DAN KORNEFF: Building DIY Gear, Producer Nightmares, and Creating Paramore’s ‘Riot!’

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

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, and made in Denver, Colorado. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:24):

Hey guys, how you doing? Good. Hello Mr. Korneff. Welcome,

Speaker 3 (00:00:29):

Sir. What's happening?

Speaker 2 (00:00:31):

We're just hanging out talking about you. It's not awkward at all.

Speaker 3 (00:00:36):

Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:00:38):

So thanks for getting up early and I don't even know what coast you're on, so for some reason I thought you were on the West Coast and was like, is he really getting up this early to talk to us? But then something told me you might be on the East Coast with me.

Speaker 3 (00:00:51):

Yes, yes. I'm in New York.

Speaker 2 (00:00:53):

Okay. Alright, so well, thanks for spending your mid-morning with us.

Speaker 3 (00:00:58):

No problem. Thanks for having me. Of course.

Speaker 2 (00:01:01):

Yeah, our pleasure. We want to talk about all kinds of different things, but first burning question I have in my mind for you is you've been in the game for quite a while and Haveve worked with quite a few different artists, and does the workflow or experience with the artists, do you find that that changes at all now versus say 10 years ago? I know some of the artists that you've worked with now, I've worked with some of them too, so I know how they are. So I'm wondering, 10 years ago, did people also suck at music? Is it just, and I'm talking about bands that I've worked with, so I know how it is. You can't keep this one from me. So I just want to know back in the day where it was a lot more analog, heavy, not by choice, but by you had nothing else back in those days, did bands not know how to play their fucking instruments either?

Speaker 3 (00:02:05):

Well, this is an ongoing quest of finding out the truth of what actually existed and what actually happened years and years and years ago compared to what we do today. I think that the knowledge of music definitely decreased as far as music education and stuff like that. Years and years ago, there's a piano in every home. Everyone knew what a chord was and now it's not the case. But that's not to say that bands 40 years ago and 50 years ago didn't suck either. Reading through the book about the Beatles, there are plenty of passages in there when I said The Beatles did suck and sometimes they weren't amazing. So that existed then. That exists now. I mean, the people can probably say the same thing about the Rolling Stones or whatever Rock group came out that was completely different than what they heard at the time. So they probably sucked then they suck Now.

Speaker 4 (00:02:56):

I feel like music is the one profession where you can know absolutely nothing about it and be an absolute success story.

Speaker 5 (00:03:05):

Well, it's entertainment.

Speaker 4 (00:03:06):

If you're like a guitar player and you just like, oh yeah, I just put my fingers here and I this too complex, it makes this sound,

Speaker 5 (00:03:13):

Joey, it's just zero. All you got to know is zero and one now open, bro. That's it.

Speaker 2 (00:03:17):

There's been some stories in acting that have been like that where dude never went to any academies for acting and just decided to, at the age of 40, get involved in some community play and just kicked fucking ass somehow. And some Hollywood director heard about it and the next thing you know or something. I mean, that kind of stuff happens. It's rare, but

Speaker 3 (00:03:44):

It absolutely happens

Speaker 2 (00:03:45):

In the arts. It is possible, I guess, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you're educated, your output is the only thing that matters. I will agree with you. I guess I was brought up in the eighties and nineties, those were my formative years, and I had music pounded into my skull educationally like, God, I've had so much music education and I'm glad I did, but holy shit. And the kids that I record don't have any of that. To them learning modes is like some, I don't know, it's like they came across the holy grail or something.

Speaker 4 (00:04:25):

It's like chemistry or something.

Speaker 2 (00:04:27):

Whereas some earlier generations this was pretty normal. What's interesting how, I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with the expression about Sweden, how there's something in the water in Sweden because their musicians are always so goddamn good.

Speaker 4 (00:04:42):

Oh yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (00:04:45):

It's an education system also, they have music from a very early age. So you think that just the artists from before were better educated musically?

Speaker 3 (00:04:55):

I think at a certain point they were. And not to say that people aren't educated now, but maybe it's just the type of music that requires less education to get into. Now they're relying on their natural senses of hearing and just sort of imitating and making something their own.

Speaker 4 (00:05:11):

Do you think that creates more interesting music though, or do you think that it's just whatever?

Speaker 3 (00:05:17):

That depends because music is not always for musically trained people. I'm usually gravitated towards music that is from educated people. I hear chord progressions and modes and things that I normally wouldn't in a lot of other music, but at the same time, you give that to the average person and they don't understand it,

Speaker 4 (00:05:36):

It's way over their head.

Speaker 3 (00:05:38):

Yeah, totally. So you have bands, bands, and then you have average people's bands.

Speaker 5 (00:05:42):

I had an interesting experience that I can relate to that when I was in a metal band playing guitar. So I was a shred guitar player who practiced a lot, and you would go up and we'd play a gig and all these crazy sweeps and speed picking. It's stuff that took years of practice to be able to pull off cleanly and articulate. And two people would come up to you and be like, yeah, dude, you're pretty good. But if I found it was flat, blah, blah, blah. And then I joined a rock band and forgot how to play guitar from a shredder sense and just laid up my 15, pull off, 12 licks. And then everybody would be like, oh my God, dude, you were so fucking sick. And you're like, dude, that was like me not even trying. And it was kind of an interesting reality check as a guitar player, like, man, I worked so hard for so many years to get good and no one gives a shit.

Speaker 2 (00:06:27):

Yeah. But I got to say that music education doesn't necessarily have to mean super shred or super theory. The Beatles, for instance, were a cover band for five years and they played multiple sets a night. Oh, totally. And they played everybody's music. And I read in Paul McCartney's book that one of the ways that I guess one of their mentalities surrounding writing music was, well, they would lift a baseline from one song and chord progression from another and fuck it. They could do it better than the original artist anyways. And that's exactly what they were thinking. But they got their musical education through learning a bunch of music. So even if they didn't go to school, even if they weren't exactly brought up with it, they still learned it at some point. And in some ways I feel like that's missing nowadays. And even take a band like Muse, for instance, who's top of the rock world and also legitimately selling out stadiums and are one of the few remaining true rockstar bands in Europe. They will do Wembley two nights in a row. They'd come on stadium tours here, fly in a private jet like rock stars. And those guys are musically fucking efficient and very, very educated. So I just think that just because some guys got lazy doesn't mean that everybody got lazy and that it does pay to learn your craft, get good at what you do.

Speaker 4 (00:07:56):

There's a really interesting film made by Kirby Ferguson that I think everyone should watch. It's called Everything is a Remix. And the film is just about the fact that if you go back in time and look at everything that's been done in media between the start of it and now it's impossible to make something new, you're just being inspired by something that you really like and regurgitating your own version of it with your own little twist. I just wanted to mention that because it's a really interesting film.

Speaker 2 (00:08:30):

Well, I guess given the tools you have in front of you.

Speaker 4 (00:08:34):

Yeah, that too.

Speaker 2 (00:08:35):

That brings me to the question of the tools. Dan, do you think that the way, or let me ask you this. Has the way that you physically record people changed a lot between say 10 years ago and now? I know you're a very analog heavy guy. Has your workflow changed much?

Speaker 3 (00:08:52):

Yeah, the workflow is still the same for me. Nothing can replace proper engineering techniques, so I'm never going to give up a console and do everything in the box. I'm never going to give up mic pre and shit and plug right into an interface. That's just not something I do. So the workflow for me still stays the same, and I think it helps. I think that musically things may feel better. They feel analog, something real, something that people can relate to.

Speaker 4 (00:09:20):

How long have you actually been doing the production process or, well, just how long have you been doing this? And also for people who aren't a hundred percent familiar with how you do stuff, what is your process?

Speaker 3 (00:09:33):

Well, I mean, I started recording bands when I was about probably 13 or so, 13 or 14. I got interested in music very young. As soon as your family life goes to shit, your parents are getting divorced, the first thing you do is you find fucking metal and you enjoy it. And then you start a band and you get a fucking drum set. And so I've been doing this for a while, and I realized also at a young age that I had a lot more chances of making a living by working on the other side of the glass. For sure. When you're a band, you have one chance every two years than make a statement and doing what we do, you have six or seven albums in a year that you can do that with. So I gravitated towards that pretty early. And then, I mean, as far as the process goes, I'd have to say the only thing that really has changed is that in pre-production, nobody sits around as a band anymore and jams out songs.

(00:10:30):

Back in the day, we would sit in the room, we would play, you'd work out parts, you'd communicate as people. And now these days you have two guys with a laptop. They write the parts, they program everything and say, okay, here's how our song goes. Learn it, which is some ways is cool, some ways it's not. But that's what people are doing today. But I still try to keep a lot of that together, keep bands as a band, trying to capture the best that they can do. Obviously there's a lot of editing and special effects and stuff that happened, but at the same time, if you start with a better source, that's where it all begins.

Speaker 4 (00:11:07):

Yeah, you can't beat a better source. Definitely. Now are you recording through a console just into Pro Tools or something? Well, you're a Cubase guy, right? Yeah, I use

Speaker 3 (00:11:17):

Cubase. Hell

Speaker 4 (00:11:17):

Yeah, high five. I have.

Speaker 3 (00:11:20):

It's the best out there. I don't know why else, why people would use anything else. I

Speaker 4 (00:11:23):

Don't know. Yeah, we're the same way, man. We're going around, we're like, why do you use anything other than Cubase?

Speaker 2 (00:11:30):

I only used because of the studio I was working at, but I used to use Cubase and I love cubase.

Speaker 3 (00:11:35):

Yeah, no, it is cool. Back then you had to be compatible and a lot of places now you really don't have to be. You can kind of do your own thing. As long as you send off a master that someone accepts, then fuck

Speaker 2 (00:11:44):

It. Welcome to the future.

Speaker 3 (00:11:47):

The future is now.

Speaker 2 (00:11:49):

So anyways, back to your process. So you go into, sorry, into Cubase from the console,

Speaker 3 (00:11:55):

Correct? Yeah, so I still have an SSL console, tons of mics, a decent sized live room. So I'll track through the console, app board, mic, pre into cubase, and then it comes back out on the console. So I have 48 outputs from my computer. They feed 48 channels on my console, and then I mix through that and keep it all analog like that.

Speaker 4 (00:12:17):

So you're actually using Cubase as a playback machine?

Speaker 3 (00:12:21):

Correct. It's like a glorified tape machine that I can edit and add some special effects with.

Speaker 4 (00:12:25):

Wow, that is amazing. So your mixes are coming through your board and then you're printing that to a two bus or maybe some stems or something.

Speaker 3 (00:12:32):

That's exactly what I do. So it goes out of the console and then record it right back into the session stereo tracks. That's awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:12:38):

So Dan, I hear since you're a pretty big analog guy, I mix hybrid and I'm really, really kind of a gear nerd myself. And I know Joey's hardcore, ITB and AAL is kind of somewhere in the middle, but I'm definitely the analog guy. I mean, I've got some cool gear like Burl Converters and a Shadow Hills Mastering Comp and some fun toys like that. Nice. So I hear you make your own gear. And I got into DIY for a little bit, but I never actually started building one. So what are you making and what are you going to make me is the real question. Yeah, same here. Give me some custom shit. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:13:08):

Well, I remember talking about this with you a few months ago. Inquiring minds want to know.

Speaker 3 (00:13:14):

Well, I mean, it all started back when I was in college and I was completely broke and I always wanted great gear and I just couldn't afford it. I had no money, absolutely no money. So I ran across a book that basically detailed, it was like one of the first DIY books that detailed how to build an LA two, which I bought. It was like an ebook or something, bought it, never built the compressor, and it was just a lot of money still to do that kind of stuff. So I started with guitar pedals and worked my way up from there. And it took me a few years of just learning what electronics are, what's actually happening under the hood, what the components do. And once you figure that out and get your feet wet with a couple of small projects that you build that never work, they just kind of sit on the shop bench for a little while. Eventually something works and it all clicks and it comes together. So these days I'm building a lot of character pieces, a lot of things that you can't get. My whole goal was to have a studio completely built with custom gear from me that no one else could ever get.

Speaker 5 (00:14:14):

That's amazing. I respect that so much. I am always looking for those weird, odd pieces that nobody has, and I'm like, I want that. If you want to get it, it's going to cost $10,000 and only I have it, so fuck you. Absolutely.

(00:14:28):

It's an easy way to make your own sound because it's way harder to replicate something in analog, whereas somebody who's mixing straight ITB, you can literally just, oh yeah, cool. They use this and this and this chain. So it's a lot easier to cop, especially when everybody's using the same 20 fucking plugins. So that's something that I really do dig about analog is depending on the pieces you get, they all have certain character or not character, depending on what you want, and you can really kind of carve out your own sound. I know that's something Will Putney talks about a lot and he's really big into

Speaker 3 (00:14:58):

Sure. Yeah, he's a big analog guy as well.

Speaker 4 (00:15:00):

I think it's a good thing to be, I don't want to say bringing analog back because I mean it's like where did it ever really go? But at least in this genre, it's like there's certain guys, especially you Dan, who are just introducing it into the music, into the productions, and it's really cool to see because usually quite surprised with how cool it sounds. It's like if you think about how the whole process works, especially with tape,

Speaker 3 (00:15:30):

You're

Speaker 4 (00:15:31):

Like, oh, that doesn't really make sense. How would you really embrace that as an efficient workflow? But to see it be successful and to hear it sound good is really refreshing. I really like what you're doing with this stuff right now. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:15:47):

I got to say something though, and I'd like to get some people's opinion on this. Is it just me or the whole DIY revolution that's going on right now in analog gear? And I don't mean, let me first say, I don't mean people like you, Dan at all in this statement. You are totally exempt from this statement. Well look, people like you, people like Sam Puah with an hairball audio exempt, the people that know what they're doing absolutely exempt. But I feel like the DIY analog movement could be causing more harm than good in some ways will remain to be seen. But here's why. You have a bunch of people who don't know Jack shit about making electronics. They never studied about how to plug in a soldering knife, even don't even know how to really do anything with that. And suddenly they're making equipment for really, really cheap. So they're going to be buying that stuff or making their own instead of going to the classics and it's going to drive down the price of the amazing gear that we know and love, and that's going to put some people out of business who make really good stuff. And I feel like it's going to bring down the quality overall of the analog world, just one possible prediction. Do you guys have any thoughts about that?

Speaker 4 (00:17:24):

There's definitely an interesting point of view and I'm kind of curious of what that will do. I mean, you can't really just get up and make it

Speaker 2 (00:17:31):

Console. Exactly. Right, exactly. This is not just something you learn in a weekend, right?

Speaker 4 (00:17:35):

So it's like over time, wait,

Speaker 5 (00:17:38):

It's not, fuck, come on.

Speaker 4 (00:17:42):

I think over time that's definitely going to be a big problem. But the other problem you have now is that everyone has a computer in their pocket and that computer is becoming more and more powerful and it can do more things. And just the other night I had someone here, they were showing me this little thing that they bought at Guitar Center. I never heard of it. It's made by line six. It's like this little, the thing itself is an actual microphone, but it has an interface built into it, but it also has a built into it. So it's like literally the epiphany of bedroom producers recording studio in your pocket and you hook this thing up to your iPhone and you can literally sing right into it. You can record stereo sounds that has a stereo mic. You can record your guitar parts. And with just two objects that are the size of things that fit in your pocket, you can literally record an entire album.

Speaker 2 (00:18:37):

I could see that being great for traveling. But Dan, how long did you say it took you to get good at building stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:18:43):

I mean, it takes years to figure out what's actually happening. Anybody can plug in a soldering iron and assemble a piece, but a lot of these kids are not designing their own stuff yet. They don't really know what they're doing. But it could take you a couple months to at least put something together, assemble something. And

Speaker 4 (00:19:00):

By designing your own stuff, you're actually, you're talking about getting a circuit board that just has nothing on it and literally filling it with stuff and creating

Speaker 3 (00:19:11):

Breadboarding

Speaker 4 (00:19:12):

Processing.

Speaker 3 (00:19:13):

Well, it starts a little earlier than that. It starts with math. It starts with a schematic, taking a component and building a circuit around it, testing it in computer software called LT Spice and sort of understanding how it works, what it will sound like, creating a circuit board, getting those manufactured, populating it, prototyping it, testing it. It starts way, way earlier than that. Gotcha.

Speaker 4 (00:19:37):

So this is not something that you mess around with on the weekends. It's like something that you spend years getting good at.

Speaker 3 (00:19:46):

Yep. It takes a while.

Speaker 5 (00:19:48):

So what are some of the coolest pieces that you've built to date? Like secret weapons that we're all going to want to have, but only you have?

Speaker 3 (00:19:54):

Well, secret weapons, I have a couple that I really enjoy. One is from a company called ITA and it's the LA one limiter, and that was made from a bunch of XRCA engineers. They designed that back in the late seventies and some place in New Jersey, probably only about 50 or 60 of them in existence. That's one of my favorite pieces I built. Sounds, it's very similar to a stay level in design.

Speaker 5 (00:20:20):

Oh, sweet. Right on.

Speaker 3 (00:20:20):

Yeah. Another one is I made friends with an ex Yuri engineer, and he was back at Universal Audio back in the day with Bill Putnam, and he had a couple designs that were designed for universal audio that they just never picked up and he released the schematics online. So I was able to take those and build some Mike Pres that were going to be universal audio product. Never made it. And they sound unbelievable. They're unreal.

Speaker 4 (00:20:47):

And are you using those in your productions today?

Speaker 3 (00:20:50):

I do use those, yes. That's awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:20:52):

So how can we go get about procuring a pair here for,

Speaker 3 (00:20:56):

Well, I think within the next year or so, I'm trying to design products that are new as far as my own products and not just cloning other stuff, but I will be starting a company Corn F audio that's going to put these pieces out. And I don't know, I have about five or six designs that are pretty unique, pretty awesome, and I just got to find time to do it.

Speaker 5 (00:21:15):

That's sweet. And

Speaker 3 (00:21:16):

Finalize the process.

Speaker 5 (00:21:17):

I feel like so much analog gear is a rehash. There's so many different companies that make an 1176 clone and 1176 kicks ass, and it's hard to make sound like shit, but I mean, come on. It's based on a 40 or 50-year-old design. I'm sure people have got some other ideas that would be really awesome to introduce into the market. So it's always cool. I always look for gear that's really fresh. For example, I wish I had, this is just me regurgitating lust out loud of gear, but I wish I had a summing bus with actual physical buses where I could do busing and routing on it where that was controlled by digital. So you could do the SSL has the M ds, for example, where you could do a analog gain and you can do post fader or automation controlled by your computer, but it's all analog. I've got something kind of like that with the SSL Sigma. But the problem with that thing is they made it internet based and it really kind of irritates the shit out of me because sometimes it just doesn't sync up to your network. And then you're sitting there for two hours when you're in a hurry to get something recalled. You've got eight other things to do that day and you're like son of a bitch. And there's some stupid little internet problem.

Speaker 2 (00:22:23):

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Explain this. Internet. I think it's ethernet based thing. Ethernet, okay.

Speaker 5 (00:22:29):

Oh yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:22:31):

I was going to say something that a mix relies on being tied to the internet would be grounds for a bullet in your own head. Yeah, that's scary. Like holy shit.

Speaker 5 (00:22:42):

They use a browser software instead of actually making a plugin. So it's a real pain in the ass because sometimes, for example, I switched over internet service providers here at the studio because the one that we had was something ridiculous, like five down, one up or some ridiculously

(00:23:00):

Dinosaur internet, which isn't going to work. So when I switched it now I can't get the thing to work no matter what I do unless I do a direct connect to my computer. So every time I got to go around, I got to plug it in. I got to change all my internet settings and I'm not a networking guy, so I'm a little bit slower on the hilt there with that stuff. So it's just too much of a hassle. But I wish I had an all analog version of that. Or getting back to what I was saying, it'd be cool to have an eight channel filter bank that's just analog filters, just things like that that I haven't seen come to market that I just wish they were there. I would buy them immediately.

Speaker 2 (00:23:30):

It seems like all the plugins did all their emulations. Everyone has their 1176 version and then all the DIY kits did the same thing. Now they all have their 1176 s and you're right, it's time for some new stuff. That would be nice.

Speaker 4 (00:23:49):

Do producers ever call you up and say, Hey man, I'm trying to do this. Would you be able to make it for me? Do you ever make stuff specifically for producers?

Speaker 3 (00:23:57):

Oh, all the time. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:23:58):

That's cool. Tell us a little bit about anything you've made, if you can.

Speaker 3 (00:24:02):

Well, a lot of people have different needs in their studios. There's no real common studio anymore. Everyone has their own personal setup. So some people need switching monitor boxes for their five one surround mixes and shit like that. So I've made some custom switchers like that. Some guy who wanted a specific mic, pre compressor, EQ in a box, I'll build stuff like that for them. There's one guy who wanted a super low noise power supply for his console. His console had a bit of noise to it, so I took some time to design up something like that, build that for them. Most of the stuff I do for other people are specific tasks like that. And then there's some people that are just like, Hey, I want Neve clone or whatever, which I would do for them as well.

Speaker 2 (00:24:50):

Let me ask you something, because one thing that we cover a lot on this podcast is stuff like time management, workflow ideas, things of the sort that are very, very, maybe not the sexiest, but are very, very important if you want to survive in this world. And being that you are a full-time producer, engineer mixer who works with a ton of bands, how do you find the time to also make amazing gear? How do you work that out? How do you do it?

Speaker 3 (00:25:20):

Well, the first thing that happens is my wife completely hates me. Okay. High five on that

Speaker 5 (00:25:25):

One buddy.

Speaker 3 (00:25:26):

So I spend very little time with my family, a lot less time than I should be. And the other thing is that sleep is an option for me. I will come home at night and I get up early. My wife is a teacher, so I'm up early six, seven in the morning and I start working and I'll come home at sometimes one or two in the morning and instead of going to sleep, I'll stay up and design something or whatever it may be. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:25:55):

Do you have kids?

Speaker 3 (00:25:56):

I don't have kids yet. Not yet.

Speaker 5 (00:25:58):

Well, that helps because I've got two and man, my wife is also a teacher and she's old school. So anytime I'm at home, she's like, turn off your cell phone or blah, blah, blah. You can't work on weekends. And I'm like, ah, I'm going to go in at 4:00 AM and hammer out some mixes behind. So constant battle.

Speaker 3 (00:26:15):

Absolutely. And it's so hard. This business survives. It's so much on communication and being in contact with people that you don't realize how much you're on your phone sending emails to people or waiting for mixed comments and stuff, and they don't understand it. They don't get what we're doing. But at the same time, we probably look completely insane to that. That's true. Yeah. That's

Speaker 5 (00:26:37):

Interesting. I can still relate to that. I'll be like, I got to call Joey. I'll be on the phone for 10 minutes, two and a half hours later. What the hell could you possibly discuss for two and a half hours? I'm like about 27 different things.

Speaker 3 (00:26:50):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:26:50):

Do you like coffee?

Speaker 3 (00:26:52):

No, I despise it, but I do drink it. I need the caffeine. I mean, for a while I was on a Red Bull kick about five or six a day.

Speaker 2 (00:27:00):

That was me. That was me. I can relate.

Speaker 3 (00:27:02):

And so I went to the grocery store, checked my blood pressure, it was through the roof, went to the doctors. He's like, dude, your vitamin B is a thousand percent above what it should be. What the fuck are you doing? Shit, just stop doing what you're doing. So I came into the studio with a heart monitor and all this stuff, and it freaked out the band. And I was like, all right, so maybe I should stop the Red Bulls.

Speaker 5 (00:27:24):

I hope the death clause is in your producer contract.

Speaker 2 (00:27:26):

You know what, we didn't plan on talking about this, but being that I'm a victim of this as well and self-imposed, of course the studio lifestyle can promote some very unhealthy stuff. And I've noticed that a lot of great engineers die a lot younger than a lot of other professions. You'll get guys dying in their fifties and sixties. And my theory is from being sedentary and from too much caffeine or stimulants or whatever, eating like shit a lot. So once you got that result back of your blood pressure through the roof, what did you change? No more Red Bull.

Speaker 3 (00:28:10):

Yeah, red Bulls out the window. Any sort of super caffeinated things are done. Change up my diet a bit.

Speaker 2 (00:28:17):

How so?

Speaker 3 (00:28:18):

Well, I would start my day, and this is just a problem that I have, is I have a terrible, terrible sweet tooth. So I'd start the day with a box of cookies and a red bull, Jesus, Jesus, every day. And that's what I would eat.

Speaker 5 (00:28:30):

Breakfast of Champions.

Speaker 3 (00:28:31):

Yeah, exactly. There

Speaker 5 (00:28:32):

It is.

Speaker 3 (00:28:34):

So I swapped that out for, I don't know, a sandwich instead, shit like that. It was just terrible. Everything just Red Bull candy, cake, chocolate, anything. Seven 11 was my friend.

Speaker 4 (00:28:46):

We get to be kids as long as possible in this profession, I feel like. Yeah, but it catches up. Absolutely. It catches up.

Speaker 5 (00:28:54):

First time I met Joey, he would drink probably in the realm of five to 10 energy drinks a day. And he would sit there and chain smoke through a pack of cigarettes probably every two hours. Literally. He'd sit there banging his head to the music cigarette in his mouth, take a swig of the energy drink, put it back down, cigarette back in his mouth. And it was just like every 30 seconds that process would repeat. And it was just all day long, 16 hours a day. And me and the band were sitting there kind of laughing, we're like, this guy's going to fucking die when he's 30. Man, I can relate. He's still here. He's still here. Thankfully,

Speaker 4 (00:29:28):

I made drastic changes once I got to a certain point where I realized my hands were going numb from, I was drinking so much energy drinks that my hands were going numb. And also I was coughing. I couldn't breathe from all the cigarettes I smoked for 13 years. I quit when I was 26, started when I was 13.

Speaker 3 (00:29:49):

Wow. Yeah. Congratulations.

Speaker 4 (00:29:51):

Thank you. And I think just much better. I'm more productive. I, I'm a better, I feel better. I'm happier now that I've quit all that. I do drink a lot of coffee though. I'm still very dependent on caffeine. But it's just, I think coffee's maybe safer delivery of caffeine than something like Noss or

Speaker 2 (00:30:12):

Yeah, it definitely is. Yeah. I've started juicing agree at least once or twice a day to offset the years of damage because the studio I was working at got a Red Bull and a monster endorsement and oh man, that was bad. That was just like, you like 10 bottles of that shit a day and you end up not sleeping for days and days and days and it just ruins your life.

Speaker 5 (00:30:41):

How am I the only healthy person on this podcast? I eat all organic. I go to bed at the same time every night. I'm fanatic about that. I mean, even I still passed a kidney stone a month ago. I don't drink enough water and I eat too much fucking spinach and shit like that.

Speaker 2 (00:30:55):

Were you always like that? And were you brought up like that?

Speaker 5 (00:30:58):

Well, when I grew up on caffeine and Twinkies and shit like that until I was about 18 and I was always the really skinny kids when I got to college, I started working out a lot and then I started eating a lot healthier. So I dropped soda and juice and all that crap and started just drinking water and trying to eat healthier. And then you're

Speaker 2 (00:31:19):

Just a fucking winner. Alright, you're just a fucking winner. The rest of us have to struggle with this shit.

Speaker 5 (00:31:26):

When I got married, my wife got a job interpreting for cancer patients at a hospital from Soviet Russia. And in Russia, she had an interpreter's job. And after five years of working in the cancer ER and all that stuff, she's just like, ladies 98, she survived cancer. She'd be like, what's your secret? So she would come home with all these horror stories and all these wisdoms from people who were on their deathbed, and it's like, all right. So I don't know. She just scared the shit out of me that, and my grandparents, they don't take care of themselves. My parents, literally no one in my family cares, and my wife and I are just absolute health fanatics. So we just got really into it. And it's a lifestyle change. It's great when you go to bed every night, you wake up, you're ready to go. And if when you're not eating McDonald's, you feel better. Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (00:32:10):

Well, I got to say that in my younger years, especially when I was doing the band thing, I would've no problem staying up for three days in a row on Adderall and weed and just write music and just go for it. Just write and write and fuck it, do it, make this great. And months would go by like that in a fucking red light room cloud of amazing weed just, yeah, Adderall everywhere. And I wrote a lot of cool shit that way, man. And then once I got the gig at Audio Hammer, that started to trail off a little bit because suddenly I had a house. I had to support

Speaker 3 (00:32:53):

Responsibility as a bitch.

Speaker 2 (00:32:54):

Yeah, real. Yeah. It wasn't just a record label to answer to is a house payment. And also I was about the age of 30. And so then that whole thing that, well, people start dropping dead eventually. You can't keep doing this in your twenties, it's fine, but at some point if you keep this up, you will drop dead.

Speaker 4 (00:33:13):

And

Speaker 2 (00:33:13):

So then there was the whole challenge of like, okay, the engineer's diet is awful.

(00:33:19):

And so now we've been getting past that, and Joel, I've been actually using you as my hero, started juicing, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, things that normal functional people do. See, this is crazy. This is what you're supposed to learn as a kid. But since my dad was a musician, I never got any of this stuff, this normal. Get up and brush your teeth, go to school, eat normal amounts of food, and go to bed at night after you did your homework and then wake up the next day. None of that applied in my family. So I'm learning that stuff now and I'm using you as an example, so thank you.

Speaker 5 (00:33:57):

Well, you're welcome. We just had a moment. Yeah, we did. Well look at it this way better now than later because the thing is, when you're in your twenties, you never think about your health. You literally just take it for granted. Like 20, I'm invincible, fuck it. I can party for four days straight and it doesn't matter. And you can be a little hungover. Now when you're in your thirties, you try doing that and you're like, oh my God,

Speaker 2 (00:34:16):

This

Speaker 5 (00:34:17):

Sucks. I can only imagine being in the forties or fifties or sixties and going hard. So

Speaker 2 (00:34:22):

Yeah. So that reminds me, Dan, do you have any of those funny posture chairs?

Speaker 3 (00:34:26):

No, I don't. I have shitty Office Depot chairs that I got for 50 bucks.

Speaker 2 (00:34:30):

Doesn't that make your ass hurt?

Speaker 3 (00:34:32):

It does, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (00:34:34):

He's got a console and all this badass outboard and he's got a fucking $50 chair.

Speaker 2 (00:34:38):

Damn, that's weird. So here's a question I wanted to ask you. So I was looking on your website and I saw that you have the customary requirements for bans submitting to mix, which I think everybody who does mixing for money, who takes clients via the internet, which is pretty much anybody who mixes in the modern age, everyone should do this. So take note mixers who want to be, who are listening to this is you should always have a set of requirements for your clients that involve things such as everything should be in stems, bounce to zero, the bit rate, sample depth, all that important stuff. And you go on to say things like, if a session was recorded into pro tools, make sure all of the audio files and phase are accounted for on the copy you provide. An easy solution is to highlight all your audio regions and consolidate them. Cool. That's great information and all that. Yours is very well written. Now, let me ask you something. How many people actually read this and follow it? I

Speaker 3 (00:35:50):

Knew that was coming. Surprisingly, a lot of people are asking now, it all starts from one kid who just sends you a session and they're like, oh, what happened to that vocal? And you're like, what vocal? And they're like, oh, it was on this playlist, XXX five. And you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? So anytime someone inquires about a mix, I instantly or have my manager send them a link of the stuff, say, look, here's the format you need to be delivered in. Here are the guidelines, or it's just going to be delayed or we won't be able to do it.

Speaker 5 (00:36:23):

There's a line I add at the end of mine that says, if you don't comply, there will be extra charges added to your bill. And ever since I've put that in, I haven't had a single offender.

Speaker 3 (00:36:31):

If you don't comply, that helps.

Speaker 5 (00:36:35):

Of course. That makes you look like an asshole. And they're like, oh, this guy's all in his high horse. Who the fuck does he think he is? Well, how about you do your fucking job and give me the files correctly so I can do mine and make them sound good, please. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:36:47):

Right. Well, I was just going to say one thing that I feel like I need to start adding to this is a lot of sessions that I get lately are just like DI's vocals. A lot of people feel that mixing is now editing. They think that, yeah, it's editing, it's producing. Oh, why didn't you add this special effect? And I'm like, what do you fucking mean? I'm mixing your shit. I'm not producing your stuff. You want a special effect to put it in. Oh my God. I'm gladly mix it in. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:37:16):

This is literally, we talk about this almost every episode. It's just like,

Speaker 2 (00:37:20):

Let's just talk about this for a second because God fucking dammit, every, like I said last week, I just got into a major fight with a client over this and I lost the client, and I'm fucking happy that I did because a 60 minute record with 157 tracks of audio that play the entire way through on a mix budget does not equal. You have to tune an hour's worth of vocals that are 12 tracks deep. That's not part of the job description or to retune all your shitty di

Speaker 5 (00:37:58):

Oh, shit.

Speaker 2 (00:38:00):

Yeah. Yeah. They don't get it. And they didn't get it. That's why it was infuriating. It wasn't infuriating that they sent it to me like that. It was infuriating that they thought I was trying to scam them by telling them, that's not part of the deal,

Speaker 5 (00:38:15):

Dan, you need to invent a fuck off button since they're the electronics wizard that we can just press

Speaker 2 (00:38:20):

Ejector seat direct this.

Speaker 3 (00:38:24):

Yeah. Oh God.

Speaker 4 (00:38:25):

That's the big problem is it's flipped to the point where people think you're trying to upcharge them, which it's so sad. I wish that they could see that the race car driver and the mechanical engineer who designed the car is not the same person. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (00:38:45):

Right. Well, you guys just bring up an interesting fact that the lack of education not only flows through the musicians, but it flows through producers and engineers as well. These kids are making records that really shouldn't be.

Speaker 4 (00:38:57):

Yeah, you're right. You're right. And it's because the technology has made it so easy for anyone to get into this. I mean, anyone who has a MacBook automatically has a recording studio. It's built in. When you turn it on, there's garage band. That's just the start of it. And then you find a better program online, you install it and you go a little further. And you know what? Just crazy,

Speaker 2 (00:39:19):

I got to say, and not to, I don't want this to sound like self-referential or patting myself on the back or anything because Joey, you've done it too, and Joel, you do it too. But that's why I think that those of us who are offering education to these beginners are doing a noble thing. And I have to say that because some guys who are up in the ladder who make real records, peers have expressed a little bit of distaste for trying to help educate this up and coming generation. But look, if we don't help them do this, right, this is our future. This is the future of being a producer is editing and mixing. We'll become part of the same job, and you'll get paid one price to do two jobs, and that's where it's headed, and it's not going to be getting any better because computers are not going to go away, and GarageBand is not going to go away.

(00:40:15):

Mixcraft is not going to go away. Tango Forum is not going to go away. If anything, that shit is just going to get worse. People who want to build their own 1176 s for $50, the soldering knife that they get at Radio Shack, that shit is not going anywhere. This is the reality we all have to deal with. The old days are done, and so unless we educate the upcoming generation, man, this gig is up. It is going to be so fucked. That's why we're here, man. Exactly. That's why I think what we're doing is a very noble thing. Somebody needs to tell these kids what the fuck is up? Because certainly isn't their recording schools. Their recording schools are feeding them stuff from 1972, which stuff sounded great then, but they need to be getting some sort of information that's relevant to nowadays to explain to them how you do what's modern and what's right, and when you do what's modern and what's right, and how to edit and how to mix, and how they're different and all that, or else, yeah, you're going to get more and more pissed off producers and mixers who get an unedited unconsolidated piece of work for a mixed budget.

Speaker 5 (00:41:31):

What's interesting about that whole rant, and I fullheartedly agree, is that when I was coming up and I started doing this, I have no formal training in any studio. I mean, I would've died to get into a studio with a real producer and sit in front of a board and actually learn what the fuck was up and do it the right way. It would've been the kid that would've just eaten that shit up and gone home and just studied it and then just lived it. But when I was coming up on my own in my own basement and learning this shit, it's like I wanted to learn that stuff. I wanted to be good at what I'm doing. And I feel like maybe it's some of laziness kind of plays into that with a lot of people because when I got into this, I always wanted to be the best I could be at it. No matter how good I ended up being, I at least wanted to be able to do shit. How do you fucking tune a vocal correctly? How do you edit a drum correctly? Grab the internet, start reading, start learning, start experimenting, and more importantly, use your fricking ears and listen and be like, oh, that sounds screwed up here. Let's not cross fade. That that. Let's try this one. Oh, that sounds better.

Speaker 4 (00:42:29):

Let me ask you, Dan, if someone does send you a mix and they say, oh yeah, how much extra, let's say they understand the fact that the two jobs are different, and they ask you how much extra to tune the vocals to, what is your response to that?

Speaker 3 (00:42:42):

My response, I'll give them a rate, and I do have two other engineers at the studio that will do this stuff. Those are the guys that are downloading the sessions, making sure everything's in place. If there is extra stuff that needs to be done, I gladly give it to them to do. So you're at least

Speaker 4 (00:42:56):

Providing

Speaker 3 (00:42:57):

Option. I can accommodate it. Yeah. Why not?

Speaker 5 (00:42:59):

How do you get your assistant to do that for you? Because mine's at the point where he's just like, for fuck off, I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 3 (00:43:07):

Well, I mean, you pay him. Everyone has the price mean

Speaker 5 (00:43:11):

I do pay him. I pay him a lot. Wow. Wow. You just, well, we got too many other things we're working on. He's always too busy working on prepping this or that. He doesn't want to do any of those. I got to get a floor washer and a toilet scrubber and a vocal tuner in here. I think home

Speaker 2 (00:43:26):

Joy.com. homejoy.com. You can order a maid off of there. They'll come in for 22 bucks an hour and clean your fucking place. Do

Speaker 4 (00:43:36):

They tune vocals? No, but clean the console and tune the

Speaker 2 (00:43:41):

No. You can gate your dude, but not have to clean toilets, but tune vocals instead and have a cleaning lady. Come in homejoy.com. Don't say, I didn't tell you. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (00:43:54):

Well, hey, I want to thank you for being on the show, Dan, and spending you guys spend some time with us and just kind of chit-chatting about some cool shit. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:44:03):

I enjoyed this. This was fun.

Speaker 2 (00:44:04):

Hey, do you have time to answer one question from the audience? Of course. Okay. I got a question here from Danny W First of all, you are one of my favorite producer engineers and have influenced much of my work. I have been mixing my own bands for about three years now, and I want to know how to go about getting myself credited properly. Are there any tricks that you would advise? Who do I talk to?

Speaker 3 (00:44:39):

Wow. As far as getting credits on an album?

Speaker 2 (00:44:42):

Yeah, I guess credited properly, whatever that means.

Speaker 4 (00:44:46):

Well, it's like, if you think about it, you could go to allmusic.com, which is kind of the main source for discography credits,

Speaker 5 (00:44:54):

Except they suck at doing it. But go ahead.

Speaker 4 (00:44:56):

So here's the thing. It's like, well, it's not their fault. First of all, they're just a database website. They don't actually do anything. People submit the information to them through some sort of process. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's distribution or something. I think the question is how do you make sure that your name ends up being printed in the CD if you did the work? And because there are oftentimes where it's not accurate.

Speaker 2 (00:45:23):

I'm pretty sure that's what he means.

Speaker 3 (00:45:25):

Right. Okay. Well, the very simple answer to that is you have a mixers agreement, you have a contract, which they could or could not follow. And if they don't, then you could have the option to take legal action against them. But I think that having an agreement set forth before you start mixing really details what your demands are. If you don't make any demands, how are they going to know what you want?

Speaker 4 (00:45:46):

Yeah, maybe I guess in their eyes, which is, I mean, this is just so obscure, but maybe they think, oh, maybe he doesn't want his name on it. They don't want to make any assumptions, obviously, because it's business. But I think it does come down to the contract and knowing that you do have the right to request your name being printed on it, or to even say that we both agree that this is how it's going to go down. And then of course, if they want to obey the terms of the agreement, then they will. But record labels aren't always the most professional business people in the world.

Speaker 2 (00:46:27):

I go ahead and I submit definitely not the specific language, but one thing that I've noticed is I feel like not getting credits is sometimes just part of the deal as you're coming up. There's just some situations where it's not going to happen even if you do a lot of work. I know that there's a lot of stuff out there that I did mixes for that my name's not on, and I could go argue it, but I don't think it would be worth the trouble It would cause it's

Speaker 4 (00:46:56):

Not. It's not. Yeah, definitely not. If you look at my credits, it's actually pretty, it's done pretty well. But I think that is attributed to the fact, and I did a lot of work without contracts. I think it's attributed to the fact that I was just dealing with people who knew what they were doing. And I think if you're working with the wrong type of a and r guys and the wrong type of managers, they just don't know where to submit the information. They don't know that they have to give that to a certain company that ends up spreading it across the universe of information. So I don't know what it is, but I know that I've worked with people who do, and that's probably why most of my credits are fairly accurate. I don't know if you share that same experience, Dan.

Speaker 3 (00:47:38):

Yeah. I mean there's always going to be something that slips through the cracks, but just being upfront and having some sort of agreement definitely helps. And the other thing to think about too is that if someone skips your credit, it's not technically the end of the world. People who are interested in who did what will do some research and figure out what happened during those sessions and they find out who does what. So if you miss a credit, it's not the end of the world.

Speaker 4 (00:48:06):

And especially now with the internet, it's kind of easier to keep track of the bands and the explosion of Instagram, just studio photos, just a quick, it takes two seconds and you can figure it out. I know what the house allowed looks like, so if I'm on Instagram and I'm looking at bands, I can be like, oh, they're at house allowed. I didn't know that, but I could tell just from a picture in two seconds.

Speaker 2 (00:48:30):

At the end of the day, also, there's factors outside of your control when it comes to credits. If you're working under somebody, maybe, and this has happened to me, if you're working under somebody, maybe they don't want your name in it for whatever reason it's happened to. Interns of mine where say I was the engineer. I heard an intern we're working for a producer on a record many years ago, and I told the intern that I would get him into the liner notes. I shouldn't have taken that liberty. I thought because it was my own band's record, I could, but the guy who was unquote producing didn't want any of the help on there. And so at the end of the day, you can be overrided. So best you can do is state your intentions and hope that the other party follows through. And I think, like Dan said, it's not the end of the world. This is something that we all deal with at some point coming up.

Speaker 4 (00:49:23):

Sure. Yep. Totally true. I wish we had more questions. That was actually a pretty good question.

Speaker 2 (00:49:28):

Here's a question from Jacob. Michael Scott, how the fuck did Dan get that maximum penalty record? So punchy.

Speaker 3 (00:49:38):

That is a good question. I do the same shit for a lot of my records as far as the process mixing through an SSL two bus compressors and series on the bus, both smacking pretty hard. That'll do it. Damn. So what board is it exactly? It is an SSL 8,000 G 48 channels. Damn.

Speaker 4 (00:50:03):

I bet that thing was pretty expensive.

Speaker 5 (00:50:05):

If you want to borrow that out to me and just leave it with me, I'll be happy to take that from you.

Speaker 3 (00:50:10):

Just send it over. I'll back it up in a suitcase. We'll send it out. But yeah, I mean those consoles just have the sound of rock music. A lot of the stuff that you've heard over the years, especially the eighties when they first came out, you got used to that kind of sound and the crunchiness of the console and the smack of that bus compressor. That's really the sound of rock.

Speaker 4 (00:50:32):

I have a question here from a user. His name is Miami Dolphin, which is interesting. He asks, do you consider Riot to be in your top three productions of all time?

Speaker 3 (00:50:42):

No. Only because I did not unquote produce that record. You were the mixer, right? I engineered it. I mixed it. I'm the guy behind the sounds, so I don't

Speaker 4 (00:50:52):

Gotcha. But what about mixing wise? If we're not talking about productions, but we're talking about mixes, do you think that would

Speaker 3 (00:50:58):

Be in

Speaker 4 (00:50:58):

Your top three? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:51:00):

I feel like the stuff I'm doing, every time you do a record, it gets better and better and better. I was pretty young when I did that one. Definitely a lot of things that I would have changed or would've done differently knowing what I know now, but I can still sit back and listen to it. And sometimes I'll forget that happened years and years and years ago, and sometimes be side will come on and I'm thinking, man, this sounds fucking good. You start to get nervous. There's another new kid on the block and more competition. You're like, oh fuck, wait, I did this one. Awesome.

Speaker 4 (00:51:34):

What are your top three productions of all time? I mean, I know I hate that question when I get asked, but just maybe there's something in there.

Speaker 3 (00:51:43):

God, it's so funny. A lot of these things, they fly by so quick and you forget about them. Shit, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Speaker 4 (00:51:53):

I know I hate being asked the same question, but

Speaker 3 (00:51:55):

That's rough. Just

Speaker 4 (00:51:56):

One thing that sticks out in your one production that sticks out in your mind as being just something extra special.

Speaker 3 (00:52:04):

I really enjoyed that Pierce. The veils collide with the sky. I thought that we did a lot of creative things on there. A lot of it all being analog and effects were guitar pedals and stuff that we were tweaking out. So I really enjoyed that one. I think that one sticks out as far as being something super special.

Speaker 2 (00:52:25):

Let me ask you something. I'm a guitar player and I like pedals, but I love plugins too, and I feel like I love the ease of effects via plugins, but man, is it just me or is there something that you just cannot recreate with a plugin that a stomp box could do properly?

Speaker 3 (00:52:46):

Yeah, two different animals, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:52:49):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:52:49):

Your stomp box is, and I rarely record guitars in the box kind of stuff, but your stomp box is in a different place signal flow wise when you're playing it as opposed to an in the box thing. I feel like a lot of people are doing post-production things on the guitars and it'll sound different. If you plug delay into the input of your guitar, it'll sound different than a delay on your output bus and you interact with the units differently as well. There are a lot of plugins that sound great, but if you can tweak a knob that's sitting in front of you and more easily manipulate the sound, you'll get different sounds than if you're clicking with something with a mouse and turning the knob. Even though the results could be similar, the way that you interact with it is different, and you might find something that you wouldn't in the box.

Speaker 2 (00:53:38):

Awesome. Well, I have another question for you, Kyle. Hoffer wants to know what's Dan's history with electronics? Did he start with kits or was it more of a study of electrical engineering?

Speaker 3 (00:53:51):

It started with a little bit of both. It was, well, the first thing that I built was a guitar pedal. I got interested in a lot of studio stuff, but I just really couldn't afford it. So I went out and bought a breadboard and found a schematic for a clean boost pedal and built that didn't work. And then someone suggested that I read this book called The Art of Electronics. It was by two Harvard professors, a bunch of hippies making basically relating electronics to the average person. And I read through that and just took a lot of time adjoining forums and asking stupid questions about shit. And then just doing it, blowing stuff up, catching things on fire, just really going for it until you figure out what it is. So

Speaker 2 (00:54:37):

You did some reading and some studying, but it sounds to me like it was like 75 to 80% execution and 20% reading.

Speaker 3 (00:54:47):

Sure. It was jump first and then figure out why you just broke your arm,

Speaker 2 (00:54:50):

Which, you know what, I've been reading a lot about this and a lot of success coaches or people who study success or who study achievement or whatever, say that people who achieve the most in life are the type to jump first and then ask questions later. Regardless of the risk, you just go for it. You don't sit there and think about it when you want to do something, you do it. You learn the minimum needed to be able to get off the ground with it. But rather than sit around and learn everything until you have the perfect knowledge of it, you get going and you learn through trial and error. Yep,

Speaker 3 (00:55:30):

Absolutely. If you just read a book, you won't know why you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. You just won't know. If you burn yourself or something catches on fire, then you realize, oh shit, I should have done this, and now I know I'm not to do that anymore.

Speaker 4 (00:55:42):

Yeah. I like to tell people the, well, I've gone with that mentality for most of the way. I came up with self-taught and doing the same thing that you just described, but I also tell people to mix music the same way. It's like, make your fucking drum sound and then print the damn thing and move on. Don't sit there and fuck around with the drum sounds for two weeks on one song. It's retarded. You're never going to get better at doing this if you're only working with one song, with one drum sound.

Speaker 3 (00:56:13):

Right. Yeah. You got to commit, commit and move on.

Speaker 4 (00:56:16):

Yeah. Just commit and move on. And then three weeks later you're going to hear the mix and you're going to fucking hate it, and you're going to learn from that scenario. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:56:26):

Well, I remember I was taking a, I wouldn't say a seminar. I was taking a class once, it was like a class last seminar when I was like 17. And the topic was engineering win-win solutions. So my parents used to send me to this intellectual kind of stuff when I was younger, but it was an institute called the Gold Rat Institute, and the whole thing behind it was how to engineer a win-win solution in any situation. And I guess it was an Israeli guy who thought that he had the Mid East peace process solved and figured out scientifically how to engineer win-win solutions. Okay, that's long story short. So anyways, I'm there learning this thing and they would set us up in groups and give us this whole system with fake problems and how you get from point A to point B with two different groups of people who disagree and blah, blah, blah.

(00:57:24):

And we would have these people who before ever trying anything, would just start asking questions and how do I do this? And what's going to happen when he does this? And then how do I deal with that? The dude who ran the shit would always say, ask questions of the world through your actions and your experience, and then come to me. And they wouldn't listen to him. They'd keep on asking dumb questions. It's like eventually he yelled at them. It was like, stop fucking asking me questions. Do the work, ask the world questions through your actions and experience, and then come to me. And that stuck with me my whole life. You get the most feedback from life from actually executing, and obviously you're going to fuck a few things up, but you're never going to get the chance to correct them if all you're doing is reading about something.

Speaker 3 (00:58:17):

Right. No, that makes complete sense.

Speaker 2 (00:58:20):

Yeah. Long way to get to that point, but still

Speaker 4 (00:58:23):

No very wise words. And I think that's the other thing is if you're listening to the show and you're hoping for us to tell you how to EQ your kick drum, it's not exactly going to help you. Even if we told you how to do it, you wouldn't be good at EQing kick drums. You'd only be good at EQing one kick drum the way that we just told you how to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:58:42):

Yeah. And that's saying that the kick drum that they're trying to EQ is the same one that we,

Speaker 4 (00:58:48):

So it's better to learn. I mean, I feel like we're just trying to give the core values and the foundation that you need in order to get better at this kind of stuff. It has nothing to do with the technical skills are kind of assumed. If you have those and you understand what a compressor is, that's step one. But that's not everything. Everything is just experimentation, experience. And like you said, Dan blowing shit up,

Speaker 3 (00:59:20):

Blowing shit up. I mean, the other thing to keep in mind as well is that you really have to know your shit. You really have to know the sonic part, the technical part, because you deal with that very little. That's got to be second nature in the studio. When you're in the studio, you're dealing with attitudes and egos and opinions and a bunch of fucking kids who drop out of high school who have problems. That's what you're dealing with all the time. And during that whole process, you're actually making the record.

Speaker 2 (00:59:51):

So the technical stuff definitely just has to be assumed. Absolutely. That's the ticket for entry.

Speaker 4 (00:59:57):

Tyler Holbert says, I just looked up his discography and under riot, he's credited with explosions.

Speaker 5 (01:00:05):

I saw that too.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):

Yes. So at my old studio was, it was like in the center of an exit ramp for two major highways, and we were right in the middle. No one ever bothered us out there. One of my hobbies, and this was pre, well, no, one of my hobbies was making pipe bombs and blowing shit up. When things got a little stale in the studio, I would make a bomb. We'd send them out during garbage day and they'd pick up some shit, a tv, a toilet, whatever it may be, and we'd blow it up, and that's how we passed time. So with Paramore, they went around, they found a bunch of stuff, and we sent an old toilet about 20 feet in the air. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:00:49):

Is this during a mixing session or something, or engineering session?

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):

This was during tracking. I think we had just finished a drum track and everyone was kind of hyped up. That's awesome. We just went for it, just made a bomb and just blew up a toilet.

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):

I got a new hobby now. Thanks, Dan. Going to a go blow up a bunch of shit next door. Why not? Fuck 'em.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):

Yeah, it was a strange place over there. We had an adult gay care center for retarded people to one side. The other side was some vitamin factory that was getting raided by the A TF all the time for whatever the fuck they were doing. And then we had the studio in the middle and it was a crazy combination.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):

So the vitamins factory was feeding the retarded people.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):

Yeah. Okay. I know what kind of vitamin factory you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):

Oh yeah. It was pretty nuts. Well, that's awesome. Once again, thanks for being on the show and thanks for spending time with us. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):

Yeah, it was awesome, Dan. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):

No, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):

Have a good time. It's great having you on, man. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):

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