Here are three next steps for you to take:
1. Get our free video training & checklist, "Standout Mixes - The DIY Musician's Guide To Exciting Mixes That Stand Out And Connect":
theselfrecordingband.com/standoutmixes
-
2. Apply for The Self-Recording Syndicate, our personalized coaching program!
It all starts with a free clarity call where we talk about your music, give you feedback and a step-by-step roadmap that you can then implement on your own, or together with us.
Best case: We end up working together and completely transform the sound of your music forever.
Worst case: You get an hour of free coaching, feedback and recommendations for what to do next.
Sounds fair? Cool. Apply now and book your free clarity call:
theselfrecordingband.com/call
-
3. Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community
--
Episode show notes:
Casual NAMM 2024 recap episode from Benedikt's LA hotel room, giving Malcom an update on who he met and what he discovered at the conference.
Also, if you ever go to an event like this (highly recommended!), this episode includes a few mindset-related principles and takeaways, so you'll have an incredible time and make new friends in the industry.
PS: Please join the conversation by leaving a comment, a rating and review, or a post inside our free Facebook community.
--
For links to everything we've mentioned in this episode, as well as full show notes go to: https://theselfrecordingband.com/210
--
If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: podcast@theselfrecordingband.com
Here are three next steps for you to take:
1. Get our free video training & checklist, "Standout Mixes - The DIY Musician's Guide To Exciting Mixes That Stand Out And Connect":
theselfrecordingband.com/standoutmixes
-
2. Apply for The Self-Recording Syndicate, our personalized coaching program!
It all starts with a free clarity call where we talk about your music, give you feedback and a step-by-step roadmap that you can then implement on your own, or together with us.
Best case: We end up working together and completely transform the sound of your music forever.
Worst case: You get an hour of free coaching, feedback and recommendations for what to do next.
Sounds fair? Cool. Apply now and book your free clarity call:
theselfrecordingband.com/call
-
3. Join the free Facebook Group ("The Self-Recording Band Community"):
theselfrecordingband.com/community
--
Episode show notes:
Casual NAMM 2024 recap episode from Benedikt's LA hotel room, giving Malcom an update on who he met and what he discovered at the conference.
Also, if you ever go to an event like this (highly recommended!), this episode includes a few mindset-related principles and takeaways, so you'll have an incredible time and make new friends in the industry.
PS: Please join the conversation by leaving a comment, a rating and review, or a post inside our free Facebook community.
--
For links to everything we've mentioned in this episode, as well as full show notes go to: https://theselfrecordingband.com/210
--
If you have any questions, feedback, topic ideas or want to suggest a guest, email us at: podcast@theselfrecordingband.com
These episodes are not supposed to be promotion episodes for these tools, but all those people have such specific, deep knowledge about their field and what they're doing that I'm sure we can all learn from those. Just remember the episode with Dave Payatek from Room Sound. How amazing the episode was and how much he taught us about what goes into creating drum samples and how these libraries work and all of that.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking forward to more episodes like that, just so we can get an even better understanding of those tools and how to get the most out of them. This is the Self Recording Band Podcast, the show where we help you make exciting records on your own wherever you are DIY style, let's go. Hello and welcome to the Self Recording Band Podcast. I am your host, benedikt Hein. Welcome to the show If you are new, welcome If you are already a listener, glad to have you, stoked to have you as a listener. As always, today is going to be part number two of our NAMM 2024 Recap episode, or like two part episode series, mini series. So I've been to California, la, california and I've I went to NAMM, which is like kind of the biggest music industry conference in the world, and we did an episode last week where we started, where I started sharing you know, some of the stories from that, from the trip and, like the people I met, gear I've checked out and the learnings and takeaways for you. And today we're going to do, you know, round two of this and it's mainly, you know this is one of those episodes where we're not really prepared. I'm just basically telling Malcolm what happened at NAMM. That's the whole purpose of this episode because Malcolm didn't make it there. He couldn't be there, so I'm just going to give him the updates. You can watch this on YouTube. You can listen to this on your favorite podcast app, as always, and if you like it, please leave us a rating and review. We would really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm doing this, of course, with my friend and co-host, malcolm Owen Flutt. Hello, malcolm, how are you? Hey, benny, I'm doing great, man. How are you? I'm doing good too. As I told you, stressful times, but I'll get through it. So overall, things are still pretty good. I'm mixed two exciting songs. Today. We have new coaching students. I'm in that community every single day and really enjoying it. So overall, things are great, but there's also a lot of you know pressure.
Speaker 2:Things are busy. Yeah, exactly, things are busy at the self-recording band world. Yep, they are.
Speaker 1:They are In other news. Like another thing that happened for the first time today and I'm really stoked about it. It's like it has nothing to do with Namor or anything like that, but for the first time in since I had my current MacBook that I've been using for three years now, for the first time I have done a complete mix in a session that runs completely native, like M1 silicone sort of native.
Speaker 1:Because so far, I always had to run Cubase in like the Rosetta mode because of certain plugins that I use and whatever. And I couldn't, like I've had this computer for so long now it's still an M1 Pro, which is totally fine and I haven't felt the need to upgrade yet, but I still couldn't use it to its full potential, just because of a few plugins and stuff, and I've forgotten about it, honestly, for a while and I was like yesterday I was like let me see if I can update all my plugins to the you know, maybe they are compatible. Now they all, you know, support native Apple silicone stuff and yeah, they do. They are, with the exception of like two or so that are not necessary, and it's been pretty crazy. I don't know if you've done that yet, malcolm. If you have, I have, yes, so it's like it's pretty crazy, like I have, yeah, I would say, almost half the CPU load that I have before.
Speaker 1:Like things are running a lot smoother, loading a lot quicker and everything just feels really smooth and so I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I only got to it like a few months ago now I think. I made the switch to running it in silicone mode for Pro Tools and it's definitely a little bit quicker. I didn't notice like the biggest change. Honestly. I noticed a huge change when I got my M1 computer. That was just like, oh my, this is a different league. But then, as far as switching to the silicone version of Pro Tools, it definitely is quicker, but it's not like a night and day thing for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, it is here, maybe some of the plugins or whatever. I noticed that it handles the over sampling and like high quality modes and stuff like that a lot better.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that.
Speaker 1:So when I especially Ampsims, when I had like before I did that when I had, you know, neural DSP, whatever AMP with 4X over sampling and I had like eight instances of that, you know, in a fully loaded mixing session, things get a little, it starts to struggle a little bit, and now that's not the case anymore.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's great, totally, I hear you Awesome. So yeah, and I'm enjoying it. So what has been your weekend? Like Malcolm. So, just so everybody knows it, it's Malcolm's birthday today. So happy birthday, malcolm. Thank you everybody. I've already told you before, but like now officially on the podcast. So happy birthday. I hope you have a killer day today. And like, what was the? What did the weekend look like? What was the celebrations?
Speaker 2:It was honestly just spending time with friends and family pretty much. Oh, you know, I actually worked all weekend too, but it was like I love my job. So, yeah, I'm working on quite a few cool documentaries right now, which is my favorite type of work. It's doing documentaries. It's always really interesting types of stuff. You're talking to scientists and experts and learning from them. Working with, like honestly, the filmmakers I'm working with right now are like the type of people that I was like creeping on Instagram like a year ago just being like, oh man, they do the coolest stuff. I want to work with them and now I am. So I feel like super grateful for where I am in the television world this year. It's just, it's awesome Really doing some fun stuff. So I did that. I just, you know, had some good food, good drinks with friends and family. It's been nice. Good weekend 33 everybody.
Speaker 1:Wow, you're 33. I always forget that you're like three years younger than I am. That's kind of crazy. But yeah, so, so happy for you, man, like glad to hear you enjoyed it, and I hope you have a good day today too, because you know, things are just starting now actually. Yeah, yeah, really colors. Yeah, I hope you get to celebrate a little bit today or just have a nice, you know, calm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be good day. Yeah, I'll go climbing the climbing wall and then meet up with a buddy for a bite. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Great, all right, so let's get to today's episode. Then, right Shall, we, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to hear more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we listened to last week's episode, if you want to know what this was all about. We talked about, like many people that I met and conversations I had, and one of the key takeaways was that it it's just such a different experience if you go to a conference like that and you are proactive in the way you approach people and you know schedule meetings or just walk up to people, start a conversation, build relationships not with an agenda, not trying to get something out of people, but just, you know, starting relationships, meeting new people, instead of just walking around there on your own checking out gear and then going home which is what I did on previous events like that a lot of the time and it's kind of pointless. You can get those gear news or whatever online as well. You don't have to be there necessarily for that, but it's really about the people and if you do that at a place like this where, like, the entire industry is there, it really pays off.
Speaker 1:And not that I think about that in sort of a business way, but it pays off just because you meet cool people and you never know what will come from that and it's like it's just just feels great to, yeah, make these connections, stay in touch with people, and I could just highly, I would just highly recommend putting yourself in a situation like that from time to time, even if it's just a show or something. You can go to a concert and, just you know, talk to the band or talk to the people at the venue or whatever, but just do it and don't wait for people to come to you and like, if you do that often enough, everything changes really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean, jenny and I met online, but ultimately it was like that kind of mindset that got us to start this thing 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So this time it's going to be a little more about gear also still people, but also exciting gear that I checked out. So this is part two of my notes here. I also spent the last week catching up with all those people doing like the follow up emails and you know a lot of that, and then, yeah, I'm going to talk about whatever I can talk. Some of the stuff I still can't talk about and I will do when the time comes, but some things I already can, and so, yeah, let's dive in Now. I'm just going to go from, like the through my list top to bottom. It's not in chronological order, it's just the things that I've discovered there.
Speaker 1:So I visited our friends in at audioscape again, which was awesome because they are just they just make amazing gear and they're just great people. So talking to them again was so much fun. They had a couple of like panels and talks there at their booth as well. Sampura that I mentioned on the last episode here did a talk there and I won all of their. So they had a little raffle there, like a lottery sort of thing, and I won all of their plugins and all of Sampura's plugins as well.
Speaker 2:It's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is really cool. So I was there and they introduced something like. That's just insane to me how they do that. They introduced their version of a fairchild. So a couple of companies are doing a fairchild and a lot of compressor now, which is the original fairchild, goes for I don't know ridiculous amounts of money. You can pay six figures for that for that compressor, depending on where you buy it. And then there is the. Then there's a company under the original fairchild name again that they built the fairchild now as a fairchild, which hasn't been a thing for decades, but now it's available.
Speaker 1:Then there's a couple of other companies who do clones. They are pretty expensive, but all are also kind of a compromise. And now audioscape came out with their version of it and you can look at my highlights, my Instagram story highlights. If you go to my Instagram profile, it's at benedictine and you see a highlight there that's called Nam Kali highlights or something like that, and I posted all of the pictures from my trip there and it's all. There's also one of that fair comp is how they call it and it just looks so, so awesome and it also sounds pretty awesome and it is a fairchild.
Speaker 1:It's no, a no compromise version of it, to the point where, like they, even the power supply is fully tube based, like which the other clone companies don't do.
Speaker 1:Like I don't know how many tubes are in this thing, but even the power supply is completely like the original, fully tube based. And they did the thing. That I found really cool, because I don't know if you know what a fairchild looks like, but a lot of these pictures of fairchild fairchild's have this, the lower part of the front panel open, where, like the, you can service the thing and, like a lot of people, just leave that open and you can see inside and see, you know, the wires and the tubes and whatnot. And because we're used to that and it looks kind of cool, they just made that out of a like transparent plexiglass thing with the knobs on it so you can always look in the to the inside and it looks really rad. And the price point is still lower than most, if not all, of their competitors. So I think it's like a seven K, a $7,000 price point, which for a fairchild, is pretty cheap, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure people are like what? But like for a fairchild that's, that's wild Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's just something I found very beautiful. Not that I'm going to buy one or whatever, but I love gear and it's a beautiful piece of gear, so you can check it out in my stories and I just love those people because I asked Chris how they do it, Like why is that affordable? But also it seems to be the you know, the no compromise version of that.
Speaker 2:He's referring to Chris Yetter, who's been on the podcast before as well, so check out that episode if you haven't already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, he's the owner, founder, of Autiescape and I asked him like how do you do that? Like why is it more affordable than the others but apparently still better? Or like, at least when it comes to components and how carefully you, you model it and whatnot, and like we're rebuild it? And his answer was because we're doing it the right way, we're doing it the way it's supposed to be, like we are. You know, have you have a small team. We build it in, like we don't over complicate things, we buy the best components, but we buy, you know, very strategically, whatever.
Speaker 1:I can't tell exactly how, like all the things they do, but he's just says I don't know why it has to be a lot more expensive. Maybe we could make more money, whatever, but like we feel that's reasonable, we are profitable, we are happy about with the prices that we charge, but our customers are also happy as well. There's a no, no compromise in the quality and I don't know what the others are doing, but it just works for us and I feel like this is the way it should be done and I just love them and they do it all in the US as well, and I just like those guys and the way they do it. It's I don't know. They're great, they're fantastic people yeah.
Speaker 1:And I checked out a bunch of their stuff. Again, I have listened to almost all the devices at this point. They also came out with a new preamp. That's great, that their version of the API 312 in another saturation box and like yeah, it's pretty, pretty cool stuff. Anyway, that was part of one of the gear story there.
Speaker 1:Then another thing that is has nothing to do with like real analog gear, but I'm very excited about it. As Malcolm said, a couple you mentioned a couple of times on these episodes, I'm using my SSL controller that's next to me on my desk here with those plugins on the SSL plugins that are controlled by this, and so far you could only control the native SSL plugins with it and they are mapped automatically to the controller and it's like you're touching an SSL console. Now they came out with an update and I didn't even know that, but I saw it at NAMM and they showed it to me and introduced it to me. They made an update where now, with that controller, you can control third party plugins as well and it's actually pretty easy to map them and use them, and so that's just a small thing that I got excited about. That was something I didn't know and was surprised to hear, but it's a really great thing.
Speaker 2:I know that was just that you keep that hands-on mixing feel without, but still that you use other plugins. It kind of solves the entire problem.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. If you haven't experienced that yet, I just mixed two songs today with that thing and it's so cool to just have that huge SSL on my screen, not see the doll, and just use this one plugin to do all of my mix moves almost. It's very amazing, so I'm really in love with that thing. Then I saw something that will find its way into our podcast setup pretty soon, so I checked out the Mackey booth. Those guys have one product that is insanely good and I didn't know about it, and it's a digital podcasting, streaming sort of mixer.
Speaker 1:There's multiple versions of these kinds of devices out there, right, but there's the Rode Procaster and there's a couple of other things, but that specific one I just stopped and checked it out because it looked really great and the build quality appeared to be really great and it's the DLC creator. That one, yep, dlc is definitely a thing. There's the creator and, yeah, it's the DLC creator exactly. It just looked very good in terms of the build quality and all of that, and a lot of people were standing around it and playing around with it and I was like, okay, let me check that out. And then I got the full tour and one of the Mackey guys showed me how it all works Within three or four minutes. He explained everything to me and the way this thing, the menu works.
Speaker 1:This is the first of those devices that makes sense to me, because a lot of these are not really. They're either not really like how a mixer or a typical audio device would work, or they are so complex that it's also not really helpful in terms of the workflow. And this thing was totally intuitive to me. It checked a lot of the boxes. It does a lot of the things that I feel like I'm missing about my streaming setup, because I've always wanted to have a set for a get type of thing for the podcast, for video calls, coaching calls, streaming YouTube videos and whatnot, and this thing does it all. This has answered all of my questions and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get it. Yeah, it looks.
Speaker 2:I like how, for the solo button, it has a picture of an ear, and then for the mute button, it's got a speaker and an X. Even if you don't do audio, you're going to be able to operate this thing. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Totally, and there's a few cool features in there that I really enjoy, and it could also solve the problem that we've been talking about it for a while now, that it would be cool to have more audio examples or things that we describe on the podcast so that as actual audio examples on the show, so that people know what we're talking about, and this thing makes this really easy. And, yeah, I'm not going to say too much about it because I first have to implement it, but this is going to be on my desk pretty soon, I guess. Awesome.
Speaker 2:And I feel like it's going to fit in with your SSL look.
Speaker 1:It kind of has the look yeah it does Cool, so very excited about that. That was kind of unexpected. Then what else do we have? So, oh yeah, then I had an appointment with a meeting with the guys at Audient. Audient is a company that I also I'm really excited about, just because they make very well-made audio gear that add really good price points, and it's exactly the kind of gear that I want to recommend to our audience, because it's great gear but still affordable. It's exactly what I want for you guys who are listening to this. It's no esoteric BS that you don't need, but it's also not super cheap stuff that doesn't really help you. You're going to be happy with their interfaces and their preamps and you still don't have to pay a fortune for them. I don't know how they do it, but it's really cool.
Speaker 1:I had an Audient EVO SP8 preamp with me on the road to make this record in Arkansas and it served me very well Built like a tank, sounds really cool, eight channels of super clean preamps and a great converter in it, and it costs, I don't know, 600, 500, 600 bucks, something like that. Yeah, totally. And then their interfaces too. You can get like 150, 200 bucks or something. You get a really good small interface that is really well made, feels great, sounds, great solid drivers and, yeah, one of those companies that I really think are perfect for our kind of audience here, and that's why I wanted to meet with them, and the way this happened was that Addy introduced me actually. So again Addy Parjantani from Hit the Road Music Studio.
Speaker 2:He's also been on the podcast.
Speaker 1:And he's partnered with them for a while now. They sent him to Armenia, I think, and Morocco and other places to make records with the people there and they gave him gear to do that. And he partnered with them in a couple of different ways and he just sent an email out to the Audient guys and myself and was like, hey, you guys should meet, you know, do something at NAMM. And then they invited me and I got there, checked out their analog console as well. They have like a large format professional studio console.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that I'm not proud of that.
Speaker 1:Another story there, like really surprised. I'm like so here's the thing. I love being digital in the box and have to recall and whatever, but I still have my analog gear. I still didn't get rid of all of it, just because I love it and part of me still wants to have an analog console. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense and it would make much more sense if I was tracking bands rather than mixing, but every time I'm on an analog desk I'm like I love this so much I don't know what it is, but so anyway, I checked out a bunch of these analog consoles at NAMM and they're all great, but I would never. There's not one of those where I'm like, yeah, I would spend those $80,000 or whatever on that console. It's not worth it.
Speaker 1:And then I saw the Audient one at what is it? The Heritage Edition.
Speaker 2:I think it's the Audient ASP4816.
Speaker 1:Yep, there's the Heritage Edition and the other one, but the Heritage is the cool one with the Transformers and the outputs and stuff Anyway, yeah, there it is, so that one is 20,000 euros, which is still a lot of money, but it has a lot Like there's a full bus compressor in there. There is like Transformers and the output. You have 16 channels, 16 preamps, eqs, all the EQs, and so I would say if you are building a studio where you track bands and it's not only mixing, this is actually a great. This could be a great investment, because if you think about a lot of high quality channel strips, like good preamps, plus good EQs, the routing, the monitoring capabilities, the buses and all of that, you can easily, without complex in the box things, you can just touch a knob and make different like monitor mixes. It's very fast, it sounds awesome and it's not like a prosumer gear, it's like actual pro level large pharma console. That's actually not too bad. That's a pretty, pretty good price point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you were to individually buy 16 channels of EQs and 16 channels of compression bus compressor and 16 preamps, it's like, oh, this is actually a bargain.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and so I was playing around with that and was really impressed. And then I had the meeting with them and it's very exciting because this is one of those companies that I definitely want to partner with, just because I think it's the perfect fit for audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're who we're already recommending Exactly, Benny and I get asked all the time what interface should I get for? Like my first interface and there's so many good choices, but audience is like the one that's like a clear, like you won't regret this one and end up just buying a new one like six months from now. Yeah, it's good stuff. I don't own it myself, but I totally would. It's like this is the reliable. This is what I would buy if I was buying my interface again.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. And then also it has. I mean, other people have done that probably by now too, but things like their smart gain feature right, all at this price point. If you get one of those EVO interfaces that are even considered like the entry level, their entry level line, it's even cheaper than the normal audience gear, but it's so great. And those EVO interfaces, or the preamp that I have with me on the road, you plug in on a drum kit, or you just one guitar or one mic, whatever you have, and then you click the smart gain button and you just start playing and the thing does all the gains for you. You don't have to touch it and it's perfect. It has the right amount of headroom and you're good to go. You don't have to touch a single gain knob, it just does it. It just listens to you playing and does it for you and it just works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not like doing that manually is hard, but it's just like you just click the button, it's done now. It's quick, you don't have to worry about it, it's move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. So, yeah, a couple of these things and they were really nice and the types of partnerships that I'm looking to make is not that I want to be. I said it last episode. It's not that I'm looking for companies to pay us so that we can then promote their products or whatever. All of what I'm saying in this episode is just me recommending stuff that I, like I'm not getting paid for this. And the partnerships that I'm looking for are partnerships where they can help us reach more people that we can serve and help through our content and our coaching and our courses and all we do, and we're going to recommend the stuff that we're going to recommend anyways and we just create win-win-win scenarios. So I want you guys listening to get good gear recommendations so you don't buy things you regret. I want those companies to do great work, to be exposed to as many of their people in their ideal audience as possible, and I want our platform to grow through partnering with those companies and everybody wins. And it's never a thing where like, yeah, you're just recommending this because you're getting paid so and so much for that. Like, I feel really good about the way we're doing this right now and we're about to do this and it's really exciting. It's like an everybody wins situation, totally yeah.
Speaker 1:Then there is then there was a company I don't know if you're aware of them, malcolm Sonido, sonido, I think they make an all in one kind of studio management software. This is like not as important for our audience probably. Now. It's just something I wanted to check out because I have always I have this artist portal that my studio clients get out and I have a lot of like software in the background that's talking to each other and like these complex systems that I've set up for both of my businesses, and every time I see kind of an all in one solution that promises to do it all, part of me gets excited.
Speaker 1:Part of me is very skeptical because sometimes those tools just don't work very well in specific areas, and so Sonido promises to be the all in one sort of studio solution. That that is. That's kind of everything. It's a little bit of yeah, it's kind of hard to describe if you don't run a studio business, but it helps you run the studio business so that you can worry about the creative stuff only and instead of having to have like five different tools like I have. You can do it all in one place, and I'm not sure if I'm going to make the switch yet, but I've scheduled a demo with them and we'll check it all out.
Speaker 2:Is it like a CRM meets a revision kind of thing, and like hosting or?
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of that, those things. So it's specifically interesting. When you run an actual commercial studio where you can book sessions because it has inventory calendar, you can assign sort of roles to. You can say you know you can have an assistant or a runner in there or whatever, and they can, you can keep track of the gear that's being used in in in this different sessions and the recall notes and whatever. Like all that stuff is in there.
Speaker 1:Then there's a feedback portal similar to what we use with file pass or simply, or any of those services where you deliver files to your, to the artists you're mixing for. Then they can leave timestamp comments and then you can send a new version of that. It's all inside of that. It is a CRM. It stores your contacts, you can have conversations and send out emails to people. It has a scheduling tool like Calendly. It has like all those things that we use for a studio in one place. I have a couple of questions about it that I'm not really sure if it does those things, because what I've built for myself is very specific and I kind of yeah a powerful thing already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, customize those things a lot, but yeah, it just looked interesting and I will check it out Interesting.
Speaker 2:Keep me posted. The business to me is interested that I need it, but I'm interested.
Speaker 1:Totally, and the reason why I'm interested in those things, like it's me excited, is that the, like I said, I'm very busy and sometimes feel overworked and like it's just a lot that I'm handling, and every tool that saves me time and makes it so that I have more mental bandwidth and more time to focus on what really matters, which is mixing and serving my clients. This gets me excited because the tedious stuff just has to get done, and the faster I can get it done, the better it is. And so the admin stuff. If I can automate that or delegate that or whatever, I'm all for it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, 100%, I back that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Now then. The next thing was one of our coaching students, marcel he is. He's played bass for a while for like a substitute bass player for the broilers, which is a huge German band. Like he played main stage Rock on the Ring. Rock on the Ring, which is biggest festival in Germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Only green day played after them like they played main stage late evening and he played bass for that band. He was also the guitar tech for that band and he's now one of our coaching students, which makes me pretty proud that someone on that level yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 1:Which is awesome. Oh, by the way, we just got another student into the program who's with his band, had like four chart, so it's like four of their records were in the German charts, like the album charts, like and played big stages and, yeah, pretty well known rock band. He's also now mentored coach by me, which kind of feels surreal, but that these people are my program. But it's pretty awesome, it's great. And Marcel sent me a message and was like hey, you should go to Las Richter and go to Richter strings or Richter straps. This is company, the straps, yeah, and the straps is kind of a niche product. I don't know if you've ever heard of those?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I've never done so much Googling in an episode before. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Richter R I C H T E R Richter straps, it's a German company. They make tar straps and a couple of others like accessories for pretty big bands. They had a couple of yeah, couple of heavy and metal and like rock bands in there and like yeah on their roster roster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool, and they so I knew of this brand, but I didn't know that the guy personally or whatever and Marcel knows them and he was like, hey, you should just go there and they should give you stuff or whatever. I go there and I'm going to get some stuff. So I went there, we took a picture, Las Richter, and I took a picture for Marcel as a way of saying thank you for connecting us. That picture is pretty hilarious. You can see them by Instagram. And then something unexpected happened and I have yet to test it, but last gave me a set of strings. I didn't know that they also make strings. And he's like just try those strings and tell me what you think about it. And I'm like, okay, and then I looked at the strings and it seems to be. I'm going to get them real quick. Here we go. So these are the Richter strings, and that's probably not focusing because of my face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see it, yeah, and it says I, I own, like I own, and I own net, not iron, but I own coated strings and they last has to explain that to me one more time at some point. But like I think a friend of his makes something, some other product, some metal product, and they use kind of an iron coating to achieve whatever on that other product. And that guy was like, hey, I think if you did that to your strings that would be interesting because they would probably last longer without the actual coating on, like elixir strings or any of those where you have this actual coating on it. That can kind of feel weird and also sounds different. And then it comes off after a while, you know. And he was like you could make this invisible coating that is there but not visible, you can't see it, you can feel it, but it makes the strings last longer and also could sound really cool or whatever. And then they experimented with it and they got really excited about it and now make these strings and he claims that they actually that was an accident.
Speaker 1:He says they sound pretty different to normal strings. I haven't compared them yet. I'm excited to hear that. He says they sound really bright and he says like. That's what people always want when they get like pro steals or uncoated strings where you got the really bright bass tone or guitar tone like the the bite and the clarity and the overtones. But usually that comes at a cost and that is that they just don't last very long. So those bass pro steel strings, for example, sound awesome but after two hours they're like done. And he claims that this, these strings do that like. They are bright, like that or even maybe even brighter, but they last longer and they whatever Like. And he just said it's not for everybody. He has also got the feedback from some people that they say they don't like the way they feel or whatever. But apparently they are different and I don't know. I will try them and let them know. Just something excited that I got there and I always curious and interested in things.
Speaker 2:They keep me posted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and also really cool guy spent some time there and made that connection. Then I stopped by at the sound radix booth you know sound radix, that's off the company. Yeah, they showed me an update of their auto align plugin and sound radix. Auto align is pretty cool. It just helps you get drums multi track drums in phase, and I always do that manually, but I actually I don't know why I don't have auto align, because it makes so much sense, like it's really impressive how fast it is and how flawless it is and still how much control you have over it. And then they showed me a little update there.
Speaker 1:It just got more intelligent and you have more control over things compared to before. And yeah, basically what it does is you have a multi track drum kit and you put auto align on those tracks and you click a button and then it keeps the natural distance between the overheads and snare and whatever intact, but it looks for the perfect spot so that the waveforms overlap in a way that you get maximum pressure and transients and not like any cancellations that you don't want. And it aligns the close mics, of course, and all that tedious phase alignment work and time alignment work that you do to drums usually does it in one click and it's pretty impressive and I knew about it but for whatever reason haven't used it a lot and now I'm thinking about actually getting it. Anyway, that was just one of those work, so the new ones, just a little more customizable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a major update. They just showed me, yeah, like a few workflow improvements, a little more customizable, and it just made me aware of the product again. Honestly, they just weren't on my radar as much anymore and I was wondering, like, why don't I actually use this?
Speaker 2:because it's really yeah, I know there's some people, I know that just swear by using it at every single project. So there's definitely something to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also the guy that's why I'm mentioning it first and foremost the owner, founder of SoundRaddix also might come on the podcast. So we talked about that and, yeah, it's one of those things where you know those kind of complex principles that are so important, like phase, like impedance we talked about last episode with Roger Cloud and stuff like that. If you get the people on the podcast who solve that one specific problem every single day and that's all they do, basically they can explain that stuff so well, and so I think it's a wise move to just bring on those people every once in a while to make these kind of boring, like complex sounding topics a little more accessible and explain it in a way that makes sense, even if you're not an experienced engineer.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is that's like a deep dive into phase, and is the timing differences between mics across a drum kit. It's like that's the most complicated thing we're generally dealing with when it comes to phase, so that'd be an interesting chat.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. Yeah. Then a random encounter happened.
Speaker 1:I was talking to Warren Hewart and, just you know, met him once again like he was there every all day, every day, like I was. And so once again we just met and stood there and just had a chat and then some someone stopped like next to us and I didn't know that person. And then Warren was like hey, benedict, you should meet Jens Larsen. And I'm like okay, I don't know who that is, but like hi, good to meet you. And then he was like do you guys, do you guys ever talk about jazz guitar or anything like that? And I'm like not so much.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you should interview Jens Larsen. He's the best jazz guitar educator and you know whatever in the world. And then I quickly took up, I pulled up my phone and looked him up and he has like a huge platform where he just all he does is teach jazz guitar and he's a really great jazz guitarist and great teacher and has this very impressive platform. And it was just so funny how you know you stand there, talk to Warren Hewart, which is also still kind of crazy to me that this always happens now and then he's like, yeah, you know, introduces you to this person you've never met. Turns out it's a huge educator and he wants you to, whatever be the interview them on the podcast.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that will ever happen, because it's not really what we do, but it's like just funny.
Speaker 2:It's still pretty cool. Yeah, that's the exact type of thing that happens at these events.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, and I will definitely reach out to him, just because I'm. Whenever I meet people who do things that we do at such a high level, I just want to know what they do and what works well for them and how they serve their students and like there's so much from those people, so yeah, how they managed to serve that many people is like a really cool thing.
Speaker 2:That could help us be more effective. I told you agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:I've got a booth that I know you visited that I want to hear more about. Yeah, I want to know about the camper booth. That's the next one on my list. That's the next one on my list. Yes, good timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got. I went to them again. Marcel, my bomb, the coaching student in my in our program, who introduced me to Las Richter. He also said hey, also go to the camper guys and say hello to Peter. Is a friend of Marcel's, apparently. And so I went there and said hello to Peter and then I checked. First of all I checked out there the new kind of mini, whatever camper.
Speaker 2:What's it called A?
Speaker 1:player. Exactly, I checked that one out. We talked about it on one episode before. I think you were excited about that one, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I checked that one out and it was.
Speaker 1:it's really cool. It's it is really cool. So it is a camper in a small format. It doesn't do profiling like you can do your own profiles but you can load all your profiles onto it and it has all the functionality that you want from a camper. It's very affordable, it's portable, it sounds awesome and, yeah, this is kind of this is really cool, because the actual like the big camper is still like a significant investment for a lot of like home recording people whether, like I would rather buy a plug in or whatever. You know, it's like that much money and I don't really need it. And then now you have the small portable thing, perfect for recording at home, but also perfect for, like, if you're playing gigs and you have and you don't need a cabin or like half stack or whatever on stage. That thing just fits in every backpack and you just can totally all you really need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sounds. Just sounds like the camper, so yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it sounds amazing and the reality is that most people that are grabbing a camper don't need to profile things. They just need good tones and maybe, like a lot of camper owners, actually just need to play live. Even so, it's like just making this little one that only does, that doesn't have all of the capturing, profiling stuff is like. I'm wondering what took them so long.
Speaker 1:honestly, yeah, and I talked to them about.
Speaker 1:You know, I was.
Speaker 1:I'm always like campers been around for so long now and people have been there's been there have been rumors about a camper to and when the hardware is going to be obsolete because it's basically old tech at this point and all these things.
Speaker 1:I've been talking to them about this and I just like the philosophy behind this product, just because they were saying like no, the whole point was the entire time, to have something that we can always keep current and always update without having you know, without making people buy new stuff all the time, like they have this one box, it gets updated all the time, it gets better, but you know you can keep the same device for 10 years and it's not going to get old. It's like there's always updates and that was the whole goal. They didn't want to make an obsolete you know thing and now they're coming out with this new product, but it's still based on the same sort of you know system. That and they they improve and release updates without making the old stuff obsolete. And that's, I think, something that is impressive and it's very cool because there's so many throwaway products out there already. So, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I've owned mine for ages now and it's just has gotten better and better. They've just like made new features new. Here's some new plugins. There's always new amps available, you know like that's just a given, but like they are new reverbs, new overdrive pedals getting added to it, or now liquid profiles, so like the knobs actually behave like the real amp. Now it's like they just they've made it significantly better and I haven't yet like it's all free. It's like, wow, this was such a good buy. I'm. I love my camper and honestly, the only thing that's going to get me to get rid of my camper is me getting that smaller one, because I don't need the profile stuff. So I'm just like I think I just want the little pedal one that they can throw my backpack and I'll get rid of the big one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, and yeah, and that was my experience there too I tried that and I was like I was very impressed. This is a full you know camper, just in a small format, and if you don't need you know the profiles, if you don't need to be able to make your own profiles and you don't need a power amp and whatnot, this is like a perfect solution and it's affordable, right, and so, yeah, again, one of those products that I highly recommend for our audience, because you can have an entire collection of amps and caps in your backpack without breaking the bank and you can take it to the stage. It's not a plug in, you can use it like almost like a plug in in the studio, but you can also use it on an actual stage. You can use it with your headphones when you're practicing, you can. It's like the all in one guitar tone solution.
Speaker 1:That is really awesome, and so, yeah, that was a good chat there, and then I don't know who of the guys will do it, but they also agreed and I'm going to say this all publicly just because I also want to hold these people accountable because they already promised to do it. So they said they want to do a podcast with us as well, and I'm just not sure who's going to do it yet and what we're going to do. But the camper guys are going to come on as well and explain a little more about the camper and hopefully you know yeah, definitely also some knowledge and value for you guys. These episodes are not supposed to be promotion episodes for these tools, but all those people have such specific, deep knowledge about their field and what they're doing that I'm sure we can all learn from those. Just remember the episode with Dave Payatec from Room Sound how amazing the episode was and how much he taught us about what goes into creating drum samples and how these libraries work and all of that.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking forward to more episodes like that, just so we can get an even better understanding of those tools and how to get the most out of them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's a guy. There's a guy called Michael Brett who I mean Michael Brett is a famous guitarist for Lone Star, really famous country band, but he also is probably like the most at least he's my favorite but he's one of the most famous profile makers for the camper. So he creates profile packs that he sells for the camper and like his profile sounds so good compared to like everyone else's and like there's. So that's like you know, this avenue I can see us talking to the camper guys about is like what goes into making a good profile, because ultimately that equals how to get to record really great sounding guitars. Oh, totally.
Speaker 1:And whatever Michael.
Speaker 2:Brett's doing is a step above most people. That guy knows how to record guitar tones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very interesting because, you're right, it is basic guitar recording, right, if you want to make a really good profile, you got to know like it's the entire chain and everything that goes into it. Yeah, totally interested in doing that and we'll see where that goes. But great to make that connection as well. And for me it's just awesome to be now to know, know all these people and make these connections, because that also means if we get questions from our audience about a specific piece of gear or about certain things, I know who I can ask, I can speak better to those. You know those questions. We can do more, yeah, more resources for that. We can do better content on that, and it's just very cool for us to be connected in that world without the pressure of like yeah, you know, this company is paying us and this is not paying us, like I can reach out to all of them and I don't care, like I'm fully independent. I just want to know all the things, know all the people, and then be able to give you guys good answers or bring the people out to the podcast to answer them themselves. Totally Right.
Speaker 1:Then the next one was also something unexpected Addie again sent a message at some point and was like hey, do you know Lars Deutsch? And I'm like no, I don't know him. He's, like you know, a sync songwriter who does a lot of like sync licensing and commercial and movie you know, music stuff but then also works as a songwriter for artists. Like he does not only do the commercial and sync licensing stuff, he also works rights records and singles and whatnot for for artists. And he's from Germany originally but he's moved to Hollywood now and it lives there and he's worked on some giant projects with big artists, but also big you know companies. And I've looked at his portfolio and was pretty impressed. And I don't know how Eddie knows him.
Speaker 1:Eddie is one of those people who just know a lot of people and he said like well, maybe you can find a way to connect and meet. And I didn't meet him at now. I met him afterwards when I drove to North Hollywood to visit the Cali audio guys at their office. Lars just lives a couple of blocks away from there, and so we just met on the street in front of his house and had a quick conversation and then I gave him a ride because he was getting coffee anyway. So he jumped in the car and then we talked a little bit and that was a fascinating conversation and he's definitely gonna be on the podcast very soon. Actually, he wants to do it within the next two weeks. So I have to talk to you about when we're gonna do this. And I'm really excited about this one because we get a lot.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you get those as well, malcolm, but I get a lot of questions about the whole sync licensing world and how that works and if that is an opportunity or not, and it seems that that a lot of self-recording artists want to pursue that or see that as kind of a side hustle or a career option. And and the interesting thing is that there are very mixed opinions, very different opinions, out there on this. So I know a couple of people who are all about this and who are promoting this and who run companies that like sync licensing Companies and who help people with this and they promote it as kind of this insane Opportunity. And then there are people out there who's who are like it's almost impossible to make money in this field and it's like don't even try, basically right. And so there's all these voices out there.
Speaker 1:And the conversation with Lars was pretty interesting because he says, well, I'm I don't want to say too much because he's gonna say it on the episode anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he was like People are often very delusional and think they can get into the sync world and do like big commercials or movie soundtracks or right for big artists or whatever, or like these things that pay really well, and he says like I just got to be honest, it's almost impossible to get into that high level sort of world because, you know it's more than just. It's about more than just being really good, and even like that bar for like being really good it's so high that it's like very hard to get into that. So he just doesn't want people to be disappointed and he just realizes that there's a lot of like very delusional people out there as well. But then there's other world where it's all these independent content creators and YouTube channels and podcasts and all these other you know media outlets that all need music and there's so much more than just the big sync licensing world that we all know.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so I'm very like this was a very interesting conversation and I'd love to hear his take and and how he got into this and what the actual Opportunity is and how realistic it is to make it there and what it takes and all those things. So hearing that from someone who's actually doing it every single day at a very high level, but this, I'm looking forward to this a lot because we get a lot of questions about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's so many questions about, like, yeah, the business side of it and networking and pitching and all that, but then there's also the you got to be able to pump out songs at a really high quality level really quick, yeah, to keep feeding that machine and keep, you know, getting chances at getting these opportunities. Like it's a the sync people I know they they create fast, yeah, and and that's pretty cool and useful for our audience of self recording musicians. I think it's like okay, how do we set up a system that we can get an idea out really quick and potentially be able to use it professionally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then also I'm interested in hearing you know how important the audio quality. So if like a guy, like like Lars I know he has a home studio set, a pretty good setup there with high-end gear and stuff. But he also told me he still works with mixing engineers. He doesn't do everything on his own, like he does some projects. But he also said, you know, I Mean we didn't go into much detail, but I'm interested in hearing how important that final part is, because Maybe, if someone's a really good songwriter, maybe what's holding them back is that they just can't get it to sound good enough to have a chance like, how high is the bar actually there? How good does things need to, how good do things need to sound and is it possible to do it all yourself? Why does someone at that level who's been doing it for so long and has like really high-end gear and whatnot, why do they still hire a mixing engineer sometimes? And when does it make sense to do it yourself, like all these questions. So it very interested in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, lots of questions for him. That'll be awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. And then I visited Callie audio. This was super cool. So I went to their lab, to their office in North Hollywood and or Burbank, and it was like Really impressive. So Callie is one of those brands that some people in our audience already use or like actually many people in our audience have told me about, really popular. Yeah, I've heard they. People keep raving about them all the time and keep recommending it to me, and they were always on my list when people asked me for recommendations for, like, entry level or budget monitors. I was like I hear good things about them but I've never heard of myself. So I can only tell you you know what I hear from people and might be worth trying, but I can't say you know that I think they're great because I haven't heard them.
Speaker 1:And so I got very excited when, again, addy Put me in touch with them because yeah because he partners with them too, and he was like, yeah, you should meet these people, such such nice people, and, you know, make it. You know I don't say he says like I don't want to say anything about the speakers, you just want to hear them for you and make an opinion for yourself. But the people are great and I would love to introduce you. So I got an appointment there and I spent an entire morning at the Callie hack quarters and they showed me all of their speakers, starting with the very Affordable smallest ones all the way to their not even released pro speakers that they're gonna be releasing very soon, and I was genuinely impressed because, first of all, very nice people. I didn't expect anything less, just because Addy introduced me and it was clear that they're cool and it was a very cool morning there. But then what I found really cool was that those speakers had I don't know how to say it like they have.
Speaker 1:It starts with a four and a half inch Very small desktop sort of speaker and then it goes up to you know, full Three-way big studio monitors that you can use and like full range and all of that. And of course there's bigger drivers in them. They're bigger speakers. They have more power, so you'd expect more low-end and all those things. But what's exciting was Going up.
Speaker 1:We started with the very small ones and then we gradually moved up through there all the different speaker lines, and what was impressive was that they didn't change much in terms of character.
Speaker 1:You could hear an improvement in terms of detail and how the stereo image, just overall quality, and the Transients and like it just got more and more transparent.
Speaker 1:But it still felt like you're listening to the same type of speakers, so it wouldn't be hard to transition from the entry level to the top level sort of speakers in their line, like it's very yeah, very straightforward sounds the same characteristic and that was pretty impressive because even those four and a half inch small speakers I think I asked three or four times if they were sure that the sub is turned off. They had a foot switch for the sub and I would, I swear I was like I swear, I swear this is on because I can feel the bass Like this is not coming from those speakers but it does like it's pretty impressive and If not as defined as on the big ones, because you know you have to cheat to make the low-end work on a small speaker like that, but it's there, you can feel it and I feel like I could make pretty good decisions on those and, yeah, it was fascinating and they cost 200 300 bucks a pair or so.
Speaker 2:So it's super affordable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So that was really fascinating. And then their bigger ones Absolutely blew me away in terms of stereo image and clarity and transient detail. So that was really cool too. Also, they had a room that was completely untreated and they set up the desk. So for the smaller speakers they have a room that was untreated. They set up the desk not in the middle of the room but like slightly off to one towards one wall and like weird and they did it on purpose, like a typical, less than ideal home situation. Yeah, we got this wrong. Yeah, exactly. And because they wanted to show that if you sit close enough and you can still make pretty good decisions on those. And yeah, it was kind of. Of course the room was a problem, but it was still. It was way better than in my office, for example, in my home. Like if I set up a pair of speakers in my home office there in my untreated room Any pair that I've ever tried there it was like I don't know what I'm, I don't hear anything, and this was like, yeah, I can tell what's going on. So that was fascinating.
Speaker 1:And then the big studio that they had with their speakers that are not released yet, that was awesome because that was very well treated. That was a proper full atmos room, by the way, and so I had some atmos demos, but then also just stereo demos and there you could really hear what the speakers are capable of doing. And again at this, even at the, they're the best sort of speakers. At this price point. It's like a thousand or so per speaker, still not really expensive mine are more expensive than that and I was sitting there and I was like that's pretty crazy, like the phantom center and like all of those qualities that we're looking for in speakers.
Speaker 1:I know I understand now why people are, yeah, are recommending these speakers a lot and why they get these raving reviews, because I haven't heard anything in that price category. That sounds like that, and I've heard a lot of speakers there. I've tried a lot, and when we are setting up thomas's b-room here in my studio, I'm definitely going to put a pair of callies in there. So that's how you know that I really believe in it, because I'm going to just buy a pair and put them in there and then, yeah, also get one for my home office. I was really impressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean like you. I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast, but when we were over, when I was over in Germany for studios na with you, you kind of alluded that you were looking for maybe new speakers to for your mains on your you know, your mixing desk. So our callie in the conversation Is that like something you're considering?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm considering a few things. So I was also very impressed, although that was difficult to tell in the loud environment, but like the whole x-mechana thing was still still pretty impressive to me.
Speaker 2:I would love to hear those in a more controlled environment.
Speaker 1:So, but I can't really say anything because that was yeah hard to tell at a conference, of course, but callies definitely an option. Now it's funny because the callies would be Less expensive than what I have now. But I have to say that I like at least in their room I would. You can only make those decisions in your own room, really, but in their room I liked it more. I think it was more precise and more transparent and I liked it more than what I have here. So might be an option, although I'm very careful because I have to compare it in my room. That's different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so hard without actually getting to try it in your space isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's definitely something I consider and I think I also know why I like them a lot Is and it's because of the three-way coaxial design, so it's mine all three way as well, but they have like a woofer and then the, the mid-range Driver and the tweeter are in one place, in one spot, and that very clear, very, you know, transparent sort of stereo image that you get from that that is what I really find impressive, like if two speakers are on top of each other, like it's just I don't know. I felt like, yeah, the whole image, the I could really tell where things are the phantom center was insane, like it really sounded like a third speaker in front of me, and so I really think I like that speaker design a lot. And it was also funny I didn't even know that. He were like they were asking me what I'm using in the b-room or what thomas is using in the b-room here now, and I was like, yeah, it's like these cheap JBL speakers.
Speaker 1:I think it's like a small studio monitor, very affordable, but in that price category. When thomas got started and he got his first pair of monitors, that was what he got and in that price range they were kind of the best thing out there and we compared it also to a couple of other speakers and we both think they sound really great for that at that price point. They're very I don't know what they cost, but like not much. And I told him that and then the guy smiled and was like, yeah, I'm kind of happy to hear that, because I designed those as well.
Speaker 1:So awesome good to hear so he used to be the, the guy who designed the jbl studio monitors, and he says, yeah, at that For that budget. It was the best you can do, really, and they're still very proud of those speakers and he liked hearing that apparently.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, anyway, so yeah, a very cool studio, very cool tour there. They got me a bunch of t-shirts and caps and hats and whatnot, because I got some swag there as well and there's just great people and We'll see what we can do in terms of content together with them. And then, of course, I want to try the speakers in my own environment. So all the things that I'm just talking to, I've just talked about.
Speaker 1:I find these things very impressive and in the when I heard them in that context, they were amazing. But I can only have like a fully, you know, really informed opinion once I hear them in my setup, in my room, and the things that I work on every single day. But all those things are things that I definitely want to try and the callies Definitely want to hear them here and for the b-room, definitely when we set this up, because thomas still needs to set up at home as well. So we're going to get a pair of callies in that room and I want to have some in my home office too, because Even if I'm just listening to music while I'm doing office work or whatever, it's just fatiguing to have the headphones on all day and I don't have speakers in there, so I'm going to get a pair of those small ones.
Speaker 2:Nice. Yeah, I'm excited. I love when you buy gear man.
Speaker 1:Totally. Every once in a while I do, and I just love buying gear from people that I've met and when I know I don't know At the moment you meet someone and it's not with, it's not every single time that way. I only talk about those encounters where it's like it's a really positive experience. I've also listened to a couple of things and checked out a couple of stuff that I'm not excited about and it's not really worth sharing, but the ones where I am excited about it and I get to meet the people and they are cool too, I just enjoy buying their stuff. It just feels good to support people who do good work and, yeah, it's just great, it's. I love that. So, all right. Now the final one here, nothing to do with gear, but one of my favorites. I was at the hotel at Anaheim and I was like I think I went down to get coffee or something. You know the yellow Styrofoam cups that you pointed out last time, so there was like 34 seven free coffee available at the hotel.
Speaker 1:So I went down multiple times a day and got coffee. And then this dude in the hallway of the hotel, he just saw me and I had one of our self recording band t-shirts on and he was like what's on that t-shirt? And I looked at my t-shirt and I started explaining. He was like yeah, okay, what is your musical background, like what type of music you listen to? And then I told him about my punk rock background and stuff. And then he was like you know who the Melvins are? And I'm like, yeah, I know who the Melvins are. Like, do you know NoFX? Yes, for sure I know NoFX.
Speaker 1:And like he went on and on with a couple of bands Faith no More and a couple of others and I'm like who am I talking to? Like what is this here? And then he's like yeah, I've made like all of those records and they're like the early ones, right, all the Melvins records and a few early NoFX, and then Faith no More. And then I was like what the hell? And it turns out that it was Jonathan Burnside and he was just his hotel room, was next to mine and this was just a random you know person I met at the hallway and he made many of those punk rock records that I grew up listening to when I was skateboarding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a teenager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, and he's a. I think he has a dual citizenship, australian and American is what he told me. And then he invited me to come to his room and we had coffee and sat on the balcony there and just chatted about these records and had so many things in common of thank you, in terms of bands we listen to and whatnot. Then turns out he's still very active, he's a mastering engineer. He's got a lot of like absolutely high end gear. He's more into the very high end analog sort of stuff and he writes for a magazine that's called Audio Technology and, yeah, he's doing high end gear reviews and also new technology, anything like this really the gear nerd there. And he's like really into new impressive technology but then also tried and true sort of high end gear.
Speaker 1:And when I talked to him about what we do at the Suffer recording band with the coaching program and this remote teaching and like the systems that I've built for this, he got very interested and now we're going to set up sort of a test account for him so he can check it out from the students perspective and I tested all and whatnot. And then, who knows, he says he's very interested and might do something with us. I don't know what it will be or what I don't know, but he's very interested in checking out the platform. We're going to stay in touch and this was just one of those random people that I met. That was really exciting.
Speaker 2:Honestly, people like I was, I had so much FOMO. Well, benny was down at this conference because it was just like every five minutes I'd get like I just met so, and so I just rounded to Sylvia Massey. It was like what it was crazy.
Speaker 1:It was really crazy, like I listened to last week's episode where I met, you know, the engineer working at Rick Rubin studio and Bill of R recording and Sylvia Massey and Andrew Shepes, and then you know, oh, there's CLA mixing on this SSL console. Let's ask him a few questions and then you're at the dinner or like the after show party, at the Adam Hall booth, at this balcony, and then there's all these and then there's Dolm Ravini is the drummer of Taylor Swift and you just get to talk to these people and yeah, it was pretty pretty crazy and no doubt, yeah, really cool and yeah. So those are some of those things and then like, tons of, like interesting gear. Of course that I can't cover it all on this episode, I think, but honestly, the main thing to me was people. Like I said, not so much the gear, but the people are what were more important to me. Oh, speaking about people, one more thing.
Speaker 1:I also attended a few of the seminars there not too many because they were very time consuming and I had so many appointments all the time. But Jonathan Weiner, he owns M Works mastering. It's a mastering studio and he's also an educator, a teacher I don't know was it Berkeley or one of those you know big music schools, I maybe I'm getting it wrong there but he's definitely a teacher. But he's a very, you know, successful mastering engineer and works mastering worked on some big records and he did. He gave a talk on mastering and I'm going to do I'm sure we're going to do a separate episode on this at some point, because his talk was very interesting.
Speaker 1:It was called 10. Was it 10 things or nine things, I don't know 10 things that he wants every mixed engineer to know about mastering or 10 things that every mixed engineer should know mastering, and it was a very interesting talk. And there was I expected it to be you know, obvious stuff that I've obviously heard of because I've been a mixed engineer for so long. But then he kind of surprised me and there were a couple of things in there that I was like makes total sense. Never thought about it that way. So I took notes and I want to talk about this in a separate episode at some point because it was a very interesting talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good perspective. Yeah, okay, that's, that's speaks my interest. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:That was really cool but it's worth doing an entire episode on it because it was really really exciting stuff in there Things we don't think that make total sense but we don't think about too often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes he's got to get in somebody else's shoes.
Speaker 1:Yes, then if you get to, if you go to my Instagram highlights, you'll see a couple more like incredible people that I haven't even mentioned. You know there's Bob Clear Mountain, chad Blake, tony Maserati. Like all these people that we know from Mixed with the Masters, you know, and stuff. They had a booth there. All those people's were there and you could just ask them questions and you know, it's like just people stars, man, absolutely, absolutely. Then Oak Sound comes out with a new plugin the company that is Soothe and Spiff.
Speaker 1:They come out with a new plugin called Bloom. They gave me the tour of that. I checked that one out Again. I think it's an insta buy for me as well, because, like, all they do is just really great, and that's no exception.
Speaker 2:They're the most innovative plugin company of the like the last few decades. You know like they're. They're, they're superstars and they're so well regarded. Every time we meet somebody in the industry, that's like you know, a serious player. They talk about that team. They got like a personal basis and they yeah, they're very impressive, absolutely. I've been harassing them with emails about some YouTube stuff as well. Great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do it, man. Like that's one of those companies that I also really, really think is cool. Also, they took the time, you know. After I visited them, they sent me a message and said, like thanks for you know, coming to our booth and checking out the plugin, and they took, like that's, you know, these little extra things that make a difference sometimes, yeah, very kind people. Yeah, so, and I'm excited about Bloom I don't know if you had a chance to. You know, look at it or check it out.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't got to look at it yet, but I've read up on it and, yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Cool, great. Then there was Christian Kole, of course, mutual friend of ours, joe Carell, great mixing engineer from Nashville who's working with Warren Hewarden. He does a bunch of videos on his channel as well. I met him. What else was there? Like so many great analog mixing consoles. I feel like there's almost a comeback now of these like so many new consoles coming out and really exciting ones.
Speaker 1:There's a new Harrison console. That's really exciting. There's the Hum Audio console. I don't know if you've ever looked at that, malcolm. That one is insane. Like that design of that console is just nuts in every single way, very expensive, but also so so damn cool, yeah. Then there is Hum Audio devices is the company and they have a console. Yeah, oh, yeah, I can see it. It's beautiful, yeah, and the Entrophy and the way this is designed with, like the tube design in the console, but then also like they put everything you can in terms of color and transformers and tubes and whatnot into an analog console, it's pretty, pretty nuts. So I checked that one out. And then there's the Harrison console. That's really beautiful, it's all in my highlights there. There is API console, there's a new Neve one. I think there's like I don't know, there seems to be a comeback when it comes to analog consoles, for whatever reason, and I'm all for it.
Speaker 2:It's fun.
Speaker 1:Totally. I'm all for it. Awesome, Quickly scrolling through these there's anything else, yeah. Then I got a full Atmos sort of experience in the PMC speaker booth as well, like very high-end speakers, all the if you've seen any of those like very big A-list mixers Andrew Shepes and all those guys they built, or Greg Wells and those types of mixers when they built their Atmos rooms a lot of them are using PMC speakers. That's kind of the go-to or the gold standard in terms of Atmos rooms right now. It seems like pretty expensive, very high-end speakers and they set up a full Atmos room in an ISO booth there. That was quite the experience and it's been the same experience, honestly, that I've always had when I listen to Atmos stuff. When there's music that's made for Atmos and written for Atmos, it's absolutely fantastic. Am I blowing an amazing? If it's music that's made for stereo and then turned into Atmos, it's kind of even on the most expensive setup, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I've been paying attention to that world a little bit and my honest initial opinion, when it kind of became a thing and Apple was like, oh, this is immersive audio, I was like this is not going to last. But I got to admit it's sticking around a little more than I thought it would and it seems like more companies are embracing it. Apple's still championing it. Maybe it's just something to start thinking about a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I still feel like we're still kind of figuring it out. Nobody really knows where it's going. There's multiple different, immersive formats. There's still no standard, Like you know.
Speaker 2:there's still the yeah, totally it's not there yet, but it's like, yeah, it seems to be developing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. But the main problem, I think, still is going to be that I don't. What I don't think will happen is that people are going to be listening on proper Atmos systems at their homes, like this is not going to happen. So there's only two scenarios where people are going to be using this, like the consumers One is headphones and the other one is cars and those are really the only situations where it makes sense.
Speaker 1:And then you would have to find a format that works equally well on both, and then you will also have to find something that also satisfies the audio files that have the actual setups, and so this is the problem there. So we'll see. But yeah, it's definitely a thing, and I also think we're past that point where those companies, all kinds of companies and all kinds of people involved, have already spent so much money on this that it kind of almost has to stay. They will just find a way to make it work. I think I don't think it will go away, but I also don't think it will be a necessity, and I think that there's still going to be a place for stereo.
Speaker 2:But we'll see, yeah, oh yeah, I think stereo is king. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Then if you haven't seen that one guys, just check out, please, the Wolf audio consoles. Like Paul Wolf he's been. He's a very well known designer. A lot of the pieces that we all use from other manufacturers have been designed by Paul Wolf and he has his own company now called Wolf Audio.
Speaker 1:And if you check out the Wolf Audio console and especially the one that they, the big one that they showed at NAMM I'm going to for the YouTube people here, I'm going to share my screen real quick. Okay, so you see this spaceship there. It's probably tiny on the screen now, but yeah, I see it. Yeah, and what's cool is like the top row here, this is all 500 series modules left to right, like this entire row, and then, and then here is the modules built into the console, like their own routing and EQ and whatnot, and it's just this giant console. It's a beast, yeah, totally, and it's a. That's why I thought about it.
Speaker 1:Now that we're talking atmos, it's like an immersive console. So you can mix atmos on an analog console, which is kind of insane if you think about it, like the routing that has to be going on inside and like it's just crazy. But yeah, you can also use it as a. You can also use it as a stereo console, of course, but it's just a beautiful piece of art to me, very cool, yeah, yeah. And then this is the poster by Silvia Massey and stuff. Anyway, let's stop the screen share here, all right? So yeah, tons.
Speaker 2:Crazy trip, crazy, crazy trip. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I could go on and on about the gear, but I mean you can get the, the NAMUs anyways, the most important thing, where the people and what's to come from that.
Speaker 2:That's the most exciting part about this is like that we do have some really cool interviews coming up as a result for this. So I, even though I didn't get to go, I still get the benefit I can talk to really cool people that you met down there. Absolutely I'm excited for it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and the ones that I mentioned on the podcast are just the ones who already said yes, definitely, and there's many more, and not all of them will work out, but like a few more, yeah, it's going to be good.
Speaker 2:You're going to have some lessons. I'm excited for this year of podcasting. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not only podcasting. A few have also agreed to do live streams for us and plug in walkthroughs and community events and like all of these cool things. So Awesome, yeah. Oh, one more gear recommendation real quick for you guys actually in because it's very relevant to our audience. So, talking about rock solid, well made interfaces, we talked about audience.
Speaker 1:There's another company that I feel needs to be that I feel I need to talk about here, and this is black lion audio, and they are. They are known for like their mods to common gear and converters and interfaces and compressors, but they also built their own interfaces and they're they are also really impressive. If you look at the components they use, how they are built and the features that they have in this small format. You don't find these, these things, on a lot of like on a lot of bigger interfaces actually, and they are smaller interfaces like the scarlet type of category, but with way more features, also a little more expensive, but not crazy, and but fully professional features. You'll find things like you know, a few things that are not standard in that kind of category of interfaces, and so I want to mention it here because for a portable, affordable, small interface, they're about as good as it gets. I think yeah.
Speaker 2:Very cool. I'm going to check that out. I didn't know they were making those, so that's cool.
Speaker 1:I think I'll talk to them about them once that he uses them as his mobile sort of interface. And then I checked them out at NAMM and the features alone is like not what I expected from a small interface like that. Very cool, awesome, yeah. So that's it, I think. Enough for now. The rest you can check out in my stories. There Story highlights, there's a few really nerdy things that are not really relevant for you. That only.
Speaker 2:I enjoy.
Speaker 1:I think that's fun to work through. Yeah, and I can't wait to do this next time again, and then hopefully with you, malcolm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, you can actually see I got to come back down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally, man. Oh, and I just saw you can actually see the yeah, post it those. You can see the pictures from the Cali Audio Studios as well, in their office, right, I was talking about. Yeah, yeah, next time we're going to do it together, dude, and before that we're going to meet in Hamburg, I'm very sure, and do this year's studio scene, absolutely, and yeah.
Speaker 1:So again, if you guys have any questions, yeah, if you guys want to know anything about you know new gear that, or maybe you saw you know NAMM news and new gear that's been released and have questions about it. I checked that a lot and I talked to pretty much all of the people here, and so not all the instruments, but in the pro audio field, definitely, and so if you have any questions about any of those products, feel free to just ask. Maybe I have asked the same question and can help you, because there's much more than what we covered in these episodes, and so just let me know. And if you're interested in having a certain you know person on the podcast or certain you know manufacturer, whatever, maybe there is a certain thing that many people if you're interested in, let me know as well. Maybe I can? I can make it happen, so we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for sharing all of that with me, because I was super curious, yeah totally, totally bad, and it was a blast, as you can tell.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Great, all right.
Speaker 2:Back to the regular content next week Exactly and what.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what we're going to talk about but we're going to start with the episode with the interview episodes very soon. So that's the thing All right. Thank you for listening and talk to you next week. See you next time. Bye.
Speaker 2:Music playing.