MATT BROWN: Working with Jon Anderson of Yes, baking 30-year-old tapes, and making small rooms sound huge

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Sonar Works. Sonar Works is on a mission to ensure everybody hears music the way it was meant to be across all devices. Visit Sonar works.com for more info and now your hosts. Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:19):

Levi, this show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. You know us for nail the Mix, but today I'm here to tell you about Ultimate Drum Production. Our course that's going to completely transform the way you think about and record drums. You're going to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, head over to Ultimate Drum Production dot com to learn more. So welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, time Al Levy. And as you can hear, I am in echo chamber, but that's okay. I love all of you enough to record even when I'm in an echo chamber. My guest today is a longtime friend of mine and of URM. He's been on the podcast before. He's appeared at our summit shit. We even did a course with him, a good one. His name is Matt Brown and he's a drummer, an instructor, a producer, an engineer, just lots of different stuff. A walking gear encyclopedia. Really, the list just goes on and on and on. I bet he could even play an instrument other than drums. I just haven't personally experienced it. But if I found out tomorrow that he could play guitar really well or something, I can't or rant. You can't.

Speaker 3 (00:01:49):

No. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:01:51):

Well, I found out that you were an orchestral arranger. I just wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 3 (00:01:55):

Yeah, I do kind of dabble in that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (00:01:58):

Okay. See, not surprised if you guys are wondering what that course was. That course was Ultimate Drum Production, which we're going to be re-releasing this year. And the reason that I've had Matt on other than just being an amazingly cool person is the man is just amazing at getting drum sounds and explaining it and just on a level that I've never really experienced elsewhere. I've worked with lots of drum engineers, lots of drum techs, and yes, I've met lots of great engineers, producers who know how to get a great drum sound on their own stuff, and that's awesome. But in terms of collaborating with someone who could help my stuff sound better, never met anyone who was as capable.

Speaker 3 (00:02:58):

That's very kind. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:03:00):

It's the truth. It's the truth. As a drummer, it was played professionally in bands like 10 years and various other projects. But I can tell you that whenever we would do a drum session together back in the day, and I was going to take the drum samples, whether plan on using them or not always take samples of the kit, I would always have Matt play them instead of the drummer in the band. Unless the drummer in the band was some freak like Mark Castillo or Kevin Talley or something, someone who hits the drums with a force of nature. Unless it's one of those people, I would just have Matt do it because when he hits the drums, they sound right. And that's actually a lot more rare than you would think. And so not only that, it wasn't just that the drums were tuned right and hit Right. I've never gotten that much useful advice about the actual engineering part before or since, actually. So I just figured when starting URM, we want to have Matt involved. So hence Matt has been involved and welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:04:25):

Thanks for having me, and thank you for that long but amazing intro. It was short, actually. I feel like five credits is enough. Just give me five credits. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:04:38):

Yeah. Did I name any credits? Well, 10

Speaker 3 (00:04:41):

Years. Yeah, we got one. Let's knock out a couple more and we're done.

Speaker 2 (00:04:46):

Well, I wanted to talk about John Anderson.

Speaker 3 (00:04:48):

Oh, great.

Speaker 2 (00:04:48):

So there we go.

Speaker 3 (00:04:49):

There we go.

Speaker 2 (00:04:50):

So you recently, and by recently, I mean in the past two years, you've been working with John Anderson from Yes. On his new record?

Speaker 3 (00:05:01):

I have, yeah. It's actually, I started working officially in 2015 on the album. The album that we're talking about is John Anderson, 1000 Hands, and it was released at the end of March this year independently. So it's not streaming yet, you can only buy it at shows or on John's website, which was kind of a strategic ploy to force record sales in a time that nobody sells records. But yeah, started on it in 2015 was originally just supposed to engineer clean up the original recordings, which the record originally started in the early nineties with John co-writing with a couple friends in Big Bear and then traveling to Conway Studios and working with Alan White and Chris Squire from Yes, to record what was supposed to be an album that John was going to release solo that ended up getting shelved. For some reason it didn't get finished.

(00:06:07):

So the producer of the record reached out to John after hearing a couple two track stereo rough mixes and wanted to finish the record and produce it and add and turn it into something that would be viable in a modern world basically. And so he reached out to John, John gave him the go ahead, and I officially started in 2015 when I got the two inch tapes from John. They were shipped in, they had been sitting in John's garage for 20 something years, so they actually didn't even play. I took 'em over to my dad's studio. He is got a two inch tape machine over there just to see if we could get 'em to play, and they did not play at all. We put 'em on the reels and set 'em up and press play, and the tape moved about a half an inch and then stopped. And that's unfortunate. That's what happens with old tapes is they develop Sticky Shed syndrome, which is basically the tape turns into a sticky, it's very sticky, and it won't play

Speaker 2 (00:07:17):

Turns into fuel, basically.

Speaker 3 (00:07:19):

Yeah, basically it resort back kindling. It resorts back to the oil. It was made from type of a thing. So in order to get the audio off of the tapes, we had to send them to be baked, which is where they actually put them in an oven at a specific temperature for a specific amount of time. And when they take them out of the oven, they get one play of that tape. So that company that we did that up in Nashville, they transferred all the tapes that we had to digital 24 bit 96 K files. And that's when I started working on it. And it was quite a project from the beginning. Most, I would say most of this record was a restoration project to begin with because of the condition of the tapes. There was some killer performances that were unfortunately mangled and were covered in static and noise and bleed from other channels and just all kinds of problems with some of these.

(00:08:29):

And some of the performances were perfectly fine. Some of the songs were spread over two different tapes. They were using 48 tracks, so 2 24 track machines. But some of the songs were still long that they were spread over multiple tapes. So one tape would end and the other tape would pick up at that transitional point and carry out the rest of the song. But we were missing the second tape for the second half of one of the songs. So there was a lot of issues to begin with that roughly were about, the first, I'd say about the first six to eight months was cleaning up tracks, finding the right performances of several takes to making a list of what was usable, what wasn't usable song lists that there's a list of songs and we're missing a tape that doesn't have that song on it, so what are we going to do type of a thing. And then once I got that to a point where it sounded pretty decent, we began adding people to it, replacing performances, basically creating a new record from 20 almost 30-year-old

Speaker 2 (00:09:40):

Recordings. Just out of curiosity, is John Anderson an engineering minded person to the point where he understood what a gargantuan effort it would be to take those tapes and create a record off of them? Or is he just like a great old school classic rock musician and he had these tapes and do it

Speaker 3 (00:10:09):

Well, I mean, his experience he was in yes, has been around for 50 years. So his experience with technology gives him a certain amount of knowledge, but overall, I would say he's not very technically inclined because he's one of those guys that because computers are involved now, he thinks you can just do it, just do this. And it was several times that he Pro

Speaker 2 (00:10:36):

Tools it.

Speaker 3 (00:10:37):

Yeah, yeah. Pro Tools it several times that John asked me to do something that in his mind was, well, all you have to do is press a button. And the actuality of the situation was it was going to take me about six hours to do what he wanted me to do.

(00:10:52):

And that was my knowledge of Pro Tools being since I've started on 1991 on version one approach, tools like taking all of that knowledge into account to still try to figure out what he wanted me to do. So he's not very technically modern, technically savvy, but he realized once we got the tapes and we told him they needed to be baked, he understood that process. I don't think he understood how much work was actually put into salvaging some of these takes. When you got a guy, Chris Squire passed away several years ago, and you have one of his last unheard recordings, and there's a section on the second tape of the song that is, there's no bass track to be found, but it's sub mixed into a keyboard track and some other two stereo track with the base on top. How do you salvage that performance because you don't want to replace him. It's a legendary thing. So there's a lot of that stuff involved that I don't think John ever realized that I did. And I mean that's part of the reason that it took three years to finish this record is because of those types scenarios in that first year. That's really what I was doing the first year is kind of making all of the great performances make sense and sound good, sound as good as they possibly could.

Speaker 2 (00:12:20):

One thing that I thought was interesting when you told me that you were starting to work with these classic rock guys, not just John Anderson, you've worked with quite a few of these dudes from sixties and seventies,

(00:12:35):

And I mean, I actually don't know that many people from that era of music, but the ones I have met, I've met quite a few in passing, and I know people that know them and I know that for the most part, they're kind of in a closed off little world. They're not hugely, and this is, I'm speaking in generalizations here, but if this is 90% true, then arrest my case. I feel like musicians from that era, the successful ones tend to be part of an enclosed little group, and they're not that big on new technology or new shit. They like it worked the way it worked and they had massive success and it was great. So they're not too big on changing it up or working with stuff that's a hundred percent modern, let alone they don't really totally always understand or care to understand what's inherent with the modern version of all the production and how people work on music now. And that's totally fine. But my question is, you're not even close to that generation,

Speaker 1 (00:13:58):

Right?

Speaker 2 (00:14:00):

How did you get them to trust you?

Speaker 3 (00:14:02):

You're absolutely right about them being set in. I mean, their workflow is their workflow. They're used to the last, I would say most of the guys that had a career that started in the sixties or seventies or even before, even their most modern experience of a full blown production, unless they've been actively doing it over and over and over the Rolling Stones, unless they're still an active band, but if they're like one of,

Speaker 2 (00:14:31):

Or Brian May or something,

Speaker 3 (00:14:32):

But if they're one of those artists that has been out, hasn't done anything in the past 10 or 15 years, the landscape of recording has changed so drastically in the last 15 years that their experience was maybe in the early two thousands, which we had a different set of tools, but it's nowhere near what it is now, especially on the hardware side of things like the affordability and quality of hardware has just gone through the roof.

Speaker 2 (00:15:06):

And that was back when if people said, I don't like the way the plugins sound or plugins sound, they had a legitimate stake to that argument or when people were saying, when people would talk about digital recording or the new technology and slam it, there was legitimate back then it really didn't sound nearly as good. But things have come, I mean, you can still make arguments for taste, but I don't think so. Taste is whatever taste is taste, but I don't think you can actually make arguments for quality anymore. If guys like Andrew Sheps and the people I've worked with on Nail the Mix who are fucking incredible are saying It doesn't matter anymore, then it doesn't matter anymore. I mean, the top of the line users are the ones who determine if it matters, and if they say it doesn't matter anymore, it doesn't matter, but back then it did matter. And so if that's the last experience they had was when digital was kind of shitty, then they really don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:16:17):

Yeah, it's a very hard sell. I think part of winning them over was being quick. Like I said on a previous podcast, part of working with people that have done this for so long is you just got to be ready to go at all times and it's got to be good. Whatever they hear in their headphones has to be great from the beginning. So there's a lot of preparation to get to that level to where I could do the things that they wanted quickly. But I've seen it with every older artist that I've worked with. Once I show them, Hey, that performance was great, and they're like, let me do it again. The timing was off or the pitch was off, and I do the quick edit and the quick tuning and say, no, no, no, it's good. And by the time they're ready to play it again, I can play it back corrected. That's like the aha, the light bulb. So they get comfortable really quick. The downside to that is now they think anything is possible.

(00:17:17):

So now then I'm forced with the questions John would give me, where he wanted this entire orchestra thing to be changed, that he wanted me to go in and change the notes of the real violin and real violas and real cellos, and not only just change the notes, but change the rhythms. He wanted it done immediately and it was like, well, that's like 48 tracks. Did you have midi? We did have midi. What we would do with the orchestra stuff on this record is we would program it with midi, get it as good as it could be until he approved it, and then we would bring in real string players to play on top of it, real horn players to play on top of it. And then I would create a blend of several MIDI libraries with the real instruments to give it the size to give it the multiple player sound.

(00:18:12):

But I mean, I was tracking with our violin session player, I was tracking up to six takes per part on the violins that were real, that were layer on top of two MIDI libraries. So it was creating the sense of realness so you can hear the bows and you can hear all these inconsistencies that real players have with the perfect midi. But with John working there, we've been working with Midi and he approved everything and we recorded the real strings and then he wanted to change it. And honestly, with this project, I was changing and making revisions and edits to the form and changing parts and remixing up until we had the record mastered twice. So the second master happened in February, and the album was released in May, I mean, sorry, the end of March. So I was making changes up until that final master in February. It was a constant email back and forth of like, Hey, I really want to take this section out and here's my edit. And I would have to take his edit, his crude edits that he did on logic and try to make them work, some of them with key changes that came out of nowhere. So it was a lot of, how do I make this work? How do I make it sound cohesive and still maintain the integrity of the rest of the album that we have?

Speaker 2 (00:19:39):

Well, if you think about these classic rock bands like Yes or their contemporaries, these are groups of people that really pushed the envelope back in their day

Speaker 1 (00:19:51):

For

Speaker 2 (00:19:51):

Sure. They were kind of explorers almost. They were figuring out how to get more tracks, how to change more things, how to just, and I think that in popular culture, the band that people are most familiar with, who was that way was Queen, but I don't think Queen was the only one. It started with the Beatles, that whole, let's push this as far as we can. And the whole from there, that whole Prague scene of bands like, yes, and Emerson Lake and Palmer, like Pink Floyd, all these bands that just pushed and pushed and pushed came about. And I think that you plug one of those people into our modern tools, and I can just imagine. I can just imagine how many revisions would come in.

Speaker 3 (00:20:41):

Oh, it was insane. So I believe I spoke to you because I asked 2017, I was going to Nam, I believe, and I've asked you if you were going and you were not. And I said, well, I'm wrapping. That's right. I mean, this is going into Nam of 2017, and at that time I was supposedly wrapping up final or getting the first draft of mixes for this record. It was supposed to be completed by in 2017. And I was going into Nam like, Hey, I got half the record mixed this 2017. I come home from Nam and think I'm buckling down to finish the revisions on the mixes and finish the rest of the record. And it turns into another year of tracking.

(00:21:38):

John is one of those creative people that he's, he's always looking for something to improve what he's working on. He's constantly making changes and sometimes he'll go back to what it was before, but a lot of the times he's constantly tinkering on his own with whatever I sent him, and he would send me back an edit, and some of them would be very small. It's like, take out two beats. Then others would be like, no, I want this whole minute and a half section taken out and I want to make that into a new song. It was quite an undertaking on all levels of this. I mean, this record was basically everything that I've learned in my career up to this point to try to finish it, not just on the pro tool side of things, but the playing side of things. I ended up playing on the record when I wasn't supposed to, just because I was available to create a demo, Hey, play this demo.

(00:22:38):

We are going to have Billy Cobham play drums on this track. So I went out and played drums on a drum set that was set up for a blue session that was not even supposed to be sonically close to what Billy Cobham sounds like or the song was asking for at all, but the drums were set up. So I played my best Billy Cobham impersonation, and John and the producer ended up liking what I did so much that they just put Billy on another song and kept my demo track. And that was kind of the turning point for how much I contributed to the record because that was the first sitting down playing something on the record, and that turned into, now I'm on a majority of the record as a player and the original drummer, Alan White is only on one track and Billy Cobb's on one track. And then if it's not real drums, it's programmed drums that I also programmed a lot of. And so I ended up doing a lot more than just engineering on this record just because I was there and able to do it. I had the ability to go out there and do a Billy Cobham impersonation that actually wasn't Billy Cobham, but it worked well enough to get the vibe across that they were looking for. So it was a huge

Speaker 2 (00:23:54):

Thing. You're a pretty levelheaded person. So one thing I can say about you is you're very good at remaining even try to, yeah, I mean, we all try, but we're not all successful at it. And I want to talk about this drumming thing. It kind of ties in, but one of the things that I think is the most fucking frustrating about working with clients is revisions. And it shouldn't be, we're not supposed to admit that it's frustrating,

(00:24:26):

But you just look at memes about recording or rant videos or conversations between producers, and we all know that one of the most frustrating things can be revisions. Then again, you hear about projects like these where it goes on and on and on, and people are cool with it, or you hear about those records with tons of revisions, and sometimes I wonder if people are just not talking about how mad they got or if they really just didn't get mad. But I mean, so what I'm wondering is at what point do you draw the line? I mean, it's not like you to can't put someone like that in their place. There's no place to put them in you. You have to make them happy, but at the same time, where's the line between making them happy and letting them just motorboat you into doing 80,000 revisions, and at what point should you just be like, I'm happy to be, I should just be happy to be working on this, and other point you should be like, I know my worth. There's got, where's the line?

Speaker 3 (00:25:44):

Yeah. Well, I mean, I definitely was upset several. There's been several occasions where I was upset during this because the producer and myself have a whole nother version of this record that we prefer based off of before some changes were made that John wanted, in particular, we both have this version of the song of a couple songs where we just feel like those were better versions, but we also lived with it so long in the long form of what it was that just like with any band that has demo, you also as an engineer, I mean, I've listened to this record more than anybody probably will on the planet even after they buy it, because I know every single piece of this record inside and out because I've had to just as anybody who works on a record for a while, you get to learn it intimately Well, I imagine taking a normal record, which I guess the length of normal budgets these days is anywhere from four to eight weeks from start to finish.

(00:26:54):

You take that and multiply it over three years, and imagine how many times you've heard this song, these parts, these sounds. So we got used to long versions of a couple songs, and when John started making the cuts and the edits, some of them we just didn't like at all. So that was frustrating from a musical standpoint where we felt musically it was better the way it was. But on the flip side of that, you are absolutely correct. You cannot tell an artist like this, no, they won't take it. They don't hear it. They don't understand that word.

Speaker 2 (00:27:30):

In some ways it's like, I don't want to say you're dealing with royalty, but in some ways it is kind of like you're dealing with royalty when you're dealing with a member of a band like yes, I think, and it's almost like their way is the way,

Speaker 3 (00:27:47):

And honestly, there was a couple conversations that John and I had where I was, I was trying to explain my, did

Speaker 2 (00:27:58):

He make you kiss the ring?

Speaker 3 (00:27:59):

No, no, but I was trying to explain my take on why I felt a certain part of the song should stay, and I was explaining to it from a musical standpoint, and then I was trying to also create an explain an emotional standpoint that if we leave this section in, it builds the tension and by the time we get here, it's just a bigger arrival point. And he said he had a great story that talked about how closer the song Closer to the Edge, which is a long song to begin with, and he said, there's about 20 minutes of that song that's on the cutting room floor that never made the record. And as soon as he said that, I was like, okay, that's turned into something that any Yes fan is like, this is one of the greatest songs that, and yes is catalog period, and it's long to begin with, but imagine another 20 minutes added onto a piece of work like that that never made it.

(00:29:03):

And I'm sure there was an engineer sitting in the same place that I was going, but you got to keep it because of these reasons. And he's like, Nope, I don't like it. It needs to get to the point quicker. And so at that time I realized it doesn't matter what I think ultimately my input is taken through this project and was considered, but really it's his decision. He's the one that has the vision for what this song or this record should be. So I got to bring his vision to life. Now, there was some stuff that he wanted done, but I had to smooth it out. I had to create, maybe it wasn't exactly what he wanted. I had to add a couple beats here and there to make it make sense musically so it didn't feel like somebody just moved the needle across the record and you're in another song. But I just had to let the artist be the artist, whatever he wanted, he wanted. So you just got to deliver. I mean, thank God I was paid hourly on this project. If it was otherwise, it would've been a joint really, really frustrating thing.

Speaker 2 (00:30:16):

Actually. I don't want to get into the details of the money or anything, obviously, but I think that that's a key point right there. I think that one of the ways that producers really dig themselves a whole in these situations is in the pay structure. The pay structure that they set up doesn't allow for that many revisions. And so then that's when they start to get into the scenario where they feel like they're being taken advantage of. But it sounds like with the pay structure you had, it's like, well, maybe it's frustrating, but you set it up to where the flexibility can be there and you're still taken care

Speaker 1 (00:31:05):

Of

Speaker 2 (00:31:05):

As opposed to when a producer is like, it's $1,500 a song

Speaker 3 (00:31:11):

At

Speaker 2 (00:31:11):

The end.

Speaker 3 (00:31:11):

Yeah, well, in particular this project, there's no way that this could have been done for a capped sum. The way it developed, just the whole idea of what the project was to begin with, there's no way it could have been like, well, here's how much I'm doing the record for, and here's my budget, because it exceeded that budget in year one, and we went over whatever the budget in mind was exceeded by the end of the first year, and this went on for another two years. But the result is, I mean, the reviews that the record has gotten, the way the record sounds, the response that the Yes fans have to this record is overwhelmingly positive, which is great. That's all I could ask for. As long as it sounds good and people comment how good it sounds, then I've done my job as far as an engineer, I didn't produce this, so the arrangement has nothing to do with me.

(00:32:13):

So whether people like the arrangements of the songs, that's kind of not really my input for the most part. But as long as it sounds good and I captured the performances that resonate with people, then my job is done. And so, so going into this as an hourly rate was, that's the decision that I had, the agreement with the producer, alright, we're doing this. Well, here's my hourly rate for this and we'll go by the hour. And whether or not my time was used efficiently and effectively the whole time, that's not on me. That's the producer's job. He's the one that's scheduling me to come in. So I would just show up and do the work. I mean, there was some frustrating, like I said, there was some frustrating times, but all in all, it was what it was. You just got to do it. Like I said, working with that caliber of artists, you just have to do what they want. And whether you like it or not, it's not for the core audience.

Speaker 2 (00:33:17):

But what's interesting is that sometimes it's a real problem though, when someone super high level gets told yes, by no pun intended, gets told yes by everybody. And then when there's an actual problem, first of all, they're shocked and they don't believe it because in their world, nothing has ever been bad, at least not since they got famous. And they tend to, well, some of 'em will respect people who have the balls to tell them when something's wrong. So what I'm saying is that it's a very interesting fine line because obviously like you said, you did make the case for things that you did not agree with. At the same time, you have to do what he says, his band, his vision, and he's a certain person who's achieved a certain extraordinary thing.

Speaker 3 (00:34:18):

And people that have achieved that level, they're not afraid to tell you that they achieved that level either. I mean, and that's

Speaker 2 (00:34:25):

In case you forgot.

Speaker 3 (00:34:26):

In case you forgot they're the person that's done everything. What have you done? It's always going to be there, especially when you're in my situation where I'm working with people that I'm about almost half their age. Of course, it doesn't matter what I've done, I've never done enough as they have. So they're always going to have the one up, and that's fine if that's how they want to make their point, that's how they make their point. There is something to be said about staying relevant and being in touch with the modern, modern soundscape, musical landscape, all of that stuff. And that's something that as a 43-year-old, I'm still struggling to stay on top of the newest and most current sounds and trends, and I force myself to listen to a lot of garbage music. But the takeaway is like, okay, this is how I stay on top of what's happening.

(00:35:26):

I might not like it, but at least I know how to get the sounds and I know when something sounds modern or not. So when you have somebody who's accomplished a lot telling you, well, my decisions led to this. I mean, you can't argue with it. You got to say, okay, just got to say, okay. And like I said before, there's a couple things that I had to just calmly say, this is going to take me some time. I'll get it done. Don't worry. I'll do exactly what you want me to do, but I can't just make it happen. Now, this is going to take four to six hours, or this is going to take a couple days for me to really make this work, but I'll get it done. It's approaching the artist with that bedside manner, so to speak, to make them comfortable, to let 'em know that you hear them, you're going to get what they need to get done. It's impossible for me to do it that quickly. So give me some time to figure this out type of a thing.

Speaker 2 (00:36:31):

Man, when I was younger and I had some pretty accomplished people setting me straight, it really would piss me off. I'd get so angry about it when I was talking to one of my dad's friends, so my dad's friends were some of the best musicians on the planet or corporate leaders, the people that fund orchestras are corporate leaders. And in Atlanta, so you've got Delta, you've got Home Depot, you've got Coke, et cetera. So let's just say that his friends were all sharks, whether they were musically sharks or business sharks. And so talking about what I wanted to do in the future, I would often get told the truth, I guess, and it would piss me off so much. I get so mad at them, and I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, because now I do realize that a lot of the times they were right, they were absolutely right when I was told about what would eventually stop me from touring, financially speaking, and I was like, nah,

Speaker 1 (00:37:50):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:37:51):

No, no, no, no. They were right. They were totally

Speaker 1 (00:37:53):

Right. Totally right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:37:55):

And for instance, I had a lawyer when my band was first getting, well, no, when my band was resigning, we were signing our second deal in Friedman, RIP, but he was like, don't take this deal, not Roadrunner. It was after that. He was saying, don't take this deal, this and this, and this is why it's a terrible deal. Your band will not survive. And I got that same feeling of like, fuck you for, fuck you. I won't do what you told me, basically. And he was right. However, I've had plenty of times also where people get that way and they're wrong. They're totally wrong. So I still don't understand what's right and what's wrong. So when these older dudes are like, I did this and that, in some ways they are right, they did do this and that, and fuck yeah, let's, they've got quite some wisdom. At the same time though, just because they did X doesn't mean they understand Y.

Speaker 3 (00:39:01):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:39:04):

There's no actual correlation between what someone accomplished. There's no actual link. Just because you accomplished something in one period of time doesn't mean that you understand everything about the current time. And just because you accomplished things at one point in time doesn't mean that you're suddenly a psychic, but you weren't a psychic then. You're not a psychic now. You still can't tell the future. So there's a fine line there too.

Speaker 3 (00:39:35):

Yeah. Oh yeah, exactly. And there are some artists that become successful despite themselves. Their decisions are horrible decisions, but something clicks and it just starts going, whether they're behind it or not, it just takes off without them, and then they're going to take, but in their mind, they were the mastermind behind the whole thing the whole time. So it's all there. They take all the credit, but in reality, I've seen it happen where artists make the worst decisions ever. And it could ultimately, if it wasn't a more established artist, it would just kill their career before they've even started. But because they have reach and because they already have a fan base, that kind of bad business decision

Speaker 2 (00:40:23):

And momentum,

Speaker 3 (00:40:24):

They have momentum as well. That bad business decision isn't reflected in the outcome. Now, what would reflect the outcome is if instead of making that poor decision, they were to follow the advice of a younger person who knows the landscape of the current music world and how to market and how to get the idea and the name and the brand and all of those things cohesive into the marketplace together, that's the only place you would see a difference. Otherwise, they don't know. Until they see major success based off of something that they weren't doing, there's no way for them to know because the train keeps going. So as long as the train doesn't stop, everything's great, and they think they know exactly everything that's going on. But in reality, it's like you're running on coal, you're running on a coal train. When you could be running a supersonic train around the world on electric power with no exhaust, you could be on this upper level if you were to take the advice of somebody who knows the current climate. That's neither here nor there. It's not applicable to John, but I have seen it, and that's kind of where the ego gets in the way of really of the business.

Speaker 2 (00:41:47):

If you're like most producers, you're dialing in drum sounds the old fashioned way by trial and error, swapping out drums, heads and mics until you finally find something that works oftentimes for several exhausting and tedious days. Sounds familiar. Right? And I guess I could be exaggerating by saying finding something that works. Sometimes you're just plinking around forever and never find anything that works. But you know what? It does not have to be painful. Ultimate Drum Production is our course that teaches you the scientific method for dialing in the perfect drum sound on the very first try. That's correct. The first try, it explains in extreme detail, the sonic character of every single component of drum sound with exhaustive profiles of every kind of drum head, shell, material bearing edge and hoop, as well as ridiculously detailed tutorials on Mike's selection, placement, and room choice. And when you understand drum tone at such a fundamental insanely deep level, it's like having a set of tone legos that you can use to easily build the sound you hear in your head.

(00:43:02):

You don't need to guess and check, you just assemble the building blocks. Wherever you want to find out more and get access to this incredible course, head over to Ultimate Drum Production dot com and we'll see you in class. The problem though is that in order to be a great artist, you kind of need to have that kind of confidence too. You need to have the confidence to, I think that channeling that part of yourself that creates the great art requires a singularity of focus, that even if you're not a confident person the rest of the time, there is a certain amount of confidence that comes through. It allows the act of creating at that level occur. And so you have to kind of be a little brainwashed, I think to be a great artist, you do need to be a little bit kind of high on your own stash just a little, because if you start questioning yourself too much, you really psych yourself out and get out of that head space. And one of the things that I think makes for great business is the ability to analyze everything, analyze why something worked, why it didn't work. And once you really start to analyze things, you start to realize that there's usually not just one factor or one person. And that can be tough

(00:44:34):

When you need that kind of ego to deliver art or sports performances or something on that level.

Speaker 3 (00:44:42):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:44:43):

So it's hard.

Speaker 3 (00:44:46):

The podcast was Susan Rogers, which what an amazing podcast that was.

Speaker 2 (00:44:50):

Oh yeah, that was great.

Speaker 3 (00:44:51):

But she started talking about delusion and it's like you have to have the skills to back up the ego basically. And I think that's where true success lies is a combination of ego drive and skilled and ability. If you have those three things that are on board and close and moving in the same direction, then you will be successful. And I would say ability maybe can lag behind drive a little bit, but if you go too far where the ability isn't there, then that's where delusion lies is that lack of ability combined with ego and drive. That's delusion to me, that's the ultimate definition of delusion. But you're right, in order to be successful, you do have to have those kind of egotistical outlooks on everything, but you've also got to have some ability to back it up. And without the ability, it's just not going to go anywhere and it won't resonate with anybody. And that's really what makes an art successful, is resonating with a person or a group. And if you're lucky, multiple millions of people.

Speaker 2 (00:46:07):

Sometimes though, you see these artists that are great, but they're intensely egotistical, and that egotism has actually stunted their career growth because no one wanted to work with them anymore. So they got big, like you said, and stayed big despite all these horrible decisions and could have been way bigger if they came down to earth just a little bit, just a little, just spend a weekend a year down here on

Speaker 1 (00:46:41):

Earth

Speaker 2 (00:46:42):

Just to see how people operate.

Speaker 1 (00:46:46):

Yep,

Speaker 2 (00:46:48):

True. Just one weekend, maybe one weekend a month or something.

Speaker 3 (00:46:51):

Yeah, it could be on a beach. Just go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (00:46:54):

Just come to earth at some point, feel what the atmosphere is, get a little bit of that. Speaking of that Susan Rogers podcast, boy, that was intense.

Speaker 3 (00:47:08):

I bet.

Speaker 2 (00:47:09):

Yeah, the feeling of being outmatched is really interesting, and it was kind of, I felt like I was sprinting for two hours straight. It was great though. Loved it.

Speaker 3 (00:47:23):

What a great podcast. I mean, I'm really into the nerdy stuff, so that for me was just purely enjoyable, the whole thing. It's really great.

Speaker 2 (00:47:32):

Yeah, it took two years to line up and it was worth it though.

Speaker 3 (00:47:37):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (00:47:37):

So we're relaunching UDP, and that sounds for Ultimate Drum Production

(00:47:47):

For anyone who is unfamiliar. We launched it last year, and the initial reactions not, I can't really say initial at this point, but the reactions were overwhelmingly positive so much that it's kind of hard to think about topping it. And I mean, in some ways it's not really about topping, it's just about relaunching because if you missed it the first time, it's not like the info is no longer relevant info is just as relevant. However, there are a few updates. And can you talk a little bit about how some of the feedback or what you learned since then influenced what you wanted to add?

Speaker 3 (00:48:42):

Sure. I mean, most of the feedback was, I mean, I would say overwhelmingly the feedback was like, I think you nailed it. I don't know if I could add anything to it, but there were several suggestions for some more placement and microphone shootouts, so we're going to add some of those. The other thing that I tried to accomplish in the original version, I think I did, but people really want to see it in action in a real scenario, is recording drums in a small bedroom. So that is going to be one of the additions that's coming. And with that addition, I'm not only going to address the drums aspect and the microphone aspect and the typical recording stuff, but I'm also going to address some acoustic issues to help make a small room sound better depending on what genre and style of music you're going for.

(00:49:50):

That was the overwhelmingly the number one suggestion. Even though I did a small room scenario in my studio and UDP people wanted to see a real life, a real life situation of how do I make this bedroom sound good for recording drums? So I'm going to take my bedroom that is my home studio, I'm going to rip everything out of it, and we're going to start from scratch, and that'll be one of the updates is recording drums in my bedroom and my house, which is my studio room right now. So that to me is going to be pretty exciting and challenging. And I think within that, I'm going to throw in a couple curve balls that I have learned in the process of making UDP as well as the experimentation over the past year that I've been doing. Because every time I'm recording drums, I'm experimenting, even if it's like, okay, I need to set these drums up and get this knocked out pretty quick.

(00:50:48):

I'm still constantly throwing a mic in a different position or trying a different mic in a position that I had never used it or maybe wasn't intended to use for a combination of using samples while tracking that there's certain things that I've been experimenting with over the past year, so I'm going to throw those in with the bedroom drums. So I think that's going to be something that a lot of people are going to be able to take away a realistic approach to getting great drum sounds. Drums in a great studio are going to sound good most of the time, and not everybody has that ability to go to a great studio to capture drums or some people want to build to where they can afford to do that, but you got to get the drums done first somehow, and for that first year of projects, you got to record drums and keep it low budget and make it work out for your clients. So if I can turn a bedroom into something that makes people money, then on a drum recording front, then that'll just add even more value to the information that's already there.

Speaker 2 (00:52:02):

That's just so much more relevant too than doing it in a big studio. And I guess I understand that. I do think you covered it in version one, but I guess people want to see the real thing, really do it in a crappy situation rather than simulate a crappy situation.

Speaker 3 (00:52:25):

Right.

Speaker 2 (00:52:26):

Or not necessarily crappy. Actually, I think that's a bad choice of word simulate a less than ideal situation because it doesn't have to be crappy.

Speaker 3 (00:52:35):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and I think everybody will be pleasantly surprised at how not crappy it is right from the beginning. What we did in round one of UDP was a simulation of a small room, but also stylistically chose a genre to work in that doesn't necessarily need big and bombastic drum sounds. So I was playing to the fact that the genre of music that I chose to record, the small bedroom sound or the small room sound was appropriate for the genre. So what I'm going to do with this version that's going to change it up a little bit is record drums for something that demands a larger, more impactful drum sound and show everybody how to get the drums sounding good in the room itself, how to get the room sounding good, but also some tricks to make the drums sound bigger without having to have a big space, like using some techniques that I've discovered, like I said over the past year, that kind of help beef up what I already was doing.

(00:53:43):

Those of you that attended the summit in 2018 saw a very quick demonstration of what I had been messing with, with the idea of isolating the drums from the room, creating a bridge between some room samples and the acoustic kit to make it glue together so it doesn't sound like samples. So Summit attendees got a very quick glimpse at that with this. I'm going to go into that with more detail and really explain the process behind setting it all up and making sure that when by the time the drummer gets there and puts his headphones on and hits the drums for the first time, he's just like, holy crap. How did you do this? I've seen this happen and I've seen it happen with experienced drummers. I did a session with Will Hunt for George Lynch project, and I've known Will as the drummer for Evanescence, and he was in Tommy Lee's band for a while, and the guy's a monster.

(00:54:44):

He is played with a lot of really heavy rock superstars. And so when Will came in, even though I'd known him for years, it was my first time working with him at this capacity where I'm engineering and drum teching and he's playing drums. So my goal with that project was to just floor him. The respect was already there. We were friends, I'd seen him play, he had seen me play. We knew each other around town before we met. All of that stuff was there. The respect was there. I wasn't trying to earn his respect, I was just trying to make him as comfortable as he could be, and I wanted to see him walk away from that session with his head held high and wanting to come back and work with me again. And so I was using some of these techniques of incorporating samples while tracking, which I know some people do that all the time with the kick drums, but I wasn't doing that. I'm just using room samples to supplement what I'm already with my actual rooms, mics and everything else, just to make it feel better for the drummer. And finding a way to blend those together to where they really work in that experimentation to find that I found that you don't need a large drum room, really, you don't need it. As long as you have some good samples that you like using that you really know how they work with the drums that you have, they should work really well.

Speaker 2 (00:56:14):

Those are big ifs though.

Speaker 3 (00:56:16):

Yes, that is the key, is finding the stuff that works together. It's not just, let me throw on this room sound from a trigger. Well, if those drums don't sound anything like your drums, then it's definitely going to be separated. It's not going to sound the same. But if you're able to find samples that work with your drums, or in my case, if you're able to take samples of your drums in a larger environment, then you have this DNA that's shared between the sample and the acoustic drums in whatever environment so that it helps glue it all together a little bit more. It really is astonishing from a player's standpoint. When you're sitting there with the headphones on and you hit the kick drum and it just comes back at you, not only does it sound good with the close mics, but you get this extra bit of room sound that it just makes you feel like you're destroying the building when you hit the kick drum.

(00:57:15):

I mean, it really psychologically does something to the player and makes them play better. It makes them feel like they have more control over their dynamics. It makes them feel like the sound that they're getting is huge. So it really does change the way that the drummer, the drummer plays. And so that's one aspect of what we're revising. And another aspect I'm toying around with adding possibly later is a series of quick technical teach the drummer type scenarios. How do I get the drums to sound good? The techniques that a drummer will need to sound better. So those are going to be little videos that I'm working on that'll be added later on down the line because that was yet another request is what can I do to make the drummer sound better from a technical standpoint of his playing ability? That's

(00:58:14):

A big one. That's a huge one. And when you first came to me about this course, I intentionally steered away from the technical side of playing drums because that's a whole nother thing all in itself besides if you look at recording drums, yes, the player is a huge deal, but I wanted to focus on the other side of it because a lot of stuff that I had seen, like educational content about recording drums, you had a great player in a great room right off the get go. And so there wasn't much explanation to the microphone side. It was more focused on the player in the room. And I wanted to take it and go beyond, take the player in the room and say, okay, these are a given right now, but here's why this sounds good from the microphone on. And now I'm looking at it and looking at the chords and saying, that's a lot of information that I missed out on how to hit the drum and make it sound good as possible.

(00:59:24):

What tips can you give a drummer to make the drum sound better? I touched a little bit on it in the course, but like I said, I stayed away from going into the technical side. And that technical side of a playing ability is I think something that needs to be addressed just like Andrew Wade has done in UGP with the picks, with the pick selections and the technique stuff that he goes to into in the course, which changes the sound of the guitar. It's the same thing with the drums, and I realize that needs to be addressed

Speaker 2 (00:59:57):

All the way from posture, not just picks posture, playing position, and obviously also how the shit's played, but all those different things make a big difference. And I know that you're great at it with drums because like I said earlier, I would choose to have you play the sample hits even when we had a good drummer around most of the time, just because how to actually hit the drum is kind of a rare skill.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):

Yeah, it is. It takes a long time to develop a great sound as a drummer, it really does. And it's like a part mastery of physics, part mastery of ergonomics, as well as having an ear to know what sounds good or not. A lot of those elements are involved into getting a good hit to sound good. With my high school students that I teach, we dive into technique the first three months that we're working together. And that technique dive is a lot of explaining how the physics behind the motion of the stick into the head, make the sound the way it is. And I demonstrate with my students the difference in tightness and grip, the difference in angle of attack, the difference in speed of the stick to the head, just to show them the difference of here's all the different Tims and sounds you can get, which one is most beneficial to you as a player or us as a group.

(01:01:37):

I'm going to dive into some of that stuff later on, and those will probably be very short little clips that'll just be added on later so that everybody can, without being a jerk to the drummer, say, Hey, why don't you try this? Let's listen to the difference when you use these sticks versus those sticks. Or let's listen to a difference with you loosening up your grip a little bit and see if the sticks are slippery. Let me try some of this. Lemme put this wax or this tape on it and see if that helps you keep the looser grip, if that sounds better to you or not. And drummers are pretty easy to take. Guitar players are a little bit more bullheaded about what they think is right, and if somebody else tells 'em to do something, they'll say no until it's proven over and over again to them.

(01:02:32):

Whereas drummers growing up and being in a community of drummers here still actively, we're constantly sharing information and myself nor my friends, none of us are set in our ways to where we won't examine a technical change to make an improvement at any point. So working with a drummer in a studio situation and asking, Hey, I noticed, I noticed that you're leaving the stick on the snare drum head and pushing it into the head after you hit, and that's giving me in the microphone, that's giving me this type of pitch raise in the sound, and it's deadening the sound of the snare. Can you try hit it the way you normally do? I'm going to record it and let it ring, let it sustain out, and then I'd like you to loosen up your grip and let the stick bounce off the head and hit the drum that way.

(01:03:20):

And then let's come in here and let's listen to see which sounds better. And as soon as a drummer hears, which sounds better, he's going to go, well, that's the one I need to do. So hopefully those videos will help bridge that gap between the drums being in tune, the mics are placed in the right position, the room sounds good, the drums sound good in the room. Now the player is the next step. So addressing the player is going to be one of those things I think is going to be super beneficial. Unfortunately, it's not right at the beginning of the updates, so it's going to be coming out a little bit later.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):

That's something too, that even if you're not a drummer, it can really help you, because I don't know if you know this, but oftentimes I would end up being person who hit the samples

(01:04:07):

Hits instead of the drummers and the bands because I got taught how to hit more properly just because I took drum lessons and my dad's a drummer and my brother's a drummer, and I worked with great drummers. So I ended up making a point of learning how to hit so that when sample time came, if the drummer just didn't have it, even if they could play, but they just didn't sound great, I could do it. And I mean, it's better when you do it, of course, but I was getting better sounding hits than most of the drummers I worked with. And those types of skills are good for a producer to just have anyways.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):

Oh yeah, totally. I mean, it's like just as the same skills as helping a singer with the shape of their mouth or where they're placing the note in their head or all of those skills help for a better performance from the musician or the performer. So developing at least a minor amount of technical ability on the drums will help you with all of your clients. I still have guys that I work with that are at the top of their game as far as drummers go, but when you get in the studio, if they haven't spent a lot of time in the studio, they don't understand the translation, how a technique that works for them in a live situation may not work in the studio because of these reasons. The drums are being cut short, the attack is too pointed and sounds papery. There's a lot of things that come from technique and not from the drum or the room.

(01:05:59):

And so working with drummers in that capacity where they come in and I'll have them adjust the height of something because I notice that when they hit the drum, they're hitting at a drastic angle. So if I adjust the height that angle, the angle of the stick to the head is decreased and therefore the drum gets a fuller, bigger sound. Like being able to pinpoint those things just by watching and understanding the technique of why that sounds the way it does. Just those little pieces of advice and can really help the way the drummer sounds and the sounds that you get. Overall really useful stuff. I am, I agree. Glad I didn't put it in the first section. I think it would've been a little bit overwhelming and a little bit too drum instructional from a drum teacher standpoint. But now that after having the course out for a year and hearing the feedback from the students who have taken the information, put it into action and noticed the deficiency of the player. So now it's like, okay, you guys have noticed now that the player is a majority of the sound. So let me help and bring this to light a little

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):

Bit. Speaking of people getting overwhelmed and it just being a ton of info, which it is, it is a ton of info, what do you think are some of the most effective methods or maybe you have a recommended prescription for how to best go about learning and retaining this info?

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):

I mean, the simple easy answer is just do it instead of watching the courses, I mean watching the videos and observing, which most of us do. I mean, the default for learning is just observing. And unfortunately,

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):

That's not good enough.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):

It's not good enough. And the reason you're given homework in schools because you have to actively participate in doing to learn. So taking that into consideration, watch the videos at the end of the, take some notes that you remember from that video, not during. I would say watch it first as an observer. See what you retain At the end of that video, write down the key points that you remembered and maybe finish a whole section where at the end of each video you've written down the key points, then go back and actively watch and participate the second time by taking notes down compared to the first set of notes that you took, which were just the key points that you remembered, like take notes every time you think something's going to be super important, so you're watching and writing notes. And then do whatever's in that section after the second watch, participate in whatever that section is.

(01:08:57):

Now in the anatomy section, which is the first part to actively participate. That would be if you have drums, take the drums apart and look at how they're made, what they're made of, what type of identify, your bearing edge identifier hoops. Just take account of what you have and write it all down. Make a little note that it comes with a, there's a Google spreadsheet that a drum identifier sheet and use that. Write down what drums you have, what bearing edges they had, what would you think they're made of or research, and find out what wood they're made of, the number of lugs, the hoop type, the suspension or Tom mount. What type of mount does it have, the diameter, the depth, all of that information without heads is super important to the way the drum sounds. So observational, watch with notes, an active watch with notes, and then participating in each section.

(01:09:57):

And I realized that when it gets into the recording side of things and I start demonstrating these different styles that not everybody has the ability to have more than one drum set. Not everybody has more than one set of microphone. Not everybody has a room big enough to move around and change the way the drums sound in their room, but each section can have a different technique, if not based off of head selection alone. So watch, observe, actively watch, take notes, and then do, that's the easiest way to learn and consistently repeating. The doing process is how you get better is how you get faster. It's how you get more intuitive more than anything. And I think what separates how I record drums and set up drums and all of that process is the intuition of knowing every piece of gear that I have extremely well.

(01:10:51):

I know all of my drums intimately. I know all of my microphones intimately. I know all of my preamps intimately to the point. I know my room intimately. So where if somebody sends me a recording of what they want their drums to sound like, I know where to put them in the room. I know which drums to use, which head configuration, what mics I'm going to use, which placement, what tuning scheme, all that stuff so that literally anybody can come in, adjust the drums to however they want to play them. I can put the mics in place, we can gain the gain structure set up and it's done. And that's it. And a lot of, I'm sure the students have seen that with their own progress. They've seen that happen. But I mean, for me, it's still the most fun is to have a drummer come in that I've never worked with before. And the kits almost set up. They move things around and then as soon as they hear 'em back through the speakers the first time, which is literally probably 20 minutes after they walked in the door, they're just blown away. And we can immediately start recording right away

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):

As opposed to three days later

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):

As opposed to days, as opposed to days later, trying to chase the sound. And there's nothing wrong with taking the time. I am not saying that taking time to do things is wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):

Well, you did take the time. You just took the time at a different

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):

Time, right? Yeah, exactly. I didn't take the time during the session. I took the time years in the making to get there. And I mean, I can't say this enough. Knowing what you're working with is the biggest part of getting faster at getting drum sounds. You have to know your gear period. And experimenting with different mics is always cool, but hopefully you've gotten to know what you're working with well enough to where when you do change something out, you immediately see or hear what that change is doing to everything and to the point where you can make a quick judgment just upon a couple hits of whether or not that microphone change from an SM 57 to a I five is going to work for the project that you're on or for the sound that you're trying to get. Because every microphone has its own eq.

(01:13:15):

And knowing what those EQs are based off of what you have is a very, it's a very good starting point. And I mean, I'm all about efficiency when it comes to this stuff. I want it to be done so I can have fun on the mixing side of things. I don't want to take my time getting the sounds to begin with. I'd rather just have it sound great as soon as possible so I can keep the artist engaged, keep the energy level up, and then when they're done, then I can have my fun. On the mixing side,

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):

I know that as a musician, when I've gone to record with great producers and within the first few minutes you start hearing sounds and they sound amazing, it's just a great feeling. It's like, all right, this is legit.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):

Yeah, it's a confirmation that you made the right decision working with this person. It's like my money is on the line. And I feel the same way if I to work with a business and I know of their work, but I've never worked with them. I'm always apprehensive of how the work gets done. For example, getting my car worked on or my truck worked on going into any mechanic, I'm extremely apprehensive about them working on my vehicle regardless of whether their track record is good, because I don't know if they're going to treat me the same way that they treated everybody else. I don't know if the results are going to be the same because I'm paying for this. I want to be confident from the beginning. And I feel like your clients, they should be confident going in because of your track record and your portfolio.

(01:14:58):

That should give them enough confidence to book with you. But once they book with you, you have to give them more confidence that they've made the right decision or else they're going to leave there at the end of the first day tied into finishing the project with you and not super excited, which means their performances are not going to be the best, and which means the overall product is going to suffer. And the last thing you want is for that project, that band, that person, that artist, whoever you're working with to leave the studio and have something negative to say about you. The word of mouth travels faster than anything

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):

Else. It is really fast because people just love to gossip.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):

Especially now. Especially now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):

Yeah. Oh, well, it's not that they love to gossip more now that they're able to at the speed of an internet connection

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):

Now,

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):

You don't need a carrier pigeon to gossip

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):

Or a Raven.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):

Or a Raven. Yeah, that's right. Well, that ain't happening anymore. That's over. So spectacularly over. So speaking of the results and what happens after you record, have you seen any of the, I guess, results or evolution or I guess have you gotten that in terms of feedback from any of the people who took the course, just their progress? Do you have any info on how they've done? I personally have seen a lot of people who have said that they're getting the best drum tones of their life and all good stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):

Oh, yeah. I mean, in the group, everybody, the private Facebook group that we have for the course, everybody shares their recordings, their photos, their videos, all of that stuff. And the impact there to me was like, great, it's doing what it should be doing. People are getting ahead. The real surprise to me, and it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it still, it's so humbling. And I mean, it's, the whole reason I got into teaching people to begin with is just that reward of hearing how great things are going. I had at the summit last year, I had several people, several students that come up to me and just say that my course helped change their career, which that's a huge statement. That's pretty great. That's a huge statement. I mean, to go, and there was a couple people that said, before UDP, I never really offered recording drums.

(01:17:48):

I just didn't know enough. I wasn't confident in my work. So I'd always either program drums or we would go to another studio and somebody else would record them. But since taking UDP, it gave them the confidence to offer drum recording as one of their services, which has changed their business. It's brought in more income, it's given them the ability. There was, I can't remember who I was talking to, but one of the guys at Summit said that because of the course, he was able to make recording his full-time job, because before that, he wasn't able to offer drum recording. But that opened up a whole thing, a whole new avenue for him, and he was able to make recording his full-time job, which is, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):

Pretty amazing, isn't

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):

It? It's incredible. It's incredible. I mean, and just off of top of mind, because I saw his post yesterday, Corey Baltista is just killing it, and he's one of the UDP students, and his drum sounds are just, I mean, he's just killing it. He's doing such a good job of the thing that's impressing me about him and a couple other students is they're taking the information I gave them, and through experimentation, they're finding stuff that works for them, and then they're modifying it to fit their style is

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):

Isn't that what they were supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (01:19:09):

It's exactly what they're supposed to do, and it's great. It's super successful for them. And that to me is more rewarding than anything else. I mean, I'll get together and nerd out on drums all day long, but to hear that that type of impact has been made, that has changed people's lives is just, it's heartwarming and it really touches me the whole reason I wanted to do this to begin with, so it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):

It's pretty crazy, man. Yeah, it is one of those things that I never actually thought about before, but when it started happening, it was like, wow, this is pretty damn cool. And honestly, one of the things that I always felt kind of bummed out about in doing music is I've done music my whole life, and for better or for worse, the thing that always kind of bummed me out a lot about it was, as great as it is, I kind of felt like I wasn't doing anything that really made an impact for anybody. And I mean, yeah, maybe if my band had gotten a lot bigger, maybe would've felt that way, but still, I don't know. I just didn't feel like I was doing anything positive for the world. And I mean, I don't mean at all to say that music isn't a positive thing for the world. I just didn't feel that way.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):

I feel like the emotional reward that you get from music, because it's most of the time it touches people in an emotional manner, the reward from that is not palpable for the person who made it. You can hear stories all day long and it's touching, but this is a different scenario. We're in a place of providing information that is completely palpable for the student and therefore palpable for you. You can touch it, you can see it, they can tell you about it, and it's the same result as an emotional response, but there's an actual physical thing that's happening where they're getting money for something that you helped them learn they could do. They took your information, they ran with it, and now they're getting paid to do things that they weren't able to do before based off of what you helped them to learn. And it's a completely different feeling than just the artistic emotional response that you would get.

(01:21:38):

It's on a different level. I won't say it's any better or worse. It's just for me personally, it hits home and I can feel that more than somebody telling me that my drum part was an emotional and helped them get through a rough part of their life or whatever. I mean, it's great. I'm glad I could do that. But to see somebody go from a bedroom or not staying in a one bedroom, that's where their studio was, and then being able to have a facility that's no longer where they live and they can afford to have that facility, and they're booked up for six months based off of something that I gave them, the information I gave them, that's a completely different type of reward.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):

It's rad.

Speaker 3 (01:22:17):

Yeah, it's totally rad. That's

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):

The best way

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):

To put it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):

Well, I think it's a good place to stop it. If anybody wants to check out Ultimate Drum Production, go to Ultimate Drum Production dot com and either you will see, depending on when you listen to this, you'll either see a graphic that says, UDP is closed for now, and all you need to do is enter your email and you'll get notified when it gets reopened, or if you listen to this at the right time, it'll just be open for business. But yeah, Ultimate Drum Production dot com. And Matt Brown, thank you again for coming back on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:22:56):

Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Thank you as always. Always good talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):

Likewise.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):

This episode of the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast was brought to you by Sonar Works. Sonar Works is on a mission to ensure everybody hears music the way it was meant to be across all devices. Visit Sonar works.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM Academy and subscribe today.