Marc Urselli: From Intern to Grammy Winner, The Psychology of Working with Legends, Studio Etiquette

Eyal Levi (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levy. 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 Levy 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. Welcome to the URM podcast. My guest today is just one accomplished motherfucker. His name is Mark Selly and he's a six time Grammy nominated three time Grammy winning producer mixer, front of house engineer and sound designer based out of New York. He's the chief house engineer for the legendary East Side Sound recording studio and has worked with legendary acts such as U2 Foo Fighters, sting, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, the Black Crows, Mike Patton, a bunch of others. The list is ridiculous. And John Zorn too. I mean, just listen to that list of clients. It's also got a release coming out August 29th called Angel Headed Hipster, which is the music of T-Rex and Mark Boland, which is produced by Hal Wilner and his own band, Steppen Doom, which is a doom metal band with members of Neurosis St. Vitus and cult of Luna. Anyways, I'll quit talking. I introduce you, mark Elli. Mark Celi, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Marc Urselli (00:02:30):

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Eyal Levi (00:02:32):

How's the situation with COVID affecting you? Are you going to the studio? Are you working from home? What's going on?

Marc Urselli (00:02:41):

I am working from home. I'm doing a lot of remote mixing, which is something I'm comfortable doing. I started doing that years ago way before COVID, the studio in New York where I do most of my sessions. East Side Sound was closed for a few months. We just started in July doing sessions again, but I've spent the pandemic in London, and so I wasn't doing any sessions at each side and I plan to resume those in September.

Eyal Levi (00:03:09):

You think you'll be able to get to New York by then?

Marc Urselli (00:03:12):

I have a ticket, so we shall see. Fingers crossed.

Eyal Levi (00:03:16):

Yeah, I'm not holding out hope for travel. I'm supposed to be traveling again, but

Marc Urselli (00:03:21):

Right. So far there's a ban on Americans coming to Europe, but I haven't heard of a ban the other way around and I'm a resident of New York, so I'm hoping they'll let me in and they'll leave flights.

Eyal Levi (00:03:36):

I hope so too. So speaking of East Side, something that I thought was interesting about your career versus most people's careers that I speak to or know is I think most engineers I know start and end their careers as freelancers, but in addition to your freelance work, you've resided at East Side. Can you talk a little bit about whether that was something you intended to do or it just worked out that way?

Marc Urselli (00:04:10):

It kind of just worked out that way. I started, when I first moved to New York, I started there as an intern as cleaning toilets, pouring coffee for clients, doing errands for clients and the studio staff, and I just basically worked up my way from the internship position to being an assistant engineer and then an engineer, and I became the chief house engineer many, many years ago now, and I've been even helping managing the studio now. I'm basically the main person there and the most senior and it's a very comfortable environment. It's an amazing studio, one of the last ones in New York, and so I stay there and I like it, but it's in no way limiting to my freedom. I'm still a freelancer, meaning I do sessions everywhere in the world. I live between New York and London. I do sessions at Abbey Roads, I do sessions in la, so it's never been a limitation. It's just been an asset.

Eyal Levi (00:05:18):

It's a pretty good asset. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Do you find that keeping a mega studio like that going, not even in COVID times, but just in modern times is as challenging as people say, or do you think that maybe East Side does well because it is one of the last ones and so whoever would need that kind of place will pretty much probably pick it?

Marc Urselli (00:05:45):

It's a little bit of both, but it's definitely, the former statement is more correct in the sense that it's very hard to run a studio like that. Our rent is more than 10 grand a month, and that's a lot of money to come up every month when people are looking at the clock and trying to cut deals and looking for cheap studio time. The problem is really New York City and the real estate in New York City because studios in LA don't really have this problem so much. Real estate is much cheaper, but in New York it's such a prime that it becomes really hard to stay open and stay in Manhattan.

Eyal Levi (00:06:28):

What makes you want to stay there as opposed to moving in? I mean, I know not lost, but I know quite a few of the well-known studios in New York just moved to another place or reopened, like for instance, Sterling moved

Marc Urselli (00:06:47):

To New Jersey. I know I heard, but I also heard, and this is just a rumor, but I've also heard that they were offering free Uber rides for people to actually go there. It was so hard for them to get people to go to New Jersey.

Eyal Levi (00:07:04):

That makes sense to me.

Marc Urselli (00:07:05):

They prefer to lose $150 of a back and forth Uber ride on every session than to lose the business, which is a good way of approaching it. But the truth is, it depends at what level you are. If you are doing punk hardcore bands, then it makes total sense for you to be, or indie rock bands makes total sense for you to be in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg and Greenpoint where there's so many studios that keep busy all the time, but if your clientele is a little bit higher, a certain type of person just doesn't go to Brooklyn or doesn't want to go to Brooklyn, let alone Jersey, which is where Sterling went to.

Eyal Levi (00:07:50):

I'm laughing because we shot a course in New Jersey at the end of December and I mean the course is amazing and the studio's cool all that, but Jersey City kind of sucks. It was a dirty three weeks.

Marc Urselli (00:08:05):

Look, new Yorkers do not like Jersey. They don't like going to Jersey. There's a beautiful studio in Jersey called Sound on Sound that I've used for some sessions. They used to be in Manhattan. I really like the studio. I don't like going to Jersey and I can tell you that after one of those sessions, first of all, you have to take a train. It takes a while plus the subway in New York, but there's only trains up until about 11:00 PM I believe, and so on one of those sessions I had to take a $75 cab ride home just to get home because I missed the last train. And there's just one of many reasons why people in New York don't like to go to New Jersey. Brooklyn is much better connected of course, but again, if you are in New York now, there's only East Side Sound Electric Lady and Sears sound pretty much, I mean there's a couple of other rooms in Times Square that catered mostly to the hip hop community, but certain people are not going to go to Brooklyn. I mean, you two did their last record at Electric Lady. I kind of doubt that U2 would go to Brooklyn, but I'm just guessing, but

Eyal Levi (00:09:20):

There's not that many U twos left, but I guess the bands that are of that stature need a place to work

Marc Urselli (00:09:28):

And they like convenience. I mean, I've done over a hundred records with John Zorn who lives 10 blocks away from East Side Sound. He loves walking over or getting in a five minute cab ride.

Eyal Levi (00:09:43):

It's interesting because I'm thinking of the metal world where bands will, they'll go to a studio in the middle of nowhere for a month or two, and that's almost the appeal to it. You'll hear a lot of metal bands say that they don't want to go to a place like New York, not because there's anything wrong with it, but because there's so much right with it that they'll get distracted. Obviously you get work done, but do you find that that's ever an issue?

Marc Urselli (00:10:14):

You mean concentrating, focusing?

Eyal Levi (00:10:16):

Yeah, yeah, just being in that active an environment.

Marc Urselli (00:10:21):

No, not at all. I mean to me, New York is a constant source of inspiration, but if you're talking about being in the studio and being distracted by what's outside, that's never an issue because the studio is kind of this island where this different dimension that you walk in and once you close the door to the street, the street street noise goes away, everything goes away. You're in this different dimension and whatever happens in New York doesn't affect you at all.

Eyal Levi (00:10:52):

How many people do you have on staff? How many people does it take to keep the place running?

Marc Urselli (00:10:58):

Nobody's on staff as in employee. Everyone works based on however many hours they put in. Got it. So Lou Holtzman is the owner. He opened the studio in 1972 and has been the owner ever since. I'm the chief engineer and studio manager. There's a second engineer called Duff Harris who does work there, and then there's a whole staff of interns and assistants that are called based on the session. Basically

Eyal Levi (00:11:30):

That's how you started. Are the criteria similar? I mean obviously there's different things that people need to know now, but is the process for finding an intern that might eventually get hired similar to when you got started?

Marc Urselli (00:11:46):

It's similar, yes. In fact, it's the same. The interns that we get, which we mostly get from audio schools, basically all start as interns and all work their way up. Whether they'll stick around is really based on their character on what they make out of the internship. Everyone gets the same shot, everyone gets the same opportunities, but if you are the kind of intern that can't wait to go home and because they've done the hours that they were requested to do, you're probably not going to make it. I was the kind of intern that was asked to do eight or 10 hours but would do 16 or 18 because I was so hungry for information and for experience, and when we see that kind of intern, those are the people that usually make it as engineers in the long run. I made it that way. Dove Harris made it that way. Eric Elman was another engineer who started as an assistant at East Side Sound and then opened his own place in Brooklyn. So it's been the same for everyone really.

Eyal Levi (00:12:58):

People notice when you're really, really dedicated to it, you don't have to fake it. I think that the people who are obsessed with it, it'll have its effect on the people who hire. I get hit up all the time asking, how do you get an internship at a good studio? How do you move up to being an assistant, et cetera. But the thing that I've noticed between everybody who's ever done it is exactly what you just said. They're obsessed with it. Nobody needs to tell them to be obsessed with it. They just are.

Marc Urselli (00:13:32):

Yeah, exactly. The hungry ones always float to the top eventually.

Eyal Levi (00:13:40):

Would you rather have, there's two people that you can get as an intern. One of them knows everything. Technically there is to know, so you'll have to do zero education. They already know it all, but their attitude is so-so, and they'll only do the eight hours versus this other intern who doesn't know shit, so you're going to have to put in a few months just to get them up to speed, but their attitude is perfect.

Marc Urselli (00:14:12):

Most definitely. The second one, the latter, although if they really don't know shit, then they probably won't within reason. Yeah, okay. If it's within reason, then I'll take the ladder, not if it's somebody that was in fashion until last week and decided now they want to be in music production.

Eyal Levi (00:14:32):

Actually, that's a good point because I've been hit up for internships from people who have never done anything ever at all.

Marc Urselli (00:14:39):

I mean, look, if you've never done anything in the audio world and you want to get a taste for it, I will give you a shot If I have room for you, obviously I won't ask you to set up microphones and things like that, especially if I'm handling $10,000 microphones and you're going to drop it or you don't know how to connect an XLR, but I think everyone deserves a chance, but we tend to hire assistants or interns, I should say that know a little bit. Like I said, mostly we take them from audio schools so they know a little bit, but the attitude is key because some of them think they know it all. Some of them, most of them these days, I find that it's all about pro tools. They think that it's all about being fast and knowing your pro tools inside out, but they don't know. They get this blank stare when I put them in front of the patch bay and things like that. So I'd rather take somebody that understands signal flow than somebody that knows pro tools inside out.

Eyal Levi (00:15:51):

Interesting. Because it's typically the reverse at the smaller studios, probably more like the ones that do indie rock and metal and stuff like you were talking about earlier. I think that at lots of those types of places, being a pro tools wizard, that's the currency basically.

Marc Urselli (00:16:11):

Yeah, it's not for us because we record at East Side, we record acoustic music, so knowing pro tools is definitely good, but it's not the most important thing. It's much more important for me that you know how to set up a microphone, break it down that you know how to route something in the patch bay and things like that, and of course, I don't expect anyone to come to the studio know our patch bay, but I expect them to understand signal flow because believe me, I got people sending me resumes that their resume really highlights the fact that they're pro two certified, but then they ask you if you have to patch in a preamp before the mic or you can just go

Eyal Levi (00:16:59):

In.

Marc Urselli (00:17:00):

I've gotten that question, believe it or not, from people that obviously didn't pay attention in audio school or people that have done some kind of pro tools certification course, but not an audio school that taught them the basics.

Eyal Levi (00:17:14):

Out of curiosity, what are the kinds of things that I guess you'll be throwing at people or kind of testing them with to build trust so that you do eventually feel comfortable giving them the $10,000 microphone?

Marc Urselli (00:17:30):

It's time. It comes down to time. I don't give anyone a $10,000 microphone on the first day, so you see somebody's character and somebody's desire to learn when you are around them every day for weeks on end, so everyone starts as an intern. Everyone who starts as an intern starts with very basic duties and they basically show their worth and get to do more as time goes by.

Eyal Levi (00:17:57):

How did you go about earning trust when you were an intern?

Marc Urselli (00:18:01):

Same thing. I mean, look, I was running a studio in Italy before I moved to New York, so I knew what a patch bay is. I knew microphones, preempts, I knew an analog console and tape and all of that. Of course, I didn't know it at the level that I know it now, but I did have a pretty wide basic knowledge from having run a studio for two or three years, but going to New York, even with all that information, you can't go to New York and expect them to let you do things. It's a different kind of world. New York City, the level is just much higher, so you just go there and you keep your head down and you observe until you're asked to do something. Eventually they'll notice that you know what you're doing and that's how it was for me. It took time and I had to put in hours and like I said earlier, the session might've been 10 hours, but I was there for 18 setting up and breaking down and asking questions to the engineer after the artist left, things like that.

Eyal Levi (00:19:02):

Sometimes what I've heard producers say is that they don't want to take interns who have done too much on their own, like run a studio because they might be set in their ways or not be willing to do the shit work because they feel like they have already graduated from that. Was it at all weird to go from running a studio and then basically being an intern?

Marc Urselli (00:19:33):

No, it wasn't weird. It was my choice. I mean, I really wanted to So you were down? I was down because I wanted to learn. I went to New York specifically to do an internship at this studio, so it wasn't like I was in New York as a tourist and just stumbled on the internship and thought it would be good complimenting knowledge to what I already knew. I wanted to know to learn the New York way of doing things, which is completely different.

Eyal Levi (00:20:01):

Why did you want to get out of Italy?

Marc Urselli (00:20:04):

It was just becoming too small. I mean it's always been too small. I hate to say it, it still is too small now. Italy just has a very narrow spectrum of things, so for example, when I ran my studio, which I ran for two or three years, all I got to record was punk hardcore, and I don't mind punk hardcore. I mean I did a couple of metal records and one or two jazz or funk outfits, but I would say 80 or 90% was like punk hardcore because that was the scene in the nineties. That's all there was in southern Italy where I was and I just wanted to learn other styles and just widen my horizons.

Eyal Levi (00:20:48):

That's what I've heard from a lot of Italian producers that I know that they feel like there's a glass ceiling basically on how far they can go with their careers over there.

Marc Urselli (00:21:01):

Wholeheartedly agree. I don't, I would've never gotten to the level I'm at now staying in Italy, and I don't think that you can't get two levels like these from Italy. I mean, I look at the top engineers in Italy and it's not because they're less good as engineers, that's not at all what I'm implying. I'm just saying that there's practically no international acts in Italy. The acts that are in Italy are Italian acts, and so you're always going to be working within that frame of mind and mentality, which is dreadful in Italy

Eyal Levi (00:21:40):

Was taking the risk of basically leaving everything behind and possibly coming to the US and having it not work. Did that weigh on your mind at all?

Marc Urselli (00:21:52):

Well, I didn't come to the US to stay in the US, so I wasn't really contemplating the risk that you are talking about. I went to the US to do an internship and my intention was to come back to Italy and with that experience, possibly open a studio in northern Italy or in Switzerland, which is where I was born. That was my original plan, and then life happened and I went to New York and realized there's nothing cooler than New York and eventually stayed, but I wasn't thinking in those terms at the beginning.

Eyal Levi (00:22:29):

I know quite a few people who have moved from outside the US to the US for that exact same reason, and I think that it's not just coming from outside the us. Also within the US I know a lot of people who came from small towns who wanted to have a big career and went to LA and Nashville or New York, and I don't think that it's necessarily impossible to have a large career in a smaller market, but I definitely think the deck is stacked against you even more if you're not in a place where the opportunity actually is.

Marc Urselli (00:23:09):

Yes, exactly, and it's also a matter of choosing whether you want to be a big fish in a small pond or whether you want to swim in the big pond.

Eyal Levi (00:23:20):

I think some people don't want the big pond actually, which is surprising to me. I've always thought that that's the way to go, but I think some people are much more comfortable with being in a small pun, but I think what matters is understanding that about yourself and doing whichever one you're more comfortable with, but just being honest with yourself is the important part.

Marc Urselli (00:23:45):

Yeah, I agree. I mean look, the big pond is scary. I mean to go with the water metaphor, it's much more comfortable to swim in a lake where you can see the shore and where there's no waves. You go to New York and you're basically in the open ocean and you can't see the shore. That's what it is. You've got to swim for your life.

Eyal Levi (00:24:06):

Sounds like it's basically been that since the moment you arrived.

Marc Urselli (00:24:10):

Absolutely, yeah. I've never stopped swimming. If you stop swimming, you drown.

Eyal Levi (00:24:14):

Do you get any time off?

Marc Urselli (00:24:16):

I don't get time off. I make time off and that's something that I've had to learn relatively early in my career. I had enough foresight to see that I was going to burn out if I didn't make time for myself or take time off. The first two years I was in New York, I was full on like 14, 16, 18 hours a day every day, no weekends, no going out, no travel, nothing. After two years of doing that, I kind of told myself I'd have to take breaks and now I just make time.

Eyal Levi (00:24:53):

It's an interesting question. It's like an interesting topic because I think that as you mature, you start to realize that it's better to have a structured approach to work where you optimize everything and you're not burning yourself out, but at the same time, I wonder if when you're young, in order to get good, you have to do the 18 hour days for a period of years because everybody that I know that's awesome, either at recording or music or anything, they all had a time period that lasted between two to five years at some point when they were young, where they went insane.

Marc Urselli (00:25:35):

Yeah, I mean it's true. I think you got to put in the hours. You've just got to commit yourself fully to something if you want to succeed at it and then after or not after you succeed, but at some point you have to find the right balance and you've got to remember that. I mean I love my job, but I don't want to live to work. I want to work to live.

Eyal Levi (00:26:05):

Absolutely. Which is actually easier said than done in this industry. True, true.

Marc Urselli (00:26:12):

That's why I said earlier that I decided consciously that I would just take time. For example, I choose to spend August in Italy where my roots are and I know that I'll miss out on some jobs by doing so, but that's my time to regenerate and I just take the time off.

Eyal Levi (00:26:36):

When did you start doing that?

Marc Urselli (00:26:37):

I don't remember the exact year, but relatively soon, maybe 15 years ago, so about five years after I was in New York, maybe seven years. I don't remember.

Eyal Levi (00:26:47):

So it's not like a recent thing?

Marc Urselli (00:26:49):

No, like I said, I figured that out earlier, early that I had to make time in order to stay focused and stay sane.

Eyal Levi (00:26:58):

Was there ever a point where you're starting to think, alright, this is working, this might not be a bad idea after all.

Marc Urselli (00:27:08):

You mean engineering?

Eyal Levi (00:27:09):

Yeah,

Marc Urselli (00:27:10):

I mean since I was 17 I've committed to being a recording engineer and mixing engineer. It was just a matter of making it work in New York because like I said earlier, I was going to go back to Europe and so the question wasn't whether I was going to still be an engineer. The question was just where I was going to be an engineer and when it became clear to me that I wanted to be an engineer in New York, that's when I had to make it work In the spectrum of New York,

Eyal Levi (00:27:46):

Sounds like you never really dealt with doubting it, you just went for it.

Marc Urselli (00:27:51):

Yeah. I never doubted wanting to be an engineer. It's really the only thing that I love to do and the only thing that I'm good at and know how to do. When I was 16 or so, I was dabbling in web design and I definitely used that knowledge to make some money on the side while I was being an intern because the internship was unpaid and I had to make money somehow, but I knew that I was just doing the web design so I could pay for food. How long did you do that in parallel? Probably two years, three years while in New York,

Eyal Levi (00:28:32):

So like 18 hours at the studio, then going home and working on websites and then sleeping four hours.

Marc Urselli (00:28:40):

I mean I'm not going to claim that I would do web design every day. I would certainly the sessions were not every day. Sometimes there would be two or three days without sessions. I would do it then.

Eyal Levi (00:28:53):

Yeah, so basically whenever you could.

Marc Urselli (00:28:56):

Exactly. I was definitely prioritizing the sessions.

Eyal Levi (00:29:01):

How long was it before you started getting paid? About two years. How did you survive during that time? Web design was enough?

Marc Urselli (00:29:11):

No, it was a combination of savings and web design. I went to New York with some savings because I thought I was going to be in New York for three months. That was the internship that I had that I was thinking I would do and I just kept extending that internship to another three months and another three months, and I just loved it so much that I wanted to stay, so I was using my savings and I was doing web design on the side.

Eyal Levi (00:29:39):

Did you tell them that you only wanted to be there for three months?

Marc Urselli (00:29:43):

I mean this is now more than 20 years ago, so my memory is fading on that, but pretty sure I told them I wanted to come do an internship, so I must have told the manager at the time, Barry,

Eyal Levi (00:29:58):

Sorry that I keep going on about the beginning. It's just a lot of people ask about that all the time.

Marc Urselli (00:30:04):

Yeah, no problem.

Eyal Levi (00:30:06):

Do you remember exactly what it was that happened that led to them graduating you or basically promoting you from intern to engineer?

Marc Urselli (00:30:17):

There was never a graduation ceremony or anything like that. There wasn't even an acknowledgement of that. It was just you are an intern until you are asked to do a session and I've heard a million stories of engineers who got their break when somebody got sick. My break came that way when the main engineer who was Lou Holtzman that I mentioned earlier, was sick one day and it happened to be a day when Luther Rands came in, and so that was the first time I think it was the first time I got paid and it was definitely the first time that I ran a session on my own.

Eyal Levi (00:31:02):

Was it nerve wracking?

Marc Urselli (00:31:03):

Yeah, definitely, especially because I was on my own, but also because it was a famous artist coming in. Luther Vandross at the time was as big as it gets, but it was also exhilarating and working. Seeing him conduct background singers was something I've never experienced since.

Eyal Levi (00:31:25):

The idea of having to run a superstar session as your first solo session sounds nice to me.

Marc Urselli (00:31:33):

Yeah, it is. Well, I have to say that I was lucky because it was a vocal only session, so it wasn't like a full band, so he was just coming in to do vocals and background vocals, so I had set up four microphones, one for him and three for the background singers, so the channel count was basically four, so super easy from a technical point of view, and it got even easier when he came in and he saw the setup and he said, you can strike those three mics, and I was scratching my head and thinking, why does he want to do everything on one mic then you have no control. That was one of the first lessons and one of the most incredible shows of musicianship that I've experienced because he basically gathered the three background singers around the mic with him and he basically put his arms around them and then pulled or pushed them backwards or forwards towards the mic to achieve the blend of the harmony he wanted to hear, and he did that while he was doing the song, and I should also mention that he had just learned the song half hour prior by listening to the demo on the DATs tape for three times.

(00:32:51):

He came in, he put on headphones, he asked me for a pad and paper. He listened to the dad three times and he wrote down the harmonies for the singers. It's quite incredible.

Eyal Levi (00:33:03):

That is pretty incredible. I guess that when you're working with somebody that's that advanced, it's better to just get out of the way and make sure that you capture their greatness and don't interfere.

Marc Urselli (00:33:16):

Of course, it was easy for me to capture it because it was one mic, so it was very low pressure on technical from the technical standpoint. I remember I used the manly gold microphone to do it.

Eyal Levi (00:33:26):

Did you have to learn to just engineer as opposed to produce when it came to situations like that? I'm asking because you say that you ran that studio at first doing punk and hardcore sessions, and that's such a different type of approach. This sounds more like making sure that you're keeping up with luminary.

Marc Urselli (00:33:54):

Yeah, look, I'm an engineer primarily in the sense that the bulk of my work these days is engineering. I would like to do more production, but I end up getting a lot of calls for engineering records and mixing records, so I've never had an issue doing being just that, just an engineer.

Eyal Levi (00:34:13):

The best engineers that I know see themselves in that role actually as opposed to lots of producer types I know who actually don't even seem to enjoy engineering that much. I'm sure you've encountered that type.

Marc Urselli (00:34:27):

Yeah, for sure. I mean I totally love being a producer and being an engineer. I like wearing both hats at the same time, but I'm also very aware of what my role is at any given time, so for example, on the Luther Band recession that I mentioned, there was a producer in the room, so not just because it was my first session but far from me to make suggestions when there is a producer in the room.

Eyal Levi (00:34:55):

Okay, so speaking of knowing your role on a session, you guys are getting all different types of acts at East Side, however, the thing that they typically have in common is that they're huge or they're great, but they're super, super varied, which to me means that your role is going to, it's going to shift depending on what's going on. How do you go about making sure that you understand exactly what's needed ahead of time so that everyone's on the same page?

Marc Urselli (00:35:31):

If somebody's coming into the studio or hiring me as an engineer, I make it a point not to make suggestions of an artistic nature unless I am asked, especially if there's a producer. I've learned this early on because I have opinions and initially I might've expressed them to a producer. I would never do it in front of the artist or to the artist ignoring the producer, but even suggesting things to the producer is not really cool, and I've had to learn that the hard way.

Eyal Levi (00:36:11):

By the hard way, do you mean that someone was like, Hey, don't fucking do it, or

Marc Urselli (00:36:16):

Yeah, I got called out on it.

Eyal Levi (00:36:18):

Oh, okay.

Marc Urselli (00:36:19):

I got called. You always remember the bad things in your career, and I remember a producer telling me pretty much straight up that he doesn't need to hear my opinions on the music because I'm the engineer.

Eyal Levi (00:36:33):

Was that a surprise?

Marc Urselli (00:36:34):

It was a lesson more than a surprise. I thought I was doing him a favor and that was my mistake. How long ago

Eyal Levi (00:36:42):

Was that?

Marc Urselli (00:36:43):

15 years ago.

Eyal Levi (00:36:45):

That's one of the tests with an intern too is can they just shut up and help without making themselves known?

Marc Urselli (00:36:55):

Absolutely. Definitely. When we're talking, I mean I was already talking about myself in the engineering chair at this point, but if you are an intern then by all means, you should just not talk. I mean, you should be a fly on the wall. You're there to observe and learn not to, and that's really, if you want to go back to the intern thing, that's the first red flag. If I see that, that's just, I say it right away because I don't want them to think it's cool for them to express musical opinions, let alone to me, but especially not to a client, which I've caught some interns do. Even if it's a compliment, even if it's like, oh, that sounded really, that take was really great. It's just not their place to say that.

Eyal Levi (00:37:39):

Yeah. It's interesting though because how do you figure out where the line is? Because obviously there are some things that you do need to say, so how do you judge that

Marc Urselli (00:37:52):

As an intern? I don't think there's anything you need to say. There is no line. You just need to, so even if it's

Eyal Levi (00:37:59):

Burning down, the place is burning down, don't say anything.

Marc Urselli (00:38:01):

Oh, well, no, I mean that's different. I'm saying that you shouldn't be expressing opinions on the music to the engineer or to the artist. Of course, you can come in and say, would you like some coffee? Or there's a phone call for you, or the place is burning down, but that's different. I'm talking about opinions

Eyal Levi (00:38:22):

Basically. In your opinion, same thing as an engineer, I guess, unless asked for it.

Marc Urselli (00:38:28):

Yeah. I try to not make any musical comments unless I'm asked or unless there's a certain relationship. There are people with whom I've worked many times that I take liberty to say something, but if it's the first time I've worked with them, I don't say anything unless they ask me.

Eyal Levi (00:38:51):

When you work with someone like say Mike Patton or John Zorn, people like that who are super, super prolific, I imagine that they come in with a super clear vision of what it is that they want.

Marc Urselli (00:39:05):

Yes, especially John Zorn. He knows exactly what he wants.

Eyal Levi (00:39:10):

Is this something where you need to talk to them ahead of time or you guys already have this working rapport and so you just get together and let him do his thing?

Marc Urselli (00:39:23):

Absolutely the latter, but it took some time to get to there. To that point, I've been working with Zorn for 10 plus years and we've done more than 100 records together.

Eyal Levi (00:39:35):

That's an insane

Marc Urselli (00:39:36):

Amount, so obviously that happened many, many records ago, I don't know, maybe 80 years ago, which was probably 80 records ago that at some point it became very obvious to me what he wanted, and of course at the beginning, the first times, especially the first session I remember I did with him, he kind of said, oh, we'll figure it out when we get there. I was trying to get information out of him, and we did figure it out when we got there, and it obviously took some time to position instruments, et cetera, but after now it's to the point where he tells me who the musicians are or what the instruments are, and I just set it up the way that works for me and I know will work for him.

Eyal Levi (00:40:20):

Got it. Is that normal? We'll just figure it out when we get there, or are there artists who will have detailed conversations with in advance, define the vision and then make a game plan, then get together and work?

Marc Urselli (00:40:36):

It's usually the latter, and I like it better that way. I like being prepared and I like knowing what's coming so you can better prepare, but there's definitely people that I worked with that don't give you that much information right away. I also work with Zorn Live and sometimes it's hard for me to get information out of him because he's working on so many projects at one point that if I'm advancing a concert that's six months down the line, he's not really thinking about that. He's thinking about the concerts he's got this month, and so it's hard for me to get information out of him about that thing that's six months down the line, and there's other people like Hal Wilner that I worked with so much who I loved how to death sadly passed away a few months ago. Organization was definitely not his forte. He was the kind of person that it was very hard to get information out of and I would just have to wing it when we got there.

Eyal Levi (00:41:40):

I guess you can't let that stuff stress you out.

Marc Urselli (00:41:43):

No, you can't. Although I won't lie, it definitely stressed me out when Hal would say, oh, we're doing this concerts and I don't know yet how many people are in the band, and I don't know yet who the artists will be, but we're going to do it.

Eyal Levi (00:42:00):

Does there come a point where you just learn to accept that it'll be what it'll be and basically just have the confidence that you'll figure it out no matter what?

Marc Urselli (00:42:10):

Yeah, I got to that point with Hal very, once I saw that at the beginning, I was scratching my head. I was like, how do you not know how many people are going to be in the band if you're producing this show or this album, but you just learn the personalities you're dealing with and you just go with the flow. You got to assist them in doing what they want to do and not become an obstacle. So the trick for me was to over prepare. So if Hal said I might have two or maybe three guitar players, I would basically prepare for four. If he said we might have a string section and a horn section, I would make sure that there were mics and inputs and chairs and all of that for a big string section and a big horn section. That was the only way to deal with the curve balls.

Eyal Levi (00:43:06):

That seems like a wise way to approach it.

Marc Urselli (00:43:09):

Yeah, it's the only way I know, because otherwise it's going to reflect negatively on you. If Hal comes in and says, oh, you know what? There's not three strings, there's eight string players and you're not ready for that. You are going to have to spend half hour setting up five extra chairs and extra mics and extra channels, and people are going to get impatient and people are paying for studio time and they want to be creative. They don't want to wait around, and it's important to be ready.

Eyal Levi (00:43:41):

Do you have a way of dealing with it when say somebody comes in and doesn't give you much information, but also doesn't really want you to suggest solutions, but then we'll blame it on you when it doesn't get done right.

Marc Urselli (00:43:56):

Luckily, I haven't been in that situation. Usually the issue is just getting information ahead of time. Once you're there, you get the information, and I always try to get to studios early, whether it's Eastside Sound or another studio and how was known for doing things last minute, and he kind of strives on chaos. He likes organized chaos. That was his thing. He was great at it. He was fantastic. So I mean, when we worked with Nick Cave, I think he gave me less than 24 hours notice and the session was in LA and we were in New York. He basically called me and said, we're doing Nick Cave in LA tomorrow, and I basically booked a flight in a hotel and started talking to the studio right away.

Eyal Levi (00:44:56):

I actually think that in order to be able to get through sessions like that, you have to have the kind of personality that compliments those kinds of people. So it's almost like those types that thrive on organized chaos typically can do it because they have a good partner they're working with who offsets the chaos with order basically. If you were also a chaos prone, it wouldn't work.

Marc Urselli (00:45:24):

It wouldn't work for sure.

Eyal Levi (00:45:26):

Yeah,

Marc Urselli (00:45:27):

No, I think that's definitely a key element in why it worked so well. Between me and Hal, I worked with him for about, I don't know, 10 years more or less, and I got to know him very well in the last five years. We did more records together, especially these T-Rex Angel headed hipster record that's coming out August 29th, which was his white album was a huge record with 27 tracks. We tracked it in the last four years. We did tons of sessions everywhere in the world, so I got to know him very well, but we also did concerts together and things like that, and you just have to learn to be an asset to them and to make it so it looks seamless

Eyal Levi (00:46:15):

And that means different things to different clients.

Marc Urselli (00:46:18):

Absolutely, yeah.

Eyal Levi (00:46:20):

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 a song on the album and takes your questions live on air, and these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more.

(00:47:20):

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 and 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.

(00:48:19):

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. Can we talk about your work with Patton? Sure. He's a pretty prolific dude. Also sounds to me like you work with a lot of super prolific types who do a wide variety of stuff, and I am kind of getting the sense that, like we said before, they like working with you because you keep it organized and down to earth. Does he also kind of have that vibe or is that just a perception of him because of how varied his output is?

Marc Urselli (00:49:04):

His patent is pretty organized. Every time I've worked with him, whether it was studio or live, I would get the information ahead of time, but also Patton, unlike Zorn has a manager. So even though I can text Pat and ask him, I can ask questions to the manager or tour manager if it's a concert and I get that information so I don't have to guess.

Eyal Levi (00:49:33):

When you get the info from him, is it typically written out a notation and that level of info or what arrangements are going to be taking place, or is it more just like an overall vision? We're going for this kind of sound, be ready?

Marc Urselli (00:49:51):

Yeah, it's more an overall overall vision and it's usually all by emails.

Eyal Levi (00:49:57):

Got it. Are the sessions with him usually pretty quick? I'm asking because I talked to him once about his approach and he told me that he doesn't like to warm up or anything. He just goes for it, gets it done the end.

Marc Urselli (00:50:14):

Yeah, that was my experience with him. Every time he's come to East Side, he's come pretty much without preparation. I should mention the times that I worked with him at East Side, it was always on Zorn projects, whether it was Moon Child, which is a band that Zorn founded for Patton, Joey Baron and Trevor Dunn and John Esky or other projects of John Zorn where basically Zorn is the producer and the composer, and Patton is the vocal artist that is asked to do whatever Zorn wants him to do. So in that sense, you can't really expect Patton to know exactly what he wants to do. Patton might tell you what microphone he wants to use and you prepare that way.

Eyal Levi (00:51:02):

How often does that happen where you get an artist that's telling you, I want this microphone?

Marc Urselli (00:51:08):

Oh, that's pretty often, especially when it comes to singers. They're more specific about vocal microphones. Patton has a whole slew of microphones that he likes to use live. I've worked with him live on different projects. I mix his Ocne band plus orchestra. I mix his tomahawk group with Dwayne Dennison of Jesus Lizard and Trevor Dunn and John Stanier on drums, and he uses different microphones for different shows and those are his mics that he brings along. So he's very specific about that.

Eyal Levi (00:51:47):

Have you ever had a situation where an artist has a very specific gear request but you don't think it's the best choice?

Marc Urselli (00:51:59):

By gear request, you mean microphones?

Eyal Levi (00:52:02):

Yeah, say a microphone. I really want to use this mic.

Marc Urselli (00:52:07):

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely, and I think it's cool. It's fine for me to suggest an alternative. I don't think it's cool for me to insist on the alternative. If they're really dead set on that, then so be it.

Eyal Levi (00:52:24):

You'll make

Marc Urselli (00:52:24):

It work. I'll make it work. That's my problem and my job to make it work. But I'll definitely make the suggestion. For example, and Pat, I think Pat, I'm not going to take credit for Patton's microphone choices, but I definitely recall that on certain projects he was using say a condenser vocal mic, and I might have suggested, I remember suggesting a tele Funken M 80 for him because it was less prone to feedback and just a little bit more direct than a condenser on stage. The Telefon and M 80 is a dynamic mike, and he tried it and he liked it and I think he owns two or three of those now and he uses them. So the suggestion was taken too hard by him.

Eyal Levi (00:53:14):

Do you find that that's a normal thing or it just totally depends on the artist?

Marc Urselli (00:53:19):

Totally, totally depends. Zorn, for example, has a saxophone microphone that he likes. He likes to use the Kohls in the studio and he likes to use the re 20 live, and there's been instances where the re 20 was not available and he was not happy. And there was an instance at Eastside where we used to own a Kohl's and then we lost to a split partnership and the partners that left took the calls that we owned, and so I put Zorn on a different ribbon microphone and he was not happy with it, and I want the artist I work with to be happy. So I went out and I bought two calls.

Eyal Levi (00:54:02):

That's an interesting thing, man, because I've always thought that if you're producing or engineering a record within reason, if you need to make those purchases to be able to get it done, may as well take some of the budget and do it. If it's going to make the difference between something being great or not as great, or the artist having an incredible experience or not having an incredible experience, it's worth that they have a great experience, I think.

Marc Urselli (00:54:33):

Absolutely. I agree. That's why I invested almost $3,000 on two calls, and I also know that they're great mics. I like them. I've used them for other things, so I know I will use them. If I was working with somebody that said, I want this $10,000 mic that I'll never use again, I don't know if I do that, but that

Eyal Levi (00:54:55):

Might be a little extreme.

Marc Urselli (00:54:57):

I mean everything to a limit. I don't own a C 12, which is probably 10 grand or more. So if somebody said We really need to have a C 12, I would say we will rent a C 12 to make sure you're happy.

Eyal Levi (00:55:09):

Yeah, I mean that's kind of an expensive request if you don't already have it,

Marc Urselli (00:55:17):

But there's always rentals, so you want to keep your artists happy.

Eyal Levi (00:55:22):

Speaking of happy artists, I think that one of the goals for any producer, engineer mixer is repeat business. I think it's kind of the kiss of death of your clients, keep going to other people afterwards. It's hard, I think to generate enough brand new business to really, really thrive as opposed to mixing that in with repeating business. And you have had a ton of repeating clients, obviously that's what we've been talking about for the past 20 minutes. What do you think it is that keeps them coming back?

Marc Urselli (00:56:00):

I don't know how to answer that without sounding cocky or pretentious. I'm good at what I do.

Eyal Levi (00:56:08):

It's more about I want people to have, when people listen to this and then they approach their own clients, I want them to think about what kind of approach they should take for the long term.

Marc Urselli (00:56:25):

Yeah, my absolute priority is for the artist to be happy. There's different ways to get to that point, but that is the finish line. That is I got my eye on the prize, which is the artist's happiness. Sometimes that means that I might've done things differently, but that doesn't mean anything if the artist is happy. I'll give you an example with Zorn Zorn and I see eye to eye on pretty much everything except for kick drum levels. I like kick drums louder than he does. At the beginning, I tried to insist on that or to suggest that it should be louder, and we kept going back and mixing it quieter. So it's more important that he's happy with his own records, it's his record. He should be 100% happy. So now for example, when I make Zorn record, I just know that I will put the kick drum about six DBS below where I want to hear it myself, and it doesn't matter that I want to hear six DBS louder. I want him to be happy.

Eyal Levi (00:57:35):

I guess it really is about knowing your priorities.

Marc Urselli (00:57:38):

Exactly, and the priority for me is clearly the artist's happiness.

Eyal Levi (00:57:43):

Is that also something that you had to figure out with maturity?

Marc Urselli (00:57:47):

Yeah, for sure. You learn that by doing, you learn. That's part of the experience of being an engineer and the experience of being an engineer is worth so much more than any technical knowledge.

Eyal Levi (00:58:00):

How do you know that the artist is happy?

Marc Urselli (00:58:05):

Body language? You can also pretty much ask depends on the artist. Zorn is not somebody that walks out of the room unless he's happy, so we just keep working until he's happy, which is not, I'm making it sound hard, but it isn't hard because I know what he wants and I've worked with him for so long that for me to make him happy is not hard at all.

Eyal Levi (00:58:28):

That actually sounds like a relief to me,

Marc Urselli (00:58:31):

Making him happy

Eyal Levi (00:58:32):

Knowing that he's not going to leave until he is hatch. Oh yeah, for sure. Because sometimes some people will not speak up when they're unhappy about something and it makes life more difficult. How are you supposed to know that?

Marc Urselli (00:58:48):

For sure, for sure. But that's why you have to become being an engineer and even more, and especially more being a producer. There's a lot of psychology involved, so you have to get good at reading people. And when you know somebody like I've known Zorn throughout the last 10 years, it's not hard at all to know when he's happy and when he's not happy and with somebody that I don't know with a new client, I just have to figure it out and if body language isn't doing it, I simply ask and I tell them. I mean, a lot of this happens via email these days because I'm doing remote mixing. I ask, what do you like and what do you not like? And if they can't articulate it via email, maybe I'll jump on the phone and you get other kind of things By talking to them on the phone that might get lost in email. I just make sure that they're a hundred percent happy and sometimes I won't let it go myself if I feel that they're not happy. If I feel that there's even the slightest doubt at them, I work with them to make sure that they are happy in the end.

Eyal Levi (01:00:00):

Is it one of those things where I'm just going to quote a friend of mine that's a really sick mixer, he says, I don't care how many revisions I have to do, I'll do 170 versions. As long as the band thinks that it's the best mix of them that's ever existed, that that's all he cares about and he's done great.

Marc Urselli (01:00:26):

Yeah, I go back and forth on that in the sense that I think along the line of this person you're quoting, I agree with that and I've been doing more revisions than I normally that I used to do in the past, but I also think that if somebody's insecure or uncertain about what they want or neurotic about what they want, it's not fair that as an engineer you're asked to do unlimited revisions.

Eyal Levi (01:01:00):

Yeah, I agree.

Marc Urselli (01:01:02):

And there's also, I mean, I just mixed a fantastic record where there were too many cooks in the kitchen, which led to a lot more revisions than it's the typical, the guitar player wants the guitar louder and the bass player wants the bass louder and you end up doing a lot of revisions until everyone is finally happy. I don't think it's fair that the engineer has to keep doing unlimited revisions, so I usually offer three free revisions with all the mixes that I do, and I usually ask for a little fee for extra revisions after the third, and my experience has been that 90% of the cases I get to the final mix within those three revisions.

Eyal Levi (01:01:49):

Speaking of this mixer, I do think, man, because he's so busy, I do think that he was probably saying that more as a symbolic thing, as in my priority, it kind of like yours, my priorities to make them happy, and I'll do that no matter what. I doubt that he'll actually do 170 revisions, no human way. He can do all the work that he does if he just lets every single artist just take forever.

Marc Urselli (01:02:21):

Yeah. If you're talking about somebody very famous, they probably have an assistant doing their revisions anyway.

Eyal Levi (01:02:27):

Oh, he's actually solo.

Marc Urselli (01:02:29):

Okay.

Eyal Levi (01:02:29):

Yeah, he does really, really big metal and rock records and does everything himself, which is crazy. It's one of the only ones out there that I know of that's a total lone wolf.

Marc Urselli (01:02:40):

Yeah. I mean, I'm a lone wolf too, but I'm probably not as famous as this guy that you're talking about. But I mean, look, in the last six months or so, or basically during the COVID time, I haven't been imposing my limitation on revisions. I just want people to be happy. This is not the time to worry about the extra money that you might make from a revision, and really, I don't even charge extra for revisions past the third one because I want to make more money. It's more for me, charging for the revision is a way to alert the artist to the fact that they might be overthinking it. Because if you keep going back by half a DB on something, I mean, we all want it to be perfect, but you have to think about the greater picture and not be carried away by stuff like that.

Eyal Levi (01:03:42):

Well, nothing will ever be perfect. That's the thing. So any project you're working on, if you wanted to, you could just keep going. There's no actual ending, so at some point people need to realize when to wrap it up and the idea of imposing some sort of a limitation. I actually think that's good for the art at the end.

Marc Urselli (01:04:08):

Yeah, I agree with you. Technology is great, but it definitely has made artists lazier. Definitely has created expectations that are counterproductive to the music. That's why back in the days when you had eight tracks, you had to make it work, and now with unlimited tracks, you lose sight of the importance of the song because you're obsessing about the details of this one sound that happens once in the song.

Eyal Levi (01:04:38):

How do you balance the whole concept of a neurotic overthinking artist with making them happy? Because on one hand, if you say, don't think of the elephant, the pink elephant in the room, you're going to think of a pink elephant. It's like if you say you're overthinking this chill, that's not going to make them stop overthinking it. At the same time as imposing that limitation so that they don't get in their own way. There's a difference between legitimate and non-legitimate requests, and there are some people that just won't be happy until they get that thing done that they want. So how do you balance it out?

Marc Urselli (01:05:25):

I do it. It comes back to me wanting to make sure they're happy. It also goes back to, is it my place to say this, which we were discussing earlier. If I'm the engineer and I'm not the producer, it's kind of not my place to say you're obsessing about things. I would only say that if I really have a friendly report with the artist, not if it's somebody I've never spoken to before or worked with before.

Eyal Levi (01:05:54):

Yeah, makes sense. Do you have a set protocol for revisions when you're doing remote sessions?

Marc Urselli (01:06:03):

Yeah, what I mentioned earlier, I usually used to offer three free revisions with every mix,

Eyal Levi (01:06:10):

But I mean as how they communicate them to you.

Marc Urselli (01:06:13):

Oh, I mean I want everything by email, is that what you mean?

Eyal Levi (01:06:16):

Yeah,

Marc Urselli (01:06:17):

Yeah, definitely Email. I don't want to get on the phone. There's artists that want to get on the phone, insist on getting on the phone, and I pick up the phone, but I also tell 'em, please put it in an email because if you don't put it in an email, I'd simply have to write it down while we're on the phone because I'm not going to remember it. You're calling me now while I'm shopping for food, say then if I have to do this later today or tomorrow in the studio, I won't remember all the details, so please put it in an email.

Eyal Levi (01:06:46):

That makes sense. One thing that I've found also works really, really well is to designate one point of contact. So that situation where the guitar player wants their parts louder and it's in total contradiction to what some other band member wants. If you designate one point of contact, they had to figure this out with each other before they come to you

Marc Urselli (01:07:09):

100%. That is one of my first stipulations with them. I always say, I want to deal with one person, and I don't care who of the band it is, but I want to get emails from one person and you guys, that email can be a digest of the opinions of all four or five or six of you. That's one thing I ask for, and I also ask for minutes and seconds and to say, I want the guitar solo louder from 5 22 6 15, and not to just say, I need to feel the guitar be clear about the requests. That way I know what you want to hear and I can get there quicker. And the revisions I let them do are they're not, when I say three revisions, I mean that I'll make three new mixes. It doesn't mean that every one revision can only be one change. So one new mix can be a laundry list of 15 changes to the original mix. I don't care. I'll do them all.

Eyal Levi (01:08:11):

Makes sense. Do you get involved in the arrangements at all?

Marc Urselli (01:08:14):

Not unless I'm a producer on the record.

Eyal Levi (01:08:16):

Okay. Is arrangement something that you ever studied or is it just something that you kind of understand just through doing this a lot?

Marc Urselli (01:08:25):

The latter. I've studied music, but I haven't studied specifically arranging. I've written some string arrangements in the past for things, but I also like to employ people who do that and who are good at it. So as a producer, if I feel like we should have a string arrangement, unless I'm feeling inspired and I hear something specifically, I will hire a string arranger.

Eyal Levi (01:08:52):

So bring in an expert to do an expert's job whenever needed.

Marc Urselli (01:08:57):

Exactly. When I say I'm a producer, first of all, I'm not one of these producer types who co-write songs and I'm not a producer in the hip hop way of saying producer, which I think is the wrong use of the word.

Eyal Levi (01:09:14):

Yeah, that's like pseudo writing in a way.

Marc Urselli (01:09:17):

Yeah, exactly. When I say I'm a producer, I think of a producer in the way that say, George Martin is a producer who works on arrangements with the band, works on ideas and knows what works best. Or in the case of Hal Wilner, from whom I've learned so much what musician might work in this context and Hal's forte was to put musicians that are completely opposite ends of the spectrum and get the best out of that situation and make it incredible. So I like to think of how I can improve something by adding somebody or an instrument or a part or something.

Eyal Levi (01:10:02):

Sounds to me like assembling the right team as a big part of your job

Marc Urselli (01:10:07):

As a producer. It is, absolutely. I think the team is what makes it,

Eyal Levi (01:10:13):

I guess that's one of the benefits of living in New York, right? There's so many people right there. Oh

Marc Urselli (01:10:19):

Yeah. Incredible musicians, no shortage of amazing musicians. It's never an issue to find anything or anyone, any instrument. I've been on sessions where somebody asked me, can we get an arrow player, which is a Chinese stringed instrument, and there's at least two or three in New York that play that very rare instrument, so it's the best pool of musicians in the world.

Eyal Levi (01:10:46):

I'm guessing that you just know them over the course of doing this for years and years and working on different sessions and taking note of, oh, this person's awesome at this thing. They might work for this situation I'm in.

Marc Urselli (01:11:01):

Absolutely. I take copious notes in my address book of the person's contact details, the instruments that they play, and even what they excel at or what they're not good at. There's drummers in my contacts app where I'll write in the notes just great for rock, but cannot play to a click, for example. So if I'm doing a session where I need a drummer that plays to click, I won't be calling that guy.

Eyal Levi (01:11:30):

Man, that's so wise to do.

Marc Urselli (01:11:33):

Yeah. My address book is like, I have more than five or 6,000 people in it, and I would say 70% of it is musicians.

Eyal Levi (01:11:42):

Is that something that you started doing at the beginning, keeping track of who you knew and what they were great at, or is that something that over time you started to realize maybe it's a good idea to do this?

Marc Urselli (01:11:56):

It was over time. I mean, I'm a very organized person, so I've always had an address book and I've always made sure that it's current so that I have the latest email and the latest phone number, but I only started taking notes, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago when I started getting jobs as a producer or when even as an engineer, people in the middle of the session would ask me, do you know a horn player that can play or a horn section? So I take all the notes when I have information about how much they charge, I put that in my notes as well so that I know this guy will do it for this much, et cetera, et cetera.

Eyal Levi (01:12:41):

Man, I think it's so important, especially for continuing that trust with people that you work for. It's so important that when you make a suggestion that it's going to work so that they're likely to take your suggestions about people again in the future. For instance, I get quite a few producers hitting me up asking if I know anybody who would be a good intern or assistant or editor or something like that, just because of the size of the podcast and URM and stuff who know thousands and thousands of potential people. But I'm super hesitant to recommend anybody unless I know like 99.9 9, 9 9 9% that this person I'm suggesting is the absolute solution to their problem. I would rather say, no, I don't know anybody than make a bad recommendation. I take that trust super seriously.

Marc Urselli (01:13:44):

Yes, I agree. This is primarily why I only recommend people I've worked with, and sometimes I have notes on people that I haven't worked with because say they've given me their business card and I've put 'em in my address book. So usually when somebody asks me for a musician, I will give them my recommendations for who I think works best and then I'll write, and here's some other people that also play this instrument, but I've never worked with them, so I cannot vouch for them

Eyal Levi (01:14:18):

Vouching for somebody's scary business, I think.

Marc Urselli (01:14:21):

Yeah, absolutely. You have to know them to trust them. It also works in recommending other colleagues. It's not only about me as an engineer or producer recommending a trumpet player or a guitar player. It's also about me as an engineer recommending another engineer. If I can't do a job, I am very much for collaboration. I'm very much for supporting a community of artists and a community of, in my case, engineers. So when I can't do a gig, I always give them other engineers numbers, but I only give them the ones I can vouch for.

Eyal Levi (01:14:59):

It's interesting because I feel like there's quite a few people in music who are very, very scared of recommending others because they're afraid that they'll lose out on future work, but I've always thought that that's very, very shortsighted. I think that the more relationships you make and the more people you help out, the better things are going to be overall.

Marc Urselli (01:15:28):

I agree. I am a very strong believer in the notion of a community that supports themselves within the community. This is something that I ran away from in Italy. Italy is kind of like the backstabbing scene where nobody will recommend anyone else that does their same job because like you mentioned, they're afraid of losing the job. I think it's shortsighted. I agree with you. I think the only way you can build trust in your community is to show that you respect the people that are in that community, and you can show that by sending them gigs when you can't do a gig, and I should also say, I have lost jobs because I've recommended somebody else, and then that artists might've kept going to that person. That's totally fine. I mean, I'd rather the artist be happy and get what they're looking for. At least they'll remember that I've helped them find a person they were happy with, and the next time that person is not available, they might come back to me if I recommend my friend who's an engineer to do this gig that he will do the same for me. So it's a community thing. You can't expect to be recommended by your colleagues if you don't recommend your colleagues,

Eyal Levi (01:16:49):

And I think that it is wise to understand that sometimes you will lose the work, but there's nothing good that comes out of trying to hoard clients because if they're not happy with you, that's actually going to do worse things for you than if they went to a friend of yours and came out happy and the whole thing was peaceful. For instance, I've always told people that if they get fired off a mix or something, say they've done a few songs and they're just not feeling it and they go to say, your best friend or something, that stuff happens all the time or go to your biggest competitor. That happens often and people can decide how they want to react. It can make it the easiest thing ever, or they can make it very, very difficult and petty, and people will remember however you went about it, and typically if you react to those sorts of things in a super professional mature way, that's going to stick with people.

Marc Urselli (01:18:03):

Absolutely. In fact, I'll take it a step further. If you're getting fired from a mix, I think you should recommend somebody of your colleagues that might do a better job than you for this particular person.

Eyal Levi (01:18:17):

I mean, obviously nobody likes to be fired, but it's one of those scenarios where if it's happening already, make it as good of a situation as possible.

Marc Urselli (01:18:25):

Yeah, exactly.

Eyal Levi (01:18:27):

Have you had any scenarios where you thought it was going well, but it in the end was not going as well as you may have been imagining? I'll give you an example of what I mean. Kind like I was saying before with a mix, say that you're working with an artist that's not the best communicator ever, so they're giving semi positive feedback and you get pretty far, but then surprise, they hate it, something like that. Or you thought that the session was going great and then a week into it or something. They tell you it's not.

Marc Urselli (01:19:10):

It's happened maybe once or twice, but luckily its pretty rare. I mean, you feel mortified when that happens because you think you're doing a good job and you might like what you're doing, but they're not feeling it. What can you do? It can happen, and the only thing I can think of when if that happens is to recommend somebody, one of your colleagues that you have respect for that you think might actually help them achieve what they want.

Eyal Levi (01:19:47):

I completely agree. I'm pretty sure that Michael Brower said this, but the way that he deals with getting fired, if he ever gets fired, which has happened and he's talked about it, is to just get started on the next record. You don't have enough time to dwell on it if it's not meant to be. It's not meant to be, and it's impossible to have, just like it's impossible to click with every single person you ever meet have a great relationship. There's going to be certain artists that you just don't click with and for whatever reason, it doesn't mean they suck or you suck. You're just not a good match, and sometimes no matter what you do, it's not going to be right, and the best thing is to just make it simple and move on to the next project.

Marc Urselli (01:20:39):

Yeah, I agree. It's funny you mentioned Michael Brower because I have mad respect for Michael Brower and we're friendly, and there is a record where the artist didn't like one of the 12 songs that he mixed, and they came to me for that one song, and so I don't know if it was Michael recommending me or if the artist came to me because they knew of me, but it was great to know that I can help the artist make their record feel the way they want it to feel, and there's going to be 11 great sounding songs mixed by Michael Brower, and there's going to be one slightly different sounding song mixed by me. In the end, you want the artist to be happy with the record, and that way both me and Michael Brower are happy because everyone is happy.

Eyal Levi (01:21:32):

When that's happened, that exact scenario, like a friend of yours gets fired off a track and it comes to you, do you call them up and let them know what's going on?

Marc Urselli (01:21:42):

It hasn't really happened to that extent. I didn't call Michael that time. I didn't know if he had sent them to me or not, so it would've been awkward if he hadn't, but I've been the recipient of that phone call. There's this great artist called Joan Wasser. She goes by Joan as policeman. She asked me to mix a gig for her. I couldn't do it. I gave her two or three names of people that I thought would do a good job, and she chose one of those people and that person, and then she was happy with that person and that person whose name is Jose Lima, great engineer, she kept calling Jose to mix her future gigs, and Jose called me the following time and says, Hey, Joan just asked me to mix this gig. I want to make sure it's cool with you because you referred me for that gig when you couldn't do the gig, and that's great to have that kind of relationship of mutual respect between you and your colleagues. And I said, Jose, of course, it's great. She, it's of course, it's cool. She likes you. Go for it. It's the only way I can think of working with my friends and my colleagues. Both Jose and Joan are friends and I want them to be happy,

Eyal Levi (01:23:07):

And by approaching it like that, no one's going to feel like somebody else is poaching their clients.

Marc Urselli (01:23:14):

Exactly. I've made that call too. I've called people and asked, is it cool if I work with this artist? I know you usually work with this artist, but it all comes down to respect and the next time I'm not available, they might go back to the person that originally referred me.

Eyal Levi (01:23:34):

I've seen people posting about this and asking questions about it, like scenario where they're competing against some other studio and they're talking to an artist that's working with another producer, and they tell them right then and there when they're talking, maybe they see 'em at a show that they should stop working with that producer and come to them because they can do a way better job, and I think that that's one of the dumbest, dumbest things you can possibly do.

Marc Urselli (01:24:05):

That's awful.

Eyal Levi (01:24:06):

Yeah, it never works out for the better. I think also artists resent it and they typically will end up just going back to whoever they're happier with anyway, so it's better to not burn any bridges. The artist is going to go where the artist wants to go.

Marc Urselli (01:24:21):

Exactly. Yeah. I would never dream of making a statement like that. If it's an artist I want to work with because I like their music, I might say things like, I'd love to work with you someday if there's a chance or if there's an opportunity or if you ever want to do something together, let me know in the future, maybe on your next record. But I would never try to poach them away on whatever they're currently working at.

Eyal Levi (01:24:46):

Have you always had that approach towards competition? Make it a community, don't get cutthroat. There's enough work for everybody.

Marc Urselli (01:24:54):

I've always had it, but I credit New York with instilling that in me. I think it's a very New York thing. I've learned in New York that there can be a community of artists that support each other. I have not seen the same in other cities, although I haven't lived in other cities. I've never lived in LA or in Nashville. I don't know how it is there, but I know in Italy where I've lived that it's not like that at all. So I love that communitarian aspect of New York City.

Eyal Levi (01:25:28):

I have a theory on competition that there's not as much competition as people say there is. People will always talk about how recording is oversaturated, music's oversaturated. People really say that about any creative field, photography's, oversaturated. But I think that, yeah, there's a lot of people who are trying to do these things, but the amount of people who can actually do them super well are pretty rare. So when you're actually talking about the pool of people who would be qualified to be hired for very high level gigs, there's not that much competition there. There's definitely enough work to go around, I think.

Marc Urselli (01:26:12):

Yeah, I agree. And there's fields at which people excel, so and genres at which they excel. So I forward gigs to colleagues of mine based on their level of expertise and based on what genres they like and even based on their rates, if somebody is tell is contacting me, and this happens often, for example, if somebody asks me to do something, whether it's a mix or a concert and their budget is too low for me to want to do it, I will try to work with them, but if it's really too low, I'll be like, here's a list of a couple people that might be able to help you, and I helped them that way.

Eyal Levi (01:27:05):

I like that. If the entire music industry behaved that way, I think that it would be a happier place.

Marc Urselli (01:27:11):

Yeah, I agree.

Eyal Levi (01:27:13):

I have not seen that in most scenarios, I guess in most markets, but the one thing that I have noticed is that most people I know who have done really well have some variation of that philosophy on things. Typically, they're pretty secure in their ability to secure work, and I think that that's part of it too. If you're feeling good about your ability to do this, if you've got confidence, you're not going to be as inclined to not pass things on to other people. If you have every confidence in the world that you're going to be all right, you got this, then passing things to other people isn't such a big deal.

Marc Urselli (01:28:02):

Yeah, agreed.

Eyal Levi (01:28:04):

From what you were saying, sounds like you've always had that sort of confidence that you could make this work, so I'm kind of not surprised that that's your attitude towards things.

Marc Urselli (01:28:14):

Yeah, I mean, I want everyone to be happy. There's been cases where I didn't have that confidence because I thought it was a genre, for example, that I don't handle much, and I'll forward that kind of gig to a colleague if I can. So there's different reasons for sending somebody to somebody else, but I always do it with the intention of helping the artist get to a happy place.

Eyal Levi (01:28:46):

Out of curiosity, did you start as a musician or did you set out to be a producer engineer from the get go?

Marc Urselli (01:28:55):

No, I started as a musician. I studied piano. I was playing in a bunch of bands. I started in a band, which was like a crossover band. We were huge fans of Fay Noir, which it's funny that it's come full circle and I get to be friends and work with Patton now, but I was being a keyboard player in the nineties. Fay Noir was pretty much the only band that made, or the band that made keyboards cool. So I used to have this crossover band that mixed metal and rock and wrap, and then I was the geek that started recording the rehearsals, and I kept buying more microphones, different mixing consoles. I bought my first multi-track cassette four track recorder, Fostex X 26, and that's how I got into engineering. Although I realized in hindsight that really what pushed me to engineering was not just the fact that I was the geek in the band that liked to do the technical things to record the rehearsals, but it was the fact that I could never figure out what genre I really wanted to dedicate myself to because I liked rock and I liked metal, and I liked funk, and I liked jazz, but I knew that if you wanted to be a successful musician, you had to find a niche and specialize.

(01:30:20):

Pick a lane. Pick a lane, exactly. And I was not willing to pick a lane, a genre, and someday just dawned on me that if I were an engineer, I could not pick a lane.

Eyal Levi (01:30:35):

Interesting. However, it does sound like you picked a lane as far as your skills go. For instance, you've talked about what you feel more comfortable doing or what kind of stuff you're more likely to pass off to other people. So it sounds like within engineering there's stuff that you are more comfortable with than others, not just any single thing possible.

Marc Urselli (01:31:03):

Yeah, but it's mostly about, it's not so much about technical skills, it's more about genres. I'm not really into r and b, hip hop by r and b, I mean the new way they intend r and b, not the old school r and b, which I love. And so if I get approached by an artist, an r and b artist, I might send that off to some of my colleagues that deal in that genre. I'm very comfortable recording and mixing jazz, rock, metal, classical music. Those are all my cup of tea, and I've been doing all of those.

Eyal Levi (01:31:42):

When you say that you studied music, did you study it formally?

Marc Urselli (01:31:47):

Yes, I studied classical piano and then jazz.

Eyal Levi (01:31:51):

Do you think that having that classical training has informed your ability to engineer and produce?

Marc Urselli (01:31:59):

I think it has become an asset down the line, I would say in the first, I mean, knowing music is absolutely a huge asset by, I can't for any stretch of the imagination, imagine being an engineer without understanding the basics of music, but things like reading a score, which I'm definitely rusty at, but I know enough to be able to follow a score has become a huge asset. When I started working with classical musicians,

Eyal Levi (01:32:33):

You can speak the same language.

Marc Urselli (01:32:35):

Yeah, yes. Because they'll talk in bar numbers and notation, and there'll most likely be a score on the console in the control room, and they'll expect you to follow, and they'll expect you to know where you are so that you can, if they want to punch something and they say, bar 49, measure three, you know what that means, and you can find it on the score. So that kind of knowledge has definitely become a major asset.

Eyal Levi (01:33:05):

I think that the idea of an engineer that isn't a musician is crazy, even though I know that there are people who are that less than there used to be. I think there used to be a lot more of those in older days, but it's so weird to me. We had a TLA on and he was talking about how he's not a musician and he actually sees that as an asset because he has the ability to listen a fan that nobody who actually learned how to play can really, really do. He says that he's got the common person's ear, which really, really informs his decisions, and I think that that's a very interesting take on it, and I completely understand what he's saying, but at the same time, I feel like if you're engineering and you have to deal with musicians right then in the room, it's a big disadvantage to not be able to communicate with them in their own language.

Marc Urselli (01:34:12):

I agree. You have to speak their language, otherwise they'll never think of you in the same way. They'll always, they'll kind of think of you as a lesser, I'm not saying every musician might do it, but you become part of their club if you can speak the same language and if you become part of their club, there's a certain report that can happen that otherwise cannot happen. So I think it's definitely an asset to play an instrument, but on the other hand, I will say I too do not call myself a musician, so I don't know if he intended it that way, that he didn't think of himself as good enough of a musician because that, no, I think he means not at all. I mean, I studied piano. That was 25 or more years ago, so I do not consider myself a musician, even though last year I've released a record with Jim Jarus and Lee Ronaldo and Bash Pani where I play bass, even though I've made records with other people where I play keys, but I don't call myself a musician. I'm not a professional musician. I'm a professional engineer and mixing engineer and producer,

Eyal Levi (01:35:28):

But obviously you've got enough musical ability to be able to play when you need to on several instruments

Marc Urselli (01:35:38):

To a degree, to a degree. I know my limitations very well. For example, I'm working on a Doom metal record now, which I'm very proud of and is coming out soon, and I played the drums and the bass on it, but I am not a good drummer, so I ProTool the shit out of myself, and I could have hired a drummer. I just wanted to play exactly what I had in my head and not have to explain that to a drummer, and so I played it and then I fixed it so that it sounds perfect because I'm not at all a drummer, so I know my limitations, and it's important to know your limitations.

Eyal Levi (01:36:22):

Do you think that if your goal is to be a studio person that you should start with an instrument?

Marc Urselli (01:36:31):

Absolutely. In fact, recently last year I believe, or late last year, I did a workshop at Abbey Road Institute and I asked, how many of you are musicians? And all the hands went up, and then the teacher of the class actually said, you can't be an Abbey Road Institute student if you don't play an instrument. So I was like, that's amazing, because other audio schools don't do that. You can enroll in SAE without being a musician, but you can't enroll into Abbey Road Institute without being a musician. I think that's really cool.

Eyal Levi (01:37:11):

I think that's excellent criteria. Also, I think that the home recording revolution, or whatever you want to call it, has made it to where it'll be super rare anyways to find engineers that don't play because now it seems like the path you take, you learn how to play and you record yourself, and that leads into wanting to record more, whereas obviously there was a time period where recording yourself wasn't even really much of a possibility, so it's not like you could just evolve right there recording your own guitar parts and programming things and have that spark. Any curiosity, I think every single band in the world now pretty much has at least one person who has some sort of recording rig, big or small. Have you noticed that?

Marc Urselli (01:38:07):

Absolutely. I don't think it's the greatest thing.

Eyal Levi (01:38:11):

I was about to ask you how you felt about it and if it's affected your workflow at all.

Marc Urselli (01:38:16):

Yeah, it's definitely affected. It's affected everyone's workflow. I think there's a place for everyone, and I think it's, maybe I'll be a voice outside of the choir on this one, but I think it's extremely arrogant and pretentious of a musician to assume that the job they will do as recording their band is as good as what a recording engineer will do, or what a mixing engineer will do. This kind of, I think I agree, it's a very big lack of respect for the art of recording and mixing. When a musician tries to save money by recording themselves and mixing their own records, it kind of says to me, I can do this because I have microphones and preempts and pro tools or logic or whatever,

Eyal Levi (01:39:12):

Because I bought some stuff,

Marc Urselli (01:39:14):

Because I bought some stuff. I can now do what you have spent 25 plus years to learn how to do. I think it's really not cool, and I understand why they do it. I know that they're trying to save money and that in today's world, every penny you save goes towards other expenses you have as a band. I totally get that. I think it's not the right course of action, and I think eventually that will bite you back in the ass. I also think that it becomes that that time will change that for every band in the sense that there will always be a time in the career of a band where they realize that they need to entrust their sounds to somebody else to really get to the next level because they're musicians, they're not engineers.

Eyal Levi (01:40:04):

I can tell you that when I was doing the band thing and I got the chance to work with a really great producer, it made such a difference. I recorded our stuff at the beginning when we had no budgets and stuff when it was local, and eventually once we got signed, we had budgets and man, the level of playing went up so much by having somebody else taking control of that and giving, making my only responsibility to play well, as opposed to when you're recording yourself, you by definition don't have a hundred percent of your brainpower to devote to either one of those things, so they're both going to suffer a little. One thing that I've heard some musicians say is that they record themselves because they've never had a good experience, and I've seen it where some musicians think faster than the people that they've hired to record them, but my answer for that is hire a better producer.

Marc Urselli (01:41:18):

Exactly. They haven't hired the right person, and it comes back to how much they're willing to spend. They're willing to spend nothing, which is why they record themselves, but if they hire somebody, they will go for the cheapest person because they're not willing to spend more, and so I think the only rule that regulates the audio world is you get what you pay for. That's pretty much the, there's no other rules that I abide to, but that's the one rule that I find it's always true when it comes to audio.

Eyal Levi (01:41:51):

It really, really is, and man, those self-produced records, there's some exceptions, of course,

Marc Urselli (01:41:59):

Yeah, Steve Wilson, but there's definitely exceptions. Yeah,

Eyal Levi (01:42:02):

He's great,

Marc Urselli (01:42:03):

But he's probably a freak of nature. He's definitely not probably, yeah, I don't know him. I never met him, but I'm saying if you are that good at both, it's not common to be that good at both things or however many things he does. What you said about the brain power that you're using when you're playing an instrument and recording at the same time is also true about the amount of time you spend perfecting your art. So if you are a guitar player and you're playing eight hours a day, say you're doing your scales, but whatever guitar players do, and then at some point you are going to say, you know what? I'm going to do six hours a day because the other two hours, I'm going to learn pro tools so I can record my band. Obviously, you're going to be less good than the guy that plays eight hours a day, assuming you have the same vocation and talent for the guitar, so that's why I am always kind of sad when I see that happening.

Eyal Levi (01:43:07):

Yeah, I agree. There's one more thing too where when you're playing an instrument, even if you're wearing headphones and you're not getting distracted by the sound of speakers or the pick noise in the room or whatever, you're still feeling it in your body. There's some way that your other senses are taking it in and kind of distorting your perception of what you're actually doing, so I feel like that right there makes it even harder to accurately judge what you're doing while you're recording. I guess you can always listen back to it, but that is an element of slowing things down by having to record, stop, listen, record, stop. Listen. It's not that you won't do that if you're recording somebody else or being recorded, but you have to do that when you're recording yourself because it's impossible to actually properly objectively judge what you just did.

Marc Urselli (01:44:11):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:44:13):

How do you stay objective after long days or long projects?

Marc Urselli (01:44:17):

The one thing that I do is mix at low volumes, but that goes to staying objective with your hearing so you don't lose your ear, and B, you don't get ear fatigue. And then I try to take frequent breaks. This is especially true for mixing sessions, more so than recording sessions. I'll do frequent quick five minute breaks just so I can keep a clear head and give my ears a break, and I mix very low for that reason. Also, I start loud and then I lower the volume.

Eyal Levi (01:44:52):

That's the opposite of what a lot of people do.

Marc Urselli (01:44:55):

I mean, if you're getting your low end, you have to have volume for that, but everything else you don't really need volume for. You can turn up the volume at the end so you can be pleased with the mix and rock out, but you don't need loud volume to place a guitar in the mix or to place a vocal in the mix. In fact, if you do it at low volume, you will make a more accurate judgment. So if I'm mixing your typical rock record, I'll start loud so I can get drums and bass and then I'll lower the volume and I'll stay low for pretty much the remainder of the mix. Maybe I'll do one last loud listen to at the end, but I mix very low.

Eyal Levi (01:45:39):

Do you ever find that having clients in the room makes that harder because they want it louder?

Marc Urselli (01:45:45):

I've been in that situation. Unfortunately, I will work loud because that's what they want, and it goes back to me wanting to make the artists happy, but I'll have to increase my ear brakes to make sure that I can stay focused and stay objective. It's the only way really your fatigue will catch up with anyone at some point.

Eyal Levi (01:46:06):

I think also what you said towards the beginning about building in your own breaks, that's probably a huge part of staying objective too.

Marc Urselli (01:46:14):

You mean at the very beginning of this interview? Yeah,

Eyal Levi (01:46:17):

We're talking about how you make your time off,

Marc Urselli (01:46:20):

But when I was talking about that, I was more thinking in terms of vacations or weekends, not so much a five minute break or an hour break when I'm mixing with clients in the studio. If I'm mixing, I'll do like five minute breaks here and there, but it depends on clients, because Zorn is a machine. He never stops. He doesn't even stop to eat. Most people will take a lunch break so everyone can order some food and eat. Zorn doesn't eat, and if Zorn doesn't eat, I don't get to eat. So we do set and it's great. I mean, I might prefer to eat, but I don't care because he's happy that way. He says he doesn't want to eat so he can stay focused, and so he can focus until the very end, and it's worked for him, and I roll with that. So you have to adapt. You have to be flexible and go with the flow.

Eyal Levi (01:47:15):

I actually completely understand. I try not to eat during workdays for that reason. Exactly. Yeah.

Marc Urselli (01:47:21):

I mean, when I work with Zorn, I know I know to eat a big breakfast before I go in because I know we won't be eating until seven or eight or nine or 10 whenever we get out.

Eyal Levi (01:47:31):

I've always been surprised when people tell me that because for me, it's a decision not to eat. It's not like I forgot, but I've met those creative types who just, they just forget. They just don't do it, which I've always thought is interesting.

Marc Urselli (01:47:47):

Yeah, I mean, for Zorn, it's a decision I find myself forgetting to eat.

Eyal Levi (01:47:52):

How

Marc Urselli (01:47:53):

Well you get so focused and so wrapped up in what you're doing, that lunchtime comes around and you completely forget, and it's because you don't realize it's lunchtime, but then eventually, even if you forget to eat at one, eventually around five or six, your stomach will start making growling noises, and then you'll remember

Eyal Levi (01:48:14):

On the topic of what you ingest and staying mentally focused, how much sleep do you get on session nights?

Marc Urselli (01:48:23):

It depends on the sessions. These days I try to work regular hours, meaning

Eyal Levi (01:48:32):

Business hours? Yeah,

Marc Urselli (01:48:33):

Sort of. Yeah. I try to start at 10 and I try to end by seven, especially if it's a mixing session. I think anything past the nine hours, you're not thinking straight or you might be thinking straight, but you're not hearing straight. If it's a tracking session, that often goes out the window because you finish whenever you finish tracking. It's on a case by case, I guess, but I tried to keep it around nine or 10 hours max.

Eyal Levi (01:49:04):

That's one of those things that when I was younger, I would sometimes do those 30 hour sessions and that kind of dumb stuff, and yeah, it's counterproductive

Marc Urselli (01:49:16):

For sure, for sure. But then again, sometimes, sometimes you got to do it. Sometimes you got to do it. I mean, I did this record with this band called Preacher Son, Irish Band. We went to a beautiful studio called Grouse Lodge in about two hours outside of Dublin, we booked five days and we were running short, so by the third day we realized we should have booked an extra day, but we couldn't. There was another band coming in after that, and so we started working longer hours. So those were very long sessions, but you got to do it because you have that amount of time at disposal.

Eyal Levi (01:49:54):

Yeah, I mean, got to do what you got to do.

Marc Urselli (01:49:57):

Yeah, exactly.

Eyal Levi (01:49:57):

Alright, well, mark, I think this is a good place to end it. I want to thank you for coming on. It's been a pleasure talking to you. It's

Marc Urselli (01:50:07):

Been my pleasure. Thank you so much for

Eyal Levi (01:50:09):

Having me. 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 a ar levy, 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, do Academy and press the podcast link today.