Episode 48
Show Notes:
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 48
April 13, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 44
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Matt:
Being a good songwriter is about a commitment, an excitement, a mentality, and a consistency.
Ed Sheeran wrote 2-3 songs a day for ten years.
The level of focus, time, and commitment is important
When you go to a fancy restaurant, oftentimes it’s a good choice to choose the dish that is the most simple. It will often end up being the best dish. Because of the preparation and skill that it will take to do something so simply at a high level.
Jon:
Just put a new plugin into his regular tool set: Mike Dean’s Gainstation by Acustica.
It’s a saturation, clipper, distortion plugin.
It’s really magical on live bass.
Minimizing the audio tools that I use alleviates space and intellectual bandwidth to dedicate to other thoughts.
Would you rather spend time deciding what tool to pick? Or would you rather spend time thinking about the EQ moves that you need to make?
You want to get everything out of the way of what you need to do to the record.
You don’t want to spend time thinking about what tool you’re going to use. Choose tools that you know well and get past the need to think about it.
No tool is mandatory but the DAW that you’ve chosen to use.
You make like the 2k boost on a certain EQ, and the low-end boost on another EQ, but they don’t really make the record sound any better. You can get the same results with a single tool.
Matt:
You’ll be able to get a great result out of any tool that you use.
If you, as a record maker, have a tool that you use a lot, but you don’t know the limits of every feature of that tool then you have room to grow as a record maker.
Most plugins have a wide range of things they can do, but you don’t need 25 versions of that same tool.
Jon:
A challenge: Spend 30 days using only ten plugins and see what you can come up with.
Really get to know your tools intimately and learn what they’re capable of and how far you can push them.
After 30 days sub out another 5 plugins and try to get to know them.
If you spend too much time thinking about the tool, you’re going to forget the thing you were supposed to do with it.
Spend a lot of time listening through the track again and again as you decide what move you need to make and then, once you have it, make the move quickly.
Matt:
If you spend the time to learn your tools and really put in your hours, it’s not going to matter what tools you use.
A poor player will blame their instrument.
Look up the video of Dave Grohl playing a kids drum kit. He can’t help but sound like himself despite the instrument.
Ultimately it’s about learning your tools and going deep on them.
Q: What’s the best way to treat stem requests before paperwork, if you know it’s a bad idea?
What if an artist reaches out to you for stems before you have the paperwork completed?
We don’t have a deal in place. If I give you all of my work then I don’t have any leverage.
Jon:
9 out of 10 times correspondence with the artist is through his manager, Nathan.
Lack of communication and avoidance of potential conflict is bridge burning, in Jon’s experience.
If someone acts this way then that’s losing trust with Jon, who would bend over backwards to do the best job for them.
In doing so, they are losing an opportunity to build really deep trust with Jon. And the next time they have a big ask Jon is less likely to go that extra mile, having been burnt before.
Matt:
It’s important to take care of your money if you’re trying to be a professional.
You need to make sure that you’re holding onto the thing that helps you pay rent.
You don’t want to undervalue your profession by conceding these things.
Jon:
If I were a producer I wouldn’t send stems to a mixer without the paperwork from a label.
I take myself seriously and I will not mix for lower than a certain rate because it would devalue our profession.
I would rather do something for free than under a certain rate because people talk, and if someone gets wind that you did a job for a certain low amount they will expect that from you as well. Then you’ve dug yourself into a hole.
We don’t want to be commodity engineers, we want to be artisans who are worthy of good pay.
Matt:
If you’re producing a song with an artist, legally it cannot be released without an agreement that compensates you.
Artists can’t monetize something without your permission.
Q: Talk about Downbeats and Transitions In Songs
Matt:
You can automate-up downbeats
Downbeats are mostly where his focus in automation goes.
Downbeats are one of those places that are overlooked by people who are less experienced or great at their job.
Strive to make sure that the downbeat of the chorus is just right.
Contrasting the downbeat with whatever came before it.
Keith Urban “Horses” has some explosive widening on the downbeat of the chorus.
You could be widening in the transitions, or you could be reducing beforehand.
Jon:
Jon is super into transitions
Tony would get Jon to do the transitions on his mixes.
Jon is more of a “reducer” when he edits this way. Because he’s usually right at the headroom limit when mixing, so it’s easier to subtract than push more.
Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ has mono guitars in the verses and then when the chorus comes in they’re in stereo.
That’s good arranging. That’s more conceptual.
In the case of Billie Eilish, sometimes the verse is really bright and then when it comes to the chorus it gets very dark.
“There’s a long lever to pull if you can find that emotive “real” context-based time-transcending emotional music.”
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Matt:
The first five times I heard Rihanna “Work” I thought it felt a little same-y, but it’s actually very subtle in what they’re doing.
There are small, subtle arcs to all of the parts.
It keeps going. The idea is to make it to keep going.
Some people just don’t have the arcs and the transitions right.
By “arcs” he means how the song builds and evolves
“I’ve Got a Feeling” does the chorus 4 times before it changes it up.
Each time with subtle changes.
Jon:
Top 40 music is based on this 4-bar loop, hip hop concept.
There’s an art to doing it.
Most of the time you don’t nail it, and by 2 min in it’s tired and you don’t want to hear any more.
Open question: Why are songs more often 2.5 minutes now instead of 4.5 min long?
