Eyal Levi: Finishing your music, acoustic treatment, and landing the Audio Hammer gig

Speaker 1 (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 Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:24):

Hey guys, Eyal Levi here. This is the first installment of my little experiment called Dear Eyal, and it's inspired by our buddy Jordan Valeriote because he has the Ask JV podcast, which myself and my partner Joey Sturges were on. And I got to say I had a really great time doing it and thank you for having me on Jordan, and I just realized that I could just go on and on and on and on and on and answer your questions. And why not? Why not add another URM podcast episode type where I answer your questions. You guys certainly have a lot of them. I asked for questions 30 minutes ago and you guys already gave me over 50. So I would say that you guys definitely have lots of questions to ask. They're still coming in. If you want to submit questions for this, just send an email to Al at M Academy.

(01:27):

You spell that EYAL at URM Academy and just put Dear AOL in the subject line. And if I like your question and I feel like I can rant on it for a little bit, I'm going to ask it. And if you guys hate this show, hate this type of episode, be sure to tell me and I'll never do it again. But that said, let's get into it. First question is by Shane House. I'm going to read this and I'm going to do my best. Hey Al, how do you go about overcoming self-doubt with your personal work? I know this has to be something everyone goes through. I've been writing, recording and mixing for years now, but I can't bring myself to release anything that I'm not a hundred percent happy with. I know the stuff I work on isn't bad, but I always compare it to a-list Productions I know I'll never achieve the goal I'm looking for by hoarding audio and working on it all the time.

(02:25):

But I also don't want to put something out if I know I can still do better. Thank you for your time, Shane house. Well, Shane, I think that that problem is something that all audio people or creative people or just human people get when they enter themselves into a situation where they might get judged for something. But why do you think that public speaking is rated as one of the top fears that a human being encounters is because people don't like to be judged. They don't like people's eyes and ears on them. It scares the crap out of them. And I would be lying if I said that I was entirely comfortable with it too. I've gotten more comfortable with it, but it's taken years. One thing that I noticed that I always had a problem with when I was submitting mixes was with actually just pulling the trigger on bouncing it and sending it.

(03:26):

I would end up procrastinating and procrastinating and procrastinating and doing whatever I possibly could to just not send it in. And that never did anything good for me because there comes a point where you're not really improving what you're working on, you're just making lateral moves. You might tweak this high hat a little bit. You might tweak that, you might keep thinking you can do better, but really how much better are you making it? Once you get it past that point, you're just nitpicking. And in reality, you're just treading water basically. You just got to get comfortable with the concept of fuck it and just fuck it. That's literally the best thing you can do is just fuck it. That's what I do at this point. It's like, look, if they're not going to like it, what's the worst that can happen? That's what I started asking myself.

(04:19):

What's the worst that can happen? Are they going to kill me? No. Are they going to burn down my house? No. Are they going to shame me in front of the whole internet? Are they going to post something and say, this mix is the worst thing I've ever heard. And AEyal Levi needs to be tar and feathered and no one should ever mate with him. He should be cast out, put on an island, get aids and die. No, of course not. What will happen? Worst case scenario, is that the right back and tell me that they're not finishing the album with me and that hasn't happened. But what if that happened? How bad would it really be? So not that bad, right? So one thing I started doing was I would envision what's the worst that can possibly happen? And when you start thinking about what's the worst that can possibly happen, you realize it's really not that bad.

(05:14):

And once you start thinking about what's the worst that can happen, then you also start thinking, how can I make this situation better or how can I make it worse? And one of the ways that you can make it worse by pissing off the client, by taking too long to send them their damn mixes. So send it to them once it sounds like a song. Just print that shit and send it and look, if they don't like it, you're going to hear about it. And that is an opportunity. Don't look at it as a bad thing. It's an opportunity to fix it and make them happy. Now, this is all easier said than done because we're dealing with emotional things and I just gave you a rational solution to an emotional problem, but you just got to do it. Now, since you submitted questions right now to this, that means that you're a subscriber to nail the mix, which means that every single month you get something, you get a song from us to mix and enter into a mixed competition with.

(06:16):

That means that you have a deadline for submission and there is no reason on earth for you not to submit your song for that deadline. Why would you not do that? And I know that there's lots of you guys who don't do that. So my question is, why are you not doing that? What are you afraid of? First of all, we strip your name from the entry and it's totally randomized, so you're just a number. So even if your mix is garbage, is anyone going to know that your mix is number 183? No. So then what difference does it make it a mental exercise like a ball builder? Because that's what you need. Have you seen a Glen Gary Glen Ross where he shows his brass balls? That's what you need. You need to grow some balls, buddy. And submitting for the nail the mix deadline is a good safe way to do it because no one's going to judge you.

(07:14):

Just send them in, get into that habit. And what's great about it is the deadline is the deadline. So no matter where you're at, you just make yourself do it. And on the topic of hoarding music, you really are not going to get better unless you commit to moving past that. One of the biggest problems that I find with the people that I create on our one-on-one calls is that they work on the same thing for way too long. That's another reason that nail the mix is a monthly thing and not just one song in a course, because you need to mix lots of songs. Just like if you're a writer, you need to write lots of songs, or if you're a producer, you need to produce lots of songs. You need to be working on lots of material all the time and have a good quick turnaround so that you keep on refreshing your skills.

(08:05):

You will get stagnant if you work on the same thing and you will not improve. So you are doing yourself no services, you're not helping yourself, you're not doing yourself any good by hoarding audio. So literally write the words, fuck it on your forehead backwards so you can read it when you wake up and look in the mirror, tattoo it on the inside of your wrist, I don't care. Just start saying fuck it to yourself. Whenever you get that voice that's like, nah, I just want to work on it more. Nah, it's not good enough. Nah, I can do, but fuck it. Just send that shit in. Fuck it, move on. Just fuck it. Okay, fuck it, dude. Fuck it. Next question. This next question comes to us for Mr. Christopher Kaser. And hey Christopher, next time ask us in the form of a question instead of just two sentences.

(09:02):

Thank you. But anyways, Christopher says, how about something about room treatment? Like what DIY solutions or buying pre-made? Thanks. Alright, well let's just say that when people talk to me about what they should spend their money on, I think that the things that you should spend your money on first in audio, if you have a limited budget, are the things that you're going to be using the most. So what are you going to be using the most? You're going to be using your computer, your speakers, your software, and the room the most. Now since we're not talking about speaker software, computer desk or chair, we'll talk about the room. Now, there are some people in the world with the ears of gold like my partner Joey Sturgis, who has no room treatment and still put out incredible mixes. Now I have worked in his rooms before and his room sounded really good, so he could have just lucked out I think, or he really did just learn his speakers that well, I don't know what it is.

(10:14):

He's a bit of a wizard. You should assume that you're not a wizard. And with that said, you should assume that you need to treat your room. And the reason for it is because you're probably working in a room that was not designed to be a control room, right? You're probably working in a converted bedroom or garage or kitchen, who the hell knows? You're probably working in a room that was not designed to be a control room and you probably have all kinds of weird reflections going on and nodes and your low end is out of control or totally gone and you don't know right from left and your life sucks and you want to die because you can't hear what's actually coming out of your speakers. You're hearing your speakers activating your room and all kinds of weird nonsense. And then your mixes don't translate and you don't get laid or get rich in life, like I said, just sucks.

(11:07):

So you want to deal with treatment. Now you got to ask yourself a very important question, which is can you build it? Yes or no? Are you good at building? I am not. I suck at building. And the problem with trying to get good at building when you're dealing with acoustic paneling is that you're dealing with horrible substances like 7 0 3 insulation. Have you ever got in that shit on your skin? It burns and it itches. You do not want to mess up with that stuff. Trust me on this. I have seen somebody covered in insulation and their day was ruined. So many showers, so many rashes and itches like you don't want this in your life if you don't know what you're doing. So if you don't know what you're doing, you want to go to a company like GIK for instance. I like GIKI am not affiliated with them in any way, shape or form. I have bought a lot of acoustic paneling from them. They're very reasonably priced, high quality stuff. They get it done quickly. And what can I say? I'm not going to build it myself, so I'm going to go with them.

(12:27):

No, this is the type of topic where you need somebody a lot smarter than me to tell you how to actually do it properly. But there's a few basics that everybody who's recording and putting together a room should know, which is that you want to get all the reflection points, especially your primary reflection points. You want to trap the corners and the back wall somewhat to get rid of low end buildup. Corners are nasty for that, and you might want to get a cloud on the ceiling if your ceilings not too high. This will make your room sound as though it has a taller ceiling, which is good. You're going to hear less reflections off of the ceiling messing up what you're listening to. And another good rule of thumb is that the thicker your panels go, the lower on the frequency spectrum, they will do a good job of trapping.

(13:30):

So if you put up two inch panels, good luck capturing any low end in reality, to really capture low end, you need some fucking thickness in there. So if you're going to build yourself, I would recommend putting minimum of 10 inches in the corner, but I've done up to 20 and that really, really helped. You also might need to build diffusers behind you. And the good thing about this is that if you look online, there are plenty of resources for how to go about this, plenty of resources. And really all you need to do is get some 7 0 3, some sort of a breathable fabric, some wood and some plans, and put the shit together. Now, however, sounds easier said than done, right? I'm not going to try it, fuck it up, and I'll get installation all over myself. And something that's supposed to be a 90 degree angle will be 45 degrees and it'll all fall apart and be terrible.

(14:32):

But those of you who are even a little bit handy should give it a shot. And like I said, plenty of resources online. And if not, you can always buy from a company like GIK. We have plenty of resources in our private group for this too. Lots of guys who have built their own traps. We even have guys who help people design rooms. So this is one of the benefits of being signed up to nail the mix. You as a bonus, get access to our Facebook community, the Private Producers Club where people help each other out. And yes, lots of guys will show you how they built them. We'll give you step-by-step, we'll show you how to calibrate your room, all kinds of stuff you should get in the community and just ask, just ask. But really the most important thing here is for you to determine are you the type of person who's going to build it?

(15:29):

And if you're not the type of person who's going to build it, how much can you afford to spend? And lastly, I'm going to say try to avoid foam. Now, some of you might be like, but you have foam in your control room. Yes, I have foam in my control room. And okay, I want to address that real quick. So as some of you may know, I am at a studio called the Audio Compound with my studio partner, Andrew Wade and Jeremy McKinnon. And when Andrew was designing the rooms, he came up with this idea for the walls where there's multiple layers of acoustic treatment. And the outer layer is the foam because foam is actually really good for deadening reflections. It just does a really shitty job with lower mids and low end. So if you only put a foam, all you're going to do is get a really, really dull sounding, but kind of dead room.

(16:28):

It's just weird. It's dull and dead, but resonant in the low end. It's just not what you want for a control room. You'll drive yourself mad. But with the way that he did it, with the multiple layers of insulation, like several feet thick with the foam as just the outer layer, it actually works really well. So yes, I have foam in my room, but that's not all that I have in my room. It's just one of many, many layers. And the room sounds great, very balanced here. Any crazy reflections, it's great. And you go to the back of the room and the low end doesn't suddenly get crazy. It sounds the way a control room should sound, but it was a whole project. Thousands and thousands of dollars went into building these rooms, and that foam was part of a calculated, calculated acoustic by a tone pie.

(17:23):

I guess that was a little throwback to the Creative Live. Andrew Wade recording Rock Guitars tone pie. Lemme take a sip of this drink. Anyways, what I was saying was try to avoid foam. First of all, it's a huge fucking fire hazard. Anyone remember the great white fire from 2003, I believe, where this band, great white, played a club and used pyro indoors, which is really, really dumb. And they had acoustic foam on the walls and ceiling and it caught fire and lots of people died. I think like a hundred people died. It caused an inferno awful, awful story. And it was because of the acoustic foam. I'm just telling you, if you like having candles or smoke cigarettes or weed or have any sort of fire, you really want to think twice about foam. Second of all, it sounds like shit, especially if you don't have the multi foot thick layer of awesome that Andrew Wade designed for your studio. If you don't have that, just stay away from foam. Plus it is fucking overpriced.

(18:38):

Normally, guys who are buying foam are guys who don't know much and who might be budget challenged. Somehow they get tricked into buying foam. I never have understood why that is when they could easily buy the GIK panels for the same price or less or just build it themselves. But I mean, that's why you guys are asking questions. You don't want to make these kinds of mistakes. So I hope that helps. Good luck. Onto the next question. Here's a question by Jack Hartley. Yo aal, I'm a huge fan of the audio hammer sound. You were involved in some amazing heavy hitting releases during your time there. Could you go into detail about how you landed at a spot at Audio Hammer, what it was like to work at that level and what were some of your most memorable experiences? Cheers. Sure, Jack, I would be happy to do that.

(19:31):

So my experience with Audio Hammer started long before I got the job there. And I want all of you guys listening to take this as a tale of how to properly network. Because this is a great example. If you listen to some of the other podcasts, we talk about how networking is something that needs to be a natural extension of your personality, not something you do in a fake way. It is you're supposed to build real relationships when you do it. And you're not supposed to approach these relationships with an outcome-based sort of thinking. You just are trying to build value-based relationships where you're cool to hang out with. And if you can help people with their problems, you help them with their problems. It's not I'm going to make friends with this guy so that I can get this job. People can usually see through that.

(20:29):

And with that said, I was introduced to Jason Soff in 2005 when James Malone from AIS was at my house recording, and we had an inner joke going on, which I almost don't really remember, but he had this friend named Jason Soff, and he had the same inner joke with Jason. So he one day just called him on the phone or maybe on Skype or something like that. And we talked about this joke and we became friends that afternoon. He emailed me all his samples. I sent him all of mine, and we just became friends. And this was before I was signed or anything, okay? So it's not like I, he was looking for a future client and he wasn't that famous yet anyways either. So it's not like I was looking for a future gig, it was just someone cool, alright. And then my band got signed and we did not work with Jason. We worked with James Murphy and Colin Richardson and did our own thing.

(21:45):

One thing though was that I did go to Florida a lot to hang out with him because we were becoming friends. And I do remember that when doth was touring, if the bands that we were touring with were wondering if they should go to him or not, we would always say Go to Jason and I would vouch for him. Then eventually my band had to record the next album, the Concealers, and we went to Jason, Jason Soff and Mark Lewis because they were our friends and also because they were awesome at what they did. So you see, this was over the course of three years. Now I say it in about three minutes, but it really was three years. So I had already sent them bands. We had already been friends, and I brought them tens of thousands of dollars with my own band. We made a great record together.

(22:38):

And even after that, I kept on sending them bands. I got them a manager, and I took another project down there. And so this went on for years. In about 2010, the other guitar player in my band told me he was leaving. He got a gig with another band, a bigger band, and I was freaked out because Doth had just worked our asses off on a record. And here he was about to leave and I got into WTF mode. What am I going to do about my future? This guy is an untouchable guitar player. He's kind of not very replaceable. He is got his own style, no one's as good as him. What the fuck am I going to do? And I called Jason and he was like, well, why don't you just come to Florida, be my engineer. If you buy a drum room, you can be part owner of Audio Hammer and you can be my engineer.

(23:42):

I went and I talked to my dad about it for 10 minutes just because I trust his advice and I just wanted to bounce it off someone else who's smart and made a career in music. And I called Jason back in 10 minutes and I said, let's do this. And that's how I got the job at Audio Hammer. Now mind you, this was five years of work. This was 2010. I met him in 2005. Okay, five years. And in those five years I had been a client of his twice, brought him bands and brought him a manager and just been a good friend. When he got dumped, I flew down there and consoled him. We were friends. And so you put all that stuff together and the fact that I was able to buy the drum room and opportunity plus preparation and a little bit of luck. So that's how it happened.

(24:52):

So back to the networking thing is I did not have that outcome in mind when Jason was added to my network. I just wanted to build a relationship. I thought he was a cool guy. End of story was a life-changing relationship. But again, the final outcome was not in my mind when I went into it. So now about the most memorable things I did there, well, of course the very first project that we did was hugely memorable, and it was trivium. Now, I didn't even work on Trivium. It was more like I bought the house with the drum room. And within the first two weeks of being there, Colin Richardson and Carl Brown and Jin came from the UK to track trivium drums in my drum room. And they spent three weeks, I think they spent five days just getting a kick sound. And the drum sounded incredible.

(25:53):

And I remember Colin telling me that this was the best drum room that he had ever used in North America. And I was like, wow, what a way to Christen this drum room, right? To have Colin Richardson record and get a great sound. What a way to kick things off. So obviously that's highly memorable, even though I didn't work on it at all. Another thing was when we were working on Demon Hunter and Jason Mixed Demon Hunter, I just did mix engineering on that one, but I guess I had been with him for a little while, and that was the first time where he trusted me enough to start taking on the mixed notes and doing automations and communicating with the band and the producer. And I guess I had been there almost a year or something like that at that point. And I had just been learning how to edit the way he wanted me to, learning how to set up sessions, learning how to do all the mix prep, all the engineer tasks that were involved.

(26:58):

And Demon Hunter was the first time that he was like, okay, here, just do these notes. So I did them and I think I did a good job because we didn't get too many notes back. And from that point on, my job involved mixed notes, and that was a big confidence boost and I felt great about it. And Demon Hunter is a great band and greatly produced. So that was just cool. And then I'd say the third thing was when I got to fly to Detroit to record the Black Dahlia murder drums, because they are, to date one of my favorite metal bands of all time. I think that they're one of the most professional and tight bands in the extreme genre ever. Maybe everything about them, in my opinion, should be heralded, is how to do things right from the way they handle their business, meaning the actual financial business of being in a band all the way to the way that they handle the standards, the artistic standards of writing and playing and lyrics and art and branding.

(28:14):

It's all just top fucking notch. And they do not fuck around, and they're very, very serious and they know what they want and they go after it and they're good enough to do it right. I mean, nice guys. Cool guys. What else can I say? One of my favorite bands, and it was one of these situations where we tell you guys, be cool and do a great job and be present because at some point in time, the guy you're working under is not going to be able to do a job. And if you've proven yourself, he's going to give it to you. And if you listen to our podcast, there are lots of guys who have that story. And guess what? So do I. Mark Lewis had to do Devil Driver. He was originally hired to do Black Dahlia murder, but he couldn't. He had to do Devil Driver, and he gave me the Black Dahlia gig.

(29:07):

I flew to Detroit and did the drums, stayed at Brian's house. It was killer. I loved it. Recorded at a studio called Rust Belt, which you should look it up. It's got gorgeous, gorgeous board, API board and all kinds of awesome gear. Just a great experience. I loved it. And you can find pictures of it on my Instagram. So I'd say that those are my top three most memorable audio hammer experiences. Okay, well, that was my first installment of Dear Eyale. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And if you didn't enjoy it, please write me and tell me to never do this again. But if you did, enjoy it. Please help keep this going by asking questions. And you can do that by sending an email to EYAL at U URM Academy with the subject line. Dear Eyal, I'll answer your questions about anything. It can be about music, audio, life, relationships. I don't really care. I might actually answer non audio questions, but just send them in. We'll get to them. And if you send enough, I'll do this weekly. Take it easy, guys. The

Speaker 1 (30:21):

Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is 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 to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM Academy podcast and subscribe today.