RICK CARSON: Why Gear is Your 401k, Reading the Room, and The Art of the Test Mix

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners. And if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:57):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share host and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. My guest today is a guy named Rick Carson, who's an engineer and producer whose work ranges from a data remember to billboard chart topping, pop and jazz. But I am so stoked to have him here, and if you've heard his previous episode, then you'll know why. If you haven't, stop what you're doing right now and go listen to episode number 2 38.

(00:01:54):

First of all, it's the longest episode we've ever had on the podcast, but it's also one of my all time top five because Rick is just one of the smartest, most insightful people I have ever met in my entire life, and I always learn something new when I'm talking to him. There's very few people that I know that every single time I talk to them, they enlighten me in some way, and I cherish that. And Rick is one of those people. This episode's no different. One of the big things that I got as a takeaway from it was the concept of how do you ensure your own future as a producer? I mean, we don't get retirement plans. We don't have 4 0 1 Ks. How are you going to make that happen? Well, we talk about that in detail along with a bunch of other things. So I'll shut up. I present you Rick Carson. You're saying you don't give Pro Tools lessons? No,

Speaker 2 (00:02:56):

I don't give Pro tools lessons.

Speaker 1 (00:02:58):

I'd love to get approach lessons from you.

Speaker 2 (00:03:00):

Yeah, no, I'm down to help people and I try and mentor people as much as I possibly can. But pro tools and learning your DAW is one of those things where I feel like you can only really learn that shit by trying and experience it. And I'm going through that shit with live right now. And don't get me wrong, I ask people questions

Speaker 1 (00:03:20):

With live mixing. No, Ableton Live. Oh yeah. So why are you fucking with Ableton Live? Oh, dude, 90% of my work is translation Ableton Live. I see. Well then that's a good

Speaker 2 (00:03:29):

Reason. So all the dudes in the hip hop and the pop sphere,

Speaker 1 (00:03:33):

I forgot, you're not a metal guy. That makes sense. The Ableton is one of those that in Metal and Rock is like only people who don't know anything about metal and rock, who do metal and rock with it, use it, but in other genres it's huge and it's way better for the needs of those genres.

Speaker 2 (00:03:53):

Yeah, it's interesting. I come from Pro Tools and I want to believe that Pro Tools can be the end all be all, and you can do everything you can do in any of these other DWS that you can do it in Pro Tools. And I can't say that you can't, it's just after experiencing Live, it is way more of a goddamn pain in the Dick to do those things in Pro

Speaker 1 (00:04:12):

Tools. But Ableton is just designed, it's like

Speaker 2 (00:04:15):

Absolutely, it's designed for sample manipulation. So where you would have to pull up five or six different plugins to be able to do something to the audio file. And the way that Ableton just lets you do it when you click on the audio file is fucking crazy to me. You can transpose, you can speed up, you can fucking change the key entirely. You can fucking slice it and automatically send it to a fucking sampler that's laid out like an MPC and it's pre-select it slices. Or you can go in and select them yourself and assign them to pads to be able to do that functionally easy in fucking pro tools you need to own machine or battery or something like that. And even then you're cutting up samples, exporting them from Pro Tools and then loading them into a, so this

Speaker 1 (00:05:00):

Just works to me. It's kind of the same thing as when the whole Mac PC debate where my answer has always been, it just

Speaker 2 (00:05:09):

Works. Well, let me get you guys hip on where it really happened. You want to know how I knew I needed to learn Hamilton Live? Yes, I do. If you could picture it, I'm in Los Angeles and I've got probably, I've got the majority

Speaker 1 (00:05:23):

Of you're in Los Angeles trying to hang out with me and it doesn't work, and you're really, really sad. That's how it goes. You're like, I'm going to try a different dog. It's like when you get a new hairstyle, you're sad, and instead you try, that's what happened, right?

Speaker 2 (00:05:37):

Well, no, no. I'm with my buddy Craig Brockman and No, no, and I'm with,

Speaker 1 (00:05:42):

I'm talking about Nam, by the way. We tried to meet up at Nam. It didn't work.

Speaker 2 (00:05:45):

Absolutely. I will say this, I hung out at the outside bar between the two lanes of traffic for 45 minutes. I appreciate it. But yeah, so we were in this session and Craig brought me in to help him. He just needed an engineer hang out for the day. I wasn't on the session by any means. I was just coming to see Craig and this dude, Charlie and fucking, there's a bunch of super talented musicians, these dudes, Craig goes, his band is called the a hundred grand Band when they're going and playing for fucking Nelly and shit. There's a reason why they're called that.

Speaker 1 (00:06:25):

That's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:06:26):

Yeah, I'm sitting there and there's three computers in the room and two of 'em are laptops, and one of them is the main rig for this little studio. And everybody is nowhere near a computer. They're all playing instruments. One dude's on the bass, one dude's on the guitar, one dude's fucking playing drums, one dude's playing fucking keyboards, and they're fucking jamming and going after it, and there's a click track going and out of nowhere, Craig calls, Hey, get rid of the click. And I fucking go to Pro Tools. Pro Tools isn't even recording. It's not running. I just walked in this room. There's a fucking click track going, and I'm looking at these laptops. It's like got to be clearly coming from one of these fucking laptops. And I walk up and I see Ableton is running in this one session. So they're recording to this Ableton computer and there's a click track going. I had no fucking idea how to turn off the click track. And they actually had to stop the take and get up and come and fucking turn off the click track and do another take. And I never want to be in a position where that's what it is. If you know anything about Ableton Live the click track and live. It's not a track like in Pro Tools that you can mute or anything. It's literally just a yellow dot. It doesn't fucking say click. It doesn't look like a fucking metronome. It's a yellow dot.

Speaker 1 (00:07:45):

Okay. Okay, so hold on, let me make sure I'm interpreting this correctly. You're in this session. You want to know how to do something as simple as turning off the click and you didn't know how.

Speaker 2 (00:07:54):

I didn't know how

Speaker 1 (00:07:55):

And it was like, holy shit.

Speaker 2 (00:07:56):

Well, and me being fucking me, I like to be confident and feel like I know what the fuck I'm doing. And when you walk into a situation like that, you realize exactly, there is so much shit that you don't know. So on the plane ride home, I read the whole fucking manual, and it's one of those things where I haven't been able to transition into live for my mixing work because I have done some tests and it's interesting and I'm not trying to talk shit about their DAW, but live to me sounds a little bit mushy. And if I do a master in live where it's like two tracks, it's fine. It pretty much fucking nulls with Pro Tools. But when there's a bunch of shit going on in there, it can sound a little mushy almost. So it's not like I'm mixing in live, but as far as working it into our day-to-day workflow in our writing in the studio, absolutely. So we've got a pretty interesting thing that I've never seen at any other studio and how it works at Make Believe right now is we've always tried to have as much shit open as possible. That's how I like to make records. So if you walk,

Speaker 1 (00:09:00):

What do you mean by open?

Speaker 2 (00:09:01):

So if you walk into our control room, for example, there's a mini Moog, there's a Rose, there's a bunch of fucking

Speaker 1 (00:09:07):

Keyboard, like a bunch of stations that just are there an operational Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:09:12):

And there's two different versions of 'em. So there's a Roads in the control room and there's a roads in the live room, and they all have their own different effects and pedals. And then there's a guitar Kemper in the fucking control room, but then there's a Princeton or Amps in the live room, bass in the control room bass in the live room. It's one of those things where people can go ahead and say, yeah, we just got back from the bar. We want to go fucking Jam Live. And they can go out there. Everything in the goddamn room is going to Pro Tools and it's all easily recorded. But on the other side, we've got a lot of producers who want to come in and they're working with their own DAW with their own songs that they've made. So what we've done is we've taken actually just a small MO two interface and we put that on our credenza and that gets hooked USB into the producer's computer, and we have eight buses on our console that feed into that fucking MO two.

(00:10:06):

So how it works is the producer then can walk up to the desk, see anything in either one of the rooms, and then if they want it to show up in their rig, they've just got to press between bus one through eight, whatever channel they want it to show up on that little Mo two interface. So it's like, okay, now we don't have to transfer this whole song to Pro Tools because we're going to do a high hat over dub. You want to record High Hats, go to overheads hit seven and eight. They're showing up on seven and eight in your computer, and you can walk out there record high hats on your live rig. So I've never seen anybody else really rock in the studio that way. And I think that it's really exciting because it gives us the flexibility to gives not interrupt or make them uncomfortable

Speaker 1 (00:10:47):

To the buffer between the idea and the idea being captured is as minimal as possible.

Speaker 2 (00:10:56):

Absolutely. And it takes out a lot of the bullshit, like transferring files takes a long time. It

Speaker 1 (00:11:03):

Sure does.

Speaker 2 (00:11:04):

Consolidating out of one DAW getting into Pro Tools, and don't get me wrong, there's still times where that's absolutely the right move to do. So we just did a record where when we were done with the record, it was going to be mixed at the studio. So it was fine to be like, okay, we're going to get this all out of logic now and get these into pro tool sessions because when we're done doing all this additional tracking, it's just going over to the other room. But if that's not the situation, if a dude's just coming in and he's like, yeah, I'm trying to record some drums and some fucking piano for this hip hop record, do it that way because then we don't have to really deal with anything. We just worry about getting the sounds, make sure that it's routed to you and then you can engineer yourself if that's what makes you feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 (00:11:43):

Do artists that you work with clients, do they notice this about your studio? In my experience, clients talk shit about their previous experiences always. Or if I were to do something that they really liked, they will always say things like, wow, no one's ever done this before. Do you get comments like that? And by the way, it's my first time ever smoking weed on a podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:12:07):

Hey, what's up guys? Yeah, it's interesting. So clients do definitely notice, and it's one of those things where I got to give it up to my dude, Dom, Dom and Keith and I really developed this system of working. So it's one of those things where I feel like he's fucking hyped on it and he goes to Africa or goes to fucking California and he tells people like, yeah, fucking come with me to make believe. We got this set up. It works fast. Me and Dom and Keith, we'll work on 30 songs in a week, and that's from scratch. We're writing songs quickly and fast because the workflow is quick and fast on the other side of it, there's definitely shit that I've done that I thought was particularly fucking awesome that is just come back to fucking bite me and be ridiculous. Well,

Speaker 1 (00:13:01):

I mean that's going to happen when you do 30 songs in a week, right?

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

No, no, no. This is like other shit. You want to know if a super funny one.

Speaker 1 (00:13:08):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:13:08):

Recording with no symbols. So when I first got to Omaha, I recorded this band and I was like, yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:13:15):

Wait, you mean do the shells first and the cymbals later?

Speaker 2 (00:13:18):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:13:18):

Didn't work for you?

Speaker 2 (00:13:19):

No, it fucking worked out great. The record came out, it came out fine, but I had this band replaces symbols with little Caesar pizza boxes, so he had something to hit. And when we did it with Alex,

Speaker 1 (00:13:33):

Not just put mutes off.

Speaker 2 (00:13:35):

Well, we didn't have mutes. Okay, fair enough. We just

Speaker 1 (00:13:37):

Something we use what you got.

Speaker 2 (00:13:38):

Yeah, you need something to hit. And that'll not come through in the overhead mics just fine for me. Fair enough for a day to remember when we did it, we used the drum head boxes. We literally just cut symbol shapes out of the fucking kick drum head boxes and put 'em up there. So it was the same sort of vibe. And there was a dude who worked at Guitar Center in Omaha named Doug, and he fucking ran my name through the fucking mud over that shit. I'd have clients show up and be like, yeah, man. I was just at a guitar center and I told somebody that I was recording up here. He is like, you shouldn't record up there. That dude won't let you use symbols. It'll make you record pizza boxes. It is like, sorry, sorry for trying to fucking do something different or better or

Speaker 1 (00:14:24):

Make That's so stupid.

Speaker 2 (00:14:26):

It is what it's, I'll tell you this right now. Shit like that is weird. I've never recorded a band with no symbols again in Nebraska because they're not fucking ready for that shit. But we come down here and we're trying to make the biggest goddamn rock record in the world, and that's one of the tools that we have.

Speaker 1 (00:14:42):

Fuck yeah. That's a tried and true tool. Good enough for Dave Gross. Good enough for me, dude. Grown enough for Lamb of God, good enough. Will Putney good enough for me? Good enough for so many people who'd make heavy music. It's one of the staples of heavy music production and not because these drummers can't play as you well know, lots of heavy drummers can play their asses off. It's just, it's a stylistic production choice.

Speaker 2 (00:15:07):

Well, and when you're playing blast beats like that, the shells can come across so quiet in the fucking kit. So it's like your kick drum and snare drum. When you start going super fast, they drop almost half in fucking volume and it just gets lost in that goddamn mush of fucking symbol. That can

Speaker 1 (00:15:27):

Definitely happen.

Speaker 2 (00:15:28):

And it's like I'm not the end all be all guy of fucking metal production, but I don't like that shit. It can definitely

Speaker 1 (00:15:36):

Happen. You need, okay, so first of all, I'm not saying that recording a full kit is bad because absolutely not. It could be fucking great. And sometimes, so those dynamics, like the dynamic levels of the drums, I guess within the kit, regardless of what the engineer is doing, a lot of that is up to the drummer too in how hard they hit when they blast, how hard are they aware of how hard they're bashing on the symbols versus the snare. The best drummers you don't really have those problems with because they're aware of all this stuff, but not everyone's the best drummers.

Speaker 2 (00:16:16):

And I have limited experience making records like that compared to some of the dudes who are probably going to be listening to this podcast. But I'll tell you right now, I can tell when you're good or not when you're good. Of course you can, when you go to your blast beat, I can look at it, it'll drop in level, but it'll instantly drop and be consistent when you're bad. It looks like a fucking ramp where you're the same level at the start and then it ramps down to even lower than where the good guy would fucking be tired as shit from trying to do it all loud. So it's like my favorite one

Speaker 1 (00:16:45):

Is where they try to go into this long ass double bass bar and then suddenly the hands just disappear. It's just like tap.

Speaker 2 (00:16:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:16:55):

It's like, are you playing a snare? I swear I hear a hint of a snare. It's like the fastest double bass imaginable. Then just like

Speaker 2 (00:17:01):

Tap. Well, tap and drummers can be weird. I have a drummer that I don't work with too much anymore, but I loved working with him. He was a great drummer named Drew, and he had his own problem, which is his groove and his kick and snare and fucking hat were always in the pocket. And I loved working with him. He was a solid fucking drummer. The dudes hit, the Toms fairies were running away from him, and he was trying to catch him. He's doing all this shit. This groove is super heavy, and then there's this Tom roll that's supposed to go into this next person. You're just like, oh, son of a bitch. So every time I'd have to go,

Speaker 1 (00:17:41):

It's like the essence of a Tommy

Speaker 2 (00:17:43):

Dude. It's like, yeah, when people talk about LaCroix's, the fucking taste of the taste of what you think great tastes like, it is like, yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:17:51):

With a hint of lime,

Speaker 2 (00:17:53):

With a hint of Tom, hint of Tom

Speaker 1 (00:17:55):

Phil.

Speaker 2 (00:17:55):

And it was when I finally sat down and talked to him, his symbols, his crashes were coming out louder and his Tom mics than his Toms were. And I was like, dude, look at this shit. I got to go through and find these by hand and then take samples that we've made and place them because these Toms are, you're not hitting this shit loud enough. And then when he'd start trying to hit his Toms hard, he'd get slower in his fills and come back in off time. So it fucked with him and he's better now, but yeah. Whoa. There's dogs. We've decided not to kill these dogs.

Speaker 1 (00:18:32):

Yes. We're letting them live. So just so everyone listening knows we're at the audio compound in Florida. Can we say why you're here?

Speaker 2 (00:18:41):

Yeah, I believe so. I'm here mixing a record with Neil and Max and yeah, it's for Max's band NIUs.

Speaker 1 (00:18:49):

Cool. This is Neil from a day to remember, in case anyone's wondering. And there's a dog training place right next door, and sometimes as dogs do,

Speaker 2 (00:18:58):

They're quiet, but today, I mean right now, but they'll die now.

Speaker 1 (00:19:03):

They'll die now. They're just excited. They heard us talking about the drum fill issue and they were like, yeah, I feel that.

Speaker 2 (00:19:13):

They're like, I like pizza boxes. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:19:16):

Seriously, we're talking about stuff that's relevant to their interests, so they get excited, man. So what's interesting to me, so that issue right there that you're talking about, that's such a great way to put it. Essence of Toms. I've worked with so many drummers across genres that do that sort of thing. That's not just fast metal drummers who through economy of motion will play a little quieter when they're going fast. That's lots of drummers who don't have the control or don't have the balance right between symbols and shells. And in my opinion, even if you're not the type of person who likes samples or whatever, that's right, there is the perfect argument for YU should know, you should at least know how to use them because shit like that happens and yeah, sure, great performance is great room. That's always the priority. But that's going to happen sometimes and sometimes you're not going to be able to get another drummer to come in who can do that. Sometimes you're stuck with what you're stuck with, and so

Speaker 2 (00:20:18):

What

Speaker 1 (00:20:19):

Are you going to do?

Speaker 2 (00:20:20):

Yeah, sometimes what you have is fucking great and it's just little things. You're there. An interesting concept to audio is live sound, and people always talk about mixing live sound. And in my opinion, you don't fucking mix live sound guys. You reinforce what is happening in the room to make it translate as well to everybody in the room as possible. Makes sense. And there's a book called Yamaha's Guide to Live Sound Reinforcement. And I fucking love,

Speaker 1 (00:20:50):

I read that book,

Speaker 2 (00:20:50):

I love that book, but I also love how that is stated. Yamaha's Guide to Live Sound Reinforcement. And that's what we're doing In a situation like that. You don't have to go and produce the shit out of something, but you may have to reinforce it a little bit and being as prepared as possible for that. It's not hard to ask a drummer to be like, Hey, give me a couple extra Tom hits at the end of the fucking take. But I get sessions every goddamn day that have none of that shit in there.

Speaker 1 (00:21:22):

I want to get your take on something since we're on this topic, something that's relevant to me right now. I want your take.

Speaker 2 (00:21:29):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:21:30):

So we have a session on Nail the mix right now.

Speaker 2 (00:21:32):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:21:33):

This isn't going to come out in February, but just so everyone knows, it's February 24th or fifth right now. Yeah, it's the end of February. Yeah, it's the end of February. I'm here in Florida to do nail the mix with Buster Hor, humanity's Last Breath and Vita, I think that's how you pronounce their fucking name. What's interesting about these sessions is that the Vita session is a band that Buster joined and he also mixes and produces them, but they've been around for a long fucking time, well over a decade. They have a way of working to where it is what it is. So they use the old pods. Oh

Speaker 3 (00:22:14):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:22:15):

And then they just track. They don't capture di and the parts they write end up being the album.

(00:22:23):

So when they write, they just commit. And then the thing is though, after the fact, they'll time warp and change tempos and then also pitch shift and do all these things that I guess are technically wrong because it produces artifacts, but it's part of their creative process. They don't like to be tied down to one thing. So they do the recording and then it changes and changes and changes in the post recording process. And little by little over the course of years, it takes them years to make records. They end up with something. Now, if you hear their records, they sound fucking disgustingly awesome. You can't hear any of these problems. Buster said in the video he made about this, that these are the challenges he had to overcome.

Speaker 3 (00:23:13):

He

Speaker 1 (00:23:13):

Had to overcome guitars that were tracked this way. And so there's some clicks and pops here. There's some artifacts here and there. There's just shit in there. But that was part of the fun, was overcoming the challenge and still making it sound incredible, which he did. It sounds incredible, and a lot of people in the comments of the commercial, not in our community, but out in the world public, were like, you're spreading bad advice that people should just accept terrible sessions. Like, fuck this guy. What you have to do is tell them to retrack and all this crazy shit just like anger and anger and anger.

Speaker 2 (00:23:53):

Yo, if you want to act that way, expect to not have a fucking job. And the only people who are going to continue to fuck with you are the goddamn people that you went to high school with who for some reason think that you're fucking Tom Lord algae, and it just isn't real. That is not the sessions that I get from the hip hop world. These are made by what I would call amateur engineers,

Speaker 1 (00:24:18):

People who don't similar, similar scenarios

Speaker 2 (00:24:20):

Who don't give a fuck about what's happening as far as engineering goes, but you want to know what they're artists or they're the producer and they're fucking accomplishing what needs to be accomplished to get the job done. A perfect example, I'm mixing this song for this girl from South Africa and it's going to be huge and fucking the chorus, if you could picture it, they're like, bring out this chorus. We need to sound fucking more distinguishable. And the words in the chorus, it's a two syllable world. I'm not going to give it away, but we'll just say it's like hooray. And that's not the word, but yeah. So we'll say it's hooray, and I've got four fucking tracks. They all say fucking Vox idea, which means that these, I've got vox verse vox fucking bridge, and then all the chorus tracks say Vox idea, which means that these came from a writing session

Speaker 1 (00:25:14):

And

Speaker 2 (00:25:16):

There's one track that has nothing below 600 hertz in it and a weird flanger on it, and it says hooray. The other three tracks are all muffled and distorted and sound like someone's sleeping next to the microphone. It's a teddy bear. And they go, they don't say the goddamn word at all in it.

Speaker 1 (00:25:40):

So there's definitely a vision there,

Speaker 2 (00:25:42):

But when you put 'em all fucking together, it creates this weird kind of sound that is kind of like that word. So my job is to try and figure out how did it get to say more of that word from the one track that has literally no midrange or low end information. I got some one K in there, so I relied on that bitch. But it was one of those things like, it's not like I could turn that shit up because if I did, it sounded like a mosquito was farting the goddamn chorus on top of this other fucking shit. So it's like, but who am I to call and be like, Hey, will you retract that part? No, we're not going to retract that part. We're going to fucking fire you and hire a young guru. It's one of those things like you look at fucking certain people that you've been doing work for years that may want that from you and be told that that's cool.

(00:26:43):

But on other situations, especially in the hip hop and pop world, don't go fucking with these people's shit. I see dudes who first thing they do when they get a session is they replace the drums and then they fucking rego program the 8 0 8 with their own 8 0 8 sound and shit like that. And it's like, in my world, that's not the move. And if I'm mixing a rock record and it comes over with drums that someone tracked in their basement, I may start and get my samples up and I may be listening to them from the beginning. And in these hip hop sessions, don't get me wrong, I have four samples that I rely on in every session. I may not use them at all, but they're in every session. Let's be real guys. One is the knock of a kick drum. One is the low end of a kick drum. One is a fucking solid ass mono snare drum, and one sounds like gated reverb. And I put other reverbs on it to make bigger reverbs from it. Kind of like an Andy Wallace sort of vibe.

Speaker 1 (00:27:46):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (00:27:47):

That's it. But they're in every goddamn session and it's like, it may only be that gated reverb one that gets a fucking big old ten second hall for the last hit of a goddamn song. And that may be the only fucking one in there that I used,

Speaker 1 (00:28:03):

But you got it ready to go.

Speaker 2 (00:28:04):

It is there.

Speaker 1 (00:28:08):

So what I'm understanding, let me make sure I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, is you distinguish between something that has an artistic intent versus something that was just an engineering shortcoming.

Speaker 2 (00:28:22):

Yeah, a limitation. And you

Speaker 1 (00:28:24):

Need to know, I feel like as a mixer who's receiving other people's tracks, you need to have the wisdom. And maybe that's something that only comes through enough experience, but you need to understand the difference between something that's, I don't want to say wonky, but not traditionally proper because it's an artistic decision versus something that is just, they may not have really known what they were doing as well.

Speaker 2 (00:28:51):

In every person that you mix for is fucking different and they're looking for a different thing. I got a test, and every time that I don't do it, it bites me in the goddamn dick. And I didn't do it recently within the past three and a half months,

Speaker 1 (00:29:02):

You got a test mix.

Speaker 2 (00:29:03):

No, no. I got a test. I'll explain it here in a second, but I didn't do it recently in the past three and a half months, and it bit me in the goddamn dick again. And it's super solid tests, and I think that everybody should fuck with it personally. Don't get me wrong. There's certain dudes out there in the world, dudes like Colin Britton. When you hire Colin Britton, you want Colin to Colin Briton the goddamn song.

Speaker 1 (00:29:25):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:29:26):

And

Speaker 1 (00:29:27):

Let him, well, yes, there's a style of producer. I call them artist.

Speaker 2 (00:29:32):

Well, yeah, and not even producer and absolutely producer because he's a tremendous fucking producer. And we're very different producers. Colin is the of dude who can listen to your song and take your song and fucking turn it into a completely different genre for a different time. I'm not that sort of producer. I'm the sort of producer who knows who to make the right phone call to get someone in the room if that's the job that needs to be done,

Speaker 1 (00:29:59):

Like a Rick Rubin style.

Speaker 2 (00:30:00):

But how I like to describe my job is I'm a coffee strainer for your bullshit. I'm going to let the best shit through. And sometimes it's fucking being a producer is more than just, are we going to add an extra layer of drums to this? It's going to be fucking talking somebody off a goddamn ledge when it comes to fucking business decisions or life decisions or something like that. But that's not what we're really talking about. We're talking about the motherfucking test and this is about mixing.

Speaker 1 (00:30:27):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:30:28):

Or what's

Speaker 1 (00:30:28):

The test.

Speaker 2 (00:30:29):

So when you hire a dude like that, you want that and you're going after that and you're paying for it.

Speaker 1 (00:30:35):

So just so for people who might not know, maybe if you wanted the Joey Sturgis sound in 2010, you hire Joey Sturgis, you don't hire someone else.

Speaker 2 (00:30:47):

You

Speaker 1 (00:30:47):

Don't hire me. Used to happen. People hired me to give them the Joey sound. It's like, fuckers, go to Joey.

Speaker 2 (00:30:54):

And what you expect to get back from Joey is within a line, in my opinion. And that line is parameters. Yeah. It's a much tighter parameter than a dude like Colin, because Colin is no offense to Joey, super fucking flexible where

Speaker 1 (00:31:10):

Joey was. Well, that is part of Colin's thing.

Speaker 2 (00:31:13):

That is, yeah. And Joey's thing is he was the king of what he was doing. His lane, he drove a Maserati in it.

(00:31:21):

And here's the motherfucking test. When you get a new artist or a new producer, and usually, in my opinion, artists or whatever, okay, I'm about to spit some serious game. This is shit that I've developed over the past 10 years in this game. Guys, you got to think about this like football. And I don't fuck with football. I'm not a football fan. I grew up in Detroit. The closest thing I got to fucking football was watching the lions lose every fucking Thanksgiving. And I'm about to spit some serious game on multiple things. First of all, I'm going to make this real short. Watching Barry Sanders get his ass handed to him every fucking Thanksgiving, taught me everything that I needed to know about teamwork. It doesn't matter how tremendously talented you are on your own, if you can't play with a team who supports you and fucking helps you win, then you fucking lose. You lose every Thanksgiving and you retire early because you can't take losing anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:32:11):

It's true.

Speaker 2 (00:32:11):

True work makes the fucking dream work. And the second thing is, shout out to my god damn team, Justin Valentine, Connor Murphy, fucking Nate, Keith, Roger, Andrew ends. I fucking love all of you. And then as far as the next piece of game is when you work with a producer or an artist, what you need to realize is football. And I didn't get this at all. I didn't fucking like football as I just explained why the fucking lion sucked. And then I fucking met a guy who says, I don't like football. I like football coaches. I was like, what do you mean, bro? Interesting distinction. He's like, football coaches go from team to team. They collect people, they try and make those people better, and then they figure out how to finally fucking win. And we just saw that in Kansas City where that dude has been going for like 30 fucking years with a goddamn Super Bowl, won his fucking first Super Bowl with fucking pretty much startup team. And that is the motherfucking music industry. Artists may come and go, artists may turn into producers or songwriters themselves, but the producers are the motherfucking football coaches. And next year they're going to have a new team with a new roster.

Speaker 1 (00:33:19):

It's true.

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):

Those are the people that you've got to, I mean, you've got to really pay attention to them and learn and listen to what they're fucking saying. And here's what the test is, and I've said it about the test. So when you're mixing a song for a new fucking person, the bridge is the perfect opportunity to flex what I would call your creative fucking muscle. When I mix for someone for the first time, what I like to do is ride the fucking line. I'm going to give them their goddamn rough back, but way better, the best. Their rough could sound with their sounds and their shit. But then in that bridge on that first mix, I'll usually fucking do one or two things. That would be a creative fucking thing, whether it's a delay, like a short room delay where it's fucking 17 on one side and 21 on the other side.

(00:34:05):

It makes it sound hollow and weird and gives it a different vibe for the bridge. Or maybe it's a big fucking reverb on the snares that fucking open the whole song up and go and sound like a Bon Jovi thing. Who knows what it is, but I'll do it on that fucking bridge, and you're going to get a fucking phone call and it's going to go like this. Hey, man, I fucking love that shit. It sounds so good. And what you did on the bridge that was next fucking level, man. And you know that for the rest of the record and the rest of the songs and probably the rest of the fucking career that you mix with this guy, he's going to want a little bit of that Rick Carson flavor in it. There's the other guy who's going to call and say, Hey, man, I fucking love that shit, but let's get rid of that weird shit in the bridge. Yeah. And you got to be ready for both. Oh, absolutely. But that's the fucking test. And I failed to do it recently on a record that I

Speaker 1 (00:34:55):

Actually really, really, so you just by fail to do it, you mean you just did a mix? Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:34:59):

I'll tell you what I mean.

Speaker 1 (00:35:01):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:35:01):

So I really, really wanted to mix this record, and I got it, and it was like a hip hop, neo soul version of a sixties Motown song. And I made those drums throughout the whole fucking song sound like the sixties, and I did not get that fucking gig. And it's because I took my creative fucking choice.

Speaker 1 (00:35:19):

And you did it on the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (00:35:20):

Yeah. And I was fucked because I was in this goddamn fucking mindset where I had just been working on creating all these Motown samples for Splice. So I was just so deep, and this song came in, I was like, that is that shit. And I know how to get that motherfucking sound. That's what I'm doing. That's not what they're fucking doing.

Speaker 1 (00:35:39):

So basically you,

Speaker 2 (00:35:40):

I didn't get that record.

Speaker 1 (00:35:42):

You imposed too much of yourself. It became your mix, not the artist's mix.

Speaker 2 (00:35:46):

And it was the first pass. And it's one of those things where working with a dude like Neil or working with a dude like Colin, if I did that shit, I've been working with these guys for years

Speaker 3 (00:35:57):

Now.

Speaker 2 (00:35:57):

So they'd be like, Hey, that shit's whack. Turn that off. This dude is like, find another guy.

Speaker 1 (00:36:07):

A lot of people who come on when we talk about this, they talk about how at the end of the day, the mix isn't yours. It's the artists. And I think that that's a perfect lesson learned in a way, because I do feel like what happened is that you did your thing, you didn't do the artist's thing, obviously.

Speaker 2 (00:36:29):

Absolutely, dude. And it's one of those things I could try and fucking fight it. And even in my goddamn fucking reptile brain right now in this room, I'm like, well, I didn't do my thing. I did what was right for the motherfucking song. And it's like, fuck you. That's the only answer. And here's the thing. Well, we

Speaker 1 (00:36:45):

All have that reptile brain.

Speaker 2 (00:36:46):

That's the thing. And it's like, dude, that guy's hungry and he wants to do what he wants and fucking, he's the reason why I want to start a fucking sync company and just work on my own songs that no one can tell me what they want them to sound like. Then I never have to make mix changes this all first pass. But it's like that's not what I do. I mix records for other people and I want them to be super stoked and happy.

Speaker 1 (00:37:08):

Man. Isn't it interesting how when something doesn't work out like that, if you let that voice go too far, it will have you start fantasizing about some

Speaker 2 (00:37:18):

Weird shit. It'll have me fucking up other people's records, dude. It'll have me being like, fuck you. This is it. Yeah. I'm fucking turning knobs on the SSL. No one's going to tell me what the fuck fuck to do. I turn the air conditioner up because I'm just hot. I'm heated so you can see me. I can picture me from the outside standing at my doorway watching me when I'm in that mode. Because dude, here's the thing is there's that old adage, there's always, there's more than one way to skin a cat, dude, skin and cats. It took me forever to fucking realize, and the first person who ever said it that I read was Jason Joshua. And I know he's getting tons of love right now. He just did his mix with the masters thing. And if you haven't seen it, it's a super insightful thing. A major fucking dude.

Speaker 1 (00:38:06):

Somebody told me that he did that, and at the end he got bummed out because the

Speaker 2 (00:38:11):

Price,

Speaker 1 (00:38:11):

Because the version was better, the version he did on mix with the masters was better than the release. And he had a little breakdown, not like breakdown and cry, but he paused for 10 seconds and was just emotionally processing that he beat the mix. However, I got to say, if he had just asked me, I would've told him, you're probably going to beat the mix

Speaker 3 (00:38:36):

Because

Speaker 1 (00:38:36):

I nail the mix. At least that happens 99 out of a hundred

Speaker 2 (00:38:39):

Times. And here's the thing is it should fucking happen if it doesn't fucking happen. What have you been doing since you finished that fucking mix every day?

Speaker 1 (00:38:47):

It's only not happened once in our entire

Speaker 2 (00:38:50):

History. Every day I wake up, I want to be better.

(00:38:53):

And yeah, I'm assuming that Jason Joshua was better than he was on fucking Saturday, bro. Of course. I mean, unless he's mad hungover or some shit, that dude's a goddamn fucking in my mind for what he's doing, the lane he's in, he's motherfucking you saying Bolt, bro. He's the only dude winning without the steroids. He's fucking killing it. And it's so interesting for me to look back on what I was about to say. The first time I ever heard this was from him in a Sound on sound article about him mixing goddamn fucking Justin Bieber. And what he was particularly talking about was the Tell Ray Delay plugin that used to come with Pro Tools, the one that looked, I remember that thing. Yeah, that looked like a fucking Fender oil can delay. And he said, when you get to a certain level, you're supposed to be able to beat the rough mix. Everybody can beat the rough mix. What they're paying you for at that level is your fucking taste.

(00:39:59):

And I use Digi design plugins. They make pro tools, so they might as well, I'm assuming they're pretty fucking good and they work for me, but it was that big fucking congregation is that's what he said. That's what he said in his shit. Literally. That's why he was talking about the fucking tell rape plugin. And he's like, you're getting paid for your taste. And he's like, and I'll use this dig design plugin because it sounds fine. Who gives a shit? And it's his vibe. But here's the thing is the big thing that I took away from that shit is he's absolutely right. Why would you hire Josh Wilbur over goddamn fucking Chris Lord Algae? It's because they're different.

Speaker 1 (00:40:35):

Yeah. You want what Josh Wilbur brings to the mix,

Speaker 2 (00:40:38):

And both of them are going to beat your fucking rough mix. And don't get me wrong, in some instances, I've heard some name dudes come back with a mix that isn't it sometimes, but it's usually because they fell into my goddamn trap and they didn't do the test.

Speaker 1 (00:40:57):

I've come to the conclusion that at a certain level, when it comes to rough mixes, people are winning on taste and politics only. They're not winning on skill. No, absolutely. If you're for a real band, for a serious artist, generally, and I mean in any genre, serious metal artists too, when test mixes happen, everyone who's getting asked politics, they deserve a seat at the table though, as far as their skill go, no chumps are getting asked. Everybody's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:41:29):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:41:30):

So who do you like better and who's got the better political angle? And it's those two things balanced against each other.

Speaker 2 (00:41:37):

Yeah. And I'll say this, a lot of people fucking get fucked up about test mixes, and I'm not going to test mix your local record. You can hire me, but I love winning test mixes on the big level. I don't even know who's on the other side, but I love winning that shit. And I got involved in one last year where I didn't even know I was test mixing. And when it came back,

Speaker 1 (00:42:01):

How did you not know you were test mixing?

Speaker 2 (00:42:03):

Well, I knew I was test mixing the song, but I didn't know that it was test mixing against seven other dudes.

Speaker 1 (00:42:08):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:42:09):

So they were like, yeah, take a shot at this and fucking we'll see if we want to go with you, blah, blah, blah. And then fucking, I got hit up by management and they're like, yeah, you beat out everybody else. I was like, everybody else. It's like, I'm not going to go into who I think was on the other side of that shit. But

Speaker 1 (00:42:23):

They weren't chumps.

Speaker 2 (00:42:25):

They weren't chumps and they weren't Lord algaes. It's not that genre, but fucking, they're dudes who are on mixed with the Masters. So it's like I was just, yeah, that's how you get into the politics. People get fucked up because especially in the genre where a lot of you dudes are coming from, there's been some fucking trendsetters. And I can't speak more highly of a dude like Joey Sturgis because when I got into the goddamn game, Joey Sturgis fucked up everything. He fucked up my whole life. To be honest. When I got into the God

Speaker 1 (00:42:58):

Game, he kind of fucked up a whole industry.

Speaker 2 (00:43:00):

He did. When I got into the goddamn game, everybody wanted to be Andy Steep. We were all hanging out on Andy Steeps forum. This is true, and you don't recognize me from there, but there was a dude on there named BW recordings, and that was me when I had Bridgewater recordings back in the day before. Make believe. That's so awesome. Fucking

Speaker 1 (00:43:19):

Man. You know how many people that I've had in my world now that have come from that forum?

Speaker 2 (00:43:25):

It's crazy. Absolutely. Our whole generation. I mean, if you're between 28 and 32 making records right now, and you gave a shit about fucking the Black album, or

Speaker 1 (00:43:34):

I'd say if you're between 28 and 50,

Speaker 2 (00:43:36):

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But I'm saying for sure if you're killing it and you're between 28 and fucking 32, and you gave a shit about how Metallica sounded in any way, shape or form, you were on that fucking

Speaker 1 (00:43:47):

Form. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:43:48):

And that's how I got there. And fucking Joey fucked up everything because everyone wanted to beat Andy. Everyone wanted to own a fucking SSL. Everyone wanted to fucking have fucking outboard gear and some Neve Pres and fucking Andy used gear and relied on it and weighed dudes like Bob Rock did and shit like that. But then fucking it came out and fucking Joey was doing zombies and fucking asking Alexandria and shit, and people were like, this shit is what I want my shit to sound like. What do you use? And he's like, I use a personas interface and a fucking SM seven and a countryman di, and that's it. I'm pretty sure that's still his rig to this goddamn day, from what I can tell on the internet, that shit fucking,

Speaker 1 (00:44:33):

I think he uses an audio Technica mic actually

Speaker 2 (00:44:35):

Now

Speaker 1 (00:44:36):

Like a 40 50 or something,

Speaker 2 (00:44:38):

And that's cool. But I mean, he wasn't out there buying C 800 Gs.

Speaker 1 (00:44:43):

He had a great river preempt, which I guess is a Neve clone. And that's it. That is it.

Speaker 2 (00:44:48):

See, I'd never even heard about the Great River.

Speaker 1 (00:44:50):

So yeah, just for recording vocals.

Speaker 2 (00:44:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:44:52):

He didn't record vocals right into the Beringer's, so yeah. Yeah, the Great River.

Speaker 2 (00:44:57):

What do you mean

Speaker 1 (00:44:57):

The personas? Did he He used a personas, oh, not Baringer, I'm sorry. No, no. RME. Maybe he upgraded to

Speaker 2 (00:45:04):

RME. See, here's the thing is when I did my research on that, I thought he was using one of those personas, fire studios, but it's way back in the day.

Speaker 1 (00:45:10):

But he probably did,

Speaker 2 (00:45:12):

And it doesn't matter because none of it fucking

Speaker 1 (00:45:14):

Matters. It was still just an interface,

Speaker 2 (00:45:16):

Dude,

Speaker 1 (00:45:16):

And a one channel pre for vocals and then prosumer level monitors and that's it.

Speaker 2 (00:45:24):

Yeah. And fucking, he was turning out records that people wanted to listen to. It

Speaker 1 (00:45:29):

Sounded

Speaker 2 (00:45:30):

Great, and it fucked people up. And now it's like they have that sound, it's what I would call a very quickly dated sound,

Speaker 1 (00:45:38):

And he'll even admit it.

Speaker 2 (00:45:39):

So it's like, I'm not trying to talk shit on that or anything. His records went way for him. Always make it

Speaker 1 (00:45:44):

Time. He's talking, he'll admit it. It sounds like 2009,

Speaker 2 (00:45:48):

But the sound has moved on, but the sound has moved on in a way that has been influenced by the records that he made.

(00:45:56):

And that is fucking exactly what's happening to Phineas right now. The sound is moving on from what Billy did last year, but they're being influenced by Billy now and the record that he made, and it's just for me, being a dude who's got so much money wrapped up into outboard gear and this show, it's fucking, it's always been one of the things I know in my heart of hearts, none of this shit fucking matters. And people will come up to me. I literally have people stand in my room and say the most ridiculous fucking shit to me. I had an intern say, Hey, man, I could make records sound the way that you do if I had the same shit that you had. Bullshit. Literally said that shit to me. And I fucking literally looked down. I was like, I'll make a record sound better than you on your fucking laptop. Right fucking now. I was about to say,

Speaker 1 (00:46:44):

I was about to say, you could say the exact same thing. I can make records that sound like me on your rig.

Speaker 2 (00:46:49):

Yeah, dude. I said it to him, literally, I looked at him in his eye, I was like, I will make a record sound better than you on your laptop, right fucking now. And it's like, you couldn't even turn this shit on. So that's the fucking thing that it really doesn't fucking matter. But at the other side of it, and I don't know how we got on this topic, but this is a smart thing. Always in this debate, people are like, what matters? What doesn't matter? And we started this, the joke that we had fucking when we were going to start this podcast was that this was going to be a all and rick's list of gear that you need to buy to be taken seriously by other dudes on the internet that want to do your job. And that's really what it fucking is. But I'll tell you this right now, I can use an SI do remember that joke. That was an hour ago. Yeah. I can use an SSL better than a lot of fucking people who were probably listening to this. I can walk into any room and I feel comfortable using the fucking console. I don't care if it's a vintage Neve Vintage API don't care if it's a soundcraft

Speaker 1 (00:47:56):

Ghost. That's your world.

Speaker 2 (00:47:58):

Yeah. Well, it's not even my world. I'll walk in and I'll do the whole record with a fucking batch of converters and fucking pro tools. I don't give a shit. I want to be flexible. But what puts you in a position is you want to know a super interesting one, A dude who's involved in this shit. Daniel Escobar is a part of this community, right?

Speaker 1 (00:48:16):

He is.

Speaker 2 (00:48:16):

Yeah. Daniel is a perfect example because I watched Daniel. He was making rock records and fucking working on his own shit and stuff like that. And then he transitioned into being a dude who knows how to work in SSL room and works with high-end hip hop artists and shit like that for, and fucking

Speaker 1 (00:48:32):

Man, I love hearing when people from the community do cool shit.

Speaker 2 (00:48:36):

Oh, did you not know that?

Speaker 1 (00:48:37):

No.

Speaker 2 (00:48:37):

He's running the record plant doted Miami, bro. He's fucking working with Travis Scott. Tons of people, bro. The fuck? Yeah. Killing it.

Speaker 1 (00:48:43):

No, I didn't know that. I just know that he was an ambitious

Speaker 2 (00:48:48):

Dude,

Speaker 1 (00:48:49):

Part of the U community. I knew he moved to Florida. That's all I heard.

Speaker 2 (00:48:54):

And it's one of those things, like me and him, we've become a little bit better friends over the past year, but it's always just like I got levels to even my Facebook friends with how in depth you interact with these people, but I'm still watching and they're still watching, and it's like seeing that shit. It makes you fucking flexible. There's people that I see in some of these forms, I'm not shouting out URM for example, but in just forms in general who say, you don't need a fucking console. I saw a video. Why? There will never be a fucking console in my studio or some shit like that.

Speaker 1 (00:49:27):

I saw that,

Speaker 2 (00:49:28):

And it's like, you want to know why? Because you don't know how to fucking use it because you can't afford it. There's multitudes of reasons. And I'm at the point where I may be giving up my consoles, and it may not be one of those things where I'm giving them up because I don't want to make records on them anymore. It is just I'm at a time period where what is valuable to me may be changing and if I want,

Speaker 1 (00:49:55):

But there's a big difference between saying, I'm getting rid of a console. I don't want to use one anymore because my particular situation doesn't really need it anymore, versus I will never get one. When you haven't even used one, you don't know how it works. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You're just making a statement to get attention. An asshole.

Speaker 2 (00:50:15):

Exactly. Big

Speaker 1 (00:50:16):

Difference.

Speaker 2 (00:50:17):

100%. And it's not even for me. It's like I wouldn't be giving up analog consoles because they're not useful in my workflow anymore. I could always find a goddamn use for an analog console guy. Trust

Speaker 1 (00:50:29):

Me. You for reasons though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50:32):

I want,

Speaker 1 (00:50:32):

Would you mind sharing them?

Speaker 2 (00:50:33):

Yeah. I want to invest in starting a plugin company.

Speaker 1 (00:50:35):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:50:36):

Good

Speaker 1 (00:50:36):

Reason.

Speaker 2 (00:50:37):

And it's like that shit takes fucking capital. The goddamn fucking NDAs and fucking paperwork from the attorneys is way more than fucking record budgets. So it's like to be able to really push forward in a space like that, I've got to play with the assets that I have. I don't own a car. I haven't owned a car in 12 years. I have a goddamn API legacy,

(00:51:02):

But I got to look at the legacy and say, okay, I'll be fucking straight up. I got a great deal on the Legacy. That was an awesome fucking transaction. How it worked out was it was owned by a corporation in Texas. It was used to make Barney and the Walker Texas Ranger Television show. But because that was funded by PBS and they took government money, they can't actually sell those things because of the tech shit. So what we did was they wanted to move on to digital, and they had to get rid of the goddamn desk, and they knew that it was fucking valuable. So we linked up with a charity and they fucking donated the console to the charity, and then I donated fucking $35,000 in exchange for the goddamn console from the charity.

Speaker 1 (00:51:42):

Great deal.

Speaker 2 (00:51:43):

Yeah. I got a motherfucking legacy. And it's like I could look at it and say, okay, well, I can sell the fucking legacy and I could free up fucking 75 80 grand cash, or I could fucking sell the legacy, buy another SSL and put it in that room, and then probably pay 20 grand for the console in another 10 to 15 for installation and teching, and then free up like $50,000 cash. Or I could sell both the fucking desks, because let's be real, if you guys want to know the honest truth about Omaha, Nebraska, I've had an SSL console in the state of Nebraska for almost 10 years, and not a single person has ever booked it to mix a record on. So if that console was in New York or Los Angeles, there would be freelance engineers who book out that room because they want to come mix a record on the SSL that doesn't happen in Nebraska. It never fucking happened. And it's actually one of the reasons why I took the SSL out of the main room and put it in the goddamn backroom.

Speaker 1 (00:52:40):

Well, if it's been 10 years, I think that's a good,

Speaker 2 (00:52:43):

Well,

(00:52:44):

I did that roughly five years ago. I put it in my personal room because I was hoping that, okay, maybe SSL is not the vibe. Maybe they want something like an API, they don't. And people will come in, the studio gets utilized for a lot of outside tracking. People will track their drums there and shit like that, but I don't really think they give a shit. And for me, I don't really care for the legacy if we're being honest. It's got tons of headroom, which I absolutely love. It's very hard to clip that console, which is nice. The SSL much easily. So for these dudes who aren't what I would consider the most proficient engineers or dudes who just don't have a lot of time on consoles and stuff like that, the console isn't one of those things that ever is really going to get in their way in the workflow that I have. And it gives me the ability to have everything patched in and everything is numbered to the desk. So if it's coming in on 17, on the console, it's coming in on 17 and Pro Tools, and you push up the fucking fader and your signal's there, and then you have an

Speaker 1 (00:53:45):

Eq, a lot less confusion for someone who may not be as, I guess, what's the word, Virtuo with their signal flow.

Speaker 2 (00:53:57):

And our studio has a ton of shit. And also our console doesn't have any preamps in it. So it's not to the point where you could plug a microphone into the wall and it shows up on channel one. You've got to have everything routed through outboard preamps, which is tight because you get all those flavors, but a lot of people don't know anything about that shit or don't know how to use it. So for me, it's like I've got things that live in certain places and they're just there. My overheads are always in this ec preamp. You almost never have to fucking touch the thing. It just sits off in the corner, sounds great forever. And all an engineer has to worry about is pushing up those two faders that says motherfucking overheads. Keith, who is my chief engineer at Make Belief, don't get me wrong, he'll do whatever fuck he wants and he can change that shit.

(00:54:39):

But for the majority of people who are coming in there and want to fucking track a drum set, the overheads are out there. They're not going to change what those mics are and fucking, they'll just move them to where they want. And it's usually fucking fine. And I believe in certain situations, there's producers like Maurice Bailey, who's a super talented dude from Omaha. They trust that we got sounds going on already. There's EQs and inserts and shit, and it's like we do this shit. And you want to know a super funny example of that. We had a session come in where these dudes came in from Europe recently, and my buddy Dom, and that's Dominic Sanders from fucking Kansas City, by the way. He's an absolutely tremendous producer. If you guys want to learn about hip hop at all and try and find young dudes to watch out for, he's one of the fucking guys,

Speaker 1 (00:55:26):

Dominic Sanders,

Speaker 2 (00:55:27):

Check him out. And so he calls me up and he's like, Hey, we're looking for this drum sound. I'm like, okay. So before the session starts up, I've got nine drum sets at the studio. So I get the right drum set out and I get it tuned and treated right and get the right shit on it. And fucking the drummer is out there and he's playing and he's having a grand old time and we're fucking cutting live. This is piano, violin, upright bass, three saxophones and drums. It's a jazz record. So we're cutting this fucking record and there's this dude who is with one of the players, and he's like, this guy's fucking roadie. And he comes up to me, he's like, Hey man, the drums, they're kind of tuned like a rock record. And I was like, oh, well, I'm pretty happy with it, but if he wants to change it, he's more than welcome to change it.

(00:56:23):

And I don't know who this guy is at all, and he's being real obnoxious and I can't remember what he said, but he was like, I spent three years with Bernard Purdy, who if you don't know who Bernard Purdy is, he's a fucking super drummer. And I'm like, okay. And I don't want to say anything to this dude, but one thing that fucking I get off on in this world, you guys don't know me, probably dudes like Colin and dudes like Neil in the rock world are probably some of the bigger dudes who know that you want me to get a drum sound? I'll get you a fucking drum sound. Say the fucking record. I'll get the goddamn sound.

Speaker 1 (00:57:02):

Yeah, I know that about you. You're like an encyclopedia

Speaker 2 (00:57:05):

In the hip hop world. That's one of the things that I'm more well known for. And so to get the phone call and say, get this drum sound, I get that drum sound set up, and then this motherfucker is in here.

Speaker 1 (00:57:16):

So who was the dude? Was

Speaker 2 (00:57:17):

It, he's just, he's the dude willing to work for free for one of the musicians who came up.

Speaker 1 (00:57:22):

So what was he doing there?

Speaker 2 (00:57:23):

He was just supposed to be hanging out.

Speaker 1 (00:57:25):

Hey everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before. And if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC Shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:58:17):

And these are guys like TLA, Will Putney, Jenz Borin, Dan Lancaster, to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed.

(00:59:11):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. So just this dude hanging out is telling me that I'm getting Who asked you for the drum sound? The producer. The producer. Okay. And so you get this drum sound. Is the producer there by any chance?

Speaker 2 (00:59:45):

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:59:46):

Okay. And so then this guy who's not on the session just happens to be there. It starts throwing in his 2 cents

Speaker 2 (00:59:52):

And everybody's watching this. And so

Speaker 1 (00:59:56):

Wait, this is not good etiquette.

Speaker 2 (00:59:57):

No, not at all. But here it is. So good, bro. So he fucking starts,

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):

Fuck that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):

These are super treated drums. I've got half the kick drum full of newspaper, I've got fucking multiple pieces of tape and fucking rolled up fucking gaff tape and fucking gaff tape and paper towel in the shape of old Cotex because they would use panty liners on drums back in the sixties. So I try and make them in the same shape of them, and I've got these drums treated. He's pulling the shit off. He takes my fucking $3,000 cue snare drum, pulls all the treatment off of it, and then stands on the head and then asks if we have a drum dial to fucking tune it. And then he's fucking just changes absolutely

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):

Everything. He was trying to seed it

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):

Or something like the head needed to be reseeded or some shit. So he stands on the fucking head. I'm just watching all the shit just completely fucking pissed off and

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):

Fucking wait. I'm trying to just, but

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):

I'm letting it go down because you don't have the

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):

Word chutzpah. Yeah, you heard that word chutzpah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):

Oh, dude. Yeah.

(01:01:00):

Here's the thing is I'm watching it, and this is an older dude, this dude's in his fucking fifties and I'm watching this shit go down and I'm just like, okay, if that's what they fucking want out there, let him fucking do it. I'll try and fucking help him get a drum sound. So after we get drum set up, I fucking go and I go in the back room and doing my shit and fucking they leave and half the band fucking leaves and goes get dinner. And then it's like the drummer, the producer, me and a couple other people, and the drummer looks at me and he goes, yo, who's that fucking guy who went in there and changed the drum sound and shit? Did you do that? Because he's like, the drum sound was great beforehand. I was like, oh no. I was like, I thought that was on you guys.

(01:01:47):

I thought you wanted that shit. He's like, the drums were fucking rocking before when they were dead and they were fucking real pillowy. That's the perfect vibe for this shit. I was like, okay, sorry. So then I go back out there and I'm fucking retuning the goddamn drums retreating them and shit. And this motherfucker shows back up from dinner and he walks out and he's like, were the drums just too ringy or something? And I was like, don't even worry about it. I got it. And then he looks at me and he goes, don't you need a drum dial? And I was like, fucking dude, it takes me. So you're in my home in a session that we got brought in to do, they're coming here, they're not from this fucking country. They were in another state and they came here for what we're trying to do here.

(01:02:31):

And it's like, that shit is so goddamn awkward and weird for me. And it was great that the producer and the drummer for me was like, go back and fix the drum sound. But at that point it's like, I'm doing shit twice, which is fine. I'm going to go fix the drum sound. But then he shows back up and he asked me if I need a drum dial. And at that point it's just like, damn dude. How? Read a fucking room if you fucked with all these drums and you come back, someone's changing it again. Why would you say anything?

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):

So what happened? Did that guy get kicked out or what happened? They

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):

Put him in the vocal booth and made him play a fuller Tom. What? Yeah, just like go in there

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):

Like a fake job.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):

I wouldn't say it was entirely a fake job because there was another guy doing it too. And it actually ended up being a vibe for one of the songs in particular, but it was definitely like a place to fucking put the guy

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):

Yeah. Didn't fuck with everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. And that's smart on their behalf. That's smart Session management because it could have turned into something weird and fucking this. And I didn't make it weird. I said, Hey man, don't even worry about it. There's a drum in the fuck vocal booth. There's a key sitting on it. Go tune that up how you think it should be. So it's like we're not sitting here trying to fucking start fights with people over goddamn drums.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):

So you just redirect the energy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):

That's a good way to handle it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):

Yeah, I feel like,

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):

So what were we talking about? It doesn't matter. Let's just keep talking. What are we talking

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):

About now?

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):

So what we're talking about now is redirecting people's energy. Is that something that you've always known how to do or is that something that you've had to learn how to do because that's so crucial? Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):

Alcoholic parents will teach you about redirecting people's energy real fucking quick. Alright, so it's in the DNA. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I've never drank before in my life. I didn't want to be the people that were in my life at that time period. So it's like, yeah, I mean, you learned, everybody's got triggers, everybody's got buttons and fucking, sometimes you get off on pushing those fucking buttons and sometimes that's the vibe.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):

But yeah, even if you get off on pushing them, you know what those buttons do

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):

Well, and you got to figure out the vibe. Sometimes. Every, I'll say this, almost every band that I work with, there's a motherfucking fall guy. And if you don't know who the fall guy is in your band, it is fucking you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):

By fall guy, you mean the guy that gets blamed for everything that goes wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):

Well, not even blame sometimes he's the guy who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong sometimes. He's the guy that everybody says is a bad fucking vibe sometimes he's the butt of everybody's jokes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):

Just the scapegoat.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):

Yeah, absolutely. And you can get a lot of comradery with bands by playing into that shit, but you can't take that shit too far because then you alienate the person.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):

Well, you don't want 'em to kill themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):

Well, and you're never going to do anything like

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):

That. No, I'm just kidding joke. Suicide is not a joke.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):

People know where goes wrong is when people take that vibe and they start making fun of the people that they don't know they shouldn't be making fun of. And I've seen that shit happened too, and it's like none of that shit is cool in my opinion. Fucking try and respect all these people who are making records, even if they're bad sounding records to you, because there's some shit that I thought sounded fucking terrible that other people fucking absolutely loved and adored. So it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):

Something you said about that guy, which is really interesting to me was you said read a room. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately about I think that the skill is called emotional intelligence to where you're able to understand how people are feeling based on cues. They give you

(01:06:36):

Like things they say, but not just things they say, but how they say it. Like the tempo they're speaking at as compared to the tempo they were speaking at before the pitch they're speaking at compared to the pitch they're speaking at before their body language. Absolutely. Like all these different cues, you put that together. And the same way that someone who's very good at math, for instance, the best mathematicians can solve things in their head fast. They have super high IQs. Well, with a super high emotional intelligence, you can just look at a room and understand everybody's role. And it's really, they say that to be really, really good at business, for instance, to be really good at business and production. People who are typically have a very high, either they're psychopaths and they're fearless, and that's why they're successful. That's been documented. Or they have very high emotional iq, psychopaths don't have any emotional iq,

(01:07:32):

They're just fucking fearless machines. But this emotional IQ thing is very interesting to me because people have told me I have a very high one. And for me, I've always been able to sense where other people are at. So when I'm talking to people, I can already start to tell if we're going down a bad path, I need to change this right now, or that person is the alpha that person's uncomfortable. It all just comes to me quickly. But I wonder if it's been that way for you, or how would someone even develop that? Honestly, I didn't have to work for it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):

No. And it's one of those things I've had to develop that my whole life because my mom, mom was the sort of person where fucking, if a dude she was dating said the wrong thing to her, she could fucking smash a glass table or fucking cuddle with this full body fish pillow for three months. So it's like it was fucking, and I'll fucking never forget. You want to know how you could tell when my mom was going on the bad path, as you say, there was a tell. You want to know what it was? What

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):

Was it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):

Watch me now. As soon as you got

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):

So band. So she would warn you too. Oh

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):

Dude, as soon, that's

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):

Rare.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):

As soon as you got the first watch me. Now you are going to hear that fucking phrase a thousand times before you went to bed. I'll fucking take your guitar, throw it in the goddamn pool. Watch me. Now the thing I got to

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):

Say though, the thing about that is that's a front row seat, but the thing there is you're getting a warning in these. You're like, no, no, no, no,

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):

No. You're not getting a warning, bro. That is the first shot fired. Oh,

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):

That's the first shot Fired. Okay. So was there a tell before

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):

That? Well, yeah, there's

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):

Always like, you know that the watch me now is coming.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):

Yeah, there's always tells, but it's one of those things like Watch Me Now was interesting because there were certain things that she would do when she was pissed, fucking drunk, couldn't stand up sort of vibe. And then there were certain things she'd do when she was buzzed, and they are different levels of aggression or fucking anger. But a watch me now could come out of fucking nowhere. She could be motherfucking sober and you could get watch me now for the next fucking 12 hours, dude. So it was just one of those things where, yeah, I had to fucking, and you could be getting watch me now for some shit that some other fucking dude did. And yeah, it was, as you say, as far as emotional intelligence goes, I think it's a big part of this game. And to be honest, as far as the music goes, being able to be emotionally intelligent is the only way to know if you have a truly great vocal performance

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):

Because Oh yes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):

Don't get me wrong. Certain genres, I get it. Motherfucker music go out there, sound like Satan from second one to the end of the

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):

Goddamn side. Yeah, but even then you got to believe him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):

You got to believe him. But that's what it is. It's fucking Satan. But you listen, a perfect one is you want to know an emotionally intelligent vocal decision that we were actually talking about the other day, that when you look at it from one side point of view, it's fucking weird. But when you look at it from the other point of view, it's absolutely perfect to me born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen

(01:11:16):

Because if you actually listen to that song, that motherfucker is yelling the whole time from word one to the last goddamn word. And you can fucking hear when Bruce is saying in other goddamn songs and that song he's yelling. And when you look at it from the I'm a goddamn fucking patriot, this where it has ended up what people think it is, people are out there on their fucking dually with their goddamn confederate flag. Oh, born in the USA, but then the actual song is about a dude who goes and gives his life for a war that he doesn't fucking believe in. And he's yelling that he was born in the USA in a sarcastic fucking vibe. And when you listen to it in that I was born in the us, it's still absolutely fucking perfect. But when you listen to it from an emotional intelligence point of the view where you don't give a fuck about either of those things, and it's just a song, it's actually just a motherfucker from New Jersey yelling at you for three and a half minutes. And it doesn't make sense in that context, whether you believe in America, in the Super American ideology of being an American or whether you believe in the American ideology of that the Vietnam War was a goddamn bullshit sham, that emotional context, they're both things to be fucking hooting and hollering about.

(01:12:42):

When you fucking are listening to that at 11 o'clock in the morning on a goddamn fucking radio station and you're not super patriotic and the goddamn Vietnam war didn't happen in your fucking lifetime, it's fucking just a dude from Jersey yelling at you for three and a half minutes. And it's kind of like in a weird fucking context, you know what I mean? But it's interesting because who's to say that we should change anything about that shit? And that's where it always taste is so interesting. Like fucking Bob Clearmountain has talked about born in the USAA lot, and he always talks about fucking are there any rag ratts? And people always bring that up,

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):

Any regrets?

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):

And I don't think he regrets it, but he's like, yeah, I got pigeonholed. And people would be like, yeah, Ryan Adams, you shouldn't work with Bob Clearmountain. He's going to make you sound like born in the USA. And it's like, who's to say that that big ass Snad drum reverb wouldn't work on a Ryan Adams song, which probably fucking wouldn't. And he doesn't do that sort of shit when he does that shit, but fucking, it's like this sound that made that song and that big ass snare drum and him fucking yelling like that is that goddamn song. And if you were to take those away and have him sing that super, even the way he sings other songs, and then that's a normal drum, it wouldn't be what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):

Yeah, that emotional intelligence. So as the producer, knowing when the emotion in the performance is just right is so key. And look, dude, even with Satan, even with screamers, when I've been recording them all I'm thinking is, do I believe this? Do I believe what this dude is screaming at me? Absolutely not. Do I think the lyrics are childish or not? Anything like that? One great example to me is that band Korn, their lyrics are maybe sixth grade level ish, but the way he sings them emotionally, you believe everything in it. And it's no longer sixth grade level because of how powerful it is. It's a masterclass of emotion. You couldn't have more complex lyrics with those emotions. And so it's the perfect blend. But even with Screamers, dude, I need to believe what they're saying. And I feel like that's where the emotional intelligence comes in is do you know if this is an emotionally honest performance?

(01:15:23):

You just know it because if it's not, it's going to fall flat. But then that emotional intelligence also translates to how you interact with clients, how you interact one-on-one with the alpha in the band, how you interact one-on-one with the dude who's the quiet genius, how you interact with their manager and make sure the manager's getting what they need, how you interact with the label when you're dealing with what their needs are. They've got needs too when you're dealing with the whole band in the room together, when you're dealing with the dude who's not as good as the other

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):

People or when you're not dealing with them, you want to know who is an expert, A masterclass and this exactly. Fucking Rick Rubin, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):

Oh yes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):

So Rick Rubin and fucking, what

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):

Is he not a master

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):

Dude and Slipknot, bro, you hear that story?

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):

I have heard a few stories about him and

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):

Slipknot. Yeah. So everyone from fucking Slipknot was like, fuck working with Rick Corey went super ham about it

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):

Until the next record. Lemme just stop you for one second and then I'll let you continue. Yes, I know they went ham about Rick Rubin, they really talked some shit, but then on the next record, they said that it made them appreciate how much of a genius Rick Rubin was.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):

See, I didn't hear that until 10 years later when Corey was talking about the 10 year anniversary of the record.

(01:16:39):

And I saw that then, and he may have said it a year later, but I know he said it a decade later, and that's where I was going with the story. The thing that I found so super interesting about that whole deal was he's got the Dixie Chicks upstairs and he throws the goddamn band downstairs in the basement to make their fucking record. And he fucking completely doesn't go down there. And he has him working with an engineer and fucking everyone's like, fuck, this is the worst way to produce a record ever. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then fucking 10 years later, Corey comes out and he's like, it just makes me think of the genius that is Rick Rubin. And while he wasn't there, he did have notes and shit like that, and there were things that he changed that made the record better and stuff. And I'm just sitting there to my, and

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):

Is their highest selling record today

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):

Is there? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Highest selling record today. And I'm just sitting there thinking to myself, and I'm like, I want to be that motherfucker. I can grow a mean beard. I got the name I don't drive. We got a lot of things in common fucking, I sit there and think to myself, I'm like, if I wanted to make the biggest goddamn fucking heavy record in the world, I would start with a fucking angry ass band. And it's like he built that shit in. He built that shit into the situation. And then there's other dudes who fucking Jim Root talked about his experience with it, and he's like, Rick wasn't around a lot, but I was going through a divorce at the time, and he made sure that his assistant was always there for me and fucking anything that I needed, I could get fucking, they sent me to spiritual leaders and all this shit and stuff. And it's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):

Not par for the course with producers.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):

No, no. But it's one of those things that's so interesting to me that this dude, he is a very polarizing figure from records that have never come out and will never come out from fucking big ass artists and them bitching about it to fucking Matt Bellamy thanking him at the goddamn fucking Grammys for teaching him how not to produce a record.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):

Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):

Did you not see that?

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):

No, I didn't, but damn.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):

Yeah, fucking,

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):

First of all, I didn't know that Rick Rubin did a muse record.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):

Well, he didn't do a muse record. He was supposed to do a muse record. From what I understand. It may not have been the Grammys, but yeah, there was definitely something where Matt Bellamy thanked him for teaching Jesus. They ended up producing them that self, and that was that fucking madness. That shit was killer.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):

Even if they're getting a little older and maybe some of that flame that made them so crazy great is died down a little just because they're probably happier. They still can do No wrong

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):

Muse. Oh dude, incredible

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):

Band. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):

But Muse is an interesting one. I always loved looking at Muse as far as their choices for record producers. The interesting one is they work with John Luckey. Do you know who that is?

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):

I do not know who that is. So

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):

John Luckey is a super interesting guy to me. So John, his fucking first big credit as a fucking engineer and mixer was Piper at the gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd. But then he went and did Pablo Honey in the Bends for Radiohead in the nineties. He had a resurgence then, and then Muse hired him because of Pablo head in the Beds.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):

I see Pink Floyd and Radiohead. Of course, muse hired him.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):

Fuck yeah, dude. But it's like he lost that job. That job went to Alan Parsons. And Alan Parsons is famous for Pink Floyd, so not a lot of people think of fucking goddamn. I mean, people would probably even think of Bob Ezrin for doing the Wall before they would think of fucking John Ey for doing Piper Gaza, Dawn, but not Radiohead.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):

That's such an interesting choice. It just makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):

Yeah. But I mean, it's also one of those things where you listen to those two records and they're one thing, and then you fucking listen to the shit that Nigel Goodrich does with that band. And fucking, it's on another level. And don't get me wrong, I love Pablo Honey in the band, and there was a long time where I was like, fuck kid a fuck computer music. Fuck the shit. Fuck guitar pedals. And I just listened to that shit, and I loved it. Still

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):

Great,

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):

But they're very completely different vibes and you can hear it. And I can't remember which, was it Absolution or which Muse record he did, but you can hear it in that shit. It was one that sounded like a fucking Pablo Honey in the Benz.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):

I love those records.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):

I love when Muse also went nuts and started adding all the shit they added, but I also love their absolution and origins of symmetry and the stuff that's just noisy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):

Yeah, you want to know another great fucking John, lucky thing. This is for the URM kids who fucking want to know about the gears. So everybody's always like, how do I tell what fucking console this was done on? How do I tell this? How do I tell that I want to hear something that was done on an API

Speaker 3 (01:21:32):

Fucking,

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):

There's an old thread from John Luckey on gear that I've actually went back and read within the past three months, so I know it's still there, but he talks about Pablo Honey and the Bends, and he tells which consoles he did, which songs on, so you'll be like, this was all done on the Neve. This was all recorded, mixed, and tracked on SSL. This was done on the API fucking RAM or whatever. So he talks about all that shit, and it's super interesting because I'll be real with you guys, it doesn't fucking matter. All of it sounds like Pablo honey in the Ben. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):

It's interesting. Well, the thing that I think people who haven't used this gear need to understand is that when you're at that level, when you're at that, you're talking multi-platinum artists levels or nowadays maybe they don't go platinum by selling a million records, but the equivalent size artists, when you're dealing with the top of the top and it's also the top of the top producers, they're going for that 1% difference because everyone's already at 98% quality. So you're playing within a margin of how to optimize that final one to 2% to not just make it sound as good as possible, but to make it sound as right as possible. And sometimes maybe just that one or 2% difference makes all the difference.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):

But that's the thing. I think that if people aren't working at that level, have never worked with this gear, it's not going to make any bit of difference if they use an SSL or a Neve or an API console or whatever. They're not going to be able to really even hear the difference in most cases.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):

It's totally not the priority. But when you are trying to get that last 1%, the difference between a Neve and an API and an SSL could be the difference.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):

Well, and here's the thing too is sometimes it'll just make your shit worse one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):

Yes, very

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):

True. A lot of people think, I've seen dudes who are like, oh, I want to mix on an SSL, so I'm going to go rent an SSL room. Well, the first thing that you need to throw away unless you want to sit there with a multimeter and fucking test tones is your balance. Because as soon as you run through that shit, you got to push the goddamn faders up and rebalance that shit. So a lot of people are like, I want to just sound exactly the way that it sounds as far as the balance. I just want to fuck with the EQs. Not going to happen. That's not real fuckers. And you could buy consoles. I have a mod on my console, which is a resistor in the VCA fader, which will take it straight to unity gain for zero. And there's consoles like the fixed console from Paul Wolf audio and stuff like that, or the fixed console from fixed audio made by Paul Wolf that have fader to zero buttons in them now.

(01:24:19):

So you can do that, the API the box, the little guy has that shit in it now, but before, I mean you buy an old SSL, that's not fucking real. And if you have a computer, you can do fader knoll, but that's still not real. And then the next thing is, depending on the desk, some of these motherfuckers are heavy handed. So an E-Series, an actual E-Series that hasn't been fully modified or fucking maintained is a cloudy motherfucking console. You need to add a bunch of high end to get over what it does to the signal where it just kind of sounds like a cloud of midrange.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):

The dogs agree with you,

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):

Dude. Oh, I'm speaking the motherfucking truth

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):

Over here,

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):

What's

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):

Going on?

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):

And you can see how certain dudes have fallen into that is their workflow. You can't add that much high end in the goddamn box like that all willy-nilly because it goes all fucking ham. But on an E-Series, sometimes you do that to overcome what the motherfucking desk is doing where on a knee, for example, fucking, they're a robust sounding console to the point of sounding murky. So you've got to add high end and affect your low end because it's going to change your low end because the cumulative effect of things that happen, and where it's interesting is people are like, oh, but the Neve makes the drum sound fat. It's like, yeah, Neve makes the drum sound fat. It makes acoustic guitar sound muddy as fuck half the time. So it's so interesting to me. Certain things do certain things well and other things I rely on. Other things, could I get an acoustic guitar sound on a fucking Neve? Yes, absolutely. But I'm probably going to utilize the fucking high pass filter a little bit more gnarlier than I would on my SSL, and they both go out in different ways.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):

See, to me, this is the beauty of a hybrid setup where you are using multiple different types of preamps. So for instance, in my setup, I had eight channels of Neve Preamps and 12 channels of API preamps and some other stuff too. But that way I could use everything for what it was best at, and it didn't have to be stuck into just one thing that was great at some things, not so great at others.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):

Absolutely. And that's one of those things where the biggest problem that I have with telling people like, oh, we have absolute ability to go and try different shit, is that they don't learn. If you buy a different preamp every fucking time, then you don't learn what the other preamp does because what you typically will do is be like, okay, this sounds great here. Everybody buys one fucking preamp. And depending on your world, it goes to one of three places. In my opinion, it's either going to be used for your kick drum, your snare drum, or your lead vocal in the rock world. And that's what I've seen. They'll be like, oh, I got one Neve. I use it on my snare, and then I use it on my fucking vocal when I'm tracking, and then I track absolutely everything through it. And it's like, okay, that's cool. You get to learn that preamp super well, and I can appreciate that when you go out and you buy two of this and two of that and two of this and two of that, you don't fucking learn any of that shit. What you do is you get into a groove where you say, this works here and this works here, but you haven't swapped that shit. And it's super surprising. I

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):

Did.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):

Well, you should.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):

Yeah, I did just what was No, I agree. I think most people will think APIs are punchy needs are warm, so let's do everything we want punchy on API, everything we want warm on the knees and we're good. I never approached it that way. I always approached it as in what works best for this situation I'm in. And I did tons of experimenting because I found that yeah, sometimes API was punchy. Sometimes it's not punchy the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):

Sometimes they sound dull.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):

Yes, exactly. And sometimes it's just not right. The needs sometimes the focus rights gave what I needed point being that what you're talking about, I have seen other people do, and I strongly encourage them that if they do have a hybrid setup where they have two of this or two of that, or I did like eight of this, 12 of that, eight of this, and I had 36 channels. So definitely don't get stuck in one way of doing things. Try multiple things through multiple pathways, because that's the only way you're going to really, really learn your gear.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):

Absolutely. And people get fucked up about what other people say on the goddamn internet,

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):

Except for what we're saying. What we're saying is right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):

No, no, no. What we're saying is just an opinion.

(01:28:54):

I'm just fucking out. No, and I'm being real. So it's like none of this shit is true. Whatever's true is you're doing, you can go and buy a fuck ton of Neve preamps. And don't get me wrong, I like Neve preamps. I think that they sound particularly good on certain shit, but they're not needed. They're not the end all be all. But at the end of the day too, I'm definitely the guy when I'm sitting down and I'm talking to fucking Colin about trying to make a record, I'm the guy who says, we got it. Fucking use it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):

So what is the end all, be all a great record? I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):

That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):

I guess whatever it takes to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):

Yeah, it doesn't matter. That is it. I've seen, as you said, there's certain dudes who fucking say, oh, you can't fucking tell people to try and mix this shit that's been through Pod Farm and fucking distorted and down tune. You need to fucking tell 'em to retract the shit and you're ripping us off because you're giving us these wack ass files. And it's like, dude, you guys are fucking ridiculous. In my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):

Those are the files he had to mix.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):

Exactly. This

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):

Shit sounds fucking crushing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):

Let's hear your mix.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):

Yeah, exactly. Fucking, here's the thing is if you don't want to get the job done, other people will. And I've got to learn that shit too. And it's just, there's no right or wrong way when it comes to any of this shit, and you got to do what makes you the most comfortable. And I am learning that shit every day. I know that. It's a perfect example. I was talking to Mitch G, who's the absolute man, Kelly's husband, and he's like, we're talking about consoles, getting rid of consoles and shit. And he goes, I had a buddy who owned a Maserati

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):

And

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):

He was part of the Maserati car club of fucking Los Angeles, and he had lots of new Maserati friends and he was going to Maserati parties and stuff like that. And then something happened in his life and he had to sell the Maserati and he would never saw any of those Maserati friends again. And it's like, how many of you dudes are that about the consoles? How many of you dudes are that about the fucking studio? Because really, I don't need any of this shit. I agree. I am mixing records here in Florida in a room that I've never mixed in before on speakers. I've never fucking used with plugins I don't own,

Speaker 4 (01:31:25):

And

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):

We're fucking hyped. And I used to have weird things like I need the SSL, and then fucking after that I became the, I just need my Ns tens.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):

So you impose these basically shackles on yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):

Yeah. Like, oh, I'll do this, but I got to bring my Ns tens and they got to be my Ns tens with my weird little drivers in them, and I'll mix your record on fucking headphones.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):

How did you get past that? And I know you just said that you're still learning, and I get it because it's hard. We're so wired to be that way. I think it's in our human nature to find something that works and then want it to work. We just want it to work all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:32:08):

How I get past it is by looking at the great work of other people and being inspired and feeling bad about myself. That's the only way I really seem to get past anything, and I do it kicking and screaming. A perfect example is like I'm fucking deathly afraid of heights.

Speaker 1 (01:32:25):

Oh God, fuck heights.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):

I won't even get on the top of a motherfucking ladder. But for Alex's fucking bachelor party, they wanted to go to Bush Gardens. So that's what we did this past weekend. We went to Bush Gardens. I'm fucking deathly afraid of heights, and if you could picture it, it's a 6-year-old, her 7-year-old sister, their buddy Trivi and me on Cumba, and there's these two young girls and they're literally screaming at the top of their lungs. This is so much fun. I'm having a great time, and I'm in this corner seat holding the goddamn thing so tight with my eyes closed saying People don't die on this over and over. Well,

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):

There's always a first.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):

Yeah. How did I get comfortable mixing on headphones? How did I get the balls to do that? You want to know how it was when fucking Josh Goodwin came back and told me that we were at Henson for a while and downstairs we had a room and fucking Justin Bieber came in and Josh was across the hallway and Justin Bieber came in and he tracks and vocals and fucking Josh was like, you going to be around this weekend? I'm like, yeah, I'll be down there. He is like, okay, I'll see you this weekend. And then I didn't see him at all. And then he comes back and I'm like, where were you? And he's like, oh, we flew to Morocco or some shit. I can't remember where he flew.

Speaker 3 (01:33:43):

He's

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):

Like, I mixed this song on a goddamn fucking plane or at the airport on headphones. That was Desto

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):

Damn son.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):

So it's like, who the fuck am I? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He'll do it. He'll do it on his fucking headphones. Fuck you, and he'll do it better than you. He'll do it better than me to this goddamn day and I've got to know that shit. And I want to be the best. I want to be better. So that shit inspires me. You want to talk about the 1%? The 1% is not a console. The 1% is not a fucking plugin. The 1% is not a technique to the motherfucking industry, to the people who are decision makers. The 1% are dudes like fucking servant dudes like Chris Lord, lg. Dudes like Fucking Neil. You want to know? A perfect example of this is I was reading an article the other day and it was talking about Jack Douglas getting back together to work with Aerosmith. Have you read this article?

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):

I have not. Okay, interesting

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):

Though. I can't remember if it was sound on sound. So I don't know if you know anything about Jack Douglas, do you?

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):

I know some about him.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):

Yeah. So he produced Toys in the Attic and their greatest shit was in charge of all of that shit and fucking mixed those records and killed it way back in the day. And fucking he straight up said in this article, we wanted to have Warren mix the record and I would be there with him, but the labels need to get a big name mixing engineer on it. So Neil Aron mixed it, and it's like they wouldn't let Jack Douglas mix the goddamn fucking and not Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, mixed Aerosmith. And he mixed dream on, you want to talk about politics, you want to talk about the 1%

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):

That is totally politics.

Speaker 2 (01:35:24):

You want to talk about whatever this shit is, whatever this game is, you got to realize, and I know this shit, I'm in Nebraska and I'm spending more time in Los Angeles and I'm trying to get my ass out there and I'm fucking trying to do whatever I can to afford to be out there because where I'm at is I'm at the point where people are starting to learn my name in different fucking situations. They know that I can mix your record. They know that I can master your record. They know that I can get you a fucking drum tone. People rely on me for different things in the industry. But at the end of the day, what you got to realize is these people who live in certain situations, their kids go to the same schools, they play golf together. Oh yeah. These relationships go deeper than what happens in a recording studio.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):

Let me tell you something, man. And it's not the same level as kids going to the same school and stuff, but one of the reasons that URM has been able to move as quickly and gotten this big is because of relationships that I've had for 15 years. A lot of these approvals that we've gotten on bands that nobody else would've been able to get approved is because we're talking about people that I know from 2005 and earlier who I've been friends with that I used to work with who were at my old record label or who managed bands that my band tour with and that I've kept cool with. And even when things didn't work out with a particular label or something, I still stayed cool with all those people. Now, the people who worked on the staff when my band was signed have gone on to do other things. They manage some of the biggest bands in the world that we've gotten yeses from. How do you think we got the yes is because I have known this guy for 15 years and when we did work together, even if it didn't end, it didn't end in my band going platinum. His experience of working with me was a great one,

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):

And

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):

My experience with him was a great one. And so we kept in touch, and that's why it's working is I have so many relationships that go back and I guarantee you that if someone had started URM that didn't have those relationships, they would've had a really hard time.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):

I mean, I've had a hard time. It's like a lot of work, but without those relationships, who the fuck even knows? So when you're talking about one percenters and stuff, take that times about a thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):

Yeah. And here's the thing is I want to be honest with you about it though. And I want to be honest with the game. The people who are listening to this, there's one thing that will beat those relationships and that is sheer fucking talent.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):

If you are the best, if you are, I've got goosebumps talking about this, but if you are se level good, if you are Daniel Lancaster level good, they don't give a fuck where you are. It's true. They don't give a fuck what you're using. They don't give a fuck who they don't care if you come to their Christmas party. They don't give a shit and they will pay you for being the fucking best. I think that understanding that that is the only thing that will ever beat those personal relationships, that's one of my driving forces. Agree, because I'm, I'm in fucking Nebraska,

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):

Dude. That is some wisdom that I wish people understood. I wish. I really hope to God that people listening really take that to heart because those relationships, first of all, now in the case of URM, I do think that there's a reputation and we're building a legacy. So it's a lot easier to do this. However, in the case of what you're talking about with producers, I know a lot of people who think, I don't stand a chance in the world because I don't have these relationships. We already established the gear doesn't matter, but I don't have these relationships. I don't know these people. And you're saying what really, really matters At the end of the day, the one thing you can do to circumvent all of that is be fucking incredible. And that will bypass everything. It really will. I know these people, I know people in the industry.

(01:40:03):

Some of my best friends work for the biggest major labels and are like power players at those major labels. So I know how they think. And yeah, they go with their friends a lot. They go with their friends a lot. Not just because they play golf together, but because their friends have gotten jobs done for them over and over and over. Their friends are reliable. Those 1% of mixers that they go to, it's not just the social thing, it's also the reliability thing. They know that when they pay this guy, they know what they're going to get

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):

Back. You're getting a certain service

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):

From those dudes. They know what they're getting.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):

And some of 'em may not be the most timely dudes. Some of them may take longer than other dudes. Some dudes may have fucking crazy schedules. And if you want to bypass that, you're going to pay for more fucking money. But I'll be

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):

Real. But you know what, you're getting back.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):

You know what you're getting back. And I'll be real with you. It doesn't matter what fucking level you're at. You could be best friends and you could be real fucking good, but if you're not that fucking good, there's always that option. And if they get the next deal and the more money, they may not even be in charge of fucking making that goddamn call. It's one of those things like relationships are absolutely important. The gear probably one of the least important parts of the fucking thing.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):

But your skills,

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):

Your skills, God damn dude. The one thing I'll say about the gear as far as the need for it, I want to talk about gear because alright,

Speaker 3 (01:41:35):

Let's talk about gear.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):

We were bullshitting about, this is fucking the podcast to talk about gear. So one gear, if you don't have it and you're trying to get recognized and you think you're fucking good gear will help you get recognized.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):

As in people, if you have a really nice room and great pictures of it, people will be like, oh, he's legit.

Speaker 2 (01:41:59):

Yes, exactly. And it doesn't need to be an SSL or some crazy console. If you got to rig even Andrews where you got a couple pieces of outward gear and you're making good shit, people will be like, okay, this motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):

You mean on the local level

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):

In general?

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):

In general. Well, people see that you're serious.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):

And then you take yourself seriously enough for them to take you seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:42:22):

But here's the other thing, and this is the big thing that I want to stress about that a lot of people I don't think realize is that these young engineers who don't believe in gear and shit like that, I believe you're doing yourself an incredible disservice by not getting into gear. And the reason why I believe that isn't because it's going to make you better records or you're going to be the goddamn man because you own a rack of 10 70 threes. Why I believe that you're doing yourself a disservice is because there's an aspect to audio equipment that's been throughout the times that everybody has relied on. And what you got to realize is it's a financial one. We do not have retirement plans. This is not an industry with a 401k.

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):

That's very true.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):

If you are smart with your purchases and you do good work and you increase your collection and you buy well, you can retire and have a little bit of money set aside in the equipment that you own.

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):

Let me just say that. Not on a retirement level, but now I have something set up which is I'm going to hopefully retire off of. But when I was producing, I didn't have a retirement plan. And when I quit producing to start URM, well, we didn't make money in those first nine months, man. So I went from making 150 grand a year producing to literally zero overnight. And it is not, the bills went to zero. No, you sold gear. I sold gear and I had purchased wisely. Where do you think those 12 channels of API and eight channels of Neve and my four stressors and all these nice ass microphones and all this shit, where do you think that went?

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):

Dude,

Speaker 1 (01:44:12):

That kept me alive.

Speaker 2 (01:44:14):

And it's one of those things where it's like these things, they're your friends, you get to know them, you got to take care of 'em, they take care of you. And it may be one of those things where they say something like, more than 50% of America right now can't afford a $400 expense.

Speaker 1 (01:44:34):

I believe that

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):

I can afford a $400 expense.

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):

Same here.

Speaker 2 (01:44:38):

Because if I really fucking had to, there is someone who would buy a 10 73 for $400. Right? Fucking now no questions asked. I could send a fucking group text to 15 people. They all know they got it with my PayPal. Someone's going to hit it first. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):

So it's like, would I ever do that? No. I have other things that are closer to $400 in value that would be less of a goddamn loss.

Speaker 1 (01:45:00):

But in a total, if you were in a total end of the world bind.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):

Exactly. And it's one of those things where people don't look at that shit. And when you buy one stressor and fucking one preamp to rock as your only fucking gear for the rest of your goddamn life, I hope you're fucking saving money like a motherfucking madman. You're not investing it into the things that I'm investing into. And I look at my portfolio pretty fucking seriously. My portfolio makes money and how I look at it is the only thing that I lose fucking money on are things that start with a Apple and Evid.

Speaker 1 (01:45:42):

Seriously thought you were about to say ass.

Speaker 2 (01:45:44):

No, no, no. Apple and Avid, bro. Everything else besides that, I try and invest to the point where I make at least 200%. 100% is what I would consider. Okay. Money when it comes to buying fucking gear. And what I mean by that is my last gear purchase, and I keep track of all of these fucking things. My last gear purchase was a Moog concert made MG one realistic synthesizer. You could sell it for roughly 700 bucks on fucking reverb. I bought that thing for 200.

Speaker 3 (01:46:13):

Really?

Speaker 2 (01:46:13):

So it's like I made more than $200 buying it. So people don't look at it that way. They say, I don't need that. I got fucking massive. Fuck you. It's just like, I'm going to go make this money. You leave this money on fucking Craiglist for me, bro. Fine.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):

And the chances of it devaluing are pretty low.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):

Pretty fucking low

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):

Because, so there's certain types of gear that no matter how many plugins come out, and no matter what happens, certain producers are always going to want to use.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):

Yeah, and I can you, I can spit the fucking game at your people here if you want.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):

That's what we're here for.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):

Look at the digital revolution of the film industry. There's only one piece of equipment that's still less, and they had consoles that were for fucking coloring that had EQs analog ones and digital

Speaker 1 (01:47:06):

Ones. If you're wondering what that noise is, he's rolling a joint.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):

Hell yeah. Just like fucking we did. They had all these analog consoles and shit, all these big digital consoles. Now all that shit's done in the box, what's the one piece of equipment that still exists in their world from the Analog Gates

Speaker 1 (01:47:23):

Film camera, right?

Speaker 2 (01:47:24):

Well, the cameras get used a little bit, but no, there's one that's more prevalent than that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):

Okay. You tell me.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):

Lenses.

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):

Oh, okay. Yeah, obviously,

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):

Because people will buy fucking mounts for F-stop lenses from their old Canon cameras and put 'em on their new fucking Canon cameras or on their reds or all that shit. Don't get me wrong, they're one motherfucking Quintin Tarantino out there shooting on 72. In my opinion, that's like recording on two inch

Speaker 3 (01:47:46):

Today.

Speaker 2 (01:47:47):

But people are using those fucking lenses to take your band photos. People are using those goddamn lenses to fucking take Etsy photos. Those are still a goddamn thing. You want to know what those are? They're motherfucking microphones.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:47:57):

They're microphones. So when it comes to our shit, you want to know what's going to continue to pass the test of time as far as moving forward past this digital age where maybe consoles don't even matter microphones. So you want the most solid fucking investment. No, in microphone, they are not going down. I can promise you fucking,

Speaker 1 (01:48:19):

No matter how many ations come out.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):

No, no. And it's one of those things like the U 47 is a goddamn ticking time bomb in and of itself. We can go on a whole goddamn podcast just about the U 47, but if you fucking don't know about that, some of them have PVCM seven capsules and PVC warps. So some days they're good and some days they're fucking bad. And then the other thing is the VF 14 tube. The VF 14 tube, they chose one out of every a hundred tubes that were produced were nice enough to get the M, which meant that they were to be put in microphones. The rest of them were not nice enough now or were not nice enough then to be put in microphones. People are spending $3,600 on those not nice enough tubes now. So it's like, nah, you get a good U 47 and don't fucking use it.

(01:49:08):

You take care of that fucking tube. You have a solid fucking investment. And that's why in Japan, they don't talk about it here, but in Japan, they'll take like fucking quarter million dollars, half a million dollars worth of guitars, they'll put it into a fund, and then they'll fucking bet on the futures of that fund and people will invest into it and shit. And it's not owning about, I have a Stratocaster and you have a Stratocaster. We all get Strato cast this guy. No, there's a fucking vault where these things sit and collect money because that's what they do every year. They're worth more fucking money, and as long as no one fucks with them,

Speaker 3 (01:49:44):

They

Speaker 2 (01:49:44):

Send a Luther in there once a year to make sure that they're maintained not getting fucked with. They're able to accrue value

Speaker 1 (01:49:50):

On it. It's a very fascinating conversation. I've always thought about this in a very just practical sort of way, like buy gear that retains its value or goes up so you're never losing money. I learned it the hard way through buying a bunch of stupid bullshit when I first started, but I've never thought about it to this level that you're talking about it at.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):

And I think about it to this level to even another level. You want to know how far I think about it is that if I have to buy new gear, if I have to, who I use to support my money, I even think about it. And people want to

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):

Say, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):

I'm about to get into it. A lot of people want to say, fuck Guitar Center. Fuck Sweetwater. Fuck these big box fucking dickheads. Yo, that's your motherfucking retirement plan. Seriously, if you're good and you can make a little bit of name for yourself, but you can't make a goddamn name for yourself doing this, go to Fort Wayne. They'll take you. They'll let you sell all goddamn day. I know tons of people up there who have gone from this industry making fucking records to working for Sweet Walker or working for GC Pro

Speaker 1 (01:50:56):

Who have great, great livings.

Speaker 2 (01:50:59):

Yeah. And they have health insurance.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):

Did you just see that they cleared almost a billion dollars this past year?

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):

Yeah, dude,

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):

That made me so happy.

Speaker 2 (01:51:07):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:51:09):

Steven Slate posted this and a lot of people were ruining the industry. And I'm like, are you an idiot? Aren't you fucking over the moon that many people are buying music gear? Come on. Did you know that it's still over a billion dollar industry?

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):

I mean, it's a billion dollars at one fucking company. That's

Speaker 1 (01:51:31):

Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):

And musician's Friend is easy. Sounds still exist, so they're making money too.

Speaker 1 (01:51:36):

Beautiful. It makes me so happy,

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):

And it's like, that shit is real. I want to support those dudes because they go out and they support dudes that I don't even fucking know. But those dudes had the exact same struggle we did at one point, and maybe they, they went straight to Sweetwater and there's some dudes that are getting fucking supported for not having the struggle. But I know that there are dudes like Lynn Houston who fucking works up there, and he put in his time in Nashville. He was fucking tremendous. And it's nice to be able to see that that guy has a position like that where he can go and be a resource and fucking be needed,

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):

Use his expertise, and actually get treated like a respectable member of the real world

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):

And

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):

Get those real world benefits.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):

Absolutely. Dude,

Speaker 1 (01:52:24):

There's no reason to if things aren't going to work out, not everybody wants them to, by the way. Not everyone wants to be at that 1%, but especially if that's not necessarily exactly what you want. Working for a company like Sweetwater is a great backup plan.

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):

Absolutely. If I didn't want to go after being fucking Rick Carson, I would work at Sweetwater

Speaker 1 (01:52:48):

Because

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):

In my opinion, I've always thought we're get a job that benefits you. So if you need

Speaker 1 (01:52:54):

And it's your expertise,

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):

Well yeah, but even if you need a bullshit job, work at the grocery store so you can try and get a discount on groceries or some shit like that. Work at your fucking apartments goddamn leasing agency so you can try and fucking get a discount on your rent. If you need to do some bullshit job to make it through this game, do one that benefits what you're trying to accomplish. And a lot of people, they try and do ones that are beneficial to what they think is cool in they're scene, and it's like, what at Nebraska is that fucking, oh, I'm in the music community. I want to fucking be in the music community. So I look real cool. I work at one of these t-shirt printing companies and there's like three or four t-shirt printing companies in Omaha who print,

Speaker 1 (01:53:35):

Dude, the dogs agree with us,

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):

Who print a ton of shit and they're trying to look fucking cool, or I work at my skate shop. These jobs that don't fucking benefit you at all unless you need a fuck ton of t-shirts or skateboards. I would work at my fucking leasing company. I would try and be the janitor for my apartment complex, picking a cigarette butts. I spend no fucking gas money walking downstairs. I fucking it.

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):

If you work, say you work at Sweetwater and once a month you use that discount to buy an A-list piece of gear, and you just do that once a month for the five years you work there at the end. Oh boy. You're going to have, you could turn around and sell that and put it into the stock market. You could just keep it for the next 15 years, whatever. But you could do that and have a serious

Speaker 2 (01:54:26):

Retirement. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):

In addition to whatever retirement plan they're giving you.

Speaker 2 (01:54:30):

Absolutely. And it's one of those things where you got to look at it. If you do that shit smartly, Sweetwater has access to tons of limited edition shit that does well, so they got limited edition APIs that are gold, and they got fucking rhodium, U 80 sevens and shit like that. And it's like shit that you may actually not need to spend that extra money to have those things, but you're in a position where if you're trying to invest into this new gear and new gear is interesting because it's harder to make a mint off new gear because you kind of got to wait for it to get fucking valuable, but you're also never paid a premium for it. So if you're fucking getting it from them on the low because of your fucking discount.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:09):

Gear

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):

Is real.

Speaker 2 (01:55:10):

And as far as

Speaker 1 (01:55:11):

Making, dude, by the way, this perspective, no one's ever come on and talked about it, but it's so true. Oh, absolutely. I know some rock stars who were really famous at one point. For instance, the singer from Collective Soul lives in my parents' neighborhood. Kids now may not know who Collective Soul is, but they had 20 number one hits, 20. Okay. So back when record sales mattered, they had 20 of them. So dude's done well, and if you go in his basement, there's a hundred guitars, there's 25 drum sets. It's like a little warehouse. It's a beautiful basement, but it is just so much gear, and I'm sure the dude has money in the stock market and other properties, but that right there, that is guaranteed part of his retirement plan.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):

I'll be real. The stock market does worse than gear.

(01:56:10):

In my personal professional opinion. Gear does tremendously well, and a perfect example of this is I got a producer who's like a brother to me. He's a great dude, and he came to me, and this is one of the things that I do. He's like, what should I buy? What's the thing? I said, yo buy brass capsule C four fourteens, and this is when we could get 'em, this was in 2017, so when we could get 'em for under $2,000 a piece, but five of them, they're $3,400 a piece. Now tell me what stock market would give you that return.

Speaker 4 (01:56:44):

Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:56:45):

And I think about that shit all the time, and I could give you the fucking play right now. I could tell you what I'm fucking watching for. I could tell you the things that we have in our fucking plan for when the recession hits to pick up from people, but that's my play.

Speaker 1 (01:57:01):

I want to hear about it when we're not recording. I'd love to hear all about that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):

Yeah. I'll say this right now, it's fucking things that start with the Letter N, but you've also got to realize that even when you get into fucking Neuman and Neves, they're smarter plays than other plays.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:57:19):

Because people would say the place 10 70 threes, the place's 10 70 threes. Well, at 10 73, you're going to be paying God near fucking 10 grand for 10 73. Now you're paying serious fucking money for it, but a 10 66, there's other models that are close enough that are retaining weight and retaining value,

Speaker 4 (01:57:39):

And

Speaker 2 (01:57:39):

It's one of those things where when 10 70 threes hit a certain value, these things are going to fucking get to the point where they're going to be the things that go up next. But what's crazy about it is, even though you pay less for it, they still accrue value in the way that 10 70 threes are. So while you don't have 10 grand into it and you're not going to get 10 grand out of it, you still made the same amount of money that you would out of 10 73 growing up. Yeah, totally. The only thing that you really have as a beneficiary is that a fucking 10 73 has two things. One, there's always someone willing to buy it. I know dudes who,

Speaker 1 (01:58:10):

And there is value in that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):

Yep. Oh, absolutely. I know dudes who won't buy 10 60 sixes, but they'll buy your fucking 10 70 threes. Right? Guy in out and they run rental companies and shit like that have gnarly collections, but that's because people aren't trying to rent 10 60 sixes. They're trying to rent 10 70 threes and C eight hundreds, but there's plays. There's plays all along the way, and it's weird. You're

Speaker 1 (01:58:37):

Making me want to buy gear again, dude, seriously, that gear got me that year through the first year of making zero,

Speaker 2 (01:58:44):

Dude,

Speaker 1 (01:58:45):

Not zero, because I remember one month I made 1300, but by month six I was making $1,300 a month from URM. It was scary times. Yeah. That gear got me through.

Speaker 2 (01:58:56):

No, it is one of those things too where, and it's also leverage. You can leverage these things as assets in particular ways, and it may not even be one of those things where fucking, oh, I need to take this to the bank and make my statement like, no one's ever going to leverage their gear that fucking way, but say, you need fucking $500. Call your fucking friend and invite him in and fucking ask for the $500 when you're sitting in front of a bunch of shitty noses he can sell. It's a fucking different situation. Yeah, totally. It's like, thankfully, I haven't had to do that in fucking decades at this point, but I will be honest, I did that to start Make Belief, and I've got a Rolex that was left to me when my dad passed away, and I fucking gave him that Rolex for $500 in collateral while I was sitting in front of my old sound workshop console, and fucking literally used that to pay the down payment for the first deposit for the studio that I wanted to move into, and I was just 500 bucks short and fucking, I didn't want to lose the opportunity and have it go to someone else

(02:00:01):

And fucking, I gave him the 500 bucks back and got my dad's watch. Man,

Speaker 1 (02:00:05):

I hope you guys are taking some close

Speaker 2 (02:00:06):

Notes four days later, because you don't let that shit go. You don't fucking sleep on those things.

Speaker 1 (02:00:11):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:00:13):

Gears

Speaker 1 (02:00:13):

Real, dude. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Speaker 2 (02:00:17):

Yeah, of

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):

Course. It's been awesome having you on again.

Speaker 2 (02:00:20):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:00:20):

We should definitely do it again. I'm sure we could go another few hours.

Speaker 2 (02:00:23):

Yeah. I feel like the conversation is not over, but you got to get going. It's

Speaker 1 (02:00:26):

Not, yeah, we have a q and a that starts at a certain time.

Speaker 2 (02:00:30):

Okay,

Speaker 1 (02:00:30):

So unfortunately I got to end this, but thank you. Of course. Thank you very much. Yeah, we shook hands. We did shake hands for everyone. For everyone listening. Bye. Not watching. See you guys later. Okay. Then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at Eyal Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.