SAM PURA: Tuning Drums to Key, Tracking Guitars to a DI, No-EQ Vocals

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]. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and with me is Mr. Sam Pura, founder and chief audio engineer at the Panda Studios, which he started in 2003. And if you don't know who he is, you should know who he is. He is worked with bands like The Story so Far, hundredth Basement, the American Scene, and tons of other awesome bands. And he's really, really well known for being just one of the best punk producers out there. And what lots of people love about his style is that it sounds modern and up to date, yet still natural and sounds like real people playing. He's also done some other things like created the Waiting Room tv, which is a series that he's hosted at the Panda Studios, and you can watch them via the YouTube account. And basically it's live in studio performances. The bands look straight from the Path Stick to your Guns, citizen code Orange Balance and Composure and lots of other ones. And he's also got the best friends with Sam Pura podcast, which is actually really entertaining, so you should check it out. Did I miss anything?

Speaker 3 (00:01:45):

That's it, except it's pura

Speaker 2 (00:01:48):

Pura. There

Speaker 3 (00:01:49):

You go. I'm sorry. No, it's totally fine, man. So dude,

Speaker 2 (00:01:53):

People get my name wrong all the time.

Speaker 3 (00:01:55):

It reads as pure, so it's just like everyone, but then immediately everyone thinks it's Spanish or something like that. So then they go Pura. And then all my substitute teachers in school always would go when they would do the attendance, they'll go, is Samwell Pura here?

Speaker 2 (00:02:13):

That's what I thought. I'm half Mexican. That's funny. I actually learned Spanish before English. So it's kind of like my first instinct is to read a word like that and think Spanish Pura.

Speaker 3 (00:02:27):

And also that it's Pura Vita and it's not pur a vita. You know what I mean? So

Speaker 2 (00:02:32):

People

Speaker 3 (00:02:33):

Just, I completely understand. No worries.

Speaker 2 (00:02:35):

So pur,

Speaker 3 (00:02:36):

There it is,

Speaker 2 (00:02:36):

Man. Now I'm going to have to rethink everything.

Speaker 3 (00:02:38):

There you go.

Speaker 2 (00:02:40):

My whole life is known question.

Speaker 3 (00:02:43):

I appreciate that very generous intro there. It was nice to hear all that history. It's

Speaker 2 (00:02:48):

All true though, right?

Speaker 3 (00:02:48):

I mean, it's all true. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:02:50):

We're just reporting the facts.

Speaker 3 (00:02:51):

Yep, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:02:53):

So how are you doing? I haven't talked to you in a while. What's been up? What's the latest and greatest in your life? How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:03:00):

I am solid. Thank you for asking. So I got married.

Speaker 2 (00:03:05):

Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (00:03:06):

Thank you. That was in July, and then I just came back from my honeymoon about a month ago now. And

Speaker 2 (00:03:13):

Have you been honeymooning since July

Speaker 3 (00:03:16):

Honeymooning? We started in September, so it was all the month of September, and basically all the month of July was dedicated to the wedding as well.

Speaker 2 (00:03:26):

Where did you go?

Speaker 3 (00:03:27):

So we got married at a place called Sonora, which is a gold country area in California. Really cool fucking place where we stayed on the property and stuff. And then after that we went to Yosemite, which I dunno if you've ever been to Yosemite, it's pretty much the most beautiful place in the world. Gorgeous. Yeah, it's fucking awesome. And then a few weeks later, that's when we went on the honeymoon and went to Spain, specifically the region of Catalonia, which is a fucking beautiful place. Really awesome art, really awesome wine, really good food. Did a little bit of time in France, drove around up there, had some wine, had some food. Everything was great. And yeah, that was kind of the gist of my whole Spain trip. Barcelona is the shit as well.

Speaker 2 (00:04:13):

What made you want to go there? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with it, I'm just curious why you chose.

Speaker 3 (00:04:18):

It's funny. It was because we had to choose a date for the wedding, and so the venue that we wanted, it was like, oh, well, we have availability in July. We're like, all right, we're getting married in July. And then it was like, okay, so then we're going to go on our honeymoon. Where should we go? And so my wife is really into tropical places, but that's all not in season at the time and stuff like that. So she was like, let's go to a place where it's going to be perfect for the season. And so it was specifically Spain and the southern part of France that were the fucking peak hours and they were badass.

Speaker 2 (00:04:51):

That part of the world is just like, I call it perfect V, there's a few perfect vs. I feel like Southern California is perfect. VI feel like Spain, south of France and the Mediterranean are perfect V,

Speaker 3 (00:05:05):

It's

Speaker 2 (00:05:05):

Just perfect V. Everything there is perfect.

Speaker 3 (00:05:08):

Yeah, they take a lot of pride in very simple work, which is pretty inspiring. They're all just really nice people. I mean, all the mom and pop shops, lack of corporations and stuff like that is really cool.

Speaker 2 (00:05:24):

Speaking of taking a lot of pride in simple work, you wish that that was a more common thing among audio engineers?

Speaker 3 (00:05:31):

Yeah, absolutely. One of the funny things is what everyone forgets is that they're always like, when you just start off, you want to fucking immediately be awesome, but in order to get there, you just got to try again. You know what I mean? So it's like the simple rewards of satisfaction are what it's all about, you know what I mean? Whereas everyone else thinks that there's a different destination. You know what I mean? That you're supposed to reach. It's like, no, it's the process of reaching the destination. You know what I mean? That is the fun part.

Speaker 2 (00:06:02):

Well, the thing is that I've noticed that whenever I achieve goals or get to destinations, it doesn't change the way you feel. It's still you inside of your head. It's the same person who made those goals and was looking to the future, is the one who arrived in the future at the goal. And so that same mindset that had you looking towards something else still has you looking towards something else. So when you achieve a goal, it's not like suddenly you've arrived. What happens when you get to a goal as you see the next goal and the one after that and the one after that. So if you don't learn to enjoy the process, it can be very psychologically traumatic.

Speaker 4 (00:06:45):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:06:45):

Because you'll feel like you're never accomplish anything ever, which is weird, which is not always true. I mean, you could be accomplishing a lot, but it won't feel like that unless you enjoy the process.

Speaker 3 (00:06:59):

Absolutely. You got to go through the struggle to feel the satisfaction of the reward.

Speaker 2 (00:07:04):

So have you always loved the struggle?

Speaker 3 (00:07:07):

I guess I've had to learn to love it. You know what I mean? It's funny because even just doing shit, having Tyler around who through the URM stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:07:20):

Tyler Rodriguez from URM, shout out.

Speaker 3 (00:07:22):

Yeah, exactly. He's been helping me out. He's a great guy, but showing him all the fucking patch bays and lines and everything that I have here, it's like, man, I do have all of this dialed down so perfectly. You know what I mean? I kind of blow myself away sometimes with how much work I've put into making things so smooth and awesome here. You know what I mean? And so it's just like every day that I come in, it's all about the little small subtle details that just add up to make such a fucking badass end result. You know what I mean? When you watch dudes write songs and stuff like that, you're like, fuck, man, how the fuck did they make that? That's so sick? Then you start to layer it, strip it down, and it's like, actually, it's really fucking simple, and it just took hours and days and fucking months to achieve the end result. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:08:07):

Well, it's one of those things where because you're in it every day, you don't realize how many little details went into on the topic of running a studio that you built from the ground up and

Speaker 4 (00:08:22):

Completely

Speaker 2 (00:08:23):

Wired and learned every piece. There was a time period when you did not understand patch base, and so you learned patch base, and there was a time when probably you were still learning them where they gave you a total headache and you wanted to probably throw them across the room. And now with me and Patch Base, I can kind of figure it out in my head

(00:08:44):

What I want to do with a patch bay, but it wasn't like that at the beginning, and they used to scare the shit out of me, and I can think of lots of other topics that used to be that way too. I remember something simple like the IO in Pro Tools, when I first started using Pro Tools, the IO menu used to stress me out, and I didn't really understand how it really interfaced with a bigger room and inserts and all this stuff. And then now various IO setups and templates are just in my head.

Speaker 3 (00:09:21):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:09:22):

I know it all by heart. I don't even think about it.

Speaker 3 (00:09:25):

The funny thing is all that shit is just that's the shit that I love. You know what I mean? The annoying ass shit like that that people find tedious because they're maybe a songwriter who's just trying to get an idea out of their head and onto the computer real quick. You know what I mean? But it's like I know all the ins and outs of those things so perfectly that it's just like, oh, you want to fucking want to record a drum set? Got it. I have all my 16 channels ready to go, oh, we need to do this. Well, then we'll just do the one channel here and let me fucking patch that in through this. You know what I mean? Signal flow is so fucking goddamn important, and no one really appreciates it until you actually fucking start making a bunch of fucking records and have to fucking start acting quick.

(00:10:03):

You know what I mean? That's like the console thing too. It was looking at a console and just being like, I remember the first time I went to school and I saw a fucking console, and I was just like, oh my God, this is going to be fucking intense. But then you just realize it's just one thing duplicated hundreds of times. Once you get the theory down of the signal flow, it all fucking, it makes the whole thing just natural. It's not even about troubleshooting anymore. It's all just about plugging and playing for me. You know what I mean? Everything's just so dialed.

Speaker 2 (00:10:30):

Has it become kind of visualization, pretty much visualize, I don't know if visualization is the right word, but this really, really great musician, I used to know, this is why I say visualization. He was a drummer, one of the best in the world. He used to tour with pop acts and do jazz stuff, and he was one of those guys just superior, and I asked him if he practices anymore. He says, I don't practice. I just visualize. And at first I thought he was being cocky, but then I started to understand what he meant, which is just you see it in your head and then you do it, or you hear it and then you do it. Is it kind of like that for you? You have the job in front of you and you just kind of know how you have to configure the studio or Yeah, absolutely. What you need to do is almost instinctual at this point.

Speaker 3 (00:11:29):

Well, I've gone through the nerd process of trying every single op-amp in my preamp, you know what I mean? And doing and trying different cables and mic shootouts and different saturation stages and all that stuff. It's so complicated when I think back to it that it's just like, oh my God, how did even fucking, why did I spend a day doing that? That seems so unnecessary. But if I'm just like, oh, I'm about to record a drum set, I just know what I'm going to use. I have all my fucking gear ready to go, and that's where it's like if I go to other studios, it always kind sucks because I'll have to lug my gear there because they won't have as solid of a front end as I have. And then also, their room isn't as badass as my room too. You know what I mean?

(00:12:19):

So it's just like I have everything so fucking dialed with the fact that I have a control room. I mean, I have a live room, and then I have a Icea booth with all my guitar cabs ready to go, and I have my other live room as well. I'm currently in my other control room. Well, there's a band in my West control room working out stuff. So it's super flexible. Everything is just dialed when band, I wouldn't call my studio a recording studio anymore. It's more so Sam P's production facility. You know what I mean? Everything is dialed to be plug and play.

Speaker 2 (00:12:53):

Tell me more about that by the plug and play nature of the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (00:12:57):

Well, I mean, all my microphones are just always on the same stance, ready to go. I have my drum set, dialed tuned, ready to fucking rock on at any time. If I'm just about to do a podcast, I have my S 50 or my SM seven that's ready on a fucking stand, ready to go. You know what I mean? It's just all my tools are specifically set up to live in a space in the studio where I know how to access it immediately. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to do a podcast. Lemme grab my podcast mic. Like, oh, I'm going to record a drum set. Well, let me just fucking plug into these microphones that are right here. I'm going to record guitar. Well, lemme just turn on my mic, robot. It's ready to go. Everything is just dialed at all times so that today I'm working on a project where we're about to do overdub vocals and we'll reamp guitars and all that stuff is just, they walked into the studio and it's all set up just ready to go. You know what I mean? So that there is no, just whatever the fuck we feel like doing, we'll just start doing.

Speaker 2 (00:13:53):

Yeah. It's interesting when we tell people that they should use a mix template, we don't tell them they should use a mixed template in order to be able to give the same sound from one band to another. It's more for the kind of stuff you're talking about right there, all your routings, all the non-creative stuff, all the basics, all the stuff that there's no reason to do over and over and over. You put it into a template so that you can get straight to actually mixing. Absolutely. It's almost like you put a template on your studio to where you don't have to deal with the why set up mics every single time. Totally.

Speaker 3 (00:14:35):

And

Speaker 2 (00:14:36):

You can already have them set up for you. Why plug stuff up every single time if you can just have it always plugged into the same place.

Speaker 3 (00:14:47):

Exactly. And the only reason that people tear down and do that shit is because someone else is going to use the studio. So they try to just strike it and let it go, but this is my fucking studio. You know what I mean? I fucking do what the fuck I want here. And if people are going to record and other freelancers come in here all the time and use the studio, but it's just like I have all the mics ready to go on the preamps. It's just like, oh, great. Well, then here's this dedicated kick mic, and here's this dedicated snare mic, and here's these dedicated overhead mics and just use this and plug and play, and everyone is fucking stoked. You know what I mean? It's just so simple like that. By the way, one thing I wanted to mention to you that always weirds people out when they, Tom Algae, when had em mix a session for me recently, he was just like, do you do all your songs in the same session?

(00:15:32):

I'm just like, yeah, for every single project, I've always done every single song in the same session. And the reason why is I have a template that has my fucking inputs ready to go. It has my preferred track. So it's like if I'm recording guitars and I'm stacking fucking a bunch of doubles and stuff like that, I'll drag them under the tracks that they need to essentially go into and we'll sum them so that they can fit into my template of 48 tracks. You know what I mean? So I always have my inputs ready to go. My fucking buses are ready to go. My tracks, I treat it. My session is my tape machine and my console simultaneously. You know what I mean? Left is the farthest end of the, the starting point of the tape is the end point of the tape that you can fuck around with. You know what I mean? It's all I think of it every single time over my session is that it's just my tape machine and my console.

Speaker 2 (00:16:24):

So I think that there's lots of people who are smart people who do things like that or are starting, I think people are starting to understand that it really does help to try to make things as efficient as possible. He was blown away that you do that,

Speaker 3 (00:16:45):

And only because he was just like, wow, that's crazy. That I think it was from a processing point. You know what I mean? Which a lot of people freak out about processing about it. And also, I remember when I did a record in London, and one thing I always do is I consolidate all my files to the same start end point. I clean all my fucking noises out of there. Everything is fucking pristine. It was funny, Tom Alga was going through all of my consolidated files to make sure there was no noise on every track, and he was just like, I'm like, dude, I have cleanup all like you. I honestly don't even have to do that. You could just use a strip silence. It'll be fine. He was like, no, it's cool. I just want to make sure. But literally, it was perfect. He was pristine. I'm so good about my editing and my cleaning, so it's like I'll just consolidate all the files so that if anything's missing, I can immediately just drag it in from another session and it will line it completely perfectly. But apparently all that space that is in between the tracks that I'm consolidating is adding more fucking Ram and adding more fucking file size and stuff like that. So I

Speaker 2 (00:17:42):

Get it. Not anymore. Not anymore. And I learned this recently.

Speaker 4 (00:17:48):

That's to know

Speaker 2 (00:17:49):

The whole idea of processing older versions of pro tools or whatever. That is a true concern. But now pro tools is intelligent enough to where it stops. It reduces your CPU load. When there's silence

Speaker 3 (00:18:06):

In

Speaker 2 (00:18:07):

The tracks, it stops processing that.

Speaker 3 (00:18:09):

Well, that's fucking cool to know, because

(00:18:11):

Another cool thing is 32 bit float, dude. You just clip everything. You know what I mean? Because there is no clipping. So you just drive into every buses into buses, and it's all ready to go, to go. And then if I need to nudge things around, I can look at it and it's like I'm 27 DB over the fucking clip threshold that it's compensating for, so I'll fucking turn it down and zero out my board correctly. The other thing too is I have the Hons controller, which is just completely necessary to my entire life of working with Steph. I have it. I set up with parallel buses and parallel EQs and stuff like that, where it's like, if my kick needs more top end, I'll just raise a fader. You know what I mean? As opposed to pulling up the plugin and being like, oh, let me dial in eight K at three decibels.

(00:18:56):

You know what I mean? I fucking hate that nerd shit. You know what I mean? I really like it, so I'll just be quick vibe. You know what I mean? And all these bigger mixers that I've always idolized and stuff. I mean, even like Tom Lord Algae, when we were working at his studio, everything in a session on his console, it just lines up the same every single way. It's just a really complete fluid mastering summing bus where he can open any session and it will basically almost sound the same. He is using very little eq, if anything, on the board, very little compression, but it's all the same exact routing. His base is always on the same channel. His kick is always on the same channel. Everything will fucking gets summed out to come out on those exact same channels, so he doesn't need to label them. You know what I mean? It's never different

Speaker 2 (00:19:45):

And it shouldn't be. And just all the really badass hybrid mixers that I've had on here all do the same thing, which is that just like that, which is that the same channels are always used for the same thing. They're always plugged to the same inserts. It's just set up to just go. So in a way, it's kind of thinking of your console almost like a da.

Speaker 3 (00:20:13):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:20:14):

In a way.

Speaker 3 (00:20:15):

Exactly. Yep. And another thing that was funny too is, I mean, I've sent out sessions to get next by other dudes before, and they are weirded out sometimes by the fact that it's like, oh, you only have a stereo room. It's like, yeah, I've summed all my mics. That's how I rock it. You know what I mean? I work that way and I make these things perfect. So it's like there's only a stereo guitar track, a stereo lead overdub, and then a center guitar track. There's only three guitar tracks, but it's actually five because they're on stereo interleaved files. You know what I mean? So they're on one fader, and that's how I make things as I want to basically go between my 16 faders. If I bank all the way to my left, it's my master buses and reverbs. Then if I bank to my right, then it's all my 16 channels of drums that if I bank to my right, it's my eight channels of guitar and bass, and that's it. You know what I mean? I know exactly where I am if I'm just looking at my board.

Speaker 2 (00:21:12):

So what happens if you get something to mix and it comes in on 140 tracks?

Speaker 3 (00:21:18):

I just start summing 'em down.

Speaker 2 (00:21:19):

Okay,

Speaker 3 (00:21:20):

Yep. I'll put them in. It's basically like, so say you get fucking all these vocals, a lot of times always do overlapping things where it's like there's four vocal tracks because there's a main and a double, but then it overlaps on top of each other, so then it's duplicated. And so then you have four tracks. So then all just fucking drag them underneath the, so the input tracks that I want, and I'll bust them that way, and I'll just put it on input mode. And then I'll just, as I play the song, I'll just record all those things to stereo sums, you know what I mean? Or use the commit function and pro tools now, which is fucking great. And then I'll just basically,

Speaker 2 (00:21:59):

Can you believe they just wait till now to do that,

Speaker 3 (00:22:02):

Right? Yeah. It's so fucking stupid. But I mean, I fucking love it. So then I'll just hide and make an act of the old track so that if I ever need to fix the stem, I'll just do it. But I just start committing in the beginning, you know what I mean? And I have the sound in mind. I know what the fuck I'm going for, so I'm going to fucking start compressing an EQing on the way in. I know my fucking speakers. I know what the fuck I'm doing. You know what I mean? This is all just, it's the back of my hand now. You know what I mean? So it's all just a fucking methodical, complex thing that I don't even think about it anymore. I just come in and just some tweaking EQs and you know what I mean? Stupid shit like that, because it's how I get the tone right before it hits the computer.

(00:22:42):

Very little. Plugin usage. Plugin usage is just literally pretty much just a slate, fucking VTM and slate like VCC or Crane Song Phoenix on every channel, and pretty much then L one's on things if I need some volume or something like that. And pretty much nothing else. So it's when I gave Tom Algae my session, he was like, oh, it kind of doesn't really sound like the same as your playback. It's like, well, I only have a parallel processing of my stressors outboard and my SSL like you or my SSL on my stereo channel. And then that's it. I actually don't use any plugins on the session that I'm giving you. It is the actual session. My session is completely dry. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:23:24):

Now, how long has it taken you to get to that point to where you're doing things kind of like that?

Speaker 3 (00:23:31):

I've just always kind of done it that way, I guess, and you make some

Speaker 2 (00:23:36):

Bad. So you always committed That was,

Speaker 3 (00:23:37):

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:23:39):

I didn't have enough inputs when I was rocking a oh oh two at first, I didn't have enough inputs to be like, oh, I'm going to fucking chain my stressors later. There is no later. It's now. And so I would just be like, all right, well, then I'll just fucking plug in through the stressors out of my pre-amp and then into this, and now I'm compressing my kick and it's good to go. And then you use nuke on one session, and then all of a sudden when you're mixing, you're like, I fucking destroyed the kick and scenario. They sound terrible and never use nuke again. And then you use four to one, and then you're like, that sounds like shit. And then I'm never going to use that again. And then I use two to one, and then it sounded good. And so I've never used anything other than two to one ever again on the stressors. You know what I mean? So you just learn from experience, you know what I mean? And you just got to go for it. And that's what I was talking about earlier, is how everyone just like, well, how do I make it sound good right now? It's like, well, you fucking figure it out. You fucking try, try again until you get a fucking result that you're fucking stoked on, and then you fucking move the fuck on.

Speaker 2 (00:24:33):

Well, I think it needs to be said that you can't be afraid to fall on your face.

Speaker 3 (00:24:39):

Oh, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (00:24:40):

You got to be totally okay with failing a few times and maybe having a few things that don't sound that great.

Speaker 3 (00:24:49):

That's kind of the punk rocks skateboard mentality that I guess I harness from playing hockey and trying to skate when I was a kid and shit like that. It's just like, I'm not afraid to fucking fall on my face. Let's do this. I'll go for it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:25:02):

Yeah. Well, by committing, even if you commit to a sound that's not that great, like you said, you're not going to make that mistake again.

Speaker 4 (00:25:10):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:25:11):

Because something about committing to a bad sound that will stick with you. It's like a trauma almost.

Speaker 3 (00:25:17):

Yeah. Well, it's funny because it's like watching Project Runway when Tim Gunn is just like, it's a make it work moment. It's like, well, I've committed to this. I can't fucking redo anything else. Or, oh, if it's so bad, I can redo it and donate free time to this dude, but maybe they'll be stoked about that or whatever. I've done that so many times where it's like, I fucked up on this. Let's just redo it. That hasn't happened in years, but that used to fucking happen all the time.

Speaker 2 (00:25:42):

Well, I just think that it takes a lot of confidence to be able to commit, and it's not a natural thing for people to have that. So it's almost like you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone and willingly put yourself in discomfort in order to get to the point where you just know what settings are going to work 99% of the time, and you can just fucking flow with it.

Speaker 3 (00:26:07):

Yeah. I think what that requires is people being self-aware, you know what I mean? And developing a sound that they're trying to go for as opposed to, I remember when I did this story Safari record up in Canada recently at Garth's Studio. He had this assistant named Carl, fucking awesome dude. And so he was just like, like, dude, watching you work is like fucking awesome, man. I'm like, oh yeah, what do you mean? And he is just like, dude, I can't tell you about all these students that I'll see who will just, it'll be their time to record drums. And it's like, okay. And they'll just go on the talk back and be like, hi, yeah, can you play that kick? And then they adjust the preamp, and then they look at the screen, they're like, okay, that looks like a good level. Okay, great.

(00:26:50):

Can you play the snare please? Whereas I'm spending fucking an hour and a half on my one kick mic being like, let's try this compressor, let's try this, let's try this. And then they, A drummer stops. I thought that's how you were supposed to do it. Yeah, exactly. Hey, man, can you keep playing that kick? You know what I mean? Just actually fucking getting sound and making shit sound fucking cool and resonate with you where you're like, this sounds badass. I fucking am ready to record. Yes. You know what I mean? They think that that part comes later. You know what I mean? Oh, when this guy mixes it, all of a sudden it'll sound like Fucking Blink 180 2. It's like, no, man, you got to do that right now. And if you're unhappy with the sound, you got to fucking move that mic. Or you got to fucking retune that drum and you got to do something about it.

Speaker 2 (00:27:33):

Replace that drummer.

Speaker 3 (00:27:34):

Yeah, exactly, dude,

Speaker 2 (00:27:36):

With another drummer.

Speaker 3 (00:27:37):

See, that's the thing too, is then I started getting to that point of fucking replacing people at request and then, or Captain Midnight thing, which is just really, but hurt really hurts people's feelings when they find out that they didn't do it, captain. So then I just started being honest with people about it, and then it created even more confrontation about it. So it's just like, alright, so now I just fucking start being patient, and I'm just like, all right, man, if you can't play, then we're going to take three days for one song, and it's just going to be on your dime, so let's do this. You know what I mean? I don't get flustered about that and fucking hire other people anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:28:12):

That's actually pretty impressive that you have the patience.

Speaker 3 (00:28:16):

Well, I mean, I've had to fucking develop it, you know what I'm saying? But it's also more so developing the not give a fuck scenario. I only care about making this sound good, because I used to respect people's time and their budget so much that I was just like, no, man, we got to fucking get this done. And then they were mad at me for fucking pushing them to fucking get shit done on time. So then I became the bad guy, and it only hurt me because I'm fucking making less money, and then I'm fucking being the asshole. So how about I just be hella nice and take my fucking time, and then I just charge them for that time. And if they want to bitch about the fact that they're not doing it fast enough, well then that's on them. That's clearly not on me.

Speaker 2 (00:28:58):

Makes perfect sense. So interestingly enough, me replacing people on records usually is at the request of the band. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:29:07):

Me too. And lots of the confrontations that I've had with people where I've replaced them on records is because the band put me up to it. You know what I mean? The band was, and because they didn't want to admit it to themselves, but then they would be like, what do you think, man? What are our options? It's like, well, I could fucking play your bass for you. And then they're just like, yeah, man. I mean, it does sound better. And then they don't want to tell the guy, you know what I mean? So that I'm the bad guy. You know what I mean? Or then fucking just other things like that that just happen where I just got tired of being like, all right, man. But if it's a huge serious concern, I'll just have a decent conversation with it, and then they'll pretty much be cool. I'm working on this project right now, and I'm playing all this guitar overdubs and all the bass, and someone in the band is butt hurt that they're not playing anything, but it's just like, what the fuck, man? If you want to pay for the time, that's fine. Otherwise I'm donating my time to make this great, and everyone else in your band is happy about this, so let's just do this.

Speaker 2 (00:30:02):

So how do you approach that conversation in a

Speaker 3 (00:30:05):

Way? I'm just honest about it. I'm just transparent.

Speaker 2 (00:30:09):

So just be as upfront about it, but maybe just don't be mean about it.

Speaker 3 (00:30:15):

Yeah, exactly. It's just like, yo, you could do it, but it's going to take you a lot of time and it's going to cost you your own dime and your own money, or I could just do it for you and be your best friend and make it sound even better. So you tell me what you want to do.

Speaker 2 (00:30:27):

Yeah. And faster.

Speaker 3 (00:30:28):

Yeah, exactly. And so as long as I'm not trying to put these people down in the process or belittle 'em or whatever, it usually goes totally fine because they just want to make the best shit possible within their budget, and they're limited because someone's not able to complete their end of the bargain, you know what I mean? Or their end of the fucking deal. So it's like I'll fucking step in and be like, all right, I'll fucking get it done for the price and for the time if you fucking give me your guitar right now.

Speaker 2 (00:30:54):

So let's talk a little bit about, since you started talking about this, I want to hear more about your process for getting drum tone. So

Speaker 3 (00:31:01):

Yes, please.

Speaker 2 (00:31:02):

You like to sit there and get it right from the source, which is how I like to do it too, which is how I feel like everyone should do it. If you're serious about it, you're serious about getting great production tones. You need to sit there and get it right from the start and not absolutely not worry about not wait for the mixer to save your life.

Speaker 3 (00:31:23):

So when I first started recording stuff at my house when I was fucking 1832 now, so you could do the math, I guess, right? It's been almost, what, 15 years or something like that?

Speaker 2 (00:31:34):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:31:34):

Almost. So, yeah, 14 years or something. So anyways, I had a drummer who was leaving his drum kit at my house because I had a little studio in my house, and so I remember one day just being like, all right, I'm going to record drums. So I grabbed the drum key and I just started wrenching on drums and changing the tuning and experimenting with it. And I've eventually got an extremely good at drum tuning, and I think my drums sound great, you know what I mean? That's why I will stop tuning them and we'll move on to record them because I think they sound the best they can possibly sound. You know what I mean? So it's like I've gotten really into drum tuning, really into tuning drums to the keys of songs as best as I can. I'll find the range that these Toms like to live in, and then I'll just be like, well, if they're harmonic, overtone is resonating with inside of, if I use this little lap keyboard that I have and just be like BB beam, and it's like hit the tone.

(00:32:28):

It's like, alright, perfect. There we go. Now let's move on to the floor time. So I get everything really in tune, and then my room is also the fucking shit. I have a bunch of reflective wood in it, and it's got a bunch of diffusion, so it sounds alive as opposed to a dead drum room. I can't fucking describe how many times I've recorded in some of the biggest rooms that are just huge fucking dead rooms. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, this is sick. This is bigger than my room. Then you hit the snare and there's just no decay, there's no ambiance. You have to completely fake it by delaying room mics and fucking distorting room mics and shit like that.

Speaker 2 (00:33:06):

What's the point of going to a really nice room if you're going to have to do that?

Speaker 3 (00:33:09):

Yeah. Now at this point, I like to make records of my studio. I've done the whole try, try again. I've developed the opinion through my experiences that I really like my drum room and I get the best drum sounds in my fucking drum room.

Speaker 2 (00:33:26):

Well, I mean, it's the room that inside and out that you have the most experience with and that you have the most knowledge of. If A isn't working, we can try B. If B isn't working well, there's this thing, I tried that one time, so we can try C totally. Whereas in another room, you don't have those kinds of experiences

Speaker 3 (00:33:49):

And you're pretty much limited on time because you're already like, we're paying for a higher quality room, essentially. You know what I mean? Which is so funny because it's always a toss up. It's like, is there a live room better than mine, or is the front end better than mine? It has to be one of the two. You know what I mean? Because it's like I can find a better live room than mine, but then the front end isn't as sick as mine. Or I could find a really sick front end, but then the fucking live room isn't that sick. So it's just a little gamble.

Speaker 2 (00:34:16):

What do you think is more important?

Speaker 3 (00:34:19):

Definitely the room. I mean, I can't get a good jump sound without my room.

Speaker 2 (00:34:24):

Okay. So you think that a good room, if you had to prioritize gear versus room, you think a good drum room goes a longer way?

Speaker 3 (00:34:36):

My aesthetic, from my aesthetic of what I am going for, what I like to hear with drums, I like to hear ambiance in space. You know what I mean? I immediately, in my mind right now, I think about the digital bath drum tone from def tones just so much space and ambiance that's like, I like to hear a drum set in a room as opposed to hear my kick mic snare mic. You know what I mean? My symbol mic, I just feels so disconnected. You know what I mean? I want to hear John Bonham playing drums in a fucking room, and I want to hear the space. So it's like if I go into a dry dead room, there's not a natural ambience that really works. It is hard. I need some sort of reflective surface to fuck with.

Speaker 2 (00:35:24):

I find that if you have a great room, obviously with great sounding drums and a good drummer, sometimes you can have budget preamps and still get great tones, whereas you invert that situation. You have great front end, great preamps and all that, but maybe the room's not so good and the drummer's not so good. You're not getting good sounds.

Speaker 3 (00:35:47):

No, totally. And also it's one of those, if you have really good gear and shitty tones, it's just making your shitty tones sound even shittier, because it's higher definition.

Speaker 2 (00:35:59):

Yeah. It's like you get to hear how bad they are in full pristine quality.

Speaker 3 (00:36:04):

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:36:06):

Dude, I've told people that for years, which is if your tones are really bad and you get really nice gear, you're just going to have really, really detailed versions of your bad tones.

Speaker 3 (00:36:17):

Totally, totally. I mean, I remember the first time when I was recording drums in my house and I had the Barringer eight channel preamp, and I was like, man, these sound fucking good. Fucking, my drum set sounds fucking great. And then I get some APIs and I'm like, oh, there's a kind of a difference, I think. You know what I mean? But it wasn't just like, oh my fucking God, the fuck the barringer. You know what I mean? It was just such a subtle difference that then I started, I've always just, that's why I was one of the first dudes to really fucking dive into the DIY market. It was just like, oh, you mean I can make my own fucking API preamps my own fucking 1176 s. Let me make 'em and let me test them. It sounds just as good. Great. I'll sell the fucking real one, get two of these. I've always just been like, I'll just make, I'm fucking stoked on my sounds that I get over here. I don't need the needs and I don't need the fucking whatevers. They sound good. You know what I mean? They're nice to use, but there's such a subtle difference that moving a mic and a different environment is 80% of a different sound. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:37:24):

This guy I work with, Matt Brown, he's a drum tech engineer guy, really, really, really great. And we kind of have tried to figure this out, and we came to the conclusion that the drummer in the drum set is like 80% of it, and then 15% of it is like the microphones,

Speaker 4 (00:37:45):

And

Speaker 2 (00:37:46):

Then 5% is the rest, the preamps and the conversion and all

Speaker 3 (00:37:51):

That and the compression and all shit.

Speaker 2 (00:37:54):

But if you want to make the biggest difference to your drum tone, the most dramatic results, you change the heads or the drum set or the drummer that's, or the room. That's that right there. That's the heavy lifting.

Speaker 3 (00:38:09):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:38:09):

If you really, really want to make a difference, it's not whether you get the warm audio 76 or the warm audio API or the real API or the capis that you built me. They don't sound identical, but they sound close enough and they all sound good. They sound close enough to where what you put through them is what actually makes all the difference.

Speaker 3 (00:38:38):

Absolutely. Yeah. Getting back to drums obviously is like fucking tuning is one of the big important things. And it's funny, a lot of dudes are like, they love open snares, no fucking muting or nothing on it. You know what I mean? Whereas when I first got into drum tone and shit, I was really into that band mute math, and I was like, man, their fucking drums sound crazy. And when I saw them play, dude's Kit was so taped up and just the lowest tuned thing and just super dead and thick. And Tamala does that really well too. You know what I mean? And that's a completely different sound in the production and the end result because I love so much more ambiance and space, but I love that style of tuning and shit. So it's like when I hit a snare, I'll figure out the beat that's going on, and I'll make sure that decay matches the song and sounds natural, and my snares just are like smack.

(00:39:36):

And they're not like they have no ring, they have nothing. They're extremely short, quick decays where it's like when be drummers will do snare rolls and they're micd up and they sound, and I'm ready to record, I will literally fool myself and be like, that sounds like a fucking one shot snare during that snare roll because it's compressed and it's so consistent that it just is like, you know what I mean? There is no variation or tonal variation. I really like consistent dead sounding drums because my room's ambience actually is long enough and cool enough to make them have a really sick sustain. That sounds great.

Speaker 2 (00:40:18):

I think that people who hate muffling drums just don't know how to do it, right?

Speaker 3 (00:40:25):

Yep. I can understand that.

Speaker 2 (00:40:27):

I feel like that's how you play with the muffling and the dampening on a drum. You have so many tonal options with that. It's not just alive or dead, it's everything in between as well. So

Speaker 3 (00:40:45):

What I'll usually do is I'll fucking, I'm moving my hands right now because I'm a hand talker, but it, I'll hit the snare head and I'll fucking move my hand around it and I'll just, wherever all of a sudden I'm just getting mainly the most consistent resonant note where it's just like smack, smack, smack. And if I move it a little bit, it's like, I'll make sure that I just cut that out and I'll tape it, or fucking,

Speaker 2 (00:41:10):

That was a beautiful noise.

Speaker 3 (00:41:11):

Yeah, I'm really good at that. Those impressions, right? Spoon. But yeah, anyways, same with Toms and Kicks and stuff like that too. I've never really muffled kicks with tape or anything, but I have, oh, the Kick Pillow. You ever heard of that? Dude? I have two of them. Fucking awesome. I forget the guy's name who makes 'em, but he's badass. So shout out to

Speaker 2 (00:41:31):

That guy's the one that stretches from front head to back head, right?

Speaker 3 (00:41:33):

Yeah. And it's got this, it's weighted and it has a non-slip surface on the bottom of it. I think it's called the Kick Pillow. And he made a custom orange one for the Giants for me, and it's fucking sick. But yeah, so it's just like that. I like the drums to have quick decays, you know what I mean? Just a nice quick, bright tone. But then very quickly, the decay will immediately end and you can kind of hear the sustain in the room just a little bit. You know what I mean? For just a quick second. It sounds alive and quick.

Speaker 2 (00:42:07):

I'm trying to remember if it's called the Kick Pillow. I think it is.

Speaker 3 (00:42:11):

Yeah, I think so. I forget that guy's name.

Speaker 2 (00:42:13):

I'm looking it up because I feel like we should give him a shout out.

Speaker 3 (00:42:18):

Yeah, he's fucking cool, man. Kick Pillow Pro. That's it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:42:23):

Okay. Yeah. Kick Pillow Pro.

Speaker 3 (00:42:24):

Yeah, I forget the dude's name, but he's like a hella sick drum tech in la and he's a nice guy. He's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:42:34):

Muffle, low technologies, highly recommended. I've definitely used these before and it's just good. I mean, I know you can just put a regular pillow in your kick drum, but

Speaker 3 (00:42:47):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:42:48):

This is way better.

Speaker 3 (00:42:49):

Yeah, way better. It's way smaller too, so it's not like a huge, thick, fluffy pillow. And then it's like a nice solid sandbag. It's fucking sick. It's perfect, and it hits both heads and it's great.

Speaker 2 (00:42:59):

Okay, so you take your time, you get the muffling just right,

Speaker 3 (00:43:02):

You

Speaker 2 (00:43:02):

Get the tuning just right. What about sticks? Do you get involved with what sticks the drummer's using?

Speaker 3 (00:43:10):

Not really, unless they have bitch hands and they just are hitting like a little bitch. I'm just like, what the fuck is going on? Sometimes I remember with sub metal drummers when they would do, I would have to go back and do fill passes and make 'em flip their sticks over Vinny Paul style and just play with the butt ends. You know what I mean? But then they smash their symbols if you fucking have it like that. So you got to just do the fill over dubs, and then they're really annoyed because they don't want to do the fill over dubs because they think it's fucking lame as fuck. Just like, dude, just be my best friend and just fucking flip your sticks over and hit your Toms as hard as I fucking tell you to hit them,

Speaker 2 (00:43:44):

Ben. It makes all the difference in the world, though.

Speaker 3 (00:43:47):

Absolutely. Yeah. I don't like to compress Toms or anything. It's too much bleed, so you have to hit them. Right? And as I'm editing, editing drums, if there's shitty hits, I'll be like, let's go back and do that Tom Pill again, and I'll do it five to fucking 10 times until I get the Tom hits to be four perfect transients that look identical. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:44:06):

Yeah, absolutely. I think, let me just say also that I think that one thing that people who haven't done this, I guess at the level that you're playing at or the level that I've worked at, one thing that a lot of people don't understand, this is what's good about an internship with someone awesome, is that you don't realize when we're saying redo the fill five to 10 times until the transient look perfect. He means redo it five or 10 times until the transient look perfect.

Speaker 1 (00:44:38):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:44:38):

Or if it takes 20 times, but you don't move on until it looks and sounds perfect, dude.

Speaker 3 (00:44:45):

And this is another thing that blows people away, too. I edit in the moment. I don't outsource my edits. I'm not like, okay, I'll record the drums and look, that was great. Let's move on. And now someone's going to edit it. No, I record the intro and then I edit it, and then I record the verse, and then I edit it, and then I fucking record the chorus, and then I edit it, and then I record the second verse, and then I edit it. And then I'll listen to both verses. And if they're identical, I'll take the better of them and or I'll comp them both together and take the best fills and then copy and paste them and then the chorus again, and then I'll fucking do the same between them. I edit every single step that we do. I fucking absolutely make sure that we are making the best fucking decision possible before we move on. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:45:27):

Yeah. So you don't sit around and wait and you don't assume that it's going to get better. You get it album ready right in and there,

Speaker 3 (00:45:39):

I put in the hard work from fucking moment one. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:45:43):

Have you ever had musicians kind of resist that in the name of just trying to get things done quicker?

Speaker 3 (00:45:52):

Not really, because they usually just, they hear the end result and they're just like, fuck. Yeah. But if anything, some dudes who are just like, who are fucking green, fucking fresh nubs will just be like, oh, do you do this to everyone? It's like, yes, I do this to every single fucking hit. I do this to every transient. I do this to every hit. I treat it like a piano that I'm going to fucking quantize and midi. Here we go. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:46:17):

Okay. So, alright, so you go through the meticulous process of making sure that the drums are finished. Once you're done tracking, it's done. Totally.

Speaker 3 (00:46:29):

Totally. It's completely edited. It's ready to go

Speaker 2 (00:46:31):

And it sounds great.

Speaker 3 (00:46:31):

It sounds perfect.

Speaker 2 (00:46:32):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:46:34):

And if I am going to be even more proactive, the last step I would do would be slice toms up, do fades and cut them and gate them. And maybe fucking record a kick and snare sample of that kit or a Tom sample if I have to replace a tom because we just couldn't get it right or something like that. And then I'll be like, oh, great. Now I'll just make a kick trigger real quick with this inside kick mic. So I have this perfect fucking thing to use for gating if I need to gate anything, if I want to duck rooms or use it, I have it ready to go, and then it's fucking done. So my drums are quantized, they're fucking consolidated, and they have fucking, the Tom's already edited and cleaned, and then I have a kick and snare trigger that is ready to go to open gates and or use as a close mic sound if I need it to fucking go.

Speaker 2 (00:47:22):

And how long does this normally take you?

Speaker 3 (00:47:24):

It'll take me maybe, depending on the drummer. It'll say I could finish an entire song in an hour, you know what I mean? But I could also, if it's going to be a longer song with a bunch of takes and a bunch of different moments, it'll take me maybe anywhere from three to six hours usually for a song.

Speaker 2 (00:47:40):

And that involves the performance.

Speaker 3 (00:47:42):

And so I can slam through two to three songs on drums, maybe four depending on the scenario. But it is day one, I'll spend maybe six hours fucking getting tones and then four hours recording the first song, and then I'll leave. And then the next day I'll smash through two songs, maybe three songs.

Speaker 2 (00:48:00):

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So two to three songs a day, depending on who it is. I feel like more than three songs a day is pushing it,

Speaker 3 (00:48:14):

Especially when you're going full detail, when I'm editing it and shit like that too. You know what I mean? It's like a fucking lot of brainpower to fucking go through. My head will fucking hurt.

Speaker 2 (00:48:23):

Yeah, I can imagine. Okay, so what's next?

Speaker 3 (00:48:27):

So then I get into guitars after that, which is always just guitars, you know what I mean? Which some people fucking don't understand and have issues with, and then other people completely get it. But I prefer to record guitars with no amp simulators and just listen to just a di guitar.

Speaker 2 (00:48:48):

Oh, so when you say di, you mean you're listening to the actual DI's when you're

Speaker 3 (00:48:53):

Tracking? Yes. I am not using anything else.

Speaker 2 (00:48:55):

I have never heard of this being done like this before. I want your

Speaker 3 (00:48:59):

I plug in. I use my UTA cable.

Speaker 2 (00:49:02):

Okay, so you're being serious right now. You're

Speaker 3 (00:49:04):

Not trolling. I'm dead serious. I'm dead serious.

Speaker 2 (00:49:06):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:49:06):

So I will use my UTA cable. It's set to zero, meaning there's no fucking resistance, there's no signal loss. It's the perfect pristine sound. And I'll go into either the undertone, audio preamp, which is just set completely, perfectly at line level so that there is no volume difference between guitar and the line level signal. It's unity. I've fucking done the tests, I've done the Noling test phase. I have a dial. Do you know what I mean? And then if I use my Avalon, I have to use a one decibel trim on the track to actually get it to be completely perfect with my A to D converter. So I'll usually, because I'm usually recording drums and I have my two utas set up on kick and snare, I'll usually use the Avalon, but I prefer the UTA very small difference. It really doesn't fucking matter, but I would prefer the UTA if I could.

(00:49:55):

So anyways, I plug in di, and if anything, I will maybe use waves guitar for them to monitor through. But after they do a take, I immediately just drag it onto a dry track with nothing on it. And I listen to only the, all I care about listening to is what the actual sound is that's coming out of the guitar. I want to make sure it's perfectly fucking played with no awkward hitting the pickup overtones or anything like that. No fucking missed strum hits, no weak strum hits, no fucking out of tune things. I want it to sound like a fucking keyboard. I want it to be perfect. You know what I mean? And so that's where the Evert tune also helps out as well too, because then you can immediately just start stacking guitars and they're perfectly in fucking tune and it's great. So I'll just fucking edit transient by transient fucking quantize everything. Get it perfect, consolidate that, and then eventually I will re-amp those DI's.

Speaker 2 (00:50:48):

Now, what do you say to people who say that playing into the AMP affects their feel and how they play?

Speaker 3 (00:51:00):

They will play better if they listen to only their amp is overcompensating and it's compressing, and it's fucking adding gain, and it's adding shit that is making them not play to their fullest potential. It's that simple. You can concentrate on the velocity of your strumm pattern, what size pick you're using, everything about it, which pickup you're using. Everything. I want to make sure I have gotten the correct for what guitar riff I'm doing for the song. I want to make sure I have the right guitar and that it is played on the correct setting going into my computer to ensure that I captured the best possible guitar and performance before I put it into an amplifier.

Speaker 2 (00:51:44):

Amazing. Okay. So is this something that once guitar players come around, they're like, damn,

Speaker 3 (00:51:53):

That

Speaker 2 (00:51:53):

Was great.

Speaker 3 (00:51:54):

Yes, and it may take an entire fucking record, but usually with the ever tune, it'll just be like, trust me, use my fucking ever tune. They'll be like, what do I have this hella fucking sick guitar? It's like, fuck you. Use my fucking ever tune. Like, we're going to do this sg. That sounds great. Look at out.

Speaker 2 (00:52:08):

Perfect. Fuck your hella sick guitar.

Speaker 3 (00:52:10):

Yeah, yeah. We're going to use my sg. It sounds perfect. Great. Now that my SG is a little thin and bity, we're going to fucking double that with Myles paw, which is a little fucking dull and bit and fluffy. So let's do that and now let's play both of them together. You hear the difference? How perfect was that sound? Great. Next part, let's move on. Do you know what I mean? I make sure it's perfect. You know what I mean? And when I listen to strumming patterns when it's just like I want it to be like not like I want it to be the most perfect strummed thing. I don't listen to things in half speed all the fucking time as I'm editing and shit like that. I just want to make sure that no one else could have recorded that better than I did in that moment.

Speaker 2 (00:52:57):

And so I guess kind of like with the drums, it sounds like by the time you're done tracking a song of guitars, that performance is the shit

Speaker 3 (00:53:08):

Perfect. Yep. It's perfect. And when I reamp the guitar later, it's very rare that I will hear a mistake. And if it's a mistake, I can easily fucking copy and paste it from a moment, or if I need to fucking fix it, you just plug right into the di and it's ready to go, and we just pop it in and done. You know what I mean? And that's the thing is that as you're recording guitar, there's so many variables that are being overlooked. If you're just trying to be punk rock and just play into a fucking amp and throw some fucking mics on it and just be like, yeah, man, that sounds good. It's like, all right, is it the right guitar? Is it the right amplifier? Is the amplifier set at the right settings? Is it the right guitar cabinet? Is it the right microphone? Are the microphones going through the right preamps? Do they need eq? Do they need any fucking compression? I want to make sure that I have not overlooked any fucking step by just cramming them all together.

Speaker 2 (00:54:02):

It is incredible how many different variables there are with guitar when you really start breaking it down.

Speaker 3 (00:54:08):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the thing too, is it's like dudes are like, oh, I prefer my fucking American made fender. It's like, play my $300. Ever tune. It sounds just like your fucking American made Strat because it is a fucking Strat. It sounds like a fucking Strat. It may sound like a little thinner or a little brighter or whatever, but it sounds like a Strat. That's all I need now. Play it perfectly. Here we go.

Speaker 2 (00:54:28):

That's killer. And I noticed that you said is the pick the right size.

Speaker 3 (00:54:33):

Absolutely. That

Speaker 2 (00:54:33):

Makes such a big difference. People don't realize it sometimes. Totally.

Speaker 3 (00:54:37):

I have two picks that I prefer, and they're my panda picks that I have done, and one of 'em is a huge fucking tortilla chip pick, which is what I use for any heavy palm or any fucking heavy strumming. It's like, oh, you're going to do punk shit. Well, you're going to have to hit those strings hard like a fucking man. And they're going to be perfectly in tune on this ever tune, so use this heavy pick. You know what I mean? But then if you're playing some clean stuff, maybe it sounds a little too overbearing. So then I usually switch to the 73, so it's either the 73 or the one point 14 millimeter picks. Those are like, I basically force people to use my two picks. I'm just like, yep, you're going to use this one. Here you go.

Speaker 2 (00:55:14):

Okay. So, alright. So you're then left with a perfect crystal clear, sparkly, but badass di performance.

Speaker 3 (00:55:25):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:55:26):

Do you then get the tone for the guitar tone before you move on?

Speaker 3 (00:55:30):

No, it depends on the scenario. It's kind of like, I'll usually judge it by what's the heavier lifting thing that we have to do now? Do we have 10 more songs of guitar that we have to record? Well, let's just record all the DI for all the songs. Okay, great. Now what's the biggest thing? Well, we don't have bass, so let's just record all the bass now. Okay, great. Before we do vocals, let's start amping everything so that the vocalists can sing to actually normal sounding shit. You know what I mean? As opposed to some fucking waves, guitar fucking di. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:55:59):

Let's talk about your process for recording bass. I feel like people overlook the importance of getting an awesome bass guitar performance.

Speaker 3 (00:56:09):

I am the best bass player I have ever recorded. I say that, and it's still to this day, fucking one of the truest statements ever. And people are,

Speaker 2 (00:56:19):

I'm in my top five, I'll say that because the guy in my band is incredible, and I've recorded a few incredible people, but besides those guys, yeah, I'm better than just about everyone I've recorded.

Speaker 3 (00:56:32):

Totally. I mean, one of the best bass players I've recorded, probably the best players is Kellen from the story so far. And it's like he's one of the bass players where he's so good that he can play over everything, so it takes a longer time to record him because we have to edit down all these really good ideas into something that actually works in the song. You know what I mean? So it'll start off just so overcomplicated and awesome that it's like, great, try to 70% of that. Okay, try 50% of that. Okay, try 30% of that. Okay, try 10% of that. Okay, try 5%. Okay, try none of that. Yeah, none of it. That's the way that it works. There we go. That's the next part. You know what I mean? So lots of, I'm really big about following kick patterns and making sure that everything hits together.

(00:57:13):

You know what I mean? That's the other biggest step that everyone overlooks is they don't even realize. They're just like, oh, play this guitar part. And then the bass player goes, I'll play this bass part. And then the drummer goes, I play this drum part, and no one ever goes, what do we as a unit play together? What is your kick pattern? Then my strumming pattern follows that, and it does this. My bass pattern will follow your kick pattern and it will do that. And then his vocals will follow these patterns and we will all sound like we are playing as a tight band and this is awesome. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:57:45):

And I feel like, or they automatically assume that they should all play the exact same thing, whereas lots of times bass lines are cooler if they're a marriage between the guitar and the kick drum.

Speaker 4 (00:58:03):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:58:03):

And so they play something that matches the harmonic movement of the guitar, but with say, the pattern of the kick. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the exact same thing, but they all have to work together like a section.

Speaker 3 (00:58:16):

Yeah, absolutely. It's actually really

Speaker 2 (00:58:17):

Funny, a rhythm section,

Speaker 3 (00:58:19):

Because after I do the DI guitars, because they're, they're so small sounding that you need the bass, you know what I mean? It absolutely sounds weird unless the bass is in there. And so then it makes it so easy to record bass because it's like, alright, great. I want to make sure I get the most square wave looking fucking transients that are so fucking consistent coming from this dude's pickup picking pattern. And we're going to go part by part and we're going to make sure that we match everything, and then we're going to fucking copy and paste anything that is the same thing and we're going to fucking move on. So it's like super again, di bass, di bass part by part. I'll fucking, even depending on the shit and depending on the sound or the fucking performance or the fucking song or whatever, I'll even record note by note and just be like, what's the first note that you play? And it's just like, oh, it's da. Okay, only play and just do it really slow. Go. Okay, great. And then I'll cut that up, and then I'll fucking program it so it's like da. You know what I mean? I create baselines by editing them and doing tab to transient. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:59:28):

I think that the base, especially for rock and metal, is very, very important that it is ultra consistent.

Speaker 3 (00:59:37):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:59:38):

It

Speaker 3 (00:59:38):

Has to sound like a mini keyboard,

Speaker 2 (00:59:40):

And it should look like a fucking square block, like you said. There should be, in my opinion, there should be no dynamics in it whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (00:59:48):

Absolutely not. Yeah. It should be the exact same transient. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:59:51):

Yep. Exactly. And I mean, that's the reason that Joey or Joel will use L one on the base, and I know a lot of other guys might not use L one, but they have their own method of limiting and then compressing the shit and then distorting the base until end result is it looks like a block.

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):

Absolutely. And I don't think that there's room for rhythmic deviance either. It's got to be fucking perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):

Yep. The bass player for story does it really well. He's got a really consistent hand. And that's another thing too that I thankfully, I thankfully have is my guitar teacher when I was growing up was a ru luster from Machine Head and now from El Nino. And so when I first took lessons from him, he was just like, yeah, show me some of your band's riffs. And I played him a song and he was just like, yo, man, you're really good, but your right hand, all you do is just do down picking. So I worked on all these exercises with him, and when people play guitar, what I'm always critical about is the fact that they don't use their right hand correctly. It's inconsistent. It's not a fucking machine. You know what I mean? It's like, no, man, I want this thing to be a machine.

(01:01:03):

And with bass, there's this, I can't really explain it. You can only understand it if you play bass, but there is a way, and it's different on every single base, but there's a way to hit that string where the momentum creates this recoil that makes it so consistent to be able to play that thing as opposed to slapping the shit out of a fucking string hard. It's not doing that. It's about getting that momentum to be extremely consistent. And so many players don't have that touch. They don't have that feel. They're like arm strumming the right fret at the right time. It's like, yeah, but you sound like shit with your right fucking hand, dude. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):

I find that obviously left hand is very important. You can't be pulling notes out of tune and all that, but the great,

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):

Oh, yeah, you came with my fucking ever tune, so who the fuck cares? No, I'm just joking. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):

Well, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):

Pull that shit. Bend that shit, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):

I used to call that shit Death grip before evert tune, death grip, death grip chords, out of tune and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):

We call it witch fingers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):

Man, that shit would piss me off. But I find that the right hand is the big differentiator.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):

That's the tone. That's the sound,

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):

Yeah. The right hand. And lots of people are more worried about their left hand

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):

When

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):

It comes to guitar and bass, but your right hand, that's what separates the ben from the boys.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):

Totally. I mean, it's like saying like, oh, I stayed up all night and I studied, that's the left hand. Whereas the right hand is just like, I'm going in confident I know what I'm doing. You know what I mean? It's a different attitude. You know what I mean? Hetfield sounds the way that he does of his fucking right hand. You know what I mean? And Kirk Hammett can't sound anything like Hetfield because he's got a different right hand because he's a fucking solor. You know what I mean? So he is got more gentle fucking vibe and feel, whereas Hetfield just fucking smashes that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):

Oh, yeah. He is totally the down picking alpha male superior creation.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):

Exactly. Yeah. So Kirk Hammett isn't just like, well, I want to play the rhythm guitar part on the record. He doesn't give a fuck. He wants it to sound fucking heavy, and clearly it's going to sound fucking heavy if James Hetfield does it. So just give you him your fucking guitar and then you'll play the solos on the record and it'll be great. Done.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):

Yeah. Well, I mean, it really sounds so different. Absolutely. When you have a maniac playing maniac right hand player versus a regular right hand player. And I find that on base, it's even more so.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):

Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):

I feel like the right hand requirements on base are that much more important. That can ruin the whole power of a record.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):

So I imagine that you say that you're a better bass player than most people you record probably because your right hand.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):

Yeah, nine out of 10 dudes. Yeah, absolutely. And also because I'm extremely respectful to the relationship between the drums and the guitar because I've manipulated the kick patterns or the drum patterns and the strumming patterns of the guitars to play with each other. So I'm like, okay, great. I'm only allowed to hit these notes here at this time. If I do anything else, I'm walking all over everyone else, and that's wrong. It's not like I'm deciding the things to play the fucking song and the things that I'm supposed to play are literally laid out by the drum performance, by the guitar performance. You know what I mean? So that's where it's, a lot of people are like, well, that's subjective, man. It's like, no, man, you could fucking do what you want to do inside of these very small boundaries depending on what the song is asking from the bass. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):

Yeah, totally. Okay, so you've got these perfect drum bassing guitar performances, so then the next step before vocals is you actually get amps on everything.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):

Yep. Then I reamp.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):

And do you follow the same philosophy of you're not going to want to reamp again when the mix comes like let's get it right. Absolutely. Right

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):

Now? Yep. I get it right? Yep. Right from the start.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):

Okay, let's talk about that. You've also got the robot. I remember you made your own robot. You didn't buy one, you made one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):

I was one of the fucking, so that's the funny thing too. Not to toot my own fucking horn, but to toot my own fucking horn, dude, I've definitely been right ahead of some trends. You know what I mean? It's like redeem the DIY market. I was right before the DIY market bloomed. I was one of the first fucking adopters of it, and then fucking at popularized through Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. And the first time I ever saw a robot, which was through a fucking Ramstein fucking video, and I had heard about the robot before I even saw the Ramstein video, I was like, I need one. And then I saw in a photo a picture of Eric Valentine's one before he even did the Pesto's Place interview about it. And so I was hitting up everyone that I knew to be like, who could build me this? So finally, my homeboy, Carrie was able to build it for me, and I had it for a good four or five years before Mount even came out. I was the fucking the OG fucking mike dude. It was like me, Eric Valentine and the fucking Ramstein guy. I was the first DIY adopter.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):

I remember this. I can vouch Sam is telling the

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):

Truth two. Yeah, so good. It's so funny. So yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):

So for anyone that's not sure what robot we're talking about, this is not a robot that makes you coffee. Who's a robot that mics your cabinets for you.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):

Exactly. So mine's limited. It doesn't go off axis, which I actually don't even off axis miking on guitars. So that's completely a pointless part for me. So it only goes left to right, forward and back. So the way that I think about, it's like a cone is obviously 360 degrees. So as long as you can go left and right through the center of the cone, you're essentially covering the 360 degrees of what the cone is possible to do. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):

Essentially.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):

What a cool idea.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):

Yeah. So I mean, I've gone down the fucking rabbit hole on fucking mics and everything, especially because when I got into the Kemper, I was like, I want to make the best sounding profiles ever. So my preamp, I try every preamp, try every mic, and it always ends up being the exact same fucking thing. I like a 57 and a Bayer dynamic, M1 60 on guitar. I don't like anything else. I've tried the 57 4 21 technique. I even tried it again when I was in Canada. That's like Garth Richardson's thing, and I don't like it. 4 21 57 thing just sounds too thin to me and not thick enough. I want my bright mic and then my thick, fluffy mic, and then if I put them both together, it sounds bright and thick, so it's perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):

And the Royer 1 21 is too fucking boomy, and I hate that mic. The only time I've ever made that mic sound good on guitar is when I flip it backwards,

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):

Flip it backwards. What do you mean by flip it backwards?

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):

So they have different frequency responses. The front of it is more dull, the backside is brighter.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):

Oh, okay, okay. Because it's a figure eight mike.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):

So the back of the figure eight.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):

Totally. Also, I have a theory too about the Royer 1 21. So I think one of the ways that it was popularized originally was that Van Halen used a Royer 1 22. It wasn't a 1 21, it was the fucking active one, and everyone was like, oh, shit, I want to get a Royer. So then they released the 1 21 and everyone bought those instead. And that's how that became super popular. But I think the actual better sound is the 1 22. I've never actually used it, but I've heard that it's a little bit brighter and has a little less bottom end than the 1 21 because of the active boost inside of it. So I assume that I would like that Mike if I fucking use that instead of a 1 21.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):

Very interesting. I had never heard that, but that I believe you,

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):

Right. I'm a nerd dude.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):

And do you have any amps that you find you go back to all the time?

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):

Yeah, so my amps are like my fucking thing. I fucking, and that's kind of how it's been. It's like people come here, they use my guitars, they use my drums, they use my amps, I have my fucking shit dialed. Do you know what I mean? And occasionally someone might have their own fucking drums head or their own amp, that's going to sound fucking sick, but my shit is my shit, because I think it sounds the best. You know what I mean? So the only amp I would love to get is a diesel VH four or whatever. But the third channel is the only one that sounds good on that amp, so it's pointless to get a fucking $4,000 amp for one usable channel. You know what I mean? I top out at about a thousand dollars on an amp. I want all my amp to be cheaper than a thousand dollars.

(01:09:45):

So they're like, I get everything used and shit. So anyways, I got an orange 81 40, which is my fucking, I find that the best amp ever because it's not too dirty and it's not too clean. It's the perfect in between. So if the guitar part isn't clean enough, then you just get a cleaner amp, like my Amp P jet or my amp peg V four or my Vox. And so then if that's not heavy enough, then I'll fucking use my 51 50 or my marshals. And I usually will do, and I have an orange cab, a bogner cab, and I have a cab that has green bags inside of it, and I have a one by 12 with a blue. The Celestia linco blue. So that's my clean one. So I have the four different cabs. The robots always set up. I always have 57 on the robot.

(01:10:32):

I have an M1 60 on another stand, and I'll basically be like, okay, great. We're going to record now we're going to reamp this heavy fucking sg. Well, the heavy SG is usually a little thin, so I'm going to put it into something fluffy like my 51 50 with a good bite, and then it needs something a little bit cleaner to coincide with a little bit more clarity. So then I would use the orange and the 51 50 simultaneously 57 on the 51 50 with my orange cab, M1 60 on the Bogner cab with the orange. And I blend both of those together and I'll sum them to one track.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):

Nice. So you commit right then and there,

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):

Right then and there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):

Yep. And I'll move the robot until it sounds good. I place the M1 60 directly in the middle of the fucking cone every single fucking time. 57 usually is if you're looking at an NS 10, you know what I mean? There's the huge white middle part. It's not directly in the middle of that. It's in between that and the line. That's where I usually find that I like my 57 to be not dead, just tiny bit to the left or to the right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):

So not on the line. I remember on the Andy Wallace, or not Andy Wallace, fucking Andy Snap thing, it was like, oh, he does a 57 on the line of a cone. You know what I mean? I'm just inside of the line right in between the center point and that line.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):

That's cool. And I just think it's funny because this is just how this is accurate by my experience too, that you can try out all the amps in the world and somehow it always goes back to the same two or three.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):

And

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):

For some reason there's always a 51 50 in there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):

Yeah, dude, a 51 50. It's so funny. I used to have, when I was first playing guitar, I as a kid, I had a Mac Boogie dual rectifier. I was like, I want to get a triple rectifier. I want to be West Borland. Then they're like, fuck, dude, that's 150 watts. You don't want that. Do you want a hundred watt? So when I got the dual and then I wasn't really happy with it, and then I fucking got a Marshall, JMP and a 9,200 Power Amp. I wanted to be Deftones. And so then after that I was like, fuck it, I'm going to sell these because I'm now playing in a hardcore band. And I just went to this used shop called Star Musician here, and they had 51 50 for 500 bucks. And I was like, oh shit, man. I know. Fucking machine head uses that. Like a Ru Luster is my guitar teacher right now. I'll buy this $500, fucking 51 50. And it's like the sought after one. It's the block letter. Fucking original 51 50. It sounds so good. It's completely original

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):

Mine. Mine was four 50. Got

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):

It. That's so funny. Yeah, the best deals are always under 500 bucks for an amp. Literally every amp that I've spent less than $500 on is probably my favorite Amp

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):

Man. Best $500 ever spent.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):

Yeah. Great Amp. Great amp. And so then also the other thing is too is I have so many pedals. I love pedals, and I just got so fucking tired of being like, oh man, this part needs a delay. And then I'd go run to the room and then have to grab a one spot and plug it in, and then get the cables and daisy chain it, and then blah, blah, blah. So I just built my own board. So I have all of my pedals on this board ready to go, and I built the true bypass looper, so it's got 16 channels on it. I was methodical about the signal flow. So it goes from tuner to EQ to boost, and the boosts have a blend on it. So I can blend the amount of the tube screener that I want on the di. So it's like I don't have to run specifically through the tube screener.

(01:13:58):

It could be 50%. And then from there, it then goes into the fucking fuzz, and then it has the things like phase and fucking all of that with blenders on them. So I can blend the amount of phase and or fucking flanger that I want in there instead of running them straight through. I have it so dialed. So it's just like, alright, this is the clean guitar part. We're in the cleanup. It sounds like a little dry. Lemme turn on my reverb. Lemme turn on my fucking delay and lemme tap tempo the delay. Great. Lemme try a little chorus. Great. Oh, does it need a little boost? How about some compression? Lemme do that. I have my own console for my fucking pedal board. You know what I mean? So it's like I will manipulate the DI to hit my amp perfectly, so it just sounds great, and then I'm ready to go.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):

So once again, you're not reinventing the wheel every single time. And that's something with pedals that lots of times people do that. I find that there are always plugging them in for the first time, always setting them up again. Whereas it sounds like with you, you've got it down to stations.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):

This

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):

Is the clean setup.

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):

Yep, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):

These are the options.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):

I've figured

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):

These options out. They work. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):

I have recorded so many clean guitars in my life. These are the ones that people think sound best, and these are the ones that I think sound best. Therefore, I'm going to use them when I set up clean guitar. I just have my preference. And it's all based on experience. It's not like, oh, well, I read on the fucking URM form that fucking Joey Sturgis does this. So then I have my fucking line six preset. It's like I've developed this based upon following my own fucking ear. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):

Well, just for the record, we tell people to do that too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not accusing you guys of that. Yeah, so good. But you know how it is. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):

Well, I know that when people are first learning, if they see us saying that someone did something, lots of people will immediately just try to go and copy it. Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):

And secret into my template. Now I have that secret. Here we go.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):

But the thing that they don't understand, the other half of what we're saying is that this is what worked this one time, or this is what works for this person with their workflow, and you should study it and understand it, but then go create your own version that works for your workflow.

Speaker 3 (01:16:13):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):

It's not going to work for you if you just copy it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):

It might work by sheer chance.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):

Well, that's the other funny thing too, is the secret to success with audio is that audio is subjective. Therefore, you must follow your own ear and your own gut instinct and do what you think sounds best. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):

Absolutely. And when you're seeing all these bad asses and what they do, that's great. I mean, it's great to get information from great people and

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):

Absolutely

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):

Try out their tricks and all that, but their tricks that the best ones usually are there after a decade plus or two decades of trial and error. Totally. There's a level of understanding that you can't communicate verbally when there's a trick that you figured out because it's all your experience. It's your decade or two decades of experience all coming together to create this workflow or tonal trick. And you can't just steal that and expect that You're going to be able to utilize it the same way as some grandmaster, because for them it's the trick plus their experience and ears. So yes, learn that stuff, but it's not going to do the same for you unless you incorporate it and then tweak it to work for your own workflow and make it your own. It won't work otherwise.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):

A funny thing that I've always discovered is that, say, I've found this to be true with Adam Ley. I've always been pretty chill with him. He's always been really nice with me chatting with me a long time ago when I first was working on state champ shit and stuff like that. He was like, dude, your drums are sick. What are you using? And then I tell him my mic signal flow, and he is like, holy shit, I'm basically using the same thing and I'll reach out to either end. They're like, fuck, man, what are you using on drum buss? Your drums just sounds so good. And they're like, oh, stressors. It's like, oh, I use that too. So it's like, oh, it's funny because what I identify with sounding good and I'm like, fuck, man, I wish I could get that tone. I wonder how they get that tone. They're using the exact same gear that I used to get that sound, and that's why I like that sound. You know what I mean? So it's funny because I find the most similarities with my workflow with Adam Ley, just by chance, lots of the same mic signal flow, lots of the same little input signal flow, and it was like, oh, no wonder I like his sound because he's doing what I would probably have done if I had those same tools. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):

Whereas even that said, your productions sound worlds apart completely

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):

Nothing to in any way, shape or form. And this is the thing too, is there's three really important things that I focus on in audio, which a lot of people don't even really think about this. But the three things that I'm chasing at all times are one impact. I want to feel low end. I want to feel the fucking, I want pumpy compression. I want shit popping out of speakers and feeling big. Two, I want to hear depth. I want to hear space. I want to actually hear a physical environment that these things in live in. I don't want them to just be this sterile sound that is coming out of air. You know what I mean? I want to hear that it was created in a space. And then three, I want to hear all of the details. Everything that's recorded, I want to hear it. I don't want anything to be quiet and buried. I want them all to be perfectly balanced so that I hear all of the hard work properly you. And so it's like when I listen to Adam Ali's work, what I hear is I hear the impact. His drums sound big. I hear the depth. He has very good snare, sustain, and very good depth. And then there's extremely good detail. That's why when I hear his mix, I go, that sounds great. I wonder what he's using.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):

Turns out it's the same stuff you're using. Go for

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):

It. Pretty fucking much. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):

I mean, you can't say enough for what really matters at the end of the day are the years and the brain who's manipulating the equipment. Alright, so do you have maybe contingencies for when, say you're getting the detail you want and the depth, but the impact's not there on a mix? Or are you actually listening? Are you listening to it in a checklist almost?

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):

Yeah, exactly. I'll just be like, man, okay, it sounds kind of small. What does sound small? Is the guitars. Is the guitars too nasally? Is it too much bright top end? Or is it a poking out frequency that makes them just sound like a mosquito? What's happening? And so then I'll start investigating. But it's usually with drums, for example. If I can't get enough impact on the way that I have my faders set up is like, okay, well then great. Let me raise my fucking three parallel kick and snare compress and buses that I have and see if that pumps them anymore. Okay, great. That sounds a little bit better. Now lemme try my overall drum bus compression and compress the kicks parallel with the rooms as well and see how that sounds, because maybe I want more ambiance or maybe I just want close mic impact.

(01:21:33):

And so then I get a good balance of that, and then I'll solo it and then listen to it with the guitars in the bass and be like, okay, everything sounds really big now, but now my kick just isn't hitting. Let me turn it up. Okay, that sounds better, but it's too fluffy. Maybe turn up my fucking fader that has the fucking parallel eq. So now it sounds a little bit brighter. Okay, great. Now it just is inconsistent. Okay, well let's compress it a little bit harder. But now if I compress a little harder, it sounds weirder. Okay, then let me raise a sample. I have 'em all laid out and ready to go to restore any of the issues that I'm hearing. It's like, oh, I need more fucking, I want more room ambiance. Great, I'll turn those up. Oh, but it still sounds like too sounds too pointy. Okay, well lemme just turn those up and then turn up the parallel fucking drum buses. And now that's sitting better. It's very quick. I will just bank through and within one minute of little moves, I have everything sitting so that I have the right impact, the right depth and the right detail there. And basically at that point it's like, I'll get the impact and then I'll get the depth, and then it's all about fucking detail with automation and fucking revision notes. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):

So it sounds to me with that criteria that you set, it's not like there's not enough impact. Let me reinvent the wheel. You have your mixes set up already in a way to where you can add those things or tweak those things very easily.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):

And it's not, the last thing I want to do is open up a menu of a plugin and be like, let me turn up 80 hertz at three decibels. And that sounds good. I hate using plugin EQs. I hate using plugin compression. You know what I mean? I love just having parallel stuff ready to go because I've already worked so hard to get my source tones that they should sound perfect. All I need to do is to use these parallel guys to help restore any impact loss, any depth loss, or any detail that is missing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):

Yeah, that's actually really, really killer. Thank you for sharing that. That's

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):

How I be best friends with audio.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):

Alright, so you spend the time amping, you get the best possible tones, you want mix ready, and at that point you start doing your vocals.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):

Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):

So you want the vocalist to have, you want them to feel like a million dollars basically? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):

I want them to sing along with their record. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):

As best as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):

Do you also get a premix going, or do your productions already sound premixed already? You took so much time.

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):

Yeah, they already sound pretty premixed. For example, when I did, when Tom Lauren Algae mix the new story so far single, I had printed an instrumental print from the end of the day of amping that was just like, okay, great, here we go. I'll just print this so that we can do vocals on top of it. And so that's all he had to reference as my original mix. But even though it wasn't a mix, it's just control room playback. But even then the differences between our mixes are so fucking minimal even after everything he did. You know what I mean? It sounds like the source material. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):

Okay, I see. Okay. So as far as vocals go, is it a similar thing where you know which vocal mics you like? Or do you shoot a few

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):

Out? Yeah, so it's either my U 47 clone that I had made for me, which everyone loves to buy and copy off me. It's so great. Everyone loves my LET mic, so they buy their own. So good. I was the first fucking fool to have that fucking LED mic too. Everyone, robot

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):

And fucking LED mic. What? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):

It's like a huge U 47, but it's got LEDs in it, so it just looks badass.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):

Oh no, I want

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):

To see it. It's from a company called Cathedral Pipes. So it was when the dude was making DIY gear on gear sluts. That's why I hit him up because I saw a post on it. I was just like, if I'm going to order a mic, I want to, if I'm going to spend money on a mic on a U 47, it tops off for me at like $2,000. I won't spend over $2,000 on a fucking nice mic. You know what I mean? That's way too fucking expensive. I get good vocal sounds with an SM seven, which is fucking 400 bucks, right? So I'm like, alright, I'll order a microphone for $2,000 from this guy and it's going to light up and it's going to look badass. And so that's my main vocal mic, and it sounds fucking amazing. Basically it sounds the same as

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):

Wow, really does light up,

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):

Lift it up. So it sounds basically as good as an SM seven, but just Glossier and a little thicker and a little brighter. But I really hate bright vocal mics. I hate sance and I hate fucking all that stupid fucking snacky shit. So if they're so bright, then I'll just use the fucking SM seven. And I also like using the SM seven if I know that I'm going to have to overdub vocals later on. So the new hundredth record that I just did, his voice would've sounded amazing on my U 47, but we knew that he was going to do vocals at his home, and we were only going to get some vocals done here because we chose to do it that way. So it was like, great, you'll use the same preamp and the same compressor here at my studio with the SM seven, and then when you go home, you'll use that exact same fucking chain and then you'll send me those vocals and it'll be perfect. So it's the difference between an SM seven and a U 40 and my U 47 is like 2%. You know what I mean? It doesn't even really fucking matter. So either of those two mics are the ones that

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):

I used to use. I was going to say though, if your U 47 sounds 2% away from a SM seven B,

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):

Then

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):

It probably doesn't sound much like it actually U

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):

47. I mean, it sounds fucking phenomenal, let's put it that way. And it's like my main drum room, Mike, A lot of people will always be like, your drums sound kind of mono because I've used so much of that mono room mic. It sounds the most accurate. It sounds like the thing in the room. You know what I mean? It's extremely, it's good. It doesn't sound like an SM seven, but the difference is so minimal at the end of it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):

Yeah, fair enough. And what about, do you track the vocalist in the room with you?

Speaker 3 (01:27:45):

So I try to, but some dudes are fucking weird about that. But the way that my control room is, my window is right next to my fucking, if I just look to my right, then it's the window. I hated when I would work at studios and I have to look over the computer to look out the window. So I prefer to just look to my right and see the person. That's so weird. So my window's just to my right so that I can just look through there and the dude is usually standing there. So if he's not standing in my room, he's standing four feet away from me and there's a wall and a window between us. You know what I mean? So it's like we're basically together. So there's really no big difference, but I like them to be there on the spot because I don't have to use the talk back. I just fucking, I can edit and I can have both my hands free all the time. So basically I'll get as many takes as I need to get to get a good performance if I can. I'll try to monitor with autotune EFX enabled so that I can make sure that it's real smooth and not inconsistent. I'll definitely do all my copy and editing with autotune EFX on, and then I'll fucking consolidate all those, and then I'll send those vocals to our boy Emil to tune for me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):

Okay. Get them. So you make sure that they're in the ballpark.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):

Exactly. In the ballpark. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes I prefer to just print the autotune that I did because it sounds totally fine to me. I want to hear vocals in tune. You know what I mean? I want my vocals to sound tuned because the records that I like are the ones that sound that way. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):

Do you have any criteria you're going for in a vocal

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):

Consistency? I mean, there's a good quote from that dude, KU Carrell, who's a really good vocal producer. But honesty, the listener always identifies with honesty and passion. So I want them to sound, I want them to sound authentic. You know what I mean? I don't want them to sound like a dude singing in front of a mic. I want it to sound like the vocal performance that the song wanted to have. So lots of times I'm just like, come on, man. Fucking equipping a pussy fucking yell. You know what I mean? Or Come on, man, fucking hold it smooth at the end. I'm extremely demanding and vocal with when I'm recording vocals. You know what I mean? So that's why I like to have him in the control room with me. It's just easy to talk back and forth the whole time. I remember when I watched the Lamb of God videos when I was in high school, and I was like, dude, that guy machine is so fucking badass.

(01:30:08):

I love how he's just so nuts. And it's just like, no, maning it like this. It needs to be like, oh, just not being afraid to be that guy. I sing just as much as my singers are. I have a terrible sounding voice, but I can hit notes perfectly and I can demonstrate to people and be like, no, at the end you're waving. Instead of going like, ah, I need you to go and just hold it, hold it steady, shit like that. And it's really just making sure that their vocal performance works inside of auto tune's limits. You know what I mean? So it's like don't be doing weird waving stuff. Don't be doing weird vibratos. Make your voice sound as natural as possible as it can with inside of sounding super tuned. You know what I mean? So it's the Drake effect. It's singing with autotune on

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):

And contrary to lots of popular belief, autotune doesn't sound like anything unless you push its limits.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):

Exactly. I don't want to hear it working. I want the vocal performance to be so right that I'm not hearing autotune working, and that's how I know I got the right performance. You know what I mean? If I hear it and if it's glitching, it's because the vocal performance is wrong, and you cannot make that sound natural when you tuned. So it's at the end of the day when I play back my vocals and I have autotune, EFX engaged, they sound like perfect vocals in tune. You know what I mean? And vocal line and fucking revoice is real good. I'm fucking religious about that shit. You know what I mean? Love it. Cutting out fucking breaths, cutting out all that shit. My vocals are fucking pristine. And usually my fucking chain is usually pretty much the exact same. It's Mike into Undertone audio, preamp undertone, audio preamp into 1176.

(01:31:50):

1176 into LA three A. That's it. Nothing else. That's a, I don't even use eq. People are like, what do EQ do you use on vocals? I don't use EQI vocals. I haven't used EQI vocals. I can't even think about it. I can't even think about a time that I was like, my vocal isn't bright enough. Let me turn it up the brightness. You know what I mean? It's like, let me DS this and get this right and don't sound, if they sound thin, then I'll saturate some stage of the compression or the preamp to get it to sound thick and glossy and smooth to me

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):

Makes perfect sense. I mean, I find that using harmonics is a great way to EQ things without using EQ anyways. You want things to sound thicker or sometimes brighter, whatever. If you dial distortions in, well, you don't even need to use eq.

Speaker 3 (01:32:39):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I use a different mic, you know what I mean? Or fucking go into a thicker compressor or a snappier one. You know what I mean? So I make the choices to make sure that what's coming into the computer sounds good to me, you know what I mean? And that's the other thing too, is I fucking avoid plugins like the plague. If I'm using plugins, I like 'em to be stupid things like an API five 50 EQ or an L one or R VX or rax, you know what I mean? Or CLA guitars. So I can use some effects, you know what I mean? I don't want to set up a bus and then create a send and choose how much of my send is going to my bus. It is just like, I want it to be very fucking simple and very, I did everything I could with all of my external devices to make this sound perfect. Now I need to use some in the box thing to achieve this thing. I want to use this simplest, most dumb version of that so I can get there. Not now. Right? The fuck. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):

Okay. I like that. I really, really like your philosophy. I wish more people spent the time they needed to get things right from just from the get go and not rely on a later part of the process or somebody else to come in and rescue it. It's always better.

Speaker 3 (01:33:53):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):

Even if someone else is mixing it as a mixer, it's always better if what you have delivered to you sounds amazing. Just faders up.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):

See, and that's one of the funny things too, is this is where I started to run into a lot of problems when I was like, after my records started doing well, and you have records story out there, and then you have records like state champs and records like basement and stuff like that. And people were like, dude, I want Sam to mix my record. And so then I'm like, great, man, I'll fucking mix your 10 songs for $6,000. That's a great price. And then they send me the most shot fucking material, and then I do the best I can with the tools that I have in my computer. And they're like, this doesn't sound anything like the story so far. It's like, no, because what you're referencing is my fucking production. It's not my fucking mixing. My mixing is my engineering. You know what I mean? I have engineered my record to play back in my pro tools the way I want it to sound. You know what I mean? I'm not relying on any of the software to get my fucking sound. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:34:51):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, I have a few questions here from our audience for you. Yes,

Speaker 4 (01:34:57):

Please.

Speaker 2 (01:34:58):

I would like to ask you them. Okay, cool. Here goes first one from Sean. I'd love to hear more details on the gear. Sam has made more info on the calves and amps along with the pres and mods done to them if he can without giving away his top secrets.

Speaker 3 (01:35:15):

Alright, well, there is no top secrets. That's great.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):

Yeah, I didn't think there were.

Speaker 3 (01:35:22):

I got all my Cappy preamps, just have GAR 25, 20 amps in 'em. Those are my favorite. I think I send the best. So I just use, if I could have have any one preamp for my studio, it would be the undertone audio preamp. That's the best preamp ever. It sounds the best. It's hell expensive, but my friend Jeremy Worst has eight of them now because I was like, you got to try this preamp. It's great. So that DJ's Livermore has fucking 12 of 'em or something like that. But anyways, sounds fucking awesome. So Capy, preamps, undertone, audio preamps, those are my favorite preamps as far as compressors and everything, I made my LA three a's I made my 1170 sixes. My 1176 s are a little bit modified. They have different caps in there. And I did listening tests for some different brands to see which ones sound best.

(01:36:10):

And so it's basically the exact same as everyone else's, except I just have higher quality caps and better sounding shit inside of it. And so then with my amps, all my amps are fucking completely original. The only modification I have is on my 51 50. I have a bias mod on it so that they can bias the tubes. And that's pretty much about it. Everything's pretty much fucking stock, you know what I mean? The only other super modified shit is my guitar is, I believe no guitar should cost over $500. So all my guitars are cheap Squires, cheap fenders, Mexican fenders, or really cheap Gibsons, 500 bucks Gibsons and shit. And with super fucking modified pots and pickups to be exactly the best on each shit with ever tunes on 'em. So I guess that kind of covers it, right?

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):

Yeah, totally. Alright, here's one from Miami Dolphin, and that's his real name, by the way. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):

First name Miami, last name Dolphin.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):

I've seen his driver's license.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):

That's so hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):

Yeah, his parents did actually name him that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):

What was it like being the sole producer on the story so far as work? Was there a lot of pressure to outdo the previous records every time?

Speaker 3 (01:37:24):

So it's kind of interesting working with those guys. So first record was one of the record where they're just completely new dudes. So they listen to everything I say, you know what I mean? So everything I said was applied, real smooth process, real fucking easy. And so then that record does super well. So then we did the second record, and then the label was like, well, they're going to need someone to help 'em with songwriting. And so then it's like, all right, well, I can throw out some ideas and stuff like that. But then of course, I'm just me at this point now. I was like, I'm the guy that they already made their record with, so my ideas aren't considered the good ideas anymore. You know what I mean? Instead, they're starting to listen to themselves and are starting to listen to me less and less.

(01:38:09):

You know what I mean? So as the processes has gone on, I've had less influence in the songs and the performances in the creation of ideas like that, and more so limited to capturing sounds and doing the best I can with the scenario that's presenting itself to me. You know what I mean? Whereas I used to just fucking completely be like, just come and use my studio. Here we go. But now it's like, oh, we want to go to a different studio. We want to do this. Things have become more complicated and my hands are more tied in what I can actually do. You know what I mean? So it's not as ideal as before, but it's still just this fun, you know what I mean? It's just a different process.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):

I mean, I think anytime that you're involved with one band for that long, it seems like that's the natural way that things go. Because I've talked to some of my other friends who have been the sole producer for a band's entire career, or five out of six records, and they kind of have said the same thing, that the band, as the band goes along, they become more and more independent in a way.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):

Yeah, I would say on the new record we're doing, I would consider it more so produced by their drummer, Ryan, one of the main, his songs that he writes, I fucking love. He's just a really good songwriter, and his attention to detail is extremely, extremely good. And so when I'll be like, I think it should go like this, I will turn to him to make sure that he thinks that's the right idea, as opposed to be like, oh, I think that this is how it's going to go, so it should go this way. You know what I mean? He knows what the fuck he's talking about with his songs. He's got a good ear and a good aesthetic, you know what I mean? And I value his opinion and his input. So before I move on with any decision, I will, out of everyone in the band, he's the one dude that I will verify is stoked on it before I move forward with it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):

Yep. Makes perfect sense. Alright, life. Here's one. Yes, life. Phil Scota is wondering, are you his best friend?

Speaker 3 (01:40:17):

I love Phil. Phil's a good guy. We

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):

Love Phil. So Marcos, Santana Ruiz is wondering the chapter of Sam's Creative Live on drum tuning using the Evans Tor key has been the most on point and easy to recreate out of all tuning videos, articles, podcasts have ever encountered.

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):

So

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):

Is there anything he could add to his already awesome explanation or any new tips? So, hey, can you take something and make perfect and make it complicated?

Speaker 3 (01:40:48):

I'm just kidding. So funny. No, that's cool to hear. I really appreciate that because I've always been like, I don't know how to tune drums. You know what I mean? So I've wanted to learn how to tune drums like we talked about earlier, but I just figured it the fuck out. I just did what I thought sounded best, you know what I mean? And followed my own fucking ear and my own fucking technique. No one showed me the Evans key. I found that myself and created that technique myself. So basically just the brief overview of how I would tune up a drum set is that I would listen, and this is what I did with the news story so far. Record, we got really fucking detailed on this. This was actually really fun. So it's like, all right, the key of the song is D.

(01:41:26):

Got it. So you learned this from Eric Valentine because Eric Valentine's, the fucking Dalai Lama of engineering, he's the best. So you want your kick drum to be your root note. So if it's in D, then you would have, lemme pull up a, I always have to use my autotune E, F, X in order because I'm really bad at theory. So it's like, lemme set it to D Major right now. Okay, so D would be one. E is two G sharp is three, G is four. A is five. So I would want to tune my kick to a D, my rack, Tom to a G and my snare to an A. So it would be one, four, and five. That's how you would always do it. And the floor, Tom, I usually try to match with the kick, so they're both like an octave of each other, but they sound, they're probably hit the same octave, but they sound different, obviously. So it's like floor. Tom is in D, kick is in D. Snare as in a rack. Tom is in G. So it's like it's hitting a fucking octave. You know what I mean? If you're playing a fucking power cord, you got your root, your fourth and your fifth, right? That's what a power cord is, right? Route fourth, fifth.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):

Well,

Speaker 2 (01:42:36):

No, no, no, no. Power cord is route fifth.

Speaker 3 (01:42:39):

Just route fifth, right? That's you. You're right, you're right. Route fifth and then the octave. So that's what a power cord is. Got it. So yeah, I want my snare to be the fifth, and I want my kick to be the root. So I'll tune up the drums and I'll fucking go out there and I'll find the range that works on the drum key. So it'll be on the keys that I use right now. The number is different for every single key. So what number I say doesn't work. You have to go to the lowest number possible where there is no fucking torque and it's just flagging back and forth. And then put it on the first one where it'll click at the lowest torque. So then I'll be like, okay, great, let's check what this floor Tom's at. And I'll get it into, I'll be like, okay, great.

(01:43:18):

It works between the numbers seven and nine. Seven is the lowest it can go. Nine is the highest. It goes before it goes weird. So then I'll be like, okay, great. Let me hit it. And it's at a seven right now, and it sounds it close to D. What if I go up to an eight? Okay, it's obviously way too high. That doesn't work. So then I'll just go back down to the seven, and that's going to be the closest possible to the key that I want, and it sounds fine. Great. And I do the same thing with the kick and the snare and everything. I find what range it sounds good at on its own, and then I try to apply those numbers to sound the closest to the key. And so this is where my drum umbrella fucking rocks is because once you get the fucking key, once you get the drum tuning, so it sounds like the notes, then you'll be like, great. Now my snare feels thin when I hit it in the room. So then I'll play with the height of my drum umbrella until my snare is just popping and feels fucking, it feels like it's responding correctly in the room because I've essentially changed the tuning of the room to accommodate to the tuning of the drum set.

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):

Makes perfect sense,

Speaker 3 (01:44:19):

Nerd shit.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):

So if you really want to get good at tuning drums, build a drum umbrella is what

Speaker 3 (01:44:25):

You're saying. Well, if you really want to get good at tuning drums learned, try to do route fourth and fifth for the drum tuning, and then do the best you can to get the drums to sound right for the key of the song. And then if you don't have a drum umbrella or anything, play with the placement of those drums in the rooms that they sound the biggest, and then use the drums there.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):

Makes perfect sense.

Speaker 3 (01:44:49):

Yep. That's what I would do if I didn't have my drum, Bella.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):

Okay, here's one from Tyler Rodriguez, which is recently on the,

Speaker 3 (01:44:56):

Who's sitting right next to me.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):

Yeah, I know. Hi Tyler. I can see you. He can't hear me, but I can see him.

Speaker 3 (01:45:02):

He can't hear you. Yeah, so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:45:06):

Wow. Tyler's on a podcast. He just spoke.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):

Wow. There

Speaker 3 (01:45:09):

You go.

Speaker 2 (01:45:10):

Tyler's URM podcast debut. So recently on the latest hundredth, you moved from mixing with your usual hybrid setup to predominantly in the box. Was that a difficult or easy transition to make for yourself? Were you missing the use of any analog gear that you could just not find a suitable plugin equivalent for?

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):

So it's slightly a lie. I use my C two on mixed bus because I use that on everything, but the only thing that I wasn't, so basically usually what I'll do is if I'm mixing, I'll have my parallel outboard set up, which will be like stressors set up for drums, LA three A setup up for guitars, and then 1176 set up for bass, the black ones. And then my blue stripes set up for vocals, and they're all stereo, so it's like ready to go. They're always patching on my patch bay. I can just unmute those tracks and raise them up. So it's like, all right, great. I got the guitars. That sound great, but now they just don't sound thick enough and they're not cutting through enough. Raise the LA three A track. Great. But instead of using the actual outboard, I just copied the exact settings and I used a fucking multimeter to make sure that they were the same fucking decibel range and everything.

(01:46:19):

So I made presets of them so that I could do easy recalls. And it was because I was working on another record right after that, and so I was going to have to fucking have to patch things in all the time. So I was just like, fuck it. It's way easier just to have these plugins ready to go. And I was eventually going to switch back over, but then when I did, it just sounded different and sounded like I had already done enough compensation to get the low end to sound right, that if I actually used the outboard, the low end was totally different. It was even more intense. So it was like I had to kind of just commit to using the plugin versions of my outboard. So I was using the rouser on drums and the CLA three A and CLA 70 sixes for my parallel stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):

Okay, yep. Here's one from Aaron Pace, which is I want to know more about his drum parallel processing and how he gets his drum close mic. So dope. Sam is the tops.

Speaker 3 (01:47:13):

Thank you. What a nice guy. So I talked about how my kicking scenario will fool me, where I will think they're samples because they're so consistent, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):

So

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):

A lot of people,

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):

And let me just interrupt you real quick and say that on the records that I've engineered where people have liked the drum sound the most, that I've gotten the same effect in the studio where I've fooled myself into thinking that I have a sample on the snare when I don don't.

Speaker 3 (01:47:42):

You turn down the sample and nothing changes, and then you're like, what the fuck? What is this? And then you saw, you're like, wow, my close mic just on its own, it doesn't sound like that, but in the mix it just sounds like a fucking sample. Like, wow, that's crazy. So a lot of the impact that happens on kicking snare is because I'm doing a lot of crazy EQ with the UTA and then it'll be UTA into a transient designer. Transient designer into stressors, and then that's the kick and scenario tones and Toms are just transient designers with EQ and nothing else on it. And so I mentioned it earlier, but my parallel processing on drums, it used to just be one parallel bus, which was an 1176, and then eventually I was tired of that. So then I tried an API 2,500, and then I was really into that for a while, and then I worked on another session and I changed it to, I started trying to use actual outboard stuff and was using my stressors or Elise micro limit or something like that.

(01:48:43):

And so then eventually I listen to that old record, I'm like, oh, man, that one sounds good. I open up the session and it's just the 1176. So then I would import that track into my template. And so now I have literally all my close mics have six, it's all my close mics, and then above them in my session, it's six parallel drum bus compressors. And so it's three of them. It's basically like, it's the same track just duplicated twice. So it's ascend from my kick snare and Toms duplicated three times and then ascend from all of the drums duplicated three times. And so that way I can be like, do I want to compress the drum bus or do I want to compress just the parallel and the way that they're set, I literally don't even know what the settings are. They're just like, I don't ever open the plugin and look at it.

(01:49:33):

I literally just adjust the master bus that is sending to those channels. I use master faders as well so that I don't have to fuck with any of my sends. All my sends are at Unity, and I use the master to adjust how hard I'm hitting those sends. And so then I'll be like, great, let me raise up the 11 76 1. Great, it sounds pumpy and fluffy, and let me raise up the distress one. Now it sounds snappy and a little bit more closer. Now let me raise up the Elijah m pressor, and now it's really thick and really pumpy, and then all three of them together just work. So it's for kick and snare. It's a parallel 1176 parallel to stressor and parallel compressor. Then for the full drums, it's parallel stressors. Then it's parallel 2,500 and then a parallel devil lock. And all of those are maybe there'll be 50 50, maybe there'll be 20 some more than the others.

(01:50:24):

It's completely different, and I have no idea what they're set to. I'm just fucking pushing faders in front of me until it sounds right. And then I look at my master bus and I'm making sure I look at my compressor to the left, and I make sure it's not hitting more than 40 B. And then that's about it. I'm usually hugging fucking 40 B on my fucking SSL. So I'll just, as I'm printing masters, I'll be pulling down my master fader and pushing up the output. So it's like pulling down and pushing up simultaneously. I'm really big about that feathering. If you're going to pull one down, you pull the output up simultaneously. So there is no volume difference, and I can hear what it hits the threshold and when the negative artifacts start to become too overwhelming.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):

Man, parallel devil lock is definitely something that I discovered in later years as a secret drum weapon.

Speaker 3 (01:51:11):

It's great, especially because lots of drum sounds that I always used to love were using the sher level lock. You know what I mean? I was like, oh, man, that dude, Chad Blake is so fucking sick. How do those bad plus drums sound the way that they do? He is using one mic with a fucking devil lock on it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):

Yeah, I can't say enough good things about that. Here's one from Joseph Hewitt. I really like the airiness of Sam's overhead and symbols. If you could ask him to run through his process from them, from symbol choice and micing and mixing, that would be sick.

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):

Okay, so this is the one thing I wanted to mention about story that I totally forgot. We fucking went through all the symbols and we figured out what notes the symbols were. So we made sure our symbols were in the keys of songs as well too. So it'd be like, oh, that high hat is a B flat. Can you use the other hi hat? That sounds more like a B. Great. So I don't own any symbols because drummers always fucking break my symbols. So I prefer Zian Sables because they just sound dark and beautiful and awesome. But I think a lot of what is happening is that I don't use gates, and I don't use gates on kicking scenario. I don't use gates on room mics or anything, and I have lots of parallel going on that you are, you're physically hearing my room at all times.

(01:52:35):

It's so compressed that you will hear the actual decay and the actual sound of my room. You know what I mean? So my symbols, they sound, I am always fighting to get the symbols to sound pokey, but not harsh. You know what I mean? You don't want them ice picking at you, but you want 'em to be real fucking nice and real airy. So I've never been able to get symbols to sound right unless I'm using them in the parallel compression with my fucking close mics, dudes who are like, I just use close mic parallel compression, and that's it. I have to have the symbols go to that compression too, so that they're pumping together. So it sounds natural to me, otherwise it sounds disconnected.

Speaker 2 (01:53:12):

Okay, great. Thank you. Here's another one from Brian Hood. Sam, why is your cat so fucking badass as fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:53:21):

So good? Dude, I wish my cat was actually famous. Everyone says this about their own child or whatever. My child's the cutest, but everyone says this about my cat. I have one of the cutest looking cats ever, and my cat should definitely be more famous than grumpy cat.

Speaker 2 (01:53:39):

I just took a look at the picture of your cat that Brian posted in our group, and it's pretty cute.

Speaker 3 (01:53:45):

Yeah, he's cute, man. So the thing that I've done recently is, it's funny, I'm all about consistency, right? So my Instagram stories, I'm never, when Instagram came out the story, I'm not going to use this shit. I use Instagram to post a photo. I'm not going to post some weird video today. This is weird. So I only use it to take videos of my cat, and that's it. And it's so funny because so many people will message me and be like, your cat, I fucking love your cat. And so many people message me and they're like, great, you're fucking cat again. You're hella fucking annoying with your fucking cat. I'm so polarizing. You know what I mean? It's so 50 50 on who loves my cat and who fucking hates my cat. Same with me. People who fucking love me and people who hate me.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):

You get hate messages for your cat.

Speaker 3 (01:54:31):

Oh, yeah. People get annoyed about my cat. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:54:34):

That's weird.

Speaker 3 (01:54:36):

Yeah. Create another cat video.

Speaker 2 (01:54:38):

Dude, I can't believe that people take their time out of their day to send you hate about a fucking cat,

Speaker 3 (01:54:44):

Right, dude, because

Speaker 2 (01:54:45):

That's the internet for

Speaker 3 (01:54:46):

You. Yeah, exactly. They can't just close the Instagram story and go to the next one. You know what I mean? And then that's the other thing that people will complain about too, is I'll post 10 of them, so then they have to click the right of the screen 10 times to exit my story, and they're like, you just post too many of them. It's like, fuck, you unfollow me, then my fucking cat. Who the fuck cares, dude? I'm going to use this technology the way that I want to, and I'm going to make my fucking cat famously the process. Okay,

Speaker 2 (01:55:10):

Your cat deserves every bit of fam that comes its way.

Speaker 3 (01:55:13):

Yeah, exactly. He was a straight cat. He wandered into my studio one day, so that's how he's my cat.

Speaker 2 (01:55:18):

Wow. And you're going to make him famous, stuck, man. It's proof that here in America dreams can come true,

Speaker 3 (01:55:25):

Right, dude? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:26):

So here's one from Sean Dorian, which is how did you get that beautiful smack and delay out of the snare for the story so far, specifically for high regard?

Speaker 3 (01:55:39):

So I think, I'm not sure. There's three songs. The whole record is using my snare, and then it has, then all of a sudden it broke and it sounded weird. So then we switched to another snare. So I don't know which songs are which, but I'm pretty sure that he's probably referring to my 13 inch Yamaha snare, which it's funny because I use that on the basement record too, and it's just like, it's so fucking, it sounds fucking huge. And it was funny. I was doing this whole new story record, and it's like he uses his drum set, and then we will switch between my snares or his snares, whatever sounds best for the song. And so then the other day when we had to do two new songs, he was just like, yo, can I just use your drum set? I'm like, yes, please.

(01:56:24):

Can you, my drum set is dialed, it's ready to go. Here we go. He walked in and he was using his big 14 inch bell brass SJC snare, which is, it's one of our most consistently used snares. It's one that he loves. It's one that I love. It sounds fucking huge, but it didn't sound right in the song. It just sounded too big and didn't sound, I mean, it just sounded kind of dull and not really quick. So I was like, dude, let's use the 13 inch again. And the second we hit it, it was just like, man, there's our fucking drum sound. There's our story so far drum sound. That snare is just so smacky and so quick. And again, I taped the shit out of it so that when you hit it, it just goes smack, and that's it. No fucking decay, nothing else. And also, if I were to mute the close mic, you would hear a very minimal change. It wouldn't be like, where did the snare go? Because the snare lives in every fucking mic that I'm pushing up so hard in my room mics. You know what I mean? Most of my snare sound is my room sound. It's not the close mic sound.

Speaker 2 (01:57:28):

I think that that's actually really, really important key point, and we say this to people a lot, but I feel like because now the mix, we do the mix competition every month, and we get over 500 mixes a month submitted, and really, really, I hear all the problems with people's mixes and every mixer who's ever come on the podcast or now the mix or who I know personally has always said that their snare sound or their drum sound has a lot more to do with the room mics and the overheads than the close mics.

Speaker 3 (01:58:00):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:58:00):

The close mics are definitely important, obviously. But the big sound, the decay, the awesomeness, the

Speaker 3 (01:58:08):

Excitement, the tone,

Speaker 2 (01:58:09):

Yeah, the juice. That's all like in how you blend your rooms with the close. But if you play the close by itself, sometimes it'll just sound like a weird little smack.

Speaker 3 (01:58:20):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:58:21):

And I just encourage everybody to just listen to what Sam just said about his drum sounds and take that more seriously, especially now the make subscribers who get really good room tracks to work with, work on those rooms.

Speaker 3 (01:58:38):

Yeah. Ali's a good example of that too. A lot of his snare sound is that extra room decay. You know what I mean? And that's where when I hear his drum sound, I'm like, that snare sounds fucking great. And what I like about it is the decay and the ambiance, which is what I like about my snares. You know what I mean? It's not like, oh man, his beta 57 close mic sounds perfect. You know what I mean? It's like it's not about the de delo mic at all.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):

Yeah. Okay. And last question. This one's from Patrick Graf, which is what was the process of designing your studio the first time around when you renovated a few years ago? What were you looking to change and how did you accomplish the changes you wanted to sonically? Any tips or pointers for someone looking to build out a space?

Speaker 3 (01:59:19):

Okay, so space build out was a little stressful, a little crazy. I can't even believe I did.

Speaker 2 (01:59:25):

It always is. And did it take way longer than you thought it would?

Speaker 3 (01:59:28):

No, actually it was really fucking short. Wow. So when I first got this place, it was my seventh studio, and I was like, fuck it. We're going to fucking build it, and we're going to do what I want to fucking do here. And so I got this construction guy to do it, and I was like, I put down my deposit for the place, and I asked my landlord, I was like, yo, since I'm putting down the deposit and signing a five year lease on this, can you give me one free month to get the place set up? And she was like, yeah, that's fine. So I was like, great, we got 30 days. Let's fucking build it. And so I remember walking into the open space and the dude just being like, all right, man. So what do you want? And I was like, I want a big room here.

(02:00:03):

I want a big control room. And then he just spray painted the ground and was like, great, this is what we'll do. And then we just built it and it was it. So I had had the spaces, and I did a couple things. I did one wall that's not parallel to help my live rooms that helps with no standing waves and all that kind of shit, or no float or echo and shit. So I had been through enough studios where I was like, these sizes will be comfortable for me. I'll be able to work in this. And so eventually my neighbor moved out of the unit next to us. And so then I built the second control room. And at this point I was like, let me hire a guy to design the acoustic material, because all I did before was just hang 7 0 3 on the wall, and that was it.

(02:00:45):

And so it looks great. I really liked the aesthetics, and I was like, great. I wanted do the same thing to my room, so I'm going to redo my room. So that's when I built the drum umbrella and stuff. And my room tone totally improved. My low end went through the roof, low end totally increased. And that's the main difference between a story so far, record today, as opposed to a story far record in the early times or a basement record. The drums have a lot of harsh top overtone because there was so much reflection inside of my room because it wasn't super dead, and now the room is dead, but it has enough wood and diffusion that the decay is natural, and it sounds really fucking even and really fucking awesome as opposed to problematic and maybe unbalanced. My room sounds really balanced. Now

Speaker 2 (02:01:35):

I am impressed by how quickly you got it built, by the way.

Speaker 3 (02:01:39):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):

Because in my experience and everything, I know studio buildout take forever, always longer than imagined, but I guess having that deadline makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 3 (02:01:52):

And also, one of my friends is building a studio right now, and it's just like it's been taking 'em months and months. And the rooms are small too. You know what I mean? That's the thing too, is you'll get a big space and you're like, yeah, man, this is going to be fucking awesome. And then you start putting up walls and you're like, fuck, this room is going to be much smaller than I thought it was. Like, fuck. You know what I mean? Because all of a sudden you've partitioned it down three times. So I mean, we got two control rooms here. Now. My new control room is way bigger, the one that I'm currently in. So I kind of like to use this control room if I'm doing di guitars or keyboards and stuff like that. And then I really like to use my regular room if I'm using drums and doing amping and stuff.

(02:02:28):

So I like to switch between my two control rooms. And I really like my second live room. My second line room is smaller, but it's got so much wood in there that it's like, I think if Dave Grohl was going to come here and record drums, he would prefer to record drums in the smaller room. That's kind of what I think. It's just really quick and really fucking, all the metal dudes who do freelance here love using that room. It sounds fucking badass. And the low end is really good. It's really even, that's the main thing that I can describe is all the treatment that I have has made the frequency content pretty even throughout.

Speaker 2 (02:03:00):

I see.

Speaker 3 (02:03:01):

Awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:03:02):

Well, Sam, thank you so much for coming on here. Yes. Best friendship. Thank you

Speaker 3 (02:03:07):

Absolutely

Speaker 2 (02:03:08):

For taking time out of your day. I know that you are absolutely always doing stuff, always busy. So thank you so much for taking the time and being so open with our audience.

Speaker 3 (02:03:19):

My pleasure.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):

People,

Speaker 3 (02:03:22):

I hope people enjoy things and go out there and make some fucking good songs that inspire people to make fucking better music in the world a better fucking place. Right?

Speaker 2 (02:03:32):

That's right.

Speaker 3 (02:03:33):

That's right. Well, thanks. I appreciate you doing this. Alright, take it easy, dude.

Speaker 1 (02:03:36):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is 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, is inflection points in your life. Learn more at URM summit.com. To get in touch with the RM podcast, visit urm.com podcast and subscribe today.