XIAOAN LI: Surviving the Music Industry, Networking Without Anxiety, and Composing for Games

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.

(00:00:55):

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 post and a tag. Now let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Xiao'an is a composer who has worked on games for matric ips such as The Monsters, Futurama, and King Kong, as well as for companies such as King and NB, CUNI Universal. His full service game audio team, lean Ortega has worked on games such as Call of Duty, Skyrim, borderlands, dc, universal Online Free Fire, and for companies including Ubisoft, Sega Garina, Tencent, Dreamworks, and many, many more. This guy is awesome and he's super insightful. I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Here goes so Xiao'an, welcome to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:03):

Glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:02:04):

I have always thought that composing professionally is one of the hardest jobs in music, besides the fact that just writing music in and of itself is tough. I think that nowadays a composer needs to be able to realistically and credibly and believably operate in any genre known to man. Would you agree to that?

Speaker 2 (00:02:28):

I would say that there is a combination there, people like me, of course, that you might have noticed that just basically does everything that comes across my desk. And then there are some that are known for a very specific style, and both roots are okay, and both roots have their own challenges. But I would say that you have to be at least extremely good at one or very good at a lot.

Speaker 1 (00:02:49):

Okay, that makes sense. What inspired you to go in the very good at a lot direction?

Speaker 2 (00:02:54):

So I'm going to make a very quick sort of history. Right before college, I aspired to be a session guitarist and I played for the Singapore Armed Forces in a band. I had my own band for a few years, and then I went to Berkeley College of Music where for some reason I decided to study jazz composition. I think it's because it was a thing I seemed most naturally suited for within the writing category. After doing that for a while, I realized, well, I'm becoming a good writer, but I am going to die of starvation at some point, so maybe I should learn some relevant skills. So I started picking up music production. And by the way, I mean this doesn't mean jazz composition isn't relevant, it's just that I'll get to that.

Speaker 1 (00:03:36):

It's a small market.

Speaker 2 (00:03:36):

You need to combine a bunch of different skills. And in fact, it was the jazz part of my degree that allows me to do some of the stuff that I do today really quickly. And then after graduating, I realized that it was very difficult to find a living as a composer even though I had those production skills. So I started an orchestra, which is the first thing you think of when you're having trouble. You start an orchestra, right?

Speaker 1 (00:04:00):

It makes sense,

Speaker 2 (00:04:01):

Logical. I ran that for five years, and what that taught me was that one of my personal skill sets is being able to take a lot of disparate things and put them together in an effective way. I realized that while I was a specialist, I was also able to be a generalized specialist. And I think depending on the kind of musician you are, that looks very different. I mean, some people are just really good at being those specialists, and if you ask them to generalize, I mean, you're taking a fish out of water. So this release sort of depends on your brain and the kind of brain that you have. So I realized then that for me to get the work that I wanted and in order to keep interested and also to be realistic, because if you want to be a specialist, you have to be so goddamn good at one

Speaker 1 (00:04:52):

Thing. You have to be a freak, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:04:54):

You have to be a freak. And even then, I've seen so many freaks that just don't really make it even,

Speaker 1 (00:05:04):

I'd say they're the exception, like a freak making it. The thing is you hear about the freaks a lot because it's such a Han Zimmer or something like that, even though he can do a lot of things, you hear about these freaks and it's like, wow, that's what composition is. I want to do that. But in reality, people like that are the total minority.

Speaker 2 (00:05:26):

Absolutely. And what mean the less you get paid to write, the more likely it is you'll get to write the thing that you've always wanted to write your whole life because no one cares because you're not getting paid every time when the amount you charge for your work increases and you work as a pro. For companies that need music that's specific, that has a commercial purpose, you have to be able to play ball. And so having a really wide range of genres under your belt is completely important to even begin doing that.

Speaker 1 (00:05:56):

How would you suggest that if you really think that you're the freak type that you go about making it work?

Speaker 2 (00:06:03):

Well, if you are the freak type, you don't have to be really good at a lot of things, but you do need to at least have a few things. And the thing is, no matter how much of a freak you are, and I feel like I should stop using that word,

Speaker 1 (00:06:18):

How about outlier?

Speaker 2 (00:06:19):

Yes. Let's say if you're one of those outliers and you are extremely good at one thing, you probably have the mental capacity and academic capacity to pick up a couple of different things. And it doesn't necessarily mean, let's say you are a really good prog rock guitarists. You could probably pick up a few things in Middle Eastern music, understand some of their tuning systems and things like that, and all of a sudden you are really good rock guitarists with an understanding of some Middle Eastern styles, and that sort of helps you to become even more special. So being a generalized specialist actually in some ways makes you even more specialized if you broaden the idea of what your specialty is. So it is not like rock guitar and Middle Eastern music. It's both of those things. And the number of people that know both of those things is much less than people who know either one of those things. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (00:07:18):

Yes. And then you add production skills into that and then programming skills into that. And there's even less people who know that all those things,

Speaker 2 (00:07:27):

A lot of very successful artists that we know of as either producers, whatever the hell that means, honestly, or yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:07:36):

It's an amorphous title at this point.

Speaker 2 (00:07:38):

Yeah, I mean it just, they do the things that are good is what it means. But if you think about Michael Jackson, you think about Quincy Jones, think about these people. They were renaissance men,

(00:07:51):

And I'm sure the ones that are really out there being able to find a niche, even when times are hard, are the Renaissance men and women. Because if you're not able to find one particular kind of clientele, you can fall on your other set of skills and then gets you through. And what's really important about that is that it helps you survive. And I think music is, at least for me, has been primarily a survival game. The longer you survive, the less competition you'll have because they die. And it's kind of like when they die, I mean, they die, their soul dies, they get a job in banking,

Speaker 1 (00:08:29):

They drop out.

Speaker 2 (00:08:30):

Yeah, they drop out. And it's a game of attrition. So if you are able to survive, no matter how undignified you think the work might be, the longer you'll be around to take a great opportunity that comes up.

Speaker 1 (00:08:42):

That also allows for time to build the proper relationships, which is key. You can't just get the great gigs without the great relationships and the great relationships always time. I can think that most great things that have ever happened in my career have been with relationships that were years and years and years old, five years, 10 years, never something, or almost never something that just came together in a month of knowing somebody.

Speaker 2 (00:09:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:09:16):

Generally.

Speaker 2 (00:09:17):

Generally, no. And sometimes the ones that come together within a month of knowing somebody are the ones you want to stay the hell away from because yes,

(00:09:24):

You don't know anything about that person. You don't know about their network. The more closely intertwined you are with them, the more of a chance it is. That sort of mini society gets you the, that's when you don't really need a contract. Sometimes you don't. And that happens when you know the person really well. Of course. I mean, I would advise working with a contract when you can, but in certain societies around the world, sometimes you just, and especially I guess within the field of music where not everyone is literate in legal matters, if you have a system of trust, a handshake agreement goes a long way. Also,

Speaker 1 (00:10:02):

I don't want to tell people not to use contracts, but I believe that you're totally right. There's been quite a few big deals I've made with people where the contract ended up being signed after everything was done. Just as a formality.

Speaker 3 (00:10:15):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:10:16):

Yeah. Because nobody would've entered into the deal if we didn't trust each other.

Speaker 2 (00:10:21):

And the contract is only as good as your ability to enforce it. I had a really good contract. I mean, it said all the right things with someone who stiffed me of $3,000 when I couldn't afford it. So I mean, that was a good lesson to me that, and I think my cheapest gig ever for $80 a minute of music, ridiculous. Painful. It was a McDonald's gig. And I mean, not McDonald's music. I mean making the burger, right?

Speaker 3 (00:10:47):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:10:47):

That was a contracted gig. And so the contract really doesn't matter because I wasn't able to enforce my contract when a guy stiffed me of $3,000. And also by using a contract, I screwed myself out of possibility of renegotiation on a gig that was $80 a minute. So I think that if you use them, well, they're good, but they're only as good as your ability to enforce it. And the strengthen the relationship

Speaker 1 (00:11:12):

And the ability to enforce it is a huge, huge deal. This is something that I tell producers that are coming up and also bands that are trying to get with the producer that you want to have some sort of agreement with your clients for sure. But be careful because there's some people that it's not worth going there with because once you bring lawyers in, things get adversarial. They have to, at least during that period of negotiation between lawyers, they get weird. And you could end up squeezing somebody for something that, like for instance, say that you're an upcoming producer and you get your first gig with a label. It's not a big label, say $10,000 budget, and you're arguing for points. All that these points would equal in the end more than likely is like $0 based on sales, maybe a couple hundred dollars. Instead of being a really easy person to work with, you create this adversarial relationship from the beginning over something that's immaterial. Now, of course, there's always the chance that it could go huge and you miss out on being able to buy a Ferrari or something, but that's so rare

Speaker 2 (00:12:30):

Sometimes. Also, if you're in a position of diminished power, and I would recommend reading a book called Negotiating with Giants,

(00:12:37):

We're often working with people that are far more powerful than us. I was helping a friend who was having trouble with an employer because they didn't, they were really unwilling to pay what he should be compensated. And the thing is, this was for a title that was known. I mean, people know about this game. The producer just wasn't playing ball. So I told him, why don't you agree verbally to do it for a certain amount of money? But because they're disorganized and they're not really getting things down in paper. And even if they do, if it doesn't say the important thing, you can just go ahead with it. Because if they don't pay you specifically for a work for hire or an exclusive license or something, if they pay you just to write the music, the music still belongs to you. It's true. And then at the end, when they're about to release, that is when you can negotiate because now you are in a position of power, whereas previously you weren't.

Speaker 1 (00:13:38):

It's a good move.

Speaker 2 (00:13:39):

Yeah, the timing because, and I wouldn't choose to do this with someone who is decent because it is also skullduggery on my part, but if you're working with a criminal, that's the only option.

Speaker 1 (00:13:53):

I agree with you on that. That's an interesting take on the music industry. I believe that most people are decent, but every once in a while, and it's unavoidable. That's the thing. It's unavoidable. You're going to encounter these shysters and you have to outmaneuver them or they'll eat your lunch, and there's really no way around it. That's just the reality of the entertainment industry. It's the same in Hollywood. It's the same in music. I'm sure it's the same in game audio. It's just a fact of life, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:14:26):

Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

Speaker 1 (00:14:28):

Speaking of getting gigs and moving up, how did you go from the $80 a minute gigs? How did it start to get better?

Speaker 2 (00:14:36):

So the $80 a minute gig was something that I did either just before I finished school or right out of school. So obviously no credentials, right? No credits. And so I didn't have very strong negotiating power even with that. I didn't know what to ask for.

Speaker 1 (00:14:51):

Well, how did you land it in the first place?

Speaker 2 (00:14:52):

I happened to know someone who knew someone who knew someone, and I was just kind of going for anything I could get. This was a personal connection of a personal connection. And to be fair to them, I mean it was a shittily paid gig, but I'm sure they were all shit paid. Yeah. So I mean, there was that too. So it wasn't a matter of people being evil or anything, it's just that I probably could have gotten a little bit more if I had asked, but there wasn't that much money going around. So that was through a personal relationship because I didn't have any sort of industry network. So the question is how to get those gigs and how did I go from that $80 gig to stuff that paid more? So I would say that if you don't have a network, your primary concern in addition to being good at what

Speaker 1 (00:15:40):

You do, yeah, that's the base assumption.

Speaker 2 (00:15:44):

Yes. I think it's funny because people are so concerned about music and they think that, oh, it's rigged, but your real sucks, man. If it sucks, who the hell's going to want to buy it? I mean, you need to have a real good relationship and I dunno what you're going to have to do for that, but you need to be good. So assuming that your work is at least sort of industry standard excusable, you need to meet as many people as you can, as often as you can. I would say that is 50, especially in the early days, that should be about 50% of the

Speaker 1 (00:16:21):

Time. I agree with you.

Speaker 2 (00:16:22):

Just meet people as much as you can. I mean, if this means going to conferences, going to events, going to areas where you know that industry people gather and just meeting people out the blue, meeting their connections and all the time being primarily focused on what they find interesting, which is rarely you. I learned this from a book that transformed my life because like most musicians, I was extremely self-absorbed and I had the idea that, oh, if I get good, then I'll make it, which is really dumb. So I am not to insult everyone who holds that point of view, but

Speaker 1 (00:17:09):

It's just not reality.

Speaker 2 (00:17:10):

Yeah, it's not reality. So yeah, a book that changed my life, Dale Carnegie's, how to Win Friends and Influence People.

Speaker 1 (00:17:17):

Oh yeah, that's a classic.

Speaker 2 (00:17:18):

Yeah, it's a classic. And it's a little cheesy and that kind of world doesn't exist anymore, but some of the principles do, and most of the principles do, and that is people don't like to know that they're wrong. I still don't follow my advice on that one. I still tell people when they're wrong, but people are very interested in themselves, and the more you can veer a conversation towards them, the more they'll talk and the more they talk, the more they're likely to give you something information of importance. And not to manipulate them just to be useful to them. If they tell you problems they're having or they tell you something that's happening in their life. For example, oh, my daughter's getting married in August, you can send them a card. How is that manipulated? That's just being nice, right?

Speaker 3 (00:18:03):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:18:03):

Exactly. But you can't do that if you are gassing on about how you are going to be the next trend resident or something.

Speaker 1 (00:18:09):

That's the issue that I think a lot of people at music conferences have is when they go up to somebody, they just punish them with me, me, it's relentlessly.

Speaker 3 (00:18:20):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:18:21):

They're not thinking about the fact that you're talking to a human being who has to talk to lots of other people. They have no idea who you are. They don't care. It's not because they're an asshole. You're just some person at a conference. That's not the way to get people's attention in a positive way. And yeah, I think that definitely you send the card and then you let time go by. You let it build organically until eventually something that you know how to do lines up with one of their needs. It could literally be years.

Speaker 2 (00:18:56):

Oh, absolutely. Some of the most interesting opportunities that have come my way have come after three years I worked with this indie team. They were making an indie game, and they paid me well considering what they had, which they had very little money, and I knew that the CEO was really making an effort to make sure I was well compensated. But two plus years after that, they landed a gig doing some consulting for a game company that did have resources. And when the company was in a position where they really needed music very quickly because they always call you at the last minute, my guys souped in and said, we know someone. And then I got a gig that paid me more than 13 times what my first gig paid. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1 (00:19:45):

Great.

Speaker 2 (00:19:46):

It paid me 1300 bucks a minute.

Speaker 1 (00:19:48):

That's a nice raise.

Speaker 2 (00:19:49):

It is such a nice raise. I mean, you know what? I wasn't rolling in money, but it was nice not to have to worry about doing groceries or rent. The turnaround on this stuff takes a long time. And like you mentioned, I mean when people go to conferences, they just punish you with me, me, me, me. But if you consider the conversation marketplace like any other marketplace, how do you differentiate yourself and knowing that everyone is going around saying, me, me, me, and most people are not succeeding, it would be insanity to try the same thing. So maybe try listening, try asking questions, try not being a dick.

Speaker 1 (00:20:26):

Absolutely. And if you are asking questions and you realize that the person isn't interested in talking, move on. There's about 10,000 other people you could talk to also.

Speaker 2 (00:20:36):

Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of things are kind of analogous to a sales environment and meeting people at the conference is like that. And also meeting people at a bar that you would like to go out on a date with, for example. And I had a friend who, she's beautiful person, highly desired by men, and she told me the people that go up to them, other people with a lot of confidence, but they're not necessarily nice people and they get approached by a lot of people who are sort of aggressive, cocky, whatever they do. All the things that people read on the internet that you're supposed to do. They rate people's appearance from one to 10 and they try to do things like nagging make stupid crap. But she said that she would easily have a conversation with someone who looked okay and was just nice, just not a dick. And that's because that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen that often. And I think that it's really important to remember that in everything that we do that is analogous to a sales process, we need to be distinguishing ourselves in some way, in some good way.

Speaker 1 (00:21:46):

I have noticed that when people come on too strong, especially at the conferences, it makes me not want to talk to them when the confidence is too high, it makes me literally want to turn around and talk to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (00:22:00):

Yeah, same. I have that same experience. Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (00:22:02):

So did you start going to them? I agree with you by the way, because that's exactly what I did when I was trying to grow my band. My band got signed, but we weren't very big and I kept wanting us to get tours that were basically punching above our weight class, and in order to do that, I had to get the right people to sign off and that was very, very difficult. We didn't have the numbers to justify. So I'd go to LA four times a year and just stay there for two weeks and have lunch and dinner and breakfast and lunch and dinner and breakfast and meetings, go to bars and hang out with everybody in the scene and repeat next quarter, repeat next quarter. Just be friends with as many people as possible. And as a result, doing that year after year after year, it allowed us to get tours that we should not have been getting that we really shouldn't have been getting them, but it was because I knew the people involved and doing that also ended up leading to how my company now URM was able to move so fast was because I had all the connections from those years and years and years of just meeting people on tour or those trips to la.

(00:23:17):

All of it put together allowed for things to move very, very fast. If I hadn't taken that initiative, I don't know, maybe some things could have worked. I was already in assigned band, but I doubt that they'd be where they are now. I really, really attribute the network to being the reason things are where they're at now. I mean, without one you're kind of screwed.

Speaker 2 (00:23:41):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:23:42):

So did you do that? Did you start going to as many as you could?

Speaker 2 (00:23:45):

So I flew to seven different places for conferences one year. That was my max.

Speaker 1 (00:23:51):

It's a good amount

Speaker 2 (00:23:52):

Is what was financially possible. Even now, I have great anxiety in personal interactions with people that I don't know, but I didn't notice at one point that it was a lot easier for me to do it if people came up to me. So I started dressing better. I started learning how to dress better because I used to dress like a slop man, I didn't give a shit. Everything. Conversation, empathy, the way your body language looks, how you display interest in another person, all of this stuff is something that you have to train yourself to do. It is a mistake to think that this is stuff that is natural and I'm still learning. So what I did was I went to a lot of these conferences and I got to tell you I was probably 10 to 20% effective in the earlier days because even though I was there and I was making the effort, I wasn't good at it. But you only get good at it if you keep doing it right.

Speaker 1 (00:24:43):

Did you realize you weren't good at it?

Speaker 2 (00:24:45):

Oh, absolutely. I knew I wasn't good.

Speaker 1 (00:24:47):

Okay, so you had

Speaker 2 (00:24:49):

Yeah, I mean there is a combination of self-awareness and imposter syndrome that is a great motivator to get better at something. So

Speaker 1 (00:24:58):

What's interesting though is I think that the big problem here is that a lot of people don't have that. So for instance, I feel like I've always been well aware of when I'm making somebody uncomfortable and went to back off and even though I used to have really bad social anxiety, I still have it a little, but not so much. The one thing that I always had, even when I wasn't good at socializing was understanding somebody's body language enough to know they don't want to talk anymore or they don't want to talk to me and then pull away before I leave a bad impression. But I feel like a lot of people are lacking any self-awareness and they don't understand what effect they're having on the other person. It sounds like even if you weren't very good at the socializing yet, sounds like you did have some self-awareness for how you were affecting people.

Speaker 2 (00:25:45):

Well, my self-awareness and how bad I was at it was not so much that I knew I was making people uncomfortable. It's that I knew I was terrified all the time and I didn't approach as many people as the number of hours would've allowed me to do.

Speaker 1 (00:25:58):

Got it.

Speaker 2 (00:25:59):

I mean, well, I appreciate the credit for that. I wasn't quite that, but I think everyone can change that as long as they turn the focus off themselves outwards.

Speaker 1 (00:26:09):

Well, and it sounds like you had a metric going too, this many hours equals it should equal this many people.

Speaker 2 (00:26:16):

I mean it was more of a general idea that I probably could have done more, right? I mean, how much time did I spend looking at my phone? I was terrified to look up and with that, I mean if the reason we feel anxious in social interactions is because our focus is on us and not the other person. If we are focused on ourselves, our goals, we want this person to be interested in us. We want this person to give us a gig, we want this person to give us their phone number. That's going to make us more anxious because the stakes get higher and higher and there are more and more metrics of failure. Whereas if your success metric becomes, I want to hear what this person has to say, that is extremely easy to do and it kind of erases a lot of anxiety because all you have to do shut the fuck up.

(00:27:08):

That's all you have to do and ask a question once in a while, but people will go on if you feel they're interested. And this was the cure for my anxiety. I know my anxiety comes when I want something out of someone. When I meet someone important, I'm like, fuck, I need this. You have to try and forget that because whether you have that thought in your mind or not, your interaction is going to be the same. You'll have just about as much chance of landing a gig at that moment when you don't think about it.

Speaker 1 (00:27:40):

Yeah, it's true. It's probably not going to happen in that moment anyways. If you're meeting someone super important for the first time, the first meeting anyways is probably not going to be fruitful, is probably just if you're lucky, lead to another conversation down the road. But the thing that's interesting that you're saying is clearing your mind of wanting anything, and I call that nonspecific networking.

Speaker 2 (00:28:07):

That's a good name for it.

Speaker 1 (00:28:08):

There's specific and nonspecific networking specific is I want to meet Steven Slate and get a free microphone from him, which I think is the wrong way to go about things. Nonspecific is I want to meet this person and just meet them, see what happens and meet as many people as possible. I think that even though you do have a goal for it, it should be more generalized. I'm meeting these people in order to build a network and see what happens. Not I'm going for this person for this specific thing I need to happen. The only time I feel like that should be on your mind is when you already have a meeting with them. If you got to the point where you're meeting about something, okay,

Speaker 2 (00:28:50):

Get down to business,

Speaker 1 (00:28:51):

Then don't go and just waste their time. So time and place for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:28:57):

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree completely.

Speaker 1 (00:29:00):

So do you still feel uncomfortable at these events or is it something that you basically have conquered?

Speaker 2 (00:29:06):

It doesn't go away. So I mean the thing about fear is that it doesn't go away. Your ability to manage it gets better.

(00:29:14):

So the anxiety is still there, it's just that it does not cripple you. Right. And that's the success, right? Because I think the anxiety is also just kind of a reminder that everyone can feel this way. I mean, being able to feel anxious and being aware of our own anxiousness allows us to be aware and forgiving when people have difficult interactions with us because we remember what that's like. It's not something that just goes away regarding going, it's not so much going in and discarding the self necessarily. It's going in and recognizing that you have selfish desires, but that it's okay and it's just not a central part of everything. You're able to observe yourself. So this is a very difficult, and I'm not officially a Buddhist, but I'm very fond of many of the teachings, and I think being able to look at yourself and to think about how you're feeling, why you're feeling what you are feeling is really important because if you're not able to do that, your emotions and your anxieties and your fears in networking will always be in control of you.

Speaker 1 (00:30:26):

Well, think about it. If you're thinking, I'm not anxious, just relax. I'm not anxious. Yeah, that's not good. Just relax. Well, what you're doing is you're thinking about the anxiety

(00:30:37):

And it's taking out more of your mental real estate because you're focusing on it, but it's kind of like in meditation for instance, I do mindfulness meditation for people who don't do it. One of the things that they teach you how to do is to just accept certain sensations in your body, like an itch, something that you would want to scratch right away. You acknowledge that it's there and you pay attention to it and just let it be, and eventually it just dissolves into whatever. And I feel like anxiety is a very similar thing. When I'm feeling anxious, I acknowledge it and then just try to figure out why I'm feeling anxious, what exactly is causing it, what's the worst thing that's going to happen in this situation? Am I actually in danger? The answer is generally no, and then it tends to just subside. But if I try to fight it, that's when it gets weird.

Speaker 2 (00:31:34):

Yeah, I agreed.

Speaker 1 (00:31:35):

It's an interesting thing that talking about this topic, because I think this is very relevant to creative people. I think that creative people who have great social skills are also outliers, like naturally great social skills or outliers. I think people in the industry for the most part have good social skills, but they've developed them. I think your typical creative person is not an extroverted people person. It just doesn't go with the territory. This is something that you have to learn how to do in order to actually survive in the world.

Speaker 2 (00:32:10):

It's something we're also enabled to do because people have the idea that you're allowed to be a prick if you are creative, or at least that's something that you expect, but it is not acceptable.

Speaker 1 (00:32:23):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:32:24):

I think for kids that are creative, for example, I think it is important to distinguish between the creativity and the being a prick, which to be honest, it's not really related in my experience.

Speaker 1 (00:32:36):

It doesn't have to be.

Speaker 2 (00:32:37):

Well, it's just a false sort of relationship that we create. So we need to stop enabling the behavior, and I think that especially, I don't know who's going to agree with me on this, but I think that a lot of men in the industry have gotten away with being really unpleasant. But

Speaker 1 (00:32:58):

I think a lot of people agree with you,

Speaker 2 (00:33:00):

But I don't know who's listening, right? Everyone's got an internet connection. So men have gotten away with being assholes, especially the powerful ones because it's sort of accepted that comes with the territory, but narcissism is not necessary for brilliance. A high level of it, however, might be necessary in order for you to believe so strongly that your music needs to be heard, that you work hard to get it to the point where you believe enough people are hearing your art.

Speaker 1 (00:33:28):

So I heard it said once that music doesn't, or the arts doesn't breed narcissists, but it attracts them. And I think there's some truth to that, but from what I understand about narcissism studied it is that it's on a spectrum. Any other mental disorder, there's one end of the spectrum where it's actually pathological and it needs treatment, and there's one level of it where it's just not even treatable, but there's also too little of it, which is also a problem because people who have too little narcissism end up being complete pushovers and end up very, very frustrated with their lives. So there's a healthy amount that each one of us should have and that it's kind of what you just said, you need some in order to be able to believe in yourself enough to do what's necessary. If you don't have that, you can have all the skills in the world and it's not going to matter. The problem is when it crosses over, it goes up a few degrees and into diva territory or into pathological territory, which I know a few of those.

Speaker 2 (00:34:34):

Yeah, I'm sure you do.

Speaker 1 (00:34:35):

Yeah, I definitely know a few of those, and at least in the music side of the rock side of the industry, it's not as enabled as it used to be because the budgets aren't what they used to be and because people would put up with a lot when there was a lot more money to be made and a lot more money being thrown around, they would get paid to deal with to basically babysit these adult children. Nowadays that's kind of looked down upon, and for instance, there's this stereotype of the old school producer that's just a tyrant that yells at everybody and makes musicians feel like shit and just destroys them to build them back up and all that. Nobody likes that anymore. That style of production is very much on the out, and those producers who still act that way, the way that it was okay to act in the eighties, they kind of don't really get work typically get much work anymore. New people that are just as good, who are nice,

Speaker 2 (00:35:39):

Right? Absolutely. I mean, conductors are basically kind of a similar thing where they used to be revered as gods and the people who still think of themselves that way don't really get quite as much work as they might have been able to before because it's less acceptable. Now

Speaker 1 (00:35:54):

I know all about that.

Speaker 2 (00:35:57):

So I mean, I just want to make sure that I am sort of not going off too long on this, the whole self-analysis and anxiety and things,

Speaker 1 (00:36:04):

People love this in these episodes.

Speaker 2 (00:36:08):

So the thing is, these days, I mean you were mentioning the classical presentation of narcissism is much less acceptable and much more recognizable. People are starting to be able to recognize certain traits in certain people as being the classical presentation of narcissism. But there are other less talked about forms of narcissism that I think we should be on the lookout for, and I think we see a lot of this in social media where an excessive presentation of humility and being humbled and blessed, for example, is an example of what's I think, obviously not being a psychologist, but having a business partner who is a clinical psychologist. I have the privilege of having these conversations from time to time. Some of these other traits might be classified under something known as quiet or covert narcissism.

Speaker 1 (00:36:56):

Yes, I've heard of that.

Speaker 2 (00:36:57):

So I mean, people are getting their rocks off another way, and I think we need to recognize that because those kinds of narcissists are just as manipulative and they require just as much admiration. It just takes a different form. So when people will find a way to get their fix, because we are not going to run out of neurosis, but yeah, so while the classical presentation is out, I think we should also be on the lookout for people that have suspicious humility or kind of a quiet narcissism. I think that's also very damaging, and we need to be on the lookout for it ourselves because it's very nowadays to get a lot of attention, you draw attention to an injustice online and you virtue signal, and then you get a lot of dopamine because people are clicking, people are admiring you, people are commenting and people are saying, oh, what a good person this is. And that is just another form of narcissism, not that it is, maybe it's not as bad, but it's just a different manifestation of a similar thing.

Speaker 1 (00:38:07):

It's very, very interesting. The reason that I think that this is relevant is because you're going to come across these people along the path in music, and you have to know how to deal with this same way that you have to know how to deal with criminals. Sometimes You have to understand how to maneuver narcissists as well, because when you're dealing with a narcissistic personality, it is like you said, they're looking for a certain kind of fix. You have to understand that one of the things that was interesting about dealing with divas is that you can't really do anything but give them their fix and then they're good to go. They'll throw their tantrum, their handler will give them what they want, and then they're good to do the work, which I think kind of sucks. You don't like to put up with that anymore. But even with the stealth narcissists, it is good to understand what it is they're looking for in case you need them to do something or you're trying to enter into a work relationship together. Manipulate the manipulators basically,

Speaker 2 (00:39:08):

Right?

Speaker 3 (00:39:08):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:39:09):

Is how I see it. You just have to know what you're dealing with,

Speaker 2 (00:39:12):

Right? Sometimes it's just part of the job.

Speaker 1 (00:39:15):

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 Opeth Shuga, bring me the Horizon. Go Jira, 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 a song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:40:07):

And these are guys like TLA, Will Putney, Jenz Boren, Dan Lancaster to Mattson, 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 Enhanced, 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 game 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.

(00:41:00):

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. Let's talk about the game industry. I'm sure you get asked this a lot, but I'm going to ask it anyways because this crowd doesn't hear about it. How does somebody who wants to get into game audio make a start besides just meeting people? What kind of people should they be meeting and also what should they be working on? What should they be bringing to the table? If I was saying, I want to be a game composer, I'm going to start going to conferences and I write a bunch of music, that's not really enough. What are some specifics?

Speaker 2 (00:41:59):

Okay, so we'll break this into a few things. There is the social aspect and there is the technical aspect. So socially speaking, I mean I think having a wide range of knowledge on relevant subject matter, such as some amount of game history, some old games, some new games, what's happening now in the industry will make it a lot easier for you to engage in conversations at conferences with people that those people would find interesting. It's very rare that you would go to a conference like the Game Developers Conference. Other conferences include Pocket Gamer Nordic Game that I just spoke at Casual Connect, which I feel is called something else right now. But yeah, so these are a bunch of different conferences that you go to and the types of people that you meet, right? In every industry, they're going to have their own news, they're going to have their own interests.

(00:42:47):

If you go to nam, you'll have certain kinds of conversations with people, and if you go to the Game Developers Conference, you'll also expect to have different kinds of conversations with those people. And I would say that I can explain what that is, but I think the best way to kind of do it is to experience it. And if you live in a place where there are game industry meetups, and now I think there are probably more virtual meetups and virtual conferences with virtual networking options, I think jumping into a few conversations cold is a great and painful way to learn about what people find interesting and not interesting, and then you have a point at which to begin your research. So I think the most important thing is listening to find out what these people want to talk about, because the more engaging of a conversation partner you are, the more interested you seem in what they're talking about, the more likely you'll have another conversation and another conversation, and eventually over years that turns into work if you build up a critical mass of your network.

(00:43:47):

And on the technical side, composers for everything other than games generally are pretty good at looking at music as a linear medium, right? Let's say you write for films or you write for ads, you will have something that definitely happens at 15 seconds, definitely happens on the second hour of the movie, but in games, very much the experience of the music is determined by the player's experience, the player's choices, the player chooses when to do certain things, which are tied to certain musical cues. So I think it's important to understand, first of all, that game music is not linear and therefore your writing has to adapt to that. You have to be able to write music that is designed to increase in intensity using certain kinds of audio middleware. For example, you might do something called vertical layering where you have a track that's exported in stems and perhaps STEM one plays when you're exploring STEM two plays on top of STEM one when you are encountering an enemy.

(00:44:50):

STEM three plays when you are an active combat, for example. So that's vertical layering. And then there are other things that you do like branching audio, creating transitions, stingers. So familiarizing yourself with things like that will make you a lot more successful and able to rise up to the challenges. For example, in library music, I mean, if you don't know what a button ending is, you're not really going to be able to do that because editors want something where they can just end the queue. So I think familiarizing yourself with the needs of game developers. And there is a lot of, I will say this about the game audio industry. They love to talk about what they do. So there are a lot of videos about this, how to write interactive music. What's different about interactive music. YouTube is a wonderful resource. Googling will bring up a lot of blog posts and articles, so familiarize itself with that.

(00:45:45):

And if you want to get even deeper, right? Let's say you don't just want to write the music, you want to do everything. Let's say you are the one audio person on the team. You're going to have to learn how to use at least sort of the audio components of game engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity. In addition to that, on certain projects, they might use what's known as audio middleware. And as the name suggests, audio middleware is sort of like the middleman between the music and sound assets and the game engine. It helps to determine how the music that has been created and the sounds that have been created interact with events in game engine. So for example, if every time you shoot a gun you want to hear a rubber duck, you would map that to that particular event and then using audio middleware, or if you wanted, for example, the music to change in tonality or intensity, depending on the time of day, let's say this game has a day, a night cycle, then you would map it to a parameter that's linked to the timer in the game, which transforms the music based on how you choose to change it.

(00:47:02):

Let's say layer two plays on the fourth hour, let's say layer, layer three plays on the 12th hour, whatever, something like that. So the deeper you want to get into game audio, I think it's also kind of advisable to take some online courses to familiarize yourself with the technology and what's available. For example, there's school of video game audio. There are Berkeley online courses. And I think that if you're very serious about getting into that, sort of getting a technical with the software, or at least what is possible through the software is essential so that you can communicate with the production teams and communicate your intent, get the result, because it's not just about writing the music, it's also about designing the experience.

Speaker 1 (00:47:43):

And where does mixing come into this?

Speaker 2 (00:47:45):

You would mix music the way you would regularly mix music, get a good mix. I think that the general principle is that when you sync music into games, it's a little bit more limited. It is a little bit more squashed than you would have in an album version because you want the audio levels to be predictable. Because if you suddenly have a giant spike of volume at the same time as an explosion and someone talking, you're not going to have a good time, then it's going to be limited by the engine anyway, or it'll be limited by your speakers blowing up. So I think you would probably want to have two different versions. If you wanted to have something, your portfolio, you would have the less limited version. And when you submit it for a game, generally the levels are pretty even because if they wanted to make it louder, they can just turn it up, turn it up, and so it's kind of like in films, there is also someone who is going to be responsible for the mix of everything at the end because there's the mix of the music and then there's the mix of the music voice and sound in the game, right?

(00:48:49):

In film that's called the Rerecording mixer or the dubbing mixer, depending on where you are, that's the person who decides how all those things interact. And you don't really have the power to do that as the composer, but you just send in a good mix. If the person doing the mix over there wants it to be a little bit more limited, they'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (00:49:06):

Do you think it's advisable to go in thinking this is the role I want, or should you go in understanding a bit about everything and then let it evolve the way it's going to evolve? It sounds to me there's so many super specialized aspects to either game or movie mixing, or you could be severely limiting yourself if you say, I want to do this one thing only, this one thing and this one thing only.

Speaker 2 (00:49:35):

I would say that being able to be very good at one thing opens up opportunities for you to try other things. I mean, you should go in being good at the thing that you want to do, but also being open-minded to other tasks as and when they come up so that you can increase your skillset.

Speaker 1 (00:49:50):

Yeah, so I mean, I guess what I mean is if you want to be the mixer, the guy who does the mixing in a game and you spend all your time on mixing and then you don't spend your time on any of the other stuff that you talked about, the button cues, all that stuff, then what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:50:07):

I mean, it's a good point. I mean, how specialized do you want to be? So the thing about game audio is there, it's very often a team sport, especially on the bigger games, and you are going to have to have a broad understanding of what everyone is doing at some level. I think that in the bigger companies, the roles are quite clearly delineated. There are sound, senior sound designers, audio director, technical sound designer who handles the technology aspect of it, audio programmers who make sure that the software works well for the particular game and that the software is all integrating properly with each other. If you want to work in-house, you will need to be good at that particular role. For someone like myself, I have never worked, always worked as a contractor with game companies, and I only do music and everything that entails. I mean, I ran an orchestra, I know how to produce and conduct that myself. I know how to mix my own music to a point. I know how to compose in a lot of different genres and everything. And basically I try to know as much about my particular discipline as possible, but it depends on what you want to do. I would say that if you want to do what I do, then you need to do all those things or be able to land projects with budgets that you can hire people to fill in those

Speaker 1 (00:51:22):

Gaps. I guess that's a big differentiator right there.

Speaker 2 (00:51:26):

So for the most part, a lot of composing is a very lonesome experience. I work by myself. I mean, well, I have a business partner, but when we write cues, we tend to sort of write them ourselves because having that back and forth just makes it longer, and each of us is pretty good, so we don't need to really double up on everything. If you're working with the right clients and what they need from you is music. I mean, there isn't too much more that you need to do than that. I am not sure if I'm answering the question.

Speaker 1 (00:51:54):

You are. So speaking of clients, I want to talk about this. This is actually how you caught my attention of all sites, LinkedIn, which I only got on recently.

Speaker 2 (00:52:06):

It's the best.

Speaker 1 (00:52:07):

I don't know how I feel about it just because I get so much relentless spam as opposed to Facebook where the spam is, listen to my band, listen to my band on this one, it's like, hire my team from Poland relentlessly, right?

Speaker 2 (00:52:19):

Yeah, no, I get those too.

Speaker 1 (00:52:21):

Yeah, it's the same amount of spam, just different fields. But you'll make these posts where you'll say what the client brief was or a funny version of what the client brief was and then post it. And just so people know, these are something like trumpeter hit with a rock vampire disco client. You know what the French rat in the movie that cooks stuff make it sound like you're in his brain when he eats a croissant or we want something epic. Those are great briefs. And then, then I went and I listened to them and I was like, wow, that actually, that really does kind of sound like

Speaker 2 (00:52:59):

The thing

Speaker 1 (00:53:00):

Sound that the croissant would make in the rat's mouth. Makes sense?

Speaker 2 (00:53:05):

Yeah. I think human beings are imaginative creatures, and the better you can aid their imaginations, the more colorful of an experience you can help them to have. So LinkedIn, like any other format for people to want to learn something, it has to be interesting. It has to be entertaining. And if I want people to learn about what I do and reel them in, I sort need to be able to present stuff in a way that's interesting to them. I mean, if we think of LinkedIn as the main street of a big city where no one knows you, but everyone has the potential to be seen if they're able to make themselves heard, it's natural that you would advertise yourself in the same way you would present your wares in an entertaining way, in an impressive way. Something that captures people's imaginations. I mean, we haven't changed that much as a society, it's just that we've changed from going to manure ridden roads, selling our handmade copper pots to selling digitally created music on the LinkedIn timeline.

Speaker 1 (00:54:05):

It's interesting that you think about it that way because that is how you caught my attention. That's exactly how it worked.

Speaker 2 (00:54:11):

It works really well.

Speaker 1 (00:54:12):

Yeah. It's not just what you wrote. Obviously when I hit play and it sounded like exactly what you said, it's like, this guy's good. I should probably talk to him.

Speaker 2 (00:54:22):

Thanks. Well, I mean people, they don't like to be fooled, if that's correct. Someone in with a great sales pitch, and then it's nothing like what you described and you do the old bid and switch. I mean, you're going to have number one, that person's probably not going to buy. Number two, your repetition's probably going to be shit because now they'll walk past it, and no matter how crazy you get with your advertising, they're not going to click because they don't trust you anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:54:45):

And that actually is a big problem with online education. I know we had to fight that stigma for a while just because I think people associate online selling with scamming stuff and with good reason. There's a lot of scammers out there. So it's super, super, super important that if you're going to be pushing things online, you actually deliver over, deliver on what it is that you're promising or it's not going to fly, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:55:14):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:55:15):

It might fly for a little while, but it will eventually crash.

Speaker 2 (00:55:18):

Agreed.

Speaker 1 (00:55:19):

What do the briefs actually look like then? If you're making them more entertaining?

Speaker 2 (00:55:23):

They're very reasonable. Okay. So let's go with, for the listeners at home, I put up a video on LinkedIn of I mean, El also didn't mention that the videos consist of me holding my iPhone, zooming in and out on my screen. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:55:38):

That's right. Well, that's how I heard it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55:40):

Yeah. It's just visually, it's like, what the fuck is this is what it's supposed to inspire.

Speaker 1 (00:55:45):

Yeah. You're looking at the piano role basically.

Speaker 2 (00:55:48):

Yeah, right. You're looking at the piano role. I'm zooming in and out based on the beats or whatever's happening in the music. I'm following the notes, and it's just sort of what I thought was an entertaining way to present it. And in one of them, my sort of heavily embellished brief was that my client asked me, we want some vampire disco. And then I said, what's that? And then the client says, you tell us. And then I say, okay, and then that's the piece. And how that brief actually looked was, I mean, it's very reasonable. They gave me a reference. They said, we want a funky track with some Halloween elements. I mean, that sounds a world away from vampire disco, but the main character in the game was like a vampire. I mean, it was a slot machine. The main character in the game was a Vampire Dracula, and he was dancing and there was a disco ball and everything.

(00:56:36):

So I mean, the most accentuated describe that is vampire disco, which when you put it that way, it sounds like a new genre. It's interesting. Whereas if I put something like we want disco music a chic freak out, and we want to combine it with some Halloween elements that you might hear in a Tim Burton movie or something like that, that's a really boring way to describe it for LinkedIn. But it's wonderfully informative for me as a contractor. So the briefs look pretty. They're very reasonable. I mean, if you really think about it and you distill the brief down, it's hilarious because they're asking for something really weird. And I'm grateful for that because it allows me to sort of flex my mental muscle to come up with a solution that works. But yeah, people have very short attention spans on LinkedIn. They don't like reading beyond the first three lines.

(00:57:24):

For example, the trumpeter hit by a rock. I have a video where says, just imagine there's a trumpeter hit by a rock. But he recovers and also he's British, and it was Hail Britannia. It's very familiar British melody. And in the middle of it, because it was for a company called American Greetings, which I'm very grateful to that company for having provided me with a lot of work over the years. It was a video of the Queen reading a birthday greeting, and she changes her mind in the middle about something. And that's when there is a mistake because it's like the orchestra is thinking, oh, wait, wait, wait. Okay, now go. That's sort of the idea of it, and that's why it was written, but I had to come up with a way to make it entertaining in three lines.

Speaker 1 (00:58:10):

Makes sense. So it seems like no matter what the medium is, you're thinking about how to put it forth in the most captivating way, whether it's a post or the actual music itself.

Speaker 2 (00:58:20):

And no one would be interested in the academic side of things in general, except maybe the academics, and maybe they're not the people that I necessarily want to draw in.

Speaker 1 (00:58:31):

Who are the people you want to draw in?

Speaker 2 (00:58:32):

I want to draw in people who aren't necessarily musicians, because the people that hire me very often, either not musicians or at least they're calling me for my specific expertise. So I want people to be drawn in by sort of the humor, by how approachable it is because it's an iPhone video. It's not showing me in a castle making music with refrigerator racks of effects because I think that doesn't matter. I think people like it because it's really real. So they know I'm real, they know I'm good, and they know that no matter what they throw it me, I'll be like, yeah, fine. So I think it's important to sort of, in addition to thinking you think about what you're trying to put across and then think about what people would find interesting, the specific demographic you're after, and then try to put those together. I think that's about as simple as I can make it, but there are a lot of complicated things that go under the surface in understanding humor and all that,

Speaker 1 (00:59:31):

And a very wide musical vocabulary too.

Speaker 2 (00:59:34):

Yeah. I mean, we have access to tutorials of everything very often. I've never written vampire disco before. I'm not from France. I'm certainly not from Britain. So you don't need necessarily to already have the expertise, but what you need is to equip yourself with the ability to learn really fast. And so having a good strong foundation in ear training and musical theory and being able to recognize patterns no matter what you're listening to, will allow you to get up to 60 to 80% of where you need to be on a job. And then after you're done, you just forget about it. You're done.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):

It sounds to me like you do think that your Berkeley education helped tremendously.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):

I would say so, yes. However, based on the evidence, I mean, I know a lot of people from Berkeley who are not doing what I'm doing. So I think in addition to having the Berkeley education, the music theory and stuff like that, which it was a wonderful environment, but I would say that if you don't go there, it doesn't mean you're necessarily disadvantaged. If you have a good grounding in music theory from anywhere and curiosity, you will be able to pick up all this stuff. It requires a willingness to jump into the unknown.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):

I mean, just because you went to Berkeley doesn't mean you're going to learn it either. I know lots of people who went to Berkeley who didn't learn shit, so

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):

I know some of those people too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):

And also I know a lot of people including myself, who dropped out and did fine. I don't think Berkeley is the measure of how someone's going to do, but if you take advantage of it for what you want, it's definitely a great resource.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):

Oh yeah. I mean, it's a jungle, right? I mean, there's so many resources there. Basic, you kind of need to work out to find them. And the journey's not over when you're done.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):

No, not even. It's basically begun not even started. One thing about the live jazz ensemble that's programmed, right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):

Yes. Except for the guitar, which is played by myself.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):

I thought the guitar was real, but I wanted to talk about the drums. A lot of people that listen to this are into drum replacement and program drums, ghost notes and little nuances tend to be the hardest thing for them. And listening to that, that sounds about as good as I've heard when it comes to velocity work and having it sound real. So can we talk about technically how you approach drum programming as far as making it not sound like a typewriter basically?

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):

So I play in the entire ride pattern. I don't pencil anything in, and if I'm lazy after I've played about eight bars or something, I'll be like, ah, fuck it. And I just loop it, right? But because I mean, after that, people tend to not remember that in the first part. Oh, in the first part, your second note was of a different velocity. They're not going to think that, so that's okay. You need to sort of be familiar with when people start to recognize something as a pattern. So I like to play it in as much as possible, and then I do a soft quantization of it because my performance, I'm not a piano player, certainly not a drum player. My time is not impeccable, so I quantize it about 50%, and then I listen back to it. If there's anything that I feel like, for example, I suddenly hit the ride too hard. Maybe it sounds real, but it sounds like a real shitty drummer, then I'll move it

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):

Real shitty.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):

Yeah, real shitty. Which sometimes, sometimes that's what you want. And I've done stuff that's deliberately shitty before because it really feels life because someone's excited, someone's rushing or something like that.

(01:03:07):

With the snare, jazz snare comping is just ridiculously hard. Sometimes I just keep going until it feels right. They tend to be generally sometimes a combination of downbeats and a combination of syncopations, and some of those are set up by ghost notes, and some of those are finished as drags where they drag and create a gradual crescendo of tremolo effect. I played the snare in, I played the main notes of the synco patients, and then after that, I go in and I pencil in the ghost notes because it's not going to be possible for me to perform those in. They're just really difficult to do. So I pencil in the drags and I deliberately make them uneven.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):

That's crucial.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):

Yeah, I got to tell you, it's a lot of work. And with the kick, typically with jazz, there isn't a whole lot of kick going on all the time unless you're playing sort of a very traditional swing piece, then it's on every beat, in which case then I just play it in. I do the ripe and the high hat tends to be on the offbeats, just two and four, and I play those in as well. So I mean, I would say that the most difficult thing to do is sort of keeping the ride interesting, because you don't want it to turn it to ding, ding d, ding ding d, ding ding, d ding for three minutes. So sometimes it is ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So it's not always, and I put the ding, the dings in different places.

(01:04:40):

I would say that the most challenging part is the snare, and I think for me, I don't have a formula for it. It's just trial and error, A lot of frustration. It's also important to after you need to go back and revise it, because when you write the arrangement, sometimes where you put the snare comp doesn't quite work with the arrangement. So at best it'll sound like an unrehearsed performance, but if you want it to sound like a rehearsed performance, then you'll go back and have the ghost notes to set up the trumpet hits, for example, and the drags on places where there's something empty because you can't really hear the really soft stuff if you play it on a loud moment. So mix wise, that's just going to clutter up the mix. So you want to put it in a place where there is space.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):

What about velocity wise? How much do you mess with the velocities?

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):

With snare, I reduce the velocities quite a bit because in general it's very easy to get it sounding very noisy if it's too loud. So jazz is pretty delicate, so you want to hit hard when you have space to do so, or when you want to accent a beep or when you have a like that, then you have the drums, the snare playing in gradually increasing velocity. So yeah, I mess with the velocity quite a bit. It really depends on the context, but I would say as a general rule of thumb, you want to keep things softer because the drums in jazz tend to be placed not right up front with rock music. It's sitting somewhere over there behind the piano or next to the piano or something like that, and it's got to sound that way for a lot of the realism. I used plenty, plenty of quick room reverb. I think that was a huge, huge part of it because without that, it doesn't sound like they're playing in a physical space and you don't want it to sound too produced. You want it to sound like you stuck a couple of mics in front of an ensemble, and what that does is getting you a lot of room sound. Also.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):

Great answer. As far as mixing goes, I've read that you're primarily a logic user. Is that what you mix in?

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):

Also

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):

It is what I mix in and I do something that a lot of people we horrified by, which is I mix right into my sequencing. I have my template set up, I mix in the mid session. I don't export the stems and then mix.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):

You just kind of mix as you go.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):

Yes, and the reason for this is I set things up so that it's like you have a live ensemble hitting a bunch of outboard gear. You get what you get. I set it so that it colors it at the bare minimum, and let's say you're a producer, you're not really sure what to expect from the musician, so you don't compress it right where it needs to be. Sometimes you give them a little bit more head headroom because you know that there is a level of unpredictability in live performance. So with orchestra stuff and with the jazz stuff, I mean I mix in that way,

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):

So I guess it would be the typical thing to bounce down the stems and then mix those.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):

I've gathered that that's the normal thing, but it doesn't really work for me. I'm also really fucking lazy and you know what I mean? If I'm able to get great results with that, that's fine. I think that hasn't yet been a problem that I've been unable to solve in the MIDI session. Usually a bunch of automation and all the effects that one typically uses in mixing is good enough.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):

How powerful is your computer to be able to handle both at the same time?

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):

I have 64 gigs of ram. I have a six core 2013 or 2014 Mac Pro, so it's the trash can. It's good, it's powerful. I will say that it's not like some of these beasts that the Hollywood guys are using, but

(01:08:25):

I have a very Spartan setup. I've been using a mobile setup since 2017. I had to go to a conference in a middle of a job that needed to be done right then. So I would wake up at 3:00 AM compose for three to four hours, go to the conference and then come back at 8:00 PM 9:00 PM do some tweaking, go to sleep, wake up at 3:00 AM Do that again. My setup is basically I have no outboard gear. I have a tiny keyboard and my sample libraries, I don't load up that many compared to some of these Hollywood templates. Sometimes I do push it a little bit, but I think because I don't overdo the mixing part, my CPU doesn't really spike that much.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):

Got it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):

I don't overdo it. I don't have so many reverbs. I mean, I had an individual reverb on everything in the jazz thing, but that's because I had few tracks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):

Makes sense. So you're always being mindful of your session management.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):

Oh yeah, of course. You can only do what your gear allows you to do, and then within those boundaries you can sort of be really creative in how you choose to use the resources you have.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):

Now, speaking of conferences, what was your goal for the Asian Game Audio Summit when you were first formulating the idea?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):

Well, a lot of game audio events tend to be very focused in the USA. There's game audio everywhere. I mean the largest markets after the us, I mean, well, I can't remember if China is the biggest now, but China, Japan, Korea, everything in the top five besides the US I think is Asian. So it seems weird to me that there wasn't something like that outside of the US and I felt that it was a good time to sort of use the network that I built in the US of all these great composers and sound designers that I know and bring them over to do workshops in Singapore and network in Asia, which is something that they want to do to sort of start building a community and a presence there. Of course, this year that's not going to be possible because nature had other plans. In fact, it planned for us to be dead, but I guess we're doing okay. And so now it's moved to a digital format and I am at best, I am hoping to get more than 300 attendees for the conference, and it is going to be 12 workshops with some of the top names in the industry with a bunch of really kind sponsors that are staying with us, even though it's still digital and it's also really cheap. There's a lot of free shit and prizes too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):

It's not normal, I think for artists and composers to have the entrepreneurial take on it, but I feel like the ones that I meet who do have an sense, as long as they're good and they can hang out with people, that's almost like a superpower. Where did yours come from? Is it something you've always had or did you have to develop it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):

I would say that my ability to jump into unknown things, I guess maybe I always kind of have that, but it never really manifested in business or entrepreneurship. I mean, it was just trying things like in Singapore, I suppose maybe I was a bad boy, but obviously I'm not. I am a nerd and am like my wife likes to say I am from the 18 hundreds. But in Singapore, I think what I did was very much outside of the norm, and I think sort of practicing that in that environment sort of translated into when I was trying new things, if I didn't quite have as much fear as maybe more people, most people would've had if they thought that they were going to start an orchestra. I just picked up. I had one day of doubt, and then I started picking on the phone and calling people, do you want to play in this session for free so that we can create a marketing video to get some business for everyone? All poor?

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):

Okay, so you had the day of doubt and then you just said, fuck it and went,

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):

Just do it. Right, because the worst that can happen is that you die.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):

It's true.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):

And if you live, would it be worth it?

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):

You know what? It's funny you say that. I think about things like that too. My whole career is based on unrealistic things working, and a lot of people I know, they hit me up asking, how can I get over the fear of failure and all that? And I've always said to myself, what's the worst thing that can happen dying? I'm probably not going to die from this. So no matter what, the worst thing possible isn't going to happen. And then what else could happen? It could fail. Well then how would that be different than my life now? And just be right back to now. So fuck it. Just do it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):

Right. I mean, I think that's a great way to look at it. Another thing is that if someone were to have crippling anxiety about the matter, for example, trying networking on a large scale, just kind of scale it back and build your confidence, that's also okay. It requires that you change the stakes and you reward yourself because we are animals and we will do things that make us feel good. And so if for example, you change the stakes in networking from, I need to get a job from this person, which you will never get, and then you will always fail and you'll punish yourself, and then you'll never be good at it if you change your goal to, I want to start a conversation with this person. Chances are that even if that conversation bombs, I mean you've met your goal and that's kind of rewarding. I mean, you did a thing that you set out to do. So I mean set realistic goals for yourself, and it really depends on what material you have to work with to start.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):

Yeah. If you are really anxious to start with, I mean, if someone like that were to receive advice that was like, just fuck it. Just do it. It's different for their specific context.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):

Yeah. I still say, fuck it. Just do it. At the end of the day, I mean at the end of the day, you just have to take action. I call it bias towards action. When in doubt, take action. That's always worked really, really well for me. What action, that's a different story, that's context appropriate, but almost always taking the action is better than not taking action.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):

Almost always, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):

Sometimes it's better not to The times that I find that it's best not to. Okay, so I like to think of a ratio, 10% planning, 90% execution. I feel like if you skip that 10% planning, then you can take hasty action or stupid action and just mess up things that shouldn't have been messed up. But if you do more than 10% planning, I think starts to enter procrastination.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):

Yeah, I mean, think about it. In the way startups work these days, you sort of change things as you go, but it's impossible for you to know what to change until you have data and it's impossible for you to get data unless you're experimenting.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):

Well, up until then, it's just guessing

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):

And it's purely academic. And if you plan for a year and you do something, you plan for months to post one post on social media and it doesn't work, fuck it. I mean, just spam the shit out of everyone's feeds and see what works and then kind of double down on the things that work. I mean, that's how social media advertising, that's how marketers figure out what works. They kind put out two versions of something or more versions of something, and then when something has more response from the demographic that they want, I mean, they'll kind of ask the question, why is it that this is working? Is it because there's a face in it? Is it because of the color scheme or whatever? And then maybe they'll put out something with three faces, three different types of faces, and people are going towards a feminine face, and then they'll double down on that and they put out three feminine faces and they'll figure out stuff as they go along. So in the same way, I mean no matter what you try, you got to just do it and then figure it out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):

One of the best things that I've learned in the past few years is to not pretend like I know what's going to work. Sometimes I have a really good feeling, but I've been so wrong about things in the past. The best one is when you're producing a band and you're sure that they're going to do great, they've got everything going on and the songs are awesome and you worked your ass off, and then it comes out and nobody gives a shit. And then you work with a band that's like a glorified local band, they're a joke. They can't play. You have to redo all their shit for them. It's like a terrible experience, and then it hits the billboard top 20, and you realize you're not psychic. And while you might have some good instincts, I do have some good instincts when it comes to ideas like for moving my business forward. I do not turn things down just because I don't like them most of the time, unless if it's really stupid. Alright. So there's a certain percentage of things that just definitely will not work. But in general, even if I don't like the idea, I'm open to being surprised because you never know. You really never know. You don't know until you try it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):

Yeah, you're right. I mean, like you said, you're just guessing otherwise.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):

Yeah, I try to take the guesswork out of life. I feel like the path to success in music, even though it's very hard to predict, is actually pretty logical. Like you were saying about how to build certain relationships, what to know, how to make yourself stand out by combining multiple skills, it all becomes a very logical thing. If you just map all those different elements out, learn exactly what it is that the people you want to get hired by are looking for what circles they run in, what typically is the process for someone getting those gigs and you map all that out even though it's not as clear cut of a path as say, medical school from medical school to being a surgeon as a very clear path. This might not be as clear of a path, but I've always felt like if you do, no one maps it out for you. So you kind of have to map it out for yourself. But if you do that work and there's all the resources in the world out there, for you to be able to map it out, especially with the internet out there, it should be a pretty logical thing to make work. At least I see it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):

Yeah, I mean, it is not so much like a clear cut path as it is a set of principles for us. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. Well, man, I think this is a good place to end the conversation. It's been a pleasure having you on.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):

It's been a pleasure being on. Thank you so much for having me. And sorry again that I missed the first appointment.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):

That's totally cool. It's totally cool. I appreciate your time and I'm sure that listeners are going to get a lot out of this, especially people who are looking to not just do rock and metal production, which is a lot more than you might realize. So anyways, thank you. 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 al 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.