TUE MADSEN: Recording Meshuggah Live, The Swimming Pool Drum Room, Why Feel Trumps Perfection

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Mick DSP professional audio plugins. For over 15 years, Mick DSP has continued producing industry acclaimed and award-winning software titles. The podcast is also brought to you by Slate Digital, all the pro plugins. One more monthly price. And now your hosts Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

(00:00:26):

Hello everyone. Welcome. Welcome back to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. Thanks for listening as always, and today I'd like to welcome our Danish friend here, Mr. Tue Madsen. How you doing, man?

Speaker 3 (00:00:43):

I'm good. I'm good, thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:00:46):

Now, some of you might not be familiar with his name, but he has done some pretty awesome stuff, and the main one that I am grateful for is, I'll say Shuga, because Shuga is just unstoppable and having to, I mean, he's done a lot of other stuff and I'm sure we'll go on to say it, but I just want to say Shuga is like, I would just be nervous to even touch that. So hands down to you,

Speaker 3 (00:01:17):

I don't want to pretend that I wasn't nervous and I was on my way to Portugal. I got off the plane, turned on my phone a couple of months ago, and then a friend of mine wrote me Congrats on the new Masu. So I mean, he would have to have been able to hear it on Facebook or something. So I immediately went to Blaber mouth because I was pretty fucking nervous about this one because if you screw up Shuga, people are going to kill you. It's kind of like Slayer or something. If you can't mess up Masu, then people are going to kill you. So I went to Blaber mouth to get the worst first or to see what people were saying, and I skipped through the introduction and went straight to the comment and the first comment, the very first comment was Production is awful. And I just got off the plane in Portugal and the sun was shining and everything was just, ugh.

Speaker 4 (00:02:19):

Oh man.

Speaker 3 (00:02:20):

No, but I'm grateful. It looks like the majority of people appreciate this wreck had a great deal, so I'm happy with it. Well,

Speaker 4 (00:02:27):

It's a risky move, I think, to do it the way that you guys did it with it being all live. I think that it's pretty much unheard of in this genre of metal. So I think that that is a lot for a listener to wrap their head around, but I feel like the response has been overwhelmingly amazing from everything I've seen.

Speaker 5 (00:02:50):

Yeah, me too. Yeah, the music blog sites don't count. No one cares what those guys think. No, no. But

Speaker 2 (00:02:58):

They took me a couple listens to really understand what was going on because with an act like Shuga, they have this reputation and they have sort of this expectation. So I listened to it and I was like, okay, yeah, it's Shuga. But then I read something where I heard that it was recorded live, and then I listened to it again and I had a whole, it just all clicked. It all made sense. I had a complete 180 about it. I was like, holy shit, this is fucking awesome. So I hope that they can communicate that, especially to people like us. I think that's an important part of how this, I want to say the product of what it is, but what they're trying to do is incredible and they're doing it so well and you're a big part of that, so that's so awesome. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:03:52):

It was, obviously not everything was a hundred percent live, but the drums you hear on the album and the bass, and I'd say 80% of 80, 90% of the vocals were all recorded live Dick, the bass player just does not have it in him to make mistakes. I think out of what a hundred or 200 takes of various songs or something we did between, I think the least we did was maybe seven takes on a song or something and we did 30 on another one. But out of all those takes, I think he messed up once because there was one part he wasn't a hundred percent sure how to play yet, so the first two takes, he might've messed up a little bit there, but for one part, but the rest was just when we started piecing the takes together, you could pretty much take any take.

(00:05:00):

Dick was playing and it would sound like music with the drums, it, it's ridiculous how he's playing, how everybody in the band is playing. It's not only there's a lot of focus on Thomas the drummer obviously, but he's not the only one. That band consists of five guys who are equally focused on the job at hand and they are all locked in with the whole thing, what they're trying to achieve and how to go about it. There was one song, I can't remember the name of it, I'm sorry, because some of them had different titles when we were recording them.

Speaker 4 (00:05:49):

I never know the actual names of songs I work

Speaker 3 (00:05:51):

On. No, they're like 1, 2, 3, 4 till nine, and then two years later they ask you for backup files from this song you never heard about. But no, there was this one song that didn't really come down the way that they wanted. So Frederick came up, Dick came up with this idea of maybe trying to remove the click altogether. I think the first one was for everybody to turn up the click really loud on their headphones so that everybody would play to the same feel because they would do their individual mixes themselves. And Thomas obviously would have a lot of click since he's the drummer, but Dick would hardly hear any click on his headphones and Fred was a little bit up and down regarding that, but then they tried to play it with everybody listening to a lot of click and it had this later Chua type of sound, but it didn't really gel.

(00:06:59):

Then they tried to go the other way. Everybody turned off the clique all together except for Thomas and everybody would play with the drums. And this was maybe the fifth take they did of that song. And when they started playing that, I was like, and probably the fifth time I heard the song in my life or something and I was like, is this even the same song? Because all of a suddenly it sounded like the first two or three albums it sounded, had a completely different feel to it and little adjustments like that that actually come through very clearly in the music. That's something I rarely find in bands, I'd have to say.

Speaker 4 (00:07:44):

I was going to say, do you think that now that this is getting the attention that it's getting, that you're going to have a lot of bands coming in wanting to try to record like this?

Speaker 3 (00:07:54):

Probably yes. And

Speaker 4 (00:07:56):

Is that a nightmare?

Speaker 3 (00:07:58):

A lot of these bands, I look at it kind of the same bands wanting to record on tape because they saw some movie with Foo Fighters or whatever. It's a nice idea, but once you start calculating how much money you're going to spend on just rewind just on buying tapes and then waiting for the tape machine to rewind, I grew up on tapes in the studio, so I'm not a stranger to recording on tapes. It's a whole different ball game, and once you start doing that and you want to record live, I mean, here's the deal about Shuga have been pretty much for the past 15 or 20 years or something, they've been writing and recording an album at the same time. And once they finish an album, that's when they had to learn how to play the songs. Now the record is finished now we go into rehearsal to actually learn how to play everything because they would do it in parts and change parts and do all this kind of thing.

(00:09:04):

This time they wrote the songs until New Year's. Then they had had January, February, March rehearse the songs, and then we entered the studio in April. And that takes a whole lot of rehearsing to be able to play something like that. It was the same, I did the same with the Haunted on the Verse album, and I think they were two months in rehearsal room every day, eight hours a day just rehearsing to be able to play that stuff. And it's a nice thought. We want to go in and record live and there is some sort of magic to it sometimes, but it's a lot of hard work. It really is a lot of hard work and I don't mind doing it, but especially since the majority of the work is on the band's part.

Speaker 5 (00:09:59):

That's really interesting because I just had a nice conversation with Rob Flynn of Machine Head and I just did their last single, and

Speaker 3 (00:10:07):

Rob

Speaker 5 (00:10:07):

Was talking about doing the next record and possibly having me mix it and we were talking about how I wanted to make it and he was telling me the same thing. He's kind of like, I kind of want to try doing this live, but not making it modern and really well polished and everything tight, but not so everything is to grid, everything is totally quantized, the record has a feel to it. He kept going back to some of the old Guns and Roses records and listening to them, and if you actually break it down how sloppy and poorly played some of that stuff is. But when you listen to the song, the song is so great and the vibe is so awesome. You don't notice that the guitar player is coked out and can't the is way off from the rest of the band. So it's definitely, it's an interesting approach. I feel like it's kind of gaining a little bit of steam. I keep hearing more and more bands talking about trying to record live or at least quasi live.

Speaker 3 (00:10:59):

Yeah, I mean this was drums and bass and vocals were recorded live and was playing guitar as well. Morton had an injury so he couldn't play 10 hours a day because he had some crazy shoulder pains. So Fred was handling most of the guitar parts and everybody was playing. Fred was keeping it more in a way that he would be like the extra timekeeper, the extra click track or whatever, like a helping hand knowing that he could play the guitar parts after. And there are more than two guitar tracks anyway, so obviously something has to have been done at a different time. But everything was kept kind of in the same way that when we recorded rerecorded some guitar tracks afterwards that it would be like go from the start, not work on one part until you get it super perfect then copy paste or something. It's just like start at zero, turn on the tape machine and go and if you fuck up then go back 20 seconds and punch in or whatever.

(00:12:13):

Pretty much live in the field. And I think maybe recording it live is not necessarily the be all end all of this, getting this sound. I think the important stuff here is recording people playing music and that can be done in layers or be done live. But the important thing for me is to what you just mentioned about keeping, not keeping everything on the grid, because to me the whole beat detective copy paste thing is it doesn't turn me on. I mean, when I hear records that are super overly fixed, it doesn't interest me in the same way I believe that people playing music and keeping a little bit of dirt in there, I'm not advocating playing shitty. That's not what I'm saying at all. But with a band like Shuga and so many other bands, because a lot of bands I actually really good these days, but when you have a drummer that's playing awesome already, why would you want to fix it up? It's my policy on that.

Speaker 4 (00:13:37):

I completely agree. It doesn't make any sense. I've had experiences that I never understood where when I first got I guess into the bigger world of recording and I started working with some guys who were making real records, they were so used to putting every single thing on the grid that it didn't matter if the drummer was incredible or terrible, they always did the same thing to the drums. And so it's like if you have a great drummer, if you have a great drummer coming in, you make him mediocre. And if you have a terrible drummer, you make him mediocre. And mediocre is better than terrible, but it's definitely worse than great. And I never understood why they would chop up a drummer who was doing a great job, why not just leave it? I mean, isn't that what the drums are supposed to be like? They supposed to be played just played really well. I feel like it seems that the metal world is starting to move away from that a little bit. Maybe it's been the grid influence has been so heavy for so long now that it's just people are starting to shift away from it naturally. I hope.

(00:14:49):

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (00:14:52):

I definitely hope so. I had it like an experience a couple of years ago. I did an album for a band where they brought in, I was producing the album with this other guy and he was like everything on the grit kind of guy, and I was brought in to be the analog guy. We didn't record on tape, but you know what I mean? Yeah, it would be, I mean we were good friends. It wasn't a fight. We weren't enemies or anything, but it was mixing oil and water. And that making that album was made me think because they brought up some records that I worked on that I remember they brought up this one record I mixed where I know that it wasn't a real drummer on the record and I really loved working on that record, but somehow talking about it so much with this band made me realize that I never, never listened to that album after I finished it.

(00:15:57):

And then it got me to a point where I was thinking, but what am I listening? Because mostly most of the time I put everything, I work on my phone so I can listen to it because once the work is done, that's when it's really nice to listen to it because now it's not work anymore. Now it's just good music hopefully. And so I always put my stuff on my phone so I can listen to when I go out or whatever. And so it's just a matter of pressing play and it's right there at my fingertips, but somehow I never do that. And then I started thinking about whenever it's these super a hundred percent beat detective all the way, copy, paste everything and stuff, if I'm at the workout, it just makes me, it doesn't catch me just I start thinking about, oh, I have to pick up milk on the way home and pay that bill when I get home or something.

(00:17:00):

But if I listen to Slayer or some old crust punk like that new, nevermind. If I listen to something which is obviously very human, there's no way I can think about anything else but what's going on. And that's exactly what I want this type of music to be, something that doesn't sit quietly in the corner and say, yeah, it's okay for you to do whatever you want. No metal should be about screaming at you and grabbing your attention and making sure you pay attention to everything that's going on. And for me, that's the difference. That really is it like musicians, people trying to communicate emotions to other people. Me for instance. And I think that's best done by people not computers.

Speaker 4 (00:17:56):

I completely agree with you. And let me just say that for people listening who I'm sure that 99% of our listeners know exactly who you are, but for those of you who are being introduced to two Masson for the first time ever, you've not just done Mago, you've done a bunch of incredible metal bands for a long time now. Like you said, the haunted August Burns Red who inside Silence during Gray, but on and on,

Speaker 5 (00:18:25):

Maybe not on,

Speaker 4 (00:18:27):

On and on and on and on. And I remember even about 10 years ago, my old band sent you a test mix that I wanted to go with, but the label didn't let us, but this was maybe 2005 with Roadrunner.

Speaker 2 (00:18:43):

So

Speaker 4 (00:18:43):

We've been following your work for a super long time. I have a question on a totally different topic, and I know you know that I have to ask about this, but what's up with drums in the swimming pool? We got to ask, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (00:18:58):

Yeah, no, it's fine. I like 13 years ago I bought this house and there was a swimming pool, and in the beginning it was in the house. This is not California right now. It's all Florida. It's freezing outside. So swimming pools is not a very common thing in Denmark. But there was a swimming pool here and for the first, I don't know, four or five years we lived here, we kept water in the pool. But then we had one of those typical summers where the sun doesn't really shine at all for six months, so we decided to not put water in the pool anymore. And then it was just like an empty room just sitting there. And I had the studio in a different place and I rebuilt that studio, so I didn't have a drum room anymore. And then I had to put some of my, I had a couple of drum kits and some other stuff, I had to put it somewhere. And then I just thought when I put it in the pool, which was empty anyway, I wanted to set it up and then maybe my son would have fun one day playing drums or something. And then when I set up the bass drum and hit it once, and it sounded like every Bon Jovi and Scorpions album put together played at the same time and I was like, oh, this was so good. And then I knew that I had to do something with this. And back then the pool was completely empty, so it was amazing.

(00:20:36):

And then I told a friend of mine about it and he had this really fast hardcore band and he was like, yeah, we want to try it. We want to be your first try. And so we did it and even though it was pretty fast off and there was still nothing in the room to quieten it down, it actually sounded pretty good. So then, I dunno, a little while longer, I think six months later or something, I did a heaven Shell Burn album and I told Alex, the guitar player and co-producer from Heaven Shell Burn. I told him about it and he was like, oh, we want to do the drums in the pool. So I didn't even have the studio set up here, so we had to run a stage box and a cable down the stairs to where the studio was back then and just run the cables out of the window and not being able to close the window.

(00:21:34):

We probably drove the neighbors mad and recorded drums here and it turned out really well. And then I decided to, because then the room next to the pool became empty, and then I was like, well, I could make a control room here and then have the pool as my permanent drum room. And that's how the pool got into the picture in the first place. But then later on I did some changes to the room. It still looks very much like a pool, so it's kind of weird looking, but it sounds really good. I think now I've built a terrace or a shelf in one end of the pool. So if you put up the drums there, you can get a tighter, not so reverb drum sound, and you can still get the pool reverb, but just by letting the room mics, depending on how loud you make the room mics. But if you put the drums at the bottom of the pool, which is what we did unseen by the haunted is one I can remember. And then you can't really, I mean you can shut down the room mics, but you're always going to get a pretty decent amount of pool reverb in the overhead mics no matter what you do. So it's a different sound, but it's a really nice sound I think.

Speaker 4 (00:23:09):

So from the bottom of the pool to the ceiling, that must be what, 16 feet or 20 feet?

Speaker 3 (00:23:16):

Something

Speaker 4 (00:23:17):

Like that's like

Speaker 3 (00:23:18):

Four meters. I am not sure how much that is in,

Speaker 4 (00:23:22):

So it's 12 feet.

Speaker 3 (00:23:23):

Yeah, that's probably something like that, I think

Speaker 4 (00:23:27):

Still pretty tall. So what else did you do to treat it besides build, I guess the floating stage, what else did you do?

Speaker 3 (00:23:40):

Put a bunch of stuff in there like extra guitar cabinets that I can't keep in my iso booth, which just happens to be the sauna of course, because it's a pool. So of course there's a sauna right next to it, and that's where I put all my caps in. That's

Speaker 5 (00:23:57):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:23:59):

Yeah, it really is like a swim society except for the water.

Speaker 5 (00:24:06):

I kind of want to start a band now and come record a song with you just so I can experience recording drums in a pool. I think that's one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my entire audio life.

Speaker 3 (00:24:16):

Yeah, it's cool. I mean,

Speaker 4 (00:24:19):

I've always wondered about it.

Speaker 3 (00:24:20):

The best feeling is, I mean, when I was 12 years old, I used to be a drummer. I'm not a drummer now, but I still sit down behind the drum kit every once in a while. And when you put on your headphones and you got a good monitor set up and then you hit that kick, it is just the best feeling because the reverberation of the room. And then with all the nice monitors, it's like the boombox that some drummers use for in your monitoring, that boomy thing that sends vibrations through the chair and stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:25:05):

Oh, I know what you're talking

Speaker 3 (00:25:06):

About. It's kind of like that. It's an amazing feeling to play drums in the pool. I think I wish I was a better drummer so I could do it more often.

Speaker 4 (00:25:17):

Do you ever have situations where the room is just too lively for what you're trying to record,

Speaker 3 (00:25:23):

But when I put the drums up on the shelf, I can control it. It hasn't been an issue yet. I mean, I try to talk to the band about what we want to achieve with this recording before we set up so that I know that where to set it up. Because if you set up at the bottom of the pool and then they say in the mix that we really would like this to sound like more like boney M or seventies disco, it's not going to happen because you got everything going. You get the initial hits, but you get some reverb from the overheads and you can't kill that. And it happened a couple of times where we weren't clear about what we wanted before we started and then you have to work a little bit harder, but it is not usually a problem.

Speaker 4 (00:26:23):

So speaking of getting clear with bands in advance, do you have a process that you follow when you start on a new project in order to get everybody on the same page?

Speaker 3 (00:26:34):

Well, every project is different. So there are so many different ways to do these projects. Of course, I try to talk it through to make it like where are we going to record? Am I going to record or am I going to mix? And how are you going to record if I'm not going to be there to do it if I'm only mixing? And try to make sure I know as much as I can about what's going on until I get the files for the mix. So yeah, I try to talk about, but it's not like I have a set formula. I try to write down some rules once, but then you put down a bunch of pointers and you think you've covered everything there is to know about how to record an album. And then you get the files and you find out that the guitar player was recording everything upside down and picking along with the strings instead of stroking.

(00:27:36):

So it goes instead of, you just can't cover every possible thing that can go wrong. I tried, but I didn't succeed. So I tried to talk to people and get an idea of what it is and if they're recording without me, have them send files for me to check before they record 20 songs so that I have a chance to say, oh, could you maybe do something different before you record the rest of the songs because this isn't good. Makes sense, but so much. But when bands are here, I like to, if they can possibly do demos first, but I don't like to kill the whole experience because that's what happens for me. If I listen too much to the demo, I find that I start to try and copy the demos and I don't think that's the best way to do it. I like to, when you record drums and there's just one shitty guide guitar, for instance, everything is so naked so you can hear all the things that are not there yet, but if you get a full production of backing tracks for the drummer to play to, it's not as easy to hear all those things that might be good for the music.

(00:29:05):

Do you know what I mean? Get those ideas in. And I like to build everything thing sort of from scratch. Obviously this is different for every production, but the idea I think is really good and is really where I find that we get a lot of new creative ideas and take the music to different places than where everybody, I like people to go home with something they didn't expect to go home with, go home with a little bit more than what they expected.

Speaker 4 (00:29:42):

I find that, like you said, it totally depends on the project though, because for instance, there's some bands like Black Dahlia Murder who they'll record a demo of the album with every single part on it before and then will come into record. And then they're so good though. They're so good and their songwriting is so good. That's perfect, exactly what is expected and what's supposed to come of the situation. And for some reason it's just great. And I don't know the magic comes out in the recreation of it for some reason, but with other bands, that totally kills the creativity. So it is just interesting to me when it's appropriate for a band to do a complete demo and when not. And sometimes I feel like the better the band is or the more skilled it is, the more it doesn't bother me if they go all the way. But I think also it also depends on how much the band wants out of the producer, right? If some bands don't want you to have any influence besides just making it sound good, I think.

Speaker 3 (00:30:53):

Yeah, exactly. And bringing it back to Masu, I mean, and recording live, obviously if you're recording live, you don't have the option of changing a shitload of parts because people are not going to be able to play it. So in that case, it's extremely good to make very thorough demos, so you've had a chance to listen to it as music without having to play it at the same time and just listen to it as music and make sure all the parts are good the way they are so you can go in and perform what you already agreed on live. So of course there are different situations, but I like to listen to shitty demos. I think that's very inspirational. Even a tape recorder in, they don't exist anymore. I know, but for the old people, a tape recorder in the rehearsal room,

Speaker 4 (00:31:50):

Well now it's an iPhone of the rehearsal room.

Speaker 3 (00:31:53):

Yeah. I guess

Speaker 4 (00:31:55):

Joey, don't you make your bands do complete demos?

Speaker 2 (00:31:59):

Yes. It happened when I was pretty much kind of not very well educated in how music business works, and the issue was I felt like I was being paid to record an album, but what I was actually doing was recording an album, writing songs, playing guitar, mixing, editing, mastering, and that's when I kind of solved the problem in two ways. One way is I got a lawyer and changed all my contracts and made them proper. And the second thing I did is I don't like to really write music. So I would just tell the bands, I'm not even setting your dates. That's what we would do is basically hold the dates hostage until they gave us a demo. So if they never turned in a demo, then dates were never set and then the record would never happen. So I said, give me a demo.

(00:32:52):

I want to hear what you're going for. Even if it's not exactly what you want the song to be, that's fine, as long as you can bring in the rough idea, we can mold it, we can play with it, we can change it. And even people would still try and send in the demos without vocals, and I'd be like, no, as soon as vocals are on this song, it's going to change everything. So you still need to do the vocals as well, because that completely changes the song. So that was a huge game changer for me because as soon as I did that, I was able to hire people to track guitars for me, people to edit vocals. You can't do those things when a band comes in and they don't have stuff to work on because then you just have a bunch of engineers sing around your house doing nothing because you're too busy trying to write a song. How can you turn this into a profitable business when you don't know what the fuck you're going to be doing when they show up? Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:33:48):

I don't know if you've experienced this, but band shows up and there's four weeks to do 12 songs, but they've only written three songs, and they're a very progressive technical band, so it's not just like they could shit out four chords and some double bass. There's serious stuff that they write.

Speaker 3 (00:34:10):

That's a shame.

Speaker 4 (00:34:10):

Yeah, I mean, I'm talking serious bands though that are out there coming in with literally three songs. And so I feel like for a lot of the younger bands, I'm talking maybe between the age ranges of 18 through 25, who grew up in the 100% digital era is probably a good idea to make them demo it because they don't always have the same background of playing together and writing together and doing things that I guess when I was in a band and the bands I grew up with all played together and recorded together and did all that stuff. And so even if guys have adopted or adapted to the new ways of recording, they can still get together and play and make music. But a lot of the younger bands don't really do that. They didn't grow up that way. They don't have those skills. So I find that with them, you have to make them do a demo or you're going to end up in a situation I've been where they literally have no songs, but there's a budget and a label who expects it to be done.

Speaker 3 (00:35:16):

Yeah. Well, lucky for me, I've never been in that situation.

Speaker 4 (00:35:20):

Good. Could be.

Speaker 3 (00:35:22):

It's a shame it was a pro band because if only it was ac, C, D, C, you'd be all

Speaker 4 (00:35:28):

Right. If it was ac, CD, C, I'd be more than all right. But yeah, it definitely, it tends to happen with the more technical bands. And speaking of technical, I do have a more technical question, which is, so on the topic of shuga or bands like Shuga that use eight strings or tune super low, there's a lot of low end to control in the mix. What do you do to control low end in your mixes or do you do anything special when you're dealing with tunings that are that low?

Speaker 3 (00:36:02):

No, good

Speaker 4 (00:36:05):

Answer,

Speaker 3 (00:36:06):

Perfect answer. Well, actually, but actually I've, since I started out when I started out in doing studio work back in the nineties, early nineties, I guess I always tried to make everything sound the better than everything else or something. I always try to set the, I liked my guitars to have a lot of low end and a lot of high end as well, and all these things I since learned is maybe not always a good idea, but that's how I started. And everything I've ever done has been by going by my gut feeling and it seems to have been working out pretty well for me. So I've never really felt like changing that recipe. Having said that, of course I do some things, but it's not really, it doesn't feel like a task for me to control the low end. I like to use a full band compressor for base, for instance, to make sure that whenever he moves around on the nodes that it's kept in place, but sometimes it's not really necessary or the compressor's hardly working at all or just touching the material.

(00:37:38):

So it is not like a rule that's set in stone for me. And sometimes I find that keeping everything too, I've been working too hard on controlling everything and then I try turning off one of these darn things that holds everything together. And then I find that the whole mix opens up and becomes lively again by turning off a drum compressor or bass or whatever, something that I thought was absolutely dead necessary for this mix to work. And then it seems that it just works so much better if I take it off. And so you'll find a lot of mixes I did where I used samples on cake and snare. I rarely use samples on Toms, but on bass drum and snares, I do a lot of times so many other people, but sometimes I don't. And sometimes it just works better. So the easy answer really is the first one,

Speaker 4 (00:38:54):

No,

Speaker 3 (00:38:56):

It's not like I got this complex set up with parallel compression or doing side chain things to other things and all that. It really is quite simple in my mind at least. It might not be simple to everybody else. And then it's a matter of having everything find its place. So it's not like I spend seven hours getting the drums for one song and then move on to the next thing. It's getting the whole band playing within half an hour probably, and then moving those ice flakes around until it forms a floor I can stand on if you understand what I mean.

Speaker 4 (00:39:44):

Yeah. Joel, isn't that kind of how you do it too? You try to mix as fast as possible to the point where you have it sounding like a song literally as fast as you can to the point of where it sounds like music and then fix it up a little from that point forward?

Speaker 5 (00:40:00):

Well, absolutely. I feel like a lot of the best mixing, we'll say probably 90% of your mixing is going to be done off your gut instinct. And as soon as you hit that point in the mix where you really start thinking about like, okay, is there a little bit too much 200 in my guitar or is my vocal a little bit too? Or when you start not thinking or not feeling the music and start left braining it, that's the point where I kind of try to step away or send it to the band to get feedback and then come back a little bit more analytical later because I don't want to lose that vibe because you can just do so much damage and usually those are your best mixes. For example, where I learned this from was when I would do full records from start to scratch with local bands and have to do five songs in a week.

(00:40:44):

And by Friday at 5:00 PM I'd have to have all the songs mixed and that Monday morning we'd be tracking and setting up drums. So it was always like a crazy blitz. And one thing is I would mix as I was going and what would happen is I found that my tracking fader balances usually were my best ones. And then when I got into mix, I was always like, oh man, it's just not right. The vibe and the geologist isn't there that I had. And I would kind of go back and load my tracking session, keep the balances, and then try to EQ and then maybe tweak and automate a little bit from there. So I realized doing that, that a lot of my best mixes in, a lot of my best process came from not thinking about it, just kind of setting where it felt right and not paying attention to it.

(00:41:24):

So I tried to emulate that and duplicate that in actual mixing mindset. And that's kind of the thing I came up with where I literally just, okay, how fast can I whip this mix up? I got to go to lunch in 45 minutes, so I'm just going to pretend I don't give a shit and then come back and care later. But in the meantime, I'll get 90% of the mix done in that first pass with hopefully minimal tweaks or it's going to need that extra only a couple of percentage points to really become a great mix.

Speaker 3 (00:41:49):

I can relate a hundred percent to everything you just said. For me, it really is how I work with mixing. I get to that 90% part and then I need to put it on my phone and go walk the dogs or take a drive or whatever, listen to it when it's just a two track, because then it's music. As soon as you get a slice of pizza in your hand, it's just a piece of music. And then it becomes very obvious to me that guitar line wasn't meant to be background because it's so very, obviously the leading melody for this part of different things like that. That makes me, and when I listen to it and for a couple of days in a different environment, then I can form a list in my head usually. Usually I don't even write it down, I just keep a list in my head. And then when I get back to open up the mixes a couple of days later, I can go in and fix all those little things like surgically just go in for that specific part where I know or that specific snare drum that I don't like or whatever it was that I detected, but then just fix the problems and save that first basic energy from the mix that I feel that you were talking about. Also,

Speaker 4 (00:43:16):

You guys just brought me back to something that I actually can totally relate to this. Back in the days when I was recording local bands like a long time ago, I remember this exact same scenario where in five days you have to do everything and my tracking mixes always sounded better than when I started over again.

Speaker 5 (00:43:36):

Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 4 (00:43:38):

And maybe they didn't sound as polished, but they had the most I guess, vibe. And then whenever I would just work on those, the mixes came out way, way better. But what's funny about it is that, and I think that people do this kind of dumb stuff all the time, I feel like it took me a while to be okay with not starting the mix all over and doing it properly. I had to convince myself that it's okay to just work on the tracking mix. If that's what sounds great, that's what you should work on.

Speaker 5 (00:44:13):

Yeah, there's definitely a mental block there to overcome. I mean, you really have to get out of the mindset that you have to mix because really when you're sitting there with the band that point, you're mixing for ego. You feel like you have to mix. And so the band, they're paying you, but in reality is if you can let go of that preconception and just actually start mixing from right where you're at, it's going to get you there a lot faster. And everybody's been listening to it and jiving it, and you've kind of been adjusting it subconsciously as you've been going recording. So it's already going to be half of the way where it needs to be from my experience. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:44:47):

It's funny, but it also, you can take that attitude to so many other facets of mixing and production too. Like you just said earlier, sometimes you'll use a multi-band compressor on base, but other times you won't. It's not a set formula, it's whatever the song needs. And I feel like that approach to mixing of going with the tracking mix of it sounds good is you're supposed to do what sounds best for the song, not just follow a formula. It's hard to get out of that kind of thinking though, but it's very, very beneficial. We like to do a rapid fire session where Joel will ask you, well, he'll mention something like rhythm guitars or snare or something, and you tell us the first thing that comes to mind basically.

Speaker 5 (00:45:41):

Okay. Yeah. It can be recording, mixing, processing chains, I dunno, anything you want to, this kind of meant to be fun and informational, just

Speaker 3 (00:45:51):

Like one word or sentences or

Speaker 2 (00:45:54):

Whatever you feel is appropriate.

Speaker 5 (00:45:56):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:45:57):

We just try to make it quick. Yeah. Alright.

Speaker 5 (00:45:59):

So why don't we rapid fire. So all right, I'll start out kick drum.

Speaker 3 (00:46:06):

I am really bad at this black out. Replace it. Kick drum is very kick drum is very nice. Would be nice if everybody could play it as steadily as they should.

Speaker 5 (00:46:19):

Oh, that was the best answer I've ever heard on this. That was amazing. Thank you. That needs to be said every time we podcast. I feel like it's so true. I mean, who can play the kick drum parts that Alex Inger that's like, and a couple other dudes, so alright, acoustic guitar.

Speaker 3 (00:46:38):

Oh man. I'm not going to say the first thing that popped into my head because that was Who needs it? That's a great answer. That's

Speaker 4 (00:46:47):

The best answer yet.

Speaker 3 (00:46:49):

No, because you need something for the intro of the song, so a little bit of acoustic can be nice. No, dude, your answers

Speaker 4 (00:46:58):

Are great.

Speaker 5 (00:46:59):

I love it so much. It's so great. Okay, overheads. Oh,

Speaker 3 (00:47:04):

I just got some loo mics that made overheads sound completely different than anything I ever did before, so I'm very excited about that. Swedish mics that have a triangular diaphragm. Oh cool. That's what I'm excited about. As far as overheads go these days,

Speaker 4 (00:47:25):

What are they called again?

Speaker 3 (00:47:26):

E-E-H-R-L-U-N-D. They're not very famous, but if you look at some Swedish producers, I think most of them have them because it's a Swedish company. But yeah, they sound super. They're supposed to have a frequency response from seven to 87,000 hertz. That's amazing.

Speaker 5 (00:47:54):

I'm not going to buy them unless they start at five Hertz. No, that's

Speaker 3 (00:47:58):

What I said,

Speaker 4 (00:47:59):

But I

Speaker 3 (00:48:00):

Got

Speaker 5 (00:48:00):

'em. Anyway.

Speaker 4 (00:48:01):

If you want to make an album for your dogs, these are the perfect microphones to use.

Speaker 5 (00:48:05):

Yes. Well you got it. My dog's hearing starts at five, so if you guys want to start at seven, that's cool. Alright. How about female singing vocals?

Speaker 3 (00:48:18):

Oh, they usually wear dressed all day. Oh, thank you. Someone just walked through the room. No, I like certain kinds of female vocals very much. Others I'm not so crazy about. Okay.

Speaker 4 (00:48:39):

I feel the same way.

Speaker 3 (00:48:41):

Mix Boss. That's something I usually leave open. I don't like to put a bunch of stuff on my mix bus when I'm mixing. I save that for later. I do the mastering separately. So

Speaker 4 (00:48:58):

You don't use any compression?

Speaker 3 (00:49:00):

Usually not. While I'm mixing sometimes a little bit, but usually not. I like to apply that later on. I think I never actually wanted to master my own thing, but I had a lot of disappointing mastering done to my stuff where I thought my own mastering sounded better and that's why I just ended up doing it myself. And in that process I also found that my mixes would really, really start to suck if I had a compressor on the master bus because it would drown whatever some instrument and then you would end up making it way too loud, but you couldn't really hear it because you had some stupid shit on the master bus. So that over years of experience, I just learned that for me it works better to not have anything going on the master bus until after. And I think it's like a build in secret plugin in my brain that can, so that when I'm mixing a part of my brain works in a way that tells my ears, oh, this thing is going to happen later on in a few days, so everything is going to be all right. Don't worry about it. And then it turns out that it actually does work out a few days later when I do the mastering and everything is good. It's all something you can't put in a book. It's buried somewhere in the back of my brain and do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm talking about or I'm just talking? No,

Speaker 4 (00:50:45):

I feel like that's what experience gives you is that ability to understand what's going to happen down the line. And what's funny is I've had so many disappointing experiences sending stuff to mastering guys because you know that the mix might change when you send it to a mastering guide. Levels are going to be different, drums won't hit as hard and all that. So you have to anticipate what's going to happen in advance.

Speaker 5 (00:51:14):

Hey, I crossed your mix in that nail the mix mastering fast track.

Speaker 4 (00:51:17):

No, you did a great job. But I'm talking about just over the years, lots of guys have really severely fucked up my mixes, and I feel like if you are the guy who's mastering it and you know exactly what's going to happen, that's a much better situation to be in than just randomly wondering what's what might happen when this other guy

Speaker 5 (00:51:42):

Gets on. Well, speaking of mastering to, you did a band, you did some mixes for a band called For The Wicked out of Romania recently, correct? Yeah, I mastered those tracks. And the mixes you sent were phenomenal. I had mixed one single for those guys, and I actually ended up doing the Masters. So hopefully you heard them and was pleased with what I did. If not, I'm just going to mute my mic and go run outside and cry. No,

Speaker 3 (00:52:06):

I didn't have any problem. No, I think that sounded very good. No, no, it's not like I never had anybody master something for me and that came out good. Cutting room in Stockholm have mastered a few things for me. This new Machuka was mastered by Thomas something at Stockholm Mastering and that was amazing. I did my own mastering. I always do just to, because it's sort of how I'm used to presenting what I do. This is what I think it should sound like. But Masu wanted had three guys they would like that they've been using before in the past, and they wanted to hear what each one of these three guys would come up with. And it was just very obvious to me when I heard the stuff that Thomas did that it sounded amazing. It sounded exactly like I thought my mixes sounded only mastered. And then there was an issue of bringing a little bit more highs into the hole, like lifting the highs in the hole on all the songs. And he did that in a very pleasant way. I think his mastering was amazing. I have absolutely no complaints about that. No, it

Speaker 4 (00:53:40):

Does sound pretty great. So I have no complaints either. So actually,

Speaker 5 (00:53:46):

Can I jump in and can we do one last rapid fire?

Speaker 4 (00:53:49):

Do it.

Speaker 5 (00:53:50):

Okay. Parallel distortion, mandolin, go.

Speaker 3 (00:53:55):

Something I use very sparsely. I heard about this Swedish band though once. It was a story that the haunted brought into the, I forgot which band it was, but they did put out albums. You're going to be surprised when you hear the rest of the story, but they told me about the Swedish band who were mixing the record and they thought it was lacking a little bit of quality or something. So they mixed in a whole battery album in the bottom of the mix just to get a bit of quality into the mix. That's awesome. I forgot which band it was, but it's an awesome trick. It beats parallel distortion, mandolin playing. Anyway, I guess.

Speaker 4 (00:54:44):

So we have a few questions from the audience, if you don't mind. I want to ask you those. They were very excited when we said that you were coming on some of this stuff we've already talked about. So I'm going to skip some of those. But so James Cohen is asking, he's got a few questions, so we'll start with one. Could you please describe the process of working with the haunted from a producer standpoint? On verses

Speaker 3 (00:55:11):

On verses that was the one we, they recorded. They recorded live except for vocals, but all the music except for the very obvious eight guitar tracks, songs where that's not going to be possible to do. But everything really was recorded live on that album. I think there was one song where Pierre, the drummer kept messing up the beginning, so they played it like 200 times or something and in the end, all the guitar and bass track started to suck as well, of course, because everybody got tired and pissed off. So they rerecorded that. But I'd say by and large, it's a 90% live album, and we recorded 21 songs for that album. And coming off the dead eye, I think verses could have been, they threw away half of the songs. I think there's only 10 or 11 songs on the actual album. And for me that was always a shame because it seemed that they picked

Speaker 4 (00:56:23):

The wrong ones.

Speaker 3 (00:56:24):

Yes, some of them, I think all the faster songs got picked because someone maybe on the label or something were afraid that following the path that they started with a dead eye that might scare away some of their fans. And now it was time to do more of a slayer type record, which I don't think they actually really wanted to do. And I just know that in the 10 or so tracks that did not go on the album, there are some extremely good songs where you'll hear Peter Dolling take his vocal takes and those songs are just magical. And working on those with him was amazing. It would be getting to the studio at 10 and he would show up maybe an hour later, maybe two hours later. And then he would say he would go to do his warmups and then he'd sit around with his laptop for three hours pretending to do warmups. But when he finally got into the news pretending

Speaker 4 (00:57:33):

To do warmups,

Speaker 3 (00:57:36):

Well, he probably calls it warmups, but then when he finally got into the booth, it was like he would work himself into the song. The first take would always, and he would do complete takes of whole songs and just go from scratch and work his way into the song to the second take. And you could just sense how important this was, like how every word is important. He's not just yelling some stupid shit at you. This is actually something really meaningful. And you'd sometimes be a little bit afraid of where his mental health was going when he finished the song because is this the time where I actually say something or do I keep quiet for a few minutes and let him get back to earth? And some of those songs didn't even make the album and I'm so, I wish there could be a re-release of that album where the whole album, because they use some of those for bonus tracks for different things, but it's not the same when it doesn't come out as a complete set of songs.

(00:58:44):

And I think if everything came out like that for that album would be amazing because I think there are some incredible songs on that. They even wanted to rerecord one of the songs for Unseen, but then they had plenty of songs for that album, so it never got rerecorded. And I don't think that song was ever released anywhere. But yeah, that was a really nice record. Also recorded in Pook studio where we did the Shuga album recently, which is part of the reason why they wanted to work with me and go to book studio to do this new album because they like the Haunted album so much.

Speaker 4 (00:59:29):

And for anyone listening just realize that what he just said is right in line with what we say on a lot of these podcasts that a lot of what will get you your work is what you do with previous projects. So take everything you ever do seriously. Here's one from Christopher Clancy. I saw photos from the recent Shuga album recording where there was what looked like a speaker facing the kick drum, which was then micd up. Can you explain what that was?

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):

Yeah, that was amping the bass drum to control the bass drums. Thomas has some pillows or something in the bass drums, but we really wanted the bass drums to sound like they were empty, have that big boom feel to them, but it wouldn't be possible for him to play his parts if there was no damping in the bass drums. So after we recorded everything, then we set up a speaker like that. I've done it a few times with snare as well. And then just run the bass drum, the natural bass drums through the speaker and then mic the room, mic the bass drums again. And then we got that pound sound to go with the tighter sounding already recorded bass drums. We did kind of the same with the guitars. We had a set up with a Marshall, a Satan, and an angle, and they were like five amps rectifier, of course. And after we did all the guitar tracks, I have this from Salvation Mars and Tony, the guy who has Salvation Marts, he does these modifications of the,

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):

He's great, by the way. I have a bunch of those.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):

Yeah, yeah, they're awesome. I have a bunch of them too. He does modifications of the modules for the Randall lamps where you could change the preamp modules. And he also does the coca pedals. What's inside of the pedals is also what Antonin does. But I brought a bunch of these with me and one of them is like a high what clone that if you crank it, it just sounds like everything is broken. Everything is destroyed within the amp no matter what you play. And then add to it playing eight string guitar riffs with a lot of distortion, but we just love the sound of it. It's the opening riff of, I think it's the last song on the album, but it's one of the songs that changed names. So I'm not sure what it's, but it's like, it sounds completely destroyed, but that sound is actually, we reamp the whole album with that sound.

(01:02:36):

So that sound is part of the guitar sound throughout that whole album. It really filled up a gap in the sound that nobody realized was there until we did the Reamp. We all thought everything sounded amazing already, but then we heard this and I was like, yeah, maybe we can use it for one or two parts. But then Frederick was like, no, let's do it on the whole album. I was like, you're kidding, right? He was like, no. And then we did it on the whole album and it's amazing. It takes up, it makes up for the whole low end of the guitar sound in a very, very nice way. And that's kind of the same, to get back to the question, that's kind of like what we did with amping, the bass drums and also the Toms, by the way, I ran them through the speaker as well, so you'd get every time he went to the Toms, it would also get these big empty bass drums going, whoa, like a amazing,

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):

That's fascinating to hear. So cool. Here's one from John Moore and John Moore says, I want you to know that you have produced few of my favorite records like Nemic and sca, such energy and good taste there. Your snares have the nicest flavor. Is there something you use in particular for the snare, apart from having great sources, how do you achieve such tasty harmonics?

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):

It's too simple. It's the same as everybody else does. It's sure SM 57 usually, or BF 56 or whatever, one of these, everybody uses them snare mics and usually a syner 4 21 on the bottom, getting the snare to sound right. Quite on nemic albums. I never used symbols for drums. Those are all natural sounds, but I think on the scam breaker, I might have used a sample for bass drum and for snare, but I always use it in combination with the original tone. I use it kind of, usually I go as far as I think is possible with the snare sound I have, and then if I feel like I'm missing something, I find a sample that can supply that and then blend it in. And it sometimes is very subtle and sometimes it's quite a lot. And a lot of times I actually use the same sample, but I just shape it differently with an eq, like cut off all the highs or leaving only the highs if that's what I think is liking from the recorded snare sound.

(01:05:35):

And then I blend them and feed them into a group compression. So I treat the snare including the sample as one with EQ and compression. And that way I feel like if the sample will never be static, it will always change a little because the natural sound will always be part of the sound and that will always change because the drummer will be all over the snare drum and getting different tones from it and not hitting as hard in some parts. And that way it will help the sample to not sound too mechanical, which I'm not a big fan of and that's why. But the other one is really mainly getting the snares to sound good because, and getting a drummer that sounds good because drummers actually makes up a huge part of the sound.

Speaker 4 (01:06:39):

It's true,

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):

But the studio side of it is, it's an SM 57 just like everybody else. I read an interview with this guy who always worked with Mark Fraser, I think he did almost everything for the past 20 years with A CDC, and he was talking about what they did on the Black Ice album and after reading six pages in this magazine, they could have narrowed that whole interview down to, yeah, we put a 57 from the ceiling and the band played great and that's the album recording and mixed that way because he went through every track and telling us how he did nothing basically. And that really is what it is because that album sounds amazing, but it's because the band is amazing and then you have to do very little, as long as you make sure your mic placement is good and you capture what is already great in the room.

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):

You can't say it enough times though because I feel like people need to be reminded of it, constantly forget or try to get around the fact that the band being incredible, the player being incredible, the source counts for so much. There's really no way, no way around it. Here's another one, and we did kind of talk about this already, but Dave Vol is asking how do you approach recording in unconventional environments? And obviously he's talking about the pool and we did talk about the pool already, but I guess my take on his question is something we didn't cover, which is based on the fact that you have a concrete wall right there really close to the drums. Do you have any ways of miking to make up for the space or do you get any weird echoes, like flutter echoes being that close to a wall that you have to deal with?

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):

No, I'm pretty used to recording in strange environments and I don't mind it. Then you just adapt. If you hear something bad, then change whatever you can to do whatever you can to change it. If you're in a different part of the world and something is sounding crap and because of a hot wall that sounds shitty, then one of the guys is going to be out of a mattress for tonight when they go to sleep because we are going to need it to keep the wall down or something. I mean a couple, I've been working for 13 years with a Hungarian band called ov.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):

I know who they are.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):

And for I think the first eight, nine years or something for a lot of albums, they always came to my place to record. And then about five or six, seven years ago, solely the singer called me up one day and said, Hey man, what about we do it at my place? And then I was like, yeah, but what do you have? Well, they had a garage they used for rehearsal and that was it. And then I was like, but where am I going to be? I mean, oh, hold on, let me call you back in one hour. Then he called me back in one hour, my dad is going to build you one and then there

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):

You

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):

Go. I was like, wow. Wow. And then he was like, two days later I got pictures of his dad laying brick and then he didn't have anything studio wise. It was basically a rehearsal room with an extra room next to it. I packed up my studio and drove down there and set up and it was not a luxurious studio and it was not treated in any way and everything is what is supposedly a disaster, but it's shaking things up and seeing how the bricks fall and helped us make a different kind of album. And after doing albums together for nine years, we needed to do something different. That's what I thought when he first called me up, I was like, no, that's a bad idea. But then I was like, well, but what the hell? I mean, we got to do something different, so maybe this is what we need to do different this time. And we've been doing three or four albums in his place since then. So it's a different experience and I like to work around different kinds of problems or maybe not problems, but just like, here's a new situation, make the best of it, get something different you didn't think you were going to get in the first place. But there's not only one way that everything can sound everything. A guitar can sound in 200 million different ways and still be cool. So we'll just go with one of the other ones.

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):

Exactly. So final question. This one's from Mickey Flynn and he says, you're known for pumping your mixes heavily, but in a very musical way. Any chance you might be able to explain your compression process to us?

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):

Yes. I have done some mastering in the past that I'm not very proud of. I'd like to state that first. Some records out there, I mean you do something and you think it's right and everybody likes it, everybody agrees. Or maybe I did a mastering and the band was like, yeah, but can you make it louder? And then you fall into that pit of pleasing the band who's actually paying the bill here, and it's actually their record, not my record. And then sometimes two months later you go, I shouldn't have done that. And it happened. So I have to say that first. It's not like I go out of my way to try to make everything the loudest record in the world, but the making it loud is, I don't think I like to hear a bit of pump going on what people would probably usually call SSL Master bus compression from back in the day when I used to mix on SSL desk.

(01:13:33):

I think sometimes what people refer to as the master bus compression might actually just be pushing the faders too hard or something because I noticed the whole or just pushing the desk so hard that it starts to compress. And I like that pump from the bass drum, but it doesn't work for everything. It works for bouncy limb, BT Omo off kind of stuff, but it doesn't necessarily work for faster stuff like slayer type riffing and stuff. It doesn't really work if you've got the whole mix going. When the bead is like 240 dugas style, I have a preset that I load in and which I have developed over time that has a forand limiter that touches everything and then a soft clipper or something at the end and some eq and that I know gets me 90% of the way.

(01:14:50):

And then it's usually just a question of EQ from that point. There was a time when I tried all kinds of different things on my mastering, but I found quite a few years ago, but I learned my lesson. Well, I remember this one record I did, I don't know, 10 years ago or something, and I had 10 different things going on in the mastering and then when it was two days before they, I had to deliver the master and I was still like, I'm not sure this really sounds as good as it could. And then I tried to turn everything off and it sounded a million times better.

Speaker 4 (01:15:38):

Isn't it funny when that happened?

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):

And that's when I made a note to self that day to always try to not do anything. And that's really what I do in my mastering is really try to keep it very simple because when I'm mixing and then mastering my own thing, it's not really a good time to start to pull out all the plugs and do all kinds of things because it's just continuing the mix work. And that's not something you need to do in the mastering. If I get myself in that position, it's a bad place to be. I need to, mastering is a very simple procedure for me. If I need something more done to it, then I would have to get someone else to master it. And I mentioned the guys at Cutting Room in Stockholm before one record I did for a Norwegian band called Reach, which is an amazing band by the way. Kind of slow masu, I guess. It's not so fast and uptempo, but all kinds of trigger rhythms and stuff. Awesome band.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):

So instead of Chuga, it's molasses.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):

Yeah, probably. But their label wanted cutting room. They mastered all their records for that label. So the record was going there anyway. And then the drummer went to do the mastering in the studio and he told me afterwards that the guy just opened up the mix and said, well, that sounds good. And then he just made it louder and that was it. And then when I got the final mastering, I tried to compare it to my own and I preferred his mastering. So it is kind of like what you mentioned earlier about your recording mix is sounding better than when you actually start to mix. This was a case like that. I did too much in the mastering. It wasn't necessary. It already sounded good. All it needed to do was just be loud enough to compare to other records and that was it. That's what I try to keep in mind when I do my mastering.

(01:18:02):

So the majority is really what happens in the mix. And I like to compress my vocals quite a bit, a lot, really a lot. Sometimes I very often have a bus compressor on the drum bus because I like that pump, but sometimes it doesn't work and I turn it off just like I said earlier, I like to compress the base to keep the low end steady in my mix, and that comes from the base. So that's the reason for that. Guitars I usually don't compress. Sometimes if I have big problems with the low end, I might run a four band compressor or something, but where I only use the low band to keep the low ends and check like a DSR D. But other than that I tried. It's more about finding the right place for everything in the mix. So it's not necessary to do as much compression. I think

Speaker 4 (01:19:19):

It's a great explanation. Thank you. And Tuia, thank you so much for coming on, taking the time to talk to us and being so open with your answers. It's been great chatting with you.

Speaker 5 (01:19:31):

Can I just say that that August Burns red record you did, ruined my life for about three years because every scene metal core band that came into my studio was like, dude, you got to listen to this mix, man. We need our symbols to sound this loud and this clear. And I was like, come on guys. That record sounds cool, but you don't have the same drummer in the same room and the same, we're not going to get that exact symbol sound. No,

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):

And you're absolutely right and I'm afraid to say so because I might ruin it for some future clients of mine. But that record sounds that way because Matt is such an amazing drummer, and that record was, nothing was fixed on drums. The only things we fixed on drums were like if he had a flam between the bass drum and the snare on one of these, then I would move the bass drum like five milliseconds or two milliseconds until he couldn't hear the flame anymore because I couldn't. But as far as playing wise, nothing was tampered within that record. And it's the miking. I remember a few years ago someone asked me, and then I found some pictures on my laptop and I was like, oh, maybe I could zoom in and see what I actually did, because I also usually forget about these things. It's important until you make the decision. After you make the decision, it's not important to me anymore. So ask me what amp guitar amp I used for a record two months ago. I probably can't remember because it's not important for me anymore. That's why. And the same for the Micing, but I remember now because I went back to the pictures to look into it and see what the hell did I do that was so damn fantastic. And it's the ac DC answer. I hung a 57 from the ceiling and the guy was awesome at the drums.

(01:21:39):

No, but really everything is just standard. I think it was four fourteens for overheads, some U 80 sevens for room mics and four 20 ones for Toms and a 57 and the snare. Everything is super standard, but sometimes you just hit magic and that was one of those times.

Speaker 4 (01:22:06):

He's a magical drummer, so

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):

Yes, he is,

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):

Goes a long way.

Speaker 5 (01:22:10):

All I'm saying is that was like at the time, one of the most popular mixes that was referenced. It was literally every other week somebody came in with that record. They're like, make a sound like this. And I'm like, why don't you hire that dude? Obviously he knows how to make that sound. Yeah. Well, thank you. That was great.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):

Yeah, dude, thank you. I can't say thank you for coming on enough and once again, great work on the Shuga. It's so killer. Definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):

Well, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:40):

I know you probably hear that like 18,000 times, but I think that that record is such a breath of fresh air for so many people, so you're probably going to keep hearing about it for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:22:53):

Well, I hope so because it's been six months where I was pretty nervous about how I know that this is how I wanted Mahua to sound, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's what the fans wants to hear. And like I said earlier, if you screw up Masu, then people are going to want to kill you. So I was extremely happy about the record. I know the guys in the band are really happy with the result as well. We are all very proud of what we did, but you never know until you look it up on Blaber mouth and see that first post what people really think,

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):

We're going to find that guy and go to his house

Speaker 4 (01:23:36):

And

Speaker 5 (01:23:37):

Take care of that problem for

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):

You. Yeah, you'll never have that problem with that guy again. Yeah, we'll take care of that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:43):

We're waiting to hear his mix of Masu.

Speaker 4 (01:23:47):

I'm sure that guy's mix of Masu is amazing,

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):

But of course there's been a few people who I prefer OB or something and which is a fair comment. If you prefer that type of sound, then obviously you just have a different taste and everybody is entitled to their own taste. But for what I wanted to do when I started working with Meshuga, what I really would like to hear when we were done, that's what we did and that's what the guys are happy with what we did. And then we are just very pleased that it seems that almost everybody is loving this record, which is very important to me.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):

Great. All right, man. Thank you so much. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):

It's been

Speaker 4 (01:24:34):

A pleasure. The

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):

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