for me to remember and to be honest, because he'd done all the hard work there, I didn't see the need to kind of go through soloing every track to figure out what he'd done.

(01:26:12):

But I would certainly say that try using a doubler plugin on your double, like something like I think I've seen Joey do this. Joey Sturgis says, I've seen him use Wave doubler waves doubler without the center channel active. So just with the two side channels and blend that under your main vocal, so you put that on the double, so a separate performance and blend that in underneath, that can sound really good. I would have to ask Devin specifically, and I dunno if he'd remember specifically, but something along those lines would probably give you a similar sound. It's also worth noting that Devin's tracking was insane for that record. His vocals are incredible. I have no idea how he's human. He has the capability of doing some of the stuff that he does, especially as someone that's so blase about his singing talent. But it goes without saying that a lot of the vocal sound is just down to how great his vocal sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):

Interesting, totally different artist. Not in the same category at all, just a whole different world. But we've got a mure right now and now the mix. And one thing that was funny was Joey told me that people are going to be blown away when they hear these vocals raw and realize that that's actually what he sounds like. Yeah, that is that distortion is actually him. Yeah, no, absolutely. Sometimes these artists actually do sound the way they sound.

Speaker 4 (01:27:41):

Oh man, actually just this, I really wish I could tell you who the artist was. It is really not like it's the biggest deal in the world, but you would all know it. But the artist that I was with last week, the vocalist was one of the most impressive I've ever worked with and he has a particular style of singing. Well, it's pitched screaming that if anyone's worked on kind of gritty singing, they know how difficult it is to tune that kind of vocals. But I'd assumed that the previous engineers that have worked with these artists have just had to do all sorts of manual pitch shifting. I thought it impossible that the guy would be that accurate with his pitching when pushing so hard and basically screaming. But his takes were just album ready basically straight off the microphone. They just sounded they were completely in tune. Take after take completely in time was the other really impressive thing. He was so in the pocket with his vocals and it was such a blast tracking a vocalist like that. And I think again, any great vocalist or any great vocal sound probably comes down to a great vocalist that's very experienced at doing what they do.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):

Absolutely. So this one's from Gil Andrade, which is for Irman. What are the most common mastering mistakes you've heard or noticed in amateur non, so professional mastered mixes? What have you noticed that people screw up a lot in non-pro masters these days?

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):

Too loud. Too loud is number one, they always drop elegance in favor of volume because they feel the urge to meet some kind of arbitrary RMS level. You have to isolate when you get the mix. You have to kind of work out what the intention is for that mix. There's always going to be a spot where it's going to sound its best. Your whole loudness search that's secondary to everything else you need to get it sounding good and in the pocket and balance spectrally first. If you need to have the extra subs for it to fill out and to breathe and to feel right, then you're going to have to drop the RMS level. It's just the way things go. But definitely it's a lot of people having skewed priorities and I think going for volume before they go for spectral elegance and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):

Okay, this one's from Jerry and it's for Naali Naali. How do you set up reverb and delays for something like transcendence? So the mix is spacious and echoing without being mushy and weak.

Speaker 4 (01:30:07):

I assume they're talking mainly about vocals there, but I think there's a really good point to be.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):

I think so.

Speaker 4 (01:30:10):

Yeah, a really good point to be made about transcendence, which is about the guitars. Actually Devin has this thing which he's done since the beginning of time, basically with his rhythm guitar sound and with all of his guitars, he has this patch and I wish I could remember exactly what it is. I think it's off a TC electronics unit, which is this ambiance kind of swirling modulated ambiance, which he has on his guitar at all times. It's on strapping young, loud records, it's on all the DT P records and you'll hear it in gaps. If he's playing something which has gaps in it in the riff, you'll hear this kind of trail, which sounds like a huge synth sound or something like that. And that's just literally part of his rhythm guitar sound. Needless to say, that eats up a ton of space in the mix.

(01:30:57):

And I think one of the biggest differences in terms of the amount of space that we could get into that mix was I was able to talk him into, and I think he had a mind to do this anyway, to using that far more sparingly and instead of having it on all the time using it just on very specific notes, even in riff. So for example, if a riff has mainly chugging and then hits an octave for an accent and then goes back to chugging, maybe he'd punch in just that one octave note with the delay trail so that you'd get the effect of that carrying on without it muddying up the rhythm guitar sound. Hopefully you guys will know what I mean, if you hear it, if you listen to his records, it's kind of everywhere all over it. Maybe he's spoken about it in interviews too, or certainly if you ever seen him just jamming on one of his main patches, as I'm sure there are videos of online, I'm sure it will have that same effect on it.

(01:31:48):

So that was something that was a huge win and undoubtedly created a ton more space in there. It's still there. There's still plenty of it on the record, but it just prevents things from getting too muddy when he's kind of hard on the vocals. I mean, I really just went with what he gave me, which was typically a ton of different ambiences and I think it comes back to something which we were speaking about right at the beginning of this podcast, which is just level, I think so many mixers fail, not in terms of the quality of their tones, but just the relative levels of the instruments. And it's quite perplexing to me. Obviously that's just about as basic as you can go when you're mixing, but it just takes a lot of finessing of levels and finding just the right spot for things. Obviously if you make it too loud, it's going to dominate the mix.

(01:32:36):

If you're having an issue with, for example, not being able to get your reverb to cut through without it dominating the mix, then obviously EQ it. And I'm not afraid to eq, my reverb and delay sounds quite heavily if necessary. Things like upper mid EQ bumps, obviously reducing low mid content is a pretty huge one. I have this thing these days where unless I specifically am trying to cut out an issue, I tend to, instead of high passing and low passing use high and low pass shelves, sorry, high and low shelves cuts, don't really know why I'm doing that, but it seems to preserve more of the overall balance of the sound. So I dunno if that's really a secret to my sound as it were, but it seems to be something that's working well for me at the moment. And I think a good tip for anytime you're trying to blend an ambience of any sort, whether it's a drum room or a snare verb or a vocal delay into the rest of the mix, is to instead of soloing it, just raise it a good deal louder than it will be in the mix.

(01:33:33):

Maybe push that fader up six or seven db so it's very clear yet you can still hear the rest of the mix. An EQ with it that just kind of sweep around to find the frequencies that allow it to jump through the mix more and find the most boxy frequencies or the things which seem to be clustering the other frequencies the most and cut those. And often I find if you then solo whatever it was that you were just EQing a sound that you probably would never have chosen had you simply just kind of done it on instinct. So that's probably the best tip I can give there. And I certainly did that a lot on the Devon Townsend record. That's

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):

A great answer. So here's another one from Jacob Turco and it's for Erman, which is Erman. When you're mastering someone else's mixes, what is it that allows you to make certain mixes one more punchy and two wider than the others? Is it for example that they leave the transience louder for you to have more control?

Speaker 3 (01:34:30):

We're going back to that thing that Nolie mentioned right at the start of this podcast where so long as a mix sounds consistent in and of itself within its own sound world, then it's much more malleable from a mastering perspective. So the reason a lot of mixers tend to be, they tend to tie your hands behind your back as a mix engineer is that they might have transient content that's out of whack, things which are just spectrally awkward that you can't really adjust for like a kick that's peaking, let's say ATB louder than it should be and you can't bring it back without affecting the bottoms of symbols and vocals and rhythm guitars and stuff like that. So it's generally the proficiency of the mix engineer that creates a lot of these situations and sort of sets the potential of the master. So you can't think of it as something existing in a vacuum. The two are very collaborative processes. Mastering can't exist without the mix and the mix has to be of a good quality and of course for the mix to be of a good quality, so does the tracking. So it's very much a holistic process. The stronger your foundations, the sturdier your house will be, so to speak at the end of the process.

Speaker 4 (01:35:37):

And if I can just say a little note about specifically why I enjoy working with Erman so much sonically, I think his ability to get the transient sounding the way they should is better than any other mastery engineer I've worked with. And I think that's honestly one of the biggest selling points for me. I mean as well as the spectral balance aspects, which he always seems to nail too. But for me, something which I've experienced a lot when working with other engineers, other mastering engineers, that is when I pull my own limiter off and I always mix into a limiter or I end up with very spiky transient as one would, and I've sent mixes off, I've had mixes done at Sterling Sound and other prestigious mastering houses at the behest of the clients, and I've almost always been quite unhappy with how the transients have come back sounding.

(01:36:26):

I think of two specific mixes that were both done at the Sterling Sound, one of them, the guy, I mean quite, I could probably say it was quite laudably managed to preserve way too much transient detail. I think he assumed that I wanted the spiciest drums possible and managed to get a loud master that maintained that, but it was quite unpleasant to listen to. And then the other just completely obliterated the transient content. It was also in general a very loud master, which I didn't think was particularly great sounding. But something which as I say I really enjoy working with Iman is he seems to just finesse those transients in just the right way so that they're still really punchy, but they don't have that awkward kind of spiky character, which tends to happen when you pull the limiter off. One of my mixes, I'm also thinking of, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:37:12):

I was just going to say, I think part of the reason for that is because we come from a similar place when it comes to mixing in that sense. Obviously the specifics vary, but I've been mixing into a limiter ever since I started, so since well before 2009. So when somebody sends me a mix like you might, and the maximize has been taken off and the transients were a bit all over the place, well my mind immediately goes, okay, here's what it needs to go back to what it should sound like. I think helping develop that rapport with us working on multiple records over the space of years just kind of helps refine and make that process more and more airtight.

Speaker 4 (01:37:44):

Absolutely, and I think it's very interesting to contrast that against the concept of this loudness war where people talk about maximization and clipping is this awkward negative thing that should never happen and mastering for loudness is the worst thing in the world. But for me, and I am sure you agree, in fact, I know you agree that there's a certain level of loudness that is necessary to make sure that the transient content sounds the way it should when you're talking about heavy music. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):

This is especially true in the digital era because back in the day you could keep things as low as you wanted, but the amount of saturation you would inadvertently pick up from recording to a two inch tape machine, running it through a console, running it back through, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that would knock the transient off automatically. So they essentially had their maximization processes baked into the mix. Whereas if you've got a perfect digital replica and you're just using plugins that perfectly maintain the transient from conception till the end, you're going to have some problems when it comes to the end unless you knock that stuff back and kind of push up the level and push 'em up against the ceiling. So I know that this contrast to what I said earlier about one of the main flaws in mastering, but the trick is in isolating where that point is, there's a very fine discreet sweet spot for each and every mix. There's a minimum that you have to achieve and there's certainly a maximum that you shouldn't exceed. So I think the trick in actually becoming a longstanding mastering engineers and trying to ascertain where that is for each and every mix that you get.

Speaker 4 (01:39:08):

And in fact, I was going to allude to one project that we did together very recently, which was the Sikh album. It was particularly interesting to me because a couple of members of the band really had it in for snare transience, particularly Mikey the vocalist who has a very percussive vocal style if you're not familiar with s Sick. But due to listen to it, because I don't think I could possibly describe the vocal style, but it was generally decided that the record should probably have a little bit less transient detail than I might typically have because they found that it was kind of trampling on the vocals, yet they also didn't want to hear the mixes I was sending them with any kind of limiting since they felt that that was adversely affecting the balance of the mix. Now I kind of disagreed on that, but they seemed to be able to hear what they were hearing and I was more than happy to oblige yet. This set up a strange situation where I was having to apply a lot more clipping on the snare for the reference mixes for the band and then back it off when I was sending it to you to iin. And I'm just very grateful that it came out decent to me. It still is lacking a little bit of transient detail, but that is absolutely kind of as was the wish of the band.

Speaker 3 (01:40:17):

That explains a few things about actually the mastering process of that record, one of the aforementioned ones where I had to lean a little bit more heavily on the digital side of things. And I normally find that's the case when I'm trying to preserve transient content and keep things a bit clearer. So learning that you had to send the band's reference mixes without the limiter on and things being made with those adjustments in mind kind of explains the things that I had to do further on down the track to kind of get it to where it ultimately got to. But it's just kind of funny that even though we went about it in a slightly different way, the end result I think is still pretty phenomenal. And I think the mix was pretty fantastic on that one. I think a lot of the listener base here would agree.

Speaker 4 (01:40:55):

I agree. Thanks. Yeah, no, I was really

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):

Satisfied with how that one came out. So here was one from Christian Slater Nali in the progressive metal style of music, having killer picking technique is imperative to achieving desired nuance that many strive for, whether it's done through guitar or bass. How do you go about generating massive consistent attack without straining the wrist, forearm, and shoulders?

Speaker 4 (01:41:19):

Yeah, it's interesting and I think ultimately a lot of it's going to come down to just good technique, which I mean we could talk about the essence of picking using the muscles which sit below and above your forearm rather than the ones that are on either side. In other words, instead of kind of doing a hand wave technique, it should be something more like writing with a pen where you're kind of activating your wrist, typically vertical direction as it were, instead of side to side. That's one good way of generating more power. You just have way more muscles going on there. But I think one of the really crucial things for me in good picking technique is balancing the power that you pick with, with not making the string deflect out of tune too much. And again, if I could reference sick, I think Dan Weller the guitarist, one of the guitarists is one of the best rhythm players I've ever heard and it was very interesting to me.

(01:42:12):

They play in low, a flat, quite a lot on a six string guitar. So they two and a half step down and the two bottom strings are an octave apart yet I believe that Dan only used a 52 for that low a flat. And this is on a PRS, which is a 25 inch scale guitar. So we're talking about quite a floppy string, which for one is I think quite important to not use too heavy strings when you're tracking, especially with passive pickups, which tend to generate more low end. I find that thick strings tend to have a very kind of muddy sound that's difficult to cut off and make it sound tight during any kind of stakar parts. But that's an aside. The really interesting thing for me is how in tune he was able to make that low string sound, even when playing both a flats and octave apart and picking quite hard, they didn't deflect noticeably out of tune to one another.

(01:43:03):

And I believe the trick is similar to what I do on bass, which is to pick as it were into the guitar body. So your pick is actually angled so that what's happening is you're pushing the string down until it hits the frets essentially, or you're giving it enough power that it hits the frets a bit similar to how you might slap on a base. And what that does is it prevents the string from deflecting too much, but you get this really powerful attack sound. So I think that's something which is very crucial and certainly on base that's something which I do religiously because the last thing you want is to kind of sound like you're doing a whammy bar dive on every note that you hit because of the string deflecting all over the place.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):

Here's one from Johnny Narrow. What, if anything, do you do differently now from your metal mixing guide as opposed to when you were writing it?

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):

So I think if I were to change anything about that guide at this point in time, I would actually be removing information, simplified my chains if anything. But I know how people are when you subtract things and kind of re-release the product, they go, what the hell getting, giving me less content for the same amount. So I'm probably not going to do that. But if there's anything I would say specifically I do differently is that my base approach is much simpler. It's basically the third approach that I write about in the chapter, the believe, I call it the hybrid approach, something to that effect. I don't overdo the chains anymore with multi-band compression and crazy amounts of L one and stuff like that. And the way that I treat top and bottom snares is a bit different. I try and keep the phase coherence intact these days. I realize that treating the bottom snare two separately to the top would kind of knock things out of whack. And you think you're doing something special because you're treating them separately, but you're actually creating more problems down the track. So summing those together and treating them as one has actually given me better results and it's made session management a little bit easier as well.

Speaker 4 (01:44:55):

Just out of interest, I think that, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:44:58):

No, go for it. I was going to ask while you're talking about snare top and bottom, I remember, this is funny, I was quite an avid devotee of your guide when it came out. I remember reading and trying your approach to bottom snare compression being a very fast attack, trying to get a lot of extra sustain and sizzle out of it. I'm interested to know if you still do that, because the issue I found was you ended up with a bottom snare track that was far less dynamic than the top snare track that, for example, any lighter hits would have a kind of inordinate amount of buzz and sizzle to them. So I'm interested to know if that's still something that you do or whether you tend to do something which is closer to what I do now, which is actually to compress the two mics together.

Speaker 3 (01:45:39):

It'd be something closer to what you do these days. I think I looked back on that technique among very, very few others that I wrote about in the guide where there were things more appropriated based on, let's say hearsay or things I've seen other engineers execute to affect in their mixes, but never necessarily worked all that well for me. So one thing I refined and I updated some of this stuff when the guide got updated two years ago or whatever it was now, to reflect the fact that my chains are a lot more, I would call them elegant these days, a lot simpler and a lot more basic and a lot truer to what I would do these days, but I wouldn't read that book thinking, oh, that all of this stuff is obsolete. I would say that a good 98% of it still very directly applies to my mixing technique in this day. The only thing that's really fundamentally changed is how I appropriate each of the pieces of gear in the chain to what effect I use them and to what amounts I use them. And that's something you can really only glean over years and years of doing something. It's not something you can so much teach. I can just kind of show you the rough outline of what you should be doing, but you are the one that ultimately has to execute it being the reader.

Speaker 4 (01:46:45):

Yeah, no, and if I can say so I think some of the best parts of the guide are simply to do with managing expectations, as weird as that sounds. But for example, I remember very specifically the introduction to mixing snare drum explaining that there's not going to be any single, you're going to have the best drum in the world, but it's always going to sound like this kind of wacky, dull thing through a close mic just no matter what you do. And it's up to you to extract the best sound from that. I think that kind of stuff is very important for people to know because if you go an example onto gluts and read about how the people there generally get their drum tone, they'd say, oh, you just put this mic on your snare and it sounds amazing. And I certainly kind of fell victim to some of that thinking along the way that was somehow missing something in terms of the perfect position or the perfect mic or whatever it was that was going to generate this, I think you call it like radio rock ready snare sound just from the off.

(01:47:35):

It just doesn't exist. I think it's very important that people are aware that when you're working in the genre that we work in and with the desired aesthetic that the genre needs, there is going to be a fair amount of work to be done, especially when it comes to the drums.

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):

That's a very important distinction to make, and I've seen this kind of happen around the community. So an amount of purism is a good thing. I've seen a lot of the guys saying that they wanted to keep the drums completely natural on this month's N TM or whatever the case might be. But the thing is, a lot of the time the reference mixes that you're comparing yours against are actually quite sample augmented and sample heavy. So my impression was that the architect's mix was one of these where there were samples, we use quite judicially. That's why I just kind of put GG D over. I'm like, oh cool, I've got a drum mix that sounds great. Let's import it and see how we go from there. I was a bit lazy and that's just sort of done for fun, so whatever. But I've seen a lot of the guys just struggling with the raw sounds trying to make them sound like henrik's reference mix, and it's like, well, the reason you're not getting there is because you're not using the baseline same approach. So you need to understand that there's a baseline level of processing that needs to go into this stuff. And sometimes, and I know the Nolie is a big advocate of natural drums, which is awesome. He makes him sound great, but for certain sounds, you need samples. If you're trying to achieve a certain aesthetic, that's what you're going for. So just be mindful of what you're trying to achieve and how you're going about getting there. Make sure the two work in tandem and that it's all realistic.

Speaker 4 (01:48:59):

Yeah, I mean I think the natural drums thing specifically for me, I guess it came from a sense of pride about what I was doing there, but it is become to some extent, I guess my aesthetic. I'm not trying to claim ownership of natural drums in heavy music, but it's become one of the ingredients in the sound that I would recognize and say. That's kind of the sound that I go for. And I think I'd a certain level of inconsistency and I perhaps just through now having kind of got to the point where I am with my sound, I kind of don't enjoy too much when I hear the sound of samples noticeably. And I'm really referring to non-natural drum sound samples. I mean the Elis D four samples when you listen to old nineties metal and early two thousands, stuff like that where we're talking about stuff that doesn't sound like snare drums, really kind of dance music samples being laid on top of it.

(01:49:54):

So I think that's really my issue. And I think it's funny coming from somebody that is an owner of a drum sample company, but I do at least feel proud that the samples, which that we're selling are of a very natural sound and that hopefully when used properly will generate a result that doesn't do the aforementioned breaking of the fourth wall thing. For me, when I was discussing about becoming aware that you're watching a movie, I think for me, if I hear just four snares very in very quick succession that all sound identical or the difference in tone is simply difference in volume where they've automated this one shot sample that immediately kind of takes me out of the moment. But yeah, sorry, I just want to clarify my position there. Totally,

Speaker 2 (01:50:38):

Totally. So last question, and this is from Vinny Badden and it's Hay Ali. Have you found a more elegant solution for gain staging and logic than using the gain or trimmer plugin?

Speaker 4 (01:50:54):

Yeah, I mean, there is a very elegant, which is just a clip gain the actual tracks in the arrange window, which works really well. And I do that sometimes. However, I find that if I'm mixing a whole album and I want consistency from one project to the next, it generally means I have to make very specific notes about what level of db I clip gain down each track or change the gain on each track. So for me, the gain plugin allows something that's way more recallable to me. It's not that inelegant really, I think far less elegant is having plugins that drastically change the volume of the track that you're listening to so that you can't just bypass them and listen to it before and after comfortably. So I guess I haven't found a more elegant

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):

Solution for that. All right. Well actually, lemme ask one more question because it's a good final question for both of you. From Jared Headley, which is when you're working on an album, do you have a strict schedule you abide by to get things done? Or do you just kind of go with the flow each day? I'll start with you Armin.

Speaker 3 (01:51:58):

So I'm terrible with the whole corporate aspect of things, managing deadlines and managing my schedule. For me, everything revolves around the quality of the end product. So I'll generally put in as much time as it needs to get right. So I'm probably one of the least efficient mixes out there in terms of churning out an album a week and keeping the whole financial aspect of things rolling through mixing, which is why I'm very glad to have both the mixing guide and mastering as a subsidy to that. But for me, everything is about the quality of the end product. So I'll definitely kind of just whatever it takes.

Speaker 4 (01:52:34):

And for me, I think bizarrely the thing that prevents me from being more effective is usually the bands themselves. And I mean typically in terms of simply file delivery seems to be this thing I guess with so many bands tracking themselves doing so over multiple locations and having the ability to obsess over these things or just not being experienced at how to present tracks. I typically find, for example, right now, I tracked the drums and got some core tone for bass and guitars for an album that I'm working on about three months ago, and the band was supposed to have delivered to me all of the songs. I'm not naming names and I know that they have good reasons for not having done so yet, but I'm still waiting on all of the files for all but one song. So while there was originally this idea of it being done before the beginning of July, there's just simply nothing that I can do about that. I'm actually quite a quick mixer when I have everything I need.

(01:53:33):

I work very quickly. And furthermore, I have a really talented assistant called Sebastian, who I believe is one of the member of the Nail the Mix community, who's really efficient at putting together mixed sessions for me. So once the band has kind of okayed the first song, he can create the remainder of the mixed sessions for the album for me. So I have a starting place, a bit like I guess an engineer setting up a console prior to a mixed session for the producer. So in essence, I have everything I need to have a very streamlined process. It just seems to be the most of the time I don't have the actual files I need and I'm kind of loathed, for example, have all of the mix sessions ready before they vade the first song because I really dislike that process of having to go across every song and update them all as they kind of change their minds on the quantity of low end or the sound of something, or they want a different kick sample or whatever. Having to go across the whole album updating that is quite a pain. So I always prefer to get song one absolutely nailed and then I can start kind of attacking them two or three at a time

Speaker 3 (01:54:36):

If I can. Sorry, sorry. No,

Speaker 4 (01:54:38):

Go ahead, please.

Speaker 3 (01:54:39):

Well, if I can add to that, I think one of the increasing problems that we face in the state of the industry with a lot of bands recording themselves and essentially not having any kind of discreet label or management deadlines to work off, you have this problem where there aren't any discreet deadlines, there's no cutoff points. So albums are in production for years at a time. I've had so many independent level clients where we've worked on their albums over the course of three to five years at a time, and it's counterproductive to everyone because you can't maintain the vision for the project over that period of time. You can't maintain the vibe. I mean, hell, over that period of time, half your plugins might end up becoming obsolete and you can't actually keep half the session. So it's a strange thing to be mindful of.

(01:55:21):

It's obviously important to work to deadlines within reason. I've never tried to rush a project or anything to that effect, but I think sometimes a lot of the realities of the way that things are done these days can really ham you and get in the way. So I completely understand where Nolie is coming from when he says getting file delivery from bands sorted out. And I generally find getting bands sorted out in general to be quite a task, just getting them to provide things consistently to get things done the right way. And even though we've got our, let's say, our checklist documents in place and the kind of hoops we need them to run through to make sure the session runs efficiently, people always kind of find a way to not do things quite the most efficient way. And I think that's just an inevitable result of less and less engineers doing tracking and more and more artists tracking themselves.

Speaker 4 (01:56:11):

And I mean, it also should be said that sometimes these two things exist on the same projects where you have, for example, a band that for whatever reason, has not been able to finish tracking their album the day before the label deadline. So for example, with Sick, they were still tracking vocals overdubs and lead overdubs on their tour bus because basically they weren't able to complete tracking before they left on tour. And then had to scramble to do it while on the road on the ferry between England and France sending me vocal tracks with some weird kind of flutter echo from the little cabin room they have or whatever. And literally, I was still receiving tracks from that on the day of the Handin, and I ended up having to pull, it was almost a full 24 hour session to get the things done and off to earn in time. So sometimes the work that we do on a professional level involves some really long hours and some very annoying schedules. But for the most part, honestly, if I was to be completely honest, I think I would need to be a bit stricter with myself scheduling wise. But that's more of something about just being able to divide up your life into work and leisure a little bit more easily. But

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:57:23):

Those are my thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:57:24):

Work-life balance I think is just such a tough thing for all mixers and producers.

Speaker 4 (01:57:34):

It's

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):

So tough. And I think that those sessions, those nightmare, 24 hour sessions, they will happen no matter how organized you get. It's just the nature of the beast. But

Speaker 4 (01:57:48):

It is unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (01:57:50):

Thank you guys so much for coming on again. It's been a pleasure talking to both of you and just thank you. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 4 (01:57:59):

Well, thank you very much for having us. It's been a pleasure to be back. Absolutely. Pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):

Yeah, I hope you guys, I wish you guys all the best as always, and hope we can do this again.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):

Absolutely. Yep, likewise. Thanks, Dale.

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):

All right. The Unstoppable Recording Sheen podcast is brought to you by Drum Forge. Drum Forge is a forward-thinking developer of audio tools and software for musicians and producers alike. Founded on the idea that great drum sound should be obtainable for everyone, we focus on your originality, drum forge, it's your sound. Go to drum forge.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact visits and interact visits and interact visits and interact visits and interact.