RICK CARSON: The Philosophy of Sound, A Producer’s Signature Frequencies, Recording on a VCR

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Shure, legendary microphones, cutting edge wireless systems, premium earphones, and headphones. Sure, the most trusted audio brand worldwide. For more information, go to sure.com. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Eyal 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. I'm going to keep this intro short because this is one long episode, but today I've got Rick Carson on who's a producer, engineer, mixer, mastering engineer and musician out of Omaha, Nebraska. He owns and operates Make-Believe Studios where he's worked with an abundance of clients from all stripes, whether it's making Grammy nominated jazz records to working with Danny Wars up on his solo work, two, working on the latest day to remember with Colin Britton. This guy knows his shit. He is an encyclopedia of audio, and this is just a great conversation. I'm going to shut up and get this started. Rick Carson, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:01:36):

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:01:39):

My pleasure. I'm glad you're finally on because Well, I've heard from a lot of people that I trust that you're the shit and I love your work, and so just happy that we're finally getting to talk. It's interesting, we've almost met several times and never, we did meet briefly. We did. Wait a second.

Speaker 3 (00:02:03):

When? Well, when I was down in Orlando earlier this year, we met at Andrew, wait spot for like half a second. You were wearing sweatpants. You were in and out.

Speaker 2 (00:02:10):

Okay. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (00:02:12):

It's all

Speaker 2 (00:02:12):

Good. I'm an asshole.

Speaker 3 (00:02:14):

No, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (00:02:15):

I should be flailed for that

Speaker 3 (00:02:17):

One. No, it's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about

Speaker 2 (00:02:20):

It. But we didn't really meet.

Speaker 3 (00:02:21):

No, no. It was very brief. I was probably pulling a prank on Andrew. I just walked in for a second. You were there. I said hi.

Speaker 2 (00:02:27):

Oh, that's right. I do remember you pulling a prank on Andrew.

Speaker 3 (00:02:31):

Yeah, I pulled a couple. It was fun.

Speaker 2 (00:02:33):

Good. You should pull more on him.

Speaker 3 (00:02:35):

I like Andrew a lot. He's a really good guy and he cares about what he does,

Speaker 2 (00:02:42):

So therefore he should be pranked.

Speaker 3 (00:02:45):

Well, I mean, everybody needs to smile more.

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

Very true. I agree, man. Actually, pranks and stuff, pranks, especially the kind that Sasha Cohen would do. That's my favorite kind of comedy. Just pranks and reality comedy and things that are just fucked up, but hilarious. I just think it's the best stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:03:12):

Yeah, we didn't go that heavy. Most of my pranks were donut based, so I got a couple of good ones in there.

Speaker 2 (00:03:19):

Oh, I remember that one.

Speaker 3 (00:03:21):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:03:23):

That was so good.

Speaker 3 (00:03:24):

One Day Max, who's Neil Westfalls, guitar Tech. We were back there and I was like, okay. I sent the intern, I was like, get a dozen Boston Cream donuts and then come back and I need you to run to McDonald's. I need you to get some mayonnaise. And I had Max draw this awesome, I can't remember what his name is, but the dude from that movie where they throw the woman in the needle pit, the heroin needle pit, what it saw, whatever that guy's name is. But the creepy little guy on the tricycle, he drew one of those jigsaw jigsaws,

Speaker 2 (00:03:59):

His name Jigsaw.

Speaker 3 (00:04:00):

That's right. So he drew Jigsaw and then he wrote, do you want to play a game? And we put the Boston creams in there and we threw an emptied out packet of mayonnaise in the donut box, and then we just walked into Andrew's session and set that thing down on the couch, and I walked out and I just walked back through to where you've been there, so where their practice space is. So I walked back through to there just staring at Andrew through the live room, and he's just got his hands up and he's shaking his head at me, and there's kids in the background eating donuts. So it went

Speaker 2 (00:04:34):

Well. There was also the one where you replaced it with a bunch of vegetables.

Speaker 3 (00:04:41):

Yeah, so we got the, that's so funny. See, the context of that is the best one because not only did we get him, but we got pretty much everybody in the building. What I did for that one, we ate a lot of donuts during these sessions, but I sent the intern to get donuts every morning for about a week. So there were always fresh donuts, and then at the end of it, it was day eight or something, just throw 'em off. But at the end of it, I had the donuts in a fresh box and instead of donuts, it was a vegetable tray. So people were literally walking in. I have video footage of the intern sitting there and he's in a chair and he's actually filming the people in and everyone's like, Hey, are these fresh man? Oh, great. Someone got donuts again. This is awesome. Who was it? And then they walk up and they're like, every time. And then I

Speaker 2 (00:05:32):

Love that.

Speaker 3 (00:05:33):

By the time I actually was done with the whole donut prank as far as the vegetable tray one goes, I had forgotten about it in the day, and then I saw Andrew. I didn't actually witness Andrew seeing those. And he came out and he posted a photo of the vegetable donut tray, and he's made some posts about it and had a ton of likes, and it was like a second wind for the whole joke. I was having a great time. And there was one time that I swear to God, I think I punked Andrew, but he claims I didn't. And it doesn't matter because if I didn't, I'm going to accomplish this at some point. But I did try and make a peanut peanut butter. It's a good, I did try and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of his sandals, and the last time I was down in Florida, so it's like pieces of bread and one's got peanut butter and one's got jelly, and they go in each sandal and then you throw 'em in his desk. So when he's sitting there, he's like, oh, I got to take Joby out. And he puts his feet in it, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But I didn't find a good opportunity the last time I was there, but

Speaker 2 (00:06:33):

I'm sure it'll present itself at some point.

Speaker 3 (00:06:35):

I'm hoping. So

Speaker 2 (00:06:36):

One of the good ones I did to this dude I used to work with, this was back when I was at Berkeley, we used to kind of just stay up all night and walk around Boston and do stupid shit. And it was like maybe six 30 in the morning that we were finishing our night and we made plans. We'll meet up at seven 30 in the evening for coffee. I'm going home and I'm going to go to sleep. See you at seven 30 for coffee. And so he went to sleep. I went home and I waited one hour until 7:30 AM and called him and I was like, dude, where the fuck are you? I'm waiting for you. Are you still sleeping? He got up scared like, oh shit. Got all dressed, went to the place and realized it was 7:30 AM That was a good one. It was enjoyable.

Speaker 3 (00:07:38):

I actually had that happen to me as a child, and it was a traumatizing experience. I did it to myself. So I fall asleep in our apartment and my mom and my sister are there, and I am not thinking up too much of it. I just randomly fall asleep in the middle of the day, and then I wake up and it's like eight 15 and it's dark out. I'm like, oh, the sun hasn't come up. I need to get ready and get to the bus. I'm super late. I was all thrown off and then I looked around and no one was in my house. They're all downstairs. I was definitely scared. I was like, my family's gone. And it's a different

Speaker 2 (00:08:14):

Day now. The sun has disappeared.

Speaker 3 (00:08:16):

Yeah, I know that experience as a child, I've pulled that prank on myself. Unfortunately,

Speaker 2 (00:08:23):

It's a good one. It is. Some of them that are not that serious, but that are just, they're simple and harmless, but hilarious are the best ones. There was this one where this dude I knew fell asleep on the couch and we took his wallet and replaced it with a piece of American cheese, and he didn't notice. And so then he went through his day, which is a piece of cheese in his pants and didn't realize it until he went to buy a pack of cigarettes maybe eight hours later. But I love that kind of shit. It's just so beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:09:09):

It's all in good fun. Hopefully he put his wallet where it was somewhere close to him so he could get to it if he actually did have an emergency, but

Speaker 2 (00:09:17):

Oh, no, no. We took it. We took it and hid it. He left where he was staying. He was staying at my friend's apartment that night. I guess he got drunk and went to sleep on the couch and he left without the wallet. He left with a piece of cheese, not the wallet. Oh

Speaker 3 (00:09:38):

Man. Yeah, I would've taken the wallet and then put it in his glove box. So if he got out of there,

Speaker 2 (00:09:44):

That's too kind.

Speaker 3 (00:09:45):

He's like, oh man, I ran out of gas. I need gas and I don't have any money,

(00:09:51):

And you guys got me with a piece of cheese. I will say this. I got piece of cheese pranked when I was in eighth grade, and that shit was fucked up. These girls, these girls came to my fucking house and all of my doors to my house had fucking glass doors on them, and they came in the middle of the night and they covered all the glass doors in my house with cheese slices. And then we went somewhere the next morning, me and my uncle, and then we get back and it's like noon, and these fucking cheese slices had melted and baked in the sun. Dude, I cleaned those cheese slices off that door with a goddamn fucking ice scraper, and literally I spent at least two bottles of Windex and so many paper towels just trying to get this cheese.

Speaker 2 (00:10:40):

How much cheese was this?

Speaker 3 (00:10:41):

It was only one single slice, but I'm not going to lie. Cheese does damage in the grease department and Windex and Grease. It just moves that shit around, dude. So yeah, it was pretty bad, dude. I am not going to lie. I invested at least four hours of my life into removing cheese from Windows before.

Speaker 2 (00:11:01):

So wait, so they put once slice per window or on handles?

Speaker 3 (00:11:07):

No, imagine a six foot door and the door has a gray rim, and that gray rim maybe comes out six inches in all sides. And then in the center of it is a large single piece of glass that you can see through.

Speaker 2 (00:11:20):

Yes, and

Speaker 3 (00:11:21):

That's my outside door. Now imagine them covering every square inch of that glass. It's probably like a five and a half foot piece of glass by three and a half feet wide.

Speaker 2 (00:11:31):

Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (00:11:31):

Every square inch with cheese singles, one layer thick.

Speaker 2 (00:11:34):

Oh yes. That's beautiful. They went for it. That's great.

Speaker 3 (00:11:39):

Eighth grade girls are out there, bro.

Speaker 2 (00:11:41):

Why'd they do that to you? Just because,

Speaker 3 (00:11:44):

I mean, it was actually my girlfriend at the time who wasn't my girlfriend at the time, so it was just, I dunno. I was being an eighth grade boy and I probably did something she didn't like and she eighth grade had curled up my fucking windows.

Speaker 2 (00:12:00):

So did you get her

Speaker 3 (00:12:01):

Back? I mean, as far as pranks go?

Speaker 2 (00:12:04):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:12:04):

Yeah, I pranked her for sure. Definitely have pranked her throughout my life. The worst one is just absolutely terrible.

Speaker 2 (00:12:12):

Is this something you can't share?

Speaker 3 (00:12:14):

I mean, I don't know if my girlfriend's going to actually listen to this. If she does, I'm sorry, but I'm going to tell this story. This has nothing to do with you. I apologize. I love you very much, Jenny. But yeah, the worst one is we did not have a good breakup and fucking I got introduced to her at a party in Chicago. There's this dude and this band who actually, he used to play in a band that came pretty big. I'm not going to go into who it was. You would absolutely know who they are, but my buddy Sean played in a band from Michigan. He was a bass player, and if you look into it far enough, you'll probably figure out who it was. And he introduced me to this girl at this party. He's like, Hey, I got a girl. I just broke up with a girlfriend. He's like, Hey, I got a girl I should introduce you to. Here she is. And I was like, hi, nice to meet you, Rick Carson. And I had dated this girl for years. She's like, you're going to act like, I dunno who you are. I was like, we don't fucking know each other. And then I walked out laughing. That was probably the worst prank I ever pulled on her.

Speaker 2 (00:13:06):

Did she believe that you forgot who she was? Or was it just like, you're being a dick?

Speaker 3 (00:13:11):

Oh, I was being a dick. Yeah, no, 100%.

Speaker 2 (00:13:14):

Thank you. I enjoy that. Alright, so speaking of those high school years, you dropped out of high school and went to Full Sail, correct?

Speaker 3 (00:13:28):

I did. It was the long way about it, but yeah, I left my sophomore year of high school and I got my high school diploma, which I had to jump through a lot of hoops to make that happen. But long story short is that within four months of graduating from, or not graduating, but leaving my sophomore year of high school, which was probably like, I dunno, it was early in the year, but within four months I was enrolled and actively going to classes at Full Sail. I was 16 and I was living on my own. And yeah, I've been making records ever since.

Speaker 2 (00:14:05):

How did you manage to get your high school diploma and did you get a GED or was it actual high school diploma?

Speaker 3 (00:14:15):

I got a high school diploma. So what it is is in South Florida. My mom lived down there at the time and I was enrolled in high school in Michigan. And in Michigan there was a law that stated that you couldn't get your GED until after the year you were supposed to graduate. And it was to curb people from dropping out and then not actually getting their GED, which is a problem. People drop out and say, oh, I'm just going to drop out at 16. I'm going to go get my GED, and then they never actually go and fucking do it. You know what I mean? So instead of letting kids drop out at 16 and say, oh, you can go get your DED next week, you can't actually your GED until another three years when you're really supposed to graduate, so stay here and do it anyway. You know what I mean? But in Florida, they have a thing for older people and immigrants and stuff like that where it's a high school equivalency class. So I worked real hard and I got dual citizenship with Italy and then signed up for my high school equivalency as an Italian person.

Speaker 2 (00:15:19):

Wait, where do you get this idea?

Speaker 3 (00:15:21):

I don't remember where the idea came from, but it's easy to get dual citizenship with Italy if your family is from here. So I had to talk to my Aunt Phil, but how it worked out is that my grandfather was born after my great-grandfather had come to America, but before my great-grandfather had relinquished his Italian citizenship. So since I think the timeline, I'd have to double check, but I think it was my great grandfather came here in 1910 through Ellis Island, and then he had my great grandfather in Michigan, in Birmingham, Michigan in 1914 or something like that. I don't know, maybe 1918, I can't remember. Then he gave up his citizenship in 1924 and became a naturalized American citizen. So since my grandfather was born on American soil, while my great grandfather was still an Italian in the eyes of Italy, I qualify for dual citizenship.

Speaker 2 (00:16:26):

Actually, I'm a dual citizen with France, and I got it because of my grandfather. Awesome. So it works the exact same way. I just think that that's a super clever move. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:16:40):

It's

Speaker 2 (00:16:40):

Crafty.

Speaker 3 (00:16:42):

Well, I was like, my game plan before I really got the itch to start making records was to never go to college ever. So when I found out, so my recording experience was like I went, was making my own records, and my own records were very rudimentary and I knew it. So what I was doing was literally, I had one of those Mackey annexes with the silver Running Man Jumpman logos, and I would just plug in four to six microphones into that thing of my band and then take the output of that and plug it into a VCR and record onto the VCR and we were making records.

Speaker 2 (00:17:26):

That is brutal. I have not heard that one man. And I have talked to a lot of producers and I try to always figure out where they started, and I have not heard that one.

Speaker 3 (00:17:38):

Oh yeah, two track VCR, bro, and it was like, oh, homie, it was like, give me the cassette so I can take it home and listen to this shit. You know what I mean? It's just two di going into a task Cam Porta studio. Pretty much it was a Mackey.

Speaker 2 (00:17:52):

How do you do mixed notes on a VCR?

Speaker 3 (00:17:54):

You don't do mixed notes. I mean, there's no recall. I guess you could master it, but it's two track. It's

Speaker 2 (00:18:02):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:18:03):

Yeah, one time I told my buddy, I was like, okay, I'm going to hit record, plug it into the VCR, and he plugs in the cables and he plugged into the yellow and the white one, and remember how it was yellow, white, and red, and you needed red and white for audio. So we jammed, we were hard paned on this shit, and we jammed for an hour and a half. I just got a blues driver pedal, bro. I was so stoked. I took that VCR home and it just recorded his side. I was like, what

Speaker 2 (00:18:31):

The fuck is this? So do you have a collection of VHS tapes of your old shit?

Speaker 3 (00:18:39):

No, not at all. No, I'm not. No.

Speaker 2 (00:18:44):

Where would you play it anyways?

Speaker 3 (00:18:46):

I'd have to have a VCR, I guess there weren't too many of 'em. It was more like we had a VHS that we recorded a lot of shit onto, you know what I mean? It was more like we didn't sell VHSs to our friends and be like, check this shit out. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:19:07):

I'm bummed you. That would just be next level.

Speaker 3 (00:19:12):

Yeah. So the next level for me actually happened in this dude's basement, and I went in there and fuck it. He had one of those task cam mixers or rolling mixers where it was like 16 or 24 track to the hard disc in the fucking thing. You know what I mean?

(00:19:31):

And there was no computer, but he was in a pretty popular local band, and they had put out a record, and I thought it was pretty fucking cool. You know what I mean? So I borrowed all the best gear I could. I borrowed this kid's Thomas Star classic drum set and all this shit, and fucking, we went over there and made this record and it fucking sucked ass. It sounded like asshole. And we put it out and sold it to our friends and stuff like that. We had told them we were making a record, so of course we needed to fucking deliver it, but I was like, what is this shit? You know what I mean? And there was a little bit of mystery in that goddamn mixer though. You know what I mean? Who's this fucking brainiac wizard with the goddamn buttons over there making a bat sounding record, but actually being able to do it?

Speaker 2 (00:20:18):

So the mystery was that he knew how to do it, not about his actual skill levels in audio.

Speaker 3 (00:20:26):

At this point, bro, I'm not going to lie. I want to be honest. I consider myself at this point. I'm not the best by any means, but I'm definitely not the worst. And if you want to have a conversation about a lot of things pertaining to audio, I know some things. So that's how I feel about my shit. But I'll never forget where I was at this stage in my life. So if I could describe this whole macchiatos shit, one thing that you got to know that I'll never forget is I made multiple recordings on this macchiatos, just pushing the faders up as loud as fucking possible, and then ramming the master fader up as loud as possible. But one thing that I never fucked with, and one thing that always changed and I didn't really know is I thought I had like, oh, channel five is a loud channel, and if you push the fader up this loud, it's this loud.

(00:21:15):

But channel two only goes this loud, so you got to put the snare drum on it. You know what I mean? And that's how I fucked with that thing. I didn't know that the gain knob was used to fucking actually amplify signals. I thought that the gain knob was to increase distortion. So I would turn all the gain knobs down on the Mackey, and I'd be like, well, it's too quiet, but I don't want distortion. But when I turn up just as much distortion, it's louder. But I was totally fucking, I'll never forget it. I was at this fucking,

Speaker 2 (00:21:50):

I mean, are you a guitar player?

Speaker 3 (00:21:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21:53):

Yeah. Okay. So I thought that too. Back in the day.

Speaker 3 (00:21:56):

Yeah, so I'll never forget it. We were playing at this girl's graduation party, and I had this same mixer out to do vocals, and this dude came out and the vocals were all quiet and shitty, and he's like, you got all the game knobs down. I was like, don't turn those up. Those are distortion. And he's like, that's not distortion, that's volume. And I was like, what? And then I went home and read the fucking manual for the Mackey again. It was like, huh, what the fuck is this? And then started. So it was all a learning process in those early days. I wasn't making good recordings. And that recording we made in that dude's basement wasn't much better than the VHS recordings that we were making, to be honest, except for the fact that he had the ability to record more than just, usually I recorded the kick drum an over the drum mic.

(00:22:48):

So after that though, I heard this other band in Michigan, and they were on our level. They were from Dearborn. And I was like, yo, man, that fucking record that you guys put out sounded way better than the fucking record that we put out. Where did you make that? And he's like, oh man, we made it at this guy's house in Southfield. And I was like, oh, well then I need to know where this is, and please give me the phone number and I will call the guy and I will pay him to make our next recording. And I'll never forget it. I went over there and it was in his basement, and it was set up right in the middle of the goddamn basement, dead set in the middle. So the whole basement's carpeted and there's nothing in there, and then it's just right in the middle. But it was just a computer. There was just a computer and a Digi oh oh one and fucking, this guy was making records that sounded better than the other dude's records. I walked up to him, I was like, where's the fucking mixer, bro? Where's the thing? And he's like,

Speaker 2 (00:23:50):

Where's the VCR?

Speaker 3 (00:23:52):

He's like, dude, this is Pro Tools. I was like, what the fuck is Pro Tools? And he's like, this is Pro Tools. This is the industry standard. This is

Speaker 2 (00:24:02):

The future.

Speaker 3 (00:24:03):

Well, he said, if Mariah Carey were to go to make a record right now, this is what she would be making her record on. I said, no way. Mariah Carey's making a record on this shit. And he's like, no, for real. She may be in a room with one of those big consoles or some shit like that, but it's usually just like one mic pre patched into Pro Tools that they're recording. And even when they're recording through those big desks, the output goes to Pro Tools, but you don't need to have a big desk to be able to record it. And I was like, hold on. So this shit right here, is it? And he's like, yeah. And I literally looked this man to his face. I just looked. I was like, I can do this better than you. I fucking was just an arrogant fucking dickhead. How old were you? I was 16.

Speaker 2 (00:24:47):

Ah, yes. Okay. The age, how old was he?

Speaker 3 (00:24:51):

I don't know, probably in his mid twenties, but I had heard his recordings before and I was like, oh, I could do this better than you. This is it. This is really it. Oh, I can figure this out. I'll figure out how to make records that sound as good as the goddamn Backstreet Boys, because if they're using this shit and this is all it is, and I don't need to have a million dollar console or a tape machine like that to be able to get that quality, this will really give me that quality. I'll figure out how to make that do that. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:25:17):

Well, was his reply?

Speaker 3 (00:25:19):

Well, I mean, we didn't go as in depth as that. It really stopped us. I can do this better than you. And he

Speaker 2 (00:25:23):

Said, well, I mean, yeah. What was the reply to that? To some 16-year-old little shit being like, alright, I'll do this better than you.

Speaker 3 (00:25:31):

What kind of Guitar Amp did you bring?

Speaker 2 (00:25:32):

That's what he said?

Speaker 3 (00:25:33):

Yeah. He instantly changed the subject. He was just like, well, what kind of guitar did you bring? I was like, oh, I brought a dual rectifier.

Speaker 2 (00:25:39):

You didn't say create Blue Voodoo or something?

Speaker 3 (00:25:42):

No, I had to crepe Blue Voodoo. That thing rocked. But no, I had a bitch in dual rectifier. It was this fucking Chrome chassis with black knobs. It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:25:49):

Okay, so you brought a good amp.

Speaker 3 (00:25:50):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:25:50):

I loved it. So he just changed the subject. And you guys, how did the recording go?

Speaker 3 (00:25:54):

The recording went well, I mean, we went in there for the days that we had time and we left and he mixed the recording. And by the time I got the mixes back, I was already at my apartment at Full Sail.

Speaker 2 (00:26:04):

Interesting. So is that because it took him forever to do, or just because you moved that quick?

Speaker 3 (00:26:10):

I mean, he didn't take forever. I mean, it was within probably five months.

Speaker 2 (00:26:14):

It's kind of forever.

Speaker 3 (00:26:16):

Well, we didn't have a big timeline for him to get those back, but yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:26:21):

That's true. Sometimes with locals, things do take forever. Yeah. One weekend here, one weekend there, run out of money, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (00:26:32):

Well, it wasn't like a run out of money situation. It was just one of those things. I literally moved out of the fucking state and started that whole trip to get my diploma, so I just wasn't on it. I saw that shit and I was gone. By the time I got that record back, I was literally sitting on my first couch.

Speaker 2 (00:26:49):

When you got it back, were you already better than him?

Speaker 3 (00:26:52):

No, no,

Speaker 2 (00:26:53):

No.

Speaker 3 (00:26:54):

Here's the thing is, I'm not going to lie. The record that he made for us wasn't that fucking bad. I'm not let anyone know what it was, but he taught me some things for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:27:06):

Okay, so he wasn't like some sch slub or anything? He was pretty good.

Speaker 3 (00:27:10):

No, no, no. I mean, for what we were doing and for the vibe for pop punk and shit, he was doing just fine, bro. And I hope that he continued to make money doing it. He was fine. I had a great experience with him, and I thought the record turned out really, really cool. But the thing for me is I'm one of those sort of people. If you look at a fucking car and someone's like, oh man, I could never build a car. And it's like, I believe I can build a car. Someone else has built a car. I could build a fucking car, man,

Speaker 2 (00:27:38):

I love that attitude. I had someone on the podcast named Tom Knight. I don't know if you know him, but he's not a producer, actually, he's a drummer, but he's like 50. He used to play for that band, TLC. Oh,

Speaker 3 (00:27:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:27:53):

And he was one of the most used session guys in the nineties and early two thousands in r and b, and some of the big hip hop producers coined him, the human MPC. This guy is one of those unbelievable drummers, like the guys with the gospel chops, but who play for pop acts like those guys.

(00:28:22):

He hangs with all those guys, just superhuman drum ability, just a superhuman. And when I was talking to him, I was like, what gave you the idea that you could do that? I mean, his level of skill is just not normal. Not normal for good. And it was just someone else could do it. I could do too. And now that he turned 50, he became a fitness freak and he decided that he's going to show everybody that he can have the body of a 22-year-old athlete at 50. And so he's been doing all kinds of gymnastics and body weight exercises and all this stuff and posting pictures, and it do looks like the Incredible Hulk. And I asked him about that too, and he was like, well, I've seen other people do it, so why can't I do it better? That's it. That's all there is to it. Just do it. People can do it. I can do it too.

Speaker 3 (00:29:26):

And I give him tons and tons of respect because I currently know that I'm losing a battle with snacks. So I'm trying to change that every day. Snacks

Speaker 2 (00:29:39):

Will get you

Speaker 3 (00:29:40):

Dude, snacks will you up, bro.

Speaker 2 (00:29:42):

They got me for a while. I've been winning the battle against them for the past few months, but it took getting super serious about it.

Speaker 3 (00:29:51):

I've been winning the battle since about Monday.

Speaker 2 (00:29:54):

Good job.

Speaker 3 (00:29:56):

Yeah. But yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:29:59):

One day at a time.

Speaker 3 (00:30:01):

Exactly. Dude. It's just one of those things like in this game, you've really got to watch out for what you're doing and the things, I mean, losing your battle with snacks is whatever. I'm going to win my battle with snacks, but it's hard. I have to actively try to get out of the routines that I was down in Florida, I was down in Florida for close to 90 days, and one of the things that I joked about with the band, the next time I saw them was I had 42 Chick-fil-A receipts.

Speaker 2 (00:30:32):

Man. Yeah, I totally get it.

Speaker 3 (00:30:34):

Well, I mean, if you add up the days that they weren't open on Sunday, I mean, it gets pretty fucking skewed, bro.

Speaker 2 (00:30:40):

Yeah, it can get dark.

Speaker 3 (00:30:42):

So it's like I get into these routines where it's like, oh, this is easy for me and convenient. You

Speaker 2 (00:30:50):

Just want to get back to work.

Speaker 3 (00:30:51):

Exactly, dude. And that shit is not okay. You got to fucking try.

Speaker 2 (00:30:55):

I used to tour. I was in a touring band, did serious touring, and so back in those days, being super active was just part of, and I was never even the guy in the band that was in really good shape or anything, but there's just an activity level. We weren't big. We didn't have people lifting our gear for us. So between lifting the gear and then playing the show and then lifting the gear again and all that, you are fucking active. And it's a certain, if you don't get involved in too much of the alcohol and drugs, it's actually you can get in pretty good shape. And then I started producing for a living, and then that was a step more sedentary. And then I started this online company, and right around that time, Postmates and DoorDash and Uber Eats became a thing. And it's just like it gets you, because I think we're the same way. We just want to keep working. We don't want to fuck around with all these other things, and it's so easy.

Speaker 3 (00:31:51):

Well, and I'm not going to lie you bringing up a good point, which is Lyft. Lyft has seriously changed my life because I used to walk to work almost every day unless one of my roommates was driving to the studio to hang out with me. And I've always lived within a mile or two miles of where my studio is actually located. So every day I would use that time to make phone calls and go do things. Actually for a long time, for almost a year, I was live streaming every morning, and I called it just my walk to work. And I talked about compression and people would show up. And

Speaker 2 (00:32:28):

So it's like four miles a day of walking.

Speaker 3 (00:32:30):

Well, no, I never really walked home. I've always had the studio. There's always people here. So I'd usually just catch a ride with someone or my roommate.

Speaker 2 (00:32:42):

But still your base minimum, no matter what was walking a few miles a day, even no matter what, still just walking a few miles a day.

Speaker 3 (00:32:51):

Exactly. For years, when Lyft came around, it was just like, oh, I could wake up. And I started using it only when it was rainy, and then I was like, fucking, oh, I don't want to do it today. And I've actually started doing it again. So if you were to take off my socks right now and look at my heels, I've got some pretty gnarly blisters. They feel fine though, so don't worry

Speaker 2 (00:33:12):

About it. Good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

Speaker 3 (00:33:14):

Yeah. But I

Speaker 2 (00:33:15):

Was worried.

Speaker 3 (00:33:16):

Yeah, thank you. But I have started trying to do that just because one, I'm not going to lie, taking that time even just to walk the fuck around is important. It is nice to just be able to think and look at a fucking tree and just take it all in for a second. I mean, so much shit coming at me from my phone every fucking day that just to be able to put my phone in my pocket and walk around and just see other people living their lives is, it's

Speaker 2 (00:33:53):

Interesting. Plus sunlight, they say that the minimum you should get every day is at least 12 minutes. And I know some people get a lot more, but the minimum is 12 minutes to get the vitamin D needed to not go into a depression. Those of us who work in studios and indoors and on computers often have vitamin D deficiency. So just that alone is really, really important. And then, yeah, there's something about walking outside and moving outside that settles your mind. And sometimes some of my best ideas come in those moments for sure.

Speaker 3 (00:34:33):

No, you're absolutely right. I feel the same way. So yeah, I am trying to enjoy more things like that. I have not been doing it every day. I'm going to be honest, since I got these gnarly blisters, I fucking took some time off and then I did walk with them one day and they didn't pop or feel bad or anything. So they're real deep under the thick part of my heel. So it's just the shoes that I'm wearing are kind of sloppy and flop around. But

Speaker 2 (00:34:56):

Don't you feel like it makes your work better though, when you actually get that time to walk around and do something physical and get the sunlight and quiet your mind, it actually makes the actual workday more productive? It does. For me at least.

Speaker 3 (00:35:15):

I found two separate things. That's the one thing I can say as far as the lift mindset goes. When I am able to walk, I've found that I get to big dreaming and I get to the things that aren't on my day right ahead of me. And I'll tend to walk in and if we're doing inventory in the building, my fucking ass walk to work

(00:35:45):

Because I had the opportunity when I wake up, I hop in the shower and then I fucking get in a lift and I'm like, I've got to mix this song that they sent me yesterday. It needs to go out. That's what I'm thinking about. But if I have the hour to walk to work or whatever the fuck it takes me, and I'm out there walking, then I'm like, wonder if all the microphones are in their cases? You know what I mean? So I don't personally feel like it helps me get the job done in any way. I feel like it helps me think of all the other things that I may not be focusing on. And I will say this sometimes. That's exactly what's needed.

Speaker 2 (00:36:25):

Yeah. Well, for me, it gives me, okay, so I get bombarded, like you just said, that happens to you. People are coming at me all day through various mediums, email, phone, texting, messenger, everywhere, getting tagged all day long. And then there's all the shit I have to do for between contracts and booking, future nail the mix, and then doing these podcasts and then all the other million things. It makes it hard to think about big picture stuff that's not related to what's actually going on that day. And that picture stuff, man is really important.

Speaker 3 (00:37:06):

It really is. But it's one of those things too, where the devil's in the details. So I've trained my mind to focus on those details. And it's one of those conundrums where sometimes you just got to step back and you got to realize the thing that you missed. And usually it's biggest as fuck. It's like we just had a funny experience in here where one of the engineers at the studio held up a pack of gum and it said 99 cents in an orange lettering on it. And he said, it is all pointing towards us. And it says 99 cents, and it's taking up a third of the gum package, and it's in a big orange sticker on a blue package. But he's looking at the other side and he looks up and he goes, how much is this gum?

Speaker 2 (00:37:53):

It's right in front of his face, but he can't see it.

Speaker 3 (00:37:55):

Exactly. So it's one of those things, I can appreciate that shit, but I also have to know what the fuck that is. I've done things to combat that. I try and focus on phone calls when I take walks like that, just because if I don't, then I come off and I'm like, we're doing this, this, and this today. You know what I mean? So I do try and utilize that time in specific ways. And I did the whole walking and talking thing that I was doing on the internet for a while, but my days have not been as consistent. So for a while, I was walking to the same studio every day. It was the same amount of time. And I had people who were showing up and kind of hanging out with me during that time period where then I was floating around, I was here, I was there, I was here. So it's just been different.

Speaker 2 (00:38:46):

Let's talk about attention to detail. So everything I know about you is that you are like a engineering encyclopedia. I've been told by some people that they've never met anybody with the same level of understanding of the detail of details of gear or as intricate of, I guess intricate of an approach to engineering is you. And that's a very, very high praise. So when you say that you trained your brain to look at the details, I have several people who are very high level who will back you up on this, but how did you train yourself to look at the details and what does that mean to you?

Speaker 3 (00:39:37):

Well, thank you. I appreciate the high praise. I know some of those people personally very, very well. And

Speaker 2 (00:39:45):

They were lying.

Speaker 3 (00:39:45):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:39:46):

They were lying.

Speaker 3 (00:39:47):

No, no, thank you guys for any praise. You heat my way. It's nice to hear things like that. So

Speaker 2 (00:39:52):

Yeah, they told me I have to have you on because of that, but we haven't even talked about it yet.

Speaker 3 (00:39:57):

It's just one of those things when it comes to making records, it's sound, and it's almost like art. It is art. I mean, the recordings that we make are art, and the recordings that we make are history. They're going to go down in the fabric of time. If you make a great enough recording, someone may listen to it in a thousand years and appreciate what you did. The same way that someone may look at a Van Gogh painting and appreciate what he did. And it's one of those things, what people don't realize about recording is that this is new. We've only been able to really record conveniently since the 1920s, and we've been able to record in high fidelity in everybody's home really since probably the 1980s. This whole fucking generation with everybody getting recordings, software on their laptop, that's a very, very new thing in the history of man.

(00:40:55):

And it's one of those things where I've tried to look at it. You bring up the details, but the thing about the details is when you go enough far enough into the details and you feel like you've collected all of them, when you come back and stand at it and look at it from far enough away, you'll realize that everything is everything. And it's the same thing with recording. And I'm not trying to get on some hippie dippy shit. I'm not really that person, but every decision that went into making a record at a time period was probably made because of the history of that time period, because of the technology that was available during that time period. It's not that they did those things because they had to do them, they wanted to do them, of course. But if they had different technology, who knows? What would they have done? And it's one of those people always bring up the premise like what would've happened if Beethoven had a DAW?

Speaker 2 (00:41:57):

Well, he wouldn't be able to hear it, so it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (00:42:00):

Well, I mean, Beethoven played his piano. He chopped the legs off and sat in front of it and played it up against his knee so he could hear it. So to say, he is not going to grab some obergs and just sit with his back to him.

Speaker 2 (00:42:12):

No, I was totally kidding about that. But no, you're right.

Speaker 3 (00:42:15):

So it's one of those things like, well, I don't know anybody in the world at this point who's writing music the way that Beethoven is. And these kids who have dws, none of them really learn the sense to notate, which is why when I worked with people like Dominique Sanders and stuff like that, that dude can write your fucking charts if you want him to write your charts, but he can also sit down and live and he can create you a song that people will want to listen to in the radio in 13 minutes. So it's one of those things where the details, everything is everything. And I know that's like some hippie shit, but I've always tried to figure out, I'm trying to break it off into subjects, but it really comes down to I love recordings. And recordings for me are times. So there's time periods where certain things sounded certain ways.

(00:43:06):

And there's a lot of things that are happening now that I feel like there's juxtapositions of certain time periods. And it's very interesting to see how productions are made now, especially when they pay tribute to old music. And it's very interesting because there's certain dues out there who are absolutely amazing, and I heard this from an owner of a record label, but it was one of the best explanations that I've ever heard. And we were talking about Gabriel Roth, and he said, Gabriel Roth is the sort of dude who can go in there and he can say, that is a wall from 1960, and I'm going to build that wall exactly the way that it would've been built in 1960, and it's going to be a 1960s wall, and I'll do it in 2020, but it'll still be a 1960s wall. And when you listen to his records, that's what they are, where there's other dudes nowadays, dudes like Terrace Martin and Anderson Pac, and a bunch of people who are out there, LAN, Remy, Raphael, Sade, justice do Saunders.

(00:44:15):

There's a ton of people out there right now who, when I look at 'em, they're one of those people who says, that's a wall. I know what a wall looks like, but I can make you a wall. That's a beautiful piece of art, and it's made up of many different walls from different time periods, but when it's done, it's going to feel like a wall from 2020. Are you interested in that instead? And I'm interested in that, and it just happens to be that I'm the sort of person who, when I see the Russian dowel work that uses no nails in that part of the wall, I know how to get that snare drum sound when I see the crown molding that looks like it could have come out of a bar in Chicago in the 1920s. I know how to get that guitar sound.

Speaker 2 (00:45:07):

So it sounds to me like what you're saying is that what is current is basically built off of the evolution of everything that came before it. And so to truly be current now, you kind of got to know what went into everything before it so that you can accurately take it further.

Speaker 3 (00:45:31):

Fuck yes. I mean, do you think that, and I'm not trying to talk shit about anyone here, but let's be real. A lot of kids that who are probably going to be listening to this through URM, they make a particular type of music, and that's great. I fucking love that shit. And you can learn the history of that. You can learn the hm twos and you can learn about how Andy Snoop did it, and then you can learn about how Joey did it. And then you can even learn about how Bob Rock did it back in the day. But it's one of those things where, yo, listen, listen to fucking Uptown Funk or 24 Karat Magic, those songs are rooted in the history. I can record a kick drum that sounds like 1984. I can record a kick drum. That sounds like 1968. Those are the things that are happening in pop music.

(00:46:15):

Now, even if you listen to something like, Hey, ho, with those big ass drums, these sounds, and even if they're not recorded, some of 'em are new sounds that are made up of samples, and the production just uses these sounds from this time period, and they augment them to sound bigger and more bombastic and more in your face and realistic than they ever have before. But when you really listen, I mean, in a perfect example of that is Back to Black from Amy Winehouse. That is a record that was recorded like a sixties soul record,

Speaker 2 (00:46:52):

And it sounds authentic,

Speaker 3 (00:46:53):

But here's the thing is it doesn't, when you listen to the production that was actually done on that record, it sounds modern, it sounds bigger. There's samples. Tom Elmhurst did an

Speaker 2 (00:47:03):

Absolutely, oh, I just meant the arrangement. I'm sorry. The arrangement of the music sounds authentic to me.

Speaker 3 (00:47:09):

Yes, the music does, and it's absolutely wonderful. And those mixes are so great, and they sound, they take that sound, which does sound really, really authentic, and it brings it into a new light, and they paint a new picture for you. They're not making a 1960s wall for you in 2020. They're making a 1960s, 2020 wall.

Speaker 2 (00:47:32):

It's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:47:33):

I really appreciate stuff like that. For me, it's one of those things I want to get all the sounds in the world I want to be, I don't track as many records as I mix, but I mix records because people send me stuff, and when I listen to it, I say, oh, I wish it sounded like that. And then I go and I do whatever I can in my brain to make it sound like that. You know what I mean? But when I'm able to produce a record or I'm able to act as an engineer for a producer that I'm friends with who I want to work with, then I go and it's one of those things where I feel like the thing that they like to rely on me for is they can say, Hey, man, I fucking dig this song. Yo, what's the snare drum going on? And I'll go get the right snare drum and the right head and the right wires and the sticks and whatever it takes to actually get that fucking snare drum sound. Sometimes it's like, oh, take my wallet, throw it on there. Sometimes it's like, oh, you got to grab the gretch. We got to go fucking, we've got to get another snare drum, and we got to cut out the center of a snare drum because that's how people used to make dampeners back in the day.

Speaker 2 (00:48:35):

Man, I've got two thoughts. Number one, I can totally see why you and Colin work well together. Colin Brit, in case anyone's wondering which Colin I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (00:48:47):

Colin is my guy. I love him

Speaker 2 (00:48:48):

Very much. Yeah, I can totally see how you guys work well together because every time I've talked to him and also on the podcast or when we just shoot the shit on the phone or whatever, I feel like it seems to me his artistic thing is creating something new out of putting two different preexisting styles together in a way that nobody would've ever thought of that gets him going, and he's so fucking good at it.

Speaker 3 (00:49:24):

Oh, he's amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:49:25):

Yeah. And so I can totally understand now talking to you about how you think about this stuff. I totally see where this partnership works.

Speaker 3 (00:49:34):

And he'll be like, Hey man, we need this to sound like this in an hour. And I'll be like, alright. And then just go about it. And then when it's time to do that, it is what it is. Or sometimes it's like, oh, we're literally in the middle of recording a drum track and this is not the right snare. We need to sound like this. And we all get in a car and we go to guitar center and we walk around hitting snare drums with sticks and stuff until we find one that we think is going to take us to the point that we want us to go to. So I love working with dudes like that because there's certain dudes out there who are like, that's the drum set. I put tape and paper towel on it so that it doesn't ring a lot when you record the overheads. Once you record the overheads, we're going to sample out everything snare 10 or kick 12 a, I don't know, whatever the fuck that shit

Speaker 2 (00:50:22):

Is, 12 A.

Speaker 3 (00:50:23):

So kick 10 snare 12 A, is that what it is? Just boom, go to town, bro. So that's cool too. The thing is, if you make a record that people want to listen to fucking awesome,

Speaker 2 (00:50:36):

That's what matters.

Speaker 3 (00:50:37):

That's what matters. And I think people get caught up on this shit. They're like, fucking dudes whack. He didn't even record those with knees, bro. It's like, I've bought all the gear in the world and I'm now under the premise where, I mean, it's so funny. Take this shit right now, guys on the fucking, I'm recording this through the SM seven and my MK Ultralight MO two interface into my 2010 laptop and there's an API legacy and 10 70 threes and a bunch of shit literally three feet away from me. And I didn't plug that shit in because this is easy and it's simple, and there's a session set up, and I'm not going to tear that shit down to plug this shit in. And this'll do fine. And we accomplish the task that we set out to do today. So here's the thing though.

(00:51:21):

When you work with a dude like Colin, Colin appreciates the finer things in life. Colin understands that in this game, it is not a game of miles. It is not a game of feet. It is a game of inches. And the difference between one thing and another thing can be so subtle, but they are different. And he understands that shit, the shit that dude hears one, me and Colin, I personally believe that we tend to think in different frequency ranges. So the things that he's boosting and cutting and looking out for are, or when I first started working with him, they were pretty fucking alien to me. They were not where I was hanging out. So when now I pay attention to more of those things, and when I'm getting sounds with him, he's paying attention to one part of the sound. I'm paying attention to the part one of those things, audio's weird.

(00:52:18):

Colin tends to hang out more in the mid range, which I appreciate. But for me, I've always been more of the, I've tried to get a natural mid range and that I tend to hang out in the high and low end more. I mean, if I could have a big old fucking API console with just Paul texts on every channel, and I just turned up fucking 60 or 108 K and 10 K, and I could just make everything brighter, I would just go change the microphones until I was fucking happy. Where Collin's, one of those people who's like, this sounds red. Here's some 15 K or 1.5 K, and I'm like, oh, cool. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I stayed away from there forever. I've boosted 1.5 K on vocals for fucking damn near a decade at this point. But it wasn't one of those things that I was going out of my way to boost on certain things where it's one of those frequencies for me.

(00:53:11):

The first place I'm going to go is say, fucking. And I've spent enough time with the dude that I think about this. He goes, the first thing that I do in my brain is I go, oh, does it sound like there's a paper towel on it? And if it does, I start boosting top end until it doesn't sound like there's a paper towel on it anymore. Where I think Colin goes, does it sound close enough to me? It doesn't. 1.5 K. It takes a step forward. Now, does it sound like there's a paper towel on it? Let's add some top end. So I've learned to respect that about that. Dude,

Speaker 2 (00:53:41):

I was just thinking that, man, that sounds like an amazing partnership. Yeah, it really does. First of all, finding a partnership like that where there is two people that have such a deep and unique outlook on what they're working on is already rare, but having it be compatible, that's even more crazy. So how the fuck did you guys figure out that you can work well together? And how did you guys find each other? Because it just blows my mind.

Speaker 3 (00:54:14):

Well, we found, the first time me and Colin actually spoke was because of our good friend Kenny Carkey. So I've been working with Kenny for years. He's involved in a project called Fitness, and I've mixed those records. You should definitely go check 'em out. There's a song called Matter of Time, which is probably going to be one of those things where you're like, we wanted some examples. That'll be one of 'em. But Kenny is just a great dude, and he met Colin over at Feldman's, and one day I get a phone call out of the blue and he's like, Hey, my name's Colin Britton and I got your phone number from my buddy Kenny. And he told me that if I am looking to buy some gear, and I called him to talk about gear to see if he was using anything new. And he said to call you because if there's anybody that would know anything about Cool Gear or anything that may be out there cheap, you're the guy. So I was like, oh yeah, let's talk gear. And we started a friendship there. And then by the end of it I was like, hold on, what was your name? And he's like, Colin Britton. And I was like, yo, we have the same manager. So I was managed by Kelly at that point.

Speaker 2 (00:55:24):

Shout, shout out to Kelly. She's been really awesome to me.

Speaker 3 (00:55:28):

Yep, she's amazing. But that was when she just first started working with me. So that was, I don't think he had ever heard of me by any means. And so he was like, oh shit. So then we became friends and we met up and we hadn't really worked on too much stuff until a day to remember record. I was out there making records, doing my thing. He was out there making records doing his thing, and he hit me up on the phone one day and he was like, Hey man, I got this project in Florida. It's probably going to be two or three months. I need someone who can go down there with me. Would you be willing to do it? And I was like, yeah, I'm fine with that. Lemme call you back in an hour. And it's nice and easy because Kelly's the best. So I was just in Florida, but that's really how it started. And it's one of those things like

Speaker 2 (00:56:20):

It just worked.

Speaker 3 (00:56:21):

Yeah. I'm back in Omaha now. He's out in Los Angeles. My buddy Alan Hug, who I want to give a shout out to, he's absolutely one of the best studio builders I've ever had the pleasure of working with. But me and him have been involved in a couple of builds this year and last year out in Los Angeles. So the first one that we completed was we built Mike Pepe's new room, which is Studio C over at Barefoot Recording, which is Eric Valentine and Undertone Audio. And then we're about to finish up on Collin's new room, which is, I'm not going to speak too much about it, but it's just awesome. And there's tons of cool stuff that's happening in there.

Speaker 2 (00:56:57):

I'm looking forward to it. We actually were, he was going to do nail the mix this month, June. I mean, this is going to come out in July, but we're right now speaking in June, 2019. And we were going to do nail the mix with him this month and we put it off. I mean, I know that there were family reasons too that we did it, but also he wanted to do it in the new room. So I'm very much looking forward to that.

Speaker 3 (00:57:28):

That's amazing to hear. So I just got some photos yesterday. Allen finished the exterior of the building and it's got a new fresh coat of paint on it. And we had to button up walls, we had to take out windows. We took out a garage door and built new wall. I mean, we built new walls everywhere. Everywhere has got a new wall. It's a double wall construction with an inch air gap between it. It's a real studio. But we had, there was a garage door and all that stuff, and that all got converted and new walls put on. So we finally painted up the exterior. I saw photos for the first time yesterday, and I'm very, very proud of the work that those guys are doing for Colin. I think it's going to be awesome in there.

Speaker 2 (00:58:09):

So building studios, so that's something that you do too. What was your interest with that? So now I understand your interest in knowing all the gear because of the different sonic pallets and your explanation was unbelievable, but where does building studios come in to the equation? Because that is a whole other world.

Speaker 3 (00:58:33):

It is. And there's more math in it involved than I would like to give credit, but it's one of those things where I built my studio and I worked with a dude named Roger Va, who is absolutely amazing and wonderfully talented. And if people had the budget, hire him to design your studio. I told him that I was hiring him to design my studio so I didn't have to read the book that he wrote about designing studios. There was too much math in it. And I'll be real still haven't finished that book. But

Speaker 2 (00:59:08):

Dude, I hate math.

Speaker 3 (00:59:09):

Yeah, I don't fuck with that shit. But it's one of those things like I've got more as far, and I tell people this when it goes into it. If you want the best rooms in the world, in my personal opinion, Thomas over at Northward Acoustics is building those, there's some really great designers out there right now, Hansen assu at Delta H Design, and then fucking, I'm brain farting on him, but I'm,

Speaker 2 (00:59:35):

I'll come back to you.

Speaker 3 (00:59:36):

Yeah, the dude who did my lighting, he's absolutely amazing. And he did Sarm West. Why am I forgetting his name? He's the best. I mean, he's actually probably, if you're in the middle range budget where you want to invest in yourself, he's absolutely the best person. So I'll give you his name to put in here. You get a say.

Speaker 2 (00:59:56):

When you say lighting, you mean studio lighting?

Speaker 3 (00:59:59):

Yeah. So he did my lighting design at the studio. So Rod designed the acoustical structure of it, and then someone else designed the mechanical and someone designed the electrical and someone designed the HVAC and someone designed the fucking

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):

The lighting. And for me, lighting is very, very important. It sets vibe. So make Believe is 100% DMX controlled, and you can change the color of any room at the tip of a switch and you can change how bright things are. You can change how you can make it green, you can make it purple. There's presets right now I'm sitting in a nice one. We call Tropical Breeze. Lots of blues, lots of purples, lights are dim, but I got one that's called Doctor's Office in it's brightest fucking here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):

Autopsy. It's called Autopsy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):

Well, that's like when you lose a screw

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):

Or a pick. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):

Well, no picks. I just say, fuck it. My credenza, I built one thing that I get a lot of credit for Make Believe is nice, but engineers, engineer dudes who have been in the thick of this shit for 40 years. The one thing that they fucking always compliment me on when they go through the photos on my phone, they're like, yeah, lemme check it out. And the photos have been in the Favorites folder on my phone for three years now, and they're the only photos that I keep in the Favorites folder so that I can instantly show people the studio and they don't see my wiener, you know what I mean? And so I show him and the first one's like The Legacy. I'm like, oh yeah, and you can swipe. And the rest are studio foes. And the next one I know is it's the Credenza full Balls out spread Eagle credenza shot with the four base full of gear.

(01:01:44):

And the first thing, the diehard engineer dudes, like the dudes I'm trying to learn fucking tricks from are like, oh man, those drawers and the credenza, because between my gear bays, I built four drawers that pull out in between each little bay. And they're like, that's a great idea. And it's like, fuck yeah, it. So right in front of where my guitar world is, all my guitar shit, my Kemper, my Avalon, I've got a Pole tech that lives, so I'll take a bunch of mics in the Kemper and a bunch of weirdo shit, the Palmer, all that stuff, bring it up on the API send it out a bus. The bus goes into a Paul Tech that goes into LA three backend approach tools. You know what? So all that shit lives in one spot in my credenza, and the top drawer in there is Guitar Pick World. So if you actually open it up, it's like the whole Dunlop player's pack where it's got every fucking thickness and stuff. I try and keep stuff like that here because I'm not trying to fuck around with, oh, I lost my guitar pick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):

Yeah. I had someone I knew who worked at a guitar store just bring me one of those displays with everything in it. People loved it. They love it. And like you said, the devil's in the details, like little things like that go such a long way.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):

Oh yeah. And it makes 'em feel like the thing that I want you to feel is make Believe is your house. It's nicer than your house and you want to be here more than you'd rather be at your house, but it's your house because that's really, as far as a recording studio goes, that's what you're competing with right now, the comfort of their fucking home. So it clearly needs to be nicer than their fucking home. And you can get a bunch of gear, but a lot of recording studios are built bright as fuck. They feel like doctor's offices. And for new artists who are just starting to shout their money for the first time, that's a polarizing experience. Dude. People come to my spot and they're like, oh. But then that's the thing is you can't run it too far on that line because then when you're too much of a house, then people are like, I could just do this at my house. So it's a fine fucking line that you got to ride. But the vibe is what's incredibly important to me. You've got to have a good vibe while making a record. I don't care if it's the lighting Colin really likes to put on planet Earth, which is really, really cool. I've never experienced that vibe, to be honest. I keep screens out of my sessions.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):

What's that

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):

Planet Earth from the Discovery Channel.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):

Yeah. Got it. And that shit's awesome. You just look over and there's like a whale.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):

So on an ultra high resolution screen

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):

Or something? Yeah, big TV on the left side of his room. Oh,

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):

You know what? Okay. I thought about doing that in a couple of rooms where I live of just getting ultra high definition televisions and just putting something like that on to just make the scenery better. I got the idea because I heard that on cruise ships, some cruise lines on their interior cabins, they have these false windows where it's just an ultra high resolution screen of the camera looking at the ocean. So it kind of makes you feel like you're not in a prison basically.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):

No, exactly. And it's one of those things like I've been in sessions with other producers as well. There was an interesting session that I was involved in where for two weeks straight on monitors in the live room and the control room, we played nothing but the LA riots and invited the best jazz musicians in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):

What did that do for the vibe?

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):

Oh dude, that music was

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):

On fire, I'm sure

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):

On Fire. And I'm talking about Heavy Hitters came in and the music was absolutely amazing. And the vibe was like this vibe of thankfulness. I believe that they all got the opportunity to be there instead of what we were watching. But also that really happened and it happened here and it happened in neighborhoods that those people grew up in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):

So it's personal.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):

Oh, it got way personal. We had Rodney King's daughter in one night and she told us all about Rodney King.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):

Yeah, so you go there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):

Yeah. So it was like, that was very interesting. And Collin's thing with Planet Earth kind of reminded me of the same thing of something like that takes you to a different experience. Make Believe is interesting for me because I believe that that different experience is make believe when you come here. There's a very, I'm blessed. I know that I've been in a lot of recording studios across the world. I've been in a lot of major recording studios across the world, and there's some studios out there that make me feel like I live in a trailer park, but there's not many shout out to Sphere. That's probably one of the nicest studios ever in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):

It's beautiful. Yes. Sphere is ridiculous. And then I'm actually at one right now. That's really ridiculous. It's called Think Loud.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):

Yeah, I saw that. Ridiculous. That looked like a beautiful space. So there's a couple spots that, and don't get me wrong, that place had an absolutely beautiful kitchen, right? Beautiful. We got a nice kitchen, we got a big old walk and stuff, but I didn't want to go, that kitchen almost looks like the kind of kitchen that you see in a commercial barista spot. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):

Oh, the one that think loud.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):

Oh yeah. Or that Gordon Ramsey would film something in.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):

Exactly. So it's like that is the fine line between too nice to not make you feel like you're at your house. And I know that mean that place looks beautiful and I'd want to spend my days there forever, but for make belief, I tried to make it. It's like there's just enough about it that makes it feel very, very homey to a lot of people. I believe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):

Man, that was my big thing when I had my first studio and second studio in every studio was I wanted to be a place where musicians want to hang out because if it's a place where they want to hang out, they're going to do better work. Because I've been to studios where it really does feel like you're going to the dentist

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):

And that's just not cool. No, and here's the thing is there's certain people, I've got to be real. I produce records, so I've got an opinion and I speak it up and even make believe for as being as beautiful as it is, I got a buddy who hit me hard in the fields with one of those, Juan Ro, I'm talking to you, Juan is one of my best friends, so he's not going to come down my head. I probably ever even listened to this, but he's an awesome producer and he makes beats, but he's terrible about fucking file maintenance and session management. Getting fucking the stems for beats that rappers have wrapped on that he made in the city is just like damn near impossible. So I'm always mixing a two tracks and stuff, and I fucking hit him up one day and I was like, Hey man, you want to come down and fucking work on some music or something? He's like, no, I'm not trying to come down and get yelled at by you today. I was like, oh shit. And it's one of those things I'm not actively fucking yelling at the guy, but I'm always like, yo, that's not the right kick drum dude. He's like, so I get it. And it's way easier to just turn a beat over to some dude who's going to rap on it and you never have to think about it again. But where I'm trying to go in the industry is a little bit different than

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):

That. So question on that topic, because an intense dude, clearly, which is awesome, and how do you balance being so intense with having rapport with the people you work with? Because you know how everyone says this a service business and you got to be able to hang out with people and there's a whole, one of the big jobs of being a producer is being the psychiatrist, et cetera, et cetera, all that shit. How do you balance because you are fucking passionate about this shit, you are on fire. How do you balance that with having to interface with human beings?

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):

Well, I mean it's one of those things, the number one part of this job is being a good hang. So while also being passionate, this is a outlet, I believe, for me to be passionate about this stuff where I'll sit around and smoke weed with you for three hours and listen to your beats if they're dope beats. But there's also the other side of it where when you build a facility in a place like this,

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):

The outlet, you mean the podcast?

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):

Okay. Oh yeah. So we can rant about it, what this is,

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):

Yeah, what this is for. You know what I

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):

Mean?

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):

But it's one of those things

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):

Rant away.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):

Exactly. But it's also, there's the other side of it where when you build a facility like this in a place like this, people want to hang out that don't really want to be your friend. They just want things from you. I mean, a lot of people want free work. A lot of people think that recording should be free. And for me, it's been a weird one. I have good rapport with a lot of people. There's a lot of people that I know I've rubbed the wrong way. I am not ever going to change who I am because I believe that who I am has set me on the path that I am on. And the people who do understand what it's like to be in a room with me, they fucking appreciate the fuck out of it. I believe they do. So I, it's like, why go? I mean, here's an interesting one, smoking weed. I smoke a ton of weed. I smoke weed all the time. I smoke more weed than people that are famous for smoking weed. I know that for a fact. I'm not going to name any names, but just is what it is. And it's not, yo, if you don't want someone smoking weed on your session, don't hire me.

(01:11:57):

Don't try and yell at me about something that you don't like when you knew the situation when you got into it. Same way with this one. Right before we started this conversation, I told you, I was like, Hey man, I got a potty mouth. That cool. You

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):

Know what I mean? Which I actually, I totally appreciate that you asked. It's very respectful of you, it's very respectful, and I do appreciate that you asked.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):

Yeah, and I'll be honest, if I wasn't able to speak freely, this probably would've been a shorter conversation.

(01:12:33):

So I'm not really going out of my way to change those things. And don't get me wrong, I don't feel like I'm the hardest person in the world to deal with if here's how I feel about audio is when you work with producers and fucking other engineers and artists, teamwork makes the dream work. I 100% believe that. So I work with teams. I want to build teams that are the people in my life right now. I believe that me and Colin are a team. What we're trying to accomplish for the future, we're on the save wavelength. Are we going to be working on every record together? Maybe not, but hopefully the bigger ones we are, he's hopefully coming out here in a couple of weeks to work on a record out of to make belief. So it's like that team I appreciate and I'm trying to build it.

(01:13:20):

My team with Dominique Sanders, my team with Keith Roger, and the dudes at my studio, Conor Murray, I want to build with those people. And I've built with a lot of people where it's one of those things where you build where you're on a level and then next dude's mixing it. You did everything. They got a little bit of a budget and you're no longer the dude that they're going to pay and they weren't paying you much anyway. But now that they got a little bit more money, they're not going to pay you. They're going to pay this next guy because they've got the money to do it. I'm not looking to be part of those teams, and I get out of those situations much sooner than I did beforehand. As soon as that shit is weird, and it's like, I feel slighted. I did this shit. I went out of my way to help you, and now I'm getting fucked. I'm just not going to do those things anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):

You just don't put up with it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):

And what I found is that, as I said, I'm not the best, but I'm definitely not the worst. And there's enough people who want to make records that I'll find someone to make records with. People want to work on music, they want their shit to sound better. And that's one thing is like you give me your song, I'll make it sound better. Whether it's mixing or mastering, that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):

You brought up something really interesting and something that I've had a personal issue with and I want get your take on it. Okay, so I don't know if you know much about my history, but I quit producing and mixing for a living to do URM because I had to go all in. It's been a while since I did production for money. A URM exploded and it is what I do, but when I was producing for money, there were a lot of things that I felt like I had to tolerate in order to not lose certain relationships that really fucked with me. There's a lot of cases where you will get slighted, and I noticed that a lot of people who are friends, we know a lot of the same people and a lot of 'em have a tolerance for it that I don't have. And so they're okay with it, and so they don't fuck up some of those relationships. I realized about myself that I don't tolerate the not getting paid on time thing that happens with a lot of producers, with a lot of label situations. I couldn't handle it. I'm not okay with it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):

And for me, I am actually way more relaxed about the not getting paid on time thing. I'm mixing songs for an artist who has owed me thousands of dollars since December and they're still sending me new songs and we're just adding it to the bill and waiting for the label to pay for it. See, that's an interesting one because that isn't something that it's affected. And don't get me wrong, it definitely bums me the fuck out, but it's not one that,

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):

But you tolerate it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):

Yeah, I'll work around someone like that. The thing for me is if you never told me that you wanted me to mix this record and I got all excited about mixing the, I didn't get excited about mixing the record, fine. Someone goes and mixes the record, it's cool. But if you come to me and you're like, oh, we're mixing this record and do a bunch of work and then we're going to fucking mix this record and then it'll be awesome and it'll be out, and then you fucking go and pay fucking Manny Merrick went a billion dollars to mix the record and I just did 90.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):

Oh yeah, that too. That kind of stuff too.

Speaker 3 (01:16:52):

Yo dude.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):

Okay, so it is brutal. I actually talked to, had on a podcast yesterday, talked to Steve Evetts about this, and we talked about the dealing, that sort of thing. It happens to everybody, and it's happened to me certain times. Were busted ass to help a band on a record, and the record came out, did great for them, already booked. The next one, deposits paid, and then suddenly three weeks out, you find out they're going with someone else What? And there's no way to make that feel good. And the reason I'm bringing it up is I see a lot of URM students who are at the beginning of their career, and so their first experiencing these things and they get very emotional about them, and we try to tell them, this is part of it. You're going to have to learn to deal with it. But if I'm being honest, it sucks. It really does suck,

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):

Yo, I'm not going to lie. I still get emotional about that shit. What I want out of my life is I want to build relationships where 40 years down the road, we're trying to make the best records that we can for these people's kids, and they've already made success in their life and we've got the opportunities to help their children, and we're continuing to do what we love. And I'm making records with my friends. I was on that VCR in my garage, and when you cross that line where it's like, that's not what it is anymore. Well okay, that's fine. I'm going to go find someone who's going to help me live my dream like that. That's why I believe in dudes. I've said a name a couple of times, but Dominique Sanders is one of the most talented people in the world right now.

(01:18:40):

And it's like when me and him get together, it's like hanging out with my old buddy Anthony in the garage making records to that VCRI believe in 30 years, me and Dom very well could be making his kids record and he's going to be a phenomenal bass player just like his dad and fucking or great guitar player or amazing keyboard player, whatever he wants to be, but he will be. And hopefully my kid can keep up and fucking, but we're never going to get there if we keep firing each other for fucking bullshit. And at some point you're going to have a bunch of money and I'm going to still be the guy who's not just sat on the side not making any money. You didn't hire me and I just did all this prep work. So it's like

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):

How do you deal with it

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):

Upward and onward, as I said, find other people to make music with. Perfect. And here's the thing too is different genres have set up different worlds. People need to understand that the business is different in different genres in the music industry.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):

That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. What's funny growing up, my dad's a conductor world famous, and when my band got signed a roadrunner, a lot of people in town that were jealous about that were like his dad got him his record deal. And it's like you have no idea how far classical music is from Roadrunner for Metal. Those worlds could not be further apart.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):

No, I mean, unless your dad got fucking hired to come in and write out a chart for a fucking Slipknot overdub, he's not dealing with Roadrunner, I'm assuming.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):

No, that did not happen.

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):

So it's like people don't understand that. But it's one of those things like, I'll tell you this right now, metal kids who are sitting there slaving away, fucking editing bullshit takes from bullshit musicians. You want to make great music with people who are at the top of their game. Players who are the best musicians in the world, just like metal musicians. Metal musicians are some of the best musicians in the world for what they do. Absolutely. Highest level of musicianship go record jazz players.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):

God damn,

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):

They're they're out there and they'll play together. They a band. You can put up the microphones, you can get nominated for a Grammy. You don't edit a thing. So it's like find out what you want to do. Me and Dom are in this world where we are trying to make great hip hop records, great jazz records, country records, blues records, it doesn't matter. We just want to be great. We want to work with great musicians. But then we also have 40 years worth of gear between the two of us, 60 years worth of experience and fucking, we are trying anything to make those productions sound bigger and more larger than life and new and fresh in the same way that we talked about Back and Black. It's not like we're trying to make back and black every day by any means, but if we make a banging ass hip hop song and fucking our buddy Logan's around, he's one of the most progressive saxophone players in the world, so put him on the song.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):

You just go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):

On what you're saying, I meant to say this earlier, but in addition to jazz players being some of the best in the world, I actually think, and I really meant to say this earlier, but what you were talking about with pop production, I actually think that pop production is the most sophisticated production out there because it takes so many different things and does them authentically, but in a new way. It's almost like the way that a film composer has to be able to compose in any style imaginable like that, write reggae for this one part and then an orchestral epic thing for this other thing, and then a jazz song here. And

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):

It's all top level

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):

And it's all top level.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):

And that's the thing that people get fucked up on and they want to hate on people's, like, look at a dude like Pharrell, or look at a dude like fucking Max Martin. Their productions stand out because they're good at making records that people want to listen to. And it doesn't matter what it is. Happy does not make me feel the same way that Toxic does from Britney Spears, you know what I mean? And they're the same person produced those songs, but they're good. They're good at what they do, and they spend time to make sure that what they do translates a feeling. And that's the big thing. And that, no offense to you metal people. I do. I grew up listening to metal and you'll find photos of me where I had fucking mud vein hair and shit like that. If you look hard enough, if you edit all this shit and you fucking all have the same profiles and you all have the same kicks and snare samples, at some point you lose a feeling and

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):

You are preaching to the choir on that one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):

And your music, what makes it great becomes based on technicality. And that's what's happening now. But there's certain people, and it's interesting because you listen to a band, I believe it was periphery, we were listening to their new record, they got a song called Reptile, right?

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):

I think so,

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):

I haven't heard it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):

Dude, that shit's fucking amazing, bro. And it's one of those things when I listen to it, it's like they reinvented breakdowns 30 years after people have been doing breakdowns and they rethought about all this shit. And it's this super technical awesome thing, but the song is 13 minutes long and it's fucking got a bunch of shit in it that could have been cut the fuck out, in my opinion. No offense to you guys. I know you'll probably hear this because you listen to these sorts of things, but I think what you do is awesome. And it's one of those things like the technicality overrode what was important in this song to me. And it was like that throughout pretty much the majority of the record. And that was the main song that I listened to because someone went out of their way to show me it because of how revolutionary the technicality of the music was.

(01:25:09):

But that's the thing that's interesting about great jazz right now, especially with these people who are blending jazz and hip hop. The technicality is an extremely high level, especially if you know what you're listening for, you can do some shit that's really hard on a horn to do that is very simple to listen to. You know what I mean? And then the other side of it is that the music makes you feel good. So I get this sense of being able to listen to this music and say, man, these people are playing their hearts out as well as they could have ever played at that particular time in their life. And I would like to have sex right now,

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):

Man. I think the best metal is the stuff that makes you feel like jumping through a wall or drive really, really fast. And when that stuff that puts the technicality over the song or over the feeling, to me, I feel like I'm listening to computers playing music. The Best Metal to me does convey feeling for sure when I hear the first Slip Knot or old Panera records or modern bands like Go Jira or something. There's this feeling, this frenetic energy that's just so powerful and that stuff is great, but the technicality thing that started happening in the past 10 years did start to whitewash all that. And it's unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):

And as far as I go, if I had to put, don't get me wrong, I love the early slip knot stuff, like the one with the numbers and mate, feet kill, repeat. And I listened to those records when I was younger, but if I had to put a definitive, I'm going to put on a fucking metal record. And the first one that I think of every time, it's fucking at the Gates Slaughter of the Soul.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):

Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:27:10):

And it's one of those things where they ride the line where those dudes were technical players and they were playing fucking guitar riffs that you hear that sort of stuff in a REU and fucking tons of other bands that are more modern bands. You know what I mean? You hear this style that was burgeoning then, but it rides this fine line of shitty recording and amazing. You know what I mean? So it's like the songs,

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):

It's nasty in all the right ways.

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):

Exactly. The songs and the fucking feeling outweigh the production in a way that makes me feel like Motown, you know what I mean? The songs and the songs and the the actual music and the feeling is way better than the recording quality of Motown, the recording quality of Motown, if you actually go listen to it, it's very limited, very compressed, very washed out. But those songs make you feel a certain way. And that's what I love about great music. If I could capture that. And that's what I love about working with a dude like Colin. Colin can feel that shit. He can feel when something is great and he'll go above and beyond to make sure something does get to the point where it makes him feel a certain way. And thankfully, in the situations that we're in, sometimes part of my job is to help be a vehicle to do that. If this bridge doesn't feel right and it needs to feel more like this, then we may have to get the right bass and we may have to get the right fucking drums. We may have to fucking spend time getting the right guitar tone and moving microphones and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):

So you use your knowledge of the equipment as a vehicle for achieving that feel?

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):

Oh, 100%. All it is.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):

So it's not just about this fidelity thing, it's about achieving a feel

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):

And a lack of fidelity is more of a feel than a crystal clear recording. 100%. And that's why people love things like the TG preamps, like yo, go compare a TG preamp to a millennia and you'll hear all the distortion and harmonic color that is actually in something like that. But when you plug your guitar into it, it feels beefy and bity. So it's cool, people dig it. But Andrew went through an experience when I was down at the studio where he was going through his guitar stuff, and I know you probably discussed this with him, where he went through a ton of shit. And what we really found out was that the best signal chain in the goddamn studio was straight in through a fucking focus. Wright Scarlet.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):

Yeah, we put that in the course. It was mind blowing.

Speaker 3 (01:30:06):

It's one of those things like, yo, I was right there with him. I wasn't doing everything with him every minute of those sessions, but I was in the building and definitely in the room for certain parts of it. And we discussed that shit. It's not like we didn't try, it's not like we thought the APIs were going to be the best and we were extremely disappointed. We went into it with a pretty open mind. But it's one of those things like who cares? This is the thing about gear that's weird to me is one thing about gear and recording is I feel like when people record on expensive gear, they feel better about what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):

I think that's true, which in turn could make them do a better job playing

Speaker 3 (01:30:52):

Even just be more confident about the situation that they're

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):

In.

Speaker 3 (01:30:57):

So it's one of those things like I'm at a weird impasse in my life. I know you've seen photos in the studio and I've got tons of beautiful shit. I've got a beautiful SSL and I've got

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):

A-B-A-P-I

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):

Console, and I've actually got this another little baby API console that we're in the middle of restoring. And I'm at the

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):

Point where, oh yeah, you got some big boy toys for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):

I am actually very heavily considering selling my API console and buying a live sound console to replace it. And a lot of people would say, well, why the fuck would you ever do that? That's an API. This is a live sound console. And I'll be honest, you want to know why I would do it? I like the way the console sounds and it has tons of fucking features, way more features than the API currently use. And the difference in cost between them is roughly 72 to $80,000. So if I feel like I'm making a great recording and I'm not actually missing besides this name, then what's it going to change for me? But I have to look at it from the business standpoint of I run a commercial recording studio that people rent. I'll be honest, at this point, I don't believe too many people rent the studio because there's an API console in it.

(01:32:17):

They rent the studio because it's my studio and we make great records here. And whether they want to fucking make great records with me or just be in the building that they know that these great records are coming out of and use the stuff that we all have access to because there's lots of cool shit in the building besides the console, then cool. I'm at the point where I'm finally like, fuck it. I want to work on this console that's got motherfucking EQs on the bus sends and the monitor returns. I want that full three band eq. Give me that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):

And that's an interesting dilemma because that whole client appeasement thing, it's real, but at the same time as that's real, I know that just like you went to that guy back in the day that just had the digi one in the middle of the room, there's plenty of producers these days that are fucking killing it with just a computer and an interface and they get clients and stuff. So the client base is also evolving a bit.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):

Well, studios are evolving. And actually, to be honest, the console is only for me. It's because of the way that I like to work in the way that I like to be functional. But you want to know what the number one thing that I did a poll on the internet, I've done it sly over the past couple of years, but I've boiled it down to you want to know the number one thing people actually want in recording studios nowadays, a raven and as many Neve preempts as you can give them

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):

Neves. People just love saying Neve.

Speaker 3 (01:33:52):

That's literally it. Just give me a big screen and as many nieves as you can give me. And to be honest, it used to be stressors. Stressors were a thing as well,

(01:34:03):

But not so much anymore. If you have two, you're fine. To be honest, I don't have any stressors that make believe right now. I had a very special pair and somebody was like, I need these ones. And I was like, I know Dave Dur. He's a really, really nice guy, and I'll just get some more stressors. So if you really want them, we can make that happen. But yeah, I'm kind of stressor list. But yeah, really the big thing that everybody wants is if you could give them 72 channels into Pro Tools and 72 channels of Neve that go straight there, that's the future of a high end studio.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):

I feel like Neve is one of those names, but first of all, yes, they're great and all, but so I'm not knocking Neve at all. Obviously they're great stuff, but classic stuff, amazing stuff. But I think they have one of those names that people who don't know a fuck shit at all what they're doing or what anything sounds like they just feel cool saying Neve on something.

Speaker 3 (01:35:04):

Here's the thing is you want to say it's a fuck shit people who don't know what they're doing, but those people end up like ars for record labels and fucking shit. You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, I know it's that shit. It's one of those things like outside of knees, probably the most requested thing that I don't actually have at my studio. And Colin has one, and he's got a really nice one, is a CL one B, and I tell everyone like, oh, I don't have a CL one B. I've got a custom vocal limiter that I record stuff through that I really like called the SA three A. And I had an artist, a really, really big hip hop artist named Denna come in here and he requested the CL one B and I didn't have him. I put him the SA three A and he said, this thing is fucking great.

(01:35:47):

How do I get one? I said, you can't get one. I'd have to build one for you. I'll see if I can get the parts. You know what I mean? Fucking Colin, we just had the SA three A and the CL one B, so we ran 'em into both. It sounded awesome, but it's like I'm not actively going out of my way to buy a C one B right now. I'm still cool. It's one of those things like owning a studio. What I found is it doesn't matter how nice your studio is, people are always going to complain about something you don't have.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):

This is true.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):

And even a place like Sphere, they're going to go into a place like Sphere who's got literally fucking everything and they're going to be like, do you have a scam rack full of the A DT module so we can get the David Bowie vocal from Low?

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):

Dude, I've seen people complain about it too,

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):

And it's like they have everything. They have everything that you need to possibly fucking make a record. To be honest, you had everything you needed to make a record before you walked in there, but hopefully you have a great time at Sphere and you love being there and you feel awesome. But the same thing goes at Make Believe. I literally remember fucking, I called a dude who was interested in making a record with me, and I had the SSL, and he's like, oh, you can't record records on an SSL. That's a mixing console. You need a discrete console. And I fucking called him the day I bought the API was like, I bought an API. He said, what'd you get? He said, A legacy. He said, that's cool. Call me when you get a Neve

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):

All.

Speaker 3 (01:37:24):

And it is just like, yo, that's a real person with real money who makes records, dude. So it's like, okay, maybe we're not going to be working together, not going to literally mortgage a fucking Neve you. So yeah, that's always been a very, very interesting one for me because what I've particularly wanted to make records on is not what other people want to make records on. A very clear example of that is the pie preamps at my studio. So I absolutely adore these pie preamps. They're amazing. They are B, BC design preamps that were OEMed by PI for the B, B, C and used in consoles in the BBC. But what it really turned out is they were one of the first transistor design preamps ever in the world. And they were designed by Dick Sweetenham, I believe, but they fucking were the basis of what turned into the TG console.

(01:38:29):

So when they designed the TG console and the REDD department over at Abbey Road, they based their design of a transistor console off of the BBC spec for a transistor console, which is what these preamps were made from for the BBC. So these are literally 10 pi preamps that are the exact same as what were the basis for the fucking Abbey Road consoles. And they are the basis the grandfather of what turned into the Chandler TG preamp that absolutely everybody loves. I don't have any Chandler TG preamps. I don't have 10 channels of them, but I do have 10 channels of pies. And there's been great engineers who've come in here who've been like, I'm like, oh, those are Chandler. I mean, think of 'em as Chandler. They're fucking awesome. And they're like, oh, I wish they were Chandler, and they'll just move on to the knees.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):

That's so weird to me, man, because it's like, I mean, yeah, gear does matter. Of course it matters. We were just talking about how sonic pallets come from gear choices and all that, but at the end of the day, if you can't work because of a detail like that, you just can't do it. You can't say you can't make a record of that. You're full of shit. I think

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):

It really comes down to a vibe, which is that people believe in these manufacturers. They believe needs are going to give me a good recording. And the thing that's weird about it is that there's a lot more D-I-Y-A-P-I contraptions out there on the market. And there's some of my favorite pres that I have in the world are from cards that I built called the Access three 12 cards. And I actually own a hundred of these cards because anytime I need some Utilitarian Pres, I just fucking build them. And they're amazing. But they're not API pres and no one has ever looked at them in my studio as API Pres. I'll tell you right now, I can go and buy API Preamps for my console. They're $700 a piece. I can build access 12 cards, that three 12 cards that sound better to me personally that are not $700 a piece.

(01:40:45):

People don't look at 'em the same as I look at 'em though. So for outside engineers, it's been like, oh, that's not API shit. So they tend to rely on the knees for me. I don't really give a shit. I want to make the best sounding record, and I'm a weirdo. I tend to record my kick drums with a ne preamp. I tend to not use the EQ on the actual kick drum. I use an A DR eq, and then I tend to record my snare drums with an API preempt that I made. And it's one of those things like those tools have been picked for what I'm looking out of trying to get a recording. If I'm going for something from the 1970s, I may record the whole fucking drum set through some spheres and some flickers just because that's what would've been around back then and what people need to realize about this gear. And if I can say anything super poignant, this is probably, we're two hours into this conversation, so I don't know if this will even make it, but this is the number one thing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:47):

It'll make it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):

Me and Colin had a discussion about this, but one of the things that I've, or maybe it was me and Neil, but one thing that I took away that I think was just absolutely genius was Ken Scott wrote a book called From Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, and it was about his time in the music industry. And one of the things that he was implement in doing was he helped design the Trident a range console. And I don't know if you know anything about Trident Studios, but before Trident, there was a company called Sound Techniques and Sound Techniques. They're making consoles now, but Sound Techniques was a company way back in the day, and they supplied some of the first commercially available consoles before you could buy a Neve, you could buy a Sound Techniques console. And at Trident, they had Sound Techniques consoles. They had two of them.

(01:42:52):

They had one in their tracking studio and one in their mixing studio. And then they decided that they wanted a new updated model. But Sound Techniques had taken this big fucking big deal with Delaine Lee, which was a studio in the UK at the time, which was a huge facility that had 20 fucking rooms or some shit, like a massive facility. They were doing multiple things for the studio and they couldn't build him a console. So the Trident said, well, we're going to build a console. So they decided to build the A range, which we all know about the Trident a range. Metallica used it. So he was there and it was Robin Cable, I believe Roy Thomas Baker and Ken Scott were the three main engineers at Trident at the time. And I don't know if you know of any of their work, but that's Queen. That's Elton John, that's David Bowie, that's the Beatles. They did some heavy

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):

Hit institutions.

Speaker 3 (01:43:45):

Yeah, some heavy hitting fucking records, dude. And one of the things that he said, his book, the thing that I really took away from it, except for, I mean, there's a lot of great things to take away from that book. Any engineer worth his shit should try and get their hands on it. But the thing that I took away that I just thought was fucking revolutionary was he went into this thing, which is something that I've been told from time to time, and I don't tend to believe it, but I know a lot of people in your world and your genre has been told this, and it's, you have a sound. You have a sound. Your records have a sound man, all your records have a sound. And Ken Scott said, I've been told I have a sound my whole life, but it always perplexed me. I didn't know how I had a sound when I worked with so many different artists of so many varying genres in so many different studios all over the world. How did I have a sound? Was it the console? Was it the microphones? What was this sound? It's

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):

You.

Speaker 3 (01:44:52):

No, you want to know what he said? He said, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I thought back to my time on developing the Trident, a range console, and he said, I tended to rely on 5K and I would boost a little bit of 5K in my records. People said, tended to sound more natural than Roy Thomas Baker's records. What he liked to do was he liked to go to 10 K and he liked to boost the shit out of it. And it had this sheen, this gloss that you would hear when you listen to something versus yellow brick Road versus Queen One's, a little bit more schier and one's a little bit more open and natural. And he said, what I started to realize is what if the frequencies that we tend to rely on, the numbers that we tend to in our hearts is what may end up being part of that sound. And I thought about it, it's like, go through Chris Lord algae's presets and tell me that his sound isn't really based around eight K and 60 and a hundred hertz. And then I started looking into it more and more. And if you look deep enough, there are frequencies that people rely on.

Speaker 2 (01:46:08):

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.

(01:47:22):

You don't need to guess and check, you just assemble a 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. Absolutely. That's actually what I meant when I said that's you. I was actually talking about this with somebody the other day. There's these tendencies that we have that for some reason we always go to, and we may not even be aware of it, which is the same reason for why a beginning mixer who maybe really sucks at dialing low end will buy a new EQ plugin and be like, this is going to fix everything. And then their mixes will sound exactly the same.

Speaker 3 (01:48:06):

Exactly. And what it comes to is you may know that you need 200 hertz in that snare drum. You don't know how much. And what it is is a Neve and an API and an SSL, they're all going to give you 200 hertz, but they're going to give it to you a little bit differently. And you've got to figure out the balance of how much you want in there. And I think that when you listen to Kent Scott, one thing that he's got definitely got a sound, his motherfucking snare drums, and a big part of that sound to his snare drum that it actually took me 10 years of trying. And I went through tried and a range modules, tried and B range modules. I went through a ton of shit. But you want to know one of the most I incremental things about fucking Ken Scott Sound?

Speaker 2 (01:48:47):

What's that?

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):

A big old boost around 200 hertz and a CapEx gate. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48:51):

It took you 10 years to figure that out though.

Speaker 3 (01:48:54):

Yeah. But there was an old article where he talked about recording Billy Cobham in the Maha Issue Orchestra, and he fucking talked about how he brought a bunch of gates that the studio didn't have to it. And I was like, hold on. He's carrying around capexes.

Speaker 2 (01:49:05):

Interesting. And so once you started doing that, did your snares start to sound just like that?

Speaker 3 (01:49:13):

Well, I know how to get that sound

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):

Close enough.

Speaker 3 (01:49:16):

Well, no, I mean, I can get that sound. I don't want my snares to sound just like that on every time I'm recording a record. That shit wouldn't have been appropriate for the day to remember record. But if someone's like, Hey man, I want this fucking snare drum to sound like yellow brick road. I got you dog.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):

Interesting. And just out of curiosity, this tone search, I feel like it's an eternal tone search. Have you gone through that level of research across various styles? Is it just you love something? There's a certain sound that you love that you heard somebody that you look up to do time after time after time, and it's just you had to figure it out almost like a sonic detective?

Speaker 3 (01:50:01):

Yeah. And it's weird how you get there. A lot of things is the artist. But I heard a dude talking about football, and I never really understood football or respected it until this dude talked about football. And then at that point was like, I see why you appreciate football, not why I buy. Everybody else appreciates football, but why you appreciate it? And I was like, what the fuck is up with football, dude? And he's like, well, you want to know what I actually like about football? I was like, what's that? And he's like, the coaches, he's like, the players get hurt. And they come and they go. He's like, but the coaches, they'll be around for 20 years and you get to see 'em get traded, other teams, and they're working for other people. But you get to see them win and lose and you get to see their shit and their struggle. And I was like, that's actually pretty interesting. And it's kind of like what I do with records. There's been many records that I've listened to, not because I've ever heard of the artist by any means, but because somebody that I'm interested in, the music that they're working on made the fucking record. So that's given me the ability to go. And as far as delving down genres though, dude, to the point that people would find it obnoxious to,

Speaker 2 (01:51:17):

But that's what it takes.

Speaker 3 (01:51:19):

Well, I mean, it depends on who you are because I'll be honest with you, it's not what it takes. I'll tell you right now, me and Lil Nas X do not have the same information in our heads. He's killing it, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):

Well, I mean, that's what it takes to do what you do.

Speaker 3 (01:51:34):

What I do. And it is what it takes for me to be me. People will hit me up in the morning and they'll say, mix this song for me. People will hit me up in the morning. They'll say, master this song for me. People will hit me up in the morning and say, I was in a session last night and we were trying to make the keyboard sound like Stevie Wonder, I sent you the midi. Can you make it sound like Stevie Wonder for me?

Speaker 2 (01:51:55):

And the answer's yes, correct.

Speaker 3 (01:51:57):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (01:51:57):

Yes. Obviously

Speaker 3 (01:51:58):

The answer to that is really what Stevie Wonder song.

Speaker 2 (01:52:01):

Fair enough. Well, that's why they went to you, because you would ask that question. But I mean, what I mean by that's what it takes is that's what it takes is open-ended because it's going to be different for everybody. A different producer is going to have a totally different take on music. But to do what you do, you really do have to be like an encyclopedia for this shit. And that shit doesn't just happen by accident.

Speaker 3 (01:52:31):

No. Especially for to do what I do at the level I believe I'm doing it at and that I want to continue to do it for the rest of my life. And then also for really the being able to cross over the genres and working dudes like Colin who want to cross the genres together. I feel like that's helpful. I'll tell you right now, being able to roll a nice blunt has served me a lot better than being able to tune a snare drum in most hip hop sessions. But I've been in hip hop sessions where I tuned snare drums and they were fucking hyped that I knew how to do that. You know what I mean? So yeah, as I said, everything is everything, bro. But as far as the details, dude, I've gone through the details. I've gone through the minutia, whether it's Dr.

(01:53:16):

Dre or it's Jerry Finn. And here's the thing is ask people, bro. Ask people straight up one of the best sounds we got on fucking and watch. I'm a fucking, you want to know where the sounds are kids? I'll let you know. You want to know how to go spend the next four hours? You want to be a little bit like me? You want to know where the sounds are, where the inspiration is. Jerry Finn's gear photos from his reverb page before they took certain photos, they didn't take the tape off. Some of them, all of his dual rectifier, all of his jcm, eight hundreds. They still have his settings marked in fucking Sharpie on the amps, on the reverb

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):

Reverb.com, the gear sales page.

Speaker 3 (01:54:00):

Yeah, every pedal. I mean, I definitely stole his B seven Boss Basic eq. It fucking rules sounds just like a Mark Hoppa

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):

Base. Out of curiosity, man. Okay, so you went to Full Sail right when you were 16, right?

Speaker 3 (01:54:16):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:54:16):

So at what point did this obsession with figuring out how these tones are made happen?

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):

Well, it happens every day,

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):

But when did it start?

Speaker 3 (01:54:28):

Well then, well, it started with the guy with the pro tools ring in his basement.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):

So it started then and it just never stopped.

Speaker 3 (01:54:34):

Yeah, because remember how I looked at the guy, I said, I can do this better than you. I couldn't do it better than him, but it's the same thing. It's anyone. If someone could build a car, I can build a car. I knew that there was a way that if that really was what the Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey was using to make records, then that could be used to make records that sounded that good. And I will figure out how to make that sound that good. This guy wasn't making it sound that good. He made it sound pretty good, but he wasn't making it sound like that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):

So you referenced another producer and said, that's not what it takes because this guy has something totally different in his head. But I feel like there's certain types of artists who all they can do, I mean, I guess all we can be is ourselves, right? But there's certain types of artists and producers whose thing is to only do what they hear in their head. They're not looking to be able to recreate some sort of sound that came from a certain era and then combine it with some new thing they're just doing what they hear or what happens that day or in that moment of, and sometimes it's really, really great. I mean, there's plenty of artists who that's what they do, producers do, and it's really, really great. Or they're working on a record and there's an exploration of sound on that record. And it's not like, get me Stevie Wonders sound off of this song. It's more just like, let's just make a slamming record. Have you always had this thing where you want to dissect where these sounds that you loved from the past came from or how they were created?

Speaker 3 (01:56:20):

Yes, I've always had it. But what you just brought up is the actual point, the being a good hang. No one wants to sound weirdo hanging out in their session. They want the guy who can fucking kick it with 'em and fucking be a good guy, and they want to call and talk about shit. And that's the whole point is exactly what you just said. There's a lot of people who want to just go out there and they want to make a banging ass record, but during that process, it always comes up where it may not be, Hey, get this sound on this. It may just be dial in the minimoog. But when I listen to the song, I hear Dr. Dre Low End, Dr. Dre. So I dial in the minimoog like Dr. Dre

Speaker 2 (01:57:03):

Makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:57:05):

So it's not like I'm being like, oh, I'm going to do it just like Dr. Dre, and we're going to do this and this and blah. I just fucking patch in some cables and I turn the knobs and then they walk up and they fucking, they're like this shit. This is it, bro. Yeah. And then I'm the guy who programs the minimum.

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):

So let's talk about real life for a second. We all only have 24 hours in a day between working with clients and designing studios and coming to Florida and working with Colin, just between all those different things, when do you find the time to go on the audio, I'll call it your audio detective adventures?

Speaker 3 (01:57:48):

Every day.

Speaker 2 (01:57:49):

Every day,

Speaker 3 (01:57:51):

Yeah. It's one of those things where, I mean, working with Colin, you're obsessed. Yeah, working with Colin, I mean, that's an audio adventure in and of himself. Fucking we'll talk about something before he goes to bed, and then he'll wake up in the morning and he'll be like, what about this? And I'll be like, alright. So I like the audio adventure term. It's every

Speaker 2 (01:58:18):

Day. It's what it's,

Speaker 3 (01:58:19):

Yeah, every day you plug in a microphone and it's different because some people are just trying to record their symbols and then they're going to use their samples, and that is what it is. I've had people use my studio that way. They're like, we want the cleanest preamps. We're trying to record the symbols. Great. We're going to put a bunch of samples on this stuff when we get home. It's like, okay, perfect. I get you guys all good, but I'll be real. I still want that snare drum to sound great in the room mics and the overheads. When I hear that shit, I want it to sound rad. So every time is an opportunity to be better. It's weird. And having a conversation like this is weird because this conversation has been primarily based around my engineering skills, which are cool, but at this point in my career, I don't engineer for people like that.

(01:59:07):

You couldn't call and hire me to engineer your local band record. If you come to make Believe, I have an engineer myself, his name is Keith Roger. He's my chief engineer. He's absolutely wonderful. I produce records in those regards, but for people like Colin, people who are my friends, who I know want to go and make the best goddamn record ever, I'm there. Yeah, let's go. There's things that excites me. That's the audio adventure. You know what I mean? And hopefully in 50 fucking years when we're both 80, me and Colin are talking about how his daughter is killing it, and we're still talking about snare drums and we're talking about new music, and those are the things that the audio, I talked to so many dudes, there's so many. And here's an interesting thing is a lot of people want to believe that all these other people who are making records, they're making records, their competition and shit. And don't get me wrong, you are, and I have been very vocal about how I feel about competition, but at the same time, if you can actually make good friends and resources, these are the people who are actually doing these things so they know exactly what it's like, exactly what it takes and their solution. I'll tell you this right now. There's a dude named Paul Fle, and Paul Fle is an absolute genius. Do you know who he is?

Speaker 2 (02:00:32):

I do not, but I believe you.

Speaker 3 (02:00:34):

Yeah. If you should get anybody on a talk about the changing and the comings and goings of the world of audio, I'd be very interested to hear Paul f Fidel's take on it.

Speaker 2 (02:00:43):

Well, can you introduce me to him?

Speaker 3 (02:00:44):

Yes, I definitely can. Paul f Fidel is a designer. He was in charge of the SSLG series console, so he redesigned the E-Series and turned it into the G series. And then from there he started designing the SSL digital consoles, which then got sold to Sony where he designed the Sony Oxford and the DMX. And then all of that stuff eventually got sold to Sonics and all of the plug, the modules that he built for the Sony consoles, those are the sonics plugins, so inflator and all that shit. He designed all that stuff and he's had the insight to literally watch us go from the SSLG series, G plus special edition, the end all be all of analog recording and mixing consoles to ushering us into the new wave. The Sony Oxford EQ was the first time people were like, oh, there's actually a fucking EQ that's digital that people will use.

(02:01:35):

You know what I mean? And he had this interesting take on it where he said, I feel bad for young engineers. And I said, why do you feel bad for young engineers? He said, engineering is like no other profession in the world. Engineering is years of research into technology that you've got to put into this job to be able to actually accomplish it. And then there's no actual guidelines to how to do the job. When you're a doctor, you learn about how a scalpel is made and you learn about what a scalpel is used for, and then you learn how to properly use a scalpel and the right procedures when doing it. Same thing when you make a stitch. Same thing when you use an x-ray. Same thing when you remove a tooth. There's proper procedures that have been set up through time. He said there's a creative aspect about music that doesn't allow that to happen. There's the right way to go about doing it. And then once you've accomplished that, you've got to throw it all out the fucking door and pretty much go off the whims of mad men. And he's not fucking wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):

Nope, he's not wrong at all.

Speaker 3 (02:02:42):

So it's like you can learn how to record, you can learn how to record great, and you can learn how to fucking do it right every time. But then at the end of the day, you got some crazy a and r and fucking diva ass singer telling you that everything needs to be fucking different. So it's like,

Speaker 2 (02:02:55):

As a matter of fact, and I've told this before when I went to Berkeley, and this was in arranging, but I also noticed this in recording too, and also in the performance classes. I remember once in an arranging class, the teacher wanted to show us her new album, and she knew what the fuck she was doing with everything music. She was just on it. As far as her knowledge went. She played us her new music. Dude, it was the worst piece of shit I have ever heard in my entire life. But it was technically just unbelievable, so sophisticated. Obviously it's a Berkeley professor, but God, the music was so, so, so bad. It was just such a clear example of how you can learn all the quote rules, but if that art part isn't there, no dice. And it also is the same reason for why, and talked about this before, when you get a bad local band, for instance, and you put them in a really nice studio with a decent engineer who knows how to make a proper recording, but the engineer is not an artist himself and the band's not that good, you're just going to get a really clean piece of shit.

Speaker 3 (02:04:32):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:04:34):

That's not the whole equation at all doing things right.

Speaker 3 (02:04:37):

No, you're absolutely right. And it's one of those things where, I don't know whose quote this is, and I always feel really bad. I know that I'm probably going to go down in history as the person who says this quote, but it's an absolutely perfect quote. So if it does get attributed to me, I'll always tell everyone that someone else said it, but I'm fine with people ask me about it. I think it's absolutely perfect. But someone was asked to describe our profession and relate it to another profession, and he said, and I can't remember if this was Malcolm Chisholm. I don't remember who it was, which, do you know who Malcolm Chisholm is?

Speaker 2 (02:05:14):

I do not,

Speaker 3 (02:05:15):

Bro. I could go you metal kids. Malcolm Chisholm. Malcolm is the godfather of recording engineers in rock and roll. He recorded Chuck Berry, he recorded Johnny B. Good. He recorded all that shit rock around the clock. He is the godfather of rock and roll engineering. And when I first moved to Chicago, Malcolm was old as fuck, but he would still go give talks up at Columbia University. And I wasn't a student, but I knew a couple of teachers there from the scene. And I went to a couple of these and I'll never, and I can't attribute the quote that I am going to make about relating our profession to another profession, but Malcolm had some of the best fucking quotes when it came to this job. He said, you know what a recording engineer is, and his world was different. He said, A recording engineer is someone who has to have a hundred thousand dollars worth of gear in front of a million fucking dollars worth of musicians and make 10 million decisions every second and try and not fuck up. I said, what do you mean by 10 million decisions? He said, every decision you decide not to do is a decision. If you decide to sit there, you decide not to patch everything in the room. And every single one of those is a decision, and you make 'em every second.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):

It's true.

Speaker 3 (02:06:32):

I found that very poignant. He also said, recording engineers do not die. They're dragged into the ground by the weight of their testicles.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):

I love that one.

Speaker 3 (02:06:44):

I know that's a sexist quote now. So sirens,

Speaker 2 (02:06:48):

I'll let you die on that hill. So it makes me think that the profession that it's most like is an airline pilot.

Speaker 3 (02:06:55):

You want to know what the quote is? The profession that this is most like is a jeweler. A jeweler needs to have the expert ability and the technical know-how to take something like a raw diamond and use the tools that are in front of him to craft it into something beautiful that someone would actually be worth spending their money on.

Speaker 2 (02:07:16):

That's great. It's true. It's true. It's funny. I was hanging out with Colin Richardson once and he was referring to some drummer. He had to record as, what the hell did he call him? He called him raw material or something like raw goods or

Speaker 3 (02:07:36):

Something. And that is what it is. I think that when a lot of people, it's weird with computers nowadays, and I could see how for dudes back in the days, it would've been a lot more like that. There's a lot more magic in the air. People went and played music in front of microphones than it got recorded to a piece of sticky tape and popped out of the speakers. Now we can fucking see it and shit. So I think that if people were to actually go and look at the world from that mindset as far as what we do, they would able to take a step back and say, Hey, you we're making art and how this art makes you feel is a very, very particular component of it. And for certain clients you work with, it's going to be the most particular component. And there's clients that I work with that there's a way to get a sound.

(02:08:31):

And it's weird because I went into this briefly, but we didn't really talk about it, but the majority of this, we spent talking about recording engineer and me being a recording engineer. But I do that for Colin, I do that for Terrace Martin, I do that for Warren G. I did a couple weeks for Herbie Hancock in the past few years. I don't engineer people's projects unless they're the projects that I'm working on. You know what I mean? I'm a mix engineer by trade, actually. That's what I do primarily. The majority of my income is from mixing. And that's my favorite because I'm left in this goddamn fucking wonderland of shit. And I'll be real. I've got all the gear in the world. I mix in the box now and I love it. But if I ever get backed into a corner where I'm like, this sound needs to sound a different way. I have the ability to do it. I may have to go grab something from a different room, but I have the ability to do it. And I love that because mixing is what we've been talking about as far as this quest for sound and being a recording engineer after the fact. It's all of that, but after the fact. So I'm not doing it while the drummer's there. I'm doing it by myself while I'm smoking blunts. Same quest.

Speaker 2 (02:09:51):

Do you like it better? Because I mean, outside of those scenarios where you are working with a genius like Colin, but do you mixing better because you're generally on your own, and you can go on the Quest unimpeded if you want to sit there for 12 hours and hone in on this one detail. You can do that without another human to get tired or something.

Speaker 3 (02:10:26):

Yes, yes. But I also understand that this is a business, and I had a very life-changing moment. I got to give a shout out to my buddy, Roy Hendrickson, who is just one of the most fantastic engineers in the world. He's based out of New York. And if you're trying to talk to anybody who knows what it's like to be an actual recording engineer in a major label, or I mean a major city for decades, who's still out there not making his money, being the dude. I mean, he's not fucking Brendan O'Brien's engineer or anything. He records orchestras and he records plays, and he records tons of music for people, and he records great jazz records, and he's one of the most on-Call guys in New York. I went with Dom and my fucking girlfriend two years ago for the Grammys up to New York, and we decided to stop by Power Station and hang out with Roy who had a room there at the time. He actually worked at Power Station. He's worked there for over 20 years, and he's one of the only original people from Power Station who's still actively part of the day to day there. But he had his own personal room that he built upstairs. Studio G. When we got out of the elevator, there's a fucking 10 times platinum plaque for Brian Adams sitting on the wall,

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):

Son.

Speaker 3 (02:11:46):

But it was for Bob Clearmountain. And Jenny looks at it, and I don't know if you know anything about my life, you probably don't know this, but the reason why I work with Kelly is because of Bob Clearmountain. I don't know Bob by any means. I think he's a wonderful human being and one of the most talented, humble dudes in the goddamn world. But I called Kelly because she worked with Bob. I was like, you work with Bob? How does someone work with you? And she was like, well, what do you do? And I was like, I do this, this, and this. And she's like, I'll work with you. And that's literally how I started working with Kelly.

Speaker 2 (02:12:22):

How far along in your career when you started working with her?

Speaker 3 (02:12:26):

It was roughly two years ago. So it was right before my first Grammy nomination, but I had a couple number one records at that point, and I was doing my thing.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):

So you were already in the game?

Speaker 3 (02:12:39):

Oh, yeah. Make Believe was built. Yeah. But I have two dogs named Bob. Both of them are named Bob, both of them. It's the best thing in the world. You

Speaker 2 (02:12:49):

Yell, Bob, that is amazing, because then you just have to call them once.

Speaker 3 (02:12:54):

Yeah, Bob, come

Speaker 2 (02:12:55):

Sit. Bob sit. Yeah, that is most, and I mean, who fucking cares? They're dogs. It doesn't matter what you name. So dude, you just won something. I don't know what you won, but once I figure out what it is, you're going to get a prize. That is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard in my life.

Speaker 3 (02:13:18):

What I won was being put on a list with the Nebraska Border Collie rescue of not being able to adopt dogs. They thought I was fucking nuts. So really? Yeah. So there's this Nebraska, and it's actually, it's ran by my buddy's wife, but I didn't know that at all because me and this kid, Brandon, it's in Lincoln, and I live in Omaha, but me and this kid went to Full Sail and he's been wickedly successful. He was involved in this design company called Arch Rival, and they did all this Destiny and all the Red Bull commercials for the past seven years. That's all them, you know what I mean? And his wife runs the Nebraska Border Collie rescue. And I have these two dog named Bob and I actually, my roommate Dan, who I've been friends with, he's not my roommate anymore, but he was my roommate at the time. I've been friends with him since I was 12. And I was in a parking lot and there was a lady selling, so I bought him a bob. So at one point we had three bobs living in the house, and you use

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):

Three. That's so

Speaker 3 (02:14:21):

Awesome. And they're all border collies too, which is the best because they're super smart and they all have their own personalities. But you say Bob, and they all just look at you, and then if something's bad, two of them will run up to you all happy. And then the one that fucked up and went through the garbage is hiding in the corner. They sell themselves out. It's the best

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):

Bad boy Bob, and they all react.

Speaker 3 (02:14:42):

No, you just say Bob. And then the one who's being a pile of shit is not coming to hang out. It's just like even with the two of 'em there, they still do it. You come in and from my front door, you can't see the garbage can. But if I come in and they come up to me, I'm like, oh, Bobby, one of 'em, they'll always be at my legs. One of 'em will just look at me and turn his head and fucking smile, and the other one will just turn around and fucking walk back towards the garbage can. And it's like, it's not the same dog every time they sell themselves out on who actually was the one that went through the garbage can

Speaker 2 (02:15:17):

Do they do that weird smile thing.

Speaker 3 (02:15:19):

Oh yeah. And the only reason why I have a second border Collie is because I actually took acid one time and I spent eight hours. So I was doing live sound at a bar. This is the dangers of, you want to know the dangers of doing live sound acid. I was doing sound at a yes. I was doing live sound at a bar, and I don't drink alcohol. I've never drank before in my life, so I'm sober as fuck. And the show gets over and we're in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and my buddy is like, Hey, man, can you drive me back to my place? I'm like, sure. So I drive him back to his spot and he's like, Hey, man, thanks for the ride. You want some acid? And I was like, sure, I'll take some rainy day acid. I'll take some acid, put it in the glove box, fucking do this shit on Saturday or something. And he's like, put out your hand, bro. So I put out my hand thinking he's going to drop a couple fucking tabs of acid on my hand and nope, bloop, bloop, little fucking liquid acid drops, dude. And I'm like, oh shit. It's going

Speaker 2 (02:16:11):

Down of liquid. That many drops,

Speaker 3 (02:16:16):

Two drops of liquid acid. So I'm just

Speaker 2 (02:16:18):

Like, that's an adventure. You want to talk about adventurous?

Speaker 3 (02:16:23):

I went in, bro, I just licked my hand. And I went home and I spent the next eight hours watching King of the Hill and hanging out with my dog Bob, and he does the borderline

Speaker 2 (02:16:34):

Thing,

Speaker 3 (02:16:34):

All three. No, I only had one at this time. This is how I got the second Bob. So I fucking hung out with him all night for the next eight hours. I'm tripping balls thinking I'm not as,

Speaker 2 (02:16:42):

Wait, wait, wait. So was the second Bob real

Speaker 3 (02:16:44):

Dude. The second Bob literally comes at the end of the story.

(02:16:47):

So I'm sitting there tripping balls, and I'm like, yo, Bob, you're the best. And if I couldn't imagine that two bobs would be the best thing in the world if there were two of you, that would be amazing. And he's doing that thing that border college do where they tilt their head and look at you. They're understanding the conversation, and I'm tripping balls. I'm like, this is fucking great. So the next morning, as soon as it turns, nine o'clock in the morning, eight hours later, I fucking go to the Humane Society and I walk in and I'm tripping balls. I'm like, this is my dog, Bob, and I'm looking for a dog that looks just like him because two bobs would be better than one Bob. And they're like, well, he looks like a border Collie lab and we don't have any food. We have a full border Collie.

(02:17:28):

And I was like, okay, let me see him. And they brought him out. He looks nothing like my dog, nothing at all. And I'm like, okay. And then I was like, well, can I hang out with him for a minute? And they're like, yeah, go take him outside. Here's a ball. He likes playing fetch. So I go outside and this dog loves playing Fetch, dude, even to this day. I mean, he weighs 85 pounds. He's 14 years old. He will run until he passes out. He loves playing Fetch, and he doesn't actually weigh 85 pounds, but he's fat. But I go out there, my other dog, the original Bob, he does not play Fetch. He doesn't fuck around at all. His version of Fetch is, why is that dog playing with that ball? I'm going to steal it. So I'm out there playing Fetch with this dog, and he brings the ball back to me and he hands it to me and actual fetch with this dog.

(02:18:17):

I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. And I'm tripping. Balls on mushroom on acid, dude. And I fucking come and I sit down on this bench and right in front of the Humane Society spot, and I go, Bob, sit. And they both sat down in front of me and the lady walked out and handed me the papers. She had been watching me the whole time, and I was signed away, and I've had the second Bob ever since. And then there was the third Bob, and then my buddy demo, who was also one of mine, and Dan's roommates, when we had the three Bobs together, he got another Border Collie, but his little bitch ass named Otis, he's a bitch. You're a bitch demo. But yeah, so there's like, and my buddy Josh McManus, he's got an Australian Shepherd now. There's quite a few border colleagues running around that I would like to say are part of the Bob Lineage, because to be honest, they are just, they're amazing dogs. But yeah, my grandfather's name was Bob and Bob Clearmountain. So I was like, let's go. I named the first one, Bob, then I named the second one, Bob, and I'll name every dog for the rest of my life. Bob probably.

Speaker 2 (02:19:21):

I mean, why not, right?

Speaker 3 (02:19:23):

Yeah, but I mean, my love for Bob goes deep. I got a photo I took of Bob, he, it's just a photo of Bob sitting there, and I cut it out and I taped it between the vu meters on my console, and I'll be like, Bob thinks the snare sucks, and just point at it. Oh, but back to the story. This is the whole point. So fucking I go in there and God, Roy Hendricks fucking fucked my whole life up. Dude, Roy Hendrickson we're sitting there and Bob Clear Mountain's got this Brian Adams 10 times Platinum and Plaque. And he's like, yeah, that's Bob's plaque. He didn't want to take it. He didn't like it. He didn't like how it looked. And Jenny was like, oh, that's crazy. And then yeah, and he's like, yeah, I've assisted a lot for Bob. And I started asking some questions about Bob, and then I got to the question, I was like, how long does it take for Bob to mix a song? And he goes, oh, Bob will mix any song in four hours. Four hours,

Speaker 2 (02:20:20):

Just like that. Dude,

Speaker 3 (02:20:21):

I have not heard the fucking end of it since two years later. Fucking Jenny called. We got on this because we were talking about spending 12 hours by myself to come up with a SNA drum sound. No, my life is not like that because Jenny will call me and she'd be like, what are you doing? I'd be mixing, and she'll be like, Bob, why are you done? Bob would've done it in four hours every fucking time. So it's like I've got a little motivation. You can be very open-ended in a situation like mine in a world-class facility, but I'm not paying studio time like we are in Los Angeles where it's $1,500 a day just to be in the room, let alone what you'd pay for me to be there with you. My studio kind of comes with it. So with that, I believe that doing good work fast is how a studio like this is able to make money. But I'm not going to lie, doing good work fast is the game nowadays. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'll be real. The recording industry is really about to change with YouTube with what's happening. Have you ever heard of Elise or however you spell it, her last name, pronounce it?

Speaker 2 (02:21:38):

I have not.

Speaker 3 (02:21:39):

She's a girl who does mashups, but there's this guy who's making these recordings, and you should go check 'em out. He's making these recordings where he's recording the band playing live. They're making a full music video while recording world-class recordings that are better than people are spending months on. And they're,

Speaker 2 (02:21:56):

Wait, wait. I think I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (02:21:59):

Yeah, she does covers where they're like mashups of Foo Fighters and Bobby Cadwell songs.

Speaker 2 (02:22:03):

Yes, yes, yes. I know what you're talking about. It came up a few days ago.

Speaker 3 (02:22:08):

That shit is recorded live.

Speaker 2 (02:22:10):

Really?

Speaker 3 (02:22:10):

Yes. Wow. And they're world-class music video, dude, the video production, the audio production, that's one guy doing it. That Elise Chiral video that made her famous, yo, he recorded that through A QSC touch

Speaker 2 (02:22:24):

32. Amazing. It's the future.

Speaker 3 (02:22:27):

It's the fucking, and people want to fucking talk about my API like, dude, I don't give a shit about this boat anchor, dude. I want to make records, dude. I want to make records that make you feel good, that people want to listen to. Dude. The API. The SSL has nothing to do with it. I will say this, there's a show when you get to a certain level, people want to walk into rooms that look like the rooms. They expect the highest end rooms to look like. Those things tend to be in those rooms.

Speaker 2 (02:22:52):

It's true.

Speaker 3 (02:22:53):

Does it define me as who I am? No. But does it make an A and r feel better about spending some money? Maybe

Speaker 2 (02:23:02):

Sometimes. Sometimes. You know what, man? So okay, you were around, obviously when we filmed Ultimate Guitar production,

Speaker 3 (02:23:13):

You

Speaker 2 (02:23:13):

Were around for a lot of those shootouts and those were very revealing. We did a similar course on drums called Ultimate Drum Production, where a lot of similar stuff and came to the conclusion that the preamps, while they mattered, they don't matter nearly as much as the microphone and the tuning and how it's hit in the bearing edges and all these other things. If you get all that stuff right, the mic placement and the right head and the right tuning and the right shell, all that stuff, and the right person hitting it, you can put it through a pretty inexpensive interface and still get some ridiculously great sounds.

Speaker 3 (02:24:01):

Yes. And it's one of those things where what you're bringing up is a very, very good point because for us, I like to believe that the instrument is outside of the engineer's hands. So in my world, of course, this studio, the majority of these things are mine. But for a great engineer, you should really be able to record with whatever comes in the goddamn room. So for me, the first choice that we have is the microphone. And it's not even really the first choice. The first choice that we have as an engineer is the room where in the room, how you set things up in the room, and that is the most dramatic one to me. That is picking the type of paper you're going to paint your photo on. Is it canvas? Is it parchment? Is it fucking tree bark? Then the next thing is the microphones and the microphones to me are brushes.

(02:25:02):

They are, some microphones have very wide proximity effects and wide frequency responses and wide polar patterns, and they pick up a lot. And they're a big old Y brush. Some microphones are lasers and they're little brushes. You know what I mean? Where preamps, to me, they're colors. So I may take a big brush and put it through a bright color, or I may take a big brush and put it through a dark color. I may take a skinny brush. And a perfect example is take an acoustic guitar. A U 87 is going to be a big brush, a km 84 is going to be a smaller brush, a Neve that's going to be a darker, more maroon, rounder, fuller color. And API is going to be a more silvery blue fucking transient color to me. And they did a good job with the colors picking the knobs.

(02:26:02):

But it's one of those things where I don't know how that actually relates to anything outside of when I listen to the audio that's coming back, if I say, Hey, this feels small, let's put it into this. Maybe it'll feel bigger. And I've got things in my world that are, they're the biggest sounding things. I've got my biggest sounding microphones. I've got my biggest sounding fucking preempts, my biggest sounding EQs, and the way that they affect audio, it just takes me to a place that I rely on them on when I want to feel something. So for this session that we're doing right now, my biggest sounding preamp is a 1263. Do you know what that is?

Speaker 2 (02:26:46):

Never used one before.

Speaker 3 (02:26:47):

Okay, so an Eve 1263 is a germanian line amp that was made by Neve, and it's more famous brother is the silicone version, which is the 1272, which you've probably heard of people having racked up 1272 preempts, right?

Speaker 2 (02:27:03):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (02:27:04):

Yep. So the 1263 and the 1272 did the exact same function except for the 1272 happened five or six years after the 1263 because they were making germanium consoles what they had. And then silicone transistors came out and they started making silicone consoles. I'll be honest, the knee 1260 threes, those old Phillips knees where they use like 1257 modules and stuff like that, they use Gardner transformers that are so big, you can't fit them in a two U rack space. They have octal sockets is how they connected to the module was they literally plugged in like a six L six did. And they're just massive sounding transformers. So on certain records, if I was trying to make the biggest drum sound in the world, that would probably be, the two of those would probably be living on my outside kick mic and maybe a floor Tom mic, or maybe they'd be living on some room mics that I wanted to sound really big.

(02:28:05):

But for the record that I'm currently working on, which is more in the jazz hip hop world, my minimoog lives there because that's the biggest thing that I want. I want that thing to sound bigger than anything else on the fucking records. So it's like plug the minimoog into that thing. You're halfway there because you know what you're talking about and you're familiar with the gear and you can make those decisions that help lead you there. And I think that ultimately that is the reason why engineers are gravitating towards rooms with a monitor and 72 channels worth of knees is because they are familiar with needs and they believe like, oh, this is good. This'll sound great. I'm familiar with it. I know it's going to work well, I think given enough time in any room, any engineer would probably go and fucking spend time learning this equipment and getting to know it. But when they're getting charged roughly $500 a day, they may be right. It may be not the most prudent fucking time to go and fuck around with some pie preempts that I have no idea what sounds like when I could easily plug in this fucking 10 73 and be recording guitar in a second.

Speaker 2 (02:29:16):

Absolutely. That point you're making really about the big picture to me just sounds like whatever it is you're working with, just know it inside out so that there's intentionality behind everything that you're doing. And so you could take that idea to a much smaller level to where even if you're in a project studio without needs, maybe with a few clones and an interface or something, instead of converters and like project studio, home project studio level. But if you know your gear inside out and its characteristics and what it does, you can win.

Speaker 3 (02:30:06):

No, for sure. And we're at the best time in the goddamn world with all the things that people like Jeff, the Jeff Steiger and Kappy are doing, and dudes like Billy Pratt and Ben Saban who are out there building these things for people so they don't even have to learn how to solder. We have access to tools that are really more than you need to get the job done At this point, when I entered the world of engineering, it was a weird time when I actually started engineering. There was a little no man's land where dude, when I came in the game, you couldn't buy an 1176

Speaker 2 (02:30:39):

What year around

Speaker 3 (02:30:41):

Pro Tools 6.4, whatever that was.

Speaker 2 (02:30:44):

So around 2000 5, 4, 3,

Speaker 3 (02:30:48):

Yeah, 2002, 2003. But Universal Audio wasn't making the reissue 1176 at that point. And the only 1176 that you could really buy that was on the market as a purchasable 1176 was the Kenna Tech one. I remember looking at that Blue Kenna Tech 1176 and being like, I want an 1176, maybe I'll buy that one. It was a very, very interesting time period for,

Speaker 2 (02:31:13):

It's a different world man, different world back then.

Speaker 3 (02:31:16):

Oh, for sure. And I'll never forget it, dude, fucking, I remember when Universal Audio came back and they made, my buddy had this TC Electronics piece of gear, and you were able to throw a TC Electronics Power Core card into it that had UAD plugins and it had a altech on there. And we've put that pulse tech on every fucking channel, bro. So I've watched to the point where now not only can you get an 1176, you can get someone else to build you an 1176 for like 500 bucks, bro,

Speaker 2 (02:31:45):

I've done it.

Speaker 3 (02:31:48):

It's crazy to me because we're finally at the point where people can do that. But we're also finally at the point where I feel comfortable saying, I don't need any of that shit, and I have all of this shit, dude, you can ask Colin about it, and he'll probably fucking joke about it and laugh,

Speaker 2 (02:32:04):

Oh, I've heard.

Speaker 3 (02:32:06):

I'm sitting in the back of the room while we're making records and I'll be mixing a completely different record on my laptop, on headphones just going to town, and I don't give a shit. And what it turns out is people listen to it, my clients hear it. They're happy with the work I do. What I found is on this audio adventure, and this is going into it, is a lot of the marketing gimmicks that people want to use on all their shit nowadays is actually the shit that people should be paying attention to, but they're not really ever going to learn it unless they go and experience it. And that's the one thing that I can say about buying a bunch of gear if you want to be like I am. You can only do that by going and actually renting a room and listening to what the shit does on your audio, listening to the subtle differences between a real pole tech and a fucking puke tech. I'll be honest, yes, there's a difference between a puke tech. Yes, there's a difference between the PU tech and the UAD Pole Tech plugin. Yes, there's a difference between the puke tech, the UAD Polytech plugin and my Altech EQP one A, but I'll be honest, there is a difference between my Polytech EQP one A and my Polytech EQP one A.

(02:33:20):

So you've got I'll

Speaker 2 (02:33:22):

Real, and that doesn't necessarily mean that one's better than the other. It's just one is different,

Speaker 3 (02:33:26):

One is better than the other,

Speaker 2 (02:33:28):

But different doesn't, what I mean is different. Doesn't mean better or worse, though. There might be a better or worse one in what you're talking about. Now, just because something's different doesn't mean necessarily that it's better.

Speaker 3 (02:33:42):

Exactly. And here's the thing, yes, I like to look at these things very subjectively and objectively one, and this is my opinion, but yes, one is better than the other, and it's difference in quality between my bad E QP one A is better than any of the plugins, but my good E QP one A is better than my bad EQP one A. And what it comes down to is, yes, it is better than the other ones, but it doesn't mean that it's the right one for what I'm trying to accomplish. Because I'll be real when I'm mixing a goddamn song for you in the Atlanta fucking airport trying to get back to Omaha. I'm not going to have that EQP one A with me, and you still want your song. So it's better that I have the one that I have with me to get the job done.

(02:34:34):

And that's where I think that people get fucked up is like, I love the building blocks of audio outside of the history and the things that they were doing. Like certain studio, I mean, dude, there were studios that made great recordings. There was a studio that fucking, I can't remember the name of it, I want to say it was Owen Bradley's k Quo Hut, but I can't remember the name of it. But there was a studio in Nashville where everybody loved the recordings that they were coming out with. They loved the recordings that they were making there. And fucking, so one of the engineers from Motown went down there and fucking was trying to figure out what was different and about what they did down there. And you want to know what it turned out was that at their studio, they had a four track and all the buses out of their console went into Pol Text and the Pol texts permanently had eight K turned all the way up on every channel.

Speaker 2 (02:35:32):

That was the difference.

Speaker 3 (02:35:33):

That's not how that shit's supposed to be used.

Speaker 2 (02:35:35):

Nope.

Speaker 3 (02:35:37):

No one gave a fuck, dude. It sounded better. It was good, good enough that people fucking booked a plane ticket. And that's the thing, there's so many things that go into the shit that you need to know the history. The Beatles forever tried to get better low end than Motown. They could have never got better low end than Motown. Do you want to know why? Do you know the reason why

Speaker 2 (02:35:59):

I don't actually

Speaker 3 (02:36:00):

Half speed mastering? So at Motown, they actually,

Speaker 2 (02:36:05):

Was this a secret?

Speaker 3 (02:36:06):

Yes, it was a secret. So they talk about it now, and if you actually look, Bob Linson talks about it. And then there's also a dude named George Patton who's written a bunch of stuff, and he owns one of the original Motown mastering Equalizers that he found at a goddamn thrift store dude. And he didn't know what it was when he found it, but what it was is they did half speed mastering. So they would master the songs, and they had Equalizers built, they had Motown Equalizers, which were based on Lavan Equalizers, I think the A five sixteens or whatever. But they had, those had sliders, like a graphic equalizer, faders, and they took all the faders off and put knobs in them and wired 'em up to pots. And those were the Motown equalizers. And later they started building their own, where they just built their own amps just based on the same sort of design.

(02:36:57):

And what turned out to be is the reason why you could never get Motown style low end back in the day was because of technical limitations. What they actually did was they would master the song and they would get their boosts and cuts. So they'd add a little bit of top at 10 k, add a little bit of a hundred hertz, and then they would print to the actual record at half speed. They'd run their lay at half speed, they'd run their tape machine at half speed, and then they had mods on their compressor and limiter and their eq. So they were halftime mods. And if you flip the switch, 50 hertz became 25, 5K became 10 k, fucking 30 milliseconds became 60 milliseconds. And that's how they were able to do that. And it's one of those things, we know that now we're not going out and cutting records like that because to be honest, a compus system can do a better job cutting than we could even at half speed. But to know the technical limitation, dude, you've got to know this shit. I mean, you don't have to, as I said, little Nass literally downloaded a song off YouTube, paid 30 bucks for it, and then hooked up one microphone wrapped. And he's got a bigger song than I've ever made in my life. But if you really want to know how those dude, you want to know one thing that perplexed me forever.

Speaker 2 (02:38:22):

What's that?

Speaker 3 (02:38:23):

The brown sound on Motown records. So I was like, there's this fucking,

Speaker 2 (02:38:26):

What about it?

Speaker 3 (02:38:27):

There's this haze on Motown records, and it was more prominent in older Motown records, which to be honest, are the best fucking Motown records. And I was like, what the fuck is this shit? What the, why can I get this? I was like, I got a fucking tape machine. I fucking record my fucking drums to it, and they don't sound like Motown drums. And I was like, maybe I need to get an actual scooter C 37. I was literally going there. Maybe I need to get a scooter C 37 and fucking bust it all down out one output recorded to one track, and then I'll get the Motown drums. But I'm sitting there with my fucking scooter, which was a 16 track, and I'm busting it all out, one output, and I'm recording it to fucking one track. And it doesn't sound anything like fucking Motown. You want to know what it was?

Speaker 2 (02:39:14):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (02:39:15):

Generational loss. So when they recorded at Motown, how the productions would go was they had a three track and they record the Funk Brothers to drums on one track, bass on another track, and then all the guitars on a third track. And then they'd have their mix engineer come in and they'd mix those three tracks down and they'd bounce it to another tape machine on that separate tape machine. They would have everything that they did from the first track bounce down to one, and then they'd go and they'd fucking record the strings and the fucking horns to the two open tracks. They take those three tracks, mix 'em through their console, bounce 'em down to another tape machine, which was actually the original tape machine that the tracks came from. And then they would have the whole band all the way from guitars, drums, bass horns, everything on one track. And then they have a track for background vocals and a track for lead vocals, and then they mix from there. And that's what you heard.

Speaker 2 (02:40:05):

Now, do you think they knew that, was this an intentional thing or was it a byproduct?

Speaker 3 (02:40:10):

No, this was a byproduct of the things that they had do to be able to make records the way that they wanted to do, which was they found that it was better for them to let the bands play in sections. Because to be honest, the rhythm section and the horn sections came from different social classes.

Speaker 2 (02:40:25):

Interesting. And so then the sound that came from the generation loss just became the sonic signature.

Speaker 3 (02:40:33):

Yeah. So I mean, it was one of those things where a lot of the fucking horn players, they were classically trained musicians and stuff like that. They wanted to work during the day and get out of there. The Funk brothers, they were all alcoholics who want to stay up all night and record.

Speaker 2 (02:40:47):

So did the people who were making the Motown records know how they got there, if this is something that happened as a byproduct of what they had to do to get it done? So were even they aware of how they got the brown sound?

Speaker 3 (02:41:01):

Well, I mean, I don't even think it's really, it's not, the brown sound is really attributed. The thing that's known as the brown sound is Eddie Van Halen's guitar tone. So this is just a sound that I hear on their record, this brown sheen that's over all the drums and rhythm section of this Motown stuff. And no, I don't think that they knew that they were actually getting it. And I don't think that it was bad at the time because clearly during that time, people were recording the mono and those motherfuckers had a three track, so they were getting more separation than anybody else in the world at that point. They had the ability to mix a rhythm section. They could turn the drums up, bro. So when people were hearing it, they were actually thought that they were hearing the most high fidelity recordings in the world at the time.

Speaker 2 (02:41:43):

It just goes to show that, I don't know the cliche quote about this, but the idea that art is created through limitations or that limitations are a huge benefit to creating art. I think that feel like that's a perfect example of it. And another thing that I've heard very often is that what people love about analog is actually what's wrong with analog because it's wrong when you get great analog. Sounds like, for instance, that it's wrong in just the right way.

Speaker 3 (02:42:21):

No, exactly. And that's the thing is there's something nonlinear about analog that I think people appreciate, but really if you turn a little bit of top down and a little bit of base up, you're not super far off. And what people don't understand about analog is at the end of analog's day, they weren't trying to have analog sound like an old mm, 1200 or a 3M machine. They were trying to have analog sound like a Studer 8 27 and an SSL. They wanted crystal clear shit. And if you listen to that stuff, go listen to some Babyface records. Go listen to some fucking Whitney Houston from the fucking late nineties. Go in early, Mariah Carey. I mean even go listen to the early Blink 180 2 records that were made by Jerry Finn. Those were,

Speaker 2 (02:43:06):

Or the Kid Rock stuff from the late nineties. They were going high production.

Speaker 3 (02:43:12):

Yeah, they were going for high quality audio. It was just the medium, but they were willing to spend half a million dollars on an SSL.

Speaker 2 (02:43:19):

The late nineties is the pinnacle of that technology, I think, of what was capable with it.

Speaker 3 (02:43:26):

It definitely is. And the late nineties is the pinnacle of modern recording, in my opinion. That's when people were given budgets. I mean, even what I would consider a middle of the tier band was recording in a studio Worth its fucking shit trying to make it happen. And they did a very interesting one. I think that we as engineers and people who clearly are investing into URM, they're clearly on a quest that I'm on. That's the reason why they pay you guys is because they want to learn the way that I want to learn. And an interesting one was one that I got to watch in real time, which was when Fucking Mixer Man came out with the Mixer Man Diaries.

Speaker 2 (02:44:08):

Oh yes, it was beautiful.

Speaker 3 (02:44:12):

That shit happened in real time in my life. I went and read those as they were getting posted and heard.

Speaker 2 (02:44:17):

Same here,

Speaker 3 (02:44:18):

Heard about Bitch Slap and the band and Harmon Knot. And it was one of those things like clearly it seemed like a band who at this point had no reason to have any sort of budget like that. And if you look at the band Lifehouse, they didn't go and have a bunch of extra fucking singles. They had that one song that did well from that record, and that was pretty much their career. But they were given the opportunity to go and do something like that. Where nowadays, I don't even think that people think that that's the move to try and go and make some elaborate, amazing recording. A lot of people believe like, oh, let's just get some shit out, which is what it is. And that's why

Speaker 2 (02:44:58):

Sometimes that works. Interestingly enough, there are some records that just get thrown together, but it goes back to what you said about the feel being the most important thing. Sometimes there's an urgency and a feel and it's nasty in just the right way with shit that's just thrown together. But I think it's accidental a lot of the time.

Speaker 3 (02:45:20):

No, and usually what I found is when I really find some shit like that where it's like, oh, this shit seems like it was made fast, but it's great. It was made fast by somebody who is great.

Speaker 2 (02:45:30):

Yeah. So you're not counting the 20 years leading up to that.

Speaker 3 (02:45:35):

You're listening to some record that Will Putney did in his off time. You know what I mean? Yeah. And you're like, oh, that's why fucking, they had somebody like, oh, I never heard of this before. It's like, oh, Andrew did

Speaker 2 (02:45:48):

It. Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:45:49):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (02:45:50):

Yeah. No, no, you are correct. And the band is probably some sick band who just got off of a 200 day tour, and so they're at the top of their game. And so you get a great band with a great producer who have decades between them of experience and probably in a pretty good room, and they just go for it

Speaker 3 (02:46:10):

And not to bring him up again. I love the dude, but I don't want to seem him like I'm in love with him. But a dude who did that for me is Colin with Papa Roach. Dude, when I heard the new Papa Man, not his newest record, but the one before it, when I heard that record, I didn't know Colin did it. And I knew Colin so fucking I heard it, and I was just like, that is someone who gives a shit about doing something cool and fresh and

Speaker 2 (02:46:40):

New. Man. I was floored. I was floored when he sent me three of those mixes about a year ago. I was floored by what I heard. I could not believe just how, I don't know. It's just so amazingly produced and mixed. It's just like, and I'm not one of those people who likes bad music with good mixes or anything. So I'm not just saying, oh, it was well mixed and that's all I care about. Every aspect of it was everything. The music, the choruses, the production, the layers, the arrangements, the whole thing was just like, Jesus Christ man is fucking amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:47:24):

No, for sure. And that's one of those things like dude, when people really know what they're doing and they do a good job, it shows. And what everybody needs to know is this is all teamwork. So when I listen to those records, I know Alex Petro had a great part in those things, and I know that he knows what the fuck he's doing and he's doing a good job.

Speaker 2 (02:47:47):

Shout out to Alex. I love him. He's a good friend.

Speaker 3 (02:47:50):

Yeah, he's a good dude, man. And his dog is wonderful. So much cuddles. But it's just, if you want to be great at making records, you've got to go out there and try and be fucking great. And I feel like a lot of people, their definition of great may be skewed and I'll be real. There's a lot of things going on right now saying in your community too. So I'm not trying to put anyone on blast, but there's a lot of people going on right now saying you can make $65,000 a year as an audio engineer and get to that point and fucking then you should consider that success.

Speaker 2 (02:48:35):

Fuck that

Speaker 3 (02:48:35):

Dude. Those people need to leave the industry.

Speaker 2 (02:48:38):

Dude, I agree with you so much. So when I decided that I was done playing guitar and pursuing a band, because I realized that my band would never get to Slipknot level, and people were like, that's so dumb. And I was like, it's not dumb. I don't want to do something if it's not going to be great and at the highest level. And if I can't do that, what am I doing? I am not interested otherwise. And it is about the art, but at the same time, I have to be able to take things as far as they can possibly go. And if they can't go that far, there's a part of me that just checks out. And I'm sorry. That's just the way I am. And I told Colin this actually when we did the podcast. I knew after a few years of producing professionally that I was not going to be as good as someone like him or someone like Will or whatever. I could be pretty good, probably better than a lot, but not on that level. And I was not interested in pursuing it if I couldn't do it on that level. But I am doing something now where I can crush, and I don't want to do anything that's not going to crush. I just can't, can't live with myself. And I think that people who go into anything, especially audio, should not be happy with mediocrity. They should go for the best possible fucking thing ever. Always.

Speaker 3 (02:50:12):

No, exactly. And it's one of those things like when you do that, you take food and work away from people who are trying to be the best you fucking, you put false hope into people who think that you can take them to the place where you're not actually going to take them. And you set yourself up for a life that, I mean, you have to struggle to get, if you're making 65 at low rates, you're working every day, every fucking minute of it. You're turning shit out fast and cheap. And what it comes down to is nothing is ever going to be fucking good. And you don't have health insurance and you don't have a retirement plan, and you're not making enough money to invest into equipment. My retirement plan is the gear, the equipment. I manage that shit like a business. And you could ask Colin about that.

(02:51:04):

That's one thing I'm really good at is fucking gear buying and selling gear, not as a broker by any means, but as an investor for myself, because these are the things that I know are going to move me forward. And I watch those things. I watch how things appreciate. I'll be real right now, fucking modern API consoles are not a good investment vintage API consoles are a good investment. I happen to have a modern a p console. My console doesn't do as bad as something like a 1608 as far as its value goes. But where something like a Neve has risen maybe $20,000 in value over the past five years, I've got to be honest, my console's probably dropped five grand. I have guitar pedals that have made me more money in their value raising than my console has. But people look at my console and they think that's got to be the expensive thing. And don't get me wrong, it is expensive, but you want to be real. If I wanted to put a fucking a hundred thousand dollars into a backpack right now, I'd do it in microphones.

Speaker 2 (02:52:13):

That is smart. And I bet you're not going to say into a thousand SM 50 eights.

Speaker 3 (02:52:19):

No. I literally would just go grab microphones from the closet. If I wanted to fucking put a hundred thousand dollars in a backpack, that's how I'd do it.

Speaker 2 (02:52:26):

I think that that's really, really smart. So what you said about appreciation, depreciation is very, very key here because there is a lot of audio gear that does lose its value completely mid verb or those,

Speaker 3 (02:52:43):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:52:44):

So yeah, there is some stuff that ends up being worth $15, but then there's other things that 20 years later will be worth double, triple, quadruple, whatever. Or at the very least, not to depreciate at all. And you should definitely take that into consideration.

Speaker 3 (02:53:02):

Yeah, but I mean, it's one of those things, you can see these things like SSLs that sold for $200,000 will sell for 20, $30,000 today. That means that it's retained 10% of its original value, where a Paul Tech that sold for $189 will sell for $8,000 today.

Speaker 2 (02:53:21):

Yeah. And you want to know one that's really funny. What the hell was the digit design console? Not the icon,

Speaker 3 (02:53:30):

The pro control.

Speaker 2 (02:53:31):

Yeah. You can sell for like $300 now.

Speaker 3 (02:53:34):

Yeah, dude. And I remember, remember,

Speaker 2 (02:53:37):

No, the Control 24, that's the one that's the That I had.

Speaker 3 (02:53:40):

Yeah, they're like a couple hundred, 600 bucks now.

Speaker 2 (02:53:44):

Ouch.

Speaker 3 (02:53:45):

They were nine grand when they first came out. I remember that.

Speaker 2 (02:53:48):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (02:53:49):

Handful. And it's wild because I'll be real, anytime you invest into anything from Avid, you'll lose money. I lose money on anything from Avid debt, but I don't buy gear with the intention to lose money ever, ever. So I watch things like some pretty good buys from this past year, the Roland Boutique series. They're little synthesizers. They cost a couple hundred bucks a piece. But I watched those, I watched them start to discontinue 'em. I was like, they're going to pull this line. I bought every single one of them. Some of 'em are still worth $50 more than I paid for 'em. Some of 'em worth 900 to a thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (02:54:28):

Okay, so this is interesting to me, just because something's going to be discontinued, what makes you think it's going to rise in value? Sometimes things are discontinued because they suck or something, or nobody cares. What makes you think that in particular is going to be a valuable investment?

Speaker 3 (02:54:47):

You got to see the niche that it fills, which is, I don't know if you've ever used one of these things, but they're just little digital versions of synthesizers that are in these little boxes and they sound good, and they're fun to use and people absolutely love and junos are fucking really hard to fix. And they're breaking all the time. So literally the Juno one is the most expensive one. So it's like I just grabbed one of all of 'em. I was like, if they've discontinued this shit, one, I enjoy it. So we've made songs with every single one of these boxes. But on the other hand, some of 'em turned out to be fine investments. So that's tight. And I look at mean in your guys' world, one of the best investments that a dude could have made was buying that forton pedal.

Speaker 2 (02:55:37):

That's right.

Speaker 3 (02:55:38):

I bought one.

Speaker 2 (02:55:39):

But what's interesting, so a PV block letter 51 50, which is to this day, if not the most widely used amp in metal, it's up there. It might be the most widely used amp in metal. It is the amp, the block letter 51 50 is the amp that if you talk to any metal producer, it's like the 57 of high gain amps almost somehow. You talk to so many guys, and I've experienced this so many times, where you try out the diesel, you try out the bogner, you try out this, try out that end up with the 51 50 for some reason. There's just something beautiful, something about it just got teeth. They're just the right sharpness or whatever. But you can get them for $400 on eBay. They're not valuable at all. But they're loved. They're fucking loved, and they're amazing. So it's weird.

Speaker 3 (02:56:38):

Well, no, no, no. It's not weird. It's good. You want to know what this is?

Speaker 2 (02:56:42):

What's that?

Speaker 3 (02:56:43):

See, I already own a 51 50 that I love. It's not a block letter. It's a signature, but it's old and it runs off KT 80 eights and it's got a bunch of crazy mods. But you want to know what this is for the 51 50?

Speaker 2 (02:56:55):

What's that?

Speaker 3 (02:56:56):

It's in the eighties when they came out with digital and shit like that, everybody got rid of their 50 or their U 40 sevens and 60 sevens, all their tube mics for stupid cheap. And that's exactly what's happening right now. Everybody's going to Joey and Joel and STL, and they're relying on these plugins to make their metal records at their house, and they're getting rid of their 51 fifties because of it. You can put my money on it, but I'm willing to make you a friendly wager of $20 right now.

Speaker 2 (02:57:26):

Deal

Speaker 3 (02:57:27):

In five years.

Speaker 2 (02:57:28):

But wait, but here's the problem is I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (02:57:31):

Yeah. Well, no, here's the wager. In five years, the 51 50 will sell for $1,200 or more.

(02:57:37):

And what it will come is that there's people who are buying up these 51 fifties, they're trading hands. People are going to go through all this shit. They're going to realize that they still want to jam with their friend in their goddamn living room, that having all the fucking guitar tone plugins into the helix doesn't take away the power of fucking having a 51 50 at your back and fucking, they'll start trying to buy 'em just like they tried to buy fucking eight hundreds. And the people who sell it to 'em will sell it to 'em for more money.

Speaker 2 (02:58:05):

So if it's 1200 or higher, I give you $20.

Speaker 3 (02:58:10):

Yep. If it's 1200 or lower, I'll give you 20 bucks.

Speaker 2 (02:58:12):

But here's the problem. I think you're right. But

Speaker 3 (02:58:16):

Then you don't have to take the bet.

Speaker 2 (02:58:17):

No, no. We'll take the bet just because it's an interesting bet. So it is Friday, June 28th, 2019, 2024. We're going to talk about this.

Speaker 3 (02:58:30):

Yeah, the 51 50. That's an interesting one because the 51 50 has competition from itself.

Speaker 2 (02:58:36):

It does.

Speaker 3 (02:58:37):

So it's like, and I can't say, dude, I've used the 51 53 and it's bitching. I bet you there's dudes who have sold their 51 fifties and bought a 51 53. And they may not be dudes who are holding onto their 51 fifties for making records, but they're probably dudes who've held onto their 51 50. They thought it was awesome, and then they got the new one, and they also thought that that was awesome. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (02:59:01):

But what's weird though, you're right. You're right. But there's between the 51 50 block letter and the signature and the 51 52, and then the 65 0 5 and the 65 0 5 plus PV kept saying that the 65 oh fives are the exact same thing as the block letters. And so a lot of people would get rid of their block letters to get the newer shit, but it did not sound the same. It does not sound the same. I don't care what they say. It's not the same.

Speaker 3 (02:59:33):

It is not. And I can tell you that for a fact, but I'll be honest, my 51 50 at this point doesn't really sound exactly like a 51 50 either

Speaker 2 (02:59:42):

Because you moed it.

Speaker 3 (02:59:43):

Yeah. So my 51 50, I've got a mod that will let you change out the capacitors and resistors some of the values in the preamp with a rectifier preamp. So you can tame the fizz a little bit. And then I put in the, instead of the mid EQ being stuck at fucking 700 hertz, I got to switch. So you can turn it on and there's a little knob that's sweep able from 200 to 4K, so you can use that as plus or minus at whatever frequency you pick. And then I've got a couple other mods as far as the power amp section goes to tighten up the resonance. And yeah, I fucking,

Speaker 2 (03:00:17):

I bet it sounds like a beast.

Speaker 3 (03:00:19):

Oh, it's awesome. We used it all over that a day to remember record,

Speaker 2 (03:00:22):

Which I'm really looking forward to hearing because everything Colin told me about it and Kevin actually. Well, Kevin didn't say all Kevin said because he wasn't allowed to talk much, is that I'm going to be blown away.

Speaker 3 (03:00:34):

Yeah. I mean, let's just, by the way, give a shout out to Kevin McCombs. He's a fucking G, he's part of your guys' community. You don't know him. You should know him. He's one of the friendliest fucking guys in the world. And

Speaker 2 (03:00:46):

Let's talk about him for a second. I want people to know about him. So Kevin McCombs is a dude who has been part of the URM community for a while. He came to the first URM summit in 2017. And I mean, I have a very good relationship with our students, and I keep my ear to the ground and I pay attention to the ones that are doing well. If we actually want our students to be tomorrow's producers, I want the Will Putney of 10 years from now to come from URM. That is the mission here. And so I'm looking for our students that are going above and beyond, and there's quite a few who are moving up in the world. And Kevin was one of those. He impressed me two years ago. I didn't think he was ready two years ago, but he impressed me nonetheless.

(03:01:43):

And so I started paying attention to him and paid attention to him more and more and more over the years and just kept tabs. And then that one day Colin hit me up and said that you guys were in drastic need of some help and that it was urgent. Do I have anybody? Kevin was the first person that came to mind. I knew he was very close and he was working on something else at the time, and he was like, what do I do? I was like, you quit that project. And you go, no matter what happens, you just go to Orlando and you do whatever they say. If it means that you lose your local client in Jacksonville, then so be it. But you go to Orlando and you fucking do whatever they say and get that fucking gig.

Speaker 3 (03:02:37):

Yeah. And he did. And he did. He's still working with me and Colin to this day.

Speaker 2 (03:02:42):

I know. It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (03:02:43):

And it's one of those things like Kevin is a good hang. Kevin understands what it takes to be. I mean, Kevin isn't like he's a metal dude. He's not a hip hop guy or fucking the coolest fashionable sense Kevin

Speaker 2 (03:02:58):

Or even a pop funk guy.

Speaker 3 (03:02:59):

No, no. He's just a fucking, he likes metal bro. Fucking loves it. So not

Speaker 2 (03:03:04):

Just metal, brutal, extreme metal.

Speaker 3 (03:03:06):

Yeah. The black is the metal. And he fucking loves that shit. And he's not trying to hide that from anybody, but he's not pushing that shit on you. He is not being a weirdo about it. He's not discrediting all of your fucking opinions. He wants to learn even in this shit that has nothing to do with them. And it's one of those things like he picked up my vibe super quick. I'd walk into the studio and I'd do the same thing every morning. And after a couple days, he was prepared, had that shit ready to go. And it was one of those things like you want people who were on the same page and Kevin understands how to read the page that people are on. He understands when to talk. He understands not when to talk. He gets it. He works hard. The things that he knows how to do, he does them extremely well. The things that he doesn't know how to do, he figures 'em the fuck out. That's a big thing for me, by the way. Young kids, you really want to know how to be the goddamn man is like do things when

Speaker 2 (03:04:12):

It's so true.

Speaker 3 (03:04:14):

When people ask a ton of questions and fucking can't accomplish what I would consider simple tasks, then it gets fucked up. And sometimes what I need to realize,

Speaker 2 (03:04:29):

It's disrespectful, I think.

Speaker 3 (03:04:31):

But what I really need to realize sometimes, and I understand this, is that the knowledge that I have is vast and what I may expect will be easy to somebody else may be foreign and unfamiliar to them. But here's the thing is we have this thing called the iPhone or the Android, any fucking smartphone, we literally have the history of man in our goddamn pockets. If I needed to figure out how to give a lobotomy right fucking now, I would go and do that if it would save someone's fucking life because I literally have a thing in my pocket that's connected to a fucking satellite that will tell me anything I want.

Speaker 1 (03:05:13):

It's

Speaker 3 (03:05:13):

True. It'll literally tell me how to do anything, bro. And when you can't figure out what a DB 25 cable is, and you can literally like, oh, I don't know what a DB 25 cable is, and you literally repeat DB 25 to me, and you haven't Googled that shit and at least walked in with a cable that looks like a DB 25 cable, then we are so far apart in our problem solving skills that we aren't reading the same book. We're not on the same page. We're not in the same fucking library, let alone on the same island. I'm the sort of dude like, yo, look at where I'm in. I'm in Omaha, Nebraska, dude, there's no techs here. If shit breaks myself or people that I associate myself with, we fucking fix it. Am I the most technical know-how person? No. Can I read schematics in and out like Johnny, the guitar tech dude? No, I can't. I'm not that fucking guy. But if I open something up and it looks like there's been a little mini fire on one of the components, I can get a soldering and iron and change that shit.

Speaker 2 (03:06:27):

Well, that's why I said that it's disrespectful because we have these tools available to us because all the basic low hanging fruit knowledge is accessible in our pocket. To take someone like you or Colin's time while you're on a high pressure, high value, important record, working on something that is career defining for an artist to ask, what's a DB 25? It's a simple question, but at the same time, it's disrespectful because not it's breaking your focus and it's something that you could easily just look up. And I don't like it sometimes online when people are just Google it. However, there are some things that people should just fucking Google because it shows initiative and that tone quest, that adventure that we've been talking about that's got to come from within you, that nobody's going to give you that spark that makes you want to become a walking encyclopedia. That's got to come from within you. And if you are asking other people to give it to you, then you kind of have already lost the game, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (03:07:50):

No, exactly. And here's the thing is if you ever get to the point where someone says, just Google that, and you haven't already fucking Googled it and you can't respond with I already fucking Googled a dickhead, then you are already losing, bro. I mean, I'll be honest, I've developed my own shit, dude. I know how to find information on the internet and I'll be real if I can't find it through Googling. You want to know the number one way to find out the right information on the internet?

Speaker 2 (03:08:21):

The manual?

Speaker 3 (03:08:22):

No. You want to know the right way. YouTube, if you actually no

Speaker 2 (03:08:25):

What

Speaker 3 (03:08:25):

To go out there and spout off the wrong information as fact, and people will show up and tell you the right shit and that you are fucking wrong and dumb so fast,

Speaker 2 (03:08:37):

Man, you're beautiful. You're a beautiful person. That's fucking awesome. I thought you were going to say download the manual off the manufacturer's site, but yeah, spout off some bullshit.

Speaker 3 (03:08:52):

Yeah, and here's the thing is I've already gone through the manual at that point. If I'm out there spouting off some bullshit, I'm really trying, if you ever see me being dead ass wrong, I'm trying to be dead ass, right? And I've just found that instead of trying to ask people for help, they'd rather fucking chastise you, fine by me.

Speaker 2 (03:09:13):

I'll walk away with what I need to know. However, the question is, how do you know that what they're telling you is the right thing? Because there are a lot of people who like to chastise people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Speaker 3 (03:09:25):

Oh, dude, you could be super blatant about it, bro. Tell me this right now, man. Fucking say you wanted to fucking figure out the most popular fucking amp simulator right now. Just go in to the URM podcast and say, Hey, man, tone Forge is the best fucking anybody who hasn't used Tone Forge doesn't know what's up with tones

Speaker 2 (03:09:52):

And should kill themselves.

Speaker 3 (03:09:54):

And there'll be a bunch of people being like, bro, the Helix dude, the Kemper, and you just start count them up.

Speaker 2 (03:10:01):

Oh no, I wouldn't go to URM because we have the no shit talking policy. I'd go to one of the cesspools like sluts.

Speaker 3 (03:10:10):

Exactly. So for me, the last time I did this was at the studio, we've got displays, and the first one we did was a bunch of Power Rangers action figures. And people come in here and as I said, want it to feel more like home. They see all these Power Rangers action figures, and they're like, I had that shit when I was a kid and fucking we all get to talk about it and stuff. But I recently started the second one, which is Dragon Ball Z action figures. And what it comes down is they made the same Dragon Ball Action Z action figures that we had that were made by Erwin. Those were originally made by Bandai in Japan, and then AB Toys and then Erwin. And there's actually seven or eight different versions of these figures that came out that are the exact same molds.

(03:10:54):

So I'm trying to figure out how many different versions there are. I'm getting no straight answers from any of these Dragon Ball communities that I'm trying to hit up trying to find this information. And I've done my research, I've Googled, I've watched YouTube videos, and I know that there's different versions. I just don't know how many different versions there are. So I go on the biggest Dragon Ball fucking forum, and I fucking say, man, it's so cool that Irwin released the exact same figures as the Bandi figures. These are fucking awesome. I'm so happy that I can fucking pick these up because it seems like they're cheaper than the bandi figures. And fucking people are like, fuck you, man. The bandi figures weren't even the only ones. The ones from AB in France and the ones from this place in Japan, they're the same figures, but they got this and this color hair and they're fucking rare. And there are these ones and that ones. And now I know there's like eight different types, which I couldn't find that information out concisely beforehand because it was so spread out and in the furthest reaches of this dragon Ball Z universe. But I go out there, make a false claim like that. People tell me exactly what I want to know,

Speaker 2 (03:11:56):

Man, you know why I love this idea. I don't know if you realize how awesome what you just said is, but it's great because one of the biggest things that hurts people about the internet is how negative people are towards them. People get seriously hurtful towards each other and it brutalizes people. And actually at URM, we call it post-traumatic forum disorder. We have people who come to URM and since we have the no shit talking policy and new and advanced person alike, everyone gets treated with respect. You can ask the most newish question, and if anyone condescends you, they get muted for a week. And if they do it again, they're gone. We do not put up with that shit. Noobs are welcome and everyone is expected to help them. So because there are so many cesspools out there where people just treat each other like fucking monsters. And you just took that, which I think is one of the worst things about the internet and turned it into a great thing. So that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (03:13:12):

Fuck yeah. Fuck those idiots. It's one of those things like one, if a computer screen can bum you out, you got some other shit going on. Dude, if your recording suck, then your recording suck. And people telling you on the internet shouldn't fuck with you. If people listen to your shit on the internet and thinks that it sucks, fuck 'em. If people still buy that shit, fuck 'em. How many people do you think are telling little NA sucks right now? Probably everybody with an F-150, but it doesn't matter, dude. It's one of those things where people get wrapped up in their own fucking egos, myself included, where we all want to think that we're the best. And what it really comes down to is that a lot of us are pretty fucking good, but none of us are the best. I mean, none of us are the best, bro.

(03:14:00):

Fucking Al Schmidt can make a better fucking jazz record than I can, and he can make a better jazz record than Colin can, but he can't make a better fucking hip hop record than I can. And he can't make a better fucking rock record than Colin can. And don't get me wrong, I'd love to hear him do those things. And he's made tremendous rock records back in the day, absolutely amazing ones. But for today's modern production, what he does, isn't it? But for jazz and fucking classical and big band stuff, he's the absolute top shelf you can get to. And it's one of those things where I've seen fucking nobodies go after the necks of

Speaker 2 (03:14:47):

Giants

Speaker 3 (03:14:48):

In this world on the internet, and they don't even know what the fuck they're doing. They don't even know who they're alienating themselves from. These people command your respect. These people have the respect of the people that hire people to make records. That's why they are where they are. And what you need to realize is while you may not personally dig someone's vibe or the energy that they're putting out into the world, they're still facing the same exact struggle that you do if you do this job. And I'll tell you this right now, people want to believe that when you get to the upper tier, when mixed with the master starts calling, that everything's figured out. It's not.

Speaker 2 (03:15:34):

It's never figured out,

Speaker 3 (03:15:35):

Never is. And more money equals more problems. And the more the phone fucking rings, it means the more time you spend away from your family. And people need to really be introspective and look at those things. They need to be real with themselves about the commitment that it takes and what it comes down to when it comes to those people who think like, oh, I can earn this 60 5K, and I'm the man now, and I don't need to fucking worry about being bigger, bro, go take your office job, record your friend's bands for fun because you appreciate recording and you want to be good. Let the people who are out here trying to support their kids and their family go after it and really try. And it's fucked up to me, man. I've had some people come down on my head, bro. There was an experience here, and I feel real bad now after the fact. I don't feel bad about how I acted, but I feel bad that I made the dude feel bad, but he didn't understand where I was coming from. This was a dude who got a job here in Omaha working for a billionaire, and I mean a literal billionaire

Speaker 2 (03:16:44):

Doing what?

Speaker 3 (03:16:45):

Engineering

Speaker 2 (03:16:46):

What? So the billionaire had his hobby studio or something.

Speaker 3 (03:16:50):

The billionaire owned a cul-de-sac, and in one of the houses in the cul-de-sac, he had set up a recording space and he had hired other, there's been engineers who have been working there for the past 10 years, but he hired this kid that I knew, and this kid had literally no experience. His only experience ever was that I rented him the studio for eight hours one night I rented it to him for a hundred bucks so he could come in here and record one of his bands and try and make a record with him. And he hired his own engineer. He hired an outside engineer to come in that night. So I gave him a discount so he could try and learn. And he just hired an engineer. So I was like, I'm not renting the studio anymore. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (03:17:29):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:17:31):

I have engineers. I have engineers on staff, and if you want to rent the studio for your outside engineer to come work, that's fine. I have a very great outside engineer rate, by the way. Everybody is $25 an hour, so if you want to come work on an API console and shit like that, I mean, it's cheap. 10 hour days, 250 bucks, and I'll cut you a deal if you book a bunch of them. That's a

Speaker 2 (03:17:50):

Great price.

Speaker 3 (03:17:51):

So it's not like it's fucking crazy by any means. But I was trying to help him become an engineer that I could rely on for my situation by giving him the opportunity to go work with a band that he felt comfortable with, which happened to be his own fucking band. But he comes to me and he says, this guy hired me to be his personal engineer, and he's a billionaire, and he fucking pretty much just hangs out all day. And my main job is to put DVDs on his Blu-ray so when he gets in his car, he's got new Blu-rays in his car, and then just make sure that there's a couple U 40 sevens up in the room so that when he comes and he wants to sing acoustic guitar and play, it's being recorded.

(03:18:38):

And I was like, that's tight. Fucking find out. The guy paid off $7,000 in personal credit card debt for this kid. He bought him a brand new 2018 Mercedes. And I was like, type, let me help you keep this job. This is a dream gig. As an engineer, you're getting paid more than I could afford to ever pay anyone monthly. Dude just bought you a Mercedes, and all you really have to do is be around for this jerk off and fucking, so I'm helping this kid to the point, one of their U 40 sevens isn't working. So I hit up my buddy who knows about U 40 sevens, he tells me how to fix it. I fix his U 47 for him, didn't charge him anything, just trying to help the dude fucking do his thing. And then he comes to the studio one day and he's like, so tell me about the walls. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 (03:19:23):

What do you mean?

Speaker 3 (03:19:23):

What do you mean tell you about the walls? He's like, well, what's this stuff on the walls? And I'm like, you mean acoustic treatment? And he's like, is that what it's called? I was like, yeah. And he writes it down and I'm like, okay. And we're talking about the acoustic treatment and stuff. And then I go on my phone and there's a wrapper in town, and he's at that fucking rich dude's studio with a known Coke dealer that I know. And I said, Hey, man, why is this guy over at your studio? I definitely wouldn't bring people like that around that gig unless you're trying to run a commercial studio or something. And he's like, yeah, well, that's what we're doing. We've decided that it's not just going to be the dude's spot. We're going to open it up and it's going to be blah, blah, blah productions.

(03:20:06):

And that's why I'm over here trying to figure out what's going on with the walls and stuff. And they recreated my studio. They bought the same piano, did the whole thing, but when he literally, during that conversation, I turned on his ass and I was like, bro, I'm not having this conversation with you. I'm not going to tell you how my fucking walls are built. I was like, people's fucking kids eat off the work that we do here, and you want to open up a competing studio right down the street from me with a billionaire's budget that looks exactly like my studio. And he goes, he goes, nah, it's not like that, man. You're at such a different level and people know you on the internet. You're there and we're here. We're going to charge way less so people can afford to come there and you'll be the upper tier.

(03:20:48):

And like, dude, I mean, my studio in Omaha can only get 55 in an hour with an engineer is an hourly rate. So it's not like it's fucking crazy money going around. It's not $1,500 a day operation by any means in the city. And fucking, I was like, bro, I looked at him dead in his fucking face. I said, Hey, man, I believe in competition and you can be Burger King and I can be McDonald's, but if you ask me how I make the fries, the only thing I can tell you is that the oil is fucking hot. And he left, and I guess he cried.

Speaker 2 (03:21:17):

I mean, what the hell's wrong with him? Did he not understand? Was there something wrong with him mentally or did he not understand social, I guess, social cues or norms to where

Speaker 3 (03:21:32):

No, to be honest, after the fact having some separation from it, I think that he was a good kid with a good heart who wanted to make some records with his friends and came into an opportunity where he said, I got to turn this into a commercial facility if I'm going to get my friends in here. So he was trying to figure out the best way to do that. I think that, and he doesn't still have that gig, that whole studio operation is shut down. Of course, back to being a private facility, I don't think that he could have taken just what was a good thing and had it been enough for 'em. And I think that that's a problem too for people. That's a problem with people who come in and record. There's a lot of people I know. A very common thing that happens nowadays, which is one of the worst things in the industry, is young bands will come in and they'll make their first recording and they'll see how it's done, and then they'll be hitting me up and they'll be like, Hey, man, I'm buying an interface right now. What kind of speaker should I get? And then what it comes down to is the next time I see 'em, they're fucking 30. They've been working on the same recording, nothing ever got released and fucking their careers are done.

Speaker 2 (03:22:38):

There was a local band back when, so my band got signed in 2005, and we formed in 2000 or 2001. And when we formed, there was already this local band that had been around since the early nineties playing the same eight songs. And I started my studio around 2000, 2001, 2002 in that era. And 2009 in between a couple tours, they hit me up to record and I needed some extra money. So they came in playing same songs. Same songs. How is that possible? How you still have the same eight songs, only ever wrote eight songs? I didn't understand it. And then it turns out that there's a lot of local bands like that. Blew my mind. I couldn't believe it. But on the topic of going and spying on studios in order to start stuff, I've seen that happen a lot. And I just had something recent where, so we don't just have a URM, we also have this site called Riff Hard with the guitar player from monuments that is a guitar instructional site.

(03:23:52):

And we're also working with this girl named Mary Zimmer, who's a vocal instructor, and she's goddamn unbelievable. We've been helping her grow her YouTube channel right now it's leading to something really big that we're doing together. And she's just magnificent dude, magnificent vocal coach. And she had a student that signed up for one-on-one lessons with her and was asking her really detailed way too detailed questions. I mean, not just a normal detailed student, really detailed, almost like an interrogation. And he did two lessons with her and then blocked her, blocked her on Skype, blocked her on Facebook, blocked her everywhere. And then she saw a few days later in her YouTube suggested videos that this student was totally copying her channel doing her exact material and the exact stuff that she covered in those one-on-ones. And I actually frequently will have people hit me up on Facebook messenger, and I get hit up hundreds of times a day, so I can't talk to everybody, but I try to talk to people and answer their questions and help 'em out. But every once in a while, we'll get someone who's wants to know our entire business model and this and that and this and that, all these really detailed things. And I'm like, why? And they're like, well, because we're going to start a site just like yours. But in France, it was like, shut up. This conversation goes no further.

Speaker 3 (03:25:52):

Exactly. And people get offended when the conversation goes no further. And that's the most fucked up thing to me. I mean, one, they can't recreate what you guys do, you guys, and I mean, you guys have that gem of a human being, Nick. So of course

Speaker 2 (03:26:06):

He says, what's up, by the way?

Speaker 3 (03:26:08):

Awesome.

Speaker 2 (03:26:09):

He's great.

Speaker 3 (03:26:10):

Yeah, he's absolutely wonderful. So you, it's just like you can't do that. And it's weird, man. This whole audio education thing is real fucking weird.

Speaker 2 (03:26:24):

I agree.

Speaker 3 (03:26:26):

We're being honest, and I had a conversation with your guy the other day. What you guys do is more valuable than what we do at this point. If you can't walk away with publishing, then you're really spinning wheels, bro.

Speaker 2 (03:26:41):

You're talking, who are you talking to

Speaker 3 (03:26:44):

Just in the music industry in general?

Speaker 2 (03:26:46):

Oh, no, but you said you're talking to my guy.

Speaker 3 (03:26:48):

Oh, your guy. I think his name. Is it Ben?

Speaker 2 (03:26:51):

Oh, oh, Ben Deal. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, my podcast assistant. Yep.

Speaker 3 (03:26:57):

Yep. I was talking to your guy about this and I was straight up, what you guys do is more valuable than making records at this point, unless you're at the point where you're producing high end records. And even then, the only way that you're making more money than a company like URM is if you're walking away with the publishing an actual piece of the record. And it's weird because people have started to figure this out, and nowadays it's more about getting fucking famous for making videos, talking about making records than it is for getting famous making fucking records.

Speaker 2 (03:27:40):

It's annoying. The reason that it's annoying and it bothers me, is, I mean, look, like you said, I'm okay with competition, but the thing is that I've been doing this online education thing for years, as have my partners. This is not some new thing for us, and we don't put bullshit out there. And our students who actually pay attention are sick, like Kevin, for instance, and there are other Kevins, and we pride ourselves in being the antithesis of all the bullshit online education that's out there. And so I feel like,

Speaker 3 (03:28:20):

Can I try and start a URM thing here now?

Speaker 2 (03:28:23):

Sure.

Speaker 3 (03:28:24):

I know there's been some things that have floating through your community, like the No 4K shit and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:28:28):

That was a joke.

Speaker 3 (03:28:29):

No, I know that was a joke, but I'm trying to start a super serious one right now.

Speaker 2 (03:28:32):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (03:28:33):

A Kevin. Yo, if you come through URM and you are fucking good.

Speaker 2 (03:28:37):

You're a Kevin.

Speaker 3 (03:28:38):

You can only hope to be a Kevin, bro.

Speaker 2 (03:28:40):

It's true. I am with you. It's true. But that's my point. I feel we are trying to do it legitly with online education. We've had to overcome a stigma because there are a lot of scammers online, but we get the best people, and we try to not just show people how to mix, but the philosophy of not taking presets and also how to behave and everything. We try to do it for real. And we're seeing that a lot of people right now, they think they know they can do it too, and they're ripping people off and they don't know what they're doing. And it bothers me because it hurts the whole online education industry much in the same way that it hurts producers that are trying to feed their kids when someone who doesn't know what the fuck they're doing gets with a billionaire and tries to copy your studio. It is just not good. But the thing that doesn't worry me about it is that what happens is people try to get into online education and they realize it's not that easy. It's actually really fucking hard, and they get out of it,

Speaker 3 (03:29:58):

Oh dude, I've watched your guys' camp, bro, the logistics alone or something I don't want to fuck with. So yeah, I have respect for what you guys do. You guys had that metal guy in there, Nick was flying around, going to meet up with Sam. Like, fuck, bro.

Speaker 2 (03:30:13):

Oh, it's a ton of work and it's a ton of work. And the thing is that we really, really do want our, when I say that I want the next generation of Will Putney and Andy Snips and Collins and Rick Carson of 10, 15 years from now, I want them to come from our community. And this is not about lining our pockets. And yes, there's money to be made, but we all want to make money. But this is coming from a time period when I thought that the music industry was going to tank, and when recording quality, especially in heavy music, was fucking going to shit, and everything was getting programmed. And this style of music that I put all this time into and all this expertise I built up, I felt was going to total shit and wanted to do something about it. And so decided to start this to try and help raise the bar. That's our motivation. This is not something where, this is not about easy money because it certainly is not easy money at all, man. This is fucking work. But we love it.

Speaker 3 (03:31:31):

It's absolutely work. But here's the thing is you guys have created a niche for yourself where you can wake up every day and feel proud of the work that you do. I do believe that you help people.

Speaker 2 (03:31:41):

You know

Speaker 3 (03:31:42):

What I mean?

Speaker 2 (03:31:42):

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (03:31:43):

It's one of those things where trying to get to the point where everybody is happy with everything isn't going to happen.

Speaker 2 (03:31:52):

No, of course not. The thing we have is that our shit is legit.

Speaker 3 (03:31:57):

For sure. Well, can I say one of my favorite things about your community recently?

Speaker 2 (03:32:00):

Sure.

Speaker 3 (03:32:01):

Yo, Joey Sturgis made a post recently where he was like, people keep asking me if I'll make any tutorials about how to mix a song. He's like, sure, if you want to know how to mix a song in 2009. And I fucking lost it, dude. For him to have that self-awareness when he gets asked this shit every day, he gained a lot of respect for me with that one single post, dude.

Speaker 2 (03:32:23):

It's funny, right?

Speaker 3 (03:32:24):

Dude, it's so funny, man. And here's the thing is, but I can't hate on it, dude. Those kids just want to figure out how to make zombies. That's what they were into, and that's what they care about. And that's cool. I dug that snare drum when it came out, and I get it, but it's like at this point, it's just another tool in my arsenal. I know how to give you the zombie snare drum. I have the sample, but I know how to give you it. And even if I didn't have the sample, I've looked into the things that he was doing back then with Klip and fucking all that shit. So I get it.

Speaker 2 (03:33:03):

So let me say this thought, and then let's get back into the thing. Joey is very aware of the fact that he's moved on in his life. He stopped mixing records in 2015 or 16, and so he knows that he defined a certain sound in a certain time period, but he's not kidding himself about that being current anymore, and he's open about it,

Speaker 3 (03:33:36):

Which so amazing. And for him to still partake in the community after, clearly. And I've heard, I don't know what actually does. I heard he programs fucking algorithms for Google and shit now, and I don't know if that's true, but if he is doing shit like that,

Speaker 2 (03:33:51):

I don't know about that, but maybe,

Speaker 3 (03:33:53):

Yeah. And fucking still being involved in stuff like this, that's super cool. It's just so interesting the way that people, there's a lot of people who are really good, and there's a lot of people who front, and there's a lot of people who are really good and put on a pretty good front at the same time. But watching a dude like that who's currently still selling products and active in the community, but also self-aware right now, there's people who sell products that they haven't made a record in fucking decades, but they will literally say, I can get you any sound in the goddamn world. And Joey is self-aware enough to say, I know what I did well, and that I think is special, man.

Speaker 2 (03:34:39):

I agree. I mean, that's the reason for why you don't really see us teaching the classes on URM. Back when I was mixing and doing it for a living, I was teaching a lot more of the stuff, but I haven't made a record since 2015. So I think it's, we want to be the best at this, and we want it to be not just the best, but relevant because a lot of audio schools are so stuck in the past. So for us to be the ones teaching the shit and trying to be gurus or any of that stuff, fuck that. We want to get the people who are awesome now, and we don't care if they're super famous or not. We want people that are awesome. I mean, it's cool if they're famous, but that's not what it's about.

Speaker 3 (03:35:31):

No, no, for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:35:32):

Alright, so I think we've been talking for four hours. I think this is a good time to call it. I'm sure we could keep going for a while.

Speaker 3 (03:35:42):

Yeah, and if you ever want to have me do one of these again, I'm down to talk.

Speaker 2 (03:35:46):

Hey, man, you're invited anytime. This was a great podcast and love to have you do a nail the mix or come and do a q and a in the group or another podcast. Anything you want to do with us Door is open. This has been a great podcast. You probably are going to have the record for longest podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:36:06):

Oh, damn, dude. Okay, cool. Well, I hope people enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (03:36:10):

I hope so too, because it's a long one.

Speaker 3 (03:36:13):

Well, awesome.

Speaker 2 (03:36:14):

Alright, man, well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:36:15):

Cool. Perfect. Well, you have a wonderful day. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Sure. Legendary microphones, cutting edge wireless systems, premium earphones and headphones. Sure. The most trusted audio brand worldwide. For more information, go to Sure com. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.