Full Transcript for Andrew Scheps - A Conversation About the Future of Audio and The Skills You Need to Be a Mix Engineer

because everything is tracked. I. So that you put the faders up, Speaker: 00:04:44 you pan it, and that's the record, but it's Speaker: 00:04:47 totally the inside out version of that. Yeah. Okay, well, okay, so you brought Speaker: 00:04:51 up the spike thing. I know that came out yesterday. So that dates this interview Speaker: 00:04:54 or was announced yesterday. I have an opinion about this and Speaker: 00:04:58 you can fight me on this or agree, whatever. I think that AI and Speaker: 00:05:01 mixing at first, it causes people Speaker: 00:05:05 to get better. Like people that are good, that aren't charging a premium, have to Speaker: 00:05:09 get great to separate themselves. But I think where the problem Speaker: 00:05:12 lies is the people that are trying to do the Speaker: 00:05:16 $100 mixes because they just graduated college, they're Speaker: 00:05:19 not going to be mixing their peers work because their peers can Speaker: 00:05:23 have spikes. AI or Speaker: 00:05:27 whoever's AI, do it for them. So does that mean that Speaker: 00:05:31 down the line, the craft suffers and there's a generation of people Speaker: 00:05:35 that kind of miss out on learning it? Yeah, I mean, Speaker: 00:05:38 that's certainly possible, but at the same time, Speaker: 00:05:42 podcasts, online classes, stuff inside of paywalls, Speaker: 00:05:45 outside of paywalls, I mean, that's exploded. Speaker: 00:05:49 So the opportunity to learn is better than Speaker: 00:05:53 it's ever been. I mean, I had to go to a four year college and Speaker: 00:05:56 spend a ridiculous amount of my parents money to get a degree Speaker: 00:06:00 to learn anything. Same. Speaker: 00:06:03 Now, you don't have to do that. So it's Speaker: 00:06:06 democratized on both sides of it. But where it's dangerous Speaker: 00:06:10 is you have to have some foundational knowledge to Speaker: 00:06:14 learn from anything that happens with the AI tools. I mean, you know, Speaker: 00:06:17 ozone AI, it listens to stuff, and it fits Speaker: 00:06:21 eq curves and things, and it's really good at it. But if you Speaker: 00:06:25 don't go through the modules that it set up and, like, bypass them one Speaker: 00:06:29 at a time and tweak some things, and then you're like, oh, okay, Speaker: 00:06:32 that's what they're doing. And then maybe you'll do it yourself. Then you're Speaker: 00:06:36 never going to become a mixer. It's just not going to happen because anyone can Speaker: 00:06:39 slap an ozone on there, and I'll do it for a hell of a lot Speaker: 00:06:43 less than $100 because I'll mix 500 songs a day. Speaker: 00:06:47 If all I got to do is slap an ozone on there, we're done. Speaker: 00:06:51 So it's not about that. And I think this is where the Speaker: 00:06:54 whole AI thing always trips up a little bit, Speaker: 00:06:58 is that AI can actually be creative, Speaker:

00:07:02 but it will only work within its training set. And the training set is Speaker: 00:07:06 hundreds of thousands, if not millions of things. It's easy to think, like, oh, it Speaker: 00:07:10 listened to ten songs, and, you know, these training sets are gigantic, Speaker: 00:07:13 but it can't step outside the training set. And if you think Speaker: 00:07:17 about everything that, like, went, whoa, what's that? And Speaker: 00:07:21 you got super excited about it. It was either the first time anyone had done Speaker: 00:07:25 it, or it's the only time anyone had done it. And it could be anything. Speaker: 00:07:28 It's the big guitars on creep. It's the distortion on Beck Speaker: 00:07:31 Odelet. That shit had never happened, but Speaker: 00:07:35 that's what grabs people and really makes them want to listen. So there'll be this Speaker: 00:07:39 amazing, huge pool of what you would Speaker: 00:07:43 then consider middle of the road stuff with middle of the road mixes that might Speaker: 00:07:46 sound really good when you just put them on, but that's not lasting Speaker: 00:07:50 art, which is really what we're trying to do. Yeah, Speaker: 00:07:54 well, I think it drives. It drives people to, like, embrace their Speaker: 00:07:58 preferences even further as opposed to trying to match what the radio sounds like, because Speaker: 00:08:01 that's what the AI is going to do. So, you know, like, somebody like Chad Speaker: 00:08:05 Blake is perfect example. Like, you know what you're going to get? You're going to Speaker: 00:08:08 get Chad Blake's sound. I think that's going to drive more people to make Speaker: 00:08:12 artistic choices, and that's probably going to be better. I hope so. Speaker: 00:08:15 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So kind of along these lines of I've heard you say Speaker: 00:08:19 that you believe there's no rules, and I agree with that. I think, like, Speaker: 00:08:23 you've said what comes out of the speakers. If it sounds good, it's good. Speaker: 00:08:26 But I do think that when you're young and you're coming up, you're coming out Speaker: 00:08:30 of college, you're searching for rules because you don't know what to do. Speaker: 00:08:34 How do you think somebody balances that beginner's Speaker: 00:08:37 mindset with whatever Speaker: 00:08:40 the rule is? It's hard Speaker: 00:08:44 because it used to be you would work in a studio and you'd see Speaker: 00:08:48 lots of different people do stuff, and so you would learn Speaker: 00:08:51 the rules while watching people do different Speaker: 00:08:55 things. So, you know, Speaker: 00:08:58 tutorials are great if they're good. Speaker: 00:09:02 And I think that it's hard because it's not Speaker: 00:09:06 free, but stuff behind a paywall is generally better because otherwise they'd be Speaker: 00:09:10 out of business. So mix of the masters and pure mix and those Speaker: 00:09:13 companies, especially pure mix for, like, pure educational videos. Speaker: 00:09:18 It's an amazing resource. Absolutely amazing. So Speaker: 00:09:21 the thing, like, there are no rules is true, but there are Speaker: 00:09:25 fundamental laws of physics and math and electronics Speaker: 00:09:28 and all that kind of thing. And that's never going to change that stuff. Speaker: 00:09:32 So that's your toolbox. So you Speaker: 00:09:36 want to know that really well because then you can be super creative. Otherwise, Speaker: 00:09:40 you're at the point where you're putting ozone on and you have no idea what Speaker: 00:09:43 it's doing. You'll never learn anything like that. Speaker: 00:09:46 So you need to be the person who takes the toaster Speaker: 00:09:49 apart to see how it works, you know, and hope you don't Speaker: 00:09:53 die when you plug it in. But it is that, like, you Speaker: 00:09:57 can learn it from a million different places instead of having to get a gig Speaker: 00:10:00 at a studio, which is great, but you've got to Speaker: 00:10:04 pursue the knowledge of it. There is no shortcut to being Speaker: 00:10:08 good. There just isn't. No, no, because it's Speaker: 00:10:11 the musicality that makes it good. That's what makes people want to listen again, not Speaker: 00:10:15 because the snare sound is better. Do you think you discover that Speaker: 00:10:19 musicality as an engineer over time, or do you think some people just kind of Speaker: 00:10:22 inherently find it quick? Both. Speaker: 00:10:26 I mean, in the same with the actual engineering. I mean, there were people I Speaker: 00:10:29 went to college with, and everything they ever did sounded like a record. Like Speaker: 00:10:33 Neil Avron. Holy shit. I mean, his stuff. First year of Speaker: 00:10:37 college was insane, and I feel like I'm still not Speaker: 00:10:40 the level he was sonically when he started. And this Speaker: 00:10:44 is. It's 40 years ago. It's 40 years Speaker: 00:10:47 ago this year. Ah, I'm old. Speaker: 00:10:51 But the creative thing, I mean, that Speaker: 00:10:55 just. I mean, think about a musician. You know, Coltrane didn't Speaker: 00:10:58 pop out of the womb with sheets of sound. I mean, there's a progression, Speaker: 00:11:02 and again, there's the learning your instrument. There's like, he studied scales. For him not Speaker: 00:11:06 to. We don't have to make Coltrane the center of this, but Eddie Van Speaker: 00:11:09 Halen practiced a lot, too. You get Speaker: 00:11:13 more creative as you go. There's some people who are super creative right Speaker: 00:11:17 away, and for them, it's just about learning the tools to pull it out of Speaker: 00:11:20 their head. But I have definitely learned how to listen Speaker: 00:11:24 and learn to find the things that I really want to bring Speaker: 00:11:28 out

because I think emotionally, that's going to make people connect and stuff Speaker: 00:11:31 like that. When you're busy, you have an opportunity to practice things while you're Speaker: 00:11:35 making records. You can toss up an extra microphone, do something weird to it. Nobody Speaker: 00:11:38 ever has to hear it except for you. Are there ways that you think engineers Speaker: 00:11:42 can practice these days and kind of hone their skills outside of just actually Speaker: 00:11:46 working? Yeah, because if they have a laptop and Speaker: 00:11:49 interface and a couple of microphones, they can go make a record. Speaker: 00:11:53 So you were saying earlier it's unlikely that Speaker: 00:11:57 the younger ones are going to be mixing stuff by their peers, but they will Speaker: 00:12:00 if they go to a club and say, I like your band, let's go make Speaker: 00:12:03 a record in your living room. Yeah. Nobody's Speaker: 00:12:06 expecting anything at that point, which means Speaker: 00:12:10 you can experiment and you can be a creative partnership Speaker: 00:12:13 with the band, trying to find sounds or something. That's cool. And Speaker: 00:12:17 I think that that's a great way to do it. And I couldn't do it. Speaker: 00:12:20 I mean, you think that maybe it was better before, Speaker: 00:12:24 but it wasn't. I mean, if you couldn't get into a studio. I mean, Speaker: 00:12:27 I bought gear very early on so that I could Speaker: 00:12:31 do stuff without having to get into a studio because nothing I wanted to work Speaker: 00:12:35 on had any money. Yeah. Access to technology, I think, Speaker: 00:12:38 is pretty powerful. And like you said, the access to Speaker: 00:12:42 knowledge is amazing. Okay, I feel like I know how you would answer this question, Speaker: 00:12:45 but would you tell somebody right now that they should go to an engineering school Speaker: 00:12:48 and pay that money in 2024? Speaker: 00:12:53 It's really hard to say, to be honest. Like, when I went to school, a Speaker: 00:12:57 four year college degree was a big deal. Like, you had to have one. There Speaker: 00:12:59 was just no way you weren't going to have that now. So unless you're Speaker: 00:13:03 in a specific field, sometimes it's hard to argue that a four year degree is Speaker: 00:13:07 worth it. Like, if you want to be in tech, tech companies hate it when Speaker: 00:13:10 you've got a four year degree because they want you to learn the way they Speaker: 00:13:12 want you to do it. Right. Whereas you would think that you would Speaker: 00:13:16 need an advanced degree in computer science before you could even Speaker: 00:13:20 start. So that's part of it. And I think Speaker: 00:13:23 that there are people who get stuff out of schools and there are people Speaker: 00:13:27 who don't. So I think it's actually Speaker: 00:13:31 really personal. There are people who can learn really well. And for me, Speaker: 00:13:35 it was the best thing I could ever have done because I want to know Speaker: 00:13:37 how stuff works so that I don't even have to think about it. Speaker: 00:13:41 But when anything happens, I know why it's happening, and I can react to it Speaker: 00:13:45 and make it do what I want. Some people, that doesn't work, Speaker: 00:13:49 that's not the thing. So it's impossible for Speaker: 00:13:53 me to say one way or the other. I agree with. That's kind of how Speaker: 00:13:56 I think you have to understand what kind of learner you are. Like, if you Speaker: 00:13:59 are a self starter, more independent, just want to get your head in there Speaker: 00:14:03 and do it, then I don't think you need to do it. But some people, Speaker: 00:14:06 they like the structure. They need the classroom. They need that. And the other thing Speaker: 00:14:10 is, I met a ton of people, a ton of people who do what Speaker: 00:14:14 I do, and a lot of them are still in the business. I mean, I Speaker: 00:14:17 went to college with John Paterno and Joe Barisi, Speaker: 00:14:21 and I just call them up when I got a question, and it's fantastic. Speaker: 00:14:25 So meeting your peers like you were talking about. Speaker: 00:14:28 Yeah, that's invaluable, really. But you don't have to Speaker: 00:14:32 pay a huge amount of money and go to a multi year school for that. Speaker: 00:14:35 Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, a lot of my closest friends that I trade gigs with, we Speaker: 00:14:38 all went to school and moved out here in the same few years, and Speaker: 00:14:42 that's how it is. I want to shift a little bit to more of a Speaker: 00:14:45 career thing. A lot of the questions that come up on the show are Speaker: 00:14:49 things I'm curious about or things I'm struggling with, and I don't always Speaker: 00:14:53 admit that, but that's, you know, you just did. Exactly. Speaker: 00:14:57 Now everybody knows, but you get to sit down with cool people and ask questions. Speaker: 00:15:00 Everybody in this industry kind of believes that there's, like, one credit on the horizon Speaker: 00:15:04 that's going to, like, change their life and, like, make them Speaker: 00:15:07 an engineer star. Right. And so I've been lucky to work on a few Speaker: 00:15:11 records that went number one, and every time I have that feeling Speaker: 00:15:15 where I'm like, this is it. It's going to launch. This is going to change Speaker: 00:15:17 everything. And, like, as you probably know, not much changes. Speaker: 00:15:21 Right. So do you have advice to producers or Speaker: 00:15:24 engineers that think that that's about to happen to them? How. How they should actually Speaker: 00:15:28 think about it, how they could maybe take advantage of it, build momentum? Like, what Speaker: 00:15:32 are your experiences throughout your

career? Well, Speaker: 00:15:36 I mean, look, I've been ridiculously lucky, but if you Speaker: 00:15:39 look at my discography over the last Speaker: 00:15:43 35 years, because I did go to school for four years, so not 40 Speaker: 00:15:47 years. It's a slow burn. I mean, I had a lot of Speaker: 00:15:50 assisting and vocal editing and vocal tuning, like, through the boy Speaker: 00:15:54 band era, I was tuning vocals. That's how I paid the mortgage, Speaker: 00:15:58 literally. It's terrible. And there were a Speaker: 00:16:01 couple of things that were a big deal to a Speaker: 00:16:05 few people, so it definitely jumped me up a little bit. Like 99 Speaker: 00:16:09 problems. That was a little bit of a jump. And then Speaker: 00:16:13 the Adele record opened up doors to some stuff, but I don't really work in Speaker: 00:16:16 that genre that often, so it's not like, oh, now I'm Speaker: 00:16:20 set. But look, that was a Speaker: 00:16:23 mixing credit on album of the year of, Speaker: 00:16:27 like, the biggest selling album three years straight or something like Speaker: 00:16:31 that. So there's one of Speaker: 00:16:34 those, you know, it's nothing something. Speaker: 00:16:38 I think what's more important is that there were projects when I Speaker: 00:16:42 was working on them, and I thought musically, like, this is Speaker: 00:16:45 my favorite thing I have ever worked on, and if this Speaker: 00:16:49 doesn't come out, I'm done, like the music business and Speaker: 00:16:53 whatever, and twice that I can think of just off the top of my head, Speaker: 00:16:56 they didn't come out. Or if they did, absolutely nothing happened. The promo was Speaker: 00:17:00 terrible, and there are these amazing records that nobody's Speaker: 00:17:03 heard of. And so instead of Speaker: 00:17:07 saying, like, well, I'm going to get out of the business, you Speaker: 00:17:10 realize how incredible it was to have Speaker: 00:17:14 two opportunities to work on something you love that Speaker: 00:17:17 much. Yeah, it sucks when it's not going well. And you Speaker: 00:17:21 really do think that. And I've seen there's so many people Speaker: 00:17:25 who are, like, mad about a Speaker: 00:17:28 credit they feel they deserve but didn't get. Like, you know, Speaker: 00:17:32 I engineered some overdubs. I should get an engineering credit. And, Speaker: 00:17:35 I mean, that's the whole, that's a whole different topic about, you know, making sure Speaker: 00:17:39 you take care of your credits before the project starts because you will never get Speaker: 00:17:42 a credit that you think you should get if you haven't already negotiated it. So Speaker: 00:17:46 you can take that question off the list. It's a brutal, Speaker: 00:17:49 brutal business, and Speaker: 00:17:53 I am just ridiculously lucky that I've, you know, made it or whatever, Speaker: 00:17:57 but I'm still scrambling a lot of the time. Like, I'll go without Speaker: 00:18:00 work and then I'll have some work that I take because I didn't Speaker: 00:18:04 have work, but it's low paying, but it's taking up a huge amount of time. Speaker: 00:18:08 And then all of a sudden a gig comes in that actually would pay for Speaker: 00:18:12 some stuff, but I can't take it because, you know, there's always a juggling Speaker: 00:18:15 act. I just happen to be juggling the really good balls most of the time. Speaker: 00:18:19 Yeah. But right after the Adele win, right after the Grammys, I didn't work for Speaker: 00:18:23 three months. I had absolutely no work. January, February, Speaker: 00:18:26 March of whatever year that was none. Not Speaker: 00:18:30 a single paying gig. How'd you feel like that? I Speaker: 00:18:34 curled up in a ball and I just go and do something Speaker: 00:18:37 else. One time when that happened, I went and started teaching a class at Speaker: 00:18:41 UCLA. Another time, I helped a buddy out who had a low Speaker: 00:18:45 voltage installation thing. He did audio, but also stuff that Speaker: 00:18:49 made the curtains open and close and tvs come up out of people's beds. Speaker: 00:18:54 You know, you gotta stay busy. Yeah, look, the last thing I'm gonna do is Speaker: 00:18:57 complain and whine. I'm lucky. Speaker: 00:19:00 Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't think. Speaker: 00:19:04 I hate to use the word luck. It's more like it Speaker: 00:19:07 works, but it's building trust with people. It's following through, Speaker: 00:19:11 it's being prepared when the opportunity comes. And the more you have those Speaker: 00:19:15 things stacked up in your favor, the more it seems like you're lucky, Speaker: 00:19:19 because the right people call, you. Follow through, they call again. Speaker: 00:19:23 Cycle continues. Yeah. The guaranteed way to Speaker: 00:19:27 not have a career is to sit at home being mad at the career you Speaker: 00:19:31 don't have. You know, if you want to be in the right place at the Speaker: 00:19:34 right time, you got to be everywhere all the time. That's the thing. So you've Speaker: 00:19:37 got to be out there seeing bands, meeting people, joining Speaker: 00:19:41 stuff. Join Naras, join AE's. Maybe Speaker: 00:19:45 if you're a little more technical. There are groups in the UK, there's the Speaker: 00:19:48 MpG. Like, there are groups everywhere where you get to just go hang Speaker: 00:19:52 out and talk about plugins. Do it. One of those people will offer you a Speaker: 00:19:56 gig at one point. Yeah. Or just bring you up to somebody. It's like, top Speaker: 00:19:59 of mind. It's like, oh, you have to just be in the Speaker: 00:20:03 space. Okay. So this kind of leads to another question I was gonna Speaker: 00:20:06 throw in somewhere. Is there a limiting belief that

you think holds people back Speaker: 00:20:10 in this industry? I mean, for me, it's imposter syndrome. Speaker: 00:20:14 I've got a gigantic, colossal, world sized Speaker: 00:20:18 case of that. I don't know that it holds me back, Speaker: 00:20:21 because fortunately, while I'm actually digging in Speaker: 00:20:25 on something, unless it's just a disaster, I don't have it Speaker: 00:20:29 until I send a mix. But I have it going Speaker: 00:20:33 into sessions. If I'm tracking, I mean, I've pulled over to the side of the Speaker: 00:20:36 road and thought about, well, I could call in sick and just go Speaker: 00:20:40 home, like crazy stuff. And then you get there and you get going, and Speaker: 00:20:44 it's okay. So I think it's that, for Speaker: 00:20:47 me, I will do stuff almost like I'm in a trance. It's like, okay, Speaker: 00:20:51 I'm doing it. Like there isn't a choice anymore. I'm doing it, and then Speaker: 00:20:55 it starts happening, and then it's okay. It's like, you remember, Speaker: 00:21:00 this is what I do. This is my thing. So there's that, and then the Speaker: 00:21:04 opposite of it is what we were just talking about, which is Speaker: 00:21:08 90% of the gig, everyone assumes you know everything Speaker: 00:21:12 about what to do, to do your job. So 90% of it Speaker: 00:21:16 is, don't be a dick, which is my other phrase. It's whatever Speaker: 00:21:20 comes out of the speakers. And don't be a dick, because you need to be Speaker: 00:21:23 able to be somebody people want to have in the room, and they Speaker: 00:21:27 will gladly take someone who's a little slower, who isn't a Speaker: 00:21:30 dick. That is the truth. And I think Speaker: 00:21:34 that's something that you learn in the big studios because you Speaker: 00:21:38 see it. You see when you get kicked off of a session and when an Speaker: 00:21:42 engineer producer doesn't want you as the assistant again. But I think when you're Speaker: 00:21:45 independent, you're working in your backyard now and you're just working with your friends. I Speaker: 00:21:48 don't think people understand that the way that they would if they came up through Speaker: 00:21:51 the system. Yeah, well, it's also Speaker: 00:21:55 the sort of studio hierarchy, like in a bigger studio. You learn very, Speaker: 00:21:59 very quickly that the assistant, if they have an idea, tells the engineer, the engineer Speaker: 00:22:03 tells the producer, the producer tells the artist. Nobody except the Speaker: 00:22:06 producer talks to the artist unless it's your 12th record with them Speaker: 00:22:10 and it's one big happy family. But when it's. Yeah, Speaker: 00:22:14 when it's you in your backyard, you think that you're always making your own record. Speaker: 00:22:18 Okay, so that's the lesson to learn, though, is unless you're the Speaker: 00:22:21 artist, you are never making your own record, ever. Speaker: 00:22:25 And you've got to stop trying to make your own record on Speaker: 00:22:29 other people's music. You're making their record. And if you're not present Speaker: 00:22:33 understanding what it is they're going for, even if you don't like it, you Speaker: 00:22:37 think it would be so much better. That's not the Speaker: 00:22:41 job. Yeah, there you go. There's another one. That's good. Speaker: 00:22:45 They're falling out today. There's a clip. We've got a clip, people. Speaker: 00:22:49 I can't not talk a little bit of technical stuff with you, although I would Speaker: 00:22:52 love to just do career all day. I'm looking at my notes. Let's talk a Speaker: 00:22:55 little bit about adding skills to your repertoire. Speaker: 00:22:59 Taught yourself to script and created bounce factory. Did Speaker: 00:23:03 you learn to script to create something like bounce factory, or did you realize the Speaker: 00:23:07 power that you had when you started automating things and, like, learning Speaker: 00:23:11 how you could make the computer work for you? It's a little Speaker: 00:23:14 bit of both where, like, I've tried to teach Speaker: 00:23:18 myself programming because I'm a total geek and thought, oh, that'd be really cool. Yeah. Speaker: 00:23:22 And several times in my life, and it never went well because I didn't have Speaker: 00:23:25 a project. Then I discovered sound Speaker: 00:23:29 flow and immediately built a couple of things, like tiny Speaker: 00:23:33 things. I've got my function. My f 19 key Speaker: 00:23:37 swaps the input state of the bottom track in my session. Doesn't matter Speaker: 00:23:40 what session's open because that's how I monitor things. The rough or Speaker: 00:23:44 my previous mix is on an audio track at the bottom. If I switch to Speaker: 00:23:47 input, it's the live mix. I used to have to scroll to the bottom of Speaker: 00:23:50 the screen and then click the input button. Now I don't. That took me Speaker: 00:23:54 about ten minutes. And that's when I knew, like, okay, so for a while, it Speaker: 00:23:58 was just automating, like, little things, session prep or setting Speaker: 00:24:01 preferences or stuff like that. And then I started Speaker: 00:24:05 writing the bounce script that most people who use Speaker: 00:24:09 soundflow will eventually write, and it'll be very, very specific to Speaker: 00:24:12 themselves, which is fine, that's great, because that's Speaker: 00:24:16 all you need. But then I started generalizing Speaker: 00:24:20 it when I realized how many different types of things I bounce. Speaker: 00:24:24 And. Yeah, so I learned because I had Speaker: 00:24:27 to learn because I had to write this app. But there were a couple of Speaker: 00:24:30 apps before. There's the offset counter, because you Speaker: 00:24:34 can't offset the minutes and

seconds counter in pro tools. So you open up Speaker: 00:24:38 this counter, put the cursor anywhere you want, hit a button. Now Speaker: 00:24:41 that's zero, and you can locate to the numbers you just got in the email Speaker: 00:24:45 with all your mix notes. Exactly. It's genius. So Speaker: 00:24:49 it was that it started off as that, and then it just turned into bounce Speaker: 00:24:52 factory, which was two full years of just coding because Speaker: 00:24:56 Covid. I mean, that's. I discovered bounce factory during COVID So. That Speaker: 00:25:00 was one of your Covid adventures? Like, I started a podcast. You made bounce Speaker: 00:25:04 factory? Yeah, yeah, those two things. That's what I did. What Speaker: 00:25:07 are some of your favorite automations? Music or non music that aren't like the Speaker: 00:25:11 ones that people know about, like bounce Factory or the Speaker: 00:25:15 counter? I think all of mine are music Speaker: 00:25:18 just because I use it when I'm sitting in the chair and I don't have Speaker: 00:25:21 hue lights and, you know, but I know a lot of people controlling Speaker: 00:25:25 everything with it. Prep a session Speaker: 00:25:28 in less than ten minutes now. So Speaker: 00:25:32 it imports tracks from my template, but it knows which format it Speaker: 00:25:36 is because I told it. Oh, this is stereo. This is atmos with all the Speaker: 00:25:38 crap. This is atmos from stems. It imports the right tracks, it sets the Speaker: 00:25:42 preferences the right way. I can color code and add to groups Speaker: 00:25:46 in seconds now. Like, it's Speaker: 00:25:49 basically every single time I do anything that's Speaker: 00:25:53 bothering me. I could do it again in four or 5 Speaker: 00:25:57 seconds, but I will stop for 2 hours and write a script, and then I'll Speaker: 00:26:00 never have to do it again. Yeah, I have Speaker: 00:26:04 an extremely long list of things that I want to build, but I Speaker: 00:26:08 don't take the 2 hours to build them. But it's a long list. Speaker: 00:26:11 But you know what? When you do it. It's so Speaker: 00:26:15 awesome. It is. You're happy because you're Speaker: 00:26:19 not doing the thing. It isn't just. It's not going to make me sad. It Speaker: 00:26:23 actually makes you happy. And you're super creative. As soon as it's done running Speaker: 00:26:27 that script and you can get back to work. Yeah. Like I told you Speaker: 00:26:31 when we chatted, like a week or so ago, I found bounce factory right Speaker: 00:26:34 after I had my daughter. And it was all of a sudden, Speaker: 00:26:38 like, what am I going to do? Like, how am I going to do this? Speaker: 00:26:41 And to be able to automate something to that level and know that I can Speaker: 00:26:44 print an entire album of atmos stems, because God knows, Speaker: 00:26:48 like, somebody's like, we're gonna mix atmos and you're like, I don't want to print Speaker: 00:26:51 those stamps. I don't have that time. It's just like, I don't know anybody Speaker: 00:26:55 that fights against automation just makes me a little bit crazy. There's one of my Speaker: 00:26:58 friends that's gonna listen to this and he's gonna know who he is, but Speaker: 00:27:02 I just. I wish everybody would just get on board a little bit, you know? Speaker: 00:27:05 Well, but, you know, if they're happy doing it that way, Speaker: 00:27:08 then cool. I guess if you're happy, right? Yeah, Speaker: 00:27:12 yeah. I mean, if it starts impacting your life because he can never get out Speaker: 00:27:15 of the house because he's printing stems or she printing stems 24 hours Speaker: 00:27:19 a day, then, you know. But see, the difference for me, first Speaker: 00:27:23 of all, it's that it's exactly what you're saying. You can do other stuff. I Speaker: 00:27:26 can go watch something with my wife. I can go on a walk. I can Speaker: 00:27:30 sleep, that kind of thing. But it's also Speaker: 00:27:33 for atmos. I would have been printing ten or twelve stems per Speaker: 00:27:37 song because it's such a pain in the ass. And it's a twelve song record. Speaker: 00:27:40 That's still 144 stems, and that's a Speaker: 00:27:44 lot. Yeah. I'm printing 40 or 50 every. I Speaker: 00:27:47 basically print every single thing separate so the audio is Speaker: 00:27:51 baked in. But if I want to split up the background vocals Speaker: 00:27:55 into a sphere of background vocals, I have them separate. I Speaker: 00:27:59 can do it. Yeah. Without even thinking about it. Yeah. And it's not. It's Speaker: 00:28:02 not a heavier lift for you because it's just you've set it up. Because I Speaker: 00:28:06 agree. If I wasn't automating my bounces, I would Speaker: 00:28:10 be trying to do atmos with far fewer stems for my stereo mix Speaker: 00:28:14 because just out of time. And now you have the freedom. Speaker: 00:28:17 There's been this thing over the last, I don't know, ten years, where Speaker: 00:28:21 labels want you to deliver a multitrack. It's like, well, get that from the producer. Speaker: 00:28:25 That doesn't come from the mixer. But then, you know, none of the sounds are Speaker: 00:28:29 there. There have been edits done since the producer, like, they sent you a new Speaker: 00:28:32 vocal and all that stuff. So now I actually have a Speaker: 00:28:36 multi track where you can just put the faders up and you're really, really close Speaker: 00:28:39 to the mix. Yeah, that's a big deal for the band. Speaker: 00:28:43 You know, I get calls from Hozier's Speaker: 00:28:46 musical director. Front of house. Actually, I think he's front of Speaker: 00:28:50 house. I don't remember. But he's the guy who emails me and says, hey, I Speaker: 00:28:54 need some stuff for this song. I

would have to open Speaker: 00:28:58 it up and print specific things, but I just send him the folder, and Speaker: 00:29:01 he loves it. He just pulls up whatever he needs. He can submix on his Speaker: 00:29:05 own. And there you go. You eliminate back and forth and extra questions of, Speaker: 00:29:09 like, can you split these? I already did. Yeah, it's all done. Speaker: 00:29:13 The multitrack delivery, that sparks a question. I feel like there's a debate on the Speaker: 00:29:16 Internet. I don't know. Maybe this is just my algorithm. You never Speaker: 00:29:20 know about the multitrack mix session Speaker: 00:29:24 being the mixer's intellectual property and Speaker: 00:29:27 not sending it out. Yeah, I will never give anyone a Speaker: 00:29:31 session. Absolutely not. But you would print Speaker: 00:29:35 everything, commit it, and send it. Yeah, and it's not Speaker: 00:29:38 because I feel like everyone should have it. And they can take apart Speaker: 00:29:42 my thing and see, but they can't see what I did, and they don't know Speaker: 00:29:46 what the source material was. So whatever, they could hear Speaker: 00:29:49 a cool delay effect or something, but Speaker: 00:29:53 it's because the artist is going to need it. They're gonna need it. Speaker: 00:29:57 And you can't trust labels to hold onto anything. I mean, you know, witness Speaker: 00:30:00 Sony setting half their catalog on fire, and Speaker: 00:30:04 you realize they only have one copy of everything, like crazy. So if a Speaker: 00:30:08 major's gonna do that, a small label, you know, it's gonna Speaker: 00:30:11 flood. Like something's gonna happen. And this way, Speaker: 00:30:15 you have the music, which is the whole point. So Speaker: 00:30:19 it used to bug me when it was a huge amount of work, when it Speaker: 00:30:22 took forever. No way in hell was I sending that to you. But Speaker: 00:30:26 now I'm doing it anyway. Now, if you don't want atmos on your record, I'm Speaker: 00:30:29 not doing that. So there isn't a multitrack to send, but if I'm Speaker: 00:30:33 doing the atmos then that's what I want. And so once it Speaker: 00:30:37 exists, I'll send it. If I mix it in stereo and they're getting Speaker: 00:30:40 someone else to do the atmos for whatever reason, they don't get 50 Speaker: 00:30:44 stems. I split it up reasonably, but they're getting ten or Speaker: 00:30:48 twelve, you know, because that's the deal. Enough for live, enough Speaker: 00:30:52 for sync, no crazy overlaps. I mean, that's, that's Speaker: 00:30:55 rational. So for you it's not, it's not about an IP thing. Speaker: 00:30:59 It's about you don't want the session because five years from now it's not going Speaker: 00:31:02 to work. So take these stems. These are better. Yeah, the IP thing would be Speaker: 00:31:06 the session and that's because, and this Speaker: 00:31:10 is another thing where we were talking about how production is now mixing. So this Speaker: 00:31:13 gets very, very murky. But let's say they've Speaker: 00:31:17 hired somebody to mix the record and it's not going well, but Speaker: 00:31:21 they like some of the stuff that person has done and then they hire me Speaker: 00:31:25 to mix the record. I should absolutely not Speaker: 00:31:28 get what they've done, I should get what they were given. I agree with Speaker: 00:31:32 that, but at the. Same time I absolutely have Speaker: 00:31:36 to get whatever created this ridiculously processed rough Speaker: 00:31:39 mix that sounds amazing. You cannot send me raw Speaker: 00:31:42 tracks and then a mix that's got Speaker: 00:31:46 7000 plugins on it. And I would spend my entire life trying Speaker: 00:31:50 to recreate what was already done so that I could tweak it. Speaker: 00:31:53 So I have to get something that adds up to the rough. Yeah, Speaker: 00:31:57 yeah. This makes me feel so much better about my life. The fact that Speaker: 00:32:01 you're echoing these things because the battle of the rough Speaker: 00:32:05 mix sounding nothing like the files is just like, it defeats the Speaker: 00:32:08 purpose because by the time I match your rough mix, a, it's not gonna be Speaker: 00:32:12 the same, it's going to be my sonic preferences. And b, I'm tired. Speaker: 00:32:16 Like, I'm no longer creative. And all we did was get back to zero. That's Speaker: 00:32:19 a huge, huge job matching it. And I'm not good at matching mixes. Speaker: 00:32:23 I'm terrible at it. But here's the other thing, is that, Speaker: 00:32:27 you know, we're saying how there's so much mixing as part of the production. Now Speaker: 00:32:31 on my phone at the gym, it's just cycling music. Now, I've listened to Speaker: 00:32:35 enough records that Apple suggests things. It does some really Speaker: 00:32:38 weird stuff sometimes. Like it'll play the same song twice in a row, like Speaker: 00:32:42 really. But every once in a while stuff comes on Speaker: 00:32:45 because like, I've listened to something I've done ten years ago, whatever, and Speaker: 00:32:49 a song will come on and it's like, wow. Speaker: 00:32:53 And sometimes I think, like, man, that sounds really good. Speaker: 00:32:57 And it's because I got raw tracks, but there wasn't a rough mix that was Speaker: 00:33:00 anything other than those raw tracks. Yes. So Speaker: 00:33:04 things are recorded with intent. The sounds mean something and they're what Speaker: 00:33:08 they're supposed to be. But I could do anything, and some of those Speaker: 00:33:11 mixes are better than anything I've done on projects Speaker: 00:33:15 where it comes to me sounding great. So you'd think, like, oh, well, that's an Speaker: 00:33:19 easy gig. It already sounds great. Just fix a couple of things. But Speaker:

00:33:23 that can take as long as mixing from scratch. Speaker: 00:33:27 But you can't mix from scratch, which means you also can't, like, you're Speaker: 00:33:31 having to be creative inside someone else's brain at that point, Speaker: 00:33:34 which is really, really difficult for me. Okay, Dell's Speaker: 00:33:38 advocate, do you think that those mixes are your favorite mixes because they are all Speaker: 00:33:42 your sonic taste, or do you think they're Speaker: 00:33:46 arguably better mixes? Technically? No, I think they're better. Okay. I Speaker: 00:33:50 really do. I think that there are. Speaker: 00:33:54 I mean, part of it, obviously, is because it's my taste, so I like Speaker: 00:33:58 them. Right? Yeah. I mean, it Speaker: 00:34:01 has to be that, because what's the other filter? I'm listening in. But I Speaker: 00:34:05 also do think that's why they're better, because I Speaker: 00:34:09 had. I had control over everything. So it isn't that, Speaker: 00:34:13 like, I couldn't make the vocal sound better on a really mixed Speaker: 00:34:16 mix. Like, sure, that's my job and that's what I'm going Speaker: 00:34:20 to do. But I can't shape everything around the vocal. Speaker: 00:34:24 I can't get into the mid range the same way, so I can't make Speaker: 00:34:28 things have separation or space if they're already smashed Speaker: 00:34:31 together, because then things start to fall apart. So, Speaker: 00:34:35 yes, it is because it's my filter, but I'm Speaker: 00:34:38 right. I'm definitely not right. Speaker: 00:34:42 Oh, that's good. That's good. Okay, so let's do Speaker: 00:34:46 atmos for a second. We keep touching on it, right. My Speaker: 00:34:49 perspective of atmos at the moment is that it's Speaker: 00:34:53 a label artist game, and it's a little bit more about pleasing apple than it Speaker: 00:34:57 is making art. But you are doing significantly more atmos than I Speaker: 00:35:00 am. Do you see artists and producers getting excited? Speaker: 00:35:04 And I should say that I love it and I think we should do more Speaker: 00:35:07 of it. Do you see artists getting into it? I guess is the Speaker: 00:35:11 question. When artists hear it on Speaker: 00:35:15 speakers, their minds are blown. If it's a good mix. Speaker: 00:35:18 There are so many bad atmos mixes. I mean, there are more Speaker: 00:35:22 ways you can screw up a song in atmos than in stereo. Speaker: 00:35:26 Absolutely. You can pull stuff apart, and now the groove is gone, the song is Speaker: 00:35:29 gone. Nobody wants to hear it, so that's a problem. But Speaker: 00:35:33 when it's good, and by good, I don't mean it sounds good. I couldn't Speaker: 00:35:37 care less if stuff sounds good, but it feels like their song. Speaker: 00:35:41 You cannot do that in stereo. You can't. It's Speaker: 00:35:45 impossible. And there is something emotionally Speaker: 00:35:48 that just can destroy you if you're listening to Speaker: 00:35:52 a good atmos mix that you know you'll enjoy Speaker: 00:35:56 it in stereo, but you cannot get across what happens. And there are Speaker: 00:36:00 actually people doing doctorates on why that's the case. Interesting. Speaker: 00:36:03 This isn't just like, hey, I'm in a room, I like atmos. Like, this is. Speaker: 00:36:07 It's clinically proven stuff, Speaker: 00:36:11 but it is a format for speakers, so Speaker: 00:36:15 that's the thing. And 99% of the consumption is Speaker: 00:36:19 on headphones. So that requires the ability Speaker: 00:36:23 of the listener to externalize, to hear something as if it's coming Speaker: 00:36:26 from elsewhere. And I can't do it Speaker: 00:36:30 like four or 5 seconds a week, things will explode Speaker: 00:36:34 out while I'm working on the headphone version of a mix. And then it Speaker: 00:36:37 collapses again, and then I'm really sad. But Speaker: 00:36:41 it's not just one service. I mean, it used to be that Speaker: 00:36:45 people said, oh, well, Apple will bury your album if you don't deliver atmos. Speaker: 00:36:48 Well, no, they have a lot of playlists that are Speaker: 00:36:52 immersive only. That's true. Obviously, you Speaker: 00:36:56 can't be on that playlist, and they're pushing the format. It's not that Speaker: 00:37:00 they're dumping your record down to the bottom of the bin, it's that your record Speaker: 00:37:03 can't go on all the stuff they're putting on the front because that's what they're Speaker: 00:37:07 trying to promote, and now they pay more for it. So there's a little bit Speaker: 00:37:10 of incentive. I mean, I have no idea what the numbers are, but. Speaker: 00:37:13 But the format itself, like, talk to anybody who has mixed Speaker: 00:37:16 atmos. And they just love it. Speaker: 00:37:20 Absolutely love it. The problem is that people that don't like it have never heard Speaker: 00:37:24 it in a good room, and they've never got to do it on speakers. And Speaker: 00:37:27 I just. I feel like. I wish there was more focus on making the binaural Speaker: 00:37:31 experience better, because then you would bring more people on board. Speaker: 00:37:34 Well, but, like, one of the things is, if you don't, we can go Speaker: 00:37:38 geeky for a second. If you don't have a personalized HRTF, Speaker: 00:37:42 it doesn't matter what they're doing on the encoding side, it's not going to work Speaker: 00:37:45 well for us it might because you're using a Speaker: 00:37:49 generic HRTF which is based on something and it's based on Speaker: 00:37:52 white northern western hemisphere. It's not Speaker: 00:37:56 demisphere men. Okay, so we have Speaker: 00:38:00 a better chance of it working for us, but asian women Speaker: 00:38:04 have absolutely no chance of it working

without having a Speaker: 00:38:07 personalized one. So finally, with phone true depth Speaker: 00:38:11 cameras and stuff like that, you can get a reasonable HRTF and that will Speaker: 00:38:15 help. But the good thing is, is that consumer Speaker: 00:38:18 speakers are getting better sound bars that will hook up to a couple speakers Speaker: 00:38:22 behind you and a subwoofer. Now all of a sudden you've got a five one Speaker: 00:38:26 system with up firing tweeters and you can start to get the feel of Speaker: 00:38:29 it because it's not like, oh, the speakers have to be in the right place. Speaker: 00:38:33 You just need to feel like you're in the middle of whatever the hell's Speaker: 00:38:37 going on, instead of it just being in front of you like a television. Yeah, Speaker: 00:38:41 yeah, I. That's the thing that I'd never gotten into binaural is I'm one of Speaker: 00:38:44 those people that I don't hear anything behind. I think that's a thing for Speaker: 00:38:47 some people, right? Some people can. They get the rap and I don't, I just Speaker: 00:38:51 get the room directly behind. You is actually almost impossible. Speaker: 00:38:55 Okay. Once it's off to the sides, you should be able to localize a little Speaker: 00:38:58 bit. And I can't, but it's, I mean, back to the seventies, Speaker: 00:39:02 there was a, you know, binaural sound effects record or something like that. Speaker: 00:39:06 And it's because everything is completely Speaker: 00:39:09 balanced. Delay, frequency, all of that. Just like if Speaker: 00:39:13 it's right in front of you. Right. So it's almost impossible to hear Speaker: 00:39:17 that something is behind you. But as it's moving, that's the thing where Speaker: 00:39:21 people who are lucky get to hear it moving, and I don't, it sounds Speaker: 00:39:24 weird. Have you. I've heard, I haven't heard it. The Sony Speaker: 00:39:28 360 tech, I've heard that. That is actually pretty amazing in headphones. Have you Speaker: 00:39:32 heard that? I've done a lot of Sony 360 mixes. It's a different Speaker: 00:39:35 headphone algorithm. Again, I never Speaker: 00:39:39 externalize, so I hear the worst case version of it. Speaker: 00:39:43 I'm hearing the encoding. I'm not hearing a binaural Speaker: 00:39:46 mix. All right. Yeah. Anyway, I don't Speaker: 00:39:50 know. I like atmos. I hope more people get on board, but Speaker: 00:39:54 everything you just mentioned is, I feel like, the barrier for why Speaker: 00:39:58 people. Hate on it and for people like us Speaker: 00:40:02 who can make it to the west coast in January. Go to Namm, Speaker: 00:40:05 because PMC has a booth. Neumann has a booth. There are probably Speaker: 00:40:09 others where you can just sit there and listen to people's atmos mixes all Speaker: 00:40:13 day. And if you don't walk out of there at least wanting to try it, Speaker: 00:40:16 I'd be surprised if you like music and listening to Speaker: 00:40:20 music, it's like, I am so excited to play some of my stuff Speaker: 00:40:24 at NAmm because my room is tiny. Like, it is Speaker: 00:40:28 literally the smallest room you can put an atmos system in. A Speaker: 00:40:32 friend of mine who I went to college with works for Dolby, and he was Speaker: 00:40:35 visiting, he's like, let me measure your room. And he's like, yeah, you've got a Speaker: 00:40:38 couple inches to spare. Yeah. So I can't Speaker: 00:40:42 hear the separation in the speakers at all. Right. Right. Speaker: 00:40:46 But I get to Namm, put it up in one of those booths, and Speaker: 00:40:50 it's just awesome. That's amazing. And the Speaker: 00:40:53 PMC booth is just stacked with speakers. It's like, more speakers and chairs in Speaker: 00:40:57 there. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. It's crazy. Speaker: 00:41:00 It's amazing. Okay, I wanted to ask you. We'll step away Speaker: 00:41:04 from atmos parallel compression. I feel like a lot Speaker: 00:41:08 of people, when they're starting out, Speaker: 00:41:12 they're using parallel compression because they hear engineers like yourself talk Speaker: 00:41:16 about it, and they just take an 1176, they hit all buttons in, Speaker: 00:41:20 they pin the meter, they push it up until something sounds bigger, but they never Speaker: 00:41:23 think about that compressed signal. So can we talk about the actual Speaker: 00:41:27 compressed signal? How are you approaching that compression Speaker: 00:41:31 and attack and release? And what are you thinking about? Well, you're not going to Speaker: 00:41:34 like my answer that much because it doesn't matter what it sounds Speaker: 00:41:38 like on its own at all. Like, not even a little bit. Okay. Speaker: 00:41:42 Because, like, one of the drum parallel crush things Speaker: 00:41:45 in my template, and it's been there since the very first time I Speaker: 00:41:49 was doing anything in the box, which is before I had a console. It's Speaker: 00:41:53 Fairchild plugin. Right? Right. You put that on drums? Sure you Speaker: 00:41:57 do. So it's Fairchild. It's set up kind of like it would be on Speaker: 00:42:00 drums. If you listen to it on its own, it's pretending to be a Speaker: 00:42:04 fairchild, which means it's pretending to have low end and be Speaker: 00:42:07 slow and whatever. When you blend it in as a parallel thing, stuff gets Speaker: 00:42:11 brighter. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know Speaker: 00:42:15 why. So there you go. Okay, here's the Speaker: 00:42:18 thing. A parallel compressor should be more compressed than Speaker: 00:42:22 you would ever put on the insert directly because Speaker: 00:42:26 you only want to blend in a little bit. But the way to think about Speaker: 00:42:29 parallel compression in general is if you put an Speaker: 00:42:32

insert compressor on something, it reacts to the loud stuff right below Speaker: 00:42:36 the threshold. It leaves everything alone above the threshold. It turns it down Speaker: 00:42:40 a lot. When? Well, if you're compressing a lot Speaker: 00:42:44 at a high ratio, when you've got something Speaker: 00:42:47 absolutely crushed and you're blending it in, Speaker: 00:42:51 you still have your uncompressed signal. So you've got full range with Speaker: 00:42:55 all of your transients. All the stuff above what the threshold would have Speaker: 00:42:58 been completely untouched. And then you start Speaker: 00:43:02 slamming this slab of the same sound, but Speaker: 00:43:06 doesn't have the dynamic range, and you're blending it in. Speaker: 00:43:10 It's not exactly this, but technically you're making the quiet Speaker: 00:43:14 stuff louder instead of the loud stuff quieter. And the Speaker: 00:43:18 character of that is what I like. It has nothing to do Speaker: 00:43:21 with. It's bigger if you do it one way or whatever. I Speaker: 00:43:25 love the sound of an uncompressed vocal. I love the sound of Speaker: 00:43:29 uncompressed drums. The transients on uncompressed Speaker: 00:43:33 kicks and snares are like, they surprise you. They're so Speaker: 00:43:36 awesome. You start compressing, the drum kit will sound cool, you'll get some great Speaker: 00:43:40 noise going on. But the kick and snare don't make you laugh when they're way Speaker: 00:43:44 too loud. Like that's a thing. There's some emotional thing to Speaker: 00:43:48 really getting pummeled with the transients. Yeah. So you use parallel Speaker: 00:43:51 compression to get the drums so that you can slam a bunch of guitars over Speaker: 00:43:55 them, but still hear them. But you still have your transients, Speaker: 00:43:59 so that's why. But to be fair, Speaker: 00:44:02 over the last year, year and a half, I've gotten to the point Speaker: 00:44:06 where I am using almost no parallel compression anymore. Speaker: 00:44:09 Wow. Almost none. The rear bus hasn't made Speaker: 00:44:13 an appearance in a mix in probably a year. Speaker: 00:44:18 How are you getting that same quiet stuff Speaker: 00:44:22 up? I don't know. Speaker: 00:44:26 I mean, part of it is if I'm mixing something that has already Speaker: 00:44:29 been mixed, well, then I don't need it. There's no room for it Speaker: 00:44:33 anyway. That's also true. But even on the stuff that isn't like that, Speaker: 00:44:37 it's not about technically what I get at the other end. Speaker: 00:44:41 It's that I no longer like the sound of it as much. Right. So Speaker: 00:44:45 mixes are taking me longer because I'm not just like ooh, cool. Speaker: 00:44:48 That is my starting point, because I really do have to do everything Speaker: 00:44:52 individually, which I'm sure part of the Internet will be very happy, because Speaker: 00:44:56 apparently putting anything on your mix bus is cheating. I didn't realize that, Speaker: 00:44:59 but everything I do is bespoke. But you're Speaker: 00:45:03 silly if you don't have a template of some sort, because it's, like automating Speaker: 00:45:07 stuff. You're going to be building the same stuff over and over and over. Speaker: 00:45:11 But, yeah, I just don't like the sound of it as much. And my Speaker: 00:45:15 mixes are a little quieter because of it, which is crazy for me because I'm Speaker: 00:45:18 the loud guy. Yeah, but parallel compression, Speaker: 00:45:22 don't spend a huge amount of time listening to what the parallel thing is. Spend Speaker: 00:45:25 a huge amount of time listening to it as you blend it in as a Speaker: 00:45:29 parallel thing, which I think. Is the best Speaker: 00:45:32 advice all around for all mixing people are like, what's your mixing tip? I'm like, Speaker: 00:45:36 when you're turning the guitars up, listen to the vocal. Like, listen to Speaker: 00:45:40 everything else. Like, yeah, you're right. Solo, we all. We all know solo Speaker: 00:45:43 doesn't always help. Yeah, I mean, it's good to find out, like, what it is. Speaker: 00:45:47 Yeah, but then it doesn't matter what you do until it's back in context. Speaker: 00:45:51 So. Listening to everything you said, I translate as faster Speaker: 00:45:55 attack, though, because you. Do you want to kill those transients in those parallel tracks Speaker: 00:45:58 or you let those live? No, because it'll actually double them up. I mean, Speaker: 00:46:02 compressors in general. I'm slow attack, fast release. Okay. Speaker: 00:46:06 Okay. But, yeah. Speaker: 00:46:10 Before we get into my closing questions, I wanted to ask you. Well, first I Speaker: 00:46:13 want to say thank you for always sharing so much. You're on so many podcasts, Speaker: 00:46:17 you share so much with the engineering community, so thank you. But is there a Speaker: 00:46:21 question that you always wish somebody would ask you? Speaker: 00:46:27 No. Perfect. I mean, I could make a Speaker: 00:46:30 joke about, you know, ask me what I want for dinner. Speaker: 00:46:34 I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm lucky that I do get to Speaker: 00:46:37 talk about this stuff all the time, and I do mix with the Speaker: 00:46:41 masters seminars. Like, that's one thing the Adele record got me. They got in Speaker: 00:46:45 touch and wanted me to do a mix of the masters seminar, so I've done Speaker: 00:46:48 13 of them now, 14, something like that, and I just did one a Speaker: 00:46:52 few weeks ago, and I'm basically Speaker: 00:46:55 talking for a week, so I get to Speaker: 00:46:59 say everything. But what's great about it is you put your process Speaker: 00:47:03 into words, and some people, like oh, don't inspect the process. But I Speaker: 00:47:07

like to inspect the process because not only do Speaker: 00:47:10 you have to articulate, you don't have to say why you do it, Speaker: 00:47:14 but you say what it is that you're actually doing, but also because I do Speaker: 00:47:18 them every year I see the stuff that's changed and Speaker: 00:47:21 obviously changing from the console to the laptop was a big deal, Speaker: 00:47:25 but there's so much that changes every single Speaker: 00:47:29 year about how I think about things and what I do that it's Speaker: 00:47:33 great, but it means that I've managed to say everything Speaker: 00:47:36 at least a thousand times. I mean, is there anything you feel Speaker: 00:47:40 like no one's asked me? I mean, no, that's one of. When I was Speaker: 00:47:44 like, oh, I got to reach out to Andrew. He's on my dream list. And Speaker: 00:47:46 I was like, like, what the fuck am I going to ask him? Well, Speaker: 00:47:50 see, okay, so here's what we'll do. We'll take up that time with me Speaker: 00:47:53 saying that everybody has to go listen to low roar, the artist low roar. Speaker: 00:47:57 Which I started listening to this morning, sounds amazing. So there you Speaker: 00:48:01 go. I believe that right before this podcast, Speaker: 00:48:04 I may have recorded the last thing on the last Speaker: 00:48:08 album. So cool. Amazing. Very depressing Speaker: 00:48:11 in a way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you guys can look Speaker: 00:48:15 at the Internet and see what's up with loroar. It's very sad, but Speaker: 00:48:18 this album is now almost done. That's great. Speaker: 00:48:22 I just thought of a question that no one's asking you, probably because this question Speaker: 00:48:26 doesn't exist. I meant to ask it earlier, so I'm cheating a little bit, trying Speaker: 00:48:29 to figure out how to get this question in. Back to AI mixing. What do Speaker: 00:48:33 you think about the idea of this is basically what Spike presumably has Speaker: 00:48:36 done from what we've readdeveloped. Training an AI on your Speaker: 00:48:40 own work to then operate as an assistant for yourself. Speaker: 00:48:44 Yeah, I think that that's Speaker: 00:48:48 great. But I think again, and I'm really Speaker: 00:48:51 curious to know what they did with Spike's stuff. Speaker: 00:48:55 To get a good model, you need Speaker: 00:48:59 hundreds of thousands of things that it learns Speaker: 00:49:02 from 10,000 things. I mean, Spike Speaker: 00:49:06 has mixed a metric fuck ton of records, but I Speaker: 00:49:10 don't know that he's mixed hundreds of thousands of songs. So is it Speaker: 00:49:14 enough? Maybe it's been supplemented with Speaker: 00:49:18 stuff he likes. You know, I don't know. I don't know what they're Speaker: 00:49:21 doing at all. But, like, for me, what the Speaker: 00:49:25 AI is amazing for is separation of things. Like

the Speaker: 00:49:29 low roar record. Most of it was tracked with Ryan at a piano, Speaker: 00:49:32 singing. But I needed to do stuff with the vocals. And Speaker: 00:49:36 I actually managed to split the bleed out of both the Speaker: 00:49:40 piano mics and the vocal mics so that I could treat them Speaker: 00:49:43 completely separately. And if I wanted the vocal bleed Speaker: 00:49:47 from the piano mics because it was part of the vocal sound, I have Speaker: 00:49:50 it separate. But it's not in the piano mics. Speaker: 00:49:54 Yeah, that's huge. And that's AI. But that's been Speaker: 00:49:58 trained on probably a couple of million recordings of vocal Speaker: 00:50:01 and piano to be able to do that. Now, did you do that? Was that Speaker: 00:50:05 with RX or was it with something else? No, that was with Speaker: 00:50:08 Steinberg spectralayers, which at the moment, if you're not a Speaker: 00:50:11 total geek and running stuff in these Google collabs Speaker: 00:50:15 online, by far the best piece of software I've used for Speaker: 00:50:19 this stuff. It can be a little clunky, but when it works, it's Speaker: 00:50:22 insanely good. And its tools are crazy. Speaker: 00:50:26 Absolutely crazy. There's one, they're like weird Speaker: 00:50:29 magic Photoshop select tools where one, you Speaker: 00:50:32 can drag it along what looks like the fundamental and it will Speaker: 00:50:36 grab it and all the harmonics. So you can grab a Speaker: 00:50:39 piano note with all of its harmonics and pull Speaker: 00:50:43 it out manually and copy it to a different layer. Speaker: 00:50:47 And when it separates things, if you don't mess with it bit for bit, Speaker: 00:50:51 it goes back together. There's zero audio loss. Every bit is Speaker: 00:50:54 somewhere. That's wild. It's ridiculously cool. I mixed a Speaker: 00:50:58 record where a lot of the drums were recorded, where the Speaker: 00:51:01 overheads weren't cymbal mics, they were absolutely the kit and that was Speaker: 00:51:05 a big part of the drum sound. But on a couple of the songs there Speaker: 00:51:09 was some symbol that was crazy loud and I needed Speaker: 00:51:13 to turn the cymbals down for 16 bars, split Speaker: 00:51:17 the overheads into cymbals, kick, snare, turn the cymbals down. Speaker: 00:51:20 What? And the cake and snare don't change at all. Speaker: 00:51:24 And this is for stereo mixing. A lot of people talk about the demixing to Speaker: 00:51:28 make yourself more source material for atmos or whatever. Spectral Speaker: 00:51:31 layers might be the best money I've spent in years. Speaker: 00:51:35 It's incredible. That is. That is amazing. Well, I'm Speaker: 00:51:39 glad that we pushed that question into the end. Even though Speaker: 00:51:42 I almost let it go. I didn't answer your question. Speaker: 00:51:46 I mean, look, the idea of being able to train your own stuff is Speaker: 00:51:50 incredible. None of us have enough material to make it actually work Speaker: 00:51:54 very well. I never thought about that thing that sucks. Like with the Beatles Speaker: 00:51:57 stuff that they did, separating Speaker: 00:52:01 the things so that they could do the Atmos mixes it is Speaker: 00:52:05 a much more specific data set because they had the recording. Speaker: 00:52:08 But then if they wanted to split the bass out, they had every single Speaker: 00:52:12 performance of that bass part. So Speaker: 00:52:16 it knows what order the notes are coming in, and that's how they trained it. Speaker: 00:52:19 So the Peter Jackson thing is trained with every, Speaker: 00:52:23 like, that model only knows about that song, period. Speaker: 00:52:26 That's nuts. That's it. But it can pick the bass Speaker: 00:52:30 out because it's always Paul playing the bass, same Speaker: 00:52:34 line, everything's the same. That's wild. Do you think that Peter Jackson Speaker: 00:52:37 Tech will ever enter the world? Speaker: 00:52:41 I don't know. I don't know. There's always talk of it. But again, Speaker: 00:52:45 I think that it's not generalized tech, Speaker: 00:52:49 it's specific. So you'd have to go train on how to train it Speaker: 00:52:53 to get anything done. And how many of us have datasets that Speaker: 00:52:56 are the right thing? And I'm going by hearsay. I've never talked to Speaker: 00:53:00 anybody, but I've heard that that's what it does. Speaker: 00:53:04 They trained it by other performances of the same part. Speaker: 00:53:07 So what do you have as a job where that would Speaker: 00:53:11 work? Nothing. I've never in Speaker: 00:53:15 my life had something where that would work. That's Speaker: 00:53:18 true. So, you know, that's amazing. All right, well, Speaker: 00:53:22 I know you've got to get back to your day. I've got the last two Speaker: 00:53:25 questions that I hit everybody with, which I was. Supposed to look at, and I Speaker: 00:53:28 didn't. Well, if you didn't, it makes it more fun. Speaker: 00:53:33 Was there a time in your career that you ever chose to redefine what success Speaker: 00:53:36 meant to you? Well, we already talked about it, actually. Those Speaker: 00:53:39 projects where it was like, if this isn't huge, then everything's wrong Speaker: 00:53:43 with the world and all of that. And, yeah, I've tried, and Speaker: 00:53:47 it's really difficult, but I have tried Speaker: 00:53:50 constantly to make the success that I Speaker: 00:53:53 get to work on some stuff that I still want to listen to when I'm Speaker: 00:53:56 done that I'm actually really proud of, Speaker: 00:54:00 and that's hard, but it's, you know, Speaker: 00:54:04 when it happens, it. That's what. That's why we're doing it. None Speaker: 00:54:07 of us are doing it to get

rich. You know, I bought a modular, so Speaker: 00:54:11 I'm doing all right. But, you know, you're not doing it to be on MTV Speaker: 00:54:15 Cribs, which anyone under the age of 30 won't even know what that is. Speaker: 00:54:19 We're doing it to make music that we love. And Speaker: 00:54:22 we're in a position, the people who do what we do, where we can't Speaker: 00:54:26 make the music ourselves. So when we can work on a project with a Speaker: 00:54:30 musician or an artist that is making the music we wish we could Speaker: 00:54:33 do, that's the best. I mean, what's better than that? Nothing. Nothing. Speaker: 00:54:37 Nothing. I think people think that when you're at the top of Speaker: 00:54:41 your career that every day you're doing, like, your favorite song ever. But Speaker: 00:54:44 that's just not. That's not the case. Oh, no. Absolutely not. I Speaker: 00:54:48 mean, I'm so lucky to have the low Roar project because Speaker: 00:54:52 for six albums over, I mean, I Speaker: 00:54:55 work. I've been working with Ryan for twelve or 13 years or something like Speaker: 00:54:59 that. I've had album after album. That is my Speaker: 00:55:03 favorite music I've ever worked on. But that's six Speaker: 00:55:07 records. Exactly. Only six. And there's other stuff I've worked on Speaker: 00:55:10 I love. I mean, there's lots of stuff I've been very lucky to work on, Speaker: 00:55:14 stuff that I like, but. Yeah, but the other part is you Speaker: 00:55:18 do do this to pay your bills as well. But if you can't Speaker: 00:55:22 take that part of it, then do something else to pay your bills so Speaker: 00:55:25 that you still love it when you work doing what we're doing. Because if Speaker: 00:55:29 you start not liking this, what's the point? It's Speaker: 00:55:33 brutal. It is a brutal, horrible job where everything you Speaker: 00:55:36 do is completely subjective. You can think you've done the best thing ever Speaker: 00:55:40 that took you five weeks, and they just go, nope, I don't like it. Speaker: 00:55:44 Yes, yes. It reminds me of my January. Speaker: 00:55:49 You're just like, this is the. I love this. And they're like, we're not gonna Speaker: 00:55:52 use it. You're like, anytime. I really like it. They hate it. Speaker: 00:55:57 Yeah. I can almost say that as well. Yeah. Every time. It's my Speaker: 00:56:01 favorite. It's not theirs. Yeah. Okay, so last Speaker: 00:56:04 question before you go. What is your current biggest goal and what's the next smallest Speaker: 00:56:08 step you're going to take to go towards it? I really should have Speaker: 00:56:12 read the questions beforehand. Like, Tony Speaker: 00:56:15 Maserati has this great thing where he has a yearly Speaker: 00:56:19 review where he does exactly what you're talking about. Like, okay, so what are my Speaker: 00:56:23 goals? How am I going to get there? And he's got like, okay, here are Speaker: 00:56:26 the steps I'm going to take. And then he has a meeting with himself in Speaker: 00:56:29 a year to say, like, okay, have I done that? Have my goals changed? What Speaker: 00:56:33 did I, you know, which I think is great. I mean, a short Speaker: 00:56:37 term goal, just selfishly, is Speaker: 00:56:40 I'm going to try and get bounce factory out there a little bit more Speaker: 00:56:44 because I love working on it. I actually love the coding because it isn't Speaker: 00:56:47 subjective and I would love for that to kind of Speaker: 00:56:50 cushion. So I don't have to work on records. I don't want to. And, you Speaker: 00:56:54 know, again, people think you're all day, every day. That is Speaker: 00:56:58 absolutely not the case. I need to work. I have to work Speaker: 00:57:02 because I like electricity and water and food. Speaker: 00:57:06 So, you know, like, everybody, again, in a good Speaker: 00:57:09 position. So I don't want to get, you know, trolled over this. And then Speaker: 00:57:13 the next thing is to just try Speaker: 00:57:17 and find, like, what is the next low roar thing going Speaker: 00:57:20 to be for me, if there is one? There may not be. I mean, a Speaker: 00:57:23 lot of people would never even have one, so I'm Speaker: 00:57:27 super lucky. So I've got, what am I going to Speaker: 00:57:31 do with the legacy of Loroar? Like, I'm going to be doing a vinyl box Speaker: 00:57:34 set and things like that, but I don't want it to just disappear. So Speaker: 00:57:38 I have no idea what the first step is with that, though. That's unknown. So Speaker: 00:57:42 that doesn't answer your question at all. It's good, though. I'm with it. Speaker: 00:57:45 Well, I think it highlights diversity, and I feel like it doesn't Speaker: 00:57:49 matter how long you've done this. Having diversity in Speaker: 00:57:54 income allows you to do the records you love because the record you Speaker: 00:57:57 love might not be the one that's going to pay your bills. So if something Speaker: 00:58:00 else does, whether it's music related or not, Speaker: 00:58:05 that makes your life better as a musician? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Speaker: 00:58:08 I love making the plugins because I'm making plugins that I actually wish Speaker: 00:58:12 existed, but at the same time, that's a little bit of extra money and Speaker: 00:58:16 get enough of those things, and it just takes some pressure Speaker: 00:58:19 off. Yeah. Which is good, because I think all of us can smell a Speaker: 00:58:23 gig that's going to really suck, and it may have nothing to do with the Speaker: 00:58:26 source material or the music. It's usually about the people Speaker: 00:58:30 and, you know, going in that you really wish you could say no. Yeah. Speaker: 00:58:34 Yeah. Everybody's been there. Everybody's been there. If you enjoyed this one and Speaker: 00:58:37 it's got you thinking about how you can. If you could better build your sonic Speaker: 00:58:40 identity as a producer or engineer, then you're gonna want to check out my interview Speaker: 00:58:43 with Tony Hoffer, the producer mixer behind Beck, Midnight Vultures, the kooks, Speaker: 00:58:47 inside in, inside out. M 83, midnight city and many more.