Music Production Growth Nobody Talks About

Speaker A: Um, well, we are back. It's saying go. It's been a minute since we've had that countdown. But we're back. It's been two. Go. Yeah, it's been two whole weeks. Uh, welcome episode 208 of the audio nautic deep space network adsn. Welcome. Um, thank you for bearing with us as. Uh, it's been a kind of a chaotic two weeks. Uh, yes, we have taken a bit of time off. Um, and that's completely on me. Lars has just entered the green room. I've seen. That is a beautiful little sound I want to see. We'll get you in in a second, brother. Um, yes, we're back. Thank you for putting up with us. Sorry it's been the chaotic two weeks. Um, we were due to have a. We weren't going to have one last week. We were going to have one two weeks ago and then I locked myself out the apartment and it's difficult to run a show when you're not. When you're locked out of your apartment. Here we are, we're back. And that's in the past. Uh, the only thing that matters is the present. Welcome. Thank you ever so much for being here. Hey Thomas. Lovely to see you. Dude. Uh, eon. Missed your face, man. What's going on?

Speaker B: It's been a while, hasn't it? Isn't it? Yeah, we had a little mini summer over here and. And then it rained torrentially and now it's just doing both alternately.

Speaker A: It's incredibly bipolar.

Speaker B: It's like two seasons have passed.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I know.

Speaker A: I mean didn't even get to enjoy the nice parts of it. But we shall see. Um, you've been sending me tracks though and you've been sending me little ideas. You've been able to bend noodling been able to do.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've been keeping busy. I've been keeping busy and m doing little bits and pieces. Um. Yeah, things are moving forward. That's all I'm saying. It's all I could say. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a huge amount in the music news of interest though. I've note I've noticed, you know, there's a lot of um, a lot of stories about legality of AI being, you know, you can't, you can't claim copyright on something that's AI generated or uh, generated in part. And I think we all kind of know that now. And there were other stories about you know, people being unhappy with Spotify for some reason. Ah, it doesn't really Feel like news to me. Feels more like, you know, the wheel continues to turn.

Speaker A: I agree. And, I mean, I like that. In a way, it gives us an opportunity to look at some more of these discursive things, which, you know, they might not be algorithmically, uh, as attractive or as algorithmically attractive.

Speaker B: Uh, algorithmic merit.

Speaker A: No, exactly. Um, but they. I. I see, I see. And I hope that, um, they provide, uh, some solitude. Not solitude, some sanctuary for people who are perhaps feeling a little bit lonely on this path. Because historically, our path is quite. Quite an isolated one. Um, and airing these ideas out are a good way to be. Um, we are having. We are having a discursive episode, not gonna lie. Um, that's how. That's where we're at this week. We are basically having a mulligan on what I kind of put together two weeks ago. Um, and the idea is to keep it chill this week and just, um, not have to think too much. And we're having a look at our winds, having a look at the acknowledgment of how we have, uh, improved in our production game. It's very easy for us to be negative about ourselves and to be saying things like, oh, I should be doing this, should be doing that, should be doing more, should be doing less of this exact. And everything. Um, but I'm hoping this week we have a collective meditation on how we have improved our own game so that we can recognize how far we've come from. Perhaps when we first picked up our, uh, instruments or first opened our daw. And that's the. That's the aim of this game. Uh, Lars is in the green room. He is here. He is dancing in his studio, and I really want to find out why. Um. Uh, he's about. So let's get him in. Let's have a. Let's have a big thumbs up if you're ready, Lars. Um, that is a. That is a nice, big thumbs up. Um, people in the chat. Um, if you are tuning in, let's see how many rooms Lars can get into in his house this week before the end of the show. My money is on three. Um, we shall have to see. Let's. Let's get him in, shall we? He is muted as well. He's muted himself. He's talking, but we can't hear him because he has muted himself. There we go.

Speaker C: We're gonna stay in one room today. Just one. It's a good week. It's gonna be a good week. We're gonna stay right here in the lovely studio. Where I am dancing.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: Have you got more, um, what, uh, would you call it? Acoustic treatment on the wall there?

Speaker C: Uh, no, this is all the same stuff. Stuff I've had up here.

Speaker B: I know you had some before. It just, it sounds very dead in there. It's just working, whatever you're doing.

Speaker C: Because I'm dead inside.

Speaker B: Are you soaking up all the, all the sound waves itself, absorbing it. It gives me life like a black hole. I don't know. I just draw it out, uh, of the speakers.

Speaker C: I absorb the music into my body. It's like medicine or drugs. I like drugs better, honestly.

Speaker A: I mean, you've got a bit. You've got a big can of sugar, it seems. What's the flavor of sugar for this week?

Speaker C: Okay, first of all, it's sugar free. And it is some more skittles water. And it is in a lovely engine degreaser tumbler.

Speaker A: Okay, cool. Amazing. Every part screams nutrition. That's awesome. I'm, um, so happy for you.

Speaker C: I'm a super helpful person. Don't get it twisted.

Speaker A: No, no, I'm sure you are. I'm sure. How's your week been, bro? It's been a minute, uh, since we've seen you.

Speaker C: It's been a pretty good week, honestly. Had a big weekend. Uh, family came and visited, so I got to go to the Rocky Mountain national park and drive all the way up to the top of a mountain while excreting excrement in my pants as I'm looking over the edge of. I don't do heights. Uh, my family's like, hey, let's go up to a really tall mountain and look down. I said, yeah, that's great. Yep, yep.

Speaker B: Yeah. Either I don't like being like a couple of inches from a couple of thousand foot drop.

Speaker C: Yeah, the roads were kind of sketchy because there's like no wall or barrier or anything. Like, look over and it's like, it's an angle like that. So, you know, if you go over, you're going to keep moving for, you know, another couple thousand feet before you stop.

Speaker A: I mean, there, there's an opportunity right there to record, uh, the sound around you as you're bricking it from up on high and turn it into some sort of noise ambient. That would be

Speaker B: funny. Squeaking noise.

Speaker C: Oh, that's me falling off of a mountain. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker C: Um, we sacrifice for our art, damn it.

Speaker A: We do. You know, we, we all have to do things, you know, uh, we were just talking. We Were talking just before, uh, we came online, uh, just in regards to Stillhead. Uh, he says he enjoyed my latest release, single, Where Clarity Rests, which is part of an album about grief. And, you know, people enjoy a piece of music, and you can write the best piece of music when you're grieving your heart out. It's the best thing to do, Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: It does a huge disservice to describe it that way, because it's not a depressing listen.

Speaker A: No, not at all.

Speaker B: Even if that's where it came from. It. It's this.

Speaker C: Uh.

Speaker B: I got a lot from it, personally. I thought it had a lot of different facets to it, and. And it was interesting to my brain as well as my ears, as a. As I listened to. Um. Yeah, if I'd written it, I would be worried to sort of describe it that way, just because people think, oh, that sounds nice. Cool.

Speaker A: I suppose it's kind of the point, right? In the sense that, you know, okay, without going too much of a tangent, because we've got a show, too, but just, like, the idea of grief is sad and it's heavy, but also, it's. It's what. It's what you move through, and it makes you a better person. You grow as an individual. Right. And. Which is a good thing. Maybe a good thing. Um. So, yeah, Um. I suppose it's how you hold the heaviness, uh, in a way. Um, still, Ed is also saying hi to Lars, giving you a good salute, shall we say, which is nice. And Cresshead as well, giving a lovely fist bump. Yeah. Um, M. Now, thank you. Once again, people have started coming. Coming into the chat. It has been a slow two weeks. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Um, life has gotten in the way, but here we are. Um. And here we are. I mean, Lars has continued to wander the barren land in search of meaning. Um,

Speaker C: it tells me. It tells me to put my title in there. And I just keep coming up with stuff I like. I like to know that Eon, like, is a human, though. Like, he has positively identified himself as a human, not AI.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: I mean, let us see your fingers, Eon.

Speaker B: See, Real might not have turned out the way it was supposed to, but it is real.

Speaker A: It is, though. Uh. Um, let's get into it on that note, shall we? In the. In the way of. The way of. We are here. Um, we're celebrating our wins this week. Like I say, we're celebrating and recognizing. Acknowledging whatever words you want to use from therapy to create.

Speaker C: Today's a therapy Session. Everyone join in.

Speaker A: Trauma dump in the chat.

Speaker C: Let's do it. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, there's no charge though.

Speaker A: Exactly. You can see where my head has been at over the last couple of weeks. Um, it's about, I want to acknowledge, uh, how far we've come. It's really easy to be self critical, right? It's really easy to be your own worst enemy as musicians. But I have come to understand that there's a lot of credence and a lot of understanding. I've come to understand there's a lot of credence in recognizing how far you've come since when you first started. You might not be where you want to be, you might not be creating exactly what you want to create. But what things, what tangible things have we definitely improved in them? Can we see an improvement in. And that's kind of what I want to focus on and just kind of share ideas. A collective community meditation on how dope we are and why. Essentially, um, that's where I want to come from today.

Speaker B: What are we going to do with the rest of the 55 minutes?

Speaker A: Well,

Speaker C: Trauma dump, anyone?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Okay, let's, let's, let's take it. I wanna, I want to take a look at the idea of something. A good place to start with this would be what is easy or what do we find easier than we used to? Right. A lot of the times we talk about the things that we find difficult, but what things have we come to see as easier since we first began? And, um, would either of you like to kick us off or should I?

Speaker B: I want Lars to go first. Just polite.

Speaker C: I appreciate that you're just so very polite. Um, man, it's funny that this is the subject because this is actually something that, like I've been talking about with my wife, like over the past week. Not related to music or anything, but now you're putting me on the spot and had to think is like, oh, man, how have I improved in my music? Um, I think a big thing that I struggled with initially was just general principles of mixing, you know. And I know I've heard stories from some of you guys, like saying it's like, oh, yeah, no, this, this song has 72 tracks. This one has 103. And I'm like, I'm over here. Yeah, I'm over here with like five little tracks. I'm just like, uh, nothing wrong with that, right? But I think when I, I know when I first started it was like, there was like, you get that real like muddiness in A mix. And that's always something that's just like, irked me anytime I hear it. Where it's like, you know, you feel like. Like there's just something like, holding all the other elements back. Like the low end is weighing stuff down and like, overtaking everything. And I feel like over the years I've gotten a lot better about being able to like, mix them together, but make sure that every element stays, like, separate and distinct as opposed to ending up with just like a big swirl. And then after figuring out how to do that, I started just making stuff that sounded like a giant swirl of sound anyway.

Speaker B: Well, of interlocking parts.

Speaker C: Right. Oh, I'm so glad I figured that out. Now let me just disregard all of that.

Speaker B: But what's that, all mixing to accomplish that, uh, that better mix, Was it all done in the mix or were there other things that contributed to it?

Speaker C: Um, there's probably. There was another element I had where it's like, I had that, like, you know, you're like, oh, this one has 105. It's like I would start stacking, like, too many elements. And I don't know if it's just like a personal preference for me, but I feel like when there's a track and there's just like too many elements going on, like, I get like, turned off and kind of over stimulated. I don't know, maybe I got a touch of the TISM or something and it just kind of, you know, drives me a little crazy. So I like the sound of, like, kind of clean mixes, but then also too clean sounds just artificial. So I'm. It's all about like, finding this, like, happy medium in between that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I found that too. Definitely. Definitely.

Speaker A: I think there's a lot to be said for, uh, over stimulating the mix, for creating too many parts. I've. I've. I've been guilty of that on many occasions. Um,

Speaker C: you're like, oh, that. Let me add this, let me add this, let me add this, let me add this.

Speaker B: And then also, it's always the right thing to do when you feel like that. Um, you might want to take them away again later on when it comes time. Or just be selective about, you know, which bits get used where. But you know that that feeling is good. That means. It means you're on a roll. You just. You just go with it. M. Something inside you says add something, you have it. Do as you're told. You know, don't be disobedient.

Speaker A: I think I hear you. And I think there's always an opportunity. If you keep adding layers, there's always an opportunity to add another. Another section. Right. Because like you say, you've got to build up. You can't just start with, say, 60 stems. You got to build up to 60 stems. Right. And so you. You have. You might do five minutes. It might build up to this thing, right? You know, the maximalist kind of. That kind of structure.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, you might have foolishly written on a whiteboard. You're not allowed to use any part twice.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, did you do that? Did you do that to yourself?

Speaker B: I, uh, have done that before. Yeah. I broke the rule in the end. But, uh, it was kind of interesting for a while. But, yeah, I did get. I did get rid of it in the end. It was getting a bit too disjointed. But it's very easy to push it the other way. You know, if you spent, you know, all the time you're writing it, you know, trying to deliberately say, right, once a part stops, it can never come back. You know, you can only use each bit once. It makes you think about things in a different way. And it's very easy just to copy and paste a part, make it. Make it more consistent and undo all that hard work. But it was more of a thought exercise than, like, I bet this will produce a really great track. Um, and it kind of worked as a thought exercise, not really as a song because the ideas weren't great. But, um, it was fun.

Speaker C: Did it get that, like, it felt like it was four or five different songs all in one single song. Kind of effective.

Speaker B: It was weird. It made me want to write a track that had no structure. That. It was almost like a sequence of ideas that started with one thing. And it was just, uh, other things happened until it stopped. Oh, which I m. Which I don't hate as an idea for a structure. You know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G sort of structure.

Speaker C: But, um, very much like a daydream kind of structure. Like, you just start thinking about one thing and then by the time you're done daydreaming, it's something completely different.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's like stream of consciousness. It's just, you know, it starts with 90. It's like when you're dreaming and you think of music, it. It kind of starts. But if you wanted to keep it the same, you couldn't. It's. It has to sort of start changing into something else and something else. And after a while you realize it's not what it was before. You don't like it anymore. And that's kind of how the track went when I wrote it like that. I like the bit at the beginning. I don't like this bit now. But, yeah, I mean, the thing is, you could always add bits. You could chuck everything away. You could save bits to use in whole new songs. If you've got too many parts for the. For what you're writing, you know, ideas are ideas, right? They can be used anywhere, and while they're coming, you've got to just get them down somehow. But, um. Yeah, for what? For what? I think I've improved at.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: I would say probably everything.

Speaker A: Okay. Nice. Nice and specific.

Speaker B: And I'm as surprised as you to be saying that. And you m listening to my music, you might think, are you sure? Maybe only a little bit. Um, I think one of the things, though, is, like, Lars. Um, better mixes, I think, but better mixes through, uh, better sound crafting, you know, writing parts that fit together better than previously, rather than having to just take something, a panel, beat it in a mix and bend it around other parts and so on. It. It. Things fit together better. More. They're sort of crafted to fit better these days. And I'm kind of. I like that. As somebody who struggles to be positive about what they do, I do think that that's become easier. Ah.

Speaker C: Uh, that's. That's a really good point, because it's. Sometimes it is kind of difficult to be positive about, like, what you make. Like, I. That. That. That's another. I don't know if this is technically a win or not, but it's kind, um, of like just the ability to take the compliment. You know, like somebody says, it's like, hey, that was really cool. I like the thing you did there. And I don't. Maybe it's just something in my personality where I'm just like, oh, yeah, thank you. Uh, compliments. Oh, affirmation. Oh. Ooh, this feels weird.

Speaker B: Yeah. Validation.

Speaker A: No, I feel seen. What is this? What is this?

Speaker B: Don't look at me.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm disgusting. But I think. I think that's a muscle like anything else, right? Like, you know, you have to. You have to. You have to love what you do, you know, uh, in that regard, because that energy has to come through, right? If you, uh, are. We said this countless times. If you, uh, are not enjoying what you're making, then what's the point? And if you don't appreciate your own work, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Why. Why would you bother, you know?

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker A: Yeah, I've. I'VE learned that the word thank you is really useful because then someone can come, someone can say, ah, ah. You know, I, like, in the wake of life, it was a great release. And, you know, I did this, he did that. It did everything you say. Oh, that's great. Thank you. Like, and you can just, you just acknowledge it in that, uh, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Um, yeah, you can go, Mike. Says here, uh, mixing is easy. You just twiddle knobs and move faders until it sounds better, then you stop. Can't tell if it's a troll, but.

Speaker C: Oh, my God, why didn't I think of that? Wow, thanks, Mike.

Speaker B: But at the same time, um, you know, it's true.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, don't like it. Change something. Did that make it better or maybe worse? Intentionality accordingly. Uh, continue.

Speaker A: It's like a give yourself as a feedback loop.

Speaker B: It kind of works.

Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, and I think as you, as you do more of it. Right. That's. That's the statistics side of it. You do more mixing, you do more work, uh, in the daw. You do kind of figure out which way to go, which. Even if it doesn't work with the rules and if the ins. In the Insta. Instagram influencers are not talking about it. Even if it doesn't sit in there.

Speaker B: Yeah, rules.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you don't have. You don't have to have the rules,

Speaker B: you know, See, one thing I haven't got better at is tolerating things that are named, like the art of mixing or something. It's not an art. It's a process or a series of processes or whatever. It's just something you do. Let's not put our wizard cloaks on just yet. Let's just mix.

Speaker C: If I have one more person try to sell me a PDF on how to mix, I'm going to lose my mind.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's.

Speaker A: It's like. It just, you know, it's the elitism of our industry. Right. The same one as we were discussing in the green room eon, the idea of the over under technique and cabling. It's just, it's, you know, it's just, it's just elitism. Suggestion. You don't have to do that. You know, you shouldn't necessarily wrap a cable around your arm, but you can. It's an option. You might as well. And, you know, but, uh, if you

Speaker B: do that loop, flip over thing, I mean, you probably belong in musical theater.

Speaker A: Yes. Or in circus delay.

Speaker B: That's Just unnecessarily gregarious, I think.

Speaker A: I agree. I agree. Oh, look at me with my cable and doing everything I want.

Speaker B: Alternate the coils if you like. Flipping it over the top like that is just showy.

Speaker A: It's true.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I want to. I do. I did see Chris Head's comment in the. Chris said. I do see. I just uh, we'll come back to it because it's an. It's a really interesting point I want to spend more time on then. Uh, but Mike has responded, uh, directly to Eon. The guesswork of mixing and mastering doesn't sell Eon Lake.

Speaker B: The random constant iterations of activities.

Speaker C: Yeah, just hit the randomize button on your plugin. You're good.

Speaker A: Yeah, the eeny meeny miny mo of mixing, it doesn't quite work.

Speaker C: A or B, A or B, C.

Speaker A: Um, so, uh,

Speaker C: using the mixing and mastering plugins, sometimes, like, because they have the ab, it feels like going to the eye doctor and they're like, is that better or worse?

Speaker B: That's exactly what you're doing, right? I think it needs this. Is that better or what? Uh, but, but the thing is, and this is something that I've become better at is unfortunately there are some m. Psychoacoustic, um, effects. The, the interrupter. Is that better or worse thing? Like, you know, the loudness perception. If you turn something up, you will think it's. If something is louder as a result of whatever the hell it is you've done to it, you will prefer it. You just do. So when you make changes, you have to gain stage so there's the same volume before and after to accurately, you know, compare the two if that's what you're trying to do. So little things like that help and knowing that my ears are going to lie to me. That's one of the things that is, you know, as, as a, as a thing made of meat. Um, that's one of the difficult things is. Is dealing with the fact that these things aren't 100 reliable, nor is this thing or these. And um, you know, allowing for that in your processes, I think that's fair.

Speaker A: I think I'm being aware of where your ears are at. Have you had a long day? Have you been listening to music a lot for that day or has there been a lot of noise? Are you gonna be at your best? You know, uh, that's a good, that's a good skill to have developed the idea of knowing where your ears are at as opposed to just being on the side of Your head and seeing what goes in. Okay. M. I mean, uh, you can.

Speaker C: I feel like. I feel like that's the part that I still struggle with though because it's like at the end of the making, like the track, like when you're doing your mastering, right. It's like I always struggle with just like how loud is this actually supposed to be? Like, do I want this to look like a brick? Do I want it to have some curves? Like, how loud is this particular track supposed to be? Because I mean it wouldn't make sense if you had like an ambient track and you have it mastered at like 0.1 decibels. Like that wouldn't make sense. But then other times it's like I. I think there's been some where, um. A lot of times with like other people's work, uh, back when I was mixing, uh, for other people, a lot of times it's like they would want it to like. Like the waveform would end up just looking like a brick because a lot of people just want it like loud, loud, loud, loud. So yeah. And I think when you just play around in different genres, like you kind of get in that struggle. It's like, how loud is this supposed to be?

Speaker A: Well, I think that. I think that's a really interesting point. And uh, the idea of there, ah, being a supposed to. You know, like that all that kind of came through with the streaming. With the streaming. Well, okay, so you couldn't master too loud on vinyl because it would, it would. It would destroy the. The vinyl and destroy the record player itself. Fine. But it was only when you started really getting to uh, streamers because it's. And radio and stuff like that, that's when that mattered more and that's when you get the loudness wars come through. Right. And.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean the thing that. The thing that came before that was the fact that your ears have a much higher dynamic range than the medium that you're going to record your music onto. That was the initial problem. So if you're going to record onto magnetic tape, it doesn't have the same response as your ears. So you need less of a dynamic range to get any kind of result recording onto that. So the methods that. That sprung up to deal with that problem, if it is a problem or that challenge was weird over variably things like compression, where you reduce the peak information and bring the whole volume up so the average volume is less than the difference between the two. You know, between quiet and loud is less. Um, that was just a thing that happened for a while, but like you say, through broadcast and, you know, moving on into the modern world, that activity, you know, between clipping, compressing, limiting and saturating became so much more. And, um, with heavier music styles as well particularly, it just got ridiculous. I mean, everybody's at that thing though, where, you know, you compare a work in progress to something that's fully mastered and it sounds great. You think, you know, the sonic quality is great and then you put something that's mastered on and it's 10 times louder and you just think, why does it sound so weak and feeble? I mean, you don't. I mean, a good dynamic range is good, right? But you don't want to sound weak when compared to other music because, you know, it has. It's that psychoacoustic effect again. If things sound better when they're louder, to some extent, they sound a bit crappier when they're quieter. So you don't want to compare badly against anything else. And this is the sort of thing that I would probably enjoy mastering were it not for this sort of thing. Uh, I've mastered plenty of stuff in the past and I hate this whole loudness war and the constantly changing specification of like minus 14 lufs or minus 11, etc, looking at average information rather than peak information. It's, it's, it's kind of taking the fun out of it a little bit. It's. I like mixing because you take something, um, you make something sound better. Right. But I don't like, uh. Mastering should be the same, but because of all of this, you know, does it compare? Well, is it over compressed under compressed, you know, does it need anything at all? It's just putting at the right level on the media that it's going to be presented on. It's kind of. Should be fun, but isn't.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And I'd rather someone else did it.

Speaker A: I think that's, that's. I, yeah, I'm the same. Like, I think as soon as I've mixed something, I, I don't like. I don't particularly enjoy mastering. I enjoy mastering for other people. But I think the, uh. But that's in that process, right? Because you're taking something and you're mucking around with it and you get to play with it. Whereas by the time I've. If I've spent X amount of time mixing a track, I'm. I'm like, no, just. That's just. Now I'm done.

Speaker B: By the time it's mixed, it's like, please Take this. Yeah.

Speaker A: Sunworld. You deal with that, please. I would like to be. I would like to be happy again.

Speaker B: Could you make this track over, please?

Speaker C: It's funny.

Speaker A: Um, and it is. You know, I don't. I, I wouldn't say I'm the. I'm the best. Well, obviously I would never say I'm the best anything but I'm not the. I'm not. It's not. Mastering is not something I find particularly easy, uh, to do. And as Mike, as Mike wonderfully points out, uh, it's a success on choices. All of which you second guess.

Speaker B: Which again, it's like those diminishing returns, isn't it? Is that better? Does that. I don't know. Should we. Does it need. Yeah, it's like mixing, but worse in that regard, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah. And it just becomes less fun at that point. I would like to go back before we, before we lose. We go down too much of a tangent. I would like to come back way back to about 10, nearly 15 minutes ago now when uh, Cress Head, uh, put in their commentary about uh, what they've been getting up to. So writing music is more productive. Since I moved from Logic to MPC1 in 2020. That ramped up uh, again once I have my teenage engineering, uh, KO uh two and then the rhythm. Less options, more hands on, more songs. I'm guessing here M More productive means better in that finding a rhythm, finding a piece of hardware, finding a workflow. I'm guessing that that is. That's awesome.

Speaker B: I think it's got to be better. I imagine that uh, that's what he means because you'll be able to do more stuff even with the 8020 rule. You'll have more, more of the 20 to deal with if you're more productive than that. And I like the fact it's gone some way to answering what my first question would be by saying that it, you know, it's because it's more immediate and has more hands on and stuff like that. And you know, it's not that surprising when you look at it in retrospect that you know, being able to manipulate things directly, hear a change and respond to that. I mean it's how music is made. You know, when you play an instrument M. It makes absolute sense that the rest of the process feels more natural if you, if you are hands on and, and not just drawing things on a screen or you know, mouse work.

Speaker C: It's the worst music. Just click, click, click, click, click. No, no. I hate it. I hate it so much I love

Speaker B: hearing about people who found a way that works for them. You know, something that. That made a big difference. And that's one thing that I did as well as I did deliberately get as many MIDI controllers and a few bits of physical gear to try and move more in that direction so that you can jam a bit more, play a bit more. Because someone else put in the chat.

Speaker A: Um.

Speaker B: Was it Thomas that is wife being a music teacher? And um, the fact that practice is. Is a. Is a great way of getting better at something. So.

Speaker A: No, it's my. It's ah, Mike. My wife is a musical instrument teacher. She says that practice is a really good way to get better. I love the dry humor coming out of Mike today.

Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean, again, you know, he's on fire. Yeah, he should be if anyone's nearby. But no, I mean, that's the thing. Like, you could apply that to the process. You could apply that to the. The making of the music, the recording and the music, the mixing of the music. You know, the more you do it, it's all practice. Right. So it should all get better as long as you do it all, really.

Speaker A: But I think, uh.

Speaker B: But sometimes it's just repetition. Don't give yourself a hard time. Allow yourself to do some repetition before you pile in with judgment.

Speaker A: Well, this. This is really an interesting point here. It's like this. There was a point where every. Where it seemed, at least from my experience, everyone was trying, uh, different time signatures and different moving from between different keys and modal and you know, all these different. All these different scales and everything, which is great. And m. It's awesome. And I mean, I'm not. I'm not throwing shade on that at all. I think it's awesome. That's what you want to go and do. Go and do. I rarely step outside of 4 4. I think I barely step. I think I barely step outside of. Um. And. But I, I. In the repetition of working with 4 4, I've had to find new ways to break the loop and keep things interesting and focus on structure and things like that. And I love right now, for example, my. My ability. I feel at least this idea that I have a good sense of structure and I have a good sense of when things stop being interesting and become repetitive. Um, sometimes after. Sometimes it's after it's already released, which is a shame, but it's also a thing, you know. But if that's the work in progress. And I think when it comes to repetition, the idea of diving deep into something and doing something again and again and again. In, in and then in the. In the. In the. Without, you know, spreading yourself too thin. I think there's a lot of credence in that. Uh, like you say you can flex that muscle and you can become. Have a really good notion of what. Of what is good. What works for you.

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, it's.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker C: I don't. I don't know why everybody, like, wants to act. Like four. Four is, like, a bad, like, time signature to write in. It's the most common one. And as someone who makes a lot of just, like, weird all the time, um, when you start stepping out of, like, 44 and more, like, conventional structures, you get, like. More and more people who get, like, kind of like, they get. They get a little turned off. They get weirded out. It's like. It's a lot harder to comprehend, you know, I think, like. I don't know, I think maybe Radiohead is probably one of, like, the few, like, popular bands out there that wrote in a lot of weird time signatures but still had, like, a more mainstream kind of following, if that makes any sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, it made it feel more natural, I mean, I suppose, really, as a drummer, if you start trying to learn and play in odd time signatures and odd meaning not weird, but I mean, not an even number of beats to the bar.

Speaker C: Oh, it's fine. We can be weird here.

Speaker B: It can be. I mean, counting seven, it just doesn't really work if you're. You're playing seven, eight or seven four or seven, eight, It's. It doesn't sound right counting sevens. But if you count 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2-3, 1, 2, 1,2, 1, 2, 3, it suddenly has a completely different cadence and it suddenly starts to flow a lot more. And because you're. Because you break the beat into uneven groupings of, like, even and odd numbers, you can create tension and release in that. So you. You can have like 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. One, two, three, three. One, two, one, two, one, two, One, two, three. One, two, One, two. The. The way that those flow can change and you can sort of have a slightly tensy one followed by one that that sort of breaks free a a M Bit more. And it kind of made me think more about using things like that. But even so the trick lies in it just feeling natural rather than contrived. So if you don't have an idea, you know, like a musical idea, it doesn't matter. Uh, you know, you can't just do it. You know, if you just come up with an idea that isn't a standard number of beats, then happy days go with it. But you know, it's not necessarily how a lot of people conceptualize music and there's no problem with that. I have had a few interesting things happen where the arrangement in the door is. Is 4 4. But I'm kind of ignoring it. So I'm just using it like a, an art, a synth out pattern or sequence running that has an uneven number of notes or something and a hell of a lot of echo and it has a kind of a rhythm to it and I've gone, just gone with that and written parts that fit it and none of it actually works in the arrangement because the, the bar lines are not where the bars stop. It's in the wrong time signature. I've just written it, you know, just used the door like a tape deck, you know, for all the parts and just ignored all of that. And that worked a lot better than saying, right, I'm going to set it to 78 and then I'm going to write deliberately in this time signature. That didn't really work as well for me,

Speaker A: I think.

Speaker B: I haven't done one like that. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: It has to come naturally. Like. I mean uh. I imagine part of my. Part of my own non. Uh. Exploration of different time signatures has probably got something to do with the fact that I'm not. I'm not particularly good drummer. I'm not particularly good percussionist. It's something. I just don't really have a very good brain for normal. I mean, I don't know, man. I don't know. You're. You're a drummy. Uh. The. I suppose what I'm saying is it just doesn't come naturally to me. Um, so the idea of making an. In the same way like you say, changing the time signature in Ableton. Other daws are available. Um, though why would you want to. Um. Sorry.

Speaker B: Some walker.

Speaker A: Uh, the idea of setting something to 78 and then trying to make a beat in 7 8. It does feel a bit contrived and that. It does feel a bit. Maybe a kind of like bit pushing a square peg into a round hole.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, definitely. I've done a few that have been.

Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, I, I like finding your wheelhouse in that regard is, is a nice place to be. Um, which we. We have a bit. We have a bit of. We have a bit of people on our same movements. Cress head, weird time signatures. Sting put me off all that

Speaker C: sting like stinging the police?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I think so.

Speaker B: I think so.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah. Um. Uh, make crap songs look clever. And then Mike says, there's a fine line between clever and irritating. Which again reminds me, specifically, Spectre put Spectre. You know, remember Spectre undersaken now. Um, he had. He had a song when he was still making music as Spectre. He said, uh, weird time signatures does not make you cool or does not make you good or something like that. And yeah, there's a. There's a bravado to it. It's like, you know, people into math, rock and stuff like that. It's like, math rock is great, but I don't need to know why it's great, you know?

Speaker C: Well, I mean, if you. If you can just like, nap. Like Elon Eon was saying, like, uh, if you can just naturally write the song in like, seven, eight, or whatever weird time. Time signature you want to, like, if you can just do it naturally, then, yeah, go for it. But I think, like. Like what, um, Chris has getting at is just like. No, it's like this person, like, they're not very good at making music to begin with. They're still, like, you know, they're getting there, they're doing. They're pretty good, but they're not that good, right? It's like, oh, uh. I just remember every, like, rock band wanted to try and be tool for a long time, right? Like, hey, let me write. Let me write in a, like, nine, eight time signature and, like, play chords on the bass like, stop.

Speaker B: All right. Just when finally people stopped listening to Rush, Tool came along. There's a whole new generation. Uh, this is. This is intellectually sound, but it's like, yeah, making music that's good in a textbook sense, as opposed to a, uh. And I'm not referred to Russia Tool when I say that, obviously, but they're both good.

Speaker C: I enjoy some of their music. I don't enjoy Rush that much. I don't know, maybe it was just before my time or something, but I did like Tool because I was. I was kind of a mopey for a while.

Speaker A: Um, we'll been there.

Speaker B: Excellent moping anthems.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: In. In that. In that. To keep. To keep things on track. Then, uh. What, um. What things have. What's the word I'm looking for? What things in your workflow or in, uh, in your kind of production game have become instinctive?

Speaker C: M. So I was watching, um, the Bad Gear guy a few weeks ago, right, and he did, like, A tier list of like mixing um, and mastering like or like music like production, uh, tips. Like you did a tier list, right? And I felt personally attacked with a few of them. Like the um, you know, oh, you need to do a cut on like your sense and stuff. Like cut like the bass frequencies out and stuff. You know, you need to do like a 20Hz cut on like everything. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's pure instinct for me now. Like somewhere I along the line I picked up that tip and I have not stopped doing it. It's almost like compulsive rather than distinctive.

Speaker A: So now, now that you can't imagine, you can't imagine yourself not doing it.

Speaker C: Yeah, like the idea of not doing is like I get again anxiety. It's like, oh, I think I forgot to do that. Like it sends me into a slight panic attack and I'm like, I gotta go back and cut. I gotta cut.

Speaker B: Yeah, I've done a similar thing really. But I um, I do try and always use my ears to make decisions. So even when it's. It seems like a no brainer like that, wait, I'm going to roll off all the low end. Because it. There is low end. It's particularly using sense a lot that can produce such a broad spectrum of frequencies. Often you want to roll off some of the low end because I mean, although it's there, it's not pro. It's not providing anything other than clashing with other low end from other synths overlapping with the high end of the bass and stuff like that. But when I do do it, I always make sure I listen to it and go, am I losing any important information by getting rid of that? You know, have I gone to the right point? Have I gone high up enough? Have I gone too high and made it sound thin and taken out? Because often, you know, frequency ranges correspond with certain pitches as well. So you know, am I shaving off the root note of the chord I'm playing by rolling off too much? Do you know what I mean? So, so even when I'm doing it, I'm doing it Always use your ears. It's what I was taught so you know, to get the right amount and, and m. Not too much and so on. So I'm always sort of second guessing every decision but using the years to sort of make um, the. Make the judgment calls. Yeah. And that's something I do instinctively. Now it's not. I've got lots of habits and that is one of them. Rolling off low end. But I customize it on everything. I never go for a number and go, oh, well, low frequencies start at this frequency. So it's always like, what does it sound like? Have I lost anything important? And another thing that I do that I've learned to do a little bit better is to get things to sit together by, um, either playing carts and the right octave, having the right sound, sculpting it. If it's like on the synth and you've got a filter on it. Using the filter to, you know, put the sound in the range that you want it to be, or using chord inversions to make it sound different. So sometimes it sounds a little thick on the low end. You need to take the root note off and stick it above your other notes so that it interferes less. So little things like that. I tend to do more automatically now and I think things fit together a bit better, which in turn means that I don't tend to have as many parts in the stuff I write now. As to when I first started, I used to stack things a lot. Nowadays I try and make it work better linearly. Longer parts, more variants, more changing in the sound, less parts overall, that sort of thing. Okay.

Speaker A: I mean, that's a good thing to have, right? This idea of just being able to trust your ear and just work with whatever your ear says. Devolving away from any, again, perceived notion of a, uh, of a PDF sold to you for $5 from it. From an influencer.

Speaker C: $5. That's a deal, bro. Come on.

Speaker B: Yeah, for the first PDF. Yeah. I'll just turn to that.

Speaker C: Apparently Mike thinks the, uh, the low cut is a D tier tip.

Speaker A: Is it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I wouldn't say, uh, it's uh. Yeah, it's not a, uh, it's not. I mean, if it's like, it should be a fee though.

Speaker C: Come on, man.

Speaker B: If it's a button on a mixing console that's been there for like decades, uh, it's not a hot tip, you

Speaker C: know,

Speaker B: it's just something you're going to want to do from time to time. Clearly.

Speaker C: Wow. All right,

Speaker B: well, a lot of this is remembering to do things as well, right? Yeah, I used to remember to do that on, on hi hat mics when I could hear the stands vibrating on the floor. When you sound like a hi hat, uh, when recording a drum kit and you can hear like the pedal going clunk and the vibration of, uh, of the, um, the bottom of the hi hat stand hitting the floor every time the pedal goes up and down and actually it adding like ghost bass drum notes that aren't there. Then it's like, oh yeah, I didn't roll off the base. And so, you know, it's an easy thing to forget. And who knows what nonsense low end information you've got in your mix taking up room. Otherwise it's pretty easy to miss.

Speaker A: It's a balance, it's a balance of strike between keeping, uh, things there and keeping things organic. And then not basically not banned on band passing or not notching everything. Right. I mean if you, if you really wanted to, you could take all your tracks and you could position your eqs and put them perfectly so they, you know, that everything has, um, has their place. Um, but there is, there's also a, there's also a fullness to keeping certain things in and out. Like there are plenty of tracks, especially know some grunge tracks where you, you can hear the messiness and you can hear the studio works and you can hear, you can hear the mechanics. And there's, there's a certain ingenuity to that as well in that regard.

Speaker B: I love hearing that in piano, where you can hear the mechanics of the piano pedals and stuff in between. That's fine.

Speaker C: Cool.

Speaker A: We did a piece for a student who just graduated at the school. Um, and he's using the. We've got, we've got a grand. Yamaha grand. And you can hear, I think it was on something like C2 or around that lower area. Anyway, um, every time you play it, the hammer comes up and it would resonate throughout the body of the piano itself, the framing of it. Um, and it was just on this one note. It was just on this one note. But you could tell. And every time it came through it just perked. And suddenly you weren't listening to a random piano, you were lit. You could hear it in the room. It's kind of almost like a natural reverb. And it was really beautiful, really beautiful as well. There's something to be said for, uh, these happy little accidents, as Bob Ross would say.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: M. Um, Mike come back. He's come back. He's gone and done some, uh, he's kind of done some research. Sorry, just double checks with audio pills. Uh, rolling off the low end is actually B tier.

Speaker C: I'm glad he was able to get back to him really quick.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's, that's, that's customer service right there. Um, again, you wouldn't want to roll

Speaker B: off everything at the same point because then it would, there'd be a. I mean that You've got to hear that. Right. If you rolled off everything at the same point in your whole mix, you. That feels like the sort of thing that you'll be able to see on a spectrometer or something. You know, that you should at least vary a little bit depending on what the hell it is you know, that you're doing.

Speaker A: Just in case. Right. Just in case. It's all about just removing or dead and deadening the. The rogue frequencies. Right. If you think of it the same as a rogue wave in the ocean,

Speaker B: it's just about keeping them being sensitive to where the important information is in the. In the parts.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker B: What does.

Speaker A: What absolutely cress. Uh, head says here, when arranging, always have a chainsaw at close hand. Deleting stuff can be your best friend.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of something. Something that you might know early on, but you really understand the value of later on because. I don't know, I think it takes a while to get to the point where you can actually use that advice rather than just know it. You know what I mean?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But, yeah, definitely taking stuff away is, um, one of the best things you can do probably before adding things. Definitely.

Speaker A: There's still. There's still something I'm working on, like the idea of taking things away. Um, I love adding stuff and I love finding the pocket and I love making things complicated and building up to it. The idea of taking stuff away. Yeah, it's different.

Speaker B: Still doing the arrangement that way. Like just block it out. Literally make it a massive brick. All parts. Always playing my song is that long and then start taking bits out, sculpting it, taking all the parts out until it really is a song. That's what I do when I get stuck with arrangements.

Speaker A: You just block it all out and

Speaker B: start, uh, with a block or leave

Speaker C: it all there, run it through, distortion pedal, harsh noise wall.

Speaker A: Just nice. Yeah, that's also valid. It's also valid.

Speaker B: But make sure you master to minus, uh, 11 luffs.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Otherwise Spotify will reject your harsh noise wall. Yep. All right.

Speaker A: On that note still, Ed, that's why I've started making some nature ambient. Besides no rhythm or beats, there is very little low end. Lovely that I. I get that. Uh, you know, and ambient's a different game, right? Ambient a different game because you're wholeheartedly breaking down the barriers of structure and sound design. And the. The aim of the game is to be playful. That's what ambient is in that regard. And. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm just thinking about the, uh, Thomas's mixes and just how smooth and lush they are all.

Speaker C: They're just.

Speaker A: They are tasty. They are tasty. Um, they are tasty. Some. A lot of the feed, a lot of the feedback I've got from. There's more, not negative, more constructive criticism I've received about in the Wake of Light is that it's very harsh and, you know, my ego is like, well, that's the point. Uh, but also it's like, okay, there is, there's words there to kind of remove the smoothness I'd love to see.

Speaker B: But that was one of the things I liked about it because it seemed to be for a reason. And. And it's like, uh, yeah, just because it's ambient doesn't mean it has to be smooth or pleasant or anything really. It had, it had a real sense of place and space and it had a real mood to it and everything felt deliberate.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, the, the thing that I like, when I was listening to it, the thing that really stood out is like, so you got like your ambient, like, stuff there, you know, like kind of forming a base and then you have like. There was the voices, there was just like the weird, like, kind of noises and stuff that you added in there. So it's like you have kind of this, like, smoothed out, like, ambient version with these little, like, sprinkles of noise. Just kind of like shaking things up, making things, taking it from like something that could just be like a smooth, almost like uniform kind of ambient drone thing and adding some spice.

Speaker A: You're like, spice.

Speaker C: You're. Yeah, you're pouring hot sauce on the chicken, man. It's good stuff.

Speaker A: I mean, that's great and I appreciate you saying that. I love, I love spicy chicken, so I'll take that. The. That's, that's, that's why, again, that's why I'm absorbing so much ambient at the moment. Just because it can be anything and we. It's. It's Spotify and it's streamers that have made, you know, the box of ambient. It's got to be a. It's got to be a two minute kind of rush.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's also got to be ambient. To listen to the third novel in the five novel series too. All right.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Ambient. To change the front offside wheel of your car to no other wheel. It's all become a bit like, uh.

Speaker A: What?

Speaker C: Oh, wow. I think, I think that's something that really just makes me so mad about Spotify. Right. Is it's like, when they first came around, like, they really, like, were hardcore trying to court, like, artists and stuff, right? They were trying to court artists and, like, tell us basically, like, hey, like, no, we're like, this is where music is going, and you guys can get in on it and you can have, like, a whole new generation of, you know, like, musical artists developing in this ecosystem or whatever. And then they said all that, and then they literally did nothing to help small artists. And then after doing nothing to help small artists, they took the extra steps. Like, actually, let's screw them over while we're at it. Like, they could. With all their, like, they could have set up, like, venues, like, the Spotify could have had their own, like, venues, you know, where, like, emerging artists could come and, like, perform and, like, they could do showcase. They could have done all of that for the music community. And they did nothing. And then after doing nothing, they openly exploited them.

Speaker B: So, M. Come, uh, on.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: What could have been.

Speaker B: That sounds a little negative. I mean, you'll be trying to make out, though, just after the money next.

Speaker A: I mean,

Speaker C: I never got that impression from that bald Swede. Just saying.

Speaker A: No, the same, um, bald man.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. One thing from Mike making up the

Speaker B: quote today,

Speaker A: to be fair, we've had. We've had two weeks off, so we've got to get a bit of bashing in before the end of the show. Um, which is understandable. This is a therapeutic episode. We are airing our grievances as well.

Speaker B: I mean, join in at home if you.

Speaker A: If you.

Speaker B: One.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's see. Where's that? Something interesting. Something interesting from Mike here. Nothing, uh, in your. Yeah, nothing in your track below 100 hertz. Nobody needs sub frequencies. Um, yeah, I've got to. I've got to push back on that one.

Speaker C: Ah, he said in the next. In the next comment, though, is like, they're just listening on their phones anyway. It's like, oh, okay, all right. We're just listening to our music out of a tin can. All right.

Speaker A: I mean, if. If people are listening. If people listen to my stuff on their phone speakers, um, I'm not making my music for people who listen to music on their phone speakers. I mean, well, I'm making the music for me first and foremost. M. If you're. If. If in this day and age, if you just don't even have. Have a pair of wired earbuds, for example, I don't know. I. You know, there's, you know, you can. There's the Generation Game. You can watch that instead or something like that.

Speaker B: That's.

Speaker A: It's not for me.

Speaker B: I am, um. I've consistently failed to optimize my music for phone speakers, and I'm not. Sorry.

Speaker A: I'm all right.

Speaker C: Uh, I have nothing but bad things to say about people who listen to music on their phone speaker in public. I have nothing.

Speaker B: We've got a term for that over here. Bear something or other, but I can't remember what. No, not that.

Speaker A: Bendy's just. Okay, we got a lot of chat that I want to get through, but Bendu's just come into the chat. Can we just say hello to Bendu for a second?

Speaker C: Hi, Bendu.

Speaker A: Hey, Bendu. It's nice to see you. Always a pleasure. I hope you're doing well over there. Um, we've got quite a lot. We've got quite a lot of chats to get through. Uh, but I want to. I want to do it. Um, but, uh, Mike, title my next album Music to change the front offside tire. It's happening. It's happening. We're gonna do it Spit niche.

Speaker B: But, you know, while we're still driving them,

Speaker A: there's gonna be one guy where it's just. That's gonna be his thing. Or it could all gal. It could be one human, and it's just gonna be the perfect playlist.

Speaker B: Can you imagine that? Getting all excited because you have a blowout and you think, oh, uh, no, I've got to change my tire. And then, oh, great, it means I can listen to that place. And then you realize it's the wrong tire.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, this is the driver's side.

Speaker B: Then you go back into your doom spiral.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely nothing like that. A doom spiral is a good place to be as well, because you can make some really good music in. In a doom spiral.

Speaker B: Wrong. Uh, there's got to be a band called that. Surely there has to be at least one Swedish band called that.

Speaker C: Are we sure that Swedish. It makes sense, but it just makes sense.

Speaker A: Um, maybe finish.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker A: Yeah, we've got here.

Speaker C: No, I haven't even started. Sorry.

Speaker A: No. Nice piece of advice from still it. Uh, while we're on the topic of it, Take a break. Make something simple.

Speaker B: That's.

Speaker A: That's a really underrated piece of advice.

Speaker B: It does not have to be complicated. Yeah.

Speaker A: Not everything has to be a banger with 103 tracks. You don't have to do that.

Speaker B: Or something that can only be deciphered by musicologists in a lab. I, uh, see you have inverted the seven chord over the name. You'll end up sending, like, a dentist talking to their assistant. It doesn't have to be that way.

Speaker A: You can just enjoy it for what it is. Right? You can just enjoy it for what it is. It doesn't need.

Speaker B: Does it sound nice?

Speaker A: Something for Lars. Coming from Mike. There's, uh, an album on SoundCloud by an artist called Vessel Bloss by Vesa, by a. Sorry, but he has taken Phil Collins hits and run them through distortion reverb to create maximalist ambient versions. Okay, hang on. He's off. We will see. Last week,

Speaker B: I'm curious about, uh, anyone who thought this needs more Phil Collins?

Speaker C: It was made for me. I need more Phil Collins. I need all the Phil Collins.

Speaker B: Let's saturate it.

Speaker A: Okay. If you find anything, let me know. We'll check that out. Um. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. I've another day in paradise. Okay, we'll do a little bit. Seeing as we're here and this is a community episode. I found something. Here we go. We, um, have here, uh, another day in paradise. Let's. Let's. Are we ready, gentlemen?

Speaker C: Yes, I am ready. I have never been more ready for anything in my life.

Speaker A: All right, let's check this out, shall we? Oh, no, I don't. I don't.

Speaker C: I don't know. You don't have a SoundCloud account?

Speaker A: No, I do not, sir.

Speaker C: Even an Internet musician, if you don't have a sound.

Speaker A: I have it on, uh.

Speaker B: Had one.

Speaker A: I have it on Curtis, but not here. This is already an auto.

Speaker B: Wow, that's a lot of distortion.

Speaker C: That is a. Oh, that is crispy.

Speaker A: I don't hate it.

Speaker C: That's very.

Speaker B: Stretched as well.

Speaker A: You. You can tell?

Speaker B: It's.

Speaker A: It is. It's another day in paradise.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Wow. I love the fact the album is called Bill College.

Speaker A: I'll leave it there for now. Uh, so I don't get a copyright strike, obviously. That's going to be monetized. That's beautiful. Um, that's. I've put that track there. Hey, Survey Channel. That was, uh. That was Phil Collins. Um, Uh, still, Ed could use a little more clipper. Of course. Ah, Thomas, you are hilarious. Okay, everyone, go check that out. Do the homework. We'll reconvene next week. We'll find our findings. And people put all that together. Um, that is beautiful. I mean, I don't hate it. I don't hate it.

Speaker B: Like, I was enjoying that.

Speaker C: That is. That is. Some put the earbuds in and, like, the whole world is now dead around you.

Speaker A: Okay. Where do we go from here, gentlemen?

Speaker C: I mean,

Speaker A: That's fine.

Speaker C: Oh, but I kind of want to hear Another Day in Paradise now.

Speaker A: Okay, well, then, uh, there we go. I'll put. I'll tell you what I'll do, is I'll, uh, put it in the track, in the. In the chat. I'll also put it in our private chat, just so you've got access to it. Lars. Um, and I'll put it in a display.

Speaker B: It's just reverb and distortion as well. I think it's revert first.

Speaker A: Yeah, reverb first, and then you distort the crap out of it. Yeah, yeah, flatten it all.

Speaker B: I mean, distortion to the same volume, maybe.

Speaker C: Maybe super massive reverb. Like the highest settings you can get.

Speaker A: M options are coming in. Um, it's Inspired Survey. It's Inspired Survey. Um, so we're going to see what's going on there.

Speaker B: Yeah, I just had an idea as well. I don't know if it's gonna sound good, but I'm dying to know.

Speaker A: Well, Mike, thank you for bringing that to the collective attention and the collective consciousness. Really appreciate that you are the gift that keeps on giving, um, in all forms and all matters. All right, um, okay. Let's just take a moment for Phil Collins. Um, okay. Get. Get. Try. Uh. In an attempt to try and get us back on track, um, what improvement in your workflow or your production game have you been most surprised at?

Speaker C: Ooh.

Speaker A: Eon.

Speaker C: Can you go first?

Speaker B: Only uh, if you. If you repeat the question. What have I been most surprised by?

Speaker C: I'm sorry, I was. I was listening.

Speaker A: What is. What is something that seemed. Sorry, no, sorry. Uh, there was another one. Uh, what improvement have you experienced that has surprised you the most?

Speaker B: Surprised me. There have been some improvements in mixing that have surprised me. There aren't many, to be honest, that have surprised me. I feel like a lot of it follows a pattern. It makes sense that if you do A enough, then B happens. But I used to have issues where things always seemed further away in my mixes than I wanted them to be. I wanted them to be more up front, and, um, I seem to have conquered that somehow. I'm not entirely sure how I did it. I think I know, but I don't know for sure.

Speaker A: Less reverb.

Speaker B: Partly. Or ducking the reverb.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or having the reverb as a send and not being inserted. Things like that. A combination of things like that. Also. Also quite a lot of compression on the source sound, so bringing up the the body and volume of the actual sound itself. Because if you just hear a transient and then a tail, it makes it sound further back. Whereas if you've got something that has more, you know, musical content because you've sort of, you know, squashed the top down, brought everything up so that you get more of that body, M can sit in the speaker a bit better and it's more consistently there rather than something that was just bang there for a microsecond and is gone again. And the only tail that you have is just ambience. But yeah, there was a kind of a wishy washiness and a kind of distance that just. Yeah, it sounded like too much reverb in a way. Um, and was in some cases. But having said that, now I'm using way more reverb. Way more. But, um, I do do things like stick an envelope follower on it and invert it and get it to control the dry wet mix, which effectively ducks. Yeah, it ducks your incoming signal.

Speaker A: Uh, attaching that envelope. Envelope follower 2.

Speaker B: I'm using the incoming audio.

Speaker A: Oh, okay. And so it's on ascend.

Speaker B: No, no, it's just inserted on a channel. So it, it's like, uh, when the sound comes in and the envelope follower picks up that, that has increased it. It turns down the dry wet mix and as the sound decreases again, the dry wet mix comes up again. So basically it's ducking the effect around the source signal, which you can do in other ways with gates and compressors, but it's easier to get it doing it neatly with an envelope follower and it's easier to see as well in looking at age.

Speaker A: Anyway, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind you. I wouldn't mind you showing us that in real time. I think that'd be a really good thing to see. That sounds amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: I've never heard of that, but that's like. It's low key. A genius idea. Like.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's just, just. I mean, I saw somebody do it, you know, I didn't invent it, but yeah, I like it because it, it, it's keyed around the initial sound and it's. I mean, I also use things like. There's a baby audio reverb plugin called Crystalline that has a duck function as part of it and it does precisely that. It will, it will duck the reverb when the source signal is loudest and then just let it come up afterwards. And that obviously does a similar thing, stops things getting pushed back as much in the mix, but you still have the reverb. And obviously you could use it for other effects as well. And it could be quite weird when you use it on effects you probably shouldn't. Uh, I don't know. I think distortion or pitch effects or something like that do it.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's really insightful. I'd like. I'd like to. I'd like to dive deeper into that, uh, at some point. Neon M. Maybe after you. After you come back after summer. What about you, Luz?

Speaker C: Um, I can't really think of, like, something that just kind of like, surprised me. Um, that I remember. I remember the first time I figured out ghost side chaining. Right. Basically, like if you have like a house track or a techno track and there's like the kick drum right here and you want it to, like, um. You want to sidechain it to the synth so you get that, like, pumping sound. But then you have instances where it's like, you drop the. The kick out and then it's like. It doesn't actually, like, pump anymore. You lose the pumping effect. So the first time I figured out how to do it in machine, I remember, like, just being ecstatic and then I overdid it in all the next, like, tracks that I tried to do. Like, I just kept trying to do that. Ghost side chains. Like, oh, what if I don't do it with a kick? What if I do it with this other thing? It's like, oh, okay, that doesn't. Well, that doesn't sound nearly as good, but let's try it anyway.

Speaker A: We like the repetition of the kick and the. The pumping of the synth, don't we?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, I've done a lot of different ways over the years. Yeah, yeah, There's.

Speaker A: I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot of credence in side chaining similar frequencies together to layer them. Like, I do that a lot with my synths. I do that like the left hand and the right hand, for example, uh, on the scent, on the sense, two different synthesizers. I'll usually side chain them together to blend them, but. I know what you mean. It's not the same as. It's not the same as that kick and synth pumping sound. That is pretty fun.

Speaker C: I just. I just want that pumping sound. I don't want all the. The techno E build up and not. Just give me the pump. That's all I want.

Speaker B: Just give me the hair rising back up again. Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker B: You do the same thing with LFOs. But you need to be able to bend the waves so that it's. It. You could do a ramp up, um, lfo, but then bend it so that it's more extreme, more like a square wave. Then. It sounds kind of similar but, um, there's something about being able to match the attack and release time of, of an actual drum that you're using in the mix so that they're just perfectly cr. Sculpted around each other like a woodworking joint or something. That idea really appeals to me.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's that oddly satisfying feeling. Just. Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: Tickles my little ADHD brain.

Speaker B: Um, likes it.

Speaker A: Um, Textures, man. It's all about the textures. Textures. Um, texture. There's a, there's a. There's a Australian artist, Cave Dweller, um, who's releasing, he's releasing, uh, he's releasing EP and he's releasing the singles ahead of EP as Textures. Um, and he's, he's made some really interesting sounds. Um. Yeah. In the name of things that tickle your brain. Go have a listen to Cave Dweller. He's doing. He's doing.

Speaker C: The name sounds familiar, but I don't know from where. I've probably seen him on the Internet.

Speaker A: He's on the, he's on the Internet for sure. Uh, he's there because that's where I've seen him. I don't live in Australia, um, so it must be the Internet. But he's. Yeah, he's a good, He's a good lad and he's got, he's got some interesting sounds coming through. Um, another. Okay, uh, a slightly different one from Cress Head, right. Writing, writing songs in weather, spoons and McDonald's compared to my studio, way more creative. Capital letters works. So good to be in the middle of a crowd with my headphones on.

Speaker B: M. So important though. I mean it really. It goes to show, doesn't it? I've heard this from a lot of different people that, you know, they've had perfectly set up spaces with everything they wanted and got nothing done and sat in stupid little corners with a laptop and just like bare, bare equipment and just done their best stuff. It's just, it doesn't, it's, it's surprising and it's not surprising at the same time. And it, it tells you a lot really. And yeah, I, I mean there was a funny thing that as our studios grew, Yumi and Sunwarper, uh, that we all did exactly the same thing. At some point we broke away a little section that was like a little temporary little thing where you could put something on and focused on that without actually discussing it. All three of us did the same thing. Um, not by accident, I don't think.

Speaker A: No, I think. I think it's the ebb and flow of everything. Right. Like, I love where my studio is at and I love this space and I love what it does. What I also love about it is that, uh, the m. The. The bear, not. Not the bear, the core aspects can be unplugged and then taken on the road in a matter of seconds. And, um, it just breaks down into that pedal board that I've got. Right. And it's. Yes, that's cool. It's modular in that sense. And I think. I think, you know, there's room for both. There's room for. There's room for having time with a wall of synthesizers and guitars and being in a space which is purposefully built for musical experimentation for sure.

Speaker B: Um, but just lose track of what it's like to. To not have all of that. And it's good to have the extremes because then they. You learn to appreciate both. Then I like the focus of just having a single little groove box and being away from home or something and coming up with a half decent idea that I like and going home and finishing it off and having that spark happen without the distraction, the studio, but let the studio actually complete it once it's done. That sort of thing's happened to me a number of times now and it's really good and it helps me appreciate this stuff, you know, to be away from it.

Speaker A: Yeah, totally.

Speaker B: And to be getting by with minimal stuff. Just a, uh, phone app or something.

Speaker A: This is a limitation. Right.

Speaker C: My iPad has been very good for me in that regard. Yes, I just have my iPad. I got a bunch of different, like, music apps and stuff that I find on the app store. And I'll just sit in my recliner upstairs or sit on the back porch and just plunking away. Yeah, it's nice because, you know, you just have. All you have is just the iPad. Like there's nothing running into it.

Speaker B: So, yeah, more so now that there are more noisy apps like Dr. Vibe and, you know, distortion portions and things like that. Because, yeah, initially I struggled with it because everything just sounded too damn good on the iPad and I needed to sort of get some dirt in there,

Speaker C: rub some dirt on it.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot easier to get more, you know, lo fi stuff and texture stuff now. Powdery sounds.

Speaker A: Uh, Mike's headed off. Uh, he's going back to talking Shop, uh, have to drop folks. Love to see you back. Talking shop. Have a great week. It's lovely to see you, Mike.

Speaker C: All right, enjoy.

Speaker A: It's beautiful to have you here, man. Thank you for your contributions today. 1. I'll tell you what then. One final question, uh, before we wrap for today, um, because in theory this could go on forever, but, um, studio time must happen. What old. What old habit now makes you laugh? Or do you look back on with whimsy?

Speaker B: Whimsy, whimsy.

Speaker C: It's whimsical.

Speaker A: Okay, well, I suppose I'm coming from a space of. And it's something that you look back on, something that you used to do that you look back on now, and it's like, oh, um, it's. It either makes you cringe or it's like, I can't believe I did that. Or that kind of vibe.

Speaker C: M. Um, I used to have this really bad habit where it's like the only bases I ever wanted to use. And this was years ago. Like, the only bases I ever wanted to use were just sub bases. Like, all I wanted was just growling, like low end stuff that would make your, uh, speakers, like, hurt. I don't know why I had that affinity, but I look back, I was like, oh, yeah, no, you don't need that much bass, kid. Calm down.

Speaker B: Easy, fella. Whoa, buddy.

Speaker A: Whoa. See, before I engage with that. Ah. Uh, see you later. Half. Half, uh, God, half beast. Lovely to have you here. Take, uh, it easy. So. So hang on, let me get it right. Only. Only sub base.

Speaker C: Like,

Speaker B: did you do your bass roll off in reverse?

Speaker C: No, because when. That. That was before I knew that.

Speaker B: Just the sub, please trick. It's B tier.

Speaker C: It is. I mean, it's not bad

Speaker B: for me. It was, uh, when I used to use Cubase. It just makes me laugh. You could take the right hand side of a part and drag it and it would do this little curled arrow, like, uh, for repeating, and you drag it out and you get all these ghost versions of the original part.

Speaker C: What?

Speaker B: And it's just.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: Well, it's a way of replicating the part over and over instead of. Yeah, yeah, copy it. Keep pasting chunks. You could just grab the corner and repeat it up to a point. It just. Something about the way that it looks or the way that it looked at the time, it just really emphasizes. And I want to make this really, really repetitive up to this point where I expect people would probably have decided to end it all.

Speaker C: This is pretty dire language there.

Speaker B: Yeah, it just Seems like, you know, let's not, let's not gloss it up. Exactly the same, no variation over and over and over and over and over.

Speaker C: Uh, eight minutes.

Speaker B: It just looks. Yeah. Why would you do that? Put some variations in those parts.

Speaker A: I mean, repeat over and over.

Speaker B: Especially when they're tiny parts as well.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, you're just repeating a two bar loop. Just.

Speaker B: Yeah. Or two, two bar hi hat part. You know, maybe it's a four bar, you know, drum pattern, but

Speaker C: for eight minutes.

Speaker A: No, I, I used to, Yeah, I used to beat my tracks like. Okay, so I, I make long tracks, right. And I like making long tracks. But there was a period earlier on where I wanted to make a long track and I wasn't conscious or I wasn't as conscious of the idea of repetition and uh, things moving and adding parts, taking away parts, etc. Um, and I did do that, especially when I was in the early days of FL Studio and even Mixcraft. I could just do this for another 16 bars and it would become a four minute track, which is more legit. And. But there's no. And I've made them. This I've made. So if you go back to Joey, not, uh, Joey, sorry. If you go back to feeling. My first album, there's a track in there called Gnome, uh, which I realized what I had done and I went back into the project file and cut it way down and forgot that I did that. This is the problem of eating the devil's lettuce when you are in the studio. Uh, I'd forgotten that I did that. Uploaded it to Distrokid and it's the eight minute version of Gnome and it just loops. Oh no, it's leper. Sorry, it's Leper, not Gnome. And it just loops for eight minutes. No changes. It just loops.

Speaker B: The Devil's Lettuce mix.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, that's brilliant.

Speaker C: This sounds great, man. This is great.

Speaker B: Why would you change anything? A thing where you might do it initially just like, I need a longer piece because I'm going to play on top of this and I don't want to have to keep stopping and starting.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and then it's just like, nah, it's cool. That sounds great.

Speaker C: No, let it ride. Let it ride.

Speaker A: Just post it on my story and be done. Yeah, just post up my story and be done. But yeah, so I feel you is what I'm saying in that regard. We've all been there at some point. Um, we got a question from Cress Said, uh, has anyone set out to Make a part of their song awful. Uh, eq Etc Wise to. Or EQ or anything to make a drop or intro.

Speaker B: I don't know about awful necessarily, but yeah, I mean, yes. Run. Running things out through the distortion circuit on my Lyra 8. Because it is just her. It mangles horrifically. And if you. If you also use the delay circuit, uh, it's an analog delay and if you put it really, really short, short, but then change with a fair bit of feedback, but then just change the feed the delay time slightly. It does this tearing metallic ringing thing as well that absolutely mangles drum loops. And I really like that. Yeah, I've done that a few times.

Speaker C: You're using to do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's got a distortion circuit and a delay circuit on it and an external in. So just. Oh, yes. A couple of extra pedals. So even without using the actual synth itself. That's fun. But I like running things through, um, sound, um, Toys, Devil Loke and Decapitator and all manners of rhythmic filtering and stuff like that. And I like to take part of the song and just, uh, bounce down a mix of the whole song and then run that through a ton of effects and glitchy stuff and mix it back in. In places. Sometimes I do that a fair bit as well. Probably more than I should.

Speaker A: There is no should. There just is.

Speaker C: There is only two.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I do that because it's always in. It's always in the right key because it's the same bloody song. But beautiful.

Speaker A: You know, you never have to. You never have to problem with key. Uh, I mean, most of my stuff's in F, F minor. And so you never have any problem when you come to DJ stuff because it's all in the same key.

Speaker B: Beautiful mixed in key.

Speaker C: Very nice.

Speaker B: You're welcome.

Speaker A: Uh, I'm here all week.

Speaker B: It'd be the same song. It's gonna be the Devil's lettuce mix all week.

Speaker A: Always. Any additions to that, Luz, before I move into the end game of the

Speaker C: show, I don't know if anyone's intentionally tried to do it, like, badly, but I know, um, there was a period in time in, like, pop music where dubstep, like, had moved out of, like, the underground and was like, kind of mainstream now. And for whatever reason, all these pop songs wanted to have, like, a break somewhere in the song that turned into some, like, dubstepish kind of like, uh, Breakdown or whatever.

Speaker B: Shoehorned in the middle. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I remember some of them were like, that's okay. And Then others were just like, this is terrible. Who sat in this studio with them and said, nah, man, let's do that. Yeah, let's do that. That sounds great. The worst offender I remember was Men, um, In Black. Three came out and, like, Pitbull and a couple other pop stars, like, made a song for it or whatever. And it's like the whole song is just like this kind of, like, vaguely, uh, uh, Latin beat kind of like dance song, you know? And then, like at the two and a half minute mark, they do this weird dubstep break where everything just completely falls apart and it sounds distorted and weird. And then they just go right back to this Latin beat pop song. I was like, whose idea was this? And who let them do that

Speaker B: in?

Speaker A: Hey, well, I mean, I'll be avoiding that. Thank you for that signpost. L. Uh.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, no problem. I mean, uh, you probably never would have found it if I hadn't mentioned it. It's like the most obscure thing from one of the most terrible sequels ever made.

Speaker B: Anyway, it's been great talking to you. I've got to go and edit a song now. Breakout.

Speaker C: I'm sure. I'm sure it'll be beautiful. Eon. We'll listen. We'll give a listen. Everything.

Speaker A: Well, if. If you have. If you have a dubstep breakdown that you would like to share with the people, uh, have a. Have a look at. At the Discord community. Sorry, Lars, it is covering your face. Thank you very much. I don't know why this is still the design of. There we go. I don't know why this is still the design of Restream, but, um, it is an updated QR code, is an updated link in the description. If you would like to prove Lars, uh, differently, uh, and say why Dubstate is involved in everything, please do.

Speaker B: If you'd like to come at him,

Speaker C: I'm here all week.

Speaker A: Let's make it happen. Let's make it happen where. What is the most whiplashy dubstep you can make? Can you take. Can you take a. Can you take a bark concerto and then just whack a bit of dubstep in there with like.

Speaker C: Oh, my God, make my brain hurt. Just up all of my senses, please.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: And on a more serious note, if you're having a dubstep breakdown, um, I don't know who can help you, but, um, probably someone.

Speaker C: You can call. You can call a crisis line. We have operators.

Speaker A: 0800.

Speaker C: Bow wow.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. Imagine you call that number and they put you on hold, hold for a second. And the whole music is dubstep.

Speaker A: One continuous loop of just the same eight bars. It's good to be back. Um, as. As we come to the end of the show, I just wanted to say thanks to our patrons. Sorry, Lars, one more time. Um, I'll. Maybe if I do this one. There you go. I'll put it in the corner. Let me get rid of that. There we go this time. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's neat, right? It's nice. Um, so, yeah, there's the QR code for the patronage. Um, and that is also in the description below. Um, we are here because of the patrons. And as you can see, our patrons are the ones who make this happen. They bring the vibes, they bring the jokes, they bring the opinions, and they bring the dubstep. Um, so.

Speaker C: Oh, no, I don't think.

Speaker A: He's called Wob Wob Wob. Four, three, six. Yeah, perfect. Absolutely. Um, yeah, we're here because of the patrons. We do it every week. Ah, we love the patrons. Thank you ever so much. Um, and for being so patient, like, continuing going like we've had two weeks off and just to come back full strength and to, uh, yeah, us to a space where you're here and not lost faith in what we're doing. Really appreciate it. So thank you ever so much indeed. Um, if you want to, you don't have to, but if you want to become a patron, follow The QR code, etc. Etc. Is there. Um. It's a lot of fun. Helps us keep the lights on, quite literally. We just re upped for another year, um, and stuff, etc. Etc. Um, one more thing about dubstep, uh, before we go today, dubstep is dead. We're gonna call it Dead Step new music genre.

Speaker C: I'm gonna make the initial album. Let's do this. Come on.

Speaker A: We'll see, we'll see. Um, right, that is an hour and 34 minutes. Uh, so we're gonna drop off here. Uh, thank you ever so much for being here. Uh, we've got one more week left and then, and then we're taking another couple, uh, taking a couple of weeks break just because it's summer. Um, I'm not going to be in Prague, but we'll do one next week. Um, and then I'll put it in the discord for people when we're going to be returning. That's my job for the week. I've got to figure that one out. Um, it's tough organizing an anarchist pilgrimage. Um, because there's not much order involved.

Speaker C: I have questions, but we'll leave them alone.

Speaker B: I have questions.

Speaker A: So, yeah. Um, it's, uh. You guys look amazing. Thank you. Still, Ed, uh, it's. It's been beautiful to have you here. Um, thank you ever so much. Please hit hit joining me. Absolutely. Thank you for joining. I'm going to be thinking about that clipper joke for the next couple of days. At least.

Speaker C: Help us out, guys. Hit that, like, button like it owes you money.

Speaker A: Exactly. Imagine, uh, it's the last dubstep track to ever be made and just kick it.

Speaker C: We will head are both frantically smashing right now.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Uh, I have put a spare set of keys at my friend's house. So we will definitely be back next week. Um, and so we will be back next week. Thank you ever so much for putting up with me mainly and us in general. It's been a pleasure. It's been a joy. Thank you ever so much. We will be back. We will see you. Stay awesome and enjoy making the music.