0:00

This episode of recording studio rock

0:02

stars is brought to you by

0:04

isotope native instruments. Roswell Pro audio

0:06

and Adam audio. You're hearing my

0:09

voice right now through the beautiful

0:11

Roswell Pro audio Aztec tube microphone

0:13

mixed through isotope, ozone, Rx, and

0:16

neutron all on Adam audio monitors

0:18

and headphones. Please check out our

0:20

awesome sponsors using the links in

0:23

the show notes. Also, please remember

0:25

to like and subscribe to our

0:27

YouTube channel because it's a great

0:30

way for you to help support this

0:32

show. Now get ready to rock. The

0:34

biggest thing I want to say is...

0:36

a vinyl record is literally an analog

0:38

hard drive. It's just encoded information, like

0:40

the grooves are information that gets encoded

0:42

in, and then you have to have

0:44

a playback system to play that back

0:46

out. So I call it the caveman

0:48

hard drive. Instead of spinning at, you

0:50

know, like, what is it, 7,000 and.

0:52

you know, our PM, it spins at

0:54

33 and a third RPM, yeah, or

0:56

45. If you just have a disk

0:58

alone without the Encode system and the

1:00

playback system, they're useless. Like, you have

1:03

to have a way to encode it

1:05

and decode it, just like we do

1:07

with computers. It's the same idea, right? Welcome

1:19

to Recording Studio Rockstars. I'm

1:21

Liz Shaw and this is

1:23

the podcast created to help

1:26

you become a rock star

1:28

of the recording studio. At

1:34

isotope, tone shaping is topping

1:36

the charts. Meet the catalyst

1:39

series. Plasma, Aurora, and Cascadia.

1:41

Plasmus Flux Saturation Technology brings

1:44

dynamic warmth and depth tier

1:46

mix. Aurora takes spatial audio

1:49

to new heights with lush

1:51

adaptive reverb, while Cascadia adds

1:54

exciting delays to your mix.

1:56

Retaining clarity through its smart

1:59

unmasking feature. 10% off Plasma,

2:01

Aurora, Cascadia, or any of the isotope

2:03

plugins with the special code Rock10 and

2:05

make your mixes rock at isotope.com. Howdy

2:08

Rockstars! It's your host, Lid Sean. Welcome

2:10

to Recording Studio Rockstars bringing you into

2:12

the studio to learn from recording professionals

2:15

so that you can make your best

2:17

record ever and be a rock star

2:19

of the studio yourself. My guest today

2:21

here at Podzila Studios, actually for... Our

2:24

first ever video interview right here at

2:26

Podsilla is Duncan Ferguson, a mastering engineer

2:28

based in East Nashville with a true

2:31

passion for critical listening and collecting all

2:33

kinds of recordings. Duncan got into mastering

2:35

naturally and has earned the nickname the

2:37

music librarian from his close friends. Over

2:40

the years, he honed his skills to

2:42

bring music to life across all listening

2:44

applications. Duncan's Mastering Studio, the voltage exchange,

2:47

which is right around the corner from

2:49

here, is all about solving problems for

2:51

clients. After seeing the shifts in the

2:53

music industry over the past decade, he's

2:56

focused on offering solutions for artists, producers,

2:58

and mixing engineers while making the process

3:00

as seamless as possible. Duncan believes in

3:03

collaboration and transparent relationships. Fascinating. He loves

3:05

having clients present during sessions and sharing

3:07

his techniques, equipment, and choices to ensure

3:09

their true vision shines through. It all

3:12

sounds very like all-encompassing, but I totally

3:14

get it in the whole process of

3:16

working and making records. As someone who

3:19

also collects vinyl, Duncan offers a full-service

3:21

in-house vinyl mastering and disc cutting. with

3:23

the new Aceletow Lave. We'll have to

3:25

find out what that's all about. Duncan's

3:28

Mastering Studio, as I said, is right

3:30

nearby here in East Nashville. I met

3:32

Duncan, I think the first time around

3:35

was. an event that was happening there.

3:37

And then we got to spend an

3:39

amazing weekend with a group of rock

3:41

stars here, hanging out at the Toy

3:44

Box Studio with Colin Dupuy for an

3:46

awesome mixing weekend, which was a lot

3:48

of fun too. It was so much

3:51

fun. So please welcome Duncan Ferguson recording

3:53

studio rock stars. Duncan, are you ready

3:55

to rock, dude? Oh man, I was

3:58

born ready. It's awesome to have you

4:00

here, man. Again, this is this is

4:02

our first test run here in the

4:04

studio. You look great. I'm looking. I'm

4:07

checking us out on the video Make

4:09

sure we look right on the on

4:11

the playback and it seems to be

4:14

all role and rock stars drop a

4:16

comment in and let us know what

4:18

you think of the look of the

4:20

whole new studio How have you been,

4:23

dude? I think you just got off

4:25

like a power weekend. I mean, this

4:27

will show up later, so we don't

4:30

have to get too granular on the

4:32

date or something, but. We just finished

4:34

the, well, I just came off of

4:36

the Welcome to 1979 recording summit, and

4:39

that was my seventh year going, and

4:41

they, you know, Chris Mara and Yolemara,

4:43

at Welcome to 1979, put on this

4:46

awesome weekend, full of just industry professionals

4:48

and other. networking opportunities. You've been to

4:50

a few, I think, right? Yeah, I've

4:52

been to a few. I've been on

4:55

some panels there too, and I've just

4:57

gone and watched it. There's something. So

4:59

it's an event rock stars that takes

5:02

place at Welcome to 1979 Studio here

5:04

in Nashville, and they will annually in

5:06

the month of November host a weekend

5:08

with a group of panelists in different

5:11

rooms. They can set up. I guess

5:13

there's two big rooms, plus there's a

5:15

mastering room, so there might be a

5:18

few different little panels or clinics going

5:20

on, but it'll be up to 60

5:22

people. I think they limited it at

5:24

60. Yeah, yeah, you can sign up

5:27

over the year and it's a weekend.

5:29

Yeah, you can sign up over the

5:31

year and it's a weekend just full

5:34

of awesome things. They do a live

5:36

to disc recording on Friday night and

5:38

then there's like, there's some panels over

5:41

the course of each day that each

5:43

day that you can. trying to forget

5:45

what to do next. Yeah. And then

5:47

they do like a listening party on

5:50

Saturday nights where they pick a record,

5:52

you listen to the record, and then

5:54

somebody who worked on the record extensively

5:57

talks about their time, you know, working

5:59

on the record and tells how they

6:01

made it. Yeah, it's pretty. Yeah, that's

6:03

a fun part. So yeah, that's the

6:06

Saturday night one. Yeah. It's like you,

6:08

it's more of a. Listening party listen

6:10

to the record, but then the producer

6:13

or the engineer just tells the whole

6:15

story of what it was like to

6:17

make that record Yeah, which I'll be

6:19

honest. That's something I always thought would

6:22

be really fun to do for the

6:24

podcast here But I was terrified of

6:26

the copyright stuff where I'm like I

6:29

don't even want to mess with it

6:31

to like You know have a team

6:33

of lawyers to clear the rights on

6:35

something they because it's published you know

6:38

because this is published they go Chris

6:40

goes out of his way just you

6:42

know to say like I think his

6:45

saying is don't tweet the deets, you

6:47

know, like it's it's like you're paying

6:49

to be there and have the experience

6:51

and it stays, the experience stays there

6:54

and it allows that person to be

6:56

able to talk about things transparently, not

6:58

in, you know, not in any weird

7:01

way, but like they are able to

7:03

talk about the experience and how they

7:05

had to like problem solve to make

7:07

the record. Yeah, totally. And they can

7:10

do that openly without being worried about

7:12

somebody posting it on social media. or

7:14

anything like that. And it's really, for

7:17

us, industry professionals, you know, it's like

7:19

really, you know, we have, either you're

7:21

assimilating to something, this experience that you've

7:24

had similar, and they're talking about like

7:26

large record, like very large records, you

7:28

know, or you're like, you learn something

7:30

that you can bring home and use

7:33

to try and get somebody's record across

7:35

the finish line, you know? Yeah, yeah,

7:37

and similar to this podcast. I started

7:40

it because I always loved all the

7:42

stories you would hear in the control

7:44

room hanging out with people. And of

7:46

course when you're working with people and

7:49

you're making records together, it can be

7:51

a pretty intimate experience, which means that

7:53

people really open up and you really

7:56

start telling some stories and you hear

7:58

some great behind the scenes stories. And

8:00

you're absolutely right for like a video

8:02

podcast for a live one. It's like

8:05

you can only get so deep, you

8:07

know, at least until everybody's dead. Yeah,

8:09

when I was revealed. When I do

8:12

a tennis such a suit, I tell

8:14

the artist a big thing about my

8:16

whole thing is I say, like, think

8:18

of me like, this is like, thinking

8:21

of me like a lawyer. My dad's

8:23

was an attorney and you like, when

8:25

you're in my mastering space, the record's

8:28

not out yet. So. and everything that's

8:30

here is it's like you kind of

8:32

have lawyer that confidentiality like the lawyer

8:34

yeah like that I'm blanking on the

8:37

term but oh yeah attorney client privilege

8:39

yes you have like mastering client privilege

8:41

yeah mastering client yeah master like studio

8:44

client privilege as like the record's not

8:46

out yet everything we say and doing

8:48

here you know you this is a

8:50

safe place like like like I you

8:53

may see me you know like shift

8:55

something or do something or you know

8:57

like But it, you know, like, you

9:00

are the boss and, you know, like,

9:02

you can say anything you want. Like,

9:04

I say, like, you know, was there

9:07

anything, I always ask attended people who

9:09

come in for attendance, I was just

9:11

like, is there anything in this process

9:13

that you were, that really, like, bugged

9:16

you, you know, like, and you were

9:18

having fighting the whole way? Or was

9:20

there anything in this process that was

9:23

just super easy? state to get it

9:25

into the format and it's actually really

9:27

those sort of questions are really helpful

9:29

but sometimes people are afraid to like

9:32

you know like these are the politics

9:34

of some things or whatever they're not

9:36

afraid to talk about it so I

9:39

just always say hey this is a

9:41

this is a safe place you know

9:43

and I Chris really goes I think

9:45

with in you know tying that all

9:48

back and Chris really goes out of

9:50

his way to like You know try

9:52

to have the summit feel that way

9:55

as well. This right now is not

9:57

a city. I'm just totally like I'm

9:59

just trying to like trip us up

10:01

the whole time. Yeah, it's no just

10:04

kidding. Yeah, but the but but I

10:06

agree with that and I know that

10:08

the Process that you're describing of making

10:11

a record with people like your website

10:13

your language you're really do focus on

10:15

that kind of communication, you use the

10:17

term safe space. Just this concept of

10:20

when you make music, there's like a,

10:22

well, great music at least, I believe,

10:24

and hopefully great music for any one

10:27

of us who are making music is

10:29

a process of being comfortable enough to

10:31

be vulnerable and like open yourself up

10:33

because I think we we can create

10:36

and communicate better emotional creativity, we have

10:38

better ideas when we can just really

10:40

let ourselves through. And because of that,

10:43

right, would you say that there's a

10:45

tendency for people to be protective? Yeah,

10:47

they're a bit guarded about like how

10:50

they get perceived by the outside world,

10:52

I think, and we as, you know,

10:54

like people who are helping them create

10:56

their vision have to be. you know,

10:59

like, hope, you have to be mindful

11:01

of that, but then also help them

11:03

communicate it to at the same time.

11:06

So. And one of the things that

11:08

is interesting to me too is this

11:10

idea that there are all kinds of

11:12

music creators out there. There's all kinds

11:15

of artists and bands and there's different

11:17

styles and you know, you can have

11:19

on the one hand, you could have

11:22

an artist that comes in as like,

11:24

I don't care what people think on

11:26

this on the other thing. And that's

11:28

totally appropriate for the music. It can

11:31

be like bombastic and loud and like

11:33

irreverent and impervious to criticism. But then

11:35

on the other hand, you can have

11:38

a style of music and an artist

11:40

that is totally has a fragility to

11:42

it. Yeah. that it could just like

11:44

come apart really easily if it's if

11:47

it's done the wrong way. I think

11:49

everybody's got to have a pretty tough

11:51

skin to get out there in public

11:54

and perform. Sure. That's a different topic

11:56

too. The record-making process is about is

11:58

when you say that there's a difference

12:00

in that respect. Like when you're in

12:03

the studio, you need to be

12:05

able to make the mistake and it's

12:07

okay. I think with sort of like,

12:09

I've spent a lot of time sort

12:11

of writing in about like how

12:14

the studio has really become an

12:16

instrument on its own. And I

12:18

think writing about it like blog

12:20

writing. It was kind of my

12:22

thesis in my undergraduate. I did

12:25

like a. a long paper like a hundred

12:27

page like sort of it was part

12:29

of my as part of That was

12:31

a long time ago. I have to

12:33

like remember what you but I wrote

12:35

a thing about how the The recording

12:38

studio sort of became its own

12:40

instrument like the recording studio

12:42

as a as a as

12:44

an actual production like a tool

12:46

for creation. Yeah, you know, and I

12:49

wrote it I used examples from

12:51

1980 to 1995 and stuck

12:53

to those specific years of

12:55

like the modern recording

12:58

studio coming into existence

13:00

as known as the

13:02

modern recording studio.

13:04

Yeah. But I think the tools

13:06

that we have nowadays have

13:09

allowed us to create this. We

13:11

can go beyond reality, you

13:13

know, in performance. So

13:15

like we can we can express

13:18

things. Which is what's so exciting

13:20

we can express things that are,

13:22

you can't necessarily express on stage.

13:24

Just, you know what I mean?

13:26

Like we have all these tools to

13:28

now like expand, like a virtual reality,

13:31

even just with stereo, you know. And

13:33

it's been that way for, you know,

13:35

like, we've been pushing the envelope

13:37

for, you know, 40 years doing that. But,

13:39

but that sort of thing is

13:41

people can be expressed themselves in different

13:44

ways that they can express. you

13:46

know, like just with one single

13:48

performance. Yeah, and you can discover.

13:51

Yeah, discovery. Yeah, I mean, you

13:53

can discover on stage too, but yeah.

13:55

Well, so, so rewinding a little bit,

13:57

that process of talking about year.

14:00

importance of communication and stuff like that

14:02

in your mastering studio and process. Yeah,

14:04

seems very related to, you know, potentially

14:06

certain styles of music that you might

14:09

work with or certain types of artists

14:11

that you work with. Do you think

14:13

that's, that's, also I wanted to point

14:15

something out so you can't quite see

14:18

it on the video, but now that

14:20

we're on video we can show stuff

14:22

on like, check out my nice mug,

14:25

you know, but, um... Duncan when he

14:27

was here for the the mixing mastermind

14:29

weekend that we do with Colin Dupuis

14:31

at the toy box. Yeah, he brought

14:34

what he's holding right now, which is

14:36

this great. I think he brought that

14:38

right? Yeah. It's this great. Like what

14:40

is it? It looks like a piece

14:43

of paper, but it's really like a

14:45

tablet. It's man. It's changed my life

14:47

completely. It's the remarkable pro pad. Yeah.

14:50

Hold it up to the camera. And

14:52

then you can write. It's literally just

14:54

it's the same I think I just

14:56

made you hold your personal notes up.

14:59

No you're fine. I don't have that

15:01

totally The it's the same I think

15:03

it's the same don't quote me on

15:06

this I think it's the same technology

15:08

as a Kindle but it's got a

15:10

writeable. Oh yeah digital ink. Yeah. And

15:12

it's like an etch a sketch sort

15:15

of a really complicated etch a sketch

15:17

technology. So it's got like a feel

15:19

to it when you run. Yeah. So

15:21

it looks like it's kind of feels

15:24

like paper. The black thing's sort of

15:26

a pencil. Yeah. Yeah. So you just

15:28

write on it and it feels almost

15:31

like paper. I think it's a little

15:33

more slippery. But it's if you ever

15:35

try to write with an iPad pencil,

15:37

that's really slippery because the screen's so

15:40

smooth. And but this I can actually

15:42

capture my handwriting pretty accurately. What if

15:44

what if you're like me in your

15:47

handwriting kind of sucks? Is that still

15:49

a good thing? No, I think you

15:51

could you could work on it. I

15:53

could do the cursive I still I

15:56

mean I went through this thing in

15:58

high school where I my handwriting got

16:00

so atrocious that I got in my

16:02

OCD sort of kicked in and like

16:05

I gotta fix this. Did you go

16:07

back to your first grade? No books.

16:09

I was like. like practice. I like,

16:12

I like made my handwriting actually like

16:14

will look really nice just because it

16:16

was bothering me. So, well, I kind

16:18

of stuck to that. So, so I

16:21

have an iPad in the studio with

16:23

the Apple pencil and it's not the

16:25

latest one. You know, probably generation ago

16:28

or whatever. But I was doing an

16:30

audio book recently and it was. Totally

16:32

great for that. I had to follow

16:34

along on a manuscript the whole time,

16:37

and then take these real-time notes during

16:39

the entire reading for every time there

16:41

was a stop and this do-over and

16:43

all this, you know, take numbers and

16:46

all that. And it was really handy

16:48

for that, but also occasionally, I'm like,

16:50

ah, it's not working, you know, it's

16:53

like the Wi-Fi will stop or whatever

16:55

Bluetooth thing that it's using. And so,

16:57

you know, like... I'm all about the

16:59

pencil and the podcast just because I'm

17:02

like, it almost never fails. That never,

17:04

yeah, they don't, it's kind of a

17:06

solid redundancy, it just doesn't break, right?

17:08

Right, right. Does that one actually, is

17:11

it pretty reliable? It's been fairly reliable.

17:13

There's been a few little things to

17:15

sort of overcome, but I haven't had,

17:18

like I spent the whole, I used

17:20

it for my notes this weekend, you

17:22

know, like in it, it, and it,

17:24

it, and it, I'm on three. it's

17:27

got those little five, I haven't charged

17:29

it yet, and I'm still like half,

17:31

I've got a half a battery left,

17:34

so it's pretty awesome. What it's really

17:36

changed my life for is I really

17:38

struggled personally, and this is maybe a

17:40

personal thing, maybe other people don't struggle

17:43

with this, but using a digital calendar.

17:45

This is a safe space. Okay. I

17:47

struggle using a digital calendar, and when

17:49

I put things in the calendar, my

17:52

brain doesn't want to go back and

17:54

look at it. There's some sort of

17:56

disconnect. But when I write it down,

17:59

I can remember, you know, and then

18:01

I have to go back and look

18:03

and it's just like it causes me

18:05

to like be on top of that

18:08

sort of this sort of physical interaction

18:10

causes me to be on top of

18:12

it. So I used to in a

18:15

really nerdy way, I used to just

18:17

carry. three ring binders around with day

18:19

pages. I used to do the day

18:21

planner that was back in the day

18:24

before we had the phone version of

18:26

everything. And anyway, yeah, so my doodles

18:28

were much better when I had a

18:30

day planner. I have no doodles in

18:33

my iPhone. Totally. I got no doodles.

18:35

And so now I just, I upload

18:37

a, you can upload PDFs to this

18:40

and then I just write over it.

18:42

So this is like my day, I

18:44

have like my, my, uh, my studio

18:46

logo. That looks cool. That looks cool.

18:49

So by the way, if you want

18:51

your camera to focus on it, you

18:53

have to cover your eyes. Okay. It's

18:55

very, very nerdy. There you go. Yeah.

18:58

So I have like my studio logo

19:00

and then I have a day to-do

19:02

list where I write in and then

19:05

I have like my week outlook. And

19:07

I just write in what I want.

19:09

Right. Just after I told you it's

19:11

a safe space. I'm like, cover your

19:14

face. Yeah. I think the Rock Stars

19:16

will appreciate the challenge of organization note-taking

19:18

calendars and stuff like that. What do

19:21

you want to say about operating your

19:23

studio? So your studio is, you know,

19:25

I know we're just like jumping right

19:27

into stuff. Not about the video podcast.

19:30

Makes me want to just get right

19:32

to it. Yeah. But like the voltage

19:34

exchange is your mastering studio. Yes. Beautiful,

19:36

beautiful place. Lots to talk about that.

19:39

But organizing and scheduling and knowing what's

19:41

what and as you said communication is

19:43

an important part. So what are some

19:46

tools or tips for you that you

19:48

use that help you manage? Let's just

19:50

say the calendar to start. Sure. Actually,

19:52

this is kind of like my central

19:55

hub. You know, like I get up,

19:57

it's actually more of, it's not so

19:59

much any, there are, there are a

20:02

million tools out there, right? Like we

20:04

live in the age of, you know,

20:06

being. blasted with like you like productivity

20:08

like slogans yeah yeah yeah yeah but

20:11

just getting up in the morning and

20:13

then writing out my day before I

20:15

start you know like I'm an early

20:17

riser and and I actually go into

20:20

my studio really early while my ears

20:22

are fresh and just knock out the

20:24

audio stuff and then I do my

20:27

admin in the afternoon. That's a fascinating

20:29

idea. You know, back when I built

20:31

my studio and I had analog tape

20:33

machines, I had this mixing console that

20:36

did Hotel California that was designed by

20:38

G. Parnad. And when I acquired that,

20:40

his widow, Carla Harnad, said, messaged me

20:43

and said, oh, by the way. I

20:45

have Jeep's personal two-track machine and you

20:47

know, that comes with the deal. So

20:49

if you want to come get it,

20:52

you can come pick it up. So

20:54

I did a four-day drive out to

20:56

Colorado, Durango Colorado from Nashville with a

20:58

minivan and picked it up and picked

21:01

it up and picked it up and

21:03

drive home the next day. And I

21:05

got to see Jeep's grave. was right

21:08

there at the house with the gravestone

21:10

that is made from an MCI 24

21:12

track. Oh my gosh. Like actually sent

21:14

there. What an amazing piece of history

21:17

to have that all. I'm a history

21:19

nerd. So I love that stuff. I

21:21

absolutely love that stuff. Well, so so

21:23

Carla was just incredibly organized. I couldn't

21:26

believe it. Like it immediately struck me

21:28

when I was in the house. Just

21:30

even walking through the garage. I was

21:33

like, wow. Every wall is like high

21:35

wire shelves with clear storage bins on

21:37

them that are all labeled. I'm like,

21:39

this is like, I'm getting excited. I

21:42

have a little tech shop in the

21:44

garage and my tech shop is exactly

21:46

that I have to be that way

21:49

because I have all these like little.

21:51

you know especially with getting the lathe

21:53

now I have to do my own

21:55

servicing you know so it's like all

21:58

the all the you know soldering iron

22:00

like all that stuff so yeah yeah

22:02

yeah yeah and I think I maybe

22:04

I saw that over your place to

22:07

is a cool spot native instruments introduces

22:09

the new complete fifth steam bundle featuring

22:11

contact eight offering versatile scents, sampled instruments

22:14

and innovative effects. Perfect for creating everything

22:16

from emotional scores to dance floor grooves.

22:18

Contact 8 includes exciting new creative tools

22:20

like chords and phrases for inspiration, the

22:23

leap tool for dynamic looping, and conflicts,

22:25

a hybrid instrument blending organic and synth

22:27

sounds. The Complete 15 bundle also includes

22:30

updated Massive X and Guitar Rig 7

22:32

Pro, and AI enhanced isotope Ozone Ozone

22:34

11. Use the code Rock 10. for

22:36

10% off at Native Instruments.com. And I

22:39

desperately need that because I have just

22:41

so much stuff. You know, I have

22:43

collectitis. But I wanted to finish this

22:46

thought too. So with Carla, in the

22:48

morning when I met her for, you

22:50

know, coffee, orange, she's breakfast or whatever,

22:53

I noticed like the table was set

22:55

out and then she had this little list

22:57

of paper right next to her breakfast thing.

22:59

Yes. And it just had a list of

23:01

stuff she was going to do that day.

23:03

And I was like. Wow, that's cool.

23:05

That's like, you know exactly what

23:08

you're going to be doing up

23:10

early and it's like, there's my

23:12

day. Yeah, that's, that's literally has

23:14

the only, like it's not anything special,

23:16

not any, I mean, other than this,

23:18

you know, like, using a piece of

23:20

technology to do it, but

23:23

that's the, that's the key is, is just

23:25

having, I'm really nerdy, I'm a space

23:27

nerd. Oh, like, like, yeah, just like,

23:29

like, I love the history of like.

23:31

Yeah, the NASA and all that. But

23:33

we're so close to Huntsville, Alabama. Yeah,

23:35

with the museum and all the I

23:37

call that this little template my

23:40

flight plan for the morning, you know,

23:42

for the day. So that's that's my

23:44

flight plan. And so I make a

23:46

flight plan almost exactly like you would

23:48

make a flight plan as a pilot.

23:51

Uh, uh, and I it's labeled flight plan,

23:53

you know, and it just makes me feel

23:55

a little more like, oh, I'm doing

23:57

something important, you know, you know, you

23:59

know, How do you balance the flight

24:01

plan you need to have today? You

24:04

need to know it today about next

24:06

Tuesday versus waking up Tuesday morning and

24:08

making your flight plan. Correct. So like

24:10

I, you know, I have a today

24:12

to do list of like in the

24:15

morning, I kind of prioritize like this

24:17

has to be done today. And then

24:19

if it doesn't, I have like a

24:21

week outlook and like, oh, maybe I

24:23

can move that to tomorrow or I

24:25

have these appointments. So I can kind

24:27

of like look at the week outlook. And

24:29

then kind of like the cool thing

24:31

about this technology is I can it

24:34

doesn't get lost on a piece of

24:36

paper or and then I can like

24:38

copy paste yesterday over to today if

24:40

I don't like that's like been the game

24:42

changers I don't have to like

24:44

rewrite everything and it so And even if

24:46

you lost that whole thing like let's

24:48

say you just left it here at

24:51

the studio back and I was like

24:53

no I didn't see anything it could

24:55

get another one and then you just

24:57

log in there's an iPhone app that

25:00

like everything sinks to the apps and

25:02

then it's like then there's a desktop

25:04

app and what was the most amazing

25:06

thing is I was online teaching which

25:08

we'll probably talk about in a bit

25:11

but I drew something like a

25:13

diagram of trying to explain like

25:15

some room acoustic stuff and I

25:17

drew it on this pad and it synced

25:20

in like a few seconds and then

25:22

I went on the desktop app and

25:24

I'm on zoom and I grabbed I

25:26

grabbed the drawing. and just export it

25:28

as a PDF off of the app and

25:30

then just opened it up on zoom and

25:32

like I did it in like 30 seconds

25:34

that's pretty good after drawing and

25:37

it was like it was like well and

25:39

I did it like untested like I think

25:41

I can do this and I just did

25:43

it and I was like oh my gosh

25:45

like it was yeah so I'm gonna beat

25:47

that watch this yeah I just drew a

25:49

smiley face yeah it's already up yeah it's

25:52

like that the analog you couldn't probably can

25:54

you know yeah yeah yeah No, that's that's

25:56

really cool. And I and I do

25:58

love that now. What about um What about

26:00

your calendar? What are the tools that

26:02

you find are really useful as far

26:05

as something in your calendar? I do

26:07

have a Google calendar that so on

26:09

my website I have like you can

26:11

you can book a session and I

26:13

have like four different calendars

26:15

on there that you can choose from and

26:17

then they're all sort of like funneled. down

26:19

and that goes into my Google calendar and

26:21

that's just like I look at the big

26:24

things there and then I just transfer that

26:26

over to I have like a monthly calendar

26:28

on this with my flight plan and then

26:30

I just have a day sheet that then has a

26:32

as a day outlook and a week outlook and I

26:34

just sort of like sort of start with that

26:36

big thing and funnel it down. So the

26:38

calendar stuff goes on the calendar as far

26:40

as sessions yeah and then the then what you

26:43

write down is more the the granular

26:45

level of what you know what does

26:47

that mean for today kind of it's

26:49

it's not like revolutionary I don't think

26:51

but it's it's a way that I can

26:53

kind of like step by step keep

26:55

it organized I gotta be honest

26:57

I don't think revolutions are not

26:59

what we want with yeah I

27:01

mean I know that sounds counterintuitive

27:03

but when I say that what I'm referring

27:05

to is this idea of like When I

27:07

go to use reliable tools for things

27:10

like an email or a calendar, I

27:12

kind of don't want the newest

27:14

latest thing because I don't know if

27:16

it's going to be there next year.

27:18

That is an amazing point. And that

27:21

actually is what I've struggled with too

27:23

of like with a paper and pen,

27:25

you know, it's like, well, that's just

27:27

always going to be there. But

27:29

like, yeah, I've really struggled with

27:31

like, I think my wife and I,

27:34

we had like a. an app that

27:36

reminds us to do certain things around

27:38

the house and the app doesn't exist

27:40

anymore. Right, I've dealt with that too.

27:43

Yeah, so like, yeah, some kind of

27:45

special list app. Yeah, it's almost like,

27:47

I mean, sometimes I'm like, whichever one

27:50

is doing the most promotion, I'm like,

27:52

I don't know if they're going to

27:54

be there. Yeah, that's probably not fair.

27:56

But the, but I've messed with all

27:59

that stuff. And You know, I find, so

28:01

I use an app for calendar

28:03

stuff called Fantastic Cal. Fantastic Cal,

28:05

okay. And it is pretty flexible.

28:08

I think it's a company called

28:10

Flex Bits. But it's, it's

28:12

pretty flexible and it works.

28:14

It works pretty flexible

28:17

and it works. It works pretty

28:19

great, but what it, and it'll collect

28:21

calendars from different things. And the

28:23

reason I got it and started

28:26

using it a while ago on

28:28

my iPhone was because. You can

28:30

just verbally say into the thing,

28:32

you know, like 5 a.m. Monday, do this

28:34

thing, whatever. And it kind of, you see

28:36

all the things like go down into the

28:38

different zones, so automatically like populates

28:40

it, because I would find that

28:43

when I tried to use the

28:45

built-in one on my phone, it

28:47

wasn't fast enough. I just need

28:49

like, because I'm in the car.

28:51

Like somebody just called and they're

28:53

like, yeah, let's do it next

28:55

Tuesday at seven. You're like, you

28:57

know. It's a goner and I'm going

28:59

to blow that whole thing. I

29:01

mean, the writing down is like,

29:03

if I don't write it down

29:05

the second, it's gone. And I

29:07

can do, I can write down

29:09

fast and I can like type,

29:11

you know, or find the

29:14

app or all that, you

29:16

know, it's like, it's just

29:18

there. Yeah. I'm really interested.

29:20

The voice thing is really,

29:22

really interesting because I'm really

29:24

getting intrigued by the voice.

29:26

the mobile app has the voice thing

29:28

now with right yeah you can

29:30

just have a conversation back and

29:32

forth I know I spent more

29:35

time trying to explain that it

29:37

shouldn't keep being so long-winded and

29:39

replying to me I was like

29:42

you're telling it to be sure

29:44

I'm just like you gotta you gotta

29:46

shut up dude I can't I can't

29:48

I can't think about what you just gave

29:51

me as an answer because you're still talking.

29:53

The scary thing is that they tell you

29:55

to talk to it like a real person.

29:57

Yeah. And so it's like, it's, it's, it's.

30:00

little like eerie to be like I know

30:02

I'm not talking to a person but I

30:04

can talk to it like a person and

30:06

it's like it's yeah so I think

30:08

it's fascinating it's fun so

30:10

the chatchee PT topic not a brand

30:13

new one by the time this video

30:15

comes out however my use of it

30:17

is kind of more brand new for

30:19

me I find it incredibly

30:21

helpful in in assisting me on the

30:24

stuff that I don't think I'm all

30:26

that great at. You may or may

30:28

not notice that I've got reading glasses

30:30

here. Yeah. So it's actually a challenge

30:32

for me to write and read without

30:35

it being kind of exhausting and

30:37

easy for me to make mistakes. Yes.

30:39

And so I've started doing things like

30:41

I'll write an email or I'll try

30:43

the voice to text and then I'll

30:45

copy that put it in chat cheapity and

30:47

say like, you know, I don't even have

30:49

to ask anymore. I'm just like just pace

30:51

it and just like, oh yeah, you want

30:53

me to clean it up again. That

30:55

it just makes it look better.

30:58

Yeah, for some reason like I'm

31:00

moving so fast that my

31:02

spelling is just her absolutely

31:04

horrendous. So that's like

31:06

for 101 like email, you know,

31:09

like don't change the email just,

31:11

you know, all that sort of,

31:13

you know, like just clean this

31:15

up. Yeah, you know, all right.

31:17

Well, this is being as this

31:19

is not strictly a like how

31:21

to be productive in your home

31:24

business office. Sure. Like good takeaways. I

31:26

like that writing down the list at

31:28

the beginning of the day thing. That's

31:30

a cool idea. It just clarifies the

31:33

day and you remember it. Yeah, so

31:35

let's let's jump over to the voltage

31:37

exchange. Sure. When we go to the

31:39

website, we've actually got it up here on

31:42

the, I'll try, you know it, at the

31:44

risk of blowing it on the video. I'll

31:46

try the screen share. Let's do it. I'm

31:48

with you. And hopefully I don't share the

31:50

wrong one. So, so. Not that one

31:52

not that one not that

31:54

one not that one Anyway,

31:57

I'll start describing your website

31:59

while I'm figuring out where to

32:01

find it. Is that home new? Maybe that's

32:03

it. Yeah, that looks like that's

32:05

it. Okay, great. So Rockstar is hopefully

32:07

you can see. This is like

32:10

what his website looks like right

32:12

here for the voltage exchange.

32:14

Gorgeous looking. Really nice. You

32:16

got a great photo, you organize stuff.

32:18

It kind of. I have to get new

32:20

photos. Those are starting to get keeping

32:22

up with your own like over the

32:25

years. Oh yeah. Especially when you look

32:27

like me and you've got these crazy

32:29

beards. long hair and stuff

32:31

and then you shave it all off and

32:33

people are like, wait, is that the same

32:35

guy? But like here you've got a couple

32:37

of buttons on your website immediately, says book

32:40

a session, send a message, and

32:42

a rock stars for a listening

32:44

on the podcast. I'll explain everything

32:46

we're looking at too. But talk a

32:48

little bit about, you know, your

32:50

thoughts on creating a website, what

32:52

did you learn about how the

32:54

rock stars could do that themselves

32:56

for their studio and then... your

32:58

intention with the process because I

33:01

see there's this big button at

33:03

the top. The website is really

33:05

just like my my whole experience

33:07

is I'm sort of transitioning from

33:09

being word-to-mouth into being searchable and all

33:11

you know like if you don't know me

33:13

you can still book me and find me

33:16

I'm sort of in that crazy transition of

33:18

I've always been word-to-mouth and

33:20

then now I'm transitioning hard

33:22

over you don't like you're trying

33:25

to you're trying to level up

33:27

yeah and what I've found is

33:29

just having the the website is

33:31

really just a quick business card

33:33

and you want to create on the

33:35

front page immediately just create

33:38

something where people can just access

33:40

you you have just a bit

33:42

of information but then like and

33:44

the way that I have branded

33:46

the company my business not company

33:49

but myself is you know, like I

33:51

want you to have transparent access in

33:53

some way shape or form professionally, you

33:55

know, so like just having stuff immediately

33:57

available where you can, you feel comfortable.

34:00

I can dive right in and do X, Y,

34:02

and Z is really, really important, not

34:04

having to like dig through things at all.

34:06

So, yeah. So to reiterate that, it might

34:08

be common for people to have

34:10

an experience where they're like masterings, a

34:12

little bit of a mystery. Yes. I'm

34:15

not sure what it is, but I know

34:17

that I need it. I feel like that's

34:19

a topic you would hear. And so maybe

34:21

your attitude is when you come to my

34:23

website. I want to take the mystery out

34:26

of it instead of leaving you feeling like

34:28

it's like... You should help me. You should

34:30

help me curate the website. That's

34:32

perfect. Very cool. Then the button

34:35

book a session. What would happen

34:37

next for somebody? If you

34:39

click on that it brings you

34:42

to four calendars and I offer

34:44

it for slightly different services and

34:46

with each one of those calendars

34:48

is a slightly different form that

34:51

you can fill out. One of the

34:53

calendars is just for digital

34:55

mastering. And then the few, for a

34:57

single, you know, like if you're doing

34:59

just a single song, and there's a

35:02

form for that that just is curated

35:04

to just doing one song. And

35:06

then there's a calendar that's there

35:08

with a slightly different form for

35:10

doing whole albums or longer EPs.

35:13

And there's a slightly different form

35:15

where it has intake, you know, different

35:17

songs. And if you have IS or

35:19

C codes, those sort of other, other,

35:21

parameters that are catered to

35:23

more longer format albums or

35:25

more groupings of songs. And

35:28

then there are, there's one

35:30

calendar for vinyl mastering that

35:32

encompasses the complexity

35:34

of the details that we need to

35:36

get your, get a product on the

35:38

lacquer. So to say that back, yeah,

35:40

you've got some people that just

35:42

need a digital master for a

35:45

single song for a single song.

35:47

Some people have a whole record.

35:49

Some people have a whole record.

35:51

Some people want to make a vinyl

35:53

record. Yeah. And what was the other

35:56

one? The fourth one is I'm actually

35:58

considering it whereas everything's always. experiment. The

36:00

fourth one is actually creating a

36:02

reference lacquer to as well. And

36:04

I'm actually considering getting rid of

36:06

that calendar because I can encompass

36:08

it in the other other calendars,

36:10

you know. What would be the

36:12

reason for them to have different

36:14

calendars? And if it just gets

36:16

to forget if the questions are

36:18

getting too into the weights, we

36:20

don't need to go there. But

36:22

it's actually to help me organize

36:25

each calendar has a slightly different

36:27

form that you can click into

36:29

and they all like for vinyl

36:31

information for vinyl. If I'm doing

36:33

if I'm just Most a lot

36:35

of times for the vinyl stuff

36:37

that I work on I'm actually

36:39

the mastering engineer and I I

36:41

walk the The client or the

36:43

artist or whoever it may be

36:45

through the whole process all the

36:47

way through I go all the

36:49

way up to plating And then

36:51

I hand them over and I

36:53

help them through the test pressing

36:55

process, but I hand them I

36:57

hand the client to a pressing

36:59

plan of their choice and and

37:01

I have some two really great

37:03

pressing plants here in town that

37:05

I work with equally. There's PMP,

37:07

physical music products. I think you've

37:09

had Piper on the show before.

37:11

She runs that and she's another

37:13

wonderful mastering engineer and her Piper

37:15

Pain. She has another, her lead

37:17

press operators, Colby, who's her, also

37:19

her mastering assistant. I just want

37:21

to give a shout out to

37:23

them. There's absolutely wonderful people to

37:25

work with and work through things.

37:27

And then also the vinyl lab

37:29

here in Nashville as well with

37:31

Scotland Masters and his team, also

37:33

an exceptional team as well. And

37:35

each pressing plant offers slightly different

37:37

products and different types of service,

37:39

depending on what you're looking for.

37:42

And I don't think there's like

37:44

a one size fits all. And

37:46

depending on what your needs are,

37:48

one may have. a product that

37:50

works really well for your needs

37:52

and the other may have a

37:54

product that works really well for

37:56

what you need. Piper does a

37:58

lot of like really customized colors.

38:00

on their vinyl, so like that

38:02

would be the place to go

38:04

if you're looking for like, like

38:06

if you just want to customize

38:08

something deeply. Whereas the vinyl lab

38:10

is, they have other, in terms

38:12

of like efficiency things that allow

38:14

you to get through the, like

38:16

if you just want to, like

38:18

I need X, Y, and Z,

38:20

and I need it, you know,

38:22

like they really really have some

38:24

awesome systems set up. So it's

38:26

like a customized versus like. A

38:28

system thing is yeah, anyway, so

38:30

yeah, okay, I hope that's helpful

38:32

I don't want to and I

38:34

don't want to like they're they're

38:36

both awesome No, it's great. Yeah,

38:38

this is great. Let's um yeah,

38:40

let's let's pick a real world

38:42

scenario. Sure. I have a record

38:44

out called Skidush. Yes. It's my

38:46

instrumental album. Yeah, it's all the

38:48

music that I've put on this

38:50

podcast now took me a while

38:52

to actually release it as a

38:54

record. We had had over two

38:57

million downloads of the podcast so

38:59

far, and I'd put the music

39:01

in it, but I hadn't released

39:03

it. So I was like, okay,

39:05

now that I'm double platinum, I

39:07

might as well release the record.

39:09

That's amazing. So I did that,

39:11

which was a lot of fun,

39:13

and we did a weekend here

39:15

where, well, I had mixed it

39:17

myself, but then we did a

39:19

mastermind weekend here where a group

39:21

came in and we went over

39:23

to Sterling sound and actually mastered

39:25

the record with Ryan Smith. and

39:27

got to sit there and he

39:29

showed us how it was done

39:31

and it was a lot of

39:33

fun and the record came out

39:35

sounds awesome but next stage for

39:37

me would be like okay I

39:39

think I should do a vinyl

39:41

copy of it and make that

39:43

available for you the rock stars

39:45

and so if we were if

39:47

I was to do that What

39:49

would that process look like? Let's

39:51

see, this is, I'm showing up,

39:53

I'm like, I've already mastered it

39:55

as digital. Do, do, would we

39:57

use that master? Would we start

39:59

over? How does that stuff? I

40:01

actually, I can be, as transparent,

40:03

I don't create a, technically I

40:05

don't create like a separate master

40:07

for vinyl, but I do. have

40:09

a slightly separate one. Like I

40:11

keep my, like if I make

40:14

any Q moves or compression moves

40:16

or like the general sonics of

40:18

the record, I keep the same,

40:20

whatever goes up digitally and whatever

40:22

goes on the vinyl, sonically are

40:24

as close as possible. So I

40:26

try to, I believe in that

40:28

one thing of one master if

40:30

it's all trying to, but to

40:32

get stuff onto a lacquer is

40:34

a little more trickier than just.

40:36

you know, making a digital file.

40:38

So I actually have a, I

40:40

skip, I don't skip, I don't,

40:42

my vinyl masters don't have the,

40:44

the, the heavy limiting that we

40:46

do just to, um, have things

40:48

to be loud for, for digital

40:50

release. Right. So I just, I

40:52

have a process that I work

40:54

on where, um, I do all

40:56

of the sonic shaping up to

40:58

a certain point and then just

41:00

the loudness stuff is, is, is

41:02

different between the two. If you're

41:04

just not, people don't understand, like

41:06

a lacquer is just, you're sort

41:08

of in the tape world, where

41:10

you're working at a zero VU

41:12

level and not at a zero

41:14

DBFS level, and those are drastically

41:16

different, different scales. So like, disk

41:18

level is centered around zero VU,

41:20

which in the real world, depending

41:22

on what you're working with, you

41:24

know, is your minus 14 on

41:26

a a DFS meter meter. Right,

41:29

right. So if you sent me.

41:31

a digitally allowed file for me

41:33

to cut, I have to turn

41:35

it down 14, you know, turn

41:37

it down to minus 14 to

41:39

even start. So right yeah, are

41:41

you recording your own music or

41:43

other people's music in your studio?

41:45

But you're having trouble figuring out

41:47

how to get your mixes to

41:49

sound great. Do they sound weak

41:51

and distant or lack punch and

41:53

clarity? Well, I've got a gift

41:55

for you to help you take

41:57

your mixes from sounding like basement

41:59

demos to sounding a lot more

42:01

like professional mixes And it's my

42:03

free course called Mix Master bundle.

42:05

This course will show you how

42:07

to get pro sounding mixes from

42:09

your home studio with free and

42:11

stock plugins and pro tools. And

42:13

the best part is, these mixing

42:15

techniques will work for you in

42:17

any dog, whether you're in Logic,

42:19

Cubase, Pre-Sona Studio One, Reaper, or

42:21

anything you can think of. Are

42:23

you ready to make your best

42:25

record ever? Then go to MixMasterbundel.com

42:27

to get started for free now

42:29

and you can find the clickable

42:31

link in the show notes of

42:33

this episode. Preferably. You want one

42:35

that's not quite digitally loud. Like

42:37

maybe it's pre-limited. Do you think

42:39

a typical, in my example, where

42:41

it was mastered, do you think

42:44

that part of the process would

42:46

have been sculpting it and then

42:48

at the last stage going through

42:50

a final limiting which makes things

42:52

louder and maybe it's possible to

42:54

undo that back step one level.

42:56

That's kind of in general what

42:58

I'm doing. There's a little more

43:00

finesse. to that too, because some

43:02

of the times the limiting can

43:04

add something, you know, that some

43:06

excitement, you know, like depending on

43:08

what we're doing. Well, it definitely

43:10

did in my writing, because it

43:12

sounds pretty awesome. At least I

43:14

love it. And some, you know,

43:16

like because we're lopping off, at

43:18

the end, we're lopping off a

43:20

fair amount of transient information, sometimes

43:22

the way that we lop that

43:24

off can actually be pleasing in

43:26

some way, shape or form, like...

43:28

resemble each other in some way

43:30

shape or form. Yeah. And so

43:32

there's exactly that that process in

43:34

general is sort of what I'm

43:36

finding out now. This is all.

43:38

Nothing is right and wrong. And

43:40

my process may be different in

43:42

three years as I experiment more.

43:44

Well, I think that that's an

43:46

important part of what we do

43:48

in making records is we just

43:50

keep, you know, iterating and evolving

43:52

and trying to level up how

43:54

we do stuff, you know. I

43:56

think that's what I enjoy about

43:58

this too is like it. In

44:01

the end, everything's subjective. Yeah. So,

44:03

so let's see. So I, so

44:05

I or somebody who's already got

44:07

something, they're like, well, want to

44:09

come make a vinyl record with

44:11

you, would potentially have created a

44:13

master for digital release. And if

44:15

we were smart, in the same

44:17

way that we might create a

44:19

no vocal mix, if we were

44:21

smart, we might actually create a

44:23

no limited master. Yeah, that's essentially

44:25

what? Like in our back pocket

44:27

in the same way that. when

44:29

we turn in a mix to

44:31

mastering, we might have a limited

44:33

mix that we listen to, but

44:35

then we do a no-limit mix

44:37

that goes to mastering, so it's

44:39

a little more room to breathe.

44:41

Correct. That's sort of what I've

44:43

found is kind of the now

44:45

that the vinyl world is sort

44:47

of like ramped up again. People

44:49

are, I found that that's becoming

44:51

a common, common trend for the

44:53

guys, for the people who are

44:55

cutting blacker is... is that sort

44:57

of workflow a little bit. Yeah.

44:59

And now I say that there

45:01

may be, I may get an

45:03

email from a few lacquer cutters

45:05

who are like, that's not all

45:07

at all what I do. Right,

45:09

right. But yeah. Well, hopefully everybody

45:11

has talked to their own style

45:13

and their own way of doing

45:16

things. That's something that I've found.

45:18

And I've found it in a

45:20

few other situations that have been

45:22

really helpful for me learning how

45:24

to do this as well. it

45:26

can't cut a square wave like

45:28

it's it's it's just like magnetic

45:30

tape where like your your current

45:32

is all you know all moving

45:34

moving from 180 degrees up to

45:36

180 degrees down and that's a

45:38

that's an arc you know and

45:40

and a cutterhead's designed to cut

45:42

the arc as opposed to cutting

45:44

like a just a squared off

45:46

version of it's really difficult to

45:48

To because it's a can't you

45:50

just get a better cutter? It's

45:52

a nonlinear medium. So it's analog.

45:54

You know, it's it's it's smoother.

45:56

You know, it's that's it's difficult

45:58

for us to cut really really

46:00

limited material. and have it sound

46:02

like the original material is in

46:04

digital and have it be enveloping

46:06

and exciting. Yeah. We can, I

46:08

mean, I can cut heavy limited

46:10

material that's square wave, but I

46:12

gotta cut it in a way

46:14

where it won't be exciting. Right.

46:16

You know, so if something already

46:18

is limited and has been mastered

46:20

once. then what would you do?

46:22

What if you couldn't go back

46:24

and get the unlimited version? With

46:26

my own stuff, and if I

46:28

have a little bit of flexibility,

46:30

and if it's coming from another

46:33

mastering engineer, I'm working on this

46:35

thing where I'm working with other

46:37

mastering engineers that I know really

46:39

well, and a lot of them

46:41

are in town, they're great colleagues,

46:43

and I'm kind of working, I'll

46:45

take their master. and I'll look

46:47

at it and say, okay, how

46:49

do I match this, but how

46:51

do I make it in a

46:53

way that I can cut it

46:55

easier? And so, like, I've been

46:57

diving a lot into, like, expansion

46:59

for, you know, like, some ways

47:01

to get transient space. Right, to

47:03

bring a little dynamic back into

47:05

recording. And there's this thing of,

47:07

like, you can turn stuff down

47:09

and recue it and you add

47:11

it, just by doing that alone

47:13

and you print it, you'll see,

47:15

like a transient, like, like, like,

47:17

a hack, you know, it's like

47:19

a transient comeback from that processing,

47:21

you know. What are some, are

47:23

there any particular tools that are

47:25

really helpful when it comes to

47:27

expanding stuff like that? Oh man,

47:29

I'm transparent and I'll reveal everything.

47:31

I've really been, I mean, we

47:33

all know that an expander and

47:35

a compressor are exactly the same

47:37

thing. They just work in reverse

47:39

of each other, right? You have

47:41

an attack and release and... you're

47:43

just, and in theory, and this

47:45

is how like Dolby noise reduction

47:48

works, is in theory, this is

47:50

what Compansion is, and it's how

47:52

all of our RF microphones work

47:54

as well, you'd use what's called

47:56

Compansion, where you compress down the

47:58

signal really, really heavily to try

48:00

and get it over a radio

48:02

wave, you know, like with RF.

48:04

and then you expand it out

48:06

exactly the way it was compressed

48:08

to then get it back out

48:10

to a usable audio signal and

48:12

that's like DBX and that's how

48:14

that's how noise reduction well noise

48:16

reductions are slightly different but it

48:18

this same idea right and so

48:20

in theory what I was trying

48:22

to get to is you can

48:24

compress if you know the exact

48:26

way you compress something In theory,

48:28

you can uncompress it with the

48:30

exact same settings with expansion, and

48:32

it will be exactly the same

48:34

thing. I just talked about that

48:36

with Dave Durer on a previous

48:38

interview. Oh, amazing. Well, I was

48:40

talking about how excited I was

48:42

to first discover the distressor. Yeah.

48:44

And of course, I did what

48:46

many people would do, which is

48:48

just put it on whatever. I

48:50

wanted to be more exciting, and

48:52

I had it on a snare

48:54

drum, but I overcompressed the snare

48:56

in the recording stage. And then

48:58

when we were mixing with Steve

49:00

Albini. expand this back out to

49:03

bring back some of the dynamic

49:05

and punch of the snare. And

49:07

that was the first time I'd

49:09

ever experienced that. But that's essentially

49:11

what he was doing, I think,

49:13

because he was trying to like

49:15

reverse engineer the compression I'd done.

49:17

That's, man, that's the guy to

49:19

talk to you about set stuff

49:21

though. If you want to go

49:23

way deep, that's amazing. That's really

49:25

cool. Yeah, it would have been.

49:27

Well, so, okay, cool. So... expanding

49:29

stuff to try and get a

49:31

little bit more dynamic out of

49:33

it. Yeah. And then bringing the

49:35

level down and now you can

49:37

start. So why don't you describe

49:39

to the rock stars some of

49:41

the basics of like what does

49:43

it mean to cut a lacquer

49:45

and what is the what is

49:47

the silito lathe and all that?

49:49

Because you have a bit of

49:51

a robot going on over there.

49:53

I do. Well, and it's we're

49:55

kind of an uncharted territory with

49:57

the lathe community. So the. The

49:59

lathe community, people who are cutting,

50:01

are at this point, most of

50:03

the people are cutting on machines

50:05

that... were made prior to 1982.

50:07

And they were made absolutely beautifully

50:09

and they sound amazing. You know,

50:11

you have the old Neumann machines

50:13

of different iterations, VMS 80s, VMS

50:15

70s, and then some custom built

50:17

stuff from older platforms. And then

50:20

you have another company called Scully,

50:22

which was the competitor company. And

50:24

those are usually the two layers.

50:26

There's one other. but you don't

50:28

see very many of those out

50:30

there, but these are the two

50:32

that people are cutting on this

50:34

day and age. But there's only

50:36

like a handful of people in

50:38

the world that can service these

50:40

things, and it's really, really expensive

50:42

to service them, and the parts

50:44

are becoming few and far between.

50:46

It's kind of like trying to

50:48

restore a model T, you know,

50:50

like trying to find parts. At

50:52

this point, a lot of people

50:54

are just custom building new parts,

50:56

and it just becomes... It's just

50:58

becoming really really cumbersome to really

51:00

keep these older machines up and

51:02

running. But that's not showing any

51:04

shade at them. There are wonderful

51:06

machines and they sound incredible and

51:08

trying to try to make a

51:10

new machine to get back up

51:12

to their standard is probably the

51:14

most difficult thing because they were

51:16

so well engineered. The Neumanns have,

51:18

you know, have this computer system

51:20

that allows the, you know, to

51:22

look ahead one revolution and it

51:24

adjusts pitch in depth of the

51:26

groove. so that you don't you

51:28

don't run into you don't have

51:30

grooves running into each other and

51:32

then also you can fit more

51:35

time on a side because you

51:37

can collapse the grooves when you

51:39

don't you can you can bring

51:41

the glues really close together when

51:43

you don't have a lot of

51:45

certain certain information you know you

51:47

know so and there's these computer

51:49

these analog computers on these machines

51:51

that can do that calculation it's

51:53

all program like so if there's

51:55

not as much program you can

51:57

you can close things things you

51:59

have to open them up to

52:01

make that space. We call it

52:03

vertical and lateral. And it's, you

52:05

want to think of it as

52:07

mono and anti phase. So everything

52:09

that's, you know, like just. stereo

52:11

information, if you don't have the

52:13

mono information, it's the information that's

52:15

exactly out of phase of itself.

52:17

So like right is out of

52:19

phase of left, right? And all

52:21

purposes from a schooling thought is,

52:23

you know, understand it by mid-side,

52:25

but we don't really refer to

52:27

it that way in the cutting

52:29

world, because it's a little, it's

52:31

just, we have to be more

52:33

technical about, you know, in, this

52:35

is my history nerd kicking in,

52:37

Alan Blumline invented this process in

52:39

the 1930s. And we're still using

52:41

that technology. But what's happening is

52:43

the way to encode and decode

52:45

the mono information and the side

52:47

information separately. And so, like, with

52:49

the needle moving left and left

52:52

and right, that's your mono information.

52:54

And the needle moving up and

52:56

down is your anti-phase, your side

52:58

information is, you know, sort of

53:00

in general. But getting something to

53:02

move up and down on left

53:04

and right is... almost an impossible

53:06

thing to do physically. So Alan

53:08

Blumline figured out a way to

53:10

make them move at a 45

53:12

degree angle, like left and right

53:14

and up and down. So it

53:16

kind of moves, instead of moving

53:18

up and down and left and

53:20

right the same time, we sort

53:22

of have this 45 degree movement,

53:24

this sort of fire 40 degree

53:26

movement, which is why our groove,

53:28

you know, and I may get

53:30

a bunch of cutting engineers that,

53:32

you know, rake rake me over

53:34

the colt. I make it a

53:36

bunch of cutting-edge engineers or that

53:38

may rake me over the coals

53:40

for describing it this way. So

53:42

I'm doing my best. I apologize.

53:44

But that's why our groove is

53:46

looks V-shaped. You know, like it's

53:48

because it's moving 45 degrees both

53:50

directions up and down left and

53:52

right. And it was the way

53:54

that they could get that encoded

53:56

properly. The biggest thing that I

53:58

want to say is like a

54:00

vinyl record is literally an analog

54:02

hard drive. It's just encoded information.

54:04

our information that gets encoded in

54:07

and then you have to have

54:09

a playback system to play that

54:11

back out so it's I call

54:13

it the caveman hard drive like

54:15

and it instead of spinning at

54:17

you know like two you know

54:19

like what is it seven seven

54:21

thousand and seven thousand two hundred

54:23

you know our p.m. It spins

54:25

at 30 33 and a third

54:27

r p.m. you know or 45

54:29

or whatever you know yeah yeah

54:31

and and and if you just

54:33

have a disk alone without the

54:35

play without the end code system

54:37

in the playback system they're useless

54:39

the information on it doesn't. You

54:41

know, like you have to have

54:43

a way to encode it and

54:45

decode it, just like we do

54:47

with computers. It's the same idea,

54:49

right? You know, so on my

54:51

machine, so I'm in New Charter,

54:53

or I have a machine that,

54:55

I call a silly-toe cutting lathe.

54:57

So after I shape up everything

54:59

and get things mastered, I have

55:01

actually a computer, another computer program

55:03

called Space and Time Control, which

55:05

is proprietary and connected to my

55:07

lathe. And it also does all

55:09

of the predictions. So instead of

55:11

having a computer like on the

55:13

old Neumann Lays that does those

55:15

like pitch in depth predictions in

55:17

real time, my program actually does,

55:19

I drop the files from my

55:22

mastering program into this program and

55:24

it does like a calculation of

55:26

what, depending on what I have

55:28

the parameter set at, you know.

55:30

like how much how loud it

55:32

is versus like how much land

55:34

I want which is the space

55:36

between the groves and how much

55:38

how what's my basic depth of

55:40

those groves yeah yes land is

55:42

the the the the the dead

55:44

space in between what we call

55:46

they call it either dead wax

55:48

or they call it the dead

55:50

space in between groves you know

55:52

and how much we can control

55:54

how much there is you know

55:56

So I load that into my

55:58

computer and then my software makes

56:00

a prediction and it actually gives

56:02

me a readout like I get

56:04

a visual disc of what my

56:06

groove should look like based on

56:08

what my files are. And then

56:10

that. That information is then sent

56:12

to the lathe while it's cutting

56:14

as a prediction. And then the

56:16

lathe follows that prediction. Isotope is

56:18

truly amazing for mixing and mastering

56:20

your music, like the new Isotope

56:22

plasma plugging featuring flux saturation, which

56:24

helps you sculpt the harmonics in

56:26

your sound, enhancing the excitement and

56:28

clarity of your tracks and mixes.

56:30

And Ozone, with its built-in mastering

56:32

mastering assistant, helps you analyze your

56:34

mix, suggesting all the settings you

56:36

need for a professionally mastered result

56:39

based on your chosen style of

56:41

music and EQ curve, or reference

56:43

a specific song if you want.

56:45

Ozone features sophisticated yet simple modules

56:47

like clarity and impact, low-end focus,

56:49

stabilizer, imager, exciter, and spectral shaping

56:51

along with powerful dynamic EQ, compression,

56:53

and limiting, allowing you to adjust

56:55

the settings to your taste so

56:57

it sounds incredible. And with the

56:59

magic of master rebalance, you can

57:01

even manipulate the vocal, bass, and

57:03

drums separately at the mastering stage.

57:05

Use the code Rock 10. to

57:07

get 10% off plasma, ozone, RX,

57:09

or any of the fantastic plugins

57:11

at isotope.com. How do rock stars?

57:13

We're back now for the Jam

57:15

session, aka the second half of

57:17

the show, joining you right here

57:19

at Podzilla Studios at my place

57:21

in East Nashville. My guess today

57:23

is Duncan Ferguson. Duncan, are you

57:25

ready to jam, dude? Yes, Jam's

57:27

my favorite. Awesome, man. Well, let's

57:29

hear more about your studio, too.

57:31

So, um. The voltage exchange beautiful

57:33

place really has a gorgeous look

57:35

to it. There's a video that

57:37

I found online where you did

57:39

an interview with Wilson Harwood. Yeah.

57:41

The sound proof is what is

57:43

the sound proof your studio show

57:45

if I'm saying that correctly. And

57:47

I don't know did you guys

57:49

did you work with Wilson to

57:51

do that or did he come

57:54

over and sort of take a

57:56

look at what you had done?

57:58

and you guys talked about it.

58:00

We, he, because he's, he's helping

58:02

people, uh, soundproof, their studio, like

58:04

he's, that's what he said. He's

58:06

going to guess on the show,

58:08

too. Oh, yes, yeah. Yeah, I,

58:10

yeah, it was fun. He just

58:12

want to come over and, and

58:14

take a look and be like,

58:16

what have you done? And kind

58:18

of show off, you know, like

58:20

this is what other people are

58:22

doing and thinking there you said.

58:24

I started with an empty shell

58:26

and I smarted the room. So

58:28

what is smarting a room? It's

58:30

smart as a program. It's made

58:32

by a company called Rational Acoustics.

58:34

And a lot of, it's really,

58:36

really popular use in the in

58:38

the live sound world for tuning

58:40

large liner APA systems. And you

58:42

can get all sorts of data

58:44

analysis from our from RTA microphones

58:46

or putting up, you know, omni

58:48

directional microphones and. just analyzing noise

58:50

in your space and you can

58:52

see all sorts of data you

58:54

can see if you can see

58:56

early reflections you can see phase

58:58

information that it's really easy if

59:00

you want to get really deep

59:02

into it's really easy way to

59:04

you know see if you have

59:06

any drivers out of phase it's

59:08

it's a really expensive program so

59:11

it wouldn't be a great use

59:13

of that but for basics but

59:15

uh so I was able to

59:17

when I built my room I

59:19

put up an RTA mic, I

59:21

shot a bunch of, I put

59:23

my speakers in place and just

59:25

shot a bunch of weird noise,

59:27

you know, pink noise and tones

59:29

and sweeps. So there's just an

59:31

empty box of a space at

59:33

this point. Just echo-y, nothing about

59:35

it sounds good yet. And sort

59:37

of figured out exactly where my

59:39

problem thoughts are going to be.

59:41

And I had some pretty extreme

59:43

restrictions with my room just based

59:45

on its dimensions. And how would

59:47

you describe a problem spot when

59:49

you're when you're shooting that out?

59:51

Let's say you've got the software

59:53

and you see something you're like

59:55

that's a problem just modes and

59:57

standing waves where where things are

59:59

collecting. in areas in the room and then

1:00:01

where things are canceling. And what does

1:00:03

that mean? When you look at a

1:00:05

chart, does that mean there's like a

1:00:07

huge peak in one spot? When things

1:00:09

are summing together in one area of

1:00:12

the room, they're summing together and you

1:00:14

get like a big bump, you know,

1:00:16

in a certain frequency area. And then

1:00:18

the direct opposite, usually with standing

1:00:21

waves, it's like a really drastic

1:00:23

like dip. in one area and we

1:00:25

had you had Carl Tats over and

1:00:27

he explained one big problem area for

1:00:29

a lot of people is around 120

1:00:31

hertz area and it's kind of like

1:00:33

has to do with like the architecture

1:00:35

that were just you know like

1:00:38

standard-sized rooms speaker technology that just ends

1:00:40

up being a huge problem spot you

1:00:42

know when you do this smarting the

1:00:44

room test you already have to have

1:00:47

your speakers in a in position right

1:00:49

otherwise you don't know what you're testing

1:00:51

and I can also like use I

1:00:53

get them in a relative position. I

1:00:55

know I'm going to do some fine

1:00:57

adjustments based on some of what I'm

1:00:59

seeing too. You know, like if you, um, uh,

1:01:01

so if you have a big base boost,

1:01:03

you might move them away from the

1:01:06

wall a little bit or something. Yeah,

1:01:08

well, there's like quarter wavelength, depending on,

1:01:10

you know, like, I have the big

1:01:12

PMC IB ones, which are transmission line.

1:01:15

So there's not a lot of base coming

1:01:17

off the back of the back of

1:01:19

those speakers. But still I made some

1:01:21

softets behind them. I mean, I could go

1:01:23

really deep. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah,

1:01:26

you want to, yeah, and the angles

1:01:28

of your speaker, while there's the

1:01:30

AES standard of having them

1:01:32

at 30 degrees, I've found

1:01:34

that the 30 degrees is

1:01:37

sometimes too tight for near

1:01:39

field monitors. So having them

1:01:41

a bit wider actually really

1:01:43

helps, you know, not have

1:01:45

too much buildup in the

1:01:47

center of your image. What is

1:01:49

30, when you say at 30 degrees, what

1:01:51

does that mean? It's the equilateral triangle of

1:01:53

the listener at the point of the triangle

1:01:56

and then the speakers at the two other

1:01:58

ends of the triangle. Isn't that? I'm

1:02:00

remembering this wrong. Isn't that 60,

1:02:02

60 makes an equal triangle? Yeah,

1:02:04

because that's the half, the 30

1:02:06

degrees is the half of the

1:02:08

triangle. I get 60, yeah, yeah,

1:02:10

so all right. Sorry, my brain

1:02:12

moves fast and I, you know,

1:02:14

it's good. You got to slow

1:02:16

it down. Slow it down and

1:02:18

break it down for us. And because

1:02:20

we, the other thing I was talking

1:02:23

to, I want to give a shout

1:02:25

out to Ryan Smith and Joe over

1:02:27

at Sterling. I was talking about.

1:02:29

teaching and the things that have to remind

1:02:31

myself because we live in it every day and

1:02:33

then you get so used to it you don't

1:02:36

think about it anymore that's something that I you

1:02:38

know like when you say oh isn't it 60

1:02:40

degrees oh yeah 30 but it's only half of

1:02:42

the triangle and then like everybody who's listening to

1:02:44

you is like what are they talking about like it's

1:02:47

you don't remember that you're moving so fast

1:02:49

because you live in it every day that

1:02:51

you you have to remind yourself some

1:02:53

of the basics so an equal lateral triangle

1:02:55

essentially to describe it for the podcast

1:02:57

Picture a triangle with three equal

1:02:59

sides, right? Yeah. And one side

1:03:02

is the speaker in, speakers in

1:03:04

front of you from tweeter to

1:03:06

tweeter, I guess. And then the

1:03:08

other sides are the tweeter pointing

1:03:10

to your head from the left side

1:03:12

and from the right side. Yeah.

1:03:14

So that it creates a triangle in

1:03:16

your head sort of in the apex

1:03:18

of that triangle, right? Correct. Yeah. And

1:03:21

I've actually found that. There's

1:03:23

a famous studio designer in town called

1:03:25

named Steve Durr. Yes, Steve's great. He's

1:03:27

been on the show too. Oh, has

1:03:29

he? Oh, awesome. He had said that

1:03:31

like even like you, they found that

1:03:33

like stepping back from that triangle

1:03:35

a little bit, you feel like it's

1:03:38

more natural as well. So I feel like

1:03:40

that equal out of triangle is

1:03:42

sort of like a really good like, like

1:03:44

center point for yourself, but you're

1:03:47

going to then manipulate it a

1:03:49

little bit to your liking. to

1:03:51

like make stuff feel like if it feels

1:03:53

too close together you make them wider

1:03:55

yeah feels too wide you bring them close

1:03:57

I was just in a friend's room the

1:03:59

other and helping him get his speakers.

1:04:01

Like he was, he was, he was

1:04:04

said he was sort of struggling to

1:04:06

get his mix. You have friends? Yeah,

1:04:08

friends. No, I just, I don't. I

1:04:11

thought we just lived in our studios

1:04:13

by ourselves. That was the joke this

1:04:15

weekend of like, the only time I

1:04:17

get out is the recording summit. Right.

1:04:20

It's like I just live in a

1:04:22

cave all day with my studio assistant

1:04:24

buster, my dog, and then it's like,

1:04:27

it's our one time that we can

1:04:29

nerd out, you know, you know, Buster

1:04:31

makes me feel good. There you go.

1:04:33

Yeah, that's amazing. That's All right. So

1:04:36

back to back to dead seriousness here.

1:04:38

So you've set up your your equilateral

1:04:40

triangle you got your speaker set up

1:04:42

you shoot out your room with your

1:04:45

smart and then it starts to tell

1:04:47

you that there's problems in certain modes.

1:04:49

When you treat the room there's there's

1:04:52

you know what I remember learning is

1:04:54

that there's frequency zones, there's everything below

1:04:56

300 hertz, enters the zone of room

1:04:58

modes and, you know, pile-ups of frequencies

1:05:01

or cancellations of frequencies that we need

1:05:03

to try and address, and then everything

1:05:05

above 300 gets into sort of ray

1:05:08

theory, which is like... It sounds just

1:05:10

bouncing around the walls into your ears

1:05:12

and so you're trying to address those

1:05:14

things. Yeah, it's all early reflections kind

1:05:17

of in the 30 millisecond to 60

1:05:19

millisecond range is sort of like what

1:05:21

we perceive as early reflections. So that's

1:05:23

like what you were talking about, what

1:05:26

the frequency range, like 500 hertz and

1:05:28

up or you know, sort of that.

1:05:30

And there, it's sort of like you

1:05:33

address those different things with different sort

1:05:35

of like low end. A lot of

1:05:37

times you're creating base traps, base traps.

1:05:39

you know in air in mostly all

1:05:42

the time corners or or like a

1:05:44

solid wall of some kind on the

1:05:46

usually it's a back wall or like

1:05:49

you can have some soft fits on

1:05:51

your front walls some of a typical

1:05:53

a typical design. And there's again, it's

1:05:55

subjective, there's no right way to do

1:05:58

it. They just have all these little

1:06:00

techniques of trying to like problem solve

1:06:02

like a chess game. Right. So it's

1:06:04

like the reflection stuff is you think

1:06:07

about sound going from the source of

1:06:09

the speaker. and trying to get to

1:06:11

your ear, but then you think, okay,

1:06:14

but it can also go from the

1:06:16

speaker and bounce off the wall and

1:06:18

then reach my ear. And so now

1:06:20

you've got a slight delay on it

1:06:23

and it's adding together. And so in

1:06:25

those cases, you can think about, well,

1:06:27

I should put a treatment where it's

1:06:30

going to bounce off the wall, and

1:06:32

so it doesn't bounce off the wall,

1:06:34

right? It's kind of like basic thinking

1:06:36

like that. The sound moving about the

1:06:39

room is not as relevant anymore, right?

1:06:41

It's like, it's more like there's low

1:06:43

end in the room everywhere, even though

1:06:46

it's not entirely accurate. There's low end

1:06:48

in the room, and so we're going

1:06:50

to try and soak it up rather

1:06:52

than thinking about it bouncing off something.

1:06:55

But it really is bouncing off. It's

1:06:57

like the low end accumulates. on the

1:06:59

wall surfaces and the floor and the

1:07:01

ceiling, right? Yeah, and it just sums

1:07:04

together in certain places and cancels in

1:07:06

other places as it's, you know, and...

1:07:08

Depending on the frequency. Yeah, and this

1:07:11

is where this gets mind-boggling, and this

1:07:13

is what really helped me was like

1:07:15

diving into the live sound world and

1:07:17

tuning these giant liner APAs, and understanding

1:07:20

like we used to do sub-over arrays

1:07:22

where we would position subs, you know,

1:07:24

to then actually create a beam. you

1:07:27

know, like, or cancel beams, or, you

1:07:29

know, like, you could, like, you could

1:07:31

create a cardioid pattern with subs, you

1:07:33

know, and cancel out everything that's blowing

1:07:36

back to the stage so those, so

1:07:38

the musicians don't get hit with a

1:07:40

tunnel low end off the back of

1:07:42

the subs. There's all sorts of, all

1:07:45

sorts of things you can do to

1:07:47

control that. And what I, what really

1:07:49

hit me hard when I was learning

1:07:52

how to do all that. was that

1:07:54

no frequency is created equal. So like

1:07:56

if you're trying to think about like,

1:07:58

oh, I would focus in on like,

1:08:01

I gotta control, I gotta think about

1:08:03

80 hertz, so if I do this

1:08:05

one thing, I'll do that, but then

1:08:08

70 hertz is now doing a completely

1:08:10

different thing. Like it's like a waterbed,

1:08:12

you're trying to like, you know, like,

1:08:14

we think of things that singularity, I

1:08:17

think when you start off as an

1:08:19

audio student or. You think of things

1:08:21

singular, like, oh, I hear 3K, but

1:08:23

what is 3.5K doing? Or what is

1:08:26

2? Yeah, like, we can't encompass everything

1:08:28

in our head, but what's happening in

1:08:30

rooms is like it's this gradient of

1:08:33

all these things. So like if you

1:08:35

have a problem in one area, you're

1:08:37

going to have something else in another

1:08:39

area, but you can't focus on one

1:08:42

singular thing. You have to figure out

1:08:44

this sort of overarching. Right, so you

1:08:46

don't you don't see the problem right

1:08:49

at one spike frequency and then say,

1:08:51

okay, I'm only addressing that. You just

1:08:53

think about it in a general. Yeah,

1:08:55

it's like a wide, wide bandy Q

1:08:58

is the way you treat this. Yeah,

1:09:00

yeah, you sort of have to like,

1:09:02

it, yeah, you, it's, we, we tend

1:09:04

to start to think singularity, but in

1:09:07

reality, there's just a whole lot of,

1:09:09

a lot of things happening, and they're

1:09:11

all, dominoesos that are connected to each

1:09:14

other, Well, it's interesting to think about

1:09:16

studios and spaces as instruments, too. It's

1:09:18

like there's a resonance to it all,

1:09:20

and that's what makes it sound interesting.

1:09:23

If you just move your speakers outside

1:09:25

and put them on two stands and

1:09:27

listen to them outside, you would have

1:09:30

none of these problems. Yeah. Because it

1:09:32

might not sound interesting. Well, they would

1:09:34

sound, you'd measure them and it would

1:09:36

sound great. And then you'd listen to

1:09:39

them and be like, this is an

1:09:41

interesting. Right. Right. And that's fascinating too,

1:09:43

because I wonder if it's just, I

1:09:45

mean, so much of our experiences, how

1:09:48

we programmed our brain to understand things.

1:09:50

And I wonder if, you know, if

1:09:52

you just grew up. up to listening

1:09:55

to music outside on speakers all the

1:09:57

time. Yeah. Maybe we would have made

1:09:59

different music and had a different understanding

1:10:01

of what sounds good to us. Yeah.

1:10:04

You know, it's fascinating. All right. Well,

1:10:06

so let's, let's, um. So now you

1:10:08

figured out your studio and you figured

1:10:11

out where the speakers were going to

1:10:13

go and you did some treatments, but

1:10:15

you also made it look really great.

1:10:17

So talk a little bit about some

1:10:20

of the aesthetic choices that you made

1:10:22

that sort of make your space feel

1:10:24

beautiful. I had been in a number,

1:10:27

over the course of my career, I've

1:10:29

been in some really wonderful spaces and

1:10:31

I noticed early on and also the

1:10:33

live sound company that I worked for,

1:10:36

there was a business philosophy that if

1:10:38

you present yourself in a cleanly... nice

1:10:40

way. It really goes a long way.

1:10:42

And while you may have the... Especially

1:10:45

when you're doing a video podcast. Yeah.

1:10:47

We, you know, we always were, we're,

1:10:49

I almost felt like we, when the

1:10:52

Lifetime Company was looking for, we always

1:10:54

had to like repaint our cases, you

1:10:56

know, like, stuff on the road gets

1:10:58

banged up a lot. And we used

1:11:01

to, a lot of clients would, would

1:11:03

come to that company because we were

1:11:05

the clean looking company. We didn't look

1:11:08

like a rock and roll. tour that

1:11:10

had just finished. Right, there's an appealed

1:11:12

console tape or a case. And I

1:11:14

kind of took all that to, and

1:11:17

then all my favorite studio spaces that

1:11:19

I've been in, worked in prior to

1:11:21

that, like, with, you know, I come

1:11:23

from the classical world too, so it's,

1:11:26

that just, that just kind of goes

1:11:28

a long way, aside from your own

1:11:30

skill set. and people are feel more

1:11:33

comfortable in those spaces. And I just

1:11:35

want to design a space that felt

1:11:37

that way. Well, I would say listening

1:11:39

to your discography and Rockstars, we have

1:11:42

a playlist of Duncan's work, which you

1:11:44

can check out. It's going to be

1:11:46

in the show notes. You just click

1:11:49

right through and go listen to some

1:11:51

of his records. But they sound great

1:11:53

and there is a quality of attention

1:11:55

to detail in them that I picked

1:11:58

up on right away. There's a there's

1:12:00

a sonic. consistency to low end and

1:12:02

width and you know the EQ and

1:12:04

all that that's really nice. there's also

1:12:07

just like there's a you know they

1:12:09

sound cleaned up they don't sound like

1:12:11

there's there's a mess in there you

1:12:14

know it's not a I don't know

1:12:16

have you had a chance to do

1:12:18

any punk rock kind of stuff I

1:12:20

just I just cut something for for

1:12:23

Piper that was like full-on like punk

1:12:25

rock and it was really it was

1:12:27

really fun yeah and but I didn't

1:12:30

master that I just cut it so

1:12:32

okay but it's fun to yeah I

1:12:34

I've worked on a lot of, it's

1:12:36

fun to like take, I love that

1:12:39

intersection of Lofy Me, Thai, you know,

1:12:41

sort of, I think the, the Black

1:12:43

Keys Brothers album was an amazing example

1:12:45

of that. Yeah. It was really, really

1:12:48

fun and it's really, really well presented,

1:12:50

but then there are these Lofy elements

1:12:52

that, so I work on a lot

1:12:55

of things like that, you know, sort

1:12:57

of like, from, from, from, from DIY,

1:12:59

you know, you know, and, lost the

1:13:01

train, what was, remind me the exact.

1:13:04

We were just talking about punk rock

1:13:06

records. We're also talking about like, you

1:13:08

know, oh, audio that sounds really cleaned

1:13:11

up or whatever. I think, man, some

1:13:13

of my favorite records are like, you

1:13:15

work really hard to make things dirty

1:13:17

or like have an energy and vibe.

1:13:20

And then as a mastering engineer, I

1:13:22

can take that and put it in

1:13:24

a really nice palette and it's, you

1:13:27

can digest it in a way that.

1:13:29

that feels, you know, like feels consumable.

1:13:31

I don't know, that's sort of the

1:13:33

way that I kind of look at

1:13:36

that low-fi and high-fi energy. I come

1:13:38

from the classical world, and I did

1:13:40

a lot of jazz sessions as well

1:13:42

in my undergraduate and graduate work. And

1:13:45

so maybe that's just a voice that

1:13:47

I'm just used to being, you know,

1:13:49

I, you know how we all can't

1:13:52

like, we all can't help but put

1:13:54

our, like, like, subconsciously like, like, I

1:13:56

mean the reason why people hire you

1:13:58

is for someone of a little thing

1:14:01

that you understand and can do

1:14:03

to to to achieve a vision

1:14:05

that they're thinking right? Yeah. So

1:14:07

like I think as much as

1:14:09

I try as a mass engineer

1:14:11

try to avoid having any sort

1:14:13

of voice onto something I work

1:14:15

really hard not to. I think

1:14:17

sometimes that sort of can seep

1:14:19

out you know of. Well and

1:14:21

that's an interesting because I've

1:14:23

heard variations on mastering.

1:14:25

And I've heard people describe

1:14:28

mastering as a process that

1:14:30

should have a transparency to

1:14:32

it, like the mix did what was

1:14:34

supposed to be done, and it's

1:14:36

a question of, you know, bringing

1:14:38

it over the finish line, but not

1:14:41

changing the creative vision. But

1:14:43

then I've also heard mastering. I

1:14:45

mean, Richard Dodd once I heard

1:14:48

of Master that he did for, I

1:14:50

came out of his one of the songs

1:14:52

I mixed, but he threw a slap

1:14:54

back onto it. Oh, amazing. It sounded

1:14:56

amazing. That's awesome. It was the right.

1:14:58

It was the right thing for the

1:15:00

right. It was the right moment. Yeah.

1:15:03

Yeah. And then recent stuff that we've

1:15:05

been getting mastered with Chris Chamnes. Yeah.

1:15:07

He's working with somebody new. I'll have

1:15:09

to come back with the with the name.

1:15:11

But there's a quality to it that

1:15:14

sounds bold and and like willing

1:15:16

to. you know, expand the vision of it and

1:15:18

I love that stuff too in the right

1:15:20

setting. I think there's like one not one

1:15:22

size fits all like and I kind of

1:15:24

choose depending on what the project needs

1:15:27

and actually cutting lacquers for

1:15:29

other mastering engineers has been a

1:15:31

real sort of revealing of that a

1:15:33

bit. So like when a project comes in

1:15:35

I'll evaluate like, okay, do I need to

1:15:37

be hands off with this and like just

1:15:40

transfer the mixes and you know. do is

1:15:42

like Ian Shepard like Ian Shepard says

1:15:44

do a little harm right do no

1:15:46

harm right or there are other projects

1:15:48

where I said oh you know like the mix can

1:15:50

really use X Y or Z and

1:15:52

I think this is actually their intention

1:15:54

so I can take it a bit further

1:15:57

with enhancement sometimes and in the right

1:15:59

and then reading those sort

1:16:01

of street smart cues of

1:16:03

like I think they were going

1:16:05

this direction so I can like

1:16:07

I can help them get there.

1:16:09

Yeah, you know, and I think

1:16:12

maybe that was the Richard Dodge,

1:16:14

you know, so there was a

1:16:16

feeling in that, you know. Yeah,

1:16:18

I think it definitely just was

1:16:20

following whatever his instinct was

1:16:22

and just going for trying

1:16:25

to like trying to preserve what

1:16:27

they did. on the lacquer as

1:16:29

much as possible, like that's a

1:16:32

completely hands-off, you know, and then

1:16:34

getting it the lacquer to translate

1:16:36

to the digital, you know, so.

1:16:38

Rock your music production with the

1:16:40

updated Complete 15 bundle for native

1:16:43

instruments featuring the new Contact 8.

1:16:45

This comprehensive collection includes a fantastic

1:16:47

range of versatile synths, sampled instruments,

1:16:49

and innovative studio effects, giving you

1:16:51

everything you need to bring your

1:16:54

music to life. Whether you're composing

1:16:56

emotional scores, deep dance floor grooves,

1:16:58

or experimenting with sound design, Complete

1:17:00

15 has you covered. Discover powerful

1:17:02

plugins and instruments that guide

1:17:04

you from the initial idea

1:17:07

all the way through. to

1:17:09

the final mix. The included

1:17:11

Contact 8 introduces exciting new

1:17:13

tools like chords and phrases

1:17:15

for instant inspiration, the leap

1:17:17

tool for dynamic looping, and

1:17:19

conflicts. cutting-edge hybrid instrument that

1:17:21

merges organic and synth sounds

1:17:23

in real-time. Plus, enjoy revamped

1:17:25

versions of Massive X and

1:17:28

Guitar Rig 7-Pro to take

1:17:30

your sound to the next

1:17:32

level. Then Polish your mixes

1:17:34

off with the A.I. enhanced

1:17:36

isotope Ozone 11 included in

1:17:38

complete 15 bundle. Use the

1:17:40

code Rock 10 for 10%

1:17:42

off at Native Instruments.com. Well, so

1:17:44

let's talk about the... tools some

1:17:46

of the tools that help sort

1:17:48

of clean up a recording to

1:17:50

sure yeah is isotope and rx

1:17:52

one of the things that would be

1:17:55

a typical part of the process I

1:17:57

use it every day and it's

1:17:59

amazing Amazing how powerful those tools

1:18:01

have gotten. Like I go in

1:18:04

and if there's certain, even on

1:18:06

the mastering stage, and I am

1:18:08

open and transparent about all this,

1:18:10

but even if there's even some

1:18:12

mouth ticks or pops that I

1:18:14

feel on the mastering side get

1:18:17

brought out, you know, like as you

1:18:19

start cleaning things up, just, you know,

1:18:21

I go in and take those out with eyes

1:18:23

dope. I do make sure to like make sure

1:18:25

that. to tell the artist, hey, I'm doing

1:18:28

this. You know, like, if you wanted that

1:18:30

in there as for, like, authenticity, I'll leave

1:18:32

it, you know, but this feels distracting. You

1:18:34

know, like, sometimes even like, yeah, you know,

1:18:37

like the, there's high frequency things that

1:18:39

sound like edits, but they're actually like

1:18:41

mouth. Just mouth. Yeah. Because the reason

1:18:43

is because the mouth gets so amplified

1:18:45

through the mix process. Yeah. That just

1:18:47

a little bit of spit and, you know,

1:18:49

you know, you know, moving your. or whatever.

1:18:52

And a lot of times I'm catching edit,

1:18:54

like some some edit stuff, like you know,

1:18:56

when a tracking engineer or mix engineer listens

1:18:58

to things over and over and over, they,

1:19:01

your brain glosses over some of that

1:19:03

stuff too, which is not any, they're focused

1:19:05

on other things too. They're focused

1:19:07

on getting it to like have this sort

1:19:09

of thing. And so it's sort of like a,

1:19:12

it's like a mini proof read of like, you

1:19:14

know, like, we spelled that one little word,

1:19:16

you know, or that whole thing. A lot of

1:19:18

times I don't even send the

1:19:20

mixback. I can clean it. I

1:19:23

can clean the edit up

1:19:25

with spectral editing. Yeah, between

1:19:27

wave lab and in our X, you

1:19:29

know. Yeah, yeah, let me see

1:19:31

if I can see if there's

1:19:33

anything fun to look at RXYs.

1:19:35

Oh, my internet's not really working,

1:19:37

so might have to blow that idea

1:19:39

off. Well, so when you. Use Rx

1:19:41

in a mastering process. Is it

1:19:44

like the first move? Yeah. Is

1:19:46

it like later on? I do

1:19:48

it with my first listen simultaneously

1:19:50

trying to be efficient as I

1:19:52

loaded into our standalone Rx first.

1:19:54

And this is just my, um, I loaded

1:19:57

into Rx first and then I do

1:19:59

an analysis. I sort of listened to

1:20:01

it, make some notes and then try

1:20:03

to catch that stuff before I started,

1:20:06

before I loaded in the wave lab,

1:20:08

which is my messaging program. So first

1:20:10

you just do, you do like an

1:20:13

audit of the music and just sort

1:20:15

of listen carefully, which is a big

1:20:17

part of what you describe on your

1:20:19

website to you, the critical listening. But

1:20:22

in other words, you don't just automatically

1:20:24

do stuff. You listen to see what,

1:20:26

where it needs to go. Yes, yeah.

1:20:29

And I actually with my handy dating

1:20:31

notepad, you know, like I just make

1:20:33

some notes and, you know, like that

1:20:35

first listen is so critical. Like my

1:20:38

first impression basically takes care of 80%

1:20:40

of what I'm going to, you know,

1:20:42

like if I don't get that first

1:20:45

listen and be completely objective to it,

1:20:47

then I can. I feel like I'm

1:20:49

not as a physician as a mastering

1:20:51

engineer to really evaluate what it needs

1:20:54

from my background or it's true. It's

1:20:56

true for me and mixing too and

1:20:58

other things where it's easy to keep

1:21:01

getting. It's like we're so good at

1:21:03

hearing things that we could do. Yes.

1:21:05

That as soon as we come up

1:21:07

with an idea and it's presented to

1:21:10

us. we just follow that path. It

1:21:12

feels like, you know, the equivalent would

1:21:14

be like doom-scrolling social media on your

1:21:17

phone or something. Like, oh, that's interesting.

1:21:19

Oh, click on that, you know. Sure.

1:21:21

And we fall into that trap in

1:21:23

making music, whether we're recording or overdubbing

1:21:26

or mixing or, you know, sound checking

1:21:28

a kick drum, you know, the early

1:21:30

stages or mastering at the last stage.

1:21:33

So... that process of just saying, you

1:21:35

know what, I'm just going to sit

1:21:37

down and passively listen and then make

1:21:39

a note when I hear something that

1:21:42

needs to be addressed. It gives us

1:21:44

a little roadmap to then go in

1:21:46

and just go do those things first.

1:21:49

And I find that can be very

1:21:51

powerful because, especially as you say, if

1:21:53

we have the strength. of a first

1:21:55

impression in that moment, and we've taken

1:21:58

notes, then we can just go address

1:22:00

those things that we thought we needed.

1:22:02

Sometimes the things that we address, I

1:22:05

go address them and I come back

1:22:07

and I'm like, well, that's not better.

1:22:09

That's, I still don't like it or

1:22:11

something. But a lot of times, it

1:22:14

really can do a cool thing. And

1:22:16

it really does help us cross the

1:22:18

finish line too efficiently. Yes, yeah, it's

1:22:21

actually kind of like the note taking

1:22:23

that I was talking about earlier, where

1:22:25

like I'm laying out my day, I'm

1:22:27

doing that with a song for a

1:22:30

recording, you know, it's just laying out

1:22:32

exactly what I think needs to be

1:22:34

addressed. The biggest thing in is to

1:22:37

like, you know, like the biggest things

1:22:39

that we can do is what we

1:22:41

don't do, right? Like it's like in

1:22:44

the music, like when somebody's writing a

1:22:46

song or making a recording, it's like

1:22:48

sometimes the best, you know what's like

1:22:50

what's in between the notes as opposed

1:22:53

to the notes themselves. So like in

1:22:55

mastering I found that that actually rains

1:22:57

true. Like some of the biggest things

1:23:00

that I can do is not do

1:23:02

certain things at all, you know, and

1:23:04

it kind of lets the mix breathe

1:23:06

through. And then if I make the,

1:23:09

I think it's all about making the

1:23:11

exact right decisions that it needs, and

1:23:13

that can get really, really complicated, you

1:23:16

know, like how do I not, how

1:23:18

do I do as little as possible,

1:23:20

but do what it needs. And that's

1:23:22

like the million dollar question. Yeah, really.

1:23:25

Do you find, so when you're mixing,

1:23:27

making a change to one thing that

1:23:29

you think you're getting right can actually

1:23:32

affect something else and cause the other

1:23:34

thing to start to feel wrong. Is

1:23:36

that similar in the mastering process? It's

1:23:38

even more similar. Like it's even more

1:23:41

deeper because like if I if I

1:23:43

feel like something has an issue. And

1:23:45

I say, oh, I'm going to correct

1:23:48

for this. Like, well, the snare drum

1:23:50

is just poking through too much and

1:23:52

sort of hitting me in the wrong

1:23:54

way. But the snare drums in the

1:23:57

center and the vocals in the center.

1:23:59

change a frequency in the snare drum,

1:24:01

there is a huge likely chance that

1:24:04

that frequency is going to overlap in

1:24:06

the vocal. And so like if I

1:24:08

pull that down, then I'm changing something

1:24:10

in the vocal. So you really, I

1:24:13

think it's even more like a hundred

1:24:15

times more in mastering because we're just

1:24:17

dealing with the two track, right? Or

1:24:20

the some down mix, and we're changing

1:24:22

things within that. Yeah, I remember my

1:24:24

first, one of my first cars when

1:24:26

I would install my own stereo stereo

1:24:29

systems. I had a

1:24:31

graphic equalizer that I got at one

1:24:33

point and I put that in there.

1:24:35

And it was a lot of fun

1:24:38

actually to go down and like tweak

1:24:40

it and saw into song and I

1:24:42

felt like it was one of the

1:24:45

first learning moves for mixing is like

1:24:47

adjusting the EQ settings in the car.

1:24:49

Have you ever found that, you know,

1:24:51

and I know we have digital ones,

1:24:54

you know, my Tesla has a, you

1:24:56

know, a little graphic EQ, I could

1:24:58

mess with that I usually just leave

1:25:00

it flat, you know. But do you

1:25:03

think that's a kind of a fun

1:25:05

way for people to begin to explore?

1:25:07

What does mastering mean? It's like start

1:25:09

taking a finished thing and just ekewing

1:25:12

it and seeing what happens. I think

1:25:14

that's great because it can reveal a

1:25:16

lot of things, especially like, like, actually

1:25:18

that's a great way to help understand

1:25:21

low end and how low end affects

1:25:23

you and how it moves around a

1:25:25

different spaces, especially like when you're dealing

1:25:28

with like base notes, you know, like

1:25:30

the biggest thing that a lot of.

1:25:32

times what I deal with in in

1:25:34

with mastering is uneven base notes that

1:25:37

pop or uneven not base notes from

1:25:39

the bass guitar but like like when

1:25:41

the mix gets sum together and the

1:25:43

mix engineer may not be in an

1:25:46

environment where they can hear that very

1:25:48

well we get a lot of like

1:25:50

inconsistent motion in the base of like

1:25:52

different things that are summing together and

1:25:55

so like I can go through and

1:25:57

like keep the mix relatively solid as

1:25:59

they intended and then just kind of

1:26:02

like get that to feel more consistent

1:26:04

in the decade. that have, and it

1:26:06

makes the mix more enveloping in my

1:26:08

opinion. So sometimes there are, you know,

1:26:11

with bass instruments and bass guitars and

1:26:13

things like that, there are certain chords

1:26:15

and notes sound huge in the low

1:26:17

end and other ones seem to like

1:26:20

the low end can seem to go

1:26:22

away and stuff like that. How would

1:26:24

you talk about that and how would

1:26:26

you possibly address some of those things

1:26:29

at a mastering stage to? or how

1:26:31

do you even advise the mixer to

1:26:33

go back and address it? I try

1:26:35

to, I try to not sense stuff.

1:26:38

If I have, actually, I'm gonna answer

1:26:40

that with a different, almost a different

1:26:42

topic. Developing trust, you know, like I

1:26:45

have a lot of return mix engineers

1:26:47

who enjoy what I do, and it

1:26:49

really becomes a symbiotic relationship where you

1:26:51

build that trust between each other. And

1:26:54

then you kind of like that safe

1:26:56

space that you open up. You can

1:26:58

really talk about, hey, when I do

1:27:00

this, how do you feel about that?

1:27:03

And then the mix engineer will be

1:27:05

like, when I do this, how does

1:27:07

this translate? And then you kind of

1:27:09

go back and forth. And that's having

1:27:12

a client in the room with you.

1:27:14

Or a mix engineer who I just,

1:27:16

we can communicate over email or phone,

1:27:18

you know, like who's, who sent me

1:27:21

stuff a lot. You like I get

1:27:23

like something from them once a month.

1:27:25

or just out a few albums over

1:27:28

the year. Like you can really develop

1:27:30

this. You've developed a relationship where it's

1:27:32

not so much like the ideas that

1:27:34

I have. It's like, oh, I'm hearing

1:27:37

this. And then the mix is just

1:27:39

like, well, I did this. And then

1:27:41

I said, well, if I do this,

1:27:43

does that help this? You know, does

1:27:46

that help this? You know, you're sort

1:27:48

of working as a team back and

1:27:50

you're doing that for the artist. What

1:27:52

a lot of things get missed in

1:27:55

the music industry with production teams is

1:27:57

they don't work together Yeah, and it's

1:27:59

like I've really worked really hard to

1:28:02

say hey, this isn't isn't my record,

1:28:04

you know, like I'm a service and

1:28:06

I'm your team member and we all

1:28:08

got to like have some sort of

1:28:11

connection to get this you know like

1:28:13

all my favorite records are these giant

1:28:15

teams you know yeah like so I

1:28:17

sort of I didn't mean to steer

1:28:20

us off topic there I didn't know

1:28:22

we were off topic it felt pretty

1:28:24

on topic me okay but when I

1:28:26

think about the team thing too I

1:28:29

think about what it's like to be

1:28:31

somebody turning over music For somebody to

1:28:33

mix or turning it over for somebody

1:28:35

to master sure Probably the same feeling

1:28:38

for somebody who just comes in and

1:28:40

sings and they're turning over their voice

1:28:42

to the recording engineer and the producer

1:28:45

in the studio You know where somebody

1:28:47

over doing a guitar part and then

1:28:49

saying and then they hear it back

1:28:51

through the speakers or like the drummer

1:28:54

comes in and plays a drum part

1:28:56

and then here's how do the drums

1:28:58

play back? You know, there's a there's

1:29:00

a level of Trust in letting go

1:29:03

that is part of the whole process.

1:29:05

Right. Yeah. And with that is often,

1:29:07

it's very easy to just have an

1:29:09

accompanying sense of self-doubt, you know. So

1:29:12

like you turn over a, you turn

1:29:14

over a finished mix to a mastering

1:29:16

engineer and then it comes back and

1:29:19

you know, you might. hear

1:29:21

things that don't hit you right or

1:29:23

do or don't or whatever. And then

1:29:25

you're like, and then you're like in

1:29:28

this state of like, oh gosh, did

1:29:30

I, I don't even say gosh, oh

1:29:32

God, did I screw it up? Yeah.

1:29:35

Okay, sometimes I say gosh. But, you

1:29:37

know, you're wondering like, did I screw

1:29:39

it up or is this the mastering

1:29:42

thing that's doing it? And you get

1:29:44

you immediately in a sense of potential

1:29:46

self-doubt. And so that's where like. That

1:29:49

ability to communicate and that ability to

1:29:51

feel like you're on the same wavelength

1:29:53

is so helpful. I've been in that

1:29:56

situation in both directions. But that's why

1:29:58

I've created just this open, safe environment

1:30:00

to, like not, I don't, I don't

1:30:03

want the mixed engine to feel that

1:30:05

way. Also, I want the mixed engine

1:30:07

to be really excited about what they've

1:30:10

done and when I give it back

1:30:12

to them and be like, wow, you,

1:30:14

my mix feels like it's my mix,

1:30:17

but man, we got this to a

1:30:19

place that it needed to get to.

1:30:21

Yeah. And I mean, granted, we're not

1:30:24

all the same. We're all like artists

1:30:26

with different styles with different styles. I

1:30:28

don't think that we have to assume

1:30:31

that whatever system we create is going

1:30:33

to automatically be perfect for everybody. We

1:30:35

have to also be ready for the

1:30:37

fact that like, you know, you, I'll

1:30:39

just use the example of like bringing

1:30:42

in a singer to sing on a

1:30:44

track. I mean, the voice is so

1:30:46

personal. It's like you're going to bring

1:30:48

in one singer. And you might have

1:30:50

the greatest communication in the world, and

1:30:53

they might do a fantastic job. But

1:30:55

in the end, you're like, that's just

1:30:57

not the voice we're looking for, you

1:30:59

know. Yeah, it doesn't fit the situation

1:31:02

or you're feeling, I guess, right? And

1:31:04

or an artist working with a producer

1:31:06

or something, you know, I'm looking for

1:31:08

a different kind of style. Same thing

1:31:10

with a mixing engineer or a mastering

1:31:13

engineer or a mastering engineer. But through

1:31:15

that process, but through that process, for

1:31:17

there to be a great. process of

1:31:19

feeling like we're on the same page,

1:31:21

it's a great team, when we talk

1:31:24

to each other, I feel like you

1:31:26

understand me kind of thing. Yeah. So

1:31:28

that you can get to that point

1:31:30

of making the best version of the

1:31:32

record that you're trying to make. Yeah,

1:31:35

I couldn't agree with that 100% I've

1:31:37

tried to foster that environment. Well you

1:31:39

couldn't agree with that 100%? Or like...

1:31:41

That's just messing with you. The English

1:31:44

language is just so confusing. That's all

1:31:46

right. That's all right. That's all right.

1:31:48

It's like, oh man. It's like, there

1:31:50

are phrases that I say when I'm

1:31:52

like, why do I, like, where did

1:31:55

that come from? Right. Like, yeah. Oh,

1:31:57

I was looking on Google. I'm like,

1:31:59

what's the derivation of. like some expression

1:32:01

you know it's like yeah yeah we

1:32:03

use words that don't logically work in

1:32:06

the situation but it's the whole culture

1:32:08

has moved at that direct yeah yeah

1:32:10

speaking of having to get up and

1:32:12

use words a lot one of the

1:32:14

things you do is you also teach

1:32:17

at SAE right yes yeah tell us

1:32:19

a little bit about that what's what

1:32:21

SAE what do you what do over

1:32:23

there so I have a master's degree

1:32:25

which allows me to teach at the

1:32:28

bachelor's courses at the level which is

1:32:30

part of their accreditation and it's I

1:32:32

teach the, I, I teach a few

1:32:34

different classes, but my, the main thing

1:32:37

that I was brought in to work

1:32:39

on was the, the mastering class at

1:32:41

SAE, so I'm a, an SAE is,

1:32:43

they're a school here in Nashville that,