Mat Leffler-Schulman - What Makes a Mix Great: Insights from a Mastering Engineer

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I always master it for how it should sound. Good. If you are mastering for

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Spotify right now, two years down the road, it's going to be something

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else. So I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song

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in sort of like its own ecosystem at any given

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time. That's mastering engineer Matt Loeffler Schulman. Matt's worked with artists such as Jon

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Batiste, Beach House, Nelly Furtado and Mary J. Blige. Today we're

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going to get into what makes a great mix. But from the perspective of the

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mastering. Engineer, mastering is sort of the end of the road. Like if you didn't

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get it, good to begin. Some of his techniques for honoring the

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mix while still elevating the master to the next level. If it's a mix where

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the vocals are a little bit hot and you want the sides to be a

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little bit more pronounced, you can compress the mid

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but not the sides. So the sides stay nice and

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doing what they're doing, but the vocal in the center gets a little bit more

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tightened and in focus. How a condition called chromasthesia has become a tool for

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his mastering process. There are shapes and colors and

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they change based on frequency,

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intensity and whatnot. And why he's not that concerned with

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AI mastering. There is clearly a market for that and

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I feel like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend

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money with me anyways. A mixed engineer who also masters

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their clients, that's where AI is going to take business away. So whether

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you're here to learn more about the technical side of mastering or the business and

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the philosophies behind it, this one is for you. Stick around for my interview with

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Matt Leffler Shulman,

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you've mastered number one top ten songs for Grammy winning artists. But

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I don't want to talk about mastering first. I want to talk about mixing. What

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is a great mix to you? When you pull something up on the desk, what

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makes you say, whoa, this is awesome?

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Well, there's many things. And when

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I have sort of my mastering headphones or

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glasses or that sort of focused on,

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it's always been difficult for me to be able

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to listen to the record as a whole. It's always been that way. Even since,

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you know, I was a kid, I always like listened to the snare drum. I

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remember, you know, going to a show and finally realizing

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what drum the drummer was hitting and that was the snare drum. I was like,

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that's crazy. But anyways, so what makes a great mix

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for me is when I am able to just completely

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forget about all those discernible individual tracks

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and it's just like a whole

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piece that just works together and I'm not sitting there like

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nitpicking, well, man, the base, we should

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have pushed that up a little bit more. And the sibilance is a little too

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much. So really it's just a mix that

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doesn't really distract you from anything. And I have to

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pinch myself every day that I get to work with amazing producers and

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mix engineers. So it happens

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a lot where I really just kind of get lost in that mix.

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And, you know, I know maybe the bar is really low, who

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knows? But yeah, it's definitely. It's a special thing

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to get lost in a mix, I think. But

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I certainly appreciate it. Nice. So it's like basically when you

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listen to the music and there's nothing in the mix that bothers you.

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Exactly. Are you able to look past when something is

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maybe a little low end heavy or like a

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little harsh and you immediately know that's a solvable problem, but you're like, this is

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a good mix. Other than this, like, little tweak, I. Want to make 100%. And

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I think this goes back to how I like to work with,

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communicating intensely with a mix

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engineer or the producer or the artist. Just so you know,

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they'll let me know ahead of time this is going to be a bass heavy

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mix. Or the vocals are really loud in this one, but that's what we're going

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for. So. Yeah. I do think

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though, if I don't have those conversations ahead of time, that if there

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is something that's a little like sort of outside of the

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norm, my brain just will focus right in on it.

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That might be parallel to how my synesthesia functions

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in my brain. So, you know, with how my

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synesthesia works, it's like there are shapes and

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colors and they, they change based on

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frequency, intensity and whatnot. And sometimes, you know, when that

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bass is really hot and it's like the greens are

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like really hitting me, like, that can be pretty

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distracting. Right? Okay, I was going to ask you about that later.

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Now we have to talk about it because there's somebody sitting somewhere that's like, what

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are we talking about right now? So, so can you tell. Tell people what

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synesthesia is? So specifically, it's chromathesia.

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Chroma, which is where I, when

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I hear sounds, it manifests visually

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in sort of like my brain. It's almost like sort of like an acid trip,

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I guess. In a lot of ways. Okay.

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Yeah. Is that an advantage for you now, or is it.

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Or is it a distraction? I guess you just said it was a little bit

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of a distraction. If something's off, it can be a distraction. Where

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it is very distracting is outside of music.

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Like, if I'm at a club and I'm talking to a friend, and there's

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just so much loud energy everywhere,

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you know, frequencies and whatnot, that can get a little distracting. And

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really, like, I have to sit there and focus on talking to the person I'm

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talking to. Yeah. But I don't know.

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I thought everybody had synesthesia growing up. I just didn't think

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that it was that unusual. And then I read an Oliver Sacks book. I was

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like, oh, so there's a name for this. And this is. Everybody doesn't have

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this. That's wild. And it may have been my gateway

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into working in audio. Who knows? Yeah,

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that's. I just. I can't. I can't even imagine,

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Like, I don't even know. I don't even know how to imagine what that would

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be like. I mean, is it. Is it also pitch related or is it for

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you. It's more frequency. Rel. So it. It is pitch related. Well.

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And frequency. Yeah. I mean, I don't think correlate. Yeah. Yeah, I guess they would,

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but I guess, like, bad singers, do

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they trigger. Trigger something? Or is it more about, like, a whole sonic context?

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It's. It's a whole sonic context. I don't feel like a bad singer. Are you

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talking like an attitude singer? Yes, I guess, like people with perfect

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pitch that go crazy when they hear, like, a siren or something. Yeah.

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No, I do not have perfect pitch and nowhere even close to that.

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I have worked with a couple people who have perfect pitch, and I

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don't know that I envy them in a lot of ways. Doesn't seem like it's

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fun. It sounds pretty brutal. I mean, the people that I've seen that can do

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this, I'll literally, you know, play a

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note and, like, pitch it up 3 cents and they'll

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know it pitched up 3 cents. They can tell you that it's just. It just

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to me, that seems like a burden. Totally. But

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maybe to other people's synesthesias burden too. So, you know, I don't know.

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Who am I to say? Does it play into you knowing when a master is

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done? Like. Like, if I'm doing a mix, 100%. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a

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feeling. You're like, oh, this is what I'm used to. Well, no, it's not a

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feeling. It's more than a feeling. It's. It's. For me, it's almost tactile

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visually. You just kind of know it's done. Almost like,

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you know, when you see your house is finished, like, the

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building of the house is done, it's almost like that.

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That's. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to, like, think of, you know,

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like. That's a good description, what you just said, because that makes sense to people.

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Yeah. Or almost like an oscilloscope, when you see something in

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phase and like, the sine wave's like, perfectly lined up, but it's not like,

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cockeyed. Like, it's almost like. That

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also has to be kind of aligned with, like, your preference.

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Correct. Yeah. Like what you see as done

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visually is based on what you like. Well, I don't know that it's

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what I like. It's what my mind likes and how my mind

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perceives it. I assume. I don't know if my mind likes it or not. I

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mean, I assume it does if it's lining it up that way. Yeah. Right,

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right. That's an amazing tangent. I'm sure that'll filter through

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the conversation again. But I wanted to go back to the

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mix. Sure. So it sounds like communication is huge for you, and I've

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found that to be true, especially on the mixing end. What's your process like when

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you're communicating with producers and mixers about what they expect from

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you? Well, well, some are pretty

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open with me from the get go. They'll send me mixes, you know, before we

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talk, and they'll. They'll ask me. They'll say, hey, is there anything here that, you

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know, stands out? And, you know, being a mastering

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engineer or just being a third party, you get that

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luxury of being able to hear something for the first time. And I feel like

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that's such a benefit to a mastering engineer as

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opposed to the mix engineer who's heard the song a thousand

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times and they're just done with it. So I have those fresh ears.

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I can listen to it. I can tell if there's an issue with it. I

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can go back to the mix engineer and say, you know, let's

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pull that bass down. Or those guitars are just, like, too cranked in the

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side. Let's take out 3K3 and then we're done.

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That's what I think a master engineer brings. Like, I don't really expect something to

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be, like, super different when I send A mix off.

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But I. I love the subtleties of, like, that person's taste mixed in

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with it. And so I guess can you speak

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to how you ride the line of

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how much to do? Like, if a mix is good, how much do you do

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or how little? Well, so. So this, for me, my instincts

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are always, do no harm. Like, I really don't want to get in the way

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of the mix at all. Like, it's sort of like, mastering is

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sort of the end of the road. Like, if you didn't get it good. To

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begin with, like, it ain't gonna get good now. I'm not gonna make it any

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better. Like, a shit's a shit.

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Yeah. I just. I don't like to get in the way. And there are mastering

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engineers that love to put their stamp on it, and that's awesome, but that's just

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not how I work. I don't. Without offending

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anybody, I don't like that at all. Those people immediately go to

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my list of, like, do not calls. Are you talking about the people

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who just changed the mix that have a stamp? Like, I guess if you're. It's

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easier in mixing, right? Because if. If you want Chad Blake sound, you go to

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Chad Blake and you know you're going to. He's going to do something crazy and

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it's going to be nuts. But you went there for that. When you.

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You go through the revisions and you have an artist and a producer, everybody's happy

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with a mix. I made it a little darker or

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thicker than like, I normally would, and then I send it to somebody and they

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just like, top 40 pop it and you're like, but

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that. That's not what we gave you. Like, it doesn't resemble what we gave you

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at all. Why would you do that anyway? Pet peeve of mine. Yeah. I feel

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like you already made those sonic creative

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decisions when you were mixing it, when you were even arranging it or producing it.

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Exactly. So there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Yeah.

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I do give the caveat, though, if there's communication

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and, you know, the artist or the engineer

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wants it to be drastically different if they want me to

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saturate with the tape machine, you know. But those are. Those are

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discussions you have, and that's where I'm very

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big on just communicating. Yeah. I think it

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is necessary. It seems so obvious,

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but I feel like in our industry, a lot of what we

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do, it's not rocket science. Like, anywhere anyone can put a

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mic in front of a snare drum and get a good Sound like you don't

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necessarily have to go to school for it. Like, you don't have to be a

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mathematician. Like, you don't have to be a NASA engineer. Like, yeah,

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it's not rocket science. So, yeah, it's communication, it's

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vibe. There's. We all have the same tools now.

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Some of us have more expensive tools, but the playing field is

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pretty even. Let's talk about something weird. Okay.

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AI we kind of talked about AI briefly before we got

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on, and we'll continue that. But there

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is stem splitting software that is becoming more

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prevalent. More people have access to it. Do you see

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mastering engineers using stem splitting software

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on a regular basis in the future? And if so, what's the

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ethical boundary about what to do? Like, what should you

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and what should you not do? Since we're talking about respecting the mix. Right,

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sure. And I assume you're talking about, like, Izotope's music rebalance or

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something like that. Even logical split stems. Right. So if I'm

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a mastering engineer, I could rip them out of logic, turn

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the vocal down, re EQ the bass. Should I?

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Totally. And I feel like if

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there is a specific reason to do so. Like, I just got this mix in

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from this band from dc. They loved the mix, but then they

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realized after they sent it to me that the snare drum was too hot. Like,

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it was just too loud. So they said, is there anything you can do about

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it? And I was like, well, yes, there is something I can do about it.

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So I did a little finagling, used the music rebalancer,

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split out the drums, and then I was able to compress the snare a smidge

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in that, like, drum bus. At the end

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of the day, they went back to the mix engineer to get it done correctly.

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But I feel like not everybody has a budget to do that. And I

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feel like for those people that don't have the budget to do it, it is.

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It's a solution. It's a means to an end. It's. It's a tool. And I

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think, why not use it? Right? I don't disagree.

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Yeah, no, I. I think as long as the tool's used in the right

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manner, going back to people that maybe want to put their stamp on

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something, I guess I'm. I have a different perspective as the

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mixer. And let's rewind, too. When I had that mix with a

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snare drone that was too loud, the artist said,

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it's too loud, and they wanted me to fix it if it was. If it

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came in too loud. I wouldn't have touched that plugin at

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all. Same. Yeah. Unless that conversation just kind of came

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up naturally. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't do that without their

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knowledge. Yeah. If they want stem mastering, they'll call you for

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stem mastering. Well, they'll call someone else for that. Are you

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anti stem mastering? I'm not anti stem mastering, but I don't know that I'm

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good at mastering from Stems fair. I certainly don't have experience

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in it, so I don't know that I would be able to do a good

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job. I. I've never sent stems to mastering.

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I've never. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why anyone would need it

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other than just sort of their, their

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process of thinking maybe it would be able to sound better and

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who knows? I guess you could AB it at one point, but, you know, who

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has the time for that? Yeah, totally. Totally. Well, okay, let's. Let's go back in

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the AI rabbit hole with what we're kind of talking about off air. Before we

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started, you know, I said that I thought I would take your

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job before it took mine as a mixer. And we kind of went back and

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forth and. And you know, you brought up that there's a lot of value outside

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of the actual technical skills of mixing and mastering. So

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what do you. What do you think as the. Really? That's it. That's the question.

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That's super. It's. That brought. So

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just on a personal level, I think AI is fascinating.

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I'm like, I'm kind of into it, so let's rewind a little

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bit too. When I was like 25, I read an

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article in probably a real paper and it said

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that after 30, you don't listen to any new

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music. You hit 30 and then everything prior to that

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is sort of what you listen to for the rest of your life.

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And I made it a point that that was not going to

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become me. I wanted to continue listening to music,

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continuing to like, know what was out there. Yeah. And you

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know, I don't like it all, but I don't like all the music that came

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out, you know, when I was a kid. So, you know, you can't like everything.

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But anyways, I sort of take that methodology

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with technology that comes out, so AI comes out.

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And I think it's an amazing tool. My wife's a programmer

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and she uses it all the time to sort of

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set up these basic known things that

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like, sets up these templates for her and it saves her so much

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time. And I think That's. That's a valuable tool. Agreed.

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I haven't figured out where AI would come in for me

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where it could do that. Like, where it could set up,

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you know, a Wave lab session and, like, line everything up and, you

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know, do all the things and say, you know, do X, Y and Z. I

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don't think we're there yet. Why do you not think that we're there yet? I

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mean, what, like, why do you think that nobody has figured out what that tool

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is? Because I agree with you. The things that I think would save me time.

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I don't see anybody making that tool. Right. I mean, and I don't know how

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you would get that AI tool to, like,

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tie into the. To the API of wavelab. Like, I. I just don't know that

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technology of how it would work. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would be

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great if there was some AI out there that when I uploaded a folder to

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my samply, that it would send an email to my client that, hey, this

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is, you know, ready, and here it is to download. That would be a great

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use for AI, but I just. I don't know how to hook that up. I'm

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sure we'll get there. Yeah, but in terms of, you know, AI

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mastering and, I mean, I don't. What

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else? I mean, there's all these, like, they throw AI at everything,

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and I feel like everything. I just don't know that

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it's. It's really in the software that

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we're using and how it's being marketed isn't necessarily true

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to what AI actually is. But I don't know, I'm not like, an expert

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in that field in terms of plugins and whatnot. For the most part, my

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workflow is moving knobs around. So no AI other than

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just, like. Mojo, you know, Talking about AI, I'm

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surprised that Auto Tune hasn't advertised itself as

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AI vocal tuning yet, because, I mean, I mean, in a lot of. Ways it

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sort of is, right? It kind of is. Kind of is. I mean,

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what's really cool is, like, I was watching a

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video and it was like. And this was years ago, like a

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couple years ago, and they were saying, you know, write me a song that's like,

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you know, in a happy key and lyrics about, like, the Smurfs

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or something. And, like, it did that. It was pretty, like,

Speaker: 00:18:17

rudimentary. And, like, it didn't sound incredible, but it was

Speaker: 00:18:21

like, it was half believable.

Speaker: 00:18:25

Yeah. Which to me is super cool, but also,

Speaker: 00:18:29

you know, a little too big brother and scary. And then also

Speaker: 00:18:33

you go into the whole intellectual property thing with, like, what.

Speaker: 00:18:37

Where it's learning all this information and getting all this

Speaker: 00:18:40

information from, and then are those artists getting compensated for.

Speaker: 00:18:44

That's my real beef with AI right now. Yes. Yeah. And

Speaker: 00:18:48

Jonathan Weiner talks a lot about that. That's going to be the thing of, like,

Speaker: 00:18:51

what are all these models trained on? This might be

Speaker: 00:18:55

partially incorrect, but I believe the EU passed something.

Speaker: 00:18:59

That's great. Where by sometime in 2026, AI companies

Speaker: 00:19:03

need to reveal or

Speaker: 00:19:06

disclose their training data. So does this mean it goes back?

Speaker: 00:19:10

I guess it would, yeah. Okay. So I kind of like,

Speaker: 00:19:14

there must be enough money involved for them to have a couple years to sort

Speaker: 00:19:16

the shit out and make it look like they're not going to get sued. Right.

Speaker: 00:19:20

But yeah, I mean, if you come out and say you trained your SUNO

Speaker: 00:19:23

AI training data on all of Spotify, like,

Speaker: 00:19:27

that's not something that you want to put in writing in front of a judge.

Speaker: 00:19:30

That's not cool. Yeah, I'm not okay with that. No, exactly.

Speaker: 00:19:33

Yeah. I think there's an interesting case for

Speaker: 00:19:38

having local models that are trained on your own thing. I brought this up in

Speaker: 00:19:42

another episode a few months ago. If Max Martin had the Max Martin

Speaker: 00:19:45

songwriting AI based on his own preferences, that kind of

Speaker: 00:19:49

stuff would be kind of weird, kind of fascinating. But

Speaker: 00:19:53

that has nothing to do with our conversation. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker: 00:19:57

that's fascinating. That's a totally fascinating sort of

Speaker: 00:20:00

idea. But I feel like we're not that

Speaker: 00:20:03

far from that, honestly. Right. Something that,

Speaker: 00:20:07

you know, studies your masters and your

Speaker: 00:20:11

preferences. And then you load it in and there's the

Speaker: 00:20:15

matte version. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then you can just click a starting

Speaker: 00:20:18

point for that. For that song is

Speaker: 00:20:22

kind of interesting and also disturbing at the same time. Yeah. I mean, this is

Speaker: 00:20:26

where I think, like, it could be really useful for a mix engineer.

Speaker: 00:20:29

Like, if there was a way that you could plug in AI so that, like,

Speaker: 00:20:32

it listened to all the individual stems, but then also listened to the mix

Speaker: 00:20:36

and was able to, like, go back and forth and say, hey, you know, I

Speaker: 00:20:38

want these drums to sound like the Flaming Lips. Like, do that for me. And

Speaker: 00:20:42

then it, like, sets up all the buses, gated verbs, rooms, and all that kind

Speaker: 00:20:45

of stuff. Yeah, I feel like that's a tool that's,

Speaker: 00:20:49

like, super useful, I would say, for.

Speaker: 00:20:53

I feel like I'm sort of walking back on this now because I feel like

Speaker: 00:20:57

it's super cool and useful for someone who already knows how to do that.

Speaker: 00:21:00

But for someone who doesn't know how to do that, I feel like

Speaker: 00:21:04

there's a missed opportunity of learning how

Speaker: 00:21:08

to do that. Yes. I think just regardless of whether it's music a lot

Speaker: 00:21:12

or not, that's going to be. I think the long

Speaker: 00:21:16

trail problem with AI is how many people just didn't

Speaker: 00:21:19

learn how to do something. And I guess that could be

Speaker: 00:21:23

okay because it's like we came up at a time or I came up at

Speaker: 00:21:27

a time where you had a console, you had gain staging. There were all these

Speaker: 00:21:30

different things you had to do. Right, right. But things, things change

Speaker: 00:21:34

too. And it's like you don't necessarily need to do all that kind of stuff

Speaker: 00:21:37

if you're just doing something on your laptop in the basement. Like you can still

Speaker: 00:21:40

make it sound amazing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't

Speaker: 00:21:44

know what the answer is. I don't think anyone knows what the answer is. Hopefully

Speaker: 00:21:47

somebody figures out before it's too late. But yeah. So,

Speaker: 00:21:51

okay, obviously the AI is a thing, right. It can

Speaker: 00:21:55

do things for people, it can make your record

Speaker: 00:21:58

brighter. There are websites that maybe quote, master your record.

Speaker: 00:22:03

Why? Why does somebody want to use a person? I mean, I have an opinion,

Speaker: 00:22:06

but what's the value of mastering multiple

Speaker: 00:22:10

songs with someone like you? Well, there's, there's many reasons, but it

Speaker: 00:22:14

also goes into. Mastering isn't

Speaker: 00:22:17

just two bus processing, which right now that's all

Speaker: 00:22:21

AI mastering does. That's true. Listens to your audio,

Speaker: 00:22:25

it probably generates like the genre it's in

Speaker: 00:22:29

and then sort of puts like these brackets around it and says like this is

Speaker: 00:22:32

what we can do within these parameters of the genre. Yeah. And I feel

Speaker: 00:22:36

like that's, that's cool. I'm into it

Speaker: 00:22:40

and I think there is clearly a market for that. And I feel

Speaker: 00:22:43

like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend money with

Speaker: 00:22:47

me anyways. So I feel like a person like me

Speaker: 00:22:51

isn't missing out on. I feel like a mix engineer who

Speaker: 00:22:54

also masters their clients. That's where AI is going to take business

Speaker: 00:22:58

away. I think the other part of what

Speaker: 00:23:02

mastering is quality control.

Speaker: 00:23:05

So pops and clicks and continuity and that sort of

Speaker: 00:23:09

thing. I feel like that's something AI should be able

Speaker: 00:23:12

to do, but for some reason that's

Speaker: 00:23:16

not what it's doing. Like I feel like that's sort of the most boring part

Speaker: 00:23:20

of mastering, but it's super important

Speaker: 00:23:23

and I can't tell you how many records I get

Speaker: 00:23:27

every day and there's pops and clicks all over it.

Speaker: 00:23:31

And it's like, if I wasn't there, if a human wasn't listening to it,

Speaker: 00:23:35

it would go out to vinyl. It would go out to all your digital distributions

Speaker: 00:23:38

with those pops and clicks. Yeah, yeah. You would think

Speaker: 00:23:42

AI should be able to figure that out. Like,

Speaker: 00:23:46

I maybe. And maybe Lander and all those automated

Speaker: 00:23:49

processing companies do that now. I don't know. I don't

Speaker: 00:23:53

know. But it definitely sounds like something that, like, that RX

Speaker: 00:23:57

should be able to do. Yeah. You know, it should be able to identify

Speaker: 00:24:01

the clicks. I mean, it can already do. Do so much manually.

Speaker: 00:24:05

That's what I pop it in, rx. I mean, I can just literally, like, scan

Speaker: 00:24:08

visually and I can see them like. Yeah, that's not rocket science, but

Speaker: 00:24:11

it takes time and it's something you need to do. So if AI could figure

Speaker: 00:24:14

that out, I'm into it. I'm down with that. I'm down with that.

Speaker: 00:24:18

Yeah. And for anybody listening crossfades, people,

Speaker: 00:24:22

especially on your, like, 808s and your basses, that's where these clicks are coming from.

Speaker: 00:24:25

Just do some crossfades and logic. Okay. I know. It's always like

Speaker: 00:24:29

at the start of a new region of a vocal, and plugins are all

Speaker: 00:24:33

popping on. Third core is copy and paste. The beginning of something

Speaker: 00:24:37

is clipped off. I know attention to detail, which is

Speaker: 00:24:40

like mastering. And mastering is attention to detail, in

Speaker: 00:24:44

my opinion. It's so much detail, it's hyper detail. Yeah. And then. And

Speaker: 00:24:47

then also the third part of mastering is assembling

Speaker: 00:24:51

the data and formats so it can go out

Speaker: 00:24:55

to the different distribution methods, like mastering for vinyl,

Speaker: 00:24:58

mastering for cassette. They're all different sort of parameters that you have to work

Speaker: 00:25:02

with. You know, different vinyl houses have different

Speaker: 00:25:05

requirements. You know, Spotify has a different requirement than YouTube has.

Speaker: 00:25:09

Not that everybody does a different master for different platforms,

Speaker: 00:25:12

but it's something you have to consider. Okay, so you.

Speaker: 00:25:16

You touched on the loudness. So we have to ask about what is your opinion

Speaker: 00:25:20

on how loud to make something? Are you

Speaker: 00:25:23

doing a streaming master? Are you just making it how it should. How it sounds

Speaker: 00:25:27

good. I always master it for how it should sound good.

Speaker: 00:25:30

Spotify is like a moving target. It's always going to be

Speaker: 00:25:34

changing, and what you master for now might

Speaker: 00:25:38

not. If you're, you know, if you are mastering for Spotify right now,

Speaker: 00:25:41

two years down the road, it's going to be something else. So

Speaker: 00:25:45

I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song in sort of

Speaker: 00:25:48

like its own ecosystem at any given time,

Speaker: 00:25:52

which is what people. Have done for like

Speaker: 00:25:55

80 years. Right. It was always, this sounds amazing.

Speaker: 00:25:59

Printed down to half inch tape. This

Speaker: 00:26:03

is the master. And then that format is going to be transferred to CD or

Speaker: 00:26:07

cassette or whatever it is. So I don't know, maybe it's

Speaker: 00:26:10

just the way knowledge flows through the Internet

Speaker: 00:26:14

now that people are hung up on it. But to me, I

Speaker: 00:26:17

agree with you. Whatever sounds best for the record is what sounds

Speaker: 00:26:21

best for the record. You can't chase something that is going to change, Especially tech

Speaker: 00:26:25

companies. I mean, Jesus, could anything change faster than tech companies, you know, for.

Speaker: 00:26:29

Well, I mean, yes and no. It's like they are kind of these like giants

Speaker: 00:26:32

that take time to make these

Speaker: 00:26:35

changes. But yeah, I just feel like

Speaker: 00:26:39

if every once in a while I do get a client that says,

Speaker: 00:26:42

hey, this has to be negative 8 lofts integrated. I'm like, okay, if that's what

Speaker: 00:26:46

you want me to do, I'll do that. But usually we'll have that

Speaker: 00:26:49

conversation and I'll ask the question, why? Yeah. So

Speaker: 00:26:53

I really understand what their intent is. Yeah. If I

Speaker: 00:26:57

understand why, it might be that they're just using the wrong terminology

Speaker: 00:27:01

or there might be a better way to do what they're talking about.

Speaker: 00:27:04

Yeah. So again, we come back to communication. Yeah. What's your

Speaker: 00:27:08

opinion on the level of mixes that you're getting to work with?

Speaker: 00:27:12

Like, loudness level? Do you wish there was more headroom? Are you getting what

Speaker: 00:27:16

you want generally? On average, yes and no. And I think

Speaker: 00:27:20

I've come to a happy medium with

Speaker: 00:27:23

making sure the mix engineer at sort of a bare minimum,

Speaker: 00:27:27

prints their mixes at 32 bit float, so that even if they are mixing

Speaker: 00:27:31

into a limiter and it's hitting zero, if there are

Speaker: 00:27:35

overs, I can always, you know, pull it down with, you know, gain

Speaker: 00:27:39

and there will be no, like, squared off waveforms.

Speaker: 00:27:43

That's like the genius of 32 bit float. That's true. That's

Speaker: 00:27:46

true. Yeah. That's great. Okay, let's talk about that.

Speaker: 00:27:50

Can you explain that a little bit further for people that don't understand

Speaker: 00:27:54

fixed versus floating? Sure. So you have

Speaker: 00:27:57

16 bit and

Speaker: 00:28:01

I think it's 96 decibels of

Speaker: 00:28:05

bandwidth. I think that's correct. From like the quietest point to the loudest point. And

Speaker: 00:28:09

then you go to 24bit and it's 144dB

Speaker: 00:28:12

from quietest to loudest. When you go to

Speaker: 00:28:16

32bit, the decibel level is from like

Speaker: 00:28:19

0 to like 1200 or something.

Speaker: 00:28:23

It's like something ridonculous. So

Speaker: 00:28:27

you. If, you know, your mix goes over a DB or two, or even just

Speaker: 00:28:30

like a couple little, you know, half DB trickles, like, you just turn your

Speaker: 00:28:34

gain down a couple DB and everything's fine. So

Speaker: 00:28:38

that's sort of where I am. I feel like.

Speaker: 00:28:42

I feel like a lot of people. I'd say it's 50. 50. I'd

Speaker: 00:28:46

say 50 people mix into a limiter. And

Speaker: 00:28:49

oftentimes, you know, I'll ask them, did you mix into the limiter?

Speaker: 00:28:53

Because oftentimes if you take that limiter off, the mix will just fall apart. And

Speaker: 00:28:57

it's pretty obvious when that happens. True. So if I get a mix and it

Speaker: 00:29:00

kind of feels like unglued, so to speak, I'll ask

Speaker: 00:29:04

them, hey, did you, you know, did you have a limiter when you were mixing?

Speaker: 00:29:07

If so, please put it back on.

Speaker: 00:29:10

Yeah. Which again, it's like, sort of counterintuitive to,

Speaker: 00:29:14

you know, sort of what I knew

Speaker: 00:29:18

and learned when I was hiring mastering engineers, you know,

Speaker: 00:29:22

decades ago. Yeah, well, it's. You know, as a

Speaker: 00:29:25

mixer, our side of the argument is that we have

Speaker: 00:29:29

to compete with, you know, crazy loud production refs. And so I

Speaker: 00:29:33

chase the same thing with rough mixes where I get

Speaker: 00:29:37

files and I'm like, are these even wet? And they're like, oh, yeah, no, it's

Speaker: 00:29:39

all wet. I'm like, what is on your master bus? Like, this doesn't even sound

Speaker: 00:29:43

anything like the reference. And so you end up

Speaker: 00:29:47

chasing that to get back to that. And I

Speaker: 00:29:51

don't like to. I mix with a limiter on, but I do 80% of

Speaker: 00:29:55

my mix without it. That's great. Yeah. But then I make sure that I do

Speaker: 00:29:58

work a good chunk and I do all my revisions with the limiter because if

Speaker: 00:30:02

it's not going to be my limiter, it's going to be your limiter. There's still

Speaker: 00:30:05

going to be a limiter. And it's good to approximate that. Exactly. You need

Speaker: 00:30:09

to know how things are going to. Are they going to break up? Is your

Speaker: 00:30:11

low end screwing you over? And it's crazy how different things are.

Speaker: 00:30:14

I used to not be an Ozone Maximizer fan, and I've recently

Speaker: 00:30:18

left Pro L2 and gone to the Maximizer because it feels cleaner to

Speaker: 00:30:22

me in, like, a pop vocal sense. I'm a big fan of the Ozone

Speaker: 00:30:26

Maximizer, but I'm also a big fan of stacking limiters,

Speaker: 00:30:29

too. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you need to

Speaker: 00:30:33

get. When you need to go loud, you know, letting you

Speaker: 00:30:37

know. I guess it's like. It's similar to, like, you know, you have two hands.

Speaker: 00:30:40

You can lift more weight with two hands than you can with one. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:30:43

You know, I'll do it where, you know, I'm. I'm getting 3dB

Speaker: 00:30:47

of gain reduction on one, and then if I start going

Speaker: 00:30:51

above that or below that, I guess if I'm doing, you know, four or five

Speaker: 00:30:54

decibels of gain reduction, that's when I'll bring in, like, the vice

Speaker: 00:30:58

limiter or, you know, the L2 or something like that. I mean, there's so many

Speaker: 00:31:01

limiters out there, and I feel like they all kind of do something different. So

Speaker: 00:31:05

we're kind of talking technical tips, right? There was one thing I wanted to ask

Speaker: 00:31:08

you. Width. Now, as a

Speaker: 00:31:12

mixer, this is probably one of the most sensitive

Speaker: 00:31:16

things for me. When a master comes back from a new engineer.

Speaker: 00:31:20

If it's really wide and the center

Speaker: 00:31:23

is phase, or the center feels down, like, if the snare and the vocal are

Speaker: 00:31:27

quiet, like, it's a. It's a trigger for me. I have

Speaker: 00:31:31

a really hard time dealing with it. So are you saying when the

Speaker: 00:31:35

mix is too wide, like, you don't like it, or. No, I love a wide

Speaker: 00:31:38

mix. I guess I should preface that. What I was going to say is that

Speaker: 00:31:42

I've been getting mixes back from most everybody that is mastering my

Speaker: 00:31:46

mixes, including yourself. We've worked together. You did amazing work. People should know that

Speaker: 00:31:49

they're really wide, and I love it, but when the center gets fucked with, it

Speaker: 00:31:53

makes me crazy. So, A, how do you approach width, and

Speaker: 00:31:57

B, what are the mistakes that a young engineer makes when it comes

Speaker: 00:32:00

to trying to make something go wide? Great

Speaker: 00:32:04

question. So, honestly, I rarely use the

Speaker: 00:32:08

width button or on my console, I have a width

Speaker: 00:32:11

knob, which is absolutely fantastic.

Speaker: 00:32:15

I mean, it's one of those things where you can just use it, you know,

Speaker: 00:32:18

put it to 10 and it's like. It just gives, like, a little push to

Speaker: 00:32:21

the sides, but it doesn't do anything to the center, which.

Speaker: 00:32:25

The Masalec. I don't know, he should make a plugin for it. He would make

Speaker: 00:32:28

so much money. Because I don't. I don't know what it's doing under the hood,

Speaker: 00:32:31

but it's magic. Okay, but, you know,

Speaker: 00:32:35

are you talking about, like, with plugins that, like,

Speaker: 00:32:39

make the things. Like the imaging thing in Izotope? Is

Speaker: 00:32:42

that, like, what you're. Or in an ozone. Is that what you're talking about? Less

Speaker: 00:32:46

specific about the tool. More specific about

Speaker: 00:32:50

how you think you can widen A mix up with the best

Speaker: 00:32:53

result. Sure. So generally I don't feel

Speaker: 00:32:57

like mixes need to be widened.

Speaker: 00:33:01

I feel like that's also like a mixed decision.

Speaker: 00:33:04

Unless the mix engineer says, hey, you know, can you do something about

Speaker: 00:33:08

this? You know, make it a little more wide. And oftentimes

Speaker: 00:33:12

what I'll do in widening is just work in the sides

Speaker: 00:33:16

in the mid side field. And oftentimes, like if it's a. It's a rock

Speaker: 00:33:20

mix, I'll like make the guitars sparkle a little bit more. But only

Speaker: 00:33:23

in the sides. Yeah. Or sometimes, you know,

Speaker: 00:33:27

if it, if it's a mix where the vocals are a little bit hot and

Speaker: 00:33:30

you want the like sides to be a little bit more, you know, pronounced. You

Speaker: 00:33:34

can compress the middle but not the sides. So the sides like stay

Speaker: 00:33:37

nice and like you know, doing what they're doing. But the vocal in the

Speaker: 00:33:41

center gets a little bit like more tightened in focus. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:45

So I feel like mid side is a really great tool for

Speaker: 00:33:48

that. That's what I have found that that's the width that I

Speaker: 00:33:52

prefer is some mid side work. So for anybody that's unfamiliar,

Speaker: 00:33:56

you're talking about compressors that you can switch to mid side and control the

Speaker: 00:34:00

sides separate from the mid. I think at this point everybody on the Internet

Speaker: 00:34:04

is hip to mid side. I hope so. Yeah. I mean my. I have an

Speaker: 00:34:07

ITI EQ right there and it's always in mid side.

Speaker: 00:34:11

And it's like that's my go to when we're talking

Speaker: 00:34:14

about that, that sort of width balance where you need to

Speaker: 00:34:18

sort of correct the equilibrium between the mid and the side. It's like, it's such

Speaker: 00:34:22

a great tool and the ITI is, you know,

Speaker: 00:34:26

pretty, pretty fantastic. Nice. Nice. Okay, well, okay, that's

Speaker: 00:34:29

kind of related to my next question. Is there. I'm going to leave this really

Speaker: 00:34:33

broad so you can answer it however you want. Is there one tool

Speaker: 00:34:36

that you couldn't live without? Gear or plugin or

Speaker: 00:34:40

whatever? Okay, I'm going to go with gear because

Speaker: 00:34:44

my Masalec MLA3 just

Speaker: 00:34:47

does everything. It's a multiband compressor.

Speaker: 00:34:51

I use it as a de esser. You can also expand channels. You

Speaker: 00:34:55

can compress and expand at the same time. Wow. You can

Speaker: 00:34:59

not do gain reduction but actually use it as like a very wide EQ

Speaker: 00:35:03

with changing the crossover points. What else can

Speaker: 00:35:06

you do? It has input gain, output

Speaker: 00:35:10

gain. You can solo all the different bands. I mean this thing does

Speaker: 00:35:14

everything. That's crazy. How many buttons does it

Speaker: 00:35:17

have? I mean, there's A lot of buttons, but,

Speaker: 00:35:22

yeah, it's just. It's one of those things that I use it every

Speaker: 00:35:25

day, and it makes my life so much easier.

Speaker: 00:35:29

And I've never found a plugin that could do just what it

Speaker: 00:35:33

does. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that box, but I'll be looking at

Speaker: 00:35:36

it as soon as we finish. It's fantastic. I feel like everyone

Speaker: 00:35:40

should have one. I mean, I wish everyone could afford one, but

Speaker: 00:35:44

I saved. I ate a lot of ramen noodles to afford that one.

Speaker: 00:35:49

Okay. So that's actually a perfect segue to my next

Speaker: 00:35:53

baited question here. A tool you couldn't live without. That's under

Speaker: 00:35:57

300 bucks. Well, I feel like a tool that's

Speaker: 00:36:00

free. Is a magazine called Tape Up.

Speaker: 00:36:05

I've been a subscriber since, like, episode two or

Speaker: 00:36:09

three. It's a long time. It's a super long time, and I feel like

Speaker: 00:36:13

I've kind of gotten out of it, and I don't. Because it's more focused on

Speaker: 00:36:16

recording engineers. So it's sort of, like, off my radar a little

Speaker: 00:36:20

bit more. But there's a. The back page, and

Speaker: 00:36:23

it's like Larry Crane, and he's sort of usually. It's Larry

Speaker: 00:36:27

Crane, and he. It's usually just sort of like a. You know, how to

Speaker: 00:36:31

keep your studio clean or you know, how to keep your clients happy. It's like

Speaker: 00:36:34

sort of. Yeah, it's like what you do on your podcast. It's like, you know,

Speaker: 00:36:37

talking about audio, but, like, also, like, the industry part of it and

Speaker: 00:36:41

like, running a studio, like, all the, like, sort of unsexy things in

Speaker: 00:36:45

a lot of ways that are more important, that are totally important.

Speaker: 00:36:49

And it's. I always say, it's like, you

Speaker: 00:36:52

know, you really don't even have to be a good engineer to be a good

Speaker: 00:36:56

engineer. You just have to be able to talk to people

Speaker: 00:36:59

and understand what they're going for. Yeah. I mean, not to, like, belittle what

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we do, because it's like what we do is important to a lot of people

Speaker: 00:37:06

and takes a lot of skill, but I feel like if

Speaker: 00:37:10

you don't have that ability to communicate with

Speaker: 00:37:13

people, it's so much harder to succeed.

Speaker: 00:37:17

I think the only part of engineering that is difficult

Speaker: 00:37:21

is figuring out what your sonic taste

Speaker: 00:37:25

is and how that fits into the world. Right. And unfortunately,

Speaker: 00:37:28

some people have a sonic taste that just isn't popular at the moment,

Speaker: 00:37:32

but might be in the future. I don't know. That's. I think, the hardest part.

Speaker: 00:37:36

Right. The tools are whatever you Learn how to use anything. It's just eq. Does

Speaker: 00:37:39

it sound good? Compression? Does it sound good? Yeah. It's interesting you

Speaker: 00:37:43

mentioned that because, you know, for a long time I always

Speaker: 00:37:46

loved those huge bombastic, reverberant, almost

Speaker: 00:37:50

gated snare drums. Big drums. Yeah. And then,

Speaker: 00:37:54

you know, Andy Schouf, he came out with a record and it was just like

Speaker: 00:37:57

whop, whop. And I was like, what is this? Like

Speaker: 00:38:01

what are you doing? Like, this could be such a cool mix. And it was

Speaker: 00:38:05

just like this tight little tucked in mix

Speaker: 00:38:09

and it really bothered me. But then eventually like I came

Speaker: 00:38:12

around and I was like, oh, I get it. Like, this is just an amazing

Speaker: 00:38:15

song. He's a great songwriter and if the drums were huge, it just would have

Speaker: 00:38:18

been terrible. Yeah, yeah. So I've kind of come full circle with that

Speaker: 00:38:22

in terms of like what's popular now and what's not popular now. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 00:38:26

Okay, so we were kind of on the

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topic of the not sexy parts of

Speaker: 00:38:34

audio. Right. Can we talk about the mastering business? You run

Speaker: 00:38:37

a mastering house out of a non music hub, right? You're in Baltimore.

Speaker: 00:38:42

Do you spend a lot of time working on your

Speaker: 00:38:46

business as opposed to for your business? And if so, like, what are some of

Speaker: 00:38:49

those things you do to grow the business? To be transparent, I was

Speaker: 00:38:52

a studio owner producer for like 20

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years and, and during that time my mastering,

Speaker: 00:39:01

you know, more and more people started to say, hey, can you master this record

Speaker: 00:39:04

for me? And you know, it grew and grew and grew and

Speaker: 00:39:07

then eventually, for all intents and purposes, I left

Speaker: 00:39:11

that studio and then I started my own

Speaker: 00:39:15

mastering exclusive studio. I used to

Speaker: 00:39:18

advertise a lot, but I haven't advertised anymore. I did a little

Speaker: 00:39:22

bit like on Facebook and a little bit on

Speaker: 00:39:25

Instagram, but I found

Speaker: 00:39:29

with advertising, it's sort of

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not sort of the target market of what you're

Speaker: 00:39:36

going for. I feel like it's sort of like the people that

Speaker: 00:39:40

it grabs are the people that are going to hire AI

Speaker: 00:39:44

and Lander to do what they're

Speaker: 00:39:47

really looking for. And they're looking for sort of like bottom dollar price shopping. Boom,

Speaker: 00:39:51

boom, boom. I need it done like today because, you know,

Speaker: 00:39:55

it needs to be out on all the, you know, Spotify

Speaker: 00:39:58

this Friday for some reason. For some reason, everybody's waiting for it. Exactly,

Speaker: 00:40:02

yeah, totally, totally. So at some point I

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just didn't have the time to do it and I also didn't need to do

Speaker: 00:40:09

it because I just got too busy for it, which

Speaker: 00:40:13

is good problems to have it was one less thing I had to do.

Speaker: 00:40:17

But I do feel like one thing that I do

Speaker: 00:40:21

is I'm active on Instagram, I post from time to

Speaker: 00:40:25

time, and I look at what other people are doing. I think that might have

Speaker: 00:40:28

been how I found you is on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, I think. And it's

Speaker: 00:40:32

like, sort of. I've always been a big fan of, like,

Speaker: 00:40:36

building a community. Back in the day, I worked in. At

Speaker: 00:40:39

Warner Brothers and I worked in their marketing department, and I was building

Speaker: 00:40:43

a community for this band that I was working with, you know, be it like

Speaker: 00:40:46

online message boards and like, I would just sort of like, massage

Speaker: 00:40:49

conversations. And, you know, a lot of that

Speaker: 00:40:53

translates to how I work as a mastering engineer and how I

Speaker: 00:40:58

either, you know, continue to work with the clients I want to work with or

Speaker: 00:41:02

work with, you know, larger clients, bigger clients, whatever you want to

Speaker: 00:41:05

call it. But, you know, just sort of putting myself out

Speaker: 00:41:09

there, I think is a. Is a critical step.

Speaker: 00:41:13

It's not sexy. I. Not sexy. I kind of enjoy

Speaker: 00:41:17

it. So maybe it is sexy. I don't know. But I know a lot of

Speaker: 00:41:19

other people don't enjoy it. And I think it can be

Speaker: 00:41:24

inauthentic very easily for some people, and I

Speaker: 00:41:28

think it can be inauthentic if you're not into it. And I

Speaker: 00:41:32

think people can see through that. I agree. I mean, at this point, this comes

Speaker: 00:41:35

up on every. Every episode of the show of late,

Speaker: 00:41:39

and it's. It's just like, it's. It's how people get to

Speaker: 00:41:43

know you, right? It's not just album covers anymore.

Speaker: 00:41:46

It's like, how does this person interact? Do I. Do I want to get on

Speaker: 00:41:49

the phone and talk to them about mastering my record or mixing my record? I

Speaker: 00:41:53

think I like this person. Let's hit them up, because we don't, like.

Speaker: 00:41:57

Like, when you were at Warner Brothers, you were in an office, right? There's people

Speaker: 00:42:00

around. You talk to them. Like, now everybody's by. I'm in my

Speaker: 00:42:03

backyard. Nobody comes over here. I know I'll have a

Speaker: 00:42:07

client come over, you know, maybe once a month, maybe a couple

Speaker: 00:42:11

times a year. But I'm a Gen Xer, so

Speaker: 00:42:15

I like to text that I'm cool with texting, and I text often, but I

Speaker: 00:42:18

also. I pick up the phone and I feel like you can really just

Speaker: 00:42:22

learn people just by talking to them. And you can

Speaker: 00:42:25

also, you know, tell if they're just full of too. Oh, yeah,

Speaker: 00:42:29

yeah. Whether you want to work with them, regardless of whether they want to work

Speaker: 00:42:32

with you. Exactly. And I. It's. It's funny. I was

Speaker: 00:42:36

a. Something about the Internet makes everything

Speaker: 00:42:39

transactional. Right. I was one of those people that kind of, for a long time,

Speaker: 00:42:42

avoided the phone call and avoided the zoom meeting. And then I think

Speaker: 00:42:46

the podcast and the pandemic kind of changed that for me. And I, like,

Speaker: 00:42:50

now I'm like, down, let's talk, let's talk. Yeah. But if I

Speaker: 00:42:53

sit down with a client, potential client, potential collaborator

Speaker: 00:42:57

or whatever, and have a conversation, I mean, it's almost a hundred

Speaker: 00:43:01

percent that I'm going to do that gig if I want to do that gig.

Speaker: 00:43:05

Yeah, exactly. Because you can have a conversation. You can understand what they want. Like,

Speaker: 00:43:09

you're talking about in the beginning communication. It's like, I cannot give you what you

Speaker: 00:43:12

need out of your mix. Or I can give you exactly that. And I would,

Speaker: 00:43:16

you know, emphasize this. And they're like, perfect, right? And then you can

Speaker: 00:43:20

move forward. And so, yeah, it's big. Talking to people

Speaker: 00:43:23

authentically and getting to know people is, like, way better than

Speaker: 00:43:27

just responding to emails. Totally. And some

Speaker: 00:43:31

people aren't cool with that, and I'm fine with that, too, if they just want

Speaker: 00:43:33

to text. Like, I'm totally cool with that. There's one client that I have

Speaker: 00:43:37

that only sends me audio

Speaker: 00:43:40

messages. Like, they talk into their phone and it's just like an audio.

Speaker: 00:43:44

Like a recorded audio message in Instagram, but that's how

Speaker: 00:43:48

they communicate. And it's like, cool, Whatever. Whatever floats your boat. It's awesome.

Speaker: 00:43:52

One minute at a time. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:43:55

Yeah. So I know you've got a busy day. I will let you get back

Speaker: 00:43:59

to it, but I've got two questions. I know you listen to the show, so

Speaker: 00:44:01

you're probably familiar with what they are. Maybe you

Speaker: 00:44:04

prepared, maybe you didn't. I guess we'll find out. So was there ever a time

Speaker: 00:44:08

in your career that you decided to redefine what success meant to you?

Speaker: 00:44:12

Oh, of course. Yeah. And I did not prepare this.

Speaker: 00:44:16

So, yes, there was a point when I first

Speaker: 00:44:19

built. Built my first real studio, and this

Speaker: 00:44:23

was like, in, I don't know, 2005.

Speaker: 00:44:27

And both my wife and I were like,

Speaker: 00:44:31

if we can get a band that's, like, super successful

Speaker: 00:44:35

in five years, like, that's going to be it. But if, like,

Speaker: 00:44:38

we're a studio and we don't get a big band in five years, like,

Speaker: 00:44:42

it's probably not going to happen. And I was okay with it either way.

Speaker: 00:44:46

And it's like, we sort of, like, got in between that. I guess, in a

Speaker: 00:44:49

lot of ways, which I think is okay. And I think at

Speaker: 00:44:53

that point I realized that, you know, I'm

Speaker: 00:44:57

not going to be, you know, the next book Butch Vig or the

Speaker: 00:45:01

guy from the bleachers. Like, that's not going to be me. And I'm

Speaker: 00:45:05

okay with that. I became a working engineer.

Speaker: 00:45:08

Yeah. And to me, if I

Speaker: 00:45:12

can put food on the table for my family, we can go on

Speaker: 00:45:16

vacations once or twice a year based on the work that I'm doing.

Speaker: 00:45:19

Like, to me, that success. And I'm totally okay with

Speaker: 00:45:22

it. I love it. In fact, it's great. I'm with that. I'm with that.

Speaker: 00:45:26

That's like. I think there's a. I don't know when you got married, but when

Speaker: 00:45:30

I got married, that was like, that kind of. It was an immediate change. It

Speaker: 00:45:33

was like, I. I love what I'm doing. I don't know

Speaker: 00:45:37

why I was frustrated before. Right. Like, I make money, I make

Speaker: 00:45:41

my living working in music, and now I can carve

Speaker: 00:45:44

time out for my family at the same time. Like, that's. That's like, a huge

Speaker: 00:45:48

win. Fantastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. You know, it's like, best of both worlds, right?

Speaker: 00:45:52

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm with you on that. So, last question

Speaker: 00:45:56

is, what is your current biggest goal? What is the next smallest step you're going

Speaker: 00:45:59

to take to go towards it? Oh, I mean, I think it's a lot of

Speaker: 00:46:03

what I'm doing, I feel like, you know,

Speaker: 00:46:07

and maybe this has to do with more of the unsexy parts of my job

Speaker: 00:46:10

where I'm constantly looking at places

Speaker: 00:46:14

to streamline sort of what I'm doing and

Speaker: 00:46:18

just make the. Making the process smoother. Like, I know

Speaker: 00:46:21

it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, I'm sort of paying attention to, like,

Speaker: 00:46:25

how I can carve out an extra minute in terms of,

Speaker: 00:46:29

like, you know, sending the data to a client. Like, the master to a

Speaker: 00:46:33

client. Like, how can I sort of automate that or cut and paste data

Speaker: 00:46:36

and make it more simpler or simpler so that I have more time to work

Speaker: 00:46:40

on, like, the things that I like. Like, you know, playing with these knobs.

Speaker: 00:46:44

Yeah. So that's sort of my goal, I guess. I mean, you know,

Speaker: 00:46:47

everyone has the goals of just, like, working with bigger artists and, you know, more

Speaker: 00:46:51

successful mix engineers. But, you know,

Speaker: 00:46:55

definitely that. Of course, I'm not going to say no. I mean, I just did

Speaker: 00:46:58

a record and Chuck D. Is on it, and that's, like,

Speaker: 00:47:02

fantastic. Like, you know, 12 year old me is like,

Speaker: 00:47:06

what? But you know, it's just as awesome as

Speaker: 00:47:09

working with like a local band here in Baltimore. Yeah, it's,

Speaker: 00:47:13

it's awesome. And you know, I'm working in a field that I love,

Speaker: 00:47:17

so. Yeah, it's funny that that's what your goal

Speaker: 00:47:20

was, was optimization, because I was sitting here thinking, I was like, I should, I

Speaker: 00:47:23

should have asked him about automation and like systems before we, before we

Speaker: 00:47:26

ended. I love that. Is there anything that you do right now or anything that

Speaker: 00:47:30

you wish you could automate in your system? Like you mentioned the Wave

Speaker: 00:47:33

Lab. Right, Right. So there is an app I use called

Speaker: 00:47:37

samply, which is how all my artists listen to

Speaker: 00:47:41

my masters and preview. It's a great app.

Speaker: 00:47:44

It's fantastic. I love those guys. They are just. I'm like,

Speaker: 00:47:48

I'm the person who like picks apart everything and they are just so

Speaker: 00:47:52

stupidly patient with me. Like, I don't get it. I don't get why they put

Speaker: 00:47:56

up with me. Like, I just don't. But they're fantastic. It's a great

Speaker: 00:47:59

app. But there are all these things where I'm doing the same thing every

Speaker: 00:48:03

day. You know, I'm sending out a link to a client with

Speaker: 00:48:06

a mix or a master, a single, an lp,

Speaker: 00:48:10

like vinyl sides. And it's like that process is sort

Speaker: 00:48:14

of the same except for like one little link and then the

Speaker: 00:48:17

subject is different. So I'm using this app

Speaker: 00:48:21

called Zapier, which I'm trying

Speaker: 00:48:24

to like figure out how to get it to work with

Speaker: 00:48:27

Samply and work with like my databases

Speaker: 00:48:32

to do all that in the background for me. So yeah,

Speaker: 00:48:35

technology is great, but it's also like you almost need another like

Speaker: 00:48:39

engineer or tech person to sort of like walk you through that

Speaker: 00:48:43

process. Yeah. Like if you're outside the code world,

Speaker: 00:48:47

like just far enough, it can be confusing. Cause I definitely hit walls. I love

Speaker: 00:48:50

soundflow. I love samply. Right. And

Speaker: 00:48:54

yeah, being able to just know just enough

Speaker: 00:48:57

scripting to figure that out. But that's where ChatGPT has

Speaker: 00:49:01

been great. I've taken things out of sampling, like taking code, not, not sampling

Speaker: 00:49:05

code out of soundflow. Paste it in a chat. GPT said this, does this, I

Speaker: 00:49:08

want it to do that. And then it just spits it out and I paste

Speaker: 00:49:10

it and have a script. I'm like, this is amazing. Oh, that's fantastic.

Speaker: 00:49:14

Yeah, yeah. I don't think ChatGPT could actually write that

Speaker: 00:49:17

script, but it can analyze it. If you tell it what it does and then.

Speaker: 00:49:21

And everything that it spit out two or three things for me have all worked

Speaker: 00:49:24

perfectly. You would think it would be able to write the script because my wife

Speaker: 00:49:28

does that with like JavaScript all the time. She's like, make me a JavaScript that

Speaker: 00:49:31

does X, Y and Z and like, it'll just do it. I think there's aspects

Speaker: 00:49:34

of sound flow that it wouldn't know. Right.

Speaker: 00:49:38

Because I think it only goes back a couple years too. And soundflow, I think,

Speaker: 00:49:41

is a newer app. Yeah. Now if it was just a straight Apple script that

Speaker: 00:49:45

you were maybe going to fire in Keyboard Maestro, it probably could write that.

Speaker: 00:49:49

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, an excellent nerdy

Speaker: 00:49:52

ending. Perfect for a mastering

Speaker: 00:49:56

engineer. If you enjoyed this one and you want to dig deeper on the truth

Speaker: 00:49:59

about loudness, normalization standards and where this whole -14 stuff came from,

Speaker: 00:50:03

then check out my conversation with Sam Fishman.