#120 - Samuel Beckham - Lessons in Creativity and Problem-Solving - Revolutionizing Sound Tech & Bike Mechanics - Long Term Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, welcome to the Long Term Podcast.
Yeah, thank you for having me on.
Sam Beckham, everyone. Hello.
So how long have you been makingmusic?
So I started making music, I want to say like about 10 years
ago, but it wasn't really music at that point.
It was just kind of like I, I, Ibought a controller like a DJ

(00:23):
controller, started filling around with it, started figuring
out the software. And then I released my first
song in 2020. And since then I've released 3
albums and I've got about 50 songs that I've actually like
finished and produced and put out and mastered and all that
stuff. So yeah.

(00:44):
That's that sounds like a lot ofwork.
It's. Been, it's been a bit of a
journey. Yeah, yeah, there's been a lot
to it. Yeah, what?
What's made you keep going 'cause there are 50 songs,
right? Without knowing the creation
side of things there, you'd eventually lose that passion.
Like you don't fully lose it, but that that thrill in the

(01:05):
beginning. Yeah, right after doing it for
so long. Yeah, it.
Keeps you going. It's definitely a bit of it's
two things. It's as you like start to get
better at any particular skill, particularly with music
production, like you start getting better after you put a
ton of work in. But for me, it was really about

(01:28):
finding like the happiness in like the little moments of
inspiration. So like when you find a a point
at which you get stuck, there's always like maybe you'll leave
and go do something else for a while and you come back and you
have a breakthrough and you can finish the song from there.
That doesn't happen with every single song, but it like it,

(01:49):
there's ones that I had sitting for like months and months and
months. I just like left it.
And then I finally had the idea when I was out enjoying life or
socializing or, you know, going and exercising or working out or
biking. And it's like I had that moment
was like, Oh, I could do this. I come back to it and like that
that lets me maintain the amountof work that I put into it is

(02:13):
just like, it's not like I have to finish it right then and
there. I can come back to it.
It's like journaling, kind of. Yeah, you hit that roadblock,
right? And instead of just scratching
your head there and pulling yourhair out, it's like, no, you
give it some time. And then I heard a lot of people
that do make these grand discoveries and a lot of people
that discover all these musics music that becomes well

(02:36):
renowned, like Paul McCartney talked about Blackbird come or
yesterday song yesterday coming to him in a dream.
OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's all these, this guy named Ryan Hall Day.
He goes on many, many walks without music or anything and
then that like you're not even thinking about it consciously
and it just pops up. It's it's very much like that

(02:57):
Blackbird. It's funny you say that because
that song does sound very dreamlike when you listen to the
melody. It's like I.
Don't think it was Blackbird. It was.
Yesterday, it was. Yesterday, OK, but fair.
Enough. Fair enough.
Yeah, same, same kind of idea, Iguess.
Like it's, it's definitely you draw, you draw inspiration from
other areas in your life. Like you can't just, you can't
just like paint a picture without having a reference kind

(03:19):
of, you know, it's kind of like that.
So what type of music do you create the most?
It's a bit of it's, it's a lot there.
It's I would I would call it house music.
That's that's your typical like club, like 4 on the floor boots,
cats boots, kind of like that kind of stuff.

(03:40):
But I like to mix in a little a bit of other genres in there as
well. So I'm working on a genre right
now that I'm kind of doing a fusion of.
So there's like UK garage and UKdrum and bass.
And that's pretty popular in theUK and it's kind of worked its
way into the American EDM scene.But house music is like 120

(04:03):
beats per minute and UK garage or like drum and bass is
typically like 150 to 170. So it's really hard to mix those
two 'cause they, the, the BPM just doesn't work out.
So you kind of have to find the middle ground.
I'm using, I'm making house tracks that are in like 13140,
so they're like higher tempo andit really is allowing you to do

(04:27):
like allowing me to do a lot of experimental stuff.
So that's kind of where my soundis going.
But up until now, it's kind of been more like singer-songwriter
type stuff. I would just say whatever I'm
feeling creatively, I've just been making.
But I want to specialize, yeah. What is the hardest part about

(04:47):
professionally making music? I would say it, it, it has to do
with just just having the confidence in yourself to like
continue coming back to it because at the start your, your
songs will just suck. Like the first songs that I've

(05:09):
made were so bad and like, not really objectively, objectively
bad. Like the melodies were OK and
like the ideas there was, there was a clear vision for it.
I just couldn't meet that visionat the start.
And I think over time, developing the necessary skills
and figuring out what I needed to actually work on was the

(05:30):
hardest because you need like feedback to know what you're
doing wrong. And so, at first, that feedback
can feel like criticism. You know, yeah, at the start
that expectation is so clear in your head.
You got that vision right? When it comes down to actually
putting in the work and finding all these little things and
putting them all together, you find that it does.

(05:51):
It comes nowhere close to what you expect.
Yeah. And then, yeah, it deters you
from actually going through withmoving forward.
Yeah, it it can be really tough that way.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's difficultand it's just knowing that, hey,
it's going to suck at the start,whatever it is, whether it be
art, whether it be music or concert creation exercise, to

(06:15):
know that later on it will pay off and you don't even realize
it. Like there's no one single focal
point where you're just like, oh, this is this is it.
I've I've finally improved. Like, no, it's just you.
It's it's like going through allthe the life points with
somebody growing up and you don't really notice them grow.

(06:37):
But then when you see like that Ant and like a family reunion,
they're like, Oh my gosh, you'vegrown so much.
You know, that's the same way with skill building 100% person
that you, maybe you you fence with them for the first time and
then they don't fence anymore. And then they fence with you
again two years later after haven't haven't doing it.

(06:59):
They notice a noticeable difference, right.
And that's that's, that's beautiful about it.
But it's just. It's like one of those things
where like for, for like I, I kind of talk about bikes like
this too. It's like your brakes are going
to slowly, slowly go out of adjustment, but because you're
riding it every day, you don't notice.

(07:20):
Yeah, it's stuff like that. Not to jump into bikes just yet.
I still want to talk about music, but it's like it's, it's
funny because that's exactly howit is.
It's like there's small incremental changes every single
day. And like, I tell myself, I'm
just going to do this for 5 minutes.
I'm going to sit down and figurethis out and usually I do it for
longer but I tell myself 5 minutes.

(07:40):
It's like that's all it is, just.
Sit down a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
Yep. Consistency.
That's that's how that what's what will take you to the long
term success and fulfillment. Exactly.
Yeah, What do you hope to achieve in your music as your
passion? Such career.

(08:01):
I have a few goals. At first, I wanted to like make
it as a musician in the most stereotypical way.
And over time I kind of found out that that wasn't really what
I wanted. Especially like, I don't know if
you've, you've definitely heard about all the, the stuff that
happened with like P Diddy and all the weird shit that happens

(08:25):
at like the top echelons of the music industry.
And I knew that that was a thing.
But now that I see all of that, it's like, I don't actually want
to be a famous musician. I don't want to be that person
that's I don't want to be like Sabrina Carpenter.
I don't want to be like Taylor Swift.
I don't want to be like Drake, like those.
I don't want to be like that. It's just not my thing.

(08:47):
So where I actually want to go is I want to help other people
with their music, so I want to get into like film or like some
sort of industry. Like producing.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I find there's like a lot of people think fame is a good
idea, everybody crawling or clawing for your attention and

(09:09):
wanting to be your friend. But that kind of it loses a lot
of the interactions or the meaning in the interactions,
right? Because everybody is just
wanting to get something out of you.
And it's there's no sense of peace going out there.
Nope. And.
No, it's tough. Like I just saw this thing about

(09:29):
Justin Bieber and like he's his story is actually pretty tragic.
Like, it's like what he had to go through as a young musician
working with like, like P Diddy and, and for, for specifics,
like working in that side of theindustry completely removed him

(09:49):
from reality. And like, you can see the impact
that's having on him, especiallyrecently.
I don't know if anybody's seen that, but he's going through it.
And that's just not something that I want to deal with in my
personal life. I, I, yeah, I just, I just think
that there is a way to do it in a small, small community because
then you can have a, a better impact on people.

(10:11):
Like Taylor Swift isn't for me at least, like she's a, a great
musician and she works with someof the most talented people in
the world. But what Taylor Swift lacks is
that very small, tight knit group of people that, you know,
she might call family. Because once you get to the
level of being a super famous person and having a lot of

(10:33):
money, the industry tells you what you're doing.
The industry tells you what kindof stuff you promote, what kind
of lifestyle you're going to live, what kind of pictures you
post on Instagram. You know, like your, your whole
life is under the limelight and it's just not how I want to do
it. Yeah, there's a lot less control

(10:54):
and a lot less and the autonomy for what you do when it comes to
your music, 'cause you get so big.
It's, it's not just about what you want to do anymore.
You're an entire corporation, essentially, Yeah.
Have you heard the the the the theory that the Kendrick and
Drake beef is like fabricated byI've heard?

(11:17):
Many, many things about all that.
And I mean, they've, I, I believe it and even like the
Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight, right?
That they just, they're all buddies.
Yeah, back. And it's just some PR move.
It is. And if they worked, man, they
got everybody hooked and it, they got everybody listening to
their music. Cause a lot of people will

(11:38):
listen more when there's drama involved, when the tensions are
high. Yeah.
No, he said what he said. Oh, no way.
Like we are so driven four stories, right for kind of that
that beef, right for that drama.Yeah, you raise an interesting
point there because like I thinkespecially with modern day

(12:01):
content, you you see that a lot.You see a ton of fake stories,
actors, and it's really engagingsometimes.
Yeah, it's like, oh man, that mom's freaking out at her kid
because this and whatever. And then you realize that the
whole thing is scripted. Right.
So it makes UFC or they could a lot of the boxing matches pop

(12:22):
off because they're talking shitabout each other.
Nick Garner's a lot of hate and a lot of love and support and
it's just back and forth, but a lot of it, they just, they have
dinner that night. Yeah, yeah, they all sit down,
they share drinks and it yeah, psychologically it makes sense
because I feel like as people, we're just, we're so eager to be

(12:44):
invested in other people's stories and other people's life.
And and that is interesting to me.
I heard this thing about actually coming, coming to like
content creation. I heard this thing that the most
resonating creators, the people that are able to like maintain

(13:06):
people's attention and like gainfollowers in that way.
There's there's a psychological term called karmic mirror.
And what that actually is, is ifyou're a really genuine version
of yourself and you try to embody everything that you
identify yourself as, you can actually allow other people to

(13:31):
do the same thing. And that allows them, it creates
like an attractive force betweentwo people.
And it's really interesting because like, let's say you take
a video and you're completely genuine.
And sometimes that actually takes people by surprise.
If you tell the truth, write it and write it, like you just take
a video, you tell the truth. Or like a lot of creators will

(13:53):
just take their phone and they'll just record one take and
they'll put that out and it justresonates with people.
People are hungry for authenticity, man.
Have you heard of Sam Sulik? Yes, yeah.
So. He's got this like hour, almost
one hour videos and it's got youknow, each video has got almost
1,000,000 views and it's it's not like Mr. Beast or it's not

(14:17):
like these dopamineergic videos where it's just trying to
capture your attention with every single second with all
these flashy lights and novelty.It just, it's just the truth,
right? He's, he's there and he talks
about his struggles, he talks about his passions, his dreams.
He doesn't hide kind of the the ugly truth about, you know, the
shame that he feels about certain things or just the he

(14:41):
likes chocolate milk. So people just like the little
things like that. He's.
Super humble. I actually really like, like, I
don't, I don't like, I don't like follow the guy at all.
But he comes up, he comes up on my feet.
He comes up on like, am I driving?
Yeah, exactly. The first thing I noticed?
Like holy shit, this guy's huge.Yeah, I know exactly and.
Then the next thing is like, this guy seems so chill.

(15:02):
I want to meet him. Yeah.
He seems so, so humble. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, he's really cool. That's what makes him so people
so enticing of people and so popular because it's people
relate to him. He's, he's a really good example
of a karmic mirror. Yeah.
He that that's kind of like another thing to go along with
the consistency. Like that guy's in the gym every

(15:23):
day, every single day. And there's probably days when
he didn't want to go in there and do that.
True, you know. And filming and at the start,
too, like, it must have been so much pressure and so much just,
you know, shame. Maybe without it, I don't know.
I don't know much about him. But when you're starting and
you're just filming and everybody's in the background

(15:44):
right at talking to the camera, I don't know whether he's just
really good at isolating kind ofwhat he thinks and doesn't
really care about what other people think.
But at the start, you know, whennobody really knows you, he's
just there working out, talking to the camera and, like, walking
around and people are just like,And he doesn't care.

(16:05):
Yeah. And then that requires bravery,
right? Which is something that I, I see
people like that and I'm like, wow, good for you.
Like putting yourself out there.Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's
kind of like a lot of people sayit's marketing, but it, it, it's
actually not really. I wouldn't really call it

(16:25):
marketing because like that you're just representing
yourself in a in a very genuine manner and that can to, to
people that you know, that want to take an interest in what
you're doing. That can be really beneficial.
Yeah, What are some of the most powerful tools or products
available today that allow soundengineers to completely reshaped

(16:48):
or repair audio? There is, there's a lot.
I'll kind of I guess I'll just go through some of the ones that
I use. So the, the, the DAW that I use
digital audio workspace is, is machine and that's the software
I've been using the whole 10 years that I've been making

(17:08):
music. And the the best tools for kind
of like shaping and and looking at audio any sort of like
spectral imager. What that basically means is
like visualizing the waveform ofaudio.
So in in class, you've probably learned that, you know, audio is

(17:29):
made-up of sound waves. Those waves can be visualized in
in a file. And the best way to like create
a song is to use additive synthesis.
So you're adding waves on top ofeach other to create the final
product. So any sort of like audio imager

(17:50):
allows you to look at what exactly your waveform looks like
and you can make decisions basedon that information.
So a lot of the stuff that I am doing right now is bass heavy.
So it's very bass oriented and you can tell when a song doesn't
quite have the right bass because it doesn't create that

(18:13):
residency in A room. And that's what that imager is
really good for. It's like you can actually
physically see how wide that waveform is, how, how, how much
amplitude there is to that and how wide it is.
And that's that's the most important part is like getting
that really nice low end. The imager helps.

(18:34):
Besides that, there's a couple other ones, but it really
depends on what you're doing. So like I use Ozone 10, which is
a mastering tool, and that's just to get the track louder.
There's a a term that a lot of people use in mastering.
It's called LUFS. So there's decibels, which is

(18:57):
like how loud something actuallyis.
And then there is LUFS, which ishow loud something is within the
constraints of a file. So like a file that plays on
Spotify has been quieted to 14 lufs -14 Lufs.

(19:18):
And that's just a standard normalization process across all
streaming platforms. That was actually decided by a
bunch of like, it was the actualcommittee that was like,
everything is too different in terms of volume.
They were like, oh, this, you know, we're listening to music
from the 40s that's like this quiet.
And nowadays we've got DJ mixes that are this loud.

(19:38):
So we need to find a common ground.
So all the streaming platforms were like -14 Lufs, That's the
common ground that we're going to reach for.
But I can go and produce a song that's zero and completely maxed
out at the borders of the of thefile.
That's the the the amplitude of the sound is hitting there.
And that doesn't mean that it's directly loud, but that means
that if I turn my speaker systemup, I can go way louder than a

(20:01):
lot of other people's stuff. Usually louder is perceived as
better. And you upload that to Spotify
and the they automatically goes to -14 Yep.
They will. They will apply that
normalization to it. YouTube and Apple Podcasts and
all these different social mediaplatforms as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah 'cause that wayas well.
You don't just go through a a video right with the same volume

(20:24):
and just you rape your ears. Essentially, essentially, yeah.
Like that, that sound that you're hearing, that actual,
like when that that sound startsto distort quite heavily.
That's, that's the audio breaking past the the boundary
of the file. It's called clipping.
So it's like literally taking where you would have a
continuous waveform. It's like cutting off that,

(20:47):
that, that peak and it's just leaving you with an empty space.
So it just like distorts the audio by making the waveform
discontinuous. It's like, it's like if you turn
it up too high, it almost soundslike you're in the back seat of
some kids like Honda Civic. And he's got like 16 inch
subwoofers and he's cranked the bass all the way and it just

(21:08):
sounds like farting. That's essentially what's
happening. Yeah, interesting.
Yeah. How do you approach balancing
the technical precision of soundengineering with the artistic
elements of music production? It has to do a lot with.
So like when I started, I thought that I wanted to make a
specific genre, but I didn't know the rules surrounding those

(21:33):
genres. So like I used to listen to a
lot of trap music when I was younger and that was kind of
like really big in like 2014 to like 2018.
I would say. Now it's not so not so such a
big deal, excuse me, but I wanted to create that kind of

(21:54):
music because that's what I was listening to at the time.
And when I went to go do that, it sounded nothing like what I
what I was listening to. So when I started, the intention
for me was to like get in touch with a record label as soon as
possible. I don't know why that was my
goal, but I assume it had to do something with like actually
getting reward for the work thatI was putting in.

(22:19):
Yeah, I, I wanted to get in touch with the record label.
So I was making beats and they sucked.
And I didn't understand the rules around like mixing audio.
I didn't know like the order of importance because there's like,
like, you know, bed, bed mass, right?
Yeah. From math, there's like
brackets, exponents. There's, there's an order to how
you would actually do something in a song.

(22:41):
Like I, there's a rule set for each genre too.
So like when I when you go do house music, the kick drum is
typically going to be like this loud and then you're going to
have the vocal follow that just just underneath it.
And then you're going to have the snare drum just underneath
that. And so there's like an order of

(23:01):
importance for how you're going to lay everything out.
Obviously you'd have like littletiny effects and little ear
candy is the quietest and your main element, which is the kick
drum in the bass going to be themost important, the most at the
front. Oh, I think the vocal wouldn't
be a. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes it
can be. Yeah, the kick, the kick has a
portion to it called the transient.
And so the kick has like a high end to it.

(23:22):
So typically when you look on a,on an EQ, you've got your kick
is all low end and then there's just a little piece on the high
end that's called your transient.
That's what pokes through. So sometimes your audio will
actually display that the kick is louder than the vocal just
because of that transient bit that punches through the vocal.

(23:43):
And in most cases for house music, especially if you're
playing in a club, the vocal is side chained to duck.
And what side chaining is, is basically like whenever the
kicks playing, the vocals audio is pulled and that creates that
like pumping motion that you getwhen you listen to house music.
Exactly. And so like often times the

(24:03):
vocal will be, at times the vocal be louder than the kick
drum, but that's just the way you mix it.
Like you have the kick drum gainset, so it's higher than the
vocal by just a hair, but whenever that vocal is actually
playing, it's a bit louder. That's what that side chain,
that side chaining does. It's kind of like an interplay
of the two things. I didn't understand that when I
was starting at all. I had no idea.

(24:25):
Like that's how you would mix a house track.
And that was the challenging part for me is like I wanted to
go to labels. I want to take my stuff, the
labels, but I didn't have that. So coming back to, to, to the
question, the, the actual setup that I have allows me to, it's

(24:47):
very different from what other people are using.
It's like completely curated by myself.
I started out with the software and then I got a bunch of
different plugins and I, I addedthose plugins into my effects
rack and it's basically like if you look at any sort of big
studio with physical gear, that's kind of what I have at
home. It's just all software.

(25:09):
And so I'll have like different effects racks that'll be
plugging stuff into and adding stuff onto and altering the
sound from there. And a lot of that creative side
comes from just the, the order that you're doing things.
So like somebody might say you should do your mix before you
add distortion, obviously to, to, to an audio engineer, that

(25:30):
would make sense. But the average person's like,
I'm going to put the distortion before the mix.
Sometimes that creates like really cool outcomes, which for
me like a lot of it's just experimentation.
And that's kind of how I separate the side of, you know,
like creative making music and experimenting and then like
making music for an A desired outcome.

(25:51):
Like a record label, you want toput a song out for them.
You can do both. You just need to know the rules
and you need to know how to bendthem.
Yeah. So that's kind of how I do.
It my my dad's always told me you need to be able to break the
rules. You need to know how to follow
all of them first. Exactly.
So how would you be able to create something that surpasses

(26:14):
what is deemed average if you don't even know the rules that
make them all up in the 1st place?
Right to change To change the game you need to know how to
follow the rules 100%. Yeah, yeah, no, like that's
exactly, exactly what I was trying to get at, yeah.
Yeah. Are you pretty much there?
Have you mastered all the rules or anything?

(26:34):
I, I wouldn't say I'm there. I, it's, it's a learning
process. It's always going to be new
stuff that I'm learning. And, and the the biggest thing
too, is that when people say music, there's so many aspects
to it. So many avenues too.
So yeah, it's honestly, it is a whole like it explodes with how

(26:55):
much possibility there really iswithin it.
I would say I'm a pretty well-rounded musician.
I wouldn't say I'm like super good at one thing.
I'm just very versatile. So like, I'm good at pretty, I'm
pretty good at songwriting, I'm pretty good at mixing.
I'm pretty good at like doing the audio engineering side of
things and all those things in when you combine them together,

(27:18):
it adds up to like a decent song.
Am IA good piano player? No, like I, I can kind of play a
little bit, but I can't, you know, like I wouldn't be able to
do, I wouldn't be able to read sheet music or like do like a
concerto at all. Like I wouldn't be able to do
any of that. But the versatility is

(27:39):
important. Being able to do like a little
bit of everything. Like maybe you sing a little
bit, maybe you do a bit of drums, maybe do a bit of this.
That's really the big thing. Yeah, that way if you dip your
dip your feet in the water there, you know what it's like.
Or maybe you don't know the fullest extent to how that skill
is mastered, but you know what'sgood and what's not.

(28:00):
Yeah, exactly. That's why when you when you try
to play the guitar initially, now you you know how difficult
it is to master the the notes orthe scales at the start when
your your fingers haven't acclimated yet or the bar
chords. And then you see somebody who's
playing professionally and you know, that's good.
You know how the tempo and you know, the the structure, the

(28:21):
chords that are when you get into the structuring of a
certain song, right, or making music, now you have a baseline
as to how what's good and what'snot.
And it's yeah. Now when you see a a song, when
you listen to a song, you know, oh, that's the kind of time that
weird. And it's that follows all the

(28:43):
rules. But I can I can see why it's
world renowned, yes, see why it's just out of this time,
which is what makes you know what what makes music and just
mastering skills so, so imperative to like.
If you, if you learn about a lotof different things within your

(29:05):
field, then you'll know what to look for when, when somebody
does master that certain skill, it's like, huh, like I've tried
that before. So I know what a, a person that
practices, you know, 30 minutes a day would be capable of.
And that's me. And this guy practices 5 hours,

(29:27):
right? So I could learn from him or I
could have him on my team. Well, and the, The thing is too
is like, and this goes for, for professionals that work
together, being a good team player is like, it is a really
huge part of music. And it took a long time for me
to learn that I, I actually wanted to do like the main

(29:49):
reason that I got into it was because I, I had the ability to
control every single part of allof the music that I was making.
That to me was really appealing because I like that.
I like to be like on top of all that.
And I think that's what drove meto like start mastering it as a
skill because I was like, I wantto have more control over what
I'm doing. I want to have more creative

(30:10):
ideas that I'm working with. But there's actually no better
joy than working with another person collaboratively on a
song. Like I have my buddy Tom over
quite often, and he's a guitar player.
He's going to McEwen for the music program there.
And we'll just sit down after like we go for a bike ride or

(30:30):
something. We'll do like 30 K through the
valley. We'll come back, we'll sit down
and we'll like whip out a song and maybe like 2 hours.
And sometimes it's like the weirdest thing you've ever
heard. But there's something to it that
it's just like the, the, the, the combination of my style and
his style coming together creates this new fun, exciting

(30:51):
thing. And it's just like that.
There's no better feeling than that.
Even if that song flops, the opportunity to work with that
guy was super fun. You know, So that it like that
to me is, is kind of where I'm going now.
I I just actually I was at a competition in Edmonton and I
won. Congratulations.

(31:12):
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
And so that was a, it was a competition for producers.
There's a lot of like other beatmakers there from Edmonton.
And it was super cool to like actually meet with people and
like network with them. And because I won, I'm getting
flown out to Toronto to like, doit again.
So yeah. So it's super exciting.

(31:34):
I'd like Edmonton represent, youknow.
And yeah, there we go. It's, it's interesting to see
all the different styles. Like there was a guy there that
was doing like beats like MF Doom and like he was doing this
old like sample crate digging kind of stuff.
And it was just like super cool to see that.
And the, the runner up, this guywas also super good.

(31:55):
You just like making like like super tight clean rap beats.
I was like, Oh my God, this is awesome.
Yeah, it is super cool opportunity.
But I just enjoyed like networking with those people.
Like that was a part that I actually really enjoyed so.
Then you act extract a little bit of information from
interacting with that person. Right.
Yeah. And you?

(32:16):
Go home. How did you come up with that
little piece? And then they, they tell you,
Yeah. And then you, you, they, you
tell them about your experience and it's take the exchange of
information just from years of turmoil from years of just
mastering the craft, right, all condensed into a 30 minute

(32:37):
conversation can be so, so rewarding.
That's how you mentioned the team building and networking and
working with your buddy on a song is so much more fulfilling
and you derive so much more connection and knowledge
building. 100%, yeah. Because it's like you've got a

(32:57):
person in a, in a field that's, it's their hearts and that's
maybe it's close to what you're doing, but it's they're, they're
interested in rap and you have no idea what that's what that's
like. And they can tell you just a
little bit of what that entails.And you'll, you won't forget
that because that's out of all the, the things that you ask,

(33:22):
right? It's just the what interests you
is what you want to extract fromthem, right?
And it's just that this back andforth and it, when I have a
problem and then I don't know, I, I take it upon myself to

(33:43):
actually go through going through all the different
articles and maybe reading bookson it, watching YouTube videos.
It takes me so many hours. Versus if I've got a friend
who's gone through the same problem and they, you know,
they, they've gone through all those hours, they can just lead
me to one source and it's corrected within 30 minutes.

(34:07):
Exactly. Because you've ever been in like
a, a software where it's just like this.
It's so looking in retrospect, it's so easy to fix because
you've already gone through. The whole process.
The whole process, but it was just this mark off and then you
just needed to put the, you know, loudness to maybe a + 3
yeah or a -3 or maybe the decibels.

(34:29):
And then maybe you got to cut the sound wave and and put it in
this form. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like returning to the projects, it's, that's, that's really what
it is. Like you have, you have a hang
up and maybe you go and, and youtalk it over with somebody and
then you come back and, and it'slike, boom, you're there.
And like I had this whole experience in the last year or

(34:51):
so. I was working with I, I had a DJ
coach for a while and he's from Australia.
His name's Neotech and he does dubstep.
So it's very different genre to what I'm doing.
But his his work is very like mix oriented because dubstep has
a lot going on. It's got a lot of different
sound that they're using at the same time.

(35:13):
You have to make sure that that all integrates cleanly and
sounds something that's like legible, like you can actually
like understand what you're listening to.
It's kind of like a huge thing with dubstep.
But he's, he was able to coach me on a lot of my work and like
tell me it's like like the firstcouple things I struggle with
the drums, like drums are are because they're not melodic.

(35:33):
It just doesn't like for me, it didn't make a lot of sense.
I was like, oh, well, I want my kick drum to sound like this and
the tone of this snare to sound like that.
But then he was like, no, no, no, no, you're, you're looking
for the wrong thing. You need to be looking for
impact. And I was like, OK, he's like,
like these drums have to like knock.
There's like a, there's like a word that you use.
It's like knock that the drum should knock.

(35:55):
And I was confused at what that meant.
But then he was like, here's what I do.
It's just like, like raise the volume and, you know, work on
the transients, which is the thing I was talking about
before. The like the clicky sounds, the
really quick, like little information work on that because
that's where the excitement is. And he's like, OK, so I did all

(36:15):
that work and his his coaching was super, super helpful.
In the last like six months, I learned more than I had in like,
like years. It was.
It's still like, huge. Yeah, he's already gone through
all the work, right? He just condenses it into, you
know, a one month lesson for you.
Exactly. And he can listen to my my

(36:36):
tracks and give me feedback. And like, that's, that's
honestly how a lot of musicians do really well because they get
that feedback instantly. Like, if you have even like, one
extra person in the studio, thatcan be like, I don't like how
that sounds. All of a sudden, you're like 5
steps ahead. Because otherwise you would have

(36:56):
had to like, to put that song out and then have somebody
listen to it. And then all of a sudden they're
like, I don't like how that sounds Now.
It's like, oh, well, I guess I'll save it for the next song
I'm doing, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I had, back when I first started the podcast, I had this
buddy who's who's really into FLstudio throughout high school.
He just did it for fun. He made a bunch of YouTube

(37:17):
videos and he was really, reallycritical of the audio and I
didn't think much of it. But then the more I thought
about what he told me, the more I started to see the what the
problem was. It was a bit, you know, echoey
and it really stressed me out. But within those, the criticism,

(37:39):
that's where I saw the most growth, where I sought to fix
this problem. That was that he could hear.
And then if I wanted to keep improving, I need to take it as
advice. Instead of just taking it
personally, I could take it objectively and actually learn
from it. I, I sent my work to a podcast

(37:59):
called I'm Peaking Podcast and they reviewed it.
This would have been like three or four months ago and it was
attractive. I was like really happy about
finishing, but I, I knew that there was something more that I
could have done to it. So I sent it to them.
They picked up on the things that we're lacking.

(38:20):
And then they like, they mentioned that in their podcasts
like, oh, I guess this, this could be a little louder.
Bass is kind of feeling, you know, not so loud here.
It was like a review. Yeah, it was like a review that
they did of my of my work and, and, and I was like, at first I
was like, man, this, this sucks,you know, it's like.
Good. Exactly.
Yeah, I was like, this is this hurts, you know?

(38:40):
And then I, I, I look back at itand I looked at it objectively
and yeah, the song was quiet, like objectively, like even even
streaming on Spotify, it was under where I wanted it to be,
you know? And, and so I was like, OK, so I
have some work to do. And so yeah, I just took that in
stride and, and went with it and, and now, you know, I'm
making more stuff that to me is better.

(39:02):
It's in a better spot. Yeah, I remember my my some
family members would call me outfor being lazy or being mean or
just rude in certain contacts and thought it was like the
worst thing ever. Like, what?
How could you say that to me? The more you actually reflect on
it, Like, maybe they do have a point, right?
Maybe they do have a point because when we get hurt by, you

(39:25):
know, somebody else's criticism of we take it personally, like
it's about our character. And maybe it is sometimes,
sometimes about our character, but it's taking that and
actually finding solutions for it.
And like, Yep, it could be that they're just hating on it to
hate. But that's that's why where you
find sources which they are credible and they are

(39:46):
trustworthy and they want your best interest.
Are there any other artists thatyou resonate with and look up
to? Yeah.
There's a couple. So there's, I think the biggest
one for me, and in the past thiskind of influenced me a lot.
There's this work by Yon Hammer and it's a he's a Czech guy and

(40:10):
he was like a composer for a lotof work that was done in like
the early 80s. And he basically compiled this
like list of concept animations that were coming out of like
early animation studios in the day.
And some of these videos were very like psychedelic in their

(40:32):
nature, like they were like. I know what you mean, yeah.
Exactly like super trippy videos, but it was really just
to like prove the ability of thecomputers at the time.
Like this is 1989. That was like a new frontier.
They were like, animation was just like just starting out.
And these animations, these demoreels that they gave to this guy
were like, that was like, nobodyever seen anything like that

(40:54):
before. Like trippy videos that were a
thing yet? Yeah.
Exactly. And it was like one of the first
things to come out in that kind of like style.
Like one of the animations literally has the it's like this
theory that a seed came from outer space and landed on Earth
and then and then like populatedthe Earth.

(41:15):
It was just like one seed that came from another planet.
And like he they animated that in in this film and then Yon
hammer composed a score for it. So it's like, it's like an hour
long video of all these different animations compiled
together and watching that just had it gives you this weird form
of like nostalgia for something.I like I wasn't born in the aid

(41:40):
in the 80s, like this wasn't my time, but I was, as I was
watching that, I was like, wow, this is like it's like grainy.
It's like, it's like the color palette is very like vibrant and
the shapes are all super basic. It's like this weird art style
that I really wanted to like integrate into my artist
project. And so with my current artist

(42:01):
project, Cytronica, I'm like trying to create sounds that I
think accompany that style, thatvisual style really well.
So that was really influential to me.
And then as well, there's this artist called HR Geiger.
And, and he's not something thatI really represent in my art
quite a bit, but he's interesting because he kind of

(42:24):
broke a bunch of rules in the 60s to the 80s with his art.
So he's the guy that did the artfor.
Have you ever seen Alien? I've like the original one,
yeah, Yeah, I've seen the ones after like the original, but I
know the plot, yeah. Yeah, so HR Geiger did the

(42:46):
concept art for Alien. So he designed the creature, he
designed the ship that the alienwas found on.
And his art style is referred toas biomechanical.
But when he came out with like the first concepts for this art
design, he was playing with all these like sexual undertones,
these religious undertones. And he was like really messing

(43:06):
with people because it was like he would draw a picture of
something that was like really alien looking and, and like
maybe it's an outer space or something like that.
But then he would label it as like, this is a woman, like just
a plain old woman and and this and that.
And then you start looking at itlike, Oh, I, I, there's some
female features there to that. That's really strange.

(43:27):
It's, it was like aliens mixing with humans, all this weird
stuff, right. And what I find interesting
about that is he was like willing to go out in public and
be like, you know, the rules about drawing things that mess
with people's brains that are kind of like, I don't even know
the word for. It like borderline offensive.

(43:47):
Like unsettling a little bit, kind of put you out of out of
your comfort zone. You, you're looking at it.
You're like, I don't like the premise of this whole thing.
Here, this kind of gives me likean ominous feeling, yes.
His art was very much like that.And I don't want to say that I
particularly like like every single one of his works because
I it's clear to me that the guy was just very mentally, he had a

(44:12):
lot of stuff going on. He was challenged in his life, I
think, and I think you had some repressive things that he was
trying to put out there. But I what I find interesting is
the fact he was willing to like go outside of people's taste and
like just just just outside the border of what people are
comfortable with. So it was new, you know, he was

(44:35):
willing to like break a culturalnorm to, to get his art scene
and to have people grapple with the same ideas that he was
grappling with. And for me, I would say that
that's one of the goals that I want to achieve with with my
art. I want, I don't want it to just
be like, like, if you were to put on my album passively, you

(44:56):
could listen to it. You could do chores, you do
whatever. But I want people that are
actively listening to it to be like, oh, like he's, he's
working with something here. Sitting down and then actually
have that visual, yeah, side of it engaged. 100% and and that's
kind of important too, because you don't want people to be in
their comfort zone all the time.And excuse me a lot of effective

(45:17):
music is actually a subversion of your expectations.
So like people have a really, really strong ability to predict
what's going to happen next in the song Like it it because it
follows a certain set of rules. We've as a culture kind of
ingrained this expectation aboutwhat's going to happen when
this, you know, when the drop comes, right?

(45:38):
It's like everybody talks about what's, what's the drop?
You know that that is the fulfillment.
Exactly. That's the fulfillment of your
expectations. And so when you subvert that,
it's creates a really interesting effect because
people are like, I didn't expectthat.
That sounds cool. I like it.
And, and if you look at psychologically the release of
dopamine for a predictable song versus a song that's

(46:01):
unpredictable, the dopamine in the unpredictable song is
higher. Even though you might not have
some people that you might have some people that don't like
that, you might have some peoplethat listen to that like, no,
no, I don't. That's not my thing.
Too many surprises, right? But like, we are wired for
novelty. Exactly.
Just it reminds me of that. You ever listen to Lonely
Island? Yes, you know.
That that one song that dropped the bass once, the bass gonna

(46:24):
drop and everybody's just going like everybody's just so, so
curious and wanting the bass to drop, right.
They're going crazy. Yeah.
And then eventually when the bass drops, people just turn up
to death. Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, yeah, no, I I believe it.
I mean, the songs were it's I'm not expecting that it's going to

(46:46):
have that kick to it. Like if it's because we are
programmed or pattern recognition, right?
Like a person walks up to us that has the, you know, has the
suits and maybe, you know, lookscurious, maybe looks lost.
Maybe they're we're just going to expect they're going to ask
for directions. We got a song that, you know,

(47:07):
is, you know, dubstep, Skrillex,like we know when the time of
the chorus and when the bass drops and that's we expectation
is right there. But when you got a song that is
structured in a way where it's not, it doesn't quite deviate
away fully from the the structure, but it does it in a

(47:29):
way where oh you, you could that's really original.
It's like thinking outside of box because you could just, you
know, throw shit against the wall that that'll be novel, you
know, and it's not it doesn't mean anything.
No, people won't like it, but you can structure it in a way
that goes beyond what the average person is thinking

(47:49):
about. Maybe add a certain element to
it and it's all very vague, but it's like feeling wise, you can
tell. There's, there's like a degree
of, of just like an overall vision for how the tracks going
to play out. And, and as long as you're
within the overall concept, you can, you can make it work.

(48:12):
Yeah. Like the, the, the Skrillex, the
new Skrillex sound, I should say.
Like he, he started with monsters and nice scary sprites
or whatever that album was actually called.
He started with that stuff and it was very like dubstep.
It's like everybody knows some of that music, but the new stuff
is like very different from whathe's done before.

(48:35):
And I think like there's that necessary like evolution in your
sound and there's like a a pointat which you want to do new
stuff. It's just really weird to me how
like so many people hopped on that train after Skrillex
started doing it. Like you had Skrillex and then
you had this guy blow up right after him named Hamdi.
He's doing a very similar sound.Then Marshmallow hopped on that

(48:58):
sound. And then you've got the guy that
that blew up on TikTok recently.I think his name's like Daniel
Allen. He put out a song that's like,
it sounds exactly like Skrillex.It's like new Skrillex.
And so it's like like where are we going with this guy's like
cuz, cuz I can predict what it'sgoing to sound like.
It's like not necessarily can predict it, but I know the
general elements that are going to come up in the track.

(49:20):
And I just think that like 2024 was the year for EDM that just
it just lacked something like a lot of people are like, we need,
we need 2016 EDM back, you know what I mean?
Like a lot of people are like, bring back The Chainsmokers.
It's like, I never liked The Chainsmokers.
But The thing is, is that they had something, they had this
like nostalgia in a bottle, you know what I mean?

(49:42):
And people want that back. And it's just like this new
Skrillex stuff is just doesn't seem to be hitting with people
with my music. I'm trying to like bring that
back in a sense because I was listening to tons of different
stuff when I was, you know, 13 and 14 and maybe there's some
rose colored glasses with all that stuff.
You know, I'm looking back on the past and admiring it, even

(50:02):
though it wasn't that great for for what it was.
But I still want to like bring that sound forward and like add
some new features to it, add some new ideas to it and and
keep it alive, so to speak. John Hammer.
Did I pronounce that right? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's
Jan or Jan because he's Czech. I would assume the J right is is

(50:26):
silent, but I could be mistaken.So it's Jan, that's all you
need. To know, OK, well, Jan's hammers
beyond the minds. I have such an incredible Sonic
landscape. What do you think made it made
its production so unique and whydo you think it's hasn't gained
more notoriety? So beyond the Mind's Eye was
what I was talking about earlierwith that, that compilation of,

(50:50):
of demo reels, these animations that they put together for yon
hammer to compose to. It's an hour long video.
I, I think the, a lot of the reasons that it didn't blow up
was purely just because like theera that it's coming from.
I mean, this is 1989. Most people had never seen
computer animation before that like this was a very new thing.

(51:13):
It was very new art style. It was extremely creative, but I
think it just didn't resonate with most people because like
the the ideas behind it were a little bit counterculture, like
the psychedelic nature of the visuals.
I think it made a lot of people like fearful of it and

(51:34):
questioned kind of where it was coming from.
And as well, like in in 1989, while that that art may have
resonated with the younger culture or the younger
population, it didn't resonate with the old folks. 100% did
not. It's like that was an electric
electronic composition. It didn't sound like real at

(51:56):
all, which I mean, for the 8 for1989, they're doing a pretty
good job of making it sound real, but they just didn't have
the tools that they had today tomake it sound like a real
instrument and real production. And I think that's just where it
fell flat. Like it just landed with it
landed with kids and that kind of perpetuated it.

(52:16):
But it it has to, it takes a lotof relevancy to like maintain an
active viewer base for that long.
Like 1989 was 35 years ago, 36 years ago.
And it's like that's, that's a good portion of a of a century
and just the relevancy of that, it just fell off.

(52:38):
It's kind of a hidden gem to me.It's kind of like a Internet
rabbit hole. It's like, I'm really interested
in Internet rabbit holes. And that yon hammer beyond the
mind's eye. All of the work that he did is
just super interesting to see and to see like the artistic
process behind that. Super cool.
I highly suggest checking it outif if anybody's interested.

(52:58):
Best hour of your life, guarantee it.
Yeah, if I'm someone who wants to start making music and you
could give me advice, what wouldyou say?
Make sure you have a good reasonto get into making music.
Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.
Like I said, I tried to get intoit at the start for the wrong

(53:20):
reasons, and that held me back by quite a bit.
Quite a bit. And now I realize that music to
me is more about expressing myself and less about trying to
make it for an audience. I think, I think Rick Rubin said
that the artist should be makingthe art, the art for themselves.

(53:41):
They shouldn't be making it for anybody.
It should be some sort of thing that you're trying to grapple
with and trying to work out. And, and, and I guess that's not
necessarily true for every single production ever, because
I like a lot of commercial music.
I'd like, I, I love the sound that commercial commercial music
brings. Like a lot of house musicians
that are like really big names are really inspirational to me.

(54:03):
But even though they're commercialized, they've still
kept a part of their sound identity.
And, and that to me is important, Like, so make sure
you're getting into it for the right reasons.
Otherwise you'll be a sellout and nobody's going to resonate
with your, with your music. Nobody's going to like it
because if you're a sellout, people can tell.
People can tell if you sell out.Yeah, like what are you doing

(54:25):
that for at the end of the day? Exactly.
Yeah, Like, like I think there'sa lot of good examples.
I don't want to to name names about anybody in the industry,
but there are sellouts. They exist.
You might know them as industry plants.
That is the unfortunate side of it, of it being a business,

(54:45):
because it is a business at the end of the day.
And I think for me creatively, the further I can stay away from
it being a money making thing, the better because it gives me
more freedom to do what I want to do.
And nowadays we're kind of in a golden age of independent
artists. I, I know a lot of people are
like artists struggle quite a lot.
And that's true. But I think that we're very

(55:08):
confused on the definition of success as an artist.
I think a lot of people like youneed to make a full time living
from your work. That's just not necessarily true
in 2025. You can be an amazing artist and
just not, you know, not make a ton of money off of it.
And that's OK because people like to create stuff.
I mean, clearly the Internet is a testament to that.

(55:28):
So true. Yeah, it's, I always tell my
little brother he's 6. Can either be a consumer or
producer, right. But yes, we all need to consume.
Yeah, but you got to do more theproducing part, or else it's
just gonna, it's gonna deteriorate your brain.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one
for the younger generation, 100%.

(55:49):
So you find just just consuming and listening to all the their
creativity, all that surrounds us.
It's abundant, right? That's on YouTube, it's in the
music, it's in the arts, it's inthe books, it's all around us.
If you want to go the knowledge route, there's just people like
in the research getting their pHDS.

(56:10):
But if you don't create anythingyourself, it's just it's so
disheartening, man. Like you don't leave, you don't
feel like that creativity is allwithin us.
It's all it's like a need you. Know a lot of people, a lot of
people like will say, I'm not a creative person.
I don't have creative juices in me.

(56:31):
I can't just go and make something.
And it's like the reason that you struggle with that is
because it's a it's a muscle, you know, being able to get into
a creative space is in your brain is, is difficult and it's
not easily accessible. A lot of athletes refer to it as
the flow state. You know, like you went when,
when LeBron is on the court and he's you know, he's going after

(56:54):
going after the game, like he reaches a flow state, he's
untouchable. You know, a lot of people talk
about that and that's something you actually have to like train
to get into. So like opening yourself up to
creative ideas everyday is, is super important in the process
of becoming a creative individual.
And a lot of it too, is just notjudging the thoughts that you

(57:16):
have. Like when it, when you
brainstorm something for school,maybe you're just dumping ideas
and not all of them are going towork, but you're not judging
every single idea. The point is to just get it out,
you know, put it on a page. And, and when you're starting
out with music, so you want whatyou want to do.
You don't want to judge every single idea that's coming out
and be like, I don't like that because of this.
I don't like that because of this.

(57:36):
It's like, well, you made it, own it.
And then eventually you're goingto make better decisions when
you start to dump more, you're going to pick out what you like
and then you're going to build arepertoire.
You know, you're going to develop yourself creatively.
And that's the biggest thing. It's like have a good reason and
practice everyday like be consistent.

(57:58):
Yeah, yeah, let's move on to bicycle and mechanics.
Yes. Industry trends, Yes.
Yeah. What's a common misconception
people have about bike mechanicsthat you wish more riders
understood? It's, it's so, so bicycle
mechanics is actually a trade inEurope.
It's like a, it's like a fully recognized trade that you can

(58:21):
get a certificate for and you can actually go and work at any
bike shop in in Europe with thistrade ticket in Canada.
It's not recognized as a trade. I, I, I think it should be.
I just think that the way that the industry is going right now,
there's not enough funding within bike the bike industry,

(58:44):
and it's too sporadic to really say that it's like an industry.
It is an industry for brands that produce bikes, but it kind
of turns into individual merchants once you start to
specialize at shops, like as a distributor.
It's a very different, differentworld.

(59:07):
So a lot of people, they kind ofrag on bicycle mechanics and say
it's so simple, like how could you, how could you?
Like, how could you expect somebody to pay a certain price
because it's so easy. I could do in my garage or
whatever. And that's just simply not true.
I think. I think it's a it's a difficult

(59:27):
trade. It has its own difficult parts
to it. It's not the hardest trade in
the world, but what it is is it's highly memory and highly
dexterity, like working with your hands.
Those two aspects of of it are very challenging to a lot of
people. You're working with really low

(59:49):
torque values. So like like typically on a car
it's like 120 Newton meters. Like you're, you're cranking
stuff on quite heavy. But with bikes it's like 3 or 4.
So you're just lightly screwing things and you're not.
You're not torquing the crap outof everything.
And that could be like hard for some people to understand.

(01:00:09):
It's a very delicate machine like you, if you bend something
on the back, all of a sudden you're shifting is not going to
work correctly. So there are aspects to it to be
able to identify those small little tweaks that I think make
it a challenging career. And especially now with the
economic hurdles that are comingwith the bike industry, it's,

(01:00:31):
it's even more of a challenge tolike stay in in that career
path. I think I wish more people knew
about some of the cool aspects of biking and also the
meditative qualities of like being on a bike by yourself out
in the middle of nowhere. It's like some of the most Zen

(01:00:51):
stuff that you can get. It's really, really cool.
Yeah, I used to bike all the wayto the Millennium place back
when I didn't drive and then gethit, hit a workout and then bike
back. And I thought I just felt so
much in control just being in the bike and going at that
speed, Right. And not only are you getting

(01:01:14):
exercise, but you're you're absorbing the scenery at a much
faster rate. Yes, which is a car.
It's almost too fast, right. With the bike, it's just, it's
enough where it's it's not too, it's not slow enough where it's
like boring and it's not too fast where you can't absorb then
look at the trees in the sky. It's just enough where you feel

(01:01:37):
in control and you feel the air and you can look around you.
And then you would mention that the working with bikes, it
involves more the fine motor skills, like a lot of your
fingers. And Yep, less about the bigger
tools, Yeah. More about kind of just putting
them all together. Yes, totally.
With your hands, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah.

(01:01:58):
The small, the small little pieces make it difficult
because, you know, you're havingto like work, you know, I'm
often working with cables, like little tiny 1mm cables.
So I'm like putting Ferrells on,which are the ends of the the
cabling and pulling them throughlike these intricate places
where the cable gets crimped to wherever.

(01:02:21):
So like if I'm working on a frame, it's like I'm threading
stuff in, like threading a needle all throughout this bike.
And that can be difficult for some people that don't have fine
motor skills. And like it's challenging in
that regard for sure. I think that that's one of the,
the, the biggest skills that I've learned from it is the fine

(01:02:41):
motor tuning, yeah. What are some of the most
impressive innovations in modernbike technology that don't get
enough attention? So carbon fiber is a really cool
material that is used quite commonly now in like a lot of
different industries. But the technology from the

(01:03:03):
carbon that we we were getting in like the 90s to the carbon
now, it is not even close to being the same thing.
Carbon is really cool as a material because there are
several different types of actual like carbon fiber sheets
that you can get that have different they, they call it
modulus. So like high modulus carbon has

(01:03:27):
a very, very high density, whereas low modulus carbon has
more of that weaving pattern that you would see as a classic
carbon fiber. So like classic carbon fiber,
you get that like mesh kind of style where it's like kind of
woven together like one over theother.
But with high modulus carbon, it's a single like sheet.

(01:03:48):
It there's no, you might get a little bit of like marbling in
it. It looks like almost like
marble, but it's, it's a high, it's just like a sheet.
It's like, looks like paper, almost like black paper.
And this, this high density carbon, what it's used for is
it's laid in with other types of, and other levels of carbon

(01:04:09):
in these bikes. So when they lay up a mountain
bike, they, it's referred to as laid up because they actually
have to like take the carbon fiber and press it into a mold
and then layer it and layer it and layer it and resin it and
then layer it and it's, it gets laid up by, by real people.
You can't have a machine do it because it's so there's so many

(01:04:32):
levels to it. But like, for example, my, my
mountain bike, it's a giant and it's made in Taiwan.
It's handmade and there's 3000 individual pieces of carbon that
are laid into this frame. So once they lay these this
carbon in the right manner, theyput a bladder inside the frame

(01:04:52):
and they pressure it up to like a ridiculous high level of
pressure with water. And what that does is it
squeezes all the resin out and leaves you entirely with like a
carbon carapace. Like there's probably like 1% of
resin that's left in there. The rest is entirely carbon.
And the cool thing about the engineering behind it is they
they add carbon in areas that are going to need to be stiffer

(01:05:16):
and they remove carbon in areas that don't need to be as stiff.
So like they'll have the bike, they'll, they'll research how
the bike is flexing under load when the racers are going
downhill and they'll see, oh, weneed to add, you know, we need
to make the, the, the chain stays flex 2% more and the
statistic that they reach is, OK, we need to remove this much

(01:05:38):
carbon from that. So that's where the development
comes each year. The bikes don't necessarily
change and look, but they changein the engineering behind them.
It's a super, super cool like side of the industry that not a
lot of people get to see simply because there's not a lot of
talk about it. But it's it's an extremely crazy
material because of the shapes that you can get with it.

(01:05:59):
And then as well, the fact that it's, it's one piece, there's no
welds, there's no weak points. And the fact that you can have
it flex in exactly the way that you want it to.
It's like that. That's that's unheard of in a
material elsewhere. Like you can't do that with
alloy. You can't do that with steel.
Like those those that carbon is is, it's just crazy.

(01:06:19):
So you can have carbon, the carbon fiber just make up the
entire bike essentially. Pretty much, yeah.
There's there's a guy on Instagram called Danger Home and
he does super lightweight bikes.He has a couple bikes that are
like 12 lbs thirteen pounds. He's got a a full mountain bike

(01:06:39):
that's coming in at like 20 lbs or underneath that like sub 20
LB bikes. And they're not, it's not like
they're unsafe to ride at that weight.
They're completely capable bikes.
Like you can go and hit drops, you can hit jumps with those
bikes and you'd be fine. It's it's crazy.
It's crazy. It's it's I'm not a weight

(01:07:00):
weenie. That's what I call people that,
you know, like reduce the weightof their bike by, by substantial
amount. Weight at a certain point
doesn't really like matter, but beyond a certain point, like if
you have a £50 bike, it's going to suck.
But anywhere like 35 lbs to like28 lbs, that's like your average
bike. That's not going to be a
problem. Where's your favorite place to

(01:07:21):
ride? So I have a loop that I do in
the River Valley with my buddy Tom.
We usually ride from my house here and then we go down into
the science park, the the RundleScience Park, and then from
there we just ride the science park trails all the way downtown

(01:07:42):
and then we'll ride back. One time we rode all the way to
White Ave. and we had beers on White Ave. and then we rode back
and but it but it rained on us. Oh jeez.
Like it started raining when we were on White Ave. and we were
like oh great. So we rode back in the rain.
It was like maybe like an hour and a half riding back and we

(01:08:02):
were just soaked, like. Completely soaked, yeah.
It's happened a few times, actually.
We've probably almost died from lightning strikes like four
times. Man, that's the thrilling part
of it does makes it so good thatthe perilous journey.
Yes, exactly. It's so fun.
It's so fun but slightly terrifying.
I never, I never go out with theintention of getting caught in a

(01:08:25):
storm. Just seems to happen, especially
like this summer towards, like, the end of the summer, there's
like a lot of rain. So it was like, yeah.
Whoa. Getting caught out there is a
little scary. Having to hide under a gas
station. Like, I had to call my brothers.
Like, come. Can you come pick us up?
Like, please. Yeah.
I don't want to get, like, struck by lightning.
Like. Yeah, yeah.

(01:08:48):
How's the bike industry changed in recent years and where do you
see it going in terms of sustainability, accessibility or
technological advancements? Yeah, the bike industry, I
don't, I don't like to be the guy that's like, well, COVID did
this cause like obviously COVID fucked everything up, but the

(01:09:11):
bike industry was one of the industries that was like really,
really affected by all of that. When I started working for
Cranky's bike shop, that's the shop I, I work at.
Come see me, by the way, the, the, when I started working
there, I started working during the pandemic and I didn't, we
didn't have any bikes. So I, I interviewed at a bike

(01:09:34):
shop that had no bikes on the shelves, if you can believe
that. That's, that was the state of
it. And that was pretty much the
story for every bike shop in Edmonton.
There was just no stock because bikes are so heavily reliant on
the supply chain. So if there's no supplies, you
can't make them, especially withlike factories and shit shutting

(01:09:57):
down like that kind of screwed us all.
But the big thing, the big thingabout that is that right after
all of that happened, bike, the bike industry started to look at
those trends of demand and they wanted to fulfill that demand.
So they started producing bikes like crazy.
So like coming right out of COVID, we were putting out like,

(01:10:17):
like there was there was so manybikes that were sent out that
it, it's like we're still sitting on bikes from like four
years ago that we haven't sold yet.
It's like there, there's so many, there's too many to choose
from. And the issue, I wouldn't even
say the issue, but the the biggest kind of like threat to

(01:10:40):
the bike industry itself is the second hand bike industry,
because selling your bike on Facebook marketplace is a pretty
popular thing nowadays and getting a second hand bike is
super popular. And so it's kind of funny
because the bike industry essentially is like ruining
itself because of all the bikes that are available second hand

(01:11:03):
for very, very good prices. It means that now as a
distributor, you're selling a brand new bike out of the store
with like 8% margin. And like the ideally margin is
40%, like a 40% margin on, on everything that leaves the store
is going to give you some sort of like attainable business

(01:11:24):
model. But anything under 40%, you're,
you're losing money. Nowadays the the margins are
super, super low because we buy bikes at a certain price and
then we have to sell them at whatever price the distributor
decides for us. So sometimes we'll buy a bike at
a certain price, it won't be discounted at all.

(01:11:46):
And then we have it listed at proper margin.
And then the distributor will say, oh, well, we're not making
enough sales. We need to move these bikes and
they'll knock our margin down. So it doesn't actually affect
the distributor to lower the prices, it affects the retailer
to lower the prices. And so they, they basically are
just taking money away from the small independent bike shops.

(01:12:09):
And it's, it's a very interesting shift in how like
things have worked before. So now the industry is kind of
moving towards like small batches.
So if you're going to like buy stock, you're probably not going
to buy a fleet of bikes, you're going to buy like two or three,
you know, distribute those at a high margin.
You're probably also buying those bikes at a lower price as

(01:12:31):
well, just based on demand and and supply.
But the way that the industry iskind of going is, is it it's
looking a little bleak right now.
I still love working on bikes and I still like, I want bikes
to be a part of everyone's livesbecause it's, it's exercise,
it's healthy, it's, it reduces emissions.

(01:12:53):
Like all of that stuff. Like imagine if we had
infrastructure that was based around bikes, like the whole
world would probably be a betterplace.
But the, the main issue is that bikes are too good, simply too
good. You can ride a bike for five
years. You know, I, I would say if you
spend the right money on a bike,you can ride it for five years.
You know, you're probably payingabout 1000 bucks nowadays for

(01:13:15):
like a decent bike. It's going to last you a long
time. So you put it, if you put 1000
bucks into a bike, there's no reason you can't be riding that
thing in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years.
And that's the biggest threat tothe bike industry is the bikes
are just too good. They're coming out.
They're, they're, they're working for a really long time.
People are selling them on Facebook Marketplace and this is
going to sink the the main distributors.

(01:13:38):
Yeah, you got to structure it like Apple Man, where they just
have like something in place where after a year it's slow, it
automatically degrades. Well, I like that planned
obsolescence that it's, it's a crazy idea As a business model,
it makes sense, but it's so sad that that's how things have to

(01:13:59):
work. Like the economy is, is, I
wouldn't even say that the economy is is causing that.
It's just the fact that everything's speed up.
If you look over to overtime, like everything since, you know,
bike started has productions gone up, this has gone up, the
lead times have gone up, speed has gone up, and then the

(01:14:21):
economy itself is speeding up. And the, the issue with that is
that there's so much money beinginterchanged so quickly that,
you know, it's really hard nowadays to even find any sort
of like profitable business model.
I, I think there needs to be a really real big shift.
I think we're kind of moving towards, you know, specialized

(01:14:41):
items, boutique items, a lot of like independent bicycle brands
are actually doing quite well just because they've garnered
the interest of so many people. It's kind of like how business
models used to work like 100 years ago.
It's like you establish a relationship with a customer and

(01:15:01):
you create a product that fulfills the customer's
expectations. And it's a good quality product.
And you used to get along by just word of mouth, like
somebody would be like, oh, whatdo you have there?
It's like, I've got this and this is, you know, this brand
new thing by this brand. You should go check them out.
It wasn't like I saw it on my phone.
It's like you were getting recommendations from friends.
And that still seems to be like one of the leading reasons why

(01:15:24):
we have customers come back to our store is because people are
chatting about it. You know, people are talking to
other people and recommending us, and I think that we're
moving back towards that. I think there's a huge industry
and online websites and stuff, but you just can't beat the
experience of like a good sales experience, like going into a
store, chatting to somebody, asking questions like that.

(01:15:47):
To me, you can't beat that. What's an entire experience in
itself, right? Looking, seeing all the specs
and choosing the wheels for yourself, 100% all these
together and sure, it's going tobe more expensive for you and
then just buying a second hand bike, but it's, it's yours, it's
maybe going to last you longer 100% it's going to be a lot more
reliable. There's less risk.

(01:16:08):
And The thing is too is when yougo to any shop, I would hope
every shop does this, but it when you go to any shop and you
make a purchase with that shop, it's like that's your place to
go to. Like you.
If you ever have a problem, you come to us and we'll help you.
And you know, and that's the that's the biggest thing is
like, we're not in it to just make it quick buck and, and

(01:16:29):
disappear on you. It's like we're, we're, we want
to be there for you when you need it, you know?
And then you could keep coming back if something does go wrong
with the bike. 100% like we always stand behind everything
we sell and and that's the biggest thing about like having
a repair side of, of bikes is like just like a dealership.
It's like we want to, we want tomake sure that the bikes working

(01:16:51):
properly and sometimes quality assurance is not there, you
know, like we get, we get shipped a lot of bikes that are
just not fit for the sales floorand we have to fulfill warranty
claims and stuff like that. And warranty on bicycles is, is
amazing nowadays. Like, like there's a, there's a
brand that's doing like wheels and stuff where you can take the
wheel and like break it over your knee and call them up and

(01:17:14):
be like, I want warranty. You can tell them exactly what
you did. It's like I broke the wheel over
my knee. And they'll be like, Oh, yeah,
OK, we'll send you a new one. It's like I'm more lenient.
Yes, yeah, 100%. Like that's the business model
that we're moving towards and and I think a lot of people like
really like that. Yeah, I think a lot of kind of

(01:17:35):
fast food restaurants, a lot of retail already do do that, a lot
of less than the vehicle side ofthings, less than like the bike
industry. Yep.
And that's is your shop rolling out with that now?
We've always kind of been customer service oriented.
I think the, the biggest thing for our shop is like because

(01:18:00):
like Cranky's has been around, we have 3 locations now.
We have one in Saint Albert, we have one downtown and we have
one in Riverbend. So like kind of by Tuiliger Dog
Park and Saint Albert, that location has been around for 25
years. And the biggest thing that is
like shown success for the company is just our relationship

(01:18:20):
with people. Like it simply boils down to
that. Yeah, the the connections that
you make are how people keep coming back.
It's like that loyalty, Yeah, 100% day.
You kind of feel guilty getting a haircut from another guy, you
know, if you're getting the samecut from the same guy, it's like

(01:18:41):
if you get caught doing it, it'salmost like it's cheating, you
know, A. 100%. You gotta, if you, if you build
up that connection and that rapport with someone, if you
treat them kindly, if you respect them and you actually
want, if you actually align their needs, you know, and less

(01:19:02):
about wanting to put pocket money in your own pocket, then
they they take that and it's, it's processed with.
It's, yeah, it's, it's for, for me, I like to like, it's kind of
coming back to what we were talking about before, as in
artistry, being a genuine representation of yourself.

(01:19:25):
Authenticity. Exactly like if you're, if
you're a salesperson that has motives that are make the shop
money, of course, that's every person in sales, That's their
motive. You want to make, you want to
make money because that's your livelihood.
But you, you need to represent yourself in a way that if that

(01:19:45):
customer walks out of the door with nothing in their hands, you
need to be OK with that. You need to be OK with people,
you know, especially with music,like not liking what you offer.
You know, that doesn't mean they're a hater.
It just means that people have preferences, right?
And so you need to be OK with those things.

(01:20:06):
And, and I think that going intoevery interaction, whether it be
sales, networking, marketing, whatever you're doing, don't go
into it with an expectation. Just go into it like.
Like you're going to see what's going to happen and you want to
learn something about that person too.
Like like for me, it's like if Inotice something that they maybe
it's their outfit or their appearance or something.

(01:20:27):
Like typically it's like, oh, I like your shoes or I like how
you did your hair or something like that.
And that seems to like really get people like like that puts
them on the spot. They have to like, oh wow, like
you noticed. That's really cool, right?
It's it's things like that, likejust being a genuine like and
don't say anything if they don'thave something going on.
Don't just say something to be nice.

(01:20:48):
You say something genuine. Comes from the heart.
Yeah, yeah, you need to like make an actual observation.
You can't just be like. Man, nice shirt, you know, and
it's like, not actually like, why do you like this shirt so
much? Yeah, just felt like saying it.
And I know, I actually, I saw that shirt and it looked good on
you. Yeah.
And my dad says this thing is like, if you approach things in

(01:21:09):
the spirit of play, it works outpretty well.
So like even some some customersappreciate this, but it's some
some people don't. You have to really, like pick
your battles in this one. But sometimes I'll go up to some
and be like, hey, hey, like do you win that shirt in a raffle
or like something like that? Just like I'm just poking at
them a little bit, like kind of teasing them a bit.
Sometimes they like that. Sometimes people pick up on

(01:21:30):
that. They're like, oh, this guy's
funny. My.
I'm doing some sales training with my friend because he's the
one that's got me involved in anupcoming job this summer doing
sales nice and yeah, he. The way it's structured as we
knock on the door, we say, how are you and all this?

(01:21:52):
And it, it's followed by, Hey, if there's like chalk on the on
the floor, He says, he suggests to tell him, Hey, you must be
the artist back around here, right?
And it's like some people like, like most people love that stuff
where it's like, oh ha, ha, ha, like it, It's it'd be like their
child like doing like some doodles and like yes, scribbles.
But it's just like those little things that kind of like adding

(01:22:13):
novelty in there and just getting a laugh out of the day
when it being a compliment too and just building rapport.
Yeah, it's, it's huge. Relationships are are the most
important things in life really.Say, I keep, I keep hearing
about it all the time and I, I agree with it the more and more
I hear about it. And that's the number one

(01:22:35):
biggest investment that you can have in your life is like the
relationships that you have, thefriendships, the families, so
the gifts that keep on giving. Yeah, 100.
Percent. You can't get out of this life.
You can't it's you can't get outunscathed.
There's always going to be timeswhere you need to lean on
someone or you just need someone's help just within that

(01:22:55):
day. And it's like, it's important to
have people on your side. My fondest memories are like
just having like a good time with my friends.
Like that's a lot of the fuel for like everything that I do in
in, in my life is stems from like the memories that I have

(01:23:16):
with those people. And how can we recreate this
again in the future? Exactly.
And you know, it's never the, it's never quite the same.
But that's the nice thing. Like, yeah, at the end of the
day, I wouldn't give them up forany sum of money.
Yeah, what does a modern high end bike provide to a No Novus

(01:23:36):
rider? So it there's a certain there's
a certain amount of skills that a good rider will have.
I ride a lot of like bike parks in like Whistler, Revel Stoke.
I've ridden Golden Hinton is pretty close and it's also
really good. I've ridden Moose Mountain and

(01:23:58):
as you, as you start to specialize in in a biking
discipline, whether it be mountain biking or Rd. biking or
gravel biking, you start to pickup strategies to deal with
different terrain, deal with different features, learn how to

(01:24:21):
be faster, how to corner better,how to use the the bike to gain
speed. It's called pumping.
So there's parts of the of that that you need to have whether
you're, whether you've you're on$100 bike or you're on a $2000
bike. The, the main difference between
spending money on a low end bikeversus spending on money on a

(01:24:44):
high end bike is that the high end bike is never going to fail
to shift. It's never going to fail to stop
you. It's never going to flex in a
way that you don't, you don't expect.
It's not going to be too stiff, it's going to fit you properly,
it's going to be comfortable andit's going to be have
adjustments so you can basicallyset it up to fit you in the

(01:25:07):
exact right way. And that starting point allows
you to develop those skills so much quicker than if you had
started on $100 bike. Like it's like I, I, this this
summer, I, we took out a couple demo bikes from our store, me

(01:25:28):
and my girlfriend, and we rode out to, we drove out to Revel
Stoke. We rode around there for like 4
or five days. And my girlfriend's never ridden
a proper like mountain bike before.
And she was coming from a bike that was a little bit too small
for her and just kind of like a lower end bike.
And then I put her on an E bike,which was like 10 grand.

(01:25:51):
And the difference between thosetwo bikes is huge.
And she just like immediately after being on that bike for
maybe a couple hours, she figured it out.
Like we were hitting blue trails, like like we were doing
greens in the morning. And she found a few spots where
she was struggling. And then she learned and then we
did some more trails and by the end of the day we were hitting

(01:26:13):
all the blue trails. We were like actually riding
crazy stuff for it being her first day on a mountain bike.
And that's literally all it is. It's just the speed at which you
learn and and pick up like thoseskills is so much better on a on
a more expensive bike. Now you don't need to spend 10
grand because 10 grand is a lot of money for anything, but

(01:26:38):
anything past like two or three grand is marginal gains.
Anything below that is just not worth looking at.
So if you can go to the to the two grand to three grand mark,
that's really actually like the the most value is in those
because that will take you to whatever skill skill place you
want to be at. So like if you want to develop

(01:27:00):
all those skills for jumping andriding properly and cornering,
get get the get the value bike. Yeah, I've always wanted to do a
Bunny hop. I have heard, I know my buddies
always wanted to. They're always Bunny hopped in
their mountain bikes or like, I guess it's more of a BMX type of
of skill, but I don't know man. Is do you do what?

(01:27:23):
What are some skills that you can do on the on the mountain
bike that? So there's quite a few, a lot of
people kind of fusing BMX ridingand and MTB.
And there's actually, I don't know if you know who Colby
Pringle is. Not a shout out Colby Pringle,
even though, yeah, shout out to him.
I actually never really met the guy, but he rides for

(01:27:45):
Cannondale. He's riding for, I think he's
riding for Race Face and Fox as well.
But he's actually from from here, from Shore Park.
Ohio. Wow.
Yeah, he, he, he, I think he, I don't know what school he went
to, but I know he's out of ShorePark and he's riding for all
these companies he's sponsored. But he used to do BMX.
He used to ride BMX at the skatepark.

(01:28:08):
And it's really cool to see. Like there he has a video out
where he does like a an endo, which is basically like you, you
roll forward, you stop on the front wheel of the bike and you
hold the brake and you go bring the back wheel up and then you
like spin out of it. Oh jeez, I already I just
visualized that in my hand. That sounds it's like.
It's a bit, yeah, you're like doing a stoppie, but then you're

(01:28:30):
spinning out of it. And so he's doing this into a
drop and the drops like full of mulch.
And he's this crazy video. He does this like BMX style jib
and then heads down into this mulch and and I was like, that's
Colby Pringle, man, that's crazy.
It's like, so that like that's one of those things where it's

(01:28:52):
like for me when I go to like Moose Mountain, there's stuff
you can do in a parking lot. Like you can just figure out the
balance point of the bike and hit the stoppie and just bring
that back wheel up. I haven't quite got around to
the point where I can do like AGout where it's like you're
actually doing the spin to accompany that, you know, you
can learn how to manual. So like bring the front wheel up

(01:29:13):
and just like either catwalk it or just like maintain that that
balance point. There's like when you're hitting
jumps, there's this thing calledscrubbing and it was, it was
kind of like started by this guyreally long time ago and it
comes from motocross. But actually scrubbing is, is
when you come up to, to a feature, you actually get as low

(01:29:35):
as possible and you turn the bike and right before you
actually go over the lip of the jump, you're turning the bike
and you're just going over it. Like just like you're this far
away from the ground. It's, it's basically about
getting as low as possible on the jump and coming out of it
with a ton of speed. So the way that they do it is
they like physically like whip their body over over these

(01:29:58):
jumps. It's called scrubbing.
And I've done one or two. It's really hard to do, but it
is super fun. Looks super cool.
Wow, yeah. And that's, that's amazing, man.
You, you really Malcolm Gladwellhas this idea of mastery of like
10,000 hours. Yeah, yeah, within like in a

(01:30:20):
field. And I feel like you've you've
hit it on both. I I wish.
Music and Viking. I wish they're the they're kind
of my guilty pleasures. I, I, I, my girlfriend does
interior design and that's her guilty pleasure.
So I indulge her sometimes. Like we'll talk about interior
design stuff and she'll tell me about the project she's working

(01:30:42):
on and all the blueprinting. And to me, it's just like, it's
like French, like I don't understand it at all.
And then I'll go and tell her about all the stuff that I'm
doing. And it's like, I don't
understand what you're doing, but it sounds cool and it sounds
like you know what you're talking about.
I think everybody has a little bit of that.
They've got like that one thing that they just they're good at,
you know? And I think, yeah, finding that

(01:31:06):
and, and everybody is super neat.
That's why I think that this podcast is really cool, because
you're letting people do that and you're seeing that side of
people, so. Dude, but thank you so much for
coming on the Long Term Podcast today.
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
It's. Been I've I've learned so much.
I had a great time. I had a great.
Time. Yeah, yeah.
What's if people are looking to see where your music's at?

(01:31:27):
Yeah. Where to find you and your
biking? So I have, I'm on Instagram, I'm
on Spotify and I'm on Apple Music and I'm on SoundCloud.
I'm on almost every major like music distribution platform
under Scytronica. So that's PSYTRONICA, That's all

(01:31:48):
it is. On Instagram, same thing, just
Scytronica. And then for the bike stuff, I
don't have anything online, but you can come see me in store at
Cranky's Bike Shop in Saint Albert.
That's where I'm at. Scytronica on all platforms and
Cranky Cranky's. Cranky's Bike Shop, Yeah.
Cranky's Bike Shop. Yeah, yeah.

(01:32:10):
And as always, day, everyone. Listening and watching.
There is a place for you in thischaotic world.
Never lose soap. Strengthen your faith and keep
it long term. Sam Beckham, everyone.

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#120 - Samuel Beckham - Lessons in Creativity and Problem-Solving - Revolutionizing Sound Tech & Bike Mechanics

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#120 - Samuel Beckham - Lessons in Creativity and Problem-Solving - Revolutionizing Sound Tech & Bike Mechanics