JOSH NEWELL: Why Money Can’t Buy a Career, Studio Etiquette, and Assistant Horror Stories

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Line six. Line six is a musical instruments manufacturing company that specializes in Guitar, amp, and affects modeling and makes guitars, amps, effects, pedals and multi effects. We introduced the world's first digital modeling amp and we're behind the groundbreaking pod multi effect, which revolutionized the industry with an easy way to record guitar with great tone. Line six will always take dramatic leaps so you can reach new heights with your music. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and

Speaker 2 (00:00:36):

Eyal Levi. Hey guys, welcome to the Joey Sturgis Forum podcast. Again, interesting thing. Happy anniversary everyone. This has been a year now. We've been doing this crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:00:47):

It's

Speaker 2 (00:00:47):

Pretty awesome. And one of our first guests, we didn't publish him first, but one of our first guests was Josh Newell, and we have him on the line with us today. Say, Hey, Josh.

Speaker 3 (00:00:56):

Hey guys. No, Josh was the first guest, not one of the first guests.

Speaker 2 (00:01:00):

Oh, yeah. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:01:01):

You

Speaker 2 (00:01:01):

Can look at it both ways.

Speaker 4 (00:01:02):

It just got confusing and complicated.

Speaker 3 (00:01:04):

Yeah, no, that's my job. Make everything eight times more complicated than needs to be.

Speaker 2 (00:01:10):

Someone's

Speaker 4 (00:01:11):

Got to do it, right? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:01:12):

Exactly. So yeah, one year, that's kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:01:17):

I just want to say thanks to anyone that actually heard all the episodes from the beginning to now. Thanks for being subscribed for so long. That's great. And hopefully you've helped spread the word a little bit with about what we're doing here. What

Speaker 3 (00:01:32):

About people who just subscribed now and binge listened to 50 something worth of episodes in a week? I know there's some guys that do that.

Speaker 4 (00:01:41):

I love that. That's my favorite kind of person. That's what I do when I find a podcast that I like. I sit down and I just, that's it for a week, and then I listen to all of it and then I'm like, why isn't there more?

Speaker 3 (00:01:53):

I did that with Breaking Bad a few months ago.

Speaker 2 (00:01:58):

I just started watching the profit and I bought every season and just started binge watching it. So I do the same thing, but more power to you if you can get through all these. I think we're at 60 plus hours episodes now if you were to sit down and listen to it front to back, so that's amazing. Congratulations to all of you guys as well. We did it. Congrats for not quitting. We did it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:02:26):

Yeah. Some of you guys actually have really achieved some exciting things. I mean, there's a lot of our listeners that we've seen doing really, really big and exciting stuff, and it's really awesome to be part of that from our end.

Speaker 3 (00:02:37):

Yeah, I dig that People who when I first started interacting with them a year, year and a half ago, were doing some not the coolest thing and now they have since moved on to doing shit for Sony or now they've quit their jobs and are engineers. Only lots of stories like that. There's definitely more than a handful now of people who over the past year have gone pro or have taken an already pro career to even better places. So that's always really, really cool. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:03:12):

I mean, I think like anything, you get what you put into it and the harder you work, the more passionate and committed you are to excellence, and the more you want to be great at what you're doing, the better you're going to be. And I feel that education is an immersive experience. You just have to live, breathe, eat, sleep, what you're passionate about, and then you'll become great at it over time.

Speaker 3 (00:03:31):

Yeah. Well, Jen, you guys here ever watch anything outside of our field inside the Actor's Studio or anything like that? Anyone here? Josh, you live in Hollywood, so of course you do. Oh yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:03:43):

I'm really up on the hot gossip. No,

Speaker 3 (00:03:45):

I've seen

Speaker 5 (00:03:46):

Inside the actor's studio a bit.

Speaker 3 (00:03:47):

Well, I never wanted to be an actor or anything, so that's not why I've watched some of it. I'm just wondering just because, anyways, for anyone who doesn't know what it is, it's basically really, really prolific actors, like a Daniel Day Lewis type character or something. Basically talking for two hours about the real shit. And I just find it fascinating in any field when someone is amazing at what they do or has a story to tell about how they went from being in the audience to being the person on stage or who went from dreaming about doing something to doing it, I really don't care what it is. I don't care if it's in business or in sports or in audio or in acting or something. So I don't know. I feel like with something like this podcast, I think it's really, really positive for people to just keep hearing from dudes who have done it over and over and over again because it makes it a reality that actually having a career in this field is possible.

(00:04:51):

It's kind of like I grew up with a dad in the music industry, so the way I grew up having a career in music never didn't make sense. I know if you didn't grow up with a musical family, there's a lot more to overcome other than the fact that the career in music is just fucking hard to begin with. You've also got a lot of different pressures because if you don't have a musical family who doesn't know anything about the industry, typically the people I know who come from those backgrounds, they had to overcome lots of negative pressure from going into that direction. So because doesn't seem like a real career or realistic at all, and people don't want their kids to be poor. But the way I grew up, it all made perfect sense from the time I was pouring. I just saw people who were pro musicians. It didn't even occur to me that this was a hard career to get into. And I mean now I know the difference, but I feel like something like this where over and over and over, you're hearing from guys who have made it a real thing like Sir Josh here. I think that that's good for people so that they can at least visualize that it's a viable option if you do the right things.

Speaker 4 (00:06:06):

Well, here's the thing is anything that is worth doing actually ever easy, because if you just got it right away and you had an overnight success and it was given to you too easy, you wouldn't respect it, you wouldn't appreciate it, it would go to your head and eventually you would get lazy and it would affect your career in a negative way. So really it's better to take a long road and to struggle through it, at least in my opinion, and work hard because it's about the process and the enjoyment of doing it, the passion of music, the passion of audio, and just being immersed in it every single day. And that's where the magic is. It's not necessarily about reaching the goal, it's just really being in doing what you love.

Speaker 3 (00:06:47):

Josh, that makes me think of something that maybe Josh can answer about because I know that again, since geographically where you're at, you're in LA in that scene, you know how there's this misconception sometimes that people can get their way bought into the industry. And I have a theory on that if a really rich dad or something with connections, I have a theory. My theory is that yes, money can luck or a connection or something can buy the door opening. It can open the door to meeting somebody and maybe getting an initial chance or something along those lines, but there's no way in hell that any of that will actually translate to a career. The only advantage is that you might get a meeting or something. Everyone I know who has gotten that silver spoon without the work who has maybe possibly gotten a little advantage for a little while has failed, eventually never lasted. And since you're in LA and there's a lot of that, I was just wondering your thoughts on it.

Speaker 5 (00:08:00):

There's a lot of people trying to make it failing

Speaker 3 (00:08:03):

Well, or who get bought in to it.

Speaker 5 (00:08:06):

It's interesting. There has been a little bit of a phenomenon it seems recently in la. I mean, when I got into music, I remember halfway through college, it was 1999, and NSYNC was selling 2 million records a week, and I was like, this is the best career decision I could have ever made. Records are going to sell forever, and then Napster happened and everything else. But there is kind of a trend in LA at the moment of Vanity Studios, I guess is the best way to word it. What does that mean? People deciding they want to get in the music industry and getting some, oh, I know what you're talking about, just buying a studio. There's been places, and I'm not talking about anybody in specific here at all. Well, vine stars are

Speaker 2 (00:08:45):

Doing this. What's that? Vine stars people who have 3 million followers on Vine just because they make really cool six second videos, right? All of a sudden try to go, oh, now I can sing. Here's me in the studio. But you're talking about people starting studios, is that right?

Speaker 5 (00:09:02):

To a degree. I mean with the turnover in LA with studios right now, well, not right now, but LA real estate being what it is, and some of these older studios, just budgets being what they are, there are people now that are kind of, I dunno, they'll go get a recording degree or they just decide they want to work in music and they'll get their parents or some other financial investor to just buy them a studio and they'll kind of start a studio and booking themselves as a producer engineer. And they haven't really put in the legwork on it. And some of those places are working really well right off the bat. And then a lot of times it goes, it turns sour just because they don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to treat a client. They don't know. They

Speaker 3 (00:09:41):

Just get in over their heads eventually. Right.

Speaker 5 (00:09:43):

Yeah, I mean, I think I told you about this place. I worked at a place, well, when I first moved to la, I worked at just studio called Enterprise, it's not around anymore. That's where Dave sdo used to mix. And all those guys, Andy Wallace used to mix when he came out here. So that enterprise has been broken up and it was a couple buildings, so one of 'em just got bought and the building was originally built for, I think it was Bet Midler. So there's a giant scoring stage. There's this huge projection room, it's this really awesome big live room. Some people bought it and it was kind of some kids with money. I say kids are in their thirties, that's kids. They bought it, they put in this knee, they put in all this gear, but they didn't really do the research as to what you need for a studio type of situation.

(00:10:23):

They would buy some really expensive boutique stuff, but then they wouldn't have enough SM 50 sevens, that type of stuff, or a patch pay, just weird stuff. Or like, oh, we have this massive need, but we've not gotten it recapped and serviced yet. So good luck finding a channel that works. And it was the assistant had helped build it and he'd been recording school. We'd never really assisted. So I got put on this session through a friend of mine and he gave me the warning. He's like, Hey, I can't do these days if you can pick it up. But the assistant, he's like, he's cool, but he's like, well, the other day I told him I want to record piano, and I think it was a pair of M fifties on the piano, and he's like, can I come out? And the assistant's putting a different pair of mics up and my friend's like, oh, those aren't M fifties.

(00:11:04):

And the assistant was like, I know you said that, but I've recorded with piano here with these mics and it sounded really good, so I think you're going to want to use these instead. Oh my God, thanks for your opinion. Exactly. This is a $2,000 a day studio. That's not your job at all. You can get out other mics and be like, oh, hey, we also have these. You may want to try them, but you always set up what the client wants first. So I come in and I had that kid and we were recording acoustic guitar and I was like, there's no low end. This sounds really weird. Can you change channels on the console? I think this one's damaged. And he's like, no, it's fine. That's just what acoustic guitar sounds like here and kind. It didn't turn into a full on argument, but it was a little back and forth. And I finally got him to just change the patch one over, and of course the next channel over is fine, and it was a bad channel, and just the kid kind of argued with me on it. So I mean, the whole situation was weird. The guys that owned it were giving discount rates to get people in there at first, but they would cut your session off to let somebody else in it. They had a bigger name and then this bad assistant. So not surprisingly, that place went under within a year.

Speaker 3 (00:12:05):

Of course it did. Well, and that's exactly what I'm saying, and I just want to go into this so that we can dispel this myth that just because daddy bought somebody a studio, that doesn't mean that they're going to have a career. And I want to say that because I think a lot of our audience, and I know this, we talk to them a lot, feel like they're at a disadvantage because maybe they're not coming from wealth or maybe whatever circumstance in their life isn't giving them that kind of advantage. And I just want them to know that that's not necessarily an advantage. Yes, there are a few people who came from a great background who took that initial boost and ran with it and made the best of it, of course, but they would've done it even if they came from a non wealthy background or non-privileged. So that will never keep you a career. Your career will come from everything that we've talked about in other episodes or even when we talked with you Josh last time about what it takes to actually work for other people. There's no way around doing the work. There's just no way. I don't see one, at least not if you want to stick in it. Oh

Speaker 5 (00:13:22):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the only way you're going to make it, I think it was solely based on financial backing is if, I mean, the only way I can think of it working is if you have the financial backing to hire yourself, a really great engineer who's really going to kind do all the work for you, and you're going to pay him enough to be your producer, engineer guy, keep your name on things, which yeah, I can think of a couple cases where that's happened, but it's really,

Speaker 3 (00:13:47):

But those are outliers. Those are total outliers.

Speaker 5 (00:13:50):

No, at the end of the day, that's not a common thing. And at the end of the day, the success of that person has really come down to the fact that the other guy has worked really hard and has the talent, and

Speaker 3 (00:13:59):

Then what happens when the other guy gets discovered by a real producer or something and then gets taken away. I know actually of about a couple times when that's happened, actually,

Speaker 4 (00:14:14):

I just thought of a great analogy for this. Go ahead. Check this out. It's like steroids, right? So if you don't go to the gym and you're all juiced up on steroids, it doesn't matter. You're not going to gain a lot of muscle. But if you're in the gym and you get the steroids, it's like you get all jacked up really quickly and you're going to get massive gains. So it's kind of like the same thing. If you don't have the talent and you don't have the passion, you don't have the drive and the desire. It doesn't matter if you have backing.

Speaker 3 (00:14:38):

Yeah, I don't want to equate money with something that will kill you and make your ball shrink though. But I get the analogy.

Speaker 5 (00:14:49):

Yeah, no, if there are people out there feeling discouraged due to a lack of equipment, that's not really what it comes down to. I'm trying to remember, I worked with somebody, oh, I think it was, let me just name drop here. I worked with John Brian, if you guys know who that is. And his engineer was telling me, and this was really early on, his engineer was like, it doesn't really come down to the budget or the equipment that you have. It's the time that you put into it. Obviously there are technical limitations. To a degree, recording a flute with a 57 is not going to get you the greatest flute sound. But his point was, if you really put the time into things and really work at it and really figure things out, you can make a great record regardless of the budget. His thing was like, it's just the amount of time that you're willing to put in. If you have limited resources, there are ways to make that work. It just may require more work on your part to make that happen.

Speaker 3 (00:15:42):

I guess it depends on how limited of a resource your brainpower is. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:15:45):

There's that.

Speaker 3 (00:15:47):

Well, no, that's what I mean, because that's where your drive comes from. It's all based on that. It's based on your drive, your perseverance, your creativity to make the most out of less than ideal situation. And then of course your skills, all of those come from you. So yeah, that's what I mean. That just depends on how limited a resource you are. And if that's not there, then good luck. And I don't mean as in if someone is dumb or not. I mean in terms of the motivation side of things, the motivation, the perseverance, all that stuff. If that's not in you, no matter how much money you get, unless you do what Josh said, which is hire everyone and then pretend to be you, that really won't get you very far.

Speaker 5 (00:16:32):

Yeah, well, at that point you really have more of a career as a successful employer than a producer engineer anyway.

Speaker 3 (00:16:37):

Well, hey, creating jobs is admirable, I think.

Speaker 4 (00:16:40):

Yeah, that's actually managing people is quite the skill.

Speaker 3 (00:16:44):

Well, lemme just say that If that becomes someone's career path to employ a bunch of people and be like the mastermind, then more power to them. There's nothing wrong with that at all, actually. We know some really great producers who kind of do that, who operate as a mastermind, but that's not what, I mean at the end. We're not talking about some of the multi-platinum dudes like Rick Rubin who are known for just hiring the most amazing teams and stuff. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about this situation like you talked about earlier, where someone gets bought into a career kind of and then just hires people to pretend it's him.

Speaker 5 (00:17:30):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:17:30):

Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:17:31):

We recently worked with the session I'm on, we brought in a kind an EDM producer kid, some whiz kid. He's like 21 and Ghost wrote for people for a while and is now worth, I forget how many millions of dollars. And he came in with a laptop and Fruity Loops, which is probably like a hundred dollars program. And he's like, oh yeah, this is what I do all of my stuff on. And that kid has made millions of dollars and has a massively successful career and is working with Justin did that too. Yeah. On $150 program. So no, it's really not the cost of getting into the profession at this point that's setting you back, especially now that home recording has become such an affordable thing. I remember when oh ones came out, it was such a big deal that you could actually work on pro tools at home. For anyone that wants to get into it now, the cost is not going to get much lower than it is. I mean, you can get Reaper now and kind of do legit work,

Speaker 3 (00:18:20):

Man. I was talking to the singer from my old band last night. We were talking about how hard it used to be to start a band or a studio back when we were starting. It was such an effort to just be able to get recorded, be able to get everything done, be able to put out a product, any of it. It's so easy now. So yeah, to me that's just all an excuse. And based on some of the assistant horror stories that I've heard from some people in LA including you, it blows my mind that sometimes you don't even really need that many skills to just even get in the door. They're probably not going to end up producing huge records, but I mean to get in the door, there's a lot to be said for just showing up. Agreed. I mean that joke that,

Speaker 5 (00:19:11):

I dunno if it's what a joker saying or colloquialism, whatever the proper name for it would be that the success is 90% showing up or something like that, whatever that statement is. And I do think that's a lot of it. I mean, given how stressful making records is, and I don't mean that from a negative experience, but it's a creative endeavor and you're trying to translate what you're hearing in your head. And especially for someone that's doing it for the first time, or an artist that's trying to go in a new direction or they're even trying to figure out the direction they want to work, it can be stressful, not unnecessarily pleasant, but I'm sure everyone listening can kind of relate.

Speaker 3 (00:19:50):

Yeah, there's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 5 (00:19:52):

Yeah, there's a lot of pressure and trying to figure out how to express yourself or if you're having trouble with a part or you're not happy with a song and you're reworking it, and usually you're doing that in a studio where you're talking about at the end of the day you're in a 20 by 30 room if you're in a big studio and that's with producer, engineer, other guys in your band assistant. And if there's someone in there that's making you uncomfortable or it's just a bad hang really or is making this session just bringing a cloud to the session five wise, that person's going to get let go. There are people that have, I know engineers that are good engineers who really ended up more as techs or editors or something else where they're not the one in the room just because they're not a good hang in the room. I'm may be derailing a little bit, but you're saying

Speaker 3 (00:20:43):

A

Speaker 5 (00:20:43):

Big part of this is just getting your foot in and showing up, but once you get your foot and show up, you also need, I mean a huge part of that's being a good hang. I've had bad assistants who were at least a good person to have in the room because they had a good energy or they were really great at dealing with the artist. Or if the drummer was insisting on coming by every day after he's done tracking and is just distracting things. I've had the assistants that'll jump on the grenade and just talk to the drummer about whatever bizarre chemtrail conspiracy theory he wants while everybody else is getting work done. And that's a massive help. It keeps that dude from derailing the session. It keeps that guy from talking to me while I'm trying to record a guitar part or something like that. Awesome. I've had bad assistants I'll rehire for that purpose.

Speaker 3 (00:21:29):

I know that exact scenario. I can think clearly of this. I mean it's happened many times, but it just comes clearly. This band I was working with about a year and a half ago, and they're well known, so I'm not going to say who it is, but Singer has some substance problems and when he gets high, he starts talking and when he starts talking, he doesn't stop talking. There's no starter stop really. It's more like a pause the conversation. It's like you could come in or out of the conversation at any point in time and it would still be the same thing. So the moment he gets going, if he's in the room, you will start hearing every single plan that the band has for the next two years along with exactly what you are supposed to do for the mix along with what you are doing right now along with whatever Alex Jones just talked about and how Obama's a reptile. And so actually I did have an assistant who when that would happen, he was an intern but bumped up to assistant after that, he would literally be like, Hey dude, do you want to go smoke? And they'd go out back and smoke some weed and he'd keep him away. It was great. That kind of stuff. That means that it takes that understanding of interpersonal relations to get through situations like that because

Speaker 4 (00:23:01):

Here's a good strategy for that. You got to have a good system and a collection of video games and a completely different room

Speaker 2 (00:23:07):

From the control room. That doesn't work for everyone. I've worked with Ask Alexandria, they don't give a shit about video games, but alright,

Speaker 4 (00:23:15):

They're unicorns then because you can always walk the band out there and then play 'em in a game and just kind of like, hold on, I'll be back in five minutes and then actually go get work done when they're engrossed in Halo.

Speaker 2 (00:23:24):

What I used to do is I'd always set up outings if I really needed to get some hardcore shit done, I'd set up one of the things I did, for example, this is a bad example, but whatever. I set up a field trip for the band to go check out Cell dweller studio and knowing that cell dweller lives two hours away from here, it would be at least four hours of driving, not counting how long the band would hang out at his place. So I dunno, that's something to think about too. And if you have, my girlfriend would help out too. She, she'd take them like, I dunno, bowling or take 'em to a restaurant.

Speaker 5 (00:24:04):

I guess with the upside of me being in LA is there's so much to do here and you can kind of send, you guys haven't been to the Rainbow yet, you have to go to the rainbow.

Speaker 2 (00:24:13):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:24:14):

Lemi might be there playing poker. You should go bother Lemi and get out of the studio or there's a strip club over there. You should go over there. That'll be great. I mean, one of the studios I like, it was great. There's a bar across the street where my friend bartended, so he'd be like, oh yeah, just go over there and she'll hook you up with some drinks. And it was a good way to buy some free time

Speaker 4 (00:24:35):

And diversionary tactics.

Speaker 3 (00:24:36):

So on the other hand though, let's talk about some the opposite so you can get bought into a situation with daddy's money or whatever and be an assistant and make Josh's life hell. Anyways, I don't know. I know that you were telling me a couple of interesting things that happened, like the piano micing story. Do you have any other ones you could share with us

Speaker 5 (00:25:09):

In regards to a bad assistant turning things around? I worked some label, I don't remember which one it was, has a demo studio in their offices, kind of their a and r offices. And so we book it or the band's manager books it to do vocals. It was really kind of this pop artist. And I emailed the assistant and I was like, Hey, what are my mic choices? What are the compressors? What can I bring? And the kid just emails back, you'll be using a U 87 through an Avalon to an 1176. And I was like, thanks. I was like, okay, is that just all that's available? And the kid sent back, he's like, yeah, yeah, that's all we have. I was like, okay, I guess that's better than you telling me what I'm using to show up. And it's some terrible situation where it's a Mackey big knob and speakers that are set to two different volumes through a mixture where they had a mixture before the big knob and the panning was off on that.

(00:26:02):

It was the most blatantly. I hit play on something and it felt like almost fell over to the left. It was such a left heavy thing. I kind of fixed all that and the kids were like, oh, I've never noticed that. And I was like, oh, that's not good. So amazing. We brought our whatever model 2 51 style mic we had and I was like, okay, if you can plug this up and I have this Neve style mic and I was like, well at least use your 1176 if you just plug that in. And I went to get a coffee and come back and the kid's looking at me and he's like, I think your mic pre is wired up wrong. He is trying to put the female end and the power jack because it was an XLR style connection.

Speaker 3 (00:26:43):

Oh no. I was

Speaker 5 (00:26:44):

Like, oh Jesus, this is going to be bad. So get that hooked up, get it in there. 1176. I go to adjust the input on it and it just crackles out and dies. And the kid's like, oh, no one's ever adjusted that before. Alright, cool, that's dead. So hook up my stressor. Same thing. He can't figure out how to go from a mic pre to a distress. So by the time the producer shows up who's a buddy of mine, I was like, I don't know about this assistant. I'm like, he's terrible. He doesn't know how to plug things in. And he's like, well just give him a shot anyway. And there were other couple things. They're starting to get really frustrated. The producer's like, obviously he pulled me aside. He's like, look, obviously this kid, because the kid engineered in that studio, he's like, obviously this kid's never had a real session.

(00:27:24):

So whatever. He's like, as long as he's cool and you've got stuff plugged in, let's just work through it. And that week that kid really made it a point to try to learn as much that he didn't know as possible. Hey, why are you doing that? Do you mind asking me this? And we brought some guitars and we're doing some programming and he hadn't really seen that. They mainly did pop and hip hop and that kid at the end of the week, he really made it a point to try to learn things. So by the end of the week I felt bad that I had been so short with him initially and I ran into him a month later at Guitar Center. I just buy some white cables or something and he was there getting a credit card and a UA Apollo, we had been using one.

(00:28:00):

He's like, I saw you guys using this and it sounded really good and I want to step up my production. So that kid, by the end of the week, he had started terrible and he still didn't know a lot, but he at least wanted to learn and that was good, but I don't know, I hope he doesn't listen to your podcast. I'm currently dealing with an assistant that's the exact opposite of that. We're this really nice studio with an SSL 4,000 G and all these crazy outboard mic pre and just gear. And we're about four months into the session and the other day we went to record guitar and I was like, Hey, what's the input for the combo amp again? And someone asked him directly, I knew the answer and he couldn't remember. And he told them the wrong input. And it's like, dude, you've been on this session for four months and you're paying so little attention and putting so little effort into getting better at your job that you can't even remember the input on a guitar mic that we use easily every other day at the least. So yeah, I'm just dealing with this kid right now that has no desire to learn, no desire to get better. And honestly, to a degree he's being kept around for comedic relief, which I realize is

Speaker 4 (00:29:05):

I hope he listens to this. Maybe it'll be the eye opener he needs.

Speaker 5 (00:29:10):

I don't think so because I've had multiple direct conversations with him and it's not happened. So

Speaker 4 (00:29:14):

Understandable. I've gone through that myself. It reminds me of this story. We were doing a drum forge session, and I'm not going to say in what city or where or whatever, but there was a particular assistant that we had rented out just for one day because we came in, they had a whole bunch of new gear and I had worked out of this studio a couple of times before and rented it. And we came in and I'm like, okay, one day just because there's a console in there I've never seen and the patch bay is all different, I just want to have somebody there so we don't screw this up and don't fry anything or whatever. And this guy knew nothing. I mean, I was like, dude, can you go set this up and can you molt this and do this so I can set this up and do that?

(00:29:53):

And he was just like, okay. And then he would go in there and I'd come in, he'd be sitting there on his phone and be like, so do you get that set up? And he was like, oh, I don't know how. And I'm like, what do you mean you don't know how you just plug in the patch bay and it's not hard to pull two patch cables out and Malta signal. I just want this one in parallel with that. Why is that so difficult? And he's like, well, I don't know what input that is. I'm like, how do you not know what input? Don't you work here? He's like, yeah, every day I'm like, you don't have an input sheet for the patch bay. You don't know how the patch bay's Like, nope, it's not my patch bay. And I'm like, dude, you work here. Come on.

Speaker 3 (00:30:24):

You know what though? There would be a really easy solution to that for him would be if he didn't know, he could just ask.

Speaker 4 (00:30:31):

Well, I tried calling the guy who actually owned this stuff and he wasn't available. So then I just figured it out in like 30 seconds.

Speaker 3 (00:30:38):

You did? I'm just saying that the assistant, if he had the type of, I guess the stuff it takes to actually turn this into something, all he would've had to do is ask you if he didn't understand something. Well,

Speaker 4 (00:30:51):

Of course, if he was a good assistant. For another example, we were setting up and tearing down mics. I'm like, Hey, can you help us set up or tear down or can you go set this mic up? And he'd be like, yeah. And then he wouldn't do it. And we were like, dude, what are you doing? Why am I paying you to sit there and basically know nothing, not know how to do anything? And just, it was weird, man. It was really irritating. I'm glad it wasn't very expensive. I

Speaker 3 (00:31:11):

Can tell you from my experience, when I started working with dudes who were better or bigger than me or both, I kind of got thrown into the deep end a lot and I just decided that I'm not going to be embarrassed if I don't know something. I'm just going to ask because if you just ask, unless the person's a complete cock and most people aren't, people are nice. And if you're working for them,

Speaker 5 (00:31:36):

Most people only partial cock.

Speaker 3 (00:31:38):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, it depends on how you interact with them. But most of the time if you honestly don't know something and you just ask, you'll get the answer and then it's over. Non incident, it's over. Everyone will forget about it as long as you actually paid attention to what they said and then you move on with life, just ask. Just don't be afraid to ask. It's so simple.

Speaker 5 (00:32:02):

I mean the system I'm talking about right now, we are in an expensive studio and we're doing a rock session in a place that usually does hip hop, so they don't normally have the level of gear we do, and they're not used to model amps and stuff like that. And this is the second record we've done at the studio and the first time we did it, our assistant really didn't know that much about making a rock record, but he really jumped in and he figured out some ways to do things to prove workflow and just really, really stepped it up and it's just not happened with a new guy. And I even kind of gave the guy a chat. I mean it's Lincoln Park is the band I'm working with again. And I even pulled him aside because working with them as an assistant was kind of the way that I got into just freelancing full time.

(00:32:44):

And I told the kid, Hey, don't drop the ball on this. Being a good assistant with these guys is what got my career going. And there's just nothing that's being taken to heart. And the other thing that's crazy is the other engineer on the session has done other sessions at the studio doing full band tracking and the assistants weren't knowledgeable, but he had a kid that I think they wanted to do four mics on a kit, just kick snare some overheads. And he was like, oh, patch into those outboard needs and then into pro tools. And he went out to get a coffee, came back and the kid, it took the kid like half an hour to do this and the kid ended up patching directly from the mic panels to the pro tools inputs because he didn't even know how to go into the mic breeze. Oh my God, that's the other engineers fear in firing our assistant that will get someone worse. That'll just do that. But I know lots of guys

Speaker 3 (00:33:35):

Who would take that job in a heartbeat who know what to do. But anyway, sorry,

Speaker 5 (00:33:39):

Go on. Oh no. Just my point being our old assistant didn't know how to do stuff and he no longer works there and he would just ask and we would tell him and things were great and then the new guy doesn't know how to do stuff. It just doesn't seem to care. And I am totally fine with working with someone that doesn't know everything. I would like them to know as long as they're putting in the effort to learn. And honestly, I'm sure that goes for every profession. You'd rather deal with someone that's maybe not knowledgeable but driven versus someone that's just indifferent. Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:34:07):

A lot of the guys who we've had on here, a lot of my producer friends when they're hiring an assistant or they're getting an intern with the idea of eventually making them an assistant, a lot of the times they're looking for someone who might have very, very basic skills so that they can train them. So they're looking for someone who needs to learn. So it's not a bad thing. And I'm also kind harping on this for our listeners who are in the Private Producers club on Facebook or in our group chats, for anyone who's not in that, if you're a subscriber, you should be, but some people are afraid to ask some very basic questions. And we have a no assholes taller policy. So in some forums if you ask a basic question, you're going to get railed, but not in our world. In our world, that's not allowed.

(00:34:56):

You can ask anything you want, and I know there's a bunch of people afraid to do that. They're afraid that people are going to jump on them if they don't know what the difference is between High Z is in line input, something like that. And I just encourage people, if you don't know that, it's better to just ask so that you can learn and never have to worry about it again so that you don't get into a situation where you're somehow working for Josh Newell and that comes up. You know what I'm saying? Just ask. People will appreciate that. It's really not that big of a deal. But I've noticed that the guys who I've had interned under me who don't ask, they're just kind of afraid to piss me off or to look stupid, don't last. But my guy, John Douglas, who I've been working with for years and years now, he never asks because he's amazing. But when I first started working with him, he already knew some stuff, but if he ever didn't know anything, he would just ask me how to do it. I'd tell him and then done. Or if he messed something up, I would tell him and then he would be like, okay, he'd find out how to fix it. Done never came up again. Boom.

Speaker 4 (00:36:07):

Well, here's the thing from the mentor side, so you are the one that has the assistant. You want your assistant asking you a lot of questions and you want to see that eagerness and it's just like it's a no brainer. I love every time an assistant asks me a good question or whatever, I'll sit there and I'll answer it 20 different ways. I enjoy the interaction because I know that the person cares and they're listening very carefully to what I say, and that's how they become a great assistant in the first place.

Speaker 5 (00:36:33):

You have to ask questions. If every time an engineer came through the studio and they used a specific piece of gear, you're not going to become a better engineer by going, oh, Joe Chiarelli uses an API, so I have to use an API and that's going to be the secret to making drum sound better. No, you need to ask why are you using that? Obviously do this within learn to read the situation when you can and not and can't ask questions based on the time crunch. But if it comes up, go, Hey, why do you like that? Why do you positioning that that way? Why do you set that eq? I've noticed, and by the way, congratulations on a year into this. I try to interact on the Facebook page every now and then, but it's good that you guys have set up kind of that safe place to answer questions and it seems like answers get sussed out a little better. I noticed on a lot of other forums, if I go looking for information, there'll be a lot of misinformation. But you need to ask us.

Speaker 3 (00:37:27):

We crack down on that too, by the way.

Speaker 5 (00:37:30):

No, I've noticed. But it's good to dispel the myth that buying any one piece of gear or using any one piece of equipment, no matter what you read about on Gear Sluts or not to pick on Gear Sluts, but just any or Pesto's place, any of those forums or just because you saw one of us using it, one of you guys uses it, or just because it's a Chris Lord algae 1176, there's never going to be that one thing that makes things magical. I was telling somebody recently, someone was talking about needing a faster computer, and I need this, and I've known Jay Rustin for years. That dude does amazing work, and I think he only upgraded from Pro Tools eight off of G five, maybe a year and a half ago he was. And I've seen that dude do amazing work with just the Bomb Factory 1176 and the EQ seven and Pro Tools, what comes in the box.

(00:38:27):

So there you go, kids, if you want your mixes to sound amazing, use the EQ seven and the bomb factor 1176, but exclusively Arch, just hire Jay Rus than tickets or go buy Pro Tools eight because it has that sweet vintage digital sound. You know what I mean? That's not what's important to that guy's good at what he's doing. Same thing with a dude like Andy Wallace. I remember reading an interview with him years ago where he was just like, I work on what's available. I do have things that I prefer, but I just work on what's available.

Speaker 4 (00:38:54):

Yeah, it's about solving problems. It's not about a solution. And this is something we harp on and we see a lot on Nail the mix is we will say we did something or used something and then all of a sudden everybody will take that literally and be like, oh yeah, I got to go get this. I got to go get this. And it's like, well, it's not about having that specific tool, it's about the reason I tried to solve that problem when I mixed that song and what I was trying to get out of that tool. There's a million different ways of approaching any problem that was just one particular solution used that day in that song, in that context, in that mix. So it's about problems and solving problems, not one bullet answers that are going to magically dissipate everything else.

Speaker 5 (00:39:34):

So you're saying you're getting a bunch of messages from kids going, I put L one on everything and it doesn't sound right.

Speaker 4 (00:39:39):

Yes, and I mean L one is great. There's a very specific reason I use it, but I mean you can use anything. I mean hell cubase, stock limiter, finality anything, literally anything.

Speaker 3 (00:39:51):

The thing about it, and this is why it doesn't piss me off, and I feel like as long as we're doing this, which looks like it's going to be for a while, it's just going to keep coming up. And I think because we're fighting a human nature thing, from what I understand, the brain wants to be able to categorize and classify things and interpret things literally like this is what causes this. That's how people like to think. So that's what they're looking for with audio. And so you almost have to kind of break your natural inclination to look for the definitive solution by this plus this equals this, Joel uses L one for this. That's the solution.

Speaker 4 (00:40:34):

You don't know why you really use L one. I'll tell you why. And this is going to sound completely not what you would think it is. And I think there's a lesson to be said here because you have to look at things sometimes from the sides and not head on. And the obvious, I use L one because I have so many damn plugins I've bought and installed on my computer and there's too many menus and I like to keep them all because sometimes I need them, but I know where L one is in the list and I can quickly and easily find it. And some of my other plugins I can't. So I like the stock ones and the wave ones because they're very easy for me to find. And sometimes I want to find a specific plugin and I sit there staring at the menu for a minute and a half and I'm like, oh yeah, it's under this and this and this and this and this, and there it is.

Speaker 5 (00:41:13):

There you go guys. Real

Speaker 4 (00:41:14):

Reason. That probably sounds stupid, but it's fast and easy for me. In my world, speed is everything.

Speaker 5 (00:41:19):

No, there are plugins that I'll default to that for that same reason where they are. For you Pro Tools users out there, I highly suggest there's an option and preferences to sort your plugins by type and manufacturer. That's really handy. And I recently learned this on accident, I think it's if you command, yeah, if you command click on a plugin as you're opening it, it'll put it in a default menu at the top. So my edit rig, I have melodi, autotune, all that stuff. As soon as I go to plugins, they'll actually pop up by themselves before it even lists EQ, compression, all that stuff. I didn't know that was an option and I accidentally found it.

Speaker 3 (00:41:54):

Wow, what a great option. So wait, so you command click on the plugin?

Speaker 5 (00:41:58):

Yeah, you'd go to pick meine, but hold command as you're clicking it and it'll throw it in the top of the menu. I'm pretty sure it's command.

Speaker 3 (00:42:05):

So your favorites list, that's awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:42:07):

Yeah, it actually gives you a favorites list. So my edit rig has my favorites there. My mixed rig has my mixed favorite.

Speaker 3 (00:42:15):

Okay, so real quick on this topic, that's amazing. I have heard, and I don't know, maybe you do, I have heard that there is a way in pro tools to load a template, not load a template, but to load in a mixer setting to where the plugins that you want will just be there. And I don't mean by opening a template or loading session data. I've heard that there's a command within Pro Tools or a list that you can click it off of something that will give you all the basic plugs you want to start with already on the mixer. Have you heard of anything like this?

Speaker 5 (00:42:54):

Isn't it? I mean, you save it as a template to create a new session and you have all the tracks and all the plugins will be there.

Speaker 3 (00:43:01):

Yes, yes. Yeah, but I mean I heard that there's a real simple, like a key command

Speaker 5 (00:43:09):

For that. Oh, that I don't know. I've always done the template thing. So

Speaker 3 (00:43:12):

Alright, so then yeah, it's probably just a chemtrails and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:43:17):

If you're a Cubase user and you're not quite on the 64 bit train or the VST three train, you can actually create your own menu structure in the VST folder just by taking the DLL files and putting them in different folders. So I've done that on my rig. I still use cubase 32 bit on 64 bit windows and I use VST two plugins and you just move the DLL files around into different folders. You can name the folders, whatever you want, and when you open cubase next time it'll appear that way in your menu.

Speaker 4 (00:43:50):

You know what they have now is they have plugin searching, so you can just type L one and it takes you right to the plugin and Cubase seven and higher. It's really fast,

Speaker 2 (00:43:59):

But I dunno, I don't lifting my hand off the mouse and having to type, but that's me.

Speaker 3 (00:44:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:44:05):

Well

Speaker 3 (00:44:05):

So Josh, this for me and you because me and you are the Pro tools guys. Now that I, I'm just wondering, I mean I didn't start on Pro Tools, I learned Pro Tools because I had to for work. There was no way around it. I mean I feel like everybody who's professional should have a working knowledge of Pro Tools because if you ever travel around and work at different studios, there's a high percentage of likelihood that you're going to counter Pro Tools. Alright, so that out of the way, I really kind of cubase better. Do you work in Pro Tools, you love it or just because it's like you're in LA makes sense.

Speaker 5 (00:44:49):

I mainly I'm like you. I didn't learn in Pro Tools. I actually had a really basic, I came across the notebook from it. I had a really basic pro tools class in college and I found my notebook when I moved into my new place and it was really funny to read, this is how you open a session and this is how you save a session. And the audio files are called, well they're clips now, but Regions. But when I started, especially when I got to NRG, their thing at the time was the entire studio was set up on an internal network so you could just access your drive in any room and everything was Pro Tools and it was like, oh, I better learn how to do this. So I learned Pro Tools what we used there, and every once in a while you'd have a session that would come in that would maybe use reason or something like that in a rewire situation. But I basically use Pro Tools. I find GarageBand frustrating because the Quick Keys don't do it. They're supposed to. I know all these people like, oh, GarageBand's amazing. I think at this point, and this is,

Speaker 3 (00:45:41):

You actually met someone who said that, wow, LA really is a weird place.

Speaker 5 (00:45:45):

Well, to be fair, it was a producer that was doing songwriting stuff on his iPad and laptop when flying

Speaker 3 (00:45:49):

Too. Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 5 (00:45:52):

Yeah. But that being said, I do know people are like, oh yeah, I work in garage band, man, it's awesome. You should use that. It's like, well I'm good Cub, no Cubase. I've heard a lot of good things about and I've meant to mess with it. The thing is, I just don't, aside from Ableton gets a little bit of use on a lot, some of the clients I'm working with now and I've been kind of working my way through that approach. Tools is just such a universal platform for the people I work with that that's all I work in. Just kind of out of the necessity of it. I mean right now I'm just kind of exclusively a Pro Tools editor on this session. Well, not exclusively, but that's my main reason for hire is I'm the dude doing all the editing and Pro tools because everything we're doing is in Pro Tools. So it's really more that I've not really looked into finding another dog just because there's never been a necessity for it that's come up. I've not ended up at a studio here where someone needed something that wasn't in Pro Tools and I've not ended up, even guys that track stuff in Logic, they just consolidate to Wave Files and send it over to the Pro Tools users. So

Speaker 3 (00:46:48):

I yearn for the day that cubase becomes the defacto standard. I really do.

Speaker 5 (00:46:56):

My current hope is that UA actually buys Pro Tools because apparently a lot of the guys that are programming at UA now are the original guys at AVID that kind of figured a lot of that stuff out. And that's been part of AVID's. This is all third party from people I've talked to. Avid lost a lot of the original guys and that's why some of the things have never been improved because the guy that figured out Beat Detective doesn't work there anymore. The guys that are there now don't really know how to Recode beat Detective. So Beat Detective's just going to be like, it's again, that's kind of hearsay, but

Speaker 3 (00:47:29):

That's interesting because just like how the public likes to make up stories, A lot of people think that Avid wanted to get rid of BEAT detected the Evil Empire, but it's probably just what you said, the guy that made it is gone. They don't know how to do it.

Speaker 5 (00:47:45):

And I'm sure implementing it into the 64 bit system is tricky. Also, the big part of AVID's business, even here in LA with a number of studios, I have a friend that works at a really big avid seller here. The bulk of their business is NBC and Disney and Warner Brothers and these scoring stages. And the people that do, I've got friends that they make a living mixing commercials for FX and A B, C, and there are 30 to 40 dudes just mixing all those spots you see every week, like this week on Modern Family Wednesday nights, blah, those companies are buying 60 to 70 HDX systems. So AVID's really not as worried about the music dudes anymore as they are selling to the post-production people who don't need beat detectives.

Speaker 3 (00:48:33):

Yeah, I guess I understand from business perspective, that's amazing. Well, and then again, hence why I yearn for the day when cubase becomes the thing or if UA buys Pro tools out, that would be great too. UA is a fantastic company.

Speaker 5 (00:48:49):

I agree. I will wholehearted, if anyone at UA is listening, I would very happily pimp my name out for free UA stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:48:57):

Yeah, if you guys are listening, please do buy Pro Tools so that I don't have to eventually switch

Speaker 4 (00:49:06):

Just for that reason.

Speaker 3 (00:49:07):

Yeah, I mean I know it's a small investment for them, whatever,

Speaker 4 (00:49:14):

Multimillion dollar acquisition because they all said so

Speaker 3 (00:49:17):

It's just pro tools. Nothing small right there. So another question though about the assistant situation. One thing that you never said, so the guy that was really good who you were talking about, the polar opposite of what you're dealing with now, who doesn't work there anymore? Is he still working?

Speaker 5 (00:49:37):

Yeah, he ended, I mean the reason he ended up, he kind of hit the glass ceiling where he was at and then he's still working. I mean we still talk to him and actually have hired him for other outside projects. The reason he kind of got out of it too is he ended up having some medical situations. So it really wasn't like him being

Speaker 3 (00:49:58):

A poor system.

Speaker 5 (00:49:59):

He is still working, but he's kind of having to get through some medical stuff. So it's like a yes no. Yes, he's working, no, not as much as you would think, but it's not really, it's by no fault of his abilities as an assistant.

Speaker 3 (00:50:11):

Okay, fair enough. Okay. But with the guy you guys have in there now, first of all, do you have any more awesome stories? And second of all, is it really for comedic relief that is still there? I mean, I believe it, but because I've been in a situation like that before where there was about six years ago I was working on a record and there was an assistant involved who just was so clumsy and so just idiotic that people just wanted to keep him around for comedy. It sounds mean, but it's true. But then he never really worked past that. Do you guys really keep it around for that reason?

Speaker 5 (00:50:50):

I think at this point it's joking about keeping him around for comedic relief. I ultimately don't get to make the final call on him being fired because there's another engineer involved and a producer, and like I said, the other engineers had other bad experiences at the studio, so he's kind of the opinion. He doesn't know who we're going to get better there, which is an appalling thing to say at a professional studio that there's a bunch of assistants running around that aren't up to par for what we're doing.

Speaker 4 (00:51:15):

Any podcast subscriber want a job? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (00:51:18):

Yeah. And Josh, no. We are having a conversation with the studio manager on Monday basically saying, this guy really isn't working and the studio doesn't pay their assistance as much as other ones should or as other ones do. So I guess part of it's their fault that they're not really going to get the top level guys, but we are going to have a sit down meeting with the studio manager and basically say, you guys need to hire somebody that's capable of working with us. I know they've done that before with other studios where they felt like their assistant wasn't up to par, that they've hired out. So honestly, I would've fired the guy a long time ago, and I really try to be forgiving as much as that story of me earlier being cranky about the assistant not knowing how to plug in a mic pre. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and wait until they really mess something up that was really more of a warning sign type of situation. So if I had my choice, he would be fired. He's been around for a while, so I think everybody's kind of comfortable with him, which is a big thing with the artist, but I think it's gotten over that hump and we're trying to solve the problem basically. We don't feel anybody else. There's qualified enough to step in, so we need to figure that out.

Speaker 3 (00:52:22):

That is so fascinating to me. And the reason I'm coming back to this is not because I want to talk shit or anything, I find this to be fascinating, number one, and I'll explain why in a second. And also this should be inspiring to our listeners because number one, it's fascinating that how in a city like LA are you guys, or not you, but are people worried that the next guy coming in is going to be terrible? How is, is it at the point where that is even a concern, right? It shouldn't be that way. It should be like, alright, this guy sucks. We're in la, let's get someone else. And you would imagine that there would be young guys who are actually motivated who would understand that coming in, they kind of have to take low pay and work their way up. That's what you would think, but apparently not always the case. And that should be inspiring to our listeners that if you do what we're talking about with the networking and do your shit and get good and put yourself in the right spot, these types of openings happen. These types of things happen all the time. You network properly and make sure that people know that you're decent and you're willing to bite the bullet and take less than ideal pay. At first, there are spots opening because people do suck.

Speaker 5 (00:53:47):

I mean, I have guys that I really like at other studios. I work at NRG a lot just where I came up and the studio manager and I work there together. And if I get a session in that has low budget or NRG is hooking me up with a deal just to do drums, I'll take one of their runners as my assistant and kind of walk them through how we're doing the session. And it's just my trade off for working there is like, oh, you guys give me a discount rate, have a runner instead of assistant, and I'll give the runner the lowdown on how things work. Just I know how things work there. I worked there for so long and I've had runners there who would be great assistants and I would hire 'em in a heartbeat if I felt like the studio was going to take care of 'em.

(00:54:27):

So part of the problem I think in that situation is that the studio's not taking care of their assistants quite the way they should so that the good assistants aren't staying. But yeah, I mean if you're good at your job, you're going to get referred at some point, or if it's that thing, make a good impression, you just get referred for gigs. It's really, I mean, yeah, there's that whatever 90% of success is showing up and we talked about being a good hang in the room and cool, but the other 10% is when you're asked to do something like don't screw it up. And people will remember that and that's how you're going to get suggested. And I do feel like, yeah, when you start out in the music industry, you're going to make crap money. That's how it is. I lived for years sharing a bedroom with somebody because we were making minimum wages, studio runners and LA's really expensive, and it's really, really expensive now.

(00:55:15):

It was cheaper then than it is now, but I was making eight bucks an hour trying to pay off student loans and going to get food for the blimp biz. And that was just, alright, you're going to have to slug it out this way for a few years until you get somewhere and have your own room in your apartment. That's just kind of how it is. If you want, you want make it in one the bigger cities, you're going to have to suck it up for a while. It's not all glamor and I don't know, there's just the people that want to make it, make it, and they still do it in la, they'll come out here and they'll work. And I know a lot of the guys here probably don't like that band black though brides, but those guitarists are really good. And they played in a ton of bands. Jinx. One of the guys was, I mean, there's a series of bands in LA everybody jokes that you have to go through to get somewhere in la. He was an Amen and all these other bands, and I know he slept in a closet. He literally lived in someone's closet for a while just because he wanted to make it. And you got to put in the work, you got to hustle. And especially if you move somewhere expensive here, it's just going to suck. You're not going to make money and it's going to be rough.

Speaker 3 (00:56:19):

But you just got to realize too, that positions will open up so people know you on the Let's check this guy out list. If people know you and like you,

Speaker 5 (00:56:29):

That is,

Speaker 3 (00:56:30):

And there will be no shortage of openings if you get on that list because a lot of people are just clueless at how to get audio done. It blows my mind some of the stories I've heard out of la, not just from you, of people who are working who don't know what they're doing at all. So let that be a little inspiration for people who don't know how they're going to make anything happen. If you've got some skills, put yourself out there and start making some friends and bite the bullet for a few years.

Speaker 5 (00:57:03):

Getting into, and I'm sure you guys all went through this too, your first years getting into it, it's just not really that profitable. Nope.

Speaker 4 (00:57:12):

It's not glorious at all, but it's definitely worth it.

Speaker 5 (00:57:14):

Actually, this reminds me, I was talking to Josh. Wilbur was telling me we were working on something just shooting the shit, and he just moved to LA from New York and somehow the conversation came up about where did you start out? How did you work your way up? And he was telling me he knew a guy, he was a friend of a friend who was maybe late twenties, early thirties, and was like, yo, I always thought about getting into music production. Do you think I could make it? And I see how well you're doing. And he had a wife and a kid too. So I kind of understand his concern in asking all this, but Josh told me that he finally told the guy, he's like, you shouldn't get into music. The guy was really why? And Josh was like, because you're having this conversation with me because you want me to tell you that everything's going to be okay and that you're going to be fine and you'll be successful and you'll figure something out.

(00:58:03):

He's like, and I'm not saying that you won't do that, but he's like, when I got into music, I was just going to make it no matter what. You couldn't have told me that I wasn't going to make it. It wasn't my concern that I wasn't. It was. He's like, you want me to tell you that it's okay? And when I got into it, he's like, my drive was, you weren't going to tell me that I couldn't do it. So that was kind of his thing. You have to go into it with that attitude. And I mean, even going into it with that attitude, I can't promise that you're going to be successful because there is still a degree of luck with things, but I thought that was a really valid point. You kind of have to just jump in with both feet. You can't really tiptoe. Well, I guess you can kind of tiptoe in. Don't jump in with both feet. If you dunno what you're doing, it'd be like, oh, I spent all of my money buying the studio and I have no idea. And I'll figure it out from there. But yeah, responsibly jump in, I guess. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:58:48):

Yeah, commit to it for years and be ready to take lower pay. Don't get a hundred thousand dollars the gear if you don't know what you're doing.

Speaker 5 (00:58:56):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:58:57):

Yeah. Obviously got to be intelligent. I think that's a great quote from Josh. Yeah. If someone is asking that, they probably don't need to get in. I've noticed a lot of times when people ask questions like that, they're not looking for the truth. They're looking for reassurance.

Speaker 5 (00:59:14):

I mean, are you guys getting that a lot through the podcast since you three are obviously very successful in what you're doing and you're interacting with a lot of people that want to get into it. I mean, I don't see it, and I think there's an irresponsibility with some of the recording programs out here where they're advertising because they want people to come to their class, their advertising is make platinum records. They work in these studios be famous and they don't really do an accurate job of showing you what you're getting into. But do you guys

Speaker 3 (00:59:43):

Get a lot of, I feel like that's really scammy

Speaker 5 (00:59:46):

Actually. Oh, that's how that works. That's what you guys should be doing.

Speaker 3 (00:59:49):

No, if anything mean, and Joel has said this the most, if anything, we try to tell people to aim for first dominating a local market and worry about making a living, making a platinum record, stuff like that. That's such outlier stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):

Well, there's a lot of people that don't think about the merits of that ad. Right? Let's break down the ad and think about it for a second. If somebody's promising you to be famous, they're essentially saying that only they're trying to promise a lottery that has too many winners. It's not possible. I mean, there's only be a few people that go through that whole funnel that end out on the other end being the top dog. So look at the ad and be like, no, you can see right through that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):

Yeah, that might be true for one or two guys a year, but yeah, exactly. So we definitely don't try to push very much against that and just try to help people understand that there will always be guys who get famous at this or do a platinum record. Yeah. And most of the time they're fucking awesome at what they do, but there's a luck factor and a timing factor that is completely outside of your control, working with an artist at just the right time when the collective consciousness is ready for what that artist has to say and it resonates and you start a movement or whatever, that kind of stuff that's not in your control.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):

Well, here's the thing, you can make a ton of money and have a great career just doing even local bands. The guy that works across the hall from me, Eric, he makes a lot of money. He's always booked. He loves what he does. He's his own boss, he works in his own terms. He's doing fantastic. And he only does local bands, mostly local rock bar style bands and things like that. And he just loves what he does and he's great at it and he's living his dream.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):

So we try to steer people towards more realistic directions and not necessarily to say the only thing that you could possibly do in your life is record local bands. It's not that. It's just the get your head out of the clouds about platinum records, get your head out of the clouds about being the next this guy or the next that guy. What you should do is focus on getting really good networking, delivering value to your clients, and building a career little by little

Speaker 4 (01:02:19):

And enjoying it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):

Yes, exactly. And enjoying it. And yeah, of course, we definitely do get some guys, like Josh was asking, who are looking for that. I think at the end of the day, everyone hopes for that. The same way that people buy the lottery tickets, even if they know they're not going to win, even when the lottery gets high enough, I'll buy a ticket because fuck it, why not? Someone's going to win? When it got to 1.5 billion a few months ago, I bought it because why not? Right? Why not? But we try to definitely steer people away from that kind of thinking, and if we hear it from people, we try to set them straight on it because it's better for them. They're in for a big disappointment if they think they're going to be stars. That's not to say that that won't happen. I'm sure that out of all of our subscribers, there might be a few people who become the next somebody, but that's not something that you should count on. That's not the kind of thing that you can plan a career on. That's the bonus.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):

Yeah. I'm not saying this to disparage anyone from wine to make big records either or. No, of course not to complain about some of the stuff I've been fortunate enough to work on, but to a degree, what you were talking about with the guy across the hall, that to me actually sounds really awesome. And for the people that are aspiring to get into this, as you work your way up, and I'm sure you guys know this as you work your way up in dealing with bands that are more successful and more popular, there comes a whole lot of extra outside. I don't know of a better word for it other than bullshit is not actually, that would've probably been better. That is not involved with really the creative process of making a record. If you're just doing local bands, you're not dealing with a R.

(01:04:05):

Guys coming in, I don't hear a single or I think this should be louder. I mean, when you get an artist on a multi-platinum level, three or four albums into their career, or you're working on the album after the album that tanked. There's weird situations like that where you're dealing with outside dresses that don't even involve making a record, and it's not fun, and it's not what you got in the business to do. You're sitting through marketing meetings and having to play stuff for label people. And I'm not complaining about ever having to do any of that. It just comes with the territory. But I think it can kind of get romanticized making these giant platinum records too. And I think last time I was on, we even talked about this too, a lot of people under the impression like, oh, when you're making this huge record and you have this huge studio, some artist and money's no issue. You have all this time to get great sounds and this, that and the other. And sometimes you don't because that artist has so many meetings to go to during a day to promote everything else they're doing. So to a degree, if you're just working with, if you're able to make a living, just working with guys that just want to make music and have good recordings of it, that's a great career. That's a perfectly viable thing,

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):

And it's totally possible to do that.

Speaker 5 (01:05:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):

Yeah. Like I said, Eric has a ton of fun doing it. He just loves what he does, and he's totally content with it.

Speaker 5 (01:05:24):

I know you guys play too. I don't really play in bands anymore just because I'm busy doing what I'm doing, but I kind of have a rule now that I won't play with the band if the band has aspirations of unquote making it. Not to deter anyone from doing that, but for me, I realized at a point where especially music being my business and it also being a hobby when I play music, I don't want to have to think about any of that. I just want to play music and have fun, and it's incredibly rewarding. And because there's none of that outside, oh, we need to flyer this and we need to promote this, and we need to get a manager and we need to get this demo together and we have to present this. And it's the same thing on a microcosm dealing with making records is there's going to be a lot of stuff like that that comes in, especially as the artists get bigger and you're dealing with appeasing the a and r guy or helping write songs.

(01:06:11):

So not to say that's all bad, but just to say, I guess just to reiterate, if you are operating on a level like your neighbor there where I'm having fun and yeah, I am not working on bands that everybody knows. I mean, that's the thing. A big part, I think everybody's discography is bands that other people don't know about because making it in a band or having a record go big, it is all one giant lottery. You can make a perfectly good living working on stuff. I mean, there were so many bands that came through NRG that just never went anywhere that had a ton of backing and were rad dudes and people made really great records and are really proud of it that just people made a really good living doing it and it never blew up. But it doesn't mean you're unsuccessful in making a record for living.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):

Well, exactly. Because again, there's that whole timing and luck factor. There's a whole side of it that's outside of your control, whereas just creating sustainable career is not. So yeah, we try to dispel that as much as we possibly can. But I think we are out of time and thank you,

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):

Josh. Super awesome having you back again.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):

Yeah, thanks for having me back on. It's always good talking to you guys. Yeah. Couldn't think of a cooler person to have on for one year anniversary, so thanks for coming on.

Speaker 5 (01:07:28):

No problem. When are you guys back through la, by the way? Because I realized I missed you all at Nam, although I saw AOL for a little bit one evening. I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):

That's a good question. Maybe next, Nam.

Speaker 5 (01:07:38):

All right. I'll probably still be here, I'm sure at some point. Yeah. All right. I just realized after the fact that I was like, oh, everybody was in town really should have made it a point. Although I was out of town most that weekend, so

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):

You know how it goes with Nam. It's impossible.

Speaker 5 (01:07:51):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):

Alright, man. Well thank you again for coming on and congrats to you guys, Joe and Joel for sticking this out for a year.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):

Yeah, congrats to you as well, man. If you're listening to this episode and you've heard the first one, hopefully you've noticed a growth in your progress from listening to the show and interacting with us and all the different things that we do. If you're looking for faster growth, you should sign up for Nail the Mix. If you're not already a member, check out nail the mix.com and become a better mixer.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):

And that's the truth.

Speaker 5 (01:08:23):

I'll back nail the mix. I was telling Al I don't enter mine to compete, but I'll download all your stuff and just mess with it just to get more practicing on mixing. I think it's a really cool thing you guys are doing. Boom, thank you. I'm glad to hear that

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Line six. Line six is a musical instruments manufacturing company that specializes in guitar, amp and effects modeling and makes guitars, amps, effects, pedals and multi effects. We introduced the world's first digital modeling amp and we're behind the groundbreaking pod multi effect, which revolutionized the industry with an easy way to record guitar with great tone. Line six will always take dramatic leaps so you can reach new heights with your music. Go to www.linesix.com to find out more about line six. To get in touch with the RM podcast, visit urm.com podcast and subscribe today.