JESSE RAY ERNSTER: Mixing for Kanye West, bringing a metal edge to pop, and why audio pros need a Roth IRA

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at M dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is Jesse Ernster, who is a Grammy Award-winning mixer with credits ranging from Kanye West at Doja Cat and beyond. He's fucking great and a really cool guy and actually a URM member. Enjoy Jesse Ernster. Welcome to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:00):

Hey man, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:02:02):

It's a pleasure. I'm glad that we finally got to do this.

Speaker 2 (00:02:05):

Yeah, yeah, same. I've been a listener for almost a decade now. Really? Yeah, I've been a part of Nailed the mix for several years now. I think the last one I actually participated in as far as the contest was the shuga, I think in 2017, early 2017.

Speaker 1 (00:02:21):

I had no idea that you were actually a community member.

Speaker 2 (00:02:24):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:02:24):

I've just known about your career and stuff and talked to you online, but I didn't know that you were actually in the nail the mix community. Very cool.

Speaker 2 (00:02:32):

Yeah, I'm just kind of worshiping all the same guys that your listeners are.

Speaker 1 (00:02:38):

I mean, they are pretty great. Obviously, you know where I'm going to go with this. Do you find that there's any crossover skills wise, technique wise from what would apply in a MASU session to a Doja cat session?

Speaker 2 (00:02:54):

Yeah, absolutely. The basic fundamentals of balances obviously, and the basics and game staging and all that. I think that the primary difference between genres is more or less the way that the mix is kind of established in the pop world during the producing the production process. Correct me if I'm wrong in these days, in this day and age, but I think that in rock and metal productions, it really can go from zero to hero in the mixed stage, and I think that's kind of the expectation. But when a production gets to me from the hip hop or the pop world, it's like it's basically already in the ballpark. Any sort of changes after that kind of freak everybody out.

Speaker 1 (00:03:34):

I do think that there's a lot more room for zero to hero in the mix, and I guess a lot of it does have to do with the vast differences you'll encounter on metal sessions. You have everything from the most low budget, just bare bones. Nothing good could possibly happen here, style of production where it has to be turned into something in the mix. But then you also have some people who basically by the time they're done with the production, it is pretty damn close. I know partner Joey Sturge is, it's not that he used to mix while tracking, but he would commit to all his sounds before moving on, and so by the time his productions would be finished, you would be pretty close. I know when we had, for instance, Jens Boren, eth month, those raws, I wouldn't really call them rah. I mean it's pretty damn close.

Speaker 2 (00:04:36):

Dude, I still practice on that session. I'm so sorry to cut you off. I just got excited. Yeah, I still pull up the, it's a fader at zero mix and it's so funny even with just a mouse clicking around and pushing up and faders, and I always like to envision like, oh, I'm Chris Lord, algae moving faders around. But that is really a tremendous example of fantastic engineering.

Speaker 1 (00:04:59):

It's funny you say that because on that session actually, I started to hear student mixes. My initial thoughts were like, what are you doing? Do you not realize how good these tracks are? Why are you overcooking them? People were obliterating these pristine, beautiful, and I don't mean perfect in the sterile sort of way. I mean perfect as in artistic perfection, in engineering performance, everything. The artistry is just as good as it gets. And then these students were just annihilating, just annihilating everything. So I made a post, I issued a challenge, the zero plugin challenge mix with faders and panning only see what happens, and lo and behold, people's mixes got better because you had to try to make that thing sound worse.

Speaker 2 (00:05:56):

Absolutely. I think the biggest thing there would be, and you could almost do the whole mix with just one filter on every track, because the biggest thing that I think beginners, I'm sure we both went through this, the biggest thing you go through is like, oh, I need to get more top end out of this. I need more perceivable top end, so I'm going to boost top end when really it's like, well, there's probably some mucky mid-range resonances that are just eating up all of your headroom and not allowing the top end that's there. It's already there. It's just not allowing it to pass through. So sometimes it's just an imbalance where you just got to cut some of that and then you get that thing happening,

Speaker 1 (00:06:30):

Get rid of what's in the way of what's already great and already present.

Speaker 2 (00:06:36):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:06:36):

So you were saying that in the the rap world, just in that upper tier of the music industry, it sounds like the expectations out of a mixer are a little bit different. So now while I did, I don't want to say contradict, but I did slightly contradict you a little bit, but I do think that the expectations out of a mixer in metal, there's a lot of expectations when you send it to a mixer, you are expecting it to sound devastating to whereas it might not have sounded devastating before. So you are expecting a lot. So what I'm wondering is because of what you said, where it already pretty much is what it's going to be, what is expected out of a mixer then?

Speaker 2 (00:07:23):

Well, a lot of the time it's just kind of to master the song. Usually it arrives as either an Ableton session, a logic session, or pro tools. And the expectation is nobody even asks like, Hey, what do you want for stems? Well, occasionally the producers that have built relationships with, they will ask that, but a lot of the time if an A and r or a manager just hits you up and they just send the session, they're like, cool, here it is. And it's an expectation that I just have those plugins and have all of the stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:07:51):

What do you mean by master the song? Like mastering?

Speaker 2 (00:07:54):

They are expecting when something comes back from mix, they're expecting, okay, this sound, this field, the vibe, everything is right about what we have built. It is exactly how we want it. I think in my mind that they are just looking for somebody to sign off on it and tell them, alright man, it is done. Here it is. Here's the mixed version of the song. So a lot of the time it can be as simple as just pulling it up and applying some delight, surgical EQ across the board to kind of get things to fit a little bit better, sort of these subtle changes, giving it the last couple of percent and then sending it back. Sometimes it's just changing their gain staging and a lot of the time it's just doing way less limiting to help the transients poke through and to really get the punch back in the recording.

Speaker 1 (00:08:37):

So where does the actual mastering come in

Speaker 2 (00:08:39):

After that? Then it does go to somebody to master. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:08:44):

But I get what you're saying. It sounds like the amount that you have to do to it and the types of things that you have to do to it are almost in line with what a mastering engineer does.

Speaker 2 (00:08:56):

Yeah, absolutely. And with that being said, like everybody listening, I'm completely obsessed with music and audio and mixing and it's all I think about, and I'm a space cadet and my wife calls me out on it all the time. She's like, be in the moment. I want to take pride in what I do. So I dig in on every mix and I try to enhance everything, but there's such a fine line between cleaning up and maximizing the working elements of their production and the winning aspects of their song to just doing too much and sometimes wrong is right. Sometimes that attitude of the way that their snare is clipping or the way that the vocal distorts is technically completely incorrect and rubs me the wrong way as an engineer. But musically that is the vibe they were going for. It is intentional. So if I undo those decisions, it's kind of a slap in the face to those people and the producer and the writer, everybody involved. They're like, well, what gives you the right man? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:09:55):

Is it one of those things where especially those producers are at such a high level that this stuff is not haphazard? Obviously I'm not working on these sessions, so I don't know, but I imagine that if there's something clipping, like a snare is clipping a certain way, it's not because of incompetence. It's a decision. It's a decision. And whether it's a conscious or unconscious decision, it's still a choice. They liked it for a reason and that's why it's there, not because anyone didn't know what they were doing.

Speaker 2 (00:10:26):

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes there's a gray area. Sometimes you can hear an edit pop in there, of course where the vocal is, and I'll just shoot a text over to the producer and say like, Hey, sometimes this is intentional. I just want to see, are you cool if I take some liberties and kind of clean some of that stuff up or is that part of what you guys were going for? And 99% of the time it's really appreciated that I went forth with that extra level of communication. It shows that you care and hey, I'm not just here clocking in to do the job and give you a 20 minute mix back. Really, my name's on this. I want this to be the best possible song ever. I want to share the message and help the artist deliver this tune and hopefully really impact some listeners best foot forward kind of a thing.

Speaker 1 (00:11:10):

I like what you said about not doing too much. One thing I've always thought, and I've said it many times, is that a great producer or a great mixer, it applies to both know when to get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 2 (00:11:22):

Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (00:11:23):

Yeah. That's as much a part of the job as knowing how to do things is knowing when not to.

Speaker 2 (00:11:31):

Yes. And man, I learned this the hard way. I came from tracking bands in Minneapolis and working with rock groups and acapella groups and country bands and just really getting the engineer chops built up and getting to really flex my muscles, shaping those sounds. And then I come out here and I start engineering and mixing records, and I got stumped on. I lost gigs, man from doing too much. I would get a song to mix and I would just, all right, here we go. It's Jesse Ray Time Baby. Do everything. I think the song should do Fader Throws here, echoes here, like, oh, I'm going to add a big subick underneath and put some eight oh eights and strings in at the end. Oh, it'll be awesome. Every single time it was a loss.

Speaker 1 (00:12:17):

Yeah. So how do you know the difference between when extra is needed and I mean, I guess that is kind of like what I was saying, A great mixer, great producer knows when to step back, but where is that line for you? Is it an instinct or is it a request from the people sending it to you? How do you define that line of

Speaker 2 (00:12:40):

Yeah, I try to define that line by having a phone call with the artist, the producer or the manager a and r. Before I start, I will jump right in and find out what the record is all about and what their intent is. And sometimes they say, we're kind of stuck on this one. We feel like we've done all we can do. We liked what you did on X, Y, Z. We would love to hear what you do. Like anything, please just be my guest. And I get excited and then I go crazy and do some stuff and I say, Hey, here it is. I'm not going to have hurt feelings. Here's a bunch of options you can pick through. You can tell me what's working, what's not. I'm happy to delete the other stuff and we'll move forward from there. Other times they'll just say, Hey, this is pretty much finished. Just we want a little more polish on that vocal. You know what to do there. And the way you did saxophones on this song from the genre. Yeah, we want that same effect here. Yeah, you're the dude, man, just bring this one home. We need that extra 1%. And that's most of the time, honestly, what's

Speaker 1 (00:13:41):

The rest of the time?

Speaker 2 (00:13:43):

Well, that would've been the first option. They kind of give you the, yeah, we're sort of stuck on this just to do what you think would work. And

Speaker 1 (00:13:50):

Yeah, I guess it does come down to communication at the end of the day. That's the secret to life basically when dealing with other people. I think in anything is knowing how to communicate with them. I imagine that when you're just dealing in a mixed capacity, you have to do less psychiatry and can do more just straight up communication. But since I'm not in your world, I actually don't know how that works. Is it much more business-like in terms of this is what we want, here you go, we like this, not this the end, or does it get crazy?

Speaker 2 (00:14:33):

Oh, it definitely can get crazy. I think most of the convolution in the process comes from insecurity from the performer about certain aspects of their tonality. And this is really applicable in any genre. I think that an artist or a producer could tell you like, man, we really need that vocal thick. I need a lot of low end in that vocal. And they might hand you a mix note that says way more low end. And they might even give you the frequency, I'm a producer who knows what I'm talking about. I'm going to tell them I want more a hundred hertz on this vocal. And they might think that that's the thickness. And I think that what can kind of help you navigate and wade those waters is to learn how to discern and define what's actually being said. What's the deeper issue? So for me, I've found vocal thickness is not always in the low end. It could be between 801 K. Sometimes they just need some meaty forward mid range to just bring the voice forward and make them sound thicker. There are just so many implied things under the surface that they don't understand, and that's kind of our job to dissect what their needs are and give them the result back. And a vocal up note doesn't always mean vocal up.

Speaker 1 (00:15:53):

It's funny, I remember Jay Rustin making a post once.

Speaker 2 (00:15:57):

Love Jay.

Speaker 1 (00:15:58):

He's amazing, man. I actually don't even remember if he made a post or he texted me this, but it was the client had asked for vocals up, guitars up, drums up, keyboards up, when in reality is just based down. Based down. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:16:18):

Gosh, he's amazing. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:16:20):

It's interesting to me though. You have done so many different things and you're obviously a metalhead. You were saying that when you were in la, when you got to LA that you knew that you needed to assert yourself in your own niche instead of trying to spread yourself over many different disciplines or genres. And you even went as far as putting your resume on top of boxes of donuts and hand delivering them to potential studios. But what I'm curious about is how did you decide on that niche? If you're nail the mix learning the sugar, but you've also done a bunch of other genres, how did you make this decision? I'm niching down in this area. What was the calculation there?

Speaker 2 (00:17:05):

Yeah, I just felt like I had the greatest drive and aptitude to become a great mixer. That's what my dad did. I grew up seeing my dad make records with bands in our house. He was an early adopter of pro tools,

Speaker 1 (00:17:18):

But I mean specifically in LA with the pop and the r and b, where did that come from? Did you decide that you're niching down there? Why didn't you pursue metal, for instance?

Speaker 2 (00:17:29):

So to kind of rewind before I decided to niche down, I had a chance encounter with Kanye West. Once that happened, I had kind of developed a network and a bunch of contacts and friends that were working in that space. The dominoes kind of fell and I found myself in a lane in a genre of music where I was staying busy and working at a high level. That was really satisfying. And I think pop and hip hop and afrobeats and all the stuff I get to do, and a lot of r and b now too, you're able to incorporate so much of the principles of compression and how to manipulate transient and get aggressive sounds. All the stuff that us metal guys are into doing, it translates really nicely to those genres. And I think that the guys and gals like us that are into this style of heavy music, I think we bring something unique to the table. So anybody listening, I think there's a major opportunity to be able to put your skills to work in these other styles.

Speaker 1 (00:18:34):

The thing that I find interesting is lots of times, well, alright, let me rewind. The thing that I find interesting is that you did what I think people should do, which is there's what you listen to and there's what you are into as a fan, which could be what you're working on or not. But then there's the direction that the opportunities actually lead you in. And actually developing a career in music, like a successful career is a rare thing. There are a lot of people who want it, not very many people who are not just good enough, but good enough and find the right opportunities and have the right network and the right timing and all that. And so when that does start to come together, you kind of just got to go with it. And it might not be in the exact way that you thought it would happen, but you really do need to be able to spot when that stuff is lining up and just go with it, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:19:38):

Completely agree. Well said.

Speaker 1 (00:19:39):

That brings up my next question. Did you see yourself ending up in these genres?

Speaker 2 (00:19:46):

No, but I've always been really interested and driven to be a part of popular music. When I started out, which was I guess in the two thousands, popular music was still pretty rock based. Specifically I'm thinking of bands like, well, not even bands, but even Pink and Katy Perry and Five Seconds of Summer. These were groups that were pretty, it was live instrumentation. It was cool. And I would've been really thrilled to get into working on stuff like that. So I always wanted to work on music on a high level. I'm really competitive. I'm into trophies. I want Grammys, I want plaques. That was always a major, major driving force behind what I wanted to do. So yeah, I think throughout every step of the game I wanted to, no matter where it was, I wanted to be a part of something that's big that impacts a lot of people. I want to work on massive records.

Speaker 1 (00:20:43):

I understand. You know what? I think it's great that you recognize that about yourself and that you're honest with yourself about that. The reason I say that is because there are also people who, great producers too, by the way, who give no shits about Grammys or plaques or they don't care necessarily about working high level industry wise as long as they're working on something that they really, really love. But that's not to say that if you want Grammys that you're cool to work with stuff you don't love. I guess what I'm saying is everyone needs to understand what it is that they actually want out of this because it helps you make better decisions if you understand yourself and you can make decisions that are in line with your ultimate goals and if you're honest about your ultimate goals and clear about them, you will move in that direction more than likely.

(00:21:39):

And for instance, I've always wanted to do something big and it was weird to then start a death metal band knowing that my brain was wired for something bigger than just being in a death metal band. No knock on anyone in a great death metal band or anything, but my brain was just wired for doing something that had a much wider impact, I guess. And so I always knew that this death metal band I was in, no matter how far it got, was not the end of the road. And so I was always looking for what that next step was, and I was always thinking about how am I going to take this and turn it into that next bigger thing, which eventually I ended up figuring out, but I was honest with myself the entire time about what it is that I wanted and it was difficult because you can't always share that with people because you can lose some friends or it can weird some people out if you're open about wanting to do big things, but it shouldn't deter you if that's what you want, you should be clear that that's what you want and go for it.

(00:22:55):

If that's not what you want, that's cool too. It's just important to be super clear with yourself about what you're motivated by. If what you want are Grammys plaques to be working with the highest level artists possible, that's great. There's a certain way that you have to go about making that happen. It's not going to happen staying in Minneapolis.

Speaker 2 (00:23:16):

Yeah, exactly, man. I had that exact same hunger and sort of dissatisfaction with what had been happening in my life. And just like you, I saw the end of the road. So exactly like what you said, if you have that goal in mind, you're able to make actionable decisions and it'll inform the future moves and your trajectory. And I'm a big proponent for having physical calendars, man, and ripping the calendar apart and having every month of the year out on the wall and just mapping out like, okay, that's the goal. Three months ahead. What are we doing now to get there? All of these things I think can be implemented.

Speaker 1 (00:23:53):

It's interesting. What I like about what you're saying is that this type of thinking and the goal oriented, outcome oriented thinking only serves us well when it's based around something actionable. I think where a lot of people go wrong is when they get too into stuff like the secret and wishful thinking. That's basically, I just think of that as glorified wishful thinking where they will do stuff, make vision boards and state their goals, and then just think that if all they do is state their goals or think positively or visualize that that's enough and it's totally not enough. I mean that's step one is knowing what you're going for, but then after that it's all execution. And so I do maybe two goal setting sessions per year. That's it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:43):

Maybe

Speaker 1 (00:24:44):

Every six months, maybe every 12 months or something and take an afternoon and just get clear. But then the rest of the time is straight up execution. And it is much in the way that you said. I don't have calendars on the walls, but I do have methods for tracking every single thing. And I definitely revisit what the goals are, what the desired outcomes are, and adjust course frequently. I definitely think that if you don't do that part, the relentless execution, the goal setting is pointless. Absolutely pointless.

Speaker 2 (00:25:21):

Absolutely. And you got to storyboard this stuff. Pretend, imagine scenarios of how you'll get to the goal. When we came to LA, I thought, well, I know I can execute in the room. I need to get in the room. So okay, what's the plan of attack? Start getting to know some engineers and start trying to find gigs in the room. And I thought, well, it's la. I'm eventually going to run into some bigger artists and at that point, without punishing them, I can just get in and execute and be cool and get a gig. And I fantasized about it over and over every day like, oh, I'm going to get in the room. I'm ready, let's do this. And when the time came, it happened.

Speaker 1 (00:26:02):

But you weren't just doing that, you were also actually doing things in the real world.

Speaker 2 (00:26:08):

Yes, yes. You had to.

Speaker 1 (00:26:10):

Yes. A combination of an overactive fantasy life with actual real world action. I think that is the actual secret. You can't just do one of them. Also, let me just say if people think that I'm talking shit about visualizing or goal setting not, I think it's super important because if all you do is take action without having a GPS for where you're headed, then there's a lot of chance involved with where you end up. You might be working really hard in a totally wrong direction.

Speaker 2 (00:26:43):

And it's important to reassess really often too, to find out, am I actually happy I'm doing what I kind of wanted to be doing or what I'm setting out to be? I'm really far in, maybe I'm a year or two into this and I'm just having so many doubts. You got to be able to pivot. And it's kind of happened with me out here. I was a tracking engineer for hip hop sessions, and this was a great way to make a day rate from a label and you can really make a living doing it, but it is emotionally draining and you are the punching bag for the artist that's in the vocal booth. It's really, really, really challenging to do on a day-to-day basis. And I had to reassess and right there I was like, okay, I'm dropping this right now. I'm going to pivot into mixing. That's where I'm happy. I want to sit at home in front of my speakers. I want to be with my family and yeah, pivot you guys.

Speaker 1 (00:27:33):

Okay, but the pivot is a risk if you had a pretty stable thing going on as a tracking engineer, how did you pivot without dropping a grenade on your income?

Speaker 2 (00:27:44):

It did drop the grenade.

Speaker 1 (00:27:45):

Fair enough. I've done that too.

Speaker 2 (00:27:47):

Yeah. I sort of sunk my ships when I was out here and I had a PA system that I was renting out and I was providing to wedding companies and I was going out, I was playing in some wedding bands and setting up the PA and doing the sound before for the ceremony and then all the stuff. And then I was teaching lessons and I was tracking people and doing editing work for a couple of producers, and I was still mixing clients from Minneapolis, so I had 50 different jobs doing the thing that we all do because trying to hustle, we're trying to make money and get good and get successful. And I just decided given it all up, I sold all that gear, all of it. I bought a couple of pieces of just really great monitoring equipment for my mixing setup and I dug in. That is a really good question though. You've got to know when you can assess the risk of sinking your ships and moving into being a specialist in one niche area of the industry. I mean, you go over all the time that you obviously have to have a big savings and

Speaker 1 (00:28:41):

Man, when I started URM, I did not have a big savings. It was some scary shit.

Speaker 2 (00:28:47):

I think many of us can relate to that. And man, I hope we could talk about savings too. I think this is a portion of the recording. Let's do it. Or the recording community that never gets addressed. Oh my gosh. You guys get your retirement account set up. Roth IRA set by RA max, those babies.

Speaker 1 (00:29:06):

Yeah, I know that it's very sexy to do the crypto thing, and I'm not saying don't do it, but get those IRAs happening and max them out every year. And look, even if you can't max them out, just contribute. But those of you, especially those of you who are under 30, you are going to fucking thank me if you do this.

Speaker 2 (00:29:27):

Yes, absolutely. So I am turning 30 in a couple of months, and I had a friend 10 years ago when I had just turned 20, he said, Hey man, set up your Roth right now. I'm telling you, I didn't set it up until I was 24, so I waited four years and the calculations I've done on the difference in what I would've had now if I started 10 years, it's just it's enough to make you want to cry.

Speaker 1 (00:29:51):

But still you started it at 24. That's great.

Speaker 2 (00:29:54):

Yes. Telling you guys gear doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (00:29:56):

Yeah. I tell this to musicians I know too. I know so many musicians and signed musicians who make a living at this who got extremely fucked last year, for instance. So I had many a financial conversation with those people and only out of all my friends, two or three of them had anything as far as IRAs go or whatnot. And I tried to convince a bunch of people to do it, and I got resistance most of the time, and it bummed me out because you can do it. It's not that difficult. And I understand that you can't always max it out, but it is one step that you can take right now to ensure that your future is not really, really sad basically.

Speaker 2 (00:30:44):

Yeah, seriously, man. I mean, I know that you've gone through a mega mega life change with your health and congratulations by the way. I've been loving following it. I don't know about you, but my neck and back are already tired of sitting in a chair all day.

Speaker 1 (00:31:01):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:31:02):

There's no way I'm going to want to handle this when I'm 55. We need a way out guys and gals.

Speaker 1 (00:31:09):

Yeah, that's the thing is there is no way out built into these lines of work they do have in the real world. So you had to create your own way out and the younger you start, the better off you're going to be. But also, those of you who are 40 or 45, 50 listening to this who haven't saved a thing, you can still start now. Even if you only get 20 years of an IRA or Roth IRA, it's still going to be better than not having had it for 20 years.

Speaker 2 (00:31:43):

Yep. Got to do it. I really hope Joey does more of those stories where he talks about all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:31:48):

I agree he should do that, but he should also, and I'm going to actually tell him, is talk about some more basic things, man. He's basically talking about finance on the level that he's mixing at or something.

Speaker 2 (00:32:00):

Yeah, it's high level.

Speaker 1 (00:32:01):

Yeah. And there's a lot of people who are more like me who are not into, I'm not into that stuff. I'm not like, of course I'm into money as much as anybody else and I want to have it, but I'm not into financial shit the way that Joey and Joel are. What resonates with me is something that you can do on a regular basis that grows it and doesn't require me to go down too many rabbit holes. And I think that that is how most people in music are. They aren't that interested in finance. But the thing is that a lot of these things that you can do to set yourself up don't require you to be interested in finance. It doesn't take that much effort to set up a Roth IRA and fund it. You got to know what it's investing in or so you do a little bit of research, but you don't have to go down insane rabbit holes. You don't need to make it like a second career basically.

Speaker 2 (00:33:04):

I remember thinking about this when I would hear people tell me about stuff like this, and I was like, ah, man, I've got a lot of time. Or it's easy for you to say you have money and it's just, it's completely doable and it just sickens me how much the musical vending, e-commerce, just culture, it just preys upon the vulnerable, not only the vulnerable, but the broke. The musician community is just comprised of people who are addicted to getting the next best cool gizmo or gadget, and I'm one of those people I get suckered in, but I don't see the equal or the equivalent effort out there in the space to educate people on financial security for their futures.

Speaker 1 (00:33:48):

And here's the problem, and it is what it is. So we have a course called CareerBuilder for people that are not familiar, and I'm not trying to sell it not on sale right now. We have courses that open up and then close once a year or something like very smart because we want people to take them at the same time. There's several reasons, but so our non-subscription courses, how it's done with Will Putney or Career Builder, ultimate Guitar Production, they open and they close and we have one called Career Builder. There's zero audio in it. It's just about establishing a career, networking, pricing yourself, all that kind of stuff. It is by a long shot, our lowest selling course

Speaker 2 (00:34:30):

Bomber

Speaker 1 (00:34:32):

By a long shot, and we've learned and had a similar experience at Creative Live too that the business content just doesn't, people are just not as interested in it straight up. They're just not. I think there's less people who actually want to out of other people who buy gear and even education, there's a very small number of them who actually want to do it for real, and then out of the people who actually want to do it for real, there's an even smaller number who actually want any help outside of music techniques, audio techniques. They don't want any actual career advice. And so it almost becomes not worth the resources to put into creating those types of products. Unfortunately, not every single thing we do is for money, but we can't just do stuff that's going to not matter to anyone. It's unfortunate that there really isn't much of an audience for that stuff. It is a bummer. Joey's stories are great though. So what my hope is that through us talking about it on a podcast like this and those stories that Joey and Joel post, is that the people who are concerned about their future, who are trying to do this for real, that they pay attention and do think to themselves, I should probably start a retirement account and do the basic amount of research required to set that up, and then they go and they do the research and they set it up and they just fund it. That alone will make a massive difference, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:36:15):

Yeah, you guys DM me if you have any questions, I am always in my inbox. I'm not exactly proud of that because I think like many of us, I have a bit of a problem with social media and just being addicted to my device, but I want to help hit me up. I'll answer any questions that I can. I'm not an expert or a financial advisor, but yeah, plus I love the community aspect of URM and yeah, I want to meet you want to meet you guys and gal, so yeah, reach out.

Speaker 1 (00:36:46):

Yeah, we all have a weird addiction to social media, but I do think that there are some people who do care and I'm sure they'll reach out and I mean, have you ever considered posting about it?

Speaker 2 (00:36:58):

I do these Q and as occasionally on Instagram and I'll

Speaker 1 (00:37:01):

Seen those. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:37:02):

Yeah. And I'll talk a bit about that stuff because sort of just disheartened by how many gear questions I get, I'm just so uninterested in that and I'm a bit uninterested in the money conversation too. I just get concerned for the people and I have gotten to know many of my friends and followers and fellow engineers, and I think now in 2021, we have more of a knit community than ever before in the history of mankind. And it's just cool to get to know these people and get to know their hearts and their stories. What are you into? What makes you tick? What resonates with you? And to get to know these people and to see them going down the wrong paths and being interested in the wrong things that aren't productive, in my opinion, that's frustrating. I want to help in any way that I can.

Speaker 1 (00:37:50):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multitracks to a new song by artists like Lama God Angels and Airwaves. Knock Loose Opeth Shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:38:42):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jenz Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics against staging, mastering low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. So let's talk about what some of the unproductive paths are. I think gear obsession is a mostly unproductive path.

Speaker 2 (00:40:06):

It depends what you do.

Speaker 1 (00:40:08):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:40:08):

I think for mixing a record, you can mix it in the box and you can do it with some pretty basic plugins. I don't think you need $20,000 monitors either. How many of the grates mixed on Ns tens that you can get for a few hundred bucks and with or without a sub and go for it

Speaker 1 (00:40:25):

Like anybody else. I think gear's cool. Most people think it's cool, and I think that it's very natural to want to get that new shiny object, but I think that the problem becomes when people overfocus on that at the cost of developing their skills, I mean, they spend more time researching gear than working on what they actually should be working on. And I think that that becomes the problem. Or when they think that the gear is going to solve their issues for them, that's when I think that it's a problem.

Speaker 2 (00:40:58):

And I'm so guilty of this. We

Speaker 1 (00:41:00):

All are.

Speaker 2 (00:41:01):

It is cool though because if you're astute enough and to accept the reality of the situation, most of the time when you're in that stage as kind of a beginner or amateur recordist or a hobbyist, any level, you buy the piece of gear, you think, oh man, this is it. Here we go. Or now I can mix that new project and you do it and you see that the results are exactly the same. That's the instant feedback that maybe you needed. I know I needed that dude. I had probably half of the gear that exists out there at one time or another, and all of it's gone now because none of it contributed to help me develop my sound at all

Speaker 1 (00:41:41):

Though you do have a shit ton of bass traps in that room.

Speaker 2 (00:41:44):

Yes, I do. I built them and they were really, really, it was approximately like 2% of the cost of buying tube traps. I don't want to say the company that makes them, but these are based off of that design. And I just made 'em myself. I reverse engineered it, and I wanted to have time getting my hands dirty and also save a lot of money that I can use elsewhere and save for my kids and the 5 29 accounts and my retirement.

Speaker 1 (00:42:10):

Just saying, you have an inordinate amount of base traps in your room. And I think that the reason I'm bringing that up is because you're talking about you buy a piece of gear and literally nothing changes, nothing happens. Your stuff sounds exactly the same because you're still making the same exact decisions because nothing changed in the way you're hearing anything or listening to anything. However, for instance, the bass traps you have in your room, well, that right there actually can help you do a better job

Speaker 2 (00:42:41):

By far, the most important thing ever. Where would you be if when? Okay, so post your band, post band era, al, when you were producing down in it was Florida, right?

Speaker 1 (00:42:53):

Yeah. In Florida,

Speaker 2 (00:42:54):

I guess. I don't know. You were sharing a studio, right?

Speaker 1 (00:42:57):

I was a partner at a studio down there. I started recording in 2000. So band era, me, we still recorded at my studio most of the time, and I was recording bands through 2000 to 2010. Then I moved to Florida and I got asked to contribute a drum room to a studio that already existed, a prominent metal studio. And so I bought a house that had a living room that was the most amazing drum room you could ever imagine, and had a full control room in there too. And that was my part of the studio. So yeah, where would I be without the acoustic treatment

Speaker 2 (00:43:36):

Or if the first time you sit down at a computer or today it would be a laptop, if you had been in an ideally treated room with accurate acoustics, it would've been a hundred times better than probably the resulting mixes that you were getting, wouldn't it?

Speaker 1 (00:43:50):

Absolutely. And I remember how much better every single time that I upgraded the treatment in my room, my work got a lot better. And I remember it was the most dramatic though the first time when I went from working in a room that was just walls, just walls with nothing to adding treatment to where there wasn't flutter everywhere. Everything I did still sucked back then, but still it's sucked. Way less, way less. I could suddenly hear what was coming out of the speakers. That alone was a major, major, major game changer. So if I had actually been able to hear properly from the beginning, I would've probably gotten a lot better, a lot faster for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:44:35):

Yes. And I want everybody to be aware that there are a couple different factors to great monitoring. I mean, there's a billion different factors, but the one that is, I think overthought is the frequency response of your monitors in your room. And I think that the aspect that is completely forgotten about or not talked about often enough is the resonance time of your room. That is really what I've gone after with this base trap design. Say you have a fairly flat response in your room, like, okay, I'm looking at sonar works. It looks good, it's flat, cool, but these frequency raves, they bounce around and they build up on each other and they'll actually, you might get down to like 40 hertz and 40 hertz could be resonating at a one second decay time when the rest of your frequencies are all at 0.3, 0.4.

(00:45:24):

So what happens if you hear, if you're hearing four times longer decay time at 40 hertz, it's going to completely affect the decisions that you make and you're going to really be overworking that area. And then when you send the mix out and they listen in anywhere else or in headphones or in the car or somewhere that doesn't have that problem, they're going to be like, why is your low end choked? Why is it dead down there? Why there's nothing going on. The resonance time is so, so important. And yeah, these big old tube traps take care of that. By the way, I'm giving this free guide out to everybody. If you guys want to hit me up, I'll send you the guide on how to build these tubes. They're really affordable. They eat up the low end, so you have an awesome space.

Speaker 1 (00:46:04):

We can put a link in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (00:46:06):

Perfect. Yeah, I'll get you that.

Speaker 1 (00:46:08):

So I don't believe in the 80 20 rule as a religious thing where you should always focus on the 20% that get 80% of the results, but

Speaker 2 (00:46:21):

The big

Speaker 1 (00:46:22):

Focusing on the things that move the needle the most, that really should be what you really do put your time into. And something like this is one of those 80 twenties that really, really, really matters. And why I say 80 is because you're probably not going to ever be able to build the perfectly treated room and not just that. Even if you can just do a little bit of treatment, that goes a long way. So you don't have to go a hundred percent on it, just do some, just do enough. And that in and of itself will do a lot in my experience.

Speaker 2 (00:47:06):

Absolutely. And you don't have to spend a lot to do it, right?

Speaker 1 (00:47:09):

No,

Speaker 2 (00:47:10):

You probably have too much nonsense in your studio anyway. Grab one or two extra 50 sevens that you don't even need and just sell 'em used. And then with that money, like 150 bucks, you can buy a bunch of Owens Corning 7 0 3 or some of the cylinders, some of the tube stuff, which are like pipe wrapping, and you can just stuff 'em full of blankets, pillows, polyester, whatever. And man, just put that stuff up

Speaker 1 (00:47:32):

That, and I got to say, one of the other things I think people should invest in is a good computer.

Speaker 2 (00:47:38):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:47:38):

Yeah. I feel like the three things, most important things I think to sink money and time into are what you're listening on, where you're listening in and what you're working on.

Speaker 2 (00:47:50):

Totally. I mean, let's talk about computer though. How big of an investment you're thinking.

Speaker 1 (00:47:55):

Okay, that's a good question because I don't mean the $64,000 Mac you can get a really good hack andt to for $1,500 or something.

(00:48:07):

I'm just not a PC guy, so I don't know much about them, but I do know that many people I know who do great work have home-built PCs and they don't have problems with them the way that people used to have problems with them, Beck, when I started recording. So you don't have to get a top of the line Mac, you don't even have to get a MacBook Pro like mine. I have a really nice one. You can get a Macintosh or you can build a pc. However, if you're underpowered to the point where you can't really do your work, that's the problem. So a computer that has enough RAM and also enough speed to be able to handle the work without fucking you up, you can get away with a thousand or $1,500 spent.

Speaker 2 (00:48:52):

Yeah, I think that's the max.

Speaker 1 (00:48:54):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:48:54):

Definitely. I've been working on this 2012 cheese grater for the last six years, and then I just went to the 2013 trash can this year, and I like to stay way behind the times. You can get a lot out of it that way,

Speaker 1 (00:49:10):

But those are still really good computers.

Speaker 2 (00:49:12):

Yeah, they're maxed out and they're fantastic. And I think as a base point, I think anything above that, you might just be overprocessing. Granted, I do these 200 track sessions where even if there's only a few plugins on each track, it's still beating up the machine. But if you're mixing a 10 or 12 track session with just a basic four piece band and you have 10 plugins on each track, there might be another problem we got to talk about.

Speaker 1 (00:49:39):

Well, I was actually just thinking that while I was saying this computer thing, I was thinking, well, some people's computers are getting overtaxed because of bad session management and Overprocessing. That's why you should watch the mixed prep fast track.

Speaker 2 (00:49:56):

Yes, you should.

Speaker 1 (00:49:57):

We have the basic mix prep fast track that Joel did, but we actually, by the time this comes out tomorrow in our time, not in podcast release time, so we're releasing a fast track called Next Level Mix Prep that we made with John Douglas, and it is like the manual for setting up a 7 47 for takeoff or something. It is intricate as fuck. So I had to plug that. But proper session management and not overprocessing will save you from needing the most ridiculous computer ever. Now, if you are trying to work in the world of Soundtracking or something like that, it's a different story. I do think that if you are working with something that has super high track counts, your needs are going to be greater. But in general, the people who I'm addressing are the people who try to mix with two gigs of RAM or something or four gigs of ram. Of course, the computer can't handle it. Yeah. What would you say the minimum RAM should be for mixing?

Speaker 2 (00:51:04):

Oh, I'm the wrong guy to ask. I don't really know how it correlates to performance, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (00:51:09):

I don't either. That's why I wanted to ask someone else.

Speaker 2 (00:51:13):

I'm not sure

Speaker 1 (00:51:14):

I'm going to say that anything under eight, good fucking luck and should be more like 16. If you can do 32. Great.

Speaker 2 (00:51:21):

Yeah, God, the options are so cool. Now, when I started, which is probably around the time you started recording, it was Pro Tools six, 6.3 on a Mac. My dad had a Mac G four tower.

Speaker 1 (00:51:38):

I don't think we started recording at the same time. I'm older than you.

Speaker 2 (00:51:41):

Oh, yes, I suppose. Well, you said 2000, so I was trying to think which Pro Tools version was out,

Speaker 1 (00:51:46):

But my first time actually recording was in the nineties. God, that's awesome. But I got into recording as I'm going to build a studio in 2001 or two.

Speaker 2 (00:51:57):

Understood. Got you. Yeah, man. Do you remember when Delay compensation didn't even exist?

Speaker 1 (00:52:03):

Yeah, I also remember when it didn't even work in Pro

Speaker 2 (00:52:07):

Tools, as do I.

Speaker 1 (00:52:08):

Yeah, it went from not existing to May as well, not have existing for a really long time. I think they finally got it fixed, but yeah, I do remember that.

Speaker 2 (00:52:18):

Well, they got it fixed just in time for it not to actually matter as much as far as I know. Isn't that funny? I don't remember the last time I mixed a session that had a multi-track drum recording where everything needed to be really kept in time with Phase and nope,

Speaker 1 (00:52:38):

It really has come a really long way and computers are very, very powerful now compared to what they used to be. And daws are amazing. Another thing that's come a long way is, man, I started making music again, which is something I never thought I would ever do, and I got all the neural

Speaker 2 (00:52:55):

Sick.

Speaker 1 (00:52:56):

Yeah. Believe it or not, I got the neural stuff, their amp sims, and I haven't tried a new AMP sim since 2013 or something. And they were okay back then, but definitely the Tube amp crew was right back then. But now, holy shit, these am Sims are fucking great. They are fucking phenomenal. Yeah. The tools we have now are, they've never been better basically. They've never ever been better. And this is part of why I don't think that people need to spend a ton of money on gear and crazy stuff because some of the really affordable tools now are as good as it's ever been in the history of

Speaker 2 (00:53:45):

Gordy. Yeah, I agree, man.

Speaker 1 (00:53:46):

So really it's your skills you should worry about.

Speaker 2 (00:53:48):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:53:49):

You said that the Kanye story was really interesting, so now I want to hear it. You can't say that and then think I'm going to forget.

Speaker 2 (00:54:00):

Yeah. So I found myself engineering filling in, subbing in for another engineer at the studio called Night Bird in West Hollywood. And I just got the call. I had been engineering sessions for a bit in LA and kind of building my name as one of the guys who could sub in or get some calls if somebody needs an engineer. And I showed up and the session was for Tyga. I was like, wow, this is a big artist. This is a cool opportunity. We got in and we were just tracking for a few hours tracking vocals. It was going really smoothly. It was great. And then Kanye comes in

Speaker 1 (00:54:38):

Just like that,

Speaker 2 (00:54:40):

Just like that. And he hung out with us for a few hours and we kept tracking, and then he played us some of his new album, which at the time was called Yandy and it was going to be coming out soon. And this was the fall of 2018. I just kept thinking, man, if I don't make something of this opportunity, I have to try to speak with him and offer my services. How do I leverage this into a greater long-term opportunity working with Kanye without punishing him?

Speaker 1 (00:55:11):

I love that we're talking about this because the opportunity to be in a room working with someone at that level is what you're not at that level yet is once in a lifetime kind of thing. And you have that opportunity right there to either create a situation that will continue or never, ever encounter them again in your life. And it doesn't even matter that it happened.

Speaker 2 (00:55:37):

Exactly. And I was faced with that dilemma. It's like, well, I sat there for two hours just debating when the right time was to talk to him and how I was texting my wife. I was like, oh, he's here. I need to try to make something of this opportunity. And she's like, you got to do it. And I was like, but what if I get fired and blacklisted for the studio will never have me? I tried to make this happen, and I thought, whatever, it doesn't matter. This is the shot. So I decided to wait until at the end of the session I thought, well, I'll execute. I'll keep working. I'll just really show him that I can deliver and that I'm reliable. And yeah, we recorded it went very successfully. And then he was packing up, getting ready to go. He went down the hall to use the bathroom once before leaving, and I kind of followed him down the hall and I cornered him.

(00:56:24):

I said, Hey man, I was kind of nervous, kind of red in the face and giggling. I just said, Hey, I wouldn't be able to sleep through the night if I knew I didn't take this shot. And just tell you, I really admire and respect what you do. I'm a fan and I would love to come work for you. If you need some more engineers on the road or whatever you're doing, I would love to be a part of your journey. And there was this moment of silence where he kind of tilted his head and looked at me mean, and I'm like, oh, I'm about to get it. I'm going to get punched or fired or something. After a few seconds, he said, alright, yeah, cool. What's your number? He took down all my info, shot me a text, and then he directed me to go around the corner and chat with his assistant and they flew me out to Chicago. The next day we started recording and just started this kind of work relationship working on Kanye West's material. Just

Speaker 1 (00:57:18):

Like that.

Speaker 2 (00:57:19):

Yeah, we got to travel all over. We flew to Africa and we recorded at a safari resort in Uganda and there were hippos and giraffes right outside of our tent and we recorded right on the Nile River. It was the most unbelievable life experience of all time. And I got a couple albums with him on my discography. Now as an engineer,

Speaker 1 (00:57:41):

Did you realize that if you didn't grow the balls in that moment, your life might be completely different right now?

Speaker 2 (00:57:49):

It would be complete. I think about it every day. I'm so incredibly fortunate. It could have gone a number of different ways.

Speaker 1 (00:57:58):

Yeah, it really could have. I think also the timing of when you asked was everything. You didn't do it at the beginning of the session.

Speaker 2 (00:58:05):

No, the timing and do it outside the room. And I brought up how important it's to not punish. And I think there's a lot of things that go into punishing. You can look at someone approaching you at the Nam show and by the look of their eyes and by their posture, how green are they? Are they going to punish me? They're giving you all of that info before they even say hi. I think there's a sort of a coolness. I call it happy from the nose down. Cool, from the nose up. You got to do the kind of the cool lazy eyes. I'm not asleep. I'm not too eager though. I'm just here. I'm here to serve. I want to bring value to you. That's what you're telling them with your eyes. But your mouth is smiling, you are eager, you're excited, but not in an annoying way.

(00:58:51):

You're not a kiss ass. Nobody wants that. And these are things that I've just because I am so excited, I'm a DHD, I have so much energy. I'm passionate about audio. I feel like I'm achieving things now, but I'm still just as hungry for it as I was 20 years ago. If I didn't make another dime doing music, I would still be mixing 10 hours a day every single day. I love it. So I have to coach myself on this, man. I have to before meetings, I look in the mirror, I'm like, okay, what are we going to look like? We got to be cool. Calm down. Don't be too eager. There's a lot that goes into it.

Speaker 1 (00:59:24):

There is a lot that goes into it, but you still have to go for it. That's the thing. Did you get any imposter syndrome when you went up to him or any? I probably going to say no. Any of those doubts or was it total confidence or was it just like a fuck it, let's just see.

Speaker 2 (00:59:42):

Well, there was no choice. There was no choice but to take that opportunity.

(00:59:47):

So I call that story an LA story, and for people that live here, generally there are these quintessential moments and you call it a, huh? That's an LA story for you. Like, oh, I bumped into so-and-so and then that happened, and then this happened and it opened up this door like boom. That was my LA story. And I knew that there might not ever be another opportunity like that again. It could have been the last. And since then there have been 10 or 15 other stories just like that that required a whole different type of careful execution in order to make it go. And some of them that I just completely lost. I've done mixes for artists that I want to cry about it still years later that I didn't get it. And then it goes on to be just a massive, massive, massive success. And you get u's get Ls, that's how it goes. But we just got to wake up in the morning and do our best.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):

Man. It's such a fine line though. There are some people who are hitting me up for opportunities all the time and there's something in their vibe that makes me feel repulsed. I would never give this person an opportunity to something in the way that they are talking or the way that they present themselves makes me not even want to hear what they have to say. And then there's other people who in their approach, I'm already ready to hear, I'm ready. And it's such a fine line and it makes such a huge difference because how you come off in that moment is oftentimes the difference between that yes or that no or that not even going to listen to you basically. And those types of moments can be life-changing. The thing is though, and here's what I think is important to realize is that even if you take those shots, a lot of 'em are going to fall flat on their face.

(01:01:40):

And so it's important to assess why it happened. Is it that they just didn't like this mix or is it that you suck as a mixer? Is it that this position was already filled or is it that you make everyone feel weird when you're around them? And it's important to know the difference between those things. If you're going for a position that's already filled and they're happy with who's got that spot, then it's nothing personal. But if you're a person that repulses other people and that's why you didn't get it, you should probably work on that same way that if people heard your mix, your test mix and just didn't feel it was the right fit, that's completely different than if you suck at mixing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):

Totally.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):

Yeah. Got to assess that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):

And I think that it's important for us as a community to just hold each other accountable. So in my relationship with my wife or with my manager or with my assistant or with interns, I try to have this really, really transparent feedback system. It's like, Hey, if I'm messing something up, please tell me about it and vice versa. I'll always start it the way that MJ would. He'd be like, Hey, with love, I'm about to give you a little bit of criticism, but it's because I care about you and because I want you to do well with love.

(01:03:01):

I think we could improve in this area and can we communicate a little bit better, whatever the scenario is. That feedback system is so important. My dad always said, iron sharpens iron. And he's so tough on me, man. I send him my mixes and he's just like, Hey, I think you're onto something here. This is getting better, but we got to talk about your top end. We got to place those high hats somewhere else. I can't even hear the siblings of that vocal. I'm like, oh God, dad, you're crushing me. But I love you. Thank you for that. We elevate from that type of feedback. It's important. You got to be able to take feedback too. Do you find that that's a good quality in your employees that work for you that they can take positive criticism?

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):

Well, if they weren't able to, they weren't stay employees for very long.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):

You drive a tough ship over there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):

We just have high expectations. Got to, if I fuck up, I'm going to be the first to say that I fucked up. And I like that the people I work with will hold me accountable too. So it's very, very important that we all hold each other accountable and that people accept responsibility when they dropped the ball or fucked something up, not because they're getting shamed, but because everyone needs to take ownership of what they're causing or what they're doing or not doing. And yeah, I find that on my team, it's very good like that, which is part of why I think we're doing well. We don't get hung up on bullshit. I can just tell somebody something's not good enough or that something wasn't right and they're cool. We all are.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):

That's great. Yeah, I can tell that you guys have a great morale over there. I can see that all between the content creators that you have and the other people that are doing posts and it's a well-oiled machine and everybody that works with you has a sense of ownership over this great thing that you're all collectively creating and contributing to. And that's thinking specifically about a couple of other audio companies that are led by different types of individuals. And it can be very different than that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):

We want this to be a great part of everyone's lives, not just the end user, but the people who work here. We want this to be a great thing. We want them to love working for us with us, and we want them to have a personal stake in what comes of this and we want them to take pride in their work and we need that to be organic.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):

So the way you do that, I mean, in my opinion, the way you do that is by holding people accountable, but also finding what they're great at and encouraging that and helping develop what it is that they're great at,

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):

Foster their strengths

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):

And then also compensate them. Well, those things all make a huge, huge difference. Don't ever let them feel like they can't say what's on their mind. We shoot down people's ideas all the time. And that's tricky because you don't want to clip people's wings and have them stop coming up with ideas. So how you go about it makes all the difference because not all ideas are good. Not all mine are good either. And the way that you go about not accepting somebody's idea is just as important as how you go about accepting somebody's idea. In my opinion, if you care about keeping that relationship good, how you do it matters a lot. And I don't mean that anything needs to be sugarcoated, but if someone has a proposal on something and I just don't see it, for instance, I will take the time to respect their idea and them enough to really give them a detailed reason as to why not So that I help them understand why not. So they don't just think that we just shot it down because we didn't understand what was on their mind or we weren't listening, want them to know that we took this into consideration and there's a bunch of really good reasons for why not. And I think that that makes a big difference. So yeah, makes a big difference. How you take the critique and how you give the critique is often as important as what's in the critique, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):

Oh my gosh, yeah. And we can kind of redirect this little analogy to the listeners by connecting it to taking mixed notes or taking direction from a client like, oh man, I have really gone through some hoops with certain projects where it'll be like 20 or 30 revision, like rounds of revisions. And sometimes they're not always polite. Sometimes it's really direct. Why aren't we getting this by now? I hate what happened with the vocal. Why did it get distorted with this slap back delay? And then in my mind I'm thinking, well, on version 15 you asked for that and you said there wasn't enough distortion and slap back delay. So for example, one approach would be, man, well you told me to do that. Remember, here's a screenshot of the text and you have your ego and you don't want to look stupid. So you're trying to show that they are stupid and that they've clearly forgot like, Nope, no, no, no, no. We're in the service industry. We are the plumber. We are fixing up their song. We are giving them a service. We are bringing value to them. And part of that is comforting. I try to just love up on everyone and just say, Hey man, you got it coming right up. Yeah, there's a right way and a wrong way. Right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):

Yeah. The receipts, like you just said, sending them screenshots for when you're in a fight, that's not the, that's where you want to take your interactions with someone that's giving you mixed notes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):

No, and I think what'll make or break a career faster than anything is a bad reputation.

(01:09:20):

People will have the end product, but all they will really remember from the process is the last thing you guys did or the last things that were said to each the last few interactions. So this last stage of the game of mixing is like that's your final impression until they go off and tour to support this release for a year or so. And then they have to decide if they're going to come back like, man, should I go to the dude that was kind of a jerk or kind of act like a five-year-old? Or should we go to the cool guy or gal that was just really patient and understanding and just really showed us that they wanted to dig in and it didn't matter how many revisions because they were destined to make us happy. Yeah, we're going to choose that individual. Of course. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):

Absolutely. I think that regardless of the success of a project, people remember what the experience was like and many a multi-platinum producer out there who do not get repeat clients because working with them is a nightmare. But that said, this episode was not a nightmare. I think this is a good place to end it. I think that we could do this many times and probably go on for many, many hours and it was a pleasure having you on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. Great chatting with you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):

Anytime. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post them to your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy, and of course tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to me at al at URM Academy. That's EYAL at M dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line answer me Al. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.