Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Two longtime music pros (Sensei & Fatboi) go deep on what makes music great. A podcast for music producers, artists, and fans.
Fatboi is a Multi-platinum, Grammy nominated, award winning producer whose credits include: Camoflauge, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, Rocko, Shawty Redd, Flo Rida, Bow Wow, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Juvenile, Yung Joc, Gorilla Zoe, OJ Da Juiceman, 8Ball & MJG, Jeremih, 2 Chainz, Nicki Minaj, Bobby V, Ludacris and Yo Gotti, Monica, Zay Smith, TK Kravitz, Future.
Sensei Hollywood (a.k.a. Dan Marshall) formerly an instructor and chair of the Audio Production program at the Art Institute of Atlanta, is an accomplished musician, producer, engineer who's performed on and engineered multi--platinum records with Big Boi, Outkast, Killer Mike, Chamillionaire, Carlos Santana, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Ron Isley, Lil Wayne, Trillville, Monica, and more...
Speaker 1 (00:00.0)
In music, you either contribute to the vibe or you suck the life out of the vibe. You know, for the engineer in the room, you know, we got to play hospitality person. We got to play psychologists. We got to do all of that on top of the technical. It's actually more of the people skills that make you a good engineer in that realm, because it's your job to make them as comfortable as possible to bring that performance out of them.
You got like hostage negotiator skills.
I mean both of y'all can attest that way contested it's like coming up in the realm of being in sessions with Gucci. my god. gotta you gotta learn how to deal with the whole life.
They're about to
Speaker 3 (00:41.806)
You're listening to the show for music industry pros Sensei and Fatboy. Go deep. That makes music great.
We're talking to Grammy Award winning audio engineer Corey Anders, sharing secrets of the studio, his personal journey, how people skills outweigh technical skills, and some amazing stories about some of the biggest names in the game. Get ready, it's levels to this.
Hey, what's going on? It's LevelsToThis. I'm here with Fatboy and our special guest, Audio Engineer Extraordinaire Corey Anders.
Or as I call him, Kory!
Hey, what's going on with y'all?
Speaker 3 (01:23.086)
We're doing great, man. I'm so glad you could join us. I was just gonna run through your accolades. You've got at least 20 gold and platinum-selling records. Did get this right? Two Grammy nominations with Akon and Faith Evans. And you won a Grammy with BBSCC Wieringens' best contemporary gospel album still. Yep. But more to the point, you're just a fabulous dude and I...
I have had the pleasure of working with you in the past and enjoy hanging out with you.
Yeah, man.
Good people.
So what you been doing lately?
Speaker 1 (02:00.814)
Right now, I'm currently putting the finishing touches on A-Ball and MJG's new album, mixing wise. I think we're at the last song, last mix, fingers crossed. It's because we've been working on it for a little over a year now. It's been a dope project to work on just because I remember being a kid listening to them to go from that to working with them and mixing their records is awesome.
It's crazy you say that because that's one of the questions that I wanted to ask. How is that coming from where you started from, just being inspired by all these legacy groups that we remember growing up to the point where you're actually mixing, tracking vocals earlier in your career.
on into mixing albums for a lot of these legacy acts, know, these iconic groups from the past. How did that make you feel from where you started to where you are now?
man, listen, it's a dream come true. And it's one of those things that it's like, every day I count my blessings. I mean, you guys are in this industry, you know, the ups and downs and the ebbs and flows of stuff. And it's like, you know, it's like those types of moments make everything work worth it because it's just like, I remember sitting in my room, taping songs off the radio back in the day with cassette tapes and then, you know, taping, you know, their songs or outcast songs or whoever to go from that.
to sitting right next to them in the studio working with them, it's just like, that's like a pinching moment. mean, you know, it just delights me every time that happens.
Speaker 3 (03:43.862)
curious about your journey, What got you into this? Because I was glancing at your website and it you were fixing to go to law school.
Yeah. So listen to this. So I'm the youngest of four, right? Okay. my parents, both my parents are physicians. I have a sister that's civil engineer. mean, she, she got accolades of her own. She was the head of the project for a lot, you know, like the Martin Luther King, morel in DC national, so she's got accolades. I got another brother that's like a corporate guru. He's doing big stuff. Got another brother that's a doctor. And so then I'm bringing up the rear. Right. And so my past initially was, okay.
I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna get a finance degree, then I'm gonna go to law school, get a law degree, become a lawyer, make a ton of money to build a studio. So the end game was to be in the studio. And it wasn't until my junior year, I went to Morehouse College. I was born and raised in California, came out here for school. I went to Morehouse College. It wasn't until my junior year that I was working on a finance degree at Morehouse that I got introduced to a whole different side of the industry that I didn't know about.
And that was through, got an internship with Dallas Austin at the time, and Dallas at the time had a record label. So I got an internship on the business side of things, right? But his label, the way he ran his label, he had the office, and then literally right next door to the office was the studio. So me being an intern, I had to interface with the office and the studio. And so one of the times I had to run over to the studio to drop off some paperwork, I ran into, of all people, Leslie Brathwaite.
I talked to Leslie and he was just like, I was like, so what do you do? And he explained, he was like, yeah, I'm an audio engineer. I was like, well, what is that? And he was like, you see all this stuff in this room that looks cool? I was like, yeah, it looks awesome. He was like, I use that to facilitate record and mix music. And I was like, so wait, there's a profession that you can have in music that you don't, because I couldn't rap, I couldn't sing, I couldn't play an instrument. But I knew I was creative because my background was like a DJ and I was creative in that aspect.
Speaker 1 (05:47.98)
being introduced to this whole side of the industry that was like technical, but creative, but you're in the mix of all that and it's a viable career. I was like, okay. So that sparked it. I still worked and got my finance degree from Morehouse, moved up to Chicago, was literally about a month away from starting law school at the University of Chicago and was just hating life. I was just like, I was up there working in corporate America, just like, this is not it. Like I'm just so uninspired right now. And I said, you know what?
I don't have no responsibilities on the wife and kids. I remember Leslie told me about Full Sail. So I called up Full Sail. had a class starting that October. This was like, no, that, yeah, that October. This was like September that I called them and I packed up my UR and drove down to Full Sail and just, that's how everything just took off.
Wow. That's really cool. Like you didn't even know it was like a thing until you were like up close and personal with it. There's so many people that like dream about getting to that level, but do you think that like, cause you had came from a different perspective that gave you one, maybe an edge, like as far as your attitude about working in that environment.
That's a journey.
Speaker 1 (06:58.286)
Absolutely. Just because, you know, even just like when I came from, when I started Full Sail, you know, I started Full Sail at, was 20, I just turned 22. And so the kids that were coming into Full Sail were just fresh, graduated from high school. So they were like 18, 19 years old, right? So I had already had a lot of life experiences. It was almost like, you know, I look at myself at 44 now and I'm like a history buff, but I remember being in school, hating history and not being fascinated by it now. But now,
perspective, you go back and you look at, okay, the things, it's the same story with me going back to school for audio. It's like, okay, I went and I got this finance degree and I'm appreciative of all that, but my passion and my focus and my interest lies over here in this audio. So it gave me a different level of drive and just perspective and just overall bigger picture. Like, okay, I see this, I see this Karen Danglin over here that says, okay, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of time and whole lot, but
That's happiness over there and you're to be able to reach that care. And I think that that four years of college gave me that perspective and that drive coming into that, that environment.
You and I, we've had countless conversations of inspirations in our life and Dan as well, us three just in studio sessions and everybody's looking at us like, these old guys. And it's not the fact that we're old, we were just into what it is that we were passionate about, that we had a.
extensive knowledge before that predated us and just learned about it. What were some of your inspirations? You you mentioned yourself that you have a DJ background. I myself had a DJ background that propelled me into production. Even though the path was kind of set for you earlier and you pivoted. What were some of those inspirations that led you to this?
Speaker 1 (08:57.322)
Believe it or not, it's always, was for me, it was just discovering how much I loved music early on. And I'll never forget, like my favorite song in life to this day is Whitney Houston's Greatest Love of All. I remember, I still remember the first time I heard that song and the way that it made me feel. And I was like, what is this? I'm listening to something and it's making me feel something. And I might've been like four or five. I was young and I just remember
hearing that and hearing the way she sang it and feeling like, damn, she created that. And then, you I didn't know all of like how that, how song was put together that, you know, someone else wrote the song and all that. I just knew that she's saying this, her voice was beautiful. It matched beautifully with the instruments and it made me feel a certain way. And to this day, that it's almost like, you know, almost like a drug person, drug addict chasing a high, so to speak. You get that initial high, you always chasing it. Fortunate for me, it's not,
Every time I work, get to experience that type of high because it's an emotional connection. And so that kind of set the framework for the inspiration moving forward. then as I grew up and it's like, know, my parents, because they were physicians, they came from traditional things and my dad's first generation college, whatnot. And so they're like, okay, wait, this is how you're going to be successful. You got to follow the blueprint. And so like, you know, even early on, like I remember
simple.
Speaker 1 (10:26.382)
being 12, 13, couldn't legally work for anybody, because you had to be 14, 15 to get a work for me. But we had a family friend that allowed me to work and make money in her flower shop. And so while at 12, 13, when my friends after school, they were going to the arcade or doing whatever to the basketball courts, I was going to the flower shop and working and making money. Because one thing about my parents is even though they were fine financially, they instilled in us earlier that
that that's their money, that's not our money. So we were far from spoiled or anything. Like I was the kid with the hand-me-downs. Like when I made that decision to say, okay, I'm not going to do law school and I'm going to go to full-sale instead, I could remember how scared I was to tell my parents about that because, and it wasn't like they were cracking the whip on me or anything like that. And I'll never forget when I told my mom, she looked at me and she said,
That sounds about right. That makes sense. It's like she got it. It's like, forget everything else, forget this and that. In that moment, she understood what it was. Even though she didn't understand what audio engineering or any of that, she understood. She thought about everything that I did. I mean, as a kid, I was the one that was taking Legos and making little DJ setups with Legos and pretending that I was mixing sets as a kid. Like I would be playing with my little, my little,
G.I. Joe's like they'd have soccer games and then the halftime show was me making a DJ set with my, you know, so it was always there. And I think that- Exactly. And that was the thing. And so I think in that moment, it dawned on her, she just looked at that everything and she was like, oh, I get it. know, even though, you know, when I explained to her, was like, yeah, mom, this is what it means. It means I'm going to go to school. I'm going to get this degree. I'm going to come out.
Cobras dropping some sick V
Speaker 1 (12:12.962)
I'm going to intern at the studio for no money working 50 to 60, 70 hours a week. Only thing they're going to reimburse me for is, you know, gas mileage for going on food runs, but I'm starting at the bottom. And meanwhile, this this is 2003. And so the economy was booming. Like all the people that had graduated from Morehouse, they were going to Wall Street signing contracts, guaranteeing them a million dollars in three years. So for someone to decide not to do that and instead.
FUN
Speaker 1 (12:40.642)
go and be broke for a couple years. Most people wouldn't understand that, for some odd reason she got it and she was like, you have my blessing. And that gave me even more, you know, just peace of mind that I'm heading on right path.
Well, know, most people don't understand that this field is science. You know, what you do is engineering. It's another form of science. deal with space, time, all of that stuff right there. And, know, me myself in school, I absolutely hated math and there was no way that I was going to do this as a profession.
The one thing that I end up doing, making a living on, I use math every single day to do what's needed to make that come about. Let's talk about the inside of the studio because the general public doesn't really know what goes on in these recording sessions. They think it's just all fun, which it is for us because we're doing what we love to do.
but it's work at the same time. Give a window of what it's really like recording artists in the studio. Some of their favorite artists I might add. You know what mean? Because you work with everybody's favorite artist at some point. Give us a little insight about that.
Yeah, well, I mean, I could just, I just walk you through a typical session. Like a lot of times, and this is something that I learned after I got in. Like you hear stories, okay, the studio time is $200 an hour, right? And so I remember when early on in my career, when I was still interning, I was still learning how sessions worked, right? And artists, artists will come in and they may, they may be five hours late to their session, right? So we all just sitting around waiting for them, right?
Speaker 1 (14:40.514)
Then they come in, so that's five hours, that's a thousand dollars they didn't waste it, right? The day didn't even show up, right? They're still gonna pay for it, right? So then they come and then they decide, you know, I just wanna sit and chill, play pool, smoke, whatever, for another three, four hours, right? So now you're nine hours into a session, we haven't done anything and we haven't opened up Pro Tools, we haven't done anything. They ain't play no music. Like they might not even walk in the room. And so then all of a sudden they walk in the room, producer comes in the room, they play a beat and.
20 minutes later, they'd unwritten the song. And after nine and a half hours, they're in the booth recording. So by the end of that 10th hour, they've recorded a record that now ends up being a hit record. And then that's when you realize like, okay, we really capture lightning in a joke. Because it took that five hours that they were late, plus that four hours that they needed to chill and do whatever to create that.
that mood in their mind and their creative space to capture that 20 minutes of artistic brilliance. And that's, in a nutshell, is a lot of the session. mean, every session is different. But that's one of those things where, like, I've seen when artists try to force that creativity, it never works out. when I see them come in and just in their own element, not worried about time, not worried about space, they've checked egos at the door, they've done all that, and they come in.
It's really an amazing thing to see. then, you know, for the engineer in the room, you know, we got to play hospitality person, we got to play psychologist, we got to do all of that on top of the technical. It's actually more of the people skills that make you a good engineer in that realm because it's your job to make them as comfortable as possible to bring that performance out of them. And so that's the balance that you have to, that, you know, in a recording session that you typically get.
these days in the studio. it's all, it's crazy. Cause I mean, I remember there were times where like, you know, back in the day, might've had a girlfriend come hang out for a session and she, you know, cause she would be curious, why are you guys always up there all night, this and that. And then she would come in there and sit there and watch and just be like, oh yeah, I'll just come up here and just chill, sit around watching ESPN and playing video games. Y'all ain't really working because that's what the majority of the time, a lot of times it is, but then it's that, it's an hour, hour of brilliance that it's like, okay,
Speaker 1 (17:02.07)
All this other time is what's fueled that. And that's just the reality of the reflections.
It's kind of like an airplane pilot. You're only really important for the takeoff and landing. Then it's six hours of flying in between, whatever. But those are two really important times to be a pilot, you know?
Right,
The most important.
You gotta be good at you gotta be excellent at what you do
Speaker 2 (17:27.03)
up and getting it down.
But you know, I heard, I think it was Rick Rubin talking about the very same thing. Like he was working with ACDC, another big rock band. They're a legendary rock band. So it was late stage ACDC, he's doing a record for them. And he's blown away that basically their process is to go in the studio, sit about where they're gonna sit to play for like six hours and smoke cigs and have a little drink or whatever. And just, he was like, all right.
I suppose we're gonna do a take or anything and they're just doing their thing and then maybe they'll do a take and they'll like chill and think about it and then another couple hours they'll do another take. So it's like the whole time we did like four takes but it was the last one was the one. It was like their process. It's not the magic time. It's getting the mind straight, getting the vibe on the right level, right?
at all and everyone's different. I remember I got the opportunity to record Erika Badu one time, right? And her process was amazing because this came at a time where I wasn't used to having a microphone in the control room with me, right? I'm used to people, right? Are they going to booth in there in the booth? Erika wants to record like she's performed. So it's about setting up a mic in there and she's got to perform. So me as an engineer, I had to figure out how to capture pristine vocals
in a room that, you know, headphone, I'm in headphones. He needs to hear herself. So she's in headphones, you know, just trying to get that pristine balance of, you know, keeping it quiet. So we had to unplug phones. We had to turn off, you know, AC systems and make sure that there was no outside noises. just that, seeing that and recognizing like, okay, she can't, she's not one that's going to just go in the booth and record. She wants to be full on performing mode. And that's how you're going to get the best take out of me. And then.
Speaker 1 (19:19.288)
You just go through different artists that just have different quirks that just make them click and make them who they are and how they record.
That reminds me of when we were working on the Monica project, all three of us. you were transitioning over into full-time mixing. You were still tracking, but you were transitioning. just Monica's process, the way she recorded, she had the room temperature in the studio on hell.
And there was also a space heater in there to even further add to hell. So, and the candles that I burned myself on, you know, a smorgasbord of food that nobody really ate, you you knickknack a little bit of, you know, bottles of water everywhere and it had to be a certain type of water.
Don't forget the candles, don't forget the candles.
Yeah
Speaker 2 (20:23.758)
You know what I mean? but it's a lot of processes, you know, for somebody to get into their creative bag. And by the way, you know, the record came out great, but nobody, you know, the fans don't see that process and how it comes to be, you know, no matter what the process is, like what's some of the most different or odd setups.
in a session, you know, to, to, to get that creativity to come out. Cause some people like lights off. Some people like, you know, different, different, different phases.
These, I'm trying to think what's, because know, weird gets normalized when you've been doing it so long.
Exactly, it's normal. But for the people, it's, know...
I
Speaker 1 (21:18.446)
I would say a weird thing, and this isn't necessarily a quirk, but this was a weird thing that I had to do as a track and engineer. You know, Bizarre from D12? Yeah. From Eminem's group D12? So he came one day and he had recorded this song and he wanted to do a skit, but he wanted a part of the skit where he wanted to be peeing and you want to hear the sound of peeing, like peeing in the toilet, right? Now there's sound effects libraries that can capture that, right?
He wanted it to be authentic. Patchwork just happened to be one of those studios that has microphone jacks everywhere. We literally mic'd up the journal in the bathroom and he went in there and peed.
in every, yup.
Speaker 1 (22:07.382)
And we captured that. And that was just weird to me because I was just like, yeah, I'm glad I didn't have to be in there with that. It was just like sitting. Can you imagine how cringe worthy it is like listening to another grown man? It was. Yeah, that was weird. Hey, we're going to do that.
Yeah,
Speaker 3 (22:22.744)
We're gonna need another whim screen over here.
Right, right, was like, I was like, that's where this is gonna be a one off. This is gonna be a one off pop filter right now. This is a one and done. We were throwing this away, this is it. Because you know, as an intern, I remember we used to clean the pop filters. They used to just be disgusting. That was one we threw away. But yeah, that was weird.
Are you sure that wasn't a hazing for you or anything?
Nah, at that point I was fully tracking, it was just like, I mean, because I remember having the conversation and I was like, bro, we can go and find that sound effect.
Pour some water in a cup next to the mic. It's, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:59.662)
He was just like nope he was like I wanted to be out there and I was like you know what yeah, yeah
commitment to the craft
Gotta accommodate.
Man, you're touching on something. We talked about this earlier, and this is I find. Tell me you agree or not, but I feel like 80 % of the engineer's job is people skills.
I have some list-only people skills. I mean, like-
Speaker 1 (23:26.976)
It's a, believe it or not, I actually learned it just sitting back and I was fortunate to assist Leslie for a number of years and just watching how his sessions unfolded and this, he's just mixing, but it translates to tracking too. Cause I'll tell you how it translated for me. So just sitting back watching how, okay. Fisting Leslie, it became my job to then, you know, so that he can get his work done. Let me interact with artists. me.
keep them out of his hair so that he could work. I'll never forget, you remember when them Sony PSPs came out, the little handhelds? So Leslie was mixing a Genuine record, right? And he was knee deep in this mix and Genuine decided to show up to the studio and you know, Leslie was trying to concentrate. These PSPs had just come out and of course Leslie had bought a couple of them, right? And so I'm sitting back there and I'm clearly just picking up in the room that Leslie's trying to focus on this mix and Genuine is asking all types of questions and not, you know, you know, not trying to.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:20.502)
Intentionally annoying but just you know artists being artists so I was like hey Let's go upstairs and check out these PSP so me and genuine went upstairs and played the PSP And I took him out of his hair But it taught me that if you pinch me I remember being in in high school listening to genuine on the radio So you go from that to sitting there playing a video game with them It's just like that taught me like the psychology of the whole thing like okay. He's just the person just like I'm a person He you know, he's this something new he's fascinated by it
And it plays out and it made for a very comfortable session. Fast forward to me tracking. Um, I'm in, in recording T boss from TLC and I'm sitting there. It's just me and her in the room. Right. The producer walked out and record this day. hits this perfect take. Right. I believe it. Right. Before I play back for whatever reason, I don't know how, I don't know what button I hit, but I deleted it. It's gone. I couldn't get it back. Right. I'm, you know, I'm relatively.
New to the seat of tracking, right? was, I had made that transition, right? And so she's in the booth and she's like, she's like, Corey, let me hear that back. Right. Now in that moment, I had a choice to make a split second choice. can either say something and deleted the take. I don't know what happened. Or I did what I did instead. Theon, you can hit that better. Get it again. Hit play. Right. She knew none the different.
But had I went the first route and been like, I messed it up, now she becomes a little insecure in my ability to be able to capture it. She's like, what am I doing this for if you're going to mess it up? So in that moment, it's psychology.
I saw Bloster leaving with a jab for defense.
Speaker 2 (26:00.526)
Right. Thinking on your feet. Thinking on your feet. Right.
Right, right.
Man, you got like hostage negotiator skills.
I think both of y'all can attest, Fatboy can attest to this, like coming up in the realm of being in sessions with Gucci, you kind of learn how to deal with a whole lot. Shout out to Gucci. But because a lot of times it wasn't Gucci that was causing a lot of the riff raff in the studio. But that level of dealing with chaos and managing all of these different personalities in the room,
We're about to bring this up. 405. my God.
Speaker 1 (26:37.414)
Yeah, it plays a lot into an engineer. there's a lot of engineers that get burnt out over that because they can't separate the two. They can't turn off that like, I was one that like, as long as you didn't disrespect me, I didn't take it personally if an artist yelled at me because I might've made a mistake. I wasn't understanding what they were saying because I took it as, okay, they're passionate about their stuff. They're trying to communicate with me and they're just not having the language to do that. So, but there's engineers that would have taken that personally.
escalated that into something that it just didn't need to go.
from the producer aspect, that's important to us because over the time, you pinpoint the, or you identify the engineers that you would rather keep around and you narrow it down to a specific number of engineers that you love like that. We all started our careers together. So you, Dee.
Leslie, you know what saying? And that's pretty much my, my, my trio of, know, those main, engineers and of course Joel from, from, from my studio. but that is really key to why you keep those kinds of engineers around because you have those skills to communicate and you can keep the room in order. That's also my job as a producer to keep the room in order, keep everybody intact.
And I saw from, from, from when we were pups in this game, I saw how you navigated yourself around the studio, which is why I always, whenever I called Patchwork, it's like, yeah, who do you want to, hey, Corey, Corey, Corey, I need Corey, I need Corey. To the point where when I called up there, they knew automatically it's just like, yeah, he wants to work with Corey. Do you get that a lot from a lot of, you know,
Speaker 2 (28:33.536)
other artists in the industry or producers mainly in the industry where no matter what it's like, nah, gotta go to Corey. It's Corey.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's, you know, that's a testament to just understanding the game, but also rising to the occasion of when opportunity meets, you know, And that's, that's what that is. It's like, okay, like I'm not just a robot and I'm actually someone that's contributing to what you're doing because it's like, even now me as a mixer, there's engineers that, that'll look at it. Like when someone reaches out,
to mix a record and they just look at it like themselves, like they're just work for hire, right? And I'm not knocking that because if you break it down, that's what you are. But for me, I look at it like, okay, they are commissioning me to contribute to the art. And it's a very different perspective to look at it that way because I feel, you know, everything that I'm doing, I'm invested in versus just being the person that just got hired to do a job and I walk away and the job is done. No, I'm now a part of this.
moment, this art in some form or fashion, and there's a level of respect and honor that goes with that. And I think that that's something that you have that mentality, you know, it's something that I guess artists and producers just pick up on. And I think that's why we speak an unspoken language sometimes, because it's just like, you know, in music, you either contribute to the vibe or you suck the life out the vibe. And it's just like, that can go, that goes for everyone in the room, whether it's the producer, the engineer, the
The session musicians there, I've seen it all. I've seen amazing musicians, amazing at what they did, but their attitudes just weren't conducive to the room and you don't see them. then, it's a lot of it. Yeah, there's talent involved, but like, like Dan said, there's people skills involved with that. And when you get that perfect blend, that's when you really capture lightning in the jar.
Speaker 2 (30:27.126)
something key you said in there because we actually work that way where, you know, my trust level with you got to the point where your opinion really mattered to me about what we were working on. And even to the point where you would incorporate, you have an idea and the idea goes into the record.
That right there is, you know, building that trust between producer and engineer. It's a special quality that many of them don't have. And me and you have had this discussion time and time again where, you know, I've said, because there's producers and I won't say, you know, any names or anything like that, but there's producers that kind of just give you
a lump of coal and you turn the record into what we hear on the radio. And I've had discussions with you about, know, sometimes I think some of these engineers should get production credit on some of these records because the engineer turned this record into what it eventually sounded like. are your thoughts on that? you're one of those engineers that, you know,
is involved in that creative process. I know I always gave you a window to, hey Cory, do you.
Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's like, I look back on my career and I look at like times that I literally have, like you said, I've molded a lump of coal into a record and I look at it and if I had to go back and do it all again, I would probably do the same thing because what it taught me was just like, okay, yeah, I'm an engineer, I'm a creative as well. And this is teaching me like the production side, the arrangement side, because I mean, there were times where like,
Speaker 1 (32:29.314)
I was working with young producers who now are like seasoned super successful producers, but they didn't know anything about song structures, arrangements and this and that. would literally, like you said, give me a chunk of instruments and it would be all the instruments playing throughout the whole song. And I was the one that was breaking stuff down and building up choruses and doing all that. At the time, not realizing that there was a term for that, it's called arranging, that you're supposed to get a check for that. I just looked at it like I'm just doing something that comes natural to me. But now that has validated that I, you know,
I'm in the right place and I'm doing what I'm doing. So I almost looked at it like it was a proving ground to myself to know that I belong here. And then the flip side of that is, like you said about the whole trust between the producer and the engineer. A lot of times engineers will be in their mind that something, a producer will ask for something that sounds like technically incorrect, right? And you'd be sitting there like, as an engineer, you're like, that doesn't make sense. What I've found is like, okay, as an engineer, I don't know everything.
And I think when you're willing to push the envelope and say, Hey, yeah, that sounds technically that like that might not work. Let's try it and see. I might learn something new today. And that, so it goes both ways with the trust as far as the engineer and producer. at the end of the day, we're both sitting there trying to make the best possible product, best possible music. So if the producer has some idea, like, I don't know.
a chirp to an 808 or something like that, and you'd be like, that sounds retarded. But then you try it and it's like, hmm, that might go. You know what I mean? Or just whatever. And I think that mutual respect and trust is powerful.
Man, there's something to that, like the edge of where you're doing it wrong and new is where all the interesting stuff happens.
Speaker 2 (34:19.987)
We just talked about that.
It's the serendipity of being like, I don't know, let's just try it. But having the confidence like, well, I haven't done work out. We'll do the next thing or whatever. But like as being in the game of what we're doing, there's something else I wanted to run this one past you. It's something I used to talk about, but like, you know, it's a left brain, right brain thing in the studio and left brain. You know, the idea of left and right is like your left brain is the logical two plus two equals four side of your brain.
And your right side of your brain is like, I like purple. And engineers usually have to do the two plus two four equals four thing. Artists will be like, man, can you make that sound more purple? And you're like, what do you even mean? But you have to like build a vocabulary with each artist as different. Don't you? Like, what are some of the craziest things you've had people ask you for? That you had to translate into technical terms.
I've had people tell me to turn up instruments that weren't in the song. Yeah, it'd be like turn up the, I remember, I'm trying to remember what instrument they told me to I think they might've been like turn up a harp. And I was like, there's no harp in the song, right? Fortunate for me, they were sitting right next to me, so I was able to like solo every sound. And it turned out the sound that they thought was a harp was like a bell string type thing, like ringing it in, they just called it a harp.
Right. But a lot of times you, it's like certain things like, cause a lot of artists will describe a sound based, like you said, like based on colors or, know, I just needed to, I just needed to add a little shine over here and make this, you know, I need this to have a vibe and da da da. And early on I was trying to pick up on what a vibe was. And then I started learning like, okay, well, in this context, the vibe means they just want a delay throw or they just want some reverb or this and that. Over the years, you just kind of just pick up to where
Speaker 1 (36:21.582)
Used to, I'd be sitting there, like I remember, you know, I didn't know when people would be like, well, turn up the boom. What's the boom? I used to go with the 808. And then it was just like, the boom is the boom. And I'm like, oh, okay, the boom. Yeah, boom, right? And so you just, over time, you just build that vocab. mean, it's cool when you learn that language because everyone is different. Like everyone, like it'll be like, I remember, who was I working with?
didn't like reverb and didn't know how to describe the reverb. I forget who it was, I was recording with him. And a lot of artists like to record with a little bit reverb just to hear. It makes them feel they don't want hear it still dry. And so I was recording with this artist and I had the reverb, delay throw was going, the delay in the back, and it was just giving it what I thought was a vibe that would help them record. And they're like, it's just throwing me off. It's making me feel queasy. And I'm like, what's making you feel queasy? And they're like, I don't know. My vocal just, it sounds.
blah, blah. And I was like, and I just hit the mute on the reverb and then like, that's it. Don't do anything. Let's go. And I was like, okay, you were just talking about the reverb made you feel queasy because it made you feel washy and this and that. Okay. Let me add that to my, my, my engineering vocabulary. So the next time I encountered that, I already know what it is. And now it's just like, a lot of times artists will describe something like, this sounds too small. Okay. I learned that that might sound over compressed. Okay. I get it. And you just start learning it how to, to, to dot.
Dissect what they're trying to say. Yeah
because it's not their job to have studied audio engineering before they walk in. That's your gig to translate that and facilitate it.
Speaker 1 (37:59.438)
Right. It does help. Like, I mean, it's a godsend that me and Fatboy can sit there and talk supertechnically. Even you, Dan, can talk technical and be able to really hone in. Like, Fat will call me, hey, man, I think that them vocals are a little, you know, a little piercing around 3K and know exactly what to do. You know, and it's just, but that's part of the lingo. But it's not, I don't look at it like it's a prerequisite for an artist to be able to do that, to make successful music. Cause you want them to be in their own space to create. You don't want them to have to worry about that.
So. Right, exactly. Let's keep it on the purple and the green skittles.
I'm thinking about purple.
Speaker 3 (38:43.404)
Hey, just real quick, we need your support. If you like seeing discussions like this, we need you to like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching.
It's Levels To This.