Get Offset Episode 171: Lost in Production Translation

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

[00:00:00] Andrew: welcome to the get offset podcast. My name is Andrew

[00:00:16] Emily: and my name

[00:00:17] Andrew: is Emily and I don’t know why that came out. So quiet.

[00:00:21] Emily: I didn’t come out real quiet. I was like, I didn’t feel like you were that quiet. Like we were talking like, pre-show, chit-chat

[00:00:29] Andrew: like, I took a deep breath. I’m like, all right, I got this, I got this.

[00:00:31] And it’s like, oh,

[00:00:34] Emily: I don’t

[00:00:35] Andrew: got this. Like I had a compressor lodging in my throat saying no

[00:00:39] Emily: eliminator.

[00:00:42] Andrew: What’s up.

[00:00:45] Emily: What is, what is of what is good? The Bengals won a game yesterday.

[00:00:50] Andrew: I think they, they might be who I want to see when the Superbowl, I end disappointed though, watching the Packers get knocked out.

[00:00:59] I wanted to make it one more week, just so we could see Aaron Rogers lose one more NFC championship. And that would just icing on the cake.

[00:01:09] Emily: Oh man, the jokes. So many jokes, like I saw, um, one tweet that said, uh, we all saw Aaron Rogers had a shot, but we’ve thought that before. Yeah, that was my favorite. Um, that was pretty good.

[00:01:27] I mean, you know, it says a lot when people in Seattle who just traditionally like, Hey. The Niners are like, we want the 49ers too.

[00:01:39] Andrew: So yeah, I would hate to see them

[00:01:40] Emily: when,

[00:01:43] Andrew: uh, yeah, I just want to see the bucks Lucy today. That’s it. At this point, all I care about in the NFL is who do I want to see? Lose and bucks is the only team I’ve got left outside of Tom Brady because of Tom

[00:01:55] Emily: Brady.

[00:01:56] Oh. Then I would also like to see them. Yep. Yeah. Just save some, saves the ones for the other teams. Yup. Save some rings for the other

[00:02:10] Andrew: people. I do not like it. And nor do I wish to put a ring on it. We’ll put it that way. I don’t know. I honestly, haven’t been watching, you’re just kind of checking out dates going.

[00:02:21] Oh, cool. And that’s about it.

[00:02:25] Emily: Yeah. I mean, that yesterday’s game was, was interesting. Um, cause it was tied until like the last like 20 seconds or something. The Beatles, the Beatles on my side, the Bengals intercepted a football. And then, uh, they kicked it and I tweeted like, as they were getting ready to kick it, I’m like, I don’t feel good about this.

[00:02:51] And then I tweeted after they kicked up. Like, I feel better about it now.

[00:02:57] Listen, I grew up a Bingle fan. Um, I grew up in Cincinnati, my bingo, my God, my parents were Bengals season ticket holders. And I would maybe go to a game a year and they were just so bad my entire time growing up. So,

[00:03:16] Andrew: um, then they have, like, I had like single wind seasons recently, too.

[00:03:22] Emily: I don’t know about recently, like in my lifetime, I feel like probably, but I, yeah, I think that there, there were years that they only beat the Browns probably.

[00:03:35] Andrew: As a fan of another franchise that is well acquainted with heartbreak. I sincerely wish the bangles the best, because it’s nice to see when the, the underdogs get, uh, get a good run at it.

[00:03:48] Emily: Yeah. They don’t want to be called underdogs, but I’m just traditionally not, haven’t been they’re nice. You love to see you just, nobody likes dynasties.

[00:04:04] I think this is a

[00:04:04] Andrew: thing, except the fans of that dynasty,

[00:04:08] Emily: man, even then, it’s like, it’s boring. It’s gotta be boring. Like I like, listen Ohio. State’s always been like a good football team and it’s easy to take that for granted, but they don’t win every single championship, you know?

[00:04:30] Andrew: Well, anyways, uh, heads up to the listeners. We have rebranded as an NFL podcast.

[00:04:37] Emily: Oh yeah. I am sorry. That’s a sock for people. I’m sorry. I apologize.

[00:04:43] Andrew: Sports ball. No, it’s fine. The Bengals have

[00:04:47] Emily: brisket aren’t we?

[00:04:48] Andrew: Uh, oh yeah. I should probably start that at some point today.

[00:04:52] Emily: You haven’t started it yet?

[00:04:54] Andrew: No, but it’s only like three pounds.

[00:04:56] It’s tiny. It’ll take like

[00:04:58] Emily: six. Yeah. Okay. That’s what I always tell myself when I start a pork. And then when I’m like, it’s only going to take six hours, it takes nine. And then when I’m like, oh, I better save a lot of time for it to take.

[00:05:10] Andrew: Well, I mean, I’m not in a huge rush, uh, and I’m going to have the place myself for the night.

[00:05:15] So I’m just gonna be chilling, got to get an online date tonight to, to play Jovan powers of the buddy. And when the brisket’s done, the brisk gets done. Nice. But we’ll say is out of town on a business trip and kiddo is gonna go spend the night with the in-laws because that’s what they want to do. And they’re excited about it.

[00:05:41] And so I’m like, wait, that means I get I’ve. I don’t think I’ve ever had like the place to myself in this house ever.

[00:05:54] Not even a little bit like, like maybe like for an hour when I get home from work before everybody else gets home. But, uh, yeah, it’s, I’m

[00:06:02] Emily: going to be like Tom cruise in risky business play the Bob Seger,

[00:06:07] Andrew: my family. But

[00:06:09] Emily: yeah, but like alone time where you just like being loud or whatever, it’s very fun.

[00:06:18] Andrew: Very free to play some loud music.

[00:06:20] I’m going to cook my own food. I’m going to play video games and slob out. I’m going to maybe run the dishwasher night if I feel like it. But if I don’t, I’m not going to, that’s a, that’s some rebellious shit right there.

[00:06:34] Emily: My favorite Bellinas speak in a loud music. I was playing this new death by audio germanium filter through the Benson.

[00:06:43] Ooh. That’s how that it’s very vintage-y towns. I really loved it. The germanium filtered by death

[00:06:52] by

[00:06:53] Andrew: audio. I forget where I saw the line, but I, I may like, it gets hard.com. Maybe someone pens that it was a, like a love affair, like an ode to putting a pencil in your speaker.

[00:07:05] Emily: I think that’s from the product copy.

[00:07:07] Is it okay? I think Aaron wrote that. Yeah.

[00:07:12] Andrew: I thought that was pretty good. I’m like, oh,

[00:07:14] Emily: like I can show your love letter to sticking your pencil in a speaker. I think it says also, I think I put it in my video

[00:07:21] Andrew: and that might be where I saw it as well. Um, I remember saying it, it’s it. Yeah. That sticks with me.

[00:07:28] Pun intended. Um,

[00:07:32] Emily: six with you like that little piece of Pensacola forever. Jan to your finger.

[00:07:37] Andrew: Yeah. Look.

[00:07:40] Emily: Dang there it is. I actually don’t have it. I don’t have that. I’m just kidding. It’s a mall.

[00:07:47] Andrew: But on this camera, it looked a little

[00:07:49] Emily: bit, it did look exactly like a piece of graphite, just stuck in your hand forever

[00:07:54] Andrew: and ever, most people don’t have molds like on their poems.

[00:07:57] So I suppose that’s, and I didn’t always have that, like that developed in the last few years, but it’s fine. I’ve had a doctor look at it.

[00:08:08] Emily: Yeah. I just have a bunch of cat scratches all over my, my hands watching the demo. And I’m like turning the knobs and like the hat scratches are all like very visible.

[00:08:19] Cause they’re fresher. Like Dave, what did you do

[00:08:21] Andrew: to deserve those?

[00:08:23] Emily: I was just playing, we play hand monster where like, you know, the claw kind of, she has fun. It’s okay. She doesn’t mean to her.

[00:08:38] Andrew: Nevermind. I should. I need to make sure to include playing with poppy this afternoon.

[00:08:44] Emily: I also got this from rocket music. Ah, one of their pic holders.

[00:08:52] Andrew: It’s a picky Saurus

[00:08:55] Emily: it’s a guitar pick a Saurus.

[00:08:59] Andrew: Yeah, that is pretty adorable.

[00:09:05] My kid would love that

[00:09:11] Emily: I have the color

[00:09:12] Andrew: I knew to

[00:09:15] Emily: put it back on.

[00:09:16] Andrew: It’s certainly a lot more aesthetically appealing than say a Altoids tin.

[00:09:22] Emily: Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I have a little, um, for the Pixar aren’t going to fit in there. I have a little.

[00:09:32] Dish, although some screws, net dish, cause you know, screws get loose and all that. I feel it in term of those darlin song.

[00:09:48] Andrew: Do I have, oh, here it is.

[00:09:54] Emily: 10,

[00:09:56] Andrew: 10 of picks. Shout out, see what Jason wiser. I, he, uh, sent me some of those wooden picks. He made a while ago and I broke those out for a session yesterday and

[00:10:10] Emily: goes right here.

[00:10:12] Andrew: I set mine. Well, I set it down somewhere. It’s in here.

[00:10:18] Emily: it’s on the couch. Yeah. Andrew had a recording session yesterday

[00:10:23] Andrew: and you know, we, uh,

[00:10:25] Emily: yeah.

[00:10:25] Finally recording that patrion.com stretch goal wiggles cover. If you want to support us on Patrion, where at patrion.com/get us, and if you subscribe at the $5 level or above you get access to our exclusive discord server.

[00:10:43] Andrew: And, uh, access to what will hopefully be a finished song here soon?

[00:10:49] Emily: Yeah. I heard some, uh, clips on Instagram.

[00:10:55] Andrew: Yup. Uh, there, there is work to be done.

[00:11:01] Emily: There is, oh, there’s always work to be done. You know,

[00:11:07] Andrew: there’s a difference between perfectionism and this isn’t at all what we were going for. But. We were having fun and just toying around song, writing ideas that it just kind of came together differently than what we had hoped for originally

[00:11:19] Emily: songwriting arranging, privileging, producing production ideas, you know, making sure that your guitars have that clarity, but also that crunch.

[00:11:35] Yep. That’s stereo getting the stereo fields. Right. But keeping the guitars and face. I’m just saying words.

[00:11:46] Andrew: It was a good time, huh? Yeah. That’s

[00:11:49] Emily: what I got. Yeah. It’s all it’s recording can be really fun. It can also be really boring. Can

[00:11:56] Andrew: also be really frustrating. Yeah.

[00:12:03] Emily: I was, um, watching TechTalk the other day and some guy that I went to college with just dropped into my feed and, um, I remember him because he was in a band that my then boyfriend was producing, like recording. And, uh, the guy was making a tick talking and he’s like, I have a cold right now, but I remember when I was in college, I was in a band and I called like this and we went to record some vocals.

[00:12:33] And, uh, it was actually a lot easier to record the vocals when I had the cold versus. When I like didn’t have a cold and I remember thinking. Like I was a bad singer too. So I like, I, like, I w I was hard. I was equally hard for this guy to pull vocal takes out of my ex, but I remember him talking about how this guy on tick-tock and I actually do remember that story about like how, when, when this guy had a cold, it was so much like, it was, it was

[00:13:11] Andrew: better.

[00:13:13] Morrissey sound.

[00:13:16] Emily: No, I don’t know what it was, but I think it’s like maybe he was eating sometimes. Like there’s over singing is very much a thing. And when you think about, um, Al green, like kinda style vocals, like when Al green, the first time you went into a studio, he was really trying to like, you know, sing, like overseeing it.

[00:13:38] And then like he got, was getting so frustrated with the producer going. Like sitting him back in like doing too much, you’re doing too much. You’re doing too much. Uh, he finally went in and just did kind of like a very, very laid back take, like, like almost to spite the producer, like screw you, man. I just won’t do anything this time.

[00:13:56] And the producer loved it. So yeah, there could be a lot of things that can make somebody do better or worse and sometimes like being sick. Well that can add like a gravelly quality to your voice or can mellow it out. I mean, that’s what. Yeah, well, like they’re, they’re always interesting kind of things.

[00:14:17] And in production tricks or like things that you don’t kind of expect and sometimes having a cold Coldwell do it, and sometimes you, you hear things and takes and you’re like, oh my God, what was that? Like a. W w Juul we’ll talk about, um, when she was recording, who will save your soul? She’s like, I must have been, I was, I think I was nervous.

[00:14:43] She says, because you know, it was such a bit high stakes. When she would go, who will say he she’s like the back of my throat closed up and I sound like Kermit the frog and she just hates

[00:15:03] and she’s right.

[00:15:11] yeah. So I don’t know maybe something was going on

[00:15:15] Andrew: that maybe.

[00:15:17] Emily: Yeah. You know, and then you have a cold dear. Your voice is lower anyway. So that kind of helped to, right.

[00:15:23] Andrew: But you can also just record first thing in the morning. I know what I’m like, first thing in the morning I roll out of bed. It just like full on like Shaq voice for like five minutes until my then after like brush my teeth and all that.

[00:15:35] I’m like, oh, that was not normal.

[00:15:39] Emily: That’s that’s called not warmed up.

[00:15:50] I had to do, um, I remember when I auditioned for NYU, I had to send them a tape of me singing happy birthday. And that song is a lot harder to sing well than you would think. It’s a flock.

[00:16:10] Andrew: duh.

[00:16:12] Emily: Yeah. So you’re like, I got to pick a key for happy birthday.

[00:16:18] Andrew: Yeah. My vote from range is like this. So

[00:16:25] Emily: now it’s like, I, I mean, I took, listen, I took vocal vocal training to get as mediocre as I am is saying. Like I took classes. I paid for the lessons and college, and now I’m just a bad singer and not the worst singer. It just takes, it takes a lot more work for me. People be like, can you sing harmonies and be like, yeah, but I really have to practice them.

[00:16:53] And I really don’t like that.

[00:16:54] Andrew: Ad-libbing a harmony and I have to sit down like hit it on the piano and then figure out what the line is. We’ll sit a couple of times and then maybe also have that in my ears while I’m going for it.

[00:17:05] Emily: Someone has to tell me what it is. And I have to like find the note before the song, like, okay, if to tell me what it is, I have to figure it out.

[00:17:15] Hit that get a guitar. Hit the,

[00:17:21] Hey, Hey

[00:17:24] Andrew: somebody problem pain. Yeah. Sometimes I start to think, you know, like maybe I’m not as bad of a singer as I thought. Uh, and like, maybe like I’m saying game while I’m in the car driving around, like just really getting into it and then I’ll get like a text message on my phone, the audio duck. And I’m actually hearing myself like, oh my God, is that what I

[00:17:46] Emily: sound like?

[00:17:47] Oh my God, you, you don’t edit your, I edit my voice. Multiple times a week. Cause I just hear it all the time. So I hear my talking voice and I know exactly what my singing voice sounds like. I made myself get used to my singing voice in high school. I had like, I plugged in my microphone to an interface and made myself get used to what my voice sounded like.

[00:18:12] Cause like it was just. Awful. It was horrible, but now, like I hear my voice and I’m just like, yep, there it is.

[00:18:24] Andrew: I’m slowly getting there with my voice, but I mean, for years, the only reason why it opened my mouth in any sort of musical context is if there was literally nobody else to help lead worship at church, I’m like, all right, Jesus.

[00:18:34] I really hope you’re okay with this man.

[00:18:38] Emily: Yeah. Uh, I mean, I, I really. I mean, I released an EAP where I sing on it and I like it. And I, you know, there are a lot of people out there who aren’t great singers who, uh, are singers like Willie Nelson, not a great singer, but he always wrote songs or released songs that were well within his vocal range and were written around his voice.

[00:19:08] So I’ve tried to do, you know, a similar thing. And I liked the results. I liked them just fine. So I’m like understanding your own limitations. If you’re a song writer who maybe doesn’t have the most powerful voice, not a bad thing. I remember being in like the seventh grade and my, I had a teacher who just.

[00:19:33] Did not like Michelle Branch. She was like, how can someone be a singer song writer if they can’t sing? I’m like, well, the songwriter part must be doing some of the heavy lifting there, but also like, what’s wrong with her singing? Like, she’s not like Whitney Houston, but,

[00:19:53] um, I’m sure she’d love the arc. Um, but it was kind of like, Like that, that sucks to hear because I was thing there knowing that I wasn’t a very good singer, but I kind of wanted to be a singer songwriter. And I was like, Michelle Branch, you know, not the best singer, but a pretty good songwriter to hear that w that hard, you know, but, you know, I think people should, you know, be careful what they say around children because to quote, Stephen Sondheim, children will listen.

[00:20:30] Yep.

[00:20:32] Andrew: They do that indeed. And it’s frightening, very frightening.

[00:20:39] Emily: Oh my God. And they’re smart, smarter than you think they are also

[00:20:44] Andrew: frightening. Yup.

[00:20:49] Emily: And one of our, um, someone on Instagram that. So I just got a hacked message from Instagram. Like not, we didn’t get hacked with someone else. Certainly did crypto.

[00:21:04] I

[00:21:04] Andrew: tripled my net worth overnight using this quick trick click on this. No, I didn’t. Thank you.

[00:21:14] Emily: Thank you for not for not clicking on that.

[00:21:19] Andrew: Uh, I would hope after, I mean, Well, maybe I won’t jinx myself here, but I would hope I wouldn’t do that

[00:21:29] Emily: after what Andrew

[00:21:31] Andrew: years of working in it, I would like to think that I aware of a phishing attack when I see.

[00:21:38] Emily: Oh, that you’re going to say after a personal experience.

[00:21:41] Andrew: No, that was one of those things where like, I I’m the person in the building that should know not to click on it. Yeah. Which should, if I were to ever do it, it would just make it that much more embarrassing. Like I,

[00:21:56] Emily: I, yeah, everyone, everyone, you know, get scammed sometimes, you know, once I lost some money in Coney island from. A game, like one of those games that they set up on the pier, it wasn’t really my fault. It was, he, he had a guy who was choking. He was choking. I just really wonder, I still wonder how that game was rigged, but it definitely was rigged.

[00:22:27] Andrew: Yeah. There’s always a way in, it’s never obvious.

[00:22:31] Emily: Yeah. But I never taken the time to look it up. I just want some mystery in my life. So.

[00:22:36] Andrew: Yep. Mr. Respond. Sometimes I

[00:22:39] Emily: maybe lost 60 bucks. Well,

[00:22:45] Andrew: oh, well, I, I went through a phase where I was like, I’m going to learn some basic magic tricks and uh, like I know a couple like basic card tricks, or just find a breakout or a party every once in a while, but I don’t really practice them.

[00:22:56] So I never really bought it, but it was when I started realizing how some that gets in like, like bottom dealing, stuff like that. Oh, That ruined so much fun of like watching anybody do card tricks, like ever again. Cause I’m like, wait, I see what you did there. And it was like very slightly. I started to pick up on like some of the what’s going on.

[00:23:16] I’m like, oh my goodness, this ruins so much of them. Like I don’t enjoy it.

[00:23:21] Emily: Yeah. I th I, I do believe that there are things in life where you should try to maintain the mystery of it a little bit. If you enjoy it.

[00:23:33] Andrew: Yeah. That’s why I that’s why Melissa doesn’t watch behind the scenes for movies.

[00:23:39] Emily: Yeah. I don’t like, I don’t want to get too deep into the well of how movie magic is achieved.

[00:23:45] Andrew: I’m just fascinated by that. That one’s, I’m pretty okay with that one being ruined for me now.

[00:23:51] Emily: Yeah. And the music’s already ruined for me by necessity. Oh my God.

[00:24:03] Oh, wait, let me stretch. Gotta stretch. Great job. Big stretch,

[00:24:10] Andrew: big stretches.

[00:24:12] Emily: Um,

[00:24:13] Andrew: so this is an interesting thought here. So I had my buddy over yesterday and we were, we were tracking stuff and it was a good time, but I don’t think he understood like in the nicest way possible. I don’t think he entirely understood the sound that I was going for.

[00:24:32] Emily: That’s why you have to hire a producer, who’s familiar with your genre?

[00:24:38] Andrew: Well, I did, because I’m not hiring anybody. It’s just having a buddy over. I mean, he’s got his degree in recording engineering. Uh I’m like, we could probably figure it out. Right. And he starts, he’s like, all right. I got like, I got a couple of drum loops you could pull from like, yeah, we’re going to go with like, for some metal stuff, by the time we were done, it just sounded like the class.

[00:24:58] I met metal in a very strange way. It was like, it was kind of fun, but it was like, it was a little too slow. The drum didn’t sound right at all. Uh, and I, for some reason, probably because he’s British, my vocals came out, sending very British

[00:25:13] Emily: as well. Yeah. Your vocals sounded really British. I just, how you sing.

[00:25:23] Andrew: Uh, no, he’s like, yeah, I need to be angsty. You’re like, so he was like trying to like coach you through, make it, because I sounded like super nasally and, um, probably very metal Cory. Honestly, when I, the first couple of takes, he’s like, no, I need more angst. And I think in his mind, he’s thinking like metallic and metal.

[00:25:39] Uh, and I was like, so as I started getting anxious, sounded more vibration and we listen to the final take and he did, he was, uh, he did attract, uh, uh, to double. And we’re listening to the two tracks you’d like for your, let me just pan it the two years, which one sounds more British? Like, how do I sound more British than you?

[00:25:58] He sounded more American. So

[00:26:01] Emily: it’s because like Americans learned to sing from Brits fruits, for some reason. And Brits learned to sing from Americans for some reason. It’s like, if you ever listened to Bob Pollard sing from guided by voices, like, whoa, that guy’s from Dayton, Ohio, he’s got the most hill Jack acts.

[00:26:18] When he talks and then he sings like a British person talks like good Lord.

[00:26:26] Andrew: Uh, I mean, I, I definitely have pulled from British accent just for a vowel enunciation for singing, because otherwise I can sound really terrible, but it just came through so strong that maybe we got done, we listened and we had an absolute blast.

[00:26:39] It was, uh, we were just like grabbing stuff and like, oh, what about this? And it was just, I’d call that more of a song writing session more than a recording session that night. Uh, but yeah, it was like, I got down, like, we’re going to end up scrapping. Absolutely. Every last track. There’s not a single thing.

[00:26:56] We, we, we a track yesterday. We ended up keeping,

[00:27:00] Emily: ah, man,

[00:27:02] Andrew: it was all too slow. Like maybe if I wanted to take the time to quantize the vocals, it speeded up to the tempo. I’m looking for. Um,

[00:27:11] Emily: no. Yeah, we’ll do that. That’s weird.

[00:27:17] Andrew: Probably that

[00:27:18] Emily: patient. Did you, did you give him any reference tracks?

[00:27:21] Andrew: Yeah, like halfway through.

[00:27:23] I was like, I tried to be like, so this is kind of what I’m thinking sound wise. Um, and he’s like, oh yeah. Uh, I’m not going to have any drum tracks for that mate.

[00:27:36] Emily: Yeah, the thing is you got to start with reference tracks. We got start with reference tracks, both from just like an idea of like the vibe, the energy, like the genre, especially if it’s something that the person might not be like super familiar with and then like all the way through like the mastering process.

[00:27:57] Like, oh, here’s kind of what I want it to sound like at the very end. Like that’s kind of the first thing you should do. And when starting with a producer. Yup.

[00:28:09] Andrew: Well, or even just like a description. So I could’ve been like the years, 2007, it’s 1:00 PM. You just woke up, hung over and cracked a rebel and head downstairs to the basement.

[00:28:16] What are you? Right. And that’s

[00:28:18] Emily: different for everybody.

[00:28:23] That’s different for everybody. I would have, I would written some folky, sad shit in 2007 at 1:00 PM after cracking a red bull.

[00:28:33] Andrew: Yeah. I probably would have just played Nirvana over and over again in 2007, but 2007 is about that shortly after I started learning drums, let alone guitar.

[00:28:45] Emily: Well, I was 18 in

[00:28:47] Andrew: 2007.

[00:28:48] I was in middle school.

[00:28:50] Emily: I was senior year of high school, freshman year of college. Oh my God.

[00:28:59] Andrew: I should, should’ve started with reference Traxon uh, and I want to reiterate, I’m not being mean to here. We had a great time. Um, and he brought some tasty whiskey, but. Uh, yeah, no, it was just strange. It was, as I was thinking about it after the fact, I was like, you can’t always hire a producer that fits your exact shot, especially if you’re breaking some genre boundaries.

[00:29:24] And so my thought process continued to iterate into, okay. So what did, what are best practice? Like what does it look like to work with someone across genre lbs? Uh, to communicate that I think reference tracks is fair, but what, what if there’s not a perfect reference track?

[00:29:42] Emily: I think you just need to have the vocabulary.

[00:29:44] Um, that’s like kinda the first thing, um, after having reference track, uh, and vocabulary, it takes years, years to build and is so important. I’ve obviously I’ll watch a lot of tick talk these days, but sometimes I’ll see a tick talk and it’ll be like a customer service tech talk. And the reason the customer is upset is because they ordered a.

[00:30:09] Uh, a cappuccino and they’re mad that is foam on it. And what the person figures out is that they wanted a latte. Yeah. And they just thought it was called a cappuccino. So like, there’s that like absolute breakdown at the beginning where someone just has no idea, like, because they just don’t have the vocabulary.

[00:30:34] So like understanding of some terms, basic production terms and genre specific terms, um, like knowing. Chug is, uh, if it’s important, um, making and making sure that whatever producer you work with, even if they’re not like in that John rhe like understands the words associated with it and can like pick out examples.

[00:31:00] Um, because yeah, you know, you’re not always going to be able to hire a producer period, but you’re also not going to be able to always hire a producer. Who’s like Shipley in line with. You once, but you, you know, you, you want to work with a producer. Who’s probably already making music that you like and think is good.

[00:31:21] Um, interesting. Or, you know, let’s the band do what they want to do. Like that’s why people always liked I’m working with Steve Albini was because they, you know, whatever you want to say about Steve Albini. Some people like them, some people don’t like his work. He, he didn’t get in the way of the band. I’m sure he would give his opinion if he was asked, but he wasn’t trying to be first and foremost, a producer.

[00:31:52] He was trying to be first and foremost an engineer. And, um, so it just kind of depends like, are you coming into a session? With a really firm idea of what you want to come out of it, or are you going into a session, uh, wanting somebody there to guide you

[00:32:13] Andrew: or somewhere in between? Um, yeah, you might have 90% of the thing. He was like, Hey, let’s lay down 90% of the track. And if I can just get some input on like the last little, maybe we need add an insert here or add a part there and that’ll be. Uh, I communication, I think is really important, uh, setting expectations, for sure.

[00:32:37] Especially when you’re dealing with like your creative art, it’s very personal. And so to collaborate with somebody else, especially if they weren’t a part of the original writing processes, you’re bringing them into it. But how much.

[00:32:49] Emily: Yeah. Cause it can be a lot. I mean, there’s a reason a lot of producers get writing credits on songs and specific genres, especially because they’re so instrumental in taking it from very little to nothing to being what it becomes.

[00:33:09] Um, it just kinda depends. Um, but yeah, there is always in between. There, I think, um, you know, a lot of artists in the studio make more production choices, and then they realize that they do. Um, but I don’t know, I have not produced anything other than the things I make in my, um, the space.

[00:33:41] Andrew: Well off to, uh, he, he sent me a link to, he put the, the whole, uh, the whole session and Dropbox folder.

[00:33:49] So I need to fire up my hack and Tosh and downloaded since he was using logic. I can just download the whole logic session and give it, give it a go and see what I can’t do to turf on top of that. Uh, I think the, the one thing, the way that I want to do this, I think I’m realistically going to have to.

[00:34:09] Track out the drum track by sitting over the keyboard, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead. Yeah.

[00:34:17] Emily: Yeah. Maybe you might. Yep. I think a lot of people do that. Yep. I mean sample drums or real drums. Yep.

[00:34:29] Andrew: No, no, I don’t have anything against it. It’s just one of those. Like I want to sit behind a drum set and do it myself, but I don’t have a drum set, like a double kick set up and everything.

[00:34:38] Emily: Yeah, that’s fair. Just that a kid electric set.

[00:34:43] Andrew: Yep. I’ve got the, the set for the kid and I’ve set it up where it’s so crammed in where like, I don’t eat. Like I can’t even get my foot on the high hat. So I’m just like, I’m just playing open a hat. When I go in there, I’m like elbows at the side. Not doing, like a, T-Rex doing that.

[00:35:01] Emily: Nah. Okay. And I remember when I was doing my epi, I had to make like a lot of like vetoes more than anything. When I was, um, working with a producer, he wanted to like really drench my vocals and reverb all, uh, like Jim James from my morning jacket. Like he kept doing this and I kept saying, Absolutely not.

[00:35:29] And it was just such a battle. And finally he took off like the wall of plate reverb or whatever. And he was like, what the fuck was I thinking? Yeah, that sounds a lot better. I’m like, I know her life jacket. It’s like, it’s one thing. If you have a voice, that’s like a clear glass of water. But like, I, I don’t think it’s suited to my voice and I don’t think it’s suited my music and I didn’t really, I don’t really like the sound of like Jim James vocals, like particularly,

[00:36:09] Andrew: I think there’s a place for everything then if it’s not,

[00:36:13] Emily: not for non-music.

[00:36:14] Sure. Yeah. Like, I love Niko cases, vocals, and those have a good bit of plate reverb on them, but she’s got again, got like a voice, like a clear glass of water. I just, I, yeah, I just think it works. Like if you have a really pure, beautiful voice, that’s like perfect almost. And then I think it works a little bit better, but like, I mean, I’m betting me.

[00:36:40] It just didn’t work for what I was doing. I think he probably knew that. Like Nico case and like a lot of bands that do have reverb, saturation and thought I might like that. But man, I, I hated it. It sounded so weird that unnatural. So I was really glad that I won that battle.

[00:37:05] Andrew: That’s good communication.

[00:37:07] Emily: Yeah. Standing your ground. And the thing is like, what really bothered me about like the battle I had to. Go through to even get him was about, it was about, I had to go through to even get him to like, try, like try it because when you’re doing songwriting and when you’re doing production, you don’t shit on ideas.

[00:37:30] Yeah. You try everything and then you see what sounds better. Cause even if you can’t like visualize it in your brain, Maybe the transition will be really cool once you hear it played out, or once you figure maybe those two parts will go together. Once you hear them, once you figure out transition between them.

[00:37:49] Andrew: And that’s the beauty of digital recording studios, you can iterate endlessly and a long list of different takes and just mute. Let’s try this combination on you on your.

[00:38:03] Emily: Yeah. And that’s the cool thing about like plugins that’s. Yeah, that’s the cool, that’s a great thing about Dawes, especially, um, you know, when we were doing the, uh, the, we did a Sunday crush, you did a cover of a Santa gold song for compilation.

[00:38:20] Um, that was released on band camp, got some press and like Brooklyn vegan and shit. Um, and. I like was working with Isaac our basis to mix and mix that. And, uh, you know, that was, that was fun. That was really fun. Cause I guess I was part of the production for that because I did, you know, all the guitars stuff, um, and, um, collaborated with Isaac on some of the, the mixing ideas.

[00:38:53] And, um, I guess acid some of the sensor stuff and that, um, via guitar and just talking with them about like, oh, I did this let’s, let’s hard pan these two tracks with the Enzo. Um, cause I played it up an octave. Let’s hard pan that left. Let’s do the lower Octopart pan. Right. Let’s and like kind of things like that.

[00:39:17] And those are, those are still, those are production decisions. And I thought that was really fun. So that was a, that was a whole thing. And then trying to decide like the arrangement for that. Like, do we want to just go because we could have either, I don’t know if you know that song, but it was dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

[00:39:37] It’s very. Rigid. So we like making the decision as a band. Like, how do we want to arrange this? Do we want to keep that rigidity? Or do we want to try to like find a groove and get it into a pocket? And I think, uh, I’m glad we went with the former and like kinda kept averages. Keeps it moving forward. It was fun.

[00:40:06] Andrew: Cool stuff.

[00:40:09] Emily: That’s what I’ve got. That’s what I’ve got to contribute to production related decisions in my life.

[00:40:19] Andrew: Yep. I mean, I guess looking around, I think what I’ve got to, what I’ve got to contribute at this point is, uh, Lamberton is Grindr sound great. That’s what we were using to track that chugga, chugga stuff, and that not explicitly what those are intended for, but it sounds sad.

[00:40:42] It’s super sad. I was tracking Lamberton grinders in my evanesce through the Mandarin eighties. So the orange, uh, copy through I with a four by 10, a cabin on the pod go and just straight into the focus writing. Uh, it sounded, I mean, it’s not the best amp tone I’ve ever heard, but by the time it got into the mix, it’s had a good enough, I’ll take it.

[00:41:13] Emily: Yeah. I’m sure there’s some, some things you can do to make us sound even better because

[00:41:18] Andrew: if you or anything, it was just straight up, just whatever the preset was, plug and play. We’re just looking to, right.

[00:41:25] Emily: That’s the thing that people like talk about like, oh, You know, oh, it doesn’t sound like as good, like on its own.

[00:41:33] And I’m like, yeah. But when you put in a mix, do you think you can tell the difference because you can’t tell the difference between a real kick drum and a fake kick drum, because guess what? I don’t think there’s a pop song. That’s used a mic kick drum and like 30

[00:41:47] Andrew: years. And if they are it’s because they’re using a sample from an older.

[00:41:53] Emily: No. Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. Yeah. It’s like, it’s always, it’s a sample or cause they’re like drums are so hard to mic. Yep. So just use a sample. Like it’s just, you spend, you spend an hour and a half setting up Mike Sonic on a drum kit set, and then you ended up using a sampled kick. Anyway. It’s just, that’s just how it is.

[00:42:20] So. Usually see yourself at a time. It’s so expensive. It’s like a studio can be like 300 bucks an hour. Do you really want to spend $450 miking a drum kit?

[00:42:34] Andrew: Um, in order to be submitted cables because smart, the drum kit has middy out. And so I can at least track a bunch of it middy out and then. Play with different kits sounds from they’re smart.

[00:42:54] And if I need to do the, the, since I don’t have like a double kick set up, I can always just like program the floor time and just do that. A separate track as the bass drum. Yeah. You good? That actually probably be really crisp.

[00:43:08] Emily: Oh yeah. Boom solutions, modern problems. Modern solutions.

[00:43:17] Andrew: Yeah, I’m going to, I’m going to go order myself Smitty kibbles.

[00:43:19] When we’re done. My patch showed up it

[00:43:24] Emily: shipping is slow. Shipping is low showing up either.

[00:43:29] Andrew: Oh, those ones are shipping from Canada, so, oh yeah. I’m not too worried about it when they show up, they show we’ll talk about it more when they get here.

[00:43:39] Emily: When they get here, they get

[00:43:40] Andrew: here. Alrighty. Well, I’m going to go order some mini cables and, uh, maybe thinking about doing the dishes before I lose all of my motivation to do so as a bachelor for the day.

[00:43:52] Emily: So thanks for the day. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding until next time. My name is Emily and my name is. Goodbye.