Jaime Gomez Arellano: Producing Ghost’s Debut, Why Instruments Matter More Than Gear, Getting Huge Drum Sounds

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. The URM podcast is also brought to you by heirloom microphones. Heirloom microphones are high-end condenser microphones with something that has never been seen in the microphone industry, a triangular membrane with our patented membranes and our tailored phase linear electronics. Your recording and live experience will never be the same heirloom. Our microphones will help you discover clarity. Go to E-H-R-L-U-N-D SE for more info. And now your host, Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:01:03):

Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi and with me is Jaime Gomez Arellano, who you really should know a lot about because he's just a killer producer. And what I like about his sound is that he's doing his own thing. He really gets much more organic sounding, real sounds that sound like real people playing. And his productions are still modern, but they definitely sound like real people. And I know that a lot of people have critiques about modern production, not sounding like real people playing. He's worked with phenomenal bands such as Ghost Cathedral, sun O Electric Wizard to Recess. Plan B is also a drummer, and this is an interesting one to me personally. It's from Cali Columbia, but lives in England. And so I want to know how that happened.

Speaker 3 (00:02:06):

Well, first of all, thank you for having me in your show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being here. Well, I was listening to a lot of British music when I was a kid. I kind of grew up listening to a combination of Black Sabbath, deep Purple, let's Zeppelin all this British stuff as well as some of the British metal stuff. I really liked Carcass and I really liked Paradise Lost. I really liked Bull Thrower. Well, you name it, a lot of these bands. So when I finished school, my parents said, oh, well you should go to America to learn English. And I said, well, I'd rather go to England because I was more interested in Europe than the US to be honest with me, with you. And I just ended up convincing my parents to send me to London to do a year of English. And in that time I found about SAE to do a degree in sound engineering. And then I kind of stayed here. And that's kind of how I ended up here. Really. It was just like a Romans with European music, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (00:03:24):

It is interesting. Most of the time people from South America go to the us.

Speaker 3 (00:03:28):

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (00:03:29):

My mom's from Mexico, my mom's from Mexico, she went to the us. It's just not that common for people from there to end up in Europe. It does happen. So I thought it was cool that you mentioned that you used to listen to Paradise Lost because I mean you just did the record that came out, what, last week or two weeks ago?

Speaker 3 (00:03:49):

Yeah, last week. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:03:51):

So maybe tell us a little bit about that. Because Paradise Lost is one of those bands that when I was 13, they were already around for a while and they've just been around forever. You've always heard about them. I think that in the States they're not as well known, but I know that they're a lot more well-known over in Europe and they just, I've always thought of them as British Death Doom. I don't dunno if that's an appropriate title or not for what they sound like, but tell us a little bit about the new album. What were your goals with it?

Speaker 3 (00:04:26):

Well, I don't know if you're aware that I did the previous one as well, the previous record, but with the new one, I mean they've kind of gone full circle as a band. They started, as you said, as a kind of gothic doom kind of band. And then they evolved, evolved really far to a point where there was something like the patch mode in the late nineties and then they just kind of gradually coming back into the roots. And the previous album, the Plague Within had some elements of the kind of more melodic part that lost from the mid nineties, late nineties with a tin.

Speaker 2 (00:05:13):

See, that's what I remember

Speaker 3 (00:05:15):

With a tin. But going back to the heavy stuff, and then when Greg sent me the demos for the new album, I was like, Jesus Christ, this is just like, it's a doom record a hundred percent with every album I do. I think a lot of metal producers, they have their kind of method of doing things and they just always go for a lot of the same stuff. But every record I make, I have a clean slate and I just kind of have a picture in my head of what I think it's going to sound like. And with this album, I just wanted it to be Do you ever get there? Well, no one ever does. Right? Yeah. You get close enough I guess. But I think all of us, like producers and engineers, we're all a bit OCD and we never a hundred hundred percent happy. We can always be like 99% happy. But there's always that little thing when you're listening back and you're like, oh, I wish I changed Point five Tob on that little bit. And it's always,

Speaker 2 (00:06:27):

I think that, have you ever met people who are sometimes musicians or engineers who are really, really happy with how they sound? Normally they suck and normally they don't get any better. All the best guys I know continually think they continually hate themselves. They always think that they could get way better. They're always studying. An example I like to give is that I remember Jeff Loomis

Speaker 4 (00:06:58):

Telling

Speaker 2 (00:06:58):

Me that he took guitar lessons a couple years ago or something. I think he told, or three years ago I was having a conversation with him and I didn't ask him if he was taking lessons. He just mentioned it relevant to the conversation that he was studying that with his guitar teacher, something we were talking about. And it was like, wow, if this guy who is one of the very best guitar players in the world in the genre still thinks he needs to get better and will still take lessons, what is everybody else's excuse for not? That's for thinking

Speaker 3 (00:07:31):

Great. That's right. I'm always studying and I'm always talking to other producers who are friends of mine and discussing techniques and trying out new equipment. And with Ross Russell, Andy, occasionally we chat about stuff and Tom,

Speaker 2 (00:07:55):

Both great dudes.

Speaker 3 (00:07:56):

Yeah, Tom dte as well, who's doing really well. He's a great producer. We sit down and we took gear and I'm always learning, always. I'm always trying new things, trying new microphones, new software, new drums, new guitars, new amps, new techniques, and always trying to learn. And I always have this mentality that I want to make the next record better than the last one, even if the band is really different, always want to do it better. And the way to do that is just to just keep going.

Speaker 2 (00:08:31):

So on the topic of always learning and always trying to get better, I am wondering, were you recording when you lived in Columbia or did you start doing that once you got to England? And if you were recording in Columbia, how did you go about learning there?

Speaker 3 (00:08:52):

Yes, I started in Columbia. I think the first recording I did, I was about 13 or 14 years old and I had a band with a couple of my best mates at the time who are still my best mates these days actually. And we just had this kind of band for fun. And my mom is a singer. She's released 30 albums or something like that. She's very, very talented musician in Colombia, like South American folk kind of music. So because of that, we had a bit of basic kind of equipment at home. We had a mixing desk, and then I just kind, okay, so how can I connect this? How can I record them to stuff? So I found a way of connecting it to a cassette deck, which at the time was really exciting, but it's just an RCA connection at the back of the desk into the input of the deck. So it wasn't hard, but I was discovering all this by myself and playing with EQs and stuff,

Speaker 2 (00:09:59):

It is hard when no one teaches it to you when you're just a kid. I mean, I remember before I knew anything, I am talking when I was 15 or something and I figured out how to record onto a cassette deck with an RCA, I was like, wow, I know how to connect something.

Speaker 3 (00:10:18):

Yeah, you feel pretty special. And it is quite special. I dunno old you are, but I'm 35 and back then in Columbia we had no internet. There was no one teaching that kind of stuff around. There will be the some of the guys doing live sound and that was it really.

Speaker 2 (00:10:40):

Well, I'm 38, so similar age, but I mean, dude, I didn't grow up in kli. I grew up in Atlanta and still there was nowhere to really learn this kind of stuff. It just didn't exist back then. I feel like either you had to grow up like you did into a family that does it or somehow you needed to make friends with the local studio guy. That's what I did when I was a teenager. My band went to record at a studio when I was 14 or 15, and I just made friends with the engineer who owned it, and little by little I would just go there more and more and he would teach me a few things and that's kind of how it started. But there was no internet or anything, no way to really, really learn this stuff. Otherwise,

Speaker 3 (00:11:33):

Yeah, I think these days it's really easy. You just go on YouTube and there's a lot of information there and forums and stuff. But so I kind of got better at it at recording and then I started recording some friends' bands in my mom's house, and then I started getting really pal with a friend of mine that was doing live sound. So he'll take me to shows from the beginning when he was working for a hire company. So he'll show me how to wire everything and how to use stuff and how to kind of use compressors and cues and kind of mic placement. And I learned a lot from him. He's doing really well these days. He's a life sound engineer and he's doing great in Latin America, traveling all over the world with really big Latin American artists that I do not know, but I know he's doing great. So I learned a lot from him. And then I always really liked it. I always been quite nerdy and I like electronics and stuff, so I just kind of kept going. And then when I found out about the degree in SA London, then I just went actually what? This is what I want to do. So I did that.

Speaker 2 (00:12:59):

So I think that a lot of people wonder whether or not they should get a degree in recording and I don't know, what year did you go to SAE?

Speaker 3 (00:13:11):

I started in 2000.

Speaker 2 (00:13:12):

Okay. So what they would've been teaching then is vastly different than what they would teach now, I would think. Yeah. It sounds to me like you going there was very worth it. Do you think for someone nowadays who wants to get good at this stuff that they should go to school or do you think it's easier without school these days or do you have no opinion?

Speaker 3 (00:13:35):

No, I do some guest lectures in SAE sometimes and haven't done one in a while. And I think it depends on how you take it. For me, it was a good experience because I learned a lot of the basics that I wouldn't have really just sat there myself learning about electronics and how EQs actually work and compressors, how they actually work and what they actually do. So I think the theory was pretty good. It was good to learn about acoustics as well, about how to use tape machines, which I think they don't do anymore. So some of the basic knowledge was great. Then there were these modules on music industry and these assignments where you just have to write really long essays and I didn't like that, but I had access to recording studios 24 hours a day, so I just rinsed the hell out of it. And I was just there every night recording stuff. And then I'll sleep a couple of hours in the couch and then I'll go to my lecture, then I'll go home, sleep a couple of hours and then come back at night and do it all over again. So I got a lot of experience from that.

Speaker 2 (00:14:52):

And I've always told people, if you're going to go to school, most people who go to school are going to fail because they don't take advantage of what they have there. If you actually go to school and you devote yourself to getting every single ounce of value you can out of it, like every single last bit, and you use as much of that free studio time as you can and you get as much as you can individually from all the teachers and you really, really do it, then I don't see how it can be a bad thing to

Speaker 3 (00:15:24):

Go. No, I mean unless you, and it's funny, man, the two other guys from my class that were there all the time, they're both doing pretty well too. One of them became, he works in broadcasting and he's got a really, really good job. The other guy wrote, he published a book on mixing. He's more of an academic kind of guy, but he did well and those guys were there all the time. But the other guys that were there just for the lectures and for a couple of hours of studio time, just so they could pause their practical assignments, I'm pretty sure none of them work in the music industry.

Speaker 2 (00:16:15):

Of course not. I mean, you have to be obsessed with this stuff. You don't have to be obsessed your whole life, but I do believe that there's a certain amount of time, like five or 10 years for most people. Sometimes you get a genius where it only takes three or something, but you need a good five or 10 years where you're just obsessed and you're in there all the time, whether you're in school or learning on your own or an intern somewhere or whatever. You just need to put in that kind of time and really not do anything else. And it's a lot easier when you're young

Speaker 3 (00:16:55):

And it's such a fascinating subject that covers so many other things, so why wouldn't you? That's another thing I love about my job. I'm a businessman, I'm a psychologist, I'm an electrician. I'm a cleaner. I dunno, I'm the coffee boy. There's so many jobs involving into what record production involves and it just never ends. So I think it's such a fascinating subject overall, a thing to do, but I think you really have to love it and you really have to want it because it's very competitive, it's very cliquey. It's hard to make a name for yourself, so you just, yeah, I think if you really want to succeed in this kind of stuff, you either get really, really lucky or you're just going to have to work really, really hard.

Speaker 2 (00:17:49):

Or both.

Speaker 3 (00:17:50):

Or both. Yeah, work really, really

Speaker 2 (00:17:52):

Hard, work really, really hard and then get lucky and then work even harder.

Speaker 3 (00:17:56):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:17:58):

Yeah, I don't know a single person who has a real career who doesn't work their asses off. Even the dudes who get lucky still work their asses off, I think. Out of all those different jobs you listed, are there any that you prefer over the others?

Speaker 3 (00:18:17):

No, I really like all of it. I think the one thing, so

Speaker 2 (00:18:22):

You're just in love with the whole thing?

Speaker 3 (00:18:24):

I just love everything. I mean, the bits I kind of don't like, it's the really boring stuff when I have to deal with my accountant or when I have to deal with the lawyer or stuff like that, just I don't like that, obviously, but who does?

Speaker 2 (00:18:44):

I don't think anybody.

Speaker 3 (00:18:45):

Yeah, and the other thing that's over the years now is getting a little bit tedious is tracking. I love, I'll be the guy that's going to spend three days getting a drum sound because I don't like using drum samples. I like to create something kind of different every time and unique. I love doing that, but the whole process of just sitting there and record and okay, stop, do it again and do it again. Especially guitars. You have to, if I'm recording guitars and I have the guitarist in the control room, so I have to monitor fairly loud so they can hear themselves,

(00:19:30):

That's the only thing that I find quite tiring. But luckily at the moment, I have a really good assistant that I really trust. I mean, I obviously listen back to all the takes, but yeah, I got this guy that's really good at the moment who's really good with guitar stuff in particular, so I can just fully trust him on stuff. And then I just listen back when they're tracked a song and I just go, oh, maybe this bit could be better. Maybe this is a bit sloppy, or maybe the tuning's a bit weird here, and then we rectify those bits and that's cool. But yeah, it's nice to have a little bit of help, especially after I've been doing it for a long time. So it's nice to have

Speaker 2 (00:20:12):

That Most guys end up getting tracking engineers or some sort of assistant to do the stuff they don't want to do anymore. And I think that it's perfectly natural. And I mean, I feel that way about editing. I mean, I know some guys who love doing it. I wouldn't say that I love doing that sort of stuff, but I did it enough to where once I finally found someone that I trusted to do it for me, I was perfectly happy to let that go, make a little less money and just make sure that someone who actually actually cared. See, here's the thing, if you're not really into something to where it doesn't excite you, it's better to let someone else do it who does really love it, because the amount of attention you need to put into it to get it perfect or up to standard, obviously nothing's ever perfect, but I mean, up to standard, you need to really, really be obsessed with it to get it good enough. And so the guy who ended up editing for me

Speaker 4 (00:21:21):

Is a

Speaker 2 (00:21:22):

Dude named John Douglas who really enjoys doing that stuff. So of course he's going to do a way better job than I ever could because he's into it. He's like zen with it. So I was never zen with it. And I feel like some guys are that way with tracking too. They, they're better for giving the big picture. And you save your ears too, right?

Speaker 4 (00:21:50):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21:50):

If you don't track all the guitars, you save your ears so that you can make better decisions later.

Speaker 3 (00:21:55):

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I also have the same thing with editing. It's one of those things where I feel like I've done it to death. So I've got Chris at the studio doing it for me, and he's really good and he likes doing it, and he does it well. And if he doesn't, I have this joke with him all the time that I tell him he's fired, but he gets fired like five times a day as a joke,

Speaker 2 (00:22:26):

One time it might be real. Does he get scared every time? No, he knows. He's a joke. He's a great

Speaker 3 (00:22:30):

Guy. We have a really good time at work every day. So

Speaker 2 (00:22:34):

How did you go about getting your studio started? I can imagine that it wasn't easy.

Speaker 3 (00:22:40):

No, it wasn't. Especially in this country. I mean, this is probably one of the home of the birthplace of the best studios and probably the best producers

Speaker 2 (00:22:55):

And some of the best musicians

Speaker 3 (00:22:57):

Too. Yeah, exactly. So it was very tough. I mean, I finished uni in 2003, and that was a long time ago now. So it's been a very slow process where I got a couple of jobs from university when I was in university. I was doing so well. They actually put me forward for a couple of jobs. One was in a small recording studio that used to record lots of demos for bands at the weekends and just kind of like a demo kind of studio. But it was pretty good, and I learned a lot there. And then

Speaker 2 (00:23:40):

So did they normally give people, did they normally help students get jobs or was it just because you were the student that was always there and doing the best or one of the best students?

Speaker 3 (00:23:52):

Well, I was, but also back then, I think SAE was a lot smaller and well, I'm sure actually I've been to the new premises and it's just insanely big now, but I think was they do get emails saying, oh, we need someone to help. They do get emails here in the uk, in London, it's a big city, and they getting, oh, we need someone to do some editing or we need someone to do some running or you get all sorts of stuff. So they put me forward for a couple of jobs and I got both jobs. So my last year at uni was pretty hard because I was doing my dissertation and stuff, but I was also working, but I was very young, so I had all the energy, so I just did it and I managed to keep those jobs. And the post-production job was good because it paid well, although I didn't like it that much. But my bosses were amazing. They were really, really nice and I really like working for them, and we're still friends and we keep in touch.

(00:25:04):

So that helped me fund my equipment really slowly. And then in the music studio, the recording studio, that was a good way to meet bands and because they had rehearsal studios too, so I met a band there that I really liked. And then we recorded an album that I did for free and recorded it there in downtime, and I mixed it at home in a Power Mac that I had with a pair of Yamaha multimedia speakers. And that's all I had. My Pro Tools oh oh two, my digit design oh oh two interface, and that's all I had.

Speaker 2 (00:25:45):

And you did it for free. I think it's great to point out that even after all the studying you did and the fact that you were already getting paid at the post house, you were still willing to do a record for free just to be able to start doing records. I think most people should do that.

Speaker 3 (00:26:05):

At first, it was a bit of into what I wanted to do. So there was this guy, this guy who used to work in the studio, whose name is Daniel Sullivan. He's a very, very talented musician. He still plays in the Norwegian band called Ulva. I dunno if you've heard of them.

Speaker 2 (00:26:27):

Yes, definitely. So

Speaker 3 (00:26:28):

He plays with them now, and we had a band together as well called Moth Light, but way before that we just met there in the studio. He was just taking care of the rehearsal bands. I was doing freelancing in the recording studio, recording bands, and then he played me some of his old bands called My Asthma, the Carousel of Headless Horses. And I just absolutely loved it. It was like it sounded,

Speaker 2 (00:26:54):

Wait, wait, wait, what's that name again?

Speaker 3 (00:26:56):

It's pretty, the name's

Speaker 2 (00:26:57):

Crazy.

Speaker 3 (00:26:58):

My Asthma and the Carousel of Headless Horses.

(00:27:02):

And that actually got released on Rise Above Records, which is Lee Dorian's record label here. So that was kind of my first proper release, and we spent months working on it on and off because it was a really ambitious project for all of us. I had lots of keyboards and lots of guitars, like this experimental kind of king crim, SUNY kind of vibe. Very pgy, very psychedelic, but very musical with lots of kind of classical musical classical music influences and gypsy music influences. And it's a great record, actually. I still love it, but that was a really good way for me to okay, the record's out and people like it. Then that kind of scene you start getting where people like, Hey, can you master my album or can you mix my album? Can you record my album? All this kind of stuff. And then kind of went from there really.

Speaker 2 (00:28:03):

And just give us an idea of what year we're talking about that this was released.

Speaker 3 (00:28:08):

I think it came out a bit late, but I think it came out maybe around 2005 six.

Speaker 2 (00:28:16):

Okay, so you got out of school in 2003 and then it still took another two or three years until you nailed a release.

Speaker 3 (00:28:26):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:28:27):

That came out okay. I just wanted people to get some sense that it's not like you got out of school and then within three or four months you were doing label releases of bands you'd like. It took three years after all the work you did in school. I'm just saying that for people who are listening, who I know, a lot of our listeners sometimes move to LA looking for internships and get discouraged when after six months they're not making that much money. Or after a year of doing lower level stuff, sometimes people get discouraged, things like that. You just got to understand that everything good takes time. And building a recording career is something that even after you know some stuff and you're not a total novice still, it still takes years until you get an opportunity and just then people start to know who you are little by little, and you just have to keep on working and working

Speaker 3 (00:29:28):

And get better and better. And I did a lot of stuff really cheap when I was starting out until the record was for free. I'm sure I did some other jobs for free, I can't remember. And a lot of this stuff, if I was really keen on the band, if that was something that I feel, okay, I'm into this and I think I can make it sound good and I'm really going to be into it when I'm doing it, so I'm going to do my best, so I'll do it cheaper because I just want to do it and I just want to get my name out. But in the same way, I kept my post-production job because I was paying the bills. So I was literally working seven days a week from eight 30 in the morning till six 30, Monday to Friday in the post-production studio. And then I'll go home and work on my own projects until about midnight and then go to bed. And then on the weekend I'll go to the recording studio, the music studio and record bands there. I did so many, I still do so many seven day weeks. You just have to work hard, really.

Speaker 2 (00:30:37):

I don't know a single person who works hard and does well at this who doesn't do seven day weeks, but do you ever insist on having any time off or you're totally fine to do no days off if you don't need to?

Speaker 3 (00:30:55):

Not anymore, no. I like having, I tell bands, ideally weekends off, if not possible, then Sunday off or Saturday, I prefer Sunday off. I don't know why, but sometimes it's not possible. I went to Iceland last year to record the band called Salir in SLA in studios, which is the Siegel Ross studio, which is an amazing studios beautiful place and an amazing equipment. And the guy who runs it Biggie, he's really, really nice to work with. But the deal with that album was that they just didn't have time to stop. So we just worked 28 days straight every day. And I haven't done that in a while, to be honest. Sometimes I just have two or three days off in the month or something, but I haven't done a whole month on all the time, and that was really hard. I think it's not very good for your

Speaker 2 (00:32:06):

Mental health.

Speaker 3 (00:32:08):

Yeah, I was going to say quality of work, but the quality of work was there because when I was at the, I mean, had a couple of days where I was just falling asleep all the time, a couple of days just out of tiredness knowing one insult stuff for drinks, so I wasn't even drinking either myself. There were no, let's go to the bar after the student. There was none of that. But there were a couple of days in the last two weeks that I was just falling asleep all the time because I was just so tired. I think it's good to have breaks. I think it's good to have days off. And most importantly these days, in the last few years, actually, I keep my sessions really short. I don't do how short I work from 11 till seven

Speaker 2 (00:33:00):

When I worked with Colin Richardson, when he mixed my band's record in 2006, he only worked from 10 till six. At six o'clock we were done. That was it. It was not going later. He did a phenomenal job. So I think that also, one of my business partners, Joel Sek, he also works specific hours from nine till three or something in the studio, and he doesn't deviate and he gets more work done than most people I know put together.

Speaker 3 (00:33:35):

Exactly. And that's what works for me as well in my bands. I find that if the 12, 15 hour days, they become 12, 15 hour days because the next day you have to rerecord all the last stuff you did in the last three, four hours or five hours,

(00:33:57):

And then everyone gets more pressure. Attention spans drop, people get tired, people get moody. I swear to God, especially since I moved to the countryside a year and a half ago, I'm not super strict that it's 11 till seven. Say if there's a night everyone's having a drink, we start at 12 and then we work until eight or even nine. If we're in a row, it's fine. I'm cool with that. Only if I feel like everything is, everyone's in a good space and performing well and stuff because I'm not a pro to chop it all up and make it perfect guy. I like recording performances, so I need my bands to be happy and feeling well and just being inspired. And if you work someone for 15 hours a day, they're not going to be inspired. I mean, when's the last time you played your instrument? 15 hours a day. Never. Maybe on their last recording session at one point. But musicians don't play 15 hours a day. No one does. Or maybe very few of them do, but

Speaker 2 (00:35:09):

Maybe Steve V when he was

Speaker 3 (00:35:11):

17. Exactly. Yeah, something like that. So I think what you're trying to get, say like a heavy hitting rock drummer or a metal drummer and you're trying to get eight, nine hours out of it, it's lunacy. You just hear it in the performance. I'm not going to go and sound replace all the drums because I don't like that. And I just hear it in me as it's like, dude, you are something a bit more sloppy. You just don't hear the energy on the, it feels a bit lifeless, so let's stop. Oh, no, no, but I'm really worried about time and blah blah. Trust me, let's go home, have a good night's sleep. Let's wake up tomorrow. I promise you'll be fine. And it's always worked. It's always worked during the short days really works for me and for the last projects I've been doing for the last three years,

Speaker 2 (00:36:03):

I've also started doing over the years shorter and shorter sessions for those reasons as well. And I also encountered that situation with drummers where you start to notice that they're tired, you can hear it and you say, we should stop. And they just want to keep going. They feel guilty and they don't want to slow the record down. But seriously, without fail, we always end up redoing the stuff from when the dude was tired and usually something that would take three hours tired. Usually we get done in 20 minutes

Speaker 3 (00:36:43):

When

Speaker 2 (00:36:43):

They're feeling great. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:36:44):

Exactly that. Exactly that. That's exactly my point.

Speaker 2 (00:36:46):

And it's better too. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:36:48):

You've got the energy. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:36:50):

The energy is everything. And I think that a lot of beginning producers don't take into account how much the vibe of the people hanging out makes a difference in how the record will actually sound and how keeping the musicians feeling good and healthy and happy is a big part of it because yeah, I agree. Have you ever seen the documentary about Mike Tyson, the boxer called Tyson? No. Well, it's pretty phenomenal. It's like an autobiography, but he was talking about when he was number one in the world and just beating the shit out of everybody and always winning that. It was all just a labor of love and he was loving every moment of it and was just so happy while he was doing it, and it was kind of that love and joy for it, which allowed him to be that incredible of a fighter, which is crazy to say because he's feeling that way about. Yeah. Yeah, because pummeling people. But it's a similar sort of thing that if people are feeling really good and they're full of energy and they're not tired and they're on a good roll, you're just going to get better performances, better vibe, better everything.

Speaker 3 (00:38:17):

Yep. That's definitely the way I roll these days. Just, I dunno. I remember sessions that I used to do where we'd be in the studio literally till four or five in the morning and then go set again at 10 and stuff like that. And it's just, fuck that. I just couldn't do it anymore, to be honest. I mean, it's not like because I want to go home and have a normal life because if you are doing this kind of job, you can't have a normal life. I find it's because I have to come home and do a lot of other work.

Speaker 2 (00:38:58):

I was thinking about not having a normal life thing. And I think that that's very, very true. And lots of times when I've made sessions shorter, I've had to get people to understand that it has nothing to do with wanting to go out or not working or anything like that. It has more to do with my ears, of course, their ears and ability because there comes a point after X amount of hours where you just don't hear very well anymore. And if you keep pushing it, then the next day you're going to start from a worse position with your ears and you're going to last even less time. And if you push that, then within two weeks or three weeks, sometimes your hearing is not as good as it was at the beginning of the project. Your ears are worn down and that makes it harder to pay attention and harder to be in a good mood. And it adds a lot of stress to the situation, in my opinion. So I think that that's another reason to work less hours is to keep your ears feeling good.

Speaker 3 (00:40:06):

And also, I think also everyone knows that, okay, we are working seven, eight hours with a lunch break in the middle. So in those seven, eight hours, everyone's just going to put all their energy into those hours instead of like, oh my God, we're going to be in the studio again 15 hours. And people, it's, I don't know, it's been working out really well for me to do that, actually.

Speaker 2 (00:40:37):

So I want to switch topics and talk about your studio some, it's called Organ Studios, and I was watching some videos about it and man, your place is really beautiful. I love the brick, I love the hard surfaces that you've got there and you've got a ton of guitar amps. And I watched an interview of yours with Russ Russell who has been on the podcast.

Speaker 5 (00:41:04):

Oh, cool.

Speaker 2 (00:41:04):

He also talked, yeah, he's a great dude. You talked about having around a hundred guitar pedals, so are you one of those guitar amp pedal dudes that just likes to collect a bunch of guitar gear?

Speaker 3 (00:41:19):

I like to collect a lot of gear in general. Actually, I have a thing for Guitar amps. I dunno why because I can't play guitar, but I think I'm a frustrated guitarist. And

Speaker 2 (00:41:32):

You're a drummer, right?

Speaker 3 (00:41:33):

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (00:41:35):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:41:36):

Actually, in the last couple of years, I decided actually I need to buy more drums. I got way more guitar stuff than drum stuff. So now I have five drum kits and 13 narre, which is pretty cool, and a lot of symbols.

Speaker 2 (00:41:54):

That's a pretty good selection right there.

Speaker 3 (00:41:56):

Yeah, I got vintage stuff. I got modern stuff, maple stuff, birch stuff, all the classic stuff. It's nice to, because I'm really, I've been spending less money on recording equipment and more money on musical instruments because I just like kind of That's so

Speaker 2 (00:42:17):

Smart. Actually,

Speaker 3 (00:42:19):

I think it makes sense because I'm not really one of these kind of plugin in samples, kind of like guitar emulators and drum samples kind of guy. And I don't only work with metal, I work with lots of different stuff. So I get a band that wants to sound like a retro rock band and it, well, okay, I've got a Marshall, I got a vintage Marshall Cap. I've got a late sixties drum kit that sounds beautiful. I got vintage and I got a bunch of vintage mics and stuff. So that's how you get the sounds, obviously depends on the songs as well.

Speaker 2 (00:43:09):

Well, I find, and I've done shootouts with this dude, Matt Brown, who is an incredible drum tech engineer. We have a drum course coming out, a production course and

Speaker 4 (00:43:23):

Cool.

Speaker 2 (00:43:26):

We would do these shootouts where we try to see how much of the recording chain contributes what to the sound. And man, when you really break it down, the single most important thing besides the player, because that's the most important thing,

Speaker 3 (00:43:43):

Of course,

Speaker 2 (00:43:44):

Is their instrument.

Speaker 3 (00:43:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:43:46):

That's

Speaker 3 (00:43:47):

It.

Speaker 2 (00:43:47):

And the player and the instrument matter a hell of a lot more than which preamp you're using.

Speaker 3 (00:43:53):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:43:54):

A hundred percent microphone also matters a lot,

Speaker 3 (00:43:57):

But

Speaker 2 (00:43:59):

If you had to choose, if had to say, I'm going to invest my money in things that are going to make an immediate difference in the sounds I'm getting. And you already have decent preamps, meaning not total shit. If you had to choose between getting a bunch of the highest end preamps possible or a bunch of really, really great instruments, I'd go with a lot of really great instruments.

Speaker 3 (00:44:26):

Me too. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't care what people say. I've got 10 70 threes, N 10 70 threes, I've got APIs five 12 Cs, and I got the preamps for my SSL, which are great, but it's not like a difference. You go, wow, my God, this sounds completely different to the other. I mean, you hear more of a different say between the SSL priests and the APIs and the knees, then there is something there for sure. But I think

Speaker 2 (00:45:06):

It's not the same as a Strat versus a Les Ball though.

Speaker 3 (00:45:10):

No, I don't think it's that far. I don't think it's even that far. I think,

(00:45:16):

I don't know, people can think whatever they want to think about me, but I think a lot of it is just, I mean, they do, I have track in vintage Neves, the classic, the Dave Grohl, Neve, one of those I've recorded on, I've recorded on cs, on N vrs and APIs. Amex, I think where you're at that level, they do those priests sound really good. And I don't think you need to go crazy buying some of these super boutique two grand preamps because I don't know, they just don't hear. I think once they hit a level, you hit a level with preamps, I think you can do most jobs with them.

Speaker 2 (00:46:09):

I completely agree. I mean, look, if you already have the best musicians in the world playing on the top instruments and you have money to spend, that's

Speaker 3 (00:46:19):

A lot of their jobs

Speaker 2 (00:46:20):

Then. Okay, sure. I mean, you may as well get better and better preamps, but if you're recording bands, for instance, who don't have great instruments, then you'll get better results if you get better instruments and make them play those instead of their crappy instruments.

Speaker 3 (00:46:40):

Yeah, I mean that's one of the reasons why I started picking up instruments because I would get bands coming in with really bad stuff, say, well, or not even bad stuff, but the wrong stuff. I would get a band saying, oh, we won. I mean, let's talk about 15 years ago. We want to sound like machine head burn my eyes, guitar tone. And it's like, dude, you have a Marshall. You're not going to get that sound out of that. You need a proper high gain amp. Or they'll have just some practice combo amp or a line six amp. Oh yeah. But it's got the metal setting on it and it's like, yeah, dude, trust me. It's just not going to sound like that. So I think that's why I got so much backline these days because especially guitars, I just love being able to just go like, Hey, I think this part of the song, it's Fender twin with a Strat, let's just do that and boom, I've got it. So I like being able to do that.

Speaker 2 (00:47:51):

Also, man, like you said, not always the wrong, I mean, not always bad instruments, but even with the touring guys, sometimes they get good instruments that are just worn to shit because they tour with them. Right? These drummers who are in bigger bands, they might have a killer drum set, but if it's spent any time touring, you can't trust it in the studio because all the hardware is going to be totally whacked out. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:48:21):

It's going to be a nightmare. We're just talking about that at the Paradise Lost launch in Germany on the 1st of September where they got a higher kit from peril because Valter, the drummer in Paradise lost endorsed by peril, and the kid they sent the hardware was so mashed up, it was just like he was really nervous that the symbol stuff were going to fall off in the middle of the show and stuff. And obviously, I mean, let alone, I can't even begin to imagine the state of the bearing edges of those drums. I'm sure they're pitted to hell.

Speaker 2 (00:49:02):

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:49:03):

And then tuning becomes a bit more complicated that

Speaker 2 (00:49:07):

Way, to say the least. So do you have any outboard gear that you use that you find that you always use, go-to stuff or vocals or go-to stuff on drums? Or are you seriously starting from scratch every time?

Speaker 3 (00:49:28):

No, I have preempts that I like using for certain things, especially on drums. So for example, all my drum spots will be on APIs because I can drive them a bit. And that's one difference you get with some pres that you can actually drive them and you can do that with the 10 70 threes as well. So I do use them for that. And then when they're coming on the input of the desk, I trim the level a bit, so I get a bit of tiny bit of drive on the drums and then all the symbol stuff, like all the room mics and all the overheads and all that stuff. I use the SSL preempts because they just kind of very clean. But that's about it really. I actually, I don't really use EQ or compression when recording. I just make drummers really bored because I just sit there tuning and tuning and changing skins and changing drums like, oh, I'm not feeling this nerd drum. I'm not feeling the skins on the Toms, let's get out.

Speaker 2 (00:50:38):

He sounds like me.

Speaker 3 (00:50:39):

Yeah, I mean, think it's the way to do it. Obviously I do a lot of pre-production with the bands, especially with the big projects, and we have this disgusting depth before they go in the studio. So I'll have three different sets of skins because say, oh, I don't know the kit, so I don't know what to use with it, so let's get this, let's get those and let's get a set of those as well. And then try it out and then, and then just move mics. And I mean, I've heard drums that sound great with nothing on them a long time ago, and I just like, wow, I can't believe how good that sounds with no IQ and no compression. And then I just, well, if someone else can do it and then I can do it. So I just worked hard on it, and that's kind of what I do. I just spend a lot of time on drum tuning and stuff,

Speaker 2 (00:51:35):

Man. And I got to say too, that in addition to the instrument and the player being most important with a drum, the way that you tune it, it makes a lot more of a difference than what gear you're running it through.

Speaker 3 (00:51:55):

Oh yeah, massively.

Speaker 2 (00:51:56):

Yeah. You should definitely take the time to work on that.

Speaker 3 (00:52:00):

Yeah, and that's stuff, that's something that's a bit like making records. It takes a long time to understand how to tune drums.

Speaker 2 (00:52:09):

So with tuning drums, is it something that you learned to do because you were a drummer or did you learn to do it for the studio? And I'm asking because a lot of drummers I know don't know how to tune drums.

Speaker 3 (00:52:21):

Yeah, I mean, same here. It was a bit of both. I actually did my dissertation in uni. It was about kind of about drum tuning and drum construction. So I really got really nerdy about it and tried lots of different things and read a lot of books about it, watch a lot of videos on YouTube. And to be fair, there's no right way of doing it. I still kind of have a bit of a method, but it doesn't always work. You just have to, I think drums, they're really temperamental unique things. Sometimes it doesn't always go like, oh, this is what I do, so you need to really feel out the drum. You have to fill it out. That's the way it tune.

Speaker 2 (00:53:13):

What is your method, if you don't mind going into it a little bit?

Speaker 3 (00:53:17):

Sure. I think Toms, for example, I hate thin single ply skins on the bottom, the resonators, I really kind of thicker stuff like coated emperors.

Speaker 2 (00:53:35):

Interesting

Speaker 3 (00:53:36):

Because you get a deeper tone and you don't get all that well sound that can be sometimes it can take so long to tune, resonates. I mean, I just prefer the tone I get with those these days. Or even anything coated underneath, I find a bit sounds kind of better and on the back.

Speaker 2 (00:53:59):

Interesting because a lot of the modern metal guys use ambassadors as their bottom head on top, which is pretty thin,

Speaker 3 (00:54:08):

But I don't, doesn't

Speaker 2 (00:54:09):

Work for

Speaker 3 (00:54:09):

You. I like drums that go, I like drums that go like, bro, bro, bro, massive. So I always record big drums as well all the time. I kind of make drummers play bigger sizes than they're normally used to or just kind of big sounds of big drums.

Speaker 2 (00:54:26):

Great.

Speaker 3 (00:54:28):

But with batter heads on the Toms, one thing I think is really important that maybe a lot of people overlook is the way you sit the skin on the drum. So you take the old skin off, I always clean the bearing edges, give it a good clean, make sure there's no dust or nothing on there, and I put the skin and then I put the hoop back on. And then you have to feel where the skin is kind of sitting in the right place because I find if you don't get that right, then you're going to start getting wrinkles. And I think that gets overlooked a little bit. However, with the Evans level 360 thing, it's a lot easier, but I still prefer Remo skins for some stuff,

Speaker 2 (00:55:23):

Man. I'm a Remo guy.

Speaker 3 (00:55:26):

Evans are, I just wish Remo kind of like they came up with more interesting new products because I think they're, Evans are doing a lot of new stuff all the time, and Remo iss just kind of stuck in their ways, but

Speaker 2 (00:55:39):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (00:55:40):

But they're great. And I like those black chrome skins that Evans does for some stuff. They just sound really deep and for some stuff they just work really good. Like Remo, there's no equivalent of Remo on that. But yeah, I don't know, just sit the skin and then I just put them finger tight around and then I start doing that crisscross kind of pattern. I tend to go three full turns on each road, like 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, which is a bit harsh, but it works for me. And then the rest I really do by field and just listening to the tuning around the tension ruts.

Speaker 2 (00:56:36):

And are you aiming for a specific pitch or are you just aiming for where the drum sounds best for itself?

Speaker 3 (00:56:47):

Yeah. I never do the pitch thing. I've never done it. I mean, no, I have had tried for snares, but not for Toms. I think it's just finding the sweet spot of the drum is always my and the sweet spot can change depending on what kind of skins you're using too, obviously. So I just spent a lot of time getting, I mean, I think the Paradise Lost guys were getting a bit, honestly, what's going on? Why are we in a recording drums yet? Because drums are not sounding great yet, so we're going to have to wait.

Speaker 2 (00:57:22):

How long did it take you to get the drum sounds on it?

Speaker 3 (00:57:25):

About three days.

Speaker 2 (00:57:26):

That's not a long time. That's a good amount of time. I hear you though. I like to take about three days as well and definitely have had bands start to get weird

Speaker 3 (00:57:41):

After

Speaker 2 (00:57:42):

About middle of the second day, but I just find that it takes some, I mean, I've had to move faster and definitely done stuff in one day when you have no choice. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:57:53):

Of course, me too.

Speaker 2 (00:57:55):

But there's something that just happens by the end of the third day because you've been tweaking stuff and your ears don't last very long when you're getting drums of what you're listening to all day, it's just symbols getting hit or drums getting hit. So you do need to rest a lot on drum tone days. And I just find that you've had enough time to tweak it to where by the third day it should really be awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:58:25):

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good amount of time.

Speaker 2 (00:58:28):

The thing I find how you were talking about redoing recordings because you were tired, I find that sometimes on albums where I got the drum tone in one day and then had to start recording on day two, I find that by day three I've improved the drum sound anyways because I would still have to keep tweaking it a little bit. And the drummer's playing better, more warmed up and comfortable, and we end up redoing this stuff from day one anyways.

Speaker 3 (00:58:59):

Yeah, true. That does happen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:59:02):

So I say take the time to get it right and then record.

Speaker 3 (00:59:06):

Yeah. And then another thing, I spend a lot of time on his room mics because I love my room mics.

Speaker 2 (00:59:13):

You've got a very, very cool facility to use room mics in.

Speaker 3 (00:59:18):

And coming back to what we were talking earlier about buying instruments, I think after I had all the equipment I've had a couple of years ago and I'm actually what I really need now, what I really put my money on now, it's a really nice room. I think that's a really good place to put money instead of preempts, for example.

Speaker 2 (00:59:47):

I completely agree.

Speaker 3 (00:59:49):

A good sounding room is going to make a massive difference in your work. Huge. If you're recording, if you're recording drums in a little tiny little box that is full of foam and absorbing materials, and when you get a big room, you go like, wow. It's just something else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):

Yeah. And yeah, it's interesting. That's the stuff people should spend their money on, in my opinion,

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):

For sure. Yeah. I think people read too many ads and they go on gear slots and they just go, oh yeah, I need to buy this. I need to buy that. But obviously gear slots is run by salesmen. A lot of people in there are salesmen. Yeah, it's true. It's not run by salesman. Actually, I know the people who run it, but there are a lot of salesmen in there. And so you kind of get sucked in, I need to buy this, I need to buy that. I need to buy that. And you know what a perfect example of that was? About 10, 12 years ago, I got in my head that I needed to buy a manly, massive passive, and I bought one, I saved enough money, and I took a bit of a loan to buy one because I was convinced that everything that would pass through that was just going to sound amazing. And when I got it, I was a bit disappointed actually, because I was like, oh, well, yeah, sounds really nice, but it still just sounds like an eq. It's not like it made everything sound like 3D and amazing. No, what makes 3D and amazing is just good instruments, good musicians, good room, good mics,

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):

And someone that knows how to mix well.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):

Exactly, yeah. And record well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):

Yeah. Yeah. That was my first impression too when I first started using high-end gear was this isn't really, I mean, it's certainly not hurting anything but a shitty guitar tone going through a 10 73. It's still a shitty guitar tone.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):

Oh, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):

It's just going through a nice preamp, so you hear a very detailed, shitty guitar tone. That's basically what it is. If you put a really bad singer through a $30,000 microphone, all you're going to hear is a really detailed bad singer. You're going to hear everything that's bad about the singer.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):

But it's not going to make them a good singer. It's not going to make someone that has a bad tone suddenly have a good tone.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):

I think that that's where people get it wrong from reading online on places like Gear Sluts is they think that the gear is going to cause some fundamental change to the material that they're working on. And when in reality, the thing that'll cause the most fundamental change is your brain and the instruments and the people involved.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):

Yeah. I mean, for me, it was like the first experience I had with that was when I was, the early days of working in that little recording studio in London and we had a house drum kit, we had a very small drum room there, and I always thought as a drummer, oh my God, these drums just sound, they're just not very good drums. It was like a premier middle of the range kit. And then one day a band came in with a proper session drummer, and I could not believe they were the same drums. Literally like wow. I mean, I think he had brought his own snare, but just the way the Kick and the Tom sounded, the way he tuned it and stuff, I was like, wow. It's just, I can't believe it's the same kit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):

Yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):

I've had sessions where just because of a weird scheduling thing, two different bands had to use the same drum set, with the same microphone setup,

Speaker 4 (01:03:49):

Different

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):

Symbols, but it was a scheduling thing. It was a nightmare that came true scheduling wise, and we had no choice basically, because I would never suggest doing that. Sure. Unless you have no choice. We had no choice. So exact same setup, same microphones, nothing got moved around. Sounded completely different

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):

Between the two. Yeah, it's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):

Yeah. One drummer was kind of a pussy with how he hit. The other drummer is just one of a badass, new metal drummer, meaning hit really, really hard. Maybe not the fastest, but just hit a fucking beast. And the difference in the way those drums sounded was just incredible. And the only thing that changed was the drummer and of course the sticks.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):

Yeah. What I find this as well, I've had some drummers that I call it the Touch basically, because I have had some drummers that they don't hit super hard, but they sound amazing. But I agree, the heavy hitters always sound really good, generally speaking, but sometimes they hit the symbols too loud as well, and that starts,

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):

Oh yeah, that's really annoying.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):

So it's like, I had this drummer recently where he's just, I think I went to drum school and stuff, and he just knows how to hit the drums so well, he'll just hit the drums hard, but not super hard. It was very consistent. And then his symbols, he's just like, he'll just play them at the right volume. It's just so nice when it's like that. Or the worst thing is when you get the drummers that hit the symbols louder than the drums. That's when I start weeping. That's just as a drummer as well. It's like, oh my God. Just, it hurts. It doesn't happen very often these days, fortunately, but because most of the people I work with in the last, for a while now, they're all mostly professional musicians. But yeah, sometimes it's just like you are hitting the symbols, you are hitting that high hat. You are hitting someone that did something really bad to you, and you need to stop doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):

Yeah. The single worst or single easiest way to ruin drum takes is to go crazy with the high hat. Get into everything, destroy every single mic.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):

I'll give you a tip. And for the people who listen to this, the best high hats I've recorded that I actually, the most beautiful sound and the quietest high hat I recorded was with the SFI album and their Sabian 16 inch, I think they were artisan symbols. Those things are sounding amazing, but they're like a thousand dollars for a pair of high hats. So they're super expensive, but I really want to get my hands on a pair of those. They're just super musical, beautiful sound, and they just didn't get on the way very much. It was kind of quiet, which is great. Sounds perfect. I know a lot of us struggle with the high hat. The high hats always one of those things that can be really annoying. I mean, massively depends on the drummer, but high hats are just loud.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):

Yeah. I mean, you don't need to record them half the time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):

Yeah, I don't really mic up high hats. I would say it's like 50 50 depending on the band and what the drummer is doing. I use so many room mics that it's just going to be there and it's probably going to be there annoying me in a lot of places.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):

Yeah, I can completely relate. So I have some questions here from our listeners for you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):

Oh, cool.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):

So here's one from Eric Burt, which is when mastering a band like Suno, how do you approach compression at limiting since there's very little of any dynamics to the music? Is compression and limiting even needed?

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):

That's a really good question. The answer is I do very little dynamic processing to those kind of records. Mainly with Steven, he really likes analog stuff like I do. And a lot of the time with that kind of stuff, it's just literally just, I'll just run it through some of my outboard to buy it up, and then I'll definitely master it to analog tape and just get a vibe of it, because there is no need to, there's no transience to get excitement in the mix. And it's a, is like a wall of noise, so you don't need to compress, you don't need an SSL bus compressor type compression for that kind of stuff. So it's more about maybe some kind of gentle, kind of nice vibey compressor going in it, just touching it really slowly, but mainly just a bit of EQ and run it through one of my tape machines through my scooter. I actually used real tape. I know they don't sound anything like the plugins you can get. I got the plugins too, but they're sound completely different, which is great. But the plugins sound cool too. It's just a different sound. But yeah, that's what I do with stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):

Thank you for going into that. I think that's cool to hear that that's how you do it, because on our program Nail the Mix when people submit their mixes for the competition that we do every month, one of the biggest problems that I hear is people's mastering jobs. And lots of times you can tell the mix was probably okay, and they just completely decimated it with the insane amount of compression and limiting. They just went nuts and just destroyed the mix completely. This happens hundreds of times a month with these submissions because we often get over 600 and yeah, so I'm hearing this problem a lot. So it's great to hear that doesn't need dynamics, so you're not going to go crazy with it. You're just doing things to try to make it sound musical.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):

That's always made records as loud as they can be. The second I start hearing the mix is getting damaged, I stop and then if the client complains that it's too quiet, then I'll try and boost it a little bit more. But it's not about being the loudest, especially now when all the streaming services like Spotify, they're dropping everything to minus four DB or something like that. They're just doing minus 0.4. I think they're doing, I don't know what they're doing, but they're ENC coding basically the loudest you have the master, from what I understand now, the loudest master, the worst is going to sound through those encoders. So now actually all my masters this year, they've actually gone down in volume a lot because I'm using that and there's no need anymore to be the loudest. That was a thing of the two thousands. So it sounds louder on the radio. I mean, who the fuck listens to radio these days? Not many people,

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):

Dude. I don't know when the last time I listened to radio was, nor

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):

Do I don't have any friends that listen to radio. I mean, occasionally. Okay, the builders, when they were building my new studio, they had the radio on, but it's pop music. I think people that listen to the kind of stuff we listen to, we're all kind of record collectors and proper music fans and we sound quality and we don't need to butcher our records with just compressing the hell out of them. It's just no need anymore. It's not, I understand from a, oh yeah, but the Arch Enemy record sounds louder than my record, so I need to make it as loud. And that doesn't always work that way because sometimes the way you mix the album, the way your band sounds, it is never going to be that loud. Because if you are tuned to a, if you turn guitars to a and you're playing doom, you're probably not going to be as loud as a really melodic band that tunes in standard tuning and E because of the frequencies. I don't know, I'm just probably just thinking, looking at the moon in the countryside, I have no idea what, but I guess that will be a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):

I mean, dude, I totally think that the arrangement of the music and along with how it's mixed, make a huge difference in how loud it's going to be. You need to mix things in a way that they can be loud if that's your goal. It doesn't just happen. So I think a lot of people have a problem with it. They're not mixing specifically for that goal, and then they get disappointed when they can't turn it up, even if their mix was just fine.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):

It does happen. I mean, I've had records, I do a lot of mastering Oregon Studios is started as Oregon mastering because that was a thing that I was always really fascinated about. So I started as a mastering suite actually. So subsequently, I've done lots of mastering over the years and I've had records that it's like I can't get it to sound louder without making it sound bad. So I just need to leave it there because I don't want it to sound bad. And I don't care if it's not as loud as death magnetic, because that sounds bad in terms of mastering.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):

Yes, it does. So here's one from Sasha Riesling, which is your studio looks incredibly beautiful. Can you talk about the acquisition of the place and the process of getting it to the state that it looks like on the website pictures, and also what do you think people should really think about before bringing their studio or operation into a place that is not connected to their home?

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):

Well, the first question, it will be that the building has a lot of history. Actually. It used to be part of the code breakers here near me. There's a city called Bletchley, where in the World War ii, that's how they cracked the enigma machine of the Nazis. And that building where I'm now used to be a broadcast studio where they used to record fake propaganda for the Nazis and broadcasted from there. Wow, that's

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):

Really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):

So that was pretty cool. But trust me, there was nothing that looked like a recording studio in there because I mean, the building is about 80 years old and it was a complete mess. I mean, I had to spend a lot of money doing that place up. So to get it that way, I mean, I did have the wooden floor, which I was lucky. I hacked off all the plaster just to leave the raw brick, a brick building from the outside. So I thought, well, brick sounds great. I mean, if it works for Steve Albani, it's probably going to work for me because he's got a lot of brick in his studio and I love his stuff. And yeah, it just took a lot of investment.

(01:16:04):

It cost me twice more than I anticipated, so it caught me in a bit of debt, but luckily business is good. So I think I'll be out of that soon. And then just more talking to an acoustician friend of mine in Columbia used to be in a bandwidth Manuel. He gave me a lot of advice. I want to achieve this. And he's like, try this, try that. I built a lot of all the acoustic stuff. I built myself, all the traps I built with rock wool. I made all the frames, I met all the quadratic diffusers from scratch. So you can save a lot of money doing it that way, and then you can do it the way you, as well.

(01:16:47):

I spent a lot of time also thinking on the decoration of the place because I'm very sensitive to spaces and light. For example, if you put me in a white bright light, I'm not going to feel good for 10 hours a day sitting there. I'm not going to feel good. So I just wanted to make it really vibey, a really nice place with really nice views. It's in the top of a hill, so you have windows looking to the countryside. There's nothing around. So when I went to see the building, I was like, yeah, this is the perfect spot. And against all the odds, because it was very difficult to get all the permits from the council to do it. I just kept pushing. Even my parents were like, you need to give up with this idea. This is stupid. This has cost you 5,000 pounds and you still haven't even got a lease on that place. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):

Okay, that's really fascinating to me. What did you do to convince them? Because bureaucracy over there, from what I understand, is really tough to get through.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):

Yeah, I mean, the Brits do love paperwork, and there were all sort of things that, oh, it's a listed building and its like, and then some people were saying some different department is, no, it's not listed, but it's listed. It's not listed. And then it worked out that it's not listed. A listed building means it's a protected building because of its heritage, and if you get a listed building, you're into a world of chaos because the council's not going to let you do anything. Then there were things like, okay, I want to hack off all the plaster. And they were like, oh no, well, you can't do that because CO2 emissions and your heating is going to be bad and you're going to use too much electricity. So that's bad for the environment. And honestly, there were so many things. I also have to have an ecological appraisal thing where they needed to check if I had bats in my roof.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):

And did you

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):

I, I told them guys, listen, it's a tin roof. Bats don't like tin roofs. As far as I know, they like wooden roofs. Well, we don't think you have bats, but you still have to do the ecological appraisal and we still have to check That cost me a thousand pounds for someone to come into the building, go in the roof and go like, yeah, you're fine. And that was a thousand pounds. Then I had amazing, they didn't like the plans at the beginning, no, you need to do this. No, you can't do that, you can't do that. And then it's like a combination of give and take like, okay, I'm not going to do this, but how about I do it this way? Is it possible? And it took a year just to get it all sorted. It was really difficult. But I am the kind of person that when I really want something, I just do everything to get it. So it was really tough. It was very expensive, but I'm super happy. I'm really happy the way it looks, the way it sounds, the place where it is. The accommodation I have in the studio is really nice. My house is really nice in the countryside. I've got a beautiful, really, really old tiny village, 10 minute walk from the house with lots of old pups and restaurants and it's just a really nice environment for bands to work at. So that's why I kept pushing with it

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):

Sounds like it was worth it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):

Yeah, I'm really happy. It cost me a lot of stress. Yo, I cannot begin to tell you how stressful the whole building period was. It broke me. It really did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):

I can imagine. I mean, just building a studio and not having to deal with that stuff is a pain in the ass. And it already takes a long time. It always takes longer than you imagine, and it's always hard. But to add that kind of stress on top of it seems you must've really wanted it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):

Yeah, I did. As I tell you, my dad, I really look up to him because he's a really good businessman and he's kind of like me. I think I get it from him that if you really want something, you keep on pushing. And even himself was telling me, you need to give up on this place, just go and find somewhere else. And I was like, no, I'm not doing it. This is the place I want. Yeah. And in terms of the sounds, I, I've just been experimenting as I've been going. At the beginning I had the acoustic panels. I think I had too many on the ceiling, so I started taking some out and then just hearing it in the control room with drums and stuff. And now I think you have a studio and it just never ends. There's always something to change and something to buy and something to fix. But it's pretty much there now. It's been fully working since March, but it's always, I've been fine tuning everything and it's getting there to the point that I'm a hundred percent with it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):

Alright, last question. This one's from Jesse Johnson, which is, are there any particular tips you can recommend for getting drums and other stuff to cut through the ultra thick guitars with the Sun Os and Electric Wizards of the world?

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):

Yeah, I actually find easier to cut through those than cut through 51 fifties because those take so much mid range and so much kind of top end. But I think that the trick to, I'm not really even sure how I do it, you have to, I think, choose the right drums for the project you're working on, I think is quite important. You have, I kind of found once that I was recording a really heavy album that was really down tuned and I had really big drums with really down tuned tuning, and that was difficult to make it cut through. So what I did the next time is I got less deep sounding drums for that. And you get a lot more separation that way when you're doing the kind of doomy heavy stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):

So in some ways it comes down to the arrangement and instrument choice,

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):

I think. So, yeah, that's a classic thing as well where especially with melodic stuff, like some of the arrangements, a lot of the time you get musicians writing a lot of arrangements in the same octave and stuff like that, and you just have to move it around because it's just like, okay, the piano, the bass, the guitars are playing exactly the same notes, so that's not going to work. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):

Definitely not

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):

To cut through with the drums. I don't really know. I mean, I love room mics. I think room mics give you the kind of top hand and that they make the drums sound so much bigger. If you have good room mics, it's just like spot mics. It's not, doesn't even sound like a drum kit. It just sounds like separate drums micd up individually

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):

And kind of weird sounding too.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):

Yeah, they do sound weird.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):

Well, it's not like you stick your ear next to a drum like that when you listen.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):

That's exactly what I tell people.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):

When you actually hear drums in real life, you're hearing the room and you're hearing some of the direct hit from the drum in front of you, but that's in a very perfect balance with its environment. And just hearing one element, like a close mic drum on its own just sounds weird out of context.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):

No. So yeah, I don't really have a specific answer to that. I think it's just more like we're in the studio, we're trying out stuff and we just kind of see what kind of works with the material. But yeah, just go, maybe pre-production really helps for this kind of stuff, I think because you, I just get an idea of what instruments I think are going to work together.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):

Alright. I actually have one more question.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):

Go for it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):

I feel like some people will get mad if I don't at least ask you about this. So this is from Sasha Riesling, he's asking, so with knowing that Papa Emeritus is a master of the whole ghost operation and knowing insights on how specific he actually is with every little micro decision, can you talk about the process for Opus Pons? He must have already known that his band will take off. I'm very interested in the way musical and production decisions were made in the whole process, and thank you for being a part of the beginning of the coolest band in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):

Oh, cool, thanks. Well, ghost I would say is the album that really put me in the map, which really helped and I'm very grateful for that. I was just with Papa in a bloodstock festival about three weeks ago, and it was really nice to see him. He's very grateful still for my input on that album. And that was really nice. I really haven't seen him in a long time. So that was really cool. But with Ghost, it was, I've been doing a bit of work for Rise Above, which is Lead Orian label, and they released a demo and everyone in the underground was really going nuts about the demo.

(01:27:06):

And then Lee told me that he was thinking of signing them and then he would like me to do the record and I went, okay, sure, that would be great. I really like what I'm hearing. And then Papa was playing with his other band back in the day in London, and we met outside King's cross station and we went for a coffee and we already been emailing each other and I just said, look, I think this is the kind of sound we need. I think we need vintage drums like an old Ludwig, and we get this nerd tune this way. I mean, I've got emails where I just kind of saying all the kind of stuff we were to use and kind of low gain, kind of vintage kind of old Marshall Tone, even though we use Orange Jams for that.

(01:28:01):

We used an old damp peg, the Flip top one, the Portex for the bass, but the drums were recorded in Sweden in a very small studio. I wasn't there, but the guy who was recording it was very friendly and very helpful and he followed my notes. I sent very specific notes of which mics I wanted, where and how I wanted the drum studio, and then what kind of drums I wanted and stuff. And yeah, we just worked together really well. It was like a team effort. I think we just came up with this kind of really, I don't know, vintage kind of classic sound I guess, but still very clean.

(01:28:45):

Me and Papa, we were talking a lot about the production on Merciful Fates, Melissa, that record sounds incredible, so we're thinking about that, but maybe with a bit more kind of blue or cult kind of vibe. And I'm a sucker for Old Rocks and I love old productions. Some bands like Steely Dan, stuff like that sounds great. Cz Top Record sounds great. So it was like, yeah, I think I kind of came up with the sound of that. And then I mixed. It took a while to mix because we're experimenting some different kind of directions. And then eventually we got there and I think he knew he was sitting on something good. And then when the album came out, it just all exploded and it just went really well. So that's kind of how it went really.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):

I guess that's the part where just wrapping this around, we're talking about luck. I wouldn't say it's lucky that you had that gig and did a great job with it, but that little bit of luck that you even met him in the first place sure helped. But it wouldn't have made any difference if you hadn't been someone that was obsessed with recording for all those years before that, I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (01:30:07):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):

So I think that always takes a little bit of luck, but luck with work.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):

Yeah, it does. And for the same reason sometimes I hear bands like new bands that I really like or see a band live. I just think like, wow, these guys are really, really good. And I know they have no budget and I know they have nothing, but sometimes I do pick up projects that I do for next to Nothing, and then I try to get them signed, and then if there's money from the advance, then they pay me and stuff like that. But I do take those risks because you never know who's going to be the next ghost, the next band to make it that big. Obviously a lot of the success with ghosts is that Papa works really hard. He works fucking hard that guy, and he's got the vision and he just works hard and a lot of musicians the problem. So

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):

It's very, very true. Of course, he works hard. The thing is, like I was saying earlier, I don't know a single person who's done great things or is great at something who doesn't work their ass off.

Speaker 3 (01:31:23):

It's true.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):

You just can't be lazy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):

Well,

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):

Jaime, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you taking the time. I've had a great time speaking with you, and you and Russ should do an episode with us sometime.

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):

Oh, we would

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):

Love to. It would be cool.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):

And Andy as well, we've been talking with Andy Snake,

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):

If you'll do it. Hey, man, Andy, I've known Andy for maybe not as well as you guys, but I've kind known him for like 10 years or something, or 11 years now, and he has an open invitation to come on whenever. So if you guys want to do the three of you, that would be great too.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):

Yeah, it would be really funny. Those two are really funny, man. I love those guys. They're great.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):

But yeah, we should do that. I think it'll be cool.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):

Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):

Thanks, man.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):

No, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having me to be part of this. It is very cool. I appreciate it. If there's anything I can help with or if anything anyone's got any questions or something, if there's a way of reaching me, I'm happy to, maybe not in writing, but maybe because of time. I'm very busy at the moment. But yeah, anything I can do to help, man, just let me know. It's a pleasure. Thank you. For sure. The

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):

Unstoppable

Speaker 3 (01:32:32):

Recording Machine

Speaker 1 (01:32:32):

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