Exploring the Wild Side of Plug-Ins with Noam Levinberg
Noam Levinberg is a veteran mastering engineer and the founder of Safari Pedals, which has quickly become one of the most talked about new plug-in companies in recent times.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- How a plug-in designers' sonic preferences shape a plug-in
- The parallels of releasing plug-ins and releasing music
- How JUCE Framework has opened the door for a lot of new plug in companies
- The importance of moving forward quickly to learn what resonates with people
- How the passing down of audio knowledge has changed
- The overwhelm of solo music entrepreneurship
- Noam and Travis's experiences in commercial studios
Connect with Noam:
🌐 Website: https://safaripedals.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/safaripedals
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Credits:
Guest: Noam Levinberg
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Stephen Boyd
Theme Music: inter.ference
Transcript
There was something in me that was really wanting to kind of get out and
Speaker:express myself and do wild plugins. That's mastering
Speaker:engineer Noam Levenberg, the man behind safari pedals. Safari pedals
Speaker:has become one of the most talked about plugin companies around. Their unique guitar
Speaker:pedal inspired interface has brought the fun of wildly spinning knobs right
Speaker:into our daws. In this episode, Noam shares his process for taking a plugin
Speaker:from idea to final release. What I like doing is
Speaker:starting from the end and not from the beginning. And
Speaker:what I mean by that is. Why he chose to echo a modern music release
Speaker:schedule by dropping a new plugin every month. It matches
Speaker:today's kind of pace, and it's 100%
Speaker:inspired by artists and musicians. That I respect the
Speaker:importance of creating something that draws a reaction from the user or
Speaker:listener. It gives you some sort of reaction, like, you like it, you don't
Speaker:like it. The first few seconds, for most people, I think, would probably lead to
Speaker:either buying it or not. And why he chose to walk away from a salaried
Speaker:audio gig to start safari pedals. And I had to trust my gut
Speaker:feeling and just do what I love, which is
Speaker:something that a lot of times is like the opposite of what everybody's
Speaker:telling you to do. This is a fun one. We hit it all from plugins
Speaker:to commercial studios and the current state of audio knowledge on the Internet.
Speaker:Stick around for my interview with Noam Levenberg.
Speaker:Boutique plugin companies like safari popping up these days, most of
Speaker:them were started by talented engineers and mixers that are
Speaker:kind of probably still, like, midway through their
Speaker:career. Right. We're not talking about people with, like, 40 years of experience. We're talking
Speaker:about, like, ten or 15. They're in it right now.
Speaker:And I just see so many people loving these small plugins,
Speaker:and I'm not seeing as much love for the
Speaker:legacy brands that we all grew up with.
Speaker:Do you feel like there's, like, new blood in this industry? Is it a revolution
Speaker:of plugins right now? Why has everybody got a cool plugin
Speaker:company now? It's a really interesting topic to talk about, and it's
Speaker:something that I've been thinking about for a long time now. A
Speaker:bunch of things led to this situation, in my opinion,
Speaker:and I think it's a really good change in the industry.
Speaker:I think that the biggest thing that led to
Speaker:this new rise of a lot
Speaker:of small companies is the fact that technology wise,
Speaker:plugins are way easier to program than ever
Speaker:before because of juice framework, which is
Speaker:a framework made for audio processing, which is
Speaker:based on C Plus plus, which is what everything is written on in
Speaker:terms of plugins and stuff. And it's just way
Speaker:easier to create plugins these days. And that
Speaker:combined with the fact that the whole creator economy and
Speaker:people now have more access to tools that we
Speaker:didn't have early on. So I think when I look back to
Speaker:my early career, when the computer kind of came into the
Speaker:studio, yes, you had
Speaker:some plugins. You had like the q ten from waves. I
Speaker:remember that being, like, shocking. I remember being
Speaker:shocked by having ten bands, being like, what can I do with
Speaker:ten bands? That's crazy. True. I also
Speaker:remember having a lot of issues with the computer and
Speaker:bugging out about space and stuff, and that was like
Speaker:a really expensive, I don't know, like g four. I think it was a g
Speaker:four computer that was worth a couple
Speaker:of. Couldn't imagine having a
Speaker:laptop and just running pro tools on a laptop or
Speaker:anything even remotely similar to that. And I think that
Speaker:today people have much better access to technology
Speaker:tools and cheaper in terms of
Speaker:hardware, which leads them to have more
Speaker:space in their budget to get creative with plugins
Speaker:and other cool tools. You know what I mean? It's totally true.
Speaker:The cost ratio between buying hardware,
Speaker:gear and plugins is like, obviously massive,
Speaker:especially when you talk about using UAD, for example. I can
Speaker:have a fair child on every channel for $300 or whatever they want to
Speaker:charge for it. So, yeah, that is true. Do you think that there's,
Speaker:I think about early audio
Speaker:development? Most of the big breakthroughs, I think,
Speaker:were they were done with or
Speaker:by users. Think about like Les Paul or
Speaker:like, you know, just game changing
Speaker:devices, and then you've got people that come in like Rupert
Speaker:neve, really just electronics and technical side. Do you think
Speaker:you need to be an end user to kind of have the
Speaker:aha moment and then you got to bring in the brains
Speaker:to expand on it? I think that's a good question, and it's
Speaker:not a yes and no answer, because there are people
Speaker:from both camps. I mean, my camp is
Speaker:obviously the end user camp,
Speaker:so I don't have a background in programming or
Speaker:anything similar to that. And I feel
Speaker:like there still is some sort of
Speaker:gap between the two. So when I want
Speaker:to build a product or a plugin, I
Speaker:kind of need to go through a bunch of
Speaker:loops in order to even explain
Speaker:myself to a programmer, to say what I'm looking for
Speaker:and what I want it to sound like. And the other side
Speaker:doesn't always fully get what we're talking about. Because
Speaker:we might be technical as engineers, but not as technical
Speaker:as developers. Right. So when you say something has a
Speaker:character or something has even like, oh, I want it
Speaker:to saturate. Okay, what is a saturator? Obviously
Speaker:that means distortion, but then there's like a million different ways to
Speaker:make something distort. And then it's a long journey.
Speaker:Yeah. And I feel like the best kind of
Speaker:goal is to get to a point where either
Speaker:there's two people and they're having a conversation.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is like an end user and then a
Speaker:programmer and they can kind of create
Speaker:something together. Or there's these type
Speaker:of superhumans that I've met, a
Speaker:few that can just do everything, and that's
Speaker:just like a next level thing. It's kind of like when there's like a
Speaker:producer who can play all the instruments and mix, and you're like,
Speaker:oh, that guy. That's insane.
Speaker:Yeah. So there's like an equivalent in the plugin word, like somebody
Speaker:like Mir, for example, who's like a friend of mine who
Speaker:has a company called Modelix. So he's like
Speaker:amazing piano player, but then also an amazing
Speaker:programmer and an engineer and like a bunch of other things.
Speaker:That's amazing. He has it all, I guess. What's the process
Speaker:of determining whether a plugin
Speaker:is working for you? Obviously
Speaker:you're going through different versions. You're probably using it in your own work, maybe sharing
Speaker:it with some friends. Take one of your plugins that's out, maybe like gorilla drive,
Speaker:right? Yeah. What was the process like getting that
Speaker:to market from the audio standpoint? Like, how many
Speaker:iterations of the plugin did you go through? I think I'm still
Speaker:learning the process, to be honest, and I'm trying to improve it
Speaker:in general. I will say that I did get to a point right now
Speaker:that I feel like is kind of a sweet spot in terms
Speaker:of the way it works. And
Speaker:basically what I like doing is starting from the
Speaker:end and not from the beginning. And what I mean by that
Speaker:is I'll usually sketch out the gui
Speaker:myself before having anything. Okay. So I'll
Speaker:just paint a picture and try and kind of decide where I
Speaker:want the knobs and what I want them to look like and
Speaker:kind of match whatever I have in my
Speaker:head to a picture. And I think that really helps my
Speaker:process because once you do that, you realize like,
Speaker:oh, there's not enough space for like a blend knob. Maybe I should
Speaker:make the knob smaller. But then I want
Speaker:it to look a certain way. And by the end of
Speaker:it, you kind of have like a visual representation of
Speaker:something that you want. And what I like
Speaker:doing after that is I actually show it around. I showed it around to
Speaker:a bunch of people and try to explain them what I wanted to do.
Speaker:And I look at people's faces when I do it, and
Speaker:just friends and other engineers and stuff, and I want to
Speaker:see they understand the concept of the plugin
Speaker:before it even lands on an actual
Speaker:audio file. Right. That's kind of the beginning. And
Speaker:I will say that the gorilla drive was the first one I did, and
Speaker:I didn't do that on the first one. And I kind of learned
Speaker:as I went along. But some of them did have some
Speaker:major changes done to them, following what
Speaker:people said. Because a lot of times you have something in your head, you're like,
Speaker:oh yeah, of course this tone knob is going to react this way, but then
Speaker:when you ask somebody else, he's like, what does a tone knob do? And you're
Speaker:like, oh, yeah, it
Speaker:doesn't say. So maybe I should label it some way.
Speaker:So a good example for that is like, I'm going to release next month.
Speaker:I don't know when people are going to listen to this, but in late
Speaker:October, early November, there's going to be a compressor coming out. And I
Speaker:have a knob there called speed, and
Speaker:it's a long thing, but I won't get into it right now. But the whole
Speaker:idea is to link the attack and release in certain
Speaker:ways that fit the ratio of the compressor. That's cool.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a pretty fun compressor to play
Speaker:around with. That's fun. But when I showed it around to friends, they didn't really
Speaker:get it. They were like, what do you mean, speed? Where is this going? So
Speaker:what I did was I kind of drew this thing where you can
Speaker:see slow and fast, and it kind of
Speaker:represents it in a visual way. Those kind of things really help
Speaker:me. Nice. But then after that, what I usually do in
Speaker:terms of developing the plugin is
Speaker:I'll take that gui and then I'll show it to
Speaker:the developer that I'm working with, which is usually a guy
Speaker:called David, who's a super talented programmer.
Speaker:He's a freelancer, basically, and we'll go through the features and
Speaker:stuff. And something that David is a genius
Speaker:because of this thing is
Speaker:instead of me explaining to him what I want,
Speaker:I basically have sort of like a back office of sorts
Speaker:of plugins. So I have a library of
Speaker:compressors and eqs and a bunch of other things
Speaker:that I can make it sound any way I want
Speaker:on my end. It looks terrible. Like, the
Speaker:Gui is very non user friendly. It kind of looks like
Speaker:a mix of, I don't know, like a bunch of stuff, right.
Speaker:But it's a tool. It's a tool, and I can basically
Speaker:do whatever I want with that, and then I can kind of send it
Speaker:the vids way with the Gui, and
Speaker:he takes the two and makes it one. That's awesome.
Speaker:That's like a very long answer
Speaker:to your question. You said
Speaker:speed talking about that compressor plugin, and I
Speaker:immediately thought to myself, I bet that's controlling attack and
Speaker:release at the same time in some kind of
Speaker:musical context, which kind of made me think about the idea
Speaker:of, like, you're making sonic choices based on your
Speaker:taste and your musicality. So
Speaker:what you choose to do with an EQ curve could
Speaker:be musical to you and not to me, in the same way that
Speaker:some people prefer this EQ over that EQ in the analog
Speaker:realm. Do you think your experience as a master engineer
Speaker:working in a bunch of different styles kind of has
Speaker:developed your taste in a manner where
Speaker:you might have a musical taste for
Speaker:your choices that maybe fits the broad range
Speaker:of ears out there? Does that make sense? It's kind of a weird
Speaker:question. Yes and no. I mean, yes, 100% yes.
Speaker:I feel like the subject you're touching on, I think, is
Speaker:the change that we're seeing in terms of the small companies and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker:because if you look to the early days
Speaker:of plugins, it was mainly kind of a
Speaker:utilitarian device or like a very
Speaker:technical device where like you have, if you take like an
Speaker:EQ, for example, you have like a frequency, a q and. And a
Speaker:gain knob. And that EQ either is trying
Speaker:to sound as transparent as possible, which a lot of the early
Speaker:digital plugins tried to achieve, or it
Speaker:has a sound, but the sound is usually kind of modeled after
Speaker:one particular outboard EQ that
Speaker:everybody wants, like a pulltech or like an SSL or something. And
Speaker:I feel like we got to a point where everybody has
Speaker:all those tools. It's built into all the programs.
Speaker:You get it for free. Sometimes it's just there for everyone.
Speaker:And I feel like that's a great thing, because now we're at a point
Speaker:where we can really go crazy. And that's kind
Speaker:of what I was aiming for with safari is, to answer your
Speaker:question, it has, like, a sound. It's tailored
Speaker:to the sounds that I like, and I hope other
Speaker:people like, but it feels to me more like, I don't mean
Speaker:to sound full of myself, but to me it feels more
Speaker:like an artist releasing music these days than
Speaker:a company trying to create an EQ
Speaker:that works for everyone. Yeah, I
Speaker:feel inspired, and I like other people doing that same thing. Like,
Speaker:when I open up a plugin and it has a specific
Speaker:paste that somebody put in there, I feel that
Speaker:is much more inspiring and fun to work with than
Speaker:these kind of very
Speaker:professional and bland sounding plugins. Yeah, that's
Speaker:just my opinion. Yeah, I think
Speaker:a lot of the engineers or mixers that I know that have done a
Speaker:plugin, it's somehow related to
Speaker:them wanting to do something that fits into their
Speaker:workflow. So it's like exactly what you're talking about. It's like, this is very
Speaker:specific to the way that I like to work, and it's kind of cool.
Speaker:So I'm going to share it with other people and if they like it, that's
Speaker:cool. If you don't like it, that's cool. So I
Speaker:think it's an interesting comparison, the artist releasing
Speaker:music thing, because, yeah, I like that. I like that idea.
Speaker:Makes me want to make a plugin. I feel like, as an
Speaker:engineer, to be honest, up to the point where I released the
Speaker:plugins, I didn't have this concept in my mind, but once I released
Speaker:it, I kind of felt like an artist because it was like
Speaker:I worked on this thing for a bunch of months and
Speaker:nobody kind of knew about it. And then I released it. And
Speaker:sort of similar to artists releasing their
Speaker:first kind of album, they're always
Speaker:kind of really keen on releasing. And then they usually think
Speaker:that, oh, the world's going to kind of listen to this
Speaker:great album that I've been working on for months now. And
Speaker:usually the reaction is way slower in terms of
Speaker:exposure and getting reactions from people and getting
Speaker:plays and stuff. And I felt the same way. I was like, the plugins
Speaker:are out, just out into the abyss
Speaker:and nobody cared. It was like
Speaker:just like two website views per day for the
Speaker:first week or something, and it took time.
Speaker:It still is like a small kind of
Speaker:exposure. But, yeah, it was a really interesting experience for
Speaker:me because I swear to God, I looked back at all
Speaker:those albums that I made with indie musicians
Speaker:releasing their first album and I felt like, oh, I have a
Speaker:much better understanding of what you went through. You know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker:totally. I feel that way about the podcast sometimes. And, yeah, when you
Speaker:start putting something out there, you start to relate more with these
Speaker:quote clients that you've maybe mixed or mastered for over the
Speaker:years and you start to feel what that journey is like.
Speaker:But something that I've noticed that you do, that maybe this is a little
Speaker:inspired by this parallel to releasing
Speaker:music. You've been consistently putting plugins out, like
Speaker:every two or three months. I feel like you've been moving fast. You keep
Speaker:giving people something new every month. Every month? It is
Speaker:every month. I didn't want to say every month because that feels a little crazy,
Speaker:but I know it's been fast. Is that partially inspired
Speaker:by the Spotify release? You
Speaker:got to keep giving people stuff, keep spreading word. Yeah, you're bang
Speaker:on. I mean, I felt like that was a strategy I wanted
Speaker:to take early on. I didn't know if I could make
Speaker:it that fast, but I planned on doing that
Speaker:before I even started releasing the first plugin. And I feel
Speaker:like it matches today's kind of
Speaker:pace and it's 100% inspired
Speaker:by artists and musicians that I respect that release music
Speaker:on a constant basis. And I feel like a lot of times you feel
Speaker:that movement from artists or even from podcasts as
Speaker:well. There are a few podcasts that when you see the
Speaker:amount of releases, you feel like you want to be part
Speaker:of that kind of wave of things happening.
Speaker:Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. I mean, I guess as you're
Speaker:releasing more and more, I talk about on the podcast all the time, you're growing
Speaker:with every plugin. What you've learned over the last
Speaker:year, putting out five plugins, you've probably accelerated years
Speaker:of growth that other people who have just done like one plugin a
Speaker:year. I get what you're saying. I think that a
Speaker:big part of it also relates to my experience as kind of
Speaker:a music facilitator of sorts, somebody
Speaker:that was around a lot of musicians and was around a lot
Speaker:of creators. And you kind of get
Speaker:this sense of, like, I could spend
Speaker:another even year on a specific
Speaker:project, or I can release it
Speaker:and kind of see what people
Speaker:reactions are and then kind of try and
Speaker:improve after releasing it. And I think that's another
Speaker:amazing thing that plugins have, that even music doesn't have.
Speaker:Just for example, I released the fucks echo chorus and then I got
Speaker:like 20 emails of people saying, like, why isn't
Speaker:there a width knob? I wish there was a width knob and
Speaker:I added a width knob and it's there now. That's awesome. I
Speaker:guess I could have thought about it earlier, but I feel
Speaker:like as long as you don't do something terrible and release it. It's
Speaker:better to just go with the flow, release something that you
Speaker:feel is right early on and then change it if
Speaker:needed. And also kind of, like you said,
Speaker:learn for the next plugin and kind of get
Speaker:more. It's also like a business strategy
Speaker:because I get a better sense of what the customers like and
Speaker:what they don't like. So the flamingo verb, for example, is my best
Speaker:seller. So I'm thinking about making another reverb.
Speaker:It's a lot of really good insights, I feel.
Speaker:Yeah, you give instant feedback. That's something I always tell artists, like,
Speaker:put a couple of songs out before you spend all this money and time
Speaker:making a record. What if your fans really love it when
Speaker:it's piano, when it's broken down and they don't like it when
Speaker:it's heavy? You get that feedback when something's out in the
Speaker:world. I agree with you so much. And I also feel like, I don't
Speaker:know, I have this whole theory about intuition and how
Speaker:music should be intuition based.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is, that's how I used to mix
Speaker:when I was doing a lot of mixing, I would try to kind of
Speaker:get to a point where the song as a song as
Speaker:a whole sounds pretty good after like 30
Speaker:minutes of mixing. And then obviously it takes more time
Speaker:to kind of hone on different instruments and finish the mix.
Speaker:But you're looking at a broad picture of how the audience
Speaker:would look at it. I try to get that same approach with the
Speaker:plugins because you know how it is. It's the same thing with
Speaker:anything like inspired, based. Where you see a plugin,
Speaker:you click on it, it gives you some sort of reaction, like you
Speaker:like it, you don't like it. The first few seconds, for most people, I think
Speaker:would probably lead to either buying it or not. Oh, yeah. And it's the
Speaker:same for sure with music. Like, you hear the first few seconds
Speaker:and you get attached to it or you want to skip the
Speaker:song. Yeah, I mean, I have definitely demoed a plugin
Speaker:that has just been perfect and just really
Speaker:exciting for the thing that I was like, oh, I'm going to try this plugin,
Speaker:and then probably never used it again, but bought it immediately because it
Speaker:gave me everything I wanted in that 1st 10 seconds for that moment.
Speaker:So, yeah, I totally agree with you. This kind of parallels something I wanted to
Speaker:ask you about. I was talking to a friend of mine and we were just
Speaker:talking about plugins or hardware gear or whatever. He said something
Speaker:which I never really put together. He was like, the audio
Speaker:industry is very different from the music industry. And I
Speaker:was like, oh, wow. Yeah. Because as an engineer, you think about, like,
Speaker:plugins are my tools that I make music with, but you
Speaker:never really separate audio products
Speaker:from the use of those products. How have you kind
Speaker:of walked that line of what works in the
Speaker:audio industry versus what works in the music industry? You know what I mean? Are
Speaker:there parallels? Are they different? What do you think?
Speaker:I think that there are a few differences and there are a few
Speaker:similarities. I feel the biggest difference is the
Speaker:audio industry, in my opinion, is a much more
Speaker:technical industry in the sense that it's tech
Speaker:oriented. So there's a lot of innovation and changes
Speaker:and things that are happening quicker. Yeah. And I feel like the music
Speaker:industry is more like intellectual property when you
Speaker:strip it down. Okay. So it's more old
Speaker:school and has a lot of rules that never change, like
Speaker:mechanical rights, you know what I mean? These things that
Speaker:just exist and everybody accepts them because
Speaker:it's just what it is. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's, like,
Speaker:the biggest difference that I feel. But then I also feel
Speaker:like there is a middle ground. And that middle ground is sort
Speaker:of something that I've been thinking about a lot recently, is the fact
Speaker:that so many people are doing so many things
Speaker:combined. So, for example, I used to be a mastering engineer.
Speaker:Now I'm working as a company owner. There's
Speaker:like a vlogger who does mixing, and he also produces, and he
Speaker:also writes a song, and there's, like, a mixture that
Speaker:is much more mixed than what it used to be. Because
Speaker:when I was starting out, a producer was a producer,
Speaker:he wouldn't usually record the band, he would produce
Speaker:it, and then there's different tasks, and it was
Speaker:very separated. And these days it's so mixed
Speaker:up that there are pros and cons to it,
Speaker:but I just feel like it's a new world
Speaker:where the rules don't really apply anymore. Yeah, that is true.
Speaker:Yeah. I feel like another fascinating thing is in
Speaker:this new world, there are things that are staying from the old one,
Speaker:and they're totally new concepts, and seeing
Speaker:them merge together, I feel like, is
Speaker:super interesting. I don't know. You're totally right.
Speaker:There's so many people that are making technical things that are also like
Speaker:creatives. There's people that are writing or whatever.
Speaker:There's so much intermingling. There feels like so many things you have
Speaker:to do for people that are just coming
Speaker:to music and they're just starting their music journey. Do you think the
Speaker:fact that everything is so intermingled now is kind of
Speaker:empowering to those people? Or do you think it's a little daunting because you feel
Speaker:like, oh, shit, I have to produce my own record and record it and mix
Speaker:it and master my record. I have to make my own artwork? Or is it,
Speaker:like, exciting because you get to do it all? I don't really have an opinion.
Speaker:I'm just curious what you think. I have to be honest. I feel like it's
Speaker:more daunting, and I'll tell you why. I feel like there used to
Speaker:be a few types of people that these
Speaker:days, kind of, in a sad way, don't really get
Speaker:to do their craft. Yeah. And what I mean by
Speaker:that is, I feel like if you're starting out right now, like
Speaker:you said, you have to know all these things. You could be a songwriter.
Speaker:That's cool. But you need to know how to record, at least in a
Speaker:basic level of recording at home. And
Speaker:you probably need to know a bunch of other things as well. And
Speaker:I feel like there are lost arts in this kind of
Speaker:blend of things, and one of them, in my
Speaker:opinion, is mixing, to be honest. I feel like
Speaker:old styles of mixing where
Speaker:you get, like, a song a day and you really kind
Speaker:of just do that. I won't say gone. It's not
Speaker:gone. It's still there, but it's not happening so frequently as it
Speaker:used to be. And I feel like these days, even if
Speaker:a producer goes to a mixing engineer, it's a different approach.
Speaker:Where it used to be like, hey, this is the production.
Speaker:Keep going from there. I'm not done yet. And I feel
Speaker:like nowadays it's more about like, hey, I'm done
Speaker:in terms of mixing as well. I blended everything in.
Speaker:It sounds the way I want it. Please don't change it
Speaker:and maybe make it, like, 5% better, you know?
Speaker:Yeah. It's a different craft. It's so different. I
Speaker:agree with that completely. I don't want to
Speaker:demean my own career path, but if you're
Speaker:mixing great productions, it's almost like
Speaker:stem mastering. I mean, you're just looking to fix some problems and bring some
Speaker:clarity because it already sounds fucking great. Yeah. So
Speaker:what are you doing? The only thing you can do is give that extra five
Speaker:or 10%, and then you pass it on to the master engineer that adds that
Speaker:other two or 3% on top of that. I think that's the tier of
Speaker:client that eventually you end up working with. Those people. I think early on in
Speaker:your career you're going to find that as a mixer, you can be way more
Speaker:heavy handed because everybody involved in the process, they're making their
Speaker:first record and they're all exploring what they want.
Speaker:Nobody really knows. I think that's a bit more
Speaker:carte blanche, I guess is an acceptable term to use there. Yeah.
Speaker:It's interesting what you're saying, because I'm looking back at my career and I'm
Speaker:thinking maybe I felt that way towards the
Speaker:end of my mixing career because I was doing
Speaker:great productions and great musicians.
Speaker:That's a good point. But to go back to the initial question, I don't think
Speaker:it's like a lost art. I think when people step into this
Speaker:industry and they're overwhelmed by the number of things that they have to learn
Speaker:or start doing, I think it's more of a loss of
Speaker:expertise. When you and I started,
Speaker:maybe I could focus on just being an engineer. I didn't have to worry
Speaker:about these other things. If I were to leave school now
Speaker:and start now, I don't think I'd be able to focus on just the one
Speaker:thing. There'd be too many things that I need to do to really
Speaker:reach the point that I reached in, like, ten years. It might take
Speaker:2025 years to learn all those things. You know what I mean? I think
Speaker:that sucks for people because they can't focus on the
Speaker:thing. I totally agree with what you're saying. And I also think that
Speaker:there's another aspect to it where when you're starting out,
Speaker:you don't really know to
Speaker:differentiate between
Speaker:people telling you what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker:And in that sense, I was really lucky because I was working in
Speaker:a big studio early on.
Speaker:I only had, like, two or three opinions. It was like
Speaker:the studio manager, the studio owner, and the two
Speaker:engineers. You know what mean? Yeah, that was it. And
Speaker:I feel like nowadays, when you finish school or whatever, you start
Speaker:working, you go on YouTube and there's so
Speaker:many different approaches, opinions, things to read about, and you don't really
Speaker:know what's right and what's wrong. Yeah, I feel
Speaker:like I'm kind of experiencing that as a side
Speaker:thing where I'm learning how to edit video just for
Speaker:safari pedals and I'm trying to get a grasp of it,
Speaker:but there's too much information. It's like I don't know who to trust.
Speaker:And there's like this guy who's saying one thing and then the other guy is
Speaker:seeing the opposite and I kind of feel like that's probably how
Speaker:people are experiencing, starting their careers in
Speaker:music or in audio, because it's saturated
Speaker:with opinions. Yeah, well, I think most
Speaker:cases, I don't think that there are
Speaker:too many rules that have to be followed. There's definitely rules that
Speaker:need to be followed. But if you're talking about, like, creative distortion
Speaker:or something like that, I understand there being 10,000 opinions on YouTube.
Speaker:But yeah, I've done the same thing. I've gone down the rabbit hole of
Speaker:Adobe premiere stuff and color correction and stuff like
Speaker:that for the podcast. Yeah, I guess it's daunting. That's
Speaker:exactly what I'm talking about, man. Right? Color
Speaker:correction is heavy shit. Color
Speaker:correction is so hard. And I was sure
Speaker:it was easy when I started. I was like, oh, yeah, I can do this
Speaker:color correction thing. Did you think it was like EQ? Were you like, this is
Speaker:just like EQ? That's how I thought about it. Exactly. I felt
Speaker:like I got this, you know what I mean? And then it's kind of similar
Speaker:within audio, where a lot of times you feel like you sound great,
Speaker:and then you listen to a reference and you're like, actually,
Speaker:it sounds terrible. Yeah, I feel that way with color
Speaker:correction. I feel like I'm doing great, and then I look at a
Speaker:different video and I'm like, oh, no, this is
Speaker:so bad. It's hilarious. Well, but then
Speaker:you get on the rabbit hole of like, oh, is it the camera? Should I
Speaker:get another camera? It's the same way with gear. You're like, oh, that mix is
Speaker:so good. Oh, they used a summing mixer. I should probably get a summing mixer.
Speaker:And then you're just like, there you go. You start tumbling down the hill. I
Speaker:know this is going to sound dumb to some people, but I've never experienced
Speaker:that in audio. I don't know, maybe because I started
Speaker:really early, like, I started as a kid, so I had other
Speaker:people's opinions laid on me, but I never
Speaker:felt like this kind of rabbit hole you're expressing where it's
Speaker:like, oh, yeah, maybe I need a camera, maybe I need a new mic, maybe
Speaker:I need this, maybe I need that. It was always kind of, I don't know.
Speaker:But yeah, now I feel that way with video
Speaker:cameras. And I can totally relate to people
Speaker:experiencing that in audio. Sure. Because the
Speaker:people with the widest reach aren't necessarily the
Speaker:most experienced, not necessarily giving bad information either.
Speaker:But it's tricky when you think about learning online. No,
Speaker:but that's the thing. When you look at the people
Speaker:kind of creating these vlogs and stuff, a lot of them are
Speaker:great. I like a lot of them, but a lot of them are talking
Speaker:with no experience. They're like, here's five
Speaker:compression tips you need to know. And like, dude,
Speaker:you're working like on six inch k's that you just
Speaker:bought. You started this whole thing like six months
Speaker:ago, maybe don't
Speaker:start with giving other people tips. You know what I mean? Again, I'm
Speaker:not trying to hate anyone, but I just feel like if you're a newbie and
Speaker:you really don't know the difference, like, you don't know a difference between a
Speaker:KRK speaker and, I don't know, like an ATC
Speaker:pair or whatever, or like a Neumann mic, and I
Speaker:don't know. Yeah, you're not in this whole world,
Speaker:you can get really confused. Yeah. And there's things that take a long time.
Speaker:I don't think there's an engineer out here, out there that would
Speaker:say I learned compression in a year
Speaker:right when I started to understand compression.
Speaker:Exactly. You're talking about years and years and years of experience
Speaker:just for great engineers. For people that have done this for a long time, they
Speaker:will admit like, oh yeah, this clicked for me when I was like
Speaker:29. I just happened to make it that far. You know what I mean?
Speaker:Yeah, the compression thing, I'll never forget the experience of
Speaker:sitting behind an engineer and seeing him tweaking
Speaker:the compressor and thinking to myself, either he's
Speaker:insane because I don't hear any difference, or I'm
Speaker:like brain dead or something because I literally
Speaker:did not hear any difference. And it took me a very long time to
Speaker:actually understand compression. Yeah, not sure I
Speaker:do.
Speaker:Speaking to, like, I'm going to make an interesting parallel. Like,
Speaker:we'll just say YouTube. YouTube creators that are like sharing tips or whatever,
Speaker:people go because they resonate with that person regardless of their
Speaker:experience level, in the same way that they're going to choose a safari pedal
Speaker:plugin over a insert some other brand,
Speaker:whatever, because there's something about
Speaker:that person or that company that they resonate with, which
Speaker:is also kind of interesting to think about because I think people are just
Speaker:drawn to different things for different reasons. And
Speaker:from the outside looking in, it's easy to be like, oh, these are bad tips,
Speaker:but some kid is getting something out of
Speaker:that. Maybe it's maybe 20% wrong or something like
Speaker:that. Yeah. And anyway, just talking about musical taste and
Speaker:choosing what a knob does and making a plugin, it's weird to think about that
Speaker:when you think about tips or, like, TikTok accounts or some nonsense like that, so
Speaker:it's weird. No, I totally agree. And I feel like
Speaker:also, you touched on something that I really
Speaker:resonate with, which is you usually relate
Speaker:to things that you think are. How did you phrase
Speaker:it? A lot of times, you'll watch something because you feel it's
Speaker:relatable to you, or you feel like you're
Speaker:on the same kind of wave of that person,
Speaker:and that makes a lot of sense. And again, I think
Speaker:the way people these days, or, like, young
Speaker:producers, engineers, musicians, approach
Speaker:this whole world is totally different than
Speaker:how we, or me, as a bald person
Speaker:with kids, looks at all these TikTok accounts and
Speaker:stuff. And I'm not trying to, like, I take back any
Speaker:kind of negativity because I feel like it's
Speaker:not my kind of wave. You know what I mean? It's not
Speaker:something that's made for me, so it makes sense that I don't understand it. Yeah,
Speaker:well, it's like, I feel like you would probably agree. I'm more drawn to a
Speaker:mix with the master style video than I am
Speaker:a tips TikTok account. I think it's
Speaker:because that generation, we learned from
Speaker:people like that. And so when I want to go learn, I want
Speaker:to go to those people again, when I think now
Speaker:kids are so self taught, having their iPad in their hand, making beats on garage
Speaker:band since they were, like, six, that it's all
Speaker:about their peers for them and who they like. Not
Speaker:necessarily. Not their idols or their
Speaker:inspirations. It's just a different
Speaker:mentality, I think. Yeah, that's so true. It's more of, like,
Speaker:a social thing than how we look at it, where it's
Speaker:more of, like, looking up to someone and
Speaker:wanting to just learn from. Right.
Speaker:I totally agree. I feel like it's less about learning and it's more
Speaker:about socialization, which also makes sense because
Speaker:there are no physical places where you
Speaker:hang out anymore. It's like you hang out on TikTok or
Speaker:Instagram. Everybody's got a studio in their backyard, unfortunately.
Speaker:Yeah. You don't have that same community that you had, like, 30 years ago,
Speaker:where the only place to make a record was in one of the ten studios
Speaker:in town, and so that's where everybody met everybody. That's where
Speaker:you learned stuff. Yeah. And I'm sure you experienced this as
Speaker:well. I used to work in one room, and then you
Speaker:open the door to eat lunch, and you see a guy that you.
Speaker:I don't know. Like, met last week, and he's like, you want to hear something
Speaker:cool in the other room? And you go to the other room, you're like, oh,
Speaker:yeah, you mic the drums that way. That's cool.
Speaker:Totally going to try that one time. Yeah. I mean, I used to get off
Speaker:work at Capitol and just stay. You're just like,
Speaker:I'm just going to stay here. Exactly. I feel like maybe that's
Speaker:our equivalent to TikTok. Yeah. Staying at
Speaker:the studio till 03:00 in the morning, like, talking nonsense with the tech
Speaker:about how we fix something or going through the other rooms, checking out,
Speaker:like, oh, that's how they're eqing this. That's cool. Like, looking at the console at
Speaker:the end of the night, be like, what'd they do? Where'd they move the mics?
Speaker:Yeah. Well, we're lucky that we had access to that, though, which is much harder
Speaker:to find these days. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like, for
Speaker:mean, I did the same thing, but I'm from Tel Aviv,
Speaker:so I didn't have capital. I had the
Speaker:equivalent version of the Middle east, which
Speaker:is not as glamorous, but
Speaker:still. Yeah, I love walking in my backyard and have a studio in my
Speaker:backyard. And I follow plenty of TikTok
Speaker:accounts and I enjoy watching or whatever, but I do miss going
Speaker:into a studio for six days in a row, hanging out
Speaker:afterwards, chatting with everybody. I
Speaker:still like to get out every once in a while and hit one of those
Speaker:rooms, but maybe I'm just getting old. I also like to sit in my backyard.
Speaker:No, I mean 100%. I was talking
Speaker:to a friend before we started the podcast on a
Speaker:session I did in a really nice room with a Neve
Speaker:console that we worked on for like three weeks
Speaker:in a row. Nice. And that just doesn't happen
Speaker:anymore. No, it used to be so fun.
Speaker:You finish the session, you go have drinks.
Speaker:It's like a phase in your life of
Speaker:few long weeks. Yeah. You make a record with somebody
Speaker:for a couple of weeks, a couple of months,
Speaker:you're friends with that person forever because you guys made art together.
Speaker:And I think people, I have friends that have made records with
Speaker:plenty of famous people and they still talk to them years later. And
Speaker:I think if you're on the outside of the music industry, you're like, you text
Speaker:famous people and you're like, well, yeah, we're friends. We made a record for, like,
Speaker:four months. It's cool. It's fine. But,
Speaker:yeah, I did want to ask you before we go. I wanted to ask you
Speaker:one thing, since we're kind of talking about our studio experiences, you and I
Speaker:both have had very stable
Speaker:salary moments in our lives where
Speaker:we're making music and we know we're having a fixed income, and we
Speaker:both chose to leave those situations. You at artless doing
Speaker:mastering and all the audio stuff, do you have any
Speaker:advice for people that are maybe like, even if they don't even
Speaker:work in music, maybe they work, I don't know, at a
Speaker:coffee shop, but they feel like they can make it full time in music.
Speaker:They're like, at that point where they're like, I think I need this money, but
Speaker:I also think I need to go do that. Do you have any advice for
Speaker:people that are, like, right there at the precipice that are like, I think I
Speaker:want to work for myself? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think
Speaker:two things. The first one is actually
Speaker:part of the reason why I left my day job and
Speaker:decided to start this weird company called Safari.
Speaker:I guess the first thing is I kind of got to a
Speaker:realization that it doesn't matter the salary that I would
Speaker:get. Like, even if it is a very high salary,
Speaker:it still does not compare at all to having
Speaker:an asset. I think that's, like, a really big lesson
Speaker:that I wish I learned earlier in my career
Speaker:where I would always choose having
Speaker:an asset over fixed payment. And it
Speaker:doesn't matter. You can make that same mistake as a freelancer as well,
Speaker:where you'd be like, no, I don't want points on this record. I just
Speaker:want you to pay up front. You know what I mean? Yeah. And
Speaker:what I can tell you looking back is
Speaker:those points and all these different types of assets they
Speaker:accumulate, and they can really be
Speaker:a very big investment in your own life and
Speaker:in your own self. And sometimes you don't see it at the point
Speaker:of time that you're actually making the decision. Yeah.
Speaker:So after having a very long
Speaker:time with the salary, I realized it. I was like, I
Speaker:don't see how I can keep this thing going for another, like, 40
Speaker:years or I don't know, like 30 years or whatever
Speaker:number of years. And I can't guarantee it, but
Speaker:I can probably guarantee if I can manage to create an
Speaker:asset that continues to create revenue for me
Speaker:in the following years. That seems like a better plan.
Speaker:Yeah. And maybe, hopefully, things that I can even transfer
Speaker:to my kids. That's awesome. That's one thing. And then
Speaker:the second thing is just like,
Speaker:it's going to sound kind of cliche, but
Speaker:I really believe in going with your heart.
Speaker:And I feel like if you're honest to yourself and you're
Speaker:really 100% trying to be honest with yourself
Speaker:and not lying to yourself, good things happen. It's just like
Speaker:the way I've experienced life since
Speaker:early on, and I felt like I wasn't honest with myself
Speaker:anymore as being an employee. I loved working at
Speaker:artless till the last day, but I just felt like there
Speaker:was something in me that was really wanting to kind of get out
Speaker:and express myself and do wild plugins. So I felt
Speaker:like I had to go with that, and I had to trust my gut feeling
Speaker:and just do what I love, which is
Speaker:something that a lot of times is like, the opposite of what everybody's
Speaker:telling you to do, usually, people are telling you, yeah,
Speaker:don't trust your instincts. Go with whatever
Speaker:is socially acceptable. You have a job. Don't quit the
Speaker:job, dude. Yeah, have a good job. You know what I mean? That's just
Speaker:my two points. I agree completely, and I think
Speaker:you've got to trust your gut. I mean, we started this podcast. I said there
Speaker:was, like, a glitch in Riverside, and I was like, every time my gut has
Speaker:said, I need to restart riverside and I haven't, I've had a
Speaker:chunk of my interview missing. And I don't know. That's something that
Speaker:multiple producers and engineers that I've worked with have
Speaker:said. Like, after I've made a mistake, they've been like, what did
Speaker:your gut tell you right before that happened? And I was like, not to do
Speaker:that? And they were like, yeah. You're like,
Speaker:yeah, I don't know. Something of that gut. Something. And trust
Speaker:in your instincts. Dude. This has been so much fun. I got to ask you
Speaker:the last two questions before we head out. All right. Which I believe you know
Speaker:what they are. But the first one, which maybe we touched on a little bit,
Speaker:is, was there a time in your career that you chose to redefine what success
Speaker:meant to you? I feel like I kind of answered that, to be honest,
Speaker:with safari petals, because my kind of goal for
Speaker:success early on was, I want to work
Speaker:with these ten artists that I wish I could. And
Speaker:then once I reached that in my little world,
Speaker:I was like, okay, now what? And the next kind
Speaker:of goal change was, I want to have a steady income because I'm
Speaker:having kids. I want to have a day job, which is something
Speaker:that's pretty rare as an engineer. It's not something
Speaker:that you usually experience. And once I got
Speaker:that, after a few years, I felt like I want to create
Speaker:assets, which is kind of the thing
Speaker:that is happening now. That's awesome. Yeah. Is that a good
Speaker:answer? That's a perfect answer. Yeah, I agree with those. And
Speaker:then I know you have a company and you have products in the works and
Speaker:maybe you can't share everything with us, but what is your current biggest goal and
Speaker:what's the next smallest step you're going to go to take towards it? I
Speaker:think my biggest goal is
Speaker:to find a way to kind
Speaker:of get safari to a point where
Speaker:it feels like I'm on a safe island,
Speaker:where it feels like everything is
Speaker:working and I don't have to push the boat anymore so hard.
Speaker:Right. Because right now, which is obvious, it's
Speaker:predictable. Like, I knew this and I wasn't expecting anything
Speaker:else, but I wake up in the morning and
Speaker:whatever I do or don't do is going to be the outcome of the fire
Speaker:pedals. Like, if I don't answer all the emails and if I
Speaker:don't plan the next plugin and if I don't do the video,
Speaker:then it's not going to happen. And I guess
Speaker:my long term goal is to get to a point where it's an
Speaker:actual company with other people that do other things
Speaker:and I don't have to do everything myself.
Speaker:That's awesome, dude. This has been a lot of fun. People should definitely
Speaker:check out the plugins. I've been enjoying them. Please take a
Speaker:second. Share with people whatever you want. This is your little spotlight moment.
Speaker:I'm not good with spotlight moments. Or maybe just the website.
Speaker:Yeah, you should check out safaripetals.com
Speaker:and try the plugins. I feel
Speaker:like if there's a message that I'm trying to
Speaker:convey and push forward is people should go crazy
Speaker:and just be creative and do your thing and don't be
Speaker:afraid of anything. Just be
Speaker:yourself. Be a studio animal, which is like a line
Speaker:that I made up for safari petals and it's
Speaker:great. See you on the other side. That's awesome,
Speaker:Travis. Yeah, I really appreciate the podcast. I'm a
Speaker:listener as well, and it was great talking to you and
Speaker:you're an awesome host and I enjoyed it.
Speaker:A it. I appreciate it. I don't know if I'm
Speaker:awesome, but we're trying to have a good time here, but yeah, awesome.
Speaker:I look forward to this compressor slipping out into the world. I'm definitely going to
Speaker:check that out and yeah, man, we'll have to definitely keep in touch. Now
Speaker:that you have a plugging company, you got to come to Nam in California. We
Speaker:can go get drinks. I would love to meet you, Travis. We'll make it happen.
Speaker:We'll make it happen. Amazing.
