Episode 34
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 34
Jan 5, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 31
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Q: What makes you say “no” most when choosing a project to work on?
Jon:
If Jon doesn’t like the song or if it is not in his usual wheelhouse. If it doesn’t connect with him artistically then he won’t feel he can add anything.
He tries not to make money a motivator, but if the song is coming in under a certain price point then he won’t accept it, so as not to devalue the work he and other mixers do.
If the song already has so much vibe baked in that he feels he can’t add to it, then he won’t do it.
Jon is always evaluating the relationship.
Is an A+R asking him for a favor?
That relationship may be worth investing in.
People in the industry talk. If you offer a favor to someone, then word of that may get out to others who will approach you and ask for reduced rates, because they expect it from you.
Don’t overextend yourself and say yes to everybody
Matt:
Does it take you towards your goal, or away from it? Does it move you towards that great mountain in the difference.
People are constantly asking for favors/cut-rates/etc.
It’s okay to say no to that a lot.
Sometimes it’s the thing to do if the relationship is worth it.
Participate in networks of people who do good work and who trust each other and connect each other with things.
A good network means career and long term money, for sure.
If compound interest is an important part of finance, compound relationships is an important part of being an entrepreneur.
Career Goal Setting:
Matt:
Matt is not someone who writes down a 5-10 year plan.
Whether you do it or not, having goals and re-evaluating your aims is important.
Matt currently is focusing on being a better lyric writer and increasing his musical facility so that he can get better sounds.
Having a practice routine for doing things, is just as important.
Jon:
Jon doesn’t deliberately think about goals. But he marks them as they come up in his life.
Jon doesn’t have goals, he has milestones.
Celebrate milestones when they occur.
Jon made a big celebration out of his first Grammy nomination last year.
By the age of 40, Jon wants to be bi-coastal. He wants to have a home in New York, near his family and a home in LA.
Jon is a New Yorker at heart, and he is conflicted about LA.
Monitor Position / Best Monitor Stands:
Sound Anchors. Cinder blocks. Anything solid that you can fill with concrete. No wobbling. Solid stands that don’t shake so that your bass can remain tight and focused.
Jon recommends checking out Unfuck’s video for acoustics guidance.
There’s a lot of bad answers out there on the internet. Even from older acoustics experts who are coming from an older era.
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Jon is always trying to assess audio wisdom from a first-principles perspective.
Try to re-write the narrative. If you think you have a bad tennis backhand then tell yourself that you love your backhand. Or that you’re going to focus on it. Or that you’re going to become ambidextrous.
Jon loves compression now. He loves it. He’s going to figure out a new way to incorporate it into his work.
Jon has spent 2020 getting better at his compression.
If you want to get good at something, you have to fall in love with some aspect of it.
You have to find the passion in the practice of it.
If you want to be a better reader, don’t start reading the big books. Read the books that you like to read and that are going to make you love reading
PMC’s and Barefoot’s
Jon has worked on both. In his experience using Barefoots, they never sounded the same when he left the studio and listened, whereas the PMCs sound the same reliably.
To Jon the PMCs are the most accurate. It tells you when the mix is bright.
The limiting and compression on the Barefoot’s makes them sound done in the room before they actually are.
If someone gives him Barefoot mixes they end up sounding small and midrange.
No other speaker does the transmission line technology.
Jon believes that the PMCs don’t have any single ingredients in common with other speaker companies, in the same way that McDonalds has zero ingredients in common with a French boulangerie.
Session Templates For Mixing:
Jon:
Jon has five very basic effects that come in on a template and eight basic subgroups.
Don’t use numbered busses. Name your busses.
If you name the aux (in Pro Tools) and opt+shift and group things together and select where to send them, it will name it for you.
Bricasti verb
Megaverb - A long, luscious, verb
A mono slap
1/8 Delay
1/4 Delay
1/2 Delay
These are all set up in his template, named, and ready to go as soon as he needs a great sounding verb/delay.
If him and Tony Maserati found a cool effect they would add it to the template.
If you want to, keep them inactive for CPU consumption.
Matt:
If you want to be a music professional, get your organization right.
Make sure you don’t get 6 iLok prompts every time you open a session. Clean your setup.
Organization and preparation.
Matt works in both PT and Ableton.
He writes in Ableton and goes to PT to cut serious vocals and mix.
His Ableton template is purely for writing.
He has 5 Battery kits
A few 808s
4-5 synths
Synth routing is set up
Vocal stuff
Guitar, Bass, DI’s all ready to go.
His PT template is simpler and more mix oriented.
Making template FX chains are important to have.
Challenge: If you make something that sounds dope in 2021. Save it. Put it in a folder for later. Save your shit.
Jon:
If you make a dish that you love. Make it again.
Favorite Vocal Chains:
Jon’s a huge fan of ribbons mics.
Though they may be dark-sounding, they take EQ way better than everything else.
Coles 4038 sound beautiful on vocals.
Jon uses his Hazelrigg VLC-1 preamps and just cranks the high end all the way up on their Pultec style EQ and it sounds great.
AEA R84 w/ the high end cranked will be a better version of a Sony C800 that is super-bright.
Use a low-noise floor preamp when cranking the EQ.
Jon loves a good 251.
Matt have been trying to find a great pair of U67s for years. Vintage 67s are great.
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AEA Mics
R44
2x R88
N22
Beyerdynamic M160 and M130
Should probably get a pair of Coles 4038.
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Matt used a low 36” marching drum as a live 808.
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Jon doesn’t like modern 1073’s. The modeling is off. The 10k boost is brittle. It’s not as musical as we think it is. There are better ways to get things to be brighter.
1073 and CL-1B vocal chain is ubiquitous and sounds like butt.
Matt loves the Undertone Audio stuff.
Q: What’s a good tube preamp?
Jon:
Hazelrigg VLC-1
