CARSON SLOVAK & GRANT MCFARLAND: Modern metal production, working with 90s legends, their viral Star Wars project

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by STA Audio. Sta Audio creates zero compromise Recording gear. That is light on the wallet only. The best components are used and each one goes through a rigorous testing process with one thing in mind, getting the best sound possible. Go to stem audio do com for more info. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and

Speaker 2 (00:00:26):

Eyal Levi. Hey everyone, welcome to the Joey Sturgis Forum podcast, and today we have with us two special guests, Carson and Grant, who are production partners and co-owners of the studio Atrium Audio. How are you doing guys? Good,

Speaker 3 (00:00:41):

Good.

Speaker 4 (00:00:41):

How are

Speaker 3 (00:00:41):

You? Yeah, thanks for being here. Absolutely. Yeah, we appreciate it. I have a question before we go any further.

Speaker 4 (00:00:46):

Grant,

Speaker 3 (00:00:46):

Have I met you before?

Speaker 4 (00:00:48):

Sorry, who's talking again?

Speaker 3 (00:00:50):

This is Eyal. Have we toured together? Did we tour together in 2010?

Speaker 4 (00:00:54):

I played in a band called This or the Apocalypse back then.

Speaker 3 (00:00:57):

Well, were you on the Daath Caira tour?

Speaker 4 (00:00:59):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:01:00):

All right, well then I have met you. Cool.

Speaker 4 (00:01:03):

Eyal is in Daath. Yeah. Oh, oh, what's up dude? Yeah, we didn't really probably communicate much on that tour, but that's cool.

Speaker 3 (00:01:10):

No, I'm extremely antisocial anyways, so I am positive we didn't interact. That's cool. Yeah, it always took me about three weeks before I would talk to anybody in another band.

Speaker 5 (00:01:25):

I wouldn't want to interact with Grant either.

Speaker 3 (00:01:28):

Why?

Speaker 5 (00:01:30):

Just because he's Grant, just

Speaker 3 (00:01:31):

Because. Fair enough. So, alright, so how did you guys meet, by the way?

Speaker 5 (00:01:37):

Well, we met actually I would say in 2004 ish, 2005 Grant. Yeah, I actually recorded grant's Pop punk band and that's how we met and they were one of the first bands I ever recorded actually. And then,

Speaker 3 (00:01:58):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:01:58):

In

Speaker 3 (00:01:58):

2004 you had a pop punk band.

Speaker 4 (00:02:01):

It was my awful high school band.

Speaker 3 (00:02:02):

Okay. How did that lead to working together?

Speaker 4 (00:02:06):

Well, it's kind of interesting. I guess back in 2004, Carson had recorded some demos for August Burns Red and those demos were made public. I think they put them up on their MySpace page, and that's back when the band was starting to gain some local popularity. And around the same time, those songs eventually ended up being the demos for their first album on solid state thrill seeker. So I heard the demos and I was really impressed with the production value back then and I,

Speaker 5 (00:02:46):

I'm sure they sound like a fucking joke right now. You know how that goes. I think that happens to all of us, doesn't it? Yep.

Speaker 6 (00:02:53):

Yeah, we all hate everything we've ever put out.

Speaker 5 (00:02:55):

I hate everything I've done up until yesterday, so

Speaker 3 (00:02:58):

I hate what I'm working on now too. But I hate myself from Want to Die actually. Fuck this podcast. Yeah, seriously. Okay, so sorry Grant, go on.

Speaker 4 (00:03:08):

The long story short is that it was the best quality we could get for a recording round here and we went to work with Carson, and Carson had another project called Century that was kind of his solo project. And when I was recording, I asked him if he ever considered making it a full-time gig or a touring band or anything. And at that point it was just him. So

Speaker 3 (00:03:34):

You joined Century?

Speaker 4 (00:03:36):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:03:37):

Okay. And then I'm going to guess that since Grant was already recording, somehow that led to you recording with Grant.

Speaker 4 (00:03:45):

Well actually I didn't start recording until 2008 or 2009,

Speaker 3 (00:03:49):

And I'm just wondering how you ended up being the production partner.

Speaker 4 (00:03:54):

So fast forward a couple years, around 2008 or 2009, I started trying to record some demos. I'll use the word trying on my laptop, and I got a Line six pod and superior drummer and I was trying to write music for my own band. This were the apocalypse, and I took the demos in with Carson so that he could help me kind of do some production on them. From there, it just kind of snowballed. I mean, you just asked me if I wanted to work at your studio.

Speaker 5 (00:04:26):

Yeah, well, grant doesn't give himself enough credit. I mean, he's one of those dudes that's super smart and very talented with music. He's got perfect pitch and he is been playing music since he was, I don't know, in the womb I guess. And he got very good at recording really fast once he started to get into it. And he recorded a bunch of local bands on his laptop and his near practice space. And I just always thought that his stuff was great and he's a great friend of mine. We've been in bands and stuff together, so when he was kind of looking for a place to work out of, I just said, come over to my place and start working. And then we just kind of developed this workflow where we do stuff together and he typically focuses on all the vocals and I focus on all the instruments and it just worked out like that and then just kind of developed into this thing where now we do all of our projects together.

Speaker 3 (00:05:20):

So let's talk about your workflow some, because that's pretty interesting. So do you guys have two different rooms and then like while you're working on the instruments, he'll be recording the vocals? Or how does that work? What's your workflow and how did it develop?

Speaker 5 (00:05:35):

That's exactly right. Basically, we've got two rooms in the studio. There's a room upstairs that has a vocal iso booth, and then there's the main control room downstairs. So what we'll do, usually when we do a full project together, we'll record drums first. Then once they're done and we've got scratch guitar tracks reference, we can print it down and he takes that upstairs and starts working on vocals right away. And I just start tracking all the guitars and bass and everything else. So we kind of do that. He does vocals and I do the rest of the instruments at the same time. We get twice as much done, and then we typically walk from our room to the other guy's room and check out what they're doing and give suggestions. So it's still very collaborative, but at the same time, we've got this pretty good groove down now where we know how we like to do things and just stick to it.

Speaker 3 (00:06:30):

I think that that solves one of the biggest problems with recording heavy music, which is saving the vocals for the very end. It's like the most important part of a record, but people are used to doing it at the very end and cramming it into two or three days. And

Speaker 5 (00:06:48):

The

Speaker 3 (00:06:48):

Way you guys do it, I imagine, allows for plenty of time to explore ideas, let the vocalists be rested so that he can give the best possible performances and live with changes.

Speaker 5 (00:07:00):

Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the main things too, because we hate when we're pressed for time and a vocalist might get burned out this way. We can space it out and they can really focus on all the little details and the writing and getting it right from the start. So yeah, it definitely helps out a lot.

Speaker 4 (00:07:18):

The other cool thing is that when Carson and I are working in two separate rooms, we'll often be like, Hey, come check this out. And then we get a chance to hear something brand new for the first time. And both of us have objectivity to each other's work. So often we can add new ideas that the other person might not have thought of, because once you come up with your version of what you think it is, that's usually what it ends up being.

Speaker 2 (00:07:40):

Yeah, I think that's important for driving everything forward. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:07:44):

Isn't that kind of how you work too, Joey? I mean, you don't have a production partner, but you also do the multiple rooms deal.

Speaker 2 (00:07:53):

Yeah, I have a team and sometimes we will utilize multiple locations too to our advantage as well. I mean, having multiple rooms is great, but even also having multiple locations is better now. It can become a completely different obstacle to manage all of that, and not everybody can do it properly. So we definitely went through some changes, but I found it to be better for the music in the end. I think it was better for the music in the end. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:08:24):

You're not getting burned out.

Speaker 2 (00:08:25):

That's the biggest thing that happens is that it clears your mind to think, at least for me, all the other guys, they had a lot of stuff to deal with. This guy has to deal with the guitar player, this guy has to deal with the drummer, et cetera. But when they put all of their time and energy to focus on those niche areas, it allows me to just think very clearly and openly about the creativity of the album and the direction and the overall perspective of this and that, and not have to worry about do we have enough money to buy another drum head, we broke the drum head or whatever. That's someone else's problem. I don't have to think about that. That's really, I think, the proper way to do it because you've got to have somebody who's focusing everything on the creativity part of it.

Speaker 3 (00:09:14):

Yeah, definitely. When I started working in a team setting, like getting Matt Brown, the drum tech involved, and John Douglas, the engineer involved and really started delegating, my work got instantly better and my hatred for the studio went way down. Yeah, it's amazing how good your state of mind can be when you can actually rest,

Speaker 6 (00:09:42):

Except when people screw up what they're supposed to do and send something to you that's not right, especially edits.

Speaker 3 (00:09:48):

Yeah, but I mean, you work, Joel, you work with Joe who's

Speaker 6 (00:09:53):

Probably, he doesn't do my editing though.

Speaker 3 (00:09:54):

Oh, he doesn't?

Speaker 6 (00:09:55):

Yeah, he won't touch it. It's a waste of his time. So he focuses on the more important tasks and I source out to other editors, but sometimes it's hit or miss.

Speaker 3 (00:10:04):

I mean, you guys know John Douglas? That's the only guy I'll work with. I mean, I've hired a couple other guys, but man, it's rough stuff out there with drum editors.

Speaker 6 (00:10:13):

Oh yeah, yeah. John's outstanding.

Speaker 3 (00:10:15):

Yeah. What do you guys do? Do you guys farm out your edits or do you edit yourselves?

Speaker 5 (00:10:21):

We've got a flow down so familiar at this point that we kind of prefer to do all of our own editing. We've experienced other people doing edits for us in the past, and it's always kind of come back and we've always had problems with it. You

Speaker 3 (00:10:36):

Get to edit the edits.

Speaker 5 (00:10:37):

Yeah, exactly. And it's not that we think the way that we do it is better or whatever, it's just that we have a very specific, we know exactly what we want and we have a really good workflow down. We can get at this done quickly. So we typically just do it ourselves.

Speaker 3 (00:10:54):

Do you guys have interns or anything or is it just the two of you?

Speaker 5 (00:10:58):

We do have usually one intern. We don't have an intern right now, but we have one starting in about a month and they're usually doing it for school credit.

Speaker 3 (00:11:07):

And do they just handle the bullshit running and

Speaker 5 (00:11:11):

Cleanup

Speaker 3 (00:11:12):

And all that?

Speaker 5 (00:11:13):

Yeah, yeah. Essentially we've had a couple interns actually that have been really good with Pro Tools and they record themselves and that's been definitely advantageous. We can give them more responsibilities in the middle of a session. They can track some stuff and they can help edit if we need it. And we show them how we do stuff. And we've actually learned plenty of stuff from interns too. I like the process of seeing how other people do things and then taking that and somehow applying it to our process in our own way. But usually it's just people taking out the trash. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:11:53):

Well that's important too. It might really important. So speaking of edits and doing it yourself and all that, let's talk about some drums because you've worked with all different types of drummers and drum situations, and we've worked with some of the same people like Matt Reiner from August Burns Red. So I know that when you have a monster like him in, do you take a different approach than say a guy that might not be so good and hits kind of light? Or do you change it up completely between when you get someone like Matt or someone from one of the rock bands you record?

Speaker 4 (00:12:32):

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it all depends on the player, but when we have someone like Madden, we're not just sitting there trying to get the right take. We have eight great takes and there's slight differences in each one. And sometimes we'll listen to the way he's hitting a symbol in one take compared to the other, and he'll play different drum fills every time their music is so complex. But Matt is just one of those guys that he can just freeform through it and we get a lot of time to take care and making those choices with him, and he likes to sit with us while we do that.

Speaker 5 (00:13:07):

Usually what we'll do when we track him in particular is like Grant said, we'll get a whole bunch of takes. We will get our keeper takes, and then we'll go through and actually listen to, I don't know, eight bars or so at a time, and listen through all the playlists and choose our best, our favorite moments from each take and just kind of do a comp of drums. And then once we have the comp done, then we'll go through and edit. But yeah, I mean he's great. He's an example of a player that makes it incredibly easy just because pretty much everything he plays sounds incredible. You don't really have to do much to it. And he hits really hard too, which is great. That's something that we,

Speaker 3 (00:13:51):

I feel like the drummer is literally 50% of the battle when it comes to getting a badass drum tone at least before you start doing mixing things.

Speaker 5 (00:14:02):

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:14:03):

But yeah, I feel like everything else, like the microphones, preamps room, all that, that's important, but it all falls by the wayside in comparison to how important the drummer is.

Speaker 5 (00:14:16):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we have a drum kit here that we like to use a lot. It's a custom dw, it's a really nice kit and we use it on a ton of stuff. It's kind of our go-to. And I mean for the last, I dunno, couple years, we've pretty much been using the same set of mics. So in a really controlled environment, you sit someone like Matt down at that kit with those mics, with whatever pres we're using and have him play, and then you walk in some other guy and have him play, it'll sound totally different with all the same shit. So yeah, it's definitely majority I would say, of the sound comes from the playing. Definitely.

Speaker 3 (00:14:56):

Alright, so then let's talk about the opposite situation. Seeing that the variable that stays the same, so I guess maybe it's not a variable, but is the setup. So say you do get somebody in there that's not so awesome, what's your approach then rather? So with Matt, it's more about getting a bunch of takes and putting together the best of the best, but what about when someone is not so good?

Speaker 5 (00:15:23):

Well, I think we try to work through it with them. If someone isn't nailing it and we can tell that it's not working, we'll just basically assess it on a case by case basis and then try to correct the problems and try to work with them through figuring out how they want to do a fill or how hard they need to hit. We will coach someone along if they need it. Someone like Matt doesn't need it just so experienced at this point and he knows what to do and he knows how he wants his parts to sound. And with him it's more of a creative thing.

(00:15:58):

Let's write some cool parts or let's come up with a different way of doing this particular part in this particular song. But with other people, I mean, usually we will have to just give 'em pointers and we try to work very proactively with people who aren't really sure what they want, which I think is probably a majority of the bands that come in. We have to work through it and adapt to someone's playing style if it's not something we're used to. And we try to basically take what someone is doing and figure out what their vision is for it and achieve that for them rather than trying to make them conform to our rules basically.

Speaker 3 (00:16:42):

I feel like a drummer like Matt is one out of 10, one out of 10 times you're going to get somebody like that.

Speaker 5 (00:16:49):

Right? Yeah, we've had the opportunity to record some really amazing drummers and they're all kind of different in their own, and I mean, Matt's just great. He's always been super solid.

Speaker 3 (00:17:01):

So Atrium Audio has moved once before, right?

Speaker 5 (00:17:04):

Yep. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:17:05):

So you guys had another location. Why did you guys move and what's different with the newer one

Speaker 4 (00:17:12):

Grant? Well, this is actually, if you count Carson's home studio, he had a giant warehouse apartment. It was actually pretty cool. That was his first setup. We're now in our third location.

Speaker 3 (00:17:25):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 (00:17:25):

So the first setup, I guess what ended up happening was Carson moved and no longer had that warehouse.

Speaker 5 (00:17:34):

I got married and bought a house, so it was basically my apartment, but there was this big open room attached to it, and it was a super cool room. It was all wood and drum, sounded incredible. And obviously this is, I guess 2005, 2004, 2005 we're talking. And I moved in 2006 and started renting this space in this warehouse downtown in Lancaster, pa, and did a lot of work to it. How many rooms that was? There was a main control room, there was an ISO and then a big main drum room and then a storage room. So it wasn't huge. I'd say it was kind of sectioned off on the second floor of this old tobacco warehouse. And I did a lot of construction work to that place to get it operational. There was this guy that I was pals with and he had started building it out as a studio, but I guess he didn't have the funds to finish it and he just handed it off to me and I finished it up construction wise, did a lot of drywall, put a floor in the drum room and made it my own. And then that's when Grant came into the picture. Actually, that's the place we were at when Grant started working with me.

Speaker 3 (00:18:50):

Alright. And then I've seen the pictures of the newer place and it looks great. It looks really, really, it's nice. Decorated a lot of gear. Looks like you've got a really big control room. It looks like a really nice place.

Speaker 5 (00:19:05):

Yeah, it's super nice. Thanks, man. I'm glad you liked that. Thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:19:08):

So when you guys upgraded to that, what was the reason? Was it just time and how did you guys go about doing that from the moment that you were like, we need to move to the moment that you actually moved. How long did that take?

Speaker 5 (00:19:25):

Well, okay, so the band live, the band live from the nineties. So their guitar player had built our current studio himself as just kind of a project studio and he owned the building and built it out. It's three floors. And

Speaker 3 (00:19:44):

Real quick, isn't it funny, the bands from the nineties or the eighties, the musicians and that their idea of what a project studio is? Oh

Speaker 5 (00:19:54):

Yeah, yeah. Totally different perspective.

Speaker 3 (00:19:57):

Yeah, it's three floors and all that is his project studio.

Speaker 5 (00:20:01):

Yeah, I mean it's not huge square footage wise. I think the photos probably make it look bigger than it actually is, but I mean it's the perfect size for what Grant and I do. We're really comfortable here.

Speaker 4 (00:20:10):

It's a row home in the city, basically. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:20:12):

It's like converted into a studio, but it used to be like someone's house, I think. But yeah, anyway, well he owned this place and built it out as a studio himself. He had an SSL console in here and it was really nice. And then he ended up selling it and so he put it on the market and Grant and I saw the opportunity to, because we've always been a big fan of this facility. So we snatched it up, we bought it from him, and it just put us in a better scenario because we were renting our other space and spending more money renting that space than it takes to own this building. So

Speaker 3 (00:20:50):

That's actually the exact same thing that Chris Crume said when he came on about building his own place and owning it, is that rent was just annihilating him. Oh

Speaker 5 (00:21:02):

Yeah. And you're just pissing all that money away too. So this way we're building some equity.

Speaker 3 (00:21:06):

And so did you guys do any construction on it or was it just good to go?

Speaker 4 (00:21:09):

It was pretty good to go. I mean, we made a few aesthetic changes, but I mean the overall building of it was pretty much already done.

Speaker 3 (00:21:18):

All right. How long did it take between, I guess when you heard about it to when it actually happened?

Speaker 5 (00:21:24):

A couple months. I'd say about two months to do the whole thing and do the move and move all of our gear. Damn,

Speaker 3 (00:21:30):

That's quick. That's quick. Every studio move I've ever been involved with takes so goddamn long.

Speaker 5 (00:21:41):

It worked out great for us because like Grant said, this place was already pretty much good to go construction wise, so it was pretty much plug and play. We just had to move our gear in here and set up. So the thing that took the longest was just buying the building, I'd say.

Speaker 3 (00:21:56):

Alright. So since you brought up live, I want to ask you about this because been working with a lot of nineties bands like Candlebox and Everclear Live. How did that happen? How are you guys, how is that happening?

Speaker 5 (00:22:11):

Well, I guess I'll handle this one. Grant, the one with the group. Well, when I was I think 13 years old and living at my mom and dad's house, the guitar player of Live Chad Taylor moved in next door to me, and that was in 94 I think. No, 95 I guess their big album Throwing Copper was out already. And I was actually already a fan of the band, so it was pretty cool because the guitar player, one of my favorite bands was moving in next Door. It's like some bad sitcom or something, but, and then he ended up just being very influential on me getting into music. And he has been a great friend of mine since I was a little kid. And he's actually pretty much the dude that got me into recording too. He produced my old band that I was doing when I was in college and I really enjoyed that process and that's kind of how I got the itch to be in a studio for the rest of my life, I guess. And he taught me a lot of things early on about pro tools and just kind of all the basic techniques of recording and that's kind of how I got into it to begin with. And so he's just been a great friend and a great source of inspiration and information over the years. And

Speaker 3 (00:23:41):

I feel like when people talk about the luck factor in gaining any success in music, I feel like that's the perfect example of the luck factor. Obviously you still had to work your ass off to get to where you are. You've gone through multiple changes in the studio, upgrades, you're always working mean, but the luck factor is that the guy happened to move in next door to you.

Speaker 5 (00:24:03):

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:24:04):

I mean if you had never moved in, your life might be completely different.

Speaker 5 (00:24:08):

I might have not been interested in being in a band or learning about engineering and production to begin with if he hadn't moved in. So I definitely think that that has pretty much everything to do with why I'm interested in what I'm interested in. And eventually you're right though, I mean I did have to obviously put in the years and get somewhat decent at recording until he asked us to engineer their latest record. So we definitely had to earn that and it went well. But we recorded their newest album up at their studio in York, pa. They built this ridiculous multimillion dollar studio up there. They've got an SSL duality in there. And yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:24:55):

I think if people listening to this are a little younger and don't know who Live is Live was huge in the nineties.

Speaker 5 (00:25:03):

Yeah, big

Speaker 4 (00:25:04):

Band from the nineties.

Speaker 3 (00:25:05):

Yeah, had some massive hits.

Speaker 4 (00:25:07):

They sold I think 24 million records. God. Yeah, worldwide. Holy cow.

Speaker 3 (00:25:12):

Yeah, yeah, it's insanity how big they were. I remember that first song was on the radio for six months straight and five times a day or more. Alright, so you went up to record at their spaceship studio?

Speaker 5 (00:25:29):

Yeah, so they asked us to engineer that and turned out really good. And then from there, I believe Live did a tour with Everclear a couple summers ago. Everclear does a tour over the summer every year with a bunch of nostalgia nineties bands called the Summerland Tour. So Live was on that one year and Chad recommended that Everclear have us produce their newest records. So the dude flew out and we did a demo at our place and it turned out good and we ended up getting the gig. And so that's where we got that. So as far as the Candlebox project goes, again, I met the singer of that band, Kevin Martin through Chad, because when Live was on hiatus for a couple years, I guess they kicked their singer out. And the three remaining members of Live did this band called The Gracious Few, which was comprised of those three guys and two members of Candlebox. And Kevin the singer was the singer of that band too.

Speaker 3 (00:26:37):

So is it different working with veterans like that than it is with newer bands?

Speaker 4 (00:26:44):

It depends. There's definitely times where, I mean, we don't really need to walk them through anything. We don't need to hold their hand through the process. They already get it. They've done it a lot. So I mean, in that sense it feels very smooth and very simple. But I mean with each project there's always going to be little different hurdles to navigate and those kinds of things. But I dunno, what do you think about that, Carson?

Speaker 5 (00:27:11):

It's interesting because having had the opportunity to work with some older, much more experienced veteran bands like that, that have worked with obviously some of the top guys in the past

Speaker 3 (00:27:26):

Ever.

Speaker 5 (00:27:27):

Yeah, I mean between those three bands live and I mean they've worked with pretty much any big dog name that you can throw out. They've somehow worked with them sometime over the last 20 years. So it's a little intimidating I'd say at first. But I mean, it's just a matter of, again, navigating personalities. And it's an interesting thing because typically when we work with a smaller, more unknown band, we are the ones that have to give the direction and have to tell them how to do stuff and suggest different ways. And we still do that with the big bands, but there's kind of more of a mutual understanding there. So there's a bit more of a shorthand in our communication, which makes everything a lot easier. They already get it.

Speaker 3 (00:28:15):

Do you think it's also because set in their ways too?

Speaker 5 (00:28:18):

No, not necessarily. And interestingly enough, those three bands in particular were very receptive of doing things differently than what they're used to. It's kind of a hybrid, I think for all three bands. We did all the basic tracking with all them standing in a room together playing live, which is kind of the traditional way of recording and Grant and I, we've recorded a lot of more modern, heavy bands, so obviously we are coming from a place where

Speaker 3 (00:28:48):

That never happens. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:28:49):

I mean, yeah, exactly. Very rarely does a modern metal core band or something standing in a room together and do one take. So it's great though because it puts us in a scenario where we have to figure out new creative ways of navigating the session. I love not being in my comfort zone because that's the way I learn, but it was cool. I mean all those bands, luckily they're all cool and we're very receptive of our ideas and how we wanted to do some things and we kind of met them halfway on how they wanted to do some things and I think all three records turned out really great.

Speaker 3 (00:29:31):

So I think that that's pretty interesting though that they all wanted to play at the same time. I think that's one of the biggest differences between modern bands and older bands is that modern bands, some of them never play together except for when they're on stage ever.

Speaker 6 (00:29:49):

Yeah. Power tab, everything, or sorry, guitar Pro, that's the modern equivalent.

Speaker 5 (00:29:55):

And I mean, in my opinion, there's something to be said. I'm 33 years old and so my shit that I listen to is nineties music basically. I still listen to all the stuff that I listened to when I was a teenager. So all the nineties rock bands, rage Against the Machine and Live and Candle Box, all those bands I grew up with. And that's, there's definitely is something to be said about capturing an idea with a group in a room. And like you said, I mean that doesn't really happen that often, at least in the heavy music genre in particular, and even the rock genre, I think at this point a lot of that stuff is modern rock music that has a lot of the same production techniques that

Speaker 3 (00:30:39):

Modern

Speaker 5 (00:30:39):

Heavy music does now too. But there definitely is something very interesting and kind of indescribable about a band standing in a room and just figuring out a song together that makes it sound a certain way. And I'm a big fan of that too. I think it depends on the band though and what their vibe is.

Speaker 3 (00:30:57):

I wonder though, if in Metal, it's just a bad idea too because of the way that that music sounds like when it is played live, a metal record and a metal band sound completely different, whereas a rock band and a rock record actually sound more like each other and there's a lot more space in rock music. So you don't have a lot of the super annoying things like the room going insane when the tempos are like two 30 bpm and there's blast beats everywhere and you can't understand what's going on.

Speaker 4 (00:31:30):

Oh

Speaker 3 (00:31:31):

Yeah, you don't have those issues with the rock band.

Speaker 4 (00:31:34):

I mean, when we'd be recording Candlebox, for example, Kevin would be Kevin, their vocalist would often be shouting out when to hit the bridge and oh, stay on the B chord here. When you're playing music that is based kind of more on a chord structure like that and not as much on lead guitar riffs, they're kind of feeling a song out in a totally different way.

Speaker 3 (00:32:01):

Joey, have you ever recorded a band all at the same time?

Speaker 4 (00:32:03):

Back

Speaker 2 (00:32:04):

In the early days, I did get a couple of opportunities to do that with some local bands from my hometown and those bands would focus all of their energy and time around being able to play and write in that way. And I had the opportunity as well to hang out with them a lot more beyond just recording. And so some of the conversations that they would have would be they'd talk about a baseline and they'd be like, well, I just don't think it works with what you're doing with your kick drums, so next time we all get together in a room and play, let's experiment with some different versions. And so it really was a process of refinement over as a group and then they wouldn't record the song at all until they felt like they had something that they could sit down and actually play and they would test tempos as a group as well. So it's definitely a different way of working.

Speaker 3 (00:33:02):

I had a producer named Pete Thornton come to my place once, he's done some platinum stuff as well, and he brought this rock band with him that we're like 16 years old and made them play live. And man, it was awesome. But the thing is, like I said before, there's so much space in that kind of music that it lends itself to sounding good when it's played altogether. Definitely. Yeah. And the band was tight as hell, so if the band's not tight, you may as well not record like that, but I can't imagine doing that on a really fast record or something or a super heavy record. I feel like all you would do is introduce a bunch of noise into the room

Speaker 5 (00:33:46):

That

Speaker 3 (00:33:46):

You then are going to be stuck with.

Speaker 5 (00:33:47):

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, we feel the same way. I mean Grant and I kind of, for us, the process of the whole recording process and how we do it I think is largely dependent on what style of band it is. We've got to record some rock bands and we've got to record some faster death metal bands and stuff. And so the two processes obviously are just totally a different approach. But I mean it's whatever compliments the style of music, like you said, there's more space in rock music so you can get away with more of a live type of feel. If that's what makes them comfortable and that's what is going to produce the best performance, then that's pretty much what we do.

Speaker 3 (00:34:30):

So I wanted to take a second and congratulate you guys on the Grammy nomination for August Springs Red. Thanks

Speaker 5 (00:34:37):

Man. Thanks. Appreciate it,

Speaker 3 (00:34:38):

Joey. Do you know anything about that?

Speaker 2 (00:34:42):

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say, but I'll just say I was a part of that. That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (00:34:48):

Yeah, seriously, that's a huge honor that we would even be a part of something like this and we're definitely very excited about it. So whatever involvement you had in that, definitely appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (00:35:00):

Yeah, thanks. I'll just say the Academy is very interested in sort of representing music at large. There's a lot of different problems in the academy and there's a lot of different steps and it's very political and there's all these rules and everything, and it takes a while to really make things happen in a proper way, but for a good reason. They really want to protect the integrity of the past as well as embrace the future. And that's very hard to do, but they're very interested in moving forward and trying to improve everything because last year for example, Jack Black got the medal Grammy and the metal community only has their one little tiny category and even I don't think it's even televised. So for them they look at this as like, we need to fix this. The community is obviously not happy with what's happening and this is a problem and we're going to fix it. So I think we're taking a step in the right direction and I'm very pleased with the nominations this year.

Speaker 5 (00:36:00):

Yeah, man, I think it's great. It's a really good mix. And they're all actual metal bands,

Speaker 3 (00:36:07):

So I didn't realize that Jack Black won in the non televised metal segment. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:36:11):

How

Speaker 3 (00:36:12):

Does that work?

Speaker 6 (00:36:13):

I have no idea. It's complicated.

Speaker 3 (00:36:17):

Oh, I thought that he won Rock. I didn't realize he won the non televised specifically metal set

Speaker 2 (00:36:23):

Metal performance. Performance.

Speaker 3 (00:36:25):

Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (00:36:26):

And the reason why, honestly, I think is because of the do thing. It was the song that won was a DIO tribute song. And I mean, I'll say I think they covered it pretty awesomely. I'm a fan of Jack Black, but do I think that it's the best metal performance? Not really. However, I don't want to discredit everything that DIO has done and all those guys, and let's take a moment to respect all of that, but I think it would've just the wrong place, wrong time, really.

Speaker 3 (00:37:04):

Yeah, I figured that was someone like dio, you would give him more of posthumous lifetime achievement award or something,

Speaker 5 (00:37:12):

Right?

Speaker 3 (00:37:13):

Not a cover.

Speaker 2 (00:37:14):

Yeah, that was the biggest thing was it wasn't even an original song.

(00:37:23):

A lot of people don't understand all the categories too. The category of best metal performance really is focused on the performance. It's about the vocal delivery and the bands just really ripping. You can tell that it wasn't phoned in. You can tell that they're really playing passionately. That's what that category is about. And I think you in a certain way, you could look at the Jack Black song and you could say, yeah, that is a good performance and they did it, but I mean obviously the community didn't agree, and that's how the academy, they try to be very neutral and they try to look at it that way and say, well, it makes sense to us, but maybe we don't know what's best for this category, so let's get some people in here and figure it out.

Speaker 3 (00:38:10):

That's a positive thing. I think award shows in general have lost a lot of credibility in the past maybe 10 years.

Speaker 2 (00:38:18):

Definitely.

Speaker 3 (00:38:19):

It's a struggle. It's good to right the ship. They

Speaker 2 (00:38:21):

Spend a lot of money on trying to educate people and trying to, they fly out to shows and talk to bands and say, Hey, do you understand how the Grammys work? And almost no one does, and they all think it's about how many records did you sell, how many video views do you have? And actually has nothing to do with any of that. So yeah, I don't know. I could go on and on about the Grammys, but congratulations on your nomination.

Speaker 5 (00:38:48):

Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. We're very excited. We're stoked for the band and I think they deserve it.

Speaker 3 (00:38:53):

Yeah, they're really, really

Speaker 2 (00:38:55):

Good. It's been a long time coming. I think this is a good representation of what that portion of the community brings to the table, and I just love it that I'm sure that there's, the average committee member age is 50 years old, so I'm sure they're going and typing this into YouTube and seeing that music video with the sharks and everything and being like, what?

Speaker 3 (00:39:23):

I think it's a good thing, but that's a good point right there. You don't need 50 year olds deciding what the best metal performances.

Speaker 2 (00:39:31):

I think it's a good thing. I think that it's eyeopening to see that you can take that type of music and put it in a bunch of different perspectives. They've done August Burns Red has done, and a lot of the other nominations, and it can all live in the same universe. I say universe though, it's a very big landscape or environment, but it's nice to see it all make sense to the music community at large. And they might not understand it yet, but it's coming.

Speaker 3 (00:40:05):

Definitely. Good. Well, glad to hear that. That's moving forward. Carson, I've got a question for you back to just talking about studio life and stuff. How long was it before you were making a full-time living at this?

Speaker 5 (00:40:22):

I think that I only started doing this full time, I believe 2011 or 2012. Does that sound right? Grant

Speaker 4 (00:40:37):

11 was when we moved into the building here,

Speaker 5 (00:40:40):

But I was still spending half of my time at the film company or when did I quit Aurora?

Speaker 4 (00:40:47):

It was around that time.

Speaker 5 (00:40:49):

Yeah, it was around that time I would say I worked at a film production company in Lancaster, PA for I think about eight years. And I did design there, design work, some web development, and that was my full-time job and recording was kind of the thing that I did in the evenings and just to supplement my income and because I enjoyed it and I was really into it. I don't think I quit my other job until about 2011 or 2012 and then I've just been doing this since then.

Speaker 3 (00:41:27):

That's pretty awesome though. But you've been able to make a living doing creative things then for a while.

Speaker 5 (00:41:34):

Yeah, yeah. Very lucky to be able to have done that. I mean, I personally, I would hate myself if I wasn't doing something that I really enjoyed doing. So that's just not the kind of person I am. I can't do something if I'm not totally a hundred percent into it. I'd say give it everything you got or don't do it at all kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (00:41:58):

So did you plan on getting to the point where you were doing it or did it just kind of evolve that way?

Speaker 5 (00:42:05):

It just evolved that way. I mean, I've always been very pragmatic. I've always loved recording, but I'm based in reality and I didn't expect just drop everything and just start recording until I had the work volume there that could justify it. So we were definitely careful about the choices we've made, but the whole thing definitely grew very organically since Grant and I started working together, we just kind of got in this flow where we were getting bigger and better projects and more full length albums and less local bands doing demos. And it just kind of grew and we raised our rates a little bit here and there and then eventually we were making enough and recording enough that we could both just do this full time, which is, we're super lucky to be able to do that. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:42:59):

If I can jump in, I mean it was kind of the exact same thing for me because I was kind of touring part-time and recording and this whole thing developed and as time grew and we refined our skills and improved and the quality of the bands improved, we started getting busier and it got to a point where I realized that this was going to be a much better choice for me overall. So I stopped touring and just came home to record full time and I kind of wanted to have somewhat of a regular life anyway, so it just sort of worked out that way. But all those things kind of lined up around the same time. And I think around within that same year, Carson and I both just ended up to move into recording full time.

Speaker 3 (00:43:47):

Timing is everything. Do you guys have any advice for any up and comers that want to do this full time? I feel like even 2016 versus 2011, it's a totally different landscape than it was back then. If you were trying to make a living now at it to go from being amateur to pro, what would you do or what would you say to someone who's dead set on that?

Speaker 4 (00:44:14):

Well, definitely one of the biggest things I can say is make a lot of mistakes and then learn from them. That's huge. I feel like we've grown from learning in that way. I'll pass it on to you. You can do the next one.

Speaker 5 (00:44:27):

Well, I mean, I just think it's a matter of being so into this that you don't let yourself settle for, okay, I'm good at this now and I'm going to, and I can't get any better. So here I am. You know what I mean? I am constantly learning new things, constantly getting better and improving on things that we've done before. And I think just having that attitude is probably key for anyone at any level, especially if you're an amateur and you're trying to do it full time. I think it's a matter of just never settling for whatever you can do at any given moment. If you can always learn and always keep improving and getting better at what you do, then that's the most important thing that you should focus on. For a beginner, I think it's imperative to just do it as much as humanly possible.

(00:45:21):

That's the same with any skill. I think If you're really into it and you really want to learn and get better at it, you just have to do it continuously every fucking day. And until you improve, that's how you improve. When I started recording bands in my apartment, I did it for free for a long time and then I started charging 10 bucks an hour or something like that. And it is just, if you can start from a place where your priority is not how much you're making, but how frequently you are practicing the skillset that you want to learn, then you will grow from there. I think if you're too focused on how much you're making early on, you're going to get discouraged and it's not conducive to moving forward in a productive way. So just do it as much as you can. Do it for free, record friends, bands for free, record your own shit if you don't have any, anyone that wants to work with you and use the tools that you have at your disposal. Joey, I think you're very familiar with that process too. I know that when you started recording, you were kind of known for getting a big sound out of limited tools, right?

Speaker 2 (00:46:39):

And it was about sacrifice in the beginning, but while I sacrificed a lot at the same time, I didn't have a house to worry about. I really didn't even have an apartment to worry about. I just slept on the couch. And I think that was the sacrifice, but at the time it didn't really seem like a big sacrifice. It just kind of seemed like this is what I wanted to be doing. I just wanted to hang out with dudes and record songs and just have fun. But I like what you said about standards. Well, I'll elaborate. I think you got to keep your standards high. You got to keep progressing. You got to keep looking at that next step, that next level, but enjoy the journey at the same time. Like we said at the beginning of the show, I'm sure we all hate our work, but that's the endless pursuit of the artist, right? It hates every painting,

Speaker 4 (00:47:37):

Every artist never finished. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:47:38):

Yeah, exactly. And as far as motivation goes, I think there's kind of two avenues to motivation if you're having trouble with it. And I think you should be afraid of having a mundane job, something that's boring, that should motivate you to get good at this and to keep progressing. And also competition. I think competition is huge now. There's very saturated market in terms of audio production, and you should be looking to your left and to your right and going, well, one of us is going to go forward, so it might as well be me. And I think those are two good ways to motivate yourself if you're struggling with that and just keep your standards high and realize that somebody is going to be willing to sacrifice more than you. So who's going to win? I guess it's not always a competition, obviously, but it's a good way to think of it.

Speaker 5 (00:48:28):

Yeah, I mean there's a healthy competitive attitude that you can have that, like you said, it'll motivate you to keep improving. So I definitely agree with that.

Speaker 3 (00:48:36):

So we've got some questions from our listeners for you guys.

Speaker 6 (00:48:39):

Hold on. I have the question of all questions I need to know what's up with Galactic Empire? Alright,

Speaker 4 (00:48:46):

I'll take this one.

Speaker 6 (00:48:47):

Go

Speaker 5 (00:48:48):

For it.

Speaker 4 (00:48:49):

So about two years ago I made a drum play through video that I put on YouTube of myself playing drums along to the London Symphony Orchestra playing the Imperial March. And it was a fun video and it sat online for a while. And

Speaker 3 (00:49:07):

The Imperial March is from Star Wars in case anyone's wondering,

Speaker 4 (00:49:10):

Oh yeah, that's a good thing to add there. John Williams Star Wars score. So I kind of always had in the back of my mind, at some point it would be kind of fun to add some guitar and bass and maybe kind of do an arrangement, but there've been so many covers and I've seen so many people do Star Wars Metal and I was like, you know what? If I want to do this, I want to do it. No one's ever done it before. And so in May of this past year, anytime we've been in between sessions, I'd been kind of working on this thing, but I ended up finding myself with 11 songs. I brought Carson in around, I dunno, after I had recorded guitars for fun for the first song, I realized that it could be a really cool project. So we worked together and created this entire full-length record that covers all six movies of the original saga before the Force Awakens kind of came into the picture. And then Carson and I were sort of talking and we're like, it'd be kind of fun to do a music video. And then we're like, well, maybe it'd be fun to do a music video if we were in full Star Wars costume. And the whole idea just kept snowballing. And I honestly don't even know how we got from point A to point B. It's just kind of crazy because we went and actually we worked with Aurora Films, which is the company,

Speaker 5 (00:50:37):

Yeah, that's the company I worked for eight years. So

Speaker 4 (00:50:41):

We shot the music video with them and they're a local company, but they have some incredibly talented people there. And so anyway, we ended up with this ridiculous music video and we put it online and within one, oh, sorry. Well, I guess I should say we put it online the day the Force Awakens came out, and Carson and I are standing in line to see the movie and we're just watching it climb. We're refreshing our phones. It's like, oh, got another 5,000 place and we keep hitting refresh and we're just extremely excited and we go see the movie, we turn our phones off, and then we get out of the movie. And by the end of that evening it already had a million views and within a week it climbed up to over 7 million views combined on Facebook and YouTube. So it just blew up out of nowhere. And it's hilarious. It was kind of just a total joke idea and I never really had huge plans for it. I mean, I would definitely say I would hope that it would do something like this, but I never imagined that we'd get the kind of reception that we got. That's so awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:51:49):

It was very cool.

Speaker 4 (00:51:50):

I love it.

Speaker 3 (00:51:50):

Well, it's really well done. I get it. I know about most of those covers you see out there, really bad quality, bad playing, wrong notes, not interesting dumb videos.

Speaker 1 (00:52:05):

So

Speaker 3 (00:52:06):

You guys kind of conquered all those different elements. I get why it blew up. And also the timing was perfect. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:52:15):

The timing was key, obviously, and that's like the one part of it that we kind of planned out. But yeah, I mean, thank you. I'm glad that you like it and I'm glad that it definitely, I think it stands out from the other covers that I've heard so far, but when we were recording the album and we still are actually working on recording, there's like at any given time, there's 40 fucking guitar tracks happening. So it's taking forever to track the real guitars that are in tune and tight. We have scratch guitars right now as placeholders on a lot of the songs, but the way that we did it, the way that we approached it was to make essentially everything in the song, exactly the parts from the orchestra and timing and all the little nuances, all the little arpeggios, because John Williams, we picked apart the original London Symphony Orchestra recordings and just kind of went bar by bar.

(00:53:14):

And Grant would sit here and kind of pick out notes and be like, okay, there's that note in this octave. And then the horns over here are doing these notes and then the strings over here are doing that. And we'd kind of really detailed listening and we'd have to pick out all the different parts that were happening in all the different sections of the orchestra and then somehow translate that to represent those notes on guitar. So there's a ton of guitar tracks and a lot of it is single note stuff and a lot of different simultaneous octaves happening. But when you pick apart John Williams' music, I think this probably applies to any of his music, he's got such a distinct style of writing, it's so fucking bizarre. The way that he writes music is so weird. Key changes every couple bars, weird shit that doesn't make any sense or isn't in any kind of scale. I love it. It's great though. Major seconds and stuff and there's all kinds of crazy musical shit happening that's so outside of the box,

Speaker 2 (00:54:20):

But it's still so catchy and just earworm.

Speaker 5 (00:54:25):

Exactly. And when it comes all together, it works so well. And that's why those pieces are so iconic. So the one thing that we wanted to stick to when doing it, when recording the album was make it exactly the piece that John Williams made, we're not really taking any creative liberty except for the drum parts because as far as the bass guitars go, they're just playing the exact same thing that all the different sections of the orchestra are playing.

Speaker 3 (00:54:49):

See, that's the thing to me, the key differentiator between your guys' version and the other stuff I've heard. And I guess just to covers in general, when I hear people doing classical pieces on guitar or covers of other bands, it bothers me so much when they get wrong notes. It's like, how do you do that? They do not hear that. It's the wrong note. I guess not. But yeah, with an orchestral piece like this, you have to look at the score. There's just no way that you're going to successfully interpret every single thing that's happening without looking at the score.

Speaker 5 (00:55:24):

And those pieces are so dense too. There's so much happening all at once. So it was a challenge and took a long time, but we're thankfully kind of nearing the end of the recording process on that record. We're fighting for downtime now because for some reason the beginning of this year we're super busy and we're trying to find downtime to finish it because we want to put it out in the next couple months, the full album. But there's so much you have to do on it, and hopefully we're nearing the finish line on that.

Speaker 3 (00:55:56):

Yeah, capitalize on the momentum.

Speaker 4 (00:55:57):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:55:57):

Exactly.

Speaker 4 (00:55:58):

And we are shooting another music video next week, so that's going to eat up our time as well.

Speaker 3 (00:56:02):

Yeah, I'm curious to see what that looks like. So let's do some questions from the audience because we're starting to get there on time. So subscriber, Joey Lifting was asking, he says, I'd like to know how there's so much punch on the snare of the latest A BR without having massive amounts of high end.

Speaker 5 (00:56:26):

Well, I think that a large part of it was getting a good snare sound to begin with. We spent a lot of time trying out a couple different snares in the room until we found one that worked really well. Did we end up using the Grinder Kilmer grant?

Speaker 4 (00:56:42):

I think we used a grinder. Kilmer?

Speaker 5 (00:56:44):

Yeah. Matt Grinder, their drummer actually owns, co-owns a company that makes snares, and I think they're starting to make full drum sets now called Grinder Kilmer. And I think we tried out five or six different snares, really nice snares. And the one that he brought in that he and his partner actually made by hand sounded the best and just had a great crack. I think a lot of the sound of that comes from the actual snare sound in the room. We blended in a sample with it as you pretty much kind of have to do to be competitive in heavy music production nowadays and not make something sound less powerful compared to something that does have a sample. But the real kit sounded great to begin with. We made it punch a little bit more by mixing in a sample and yeah, I'm trying to think of what else I can say about that.

Speaker 3 (00:57:41):

I think that's a pretty good answer. Get it right from the source. I mean, I guess maybe if I had to guess what he would technically want to know, I'm wondering if he meant poncho, if he meant crack because he said high end. So I'll just ask you, do you have any ways that you would raise the crack of a snare without raising a bunch of high end?

Speaker 5 (00:58:02):

Yeah, actually, and we've been doing this a lot lately too, is, I don't know if you've ever actually, I think the forum that we're on that production forum aisle, I learned this from there a while ago, but the phase trick where you duplicate a snare track, throw one track out of phase, but then put a transient designer on it and raise the attack just slightly. So the only thing that pokes out is the initial transient attack. That's

Speaker 2 (00:58:30):

Interesting.

Speaker 5 (00:58:31):

Yeah, it's a really cool technique that we actually just recently started using a lot and it's great because then you print that to a track and then there's your attack right there and you can EQ it and you can raise it up in the mix and blend it in with the actual snare track. Another thing we've been doing a lot is using the fab filter multi-band compressor, and we'll set that, so probably from seven K and up will be attenuated like 10 db and then it has really fast attack and release, so whenever a transient hits, it'll let it kind of through. So it's kind of like a gate for the high end and that works really well. And then you put a gate after that and it pretty much sounds like a sample, very focused and isolated. So that's a good part of it I would think. And then just we do some stuff on our drum bus with saturation and very gentle parallel compression and I mean, I personally just, I like to hear a good snap in the snare. I like to hear good power down in the 200 range also. So we boosted some key frequencies and then did the multi-band thing, did the transient thing and blended in a sample. I think the combination of all that stuff together is probably what makes the snare sound the way it does on that recording.

Speaker 2 (00:59:55):

Yeah, you got to have, a lot of people I think will look at EQ is like a static, like a mask. So if you increase the high end of the EQ on the snare, you're just increasing the high end of the entire sound, whereas doing that phase reverse thing, you're increasing kind of, you're doubling up the high end for a brief second or a shorter burst of eq. So I think not a lot of people are thinking about moving eq and that is part of how you get some of those tricky drum sounds is having little based boosts or treble boosts that come in and out or move in a certain way in an envelope way. Definitely. Very cool.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):

All right, here's another one, Austin Schaeffer is asking, can you go into some detail about the last 10 seconds of Life album? How did you get those guitar and drum tone?

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):

Well, the guitar in particular I will say is purely a product of my friend Wyatt, who's the guitar player of that band. We've recorded, I think everything they've ever put out maybe except their very first demo and every time they come down here to record with us, he's, I think it's the Mike Ach, PRS signature baritone, so that's the guitar he always uses. And I believe we used, granted we use the Uber shawl on the last record or do we use a 51 50? Do you remember? I

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):

Thought it was a 51 50. But

Speaker 5 (01:01:28):

Yeah, the guitar sound was why it basically sat here and just said to me, so here's how I want my guitar to sound this time. I want you to make it sound like the most bassy fucking retarded thing you've ever heard. And I want people to listen to it and be like, that guy's a dick. That was his creative direction to me. So I was like, okay, I think I can probably dial that in. So that was it. That was his thing. He was like, okay, I want people to think I'm a dick when they hear my guitar sound. So we just fucked around with Mike placement. I think it was 51 50 block letter with a tube screamer through a Mesa four by 12, and I think I used a combination of a 57 and a KM 180 4 through Vintech pre.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):

I think when we came up with our original tone, Wyatt was like, okay, cool. Can you add more low end

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):

To that? Yeah. And it was already stupid low end,

Speaker 4 (01:02:28):

So we added more and it was like shaking the entire room with low end and the sub was just clearly overpowering the entire mix. And he say, yeah, pretty good, maybe a little more low end.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):

I'm wondering when you have someone who's asking for something like that, too much low end on the guitar, something that could potentially destroy a mix, how do you handle making the dude happy but also not letting the guitar just ruin the mix?

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):

Well, I think it's a matter of when you're sitting here playing the guitar through the monitor and you hear it back through the monitors and it's just the guitar on its own, it'll sound a certain way and if you get someone that just wants to keep dialing in low end or keep dialing in high end or whatever they want and it's starting to get into an area where it's not going to work, obviously I'll make them aware. We got to watch it on how much low we get. I know that in the context of a song in a mix, it's not going to work. It's going to make the kick in the bass go away. It's not going to be dynamic or maybe it's going to be too fizzy or whatever. I've gotten pretty good at listening, being able to listen to guitars soloed and knowing if the frequency balance of the tone is going to work in a full mix.

(01:03:49):

But what I did, and that was actually a rare instance because Wyatt and I are such good friends that I was just like, alright, fuck it. And we kind of just had fun with it and then when it came time to actually mix, I essentially did a high pass at, I dunno, 90 or something like that, or a hundred and it still sounded heavy, but that's because in the context of the mix, it sounded right with some EQ moves on it. So I think it's just a matter of managing expectations and if someone is super adamant about doing something a certain way, but they just clearly don't know what they're talking about, I'll just politely say no, essentially.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):

Fair enough. That works. Okay. Matisse Clavin is asking, how the hell do you manage to make all those different parts in such short songs as melodic and flowing in an a BR song? Because in one minute, I mean in one three Minute Song, A BR pushes seven different parts, yet it doesn't sound disjointed.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):

JB honestly, he is a very good composer.

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):

They're a guitar player. Jb,

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):

Yeah, JB writes all of their music and he demos it all out actually in Tab, which is kind of like an even more limited version of Guitar Pro, and he actually has all of the synth pads and his violin parts and the entire orchestration of the whole song already worked out before we come in. So he's already 10 steps ahead of everything. He knows how to arrange something that's going to work and not have parts that are fighting each other that are going to sound right. I think that's a big part of it. Definitely

Speaker 5 (01:05:34):

When we're actually in the studio, I mean his demos like Grant said, are already pretty realized as far as what his vision for all the different parts are and all the different instrumentation because he's got a really creative way of writing heavy music, which is why I'm such a big fan of the way he writes because the songs are very interesting. They're not stock at all, they're not typical metal. He's always trying to do something different, which is great, and then we just refine it basically if there are structural things that maybe sound a little wonky, which there have been, but not many. We will sit in a room together, grant and I have objectivity and we can just kind of work it out with the band. But yeah, I mean we did their last three records and I'd say there were probably only a handful of instances where we even made a major structure change, which is really saying something about how good he is at writing.

(01:06:34):

Because I mean to me, obviously this is all subjective stuff, but Grant and I sit in the room and listen to his demos and it's already a completed song. So for a band like a BR, I think the majority of that is going to be credited to just the way JB writes, but then we will get in the room and collaborate and if stuff needs to be changed or if he has an idea for a certain sound for a pad or an instrument section, if it's not the right thing, then we will figure out what is the right thing in the room.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):

So basically the flow is already there in the writing, so you're not having to create a flow between parts in the mix that wasn't there already. Exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:07:18):

I mean, he's got such a vision for it that they're actually one of my favorite bands to record, not because we're really good friends and I like the band a lot, but they're just so easy to record because they've got such a solid focused vision already right out of the gate.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):

Absolutely. So Connor Hands is asking, was it challenging doing the Ian record with heavy instruments against super melodic vocals?

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):

Interestingly enough, with Aian, I work very closely with Dennis. Dennis is incredibly talented. He's just

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):

Is a vocalist.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):

Yeah, he's got a great voice and I do work with Dennis on melodic choices and things like that, but he's another one of those guys that they've just got this unique thing happening where they're combining metal core with these really powerful kind of eighties style power ballad iron maiden type vocals, like a Bruce Dickinson approach. And the parts that he writes work pretty well. I mean there's the occasional time we'll have to make a choice, but a lot of the time I'll spend with him working on arranging how we're going to work with if it's a structure change on the song or harmonies and really kind of building an entire arrangement. But I wouldn't say that he comes to the table with stuff that is fighting in any way it works. Is that answering the question? I'm trying to,

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):

Well, I think that with vocals that like that, if it's not written well then it's going to be really hard to get it to stand out anyways.

Speaker 5 (01:09:08):

Yeah, Dennis is part, their vocalist parts like Grant said are already pretty good. He's another example of someone who's very good at writing grant. Typically, once we have the drums down and we kind of split off into rooms and Grant starts working with Dennis, we did their last two records and both times it was one of those things where all the songs went through a lot of changes through the whole process of recording 'em from where we started, what we track drums to. And then Grant and Dennis will disappear upstairs into the B room where they record vocals and once in a while Grant will just run downstairs and be like, okay, we figured out that you need to make a structure change to the music on your timeline. We did this vocal part, we figured it out, and the notes are great, or we need to change the chord progression under this vocal part, this vocal part is cooler or whatever. And they'll do a lot of stuff and work the parts out and the songs just kind of grow that natural organic way as we figure it out. It's almost like figuring out a puzzle. There is a lot of good stuff to work with from the beginning, but the songs definitely grew on the musical end and the vocal end together and they kind of dictated what the other thing does.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):

Makes sense. Okay. Final questions are from Paval Chico. What's your favorite base processing and what's your typical two bus chain?

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):

Well, as far as base goes, kind of the San Amp RBI is kind of my go-to, I'll do a lot of stuff through that. We like to do the thing where you separate the low and the high so you can process them differently with EQ and limiting and just control the low end. I like to get a really, typically what I'll do is we will record base, I'll get the di and I'll get the amp signal, try to dial it however, is going to suit the song based on the player and the instrument and the material that they're playing to. So once we have a pretty good tone dialed, that's a good starting point. We will record it, we will edit it, tune it usually, and then I'll typically use the AMP track for the high end and sometimes if it calls for it, process it a little further.

(01:11:29):

Sometimes maybe with an amp sim in Pro tools to get a little bit more bite out of it. I really like that CLA base plug into because I like the distortion on it a lot. And what I also usually do with on the base bus is use a multi-band like C four and side chain it to the kick, so it kind of ducks out certain frequencies whenever the kick is being played. And that's very important for especially faster heavy music where there's a lot of kick because you don't want the bass getting in the way of it. But that's pretty much it. I mean as far as the chain goes, I try to keep it as simple as possible. I'm kind of OCD, so I like to have everything as retardedly simple as possible if I can, and then only start adding things in if it needs it.

(01:12:21):

So I don't really go too crazy with plugins and shit. I'd say the most we usually do is we will record through the Sand Amp and then, or sometimes a base amp or whatever, if a band brings in some other cool shit, we will set that up and use it. Then like I said, we will separate the low and the high, we'll limit it EQ 'em appropriately, do whatever the crossover is. And then I'll usually use an AMP SIM or CLA base or something like that to enhance the high end and then some side chain compression. That's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):

Alright, and what about your two bus?

Speaker 5 (01:12:57):

Two bus, same type of deal? I mean, we try to keep it very simple. I like to get the mix in a spot where it's sounding correct. And then we have, I've been using the Manly very mu, we have one of those and that's kind of been my go-to two bus compressor for the last year or so. And that's a really good unit. I think it sounds great. You can make it really dramatic effect with it or you can have it very subtle and just kind of add some glue and that's about it. Honestly, I don't really do much else to the two bus because I try to get it sounding how I want it before I hit the compressor and then I use the compressor to kind of glue it all together. And that's about it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):

We've been summing before we hit the two bus and that I think definitely has been a big part of our sound as well.

Speaker 5 (01:13:48):

Oh yeah, we've got the Burl B 32 summing Amp.

Speaker 6 (01:13:51):

Ooh, how do you like that? I've always wanted to try that out. I own a mothership, so I'm really Oh, sweet. Into the burl stuff. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (01:13:57):

Dude, I think it's fantastic. We got that about a year ago. Up until then, we'd been using the Shadow Hills Equinox for something and that was great too. It just kept breaking on us. So by the time it broke for the third time, we just kind of were like, all right, fuck this, we're going to send it back and get something else. And we got the Burl and it's been great. I mean, very transparent, adds a lot of headroom, adds a lot of depth, everything feels a little bit more alive and I'm a huge fan of it. And plus it's 32 channels too, which is more than your typical Summit Amp. So I'm a huge fan of The Borough, dude.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):

Awesome. Well cool. Well, we're at to end this now, but I just want to thank you guys for coming on and sharing so much info with our audience.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):

Thank you. Thanks for having us on. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):

And good luck with the Galactic Empire record. I hope you guys get it done soon.

Speaker 5 (01:14:52):

Yeah, me too.

Speaker 4 (01:14:53):

Thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):

Well, just so you can capitalize on that for sure. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 5 (01:14:58):

Hopefully,

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):

Right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):

Well there's probably another Star Wars movie coming out in two years. You got that window? This one,

Speaker 4 (01:15:06):

There's a few more. Yeah, there's definitely a few more movies coming.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):

Yeah, at least. So cool. Alright dudes, thanks so much and alright

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):

Man, guys,

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):

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