LOGAN MADER: Mixing Gojira’s The Way of All Flesh, his “jump in the deep end” philosophy, and early Machine Head

Speaker 1 (00:00:01):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Kush Audio, a premium manufacturer of top quality audio, hardware and plugins. The high end just got higher. Visit the house of kush.com for more information. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi. Joey Sturgis and Joel Wanasek are out. Joel's studio doesn't exist. He's moving and in the middle of boxes and gear piled to the ceilings and painting walls, and who the hell knows what's going on with that? And Joey's busy because over at JST, we're releasing a plugin tonight. By the time this comes out, the plugin will have already been released. So if you haven't heard of it, it's called Terminator and it's designed to reduce the bleed from Mike's on natural drums. Super effective, and we'll cut down your manual getting time by a lot. It's great. I've messed with it quite a bit, so it's just me. And with me is special guest, Mr. Logan Mader. How are you doing, dude? Good man. Good to be here. Yeah, thanks for being here. I'm sure most of you know who Logan is, but if you don't, you should and you will after this. You may know him from a while ago. He was in Machine Head, he's been in Soulfly, he's now in a band called Once Human. He's scored soundtracks, worked with bands in the studio like Gera Devil Driver Five, finger Death Punch, fear Factory, Soulfly Devil. You've got a pretty long list of awesome stuff, man, that you've worked on.

Speaker 3 (00:01:47):

Yeah, sounds pretty good when you put it like that. I guess I keep busy, busy. Did I miss anything? Cool. I mean, you kind of hit milestones. Yeah, you covered it pretty well there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:02:04):

So you're kind of like me. You are a guitar player who moved into production or did you start in production first and then moved to guitar?

Speaker 3 (00:02:15):

No, I started in guitar and just a Bay Area thrash metal kid, teenager. Growing up in Oakland, my passion was metal and I wanted to be a guitar player, so I got a guitar and taught myself how to play it. I sat in my bedroom and played guitar all day, every day for several years, and then joined a band called Machine Head. That was my first band.

Speaker 2 (00:02:43):

Was the band already known when you joined, or did you join when it was still a local band?

Speaker 3 (00:02:48):

No, I was a co-founding member. So Rob Flynn

Speaker 2 (00:02:51):

Started

Speaker 3 (00:02:52):

The band and he brought Adam Deuce in as bass player and Adam started playing some rifts that I had written and Rob was like, what's that was cool. He is like, yeah, these are Logan's rifts. You should bring Logan in the band. So there I was. Then we got a drummer by the name of Tony Costanza. He was the original drummer for a short period of time, and then he left and we got Chris Contos, and that was the completed lineup for the first album.

Speaker 2 (00:03:19):

And just out of curiosity, how long was it between the time that you joined and when the band, I guess, got signed and became a thing?

Speaker 3 (00:03:29):

So it was June of 1992. The band formed officially, and we signed a deal in October 93 with Roadrunner Monte. Connor signed us to Roadrunner and he got the demo from, who is the founder of Blabbermouth, used to be a writer for I think Metal Maniacs back in the day. And he got ahold of this cassette demo that we did and sent it to Monty, and Monty loved it, and he actually offered a deal before even seeing the band live. And then, yeah, I moved pretty quickly from there. I did a record with Colin Richardson, and that was an amazing experience to be in a really nice studio and work with a great producer and to have that experience. And it was all on two inch tape.

Speaker 2 (00:04:21):

Was that your first time in the studio or first time in a real studio?

Speaker 3 (00:04:26):

Yeah. Yeah, totally. My first time in a studio was doing the demo on a 16 track home studio somewhere in Oakland when we did the first machine you had demo, and then the next was fantasy recording in Berkeley, which is a really nice room there. And yeah, it was full-blown, full production, two inch tape recording, and we were in the room with the drummer getting the drum tracks with scratch guitars going and really organic, no editing and all old school organic. You got to play every note kind of thing,

Speaker 2 (00:05:04):

Not how it's done now. Well, some bands, it seems like some bands are starting to move in that direction. Some productions are starting to go back towards that,

Speaker 4 (00:05:15):

Thankfully.

Speaker 2 (00:05:17):

So I've worked with Colin as well. He mixed my band when we got signed a Roadrunner 10 years ago, that was not my first time in a studio or anything. I had already been producing, but it was my first time. It was my first experience with a heavy hitter. Was it with a doth?

Speaker 3 (00:05:36):

The band was,

Speaker 2 (00:05:36):

Yeah. Yeah, it was with Doth signed by Monty too. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, he's like my music industry dad love that guy. But he, Colin, the thing that blew my mind about Colin was just he had this reputation for taking a long time, and so I was fully expecting to go to London and spend forever with him, and I did. It was like three and a half weeks on the mix. But the thing is he wasn't fucking around taking a long time. He just would not move forward until he thought it was exactly right. It was just his standards were so damn high it was mind blowing. Was it kind of like that for you when you worked with them? Well,

Speaker 3 (00:06:17):

I didn't really have anything to compare it to because it was my first experience. I know that we tracked at fantasy and mixed in the same studio burned my eyes, and then when we took the mixes home, we didn't like what we were hearing. It's some things were not translating accurately and we were like, fuck, we got to remix this thing. So we went to Scream Studios in la. I think that place is still there, but they have a nice SSL and this is an SSL mix and on tape, and we did the mix there. It was two weeks. It was two weeks, which is kind of a long time to mix a record, but when it's analog and you really do have to make sure it's right before you move on, because the recall, if you want to go back and change something, it's like four hours just to recall the console and the outboard gear. And so yeah, two weeks and we nailed it. And it sounds like that mix. I love it. Even today it still holds up. It still holds up. Yeah, he's very meticulous and very analog.

Speaker 2 (00:07:26):

He mixed the doth on a Neve console and it was kind of mind blowing for me. I had always been working in the box before that, and so when we got there and he did the first song, it took five days or something, and it was one of those things where it was kind of like, okay, this is kind of it. Once it's done, it's done. And that messed with me, so used to just being able to open a file, but that was it. And then the board crashed two days later and lost all the recalls anyways, so there was no going, there's no going back. But you know what, we talk about this a lot on this podcast. I think that there's something to be said for having to commit the level of decisions and choices that you make when you know that you can't do it over. Sometimes you make better decisions that way.

Speaker 3 (00:08:23):

Yeah, yeah. I'm not scared of that too. I go that route. I mean, in general, even with Pro Tools, I know you can always backtrack and retrace your steps and completely redo something, but when I feel like it's good, it's I'll go print it and move on.

Speaker 2 (00:08:46):

I think that that's a really great way to work. That's actually how I do it, how Joey does it as well. Just the thing we say is that if you print something you don't like, it'll teach you to not print something you don't like in the future.

Speaker 3 (00:09:00):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:09:01):

So I guess when you're working nowadays, do you ever work with younger bands who have no concept at all of how things used to be done? Oh yeah. I mean, most of the bands

Speaker 3 (00:09:14):

Have never done it any other way, but I still work. There's a band called Wasp that's been around for 30 years. Do you know the band? I mixed their last three albums. I'm going to be mixing their next couple of records as well. And they still record on tape and they dump into Pro tools after. And in Blackie, he likes the analog harmonic distortion and that's how he does things. And so it's cool to work with that vibe still. I also started producing an engineering in a time period where it was still transitional from digital becoming a standard and still analog existing in most studios. And I did a lot of tape recording as an engineer and learned the whole analog world from that point of view on a console with tape. Do you miss it? No. Well, I mean, no, I, the convenience and the efficiency from digital is, it outweighs to me, it outweighs all of that. It's nice when I track drums, I go into a big room and I'll light it all up with all the good my pres and you got to have the nice big size room and good pres.

Speaker 2 (00:10:37):

You got to do that.

Speaker 3 (00:10:38):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:10:39):

You kind of got to do that. There's my experience, there's no getting around that part of it.

Speaker 3 (00:10:44):

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you got to go all the way there or just do midi.

Speaker 2 (00:10:50):

That's actually a really, really good point. And I tell this to people all the time, which is if you're not going to go all the way with drums, kind of don't bother. It's not worth it. It's not worth the hassle. It's just not. I know that your ego and your pride might be telling you to record the drums because at least it's a performance, but I don't know. I think that if you're not going to, there's so many moving pieces, there's so many things to deal with if you're not going to do it right, just

Speaker 3 (00:11:21):

Program.

(00:11:23):

But it's not that hard to do it right these days. I'll take three days to do a full album or even two days and get the whole thing done. And I always hire a tech, like I like Angel City Drum works guy. I've used Drum doctor before, but I usually go to John at Angel City and he'll come with a truck full of snares and any other drums that I might want to audition, and most importantly, a big selection of good sounding symbols that I can try all of them until they're all right. Because being an acoustic animal, it's got to sound right in the room. It's not like plugging a guitar in and tweaking the amp. It is what it is. It's got to sound good in the room, and this tuning sweet spot for every drum is different. And I don't know how to tune drums and most drummers don't know how to tune drum saw. It is worth it to spend the extra budget on having a guy there, make sure that is done and maintained throughout the session.

Speaker 2 (00:12:27):

I also work with a drum tech when I track and I have for the past four years or five years. The way that I phrase it to bands is, yes, I could tune your drums decently, but you rather have someone who's an expert at it doing it like an expert. And then you can use me for my expertise, which would be my ears and where to put the mics and things like that rather than waste my ears on hitting drums and that get someone their life. That's what they do.

Speaker 3 (00:13:00):

And it saves time too because Absolutely. Yeah, you need to listen through the mics and have 'em in there and tell 'em up or down or this and that. Hearing it on the backhand. Have you always used one a drum tech? Well, in the very beginning when I first started, no. I mean, I'm talking around the early two thousands. I did sessions. I was working as an engineer in a B-level studio in Hollywood, still kind of apprenticing, but doing sessions and hustling up jobs on my own. And there often wouldn't be a budget for drum tech, so I was like, make the best of it. But I quickly, I mean, I knew if there's a budget, you got to have someone in there that can handle that and then I won't do it. And quickly thereafter, I would never do sessions without having it handled by a good tech.

Speaker 2 (00:13:58):

Well, the difference is just night and day.

Speaker 3 (00:14:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:14:01):

I think that a lot of people don't understand what a difference greatly recorded source tracks make.

Speaker 3 (00:14:08):

Makes all the difference.

Speaker 2 (00:14:10):

Yeah, it seriously does. I mean, it's like when you get a session that's well recorded, just putting faders up is already 50% of the way there, if not more.

Speaker 3 (00:14:23):

Yeah, you can tell right away if it's going to be easier or extremely difficult to make it sound good when you get a mix like that.

Speaker 2 (00:14:31):

Yeah. So what made you want to start recording? Speaking of the early two thousands and you hustling up side work and all that, how did that even come about in the first place?

Speaker 3 (00:14:41):

Well, it started with being in machine head and getting to have that studio experience. I loved it. To me, that was part of the dream and I just loved the vibe of being in the studio. I was really curious about technical aspects of the recording process and what does this do, what does that do? Why did we do that? And really absorbed a lot of what was happening while I was being a guitar player in a band. And I almost felt like that part of being in a band was half of it. The rockstar playing in front of a hundred thousand people touring and going all over the world is half of it. And then the creative and production part of it for me was the other half of it. So I was always really into it from the beginning. And then when I was in Soulfly, I got Aroland hard disc recorder, one of those old vs 1680s, and I started just fucking around making demos with drum machine and riffs and just recording stuff that I would write and getting into it and realizing I want to do this more.

(00:15:54):

And so I just decided one day that that's what I'm going to do. And so I got a job at just like that. Well, I mean just this is it. Yeah, I made that decision. I really wanted to do that. And whatever it would take to get me there, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. It was like even though I was the guy from a pretty famous band and it's a totally different world to go into behind the scenes I'm producing, you can't just show up and say, I want to do this, and here I am and pay me.

(00:16:30):

So I was humbled and I took a job for $10 an hour as an engineer. I was actually engineering. I wasn't just an assistant getting coffee, but I was learning and working on any little shitty demo I could get my hands on and working on whatever project would come into the studio just as the in-house engineer and learning along the way. Yeah, the reason I got that job is I hustled up a mixed job. This is kind of funny, is someone was like, I don't know how it came, but I was like, yeah, I'll mix your record. And I had never mixed a record before a ballsy jump in the fire and do it. So I go into this studio and I hired the studio and I was really counting on the owner of the studio to kind of help me out. And so I get going and it was cool.

(00:17:29):

We got the tracks up and started going, and all of a sudden he's like, oh, fuck it. He would do this off and he double booked and he's like, I got to bump you guys. I got to, man. I'm like, I can't bump these guys. They flew in to LA to work on this, and he's like, okay. He set me up a digital performer rig in another room of his studio and I took the sessions and just started prepping doing samples and general gain structures, and I had no idea how to use digital performer. He just taught me along the way and I would ask him questions, and I pretty much figured it out. By the time I was done with the mix, he was like, damn, you really picked it up quick. So he gave me a job as an engineer there, and I picked up on the ins and outs of the room and the general protocol of tracking the way he does there really quickly. So I got that job. So

Speaker 2 (00:18:28):

Wait, wait, wait. That mix

Speaker 3 (00:18:29):

Didn't totally suck. I mean,

Speaker 2 (00:18:34):

How did it turn out?

Speaker 3 (00:18:35):

It got approved. I mean it got approved by the artist. Does that mean's

Speaker 2 (00:18:42):

Great. It didn't suck.

Speaker 3 (00:18:42):

I mean, does it suck? I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 2 (00:18:45):

Well, first mixes are always scary.

Speaker 3 (00:18:49):

Yeah, I can't tell you that it sucked, but I wouldn't tell you that was good. But we got the job done and then I learned Pro tools. I started working in a little bit freelance in some other rooms, and I got on a Pro Tools rig and I started Learning Pro Tools and I actually taught the owner of the studio that I was working at, I was like, dude, you need to move to Pro Tools. The digital performer sucks. And so he got a rig and I taught him Pro Tools and a few months later,

Speaker 2 (00:19:15):

Dude, digital Performer, that's what I used before Pro Tools too. Yeah, no good. I mean, you could record with it, but when I got on Pro Tools, I was like, yeah, this is what it feels like to be a man.

Speaker 3 (00:19:29):

Digital,

Speaker 2 (00:19:30):

A performer was just not okay.

Speaker 3 (00:19:32):

And in the fundamentals too, you can tell it's more of an extension or it's more of an analog simulation, just the way that it's laid out with the mixer and the way the signal flows and the way you go to get to certain things. It feels more like a virtual studio and then a performer. Even some of the others, even though Hub Bass and Logic are really good, and I know a lot of composers use Cubase for scoring because it does have a lot of features that are more score friendly. But for Audio Pro Tools is the one.

Speaker 2 (00:20:08):

So speaking of scoring, how did that come about and did you use Pro Tools when you scored Ninja Two?

Speaker 3 (00:20:16):

Yeah, I used Pro Tools. It's kind of the same thing as the first mix I did. I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing, but I somehow pulled it off. Well, here's how I pulled it off. I collaborated with a guy named Gerard Marino who was a serious badass composer. He's done a bunch of movies. He did the Game God of War One, two and Three, and Spider-Man one and two, he's a friend of mine. Nice. And he's a really, really good composer and schooled Berkeley and he can conduct an orchestra. And so I brought him in, it's a real deal. I got the gig and I brought him in to collaborate. So that was my safety net and my wingman, and we split the cues up basically. I did have the cues and he did have the cues and I had some guidance from him along the way, but I pulled it off. At the end of the day, it's a totally different world from making records.

(00:21:18):

It's a totally different world. And I learned quickly what was needed to be achieved with the music in a scene, for example, and this an action movie, so you could get pretty dense and energetic with it, but just the fundamentals of translating emotion with sound and with music and the vibe and the pace of the scene. It's a really fine art. And I'm not like, I can't call myself like a phone composer, but I did pull it off. I did another movie as well, and I really enjoyed the process and I liked working with Gerard. He's badass. He can take and he uses Cubase and his instruments library is incredible. He can do any orchestral arrangement and you can't tell that it's fake. And it's pretty amazing how he can do that

Speaker 2 (00:22:16):

On that level.

Speaker 3 (00:22:17):

So a lot of my stuff, I would need help or Well, I was also using this guitar vo. I was playing a boat instrument. It's like a guitar, but it's a viola guitar thing, and using that to get the organics and then doing my Wait, what? Oh, this instrument called a Guitar vo. Do you know what that is?

Speaker 2 (00:22:36):

Tar Vo. I've

Speaker 3 (00:22:37):

Not

Speaker 2 (00:22:37):

Heard of that. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:22:38):

Check it out. It's really cool. Who kills it is Tyler Bates. He's a composer from 300 and X-Men.

Speaker 2 (00:22:46):

I'm actually going to look this up right now. So guitar, guitar,

Speaker 3 (00:22:52):

Look, Tyler Bates guitar VO 300, or was it? It is an X-Men scene and he'll play the shit out of that thing. But it's got frets, like a guitar.

Speaker 2 (00:23:03):

Oh, guitar Viol. I thought you were saying Vo whatever. Viol like viola. Oh, that is an interesting looking instrument.

Speaker 3 (00:23:11):

Yeah, so it's got a pickup. So

Speaker 2 (00:23:13):

Do you play with a bow? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:23:14):

You play with a bow. You can pick it too. So it's got the arch on the bridge, so you can bow it, but you can also pick it. But for a guitar player, it's really easier because it's tuned and it's got frets, like six strings, like a guitar. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:23:34):

So it was pretty natural for you to adjust to it, I guess.

Speaker 3 (00:23:37):

Yeah. I mean I wasn't shredding on it, but I was doing lines and parts that were executed well. Yeah, but Tyler, that's kind of fascinating. So what were you saying about Tyler? Well, he's really good at playing that thing. If you have time, check out this performance he does where he'll do looping pedals and he'll do a whole arrangement using loop looping parts and then layering and layering and layering. And it's a full arrangement all by one guy, one man band kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (00:24:11):

Wow, alright. I'm definitely checking that out. I'm curious, you were saying that the translation of emotion and to sound was different when it comes to film scoring as opposed to working with bands or something metal because I'm a metal. Could you elaborate on that a little?

Speaker 3 (00:24:32):

Okay. I mean, yeah, it's like I'm a metal guy. It's like the general vibe is usually aggressive, dramatic, powerful, dark, all those things. It's kind of the standard and emotional source for metal. So when working on a scene where I'm supposed to use authentic Japanese instrumentation and do music, that's not common for me to do kind of thing. And I don't know, it is just like, how did you get inside of that in the job? How did I Or inside?

Speaker 2 (00:25:16):

Yeah, the reason I'm asking is because I'm sure you're familiar with when a metal band tries to do an orchestral track that the drummer wrote often it sucks balls and it's like usually when you leave a metal band to their own devices and they write symphonic stuff or soundtrack stuff, it's horrible. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. It's just bad shit. And lots of times also you hear metal dudes try to leave the genre and it just doesn't sound

Speaker 3 (00:25:45):

Cool

Speaker 2 (00:25:46):

Because they can't get away from being metal dudes. So I'm wondering how you got your head into that space for doing

Speaker 3 (00:25:55):

Something

Speaker 2 (00:25:56):

That doesn't fit the dark aggressive.

Speaker 3 (00:25:58):

Yeah, it was unfamiliar to me, but at the same time it's like I'm an all feel, I just feel and hear, I don't know, music theory, I never studied it or I don't know why a scale is what it is, but I feel it and I hear it. And that's what I did with the scenes. I mean the action parts came more naturally. I have done a lot of music for trailers before I had done the film, and that was just me fucking around with a hybridized orchestral mixed with electronica and symphonic percussion and just doing high energy action type music for trailers. So I had a bit of experience in that world going into it. But again, it was just like I tried to just let go and feel what the director wanted me to feel and then try to picture that in colors and in sound and try to express it and then delete it and do it again and delete it and do it again and again until I got it.

Speaker 2 (00:27:10):

So how long do you think that it took you until you I guess hit a flow with that stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:27:20):

It was pretty high. It was kind of a high pressure, long hours, high stress, frustrating job. And that's how it goes because you're working for the director, you're working for the music supervisor, and then there's producers and things and everyone comes in and they often, they'll have, okay, when you do listening sessions, you'll get feedback, okay, this is working, this not working. And it's hard to figure out exactly what they think they want sometimes. And it can be frustrating and often you end up right back where we started after trying and jumping through hoops and trying all these other things that they suggested. But so in that respect, it's a bit like working for somebody, like a job kind of thing. It's less artistic in my opinion, but I know it always feels good when you get the approval and you get there even though it's like pulled your hair out and it sucked and you wanted to quit, but you finally get there.

Speaker 2 (00:28:20):

Do you ever feel like it's that way, mixing records for a and r guys? Oh

Speaker 3 (00:28:26):

Yeah, it can be. I don't know. I think with my mixing, it used to be, I used to run into that more, but I think now I've advanced in my mixing to the point that I know how to get there after a couple of get there quicker. The revisions are usually really minor kind of things. I

Speaker 2 (00:28:50):

Think I cut you off. You were saying something earlier.

Speaker 3 (00:28:52):

Oh, well, just in the realm of visual media music, I did half of the soundtrack for Metal Gear Rising Game for Konami in 2013. And that was really challenging and frustrating with the whole getting approved, getting the stuff approved. But it was fun. It was metal, it was a hybrid of industrial metal orchestral and EDM songs. And so they were songs that would play during the boss fights, but they weren't like, so then they had vocals as well, and I had to write all the lyrics and produce it, and I played a lot of most of the guitars and I had some other guitar players come in. I had Bill Hudson on some solos and I had nida. Oh, he's really good. He's amazing. And I had Nita Strauss on a couple tracks as well, and

Speaker 2 (00:29:48):

Also really

Speaker 3 (00:29:48):

Good. Yeah, yeah, she's great. And then yeah, I felt like, oh, this is going to be easy, and they want metal songs. And then I did the first one and they was like, yeah, this is great. And they approved it and then a week later they're like, no, it's not approved. We don't like it at all. We want to change everything. And I was like, oh my God, what the fuck? So it was a lot of trying to figure out what it is that they think they want when they don't exactly speak music. These are game writers, game producers, publishers and music supervisors that have some knowledge of music, or at least they're supposed to, but still. And there was a language barrier, there was a Japanese client, so it was difficult to get to the finish line on those ones, but

Speaker 2 (00:30:38):

We did, it's interesting that you say this because one of our very first podcast episodes, I think episode number two is called Musical Translator, and it's about how a producer's job at the end of the day is to be a musical translator between the artist and what you hear. So you're supposed to translate what they actually want, not what they say they want, but you're supposed to translate what they actually want into sound. And so it sounds like it's the exact same thing, but I'm just wondering, what am I trying to say? I was just wondering how you went about actually understanding what they wanted, if it was that difficult, was it just trial and error or did you have a thought process behind it? There was

Speaker 3 (00:31:25):

A lot of trial and error. So how about this? Okay, how about this? Okay, how about that kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (00:31:31):

So lots of options.

Speaker 3 (00:31:32):

Yeah, they like it. I guess it's helpful to give options because then one's usually better than the other and at least they have something to better than something else. But I don't know, I guess it's different with every job and with every client, you just got to go with it and feel it.

Speaker 2 (00:31:52):

One thing that struck me a long time ago was working with artists who would design t-shirts for my band, and if I didn't like the design, it was always tough to be start from scratch. But then when we started working with this other artist, after going through a few who, whenever we would hire him to do a design, he would send us four designs, pick one, we'll go with that and we'll work on that. So it was very, very rare that out of the four options that I would totally hate everything. It would be possible that maybe they weren't great, but I saw potential in one. Sometimes all four were great,

(00:32:35):

But it would only happen once or twice that I didn't like any of the options at all. And so I started to notice that this guy is getting a ton of work and this is how he works, how he does stuff, he gives options. And then mastering guy, Alan Dutchess, who I've worked with a ton, I've worked with a bunch of different mastering guys over the years, and one thing that I always ran into a wall over was getting revisions done because what if you didn't like their take on it? It used to be so expensive and it was like if you want a revision, you have to just pay for a master all over again. He just would send you two versions, A and B always. That's just what he did. And I think that's one of the big reasons that a lot of people just always went to him because he would work with you on it. And so even if he didn't get it right at the beginning, and lots of times he didn't get it right at the beginning, he always got it right by the end because he gave you options and he worked with you on it. So it sounds like there's a little bit of that going on with the non-music people in Gameland.

Speaker 3 (00:33:42):

Yeah, definitely. It helps. I think the more the better. When I get mastering done, I don't like to get too many versions because usually there, there's so little difference between the versions that it's like, I don't even know if I hear it or not, but yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (00:34:00):

Oh, this would be like, here's one all analog. Here's one, no analog or something like that.

Speaker 3 (00:34:08):

Yeah, obvious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:34:10):

Cool. It would be very obvious differences or here's one that I made as loud as I could get with that distortion. Here's one that is more dynamic

Speaker 3 (00:34:24):

With the game thing. It was like options for various sections was helpful to have, but it got very meticulous because it was playing during these songs were cut into four sections. There would be the intro that plays once and then a main looping section that would be for two minutes that would loop as long as it needed to seamlessly during the fight, but it then could kick into a B section and then an outro section triggered by the game engine. So that was completely new to me and it was a little bit challenging to think in that mindset when I was doing these songs and then making stems. I never made so many stems in my life too. I wanted them every revision I had to make full stems and they had to dovetail perfectly and be cut exact just to fit with a looping and a game engine, and it was a good learning experience to do that.

Speaker 2 (00:35:25):

I'm sensing a pattern here that you like to throw yourself in the deep end

Speaker 3 (00:35:30):

With stuff. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, it's part of me's, my DNA, I guess I don't, I just go all the way. It's a curse and a blessing. It's like I've got this overachiever thing and then at the same height I have self-destructive, the exact opposite dark side of it that I guess comes with the territory. So as long as I keep that dark side in check, I can keep moving forward and living.

Speaker 2 (00:36:04):

How do you keep it in check asking for a friend?

Speaker 3 (00:36:12):

I guess it's a fundamental thing. Once you know where those paths lead, you got to just say no to walking through certain doors and know that you want to stay on track and keep moving forward

Speaker 2 (00:36:29):

Eye on the prize. Yeah, it interesting. I don't know. The way I've always seen the whole achievement thing and taking risks is that this line of work is so risky and it's so hard to make something of yourself in it that if you don't go balls out, you're probably going to fail. So it's actually riskier to not go balls out.

Speaker 3 (00:36:54):

It is,

Speaker 2 (00:36:54):

In my opinion. So playing it safe is actually riskier than going the risky route and going balls out.

Speaker 3 (00:37:01):

I totally agree. You got to be ready for a lot of rejection and you got to have thick skin and just because not every project is going to win, but that shouldn't stop you, and that never stopped me, especially getting into the beginning of my producer career and always fighting for acceptance to get the gig or to get the placement or to have the song, your writing go on somebody's song and competing with all these other talented people and your hopes are up and then you're crushed, but you got to get back up and just keep going and know that every step is a step forward, even if it feels like you just fell down a fucking hole.

Speaker 2 (00:37:48):

Well, I guess how long would you stay crushed for? Is it a day, a week, a month?

Speaker 3 (00:37:53):

In the beginning it would stick a little. Yeah, just stick for a little while, but then I was like, well, fuck this. Onto the next, let's go pick it up and go. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:38:03):

That's kind of how I see it too. It is like, yeah, it does sting, of course, if you're human and not a sociopath, but the thing is that it's over. It's like you didn't get it. It's over. So what are you doing if you're dwelling? You're can't go back in time and change the outcome

Speaker 3 (00:38:25):

Of

Speaker 2 (00:38:25):

That rejection. So

Speaker 3 (00:38:26):

Yeah, I think I naturally built up this tolerance or this protective layer where I would think going into something just already being prepared for this a long shot, this might not happen. This is against the odds to get this one, but we're going to try anyway and maybe we'll get it. And it's like it will go from 10% winning to 90% rejection. And a little by little, the ratio of winning was going up to the point where it's like, okay, it's enough to sustain and validate what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (00:39:02):

I'm sure you still deal with rejection. I think it's just a normal fact of working in this field. Yeah. Does it still bother you?

Speaker 3 (00:39:15):

Well, yeah, I'm still human and I'm not a sociopath. So I mean, yeah, because I'm passionate about what I do and I love what I do and I want it all to win. But I'm a realist and I've been doing this long enough to know that not everything is going to be a number one gold record or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:39:38):

You ever worked with a band where you got really into it and worked your ass off and were like, this is going to be the band. And they kind of break up before the album even comes out and nobody gives a shit, that kind of thing, as opposed to a band where you're like, who the fuck is going to like this? And then it gets big.

Speaker 3 (00:40:02):

I've had a bit of both of that. Both of those. I mean, there's one, like I've done production deals. I really don't do it anymore because it's very time consuming and it's a high risk. But in the mid two thousands, I was really driven to discover new talent and help them do production deal, help them write songs, put the band together, and then package it up and shop it and try to get it signed. That was a big thing I wanted to do After I had got to the point where I was a bit of a name as a freelance producer and a mixture, I wanted to go into that creative end of it talent development, and I did it with a band called Domin. I actually got 'em signed to Roadrunner through Monty around 2008. I remember that band. Yeah, great band. And that record came out and I felt like, oh, that was a big win.

(00:40:53):

I found this guy and did a whole record with a partner of mine at the time, and I helped him put their band together and offered guidance that was more on the manager side and got them signed. And that was like, okay, cool, it can be done. And I felt really good about that. And then I did another one, and it was a metal band, Mia, and the same guy, Lucas Banker that I used to work with, Eli, a friend of mine. We put this metal band together and the whole concept and co-wrote the music with the singer and then put a band together around him and designed the look and some ancillary content, like a comic book, a motion comic book, and all this story. And we got it signed to Virgin, and we got a huge deal from Virgin through Rob Stevenson when he was the president there.

(00:41:48):

And then right when we got the offer, we partnered with Rick Sales, who was a manager for Slayer to partner with us on the whole project because we were like, okay, this is getting serious now. We need some serious big Baller manager help here. And he's definitely one of the best in the business. So yeah, everything was perfect. And so we got the deal closed, it did the record, record was accepted, started the promo process, the beginning stages of marketing and had a release date on the books. And then Rob Stevens and got fired from Virgin. And the new president came in within a month and was in an a r meeting, okay, what's this metal band here? Like, oh, that's the kil core. And he's like, okay, who in this room is going to raise their hand and tell me that they're going to break this band?

(00:42:46):

And of course, nobody spoke up. They didn't want to lose their job over it or risk anything. It's like, so the band got dropped before it came out. Sheldon dropped. And so that never happened. So there was a big letdown that was a big letdown for me, but still a win in the fact that we took this one singer and built this whole concept in a band and a record and got its big record deal and partnered with Rick on it, and it had all that. And then it's really typical for a major label president to go from one label to another, and then things change when the new guy comes in, and a lot of bands suffer from those transitions. And it sucks for the bands because

Speaker 2 (00:43:31):

Yeah, it's totally out of their control.

Speaker 3 (00:43:34):

And that's what happens. That's another one of the reasons that going with the indie label for new bands even then, but more so now is a smarter route for a developing band to go from zero to somewhere at least with a lower risk.

Speaker 2 (00:43:53):

There's another interesting point in what you just said in that whole story about the a and r meeting is I think that one thing that young bands should do when getting signed to a label is to actually travel to the label and meet the people there and try to get a feeler for if the entire label is behind the band or if it's just like the a and r guys like Pet Project. Because if the whole label isn't like team your band, it's going to be tough to get the publicist, the in-house publicist to care or the product manager to care or anybody to care when they have a bunch of other bands too. So it's important to know that it's not just your a and r guy who cares. It's important to know that the whole team is going to be behind your band. If they're not, you're going to have a tough time.

Speaker 3 (00:44:48):

Yeah, it's totally true. I mean, the product manager is very important and the publicist is very important. The digital team is all very important, and relationships are the key. So if you can't make those connections and bond and build and maintain relationships with all the moving parts that matter, then it's not going to go as well as it could if at all.

Speaker 2 (00:45:18):

No. Well, and it's not bad people or trying to fuck the band over. That's something that a lot of people need to get out of their heads. It's that they have more work than they have hours in the day for, and they're going to focus number one on the priorities that the guys on top say should be prioritized. So if you're on Roadrunner slip, knots going to be the priority. Of course, on any label, they're going to have their Slipknot band where that's the priority no matter what. But once you start going down the ladder, a lot of it is, well, the person has the choice if they're going to push this or that or that. And the more they like you, the more they believe in you and you, the more likely they're going to help you. And again, it's not bad people or anything, it's just humans with X amount of time to devote and way more bands than ours. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:46:20):

You're totally right. And it goes throughout the business in general. It's like relationships are the music business more than anything else. I mean, yeah, good music, good talent and good everything, but as far as business goes, relationships are all of it.

Speaker 2 (00:46:39):

It's true. And I don't think though that you have to be friends with everybody. You can't possibly be friends with everybody. There are going to be some people that you clash with, and there are some motherfuckers in this business, like some booking agent.

Speaker 3 (00:46:55):

You can't be friends with everybody, but there's definitely people that you cannot be enemies with or else you're fucked.

Speaker 2 (00:47:02):

Yes, yes, correct. That's absolutely right. I think you should at least try to be on decent terms with as many people as possible. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:47:14):

As an artist, it's like for band guys, it's not that hard. It's easy. I do management as well, and I'm behind the scenes and I'm in a band and I'm playing all these roles and trying to juggle it all. But I think band members need to be super nice and need to be liked more than anything and assume they need to assume that anyone, whoever it's, if it's a radio promoter or a journalist or somebody from a label or a booking agent that they don't even know, they should assume that everyone is important and making a good impression and being well liked is going to benefit their career immensely over time. Just treat everyone like gold. Just be fucking be a good person and super nice. And while being yourself at the same time, of course. But yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:48:12):

I was going to say, in some ways it's easier said than done, but at the same time, it just is what it is. You're right, that's how you have to approach it. And I know this from my own experience of not always being that way that it bit me in the ass when I wasn't that way. And I just know that the more people you get along with, the better because it's a very, very small world. The music game is very, very small,

Speaker 3 (00:48:39):

And the gatekeepers have been there for a long time and they're going to be there long after you're gone. So it's important to leave the right footprint. You need these people. And that's just how it's,

Speaker 2 (00:48:54):

It's interesting. I remember a few years ago kind of became a thing for bands to go completely indie and Nine Inch Nails did and radio. So all these smaller bands were like, we can do it too. And it's like, no, you can't. I mean, yeah, yeah, you can, but no, you can't. If you're the outlier, the total outlier who happens to be the one band that is genius, musically ingenious business wise, and comes around at the right place in the right time, and somehow everything just works out. All the lights are green down that road and they happen to be an indie success, but that is not the norm. That's definitely an exception, a very tiny exception. And for the majority of you guys out there, whether you're a producer or an artist or whatever, you're going to have to deal with the industry and there's kind of no way around it. So be cool, but

Speaker 3 (00:49:54):

You need that. You need the people that are good at certain jobs that like publicists, and you need a booking agent. These things are very important, and these are done by people who do that as their career. That's their life, and that's all they do. And they're fucking good at it. And yeah, you need them. You can't do just do all those things on your own. I mean, like I said, I guess there is the exception here and there.

Speaker 2 (00:50:20):

A good publicist is worth their weight in gold, in my opinion. Our buddy George, he's incredible. I am always blown away by how easily a really good publicist can make mountains move with a phone call.

Speaker 3 (00:50:39):

Yeah, George Valley is amazing. I'm really, really lucky to have him working my band right now. I'm not affiliated. I mean, I'm on an indie label with one's human. It's a German label called Ear Music. That's a good label. They're doing well financially. They have bands like Deep Purple and they have Dragon Force, they have baby metal in Europe and older bands like Foreigner and Deep Pro, but they make a lot of money for their company, so they're in good shape. But in America, it's like I went ahead and I was able to get George to work publicity for my band, and I was even willing to pay for it out of my own pocket. And so I told my label, I'm hiring this guy for our publicity in America, and if you want to pay for it, that'd be great. He's amazing. And they did. They brought him on, and I'm fucking like, he's moved mountains for us. Literally, my singer's on the cover of Revolver coming out in February, and he's gotten us, it's like we're getting major label publicity level stuff out of Georgia, and I'm on a indie and I'm in an extreme death metal band, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:51:51):

Yeah, that's exactly right. I had a very similar experience when I did a guitar album called Avalanche Worms with the other guitar player from Doth and Sean Reinert from Cynic. We did it in 2009 or something, or came out in 2010. I don't remember, but it was on a really small label. We weren't on Roadrunner or Century Media, and they had an in-house publicist who was just some 21-year-old kid. And I mean, the dude who ran the label was really cool, but this publicist kid was just out of, he was a good kid, but he was just out of his element basically. He couldn't, we had just come from Road Runner and stuff with Amy and were looking to get this record out there, and this kid didn't have any contacts. He wanted me to give him my contacts, and I was like, this is not happening.

(00:52:47):

And I tried get the label to hire George. I asked, I begged George to save my ass. And he said, yes, but the label won't pay for it. I just paid for it out of my own pocket. And dude, within two weeks we were in Guitar World, all this stuff. We were getting all the kind of press that you would want on a guitar album. And the record didn't get huge or anything, but it has a very good people who know it love it, and they only love it because George got it out there for them to be able to hear it. Without him, it would've been nothing would've happened at all. There's no way we would've been in Guitar World with it, for instance.

Speaker 3 (00:53:31):

Yeah, it's a specialized skillset that requires really good relationships and it's a really valuable thing to have as the right publicist for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:53:42):

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about some recording stuff. We've been talking the industry and everything for a little bit. I want to talk about your guitar tones a little bit. They're just thundering. I've listened to a bunch of your records. Devil Driver G, you're your new stuff, your latest mixes with one's human. Your guitar tones are just ridiculous. They're huge, aggressive, clear everything you would want in a metal guitar tone. I'm just wondering if you could Thanks, talk about that. Oh yeah. No, seriously. I just call it I hear it. I mean, it's great stuff. I'm wondering if you think that some of that has to do with the fact that you're a good guitar player or, I dunno, maybe you could just talk about what some of those ingredients are in your tone, tone pie for guitars,

Speaker 3 (00:54:38):

Good player is an important part of guitar tone. No matter who's recording it, obviously that's the beginning. The guitar itself, I like Mahogany Body and EMG pickups and I seem to get the best, even if it's a Gibson or an ESP or I'm playing Ivan as now always Mahogany anybody in emg 80 ones for me, that's a must. It's like with Devil Driver, that was a EVA, I think that was, I dunno, the 51 50, that was a vintage 51 50 head with a 57 and a 4 21 on it through a oversized Boogie cab, which actually has 75 Watts Celss in it, which for some reason I always sounded better. I still have that cab, but I don't usually mic cabs much anymore. But

Speaker 2 (00:55:37):

You use a Keer?

Speaker 3 (00:55:38):

Yeah, I use a Kemper and I've profiled some stuff with that cabinet that I'm talking about 57, 4 21 some. So I've got some good EVH and some 51 50 tons that I made, and they're all in the Kemper now. And I love the Keer because it's consistent and convenient and sounds amazing. I was blown away. That piece of gear is the most revolutionary guitar gear in my lifetime because of profiling. Thank

Speaker 2 (00:56:09):

You. I agree. I said the exact same thing when I got mine in 2013. I was like, this is a game

Speaker 3 (00:56:18):

Changer. It's all in it. And when you're profiling and you ab the live tone to the profile, it's like, wow, okay, I'm sold. And then I've got some newer tones that actually these are morphed from I, okay. The ones Human tone is started as an old ax effects preset that was tweaked and went through Rupert Portico channel strip with some pretty drastic, and then back in through Alyx io and then profiled into the camper. And it's like whatever it's gone through. And I have a few versions of it that my guitar player, my new guitar player, max Kiran helped with making these tones. They, I'm really happy with this one. Now, what's on the once Human Tongue, I'm playing seven string with A-G-C-G-C-F-A-D tuning. So it's like a drop C from the top six, and then the low seven string is G, which gets you down almost as low as an eight string in standard. And with this tone still has that clarity and it gives you that super low heavy feeling. And yeah, it sounds monstrous. Yeah, it's clean and clear and bites. It's a weird, the tone, but does not work live at all. It's great for recording and I don't even have to really EQ it in the mix, but if you put it through a PA in a club or a big venue, it's going to rip your fucking ears off and not sound good at all. And so I'm working on because of the high end.

Speaker 2 (00:58:11):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:58:11):

Because of the high end. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58:13):

And interesting. Yeah. So I'm actually curious about that. So, because I've seen some other people talk about this, like Misha from Periphery used to talk about his ax effects presets you'd used. I don't know if he still does this. I just remember that he said that he used a different one for the studio than live because live he has to dial in way more mids to be heard and not blow out the PA and everybody's eardrums. Is that basically what you do?

Speaker 3 (00:58:45):

Yeah, you need the low mids and the mid mids and you need to cut a lot of that top and even be a little bit less gain. And it works. It works for life.

Speaker 2 (00:58:59):

So can you talk a little bit about how you go about getting a tone that is monstrous and also clear?

Speaker 3 (00:59:06):

I mean, it goes back to the whole, I feel it and I hear it. I start turning fucking knobs and moving mics and blending faders until it's right when it's right.

Speaker 2 (00:59:22):

So do you know in advance what you're going for? Or is it one of those things where it's like when you get there?

Speaker 3 (00:59:31):

Yeah, right now. Okay. I really have a few, two tones in my camper that I would go to for preempting in a mix. For example, I haven't tracked a record. The last record I tracked besides once Human was Butcher Babies. The one that's the current one that's out right now. And I used Amps. I used a EVH, I think I used EVH and Mike's on that. Or wait, did, I can't remember. But I have basically, I've got a more rock rock metal tone that's a little bit beefier. And then I have the more metal as fuck tone that's cuts more. And it's still really clear, but it's, it's really searing but not painful. And so if I'm doing mixes and I'm going to reamp it, depending what kind of band it is, usually I'm doing either full blown metal or something more along active rock slash metal, kind of heavy, heavy rock kind of stuff. So I kind of just in amping, I usually have to tweak stuff for the di. I don't know what it is. I'm using a radio. JD seven.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):

Do you feel like something gets lost?

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):

I've never put a di through my radio as on Reamp and felt like I plugged the guitar into the amp. I have to, I dunno if it's a game thing or if it's the radio. Do you use radial for amping?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):

I use the Kuna Berry and I also that, or I also have a little Labs Red Eye, which I love. Little

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):

Labs was the first REAMP box I ever heard of, and it was in 1999. I never remember that one sounding really good. But

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):

It's great. It's got tons of headroom and the one that I use is both the DI in a Reamp, kind of depending what side you plug into. And I know it just sounds great. And I have noticed that with some of the radial stuff, sometimes there is a little bit of tone loss a

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):

Little bit. I experience extreme. It almost sounds like when I run a DI straight through it and with the intensity is all the way up on the radio. It sounds like the guitar, it's half volume.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):

Oh, that,

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, I don't know. And I don't know if it's the guitar player or the pickup or the way they recorded it or the di. So I have to gain it up and even compress it to contain it from peaking and get more VU out of the DI coming in to make it hotter and then tweak my settings on the keer as well. Pretty much pushing everything up a little bit. But it works. In the end. It works, but I never feel like I'm plugged in a guitar and it's the same tone at all. So

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):

I asked this question to lots of dudes who come on here, by the way, I'm still waiting for one guy to be like, it's the same. I don't hear a difference.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):

Yeah, let me know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):

I think everybody pretty much agrees. If someone comes on and says that, I'll let you know. I'll also let you know what he is doing because I'm going to ask him, because I have never once in my life been able to get a reamp tone to sound like when you plug right in. And I don't know anyone else who has. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):

Why is it The whole thing is, I don't know the science behind it, but I understand it's like impedance. It has turning the line signal back into a guitar signal. That's what the Reamp box is supposed to do. It's supposed to make it. Yeah. Why is it so difficult? Why can't they get it right? I don't know. I'm going to try little labs again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):

I don't know. Well, the little labs, especially on the DI side, is really, really good. Out of the ones I've used that has the most headroom and just has the sparkliest sounding DI's, I've used countrymen and a radial and the little labs and they're all pretty good. So yeah, I suggested, so let's do a rapid fire session where I'm going to name something and then tell me what comes to mind. So first thing that comes to mind with it, and it can be a long answer, a short answer, whatever you want to say. So kick drum chicken soup.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):

Oh, sorry. Wait. Perfect. Okay. Kick drum. The first thing to get muted in a mix. No, not the first thing. I mean, no, that's a great answer. Okay. Rapid fire. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):

Yes, snare.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):

It's very important to have organic snare in the mix. Get it right when you're tracking it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):

Rhythm guitar heavy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):

That's my life right there. My life in a nutshell.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):

Alright. Screaming vocals. Female.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):

Actually, I love it. I think it's, it's cool that female fronted metal is widely accepted for the most part these days. And I think Angela Era, arch Enemy really made that and solidified that and then opened the doors for it to be accepted. Obviously I'm in a band with a female and she's badass and has a really brutal voice. If you close your eyes, you can't even necessarily know that that's a girl. Got it. She feels it. It's in her soul. It's what she grew up on. It's who she is. So it's pretty cool that in one way it's sort of, I know it is a good thing and a bad thing. It categorizes female fronted pants as that, but because of that, there's less competition to stand out within that because you're in that box. There's not as many bands out there legitimately doing it with that to compete with and to be compared to. So I guess there's an advantage to it in that and yeah. All on how you work it. Yeah. What about

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):

Overheads

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):

U 67? KM 84.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):

Oh oh. All right. Hold on. U 67. Tell me about that on overheads. What's your thinking with that and what do you like about it?

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):

I felt it was warm and with the right symbols underneath it, it was, it's worked for me really well as a warm, not too harsh, sweet overhead sound.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):

So do you use it kind of like as an alternative to the CAM 80 fours?

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):

Oh yeah. Instead of depending on what I have to choose. Yeah, I have done it before. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):

Or do you ever use them? Both have two alternate sets of overheads, one warm, one

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):

Brighter. I've had, I have gone when I can gone there and have another pair a little bit higher up, but normally it's just, I don't normally do that. It's just whatever the best pair of mics that are in the studio for overhead. So that's what I'll use. And usually it's KM 84, KM 100 or yeah, those 60 sevens vintage U 60 sevens that work nice. I like it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):

Acoustic guitar

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):

In a metal mix. It's been a while since I've done that. Well, you could put a 57 on it on the hole where you can put an SM seven on it and probably get as good as if you put a really nice tube mic on it and then just put CLA unplugged on it and it'll sound great.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):

Awesome. And what about symphonic elements in a metal mix?

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):

I did this record for Septic Flesh. This is, do you know the band Septic Flesh from Grace Scott? Oh yeah. They're sick. I really like the band and their orchestral arrangements are impressive and amazing. They had the 60 piece, they know what they're doing. Yeah. Czech Republic Philharmonic 60 piece recorded. So I get to mix sessions all at 96 K, about a hundred tracks of just orchestra before 22 tracks of drums and multi-track guitars and dah, dah, dah layers and bass and vocals. So that was really challenging too, because their orchestral elements are really important for that band, but it's like how do you have a big metal mix and then source tones matter a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):

Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):

Wait, so let's talk about that for a second. How do you approach that? So did you mix down the orchestra first? Well,

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):

This is what I did. I took all the orchestral files and I hired my friend Gerard Marino, who we talked about earlier, and said, give me back perfectly mixed stems of this shit. So give me back 10 tracks out of a hundred smart. And so he pre-mixed it like an beautiful orchestral before I even tried lay it into the metal with blast beats and two 20 BPM, crazy and aggressive screaming vocals and guitars. So yeah, for that mix, it had to be because I knew the orchestral elements were so important and had to have their place. I had Gerard do that, and then I could do revisions. Everything was stemmed down to sections so I could still change things according to what the band wanted me to push up or push down. But I had 'em organized in nicely mixed stems for all the different sections.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):

That's a wise move, by the way. I really strongly believe that delegating is a really good thing to do is, and especially when you have the opportunity, kind of like what we were talking about earlier with a drum tech, if you know someone who you can hire who's got more expertise than you at something, just do it. It's going to make the project better. Why risk the project when you have access to an expert?

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):

Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):

So that made it probably a hundred times easier to work.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):

Yeah, it made it completely workable. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):

Did you have to do a ton of filtering after the fact or just leveling?

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):

Mostly leveling. A little bit of filtering depending on what else was happening in the song. But yeah, the guy who did the arrangements was very talented and the parts were beautiful and they were recorded amazing. And it was all organic. And then Gerard being his top of the game kind of guy for mixing that kind of thing. So yeah. Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):

Let's talk about Jiro some. So those of you listening who don't know, you should know that Logan is our guest mixer on Nail the Mix this month. He's mixing a toxic garbage island by my favorite modern metal band, ga, and lots of people's favorite modern metal bands actually. And from the album, the Way of All Flesh, which I remember when that came out, it was like a holy shit moment for production because everybody loved their album before that. I still love it, but it doesn't sound great. I think the quality of the music is the reason people love it, not the mix. This was the first time hearing them with a real mix, and it was just so powerful. And I know lots of pro guys who put out records that everybody listening to this listens to who use your mix on that as their reference still now in 2016, and we're talking about a record that came out in 2008, I believe it's still being used as a reference for lots of guys, and that's kind of tremendous.

(01:12:31):

And also so props, congrats, and just wow about that. And also for me as being one of the dudes behind Nail the Mix, it's a fucking cool for me, this is like we don't always do bands that I personally love, but I personally love this band. So for me, it's really, really cool. By the way, those of you listening, if you want to do this, just go to nail the mix.com/go Jira, and you will get the actual raw tracks from this so you can mix it yourself, enter into a mixed competition against your peers. We have prizes for the winners from Kush Audio. The first place will win their Omega Preamp 500 series that comes with a plugin that emulates different preamps, and it's incredible if you know their plugins and hardware, their top of the line stuff like the Clarif EQ for instance. And you also get a year subscription to their plugins. And then the second place is going to get a year subscription to their plugins. And then you also get a live mix with Logan where you get to watch him mix the song, live on video, ask questions, interact, have fun, and learn how historic metal records are made. So now that I'm done plugging the shed out of it, I want to want to talk about it. So how did that come about for you? And just tell me a little bit about it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for the compliment about the mixes and stuff. I appreciate that. I actually used that mix as an ab source as well to this day. So yeah, it's just like, so that record, how did it come about? I mean, it's kind of cool the way things happen. And we can go, if I could be long-winded here, you can cut it up if you want, whatever. So be as you want. Okay. So my first kind of big break in production was a mix I did for Roadrunner United. And it was a song that Dino Casarez was the producer for on that Roadrunner United thing. I think Roy Mayorga played drums on it, and they just showed up one day at the studio where I was working, and I was like, what are you guys doing here? It was Dave McLean from Machine Head, Roy Mayorga, and Dino, and I had Studio B that was my place, and they were working in a at under city.

(01:15:07):

And so they showed up and I was like, what's up? What are you doing? And they told me what they were doing, and I was like, oh, that's cool. Awesome. And I was like, wow, my studio is just next door. If you guys need anything, let me know if you need any help. I knew they probably would because the room had some bugs. It's with a big analog, it's with the SSL. It was a bit glitchy. And so sure enough, they needed some troubleshooting and I came over and helped them out. And just by proximity, I guess, and just being around Dina was like, Hey, Logan, you want to do a guitar track on this one song as a guest? And I was like, fuck yeah, cool. Give me the files. So he gave me this session. I went over, I did what he wanted me to do, but I also mixed the song.

(01:15:46):

Just I had the session just because, because I had the session and I was like, I wanted to present him what I did, and then I cared and I mixed it really over for three or four hours and it sounded really good and I was stoked. So they were like, cool, fuck, that sounds awesome. And then Monty Connor got, and he was like, this sounds really good, this mix, what is this? And Colin Richardson was on board to mix Dino's tracks. So it ended up where everyone really liked my mix and Colin was still mixing. He'd mixed it and was like, they ended up choosing mine over Collins for the record. And that moment, that's quite a win. Yeah, yeah. I felt, yeah, that was a really pivotal good moment for me. And it was a single, and we did a video and everything, so that was all just being in the right place at the right time.

(01:16:47):

And then all that happened and the things that stemmed from that directly are massive. So that put me on Monty's radar as a legitimate mixer and producer. So within a matter of a month or so, he had Soulfly come in for me to produce one song for them. It was for a compilation, a metal hammer compilation, a Marilyn Manson cover song. But I was in Soulfly, seven years had gone by, I hadn't really talked to Max. And then there he was in my studio and I was producing, and that went really well. So Max and Monty wanted me to produce the first Caval conspiracy record, which happened another month after that. And then Joe er was playing bass.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):

That was a badass record, by the

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):

Way. Cool. Thanks. It was fun to do. It was like Igor and Max together for the first time since Altoro split was just a great moment to witness. And

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):

When they set 'em all up and micd everything and they were in the room altogether and just busted out, refuse, resist for the first time in, I dunno, 15 years or something, the room just caught on fire. I was like, fuck, this is amazing. Yeah, that's incredible. So there I was doing that record and then Joseph Dier from Goro was the guest bass player on the record, and we hit it off and he liked working with me. So that's how the Way of All Flesh came into my studio. And the way we did that was they came over and I recorded the drums and in that same room there, it was at Under City in North Hollywood and edited the drums, and then they took the files back and Joe tracked the guitars and the vocals and the bass, just like he had always done. He's really the producer for Go Jira kind of always has been. But so I came in for drum tracking and editing and then mixing when they were done with the tracking. And so that's how I got to the Go Jro record from,

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):

Can we talk about the drummer for a second? Yeah. What's his deal? Why is he so damn good?

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):

He's like, yeah, he's the best metal drummer, probably the best metal drummer that I've ever recorded.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):

I think he's pretty much the best metal drummer.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):

Yeah, he's amazing. He feels it. And I think that the connection with him and his brother is very tight and a very close. They are one. So that helps a lot in the general vibe of their music. I think it's like that feeling amplified by two.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):

So like the Pantera thing?

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):

Interesting. Because he's got something that a lot of guys don't, which is not only is he technical as shit, but he hits really fucking hard and he grooves like crazy. Usually he hits loud. You get one. Yeah, you get one or two of those. Usually with drummers, usually they hit hard and they groove, but they're not technical or they're technical and they groove, but they don't hit hard. You don't normally have all three of them.

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):

He is got and finesse like a motherfucker. And also hitting hard and hitting loud to me are two different things. You can have a big strong arm and hit things with sticks, but if you don't do it with the right finesse, it's going to hit hard with the right kind of hard when you really know what you're doing and you really feel it. And he's got just tons of feel amazing about him and his musical mind. The complexity of his rhythmic mind is pretty fucking out there too. One of the songs was like the 18 bar, one phrase was 18 bars. And I'm like, I'm looking at the chart and I'm like, you actually count that? No, he just, I feel it. But he had it charted it out and yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):

So they chart their shit.

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):

Well, he did on some like that, I forget the title, but it was like, it's the one that has this really cool groove odd time intro with a lot of the percussive metal sounds are happening too, which they do that. I can't remember the song title, but the phrase was 18 bars. So it was in, I don't know, 78 over 18. I don't know what the meter is, but it was pretty much pushing it to the limit, but still totally groove.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):

I've noticed that lots of those drummers who are that level, they'll chart their shit out. There's this dude, Alex Inger, I think he's the best extreme metal drummer I've ever worked with, certainly one of the best in the world. And he reads, while he records the whole way through, he charts everything out and it's like a blast beat machine. It's really impressive stuff. Lots of the guys who are that good tend to write their stuff, I've

Speaker 4 (01:22:00):

Noticed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):

So let's talk about the mix some, because the guys that are going to be working on this, I believe are going to have a challenge in front of 'em. What to you was the biggest challenge about it?

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):

Well, first of all, I'm really excited to do that. It's going to be fun. I haven't opened that, obviously. That was done in 2007. I did that mix and I was working on an old, even at that time, it was an older system, pro Tools 5.1 0.3 OS nine with the average 88,000 and TDM cards, the old TDM cards. And so I can't have that rig anymore. And obviously it is Vintage Pro tools I guess, but so there was proprietary plugins involved in making that mix, that sound the way it does that I don't have now that they don't even make for newer pro tools that as far as I know. And so I'm going to start from scratch, but the source tones are what they are. They're good. I mean, the guitar tones, these are EVH, they're really, when you listen to 'em solo, they're really not very gainy and they don't sound really aggressive by themselves.

(01:23:17):

But in the mix they sound, because of the way Joe plays, he picks really hard and with a lot of feeling and there's a lot of good note in there and there's enough bite to make 'em sound really aggressive and it allows for the overheads to not get involved in the top end. And so getting the clarity with the guitars to drums is really not that hard. As I remember with those sore stones. And I mean, I remember I didn't even gate the snare. The snare 57 top snare mic was right in the center because of the way his drum kit was really tight and really with a lot of shit. I had to get in between the two rack Toms directly center facing the drummer, basically. It wasn't an ideal place for me to put a snare mic normally, but it worked. The bleed was wide open on the snare and there's a lot of organic snare in the mix.

(01:24:15):

I'm not sure how I'm going to approach that when I remix it now, I'm going to do it just like I would now. So that'll be fun and nostalgic in a way. And I'm probably going to a Be it to the Album Master and maybe do some other stuff, but I'm just going to have fun with it and make it sound as good as I can in the period of time that we have. And there's the symbols of SM 81. The overheads are SM 81, but they should sound good. I mean, they do sound good and he has the right symbols in the room that we picked, we went down to, he just had a big selection of symbols and I think we borrowed a couple as well. So the symbols sound good. The Toms in the mix original mix are a hundred percent organic with no samples on there, and they sound good.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):

Is there any sample on the snare?

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):

Yeah, in the mix that I did, there was some use of snare sample, but I mean, I remember, and you can hear it, it's mostly organic. I would say it was 80% organic. My first mixes of my first pass of one of the songs, it had a lot more sample than they wanted, than they wanted it organic. And they were like, turn the sample down, down, down, even turn it off. And I never really loved the organic snare that he wanted to use and the way he wanted to tune it, but really it was his thing and that's what he wanted. So that's what went within. It has a lot of character and so it works, but

Speaker 2 (01:25:54):

How do you feel about it now?

Speaker 3 (01:25:55):

When I listen to that mix now, I feel like in certain songs in Toxic Garbage, for example, I think I can make that snare sound better than it does on the album now, just with more experience and more tools I think that I have now. But when I hear it, but when I hear it, it's cool. It works. It works with the song, it works with a mix. And it sounds like a drummer. You feel that the drummer's hitting it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):

What about Kick?

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):

I didn't. Okay, so he recorded two with two kicks because he likes to play it with two kicks. And I don't like recording two kick drums because usually one sounds not as good as the other one. Even if they're identical and everything's lined up right, it's like still one of them doesn't sound the same. And I didn't really love the kick sound that I had on either of them. And I remember turning 'em off and it's all sample and I've got samples in there. The samples that I used on the record or in the session, but they're isolated, left and right foot. There was two drums. So that makes it easy to sort of fake the two kick thing by altering the level slightly on the double bass parts. Just sort of simulate drummer by a little bit less velocity on the left foot or a slightly different attack tone on the left foot so you don't just hear a machine. So that's in there and yeah, that's about it. It's pretty straightforward. What about bass? Yeah, this is, again, Joe tracked the bass at his place, and I think all he used is a San pedal, but I'm not sure. I can't remember what he said and I got to look at it. I'll look tonight when I send that to you, but I think there's just one bass track on there to choose from, but it sounded good. So yeah. Nice. Yep, that's what matters.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):

Was there anything challenging in balancing the vocals or anything like that?

Speaker 3 (01:28:08):

Nothing. No, nothing out of the ordinary. He's, he's not like a kind of singer that stacks up tons of vocals. And so I think there's often one vocal and then it's doubled. He does a lot of single vocal stuff and then doubles parts

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):

Like choruses. It's interesting to me. So it's like he's not using too many doubles. A lot of it's natural. And it just goes to show that when a band is awesome, you don't need to do as much. You don't need to do 18 layers of vocals to make up for the fact that person sounds like a dying cat. Yeah. Or you say you're not even going to comment.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):

There's so many things I could say right now, but I'm

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):

Just not going to, we're probably thinking of the same person or a similar type of situation. But yeah, there's some vocalists who just suck that the only way to make them sound good is to layer them. So many times it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):

And then whenever I hear that, the more you layer, the more you lose the feeling and the emotion.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):

Absolutely. Yeah. With one human, Lauren, she's single vocal all the way through except choruses. There'll be doubles. And sometimes with the tone of screams, I'll do a triple, but she's like single vocal all the way through. And it's like when, yeah, you really feel it. It's intimate and it's clear and personal, so

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):

Suddenly to be said for knowing how to perform on your instrument. So anyways, man, thank you so much for coming on. We're kind of reaching that time. We got to cut this off, but it's been awesome talking to you. You too, man. And yeah, I had a great time and I can't wait to watch you mix on January 4th, I believe.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):

Yeah, looking forward to that. We're going to be at the Hideout probably, you think? Or we don't know yet.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):

I believe so. I believe so. Yeah. I don't know what room, but I believe so.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):

Cool. It's going to be sick. Looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):

That's going to be my second time there in two months. Nice. It's a nice place. Yeah. Amazing for what it looks like. Actually. That's an understatement. It's amazing. Not a nice place. It looks incredible. Yeah, I'm stoked.

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):

Yeah, it's my go-to when I have budget to go to track drums. That's my go-to room. And yeah, I mean, they've got everything that you want there. He's got a $50,000 stereo Fairchild if you want to roll that in. And he's got these vintage Neuman M fifties that are a hundred grand microphone, a hundred grand for the pair, kind of. He's got some toys going on in there that are fun to play with. And then the facility itself is beautiful. It's just perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):

It looks like it looks stunning, so I'm stoked about it. Well, thanks dude. Yeah, thank you. The

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):

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