NICK SAMPSON: Modular guitars, the Polyphia writing process, and modern metal production

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host. Hey, Eyal Levi. Hey guys. Hey, Eyal Levi here with the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. If you notice that my voice sounds a little different, well, it's because we just got back from the URM Summit 2017 in Orlando, Florida, and spent about four or five days of talking to over a hundred people nonstop. It was an unbelievable time, and I really think that those of you who didn't go, you should go in 2018 if you're really looking to branch out and meet people in the community of audio engineers that it may not be a big one where you live. Well, this is a worldwide community. People came from all over the world. We had incredible speakers, incredible masterclasses. We have a great lineup for next year already. People call this the time of their life, and I'm just blown away by how positive it is, and I know that people made business relationships and friendships for life out of it.

(01:03):

And URM Summit 2000 eighteen.com, my voice is a victim of the 2017 one, but really, really, really, you guys got to go and I believe that everybody who went will tell you the same thing. So that said, got a cool episode of the podcast for you. My guest today is Nick Sampson, who is on Nail the Mix this month. He's a guitar player, songwriter, producer, mixer out of Michigan. He works at a 37 Recording studios and he is a phenomenal guitar player as evidence by his work on I'm Abomination and a bunch of his productions. And he's also worked with different artists, including asking Alexandria, born of Cyrus. We came as Romans of Mice and Men, the Word Alive, and Vern Faith Pia, and many others. He came up under Joey Sturgis. He's one of his proteges, and Joey taught him well because man, this guy is one sick engineer and a phenomenal guitar player and just a brilliant guy all around. Wait until you hear about some of his future ideas for guitar building. So sorry about my voice. Without further ado, I give you Nick Sampson. Nick, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. How's life?

Speaker 2 (02:17):

It's good having a little bit of time off in December, so I'm working on guitar stuff and trying to get through this winter.

Speaker 1 (02:23):

Now, when you say working on guitar stuff, do you mean building a guitar?

Speaker 2 (02:26):

Yeah, yeah, I'm building another one, trying to get it ready for NIM to take this year.

Speaker 1 (02:32):

So why, I mean, what brought that on? The fact of building a guitar that seems so crazy to me, even though I know a few of you guys who actually enjoy doing it, but what the hell

Speaker 2 (02:46):

For me, it's kind of a natural thing to get into because I've always been into mechanical stuff and machines and stuff like that, and we have a CNC machine now that's real easy to, well, it's not easy, but I've learned how to program it and everything. So building a guitar is more in the computer for me now. I designed it on the computer and then just cut it with the machine and it's a lot more easy to get from idea to actual real thing instead of having to get a whole bunch of different tools that are traditionally used to build. So it's a little easier to get a final product out of it now and more of a reality for me. So there's some cool stuff that I wanted to dry out and now that I have the machine and everything, I can do that. Well, I have kind of a modular thing going on. You'll be able to change your bridge and change your pickups really super easily, change the scale length, change the string count, a bunch of other cool stuff that's going on. Also integrating some multi-channel stuff too.

Speaker 1 (03:57):

Hold on. This modular stuff. So I haven't really been playing much for the past few years, so I don't know if this is normal or not, but is it normal? Oh, it sounds crazy to me.

Speaker 2 (04:07):

No, it's not. No one makes one yet. I mean, there are versions of modular guitars, but the only ones I've seen are ergonomical changes. You could change an armrest or make it easy to switch your neck or whatever, but no one's ever done it to this extent to where the guitar is completely versatile.

Speaker 1 (04:25):

That's so incredible, especially for engineers or studio guitar players because I think one of the coolest things about having a studio that's long standing or where there's multiple producers involved is that you tend to have a ton of studio instruments and so one guitar doesn't work out for a part, just go get another, but that's not the case for everybody. I mean, most people don't have the luxury of having 10 to 15 guitars just laying around, so this could really come in and solve that problem for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (05:01):

Yeah, the way I've kind of always likened it is APIs 500 series. When those came out, I was super excited about that because I could have a variety of different preamps or whatever in the same box, and obviously the parts got cheaper as they were smaller. So it was really cool to see how that format spawned an entire market for these modules, 500 series modules that you put in. That's kind of where I got the idea was to do it like that. And now that there's boxes with thousands of guitar amps in there like the Kemper and the X effects and all that, why not do it with guitars?

Speaker 1 (05:43):

Totally. And my question is, would the pickups that you can change out be proprietary or will it fit normal pickups?

Speaker 2 (05:54):

The way that I'm doing it, it'll fit normal pickups, it'll fit whatever anyone wants to put in there. I'm toying with the idea of kind of releasing an HDK when I get it all going to where if people do have their own C nnc or are good with a router and want a template to make the parts, I wouldn't have a problem with people doing that. But the plan is to sell the pickups in my store and also sell all the hardware that will work with the guitar. So it would be semi proprietary, but I'm not opposed to the idea of having, if someone's got a hundred pickups laying around, they don't want to rebuy 'em, they just want to use 'em and they want 'em to fit perfect with the guitar, then I'm going to have options for that for sure.

Speaker 1 (06:36):

So if someone just wants their EMGs,

Speaker 2 (06:38):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (06:39):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (06:39):

You'll say you'll be able to switch between active and passive, no problem.

Speaker 1 (06:44):

Now that's a really badass with bridge styles. What are you going to have floating and stopped and

Speaker 2 (06:53):

Yeah, so the challenge in designing it was making it fit the ever tune. That's the biggest bridge that I've ever tried to put in a guitar. And so if it fits the ever tune the way I have the design going, it'll fit anything. So that's how I determined my routes and everything. But it'll fit Evert Tune, fixed Bridge, trem, Oak Bridge, yeah, fan multi-scale to where every string has a different bridge, but they're in different spots for intonation purposes. But yeah, it it's pretty rehearsal.

Speaker 1 (07:29):

Evert Tune is quite a surgical operation to get installed in a guitar. So you're saying that you're going to be able to literally just put one in, swap it out, a 500 series. Boom. I got my evert tune in. Good to go.

Speaker 2 (07:46):

Yeah, I actually, I have one guitar that I've used it on a couple of records. We've used an era fit for a King, the Eternal Rain, new Rain rerelease, a bunch of cool records we used it on already, but yeah, it does just kind of slip in there, bolted in, and then you're done. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:07):

Well, hey, if you feel like showing people, if it's not like top secret, bring it with you to Florida when we do nail the mix in a couple of weeks, sure. That people would be like, wow, that's fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (08:19):

Yeah, definitely. I'll definitely do that. What

Speaker 1 (08:22):

Were you about to say though? I cut you off.

Speaker 2 (08:24):

Well, I was going to say, you said something about the evert tune being a surgical thing to install, and it is, if you're using it to installing it into a traditional guitar, you need to make room for it because the guitar was designed to not have all that room taken out of it. But the way I'm designing mine, that is already gone. You'll be able to fit anything in there. And then the only drawback or not drawback, the only, what's the word I'm looking for here? The only hindrance in actually putting a different bridge in is just getting a new module to put it in. That'll be tailor made to the bridge and then the module will fit in the guitar.

Speaker 1 (09:04):

That's really not that big of a deal.

Speaker 2 (09:06):

Yeah, it's super simple. Four screws.

Speaker 1 (09:08):

Wow, man, you're going to piss off a lot of guitar techs.

Speaker 2 (09:12):

Yeah, it would be. I had some crazy ideas for guitars that guide you through the setup process with sensors and stuff, but that's way down the road for sure,

Speaker 1 (09:22):

Man. Isn't the future amazing? It is.

Speaker 2 (09:26):

It's crazy. It like technology's going crazy everywhere.

Speaker 1 (09:30):

This is one area that, I mean, I kind of do foresee that everything is going to be automated and the real currency is going to be creativity. Maybe not in five years, but we're going in that direction for sure. But for some reason in my head, I did not see guitar set up becoming an automated process already. And it's amazing that people are already thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (09:56):

Well, anything with process can be automated. So when a tech looks at a guitar, he's checking certain things like neck relief and then string height and all this stuff, and those are all things that you can measure, but the problem is you need some kind of brain to take all that data and compare it against each other and then come out with a result. And then the algorithms like that pre-programmed, the guitar tech would be in place of the algorithm in that case. But yeah, I've been kind of trying to theorize that to, because a lot of people have trouble with setups. It gets crazy and there's a lot of intricate stuff that you got to be weary of when you're doing that,

Speaker 1 (10:40):

And there really aren't that many good techs out there. So I mean, I'm sure that there will always be, or at least in the foreseeable future, say that you did come up with this in the next five years. I'm sure that the top end techs are not going to just be suddenly replaced by a machine. I think that there's a certain, there's an art to it and also the value of working for somebody or under somebody for years and years and years and knowing exactly what their preference is and getting that touch. I think that that's going to definitely take some time for a machine to do just like with everything else. But for the 99% of other people who play guitar and try to set it up, that's going to be a godsend man

Speaker 3 (11:28):

Because

Speaker 1 (11:29):

Holy shit, one of the worst nightmares ever for me as a tracking engineer is having the guitar player who says he knows how to set up guitars.

Speaker 2 (11:39):

It's

Speaker 1 (11:39):

Like it's going to be fucked up.

Speaker 2 (11:42):

In some cases that definitely happens, but that idea is more for the kid who's into new music and new tunings and stuff, and then he realizes when he tunes his guitar all wonky that the neck is weird and it's bent and he doesn't know why, and this will kind of help that kid out.

Speaker 1 (12:00):

There are a lot of that kid

Speaker 2 (12:02):

For sure.

Speaker 1 (12:03):

Now, so do you have any sort of ETA even in your wildest imagination for it?

Speaker 2 (12:09):

I mean, ETA depends on what happens. If I can find some people to partner with and help bring it out of the works, then it'll come a lot faster. But hopefully this year I'll be able to do that and get it rolling.

Speaker 1 (12:26):

I wish you godspeed.

Speaker 2 (12:28):

Well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:29):

Let's talk about you some. Lots of people know you both as an engineer producer and as a guitarist, guitar person, guitar, everything. But what came first recording or guitar?

Speaker 2 (12:45):

Guitar for sure. I started playing at 12. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (12:49):

I was a little baby. Did you learn to record in order to be able to capture your own guitar playing?

Speaker 2 (12:55):

Yeah, that was why I started recording probably a few years. I mean, the first thing I ever recorded on was I had this digit tech GN X three multi effects pedal thing. It was super high tech at the time, and it had a recording feature and I would just lay a rift down and then you could kind of overdub yourself and play over yourself and loop it. So that's kind of how I learned about Harmony and what modes worked with what other modes against for harmony and all that. And that obviously led to getting a computer that was capable enough to handle a D. And then I just started chipping away and learning all these different things. By the time I was 16 or 17, that's when we started. I'm abomination and then I did all our demos and I always, I had been recording for a couple of years at that point, but nothing serious, just demos and stuff and learning the ropes.

Speaker 1 (13:55):

I had a slightly more stupid version of that for when I learned harmony. I'm little older than you. I had a Walkman. Oh yeah. And I used to hit record and play a riff and then I would play it back and then try to come up with a harmony over it.

Speaker 2 (14:11):

Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (14:12):

It worked.

Speaker 2 (14:13):

Yeah. It's funny because I mean, there is science to it. You can figure it out pretty easily if you're doing the diatonic kind of harmonies where the scale degrees in the modes follow each other, you move up two degrees. If you play a major scale and then you on the strings, I guess it would be the three and the five. If you start on the five and play the scale from the five at the same time, you play it from the one that's a perfect modal harmony. It's crazy how I learned that from a GN X three, but I mean that's how it happened.

Speaker 1 (14:47):

Did you ever study it formally after that or did you, that's kind of how you learned and you just developed it on your own from there?

Speaker 2 (14:57):

I was a fan of cyber fret.com. That was the big publication for theory stuff back in that day. But yeah, I had ever had any formal kind of training in guitar at all. I've took a few lessons, but it just wasn't for me. I was more comfortable in the basement with the dial up Google and stuff. So that's

Speaker 1 (15:22):

What didn't you like about lessons?

Speaker 2 (15:24):

I mean, I guess I just kind of expected a little more out of it. I was a kid at the time, so I was going in there like, oh, I'm going to learn how to shred in two weeks, take these lessons. And I mean, the teacher that I was with wasn't, he wasn't like a bad guitar player or anything, but he wasn't in the direction that I wanted to go. I wanted to learn what Michelangelo Beo was doing and Patricia was doing, and he was like, well, I got this tab book, let's learn this ac DC song. And I was like, I guess, I mean, I was impatient. You could chalk it up to that. I was way too impatient.

Speaker 1 (16:01):

So did you learn how to shred in two weeks on your own

Speaker 2 (16:04):

Once

Speaker 1 (16:05):

You fired the teacher?

Speaker 2 (16:06):

No, definitely not. But I mean, I guess that drive of wanting to learn how to play in that style led me through the proper channels and the search engine and led me to the right information and then which led me here. So I guess I did it right.

Speaker 1 (16:22):

It sounds like it. I mean, absolutely. So you were 14 you said, or 12 when you started playing guitar? Yes.

Speaker 2 (16:28):

Started at 12. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:29):

What was your practice regimen like back then?

Speaker 2 (16:32):

All the time, every day. Go to school, come home, play guitar, eat sleep guitar.

Speaker 1 (16:38):

How long did that last?

Speaker 2 (16:40):

That lasted until probably until I started touring with Im nomination, which I was 17, so probably about five years.

Speaker 1 (16:47):

And what about now? Do you still practice or do you

Speaker 2 (16:50):

I practice once in a while. It's nowhere near as much as I used to because unfortunately the focus has shifted from guitar as a hobby to guitar as a job. So I have other hobbies now like building guitars and stuff like that. So I try not to sit and practice that much, but I practice every day at work. I always have guitar at my hands, but I never sit and drill stuff as much as I want to anymore. But

Speaker 1 (17:21):

I have a theory that after a certain point in your development, you really only need to do drilling every once in a while or for specific stuff, I need to nail this solo on this part and this one passage is a little bit out of my range. I'm going to drill this, but I feel like when you're leading up to that point of somewhat freedom on the instrument, you need to put in somewhere between three and six years of living, breathing and eating it. Every single good player or great player I've ever known does that at some point, and hopefully it's when they're between 12 and 17 or 18 and have no real responsibilities,

Speaker 3 (18:03):

But

Speaker 1 (18:04):

You have to do that. There's no way around it. You have to put in a few years of nonstop grind. And I feel like after that, once you really learn the instrument, then you can really just start visualizing what you want to do. I mean, obviously you got to keep playing because your muscles will deteriorate, but I don't think it has necessary.

Speaker 2 (18:24):

Yeah, I mean you get your 10,000 hours in anything and it's going to lead to something where you understand it in the back of your hand. So yeah, I think that the super, super practice regimen stuff I got out of the way when I was younger, so that would not be possible now with the mortgage and all that stuff. So I'm glad I did when I was young

Speaker 1 (18:46):

Kids, when your parents tell you to practice and that you'll regret it if you don't. It's true. You ain't lying. My parents used to do that to me with piano and violin. If you're going to regret it, if you don't practice more, you're going to regret it if you don't practice. I was like, yeah, fuck you. I want to play Transformers, appreciate it. But now I kind of regret it a little bit, but I definitely think that the less responsibilities you have in life, the more you should just go balls out on whatever creative thing it is you want to do, whether it's engineering or guitar or photography or whatever, take full advantage of the years where life doesn't matter that much.

Speaker 2 (19:33):

Yeah, absolutely. For sure.

Speaker 1 (19:35):

And nowadays, when you encounter guitar players as a tracking engineer who may not be as skilled as you, how do you approach tracking them? Do you try to track it for them or do you try to take a leadership role where you try to coach them to be better? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (19:59):

It depends. The first thing I'm going to do is always try to coach them and analyze what they're doing. Most of the time if I hear something wrong, I know what's happening, whether it be too much hand pressure on a palm mute or wrong position or wrong pick or something like that. So I'll try to analyze that first and then from there, if I think that I can rectify it with some coaching, then I'll do that and then we'll give it shots and if it gets too crazy, I'll just move on. And if it gets to a point where they can play the part but it's not as clean as it needs to be, then I'll just ask him if I can do it. Sometimes

Speaker 1 (20:42):

It's funny because we talk about this a lot on the podcaster in tutorials and stuff about how the smallest things like the angle of your pick or the pressure on the left hand makes such a huge difference in tone, and I feel like a lot of people kind of don't listen. And we just did this, the UM summit last week where Andrew Wade did a guitar masterclass and he brought people in front of the class and literally made those tweaks to their playing, and it was just like minds blown, just shifting the pick angle 15 degrees and suddenly they've got good tone.

Speaker 2 (21:21):

Yep, yep. It's huge. The tone starts in the string. You put the energy into the string, and if you put it in wrong, it's just everything else is going to just snowball effect from there and just be bad everywhere. Imagine if you played guitar, but hit pinch harmonics on everything. That's how you learn how to play and just you filmed it all and you were like, why do it sound like shit? But you don't realize that you're totally screwing it up. That's an extreme way to look at

Speaker 1 (21:53):

It. That's a great way to look at it because it's an extremity that definitely proves the point because it might not be something as major as a pinch harmonic, but it could be something that's like 15% is bad

Speaker 3 (22:09):

As

Speaker 1 (22:09):

Playing a pinch harmonic that just kind of starts your tone off in a way that's just not very salvageable or not incredibly workable. But it reminds me, it's kind of funny how many times I get this question, and for years been getting this question, this question won't go away. It's like a band sent me a really shitty di, can I use a transient designer on the DI to fix it, and what kind of stuff can you do to doctor it? And there's a couple things you can do to help it a little bit, but really, really, if you want to get down to it, you got to replay it.

Speaker 2 (22:50):

Yeah, I was going to say it for sure. Got to. If you're worried about your name being on it and it's your reputation on the line and someone hears it and it's like, oh, wow, some people will think that it's your fault, so you got to nip that in the bud. For sure.

Speaker 1 (23:07):

Yeah, I have made that mistake in the past, man. There was this one record where I checked out mentally I shouldn't have, but I did. The guitar player recorded his own tracks and he didn't tell me that he wasn't using a pick. It was a heavy band and I could not get any attack out of it. It was like fucking trying to EQ myself under the table. It was not working. And then it turns out dude played all the wrists with his fucking thumb. What? Yeah, no, yeah. Oh yes, definitely. Yes.

Speaker 2 (23:46):

Was he at least slapping it with his thumb or was he just No,

Speaker 1 (23:50):

No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (23:52):

He finger blasted it the whole time,

Speaker 1 (23:54):

Yes. Oh yeah, he definitely finger it the whole time.

Speaker 2 (24:01):

I bet you that sounded pretty round.

Speaker 1 (24:03):

It was so impossible to pull any attack out of that tone, and I became that kid that bothers me with that question. Disclaimer questions don't bother me, but that one does a little bit just because I feel like we put it out so much that you just need to capture it right at the source. You got to believe us, you need to get it right at the source. But I was that kid for a second trying to put transient designers on the di and

Speaker 3 (24:34):

Seeing

Speaker 1 (24:35):

What the fuck I could do and nothing would work. Yeah, there's no happy ending to the story.

Speaker 2 (24:42):

Definitely not. Yeah. You can't expect someone to just make you sound amazing. It's like singers have it easy with autotune kind of, but the whole guitar playing recording thing, there's a million elements that all go into making a good guitar sound, so it's not an easy task.

Speaker 1 (25:01):

It really does start with a player too. That's the tough part. But the thing is, here's where I think the whole misconception about it starts with a player is you don't have to be a great player, you just have to know how to hold the guitar right and play in time. I mean, I'm not saying you can suck and get away with it, but there's certain genres of music that do not require you to be an amazing guitar player, but play in the pocket, hit the strings with the right velocity on your pick with the right angles, use the right pressure with your left hand, and that right there will make a massive difference. We're not saying that every single guitar player and every single band needs to practice 12 hours a day for five years straight to even hope to being good enough to be tracked on a record.

Speaker 2 (25:49):

Yeah. The variance between two different players, if you hand the same dude, the same guitar and you haven't played the same part and you record both when it's in a di form, it is astonishing how different they are. It's crazy. If you've ever done that, if you haven't try it, it'll blow your mind.

Speaker 1 (26:07):

Oh, I've done it many times. A really good example of that is Ola England and Keith Marrow did that three or four years ago. They put out a video of each other doing that because they're both really good players and being on the internet, they get that question all the time or got that question all the time. And so they put out a video where they both played the exact same riffs on the same rig. I believe in person just passed the guitar back and forth and it was like, yeah, totally different.

Speaker 2 (26:42):

Oh yeah, night and day.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

The same applies for drums when recording drum samples for a record, I'll almost always have our drum tech, Matt Brown, do the actual sample hits because the way he hits is so much better than everyone else. I agree with just sounds better.

Speaker 2 (27:04):

Yeah. Chris from Oceans eight, Alaska, he blows my mind with how hard he hits the drums, man, it's perfect every time. He sounds like a robot, but I mean, I really didn't do much to the drums sound on that record, but he's crazy, dude. Seeing him play was just the gnarliest stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:23):

What about it? How hard he hits and just in time,

Speaker 2 (27:27):

I mean, his posture looks stiff, but he's actually really calculated with it and he explained it to me. He explained his posture with the force of in which he hits the drums like snare in the Toms, so he orients himself in a way where he can get maximum stick swing in his fulcrum is the perfect point to where all the energy exerts into the skin. So the way he sets his pedals up and the way he sets his kid up, everything is real meticulous with him, and you'll just watch him play something and I would laugh a lot. I'd be in the control room laughing because it was so good, and then it would kind of mess him up. Sometimes I'd just be in there dying and because he was just shredding so hard, but yeah, drummer to drummer, guitar player, guitar player, it is crazy. But that gives it an identity though, so I think that's

Speaker 1 (28:20):

Cool. Totally, man. It is funny sometimes, and I've noticed this in lots of sessions, sometimes the first reaction people have when someone does something ungodly on an instruments to bust out laughing.

Speaker 2 (28:34):

Yeah, it is. It is. You just can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (28:38):

Yeah. Alex Inger does that to me. Tracking him is just fucking hilarious. Like what the hell dude?

Speaker 2 (28:45):

Yeah, you how you awe,

Speaker 1 (28:48):

You're

Speaker 2 (28:48):

A robot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:50):

How do you actually wake up and go to sleep and stuff and some days get depressed and other days you order a pizza or something? Are you real? You just eat your voltage. It turns out he is.

Speaker 2 (29:03):

He eats electrons.

Speaker 1 (29:04):

Dude, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, look, if I was one day pulled aside and told that these types of dudes eat electrons, I will. I wouldn't be surprised. I definitely feel like there's something up with the way that they're wired upstairs,

Speaker 2 (29:25):

They're brain resources, man. They just devoted all to one task. Everything else, they just devote everything to one task and just practice and practice and practice and your brain can do some crazy stuff. If you give it enough fuel, man, it's gnarly.

Speaker 1 (29:40):

Well, I can tell you, you with Alex, man, tracking him is very, I don't want, this is not meant to sound negative at all, so annoying is not the right word, so please understand this is not in any way shape or form negative. It's just intense because he will play and he has the highest standards in the world, but then the moment he's done tracking, he goes over to his practice kit and it's just like while you're setting up the next take, it could could be two minutes, it could be five minutes, it could be 45 depending on what's going on, but it's just done recording

Speaker 2 (30:23):

All day. Yeah. Chris had his practice pad

Speaker 1 (30:26):

Like all fucking day.

Speaker 2 (30:27):

The practice pad, I remember that we would all try to on downtime in between sessions and stuff, I Chris teach me how to blast dude and he would be like, all right, this is how you do it. And he'd show me and then by the end of the session I could actually do it. He was showing me so much and we would sit on this practice pad for hours, me, him and Jake and just shred drumsticks on it and try to see who could last the longest. Obviously Chris won every single time, but it was fun.

Speaker 1 (30:56):

What did you do? What was the highlight of recording that record? Teaching my producer how to blast.

Speaker 2 (31:03):

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (31:04):

Can you tell me how to blast? Because I've always wondered, and that actually seems like a really inhuman technique,

Speaker 2 (31:12):

Dude, it's all about rebound. You have to find the fulcrum on the stick, which is the point, and its weight where it will rock evenly on your finger there and then you grip it loosely. I mean everyone has different techniques, but this is what I was taught. You grip it loosely and then use either your middle finger or ring finger and bounce the stick into the snare drum and then since you had that loose grip on it, once it hits the drum, it's going to feed back and then it's going to reset itself pretty much, and then you kind of catch it with your finger again, and then it's more of moving your finger really fast instead of moving your entire arm really fast and then you get your wrist motion in there and you just start getting faster and faster. And that kind of blew my mind. I always assumed people were just so tuned in with their muscles that they could just spazz out in time

Speaker 1 (32:03):

Just like fucking incredible, hulking it out just like veins bursting,

Speaker 2 (32:08):

Just, but yeah, it's a lot easier than I thought it'd be and it's a lot different than I thought it'd be the way that you get that technique across, but I suck at drums, but I tried,

Speaker 1 (32:21):

But you wanted to learn how to blast.

Speaker 2 (32:23):

I just want to, to blast. I just want to play macrophages covers all day, man.

Speaker 1 (32:25):

Wouldn't send new record coming

Speaker 2 (32:27):

Never

Speaker 1 (32:28):

RIP

Speaker 2 (32:29):

Dude. I was going to do a three song thing called NIST and just release it for people who are waiting I am and I'm like, man, I could get close to this style. I should probably try that. But then that

Speaker 1 (32:40):

Never happened. I listened to it the other day. I actually listened to Epitaph the other day and was like, my god, this is fucking good,

Speaker 2 (32:46):

Dude. It is timeless. It's crazy for a death metal record, it's absolutely bonkers. How amazingly well that the melodies are in that album fucking killed it for me. I was like, dude, metal can be tight, metal can be melodic, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (33:01):

The thing about that record, I feel like it's a generational level record because I mean, I don't want to sound like an old dude that doesn't like new music. I love new music, but in some ways that is the pinnacle of the technical death metal style.

Speaker 2 (33:20):

I mean it took a more computer-based approach turn for a lot of the newer bands are doing stuff that just sounds like it was generated in a computer, whether they tracked it live or whatever. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the actual composition of things that epitaph is. It's like an opus to me. It's got movements and scenes and stuff and it changes and it's almost like Beethoven wrote it and it's kind of like going a little crazy, but it's to that level where it's different than what is out now. I wish that Hamad would do it again, but I heard he's got some crazy job or something, so he doesn't,

Speaker 1 (34:03):

I heard he works as an engineer for BMW. That could be a wives tale,

Speaker 2 (34:07):

But

Speaker 1 (34:07):

That's what I've heard for years now.

Speaker 2 (34:10):

I totally respect that though. That's

Speaker 1 (34:12):

Cool. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 (34:13):

I'm into that. I'm a car guy, so I like that.

Speaker 1 (34:15):

I mean, look, I don't subscribe to the fact or the idea that you have to do the same thing your whole life. I mean, if I did then I'd probably hate myself because I haven't done the same thing my whole life. But I mean, I really do believe that people go through phases in life and artists do too, and I kind of think that it might be better to have epitaph a work of perfection and not have him spoil it. If he can't top it, that's okay too.

Speaker 2 (34:48):

Yeah, yeah, it's totally fine. It's there in history. It serves as inspiration for a lot of people, so let it be that little written in stone.

Speaker 1 (34:57):

No one can take it away.

Speaker 2 (34:58):

Yeah, it's great. I need it on vinyl in every format just in case an EMP, it's destroys all data. I just need it.

Speaker 1 (35:07):

I completely agree, man. Like you said about computer generated music, there's something about the way that it sounds where it does have, it's like the first thing in the style to where it sounds computer tight, but it sounds like humans made it because it is got feel, like you said, it's got movements and it's like a composition, but it's got in the weirdest way. It's got feel and feelings and it doesn't sound like an algorithm spatted out.

Speaker 2 (35:43):

Yeah, I completely agree.

Speaker 1 (35:45):

So for those of you who are not huge death metal fans, maybe open your mind and check out Epitaph by Macrophages because it really is a record that spawned a whole generation for better or for worse, and there is some insane music on there. Just give it a shot. I mean, we're talking about a record that came out in 2004 or 2003 as if it's still the shit, because it is the shit

Speaker 3 (36:10):

It is.

Speaker 1 (36:11):

So that said, let's talk about Pia.

Speaker 2 (36:14):

Alrighty.

Speaker 1 (36:15):

The boys. The Boys, yeah. So you are mixing Crush on Nail the Mix this month, which is a song by Pia for those who don't know, and for people who don't know, Pia is a cool instrumental band that's kind of like, it's not metal, it's kind of like modern fusion mixed with badass lead guitars, but it's totally catchy and then also sounds like synth pop. I don't really know how to describe it, but it's infectious. It's infectious, it's so catchy.

Speaker 2 (36:51):

Yeah, that was the plan back when I first found out about them. My friend Zach was on YouTube going through looking at all the new stuff and he found the video for Transcendence or Transcend. It was obviously, yeah, it was a Transcend video and he was showing it to me and I was like, wow, that's really awesome. These kids are shredding hard. So I reached out to him on Facebook and they were like, wow, we were going to think about reaching out to you to record. And I was like, well, let's do it. And I think they ended up doing an Indiegogo and then he came out, we tracked it, wrote it, and that was Muse. And a year later or a year and a half later, we did Renaissance I think, and that's the one that crushes on.

Speaker 1 (37:37):

And real quick about reaching out to them on Facebook, was that a normal thing that you used to do or that you do

Speaker 2 (37:44):

No to book, which was weird. I never do that. I never reach out to bands on Facebook unless I'm like, wow, I really want to put myself out there to, I want to work with these dudes. So I had to or else the universe might not have came together at that point. But

Speaker 1 (38:01):

Sounds like the universe was conspiring in your favor though.

Speaker 2 (38:04):

Yeah, it could have been. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:06):

Well, I mean if they were going to hit you up.

Speaker 2 (38:08):

Yeah. Yeah, we both had the same idea, which was cool.

Speaker 1 (38:11):

What do you think it is about them and you that works?

Speaker 2 (38:15):

I mean, first of all, they're the boys really good relationship with the band and I think it, it's just that we're so alike in guitar. I think guitar is a centric thing and music in general, composition in general, they wanted to be, Tim said that they wanted to do something that was different, and I was like, well, how about we take instrumental music and then format it in a way to where it's almost just like regular music with vocals, but we just do the vocal lines and the guitars. So he was like, yes, that's sweet. Let's do that. That's the kind of format that we always use to get into the songs and get them going. Obviously the music's evolving and always changing, so we don't stick to rules, but that was the guideline for the first record and loose guidelines. For the second one, it was just to write the top lines, make the top lines dope. Those got to be there. Then we'll work the rest of the song. And most pop songs are just vocal lines and a beat with, obviously there's the rhythmic side of the beat and then the melodic side of the beat, but the vocal lines we do on the guitar for the most part, and then the bass drums, we add that and then start fleshing out some of the synth stuff and then we just build it up from there.

Speaker 1 (39:40):

That's really what sets Pia apart I think, is that it's instrumental, but it's lyrical. It's it's actually melodic, and I don't mean melodic in the way that metal people tend to think of melodic, which is not actually melodic. Well, I remember when melodic death metal became a thing and suddenly there were harmonies on guitars and people were like, it's melodic, but it's not because it's just riffs that repeat over and over and over and don't vary. Bia have actual melodies that evolve and start somewhere and have a beginning, middle, and end, and they're catchy as fuck.

Speaker 2 (40:21):

Yeah, that's what something we don't like to compromise on is it's got to be mouth riff. You got to be able to,

Speaker 1 (40:29):

I

Speaker 2 (40:29):

Was

Speaker 1 (40:30):

Just ask you that. I was going to just ask you, do you guys sing these parts when writing them?

Speaker 2 (40:35):

Oh yeah. And sometimes in a joking fashion too, we'll be sitting on a break playing GTA, just mouth riffing or just anywhere. There's so many antics that go on with them. It's so funny. But yeah, that's a big thing is to get it to stick in people's heads. So whenever we're on a break, I'm always humming stuff. If it's good, it'll stick in your head, so then you'll know when you take a break and it's still in your head, you're like, okay, let's commit to that and keep it going,

Speaker 1 (41:03):

Man. One of the best techniques I ever learned from a guitar teacher actually was to sing or hum the solo while you're writing or improvising it. And nine out of 10 times the results would be just so much more musical. So so much more memorable and nice, I guess.

Speaker 2 (41:23):

Yeah, definitely. That would be a good technique for sure. Just get your brain in tune with it and try to get in the same page. And I mean, the more you hear it in different ways, the more familiar you'll be with it and the more chance you'll make a good decision on whether to change it or not.

Speaker 1 (41:41):

And also if you're humming it, if you're keeping the sing ability of the line as a priority and the catchiness, it will restrict you from going overboard on the technical side and ruining it with technique basically.

Speaker 2 (41:59):

I agree. Yeah, we definitely don't want to shred it up too much when you're trying to get it to stick in someone's head. I mean, there are some lines that people, dude, there is

Speaker 1 (42:09):

Plenty of shred on Bolivia stuff.

Speaker 2 (42:13):

Aesthetic by BT Bam is one of those songs that it's like that song always stuck in my head and I was like, wow, I kind of tried when I did IA stuff, I always tried to keep that kind of vibe and do that because I think the rhythm of that part is the catchy part. And then it has, obviously the notes follow, but it's a rhythmic approach to writing a catchy riff, which is something that I try to focus on a little bit heavier.

Speaker 1 (42:45):

Tell me about that a little bit more. That's kind the complete opposite of the Pia approach, it sounds like, however you still did sing the line.

Speaker 2 (42:54):

Yeah, if you think of a lot hip hop songs or pop songs, you'll notice a lot of popular motifs in hip hop sub hits, for example, always dots dude, boom, boom, boom. They're always like that.

(43:11):

And I think it's for good reason though, because people have that boom that beat ingrained in them, and it's just a head bobber. You catch some of the beats on the up head, Bob and some of them on the down head Bob, and it just kind of forces you to move. And that's a proven thing and it's been like that. So there is psychology involved in the decision of a rhythm of a musical piece. So I think that trying to utilize that might help people write some more unique kind of stuff that'll stick a little harder than just trying to find the perfect notes and not wondering about the rhythm. I think the rhythmic side of composition is equally as important as the melodic side.

Speaker 1 (43:59):

Well, the melodic side is the part, sing the rhythm is the part that makes you move,

Speaker 2 (44:03):

And

Speaker 1 (44:03):

They're both really important.

Speaker 2 (44:05):

Definitely. Yeah. If you can feel it, then people are going to like it. If someone connects with it, then they'll keep listening to you and be a fan. So it's pretty important.

Speaker 1 (44:15):

In some ways I feel like you need to pick, they almost need to pick one and become a master of it though. You could do both, but there's reasons for why a band like Msga, for instance, can be great and have virtually no melodies because their rhythms are just so

Speaker 3 (44:37):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (44:39):

But it is next level and it makes people move. I'm just picking a metal example, but I feel like then you look at an act like the Beatles, which let's face it, rhythm wasn't the biggest part of that sound, but the melodies are just amazing. You can sing them all day long.

Speaker 2 (45:01):

Yeah, definitely. Well also I'm not talking about just only rhythm section. I'm talking about the rhythm of the melody that has a to it. And it's not just the notes, it's the actual cadence of the part, which is what I'm more focused on as far as, I mean not it's a priority over the melody, but you can't just let it be and not worry about that kind of stuff. So I think that getting it across that wave is definitely a thing. When I'm doing a scratch melody, I'll try a billion different ways against whatever, against the backbeat or whatever, and usually I end up pretty close to where I started, but with minor modifications, that to me make it sound a million times better and more cohesive and symmetrical too.

Speaker 1 (45:53):

And when you do that, are you doing it? Are you playing it or are you just sliding it around?

Speaker 2 (45:59):

Usually in midi that seems to be like a piano that seems to be the best way closer to the human, I guess the sound of the human voice when you get the piano key hitting. So it kind of gives me a better vibe. If I were to use a guitar, it might not come across how I want, plus I would be doing all the time and you can't have that in there. I just can't help myself sometimes.

Speaker 1 (46:26):

I mean sometimes also with guitar, there's a reason for why composition majors are told to learn piano. And I love guitar. I mean I play guitar, but I feel like as a composition instrument, it does have its limitations and there's some ways in which piano is far superior, and I think that a serious writer should at least learn some.

Speaker 2 (46:50):

Yeah, piano is like knowing the most popular programming language of all time. The one that all the other ones are based on it. It's cut and dry, it's very simple. The 12 notes are there, and then you have 12 of a higher octave and it's all symmetrical all the way up. All the keys are the same size, they're the same distance away from each other. And with a guitar by nature, the way you're dividing the string to get the certain notes, everything is planned to get smaller. All the frets get smaller, and you have to worry about that. So I think that's why piano players shred so hard. Dude, you have the reach when you're reaching an octave. It's an octave. If I am trying to hammer on, I don't know, a root in a five down low in the neck, it's kind of hard, but if higher in the neck it gets easier. But with a piano, it's the same everywhere. It's more consistent. It's

Speaker 1 (47:44):

Also a lot to think about with guitar. So the same note will appear multiple times on the fretboard. And so it's not just that the distances between frets are different. You got to take into consideration the fingerings position, all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (48:01):

And

Speaker 1 (48:01):

While is one thing when you're playing the song, it's another thing, not necessarily when you're writing the initial version, but when you're really trying to tweak a composition, sometimes it really is a hindrance to have a guitar in your hands because of all those complexities. You don't want to be thinking about that when you're trying to make the best compositional choice,

Speaker 2 (48:23):

You're going to load it up with octave chords because those are easy. Just I love those toss in an octave line. Why not? That would happen on a piano.

Speaker 1 (48:32):

Ben octaves on guitar are such an easy out.

Speaker 2 (48:34):

Yeah, I mean they're cool. It's a good way to counter melody.

Speaker 1 (48:38):

I mean that's why they are an easy out. They are fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (48:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (48:42):

But they are like your get out of jail free card, like my lead solo tone up high doesn't sound that great. Throw an octave on it instant. Cool.

Speaker 2 (48:51):

It's instant. Cool.

Speaker 1 (48:52):

Yeah. Question about guitar. Speaking of guitar, a lot of people say that distorted guitars are pain point for them in their mixing process, and they used to be for me too, and I think for everybody that I know who mixes. What are some of the things that you do to get a big sound under your sustained instruments for making guitars less of a painful event?

Speaker 2 (49:15):

Well, the first thing I do is obviously listen to the tone, see what's going on with it.

Speaker 1 (49:21):

What do you mean

Speaker 2 (49:21):

By that? I'll listen to the tone and if immediately, if it hurts my ears, then the first thing I'm going to do is try to find that frequency area and knock it down a little and then reassess. Because I mean you're going to have a fundamental note, which is the note in which you're playing and that'll have harmonics above it. And then you'll get into the area up in the spectrum where it's like your presence, which is going to cut through your mix. And then right above that is the two and a half to three K area, which is that can get really hard in your ears. Some people like it for some reason. I mean I'm never boosting that area guitar because it's in there and it's happening. Dude,

Speaker 1 (50:03):

How much more do you need?

Speaker 2 (50:05):

Yeah, you don't, I think your ears are kind of genetically engineered to be sensitive in that area. Babies cry in that area and I don't know, that area is very loud and I think there's a bump in our hearing range right there. So I'm always cutting that area out of stuff that's static, like a guitar, not static, the same thing at all times. I'm talking about the spectrum. When you distort that, you're adding those frequencies across the entire spectrum and it's like white noise almost. So those frequencies will be there a lot. So you got to kind of get rid of them, nip 'em in the bud to get 'em out, and then you can focus on the other areas like the brightness. Is it bright against the other stuff? Is the note coming through? Is it too boomy? What do I need to do to fix that? The first thing I would do is definitely not out that eq, find the area that hurts and then dump it down and see if it's adding or taking away and make those decisions and then move

Speaker 1 (51:10):

On. Well, one thing that I think a lot of people have trouble with is when they start finding those pain points and those upper mids is not going too far, because when you start listening to distortion, you start hearing all the individual noise and it all becomes noise and you can really easily just drive the car off the cliff and totally neuter it and just over eq, how do you prevent from doing that or how do you counter owner those cuts in order to not let your guitar sound dull?

Speaker 2 (51:45):

Sometimes I'll just go down the rabbit hole, dude, I'll over EQ it so much and I'll just be like, all right, this is adding to it. This is cool. I'm going for it. And then I'll take a break from it and come back and just disable the EQ plugin. Then I went ham on, and then I'm like, oh, well it's only really doing this, so then I'll take another one and then go in that area and then it'll be like, voila, there it is. So you just kind of have to train yourself to know that if you go crazy with the eq, you're probably wasting your time and there's probably a simpler solution to do what you need to do. But I mean it all depends on the material you're working with.

Speaker 1 (52:23):

Of course.

Speaker 2 (52:24):

Again, going back to the pick technique thing like squeaky picking, you ever had to deal with that? Someone's tremolo picking and it's like,

Speaker 3 (52:33):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (52:34):

Yeah, you got to get that out of there. You find that frequency and notch that boy out sometimes. So it all depends on the stuff that you're working with, but for the most part, the note has to be audible. It's got to be popping out in the mix. So that's your boost and cuts will depend on whatever else is in your mix. And then the brightness to compete with symbols and stuff up top. Those are the three things I kind of try to focus on the guitar.

Speaker 1 (53:00):

When you were earlier in your mixing career, did you ever find yourself EQ going down the rabbit hole to where you'll EQ and use up all the bands and then not quite there yet? So you had another EQ use up all the bands and another EQ

Speaker 2 (53:17):

Until I discovered the EQ plugins where you can just create unlimited bands. Yeah, I would do that for sure, but I mean that's bad. You don't want to be doing that. Sometimes it calls for it if you're, I don't know, trying to restore audio that was recorded through someone's tailpipe or something, but it's not like,

Speaker 1 (53:37):

Which I don't recommend.

Speaker 2 (53:38):

Yeah, don't record your tailpipe. It's bad over eq. It can ruin something real fast because there's harmonics and stuff. It could cause phase shift. There's a lot of things you don't think about too if you're notching around a common crossover point for most speakers, like say like 2,500 hertz, if you're notching super crazy right there, you can get issues for reproduction of that sound on different systems. So there's tons of things that you can't, the EQ can hurt, but you just got to be sparing with it and not go crazy with it.

Speaker 1 (54:14):

Last question, and I know that you're going to go through this and now the mix, but for those people who are not subscribed and you should be now the mix.com/pia, can we talk about the base tone on Crush? It's so awesome.

Speaker 2 (54:31):

Yeah. Basically going down to the source redid the Bongo five string, the music band Bongo five string.

(54:41):

I'm pretty sure we used the bridge pickup and split. So it's one coil, like a single coil in the bridge position and flat EQ on the way in through an API preamp. And then from there I split the bass into two different channels, one being my fundamental, which is the notes. And you want to take that and process it separately from the actual harmonically rich upper end of the spectrum because if you put too much of that low end in a guitar amp, the guitar amps just going to react to that low end way too much and you're not going to get the nuances out that you want to be out of it. So I think a common technique with a lot of people is to split the bass up like that. And then I'm always filtering the low end out before I go into whatever AMP I'm going to use for top end, just because the AMP doesn't have to deal with all that energy down below and it can focus on the peak frequencies are going to be the ones that you want to be amplified and compressed in there. And then you have your other track that's like your perfect low end control right there. And then I sum 'em back together. I'm pretty sure for the top end, I used the waves GTR tool rack,

Speaker 3 (56:04):

Like

Speaker 2 (56:04):

The guitar ramps, I think it was. It might've been the drive one, it was relatively clean. So I'll get some harmonic saturation going on with an AMP sim and then I'll find problem frequencies with the slapping. Whenever you do a slap, there's always harmonics that you got to kind of find and get rid of because sometimes it can get pretty loud and ringy and it's annoying to listen to. But from there I just do a little compression and then compression on the low frequency track for sure. A lot of it maybe in some L one limiting because I don't give a crap. I want it to be controlled. Yeah, absolutely. The base should be in one level for me. If I want it to move, I'll move it with automation, but I definitely want make sure that the base is, I'm talking about the low frequency of the base, like the actual base part that's got to stay in one spot for me, base rider is good for that too.

Speaker 1 (57:07):

Yeah, I completely subscribe to the Keep a firm grasp on the low end school of mixing.

Speaker 2 (57:15):

Also, I think there's a slight sub harmonic generator going on that low track just because the song has a lot of super low sub stuff and I wanted the bass to kind of compete with that stuff

Speaker 1 (57:28):

And it sounds great. It really does. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:31):

Thank

Speaker 1 (57:31):

You. And such a unique bass tone too. So Nick, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Very much. Looking forward to hanging out in a couple of weeks in Florida for nail the mix.

Speaker 2 (57:44):

Same here, man. Can't wait to get that weather.

Speaker 1 (57:46):

It might be kind of cold.

Speaker 2 (57:49):

Bummer,

Speaker 1 (57:49):

Dude, we just did the summit and everyone was expecting it to be like 80 degrees was like 40 degrees the whole time in Orlando.

Speaker 2 (57:59):

That's All right, I'll settle for Palm Tree views and alligators nearby. That's,

Speaker 1 (58:04):

That will happen. I can promise you that.

Speaker 2 (58:08):

Can we go to the Congo River Golf Place? Every time I go to Orlando, we go golf with alligators. Sweet. Yeah, sure deal. We should definitely go afterwards. Awesome. Cool. Alright, tyke, thank you for having me on. To get in touch with the RM podcast,

Speaker 1 (58:22):

Visit urm com slash podcast and subscribe today.