Will Atmos Replace Stereo?! A Conversation with Atmos Music Pioneer Steve Genewick
Steve Genewick is a recording engineer and mixer with over 30 years of experience working in some of the biggest studios in the world. In addition to being one of the top call engineers for big band, jazz, and orchestra sessions, Steve was also one of the first music mixers to work in Dolby Atmos. Many of the techniques he pioneered have shaped the people mix in the format today.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- How Atmos Could Replace Stereo
- How To Mix Stereo and Atmos at the Same Time
- Why the Binaural Atmos Mix is a Moving Target
- Fill the Atmos Sound Stage Without Adding Reverb
- The Lost Art of Riding a Vocal to Tape
- Big Bang or Jazz Recording
- The Importance of Preparation for Large Ensemble Sessions
- Working at Capitol Studios
- The Biggest Mistakes New Atmos Mixers Make
- Always Supporting the Music, Whether it’s Stereo or Atmos
Connect with Steve:
🌐 Website: https://stevegenewick.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_genewick/
🎧 Atmos Mix Playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/steve-genewick-atmos-mixes/pl.u-76oNkrMF1JKbp
📺 WATCH THE SHOW ON YOUTUBE 📺
https://www.youtube.com/@progressionspod
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📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/progressionspod
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Credits:
Guest:
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Stephen Boyd
Theme Music: inter.ference
Transcript
And he hit play, and a voice came out of the speakers, and it was
Speaker:definitely not Paul McCartney. It was most definitely John
Speaker:Lennon. We're not working on a Paul McCartney track, are we? He said. Nope,
Speaker:we're working on a Beatles track. That's Steve Genewick, an engineer and mixer with over
Speaker:30 years of experience and credits with almost any artist you can
Speaker:name, everybody from Diane Accra to Niall Horan and Bob Dylan to
Speaker:the Beatles. Not only is Steve a first call engineer for large ensemble
Speaker:tracking sessions like big bands and orchestras, but he's also one of the
Speaker:first people to mix music in Dolby Atmos, working with Dolby
Speaker:and Capital studios years before the rest of us even knew it was coming.
Speaker:Today, we're gonna get deep into Atmos with everything from mixtapes to some of the
Speaker:more big picture issues with why this format has drawn such a
Speaker:line within the audio community. I think what people are pushing back on a
Speaker:lot is it doesn't sound like the stereo mix, and I get that from artists
Speaker:a lot, and that, like, doesn't sound like my stereo mix. You're right. It's a
Speaker:different mix. His opinions on the dangers of remixing past
Speaker:releases for atmos if you can't. Make it good, then why
Speaker:bother doing it? It's perfectly fine in mono or it's perfectly fine in stereo. We
Speaker:also cover plenty of traditional studio tips, such as how he's brought the classic
Speaker:technique of riding the vocal to tape into today's digital mixing realm.
Speaker:Before I put anything on it, no compression, no eq, nothing, I'll do a
Speaker:couple passes of automation just to get it to sit,
Speaker:to bring the loud parts down, to bring the quiet parts up. Then I'll take
Speaker:that automation and how. One of the best engineering tricks you have
Speaker:is the band. Let em do one or two takes and then get
Speaker:them in the control room. Nine times out of ten, they fix everything that needs
Speaker:to be fixed. Nobody even has to say anything. I'm excited to share this one
Speaker:with you all because I personally learned a lot from Steve when I first started
Speaker:in this business, and I think you will as well. So stick around for my
Speaker:interview with Steve Genewick.
Speaker:So we're four or five years into this atmos music adventure, and it's still a
Speaker:pretty divisive topic for audio pros. Like, you've heard people say the
Speaker:listeners don't want it. It doesn't sound good. You've heard all that stuff, right? Oh,
Speaker:yeah. But you've been doing this longer than anybody else.
Speaker:So what do you think? What makes atmos stick around?
Speaker:What makes it replace stereo, if it should replace stereo?
Speaker:Well, I think one of the things, you know,
Speaker:if, you know, a lot of people compare it to the five one days and
Speaker:that kind of stuff and the other surround formats
Speaker:that we've had in the past, I think there's a couple things that make
Speaker:this a little bit different. And it was literally like that from the
Speaker:start for me when I first heard it. One, it
Speaker:actually works. So, you know, because it's
Speaker:scalable and because you're not tied into a certain amount of
Speaker:speakers and all that kind of stuff, because it's a calibrated system.
Speaker:So in theory, the renderer or your playback system or
Speaker:whatever knows where the speakers are and how many there are and all that kind
Speaker:of stuff, you know, it can actually do that. Whereas in the five one
Speaker:days, if you weren't in the right position and your speakers weren't calibrated perfectly and
Speaker:they weren't, you know, the whole thing kind of fell apart. Right. It was a
Speaker:little too fragile. So that's one thing, is the technology is better.
Speaker:It's like multi, not multi format,
Speaker:but multi discipline. I don't know what the word is. It's the same
Speaker:system that's used for movies. It's the same system that essentially is used for
Speaker:video games. It's the same. So again, we're not trying to
Speaker:reinvent the wheel. If you have a home theater system or you have whatever you
Speaker:have to play your movies on, you can play your music on also. Yeah.
Speaker:The other thing is, again, the technology has caught up. So, you know, we
Speaker:have stuff like Bluetooth and wireless speakers and
Speaker:all that kind of stuff. You don't have to run copper through your ceilings and,
Speaker:you know, all that. So I think that. And
Speaker:then there's this binaural element, too. So the
Speaker:one mix. So your one, your one speaker mix, the one
Speaker:ADM file you make, you know, it can serve the
Speaker:speaker system, it can serve the headphone system, it can serve, you know, all of
Speaker:those things, is just one mix. I believe, you know, the
Speaker:ultimate goal, especially for the record labels who are paying for
Speaker:these mixes, the ultimate goal is to have one
Speaker:mix that serves everything. You know, they don't want
Speaker:to have to have somebody mix a stereo and then somebody do the
Speaker:atmos. They would like to have one mix.
Speaker:And the Atmos system can do that. You know, it can play through a billion
Speaker:speakers or it can play out of two speakers. So, you know, and it's
Speaker:doing re renders, not necessarily fold down so it does them really well. So if
Speaker:you want a stereo mix, you re render 2.0. If you want a five
Speaker:one, you re render a five one. You know, so
Speaker:it's actually a very flexible system, a very powerful system. Right. The
Speaker:re renders sound pretty good. You know, I think
Speaker:a lot of the complaints that people had, first off.
Speaker:Well, first of all, if you don't like it, you don't like it at whatever
Speaker:it's like, you know, you don't want to buy the speakers. You don't want to
Speaker:buy the, you don't want to buy into it, whatever. That's cool. Do whatever you
Speaker:want to do. But the system does work. And
Speaker:I think a lot of what people were complaining about were,
Speaker:especially in the early days of this, were just bad mixes.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, well, you ruined that song. Well, yeah, you're right. They did ruin
Speaker:that song. It's not good, you know, so. But there's bad
Speaker:stereo mixes, too. But we're also. Especially when you
Speaker:talk about catalog stuff. Well, you know, if you know,
Speaker:poor Giles Martin, you know, remixing the Beatles, well, that's,
Speaker:I mean, he's very good at it. God bless him for it. He's doing a
Speaker:great job. But that's tough because everybody knows
Speaker:those songs. Yeah. You know, the song I'm gonna mix when we're
Speaker:done with this, nobody's heard it, so there's
Speaker:no, you know, nobody has that 50 years of emotional
Speaker:attachment to it. So I don't know that I'm gonna break it because
Speaker:there's nothing to break yet. It hasn't been done yet. So I think
Speaker:as we get over the hump of the new technology and all that,
Speaker:and also, you know, the movie people, the movie guys have been doing this for
Speaker:a long time, and it's worked great in the movies for, you know, 1520
Speaker:years, whatever it is. You know, same tool. We got into music, you
Speaker:know, but we got into music way ahead of the consumer getting
Speaker:into the music. So, you know, the consumer side is
Speaker:literally just catching up. Right. I mean, you know, there's only a
Speaker:couple streaming services that stream it. You know, when
Speaker:some of the other ones come on board, it's going to change things again. And
Speaker:then as people get systems,
Speaker:as it moves into cars and as it moves in, as sound bars get better
Speaker:and systems, people build the houses, so it
Speaker:works and all that other kind of, there's always going to be the guy, the
Speaker:crazy guy who has a huge system, and then there's people that want the soundbars
Speaker:and as that technology gets better, it's going to feed into the
Speaker:whole format. The other thing is, I think when the
Speaker:cars are just now starting to catch up, which was a known
Speaker:thing, it takes years to develop a new car. So, you know, as one
Speaker:of my friends told me, you know, a few years ago, Apple Carplay was only
Speaker:in a couple luxury cars. Now it's in, you know, every
Speaker:toyota you buy. So that's true. As soon as that catches up, and then the
Speaker:video games, too, because the video games take years to develop a new game. So
Speaker:the new games that you're going to see coming out, they're going to be in
Speaker:atmos, too. And then people are going to need playback systems for that and
Speaker:all that kind of stuff. So I think it's moving forward. And then, you
Speaker:know, there's also. There's a lot of
Speaker:really big companies with a lot of money, and they're putting a lot of money
Speaker:into this. So I think that alone means it's not going away
Speaker:anytime soon. I was gonna kind of bait a question on that by saying, like,
Speaker:does it have anything to do with the amount of money getting put behind it?
Speaker:But, oh, everything. It always does. Yeah, I totally agree with
Speaker:you. I think that, like, for movies and video games and, like, we all
Speaker:know that, like, the world's going to VR and AR and everything like that. Like,
Speaker:it makes absolute sense. And in music, it's
Speaker:a lot of fun to do. I've done a few. You've done hundreds.
Speaker:So I would love for it to survive. But
Speaker:my opinion, you tell me whether you agree or disagree, is that
Speaker:the kind of lackluster current binaural experience
Speaker:that most consumers get is the thing that is
Speaker:creating this pushback. And if that binaural experience was better, I feel
Speaker:like more people would be like, fuck yeah, atmos. Let's do it. You know
Speaker:what? I don't know that I totally agree that the binaural experience
Speaker:isn't great. I think what people are
Speaker:pushing back on a lot is it doesn't sound like the stereo mix,
Speaker:and I get that from artists a lot, and that, like, doesn't sound like mysterio
Speaker:mix. You're right. It's a different mix. Yeah. You know, a really
Speaker:good binaural mix, honestly, can be a lot more compelling than a really
Speaker:good stereo mix. Yeah. We're still in the world of
Speaker:comparing the two things, you know? Well, it's not the same as a stereo. Yeah,
Speaker:you're right. It's not. And I get it from the artist perspective, you know,
Speaker:like, I just did a record for, you know, a pretty big artist, and they
Speaker:were like, you know, we just spent a year making this record, and
Speaker:now, you know, we finished it, we mixed it, we mastered it, we're happy with
Speaker:it, and now they're asking us to remix it. What's the deal with
Speaker:that? Like, this is a bummer. Like, it's different. You know, I already
Speaker:did this, and I get that. I understand it. Yeah. And they
Speaker:said the production team and the artists, like,
Speaker:had we known we would have done this from the start, and
Speaker:they weren't knocking the format, they were just knocking the fact that it got tossed
Speaker:on them at the last minute. Yeah. But again, I've had the experience
Speaker:with artists where I've mixed a record in atmos for them,
Speaker:and then whether they like it or not,
Speaker:but then they start making the next record, you know? And, like, there
Speaker:was one artist, you know, I mixed a couple records for him, and I ran
Speaker:into him in the hallway at Capitol. I wasn't working on the session, but they
Speaker:were. He was doing a record, you know, and the first thing he said to
Speaker:me is, wait till you get your hands on this one. This one's gonna be
Speaker:so much fun. We're putting stuff in there for you to move around. So
Speaker:they knew it was coming, so it wasn't a surprise. Yeah. So they're
Speaker:much more, you know, excited
Speaker:about it. Cause it's not like I'm reinventing them. I'm going backwards. No
Speaker:artist likes to go backwards. Yeah, you're totally right, because my commentary
Speaker:on the binaural is directly related to comparisons. Right. And it's
Speaker:like, if I. When I go for a run, if I just have an apple
Speaker:music atmos playlist on, it's fine. But it's when I'm like, oh, this sounds
Speaker:really good. What's a stereo sound like? And I do that flip and then turn
Speaker:it down or turn it. Yeah, turn it down. Right. I almost always like the
Speaker:stereo better, but if you're not doing that comparison and you don't have that reference
Speaker:for what the original Stones record sound like sounded like, then,
Speaker:yeah, I guess it is different. So you've obviously answered that question very many, many
Speaker:times. And. Yeah, well, and also, you know,
Speaker:those, like, the stones. You know, I did some text text
Speaker:test mixes for the Stones. They gave me a couple
Speaker:songs to do for them to show the band. Right. So they could end up
Speaker:doing the whole record. And those were two of the hardest mixes
Speaker:I've ever done because the Rolling Stones are not designed to be pulled apart and
Speaker:spread around a room. It's just not what they do. And those
Speaker:records were not made to do that. Yeah. You know. Yeah. You know,
Speaker:I'm also of the opinion, you know. You know, again, I ran into on
Speaker:the record company level, like, well, how are we gonna do this atmos mix? We
Speaker:don't have the right. You know, we don't. We can't find the multi tracks or.
Speaker:It's only an eight tracker. And my opinion is, like, don't do it, then.
Speaker:Like, you don't have to do every old record in atmos.
Speaker:Right? If you don't. If you can't make it good, then why bother doing it?
Speaker:It's perfectly fine in mono, or it's perfectly fine in stereo. You know? If
Speaker:it's a record that you're thinking about doing in atmos, obviously it's survived the
Speaker:test of time. But if you can't make it better, then don't.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, I get there's business stuff and all that other crap,
Speaker:but I'd rather not do a bad mix.
Speaker:You know, saying that made me think about. You know, I grew up
Speaker:with the Beatles stereo. The hard panned Beatles stereo. Right.
Speaker:You grew up with the Beatles mono? Yes and no. Yes and
Speaker:no. But, yeah. Sorry, I don't wanna make you sound that old,
Speaker:but I only had the cds that were in stereo. And then when I got
Speaker:that mono box set, I listened to everything. I thought it was cool. But if
Speaker:I listen to the Beatles now, I wanna listen to the Beatles that I know,
Speaker:even though that mono is what I should wanna listen to, because it's what they
Speaker:wanted. I want what I want hundred percent. Well, the funny thing about the
Speaker:Beatles thing is, you know, they're ruining the Beatles. Well, they're not taking the old
Speaker:ones away. Nobody came to your house and took your cds away.
Speaker:Listen to it. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. And somebody said to
Speaker:me, like, if you're listening to Sergeant Pepper and you're bummed out, you got
Speaker:bigger problems. Like, you know, come on. It's still
Speaker:Sergeant Pepper. Yeah, totally. Still. Great. So you mentioned something
Speaker:earlier, and I kind of wanted to ask you about it. You mentioned the stereo
Speaker:fold down that comes from the ADM file. Uh huh. You've been doing
Speaker:this, like I said, for a while. Do you really think that there can be
Speaker:one mix? Do you feel like your stereo fold downs are
Speaker:comparable to your stereo mixes? Yes and no.
Speaker:So right in the. Up until recently,
Speaker:it was always a separate thing. For me, like, especially if I was doing both,
Speaker:it was do the stereo mix and then do the, you know, the atmos mix.
Speaker:I've started in the last year or so to experiment
Speaker:with one mix for both, and it actually works really
Speaker:well. Interesting. And again, it's semantics, but it's not
Speaker:really a fold down, it's a re render, because a fold down implies taking
Speaker:the channels and pull this down three decibels, whereas
Speaker:the re render actually does it with more math,
Speaker:interestingly, algorithmically.
Speaker:So, yeah, actually, there's a certain sound that the renderer
Speaker:has, actually, when you, when you dump it down to, like a
Speaker:stereo. That's actually pretty cool. So I have one
Speaker:project I'm working on now where it's
Speaker:a catalog project with an older artist, and
Speaker:I'm not going to get him. I have to remix in
Speaker:stereo and I have to do the atmos also.
Speaker:But there's no way I can make it two different
Speaker:processes, like, because I have him for short
Speaker:amounts of time and he's going to go, oh, take that, put it there, move
Speaker:that, you know. Yeah, push that string line here, do that here. I can't
Speaker:do all that in stereo and then do it again in
Speaker:atmos. And he's, and he wants to like, okay, now let me
Speaker:hear the atmos. You know, he wants me to hit a button and make it
Speaker:atmos. So that project, I'm actually doing both at the same
Speaker:time. Wow, okay. And it's, it's working pretty well,
Speaker:actually. Once, you know, you kind of got to wrap your head around a different,
Speaker:you know, the different workflows. Yeah. And switching back and
Speaker:forth a little bit, but it's not so bad for me also.
Speaker:I've never been one that relied too heavily on bus processing,
Speaker:so that's not a, that's not a problem for me. Yeah, I
Speaker:will probably, like, at the end of this process, I
Speaker:will probably have a session that's stereo, that's meant
Speaker:for stereo and then a session that's meant for
Speaker:atmos. So I may, you know, there may be relative
Speaker:balance changes and stuff in the atmos mix as compared to the other
Speaker:one, but we're getting closer.
Speaker:And, you know, I have a bunch of friends that do this, too, and
Speaker:I think those of us that are experimenting with the one mix for
Speaker:both, I think we're getting closer to actually making it work really
Speaker:well. And in a lot of ways it works better, you know, because again, you
Speaker:have different tools available to you, stuff like that. Do you
Speaker:think it's because you've done so many mixes that you can kind of wrap your
Speaker:head around the way to approach both at the same time.
Speaker:Yeah, probably. I mean, you know, like
Speaker:anything, you have to wrap your head around it, figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker:it's a lot of, it's just workflow, you know, a lot of times we just
Speaker:get stuck in the way we do things. That's true. That's true.
Speaker:At most workflows. Very different. It's very different. Very
Speaker:different. Yeah, yeah. And especially right now,
Speaker:because a lot of times we're just getting stems.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, so it's much different. Mixing a song from
Speaker:stems and mixing a song from a multi track. Yeah.
Speaker:So it's a different thing when you suddenly you're not worried about
Speaker:compression and EQ and all that stuff, and you're just, you know, you're basically
Speaker:repanning the stems. That's the way that, you know,
Speaker:I've only done a few, like, we've talked about, and that's
Speaker:the way that seemed to work for me. I couldn't even begin to, like,
Speaker:figure out how to do both at the same time. But I am doing a
Speaker:project that's more orchestral right now, more cinematic,
Speaker:and I'm like, I don't really need to stem this. Can I maybe try to.
Speaker:What I'm going to try to do is take the stereo session and convert that
Speaker:into an atmos session, not mix them both and use the re render.
Speaker:But that'll be my first go at it. Yeah, I've done that.
Speaker:Sometimes it's actually a little harder to do that. Okay,
Speaker:all right, I'll just stem it. If Steve says it, then I'll just. Well, actually,
Speaker:you know, what I ended up doing is just committing a bunch of stuff. You
Speaker:know, I just committed the tracks and then I ended up with a multi
Speaker:track that had all of the,
Speaker:like, EQ and compression and all that stuff kind of baked into it already.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes sense. And then the other thing I did
Speaker:is, and I set this up a lot earlier, my
Speaker:stereo mix template, which is basically, you know, routing and
Speaker:reverbs and stuff like that. My stereo mix template and my
Speaker:atmos mix template are based off of each other,
Speaker:and I named everything the same. So if
Speaker:I import session data from a stereo mix into an atmos
Speaker:template, like, all the reverbs go to the right reverbs and all
Speaker:that kind of stuff because they're all named the same. That's great. So,
Speaker:you know, drum reverb, even though in my stereo template, it goes to
Speaker:a stereo reverb, when I import that into the atmos
Speaker:session, that drum reverb just automatically goes to the Atmos
Speaker:version of that. That's a good, you know, so by having
Speaker:them very similar, it takes a lot of that away.
Speaker:Yeah. But it's still, it can be tough
Speaker:sometimes going from one. That's why the other reason I started experimenting with
Speaker:try just one, you know, if I know I'm gonna have to do this in
Speaker:both, let's just do it, you know? And again, nobody's comparing anything.
Speaker:Right. That's where you get into the problems is people who know what I remember.
Speaker:Well, now you don't have that problem because there's nothing to remember.
Speaker:Speaking of comparisons, have
Speaker:you had any really tough experiences
Speaker:when getting an approval on an atmos mix with an artist that is maybe not
Speaker:interested? Do you have any tricks for selling them over?
Speaker:Well, as much as I possibly can. I try to get them into a
Speaker:room with me or with somebody else who knows what they're doing.
Speaker:Yeah. If you get them into a room, you're
Speaker:99% there. I always caution people, never play them
Speaker:their stuff first. Always play them. I mean, unless
Speaker:they've heard the system a bunch of times, always play them
Speaker:other stuff first and then play them their stuff. Yeah. Most
Speaker:of the time when you get an artist in a room, they love it.
Speaker:They think it's great. Yeah. Because it's cool and it works. Then you
Speaker:start getting the questions, well, how does the consumer hear this? What about my stereo?
Speaker:All the stuff we just talked about? Right. So
Speaker:the concerns are more that than anything else. Who's going to pay
Speaker:for this? How am I getting paid for this? Does it matter? It's like, man,
Speaker:I just make the widgets. I don't have to sell the widgets. That's pretty
Speaker:good. But as far as the technology of it, no, the artists usually love it.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, you, if you sit in the room, it sounds. It sounds fucking
Speaker:awesome. I've never heard anybody walk into a room and walk out and say, I
Speaker:hated that. No, not at all. Again, you get the, you
Speaker:know, how do people hear this? You know? Yeah. Like, that's the trick.
Speaker:That's the trick. Yeah, well, but, and we're not there yet. Yeah. You know, I
Speaker:mean, do people go to the movie theater and go, whoa, whoa, the screen's so
Speaker:big. How are you gonna, you know. No, everybody knows. You can, you can watch
Speaker:it on your phone. Right. Is it the same experience? Definitely not.
Speaker:Yeah, but do people complain about that? I don't know. Maybe they do.
Speaker:Yeah, I would. Well, since
Speaker:we're kind of talking about artist approval, I think this is a good question from,
Speaker:like, the artist perspective. What. What makes a great Atmos
Speaker:mix? Like, as a mixer, you can't really put your finger on, like, when something
Speaker:is done or what's. What's great about it, but if you're an artist and you're
Speaker:getting a mix back or you're going to go listen to a mix,
Speaker:like, what makes it great? What makes it right?
Speaker:Well, I don't think that is any different than in stereo.
Speaker:You know, it has to groove, it has to feel good. It's all about the
Speaker:feel. In the Atmos mix, if something is
Speaker:distracting to me, you know, if I put
Speaker:something in the back and every time it comes up, I start looking over my
Speaker:shoulder, then it's probably not good. Yeah, that
Speaker:makes sense. It probably should go someplace else. Yeah. You know, in
Speaker:atmos, you have, you know, the space you have to work
Speaker:with is greater. There's definitely
Speaker:more possibilities for dynamics. And when I say that
Speaker:it's, you know, some movement or, you
Speaker:know, I mean, we've been, you know, we've been. At least I have. I've been
Speaker:trying to get kind of dynamics in that kind of space in
Speaker:stereo forever, you know, and now it's just a little bit easier in
Speaker:atmos. Yeah. Not every mix needs,
Speaker:as Trent Reznor called it, the magic tricks.
Speaker:Some of them do, some of them don't. It's funny, the two
Speaker:records that I've done, of the hundreds and hundreds of mixed atmos mixes that I've
Speaker:done, the two that people keep going back to are the two simplest ones I've
Speaker:ever done, which is kind of blue. Miles Davis, but
Speaker:it's kind of blue. It's Miles Davis, you know? Right. And there's
Speaker:Gregory Porter, Mona Lisa. You know, it's just a big orchestra.
Speaker:There's. There's nothing moving. There's nothing, you know, flying around.
Speaker:There's no weird shit happening in the back. There's no, you
Speaker:know, but. But they hold up. It's just, you know,
Speaker:I mean, it's great songs and great singing and all that, you know,
Speaker:great arrangements and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker:I think what we're looking for in a really good atmos mix is the same
Speaker:as what we're looking for in a really good stereo mix. Yeah, I guess
Speaker:that's true. That is true. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of
Speaker:crappy stereo mixes out there.
Speaker:Just turn on the radio, you know,
Speaker:and honestly, most crappy stereo mixes are. Because it's a crappy
Speaker:song. Yeah. If it's a good song, it's really easy to
Speaker:mix. It's true. It's true. It does matter. Stereo atmos,
Speaker:if the production's not right, the mix is never going to be. It's never
Speaker:real good. Yeah. I've been remixing some old Diana Kral
Speaker:records. You know, I just started that, and it's like,
Speaker:you know, I said to my wife the other day, I was like, these are
Speaker:so simple. They're so, like, simple to mix. They're so easy because
Speaker:it's. They're put together so well, and the playing is so good, and
Speaker:the singing is so good. It just. It just goes together.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, it's. It's not, you know, it's not
Speaker:that. I mean, it's, you know, there's a skill and an art to it,
Speaker:but I'm not fighting all that other stuff that we have
Speaker:to fight with a lot of the times to get a good mix.
Speaker:There really is something that, you know, like, you experienced
Speaker:every day and I experienced when I was a capital. There's something about, like, when
Speaker:those players, with their instruments that they've had for so long, step
Speaker:into a room and they play the right arrangement and you
Speaker:can use any mic and you can put it basically anywhere, and it's.
Speaker:And people are going to ask you how you got that sound. Like it's just
Speaker:the reality of it. Yeah. And a lot of people, you know, are in
Speaker:their bedroom and they're working against it. They have everything working against
Speaker:them, you know. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, how many times
Speaker:did you know, Al get hired to do a record, you
Speaker:know, because it was the woman who wants to be the next Diana
Speaker:Kral, or whatever, and, you know, we're in the same room
Speaker:sometimes with the same player, you know, so they hired Jeff Hamilton and John
Speaker:Clay, whatever, and, you know, and they're going, well, it doesn't sound like Diana Krall.
Speaker:It's like, well, gee, what's different? Diana Krall's got her.
Speaker:How come my voice doesn't sound like her? It's just because you're not her.
Speaker:It's the same mic, same mic preamp, same room.
Speaker:It's just one thing I learned very early on from guys like
Speaker:Al and Tommy Lupuma and Phil Ramon, is we get the band in as soon
Speaker:as possible to listen, let them do one or two takes, and then get them
Speaker:in the control room. Nine times out of ten, they fix everything that
Speaker:needs to be fixed. Nobody even has to say anything. They just
Speaker:listen and they go, oh, once in a while, you'll hear them go, oh, are
Speaker:you playing that thing in the bridge? Yeah. Okay. All right. Then I'll do something
Speaker:different, you know, or the guitar player lean over and go, can the guitar be
Speaker:a little brighter? And. Yeah, it could be a little brighter. And they go, okay,
Speaker:I don't have to do it. Like, you know, they all go out there and
Speaker:they fix it, and it's like, then they play it again, and you're like, oh,
Speaker:look, we're geniuses.
Speaker:Yeah. Drummer fixes what he needs to fix on his kit and,
Speaker:yeah, you know. I shouldn't go to the ride symbol in that section. Yeah, you're
Speaker:right. And he doesn't go to the ride symbol, and suddenly it's not washed out
Speaker:anymore. You know, it really says a lot about, like,
Speaker:there's. I like to describe to people, like,
Speaker:younger engineers and producers
Speaker:producing, like, a mixer, and you think about, like, arrangement
Speaker:of, like, a jazz record or an orchestral arrangement. Parts
Speaker:are being moved around to not step on each other. And, like, things are given
Speaker:the space that they're. They're supposed to have. You don't have to create that space.
Speaker:It's like, right, you don't need 50 pads in the chorus. You just need the
Speaker:right pad, and then you need the other right thing. Yeah. You know, it's
Speaker:just identify what piece you need from what. Use that piece.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes, I mean, I've had plenty of mixes where I
Speaker:just. I was muting more than anything. Yeah. You know, taking stuff
Speaker:away, and it was like, suddenly the song came back, you know, it's
Speaker:like the guys who over, they want the guitars bigger, so they overdubbed, you
Speaker:know, nine parts, and it's like you only
Speaker:needed two. Yeah. A little bit out of tune. Every time. It just gets
Speaker:smaller and smaller. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Wow. How'd you get the guitar
Speaker:sound so big? I muted those four that were playing the same
Speaker:part. Got it out of the way of everything else.
Speaker:Or sometimes just moving in a mix. Just moving it. It's amazing how
Speaker:sometimes you move something from the left to the right, and you're like, oh,
Speaker:wow, now I can hear it. Yeah. In atmos, even more. Like, I
Speaker:found that, like, the. The masking is
Speaker:so different, you know, because you're not fighting for space, and you move something,
Speaker:and I'm like, oh, wow. I move this bv to the side, and I'm like,
Speaker:holy shit, that's what that sounds like in the stereo mix. I need to fix
Speaker:that, right? Yeah, you do a lot of stuff besides. At most I want to
Speaker:get into that. But I did want to ask you one or two atmos
Speaker:mixtapes. Yeah. One being this is a personal question for
Speaker:me, I find it particularly difficult when you're dealing with,
Speaker:like, low track count, drier rock stuff.
Speaker:It just doesn't. It feels harder to glue together in the room
Speaker:than like a thick pop thing. How do you
Speaker:approach filling the room with
Speaker:the files you have before adding ambience and extra
Speaker:reverb? It's a good question. And
Speaker:there's like, most things in audio, there's no answer to it,
Speaker:really. You play around with it till it works.
Speaker:Yeah. Like a four piece rock band is tough for an atmos because,
Speaker:again, they don't want to be pulled apart. Yeah, I try to. At that
Speaker:point, I'm pulling the drums into the room a little bit. I
Speaker:find if I try too
Speaker:many tricks and if I try too hard to get it to do
Speaker:something it doesn't want to do that I make it worse.
Speaker:So I think sometimes there's nothing wrong
Speaker:with not putting stuff in the rear
Speaker:or not, but, you know. Right. The song will tell you what the song wants
Speaker:to do. Sometimes it's just a matter of, you know what? Let's just take.
Speaker:Take what we would have done in stereo and just make it a little
Speaker:wider. Got it. And not. Not
Speaker:try to fight it a whole bunch, you
Speaker:know, not everything has to be, you know,
Speaker:some of the crazy stuff that we've done. Yeah. You know, again, like I said,
Speaker:I'm doing some of this Diana cross stuff and, you know, some of
Speaker:it's piano and vocal, you know, or a
Speaker:small quartet. It's like, well, I'm not going to put the drums
Speaker:in the back or the bass in the back, you know, so
Speaker:you just try to make it fill the space
Speaker:with the space that's in the record. Does that make sense? Yeah, no,
Speaker:it does. It does. Because, yeah, instinctively you want
Speaker:to use reverb to fill it, but then
Speaker:you're just creating this thing that didn't exist. You know what I mean? You're
Speaker:just putting verb on everything.
Speaker:Yeah, I try not to do that kind of stuff again, just
Speaker:because you have twelve speakers doesn't mean you have to use them all.
Speaker:Isn't there a requirement to have something in every speaker? No,
Speaker:no, that's just a rumor. There's no spec where something has to be done.
Speaker:Every channel? No. No. All right. The only thing, I
Speaker:mean, you have to have, at least for most of the major labels,
Speaker:the specs are. Well, there's the level specs, you know, that
Speaker:-18. Level, maximum level. And there's reasons for that.
Speaker:There's technical reasons for that. But the other thing is,
Speaker:most of the labels will reject a mix if
Speaker:you have no binaural information. So you
Speaker:can't just set everything to off and send it in. They're going to reject that.
Speaker:You have to have some kind of binaural information. Yeah. And
Speaker:most. Well, not so much the labels, but I know
Speaker:some of the streaming services, like Apple, they're
Speaker:pretty sensitive to, like, up mixing, like
Speaker:trying to fake stereo stuff into atmos. They're
Speaker:cracking down on that pretty heavily because they want the format to do what the
Speaker:format does. So. Yeah, yeah. And again, I'm more of
Speaker:a proponent of. I'd rather not have it in atmos
Speaker:than have it badly in atmos. Says the
Speaker:guy mixing all the Atmos tracks. So that means a lot. Well,
Speaker:yeah, but there. You know, like, there was a couple early on where it was
Speaker:like, we don't have the assets for this. And it was like, fine, don't do
Speaker:it. Yeah, yeah. Well, what if we pull it apart? This. I was
Speaker:like, man, it's gonna be crap. It's. You know. Then we're breaking
Speaker:it. Yeah. We're not making it better. My favorite
Speaker:one was the one. I got something to QC once. It was kind of
Speaker:during COVID I was still working for the record label. They said,
Speaker:can you listen to something? This Atmos mix sounds weird to us. Can you listen
Speaker:to. You have. It was during COVID because I had a room. That. That was.
Speaker:The thing is, there weren't. We didn't have access to all the Atmos
Speaker:rooms because the buildings were closed. They were like, you have a room. Can you
Speaker:listen to this? Because it sounds weird to us. And I realized they had literally
Speaker:put the stereo mix in, like, every speaker. So it was.
Speaker:Stereo mix there, stereo mix there, stereo mix there. It sounded
Speaker:so bad. It was basically, like six
Speaker:versions of the stereo mix all playing at the same time. I was like, yeah,
Speaker:that's not good. Well, that's not even. That would.
Speaker:Yeah, that's horrible. It was broken on a lot of levels. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. Um. Well, assuming that
Speaker:that's not the biggest mistake people make in their first Atmos mix, what would
Speaker:you say the. The thing that most people
Speaker:do, like, if there was one thing where you're like, please, God, don't
Speaker:do this. What is it? Uh, too much
Speaker:reverb, where they just add reverb to a bunch of stuff. Yeah.
Speaker:I'm. A lot of times, you'll hear
Speaker:either leaning on the subwoofer, the lfe channel, way too
Speaker:much to where if you take it away, all the low end goes away.
Speaker:Yeah. And I'm not a big
Speaker:proponent of lead vocals. Hard in the center
Speaker:channel. I use the center channel. I use it quite a
Speaker:bit for things, but very rarely is anything only in the center
Speaker:channel. So I use the center channel to kind of anchor stuff in the
Speaker:middle, not. Not just
Speaker:to have stuff in the center. To me, that sounds a little disjointed
Speaker:for music. You know, for movies, it's a different thing for dialogue and
Speaker:stuff, but for music, it sounds. I mean, now there's been times
Speaker:where, you know, somebody's gonna go, put down this mix. You did it. Yeah, there
Speaker:might have been a mix I did because I wanted it to do something like
Speaker:that. Right. Like, I remember. I don't remember what song it was specifically, but I
Speaker:remember it had to, like, there was one part of the song where it was.
Speaker:It needed to be, like, uncomfortably dry and in your face, and
Speaker:I just stuck it hard in the center channel for, like, that bridge, and it
Speaker:did. That thing, and then Apple spatial by Nora
Speaker:ruined that. Who knows? Well,
Speaker:and the Apple spatial thing is, again, that's a moving target. Yeah.
Speaker:So that's the other thing I kind of tell people,
Speaker:like, they're like, but it's, you know, but on Apple, I'm like, yeah, but Apple's
Speaker:changing. Like, every time you. You update your phone, there's
Speaker:a good chance that they're updating their spatial algorithms. You
Speaker:know, I don't know that for sure, but it's. That's changing all
Speaker:the time, so usually for the better. So that's a
Speaker:moving target that's really tough to chase. You know,
Speaker:the speaker mix is still the mix that everything is going to be
Speaker:based off of. So, yeah, pay attention to that. Don't ignore the other
Speaker:stuff, but pay attention to that. Yeah, I
Speaker:definitely. I was a. Has to sound great in
Speaker:the headphones person until I tried to do a mix in headphones and then went
Speaker:and heard it on speakers, and I am very firmly in the.
Speaker:Like, it's got to feel good in the room, and then you've got to find
Speaker:that balance where it's also good in the binaurals. But do you think there's ever
Speaker:a time when the Dolby Binaural and the Apple spatial are. Are more
Speaker:similar or that there's only one binaural or. No,
Speaker:I hope so.
Speaker:The last thing we need is more formats, right. You don't want a third binaural
Speaker:option. I'm sure it's out there. It kind of is, because if
Speaker:you have apple without the head tracking, it's different. Again, a little bit. Oh,
Speaker:is it really? Well, sort of. And again,
Speaker:it's changing some. I don't have the time to keep up with half of it.
Speaker:But if you're doing a frontline
Speaker:pop album, you know, I mean, let's be honest,
Speaker:most of those don't have a huge shelf life. I
Speaker:might lean on the binaural a little heavier for something like
Speaker:that than if you're doing, you know, a catalog thing
Speaker:that has already had a shelf life. That's an
Speaker:interesting angle. Yeah. Yeah. So there's certain things that, you
Speaker:know, I mean, I've kind
Speaker:of done that in the past anyway. Like, in the past, like, if I'm doing
Speaker:a music for a tv commercial, I'm probably gonna listen to it
Speaker:on tv type speakers. Right. If I'm doing something,
Speaker:like, when I used to do all those things for Apple, like the performance things,
Speaker:I knew they were only gonna be played on Apple Music, you know,
Speaker:so it was never gonna be released to radio or whatever. So I spent a
Speaker:little more time caring about, like, earbuds and
Speaker:laptop speakers and stuff like that because I knew 99% of the people
Speaker:were going to listen on that only because it was only available
Speaker:there. You know, if I'm mixing something for theatrical release,
Speaker:I want to hear it on big speakers because I know it's going to be,
Speaker:you know, I'm mixing a thing now for a guy. It's a
Speaker:private thing, a personal project. But this guy has. He's a guy
Speaker:with probably way too much money, and he's got a
Speaker:big, huge home theater thing that he wants this project
Speaker:to play in. So I gotta make sure that it plays well on a
Speaker:big, huge system. This project is not being
Speaker:designed to play on headphones. It's being designed to play in his big
Speaker:home theater. So I mix it for the home theater. So in a way, you
Speaker:have to mix for what people are gonna hear
Speaker:it on. That's true, you know, which is what we've always
Speaker:done. Yeah. Why? Why would we stop? I don't know why Atmos makes us all
Speaker:want to stop and change, change shit around. Ultimately, I want to make a good
Speaker:sounding record. Yeah. You know, I never once saw
Speaker:Al put on a set of earbuds and listen to a mix.
Speaker:You know, if you're going to listen on a crappy system, that's your problem,
Speaker:not mine. Yeah, I mean, I hope the mix stands up. I mean,
Speaker:you don't want to, you know, you want to make sure that the bass doesn't
Speaker:go away in headphones and stuff like that. But as in stereo,
Speaker:if you make a really good mix on a good set of speakers, it should
Speaker:translate. Yeah, yeah, agreed. Um, I
Speaker:don't. I don't want to talk all about Atmos. I I'll just throw out there
Speaker:that Steve has done so many amazing interviews.
Speaker:Working class audio. He's been on there a couple times, and recording studio, rockstars,
Speaker:both of those. There's lots of atmos stuff in there. But Steve also
Speaker:does normal records. Normal,
Speaker:normal, normal. And, uh, tons
Speaker:of jazz, big band, orchestral. Like. You're really a
Speaker:top tier tracking engineer and mixer. You've learned from the best.
Speaker:Still my favorite thing to do. I'd much rather be in the studio, recording.
Speaker:Yeah. That's what I wanted to ask you about, is, I feel like the
Speaker:thing that you enjoy the most is becoming this lost art because
Speaker:of just the way studios are working and the way production is done.
Speaker:Would you maybe enlighten people on how you
Speaker:approach some of these ensemble recordings where you have, you know, horns,
Speaker:string, you have a lot of players in one room. Are you
Speaker:thinking about isolation or not? Isolation. How is that going into you? Like, your
Speaker:mic choices and your mic placement? What's that mindset? Like, when you're about to do
Speaker:the thing that you do? So the first
Speaker:thing is sessions like that, which are, again, like I said, are
Speaker:my favorite things to do. I always tell the more people you put out in
Speaker:that room, the happier I am. But
Speaker:it does come with a different set of, I won't say
Speaker:problems, because they're not problems. It's just a different set of issues.
Speaker:Yeah. And most of that
Speaker:is preparation. So when I get a
Speaker:gig, you know, and it was the
Speaker:same when I was working with Al. He would do it, or we would do
Speaker:it together. It's. You get the job, you find out what it is,
Speaker:and then there's a few questions you have to ask, like, okay,
Speaker:what is this for? Is it. Well, yeah. What is
Speaker:it for? Is this for a movie? Is it for an album? Is it for
Speaker:what? Is it. Okay, it's for an album. Okay, great. We're gonna do an album.
Speaker:So, do we have a singer? Yes, we have a singer. Is that
Speaker:singer. The singer that's gonna be on the record. Or is it a guide
Speaker:vocal or are we. Do we want keeper
Speaker:takes for this? Is it strictly, you know, a guide
Speaker:vocal? Which it never is because, you know, how many times is
Speaker:that guide vocal been the one? And then,
Speaker:you know, are we overdubbing solos or are we doing live
Speaker:solos? Are we, you know, is. Well, in this case, the
Speaker:artist is a piano player. Are they going to want to replace their piano
Speaker:parts later? You know, stuff like that? That's the kind of information
Speaker:I need to know that will inform me about how to set
Speaker:up the room. Now, usually if it's a big band or an orchestral thing, you
Speaker:know, you're not going to split the big band up. They, they go as
Speaker:a. That's a, that's one. One whole team. You know, it's. It's all
Speaker:live, basically. You know, we might isolate, you know, put the drums in a booth
Speaker:and isolate the bass as much as we can, but they're usually in
Speaker:the room and, you know, or close to the room and playing at
Speaker:the same time. If, if we get isolation, it's more,
Speaker:you know, the drums sound better if they're not bleeding into every single microphone and,
Speaker:you know, the bass sounds better if all the horns aren't bleeding into the bass
Speaker:mic and stuff like that, you can get more definition. So, so
Speaker:isolation in that situation is more for that kind of stuff. As far as,
Speaker:like a horn section. If you have five saxophones, you know, they're sitting right next
Speaker:to each other, you're not going to isolate those guys. So,
Speaker:I mean, I put a mic on all of them and that's so I can
Speaker:do minor balance things. But nine times out
Speaker:of ten, those mics are probably all in omni anyways because the mics sound better
Speaker:and the leakage sounds better. And so it's a
Speaker:section, and then how I set them up is
Speaker:more. A lot of that is about
Speaker:visual sight lines. Make sure everybody can see, make sure they can
Speaker:hear. If you're dealing with a big band or an orchestra or something, a lot
Speaker:of what they're hearing is in the room that usually they only have one headset
Speaker:on. So they're balancing themselves. They need to hear each other in the room
Speaker:because that's how they balance, especially a string section. You know, they want to hear
Speaker:each other and they'll. And they'll do a lot of the balancing
Speaker:themselves. So a lot of it happens before the session.
Speaker:I mean, you were on a million sessions with us where, you know, you were
Speaker:there the whole night before setting that room up. And that was, you
Speaker:know, we were already mixing just by how we set the room up. You
Speaker:know, at capital was interesting because we had the two rooms also, so
Speaker:we could have a rhythm section, a big band, and a whole string
Speaker:section playing at the same time, but have the strings completely isolated because we could
Speaker:put them in studio b and close the glass. You know, that's a very unique
Speaker:situation. Yeah. So, again, if we don't have that situation, okay, well, we
Speaker:want everybody together. Well, how are we going to manage this? Because now we got
Speaker:strings and horns in the same room and, you know, okay, do I put the
Speaker:horns in front of the strings? Do I put the strings back there? Do I
Speaker:put, you know, like, Tommy Vaccari and I just had the big discussion because we
Speaker:did the oscars, you know, a couple weeks ago. We have strings and horns in
Speaker:the same room at Warner Brothers. How are we going to do that? You know,
Speaker:are we going to, again, do the strings go behind? Do we put one on
Speaker:this side and one on that side? How are you going to do it? And
Speaker:it depends on a lot of it depends on where it's going and what it's
Speaker:being used for. But by the time we get to the actual recording
Speaker:session, that should all be taken care of, and it's
Speaker:already predetermine. What's gonna happen? Like,
Speaker:we just did a. Or we just actually, we just won a Grammy for the
Speaker:count Basie record that I did, like, a year ago. Congrats. Thank you.
Speaker:But on that record, I knew there was gonna be guests artists, so we
Speaker:had singers to sing live, but I knew
Speaker:that most of those singers were gonna be replaced with guests.
Speaker:So it wasn't about keeping the band out of the vocal. It was about
Speaker:keeping the vocal out of the band because I had to take it all out.
Speaker:And we were at East west studio one, which is a
Speaker:great room. It's, you know, big, but there's no really isolated vocal
Speaker:booth in that room. So I had the singers in the lounge
Speaker:outside. But again, that was the necessity. I had
Speaker:to be able to take that vocal completely out. You know, there
Speaker:were a couple things where we were going to have a different guitar player play
Speaker:on it. It was like, all right, well, just don't, you know, we just tell
Speaker:the guitar player, just don't play on this. You know, maybe he plays the rundown
Speaker:so everybody can hear what it's going to be, and then it's like, all right,
Speaker:just don't play because you're going to bleed into everybody else, and I can't get
Speaker:rid of it. So solos are big things a lot
Speaker:of times, especially in big band records, it'll be, all right, let's play it down
Speaker:once. Okay, now play it down, but don't play any of the
Speaker:solos. And then we'll. We'll get the track, and then it's like,
Speaker:okay, do the solos now, you know? All right, go back, do
Speaker:the alto solo, do the trumpet solo. Okay, but we're not going to come back
Speaker:two days from now and overdub it. You're going to do it right now. So
Speaker:in the seat that you were in. Exactly. And at that point,
Speaker:depending on how ambient the sound is, I might record
Speaker:all the mics again just to grab that solo. That's true.
Speaker:That's true. In pro tools now we can do. But that's how you get to
Speaker:200 tracks really quickly. Yeah, but that is a. That's
Speaker:a super pro move that 99.9% of
Speaker:people would not think about because you need that thing to sound the same. And
Speaker:if you got five guys that lay out, those mics don't exist anymore, it's going
Speaker:to be a different tone. So. Exactly. Depending on what it is, I might do,
Speaker:like, okay, do the room mics and that one mic, right. Or something
Speaker:like that. May not have to do the drum mics and all that kind of
Speaker:stuff. Or. Or it'll be like, oh, there's the
Speaker:intro and the outro, the saxes are all
Speaker:playing flutes, quiet flutes. All right, don't play that
Speaker:part. And then we'll go back and I'll raise the mics up and then
Speaker:record all of the horn mics again, and we'll just punch it, you know, or
Speaker:overdub those flute parts so that we can get a. You know, because
Speaker:if the trumpets are wailing away, you're not going to hear two flutes,
Speaker:you know, so we do do stuff like that quite a
Speaker:bit. That is something that's like, you know, because since I left capital, it's
Speaker:just, you know, I'm either mixing my house or it's a pop session. And the.
Speaker:The preparation level is so. I'm not say
Speaker:preparation level. Preparation expectations are so different. Like those
Speaker:sessions that you would do at capital. When I was working there, like you
Speaker:said, everything was sorted out before everybody walked in the room,
Speaker:and everything now is so I've got my keyboard, my laptop.
Speaker:You've got the vocal mic. Like, we're going to make something. There's zero
Speaker:preparation other than, like, plugging the five things in. Right. And so I think
Speaker:communication is huge because whenever I do work with an artist now
Speaker:and they want to do like multiple things, they're like, I'm going to be able
Speaker:to redo the guitar. And I'm like, no, you can't because, you know, you're both
Speaker:in here. Right? So many people don't understand that.
Speaker:That just because the microphone is here, that doesn't mean that
Speaker:if my daughter was over there that it wouldn't hear, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Communication is huge. And sometimes
Speaker:education is huge. Yeah, yes. And politely
Speaker:educating. There's something else that you need to understand how to like
Speaker:help everybody understand the situation in a, you know, non condescending
Speaker:manner, which. Yeah, psychology. A lot of it is
Speaker:psychology and people skills. Yep. You know, I mean at capital we
Speaker:hired people based on the people, not what they knew,
Speaker:you know, I mean, when we were hiring runners, set up
Speaker:people, you know, I didn't, you know, I would look at a resume,
Speaker:be like, all right, whatever, you know, the resume would be, you know, I use,
Speaker:I know how to use pro tools and I know how to use the SSL
Speaker:and I know how, and I would look at the resume and go, why has
Speaker:this guy had twelve crappy jobs in the last two years? You
Speaker:know, what is it about this person that he can't hold a job
Speaker:at the pizza place? At the pizza place, yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Cause if you're an asshole at the pizza place, well,
Speaker:you're probably gonna be an asshole at the studio too. That's true. That's
Speaker:true. Cause you're gonna be in a room with people way longer at the studio
Speaker:than you are at the pizza place. Right. And you know, I can teach you
Speaker:how to use a neve console, you know, and as a setup person,
Speaker:I don't care if, you know, pro tools, you're not gonna be asked to run
Speaker:pro tools.
Speaker:Yeah, it's true. I mean, if it's a good thing to know, I mean,
Speaker:obviously the more, you know, coming in, the quicker you can make it through
Speaker:the system. Right. You know? Right. But again, when
Speaker:you, if you working at a place like capital, you know, when we hire
Speaker:you, we're going to teach you how to make the coffee because we want you
Speaker:to make the coffee the way we want the coffee made. Yeah. You know, and
Speaker:this is how you wind up cables because this is how we wind up the
Speaker:cables here. And there's a reason for that. It's so that everybody
Speaker:so that this guy isn't tangling up all the cables that this guy wrapped up
Speaker:over there, you know? Yeah. You know, there's that
Speaker:thing of, you know, if you screw up my lunch order every day, how am
Speaker:I going to trust you to run my pro tool session, you know? Yep. Or
Speaker:do my. Do my patches or whatever it is. It's like, yeah, studios are
Speaker:all about. The little levels of
Speaker:detail, about detail and responsibility. That's the word
Speaker:I was looking for, responsibility. Okay, you did this, you can do
Speaker:that. You did this, you can do that. You know, the setup staff was
Speaker:just as important as the engineering staff, was just as important as the tech staff,
Speaker:and just as important as the office staff. And, you know, especially at capital,
Speaker:because the setup staff was responsible for setting up the rooms,
Speaker:you know, even though, yes, during the day, they were runners.
Speaker:But, you know, the majority of the work the setup
Speaker:staff did was setting up those rooms. And if it was done,
Speaker:you know, if you missed, if you're setting up 50 or 60
Speaker:mics and your input sheet is all screwed
Speaker:up, that's going to take a session down for 45 minutes
Speaker:in the morning. That's a huge
Speaker:deal. Yeah, it is.
Speaker:I always liked the night shift because I like setting everything up when we were
Speaker:at capital, and I used to love to come in the next day
Speaker:and see where, where everything was, like, how far did it
Speaker:move? Okay, next time this engineer's here, I'm going to try to put it closer
Speaker:to where he puts it. That was my game, too, at capital.
Speaker:Yeah. Like, set it up and see how it moved. You know, it's
Speaker:how you learn how. To do it without being in there to watch. Exactly. Or
Speaker:try to anticipate, like, you know. Cause a lot of times the
Speaker:drawings were, you know, we would give you guys drawings that were just chicken scratch.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. And, you know, you as a setup person, have to interpret
Speaker:the chicken scratch into exactly what we wanted,
Speaker:which, I mean, you figure out after a month or
Speaker:so, oh, this is what a big band session looks like. I mean,
Speaker:it was fun. The staff at capital, nobody ever left.
Speaker:So there were times where we had the same setup people for years
Speaker:where I could make a phone call and go, Travis, it's a big band setup
Speaker:for Monday. Just do the thing. And you knew what it was.
Speaker:I didn't have to tell you, you know,
Speaker:it's that kind of thing. Just give me a vocal setup with a 47. Okay,
Speaker:great. Yeah. You know. You know what that means? I don't have to go into
Speaker:the detail of the whole thing. Yeah. But I also did it when I became
Speaker:an assistant engineer. It was still kind of like when I would
Speaker:work with Al. I would get in the mornings and I would set up a
Speaker:mix for him. You know, we had the console patch and everything. And I'd,
Speaker:you know, I'd kind of get a balance going of
Speaker:the song. And, I mean, I wasn't automating faders or anything
Speaker:like that, but especially as I got more comfortable with Alan, he
Speaker:got more comfortable with me. I could take that a little farther. Cause, you know,
Speaker:but my game was, let's see if I can get in early,
Speaker:get a really good mix up, and then see what he changes
Speaker:to. Make it an Al Schmidt mix, you know, and, I mean,
Speaker:honestly, there were a couple times where he came in, he was like, pretty good.
Speaker:Just turn on your automation. Let's go. You know, it's like, yes, okay. You
Speaker:know, then he automated and it became his mix. Right. Because that
Speaker:was, that was his thing. It was. Or, you know, or he pushed and pulled
Speaker:a little, like, it's pretty good. And he'd push and pull a couple little things
Speaker:here and there, you know, so it was never like,
Speaker:okay, print it. You know, there's always something to do.
Speaker:But that was my, that was my game. That's how I learned. Well, it's a
Speaker:great way to learn, and it's. I don't know, I think it's the best way
Speaker:to learn. I'm biased because that's, that's how I did it as well.
Speaker:But just to, to highlight for listeners like you, you
Speaker:might, you know, have an internship in your town or you might go to
Speaker:school, whether it's expensive or not, take. Go to a program, and then when you
Speaker:go to one of these facilities, you, you have
Speaker:to remember that you've been given, like, the, the
Speaker:baseline to keep up, but that you're really going to
Speaker:learn the real deal when you're working with the people that are working
Speaker:every day. So just remember that, like, you only have the tools to learn. You
Speaker:don't actually have the, you know, the full skillset
Speaker:yet. You can really only learn by watching.
Speaker:Yeah. And doing it. And, you know, and
Speaker:the other thing is that, you know, like,
Speaker:how many times have we run into, you know, oh, we had, we
Speaker:had a neve console at our school. It was like, great. And they look at
Speaker:it and go, oh, we never use it in this mode.
Speaker:Right. Well, yeah, well, but tomorrow we're going to use
Speaker:it in the other mode, and a week from now, we're going to use it
Speaker:in broadcast mode and in a week, so. Oh, I know how
Speaker:to run pro tools. That's great. We don't want to do that on this
Speaker:session. We're not going to record in playlists. We're going to record
Speaker:linear, no, click with an ed. You know,
Speaker:and they look at you and it's like, well, that's what you have to learn
Speaker:how to do because every session is different. You know,
Speaker:I. I was just. I was just talking to a
Speaker:bunch of young staff engineers at a studio, and
Speaker:they have a new Neve 88 r console that they just installed. And. And even
Speaker:the guy who ran the studio was like, can I ask you a question? Yeah.
Speaker:How do you do this? And I was like, well, what am I doing? And
Speaker:he was like, what do you mean? He was like, how do you do the
Speaker:headphones for this? I said, what are we doing? Is it tracking date? Is it
Speaker:an overdub? Is it like, I had ten different ways I can run the headphone
Speaker:mix depending on how many I need and who's doing it.
Speaker:And is it stereo, is it mono, is it tracking? Is it overdubbing? And they
Speaker:were like, oh, my God. But that's what you learn
Speaker:working at a big studio like that is how to be flexible and
Speaker:how to do all those different things, how to adapt. Yeah.
Speaker:There's one other question I wanted to ask you. You mentioned vocals earlier. You mentioned,
Speaker:alright, every time I ever
Speaker:saw Al record a vocal, he rode every word of every
Speaker:take. Yep. Two tape. Yep. Can
Speaker:you talk to young engineers about why somebody
Speaker:would do that? And maybe, is there like a 2024
Speaker:version of that technique that. That you could suggest? Yeah,
Speaker:I still do it every session.
Speaker:People, it kind of freaks people out sometimes because they're like, it's to
Speaker:tape, though. You're committing it. It's like, well, yeah, you're committing it. It's okay. Commit.
Speaker:Make a decision. And when we talk about it,
Speaker:it's not like we're doing 20 decibels rides. It's subtle
Speaker:stuff. I mean, sometimes it can be more, but, yeah,
Speaker:so basically, when the singer's out there, you're learning the
Speaker:song, you're learning it with them. A lot of it is visual.
Speaker:Like if you can see the singer. Cause then if you see him back
Speaker:up and wind up for a big one, you know they're gonna get loud. It's
Speaker:like you pull the vader down. So, you know, the thing with Al
Speaker:and, you know, subsequently with me, because I learned from those guys,
Speaker:is you know, he relied very little on compression. You know, that
Speaker:compressor, man, if he was compressing something three decibels, that was
Speaker:crushing it. And his compressor was pre
Speaker:fader, so he would set the mic pre up, so edit the loud
Speaker:parts. You know, it would hit, you know, two or three decibels,
Speaker:but that meant at the soft parts, it wasn't compressing at all. So essentially,
Speaker:when the singer was sitting, you know, the beginning of the song, the
Speaker:intro, the first verse, you know, the fader might be up, you
Speaker:know, four or five decibels. And then as the song progresses and gets louder,
Speaker:they, you know, or there's that one word that they sing really loud every time.
Speaker:Well, you know where that is? And you just pull the fader back a couple.
Speaker:You know, you're talking about a threshold of maybe four or five
Speaker:decibels in there, but that way.
Speaker:Well, two things. One, they're hearing that too.
Speaker:So their vocal is. It's. It's mixing,
Speaker:essentially. Yeah. Their vocals smooth out. And with Al
Speaker:not only vocals, we were doing it on sessions, like in a horn
Speaker:section and, you know, trumpets. You know, when you saw Al moving faders, it
Speaker:was going to tape. So, you know, the trumpets put their mutes in. Well, you
Speaker:know, when the mutes go in, they're going to be. Tend to be quieter, you
Speaker:know, so you jam the fader up for that part and then you pull it
Speaker:back down and they take the mutes out. It's all that kind of stuff. And
Speaker:then, you know, certainly when it comes to
Speaker:mixing, it's a lot easier because you've already done half the
Speaker:moves. But, yeah, I mean, it's harder these
Speaker:days, especially if you're in a room that doesn't have a console because you don't
Speaker:have that fader in front of you. But a lot of
Speaker:preamps, you know, if there's a knob on the output
Speaker:of that preamp, that's a fader, essentially. So I'll do it with that.
Speaker:The output of a compressor, you know, I'll lean over and just. Just
Speaker:ride the output of the compressor. As long as it doesn't make noise and all
Speaker:that kind of stuff. A lot of what I do now, like, I
Speaker:do a version of that now when I'm mixing, I'll get stuff in
Speaker:to mix that's been recorded in, you know, small studio, home studio, no
Speaker:fader, whatever, straight into pro tools. A lot of times there's no
Speaker:compression on it, but they will have heard compression in the. In the
Speaker:session. So there might be a compressor on the vocal, so
Speaker:everybody's hearing it nice and upfront and in your face, and
Speaker:dynamics are under control and all that stuff, but it's not being recorded that way.
Speaker:Yeah. So when I get it and I take that compressor off, suddenly, you know,
Speaker:you look at the waveforms and it's like the beginning is like this, and then
Speaker:it goes like this, and then it's like this, and then it's like this, you
Speaker:know. Well, now if I want to put a little bit of compression on it,
Speaker:you know, I'm only going to compress the loud part or I'm going to, you
Speaker:know, so what I'll do is I'll spend like, I'll
Speaker:get a basic mix up and then I'll go to the vocal, and before I
Speaker:put anything on it, no compression, no eq, nothing, I'll do a couple
Speaker:passes of automation just to get it to
Speaker:sit, to bring the loud parts down, to bring the quiet
Speaker:parts up. Then I'll take that automation and convert it to clip gain.
Speaker:Well, now I have an audio file that's
Speaker:got those rides in it. Now I can put my compressor on there, have it
Speaker:compressed to three decibels, whatever it is, and everything's kind of,
Speaker:you know, then I can put my processing on it like that. So that's, that's
Speaker:a real, like, it's become a basic
Speaker:part of my mixing nowadays is that first couple of passes of
Speaker:automation with no processing at all on it, then I put the processing on
Speaker:it. That volume automation transition to clip gain
Speaker:is. I don't think people know that you can do that in
Speaker:pro tools. For anybody listening, that is not in pro tools, sorry. Yeah, well, it
Speaker:used to be, you had to, it had to be hd like the other versions
Speaker:of Pro tools couldn't. But that's not that way anymore. I see every version now.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I do it all the time. Or just clip game. Once clip
Speaker:game came into pro tools, half my automation went out the window.
Speaker:Oh yeah, oh yeah. That guitar line's too loud. Just click game
Speaker:that thing down. It's great. Yeah. Cause then if you wanna
Speaker:trim the whole thing, you don't have to flip to trim, you can just push
Speaker:the fader half a DB and. Exactly. The thing to remember is clip gain is
Speaker:pre processing. Yeah. So it's pre compression,
Speaker:pre eq, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, you can't just
Speaker:go, oh, the vocal needs to be louder and clip gain the whole thing up
Speaker:five decibels, because now you're hitting your compressor five decibels. Louder. Or you
Speaker:can. It's okay. I so
Speaker:badly just want to talk about gain staging and how. How it can just
Speaker:go so far south if you don't understand what's down chain from something.
Speaker:But that's like a whole other podcast episode. We'll just. We'll just, like, let that.
Speaker:We'll let that go. We'll pretend you didn't bring it up. Obviously, it makes me
Speaker:feisty, but that. Gets back to the, like, being an assistant
Speaker:and the recording process and all that is what's happening down
Speaker:the line. Yeah. You know, if you lean over and click that mic preamp.
Speaker:Well, is. Are you now just driving your compressor harder? You
Speaker:know, where. Where are you going to make up your gain? Yeah. Where do you
Speaker:need to do that? You know, if you're riding gain, like we talked about
Speaker:riding, you know, a vocal, well, if you're doing that into a
Speaker:compressor, you're just riding more compression, less compression, you're
Speaker:not riding the actual gain. So just
Speaker:the number of auxes that will come in on a session or something, or when
Speaker:you open some, you can just be like, oh, my God, how is this happening?
Speaker:But whatever. I mean, if it sounds great, however you get there is fine, as
Speaker:long as you understand what you're doing along the way, I think,
Speaker:is what's important. Well, it used to be easy. Signal flow is easy. We used
Speaker:to say there's goes ins and goes outs. Everything goes into something, and it goes
Speaker:out of that thing. It was a line. I mean, it
Speaker:might have gone into a million different things, but it went into that and out
Speaker:of that and into that and out of that, and it did the same thing
Speaker:inside of a console, into this, into that, into that. So once you understood
Speaker:that it was great with pro tools, it can be a little.
Speaker:A little difficult. Well, actually, in pro tools, it still does the same
Speaker:thing. You're still going in and out of stuff. It's when you get into
Speaker:Dante, that's a whole nother Dante.
Speaker:Okay, so before you go, I can't let you leave.
Speaker:I know you've told the story, but it's just. It's so good. I can't let
Speaker:you leave without talking about recording strings for the final Beatles
Speaker:song. You worked on a Beatles track. You have to bring it up on the
Speaker:show. Those are the rules. That's cool. I'm good with that.
Speaker:Yeah, it was fun. So, you know, I'd worked
Speaker:with Paul a few times, you know, with Al and Tommy. We'd done a
Speaker:few projects together. So working with Paul was not,
Speaker:you know, a new thing. And I got a call from Paula, the studio
Speaker:manager at Capital. Oh, hey, I just booked you for a string
Speaker:date for Paul in, like a month or whatever it was. Oh, okay,
Speaker:great. You know who's producing? Giles is producing. Okay, great. I know Giles. You know
Speaker:Giles Martin. Okay. Do you know what it is? They said, it's just a string
Speaker:date. It's on a weekend in like a month. Okay, cool.
Speaker:So we get closer, and I called Giles, you know, hey,
Speaker:string date this weekend. What are we doing? He says, oh, yeah, yeah, it's just
Speaker:a string day. It's a song for Paul. We're going
Speaker:to come in on Saturday, and Paul's going to come in, and we're going to
Speaker:go over the arrangement, just the mock up arrangement with Ben, who was
Speaker:Ben Foster, who was the string arranger. So we'll do that
Speaker:and some other stuff on Saturday, and then we'll do the strings on Sunday.
Speaker:Okay, cool. It was one of the last sessions at capital,
Speaker:and ironically, like, the week before was when we found out we were
Speaker:all getting laid off, which was kind of fun. So it was like
Speaker:dead man walking all over the place, right? Oh, and Giles said, oh, and I
Speaker:have a breakfast meeting, so I'm going to drop the drive off on
Speaker:Friday night with security. So just
Speaker:get it in the morning and set up, and I'll be there like,
Speaker:noon. I said, okay. So Chandler Herod is one of the other
Speaker:capital engineers. He was going to be my pro tools operator on the session, so
Speaker:he got there before I did because, you know, you never want to.
Speaker:Can't let the engineer beat you there. So when I
Speaker:walked in, he had already grabbed the drive and grabbed the track and was
Speaker:setting up to record. And when I walked in, he had a
Speaker:look on his face, and I was just like, oh, shit, like
Speaker:what? You know? And he just went, do you know what we're working
Speaker:on? I said, no. Some song for Paul is what I was
Speaker:told. Why? And he hit play, and a voice came out of the
Speaker:speakers, and it was definitely not Paul McCartney. It was
Speaker:most definitely John Lennon. It's amazing. And it was kind of garbly with
Speaker:a piano, but it was definitely John, you know? And I was like,
Speaker:that's not Paul. He's like, nope, it's not. And I said.
Speaker:And then he played. He said, listen to this. And he played some guitars.
Speaker:I was like, is that who I think it is? And he went,
Speaker:says, george guitar right here. I was like, we're not working
Speaker:on a Paul McCartney track. Are we. He said, nope. We're working on a Beatles
Speaker:track. I was like, amazing. Okay, now, you
Speaker:know, and so, like, a half hour later, hour later, whatever
Speaker:Giles shows up, you know, comes in the control, like,
Speaker:giles, like, what are we doing? He was like, oh, you've heard the
Speaker:track. Like, yeah, we've heard the track.
Speaker:He said, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, oh, by the way, you guys have to
Speaker:sign these NDAs right now. So, you know, nobody can know about
Speaker:this. As far as anybody's concerned, it's just a track for
Speaker:Paul. So the only people that knew what we were doing were in the control
Speaker:room. It's amazing. And then. So then Paul showed the
Speaker:cool part. Paul showed up that day, you know, the Saturday where we were just
Speaker:gonna listen so, you know,
Speaker:do all the pleasantries and all that fun stuff, and went over the
Speaker:arrangement, the mock up of the arrangement. Cause Paul hadn't heard it, you know. Oh,
Speaker:yeah, it'd be nice. Put the strings here, maybe not there. Do this thing here.
Speaker:All that kind of stuff. Took like, an hour or so, whatever. And then
Speaker:Giles says, all right, well, let's pull up the other thing, and you can listen
Speaker:to those. To which Chandler and I were like, other thing we didn't know about.
Speaker:Another thing, we're kind of freaking out. Like, what's this other thing you didn't tell
Speaker:us about another thing is there. He said, no, no, we just have to listen
Speaker:to some mixes. He said, it's all in pro tools. Don't worry about it. It's
Speaker:just, you know, I can do it. Well, it was
Speaker:Paul listening to the new revolver
Speaker:mixes. Oh, wow. Stereo. There were stereo mixes, not atmos,
Speaker:which was so fun, because we got to sit with Paul and, like,
Speaker:basically go over the mixes of revolver. And such a good record.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, it's great. But it was the Peter Jackson source separation stuff that he
Speaker:had done. So I got to solo some of that stuff and listen to the
Speaker:separated parts and all that kind of stuff. So that was fun. But again,
Speaker:the whole Capitol crew's out setting up the room. They're setting up for strings.
Speaker:All the other. Anytime Paul's there, it was like, for some
Speaker:reason, the whole staff was there on a Saturday, it was, you know, oh, I
Speaker:forgot my jacket. Oh, I'm. You know, oh, I have to do something
Speaker:for, you know. But. But none of them knew what we were doing. Only me
Speaker:and Chandler. Paula didn't even know what we were doing. That's amazing. So then
Speaker:the next day, the string play, you know, was a string date, and
Speaker:Paul was there early. String players start coming in. They know it's
Speaker:a Paul McCartney session. They've been prepped. It's a song for Paul, you know,
Speaker:no pictures, all that kind of stuff. Here's the NDAs to sign, all
Speaker:that. But Paul's there when the string players show up, and he was out in
Speaker:the room and having fun and talking to them. And, you know, everybody's having a
Speaker:good time. You know, we do the session, all they hear
Speaker:is drums, bass, piano. No vocals, nothing
Speaker:like that. The chart, actually, I still have my chart that, you know,
Speaker:that I had. It's hanging on my wall now, you know, had a different name
Speaker:on it. The song title was different. It just said Paul McCartney.
Speaker:So they didn't know what they were playing on. So, you know, we did
Speaker:the string date. It took, you know, a couple hours or whatever. Everything's great.
Speaker:Thanks a lot. Hugs and kisses. Everybody leaves.
Speaker:Chandler and I look at each other, high five. Like, holy shit, we just did
Speaker:a Beatles song. It's amazing, but we can't talk about it.
Speaker:Like, I think my wife knew. Obviously, I had to tell her. I had to
Speaker:tell somebody, and it just went away.
Speaker:Yeah. And then we closed capital for the renovations and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And every now and then, I'd go online and
Speaker:search Paul McCartney or Beatles or nothing. I'm like.
Speaker:And after, like, a year or so, I was like, it must have gotten
Speaker:shelved. Maybe it didn't. Maybe they weren't able to separate the vocal enough,
Speaker:you know, who knows, right? But obviously, nothing's
Speaker:happened. And I got an
Speaker:email one morning. It was like a Friday, Thursday or Friday
Speaker:morning or something, and it was from a journalist, and it
Speaker:was a journal. It was a name I knew he was an audio journalist.
Speaker:And in the email, it said something like, hey, I got your
Speaker:name from. And it listed a bunch of names. I want to talk to you
Speaker:about this new Beatles song. And I was like, uh oh.
Speaker:Like, well, and actually, before
Speaker:that, the thing had come out where Paul McCartney had talked about a
Speaker:Beatles track and using AI, which it really wasn't, and all this.
Speaker:So I was like, oh, it must. That must be it.
Speaker:But nobody knew when it was coming out. So at least at that point, I
Speaker:was like, okay, it's coming. Like, at some point,
Speaker:this is gonna come out because Paul's talking about it, sort of cryptically
Speaker:talking about it. So I got this email from the journalist, and the names in
Speaker:the email lined up like it was the right record company.
Speaker:People. So I immediately reached out to one of those people and I was
Speaker:like, hey, I just got this email. And they were like, yeah, yeah, he's under
Speaker:the NDAs. He's doing a piece for us. You can tell him any, you know,
Speaker:he knows. You can tell him anything you want. Yeah, do the interview. That's great.
Speaker:Okay. So I call, you know. Okay, yeah, when you want to talk, let's talk
Speaker:Monday morning. Okay, great. He calls me, I do the interview,
Speaker:tell him the story, the whole thing. And I said, hey,
Speaker:by the way, when do you know when this comes out? And he
Speaker:goes, yeah, Thursday. I was like, what?
Speaker:He says, yeah, it comes out on Thursday. I was like, he's like, there's gonna
Speaker:be a video and then the song will be released Thursday on
Speaker:Apple. I think it's apple music. I think it was a big apple thing.
Speaker:Okay, great. So now I'm kind of excited. Now I'm like, oh, great. You know,
Speaker:it's finally going to come out, but I still can't talk about it. Right? You
Speaker:know, because nobody. I called Chandler. I think I was like, dude, it's coming out.
Speaker:Because he knew about it. That's great. So Thursday
Speaker:came, like that morning, you know, I rolled out of bed early
Speaker:and first thing I did was write to Apple. I'm like, is it out? Is
Speaker:it out? Is it out? Is it out? You know? And the video was out.
Speaker:There's like a twelve minute video or something they did. And the song is out.
Speaker:And I'm like, oh, cool, it's out. And then I started getting text
Speaker:messages and Facebook
Speaker:because the string players
Speaker:who were on the session, they saw themselves in the
Speaker:video. And that was the first inkling they had
Speaker:that it was a Beatles track. They had no idea. So I was
Speaker:getting text messages, like, you knew, didn't you? Yeah, sorry. I
Speaker:knew. And again, remember, it had been like 18
Speaker:months. So people kind of forgot about it. They just thought it
Speaker:went away. It was like, oh, well, that was a fun day with Paul. But
Speaker:here it went away. So, yeah.
Speaker:And then I knew, because I knew this journalist. I knew I had a proper
Speaker:credit on the record, which was cool. So my
Speaker:daughter actually handles my website. So I saw the video. I saw it
Speaker:came out. I called her immediately. I was like, okay, make this change to the
Speaker:website. Go to the credits page and at the very top, write
Speaker:the Beatles ASAP. Do it right
Speaker:now. Exactly. Yeah. Whatever you're doing, stop and write
Speaker:that down. Oh, yeah. That is so good. So good.
Speaker:Yeah. So it was fun. So, yeah, got to work on. I have a credit,
Speaker:actually over here. I have little thing on my wall. I have. I bought a.
Speaker:I got a copy of the vinyl record and. Yeah, the insert that has my
Speaker:name on it and the sheet music from that day I have hanging on my
Speaker:wall over here. So amazing. I can. I can see Chandler's face too when you
Speaker:walk in. And I could just. I could picture it. So it's. It's so good.
Speaker:I was like, what is wrong? I thought, like, the stuff
Speaker:in that split second, the stuff going through my head that could be wrong
Speaker:was like, like, oh, shit.
Speaker:But this has been awesome. I'd love to keep chatting.
Speaker:I got two questions. You've been on the show before. I didn't bring that
Speaker:up. But I'm going to ask you the questions again because that's how we do
Speaker:things. We have rules here. I don't remember answering them last time. Well,
Speaker:I'm going to compare the answers, so we'll see. Yeah, if they're better on the
Speaker:last one. Just cut it into this one. Done.
Speaker:You were kind of touching on this, but was there ever a time in your
Speaker:career where you chose to redefine what success meant?
Speaker:Yes, because. Well, part of it is it got redefined for
Speaker:me because when I started, you know,
Speaker:I think at least being a young
Speaker:assistant or young runner or whatever, you know, I would see
Speaker:the engineers and the producers coming. You know, it was the big, famous guys with
Speaker:the racks of gear and all that stuff. And, you know, you wanted to be
Speaker:one of those guys, you know? And then
Speaker:there was a bit of a recession and the business
Speaker:changed quite a bit when pro tools and home studios and that
Speaker:kind of stuff came in. And I remember a time where I was on
Speaker:staff at capital thinking, still with the
Speaker:mindset of staff engineer,
Speaker:I haven't made it yet because I'm still working here doing
Speaker:this. Then at one point, I looked up and went, wow. I
Speaker:know a lot of guys who are doing that thing that I think I want
Speaker:to do and they're not working and
Speaker:they're, you know, and I have a job every day and I'm doing
Speaker:some pretty big stuff and I get to sit next to Al Schmidt every
Speaker:day. And, you know, this is pretty cool, actually.
Speaker:This staff job is a little bit. It's a little bit more
Speaker:than it was cracked up to be. So. So it
Speaker:became that. And then I realized as I did it longer
Speaker:that I didn't think that the goal of the game,
Speaker:at least for me, was not to be a big famous engineer. It was to
Speaker:work. I'd much rather be a working
Speaker:engineer than the guy who did that one
Speaker:famous record and never worked again.
Speaker:And it's funny in a way. I
Speaker:distinctly remember a time sitting at capital, where I was engineering for. It was
Speaker:a big orchestra out there, two rooms, strings,
Speaker:like the whole shoot and match. And I remember
Speaker:sitting at the console going, all right, this is what you wanted.
Speaker:You're the guy, and you're doing it now. And then I remember thinking, stop
Speaker:thinking this and do the job.
Speaker:And it was kind of like, okay, now you got there, now you have to
Speaker:stay there. It's true. Now you actually have to do
Speaker:it every single day. You have to do it, you know?
Speaker:Yeah. So. And not everything is Paul McCartney, you know.
Speaker:Not every day is, you know, very few of those days are like that,
Speaker:you know, most. You know. I mean, look,
Speaker:every mixer in the world, every engineer does. You do what
Speaker:shows up not every day as a big, famous, you know, rock star
Speaker:or whatever it is. Yeah. I mean, how many vanity records did Al
Speaker:Schmidt do? You know, some guy's rich guy's wife wants to
Speaker:sing. Great. Come on, you know?
Speaker:Well, you still get to do the thing you love. You still get to, like.
Speaker:You still get to work. You still get to maybe try something. You never
Speaker:know. Maybe you'll meet some guitar player that'll bring you a great gig down the
Speaker:line. Like, you just. You never know. Who knows? Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker:and those people get the same work ethic. They get the same job as the
Speaker:other people. You know, they may not come around again, but
Speaker:you may not want them to come around again sometimes. Totally.
Speaker:So, last question before we go is, what is your current biggest goal
Speaker:right now? And what's the next smallest step you. Take to go towards it,
Speaker:to keep working? There you go. It's funny
Speaker:now, you know, I don't have. I'm not a staff guy anymore. I'm an independent
Speaker:now. So, you know, it's just. Keep
Speaker:going. I still don't understand how I get
Speaker:jobs. You know, I
Speaker:answer an email or I answer the phone, and there's a job. So I
Speaker:guess people like what I do, or they like, you know, me better
Speaker:than they like somebody else or whatever it is. I don't know. Again, you know,
Speaker:I've been doing this for a while. I think I'm okay at what I do.
Speaker:So I'd like to keep working. I just. I
Speaker:love what I do. So there is no
Speaker:big goal, you know, to own a big studio or anything like that. Or
Speaker:I just. I kind of just want to keep doing what I'm doing and keep
Speaker:getting better at it and figuring it out. And there's
Speaker:always something to learn, and there's always a new artist to figure out, and
Speaker:there's, you know, as many times as you do it, something new comes up
Speaker:and you gotta, you know, pivot and work it out and.
Speaker:Yeah, or a new format to mix in. Yeah, or a new format to
Speaker:make. Exactly. Something like that. You know, there's all that. Yeah,
Speaker:or a new challenge. Like, whatever it is. Hey, you want to do this live
Speaker:tv show? Yeah, let's go do that. Yeah, whatever it is. I love doing stuff
Speaker:like this, you know, talking, passing on the knowledge, talking to people and
Speaker:teaching and that kind of stuff. Like, I don't want to be a teacher. Like,
Speaker:that's. That sounds like a real job. I don't want to do that.
Speaker:But there's always something fun, you know? Look, we also
Speaker:work in the arts. There's really interesting people we get to meet every single
Speaker:day. Not all of them are famous. Some. Sometimes the interesting people are
Speaker:not famous. Sometimes the famous people are not
Speaker:interesting. I guess what I really meant to say. But, yeah, there's
Speaker:always cool people to meet and, you know, you never know who
Speaker:you're gonna. I've met some very odd people in the recording. Like, not odd people,
Speaker:but people you wouldn't expect to meet in a recording studio, you know?
Speaker:I remember looking, I was doing a session with, like, a big
Speaker:thing, a big orchestra, like lots of moving parts. And I looked down and
Speaker:David Beckham sitting next to me, and I was like, what the
Speaker:hell? Like, but it was in the middle of a take, and I was kind
Speaker:of like, hi. He was like, hi. And then, like, I kept
Speaker:doing what I was doing, and then he was gone. Like, after the session, I
Speaker:was like, Paula, was that David Beckham? And she was like, yeah, he came with,
Speaker:knew somebody upstairs and they wanted to see the studio. And you were doing a
Speaker:session, and he was like, sorry, did we. I was like, no, but,
Speaker:you know, that kind of stuff happens.
Speaker:That's amazing. Yeah, you never know who you're going to run into.
Speaker:Yeah, well, that's awesome. That's the thing that's nice about
Speaker:when you work in one of those studios. It's like multiple rooms. There's just people
Speaker:in and out. You never know who's working on what. And it's
Speaker:that community aspect that I feel like people are missing out
Speaker:on in the home studio era, you know? Yeah. The
Speaker:learning process. Like, you know, you walk into a room after
Speaker:Ed Czerny's been in there, and you're like, is that how he mic the piano?
Speaker:Wow, that sounded great. I never would have thought of that, you know?
Speaker:So you pick up and learn, or whatever it is. So, I
Speaker:mean, how many times did Al get a job? Because we were in studio c,
Speaker:you know, the door would open, like, what are you guys doing next week? Nothing.
Speaker:You want to mix this record we're doing? Yeah, sure. Okay, great. We'll see you
Speaker:next week. Yeah. It used to happen all the time.
Speaker:Free advertising, being there. Yeah. You know, I
Speaker:mean, honestly, most of the jobs I got at capital was because I was sitting
Speaker:at capital. I was already there. So why not just use that?
Speaker:Just use him. He's already been sitting there. I mean,
Speaker:that's how it started. Yeah. When I started getting my own clients, that's
Speaker:what it was. Use the house guy. He's there. That's where so many of
Speaker:my clients came from. It's like, you meet him once, and then they want to
Speaker:work with you again. Then you take them with you when you leave. Don't
Speaker:tell anybody. Or then it was, you know,
Speaker:Al can't do something or journey can't do. Steve.
Speaker:He's great. He'll take care of you. Don't worry. And he's already there. Yeah, totally,
Speaker:totally. So, you know, it's stepping stones. It
Speaker:is. It's a long. It's. It's a long career. No matter what part of it
Speaker:you're in, it's. It's a. It's always, always a journey. And
Speaker:I've realized there's. There's no end game. It's. The end
Speaker:game is to keep working. Yeah. You know, just keep going.
Speaker:Keep doing. Just keep going. Yeah, there's no, like, okay, you've made it to the
Speaker:top of the mountain, now you're done. It's like,
Speaker:yeah, if you get to the top of the mountain, you probably immediately are sliding
Speaker:back down and you got to go up again. That's
Speaker:true. That's true. That's very true. And it's cyclical. You
Speaker:know, sometimes you're really busy, other times you're not busy. It's. It's.
Speaker:It's a weird business, but it's fun. Wouldn't do
Speaker:anything else, you know? I don't know how to do anything else. That's right. That's
Speaker:right, Steve. Tell people where they can find you.
Speaker:I'll put some links to some of your music and in your website. In
Speaker:the show notes, but whatever you want to share with people, go for it. You
Speaker:mean if I send you the links I was supposed to send you. I can
Speaker:find them? Yeah. I have a website, stevegenowick.com,
Speaker:that's, you know, I try to keep it updated somewhat, you
Speaker:know, Facebook and Instagram and that stuff. I don't post a lot, but I'm
Speaker:there. I'm not that hard to find. Yeah,
Speaker:I do. I have an apple playlist for Atmos stuff
Speaker:or have a bunch of the atmos mixes that I've done so I can give
Speaker:that to you and, you know, people can check out some of. The atmos
Speaker:stuff and I just gotta throw it out there. If you're gonna listen to some
Speaker:atmos stuff, definitely listen to Steve's, like, some of the best mixes
Speaker:on that playlist that I've heard. So if you wanna go to. If you
Speaker:wanna home base for fucking great Atmos mixes, start. Start with Steve's playlist and
Speaker:go out from there. There's some fun stuff in there. Yeah, man. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, thank you for taking the time, dude. It's good to see you. It's been
Speaker:absolutely too long, so. Yeah, I know. You were. You were a
Speaker:young pup when I met you. Now I'm getting
Speaker:a little old. I think I hired you. Yeah, you put. You were definitely in
Speaker:the meeting. I was there, yeah. No, I pretty much. I remember hiring you.
Speaker:Yeah. I don't think I fired you, though.
Speaker:No, no. It's always good
Speaker:to see you. It's always good to talk to.
