Insights In Sound 215 – Fred Paragano, Re-Recording Mixer / Supervising Sound Editor S22 E5

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0:2727 secondsI’m here with Fred Paragono at Paragon Studios in where are we? Studio City, right? Uh uh Sherman Oaks.
0:3535 secondsSherman Oaks. Okay. You are kind of multifaceted. I mean, obviously you’re mostly a post production mixer, but you come from the music uh end of things originally. Right.
0:4444 secondsRight.
0:4545 secondsLet’s start there because that’s always a fascinating thing to me how people transition from one side of the industry to a different facet and everything. Uh,
0:5454 secondsdid you come up as a as a wannabe rock star like most of us?
0:5757 secondsUh, maybe a little bit in high school, but uh, ultimately I kind of knew what I wanted to do by the time I got to uh, college.
1:051 minute, 5 secondsDid you? Yeah.
1:061 minute, 6 secondsWas it because your first exposure to the studio was in playing music or did you already kind of have an idea you want to be an engineer?
1:141 minute, 14 secondsYeah, I was I was recording, you know, my own stuff or other bands in my house in my parents house, you know, back in
1:221 minute, 22 secondshigh school. So, I kind of really enjoyed that and um that’s what kind of I guess
1:281 minute, 28 secondsI should go back. Uh I played keys. So, that’s what started me into it. Okay. So, you were synth geek. Yes.
1:361 minute, 36 secondsOkay.
1:361 minute, 36 secondsAnd so, I started in that and you know got into sequencers and then ultimately four track and you know just
1:441 minute, 44 secondsuntil I was recording bands and that’s what was available at the time, right? Yeah.
1:481 minute, 48 secondsYeah. And I think that’s good too because I think that teaches you a lot more about signal flow than coming up on DAWs in a way, you know.
1:551 minute, 55 secondsAnd it was interesting because I had a piano teacher and his friend happened to be, you know, a recording engineer in
2:022 minutes, 2 secondsNew York. And so I would have him come in like, you know, my piano teacher would come in and then this other guy would follow and then teach me recording.
2:112 minutes, 11 secondsNice. Okay. So you learned a lot of it at the same time.
2:142 minutes, 14 secondsYes. Which also is interesting because I think keyboard players and synth players in particular,
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsthey’re not technology shy, right?
2:242 minutes, 24 secondsYou know, whereas some some artists are, you know, a little bit, it’s harder for them to get that leftrain, right brain
2:312 minutes, 31 secondsblend. And that’s always been fascinating to me too because you know obviously to learn an instrument you have to be very leftrained but you also
2:392 minutes, 39 secondshave to be very understanding of the whole rightrain creative side of things and being able to mesh those mentalities in a way right.
2:472 minutes, 47 secondsSo okay so you started multitracking pretty early on obviously. Yes.
2:522 minutes, 52 secondsMhm. uh then built that up and you know it was you know fairly elaborate studio in my parents’ basement you know through
3:003 minutesthey were very tolerant obviously they were they were great they were great you know I mean you know they didn’t love the drum days but you know
3:073 minutes, 7 secondsit was it was you know it was fine uh no they were very supportive of the whole thing and it was great and then uh when I was done with that went to one
3:163 minutes, 16 secondsyear uh of college dropped out uh after a year we have that in common Yes. Okay. So,
3:233 minutes, 23 secondsyeah, I did a one year at Berkeley College of Music.
3:263 minutes, 26 secondsOh, okay. Oh, so you actually went to a music college? I did. I did.
3:303 minutes, 30 secondsInteresting. So, and it was great. Don’t get me wrong. It was I’m kind of curious. Yeah. Why? I mean, Berkeley is, you know, the holy grail, so to speak. You know, I’m I’m
3:383 minutes, 38 secondsinterested in So, why didn’t that work for you? Um, I think it was one of these things where, um, while I love the school and
3:473 minutes, 47 secondswhile it was great, I realized probably midway through uh, that first year, I really don’t want to be a player. Like,
3:543 minutes, 54 secondsthis is something I don’t I’m not interested in. I mean, as as far as a um, like a career goal,
4:024 minutes, 2 secondsthat’s a that’s a tough one, man. You know, and and there are a lot of people who do very very well as players. Yep.
4:084 minutes, 8 secondsyou know, uh, but that’s, you know, I think the thing about being a player and, uh, someone said this to me
4:164 minutes, 16 secondsrecently and it and it kind of hit home with me because I I also wanted to be a session musician for a while early on is that you’re constantly auditioning.
4:254 minutes, 25 secondsOh, that’s interesting.
4:264 minutes, 26 secondsYou know, it’s like you’re no matter what you’re doing, you’re ne you’re auditioning for that next gig, you know, and if you don’t keep that up
4:344 minutes, 34 secondsconstantly, I mean, that’s a lot of pressure. Well, I mean, I even felt it in in the college thing where it was like, you know, I thought it was pretty good, you know, going into college and
4:424 minutes, 42 secondsthen I see all these other people doing this stuff. I’m like, I’m just I’m sure I could probably get better, but
4:514 minutes, 51 secondslike I I just that wasn’t really where my goal was. Uh-huh.
4:554 minutes, 55 secondsUm, I remember specifically being in a practice room doing some learning some Bach fugue and I was just bar by bar by
5:045 minutes, 4 secondsbar trying to like just figure this thing out. This guy comes into the practice room right next to me and he just sits down. I can hear him and he
5:125 minutes, 12 secondsjust whips off and starts, you know, doing this the same thing. It was the bomb fugue and he just just playing it like it was just nothing.
5:225 minutes, 22 secondsOh yeah. Yeah. And that’s, you know, I mean, it’s funny, man, because I remember, you know, I’m a bass player, okay? And uh I remember being uh at one
5:325 minutes, 32 secondsof those bass player live events many years ago, you know, and just like there’s all these, you know, like
5:395 minutes, 39 seconds15year-old kids, you know, and they’re sitting there and they’re like slapping and popping, you know, and doing the stuff that like and I’m thinking, man,
5:465 minutes, 46 secondsman, I’m really glad I didn’t go into it to try to be a player because, you know, there’s like there’s always going to be somebody, you know, it’s like
5:535 minutes, 53 secondsyou may be a 20-year-old virtuoso right now, But, you know, look behind you, there’s some 13-year-old who’s going to whip your ass, you know.
6:016 minutes, 1 secondYeah. So, yeah, I could see that.
6:036 minutes, 3 secondsSo, I mean, I I guess it was good. I realized that’s what maybe that’s what was the best thing about college for me is that I just recognized what I don’t want to do.
6:126 minutes, 12 secondsYeah.
6:136 minutes, 13 secondsUm and and again, if I wanted to put my heart and soul into that, I’m sure I could have been great, but that’s not
6:206 minutes, 20 secondswhere my focus was. And since I had lessons all through high school on recording,
6:276 minutes, 27 secondsthe first semester just felt a little basic to me. Uhhuh.
6:306 minutes, 30 secondsUm, and I was like, you know, maybe I just need to try this, like go out and actually try to find a job.
6:406 minutes, 40 secondsSo, did you look for a job in a studio? I looked for a I went to New York. Uhhuh.
6:436 minutes, 43 secondsUh, since I was living in Jersey, uh, I went to New York and I got an internship at Quad there. Wow.
6:516 minutes, 51 secondsAnd so, um, it’s a nice first step. Yeah, they And I mean, it was unpaid.
6:566 minutes, 56 secondsSure. But still, I don’t It’s fine. It’s actually less expensive than college, right?
7:007 minutesUm, so, um, anyway, I I just went there and learned everything I possibly could, then moved over to Sony Music Studios.
7:117 minutes, 11 secondsUhhuh.
7:117 minutes, 11 secondsAnd then after some time, I really felt like I I kind of liked what was going on in Nashville.
7:197 minutes, 19 secondsSo after about three years of the New York thing, I kind of picked up and left and went to Nashville.
7:257 minutes, 25 secondsNow the the one thing that I think you get out of an internship like that though is you get to watch the working
7:327 minutes, 32 secondsprocess. Yes. You know, I mean, that was the thing that I got, you know, even as a second at at Cherokee was the
7:397 minutes, 39 secondsbeing able to understand like how the producer relates to the artist, when to keep your mouth shut, you know, how to just integrate into that process
7:487 minutes, 48 secondsand get that magic out of somebody, right? You know, that’s a big thing, man.
7:547 minutes, 54 secondsYep. And that was probably um in my opinion that was the best way for me to transition into that because I got to
8:028 minutes, 2 secondssee it actually happening and and it’s different. Yeah. It’s different than seeing it in school because in school even though you’re doing it and yes, you have this this you
8:128 minutes, 12 secondsknow it’s kind of like you have training wheels on you know whereas being in the studio there it’s it’s you know do or die in a sense you know you
8:208 minutes, 20 secondsreally do learn a lot more. I think I always recommend like with all the interns I’ve had over the years, I always recommend that while they’re in
8:278 minutes, 27 secondsschool that they work in an actual facility at the same time because you’re going to be able to apply everything that you’re learning in school to what’s
8:368 minutes, 36 secondsgoing on in a real environment. And don’t wait until the end of one, two, four years, whatever the school is
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsto get into that environment because now you’re just you’re delaying that period of time of understanding how that world works
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsand and you’re also I mean in a sense you’re not diving into the pool. You’re just kind of like reading about the water. Yes. You know. Yes.
9:009 minutesSo yeah, it makes a lot of sense to get in there and do it. Absolutely.
9:039 minutes, 3 secondsAbsolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, what was it about Nashville as opposed to, let’s say, LA or even New York?
9:119 minutes, 11 secondsUm, I I like New York and occasionally we got some really cool stuff, but there was also just some things I really
9:189 minutes, 18 secondswasn’t enjoying. Um, number one, the commute. Um, yeah, that was that was a thing because I was
9:269 minutes, 26 secondsgoing in from Jersey every day and that was before a thing. So, that was a twohour in, two hour out. Yeah,
9:329 minutes, 32 secondsthat was certainly weighing on me. Um, I mean, I did it. It was fine, but you know, there was also a musical thing
9:409 minutes, 40 secondsthat was happening in Nashville that I um I guess was drawing me more than what we
9:489 minutes, 48 secondswere doing in New York. Now, as I remember, if if if I have my time frame right, this was also a period of time where Nashville was kind of
9:569 minutes, 56 secondstransitioning from country to being more of a um not just rock, but really like a
10:0310 minutes, 3 secondslot of different types of music coming out of there. There were a lot of players who had moved from LA to Nashville. Uh you know, what were
10:1010 minutes, 10 secondsthey saying? you know, um, countries the new rock, you know, like there were and and I knew a lot of people who left from LA here to go to Nashville specifically,
10:2010 minutes, 20 secondsyou know, cheaper and, you know, um, just different way of life and stuff like that. Uh-huh. I mean when I got there it was still um
10:2910 minutes, 29 secondsyou know still like I guess in that transition period where you know you had you know the older you know kind of like
10:3810 minutes, 38 secondsingrained producers that were in it and then you had the all these new people coming in from out of town which was a little weird for everybody too and uh
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsso there was that I was right in the middle of that transition.
10:5010 minutes, 50 secondsUhhuh. So you were one of them foreigners. I was I was definitely from the north.
10:5510 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, was the Berry Hill scene starting at that point or um I don’t remember it being a thing at
11:0211 minutes, 2 secondsall. There was like I think there were like two studios there and then East Iris had just gone up. Uhhuh.
11:0811 minutes, 8 secondsSo, it it was not really a thing at that point. Franklin was starting to become a thing.
11:1411 minutes, 14 secondsWell, Franklin was where everybody was moving to. Yes. Yeah.
11:1711 minutes, 17 secondsYeah. So, uh you know, I actually worked at the Sound Kitchen down there, which was doing a lot of draw and pulling things from downtown. And because people
11:2511 minutes, 25 secondswere living in Franklin, you know, it was just Yeah.
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsI mean, look, it was only 15 minutes to downtown. I’m used to a 2-hour commute into the city. Like, so it was like no big deal for me, but 15 minutes for
11:3811 minutes, 38 secondseverybody else, it was that was a big deal.
11:4111 minutes, 41 secondsAnd that was also a period of time where the city was starting to get built up.
11:4411 minutes, 44 secondsAnd the thing about Nashville, as much as I can appreciate the city, is that um I will not say that they did really great at urban planning.
11:5511 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. You know, I mean, they they built it up way too quickly and didn’t put the infrastructure in.
11:5911 minutes, 59 secondsRight. And see, now when I got there, you know, Music Row was still, you know, that whole stretch was still like shownies and gift shops and stuff like
12:0812 minutes, 8 secondsthat. It was there were no big skyscrapers or buildings or anything like that. It was all truly country western gift shops.
12:1612 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. And everything was basically concentrated in that 15 square block area near downtown. Yes. Lower Broadway and that whole cluster there. Yeah.
12:2512 minutes, 25 secondsMhm.
12:2612 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. I mean I used to go to, you know, Summer Nam there all the time and stuff like that. And that’s, you know, I mean Yeah. Nobody left that area. No.
12:3312 minutes, 33 secondsbasically, you know, and and so the idea of you were either there or you were in Franklin, you know, and uh I mean it’s, you know, it
12:4112 minutes, 41 secondsdefinitely has blossomed into a hell of a great city in terms of, you know, I was just back there in February and it’s I I barely know where I am.
12:5112 minutes, 51 secondsI know it’s very very unfamiliar.
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondsYeah, it’s it’s very weird. I know. Um I mean, you know, I I spent a year there and u I lived in Mount Juliet.
13:0013 minutesOkay. And uh you know so I I spent a lot of time going between there and Barry Hill you know and uh I mean I was amazed
13:0813 minutes, 8 secondsyou know it’s like it seems like there’s no real nobody really lives in Barry Hill. Every house has been turned into a studio almost you know. That’s right.
13:1613 minutes, 16 secondsAnd it’s but it’s you know I mean the scene there is definitely blossomed.
13:2013 minutes, 20 secondsIt’s very very musical and it’s you know it’s wonderful. Um I personally didn’t care for a few things about it. I did I didn’t dig the weather you know but you
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondsknow I’m spoiled. I like the warm weather, you know, of course.
13:3313 minutes, 33 secondsBut um but it definitely it must have been a hell of a great place to cut your teeth as an engineer and really learn learn
13:4113 minutes, 41 secondsyour chops and learn how to work with quote unquote seasoned musicians. Yes. Mhm.
13:4713 minutes, 47 secondsYeah. Some of the best musicians like I’ve ever worked with are there.
13:5113 minutes, 51 secondsYeah, for sure. Um, but I think the thing that threw me off when I got there was how different the um thought process was in recording from New York.
14:0314 minutes, 3 secondsElaborate.
14:0414 minutes, 4 secondsUm, New York it seemed to be um do everything to get it to tape as clean as possible, right? Nothing in between.
14:1314 minutes, 13 secondsMike Pri, right? You just as clean as possible. Uh-huh.
14:1914 minutes, 19 secondsWhen I got there and I saw people bringing their racks of gear in and compressing everything and doing running it through all these EQs and everything,
14:2714 minutes, 27 secondsit that was that was strange to me because I wasn’t familiar with that.
14:3214 minutes, 32 secondsInteresting. So, it was a very different um thought process.
14:3714 minutes, 37 secondsMhm. So, but yeah, a lot of it was basically um a friend of mine used to put it um spit
14:4414 minutes, 44 secondsand get recording, you know, just like, you know, get it down on tape however it’s going to be there and spend less
14:5214 minutes, 52 secondstime actually mixing it because it’s just, you know, I want it on tape like it like it came over. Yeah, I could see that.
14:5914 minutes, 59 secondsYeah, that was a big thing. And the other thing that was different is that the studios in some of the studios in New York were
15:0815 minutes, 8 secondsmuch smaller. You just don’t have the real estate, the same thing.
15:1115 minutes, 11 secondsAnd a lot of it was um peacemail. And Nashville, everybody got into the room together.
15:1915 minutes, 19 secondsAnd when they were done playing, it was like essentially it was that was the recording. Well, and you know that I have to say that was one of the things
15:2715 minutes, 27 secondsthat I really appreciated because I really love the idea of like, you know, the artists being together, creating
15:3415 minutes, 34 secondseverything together. You know, I’m I’m a rock guy, you know, so for me it’s like I want the band in there together, you know, and I want to get as much of it as
15:4215 minutes, 42 secondspossible. Uh I really appreciate you know the aspect of um you know one of the things that I loved about what we
15:5215 minutes, 52 secondshad then you know and I I don’t want to you know those are the good old days or anything like that but you know the fact that we had certain limitations
16:0016 minutesthe fact that we had only you know 24 tracks and stuff like that you had to commit to certain things you had to do certain things right then and there you
16:0816 minutes, 8 secondsdidn’t have the luxury of doing 12 vocal takes and comping it. That’s right. You know, and and I think there was a certain magic about that because it brought out your agame.
16:1716 minutes, 17 secondsMhm.
16:1716 minutes, 17 secondsYou know, and there were there are so many times now where you’re just like, “Ah, I could do it again.” Yep.
16:2216 minutes, 22 secondsYou know, and or just load up tracks of stuff and decide later or whatever.
16:2616 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that, you know, and even with like drum sounds and stuff, you know, oh, I could trigger it, you know, it’s like, no, you know, take the time to tune your
16:3616 minutes, 36 secondsdrums, take the time to move the mic, you know, all of those things. I think were part of like getting it right the
16:4316 minutes, 43 secondsfirst time and then the idea as you say I mean just phenomenal musicians but the idea of letting those musicians play off each
16:5216 minutes, 52 secondsother you know and I think that’s so much more magical than creating an isolation.
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondsAbsolutely. You know when you pre-record something you don’t always have the ability to very quickly make a change if you want to do something different. But
17:0717 minutes, 7 secondswhen you’re interacting with multiple people, it becomes a collaborative experience and everybody can kind of come up with maybe a better idea.
17:1617 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, for me as a bass player, for example, you know, if I’m if I have the luxury of playing with a really great drummer,
17:2417 minutes, 24 secondswhat’ll inevitably happen is like the second time through the tune is, oh, you gonna do that there? I’m, you know, you know, stuff like that.
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondsAnd I think that’s such a such a wonderful thing. And I hate the idea that if you’re tracking in a vacuum, yes.
17:3717 minutes, 37 secondsYou know, it’s like, okay, you’re going to send me your drum part and I’m going to put a bass part, you know, yes, it can work. And yes, we have the technology and the ability to make it
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondssound like it all happened in the same room, but you don’t have that magic. You don’t you no that’s and it’s a thing it’s a
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondsthing that I’m finding now in all aspects even you know what I’m doing now everybody kind of goes off to
17:5917 minutes, 59 secondstheir own place and does their own parts and everything and that that’s fine for certain things but and then we get together in the end
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondsand try to collaborate at that point but you know I think we’re losing a little bit of the collaboration process through Yeah.
18:1818 minutes, 18 secondsUm, yeah.
18:1918 minutes, 19 secondsYou know, through the whole process. So, and I think it becomes more homogeneous, which is not necessarily a good thing, you know. I mean, yes, it’s great for
18:2818 minutes, 28 secondsconsistency. It makes our job easier, right?
18:3018 minutes, 30 secondsBut it takes away the character of why we’re doing this. You know, we’re doing this to create something unique, right?
18:3718 minutes, 37 secondsSo, the idea of like, well, you know, we can make it sound just like XYZ, you know, that’s not necessarily a great
18:4518 minutes, 45 secondsthing, you know? So, you did a lot of music there obviously in Nashville. What kind of stuff did you work on? Oh gosh. Um, it was all sorts of stuff.
18:5418 minutes, 54 secondsIt was country, Christian, rock, everything. I mean, I we did everything. It wasn’t
19:0119 minutes, 1 secondjust one genre of music. And, you know, like you said before, you know, the town is very, very diverse. It’s not just country music.
19:1119 minutes, 11 secondsOh, by no means at all. And so I I’m very fortunate to have been able to kind of be broad in that.
19:2119 minutes, 21 secondsBut one of the things that um once I built the studio there, I found myself getting into a lot of more specialty
19:2819 minutes, 28 secondstype things, uh surround mixing was a big one.
19:3219 minutes, 32 secondsThat’s interesting. So that was early on before the Atmos stuff came around. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. 51 and stuff like that. 71. Yeah.
19:4019 minutes, 40 secondsUhhuh. And uh you know when when the facility was built that was built into the rooms that wasn’t an afterthought.
19:4819 minutes, 48 secondsSure.
19:4919 minutes, 49 secondsSo um you know as we were designing and everything I knew that that had to be integrated in there. So um and just
19:5619 minutes, 56 secondslittle differences like uh you know you’re used to the the the glass being in front of you so you could see the musicians. And one of the things that I
20:0420 minutes, 4 secondsreally liked about Russ and how he designed studios.
20:0920 minutes, 9 secondsYeah. Yeah. Russ Ber, sorry. Uh, is that the glass was off to the left or right. Yeah. Yeah.
20:1520 minutes, 15 secondsAnd it kept the front wall open to put your left, center, and right speakers and also roll down a screen. Yeah.
20:2320 minutes, 23 secondsWhich most people didn’t think about at that point.
20:2520 minutes, 25 secondsWell, a lot of people weren’t working with screens and stuff, too. And that’s another transition you made. Uh, but before we go there, Yeah. Sorry, I jumped ahead.
20:3220 minutes, 32 secondsNo, no, no. Please feel free. you know, I don’t script this stuff intentionally, but before we go there, I I’m kind of interested in how you um
20:4120 minutes, 41 secondsand how that transition happened because, you know, you came in, I assume, thinking you were going to be a music
20:4820 minutes, 48 secondsguy because that’s basically what you know, that was the gig, right? Mhm.
20:5320 minutes, 53 secondsAnd so there’s a discovery process that happens for a lot of us and especially when we first get into what we do and we
21:0221 minutes, 2 secondsget into the industry and stuff. It’s like you only know certain jobs because you only know those jobs exist and and
21:1021 minutes, 10 secondsyou have um I call it aperture blur. you know, you have this goal, you have this thing that this is what I’m going to do,
21:1821 minutes, 18 secondsand there’s all this other stuff that kind of creeps in in the periphery of like, I didn’t even know that gig existed kind of stuff. So,
21:2621 minutes, 26 secondswhat was your exposure to doing like let’s say, you know, you started out with music and uh you ended up doing
21:3421 minutes, 34 secondsmovies and, you know, sound for picture, stuff like that.
21:3821 minutes, 38 secondsHow did that happen? Did you just happen to get a gig doing that or you know you know I I I’ve always known that it’s been a thing. I mean I followed the mix
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsmagazines and everything and I had a very good friend who went off to Fullale and then went right into you know film.
21:5321 minutes, 53 secondsUh so I I always knew it was there and it was something I was always interested in but I took the music path at that point. Mhm.
22:0022 minutesUm which was much more viable in those days too.
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondsYes. Yeah. Totally different thing. Um the interesting thing was that I sort of
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsnaturally transitioned with doing you know a lot of surround projects into doing um mixing for live concerts.
22:1922 minutes, 19 secondsAh okay.
22:2022 minutes, 20 secondsSo I did a lot of live concert you know Blu-rays, DVDs, whatever you know that kind of which is another whole different ball of wax there.
22:3022 minutes, 30 secondsRight. So I did a lot of that which was kind of my introduction into post. Now live sound.
22:3722 minutes, 37 secondsWell, it wasn’t live sound. Okay. It was postprouction.
22:4122 minutes, 41 secondsOh, it was post. So So I I would record the shows and then do the but you weren’t in front of house. No.
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondsOkay. No, because that again that’s a whole different skill set, you know.
22:5222 minutes, 52 secondsThat’s like one song to get 55 channels of, you know, things right. And that’s I always felt that anybody who wants to
22:5922 minutes, 59 secondsget into production or whatever should do some live sound work because it it teaches you that but at the same time it’s it’s a completely different world. Yeah.
23:0923 minutes, 9 secondsYeah. No, no, no. That was not it. That was not I never wanted to do that. I never wanted mad respect to anybody who can do that,
23:1723 minutes, 17 secondsyou know, and I and some of my good good friends are great live sound mixers, but that’s like to me, you know, I like being here and sculpting.
23:2623 minutes, 26 secondsOh, yeah.
23:2723 minutes, 27 secondsI like being able to stop and rewind and play and I I like being able to have control. Yeah.
23:3423 minutes, 34 secondsYou know, and I feel like that I mean, it’s fine. I just it’s nothing I I was interested in. However, I did record a lot of live shows.
23:4523 minutes, 45 secondsOkay.
23:4523 minutes, 45 secondsSo, and then truck basically.
23:4823 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. Or we set up a you know remote rig somewhere and you know in all different environments it and that was great and then we’d wind up taking them back to
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondsthe studio and doing the you know editorial work and mixing on them. Uhhuh.
24:0124 minutes, 1 secondSo that’s where my introduction into post was.
24:0524 minutes, 5 secondsInteresting. Okay. And so, um, at that point, you’re starting to get into what
24:1224 minutes, 12 secondswas then sort of the precursor to immersive.
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondsUm, the whole idea of placing stuff in different areas because, you know, like my first exposure to that was, um, I
24:2324 minutes, 23 secondsworked in a room that had been wired for quad, right?
24:2624 minutes, 26 secondsUh, it was one of the old Encore. It was called Encore now, but back then it was one of the old Kendon rooms, and they were switching it over. and just
24:3424 minutes, 34 secondslistening to that mix, you know, at that point, people didn’t really know what to do with those extra speakers. Yeah. And
24:4224 minutes, 42 secondsit was like, oh, let’s put behind us and they put the wrong behind them, you know, and that’s a little bit disconcerting, too. So,
24:5024 minutes, 50 secondsgetting into that understanding the science, that must have been a little bit of a an eye openener, too.
24:5524 minutes, 55 secondsWell, it’s interesting because that happened with stereo, too. Yes.
24:5824 minutes, 58 secondsRight. From mono to stereo, right? Let’s put the over here. Yeah.
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondExactly. And so I and I think that’s even kind of a thing right now. You know, people that are just getting into
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondsAtmos and those kind of things are trying to figure out what to to do with all these channels. Right. Right. Right.
25:1525 minutes, 15 secondsUm this was something that, you know, I started doing quite a while back. Okay.
25:2125 minutes, 21 secondsAnd you know, I figured out what worked and what didn’t work.
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondsYou learned what not to do quickly. You know, you know, you make your mistakes, you do your things. And yeah.
25:3025 minutes, 30 secondsUm but yeah, no, that’s that’s kind of what got me into it.
25:3425 minutes, 34 secondsUhhuh. As you’re doing that is the whole um I mean when did the immersive stuff that that we know now start creeping
25:4225 minutes, 42 secondsinto the equation for you? Was it early on or Yeah. No, I I had moved here in 2012 I think it was.
25:5125 minutes, 51 secondsOkay.
25:5125 minutes, 51 secondsAnd it was just when you know Atmos was starting to become a thing, right? Mhm.
25:5825 minutes, 58 secondsAnd but I don’t think I really touched it for the first few years that it was kind of happening. Uh still working in 51, 71 maybe, but it was still a lot of 51.
26:0826 minutes, 8 secondsNow, let me back you up there a little bit because I I have a couple of questions about that. First of all, um just from a from a practical perspective,
26:1726 minutes, 17 secondsyou’re one of the outliers there in terms of moving from Nashville to LA because most people were going the other way. What drew you out here?
26:2426 minutes, 24 secondsI would come out here to work on things. Uhhuh.
26:2726 minutes, 27 secondsUh, I’d have a project, I’d come out, whatever. Every time it came out, I loved it.
26:3226 minutes, 32 secondsEvery time I came out and like and people were like, “You’re crazy.” Especially the people that, you know, had moved from there back to Nashville. Yeah.
26:3826 minutes, 38 secondsLike, oh, hate it. Hate it. But every time I came out here, I just felt like this is such a cool town
26:4626 minutes, 46 secondsand there’s so much going on and like it just felt great to me.
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondsAnd LA is so many it’s it’s so many different towns. Yeah. You know, and it was funny cuz yeah, when I I lived in Nashville for a year and then when I
26:5826 minutes, 58 secondsdecided to move back, all of my Nashville friends were like, “You’re out of your mind.” Yeah. What are you doing?
27:0427 minutes, 4 secondsBut I just I was drawn to it and I’ve always been drawn to the West in that sense. You know, maybe it’s something about having grown up in the East Coast. I don’t know.
27:1127 minutes, 11 secondsI do know some people who, you know, I my my good friend Gil Griffith, who you probably know, uh, you know, Gil’s from New Jersey. He loves he loves Nashville.
27:2127 minutes, 21 secondsyou know, I personally I just it just I I think it’s a just a personal taste thing, you know, it just didn’t work for me either.
27:2827 minutes, 28 secondsBut when you came out here Yes.
27:3127 minutes, 31 secondsThe other thing about out here, I think, is that there’s a lot more of uh sound for picture, a lot more of a post-production world out here. And
27:3927 minutes, 39 secondsthat’s obviously what you were being drawn to, too, I assume.
27:4127 minutes, 41 secondsYes. because I mean and he it’s interesting cuz I really as I got more into post I found that it was um I was
27:5127 minutes, 51 secondsgravitating more towards you know movies and TV and that kind of thing and you know you just don’t have it in Nashville
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondsand I had the facility and I threw time and money at it to try to build it up to
28:0628 minutes, 6 secondsbring post there and you know it got a lot of Um, the way I say it is a lot of big parts of really
28:1528 minutes, 15 secondssmall jobs or a lot of really small parts of really big jobs. Interesting.
28:2028 minutes, 20 secondsAnd I I just I just wanted that whole shift, you know, I didn’t want to keep, you know, chasing after something that
28:2728 minutes, 27 secondsjust really wasn’t happening there. And um so with no plan uh one day I just picked up and and I
28:3628 minutes, 36 secondsgot to say I was actually getting really depressed because I wasn’t able to fully do um what I wanted there and I felt
28:4528 minutes, 45 secondslike I was it was almost like it was holding me down a bit.
28:4828 minutes, 48 secondsNow you had at that point built a multi-room facility in Nashville, right? Yes.
28:5228 minutes, 52 secondsAnd so so I mean that takes a hell of a lot of infrastructure to keep that going. Yes.
28:5728 minutes, 57 secondsThat’s that’s a big commitment, man. And I mean, I know what it’s like to run even a one room studio. Running a multi-room studio, that’s
29:0429 minutes, 4 secondsthat’s a hell of a lot of I mean, I think what happens there, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing this happened to you, too, is that you start
29:1229 minutes, 12 secondsgetting so involved in the administration of the facility that you find you’re not really working in it as much as you want to. You’re running it.
29:2229 minutes, 22 secondsI did feel that, you know, I definitely felt that, but I didn’t mind it. It didn’t bother me. Um, I actually enjoyed
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondskind of, you know, being involved in all that and doing all that and but and yes, it did take me away from certain things, you
29:3829 minutes, 38 secondsknow, but um, I didn’t mind it. Okay.
29:4129 minutes, 41 secondsBut I did have one room in the facility that was only my room that nobody else nobody else would touch and only the people that were working
29:4929 minutes, 49 secondswith me would would work in there. And then the other room was an identical control room like with identical monitoring so you could go back and
29:5729 minutes, 57 secondsforth. The tracking rooms were different but the control rooms were identically the same. Okay.
30:0230 minutes, 2 secondsUm console was different clearly. I had a K series in in the tracking room and then I had a um well I had a few other
30:1030 minutes, 10 secondsthings in the other room. Um but you know so they were a little bit different in functionality. Okay.
30:1730 minutes, 17 secondsBut it was set up for the way that I work right. It was really nice because I could work with people and they would be doing, you know, the
30:2630 minutes, 26 secondssame project, let’s say, in the A room and I would be working on the back end of the project in the B room. And so you could easily go between the two rooms
30:3430 minutes, 34 secondsand, you know, uh, you know, there was it was very similar. Um,
30:4130 minutes, 41 secondsbut I think I started feeling the limitations of it just what I wanted to do just wasn’t
30:4930 minutes, 49 secondsthere. It just wasn’t there, you know, in Nashville and I needed to be elsewhere in the culture. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
30:5530 minutes, 55 secondsUm, and we were losing a lot of jobs that were just going right back to LA.
30:5830 minutes, 58 secondsSo, I was like, “All right, I need to make this move.” Mhm.
31:0231 minutes, 2 secondsI had zero plan. Zero plan. one day just picked up and I was like, I’m just gonna go out there and we’ll see. And I packed a few bags and found a hotel in a week.
31:1531 minutes, 15 secondsI was in a, you know, temporary living situation, you know, for like a few months and I just never really went back.
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondsAnd so you left your studio running there basically and just eventually sold the studio and came out here.
31:2931 minutes, 29 secondsYeah, but it took a long time. I mean, I moved out here in 201 12, 2013, something like that, and didn’t sell the place until 2022.
31:3931 minutes, 39 secondsYou got a lot of air miles, didn’t you?
31:4131 minutes, 41 secondsWell, I, you know, in the beginning, I would go back and forth a lot. Uhhuh.
31:4531 minutes, 45 secondsUm, but that really kind of leveled out as as most of my work started coming from out here, I had to go back there less and less.
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsOkay.
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsSo, I would just let other people run it. Uh um and uh ultimately just you know all the
32:0232 minutes, 2 secondswork was coming from out here and that thing was just running on the side and I’d have I would have to make phone calls every day and kind of invest in it and everything.
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsUm and eventually you it’s kind of no long your heart’s no longer in it, right?
32:1632 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. You know, I just didn’t feel the connection to it anymore. And that’s weird to say because I saw it through every stage of its construction and you
32:2432 minutes, 24 secondsknow every little detail of it. But I just I don’t know. This is where I like to be. Yeah. Okay.
32:3032 minutes, 30 secondsThis is where I found it to you know I don’t know. I just I got a little disconnected from it. I guess you could say. So, did you intend
32:3932 minutes, 39 secondson building because you know we’re right now in your facility in your home which is gorgeous by the way and this is a a wonderful
32:4832 minutes, 48 secondsatmos room that has been purposeuilt and stuff like that but did you intend on coming out here and opening another commercial facility originally or you
32:5632 minutes, 56 secondsalways wanted to just do this? No, because I I think also the the weird thing that happened
33:0333 minutes, 3 secondsand you may relate to this when you start when you’re a facility owner that also becomes a little bit it defines you a little bit.
33:1233 minutes, 12 secondsYes.
33:1233 minutes, 12 secondsIn a way that I didn’t expect to be defined and that’s not really what I wanted.
33:1933 minutes, 19 secondsYeah. Well, because it removes you from the process a lot, I think. You know, you’re no longer you’re no longer the
33:2833 minutes, 28 secondsperson inside the process. You’re now the facility owner. And that’s a different hat.
33:3233 minutes, 32 secondsYes. And the way that people see you is very different. Yes.
33:3733 minutes, 37 secondsAnd so, um, I didn’t really feel like that was something I wanted to
33:4433 minutes, 44 secondsgo back into. It wasn’t that I didn’t like having the studio. Mhm.
33:4833 minutes, 48 secondsIt’s just I, you know, wasn’t what you wanted to do. It wasn’t you, right? Yeah. Uhhuh.
33:5333 minutes, 53 secondsLike I’d rather have my work define me than a building. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If that makes more sense. Oh, it absolutely makes sense. Yeah.
34:0134 minutes, 1 secondSo I think that’s why you got into it. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Mhm.
34:0534 minutes, 5 secondsUm so no, I did not intend to do this at all. Um this was inspired by two things.
34:1234 minutes, 12 secondsum one co um that happened. Uhhuh.
34:1734 minutes, 17 secondsUm and so needed a place to work and um because I couldn’t get back to the studios and we couldn’t everybody was sort of setting up at home.
34:2734 minutes, 27 secondsSo your but your intention when you came out here was to work in commercial rooms and just Okay.
34:3234 minutes, 32 secondsAbsolutely. I see. So, I had a room and I still have a room in another facility um that I can go to and work at. Um and
34:4034 minutes, 40 secondsthen people would hire me and I’d work in the other facilities.
34:4434 minutes, 44 secondsLoved it. Like there are some wonderful studios here, you know. I mean, I I have dear friends at a lot of studios here in town and I
34:5334 minutes, 53 secondsand I love them and I always want to support them, you know. I mean, yeah, there’s, you know, legendary rooms in this town. There’s no question about it, you know.
35:0135 minutes, 1 secondYeah.
35:0135 minutes, 1 secondA lot of times, I mean, you you just want to be there cuz you feel the vibe, you know?
35:0535 minutes, 5 secondsWell, and that was the thing that I always remember even in Nashville, like before everybody moved to their homes.
35:1135 minutes, 11 secondsI’d be in the A room and somebody would be in the B room and then you wind up getting together in the hallway, man.
35:1935 minutes, 19 secondsYou start talking and that’s where work came from.
35:2135 minutes, 21 secondsYes. I, you know, I came up at Cherokee, you know, and you’d always run into people in the lounge, you know, I mean, and and it would be weird combinations
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondsof people, you know, like um I remember I I think I was talking to Bruce Rob about this once. We were talking about it one time in the lounge
35:3735 minutes, 37 secondsthere, we we saw the the members of Mly crew sitting and talking to Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet. There you go.
35:4435 minutes, 44 secondsYou know, and just those collaborations that would happen because you’re in these spaces together. Capital, same
35:5235 minutes, 52 secondsthing, you know. Uh, village, same thing, you know. And I think that really I missed that a lot. And that happened in Nashville the same time it happened here.
36:0136 minutes, 1 secondWe’re all siloed now.
36:0236 minutes, 2 secondsYes. And I feel like there it was interesting. I had a a weird thing happen to me once once the facility was built. I had all these people that built
36:1136 minutes, 11 secondsthese elaborate and beautiful, very functional home studios all of a sudden coming to me asking if I
36:1836 minutes, 18 secondshad space available to accommodate them in the building because they were tired of working at home.
36:2436 minutes, 24 secondsSure, that happened. That happened all the time.
36:2736 minutes, 27 secondsWell, you know, there are people now who, you know, there are I mean, Village has, for example, you know, a number of of rooms that people lease because Yeah.
36:3636 minutes, 36 secondsthey want to get out of the house.
36:3736 minutes, 37 secondsThat’s right. Sure. And it it’s interesting because it I find that again all the a lot of the work that I was getting was from being in a multi-room
36:4636 minutes, 46 secondsfacility and just walking down a hallway, right? Yeah.
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondsOut of sight, out of mind. You go home, you’re buried in your house. The only people that know you’re there are the people that you’re working with at the time.
36:5936 minutes, 59 secondsRight. Right.
37:0037 minutesSo it becomes much more difficult to get work. Well, and I think that that also,
37:0737 minutes, 7 secondsyou know, that speaks to a lot of what has happened to us as people since, you know, especially since the advent of
37:1537 minutes, 15 secondssocial media. You know, we’re more connected, but we’re more isolated.
37:1837 minutes, 18 secondsAnd I think it really it it brings with it the need to get out there and quote
37:2537 minutes, 25 secondsunquote network. You know, it’s like I I you know, I I live in Vegas, but I come out here once a month because I want to
37:3337 minutes, 33 secondsbe around people that I know. I mean, I have wonderful people I work with in Nash in in Vegas, too, you know? But
37:4137 minutes, 41 secondsI love coming out here, too, because it’s like you have to maintain those contacts, not only for the working aspect of it, but really for sanity, right?
37:5037 minutes, 50 secondsYou know, right? I mean, if you stay home all the time, I mean, it’s comfortable, you know, like I can always walk, you know, walk to the kitchen, you
37:5937 minutes, 59 secondsknow, get something out of the fridge or whatever, but you’re not getting that vibe of like, you know, working with other people.
38:0538 minutes, 5 secondsI really like being around other people and working with people. So you can get very isolated being in a home or or edit
38:1438 minutes, 14 secondsroom or anything but even in an edit room in a facility you get up you take a break you’re in the hallway there’s people around
38:2138 minutes, 21 secondssomebody comes knocks on the door take a break do something like uh here you you don’t you don’t get that right um right
38:2938 minutes, 29 secondsand it also becomes a challenge also to work in in your home environment when you have your kid running around um
38:3738 minutes, 37 secondsso it it’s that kind thing that you you know uh it’s a balance but the the reason for this and the reason that I
38:4638 minutes, 46 secondsbuilt this number one was co um I needed place to work and I was going to do some small but functional
38:5438 minutes, 54 secondsroom in the house and then I then I you kind of overdid it a little bit but okay and I called the the um acoustician who
39:0339 minutes, 3 secondsdid u my facility in Nashville Russ Burgerer and I just asked him if he would be interested in helping. Of course, he sent back the first renderings and it
39:1239 minutes, 12 secondswas this elaborate beautiful thing and it got Russ tends to Russ tends to um
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondshow shall I say he’s a master at feature creep, right?
39:2339 minutes, 23 secondsYou know, and and to his credit, you know, I mean, he doesn’t think small. No. And and that’s how that happened.
39:3039 minutes, 30 secondsBut the second reason for it is I really I did want to be home with my family. I just got married and I want to like be
39:3739 minutes, 37 secondswith my wife and actually like spend time watch kids grow up and all that stuff. Yeah.
39:4139 minutes, 41 secondsSo the the only added challenge to that now is that they’re here and I want to spend time with them. So it’s it’s
39:4839 minutes, 48 secondstrying to force myself to the balance. Yeah. To have have that kind of thing.
39:5339 minutes, 53 secondsIf I hear something going on outside like I want to be involved. I want to know what’s going on. Sure.
39:5839 minutes, 58 secondsAnd um but but it’s great. It’s fantastic having this and it’s
40:0640 minutes, 6 secondsit’s nice um to have a relaxed atmosphere that I can work in either by
40:1340 minutes, 13 secondsmyself with a director or another mixer or whoever this it it this affords me that.
40:1940 minutes, 19 secondsAnd you have built something here that enables you to bring in the clients, you know, and you’re you’re you can separate
40:2740 minutes, 27 secondsyourself if you need to, but you know, you’ve really um what you’ve created here is kind of a hybrid of, you know, commercialish room, but in your own space.
40:3840 minutes, 38 secondsYes. Mhm.
40:3940 minutes, 39 secondsAnd we’re in a weird time right now because I see the the industry kind of transitioning um a lot.
40:4740 minutes, 47 secondsYes. I had the I don’t know if you say benefit um but I watched the music industry and what happened with that and
40:5640 minutes, 56 secondshow everybody went to their homes and how what happened with the industry and how it sort of collapsed on itself a bit. Yeah.
41:0441 minutes, 4 secondsUm with all the things going on and I see the same pattern happening here right now.
41:0941 minutes, 9 secondsYes. And I see the same pattern happening in the movie industry in particular. I mean, okay, a lot of made for TV stuff now, a lot of I mean, there
41:1741 minutes, 17 secondsis definitely still a lot of sound for picture work, but it’s you’re right, it’s a different Well, I I and I think what’s changed is the quote unquote consumer model.
41:2941 minutes, 29 secondsYou know, the way we consume Y and I hate to even use that word, but you know, content. Yep. you know, the content that we make now, whether it’s
41:3841 minutes, 38 secondsmusic or whether it’s, you know, anything having to do with video, it’s it’s no longer the same routine that it was for so many years.
41:4941 minutes, 49 secondsAnd so, you’re feeding a different machine. Yep.
41:5141 minutes, 51 secondsYou know, but there’s so many similarities in how like the trans like the transition music and the transition here.
41:5941 minutes, 59 secondsUh where all the labels started buying each other up.
42:0242 minutes, 2 secondsYeah. And now we’ve got the film companies buying each other up. Right.
42:0642 minutes, 6 secondsThere there’s so many parallels between these two things. And it’s kind of scary.
42:1042 minutes, 10 secondsAnd I think before co there were people working in their homes. Sure.
42:1642 minutes, 16 secondsBut I don’t think that it was so um I don’t think everybody knew that that was going on. Yeah. Right.
42:2442 minutes, 24 secondsYeah.
42:2442 minutes, 24 secondsAnd I think what happened was or what what I see now is after co everybody had to find a way to work. So everybody set up home environments. Yes.
42:3342 minutes, 33 secondsSo even if you’re working in a bigger facility, you usually have your home environment to go back to.
42:4142 minutes, 41 secondsBut the the difference is that most of those home environments were kind of like I can take my work home. I can do a
42:4842 minutes, 48 secondslittle bit of stuff here, you know, and even, you know, I mean, okay, the extremes were, you know, you took your mix on your laptop and you went home
42:5642 minutes, 56 secondsfrom, let’s say, you know, village and you set up your laptop on your kitchen table to do some mixing. Yeah, those are two very big extremes.
43:0543 minutes, 5 secondsBut now we have the ability because equipment is more condensed, setups are more condensed, we have the
43:1443 minutes, 14 secondsability to really put it in a bedroom, put it anywhere at all. Absolutely.
43:1843 minutes, 18 secondsAnd I think that co really brought that out and let everything producers you know directors everybody sort of
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsfigured out wait we can do this stuff in these kind of environments and whether that’s good or bad that’s you
43:3543 minutes, 35 secondsknow debatable but that’s where it is right now. So it’s a matter of how do you how do you work with that? I
43:4243 minutes, 42 secondsdon’t ever want this to be competition to another facility. This is a way to um
43:5343 minutes, 53 secondshelp get a project done that otherwise maybe wouldn’t come to the facility. Right.
43:5843 minutes, 58 secondsRight. So there um this becomes an extension of that. I we always finish in a larger facility.
44:0844 minutes, 8 secondsUhhuh.
44:0844 minutes, 8 secondsThis is where a lot of the heavy lifting is done.
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsYeah. Yeah, but then we go elsewhere. Not only that, I purposely did not build something huge where um you know it could fit 15 people in here.
44:2244 minutes, 22 secondsI can only fit a few people in here.
44:2444 minutes, 24 secondsVery much on purpose. I don’t want to bring the entire um you know crew here. It’s not that’s not what it was intended for.
44:3344 minutes, 33 secondsRight. Right. This is your personal space.
44:3544 minutes, 35 secondsRight. And as I said before, I like collaboration. Love collaboration. And when you are
44:4244 minutes, 42 secondson your own working on you don’t get that well you know and and that’s an interesting thing too because we talked earlier about um you know teaching
44:5044 minutes, 50 secondsstudents and whatnot and one of the things that I find is that a lot of younger people coming up
44:5844 minutes, 58 secondsin the industry now they have not had that experience of working with other people because they’ve come up in a time when everything’s been siloed.
45:0845 minutes, 8 secondsYep. And so now you’re and and I mean it’s it’s more than just the not working together thing.
45:1845 minutes, 18 secondsIt’s also the communication skills the the the just the whole idea of how we relate to other people. Correct.
45:2645 minutes, 26 secondsAnd you know I find I mean there’s a there’s really in certain ways it’s almost a lack of social skills you know.
45:3245 minutes, 32 secondsYes. And you know I work with a lot of students who you know I I find myself encouraging them to talk to each other.
45:4045 minutes, 40 secondsyou know I I do uh these workshops where I encourage them to you know look at each other talk to each other because so
45:4845 minutes, 48 secondsmany times they don’t understand some basic like nuance of speech facial expressions things like that and
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsthat I think you know we know that we have the advantage of having worked with other musicians and other people you
46:0446 minutes, 4 secondsknow and interacting like that and being in this environment like this and being isolated like that I think you lose a lot of that.
46:1246 minutes, 12 secondsYou do. And uh my dad was always very much about he hated email. Hated email. Um he wanted a conversation.
46:2146 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. Yeah.
46:2246 minutes, 22 secondsYou know, pick up the phone, come to my office, do something like he wanted personal interaction. Yeah. Yeah.
46:2846 minutes, 28 secondsUm and I think that’s so important. I think that there is a lot of that that’s been lost.
46:3446 minutes, 34 secondsAnd and I think it also, you know, that as you say, it brings work. Mhm.
46:3746 minutes, 37 secondsYou know, it it opens up those opportunities because you then have this established communication with someone where you’ve shared something, you know,
46:4546 minutes, 45 secondsand yes, you can share that through written word, but it’s not the same.
46:5046 minutes, 50 secondsY, you know, it’s a completely different level of communication.
46:5346 minutes, 53 secondsOne of the first people I worked with in Nashville, one of the first producers, uh, long story, but he taught me the importance of body language.
47:0247 minutes, 2 secondsYeah. and watching eyes, watching, you know, position of body, like just to be able to understand what somebody’s thinking and feeling.
47:1247 minutes, 12 secondsYeah.
47:1247 minutes, 12 secondsAnd to always pay attention to that, like don’t look at don’t look at this, look at the person.
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondsYeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that’s um I think that’s something that we have lost
47:2647 minutes, 26 secondsthrough co Yeah. you know, the whole world has changed through co and um you know, I I I value that. I think
47:3447 minutes, 34 secondsthat’s so important and I think, you know, it’s one of the things I try to uh to convey to my students, too, is you know, the whole idea of you’re going to
47:4247 minutes, 42 secondsgo out there and you’re going to be working with other people.
47:4547 minutes, 45 secondsSo, understand that now and understand how that plays into the whole creative process.
47:5147 minutes, 51 secondsIt’s it’s funny. Um all I got many many many interns in Nashville. Um and I
47:5947 minutes, 59 secondsalways tried to, you know, encourage that and and help them and um but it was really interesting because we would give
48:0648 minutes, 6 secondsthem before they before we met with them or did anything, we’d give them a 60 question essay test. Interesting.
48:1448 minutes, 14 secondsNo multiple choice. Okay.
48:1648 minutes, 16 secondsall written, all handwritten, you know, uh, and some questions were crazy and some questions were, you should know,
48:2448 minutes, 24 secondsand, you know, there was all that on there.
48:2748 minutes, 27 secondsBut then I would meet with them personally and talk through the test with them to see what they knew, what they didn’t.
48:3348 minutes, 33 secondsAnd it really was about, can we interact? Yeah. Can can we talk about this? Yeah.
48:3948 minutes, 39 secondsAre you able to communicate? Like maybe you didn’t write it really well here. So I’m gonna ask you again. Can you communicate that now?
48:4848 minutes, 48 secondsI mean I was also looking can how’s your handwriting, right? How’s your handwriting? How like cataloging on on Yeah.
48:5548 minutes, 55 secondsRight. Can you explain things? Did you put your name on the paper? Did you like There are two questions in one question.
49:0149 minutes, 1 secondDid you answer both parts of the one question? Detail. Yeah. Yeah.
49:0649 minutes, 6 secondsThat’s what I was looking for. But the communication afterwards was the big important thing for me.
49:1249 minutes, 12 secondsYeah. I I could see that. And I think that’s so um it’s so overlooked. Yeah.
49:1849 minutes, 18 secondsAnd yet it means so much because really that’s where the that’s where the magic happens, man.
49:2549 minutes, 25 secondsThat’s where when you even stupid little stuff like you go to an event, you know, and you have a conversation with someone, what do you take away? you
49:3449 minutes, 34 secondsknow, the people that I want to see again are the people that I had a great conversation with, you know, and even down to this, you know, when I started
49:4249 minutes, 42 secondsdoing this show, um, when I started realizing that I was essentially quote unquote interviewing people. Yeah.
49:4949 minutes, 49 secondsAnd I never really wanted to do that because I don’t, you know, I don’t want to sit here and talk about your gear.
49:5449 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. This is an amazing room. No question about it. and you have done, you know, some really great technology here with the the Meyer system and all
50:0250 minutes, 2 secondsof the, you know, I mean, we could talk about that forever, but it’s never about the gear, right? You know, it’s about what we’re doing with it. And the whole
50:1050 minutes, 10 secondsidea that I can come away from a conversation with somebody and you’re not telling me it’s like, yeah, I’m happy to hear about your gear. I’ll nerd
50:1850 minutes, 18 secondsout with you all day long about the gear, you know, absolutely, but ultimately, what are you doing with it? Right?
50:2450 minutes, 24 secondsYou know, are you interacting with the artists? Are you are you creating, you know, it’s that old joke about um audio
50:3150 minutes, 31 secondsfiles and how they basically, you know, they use your music to listen to their gear, right? Right.
50:3750 minutes, 37 secondsAnd ultimately, it’s like you can have the greatest gear in the world, but if you’re going to produce with it, you know, you might as well do it
50:4550 minutes, 45 secondswith, you know. Yeah. I And I mean, that really is what this is all about, man.
50:4950 minutes, 49 secondsWhy did we go into this? We went into this to create something beautiful. That’s right. You know.
50:5450 minutes, 54 secondsYep. Absolutely. And my dad uh go back to him again. He uh from Italy, you know, we talked earlier. Um he had that pride in his work.
51:0551 minutes, 5 secondsYeah.
51:0551 minutes, 5 secondsEverything that he did was perfection. Mhm.
51:1051 minutes, 10 secondsAnd he stood by the work that he did. He never compromised on what he what he was doing. And I think that that kind of is
51:1851 minutes, 18 secondsfiltered down to me and my family um that we all feel the same way. And so there’s got to be a level of pride in
51:2651 minutes, 26 secondsyour work and passion for what you do with this stuff. Like you don’t build this if you don’t have passion. You
51:3351 minutes, 33 secondsdon’t like there’s there’s something that goes along with it. And when you know I think there’s when you get to sit down and
51:4151 minutes, 41 secondsactually be creative with it and actually do the work with it, um it shines even more.
51:4751 minutes, 47 secondsOh, absolutely. And you know if you have the great tools that always makes your work you know one notch higher and everything. But you know on the other hand I mean you talk about like
51:5551 minutes, 55 secondscommercial facilities and I have worked in commercial facilities that have been built as an investment
52:0252 minutes, 2 secondsby people who don’t have any attachment that’s right to the process. You know um I won’t name the studio but there was a
52:1052 minutes, 10 secondsstudio that I worked at years ago that had been purchased. It had been a famous room owned by a, you know, a legendary
52:1752 minutes, 17 secondsuh studio owner who owned a whole bunch of rooms here in town.
52:2052 minutes, 20 secondsAnd then it was was purchased by um and I don’t want to stereotype here, but it was purchased by a gentleman from New
52:2852 minutes, 28 secondsJersey of Italian descent who worked in the women’s garment industry. Okay.
52:3352 minutes, 33 secondsOkay. And you know, he had absolutely no understanding of anything. Uh we were yanking out some old, you know, the room
52:4052 minutes, 40 secondshad been built in the late 60s, early ‘7s. So, you know, for example, the room had been wired in quad
52:4752 minutes, 47 secondsand the speaker wire was 10 gauge solid core household wire cuz that’s what they used back then, right?
52:5652 minutes, 56 secondsAnd we’re yanking all that stuff out and I uh I requisitioned a bunch of Magami cable for the whole place. And I walked
53:0353 minutes, 3 secondsinto the studio one day and he was in town and he’s, you know, sitting in his office smoking a cigar looking at all the paperwork. Yo, yo, yo, come here.
53:1053 minutes, 10 secondsCome here. You know, and I sit down in his office and he says, “So, explain to me, what do I want with this mambo stuff?”
53:1953 minutes, 19 secondsTo this day, I can’t think of Magami without thinking, you know, the Mambo.
53:2253 minutes, 22 secondsDo the Magambo, right? But, you know, point being, this was someone who didn’t have his heart and soul invested in why
53:3053 minutes, 30 secondsdo we want this stuff, you know, and I I literally had to say to him, you know, you you bought a Maserati, do you want to keep the Winston retreads on it? And
53:3953 minutes, 39 secondsthat’s when he understood why I wanted good cable. Got it.
53:4253 minutes, 42 secondsYou know, but the whole idea of like your heart’s not in this, man. You’re buying this stuff so that you can make money with it. It’s never going to be,
53:5153 minutes, 51 secondsyou know, unless you’re buying this to then eventually flip to somebody who, which is what happened, you know, somebody who was into the music industry, bought it from them.
54:0054 minutesBut ultimately, man, if you’re buying this stuff because, you know, somebody told you it’s the best gear, right? That’s not the reason to do it.
54:0954 minutes, 9 secondsNo. And it’s it’s one of those things where you’ve because I’ve seen that happen before too where
54:1754 minutes, 17 secondsyou notice it if you’re a client in those facilities, you notice it uh when it’s somebody who has passion for the facility. Yeah.
54:2554 minutes, 25 secondsUh it’s in just little touches the food. Yeah.
54:2954 minutes, 29 secondsYou know, the the bathrooms going to the bathrooms like Yes. You know, just Yeah.
54:3554 minutes, 35 secondsthe how the place, how it’s put together. Yeah. And the service, it is a service industry always.
54:4154 minutes, 41 secondsAnd services first. And it didn’t matter to me at the studio in Nashville.
54:4654 minutes, 46 secondsIf we had a $10 project and a $10,000 project, everybody would still get the same type of treatment, same type of
54:5554 minutes, 55 secondsfood, same type of thing. Y because that’s your reputation. And not only that, I want to provide them the best experience. If I’m saying,
55:0455 minutes, 4 seconds”Cool, you’re welcome to come in here.” like let me give you the best experience, right?
55:1055 minutes, 10 secondsEspecially, you know, if you think about it, you know, and as I said, you know, I came up in in uh Cherokee Studios, which was, you know, one of those legendary
55:1755 minutes, 17 secondsmulti-room complexes. Everybody had the same luxury no matter, you know, I mean, there were people who were in there on a corporate budget. There were people who
55:2555 minutes, 25 secondswere in there with a huge advance. There were people in there who had saved up, you know, who who were investing their, you know, savings for years and years to
55:3255 minutes, 32 secondsdo a demo. They all got the same, you know, the runner’s going to go and do this for you and, you know, you’re going to have the same clean bathrooms. You’re
55:3955 minutes, 39 secondsgoing to have the same all the same luxury because ultimately even that struggling artist, you want them to come
55:4655 minutes, 46 secondsback. You want them to be successful, not only because you want the pride of it, but because you know, you want them to then remember what a great experience
55:5555 minutes, 55 secondsthey had and come back to you again because man, we made magic here, you know.
55:5955 minutes, 59 secondsYep. And that’s our that when you say service industry, that’s the whole thing, man. We want you to be we want to
56:0656 minutes, 6 secondscreate the conditions for you to to birth that magic. Yeah.
56:1156 minutes, 11 secondsRight. I mean, that’s that’s why you do it.
56:1356 minutes, 13 secondsExactly. And and I mean, I even went as far as like the Cartage guys. Yeah.
56:1856 minutes, 18 secondsWhen they showed up, like I always told everybody, offer them the same food, you know, go grab a coffee, go get a bagel, go whatever.
56:2856 minutes, 28 secondsYeah. You know, like treat them with that respect as well. They’re they’re in the facility. Yeah.
56:3656 minutes, 36 secondsYou know, and you want like we want to respect them the way that you know, you know, most of them are aspiring artists too.
56:4656 minutes, 46 secondsYeah.
56:4656 minutes, 46 secondsYou know, and so you never they get around to every other facility, too. There’s that, too. Yeah. Yeah.
56:5156 minutes, 51 secondsUm but you know, you also want to, you know, you want to honor everybody. I mean, people get into this industry because they want to be here, you know.
56:5956 minutes, 59 secondsIf not, man, there’s plenty of other jobs you could go do that are that pay better, that, you know, for sure.
57:0557 minutes, 5 secondsExactly. But, I mean, if you’re doing this, you’re doing this out of a love, a love for what you do, a love for the people who do it, you know.
57:1257 minutes, 12 secondsAnd man, I want I want to bring more people in. I don’t want to turn people off and, you know, it’s like, yeah, you can go work in tech or
57:1957 minutes, 19 secondswhatever, you know, but if you’ve chosen this path, there’s a reason. Yes.
57:2457 minutes, 24 secondsYou know, and I want to honor that, right? You know, yeah, it’s it’s I think you you know, you have that understanding of it and
57:3257 minutes, 32 secondsthat, you know, I mean, when you’re showing me the system here, you know, I mean, yes, you’ve invested in some some very high-end gear, you know, the the Meer Blue Horn system is just amazing.
57:4157 minutes, 41 secondsIt sounds wonderful, you know, and and all of this is a wonderful facility. But I also could see the way you were
57:4857 minutes, 48 secondsshowing it to me that man, I really, you know, I did this because of a love of what I do, right?
57:5557 minutes, 55 secondsYou know, and that shows, man. It really does.
57:5757 minutes, 57 secondsYeah. And that’s why like any anybody that comes to me that shows passion for what they do, I like I’m I
58:0558 minutes, 5 secondswant to work with you. I want to work with you. You show if you have passion, I don’t care if you don’t know all the stuff. That’s fine. We’ll figure that out.
58:1358 minutes, 13 secondsSometimes it’s better. But passion, you can’t fake.
58:1658 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. And you know, that’s that’s the funny thing, too, because a lot of the people that kind of come through these multi-room facilities, a lot of them,
58:2458 minutes, 24 secondsthey know a lot of stuff, but they don’t have that passion. You know, they’re nerding out, you know, it’s like um because I ran a I ran the tech
58:3258 minutes, 32 secondsdepartment at Cherokee, and we had great techs and we had not so great techs, you know, and the not so great techs, I mean,
58:4058 minutes, 40 secondsthere, you know, a lot of them are brilliant. you know, I you can get inside a Trident A-range and you know how to recap the the modules and you
58:4758 minutes, 47 secondsknow all this stuff, but you don’t care about what music’s coming through, right? you know, and for me it’s like, okay, I didn’t know as much as a lot of
58:5558 minutes, 55 secondsthe people that worked in that facility, but man, I knew that I, you know, wow, I have a session today with, you know, and
59:0359 minutes, 3 secondsand a lot of times it was, you know, um I would have sessions with people that I had never heard of, you know, and I ended up making friends with people
59:1159 minutes, 11 secondsthat, you know, like I discovered this one particular producer on a project. I was not excited about the project at all, you know, and I’m just chatting
59:2059 minutes, 20 secondswith the guy and I find out that he’s done all this other legendary stuff that I was like, “Oh my god, you did, you know, you did the Squeeze albums and you did, you
59:2959 minutes, 29 secondsknow, all of these different things and and like, you know, and and we’re still in touch to this day, you know, and and it was like you just kind of had this
59:3859 minutes, 38 secondsfeeling of, you know what, if you’re in here and you’re paying the money to get in here, you must have some kind of investment, emotional investment in why you’re here.
59:4859 minutes, 48 secondsTherefore, you deserve that respect, you know, and I’m glad that you’re here because it
59:5559 minutes, 55 secondsmeans to me that you care about your art. I do. Yeah.
59:5959 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. And man, your art is that’s your reason for being, right? You know, that’s what we do. Yeah. So, respect for that, man. Definitely.
1:00:081 hour, 8 secondsYou know, I’m I’m glad that you are doing this stuff and obviously you’re doing a hell of a lot of projects right now, right? You seem to be pretty busy.
1:00:151 hour, 15 secondsUh thankfully. Thankfully, yes, it’s been it’s been busy. It’s funny. I I’ve been going for I think eight months straight, which is actually really good.
1:00:231 hour, 23 secondsWow.
1:00:241 hour, 24 secondsRight. Like I don’t certainly not going to complain about it, but I have about 3 weeks off and so I’m we’re going on vacation.
1:00:341 hour, 34 secondslike and I always find in those ls you know a lot of people get um you know really freaked out when when
1:00:431 hour, 43 secondsnothing’s coming along and everything and and not that I don’t but I look at those times as like okay this is this is
1:00:511 hour, 51 secondsmy time to take a break this is my time to take a rest take a vacation with the family do something get out and do that because
1:01:001 hour, 1 minuteyou know what the work’s going to come back again and then you’re going to be back in it, you’re not going to have time for anything.
1:01:061 hour, 1 minute, 6 secondsAnd I also think, you know, we are in a business where we’re producing things all the time. We’re
1:01:131 hour, 1 minute, 13 secondsputting we’re doing, we have an output that we’re doing.
1:01:161 hour, 1 minute, 16 secondsAnd if you don’t take that time to then take in, you know, then you’re going to keep putting out the same stuff. Yes. you
1:01:241 hour, 1 minute, 24 secondsknow, and so the idea of like, you know, going on a vacation or going and seeing something different, you know, whatever it is,
1:01:311 hour, 1 minute, 31 secondsthat’s that’s healthful, you know, from a from a mental health perspective. That’s really good for you. Yeah.
1:01:381 hour, 1 minute, 38 secondsBecause it’s recharging your batteries, you know, it it is. And you know what? I’m so thankful for so many reasons for my
1:01:451 hour, 1 minute, 45 secondswife, but she’s the one that keeps me level on that. If I didn’t if I didn’t have her, I’d probably just keep going
1:01:521 hour, 1 minute, 52 secondsgoing going. But she was she was like, “Look, when you’re done with this, I I need you to take a break. Like, it’s
1:02:001 hour, 2 minutesimportant. Take the break.” And so, where my normal thought would be like, “Okay, I got to figure out I got to start figuring out where the next thing’s coming from, whatever.” I know
1:02:091 hour, 2 minutes, 9 secondsthat this is a lull, I have purposely not gone after stuff because this is a purposely built, you know, three weeks of time. I I mean
1:02:181 hour, 2 minutes, 18 secondsI’m fortunate also to have married somebody who you know appreciates that and encourages me to take a break and to live a normal life in that sense you
1:02:261 hour, 2 minutes, 26 secondsknow because yeah otherwise we’d be constantly in it. I mean, our brains are always in it, you know. She knows like, you know, if I’m I’m sitting there and I’m quiet or whatever, she say, “Okay,
1:02:341 hour, 2 minutes, 34 secondsyou know, you’re thinking about work, you know, I’m thinking about, you know, whether it’s like Yeah. You know, it’s like, oh, well, what did I do over here?” You know, and it’s always something,
1:02:431 hour, 2 minutes, 43 secondsbut at the same time, it’s like she can pull me out of that, you know, hey, you want to go out to a garage sale with me? You know, whatever it is, it’s like something that’s not workrelated.
1:02:521 hour, 2 minutes, 52 secondsSo thankful for that. It’s it’s because I I do the same thing. I’ll sit and obsess about some EQ setting that I I’m like debating. Should I have done that?
1:03:031 hour, 3 minutes, 3 secondsShould I have not? Wait, but we printed the and like and I’ll be in it and she she can clearly be like,
1:03:101 hour, 3 minutes, 10 secondsyou’re not here right now. What are you thinking about? Yeah.
1:03:131 hour, 3 minutes, 13 secondsAnd I can she’s okay. If I tell her this one EQ setting, maybe I went too far. She’s like, Mhm.
1:03:211 hour, 3 minutes, 21 secondsRight. Okay. Yeah. How about you take a break? Yeah.
1:03:241 hour, 3 minutes, 24 secondsAnd then go back. Let’s go over to Trader Joe’s. Yeah. Like take a break and then I’ll give you the time later and you can go look at that again. But
1:03:321 hour, 3 minutes, 32 secondsright now, stop thinking about it.
1:03:341 hour, 3 minutes, 34 secondsYeah. Yeah. That’s that’s beautiful, man. It really is. You know, I mean, I’m not going to say I always do it well, but
1:03:411 hour, 3 minutes, 41 secondswe we can’t, you know, you know, that’s that’s part of it is that we are obsessive like that. And that’s fine. That’s fine. You know, they forgive us for that thankfully. You
1:03:491 hour, 3 minutes, 49 secondsknow, it’s that’s why we get along, you know. But at the same time, it’s great that we have people in our lives who will extract us from ourselves a little bit.
1:04:021 hour, 4 minutes, 2 secondsYou know, I’ll tell you, it’s really interesting cuz this room got a lot bigger than not size-wise, but in like, you know, just
1:04:101 hour, 4 minutes, 10 secondsthe scale of what I was doing here, uh, than I really intended to. And um in
1:04:171 hour, 4 minutes, 17 secondsthe very beginning when we just kind of knocked the walls down and got everything like prepped, I looked at her and I said, “Am I going too far with
1:04:251 hour, 4 minutes, 25 secondsthis?” And she said, “If it keeps you home more, you do what you need to do.” Hey.
1:04:331 hour, 4 minutes, 33 secondsAnd so it was like, “Okay, okay. All right. I like Yeah.
1:04:381 hour, 4 minutes, 38 secondsThere you go. Right. Like it.” And now I’m thankful that I have it in my home because I can go see her anytime, make her a coffee, whatever.
1:04:471 hour, 4 minutes, 47 secondsRight. Exactly. Take a break, 20 minutes, whatever, and then, you know, come back and go to go to work refreshed in that sense. Yeah.
1:04:551 hour, 4 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. No, that’s great, man. It really is. Yeah. It’s good.
1:04:581 hour, 4 minutes, 58 secondsSo, um, you mentioned that you do some, um, you work with some younger students,
1:05:051 hour, 5 minutes, 5 secondssome interns and stuff like that. Uh, how do you find the younger
1:05:141 hour, 5 minutes, 14 secondscrowd to be receptive to the things we were talking about about, you know, learning to interact and stuff like that,
1:05:201 hour, 5 minutes, 20 secondsright? Um, it’s interesting. Um, again, it comes down to the individual,
1:05:291 hour, 5 minutes, 29 secondsright? There are the there are the people that are doing it because they’re trying to finish up their program and get their grade and, you know, check something off the list.
1:05:391 hour, 5 minutes, 39 secondsAnd then there’s the people that have true passion for it. Yeah.
1:05:431 hour, 5 minutes, 43 secondsAnd want to be here and see every part of it and eat it all up, right?
1:05:491 hour, 5 minutes, 49 secondsAnd um I’ve had every type um you know, I’ve had every type of of person. And it’s the ones, like I said,
1:05:571 hour, 5 minutes, 57 secondsthat um that show that passion uh that I’ll work with, you know, anytime like and they’re welcome to sit
1:06:071 hour, 6 minutes, 7 secondswith me and watch what I do anytime. And I just recently had two specifically from one of the schools uh that came out
1:06:141 hour, 6 minutes, 14 secondshere and they sat with me through two full projects almost every day watching me cut dialogue which is could
1:06:241 hour, 6 minutes, 24 secondspotentially be one of the most boring things to watch and they sat with me through every single step of it. Um, then they got to
1:06:331 hour, 6 minutes, 33 secondssee me mix it and watch that process and they ate every second up. There was never a no answer. Do you want to come
1:06:411 hour, 6 minutes, 41 secondssee this? No. Absolutely. Yeah. We we’ll be there any, you know, in a moment. Mhm. That’s hard to find. Yes, it is.
1:06:491 hour, 6 minutes, 49 secondsThat is really, really hard to find.
1:06:511 hour, 6 minutes, 51 secondsThat is not the norm. The norm is they come in one time, watch it, and I never see them again. Interesting.
1:06:591 hour, 6 minutes, 59 secondsThat’s the norm. And I think there’s a it’s a different time right now, right?
1:07:061 hour, 7 minutes, 6 secondsAnd there’s a lot of understanding of how ProTools works, but they don’t
1:07:141 hour, 7 minutes, 14 secondsunderstand totally how everything gets in there and what the process is that surrounds that or how to set that gear up. They know how to operate the computer, but they
1:07:221 hour, 7 minutes, 22 secondsdon’t understand how it’s all set up into the interfaces and what the interf the, you know, all the card systems, the things that go along with it. Yeah.
1:07:301 hour, 7 minutes, 30 secondsThey don’t get the back end of it because they’re not really taught that in school.
1:07:341 hour, 7 minutes, 34 secondsThey’re taught how to use ProTools, right?
1:07:361 hour, 7 minutes, 36 secondsHere, here’s your here’s your file. Fix it. Yeah. Exactly. But the theory that’s going on behind it, the um
1:07:451 hour, 7 minutes, 45 secondstechnical things that are going on behind it, they they’re it’s not something that they really learn or if
1:07:531 hour, 7 minutes, 53 secondsthey learn it, it’s in their first semester of college and it’s not readressed right to the end.
1:08:001 hour, 8 minutesSo by the time they get to the end, it’s gone.
1:08:031 hour, 8 minutes, 3 secondsSo it’s forgotten. This is why I say it’s so important for them to work in the environment while they’re in school. Mhm.
1:08:101 hour, 8 minutes, 10 secondsUm I think it’s cool because they’re into the new technology and you know the AI stuff, a lot of like
1:08:191 hour, 8 minutes, 19 secondsOh, I learn a lot from them, right? No question.
1:08:211 hour, 8 minutes, 21 secondsThere there’s an investment in that and that’s a good thing. But it’s the ones that can hybrid and pull those two worlds together.
1:08:301 hour, 8 minutes, 30 secondsMhm. They’re going to be the successful ones.
1:08:321 hour, 8 minutes, 32 secondsIt’s no different than um the mixers out there that just won’t engage with ProTools. Yeah. They went away. Yeah.
1:08:411 hour, 8 minutes, 41 secondsRight. They wanted to stay on tape or whatever format they wanted to and ignored it.
1:08:461 hour, 8 minutes, 46 secondsMore power to them, you know, if that’s what you want to do.
1:08:481 hour, 8 minutes, 48 secondsIt’s fine. But they’re not working right now.
1:08:511 hour, 8 minutes, 51 secondsNo. Look, there are guys out there who work on old cars, too. Yeah.
1:08:541 hour, 8 minutes, 54 secondsYou know, and God bless them. You know, you need somebody who’s going to work on your 65 Mustang. You know, that’s wonderful. But there are fewer and fewer
1:09:031 hour, 9 minutes, 3 seconds65 Mustangs out there the same way there are fewer and fewer 2-in machines that are in use, right? You know.
1:09:101 hour, 9 minutes, 10 secondsYep. And I think in in this thing, it’s like it’s great that they have the technology and the understanding of the software and those things and but I think there’s too much reliance on it.
1:09:201 hour, 9 minutes, 20 secondsYeah.
1:09:211 hour, 9 minutes, 21 secondsUh where dialogue editing, for example, has become noise reduction and not focusing on a good cut.
1:09:281 hour, 9 minutes, 28 secondsIt’s a plugin. And I think that the the art of the finesse of getting a good edit
1:09:361 hour, 9 minutes, 36 secondsprior to even looking at noise reduction has is getting lost. Yeah.
1:09:421 hour, 9 minutes, 42 secondsAnd it it’s those kind of things that I’m I’m worried about because there is value in all that um
1:09:511 hour, 9 minutes, 51 secondsyou know the technique. Sure.
1:09:561 hour, 9 minutes, 56 secondsAnd I’m not sure that the newer ones are focusing on it. It’s too easy to slap a plug in or do a thing or process something.
1:10:051 hour, 10 minutes, 5 secondsYeah. It’s the same thing like good songs. Yes.
1:10:081 hour, 10 minutes, 8 secondsYou know, how many great songwriters do we still have? I mean, there are some, right? And those who who are really concentrated on that, you know, it’s
1:10:151 hour, 10 minutes, 15 secondswonderful, but there’s a there’s a lack of that, you know, it’s it’s more like, okay, I’ve got a tune, now I’m gonna mix it, you know. Well, first make sure the
1:10:241 hour, 10 minutes, 24 secondstune’s good, right? You know, spend some time in pre-production, right? You know, and it’s the same thing with what you’re talking about with dialogue editing. You know, it’s like it if you’re just after
1:10:341 hour, 10 minutes, 34 secondsif you’re just chasing that final product, right, and you haven’t put the work into, you know, I use the analogy
1:10:411 hour, 10 minutes, 41 secondsa lot of times where with um you know, you’re constructing a house. If you don’t pay enough attention at what I
1:10:481 hour, 10 minutes, 48 secondscall the wood butcher stage, you know, make sure your your studs are lined up well, even if you put the sheetrock up and you
1:10:561 hour, 10 minutes, 56 secondssmooth it out and it looks good, somebody who doesn’t know any better is going to walk into the house and go, I don’t know, you know, and they’re not going to know why,
1:11:041 hour, 11 minutes, 4 secondsright? And if you’re watching a feature and there’s something about the the the dialogue that’s not right or that, you
1:11:121 hour, 11 minutes, 12 secondsknow, just the sound in general that’s not well balanced, you know, it’s going to take away from your viewing
1:11:191 hour, 11 minutes, 19 secondsexperience and you’re not going to know quite why. Yep.
1:11:221 hour, 11 minutes, 22 secondsYou know, the same way like you don’t have to spend hours and hours getting a great snare sound, but if you have a shitty snare sound,
1:11:301 hour, 11 minutes, 30 secondsyou’ll know it. The average punter is not going to know why they don’t like the song because they’re not going to go home humming that snare, but they’re going to go, you know, next.
1:11:401 hour, 11 minutes, 40 secondsThat’s right.
1:11:411 hour, 11 minutes, 41 secondsYou know, that’s right.
1:11:421 hour, 11 minutes, 42 secondsAnd it’s the same thing with this. You know, it’s like if you’re not, you have to be able to zoom in and zoom out and consistently do both.
1:11:501 hour, 11 minutes, 50 secondsYeah.
1:11:511 hour, 11 minutes, 51 secondsAnd that I think is is an art form in itself, right? you know.
1:11:551 hour, 11 minutes, 55 secondsWell, and and I think that in this world specifically, I mean, certainly in music as well, but um in this world, there’s so many parts to this.
1:12:041 hour, 12 minutes, 4 secondsYes.
1:12:051 hour, 12 minutes, 5 secondsAnd one person’s job, if it’s done poorly, affects the other person’s job downream. Exactly. And it’s it’s just gets passed down.
1:12:141 hour, 12 minutes, 14 secondsWell, you’re so interdependent on each other. Yes. Yes.
1:12:181 hour, 12 minutes, 18 secondsI can only mix my dialogue so well if it’s poorly cut. Yes.
1:12:241 hour, 12 minutes, 24 secondslike you know um so I don’t know if that totally answers the question as far as like the no and and it’s a great point you know
1:12:321 hour, 12 minutes, 32 secondsyou know I was uh I was I was talking with another friend recently and we were just talking about the idea um
1:12:401 hour, 12 minutes, 40 secondsall of what we do is so interdependent on other people in the process um you know unrelated but related I did
1:12:491 hour, 12 minutes, 49 secondsa panel a couple of years ago at NAM on um I got the front of house person, the
1:12:571 hour, 12 minutes, 57 secondsmonitor engineer and the bass player from the same band. Wow.
1:13:021 hour, 13 minutes, 2 secondsOn a panel and I called the panel, do you hear what I hear? That’s amazing.
1:13:071 hour, 13 minutes, 7 secondsAnd the idea there was the same concept that you’re talking about, which is we are three different people doing three very very different jobs that are
1:13:161 hour, 13 minutes, 16 secondsall isolated but completely interdependent on each other. Right.
1:13:221 hour, 13 minutes, 22 secondsRight. And your dialogue editor and your Foley person and you know all of these different people
1:13:291 hour, 13 minutes, 29 secondsif they they’re completely their worlds are isolated and yet they’re completely intertwined and and meshed in such a way
1:13:371 hour, 13 minutes, 37 secondsthat if one doesn’t understand that’s why I think it’s always so great to come up having done a little bit of each job.
1:13:451 hour, 13 minutes, 45 secondsYep.
1:13:461 hour, 13 minutes, 46 secondsEven if you don’t end up in that job because you understand the pain points of that person over there. Exactly. I mean, I’ve sat in a lot of those
1:13:531 hour, 13 minutes, 53 secondsdifferent chairs, so I do have a unique understanding of what it’s like to be on the opposite side of it. This is, again, I keep going back to my dad, but this is
1:14:011 hour, 14 minutes, 1 secondnot unlike him. He built houses with his dad. Uhhuh.
1:14:051 hour, 14 minutes, 5 secondsAnd learned how to do that and then later went into more commercial real estate, but still had the understanding of the building and how that all worked. Yeah.
1:14:141 hour, 14 minutes, 14 secondsAnd and then to all facets of what he did.
1:14:181 hour, 14 minutes, 18 secondsAnd I think it’s it’s one of those things that it’s really it’s really helpful to understand what every chair is like.
1:14:261 hour, 14 minutes, 26 secondsAbsolutely. And especially, you know, like you always have a GC when you’re when you’re building a house. You have one general contractor who better understand how the HVAC person does
1:14:351 hour, 14 minutes, 35 secondstheir job, how, you know, all of these different things, how they all fit together.
1:14:401 hour, 14 minutes, 40 secondsThat’s right. you know, and and you know, I mean, you the finished carpenter can’t do a beautiful job if the wood is warped. That’s right.
1:14:491 hour, 14 minutes, 49 secondsOr if the sheetrock’s done shitty, you know, whatever it is. And those are the things that, you know, it’s really so beneficial to understand the big picture.
1:14:571 hour, 14 minutes, 57 secondsYep.
1:14:581 hour, 14 minutes, 58 secondsAnd that’s the that’s the zooming out part right there.
1:15:001 hour, 15 minutesThat’s right. And so, uh, and you know, with with people coming up today, like I want to help like make the next
1:15:081 hour, 15 minutes, 8 secondsgeneration great, right? And and so I think that we that are all in it right now have the
1:15:151 hour, 15 minutes, 15 secondsresponsibility to take those people and you know walk them through what we know and they can apply whatever they you
1:15:241 hour, 15 minutes, 24 secondsknow whatever they can take from that and then take their stuff and apply it to it as well make it even better.
1:15:321 hour, 15 minutes, 32 secondsYeah.
1:15:321 hour, 15 minutes, 32 secondsWell, you you led me to the question that I always like to wrap with so it’s perfect perfectly perfect timing here.
1:15:391 hour, 15 minutes, 39 secondsUm, what do you tell that 15-year-old coming up in today’s world wanting to
1:15:461 hour, 15 minutes, 46 secondsdo, wanting to eventually sit in maybe not your chair, but one of these chairs, right?
1:15:521 hour, 15 minutes, 52 secondsWhat do you tell them now coming up in in this totally different world than we came up in? Um, I’d actually tell them almost the same
1:16:011 hour, 16 minutes, 1 secondthing that I used to tell them, you know, back when is, um, you have to have passion for what you do. If you do not
1:16:101 hour, 16 minutes, 10 secondshave passion for this, it might be a hobby. Yeah. Right.
1:16:151 hour, 16 minutes, 15 secondsUm, because it is way too hard and way too difficult and way too time consuming
1:16:221 hour, 16 minutes, 22 secondsto just think that it’s going to happen for you. You’re going to have to push.
1:16:271 hour, 16 minutes, 27 secondsYou’re going to have to You’re going to have a lot of really tough times. And And I wish somebody told me that, too.
1:16:361 hour, 16 minutes, 36 secondsIt would have offset a lot of like me being angry about certain things. Yeah. Well, yeah. Maybe not. Yeah. Yeah.
1:16:441 hour, 16 minutes, 44 secondsBut it takes a long time. It does. It is not quick. Mh.
1:16:491 hour, 16 minutes, 49 secondsAnd I see a lot of people drop out of this before they begin because once they get out of school, they’re like, I didn’t realize how hard that was. I
1:16:581 hour, 16 minutes, 58 secondsdidn’t know. And at that point, they’ve been through four years of school. They haven’t, you know, done an internship yet. This is now their first internship.
1:17:091 hour, 17 minutes, 9 secondsWith all the student debt and all the things that they’ve just incurred, they’re now going to go back to school to do something totally different that’s actually going to give them some sort of career.
1:17:181 hour, 17 minutes, 18 secondsI think so.
1:17:211 hour, 17 minutes, 21 secondsIt’s just really important to have that drive, that passion because you’re going to need it for the extended period of time it’s going to take to get into the chair you want to get into.
1:17:301 hour, 17 minutes, 30 secondsYeah.
1:17:311 hour, 17 minutes, 31 secondsAnd I think that’s more important than learning the gear. Yep.
1:17:341 hour, 17 minutes, 34 secondsYou know, I I mean, you can always learn this stuff. Yep.
1:17:371 hour, 17 minutes, 37 secondsBut really learning learning what it is you want out of it, that’s the that’s the key right there, I think.
1:17:451 hour, 17 minutes, 45 secondsYeah. So, I don’t know if that’s like I mean there’s a lot of other things I would say too, but it it’s first that decide whether this is a passion that
1:17:541 hour, 17 minutes, 54 secondsyou’re not going like you’re going to tell yourself I’m not going to fail at and that you’re going to keep pushing at it. If you can’t do that, it it maybe a
1:18:031 hour, 18 minutes, 3 secondsdifferent direction. I don’t know. Um but um yeah, and again, if I see that passion and I
1:18:121 hour, 18 minutes, 12 secondswill I will help you all day long. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Good advice.
1:18:181 hour, 18 minutes, 18 secondsAnd I think everybody in that does this would say the same thing. Yeah. I I mean I certainly agree. Yeah.
1:18:261 hour, 18 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. If you show you don’t care.
1:18:301 hour, 18 minutes, 30 secondsWe’re we’re probably not going to invest the time. Yeah.
1:18:341 hour, 18 minutes, 34 secondsFred Paragono, thank you for being my guest. Yeah. My pleasure. Pleasure, man. Yeah.
1:18:411 hour, 18 minutes, 41 secondsHey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.

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