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You're listening

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to the Inside The Mix podcast

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with your host, Mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the

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Inside the Mix podcast.

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I'm Mark Matthews, your

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host, musician, producer, and

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mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right

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place if you wanna know more about your favorite SY music

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artist, music, engineering

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and production, songwriting

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and the music industry.

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I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years,

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and I wanna share what I.

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With you. Hey folks, and welcome back

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to the Inside The Mix podcast.

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And in this episode

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I'm very excited to

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welcome our guests today. Uh, we've got a Grammy award

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winning multi-platinum producer

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and mix engineer of Dom Moley.

0:41

Now Dom is the founder

0:41

of the Mix Consultancy,

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which we'll to touch on a

0:44

bit later in the podcast.

0:46

And he's also a tutor at,

0:46

uh, the music production

0:50

of music production rather

0:50

at LEED College of Music.

0:52

Now Dom has worked with

0:52

artists such as Adele, um,

0:55

Amy Winehouse, Jeff Beck,

0:55

mark Ronson, underworld,

0:58

and Sting to name. But a few Sting really stood

0:59

to me cause I've been on a

1:02

bit of a sting binge lately. So, um, fantastic stuff.

1:05

Dom. Thanks for joining me today. And how are you?

1:08

Uh, very good, thanks. Yeah, it's, it's Friday

1:09

evening, so all is good

1:11

as we're recording this. Sorry, have I ruined, I've

1:12

broken something by saying

1:14

it's Friday, this is not live. Sorry,

1:18

. Marc Matthews: No, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. To be fair, it probably will

1:20

be quite good for me sometimes

1:22

to give uh, the audience a bit

1:22

of an indication of when these

1:24

things happen, but No, no, no. It is Friday evening.

1:27

So we are in the UK so I

1:27

know I do have a rather, the

1:30

podcasters have a quite an

1:30

international audience, but

1:32

it is Friday evening in the

1:32

UK and I dunno about where you

1:35

are, but it is the classic UK

1:35

weather of wet and windy down

1:39

where I am in the southwest. Yeah, yeah.

1:42

But there you go. That's what we've come

1:43

to expect in the uk.

1:45

So Dom, I thought what would

1:45

be great is just to start,

1:47

cause we're gonna move on

1:47

to actual mix engineering a

1:49

bit further down the line. It's just mm-hmm. a bit of your story.

1:51

How did you get to the

1:51

stage where, or sta status,

1:55

whether you are now of be

1:55

being a mix mix engineer?

1:57

Where did it all begin? Um, it began

2:00

probably like most people, um, like I was in a band,

2:01

um, as a teenager and then.

2:06

Wanted to record my band. I bought a few bits of, you

2:07

know, recording gear and

2:09

this was back in the mid

2:09

nineties, early nineties.

2:13

Um, so, so the, the cutting

2:13

edge studio gear for a home

2:18

studio was a like porter studio.

2:20

The cassette things,

2:20

which bizarrely seemed

2:22

to be making a comeback. I have no idea why.

2:25

I mean, I mean, yeah, weird. Anyway, uh, so it was

2:27

before computer audios.

2:30

I, I had one of those, uh, and

2:30

then bought an eight track,

2:32

bought a few mics and just

2:32

got, you know, stuff like that.

2:35

And, and really enjoyed that bit. I didn't really like being,

2:36

well, I liked being a band cause I, with my mates

2:38

didn't like performing. That didn't interest me.

2:41

Um, but I really liked recording and getting things to sound good.

2:43

So that sort of led

2:43

eventually to me looking

2:46

for a job in the studio. Um, and I went all around London

2:47

with, with the killer line.

2:52

I'll work for nothing

2:52

and make good tea.

2:54

, um, figuring I could

2:54

probably sign on or

2:57

something, I'd find a way. Um, got nowhere, three days of

2:58

knocking on doors of studios.

3:01

Got nowhere. So they went to Birmingham,

3:01

tried the same line and

3:04

somebody said, yeah, right. So you Monday. So, um, I started work

3:05

experience at a place, um,

3:09

and did manage to sign on. Uh, so I got a little bit

3:11

of whatever it was called,

3:13

job sequence allowance or

3:13

something back in those days.

3:16

Mm-hmm. that got me through enough

3:16

weeks to make a few contacts

3:20

and somebody who was the chief

3:20

engineer of the studio also in

3:24

Birmingham that was owned by

3:24

the band UV 40, uh, was looking

3:27

for, uh, a brand new assistant.

3:29

So, uh, I got that gig based

3:29

on recommendation from the

3:32

people that I'd been kind of helping out for free at the, uh, at the place I

3:34

was doing work experience.

3:37

So then, um, I was there

3:37

for a couple of years

3:40

and it was good place. It was a, actually, I'm

3:41

still friends with people that I work with there.

3:44

Um, really good little studio. It was two rooms.

3:47

Um, kind of a, a good out of

3:47

London studio cuz at the time,

3:52

particularly the nineties, it

3:52

was incredibly London centric.

3:54

Um, and uh, and then, uh,

3:54

after, I think it's two and

3:59

a half years there, moved

3:59

down to London and I did a

4:02

bit of freelance assisting

4:02

around and then managed to

4:05

get a job at Metropolis,

4:05

which is a big studio in Ches.

4:08

Um, the biggest independent in

4:08

Europe at the time, and probably

4:11

still is actually to be fair. Um, five studios, all sorts

4:12

of different desks, all

4:16

sorts of different bits

4:16

of gear, um, mastering

4:19

rooms, just everything. So that was, that was

4:20

a real, that was the one I wanted that gig.

4:23

Um, uh, and it, it was

4:23

actually, because it might

4:26

be an interesting sort of angle for your listeners, but the reason why I wanted

4:28

Metropolis is cuz I'd worked

4:30

at, at this, uh, studio and

4:30

we had in, in Birmingham,

4:34

we had an SSL desk upstairs

4:34

and something, uh, called

4:38

an Amec Angela downstairs. Now what would happen

4:39

occasionally is you get an engineer who'd been booked

4:41

into the wrong room and he

4:43

was in the Amec, Angela,

4:43

and he was expecting an SSL.

4:47

And he basically couldn't work. And it happened a couple times

4:49

where it was like, if I haven't

4:51

got an ssl, can't do anything,

4:51

and I didn't want to be tied to

4:55

any one bit of gear ever unless

4:55

I could afford to buy it and

4:59

then I could take it with me. But I so Metropolis at the

5:01

time had three different SSL

5:05

and E-series, G series and J

5:05

series A focus right desk, which

5:08

is very rare, and a Neve vr. So at that point I thought if

5:10

I trained there, I'd just know

5:15

to use desks and then I could

5:15

walk into any studio and be

5:18

perfectly happy with whatever's

5:18

in front of me because I just

5:21

now to use gear, you know,

5:21

rather than being tied to any

5:24

specific bit of equipment. So that's, that's kind of a

5:25

principle I've always held

5:28

really ever since that. Um, I've obviously got a reason

5:29

around the gear myself anyway.

5:32

Um, and that's great. But I can sort of go anywhere.

5:35

I might take a couple of bits with me, but that'll be it. You know, I'd be

5:37

happy wherever I work. So, um, yeah, that

5:39

was that idea.

5:41

And then, so I was there for a bit. Um, Working up from the

5:42

very bottom, you know,

5:45

newest assistant gets

5:45

all the 24 hour sessions,

5:48

all that sort of stuff. Um, after about seven

5:49

years there, I was in-house

5:53

engineer, went freelance. I was getting enough sort

5:54

of work to go freelance.

5:57

And then, um, yeah, I've been,

5:57

I've been freelance for 12

6:03

years, something like that. Um, had a little studio

6:04

in Metropolis for a while.

6:06

I shared it with a friend of mine called Chris Potter. Uh, the two of us just

6:08

rented a room at Metropolis,

6:11

but then I moved out of

6:11

London to where I am.

6:14

About seven years ago got

6:14

this studio in Oxford, well,

6:17

this building in Oxfordshire,

6:17

which I turned into a studio.

6:20

Um, and so yeah, I've

6:20

been here ever since.

6:22

That's, that's the potted

6:22

history of quarter of a

6:24

Century of me working. There you go. .

6:27

Marc Matthews: Fantastic. Yeah, it's, it's like, it's kind

6:28

of like that classic story of

6:31

like the, the, I don't wanna say

6:31

the, the tea runner, but I guess

6:34

it is in a way you sort of like,

6:34

you start at the bottom there.

6:37

Um, and I, I love the idea of

6:37

the variety being the key to

6:40

success, and I think that's

6:40

a great, I think it's a great

6:43

man mentality to have in, in

6:43

probably most creative aspects

6:46

is having a bit of variety. So you'd be able to take

6:47

yourself into other studios

6:49

and other situations. Yeah, just

6:51

carry on working in,

6:53

yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Do you think the, because the,

6:55

the way you sort of entered

6:58

the industry, does that

6:58

sort of avenue still exist?

7:02

Is it still possible to do

7:02

that if you wanted to get

7:04

experience in a studio?

7:07

Um, it does, but

7:07

the opportunities are far fewer

7:10

than they were in the nineties. Um, it's kind of

7:12

flipped because. Back then, um, there were

7:14

hardly any courses that you

7:18

could do on, on engineering. You couldn't really, there were,

7:19

as far as I knew, there was SAE

7:24

Alchemy to Meister and I think

7:24

one other were all the ones

7:26

that I knew that did like music

7:26

production or sound engineering.

7:30

Um, and, and so it was hard to

7:30

get on those courses cause you

7:33

know, cuz they were so few. So, so you'd get a job in a

7:34

studio and I actually sort

7:37

of, my plan was initially, um,

7:37

if I didn't have a job after

7:41

four months, I'd probably

7:41

have run out of all my money.

7:44

Um, and they sort of started

7:44

to get a bit edgy about you

7:47

signing on for too long. Mm-hmm.

7:49

. So then I'd try and go start

7:49

a course and, and try and

7:52

start full-time education. Um, so that was, uh,

7:54

that was the sort of

7:58

way it was around there. You try and get a job in the studio. If you couldn't, you maybe

8:00

go into education and then you'd meet some people that

8:02

way and then start working.

8:05

So, so this now it's sort

8:05

of flipped in that you, you.

8:08

There were a lot of courses and a lot of good courses and oh, I'm actually at LEED

8:10

conservator, by the way.

8:12

It's not LEED College of Music. It used to be called

8:13

Le College of Music. But see, so let you off.

8:17

It's changed, it's leads conservative. Um, so, so now there's

8:19

loads of those.

8:22

Um, and there's not many studios. So actually I think the route

8:24

these days is, is more to,

8:27

to study and, and this is

8:27

the crucial bit, is to meet

8:31

people there and start working. Cuz that's really what you

8:33

want to do wherever you are.

8:36

Whether you're working in a

8:36

studio or you're working in,

8:39

in, uh, or you are a college,

8:39

the point is you, you learn

8:43

on the job or in the, on the

8:43

course and you meet people

8:47

and you start working and

8:47

that's how you get a career.

8:50

And, and so that's, you know, that's what I did. Fortunately, the diff the

8:52

difference being, fortunately,

8:54

if you get a job in a studio, you are paid to do that. Whereas if you are obviously

8:56

doing a course, you have to pay to do that.

8:59

But, but the, the principle

8:59

is the same is that you are

9:02

there to learn how to do it

9:02

and to network in order to

9:05

meet people and start working.

9:42

Yeah, so with,

9:42

with the courses like the leads

9:45

Conservatoire, which I, uh,

9:45

my due diligence there, let

9:47

me down in the run up to the

9:47

podcast interview . Um, with,

9:51

with that there and with your

9:51

students, are you actively

9:54

telling them, so sort of, sort

9:54

of from day dot, like you, you

9:56

are here to study, but also at

9:56

the same time you should be out

9:58

there networking and you should

9:58

be out there meeting artists,

10:01

hundred percent recording,

10:01

performing whichever avenue

10:04

they want to go down from Day

10:06

Die. Yep. Yeah, so I teach the, I

10:07

actually teach the Masters,

10:09

I'm a tutor for the Masters in music production. So it's only a year course,

10:11

um, like a full 12 month one.

10:16

Um, and when in the first or

10:16

second session I'll start the

10:20

conversation with, right, so

10:20

in a year's time, what you're

10:23

gonna do to make money out of what you've learnt this year and, and, and then keep

10:25

having that conversation

10:28

again and again and again to

10:28

push them, to make plans, to

10:32

have things that they start. Cause the other, the other

10:33

thing is everything always takes a long time to actually,

10:35

between having the idea or

10:39

being asked to do a job. And getting paid.

10:42

And, and you, the idea is that

10:42

I want them to start getting

10:45

the ball rolling on that and,

10:45

and, and having things that

10:47

they've got in the, in the pipe

10:47

work and ideas they've starting

10:50

to put into place so that

10:50

when they leave they can focus

10:53

on it more, but also money's

10:53

starting to come in already.

10:55

So yeah, I definitely,

10:55

definitely say that.

11:00

Fantastic. It kind of, it kind of

11:01

segues ish nicely into

11:03

the next part then, which

11:03

is kind of, we've got the

11:05

educational side of things

11:05

and building that experience.

11:07

So what I'd like to move on to

11:07

now really is, is the actual,

11:10

the mixing side of things. So this podcast episode in

11:11

particular is gonna sort of

11:13

center around that, that, that

11:13

mix engineering specifically for

11:16

those who are, who are learning. Um, and obviously they're gonna

11:18

be bits and pieces in there for

11:20

the, for the, for the experts

11:20

and the intermediates as well.

11:23

So, I mean, the first question

11:23

really, I think is quite a good

11:26

one and it kind of links to,

11:26

I listened to the podcast, uh,

11:29

podcast, the production expert

11:29

podcast that you did yourself

11:33

with Mike Exeter as well. Okay.

11:35

Yeah.

11:35

He's the guy that gave me my first job. Mike Ester was working at u

11:38

was he your mentor studio?

11:40

Yeah. Well, he was working

11:41

at UB 40 Studio. He was the chief engineer there.

11:43

So when I got that first job

11:43

outta work experience, it

11:45

was him that gave it to me.

11:47

How amazing. And he's, uh, he's worked

11:47

with some big bands, Sabbath

11:50

priest, being a metalhead. That immediately

11:51

I was like, okay.

11:52

Oh, really? Yeah. Well that was the first

11:53

session I did there.

11:55

The very first session was Tony

11:55

Naomi recording some, uh, some

11:59

demos with Glen Hughes, um,

11:59

singing and Don Airy on Keys.

12:04

And, and Mike engineered it

12:04

as the in-house engineer.

12:08

And basically Mike's work

12:08

with Tony s Tony, Amy

12:11

since then, he's been

12:11

his engineer since then.

12:14

That came out as

12:14

the That's amazing.

12:17

Yeah. Yeah.

12:18

It's quite,

12:18

yeah, that's what, that's

12:20

one ahead of a session for your first session to sit.

12:22

He really was, yeah. It was quite mad.

12:23

Yeah. That is . Yeah.

12:26

I, yeah, I, I'd be, I, I would

12:26

struggle not to be in awe

12:30

just watching him play guitar

12:30

and not taking everything

12:32

else around in, um, with

12:32

regards to the engineering and

12:35

everything else that's going on. It

12:36

was quite surreal. Fantastic. But also fair play to

12:38

Mike for putting a brand new kid on, on a session.

12:41

That was pretty, yeah, yeah. Important, you know,

12:42

but yeah, he did.

12:45

So, yeah, I was obviously

12:45

a lucky charm though, as

12:48

he's still working with him.

12:50

Yeah. . Um, so yeah, this kind of leads

12:51

off from that ex that, um,

12:55

that episode in particular of

12:55

the production expert podcast.

12:58

Um, so it's kind of like

12:58

the question beings, if you

13:02

could tell our audience a bit about the difference between sort of a radio

13:03

friendly sort of professional

13:06

mix and a novice mix. Now you run the mix consultancy,

13:08

which we'll touch on in a

13:10

bit, but when you receive

13:10

those mixes in, cuz I'm

13:14

assuming they, they're they're

13:14

various degrees of quality.

13:16

What generally separates

13:16

that sort of entry level mix

13:19

to that professional mix?

13:22

Um, there's two things I think that are key really, which, which

13:23

take a while to learn.

13:26

Um, and, and one of them

13:26

I think people know, and

13:29

the other one people don't. And the one that I think people

13:30

know is, um, about EQing things.

13:33

So they sit together. and there's space in the

13:35

mix and there's clarity

13:37

around the different instruments that are there. Um, and that allows the

13:40

dynamic of the track to

13:42

come through as well. So not only helps the

13:43

individual sounds, but also allows the dynamic of

13:45

the song to come through. Because once you've got

13:47

instruments sitting toge

13:49

together nicely, you can

13:49

start pushing them up and

13:52

down doing what you want with them because they're not fighting with each other for

13:53

a certain amount of space.

13:56

Um, and, and that's the big

13:56

thing I think I find a lot with

14:00

people in mixed consultancy

14:00

that I help them with is, is to

14:03

hear that, that that clash where

14:03

those problems are happening.

14:07

Cuz that's, that's I think,

14:07

the thing that takes so

14:09

long to learn when you

14:09

are just sat there on your

14:11

own learning how to mix. And the reason why I came up

14:12

with the idea, with the mixing

14:15

something in fact was after

14:15

one particularly revelatory

14:18

experience that I had where um,

14:18

I was an assistant on a session.

14:23

It was, there was a very big band, I don't think I'm allowed to say who it was, but

14:25

it was a very big band with decades worth of recordings.

14:28

And we were going through everything and digitizing it cuz it was all on tape,

14:30

just putting into pros. And Gary and, and a rough mix

14:33

of each one cuz it was a band

14:36

that sort of did a lot of

14:36

jamming as well as writing.

14:39

So they, you know, there

14:39

were a lot of jams that

14:41

might turn into songs. They just wanted to know what

14:42

they had recorded, you know, that in case there was anything

14:44

useful that they wanted to

14:46

revisit for the next record. So there were three rooms

14:48

running, three engineers, three

14:52

assistants of which I was one

14:52

and one guy who was producing,

14:55

overseeing the whole thing, who

14:55

was also a mix engineer too.

14:58

Uh, who I'd worked with loads. I, I, I knew him well.

15:01

Um, so what happened was the

15:01

engineer that I was working with

15:03

was ill for a couple of days. So, uh, Chris who was producing

15:06

it, said to me, look, Dom,

15:10

can you just step in and,

15:10

and do what we've been doing

15:14

for a couple of days and, you

15:14

know, load 'em into pros, do

15:17

a quick rough mix and when

15:17

every rough mix, just gimme

15:19

a call and I'll come down and

15:19

just spend 20 minutes, you

15:22

know, just finishing it off. Which for me was just a

15:23

golden opportunity to do it

15:28

as good as I could do it. And then have somebody with

15:29

20 years of experience sit

15:32

down and go, right here's what

15:32

I'm gonna change from here.

15:34

So then I was looking over

15:34

his shoulder going, okay,

15:36

he's changed that one. That sounds so much better from

15:37

that little tweak, I didn't

15:40

realize there was a problem

15:40

there, but now he's changed it.

15:42

I can hear it. So it was a huge thing for

15:43

me in a couple of days.

15:46

I learned so much just

15:46

from leaning over him and

15:48

hearing what he had heard

15:48

and how he changed it.

15:52

So that's what I, you know, the,

15:52

the idea with mixed consultancy

15:54

is that people can send stuff

15:54

into me, and I've been doing

15:58

this for 25 years, so I've

15:58

probably got a bit of experience

16:00

on quite a lot of people. Um, and, and I can just go,

16:01

right, well these, these are

16:05

the changes that I would do if

16:05

I were sat in front of this mix.

16:07

Now I can hear problems at 300

16:07

herz in the guitar, or 80 Hertz

16:11

in the kick drum and, and, and,

16:11

and recommend a change, which

16:15

will normally be generally about

16:15

the ballpark of where it ends up

16:17

being, being apparently from the

16:17

feedback I get from people that.

16:21

Um, but the important

16:21

thing is what I find really

16:23

inspiring about doing it. Cause I'll do that and, you

16:24

know, I, I'll send someone

16:26

a PDF of here's what I've

16:26

changed, here's all the things

16:28

I've changed with this track. And, and it's, a lot of it is EQ

16:29

stuff just to clear everything

16:32

out, make it all sound great. Um, but then what's great

16:34

is people use it again

16:36

and again and again. They use the service. I get quite a lot of people

16:38

that, that once they've used it once, you know, realize

16:39

that, that it's, it's helping

16:42

them a lot and they get

16:42

much better very quickly.

16:45

Yeah. Because they, they can hear

16:46

it then, you know, they

16:48

hear that problem that I spot in, they go, oh yeah. So then that doesn't

16:50

happen the next time. So it's a really interesting

16:52

process that, um, getting the

16:55

stuff, the repeat business

16:55

from people and realizing

16:57

how quickly they're learning

16:57

how to get better at mixing.

17:00

Um, the other thing that people

17:00

don't realize, I think is

17:03

how important, um, automation

17:03

and balance is to mm-hmm.

17:08

moving a mix from being

17:08

good to being great.

17:11

And, and I think the, the tale

17:11

I always tell my students is,

17:14

I, I watched an interview with

17:14

Andy Wallace, who I think is

17:17

an incredible mix engineer.

17:20

Um, does a lot of rock stuff. Um, and he said he spends

17:22

about 45 minutes doing all

17:28

the EQ compression effects

17:28

balance, and he's got probably

17:32

three assistants that do most

17:32

of this, you know, setting

17:34

up a mixed four, but 45

17:34

minutes to get a mix together.

17:37

He's not a lot of time, that's

17:37

extremely quick because we're

17:40

doing it for like twice as

17:40

long as I have, so he should

17:42

be fast, but even so, yeah,

17:42

but then he said he spends 10

17:45

hours on a mix, so the rest

17:45

of the time he's doing these

17:49

little automation moves and

17:49

moving things around so that

17:51

everything hits exactly the

17:51

right time and, and really

17:54

you're drawing the, the point

17:54

of what you're doing there.

17:56

The, the job or the mixer is to draw the listener's attention to the right thing

17:58

at every beat of the mix.

18:02

So you know, the listener's

18:02

always hearing the vocal or that

18:05

little grace note on the snare

18:05

or the fill in the base or the

18:09

delay you set off on the guitar. That was a cool little

18:11

sound to fill that gap

18:14

and pushing the, per the

18:14

listener's interest around

18:16

that is all about automation. And, and, and it's a sort of,

18:18

it's an odd task because you

18:21

set up a, a nice balance and

18:21

everything's sounding good.

18:25

And then you start getting into the automation and it sort of falls apart a bit while you're

18:27

doing stuff on the drums or

18:30

stuff on the guitars or vocals

18:30

and your balance falls apart.

18:32

So it always sounds worse

18:32

before it sounds better.

18:35

Um, but then at the end when

18:35

you've actually got it nailed,

18:38

um, having done some good EQ

18:38

work before compression effects

18:41

are working, all of that stuff,

18:41

getting the automation works,

18:43

so the dynamics of the song

18:43

are being served properly,

18:47

um, is a difference between a good and a great mix.

18:50

Fantastic. So you've got two things there, haven't you? So it's sort of like the EQ and

18:52

the clarity as you mentioned

18:54

there, and the automation. Mm-hmm. . Um, what about compression?

18:57

Cuz compression, having

18:57

spoken to and been involved

19:00

with a lot of the, the

19:00

listeners and compression is

19:03

something that comes up a lot. What, what pitfalls, pitfalls

19:04

might be the wrong word, but

19:07

what, what challenges do you see

19:07

in a novice mix with regards to.

19:11

Uh, the first one is being able to hear what it's doing, cuz I

19:12

know I couldn't, when I

19:14

started out, I had no idea. When I first started the

19:16

studio, people were talk, putting compression on and

19:18

talking about compression and

19:20

I was like nodding and grinning

19:20

and going, yeah, thinking I

19:23

can't hear the difference. I dunno what they're

19:24

talking about. Um, and then, and then finally

19:26

got go in the studio on my own.

19:28

Cause obviously this is pre

19:28

dws, you know, I didn't get

19:31

a chance to do anything on my own and play with it. So then I sort of put something

19:33

through a compressor and

19:35

slammed it and went, oh,

19:35

okay, well that's doing it

19:39

wrong cuz that's too much. But then if I peel it back,

19:40

then I can notice how it

19:44

sort of starts to make things pump a little bit. And then you put a couple of

19:45

things together and they start pumping together and, oh, I can

19:47

see how this is a good thing.

19:51

I understand it a bit better now. So, um, so that's

19:52

challenge one is actually

19:55

hearing what it's doing. Um, yeah, without doing it too

19:56

much, without sort of, you know,

20:00

absolutely slamming everything. Um, but then, then I think

20:02

the other thing that people

20:04

get confused by a lot

20:04

is, um, is settings like,

20:08

like attack and release. Um, not all compressors have

20:09

those on, obviously, but, um,

20:13

but if you do, I always say

20:13

like with release, set it to

20:15

release in time with the music. That's, that's your

20:17

best safe option. So watch the needle, go back

20:18

in time with the music and

20:20

then, and then, you know, you're pulling everything to be moving in time.

20:23

So you're helping the groove of the song by doing that. And then with the

20:25

tact time, start slow. Start slow, so it's not

20:28

really doing anything. And then go faster and faster

20:30

on the attack time until it

20:32

starts to grab the thing that

20:32

you are trying to compress.

20:35

Um, and then, and then, and

20:35

then leave it when it sounds

20:38

good is the bottom line. Um, so that, that's

20:40

attack and releases. That's what I sort of

20:41

recommend is, is when you are

20:43

learning and start doing that. And the other thing I

20:45

think is again, it sort of

20:47

reaches into the automation. Don't use compressors

20:49

to level out your mix.

20:52

Use automation to do. Use compressors to make things

20:54

grabby and punchy and exciting,

20:58

cuz that's what they're really

20:58

good at, at leveling things out.

21:00

They're okay. That's, that was all we had

21:02

back in like the seventies

21:05

and sixties and fifties. We only had compressors,

21:06

we didn't have automation

21:08

so you had to use it to

21:08

sort of squash things.

21:11

Whereas these days that's better

21:11

done with automation and, and

21:15

with, with compressors you

21:15

can use 'em for what they're

21:17

really good at nowadays, which

21:17

is making things punch him.

21:21

Yeah,

21:21

I, I really like the idea of what you said about the attack and release, cuz I

21:23

remember when I was starting out

21:25

and admitted it, I, I haven't

21:25

been in the, the industry,

21:28

the game as long as yourself,

21:28

but I, I would struggle

21:31

with the attack and release

21:31

in, in terms of what to do.

21:33

And they're very much like you've said, right? There is, I found, uh, it was

21:34

either a tutorial on article,

21:38

in fact, it might have been,

21:38

uh, Bobinski, it might have been

21:41

in the Bobinski mix Engineers

21:41

manual or engineer manual.

21:44

And he said, and it said exactly what you said there about Oh, did he?

21:48

Yeah. Yeah. The slow attack and then

21:48

the, the release and

21:51

time with the mu uh,

21:52

fantastic. It's not just me that,

21:53

that's a good idea. That's good.

21:56

I've been, and I've been doing it ever since. And, um, and, and the

21:58

air and it works wonders.

22:01

Um, and it's a fantastic one. Going back to the eq mm-hmm.

22:05

with regards to eq, if you're

22:05

just starting out, do, are

22:07

there, can you think of any,

22:07

uh, sort of exercises, like air

22:10

training exercises or anything

22:10

along those lines to help

22:14

with regards to what EQ was

22:14

doing and how to balance those

22:17

frequencies? Um, I just, I dunno about

22:18

ear training exercises.

22:20

What, what I, what I try and

22:20

tell people is, um, put, put,

22:25

put a thing in the mix, whatever

22:25

it might be, start with one

22:28

thing and then add another

22:28

thing and see if you can hear

22:31

a problem that where it's not

22:31

as clear as it was before.

22:35

It doesn't sound as good as it was before. And where is that?

22:39

Because as Newton is normally

22:39

somewhere, unless you've

22:41

got a kick and a high hat,

22:41

you know, that are so far

22:44

apart, it doesn't matter. Um, but say put two guitars

22:45

or a guitar and a piano or

22:48

a couple of sys together or

22:48

stuff and, um, and go, okay,

22:51

where, where is the problem? Where does it sound muddy

22:53

and confused and busy?

22:56

Where, where it's not separated.

22:59

Um, and what you've got there

22:59

is, is an area where they

23:02

both have a presence, um,

23:02

and they both are, you know,

23:05

have a reasonable, you know,

23:05

volume in that frequency.

23:09

Uh, but they're not both allowed

23:09

it because it sounds worse.

23:12

So you've got to make a call on

23:12

who gets to win at that point.

23:16

Um, and so, so then just

23:16

boost, I, you know, I, I mean

23:19

I still do this all the time. Boost and sweep around.

23:23

So boost up three or four B or

23:23

whatever you wanna do, sweep

23:26

that around till you hear

23:26

the point where you go, ah,

23:28

yeah, that frequency, that's

23:28

the one that I don't like.

23:31

And then take that out of one or

23:31

the other, um, and, and, and see

23:36

who sounds better without it. So it might be you take it out

23:37

of the guitar sand, it's like,

23:40

well now the guitar's lost

23:40

what we need from the guitar

23:43

by taking that frequency out. Therefore it's gotta go

23:45

from the synth or the piano.

23:47

Because, because you can't lose

23:47

the, the, the main sort of focus

23:52

of the guitar by doing this. So, um, like for a good example,

23:53

I do it with the vocal when I

23:56

start a mix is I find like a, a

23:56

present frequency of the vocal

24:01

normally sort of between two and three K, which is sort of the peak sensitivity of human.

24:05

Uh, because that's where voices,

24:05

you know, are most present.

24:07

So I find a spot there by,

24:07

by doing a boost and a sweep

24:10

and, and there's normally a

24:10

point where it feels like the

24:12

singers just stepped forward

24:12

a foot, you know, that is

24:15

just a little bit more present

24:15

when a boost our frequency and

24:17

go, okay, that's their spot. Nothing else is allowed there.

24:21

So in everything from there,

24:21

then I, I, you know, make

24:24

a note of the frequency. And then for the rest of

24:25

the mix, everything else has

24:27

to have a dip there because

24:27

the vocal has to be there.

24:30

Um, there's nothing that can fight with the vocal. So I don't care who you are.

24:34

You might be a snare drum, you

24:34

might be a great guitar sound.

24:36

You ain't going in that

24:36

frequency because the vocals.

24:39

Got it. Yeah. That's a fantastic tip.

24:42

Um, because I think with vocals

24:42

in particular, now the podcast

24:45

itself is sort of centered. Um, and it focuses on like

24:47

the, the synth side of things

24:49

and synth synth music, which

24:49

is why I was for the, for the

24:53

audience, if you're watching

24:53

this, this podcast, you'll see

24:55

there's an array of modular

24:55

synths in the background there

24:59

in Dom's, uh, in Dom's studio,

24:59

which is incredibly impressive.

25:03

But yeah, and, and I, I do

25:03

get the question a lot of, of

25:06

vocal and in terms of bringing

25:06

vocal, cause a lot of synth

25:08

wave tracks and synth music,

25:08

uh, I say a lot, a vast majority

25:12

of it is, is instrumental

25:12

in bringing those vocals in.

25:14

And that, that's a really cool way of doing it. Um, and I like the idea of just

25:16

saying and, and being rigid

25:19

and strict and saying nothing

25:19

else is gonna go in that spot.

25:22

Yeah. Um, that I've picked up with,

25:22

with, with that EQ suite.

25:25

And it's quite

25:26

often I see, I see things on forum. I really shouldn't go on

25:28

forums, but occasionally I go on forums and I see people

25:29

saying, um, you know, how

25:33

do I get, why, why isn't my

25:33

vocal fitting in this track?

25:36

And then somebody will, will

25:36

suggest like a 10 plugin chat.

25:40

I'm just like, oh God. It's just like the guitars

25:42

in the same spot as a vocals.

25:44

It's never, there's nothing you can do to that vocal to make it fit.

25:48

You do it to the guitars

25:48

and make some space for

25:50

it and then it'll be fine. An easy move in the guitars

25:51

and everything's done. So that sort of thing.

25:54

It's, yeah, it's once. And again, it is sort of the

25:56

thing with remote consultancy, once you've, you've, you've

25:57

done it a few times, it's sort

26:00

of, it kind of, it's obvious,

26:00

you know, you hear it straight

26:03

away cuz you sort of, you

26:03

are used to listening for it

26:05

and finding it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting, um,

26:07

that with regards to the plugin

26:10

chains, cuz scrolling through

26:10

the internet, scrolling through

26:13

social media and I see various

26:13

posts every now and again.

26:15

I sit quite every now and again quite a lot. And it's just plugin chain

26:17

off the plugin chain, off the plugin chain, which is great.

26:20

But a lot of the time, as you

26:20

say that it's not necessarily

26:23

the plugin chain that your

26:23

plugins or whatever it is you

26:25

are using, that's the issue. It's uh, it's that

26:26

frequency balance. So it, there's another

26:29

question I wanted off the

26:31

back of this, but before we

26:31

go onto that, my next question

26:33

was gonna be, you mentioned there about the vocals. So when you're actually

26:35

starting a mixed session mm-hmm.

26:38

, which instrument group are you starting with? Or does it vary

26:40

depending on the project? Uh, well

26:42

I do that thing with the vocal and then I do the drum.

26:45

That's always my route. So I know where the hole's

26:46

gotta be for the vocal. And then cuz the, the,

26:49

the drums define, the kick

26:51

defines the bottom end. The snare defines the mid

26:52

range and the high hats define

26:55

symbols, define the top. So once you've got those

26:56

in place and you can start

26:58

fitting the instruments in. But, um, I would, I would

26:59

hate to have to fit drums

27:03

in after the fact, you know,

27:03

because they are everywhere.

27:07

Mm. Um, so, so I'd hate to have

27:07

to try and fit that in after

27:10

I'd got in all the rest of the instrumentation. That would be a pain.

27:12

So that's always the route.

27:15

Yeah, I, it is

27:15

a similar route that I follow

27:17

myself and in other discussions

27:17

I've, I've heard other

27:20

engineers do do that as well. With regards to the drums,

27:21

admittedly, I've, no, I don't

27:24

think I've ever started a mix with the vocals first, but certainly something I'm gonna

27:26

try going forward now cuz

27:28

it's being in the, being a,

27:28

a sort of engineer, producing

27:32

myself and it's quite new to,

27:32

new to the game as it were,

27:36

comparative to yourself. It's still learning that.

27:38

And I find the vocal chain is probably not the vocal chain, probably don't wanna

27:40

use that term, but the vocals

27:43

being the hardest bit of the

27:43

mix to, to get right and,

27:46

and I think actually maybe

27:46

doing it first is, is the

27:49

way to, and then make space

27:50

for it. Yeah. Make sure every time you

27:50

bring an element in, it's

27:52

not fighting with the vocal cuz it's not allowed to.

27:56

Yeah. And vocal, I think

27:56

what I've noticed. Yeah, exactly.

28:00

And what I've noticed in mixes that I've done myself is I, when I've left the vocal

28:02

to the end and I've got all

28:05

this other stuff going on

28:05

and then I'm just like, shit,

28:08

where does that vocal go now?

28:10

And I've the

28:10

audio crowbar, I dunno why.

28:13

Yeah, I'm

28:13

like, and then I go through

28:15

track by track and I'm

28:15

like, right, and I'm gonna

28:18

have to get rid of that. I'm gonna have to get rid of that. I'm gonna have to get rid

28:19

of that, get rid of that. And then I'm like, I'm just

28:20

gonna have to write the song,

28:23

like produce, start again. Compose the song all over again.

28:26

Yes. So audience listening, vocals

28:26

first go with the vocals

28:30

first. Yeah, and to be honest, I don't

28:31

really go to town with it.

28:33

I don't go to town. I know some people who

28:34

do the whole vocal sound

28:36

first and then carry on. I just find out the main present

28:38

frequency in that mid range

28:42

and go, okay, I know it's gotta

28:42

be there, and then I move on.

28:45

So there'll be more that I

28:45

do afterwards, but I just

28:48

need to know that bit.

28:50

Ah, so it's actually just picking out the, the sort of frequency

28:51

that that pivotal frequency

28:54

and then the actual rest

28:54

of the processing will be

28:56

done further down the line. Yeah.

28:58

Yeah. But there are other people

28:59

that do it the other way. I know people that start

29:01

with the vocal sound, particularly I think more

29:03

often than not, people

29:05

working like real pop stuff. Um, That I've known people do

29:08

that where they get the, the

29:11

whole vocal sound effects,

29:11

compression, the works, and

29:15

then start bringing other things

29:16

in. That's an interesting way of doing it. Um, because if, if you were

29:18

to start with them with,

29:22

with all that to begin with,

29:22

and then you'd bring other

29:24

instrumentation in, would

29:24

you not need to then go back

29:28

and adjust, well, I suppose

29:28

you're gonna do it anyway and

29:31

adjust that those, that vocal

29:31

processing that you've done.

29:34

Exactly. You do

29:34

do it anyway. You know, when you're do in

29:35

a mix, it's not like you, you know, you set up your base sound

29:37

and then, and then that's done.

29:40

I'll never touch that again. You know, you always,

29:41

you know, tweaking stuff from going back in and

29:44

Interesting. Kind of segues nicely. Then answer the next part, which

29:46

is, imagine we've gone through

29:49

all this process then and, uh,

29:49

we've gone through the mix.

29:52

We're, we're relatively happy. How do you know when

29:54

the mix is finished and ready to put to bed?

29:57

Now this is something that I

29:57

struggle with personally a lot.

29:59

Mm-hmm. , um, and I go through the, I go,

30:00

I can go through binge editing

30:04

and I can be sat there and just

30:04

binging and doing it needlessly.

30:08

Yeah. Um, I slap myself on

30:08

the wrist for doing it. I have

30:11

a set process for

30:11

this, um, which actually I

30:14

thought loads of people did. And then I was chat. I do like a monthly chat

30:16

with a couple other guys

30:18

who I trained with back in

30:18

Metropolis and sort of, cuz

30:21

we used to do this sitting

30:21

around the coffin machine and

30:23

we don't do that cause we're in our own little studios. So, so I do a monthly zoom,

30:25

uh, with those guys and,

30:28

um, and, and I, I brought

30:28

it up my process and I

30:32

thought everyone did it. They didn't, they

30:33

hadn't heard of this. So what I do is, so I

30:35

have two sets of speakers.

30:39

I have some Newmans,

30:39

um, and some ya tens.

30:43

Um, and then I have two sets of headphones that I use for mixing as well.

30:46

I have some Grado. Um, and then, uh, these things

30:48

called Ross and Audio ones,

30:51

which are very nice PO one. Um, and, and what I do

30:53

is I pick one of those

30:57

things for my first pass. So I've got the sound,

30:59

everything's kind of together, but I need to

31:00

get into automation now

31:03

to get the thing finished. So I, I pick one of those

31:04

things and go from start

31:07

to finish doing everything

31:07

that I can hear, everything

31:09

that I think needs doing. Uh, so maybe say it's some

31:11

annoy do do everything.

31:14

So it sounds finished to me on the annoyance. Then I go onto another one.

31:18

Probably I'll go into

31:18

the great os, do the same

31:20

from start to finish. Then I go into the

31:22

Ns, tens, same thing. Then I go into the ros, same

31:24

thing there, and then back

31:28

to the no for last pass. And at that point I

31:29

probably can't hear

31:31

anything I want to change. And once I've done the

31:32

last pass on the thing that I started on, I'm done.

31:35

So you you, you're sort of trialing it on different systems or

31:37

different listing environments.

31:39

Headphones. And then,

31:40

so I'm kind of

31:40

doing the mix, going through,

31:43

doing all my information, moves

31:43

everything that I wanna do, and

31:45

then I'm jumping on a different

31:45

set of monitors and doing

31:48

the same thing where there's always less, you know, there's less for each of each round.

31:52

There's far less me to do,

31:52

but it, it just means I'm, I

31:55

know I'm not missing anything cause I'm checking out on all my different systems

31:56

and, and, and making the

31:58

changes that I hear on there. And, and then, you know,

32:00

I do, I have got these

32:02

different ones cause they all do sound a little bit. I like the sound of

32:03

them all, but they are all a bit different.

32:05

So, um, yeah, guess how it works

32:08

with regards to different, different listening environments.

32:11

Um, I, I sort of audition

32:11

mixes and productions

32:14

in the car and I, I hear

32:14

conflicting stories with that.

32:18

I hear, or I rather I read,

32:18

some individuals will say,

32:21

no, you shouldn't do that. And others will say,

32:22

well, yes you should. What are your opinions on,

32:23

on auditioning, sort of in

32:25

a, in a car environment? Um,

32:29

you should do, if it works. You know, if you, if you can sit

32:30

in the car and you hear your mix

32:34

and you hear something that's

32:34

not right about it, and then

32:37

you go and change that thing

32:37

that you heard and it sounds

32:39

better, then that's a great

32:39

listening environment for you.

32:43

Um, and it's just like,

32:43

you know, with, with these

32:45

headphones, these, these

32:45

speakers, they won't work

32:47

for some people, but they work for me, so it's great. Um, the car thing.

32:51

Didn't work very well for

32:51

me, so I stopped doing it.

32:55

Um, uh, it might just

32:55

been, I didn't like

32:58

stereos, particularly

32:58

in the cars that I had.

33:00

I've got a new car now with a nice stereo, so maybe I'll start doing it,

33:02

but I can't be bothered. What I've got at the moment

33:04

works, so let's not, let's

33:07

not mess with that too much. Um, but no, I, I think, I

33:08

think any of those kind of

33:11

rules that people set is

33:11

like, I find a bit weird.

33:14

Uh, like when people say

33:14

you can't mix on headphones,

33:17

well, you can, and if your

33:17

mixes sound really good on

33:20

headphones, then keep doing it. So, um, yeah.

33:24

And there's slight, there's

33:24

very slight technical things

33:26

that people say about it. Ah, but this tiny technical

33:27

thing, it's like, yeah, but

33:29

people, if you know that and

33:29

you know your headphones well,

33:33

you work around that and you

33:33

know that that's the case.

33:35

Mm-hmm. , it's like, you know, there's people that, you know, suffer from minor levels of

33:36

hearing loss that are mixed

33:40

engineers and, and they work

33:40

around it, their perception

33:42

deals with it, and they turn out brilliant mixes. And, uh, I, I was speaking to a

33:44

mastering engineer recently said

33:47

it always used to be the case. Back in like the eighties, up

33:48

to the end of the eighties, that

33:51

people would come into mastering

33:51

and go, I've got a bit of a hole

33:55

in my hearing, about 500 hertz. So there might be something

33:57

odd there, but there you go.

33:59

And then they carry on. It'd be a brilliant

34:00

mix and there'd be something odd about that.

34:02

So all those things, those

34:02

little limitations that

34:05

everybody has either in

34:05

themselves or in their room

34:07

or in their whatever, as long as you know what they are, um, you can carry on and

34:11

get a great job. Yeah, I agree with that. I, I've spoken to numerous

34:13

producers and I know, I know

34:15

a few off the top of my head

34:15

and who mix predominantly

34:18

with headphones and they, their mixers sound great and the production sound great.

34:21

I did know, this was way back

34:21

when I was, I was studying,

34:24

uh, music production and

34:24

there was a, there was a, a

34:27

lad and he was mixing using

34:27

apple in ear headphones.

34:30

Wow. And his Yeah, I know.

34:33

And his production

34:33

sounded amazing and he'd

34:35

obviously attuned them. So, and he'd done it so much and

34:36

he was so attuned to using them

34:39

and how they translated, he got

34:39

it totally dialed in, which was.

34:43

Incredibly impressive. Yeah. Yeah.

34:45

So, um, it kind of leads on to

34:45

the next bit then with regards

34:49

to mis misconceptions and myths. So with regards to mixed

34:51

engineering, what do you

34:53

think is the biggest sort

34:53

of misconception myth that

34:56

maybe someone who's starting

34:56

out would read or hear?

34:59

Hmm, good point. I think probably any

35:01

of those rule are four

35:05

mentioned rules, I think are

35:05

misconceptions and myths.

35:08

The idea that you can't do

35:08

something and, and I always

35:12

try and try and remember

35:12

that when I'm telling people

35:15

how I do stuff or how I'd

35:15

recommend to do stuff.

35:18

And yeah, unless you don't

35:18

agree with that or unless you

35:21

think that sounds rubbish,

35:21

in which case don't do it.

35:23

And, and I do that in the mixed consultancy stuff as well. I try and flag up, like

35:25

this comment is a slightly

35:30

in the realms of production

35:30

rather than mixing.

35:32

Like, it's like this

35:32

is a taste comment.

35:35

Try it, see if you like it. If you don't sack it

35:37

off, it doesn't matter. But it's just, I always try

35:39

and approach it of like, what

35:41

would I do if I was sat here? Here's what I would do.

35:44

Right? So that's, that's, um,

35:44

I try and check myself

35:48

on that sort of thing. But yeah, I think if you ever

35:49

hear anyone sort of saying,

35:51

oh, you, you can't, you,

35:51

you can't monitor on those.

35:55

You can't listen on that. You shouldn't do this. That plugin's not for that.

35:58

It's for this, you

35:58

can't mix with plugins.

36:00

It's gotta be analog, it's

36:00

gotta be digital, et cetera,

36:03

et cetera, et cetera. All of that's nonsense.

36:05

All that matters is what comes out. The speakers. Does it sound good if it does?

36:10

You've nailed it.

36:10

Yeah. Uh, exactly that. And it's a case of like the end

36:12

listeners not gonna really care

36:15

too much about the process of

36:15

putting together even together a

36:18

tiny bit. Not

36:19

a tiny bit, yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

36:22

That. Um, and it leads on again

36:22

to this next question and

36:25

it kind of falls under, maybe it does fall under the myths and misconceptions

36:27

and this regards to sort of

36:30

mixing and then mastering. Cause a lot of the

36:31

audience do mix and master. They produce, they write,

36:33

produce, mix, master in their own music.

36:36

Yeah. What is, what is your

36:36

opinion on mixing and

36:39

mastering your own music? Should you get maybe

36:41

someone else to master it?

36:43

Um, is it, yeah, basically

36:43

that is the question.

36:47

Do you think it's worthwhile getting a second set of ears to master that music?

36:50

If, if it is possible

36:50

and it falls within

36:52

your sort of budget?

36:53

Yes. Always. Yes. I would always do

36:56

that if I could. And I, I, I, I think I've,

36:57

I've once or twice mastered

37:01

something that I've mixed

37:01

myself, but, um, I feel it's

37:04

a bit like marking your own

37:04

homework if you do that.

37:07

Um, whereas if, if I send it

37:07

to someone else, then, then,

37:10

then I'm getting a second set

37:10

of professional ears, listen

37:13

to the mix in a different room,

37:13

which is also good, you know,

37:17

um, on different speakers than,

37:17

or mylo, um, and, and getting

37:21

their kind of take on it. Um, so yeah, I would always

37:23

recommend to do that.

37:26

I know it is a budgetary thing. Um, but I think that the

37:28

problem that I think has

37:32

sort of crept into music

37:32

production is it seems that

37:36

people think it's the norm

37:36

to mix and master something.

37:39

Like it's all one process

37:39

and it's one person's

37:42

job, and it isn't, and I

37:42

don't think it should be.

37:46

I understand that sometimes

37:46

that's how things go.

37:48

Um, just like sometimes, you

37:48

know, you're better off as

37:52

a performer, somebody else

37:52

doing the engineering for you.

37:55

So all you have to think

37:55

about is the performance.

37:58

You then have to think about

37:58

how things are rooted and, and,

38:00

and all that sort of stuff. You, you can focus on

38:01

the one job that you've

38:03

got, which is performing. And if you've got an engineer.

38:06

, they can do their bit and you get a better result on both ends.

38:10

That doesn't always happen. Sometimes you gotta

38:11

do it yourself, do

38:13

all the job yourself. Same with mixing, mastering,

38:14

sometimes you just have to do

38:16

it and, and that's how life is. But if you get an opportunity

38:18

to get someone else to cast

38:21

their ears over it and go,

38:21

this is perhaps a little

38:24

bit heavy here, I think you

38:24

can push it this much on the

38:27

compression, blah, blah, blah,

38:27

then uh, I would always do that.

38:30

Um, the one sort of thing, um,

38:30

that I think people need to

38:34

be aware of with using other

38:34

mastering engineers, using

38:38

other people to do it is be

38:38

aware of how you want your

38:41

track to sound and let them

38:41

know if they didn't do that.

38:45

Cuz I th the, I I have had mixed

38:45

experiences marketing engineers

38:49

and, and the ones I use now are

38:49

ones I've, you know, I found

38:52

a few guys that I use a lot,

38:52

um, and they sit there and

38:55

listen to the mix and go, okay,

38:55

that's what he's aiming for.

38:58

And then they just make that better. . And occasionally in the

39:01

past I've had people go,

39:04

oh, right, he's probably got

39:04

that wrong then I'm gonna

39:06

change this completely . I'm

39:06

like, well, that's not what

39:09

we wanted because my mix

39:09

got the okay from the band.

39:13

Everyone was happy. Yeah. And so now you are supposed

39:14

to just make that a bit better

39:16

with the mastering job, hear

39:16

any problems, whatever, but

39:19

not completely change it. Um, so that's, that's just the

39:21

only bit of advice I say I'd

39:24

give if you are sort of new

39:24

to farming, mastering out to

39:26

other people is, is be aware

39:26

that, you know, this is you.

39:30

If the mix is signed off

39:30

and okay, everyone likes it.

39:33

That's what everyone wants. And it just needs to be a

39:34

slightly embellished version of

39:36

that, not something completely

39:38

different. Yeah. Uh, fantastic advice.

39:40

And do you think it's worth

39:40

I, with mastering, finding

39:43

a mastering engineer who

39:43

specializes in the, specialize

39:47

might be the wrong word,

39:47

but their warehouse is

39:49

the genre of music that you're working within? Cause I guess mastering

39:51

engineers though, they're quite broad, aren't they, in

39:53

terms of what they master?

39:55

Yeah.

39:56

I mean I know

39:56

that that often happens.

39:59

Um, . Yeah. I mean, it, it happens in all

40:00

areas of the industry really.

40:04

There's, people get known for

40:04

doing certain things and it's

40:06

mostly because you've done

40:06

those things a bit and people

40:09

recognize you for it and go,

40:09

oh, well he did that record

40:12

that sounds a bit like mine. So, so he can have mine now.

40:16

And then you just end

40:16

up down a sort of, you

40:18

know, a bit of a path. It's something I've tried to

40:19

avoid, if at all possible,

40:22

cuz I think keeps life more interesting if you're doing like a variety of things.

40:26

Yeah. Um, but, um, but, but then

40:27

you sort of end up, you end up

40:32

doing a better job on things that you understand more. I think so that, that kind of

40:34

does make a bit bit of sense.

40:36

Like, I don't do a lot or

40:36

I don't do any hip hop.

40:40

Uh, I don't do any. Black metal, you know, those

40:42

are things I don't listen to,

40:45

so it's not stuff that I would,

40:45

I would do a good job on.

40:48

I don't think so. Um, and, and unfortunately

40:50

I don't get offered it, so

40:52

I don't have to say no to anybody because they've also not seen any of that on my cv.

40:55

So it is fine. It all works out okay.

40:58

But yeah, I, I, I would, you

40:58

know, there's no harm in looking

41:01

about in the cv and if none

41:01

of it's what you are into or

41:05

want to sound like, then maybe

41:05

find somebody where the CV does

41:09

look like something you wanna

41:09

sound like, cuz that's what

41:11

they're working on every day,

41:11

if it's a certain sort of thing.

41:14

So there's no harm in it. Yeah, I don't think it's vital.

41:17

Um, but I think it might make

41:17

things a little smoother.

41:20

Yeah.

41:20

So I suppose the

41:20

key bit of information or advice

41:23

there would be is obviously,

41:23

I think if you're gonna choose

41:25

a mastering engineers to go

41:25

check out their cv, their,

41:27

their, their portfolio of

41:27

music that they've done, and

41:29

see if it sort of resonates

41:29

with the music that you have.

41:32

Yeah. And then you'd be able to make a sort of an informed decision from that.

41:35

Yeah.

41:35

And they'll probably understand what you're aiming for because

41:36

that's the sort of stuff they work on every day, so,

41:40

yeah. Fantastic. Oh, well aware. We, uh, we're all 40 minutes

41:41

in already and, um, what I'm

41:44

gonna move on to now, so the,

41:44

the inside the Mix podcast has

41:47

a Facebook community group,

41:47

and in there when I'm doing an

41:50

interview, I will post and say,

41:50

uh, if you've got questions, uh,

41:53

you'd like me to put toward, um,

41:53

the interviewee, do post them.

41:56

So I've got three questions here. So the first one is for

41:57

Maurice, a gay Kumo Wii.

42:01

Mm-hmm. And he asks, uh, is it

42:02

different to mix for vinyl?

42:05

And if you do, uh, well, he's

42:05

actually got two questions.

42:08

So that's the first one. Is it different if you make,

42:08

if you're mixing for vinyl?

42:10

Mm-hmm. ? No.

42:12

Uh, that's the mastering process. Uh, mixing would be

42:14

exactly the same. Um, and mastering.

42:17

It's, uh, and, and I'm, you

42:17

know, as a not mastering

42:21

engineer, I'm gonna

42:21

explain this really badly.

42:23

Um, and mastering engineers,

42:23

if they're hearing this,

42:26

are gonna be shouting. Uh, but, uh, the way I

42:27

understand it is in order to

42:30

get it onto the vinyl, um, you

42:30

have to do certain things about

42:34

mono and the base, and being

42:34

careful how much base you put

42:36

on it, because that can cause

42:36

the needle to jump if there's

42:39

too much, cause the cut's too

42:39

deep and things like that.

42:42

So there, there's a

42:42

technical process, uh, that

42:45

means you have to master it slightly differently. So, so if you are mastering

42:46

a record, um, you know, an

42:50

album, you might master it

42:50

separately for, um, a digital,

42:54

uh, upload than you would

42:54

for vinyl, because there's

42:56

different considerations.

42:57

Fantastic. Thanks for that then. So basically, um, the mix

42:57

is essentially the same,

43:00

and then it falls into the

43:00

master the realm of mastering

43:02

then for the, for the vinyl. Yeah.

43:03

The, the only thing, actually one thing is if you add a super stereo

43:05

base, I think that wouldn't

43:09

get on vinyl and they'd have

43:09

to do something about that.

43:11

So you might want to think

43:11

about that when you mix it.

43:14

I think that's the only, the

43:14

only consideration I would do

43:16

is provide like a really big

43:16

stereo base out, I think might

43:19

not fit on buying all that.

43:20

So, yeah. Fantastic.

43:23

Um, so the next, the next

43:23

question from for Maurice

43:25

is, um, I think this ties

43:25

in quite well actually to

43:28

the, the Loop Masters, the

43:28

Stranger, stranger Synth mm-hmm.

43:32

We're talking to Stranger since Yes. Luke Master, uh, project

43:37

that you went with. So his que next question is,

43:39

uh, what is your approach,

43:41

um, for sync projects and tv?

43:44

Now, he was a bit vague with that one. Now I'm assuming he means with

43:45

regards to the production. Um, how does that

43:49

sort of start? Yeah, so I, the only thing

43:50

that I've done like that is those sample backs.

43:53

I don't, um, I don't work

43:53

on, uh, like production

43:57

albums or, or sync stuff. So I haven't got Okay.

44:01

An angle on that. Um, the only, the only thing

44:02

that, that, the story behind

44:04

that one was simply that

44:04

I had a load of friends go

44:07

text me and, and, and email

44:07

me, said, have you seen

44:10

this thing strange at the. Things series, you'd

44:11

love the soundtrack.

44:14

It sounds just like the sort of music you make. Um, so then I checked it out

44:16

and thought, oh yeah it does.

44:19

Um, I could probably do a

44:19

sample pack of stuff that

44:21

sounds a bit like that and people might be into it. So that's how that came about,

44:26

opportunistic. Oh, I see. Yeah.

44:28

Fantastic. So do you do a lot of

44:29

the total tangent here? Do you do a lot of sort of

44:31

your own synth productions?

44:33

Cuz obviously with the modular, since you've got in the background there with

44:34

time permitting, I guess,

44:37

do you That is the big phrase. Time permitting.

44:40

Um, which it isn't. So I did, I did a full track

44:41

EP under the name, um, five

44:46

pages, which is five is a v

44:46

like the Roman numeral thing.

44:48

So if you look up V pages Yeah. On, um, your streaming

44:50

platform of choice, uh,

44:53

there's a four track EP there,

44:53

um, which is a bit synthy.

44:57

Uh, first track's a bit more guitar. There's a few guitars on a bit.

44:59

It's mostly synthy stuff

44:59

and some friends singing.

45:02

Um, uh, that, that's all I've,

45:02

I've actually put out myself.

45:06

This ends up on other

45:06

people's records basically.

45:08

Um, either as. You know, if I'm mixing, I

45:10

might put stuff through it or,

45:13

or recommend they send a mini

45:13

file with a sy part and, you

45:16

know, I can, you know, embellish

45:16

or replace or something.

45:19

Or just if I'm producing

45:19

something, you know, this'll

45:21

end up on this some fantastic,

45:23

excellent stuff. I've, I'll go and check that out. Um, five pages, um, on

45:25

my part, on my streaming

45:28

platform of choice. Um, brilliant stuff.

45:30

In fact, what I'll do is I'll put a link in the show notes for this episode.

45:33

Oh, cool. Go. Yeah. So the audience can go

45:34

away and, and have a listen to that as well.

45:37

So the next question is

45:37

from, uh, Chao Daniel.

45:39

So he's a producer called

45:39

Thalos, asks, how do

45:42

you dial in modern retro

45:42

sounds during mixing?

45:45

And he cite the Amy Winehouse

45:45

back to Black album.

45:48

Um, that's quite a, a broad

45:51

question there. Um, well, the first thing I'm

45:52

gonna say is that was mixed

45:54

by Tom Elmhurst and not me. I recorded most of that.

45:57

Ah, um, but he mixed it. But, um, I can

45:59

certainly tell you how.

46:02

recorded it to sound modern

46:02

virtually, which was, uh,

46:05

absolutely a conversation with,

46:05

uh, with Mark, uh, Ronson,

46:08

who produced half the album. Um, Sal Rome did the other

46:10

half, but probably if you

46:12

only know the singles, you know, all Mark's Wants. Um, and, and he said about

46:14

wanting to sound old sixties

46:20

Girl Group, Phil Specter,

46:20

those kind of sounds.

46:23

Um, uh, cause I was doing

46:23

first session him was strings,

46:27

um, a string session did,

46:27

uh, and I think actually

46:29

we had brass and orchestral percussion on in one day. It was like quite a big, kind

46:31

of full on shipping things in

46:34

and out the recording room. So I set up a lot of valve

46:35

mics and a lot of ribbon mics.

46:39

Um, because those were the mics

46:39

that they had in those days.

46:42

That was the process that they had. So I thought, well, let's

46:43

try and be as authentic as

46:45

we can by using the, the,

46:45

the gear that they had.

46:48

Um, but then also what I,

46:48

I sort of thought as well,

46:52

I'd read, you know, Books

46:52

about those sort of things.

46:55

There's a really good, uh,

46:55

biography of Phil Specter,

46:57

which is really interesting. But what, what they would do

46:58

in those days often is they

47:00

would have one mic in the room. They wouldn't, they didn't have

47:02

the capability to mic everything

47:05

up individually, so it'd be

47:05

just one mic or a few mics that

47:08

would cover the room, and then

47:08

you move the instruments closer

47:11

or further away, depending on how loud you want them to be. Um, so I thought as an aside,

47:14

I'd put a ribbon mic in the

47:17

studio that we were recording

47:17

in had like a big, um, there's

47:21

a bit of glass and concrete in

47:21

a plaster, unfortunately, but

47:24

there was some wooden bits and

47:24

there was like a shell shaped

47:26

wooden thing covering a corner

47:26

like the inside of a shell.

47:29

So I put a ribbon mic up

47:29

there to catch some, some

47:32

room sound with an old

47:32

mic, that sort of thing.

47:35

Um, and then speaking to Tom

47:35

afterwards when he was mixing

47:38

or after, he'd mixed it, that

47:38

was, that mic was what he

47:41

used for most of the string

47:41

sound, and then he just fed

47:44

things into it from there. So that was a way of the

47:45

getting those to sound old was

47:48

simply by using the techniques

47:48

that they used and, and.

47:51

And, and the equipment that they used. And there you go.

47:53

That's, that's, that's how they did it. So that's how we'll do it.

47:56

Um, , uh, yeah.

47:59

So in terms of mixing, there's a few things you can do that are little tricks.

48:01

Like, for example, if you set

48:01

up the same room reverb or

48:05

small hall, um, that's kind

48:05

of, you know, and everything

48:08

goes to that a little bit. That's, that's how they were

48:09

recorded in those days cuz

48:12

everything was in the same room. There was like, Phil Specter

48:14

used a room called Gold Star

48:16

where he did everything. Um, and uh, and so that

48:17

can start to sound a little

48:21

bit retro by the fact that

48:21

that's, you know, that's,

48:24

that it all sounds like

48:24

it's in the same space.

48:26

Um, and not going too bright on

48:26

things cause they didn't, things

48:29

weren't recorded that bright. Um, so concentrating

48:31

more on warm.

48:35

That's another one. Fantastic. It's inter interesting

48:36

that you mentioned Phil Specter then because, um,

48:37

as what, what's the date?

48:40

Today's the, the 11th of November. I've challenged myself, I

48:41

dunno why I've done this

48:44

with writing a, uh, no

48:44

writing a Christmas song or

48:46

covering a Christmas song. And, um, I've been listening

48:47

to, to Phil Spector's

48:50

Christmas album, the

48:50

Finest Christmas album.

48:52

There is . It, it is very good.

48:56

I, what, what I was doing is

48:56

I've been on a music sort of

48:59

theory and composition and

48:59

arrangement binge blade, and

49:02

I was thinking, right, how

49:02

are these songs put together?

49:04

So I've been looking around

49:04

online and then listening

49:06

to songs and thinking, okay, this goes there. That goes there.

49:08

What cause are they using core progressions and all that sort of things.

49:11

And it's really interesting,

49:11

actually, which is why

49:13

it's led me down this Phil Specter route, but Right. It's exactly what you

49:15

mentioned there about the particular sound you have.

49:17

Cause when you listen to it,

49:17

it, it, it sounds like one

49:20

microphone, but it, yeah, I

49:20

guess it, it wouldn't sound

49:23

the same if it was record. No, he wouldn't

49:25

have that character. No,

49:27

no. It's, yeah. That alla sound thing. Yeah.

49:29

Which is, yeah, which is cool. Interestingly, I did work with

49:31

Phil Specter once, just as an

49:34

assistant and I got him to sign

49:34

my copy of the Christmas album,

49:36

which that's very pleased about. Oh wow. But, uh, but he said

49:38

that it was a good story.

49:40

He, um, said it took

49:40

about nine months putting

49:43

that album together, um,

49:43

with the writing and the

49:45

recording and everything. It was a big, big project

49:46

for him cuz he was like, it

49:48

was on his label and it was

49:48

like, I'm gonna be rich cause

49:50

I'm gonna make you know, the

49:50

best Christmas album ever.

49:53

And he said, and then, and

49:53

then just before Christmas,

49:56

Kennedy was, and Christmas

49:56

was canceled in America.

49:59

So then I did nothing cuz

49:59

nobody was really, they weren't

50:02

going for it the way they had

50:02

and it took him years to, to

50:05

recoup what he'd spent on it. But then obviously since

50:08

then, it's been massive.

50:10

But yeah, it was quite funny that, that, uh, that totally went, went

50:13

very badly for Oh, wow.

50:15

For quite a

50:16

while. Yeah. Yeah. That's quite the , that's,

50:17

uh, . That's, that's, uh,

50:21

that's not great when that hap

50:21

Well I say when that happens,

50:23

like it's happened a lot. But yeah, that's, uh, that

50:24

is incredibly unfortunate.

50:28

But like, say, I think he's,

50:28

he's probably probably done

50:30

quite well off the back of it,

50:30

I think I wanna say re-released.

50:33

I could, I could be wrong. This was, again, this was

50:34

late last night when I was

50:37

researching the, the, the,

50:37

um, the foundations of a

50:40

Christmas song, . So the,

50:40

the final question is,

50:44

uh, from another community

50:44

member called Dan Maloney.

50:46

And the, uh, his, uh, his

50:46

question is, when so much is

50:50

possible inside the box, is

50:50

investing in really pricing

50:53

Mike Preamps worthwhile? Or would a good microphone

50:55

in decent plugin be better?

50:58

I thought, I suppose a good example of that would be like, there's the Slate

51:00

Digital, uh, mic emulation,

51:04

um, which you, you buy the

51:04

Slate digital mic, and then

51:06

you have various different mic

51:06

modelings within their software.

51:09

Yeah, yeah. Um, unfortunately I'm not

51:10

particularly the best guy to

51:14

answer that on, on the base that

51:14

I haven't used any of those.

51:17

Um, I haven't used

51:17

the modeling mics.

51:20

I've heard good things. It was the Townsend one as well,

51:21

which won, won an award for Best

51:25

Mike, not even best modeling

51:25

Mike, um, just as a great sound

51:28

of Mike, which then got bought

51:28

by Universal Audio, the company.

51:31

So I think that's turned into

51:31

Universal audio's, Mike, or if

51:33

they've got one out, is that

51:33

one, you know, or whatever.

51:36

If the, if not one's coming

51:36

out soon and it's that, um,

51:40

So, um, so I'm not sure.

51:42

I guess, I guess maybe my advice

51:42

would be to get something, if

51:46

you want to go that route of

51:46

using a variety of different

51:50

things, um, it's still worth

51:50

getting something that's high

51:53

quality because you still want

51:53

the best signal going in to

51:58

the d a w, you know, if you

51:58

have a bad signal going into a

52:00

d A W, that's not very clear. There's not much, you can

52:03

only color it from there.

52:05

You can't make it better and clearer. So, so if that's the route you

52:07

wanna go, I'd, I'd recommend

52:10

getting a nice quality one, but

52:10

something that's quite clean.

52:13

So like a Neve one, for

52:13

example, is great, but

52:15

it's fairly colored. Um, and which is a

52:16

nice, you know, that's

52:18

what I would go for. But that then that's

52:20

the choice I've made.

52:22

You know, I've made it decided

52:22

to sound like that, or, or

52:25

I have a couple of valve

52:25

ones that I really like.

52:27

So, so that's the choice I would make there. Uh, but if you went for

52:29

something like, you know, a Grace Designs or a millennial

52:31

or something, they're, they're

52:34

companies that are known for

52:34

making gear that's really

52:36

high quality and really clean. And then from there in, you

52:38

can then change it however you

52:41

like and that change will have

52:41

the effect that you're looking

52:43

for because you've, you've got

52:43

a full clean signal going in.

52:46

So I think there's always,

52:46

there's always, um, an argument

52:50

for, for having the best

52:50

quality signal as far along

52:54

the chain as you can get it. It's like there's a friend of

52:55

mine used to describe, he says,

52:57

his woodwork teacher used to

52:57

say, keep your wood as long as

53:01

you can for as long as you can. Uh, meaning once you start

53:03

chopping bits off, you can't

53:06

put them back together again. So once you start degradating

53:07

your signal, you can't

53:11

make it posture again. So it's best just to keep it

53:13

as clean and posture as you

53:15

can for as long as possible

53:15

until you want to start making

53:18

decisions about it not being

53:19

Yeah. I, I really like that analogy

53:19

and it makes perfect sense

53:22

and it kind of falls, or

53:22

it, it pairs nicely with the

53:25

idea of getting it right at

53:25

source when you're recording.

53:28

So getting, getting it right

53:28

at source before, right at

53:31

that beginning there, cuz. Yeah. As you say that, if you, if

53:33

it's not there to begin with,

53:35

put, putting it in or adding

53:35

it can be, can be, can be

53:39

tricky, if not impossible. Yeah. Um, no, that's fantastic.

53:42

Thank you. Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant

53:43

answers to those Dom, and I hope that's, uh, for, for

53:45

those three listening and

53:47

the audience as well has answered those questions. I'm sure it has.

53:49

So the, the final bit really

53:49

is, is, is touching on

53:51

the mixed consultants key. Cause I think it's, it could

53:52

be a fantastic thing for, for

53:55

a lot of our listeners now. I, I came across the mix

53:56

consultancy because I

53:59

interviewed a producer

53:59

called One Equals Two Brandon

54:01

Gant a few months ago.

54:04

And he mentioned that he used your service. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

54:06

He

54:06

has, yeah,

54:06

yeah, yeah, yeah.

54:08

No, yeah. He's used, yeah, did, did a

54:09

few things on that record.

54:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It, it's good. That was a good example

54:13

actually of, you know, He did a few tracks.

54:17

We worked in a few tracks

54:17

together, and, and he got

54:19

better and better as you

54:19

know, as, as they went along.

54:22

So, yeah, it was good.

54:22

Yeah. Yeah. He, he mentioned it and

54:23

he, and sort of signpost

54:26

me in your direction. So audience listening,

54:27

if you wanna go and check out that particular

54:28

episode is episode 35.

54:30

Do so after listening to this one, obviously, but there's episode 35

54:32

with, uh, one equals two.

54:35

Um, so I know you touched on

54:35

it briefly earlier, but can

54:38

you just give us like a really

54:38

quick sort of, uh, breakdown

54:41

of the mixed consultancy? Cause I know you, there's also

54:42

tutorial elements in, um, and

54:45

courses involved in it as well,

54:45

if I, if I'm not mistaken.

54:48

Yeah, kind of.

54:49

Well, yeah, I, there are some of those. So basically the idea is, it's

54:51

a bit like I explained earlier,

54:55

I, I managed to get my head over

54:55

the, the another engineer once

54:58

who had 20 years experience with

54:58

me, saw what he did to my mixes.

55:01

And I learned a ton in that period. So I thought, how can

55:02

I make that available to people that can't?

55:06

For time or money reasons,

55:06

full-time education in,

55:09

in music production. So I thought, well I can,

55:10

I can, I can do that, I

55:12

can offer people that. So you upload your mix to me.

55:16

Um, and then there were

55:16

two sort of packages, this

55:19

gold or platinum and gold

55:19

is I then I listened to it.

55:21

I write down all the things that I would change at that point. And then I send you a pdf

55:23

with all of those things.

55:26

If you buy the platinum one,

55:26

you then make the changes,

55:30

do whatever you like to mix, send it back to me. I check it from there and I

55:32

write another list of the things

55:35

that I would change from here. Send that to you.

55:38

Then you send, make the changes, send it back to me. And then I do a third round of,

55:40

normally they get smaller as

55:43

they move along, you know, cuz,

55:43

cuz we are closing in on stuff.

55:47

Um, but they, you know, but

55:47

things do change as you develop

55:50

the mix through the, the,

55:50

the changes I've suggested.

55:53

So then you get a third round where send, you know, do you a PDF for that.

55:56

So that's golden platinum

55:56

packages of that.

55:59

Um, the reason why there's

55:59

a course that I have

56:02

available, I made a course

56:02

on how to record vocals.

56:04

Um, and the reason why I did

56:04

that is a lot of the problems

56:07

that I hear are actually from

56:07

people not, haven't recorded the

56:10

vocal very well, and, and their

56:10

mixed problems would be mostly,

56:15

or, or largely easier or gone.

56:19

Uh, if they had a really

56:19

good sounding vocal that

56:21

was really well performed. So in, in the recording

56:23

vocals course, which you can

56:26

get to on the website, mixed

56:26

consultancy, um, I get into the

56:29

psychology of it, like how to

56:29

do pre-production, what to talk

56:33

about, how to talk about things,

56:33

tempo lyrics, pitch all of the

56:38

things that need to do and know

56:38

before you start recording, we

56:41

talk a little bit about gear. I talk about how to run the

56:42

process of recording and what to

56:45

do with editing, tuning all that

56:45

stuff afterwards so you can just

56:47

get a great lead vocal and, and.

56:51

You can, you know, mixings just

56:51

so much easier if you've got a

56:53

great lead vocal to work for. So that's kind of what I've

56:54

got with the mix consultants. It's mostly about those kind

56:56

of con um, the consults.

56:59

That's where I started it,

56:59

but then I've got that course

57:01

there because I know that

57:01

that's, that's a big part of

57:04

what would help people get better at mixing as well.

57:06

Fantastic. And going back to what you

57:07

said there about the voco, I suppose it sort of echos what

57:08

we mentioned just then about getting, getting it right at

57:10

source and if Absolutely, if

57:12

you go through that process

57:12

of learning and education and

57:15

figuring out, actually this

57:15

is, if I get this vocal, how it

57:18

should sound before it goes in,

57:18

like I said, it's gonna make it

57:21

so much easier further down the

57:22

line. Yeah. And I think people don't realize

57:22

how, how much performance

57:25

makes a difference to mixing. If the performance is great,

57:26

you know, the mix is easier.

57:30

Oh yeah. And, and that's a big part

57:30

of it, which, which is why

57:33

I get into the psychology a lot because that the psychology of the session

57:35

and you as a producer

57:37

and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting

57:38

cause I've, I've sort of. more so on the other side of

57:40

the glass being the, the, um,

57:44

the musician being recorded. And, uh, it, it, the reason

57:46

why that I then looked at

57:49

production and mix engineering

57:49

and whatnot is because I

57:52

kind of poked my head around

57:52

the door and I looked at the

57:54

computer and I thought, actually that's quite interesting. And I kind of wanna know what

57:55

he's doing there at that desk.

57:58

Yeah. And that's sort of how

57:58

I sort of came into it. The

58:01

thing I find mad as well. Yeah. The thing I find mad with it

58:03

is, uh, there's, I, I put a

58:05

lot into it and, you know,

58:05

when I do a vocal session, I'm

58:07

thinking about lighting and, you

58:07

know, all this sort of stuff.

58:10

And, and then there's people

58:10

that record themselves and

58:13

go, oh, well, you know, I won't bother with that stuff. I just, you know, I

58:14

have a cup of tea. And then I'd start singing

58:16

like, why am I put, why

58:18

do I put more effort into

58:18

someone's vocal session that

58:22

they put into their own? Why would you not put that

58:23

effort into your own vocal?

58:26

It's your vocal. Yeah. Like, it matters more to you.

58:29

You, you know your name's on everything. My name's on it, but your name's

58:31

bigger, you know, in bigger

58:34

font than my name is, but I'll

58:34

put more effort than you were.

58:36

Just find that mad. Like here's all the

58:37

things you can do. that I do to make something

58:40

better psychologically,

58:42

do it to yourself. Like learn that and, and,

58:43

and treat yourself in a

58:46

way that means you will

58:46

get the best performance.

58:48

Yeah, it's um, Blows me away

58:48

with that case where people just

58:50

go, oh, I don't need to do that. It's like, no, you don't

58:51

need to, but you'll be better if you do.

58:55

Yeah,

58:55

yeah. I agree. I totally agree with that. Cause I've, I've fallen foul

58:57

that myself when I was recording

58:59

an album many years ago. And when I go into the

59:01

studio, I tune my guitar, I

59:05

look at the intonation, make

59:05

sure the, uh, the trust wa

59:08

trust rod was said, right. The Floyd Rose was all good.

59:11

Mm-hmm. made sure, um, I had decent

59:11

picks and everything.

59:13

All my cables were correct. I had everything I needed.

59:16

But then when I'm sat at home

59:16

recording, I'm just like, oh,

59:19

I just pick my guitar off the wall and I'll start playing and record it and I dunno.

59:22

Yeah. It is exactly that. It's, yeah. And maybe it's, I dunno,

59:24

it's a convenience thing. You're sort of like, oh,

59:25

it's that relaxed atmosphere.

59:28

You, you sort of need to take

59:28

yourself away to another room.

59:31

Or it's like you say, it's the

59:31

psychology of it, isn't it?

59:33

It's totally the psychology, when

59:35

you go to that studio, feel better, you perform better.

59:37

I think when you've set yourself up. Know that your instruments bang

59:40

on, everything's ready to go.

59:43

You've got the lights

59:43

dimmed your phone's off, you

59:46

know, you know you're ready

59:46

to record at that point.

59:48

And I think you, you, but I

59:48

think a lot of people put a

59:50

bit too much, I mean, this might sound a bit weird, but a lot of people put a

59:53

bit too much emphasis on

59:55

having a relaxed performance. Sometimes it doesn't

59:57

want to be relaxed. Sometimes it wants to be

59:59

present and it wants to be

1:00:02

urgent and it wants to be, you

1:00:02

know, all a hundred percent

1:00:05

in the moment as opposed to,

1:00:05

you know, leaning back on your

1:00:08

chair going, oh, that would do. I got it.

1:00:12

. Marc Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree.

1:00:14

And having played metal,

1:00:14

it was very much, I mean,

1:00:17

we, we couldn't sit back

1:00:17

and, and relax and play.

1:00:20

It was all very that

1:00:20

So lean forward.

1:00:23

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and try and stay in time.

1:00:27

That was always my, that's

1:00:27

why I kind of, I think that's

1:00:29

why I kind of moved the

1:00:29

other way cuz I was like, mm.

1:00:33

I'm not as good as the other guitars, so I'm gonna start honing my skills

1:00:35

somewhere else, you know?

1:00:37

Right. Yeah. Um, but no, Tom,

1:00:37

thank you very much.

1:00:39

We, we sort of reached the hour mark now, and this has been fantastic, and I know

1:00:41

the, the audience listening

1:00:43

is, uh, it's gonna take so much away from this as I, I, I have done as well.

1:00:47

So a really big thank you for

1:00:47

spending the time with me today,

1:00:49

this, this Friday evening. Yeah. Um, it's very, very well,

1:00:51

it's fantastic to, to get, get

1:00:56

your knowledge and, and spread

1:00:56

your knowledge throughout

1:00:59

the, for our audience. So a big, big thank

1:01:00

you and, um, I'll catch

1:01:03

up with you soon, Don. Yeah. Cheer. Hi, this

1:01:05

is Ghost Georgie. My favorite episode of Inside

1:01:07

the Mix is episode 38 right

1:01:11

now, because it was cool to

1:01:11

hear about Pensacola myths,

1:01:16

um, creative process and um,

1:01:16

working on doing the songs live.