WILL YIP: Signature Drum Sounds, His Song-First Approach, and Pushing Artists

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:05):

Eyal

Speaker 1 (00:06):

Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:08):

Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man. Time moves fast, and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram, and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy, and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line. Answer me, Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Discord q and a with myself and Mr. Will Yip. Will welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:47):

Hey man. What's going on guys? What's up? Yeah, how are you, brother?

Speaker 2 (01:50):

Good, how are you doing? Doing

Speaker 3 (01:52):

Good. I'm rocking, man. Rocking. Just track the song. My energy's up, my adrenals up. I'm ready to party, man.

Speaker 2 (01:58):

Awesome. Well, thanks for being here and thank you everybody for coming to hang out with us. First question is going to come to us from Joe Scaletta. I have just requested you to the stage. Awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:09):

Thank you Will for doing this. I'm actually really excited for this. So my first question is someone like you, you've worked with a lot of different types of bands, different genres. How do you get your foot in the door of so many different types of music?

Speaker 3 (02:23):

Ooh, that's a good question. I kind of, first off, thanks. Thanks everyone. Thanks Joe for joining us and being stoked to chat with me. Andhow. But yeah, that's a big part of what I do. I always promote to artists, to people, to anyone that will listen to me talk. I'm a song is Paramount person. I always tell bands, I always tell artists, tell my friends, I'm not a sound guy. Growing up, my interest was never in sound. That wasn't what I loved. That's not why I fell in love with music. I love music. I wanted to work in music. I wanted to play music and write music because I love songs. Song is paramount to me. So getting to work with, say someone like Lauren Hill for five years, she just trusted my taste in songs and a melody and in how to capture, even on the engineering side and production side, how do we capture it to really highlight the song.

(03:19):

That's the same approach I take to a band like Coat Orange or Turnstile. So it is all about the song to me. I think that's what the people that I end up connecting with, they recognize and they find value in that. And yeah, that's it. I really try and promote that. I always tell artists, when you come to Studio four and make a record with me, you're not getting a Studio four record. I don't care what people say. I don't care what the internet says about what a will record sounds like. Last time I checked, there was a month where a coat orange record came out the same month that a turnover record came out, that a pedal record came out. And the only thing to have in common is that when you come to C oh four, you're not coming for a certain sound. You're coming to have me join the band, join the artist to work on the songs, and that's what they share in commonality, that you have another person joining your team to really kind of support the songs and yeah, that's it. That's why I get to work with a lot of different sounding artists because I'm not really a genre specific person. That's not my taste in music. I don't listen to one type of music and hence I don't work in one type of music. I try to stay busy. Do

Speaker 2 (04:29):

You put that out there when you're booking artists to work with that you want to be involved with the songs? For instance, if a band is just looking for someone to record them and not get involved with the songs, is that something you may not be as interested in?

Speaker 3 (04:44):

Yeah, 100%. Growing up, I love writing. I love playing in bands. I love making beats and I just love creating. But I always hated touring. I hated touring. I hated being in a band in terms of spending a lot of time with the same people creating. I just want to create and create as many people as I can. And I always have that itch to generate new stuff and create new ideas and come up with melodies, come up with layers, come up with arrangements, compose things, and I just want to help. I just want to help people create. And if bands, I'm lucky enough right now, I'm fortunate to have a bunch of people that want to work with me. If there's an artist that wants my help on the song building and on the songwriting side versus a band that doesn't, I'm going to go to the songwriting side. Not even for the royalties, not for the publishing, but because I love doing that. That's why I do this.

(05:39):

And I outwardly say that when we're going into a discussion about me possibly doing a record, I tell bands that I, I'm going to be pretty involved and I want to be pretty involved where I'm needed. And I always tell them as well, I'm inherently lazy, so I want every song and every demo to come to me. Perfect. But that's not the case. I'm picky. People are picky and I want to help. I want to make the songs the best that they can be. I want to turn over every stone. I want to try every melody idea. I want to try every lyrical theme that inspires us. And that's why I get to grow with bands. I, I'm lucky enough to feel like I'm in 40 bands. Yeah. And it's just a little more fun for me. I tell bands when, if they're coming to me to grab it and capture it and just capture an engineer and mix it. I'm not your guy. I really don't have that much joy in spending eight weeks just being an engineer and capturing performances. I want to create, make a new song every day.

Speaker 2 (06:38):

I think that that's actually really, really important for a producer to know what their strengths are and what it is that they're the most interested in. Because I think that following that, I mean, obviously you can't always work on your favorite stuff, but you need to work on the stuff that inspires you because that's what will get you working the hardest, I think.

Speaker 3 (07:02):

Exactly. And that's why I love every single thing I do, because I love every single melody and every single idea that we put on. And that's why what we do here is I think is a little above just a genre. You know what I mean? That's why I can do a turnstile record one day and then do a singer songwriter record the next day, and then a bar t Strange hip hop remix the next day is because I just love the song man. And if I am happy with every second of every melody, every song, I'm going to have fun every day and every minute of every day just enjoying what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (07:37):

Makes sense. Alright, next up, I'm bringing Stefan Moleski to the stage. So Stefan Hey Stephan. Hey.

Speaker 5 (07:44):

Hey. How is everybody? How

Speaker 2 (07:45):

Are you doing?

Speaker 5 (07:46):

I'm great. So I wanted to ask you, since you wear a lot of hats in the studio, what is your job today? What is your job as a producer in the studio since the term is quite fluid?

Speaker 3 (07:57):

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think a lot of people know and people have different expectations. This

Speaker 2 (08:03):

Is a tough one actually. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:05):

I know what my job is. My job is to deliver the best record the artist can from take it from wherever it is and to deliver the best record they can at this point in time. And whatever it takes, I work around the clock. I think everyone that knows me and knows my schedule's pretty kind of whacked. I've taken songs. I have artists I did six, seven records with and say the first record, they came in and the ideas were pretty well fleshed. And then I had ideas. Again, I just had ideas to change up the song and say, yo, why don't we try this melody? Why don't we try this? This isn't right. This isn't right. Can we just try things? That's all we want to do is try things. And then the next record, we co-write the whole record together from the jump.

(08:49):

So it's just whatever's going to get the record done. I tell people when we work, we're just going to show up to the studio and get to work and make music, whatever that means. I'm working with a band right now, I can't say who it is, but one of my favorite bands to work with. And we had a fun kind of exercise because the last record, our favorite things were things that we built up from scratch in the studio together. So this time we're like, yo, let's not have any ideas coming in and spend 12 weeks just building new ideas and just starting from scratch because we're all going to be excited, we're all going to be on the same page. Every idea is going to get birthed together and we all trust each other, and I'm having time of life and I'm working on another record when my best on my best friends.

(09:33):

And they spent two years in lockdown writing, writing more than they've ever written, and they're very married to ideas. So now it's my goal to try to respect that, respect the work they put in, but still make sure every idea is as strong as possible and get it to the finish line, even though that one has no ideas. And one has a lot of ideas, a lot of ideas in some ways is getting to the finish line a little tougher. We're married to things, I think you said the best. You have to wear many hats and you have to pay respect to the artists and their work and the work they've already done coming in here. But my job is just deliver the best record I can and the best record that I think they have the capacity to make, that we have the capacity to make. And yeah, and that's my job. Whatever that means, whatever that means, we have to fucking fly to Portland to write with these two other dudes in Portland. We will fucking do that. Or if it's just to capture the best version of the demos that they brought in, if that is the best version of the record, then that's what we're going to do. So any best job as a producer is just deliver the best record they can.

Speaker 2 (10:39):

Awesome. Okay, so we have a question from the crowd, which is, how much of your workflow is analog over digital plugins? Do you strive to mix as you go, meaning try to get tones as close to final while tracking?

Speaker 3 (10:53):

I think it's a little bit of everything. So my mentor and my partner now at the studio, he's an old school guy. They call us production group, the Butcher Brothers. They were in front of the mainstream hip hop stuff in the early nineties and they were called a Bush Brothers. They sliced tape all day. They were so great at it. And I learned my formative years as an engineer was with him and using a Neve 80 48 and a Brown eq, SSL 4K and a two steward machines rolling in every single room. So that was my background and that's why at first I got a lot of cool punk bands. They wanted a place in this area to do analog stuff when everyone was trying to hop over to dig in the late nineties, early two thousands. And I like to think that I do whatever again.

(11:45):

I'm going to go back to the song song, I'm going to drive that to the ground, but I do whatever that the song calls for. So there was one record where we wanted, the band wanted to commit. They had such a hard time historically committing to things and they're like, yo, wouldn't it be cool if we just did a record all of the tape, not even just analog outwork gear, instead of plugins, we're saying all of the tape mixed on all analog stuff, drop down to half inch, send a half inch to the master, and just so that these songs were so raw and so emotive, they're like, we just want to commit and not overthink things. This is going to bound us so that we can commit. And that's what we did. And whereas most of the time think we just, I use everything.

(12:32):

So from whatever a song calls for this, even an analog psycho panner, which literally just used for the first time is eight years. If it calls for that, if an artist is just inspired by something and just is chasing this idea, if it's a plugin that I think can solve it, I'm going to do that. If it's a piece of analog gear that's going to solve it, I'm going to do that. Working with the artists like Lauren Hill and Jamie from Coat Orange, those people push me. Those guys push me. Brenda from Turnstile Austin from Turnover, a lot of prolific artists that they have these vision and they just need help getting it sonically. And a lot of times it involves a lot of analog stuff because they're a bunch of old school guys and I'll reach for it. So I think being an engineer, you have to be well versed in everything, man.

(13:22):

It's your job as an engineer, as a producer to know tools to no tools because you never know what artists are going to be inspired, what they're going to be inspired by, and it is just going to help you build. I also want my gear to not hold me back, so I'm never going to be the one to reach for something and set up a student machine or set up a whatever, whatever, just crazy chain, just because it's cool and hip to use. No, if the song calls for a certain sound and if a plugin get there faster, I just want to be able to keep creating and keep writing and keep laying down ideas. So whatever's going to get us there accurately the quickest, that's what I'm going to use. But being well versed in everything is very handy because you never know what the artist is going to want.

Speaker 2 (14:11):

Great answer. Okay, first up now is Diego Meger.

Speaker 6 (14:16):

Yo, what's up there?

Speaker 2 (14:17):

Hey Diego, how are you?

Speaker 6 (14:18):

I'm all right. I'm all right. So the big question I have for you will, I got into production like five, six years ago just because of you listening to your records. Super inspiring.

Speaker 3 (14:30):

Wow. Thank you, man.

Speaker 6 (14:31):

Thank you. The one thing that I've been chasing is something comparable to your drum tone, and I was wondering if you could maybe walk us through your workflow with that.

Speaker 3 (14:42):

Oh, shit. That's still my secret, Diego. I got you though. I got you. I'm not afraid to share secrets. I'm actually doing something with a very cool company soon, showing off my drum sequence and how I capture 'em and what I used to build my tones. My friends notice about me, but maybe not too many average listeners, passive listeners, knows about me. I come from the hip hop background. I grew up with a love producing music because I love making beats and I loved working in Hop the hip hop world, and my goal when I was engineering rock records and punk records was my ears were so key, my ears were so used to hearing hard ass samples. Obviously when you're mixing a hip hop record, making a hip hop record, those samples are already processed. They bang, they already bang. Everything you grab is processed and it's going to slap.

(15:38):

So my ears wanted that, right? You know what I mean? Making a record. So I push, honestly, you're going to ask any drummer that I work with work with, I push drummers, I push drummers to hit, I forgot to answer this part of the last question, but I want to get it as close. I want to capture the performance sonically and performance wise, as close as we possibly can to finish take because it is just easier. It's just more inspiring. So I want people to hit, and you can ask Dan F from Turnstile, who's one of my favorite rock drummers. When we did our first record, his hands were bleeding and I felt bad, but we were getting the craziest rim shots. We wanted these heavy, heavy rim shots. So a lot of the attack, a lot of the bite that you hear is from the performer themselves versus some other drummers that don't hit as hard.

(16:33):

It literally just doesn't sound the same. So I think 80% of it comes from the aro drumming, from the actual drum performances. And obviously, not every single song should be hit as hard as possible. A turnover record drums should not sound like a turnstile records of drums. But I am a big believer in consistency, especially on rock records. I want my guys to be consistent. I want things to be well voiced. It just makes the whole process easier. So instead of reaching for trigger two and sampling it, I'm trying to get it off the performance and off the room. And people always ask me, what mics do I use? What pres do I use? What's your EQs? And dude, my stuff is easy. Everybody walks into my room, they're like, oh shit, this is it. I'm like, yeah, I know the tools. You have to just know your tools.

(17:25):

Once you know your tools, you can do anything with them. You know what I mean? I think when I was in college, I found myself kind of sucking because I was trying out so many different things and I wasn't able to really understand everything that I was using Mike's Pres EQs. I wasn't comfortable. It's like a chef with their knife. You know what I mean? If you're not comfortable with your knife, you're not going to cook as well. You're not going to prep your food as well if you're comfortable. It doesn't matter what the knife is. Some of the most famous chefs I know use an 800 mic versus $800 knife versus some chefs, some even home chef that spends $4,000 on a knife and don't know how to use their knife. And that's my thing. And you walk in straight up. I'll tell you, I have 50 sevens on the snare.

(18:15):

I have a Beta 52 on the kick. I have four 20 ones on the Toms. I have Norman, 180 fours and an overheads, and I have a ton of room mics, a bunch of ster, pair of room mics, and a pair of coals, a pair of 80 fours on the rooms, a pair of 80 sevens on the rooms. Nothing's crazy. Nothing's like al this where like, oh, man, you're using this. You're using this $20,000 this. No, I just know this stuff. I've known these tools since I was 19, and obviously I tried other stuff, but these are things that I just felt were another extension of my arm, extension of my ears, and it just makes grabbing the stuff easy and everything's going through my knee, 10 80 ones that I've been using since I was 19, and I just know those preamps and know those EQs so well that I feel like I can do anything with it.

(19:05):

You know what I mean? So I think that's a big piece of advice that I can give any engineer is know your tools, have fun, obviously, try out all the different stuff, but make sure the stuff that you're leaning on, what it does, so that when you start writing, producing, building, oh shit, you need this. You have a vision, boom. The tools that you know what's in your toolbox and you can just get it quick. But yeah, my drums, there's not that much of a secret other than I try to get things as consistent as possible so that it's as malleable as possible. Just like in hip hop, you always swap out a snare drum, even the last mix. So there's been records. Half my records, I track the shells and the symbols separate. I know, I know drummers drum nerds give me a lot of heat for it.

(19:55):

I'm a drummer. People forget. I'm a drummer. I play drums for Lau Hill for a long time. I played drums for my entire life. But it gives you so much flexibility in your mixes. Say a snare still doesn't feel right by the end of the mix. If you track the whole thing, you're just going to lean on symbols and compression and gates to get that right. If you track the whole shelves, you can swap out the shelves and then just edit and re-edit it to the mix, and you can squash the drums, but not squash the symbols. But big piece of ice is, it's definitely works better when you're a drummer tracking that way, because I've seen a lot of guys that weren't too familiar with drum performances try to do that, and it's not the right mojo. Every time I do it, I edit it like a drummer. I don't edit it like somebody else. So that's another little secret that I have on my drum stuff is I do a lot of things separate just so I have flexibility, like the way I have flexibility in the hip hop track.

Speaker 2 (20:49):

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

(21:42):

And these are guys like TLA, will Putney, Jenz Borin, Dan Lancaster, toy Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. Dylan, Joseph, you're up next. What's up, Dylan?

Speaker 3 (23:02):

What do you think the most effective strategy is for releasing music these days to do a series of singles or the EP or album or, oh, shit, I love this. I am not sure if everyone knows, but I work on two record labels, and it's something that I've been growing more and more passionate about. I've never, growing up, I never wanted to work on a label. I just want to work on songs. I actually hated the suit side, but in 2015, I kind of realized that I really wanted to be more involved on how we share music. And again, I'm pretty hands-on as people can tell. I'm very hands-on with our music in here, and I want people to consume it in the way that us, the artist and me kind of designed it for them to consume it. So having my own indie label and working on a subsidiary for a major label was kind of like right next step for me.

(24:02):

Your question is a great question. I think it's ever changing. We talk about this literally every week in a and r. So if you were asking me about a hip hop track right now, if you were asking me about a pop track, I probably would lean more right now on the smaller release, right? Because right now everything's in playlisting. Everything is in digital, obviously. But everything outside of TikTok, which is a phenomenon itself, but in your traditional DSPs, everything is in playlisting. And if you release, just say you as a indie artist, release 14 songs and you roll out three singles, most likely the only songs that are going to get playlist looks are those three songs. But if you roll out singles at a time, here's a single, or here's two songs, here's another two songs, here's another two songs. Obviously you're going to have a little more money on the PR because you're going to spend, it's basically more of the rollout, more rolling out songs.

(24:59):

You're going to have more opportunities on playlist looks. So someone rolling out 10 singles, now you have 10 shots again on playlists versus rolling out a record with three to four singles and getting at most three to four looks for playlisting because it is rare, unless you're a Lee Rodrigo or huge artist, they're not looking at your other songs or your record to play because they want to serve to them. These playlisting people want music served to them. They're not out searching for stuff. They're embedded with everyone, and everyone's coming to them saying, listen to this, put this on a playlist, put this on a playlist. So if you have more stabs at it, then you have a more chance for success of getting on this playlist and getting people to stream your shit. But honestly, that's been a growing thing with rock that is not as effective as it is with hip hop and pop, just because rock bands have yet to see a quick initial return on that, where in hip hop and pop, it's baked into the culture.

(25:56):

That's how people consume that music is in singles and its playlists with rock. How bands make money is selling fucking vinyl. You know what I mean? How most bands make money selling records because all the marketing goes in the records. But I do see that changing. I like the idea, again, giving you my secrets. I like the idea of combinations, you know what I mean? Of work lot artists where we roll out two or three songs at a time, another song, another song, and then it was only the last song that a record was happening. So you kind of get the best of everything that you get a bunch of playlist looks, and you get a traditional record to sell for $30 at the end of rollout.

Speaker 2 (26:32):

Awesome. Thank you for such a detailed answer.

Speaker 3 (26:34):

Hell yeah, man. I hope I'm not talking too much, man. I know.

Speaker 2 (26:36):

No, this is what this is for is if there's any place where talking too much is good, it would be here. So

Speaker 3 (26:42):

Yeah, I can go on, bro. I can talk.

Speaker 2 (26:45):

I actually find the whole playlisting thing and the rollout process fascinating these days so different than it used to be.

Speaker 3 (26:53):

Exactly. My answer is probably going to be different a year from now, but right now is the most effective way I've seen this work.

Speaker 2 (27:02):

Well, that's key actually. That's what's really important here, is that your answer would be different a year from now. I think where a lot of people go wrong is they have one period of time where they worked hard to understand how to release things. It could have been 10 years ago, it could have been three years ago, but there's a time period where they put their energy into that, and most human behavior people get stuck in their routines. They're creatures of habit. And so while something like record release strategy and tactics are this continually evolving thing, or is this continually evolving thing, lots of people get stuck on whatever worked for them at one point in time. And that's why it's so many people find it so tough. It's something that you need to keep on re-upping your knowledge on because it's constantly changing.

Speaker 3 (27:58):

Yeah, I feel that way with anything involved in technology, obviously, and even on production side and stuff, I've seen a lot of careers kind of come and go because they were not trying to evolve because they thought status quo. That cannot happen in tech. Anything involved in tech, if your attitude is status quo, you're going to get rocked and you're going to end up fucking selling insurance. I don't know. But yeah, especially releasing music is Yo, I never thought I'll see a day in rock music now that because of TikTok labels, major labels are signing fucking songs. They're signing a song, they're investing, they see you as a band and you're an inside band, and you blow up on TikTok. They're signing just that song because they're just collecting assets right now, and that's fucking cool. That's crazy. It gives you flexibility, but I never thought I'd see today. So things are evolving and strategies. Your strategies should be evolving and in the music world especially, but in all creative worlds, your mind should be open to changes. You kind of have to be. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (29:08):

No way around it. Okay, Kiko, Picasso, you're up next.

Speaker 7 (29:12):

I saw that you have a lot of repeat clients.

Speaker 2 (29:15):

It

Speaker 7 (29:15):

Seems like quite a bit more than usual. And so I'm curious if you find the process changes when you're working with the band you've done five or six albums with, or if it feels like it's almost just easier to do something more consistent with the band when you've done five or six albums with them?

Speaker 3 (29:32):

Yeah, I'm not proud of too much, but I am very proud that other than one band, they kind of sucked. But other than one band, every single artist I've worked with, I've done more than record with, and I'm very proud of that. That shows our relationship and our trust in each other. I never make the same record twice, even with the same artists. Not that we go out our way do stupid things. I'm never a guy that says, yo, let's do something different. Let's do something different. No, when you are 18, when you're 16, the record you make at 16 and the record you make three years later in 19 and 20 are going to be different. Your taste is going to change. So you as a producer forcing the same kind of, it's forcing the same fucking structure of making a record on them while these people are trying to evolve.

(30:22):

That's why bands pass You and Don't Return to You. I'll use the example of title Fight. I've done four records for Title Fight. The first record, they had it all written out. They didn't want, they barely wanted to produce it, wanted to just fucking do it. We did it live, we did it all live, but it was a dig. But we were like, let's just track live and we're over our vocals. We're like, cool. Was that no? Click the next record. We're like, yo, let's spend a little more time on the songs. So we did a song a day. We built up a song a day, really got into nitty gritty of it and fucking, and the next record was the tape record where we did everything to tape. It never touched the computer until the songs were bounce down to iTunes because we wanted a different energy than the record before it, because we were having such a hard time, not a hard time, but we were slower on committing to things.

(31:08):

We're like, yo, let's fucking commit quicker. The last record we did, we had demos already, and Shane was just like, yo, we already did this. Before the songs felt too familiar to 'em. We already had 14 songs. We literally, other than two songs, threw 'em in the trash. And we said, how about we just write a new record right now? So we literally just wrote a record here, which we've never done before. So my thing is, again, I'm joining the band, so to me, there's no process rubric that I follow. I have tools obviously, that I go to when we decide what the plan is, but I'm working on a band that my sixth or seventh record with, and we had a really deep conversations. They're like, will you've been a part of the process since the jump? We want to use you. It's like a real thing, but we don't want to make the same record again.

(31:59):

We're changing. You are changing, but we do want the process to be even more different, but we trust you that it would be more different. What can we do? It wasn't, it was a question of they were testing me. It was just like we were having a trusted adult conversation of we want to keep this team intact, but we have to get creative on how we make this different. And we completely flipped it up because I know what they're listening to. I know what they're referencing. I'm like, how did those people make records? And I started going to that deep dive. So I'm never not going to be a student of the game when bands give me references. They want to feel like this, but this part feel like this. It could be two opposite things. I'm trying to collect all of that and give them the experience that they want.

(32:44):

That is why I get repeat stuff, because growing with them, I'm a part of their process. They're not a part of mine, and I just happen to have the tools and resources to make a record. So I'm just growing with them. Justice from angel Dust and trapped on their ice. One of my best compliments that I could ever have it got back to me, except from another artist. He said he would tell, he's kind of like the hardcore og, so he would tell all of his friends to say, always use a different producer just to change things up and get inspired because you're going to get stuck with the same producer except for Will. And when he said that, I was like, damn, that's fucking cool, because I'm willing to grow with them. And that's why even with your turnovers, even with your turnstiles, even with your title fights, I have a bunch of records with every record's pretty fucking different from each other from the last, and I'm grateful I get to grow with this band, and I never expect to do the next turnover record. I never expect to do the next whatever record. But it's pretty awesome when I do get that call.

Speaker 2 (33:48):

I love your answer to that. It kind of relates back to what we were talking about before about people kind of getting stuck in their ways when it comes to the music promotion. I think that lots of producers get stuck in their ways, which artists get sick of that and want to move on. But where you see very successful long-term collaborations is when both the artist and the producer independently of each other are committed to constant never ending improvement in evolution. And they're on the same page about always taking things further. Those tend to be really good long-term artists, producer relationships, I think.

Speaker 3 (34:28):

Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

Speaker 2 (34:30):

Alright, next up Stefan.

Speaker 5 (34:32):

Well, since you have a record label, I'd like to ask you if you know why American record labels are trepidatious to work with producers from Europe when it's an American artist? I do a lot of hip hop and I know quite a few producers who have gotten their music to artists and the artists would love the songs, would record on the songs, but when it comes time to releasing the album, those songs mysteriously get chopped off for American producers. Do you know a logistical reason why that would be?

Speaker 3 (35:06):

I can guess. I don't think there's no actual beef. Some of my favorite artists, producers, and writers in the world are European.

Speaker 2 (35:16):

Yeah, seriously,

Speaker 3 (35:16):

It'll be a dream of mine to work with them and to sign tracks and to place their tracks. It would be an honor. I really can't speak for any of those situations. I can see it getting hairy on the writing and the publishing side, but all those producers have their, especially larger ones, have their shit set up. So everything should be smooth too. On the writing side and the publishing side, I can't see that. If you asked me if signing, if American label signing European artists was the thing, I can have an answer for you there, but in terms of the actual music, that doesn't really make sense to me because all the infrastructure is there for the paperwork logistically to get taken care of. I really can't speak for that because I don't really believe in that. I am sure you're just correct. But I mean, me and the people I work with, we work with European producers and writers pretty often, and I want to continue that and work with the best. And even more writers and producers.

Speaker 2 (36:28):

I have a hard time believing that's a real thing and not because people are good people or open-minded or anything like that, but because the music industry is the most capitalistic, opportunistic industry you can think of besides maybe Hollywood or something, people are in music. I mean, yes, sure, people are in it, they love it, but on the business level, people are in it to make money and they're going to work with people that are going to make them money. And that is at the end of the day what it comes down to. And so people don't get passed over for reasons like you from another country. If people think they could make money off of that collaboration, you better believe they're going to figure out a way to make that collaboration happen. If there's anything the music industry is all about is figuring out how to make money, and they're not going to let something like a border or a time zone get in the way of that. So I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, but you're wrong.

Speaker 3 (37:31):

Yeah. Recently with Warner, we had an artist and it's kind of completely the opposite of where he, Stefan our a and r was like, you have to let this guy, it was actually from from South Africa. He was like, you have to let this guy remix this song because he's the biggest thing in South Africa. And I was like, bet, let's do it. So it was actually kind of the opposite. Yeah, I actually don't know why, because everything's already set up. There's no legwork that they'll have to do more of. If the fits right, it should work.

Speaker 2 (38:06):

Yes. Look at other things besides, I'm European so I didn't make it. That to me seems like not wanting to look at the truth. Now I'm not saying that the work is bad or anything like that, but got to be honest with yourself about why you would get passed up. And I know that, hey, look, in the past when I've been kicked off a record, well, not kicked off, but not hired back, it was very easy for me to think to myself, oh, they're just fucking assholes or something. Instead of realizing I wasn't the right fit, which I then eventually realized it was never because they're assholes. It was always because we were not a good fit. I was not the right person for the project. And it's a bitter pill to swallow, but probably the truth. Alright, up next. Jeff Black.

Speaker 8 (38:57):

Hey. Hello.

Speaker 2 (38:57):

Hey, how are you? Hey, what's up

Speaker 8 (38:59):

Jeff? Hey guys, thanks for doing this. So when I work with artists earlier you were saying that you like to push your artists to get the most out of them. And I feel like a problem that I struggle with when I work face-to-face with artists is I tend to always default to handling them with kid gloves. And I'm almost too nice and I'm just having a bit of trouble grabbing the moments a little bit more and knowing when to push someone and how far, and I was wondering if you have any advice on just sort of reading an artist and knowing when to just take the bull by the horns and be more assertive.

Speaker 3 (39:33):

It's such a tough thing, right? It's like asking how do you be a fucking psychologist? Right? You know what I mean? It's the biggest thing about being a producer in a room, especially when you're grabbing the record even outside of writing and outside whatever. But when you're actually working and building the record, it's all relationships. It's all communication, number one, number one, number one, respect. Have fucking respect for the artist, have respect for each other. And if everything comes from a place of respect and validity and what you're saying to them is come from a real earnest well thought out place. I always find that to work.

(40:15):

I push people, but it always comes from a place of not, it's not like a dickhead. I know everyone in this Chad has worked with an engineer that's a dickhead, and you guys know what I mean. They patience wears thin by the end of the day or whatever and they're just stubborn or whatever. Like, yo, we should feel lucky, man, we should feel lucky. We get to make music with dope artists or not dope artists. We should be lucky. We get to make music every day. You know what I mean? Everyone should the artists themselves, the producers.

(40:48):

Why be a dick ever in a room and be someone that people like having around. And if that's the case, then people will listen to you and trust you and trust your taste. I tell bands, I tell bands when they come in, I literally have a book of notes of my thoughts on demos or ideas and I always tell bands like, yo, everyone's worked with a producer that just starts saying shit like, oh yeah, yo, try this, try this. When you can tell he's just thought of it on the fly and he's just saying things to say things against his hands on it. And it's like, no man, that's every idea I have is one idea of 20 ideas that I'm not bringing to you. I think these are the most valid ideas and I respect your work that you've put into these songs already because again, I'm going to produce 14 more records this year.

(41:39):

This band is lucky to do six records in their career. Producers have to realize that these records mean a lot to artists. So you have to do everything you can to respect the songs, respect the artist while getting the best out of them. So another thing is when they come in and you see them play, I highly recommend, highly recommend before working of artists see them play. Even it is a solo artist just singing. It's if it's a band, if it's whatever, see them play. So someone that's a professional in music can really diagnose for yourself what you think you can get out of them. And that's my thing. If we're going to, I'm sure a bit of your question sounds like is about getting takes as well outside of the core of the song, there's certain drummers that I work with that are just not going to play.

(42:35):

Like Dan Fang, even the same genre, Dan Fang from Turns South, they just don't have those years, they just don't have those chops. I have to set my expectations at a certain level and get the best at that person can do, not something that doesn't exist. And then it's my job to capture in a way that I can mold that to the performance that I want to the result that I want. So you really have to assess what you're working with from the songs on the songwriting side and to the performers before working with them as you're working with them, assess what you can get out and really dig into what more do you need and how you're going to get it to get the product that you're going to need get to get the end result you're going to need. But in terms of working with people, again, I cannot stress enough have respect because the more respect you have is the more respect they're going to give you back and the more trust they're going to give you. And when that happens, then you're going to get a lot more of your ideas across without rubbing anyone wrong.

Speaker 2 (43:36):

I agree with everything you just said. I think that was right on the money because this is all about relationships and communication and respect. You need to be thinking about what's going on even when you're not dealing with a musical issue because how you relate all day long to each other is going to play a factor, a significant factor in whether or not musical ideas are taken or you're taken seriously. When you want more takes or whatnot, you have to look at the big picture of how you're interacting And something I've noticed that producers do that, producers that are afraid to say things, that's a bad thing. You need to find a way to be comfortable enough to be honest, well honest in the way that suits the session best. And the reason I'm saying that is because if for instance, your boundaries are crossed and you don't say anything and then you let an entire session go on weeks and weeks and weeks and you don't establish your boundaries so you're getting more frustrated with it and then three weeks in you have a bad day and you're a dick and they don't know where it's coming from because you've been fine, fine, fine, fine, fine until then and then suddenly explode on them or are a dick.

(44:53):

I've seen this lots of times. It's better to establish the boundaries upfront in a respectful way and keep that going, keep that going throughout so that frustration doesn't build up and you have the type of environment where things can be talked about and can be communicated. So I actually think it's a really bad habit to not say things. I'm not saying just blurt out anything that's on your mind with no filter and no thought. You need to approach people respectfully and thoughtfully, but to not say things when they need to be said is a huge, huge mistake. So you got to learn how to do it. Alright, James Kirch. So alright. His question is, will you please tell us about what you use on the snare for the great dismal particularly on Say Less Anything special? Did you use the special custom kit you have?

Speaker 3 (45:46):

Yes. Yes. So I love everything, but I am obsessed with drums, grew up with drums and I bought into a drum company. So I'm a part owner of my favorite custom drum company called Blackwood Drums. And on that record, or most of my records, I'm using a seamless aluminum kit. Again, people get weirded out by that, but that brand Q drums, they're making a lot of metal kits, but there are sheets of metal that kind of folded into a circle and riveted our shit. We work with this company in Turkey that makes molds, that makes custom molds and they spin drums so that the shells are perfect circles, they make a perfect circle and you can't get 'em out of tune and aluminum, it actually produces a very similar sound to wood. I just got a new copper kit, a seamless copper kit that not that sounds like a metal kit, but the aluminum sounds like the most intune maple kit you've ever heard and we used that on that entire record and a seamless six and a half by 14 brass snare.

(46:46):

Again, that record, see, no one can tell that record. We tracked everything separate. We track shells and symbols separate and a lot of songs we track the elements separate. We tracked snare and kick and separate just to fuck with it. There's a bunch of songs at record that we want to feel loopy and we want it to have control. And then we didn't want to sound like a loop, but we want to control it like a loop so that we want the high hat to have this reverse thing but not the rest of the symbols. You know what I mean? Or like that song, that snare, I forget what I put on it, but it was something pretty basic at the end all be all. It was just like a de capitate just punished up and slammed through a pair of M 70 sixes. That was it.

(47:28):

And that's SM 57 on it with the overheads on it. That was the only thing that was capturing that snare. It was a 57 on top of bottom, the overhead just squashed through 1170 sixes with de capitate. It kind of crushed through on it just worked along with the other tracks. So yeah, again, when Nikki, the singer, had a very specific vision for that song. And my goal was just to understand it and know my tools and for me to just use my resources, collect my resources and just get us there quickly. And we got there pretty quick. It was pretty instantaneous thing. And it was funny was that people would think that it takes forever to track separately, not with me because when we do hole takes, it's a lot harder to hit hard when you're worrying about your right hand playing symbols too.

(48:15):

So without having to worry about symbols, we're smashing the grooves on the shells and we actually got a lot of that record drums on pretty quickly. I don't think any song took us more than 45 minutes to get the drums, whereas the record before the record before we spent close to a day on a song, every single song, sometimes even more. And I think the new record sounds a lot better and in some ways even more natural because of it. It was such early takes. It was such the first or second or third takes that we got the shelves, we got that natural fresh groove.

Speaker 2 (48:48):

Awesome. Alright, time for one more. This is going to be from Sean O'Shaughnessy. Sean.

Speaker 9 (48:54):

Hey, what's up Sean? Earlier we talked about how involved you are in some of the songwriting processes and I know a lot of these artists you work with already have their songwriting chops down and you have your songwriting chops down. But is there ever a time where you find a song just isn't coming to fruition? And what ways do you get over that hump? Do you just abandon that song or is there some method you use to help reach a song's conclusion or get the song

Speaker 3 (49:18):

Out? That's a great question. If there's not something in the song that I find redeeming, there's not one melody or a lyrical theme or a feel of instrumental or instrumental that inspires a dope melody. You know what I mean? I'll just move on. I'll just move on to another song or just write a song with 'em from the jump write a new idea from the jump. Luckily that's usually not the case because I'm very lucky to get to work with very, very great artists. But there's certain times it happened recently where really talented artists, but she had a bunch of ideas. She came with 21 ideas and our goal was to get 10 of 'em. So of course we're not going to use everything, but we ended up only using six of 'em. We built the rest, we took a song and I was like, yo, I only really love the verse melody.

(50:06):

I like the chorus music by here, another melody. So we will workshop that out and then we start liking that shit more and we're like, yo, what if we just wrote some more songs together and the record took us there? So I think as long, I don't think there's a rule of thumb that go by what makes me stoked. You know what I mean? And if no part of the song inspires me or makes me stoked, I'm not going to worry about saving it. Or if it doesn't lead to me going to a different part or picking up guitar and say, oh actually let's try this instead of this chorus, and then we rewrite everything else. That has happened too. So there's no really rule of thumb. It's just trusting my ear and trusting my feel. And I'm very grateful that when I'm in a room with other talented people that when I say, yo guys, I'm not feeling any part of this song, everyone in the room, there's going to be some agreement in the room and they're going to trust me.

(51:00):

If it's not making me stoked, there's a good chance of not making other people stoked. I feel that with the other people in the room. I trust the singer, I trust the primary song in the band. It's like if they don't like the song, then a lot of people probably won't like the song as well. So I think there has to be redeeming qualities that you find those, you find the parts that inspire you Again and q and a I have to talk whatever, but in theme it's all about the fucking song. The song is paramount and if no parts are redeeming or no parts inspire, you move on to something else. Or if that's the egg for something else, we just wrote a song. So we did it the last few days. We wrapped it up this morning and the first version was a completely different thing.

(51:41):

But if that first version didn't happen, we wouldn't have got here, wouldn't have got this completely different version. I had a really good conversation with Frank Iro and he said something that really, really resonated with me. He does a lot of material, he does so many different projects and he's like, we has a conversation about fucking, he wants to just keep putting out music, not even for people to like it, he just want people to do something with it. If you love it and it inspires you to make music, that's cool. If you hate it and it inspires you to make music that sounds nothing like it, that's just as cool. He just wants to inspire people and that really stuck with me. I've, me personally, I want everyone to love my shit, but I just want to inspire people and as long as the parts songs are inspiring to me, I'm going to dig in.

Speaker 2 (52:23):

Awesome. Well Will thank you so much for hanging out man. It's been a total pleasure and thanks all of you for hanging out with us and asking great questions and see you all next time.

Speaker 3 (52:36):

Yeah, this is great. Thank you guys.

Speaker 2 (52:38):

Alright 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 and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy and of course, tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to me at Al URM Academy. That's EYAL. At M do ac MY and use the subject line Answer me Ale. All right then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (53:18):

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.