Episode 97 - Jon Castelli
Show Notes
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 97
July 19, 2022
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 78
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Jon:
Now that my assistant is unavailable I am spending hours more on each song to get it prepped, collect files, make stems, do mix notes, and communicate with the producers and artists to get all of the assets.
Now I am mixing one song in a day when I might normally have been able to do 2-3 songs in that same time.
These last few weeks have been work, work, work and my work/life balance has been thrown out of whack due to the need to adjust to not having an assistant.
One negative aspect of this is that when I’m in work mode I don’t even know what to talk about with other people. My brain ends up being filled with all of the things that I have to do and it’s hard to think of anything else.
Matt:
I like the opportunity to change gears and make stems because it allows me to decompress, do email, catch up on phone calls, and other tasks.
I love being in that place where I’ve got tunnel vision. I love having days full of writing songs, tracking vocals, finishing lyrics, etc. I think that’s when I’m at my happiest.
Jon:
I agree. That is my happy place.
I’m getting to the point where I’m getting a lot of strong positive feedback from some clients with the first mix and yet they’ve also got me working on mix version #9. So what’s going on? Why are they now uncertain about the choices we made earlier?
For me, the happy place comes in the moment of instinct, and being in the room, and bringing the artist’s intention to the forefront.
When we move into the nit-picky changes later on, that’s when it becomes less enjoyable.
Who am I to deny the changes that the artist wants? I’m going to honor their wishes to make the changes that they’re requesting. It’s their song, and they need to have a version that they’re happy with.
Matt:
You’re going to do your best work by being emotionally involved in something.
Jon:
I’m realizing that you can have pride in others, but having pride in yourself may be a negative emotion that can get in the way of how you work as a collaborator.
Q: Should I do everything or should I specialize?
Matt:
It depends on your personality. It depends on your emotional connection to the artist.
Having all of that emotional investment in someone else’s art is an interesting trait, but not something that I can do for everyone all of the time.
Over the course of time you find the role that suits your personality best.
Sometimes this changes over time.
Finding an emotional investment in a project is something that you constantly have to be asking yourself.
Jon:
There is a threshold point when I can tell that I’ve lost my desire to have a say in the record.
It’s the point where I stop advocating so hard for what I believe is the right move and when I let go and say “Ok let’s do what you want.”
It’s the point where I relinquish my emotional attachment to a song because it’s continued to move farther away from the version that I was emotionally invested in.
And sometimes that’s okay, because at the end of the day it has to be what the artist wants. They have to live with the final project. Not me.
My job is to maintain focus on as many moving parts as possible, but sometimes it’s unreasonable to do it all, and so I have to relinquish a certain level of creative involvement.
Matt:
Something we all experience is getting 90% done with a record that we’re super invested in and excited about, and then outside forces like the label or management start to request big changes that you are then far less excited for, and it makes your conviction wane a bit.
Sometimes you just have to accept that and be a team player.
There’s something fun about being an early part of the process with an artist and helping them feel like they’re breaking through into something new.
I love the challenge of discovering the work of new artists and integrating their mindset and approach into my own work.
Jon:
What’s really hitting me lately is when young people are doing the intimate music thing. When there’s more of a live, organic approach. With interesting arrangement approaches.
I like what they bring to the table and how they approach this version of music.
Q: How does Jon use AudioMovers and Facetime for mix revisions?
Jon:
I’m streaming on Audiomovers, but I try to text notes and thoughts as we’re listening.
There’s no easy way to use it without the latency and bleed.
It’s so much better than email back and forth when you can do it.
It’s worth having to unmute/mute everyone as you go.
It’s good to see the person reacting.
Matt:
I’m usually on headphones and have the Facetime up in front of me.
I’m pretty sure no one has a great system for it yet.
Q: Favorite additive-EQ plugin?
Both:
Wavesfactory’s Spectre
Jon:
I also like the Vintage EQ in Ozone.
The top-end boost is super clean. It’s great for that.
It’s a Pultec emulator.
Q: How long does it take to turn around a demo production after the session?
Matt:
My manager and publisher always used to tell me that I was taking too long.
It depends on how cooked the demo needs to be if you’re in a songwriting session
Nashville demos are alright if they’re not “well-cooked”.
If you’re in LA doing a pop demo, it should be much more cooked and great sounding. Especially the vocal. It needs to sound like the best thing ever.
In conclusion, sometimes it takes a couple of hours and sometimes it can take a few days based on the needs of the song.
Jon:
A big part of the LA scene is that writers and producers are in two sessions a day. Sometimes they don’t have the time to turn around so many sessions.
Having one hundred unfinished songs is way worse than having two finished records.
Matt:
The pitch game is changing. It’s dramatically different in city to city.
Nashville, Los Angeles, London all have their own needs.
This is a big reason to have a publisher and a team. To help hone your approach for the market.
Jon:
You have to figure out what works for you and don’t feel pressured to do so many sessions a week/month if you can’t deliver on all of them.
Matt:
If you’re a top-liner and your publisher is putting you in two sessions a day, the challenge becomes having new things to write about.
In Nashville nobody works on the weekends and they write from 11a-4p, so I have time to catch up on stuff.
In Los Angeles, the days and the hang can be much longer and therefore harder to juggle.
Q: Do you get any noise floor from your analog gear?
Jon:
Yeah. If I can, I will strip the silence at the beginning of the song or fade it in.
Sometimes I’ll LPF the high-end noise too.
Sometimes I’ll cut it out entirely if there’s a need to have a perfect digital silence at a moment in a song.
There’s definitely some maintenance that comes from analog gear. It’s definitely not a set-and-forget situation.
