How do you go from an idea in your head to a prototype to

solve a problem for you to creating perhaps the most popular MIDI

controller on stage with playback text you're gonna

find out exactly how in today's interview with my good friend, Jeff

Kaylor. Hey everyone.

Welcome back to behind the spacebar if this is your first time welcome. I'm

so glad you're here. This is the podcast for people that perform on

stage with Ableton Live and today you get the privilege to

hear from my good friend. Jeff Taylor. Jeff is the designer

Creator founder Mastermind behind

otton in otone. Make some really incredible software

as well as Hardware. You'll hear us to Guess that in the

episode but Jeff does some really really cool

stuff. You're gonna hear in the episode his journey from learning music

becoming musician becoming a

singer songwriter. You'll hear about his journey

to become an able to live certified trainer. I do not share

the traits that Jeff has that would allow me to create midi controllers

successfully, but we are both able to live certified trainers,

so

Really proud and privileged to be in the family that same

family as Jeff you'll hear about

how he again went from literally an idea in his head to

creating a prototype for himself exposing it

to a group of people that said, hey,

I think this could be a thing and then went and developed that

into Oakton both software and Hardware. So there's

a lot of really good stuff in the episode. Plus you're gonna hear maybe some

new stuff. Jeff has coming as well

as some potential product ideas that are rolling around

in his head that may have been inspired by previous episode

of behind the spacebar. So I'm super

excited. I was really excited to hear about that when

Jeff and I talked and I think you'll really enjoy that as

well too. Now before we get to today's episode. There's a

couple things I want to throw out just to say hey if

you have some time consider doing this number one, if you want to

dive deeper into learning how to use able to live on stage. You can

check out on my YouTube tutorials and got a lot of great self. We'll

talk about that here in a moment, but the absolute fastest best

Most efficient way for you to do that is to head to from Studio to

stage.com/subscribe and become a

part of the from Studio to Stage Community. That's where I devote all my time on

my efforts to creating courses content templates

hanging out in the community there

answering questions and spending time almost daily

with the folks in that Community. Just trying

to encourage them and help them learn how to perform on stage with able to

live. So that's you if you want to die further into

that subject again from cdsh.com slash subscribe

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All I got If This falls through I'm just going to Disney World full time.

Somehow I'll find the way and that's what I'll do. So until then,

let's get into today's episode with Jeff.

I'm dreaming about going to Disney World full time now, but let's get into

today's episode with Jeff and learn the history and what

it took for him to come up with this pedal.

Jeff thanks for being here man. Yeah happy to

be here will thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So I

like starting these conversations and maybe a

weird awkward place but hitting people up front

with a very difficult question, but if you

had to pick and and if you've heard a few

of these beforehand you married any other questions, so this may be and you may

have an unfair Advantage but if you had to pick one thing

that you would say you are

uniquely talented at something you see other people struggle,

but you are like this just comes really easily

or if you had to pinpoint like I have

an unfair Advantage the way you see the world something like that you

pick one thing as close to one things. You could

get what would you say? That would be hmm?

I think I would have to say.

That's a good question. I think I I have an

ability to

synthesize the

Kind of the issues at hand and then

come up with.

a concise simple solution

and this this isn't I'm not really even talking about. Oh tone

right now. I'm kind of thinking more if if I'm in a brainstorming

meeting with

with a staff and I just kind of

I don't know. I I feel like I

have that that gift that

that ability to kind of

Look at okay. Here's the problem. Here's here's the

kind of the range of solutions and I don't

know I I feel like that and that's

kind of that's super vague super like

not very tangible answer but I

I don't know. I think it does bleed over into some of the Oakton stuff because

I mean the stuff at Oakton

is not that challenging. It's not that.

It's not that.

Complex, but I think a lot

of people have an aha moment when they see it. They're like, oh, yeah that why hasn't

this existed. So I guess it does kind of feed into

that but I'd say that's that's my superpower if

I have one. So that's amazing. Well in the reason I

ask that is because as you were talking and you're I think

there's this unique talent that I've seen in some people

and and

I see bits of it in myself. And so when

I see people kind of mention this I kind of want to dig deeper, but

I think there's there's something to be said and again, I

see this represented in the stuff you're doing at Oakton and

so maybe that's a good entry point into this conversation and I

kind of want to work backwards in your history, but there's

this

This kind of ability to one be aware and

notice, you know, and and I

think in our world sometimes that's boil down to what's

the problem and that's like a real I think

a lot of programmers and computer programmers have that ability of

like really clearly defining what the problem is, but

it seems like at least

with Oakton my perception from the outside looking in is you're kind

of like take taking a little bit of this and taking a little

bit of that. And again, I think a sign of a really

good product is when you you said this or the but you see it and you go.

Oh, yeah, of course, like that's that's what it should be. Right but

I but you know, I look in this is also an audio

form, which is terrible cuz I'm referencing something visually, but I'll

put this in the show notes. I'll link if you guys want to check this out. But

even looking at the oak board many like when you first sent me

a preview of this and I had

no clue you were working on this at least. I don't think so. But you send anyone

said hey, I'm watching this company and I looked at the the controller

and I thought this is perfect because

One, I mean the way I teach in the way I've

used tracks for many years is like I literally do four things

play stop previous necks. And so I looked at this and I was

like, that's essentially all I need and we've got these extra two buttons,

but it's like it feels like you kind of looked at the landscape of

what's going on in a world of let's have

Endless Options and endless things.

And you said like what's the most

Simplistic, but and I

look at things that are simple as elegant things, you know,

like every button that's on here is

intentionally put on here that's not just put on because we

had some extra buttons and we decided to throw them on but again,

maybe this is a good place to start tell us, you know,

I'm maybe building a fake backstory here

that maybe you had none of those conversations yourself, but tell us

one what oh tone is and in why you

started making pedals in software kind of

in the first place. Yes. So Oakton is

I call it a live show midi control

business. So basically things that

go around.

Controlling with midi your live show. I I

like to dabble in that

area that world. Our tagline is stage tools

for storytellers, but that's not as explicit as live show

midi control. And so I really

As a musician performer, I've done

music in in big churches for a many years

and so started using

tracks and started realizing.

I'm the tech guy, but I'm also the the song

leader and I'm also the musician the guitarist

and so it was be kind of became clear early

that it was real awkward for me to turn to my

laptop pushed the spacebar and then

turn around and like pretend like I didn't just like check

email or something. And so yeah, it kind

of It kind of necessed I kind of was just like, okay. I need some way

to

just be a little more discreet to to stay connected to

the room while the next song is getting counted

in and I was kind of the MD and

so I kind of didn't have an ability to I don't

know. It's just kind of out of necessity for me to create some

kind of foot controller. And so I I started making

just a simple four button foot controller

taught myself some electronics and

and it was it it didn't even have like

I wouldn't I wasn't using the readouts or

anything, but then I'd realized it would be nice if you know

the

The band that I was playing with who's not they're not like touring musicians.

These are Weekend Warriors who come in and they you

know are playing their volunteering at

a church and so for us

to start a song

You know, even if it's only a four or five song Set it would

help a lot if we had like a slate that said this is a song and

and these are this is the key that we're in because we just

changed it five minutes before the service started. So yeah, so all

these kind of things were just like, okay, that would be

super helpful and I started learning Max for live to figure out how to

make what would become Taz and

so

again, that was all I kind of anticipated doing was just

making a couple things that would help my what I

was doing go smoothly and just so just

you personally there was no like right I'm making this

for this person that person you're just like I'm trying to solve my own problems, right?

Exactly. Exactly. And then I and then I went to I

went to master track in LA

with Laura today in 2017.

And I had just been I just kind

of brought both of these ideas to a little

bit of fruition the foot the foot control. I was using and also

the old version of Taz, I

think it was called something like I don't

know what I'd have to look it up. It was just a generic name,

but

I just kind of got good feedback and feel like

oh, this is awesome. I would totally use this and these were these were

folks who were already doing playback. These were folks who were kind of

like me just kind of learning learning how to do

playback in a very systemized way and I think a

lot of people do play back, but it's until you kind of

figure out

Best practices it's can be it can

be a pain. And so I really went

there to kind of figure. Okay, how do the pros really do this? And how

much do I need to learn and everything so

But being in that environment, it was kind of like a bit

of confirmation people were

like, oh this is this is kind of interesting. I think I think

I could use something like this and that that made me think about doing

a

a little desktop controller and I actually

went back and built like

and Laura may have shown it at some point on on her

online stuff, but I made like a little six button.

Very kind of sharp edges aluminum

box, but it was it had six buttons

and it was just sort of it had too many output to USB

outputs. Okay, because we

were talking all about redundancy in the master track workshop and

I thought this could be kind of cool and I sent that to Laura I just as a gift

and anyway, so little things like that along

the way I've kind of

taught me. Hey, this could actually be useful and appreciated

and

Valuable to people and so yeah, I

launched oaktone and I I made 25

of each unit and I was worried. I wasn't gonna

sell enough to recoup my cost. And so

yeah, that's kind of where we started so

Can you tell me I honest

honest I think most people that watch my

content know about telling most people listening. This

will either come from your Channel or my channels

so likely know what you're doing, but for people that are

just kind of like getting into this. Yeah, I love how you

describe. You caught it was it tools for

storytellers stage tools or story? Tell us that yeah. Yeah. What

is I maybe give us

a quick rundown of what you offer and then

what you would say what separate you you know,

and maybe we have like a part two conversation of this or maybe

we'll get into some of this but what separates you from?

I don't want to throw another company on the bus but like a

large manufacturing company that makes you know

Pro Audio and makes guitars and makes this

and also happens to make a midi controller. Yeah. Yeah.

We're pretty small operation. Well, so it's

it's kind of I think that's the main

separation in my mind. I think.

Yeah, so I'll kind of start back with the first question. So it we

we make live show midi

control stage tools for storytellers. Basically. I've tried

to kind of set my sights on folks,

who are

Using a computer to perform on stage whether it's

music or whether it's theater. I think there are

a lot of applications that this goes to I've actually

met somebody I'm talking to about doing some

broadcast Solutions like television broadcast

because they use computers for teleprompters, but

he was like the stuff that

people use to advance the teleprompters isn't even like doesn't even

it's not even you know meant to be used for that and

which is exactly why I started the company to start with people are

using stuff that wasn't really meant to be controlling computers

for playback. So the example I always

give is when I was in LA that first

time

I kind of had an opportunity as a result

of of Master track to go over to

one of the rehearsal studios in there

in

Burbank, I think and

Got to sit in and actually run playback for rehearsal

for a band that was doing a pilot for a

TV show called songland and the band

was killer. It was it was Usher's band.

It was natural. I don't know if you know natural but it's

it's a he's an MD in LA and he kind of

tours with a ton of people now, but Ariana Grande

and a few others, but

I'm so it was his band and I'm running playback and

there's a lot of pressure and I've got this little Akai like

drum pad thing that I'm using to

to run playback.

and you know, those things are meant to it's good

if they hit like

a hundred times per second. It's it's good.

If you can kind of get a fast drum roll out of out of

the thing, but it's bad. If you only want it to

hit one time or if your fingers resting on it and you you want

to hit it right at the right time and you don't know if you pushed it.

You don't there's no feedback. You might have hit it twice. And so you're set

drops down to two instead of one. And so

yeah, it was just kind of like some issues that I'm sure a lot of people who've

done playback for a while know about and so I

kind of just saw that and I was like, okay, there's a pain Point. There's something

I can address in a controller.

So I made this little box the oak board mini that you showed and

that's kind of a yeah so

made that and it has it has

tactile buttons and it has programming built in

that won't let it fire more than like 10 times a second which

is way slower than any MIDI controller

out there. And so

and then there's

the upward slide Duo is kind of a mature

version of the thing. I was describing that

I made for Laura Esco today was just sort of a two

USB outputs because people are

buying play audio 12 just so

they can start and stop two computers at the same time and it's

also switches and does that stuff but other people

have already have the automatic switcher they just they need

a way to you know to get that many to both computers without having

to worry about one failing or whatever. So yeah slide

Duo has faders built

in but it also has the

the two USB outputs and the other main Hardware that

I make is the floor Vista.

And it has kind of a I've got a US patent

pending on it right now. But basically the the locators

from the set kind of

go over USB to the device on stage so

I can have my computer off stage. I can have my

outboard floor Vista at my

feet I can see what song is coming up be sure

of it when I push play.

and I think that's really the

the one that people really haven't figured out yet. People haven't been like oh, why

would I need this but I think that's the that's the

one in my mind is like

I don't know what I would do every Sunday if I didn't have that right now. It's just

sort of it's sort of a like game changer

for me.

And and it's it those are probably the one the

the ranking of of what people buy and

the mini is sort of popular I think

among.

People in the playback world who are dedicated playback Engineers.

So your side stage. You have two computers.

You're you just need to start and stop for.

Weezer post Malone or whoever's Big Show.

You're you're

supporting

and so it's it's kind of sitting side stage and then

the other slide Duo

some people wanted like a, you know, a little throw for

vocals or they they wanted like a master filter

to to bring down the volume of the tracks

and a lot of a lot of DJ style setups

will have one of those on stage to you know, kind

of be able to do a little more playing with the

With the playback tracks and everything. So yeah, that's

that's kind of in a nutshell. I also have a little bit of software

some Max for live devices Taz. There's

there's three versions of Taz and those all

basically are just designed as a cue list

manager.

Ableton Live is is I think you use

it without any kind of keyless manager, but I found it

helps to kind of know. Okay what song am I on and be able

to visually see that as well on on the floor. Vista is

real helpful for me. And so

created that it wasn't intentionally intentional

to be a Florida keyless manager. But as I

was developing Taz, I originally had kind

of a cue list display but figured out you know

how to kind of

incorporate the

previous next play stop kind of stuff into it. So yeah as

as the main one and then I've got a couple other

devices that have come up out of my own

need like there's a there's a

Start on time app that you know,

that's great for anybody who who does

a show you know, and they're the ones

running tracks, but they don't want to run on stage at the beginning of the

countdown or whatever. You can set it to, you know at 8

pm. This will start the playhead of

the Ableton transport and you know your show basically

be underway without you having to go on stage and push

play so

That's really good. Yeah, I Jeff the

thing. I love about your stuff is, you know, I did a video a couple

weeks ago where I kind of broke down like best midi controllers for

2023 and try to do that yearly and at the

beginning I tried to kind of do a MKBHD style.

Like let's look back at what God is

here and I ended up ended up doing it kind

of selfishly because it just took me back to the early

days of running tracks and and it

really was like, let me take something that was created for finger drumming

or for beat making or for mixing and

try to like incorporate it into my rig and

deal with. Okay. When I press it. I can't tell you

the amount of conversations about people using coordinator controls and

they just deal with the fact that it like double triggers and

they just like click really quickly, you know,

and and so what particularly every

time I like showcase your gear and talk about it. I talked

about the the amount of thought that

Again, the separation between you and a giant company that makes

a lot of stuff is you are in the world and and

you're you're making something specific for specific need and

so you may but by oakward meaning

go, how do I program drums on it? It's like well you I guess

you could if you really needed to yeah, but it's it's custom made

for a custom purpose and there's such freedom

in stepping on stage for me and just

having playstop previous next and just

knowing even here and you say that you engineered it to

where it's not like going to trigger a thousand times, you know? Yeah, I press

it slightly. That's huge. Absolutely huge. Yeah,

I am.

So I've had a couple conversations one. Somebody wanted

me to make what's the

livid? Ohm the livid. Ohm controller.

Yeah live it's not around anymore. But they have this this a

giant thing full of like sliders and and buttons and

and it's it's really cool

and it's like built like a tank, but you can't

get them anymore. Somebody's like hey, maybe you should do something.

Like I don't want to I don't want to get into like multifunction this

does everything kind of

midi control. I just kind of I'm trying to stay focused on making

tools for people. Like you said that it just

kind of does this one job and I feel

like that's my sweet spot. And so

Yeah, I think.

you know making the

The drum MIDI controller or

whatever, it's not my thing. I really do something. I really

want to do something that just kind of hits that

spot for people who are running playback. And I think you know

as I've kind of Justified my existence as a

business, I think.

What I've kind of told myself is that more bands whether you

go to a you know, a small club or bar

down the street or whether you go to an arena or

Stadium. They're just gonna have computers on stage. It's it's

kind of the way our our tastes are

going we want we want our shows to sound

like the record or the this the what we

call it the MP3 that the Spotify stream we want this

what the shows to sound like the recording and and people

are used to tuning and all that stuff live now and

so there's just like more more need for people to have

computers on stage. So I think you know,

I'm pretty well entrenched and

Big Shows and I'm I'm always

blown away and grateful and surprised when

a new order comes through for somebody

that I didn't even know would use tracks, but I

think there's more and more people who are who are

figuring out and thanks to you probably that I can

actually, you know do this I can actually run

Computer on stage with with my band and

not crash and burn. So yeah. So

before I knew you as Jeff at Oakton, I

knew you as the guy that I met teaching in a

worship conference. And you said hey, I'm a certified trainer too. Um,

when when did you become which I'd

really have to think about what year that was. That was so long ago. But yeah,

when did you become an Ableton Live certified trainer? And what

was why was that

important to you?

Um 20 2013. They did it take in

Hong Kong. I think it was the first time they did an intake in

Asia. So 2013. I

became an able to certified trainer and

I think

I don't know I I

Part of it was important because I just wanted to I was

kind of doing a bit of everything. I was

doing a bit of of

my full-time job at the church, and then I was also trying to

You know do music production and I was doing a

little bit of teaching. I had some students and in Hong Kong

and I was so having that extra certification.

I think just goes a long way people kind

of see it as as a

a valuable thing and also I know

now that now that I've done it it does

show that you

you know a lot about Ableton and you have kind of

You know figured out the ins and outs and they they do a good job of of

not making it to onerous, but they

also kind of have their trainers.

Continue to you know, stay up to date

on the latest versions of their software and all that kind of stuff. So I

appreciate that. It is kind of a good I know

that there are a ton of people out there that know more than me that aren't trainers but

it is a good litmus test for how well, you know, Ableton so,

Yeah, I I think one of the things I love so much about going

through that process was.

And I'm gonna link to I was making a note

as you're talking because I'm gonna link to the one of

the first behind the spacewire episodes. I did about what it

means to become a certified trainer with the process looks like what it doesn't

mean because I think a lot of times, you know, I get emails all the

time from people that say Hey, I want to become Ableton Live certified trainer

because I really want to learn Ableton and I'm like, well, you

know, it's not like a prude tool certification or a logic

certification we go somewhere for weekend. And that's not to demean

people that have gotten that because I know very

intelligent people that I mean, let's be honest

like question there intelligence that they use Pro Tools, but that's another podcast another

day. But you know, it's not going

to a classroom learning about something taking a

test and then just kind of going on and Ableton

is a company did such a good job in that experience of let's

let's like make sure they really understand how to

teach let's make sure they understand enough about different styles of music

and how different people create to be able to relate to

that and there was there was definitely

like

It's called session view. It's called Arrangement view. Do not

call it this View and that view like there's certain very

particular things. But then there are also moments of like you just

teach the way you teach the same way that each of us in the

room and I did my certification in Seattle some of

us talk a certain way. Some of us enjoyed a certain

type of music but each of us brought this kind of really cool vibe

to the experience and didn't in our own way, which I

think Ableton does really well. Okay one more question about certification then

I want to step back one further one step further

and we're doing this in Reverse like, okay. I want to

talk about your music kind of your history with music and what

you do with music what you currently do now, but in what

ways has your as you

being becoming a certified trainer your certification?

What ways has that benefited you from 2013 when

you got that till now?

hmm

that's that's

how is it benefited me? I think.

I think there are definitely students that

I've taught that have found me because

I'm on the ableton.com web page for

certificate certified trainers and and I'm

in Hong Kong and so people locally have reached

out. I had a guy that

Lived in Singapore, but nobody was in Singapore at

the time so he came over to Hong Kong and did some training. So I think

I think just kind of a direct directly

getting students as it's

helped me that way, but I

think it's also

I think it's

it's sort of like having credentials that

you're not sure what doors these

have opened, but I think it's useful and I think I think

like you said that they do a great job and they

they kind of make sure it's it's sort of a vetting process

more than a training program. But it's it's I think

it's open doors because it's it's almost like having

you know credentials after your name if you say Jeff Kaylor

able to certified trainer, I think.

I don't want to say it's like some cool Club, but

I feel like people just have respect for Ableton and

the folks that they vetted and so I think

it's hard to put a finger on.

Doors that it's open from that standpoint. I do

think it's

I think the community that you have there and they

don't want you to talk a lot about what you have

but there is there's certain online, you

know groups that you're a part of that are valuable

and just the relationships with other certified trainers is

super important to me too. So I would

say that's a huge benefit tell us a

little bit about your like musical Journey, you know,

obviously you shared being a music director being a

worship leader in church and that informing a lot of which I

think is cool that has informed a lot of decisions and directions you've

gone with Oakton, but kind of as

Succincters as you know elaborate as

you want to be kind of take us through how you got into music what you've

done in the music world and kind of what you're currently

doing as far as it pertains to like a music perspective.

Cool. Yeah.

I studied music in high school

and college and decided in college that I

was not a singer. I was a songwriter and

I would not be singing the

songs that I wrote. In fact one of my I have

a I don't know if I'd call it a regret but my grandfather passed

away just after college and

I wrote a song in his honor,

but I I didn't even feel qualified to

sing it so I had like the the

worship leader that church sing it because I felt like he's got

a singing voice and I'm just a songwriter so

I just kind of say that to say I just never saw

myself as a singer. And so I thought maybe someday I'll

score films or I'll do music for

You know commercials jingle writer or something like that. And so

kind of got into.

Radio and broadcasting and thinking I would get into jingle riding

and then I just kind of kept in radio and I

did like radio production for commercials doing actual

editing on some of the very first I was

doing editing on like real to real machines. And

then I was also, you know cool doing that that was

like our backup was on the real to real and they would record into Old

software called Turtle Beach and it's like

some early early Sonic Solutions.

Some early death Dawes and so I did

did a lot of just radio production sound effects music

that kind of thing with voiceover and then went

to Colorado work to

focus on the family, which a lot of people probably know

for the political views of the founder, but it's actually it

was actually at the time. It was a really like prestigious audio.

you know Broadcasting Company they you know,

a lot of people in in the Christian world really looked up

to the audio production that was done at focus and I still have

high opinions of all the stuff they they do

there at the time and

so I was part of that for

Almost 10 years and at the

tail end of that. I kind of went through

some personal stuff and was doing

some songwriting and wrote some very personal songs and and was

like, okay, I'm gonna I was posting on message boards some

of my ideas and was getting positive feedback about

my voice. And so I was like, okay, maybe I'll just I'm record

a few of these songs and

ended up recording an album

called okay that I

got into the hands of some folks at Christianity Today

one of the

Publications in the Christian world that that stuff

like that and they they reviewed the album and then they

ended up putting me on like their top 12 albums of

2007 list. Wow, which was

kind of like I

Yeah, it was just a cool honor and that ended

up kind of getting.

Circulated my name a little bit on online.

And so that was a cool like moment. I

actually I don't know if you know this but I actually presented at the

Dove Awards that year because of

because that's you know of the album and it

was I was on stage with Needtobreathe and a

while have a fun. Yeah, I was presented a word

for

yeah, it was a gospel album

award.

Anyway, kind of a fun experience and really cool move to

Hong Kong shortly after that and did

another album and I think I got

a taste of reality because I think anybody in the America cares

about music that's produced outside of America. At least

on that scale of Independence. Yeah. So anyway, it

was it was a little more challenging with the second project

to get much.

much happening with it, but it was

around the same time that I had got more comfortable singing that

I was asked by like three different

churches to lead worship for them and

Again, it was kind of like one of these things where it's like, okay. I just

need to kind of

walk through these doors that seemed seem to be being opened

not by my power. So

I did that I came to Hong Kong took my

first full-time worship leading job here at the church in Hong

Kong called Island ECC and

they've been super gracious with with allowing me to

experiment using tracks and all that stuff. And that's really

where I cut my teeth on using Ableton and and figuring

out my own best practices

then you know, I I

remember those were the days of

You and KP and oh, yeah,

just if a handful of people who were

doing any kind of content online, and it

was always.

a super valuable to to find those videos and and learn

from you and and Christian and

I call that a dark ages because that's what I was talking about session view.

So thankfully most of those videos don't that's

what's so ironic to me is people like oh you

just all you use as a range of you and I'm like buddy. You got no

idea, you know idea. Yeah, I

would just leave it at that as far as music and

I know we've gone longer than than I should have so I

don't want to take too much more your time. But as far as what you

do musically now, are you creating music now

writing songs? Are you

regularly, you know leading worship at church kind of what

what's your like musical output look like currently

Yeah, still still regularly leading

music at church. We do some original music at church.

I think it's been a year. So since we've written original

song, but for some reason will every

time Christmas Comes Around Leora and I get inspired

and we write a new song for Christmas. So I don't know

why but we kind of have done that the past few years. So

the latest song that we've written is probably a Christmas

song Under the moniker renew

worship and then okay also had

an opportunity and this was sort

of a wild thing but a very good friend made

a movie. He said

he he was a filmmaker here in Hong Kong and invited

me to to do

the soundtrack even though I had never done a soundtrack. He was

like, I'd rather have people in this project to

I'm good friends with and who I can trust and so we

kind of co-compose the soundtrack for full length

feature film called the calm beyond. The director

was Josh Joshua Wong and he actually passed away

from cancer in 20. It just

a couple just shortly after we finished the film. It was actually signed

for international distribution by Sony and so

it's actually a

a cool

kind of swan song for Josh, but it

was it was a great opportunity for me

to kind of

Experience one of those things that I'd wanted to do since my

early days of getting into music so yeah can

add add that

film composer to that list of things that makes me

feel important now so that's good. Yeah. There you go. That's awesome. Well,

we'll have to put a link to that. We'll connect offline. Yes

and links and put in the show notes all that stuff, which is

really cool. Someone listening to this including myself because

thank God I was certified before my

extra life was a thing and was a qualification for like understanding

annoying. So I have never once done anything.

I've never created a Max or live device a good

good buddy. Mine Tyler who works with me and I've known

him for many many years. He just text me the other day is

like hey, I finished the max alive device I was working on so I

know that like I have friends

that love it use it do great stuff that stuff

you've created with it is amazing someone listening

to this that is intrigued with about Max alive and

wants to get started. What's the one thing?

suggest they do to start

there is a

oh man that I didn't see this question coming

well, but that's okay. I I have a

I can't remember the name of the course. I want to say clavio, but

I don't think that's right. But there's a there's a course that's free online

that is really expensive it. I

want to say it's out of

it's out of San Francisco. There's a school in

San Francisco and they they publish it and I'll find

it and and send it we can put in the show notes, but

it's actually yeah a really valuable Max course

and all the stuff in Max of

course is applicable to Max for live. I think that's a distinction

that made people don't know is Max was

a separate program by cycling 74 then Ableton

acquired that company and so it's all sort

of like Blended together. Now, if you if you can do something in

Max, then you can do something in Max for live max for

life has a few objects that pertain to

Ableton Live specifically but

So max is a is a visual

object programming language meaning.

You can use JavaScript to to connect the dots. But you

can also just use like a little little cable to connect

say

You know output to you know sine wave

and that you can just use a little cable and that sine

wave will go out the cable or or a metronome device

that click will go out, you know your audio thing or make a

light blink or whatever. So there are okay. It's it's

object object oriented. Am I saying that right? It's it's

visual is visual language. So yeah, you're just

connecting lines. You're not really writing code which for

me that's really great. I'm kind of a very visual person.

So yeah, it's I

would say this this course

just actually doing some

basic education on this course is

was really valuable for me and just kind of learning some of

the basics on it. It's a it's a

Here's just a free thing. If you look if you

open a Max Patch and you look at the devices, everything is happening

from the right to the left. So that's

opposite of what we normally read, but everything's happening from the right to

the left. So if there's a cable going down out of a device to the

right and there's another cable coming out of the device to

the left.

It's going to process what's happening out of the right first and that's

just one of the many things that I learned in this course. That was like, okay, that's not

intuitive. But now that I know that that can

solve a ton of problems with your facing when you're first learning the program,

so

That's amazing. Yeah. Well by the time you're listening to this, we've got

a link to that in the show notes to check out which is

something I've definitely gonna check out. And then yeah, so

thanks a lot Jeff that's super super helpful. Um,

and then finally where can people follow what you're

doing with Oakton find more about the company or follow you personally.

Yeah. I'm most active at Instagram.

I'm just Instagram and Oakton official but if you just search Oakton, you'll

find me and then oakton.com is

the website and we're gonna start doing a

bit more email content.

So if people want to sign up for the the email

list there you'll be able to find out more about us

and I promise it won't just be a spammy place

to get a ton of emails from us. So yeah, if

you want to spend a place to get a ton of emails from Studio to

stage.com Elise. Well

Jeff, thank you

so much. This has been amazing. Thank you

one to let me know you're recording this on your Saturday my Friday, so

I'm thankful. You know the Earth that we did continue

for one more day. Just come back today. Yeah, that's

good. But man, thank

you so much. Thanks. Thanks for what you do and I really do mean this

thanks for what you do for folks in the playback

community and you can see the

you can see the intention and the effort.

And the care, I think I've said this on videos before but you really true can

see the intention and the care that you

put into your software and your Hardware in particularly.

So, you know on behalf of all this using

Ableton for playback or Q lab or God forbid

Pro Tools for playback, you know,

thank you for what you're doing and and it really does show and really

makes our jobs a whole lot

easier for sure.

Thanks, man. That means a ton especially coming from you. I I am so

grateful for not just your constant promotion

of Oakton stuff, which I

I feel like I'm I've benefited a lot from from

that but I'm also just grateful for the content you make

the stuff that I learned from you still and yeah,

so really appreciate it and

means a lot coming from

Thanks, Jeff.

So I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jeff

as much as I enjoyed having that conversation with him. We really did cut

down the conversation because we went almost over an hour.

So there's stuff I cut out that I wish I

could have included in this podcast and honestly, I told Jeff he could

come back and we could do another hour or two on this

because just really great guy to talk to and

about life and about music and business and

the things he's doing I would highly encourage you to support what

Jeff is doing. You can find links below and in

fact when you click those links, you're not only supporting Jeff, but you'll also support me.

So Jeff has been generous enough to set up an affiliate

thing with me which basically means when you purchase something from Jeff

it costs you nothing extra, but he's gonna send me

a little bit of what you purchase just to say. Hey, well, thanks for sending these kind

folks my way. So if you like the products

Jeff has and some of the stuff we

talked about in the episode click the links and the description of this episode and

the show notes of this episode and you can go to Jeff site

and it cost you nothing extra to support my channel.

My efforts as well when you do that, which is really great.

I think it's important to support folks like Jeff because again,

I love that the internet I love that technology

is at a place where an individual with an idea can

prototype create a product create software

that's literally used on stages around

the world with some of the world's biggest artists. In fact, when we ended the call,

Jeff mentioned a couple people he couldn't mention on the on

the podcast on the recording they're using Oakton stuff.

And I mean, they're the artist you're listening to

on the radio. Like it's it's literally you can go to Jeff site and

see some of the people that are there that we're willing to put their name in

The Press not because of fear of affiliation with

Jeff but fear of being found out that they use backing tracks surprise.

Everyone uses backing tracks. I

know you don't because you're a real musician, but everyone else does

but yeah, Jeff is just doing some really cool stuff.

And again, I love that. You heard me asking the Pod but I love

that, you know, there's companies with giant factories

around the world creating many controllers and products, but

in Hong Kong

Is creating amazing products incredibly well

made custom built that are very simple

and very elegant so go check out Jeff's stuff super excited

for the things. He has coming. He may be

let me in a little bit on a secret of some stuff that's coming

and I can't wait the future is bright over at

the Oakton shop. So Jeff, thanks for being a part of today's episode

again. You could find links on how to reach out to him as well as

find his products in the description and the show notes. If you

want to become it from CD at a stage community members subscriber

head to from studio stage.com/subscribe. And

finally if you're watching on YouTube consider hitting the Subscribe button,

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watching. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next one. Take care everybody.