January 14, 2025 • 71 mins
Nick Maclaren is the Chief Strategy Officer for Serato. Nick talked about his experiences as a DJ and how it lead him to become a Serato user. We discuss Serato's new multi-fx plug-in Hex FX. Nick also spoke about the technological developments that have changed DJing and music production, and the challenges that lie ahead as tech gets more and more powerful.
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Links:
- Serato - https://serato.com
- Serato Hex FX - https://serato.com/hex-fx
- Creativity a Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese - https://amzn.to/4hffpHG
- Sarah Belle Reid on the Music Production Podcast - https://brianfunk.com/blog/sarah-belle-reid
- Brian Funk Website - https://brianfunk.com
- Music Production Club - https://brianfunk.com/mpc
- 5-Minute Music Producer - https://brianfunk.com/book
- Intro Music Made with 16-Bit Ableton Live Pack - https://brianfunk.com/blog/16-bit
- Music Production Podcast - https://brianfunk.com/podcast
- Save 25% on Ableton Live Packs at my store with the code: PODCAST - https://brianfunk.com/store
- This episode was edited by Animus Invidious of PerforModule - https://performodule.com/
- Thank you for listening.
Please review the Music Production Podcast on your favorite podcast provider!
And don’t forget to visit my site https://BrianFunk.com for music production tutorials, videos, and sound packs.
Brian Funk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's up, Nick?
Great to have you here, man.
Hey Brian, yeah cool, thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Yeah, it's good to talk to you.
Serato has been a big name in the landscape for a long time, I think 25 years now, right?
Yeah, just celebrating the 25 year anniversary this year.
exciting, big moment for us.
It's kind of weird to think that the year 2000, or I guess even is it 1999 for Serrata?
(00:28):
That's 25 years ago.
Just blows my mind.
Time just flies by.
time flies and it starts going faster the older you get, I think.
But yeah, that was pitching time back in 99 basically.
So yeah.
you been with the company the whole time?
No, I haven't.
No, I've been with the company almost, I'm going to say almost 17 years.
(00:50):
so pretty, pretty good chunk of, of that time, but wasn't there for the very early days.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
chief strategy officer.
What does that entail?
What kind of work are you doing?
What's the day to day like?
Yeah, it's a pretty, I guess it sounds like a big title, doesn't it?
(01:12):
But ultimately, I think, you my role is thinking about what one, like, what do we do next?
And then what are we doing day to day in the product?
So it sort of encompasses like the product management function.
So I look after the product owners and things, you know, the data, the insights teams, andthen like the design and UX of things.
But really it's thinking about what are we doing and how can we do things better?
(01:34):
And what do we do?
What should we do next?
So
Yeah, it's a fun role.
And, we're very much like a product lead or have been a product lead company.
So, you know, my background very much is more on the product side rather than thinkingabout everything super commercially.
If, know, I know obviously they go and, you know, they work in tandem, but ultimately it'slike, how do we make really cool products for, for artists?
(01:56):
Is really, you know, if you've the elevator pitch or the one-liner is like, cool stuffshould we make?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's a tall order.
I think maybe a lot of people have this idea that, you should just make this, make that.
But so much goes into just making it a reality, making it something that's useful and thatworks.
(02:19):
I know a lot of the things I think I want sometimes would probably never work in reality.
So getting those things ironed out must be quite a challenge.
Yeah, and look, it's a, it's, it can be, I think the hardest part about the job is thereare like a million great ideas, right?
But how do you like separate?
There's like, you know, billions of good ideas, a million great ideas.
(02:42):
And then how do you find out those real like killer, excellent, or, know, beyond greatideas from the heap and prioritize those, you know, and often you talk to people and
they're, aren't you doing this?
Why aren't you doing that?
And I think, yeah, that's the hardest thing.
It's not cause we don't want to, it's like resources are finite.
and you have to focus on the ultimate, like the very best of the best.
(03:02):
And that's often the hardest thing is figuring out what that is.
And you've got to figure that out before you even go to market.
Right.
You can get a taste of that if anyone's ever been in.
a beta forum or some kind of testing of a product where they're taking suggestions.
If every suggestion was taken, you just have this bloated, complicated, confusing productor software or whatever it is.
(03:29):
How do you guys make those decisions?
Because like you said, there's probably a lot of really great suggestions, but inpracticality, you just can't do everything.
Right.
Yeah.
And look, that's, that's often through very heavy debates, you know, and I wouldn't saythey get heated as in, you know, aggressive debates, but we have like really good debates
(03:51):
about, you know, how to, what, what types of customers should we be serving?
you know, what, what kind of artists do you, do we think we'll use this?
You know, it doesn't always necessarily be, need to be the mass either, right?
We don't necessarily, when we develop a feature, we acknowledge that it might be quite,
niche for a group of people, but actually if they love it, then that's like a greatsuccess for us.
(04:14):
there's not like really a formula that we use, you know, it's sort of, it can be fluid andhow we, how we think about things, but ultimately it's like, we want to make cool stuff.
So people, you know, make music or they play with music in interesting ways and hopefullychange how they're interacting with things.
So, and often you don't know until the product's been out and people are using it.
(04:35):
you know, so it is.
Yeah, it's probably one of harder things about the job is figuring out, yeah, who totarget, what to do, and that sort of thing.
And often you'll find like people that use it in ways you never even anticipated or, youknow, there's all kinds of weird things.
So it's a fun job and it keeps you on your toes.
imagine.
(04:55):
I love those stories of products that are designed for one thing maybe and then they comeout and they get reused or changed up.
think one of the more famous musical examples is the Roland 303.
for bass lines is, from what I understand, really designed for kind of musicians to havean accompaniment with.
(05:16):
But then electronic music producers created like these cool acid bass lines that maybeeven on, if you heard in isolation, you'd be like, what is that like laser noise that's
going on?
But then it birthed a whole entire genre of music.
There's.
was the beginning of the 808 as well, if I'm not wrong, was it was basically anaccompaniment drum module for organ players and things to play along to.
(05:43):
So it's, yeah, it is crazy how these products, and I think when it came out, if I'm notwrong, the 808 wasn't super successful, but it was actually many years later that it was
adopted by hip hop and like techno and electronic producers.
And suddenly it was like, okay, totally different market, but it found its success in likea weird other little
(06:04):
part of the world that was not intended to.
I'm sure the product managers and marketers and things when they launched those modulesout of Roland were not planning that at all.
So yeah, it's fun.
It's fun.
That's what I love about working in the music biz is you make things and you see it pop upin places you never expected.
(06:25):
That's a really cool thing I think as well.
Serato is based in New Zealand.
I don't know if everyone knows where New Zealand is, but it's on the other side of theworld.
we're right down three and a half hours on a plane from Australia.
So we're really far away.
It's at least three hours to get to any other country, let alone the US, which is a good12 hour flight to the West coast.
And so we make stuff down in New Zealand and then I'll be looking on Instagram orsomething and it'll be like, my God, like my hero artist from my childhood is using this
(06:56):
product that we made.
down the road in New Zealand.
It still blows my mind that you see these little things happen that would in some ways notunintentional, you know, it's always the dream, but when it happens, it just blows your
way.
Yeah, I can only imagine to see that when it's so local for you like that and you're justgoing to work, right?
You're doing your thing, making stuff that you think is cool.
(07:19):
And then next thing you know.
And Serato has been big and just, I think the whole culture really, DJ culture andbringing that to the forefront.
It's just exploded.
grandeur of the shows and a buddy of mine was just sending me videos from I forget exactlywhat show it is right now, big festival, stage, mushrooms and all kinds of crazy lights
(07:46):
that's just gotta have been pretty cool for you to just watch this kind of EDM and DJculture just blow up and the time you've been with the company.
Yeah, yeah.
It's been, it's been a wild journey.
think, excuse me, before, you know, before I joined Serato, I was, you know, more or lessa working DJ producer in New Zealand.
(08:11):
And so, you know, I was doing little things, trying to, to, you know, DJing was my, was mything.
And, you know, I have all these heroes and all these people that, you know, I had theirrecords, you know, my...
in my crates or their posters on my wall or you know, like the flyers I would pick up fromthe local, local store.
and then to go on and then over the years to have those people, you know, not only use ourproduct, but when you meet them, they're thanked, like they're almost like, hey man, thank
(08:40):
thanks.
Thanks for what you do.
And you're like, what do you mean?
Thank, thank you for what you do.
And so this is really weird sort of, you know, mutual respect, which is amazing.
but yet
To be able to make products for those sort of artists and heroes and things still wasreally humbling and blows me away.
When I first, I'm an Ableton Live user.
(09:01):
That's my kind of thing.
I found there was a lot of action going on in New Zealand and Australia.
And...
For me, I really didn't come across a lot of stuff that was happening in my world or inother interests I had, but with music there just seems to be something going on there.
(09:25):
Lots of people are coming out of it, lots of companies, of just very forward-thinkingstuff that I guess there's something going on.
I've never been, so I can't speak to it, but there seems to be something kind of like inthe air going on in that area.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
I think there's, speaking about New Zealand, we've got our indigenous population, theMaori people, really musical, really heavy musical sort of vibes that translates through
(09:59):
the school system.
you learn, there's kind of like classic songs that are taught through school.
We have huge Polynesian communities coming from like,
Samoa and Tonga and all those communities are also really, really musical.
And it sort of all maybe blends together and just, don't my upbringing felt very, verymusical, even unintentionally.
(10:20):
My mom learned the guitar, she could play songs, she was a primary school teacher.
We all learned things at school.
I don't know if that's part of it, or maybe it's just one of those serendipitous thingswhere you can't explain it.
But there's definitely like strong local sort of...
musical influence I think throughout the New Zealand population.
(10:41):
Yeah, it's really cool.
So you were DJing on your own working when you were you using Serato at that time or?
no.
So when I first started, you know, showing my age, obviously Serato was not a thing.
and so I started, I started relatively young, DJing.
I sort of picked up some turntables.
(11:01):
I was working at a bike shop of all things.
and maybe we can come back to that story cause it's interesting influence for me, but Iwas working at a bike shop and one of the guys there, you know, was a DJ often how it
back.
This is almost like basically pre-internet, right?
So you couldn't like jump on, you know,
the internet and find out about things.
And he was like, you should get into DJing man.
(11:23):
It's really fun.
You've got a good ear for music.
And convinced me over like the summer when I was working my summer job to I bought aturntable because that's what I could afford and a mixer and just had, so I had one mixer,
one turntable in the beginning and then borrowed my parents turntable that was, you know,had no pitch control.
So I would use that and sort of try and mix back to back, you know, with one, oneturntable with a pitch control.
(11:47):
The other one was just static.
Anyway, that was my first foray.
So very simple mixer, one turntable, and then started just buying records.
So that's how I started DJing.
Serato wasn't a thing.
Computers were kind of still, I don't know what it was like in the US at the time, like wehad desktops, but laptops were certainly not as anywhere near as ubiquitous as they are
(12:10):
now.
You know, my first computer was a desktop that I had to like really shop around to figureout all this run.
a pro tool system.
So this is yeah, so the pre Serato edge and then so that would have been like late ninelate nineties.
(12:30):
And then in the early two thousands, you know, was playing some club gigs, but again, itwas all records.
And then a friend of mine was like, Hey, have you heard about this Serato thing that theseguys are making locally?
and you know, it sounded interesting, but again, it was a very radical world.
like, yeah, they're doing this thing where you can playback MP3s on your computer usinglike basically your standard system and it uses a control tone.
(12:58):
And yeah, again, showing, you I guess that 20 year gap now in technology, but that waslike, what?
It didn't make any sense.
But they were, yeah, they're developing it locally in Auckland.
And then my friend,
got a hold of like a very early copy and they'd actually given him like a loaner laptop togo with it.
(13:18):
Because again, no DJs had laptops.
And so they couldn't just give out beta versions to people.
They had to give like the laptop along with it.
You know, just like, hey, here's the system.
This is how it might work.
You know, the original Serato Rainbox, the great thing about it was plug, you could plugit into any existing DJ setup.
But yeah, you had to the laptop.
So anyway, here the Serato system ran in his house and we started playing with it.
(13:41):
And I was like, wow, this is incredible.
But you the problem back then is we didn't have music.
And all of our music was on vinyl.
It was just kind of, know, there were CDs.
was the kind of the Napster, you know, beginning of like that era.
But there was still this challenge of how do I get music onto my computer?
(14:01):
So it was, you know, it was cool, but there was like, there was almost like that barrierthen, but slowly, like locally, we started using it.
And I think like I was one of the, probably one of the first local DJs to
Adopt it You know for club gigs and it wasn't an overnight thing It was very much one ofthose all do I trust this you start off, know, you still take your credit records to the
(14:25):
club And you bring your laptop and you and you play mostly the records and you play a fewsongs off the laptop to ease into it over time you sort of use the laptop more and more
and you bet you're still taking half a crate and then Finally, I think after a year or soyou're like, okay.
I'm gonna just I'm gonna be the Serato laptop guy now
Going for it.
Yeah.
And that's obviously when, you know, at the same time, the sort of the availability ofmusic and things through the Apple iTunes store was then take off.
(14:52):
So it was one of those times and periods of time where I think the DJ side of things wassort of developing, but also like you had the, I guess the consumer side of things was
also developing around availability of music format shifting, you know, from CDs todownloads and things.
And so it was all sort of happening in tandem that made it.
(15:12):
you know, right place, right time.
Yeah, a couple of things really came together at the same time for us there.
Computers being portable like that.
I mean, I can remember too, when we were first as a rock bands in high school trying toput our music on the internet, you got like the worst quality and it was just a short
(15:34):
clip.
I I can't imagine that anybody was drawn to our music hearing that, knowing what thatstuff sounded like.
I'd love to know what the bit rate was for that.
It has to be like just so low, but it was like that period of, you know, where are wegoing to go for it?
And the same thing happened with me with recording where finally, I don't think it wastill like 2005 that I got a laptop and was like, I'm going for it.
(16:02):
You know, I'd seen friends using Pro Tools and I'm going to leave behind all this otherstuff.
Exciting time, but.
exactly.
Yeah, so on the recording side, equally, was sort of things were developing very quickly.
So when I started making music, it was with an MPC 2000 and I managed to get a hold of aKorg Triton as well and had it all routed with sort of old school, just regular MIDI
(16:30):
cables and had it all synced up.
But then the computer thing was happening.
I was like, we need to start recording this.
But I think...
you know, again, this is going off memory.
think Pro Tools at the time was not really available to anyone except for the very highend HD stuff, but they just launched the inbox.
I don't know if you know, like, the original inbox and was like basically they can, yeah,yeah.
(16:52):
So like their consumer solution.
And I remember like, you know, putting, pulling a whole lot of money together and buyinglike a Pro Tool system so I could record all this stuff off my NPC.
and actually start working on music properly.
And that was wild too.
I remember back then, like the very early days, like that first Pro Tools inbox kitactually came with an Ableton Live demo CD as well.
(17:17):
It was like, yeah, when it back when it was like really Ableton Live is like, this is adifferent thing.
Yeah, I didn't understand what the heck it was.
It looked kind of like a spreadsheet and I thought it was only DJing software actually.
And that's, I've never did that before.
So I was like, I don't know, this weird thing.
(17:38):
I don't even know Pro Tools yet.
So, but it was, it's funny to, know, little did I know, like that would become the way Iwent with it.
That was a huge innovation.
We forget that small interface.
I think the closest you could get was those Digio 2s, 002s, but those were giant rackthings.
(18:03):
A friend of mine had one that he added in this huge thing he had to cart around to recordin.
was just...
Yeah.
mean, it was, you know, the risk of this turn turning into a couple of old guys talkingpodcast.
You know, it was like the, the, the hoops you had to jump through back then to like recordand get music out compared to now.
(18:28):
That's just come so far.
Isn't it?
It's, and it's amazing for just, you know, how quick you can just iterate and play withstuff and get music out now compared to back then.
It was, you know, there was, yeah, it was a
It was hard.
was lot.
I'm sure the generation before then felt it was even harder.
So yeah, we've come a long way.
(18:49):
But at the time I remember thinking it was, this is great.
You my God, like I can't believe it.
Coming from like a four track cassette recorder to then I got these ADATs, least it's ADATmachines.
I'm starting to think of the name.
That's what they were, with the VCR tapes.
And that was like, my God, this is crazy.
(19:10):
I mean, they were already old by then and just...
Every single step, although now looking back feels really primitive, it felt like, wow,things are getting really cool now.
And so it's been fun to be on that adventure.
And I am really glad I know what it was like to some degree anyway, to struggle and howlucky we are now to just call things up in a plugin or on your laptop and just, boom, here
(19:38):
we go.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Do you still DJ now?
Yeah, I do.
well, put it this way.
I still play around like at home, at work, you know, for like small friends, kind ofthings.
I, I don't like, I haven't like DJ in a club in a, in a little while, you know, to behonest.
(20:03):
I still love, I love DJing.
I've got, you know, I've got four kids, getting, you know, getting a, going and playing agig at 2 AM.
And then coming home and having kids jump on your head at, you know, 6 a.m.
Means that, know, DJing is not like the highest priority for me at the moment in terms oflike club gigs.
I still love it and I like the idea of it.
(20:24):
And I think I'll, you know, I'll return to that once the kids get a little bit older.
But right now, you know, between the day job, you know, when I get free time, I lovemaking music, you know, making beats and things, recording music and playing around with
DJ stuff.
But yeah.
I don't need to be going to the club at 2am at the moment.
Yeah, I don't really have that desire either.
(20:47):
I don't have kids either, but it's just, you know, after a while, I guess.
I think that's a really cool thing.
I've seen this with a lot of music tech companies that it comes from actual musicians andpeople that were doing it, that were using it.
And a lot of that passion is put into the products.
(21:08):
And this seems no different that it's got that.
kind of a it was made by us, for us kind of feeling to it.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I've noticed that too.
I think the, I mean, that's how the Ableton guys started, right?
That was, I think it's a pretty common theme, especially amongst the ones that have stayedaround and be successful because ultimately economies go up and down and priorities
(21:37):
change.
But I think if the end goal is still to make great tools for our effectively, our peersand idols.
then that really keeps you focused on what the mission is.
It applies even to how, say, how we hire for the product team.
So all the guys and girls that work in the product team at Serato, for the most part, havebeen working DJs or working producers at some point in their lives.
(22:05):
And so it just helps understand the space.
I think you can teach product management skills and things to these people, but it'sreally hard to teach.
the nuances of like DJing and music production and even like the passion.
You can't teach passion, I think.
And so if you've got an underlying passion for making and using this stuff, it reallyhelps become like great product people.
(22:32):
So yeah, I think that's probably why.
I think it keeps you focused on what is the mission, what we're trying to do.
Yeah.
A lot of other industries wind up with people making big decisions for the company or theorganization, or in my case, it's education where, you know, they don't know what it's
(22:55):
like on the ground floor, what's actually going on.
And sometimes things sound really good in your head, but when you put it into practice,it's just not how things work.
That perspective is really important.
think that's probably why a lot of the companies.
like you mentioned, that have stuck around are for those reasons.
(23:15):
They're built on that, that passion and the people that are making important decisionsunderstand the ramifications of those choices.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, yeah, like I said, that's something we, we're always thinking about that andwe're always using it.
And I think that's the big thing is, you know, in some ways we're lucky working in a, Iguess, an industry where there is a lot of passionate people.
(23:40):
I think it's probably harder to hire passionate accounting, you know, users to makeaccounting software, maybe.
But I think when you're playing in the music space or in a creative field or somethingwhere there's like a real hobby, like a passion behind it, think it's finding those people
that live and breathe it really helps make cool stuff.
(24:02):
And you can do all the user research and all this stuff on the side, of course, becauseyou wanna find out, you don't wanna make things just for yourself all the time.
But it's also a very nice frame of reference to come back to if things sort of becomedifficult, we need to make quick pivots or quick decisions.
If you've got this underlying DNA, it's like a passion for music and the products, then Ithink it really helps.
(24:26):
Hmm.
Yeah, it comes through.
mean, I teach high school English as a day job and a lot of the things I come acrosssoftware wise, you try to use it you're like, this person has never taught in a classroom.
know, whoever made this doesn't understand what it's like to have to read 30 answers orsomething like that, or how to input grades or make comments.
(24:50):
Just,
You get it comes through when you're using this stuff.
So that's a cool thing.
So you guys got some fun stuff coming up with the 25th anniversary and all.
Do you want to talk about the new thing that will be released by the time this episode isgoing live?
(25:15):
yeah, so the new new plugin.
Yeah, we're good to talk about that, right?
Because it'll be it'll be out and in the wild.
Yeah, so we're launching.
Well, we have launched a new new Serato plugin called Hex effects.
And so it's I guess at a very high level, it's a multi effects plugin filled with a ton ofreally fun effects that you can chain together.
(25:38):
It's got a macro knob that you can control various things all at once.
It's not just a wet and dry.
And I think from memory, I should have the notes in front of me, but it's got a fewhundred presets.
And of course you can make your own and make, you know, just really go wild with it.
I should have a better sales spiel for it, you know, but obviously I'm the product guy.
(26:00):
So I think ultimately we tried to make something that, and it comes across, I think in alot of our Serato products that on the surface is very simple.
And so, you know, you've got one nice big sort of macro control that controls.
you know, six different effects that you can chop and change.
But you can go deeper and there's, know, you can flip it around and, you know, unveil theparameters and go deep and yeah, have a lot of fun with it.
(26:24):
So I'm kind of like more of a preset guy.
Like I just like cycle through, you know, there's a couple of hundred presets that arereally fun to use, but you can make, like I said, you can make your own, you can make new
combinations, edit and so on.
So yeah, super excited about that.
It's our...
I guess it's our third plugin, if you count pitch and time.
So if you think that the roots of Serato when we're this 25 year anniversary is pitch andtime for Pro Tools was the thing that the company was founded on.
(26:53):
We subsequently went into DJ and made our name probably in a more famous way and DJing.
But in the last few years gone back to music production.
we launched Serato Sample, Serato Studio as our sort of standalone DAW and then yeah.
Hicks-a-Fix, which is our new thing.
And it's really cool.
(27:14):
I've had some time with it to mess around and like you said, this ability to be reallysimple, but also go deep.
I personally appreciate a lot.
I I love being able to turn the knobs and get in there and figure out how I want to dialin like what the frequency on my bit crushes and all this kind of very minutia stuff.
(27:38):
But when I'm in the creative,
mindset when I'm just trying to make and create and flow.
I love just having simple broad strokes like that, the big macro that is turning maybelike 17 different controls at once.
But it just allows you to operate with that plugin and those two very different mindsets.
(28:01):
And that's, for me, I'm always struggling with the jump between the two.
The creation part and that kind of like
play aspect and then you have to get a little more serious and edit and fix things.
that transition time I find is, it's very difficult to keep going through back and forth.
(28:27):
So if the, if it's a tool that I really want to use, but I have to get too technical, thatcan pull me out of that creative flow.
And I really do appreciate that you've got almost
I think it's just like a button on the side that exposes all the deeper controls or youcan just hide them away and tuck them away.
Just I'll turn the big knob, get going and have fun.
(28:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
You know, it's that transition time, I think, you you talked about where you're goingfrom, you know, you're in the zone, that creative, you know, that creative moment that's
often hard to recapture, moving into like there when you need to dial things in or maybeget the actual idea down on paper.
And that's, yes, like I say, something that Hex does really well.
(29:10):
It was actually the motivation for Serato sample in the beginning.
I know that we're here to talk about Hex, but I think it's important to touch on
You know, with Serato Sample, the actual motivation for that was we were looking at howdifferent different people, you know, DJs, sample based producers and so on were making
music.
know, like certainly myself, we saw a bunch of guys in New York doing it where they wouldactually use Serato.
(29:35):
They put a record, you know, they'd be having like a soul sample or something insideSerato.
They'll be drumming on the cue points and like recording that into Pro Tools or doingsomething kind of funny.
and the, or, or later trying to recreate that on an NPC or trying to recreate that inAbleton, that sort of spontaneous moment they had with the DJ software.
And like there's something here with, you know, we could just make a simple plugin thatalmost it's not for DJs so to speak.
(30:00):
but it mimics that DJ style of sampling, where you're, you're throwing a sample and you'vegot a bunch of trigger points, cue points, you play with them, you do something, you know,
that's really quite, you know, spontaneous and
you've been able to capture that.
And so that was the motivation behind, you know, sample initially.
And that's sort of, guess, our philosophy or how we think about all of our things thatwhich comes through into the hex effects as well with that.
(30:27):
Those two sort of zones where let me be spontaneous, let me play, you know, with the bigknob in the moment.
And then, and then, but then later on, if you've got parameters or other things you wantto tweak, you're able to do that.
Hmm.
That's pretty cool that you're able to watch people do that and kind of figure out like,Hey, you know, what would make your life easier?
(30:50):
You're so that's, there's a lot of observation, I guess that goes on when you're trying tocome up with these ideas for new products and problems you're trying to solve.
yeah.
And I think that comes down to again, the, you know, my, you know, not just me, I'm totalk about me, a lot of the company.
And it goes back to that previous conversation.
(31:11):
Like, I don't, like I work at Serato, but also when I turn off the last meeting of theday, I'm probably going to go into the, like the living room and put on a music production
video on YouTube.
Or I'm going to, you know, I kind of, without as corny as it sounds, we're living andbreathing.
what we're doing and so it's like you're not really clocking off at the end of the day.
(31:32):
I'm making music in the evening.
I'm watching people on Instagram use music production stuff.
I'm watching DJs on YouTube.
I guess it's just, you know, we're just absorbing without really thinking about it.
You're always doing research and you're absorbing and you're living the culture.
And I think that really helps make good products and yeah, helps you come up with thesethings.
(31:53):
Like you said, those ideas, those observations, it's like, there's something there.
There's something there.
Yeah, that's, you know, I just read this book, actually listened to it and it was nice tolisten to it.
It's John Cleese, like from Monty Python and all that, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
(32:14):
So it was about creativity.
I'm forgetting the name of it.
It's something with creativity in the title.
It's new and it's really short, about an hour and change.
And he talks so much about that kind of stuff of how like,
What he likes to do is write at night and kind of get stuck and then come back to it thenext day in the morning.
(32:38):
And he talks a lot about the way we're just constantly absorbing things and theunconscious is working and figuring things out for us.
I found really fascinating because a lot of times the kind of breakthrough moments happenwhen I'm just maybe like in that twilight.
sleep and wakefulness or maybe taking a shower or doing something where I'm not completelythere.
(33:03):
But almost like what you're saying, you're done, you clocked off, but now on your leisuretime you're doing this or that.
that there's something that goes on with the mind, I think, that it's working whetheryou're actively forcing it to or not.
(33:23):
I mean, yeah, you know how it is.
Once you, I think once you get into music production and it doesn't ruin music, but itchanges how you enjoy music.
Right?
So you don't just go and listen to the new so-and-so album.
You listen to it and you're like, interesting choice for that clap.
Or you're like, you know, you're like, okay, the mix on this one.
(33:45):
Yeah.
Did you like, the mix on it's a bit weird, but it's okay.
You know, so you just constantly.
Everything you do in terms of interacting with music, it changes it.
you still, you're a hundred percent you enjoy it, but you're just thinking about it in amuch more of a, I don't know, yeah, it's like active enjoyment or something.
(34:05):
I don't know what the term would be, but yeah.
There's different dimensions of enjoyment.
Yeah.
It happened to me, I remember vividly when I started playing guitar.
I was 14 and unlike you, I wasn't really exposed to lot of music and playing.
I heard music of course, but I wasn't playing it.
(34:25):
I wasn't around musicians.
So it really wasn't something I ever thought I could do.
Like I just didn't consider it until a friend of mine was playing guitar and it's like,you feel good to do that.
You know, we do all the same bonehead things.
So it was.
really kind of shocking in a way.
(34:46):
It such a surprise that that could be something that I pursue and then all of a sudden allthe music I heard had guitars.
I'm like, there's the guitar, there's the acoustic, the bass and it just opened up and thesame exact thing happened with music production when I started recording and you start
saying like,
(35:06):
listen to how different it sounds when I'm this far from the microphone compared to whenI'm on the other side of the room.
And then you hear that in recordings and you just, never really go back.
There's, don't know if, I mean, I obviously like where I am, but sometimes I do kind ofwish I had a little taste of that.
(35:27):
Just, I don't know what it is.
It's just music and I'm either like it or I don't.
Yeah, yeah, not exactly right.
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, yes, do need to talk about hex effects more?
don't know if, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know what else to say other than look personally, I've been having a lotof fun with it.
(35:48):
I think we, you know, we wanted to make a multi-effects plugin that sort of, you know, itwas really well-rounded.
You know, there's obviously, there's a lot of fun plugins out there, but we felt likethere was one, you know, there was a gap where it was.
there was something missing where, you know, you could, you could have fun with it.
It was like really well rounded.
So if you wanted to do like breakers and sort of pitch rolls and those sort of like DJstyle effects have that, but why not also have like an amazing reverb in there or like
(36:16):
model some old, you know, bit crushes and have like those sort of classic drum machinesounds in there and really make a nice well rounded plugin.
You know, that the initial goal for it, like the internal kind of goal was like, let'smake it like the first thing you want to reach for.
after you've played like with a sample or played a synth or something.
I know that's quite broad, but it's like, how do we make this really well rounded thingwhere I've got my beat, I've got my sample, it sounds a bit boring, I need to bring it to
(36:43):
life.
Let me throw hex effects on the drums, the sample and the bass.
I'll use a different preset for each and then hopefully it starts to come alive.
And I think we've been able to do that really well.
Yeah, I could see that because there's a nice variety of stuff.
So you don't have to construct your chain as much.
Like you said, you can go into the presets and they're kind of nicely organized by stylesand kind of the job they do.
(37:11):
But you're not required to constantly recreate that.
It reminds me on some level of this, I don't know if you can see it actually, maybe righthere, this Chroma Console pedal by Hologram.
And it's a guitar pedal, but they use it on everything in their videos and you can put iton anything.
(37:34):
I have it just wired right into my interface now because I love it so much.
Because it does, it has like four stages of effects and some variety in each stage, butit's so fast like...
It just transforms everything.
know, like you said, like if I plug my guitar in direct to it, it comes out on the otherend, like distorted with delay, with all kinds of weird stuff going on that I I'm
(38:00):
inspired.
And I'm like, okay, fun.
Like now let me, it makes me want to play this and the sound coming out really informs theplaying.
So with, with hex, it's nice that you can dial things in and just be like on a differentplanet.
with just a couple quick turns and not having to say, OK, so I got this.
(38:22):
Now it's compressed.
Now it's distorted.
Now it's a reverb.
It's just, nope, let's just travel to the planet directly instead of all the steps alongthe way.
It keeps you moving.
right.
And I think, you know, again, going back to that, you know, that previous combo we hadaround, you know, if you could unlearn some of the things, you know, about music
production.
(38:43):
One of the things I do like about Hex is you can throw a preset on that kind of doesn'tmake sense.
And in some ways, like it wouldn't be something you'd naturally would chain up yourselfwith different VSTs, but you throw Hex on it and you're like, I'm going to try this, you
know, I don't know, let's call it like some sort of one of the spacey presets.
we'll have like a half time a reverb and maybe like a bit crusher in some weird order.
(39:06):
And it just like, you don't have to think about it, but it's made the sound weird andalmost doesn't even make seem like it should make sense, but it's done something cool.
You're like, cool, okay.
I'm gonna, I would have never have played with that individually, but actually as a funpreset or a chain within one plugin, it's really fun.
Yeah, that's a cool feature because there's certain things like you learn not to do, Likeput your distortion before your reverb.
(39:33):
That's sort of the proper way to do it.
And as you learn that, that's just what you do.
You go on, you fall on these defaults.
But when I first started playing guitar, I didn't know that.
I had some pedals and I was just putting them together.
I didn't even understand that they would affect each other, you know, depending on whatorder it was.
So I think I did a lot of weird things that were kind of cool that you kind of unlearnedor you learn yourself out of those like creative moments.
(40:03):
So it's nice to have something that just allows you to go there to get
find yourself in those places that maybe, you know, if you were reading the textbook wouldbe no-nos, you you can't do that.
You're to have too much noise.
It's going to do.
But that's so often where my inspiration pops in where I'm like, Ooh, that was cool.
(40:27):
Like, yeah, I'm not supposed to do that, but this is fun.
Yeah, I think, I mean, that what you described is almost a perfect kind of, I guess, arcor how my music, my own music production has evolved as well.
I think I started off not really knowing what to do and you made some really fun kind ofhappy accidents and mistakes that ended up being, yeah, really, really interesting.
(40:51):
And then you start to learn a bit more and you're like, I shouldn't have done this.
And it starts to get, you know, I know my, I'm call it my mid.
school, my mid era of production was a lot of I listened back and it's like trying to be abit cleaner, a bit perfect, you know, almost editing out my imperfections.
And more recently again, I'm like, you know, there's like something nice about the happyaccidents and the mistakes that happen in music and like leaving them in and learning to
(41:15):
like, yeah, really enjoy them and be comfortable.
so that's something I think, I don't know if it comes with time or experience or justthrowing the rule book out, but really loving.
Yeah, just kind of making weird stuff that doesn't, you know, shouldn't make sense.
Well, when you first starting, it comes out kind of weird because you don't know whatyou're doing.
(41:37):
So you're you're really making mistakes.
And then you realize what you're supposed to do.
And it's learning, I guess.
And like you said, often things get neater and cleaner and more organized.
And I guess once you start understanding the rules, you understand how to break them.
But sometimes you forget that you can break those rules.
(41:59):
You forget that, yeah, I can do that.
watched a video, it was Sarah Bell Reed who I had on the show about a year ago and when Isaw one of her videos where she was doing, what is the term now?
No input mixing.
or something like that.
Anyway, I'll to look it up.
(42:19):
I'll put the link in the show notes, but she's just taking like the output of the mixerand plugging it back into the input and plugging that and just doing all the stuff like
you've learned not to do because you blew out your speakers one day or something.
But in this controlled like headphone environment where like she's understands, I betterkeep the volume real low when I do this, because I'm going to create a big feedback loop.
(42:44):
But it was really kind of just like,
I'm like, yeah, like I've got all these jacks on this mixer that I can start reallymessing with and just everything's kind of like that where we can, it's the way software
works too, where it's so easy to do that stuff, to route things that you can find yourselfdoing weird stuff.
(43:10):
If you can think to do it, it's hard to unthink.
or unlearn or push the learning aside a little bit sometimes to get there.
So having tools that kind of nudge you in that direction are a lot of fun.
But things too, like, whether it's like kind of hiding the macros or even just being alittle more abstract about what things are called is instead of like the filter being I'm
(43:37):
cutting the highs at 2k, you know, just call it like dull or like, you know, blanket.
blanket over your head or something, so that you get those kind of images that I thinkalso spawn new ideas and spark some creativity along the way.
(44:01):
Yeah, yeah, and yes, hopefully we can spark some of that with hex.
Have you, do you have, like how long have you guys been working on that?
Let me start there.
Yeah, a little while.
you know, hopefully I'm not giving away too much internal information.
we started off, so Serato DJ for a long time, we used isotope effects inside in DJ.
(44:28):
And then we had to update all of our platforms, but, know, specifically a Serato DJ forthe new like silicon chips for Apple.
And the tech.
hurdle for everybody.
Yeah, that was a, it was a real pain and, the isotope, effects technology that we licensedmany, many years ago, you know, they were no longer supporting it.
(44:52):
And so we effectively had to rebuild all of our effects to replace the, you know, thereally great sounding isotope effects for DJ.
so that was sort of the beginning of the project.
It's like, well, we need to build all this effects, IP ourselves.
Let's build it for DJ.
but why not turn that into.
a really fun plugin like that could be our next plugin as well.
(45:13):
know, sort of you often look at like, what can we do next?
But if there's things that we can use, utilize in multiple different parts of thebusiness, then why not?
So the very like beginning of the project started off as like replacing the effects in DJ.
We've obviously subsequently like worked more and more on the heck side of things to buildout all the presets and gone a little bit crazier stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want
(45:36):
or need in DJ software.
But built that into the plugin side.
So I didn't really answer your question about how long it took.
Yeah, I'm gonna say, if you include the DJ thing, couple of years, but I'm not reallyprobably the best person to ask about exactly how long.
Well, I have to imagine that was kind of like an shit moment.
(45:59):
We can't work with this stuff anymore.
The chips are changing and now what we have doesn't work.
I would bet that that felt very much like a setback.
I mean, I'm just assuming this, but then it's really cool that you were able to.
turn that into something that's ultimately like a lot cooler in a lot of ways that likenow you got your own thing to work with and now you've got this ability to take it where
(46:28):
you want and you know like ice still makes great stuff i love their stuff but to have nowyour own where you can really get to it i just love when things like that happen where
things that unexpected things like like we're not gonna be able to do that anymore nowwhat and then
It just opens all kinds of doors if you're willing to look at it that way, I suppose.
(46:54):
Yeah, no exactly.
And so you're having that technology now in our sort of, you know, as our all of our ownIP means, yeah, we can use it for hex effects and, know, potentially other things.
So yeah, like I say, it was a good shit moment that we turned into something great.
Yeah, sometimes you just got to be forced into that and then life and music and all thesethings that you might not necessarily want to take the leap on your own.
(47:23):
But sometimes if you just get pushed off the ledge a little, you you kind of learn to fly,I guess.
Yeah, exactly, Yeah.
Cool.
It's exciting stuff.
It's, I guess, really like a turning point too, that you guys are kind of going and I'msure you're to reach all kinds of new customers and people that get interested in the
(47:47):
products.
for me and in my way, like, know, like I said, I was never a DJ.
But, you know, talking to you and he...
using hex a bit and then what you said about sampler I was like that's actually kind ofinteresting.
For me a lot of the live performance stuff I do with my music does have a lot of DJelements to it so it was a lot of fun to bring that into what I do so hearing about the
(48:18):
way the sample works it's interesting it's like yeah check that out yeah
fast way of like chopping samples.
in sort of unexpected ways.
So, you know, you can throw a, you know, any old sample in there and we have like a findsamples button that does a bit of magic.
(48:39):
It's not, you know, using any like super crazy AI or anything.
It's just looking for different parts of the song that are either lacking or havetransients.
And so it will set, you know, effectively in some ways.
random number of triggers or cue points across the song and so it lets you and then thenimmediately if you have them, know on a keyboard or on a pad controller plugged in you've
(49:00):
immediately got these chopping points that you wouldn't have necessarily gone and setyourself and So but you know, you can you start playing with them in a rhythm or you
start, you know chopping them You're like, okay, there's there's a loop there though.
I would never have picked it's almost like goes back to the old days of like, you knowneedle dropping through a record and thinking about
you know, at the moment, you know, maybe a lot of kids, they'll sample soul, but they'llbe sampling off YouTube.
(49:25):
But back in my day, you know, we go to the record store and you'd find some random dollarstore, dollar records and needle drop through and like, there's a bit there, there's a bit
there.
And so trying to recreate that, I guess, for the, you know, for the modern world of like,let's throw in a sample, but let's give you some strange bits or some bits you wouldn't
(49:46):
have picked and then go from there.
And then, you know, you can favorite those
certain cue points, those triggers, and then you can roll the dice again, know, findsamples again and keep refreshing until you've got a big set of pads that you want to play
with.
So it's really fun.
Yeah, still a really fun way to make sample-based music.
Yeah.
Well, I bet you could do that with any audio, right?
(50:08):
That could be, yeah.
Right.
you know a drum break some random guitar loops you've got anything like that And yeah,that's been one, you know, I talked early on about one of those products that you never
know where they're end up You know, initially we made it not for DJs, but with that DJworkflow in the back of our heads But that's had some really like humbling amazing success
(50:35):
with like, know people like Timbaland picking it up and
know, Metro Boomin and all these kind of like really obviously very, very well known, youknow, legendary producers using Serato Samplers like they're sampler of choice now.
So really, yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, I love to play my guitar sometimes or some synths or something and then just kindof randomly loop parts.
(51:01):
It might really just be with like the loop brace in live and just move it around.
I've...
That's been the start of songs sometimes where what I played has nothing to do with itother than it was just some random section that just happened to loop well.
So I could see it being a lot of fun just putting some instrumental parts, even stuff youcome up with on your own and just seeing what happens.
(51:28):
Do we get anything kind of weird and interesting?
Maybe it's like the three, four, and the one and two looped in a kind of weird.
inversed way to create new stuff.
the pitch and time, time stretching, shifting in there as well.
So you can key change time stretch.
(51:49):
And it sounds really, really good.
And then if you are using full songs, it's got stem separation built in as well.
So you can just drop down to the bass or the drums or the instruments or whatever.
And so that in combination with the random chopping gives you some really interesting kindof accidents that...
Makes it fun.
And then you throw hex on the end of it with a crazy preset and you've got a really good,you know, random accident machine.
(52:17):
It's so amazing.
It's just stem separation.
One of these technologies I never thought was going to be possible.
used to tell people, used to tell students, they'd want to know, how do I get just thedrums out or just the vocals?
I'm like, it's like trying to get the butter out of the cake after you baked it.
But like now you can.
(52:38):
It's a wild...
time to be making music.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so many amazing tools to use.
And that's not even touching on like the, I guess the next wave of generative stuff andall that world that's coming.
Hmm.
I'm really hoping that it brings back a little bit of a more human playfulness.
(53:01):
You you mentioned before about like our imperfections.
I do think that's a lot of what makes music interesting and makes it more expressive.
And I found myself, you know, when I first got my Pro Tools and I was able to quantizeeverything and put it right on the grid.
Finally, I'm in time and everything's going to be great.
(53:21):
And I was like, what's going on?
Something's off here.
And it was a shock to the system to realize like, it's kind of nice when it's not perfect.
Maybe not as imperfect as I was doing it before, but there's something in there.
So I do hope that we'll find cool ways to integrate some of these new technologies, butalso use it to...
(53:48):
keep our humanity.
Yeah, yeah.
As do I.
I think, you know, I'm pretty hopeful about that in terms of, you know, I'm to say mostpeople making music at the moment, they're not making it for huge financial gain.
They're making it because it's really fun to experiment with things, experiment withnoises.
(54:09):
you know, you, get a fun result at the end, but often it's about the journey.
And I think with a lot of these, you know, the, the newer ways of, know, the one click,make a song things, yeah, the outputs.
Reasonable right like can sound good and it's not gonna get any worse but you're missingout on the journey and the fun.
Yeah, and it's Yeah, they don't don't give me any creative satisfaction and that'sEffectively the reason I make music, right?
(54:36):
So Yeah, like like you say, I'm hopeful that yeah the humanity will For the most partstick around because we enjoy making music.
That's what we do.
What else am I gonna do?
Right?
Yeah, that's exactly what we enjoy making music, not, I don't know, just having it.
(54:57):
You know, there's something nice about going through it, the whole journey, the mentalchallenges, which there are endless, you know, it's a puzzle that keeps evolving and
changing.
And the more you learn, the more complex it gets.
So I don't think that's gonna go away.
(55:18):
I'm not too worried about that.
Cause I think, yeah, okay.
I can one click and make a country song that sounds really good.
And you know, maybe even better than what I could make on my own.
Cause I'm sure that day's coming, but it's still, it takes the fun part out of the wholething.
(55:40):
You know, it's like, I don't know what else.
riding a roller coaster, I'm just going to get online and then I'll be at the end of theroller coaster.
You know what I mean?
Like the fun part is being on it.
yeah.
Yeah.
The thrill of it, right?
(56:01):
If I'm going to fall out or something, but yeah, I don't want to just start at thebeginning of the line and then just bloop them out at the end.
did it.
Not a great analogy, but.
no, I know exactly what you mean.
It sort of does bring about like interesting, you know, debates, I think around, you know,I think over the last, let's say 10 years, at least, there's been a drive to make, you
(56:28):
know, music, I'm gonna say very accessible to people, one from a, you know, an economicpoint of view, like make it cheap, but also,
from a usability point of view, right?
Let's make it so anyone can make music.
Let's make it easier.
And I think, and that is obviously like a spectrum.
I think you've got very, very old school drum machines over here, maybe with no manualthat you just have to figure out.
(56:53):
And then you've got like a one click, make a country song with these lyrics over here.
And I think for companies like ours and a lot of companies in the industry, it's likefiguring out where that...
Liners so, you know you make it too easy You're just gonna people just gonna go away andlike there's gonna be no mastery.
There's no Excitement, there's no learning You might as well just use a one-click AI songgenerator but if you make it too difficult then you sort of in this I guess old-school
(57:22):
club of you know music has to you music production has to be like earned and you know,that's sort of You know what I mean?
Like it's a little bit snobby and it's like specifically
15 years mastering an instrument.
Yeah.
unless you've got like a room full of records type argument, right?
You know, because that, you know, we saw all that come about with, with Serato.
(57:43):
It's like he had to earn Serato.
You're not allowed to just get a laptop and music.
That was like the early days of digital DJing.
And so I think, yeah, there's an interesting debate that I think is here already.
It's like, where is the line and how does that sort of move over time around, you know,keeping mastery and like, like we're saying that the journey is the fun bit.
(58:03):
I often.
mastering stuff is like, that's the really fun part of the journey.
you climb the mountain, it's like the actual, the climb to the top was horrible, but it'slike you achieved something.
so thinking about like from a tools perspective, yeah.
(58:24):
Yeah, just thinking about it from a tools perspective, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like you're saying that, tools, that's a really interesting consideration these daysbecause we do want that.
We want fast results.
We want to be able to do interesting things and we want things that were time consuming tonot be as time consuming as they once were.
(58:44):
But yeah, where is that line where...
Because if you take that to the end, then yeah, just click the button and you got yoursong.
Where do you back, that's gotta be, I guess that's gonna be more and more of a challengeas the time goes on.
Yeah, no, exactly.
And that's something that we're thinking about, obviously.
(59:06):
And sort of, I hate to go back to it, the ethos behind something like sample or hex whereit's like, it's fun, but it's also powerful.
so, excuse me.
Yeah.
Like.
having it so people feel like they're in control and they're making something original andis theirs and they've mastered it and they've figured out some new thing that no one else
(59:32):
has figured out yet.
I think it's like, let's retain that, but then also make it.
Yeah.
Easy enough, but not so easy.
I can write, I don't know, press one click.
Cause I think, I think a market for that stuff does exist.
Don't get me wrong.
I think, you know, if you want some elevator music or some music you don't care about foryour
(59:53):
I don't know, your blog content or something.
You know, they already have like song libraries for that kind of stuff, right?
So I think that market exists or there's something there for that.
But in terms of like creating music as an outlet and for fun and for, yeah, I don't know,the reason we do it.
Yeah, there's a line somewhere that is evolving and I don't know where it is yet.
(01:00:15):
Yeah, yeah, we're going to find out, I guess, right?
But there is like that kind of feeling where if it is too easy, too fast, it almostdoesn't count.
Or it's not satisfying, it doesn't feel good, it's not you.
I wonder where that's going to wind up.
(01:00:39):
because I can really clearly see how some of the arguments of yesterday were kind ofsilly.
Like, why do I have to, if I want to just make some music and experience that feeling,like.
the 25 years of mastering the instrument and the music theory, that can be broken down alittle bit to let more people in.
(01:01:04):
It's still gonna help you though, in this process, right?
You know, it's still very useful to have all that stuff.
But yeah, if you turn the dial too much, then it just doesn't even matter.
Hmm.
yeah.
But I guess, you know, again, if people have, they have create, I guess, a creative momentwith these tools, then maybe that's also okay.
(01:01:28):
You know, there's just maybe different, it's different.
Yeah.
I'm not, yeah.
Like maybe if I want to make like a silly song for my friend's birthday and have it comeout of the computer real quick, almost like sending a meme to somebody, then yeah, that's
kind of fun.
Yeah, you can get a laugh out of that.
(01:01:48):
I don't think there's as much creative satisfaction maybe, but if you're not a musician,if you're not into that, if that's not important to you like it is to us, you know, then I
could see that.
That's a cool, It's a cool place for it.
it really is, and we might find that, you know, like any of these kind of, you know, whatwe call it top of the funnel sort of things where people might start experimenting with
(01:02:15):
that stuff as one click, you know, one click song makers.
And for every hundred people that play with them, maybe a handful of those people actuallygo on to like, actually, I want to figure out how to make this a bit more mine and play
with those tools more and break it down and, know.
remix the thing that I made and maybe that's their foray or their entry into musicproduction is actually through those means.
(01:02:39):
It's a bit like how DJs, example, nowadays a lot of DJs, they sort of start off as likereally good Spotify playlist creators.
They've got a good taste in music.
They don't own any music, but they're really good at making playlists.
And then the next evolution from there is to just then sort of entertain their friendsor...
(01:03:00):
you know, start to play those songs out to people.
It's a very different world to, you know, you had to collect and buy every single recordand keep it in your bedroom and learn the base, you know, learn the foundations.
But that's still like a great way to get into DJing.
And maybe we'll see the same with some of these tools where it's like, it's sort of anentry point.
(01:03:23):
And, you know, at the same time, you've got the people over here making music with.
drum machines and walls of analog synths that I don't know how to operate.
You've got people that enter the market with these one click solutions that are kind offunny and they wanna then push that more and make it more their own.
So yeah, it's cool.
(01:03:45):
Yeah, there's an experience in there, right?
It got me thinking about...
couple things I've done recently.
My wife and I went to a cooking class where we made fresh mozzarella cheese and you couldjust buy it at the store, you know, and that's that's fine.
But it was a lot of fun going through the experience and learning about it.
(01:04:08):
It enhanced some, I think we learned some things about cooking.
Show me how to hold a knife properly, which I couldn't believe I didn't know how to do.
Like all the vegetables I've chopped in my life.
But
That sort of thing, going through the process was really neat.
I don't want to do it every time personally, but if I was the kind of person that mighthave been more prone to wanting to learn that stuff, that would have been the way in.
(01:04:40):
I think that's great and I've always felt that way.
Maybe there's a fraction of myself that had to practice his scales on his guitar that is,you know, a little bit of that old man, you know, yelling about the new generation.
But I think all in all, it's a win that the, like playing field has been leveled or likeit's been democratized a little bit.
(01:05:02):
Like, I think it's really cool that you can take like a kid.
And instead of sitting them in front of the sheet music with like some instrument thatthey don't relate to, give them like something like a pad controller and they're making a
beat that sounds like the songs they like to listen to.
Or even if they're just on band lab taking loops and putting them together and then theystart getting excited.
(01:05:26):
You know, that's the spark that starts that fire for them that might not otherwise havebeen lit.
Exactly, yeah, and I might start off with pre-made loops and then I'm like I'm gonnafigure out how to make my own loops to make it a bit more You know a bit more personal or
they might not they might just want to combine more or more loops and they have somesuccess that way But hey if they're having fun That's cool.
(01:05:48):
Yeah
creativity to that.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's awesome.
I'm very happy you guys are into that and thinking about that.
It's a really interesting 21st century problem to be thinking about.
Right?
I think for so long, technology has been making things easier and easier.
(01:06:10):
And now we're almost like, wait a minute.
It doesn't need to get that easy.
Like we need to still keep the fun of the process in it.
And interesting thing to have to look out for.
Yeah, it really is.
Yeah.
And like I say, there's the danger of being too, you know, the old man yells at clouds,you know, back in my day, it had to be done this way.
(01:06:32):
And then there's the extreme, the tech bro, who cares about the process if you can makethe best song ever with one click.
And so, yeah, that's a, hey, it's like I say, it's a fun, very first, very 21st centuryproblem to be dealing with.
Wow, such a weird species, We've gotten so far.
(01:06:54):
But you guys are doing awesome stuff.
Congratulations on 25 years and your new device, Hex, which people can get through, Iguess, Serato.com,
Yep, Serato.com, yep.
it there.
So it's cool.
I like it a lot.
If anyone knows the kind of stuff I like, it's got a lot of interesting things that willgive you a lot of character to your music.
(01:07:20):
Those are the things I like the best these days that make it have a feel and a vibe.
And I don't need really like another compressor or EQ necessarily, unless, you know, theremight be some technology that comes out.
But I like the stuff that kind of
inspires me in that way.
So Hex is doing it for me.
It's really cool.
Cool, I'm glad you like it.
(01:07:41):
We had a lot of fun making it and having a lot of fun playing with it personally as well.
I'm glad to, you know, it's always nice to be able to, yeah, it's always nice to be ableto share your ideas with the world.
looking forward to having, yeah, everyone can grab it now.
So don't have to keep it secret.
Right.
Very good.
Well, thanks for taking the time to talk.
(01:08:03):
Yeah, thanks Brian.
Pleasure.
And yeah, thanks for having me.
Alright man.
What's up, Nick?
Great to have you here, man.
Hey Brian, yeah cool, thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Yeah, it's good to talk to you.
Serato has been a big name in the landscape for a long time, I think 25 years now, right?
Yeah, just celebrating the 25 year anniversary this year.
exciting, big moment for us.
It's kind of weird to think that the year 2000, or I guess even is it 1999 for Serrata?
(00:28):
That's 25 years ago.
Just blows my mind.
Time just flies by.
time flies and it starts going faster the older you get, I think.
But yeah, that was pitching time back in 99 basically.
So yeah.
you been with the company the whole time?
No, I haven't.
No, I've been with the company almost, I'm going to say almost 17 years.
(00:50):
so pretty, pretty good chunk of, of that time, but wasn't there for the very early days.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
chief strategy officer.
What does that entail?
What kind of work are you doing?
What's the day to day like?
Yeah, it's a pretty, I guess it sounds like a big title, doesn't it?
(01:12):
But ultimately, I think, you my role is thinking about what one, like, what do we do next?
And then what are we doing day to day in the product?
So it sort of encompasses like the product management function.
So I look after the product owners and things, you know, the data, the insights teams, andthen like the design and UX of things.
But really it's thinking about what are we doing and how can we do things better?
(01:34):
And what do we do?
What should we do next?
So
Yeah, it's a fun role.
And, we're very much like a product lead or have been a product lead company.
So, you know, my background very much is more on the product side rather than thinkingabout everything super commercially.
If, know, I know obviously they go and, you know, they work in tandem, but ultimately it'slike, how do we make really cool products for, for artists?
(01:56):
Is really, you know, if you've the elevator pitch or the one-liner is like, cool stuffshould we make?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's a tall order.
I think maybe a lot of people have this idea that, you should just make this, make that.
But so much goes into just making it a reality, making it something that's useful and thatworks.
(02:19):
I know a lot of the things I think I want sometimes would probably never work in reality.
So getting those things ironed out must be quite a challenge.
Yeah, and look, it's a, it's, it can be, I think the hardest part about the job is thereare like a million great ideas, right?
But how do you like separate?
There's like, you know, billions of good ideas, a million great ideas.
(02:42):
And then how do you find out those real like killer, excellent, or, know, beyond greatideas from the heap and prioritize those, you know, and often you talk to people and
they're, aren't you doing this?
Why aren't you doing that?
And I think, yeah, that's the hardest thing.
It's not cause we don't want to, it's like resources are finite.
and you have to focus on the ultimate, like the very best of the best.
(03:02):
And that's often the hardest thing is figuring out what that is.
And you've got to figure that out before you even go to market.
Right.
You can get a taste of that if anyone's ever been in.
a beta forum or some kind of testing of a product where they're taking suggestions.
If every suggestion was taken, you just have this bloated, complicated, confusing productor software or whatever it is.
(03:29):
How do you guys make those decisions?
Because like you said, there's probably a lot of really great suggestions, but inpracticality, you just can't do everything.
Right.
Yeah.
And look, that's, that's often through very heavy debates, you know, and I wouldn't saythey get heated as in, you know, aggressive debates, but we have like really good debates
(03:51):
about, you know, how to, what, what types of customers should we be serving?
you know, what, what kind of artists do you, do we think we'll use this?
You know, it doesn't always necessarily be, need to be the mass either, right?
We don't necessarily, when we develop a feature, we acknowledge that it might be quite,
niche for a group of people, but actually if they love it, then that's like a greatsuccess for us.
(04:14):
there's not like really a formula that we use, you know, it's sort of, it can be fluid andhow we, how we think about things, but ultimately it's like, we want to make cool stuff.
So people, you know, make music or they play with music in interesting ways and hopefullychange how they're interacting with things.
So, and often you don't know until the product's been out and people are using it.
(04:35):
you know, so it is.
Yeah, it's probably one of harder things about the job is figuring out, yeah, who totarget, what to do, and that sort of thing.
And often you'll find like people that use it in ways you never even anticipated or, youknow, there's all kinds of weird things.
So it's a fun job and it keeps you on your toes.
imagine.
(04:55):
I love those stories of products that are designed for one thing maybe and then they comeout and they get reused or changed up.
think one of the more famous musical examples is the Roland 303.
for bass lines is, from what I understand, really designed for kind of musicians to havean accompaniment with.
(05:16):
But then electronic music producers created like these cool acid bass lines that maybeeven on, if you heard in isolation, you'd be like, what is that like laser noise that's
going on?
But then it birthed a whole entire genre of music.
There's.
was the beginning of the 808 as well, if I'm not wrong, was it was basically anaccompaniment drum module for organ players and things to play along to.
(05:43):
So it's, yeah, it is crazy how these products, and I think when it came out, if I'm notwrong, the 808 wasn't super successful, but it was actually many years later that it was
adopted by hip hop and like techno and electronic producers.
And suddenly it was like, okay, totally different market, but it found its success in likea weird other little
(06:04):
part of the world that was not intended to.
I'm sure the product managers and marketers and things when they launched those modulesout of Roland were not planning that at all.
So yeah, it's fun.
It's fun.
That's what I love about working in the music biz is you make things and you see it pop upin places you never expected.
(06:25):
That's a really cool thing I think as well.
Serato is based in New Zealand.
I don't know if everyone knows where New Zealand is, but it's on the other side of theworld.
we're right down three and a half hours on a plane from Australia.
So we're really far away.
It's at least three hours to get to any other country, let alone the US, which is a good12 hour flight to the West coast.
And so we make stuff down in New Zealand and then I'll be looking on Instagram orsomething and it'll be like, my God, like my hero artist from my childhood is using this
(06:56):
product that we made.
down the road in New Zealand.
It still blows my mind that you see these little things happen that would in some ways notunintentional, you know, it's always the dream, but when it happens, it just blows your
way.
Yeah, I can only imagine to see that when it's so local for you like that and you're justgoing to work, right?
You're doing your thing, making stuff that you think is cool.
(07:19):
And then next thing you know.
And Serato has been big and just, I think the whole culture really, DJ culture andbringing that to the forefront.
It's just exploded.
grandeur of the shows and a buddy of mine was just sending me videos from I forget exactlywhat show it is right now, big festival, stage, mushrooms and all kinds of crazy lights
(07:46):
that's just gotta have been pretty cool for you to just watch this kind of EDM and DJculture just blow up and the time you've been with the company.
Yeah, yeah.
It's been, it's been a wild journey.
think, excuse me, before, you know, before I joined Serato, I was, you know, more or lessa working DJ producer in New Zealand.
(08:11):
And so, you know, I was doing little things, trying to, to, you know, DJing was my, was mything.
And, you know, I have all these heroes and all these people that, you know, I had theirrecords, you know, my...
in my crates or their posters on my wall or you know, like the flyers I would pick up fromthe local, local store.
and then to go on and then over the years to have those people, you know, not only use ourproduct, but when you meet them, they're thanked, like they're almost like, hey man, thank
(08:40):
thanks.
Thanks for what you do.
And you're like, what do you mean?
Thank, thank you for what you do.
And so this is really weird sort of, you know, mutual respect, which is amazing.
but yet
To be able to make products for those sort of artists and heroes and things still wasreally humbling and blows me away.
When I first, I'm an Ableton Live user.
(09:01):
That's my kind of thing.
I found there was a lot of action going on in New Zealand and Australia.
And...
For me, I really didn't come across a lot of stuff that was happening in my world or inother interests I had, but with music there just seems to be something going on there.
(09:25):
Lots of people are coming out of it, lots of companies, of just very forward-thinkingstuff that I guess there's something going on.
I've never been, so I can't speak to it, but there seems to be something kind of like inthe air going on in that area.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
I think there's, speaking about New Zealand, we've got our indigenous population, theMaori people, really musical, really heavy musical sort of vibes that translates through
(09:59):
the school system.
you learn, there's kind of like classic songs that are taught through school.
We have huge Polynesian communities coming from like,
Samoa and Tonga and all those communities are also really, really musical.
And it sort of all maybe blends together and just, don't my upbringing felt very, verymusical, even unintentionally.
(10:20):
My mom learned the guitar, she could play songs, she was a primary school teacher.
We all learned things at school.
I don't know if that's part of it, or maybe it's just one of those serendipitous thingswhere you can't explain it.
But there's definitely like strong local sort of...
musical influence I think throughout the New Zealand population.
(10:41):
Yeah, it's really cool.
So you were DJing on your own working when you were you using Serato at that time or?
no.
So when I first started, you know, showing my age, obviously Serato was not a thing.
and so I started, I started relatively young, DJing.
I sort of picked up some turntables.
(11:01):
I was working at a bike shop of all things.
and maybe we can come back to that story cause it's interesting influence for me, but Iwas working at a bike shop and one of the guys there, you know, was a DJ often how it
back.
This is almost like basically pre-internet, right?
So you couldn't like jump on, you know,
the internet and find out about things.
And he was like, you should get into DJing man.
(11:23):
It's really fun.
You've got a good ear for music.
And convinced me over like the summer when I was working my summer job to I bought aturntable because that's what I could afford and a mixer and just had, so I had one mixer,
one turntable in the beginning and then borrowed my parents turntable that was, you know,had no pitch control.
So I would use that and sort of try and mix back to back, you know, with one, oneturntable with a pitch control.
(11:47):
The other one was just static.
Anyway, that was my first foray.
So very simple mixer, one turntable, and then started just buying records.
So that's how I started DJing.
Serato wasn't a thing.
Computers were kind of still, I don't know what it was like in the US at the time, like wehad desktops, but laptops were certainly not as anywhere near as ubiquitous as they are
(12:10):
now.
You know, my first computer was a desktop that I had to like really shop around to figureout all this run.
a pro tool system.
So this is yeah, so the pre Serato edge and then so that would have been like late ninelate nineties.
(12:30):
And then in the early two thousands, you know, was playing some club gigs, but again, itwas all records.
And then a friend of mine was like, Hey, have you heard about this Serato thing that theseguys are making locally?
and you know, it sounded interesting, but again, it was a very radical world.
like, yeah, they're doing this thing where you can playback MP3s on your computer usinglike basically your standard system and it uses a control tone.
(12:58):
And yeah, again, showing, you I guess that 20 year gap now in technology, but that waslike, what?
It didn't make any sense.
But they were, yeah, they're developing it locally in Auckland.
And then my friend,
got a hold of like a very early copy and they'd actually given him like a loaner laptop togo with it.
(13:18):
Because again, no DJs had laptops.
And so they couldn't just give out beta versions to people.
They had to give like the laptop along with it.
You know, just like, hey, here's the system.
This is how it might work.
You know, the original Serato Rainbox, the great thing about it was plug, you could plugit into any existing DJ setup.
But yeah, you had to the laptop.
So anyway, here the Serato system ran in his house and we started playing with it.
(13:41):
And I was like, wow, this is incredible.
But you the problem back then is we didn't have music.
And all of our music was on vinyl.
It was just kind of, know, there were CDs.
was the kind of the Napster, you know, beginning of like that era.
But there was still this challenge of how do I get music onto my computer?
(14:01):
So it was, you know, it was cool, but there was like, there was almost like that barrierthen, but slowly, like locally, we started using it.
And I think like I was one of the, probably one of the first local DJs to
Adopt it You know for club gigs and it wasn't an overnight thing It was very much one ofthose all do I trust this you start off, know, you still take your credit records to the
(14:25):
club And you bring your laptop and you and you play mostly the records and you play a fewsongs off the laptop to ease into it over time you sort of use the laptop more and more
and you bet you're still taking half a crate and then Finally, I think after a year or soyou're like, okay.
I'm gonna just I'm gonna be the Serato laptop guy now
Going for it.
Yeah.
And that's obviously when, you know, at the same time, the sort of the availability ofmusic and things through the Apple iTunes store was then take off.
(14:52):
So it was one of those times and periods of time where I think the DJ side of things wassort of developing, but also like you had the, I guess the consumer side of things was
also developing around availability of music format shifting, you know, from CDs todownloads and things.
And so it was all sort of happening in tandem that made it.
(15:12):
you know, right place, right time.
Yeah, a couple of things really came together at the same time for us there.
Computers being portable like that.
I mean, I can remember too, when we were first as a rock bands in high school trying toput our music on the internet, you got like the worst quality and it was just a short
(15:34):
clip.
I I can't imagine that anybody was drawn to our music hearing that, knowing what thatstuff sounded like.
I'd love to know what the bit rate was for that.
It has to be like just so low, but it was like that period of, you know, where are wegoing to go for it?
And the same thing happened with me with recording where finally, I don't think it wastill like 2005 that I got a laptop and was like, I'm going for it.
(16:02):
You know, I'd seen friends using Pro Tools and I'm going to leave behind all this otherstuff.
Exciting time, but.
exactly.
Yeah, so on the recording side, equally, was sort of things were developing very quickly.
So when I started making music, it was with an MPC 2000 and I managed to get a hold of aKorg Triton as well and had it all routed with sort of old school, just regular MIDI
(16:30):
cables and had it all synced up.
But then the computer thing was happening.
I was like, we need to start recording this.
But I think...
you know, again, this is going off memory.
think Pro Tools at the time was not really available to anyone except for the very highend HD stuff, but they just launched the inbox.
I don't know if you know, like, the original inbox and was like basically they can, yeah,yeah.
(16:52):
So like their consumer solution.
And I remember like, you know, putting, pulling a whole lot of money together and buyinglike a Pro Tool system so I could record all this stuff off my NPC.
and actually start working on music properly.
And that was wild too.
I remember back then, like the very early days, like that first Pro Tools inbox kitactually came with an Ableton Live demo CD as well.
(17:17):
It was like, yeah, when it back when it was like really Ableton Live is like, this is adifferent thing.
Yeah, I didn't understand what the heck it was.
It looked kind of like a spreadsheet and I thought it was only DJing software actually.
And that's, I've never did that before.
So I was like, I don't know, this weird thing.
(17:38):
I don't even know Pro Tools yet.
So, but it was, it's funny to, know, little did I know, like that would become the way Iwent with it.
That was a huge innovation.
We forget that small interface.
I think the closest you could get was those Digio 2s, 002s, but those were giant rackthings.
(18:03):
A friend of mine had one that he added in this huge thing he had to cart around to recordin.
was just...
Yeah.
mean, it was, you know, the risk of this turn turning into a couple of old guys talkingpodcast.
You know, it was like the, the, the hoops you had to jump through back then to like recordand get music out compared to now.
(18:28):
That's just come so far.
Isn't it?
It's, and it's amazing for just, you know, how quick you can just iterate and play withstuff and get music out now compared to back then.
It was, you know, there was, yeah, it was a
It was hard.
was lot.
I'm sure the generation before then felt it was even harder.
So yeah, we've come a long way.
(18:49):
But at the time I remember thinking it was, this is great.
You my God, like I can't believe it.
Coming from like a four track cassette recorder to then I got these ADATs, least it's ADATmachines.
I'm starting to think of the name.
That's what they were, with the VCR tapes.
And that was like, my God, this is crazy.
(19:10):
I mean, they were already old by then and just...
Every single step, although now looking back feels really primitive, it felt like, wow,things are getting really cool now.
And so it's been fun to be on that adventure.
And I am really glad I know what it was like to some degree anyway, to struggle and howlucky we are now to just call things up in a plugin or on your laptop and just, boom, here
(19:38):
we go.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Do you still DJ now?
Yeah, I do.
well, put it this way.
I still play around like at home, at work, you know, for like small friends, kind ofthings.
I, I don't like, I haven't like DJ in a club in a, in a little while, you know, to behonest.
(20:03):
I still love, I love DJing.
I've got, you know, I've got four kids, getting, you know, getting a, going and playing agig at 2 AM.
And then coming home and having kids jump on your head at, you know, 6 a.m.
Means that, know, DJing is not like the highest priority for me at the moment in terms oflike club gigs.
I still love it and I like the idea of it.
(20:24):
And I think I'll, you know, I'll return to that once the kids get a little bit older.
But right now, you know, between the day job, you know, when I get free time, I lovemaking music, you know, making beats and things, recording music and playing around with
DJ stuff.
But yeah.
I don't need to be going to the club at 2am at the moment.
Yeah, I don't really have that desire either.
(20:47):
I don't have kids either, but it's just, you know, after a while, I guess.
I think that's a really cool thing.
I've seen this with a lot of music tech companies that it comes from actual musicians andpeople that were doing it, that were using it.
And a lot of that passion is put into the products.
(21:08):
And this seems no different that it's got that.
kind of a it was made by us, for us kind of feeling to it.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I've noticed that too.
I think the, I mean, that's how the Ableton guys started, right?
That was, I think it's a pretty common theme, especially amongst the ones that have stayedaround and be successful because ultimately economies go up and down and priorities
(21:37):
change.
But I think if the end goal is still to make great tools for our effectively, our peersand idols.
then that really keeps you focused on what the mission is.
It applies even to how, say, how we hire for the product team.
So all the guys and girls that work in the product team at Serato, for the most part, havebeen working DJs or working producers at some point in their lives.
(22:05):
And so it just helps understand the space.
I think you can teach product management skills and things to these people, but it'sreally hard to teach.
the nuances of like DJing and music production and even like the passion.
You can't teach passion, I think.
And so if you've got an underlying passion for making and using this stuff, it reallyhelps become like great product people.
(22:32):
So yeah, I think that's probably why.
I think it keeps you focused on what is the mission, what we're trying to do.
Yeah.
A lot of other industries wind up with people making big decisions for the company or theorganization, or in my case, it's education where, you know, they don't know what it's
(22:55):
like on the ground floor, what's actually going on.
And sometimes things sound really good in your head, but when you put it into practice,it's just not how things work.
That perspective is really important.
think that's probably why a lot of the companies.
like you mentioned, that have stuck around are for those reasons.
(23:15):
They're built on that, that passion and the people that are making important decisionsunderstand the ramifications of those choices.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, yeah, like I said, that's something we, we're always thinking about that andwe're always using it.
And I think that's the big thing is, you know, in some ways we're lucky working in a, Iguess, an industry where there is a lot of passionate people.
(23:40):
I think it's probably harder to hire passionate accounting, you know, users to makeaccounting software, maybe.
But I think when you're playing in the music space or in a creative field or somethingwhere there's like a real hobby, like a passion behind it, think it's finding those people
that live and breathe it really helps make cool stuff.
(24:02):
And you can do all the user research and all this stuff on the side, of course, becauseyou wanna find out, you don't wanna make things just for yourself all the time.
But it's also a very nice frame of reference to come back to if things sort of becomedifficult, we need to make quick pivots or quick decisions.
If you've got this underlying DNA, it's like a passion for music and the products, then Ithink it really helps.
(24:26):
Hmm.
Yeah, it comes through.
mean, I teach high school English as a day job and a lot of the things I come acrosssoftware wise, you try to use it you're like, this person has never taught in a classroom.
know, whoever made this doesn't understand what it's like to have to read 30 answers orsomething like that, or how to input grades or make comments.
(24:50):
Just,
You get it comes through when you're using this stuff.
So that's a cool thing.
So you guys got some fun stuff coming up with the 25th anniversary and all.
Do you want to talk about the new thing that will be released by the time this episode isgoing live?
(25:15):
yeah, so the new new plugin.
Yeah, we're good to talk about that, right?
Because it'll be it'll be out and in the wild.
Yeah, so we're launching.
Well, we have launched a new new Serato plugin called Hex effects.
And so it's I guess at a very high level, it's a multi effects plugin filled with a ton ofreally fun effects that you can chain together.
(25:38):
It's got a macro knob that you can control various things all at once.
It's not just a wet and dry.
And I think from memory, I should have the notes in front of me, but it's got a fewhundred presets.
And of course you can make your own and make, you know, just really go wild with it.
I should have a better sales spiel for it, you know, but obviously I'm the product guy.
(26:00):
So I think ultimately we tried to make something that, and it comes across, I think in alot of our Serato products that on the surface is very simple.
And so, you know, you've got one nice big sort of macro control that controls.
you know, six different effects that you can chop and change.
But you can go deeper and there's, know, you can flip it around and, you know, unveil theparameters and go deep and yeah, have a lot of fun with it.
(26:24):
So I'm kind of like more of a preset guy.
Like I just like cycle through, you know, there's a couple of hundred presets that arereally fun to use, but you can make, like I said, you can make your own, you can make new
combinations, edit and so on.
So yeah, super excited about that.
It's our...
I guess it's our third plugin, if you count pitch and time.
So if you think that the roots of Serato when we're this 25 year anniversary is pitch andtime for Pro Tools was the thing that the company was founded on.
(26:53):
We subsequently went into DJ and made our name probably in a more famous way and DJing.
But in the last few years gone back to music production.
we launched Serato Sample, Serato Studio as our sort of standalone DAW and then yeah.
Hicks-a-Fix, which is our new thing.
And it's really cool.
(27:14):
I've had some time with it to mess around and like you said, this ability to be reallysimple, but also go deep.
I personally appreciate a lot.
I I love being able to turn the knobs and get in there and figure out how I want to dialin like what the frequency on my bit crushes and all this kind of very minutia stuff.
(27:38):
But when I'm in the creative,
mindset when I'm just trying to make and create and flow.
I love just having simple broad strokes like that, the big macro that is turning maybelike 17 different controls at once.
But it just allows you to operate with that plugin and those two very different mindsets.
(28:01):
And that's, for me, I'm always struggling with the jump between the two.
The creation part and that kind of like
play aspect and then you have to get a little more serious and edit and fix things.
that transition time I find is, it's very difficult to keep going through back and forth.
(28:27):
So if the, if it's a tool that I really want to use, but I have to get too technical, thatcan pull me out of that creative flow.
And I really do appreciate that you've got almost
I think it's just like a button on the side that exposes all the deeper controls or youcan just hide them away and tuck them away.
Just I'll turn the big knob, get going and have fun.
(28:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
You know, it's that transition time, I think, you you talked about where you're goingfrom, you know, you're in the zone, that creative, you know, that creative moment that's
often hard to recapture, moving into like there when you need to dial things in or maybeget the actual idea down on paper.
And that's, yes, like I say, something that Hex does really well.
(29:10):
It was actually the motivation for Serato sample in the beginning.
I know that we're here to talk about Hex, but I think it's important to touch on
You know, with Serato Sample, the actual motivation for that was we were looking at howdifferent different people, you know, DJs, sample based producers and so on were making
music.
know, like certainly myself, we saw a bunch of guys in New York doing it where they wouldactually use Serato.
(29:35):
They put a record, you know, they'd be having like a soul sample or something insideSerato.
They'll be drumming on the cue points and like recording that into Pro Tools or doingsomething kind of funny.
and the, or, or later trying to recreate that on an NPC or trying to recreate that inAbleton, that sort of spontaneous moment they had with the DJ software.
And like there's something here with, you know, we could just make a simple plugin thatalmost it's not for DJs so to speak.
(30:00):
but it mimics that DJ style of sampling, where you're, you're throwing a sample and you'vegot a bunch of trigger points, cue points, you play with them, you do something, you know,
that's really quite, you know, spontaneous and
you've been able to capture that.
And so that was the motivation behind, you know, sample initially.
And that's sort of, guess, our philosophy or how we think about all of our things thatwhich comes through into the hex effects as well with that.
(30:27):
Those two sort of zones where let me be spontaneous, let me play, you know, with the bigknob in the moment.
And then, and then, but then later on, if you've got parameters or other things you wantto tweak, you're able to do that.
Hmm.
That's pretty cool that you're able to watch people do that and kind of figure out like,Hey, you know, what would make your life easier?
(30:50):
You're so that's, there's a lot of observation, I guess that goes on when you're trying tocome up with these ideas for new products and problems you're trying to solve.
yeah.
And I think that comes down to again, the, you know, my, you know, not just me, I'm totalk about me, a lot of the company.
And it goes back to that previous conversation.
(31:11):
Like, I don't, like I work at Serato, but also when I turn off the last meeting of theday, I'm probably going to go into the, like the living room and put on a music production
video on YouTube.
Or I'm going to, you know, I kind of, without as corny as it sounds, we're living andbreathing.
what we're doing and so it's like you're not really clocking off at the end of the day.
(31:32):
I'm making music in the evening.
I'm watching people on Instagram use music production stuff.
I'm watching DJs on YouTube.
I guess it's just, you know, we're just absorbing without really thinking about it.
You're always doing research and you're absorbing and you're living the culture.
And I think that really helps make good products and yeah, helps you come up with thesethings.
(31:53):
Like you said, those ideas, those observations, it's like, there's something there.
There's something there.
Yeah, that's, you know, I just read this book, actually listened to it and it was nice tolisten to it.
It's John Cleese, like from Monty Python and all that, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
(32:14):
So it was about creativity.
I'm forgetting the name of it.
It's something with creativity in the title.
It's new and it's really short, about an hour and change.
And he talks so much about that kind of stuff of how like,
What he likes to do is write at night and kind of get stuck and then come back to it thenext day in the morning.
(32:38):
And he talks a lot about the way we're just constantly absorbing things and theunconscious is working and figuring things out for us.
I found really fascinating because a lot of times the kind of breakthrough moments happenwhen I'm just maybe like in that twilight.
sleep and wakefulness or maybe taking a shower or doing something where I'm not completelythere.
(33:03):
But almost like what you're saying, you're done, you clocked off, but now on your leisuretime you're doing this or that.
that there's something that goes on with the mind, I think, that it's working whetheryou're actively forcing it to or not.
(33:23):
I mean, yeah, you know how it is.
Once you, I think once you get into music production and it doesn't ruin music, but itchanges how you enjoy music.
Right?
So you don't just go and listen to the new so-and-so album.
You listen to it and you're like, interesting choice for that clap.
Or you're like, you know, you're like, okay, the mix on this one.
(33:45):
Yeah.
Did you like, the mix on it's a bit weird, but it's okay.
You know, so you just constantly.
Everything you do in terms of interacting with music, it changes it.
you still, you're a hundred percent you enjoy it, but you're just thinking about it in amuch more of a, I don't know, yeah, it's like active enjoyment or something.
(34:05):
I don't know what the term would be, but yeah.
There's different dimensions of enjoyment.
Yeah.
It happened to me, I remember vividly when I started playing guitar.
I was 14 and unlike you, I wasn't really exposed to lot of music and playing.
I heard music of course, but I wasn't playing it.
(34:25):
I wasn't around musicians.
So it really wasn't something I ever thought I could do.
Like I just didn't consider it until a friend of mine was playing guitar and it's like,you feel good to do that.
You know, we do all the same bonehead things.
So it was.
really kind of shocking in a way.
(34:46):
It such a surprise that that could be something that I pursue and then all of a sudden allthe music I heard had guitars.
I'm like, there's the guitar, there's the acoustic, the bass and it just opened up and thesame exact thing happened with music production when I started recording and you start
saying like,
(35:06):
listen to how different it sounds when I'm this far from the microphone compared to whenI'm on the other side of the room.
And then you hear that in recordings and you just, never really go back.
There's, don't know if, I mean, I obviously like where I am, but sometimes I do kind ofwish I had a little taste of that.
(35:27):
Just, I don't know what it is.
It's just music and I'm either like it or I don't.
Yeah, yeah, not exactly right.
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, yes, do need to talk about hex effects more?
don't know if, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know what else to say other than look personally, I've been having a lotof fun with it.
(35:48):
I think we, you know, we wanted to make a multi-effects plugin that sort of, you know, itwas really well-rounded.
You know, there's obviously, there's a lot of fun plugins out there, but we felt likethere was one, you know, there was a gap where it was.
there was something missing where, you know, you could, you could have fun with it.
It was like really well rounded.
So if you wanted to do like breakers and sort of pitch rolls and those sort of like DJstyle effects have that, but why not also have like an amazing reverb in there or like
(36:16):
model some old, you know, bit crushes and have like those sort of classic drum machinesounds in there and really make a nice well rounded plugin.
You know, that the initial goal for it, like the internal kind of goal was like, let'smake it like the first thing you want to reach for.
after you've played like with a sample or played a synth or something.
I know that's quite broad, but it's like, how do we make this really well rounded thingwhere I've got my beat, I've got my sample, it sounds a bit boring, I need to bring it to
(36:43):
life.
Let me throw hex effects on the drums, the sample and the bass.
I'll use a different preset for each and then hopefully it starts to come alive.
And I think we've been able to do that really well.
Yeah, I could see that because there's a nice variety of stuff.
So you don't have to construct your chain as much.
Like you said, you can go into the presets and they're kind of nicely organized by stylesand kind of the job they do.
(37:11):
But you're not required to constantly recreate that.
It reminds me on some level of this, I don't know if you can see it actually, maybe righthere, this Chroma Console pedal by Hologram.
And it's a guitar pedal, but they use it on everything in their videos and you can put iton anything.
(37:34):
I have it just wired right into my interface now because I love it so much.
Because it does, it has like four stages of effects and some variety in each stage, butit's so fast like...
It just transforms everything.
know, like you said, like if I plug my guitar in direct to it, it comes out on the otherend, like distorted with delay, with all kinds of weird stuff going on that I I'm
(38:00):
inspired.
And I'm like, okay, fun.
Like now let me, it makes me want to play this and the sound coming out really informs theplaying.
So with, with hex, it's nice that you can dial things in and just be like on a differentplanet.
with just a couple quick turns and not having to say, OK, so I got this.
(38:22):
Now it's compressed.
Now it's distorted.
Now it's a reverb.
It's just, nope, let's just travel to the planet directly instead of all the steps alongthe way.
It keeps you moving.
right.
And I think, you know, again, going back to that, you know, that previous combo we hadaround, you know, if you could unlearn some of the things, you know, about music
production.
(38:43):
One of the things I do like about Hex is you can throw a preset on that kind of doesn'tmake sense.
And in some ways, like it wouldn't be something you'd naturally would chain up yourselfwith different VSTs, but you throw Hex on it and you're like, I'm going to try this, you
know, I don't know, let's call it like some sort of one of the spacey presets.
we'll have like a half time a reverb and maybe like a bit crusher in some weird order.
(39:06):
And it just like, you don't have to think about it, but it's made the sound weird andalmost doesn't even make seem like it should make sense, but it's done something cool.
You're like, cool, okay.
I'm gonna, I would have never have played with that individually, but actually as a funpreset or a chain within one plugin, it's really fun.
Yeah, that's a cool feature because there's certain things like you learn not to do, Likeput your distortion before your reverb.
(39:33):
That's sort of the proper way to do it.
And as you learn that, that's just what you do.
You go on, you fall on these defaults.
But when I first started playing guitar, I didn't know that.
I had some pedals and I was just putting them together.
I didn't even understand that they would affect each other, you know, depending on whatorder it was.
So I think I did a lot of weird things that were kind of cool that you kind of unlearnedor you learn yourself out of those like creative moments.
(40:03):
So it's nice to have something that just allows you to go there to get
find yourself in those places that maybe, you know, if you were reading the textbook wouldbe no-nos, you you can't do that.
You're to have too much noise.
It's going to do.
But that's so often where my inspiration pops in where I'm like, Ooh, that was cool.
(40:27):
Like, yeah, I'm not supposed to do that, but this is fun.
Yeah, I think, I mean, that what you described is almost a perfect kind of, I guess, arcor how my music, my own music production has evolved as well.
I think I started off not really knowing what to do and you made some really fun kind ofhappy accidents and mistakes that ended up being, yeah, really, really interesting.
(40:51):
And then you start to learn a bit more and you're like, I shouldn't have done this.
And it starts to get, you know, I know my, I'm call it my mid.
school, my mid era of production was a lot of I listened back and it's like trying to be abit cleaner, a bit perfect, you know, almost editing out my imperfections.
And more recently again, I'm like, you know, there's like something nice about the happyaccidents and the mistakes that happen in music and like leaving them in and learning to
(41:15):
like, yeah, really enjoy them and be comfortable.
so that's something I think, I don't know if it comes with time or experience or justthrowing the rule book out, but really loving.
Yeah, just kind of making weird stuff that doesn't, you know, shouldn't make sense.
Well, when you first starting, it comes out kind of weird because you don't know whatyou're doing.
(41:37):
So you're you're really making mistakes.
And then you realize what you're supposed to do.
And it's learning, I guess.
And like you said, often things get neater and cleaner and more organized.
And I guess once you start understanding the rules, you understand how to break them.
But sometimes you forget that you can break those rules.
(41:59):
You forget that, yeah, I can do that.
watched a video, it was Sarah Bell Reed who I had on the show about a year ago and when Isaw one of her videos where she was doing, what is the term now?
No input mixing.
or something like that.
Anyway, I'll to look it up.
(42:19):
I'll put the link in the show notes, but she's just taking like the output of the mixerand plugging it back into the input and plugging that and just doing all the stuff like
you've learned not to do because you blew out your speakers one day or something.
But in this controlled like headphone environment where like she's understands, I betterkeep the volume real low when I do this, because I'm going to create a big feedback loop.
(42:44):
But it was really kind of just like,
I'm like, yeah, like I've got all these jacks on this mixer that I can start reallymessing with and just everything's kind of like that where we can, it's the way software
works too, where it's so easy to do that stuff, to route things that you can find yourselfdoing weird stuff.
(43:10):
If you can think to do it, it's hard to unthink.
or unlearn or push the learning aside a little bit sometimes to get there.
So having tools that kind of nudge you in that direction are a lot of fun.
But things too, like, whether it's like kind of hiding the macros or even just being alittle more abstract about what things are called is instead of like the filter being I'm
(43:37):
cutting the highs at 2k, you know, just call it like dull or like, you know, blanket.
blanket over your head or something, so that you get those kind of images that I thinkalso spawn new ideas and spark some creativity along the way.
(44:01):
Yeah, yeah, and yes, hopefully we can spark some of that with hex.
Have you, do you have, like how long have you guys been working on that?
Let me start there.
Yeah, a little while.
you know, hopefully I'm not giving away too much internal information.
we started off, so Serato DJ for a long time, we used isotope effects inside in DJ.
(44:28):
And then we had to update all of our platforms, but, know, specifically a Serato DJ forthe new like silicon chips for Apple.
And the tech.
hurdle for everybody.
Yeah, that was a, it was a real pain and, the isotope, effects technology that we licensedmany, many years ago, you know, they were no longer supporting it.
(44:52):
And so we effectively had to rebuild all of our effects to replace the, you know, thereally great sounding isotope effects for DJ.
so that was sort of the beginning of the project.
It's like, well, we need to build all this effects, IP ourselves.
Let's build it for DJ.
but why not turn that into.
a really fun plugin like that could be our next plugin as well.
(45:13):
know, sort of you often look at like, what can we do next?
But if there's things that we can use, utilize in multiple different parts of thebusiness, then why not?
So the very like beginning of the project started off as like replacing the effects in DJ.
We've obviously subsequently like worked more and more on the heck side of things to buildout all the presets and gone a little bit crazier stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want
(45:36):
or need in DJ software.
But built that into the plugin side.
So I didn't really answer your question about how long it took.
Yeah, I'm gonna say, if you include the DJ thing, couple of years, but I'm not reallyprobably the best person to ask about exactly how long.
Well, I have to imagine that was kind of like an shit moment.
(45:59):
We can't work with this stuff anymore.
The chips are changing and now what we have doesn't work.
I would bet that that felt very much like a setback.
I mean, I'm just assuming this, but then it's really cool that you were able to.
turn that into something that's ultimately like a lot cooler in a lot of ways that likenow you got your own thing to work with and now you've got this ability to take it where
(46:28):
you want and you know like ice still makes great stuff i love their stuff but to have nowyour own where you can really get to it i just love when things like that happen where
things that unexpected things like like we're not gonna be able to do that anymore nowwhat and then
It just opens all kinds of doors if you're willing to look at it that way, I suppose.
(46:54):
Yeah, no exactly.
And so you're having that technology now in our sort of, you know, as our all of our ownIP means, yeah, we can use it for hex effects and, know, potentially other things.
So yeah, like I say, it was a good shit moment that we turned into something great.
Yeah, sometimes you just got to be forced into that and then life and music and all thesethings that you might not necessarily want to take the leap on your own.
(47:23):
But sometimes if you just get pushed off the ledge a little, you you kind of learn to fly,I guess.
Yeah, exactly, Yeah.
Cool.
It's exciting stuff.
It's, I guess, really like a turning point too, that you guys are kind of going and I'msure you're to reach all kinds of new customers and people that get interested in the
(47:47):
products.
for me and in my way, like, know, like I said, I was never a DJ.
But, you know, talking to you and he...
using hex a bit and then what you said about sampler I was like that's actually kind ofinteresting.
For me a lot of the live performance stuff I do with my music does have a lot of DJelements to it so it was a lot of fun to bring that into what I do so hearing about the
(48:18):
way the sample works it's interesting it's like yeah check that out yeah
fast way of like chopping samples.
in sort of unexpected ways.
So, you know, you can throw a, you know, any old sample in there and we have like a findsamples button that does a bit of magic.
(48:39):
It's not, you know, using any like super crazy AI or anything.
It's just looking for different parts of the song that are either lacking or havetransients.
And so it will set, you know, effectively in some ways.
random number of triggers or cue points across the song and so it lets you and then thenimmediately if you have them, know on a keyboard or on a pad controller plugged in you've
(49:00):
immediately got these chopping points that you wouldn't have necessarily gone and setyourself and So but you know, you can you start playing with them in a rhythm or you
start, you know chopping them You're like, okay, there's there's a loop there though.
I would never have picked it's almost like goes back to the old days of like, you knowneedle dropping through a record and thinking about
you know, at the moment, you know, maybe a lot of kids, they'll sample soul, but they'llbe sampling off YouTube.
(49:25):
But back in my day, you know, we go to the record store and you'd find some random dollarstore, dollar records and needle drop through and like, there's a bit there, there's a bit
there.
And so trying to recreate that, I guess, for the, you know, for the modern world of like,let's throw in a sample, but let's give you some strange bits or some bits you wouldn't
(49:46):
have picked and then go from there.
And then, you know, you can favorite those
certain cue points, those triggers, and then you can roll the dice again, know, findsamples again and keep refreshing until you've got a big set of pads that you want to play
with.
So it's really fun.
Yeah, still a really fun way to make sample-based music.
Yeah.
Well, I bet you could do that with any audio, right?
(50:08):
That could be, yeah.
Right.
you know a drum break some random guitar loops you've got anything like that And yeah,that's been one, you know, I talked early on about one of those products that you never
know where they're end up You know, initially we made it not for DJs, but with that DJworkflow in the back of our heads But that's had some really like humbling amazing success
(50:35):
with like, know people like Timbaland picking it up and
know, Metro Boomin and all these kind of like really obviously very, very well known, youknow, legendary producers using Serato Samplers like they're sampler of choice now.
So really, yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, I love to play my guitar sometimes or some synths or something and then just kindof randomly loop parts.
(51:01):
It might really just be with like the loop brace in live and just move it around.
I've...
That's been the start of songs sometimes where what I played has nothing to do with itother than it was just some random section that just happened to loop well.
So I could see it being a lot of fun just putting some instrumental parts, even stuff youcome up with on your own and just seeing what happens.
(51:28):
Do we get anything kind of weird and interesting?
Maybe it's like the three, four, and the one and two looped in a kind of weird.
inversed way to create new stuff.
the pitch and time, time stretching, shifting in there as well.
So you can key change time stretch.
(51:49):
And it sounds really, really good.
And then if you are using full songs, it's got stem separation built in as well.
So you can just drop down to the bass or the drums or the instruments or whatever.
And so that in combination with the random chopping gives you some really interesting kindof accidents that...
Makes it fun.
And then you throw hex on the end of it with a crazy preset and you've got a really good,you know, random accident machine.
(52:17):
It's so amazing.
It's just stem separation.
One of these technologies I never thought was going to be possible.
used to tell people, used to tell students, they'd want to know, how do I get just thedrums out or just the vocals?
I'm like, it's like trying to get the butter out of the cake after you baked it.
But like now you can.
(52:38):
It's a wild...
time to be making music.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so many amazing tools to use.
And that's not even touching on like the, I guess the next wave of generative stuff andall that world that's coming.
Hmm.
I'm really hoping that it brings back a little bit of a more human playfulness.
(53:01):
You you mentioned before about like our imperfections.
I do think that's a lot of what makes music interesting and makes it more expressive.
And I found myself, you know, when I first got my Pro Tools and I was able to quantizeeverything and put it right on the grid.
Finally, I'm in time and everything's going to be great.
(53:21):
And I was like, what's going on?
Something's off here.
And it was a shock to the system to realize like, it's kind of nice when it's not perfect.
Maybe not as imperfect as I was doing it before, but there's something in there.
So I do hope that we'll find cool ways to integrate some of these new technologies, butalso use it to...
(53:48):
keep our humanity.
Yeah, yeah.
As do I.
I think, you know, I'm pretty hopeful about that in terms of, you know, I'm to say mostpeople making music at the moment, they're not making it for huge financial gain.
They're making it because it's really fun to experiment with things, experiment withnoises.
(54:09):
you know, you, get a fun result at the end, but often it's about the journey.
And I think with a lot of these, you know, the, the newer ways of, know, the one click,make a song things, yeah, the outputs.
Reasonable right like can sound good and it's not gonna get any worse but you're missingout on the journey and the fun.
Yeah, and it's Yeah, they don't don't give me any creative satisfaction and that'sEffectively the reason I make music, right?
(54:36):
So Yeah, like like you say, I'm hopeful that yeah the humanity will For the most partstick around because we enjoy making music.
That's what we do.
What else am I gonna do?
Right?
Yeah, that's exactly what we enjoy making music, not, I don't know, just having it.
(54:57):
You know, there's something nice about going through it, the whole journey, the mentalchallenges, which there are endless, you know, it's a puzzle that keeps evolving and
changing.
And the more you learn, the more complex it gets.
So I don't think that's gonna go away.
(55:18):
I'm not too worried about that.
Cause I think, yeah, okay.
I can one click and make a country song that sounds really good.
And you know, maybe even better than what I could make on my own.
Cause I'm sure that day's coming, but it's still, it takes the fun part out of the wholething.
(55:40):
You know, it's like, I don't know what else.
riding a roller coaster, I'm just going to get online and then I'll be at the end of theroller coaster.
You know what I mean?
Like the fun part is being on it.
yeah.
Yeah.
The thrill of it, right?
(56:01):
If I'm going to fall out or something, but yeah, I don't want to just start at thebeginning of the line and then just bloop them out at the end.
did it.
Not a great analogy, but.
no, I know exactly what you mean.
It sort of does bring about like interesting, you know, debates, I think around, you know,I think over the last, let's say 10 years, at least, there's been a drive to make, you
(56:28):
know, music, I'm gonna say very accessible to people, one from a, you know, an economicpoint of view, like make it cheap, but also,
from a usability point of view, right?
Let's make it so anyone can make music.
Let's make it easier.
And I think, and that is obviously like a spectrum.
I think you've got very, very old school drum machines over here, maybe with no manualthat you just have to figure out.
(56:53):
And then you've got like a one click, make a country song with these lyrics over here.
And I think for companies like ours and a lot of companies in the industry, it's likefiguring out where that...
Liners so, you know you make it too easy You're just gonna people just gonna go away andlike there's gonna be no mastery.
There's no Excitement, there's no learning You might as well just use a one-click AI songgenerator but if you make it too difficult then you sort of in this I guess old-school
(57:22):
club of you know music has to you music production has to be like earned and you know,that's sort of You know what I mean?
Like it's a little bit snobby and it's like specifically
15 years mastering an instrument.
Yeah.
unless you've got like a room full of records type argument, right?
You know, because that, you know, we saw all that come about with, with Serato.
(57:43):
It's like he had to earn Serato.
You're not allowed to just get a laptop and music.
That was like the early days of digital DJing.
And so I think, yeah, there's an interesting debate that I think is here already.
It's like, where is the line and how does that sort of move over time around, you know,keeping mastery and like, like we're saying that the journey is the fun bit.
(58:03):
I often.
mastering stuff is like, that's the really fun part of the journey.
you climb the mountain, it's like the actual, the climb to the top was horrible, but it'slike you achieved something.
so thinking about like from a tools perspective, yeah.
(58:24):
Yeah, just thinking about it from a tools perspective, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like you're saying that, tools, that's a really interesting consideration these daysbecause we do want that.
We want fast results.
We want to be able to do interesting things and we want things that were time consuming tonot be as time consuming as they once were.
(58:44):
But yeah, where is that line where...
Because if you take that to the end, then yeah, just click the button and you got yoursong.
Where do you back, that's gotta be, I guess that's gonna be more and more of a challengeas the time goes on.
Yeah, no, exactly.
And that's something that we're thinking about, obviously.
(59:06):
And sort of, I hate to go back to it, the ethos behind something like sample or hex whereit's like, it's fun, but it's also powerful.
so, excuse me.
Yeah.
Like.
having it so people feel like they're in control and they're making something original andis theirs and they've mastered it and they've figured out some new thing that no one else
(59:32):
has figured out yet.
I think it's like, let's retain that, but then also make it.
Yeah.
Easy enough, but not so easy.
I can write, I don't know, press one click.
Cause I think, I think a market for that stuff does exist.
Don't get me wrong.
I think, you know, if you want some elevator music or some music you don't care about foryour
(59:53):
I don't know, your blog content or something.
You know, they already have like song libraries for that kind of stuff, right?
So I think that market exists or there's something there for that.
But in terms of like creating music as an outlet and for fun and for, yeah, I don't know,the reason we do it.
Yeah, there's a line somewhere that is evolving and I don't know where it is yet.
(01:00:15):
Yeah, yeah, we're going to find out, I guess, right?
But there is like that kind of feeling where if it is too easy, too fast, it almostdoesn't count.
Or it's not satisfying, it doesn't feel good, it's not you.
I wonder where that's going to wind up.
(01:00:39):
because I can really clearly see how some of the arguments of yesterday were kind ofsilly.
Like, why do I have to, if I want to just make some music and experience that feeling,like.
the 25 years of mastering the instrument and the music theory, that can be broken down alittle bit to let more people in.
(01:01:04):
It's still gonna help you though, in this process, right?
You know, it's still very useful to have all that stuff.
But yeah, if you turn the dial too much, then it just doesn't even matter.
Hmm.
yeah.
But I guess, you know, again, if people have, they have create, I guess, a creative momentwith these tools, then maybe that's also okay.
(01:01:28):
You know, there's just maybe different, it's different.
Yeah.
I'm not, yeah.
Like maybe if I want to make like a silly song for my friend's birthday and have it comeout of the computer real quick, almost like sending a meme to somebody, then yeah, that's
kind of fun.
Yeah, you can get a laugh out of that.
(01:01:48):
I don't think there's as much creative satisfaction maybe, but if you're not a musician,if you're not into that, if that's not important to you like it is to us, you know, then I
could see that.
That's a cool, It's a cool place for it.
it really is, and we might find that, you know, like any of these kind of, you know, whatwe call it top of the funnel sort of things where people might start experimenting with
(01:02:15):
that stuff as one click, you know, one click song makers.
And for every hundred people that play with them, maybe a handful of those people actuallygo on to like, actually, I want to figure out how to make this a bit more mine and play
with those tools more and break it down and, know.
remix the thing that I made and maybe that's their foray or their entry into musicproduction is actually through those means.
(01:02:39):
It's a bit like how DJs, example, nowadays a lot of DJs, they sort of start off as likereally good Spotify playlist creators.
They've got a good taste in music.
They don't own any music, but they're really good at making playlists.
And then the next evolution from there is to just then sort of entertain their friendsor...
(01:03:00):
you know, start to play those songs out to people.
It's a very different world to, you know, you had to collect and buy every single recordand keep it in your bedroom and learn the base, you know, learn the foundations.
But that's still like a great way to get into DJing.
And maybe we'll see the same with some of these tools where it's like, it's sort of anentry point.
(01:03:23):
And, you know, at the same time, you've got the people over here making music with.
drum machines and walls of analog synths that I don't know how to operate.
You've got people that enter the market with these one click solutions that are kind offunny and they wanna then push that more and make it more their own.
So yeah, it's cool.
(01:03:45):
Yeah, there's an experience in there, right?
It got me thinking about...
couple things I've done recently.
My wife and I went to a cooking class where we made fresh mozzarella cheese and you couldjust buy it at the store, you know, and that's that's fine.
But it was a lot of fun going through the experience and learning about it.
(01:04:08):
It enhanced some, I think we learned some things about cooking.
Show me how to hold a knife properly, which I couldn't believe I didn't know how to do.
Like all the vegetables I've chopped in my life.
But
That sort of thing, going through the process was really neat.
I don't want to do it every time personally, but if I was the kind of person that mighthave been more prone to wanting to learn that stuff, that would have been the way in.
(01:04:40):
I think that's great and I've always felt that way.
Maybe there's a fraction of myself that had to practice his scales on his guitar that is,you know, a little bit of that old man, you know, yelling about the new generation.
But I think all in all, it's a win that the, like playing field has been leveled or likeit's been democratized a little bit.
(01:05:02):
Like, I think it's really cool that you can take like a kid.
And instead of sitting them in front of the sheet music with like some instrument thatthey don't relate to, give them like something like a pad controller and they're making a
beat that sounds like the songs they like to listen to.
Or even if they're just on band lab taking loops and putting them together and then theystart getting excited.
(01:05:26):
You know, that's the spark that starts that fire for them that might not otherwise havebeen lit.
Exactly, yeah, and I might start off with pre-made loops and then I'm like I'm gonnafigure out how to make my own loops to make it a bit more You know a bit more personal or
they might not they might just want to combine more or more loops and they have somesuccess that way But hey if they're having fun That's cool.
(01:05:48):
Yeah
creativity to that.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's awesome.
I'm very happy you guys are into that and thinking about that.
It's a really interesting 21st century problem to be thinking about.
Right?
I think for so long, technology has been making things easier and easier.
(01:06:10):
And now we're almost like, wait a minute.
It doesn't need to get that easy.
Like we need to still keep the fun of the process in it.
And interesting thing to have to look out for.
Yeah, it really is.
Yeah.
And like I say, there's the danger of being too, you know, the old man yells at clouds,you know, back in my day, it had to be done this way.
(01:06:32):
And then there's the extreme, the tech bro, who cares about the process if you can makethe best song ever with one click.
And so, yeah, that's a, hey, it's like I say, it's a fun, very first, very 21st centuryproblem to be dealing with.
Wow, such a weird species, We've gotten so far.
(01:06:54):
But you guys are doing awesome stuff.
Congratulations on 25 years and your new device, Hex, which people can get through, Iguess, Serato.com,
Yep, Serato.com, yep.
it there.
So it's cool.
I like it a lot.
If anyone knows the kind of stuff I like, it's got a lot of interesting things that willgive you a lot of character to your music.
(01:07:20):
Those are the things I like the best these days that make it have a feel and a vibe.
And I don't need really like another compressor or EQ necessarily, unless, you know, theremight be some technology that comes out.
But I like the stuff that kind of
inspires me in that way.
So Hex is doing it for me.
It's really cool.
Cool, I'm glad you like it.
(01:07:41):
We had a lot of fun making it and having a lot of fun playing with it personally as well.
I'm glad to, you know, it's always nice to be able to, yeah, it's always nice to be ableto share your ideas with the world.
looking forward to having, yeah, everyone can grab it now.
So don't have to keep it secret.
Right.
Very good.
Well, thanks for taking the time to talk.
(01:08:03):
Yeah, thanks Brian.
Pleasure.
And yeah, thanks for having me.
Alright man.
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