Episode 61
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 61
July 20, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 54
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Matt:
Having your work routine and your physical health routine both working at a high level will compliment and each other.
Getting into a creative writing phase is really about you being prepared for one of those phases to hit you. You should take care of your physical and mental health so that you’re ready to go when it hits.
When you’re boxing and training for a fight, you do slow technique while you practice so that when the time comes to execute a fight or a song all of your training turns into a flow state.
There are aspects of what I’m doing now that are extremely in the comfort zone (workout, sleep, journal, meditation, practice). These anchor me and set the foundation for situations in which I’m uncomfortable and need to be spontaneous, like a writing session.
The songwriting process is so much about not calculating and being emotional.
I now make an association in my brain between doing things like practicing piano scales and between eating something healthy or doing a 20 min meditation.
All of the preparation (physical, mental practice) allows me to use discomfort as fuel.
In a songwriting session I get in where I fit in. I break writer’s block, or creating inspiration, or whip up a track quickly, or help out with a lyric that my co-writers are stuck on.
My role changes dramatically throughout the day.
This is where all of the preparation comes in handy. There is no place in this process that I feel uncomfortable.
Often, while writers are off working on lyrics I will manually play the piano part instead of recording and looping it because that provides a different kind of inspiration. It provides an environment for them.
Jon:
Sometimes the leadership role is laying back.
Matt:
I did not specialize early on in my career. I always enjoyed doing everything, but that comes at the expense of building momentum in one realm or another.
It’s really important for people to realize if and how they love this process, because you will end up living a very different life from many of your friends who aren’t in this world.
19 years old is a hard time to be sacrificing friendship for music.
Jon:
My answer to having to turn down social opportunities is to maintain an open-door policy at my studio. If people are in the neighborhood and want to hang, I will invite them up to hang out while I do my thing.
That brings my friends to me instead of having to deny hanging out with them.
Matt:
I get really happy at the end of the day when I’m firing on all cylinders making a record.
You do have to make a certain kind of effort as a creative person to figure out what you like doing socially and then engage with that.
A) For your mental health.
B) Because we win in teams. Without this we’re not going to make the projects we want otherwise.
It takes a weird kind of introversion to obsess about learning how to mix or play guitar, or do any kind of art.
Jon:
In order for me to be good enough to play live I’d have to learn a lot of songs in every key. Will I ever be that good again? Probably not. I can do that and be limber as a mixer, but can you really be that in all things? That takes a lot of sacrifice in your life to be that good at four different things.
I can’t play songs in all keys, but I can mix in all genres.
Matt:
Once you figure out the things that work for you it becomes much harder to try new stuff.
We have to make a concerted effort to put ourselves into new situations where we don’t know what we’re going to get.
Dolby Atmos
Jon:
Atmos is confusing.
I’m having an Atmos rig installed at a second location.
The three major record labels are now requiring Atmos mixes as a deliverable.
I’m getting two fees on it. But it’s negotiable. These are the early days of this business.
Atmos is fun and you have so much more space in which to play.
The less tricks you do in Atmos the more realistic that will be. That’s what I’m learning right now. The less added effects, the more realistic it will feel.
Matt:
If you, as a mixer, can’t buy into the hardware setup then you’ll likely have to partner with someone who can provide an Atmos mix for you.
Jon:
This is the first time in a long time that the barrier of entry has been so costly for an audio engineer.
I no longer think that anybody can mix.
In a sense, this barrier to entry helps maintain the sonic quality control of a mix.
Supposedly all new cars in 2023 will have Atmos installed. Sonos and Apple are integrating this into their products, and other companies are following suit.
Money is being spent on getting the encoding into these products.
