216: Ken Lewis & Dom Rivinius (Mixing Night Audio, Taylor Swift, Kanye, Bruno Mars, Drake, BTS, Alicia Keys, Eminem)

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Episode show notes:

Ken Lewis is a Mixer & Producer with 114 gold records under his belt. On his credits list you'll find BTS, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Drake, Bruno Mars and many more.

Dom Rivinius is a producer, writer and mix engineer with credits on projects for artists like Eminem, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift or BTS.

So both got quite the list there and now they also own a plugin company together. It's called Mixing Night Audio and offers really unique tools that you won't find anywhere else! So powerful and fun to use!

KEN LEWIS CALLS HIMSELF A MIXER, PRODUCER AND "FINISHER".

And he also says he has the weirdest resume in the music industry. So, naturally, we needed to hear more about that.

DOM RIVINIUS MET KEN A FEW YEARS AGO AND BECAME PART OF HIS TEAM.

First as an assistant and then he got involved more and more on big projects for artists like Eminem, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift or BTS.

Dom started out as a drummer, and after he started working with Ken he got to play drums on a few Taylor Swift songs, for example.

A FEW YEARS INTO WORKING TOGETHER THEY'VE STARTED THEIR PLUGIN COMPANY, MIXING NIGHT AUDIO.

We had a chance to play with their tools and use them on a few projects. And wow! These are really powerful and so much fun to use! And... a little different in many ways. 😉

On this episode, Ken & Dom share details about how they came up with those plugin ideas, the philosophy behind them and why they are a great addition to your mixing tool kit.

AND FINALLY, THE TWO HAVE BUILT AN ONLINE COMMUNITY DOING FREE MONTHLY LIVE STREAMS ON YOUTUBE STRAIGHT FROM KEN'S STUDIO.

So overall, we thought this was such a cool partnership between Ken and Dom that we wanted to know everything about how they met, how they got to where they are, what it takes to get that kind of projects and how they balance their insane work loads with other areas of life.

And the answers were super interesting, although not surprising if you've ever met one of them in person.

We hung out with Dom at Studioszene in Hamburg last year, then again at Namm in LA earlier this year and we immediately knew we had to introduce him and Ken to our audience.

So here we are!

And this episode is only the beginning:

ON APRIL 16TH 2024 KEN AND DOM WILL DO A "VOCAL MASTERY" WORKSHOP FOR OUR COMMUNITY!

It's going to be a free live event and if you are not on our email list or in our Facebook group, yet, please sign up or join now because you don't want to miss this!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Young bands trying to record themselves. You know you're probably not going to do anything that anybody's going to love for a while. Yeah, that's exactly right. So one of the best ways to go is something that I suggest to a lot of young producers, and that's ask yourself yeah, you could do a single and you could put that single on any playlist on Spotify or Apple Music. What playlist would you want your song and your band to be on, and what songs come before and after yours? Having to genuinely answer that question tells you so much about yourself, about what you're creating and what your targets are, and if you're young and you don't really know how to produce, use those as targets.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Ah, their drums are hitting like this Okay, different pattern, but let's make sure our kicks and snares hit like this Okay, it sounds like they've got one guitar left and one guitar right, so it's just two guitar.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Okay, we're going to do that, all right. And you just start A-B-ing and you start learning from the people that you want to be in league with and that you want your records to stand up next to. That's totally valid. That's the way you learn, and then the knowledge that you learn as you compare and build your songs up to try and get them on par with theirs is going to make, eventually, your next and your next and your next more creatively your own and more creatively your own, and eventually you're going to be making incredible music that sounds like you but sits right next to the bands that you love and you know, and there's there's these cheat codes for it and referencing other music, you always got a reference at uh, equal volume. So turn the reference down to where your vocals are at the same volume as their vocals, or your kicks and snares are at the same volume as their kicks and snares, and then adjust the rest of your sonics accordingly, but use something as an anchor.

Speaker 3: 1:55

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. Records on your own wherever you are DIY style, let's go. Hello and welcome to the Self-Recording Band Podcast. I'm your host, benedikt Hain. If you're new to the show, welcome. If you are already a listener, welcome back. We always appreciate you. This show is available on YouTube in video format, but also on your favorite podcast platforms, of course, like Spotify, apple Podcasts, wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Now, today we have a very exciting episode coming up because we have two guests which we don't have too often and I'm super excited about this and these guests are pretty amazing. You're going to see that right now. Ken Lewis is one of them. Ken Lewis is a mixer and producer with 114 gold records under his belt. I hope this number is still correct. Maybe it's even more, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 2:49

On his credits list you'll find acts like BTS, kanye West, taylor Swift, drake, bruno Mars, many, many more Quite the incredible list. And on his website, he actually calls himself a mixer, producer and finisher, and he also says he has the weirdest resume in the music industry. So I'd love to hear more about that today. Welcome, ken, so glad that you took the time to do this with us today.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Thank you for having me, I appreciate it Awesome.

Speaker 3: 3:18

And then we also got Dom Revinius. Dom is a producer, writer and mix engineer. He met Ken a few years ago, if I'm correct there, and became part of his team First as an assistant, I think and then he got involved more and more on big projects for artists like Eminem, alicia Keys, taylor Swift, bts Also quite the list. Dom started out as a drummer, actually, and after he started working with Ken, he got to play drums on a few Taylor Swift records, for example, which is pretty impressive. So both got quite the list there and it seems to be a really cool partnership and I definitely want to hear more about this on this episode today. Now they also own a plug-in company together. It's called Mixing Night Audio and man.

Speaker 3: 3:59

These plugins are some unique, fun tools that we're also gonna dive in, because that I've got to play around with them already and uh, yeah, there's the shirt, exactly. Uh, pretty exciting stuff. And finally, they have built an online community doing free monthly live streams on youtube straight from ken's studio. And uh, yeah, I've met dom at studio scene in hamburg last year, which is a great event in germany, and then again in nam atM in LA earlier this year, and I immediately knew that I had to introduce him to our community here, because this was a perfect match in many ways and we had great conversations. I'm so happy, so excited, that we get to do this finally. So here we are, ken Dom. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Welcome.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Welcome guys. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Welcome Welcome guys. Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 4: 4:46

Thank you for the invitation, man, this is going to be a great chat. I can feel it already.

Speaker 3: 4:50

Yes, yes, me too. That's great and, as always, I'm not doing this by myself here. I'm here with my friend and co-host from Canada, malcolm Owen Flood. Hello, malcolm, how are you?

Speaker 2: 5:00

I'm great, I'm great. Hey real quick. I thought this would be fun.

Speaker 1: 5:05

I want to know how many different time zones we're recording from today Eastern.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Standard here All right. Pacific Standard here.

Speaker 3: 5:11

Central European time for both of us. I think, right, yeah, we're journey.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Is all of Germany in the same time zone? Yes, tiny little countries, eh.

Speaker 4: 5:19

Yeah, almost all of Europe actually is in the same time zone.

Speaker 2: 5:26

It's different over here, definitely different, definitely all right, so let's dive straight into this.

Speaker 3: 5:31

So I'm not gonna do the typical you know, complete full backstory thing, because I think you've probably done that on a couple of episodes of other podcasts and other interviews already. But still, what I'm really interested in hearing is like how you two actually got to know each other and what's the the sort of working relationship that you got both got. We're going to get into some of your backstories as well, but, um, I'm mainly interested in that whole thing because I've met ken now through dom, and I know you've been working together. So so what, what's the deal there? How did you met, meet and, uh, what are you doing together now?

Speaker 1: 6:03

dom you want to tell it?

Speaker 4: 6:05

I can. I'm taking it from here. So just to bring a little bit of the backstory in that right right away.

Speaker 4: 6:13

I was a drummer for my whole professional life until I didn't want to be a drummer anymore, or solely be a drummer anymore, and around 2016-17 ish, I, after 5 000 detours, I kind of settled onto the okay, I want to be a producer, or become a producer, rather. At that point I learned a lot, basically soaked in everything from communities like yours, from youtube tutorials, blah, blah, blah, all of that and early 2018, I felt like now I'm at the point where I'm ready enough to go public with it, meet a couple people, and from my former career I knew that if you want to play on the field, you got to know the people who are already playing on the field. Otherwise you're just not getting in that. So that was when I kind of searched a little bit for hmm, who could I meet? What would be interesting? And pretty much this is almost the same day when I saw an advertisement for Ken coming to Berlin for a three-day masterclass. I did not know who Ken was at that time, but I would get to know him pretty well

Speaker 4: 7:29

in a very short time after that. So, yeah, then I went to his masterclass. Actually, I reached out on Facebook before because I wanted to know like, am I right for this masterclass? This was insane Funny backstory to that as well, because this is super interesting.

Speaker 4: 7:43

I reached out to him and, self-deprecating as I am, I played my skills down a little bit. I didn't know what my skills were, but I messaged him and said, well, I don't really know anything about recording blah, blah, blah. Is this right for me? And he messaged me back hey, cool, thanks for your message. The topics might be a little too advanced for you, but why not come along anyway? Why not check it out? And he was super welcoming and inviting.

Speaker 4: 8:13

So I went there and we were four people and long story short on that day. We hit it off right away really well and it was pretty much a start of a great friendship. We're not only collaborators or like I tell everybody. Of course, ken is my mentor in this industry because he took me from wherever I was to wherever I am now in all the aspects knowing how to, how the industry works, knowing why you do certain things, how to move, all of that. So I that. So I'm super grateful to him for everything really. But apart from that it really became a great friendship. I would say maybe almost first.

Speaker 1: 8:52

It started as a friendship 100%.

Speaker 2: 8:54

That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 8:55

It started as a friendship of mutual respect, because we could tell that we had a lot of the same and similar ideas and, I think, in different ways we had a lot of the same goals and aspirations and we just kind of clicked. So, you know, I I like meeting other creatives who have vision and, you know, can hold an interesting conversation, and me and dom just spent some time together and we were like, huh, well, we should try and do some more together. And then it just evolved from there and then you got stuck in America.

Speaker 4: 9:31

Right, yeah, but that was already two and a half years into the relationship.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Oh, I know I'm skipping way, way ahead.

Speaker 4: 9:38

I just wanted to say for the listeners, because everybody is always like it has to be fast, it has to be all the shortcuts no, we met in April 2018. We stayed in contact.

Speaker 1: 9:49

That's six years ago.

Speaker 4: 9:52

We did a bunch of stuff. We were working on different website projects. All of that. That was the foundation. And in 2020, two years after we met for the first time that's when I came to New York.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Wow, hadn't you come once for a shorter trip before that?

Speaker 4: 10:09

yes, yeah, I did. Yeah, but that was more like almost leisurely, just to to meet up a little. Have a good time in new york right, yeah, that's awesome yeah, so so like I think, sorry, go ahead

Speaker 1: 10:22

the. I think the the lesson here is that this, this relationship, evolved over time and out of kind of a building, mutual respect and both of us kind of just going like you know, if we join skills, something is going to come out of it that's going to be great. And it wasn't the first thing, I don't know if it was the second thing, but we just kept kind of poking at it. And now we have something that we think is great and we think everything everybody else does.

Speaker 2: 10:48

So is that Mixing Night Audio?

Speaker 1: 10:51

Yes, yeah, I mean, you know we built a group. I think it's the community really. So the first thing, the pandemic hit and then we started what became Mixing Night and we built our community over time. But it was really just out of engagement and keeping people connected across oceans. And you know, we we run like things like beat challenges. We have one going on right now. You can win a ik multimedia arc for boom, awesome, um. And we have people you know, like new zealanders collaborating with scottish and you know canadians collaborating with you know people in india. You know people in India and it's like it's amazing to see.

Speaker 1: 11:28

And the other amazing thing to see about Mixing Night, when we do these beat contests and other collaborative things that really bring people together, is I'll feed people. One starter, me or Dom will cook up something like royalty free, anybody can do whatever they want with it, and I just feed it to the community and I say take it, do what you want with it. And then all of the entries we get back are these like insane 20 different musical paths and every single one of them just like wow, that's really cool and it really opens your eyes and your ears to the fact that music is incredibly subjective and creativity is incredibly subjective, and the same piece of inspiration can send every single person off into a completely different direction, and nobody's direction is right or wrong. It's just the connection of creativity and you know how much you connect with it and how much others connect with it. So seeing that evolve through mixing night on the show has been my favorite thing about you know, everything that me and dom have done.

Speaker 1: 12:34

and then now we we decided that since we don't monetize the show, we don't make any money on the show but we wanted to keep it going and we're both busy guys that we wanted to start a plug-in company and see if we could sell some plug-ins and have that help feed the show. So now we make these insane plug-ins Pretty insane, yeah.

Speaker 4: 12:57

But the beautiful thing about that is as well. Over the years the show started as Q&A with Ken and we did it twice a week where people could just. We had a landing page and people could register and send in their questions. We had hundreds of questions in the beginning for every single episode, so we saw what people wanted to know again and again and again. That was the perfect research as far as understanding where people's heads are and that, combined with especially Ken's three-decade experience in the top-level music industry, that puts us in a very special position to give people the tools that solve the problems that otherwise they would not be able to solve so easily. For example, like the LOL comp that you've tried, Benedikt, the main chain is that it's basically a perfect vocal compressor and that came out of knowing how many people have trouble with vocal compression and we connect all those little pieces like that and I think that makes the whole Mixing Night audio movement so, so comprehensive.

Speaker 1: 14:04

I would say awesome yeah, and we, we really worked hard to make tools that were super powerful but really easy to use and with you know, the gamified interfaces. So you're not looking at any numbers and ratios, you're not thinking about math and you know. You're not thinking about compression and frequencies. You're thinking about music and just the experience of like, going like that and getting a result that you did not expect. And going like um done my vocal sounds a lot better. Now let me add some reverb, okay, uh, give it some air. Let me just Everything.

Speaker 1: 14:46

What we discovered with GreenHoss and that evolved into LolComp is these came out of a lot of the different processes that me and Dom did with multiple different plugins. So we cooked up our plugins to consolidate our processes, to be super easy, and one knob and five things under the hood is happening. But you, you know you get a simple result and when you do all of that, the end result was law comp is 10 times more powerful than the 10 plugins that it replaced because you can look at everything in one place, listen in real and make super fast decisions. It's kind of like working on a mixing console. Compared to mouse mixing, it's just much faster. Everything is in your reach. So that's been.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Our philosophy is, you know, gamified, simple plugins. Have fun, but make it super easy to use and make them super powerful. But make it super easy to use and make them super powerful. I mean, if you open any of my sessions, you'll see 20 instances of Low Comp on any mix. I just did one yesterday and it's just loaded with it Because it's so versatile that it's not just like a vocal compressor, it's whatever I want it to be, also a kick-ass vocal compressor.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Ken, I've got an interesting question actually, because you just made me think like it's not numbers, so it's not. There's like no graphic analyzer thing going on right. It's just, and I'm wondering if that's because you came up working on consoles that, like you, wanted to keep that workflow into the digital space.

Speaker 1: 16:20

There's a couple reasons. One I've been looking at analog gear for 30 years and the last thing in the world that I need is another emulation of a piece of analog gear, so I figured if I didn't need it, then a lot of other people wanted other things too. And just, I think, coming from analog world, the not looking at a screen was a completely different way to make music than when the screen became the thing that had to be in front of you the whole time. Yeah, and and it changed the way people think and react and make music and and I've always been a proponent of use your ears, not your eyes, for real, and this plugin gets you there yeah, and even it's definitely like a whole movement right now, like like benny's invested into getting workflows like that pretty heavily over the last year.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Even people seem to be like just realizing they're getting distracted by what they're seeing visually while they're doing their job.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Yeah, simple, powerful, creative. That's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 3: 17:24

Totally, and you even took it one step further. I think, yeah, totally, and I even think you took it one step further, because not only don't you see the numbers and stuff, but this whole gamified user interface and all the things that's going on. It's distracting in a good way, in another way, because what it does is it takes you out of that analytical sort of way of thinking and then you start looking at the. You know the things that change in the graphics when you move knobs. And then you I don't know when I tried it for the first time my first impression was I opened it up and the first thing I thought was like what the hell is this like? What am I looking at? This was the first thing. Then I was like, okay, let's look, let's explore this. And then I had so much fun because this combination of listening to what I was doing plus seeing the funny graphics and what it does, it was like a perspective shift in a way, like a completely different way of working. It was just fun and I listened differently and I got distracted by the plugin in a cool way and then I wanted to try it.

Speaker 3: 18:21

When I tried it, I was in LA in my hotel room and I was totally exhausted after an AM and all of that and I just wanted to do a half an hour or whatever and then go to sleep. I ended up playing like for three to four hours or so with this thing like all night, basically because it was so much fun and it kind of it ruined the start of the next day for me a little bit, but it was worth it. So it I just got lost with that thing. I wanted to try it on all kinds of things and play around with that. So you totally succeeded there with that. It was just a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Side story there is that I'm pretty positive. That next morning was when Benny and I were recording a podcast episode, so he came on all tired with his crappy hotel coffee which is so unlike Benny to even drink that stuff.

Speaker 4: 19:00

That's a well-known side effect to all plugins. Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 19:04

It was just so much fun yeah yeah, exactly, but the other thing is is too, like if you experience that shift from mixing with your eyes or producing with your eyes versus producing with your ears. That's the same, the same effect when you start mixing with faders versus with the digital console, with your mouse, and it gets you so much better results. Because what happens everybody knows that, like, imagine pulling up an eq, like a fab filter, pro, q or something, and you just pull it up 12, 15, 20 db. Yeah, if you were not looking at the screen it might be the exact thing that sounds the best, but then you look at it and the brain is immediately like oh no, I cannot push this 20 dB. That's wrong.

Speaker 4: 19:54

And you pull it down, although the 20 dB is the best result and that's what your eyes do. So getting people out of that and really into listening and turning knobs and judging with your ears is that better or is it not better? Should I change something? Should I add something? That's the effect that we want to get at helping people again judging with their ears, because the results are gonna be better totally, and it's so much about the how things feel and the way like sometimes it's not even how you know.

Speaker 3: 20:28

Like you said, it doesn't matter, like how many dBs you're boosting or cutting, but like, does it feel better, does it, does it sound better? But how do you react to the song now that you've made this change? Basically, and this is what's exciting to me I just turned knobs when I was playing around with it and then, you know, some things made things come closer, jump out of the speakers more. Then I found ways to, you know, make it sit in the mix a little better. I found, you know, all these kinds of things that's hard to describe, but it just feels different and that's, at the end of the day, what matters. And yeah, it was really fun to do that with that plug-in, to explore that.

Speaker 1: 21:09

I just to explore that. I just want to say that hearing that is like complete payoff, that exactly what we tried to do is hearing it come back. That's thank you. That's really awesome here. That's really, really awesome yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3: 21:19

Thank you for those tools. It's, it's amazing. Speaking about the whole feel thing, we're going to come back to the plugins, but that's a perfect segue, actually, to a question that I had here. Ken, I heard an interview with you on a different podcast and you said something there that I quickly want to touch on, because I found it really, really, really interesting.

Speaker 3: 21:36

You were talking about how you can, in your studio, project things on the walls, I think, or on a screen or whatever, and think or on like a screen or whatever, and you use that to get vocalists, for example, into a certain you know headspace or into it's like to create a certain vibe in the room and make them like perform even better, which is again about the, the whole feel thing. That is so much more important than the technical stuff to me, and and I really found that interesting. So so can you talk a little bit about that, because I've never heard anyone do it like that? Of course I've. I've seen studios with screens on the wall and they would do things to people, do all kinds of things to get singers in the right mood. But that, I think, was brilliant, where you explain how you could project you know a sad movie scene on the wall and then someone you know singing the breakup song might sing differently. Now you know Totally.

Speaker 1: 22:18

And it works and it's really. It's the same mentality as law comp Get you out of your head and reconnect you to the music coming out of the speakers or headphones into your ears and react to the music and that's taking all of the numbers and values off of law comp and gamifying. It Did that the way I do vocals. Let me risk moving my webcam. So here's my room.

Speaker 1: 22:45

I don't have my projection on right now, but I have basically 40 feet of wall about floor to ceiling, about a 10-foot high ceiling, and I put the vocalist in one of the soft corners over there and I'll project lyrics in a box right in front of them, outside of that box, on the entire screen in front of you.

Speaker 1: 23:12

It's like having an Apple Vision Pro in real life. It really is, because the perspective of my projection goes outside of my peripheral vision so I cannot see the sides of it. So I'm really immersed in my room and I can change the lighting to be anything I want to. So I put the vocalist in a soft corner so they have their own space and all they see is projection around them. The projectors go just over their head, lyrics in front of them, and whatever inspires them fills up the entire rest of the wall. So let's see, recently we just did a song with uh environmental activist who's like a un ambassador, so the whole time he's doing his vocals. I had his vocals, his lyrics, in the box in front and we're projecting like 4k.

Speaker 1: 24:02

You, you know, beautiful nature imagery around us Just you know whatever's on like YouTube, just eight hours of 4K nature, and you know with a guy who's that's his whole mission in life. That's something that just gets you out of your head. You're no longer thinking about. Oh my God, now I'm recording the most important song of my life. I'm so nervous. What if I sing wrong? What if I? How are people going to like this? Oh nature nature.

Speaker 1: 24:32

I can just sing and it really really has that effect. And let me see if I can fix that a little bit. And when you see it as a producer and you see the oh, that didn't work. When you see the result as a producer and you hear it, and you hear and see the connection from the artist to the song that they're singing, and that is the number one job of a producer is to get the artist as connected with that song as they possibly can, especially when they're giving you a lead vocal, because they're telling you a story, and either they're telling you a story that they're reading off of a piece of paper or that they've told you a hundred times, or they're telling you a story that they're in and they believe and they're living in this moment while they're doing this vocal, and that is a completely different experience, capturing creativity. So that's how I do it.

Speaker 3: 25:35

That's so awesome. Yeah, that's such a great idea. Yeah, perfect. On that same note, I've seen another little clip that was totally out of context. I think it just showed up on my feed somewhere where you were. It was basically you saying like it looked like you were talking to an artist or about you know working with an artist in the studio and you were saying things like you know no one's going to hear it if you fuck up, it's just you and I in this room. Like this will never go out, this will never leave the studio. So don't worry about the mistakes. It never happened.

Speaker 3: 26:03

Basically, and I just love that, the way you can make someone a little more comfortable with this kind of stressful, very intimate sort of situation of recording vocals with someone in the studio. So I assume this is you making vocalists more comfortable. Here is for, like, self-recording artists, like the people listening to the show. If you don't have a producer with you and like in the studio and no one who can do that for you and coach you and guide you, like that, like what can you do to maybe get yourself out of your own head in a way or like make yourself more comfortable? Is there any ways, because I always think that's kind of the biggest challenge with self-recording is really that you don't have that coach, that guide guy next to you, that producer who can get the best takes out of you, and you have to do that all on your own. Is there any ways, any things that you can recommend there?

Speaker 1: 26:51

Yeah, probably a lot. If you're recording yourself at home, you have all the time in the world. And if you don't know how to comp vocals, or if you haven't comped vocals yet, learn how to comp vocals. It don't. Uh, if you haven't comped vocals yet, learn how to comp vocals. It will change your life.

Speaker 1: 27:08

I've done a bunch of stuff on it. I'm sure there's other stuff out there, but generally the idea of comping vocals is that you you, you know finish your music well enough that it sounds good enough to be a record to sing over. Then you put yourself in the booth and you give yourself eight, 10, 12 takes. Just keep A, keep taking takes until you feel like you're in a great zone and then, once you feel like all of your best safe takes are out of you, start pushing yourself. Nobody's going to hear it, but you.

Speaker 1: 27:44

Where else can you go? How big of an artist can you be? How much of yourself can you bring out to the world? Because the best artists have figured that out.

Speaker 1: 27:58

And it's about tapping into levels of expressiveness and emotion. Tapping into levels of expressiveness and emotion, different ways to enunciate different ranges in your voice, the way you position your voice, the way do you sing soft, do you belt? I mean, billie Eilish, compared to Taylor Swift, is two completely different singers. And you can do all of this completely on your own, experimenting, and really find yourself those over-the-top moments that when you were in the booth singing it, you thought were ridiculous. You were like, oh that's awful, jesus. But you kept going and maybe you went and listened back and all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, that was the moment I really thought I was completely overdoing it. I thought I was. Do you think Adele thought she was completely overdoing it? No, that bitch was going for it. She was like, yes, you know, like you got to be so lost in the moment that you can't care what people think, because you know part of being an artist is people are going to take shots at you nonstop.

Speaker 1: 29:08

Just you know, here's being an artist. You care deeply about your craft. Somebody comes along, listens for 10 seconds, types some bullshit on their keyboard for 10 seconds, never thinks about you again in your life. You obsess over it for three days. Welcome to being a creative.

Speaker 1: 29:25

Once you get past that, it's such a freeing experience to just go. You know, fuck other people's opinions, let me find myself and let me just figure out what the best version of myself is. Then let me put it all together like a puzzle. If I take 20 takes and they're 20 horrible takes but I had a lot of fun doing them and with a little bit of auto-tune and comping, the best moments of those 20 takes is one that sounds like the best time you ever sung that song in your entire life. And those are the types of performances that connect with the listener. Not the best vocal on karaoke night who could get up on stage and sing it the best. The vocals I want to produce. I don't want anybody to be able to mimic it on karaoke night. I want them to be able to come close but never quite find that magic, because that magic comes from the accidents and the going for it and the trying and the being willing to fail.

Speaker 3: 32:11

Love that. I love that, thank you. What made you such a good vocal producer, actually?

Speaker 3: 32:16

Because I think I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like that's kind of your specialty or like something that you particularly, I mean you have a lot of skills, but yeah you have a lot of skills but it seems like something that you do particularly well and I know that your career kind of went from tracking engineer to mixing engineer, then mixing engineer and producer in a way maybe I'm probably skipping things here mixing engineer than mixing engineer producer in a way maybe I'm probably skipping things so that, well, the tip top of my career did that, so the credits that everybody knew about were doing that.

Speaker 1: 32:44

But bubbling right underneath that, I was building my production career the whole time the way I, the way I built, I produced bands, so I was always producing vocalists myself and getting that reaction and feedback of this is what I'm doing and this is how it's working, or not. But then also, coming up in New York City as a tracking engineer, I became known as a really good vocal tracking engineer and a lot of the hip hop and urban guys would use me to record their records because they were great at making beats, but they weren't really great at guiding artists in the booth and I was, so I could be their vocal producer. But really I'm hired as the recording engineer, so I get to practice the craft of vocal production without having to take the credit good, bad or otherwise of being a vocal producer. And that might sound like a shitty thing but it's the greatest thing ever. Same thing with coming up as a tracking engineer. I started as a staff engineer at a studio.

Speaker 1: 33:50

Anybody hiring at any sessions that I'm a staff engineer on that client can't afford a freelancer, so they're happy with whoever the studio gave them. So I can be the anonymous guy in the room. Nobody gives a shit about me. As long as I do good work and stay invisible and keep the session moving, then I'm good. I'm good. So with that mentality I'm able to scoop up just a ton of experience with other facets of record making. While I am playing the role of recording engineer, I'm learning vocal production.

Speaker 1: 34:28

I'm also rough mixing almost every day, so rough mixing turned into final mixing. And then the other thing about vocal production. I got hooked up with malik pendleton, who was such a gifted vocal producer and I made records with him for a long time and, seeing the way he guided artists and and his feel, he taught me so much about feel and that's something that either you you you have it or you don't, and you can build it over time. But that's something that's just in the in-between.

Speaker 3: 35:06

Yeah, that's so interesting. It makes total sense, and you kind of always put yourself into situations like that where you could just learn as much as possible and jump on as many projects as possible and just soak it all up like, uh, I've listened to that interview and it was kind of insane what you did in in, like in order to get good and to surround yourself with people who are good and could teach you things, and it is what it takes. But many people don't realize that that this is what it takes actually, and so I found this really, really interesting, and then it's no wonder that you got I mean, talent is a thing, of course, but it's also not eventually started working his way up and getting opportunities and opportunities.

Speaker 1: 35:59

And they're not exactly what he wanted to do, but they're door openers. This opens that door, and that door opens that door, and that door opens that door. And the next thing you know you're on a fucking Taylor Swift album and you don't get to the Taylor Swift album without opening 10 or 20 or 100 doors before the Taylor Swift door. Everybody wants to go straight to the Taylor Swift door. Well, guess what? That never happens that way. So you know it's only because of this longer relationship and the fact that we just kept clicking over and over. And you know he made himself valuable to me and my work and stuff. That I'm sure was fun for him at the time. But it's not like the this is what I want to do with my life kind of credits, you know, but it's learning and experience and he was getting the same types of experience that elevated me in my career. And now he's doing the same things and elevating himself. And now he's his k-pop production is. I mean, he's cranking out hits in k-pop.

Speaker 2: 37:06

I'm not doing that I want to actually circle back to you to get into because, like dom you mentioned, you consider ken your mentor, but there's a lot of people that have mentors that never become an equal and I can tell that you two consider yourselves collaborators and equals on every level. Regardless, stu, if you still consider Ken as your mentor.

Speaker 4: 37:29

You can be both at the same time.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Absolutely, Absolutely. You can, and I want to know how you got there from both of you, I think where you built that trust in being able to collaborate on projects where it really matters the result right, you can't just give it to anybody, so I would love to hear how you bridged that gap.

Speaker 4: 37:50

Well and that goes back perfectly to Ken's last reply People, especially nowadays, underestimate the amount of shots you have to take and how much you have to be ready to fail or to get criticism. Because that's the big thing. I have the impression that today everybody is so afraid of being criticized that they don't take any shots, that they're not sure they will get right. But how are you going to get something right that you've never done before? So here's a super fun backstory that maybe a lot of your listeners can relate to as well. So when, ken, the working relationship started, first of all by me helping Ken and his team with a web project, that's the very first thing, and that is like 18 months or so before anything music happened. Just to give you a time horizon.

Speaker 4: 38:49

And it just happened that over the years I always built websites for all my bands, all my projects, so I was proficient in that as kind of a side skill and I could apply that to Ken's team. This is kind of what was a door opener to me at that very unique moment. Then Ken started to shoot me a couple projects every now and then and just testing me out, like, is this guy good for something? Can I give him something? Is he reliable, whatever something? Can I, can I give him something? Is he reliable, whatever?

Speaker 4: 39:20

And I remember, ken, when you gave me the assignment for squizzly adams too close to fire and basically ken said hey, dom, I need a drum part for this song. Just create something cool, send it over. It's like a sixth, sixth, eighth kind of rockish song, um, and I went ahead and I produced something that was super generic, like kind of a trap, a drum sound, and I programmed everything and I sent it over to him. It took me like an hour maybe to create that and I sent it over and that was one of the best lessons Ken ever gave me. He probably doesn't even know that, but the feedback I got. The feedback I got is, and I quote hey, dom, when I send you something to get a drum track. I want something that I cannot do myself in 10 minutes I didn't remember that, that's good, that's amazing like you need moments like that.

Speaker 4: 40:14

Yeah to what's required, what's the level, what's the expectations. You cannot know that if you haven't shit your pants once, right, you have to fail to get that feedback. And it doesn't make me a worse producer or a worse drummer, it's more about awareness. Most people have the necessary skills at a certain point, but then you don't know what's actually the requirement, where am I supposed to shoot? And that's like the awareness thing is a big one, and that's why I call Ken a mentor of mine, because that's the thing that he always unlocked for me again and again and again.

Speaker 4: 40:55

When I showed him something, he always gave me that reality check until I was at a point now where I have the instinct and I kind of know it for myself. But over the years that was always like, okay, it's not quite it, and also it's just me listening and watching his reactions to something. I ask him Because the subtext on that, the reaction, shows it all, and if it's not like dude, this is great, then it's probably not great. And this is what you need from a mentor. And when you say that not everybody has or a lot of people have mentors, malcolm, but not everybody gets there. One important thing is you have to have the right mentor who is also ready to view you as an equal. I will never be an equal on Ken's experience because, first, I started 10 years later than he started. Second, he's not stopping until he dies, so I will never catch up.

Speaker 4: 41:56

That's not the equality that's important. The equality is like do you see eye to eye on a personality level and one? Of the most important things Ken, you can probably jump onto that as well is I always try to make sure that whatever I promise or whatever I say I'm going to do, the other side can 110% rely on, actually, that I do it it's never a question that I won't, and if I have to stay awake for a week without sleeping to get it done, I will do that.

Speaker 4: 42:31

I will never, ever promise something on that level that I will not keep. And I would say maybe, ken, that is one of the most important things for a growing relationship, so that you pulled me into those projects, because you cannot afford to lose your name on a Taylor Swift.

Speaker 3: 42:47

Yeah, totally and I also don't think it's just the Taylor Swift's and the big projects. I mean, of course there's like a lot, you know, maybe additional pressure there and stuff. But I think that every and I get that from you I think that every project matters to you, right? I think you also don't want to drop a ball on any project. Every artist matters and their art matters, and if you take on a project, you do it 100 tempests.

Speaker 4: 43:13

It's not about asking yourself how important is the project. It's about having integrity towards your own work ethic, because the way you act towards one project, it doesn't matter which project, that's the way you act in every project. So in other words, you have to give the small projects your all, or else you're not going to give the big projects your all. So that's the thing always be consistent in that and the.

Speaker 1: 43:40

The super secret of that, which most people don't further connect the dots is if you're not practicing at a hundred percent, when you get the taylor swift call, do you think you can just turn a hundred percent on like it's the faucet?

Speaker 1: 43:56

No, no, you've got to work to know where 100% is with you, and you've got to always be pushing your skills and keeping them razor sharp so that, when the big call comes, you're not nervous. It's natural. It's another day of work. You've been doing this every other day. This is just another artist in another day. It just happens to be something that the whole world is going to hear a lot of.

Speaker 2: 44:24

That's like the luck equals preparation and timing or something like that.

Speaker 1: 44:29

It really really is.

Speaker 2: 44:31

To give a little side story about Benny and I and I don't think Benny and I have actually ever acknowledged this, but I was just thinking about how we got to know each other through email, essentially originally, before we started this, and just messaging each other and helping each other. And I bet, benny I wonder if you'd agree with this that our initial friendship was actually based on the reliability of us both actually replying to each other's messages thoroughly. You know, because we had questions for each other's messages thoroughly. You know, because we had questions for each other, we were trying to help each other but we actually would reply with well-thought-out emails and we were like we're like. Both were like this is really great, this guy's reliable. And the next thing, you know, years later, we're still doing this.

Speaker 3: 45:07

Yeah and I mean we've been doing. We are on podcast, episode 216 now, and we've not skipped. We've not skipped a single week since we've started doing this four years ago. So there's the reliability and consistency as well. Yeah, I just know that you're going to show up every monday and you know the same for me and it's like yeah, so yeah, true, totally that's impressive but what I also think is thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3: 45:28

What I also think, dom, is, though, that on the other side of this, it takes a certain mindset to take that kind of feedback well and then do something with it and not just quit, you know, or like be mad at the person who gave you the feedback, because that's not everybody can do that Like a natural reaction. For many people would be to be like mad at Ken for saying that, or frustrated about yourself and just quitting, you know, but like being able to say what you just said, like that this is, this is a good thing, and you appreciate that kind of feedback. That takes a certain mindset as well, and this is, I think, very, very important, and everything you just said so far in this conversation always goes back to this, in a way, and also the way we met, dom, I always had the impression that there is no ego, despite the credits that you have and all the things that you've done. It's what you do is very impressive, but you're also very humble at the same time, very open, very. You know. You can take feedback like that from ken very well, and and when we met, I remember you walking up to me and then, being you introduced yourself as like a, I think you said I'm a k-pop producer, you know, and you didn't mention any of the big things that you've done, and I didn't know you and I didn't know about your plugin company and you just told me about the plugins and I was like, yeah, check it out. Then I did some research and I was like, holy shit, that guy's doing serious work. You know and like, and and. That made it even more impressive if the work speaks for itself.

Speaker 3: 46:47

But you are just a normal humble person that you can talk to and just a very cool experience, great impression, and and and this is yeah, this is just something I wanted to bring up here as well, because both of you seem to be really humble guys. And also you can talking about how you would take on these sessions, but then be quiet, get out of the way, you know, don't not annoy anybody, but like, still do incredible work at the studio. All of this and so many people do the exact opposite. So many, many people. If you meet people at NAMM or any other convention or anywhere, they would, within like 10 seconds, try to tell you all the cool things that they've done and like brag and whatever, and then you look them up and you don't find really anything impressive, or it's like the opposite of what you do, basically, which is cool. So there's a whole mindset and work ethic and kind of thing going on here for both of you. That, I think, is part of the reason why this works so well.

Speaker 4: 47:40

Well, thank you very much, first of all, for saying that, yeah, that's very much appreciated.

Speaker 1: 48:00

Lot of people that are like overselling themselves or over whatever are just, you know, worried that people don't take them seriously or that they know and everybody goes through that. If you're out there watching and you're like, you know I've done some things but I feel like nobody should still be hiring me for what I'm. That's called imposter syndrome. Everybody goes through it. I went through it for years. It's totally normal.

Speaker 4: 48:20

I go through it big time right now. The last year is imposter year for me, really Like crazy.

Speaker 1: 48:25

Which is nuts, because he's racking up credits.

Speaker 3: 48:28

Yeah, I was about to ask why is that? Any particular reason for that?

Speaker 4: 48:32

Well, yeah, because no matter how far you get in this industry or in any industry, that's kind of similar really, even in sports. I think, like if you shoot high with your goals and that's what I do you see all the the way that you're, that I sit between you and that goal, like there is a giant distance to bridge, and for me I rather see that distance than I see all the big things that I've already done, and that keeps me humble. Sometimes it keeps me a little in a bad spot because it's on the edge of healthy and humble and on the other side it's like doubt, self-doubt.

Speaker 3: 49:15

Yeah, I need the confidence as well.

Speaker 4: 49:16

right, right, right, right, but that's a natural thing, like there's so much talk about mindset and all these personal development topics that we could touch on, but nobody acknowledges that you can have a multitude of conflicting experiences within you at the same time. It it's not about being perfect, it's not about figuring out everything that bugs you or like all those things that trigger you emotionally. You need to erase them, you need to work on them. No, that's all part of your human experience, really, and part of that is getting criticism and being a little hurt by it, of course, like when I had my first K-pop cut.

Speaker 4: 49:56

What happens is they take a song like you pitch your songs, radio finished songs, crazy high level, and they take one, but then they come around and start feedback revision rounds and the label says, well, okay, now can we have a different transition from chorus two into the bridge or can we replace the bridge or something like all that stuff. Like sometimes 10-12 rounds of revisions, and I'm emotionally attached to the songs that I make. So when you get that feedback, it's two things. One is shit. That's exactly the thing that I love most in this. Why do they want to take it out? On the other side, it's the professional saying well, they want. Why do they want to take it out? On the other side it's the professional saying well, they want the song, they have to live with it, and that's a quote from Ken as well. The artist has to live with it. They want to take the song. So it's not my job to bring in the ego. It's my job to give them the best that they want, in the best way I can give it to them.

Speaker 4: 50:54

And you can have both experiences at the same time. You don't have to work on your ego until it's fixed and blah, blah, blah. No, that's human experience and you need that friction sometimes.

Speaker 1: 51:07

And that's one of the reasons that I call myself a finisher.

Speaker 3: 51:09

I was about to ask that exact question.

Speaker 1: 51:11

Great, you bring it up, yeah because if you don't know where the finish line is, you don't know where the finish line is and you know. That's just such a hard thing, especially when you're young, and you just don't know how this industry works. And you see it, and you have all of these ideas about how it works and I can patently guarantee you that almost all of them are wrong. However, you think the industry works, that's not how it goes and you know, like Dom said, getting so attached to your art everybody goes through that but being able to realize that the finish line is not yours, the finish line is that artist's and that artist has to live with that song the rest of their career.

Speaker 1: 51:56

Tomorrow I get to go make another record and I may not love the finish line that they come up with, but as long as they do, I'm going to work my ass off to give them the best results that they love. And if I don't love them but they connect with it, then amen. That's the goal. I mean, they're the artist, I'm the behind-the-scenes guy. I'm not trying to be on stage selling and I'm not trying to be in the videos. So it's my job to make sure that there's a combination of the best of my talent and making sure that they get something that they're super happy with and, hopefully, something that they that's so much better than what they expected at the beginning.

Speaker 1: 52:37

Yeah, because it's a collaborative effort and everybody is working together, not against each other. You know, oh, he wants this, okay, fine, it's like oh, he wants this, okay, save as all. Right, how do we do this? Okay, and you know, you just got to take yourself out of your own shoes sometimes and go what's best for this record right now, what's best for the project right now?

Speaker 2: 53:03

and you know, and that's that's a huge key to collaboration, for sure I think, like one of the takeaways from all that is that if just because the, the client, the artist, label or or your bandmates, whatever the situation is don't like it, doesn't mean that it's bad, right, you might love it, it might be like the perfect, it might be perfection to you, but to the other people that are part of this project, it might not be right. But the other thing that I took away from this, dom, I appreciate you speaking to deeply experiencing imposter syndrome, even at your level, because I think it helps people, especially people at a lower level, who also feel imposter syndrome be like people, especially people at a lower level, who also feel imposter syndrome. Be like. Oh, even people at that level feel that.

Speaker 2: 53:48

And while researching you, dom, I did find this post on Instagram where there's a hot 100 billboard list, starting from one to 10. It's all Taylor Swift and three of the credits are yours. That's as close to that's a ridiculous home run. That's such a huge success. So I encourage you, dom, to go look at that post every time you're feeling any conflict about your skill level.

Speaker 4: 54:14

Let me give you a little bit of perspective as well, because I look at all those things very realistically. I usually don't talk myself down too much, but I also don't talk myself down too much, but I also don't talk myself up too much and the reality is Taylor Swift would have been super successful. That billboard thing would have looked pretty much the same whether I did those drum parts or someone else. Maybe it would feel a little different, Maybe it would be a little bit different in the result. But the success of that Billboard thing is not dependent on me, and I feel that's part of taking the ego out, because everything else would be me really really making myself bigger in this role than I actually am. It's Taylor Swift's success, not mine.

Speaker 2: 55:03

Yeah, I do hear you, but if I went and played those drums they wouldn't have ended up on the album.

Speaker 1: 55:10

If you had known me the last four or five years and done all the same things, then incredibly possibly, I just mean that, in that you do have an amazing skill.

Speaker 2: 55:25

Regardless, too, if you were the thing that made it a number one hit, the fact that you're on those records shows that you're meant to be there.

Speaker 1: 55:34

I always look at these as milestones. I got 114 gold records right now. I'll probably get another 10 or 12 this year. They just keep coming. They're just going to keep coming. I got 59 Grammy certs, I got eight nominations by name and I finally got one statue. They're all just milestones along the road. The best records I feel like I ever made either never came out or never got the shine that I thought that they deserved, and almost every creative will tell you that the things that they were most passionate about that were like this is so amazing. We did a masterpiece and nobody paid attention. But probably the skill sets developed in making that masterpiece helped you make better records over time and was one of the keys that got you to the Taylor Swift thing.

Speaker 4: 56:27

Right, yeah, like you said, practice at 100% Right, and that's again where preparation meets luck right, because, as you said, you have to have that skill. So when the Taylor Swift call comes, you can actually fill the role. Of course you have to have that skill, but that's out of the question because everybody on that level is great. That's assumed Exactly, it's a given. It's the only thing people will notice when you fuck it up, but nobody is going to compliment you on being great at what you do, because it's the highest level in the world.

Speaker 3: 57:03

So you have to bring that anyway that's the expectation yeah, yeah, absolutely talking about skills and different skill sets, which you have quite a few of again in both of you. But, like, do you both think that it makes you a better and that goes back to the whole finish line thing also that it makes you a better, let's say, tracking engineer if you know how to mix and vice versa if you know those things? Yeah, that's basically the question. Do you think you can track better source tones and performances if you also know mixing, and can you mix better if you can also track well?

Speaker 1: 57:36

I think it's vice versa. In days of old, in my youth, people were recording engineers before they were mix engineers and you learned the art of old. In my youth, people were recording engineers before they were mix engineers and you learned the art of recording. And then you did enough rough mixes that people liked enough that they started hiring you to mix. So that was the evolution of things. Now people just want to wake up and be a mix engineer.

Speaker 3: 58:01

And I'm not saying you can't.

Speaker 1: 58:02

There's a lot of gifted people out there, but I don't think you understand space as well and I don't think you understand frequency balances and what instruments are actually supposed to sound like if you don't hear them in the room and you hear what space creates, and so I think there's a lot of level up advantages to being a recording engineer.

Speaker 3: 58:26

Just the tech side of it helps you with the mixing side tremendously, but just the knowledge of space and EQ and compression that you learn as a tracking engineer evolves you into a mix engineer much more elegantly and do you think the other way around is true as well, that when you kind of have an idea of like a better idea maybe of the finish line of the mix and how everything works together, does that help you record better tracks as well? Maybe, yeah?

Speaker 1: 58:54

Yeah, it's always good to have a compass. You don't always need a compass, you don't always need to know where you're going. But, like I'm producing an, an artist named tosh ferrant right now savant guitar player, and I just finished a new song with him and if you heard the end of the first day, roughs of when we wrote it, compared to the final, it's like night and day, but in my head when we were writing it, that's what I was hearing and you just work towards it until you realize your vision of you know, and your vision at the finish line might be completely different than what you originally envisioned, but it's that compass of okay, this is where we're going, this is what I want it to feel like, this is how I want it to hit people, this is how I want it to hit myself. And then you go and in this case, man, it was like the mirror of what I wanted from day one, which usually never happens, but this I was super happy with how it came out.

Speaker 3: 59:55

Wow, awesome. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 4: 59:57

Let me jump on that as well, because it's not exclusive to recording and mixing, for example. I think especially being a great mixing engineer helps you in production how you arrange elements, because you know down the road this is going to clash. This is redundant. I have two elements that do the same thing. One of them has to go in the mix anyway, so why would I arrange it that way?

Speaker 4: 1:00:22

And the other thing that I know from my experience is I have been a drummer for 10 years. I have been on stages like I don't know something between 500 and 1,000 gigs over the years, big and small. And being a live musician, you have an experience of intensity, musical intensity that people who only grow up on a laptop never get Like. You don't know what it feels like to be on a stage and clicking with all your band members and the song is suddenly hitting and you don't know why, but it's happening. That feeling, that's what I call intensity. I can bring that to my productions now because I know what it feels like. I know I want it usually and what the what the tools are to get there. But if you've never experienced that, yeah, that's another awareness thing. It's not so much that you cannot replicate it, but it's. It's that you don't know to replicate it in the first place, because you've never right. Nobody has ever pointed you toward that thing.

Speaker 4: 1:01:24

And that's the same with every musical skill. If you have a jazz background and as a jazz pianist, you hear voicings that other people don't hear and you might have ideas like that to bring unique things to your songs. If you have a music theory background, you get different ideas that other people don't get. Theory background you get different ideas that other people don't get. So every single one of these musical skills will help you build your toolbox and get that refined person that you are and kind of build your unique style out of that combination man.

Speaker 3: 1:01:57

That's such, a such a good point. I was, I grew up in like a punk rock, hardcore kind of community. I was touring with my, with my hardcore band, all over europe and we were playing a lot of like small, sweaty club show gigs with insane intensity. You know 200, 300 people in a very small room and it was just amazing energy and, yeah, quite the experience.

Speaker 3: 1:02:17

And now when people send me stuff to mix and some of the some, some people, like many people, are kind of like one one man or one person bands where they, you know, program the drums, play all the guitars, do the vocals, and it's not really a band but they try to do like that kind of heavy music thing and sometimes it works well. But sometimes it's exactly what you're saying, like they sent me that stuff and I listen to it and it doesn't sound like a band in a sweaty club with insane intensity and energy and and it's like I'm. It's very hard to describe but I totally get what you're saying because I immediately feel if it's, if I get that kind of sensation, if I close my eyes and I can see the band in front of me when I listen to it, or if it sounds like instruments in space, a little disconnected and lacking the energy, and it's like, yeah, that's totally, totally important and you can tell that when people have never experienced that and they've created that on their laptops at home.

Speaker 4: 1:03:07

It's not the same kind of things oftentimes right, totally right, and the point in that is, it's not in music production and in making great songs, it's not only what is played, what, like each part of each instrument, the riffs, the, the bass notes, all of of that. It's not only what is played, but how? Yeah, absolutely. How is, when you close your eyes and you listen to the guitar track, do you see the guitarist like this or do you see them like this? Because you can hear that, yeah, and that's the thing that we're talking about is the attitude it's the intensity and the in the performance and that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 1:03:46

Because if every building block in a song takes that into account, the, the difference is indescribable well yeah it's also one of the reasons that same thing with that, you know it's also one of the reasons that the drum loops are still a thing like break breakbeats, because breakbeats are imperfect drum parts and all of them have a very specific feel to them that is imperfect but feels amazing. And when you build the rest of a song off of that imperfect type of a groove, that's what Dom's talking about the difference between lining things up perfectly on grid and having a little bit of feel into something that the bass player is a couple milliseconds ahead and the drummer is a couple milliseconds behind but everybody kind of locks into this groove and it just feels different than what you can get on a computer. And, like Dom said, if you've never experienced that, you don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 1: 1:04:41

But the other superpower of being a mix engineer for production is I get to see so many other producers' productions. They're laid out in front of me. I get to see how did they do all of the drums, how did they arrange the song, how did they layer the synths, how did they cook up the 808? That is a production lesson. Every single time I mix a record and I get to mix records from all over the world. So I have this cheat code where I have gotten production influence from all over the world, because I have mixed songs from all over the world and I produce over the world and I produce. So it's uh, really I I don't know if I ever expected that, but that's been the net result of, of the. That's the secret bonus of production.

Speaker 3: 1:05:30

With mixing right and being able to deliver your own productions sounding like completely finished, mastered, done records is a superpower too absolutely, absolutely, because at the end of the day, many people want the end result and the transformation, and the more you can. You know you're either a part of that puzzle, which is valuable too, but if you can deliver that whole thing, whether it's through, you know, building a team or doing it all yourself, but if you can just deliver that result and that transformation, that's insanely valuable and makes people really happy, because what they send you versus what they get back is quite the big difference.

Speaker 3: 1:06:06

And if you produce it then even more so. Speaking of producing, are you doing a lot of what many mixing engineers these days do, myself included? Are you often doing remote production, where maybe the people are not in your room but you're guiding them remotely or get them to record better takes before they send it to you for mixing? Do you do anything like that? Because a lot of modern mixing engineers are kind of remote producers and mixing engineers often and that's kind of the way I see what I do as well dom, you want to take that?

Speaker 4: 1:06:37

yeah. So I think it depends on the project and I think it's more widespread in the like the rockish, hardcore-ish niche, because that's like, yeah, it's a niche thing in major record land, it's definitely not a thing, because they know what they do and you have to work with what they give you, although sometimes you wonder if they really know what they're doing.

Speaker 3: 1:07:01

But yeah, no, this is, this was just a joke, of course but I'm assuming you don't, you're not just, you don't exclusively do major um stuff, right, because I assume you do the occasional indie stuff, what sometimes?

Speaker 4: 1:07:12

is helpful is guiding people as a vocal producer. When that's something I sometimes do, I'm on zoom with them and they send me an audio movers link so I can hear what they're recording in their rooms, because they're far too far away to come to my studio. And then I give them pretty much the same feedback and I guide them as as if they were standing right here. Yeah, but that being said, I would not work that way if it were possible any other way, because it's always first of all. If it were possible any other way, of course, because it's always first of all, it depends on the experience level of who you're working with, and the more inexperienced those people are, the more of that guidance they would need. And at a certain point there's so much guidance you would have to give that remotely. It would be hard to do, so they would have to come to you, or it's not.

Speaker 3: 1:08:05

Maybe not the right fit for the project at all yeah, I, I meant more as like a value add when you, when you're mixing so let's say you're mixing for someone which is maybe not a major thing that's that an amazing producer has produced. Maybe I don't know if that ever happens, but maybe you get an exciting song from an artist that you want to mix, but maybe they need a little help getting the tracks even better, and then that's that's kind of the thing where you could add more value by, you know, using your tracking and production skills and helping that artist deliver even better tracks so you can mix better. That's the kind of thing that I was thinking about, which a lot of mixing engineers do these days, because, yeah, at the end of the day, it leads to better result if the artists are open to that.

Speaker 1: 1:08:42

Yeah, I just had a project where it came to me through a friend and I really liked the owner of the label and I liked the artist and they wanted me to just mix. And I listened to the songs and I was like, okay, well, these are really good songs and these would be super easy for me to mix. But, man, if I could just do a bit of work on these as a producer, these would be much better records. Usually I don't think like that. If I'm hired to mix, I'm putting mix engineer brain on. You get producer experience.

Speaker 1: 1:09:16

But I'm not trying to produce your record, I'm trying to mix what you have given me as best I can. But in this case, because of the way it came in, I just reached back out to him and I was like, hey, actually I think I just did it. I just did one song. I just rearranged it and kind of cooked it up differently the way I heard it instead of the way they gave it to me, and I sent it back, finished, and they were like Holy shit. So, so Holy shit.

Speaker 2: 1:09:43

So you know.

Speaker 1: 1:09:44

after that I just did the rest of the record and we worked out a deal for whatever it was. So, yeah, I try to. Especially since I'm in so many different lanes, I try to stay in my lane. I don't want a producer to feel like I'm stepping on their producer toes as a mix engineer ever Right. But I also want them to feel like you know producer toes as a mix engineer ever Right. And. But I also want them to feel like you know I'm going to work with them to get their best vision. So you know, I know what it's like to be a producer. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:10:13

So Benny and I work obviously with a lot of self-recorded bands. Yeah, like they're. They just don't have a producer. We tell them that somebody in their band needs to be the producer, generally kind of thing, but it's usually their first time or whatever. So we do find there's a lot of these kind of things. For example, the first thing I always do I get sent tracks is I grab the vocal, I throw a compressor on it and see if the room all of a sudden becomes a slapback delay because they just recorded in an echo chamber by accident and accident right. And then it's like that's really easy, like hey, we can, we can do better than this.

Speaker 1: 1:10:49

We can recut this vocal you know, throw a mattress against the wall, do whatever it takes. Let's just get it a little more controlled if we need to. You know young bands trying to record themselves. You know you're probably not going to do anything that anybody's going to love for a while, yeah, so maybe one of the best ways to go is something that I suggest to a lot of young producers, and that's ask yourself if your band could have, you could do a single, and you could put that single on any playlist on Spotify or Apple Music. What playlist would you want your song and your band to be on, and what songs come before and after yours? And that tells you so much. And I ask the same question to my mix clients, and having to genuinely answer that question tells you so much about yourself, about what you're creating and what your targets are yourself, about what you're creating and what your targets are. And in that, and if you're young and you don't really know how to produce, use those as targets.

Speaker 1: 1:11:50

Ah, their drums are hitting like this. Okay, let's make sure different pattern, but let's make sure our kicks and snares hit like this. Okay, their guitars are. That sounds like they've got one guitar left and one guitar right. So it's just two guitar, okay, we're going to do that, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:12:06

And you just start A-B-ing and you start learning from the people that you want to be in league with and that you want your records to stand up next to. That's totally valid. That's the way you learn. And then the knowledge that you learn as you compare and build your songs up to be, you know, to try and get them on par with theirs, is going to make eventually your next and your next and your next more creatively your own and more creatively your own, and eventually you're going to be making incredible music that sounds like you but sits right next to the bands that you love and you know, and there's there's these cheat codes for it and referencing other music you always got to reference at equal volume. So turn the reference down to where your vocals are at the same volume as their vocals, or your kicks and snares are at the same volume as their kicks and snares, and then adjust the rest of your sonics accordingly, but use something as an anchor.

Speaker 2: 1:13:03

Yeah, such great advice. Actually, we could call back to Dom's mention earlier, but you saying, hey, Dom, I don't want drums, I could have programmed in 10 minutes. You set the bar for him there. But this is like another version of that, where you choose a couple songs that you want to be in league with and that's your new bar. And then you actually mentioned it, Ken as well you get tracks sent to you from these amazing engineers and producers around the world and that probably continually elevates your quality bar for your own productions and engineering, where you're like damn, I didn't know, a bottom snare could sound good on its own. There it is. We got to aim for this now. Getting your hands on tracks is such a good way to learn as well Quality tracks You're.

Speaker 2: 1:13:44

Your hands on tracks is such a good way to learn as well quality tracks you're like whoa, these di's sound musical okay I gotta figure this out.

Speaker 4: 1:13:47

Yeah, I would like to point out something as well, because ken started with with a sentence that is super important to take away for the listeners here.

Speaker 4: 1:13:57

He started with when you're starting out with your band, you're probably not gonna make anything that anybody loves for a while. And that felt so special to me right now when I heard it because that goes back to what we were saying all along is first of all, you need you need to bring the patience and what we see people all doing all the time with with night, with clients, everything. Everybody puts so much pressure on their early stuff, like the first single has to be perfect and what that leads to. Probably many people who are listening right now know that exact feeling. It gets you to never finish that first song and you keep making demos and half finished songs and then you have 20 songs in your on your hard drive and nothing ever happens and suddenly you say, well, I don't really feel the first five songs anymore, so I'm not going to finish them anyway. Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 4: 1:14:53

What ken said with you're probably not going to make anything that anybody loves for a while. That takes all the pressure out, because now, as a band or as a solo artist. You can go ahead and just say let's make this first song, however shitty it's going to sound, my first things that I wrote and produced. It's so embarrassing that I would have a hard time showing that to anyone really, but that's the normal process you go through and maybe the first one isn't even released. But you can just shed the pressure and just finish one, yeah, and learn from it and finish the second one and maybe put the second one out and and go from there and before you, before you can can grasp it, you have 10 songs out because you didn't stand in your way and you're not still doctoring the first song yeah, so important.

Speaker 1: 1:15:47

We see that I was just talking to an artist I was just talking to an artist, I think yesterday or the day before, and we were having this conversation. He was like you know, I, I've been trying to do an album for a while. You know, 12 songs cooking. And I'm like he's telling me and I'm like stop, pick your favorite song, forget all of the other songs existed, put all of your energy into finishing that one song at the highest level that you can. And for him he works in like software engineering or something, so he's got money Right. And I'm like, look, something, so he's got money. And I'm like, look, dude, you have some money. Don't make a whole album. Make one song that you are so proud of that 10 years, 20 years, 50 years from now you can hit, play and go. I did that and that you know that you're going to stop the room every time you play that and you're going to be so proud of it. That's the goal and the mission. So you know, for him I was like, look, hire some studio musicians, hire a producer, do some, you know, some songwriting, some collaboration. And if you need a mixer, then you know we throw down. And you know that's always the.

Speaker 1: 1:17:06

You got to do music for the love. You can't do music for everybody else's expectations. That never works unless you love it, the I mean, how can you expect anybody else to love it if you don't 150 000 connect with it? It all starts with you. So you got to make stuff that you love and that you connect with. You've got to understand that it's going to suck for a while. You're not going to be very good. Occasionally you might crack one out of the park and it might be magic. But the typical artist develops over time. This is a process. You've got to fall in love with the process. I love the process of making music. I wake up every day Half the time. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know the process of music is going to run my day for me and that's it. You've got to fall in love with the process and just keep doing it until the ones start coming that you're like oh, we got something now and you'll feel it. Trust me, you will know it's a different feeling love that.

Speaker 3: 1:18:04

Thank you so much. There's one thing I absolutely want to talk about in this conversation as well, because it's very important to me personally and also top of mind right now, and that is you both obviously have insane like work ethic and you've done so many projects and you, like you said, dom, you're doing whatever it takes. If there's, you know you have to, you know, turn around something really quickly or if it whatever it takes basically, and you're willing to, you know, skip sleep for a while and all those things. And we all did that at some point in our careers most of us at least to some kind of success. But I know also that, of course, health and sleep are very important for creatives, for people in our industry, and I know there's a little bit of a backstory with you, ken, there that I've heard also in another interview and I just wanted to bring it up here because this year, earlier this year, I was, I felt the closest to like burnout that I've ever felt in my entire life and I've been, my team and I we were mixing about like 250 songs per year at the moment, plus our coaching thing that we do in the podcast and all these things, and then I got kids and just it's just a lot and yeah, and so I was severely like sleep deprived and like just really exhausted and I felt how that all of a sudden I couldn't do that for a while.

Speaker 3: 1:19:17

Pretty well, but then I felt how that impacted my work actually and how it also impacts how you communicate with people and all kinds of things that are really important.

Speaker 3: 1:19:25

And at the end of the day I was like kind of afraid that this could have a really negative impact on my career in many ways if I keep going going like that.

Speaker 3: 1:19:31

And I know that, ken, you struggled with health issues a while ago as well, which you think might be or still doing, which you think might part of the reason for that might be lack of sleep for a prolonged period of time maybe, and so I just wanted to bring that up because I really think that's a thing, and in our coaching community and within our listeners, I know there are some people who might have a stressful day job.

Speaker 3: 1:19:53

They might have a family. They're still trying to make the music thing work at the same time, so they get the kids to bed and then they stay up till the morning to make music and then it repeats over and over again and I I know for sure that some people are already pretty exhausted and but still keep pushing. So long story short. The question is for how long do you think that's kind of okay or required, and like, how do you find a balance at some point there? I know it's a tough question to answer because it seems to be part of that and there's almost no way around that, but also, at some point we got to stop and find a good balance because it is important.

Speaker 1: 1:20:27

Well, I wish people had told me, and so thank you for asking. I think this is obviously an incredibly important topic. When I was 37 years old, I had 100% blockage of my left anterior descending artery, also nicknamed the widowmaker and the lifeline, and mine was closed. I should be dead Somehow. I'm still here. I got a single bypass and as long as I take care of myself, I'm fixed for life.

Speaker 1: 1:20:52

But the most shocking thing about all of that was I pretty much looked like this no risk factors at all. The only risk factor I had, of any kind, was sleep deprivation, and I had a lot of that and I basically spent my 20s awake making records and you know, couch to couch, studio to studio, eight days a week, making records and put my body through insane shit, which got me pretty far, can't lie. I basically outworked everybody, but it also did nearly kill me and that was a really big wake-up call. So now it's seven eight hours of sleep minimum per night, and the magic trick is you're more creative and your work is better. When you've had seven or eight hours of sleep, as opposed to five or six, you will get more done in a shorter period of time and the work will be better because you have had more sleep. I wish I knew that before.

Speaker 1: 1:21:52

And the other cheat code is water. A lot of times we feel tired and we think we're just run down and you're dehydrated. Dehydration causes exhaustion really fast, especially if you're drinking only coffee. So water until you need coffee, and then coffee and water. Coffee and water. Keep yourself hydrated. And the other thing is stay away from sugar. Especially if you're long stretches, sugar just wears on you. It will make you so tired so fast. So for me it's just healthy food, good sleep, enough water. Every day I drink plenty of coffee. Coffee's not bad for you. But generally, taking care of yourself and listening to your body, I knew something was wrong with my heart Boy. I did not know that I had 100% blockage of my main artery. That's so insane. So shit happens, it could happen to you too. I was 37 years old. I've had other amazing health scares and I'm just like are you kidding me? Right now I'm this young and this is happening. So you know.

Speaker 3: 1:22:55

I'm 36, so this really is timely information.

Speaker 1: 1:23:00

So with the burnout question for me we got a place down in Ecuador on the beach and up until the pandemic I would basically work myself to burnout, get on a plane, go down to Ecuador and I have a studio down there. So I would work about half to a third of what I would work in the States and I'd spend the rest of the time on the beach and relaxing and just enjoying and I'd reset and then I'd come back fresh and obviously that's kind of a luxury. Not everybody can do that, but you've got to separate yourself from the work somehow. It's tough because you've also got to determine at what level you want to play at and that you know that presents challenges I mean the whole studio world's based around long days and coffee.

Speaker 4: 1:23:53

I wanted to touch on that as well because this is also not a black and white question, right, it's. It depends on what phase in your life you're at. It depends on what goals do you pursue right now. It depends on your current mental and physical state. I can tell you from my super transparent experience, similar to what Ken just said. I usually overwork myself because the motivation is there, because the discipline is there, everything is flowing and I get so much momentum and I keep the momentum until I'm so overworked that I lose interest. And sometimes that takes a couple of weeks where I really only do the stuff I have to do. So it doesn't always it's in phases right.

Speaker 4: 1:24:43

I'm a little bit emotional about this whole topic because everything gets so stigmatized and systematized these days. Everything has to be perfect, the mindset has to be perfect, your routine has to be perfect, every day has to be perfect. Your health has to be perfect. No, my view on all of that stuff is if you want extraordinary results, you cannot have a balanced life. That's true Because a balanced life gives you balanced results.

Speaker 4: 1:25:11

That's what everybody else also has. It's not that you are suddenly the special person who can have the most balanced life. Everything like 20% family, 20% physical health, 20% mental health, 20% business that's not how it works. You have to crush it in one area so hard for as long as you can until you can't anymore. I mean this is my personal opinion, of course so that you then have the results that you can build off of right. And then you can go back and say, well, maybe now I rebalance my time a little bit, maybe I prioritize my social life a little more. It's always phases. It's not at 20 deciding how to live your life at 50. It's always what's important right now. And then going full hem at that and not inflationarily use the word burnout just because you're a little overworked, right, all those catch words nowadays they, they, everybody's self-diagnosing with stuff. Stop that, right, it's.

Speaker 3: 1:26:14

it's not always helpful no, I totally agree with you there, and I think a realistic approach to this is exactly what we need. So I tried, for example, in the past I tried all kinds of things to optimize everything. That's just my, my, how my brain works. I'm the type of person who wants to optimize things workflows, my life, my routines, everything and now I kind of funny enough, now I'm I arrived at a point where it's like what you said. It's like a little more chaotic than I wish it was, but it's, it's right for me and it and it's these phases where I go all in on one thing for a certain amount of time, I just let other things burn and then I come back to another thing, basically, and I shift kind of focus a little bit and it's yeah, it's been working pretty well.

Speaker 3: 1:26:55

And I think that this whole idea of looking at that's not what I meant like that whole idea of looking at people who have these crazy routines and like ways to to create your perfect life or whatever, and find balance. The funny thing is, many people start doing these things after having incredible success, and now they can do that, and now they have their two-hour morning routine and whatever they do, and they tell you that's how you get successful, but when you look at how they got there, they didn't do that while they got there. They did it. They started doing that when they were there and we think it's how they got there and that's. I kind of think we a lot of people get that wrong because all of those peoples and those like self-optimization gurus and stuff, like many of them were just grinding and hustling for a long time and then they found this, what they're doing now.

Speaker 3: 1:27:37

Basically, and and it's also very subjective you know, some people are super happy working 18 hours every day and other people are like can't do that for very long. It's like everybody's different and I just, in general, wanted to say that if you and call it burnout, call it just exhaustion or sleep deprivation or whatever, I just think it's important to be aware of that, or to be like to listen to your body, like Ken said, and also know that it might impact your work. That's where I was getting at with this that, no matter who you are, it's still important probably to get enough sleep and to be hydrated and all of those things, because first of all, you don't want to die and second your art or your work might be better.

Speaker 3: 1:28:17

So that's why I just bring it up.

Speaker 2: 1:28:18

Health is probably the only one exception. I think you should just at all costs maintain healthy water intake and sleep, because that's going to affect everything else where you can kind of ditch your friends for a while. If you really need to hustle out making an album that's going to change your life, or you got an opportunity that's going to take you away from your family and you need to just know that's going to set you up for the rest of your family's life, you've got to make those sacrifices. Sometimes you can't have, like Tom said, a 20% family, 20% work life ratio. My wife's not going to be satisfied with 20 most of the time.

Speaker 1: 1:28:52

That's not enough, right.

Speaker 2: 1:28:54

So I have to do these shifts, but I really think, yeah, health, that's forever.

Speaker 4: 1:29:01

But let me share you a real life story as well on this, because I also think you can sacrifice health for a while. Because why not? Like, if you decide consciously on that, why not? Because your body and your mind are capable of so much, why wouldn't you recover from that?

Speaker 1: 1:29:19

It's not the only thing. It's like working to burn out and then getting on a plane.

Speaker 4: 1:29:23

It's like.

Speaker 1: 1:29:24

I'm aware, as I'm working, that I am pushing myself to burn out because I understand.

Speaker 4: 1:29:30

I have a relief outlet and you have to know yourself very well.

Speaker 3: 1:29:34

But here is one example that's also some sort of balance, in a way long term balance right, and that's the point.

Speaker 4: 1:29:42

It's always. It doesn't always have to be perfect all the time, every day. That's what I meant earlier. Like it's, it's great to try to optimize things, but it's not I would not strive to optimize my whole life in every possible aspect all the time. I would try to optimize for whatever goal right now I have in front of me and that might be taking care of my health.

Speaker 4: 1:30:06

That might be the number one goal. It might be career, it might be family, and whatever that number one goal is, gets all my attention right now Tunnel vision yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:30:16

That's, or maybe like two, it always depends, right, but it doesn't have to be all of them at the same time, because that's just going to give you mediocre results and everything. But here is what I actually wanted to tell is, when the Alicia Keys project came in, ken, because of the time difference, new York you were in New York and that's six hours after Germany. So when you have like 4 pm in the afternoon, it's 10 pm at night for us, and that's pretty much the time that is important in that story, because you got the Alicia Keys for the Lala single. The Job came in for you. You got the email at about 4 pm ish in one day and they said we needed tomorrow. So for me, you told me, dom, we got to get on this right away.

Speaker 4: 1:31:06

For me it was 10 pm at night and I was literally just going to go to bed and then I get your message and it's like okay, we need this in 16 hours or something like that. And if I went to bed, eight of those 16 hours would have gone to waste. Like that's not an option at all. So I had to go to the studio work through the night. I remember distinctly I left the studio at 7.30 am the next morning. That's when I finished my thing and sent it over to you and that's normal. And now you cannot go ahead and say, well, but sleep deprivation is a thing.

Speaker 1: 1:31:43

No, it's always what is important right now. And if I?

Speaker 4: 1:31:47

have to sleep, deprive myself for one night. My body is not going to care about that in a week, and that's the thing that I want to give everybody who's listening it's not so strict, don't try to be perfect in all these things. It's okay to be sick sometimes, it's okay to not have the perfect balance. That's normal.

Speaker 3: 1:32:08

That's what life should look like, and everybody else is just trying to do an influencer thing and sell you some kind of coaching program because that's great to package yeah but it's not the reality totally, but that's exactly what I wanted to hear and what I was also thinking, because I think it's way worse to spread yourself so thin that you constantly only get your four or five hours, instead of going hard for a day or two or a week or whatever and then coming back to like a normal thing again I think, it's way worse to to have all these things at the same time and basically never get enough sleep for a prolonged period of time.

Speaker 1: 1:32:41

I think that's the thing you got to remember that you can get eight hours of sleep and still work 16 hours that's a lot of work 100 and a lot of people don't think like that I roll out of bed and walk to the studio and get to work.

Speaker 2: 1:32:56

When I'm busy.

Speaker 1: 1:32:58

And I'm there until I'm done and if I have any leisure time, then I'll take it, but if I don't, then I don't, and I work until I'm done.

Speaker 3: 1:33:07

That's also the thing with all these routines and health things and stuff where I realized, after trying morning routines and whatnot, I realized, okay, there's some things that really are, I enjoy those and they make my day better. But maybe skipping the you know crazy one and a half hour morning routine and just going straight to work I can get an hour more work done, you know. Or like finish earlier what a surprise. Like I'm more productive now without my morning routine, you know Right.

Speaker 4: 1:33:31

So yeah, and it's even more extreme because that might be the excuse, and I know that a lot of listeners right now know this exact thing and probably are even doing that. Having a 90 minute morning routine but then complaining that you have no time making music is the textbook procrastination if that's, you skip the fucking morning routine, use the 90 minutes to create music. And if you do 90 minutes of music every day, what do you think happens within half a year?

Speaker 2: 1:34:04

Right, totally.

Speaker 3: 1:34:07

So, before we wrap this up here, I want to circle back to the nerdy part of this conversation in terms of like tech and plugins and stuff, because I really want to close that loop and come back to mixing that audio as well. But thank you for answering this question, though, and going a little deeper here, because that's really, really important to me and it's it's hard to find any kind of, you know, reasonable balance in a way, and there's no, probably no such thing as balance anyways, but I think it's still important and I heard that story on the podcast interview with you, ken, and I was like really, yeah, that made me think yeah, you know Dom is right about the.

Speaker 1: 1:34:42

you got to take the opportunities when they come and you can't complain about them. And one of the things that built my career was picking up the phone when it rang, answering my beeper when it went off, picking up my cell phone, answering emails the moment they came in and being the first guy to answer back with the right amount of talent for the gig.

Speaker 3: 1:34:59

Even skipping family vacations and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 1:35:02

from what I've heard, oh yeah, I've canceled many a family. I've canceled European vacations three or four times, at least One trip to South America. I mean, it's a normal thing and it's you know. Everybody has to determine for themselves at what level do you want to play at and at what level do you want to subject yourself to the bullshit of the industry? And I've moved out of New York City. I'm not subjecting myself to the bullshit of the day-to-day music industry anymore. I'm super happy. But you know, when you're in the middle of major label land, your time is much less your own and you are always expected to deliver at 100% to 110%. And either you love and you relish that pressure and you live for it, or it eats you up and I want the pressure. Give me the hard gigs, give me the mix nobody could do. Let me produce the song that everybody knows is a hit but nobody's gotten right yet.

Speaker 1: 1:35:59

Yeah, Like those are the you know, and when you have that mentality, it's just like, yeah, me, yes. Then it's a different mindset, that's kind of a, you know, at least for me, the go-getter. You know, nothing comes to you in the music business, you've got to go get it.

Speaker 4: 1:36:22

Absolutely as far as balance. Ken, you have that story about Avenged Sevenfold right. Which one the crazy sessions that didn't end forever because the album had to be.

Speaker 1: 1:36:35

Was it Avenged Sevenfold avenged? No, it wasn't avenged, it was uh. Who might you be talking about?

Speaker 4: 1:36:41

well, there was like a 60 hour oh that was public enemy.

Speaker 1: 1:36:45

Oh right, public enemy 67 hours straight. I was called for one mix. It was the closing of the album and I went to hit factory like 11 o'clock at night and did my first mix, turn it in. The artists and the anr guys came in, listened to it, loved it. They're like, uh, can you mix another one? I'm like yep. So they gave me song two and song two turned into three, four, five.

Speaker 1: 1:37:11

So I ended up mixing five public enemy songs in a row for the he Got Game album and I was awake for like 67 hours straight with no breaks, no naps, no sleep, no nothing. And then I went to got a hotel room, slept for six hours, woke up and I did an 18-hour Aretha Franklin remix mix and simultaneously it was the most exhausted I'd ever been in my life. It was also the most money that I had ever made in my entire life in such a short period of time and it was also credits that helped propel my career for a really, really long time and you know I would have done it again. So you know, maybe a little smarter, but that's just the. You know you show up, you make yourself available, you do your best work and some things are out of your control and you you know. Let your work speak for you.

Speaker 3: 1:38:08

Yeah, and the reality is most people are not willing to do that, and if you just keep doing things like that for long enough, you'll immediately be in the top 0.1% or whatever of people, just because of the fact that most people just quit.

Speaker 1: 1:38:23

It's just the reality. Yeah, talent is the buy-in. Everybody in the music industry that you know of has talent. It's the work ethic that usually separates everybody else from everybody else. Not always, but typically it's the grinders who stay in the business forever. I've been in 32 years. He ain't getting rid of me, and you know, but I've seen so. So so many people come and go that are immensely talented. But it's a tough business to stay relevant and it's a tough business to always find work in it's. There's not much money in the music business. I'll tell you that much so you know. But what else are we going to do?

Speaker 3: 1:38:58

If you're going to get into it because of the money, there's probably other fields that you should look into.

Speaker 2: 1:39:03

There's other opportunities out there. There's easy ways to make a buck.

Speaker 3: 1:39:05

Yeah, so circling back to the plugins and the tech side of things. So one more question before the plugins actually about the tech side of things. So one more question before the plane is actually about the tech. Uh, though, about the gear, is there any like? Do you have like a go-to sort of chain, vocal chain or something that you always have set up in your studio, no matter who comes in, or do you choose a different mic for different people all the time when you do vocal productions?

Speaker 1: 1:39:29

see sony c800g, always since 1996 or 8. Maybe that's why I was asking it works cool?

Speaker 3: 1:39:40

yeah, because I I also saw that and I was thinking like, well, that's a pretty bright mic. It's amazing, of course, and especially for some certain genres, but I always considered it like um pretty bright as well, as I was wondering if that's the right choice for all people.

Speaker 1: 1:39:55

Apparently the vintage C800s are not as bright as the reissue C800s. I've never heard anybody not sound great on my mic, but to the brightness factor I have. Actually I have a, so my mic chain is a C800G into a GrooveTubes Viper mic pre, tube mic pre mic pre tube mic pre into a thermionic culture, the phoenix very mute tube compressor into a cush audio clariphonic hardware box and I open up the top end even further with the clariphonic. During recording on a c800g I make it break and I almost never touch my vocals in the mix when I have recorded them. As far as EQ, maybe a little bit of extra compression, but as far as EQ, usually as recorded is how they are, and that's the thing. I have a microphone that I know every single person I ever put behind it is going to sound great. And then that lets me forget the fuck about the tech. I don't want to think about what my compressor is doing I don't want to think about.

Speaker 1: 1:41:03

I'm not going to try three different microphones and see which, because while you're having fun in nerd land putting up three microphones in front of the singer, they're thinking which one of these am I, how am I? And they're thinking which one of these am I, how am I? And they're thinking about you instead of their performance. So I keep it simple. I never have the artist check the microphone behind the microphone. It's when they walk behind that and put the vocals on. It's a record and and and that's like always having those key pieces of gear that you spend a lot on because you know what they will always give you. And that's my vocal chain and that's worth spending.

Speaker 3: 1:41:44

Yeah, I love that so much because, again, the people who do it as a side thing and they have a day job and they don't have much time and they complain that they don't have time for their music it's so important for them, I think, to have their kind of go-to it. They complain that they don't have time for their music. It's so important for them, I think, to have their kind of go-to doesn't have to be like a crazy thing if you can't afford it, but like their go-to thing that always works, that you know really well, that you've used so often that you know how it reacts, what it gives you. Like it's just said, if you have that and you can set up very quickly and when you're creative, when you have that window of time, that you can actually get to music fast instead of like doing all the setup work and the experimentation, I think that's so important and so that's what I was hoping to hear.

Speaker 1: 1:42:20

One other mind-blowing story on that line. There's an artist that I produced named Desrocks D-E-S-R-O-C-S, and me and Brent Colatalo produced the first two EPs from him Let the Vultures In and Martyr Parade and those guitars on that album sound fucking massive. And we plugged those guitars into a little IK Multimedia guitar rig, to a quarter-inch input into a USB into the computer and that's how we captured all of those monstrous fucking guitars on that album every single one of them. People rave about those guitars.

Speaker 1: 1:42:57

They're like oh my god, those guitars sound huge. What kind of amps did you use? Well, we used this little pedal here and we used this little iRig 2, and we plugged it into this USB port and then we played. People overthink things all the time, and the reason that we did that is because when you're in the studio with an artist, speed and creativity matters. That's when we're talking about being invisible.

Speaker 1: 1:43:21

Being invisible means that, as the artist is creating, they don't have to stop and wait for you to set something up for their own creativity. They're not waiting for you to check the microphone before they can cut vocals. They're not waiting for you to set up a keyboard before they can put down some pads. All of it, that's all ready. If you are a pro at this, you know this and you think ahead and you go okay, what could this session need? What do I set up and check beforehand, before the artist gets here, so that the creativity can just flow while they're here and I can be invisible to the process and they can be the most creative that they can? I love that. That's what the process is supposed to be.

Speaker 3: 1:44:04

Yeah, thank you so much. So, yeah, and if you're listening and you want to hear more like vocal production expertise, we're actually having a masterclass. Come up with Ken Lewis, that's going to be funis. Um, yeah, that's gonna be awesome and it's like I don't know dom, are you gonna be there as well?

Speaker 4: 1:44:20

actually, I'm gonna be there, of course, really cool, awesome, so we're gonna monitor all the the chat, questions and chatting with people. That's gonna be so fantastic so cool.

Speaker 3: 1:44:30

So it's gonna happen on april 16th and we're gonna do vocal mastery. It's kind of the topic that we have and we're going to address. You know everything about recording, treating, mixing vocals that any you know self-recording artist or upcoming producer could ever need and, as you've probably, you've already got an idea now about like, how incredible the the skills are between the two of them and like so we, I'm just looking forward to this a lot. This is going to be awesome. So you can join us live there. We're going to send out a link to and we're going to show you some mind-blowing stuff. We're going to get the link, definitely. Oh, I got cut out again.

Speaker 1: 1:45:04

Oh sorry, it's going to be a lot of fun and we're going to show you guys some mind-blowing stuff with LawComp was to make recording vocals super, super simple. So now when I record vocals, when I set somebody up in the vocal nook, the mic comes in through my mic chain and it comes into Pro Tools and in Pro Tools I put a mono to stereo instance of LawComp and I go to my preset and instantly my vocal chain is done and my vocalist can whisper or scream and it's always right here. It never blows out their hearing and they never lose themselves into the track and they can perform so freely. And that's all because Law Comp really frees them up to be super expressive on the microphone and hear everything that they're doing. So you know we built that out of the processes that I do with a whole bunch of other plugins. I wanted to be able to just go preset.

Speaker 4: 1:46:02

And that's just one of the magical things that you're going to hear in that. Yeah, you should definitely be there live, because we also might or might not bring a couple presents for you. Maybe I was about to ask actually I don't know if we couple presents for you.

Speaker 3: 1:46:16

Maybe I was about to ask. Actually, I don't know if we should announce that already. Maybe we bring it to the masterclass, yeah just be there live.

Speaker 4: 1:46:23

Yeah, there will be great stuff for you all Awesome.

Speaker 3: 1:46:26

Awesome, really really cool. So I'm looking forward to that. You want to be there live. If you are on our email list already, we'll let you know, of course, through that. We also are going to put the link or like the info about that in the show notes of this episode as well. If you're watching on YouTube, it's going to be in the description. There's the website, of course. So if you go to theselfrecordingbandcom slash and then the number of this episode, you're going to get to the show notes. So it's probably going to be theselfrecording bandcom slash 216. All the info is going to be there.

Speaker 3: 1:47:00

And, yeah, this is going to be super exciting if you're in the self-recording syndicate, by the way, our coaching community, we're going to do an exclusive q a afterwards for you guys as well. So definitely be there. This is a really great, really awesome, unique opportunity to pick the brain of someone like ken lewis and dom ravinez like that's insane. So make good use of that and show up there prepared, armed with questions. So I'm definitely looking forward to that. Also looking forward to seeing LolComp in action, because I've played around with it. I've used it in a bunch of sessions already, actually, but I'm sure I'm going to discover way more when I see you guys use it, so very excited. Then we also got Greenhouse right, the other plugin. So that's I don't know if or how that's going to be part of that as well, or how you use that in your vocal workflow.

Speaker 1: 1:47:41

I mix with it in vocals a lot. I can show you what I do with it on vocals when I mix.

Speaker 3: 1:47:46

Okay, great, awesome, looking forward to that a lot, yeah, so thank you so much for taking the time to do this. This was an incredible episode in many, many ways, so thanks, time was flying right. Yeah, I can't believe how long we've been talking, yeah. Yeah, that was super fun. That was definitely fun. So where can we, or where should we, send people if they're interested in, like, mixing that audio, the mixing that live streams your websites, like what? What should we put in the show notes and point people to?

Speaker 4: 1:48:14

Well, first of all, I would definitely send them to our website, because that's the hub where everything happens. It's just mixingnightaudiocom. And then you have the registration for the shows, the replay for the shows. Everything directs you in all the different ways. There's the plugins that you can learn more about different videos that we made for, the plugins to showcase presets, and all of that free trials free trials as well.

Speaker 4: 1:48:40

exactly like this. Everything is on our website mixing that audiocom and, apart from that, our instagramcom mixing that audio has a bunch of quick tips taken from our shows. We cut down our mixing night streams and take out the golden moments, if you will, where Ken shares a bunch of these. You got a glimpse of that in this podcast, but our Instagram account really has a collection of those quick tips in real format, basically so quick to digest, quick to understand. If you want to follow that, that's probably going to be one of the best resources you can get if you want to level up your mixing production artist game in general.

Speaker 3: 1:49:21

Yeah, can highly recommend. I saw a few of those clips and all of them were inspiring or valuable in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 4: 1:49:28

Awesome. Thank you Cool. Thank you so much for the invitation. This was so amazing.

Speaker 3: 1:49:33

Really had a great time. Awesome, glad to hear that. Thank you so much again and yeah, that's a wrap. I guess Malcolm right anything. I completely forgot to ask you, malcolm, anything you want to ask, oh, no, no that was fantastic.

Speaker 2: 1:49:44

Thank you both for coming on. Let's do the next one in person down in Ecuador.

Speaker 1: 1:49:47

Hello, oh yes you don't gotta twist my arm for that if next week works.

Speaker 3: 1:49:54

I honestly hope that at some point we maybe get to meet in person also, ken, because I already met Dom. It was amazing. So who knows, maybe one day that is a distinct possibility.

Speaker 1: 1:50:06

It's a small industry, it is alright.

Speaker 3: 1:50:09

Thank everybody for watching and listening and looking forward to seeing you guys all on April 16th for the vocal mastery workshop with Ken Lewis and Dom Ravinias.

Speaker 1: 1:50:18

Bye-bye.

Speaker 4: 1:50:19

Bye-bye.

Speaker 2: 1:50:20

Bye-bye.