Shownotes
Mat Leffler-Schulman is a mastering engineer who's worked with artists such as Jon Batiste, Blondie, Mary J Blige, Beach House, and many more.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- The Value of Working with a Human Mastering Engineer
- The Ethics of Using Stem Splitting to Alter a Mix in Mastering
- The Various Roles AI Could Play for Music Production Pros
- How to Address "Width" in a Master
- The Business Side of a Mastering Studio
- An Analog One Stop Shop Mastering Unit
- How to Setup a Project for Success with Communication
- Staking Multiple Limiters for Louder, Cleaner Masters
- Learning to Work with Synesthesia
Enjoyed this Episode? Dig deeper on mastering with my interview with Sam Fischmann
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🌐 Website: https://matlefflerschulman.com
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Credits:
Guest:
Host: Travis Ference
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Theme Music: inter.ference
Transcripts
I always master it for how it should sound. Good. If you are mastering for
Speaker:Spotify right now, two years down the road, it's going to be something
Speaker:else. So I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song
Speaker:in sort of like its own ecosystem at any given
Speaker:time. That's mastering engineer Matt Loeffler Schulman. Matt's worked with artists such as Jon
Speaker:Batiste, Beach House, Nelly Furtado and Mary J. Blige. Today we're
Speaker:going to get into what makes a great mix. But from the perspective of the
Speaker:mastering. Engineer, mastering is sort of the end of the road. Like if you didn't
Speaker:get it, good to begin. Some of his techniques for honoring the
Speaker:mix while still elevating the master to the next level. If it's a mix where
Speaker:the vocals are a little bit hot and you want the sides to be a
Speaker:little bit more pronounced, you can compress the mid
Speaker:but not the sides. So the sides stay nice and
Speaker:doing what they're doing, but the vocal in the center gets a little bit more
Speaker:tightened and in focus. How a condition called chromasthesia has become a tool for
Speaker:his mastering process. There are shapes and colors and
Speaker:they change based on frequency,
Speaker:intensity and whatnot. And why he's not that concerned with
Speaker:AI mastering. There is clearly a market for that and
Speaker:I feel like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend
Speaker:money with me anyways. A mixed engineer who also masters
Speaker:their clients, that's where AI is going to take business away. So whether
Speaker:you're here to learn more about the technical side of mastering or the business and
Speaker:the philosophies behind it, this one is for you. Stick around for my interview with
Speaker:Matt Leffler Shulman,
Speaker:you've mastered number one top ten songs for Grammy winning artists. But
Speaker:I don't want to talk about mastering first. I want to talk about mixing. What
Speaker:is a great mix to you? When you pull something up on the desk, what
Speaker:makes you say, whoa, this is awesome?
Speaker:Well, there's many things. And when
Speaker:I have sort of my mastering headphones or
Speaker:glasses or that sort of focused on,
Speaker:it's always been difficult for me to be able
Speaker:to listen to the record as a whole. It's always been that way. Even since,
Speaker:you know, I was a kid, I always like listened to the snare drum. I
Speaker:remember, you know, going to a show and finally realizing
Speaker:what drum the drummer was hitting and that was the snare drum. I was like,
Speaker:that's crazy. But anyways, so what makes a great mix
Speaker:for me is when I am able to just completely
Speaker:forget about all those discernible individual tracks
Speaker:and it's just like a whole
Speaker:piece that just works together and I'm not sitting there like
Speaker:nitpicking, well, man, the base, we should
Speaker:have pushed that up a little bit more. And the sibilance is a little too
Speaker:much. So really it's just a mix that
Speaker:doesn't really distract you from anything. And I have to
Speaker:pinch myself every day that I get to work with amazing producers and
Speaker:mix engineers. So it happens
Speaker:a lot where I really just kind of get lost in that mix.
Speaker:And, you know, I know maybe the bar is really low, who
Speaker:knows? But yeah, it's definitely. It's a special thing
Speaker:to get lost in a mix, I think. But
Speaker:I certainly appreciate it. Nice. So it's like basically when you
Speaker:listen to the music and there's nothing in the mix that bothers you.
Speaker:Exactly. Are you able to look past when something is
Speaker:maybe a little low end heavy or like a
Speaker:little harsh and you immediately know that's a solvable problem, but you're like, this is
Speaker:a good mix. Other than this, like, little tweak, I. Want to make 100%. And
Speaker:I think this goes back to how I like to work with,
Speaker:communicating intensely with a mix
Speaker:engineer or the producer or the artist. Just so you know,
Speaker:they'll let me know ahead of time this is going to be a bass heavy
Speaker:mix. Or the vocals are really loud in this one, but that's what we're going
Speaker:for. So. Yeah. I do think
Speaker:though, if I don't have those conversations ahead of time, that if there
Speaker:is something that's a little like sort of outside of the
Speaker:norm, my brain just will focus right in on it.
Speaker:That might be parallel to how my synesthesia functions
Speaker:in my brain. So, you know, with how my
Speaker:synesthesia works, it's like there are shapes and
Speaker:colors and they, they change based on
Speaker:frequency, intensity and whatnot. And sometimes, you know, when that
Speaker:bass is really hot and it's like the greens are
Speaker:like really hitting me, like, that can be pretty
Speaker:distracting. Right? Okay, I was going to ask you about that later.
Speaker:Now we have to talk about it because there's somebody sitting somewhere that's like, what
Speaker:are we talking about right now? So, so can you tell. Tell people what
Speaker:synesthesia is? So specifically, it's chromathesia.
Speaker:Chroma, which is where I, when
Speaker:I hear sounds, it manifests visually
Speaker:in sort of like my brain. It's almost like sort of like an acid trip,
Speaker:I guess. In a lot of ways. Okay.
Speaker:Yeah. Is that an advantage for you now, or is it.
Speaker:Or is it a distraction? I guess you just said it was a little bit
Speaker:of a distraction. If something's off, it can be a distraction. Where
Speaker:it is very distracting is outside of music.
Speaker:Like, if I'm at a club and I'm talking to a friend, and there's
Speaker:just so much loud energy everywhere,
Speaker:you know, frequencies and whatnot, that can get a little distracting. And
Speaker:really, like, I have to sit there and focus on talking to the person I'm
Speaker:talking to. Yeah. But I don't know.
Speaker:I thought everybody had synesthesia growing up. I just didn't think
Speaker:that it was that unusual. And then I read an Oliver Sacks book. I was
Speaker:like, oh, so there's a name for this. And this is. Everybody doesn't have
Speaker:this. That's wild. And it may have been my gateway
Speaker:into working in audio. Who knows? Yeah,
Speaker:that's. I just. I can't. I can't even imagine,
Speaker:Like, I don't even know. I don't even know how to imagine what that would
Speaker:be like. I mean, is it. Is it also pitch related or is it for
Speaker:you. It's more frequency. Rel. So it. It is pitch related. Well.
Speaker:And frequency. Yeah. I mean, I don't think correlate. Yeah. Yeah, I guess they would,
Speaker:but I guess, like, bad singers, do
Speaker:they trigger. Trigger something? Or is it more about, like, a whole sonic context?
Speaker:It's. It's a whole sonic context. I don't feel like a bad singer. Are you
Speaker:talking like an attitude singer? Yes, I guess, like people with perfect
Speaker:pitch that go crazy when they hear, like, a siren or something. Yeah.
Speaker:No, I do not have perfect pitch and nowhere even close to that.
Speaker:I have worked with a couple people who have perfect pitch, and I
Speaker:don't know that I envy them in a lot of ways. Doesn't seem like it's
Speaker:fun. It sounds pretty brutal. I mean, the people that I've seen that can do
Speaker:this, I'll literally, you know, play a
Speaker:note and, like, pitch it up 3 cents and they'll
Speaker:know it pitched up 3 cents. They can tell you that it's just. It just
Speaker:to me, that seems like a burden. Totally. But
Speaker:maybe to other people's synesthesias burden too. So, you know, I don't know.
Speaker:Who am I to say? Does it play into you knowing when a master is
Speaker:done? Like. Like, if I'm doing a mix, 100%. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a
Speaker:feeling. You're like, oh, this is what I'm used to. Well, no, it's not a
Speaker:feeling. It's more than a feeling. It's. It's. For me, it's almost tactile
Speaker:visually. You just kind of know it's done. Almost like,
Speaker:you know, when you see your house is finished, like, the
Speaker:building of the house is done, it's almost like that.
Speaker:That's. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to, like, think of, you know,
Speaker:like. That's a good description, what you just said, because that makes sense to people.
Speaker:Yeah. Or almost like an oscilloscope, when you see something in
Speaker:phase and like, the sine wave's like, perfectly lined up, but it's not like,
Speaker:cockeyed. Like, it's almost like. That
Speaker:also has to be kind of aligned with, like, your preference.
Speaker:Correct. Yeah. Like what you see as done
Speaker:visually is based on what you like. Well, I don't know that it's
Speaker:what I like. It's what my mind likes and how my mind
Speaker:perceives it. I assume. I don't know if my mind likes it or not. I
Speaker:mean, I assume it does if it's lining it up that way. Yeah. Right,
Speaker:right. That's an amazing tangent. I'm sure that'll filter through
Speaker:the conversation again. But I wanted to go back to the
Speaker:mix. Sure. So it sounds like communication is huge for you, and I've
Speaker:found that to be true, especially on the mixing end. What's your process like when
Speaker:you're communicating with producers and mixers about what they expect from
Speaker:you? Well, well, some are pretty
Speaker:open with me from the get go. They'll send me mixes, you know, before we
Speaker:talk, and they'll. They'll ask me. They'll say, hey, is there anything here that, you
Speaker:know, stands out? And, you know, being a mastering
Speaker:engineer or just being a third party, you get that
Speaker:luxury of being able to hear something for the first time. And I feel like
Speaker:that's such a benefit to a mastering engineer as
Speaker:opposed to the mix engineer who's heard the song a thousand
Speaker:times and they're just done with it. So I have those fresh ears.
Speaker:I can listen to it. I can tell if there's an issue with it. I
Speaker:can go back to the mix engineer and say, you know, let's
Speaker:pull that bass down. Or those guitars are just, like, too cranked in the
Speaker:side. Let's take out 3K3 and then we're done.
Speaker:That's what I think a master engineer brings. Like, I don't really expect something to
Speaker:be, like, super different when I send A mix off.
Speaker:But I. I love the subtleties of, like, that person's taste mixed in
Speaker:with it. And so I guess can you speak
Speaker:to how you ride the line of
Speaker:how much to do? Like, if a mix is good, how much do you do
Speaker:or how little? Well, so. So this, for me, my instincts
Speaker:are always, do no harm. Like, I really don't want to get in the way
Speaker:of the mix at all. Like, it's sort of like, mastering is
Speaker:sort of the end of the road. Like, if you didn't get it good. To
Speaker:begin with, like, it ain't gonna get good now. I'm not gonna make it any
Speaker:better. Like, a shit's a shit.
Speaker:Yeah. I just. I don't like to get in the way. And there are mastering
Speaker:engineers that love to put their stamp on it, and that's awesome, but that's just
Speaker:not how I work. I don't. Without offending
Speaker:anybody, I don't like that at all. Those people immediately go to
Speaker:my list of, like, do not calls. Are you talking about the people
Speaker:who just changed the mix that have a stamp? Like, I guess if you're. It's
Speaker:easier in mixing, right? Because if. If you want Chad Blake sound, you go to
Speaker:Chad Blake and you know you're going to. He's going to do something crazy and
Speaker:it's going to be nuts. But you went there for that. When you.
Speaker:You go through the revisions and you have an artist and a producer, everybody's happy
Speaker:with a mix. I made it a little darker or
Speaker:thicker than like, I normally would, and then I send it to somebody and they
Speaker:just like, top 40 pop it and you're like, but
Speaker:that. That's not what we gave you. Like, it doesn't resemble what we gave you
Speaker:at all. Why would you do that anyway? Pet peeve of mine. Yeah. I feel
Speaker:like you already made those sonic creative
Speaker:decisions when you were mixing it, when you were even arranging it or producing it.
Speaker:Exactly. So there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Yeah.
Speaker:I do give the caveat, though, if there's communication
Speaker:and, you know, the artist or the engineer
Speaker:wants it to be drastically different if they want me to
Speaker:saturate with the tape machine, you know. But those are. Those are
Speaker:discussions you have, and that's where I'm very
Speaker:big on just communicating. Yeah. I think it
Speaker:is necessary. It seems so obvious,
Speaker:but I feel like in our industry, a lot of what we
Speaker:do, it's not rocket science. Like, anywhere anyone can put a
Speaker:mic in front of a snare drum and get a good Sound like you don't
Speaker:necessarily have to go to school for it. Like, you don't have to be a
Speaker:mathematician. Like, you don't have to be a NASA engineer. Like, yeah,
Speaker:it's not rocket science. So, yeah, it's communication, it's
Speaker:vibe. There's. We all have the same tools now.
Speaker:Some of us have more expensive tools, but the playing field is
Speaker:pretty even. Let's talk about something weird. Okay.
Speaker:AI we kind of talked about AI briefly before we got
Speaker:on, and we'll continue that. But there
Speaker:is stem splitting software that is becoming more
Speaker:prevalent. More people have access to it. Do you see
Speaker:mastering engineers using stem splitting software
Speaker:on a regular basis in the future? And if so, what's the
Speaker:ethical boundary about what to do? Like, what should you
Speaker:and what should you not do? Since we're talking about respecting the mix. Right,
Speaker:sure. And I assume you're talking about, like, Izotope's music rebalance or
Speaker:something like that. Even logical split stems. Right. So if I'm
Speaker:a mastering engineer, I could rip them out of logic, turn
Speaker:the vocal down, re EQ the bass. Should I?
Speaker:Totally. And I feel like if
Speaker:there is a specific reason to do so. Like, I just got this mix in
Speaker:from this band from dc. They loved the mix, but then they
Speaker:realized after they sent it to me that the snare drum was too hot. Like,
Speaker:it was just too loud. So they said, is there anything you can do about
Speaker:it? And I was like, well, yes, there is something I can do about it.
Speaker:So I did a little finagling, used the music rebalancer,
Speaker:split out the drums, and then I was able to compress the snare a smidge
Speaker:in that, like, drum bus. At the end
Speaker:of the day, they went back to the mix engineer to get it done correctly.
Speaker:But I feel like not everybody has a budget to do that. And I
Speaker:feel like for those people that don't have the budget to do it, it is.
Speaker:It's a solution. It's a means to an end. It's. It's a tool. And I
Speaker:think, why not use it? Right? I don't disagree.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I. I think as long as the tool's used in the right
Speaker:manner, going back to people that maybe want to put their stamp on
Speaker:something, I guess I'm. I have a different perspective as the
Speaker:mixer. And let's rewind, too. When I had that mix with a
Speaker:snare drone that was too loud, the artist said,
Speaker:it's too loud, and they wanted me to fix it if it was. If it
Speaker:came in too loud. I wouldn't have touched that plugin at
Speaker:all. Same. Yeah. Unless that conversation just kind of came
Speaker:up naturally. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't do that without their
Speaker:knowledge. Yeah. If they want stem mastering, they'll call you for
Speaker:stem mastering. Well, they'll call someone else for that. Are you
Speaker:anti stem mastering? I'm not anti stem mastering, but I don't know that I'm
Speaker:good at mastering from Stems fair. I certainly don't have experience
Speaker:in it, so I don't know that I would be able to do a good
Speaker:job. I. I've never sent stems to mastering.
Speaker:I've never. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why anyone would need it
Speaker:other than just sort of their, their
Speaker:process of thinking maybe it would be able to sound better and
Speaker:who knows? I guess you could AB it at one point, but, you know, who
Speaker:has the time for that? Yeah, totally. Totally. Well, okay, let's. Let's go back in
Speaker:the AI rabbit hole with what we're kind of talking about off air. Before we
Speaker:started, you know, I said that I thought I would take your
Speaker:job before it took mine as a mixer. And we kind of went back and
Speaker:forth and. And you know, you brought up that there's a lot of value outside
Speaker:of the actual technical skills of mixing and mastering. So
Speaker:what do you. What do you think as the. Really? That's it. That's the question.
Speaker:That's super. It's. That brought. So
Speaker:just on a personal level, I think AI is fascinating.
Speaker:I'm like, I'm kind of into it, so let's rewind a little
Speaker:bit too. When I was like 25, I read an
Speaker:article in probably a real paper and it said
Speaker:that after 30, you don't listen to any new
Speaker:music. You hit 30 and then everything prior to that
Speaker:is sort of what you listen to for the rest of your life.
Speaker:And I made it a point that that was not going to
Speaker:become me. I wanted to continue listening to music,
Speaker:continuing to like, know what was out there. Yeah. And you
Speaker:know, I don't like it all, but I don't like all the music that came
Speaker:out, you know, when I was a kid. So, you know, you can't like everything.
Speaker:But anyways, I sort of take that methodology
Speaker:with technology that comes out, so AI comes out.
Speaker:And I think it's an amazing tool. My wife's a programmer
Speaker:and she uses it all the time to sort of
Speaker:set up these basic known things that
Speaker:like, sets up these templates for her and it saves her so much
Speaker:time. And I think That's. That's a valuable tool. Agreed.
Speaker:I haven't figured out where AI would come in for me
Speaker:where it could do that. Like, where it could set up,
Speaker:you know, a Wave lab session and, like, line everything up and, you
Speaker:know, do all the things and say, you know, do X, Y and Z. I
Speaker:don't think we're there yet. Why do you not think that we're there yet? I
Speaker:mean, what, like, why do you think that nobody has figured out what that tool
Speaker:is? Because I agree with you. The things that I think would save me time.
Speaker:I don't see anybody making that tool. Right. I mean, and I don't know how
Speaker:you would get that AI tool to, like,
Speaker:tie into the. To the API of wavelab. Like, I. I just don't know that
Speaker:technology of how it would work. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would be
Speaker:great if there was some AI out there that when I uploaded a folder to
Speaker:my samply, that it would send an email to my client that, hey, this
Speaker:is, you know, ready, and here it is to download. That would be a great
Speaker:use for AI, but I just. I don't know how to hook that up. I'm
Speaker:sure we'll get there. Yeah, but in terms of, you know, AI
Speaker:mastering and, I mean, I don't. What
Speaker:else? I mean, there's all these, like, they throw AI at everything,
Speaker:and I feel like everything. I just don't know that
Speaker:it's. It's really in the software that
Speaker:we're using and how it's being marketed isn't necessarily true
Speaker:to what AI actually is. But I don't know, I'm not like, an expert
Speaker:in that field in terms of plugins and whatnot. For the most part, my
Speaker:workflow is moving knobs around. So no AI other than
Speaker:just, like. Mojo, you know, Talking about AI, I'm
Speaker:surprised that Auto Tune hasn't advertised itself as
Speaker:AI vocal tuning yet, because, I mean, I mean, in a lot of. Ways it
Speaker:sort of is, right? It kind of is. Kind of is. I mean,
Speaker:what's really cool is, like, I was watching a
Speaker:video and it was like. And this was years ago, like a
Speaker:couple years ago, and they were saying, you know, write me a song that's like,
Speaker:you know, in a happy key and lyrics about, like, the Smurfs
Speaker:or something. And, like, it did that. It was pretty, like,
Speaker:rudimentary. And, like, it didn't sound incredible, but it was
Speaker:like, it was half believable.
Speaker:Yeah. Which to me is super cool, but also,
Speaker:you know, a little too big brother and scary. And then also
Speaker:you go into the whole intellectual property thing with, like, what.
Speaker:Where it's learning all this information and getting all this
Speaker:information from, and then are those artists getting compensated for.
Speaker:That's my real beef with AI right now. Yes. Yeah. And
Speaker:Jonathan Weiner talks a lot about that. That's going to be the thing of, like,
Speaker:what are all these models trained on? This might be
Speaker:partially incorrect, but I believe the EU passed something.
Speaker:That's great. Where by sometime in 2026, AI companies
Speaker:need to reveal or
Speaker:disclose their training data. So does this mean it goes back?
Speaker:I guess it would, yeah. Okay. So I kind of like,
Speaker:there must be enough money involved for them to have a couple years to sort
Speaker:the shit out and make it look like they're not going to get sued. Right.
Speaker:But yeah, I mean, if you come out and say you trained your SUNO
Speaker:AI training data on all of Spotify, like,
Speaker:that's not something that you want to put in writing in front of a judge.
Speaker:That's not cool. Yeah, I'm not okay with that. No, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah. I think there's an interesting case for
Speaker:having local models that are trained on your own thing. I brought this up in
Speaker:another episode a few months ago. If Max Martin had the Max Martin
Speaker:songwriting AI based on his own preferences, that kind of
Speaker:stuff would be kind of weird, kind of fascinating. But
Speaker:that has nothing to do with our conversation. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker:that's fascinating. That's a totally fascinating sort of
Speaker:idea. But I feel like we're not that
Speaker:far from that, honestly. Right. Something that,
Speaker:you know, studies your masters and your
Speaker:preferences. And then you load it in and there's the
Speaker:matte version. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then you can just click a starting
Speaker:point for that. For that song is
Speaker:kind of interesting and also disturbing at the same time. Yeah. I mean, this is
Speaker:where I think, like, it could be really useful for a mix engineer.
Speaker:Like, if there was a way that you could plug in AI so that, like,
Speaker:it listened to all the individual stems, but then also listened to the mix
Speaker:and was able to, like, go back and forth and say, hey, you know, I
Speaker:want these drums to sound like the Flaming Lips. Like, do that for me. And
Speaker:then it, like, sets up all the buses, gated verbs, rooms, and all that kind
Speaker:of stuff. Yeah, I feel like that's a tool that's,
Speaker:like, super useful, I would say, for.
Speaker:I feel like I'm sort of walking back on this now because I feel like
Speaker:it's super cool and useful for someone who already knows how to do that.
Speaker:But for someone who doesn't know how to do that, I feel like
Speaker:there's a missed opportunity of learning how
Speaker:to do that. Yes. I think just regardless of whether it's music a lot
Speaker:or not, that's going to be. I think the long
Speaker:trail problem with AI is how many people just didn't
Speaker:learn how to do something. And I guess that could be
Speaker:okay because it's like we came up at a time or I came up at
Speaker:a time where you had a console, you had gain staging. There were all these
Speaker:different things you had to do. Right, right. But things, things change
Speaker:too. And it's like you don't necessarily need to do all that kind of stuff
Speaker:if you're just doing something on your laptop in the basement. Like you can still
Speaker:make it sound amazing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't
Speaker:know what the answer is. I don't think anyone knows what the answer is. Hopefully
Speaker:somebody figures out before it's too late. But yeah. So,
Speaker:okay, obviously the AI is a thing, right. It can
Speaker:do things for people, it can make your record
Speaker:brighter. There are websites that maybe quote, master your record.
Speaker:Why? Why does somebody want to use a person? I mean, I have an opinion,
Speaker:but what's the value of mastering multiple
Speaker:songs with someone like you? Well, there's, there's many reasons, but it
Speaker:also goes into. Mastering isn't
Speaker:just two bus processing, which right now that's all
Speaker:AI mastering does. That's true. Listens to your audio,
Speaker:it probably generates like the genre it's in
Speaker:and then sort of puts like these brackets around it and says like this is
Speaker:what we can do within these parameters of the genre. Yeah. And I feel
Speaker:like that's, that's cool. I'm into it
Speaker:and I think there is clearly a market for that. And I feel
Speaker:like that market isn't the kind of person that is going to spend money with
Speaker:me anyways. So I feel like a person like me
Speaker:isn't missing out on. I feel like a mix engineer who
Speaker:also masters their clients. That's where AI is going to take business
Speaker:away. I think the other part of what
Speaker:mastering is quality control.
Speaker:So pops and clicks and continuity and that sort of
Speaker:thing. I feel like that's something AI should be able
Speaker:to do, but for some reason that's
Speaker:not what it's doing. Like I feel like that's sort of the most boring part
Speaker:of mastering, but it's super important
Speaker:and I can't tell you how many records I get
Speaker:every day and there's pops and clicks all over it.
Speaker:And it's like, if I wasn't there, if a human wasn't listening to it,
Speaker:it would go out to vinyl. It would go out to all your digital distributions
Speaker:with those pops and clicks. Yeah, yeah. You would think
Speaker:AI should be able to figure that out. Like,
Speaker:I maybe. And maybe Lander and all those automated
Speaker:processing companies do that now. I don't know. I don't
Speaker:know. But it definitely sounds like something that, like, that RX
Speaker:should be able to do. Yeah. You know, it should be able to identify
Speaker:the clicks. I mean, it can already do. Do so much manually.
Speaker:That's what I pop it in, rx. I mean, I can just literally, like, scan
Speaker:visually and I can see them like. Yeah, that's not rocket science, but
Speaker:it takes time and it's something you need to do. So if AI could figure
Speaker:that out, I'm into it. I'm down with that. I'm down with that.
Speaker:Yeah. And for anybody listening crossfades, people,
Speaker:especially on your, like, 808s and your basses, that's where these clicks are coming from.
Speaker:Just do some crossfades and logic. Okay. I know. It's always like
Speaker:at the start of a new region of a vocal, and plugins are all
Speaker:popping on. Third core is copy and paste. The beginning of something
Speaker:is clipped off. I know attention to detail, which is
Speaker:like mastering. And mastering is attention to detail, in
Speaker:my opinion. It's so much detail, it's hyper detail. Yeah. And then. And
Speaker:then also the third part of mastering is assembling
Speaker:the data and formats so it can go out
Speaker:to the different distribution methods, like mastering for vinyl,
Speaker:mastering for cassette. They're all different sort of parameters that you have to work
Speaker:with. You know, different vinyl houses have different
Speaker:requirements. You know, Spotify has a different requirement than YouTube has.
Speaker:Not that everybody does a different master for different platforms,
Speaker:but it's something you have to consider. Okay, so you.
Speaker:You touched on the loudness. So we have to ask about what is your opinion
Speaker:on how loud to make something? Are you
Speaker:doing a streaming master? Are you just making it how it should. How it sounds
Speaker:good. I always master it for how it should sound good.
Speaker:Spotify is like a moving target. It's always going to be
Speaker:changing, and what you master for now might
Speaker:not. If you're, you know, if you are mastering for Spotify right now,
Speaker:two years down the road, it's going to be something else. So
Speaker:I just kind of feel like you have to serve the song in sort of
Speaker:like its own ecosystem at any given time,
Speaker:which is what people. Have done for like
Speaker:80 years. Right. It was always, this sounds amazing.
Speaker:Printed down to half inch tape. This
Speaker:is the master. And then that format is going to be transferred to CD or
Speaker:cassette or whatever it is. So I don't know, maybe it's
Speaker:just the way knowledge flows through the Internet
Speaker:now that people are hung up on it. But to me, I
Speaker:agree with you. Whatever sounds best for the record is what sounds
Speaker:best for the record. You can't chase something that is going to change, Especially tech
Speaker:companies. I mean, Jesus, could anything change faster than tech companies, you know, for.
Speaker:Well, I mean, yes and no. It's like they are kind of these like giants
Speaker:that take time to make these
Speaker:changes. But yeah, I just feel like
Speaker:if every once in a while I do get a client that says,
Speaker:hey, this has to be negative 8 lofts integrated. I'm like, okay, if that's what
Speaker:you want me to do, I'll do that. But usually we'll have that
Speaker:conversation and I'll ask the question, why? Yeah. So
Speaker:I really understand what their intent is. Yeah. If I
Speaker:understand why, it might be that they're just using the wrong terminology
Speaker:or there might be a better way to do what they're talking about.
Speaker:Yeah. So again, we come back to communication. Yeah. What's your
Speaker:opinion on the level of mixes that you're getting to work with?
Speaker:Like, loudness level? Do you wish there was more headroom? Are you getting what
Speaker:you want generally? On average, yes and no. And I think
Speaker:I've come to a happy medium with
Speaker:making sure the mix engineer at sort of a bare minimum,
Speaker:prints their mixes at 32 bit float, so that even if they are mixing
Speaker:into a limiter and it's hitting zero, if there are
Speaker:overs, I can always, you know, pull it down with, you know, gain
Speaker:and there will be no, like, squared off waveforms.
Speaker:That's like the genius of 32 bit float. That's true. That's
Speaker:true. Yeah. That's great. Okay, let's talk about that.
Speaker:Can you explain that a little bit further for people that don't understand
Speaker:fixed versus floating? Sure. So you have
Speaker:16 bit and
Speaker:I think it's 96 decibels of
Speaker:bandwidth. I think that's correct. From like the quietest point to the loudest point. And
Speaker:then you go to 24bit and it's 144dB
Speaker:from quietest to loudest. When you go to
Speaker:32bit, the decibel level is from like
Speaker:0 to like 1200 or something.
Speaker:It's like something ridonculous. So
Speaker:you. If, you know, your mix goes over a DB or two, or even just
Speaker:like a couple little, you know, half DB trickles, like, you just turn your
Speaker:gain down a couple DB and everything's fine. So
Speaker:that's sort of where I am. I feel like.
Speaker:I feel like a lot of people. I'd say it's 50. 50. I'd
Speaker:say 50 people mix into a limiter. And
Speaker:oftentimes, you know, I'll ask them, did you mix into the limiter?
Speaker:Because oftentimes if you take that limiter off, the mix will just fall apart. And
Speaker:it's pretty obvious when that happens. True. So if I get a mix and it
Speaker:kind of feels like unglued, so to speak, I'll ask
Speaker:them, hey, did you, you know, did you have a limiter when you were mixing?
Speaker:If so, please put it back on.
Speaker:Yeah. Which again, it's like, sort of counterintuitive to,
Speaker:you know, sort of what I knew
Speaker:and learned when I was hiring mastering engineers, you know,
Speaker:decades ago. Yeah, well, it's. You know, as a
Speaker:mixer, our side of the argument is that we have
Speaker:to compete with, you know, crazy loud production refs. And so I
Speaker:chase the same thing with rough mixes where I get
Speaker:files and I'm like, are these even wet? And they're like, oh, yeah, no, it's
Speaker:all wet. I'm like, what is on your master bus? Like, this doesn't even sound
Speaker:anything like the reference. And so you end up
Speaker:chasing that to get back to that. And I
Speaker:don't like to. I mix with a limiter on, but I do 80% of
Speaker:my mix without it. That's great. Yeah. But then I make sure that I do
Speaker:work a good chunk and I do all my revisions with the limiter because if
Speaker:it's not going to be my limiter, it's going to be your limiter. There's still
Speaker:going to be a limiter. And it's good to approximate that. Exactly. You need
Speaker:to know how things are going to. Are they going to break up? Is your
Speaker:low end screwing you over? And it's crazy how different things are.
Speaker:I used to not be an Ozone Maximizer fan, and I've recently
Speaker:left Pro L2 and gone to the Maximizer because it feels cleaner to
Speaker:me in, like, a pop vocal sense. I'm a big fan of the Ozone
Speaker:Maximizer, but I'm also a big fan of stacking limiters,
Speaker:too. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you need to
Speaker:get. When you need to go loud, you know, letting you
Speaker:know. I guess it's like. It's similar to, like, you know, you have two hands.
Speaker:You can lift more weight with two hands than you can with one. Yeah.
Speaker:You know, I'll do it where, you know, I'm. I'm getting 3dB
Speaker:of gain reduction on one, and then if I start going
Speaker:above that or below that, I guess if I'm doing, you know, four or five
Speaker:decibels of gain reduction, that's when I'll bring in, like, the vice
Speaker:limiter or, you know, the L2 or something like that. I mean, there's so many
Speaker:limiters out there, and I feel like they all kind of do something different. So
Speaker:we're kind of talking technical tips, right? There was one thing I wanted to ask
Speaker:you. Width. Now, as a
Speaker:mixer, this is probably one of the most sensitive
Speaker:things for me. When a master comes back from a new engineer.
Speaker:If it's really wide and the center
Speaker:is phase, or the center feels down, like, if the snare and the vocal are
Speaker:quiet, like, it's a. It's a trigger for me. I have
Speaker:a really hard time dealing with it. So are you saying when the
Speaker:mix is too wide, like, you don't like it, or. No, I love a wide
Speaker:mix. I guess I should preface that. What I was going to say is that
Speaker:I've been getting mixes back from most everybody that is mastering my
Speaker:mixes, including yourself. We've worked together. You did amazing work. People should know that
Speaker:they're really wide, and I love it, but when the center gets fucked with, it
Speaker:makes me crazy. So, A, how do you approach width, and
Speaker:B, what are the mistakes that a young engineer makes when it comes
Speaker:to trying to make something go wide? Great
Speaker:question. So, honestly, I rarely use the
Speaker:width button or on my console, I have a width
Speaker:knob, which is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker:I mean, it's one of those things where you can just use it, you know,
Speaker:put it to 10 and it's like. It just gives, like, a little push to
Speaker:the sides, but it doesn't do anything to the center, which.
Speaker:The Masalec. I don't know, he should make a plugin for it. He would make
Speaker:so much money. Because I don't. I don't know what it's doing under the hood,
Speaker:but it's magic. Okay, but, you know,
Speaker:are you talking about, like, with plugins that, like,
Speaker:make the things. Like the imaging thing in Izotope? Is
Speaker:that, like, what you're. Or in an ozone. Is that what you're talking about? Less
Speaker:specific about the tool. More specific about
Speaker:how you think you can widen A mix up with the best
Speaker:result. Sure. So generally I don't feel
Speaker:like mixes need to be widened.
Speaker:I feel like that's also like a mixed decision.
Speaker:Unless the mix engineer says, hey, you know, can you do something about
Speaker:this? You know, make it a little more wide. And oftentimes
Speaker:what I'll do in widening is just work in the sides
Speaker:in the mid side field. And oftentimes, like if it's a. It's a rock
Speaker:mix, I'll like make the guitars sparkle a little bit more. But only
Speaker:in the sides. Yeah. Or sometimes, you know,
Speaker:if it, if it's a mix where the vocals are a little bit hot and
Speaker:you want the like sides to be a little bit more, you know, pronounced. You
Speaker:can compress the middle but not the sides. So the sides like stay
Speaker:nice and like you know, doing what they're doing. But the vocal in the
Speaker:center gets a little bit like more tightened in focus. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So I feel like mid side is a really great tool for
Speaker:that. That's what I have found that that's the width that I
Speaker:prefer is some mid side work. So for anybody that's unfamiliar,
Speaker:you're talking about compressors that you can switch to mid side and control the
Speaker:sides separate from the mid. I think at this point everybody on the Internet
Speaker:is hip to mid side. I hope so. Yeah. I mean my. I have an
Speaker:ITI EQ right there and it's always in mid side.
Speaker:And it's like that's my go to when we're talking
Speaker:about that, that sort of width balance where you need to
Speaker:sort of correct the equilibrium between the mid and the side. It's like, it's such
Speaker:a great tool and the ITI is, you know,
Speaker:pretty, pretty fantastic. Nice. Nice. Okay, well, okay, that's
Speaker:kind of related to my next question. Is there. I'm going to leave this really
Speaker:broad so you can answer it however you want. Is there one tool
Speaker:that you couldn't live without? Gear or plugin or
Speaker:whatever? Okay, I'm going to go with gear because
Speaker:my Masalec MLA3 just
Speaker:does everything. It's a multiband compressor.
Speaker:I use it as a de esser. You can also expand channels. You
Speaker:can compress and expand at the same time. Wow. You can
Speaker:not do gain reduction but actually use it as like a very wide EQ
Speaker:with changing the crossover points. What else can
Speaker:you do? It has input gain, output
Speaker:gain. You can solo all the different bands. I mean this thing does
Speaker:everything. That's crazy. How many buttons does it
Speaker:have? I mean, there's A lot of buttons, but,
Speaker:yeah, it's just. It's one of those things that I use it every
Speaker:day, and it makes my life so much easier.
Speaker:And I've never found a plugin that could do just what it
Speaker:does. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that box, but I'll be looking at
Speaker:it as soon as we finish. It's fantastic. I feel like everyone
Speaker:should have one. I mean, I wish everyone could afford one, but
Speaker:I saved. I ate a lot of ramen noodles to afford that one.
Speaker:Okay. So that's actually a perfect segue to my next
Speaker:baited question here. A tool you couldn't live without. That's under
Speaker:300 bucks. Well, I feel like a tool that's
Speaker:free. Is a magazine called Tape Up.
Speaker:I've been a subscriber since, like, episode two or
Speaker:three. It's a long time. It's a super long time, and I feel like
Speaker:I've kind of gotten out of it, and I don't. Because it's more focused on
Speaker:recording engineers. So it's sort of, like, off my radar a little
Speaker:bit more. But there's a. The back page, and
Speaker:it's like Larry Crane, and he's sort of usually. It's Larry
Speaker:Crane, and he. It's usually just sort of like a. You know, how to
Speaker:keep your studio clean or you know, how to keep your clients happy. It's like
Speaker:sort of. Yeah, it's like what you do on your podcast. It's like, you know,
Speaker:talking about audio, but, like, also, like, the industry part of it and
Speaker:like, running a studio, like, all the, like, sort of unsexy things in
Speaker:a lot of ways that are more important, that are totally important.
Speaker:And it's. I always say, it's like, you
Speaker:know, you really don't even have to be a good engineer to be a good
Speaker:engineer. You just have to be able to talk to people
Speaker:and understand what they're going for. Yeah. I mean, not to, like, belittle what
Speaker:we do, because it's like what we do is important to a lot of people
Speaker:and takes a lot of skill, but I feel like if
Speaker:you don't have that ability to communicate with
Speaker:people, it's so much harder to succeed.
Speaker:I think the only part of engineering that is difficult
Speaker:is figuring out what your sonic taste
Speaker:is and how that fits into the world. Right. And unfortunately,
Speaker:some people have a sonic taste that just isn't popular at the moment,
Speaker:but might be in the future. I don't know. That's. I think, the hardest part.
Speaker:Right. The tools are whatever you Learn how to use anything. It's just eq. Does
Speaker:it sound good? Compression? Does it sound good? Yeah. It's interesting you
Speaker:mentioned that because, you know, for a long time I always
Speaker:loved those huge bombastic, reverberant, almost
Speaker:gated snare drums. Big drums. Yeah. And then,
Speaker:you know, Andy Schouf, he came out with a record and it was just like
Speaker:whop, whop. And I was like, what is this? Like
Speaker:what are you doing? Like, this could be such a cool mix. And it was
Speaker:just like this tight little tucked in mix
Speaker:and it really bothered me. But then eventually like I came
Speaker:around and I was like, oh, I get it. Like, this is just an amazing
Speaker:song. He's a great songwriter and if the drums were huge, it just would have
Speaker:been terrible. Yeah, yeah. So I've kind of come full circle with that
Speaker:in terms of like what's popular now and what's not popular now. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Okay, so we were kind of on the
Speaker:topic of the not sexy parts of
Speaker:audio. Right. Can we talk about the mastering business? You run
Speaker:a mastering house out of a non music hub, right? You're in Baltimore.
Speaker:Do you spend a lot of time working on your
Speaker:business as opposed to for your business? And if so, like, what are some of
Speaker:those things you do to grow the business? To be transparent, I was
Speaker:a studio owner producer for like 20
Speaker:years and, and during that time my mastering,
Speaker:you know, more and more people started to say, hey, can you master this record
Speaker:for me? And you know, it grew and grew and grew and
Speaker:then eventually, for all intents and purposes, I left
Speaker:that studio and then I started my own
Speaker:mastering exclusive studio. I used to
Speaker:advertise a lot, but I haven't advertised anymore. I did a little
Speaker:bit like on Facebook and a little bit on
Speaker:Instagram, but I found
Speaker:with advertising, it's sort of
Speaker:not sort of the target market of what you're
Speaker:going for. I feel like it's sort of like the people that
Speaker:it grabs are the people that are going to hire AI
Speaker:and Lander to do what they're
Speaker:really looking for. And they're looking for sort of like bottom dollar price shopping. Boom,
Speaker:boom, boom. I need it done like today because, you know,
Speaker:it needs to be out on all the, you know, Spotify
Speaker:this Friday for some reason. For some reason, everybody's waiting for it. Exactly,
Speaker:yeah, totally, totally. So at some point I
Speaker:just didn't have the time to do it and I also didn't need to do
Speaker:it because I just got too busy for it, which
Speaker:is good problems to have it was one less thing I had to do.
Speaker:But I do feel like one thing that I do
Speaker:is I'm active on Instagram, I post from time to
Speaker:time, and I look at what other people are doing. I think that might have
Speaker:been how I found you is on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, I think. And it's
Speaker:like, sort of. I've always been a big fan of, like,
Speaker:building a community. Back in the day, I worked in. At
Speaker:Warner Brothers and I worked in their marketing department, and I was building
Speaker:a community for this band that I was working with, you know, be it like
Speaker:online message boards and like, I would just sort of like, massage
Speaker:conversations. And, you know, a lot of that
Speaker:translates to how I work as a mastering engineer and how I
Speaker:either, you know, continue to work with the clients I want to work with or
Speaker:work with, you know, larger clients, bigger clients, whatever you want to
Speaker:call it. But, you know, just sort of putting myself out
Speaker:there, I think is a. Is a critical step.
Speaker:It's not sexy. I. Not sexy. I kind of enjoy
Speaker:it. So maybe it is sexy. I don't know. But I know a lot of
Speaker:other people don't enjoy it. And I think it can be
Speaker:inauthentic very easily for some people, and I
Speaker:think it can be inauthentic if you're not into it. And I
Speaker:think people can see through that. I agree. I mean, at this point, this comes
Speaker:up on every. Every episode of the show of late,
Speaker:and it's. It's just like, it's. It's how people get to
Speaker:know you, right? It's not just album covers anymore.
Speaker:It's like, how does this person interact? Do I. Do I want to get on
Speaker:the phone and talk to them about mastering my record or mixing my record? I
Speaker:think I like this person. Let's hit them up, because we don't, like.
Speaker:Like, when you were at Warner Brothers, you were in an office, right? There's people
Speaker:around. You talk to them. Like, now everybody's by. I'm in my
Speaker:backyard. Nobody comes over here. I know I'll have a
Speaker:client come over, you know, maybe once a month, maybe a couple
Speaker:times a year. But I'm a Gen Xer, so
Speaker:I like to text that I'm cool with texting, and I text often, but I
Speaker:also. I pick up the phone and I feel like you can really just
Speaker:learn people just by talking to them. And you can
Speaker:also, you know, tell if they're just full of too. Oh, yeah,
Speaker:yeah. Whether you want to work with them, regardless of whether they want to work
Speaker:with you. Exactly. And I. It's. It's funny. I was
Speaker:a. Something about the Internet makes everything
Speaker:transactional. Right. I was one of those people that kind of, for a long time,
Speaker:avoided the phone call and avoided the zoom meeting. And then I think
Speaker:the podcast and the pandemic kind of changed that for me. And I, like,
Speaker:now I'm like, down, let's talk, let's talk. Yeah. But if I
Speaker:sit down with a client, potential client, potential collaborator
Speaker:or whatever, and have a conversation, I mean, it's almost a hundred
Speaker:percent that I'm going to do that gig if I want to do that gig.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly. Because you can have a conversation. You can understand what they want. Like,
Speaker:you're talking about in the beginning communication. It's like, I cannot give you what you
Speaker:need out of your mix. Or I can give you exactly that. And I would,
Speaker:you know, emphasize this. And they're like, perfect, right? And then you can
Speaker:move forward. And so, yeah, it's big. Talking to people
Speaker:authentically and getting to know people is, like, way better than
Speaker:just responding to emails. Totally. And some
Speaker:people aren't cool with that, and I'm fine with that, too, if they just want
Speaker:to text. Like, I'm totally cool with that. There's one client that I have
Speaker:that only sends me audio
Speaker:messages. Like, they talk into their phone and it's just like an audio.
Speaker:Like a recorded audio message in Instagram, but that's how
Speaker:they communicate. And it's like, cool, Whatever. Whatever floats your boat. It's awesome.
Speaker:One minute at a time. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. So I know you've got a busy day. I will let you get back
Speaker:to it, but I've got two questions. I know you listen to the show, so
Speaker:you're probably familiar with what they are. Maybe you
Speaker:prepared, maybe you didn't. I guess we'll find out. So was there ever a time
Speaker:in your career that you decided to redefine what success meant to you?
Speaker:Oh, of course. Yeah. And I did not prepare this.
Speaker:So, yes, there was a point when I first
Speaker:built. Built my first real studio, and this
Speaker:was like, in, I don't know, 2005.
Speaker:And both my wife and I were like,
Speaker:if we can get a band that's, like, super successful
Speaker:in five years, like, that's going to be it. But if, like,
Speaker:we're a studio and we don't get a big band in five years, like,
Speaker:it's probably not going to happen. And I was okay with it either way.
Speaker:And it's like, we sort of, like, got in between that. I guess, in a
Speaker:lot of ways, which I think is okay. And I think at
Speaker:that point I realized that, you know, I'm
Speaker:not going to be, you know, the next book Butch Vig or the
Speaker:guy from the bleachers. Like, that's not going to be me. And I'm
Speaker:okay with that. I became a working engineer.
Speaker:Yeah. And to me, if I
Speaker:can put food on the table for my family, we can go on
Speaker:vacations once or twice a year based on the work that I'm doing.
Speaker:Like, to me, that success. And I'm totally okay with
Speaker:it. I love it. In fact, it's great. I'm with that. I'm with that.
Speaker:That's like. I think there's a. I don't know when you got married, but when
Speaker:I got married, that was like, that kind of. It was an immediate change. It
Speaker:was like, I. I love what I'm doing. I don't know
Speaker:why I was frustrated before. Right. Like, I make money, I make
Speaker:my living working in music, and now I can carve
Speaker:time out for my family at the same time. Like, that's. That's like, a huge
Speaker:win. Fantastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. You know, it's like, best of both worlds, right?
Speaker:Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm with you on that. So, last question
Speaker:is, what is your current biggest goal? What is the next smallest step you're going
Speaker:to take to go towards it? Oh, I mean, I think it's a lot of
Speaker:what I'm doing, I feel like, you know,
Speaker:and maybe this has to do with more of the unsexy parts of my job
Speaker:where I'm constantly looking at places
Speaker:to streamline sort of what I'm doing and
Speaker:just make the. Making the process smoother. Like, I know
Speaker:it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, I'm sort of paying attention to, like,
Speaker:how I can carve out an extra minute in terms of,
Speaker:like, you know, sending the data to a client. Like, the master to a
Speaker:client. Like, how can I sort of automate that or cut and paste data
Speaker:and make it more simpler or simpler so that I have more time to work
Speaker:on, like, the things that I like. Like, you know, playing with these knobs.
Speaker:Yeah. So that's sort of my goal, I guess. I mean, you know,
Speaker:everyone has the goals of just, like, working with bigger artists and, you know, more
Speaker:successful mix engineers. But, you know,
Speaker:definitely that. Of course, I'm not going to say no. I mean, I just did
Speaker:a record and Chuck D. Is on it, and that's, like,
Speaker:fantastic. Like, you know, 12 year old me is like,
Speaker:what? But you know, it's just as awesome as
Speaker:working with like a local band here in Baltimore. Yeah, it's,
Speaker:it's awesome. And you know, I'm working in a field that I love,
Speaker:so. Yeah, it's funny that that's what your goal
Speaker:was, was optimization, because I was sitting here thinking, I was like, I should, I
Speaker:should have asked him about automation and like systems before we, before we
Speaker:ended. I love that. Is there anything that you do right now or anything that
Speaker:you wish you could automate in your system? Like you mentioned the Wave
Speaker:Lab. Right, Right. So there is an app I use called
Speaker:samply, which is how all my artists listen to
Speaker:my masters and preview. It's a great app.
Speaker:It's fantastic. I love those guys. They are just. I'm like,
Speaker:I'm the person who like picks apart everything and they are just so
Speaker:stupidly patient with me. Like, I don't get it. I don't get why they put
Speaker:up with me. Like, I just don't. But they're fantastic. It's a great
Speaker:app. But there are all these things where I'm doing the same thing every
Speaker:day. You know, I'm sending out a link to a client with
Speaker:a mix or a master, a single, an lp,
Speaker:like vinyl sides. And it's like that process is sort
Speaker:of the same except for like one little link and then the
Speaker:subject is different. So I'm using this app
Speaker:called Zapier, which I'm trying
Speaker:to like figure out how to get it to work with
Speaker:Samply and work with like my databases
Speaker:to do all that in the background for me. So yeah,
Speaker:technology is great, but it's also like you almost need another like
Speaker:engineer or tech person to sort of like walk you through that
Speaker:process. Yeah. Like if you're outside the code world,
Speaker:like just far enough, it can be confusing. Cause I definitely hit walls. I love
Speaker:soundflow. I love samply. Right. And
Speaker:yeah, being able to just know just enough
Speaker:scripting to figure that out. But that's where ChatGPT has
Speaker:been great. I've taken things out of sampling, like taking code, not, not sampling
Speaker:code out of soundflow. Paste it in a chat. GPT said this, does this, I
Speaker:want it to do that. And then it just spits it out and I paste
Speaker:it and have a script. I'm like, this is amazing. Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. I don't think ChatGPT could actually write that
Speaker:script, but it can analyze it. If you tell it what it does and then.
Speaker:And everything that it spit out two or three things for me have all worked
Speaker:perfectly. You would think it would be able to write the script because my wife
Speaker:does that with like JavaScript all the time. She's like, make me a JavaScript that
Speaker:does X, Y and Z and like, it'll just do it. I think there's aspects
Speaker:of sound flow that it wouldn't know. Right.
Speaker:Because I think it only goes back a couple years too. And soundflow, I think,
Speaker:is a newer app. Yeah. Now if it was just a straight Apple script that
Speaker:you were maybe going to fire in Keyboard Maestro, it probably could write that.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, an excellent nerdy
Speaker:ending. Perfect for a mastering
Speaker:engineer. If you enjoyed this one and you want to dig deeper on the truth
Speaker:about loudness, normalization standards and where this whole -14 stuff came from,
Speaker:then check out my conversation with Sam Fishman.
