THE ZENITH PASSAGE: Writing song-focused tech death, rhythmic vocal production, constructing the perfect take

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:06):

Levi.

(00:00:07):

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.

(00:01:09):

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 urm 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. It's been a minute. We've taken a little bit of a break because to be perfectly honest, I needed a break. Been podcasting for the past eight years, nine years now, and yeah, I just needed a moment. As you know from listening to the URM podcast, there's time periods where, especially for instance, the pandemic where we would do three episodes a week and it's ebbed and flowed over the years, but over the past year, I really needed to take a step back and just refill the gas tank, so to speak.

(00:02:21):

I was starting to feel really burnt out on podcasting, not that the guests are less interesting, actually, the guests are great, but I just started to feel like things were getting stale for me. So stepped back and took a little break. But we're back and our first guests back are from the band, the Zenith Passage, Mr. Derrick Quist and Justin McKinney. Now I am stoked to have them on because very, very rarely does a band in these technical metal genres turn my head. I turn my head in a way that I'm like, okay, this person, this band group of people are advancing the genre. And I know that because I make this kind of music, kind of that it's one part composition, one part performance, but there's also a very, very important part of how it's engineered, how it's recorded. There's a very specific art and skill to recording, mixing, producing this genre of music, which is why I wanted to have them on the URM podcast. They have a brand new album that just came out, a metal blade called Did Elysium. And I would suggest that you go listen to it before you listen to this podcast because everything we talk about in the podcast is going to make so much more sense if you have heard the record and you'll also understand why I am so excited about it. Alright, let's get into it. Derek Quis. Justin McKinney, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:04:06):

Hello. Hey, thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (00:04:08):

My pleasure. I am stoked to have you all on here because I guess I'm a recent fan of the band. And what I thought was interesting was I didn't know who all was in the band or anything, just we have the same a and r guy, a metal blade, shout out Ryan, and he just told me about you guys and said that you were sick and independent of anyone who was in the band. I was like, wow, this band is, this band's got it going on. Come to find out you all have some serious lineage. And then it all kind of made sense. Once I realized that this is not a bunch of news, I was like, okay, this all makes sense to me. But anyways, I wanted to say that I find what you guys do to be interesting because it very much follows in the tradition of tech death, the good side of it. But it's very much charting new territory too. And I think that that's something rare on the tech side of things. I feel like with a few exceptions, a lot of the same has been happening since neph phages, just a regurgitation of that. And so when I hear something new like you guys or Arc Spire or whatever, every once in a while you hear somebody taking it and going further with it. I always want to give props to it.

Speaker 4 (00:05:49):

Oh yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:05:50):

Cool episode. Done. Awesome. So out of curiosity, when you're writing, and I feel like I already know the answer to this, but the tech side of it, is that just a byproduct of you writing the stuff you feel? You just feel stuff that happens to be insane like that? Or is it something that you're consciously going for?

Speaker 5 (00:06:17):

Well, no, my thing's always been, at least I think now that I've grown up more, is that I don't want to write things for the sake of being technical. And I think that might be somewhat of a thing in this little genre. So sometimes things just come out harder than you'd like, you have to play it. But yeah, a lot of the time, for example, our newest single di inertia too, that was a song that, okay, this, we're just going to go all out and try to make a song that is pain homage to macrophages, but also trying to try new things. And that was a song that of course turned out extremely technical in the vein of macrophages. But I think as a whole, the record data lithium is kind of just pure. I try to stick more into the emotion side of it and I think it shows a lot more on this record that it's like I feel like we're playing a little more passionately and from the heart than just trying to sound technical for the sake of being technical.

Speaker 2 (00:07:26):

And you can tell, I think that's why I connected with it when I first heard it is nowadays. And I'm curious what your opinions are on this. Nowadays with the fact that everybody can record to some level, and we all have the same tools, it is no longer a thing where only some bands get to go to a million dollars. Well, I guess that's true. Only some bands go to a million dollar studio, but the tools to make this all happen are available to almost everyone. And so you get a lot of bands who get very caught up with what you can do both on the instrument and then what you can do with the tools to make it sound crazier. And I think it's just an evolution of what back in the day was guitar players that would just shred for the sake of shredding, that it kind of evolved into shredding plus editing stuff to an insane level, but forgetting the music and the bands that I think stick out are the ones who have that skillset but didn't forget about the music or the art side of it, in my opinion.

Speaker 5 (00:08:38):

Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, like you're saying, the technology allows you to dissect everything that you do, and I know that I am someone who gets caught in the details a lot. And also through technology, I kind of go outside of my playing ability writing wise for tools like Guitar Pro, sometimes it's not even having a guitar in hand and then writing it and then realizing that you got to actually play that. And I think that kind of is a thing where it gets overly ambitious to do, but then it's taking all those crazy riffs and not trying to make it rift soup and trying to just stick more to an identifiable song structure that people can hum out. So yeah, I definitely think technology has a lot to do with how things are now and having the access to all these platforms.

Speaker 3 (00:09:34):

I think also that it's where the role of a vocalist steps into this type of music as well. Also, Justin used this term earlier, as I get older, I'm more open to admitting that I'm a fan of the music we're creating, and I'm a fan of the band that I'm in. I'm not an original member of the Zenith passage. I joined because I like the music that Justin and company have created in the past. So it's like I'm not writing these crazy riffs. I think the riffs are crazy too, and it's my role as vocalists to translate them and make it feel followable and organic and help guide the listener through. And I think that might be something different about what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (00:10:21):

Like a song, like an actual song?

Speaker 3 (00:10:23):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:10:23):

Well, I

Speaker 3 (00:10:24):

Jokingly, or I'm mostly serious, but I'm ruining the song by yelling over it. So I want to make sure that I'm enhancing it in the best way possible rather than trying to be the focus. And I think that helps us tell the story of the song in a more cohesive way, rather than everyone just being all over the place. I'm paying respect to everything that's happening in there and kind of thinking of myself last and trying to make sure that that's part of the thought process.

Speaker 2 (00:10:54):

The vocalist in my band has made the same joke, actually. Sometimes he'll just be like, and it is a joke, none of us think this or anything, but sometimes he'll just be like, I'm just the idiot that screams over this shit. You got to talk to them about it. But that's not really it at all because the vocals are what at the end of the day, that's what makes it a song in my opinion. Yeah, there are instrumental bands that kill, but a song as we know it, like a song song, no vocals, no song at the end of the day might have a cool piece of music, but a song. Song, yeah, no vocals, no song. And so I feel like that is the make or break really at the end of the day. But I know exactly what you're saying, not joking that the wrong kind of brutal vocals can ruin really good music. So it could happen, but it doesn't happen in your case, but it definitely could happen. Okay. So speaking of when you're working on the vocal parts, is what's part of the process for making sure that it actually compliments and doesn't just step all over it?

Speaker 5 (00:12:19):

I think I always try to think in death penalty music or just most metal music in general, that the vocal is another rhythmic instrument. So it's just like how do you accent and embellish certain moments in a song with an additional rhythmic element? And that's my whole process when it comes to doing death metal vocals. And Derek and I get together and we start humming out patterns of what we think could work to compliment the riff or the drums or some other musical accent happening. So that's where we start. We start off just whispering patterns. It's really, really embarrassing. And then from there, Derek will write the lyrics and then we'll sit down and then we'll plug in all the lyrics into the hummed out patterns that we made. Doing that too is a whole massive situation in itself just because of sometimes the syllables don't match with the rhythm and then annunciating the syllable doesn't really flow off the tongue well, so then you have to turn around and adjust the syllable to fit in that puzzle piece. So there's a lot to do all around with just vocal production in this kind of music. And Derek's one who does it, so he can probably talk a little bit more about how that process

Speaker 3 (00:13:49):

Is. So it is pretty interesting and it's pretty convoluted to be honest, because I don't know, I think most modern bands that I know don't have band practice four times a week and you're not sitting there learning everything together at the same time all the time. So

Speaker 2 (00:14:09):

That's rare.

Speaker 3 (00:14:11):

I get the songs and we work on them collaboratively. And then ultimately where it comes together is being in the room with Justin as the composer of the song. He has a much more intimate understanding of the song. So I might have an idea where I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he'll be like, well, kind of the most interesting note of that riff gets covered up by the blah blah, and so we want to let that part breathe and then your vocal would come back in on this counterpoint. That makes it more interesting. And I don't have that level of knowledge necessarily. So it is really interesting to take my caveman idea sometimes interspersed with this more intimate knowledge and we slam 'em together and it kind of creates this more of a special combination of more straightforward emotive stuff combined with some of the technical wizardry that's going on in the songs and themselves.

(00:15:10):

It's like Justin was saying, I think one of the hardest parts of the hurdles is we'll whisper out a song and we're literally just going, it's very embarrassing, as Justin said. And so maybe that sounds cool in a mapped out vocal pattern, and then you write your favorite line of lyrics you've ever written, but it's like, and just those different consonant sounds don't flow, so we'll go to record it. And it's like, damn, that actually sucks. Now we have to write new lyrics or try new pattern to make that good line fit. So it's kind of like when I think about writing and creating the vocals for a band this, it's almost like solving the world's hardest puzzle is the way that I think about it in my brain. And it's like sometimes you get the right piece, sometimes you get the wrong piece, and it's a lot of, or I also say refrigerator magnet poetry. It's like, oh, well that word, if you change the order and the tense, you can get the same meaning of that line and then it will flow phonetically better into the song. And so it's just a lot of thought and then it's ready for performing and usually do pretty well with the performance once it's figured out how it should go.

Speaker 5 (00:16:31):

And also, I think the music is so intense too that I feel like most people who, not most people, but people who just listen to it not having known what tech death is or death metal is, but they know metal, I think it's easily digestible because the vocal I feel for the most part is very straightforward and identifiable in the whole metal spectrum. There's a cadence to it and there's a meter to it that you can pick up really easy. And then I at least would hope through that because a lot of people can identify metal and they listen to metal because the vocal sometimes. So maybe through listening to the vocal and hearing how the vocal rhythm is, they can start identifying the patterns in the riff and then maybe they start unraveling a whole new thing in the song. So I dunno, I think it's a little more digestible for a main audience, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:17:32):

Absolutely. I also think that taking care to not cover up the cool musical elements is a big deal because I hear bands mess that up a lot to where you might have a good vocal pattern and then you might also have a really good musical part, but together they're stepping on each other and one of 'em is getting sacrificed.

Speaker 4 (00:17:59):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:18:00):

Totally. And I think that what I like about what you're doing is that it doesn't sound like anything's really getting sacrificed. It all kind of works together. So it's interesting to hear that there's thought placed into not covering up certain elements and making that all work together. I can imagine that that must take a lot of time.

Speaker 5 (00:18:24):

It was a very stressful process doing the vocal tracking and everything, but I think plugging in everything and trial and error really kind of worked. There was a situation in the title track Data Oleum where there's a really cool riff happening and then the vocal kicks in and that's when all the counterpoints happening, but it would be odd to not have a vocal there, so we had to put a vocal there, but we had to do it so sparsely that it is just hardly a vocal line, but it's still, Derek is still there and he's accenting certain rhythmic parts just so quickly that you kind of forget that there's a vocal. And it seems that, I don't know, it seems like you're not losing much. You don't notice that there's not much vocal happening there because it's just so sparsely put in and you can also take in the counterpoint is happening, and that was a vocal that didn't sound very good. Not the take or anything, but just the rhythmic value to that riff. But I think now that we listen back on it is, I mean, what else could you have done to be any better? It was some situation that we were just playing a hundred percent on, and I think it just finally got so imbued in our subconscious listening to it that it's just like, okay, it works.

Speaker 3 (00:19:48):

Yeah, the line he's specifically talking about is on this really cool riff, and I think it's one of the only points of contention that we might've had in discussing the vocals. I really didn't want to do a vocal on it, but then listening to it, it's like, shit, it's been too long since the last vocal almost, and we have to bring it back to the core of the sound, and we spend a lot of time on that line because the line or what that line, I don't even remember at this point, but it was about something, but it was too long, so we had to cut it back and then it was like, well, now it doesn't mean that anymore. And now I don't know how to get it to mean that again. And then I've lost what it was supposed to mean in the first place, and then it's just this crazy cycle that I get in lyrically or psychologically of like, well now it doesn't support the rest of the story that the song is telling and I don't even know what I'm bothered about anymore. So ultimately we tracked it and it sounds good. Oh, actually I do know why I don't like that line. Every word ends in the same syllable. Every word ends in shun and it's like, and I'm just like, ah. It just sounds like the same word over and over again. To me,

Speaker 5 (00:21:17):

A drinking, we should start where you take a shot every time you hear a shun.

Speaker 3 (00:21:22):

Oh man, there's so many shuns or every time you hear the head field lick.

Speaker 2 (00:21:29):

So something like that where you notice something sounding super samy, is that something that you'll notice after the fact like, oh, that's too samy, or is this something in the process of working you're trying to consciously avoid or both?

Speaker 5 (00:21:47):

I think it's a bit of both. Honestly, at least for me, I know that you get caught up in one small part for so long and then after you finally nailed it, you go back, you listen to it and you're like, oh man, everything has this same cadence or everything has a similar feel to it. And then you start digging more in the details but then say, okay, let's listen back from the start of the song. And then you listen to the whole song and then you get to that one part and that what you got caught up in the fine details doesn't really matter as much anymore because it's like the grand scheme of the song. But I think definitely we spent a lot of time refining so many things in the lyrics and the patterns to make sure that it's not monotonous in any way, but sometimes taking a step back and listening can also prove to be a solution too.

Speaker 2 (00:22:42):

Knowing how it lands over time is a big deal.

Speaker 3 (00:22:47):

I also think that there's some sounds in the context of death metal that just sound better than others, like a shun sound or sound, or you can end words powerfully or you can let them fizzle out and ultimately you're not necessarily singing along to these songs and you're here to hear the sound of this rhythmic, almost percussive instrument that is the death metal voice. And if you can create the sound that supports the part better, ultimately I think that should take it over. It's hard to accept that sometimes during because you're like, oh, man, that's not the word I intended to use, but now I got to use it. But when you listen back, you're like, oh, that's badass, or Yeah, that definitely helps us get to the next line. Or something we had talked about a little earlier is maybe you wrote this sick line that ends in an X sound and you immediately have to pick up with an N sound on the next line of lyrics. That's not going to happen, and so you kind of have to sacrifice that in order to get the right performance sometimes, and it always works out. It sounds cool, but when you're writing a lyric and then you try to perform that lyric, it might not always work out, and we spend a lot of time thinking about that.

Speaker 2 (00:24:11):

And it sounds like you're going into it expecting to I guess, get a lot of feedback and do multiple iterations, it sounds like.

Speaker 3 (00:24:24):

Yeah, I think so. It's kind of a reverse process. I wish I had more time to be a lyricist and show up and be like, I've got this piece of paper with every song written, but it's usually kind of like, all right, the song is ready for lyrics now and it's time to write them

Speaker 2 (00:24:42):

What you got.

Speaker 3 (00:24:44):

Yeah, it is kind of like now I have the song and we've created the blueprint. Now it's time to fill the blueprint in with actual words, build it. Sometimes it's more like mechanical and it's like we got to fill those gaps and sometimes inspiration really strikes and it's like, all right, I got this line and I'm not changing this line. I'm going to build the song around it. But yeah, definitely expecting feedback. I think in this corner of music, if you're not accepting feedback and you're not iterating, then it's not going to work because there are so many moving parts, firing at such fast speeds that everything needs to be under scrutiny and you need to be able to be like, nah, or do that again, or we have to be open to the criticism and amongst ourselves and that understanding. If it's not the best, then we shouldn't be doing it.

Speaker 2 (00:25:44):

What's the process for feedback amongst you guys?

Speaker 5 (00:25:49):

I don't know. I think it's like we'll get through the part that we're both happy with. I also keep multiple parts of the take just in case we want to switch something out, and then we just kind of sit on it and listen back. And then again, if it's like, okay, we're getting caught in the details, let's listen from the beginning of the song and then see how everything lies. And then from there be like, no, you know what? That just Derek could say, or I could say, you know what? There's just something about that part that just doesn't really work. And they're like, all right, yeah, let's just try it and keep trying it and we'll keep trying it and we'll keep the take and then jump it in there or drop it in there and then see how it feels now. And then as soon as I think we're both like, okay, yeah, it's sick, or we laugh or something, then we know is sick.

Speaker 3 (00:26:41):

It often ends, like Justin said, was laughing at the part and if it's like, whoa, that one is weird, or that one had a strange connotation to it, if that can get a reaction out of us to be smiling and happy and laughing about it, then it's a good one for sure. But I'm open to being corrected or called or asked,

Speaker 2 (00:27:07):

What if you're not feeling something?

Speaker 3 (00:27:09):

Oh, then I think there's a couple on this record that I was like, I don't like that take. And Justin is like, no, that one was cool. We we're going to keep that one. That one's cool. And I'll be like, let me take it 10 more times. And then of course we keep the one that was cool because he's hearing it better than I am sitting in the freaking room yelling as loud as I humanly can. I'm losing the context of the song often I'm just recording to a click track and I'll be like, I'm going to do it 10 times in a row right now. I'm going to do it mid, I'm going to do it low. I'm going to do it mid low. I'm going to do it. Tough guy. I'm going to do it hetfield. I'm going to do it fel, and then I'm going to do it three more times without thinking about it, and then we'll be like, there's a vibe. Let's proceed.

Speaker 5 (00:27:59):

Yeah. Yeah. There's been times where Derek's like, I don't like that part. I'm like, well, it's sick. And then he's like, give me a couple more takes. I'm like, all right, so he does it and then we throw in. Then I'm like, yeah, you're right. That's definitely way more sick. And then vice versa. It goes both ways. So it's like we just, I think we have little checks in there to make sure that we can both think we can get more out of it or something as opposed to just accepting that it's done. We try to, I think both push to see what else more we can get out of a take.

Speaker 3 (00:28:31):

Yeah, I think what's important to note is that it's entirely constructive, right? It's never that was what a dumb idea or This sucks. It's like you can do better or their timing was a little off. Can you tighten it? Then we'll discuss, well, why am I coming in wrong and then I can understand the song better so we can then perform it better live and in studio. So it's just like part of the refinement process is done in the studio and it helps the total package of the band. You got to be open to it and wanting what's best for the product, which is our art and what we're releasing to the world. So we want to be as proud of it as we can.

Speaker 2 (00:29:12):

It's hard to be objective about your own parts, especially when you're tracking, because I know with guitar you're not only hearing what you're playing, you're hearing noise in the room, you're feeling the vibration of the instrument through your body. You're focusing on whatever parts you're playing to, even if it's a click, you're hearing that your brain is, if you're engineering yourself, then part of your attention is going towards that as well. So your attention is being split up over multiple different things, and so you don't really have a hundred percent to devote to scrutinizing your performance, which is where a good collaborator comes in or listening back. But I've noticed that I don't know when I did a good or bad job, generally it's not really accurate. If I feel like I did a great take, that doesn't mean shit till I hear it and know for sure and vice versa. Terrible. Take two.

Speaker 5 (00:30:23):

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that's just a situation where it's like a head game. You think it's like, oh, you know what? That was the best one. I can stop. That was the best one. And then you go back and you listen to it and there's something you can find in there and you're like, God damnit. And then the one at Cool too, because the one that you thought wasn't the best take ends up being the take you use because it just works in the context of the song.

Speaker 3 (00:30:49):

I think also my attitude is that I am a supporting instrument in the band. For some people I might be carrying the show for others I might not be, and I want to make sure that I'm supporting it properly and if what I think is good to someone else isn't open to hearing why I worked in a big corporate business and I think over the last six years of working in that industry is my objectivity has gone boom way up. I don't take much personally anymore because all my job is it's presenting stuff to people and then being like, yes, but yes, but no, no, no, no, no, no. And it's like, okay, cool. We're just trying to make something better and I can apply that same ethic in the studio to being, anything that's said in here is in the interest of making this much better.

(00:31:54):

I might be like, that was sick. And it's like, yeah, but it doesn't sound right. Sometimes I'll get a really nice take that I'm like, that's the best take. Then we'll listen back and it's like the tam is so slightly off that we can't keep it and it hurts to throw it away, but we just have to be like, what? Do you want to retake the whole song and try to emulate that timur? Or do you want to just try it again and get one just as good in the right tone and it's like, ah, shit, okay, let's try it and make sure that we're getting it right, rather than being like, no, that's the best, and I sound cool, so I want it there. I don't really care. I want to be an equal member and participate in Edifying the song.

Speaker 2 (00:32:36):

Were you about to say something, Justin?

Speaker 5 (00:32:39):

I was agreeing a hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (00:32:40):

Yeah, it's really important I think to kind of get outside yourself with this stuff because at the end of the day, if you're fighting for something that doesn't fit the song just because you feel good about it, what are you really doing? And I've seen that I've seen happen a lot and it's very destructive, but also I think some bands are just, they just locked out and all the relationships and personality types just kind of naturally work that way. But I think a lot of bands also have to consciously try to be professional like that and keep their egos out of it and just keep their eye on the prize. But I know a lot of bands who have overcome those types of issues just by communicating more and anytime someone is starting to get out of line with that, correct them and just kind of keep on realigning on the goal. So I think that even if it's not the natural state for a lot of musicians, people are passionate about what they do and dealing with stuff that's very personal so people can really, really get into it. It's a good thing to have open lines of communication and a lot of trust between members to where people can correct each other and your head's getting a little big.

Speaker 3 (00:34:13):

Maybe for the next record, metal Blade can get us a band psychiatrist and they can sit in the studio and make sure we're all getting along and everything's copacetic.

Speaker 2 (00:34:23):

That movie,

Speaker 3 (00:34:25):

It's so good.

Speaker 2 (00:34:27):

It's still uncomfortable to watch.

Speaker 3 (00:34:30):

I've actually only seen it once, but it's amazing. I love it.

Speaker 2 (00:34:35):

I saw it once when it came out and then I saw it once again two years ago and it was way more uncomfortable two years ago. I couldn't props to them for putting that out there because is, I don't know, that just takes some serious balls to knowingly portray, put that up looking like that, and

Speaker 3 (00:35:01):

It's just an eternal target, but they're sick and they're like, they're the greatest of all time. So it's interesting to be able to see that layer of it and that they're big enough to be able to do something like, fuck it, we're going to show you how it is, even if it's petty and weird and awful.

Speaker 5 (00:35:22):

Yeah, we're just human too. They're just as human as we are. They're not some kind of monster or something. I see what you did

Speaker 2 (00:35:32):

There. So guitar tracking. Hold on. That was good though. Congrats. So guitar tracking, I know you can actually play this stuff, but I also know that there's a lot that goes into tracking the style of music. I track this style of music, so I know it goes into it. Nobody actually on these recordings plays it start to finish like a jam band or something. It's just not how you do it, but there's a big difference between faking it and then just constructing it. And I think that the thing about this style of music is it has to be constructed because like you were saying earlier, so many moving pieces and it's coming at you so fast and it needs to be so precise. There's just no room for error with this kind of stuff. So it has to be constructed, but there's a right way to do it and kind of a bunch of bad ways to do it. I would say that with the way you track guitar, that is one of the only right ways I know of to put this kind of stuff together. So I kind of want to talk a little bit about the tracking process because I think what I've noticed is a lot of people don't know how to get takes that are constructed but don't feel constructed, and it has to be both because you've got to construct this stuff. It's just part of achieving that kind of, I guess, perfection,

Speaker 4 (00:37:05):

But

Speaker 2 (00:37:05):

Also without sounding like Guitar Pro basically.

Speaker 5 (00:37:09):

Yeah, and Guitar Pro is to blame for a lot of this because you get carried away in the moment. I like to write everything, or not everything, but I like to write the complicated stuff in Guitar Pro because I need to get it out of my system before I lose the riff. And when you're trying to do that in your DA on a guitar and you're trying to just figure out the riff, you get so lost in trying to just play it that you lose the riff. So doing that in Guitar Pro and just allowing you to blurt it out has been a huge help in writing some of this stuff. And

Speaker 2 (00:37:44):

Can I pick your brain about that a little bit? Because that's blowing my mind, is blowing my mind because, and I use Guitar Pro, so I've been using it for a long time, but mostly to document things. The idea of writing in it, I'm not, I know that some people write shitty music in it or music that can't be played, but I know lots of people who do awesome stuff in it, so there's not a knock on Guitar Pro or anything like that. It's just you do it Great. So I want to know, when you have Guitar Pro in front of you, you basically so proficient at it that you can program something into it quickly enough and you just kind of know how it's going to feel on guitar or something.

Speaker 5 (00:38:33):

Yeah, honestly, a lot of the time that I'm trying to plug in a riff, I don't even have a guitar on me, I'll just kind of hear it and then put it in, but it's not like I'm using Guitar Pro for everything in a song, for the whole feel of everything. I kind of have it written in my d and tracked to a click track and feeling it out that way, but the more complicated rifts that require some more thinking, I've discovered over the years that it's easier for me to just open Guitar Pro and try to find that rift before I lose it because you get so caught up in trying to figure it out in reality that you can sometimes lose focus of

Speaker 2 (00:39:12):

The role. That makes a lot of sense because contrary to popular belief, you can't just play this shit when you write it. Nobody can do that. There's not a single person who just shits this stuff out and can just play it album quality, just boom. Yeah. Everybody's demos for this kind of stuff are funny basically because you can't, you just can't. So that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (00:39:41):

I've never seen Justin use Guitar Pro, but I've seen him use other software that's involved with creating this music like demoing drums or editing the session or building the live session. And he moves fast, it's freakishly fast. He understands the in and out of these things. So I believe him when he says he hears a riff and he can probably just go into Guitar Pro and spit it out really fast because that's

Speaker 2 (00:40:08):

What I figured.

Speaker 3 (00:40:09):

I've seen it in other applications, so I imagine, I bet you're probably best at Guitar Pro, so I bet it's like lightning fast.

Speaker 2 (00:40:16):

So the first time that I was exposed to something like that was actually when doth got signed. A really good set of circumstances happened and Colin Richardson mixing our first album and in 2006 and I got to go to England to watch him mix, and this was my first time being around people of that level, working with them. I had been adjacent or whatever, but it was the first time, we're here for three weeks and you're mixing my music and this is crazy. And I remember his engineer was laying samples and I had never seen anything like that. He was just like machine gunning the samples across the screen in three minutes, an entire song was laid, and now I know how people do that stuff, macros, key commands, all that stuff, but you still got to know exactly what you're doing. But in 2006 to see someone do that, it was fucking mind blowing. And then it just dawned on me that, okay, this is kind of like the speed at which people who operate the technology need to be moving at to actually to be competitive basically. So hearing that you move fast doesn't surprise me. It fits.

(00:41:40):

It's mind blowing to see.

Speaker 5 (00:41:42):

Yeah, I mean I've seen some people do it, like Mike Keen to bring him up. He is a guy who works in superior drummer and he's really quick at it too. But yeah, it's just something that I've been doing since I was a kid. I discovered Superior Drummer and right when I graduated high school and then I learned how to use Guitar Pro or even before Guitar Pro Power Tab and tab it. I've been doing that since I was in high school, and that allowed me to not only figure out how to play most of the songs that I really wanted to play, but discover more about technique and discover more about what I can do. And just through probably 10, 15 years of using Guitar Pro, it's like second nature for me. I am on my number pad just kind of programming everything. And same thing with Superior Drummer.

(00:42:33):

It's like I have a process of just kind of going through in the piano roll and laying everything out, but it's just become a second nature. It's hard to not use that application and writing this kind of music, it requires so much focus and attention to detail. But if I was writing something that's not metal, I would just write straight strictly in my daw. But for this really technical stuff, yeah, you mentioned you cannot just play it, especially when you're trying to explore more of your palette and explore more of a really interesting rhythmic idea that you probably never would've done if you didn't have a tool like Guitar Pro in front of you to be able to explore that. So to go back and talk about the process of tracking, it's like, yeah, and anyone who doesn't know this, no one is one taking any of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:43:33):

No, no one, it doesn't matter how good they are, nobody is doing that

Speaker 3 (00:43:39):

Well nor maybe should you if the goal is perfection. I don't know if that should be expected. You mentioned that Jam band. Sure, Phish, go for it. Play a 45 minute song and keep all the blisters and keep all the mess ups. Or my guitar player in my project, John Frum, he plays with John Zorn. They get one chance to get a solo and if the solo sucks, it's going on record. It's a different vibe and you got to consider the context of the music and the vibe that the music's trying to put out. And so we're creating very technical, crazy ass music. It's hard and we want it to sound technical and crazy and cool. There's a time and place for all sorts of sounds within the context of our music, but a lot of it's like, should you just be ripping this thing or should you be really concentrating on making sure that a part is done properly and focusing on the end result rather than how it was captured in my opinion?

Speaker 5 (00:44:43):

Yeah, I think it calls for the character of the part too. And for example, there's death metal bands that actually do do it through that Gore Guts record that Colored Sands, that was for the most part from, I understand they played the album from start to finish. That's why you hear the last couple tracks. You can start hearing some of the fatigue set in drums, especially with long str, and that guy's a fucking machine dude, and you can hear the human characteristic of that record at the end of the record, and it's so awesome. I love that. But that's not the context of this music where it's like machine-like almost, and it has to convey a machine-like feel, and that requires being more focused on how each part sounds and being as precise as you possibly can, but then it's like how do you sound as precise and machine-like as you can while also remaining human? So that's a whole nother thing in itself too. It's like you don't want to sound like a guitar pro, no one wants to sound like that. Some bands do it and that's great, but I feel like most people, it's

Speaker 2 (00:45:54):

Not great, not great. Sorry, go on.

Speaker 5 (00:45:58):

You want to hear that a human's actually playing that, it's like you have to have checks and balances in effect for that. So for me, writing some of these songs, it's like, okay, I need to do a human check. Is this even possible to play if you're jumping around the fretboard so frantically, it's just not going to work live. It's just, I'm sorry, is this not going to work? And there's checks and balances. I always try to do like, okay, this is a very, very sick part and I love it, but let me just try to figure it real quick and see if it's even possible to jump like that. And luckily I've kept it in check for the most part. There's one song that I think is going to be extremely difficult to play live, and that's our new single DI inertia, and that's one that is kicking my ass right now.

(00:46:49):

But to go back to the human element, once I write the riff, I'll go back and I'll track it and then I need to stop tracking mid riff and pick up in the middle of that riff and start the next part of that riff. And then you just cross fade it because it gives a more humane or a more humanic kind of sound to it. You hear more nuance in the strings, whereas some bands, I'm not talking shit or anything, but some bands punch in note for note or do it in halftime. And sometimes that works in the context of the band, but you can kind of tell that it's not human. You know what I mean? So I think in order to achieve a machine-like sound, but also sound human, you have to take it in steps and then make sure that you're just not punching in when that last part of the riff ends. You have to start a little bit before so you can cross fade the notes that way. It sounds like more fluid and it sounds more human.

Speaker 3 (00:47:49):

I think that it's also worth noting that I, and I'm sure many others, we do that vocally too, where you're doing a line and maybe it's a long ass line and you get tired and you can probably do it, but it might end with a little croak or it might end. So you do half the line super strong and half the line super strong, but you have to overlap them in order to make sure that you're not starting right or in the wrong place or coming in real hard on a syllable so it doesn't sound natural. And then you can do that and then usually that kind of helps you understand how to do it as a whole. And if you do that properly, maybe by the end of it you can do the whole thing in one take. But that's happening in vocals all the time where, yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:48:41):

It's just

Speaker 3 (00:48:42):

We're punching a line just to make sure that everything sounds strong and fierce and accurate to the mood that we're trying to get out.

Speaker 5 (00:48:51):

Exactly. It is just the style that we are trying to, A lot of people might not think that's cool, and that's okay, this is just what we are doing and the vision that we have to make it sound the way we want it to sound. And again, it's hard to sound precise and machine-like and human at the same time. So this is the best way that I've discovered that this kind of works. I mean, I don't know how much secrets we're putting out there in the universe, but it's just kind of the way a lot of bands operate.

Speaker 3 (00:49:24):

Well, I probably would've guarded what I just said a little closer until a couple months ago. The dude from periphery put up a video and it was awesome, and he was like, Hey guys, we just put out a new record. I might be misquoting here, sorry. But it's along the lines of like, Hey, we put this out, we got to start playing this song live. You might not know this, but I've literally never sang this song front to back, so I'm going to go into the studio right now and try it. Oh yeah, I saw that. And he films him doing the first time of him ever singing the song front to back. I thought that was really cool. I think that's way cooler than seeing a polished video of you performing it well because that's real and that's a huge band. And being vulnerable and saying, I don't know how to do this.

(00:50:10):

And he comes out, he is like, that was pretty good. I forgot some lyrics I came in wrong, but I think that would've been okay live. That's cool. I think that's super cool and would make me, it got me thinking, no, I haven't performed some of these songs on the record to back either. Maybe that would be something cool for me, a cool idea for me to steal. We're trying to figure out if I should do vocal play through videos, and that might be a compromise I'd be more interested in taking rather than doing something super polished.

Speaker 2 (00:50:41):

Yeah, I don't think that it's a, a secret that records are made like that now, but I do think that there's a lot of people who would like to think that it doesn't apply to them. So I think a lot of people think, yeah, they do it like that, but I don't have to, or I'm better than that, or something like that. But I think that these techniques, they're not done because someone's not good. They're done to achieve a certain aesthetic and a certain type of sound. For instance, I remember when drummers started using kick pads instead of kick drums on recordings, and I've recorded a lot of great drummers with Kick pads, some with real kick drums, but the reason for using the Kick isn't because the drummer sucks. It's purely for mixing reasons and not having kick in all the room mics and the overheads. It just makes life a lot easier and it makes it to where you can really have them focus on the hands. And the drummers I've done that with are some of the best drummers in metal. And I know that when that first started happening, people were thinking that it's something that you do to cheat or something, or that's what you do with drummers who can't play. And it's like, no, actually, so you do because you don't want kick drums in your room mics. Yeah, actually, that's why

Speaker 3 (00:52:14):

It's also the same with triggers, right? People will criticize it. I don't know if that's what you mean by drum pad. I could be conflating.

Speaker 2 (00:52:21):

Well, it's like the signal that triggers the sample, so it's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (00:52:26):

Oh, okay. Yeah. But it's like, what do you not want your guitar to have distortion? Do you not play your bass out of an amp? That's kind of my thought process on drum triggering. It just achieves, you're still performing it and it's still creating a sound. I think it's totally valid.

Speaker 5 (00:52:44):

It's like, let's be real. How much dynamic is really in death model? Come on

Speaker 2 (00:52:50):

In the kick drum, hopefully. Done. Basically. 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.

(00:53:46):

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 gain, 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.

(00:54:40):

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 I'm curious, when it comes to the other parts of the arrangements, like the weirder sounds or the layers, do you kind of take a similar sort of approach as with the vocals, like you're saying? So with the vocals, it's all about finding a complimentary rhythm and not stepping on things like basically fitting the puzzle together. But in metal, lots of times when you start adding layers like synth or multiple guitar layers, it's just shit just steps on everything. And rhythm guitars already are eating up so much space. And then, yeah, on your new single, all the whatever is doing, I don't know if that's a guitar or a synth or what, especially on that opening riff. It just sounds so awesome. And I'm sure that part of it is because there's a lot of space in the riff, but just in general when dealing with layers, how are you thinking about that arrangement wise to where you don't end up with a mess? Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:56:07):

Like you said, distortions eat up so much of the mid range and the hierarchy of sound in there that it's hard to fit synth pads and other orchestra elements in there. But I noticed that brass is a big thing that cuts through a lot and kind of equals out guitar a lot, but synth pads and some strings are extremely hard to have it sit and to where you can distinctly tell the difference between the two. So when I'm using synth pads on stuff and arranging everything, it's like I have to use it sparingly because it's like there's a part that's staccato and there's a lot of breath between guitar. You're going to be able to hear more synth elements in that as opposed to just having a gnarly riff and then just having synth over it, which happens in this record too. But I think the more prominent moments in the record where you can actually identify a s synth pad or some other cool instrumentation happening in the guitars that it's because there's room that calls for it.

(00:57:20):

And yeah, the divinia too. I'm using a guitar just playing one note and then just, I threw that Valhalla super massive on it and just put it to Infinity on the mix, and it's just taking one note, a harmonic and then just bending it and pulling it. And that's one element. And then I used Symphonic Destruction, which is a really cool plugin. I used that for the horn kind of section, like a really reverberate horn, like CS 80 kind of mix going on in that. So that I think kind of cuts a little bit more too, just because of the horn. But in terms of compositionally, I try to find a place for parts where the synth can be the highlight. I think one of our songs Automated Twilight, it's the more experimental song in the record, and who knows if people will like it or not, but I love it.

(00:58:14):

It's my favorite song on the track or on the record. But that song is a very synth driven song and orchestral driven. So for me, the guitar wasn't even important in that song. For the most part, the synth was the highlight, and I put more focus and attention into how the scent sound and the layering of the S synth, how do I make a part sound bigger with this motif for the sequence? So I'll just double up the sequence with another kind of scent that brings out a different dynamic in the mix to kind of pump it up more. And it's just finding space to where it makes sense and not trying to overburden spots with immense layers. And unfortunately, that happened to us in one of the songs too, in Deletion Cult. There's a chorus in that song that has so much shit going on that Dave was like, dude, there's just so much going on here. We got to figure out what you want to highlight. We got to talk about this.

Speaker 3 (00:59:15):

I think another interesting time was on DI one, the end section starts to get really, the synt becomes really loud and really uneasy, and it's supposed to make you kind of feel like, what's happening? Why is this? And I feel like that was maybe the only time where we're having the hardest time to communicate that to Dave because we were trying to figure out where it could go in the mix, and we were like, no, it's supposed to start to get worse. It is supposed to be overwhelming. It's supposed to kind of push out of where you want it to be. And it was almost like this, Justin could probably explain it better. You had more conversation about it, but I thought it was pretty interesting because we were like, no, Dave, it's supposed to sound worse here. He's like, but I'm supposed to make it sound good. And I couldn't figure out the right way to

Speaker 5 (01:00:09):

Communic. Yeah, because Dave he's so damn good in his balance of everything. A

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):

Tarot, by the way,

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):

Flatline audio, he's one of the best. Yeah, I love that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):

He sure is.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):

And he's very good at balance and in the hierarchy of where things sit in a mix and when it calls for it. And this was a moment at the end of Divinia one because it's a two-part concept song about more or less the Big Bang and consciousness. So at the end of Di Inertia one is where we realize in the theme that this entity is

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):

Supposed to feel like swirling thoughts, like overwhelmingly swirly thoughts basically.

Speaker 5 (01:00:52):

And through that, knowing that it explodes in this big, what is it? Like a big bang because of it knowing it's oneness, right?

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):

Yeah. Without going too deep. That's kind of the theme of the two part song is there's this single thing that existed in one day, it has an idea. What if there was another one of me? And that kind of breaks its brain and at one time it was this one thing that's everything. And now it's hip to the idea that there could be another thing just like it. And since it's everything, once it thought about the other one, now there is another one. It wheels it into existence and it basically happens over and over and over again. So we have this part at the end of the song where it's just really crazy vocals, really crazy big guitar chords being played, lots of swirling synth going around and it's supposed to kind of sound like this. And then you explode into part two.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):

Yeah, exactly. So it's like if you were to put it, the big bang is happening, this is the final moment before the Big bang happens. So it's supposed to sound uneasy and everything's about to explode and everything's coming unhinged. So that's where everything's driving and building and becoming more intense. And then finally you get the release, which is part two, and that's the fallout of the Big Bang and the culmination of all that. So that's why it sounds so, at least in my eyes, I see it as it's just kind of expanding and there's heat and I dunno. And then you just have this pulsating kind of sound, which is the heartbeat of the universe kind of. So that's where I see it. But yeah, going back to we had to tell Dave, no, it's supposed to sound like things are going to come hinge, something's about to explode. It's not supposed to sound nice, it's supposed to sound uneasy. And that was the introduction to part two, which is then you can start sounding great again. But yeah, that was a conversation which was interesting to have with Dave. So very detail oriented with his balance of everything.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):

How do you balance chaos?

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):

Exactly. And also we'd worked, I think our record sounds incredible due to Dave's work. It is funny.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):

It does

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):

By the way, after it's like, wow, this is beautiful. Make it worse for these 30 seconds, please. That's a hard ask because it's like what? I just made it perfect.

Speaker 5 (01:03:31):

Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that was probably the only real moment where it's like the synth needs to take over everything, and then there are some couple moments in the title track where the synth is the highlight of the song, and also in Divinia one where the guitar atmosphere, the chords that are played are more of the highlight than the rhythm happening. The rhythm is just kind of static and the chords and the harmonic palette of that is more of the focus. So that was gaining balance of that, took some tries to get that, and then I think we got that figured out pretty well.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):

I think that a good mixer or a great mixer, here's what I've noticed with metal mixers is no matter how sick they are, if you're going to bring non-traditional elements in, you got to talk them through it or else you're just luck of the draw. If they're going to just understand exactly how it needs to be balanced, it's asking a lot to just expect a mixer to get it. When you're bringing something that's some unique part that is not the traditional arrangement that has a very specific thing in my experience, you've got to work them through it basically.

Speaker 5 (01:04:57):

Yeah, yeah. It's telling them, okay, this has to be more of a focus. And to Dave's point, he's like the one doing the reality check. He's like, dude, if you do that, you're going to lose half of the headroom for this. I'm like, okay, well I wouldn't have known that because I'm not a mixing engineer. I'm not good at it at all, but for me as a guitar player, no, I want this to be loud now. No, I want this to be loud. And then Dave's like, okay, dude, I get that, but this is why we have to do it this way. So for me it was trying to explain that to him, and we did find a medium to where it worked well, but it took Dave to kind of reality check me in certain moments we're like, yeah, you can't really do that because of this.

(01:05:48):

It will suck up this out of the mix, and then now all you're going to hear is just farty synth, and it's like, yeah, I definitely don't want that. So I think it was a balance between just working with Dave and being like, yeah, we need sent to pop more here. And then him working in the way he does his mix and to also bringing out what I envision in the hierarchy of sound too. And I learned a lot too from working with Dave and how he mixes and how things need to sit in the mix. I always reference, and I'm sure a lot of people do, they always reference the demos. You're like, but in a demo it's just wowed and it needs to cut that. And then it's just like, no, that's a demo dude. It's not supposed to sound anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):

Yeah. What about everything else that's playing in that part of the demo? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):

The demo doesn't tell an auditory story or it's not representative of a final package. That's why it's a freaking demo. But yeah, it is hard to get caught up like, oh, I can't hear that lick as well. Or Oh, Brandon hit that bass thing crazy in the demo, why can't I hear it as well here? It's like he probably played it different. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):

I think that the flip side to what I said earlier about you got to walk them through those non-traditional parts is on the musician side you got to be willing to make some concessions for the mix. The way that you hear it in your head is a fantasy. The reality of what speakers can reproduce is a whole other thing. And for anything to be in a mix, something else kind of needs to be sacrificed. There's a cost to everything, so you want to have loud orchestra, you're not going to really have loud orchestra and then loud technical riffs and then loud drums and then loud vocals and then loud leads and then bass. It's just got to make some choices basically. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):

Do you want to respond to the idea of it's a fantasy in your head? I think that data in my record is as close to how I can imagine it in my head. There are a couple moments where I wish we had even half a day longer. I think we could have really polished some of the parts where I'm still kind of like, ah, I hear it differently in my head. But we went out to Dave Otter's place in Colorado and we sat in the room and we listened to a song loud as fuck in his tuned room, and it was like a religious experience. We all just looked at each other kind of bleary-eyed like, oh my God, we've been working so hard on this. And he made it sound like we dreamt

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):

And

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):

I just want to give a major shadow to Dave Otero because I can't believe how it sounds, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):

I hit him up right after I heard it actually, to tell him how amazing it sounds. It really does.

Speaker 5 (01:08:59):

Yeah. He really, it's funny that you mentioned the fantasy thing. I am sure a lot of people do. They get caught up in the fantasy where it's like they hear it in their heads a certain way or a certain part pops a certain way, and that's where it comes to working with the mixing engineer and him giving you some insight into why things have to be this way because then you have to have the fantasy starts becoming a reality check. So it works and Dave was not only been able to replicate most of the fantasy that you hear in your head, but take it a step further into a direction that you didn't even think was possible. And that's why working with Dave was somewhat magical because that guy just gets it and he was doing stuff and bringing some shit out of Derek that I didn't even know Derek had in him. I'm like, holy shit, that's crazy, dude. Especially,

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):

We didn't even track with Dave, but there was a couple parts where for those of you who don't know, there's a housing area that you can stay at Dave's studio, which is pretty cool. And we brought a microphone in there just in case we wanted to track something. We knew we had a couple small things that we wanted to patch or something or other that we were going to have to do. So literally in the last hour I was there, it was just like, Hey, go in the booth real quick and get some shit done. And he was like, try this, try that, try this. And just working an hour or two vocally with him was really cool and got some really interesting takes. Justin mentioned the track called Automated Twilight, and we did a lot of vocal tracking for that in that hour or two and it sounds crazy. Yeah, I've never done vocals like that before and I'm excited for people to hear it.

Speaker 5 (01:10:59):

But

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):

Yeah, he pulled a lot out and I was super impressed with how he was able to collaborate with the songs because again, these songs aren't easy to understand the first time you hear them, and he probably had a few days, or I don't know how long you sent the demos to him in advance, but by the time I got to the studio, I got there a day or two later than the guys. He had an advanced knowledge of the songs and the riffs and he could hum every riff and he was able to be like, well, I like this part and I think it should be highlighted. He was able to contribute in a impactful way that I was super impressed with and look forward to working with him more in the future just based on how musically intelligent he is.

Speaker 5 (01:11:41):

Yeah, absolutely. Even with my singing parts, most of my singing parts weren't completed, so I did some at Dave's and he, he's got such a great sense of melody too that he was able to take some of the vocal takes and just have ideas of where the melody should go and some of the harmony, and I'm like, well, I never would've thought of that. And it turned out to be 10 times more epic than it originally was. It's crazy that it turned out the way it did because that was a moment for me in Automated Twilight, the singing, I was just so scared of what to do. I had no idea what to do, and I was honestly hoping Han because we asked Esan to do a guest vocal, but he's a really busy guy, so he wasn't able to do it, but I was hoping he would be able to figure it out. I love that guy's sense.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):

He's incredible.

Speaker 5 (01:12:37):

So I took a page out of his book and then really got down on some of his solo stuff and I was gotten a lepers too, and I'm thinking, okay, what can I do on this vocal part to even come anywhere near the insanity and epicness of what Esan is? So I really tried to just channel that as much as I could and having Dave know that, I'm like, yeah, we're trying to sound like that and have it sound like make it this really epic mountaintop kind of vocal sound, and Dave was able to like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, do this, this, this, this, and I'm going to do this and we're going to add harmony there. I'm like, oh shit, that's awesome, dude. I never would've been able to figure that out without Dave. So it's cool to work with someone who just gets it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):

He mixed a single for us to cover and he got it so well, when I told him what we were doing, he was all about finding a modern version of the vocal effect from the original, and really he really understood what we were trying to do with it and he didn't need to explain it. And it's the first time I've ever gotten in a mix back where I've just been like, well, all right, well, this is done. Cool. And that's not shitting on anybody. Everyone we've worked with is a great mixer, but it's the first time I've ever just gotten one back and just been like, all right, I got no mix notes.

Speaker 5 (01:14:08):

Yeah, that's a feeling not having to think about it and now like, oh, well what can I even say at this point? It's there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):

Our experience, even the mixes we had mixed notes on were still like, we could put this out and it would be perfect, but day to day, hour to hour, things change, but the first swing was incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):

What you're describing now in my opinion, is why a good producer is so valuable, a great producer, they'll bring the stuff out that you just didn't know you had. I think at the end of the day, that's basically it. The songs leave their place better than they went in, and whether that means that they just mixed it great or captured you in the best possible way or suggested things that just isn't your wheelhouse that you just wouldn't have thought of, whatever it is, big or small, the songs leave better than they went in, I think, and that's massive. That's worth it. That's totally worth it in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):

I think on the subject that we were talking about earlier, objectivity, they're also very objective observer because I met Dave the day that I got to the studio. He doesn't know my constraints or what I think is cool or what I'm willing to try or not, but I'm there to also be objective and take his suggestions for what he thinks is going to work best for the style of mixing that he's about to do for us. So it's kind of this cool empty slate of someone who doesn't necessarily understand your boundaries, who can be give that a shot and who am I to say no when somebody that we've hired to make us sound cool is telling me to do something that's going to potentially sound cool, and if it sucks, it sucks, but you got to try it because this person can help bring something up that you might not know was there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):

Yep. Have you guys worked with a great producer before that's not in the band. I mean,

Speaker 5 (01:16:43):

I think it's just been me in the room and then collabing with Derek and then Brandon and then Chris on parts getting opinions from everyone, sending it out to Ryan Williams at Metal Blade and getting his idea, just kind of hearing constructive criticism from people. But as a producer in the room, I've never really had that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):

It's pretty awesome, man. The first time that I had that happen, I don't know. It was transformative. It was transformative. The songs just got so much better it, the producer made the songs for us or anything, it was just they helped find the potential in the songs and I played so much better than if I was tracking myself just I'm talking about sko, so SKO was the first time that I was produced the concealer's record for death and just like nothing changed. It's not like I suddenly got better there. He knew the shit to say to get me to play better than I thought I was capable of. It's a rare gift a lot. It's a rare gift and I think that until you've experienced it, your song just getting that much better because someone is like, try this. It's hard to understand the value in it because it's like, well, we can record ourselves.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):

I think that I haven't even understood it's full value until this discussion right now it's pulling new ideas out of me about why it's important. And to be clear, we came to the studio with a 99% completed record. We didn't track much with him except for we got to do these four vocal lines or these eight vocal lines, and just that experience of being able to collaborate in that way, talking back and reflecting on it in this moment is like, oh shit. That was awesome and I hope you have the opportunity to do that again, and I think we're going to try to do more, spend more time at the studio next time and be more collaborative in that way.

Speaker 5 (01:19:07):

Yeah, definitely. Next record with Dave tracking vocals, it's also a more experimental record, so I'm really interested to see what you can pull out of us.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):

I mean, I'm sure it'll be great. I think there's something to be said for if you're really good at tracking yourself, for instance, the way that you know how to track yourself and edit yourself and all that. What I've noticed too is musicians like that who kind of have a flow, it's oftentimes it's good for them to track themselves or do their thing because just adding an engineer or a producer into that equation, you're probably going to be thinking faster than them about how you do your thing. So dialed into how you do your thing. And so I've noticed that sometimes that doesn't always work just because you're sitting there getting tracked by someone who doesn't move at your RRP M with the same types of things, and that can get a little weird, but I think that there's certain things where an outside producer I feel like really, really helps. I feel like it helps a lot with the overall songs, the structure, are they boring, just an objective look at this thing that you're so close to. And then also really for vocals, I find that that's really where a great producer makes their money is the vocals.

Speaker 5 (01:20:45):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Especially considering this is my first time having dealt with a producer slash and mixing and mastering engineer, that's a very rare thing like you mentioned. So it makes you just more grateful to even be in that situation and work with someone like that and have that ability to bounce ideas off someone like that as if they are another person in the band, which is cool.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):

Yeah, it's pretty awesome when you first hear your shit back and it sounds like better than you could have ever imagined or like you said, actually close to what you were imagining. That's pretty cool. That's also pretty transformative. I think

Speaker 3 (01:21:33):

An interesting part of the experience too was we had to step into the vocal booth and I was nervous because again, I barely know the dude. It's kind of like vulnerable thing, being in front of a microphone doing death metal vocals. It is pretty silly out of context. You're like, I don't know about y'all vocalists out there, but I'm yelling as loud as humanly possible at every second of my performance. It is not a comfortable thing. There's not much technique involved. It's pretty different every time I try and trying to capture that. So I was like, fuck, I got to do vocals with this dude, Dave, who through his work I've listened to for over 10 years, I love a lot of the records. He's mixed and it's like, oh man, what if I can't get through the line? So I kind of started, I was like, I apologize if I'm not able to get through the line, it might take a couple tries.

(01:22:34):

And he is like, is death metal? Of course you're not going to get through it. And it's like, okay. I was instantly so comfortable back to the topic we were discussing earlier, and he made it very easy and made me want to have more fun and get weirder at times instantly because he was like, this is going to sound dumb, but it'll probably sound cool in context. And just having a little bit of that confidence boost when you're in the studio really helps because you had asked if we'd ever worked with a producer and I've only ever worked with an Inand producer. I actually don't have that many records under my belt, but when I was in the faceless, we tracked with Mike Keane. And then when I tracked for my other project John from, I also tracked vocals with Mike, even though I had quit the Faceless, and then we finished some of the songs with the band on the east coast. So I've never had a person who's not in the band, and that was kind of scary for me as uncomfortable like, oh God, this guy might make fun of me if my voice cracks. I don't know. I get it. I make fun of myself if it does, and then this person I don't know is going to do it. Oh shit.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):

Yeah. The first time for me was, I dunno if you know, ska is an incredible guitar player, so for me, I was stressed the fuck out of not to play in front of him and look like an idiot and this is going to suck. And he's recorded all these great players and the other player in my band is incredible and was just like, dude, just punch in. It's fine. Don't worry about it. That's what we did. It was totally, it's not a big deal. And I've noticed that too when recording bands or even when we have people come on nail the mix, it's really similar. Get a lot of producers who do nail the mix who have never been on camera before. They've never talked about what they do, they just do it, and so they're nervous as fuck. They shouldn't be, but they are.

(01:24:47):

And it's understandable. I know public speaking is scary for a lot of people and the musicians are the ones who are used to being on camera and not mixers or producers generally. So I always tell 'em that you're just doing the thing you do every day and just talking about it and I'm going to be there and ask you questions about it and this'll be fun. This is what you do literally every day. The only difference is you're talking about it as opposed to sitting there by yourself, quiet this shit. If you didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Just talk about the thing and then once we get into it, one minute into it, they're fine. Always.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):

Yeah, it's weird. It's like a weird, the red light thing when it's on, immediately freak out even though it's like five seconds before you're just a normal person. It's really weird how that operates.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):

It still happens. It happens to me when I'm writing a riff even like, okay, I know this part's sick, I'm going to track it now. Nope, it's gone. Yeah, it's weird. But that's happened to me also when filming Playthroughs or something. I've been practicing the song, I can play it and then the camera comes on and I'm just tense. It's like playing like shit, and it takes two or three times through to calm down and just be like, okay, it's fine. But the first time through I'm just, yeah, I'm just tense and in fight or flight mode or something.

Speaker 5 (01:26:30):

Yeah, it's a weird feeling, but I dunno if this happens to you, but if you play in a crowd, it doesn't really happen.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):

No, it's weird. I guess the only time that it has happened for me in front of a crowd has been those really bad shows, the really bad ones where everybody fucking hates you and there's 15 of them. Those really bad early day shows would make me self-conscious, but never really live strictly like a recording thing.

Speaker 5 (01:27:03):

Yeah, it's weird, especially the Playthrough thing, like you mentioned some about Playthroughs Man, they just freak out in live streams. I did a couple live streams with Keel and oh my God, dude, it's so scary. But if I get on Twitch in my own, the comfort of my own studio is not a big deal, but for some reason, yeah, something about play throughs screwed me up, dude.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):

I think there's different psych outs live too, because when you play, you have to accept you're playing a show. There's other things that are more stressful, I think, than playing when you're playing a show like, oh God, is the battery going to run out in my ears? For example, on this last run we did, I left my boots backstage at a venue and I had to play four shows. All I brought on this tour were Crocs and my boots. Oh

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):

God.

Speaker 3 (01:27:51):

And we were on our way home. I'm not going to buy new shoes. I got plenty of shoes in the closet over here, so I had to play three or four shows in my Crocs and it felt really silly walking out from the stage and it was really silly and I was just like, this is what it's going to be. Somebody's probably going to make fun of me for this sucks. But it was. And then we only got one heckler and I defended the Crocs because they're comfortable. I wish they should make. That's awesome. Stage Crocs or something because man, they're good for your feet. I'll tell you what,

Speaker 5 (01:28:26):

The doc Croc crossover dot

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):

Crocs.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):

Yeah, no, you're right though. I think playing live, there's so many other things that can go wrong that you have to be continually improvising around, like shit, breaking the time that you start and end. Are you getting hit in the face flying by a projectile? There's so many.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):

How's that burger sitting?

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):

Yeah, you're going to shit on the stage. There's so many different factors live that I think that playing is just one of them. I think

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):

Even between songs, I get nervous. It's not about going on stage and playing, but I'm still getting used to playing in ears and understanding. A lot of our songs are queued in by samples or there's a lot of textural sample stuff, but if I have that in my ears during the song, it's really distracting and it'll cause me to mess up in the song. So I actually don't have those samples in my ears. So I'm trying to listen to front of house and make sure I'm talking enough or at the right time and I go, wait, is this one 30 seconds between the song before we start again? And then the click will snap me back to attention. But I get like, oh God, what's the first word of this song? Oh, is it this song or is it, I get distracted between? Because there's time to think, whereas when you're performing, you don't have time to think you've got a job to do and you know how to do it. It's pretty innate. I'm a new member at this point of this band. There's plenty of other songs that I've never performed. So a lot of the lyrics aren't ingrained into my head. And if I miss the first word of the song or if I am questioning it, the whole string is broken.

(01:30:26):

Or if I miss a word somewhere in the center, it's hard for me to get back on. So I get kind of stressed out thinking about, all right, I better start the train on time or else it's going to derail. And then it's like, and I'm like, oh fuck, let's go. I get away from those intrusive thoughts. So I think there's something about all the other shit that can happen while you're playing that playing becomes the least stressful thing and it's like, you're just an autopilot

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):

Man. Those thoughts are a real problem for me. I've been trying to pay attention to them a lot like those distracting thoughts because when playing something, because it's one of those things where if my attention diverts for a second, then I'm still, it's like I lost lost. How do you deal with that?

Speaker 3 (01:31:23):

That's a great question. I think the biggest way of not dealing or of dealing with that rather, is we have decided as a band to not drink beer before we play at any point in the day. We discovered that I ride a motorcycle sometimes too, and it's made me very keen to how much a drink can impact your reaction or judgment or ability to perform at your best ability. But we were jamming at this spot, renting a spot. It was next door to a brewery, and we finally were feeling comfortable with the set and we were like, stick, let's go have a drink, like a victory drink. Then we'll come back and run the set a couple more times. We had a beer and we came back and it was just like we could not perform a song. And so staying clear minded before we play I think is a big part of keeping those intrusive thoughts out and just making sure that we're focused on the job at hand, which is putting on a good show and playing these incredibly difficult songs at the highest ability that we can, and just making sure that the focus is clear, that we're there to have a good time and people are there to have a good time.

(01:32:35):

And ultimately it's entertainment. And entertainment is cool, entertainment is fun. So I think that helps me rationalize what we're doing and not, I take it very seriously when we're performing, but part of taking it seriously is understanding that it's supposed to be fun. I think a lot of it's muscle memory too. I've been performing Death Metal for a long fucking time now. It's easy for me. I don't really practice vocals. I mentioned earlier, I don't have any technique. I just show up and I perform the songs. It's second nature. So really the stuff that I was mentioning earlier is just kind the funny thoughts that happen, not having stage writer or actually concerned, but sometimes we have a minute between a song because something has to happen and a minute's a long time, man, it's

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):

A long time

Speaker 3 (01:33:28):

And you can have thousands of thoughts in a minute. And until I hear the starting bell of I'm pretty lost, I'm in my own thoughts and then instinct kicks in. I think it's funny, I played most of my career without any ear monitors, so it's easy just to kind of get, and as a vocalist with no script to say shit between songs. I'll just rant about my day or talk about something funny or whatever video game came out that week or I don't know what I'm talking about, but my favorite dude is Frank Mullen. And then, oh yeah, parents just going like, they're playing the Jaws theme when Frank is going a little too off the deep end. And that's pretty funny when you're a band that doesn't play to a click. Maybe they do now for all I know. A lot of bands are on it now, but yeah, it is pretty funny to snap your front man back into place, or the drummer just counts in the song and interrupts you because you're rambling.

(01:34:34):

So it is less about like, oh man, I'm going to suck tonight. I never really think I'm going to suck tonight. And even if I do, I typically leave the sage being like, oh, actually that was pretty sick. We're good. Even if it wasn't my best. We're still a pretty cool band, and I think just trying to stay positive and keeping things in context that we're playing extreme death metal on a pretty small circuit to a very niche crowd, and people are there to enjoy the music and we're there to enjoy playing it. I think that helps.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):

Yeah, I think that's a good ending thought. I want to thank you both for taking the time to hang out. It's been an absolute pleasure and totally serious. The record is great,

Speaker 4 (01:35:25):

Man. Thank you

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):

For

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):

Yeah. Thank you for having us. To anybody listening, we are the Zenith passage. We've got a new record Data Lium coming out on July 21st via Metal blade records. Check it out.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):

Check it out. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some of 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 EY at urm. Do A-C-A-D-Y and use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:20):

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.