Neal Avron: Why Band Drama Creates Hits, The “Wild West” of Home Recording, and A Producer’s Responsibility

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:08):

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. 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.

(00:01:10):

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 Neil Avron, who's a Grammy award-winning producer, mixer, and instrumentalist. And throughout his decades long career, Neil has worked with the highest caliber talent on the planet, such as Lincoln Park, 21 Pilots disturbed Fallout Boy, 30 seconds to Mars Weezer and Tons, tons more. Let's do this. Neil Avron, welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank

Speaker 3 (00:02:07):

You. Good to be here. Thanks

Speaker 2 (00:02:09):

For being here. So let's just get right into it. Something that I've noticed is that people like to spotlight the joys of the producer mixer role and the creative think tank that happens when you and a band are an artist, are trying to push the perceived limits of their sound. But the reality, at least from my experience, is that those sort of breakthrough moments aren't like a training montage from Rocky or the way that they show them in biopics. They're actually can be pretty turbulent and require very, very good people handling skills. So what I'm curious is how have you navigated some of the more difficult and not so pleasant interactions between BAM members to ensure that everyone comes out on the other side with a better perspective and a better song?

Speaker 3 (00:03:06):

That's one of my better skills I find, is that I'm able to navigate the room and see when people's egos are on the line. And that happens often, of course with artists and anybody that's got to put themselves forward in a way that can be very vulnerable. And I tend to try and make sure that everybody's voice is heard. It's pretty easy to tell. Well, I'll say if it's easy to tell that an idea isn't going to work, I won't necessarily just go on and try and squash that idea. I want to make sure that that person is heard. Let's say we're with a band in a rehearsal space or even in the recording studio and somebody has an idea, I want to try and see it out. Even if we only spend a couple minutes on it, it can be worth it in the long run for somebody to feel heard. So while things can get turbulent and they have plenty of times in the studio, I find that with that type of technique, you can alleviate some of the really big flareups and get to the heart of the matter, get people heard, and then be able to move on to the ideas that are really working for the song and the album.

Speaker 2 (00:04:17):

You don't want the band to make a great record and then break up next month on the road because of trauma that they experienced in the studio. Doesn't help anybody.

Speaker 3 (00:04:28):

Yeah, I mean, honestly, the best songs, as we all know, tend to come from some kind of drama, some of the singles or best songs who typically come late in an album as we're making it. And those are typically coming when there is some strife, whether it be between two band members, whether it be a band member and their own mental state, whether it be a band member and their girlfriend or significant other, those things tend to breed really great songs because of the honesty and the human emotion.

Speaker 2 (00:05:02):

What I'm wondering is say that you're dealing with an artist who is not in the best mental state because of significant other or their own mental illness or whatever it might be. My personal experience is that being in lower mental states makes it very hard to work. Have you ever encountered that? And if so, how do you take that and then help translate it into music when I think a person's first instinct would be to not do anything?

Speaker 3 (00:05:37):

Yeah. Again, I think really being there as a friend, a mentor, I've certainly been in situations where I've taken, let's say a single band member who I can tell is going through a rough time, whether it be personally or in the rehearsal space or in the studio. I'll take them out to lunch or I'll say, Hey, let's grab a drink or let's talk this out, or whatever. And we'll have those conversations.

(00:06:01):

And sometimes the artist has to leave the studio and just go, you know what? I can't do anything today. I need my space. And I have to be willing to go, okay, I'm going to eat that 1200 or $1,500 a day or whatever it is, or find something else productive to do that day. And just understand that the mental state is more important because otherwise we have to look for the long term and make sure the album is going to come to fruition. I mean, obviously not at the court at the cost of somebody, but I guess I'm fortunate enough, I don't feel like I've been in situations where it's been that dire, those issues typically are a bit more minor, and if they get more major, then you just have to deal with 'em in that moment. And there have been times where I've had to shut down the project for a few days or a week in order for everybody to kind of go to their respective corners and talk it out and come back and be productive.

Speaker 2 (00:06:58):

Was it always worthwhile anytime you had to do that?

Speaker 3 (00:07:01):

I mean, absolutely. I, there's, I can't think of a time where we went through something like that and we didn't come through the other side hugging each other at the end of the record.

Speaker 2 (00:07:11):

Yeah, it seems to me like when the right move is to just get away for a moment, it can actually cause a lot more damage to just try to keep going regardless of if there's some lost budget or pissed off a and r guys,

Speaker 3 (00:07:27):

You could probably say that about just about anything, whether it's solitary mixing or a band dynamic or any other, or your spouse. Sometimes you just do you need to take a break otherwise things get to a place where people aren't necessarily thinking straight and egos get in the way, and that becomes a tricky situation to navigate.

Speaker 2 (00:07:50):

You were saying earlier about the ego component with artists. You're saying that there needs to be some strength to it because they need to be comfortable putting themselves in vulnerable situations. And I think it's funny because artists with big egos get criticized a lot, but at the same time, I really do think if they didn't have that big ego, you might not have ever heard of them as an artist. They may have been too scared to get out there in the first place, or they might not have had the self-confidence to keep going through being a local artist for X amount of years or say they got dropped once and then before they blew up. All these things that can happen to you and will happen to you in life. I think that an artist without an ego is going to have a real hard time getting through that stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:08:43):

Absolutely. I mean, artists in particular, were speaking of musical artists, but I mean I think this could translate to actors or people on Broadway. They're really interesting people. They're typically very driven. A lot of them are in their persona on stage, very extroverted. And when they get off that stage, let's say in the studio where I typically see them, they're much typically quieter or more introverted, or not necessarily introverted, but the stage thing is a different thing. It brings out a different element. It allows them to kind of act and be a different person in a way. And in the studio you see, I find a bit more of the real person, and I don't want to say what they do on stage. Every artist is faking it. That's not what I'm trying to say, but I just think it's a performance larger. Yeah, it's a performance and you need to be that larger than life personality. When you're one person on a stage and you're playing to a thousand, 5,000, 10,000 people, you have to physically be larger than life to bring your artistry to everybody in the crowd. But in the studio, it's in just a much more intimate situation and those vulnerabilities truly can come out.

Speaker 2 (00:09:57):

Do you find that it's essential to channel that larger than life persona at least when they're tracking?

Speaker 3 (00:10:05):

Yes, a hundred percent. The trick, tricks, trick, yeah. That is the trick. I mean, ultimately, because we all know that when you record somebody playing and they're sitting down and they're just kind of going through the motions, it's going to have one type of performance vibe. And if they're standing up and moshing or whatever it is they're doing to get into the performance, it's going to be a different type of performance. I mean, that's why sometimes live records are so incredibly engaging because there is a moment, there is an energy to that. And so yeah, I think it's imperative that you try and catch that genie in a bottle and that energy in the studio.

Speaker 2 (00:10:44):

It's interesting because it's so hard for artists just because live, they have the almost like a feedback loop of energy between them and the audience. The audience reacts, they feed off of that reaction so they play more intensely, which then causes the audience to get more into it and so on and so forth. But how do you get that feedback loop going in the studio?

Speaker 3 (00:11:10):

It's kind of like being a coach for a football team. Every artist is different and every artist needs different types of encouragement. Some artists just want you to be there to go, that was flat, this is sharp. We need a little more emotion here or something. And some need more. Like, Hey, you're singing great, you're singing in tune, you're singing in time, but I'm not feeling it. Look at the lyrics that you're singing here. The emotion of your performance is not matching that lyric, and I need you to get into that place. And if you need a minute to get there and think about what you wrote and be able to convey that in a way that me as a listener and then the broader audience when they finally hear this will go, wow, I feel that. I believe that.

Speaker 2 (00:11:54):

Do you think that when an artist is coming in with whatever issues they may have or baggage or personality quirks or way of working or whatever it may be them, their entire personality, when they come in with that to the studio, is it something that you try to figure out on the spot and is it an intellectual exercise or do you have this ability to just read people really, really well and you just kind of get it and don't have to think about it? Is it intellectual or field-based for you?

Speaker 3 (00:12:34):

First of all, you have to remember for the last eight to 10 years I've been, 95% of my work is mixing. So I'm not typically doing a lot of producing these days,

Speaker 2 (00:12:44):

And I do want to talk about that soon.

Speaker 3 (00:12:45):

Yeah. But however, when I was producing more, a lot of my information came from meetings with the band. I would go see the band live, we would talk before we agreed to do an album together. So there wasn't typically a situation where I was just thrust into a studio with somebody or thrust into making an album with somebody that I'd never met before or didn't have any feel for. So a lot of, I think my initial ideas about how to interact with an artist are gained during those times when we're meeting. And I typically try to let them do most of the talking because I want to hear what drives them, what motivates them, why their songs are important to them, and see how they interact with their, if it's not just a single artist, see how they're interacting with their band mates. And yeah, I think a lot of it comes from observation in that moment.

(00:13:42):

And from there I can see maybe who has got the strongest voice, who's doing the most talking, who's laying back, who chimes in on specific ideas. And from there I'll be able to gauge what things are important to each band member and who's kind of driving the show and who is the songwriter. Because I'll ask those questions, who's the main songwriter? You know what I mean? And so you can get a lot of information on, it's kind of like a pre-interview, right? It's doing a little bit of research and you're being a good listener at that point. I don't do a lot of talking in those meetings unless it's them asking me, well, how do you make a record and what's the process going to be like? And then that's more of a mechanical thing for me to explain that and they'll get their information as well.

(00:14:34):

But I think that's where I gain a lot of it. And then typically, again, if it's a band we're in pre-production and I can see the dynamics there. There can be, again, the one kind of alpha songwriter person who really is driving the show. That person might be saying to the drummer, Hey, you're playing the wrong part, or I think your part should be this. And then he starts talking to the bass player, Hey, don't go up to the high part of the fretboard or Don't play that high octave there where I'm going high or, you know what I mean? And they're starting to drive you see that they're driving it or you might see a very equal dynamic and people are listening to each other. And so you kind of gauge it from there and then start to play to people's strengths and also give voice to the people who aren't feeling like they are comfortable giving their opinion, even though you might know that they have one.

Speaker 2 (00:15:29):

It makes a lot of sense. So basically do a lot of observation and then once you start to get a good feel for the situation, then start tailoring your approach to whatever scenario you find yourself in.

Speaker 3 (00:15:43):

Exactly. I mean, for me personally as a producer, I always felt and feel the job is everything. In other words, you have to be kind of everything to everyone. And so if somebody needs coddling, you have to be a coddling person. If somebody needs to be told their performance sucks, you need to be able to do that. If somebody's playing a part that's not working, you need to be able to tell them somebody does something incredible. You need to be able to encourage them and say, that was great. And if they're stuck on an arrangement, you need to be able to help them with that. And if the guitar player just can't figure out how to voice a chord that fits with what the keyboard player's playing, you have to be able to tell them If the tempo is too slow for the song, you have to be aware of that.

(00:16:36):

If the key of the song is too high for the vocalist, you have to be aware of that and you're about everything. There's nothing that I think that a producer shouldn't have under their hands and figuring out how to make the best possible record. I mean, it's kind of like a director of a movie. It's really the same thing. They really have a hand in everything. And I think producers of music, again, it doesn't mean that I am running the show in a way where it's like, this is how I want to do it. You know what I mean? It's not dictatorship, it's just you fill in everybody's gap. So if there's one person in the band who's the least musical, you make sure that you give them enough time and they're over ups to get it right so it doesn't show on the album. And same thing with if you're doing gang vocals and you can tell one person singing quiet, you're moving closer to the mic so you can hear 'em. You know what I mean? You're just paying attention to everything and making sure it all works out, and you have to be that kind of X factor that can cover in any situation.

Speaker 2 (00:17:41):

It sounds like also that means knowing when to get out of the way.

Speaker 3 (00:17:46):

Again, a hundred percent. I think that's why I think it's kind of the X factor. You can be doing as much as 0% and a hundred percent and anything in between. And I think that's really the trick of figuring out, like you said, when to step in and go, this isn't working, or Hey guys, knock it off to, it's incredible. The energy is incredible. You just push record and let the things happen.

Speaker 2 (00:18:10):

Yeah, I always thought it was interesting in earlier days, in another lifetime, one of my first times working with a producer, the guy insisted on redoing all of the pre-pro that we had come in with. This was a long, long time ago, and some of the pre-pro actually was pretty damn good and could never really recreate some of it, like some textural guitars and things like that. And it always kind of sounded weird afterwards. And then next time around, I went with a much better producer who had made lots and lots of great metal records, and he heard some of those same types of prepro elements and just was like, why should we redo this? They're already great. We're not going to get 'em better than they already are. There's no point just to satisfy my ego or something or make me feel like I did it. No, it's already great. Good to go.

Speaker 3 (00:19:05):

Yeah, I mean that's definitely a lesson. Again, I think it's an ego thing, and I think that comes with not having a lot of experience. Probably if something is 75% of the way there or even 95% of the way there, why do you want to go? Let's take it back to zero again, just so I can add my 2 cents and get back to that 75 or 95%. That doesn't make sense. I'd rather spend my time trying to get the extra 25 or 5% to get it incredible. And I don't want to say it's less work for me because that's not how I'm approaching it. It's just the best outcome is what it boils down to.

Speaker 2 (00:19:44):

Yeah, exactly. Best outcome. I got the vibe that with the first scenario, it was a little bit of ego, but then a little bit also of this weird complex that I've noticed with musicians and producers to the whole look busy. The bosses come and kind of vibe. People don't want to accept something if it doesn't take very long. It could be incredible. You can nail something first take or the song could be written very, very quickly in 15 minutes or something. Those things do happen, but I think some people don't want to accept those things when they happen because they have this weird idea that it can't be good if it happened quickly. You need to spend forever on it. That's the only way for it to be good. And for me to feel right about this being good.

Speaker 3 (00:20:30):

Sometimes I'm in situations where something, let's say awesome happens or miraculous or whatever, and it's just a great performance. Or somebody writes a great chorus for a song or something like that and we all instantly go, that's it done. And sometimes there's instances where let's say that same situation happens and somebody else goes, well, I'm not sure. What if I think maybe this could possibly make it better. I don't think there's any problem with going down the road to take a look at that, however, going, well, you came up with it really quick, so that can't be good. That doesn't make any sense to me. But I do believe that sometimes you can take a great idea and make it greater. And if somebody's got an idea for that, I think it should be explored. Whenever I'm in pre-production or even in the studio and somebody does a great performance and they'll say, I can do it better.

(00:21:26):

My mindset is certainly, especially now with Pro Tools, Hey, I've got the one I love already. If you think you can make it better, let's do it. Let's go for it. I'm willing to spend the time because I want greatness. And if it's better, we'll all intrinsically know it and it'll be better, and that'll be the take or the song or the chorus or whatever it is. And if it's not, we've got the other thing in our back pocket and we already think it's great. So to me, again, it's just what is the best outcome and how do we achieve it?

Speaker 2 (00:21:56):

So do you think part of the X factor that you talked about earlier, or another facet to that X factor is knowing when something's done or when something is, I hate to use the term good enough because I don't mean it in a settling for good enough way, but I mean when something's right, is do you think that part of that X factor is a producer's being able to identify when something's right, so that can move on?

Speaker 3 (00:22:23):

No, for me, I see the X factor in my mind as just a person who can elevate everybody to a hundred percent and elevate each thing to a hundred percent. Hopefully that's the goal. As

Speaker 2 (00:22:36):

Close as possible,

Speaker 3 (00:22:37):

As close as possible. So in the easiest way to describe it, if you have one great musician and one okay musician, it's going to be easy to get the great musician to that a hundred percent of their ability. And it might be harder for the other one, so you need to push more for that person. Or if you have a band whose songs are great, then you'll have to do less in the song and ranging category, whereas the other way you have to do more. But I think knowing when something is done feels like a whole other skillset. And of course it's all subjective in how you listen to music, how you hear music, how you hear, how you imagine the band, how you imagine that song. And so I think everything, I mean, you can always add more to a song. I mean, you

Speaker 2 (00:23:22):

Can just go forever.

Speaker 3 (00:23:23):

Yeah, you can go forever. And some things I mix feel like that, and that isn't necessarily how I produce. And so I think it doesn't really have to do with the X factor. I think it's just a skillset you learn, you hone, you can kind of get an idea that when you're recording that one extra part, you just go, you know what? We just don't need this. It's hiding this other thing. It's taking my attention away. It's not adding, it's just there to be there and this thing is baked, it's done, and this, it's a separate skillset I think in a way.

Speaker 2 (00:24:05):

I'm guessing that now that you primarily mix that, that's a skillset that gets worked out frequently.

Speaker 3 (00:24:15):

Again, it depends on every project, but certainly I will mute things if they're not working, whether it be for a particular section or completely in a song. It really just depends. I try to see it through as the producer and artist have given it to me. Every situation is different. Some producers send me things that are so perfectly arranged and put together that they're just really is. It's really just making it sound great. And then sometimes it's maybe a younger producer or more, or I should say less experienced producer, and there's just a lot of extra stuff on there that they threw in the kitchen sink, not really sure. And sometimes it could be just like, Hey, we only had one day to record this song, and so we just put everything on there. Please help us sort it out. And really every situation is different. But yeah, that skillset I find honestly, having gone through being a musician and a producer has made me a better mixer.

Speaker 2 (00:25:15):

This is not always the case. You've got TLA who never really considered himself a musician, but I think that the path to being a great mixer typically is musician, producer, mixer, typically. Not always, but I've just noticed that that seems to be one of the best evolutions in order to get there.

Speaker 3 (00:25:36):

For me, it's what worked. There's always exceptions to the rule. TLA is definitely an amazing mixer, and I didn't actually know that he was a musician. I had never had that discussion with him. But I think being musical and having some musical background for me has been fully instrumental in my abilities to relate to artists and be sensitive to balances and arrangements and things like that.

Speaker 2 (00:26:08):

One thing I've noticed with a lot of mixers in the current age mixers who have been mixing for a while is that there seems to kind of be two camps, one camp that is very, very set on what the job is. So I get tracks that are produced and engineered to X spec, and that's what I do. I don't do anything else. Anything else is not mixing and I'm going to get mad. And then there's other mixers I've noticed who kind of like what you just said, it all just depends on who you're getting it from and where they're coming from, what level of experience they've got. So some projects are going to need more, I don't want to say love, but more they're going to need more from you than others. It seems to me like you fully embrace that.

Speaker 3 (00:26:58):

Yeah, I think it would be really shortsighted to think that everybody's going to produce in the same way produce to, as you're saying, kind of the same spec or look, right now it's kind of the wild west in recording. People are recording in closets and less than ideal, even though there's not specifically an ideal, but we know that recording studios were treated, were more sound isolated. They took that stuff into account and had walls that weren't parallel and things like that, and they had gobos, and so there was separation. So were not working in perfect situations, and as a mixer, while we're not the last stop in the audio chain, we are kind of the last stop as far as putting all the little pieces together and little pieces just can come from anywhere, and you have to just be ready for that mixing and even just any engineering that I've ever done has always felt like we're using, or I'm using technical tools to solve problems isn't really the best way to make it sound for music.

(00:28:11):

But in a lot of ways, you're solving problems to make musical great things happen, whether that be the sound or the part or whatever it is, whether it's sometimes it could be a guitar player that keeps hitting the A string when they shouldn't be, so you put a little piece of tissue or something, or you take this stupid a stringing off the guitar or whatever, so they won't hit it. You know what I mean? So there's technical things that you do to make things happen. When I'm mixing though, yeah, whether it's recorded great and it just sounds like a finished product the minute it comes to me or it's not. Sometimes you have to embrace that too. I mean, you listen, some things are meant to be more lo-fi, and so you embrace that sound and it's okay. Again, that's part of the challenge. I think every day when I come here to mix another song, it's like, okay, what am I in for today?

Speaker 2 (00:29:04):

It's funny. I feel like the true answer to any question about audio, just about it depends. It's hard to just base an educational program or just say, it depends to everybody because it's like saying, just Google that, or something along those lines. But it's actually the truth. It depends, seems to be like the answer, the be all, end all answer for everything audio, because I don't think there's anything that happens the same way every time, at least that I know of.

Speaker 3 (00:29:37):

I went to college for music school and I'd say that having technical know-how in the factual signal flow kind of way, understanding microphone patterns, understanding at the time when I grew up in audio, understanding how to align a tape machine and how bias affects it, and those things I think are very technical and very important. Understanding why my cable is balanced and why you can have a long run on a mic cable and not on an instrument cable and understanding phase and understanding microphone rules and stuff like that of distance between objects and stuff like that. So there is a lot of technical information to be had, and I think schools are the place. I mean, you can learn it in a studio if you have a mentorship with somebody who's going to teach you that stuff. But schools are a great way to learn the basics. Just even knowing pro tools, shortcuts or you know what I mean? There is a lot to learn for a novice, a lot of technical knowledge that doesn't depend. Although I guess you could argue that for instance, there might be 10 ways to do one thing in pro tools, right? There's probably 10 ways to make a fade happen between audio files.

Speaker 2 (00:30:58):

It depends. Part is when a student asks a question, how do you get the snare drum to do X? Well, depends, or how do you approach tuning vocals? It depends,

Speaker 3 (00:31:09):

Right? Well, that's the artistry side of it, right? I mean, that's what I'm saying. There's the kind of the technical side, which is nuts and bolts, and I believe that that's what we need to stuff our brains full of. And then once we get really good at that and we understand that stuff, then we use it for artistic purposes. You're not thinking anymore about, oh yeah, what does a cardio pattern look like? No. You just know, okay, I need a cardio mic in this situation, or I need an omni mic in this situation because you've got the educational information in your skull and you can now just bring it out and use it again. It's just like any other job. I think there's a technical part of it that needs to be fed and nurtured, and once that's there, then you can just go, okay, now let's just deal with artistry and oh, how do I fix that? Hum in the guitar Amp? Okay, I know I've done this before ground lift or check the instrument cable, or if it's a single coil, I need to turn the guy a little bit in a different direction. So you have those tools in your toolbox that can help an artist make a great record.

Speaker 2 (00:32:15):

I do completely agree with you. I think that this new school of engineer that doesn't learn all that stuff is still capable of making some really great sounding stuff, but it has to be within the boundaries of whatever setup type they kind of grew up with. So say that all they know is a laptop and headphones and have managed to put out Grammy winning mixes or something in that way, and they sound great. That's awesome, especially if they legitimately sound great. No one can argue that they don't sound great if they do. However, that person, in my experience is going to have a hard time moving out of that scenario. So remove the laptop, put 'em in a different type of working environment where there's going to be different kinds of problems. They're going to have a much, much harder time if they don't have that technical background. I think

Speaker 3 (00:33:18):

You're probably right. I'd probably argue that the kid who's on his laptop doing that Grammy winning mix probably didn't just open up Pro tools or whatever logic or whatever digital audio workstation they might've been using and just figured out everything on their own. They probably were listening to your podcast or watching YouTube videos and figured out enough information to make it happen. And there also maybe happened to be very musically inclined. Maybe they have parents who were in the business or were musically inclined, and so there's some kind of extra lift they may have.

Speaker 2 (00:33:54):

So it's not in a vacuum.

Speaker 3 (00:33:56):

Yeah, it's not in a vacuum, and I think that's possible, but I do also agree that you're right. If you threw them at Sunset Sound and asked them to track a rock band, that would be a challenge for them. They wouldn't necessarily know the microphones. They wouldn't understand signal flow. It'd be a whole different ball game. That doesn't mean they're a bad engineer per se, or couldn't be great at it, that they don't have the skillset yet. That's what I think the educational part is essential for.

Speaker 2 (00:34:23):

Yeah, I totally agree. I don't think that those people are bad engineers either. It's shortsighted and just lacks understanding of how art evolves. I think to call those people bad engineers, they just have a very different way that they came up and learned. And like you said, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't be able to do it with the right training. They just haven't had that training yet.

Speaker 3 (00:34:48):

Yeah, I can't fix a car. I haven't had that training. So I don't think the job really matters. I think everybody needs to be trained in a particular aspect that they want. Yes, there are things that you can learn intrinsically, but they still take time. They still take time to learn. Even if you're a farmer and you're growing, you could put it onto any occupation, and I think the result is the same. You need some base knowledge and then you can practice the artistry and use your gifts to make things. Great.

Speaker 2 (00:35:22):

Do you think that now that you are getting songs or albums to mix from people who didn't come up the traditional way, who have those alternate skillsets, that your technical background is coming to the rescue more often?

Speaker 3 (00:35:40):

Certainly when it's needed. Yes, when

Speaker 2 (00:35:42):

It's needed.

Speaker 3 (00:35:43):

Again, here comes the depends, right?

(00:35:47):

If I'm mixing an album or a song where let's say all the drums are samples, it's just part of the vibe. It's not an acoustic record. And then let's say there's some guitars that are recorded acoustically and they're not very well recorded. So it might be my inclination to try and make a more high-fi or sounding better, but I have to look at the overall picture. Okay, well, how were the vocals recorded? What's the vibe? Let me listen to the rough mix and understand the vibe. Is this supposed to be a more lo-fi thing? Is this supposed to be more bedroom me sounding as opposed to a slick record? And so you can always kind of slick things. It's just how much is appropriate for the artist, for the song, for the album, for the genre. And I think you constantly have to ask yourself those questions, and that's kind of what guides guide you through a production or a mix or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (00:36:56):

If we can talk about a specific record, was there any particular idea or vibe that was guiding you? Like say for instance, on Blurry Face?

Speaker 3 (00:37:07):

That album is really interesting because we're talking about, for instance, working with producers who are very young and green, right? We've kind of touched on that. In this instance, I was working with producers that were really great, and when the records the album came to me, there were, and Tyler's a great songwriter, but he was working with really, really great people. And when the album came to me, there was already a lot of great information and things were sounding good. It needed more polish, and there were some other effects that I added or things like that. And it was more balance issue making the overall EQ work and things like that. And there wasn't muting or there wasn't as much fixing sounds. Things that were supposed to sound lo-fi on that record already sounded lo-fi and things that you were supposed to sound full and rich and whatever, already kind of did.

(00:38:06):

It wasn't a lot of that kind of stuff. There were times where there might've been a shitty mic on the vocal and a nice mic on the vocal, and we were blending the two. And so there were balances, and those balances may have changed between section to section to kind of match the vibe. And I think when I started the record, I think one of the earliest discussions was just how before I got started with the a and r person was how the album kind of blended a lot of different genres and to really just be true to those places and let the songs kind of just flow between them naturally. Don't try and force it into the section that's reggae. Don't force that to be something that it's not and you know what I mean? And allow it to breathe and really be different. And I think that's what kind of makes that album so cool is how they are able to just go from one place to another in the blink of an eye in between sections and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (00:39:03):

And it doesn't sound like a completely different song.

Speaker 3 (00:39:06):

No, and it doesn't sound like a song. I mean, that's the genius of good songwriting. The genius of good production where they're using an instrument one way in one section to convey something, for instance, just a snare sound and then a different sound in the next section that conveys a different feel, but they don't feel disparate, and that's part of the magic of the production, the mixing, and a little bit of sleight of hand of just getting everything to kind of marry together nicely.

Speaker 2 (00:39:39):

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 Lamb of God, angels and Airwaves, knock loose OPEC 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.

(00:40:30):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens 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 like game 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 and enhanced.

(00:41:25):

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 in an interview you did recently, but the anniversary of your work with Follow-Up Boy on Cory. You mentioned that the first round of songs were not quite what you were looking for in terms of working with them, but their a and r rep came back with better. And so what I'm wondering is, is it common to find that an artist is capable of leveling up their writing game on the spot like that? Is that a normal thing? If you get this huge artist and you're just not feeling it, is it normal for them to be able to come back to the table with better stuff or will they just typically just go to somebody else who might be feeling it?

Speaker 3 (00:42:33):

Yeah. Well, it's happened both ways. I will be honest about that. I think artists like to be challenged. I think humans do. I think it brings the best out of people. Some people, it really, I think it depends on where they are mentally. And I don't mean whether they're a mental case per se. I just mean, let's say they've been writing the record for two years and mentally they're just done. They cannot, they just don't have any more in the tank. That's a different person versus somebody who's been writing for a couple months, Hey, here's my first batch of songs, or here's my second batch of songs. They're in a space where they don't necessarily feel like they're done and they feel like they just want to gauge, where am I? What's going on? So there's really different stages that an artist can be in.

(00:43:17):

I mean, with Fallout Boy, I honestly don't know what stage they were in when I made that comment. I don't know if they thought they had a full record, and it's like, let's go. We're ready. I mean, you have to remember, they had done one album before, one full album before I got involved with them. So I don't know how that album went. I will say that typically with independent artists who were making albums on their own, it's for the most part, certainly back then, it's Hey, here's our 10 or 11 or 12 songs. Let's go make a record. And when you are on a major label and somebody's bothering to hire me, I feel like my job is to just try and get the best album and whatever that's going to take. If I am not feeling the songs, I don't think to myself, well, I'm going to make some money, and so let's go in the studio and just do this thing.

(00:44:13):

I want to know that I feel like we have something that's going to be great that's going to represent the artist properly. And I don't really understand why I would want anything less, not only for myself, but more importantly for them. I feel wholly responsible when I'm hired to produce or mix an album on making the album a success. And I don't necessarily mean sales, although that's nice, or streams or whatever. That's the icing on the cake in a lot of ways. For me, the ideal scenario is when the artist is done, they walk out of the studio thinking, man, we wrote the best songs that we could possibly write in this moment. We recorded them to the best of our abilities. We mixed them so they sound exactly like we had hoped. And when we walk out of here, now, we're proud of it. And when we go tour in this, we believe it. We stand behind it. There's nothing that they have to go. Yeah, well, songs nine through 12, we just threw 'em on the album, but they kind of suck. Every song is important on every album I've done, and I've never felt put out a 10 song album of songs that I'm proud of than a 12 song album just to say that I did 12 songs.

Speaker 2 (00:45:31):

Do you think that that standard, and also your tastes are part of why you're hired? That voice that says These songs aren't ready or these songs are awesome, people trust in that taste?

Speaker 3 (00:45:47):

I would certainly like to think that. I mean, one note you'd have to ask the artists I've worked with, honestly, but I think, look, you asked about Fallout Boy, and we're talking about a specific situation. I will say that when I sent my comments to the a and r guy, and he must have relayed that to the band, there were new songs that were incredible, and the a and r guy knew it because when he sent me the CD of the new songs, he said, here's your hits, or something like that in a little note. And when I listened, it was incredibly obvious that these songs felt like, this feels great. Whether or not it's a hit, I don't know, but it just felt great. It felt like a song. It felt like something different. It felt something fresh, and then I was sold. And I am not going to pat myself on the back and say, I'm the reason why. Maybe were already working on the songs. I don't even know. But the point is, for me, I felt like the material they had given me at that moment wasn't ready. And I didn't feel like, okay, yeah, let's go jump in the studio.

Speaker 2 (00:46:55):

Have you ever had a moment where you have not listened to that voice?

Speaker 3 (00:47:01):

I think the only times that I haven't had that kind of clarity on things like that might be, oh, this band that you produced a record for last year just got asked to do a soundtrack song and go fly to New York and work with them on the soundtrack song. And so there isn't really any time to dive into whether this is the right song or whether, whatever. I mean, yes, we're going to work on the arrangement and record it to the best of our abilities, but sometimes you are kind of thrown into those situations where there isn't the kind of preparation that you might like to have.

Speaker 2 (00:47:37):

It's kind of just like a throw and go to a degree.

Speaker 3 (00:47:40):

Then you make the best of the situation and you hope that the art, I mean, typically at that point though, I will say that in that situation, the movie company has already approved the song. They've heard it, they believe in it. So it's not like a complete vacuum of nobody knows, and we're just going to hope that something happens.

Speaker 2 (00:48:01):

So when you're working with artists like these where there's basically a whole machine working with them, the success of the record isn't just going to buy the artist a new car or something. Their entire team's livelihood kind of depends on this record, their entire crew and the livelihood of that crew depends on this record. There's a whole web of people who are relying on this coming out good so that the party can keep on going. Do you internalize any of that when you're working, or is that kind of stuff out of your mind when you're in the studio?

Speaker 3 (00:48:50):

Oh, I'd say I think about it. I think that's really important to me. I really don't undervalue the importance of giving an artist the best possible shot to have success, and that can be different things. I remember when I worked with Newfound Glory for the first time, and we were down in Florida working on that record. I think we were in pre-production, and I don't remember exactly how the conversation came up, but it was one of those moments for me that I said to them, look, let's say we have a hit single. That's not really what we're striving for. What the goal here is for you guys to have a career in music, like to go do something you love for the rest of your life. And if let's say we have some giant single and then every other record flops and nobody cares and you can't tour, then you're out of music.

(00:49:41):

Well, we want, yes, we'd love a big hit single, that'd be great, and we'd love another one on the next record, and so on and so forth. But really the goal is let's get you guys to a place where you can always tour. You can always make money. You can always, you have a name. You always are putting out great songs, whether they're on the radio or not. And that's the way I feel for every artist. Again, it's not that I don't want them to have a hit. I mean, everybody loves a giant big ass hit, but they're pretty rare. And now where do you go? Do you go from being in a band and loving every moment of that to getting some other job? Let's say that you're just not that stoked on. And for me, I would rather, I mean, look, it was the same for me when I was trying to convince my parents that I wanted to be in the music business.

(00:50:32):

They were very reticent. It was like, well, that's hard, and we don't know anything about that. And why don't you just become an engineer or a doctor? When I say engineer, like electrical engineer or something, right? Take some sure route or what they felt was a sure route. And so I've been fortunate enough to have a very long career in music that has given me a lot of joy. And to me, that's what it's about. It's about being able to do something you love so you don't feel like it's work. And if I can be a small part of helping a band do that, and then in turn that helps the crew and everybody else like you're talking about, then I mean, what an amazing thing that is, that everybody, it's like a family Look. I meet all those crew people because a lot of times, either before or long after I make a record with a band, I'm going to see their live shows, whether it's here in LA or somewhere else in the country, and I get to go backstage and see all these people, or we'll all have dinner before or after the show, and I know all the crew, you know what I mean?

(00:51:39):

Or I know who the guitar tech is, I know who the drum tech is, I know who, and so yeah, it's important. And a lot of times I bring them into the studio to work in the studio as well, to give them jobs when they're not on the road. So yeah, that is very, very important to me.

Speaker 2 (00:51:56):

Speaking of early on in your career, what was the big picture for you? Did you see it going this far?

Speaker 3 (00:52:04):

I don't think that I had a vision that kind of long-term vision per se. That was my dream that it would go, that I'd be able to make a career out of it. The goals for me, I started out as a tech in the studios fixing the gear, and then I made my move to be an assistant engineer and worked my way up to doing overdubs where producers would trust me to do a single mic overdub kind of a thing, to eventually getting to track and then eventually doing some co-producing and some mixing of, let's say, lower budget projects and other things that were higher budget would get mixed by a TLA or somebody like that. And then eventually to mixing my own projects and then eventually to mixing other people's projects. And it's really just been a ramp for me. And I'd say the thing that I had hoped for the most was to get into production, to get into a role where I could be a voice in helping artists with their music.

(00:53:08):

That was the goal. That's what I wanted to do. That's where I felt like I would be the most happy mixing. I don't think I necessarily dreamt of being a mixer. That kind of came a little later as things coalesced in my career and what I wanted to do. But I'd say the overall joy is that I've been able to do it for a very long time, but I wouldn't say that I thought, I don't think I had that, even though I said that to newfound glory, I'm not sure I necessarily had that same thought process in my brain in hindsight, I wish I had. But yes, that was my goal, I guess, to try and do that. I didn't know that I could realize it per se.

Speaker 2 (00:53:48):

With the goal, was it as specific as wanting to do it with huge bands, or was it more just if I can manage to get to the point where I'm making a living from audio, we're good. I

Speaker 3 (00:54:00):

Think I was more, I want to work with huge bands. I felt and feel a constant drive and determination to do better things, to make better sounding records to, I don't even know if it's work with bigger artists, but I think that there is an element of comfortability that you can get into when you're doing the same kind of record over and over. I didn't like that feeling going into an album that necessarily, oh, I'm being hired to do this because I've done this kind of record before and that's what I didn't want per se. And so I don't think that anybody, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anybody, if they had the choice of, let's say just working on local bands for a whole music career versus getting a chance to step up and working for some regional bands and then national bands and international bands, they wouldn't want that opportunity. I imagine, maybe I'm wrong, but for me, I would always want to push myself to work with, again, it's not so much bigger bands, but bands that were interesting to me musically and something, whether that was local, I guess, or international, I guess that wasn't as important to me. It just had to be something that resonated with me, I guess, was most important. But yeah, I'm all for trying to push the limits of whatever's possible for me.

Speaker 2 (00:55:31):

Yeah, I don't necessarily think that given the choice that there's too many people who wouldn't rather keep on stepping up, but what I do think is that there's a lot of people who view that as something that happens to other people or just won't happen to me kind of thing. I think that lots of people have pretty self-limiting beliefs about that, or I think some people see the continually stepping up as the natural logical path and just go down it, because why wouldn't you try to make that happen?

Speaker 3 (00:56:04):

Yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to speak to that, not my head space, but look, I can, I know people who, yeah, you're right. There are more self-limiting people who are comfortable in their situation and just happy. I don't know if you have this feeling, but every once in a while, especially after I finish an album or something where I worked 12 or 14 hour days, six days a week or something like that, and I'm just really beat up and I'll think, wow, wouldn't it just be easy and great to have a 40 hour week job where

Speaker 2 (00:56:38):

When

Speaker 3 (00:56:38):

You're done, you just walk away, there's no responsibility and you're getting X number of dollars every week. That's enough for you to have an apartment and have food and do a few things that are enjoyable to you, and then that's it. And you can sustain that for the rest of your life. There must be a magic to that as well. It's not who I am, so it's hard for me to put myself in that place, but I can look at it and just go, maybe the grass is a little greener

Speaker 2 (00:57:11):

In that

Speaker 3 (00:57:12):

Space, all the time actually that space sometimes, right? Yeah. You feel way too.

Speaker 2 (00:57:15):

Well, I feel like wanting more is a curse and the problem is if you're wired to want more, you can't do anything about it. You're just wired that way, so you can try to put yourself in the, I'm happy with what I've got space, but it won't work. It'll maybe work for a little bit, but it won't work long term because you're just not wired that way. I do have that voice that wishes that I didn't have the need for more always, but I've also kind of accepted that it just is what it is. That need for more isn't going baked in. Try to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (00:57:51):

I can't. It's hard. I mean, I see people who retire and not just, I'm not even talking specifically about from the music industry, just friends or whatever who retire, and it's hard for me to imagine that place where it's just like, okay, I literally am just going to lie around and that's it. I'm done being useful, I guess in a way, and I don't know that I'll ever be that way. I would hope that in 10, 20, 30 years I'm still making records. Maybe not 350 days a year, but maybe a little less. So there's a little more time and stuff like that for other things, but I can't imagine it's hard for me at least at this moment, to imagine just shutting it down or like you say, just kind of status quo.

Speaker 2 (00:58:40):

Why would you, if that's not you, that sounds like a miserable decision, like a really, really miserable decision.

Speaker 3 (00:58:48):

Look, I've gone on vacations where I'll take my family for a month off and we will go somewhere nice and do a biking vacation or something, and it's great. It's an amazing way to get away and I am able to shut it off in those moments.

Speaker 2 (00:59:05):

You are.

Speaker 3 (00:59:06):

Yeah, but the minute I get back it's like, okay, I'm ready to go.

Speaker 2 (00:59:10):

Okay, so you're able to shut it off the entire time.

Speaker 3 (00:59:13):

Yeah, I mean, that's

Speaker 2 (00:59:14):

Impressive.

Speaker 3 (00:59:15):

In those instances when I've made plans like that and it's a family vacation and we go far enough away that I can't be near a or my studio, then yeah, I can shut it off and just go, okay, I need to enjoy this moment. I have a manager who can deal with things in emergencies, and I have an assistant who is here in LA and he can deal with stuff that's an emergency. Somebody needs a STEM or an instrumental printed or whatever, or, oh, we just need the vocal turned up in the bridge, print us another copy, that kind of shit. But yeah, in those moments I can actually turn it off and it's pretty joyous.

Speaker 2 (00:59:55):

I find that it's a skill to learn how to turn it off. It's a skill. And also I think part of what you just said, that it's planned out and it's far, so you create a scenario where it would be tough to not just disconnect and go with that flow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):

Yeah, I mean, you just are unavailable and yes, I've missed gigs, I've missed albums, I've missed projects that I wish I had done some that were hits or whatever, and it's just, oh, well that just happened, but there's nothing you can do about it. So I could be stressed about it, but I try not to be and enjoy that family time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):

Is that something you had to learn how to do?

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):

Yeah, I mean, I've gotten better at it as I've gotten older, certainly younger, very hard, probably like you and many others. I was certainly willing to work till I basically dropped to exhaustion and it didn't matter if it was seven days a week, it didn't matter if it was 16 hours a day when my head hit the pillow and I got up the next day, I was ready to go. I didn't care if it was a big tracking date or if I was making cassette copies for somebody. I was in a studio. I was part of a meaningful musical project, and that's all I needed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):

At what point in time did you start to, I guess, impose some sort of structure? Not to say that there wasn't a structure before, but you just said you were willing to go till the point of dropping dead. At what point did you start to impose at least some sort of structure like we're done at this time? We work these days?

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):

Yeah, it probably started when I had my first child and even then, not right away. It was one of those things where, okay, I can't work more than six days a week. There wasn't so much a we have to stop at 11 o'clock at night or whatever it was. It was more, it started with, I'm not working Sundays, that's it. And then it grew into, I'm not working Sunday this week and then the next week every other week I'm not working weekends. It just kind of slowly morphed into that. The thing for me, especially early on in my production career, I was in la so typically the bands, wherever they were from would be flying out to la. The record company's got to house these bands, they got to fly them out here. And so now all of a sudden, every day that we're not working in the studio is another day that these bands can't get back out on the road, that they have to pay for them to be in a hotel that they can get in trouble doing some other stupid shit or whatever it is.

(01:02:35):

And so whether or not I felt I was actually pressured by a label to work six days a week, or if I just personally felt that internal responsibility to not spend the budget money essentially, it's hard for me to know, probably more the latter, but at some point also, of course, discussions with my wife on, Hey, I need you around a little bit more. And so it just got to the point where eventually I started just taking weekends off or I might work a half a day on a Saturday or I would just plan it like, okay, I'm not working weekends, so I'm going to add a couple extra hours each night during the week so that we don't lose time, but that I can have my weekends free or something like that. And that was kind of it, but it was still, especially when I was producing very long hours and you just slowly, for me, as I got older and having some success, people were more willing, I guess, to give me those options if I needed them.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):

Do you think that the ability to carve a schedule like the one you're describing, you get your weekends and most of your evenings is a luxury that comes with success and that early on in a producer's career, they better be willing to do the crazy hours

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):

Probably. Yes, I think so. I mean, look, I mean anybody who is a young producer can just say, Hey, I don't work weekends. It's just a matter of whether a band is going to put up with that. Right?

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):

Somebody else will though,

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):

Right, and somebody else will. Absolutely. I personally felt that, I personally felt, and again, I think you'd probably find that people like you and I who are in this and want to do great work are driven, and because we love what we do, it doesn't feel like work. And so all of a sudden it's three in the morning and you find yourself like, holy shit, it's three in the morning and we normally start at 11, so we're going to have to already be back here in eight hours. You know what I mean? So you just forget. It's almost like being in Vegas. You don't know what time it is and you're just going and enjoying the hell out of every moment being with musicians. So that's tricky. But when you're young, it's a lot easier to do that. Maybe you don't have a girlfriend, a wife, or something that you have to go back to, but as you get older and all of a sudden there's other things in your life that demand some of your time, it becomes trickier and you have to find or at least try to. And I'm not great at it as good as I tried to be, it is still very difficult for me to disengage at times, especially if I feel like I just need another hour on this mix or whatever it is, it's still hard to disengage and go, you know what? I'll just come back to that tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):

Yeah, it's a good thing though to acknowledge the other important things in your life. I just know from seeing people who don't that that's bad for the work and bad for the rest of their lives.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):

Oh, yeah. I've been there. Mean we all have. We've absolutely all been there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):

The reason I'm bringing this up is because there's a lot of listeners from the entire spectrum of contemporaries of yours all the way to people who are just starting out and they're in very different situations, and I want to make sure that the Jins who are going for it don't hear us talking about month long vacations and things like that and think that you couldn't do that shit at the beginning. If you do, I mean do what you want. But if you do that kind of stuff at the beginning, there's going to be some 19-year-old kid who won't do that stuff, who's going to just get all the work.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):

Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, you're absolutely a hundred percent right. I never did that early in my career. Also, I couldn't afford it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):

Well, there's that too.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):

Yeah. So I mean, I can't tell you certainly as an assistant engineer and even as the primary engineer on a project, how many times I canceled plans because the producer wanted to work on a day that I didn't expect us to work or something, and I constantly was canceling plans. My wife and I were supposed to go do something for her or for her family or for her work, and I'd have to just go, I can't do it. We decided to work on Saturday, even though he told me at the beginning of the week, we weren't going to work on Saturday. Here we are, we're working on Saturday or Sunday or whatever it is. And yeah, I mean, I never ever imposed my schedule on anybody else, and I worked, I didn't think about it as outworking everybody else. I just did it because I loved it and I had no problem doing it, putting the hours. It never occurred to me not to do that. And so yeah, I think when you're young, you have to put in the hours and you can tell pretty quickly also as when I was producing and engineering in studios, when you're working with assistants and or runners or anybody else in the studio, you can tell who's going to have a chance to last longer and not. I remember once I had a friend who asked me if I could have their son be an intern for me this many years ago, and I said, okay, sure have.

(01:08:05):

I said, have 'em come to the studio 11:00 AM on Monday or whatever the hell it was. And so they came in and they hung out and I showed 'em around the studio, kind of gave him the lay of the land and just said, look, just sit on the couch here and if we need something, watch, learn, and if we need something, I'll let you know. And I asked him to go on a couple runs and he came back and we talked a little bit more. And then in the afternoon, this is literally the first day by the way, I asked him to do another run. I think I asked him to go get Slurpee for the band or something like that, and he just never came back

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):

Just like that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):

He was done. He was done. And in a sense

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):

At least you found out fast.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, look, it didn't affect me per se, but it did make me know, okay, he's not cut out. If he comes back to me and goes, Hey, I want to start up with you again on Wednesday. I'm like, no. You know what I mean? Right away, who's in it and who loves it and who can't be without it, and then the others, and it's a much harder road. It's already a hard road. It's already a hard road. So it's going to be a nearly impossible one if you can't put in the work and aren't willing to put in those hours. I mean, it just is.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):

I think also if you're not willing to put in those hours, but you think that being a producer really anything, this applies for anything, especially creative fields. I think it's the same if you want to be a guitar player or a photographer or whatever. I think if you think that that's what you want to do, but you just cannot bring yourself to do those kinds of shifts early on, maybe ask yourself why. Maybe it's not what you actually want to do. Maybe there is something else that you will put those kinds of hours into. Good to figure that out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):

Yes, 100%. I totally, totally agree. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):

There's nothing wrong with that either.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):

Nope, there's nothing wrong with that. I was glad, in fact, with that intern that I was speaking about, it was literally the best possible outcome for him and me. We learned literally on day one, we didn't have to suffer each other for 30 days and me have to be kind to him. He was a family friend despite him not showing up half the time or whatever. We didn't have to have any difficult moments. It's just like he knew he wasn't cut out. I mean, it would've been nice for him to go, you know what? This isn't for me. Thank you for bringing me in for the day I'm out. That would've been nice. At first, I was actually worried about him, and I called, I found out that outweigh. But yeah, ultimately it was the best outcome for him to go, this isn't for me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):

Yeah, I think anytime you come to that kind of realization, only good things are going to come of it. I think that thinking that you want something that you don't actually want is very detrimental. End up wasting a ton of time.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):

Right. Well look, I mean everybody's got a different amount of patience for things, but yeah, I think in a perfect world we could all try a number of things out until we find the thing that really works. And like you say, you're dedicated to and are willing to put in the hours.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):

Well, how did you know that that was going to be this? I am the make your own luck type of thinker, but I also believe that the luck factor comes in with who you know, how you were born, what influences were around you as a kid, what opportunities, contacts, mentors, things like that. Those types of things are the luck of the draw. Whereas if I didn't have this one best friend in fourth grade who had an older brother that played guitar and made me think it was cool, who knows? So it's luck. That's the luck part. Me actually playing guitar and getting good at it is not luck. That was a lot of work.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):

I think for me growing up, I loved music. I would read the backs of album covers because I wanted to know where things were recorded, who produced it, even though I didn't know what a producer did. I was reading credits, what the studios, the musicians, whatever it was. And that fascinated me. And looking at the album sleeves and the pictures and just, especially if there were ones while they were recording and just looking at things again, I wasn't know anything about microphones. It was just all kind of a world of wonder. I had this record that I could play on my record player, and it's like, how did this even get to me? How did this happen? So reading about it was interesting to me. And then throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I was involved in band and it was the thing that brought me joy.

(01:12:49):

I was very excited every time to go to band and play my instrument and play with other musicians. And in high school, I did have a mentor who recognized I guess my passion for it, and he gave me a tape recorder that played at half speed, allowed you to play, you could very speed it. And so he asked me to transcribe a song for him just as an exercise. And he said, look, you can slow this down on some of the fast rifts so you can get the notes and figure out what it is. And I found great joy in that ultimately. And then when I went to college, I actually went as an electrical engineer. That was going to be my major, but for my elective, I took a jazz band class. And while I was doing well in all the other classes, I found the most joy in that jazz band class. And I think it finally dawned on me, this is the thing that brings me the most joy.

(01:13:51):

And that's when I decided to transfer schools and go full-time music and that was it. So it took a long gestation period for me to kind of really go. I will say in high school I was a trumpet player and I just thought, I don't know if I really have the desire to be in a practice room. As much as I loved playing trumpet, I didn't know that I wanted to be stuck in a practice room for eight hours a day practicing scales to be good enough to do well as a trumpet player. So I went electrical engineering. But then when I learned more about the idea of being in a studio, that's when I transferred to University of Miami and did a music production kind of a degree.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):

See, that's a great thing to have figured out. I'm not willing to practice eight hours a day at trumpet.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):

Yeah, no. As much as I love music, I wasn't ready to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):

Yeah, I want to be a virtuoso guitar player, but not willing to do that. Good luck.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):

So we have some questions from listeners. Do you mind if I ask you a few?

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):

Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):

Toby. William Allen says, from Under the Cork trees, one of my favorite pop punk albums of all time. And I understand that there was a lot of toing and froing in defining the vision. With that in mind, what tips do you have for finding the balance between getting the bands to keep moving forward and letting them do their thing? Or is there a difference between those two things? I added that

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):

Look early on in a production career, there's so many things going on in your brain trying to figure out. And for me, I don't know what it's like for Toby, but for me, at that point, I was producing, I was engineering, I was pro tool engineer, guy editing and everything for the most part. So there's a lot going on, but I think trying to find what is great and what needs work, and again, being that kind of X factor. And so when you see that there's a struggle in a certain area, you step in and try and help that struggle. And when you see things being successful, you try and allow that to happen and also push people in a direction in that same direction to allow more of that to happen. So I think it takes time. That's why I think learning all the technical stuff is so important because that needs to be second nature so you can deal with the people and the music.

(01:16:30):

And I think that people, music skill is a learned skill. I think ultimately you have to just fail a little bit at that. You have to have run-ins with musicians, you have to have albums or songs that don't come to fruition like you'd hoped, and you learn from those things. But with Cork Tree, it was all those guys in that band have strong personalities. Obviously Pete and Patrick are the primary songwriters, and they saw eye to eye in a lot of things and didn't on others. And it was finding common ground and finding things that didn't work and being able to assuage somebody's ego to say, Hey, this isn't working. And I guess you have to gain the trust of the artist a little bit, and maybe you can find ways to do that. So if there's something that you feel absolutely 100% sure of, then you can start speaking those things.

(01:17:31):

And then the things that maybe you are 50% sure of you hold off on for a minute and you let the band gain your trust by seeing that those a hundred percent things that you feel that way about are true and that they can relate and go, oh yeah, that's right. So then they gain that little bit of trust that what you're saying has some validity. And it can be small things. It doesn't have to be huge things. And then maybe you can start stepping into places where they're bigger items that they'll start to trust you on. Or maybe it's something that you feel 75% sure on, but you want to put it out there. You don't want to leave any stone unturned. So I'd say gaining some trust and then working your way into being able to step into more difficult situations or challenging circumstances.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):

Great. Answer. A question from Enrico Olo, which is, with Pop punk being relevant again, what do you feel like bands need to do with their arrangements and mixes to sound current? Many bands and mixers aspire to capture the magic of the bands you worked with in the early two thousands and the typical two guitar bass drum vocals maybe doesn't cut it anymore for keeping the listener's attention. How do we get that magic and apply it to 2021? How do we evolve good and great songs into the current times?

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):

Man, that is a great question. Well, look, I think there is a lot of ground being covered with the kind of resurgence of the pop punk genre, whether it be hip hop influences, eight oh eights and those kinds of things coming in, or whether it be more keyboard centric things. To me, the pop punk genre, while it was very two guitar bass drums kind of driven, I think it's also more about an attitude in some ways. It's about a tempo, a musical tempo.

(01:19:38):

It's about a physical attitude as well, and a mental attitude. So those things can be portrayed in a way, regardless of the instrumentation. I think things can have, I mean, a punk attitude without being two guitars, bass in drums. So I think people are doing good work in that. Good productions, I should say. People like Travis and Zach Sini and other people are doing incredible productions where there's absolutely elements of that punk aesthetic, but they're bringing completely new sonic textures to those things, whether it be taking the two guitar bass and drums sonically to new places, or they're adding other instrumentation to make them more, well, not more, but different, I guess, would be a better way. So I don't think there's one way to look at it. I think we can all find ways to further any genre. And to me, it can come from production, it can come from mixing.

(01:20:52):

On the mixing side, I guess what I'll say is this, my mixing styles have changed over the years, and my aesthetic and my, what I listen for, how I listen, records that I listened to that I mixed 15 years ago sound a certain way to me. And I don't know that I would mix that song like that today. It would sound different. So I think just in the fact that I've grown as a mixer, and that's not to say it's better or worse, it's just different. And so I think that also, so hopefully just growing in your abilities and your taste will also change the genre and how it sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):

Awesome. Last question from Jake Stanton, you've always been a huge champion of how essential pre-production is to the record making process. Has artists having access to their own recording rigs, making their own demos changed the way you approach pre-production now? And if so, what's changed?

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):

Well, again, I'll go back to the fact that I've been mostly mixing now, but I will say yes it is. I mean, artists that are able to make fully formed demos that sound like, here it is, here's the song. It's fully realized. All the instruments are generally there. Maybe the performances aren't great. Maybe the arrangement could be better. Maybe the sounds could be better, but it's really fully formed. Whereas I could easily have been in a situation where an artist plays me an acoustic guitar and sings me the song. That's it. That's the song. And then we start talking about what's the tempo, what's the key? You know what I mean? We're really starting from square one. So yeah, I mean, like we talked earlier, I think what it's done is it's taken it from we're starting at 1% and we have to get it to a hundred percent.

(01:22:43):

Now you're starting at 50 or 60 or 70% and going, ah, it's all there. We just need to produce this up and make it sound great. I think it's helped. Look, and it also, I don't want to say it can hurt, but it can pigeonhole you in a way that if you're not willing to go challenge that recording and go, well, this is good, but this section could be better. Or, I love everything about this arrangement, but the pre-course that groove just doesn't work, so we just need to change it. So you need to be able to step back from that fully formed idea to be able to kind of pull it apart if it needs it again. And so yeah, in general, I think it helps. I think it really helps mostly for a and r people, honestly, who love to hear that fully formed idea and to know, oh yeah, I got one. I am ready to go. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think this is a good place to end the podcast episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out. It's been a pleasure getting to meet you and talk with you.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):

Same here. Great to meet you. And thanks for the time. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):

Anytime. Thank you. 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 guest as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at urm dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line answer me Al. All right then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):

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.