KANE CHURKO: The “Song Is King” Philosophy, Recording Cymbals Separately, and Mastering Your Own Mixes

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Mick DSP professional audio plugins. For over 15 years, Mick DSP has continued producing industry acclaimed and award-winning software titles. The podcast is also brought to you by Slate Digital, all the Pro plugins. One more monthly price. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and

Speaker 2 (00:26):

Eyal Levi. Hey guys, welcome to Tips and Tricks. We've got Kane Churko here, Kane, how you feeling?

Speaker 1 (00:32):

Feeling good. Good.

(00:33):

We've got some rapid fire questions for you as well as talking about some insider stuff, kind of your preferences on what you like to do and tips and tricks. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:43):

Let's do it. Well, hey, before we get into that, Kane, you're a huge proponent of Dfx Excite. Why don't you tell us what you're using it on and what you're liking?

Speaker 4 (00:50):

Yeah, no, I mean, to be honest, I've had it for maybe two or three weeks now or a month or so, and I use it on every mix. I'm always on my drum bus, sometimes an extra one, maybe on my overheads or my rooms. I've used it on just hats. I've thrown it on lots of percussion tracks and especially if there's stereo loops and stuff like that. I find it's just quick at bringing out, carving those things out better, and I've thrown it on guitar, I've thrown it on bass, but isn't it so great on loops though?

Speaker 2 (01:23):

That's where I think it really helps.

Speaker 4 (01:25):

I think so too. Especially I had one session, it was perfect timing. It was one of the first things I tried to plug in out on, and it was a rock session that I got that someone else produced. I won't say who, but it was all made of stereo drum loops that were different kits and just forehand at once and stuff like that. It was kind of a nightmare trying to The whole song. Yeah, literally I was sending them a note back saying, actually, can you send me the drum? And I got a note back saying, there is none. They just produce the song with these stock drum loops that they just cut up and

Speaker 2 (01:59):

Octopus drummer

Speaker 4 (02:00):

And a well-known producer who got paid good and all that stuff. So it always just blows my mind when I get stuff like that or whatever. I mean, there's always something, but that was a whole other league of terrible. But it's great for situations like that where I still liked their hat that was in their stereo loop, and even though I added all my other samples as kind of the foundation of the kit so I could mix things a little better, it was great at sort of carving out their overheads and stuff within those loops and kind of making a lot with a little. I think what makes it so great is it's a good broad stroke tool where I can carve something in a lot of different ways really quickly with just a few knobs and I don't have to think about it too much. And it's great that as well as, I mean, I try to use it in a way where if I EQ and do all my treatment to something, as much as I like it and I get my whole drum mix down in as good as I think I can, and then I throw that on there and just try to see if I can make it better, and I find if I can make it always 5% better just by moving one or two of four knobs, then heck yeah, I'm going to use it on every mix.

(03:11):

Well, that's awesome

Speaker 3 (03:12):

To hear. We're glad that you like it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (03:13):

It sort of is that magic finalizer that you can put on your drum bus or whatever it is, your loop or whatever, that kind of gives you that extra 5%, and I hope that anyone listening to this or whatever can see that's kind of what we were aiming for. It's kind of hard to convey that obviously, but I'm just glad that you found it and that it worked well for you.

Speaker 4 (03:34):

No, those are my favorite kinds of plugins are things like that, especially new things like that. I mean, I don't need another version of an EQ or another version of a compressor and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:44):

Already got your favorites.

Speaker 4 (03:45):

I already got my favorites and I got 10 different favorites to choose from. So it's like my favorite plugins are sort of the things that have a little more voodoo to them, and they don't have to do something miraculous. They just have to consistently make something a little bit better. My favorite plugins are the things that take very little work and make something a little better every time.

Speaker 3 (04:03):

Well, let's talk about some of your favorite plugins.

Speaker 4 (04:06):

Aside from D FX side, of course, I love all the slate plugins, slate Digital, VCCV, T-M-V-M-R, the whole suite that they have. Everything's just really good and to me sounds really good and looks nice and all that too. I love Mic DSP stuff. They make a lot of good things that I use on every mix. I probably depend on their bundle for the most number of plugins, and I love their automated eq. I think it's the AE 400 or something. It's great. I use that on tons of things, vocals, guitars, drums. I love the Futz Box. I use Futz Box probably almost every mix in some sort of way, even just like on a drum bus and stuff to dial in a little bit of nastiness into the mix of the drum bus and stuff for lofi vocals, telephone vocals, low-fi sounding guitars. It's a good tool for someone who makes a lot of industrial music. I mean, trigger of course was the lifesaver when I found that and didn't have to manually replace drum samples anymore. Were

Speaker 2 (05:07):

You doing the tab to transient copy paste?

Speaker 4 (05:10):

Yep, and I had it set up as a quick key with Quick Keys back then before there was Batch Commander and stuff. So I could just type one button and it would do the macro and lay the sample 500 times across the transient or whatever. What do

Speaker 2 (05:23):

You think about Steven Slates Batch Commander?

Speaker 4 (05:25):

Wonderful. I'm still at the beginning of a really dialing everything I want to do into it, but that's probably one of the best tools you can get, to be honest. Just as far as time saving, and if you're like me and you like shortcuts and you just don't like wasting time, I count how long it takes to turn my computer on, and if I got to turn that computer on 365 times a year, let alone crashes and stuff, and I save more money by buying a new computer, then I'm going to buy a new computer to save me an extra 30 seconds of startup time every day or whatever.

Speaker 2 (06:03):

Absolutely. Well, I think the first step to making a workflow more efficiently is to get something like the Batch Commander or a Quick Keys or some kind of automator because there are a lot of repetitive tasks involved in doing what we do, and the first step is eliminating all of those and making the computer do the work,

Speaker 5 (06:24):

Especially if you're a Pro Tools user, because there's no way to script that stuff in to Pro Tools. You have to use a third party application like Quick Keys or Batch Commander.

Speaker 2 (06:36):

Now if you're on cubase, you've got your built-in Logical editor, which is great. Also Macro Editor and Key Command Editor, but the Pro Tools guys aren't as lucky. So Quick Keys, batch Commander, those things are all really great. Is Quick Keys still in development?

Speaker 5 (06:52):

No, the guy died, I don't even know. Oh, wow. Years ago. That's why the development stopped, so it's kind frozen in time.

Speaker 4 (07:00):

I mean, batch Commander definitely works way better for me than Quick Keys did. But yeah, I mean it's amazing. I mean, I'll use it for simple things, even just to move mid up or down in Octave and just little things that I do a bunch of times all the time. I've been trying to make my own little presets and stuff.

Speaker 5 (07:18):

So the name of the game is save as much time wherever possible in any way, shape or form, I

Speaker 4 (07:26):

Think like a programmer, and break everything down that you have to do to a sequence of steps and try to minimalize it to the least amount of steps possible to do that. Whatever it is, whatever you do, I mean there's nothing more valuable than your own time and you're just wasting your own time if you're not trying to make everything as functional and efficient as possible without sacrificing anything.

Speaker 2 (07:51):

Yeah, truer words have never been spoken,

Speaker 5 (07:53):

And since you do a lot of writing, I'm sure that you being an I guess ultimate flow state is super important, and if you're wasting a bunch of time with just making the computer do things that will interfere with your flow state

Speaker 4 (08:10):

Completely. I mean, usually I'm doing everything at once. Lots of the time when I'm writing, I'm still kind of producing it at the same time and everything, so it's very important for me to stay sort of creative and in the zone the whole time and stuff. So definitely making things easy and functional and making sure everything works ahead of time. I mean hate even when I'm working in a room that's too big and I have to get out out of my chair to go get a guitar, I just want to turn left and grab my guitar. I love it and pick it up, and I just want to turn right and sing background vocals into the mic as I'm thinking of them on the spot. And I am very much in the beginning of working on something. I'm trying to go as fast as I can without getting hung up on anything. And for me, most of a song kind of comes out of that and then it's like the last 20% of it takes 80% of the time, and that's the tweaking and the mixing and the sorting out all this stuff I did really quickly and making redoing what I need to and reverse engineering anything I need to and stuff. And it's usually more important to just capture, capture, capture until you can't.

Speaker 5 (09:21):

So do you have everything perma routed?

Speaker 4 (09:22):

For the most part, I mean, I've always at least got everything I need to sing and to play guitar ready to go, and we always have a drum kit ready and I've got all my midi controllers and stuff ready to go all the time. And of course session templates. So I have a base plugin open and a drum kit open and an electronic kit open and every kind of percussion,

Speaker 2 (09:42):

I think that's huge

Speaker 4 (09:43):

Percussion thing I need right away. So instantly we got loops and percussion behind what we're writing to and just maybe things that are a little random, like stylus or something.

Speaker 3 (09:54):

What are some of your favorite programs that you use? For example, you just mentioned stylists, which is something I absolutely fricking love. I know it's really old, but that's one of my favorite libraries.

Speaker 4 (10:04):

I like things like that that will maybe inspire something unexpected if I'm just playing a random loop and randomizing the groove or whatever and all of a sudden find a cool groove I like or I'm just jamming to it or have a guitar player jamming to it and I'm just cycling through different things and we just jamming really a lot of the time and tools that inspire that or at least being able to really quickly put together sort of a bed that sounds like production, I find is really inspirational to the process for the artists. Maybe not using their imagination as much for listening to the production and stuff, and I can be like, oh, we don't need bass yet. We'll put that on at the end because that doesn't matter. To write in a good song, we just need to write good melody, good words, good top line, good chords.

(10:51):

We can figure out where all the chug and chug chugs on the guitar are after and where you want the nuances of the beats and stuff to be. But let's just get this really big picture sketch, I guess, of the song almost like let's get a pencil sketch as quick as we can and then let's start inking it and then let's decide what the colors should be, and then let's decide what size we get it printed at or whatever. It's very, I just find it's important to stay moving and the worst parts are when you stop and if you get hung up on something, I'll get hung up on it for way too long. So I'd rather just think of anything. I mean for me, almost any idea is a good idea until I have a better idea. That's great.

Speaker 2 (11:34):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:34):

If I'm working on a song and I'm writing a course and I don't think that course is as good as it can be, well that course is staying until I think of a better course, and I'm not going to just sit there and bang my head against the wall thinking of that course. I'm just going to work on the verse for a little bit and add some more production or some loops or maybe try some background vocal parts that make the course work differently or something and have a call and response thing or a chant somewhere or whatever.

Speaker 5 (11:59):

Now, how does that translate when you're mixing say a tone isn't as good as you think it should be?

Speaker 4 (12:06):

I try to work as much in the box as I can, so I mean, I'm changing tones until the day I'm handing in the Masters, same here a lot of the time, I mean there's so many, we've been literally, we are always up against the gun. Everything's always last minute. People always need things yesterday and then a week later they're asking you for the same files that they already have all over again and Oh, I hate that I'm rushing happened to me last week. It's not sleeping for 36 hours straight. They say they need it by 2:00 PM and then I find out that that was their soft deadline and they don't need it till Thursday later in the week or something.

Speaker 3 (12:42):

Joey's got a really brilliant way of handling that. Oh,

Speaker 2 (12:45):

What do you do? Wait, remind me what it is before it. You

Speaker 3 (12:47):

Don't give a shit when they're like, it needs to be done at two. Like, cool, and then you just turn it in three days later and then it's just like, fuck off.

Speaker 2 (12:53):

Yeah, well, you know where I got that from. I got that from Colin Richardson. The guy just does not give a shit about any of that because all he cares about is what it sounds like,

Speaker 4 (13:03):

And

Speaker 2 (13:04):

I try to do that wherever I can liberally, but of course some people get pissed off and go somewhere else with their business, but I'm just like, I don't give a shit.

Speaker 4 (13:14):

I mean, I think it's important to set precedent, and I try to do that just in ways of not making myself too accessible. Sometimes if I wait a day to respond to everybody's email, then everyone just expects that I take a day to respond to their email. But if I respond to everyone's email within five minutes of getting it, then they're all like, why aren't you replying to my email yet?

Speaker 2 (13:37):

Yeah, you used to respond five minutes.

Speaker 4 (13:40):

Exactly. So I mean, on my business cards, I usually don't give up my cell number and stuff like that. I don't want to be too accessible If I'm on vacation and they can't reach me, it's not my fault that I can't get them the file.

Speaker 3 (13:53):

Oh, I love that.

Speaker 4 (13:54):

But if I can see all the text messages coming in and on my phone, I'm driving to the studio in a panic, trying not to sabotage someone's album project,

Speaker 3 (14:06):

I turn off my phone on the weekends and when I go on vacation, I completely disconnect myself from the internet. And if you have a problem, guess what?

Speaker 4 (14:14):

That's good. That's good. I mean, I'd like to do that. I mean, if I didn't have to have a phone, I hate them. I hate being accessible.

Speaker 5 (14:24):

Hey guys, Al here, and I just want to take a moment to talk to you about this month on Nail The Mix. If you're already a subscriber, thank you so much. We appreciate the hell out of you. But if you're not and you want to seriously up your mixing game, then you might want to consider Nail the Mix. This month we have a guest mixer, Mr. Kane Chico, and he will be mixing Face Everything and Rise by Papa Roach. And when you subscribe, you get the multi-tracks that he recorded and produced, you download them, you can enter a mix competition with prizes by Mc DSB, you get an Emerald Pack version six, that's like a $1,600 software package, plus the winner also gets one year of everything bundle from Slate. So really, really good prize package for our mix competition winners. We've also got a second place package that rules and yeah, if you join Nail the Mix, you also get bonus access to our exclusive community, which is other audio professionals and aspiring professionals just like you who just dork out on this stuff all day and night and love spreading knowledge. It's troll free. And so whether you noob or experienced, it's a great place to just come talk about the thing we all share, which is a love for audio. So once again, if you haven't subscribed to Nail the Mix yet, this might be a great month to try. You get to learn how Kane Chiko mixed the number one single face everything and Rise by Papa Roach. Just go to nail the mix.com/papa Roach. That's nail the mix.com/papa Roach.

Speaker 3 (16:15):

Actually, I'll tell you a funny story. So Trapped had done this acoustic album, might as well dropped names and I had mastered it and I went to Russia and I told them, I'm like, guys, I'm going to Russia for a month and a half, not like I'm not going to be available, period. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, make sure you let your label know that. And they check the DDP. Well, Chris told me to switch one of the tracks on it and I get back and I've got a hundred freak out texts from Chris and I'm like, yeah, so I can get it now that I'm back. But had you actually emailed me when I was in Russia, I could have had my assistant do it, but there you go. So it got resolved and it was fine, but you know what I mean, it, it's amazing how little things like, oh, we forgot to check the DDP label, and

Speaker 4 (17:00):

It's always the label side. They always fuck it up. They're always the ones asking for the instrumental or the TV mix nine months later when they should have asked for it in the first place and it wasn't even in the contract. And now they just want a free, alternate alternate version of the mix nine months later and you're trying to figure out how to even recall some plugging that doesn't work the same way or whatever and pulling an old system up and yeah,

Speaker 3 (17:26):

It's amazing how much the world doesn't actually end. I know it doesn't. It doesn't, for sure. Alright, okay. And this is how this is going to go down. I'm going to call off a thing like snare drum or something like that and then you're going to divulge whatever you'd like to about how you would record it and then how you would mix it, whatever your chains are or your favorite things or any cool tricks or anything.

Speaker 4 (17:49):

You

Speaker 3 (17:49):

Don't have to give away anything that you don't want to, but the more you share, the more happy cool points you get. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:56):

Yeah, just go for your go-to. Cool.

Speaker 3 (17:58):

Yeah. Okay, so here we go. Snare drum.

Speaker 4 (18:01):

I like low deep snares. We'll often tune the snare so low that if you hit it too hard it's going to break. I just like it to smack and kind of punch through almost like an electronic snare drum. So tuning wise, that's what I usually gravitate towards too. If I'm recording the snare drum or picking out a sample, there's probably not a single mix that I don't use Slate trigger on in some way. Mixing some of my samples in with a song. So that's definitely a go-to. And little DFX light on there doesn't hurt either. Okay. Vocals? Vocals. I am so consistently regular with what I do that I've pretty much used an Avalon 7 37 and a distress on most vocals I've recorded for the past 15 years. Hey, if it works, it works, right? Totally. I mean, we've got a couple extra things like maybe with this Retro S compressor that's cool that we'll use from time to time, but typically that we got these paluso mics that we use a lot for vocals that we've used for years. If it's a rock vocal with maybe more abrasive voice, it never hurts to do SM seven broadcast microphone. Cool. And yeah, those are my two go-tos for sure.

Speaker 3 (19:13):

Doesn't your dad, I remember reading an article he likes, what is it, waves Max volume on his vocals or something like that? We

Speaker 4 (19:19):

Used to use that. I don't think we've used that as much these days, but we've used that in the past and we always have some sort of parallel compression going or I love compressor plugins that have a mix knob, really. Any plugin with a mix knob I fricking love because I can just slam every setting and just dial it into how I like it.

Speaker 3 (19:40):

Okay. Distorted heavy rhythm electric guitars.

Speaker 4 (19:44):

I love this camper profiler that we use a lot. We both have one and for me, I just got so many sounds in there that I like and that I know that I like. And if someone has anything cool gear wise, like some cool head or amp that they bring, I model it on day one and I'll do the test with them and a it for them and try to see if they can pick out which one's the real one and which one's the modeled one. And they've never been able to do it. So I prefer that. And in the box choices, like maybe pod farm or something, just because the flexibility and mix wise, I want to be able to, I'm mixing as I produce and I'm mixing as I record and I'm mixing through my master chain and I'm trying to listen to how it's going to be in the end from day one.

Speaker 3 (20:26):

You got a favorite pod farm Amp?

Speaker 4 (20:28):

Good question. I probably do. I mean I use that one a lot for bass actually. And I think it's the Jaguar amp in there that I love on bass a lot, but every project we do, I always keep presets of everything and make presets of everything. So I'm always deferring like, oh, let me use this tone from whatever album and using my own presets over and over again.

Speaker 3 (20:53):

That's awesome. We do that a lot too. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (20:55):

I mean you blend it differently and I might combine the double tracks or the Papa Roach guitar tone, but the main tracks are in this moment tone and it makes something different for that album or whatever. And you go with what works, but then you try to improve it. Sweet. What about bass? Even though

Speaker 3 (21:11):

You already kind of touched on it slightly.

Speaker 4 (21:13):

Yeah, I mean I just want a good clean di, I just want to make sure that signals as clean and unaffected as it can be so I can experiment as much as I can later. A lot of the times, to be honest, when I'm recording, I'm thinking less about the tones, just kind of knowing in my head that I can try different million different amp options later. So usually I'm just getting things to a point where people aren't offended by the tones and they can live with them while tracking and then when they leave then I'm flipping through all the options and hopefully finding something that they like better too or whatever. And just flexibility, anything that has flexibility for bassing guitars.

Speaker 3 (21:56):

Okay.

Speaker 4 (21:56):

Symbols. Symbols. I usually record all my symbols including a high hat separate from the kit. So I'll record just kick and snare and Toms and then just high hat and then just symbols so that way I can mix them as loud as I want or as quiet as I want wherever I want. And I can still slam the rooms on the rest of the kit as much as I want and all that kind of stuff. So we, it's like the manual way of programming a kit, if that makes sense. So I think that contributes a lot to,

Speaker 3 (22:27):

Do you have a favorite pair of symbol mics?

Speaker 4 (22:31):

I don't, I mean, I can't even remember what we have up there now. We've switched stuff out from time to time. If I was over by the room, I'd tell you, but what I was using last, but the funny thing is we've never had even a tremendous amount of gear that we don't use. So it's always just come down to here's the best mic we have now. And then when we get the next one, we move to something slowly better or we try something different. But I always use stereo overheads with a mono overhead in the middle. And then just, I think recording them separate just allows me lots of flexibility with the tone. And there's a big reason our drums I think sound the way they do. And there's the clarity where you can hear every ride hit, you can hear every splash, you can hear every hat hit. And even if they're just playing the foot hat, I can get it super loud and it doesn't bring all the other mess up and stuff. So to me that's even more important than the mic because we've used crappy mics and we've used good mics and done gold records with both. Alright,

Speaker 3 (23:23):

And last but not least, mastering Chain.

Speaker 4 (23:26):

I am a master's worst enemy. For some reason. Mastering guys just, they just don't like me. And Joey

Speaker 3 (23:36):

And I have master our own stuff too,

Speaker 4 (23:37):

And they never seem to get along with me. I always say something wrong that offends 'em and they're, you killed my

Speaker 3 (23:44):

Snare asshole.

Speaker 4 (23:46):

Yeah, I think it's my nature to sort of be an anti purist. So I think master a lot of the time come from more of a purist angle of technicality, whereas I'm like, if it sounds good, it's good. If I like it and it's exactly how I want it, then that's the way I want it. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (24:08):

They get mad at that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (24:10):

They do. I mean every master I've talked to and I would love to find the master that gives me something that's way better than what I have. But anytime I've even had to do tests willingly or unwillingly, it just comes back slightly different and usually not different in a way that I don't want. And I'm thinking of so many things. Like I said, while I'm mixing, I'm usually mixing through a stereo bus with my mastering tools on it, mastering in the box. So the mix, the finish print of the mix is the Finish Master, and it sounds exactly how I want it. So if anything changes compression wise about anything, I notice it and I'm like, well, that's not the mix anymore. I don't know. I mean for me, a master master is going to hate this even more if I say this. Hopefully I don't offend anybody that I know that I do like because I do have mastering friends, but not anymore. No, not many. But in the modern way, recording in the digital way in the box wave recording a master to me is almost a guy that mixes one stereo track it almost a mixer that mixes one stereo track. So the way I see it is if I'm mixing a 200 track session, why can't I be responsible for mixing my stereo master?

Speaker 5 (25:23):

Makes sense.

Speaker 4 (25:24):

Even I can't even imagine most of the time having it be part of my workflow to send something out because I'm changing the mix until I hand in the master. So I don't even have time to wait on something back or to get them to take something out last minute. And I think most of the time our choice to master our stuff has come from reactive necessity as opposed to wanting to do it. I mean, I hate mastering other people's stuff. It's a nightmare. It's the worst thing, worst thing ever. So back

Speaker 5 (25:54):

To what you said about being able to make gold records with good mics or bad mics. I've heard that sort of thing from lots of different guys. I think that you're not alone in that sentiment. And also guys who have no problem mixing big records on stock plugins, how important do you think good gear is? Or do you think that's secondary to everything else?

Speaker 4 (26:19):

I think good gear is more important when you're at a much more sophisticated level of working. In the beginning it's not important. I mean, it's a tough question. Yeah. Will a better piece of gear to someone that knows how to use that piece of gear properly make something better for the listener? Will it make it more interesting? Maybe not. Will it always make it better? No, it won't. I don't think there's one piece of gear that makes everything better a hundred percent of the time, no matter how expensive or vintage or romantically cool it is, there's just a different tool can be the right tool for the job every time you got to do that job. So for me at this point in even production, I really think I can make a hard rock record with one or two microphones, one microphone to record hi hat and one microphone to record vocals, and you give me a Kemper profiler and just whatever my mic preset up and think make, I could have made Face Everything and rise like that. I could have made most of the records I've done the last few years like that if I had to. Now that being said, of course I have a studio with more stuff and more options and all that and things to make the process faster. I wouldn't be able to produce a record as fast on a laptop with one mic as I would having what we have, but I think I can make it creatively as good and even in a lot of ways probably sonically as good. I mean just because in the box anyway.

Speaker 5 (27:45):

So it's more just a workflow thing. More gear equals more stations and more chances for efficiency.

Speaker 4 (27:53):

Yeah, I mean I think for us at this point when we buy gear, it's never because we need it at this point. We just want to try something different. Maybe we're just bored. We know we've recorded our drums the same way for the last two years and we're like, well, what's the turco drum sound of 2016 going to be? Let's experiment. Let's tune a snare a little higher this time. Let's try. It's making a different batch of samples and stuff like that. But the reality is the first two Death Punch records dad did, he recorded in a house that we lived in Vegas. The drums were set up in the dining room, there was mics in the kitchen and everything was the cheapest of everything that we pretty much had. But Dad was an awesome mixer and he knows how to work pro tools better than anybody on a mixing level.

(28:43):

And he made it work. And we've done albums where we've had one mike. I mean, if we're talking even 10 years ago when we're new to the states and stuff, we didn't have a lot of gear. We didn't have a proper room, we didn't have, dad was doing mixes on headphones and having drives be sent to him, and we're just always working by ourself and reverse engineering something and figuring out how to play something we can't and stuff. So it's like, yeah, you gives you better options, it'll make something maybe technically better. It's maybe some gear more fun to use. But if I could have a plugin for everything, I would use that plugin. And if that plugin had one knob, I would use that one knob plugin.

Speaker 5 (29:23):

So really at the end of the day, it all comes down to the skill of the user. That's what really matters.

Speaker 4 (29:29):

I think nowadays it does. I mean obviously there's different kinds of producers. Someone like me, I'm kind of a glorified bedroom producer in a sense that I grew up working in bedrooms and working out of home studio environments. And then eventually we had a commercial spot. But our commercial spot is streamlined for us to the point where we have our patch bay in a central spot. So I can use the same gear in dad's control room from my control room and any room can record through the drum preamps that are already set up just by switching at the patch bay and stuff. So we are still very much set up for just our flow and just keeping things going. But yeah, I mean there's no piece of gear in my head right now that I'm like, oh, I wish I had that so I could do this with it. Anything I feel like I want to do, or I can imagine in my head, I could do with whatever you give me.

Speaker 5 (30:24):

That makes sense.

Speaker 4 (30:26):

I'll figure out a way.

Speaker 5 (30:28):

How did you get to the point where it doesn't matter what you're working on? Is it from working on multiple different environments or is it having tons of reference material or is it just having a dad to learn from who's awesome?

Speaker 4 (30:46):

I'm sure it's a mix of both, but I think lots of it's just sort of experience of working with what you have. And for me, I'm a songwriter. I like to spend time by myself. And when I got home from guitar lessons, I was like, let me be alone in my room and write a song. And I started singing just because I didn't know any singers and I wanted to write songs and I had to record them. So I had to look, learn kind of how to sing, and I had to learn how to play any instrument pro tools. I was mostly, I was pretty isolated growing up, actually. I grew up my teenage years. I grew up in Switzerland and it was all French speaking there when I moved there, so I couldn't really speak to anybody.

(31:30):

And we had a bomb shelter in our house. Every house has a bomb shelter in Switzerland. And dad brought a pro tools rig from Mutts Studio when I was 14. And I've had Pro Tools for 15 years since I was 14. And because of that, I've only ever had one mic most of my life. So I had to learn how to use that one mic to do everything I needed to do. I've only had one preamp most of the time, or a limitation of tools. So you learn how to solve problems with other things. You learn from mixing other people's songs that are a horrible bedroom recording maybe or something. You learn how to make a horrible bedroom recording sound like it was done in an expensive studio. And when you have something even moderately well done, you can make it sound amazing.

Speaker 5 (32:16):

Do you think that beginners obsessing over gear and plugins is misprioritized?

Speaker 4 (32:24):

Yes, I do. I do. And maybe that's just the songwriter in me, but I think there's a lot to be learned from even worlds like the hip hop world where it's generally less of a technical approach to songwriting and making tracks. And it's more, let's say, instinctive and reactive. And it's sometimes just a guy mouthing a beat and then a guy just recreates that beat on a drum loop or whatever. And if you have a good hook idea, if you have whip whip na and a, it's going to be a great song or it's going to be a product and it doesn't take engineering that properly or having a hundred tracks in it to make it sellable or to make it interesting for whoever the market is. I think, I mean, yeah, sure. If I was recording classical music, I would love to be able to record live string sections through all the best quality gear.

(33:18):

But I mean, with pop music, with rock music, I think you can do so much with almost nothing. And it really just comes down to does it feel good when you play it for someone, does it make their head Bob? Does it make them smile? Does someone go, fuck? Yeah, I love that. I mean, I'm so used to writing with my friends and stuff, or they'll bring me an idea or I'll bring them an idea or my dad too, and we can sing a chorus to each other that doesn't even have words, but sometimes it just either feels like it's a catchy awesome course or not even without the words. And if you just have that, you already have, to me, half of the hard part really done. And the recording part is just going through the motions and figuring out how to get to a finished product. But I mean, the idea is king, the song is king. You can have a crappy recording and a great song, and it will trump an awesome recording of a crappy song every time, I think.

Speaker 5 (34:17):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's all the questions I've got. Do you guys have anything else? I'm good. Killer Ka, thank you for coming on and doing two episodes with us and being so

Speaker 4 (34:29):

Open. Oh, thanks for having me

Speaker 5 (34:30):

Open and awesome. And

Speaker 4 (34:32):

No, it's cool. I mean, I love what you guys are doing and I've learned a lot myself from watching videos and stuff on the net podcasts and stuff too, just like these. I mean, I love that stuff. So I think anyone out there doing that is doing the right thing for sure by listening to what you guys are doing and taking the tips that apply to them and finding out new ways to do things. And I mean, even myself, I find I work in a bubble so much where I don't really know how other people do stuff. I don't even know what's unique about how I do stuff. I just don't know what other people do. And I think these kind of platforms are just great to be able to see all that and learn more than what your audio school teacher is teaching you or the studio you're interning at is teaching you. And just finding new better ways because there's always a new better way,

Speaker 5 (35:21):

For sure. Well, you might not know what other people are doing, but you definitely know what you like.

Speaker 4 (35:27):

For sure. I mean, I'm an asshole about knowing what I like, where I feel like I know what I like so specifically that I hate anything that's not bad,

Speaker 2 (35:37):

That's strong, man.

Speaker 4 (35:39):

But I think that's how I approach making hopefully good songs or whatever is I don't listen to a lot of the music that I do style wise. I'm not a hard rock music listener to be honest. But I approach it from how do I make someone like this band that has never listened to this band or hasn't bought their previous record, how do I make everyone else like it that doesn't already like it? And I find I usually fall into that category. So once I get around to liking it, I find usually other people do, other people do too. If you love something other people, someone else is going to love it too. And you just got to kind of trust that and find those people.

Speaker 5 (36:19):

For sure. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you very much for coming on.

Speaker 4 (36:23):

Yeah, it was awesome. Thanks, Ken. Thanks again. My pleasure. Thanks guys.

Speaker 1 (36:26):

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