ADAM “NOLLY” GETGOOD: Periphery Bass Secrets, The Source Tone Philosophy, and Mixing in Bad Rooms

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Apex High Quality analog gear for the recording studio. For over 40 years, the patented Apex Exciter Circuit has been audio engineers, secret weapon for signal enhancement, adding depth and punch to the lows, and clarity and sparkle to the highs. Visit apex.com for more information. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

(00:00:25):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi with me as my co-host, Mr. Joel Wanasek. Joey Sturgis is on vacation on a trip, so we wish him fun on the yacht and Godspeed and we hope to have him back soon. With us is a super special guest that we're very excited about and we know that you guys listening are very excited about this. We've got Nolly from periphery and get good drums. How are you doing, Nolly?

Speaker 3 (00:00:57):

I'm very good, thank you. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 2 (00:00:59):

Very well.

Speaker 3 (00:00:59):

Fantastic.

Speaker 2 (00:01:00):

Yeah, happy to be here. For those of you who might not be familiar with Nolly, he's an active member of the band Periphery. He plays bass and he's their producer, though no longer touring with them, which I want to talk about some more because your production career has kind of taken off, which is really, really cool. He's worked with bands like of course, periphery Animals as Leaders. Good Tiger. The Devon Townsend Project and is all in all just a prolific dude and the kind of person we like to talk to. So welcome. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:01:34):

Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:01:35):

And let's do this thing. So first things first, we have a lot of people from the Ultimate Metal Forum that come on this podcast and we actually spoke to Irman two nights ago, your mastering guy, and he's also from there. He told me that that's where he met you.

Speaker 3 (00:01:54):

Yeah, totally. I guess you mean like the Andy Sleep Forum on the sub forum?

Speaker 2 (00:01:58):

Yes, the Andy Sneak Ultimate Mental.

Speaker 3 (00:02:00):

Yeah, man, that place was a hotbed. I guess I kind of got in there a tiny bit later, like Iman was there from the beginning really. And he was always way senior than I was. I kind of probably be kind of embarrassed actually if I went back and found all my post history of the terrible sound clips I used to post on there. But it was very really, please don't do it. I'm going to go and delete them before this podcast air. They will find

Speaker 2 (00:02:25):

Them too. Oh

Speaker 3 (00:02:26):

God, they are. I shouldn't have said anything, but it's okay. But yeah, a whole load of really great engineers. I mean, Ola England was from there. There's a bunch of guys doing really amazing work and of course Andy himself used to post quite frequently and Andy was kind of a hero to all of us and still is.

Speaker 2 (00:02:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:02:46):

Of course. So that place, I learned so much from there. Before that I was hanging around on guitar forums like seven stringing.org, which is still is an amazing place. And again, kind of had its heyday a little while ago, but going from the recording section there to this forum, which was just full of metal dudes recording really amazing sounding stuff, was something that really kicked my production into the next gear. And I met some really great people. Also a chap called Jeff Dunn who does a lot of editing work and there's an all around standup guys.

Speaker 2 (00:03:18):

I know that the three of us came from there. I'm from there, Joel's from there, Joe is from there. It's crazy how many guys that are active in the scene right now

Speaker 3 (00:03:29):

To

Speaker 2 (00:03:29):

Some degree come from that forum. Totally.

Speaker 3 (00:03:32):

Also, Aaron Smith, I just remembered Aaron Smith from Seven Horn, seven Eyes. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:03:37):

I only have one post. Oh really? Yeah, but I lurked. I mean I read every day and I just figured before I would post and run off with my mouth, I'd actually learn how to mix properly

Speaker 3 (00:03:49):

And

Speaker 4 (00:03:49):

Get good and then be like, alright, now rip it to shit.

Speaker 3 (00:03:52):

Cool. I mean, yeah, I guess I was active, but I was never a heavy poster. I think in general that's how I am with forums. I still spend a stupid amount of time just clicking onto a forum and then clicking straight off it again or just reading a few things, but I don't really post on any forums anymore. I think Facebook's kind of taken over really now, hasn't it? All little groups on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (00:04:14):

It absolutely has. And people have mixed reviews on how they feel about it because for instance, on the Facebook groups, you can't search very easily. And that's kind of annoying though for anyone listening. If you want to make your Facebook group more searchable, start using hashtags because hashtags are searchable. So if you want to write about drum editing, write a question about drum editing and then hashtag drum editing and then you'll be able to always search that. Just a pro tip for everyone. But I think that the thing that's happened is that people being habitual, they live on Facebook and since the groups are on Facebook, it just makes sense that they would take off. And so I think that forums like the old school forums to a lot of people now seem like an antiquated thing, like MySpace or something.

Speaker 3 (00:05:11):

I mean even just to go to lots of those big forums, there's nothing going on there anymore, just a few people posting. So it's definitely happened and I mean I hang out in a couple of Facebook groups and I can totally see why that's way more, way better and also way more life invading, I'll say. When you see a birthday notification next to some dude discussing attack times on a compressor, it becomes your whole life.

Speaker 2 (00:05:34):

Yeah, it's true. So speaking of your life, so what got you started in music, but more specifically, what got you started in wearing multiple hats in music? Because you're very accomplished in a few different disciplines. You're a guitarist, bassist engineer.

Speaker 3 (00:05:57):

Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 2 (00:06:00):

Any one of those could consume your entire life.

Speaker 3 (00:06:02):

Totally, totally. And I will say it's not like all of those are really happening at the same time. I think at the moment I'm in a phase where I'm really just kind of focusing on producing and engineering. Obviously I can still play guitar and play bass and everything, but I'm not really pushing myself in those areas. But anyway, yeah, to answer the question, I guess, yeah, my dad was my inspiration musically. He was a piano and organ player. He's still alive, but he doesn't play so much anymore, piano and organ and I just wanted to be like him. He listened to a lot of classical music and I was really taken by the really powerful classical music stuff like the Beethoven, the Tchaikovsky stuff, which has cannons going off in it and stuff like that. So I was always drawn to those kinds of sounds I guess.

(00:06:46):

And then the cassettes that I used to listen to when I was young, I'd always gravitate towards the heavier songs, inverted comms, like the rock and roll stuff as opposed to the pop stuff. And then I played piano for a long time. I played a couple of other classical instruments as well, the clarinet and the violin a little bit too. So when I hit my mid-teens, I really wanted to play drums actually, which would've been a real break from the classical music that I'd been playing most of my life. But drums never really panned out just a little. Yeah, exactly. So that never really panned out, I guess just because of the difficulty of recording drums. Sorry, not recording. Where's my mind? The difficulty of playing drums, how loud they are and need space for them and everything. So what did happen though is I saw a high schooler at my school playing electric guitar, and actually he played the intro riff for a lit song, my Own Worst Enemy, and I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life.

(00:07:44):

And he had a stratocaster with cut up CDs stuck on the front of it, which obviously was very edgy, very badass, so bad, so edgy. Yeah. Well I was smitten, of course. So I started playing guitar soon after that and really that was when I guess what we're talking about begins. I played guitar for a good few years before I had the ability to record myself, did a tiny bit of recording in school, but literally just mainly midi stuff with Cubase and whatnot. So it wasn't until I was a bit older and started to really get into metal and some of the more progressive stuff, bands like six. It was kind of right around that same time I got some very cheap recording software and started trying to demo my own ideas. But it sounded so bad. This is probably something which a lot of people can resonate with when you're trying to write, if stuff sounds really terrible, it just makes you want to quit.

(00:08:35):

You stop recording right away and go and do something else. So I was never satisfied with how things sounded and that became this quest, which kind of overtook the writing part, really overtook the instrument to be able to make things sound good. And that brought me into contact with guys like Misha from Periphery who I'm now in a band with who was doing all his self-produced stuff and posting on the forums too. And guys like Des from Good Tiger now he was in a band called The Safety Fire and he's also another part of Get Good Drums along with Misha and a few other guys like that. That really showed me the ropes when I was starting to record myself. And then I guess more recently, the big step, I was moving to recording outside the laptop environment, like going to studios, recording drums, using microphones because everything I was doing was in the box program drums and programmed basically everything using direct guitars.

(00:09:29):

And I think the next stage of the evolution for me was really getting to grips with that stuff. And I was just very lucky that I guess through the music I was writing and maybe some of the company I was keeping, people became a little bit interested in what I was doing and that led to working for clients and I've kind of had that going on all the time while I've been playing with periphery, I've been mixing on tour on my laptop, on tour bus or mixing in various studios around the world just when I have downtime. And it got to the point now where that really is the focus for me and I really want to be able to spend some time in my own space that I know really well and fine hone it from here, but I'm very lucky to have worked with some really amazing clients already and still learning of course, but very much enjoying the journey.

Speaker 2 (00:10:11):

Did you meet all these people who you now work with through the internet?

Speaker 3 (00:10:15):

Yeah, you know what? I think you could probably say everybody. Yeah, I'm just going through my head. Literally. I can't think of anyone that I didn't meet through the internet that's been really crucial to my success. Yeah, no really even I was thinking there's so many guys that are local to me or in the same country at least, and still we still met them through the internet and it was just like, oh, okay, you're actually close enough that we can drive and meet each other as opposed to just chat online. But still that initial point of contact would've always been online.

Speaker 2 (00:10:46):

That's kind of amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:10:48):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:10:48):

Totally. If you really stop and think about it, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:10:51):

Totally. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:10:52):

Yeah. I mean people say location matters, but I think it's mattering less and less every single day because I mean I've made a career mixing out of basement and corn fields up until I moved in minute new space. So there you go.

Speaker 3 (00:11:05):

Yeah, totally. You can still do it and you can do it. I've done all, the most recent stuff I've done has been on just my laptop, not in my own studio. I mixed the Devon Townsend record with a completely borrowed setup in a tiny space in a room in the South America. There it is. That's just necessity. The

Speaker 4 (00:11:23):

Proof is in the pudding.

Speaker 3 (00:11:24):

Yeah, I mean that was with what? That was with Yamaha HS 80 monitors in a basically untreated room. So it can be done for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:11:34):

Let me touch on that for a second because, okay, so you mix a great sounding record in an untreated room and Joey notoriously doesn't treat his rooms, but we always tell people who are coming up that they need to take care of their listening environment first before they go and get crazy converters or anything like that. Once you have a good computer, we say get off the headphones, get some monitors, at least something that's decent, doesn't have to be like you don't have to barefoots, just get something that works and also start treating your space so that you can recognize what's coming out of the speakers versus what the room is doing. But then we also tell them that you did this without any treatment or that will Putney mixed some record on headphones when he was on some trip in Australia or that Joey doesn't use treatment. So I feel like that could be confusing people. How is it that these guys can do it, but they tell us to treat their rooms.

Speaker 3 (00:12:43):

It's this funny thing which seems to happen. There's like this curve that happens where when you're starting out you dunno what you're listening for and being able to hear things in a really controlled environment in an amazingly treated room allows you to develop your ear to hear the subtleties, to hear what you like in really great detail and to know that you're not missing the information. And I have to say of course, I think certainly me and none of the other people I think would say they would prefer to mix in a less than perfect situation. I'm sure everyone would prefer to mix in a really well treated room with great monitors.

(00:13:18):

But what happens once you start to get the experience and you start to know what you're listening to is you start to need less information to be able to do your job to an extent because you know what you're not hearing. So it's kind of this strange paradox. I'm kind of thinking of this as you were talking, I was just thinking about that. It's kind of funny how you start out with a really bad setup, then you go to refine your setup until you can hear everything and then it kind of starts to matter less and less because you've got the experience, you know what approximately a guitar should sound like when it's raw and what you're going to do to it, and you have your ways of dealing with that and perhaps you have ways of utilizing visual information as well. I use frequency analyzers and look at my gain reduction meters and have processes that have become tried and tested for me that have proven to work even when I can't necessarily even hear with full resolution what I'm doing.

(00:14:14):

So as soon as I'm just back home, my monitor is now for I guess three days starting to do some mixing and of course it's the best thing in the world. I have a lovely treated space in my home studio with great monitors and a big screen. I can't tell you how much of a difference that makes going from keyhole surgery with a track pad to huge screen real estate to do stuff, but all the same. Literally I've done way more work on really, really bad systems at this point than I have on really good ones.

Speaker 2 (00:14:44):

Speaking of spectrum analyzers, that's another thing actually, just on this topic of things we tell people to avoid, but that in real life, awesome dudes do end up using them. The reason we tell people to generally avoid those is so that they don't rely on what's a screen for EQ moves. We want them to develop their ears, but of course

Speaker 4 (00:15:09):

It also slows down the learning curve of hearing, meaning there's a curve you learn in steps. So it's not just like you have a linear movement or a logarithmic one. It's like you are struggling, you mix for a while, then all of a sudden one day you're like, oh dude, cool, I can hear better. I hear 400 hertz and everything now and it's really annoying and then all of a sudden three months later, boom, boom, boom and you just go up the ladder. And if you're sitting there looking at curves, just because the graph says there's too much at 2K doesn't mean there is too much at 2K. It depends on the source and the context. And for less experienced people that are learning to mix as opposed to have been mixing for a very long time, that can be insanely deceiving and insanely dangerous and I think slow them down. So especially me, I really get fired up about analyzers sometimes.

Speaker 3 (00:15:54):

Yeah, I mean I think it's kind of the same thing that I was just talking about. I think it takes is developing a taste and developing a sound without using those and then being able to go back and analyze being like, damn, this nurse sounded really good on that record. Maybe the source tone was a specific way, but let's check out what it looked like even just as a broad kind of landscape on a frequency analyzer, see what was going on there and be like, well, what happens if I make my moves use my ear to get it sounding good, but then refine the curve a little bit to get closer to that. Using humor moves, not using EQ matching or something like that, or looking at the low end of a bass guitar that just seems to translate really well that you mixed through trial and error and using your ears and it has the character you want and then over time you're like, wow, that really translated so well that low end's just in the right spot.

(00:16:48):

Maybe you want to take note of what that looks like on an analyzer. So I never did it for the longest time and it really was once I started having to mix a lot on headphones, I was mixing on the tour bus with the background, the generator going in the background on headphones and it's like you have no way of knowing what's going on with the low end there. You've got this huge low end rumble coming from the generator and the headphones are deceiving anyway. And it was like, well, I kind of have to rely on something else here. And that really seemed to work for me and I started to see, what I started to see was connections between the sounds that I've achieved. If I took four snare sounds that I achieved that I was really happy with, I could see that they all kind of fell into this general broad outline like this kind of landscape which happens to be fairly flat across an equalizer if the equalizer is pink noise weighted.

(00:17:38):

And I was like, well, if I make my moves and then see how close it's to flatten, then maybe make a couple more adjustments just to flatten it out. Maybe that's going to result in a snare that just cuts sits the way that I want it to and it totally does. But I didn't get that from analyzing other people's work or maybe just a little bit. But it was really, the important thing was it came from me working through trial and error, real blood sweat and tears and depression over what I was doing, which I think every creative goes through, but finally arriving at a result it works and being like, damn, I need to do this every time. How am I going to do that? Then to me, there's nothing wrong at all with using a tool like a spectrum analyzer

Speaker 2 (00:18:18):

That makes perfect sense. And that

Speaker 4 (00:18:21):

Would be what we could call it the correct way to do it. Yes, it's a tool to be used, but you have to know when and where to use it. It's not a crutch and I think a very clear distinction has to be made.

Speaker 3 (00:18:31):

Totally. And yeah, just this whole thing I'm talking about where it's like your cycle as you start to improve at what you're doing is really, it's funny really if you go back and look at one of my first sessions I did, now none of the things seem too striking, but maybe I'd make moves now that were considered crazy when I was learning and it was like somebody would to tell you, no, you don't need to boost that by 12 DB or something. And I was just kind of following my ears and making horrendous mix. But now it's like I kind of feel like I have the experience to know when that's necessary. And I know that that's something that a lots of other professionals feel the same way. It's like actually as you get more experience, you start doing crazier stuff again.

Speaker 2 (00:19:13):

I remember sitting well perching over Colin Richardson when he was mixing my band's album, and I remember he was like, I want more low end in the guitars. He was on a Neve and he was like, well just turn 90 up 12 db. And that just blew my mind because who turns 90 up 12 db on a guitar?

Speaker 3 (00:19:39):

But

Speaker 2 (00:19:39):

He did it and it sounded incredible. And I think that just goes to what you're saying that once you become a master of this stuff, you start to know exactly when you can do crazy things that would otherwise be looked at as just pure crazy actually.

Speaker 3 (00:19:55):

Totally, totally. And of course I'm not calling myself a master, but everyone falls somewhere along this curve. And the other thing is, for me, frequency analyzers give me the courage to do that. I could do a move like that and then check it out and then analyze it and be like, have I done something really crazy? Am I going to regret this? And maybe it just looks great to me. Nothing looks too out of control on the analyzer. I kind of know in my mind what most source stone should look like on there and be like, cool. Great, let's roll with it.

Speaker 2 (00:20:19):

So do you have any other, I guess other tools that you use or techniques that you use for making sure that your mixes that are done in less than ideal environments translate? Well, I think that that's applicable to lots of our listeners because lots of 'em are stuck in headphones or don't have a nice studio learning.

Speaker 3 (00:20:40):

I think the best other tool, which I could say really would just be information really knowing the software that I'm using or the hardware that I'm using. Well, if we're talking about mixing on laptop, whatever, then it's all going to be in the box. But for me really is about having tools that really, well, you know how they work, you know how to get good results with them and to trust them to do what it is that you need. That doesn't mean you can't experiment, but do lots of experimentation and be scientific about it. Kind of figure out in your head, make a checklist of this equalizer works really well in this way. I can get really quick, easy, good results on guitars with this equalizer or this compressor just sounds great for bringing out the attack on a drum, but this other compressor has a cool character that works sometimes.

(00:21:25):

So maybe you're mixing and you're like, well this compressor isn't working straight away to go to your other one. It's just really knowing the tools that you have to be able to work quickly and not be working with completely unknown elements all the time. And of course experimentation is really cool and you should definitely try and push yourself on every session to try something new. But there is something to be said for having certain processes that you are very comfortable doing that the results or how the results should be as a baseline to compare against. So I dunno that I have more tricks per se, but I'd say that certainly if you want to do that stuff, you need to be comfortable with the tools you're using, otherwise you're going to go round and round in circles.

Speaker 2 (00:22:05):

So the trick is just do the damn work.

Speaker 3 (00:22:07):

Yeah, and I mean honestly, if you really care about this stuff, it probably won't feel like work. Well

Speaker 2 (00:22:12):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:22:12):

Fair enough. It's fun. Or at least something that you feel like you really want to spend time doing. So

Speaker 2 (00:22:18):

Speaking of tools, you're a Logic Pro X user, what drew you to that as opposed to Pro Tools or Cubase? You said you used Cubase earlier?

Speaker 3 (00:22:29):

I did. That was just on the school computers

Speaker 2 (00:22:31):

And

Speaker 3 (00:22:31):

It was really old school Cubase. I forget which version it was, but no, it was very simple. Once I started getting into recording, I got a MacBook, I guess everybody does. And it had Garage Band, which I used, sorry, garage Band and Garage Band on it, which I was like, this is cool. It's kind of limited though. What's the next step? And I got Logic Express, which doesn't exist anymore, but it was kind of like a slightly intermediate step between GarageBand and Logic Pro. And I just learned that really I just rolled with it. Obviously Pro Tools, I knew about the other doors and Pro Tools everyone was telling me was the thing that I needed, but at the same time you had to buy all of the associated hardware to go with it. And yeah, logic just worked for me for what I was doing and I stuck with it.

(00:23:20):

And I think the cool thing is it's continued to improve a lot. I think maybe back then there was definitely stuff that kind of sucked about it, but now it seems to me like all the doors have really converged. I agree to a point. There's certain, it's like every door has one or two functions that I'm like, wow, that's so cool. I wish Logic had that or maybe I should use that door just for that feature. But ultimately whenever I'm doing something and I want to feel comfortable, I'm going to go to the thing which I know the best. And that's logic.

Speaker 2 (00:23:46):

Yeah, fair enough. We always tell people that as long as they're not using Mixcraft or something or Garage Band to try to do, as long as they're not using a toy, just pick a DAW and go,

Speaker 3 (00:24:01):

Really?

Speaker 2 (00:24:02):

Who cares? Just do it,

Speaker 3 (00:24:04):

Man. If Logic had slip editing then I don't think I would look with lust at any other door ever again, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (00:24:10):

Well, the one thing that I've heard is that the editing and logic is not that great. We know that Putney, even though he loves mixing and logic, he'll edit in Pro Tools for instance.

Speaker 3 (00:24:20):

Is that everything or just drums or what? Drums? I actually think drum editing is great in logic. The slicing mode, the flex time, flex time scares people. They think it's like a time stretching thing, but I guess the slicing mode is kind of like slip editing really just cutting in and moving stuff around and cross fading. And I love editing with that. That's what I use for everything. But just being able to slip things to and forwards inside a region without actually moving the region would make all the difference. And we actually tracked the new Periphery album guitars on bass into Cubase on Misha's setup because he's a Cubase user and I got used to doing that pretty quickly and being able to slip, edit so much time for stuff. So yeah, once you slip it's hard to go back. Seriously. It had me looking into Pre Studio one actually because that has slip editing and I downloaded the trial of that while we were recording P three just to see what I could do with it. And I dunno, it looked awesome genuinely, but certainly for mixing I felt very out of place with that. I would want to use Logic for mixing, but still at the back of my mind, maybe the next project, if I'm going to track myself doing something, if I record some of my own music, maybe I'll download Studio One again, like the demo onto my main computer and see how that goes. And then mix in Logic, but just have to see, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:25:37):

So I have a question about this new periphery album

(00:25:41):

And just you and Periphery. How did you get to the point where they trusted you to actually record them? And the reason I ask is because I mean maybe on the outside it's like, oh, okay, it makes sense. That's an obvious move. The guy in the band who knows how to record should record the band, but I know that they've been very, very picky in the past about their recordings and it is no small thing to have them allow someone to record them. And I also know that from being in a band and from working with tons of bands, that just because someone is in the band and knows how to record doesn't mean that the band is going to be cool with that person recording them. And sometimes they're less cool with it just because they have that brotherly relationship where they're not going to take them seriously as a producer. So how did it come about that they were just cool with it? How did it evolve to that point?

Speaker 3 (00:26:37):

Well, I think the answer is that it did evolve because the first album Misha did on his own, that was all in the box with drums, played on an eki and just everything done kind of home studio style. And then for the next album they wanted to do the studio experience. So they went to Taylor Larson's studio for Periphery two, and I don't really know why they chose to take a chance on me. I mean, I was a good friend of theirs, but I guess Misha really liked what I was doing with my band, which is called Red Seas Fire. They're still going without me. And I guess he liked what I was doing with the recordings I was doing for them and he was like, it would be cool to have you there as well. So they flew me out to kind of be there as an additional producer or something.

(00:27:21):

I don't really know what they had in mind, but the role kind of grew as time when I ended up playing all the bass on the record and also doing a lots of the engineering. Most of the session became just Misha and I or Misha and one of the other guitarists and I just going to the studio on our own and tracking ourselves. And that just developed this rapport. But still at that point, Matt had done all the drums with Taylor, and Taylor has a really unique and fantastic way of tracking drums that gets awesome, awesome sounds. And I think that for me was the inspiration to be like, wow, it'd be so cool to move away from program drums to doing the real thing if they sound this good. So I spent a lot of time after P two recording real drums just with other bands around and developing my own techniques and was helped a bit by Taylor too.

(00:28:03):

So when it came to Juggernaut, which was the next, it was like a double album. Everyone was on board with me tracking like the guitars and bass, and Spencer always does his own vocals, so that's kind of a separate thing. But with the drums, Matt still wanted to do it at Taylor's place with him there because Matt and I hadn't really developed a rapport with recording drums, which of course is such a more finicky process, but that process turned out to be something that really solidified our relationship in the studio. And from then on, I've been working with Matt on our drum tones every day on tour, tuning his drums, placing the mics, recording the stems from our live show and trying mixing them, literally trying to get the live drum sounds from the microphones to sound like they were recording in a studio. And so by the time it came to recording something new, it was like, well, this is what we have to do, Matt and I really understand each other.

(00:28:51):

And I think that was the final piece of the puzzle really. So I think the mixing of Juggernaut came along just because they really liked how it was sounding as we were working. There was never a plan for somebody else to mix it, but it kind of came out really cool as far as they were concerned and there was no reason to involve somebody else. They did actually try working with a couple of producers in the downtime between Juggernaut and, sorry, actually it was before Juggernaut. I'm getting my dates confused. Before Juggernaut, they did try working with a couple of producers including David Beeth, but that didn't really work out. I think everyone went in very open-minded and wanted to see what somebody else could bring to the table. But I think what that really brought to the table was it showed people that nobody else is going to come in and be God basically.

(00:29:36):

They're not going to come in and make the record awesome. All they're going to do is, apart from the engineering side of things, is they're going to try and maintain the psychological side of the band, which to be honest was pretty good. The band's gotten awesome at communicating and there just wasn't reason for somebody else to be involved making us doubt our own decisions. So at this point it's all in-house and we're very happy with it that way. It's awesome that they took a chance on me back with periphery too, and as I say, it's kind of evolved to the point where it is now.

Speaker 2 (00:30:05):

Hey guys, Al Levy here. I just want to take a moment to talk to you about some awesome things happening at Nail the Mix this month. This month, as you probably know, we have Nolly from Periphery as a guest mixer. What you get when you sign up for that are the raw multi-track stems for the periphery song prayer position. You get to enter a mix competition with those tracks. We have awesome prizes for first and second place. They're provided by Aex legendary hardware manufacturer. You get an Aex channel, which is a hardware channel strip. It's really super awesome, and second place gets their head pod four, which is a badass headphone amp. Then at the end of the month after the mix competition is over Nolly will mixing Prairie position live on video stream for you to be able to watch and interact with him about it.

(00:31:00):

So if you have any questions, he'll be answering them. We also have an hour long q and a with him can ask him anything you want. And we have an amazing community of people just like you who are learning how to mix and who are ready to help each other out. One last thing I just wanted to mention is that with your subscription to Nail the Mix, we have a special bonus right now on Get Good Drums. You get $20 off of your purchase of Get Good drums, and you can find that inside the bonuses section of your nail the mix account. So just go to nail the mix.com/periphery, one to subscribe and start mixing today. I think that gaining the trust of a client is one of the hardest things you can possibly do when you're coming up, and I think that that's one of the things that lots of our listeners have trouble with as they're coming up and they're trying to get new clients to come through the door and maybe give them money for the very first time. It's a challenge because they're new and nobody trusts them. And I think that it's something that definitely, whether it's your situation being in periphery or a guy just coming on the local scene, it's something that has to evolve naturally. It really is one of the most important things you can possibly have going in your favor if you want to be working with bands.

Speaker 3 (00:32:29):

Totally. Yeah, you're completely right and I'm incredibly lucky. I really am incredibly lucky because of the connections I made on the internet going back to that,

(00:32:38):

These people turned out to really change my life, and it can happen. You never know how it's going to happen, but it really is networking. It's like the old school version of going to a cocktail evening. It really is networking with these other people that might turn out to become the industry. This idea, if you asked me what I thought the music industry was years and years ago, I thought it was this really tight group of people that were industrial, but it's not really like that at all. It's just people. These people become the music industry, these people online just recording their demos and doing cool things, become the next wave. And if you have connections to those people, then you never know what might happen.

Speaker 2 (00:33:21):

Very

Speaker 3 (00:33:22):

True.

Speaker 2 (00:33:24):

I think that networking is one of those words that's very misunderstood too, because everyone says you've got to network. You've got to network. And it's absolutely true, you have to network. But a lot of people misunderstand what networking means and they think that it means going up to people and punishing them

(00:33:45):

Or semi harassing them. And I think that one thing that you just said is really, really important and it echoes my own experience, which is you meet people and you don't know what the future's going to hold, so you just establish a relationship with people and then hopefully if things go well, it evolves into something. But you can't really approach these relationships with that in mind. You have to just build these relationships and let the future unfold as it will. And if you have something to contribute, more likely than not, if you have a good relationship, your chance will come around by virtue of having these relationships. Totally.

Speaker 3 (00:34:26):

Yeah. I think the misconceptions, people think it's a way more active thing than it is. It's really kind of passive beyond putting yourself out there, being open to meeting people and talking with people, you're not actively seeking something. In fact, I think all of the best contacts that I've had best in inverted commas, the people at labels and stuff were by far the least useful really to my journey. It was the people that were around me that we were friends with, and we developed ideas together. It's so difficult to go to somebody that's on a way higher level than you and just become on that level with them. They're used to that all time, time. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that at all. No,

Speaker 4 (00:35:09):

Yeah, there's always going to be a power perching kind of. When you're going in to somebody who's in a bigger position, they're always going to have that like, oh, well, you're the new guy, so

Speaker 3 (00:35:18):

Totally.

Speaker 4 (00:35:19):

It's not the same.

Speaker 3 (00:35:20):

It's like if you're trying to make, I dunno, it's like people that meet their rockstar friends and sorry, they're rockstar heroes, and somehow think that there's something that they can say in that conversation that's going to turn them into best friends. You know what I mean? I couldn't go to James Hetfield. There'd be nothing I could say to him really that would suddenly make him change his role as the dude that I'm going to as a fan. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Does that make sense? I dunno.

Speaker 2 (00:35:46):

No, that makes perfect sense. Unless he was to come to you.

Speaker 3 (00:35:50):

Right, exactly. If we had something in common, if there was something there, but well, maybe James Hetfield's a bad example in the metal world, so maybe I could find some kind of six degrees of separation there, but I don't know Leonardo DiCaprio, what could I say to Leonardo DiCaprio that would make us best friends?

Speaker 2 (00:36:08):

I think even James Hetfield's a perfect example though because he is metal royalty

(00:36:15):

Even to those of us who are established in our own rights, like Metallica is so far beyond anything for any of us that I think that that's a good example. Or yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio. It's like once you're in that situation where you're trying to get something out of somebody, the other thing is that those people who are at the top have basically a spidey sense for this shit. Totally. They can sniff out when someone wants something from them. The way that dogs can sniff drugs, it's like they are in tune with that and repelled by it

Speaker 3 (00:36:53):

And you won't even know. They'll be perfectly gracious. And if you are the kind of person that's doing that, you're probably not even going to realize that they've already kind of spotted you and they'll have moved on. I remember when we played Sound Wave Festival in Australia, Metallica were the headliners. This is funny. I dunno why I chose James Hetfield, but this is making it actually better. They held a barbecue on the first day and nobody thought that the band themselves would be there, but they totally were. I actually didn't go, but the rest of my band mates did. And of course there was the people trying to go up to those guys and push their bands. Even guys in fairly big bands wanted to become best friends with these guys. But the people that ended up chatting with them the most were the people just being cool with them. And maybe there was some connections made there, but they certainly weren't going there like, Hey, check out my band or let me produce your band, or something like that.

Speaker 4 (00:37:45):

Bring us on tour, dude. Direct support.

Speaker 3 (00:37:47):

Exactly. You can't just tell someone that and make it happen. So if you are meeting somebody that's kind of higher up in the industry, just be cool and be humble and maybe try and talk about something apart from what you do and what they do.

Speaker 2 (00:37:59):

Yes. Something that you guys can both share. That's why people talk about the weather as I guess superficial as that sounds and as I guess low on the, I guess low on the importance scale. The reason that people talk about the weather is because, and it's something that you can both agree upon.

Speaker 3 (00:38:27):

Totally. You're both experiencing it right then.

Speaker 2 (00:38:30):

Yes, exactly. And you can go from there, but that's why people talk about movies, about sports, about whatever. It's a good icebreaker. I think that especially at NAM and these networking events, when you get bombarded by people with business cards for instance, you have no idea who they are. I just have to say that I have never once had any sort of business relationship come about from any of the people who hound me at Nam. However, I have had lots of really good business relationships and friendships develop out of people I've met at Nam and just got in a drink with and maybe exchanged emails and hit them up a month later or talk to them over the course of a year and exchange funny pictures on the internet and shit because I find weird shit on the internet. Yeah, you do. Yeah. Oh yeah. It comes to me and I send it to my friends and become friends and maybe a year or two later those things come to fruition. Now, of course I've gone to Nam with specific meetings in Mind and done business that way, but I'm talking about people that you just kind of meet casually for the first time. I've never had anything materialized from getting punished.

Speaker 3 (00:39:58):

Yeah, no, neither.

Speaker 4 (00:39:59):

I think this is an amazing topic actually, because I'm just thinking as we're discussing this about all the different people I've met in my career and some of the most insignificant people that I never thought that band will never do anything or this person definitely that's the person that leads you to meet somebody else that leads you to meet somebody else and then 10 years later you look back and you're like, wow. I mean, for example, I met Joey through some completely insignificant band that was a band for three days after the one song we did in the studio, which led to another band, which was working with him. And we met and hung out, and then many years later now we're all business partners and it's just crazy. If I hadn't had that band and that kid show up at my studio on that one particular day while that band had a two week life, who knows where we'd all be. Totally, yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:40:48):

Totally.

Speaker 4 (00:40:49):

Just little things like that. And there's so many examples of that I'm sure you guys can all think of in your careers where suddenly you randomly meet some person and they just have this massive role in your life and then you're just like, wow, how did that even happen? So it's important to go in with no expectations and just be cool and build rapport with people, be respectful and do something or offer something worthy of being respected.

Speaker 3 (00:41:12):

Totally. And I mean, just to add something on, I've definitely, this is kind of a negative thing, but there's definitely been people that have punished me or people that I know who you find out later are really talented, really talented, amazing. If they had approached you any other way, then probably something could have happened. And yet even with that, it's so difficult to take that person seriously. You are not going to give them a shot because of just how they approached you in that beginning. And it's just human nature, unfortunately. But I can think, I'm definitely not going to name names, so I can think of people off the top of my head where later I've heard their music or heard their work and being like, wow, that really, really awesome, but he was kind of a dick.

Speaker 2 (00:41:54):

I think that it's very important for that to be said because one thing that we tell people all the time is your social skills are arguably as important as your music skills. Maybe not as important, but they're pretty damn important because it makes no difference how good you are if people don't want to give you a shot.

Speaker 3 (00:42:16):

Yeah, totally. And it doesn't have to be a scary thing. You don't have to be the most charming person in the world, but just don't be a dick. Just be nice and try not to brag too much and try not to humble brag. That's one thing I see all the time, especially online, is people humble bragging. I dunno if this is just a term that my friends that I use, I dunno if it's a real word, but it's like when people make a post or say something which is positive, giving thanks for something, but using that as a way of slipping in talking about their achievements, try not to do that. Try not to do that if you can. There's always going to be stuff that crosses the line. And of course if you want to have any kind of online presence and show people what you're doing, if you've got something to show you kind of have to talk about yourself, but try to reserve it for times when it's really necessary. Don't use some current events or just try and be wary of what you're doing. Don't allow the bragging to seep in.

Speaker 2 (00:43:18):

I think if you're going to be promotional, be promotional

Speaker 3 (00:43:21):

And

Speaker 2 (00:43:22):

Overt about it and people will respond to it fine. I think it's when people try to mask it behind humility that it starts to get weird because people can sniff that out. It makes you seem fake. There's nothing fake about saying, I have this, or say I'm super proud of something. I did a record I did charted in the Top 20. I'm fucking proud of it, proud of my team, proud of the record. There's nothing wrong with saying that

Speaker 3 (00:43:51):

However,

Speaker 2 (00:43:53):

And it's just when you start to give mixed signals,

Speaker 3 (00:43:57):

That's

Speaker 2 (00:43:57):

When I think it starts to get weird and it starts to weird people out.

Speaker 3 (00:44:01):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (00:44:01):

And so I completely agree. And just to say one of the people in my life that has had one of the biggest impacts is my friend Finn, who people know him as Sergeant D from Metals Sucks, and he founded the Creative Live Audio channel. You guys all know Finn, but the way that I became friends with him was we were both writing for Metal Sucks a long time ago, and I liked his writing and I just sent him an email one day about one of his blogs and was like, you made some great points, but did you think of this? And we just started talking and I had no career objective out of the whole thing and one thing led to another and we've done lots of great work together and had a huge impact on each other's lives professionally. But it all came from just talking shit about blogs and becoming friends and some of the people that have had the most impact on my life. It's been through relationships that kind of evolved that way.

Speaker 3 (00:45:08):

Yeah, no, totally. Finn's a great guy. He's helping us out with get good drums as well. Really, really top guy.

Speaker 4 (00:45:14):

Yeah, he's amazing. He's an excellent person to know. Definitely is

Speaker 3 (00:45:19):

For sure.

Speaker 2 (00:45:19):

And it's his birthday

Speaker 4 (00:45:20):

Today.

Speaker 3 (00:45:21):

Really? Oh my God. How do I not know that? Happy birthday Finn. I

Speaker 4 (00:45:24):

Texted him this morning. Oh dude. And I wished him an unhappy birthday to be punk. Wow. I mean everybody's like, happy birthday man. Good wishes. And I'm like, nah, nah, nah dude. I'm going to do something funny and different.

Speaker 2 (00:45:34):

Yeah. So everyone listening to this, even though this is coming out a week after still, you can hit up Finn McKenty on Facebook and wish him a happy, happy birthday.

Speaker 3 (00:45:46):

We have to get more people to wish him an unhappy birthday than a happy birthday. Just so that Joels joke backfires. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:45:51):

Yes. Even better. Yeah, everybody find him Finn McKenty or look up his Facebook group, the punk Rock NBA, join his group and wish him an unhappy birthday.

Speaker 4 (00:46:04):

So we need to go to the forums after this podcast and start the movement. I feel like this could be a trend.

Speaker 2 (00:46:08):

Yeah, I think we're going to do that. I think that's going to happen.

Speaker 4 (00:46:10):

I mean, I thought he's got the punk rock NBA, right? So everything's punk rock there and I love that group. That's actually a really, really great group. And if you guys are on Facebook, you should definitely check that out. There's a lot of great information, a lot of really smart cool people there. So they're always talking about being punk and breaking the trend and things like that. So I don't know, I was just having a little fun this morning. But yeah, we might as well go for it and see how hard we can push it. I'm in, I

Speaker 3 (00:46:36):

Dunno how happy a birthday he had because I know he was on a ton of email chains with me and he was definitely responding to them. So he clearly had a working one. Maybe it wasn't on Happy Birthday.

Speaker 4 (00:46:46):

Well now it's your pre progressive.

Speaker 3 (00:46:47):

Maybe he's going to cry about this. Dude, happy birthday. I

Speaker 2 (00:46:50):

Dunno. He loves his work, so we'll just pretend like it's a happy birthday. Alright,

Speaker 3 (00:46:57):

Sorry, what were you going to ask again?

Speaker 2 (00:46:59):

I was just going to say let's talk about some technical stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:47:02):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (00:47:03):

So the base tone on that play through video that I emailed you about it, it's the prayer position play through video. How did you do that? It sounds incredible. Did you use dark glass on that? What is that?

Speaker 3 (00:47:24):

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I did a play through video recently for a song of our new album called Prayer Position and yeah, yeah. So it's funny. I think honestly the biggest component of probably any good bass tone comes from the instrument and the player. And I know people say that all the time, but it's really true. Oh it's true, it's true. I did another video which I dunno if I can talk about just yet. It's just a demonstration of a cool new product with another one on my bases. And I've got a feeling that people are going to think that it's exactly the same tone when really the tone if you hear it in isolation at least is really quite different, but it just has that same character. Yeah. Okay. So the basis I use are the ding wall NG twos, which is my signature model, which really is just a very minor modification on the already existing combustion model.

(00:48:15):

Now ding wall guitars or ding wall bases have fan frets. So what they have is a really long scale on the low end. Sheldon's been doing this for years and years and the world is just catching up with how amazing his creations really are and how appropriate they are for metal music. Because the thing is if you play rock and metal, most people default to technology that dates back to the sixties. Like they're playing jazz bases or P basses or whatever. So maybe even older than the sixties. And they're playing them through ameg rigs, which are just about as old as well. And it's like there hasn't really been a modern instrument out there designed to handle the really low tunings that you need to go to if you're going to compete with the guitarist playing really low. So as soon as I discovered dingle guitars, that was just like there's no real reason to go anywhere else for base tone.

(00:49:03):

And a huge part of the character you're hearing in that video is simply the base and maybe people that own the signature base can attest to that fact the DI has that character. It just really does. We had a couple of dark glass pedals. We had the super symmetry compressor, which wasn't doing too much. I think I've kind of been doing less and less base compression as I go forwards. It's still a fair bit of compression, but I think I saved some compression for kind of after the fact. During mixing, we were also using the new B seven K Ultra, which is all seeing all dancing, amazing version of the B seven K, which is kind of the really famous pedal that dark glass made.

Speaker 4 (00:49:44):

Yeah, that pedal's the shit. It really is. I absolutely love it. So

Speaker 3 (00:49:47):

It's a distortion pedal, it's just got the gnarliest sounding distortion. The ultra version has basically switchable frequencies for the mid controls, which is great because the other one's more fixed. It also has the option of switching between, you can use the EQ section on it without the gain. So if you can basically get two channels, but I don't really use it like that. So we had the compressor, we had the pedal and then that was just running di. I was taking a clean DI and the pedal DI as well. And then I mixed that in the box completely with logic. So I was using that into, I kind of bypassed using any actual AMP modeler. I just went straight to a cabinet modeler. I just use an impulse that I tend to use a lot, which is an Ameg SVT cab miced with a 4 21 real standard fare for base.

Speaker 2 (00:50:37):

Is it an impulse you made yourself?

Speaker 3 (00:50:39):

It's not, no. It's a red wires impulse, which they were one of the first guys out on the scene doing really detailed multi-position impulse responses. And I must have bought the whole bundle, I guess six years ago or something like that. You still use them? I still use them. Maybe not for everything actually. I'd say that bass one I use way more than I use any of the guitar ones and I know that impulse technology has definitely got way higher resolution than it was back then, but it doesn't seem to hold things back with the base anyway. So yeah, basically I'm just using that because I'm taking a distortion and using the cabinet just like an EQ basically. So it smooths things out a lot. Then you have to boost back a load of top end again because quite a dull sounding impulse, some compression.

(00:51:24):

I don't think I did any multi-band compression on that. It was actually a pretty quick job, the mixing of that. And I didn't really take too much time even thinking about it. I was like, oh, that sounds cool. And it wasn't until, I think I was in DC recently at Misha's Place and I was like, oh, you check out this Playthrough video. Before it came out, we were all doing our playthrough videos and we checked it out, his little neuman speakers that he has. I was like, damn, that sounds really good. And then it came out and it's like every comment on there is people saying it's like an amazing bass tone And

Speaker 2 (00:51:58):

Dude, it sounds ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:52:00):

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:52:02):

And I don't throw around compliments either, so thank you. Just so you know, I don't kiss ass or throw around compliments, but it just sounds ridiculously awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:52:14):

Thank you, man. It's true. Awesome. Cheers. To be honest, can't argue with science guys, to be honest. I prefer it to the bass tone that we got on the album, which sucks to say, man. It kind of sucks to say because we spend loads more time sculpting the tone on the album, and I did this just a couple of months later. But yeah, I'm still happy with the album tone, but yeah, if I could go back in time, I would totally have used that exact tone for the album. But yeah, something else is, I came from playing guitar as we mentioned earlier and when I came to playing bass. Yeah, it's kind of tricky playing bass in periphery because the long scale, it makes a lot of the more newly stuff that I have to double more tricky, but at the same time, it's definitely not as technically demanding.

(00:52:55):

So the thing which I really set myself about, what I really set myself to doing was developing really great bass technique, like pick technique that sounds really consistent and finding instruments, the gear and the setup, and just refining every aspect of my base world to sound as good as it possibly could because to me the glory of a bass tone is really in how it sits in the mix and it's less to do with shredding and catching people's attention. So I kind of set about doing that and it's been a huge amount of fun actually developing that. Some of the things that I really like to do with basis to use a fairly thin pick, I use a point 60 mil pick. A lot of people use really heavy jumbo picks on base. For one, I pick really hard. I've actually broken a fair share of really thick bay strings, one 40 fives and stuff back when I was trying to do that. But secondly, the thin pick kind of acts like a compressor. I've said this in a few different interviews, but it's like when you pick harder, it flexes more. When you pick softer, it's more rigid, so it's like, especially as you move through the strings, you just get this way more even sounding pick attack, I don't know, just I'm with you on that.

Speaker 4 (00:54:06):

I like recording bases very similar to that. I mean, I'm not a bass player, but I've recorded enough bases and I really do like the thinner pace. I think they sound really cool.

Speaker 3 (00:54:14):

You get that kind of wet springy snap. The sounds a bit like you've compressed it as well. It makes it sound wet in that way that a compressed base has it, but just straight off the di.

Speaker 2 (00:54:26):

Yeah, I think it bears noting though, before everyone listening runs off and gets thin, medium picks that you play hard as a beast. Anyone listening should check out this play through video and focus on Ali's right hand. I mean you play hard as hell. Thank you. And that's a huge part of it sounding good. If someone was to just pussy pick it with a medium or light pick, it would not sound that great in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:54:58):

No, that happens a lot of the time when, yeah, I've definitely recorded plenty of bands where I've dialed in the bass tone and then passed the bass over to the bass player and it really doesn't sound the same. Not to say that it sounds bad, but it just doesn't sound like me. But certainly I think there is a point if you're picking really light, then you're not really going to get the most out of it.

Speaker 2 (00:55:17):

No, you need to play bass hard, in my opinion. There's something about the bass guitar that comes to life when you beat the shit out of it.

Speaker 4 (00:55:29):

You got to play guitar hard too. I mean, if it's got a string, you might as well move this string. Right, man. So I've

Speaker 3 (00:55:35):

Got a slightly different perspective on that actually. Yeah, you play authoritatively, but for me, and it's almost subconscious now, but it's like the pick angle, how flat to the string you pick can really, I don't know. The problem I hear a lot of the time when people are playing really hard is it doesn't sound in tune. You play a chord and all the strings go like well away from each other and you get them all going sharp, but I don't even really know how to define it, but it's something that with my guitar playing has actually improved through playing bass as well, that there is a way that you can play really with power but without sending it out of tune. So my caveat to playing hard is it needs to sound good and in tune and you need to figure out how to do that a skill. It is a skill and it is quite a refined one

Speaker 4 (00:56:21):

Actually. You have to train it and optimize it. And a lot of guitar players never, or bass or anybody who plays one of those types of instruments, they never sit down and they really think about their pick attack and what angle and how hard and how stiff they're holding their finger and what part of the bridge they should be or how close to the bridge they should be picking on this particular part of the riff when they're at this part of the neck and how it might want to change when using an open string or it's very important, those little tiny nuances, but once you learn how to really get the best tone out of the instrument for each note of the song, you can teach your guitarists and bass to record that way and get much better sounding raw tracks.

Speaker 2 (00:56:58):

Yeah, I think it's about control, the power. When we say playing hard, of course I guess we figure that it's assumed, but it shouldn't be assumed that we mean hard, but controlled not hard, not just play hard and loose as hell because that leads to an out of tune sloppy garbage unusable track.

Speaker 3 (00:57:22):

Yeah, totally. And yeah, it's crazy how different guitarists can sound playing through the same rig as well. When we record periphery stuff, there's essentially four guitarists on hand. There's myself, Misha, mark and Jake, and there's plenty of riffs where we each like one person's recording it and someone's like, oh, it's not sounding right. Or the person themselves is like, yeah, I'm not getting this right. You try playing it. And it's not that the person doesn't have the technical facility to play it, it's just that Misha has this way of getting the coolest stringy attacky, palm mutes, my palm muting sound tends to be way more kind of open and bloomy sounding. Mark has this really kind of fluffery thing going on. Jake has this really precise way of playing and it's like we experiment with that in the studio. Just it is got to the point where I guess I've been really spoiled tracking guitars where, to be honest, I don't know that I have so much patience to track guitarists that aren't on that level. Something I have to say. I was literally thinking about that in the shower today when I was thinking about the podcast. I was like, am I going to say that or not? It's okay, but yeah, no, but yeah, totally.

(00:58:28):

The more high profile clients I work with, the more experienced guys I work with, the more it's just clear to me that it needs to be at that level. It just has to be. And I'm very lucky that with periphery, everyone takes great pride in what they do and that makes for good sounding results and that makes my job easy and that makes me seem like I did an amazing job with the album and sure I worked really hard on it, but if they didn't do their stuff well then it would've been a mess.

Speaker 2 (00:58:54):

Well, there's a reason for why even before the digital revolution in recording that there was a whole industry of session musicians, and that's because producers have always known that without getting great performances and without the musicians doing their job, you don't have shit. It doesn't matter how good you are at recording or mixing, you don't have shit without great performances. And that industry has been decimated, the session musician industry. But there was a time where if the band members couldn't hack it, someone would get hired to come in and replace them. And now the way that that's changed is that now the producers, at least in metal, will just grab the guitar and play it for the band. But that principle hasn't changed and it's been around since the beginning of recording. You can't get around it, the source tone, maybe it's not everything, but it's almost everything,

Speaker 3 (00:59:58):

Dude. I mean, yeah, I think with time as I've developed my mixing technique, I think I've come to realize that I am a source tone mixer as it were. I don't necessarily do that well mixing stuff that has been recorded in less than optimal ways or that has loads of stuff left up to me to decide like deed guitars and bass and program drums and all that stuff. Sure I can make it work, but the really good results come when I'm delivered something. That's awesome. And I don't even feel bad saying that because of course that's what you get when you go to those big league guys. They're working with really good musicians, with really good music, recorded really well, so the results naturally come out. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):

And just so you know, one of the comments that we keep hearing over and over from our subscribers about the raw stems that they're mixing right now for Nail the Mix is that they're astounded by how stellar they sound raw.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):

That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):

And we give them good stuff every month. I mean it's not like machine Head was recorded badly or anything like that. We give them good top quality stuff every single month, but they're just blown away by how great the periphery stuff sounds just on its own just loaded right into the session.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):

That's the hugest compliment for me, honestly, I think I started doing something probably about three years ago, which is just this mental exercise with everything I did. There was like when I'm engineering something that I really care about, well two things really. One, be able to explain why you did everything and secondly, prepare it as though you had to show it to your idol producer, the guy that you look up to the most. Imagine he was going to sift track by track through what you'd done and would you be comfortable doing that? And of course, that's amazing advice. Yeah, you never hit that. I know. I know that for example, it is stupidly anal, but the high hat close mic on the periphery session was kind of clipping a little bit. It's a small diaphragm condenser. I totally should have used the dynamic for that.

(01:02:17):

In the end of the day, I don't care, I'm not relying on it at all. Or things like even the high hat symbols themselves were pretty loose. That's how Matt plays them, but that means they're kind of firing off to each side as he hits them. They're kind of wavering in the stereo image in the overheads, and I'm bummed about that. I'm happy that those are the things I'm bummed about. Not like the kick drum sounds terrible or the snare drum, the snare top has unusable bleed or the base tone is bad or whatever. So with every session, I guess I get a little bit closer to that ideal, but just having that as something to chase down has really changed everything I do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):

I can second how much better that will make you thinking that way. All the years that I spent around guys that I looked up to production wise forced me to get better because I knew that they might be looking at my track.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):

Yeah, absolutely. You

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):

Don't want to be the guy that sends in your track to be mixed to one of your favorite mixers and idols and gets a call back. Why is this labeled wrong? Why does this sound like shit? Why did you miss a cross fade on this edit?

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):

No,

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):

It's crushing. It would be crushing

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):

Really bad place to be, right? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):

I think drums really is like, I dunno why. I mean I mentioned earlier, I guess drums was the thing I wanted to play first and I've always had a soft spot for them and I guess I really learned a lot about drums through programming them when I was starting out, I'm pretty sure I could convince a drummer that I was a drummer as long as I didn't actually have to play but recording drums, I dunno why. It's just it's the most technical and fun and stressful. I love it too. I love it so much more than pretty much any other part of the recording process. Yeah, same here. But it's become this thing which is really an obsession, like tuning microphone placement, microphone choice, working with amazing drummers because as we were saying earlier, you just can't deliver the goods without it. But having that goal of amazing sounding natural drums with minimal sample help just became this goal for me. So that kind of led me to really that and imagining that I was having to show those to other people definitely led me to the point where I'm at now where I feel really confident about my drum tracking.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):

So speaking of drum tracking, man, you've worked with some amazing drummers and you are in a band with Matt Halburn who's an amazing drummer and I'm sure that you've cultivated some interesting practices when tracking. Is there anything that you could walk us through your process of micing or recording that people might not expect or that you think are game changers?

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):

There's certainly some game changers for me. So two game changers for me, certainly in terms of microphone choice was the sure beta 57 instead of a regular 57 on snare because I don't even think it sounds better. In fact, I think it kind of sounds honker and not as nice as a regular 57, but the bleed is so much less that I don't have to reach for a sample to get above that bleed level. I can deal with that bleed completely and make it sound and then I can EQ and compress my snare top or my snare bus. It's a sample and get a result that has all of the impact and power like a sample does. But that totally has the variation from hit to hit because for me, I dunno, it kind of breaks the fourth wall for me when I hear every snare drum sounding the same, especially fast rolls.

(01:05:43):

Same here. Yeah, if I do use samples, I use multis, sampled fairly raw recordings. For example, the GGD samples that we made, there's trigger files available there. I do use those and I have all sorts of samples that I recorded in this very room that I'm in right now. Just my little home studio close mics on a snare where I'd take my snare drums and sample them in every tuning that I could think of. And I tune by ear, sorry, sorry, by note, I actually tune the heads to specific notes, but going grammatically up, so I just have this bank of raw snare samples, all multis sample. So when it comes to if I get sent something to mix, I got sent something to Mix just last week that I'm working on right now, has a really crank sounding snare and they've obviously used a regular 57 on it because the bleed is, well, there's tons of it and I could drop in a sample that's exactly the same tuning that's going to help me out there and and it's dynamic and it's raw, but for me, when I'm working with a good drummer that just bums me out.

(01:06:42):

There's nothing worse than having to stick a sample on to cover up for an engineering floor. So that changed the game for me. The other one is the Sure Beater 91 on Kick, which I know he is used live and I know that there's plenty of metal guys that use it too, but that just is the metal kick sound for me and it doesn't even have to be metal. I know for example, the New Muse album, they used a 91 on the kick, but for ease of placement and for just always delivering just the perfect slap and just this character that you don't get from a regular dynamic inside the drum, that kind of changed the game and that enabled me to again, move away from triggering the kick. Although I do sometimes and fairly often in fact use a moderate amount of sample on the kick drum just to even it out a little bit, but or is a multis sample. So microphone selection wise, there's that. There's definitely some game changers in terms of how I mix drums, which I guess we can get into a little bit, but I want to save also for the actual nail the mix. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):

I was going to say, why don't we save the mixing stuff for people who actually are going to watch you do it live.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):

Totally, yeah. Especially to do with the snare. There's some really cool stuff. You should definitely log in and to be honest, I don't even know how well I could just explain it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):

It's

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):

Probably best to see me do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):

Yeah. Anyone who's listening who doesn't know what we're talking about, nail the mix. Nolly is our guest mixer this month view subscribe and nail the mix.com/periphery one, you'll get the raw stems for prayer position, the periphery song, and at the end of the month, well actually on October 2nd, Nolly will be mixing it live and we'll have a chat room going the whole time. So we'll be able to interact with him and learn what he's doing on that damn snare. That sounds so good. So I have a question about get good drums. Speaking of now that you've kind of explained your approach to making drums sound as good as possible so that maybe samples aren't needed, is that kind of what you went for with get good drums to have samples that don't sound like samples? Maybe

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):

A little bit. I mean, I think there's companies that are doing an amazing job in terms of realism, especially if you know how to program and really there's some amazing stuff being done out there and that was the basis of everything I did. But having gone to those levels with tracking live drums, when I did start to come back to using program drums for certain clients that needed it or if I'm just demoing with myself, I was kind of shocked to be honest at especially the tuning, it's really difficult for me to find sample libraries out there that meet what I consider to be the standard for tuning. I can think of one with Colin Richardson, drum sample Pack had fantastic tuning on it, but really that's one of the very few exceptions and I was really bummed out going back to working with these other libraries and being like, wow, those Toms just have all this wobble to them and the snares are all weirdly buoy or too dry or exactly what you mean harmonics going on, or the kick doesn't have the 91 on it so it doesn't have the attack that I want.

(01:09:50):

So Matt and I had been talking for a while, like I mentioned a long time ago in this interview we really developed our working together post juggernaut doing the live recordings and we were like, we're getting something really cool here. We should do a sample pack. And we did approach a couple of companies and then eventually we just decided to go it alone and we booked out time in a studio and it was just Matt and I at that point. We booked out a studio and Des joined very soon afterwards we booked out a studio and we just went at it. We did three days of recording. We recorded the same kit that we'd used on juggernaut, which we knew to be a fantastic sounding kit. We didn't go too crazy with the options, but we wanted them just to be super intune solid, really wide dynamic range.

(01:10:35):

Matt hits really damn hard and just give loads of articulations, make sure the Toms sound like the most melodic Toms you've ever heard the kick drums have the attack that we like. We did a couple of kick drums, we did the Toms with clear and coated heads, and actually it's kind of eyeopening if you listen, the differences there because I guess I'm so methodical with the tuning. They're tuned almost identically. It's such a pretty good comparison of clear and coated heads and it kind of shocked me how small those differences actually were. But anyway, that's an aside, like a good array of symbols and recorded in this huge room. It's an amazing kind of just explosive warehouse sounding room. And we didn't know know what to expect as our first run through really doing it. We thought that maybe the slate trigger aspect was going to be our big seller or the main point of the thing, and that's what I was intending to be using it for.

(01:11:26):

And I'd done that in the past, but I'd never gone as far as creating a virtual instrument, which we did in contact and we were kind of shocked once we got back the initial beta version of the contact instrument, we were like, wow, this actually sounds really realistic. The symbols especially were something which were an unknown to us and we were really blown away with how good those came out and we were like, wow, we really have something here. So we refined it for a long time. Misha joined the fold and then we finally launched it. I mean we recorded these samples I think in September or October of last year, and we just launched two and a half months ago now,

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):

Products time

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):

And of course we're touring and recording an album and doing all these other things too. So it was like wasn't straight work on it the whole time, but we're incredibly proud of it and we're just in the process now of making sure it's more accessible to people that don't want to buy the full version of contact. And we have some really cool solutions for that coming out and we we're really, really pumped up about it. We have loads of plans for the future. It's not just a one time thing. We definitely we're not planning on just disappearing after this one pack. And yeah, really excited for what the future holds there, but it's been really cool for me especially to be able to program drums now. And I solo the overheads and I'm like, wow, that totally sounds like my overheads. I always do them the same way and it's for a reason. And now when I'm programming and mixing with those, it's like I can do all the stuff I normally do to my live drums and as long as I program carefully, which you have to do, you can't just put everything at full velocity with any sample library. No drummer plays like that as long as you program. Well, it sounds for me, it sounds like what I want to hear. So that's been a really, really cool thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):

Let me just take a moment to say that anyone listening, if you are a subscriber to nail the mix, we have a coupon code for $20 off of get good drums. So one more good reason. And also if you're not a subscriber and you won't get good drums, well maybe subscribe and nail the mix and get a discount. So we are starting to run short on time and we have a bunch of questions from our audience for you, so why don't we do some of that?

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):

Of course, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):

Cool. So first question comes from David Fuller and it's how much processing do you commit to at tracking?

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):

It really depends. I'm not afraid to commit to processing on certain things, but there's plenty of other things that I leave pretty raw. And of course it depends on the situation. We record the Devon Townsend album at the Armory studio in Vancouver, which has a huge SSL and so much outboard gear. It was ridiculous. So I totally ran my snare top through a pull tech and an SSL eq and it was coming in on an Eve 10 73 with EQ and I went to a distress. I'll totally do that when it's there, but at the same time, there's plenty of sessions where I don't really commit to any cue on the drums, let's say. I definitely don't like to commit to anything more than very subtle compression on drums. I do like to compress drums a lot. That's kind of my thing. But for certain things it has to happen at a certain stage in the process, which again, we'll get into more in the masterclass where it doesn't make sense to compress individual mics more like groups.

(01:14:58):

And also with things like rooms, if you compress them too much and then edit, sometimes you get weird envelope stuff going on because the compressor is time-based, but if you're changing where the hits are, it kind of sounds weird. Honestly, it's probably not the biggest deal in the world, but it's just something I try and stay away from. Plus it's just really satisfying to do that later. It's kind of a shame when you pull up an already compressed track because compression is fun. So it is, isn't it? Come on. It is. When I get sent stuff to mix and the vocals already compressed, I'm kind of bummed. Or if the room mics are already compressed, not it sounds bad, but just because I wanted that fun bit anyway. Yeah, other things, guitars, I'll commit a little bit to one thing I do a lot. I work in the box, so lots of the times I'm not having the option of committing to hardware stuff on the way in.

(01:15:46):

But what I might do when I'm editing drums for example, is print any plugins, which I have some EQ stuff maybe on Toms that I had when we were tracking to the editor drums when I'm exporting them ready for mixing so that when I'm starting from mixing, I'm starting from something, which it's probably what I would've done if I was tracking on a console and had an EQ on every channel. It's just nice to pull up raw drums and not have them sound really dull and kind of bokey. For example, on the nail, the mix stuff, I think the Tom's had a little bit of mid cut going on the snare and kick the main channels of those are going through API EQs with a fair amount of stuff going on the rooms had a little bit of compression on, but apart from that it's mainly just high pass and stuff like that. Oh yeah, I actually compressed a tiny bit on the bottom snare as well, I think on the way in if I remember correctly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):

So you do a decent amount. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):

I guess I do. But yeah, God, we're kind of going back to this thing that we were talking about earlier. It was like I started out being really gung-ho with everything and then became way more careful with every move until I was really capturing the source tones as well as I could. And then now I'm kind of back at a point of taking risks, especially because I kind of know how to undo them. I'm careful not to with the API eq, it's symmetrical. So if I really want to undo the EQ moves I do. I just do the opposite, not too worried about that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):

Perfect. So Abraham FEMA is asking, do you think it's better to focus on perfecting one genre or sound as an up and coming mixed producer and do most of your clients come to you because you specialize in that modern Prague sound? Should I specialize? I

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):

Think specialization is a really good thing. I think that you're way more likely to get hired as the guy that's really good at doing something than as the guy that's kind of good at everything, at least if you're trying to be hired as an engineer producer. But I think that you're naturally going to fall into doing whatever it is, whatever you should do you, whatever you do, you should be working on music that moves you, if not emotionally, but makes you feel good. I don't know when really well mixed heavy metal comes on, it feels a certain way that's really satisfying to me. So it's natural that I love creating that atmosphere, but it could well be that I'm just into all types of music and I get that from all types of music and I'd be kind of clipping my own wings if I didn't explore that, but just let your sound find you, which sounds like the worst cliched kind of thing.

(01:18:13):

But that's something which I've noticed happened with me especially in the last couple of years as I've developed a lot of these techniques that we've been talking about is my taste has led me to a point where now there is a certain coherency to what I do and I feel like I could work with a rock band and I could work with a death metal band and they could have something appropriate that still had my sound. And indeed I think I'm going to be doing exactly that in the near future. So we'll see how those come out. But yeah, don't be afraid to develop your own sound. I think that's good. Don't just try and copy somebody else, but at the same time, learning a lot about somebody else's style can really inform your own taste and certainly loads of stuff I do, I picked up from other people whose sound I really liked and just kind of appropriated it in my own way, kind of messed it up a little bit by mistake and ended up with something that I like that's different.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):

Yeah, it's kind of technically impossible to actually copy somebody

Speaker 3 (01:19:06):

When

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):

It comes to this stuff

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):

I guess, unless you're really using virtual everything and di that kind of stuff

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):

And you know exactly what they do. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):

So Tyler Rodriguez is asking when you track rhythm guitars, do you like to keep the same amp settings and same guitar or do you switch and change something to differentiate the right and left side?

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):

I really like sticking to the same guitar for metal anyway because of intonation even. Well, I dunno if I have two identical guitars and the intonate them identically, they should be pretty damn close. But sometimes if you use different scale length guitars on each side, even if one is really well intonated on its own, you can run into weird issues when layering and I'm pretty snobby about tuning a lot of the time, so that can really drive me up the wall. I'm not afraid to use asymmetrical tones like especially different amps. To me the cab really defines the overall EQ curve, so as long as the cab is the same, you're probably not even really going to perceive the two different tones as much as maybe a bit of added width. But I will say most of the time I just use the same tone on both sides and enjoy the kind of symmetry that you get from doing that.

(01:20:12):

I do sometimes use a left right EQ separately on my stereo guitar bus. I might cut a bit of mids on one side and boost a bit of mids on the other, something I've done from time to time. I think I did that on the periphery album, but I certainly do that. It can create a little bit of space in there. I've even done that on the master bus before and I guess it does a pretty similar thing with the guitars being hard pan and being most of the mid information, but that can be a cool trick.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):

So Charlie Monroe is asking, in what ways would you approach producing a band that you're member of as opposed to one that you're not a member of?

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):

I think something I'm very lucky with is that I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of bands. I think it would be a lot more of a problem if I'd only worked with my own band or if, I dunno. I think the best thing I can recommend actually based on that is try and work with other bands, bands that you're not emotionally involved with, whether it's the music or the people around you in the band or just that maybe you're going to be recording it at home and really homely atmosphere, but just get a feel for what it's like to record people that you have a distance from that you're working for in a professional capacity in a space that's professionally designed. And try and figure out what needs to be maintained from that experience when you work with your own band. Because I think the biggest problem can be getting too casual with it or allowing the emotional nature of any relationship with mates to cloud efficient work or to allow conflict to get out of control.

(01:21:46):

I'd say for me, certainly something that is never going to go away is that the amount of stress when working for a periphery record is so much high for me because these guys are my brothers and while I'm not shouldering all of the responsibility, I'm responsible for a great deal of the end sound and I really don't want to let down all the amazing work that they've put in on their end. So be prepared for that extra level of you don't want to let down your best friends. But yeah, I'd say my best advice would be go and work for other people even if it's not paid, just go and do that and figure out what it's like to work professionally with bands and then bring that back to your band when you work with them.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):

Great. So Tyler Hanson's asking, and I know that you kind of already answered part of this earlier by talking about using the beta 57, but how do you tame your Tom and stair mic bleed to get it to blend into the mix? Well,

Speaker 3 (01:22:43):

Yeah, so I don't do that on the Toms actually I don't use, I would love to have a HyperCard version of the Josephson E 20 twos that I use on Toms, but they just sound so good that yeah, basically for mixing with a snare, I'm going to go over that in great detail and nail the mix, but if you do want to know a little bit, I do a process where I basically only gate the high frequencies of the snare drum. So the high frequencies in between the hits, which is essentially all the symbol bleed gets eradicated, but there's still stuff going on in the mic. It just doesn't have annoying frequencies That made a huge difference to what I do. It only really works if you have a loud signal to noise ratio, like signal to bleed ratio because otherwise you really start to cut into the dynamics of the lower, the softer hits on the snare too.

(01:23:29):

But if you want to do some research into what exactly that entails, you might find some cool stuff going on. If you do that, I always strip the silence and sometimes inevitably I end up having to paste in clean samples. If you're in the nail the mix thing, you'll have noticed I included some just like one shot hits of the Toms that are clean just in case if Matt's hitting a floto with achy, which I'm not a drummer, but I know that that's something really satisfying to do. They're both over there on the right, but it's just the worst thing for bleed like Achy and the Flo Tom is, it's just always there. So sometimes you do have to paste in clean hits, but apart from that it's down to trying to raise the symbols up a little bit if you can. Trying to keep the mics pointing away from the symbols where you can and maybe a bit more vertically than sounds good.

(01:24:15):

Typically I try and mic pointing at the center of the drum, but just to reduce bleed, I generally kind of go a bit more vertically, like perpendicular to the head. And having a drummer that hits the Tom's hard is, I guess the last thing. The Toms are by far the weakest sounding things on the instrument because you've got typically a metal snare that's super loud and bright. You've got cymbals that are just these huge chunks of metal that you're hitting repeatedly, and then you have these poor little wood hoops that are supposed to come to be competitive with that in volume, and it just doesn't happen. So if you've got a drummer that hits your Toms really hard, then that's going to be a lifesaver. Someone like Alex Inger is the best when it comes to that. That guy hits Toms so hard and consistent that it's just never an issue.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):

He's a beast.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):

And by the way, listeners, the very first month of Nail the Mix, which is included with a subscription you always get, month number one is a band called Cognizance from England that I recorded in 2014 and Alex Inger played the drums on that. So we've got some excellent tracks available of Alex's and God, he's just so awesome at drums.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):

Yeah, you're going to be blown away if you check out those. He's a good friend of mine. I mix basically all of his YouTube videos and things he does, so Oh, nice. Maybe a little bit desensitized to it, but it's definitely crazy when you see he's playing some crazy death metal and you can just see every snare hit is exactly the same. Then it comes to a blast beat and the volume dips by almost a measurable percentage and then just stays at that volume for the entirety of the blast beat and then goes back. It's crazy. There's so many times when I could swear that there's one snare hit being pasted four times in a row on a fast roll, which I just saw him play. It is ridiculous how consistent that is.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):

Yeah, man. And just his commitment to playing is unbelievable in between every take He's practicing, he's always practicing, he's always, he is drums basically. Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):

I lived with him for a week and he's a super sweet guy, and yeah, just made me feel terrible about the amount of time I spend on perfecting my craft. So yeah, he's an inspiration for sure. So

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):

Last question here, there's a ton more, but we're just running out of time and plus we're doing a q and a next week, well technically this week, if you're listening to the podcast September 15th, for those of you who are subscribed, we'll be doing a live q and a chat with N. So be sure to sign up for that. You can find out the information inside of your nail, the mix account under multi-tracks. We have a registration link there. There's no way that we can get through all these questions right now. So final question is from Sebastian, and I'm not even going to try that last name. What was the most significant change to your workflow slash mistake you discovered that you wish you knew earlier?

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):

I wish I knew earlier. I dunno. But I will say something that really changed my workflow for mixing was when Logic introduced Track Stacks, which isn't even very long ago, but it's basically, it is a folder that acts as a bus at the same time. And it's just a very quick shortcut to make kind of led me down this path, especially with drums of busing together, the multiple mics that I might place on a certain kit piece and simply blending the levels of those mics, but then processing them as a whole. And that kind of, it sounds really minor, but that change in mindset going from asking everyone like, oh, what are you doing to your snare boss? And what are you doing to your hi hat close mic? What are you doing to your kick out? And not really knowing what to do with those microphones to just having such a more simple workflow, which is less CPU intensive gets me the results way quicker.

(01:28:07):

And in many ways it's more similar to in the analog world, unless you've got a huge console, you're probably going to sum your snare channels down anyway, your kick channels down or that's what plenty of people do anyway. And so yeah, just that it's not just with drums, with guitars too, with all sorts of stuff just made me simplify my process, do more with fewer moves, and that really, really changed things. And then I guess using frequency analyzers as well, which we talked about right at the beginning, that was a game changer for me in terms of consistently achieving the results that I wanted because before that, everything that I was doing that was like a serious undertaking was just a nightmare of stress and nerves. I felt like one day it would sound amazing, then the next day it would sound terrible. And yeah, human fallibility really was way bigger deal back then.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):

It still kind of is.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):

Yeah, it's a huge deal, but at least I can be consistent.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):

Yeah, that's great, dude. Well, I'm sure that we could talk about this stuff for hours more, but unfortunately we got to end this episode.

Speaker 3 (01:29:14):

Yeah, that's unfortunate. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):

I know that we have at least another 90 minutes of being able to talk about this stuff. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:29:23):

For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):

But we still have a q and a and the live event, so we're going to be talking about this stuff quite a bit the next few weeks of course. So I just want to thank you for coming on. No,

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):

It's been my pleasure. Really. Thank you for letting me ramble about all sorts of stuff that I didn't expect to be talking about. No,

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):

That's

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):

Great. Yeah, it was awesome,

Speaker 4 (01:29:40):

Natalie,

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And look forward to seeing you in a few weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):

Yeah, you will. I guess it's about four weeks, no, yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):

About three weeks now.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):

Something like that. Cool.

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):

Yeah, it's going to be great. Are you both going to be, there's

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):

Counting anyways. I'll be there. I don't know if anyone else will, but I will definitely be there.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):

Cool. I'll be in chat remote. Well, wicked, I'll see you in a few weeks, Al. I will e meet you in a few weeks, Joel, and maybe Joey too. Yeah, sweet. Take care guys. And I'm really looking forward to the nail mix thing. It's going to be really good fun. Yeah, it'll be great. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):

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