Bill Smith, Audio Engineer/Archivist – Part 2 of 2 – Insights In Sound 219 S22 E10

0:000 secondsWelcome to Insights and Sound, where we talk to the people behind the scenes, behind the technology, and behind the music. People you may not know, but you
0:088 secondsshould. [music] And please check out insightsandsound.com for a full list of our podcasts and YouTube series.
0:1616 secondsInsights and Sound is made possible with the support of our friends Obs Roland Aea Ribbon Mics, Session Wire, GC Pro, Customhouse.
0:3434 secondsWhen I got back from doing all that stuff, I called Al, right? It maybe 10. Yeah, somewhere. But I was back and forth though, right?
0:4545 secondsbecause there were weeks and stuff where nothing was really happening up there.
0:4949 secondsOkay. Right. And so, so it wasn’t like full on, right? I was back and forth to LA quite a bit, you know, and I would see Al and
0:5959 secondshang out and do, you know, come down and visit and all, you know, and then, you know, finally I called him when I got back. I called him up. Hey, what are
1:071 minute, 7 secondsyou, you know, I’m done with all that stuff up there. You know, what are you doing? Well, I’ve got this thing, you know, probably here, you know, at the V.
1:141 minute, 14 secondsto come down and hang out. Sure, fine. You know, come down and give me a hand.
1:181 minute, 18 secondsOkay. And I came down, you know, and and you know, we did whatever. Who the heck knows, you know, and uh
1:261 minute, 26 secondsat the end of the day, you know, what are you doing tomorrow? He says, I don’t know. What are we doing, man? I got this thing. Why don’t you come and give me a hand? Uhhuh.
1:341 minute, 34 secondsYeah. Okay, fine. The next day. And then it kind of just Yeah.
1:401 minute, 40 secondswent like that six days a week for like the next 10 years down. Okay. With me and him.
1:451 minute, 45 secondsAnd so we just, you know, Yeah. everywhere in to New York to Japan to I
1:531 minute, 53 secondsmean everywhere. We traveled all over the world, you know, and like countless numbers of records we did together, you
2:012 minutes, 1 secondknow, and uh just kind of fell into it like that again because, you know, uh we got on so well.
2:082 minutes, 8 secondsYou had that relationship already. We had a good relationship and he knew that I had his back. Yeah.
2:152 minutes, 15 secondsThat I had him covered. He He knew that even if he was to like fall over, you know, and or whatever, he walk out of
2:242 minutes, 24 secondsthe room that I could just sit down and keep going. Yeah. And no, it wouldn’t even be a bump.
2:302 minutes, 30 secondsYou know what I mean? you know, it was kind of like you had that trust that, you know, to the point when that’s why we were able to move and do records
2:382 minutes, 38 secondsvery very quickly and things like that. I mean, he worked very fast, but the two of us working together, it was just like, you know, you had that telepathy going.
2:482 minutes, 48 secondsI didn’t Yeah. I didn’t have to wait for him to ask for stuff. I just did it and we go like, “Here, this is it. Here it’s done. What’s that?” Yeah. Yeah. It’s
2:552 minutes, 55 secondshere. Okay. Great. You know, or he gave me free reign, you know? He and total trust, you know. Well, you earned it, too.
3:023 minutes, 2 secondsI like to think so, you know. So, we got along. Great. You know, a lot of times there was, you know, I’d just look at him and go like
3:093 minutes, 9 secondsor whatever. Okay. You know, or sometimes, you know, be whatever and I would just kind of lean over and like, you know, like the high hat on a drone
3:173 minutes, 17 secondsand I’d just go like and he would look at me and I go, “It’s okay.
3:223 minutes, 22 secondsDon’t worry.” And so, we got on really great. And then you know like I say 6 days a week for probably next 9 10 years
3:303 minutes, 30 secondsstraight man after that we did so many albums together. And then the time came obviously where you know it was sort of overdue anyway. I had been getting so
3:393 minutes, 39 secondsmany calls just to engineer stuff on my own. Okay.
3:433 minutes, 43 secondsFreelance wise out there that um you know the time and it was probably 10 maybe 10 years in total with him even
3:513 minutes, 51 secondsthrough capital and you know somewhere in there. Okay. Right. But you know 10 11 years um but I just at certain point
4:004 minutesI had to say boss you know I’m getting a lot of calls pal you know I love you but I gota I got to go.
4:094 minutes, 9 secondsIt got to be me you know. Yeah. And he knew, he understood, he knew that day was coming one day.
4:154 minutes, 15 secondsAnyway, you know, but back then in those years, I mean, all through like say the the
4:224 minutes, 22 secondsthis is probably the end of the 90s into the 2000s, right?
4:274 minutes, 27 secondsOkay. Right. All through that, I mean, he and I, we worked anywhere and everywhere, right?
4:324 minutes, 32 secondsRight. because you know a lot of the studios the quality of an assistant varies to right
4:404 minutes, 40 secondsbe kind about it. Okay. Uh and he wanted to bring his own guy with him.
4:444 minutes, 44 secondsWell, it was yeah more that you know it made his life easier. I had his back.
4:504 minutes, 50 secondsThere was it didn’t matter you know if you had someone who didn’t from the stu whatever studio wasn’t quite up to
4:584 minutes, 58 secondssnuff. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t a thing. Okay. Plus, as I said, there was the trusting. It was up and
5:075 minutes, 7 secondsgoing. Even, you know, he could be late and we’d still start no problem. After a while, you know, you begin to
5:155 minutes, 15 secondslearn exactly what he does, how he does it, where the mics go.
5:205 minutes, 20 secondsYou know, I would be doing all that stuff any day, any anyhow. You know, you come in, all the mics in the right spots. Yeah. Yeah. We’re good. Let’s go.
5:275 minutes, 27 secondsOkay. you know, and he’d take a look and okay, look, and off we’d go, you know, and all that kind of, like I said, just
5:345 minutes, 34 secondstotal trust, okay, complete and absolute and total trust.
5:395 minutes, 39 secondsUh, which was a beautiful thing, you know, and uh and nice that he to for me the gratifying thing to know is that he
5:465 minutes, 46 secondscame after me. Right. Right. Right.
5:505 minutes, 50 secondsThat he was like, you know, came after me to work with him. Yeah. Not the other, you know what I mean?
5:575 minutes, 57 secondsthat he was like, you know, well, come with me, Bill. What do you please? You know, and so that was, you know, very gratifying and
6:066 minutes, 6 secondss, you know, that uh, you know, that here’s the guy, you know, with, you know, the legend with how many, you
6:146 minutes, 14 secondsknow, enough Grammys it could be a basketball score, right? You know, and all that kind of
6:216 minutes, 21 secondscoming after me to work with him. That was very nice. But at the, you know, that day came where the waters must part, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Go do your thing.
6:316 minutes, 31 secondsAnd that’s when he kind of moved in sort of over a capital.
6:346 minutes, 34 secondsOkay. And that’s where sort of Steve came into the picture, right? Okay. Cuz I had known Steve for years at that point. I got him as I hired him at Cherokee, right?
6:456 minutes, 45 secondsOkay. When he came. So I I got, you know, I hired him at Cherokee cuz at Cherokee, I had kind of even within that studio, moved up sort of the ladder and
6:546 minutes, 54 secondsbecame like, you know, out of the guys that were the house assistants, engineers, the sort of, you know,
7:017 minutes, 1 secondso I did all the hiring and firing for any of that, you know, anybody else on the engineering thing. So I hired him at
7:097 minutes, 9 secondsCherokee, okay, basically, you know, went Joe, you know. Okay. And then he left there, Steve, right? And was doing
7:187 minutes, 18 secondslive sound at Molly Malones or something and putting sound systems and health
7:247 minutes, 24 secondsspas or something like that. Okay. I couldn’t understand. I was like, “Okay, whatever.” But then, you know, after I
7:327 minutes, 32 secondshad been working at Capital before I left Capital, right, when I was there, a gig opened up and I
7:397 minutes, 39 secondscalled him. I think he had said to you, “I had seen him outside of the bar or something.” I That’s what he said. I don’t remember that. I thought I had just called him, but who knows because
7:477 minutes, 47 secondsso long ago. But I said to him, you know, there’s an opening here. I can, you know, you want to do something with your life or you want to keep like
7:567 minutes, 56 secondsright, you know. Yeah.
7:587 minutes, 58 secondsDoing this kind of thing or you want to, you know, like you know. So, uh, so I got him in at Capitol.
8:088 minutes, 8 secondsOkay. Down there. And then he had stayed right while Al and I were out kind of running around all over the place for
8:158 minutes, 15 secondsall those years. But um but when Al and I parted is when I went Al Steve Al
8:228 minutes, 22 secondsright slid in and yeah well Capital 2 Paula took real good care of him.
8:298 minutes, 29 secondsEverybody at Capital knew him very well, right? They knew the routine.
8:368 minutes, 36 secondsHe felt very comfortable there. the the big A and B for tracking and live rooms. And if you had a big
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsorchestra or big bandwidth orchestra, you could open up the live rooms between A and B. So that was big enough to accomplish
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsany of the tracking recording end of things. Mhm.
8:568 minutes, 56 secondsThat he needed. And then you could mix in A or C. Right.
9:019 minutes, 1 secondRight. You did a lot of mixing. He and I did a lot of mixing 5.1 stuff in C.
9:069 minutes, 6 secondsOh, sure. We did a truckload of 51 stuff there as well in Studio C. So that, you know, the place had everything
9:149 minutes, 14 secondshe needed. It was just kind of right down the 101 from from his get off the freeway and boom, you’re right there.
9:219 minutes, 21 secondsRight there. Right back on. Okay. Right.
9:249 minutes, 24 secondsRight back out to the uh Moholland Drive Valley Circle exit. Right up to his house. Right back down. Okay. So it was
9:329 minutes, 32 secondspretty straight shot. Didn’t have to drive all over the place. And that’s kind of when at that point uh everybody just began to come to Muhammad in a way.
9:459 minutes, 45 secondsOkay. The mountain came to Muhammad. You know, before when I was working with them, it didn’t matter. Clients would book whatever room. Sure, fine. And we’d
9:529 minutes, 52 secondsjust go everywhere. But after that, it was just I want capital. I want here’s where I work.
9:599 minutes, 59 secondsIf you want me, here’s where you got to book, right? Okay. Hey, you got to book Capital.
10:0510 minutes, 5 secondsOkay. Right. So, that’s it kind of turned into that’s when it kind of turned into his his residency as they
10:1310 minutes, 13 secondssay, right, at at Capital at that point in time, which was great for him because it worked out real well on his end because I was concerned about that, you
10:2210 minutes, 22 secondsknow, his ability cuz he never, you know, at that point in time it was all basically we were more or less pretty much done working on tape.
10:3110 minutes, 31 secondsOkay. It was all ProTools. It was all ProTools at that point. Okay. And he didn’t know how to use ProTools. Didn’t want to learn. And quite frankly, at
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondsthat point in his life and where he was didn’t need to, right? Okay. Give me an operator.
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsHe knew dot one dot take you set him up a location. It takes him to the top of the song. Dot one dot. Okay. And when
10:5410 minutes, 54 secondshe’d be mixing, you know, hit one and we’d rewind back and he’d go and, you know, cuz we didn’t mix in the box. We
11:0211 minutes, 2 secondsdo all the faders just at zero and we mixed on a console, man. Okay, you know, rewind and okay, great. And he could keep doing this, right?
11:1111 minutes, 11 secondsAnd that’s about all he learned in ProTools. It’s all he cared about. All he wanted to know, you know, he knew what we could do in it. Like,
11:1911 minutes, 19 secondsyou know, like this. Bring that one word up a little bit because it’s a little too quick to make the fader ride, but can you know or
11:2611 minutes, 26 secondsthat one, you know, something you couldn’t grab? Yeah.
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsto kind of, you know, or whatever or if something needed to get tuned or, you know, so he knew what could be accomplished within it. Especially like
11:3911 minutes, 39 secondsfor a lot of the 51 stuff where we were taking a lot of old 16 track stuff, especially the Carpenters, man.
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondsWhen we did the Carpenters Gold collection and did all the 51 mixes for
11:5411 minutes, 54 secondsthat stuff was like 33 songs. That’s that Carpenters Gold Sac. Yeah. And did them all in 51.
12:0312 minutes, 3 secondsThe majority of them were 16 tracks, some 24 track tapes, but the 16 tracks had like, you know, 35
12:1312 minutes, 13 secondstracks worth of stuff packed on them in every, you know, as we did back then.
12:1912 minutes, 19 secondsYou know, this guitar is only in the verse. So put the the tambourine on the same track in the chorus and listen and as we you know
12:2812 minutes, 28 secondspacked everything onto that stuff so he knew we could go in and I would go and
12:3612 minutes, 36 secondsspread everything out so everything had its own fader now and we could do like that kind of thing. So he knew the capabilities of it all.
12:4512 minutes, 45 secondsHe just didn’t care to learn how to do it [laughter] which as you say at that point you didn’t have to. No, absolutely not. No, no, no, no. So, it was fine. But, you know, Steve could do all that stuff.
12:5612 minutes, 56 secondsKnew all that stuff. And like I say, it was a comfortable fit for Al and then and then I was off
13:0413 minutes, 4 secondsdoing my own thing. And then I was off doing, you know, Benson and Al JRo and Manhattan Transfer albums and uh, you
13:1213 minutes, 12 secondsknow, Slayer, which was great. You know, I mean, talk about the extremes and Jeff Beck stuff. That’s what I did with, you
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsknow, Pino Paladino, man. A a laboral Jr. is incredible, man. With Lucther
13:2613 minutes, 26 secondssort of doing like dummy, dummy second guitar kind of, you know, stuff. A lot of stuff that never unfortunately some stuff came out.
13:3413 minutes, 34 secondsA lot of it never saw the light of day, which is a shame. But Jeff was a trip, man. I mean, incredible.
13:4213 minutes, 42 secondsincredible to watch him play every day like from here like you know and how you know what what should I do I
13:5013 minutes, 50 secondscan do or I can do and you’re and it’s like yes
13:5813 minutes, 58 secondspick one okay right it’s incredible you know an incredible experience for these people who were kind of like your idols
14:0514 minutes, 5 secondswhen you were a kid same thing with like Steve how okay who like incredible 13 years old,
14:1214 minutes, 12 secondsokay, reading the back of like Fragile and Close to the Edge and like, you know, up all night with the headphones
14:1814 minutes, 18 secondslistening to Siberian Ketru and Close to the Edge and, you know, all these, you know, and then there I am all these years later.
14:2814 minutes, 28 secondsRight. Right. in the middle of working with all these cats. And going back to the thing we were talking about originally, the whole idea of being so fortunate, you know, I mean, I
14:3714 minutes, 37 secondshad choir paint fret marks on my fretless base for me. That sounds very much like fish.
14:4214 minutes, 42 secondsYeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I had this fretless, right? And it only had markers on five, seven, and 12 up on the top here, right? And I said, you know, he’s
14:5014 minutes, 50 secondssitting there in my house playing it and I said, yeah, you know, but I I can’t play it live because I got to look up all the time when I’m singing, right? He
14:5814 minutes, 58 secondslooks at me, he says, “Got any white out?” Yeah. All right. You know. Yeah. Done. Yeah. Exactly. There you go. They’re still on there, you know.
15:0615 minutes, 6 secondsYeah.
15:0615 minutes, 6 secondsOkay. So, let me ask you, though. It was Let me ask you a question.
15:0915 minutes, 9 secondsBut again, sitting across from Steve How would Steve How go? What do you think, Right. Exactly. Who the hell am I? Right.
15:1515 minutes, 15 secondsI think he could do it better. That’s what [laughter] I right. It’s like, wow. Okay. You know.
15:2015 minutes, 20 secondsOkay. So, let me ask you a question because you you just brought up something really interesting, which was the whole technology shift right now.
15:2715 minutes, 27 secondsThat changed a lot for us. Even when you’re working with these really talented people, all of a sudden you have command Z. All of a sudden you have
15:3715 minutes, 37 secondsno need to rewind. All of a sudden you have unlimited tracks. You have, you know, multiple instances of a plugin.
15:4615 minutes, 46 secondsYou you have all these limitations that you have grown up with removed. How does that change the creative process for you?
15:5315 minutes, 53 secondsDepends on how you approach the creative process. If you if you still approach the creative process as though you don’t have any of those things.
16:0216 minutes, 2 secondsDid you do that? Of course. Okay. Okay. Of course.
16:0616 minutes, 6 secondsI’m you know, if you still approach it as though we’ve only got x amount of tracks and there’s no need for me to
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondskeep punching in and keeping the same guitar part over and over and over again. Just destructive record. I’m not going to have 18 playlists.
16:2516 minutes, 25 secondsRight. Right. And then you have no idea what the hell you have, right? Forget play it.
16:2916 minutes, 29 secondsI hit a button, you play it until it’s right, then we’re done and we move on. Yeah. Recording for the next.
16:3516 minutes, 35 secondsEven doing vocals with John. Okay. No, we do. Even though we’re working in Sonic and stuff, we still approached it all as though we were working on tape.
16:4516 minutes, 45 secondsThat’s great.
16:4616 minutes, 46 secondsOne track, that’s it. You blow it, we stop, rewind back, we punch in. Sharp, early, late, what a flat. Do it again. again again
16:5516 minutes, 55 secondsagain that’s the technology has not helped anybody become a better musician right okay or a better this is just my humble
17:0417 minutes, 4 secondsopinion which goes probably against the grain and people will be like how can you oh my god you know but um my humble
17:1217 minutes, 12 secondsopinion is the technology has not helped people become better at it
17:2017 minutes, 20 secondsI would agree okay it’s it’s um It’s actually in some ways lowered the bar. Okay.
17:2717 minutes, 27 secondsBecause you don’t have to bring your agame all the time, right? It’s like all these people who think, well, I can do another track. I can do another take, you know, and and I think
17:3517 minutes, 35 secondsyou’re going under the premise that they had an agame to start with. Okay.
17:3917 minutes, 39 secondsBut these guys you’re talking about did, right? Yeah, that’s what I’m saying is, you know, I But even the younger people today, I’ve
17:4617 minutes, 46 secondsworked with younger artists who when I try to approach doing vocals, say, as we’re speaking, okay, they look like,
17:5417 minutes, 54 secondswhy are you working me so hard? And it’s like, what are you talking about? Why, you know, because they’re they’re used to doing
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondfive tracks of whatever and then sit comp word by word by word by word, move phrasing.
18:1118 minutes, 11 secondsOkay. Right. Because there stuff early late and then have to tune every word and that’s what as opposed to
18:1918 minutes, 19 secondslate you know hitting the button early do it again late do it again sharp
18:2518 minutes, 25 secondsdo it again flat again again again again.
18:3118 minutes, 31 secondsAnd what happens when you do that? Okay, for any no matter what musicians, okay, instrument singing is you become better.
18:4318 minutes, 43 secondsOkay, singers the right, you know, do it again. Do it. You’re sharp. You got to hit the here’s the note. Bing. Okay. Right.
18:5118 minutes, 51 secondsYou became a better singer.
18:5418 minutes, 54 secondsOkay. Yeah. through the constant repetition of doing it and having to concentrate and having to focus and
19:0219 minutes, 2 secondshaving to work because that’s what it is work. Okay? Right? You know, the what’s
19:1119 minutes, 11 secondslost these days is the concept of I do one thing and I spend my entire
19:1919 minutes, 19 secondslife learning how to do it the best that I possibly can. Yep.
19:2519 minutes, 25 secondsOkay. Okay. And that I spend my entire life learning something new about it each day and finding new things to add
19:3519 minutes, 35 secondsto it each day and growing in my knowledge of it each day and that I don’t ever get to the point where I say I know it all because you never know it
19:4419 minutes, 44 secondsall. people who you know as people say what do you want to know it all as people would right you know
19:5119 minutes, 51 secondshave some humility have you know realize that you always have the room to grow you always have the room to learn more
20:0020 minutesevery single day and the minute you stop you’re dead okay you know you’re dead you’re not moving forward anymore you’re
20:0920 minutes, 9 secondsstagnant okay and and so that approach the old school pro. People say to me still, “I’d love analog tape.
20:1920 minutes, 19 secondsI’d still be recording on 24 track tape.” Okay. Right. 2 in if I could. And people a because I like the sound.
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsOkay. I don’t see be, you know, to me it’s not better or worse. Digital is what it is. Analog is what it is. They both sound good.
20:3520 minutes, 35 secondsOkay. You know, right? Okay.
20:3820 minutes, 38 secondsI like the sound of it. I don’t dislike the sound of it. People are some people would say, “Oh, you know, there’s tape hiss and all that.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay, cool. Great.” Yeah.
20:4720 minutes, 47 secondsWhat’s wrong with that? Right.
20:4820 minutes, 48 secondsOkay. What’s wrong with a little tape hiss between friends? Okay. The the most famous records on the face of the earth
20:5620 minutes, 56 secondswere recorded with tape or, you know, you know, the most famous records on earth also are full of mistakes.
21:0121 minutes, 1 secondYou’re dang right. They’re all over the messy. You know, I mean, you listen to some of that old Mottown. That’s why they appeal. old, you know, the old the first Rolling Stones albums.
21:1021 minutes, 10 secondsThe first 20th. Exactly. Okay. What are you talking about, man?
21:1421 minutes, 14 secondsBut I mean, so many of these things, you know, it’s not about it’s about humanity and and get up and play the song and appeal and human appeal to it. Okay?
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsRight. It’s about emotion. And that’s what music and and anything in an artistic endeavor is about is about
21:3421 minutes, 34 secondsfeeling an emotion and how that appeals and equates to the human condition and how that appeals to other people and how
21:4321 minutes, 43 secondsother people can relate to it and go, you know, this guy is, you know, you listen to people have, oh, this song I
21:5021 minutes, 50 secondslisten to when I’m sad and or this one makes me happy or right and that and that kind of thing, you know, the
21:5721 minutes, 57 secondsrobotic perfectionism. um doesn’t get you there. But you know, a lot of the young people say to me, “Why would you still be working on tape,
22:0622 minutes, 6 secondsyou know, if you and I can, right? I just, you know, choose not to because it’s, you know, kind of people gets No,
22:1422 minutes, 14 secondsno, not really. [clears throat] To align a machine takes me 15, 20 minutes to align a machine. MRL up done. Okay. you know, it’s kind of what I’m doing all
22:2322 minutes, 23 secondsday now anyway that I’ve sort of shifted into doing a lot of the restoration a lot of the archival restoration stuff.
22:2922 minutes, 29 secondsI’m aligning 827s and ATRs and you know I’ve got every tape machine under we’ll talk about that in a second real quick. But
22:3822 minutes, 38 secondsum you know in terms of the tape machine analog tape it was the great equalizer and I don’t mean like this EQ equalizer.
22:4622 minutes, 46 secondsI mean, as in exactly what you mean.
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondsIf you couldn’t do it, if you couldn’t bring it, you couldn’t do it. You didn’t get to make a record. Right.
22:5522 minutes, 55 secondsThat’s that was it. Okay. Right. If you had to be able to play your instrument, you had to be able to play the drum the
23:0223 minutes, 2 secondsguitar. You had to be able to play the drums in tempo for more than three bars. Yeah.
23:0723 minutes, 7 secondsBefore they had to start putting you on a grit. Okay. Exactly. You had to be able to sing. Right.
23:1323 minutes, 13 secondsYou had to Okay. At least in, you know, Close enough pitch. Okay. Right. That you know, I mean, how were you had to be able to do it?
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondsYeah. I’d rather hear you do it in one performance.
23:2623 minutes, 26 secondsWell, not even one performance, but okay. Because how many different basic tracks of a song you get? You cut and
23:3323 minutes, 33 secondsOkay. Like that. Sometimes you get it in one.
23:3623 minutes, 36 secondsYou want the continuity of a performance is the point.
23:3923 minutes, 39 secondsYes. You get the at least you’re [clears throat] playing the bloody thing. Okay. or you’re singing the thing. Okay. Or even back in the old
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondsdays, even if we did a comp, it would be two tracks. 24 you’d be we’re going to do lead vocal day and it’s like, okay, we got two tracks.
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondsExactly.
23:5723 minutes, 57 secondsThat’s or sometimes one, right? I can do it again better. Are you sure?
24:0124 minutes, 1 secondWell, right. Right. Because you only had those tracks to work with. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you had one track.
24:0724 minutes, 7 secondsSo it you start at the top of the song and they sing and if they make a stop, okay, punch in early, late as we were
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondssaying. And by the time you got to the end of the song, guess what? The lead vocal was done. Yeah.
24:2124 minutes, 21 secondsFinished. We didn’t sit there comping for the next six hours. Yeah.
24:2524 minutes, 25 secondsAnd then tuning and then this and it was all done at the time if you needed to do that.
24:3224 minutes, 32 secondsAnd again, I’ve been blessed, very blessed. I’ve worked with some of the most incredible singers on the face of the earth. You know, Natalie Cole song
24:4024 minutes, 40 secondsis four minutes long. It would take eight minutes to do the lead vocal.
24:4424 minutes, 44 secondsOkay. Literally. Okay. Right. You know, it would be like, you know, how many tracks we got, guys? Two. Okay. She’d sing it down twice, come in, listen.
24:5424 minutes, 54 secondsShe’d go, “Okay, use the first half for the from this track and the second half from the other track.” And that was the comp. Right. Bye.
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondDone. Thank you. Okay. That was it.
25:0425 minutes, 4 secondsOkay. You know, so you’d have your two faders up and in the mix you, you know, that one until you went like that. There you go. That’s the comp. Okay. Right.
25:1225 minutes, 12 secondsDone. Finished. You know, yeah.
25:1425 minutes, 14 secondsKind of a thing. So, you know, or Strian or, you know, crawl or any of these, you know. So, if you approach it with the
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondslimitations in mind, you know, you are you’re doing yourself a service in a in a way. You’re doing the music service.
25:3325 minutes, 33 secondsAbsolutely. Yeah. You know, unlimited tracks. I mean, you know, I’ve get some Pro Tool sessions and there’s 89 [clears throat] tracks and it’s like, what do you what?
25:4325 minutes, 43 secondsWhy? Why? 32 tracks of background vocals. It’s like this is insane.
25:4825 minutes, 48 secondsThe worst part is they’re all labeled audio one, audio, audio, audio, right? And it’s like, send it all back, man. Okay. Label it all up
25:5725 minutes, 57 secondsfor just to start with. And then how about this? Okay. You know, I’m going to take your 32 tracks and I’m going to
26:0426 minutes, 4 secondsjust comp them down to like two stereo pairs. Yep. And that’s it. Because that I can mix.
26:1226 minutes, 12 secondsThis is insanity.
26:1426 minutes, 14 secondsOkay. Trying to navigate all of that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? You know, can’t And
26:2226 minutes, 22 secondsit’s why it takes, you know, days and days of people spend like a whole week working on a mix for a song. It’s like three minutes long. What are what are you doing? Yeah.
26:3226 minutes, 32 secondsYou know, yeah, it’s it so the workflow is not necessarily better. The creativity is not necessarily better.
26:3926 minutes, 39 secondsUnlimited options, I don’t think benefits anybody.
26:4426 minutes, 44 secondsUm, unlimited choices, okay, doesn’t benefit anybody. There’s something, you know, the great power to limits.
26:5326 minutes, 53 secondsWell, the great thing about not having many choices is you don’t have many choices, right? makes it easy to choose. It makes it this. Yeah.
27:0127 minutes, 1 secondI don’t like this now. I hate it now. I’ll hate it later today.
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsI’ll hate it tomorrow. I’ll hate it next week. Which means it’s gone. We don’t need to keep it. Yeah. Let’s get rid of it now.
27:1227 minutes, 12 secondsGet rid of it now. Make command decisions. Yep.
27:1527 minutes, 15 secondsOn what we like, what we don’t like. And that’s really what we had to do back then is make the choices on the
27:2227 minutes, 22 secondsspot. Make the commitment and move forward. Okay. in confidence, okay, and trust in your own judgment,
27:3127 minutes, 31 secondsokay? And collectively either you as the band approve whatever of this is good, this is not good. So if it’s not good, be done with it.
27:4127 minutes, 41 secondsAdios. Why are we dragging around 18 playlists of Yeah. what, right? Okay. Of audio files.
27:4727 minutes, 47 secondsSee, back then you had to drag around 2in tape. It was heavy. You didn’t want 40 reels of tape.
27:5127 minutes, 51 secondsNo. He didn’t want to go to a second machine or a third machine, you know, which you know much to, you know, which
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondswould be Richard Perry dates [laughter] for example, okay? You know, the third third the C machine drag waiting for
28:0628 minutes, 6 secondsthings to lock up with Lynxes and and all that kind of stuff. So there’s, you know, not having a lot of choices makes choosing easy.
28:1628 minutes, 16 secondsYep. and and it very much um keeps you focused on moving forward. It keeps you focused on the song.
28:2428 minutes, 24 secondsYeah.
28:2428 minutes, 24 secondsOkay. And you’re not getting, you know, people don’t listen to these things too much. They’re looking at the waveforms.
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsThey’re looking at a screen and they’re watching the music. Yeah. Not necessarily listening to it.
28:3928 minutes, 39 secondsOkay. And and all of that. And it’s a completely different That’s math. And this is music and that’s math.
28:4828 minutes, 48 secondsY and ne never shall they meet. Okay. One is using one part of your brain and one is using a different part of your brain.
28:5728 minutes, 57 secondsLeft brain, right brain.
28:5828 minutes, 58 secondsOkay. And if you’re just sitting like staring at waveforms, moving stuff by frames and this and you’re doing mathematics
29:0729 minutes, 7 secondsat that point and you’re not being creative in some ways where you step back and play the thing and go, you know, this is let’s just do it again.
29:1729 minutes, 17 secondsMove me or not. Yeah. Right. Exactly.
29:1829 minutes, 18 secondsLet’s just do it again. You know, I mean, and some of the great stuff, you know, if you got a good band or even orchestral stuff, big band stuff. I love doing that kind of recording. Okay.
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondsBecause if you don’t like it, somebody’s like, “You just do another take.
29:3429 minutes, 34 secondsThat’s it.” Okay. All right. Fine. Let’s do another take. Boom. Okay. Yeah. That’s it. Great. Perfect. Done.
29:4129 minutes, 41 secondsI want to cover a couple more things with you before my batteries die. Yeah.
29:4529 minutes, 45 secondsOkay. So, first of all, what you’re doing now with all the archiving and stuff like that.
29:4929 minutes, 49 secondsWell, now I’m doing a lot of that these days. Okay. In fact, a huge most of what I’m doing actually now after So you’re doing a lot of restoration as far baking and stuff like that.
29:5929 minutes, 59 secondsDoing well yeah baking tapes like Nestle bakes cookies basically but after 41 42
30:0630 minutes, 6 secondsyears I’ve kind of the 12-hour days I’ve had kind of enough of that right and as you say I just you know sitting
30:1330 minutes, 13 secondsin front of the computer screen all day is not for me. So, so what I’ve been doing over the last 3, four years for
30:2130 minutes, 21 secondsthe most part now is moved into doing a lot of archiving and restoration work.
30:2730 minutes, 27 secondsSo, I’ve got basically every tape machine under the sun. Uhhuh.
30:3130 minutes, 31 secondsEvery format. Okay. Stutter 827s, you know, 1 in 8 track, 1 in, 16 track head stacks, 2 in
30:3930 minutes, 39 seconds24, 2in, 16, ATRs, 102, 104s, all the variant head stacks. So, I’ve got every
30:4730 minutes, 47 secondsdigital twotrack tape machine X80 from 1980. The original OG, right?
30:5430 minutes, 54 secondsOkay. I got one the X80, X86, X86HS, the Sony 3402, 3348, X850, 1 in 32 track.
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsOkay.
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsDat machines, D88s, uh, that machines, Panasonic 3800, 3700.
31:1331 minutes, 13 secondsYeah, I got a b bunch of those guys. 8 m machines, D88 machines. I love it.
31:1831 minutes, 18 secondsUh racks of Dolby A, Dolby SR, DBX type one for all the multi-track stuff and
31:2631 minutes, 26 secondsyou know two, three, four track stuff as well, right? I can play any and every format links units for locking up, you know, multi-track machines.
31:3731 minutes, 37 secondsUh you know, UFC’s the old Atari UFC 24s. Right. Right. Right. for you tech all this stuff too. Say again. Do you tech all this stuff too?
31:4531 minutes, 45 secondsYeah. I mean, no. Not if I mean if some of it you got to take care of if a board melts down. No, I’m not a bench tech. Okay. Yeah.
31:5231 minutes, 52 secondsSo, no. But the normal like, you know, Oh, yeah. Are you kidding?
31:5831 minutes, 58 secondsI’ve been a line and tape machine since 1985, man. There’s nothing to it. It’s easy. Some of these younger people look at it like you’re doing it and it’s like
32:0632 minutes, 6 secondsyou invented fire. Okay. which is like they’re like, “Oh my god, [laughter] is that a tape machine?” And it’s like, “Yeah, that’s a tape. What are you doing with tweaker?” Yeah.
32:1432 minutes, 14 secondsYou know, it’s like, so, uh, so I’ve got everything. I can play back anything, every format, all of
32:2432 minutes, 24 secondsit. I can restore old AIT tapes. We used to back up all the ProTools stuff. Sure.
32:2932 minutes, 29 secondsWhen, you know, we were when we were using the hot swap drives, right, which cost a bloody fortune. We’d archive everything to, you know, AIT or Exabyte
32:3832 minutes, 38 secondstapes with retrospect. I can restore all that. I’ve got all this stuff from the first time around, right? You know, it’s the old saying of,
32:4732 minutes, 47 secondsyou know, I’m not throwing it out. One day I’ll need it. Okay. Well, I turned that whole thing into a business,
32:5432 minutes, 54 secondsbasically. Okay. all these tape machines and I’ve collected over the years. All of I went looked around and went, you know, I’ve got an entire business here,
33:0333 minutes, 3 secondsokay, of all of this stuff. And I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I figured, okay, well, what the heck, you know, a
33:1033 minutes, 10 secondsmatter of still making records. Let me see if I can get this up and going, though, and see if there’s something to it. And it exploded.
33:1933 minutes, 19 secondsAnd I couldn’t have imagined how uh well it would take off. And then uh so I was had a room was working out of United.
33:2833 minutes, 28 secondsOkay. On Sunset. I was just there yesterday.
33:3133 minutes, 31 secondsRight. You know until they closed the studio decided to do the Les Paul’s thing in there. Right.
33:3633 minutes, 36 secondsWell, they closed the studio long before that happened. Okay. That room used to have an 88R.
33:4233 minutes, 42 secondsI remember that in it and a wall full of gear that’s all gone now. Who knows? Probably sitting in the live room of Studio B. Who the heck
33:4933 minutes, 49 secondsknows? So, I had gotten a room over at United until they closed it. Okay. And then had to get all the gear out. But
33:5633 minutes, 56 secondsI’ve got everything under the sun, like I say, and I thought, well, you know, let me see if there’s a call for this stuff and need for this stuff. And
34:0534 minutes, 5 secondsboy, is there ever and it was I couldn’t have anticipated in my wildest dreams how much there was. All of a sudden, people are
34:1434 minutes, 14 secondscalling saying, “Wow, you’re doing this now? Oh my god.” Okay, finally somebody we can trust, right, to do it. Because again, having
34:2334 minutes, 23 secondsthe tape machines and it is one is the tiny smallest little part of the big picture, right? Okay. Knowing
34:3134 minutes, 31 secondshow to align them, knowing how to use them, knowing how to deal with tape, knowing what time code is, knowing what sync is, knowing what word clock is,
34:3934 minutes, 39 secondsknowing how to make everything lock and join, knowing what it should sound like.
34:4434 minutes, 44 secondsKnowing what it should sound like coming out of the speakers for things that don’t have tones, and you’re adjusting azimuth by ear. and all of this kind of
34:5334 minutes, 53 secondsstuff. So to do that kind of work, this you know archiving, restoration, you know, and some of it’s even salvage
35:0235 minutes, 2 secondsyou in a way. Okay? Right. Depending on the condition of the tapes, you know, you have to, as people call all these old machines, vintage. Well,
35:1135 minutes, 11 secondsto do all of that kind of work, you the person doing it has to sort of be vintage as well and have spent an entire
35:1935 minutes, 19 secondslifetime, you know, using all those different machines. I mean, see the big blessing
35:2535 minutes, 25 secondsfor me is I spent an entire 42 years use going from eight track to 16 to 24 track
35:3435 minutes, 34 secondsthrough every iteration of tape machine digital multi-track 3324 3348 the Mitsu
35:4035 minutes, 40 secondsthe X850 32 track to that to Pro to this to that. So I was there through all of it the first time around and used all of
35:4835 minutes, 48 secondsit to make records. So there was really no ramp up time in terms of knowing what to do with it.
35:5535 minutes, 55 secondsNo, it was just basically taking everything I had, putting it all in one room and going, “Okay, I’m I’m open for business.” Like I say, I couldn’t have
36:0336 minutes, 3 secondsanticipated how much call there was going to be for it, okay?
36:0836 minutes, 8 secondsEspecially from past clients, okay, with you at record labels, indie labels. I’m doing stuff for everybody in their
36:1636 minutes, 16 secondsbrother, man. Rights holding companies at this point. I’m working on just the archival end of things, you know, stuff
36:2336 minutes, 23 secondsfor Linda Ronstat, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Paige, Black Crows, um, Los Lobos, okay, Caesar Rosess, as
36:3236 minutes, 32 secondswe were talking about this morning. I’ve done Charles Mingus stuff, some Hendricks stuff, Ella Fitzgerald. Okay.
36:4036 minutes, 40 secondsIn fact, the last Ella Fitzgerald record, the moment of truth, was from tapes that I went through for my I contacted Verve.
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondsOkay, let’s go through all these tapes.
36:5236 minutes, 52 secondsLet’s get them all archived and transferred and all that and see what we got. Okay, we found a bunch of reels,
36:5936 minutes, 59 secondsokay, of unreleased, unmixed stuff from Oakland Coliseum. Wow. 1967. Okay. It was great. Great performance.
37:0837 minutes, 8 secondsElla was burning. Okay. So, I took all that stuff, which was on four track half inch, dumped it over on, you know, from my
37:1537 minutes, 15 secondsATR. Okay. Four, dumped it over, cleaned it up, fixed up a little thing, you know, monitor feedback things here and
37:2237 minutes, 22 secondsthere and all. I mixed it. Done. Printed it. We recorded the mixes to quarter inch
37:3037 minutes, 30 secondsanalog 15 IPS, no Dolby. Okay. Didn’t I mean I made a print inside of ProTools, but
37:3837 minutes, 38 secondsmixed Okay. But it went Okay. What went to the mastering for the CD and the vinyl was was quarter inch 15 IPS. Okay.
37:4737 minutes, 47 secondsI love it. mixes and you know put it out and she’s on fire and the thing went to top 10 on the Billboard album jazz
37:5637 minutes, 56 secondscharts. Okay. This was like whatever not even a year ago or so, something like that. So it was never heard before.
38:0338 minutes, 3 secondsYeah. and and I’ve been doing so a lot of that stuff as well is a lot of the archiving stuff is also leading to just a bunch of mixing work
38:1138 minutes, 11 secondsas well cuz you know I’ll get a lot of stuff in here get all this stuff unreleased and mix it all and let us
38:1938 minutes, 19 secondsknow when you’re done and that kind of thing. So what I’ve kind of moved away from is sort of the the dayto-day ditch digging right of making the records. So,
38:2838 minutes, 28 secondsI’m still doing a a ton of mixing and all that, but the lion share now of everything I’m doing daytoday is all this archival restoration stuff. I mean,
38:3738 minutes, 37 secondsyou get tapes in, some of them are in great shape.
38:4038 minutes, 40 secondsTapes from the 50s. I’ve done stuff Nat Cole stuff and you know, I’m in the middle of working on a bunch of Natalie Cole stuff as well. Nat Cole stuff that
38:4838 minutes, 48 secondsI’ve done, tapes from the 50s, mono Cole stuff from the 50s. And you just put it up on on acetate. Wow.
38:5638 minutes, 56 secondsRight. And you’ve hit play, man. And it’s like, wow, this is okay. No baking required for any of that stuff. Anything pre75.
39:0539 minutes, 5 secondsUhhuh. Doesn’t need any baking really. Okay.
39:0939 minutes, 9 secondsRight. You know, uh especially stuff that’s uh acetate, you don’t bake anyway. That’ll just melt.
39:1639 minutes, 16 secondsBut anything that’s um non-backcoated polyester tape, right, doesn’t need any baking.
39:2239 minutes, 22 secondsAnything that’s not 456. Yeah. Well, all kinds of tapes that not just 456, but there’s a lot of different formulations
39:2839 minutes, 28 secondsthat need baking. Okay. At this at this point, it’s really has more to do with the years than it does, right? And how it was stored and all that stuff.
39:3839 minutes, 38 secondsWell, yeah. Uh, you know, uh I mean non-backcoated poly prior to
39:4639 minutes, 46 secondsuh 75. Well, non-backcoated polyester you never have to bake. But even backcoated polyester prior to 7475 is
39:5439 minutes, 54 secondsgenerally okay, right? I still may throw it in the oven just not to have any surprises, but it’s really post 75. It’s
40:0340 minutes, 3 secondswhen the the chemical formulation of the binder layer of the tape, they had to stop using whale oil,
40:1140 minutes, 11 secondsokay, in manufacturing in North America. Okay, that’s why Ampex, okay, most notoriously because they were the largest manufacturer of of whale oil.
40:2240 minutes, 22 secondsAnd it’s the reason why Japanese manufactured tapes like Maxel and Fuji and TDK have never had any sticky shed
40:3040 minutes, 30 secondsissues because there’s a guy off the coast of Japan unfortunately on a whaling boat right now. Okay?
40:3840 minutes, 38 secondsbecause they still use whale oil and in manufacturing where here in the United States in 75ish was the ban on whaling
40:4840 minutes, 48 secondsand the use of any whale oil or any whale based products in manufacturing. That’s what caused ampex.
40:5540 minutes, 55 secondsOkay. And the other formula they had to change the the chemical makeup of the binder layer of the tape
41:0341 minutes, 3 secondsand that’s where everything went sideways. Wow.
41:0641 minutes, 6 secondsOkay. But it’s not just Ampex. Any tape manufactured in North America. So it also extends to Scotch and some Bassiff and things like that.
41:1641 minutes, 16 secondsOkay. Ampex notorious [clears throat] just because they were the biggest. Well, they were the most popular.
41:2141 minutes, 21 secondsExactly. So, but you know, so every day is an adventure. I mean, some tapes you get in, they’re covered in mold. They look like they’ve been stored at the bottom of a river.
41:3041 minutes, 30 secondsYeah. And with enough time and elbow grease, you can get great sounding transfers out of them. Uh some getting to listen to some incredible music.
41:4041 minutes, 40 secondsI bet on this end as well. Like I said, you know, it’s just some of the the recent stuff is uh you know, it’s oddly enough,
41:4741 minutes, 47 secondsit’s the same level of clientele still in a way, right? And all of that because it’s everybody I’ve known and then
41:5541 minutes, 55 secondsfriends. Oh, you know, hey, call him and and call Bill and all that. So, it’s been incredible. Uh, and and a lot of fun. And the machines are the machines.
42:0442 minutes, 4 secondsThey’ve been my friends for decades.
42:0642 minutes, 6 secondsIt’s just another day for me, you know, throw an MRL on and align it and all that kind of stuff. But you know the the
42:1442 minutes, 14 secondsbig advantage to doing and I really think this wholeheartedly to doing the archiving and the restoration uh you
42:2242 minutes, 22 secondsknow and the sort of fixing salvaging and even you know from easy as could be to oh my god the thing that’s really
42:3142 minutes, 31 secondsneeded I feel is is just that deep experience of not only the use of the machines but the deep knowledge and
42:4042 minutes, 40 secondsexperience of how records were made. Sure.
42:4442 minutes, 44 secondsIn those years and in that time, okay, the ability to to get in 30 reels of
42:5242 minutes, 52 seconds2-in 24 track analog, okay, from an album project or whatever and go,
42:5942 minutes, 59 secondsokay, here’s here’s reel one here with tones, but okay. Boom. Yeah. and then be able to go through the different reels
43:0743 minutes, 7 secondsbecause a lot of them, you know, documentation is [laughter] sketchy sometimes to to say the least. Okay. But
43:1543 minutes, 15 secondsthe ability to go through the tapes and go, okay, well, it would have went from here. This would have been the next reel that went up. Okay, cuz here’s take one
43:2243 minutes, 22 secondsof this song and take two on the top. So this is next and this okay and sort of put together
43:3043 minutes, 30 secondsthe whole puzzle of how did they go from beginning to end in recording this album
43:3843 minutes, 38 secondsthe steps right that you would go through in tracking it or mixing it or even you know a lot of stuff early stuff
43:4643 minutes, 46 secondsyou know you’ll get in an eight track tape okay that’s got these okay but then you’ll get a 16 track or a 24 track
43:5343 minutes, 53 secondswhere taken the A track reel and bumped it over to the 24 track and they went right and and you but the client says oh this eight track one is the it’s like no
44:0244 minutes, 2 secondsno no no no this is you know it’s unfortunate that it was bumped over but these days not necessarily because now we can take these eight tracks and line
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsthem back up sure and and gearbox them okay and right but even to know it went from A to B to C
44:1944 minutes, 19 secondsand just how understanding the process the whole process of it is invaluable knowledge that makes the whole job
44:2844 minutes, 28 secondsa lot easier in many ways. And then just the technical knowledge of how do I transfer digital audio, word clock, time code, offsets,
44:3644 minutes, 36 secondsthis, that, all of it. So, it’s it’s been great. I’m I’m really, you know, really liking it. It’s the same old
44:4344 minutes, 43 secondsthing in many ways. It’s just I come in, I fire up the machines all day and I go, “Okay, here we go.” Boom. You know, it’s
44:5144 minutes, 51 secondsjust uh you know, I don’t have clients with me all the time and you know, that kind of right, which is good and bad. Exactly. As well, you know, it’s good.
44:5944 minutes, 59 secondsWell, and the whole industry, the whole way we do it has changed now because you don’t have that, you don’t have this like where we are right now where you got people in wandering around the hallways and stuff.
45:0945 minutes, 9 secondsYeah. Yeah. Yeah. That world doesn’t really exist anymore, you know. I miss that. And I think the days like, wow, you know, it’s I’m kind of on my
45:1745 minutes, 17 secondsonesies, you know, all day. But then sort of the a lot of the the the environment and
45:2445 minutes, 24 secondswhat I long for and miss doesn’t really exist anymore.
45:2845 minutes, 28 secondsYou don’t have those lounges where you run into people like you used to at Cherokee. Lounges, the hallways. How many jobs did anybody get hired for at
45:3645 minutes, 36 secondsit? Cuz you bumped into someone in the hallway who went, you know, I’m starting this thing in a week. Yeah. And it’d be great. You want to be great?
45:4345 minutes, 43 secondsyou’d be perfect for it. You want to come and Yeah. Okay, let’s go. You know, now everybody is in their
45:5045 minutes, 50 secondscompartmentalized in their own little y right things on their own little computers and it’s just a whole
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsdifferent business. I think the industry has suffered for it. I really do. There’s no collectiveness to the industry anymore.
46:0746 minutes, 7 secondsI think the younger people today um unfortunately for them don’t have the exposure
46:1646 minutes, 16 secondsto the things that say I did watching 60 guys in an orchestra go okay right or a
46:2446 minutes, 24 secondsgreat band in in in front of you okay watching cats like Vinnie Caluda okay
46:3046 minutes, 30 secondsright play or you know the Jeff Becks of the world and like where you’re standing in the control room like, oh my god,
46:3846 minutes, 38 secondsright? You know, yeah, kind of just dumbfounded sort of like, you know, am I really Oh, I know.
46:4546 minutes, 45 secondsYou know, I know that’s kind of gone. And I, you know, and it’s hard. They don’t have the the the ability to learn in the way we did
46:5446 minutes, 54 secondsbecause you can’t really learn a lot of this for me, reading it in a book. You can’t read it in a book. You can’t really even
47:0247 minutes, 2 secondsand I hate to say that the recording school people will come at me, okay, for this. You can’t really learn it in a classroom. Can’t.
47:0947 minutes, 9 secondsOkay. It’s you have to be doing it, watching it there. It’s right to soak it all in, see how it all happens, right?
47:1947 minutes, 19 secondsIt It’s a that kind of a thing. It’s not a booklearned or a schoolle learned thing. You get the basics of it. Yeah.
47:2747 minutes, 27 secondsWell, now that segus nicely into into my last question for you.
47:3047 minutes, 30 secondsYes, sir. which is what do you tell a 15year-old who wants to do this that’s coming into this world now
47:3947 minutes, 39 secondswhat do I tell them what I tell the younger people these days is
47:4647 minutes, 46 secondsfollow your dream if that’s your dream okay uh I won’t dissuade them from ever
47:5447 minutes, 54 secondsfollowing their dream but I try to offer them a bit of advice in terms of to have a backup plan The business is different
48:0248 minutes, 2 secondsthan it was over the last 42 years that I’ve been involved in it. It’s different
48:0948 minutes, 9 secondsopportunities, maybe not as abundant as it used to be.
48:1348 minutes, 13 secondsAnd the opportunities are a little bit different. It’s a little more segmented and compartmentalized. Yeah. So, the opportunities are are different and
48:2148 minutes, 21 secondsmaybe not as completely there, but if you’re going to do it and it’s your dream, throw yourself into it and at it 110%.
48:3348 minutes, 33 secondsThere’s no half measures. That hasn’t changed.
48:3548 minutes, 35 secondsOkay? That’s the one thing that hasn’t changed. And any of us that have been doing it for decades and decades and decades, our entire lives, we never
48:4448 minutes, 44 secondsreally thought about doing anything else with our lives. People have said to me many, many times over 42 years now,
48:5248 minutes, 52 secondswhatever, have asked me, “Bill, what made you choose this as what you wanted to do with your life?” And I look at
49:0049 minutesthem and I give them what sometimes I think is they may perceive as a a flippant kind of answer, but it’s not.
49:0849 minutes, 8 secondsIt’s really the absolute truth. And I think it applies for a lot of us, which is I never chose anything. It chose us.
49:1449 minutes, 14 secondsIt chose me, man. Okay. Absolutely. I never considered. There was nothing else ever even considered. Same here, man. Okay.
49:2349 minutes, 23 secondsThis was the path.
49:2449 minutes, 24 secondsSo, so I tell the young people, I say, you know, if that if you have that same kind of calling that I did where it’s just you’re just like this blinders and
49:3349 minutes, 33 secondsthis is okay, then yes, go at it with 110% because that’s what’s going to be required,
49:4149 minutes, 41 secondsokay? For you to be successful in it in anything, okay? in any profession. This is no
49:4849 minutes, 48 secondsdifferent, okay? It’s not hanging with the stars and this and that. Yes, you might have opportunities and this, okay,
49:5549 minutes, 55 secondsbut it’s hard work, man. And it’s all day, every day, okay? 10, 11, 12 hours.
50:0450 minutes, 4 secondsYes. And it is a lifestyle. Okay. My there’s been no delineation between work
50:1050 minutes, 10 secondsand social and friends and work associates. It’s all as we were talking about earlier. My work is social. Social
50:1950 minutes, 19 secondsis work. I friends are the people I It’s all just one big like this. Okay. Right.
50:2650 minutes, 26 secondsThere’s no different. There’s no here’s my work life and my outside. It’s all okay mixed
50:3250 minutes, 32 secondsup into one big thing. So I tell them chase your dreams. Go after it. Okay.
50:3950 minutes, 39 secondsBut that’s really what’s required. So, if you’re not gonna go at it 110%, okay, don’t even bother. Okay, pick one thing.
50:4850 minutes, 48 secondsOkay, don’t I get some of these young people today, they give me a business card that says producer, engineer, beat maker, singer, vocalist, this, blah,
50:5750 minutes, 57 secondsblah, blah, and there’s like nine things.
51:0051 minutesYeah. And I kind of you look at it and very politely say, “That’s nice.” You know, here go back.
51:0751 minutes, 7 secondsPick one. Yeah.
51:0951 minutes, 9 secondsPick one thing. and spend the rest of your life trying to be the best you can
51:1551 minutes, 15 secondspossibly be at that one thing and improve on that every single day of your
51:2351 minutes, 23 secondslife. And that’s what will get you a career. Being a jack of all trades, master of none,
51:3051 minutes, 30 secondsisn’t necessarily going to buy you the next 50 years of your life, right? So, have a focus. have that one thing that
51:3951 minutes, 39 secondsyou’re sort of, you know, at least as you get un underway. Okay. You can then branch off. Yeah.
51:4851 minutes, 48 secondsSay later down the line. But you got to have that one thing though that gets the ship. There’s a central theme. Yeah.
51:5451 minutes, 54 secondsThere’s a central theme. I mean, I know a lot of us, including myself, I’ve done a whole lot of different things, but they’ve all been centered around this one thing.
52:0152 minutes, 1 secondWell, yeah. And that one thing existed first, right? Exactly.
52:0552 minutes, 5 secondsOkay. You got to get the boat out of the harbor first in one direction.
52:1052 minutes, 10 secondsAnd once you’re then out into the ocean, then you can kind of veer off a little bit and go cruise around and Okay. But you got to lock on to that one thing.
52:1952 minutes, 19 secondsYou can’t start out all over the place because you’re never really moving direction forward in one that right. You’re kind
52:2852 minutes, 28 secondsof in circles and there’s no direct momentum. So, pick one thing and and and
52:3552 minutes, 35 secondsfocus on that initially, okay? To get yourself going. But, you know, you’re going to work long hours.
52:4652 minutes, 46 secondsYou’re going to work really hard. You’re not going to make a lot of money at first. Okay? Quite for some time, actually. More more likely than than not. Okay?
52:5552 minutes, 55 secondsY don’t think you’re going to get into this and retire with a gajillion dollars because you’re probably not. Most of us are not.
53:0453 minutes, 4 secondsNope.
53:0553 minutes, 5 secondsOkay. You know, we don’t do it for that reason. We didn’t get into it for that.
53:1053 minutes, 10 secondsWe got into it because it’s what appealed to our hearts and our souls and
53:1853 minutes, 18 secondsthe emotional thing of it all. And it’s because what we loved and it chose us, as you just said.
53:2253 minutes, 22 secondsYeah. And because it chose us. the any monetary payoff is wonderful, but if you can do it and it’s what you love and
53:3253 minutes, 32 secondsit’s something you enjoy and it can pay your bills for the rest of your life, then you’re already so far ahead of the
53:4153 minutes, 41 secondsmajority of people out there in the world who work at jobs they hate and despise and have to, you know, do thing,
53:4953 minutes, 49 secondsyou know, break their backs every day just to be able to pay the bills. So if you can just live comfortably, right, then that’s you’re a success.
53:5953 minutes, 59 secondsThat’s is okay. So that’s really mark what your level of success really is.
54:0654 minutes, 6 secondsYou know, uh, right? You know, sometimes the success is just being able to do what you love and enjoy doing. Okay? And if you can
54:1454 minutes, 14 secondspay the bills and put a couple dollars in your pocket still, you’re doing great, right? You know,
54:2254 minutes, 22 secondsmost people in this business never see their name up in lights. Very, very, very, very few.
54:2954 minutes, 29 secondsOkay? So, don’t do it for that. Do it for the right reasons. Do it for yourself.
54:3454 minutes, 34 secondsDo it for yourself and because it fulfills you. Yep.
54:3754 minutes, 37 secondsEach day and it feeds your soul and it’s something that you love and enjoy. Just doing that. Just being able to do
54:4454 minutes, 44 secondssomething you love and enjoy. But these days, temper it with it’s a very different business. So you really have
54:5154 minutes, 51 secondsto go still full into it but you know uh you have to make it your own somehow.
54:5954 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. So you know chase chase your dream but be prepared to work hard. Work really hard. Okay. And give up a lot.
55:0855 minutes, 8 secondsOkay. Work holidays. Work Christmas Day.
55:1055 minutes, 10 secondsWork the I mean I’ve missed how many birthdays? Worked how many holidays? Right. 12 13 14 15 hour days.
55:1955 minutes, 19 secondsstory in my life too, man.
55:2155 minutes, 21 secondsIf you’re not ready for that, then maybe it’s Yeah, even though maybe a different maybe, you
55:2855 minutes, 28 secondsknow, corporate accountant is maybe something, you know, but they work just as hard, right? But at least they make a more bread in many ways, right? Okay.
55:3855 minutes, 38 secondsYou know, they do get a holiday once in a while and they get to take the holidays off every once in a while. So, I don’t dissuade them from following their dream. I would never have listened to
55:4555 minutes, 45 secondsanybody that tried to dissuade me. all those all those decades ago.
55:5155 minutes, 51 secondsNobody could talk us out of this, right? You know, but the the younger me probably could have learned from listening to some people who had said,
55:5855 minutes, 58 seconds”It’s going to be hard work, kid, and you’re going to work your butt off and this, you know, I came to realize that very very quickly.” That’s true. But I don’t know if it would have changed your mind.
56:0756 minutes, 7 secondsNo, it would have changed my mind.
56:0856 minutes, 8 secondsNo, no, no, no. Absolutely not. But it would have at least I would have known. Yeah.
56:1256 minutes, 12 secondsBefore like, wow, this is day I’ve worked 15 hour days for 10 days in a row now, man. Yeah.
56:1956 minutes, 19 secondsYou know, I’m tired, man. And I’m out of socks, right? You know, [laughter] that was the one good part about working in New York City, man. Okay. You know, you
56:2856 minutes, 28 secondsalways have a little bag on your back and stuff. And I would br literally so many days in a row, but they’d always have little street vendors, man.
56:3556 minutes, 35 secondsAnd I could just literally would throw down like six bucks and buy a pack of, you know, plast with, you know, eight
56:4256 minutes, 42 secondspairs of new clean socks. I would go to the studio with in my, you know, sort of
56:4956 minutes, 49 secondsknapsack with two clean t-shirts all the time, a pair of socks, deodorant. All right. Toothpaste, my tooth because half
56:5856 minutes, 58 secondsthe time, how long you going to be there?
56:5956 minutes, 59 secondsWell, and sometimes you just didn’t go home. There would be days gigs I would work I wouldn’t get home for three days.
57:0557 minutes, 5 secondsbecause you’d work 18 hours and it was just like it just crash
57:1457 minutes, 14 secondst-shirt, little little here, right? Put on some back to it, man. Okay. You know, all the time, especially back in the
57:2257 minutes, 22 secondslike the 80s and stuff in New York and you’d do 24hour sessions. Sure.
57:2757 minutes, 27 secondsI’d do some of these sessions with um like uh you know, CNC Music Factory back in the days. All right. You know, they had there was that big hit they had,
57:3557 minutes, 35 secondsright? Going to make you sweat, whatever, right? Okay. And and you know, or a lot of the remix guys back then,
57:4257 minutes, 42 secondsokay, Frankie Knuckles, okay, and uh the original OG rappers. And we’d be in there for 24 hours a day, man.
57:5057 minutes, 50 secondsPowered by Peruvian marching powder.
57:5257 minutes, 52 secondsI won’t go there uh or any of that, but uh you know, I did a whole record with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
58:0058 minutesOkay. Right. Okay. Right. And we were in there for days on end. Right. You know, it was a different world back then.
58:0858 minutes, 8 secondsPlus, you were younger. It’s easy. When you’re 23 years old, you’re indestructible.
58:1358 minutes, 13 secondsYou’re made of rubber, man. You know, so you can deal with that kind of stuff.
58:1658 minutes, 16 secondsthese days it’s kind of you know one of the reasons I’ve kind of moved into the the the the archival kind of end of
58:2558 minutes, 25 secondsthings restoration a little more sane in terms of the hours and uh that kind of thing you know different
58:3258 minutes, 32 secondslife different time in life you know yeah and it goes quick you go to sleep you know yesterday you know it’s like I went to sleep last night and I was 21 and I
58:4158 minutes, 41 secondswoke up today and I’m 63 somebody said to me the other day they said you know I didn’t I didn’t I think getting old would happen so quickly.
58:4858 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. You know, like that. I know, man.
58:5158 minutes, 51 secondsExactly. So, but we’ve lived a good life.
58:5458 minutes, 54 secondsI’ve lived an incredible life, man. And I’m grateful for every single moment of it, and I take none of it for granted.
59:0059 minutesAnd that’s that’s, you know, the other thing about, you know, success. People in this
59:0859 minutes, 8 secondsindustry or in any, you know, they always talk about success.
59:1159 minutes, 11 secondsWhat’s success? And um is it a house? Is it a car? Is it how many stakes you got in the freezer?
59:2259 minutes, 22 secondsRight? Is it all these big accolades and awards and all that kind of you know
59:2859 minutes, 28 secondswhat’s the definition of success in this business or in or any of that?
59:3559 minutes, 35 secondsYou know, I’ve after all these years kind of boiled it down for me at least to the definition of success is how many
59:4459 minutes, 44 secondspeople show up at your funeral, right? For me, cuz all of this is all transitory and it’s all just whatever.
59:5459 minutes, 54 secondsIt’s it doesn’t monetary success or your name and lights or these accolades or it’s all whatever. You’re not taking any of that when you go. It is what it is.
1:00:041 hour, 4 secondsDoes that make you a successful person, a successful human being? I’ve re-evaluated what I view as success.
1:00:141 hour, 14 secondsMhm.
1:00:151 hour, 15 secondsAnd for me, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to be a successful human being in the end. How do you and
1:00:231 hour, 23 secondsand that tied up in what gives you a career and how do you get a a multi-deade your entire life career in this business or any of them?
1:00:331 hour, 33 secondsWhat kind of person are you? Are you do you bring positivity to a session or to an environment every day? Do you bring
1:00:411 hour, 41 secondslove? Do you bring joy? Do you bring happiness? Do you bring reinforcement?
1:00:461 hour, 46 secondsOkay. Support, you know, how do you affect the people around you? Okay.
1:00:531 hour, 53 secondsRight. What do you give out and give off each day? What do you want to be as a human being? What kind of person do you
1:01:021 hour, 1 minute, 2 secondswant to be? Do you have gratitude for the blessings that you’re given each day? For the fact that you’re able to do
1:01:101 hour, 1 minute, 10 secondssomething that you love and enjoy each day and get paid for it, right? Do you have keep that gratitude
1:01:171 hour, 1 minute, 17 secondsand that thankfulness in front of you all day long every single day?
1:01:221 hour, 1 minute, 22 secondsEspecially compared to the majority of the world when you look around and go, you know,
1:01:291 hour, 1 minute, 29 secondsI’m I’m doing pretty darn good in the fact that Okay. Right. Gratitude is the word, man.
1:01:371 hour, 1 minute, 37 secondsIt’s the whole your attitude is is everything. So, you know, I’ve seen a lot I’ve worked with a lot of people
1:01:441 hour, 1 minute, 44 secondsover the decades, okay? Some of the most, as we know, most famous artists, bands, producers, engineers, everybody, you know, from A to Z over the decades.
1:01:551 hour, 1 minute, 55 secondsAnd the things that the thing that’s really brought it home to me the most is the the success thing is
1:02:051 hour, 2 minutes, 5 secondshow are you know, who are you and and what are your beliefs? Anybody can write a great song. Okay, not anybody, but you
1:02:131 hour, 2 minutes, 13 secondsknow what I mean. Okay, there’s plenty of people that can write great songs, plenty of people that can play, you know, an instrument, plenty of people that can do all this, but if you’re a
1:02:211 hour, 2 minutes, 21 secondsdowner and you’re and everything’s always a hassle and bad mood and nobody wants to,
1:02:271 hour, 2 minutes, 27 secondsyou know, they may hire you, but you’ll find that eventually it kind of, you know, Yeah. But if you bring
1:02:351 hour, 2 minutes, 35 secondsyou bring joy bring joy and love and gratitude and happiness and you look around and you go, “Man, I can’t believe I’m here. I’m so thankful to be here.”
1:02:441 hour, 2 minutes, 44 secondsAnd and all each day, man, that’ll carry you off to the stars,
1:02:521 hour, 2 minutes, 52 secondsyou know, literally in a way. Oh, it’s just, you know, that’s been my experience all these decades
1:03:001 hour, 3 minuteslater. Great advice and that’s what I try to instill in some of the young people. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
1:03:061 hour, 3 minutes, 6 secondsDon’t get hung up on the name and lights and all that’s all transitory. You came in with nothing and [clears throat] one day you will be leaving with nothing.
1:03:161 hour, 3 minutes, 16 secondsYep. Okay. And everything else in between.
1:03:211 hour, 3 minutes, 21 secondsDon’t spend your entire life chasing monetary gain
1:03:281 hour, 3 minutes, 28 secondsor what or the trappings of or what the world in society tells you is important or what you should have, right? A car or a big car or this kind of car or what the world or magazine, you know that.
1:03:381 hour, 3 minutes, 38 secondsYeah.
1:03:381 hour, 3 minutes, 38 secondsYou know, don’t spend your whole life chasing all that stuff and and miss your whole life, right? Exactly. In the process of Yeah.
1:03:471 hour, 3 minutes, 47 secondsRight. you know, take a moment away from all of this as well.
1:03:511 hour, 3 minutes, 51 secondsRemember to do that, but then also just put it in the in the big picture of, you know, the first thing you do before your feet hit the floor in the morning is to say,
1:04:001 hour, 4 minutes”Thank you.” Yeah. Thank you for another day. And that’s what I do all the time, too.
1:04:041 hour, 4 minutes, 4 secondsMe, too. And just, you know, and go from there. And then just do the best you can. Spend each day trying to be better
1:04:121 hour, 4 minutes, 12 secondsthan you were the day before. Yeah, man. Bill Smith, thank you for being my guest. My pleasure. Has been a pleasure.
1:04:201 hour, 4 minutes, 20 secondsThank you, Daniel. Absolutely. Yeah, it’s been fun, man.
1:04:261 hour, 4 minutes, 26 secondsHey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.

Sync to video time