Episode 89 - Jon Castelli
Show Notes:
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 89
April 12, 2022
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 72
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Differences between Nashville and Los Angeles writing sessions
Matt:
The scheduling structure is very different in LA.
It’s very 9-5 working hours.
Everyone walks out at the end of the day with a finished song and a demo.
Most songs are not overly produced because there is the assumption that the artist’s producer will be the one to develop it to their specs.
LA writing sessions tend to throw out a lot of unfinished ideas with the expectation that they’ll show it to an artist and they’ll want to finish it.
Jon:
In Nashville there’s a very clean line between people who write songs and people who produce songs. Whereas in LA you can get publishing for anything. Everything is negotiable in LA.
I happen to like the clean delineation between roles.
Nashville seems to be a harder world to break into as a producer.
Nobody seems to be reinventing the wheel, soundwise, in Nashville.
There’s a level of musicianship that Nashville seems to breed that isn’t found in Los Angeles.
Matt:
I love being the producer in the room who can adjust and fill in different roles in a way that will inspire and bring the best out of my writing partners.
When you start with an existing track you can get into situations that are very interesting.
In my experience, trying to rewrite the chords for an existing track is the wrong approach and does not pay off. Though sometimes it does.
Oftentimes people try to change a song to make it more clever, or more different, or more strange because they don’t like what they’re writing. That’s rarely the answer.
Usually the answer is to get more to the core of what you’re trying to say emotionally. You need to be more truthful, more confident, or more real.
Q: What is the purpose of the mix buss? Is it important for making great mixes?
Matt:
In a word, no. Of course not. But everyone configures their mix buss in such a way that it gives them a certain sound of their own.
Everybody has a thing that they do that is unique to them.
Jon:
My approach is to configure my mix buss in a way that will be appropriate for any type of recording.
Nothing I do is too heavy handed.
Most of what I use is one-size-fits-all.
Everybody hears about the mix buss and thinks it’s going to make or break their mix.
Whatever you just heard about the new thing that you have to have, you don’t actually need it.
Matt:
Any time you get a new tool you should really spend the time to listen and play with it.
I think everyone should do this, no matter what their skill level.
Test and explore the limits of that tool.
School is good because it will slow you down and force you to do repetitions on a skill that you are trying to develop.
Jon:
“Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to leave a sound alone” - Manny Marroquin
Matt:
“It’s not the notes. It’s the space between the notes.” - Miles Davis
Q: What things have you not done yet that you still want to do? (Music or otherwise)
Matt:
The only thing I haven’t done career-wise yet is to get something that I’ve developed to really pop off.
In terms of life I’d like to have a family.
Those are the only things left for me.
Having a Grammy is not an important goal for me, but I DO want to have a song reach 1 billion people and be heard everywhere.
I never want to take away from someone who is creating stuff and putting it out into the world. I think that’s incredible. It’s just not a priority for me.
Jon:
I want to live in another country at some point
Right now that’s hard for me as someone who wants to get compete and get a lot of mix work. I’ve got serious FOMO around that. That makes it hard for me to leave LA or the US.
Career-wise I’d like to have a No. 1 Billboard.
This could sometimes be considered a negative motivating force.
So perhaps my career goal is to care less about missed opportunities.
I’m very into the concept of peer-reviewed (awards)
I see the Grammys as a way to be validated by your peers.
Being recognized for projects that you and your friends worked on is very valuable.
A little bit of recognition and celebration never hurt anybody
Q: What are your general philosophies on tuning vocals?
Matt:
It’s everything from no tuning to lots of tuning.
Sometimes it comes down to a purely artistic choice, like on the new Rosalia record where she will jump between no tuning and super hard tuning from phrase to phrase.
I’ve had a client ask me to crank the tuning and overdo it to make the entire track more distorted and intense.
A big part of the production game is using tools in a way that nobody has done before.
The more you tune, the more you can contrast against the other elements in your production.
Jon:
I have zero feelings about tuning. If it works it works.
