Episode 60
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 60
July 07, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 53
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Q: Traveling setup. Tracking and writing templates?
Matt:
My templates are pretty much the same.
I have a few Pro Tools templates. One for vocals. One for drums.
My Ableton setup is just for writing.
I’m running off of a MacBook laptop.
I backup everything to the cloud, so I don’t use backup drives.
I brought a U87 with me on this trip.
I have a little MIDI Akai keyboard.
Then I bring a USB keyboard with a numbed and a trackball mouse
iLok
I think it’s really valuable and underrated to get in the habit of writing 30 songs in 30 days. Just to get in the habit of writing melodies and tracking vocals.
Some sessions I’m just a producer/editor, but others I am getting in there singing and writing. I want to be able to do it all.
Jon:
Tiny MIDI keyboards are going to get you a different performance than a full-sized piano keyboard. They’ll bring different performances out. I consider them different instruments. Like a P bass vs. a Hofner bass.
Limitations
Matt:
Limitations are great.
‘This is Pop’ on Netflix is a well done new doc.
There’s a lot of discussion around limitations.
They force me to play simply and not try to make it too rich. Sometimes all the song needs are simple block chords and a bass line.
We live in an era where you can basically get every sound and plugin that’s out there. Oftentimes there’s a certain kind of paralysis in that.
Jon:
I have 10 plugins that I use all of the time.
I rarely use anything outside of that 10.
Max there will be 15 types of plugins, if I’m trying something new.
It’s like having your palette of tools.
It allows me to be more efficient and more creative. This limitation condenses creativity for me.
Different instruments are going to bring different performances out of you.
The new Tyler the Creator record sounds very limited and is incredibly creative.
He seems to be using samples only for the beats
The creativity comes from the vocal approach.
Matt:
Kanye famously had a signs up in the studio during the MBDTF sessions that set limitations during the making of the record.
Quite often the best or most unique art comes from dictatorship, and not from committee.
Q: How do I talk an artist out of “demo-itis?”
Jon:
You can’t.
Matt:
Demo-itis is probably the wrong word to use in these scenarios.
If someone is attached to something it is your job as the producer to figure out what they are emotionally attached to figure out how to approach that.
Jon:
Frank Ocean doesn’t do any bounces until it’s time to show people that. He never shares the songs so that nobody will live with it until it feels done.
My method is to present another way to the artist, but be very sensitive to what the artist has done and the vibe of the version they are handing you. You have to be incredibly sensitive to what they’ve done and see that it’s preserved.
The only way to get there is to “un-mix” the record and loosen it up.
This opens the door to new exploration of the record with the artist because people can now see the potential.
The only way to win that “battle” is to showcase a completely different version while maintaining vibe.
The way to do that is to constantly be referencing the rough mix.
Matt:
Ultimately he have to realize that we’re working in the service of the artist and the song.
Jon:
The only way to understand vibe, energy, and what people are looking for is to have been in the room at the time the move was made.
- Oftentimes the original producer was simply doing what the artist wanted to the best of their ability in order to appease the artist at that time.
Get in the room. Ask the producer to go with them. You need to understand how the records ended up at the point they are when they were handed to you.
You need to understand the context in which these things were heard or will be heard.
If you’re making 808s records for the club and you aren’t going to the club, how will you know how they are going to translate?
Matt:
The Charon guys (Dennis Pop and Max Martin crew) would take their in-progress records to the club and test them on the audience to get feedback as they were writing.
- It’s the same story with rappers playing their music at Magic City in Atlanta.
Q: How do you train yourselves to listen to music without being distracted?
Jon:
Music should be the thing that focuses you and mitigates the distraction (paraphrasing)
Matt:
I’m about to go into a month’s worth of writing sessions.
I often put on podcasts as background noise and have to deliberately put on a playlist of music rather than default to a podcast with info I think will be interesting.
You need to make deliberate choices to change your music diet or opt for no input at times.
Jon:
I was losing my fanship for music because of a lot of modern records.
I want to be more picky about my inputs. Be more self aware about the things that distract.
When I’m in a place of creativity I don’t need all of those inputs, like my phone.
Matt:
Fundamentally one of the hardest things to sustain is being excited about music.
Low Pass Filtering
Jon:
Not that many elements live above 9-10k.
Electric guitar usually doesn’t live that high.
Samples definitely don’t go that high.
I’ll also use a resonant peak on the LPF to accentuate the cutoff point.
It’s tricky to LPF everything confidently if you don’t have speakers that can tell you what’s going on in the top octaves.
Matt:
My Juno is very noisy. Sometimes I’ll capture just the noise of it and then LPF everything else but the vocal and then let the vocal have this unique noise around it.
Q: Did you lose or have to push away lots of friends to get where you are?
Matt:
No.
The lifestyle of someone who is going to be making records takes a kind of commitment that a lot of people don’t understand. And you are going to sacrifice parts of your life to make that work.
Almost everybody I know have dramatically changed relationships because of this.
Jon:
My friend was moving to Nashville and having a going away party. I wrote that I was in a session to him and could not attend. He wrote “Your life is one big session.” It caused me to cry and it put the last ten years of my life into perspective.
People has stopped inviting me to things because I had kept turning them down.
That was tough.
At some point that script has to flip.
Check out David Whyte’s comments on ambition.
Matt:
As a record maker you’re simply not going to have the experience of people bonding at happy hour after work. There are certain experiences that you are not going to have in your life.
