JOEY STURGIS, JOEL WANASEK, & EYAL LEVI: The Mac vs. PC Debate, Studio Acoustics, and Speaker Placement

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Savior Custom drums, quality crafted drums, handmade in Denver, Colorado, and now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:24):

Maybe we can talk about a little bit about Mac versus pc.

Speaker 3 (00:29):

I've got one thing to say about Mac versus PC and fuck Mac and that's it. And I'm not even going to back that up with any commentary or any opinion. Just fuck Mac and I'm going to leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (00:40):

I want to know actually what all the PC look, I know a lot of pro dudes who use PCs, and it didn't use to be that way like 10 years ago when I switched to Mac, but now a bunch of people that I know use PCs like you guys. Andrew Wade uses a pc. John Browne monuments uses PCs. Just a bunch of people who I know who are not idiots and not beginners use PCs for recording. It used to be that it was just like idiots really. I mean, seriously, let's be real. About 10 years ago when home recording started to become a thing, if you owned a pc, you were an idiot or a total noob. And I had my car on audio PC and stuff, and I also had a server that I had handbuilt and I didn't do dumb shit. And eventually they all just degenerated into garbage. I don't know, man. Now everybody I know with Max seems to have lots of problems with them. I have lots of problems with mine.

Speaker 4 (01:46):

Well, where I think the whole PC thing started, and correct me if I'm wrong, I could be, but I feel like there was a period of time where the only way you could get a PC was to go to Circuit City or some store like that and you bought

Speaker 2 (02:05):

Micro Center.

Speaker 4 (02:05):

Yeah, and you would buy fucking

Speaker 2 (02:07):

Circuit City,

Speaker 4 (02:08):

A Dell or a compact or an hp, and the whole market was dominated by those three companies and there wasn't a whole lot of building your own PCs, at least from what I remember when they first kind of when Windows, what was it? Windows 2000

Speaker 3 (02:25):

Or

Speaker 4 (02:26):

Came out, that was the thing. So I think that made a lot of sense because the software that they would put on those things would make your computer really retarded anyway. There was always third party bullshit software that would package a OL and Comper and all this other garbage on there, and it made your computer runs slow because you never got a chance to get a fresh operating system installation. Anyway, as soon as you got it from the store and turned it on, it had a whole bunch of bullshit on it and it ran really slow.

Speaker 3 (03:02):

What do you know about Netscape Navigator though?

Speaker 2 (03:05):

No. You know what? I agree with you. However, I did have my PCs built at least two of 'em, and a third one was one of those Caron audio PCs, and now I know it's just getting a store bought piece of crap. But there were two PCs that I had built by dudes who knew what they were doing that were specifically for audio purposes, all, all components that were screened and checked out and bought for maximum performance and this and that, and only software that I wanted was loaded onto it, and I knew exactly what was going on on this machine, and then within a month they were still just disorganized pieces of shit, and I don't think it was my fault, but I feel like these days that might not happen.

Speaker 4 (04:02):

What operating system did you have back then?

Speaker 2 (04:04):

Man, I'm thinking it was 2000

Speaker 4 (04:07):

Or executed. There was a lot of driver problems during that period, and I think that was another part of the problem is that it took a long time for all the different manufacturers to come together and make drivers that didn't suck. And part of the reason why that took so long is because Microsoft had to develop a program which was like, look, you're going to go through all these steps and you're going to go through all these quality assurance things so that by the time you put out your hardware, your software is going to be bulletproof. And it took them, I think they didn't even finish that until Windows seven.

Speaker 2 (04:46):

When did that come out?

Speaker 4 (04:48):

Windows seven came out in the last five years I think. So it took a long time.

Speaker 2 (04:55):

Okay, so back in 2003, 2004 when I switched to Mac, I think then what you're saying is that my concerns were legitimate.

Speaker 4 (05:06):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:08):

Yeah. I just think that if they ran, and this is just my theory, I don't have PCs, I want Max, but if PCs ran now the way they ran when I was using them, people who were professional wouldn't be using them. There wouldn't be this migration back to pc. It's just impossible. There's no way The people who I know who use these that are pro have real high standards. I know you wouldn't be using a PC if it treated you the way that mine used to treat me.

Speaker 4 (05:40):

There's

Speaker 2 (05:41):

No way. But I'm telling you, man, now with these Macs that I've got, they are doing the same things that I was experiencing back in the day, which is I feel like a heretic, but it's making me want to go back. This laptop, for instance, this MacBook Pro I've got, which is pretty decked out, 15 minutes to come back from sleep. What is that all about? That's

Speaker 3 (06:05):

Ridiculous. Don't you dare tell anybody on the Digi Design Forum, you'll get killed on the duck for saying such blasphemy.

Speaker 2 (06:10):

Yeah, I'm not afraid to though, because I think that one thing that you should never do is rest on your laurels or just accept things about gear or equipment to be true just because lots of people on forums say it. So I want to be the first person to say as a 10 years strong Mac user that I don't think they're what they used to be, and maybe the PC guys have something figured out that us Mac guys and maybe we need to step into the new era of home recording and computing because it doesn't seem to me like you guys have the same issues that I used to have or that I'm having now with my max. How often do you guys get blue screen of death?

Speaker 3 (06:58):

Never.

Speaker 4 (06:59):

Never. I mean, maybe twice period in the last two years.

Speaker 3 (07:04):

Yeah. Seriously. I can't remember the last time I blew screened and I mean, yeah, no, I mean, geez, it's been, I can't even remember. Holy crap. It's

Speaker 4 (07:16):

Years. Well, the thing with Windows, or at least with PC is what we're actually talking about is it has a lot to do with the self-maintenance, like how you handle your system and what you do. It's all influenced. I know that you're saying back 10, 20 years ago or 10 or 15 years ago, there were a lot of issues and it had nothing to do with the user, but now where we're at right now with PCs, I feel like all of the issues are user-based because that was the reason why I stuck with pc because I started on pc, so that's why I was a PC guy, and that has a lot to do with things. If you start on Pro Tools, you kind of stick with Pro Tools. That's just kind of how it works because you get used to it, you learn how to use it and you don't want to change.

(08:03):

But the reason why I stuck with PC is I was open to change, but I realized that with the pc, you can go in and, I mean you can go to any store and buy any, there's so many different manufacturers of hardware that will work with your computer, whereas with Apple, you're kind of narrowed to a certain amount of hardware that will work because it's got to be specifically Mac compatible. It just seemed like there was way more PC compatible things that allowed you to customize your system however you wanted to do it. And then the second piece of the puzzle was the fact that when you install Windows, it's kind of like a programmer's operating system in a way because you can go in there and change it so that your processing power is favored to background services or you utilize this much part of your hard drive as your virtual ram and all these different options that could optimize the performance of your computer for your specific task. Whereas Mac, I feel like just doesn't have those kind of customizations, at least I haven't really seen a lot of them in comparison.

Speaker 2 (09:17):

I got to say though, all those customizations don't mean shit if your system isn't stable. And when I got my first Mac, which was a G five pre Intel, that thing was a rock. I went from having blue screens every 30 minutes or so to it, not crashing. It all started to go downhill once Mac went over to Intel. But I mean those, I feel like all those customizations and all that stuff is cool. It's all dandy, but as long as the system isn't stable, then what difference does it make? Of course. But now what you're saying is that it's that customizable plus it's stable unless the user himself goes and makes a mess out of the situation,

Speaker 4 (10:07):

Right?

Speaker 2 (10:08):

Yeah. Whereas with Mac, I guess the original selling point, original now mind you, not now, but when I got it was you just turn this thing on, plug in your gear and you're good. And it really was that way actually back then it really was just plug and play and this shit works now, not so much. And it really did start to go downhill once they switched over to Intel, and it's just been little by little, just a slow degeneration into garbage. But yeah, now I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to go back. I'm going to get hung in the street drawn in quarters for saying this.

Speaker 4 (10:53):

Okay, we are back now after the holiday break and we had quite a big holiday break, and it seems like the entire music industry shuts down in December and January. I mean, it's impossible to get anything done

Speaker 3 (11:08):

Except for us,

Speaker 4 (11:08):

Except always working for us. Well, the producers, yeah, I'm talking about the a and r guys, the label executives, the freaking managers. Everybody is pretty much on a beach or on vacation or unreachable for those two months. And I was going to ask you guys if you've experienced the same thing.

Speaker 3 (11:29):

Absolutely. How do we sign up for that?

Speaker 2 (11:31):

Man, it would be nice, right?

Speaker 3 (11:33):

I work over every possible second of the holidays except for maybe Christmas Eve, and I know you guys do too, and it's like how do we get that job where we can just take off the entire month of December and halfway into the new year and just resume as if nothing, we didn't miss anything important.

Speaker 4 (11:51):

Yeah. Well, here's what happens is you get Thanksgiving and then you get Christmas Eve, Christmas, new Year's Eve, new Year's Day, then you get CES, which is a major convention that happens in Vegas and tons of people go, including a lot of music tech companies. And then you get Nam and it's just like, boom, you've lost 60 days just in that period of time.

Speaker 3 (12:14):

I just figured it out. The difference is they get to set the stupid ridiculous deadlines that we have to meet, so they're just like, oh yeah, we'll just get this done by some arbitrary date. And then we're all like, holy crap, I guess we're not going to sleep over Christmas and spend any time with our families. And reality is they're sitting on a beach somewhere, not giving a crap, and we're all pissed off and Ory because we didn't get any time off. And then they're like, oh, so how was your holiday season? You're just like, shut up.

Speaker 2 (12:38):

Well, I know what one of my first fights was with a label. Yeah, I want to hear this was one of my first, well, not as a member of a band who was signed to a label, but as a producer having to deliver something, it was one of these situations where they booked far too little time

Speaker 3 (12:56):

That happens.

Speaker 2 (12:58):

Yes, this happens. But I was offering to give a little extra time because holiday break was coming up and they're saying, no, we need it December 19th. It's like, no, you don't need it. December 19th, you're not even going to be in the office December 19th. What are you going to do between December 20th, between December 20th and January 10th? What are you going to do with this album? Nothing. It's just

Speaker 3 (13:20):

Piss you off. That's what they're going to do. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:22):

So why don't you give me till January 10th? I won't charge you. I'll work on it now and again during the holidays we'll be able to sit on it, let it grow, see if we hate it or love it or whatever, add 13 K by 0.3 DB to the kick drum and

Speaker 3 (13:43):

Actually 15,

Speaker 2 (13:44):

Yes, and make everybody happy. But no, it's got to be in December 19th, and I just called bullshit and it was my first fight.

Speaker 4 (13:53):

Would they budge? Did they finally budge or No,

Speaker 2 (13:56):

I just didn't hand it in until they got back in town. We, I'm going to try that next time.

Speaker 3 (14:02):

Good

Speaker 4 (14:03):

Look. Yeah, it's the Joey approach right there. Just fucking do what you want.

Speaker 2 (14:06):

It didn't work out great for me, but I still don't take it back and I don't feel bad about it. No regrets because it's just somebody throwing their weight around. There's no reason for something to be due December 19th in the music industry. It is true what you just said, starting with Thanksgiving and ending with Nam, the majority of the suits, we didn't just call 'em the suits are on vacation in the music industry. That doesn't mean that the people making the music are on vacation. They're actually working harder than ever because they have to make music, meet arbitrary deadlines, hang with their families and get ready for Nam plus do Christmas shows and all this stuff. So actually the people on the creative side of the music industry, I think in some ways are busier than ever.

Speaker 4 (14:58):

It's

Speaker 2 (14:59):

Just impossible to get phone calls answered or emails returned.

Speaker 3 (15:02):

So the moral of the story is don't hit up. Your engineer producer during the holidays were pissed off and cranky.

Speaker 4 (15:08):

Oh yeah, cranky as fuck. Yeah, every single holiday season for the past, I don't know, five years has kind of been the same. It's like after it happens, after you go through it the last time you're like, oh, next year I'm just going to put my foot down and I'm going to take a break and I'm just not going to answer emails. And every year it never fails. You fall into the same trap. There's always something you are like, man, I want to get that extra, that Christmas bonus, I want to take on that extra project, just it's only going to take me a couple days. And then it spirals out of control, and you always become too busy and do too many things. At least if you're like me, that's what you do. So

Speaker 2 (15:50):

I figured out the secret to not doing any work. What is it? Over the holidays, please tell me. Well, I don't know how much work you got done, but I think you tapped into the secret as well, which is move. I don't know if you moved to a different city. So I would say that move to a different city during the holidays and then you won't get any work done.

Speaker 3 (16:15):

That would never happen in my world because even though I was moving, the first thing I did is hook up an ITB version of a mixing setup. And while I was supposed to be moving, I was actually mixing half of the day, and everybody in the world thought I was moving and cleaning and painting and all that bullshit. No, I was actually shitting out mixes as quickly as I could. So the three or four days that I actually did move, I didn't die and I still got way behind and I don't know, I perpetually screw myself. I'm like, Joey, we always take more work than we can handle and we can't say no to people. So what ends up happening is just an onslaught of work every day you come in and you're just behind by days if not weeks, and you're trying to catch up, and it's just an issue of who irritates you the most that day and needs their stuff turned in right away. So

Speaker 2 (16:58):

Yeah, I mean I do that. I do that too.

Speaker 3 (17:01):

It's horrible. Problems of ambition.

Speaker 2 (17:03):

Yeah, definitely not knowing how to say no is a toughie. However, this time around, man, I decided I was going to move and do it right, and I didn't want to be living out of boxes for the next eight months, so I just decided I was going to get it done and fuck working for a little bit so that once I got to work, I could be fully committed to working and not have all this stuff hanging over my head move wise. But that's because I used to live in a place where I shared the space with bands 24 7, and it was interfering with my work not to have a house. So I made it a priority to have my house totally taken care of so that I could then have the mental capacity to focus on work. So everyone's different in that regard, but I think that in the past I would've done the same thing you did, which is pretend like I was moving and then just work the whole time anyways.

Speaker 4 (17:59):

Yeah, me and you just swapped places. I was living in an apartment, so it was basically impossible for me to have bands over. And I did that on purpose because I knew that if I did get into a situation where bands could live with me, it would ultimately end up happening because you always get pitched the right deal and you want to do it. And part of the deal is the band lives with you, so you, it's like you can never escape it. But what happened to me is I moved from the apartment into a new house out here in the country, and now I set up a whole band place in my basement. Now I've got bands living with me again.

Speaker 3 (18:36):

I can tell when you have a band, because it's funny because he'll be getting up at my schedule, which is seven, eight in the morning. He'll be in at work and then slowly towards the end of the week, it'll be like five o'clock in the evening by Thursday or Friday that Joey wakes up and be like, Hey, dude, so what's going on? What are we working on? I'd be like, 5:00 PM dude in a week. What the fuck?

Speaker 4 (18:58):

I know. Well, it's crazy how skewed your set schedule will get because there's a couple days where you just got to put in two shifts. I mean, it's just the only way to get stuff done. And you're at the end of your first shift and it's 11:00 PM and you're about to start your second shift and go till 6:00 AM and it's rough, man, but I've got bands here right now. That's what's going on with me. I'm working on the Mica Relocate record. There are a band on artery recordings and I'm wrapping up Conquer Divide. Right now we're in the final stages of editing and mixing, and both of these records will come out probably before Warp Tour or around that time. Pretty stoked about it.

Speaker 2 (19:40):

That's awesome. And they're not both staying with you?

Speaker 4 (19:44):

Well, the Conquer divide was an interesting scenario because I'm dating one.

Speaker 2 (19:47):

Well, I was about to say that's kind of

Speaker 4 (19:49):

Staying with you.

Speaker 2 (19:50):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (19:51):

Micah is

Speaker 2 (19:52):

Living here. Is that

Speaker 3 (19:53):

Difficult?

Speaker 4 (19:53):

Actually? Yeah. I mean, we could talk about this if you want, but I would just say don't record your significant other. It's not fun.

Speaker 3 (20:01):

I was going to say, if my wife was in on a project, she'd be like, what are you doing working on this business on the phone right now? Why aren't you editing my vocalist? I'd be like, I will be in a half an hour, but right now I'm taking care of an emergency and negotiating a deal. Why aren't you working on my stuff, honey? You never dedicated enough time to meet how women are. They lay the law and you're like, damnit.

Speaker 4 (20:20):

Yeah, that does happen. And there's a lot of, I mean, when you've got clients in there, and even when you live with your clients, there are times where it's like, okay, I'm going to go and be by myself now, but when you're working with someone that you're in bed with, basically it's like never goes away. So it's like if you had an argument about a song or a part that day, it might stick with your relationship for a while. And it's very interesting, and I don't recommend it to anyone,

Speaker 3 (20:56):

Honey, do you want to go on a date Thursday? Just me and you, and maybe we'll go see a movie or something or go out to eat? Well, not really until you put that string part in that chorus that I wanted you that you didn't like.

Speaker 2 (21:07):

Yeah, I'll add to that. Don't record an ex significant other either. Holy shit. Did you do that? Yeah, I did. Holy

Speaker 4 (21:19):

Shit. Who was it? Can you

Speaker 2 (21:20):

Say? It was just this girl that I dated a while ago and we broke up a while ago and then she got some project together and asked me to record her. And oof, it's like, this is why we broke up. We don't need to be collaborating on big decisions incompatible. It just all came back the minute we were in a control room together.

Speaker 3 (21:43):

Was she at least dating somebody else in the project to make it really awkward? Yes.

Speaker 2 (21:47):

Great. He was paying for it. Oh shit.

Speaker 3 (21:53):

Can you guys stop making out in the vocal booth? Can we get to this next take? It's a little bit weird for me. Thank

Speaker 2 (21:58):

You. No, that part wasn't weird. I liked him and I was over it. Maybe he wasn't, but he was super, super rich, so they were cool to pay full rate and I couldn't pass it up, but it wasn't that there was any lingering stuff between us. It was just the dynamic. The dynamic was weird because there's a reason that the relationship ended. And so when you're recording somebody, I think that you are entering into a, we can call it a pseudo relationship with them. And so if you have a romantic history or something, whatever the quirks of that romantic relationship are will come out all over again. Whatever problems you guys had with each other will come out in the control room.

Speaker 4 (22:49):

That's another hard thing about working with, well, maybe family, but more so I feel like friends, because it's hard to, if you have to break someone's heart about something, it's pretty tough to do in a producing scenario. It's kind of the catch 22 of the whole thing because you want to become good friends with your clients, but as soon as you become really good friends, then it starts to, I mean, you might not make certain suggestions because you don't want to hurt their feelings or you know what I mean, starts to get in the way.

Speaker 3 (23:24):

They could assert pressure on you

Speaker 4 (23:26):

And

Speaker 3 (23:26):

They have leverage.

Speaker 4 (23:27):

It starts to get in the way of the whole productivity of the relationship.

Speaker 2 (23:32):

Well, I know that on paper we're just supposed to be brutally honest at all times, but real life gets in the way of that sometimes if you have a preexisting relationship with somebody, but you can't just be an executioner put on the hood and suddenly you weren't friends or lovers with this person.

Speaker 3 (23:55):

Well, you can, but

Speaker 2 (23:56):

Well, yeah, you can, but then you, you're going to definitely deal with the consequences of it. So speaking of new rooms, Joel, what are you doing treatment wise in your new place

Speaker 3 (24:08):

Treatment wise? Well,

Speaker 4 (24:10):

Tell us about your move first.

Speaker 2 (24:11):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:11):

Oh man. Well, I finally got out of my basement set up after God, nine, 10 years. Who's counting? I don't know. As you know, to do a new build, especially commercially, it requires you to save up a large amount of money. So this is something I've been wanting to do for maybe three, four, maybe even five years. It's kind of been a dream of mine, and every time I've gotten the money, something's come up, man, I really want that Shadow Hills mastering compressor and that EQ and those converters and oh man, there you go. I just spent $25,000. Fuck what happened. So there's a lot of things. Or I had a kid and then all of a sudden I'm like, man, daycare is really expensive. And then I had another one and I'm like, man, it just got really, really expensive. Well, maybe next year I'll be able to save up the money.

(24:59):

And so last year I had a pretty good year and everything was growing exponentially. So I was like, okay, I got to get a new space. Damnit. I'm tired of driving 25, 30 minutes to work. I'm just sick of it. The value of my time has increased, so I really need to increase productivity to offset just the ridiculous amount of work that I take on. So basically I decided that I want to work closer to home, and a friend of mine had a building set up and basically I just stopped by to check it out one day and I'm like, wow, you got this other half of the building and it's pretty cool, and it happens to be a half a mile up the road. I mean, I could probably walk here in five to 10 minutes. So I basically decided that I was going to move in.

(25:43):

He was closing out on his lease for the next three years right there. So I had the opportunity to get in and rent some space from him. So I said, screw it. I'm just going to go with it. And I brought in a couple of my clients to do the build, and we got it done in two and a half months, and they did a really kick-ass job except for the HVAC guys I hired. They kind of screwed me over and didn't show up for five months. All they needed to do, or sorry, five weeks, they had to cut one piece of pipe or something that was a custom fit because they didn't case the area. They came in and they like, oh yeah, yeah, we can knock this out in a couple of hours, and

Speaker 2 (26:15):

We got it, bro.

Speaker 3 (26:16):

Yeah, they pulled that bullshit and then all of a sudden the guy, oh, oh, sorry, I couldn't do it this weekend. I went hunting, oh yeah, next week I'm going to be busy just every day, and I don't put up with that shit. So I got in another dude in a band that was friends with the dude across the hall and he knocked it out and two days and then I got back on track. So I just finished everything up. I just moved last week. I'm kind of getting settled, and I built a mixing room and a small vocal over to Booth so I could track vocals or reamp guitars or whatever, or maybe do a teeny drum set. But it's pretty cool because I have a whole team of guys that are in the building now because there's a studio across the hall, and if I want to outsource something, like go ahead and record drums and all the parts are written, we've done all the pre-pro and I don't want to sit there and watch a drummer suck anymore. I can pay the dude do it, and I can mix a couple of songs while he is doing it. So it offers me a lot of cool things that I didn't have before where I can leverage a lot of my time and other people's time and kind of give everybody else in the building a job and keep him busy and get to work on more of the creative side of things and lessen the mechanical side, EG editing, pitch correction, the shit that we hate.

(27:21):

So it's cool. So yeah, I went out and bought a bunch of GIK stuff and I don't a really overly dead room like a L one. I was in your room. You've got probably twice as many, maybe three times as many traps as I do. And I had a little bit of that going on in here and it just felt really weird, kind of used to mixing in a half live room, so I didn't go too crazy. I haven't put up my cloud yet, but I just basically got base traps for every corner of every single room. And then I got a couple of just the standard Owens Corning panels, and some of them have scatter plates on 'em, so they're not reflecting back or sorry, so they reflect back some of the high frequencies. So it doesn't sound like you're talking in a coffin

Speaker 2 (28:01):

In a pillow. Well, let me just say that the room in Florida that's pretty much totally trapped that you're referring to. The reason that I have it, that is because it's a very small room. Oh, definitely. There were tons of reflection problems, and it is not a good room acoustically.

Speaker 3 (28:25):

It was pre-built too, correct? Yeah, exactly. So you were stuck with the original dimensions. You couldn't just come in and get what are the correct dimensional setups?

Speaker 2 (28:32):

Yes, absolutely. So if I was going from scratch and building a room, I'd build it in a way to where you didn't need that much treatment, but I think that in lieu of starting from scratch at the room, the best thing you can do is to treat the fuck out of it or do a really good job to learn the room.

Speaker 3 (28:53):

Yeah. Well, I mean there's two things with that is that if you go out and buy a bunch of treatment for your current room, it may cost you two $3,000 to do, but if you want to build a room correctly from scratch, add a zero to that. So at least, yes, absolutely. It's kind of in a weird way, kind of a drop in the bucket to just go and grab some of the, I mean, there's real traps and GIK and I'm sure there's a couple other good ones online, but there's a lot of companies that make a good pre-made trap and they're reasonably affordable, where, like I said, you can go out and relatively not spend a ton of money as opposed to doing a new construction and get a pretty good result.

Speaker 2 (29:29):

GIK make great stuff. I stand behind their products very much. I've got a lot of GIK traps in all of my rooms.

Speaker 3 (29:37):

Yeah, I'm very happy with mine.

Speaker 4 (29:38):

I use the real traps. That's what I got. But I don't have a lot of treatment. I just have kind of the bare necessities. I was going to say, I think it's kind of interesting how over the years we've gone from in music production, we've gone from an ambient roomy type sound to really dry and processed, and I don't know if I would've ever survived in that era where everything had to have good space because I've never had a good space, and I always work out of less than ideal situations, but I kind of prefer that because I've been in nice studios and I sit down and I listen to stuff, and to me, it just sounds weird. I'm just used to hearing things in a normal environment, not like in a treated environment or you know what I mean? A specifically designed for sound environment, all that is kind of odd to me. I'm just used to hearing music in a living room or in a bedroom. So

Speaker 3 (30:37):

I remember you complaining to me once about going into studios and mixing and then coming out and you'd be like, man, it sounds so sick. And then getting back home and being like, dude, what the hell does this shitty mix? I just turned out.

Speaker 4 (30:47):

I know. Yeah, I think that's a huge part of my sound is that I'm mixing in probably a horrible environment. I mean, it doesn't sound horrible to me, but I'm used to hearing stuff in that kind of space. And then I would go into a studio and try and mix a song like you said, and I would just be in love with how it sounded while I was there. And then I drive home and literally an hour later put it in and play it, and I'm like, this sounds retarded. It sounds there's too much low end or there's not enough low end. The balance is all off. I can't hear the vocals, the center channel's screwed. It just, I don't get it.

Speaker 3 (31:28):

The center is actually panned left.

Speaker 4 (31:30):

Yeah, I just don't understand. It has a lot to do with the specific setup that you're working with. If you go into a new space, it's like you don't know if their speakers are calibrated correctly. You don't know if they've got a good center channel. How do they have their, do they've got, is their amp set up properly or are they active speakers? Are they passive? There's just so many variables into the whole scenario that I just don't know how people could work, at least as a mixing engineer, how you could work in strange environments. I feel like you got to have your place where you feel really comfortable and you do most of your work and you're just super familiar with what comes out of it.

Speaker 2 (32:12):

Well, I guess it should be said that there's no such thing as an acoustically perfect room. So no matter what room you're in, you still need to do the work to learn it, which in a way kills the whole notion of needing acoustic treatment for the most part. But I definitely do find that it helps to have some, but regardless, this comes from me when I'm in Florida having four different rooms to bounce around, and now this brand new room in Atlanta, every one of those rooms is completely different. They're all treated. So I feel like it's hard to come to some sort of mathematical zero point acoustically, and no matter what, you're going to end up having to learn the room in its quirks.

Speaker 4 (33:05):

There is one room somewhere in the world that is,

Speaker 2 (33:08):

I'm sure

Speaker 4 (33:08):

Somewhere is zero, but it's a special, it's a scientific project. It's not like people go there and mix records. That would be really weird.

Speaker 3 (33:18):

We could start that science mixing company, though. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (33:23):

Well, the way I look at it is the average consumer is not going to hear this in a perfectly tuned room, so I might as well hear what they're going to be hearing and make my decisions that way.

Speaker 3 (33:34):

Yeah, definitely being comfortable in your own setup is, I mean, I mixed up my basement set. I mean, Joey, you've seen my old setup. I had a carpeted floor in a 13 by 14 room or something, or 12 by 14 or something really ridiculously small, and it was the worst treated room, I like to say forever. But I was able to get songs and top 40 radio and stuff and mixes out of that room. So really, you just got to really learn your speakers and your room and learn how it translates. And once you figure that out, I mean, I really feel like if you're worth any bit of salt as an engineer, a mixer or producer, once you learn your room and how it translates, you should be able to kick out a pretty decent recording out of a space no matter how good or bad it actually is.

Speaker 2 (34:20):

Yeah. That brings up a question that I get asked a lot. If you take into consideration that at the end of the day, every room is different and you have to learn your room no matter who you are or what level of skill you're at, you have to learn your environment. Then by that logic, couldn't you mix records just on any old speakers rather than having good monitors? I actually get asked this all the time that if all it takes is to learn the quirks of your speakers via referencing, then why not just mix through computer speakers or whatever rather than spend the money on good monitors and sometimes have a hard time answering that question? Honestly,

Speaker 4 (35:11):

It is a hard question to answer.

Speaker 3 (35:12):

I look at it like this in terms of speed, because having a really accurate monitoring system that in an actual treated room and all that stuff, or I mean reasonably treated, you can hear the details more and you can work faster, you can mix quicker because you're not struggling, man, these speakers really suck in the one K area. I can't really hear what's going on and really having to sit there and struggle and then maybe reference a couple of different systems.

Speaker 2 (35:36):

Well, I agree. I mean, I've got a bunch of Gen X, and while those aren't the best in the world, they're still pretty damn good, and I use those instead of computer speakers. So I agree. I'm definitely faster on good monitors. However, I know that Colin Richardson sometimes uses these small Bose speakers. I've also got, and I know that Joey loves those too, and I've seen OV mix records on just wall mounted entertainment system speakers and sound great.

Speaker 4 (36:09):

I think the key is to explain, this is how I like to put it, because I think it kind of connects with most people. If you're buying a new product, you kind of do your own research. You go and look at the reviews, you go and look at what are the specs, what is it compatible with? How many times has someone returned this product or whatever, and you kind of use all those different little sources of information to guide your decision in buying it. So I think it's kind of the same thing as where if you have a lot of different listening sources, different size speakers, different kinds of speakers, you're informing yourself the best you can about the decisions that you're making, which ultimately influences better decision making. So I think having as many sources, I like to have headphones, consumer speakers, and then my monitors, and that's the three active things that are hooked up. And I can switch between with my controller, so I'm making all my decisions with those three things, and then I'm bouncing the song out and I'm playing it on an iPod with earbuds, listening to it on my MacBook Pro, and then going out to my car and playing it in the car, and I make more decisions based off of those three listening environments. So the more you inform yourself about every little change you're making, the smarter your changes will be and the better the song will be because of it.

Speaker 2 (37:39):

Yeah, absolutely. For instance, if there's something that sticks out weird, but it only sticks out weird in one environment, maybe it's that one environment and not the mix,

Speaker 4 (37:51):

And you got to be logical about it too.

Speaker 3 (37:54):

So Al, you got this new room you moved into, and I remember seeing some stuff about it being kind of rec or square.

Speaker 2 (38:00):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (38:01):

So

Speaker 2 (38:01):

Tell

Speaker 3 (38:02):

Us about the nightmare of getting that thing under control.

Speaker 2 (38:05):

So far, it hasn't been that big of a nightmare because I already had a ton of traps that I brought with me tons of base traps and high frequency traps already. So just first thing I did when I got here, and mind you, this room is on paper, the worst possible room you could get into. But what I see as a benefit is that it's going to make me work quietly, which is always better because the quieter you work, the less you activate your room.

(38:43):

And second, it's not that expensive for me to trap it because it's already 75% trapped with what I just brought with me so far with it just being 75% trapped, it's already pretty good. I've killed all the weird reflections and there's no strange low end nodes. So it's actually, it's one of those situations where if you saw it on paper, you'd be like, hell no. But in all reality, it's fine. And I think that the fact that the ceiling is tall is probably a saving grace, but more than likely, I'm just going to go ahead and trap the entire room. That's where I'm headed with this. I still have yet to hear what a mix done in here translates to in the world. And I guess that'll be the real deciding factor. But the little bit of work I've done in here so far, I haven't had a situation where I'm like, wow, that's just horrible. I can't hear anything. I actually had a room at my place in Florida that I built the wood room with all the windows that was dimensionally much better than this, and it was impossible to hear anything. And I think it was because of all that glass,

(40:10):

But I just kind of feel like you can't judge a room by the dimensions on paper.

Speaker 4 (40:16):

Yeah, I've been lucky, man. One of the places where I did a lot of my work was in a attached garage to a house that was converted.

Speaker 3 (40:26):

Oh, the garage.

Speaker 4 (40:28):

I

Speaker 3 (40:28):

Remember that.

Speaker 4 (40:29):

Not that garage. A different garage. The other one. Yeah, the other garage. The one I think you actually, yeah, you've been to the second garage, because

Speaker 3 (40:37):

I was in that house that was with the Spider-Man Tet.

Speaker 4 (40:39):

Yeah, that's right. We're not telling that story, but anyway,

Speaker 3 (40:44):

One's great for another time.

Speaker 4 (40:46):

Yeah, I had a space where, so I had a ranch style house and there was an attached garage to it, but they converted the attached garage to a living space. So I had walls and floors and a ceiling and all that, and it was insulated. And what my point is, is that I've always been lucky. I'll move into a spot and I'll just try it. I don't go in there and say, all right, let's get out the rulers, the mirrors and figure this whole thing out with string and all that. I would just move into a space, set up the speakers and hit play and just be like, sounds cool,

Speaker 3 (41:18):

Joey. If you build that, they will come a field of dreams, Sturgis.

Speaker 4 (41:23):

And I noticed that a lot of my spaces work out because I end up putting a couch right behind the listening position so my clients can sit there and look at me oddly, and it works because all the base information gets absorbed into the couch. Now, I do have some spots in my current mixing location. If you stand to the side, you're going to hear nothing but base. But I don't have a lot of people standing to the side, and I'm not getting out of my chair and standing to the side, so it doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2 (41:56):

So what you're saying is that one thing that you do as a rule is you have your speakers at least a few feet off from the wall?

Speaker 4 (42:04):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:04):

Okay. So that's already a great move right there. I feel like one of the things that people do in small rooms that aren't ideal is to maximize space as they set up in a corner or against the wall. And I think

Speaker 4 (42:20):

That's the worst thing to do. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (42:21):

Yeah. That right there, you're activating the shit by doing that. It's

Speaker 3 (42:26):

A trade off. Do you want to feel band dude breath on your neck all day and smell their nasty unshared hair? Or do you want to hear what you're mixing?

Speaker 2 (42:34):

Exactly. So actually one of the things that I did in this new room is I thought to myself, a, this room is just for me. This is for writing, for mixing, working on products and having my own thing going when working with clients, I'll be in Florida, so do I really need to maximize space in here? The answer to that is no.

Speaker 4 (43:00):

That's exactly what I did too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:02):

So I'm actually halfway through the room with my speakers. So that right there I think is helping make a less than ideal room sound better. I'm like four feet off from any wall speaker wise,

Speaker 4 (43:16):

But you have to be careful too, because there is always in a square room or a near square room, there is always a null,

Speaker 2 (43:23):

Absolutely

Speaker 4 (43:23):

Somewhere in the center. So you want to make sure that you're not sitting in that null because all of the low end content basically cancels out in that spot. And when I first set up in this room, I had an oh shit moment because I hit play on the first song and I was like, this is weird. This sounds really weird. And it was just because I was a little too far off from the wall. So I scooted a little closer to the wall, tried it again, and it was fixed. And sure enough, if I scoot my chair back two feet, I'm in that nall. But if I scoot forward two feet to where I can see the screen and I'm touching the mouse and I'm close to the speakers, the null is behind me. So it actually ends up working pretty good. And if someone is sitting in the couch behind me, they're not hearing that null either because they're past it. So no one is ever sitting in the null. And I got lucky again. So

Speaker 3 (44:17):

I remember being an a al space in Florida and sitting on that side couch, and

Speaker 2 (44:22):

I'm like,

Speaker 3 (44:23):

That sub was amazing. I'm like, this is the beefiest sub I've ever heard. And then when I finally sat down up at the board, I'm like, man, where'd the base go?

Speaker 2 (44:31):

Yeah, totally. I mean, that's something where I ended up just learning that room and going with it. There was no other physical place to put. That sub is massive, but if that room, the one in Florida, that control room was maybe redesigned or had a different desk, I would get a desk where I could have the sub in the middle of it.

Speaker 4 (45:02):

Yeah, you had it off to the side, and then Yes.

Speaker 2 (45:04):

And

Speaker 4 (45:05):

Then in addition to that, you've got a chair that's off to the side too, so it gets really,

Speaker 2 (45:09):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (45:10):

I bet some people like to sit there.

Speaker 2 (45:12):

It's a stupid desk, basically. It's one of those, it was built for a control 24, and it has one of those iso ISO rack things in it off to the side, so you can never sit quite in the center, which is really annoying. I just got used to it, but it's definitely annoying.

Speaker 3 (45:36):

Well, it was pretty well balanced. I mean, you had the room treated really well.

Speaker 2 (45:40):

Yeah, I

Speaker 3 (45:40):

Just remember sitting on that couch and like, oh, yeah, just listening to those kick drums coming through, and I'm just all stoked. And then I'd stand up, be like, what happened? Yes, exactly. I know the base

Speaker 2 (45:50):

Well, it's one of those things where, again, it's not ideal, but everyone that works in there learns it and mixed do. And we've had a good run of stuff coming out of there now. It's funny that you say that you like that corner, because I've had a lot of guys more, you're more of a rock dude, but some of the death metal guys who come in hate that corner because when the double base

Speaker 4 (46:16):

Price up, like chaos. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (46:17):

Yeah, exactly. When the double base gets going or anything at high BPM or fast subdivision gets going, like you said, that corner becomes total chaos.

Speaker 3 (46:31):

Thank you for inspiring me. I just came up with my next product guys. What we're going to make is a set of earbuds that have a high pass filter for death. Metal dudes who want to just go through life not hearing any low end at all, or black metal guys. Perfect.

Speaker 4 (46:47):

Yeah, sounds like it'll do well. Hey, we're going to wrap this up, you guys. I just want to summarize a couple of the things that we went over. And so Mac versus pc, I would say don't be so quick to judge, because I think the tables are turning a little bit. I know there's tons of studios across the country and across the world that are all Mac based, but in my experience, I've been to a lot of those and the Max aren't always the best working machines I've seen, so don't hate on that.

Speaker 2 (47:23):

Well look as a 10 year strong Mac user, and let's say that I've owned four of their laptops and four of their desktops, and then one Mac Mini. So I've definitely, and I have Apple TV and I've had three iPhones, so I've definitely done my share, done my part for the Mac cause or the Apple cause, and I can say that they're not quite what they used to be.

Speaker 4 (47:53):

Yeah, agreed. And the other thing we covered was room treatment and do some research before you set up your stuff. Because if you're going to put a lot, apply a lot of your time to learn how to do this and get good at it, you want to make sure you're doing it in a good listening environment because you can almost have to unlearn what if you're in the wrong spot and you're listening to the wrong data. And the other thing was make sure you listen to your work on a lot of different sources. And I think that's kind of the secret sauce to mixing, is really just being willing to listen to your song on a source where you think it might get destroyed. And that's a good thing. That's what you want to do, is you want to find a listening source where it does destroy your mix so that you can figure out how to make it better and not have it get destroyed.

Speaker 2 (48:50):

Skull candy Earbuds.

Speaker 4 (48:52):

Yeah. Go grab a shitty pair of headphones and your mix still needs to sound good on those. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (48:58):

The headphones. The real secret to mixing though. Kick 10.

Speaker 4 (49:03):

All right. That's a good note to end on. So kick 10 do it. Kick 10. Kick

Speaker 1 (49:09):

10. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. Go to creative live.com/audio to start learning now. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is also brought to you by Save your custom drums, quality crafted drums handmade in Denver, Colorado. Go to save your custom drums.com to start building your custom drum collection now. To ask us questions, suggest topics and interact, visit urm academy com and subscribe today.