Hello!

And welcome to another episode of Inside the recording studio.

I am Jody Whitesides, and with me as always is Mr.

Chris Hellstrom.

How are you today, Chris?

You're just fine and dandy.

Are you ducky as well?

Good morning Jody, I'm doing just fine and dandy.

How about yourself?

I'm not sure if I'm ducky, but I am dandy, I guess.

That's how good I am.

I'm fine AND dandy.

Well, that's double good.

Let's square that up.

I'm doing good.

Right?

How are you doing?

Yeah?

Awesome.

How's that shoulder?

Yeah, yeah.

Still sore, but it's almost 100% back to normal.

Still attached, I take it.

It's still attached to my person.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, we're done.

Good, awesome.

All right, I'm gonna jump right in.

Hey Jody, do you have a style, do you think, when it comes to mix engineering?

Yeah?

Cool.

All right, cool.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

(laughing) The idea in terms of what you just asked me personally, Is it good to have a style when it comes to that?

Is it something that we should strive for, do you think?

Is it something that behooves us?

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Because that's kind of what we're talking about today.

Is it good to have a sound or a style as a mix engineer/producer, or certainly mix engineer?

Yeah.

I think I developed a sound due to the fact that I started out as an artist, not because I started as a mix engineer.

And I don't know if that's necessarily a good or a bad thing.

It's just the way my path through this industry occurred is the best way for me Sure.

Yeah.

to put it.

That being said, there are a lot of mix engineers out there who don't technically have what I would call a sound sound.

Like you'd recognize, Hey, that guy did that mix kind It might be good to have a sound as far as like instantly identifiable, but at the same time, thing.

And generally speaking, if you could recognize it for that, it might not be a good thing.

It can.

Yes.

that has a certain expiration date on it if it's too defined, right?

I don't want to mention this Uh-huh.

Well, you're so vague.

I have no idea who you're talking about.

person by name but there was a very successful person in early 90s who ended up doing in the rock realm a lot of remixes for people and was all over the place.

Now I don't know if this person is still active today, I'm assuming the person is.

I'm trying to be as vague as possible here.

But well, good, then I've said it correctly.

Uh huh.

But it can be that you're dating that sound, right?

OK, so if it's so identifiable, it's like, oh, everybody's heard that now.

Uh huh.

Do something different.

This is dependent on the style of music that that we're doing.

So throwing it right back at you, do you have a sound?

Right.

Yeah, I think I do.

I know you have a style, but do you have a sound?

have a style but do you have a sound?

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

But I honestly don't know how to answer that.

I'd like to think that I let each song or artist come through in the mixes that I do, as opposed to crowbarring what I think is cool on there.

But at the same time, if I'm doing a mix, I'm going to implement my tools, how I like to do things on that.

So I think it's one of those Sure.

cases where you kind of, you straddle both fences, where I have a certain, you know, aesthetic, perhaps that I like to hear things, whether it's drums or guitars or whatever happens to be, and it probably gets obviously filtered through my sensibilities there.

But in my ears, in my eyes, And your ears.

and all of that.

Yes, of course, of course.

I don't know.

I'm not sure if somebody would necessarily Don't mix with your eyes.

Mix with your ears.

Sure.

Well, and that's kind of where I'm getting at in terms of like when you try to tattoo listen to something I've done and go, "Oh, that sounds like Chris." It would be great if that was was a positive thing where they, oh, that sounds like Chris, you know, that would be bad.

Yeah.

a sound onto a particular person's abilities.

Mm hmm.

I recently had somebody that I've done a little work with come back at me and ask about another recording mix person stating, I will never go back to them ever again.

And of course, everything I've ever heard this particular person do doesn't come across as schooled or professional or understanding how to actually hear the way something should [BLANK_AUDIO] be presented in a mix would be the best way to say it without being a complete dick.

You're talking about a mix engineer.

Yes.

Who also runs a studio, fancies themselves as a recording engineer, that kind of thing.

Right, okay.

[BLANK_AUDIO] When it comes to all of that, I think we have to focus on our skill level first.

And those skill sets will naturally be colored by the music that we are into and that we listen to.

Yes.

Sure.

What about punk punk seems to be a good starting place.

Because so many different styles, you know, whether it's rock, if it's a country thing or hip-hop thing, EDM, whatever it happens to be, they're...

Prior to what era prior to what year?

Sure, but they all have with them a certain sound that should be appropriate for that, that kind of musical style.

Right now I would argue that, yes, I mean things are obviously always More than a year.

evolving, right?

And blurring and coming back in fashion and we hear a lot more reverbs and things How many years.

A year.

And blurring.

Yes.

now because 80s is kind of in vogue again, right?

I think it's important to kind of focus on something in there that we're passionate about before we go into that.

Now you mentioned punk there.

Punk is to me at least it's one of those musical styles where you might have a certain leeway Sure.

when you start with it because it's supposed to be this sort of like DIY approach, right?

And it's all about attitude and it's all about giving the giant middle finger to society type of thing, right?

That was sort of like the essence of that.

But then...

Punk and garage rock.

I'm not sure I would entirely agree with that because I think whatever musical style you start That's why I brought it up is it might be a good place to start for a lot of things because you cut your teeth on things that you don't have to worry quite so much about the base value or the high end value or how low fi it might sound.

with, it's always going to be a certain DIY approach.

But I think that sort of mindset of punk and kind of keeping that aggression and that attitude in there can become a challenge because let's say a huge band like Green Day were considered a punk band when they started out, YES!

right?

Today, I'm not sure anybody would call them punk necessarily because their sound has POP!

evolved and stuff.

And as a matter of fact, they got a lot of flack initially when their style Yes, the big P.

sort of changed and got a little bit more mainstream.

Yes.

Ooh, the P word, right?

Yeah.

(laughs) What was the point I wanted to make about that, Ramley?

Here's what I would say to that.

No, I think, you know, we have to sort of gravitate towards what we think is our passion, not just the passion, but we actually have to be good at that passion.

Right?

What's that?

And you're not wrong in saying it, Oh, yeah.

Right.

Yes, as long as you have the you know, you're in the position where you can say but I would take it a step further and say, it's probably ideal to focus on the genre as a mix engineer that makes you go, Fuck yeah, I get to work on this.

Cause if you're not saying fuck yeah, you're probably doing yourself a disservice and you're probably doing the client a disservice.

GENTLE yay or nay to certain projects, right?

If you are a staff engineer in a certain place, in a certain studio, you just have to do the work that's there, right?

And you have to be professional enough to give your all and serve the song and the artist whatever that happens to be.

But if you're not super passionate about a project, let's say if somebody would come to me and go, "Hey, I have this lo-fi [ Silence ] hip-hop thing that I like to do.

We want it to be like really authentic.

I'm probably not your guy because I'm not gonna be I could give it a shot but I'm probably not gonna project everything that needs to go into that the same thing for perhaps a country thing it's like yeah well kind of adjacent to some of the stuff that I do but if you want something with super authenticity I might not be your guy you know where let's say that whatever musical style Sure.

Sure.

Along those lines, you're talking about essentially finding the right way to find the right way there are certain aesthetics that are there that just supposed to be in that sound right if you are doing any kind of music you want to at least be sort of if not steeped into that sound and knowing what is required to do that to have it sound as contemporary or as legitimate as possible let's say I would essentially finding your voice depending on the type of music you're wanting to get into.

Now let's say you're defining a new sound like when Nine Inch Nails came out.

That was kind of that would be my recommendation for anybody that that's kind of going into this right?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

new territory to say the least especially with the way it blew up.

What do you use as your marker for like hey this is how we're gonna do it and we're kind of springboarding off of that.

It gets harder and harder on a daily basis to come out with an entirely new sound.

Like, to me, Yeah, and yeah, I mean, something that had a little bit of longevity, shall we say, I would probably go along with that.

But there have been, you know, other things past that, of course, you could argue perhaps that I think it was about the same time where Dr.

Dre and his people that came out just about the same time and exploded as the Nine Inch Nails thing did.

That was the last big explosion of a sound.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there was that and defining a new sound I think has more to do with the artist and the time when you're doing that.

That all the stars have to kind of line up to do something and to have people actually be aware of that it's happening.

A new sound is does it really only become a new sound Or if they're not aware of it directly speaking, they're all just in tune with whatever the the sound is that the artist might want to focus in on.

No, not necessarily.

Not at all.

when it becomes popular because you know if you're doing something and it just never takes off and Well, if your tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it, you know you can pat yourself on the back and go well it's just because I'm so new nobody gets me.

Exactly.

Or maybe what you're doing just sounds horrible to people you know and it's never gonna did it matter?

Yeah.

That's like catch 22 right there.

take off and I think you have to be aware of these things but as a mix engineer is that your job?

[BLANK_AUDIO] unless you're part of the creative process.

If you're getting a country track to mix, [LAUGH] and you go, "Well, I'm going to put my stamp on this.

I'm going to create something new." And the end result ends up sounding like Slayer.

That's probably a new sound, but is that something that somebody wants to hear?

Yeah.

That's a good question.

And we'll tackle that question right after this word from our sponsors.

Oh, yeah.

All right, the question was, if you were a mix engineer and you were given a country track and you injected the concept of Slayer into it, do people wanna hear it?

That's a good question, I think.

And here's a funny example of maybe just such a thing.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

A few years back, I had the pleasure of meeting a band Mm-hmm.

that was really damn good.

And they were in that thrash metal kind of vibe Okay.

along the lines of like God smack and maybe a slightly more modern version of Metallica Okay.

and things of that nature.

But they were from a small town, a rural small town, Okay.

Okay.

farming community, and they were really good.

I mean, there's no question about it.

I was bobbing my head to the music.

I thought they were great.

I thought they had everything together except for an image and an actual like defining quality that would set them apart from the masters of their genre.

Hmm.

Nice.

In speaking to the promoter of the event where I saw this band, I mentioned to him, I said, "You know, you stick a band guitar on that guitar player and you dress these guys in overalls.

They can still play the exact same music, but then they can start calling it hillbilly thrash, which nobody's done.

Right.

They define their own genre right then and there." Yeah.

And the promoter was just like, "Whoa, mind blown." Well, now you've done it.

So right.

And here's the thing, I've been waiting to give that example away for like over a decade.

(laughs) Well, I did it before, yes.

And I actually got that concept from someone else.

- All right.

[silence] And the funny thing is, is that if you were to start running around and telling everybody that when they ask you, what do you sound like?

When you say hillbilly thrash, most people are gonna turn their heads like the RCA Victor dog and wonder what the hell that is.

[laughs] and to have a group of people that could get together It can, yeah, absolutely.

and define that, not only from the band and the writing of their music aspect, but the recording engineer and the mixing engineer and everybody else that we're talking about in this, that starts to define a genre and a sound.

- Yeah.

I'm also a little bit weary of, now I guess, anything that kind of comes out and is new (laughing) (silence) Thank you.

when it's kind of defining a new sound is always looked at with a little bit of skepticism initially until it takes off.

Anything in history that there's always been raised eyebrows about, oh, you're going to do what?

You know, and it turns out to be successful and then everybody jumps on the bandwagon, [BLANK_AUDIO] right?

But I think this has a fair bit to do with the artist and sort of like the marketability Sure, but as a mix engineer, you have to be aware of where they want to go.

of that and perhaps a little bit less so with the recording aspect of it and the engineering aspect of it.

Yes.

You have to be aware of the genre that is going into the mix of the song or the album that you're working on.

It's one of those things where we always like to say you need to communicate with the artist, right?

Very much so.

you know, and that's like, hey, we're imagine 84 Metallica, but we're gonna have banjos on it, you know, so it's like, okay, right.

So I'm going, yeah, all right, well, I'm in, let's do this thing.

Now you're jumping off my bridge.

You're at that part where you are sort of serving the song and the artist as an engineer, and you're Come on.

not necessarily crowbarring your sound onto whatever they are, right?

So I think that's an interesting angle where we have to kind of explore and see and then of course what you do Sure.

Shall I set up a delay pedal?

[LAUGHTER] with all of that with your know-how and everything you can perhaps make that vision come to life you know and I think that's as a mix engineer that's kind of our job.

I mean I've told this story before on the podcast here but I think it's such a good story that it needs to be repeated where our Well, maybe and just just edited in from before I was mixing an (silence) album last year, where I was essentially, you know, kind of shoehorning my sound onto a certain song.

And it was when I got the mix feedback back where the artist said, Well, can we make the drums sound a little bit more Fleetwood Mac and less Daffleppard?

Yeah.

So it was one of those things where I'm take You You my aesthetic, this is how I like drums to sound, right?

And they (laughs) I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's programmed to go, no, that's not what I had in mind at all.

Fix it.

And of course, we did, but lack of communication on my part there.

Right?

That is important.

Now, what is your thought on the more transparent the mix engineer is, as far as style wise, you are better suited for the song or the task at hand?

Is that something that you would agree with or have a different take on or what do you think?

Yeah.

Yeah.

dependent and that comes with experience.

To know when to step back and just do a mix without, as you say, crowbarring something onto it or with a sledgehammer pounding it into submission.

I don't know.

And when you do need to actually throw the atomic bomb at it and blow it up to whatever it needs to be.

When you asked me earlier about whether or not I think I have a sound and I said yes, the bigger point of where I probably should expand upon that has more to do with the way I actually separate instruments.

Because I know a lot of my mixes, not all of them, not 100%, but probably a good 90% Okay.

is a lot of very clear definition between instruments where you can hear everything that's going on.

than creating a wall of sound where shit gets lost.

Now have I ever created a wall of sound [ S where shit gets lost?

Yes, I have.

But that was what the song required at that point.

urn urn But generally speaking, I like to be able to have the ear dive into any given point urn urn urn urn urn urn of a mix and be able to hear any given instrument that's happening, whether you're currently urn urn urn urn urn urn thinking about it or not.

But if you go back and listen to it on another set of headphones urn urn urn urn or a different set of speakers, urn urn you'll find something in there that was defined urn urn urn in any given speaker arrangement that you heard it in, urn urn Well, yeah.

Yeah, it sounds to me like you're, you're striving for a mix where everything but you might not have noticed it as clearly, if that makes any sense.

So it's always there and it's always present.

And I have a tendency to really get very good at getting that definition between all the parts.

A purpose.

has a purpose, right?

It's not now obviously in a mix something I like to say a mix is Mm-hmm You You not a democracy.

Not everything gets an equal say.

So it's finding that place for something that (silence) I love my clock.

it needs to be perhaps in the background, whether it's panning or level or spatial wise, right?

I would probably agree with your assessment there.

I think you do that quite well, where everything is there for a reason.

And even if it doesn't leap out, initially you listen, you lay back and you listen to something on the headphones and say, "Oh, cool.

I didn't hear that glockenspiel over to the left you know so yeah but but it's interesting things like that (laughs) can I think can be really really cool and even if you don't because I noticed it initially I still Yeah.

go back to that with having a sound or not now you touched on experience as well and it becomes Really?

almost one of those things that you know your experience gets you the next gig, right?

And it may be something that you're doing to a mix that somebody's heard or you know we hear it all the About.

time that somebody's on the charts like now let's get that guy to mix our next record, right?

And I think it's a- ?

it is perhaps more of a marketing thing that you want to be connected with that or you think that Yeah.

that this person is actually going to add something to your production that you want added.

And, you know, we talked a little bit before Uh huh.

2020.

we started recording here today, but somebody like Chris Lord Algae, does he have a sound or not?

Because he works on a wide range of things, but I think most people would think that he has these mixes that are very sort of forward and punchy and relatively aggressive, right?

So is that his sound or is it because he gets approached with projects that would be suited for him to do?

Yeah, not that you have a thought on it.

I mean, not necessarily speaking for him, That would be a question for him, not for me and his brother.

but the same could be said for like, Dave Pensado or Bob Clier Mountain or whoever, you know.

So it's...

I'll tell you, if I were an artist and I wanted probably one of the penultimate in sounds [Silence] in the history of recording, I'd probably go to Jack Joseph Pleague myself.

Yeah.

[Silence] the two albums that he did with Jellyfish.

Right.

I mean, those are just ridiculous Not...

Yeah.

Yeah.

and they're considered like some of the greatest sounding records ever made by a lot of people, not everybody obviously, but there's a lot of people out there that hold those up as examples of amazing writing, amazing recording, amazing mixing.

The whole process on those albums, they're just so amazing with how they came out.

And he was the mix engineer on that.

If I didn't want to mix it myself, I'd go to him, - Yeah.

especially for that kind of vibe that he imparted.

- Right.

Of course.

- Those are very, very good examples there.

And I think those are cases where sort of like all the stars were lining up, you know, so to speak, like with the songwriting, with the time and everything and the talent of everybody involved and they created these works of art that, you know, I'm not going to mix it up.

have stood the test of time.

I'm going to mix it up.

It's just unfortunate that most people So.

>> Thank you.

don't know about them.

You know, there's a talent in the know-how Mm hmm.

and the timing of everything that, For example, Tony Visconti, when he worked with David Bowie, Mm hmm.

you know, it was, you know, an explosion in like new gear and all this kind of stuff.

And I think he had like a harmonizer at some point and they didn't really know how to explain it, but Bowie wanted that sound so that they started working together and had a very fruitful relationship, right?

So it's that talent and the time and everything and you sort of get known for a certain sound because of that.

So - Yeah, I think the same could be said could be for maybe Mark Needham as well.

He's been around a long time, but I would posit to say that the Imagine Dragon guys probably met him because they lived in the same town.

At least I'm assuming that Mark was living in Vegas [BLANK_AUDIO] at the time that they started coming up.

And it's quite possible that the Imagine Dragon guys just met him from doing local shows.

And he was there in the audience or something Yeah.

and wanted to work with him, or they wanted to work with him.

They created a sound just for them and it worked out.

[BLANK_AUDIO] They became pretty big.

[Laughter] Yeah, they did all right, they did all right and continue to do all right.

I think as engineers, we are judged on the work that we've done.

Sure.

And we sort of are possibly more dependent on the artists for our sound than it is something that we're creating by ourselves.

It just happens because with our experience, the work that we've done, if we've done a good job, we get known for that.

So I think initially, as we start out as mix engineers, first, I would say, Sure.

Yes.

just work as much as you can, right?

And do whatever you do, but then find out what you're passionate and you're good at.

Like Dave Pensado used to say, like, passion about something is Nobody's tall enough to.

not good enough.

Like he said, sometimes, yeah, I have a real passion for basketball, but I'm never going to be in the NBA, you know?

Well, yeah, perhaps, but, you know, you need to be (laughs) Mm-hmm.

good at it as well.

Right.

And then one thing will sort of Thank you very much for watching.

breed the next.

That doesn't mean that you need to necessarily pigeonhole yourself into one style of music and just doing that.

But I think you find out where you're good at.

My name is Fred Martinclusive person.

You try to do that as much as you can and then try to spread your wings.

I have the You know, if you're good enough at something, I think you can start, like I now and actually spelling test said, spreading your wings a little bit and trying new things.

have to practice And then you see that either you're, you're good at that as well or not.

but I'm in my Yes.

You brought up Trent Reznor, not his nails.

He has very, very successfully managed to go into scoring.

shell You know, he's doing very, very well with that.

But he partnered with somebody that was already really damn good at it.

And, well, Atticus Ross.

Yeah, but he started as a right-hand man, Yes.

so to speak, to Trent, right?

When they started their work and relationship.

And then, you know, he found somebody he could trust and then they were thrown at him this opportunity to do the social network, right?

All right.

Any kind of snowballed from there is style important Maybe not as much as you think just do what you're good at and everything else will take care of its of itself Well, my two cents in that regard ends up being that you have to know the tools that I think without that would be my two cents.

So What do you think?

Yeah, yeah you're going to use and you have to be creative with them.

Yeah.

You also have to understand, especially from a mix standpoint, how your listening environment may or may not influence all other listening environments that somebody's eventually going to listen to your mixes in.

If you're not acutely aware of that, it can be a problem because it might sound fucking amazing in your little cubby of creation where you're doing the mix.

But once it gets out into the world, it might sound like dog shit.

Yeah.

To wrap this up again, besides knowing your tools and And if it does that, you're probably not getting a whole lot of work.

[ Sign ] your gear and getting out of it what you want and the listening Top York environment, all of those things.

The last thing I would say then is, if you're working on a genre that you are [BLANK_AUDIO] [ intimately aware of, and knowing the aesthetics of that, that will influence how you treat the low end.

How loud is the snare going to be?

How much emphasis is going Mm-hm.

to be on the subs?

All that kind of stuff.

You know, how are we treating guitars?

How are we doing [BLANK_AUDIO] anything?

Then of course you can elaborate on that.

One person that I wanted to mention here is primarily a metal mix engineer called Andy Sneep.

And he is one of those that has basically a sound Mm-hm.

[BLANK_AUDIO] now.

But I think he was one of the first ones to really start implementing like the layering of samples onto drums in a metal context.

So here's somebody that kind of took something Right.

that he was really, really passionate about and sort of expanded on it and basically rejuvenated the sound of a genre that can perhaps sound a little dated otherwise.

So should we have a I think that's a personal choice.

a style Jody or not?

Yeah.

I think it's all dependent on what I can take or leave my style.

what your goal is, and what you want to do.

I would be less Yeah.

That's right.

concerned with creating a style, because fans can come and go, and primarily just be good at what it is that you do and presenting the song and the artist in the best way possible.

And if you're not the producer, you don't really have a say in that anyway.

So it's like, no, and then if you do that well Do your job as the mix engineer, damn it.

Damn straight.

enough, and on top of that, if you're a decent guy, or girl, people are going to want to work with you.

So I rediscovered an app today.

It is called Syntorial.

In an old And with that, let's move on to our Friday finds.

Chris, what do you got?

Uh-oh.

Hm.

episode, we talked about synthesis.

And for quite a few people, synthesis can be difficult.

And we basically just we don't really understand how the synths work, we just buy patches.

And then we're slaves to those patches.

Centorial is an application that helps you understand how subtractive synthesis works.

It helps you listen to what it does.

And it's [BLANK_AUDIO] basically a tutorial, just like the name implies, like Syntorial, get it?

But I know, but it has all these steps through it So clever.

[BLANK_AUDIO] where one by one it adds new functionality for you to listen to it and recreate what is given to you in that app.

[BLANK_AUDIO] So it's a really, really cool way to kind of boost your synth patch writing ability as it were.

It's called Syntorial.

There's a demo for up to a certain amount of levels Rock on.

and then you can buy the whole thing.

I think it's a really, really cool way to go because I think with synthesis, so many of us are just kind of like buying patches and going through them without really, really knowing how to dial in your own.

So that's my find for this Friday.

What about you?

I'm going to go with something that just came out in the last couple of days.

It was announced by Universal Audio, and it's called the Volt interface.

And what separates this from their normal Apollo system is that you get [ Pause ] the universal audio quality in a very small, compact interface that has no onboard processing.

This is just a USB interface and it comes in three flavors as far as I'm aware of at this point in time.

they have the Volt 1, which is a 1N2 out.

They have the Volt 2, which is a 2N2 out.

And then they have the Volt 276, which is the 2N2 out, but it has an additional piece of capability to it Oh.

Nice.

that the Volt 1 and 2 do not have.

The Volt 1 and 2 allow you to get like a tube preamp sound from the UA610 mic pre.

The 276 has the additional capability of also giving you an 1176 compressor limiter on the way in when you're recording.

So I'm going to go with these three devices that have come out.

Bye.

The Volt 1, the Volt 2 and the Volt 276 as being really amazing.

You can use them with your iPad or your iPhone in addition to your laptop or your desktop computer, as long as it's got the USB-C connection capability.

So I'm going with the volts.

Cool.

Cool.

Cool.

Yes.

And while we've got your attention, [ Pause ] We would like you to go to our website and sign up for our email list at inside the recording studio dot com.

Doing so gets you free presets for some slate digital stuff and for some universal audio stuff from both Chris and I.

It also makes sure that you don't miss out on any future episodes of the podcast, as well as our Tuesday tips that come out every Tuesday.

And whenever we do a giveaway, you're automatically enrolled in the giveaway.

[ Pause ] You have to do nothing further in order to possibly win something.

In addition to that, if you send us an email at gold star G O L D S T A R at [BLANK_AUDIO] inside the recording studio.com with the word sound, you'll get something cool back in your inbox.

If you have a topic of suggestion for us to explain in a future episode, See you, Jody.

contact us via the contact page, hint, hint at the website, and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode.

And with that, I'll say, see you next week.

Thanks for listening, people.