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my name is Justin Coletti thank you for

coming to mix Cohn is anyone here by

chance here to see Tony Maserati

all right good for a second there I

thought all that was for me apparently

not all right Tony Maserati for those of

you who don't know who he is for I don't

know who you are and why you don't know

who he is but he is a 10 time Grammy

nominated mixer he really came into

notoriety working with some of the

biggest hip-hop artists particularly on

the East Coast Puff Daddy and Queen

Latifah notorious b.i.g and all these

names of East Coast hip-hop he was all

over that scene and since then he's

become just as big if not even bigger in

the world of pop music mixing major

releases from Beyonce major releases

from Jason Mraz black eyed peas uh sure

a I'm gonna leave so many out I'm sure

I'm super excited to have him on he is

gonna take us under the hood of some

real commercial mixes from an artist

client of his named Debbie Nova so big

things that Debbie Nova for letting us

here are some of her tracks can you give

her a round of applause for her

for those of you watching on a video

we'll be sure to link to her stuff if

you want to hear these songs in full but

we'll be going under the hood there's

one last big thing so we have to give

before we can bring Tony on and that is

to our sponsor for this presentation

without whom this event would not be

free to the public like it is so big

thanks for making this for you the

public make DSP thanks to those guys big

round of applause to make the SP when

digital audio is new mcdee SP was well

liked the first brands it actually made

good sounding plugins before the days of

McGee SP there were plugins didn't sound

that great until make DSP came along

now there's a lot of great plug-in

companies Soumik DSP is doing something

else that is extremely unusual

they have unveiled a box here right

before we got started called the APB 16

they actually put a photo of it there

behind me which is kind of neat it's

like an all analog compressor that you

hook up to your computer via Thunderbolt

and you can use 16 channels of analog

compression like their plugins in your

Dalek as if it was a DSP processor if

it's all analog that's just minor

bending can we give an applause for how

mind-bendingly weird and awesome that is

all right enough of me yakking thanks to

all those guys thanks to you for coming

and thanks to Tony Maserati who's gonna

take it away from here thank you Tony

I've never been here before so in fact I

saw the studio for the first time and I

remember my good friend Jimmy Douglas

works here all the time I'd never come

to visit him then again I don't think he

ever came to visit me either but we

always see each other at events this is

an amazing space I appreciate you all

for coming

really this is amazing Wow I guess it'd

be good for me to know a little bit

about who y'all are so just by show of

hands engineers in the room engineer

people okay cool

producers okay kind of both almost about

artists Jesus whoa okay you know

obviously the reason why I asked because

I want to know how how I what kind of

language I should and could use you know

I just released a few records

does anybody know those records should I

talk about those records a little bit

yeah so a little Beyonce stuff the I did

three tracks on the gift that she just

released which was always as always

pretty amazing to work with her and I

think just today or yesterday an artist

named Brice behind just dropped his

album and I had four tracks on that and

also a new artist

Carlos Farah just dropped his single and

I think I had a couple last week as well

one of the things and the reason why I'm

talking about this is because you know a

large part of what I do is paying

attention to what is released and not

only what is released what is being

accepted by an audience right because

not only do I work for B or Brice or

Carlos I work for

the audience the people who are actually

paying attention to the work that I do

and in some cases they're paying

attention more than the executives and

and that that's how it should be the

audience is the one who are who are

really telling me whether or not I'm

doing a good job they're the ones

keeping me in the sea I think this is

one of the things that that whenever I'm

speaking to an audience of younger

producer engineers and artists they they

feel like there's a disconnect you know

they think that there is some magic wand

that I'm putting over the music and and

it becomes this mix and immediately

people love it I have had lots of flops

and and I think that the average for any

professional who has done it as long as

I have is that is probably either 50/50

or you know 6040 if you've lasted as

long as me maybe it there are a lot of

records that come out that y'all don't

know anything about and some of them I

thought were amazing records that I did

my best work on and and some of them

some of the biggest hits I've done have

been records that didn't really think

we're gonna do anything there is a

record in particular I don't even

remember the name of the group but the

the I can never forget the song and it's

called candy rain and and Heavy D

produced it and and he was he's an

amazing guy he was an amazing guy and

and I swear he played me that song and I

was like I hate this song I can do I

what am I supposed to do with this and

he's like dude just do your thing and

I'm like I gotta can I you know so I

would mix it in pieces and just the keys

and just the drums and

and then maybe I'd move on to the

background vocals and that sort of thing

but of course it was a gigantic record

for for Hef and his production company

and and the band thank you so for real

that's right yeah and it was and it was

great and of course I'm happy for them

I'm happy that I was involved but I'll

never understand how that record did as

well as it did so I think it goes both

ways there are a lot of Records I've

done that I thought wow this is this

people are gonna get this you know and

put my heart and soul into it not that I

didn't for so for real so I think that

there is there's a really important

element here that has has been part of

my life and that is my my best to pay

attention to the audience and of course

I have a lot of help with that the

producers I'm working with the artists I

get the ones that I get a chance to to

be around and and certainly the younger

members of my my engineering team as

well and I do my best to stay on top of

what's being released it's a little

harder now as you all know it's I mean

the amount of releases per week is is

probably 10 times what it was 15 years

ago 20 years ago back then we knew

exactly who was being released you know

three months in advance so releases

could be scheduled around other artists

who were competitive and nowadays that

doesn't happen the B record that we just

did was released two days maybe even

hours after I finished and I know the

Carter's record though that we did last

year I I think my assistant was

whispering in my ear you have to print

you have to print and literally it came

out that night so things are much

different nowadays and I think that one

of the things that I'm

lucky enough to have is is my clients

and my my artists believe in the fact

that I am paying attention to the

audience and I am also obviously paying

attention to their creativity I think

today this is this is kind of what I

wanted to get into a little bit with

with some of the demonstration I'll do

with Debbie's record debbie is as an old

friend a client an artist she started

out with doing her own music she was on

Sony us and she was singing in English

and she was working with Ricky Martin

and a variety of other Latin artists

she's from Costa Rica and I worked on a

couple records with her and she came to

me for this new record because we know

each other and she knows that I still do

what I do and you know she knew that she

needed a proper mix I think she had

mixed it in Mexico and she didn't like

what what she ended up with I have been

very lucky in that you know have a lot

of clients who have been with me for a

long time and one of the things that

I'll talk about also quite a lot today

is the idea of this staying in touch not

staying in touch with Debbie because I

hadn't talked to her in three years or

four years but staying in touch with the

audience and in some ways it's more

important for me to do that than it is

to make sure that that Debbie still has

my phone number one because it's easy to

get a hold of me and and social media

and

and the digital world has made that easy

but also because the audience is is

really who I'm playing to right

it's who the artist is playing to it's

who the producer is playing to it's who

the record company is playing to it

really is is and especially nowadays is

everything the audience and the audience

is fluid right the audience is changing

at all times what they're interested in

what they pay attention to it used to be

that I could get away with using a kick

drum for six months a particular

sounding kick drum say or a bank of

samples that I may have worked on and

created myself or maybe shared with my

my producer friends you know that

doesn't work anymore things move so fast

now people can tell if it's six weeks

old

forget about six months old you know the

Sonics of music moves extremely fast how

many I mean I'm assuming all of you you

know get your get your plugins get your

software online how often is that stuff

update it's updated what every couple

weeks there's a new update of something

whether it's a whether it's in OS or you

know you know people are making their

their software more compatible with with

the new computers or the new drivers or

whatever it is but the same goes for

music right the sound itself is changing

so that means discovering plugins

discovering technology now I actually

have to spend time discovering

technology which brings me to the point

I was trying to make which took me so

long to get there and and that is it's

studying and practice and I don't know

I'm assuming a fair bit of this crowd

is professional and your music is

released raise your hand if you have

your music released okay half I'd say so

your music you create music or you you

engineer music you write music and it

gets released well you the rest of you

are actually all of you including myself

I spend you should spend a lot of time

practicing and a lot of time listening

and a lot of time paying attention to

what new technologies have come out this

I can't tell you how important this is

from the beginning stages of my career

to just afternoon you know and what I

learned talking to Colin upstairs about

the the a PV box you know that that sort

of level of you know curiosity an

interest both in the technology in the

craft itself and and in the musicality

the way that you know what's his name

finneus from Billy eyelash Billy's

brother right the way that we've all

we've all been enthralled with what he

did to the 808 is anybody not know what

I'm talking about you don't know what

I'm talking about

don't know what I'm talking about okay

so you got it you got a check out this

Billy Eilish record of course and and

Phineas her brother was that his name

Phineas right yeah so but what he did to

the 808 just seems to be the thing that

everyone is talking about how did he do

this

what did he do what was the impetus to

this was it a mistake that he then said

oh that's super cool I'm gonna use this

but he completely distorted it but it

doesn't sound unpleasantly distorted it

actually becomes part of the sonic

quality and also part of it part of the

mood of the

song it's which is you know this is

brilliance this is what you know musical

brilliance is all about it's about

experimentation it's about keeping

things interesting in any way possible

you know when I first started we spent a

lot of time learning how to use tape of

course those days are long gone I am

happy that they are long gone because I

will never work on tape again thank you

but I'm certainly enthralled by a box

like this that allows me to have control

over an analog circuit from my DAW

without having hardware IO involved I

don't know if any of you have followed

what I do but I do a thing called hybrid

mixing so which means that I I have a

racks of analog equipment they're hooked

in to my system through an interface

I use an HD IO from avid so I'll grab

33609 Neve compressor analog compressor

through a plug-in insert obviously I

don't have anything I don't have any

analog gear here but does this screen

show up over there so you can see that

one of the things that I have plugged in

here is insert seven and eight and I

also use insert three and four not that

we can use them because they don't exist

here but in my system those are analog

compressors so I can instantiate analog

compression or EQ wherever there's a

plug-in point and then it I've set up my

i/o system so that I have a setup of

hardware inserts in my i/o setup this

allows me to get some analog compression

some

equalization which I really still enjoy

within my the framework of my digital

mixing system right because I still do

all my automation and all my my mixing

within the DAW

although sometimes I actually go

external with the summing and I do that

by way of my auxes so I can essentially

mix in the Box like this and have my

oxes go to what I'm calling mix buss and

that mix bus shows up here as an input

and that's basically my internal mixing

system right but if I want to sum then I

just select my converter my in my case

it's a it's a Lavery I would select that

and then I would send each one of these

two I have a little Neve sidecar

I have an e/m I'm Chandler mini mixer I

have a fulcrum mixer a passive box so my

system is really fluid I can move around

and and if I decide that the mix would

sound better some through an analog

amplifier right because that's what

we're talking about here right

you understand the difference because if

I'm mixing in the Box it's all some

digitally and that's the difference

rather than sending it to my Neve which

of course goes through my converter and

then goes through the st. Ives

transformers to the input of my Neve

console or the transformers that are in

the EMI Chandler mini mixer so I get

that sound and then that is summed and

then sent back digitally via my Lavery

the flexibility that I get from that is

what I really like

my friend Stu white who does most of the

Beyonce stuff I said to him oh man

you've got to check out this APB box and

you know maybe you should we should send

some of your mixes through my analog set

up and check it out and see if it makes

it sound better and he's like no way man

I'm keepin my stuff all in the box you

know if if if Chad Blake can do it I'm

gonna do it and he makes a good point

because Chad Blake

mixes all in the box but Chad Blake is

Chad Blake he's just amazing and yeah he

meant he mixes all in the box and I

don't know how he does it but it sounds

amazing

I mix in the box quite often but a lot

of times what I'll do is I'll mix like

on my laptop in fact this week I'm I'm

gonna be away from my studio so I'll mix

in my laptop and then I'll send my file

back to my assistant in LA you know give

him instruction on where to send things

and he'll put it through the analog gear

and we'll listen to that and see if

that's better or worse and see if it

makes it you know a bit fuller a bit

rounder and I find that quite often the

analog setup really does help with

making it a bit wider giving me a bit

more depth in the mix and I really enjoy

that sonically the B stuff actually you

know her stuff is is really put together

well by Stewart so when he sends me a

file I there isn't a lot I can do to

that file because one B works and does

updates up until minutes before it's

released so I can't really change too

much because stew might need to print

something new and then send that to me

and it goes on like that so it's really

important for me to kind of keep his

construct to get

so I try to retrofit it into my

structure but I can't always do that but

in the case of the new record

I really just chose the points like he

had sort of a vocal and all vocal sub

mix and I said well okay that's not

gonna work for me let me duplicate that

and then send her lead vocals out

through the Chandler mini mixer send the

backgrounds out through the Chandler

mini mixer and then he's got like an all

music sub mix as well okay that's not

going to work let me duplicate that and

then just send the drums to the new one

and send the drums out to the Neve and

you get my point so I'm choosing picking

and choosing the the the points at which

I'm changing his setup and then I'm

sending it to my you know choices and

sometimes those choices are just based

on the Transformers they're not even I'm

not even going to change the EQ I'm just

gonna listen to it through the

Transformers and and then through I've

got a pair of p76

amplifiers which have tubes in them so

I'm going to listen to that so you get

my point that quite often if if y'all

are mixers you'll know you get a file

that the producer has spent days maybe

even months working on and that might be

in what he considers to be a mix so is

it your job to break that down and print

stems and and then mix it or is it your

job to sort of make use of his ideas I

kind of choose the latter

I like doing it that way because then I

get to sort of dissect why and what he

did or she and try to make it

better and I do this quite often

actually I guess that's an interesting

segue in the idea of this APB that Colin

made at McGee SP I have any have have

you guys check this thing out

yeah a couple couple folks so this box

is is this green box here and it's

connected with just Thunderball right

can I can I now save and automate a

piece of analog equipment from within my

DAW now I can and and Colin has made a

box this simple you know 1u box that's

pretty light it's got 16 channels of

hardware compression in it and you know

I think we can possibly get into more

about how that works but I imagine that

Colin's website probably has a lot more

information than I can disseminate right

now but this is the future this is the

way for me again I like that I like the

sound of an analog compressor I'm hoping

that eventually Colin will get into

equalization saturation and a few other

things but right now this is the way you

can control and automate an analog

device within your dog that's not doable

in any other way so how would I

characterize the type of compression in

this box it's actually really

interesting because and you can imagine

this is what's necessary what Colin did

was he made a very very high quality box

so it's got 32 bit conversion internally

32 bit conversion and in high quality

components and then he manipulates them

through software to

things that emulate our favorite

compressors in this case this is

probably emulating something that is

similar to a Fairchild right because of

its name I'm only assuming does it sound

like a Fairchild no he's not suggesting

that it sounds like a Fairchild thus it

doesn't have the exact same logo and

name but he because he's created a

system within the analog circuitry there

are points within that circuitry where

he is calling upon particular bits of

the circuitry to mimic the attack and

release time of a particular kind of

compressor and of course the the sky's

the limit on what other programmers

would do with this type of box so I

think that the future is in what can a

programmer do with this now you know and

that's kind of super interesting to me

because colin has created a really high

quality analog circuitry that is

digitally controlled so so the question

is is there a need for analog equipment

you know what that's a choice it really

is it's it's a taste it's a choice I

believe I work better within the

framework of of what I do and that is

incorporating both the digital and the

analog together as I said before I'm not

interested in in going back to analog

tape that's for damn sure but I do I do

like the sound I mean listen to i mix

three songs today or three songs that

got released for be those three songs I

I can't tell you what the the Chandler

rs.12 for did it made it it made the

sound of her voice it when I listen to

those records I hear that rs.12 four and

I don't know that that is something that

I can get yet from blocks maybe maybe

somebody maybe you know Chandler's gonna

license something and and somebody will

come out with it but I tried trust me

because I only have two and I wish I had

four you know but if I had if I had four

I would use for that's how good the box

is that's what it does for my life so is

that something I can get from a plug-in

maybe if anybody knows Tchad Blake knows

but not me because I haven't found it

yet

I often come to these events without a

clue of what I'm going to do and this

this is no difference because I was

working too in fact I arrived here late

last night and as soon as I got here I

got a message from a producer and and he

said yeah what happened to the panning

on that vocal ad-lib and and of course I

was like what panning and my assistant

had deleted some panning of a particular

vocal ad-lib and and so I was working

until 2:00 a.m. I wasn't saying that as

an excuse that I am I am NOT going to

you know be as impressive with my mixing

today I meant it more to the point of I

think that I'm probably much like y'all

and that is I got my head in this in

this thing every day for 15 hours a day

and as much as possible I try to plan

out moments of where I'm going to

explore new plugins or listen to new

released music or have a discussion with

my my friends about what direction our

engineering industry is going and and

how can I keep up so I think that that

is something that in as much as I can

sit here and trying to demonstrate

things that I do

I think that this is so important

obviously coming here and talking to me

hopefully you're gonna walk away even

with this the smallest tidbit of

information that you can then go home or

to your studio and and try and utilize

and practice it and try to figure out

how can I make use of this info I can't

stress enough how important it is for

you to find and allocate time for

yourself to practice and by practice I

mean practice with your system but also

experiment and listen to music and and

read information about you know your

colleagues and mine as to how they do

things and see if there are ways for you

to incorporate that into your work so

Debbie is an awesome writer and one of

the reasons why I am working with her is

because of that and not only is she an

awesome writer she is an amazing singer

and musician I work on a lot of music

and and I think that one of the reasons

why I wanted to bring Debbie's music in

here to demonstrate is because it came

to me at a place that I felt I really

could do a lot to it to bring out what

what hopefully she was looking for this

record is not out it probably won't come

out for I don't know a few months she

has she's really nice and letting me use

her file she co-produced the record as I

said and performs on it one of the

things that I do immediately when I get

a record is my team they'll basically

get a file from the producer and then

they'll they'll put my template and by

template I mean my IO setup

also a bunch of auxes that I that I keep

in my template and you'll notice down

below here I've got a bunch of auxes

that are inactive and those are part of

my template and so whenever I have an

idea

I grab something on my template and I

turn it on and I use that thing and

sometimes I edit it sometimes I don't

edit it sometimes I have holes in my

template so here you see something

called extra mono delay and that just

means it's blank when I open up my

session and I throw something on there

that I like and I use that and I have

extra delay which is a stereo delay and

I use that extra reverb and basically

there's a bunch of stuff that I use

here's one of that I call extra verb and

I'll just grab something that I like and

I throw that on and and start to work

with that in this case I'm going to put

that guy on how many of you use the

template anybody anybody use the

template okay so you use the template

that's good I find it it allows me to

work fast so generally what I do is I

spend quite a lot of time just listening

to the record and listening to the

tracks I try to spend as little time in

front of the speakers as possible

and then I make mental notes and and

those mental notes can be regarding the

mood that the song puts me in it could

be mental notes about a chain that I

want to create and I want to work out

later but I find that being able to

visualize the sound that I want and by

visualize I mean that could be the room

right so maybe if I'm thinking about

what room do I want that snare drum to

be in I'm thinking about are the walls

made of wood where are the walls made of

plaster is the ceiling high or low is

there wood on the floor right these are

these are the kinds of things that are

that I'm hearing in my head I'm not

thinking about a plug-in right I'm

thinking about what kind of wood and and

I'm also thinking about what is the

finish on the wood right is there any

fabric involved in this room right how

big is the room because that's going to

tell me how my delay is gonna work is

there a delay and then of course I can

start to think about where am I placing

the microphones I'm sure most of you

have tried out the UAD Ocean Way plug-in

where you get to move the microphone

around have you guys seen this plugin

anybody not seen it anybody not seen

this plug-in okay so you gotta you gotta

check it out you probably find a demo on

or whatever but it's a really smart

interesting plugin that is is emulating

this ocean waste space and then moving

allowing you to choose the microphone

and move the microphone within that

space which i think is super cool I

remember when they were developing it

and the engineer was asking me what I

thought might be what what might make it

more interesting and I think they did a

terrific job at creating that but that's

a lot of the process that I'm thinking

so when I'm listening down to the track

over and over again I'm thinking about

those things how do I want this snare to

sound where do I want it to sit or vote

where do I want the vocal to be and then

of course I start to think about the

arrangement as well all right I'm

starting to think you know does does the

vocal need to be dry in the beginning

and then get bigger at the end or you

know do I start her off immediately in a

big room because that changes the mood

immediately right in in the case of this

mix I started off quite dry but I'd like

to actually mess around with okay so we

put that on here should we listen to

this thing because you guys haven't

heard this thing yet right

[Music]

[Music]

oh well okay I don't know if you can

hear put in my headphones I can actually

hear the difference they're kind of

lifts up the low end in a really

interesting way let's throw another one

on just for for the hell of it yeah this

one's kind of interesting I use this one

on vocal all the time actually

[Music]

but why don't we just put it on her

vocal so I've got this guy on her vocal

already cuz that's what I used in the

mix so let's just a B and listen to it a

little bit you know make its container

go get us notice siendo color

swing your guess the weight cattle ahead

look at Auclair head low cattle cleared

lo que estás aquí que estas aqui

it does a nice job I don't know if you

guys can hear it but in my phones I'm

like wow that sounds great but so so I

mean again you got to dig into this this

box yeah I think it's super cool I've

been using it for six weeks

I'm loving it kahlan's little small

session that he did upstairs really kind

of blew my mind I got more information

on it now and know a little bit more

about what it does I also used it on a

mix bus which I thought was really cool

and we can mess with that later but for

now I'm just going to leave this I do

want to mess with the reverb thing that

I put out there and I think I put it on

extra verb I'm going to turn the other

stuff off because as we were as I was

playing the track I realized that that

that one approach that I may have missed

when I mixed this record was there

there's a real sadness that's in the

track that I'm not sure I am

I'm accentuating in her vocal sound of

course this is there are so many

different directions we can go but I

want to I want to try to mess around

with where this goes

if I just mess with this idea that came

in my head whatever that ends up being I

don't know I always start off with a

with a preset because I don't know why I

just like to maybe I like seeing a name

but I'm going to start with this guy

[Music]

again going back to what I was talking

about earlier regarding in my head I'm

visualizing what I want this to sound

like so I'm visualizing space the size

of the space the kinds of floor the

materials involved in that space I

brought up this plugin because I thought

this is a really interesting way that

they've created this plugin by allowing

you to determine what the materials

involved in the space are I just love

that idea

and that kind of works with the way my

brain works when I'm thinking about

space but in this case I want to see if

I can make her sound lonely okay that's

the that's the best way that I can

describe the sound in my head

and

so I don't know if I can do that but uh

you know having a big open space maybe

that's going to help

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

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as a key

you know my girl fiercer me but eyes

hold up

you know Meg enough we're sunny but I

told her thing go get some candy

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so quite often I spend a lot of time

doing what I call a broad strokes and

that's because I'm not trying to succeed

at anything I'm really simply trying to

get the idea in my head out that's it

I'm not trying to finish the whole

detail I'm simply trying to get the idea

out and every stroke that I make is

telling me that's part of the sound that

I'm looking for or not really just like

sending anything in pre it goes against

everything I believe in it also makes

printing stems a real

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removal Sunday

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okay so the idea of envisioning the

sound in your head comes from the mood

right it's it's the feeling there was a

record on the carters a song on the

carters record that I did last year and

there was a process involved in this in

the production of that record they were

quite a there's four engineers involved

there's a lot of work that went into

involved in the record in a very short

period of time and we were all in London

guru was mixing a song well then he was

actually recording and mixing a song

that it ended up be had put her her

vocals on late and he had very little

time to to mix it and I had heard the

song early on when I first arrived in

London he had already been working on it

for weeks

recording and and and arranging and

doing all sorts of things guru does

quite a lot for 4j and I had heard the

song and of course I was like oh I want

to mix this song you know but I didn't

say anything and in the end he didn't

have the time to finish it

and but they gave it to me and I only

had like literally four hours I think

for me to do that

but during during the week that I was

there maybe two weeks I don't even

remember how long it was because it's

all a blur but I had mixed the whole

record in my head every sound every

track I had mixed in my head and I

practiced this technique when I was an

assistant engineer I I know that we

don't really have that process anymore

in the business

where there's an assistant and and a

master engineer that you learn from but

that's how I came up and and I'm not

saying that it was a it was a epiphany

or anything I just hated you know I had

to sit in the room and I hated it so I

would just mix in my head so the this

engineer is his name is um his name is

doc Daugherty and he used to smoke

Winston's and drink drink beer while he

while he mixed and so my job was pretty

much just doing patches writing down you

know settings on the equipment and going

out and getting him Winston's and beer

and that was my job so you can imagine

how bored I was every time I had to

assist doc which was all the time and he

was really an amazing mixer I in fact to

this day I don't know how he did what he

did but as it stands I'm not sure I ever

spent the time to figure out how he did

what he did

because I was bored and I would just

spend my time sitting in the back of the

room going okay I'm gonna put the snare

through this reverb and I'm gonna set

this and I'm gonna do that and then I'm

gonna send it through you know this

guitar pedal and it's gonna do this for

this one spot you know what I mean and I

would do that in my head all the time to

the point where I started writing down

what I was going to do and that included

the patching the patch cable the length

of cable the kind of cable balanced

unbalanced everything about it

I would patch it in my head because it

was so boring to sit there and just doc

would work on the snare for two hours

and I just couldn't

standed after a while there was one

point I said the duck are you really

gonna work on that snare some more and

he just said go out and get me a pack of

Winston's I swear to God and and he

didn't say they he was you know this guy

this guy was like um Clint Eastwood that

was his persona but it was really him

you know so he wouldn't say to me shut

up you idiot he would just say go out

and get me another pack of whinnies and

that was means don't be a dumbass but it

really helped me to home that idea of

mixing in my head so as I'm sitting here

and I'm poking away at this at this idea

that I've got in my head about creating

a lonely sound for her I'm realizing

okay great this is going to be good but

it's not going to work for the whole

song of course so how and it's not going

to work with the current arrangement of

the song so then my head starts to go -

okay

do I change the arrangement and just

move it down to like you know section

maybe it's just going to be the roads or

the guitar which I'm going to maybe put

in this the same space as her and then

I'm gonna bring that back okay all of

these details you should be able to do

in your head all the settings that that

you change in the box you should be able

to see them

in your mind you should be able to do

this all in your head

just by coming up with a simple idea a

simple sound you should have all of

these settings and the way to get there

is with practice and that's what I did

so after doc left the studio and he

would say okay make sure the recall is

right then I would stay all night and

get my mix on the board the one that was

in my head that I had written down the

things that I had in my my head and in

my ear I would I would do and try to get

to and that was my practice so it spend

a lot of time practicing and trying to

get those ideas out so I can't really

speak more importantly about about how

practice is really important how

listening to other music and I used to

listen to mixes by whoever you know was

out and my favorite mixers and I would

write down what I thought they did down

to the cable down to the kind of guitar

strings everything I would write down

now none of that was probably true what

I wrote to him but what it did was it

trained my ear to say oh I want the

sound that Bob Claire Mountain got on

this INXS record on the kick drum and

I'm sure Bob didn't do anything that was

in my head I didn't get it right but I

had an idea and that's how those ideas

get created they don't get created by

floundering around on your dog they get

created by coming up with an idea in

your head and that was my original point

when I said I spend a lot of time

listening so I'll sit there and listen

and I'll look at my second and I'll say

what does this remind you of

and then we'll listen to that song and

I'll think what does this remind me of

and I'll listen to that song you know

maybe I'll grab a delay setting from

that song or maybe I'll come up with a

kick drum sound for the bridge that is

similar to this other song or whatever

it is I might utilize those references

in the same way that a poet or a visual

artist will utilize references to

something else right you

understand what I'm going anybody have a

question about that yeah do you not

understand this do you speak Spanish you

speak Spanish how many of you do not

speak Spanish

does anybody unclear about the mood of

this song you're unclear what do you

think the mood of the song is does

everybody else agree we all agree she

sets the mood I don't need to know the

exact lyrics I work on kpop I don't know

what they're saying I don't

I don't I don't need to know exactly

what she's saying and I and I do of

course I asked her what is this song

about and she'll explain to me but in

the end she only needs to make sure I

know if I'm going the wrong direction

right because if I go in the wrong

direction she'll immediately say what

the hell are you doing but if I go in

the right direction she's already told

me what the direction is I mean we all

anybody who's worked in music knows you

listen to the vocalist if she doesn't

tell you where he in the the way they

perform it if they don't tell you what

that song is about then they're just not

good that's that's it bottom line I mean

if if we're working on pop music and a

vocalist doesn't explain by their

performance what the song is about like

candy rain I just didn't know what that

song was about to this day I'm not sure

I know what that song is about but you

get my point

yeah

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to hearing what what's doing you know I

remember I play guitar and I went to

Berkeley and the teachers at Berkeley

were amazing musicians and in those days

at Berkeley you had to play an

instrument I don't know if you do

anymore and I really sucked and the and

the teachers were really good and I

remember the teachers saying to me

why are you playing and I'd be like well

it's my turn or something it's my spot

and he's like no you don't have a clue

what you're doing or why you're doing it

so to to dissect what you want to do you

have to train your ear and by training

your ear as an engineer I mean you have

to train your ear to know different

sounds right so if you're a beginner you

should not be mixing you should be

training your ear you should be spending

time with every plug-in you can find

with every piece of hardware you can

find that is emulated as a plug-in and

understand what their differences are

you should be spending time listening to

other music can you pick out the

instruments in a song start from there

that's ear training can you pick out

every instrument in a song and then can

you pick out what box they came from can

you pick out exactly what soft synth and

what setting can you do that that's

training your ear and trust me there's

people in this room who can do

right in and of course you know when

when most music was made by musicians an

engineer could tell what kind of bass it

was the exact kind of bass what kind of

strings were on that bass everything

about it they could hear if you can't

hear at that level then how can you come

up with an idea for a sound of a vocal

right how can you come up with an idea

for a sound for a bass so when I'm

messing with the bass I'm thinking oh I

want to put old strings on this bass or

I wanna I wanna I want one of the

pickups to be up you know like a

bad chord and that's what I'm thinking

in my head how can I mess with this in a

particular way that gives me this

feeling so you've got to train your ear

first so that those sounds are all

logged in there's a big file in there

going okay bad chord bad pickup old

strings cheap loop bump and that comes

out well that's what you hope comes out

sometimes it doesn't come out and

something better comes out and you say

oh that's got brand new strings on

it but an old you know but one bad

pickup you know I don't know these are

the kinds of things that you've got to

be able to hear in your head so ear

training is the thing to be doing if

you're just starting now because

mastering how to use the gear this stuff

that's easy that's easy Tony I think

that was a great answer I think that's

unfortunately all the time we have left

so big thank you to Tony Maserati

I also want if you can give us one more

round of applause the people who are

able to sponsor this so it could be free

to the public

both in person on video big thank you to

Mick DSP for bringing Tony here

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