February 24, 2025 • 48 mins
Ken and special guest Todd Burke discuss the technical and commercial challenges when working with formats such as Dolby Atmos. They explore the nature of producing in stereo versus immersive and where the potentials lie in moving forward with adaptive audio formats.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Metal
Mastermind. And here I am with a very
special guest. Todd Burke is on the Metal
Mastermind platform. So Todd, why don't you just say
hello and give a little introduction about who you are,
what you do, etcetera? I guess, yeah.
My name's Todd. I I'm out in Los Angeles and
(00:37):
I've been making records for a billion years.
I've been going since like 1994 or something in, in LA and I've
kind of transitioned over the years from I made records for a
long time. You know, things have changed in
that business. So I kind of spent a lot of time
doing film scores these days as well as records.
And I don't know, I'm just another grey beard kicking
(00:58):
around trying to keep food in the dog bowl and music, right?
I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at.
That's amazing. Actually, Todd, you're, you're
way too humble. You've done some amazing work.
I think one of the biggest I think claims to fame you have is
actually Gary Jules with Mad World.
That's. That song went really wide.
(01:20):
Yeah, yeah. That's a that's a pretty amazing
tune to work on. And I've also seen Donnie Darko
as well as on your credits list which is so cool.
That's all particular. That's, that's all a particular
era of stuff I was doing with a composer named Mike Andrews.
He's a very old friend, a dear friend.
And we had a show called Freaks and Geeks that maybe you saw, I
(01:43):
don't know if anyone, people whoknow Freaks and Geeks love
Freaks. There was one, there was one
season and it was cancelled, butit it, it sort of spun the
careers of a whole bunch of SethRogen and James Franco.
And there's a whole bunch of actors that came out of it was,
but it was around that time thatwe also did Dunnie Darko.
And Madrid was, of course, a part of a part of that.
(02:06):
Wow, that is so cool. I feel like the 90s was a very
special era in music and film. So like this part of your
history is very intriguing to mebecause there are, there are
many, many different, you know, engineers that I'm sure that you
also admire that come from before the 90s.
(02:27):
But there are a very select few engineers that I really, you
know, respect and don't get to really talk too much about their
experience in the 90s. And I just want to say that
that's very cool because I'm a 1992 baby.
And so that's going on with someof this stuff that you've
already you've worked on. And so I was graduated.
(02:49):
High school. I graduated high school about
that. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, No, I know what you're
saying. I mean, you know, and, and those
of us kind of. So I'm, I'm 50 and I don't know,
I feel like I'm sort of a memberof a kind of a weird group of
our industry that like I watchedthe whole game change, you know,
more so than I think like you'reyou kind of remember maybe the
(03:13):
computers being new, but not really.
Like I remember no computers. I remember making records with
no, you know, there, there wasn't a Mac to be found and I,
you know, so we all the I'm of that I'm of that sort of age
bracket. I suppose that's still, you
know, can still hear I could still hear above 10K, but I also
remember what it was like to record to analog tape.
(03:35):
So I've seen a lot. All that to say, I've seen a lot
of changes those. Yeah.
And that's a very interesting topic to kind of lean on today
because you're also very forwardthinking with a lot of your own
technology in your own studio. You kind of jumped into
immersive kind of earlier than most people would.
(03:57):
And so you're always in a sense looking to expand the
possibilities. Can you can you talk a little
bit more about, you know, why you got into the spatial audio
game? How did that?
What happened? When did that happen for you?
When did you decide? It was like this is what I have
to do. Yeah.
I mean, where, where are we 25 now?
(04:18):
So it must have been, it was, well, it was in the pandemic,
kind of kind of mid pandemic. There was a moment when Apple
announced that they were going to carry Atmos.
And in my mind, and I think in alot of people's minds, like, OK,
this is no longer. So this takes this takes this
from the fringes and into something that is not only
(04:39):
obviously going to become a delivery requirement from
labels, but we should just get on this.
It's time. And I was in a position at the
time like I've been, you know, like I'm saying, I've been kind
of bouncing back and forth between records and, and films
for so long. I've been mixing 7/1 for, I
don't know, 20 years at that point.
So for me, I, I've, I've been 7/1 for ages in my room.
So I in my mind, I was like, well, I'm gonna need to hang
(05:01):
some height speakers and then sort out the kind of this, you
know, get to figure out the Dolby renderer there.
There was some technology to figure out, but in terms of
like, you know, wrapping my headaround surround, it really
wasn't anything new. And I don't know, you know, I
don't really, I don't really differentiate between 7151 and
Atmos and it's all, you know, it's just all immersive.
(05:24):
The ability to pan up. That was exciting.
I think we all get really excited, like, oh shit, height
speakers. Wow, I got AI got a like AZ
plane that I can be and you know, I've heard some I've heard
a few mixes that utilize that ina real cool way.
I don't know, I've, I've, I've, I'm a little bit losing my, I'm
(05:44):
losing my, my fucking zest for, for height speakers.
I feel like, and not because I don't not because I don't think
it's effective, but like, I don't know, I guess I'm just
trying to say I don't, I don't see this atmos revolution as all
that groundbreaking because a lot of us have been doing, doing
surround for a long time. You know, I'm very excited to
see the potential for consumers to get on board more so than
(06:07):
just kind of like, you know, middle-aged theater dorks and
don't. And I love those guys with my
heart. I'm, I'm with, I'm, I am you.
I'm not saying that, but, you know, that's not, that's not a
tremendously large user base. So, you know, this idea that
and, and, and, you know, this idea that we are maybe on the
cusp of, of actual consumer demand for surround records.
(06:31):
I'm very excited about. I don't know that we're there
yet, but I, I, I think that every year we get a little bit
closer, you know? Yeah, I think and don't we have
like what almost over 3 billion like Dolby enabled devices at
this point or something like that?
I heard I've. Heard some specs that I've heard
(06:52):
some specs that sound really large, but then I've yet to have
a client come along that's able to listen to, you know, listen
to an Atmos mix at home or in their studio, you know what I
mean? So I guess, you know, I'm sure
that that stat most definitely involves because now every
MacBook Pro you buy will do it kind of a kind of a render.
(07:16):
And actually, if you put your head right over the keyboard,
it's kind of, it's kind of something, you know, I mean, if
I don't, there's all of these solutions that I just don't
think are, we're not like it's nothing to write home about yet.
You know, and there's this, there's this, it's easy to get
really excited about a thing in its infancy.
I'm very excited about Atmos, don't get me wrong.
But until, you know, until I getcalled by, until I'm working on
(07:39):
a record with a band and we get to that point in the mixers are
like, OK, this is feeling prettygood.
Are you guys interested in Atmos?
And then the next sentence is when you run to Best Buy and
pick up, you know, just pick up 4 Airpods and stick them in your
studio so you can hear this. Let's go just year after year
after year after year, Christmases just keep ticking by
and I keep thinking like maybe this is the year that there's
(08:01):
going to be some speaker solution for consumers and it
just keeps not happening. So it's a funny moment right
now, you know, where there's a lot of hype amongst guys like us
and like kind of inter industry hype and some, I think pretty
inflated numbers coming from Apple and Dolby who have a lot
of skin in the game. But there's just until there's,
(08:21):
until there's a consumer speakerto go by.
I, I, I sit around all day just just on my front porch just
kicking the can, like, you know,yelling at the neighbor, like,
what are we doing? You know, consumers can't go by
speakers. What are we, what are we even
doing? So it's, it's a funny moment
right now, right? And I know that's not what that
was not the question, but that'swhere we went.
(08:42):
No, no. It's actually very interesting
perspective because it begs to ask the question is, are you
doing Atmos for future proofing or preservation instead of, you
know, actively, you know, responding to, oh, well, people
don't have this right now, so why am I going to make it?
But you still make the content still.
(09:03):
For for a few, a couple of yearsago, it felt like there was a
lot more demand from labels. Everything that came through,
there was a there was a deliveryrequirement for Atmos and I've
and and that's it's not that that's not still the case, but
like a lot of people just aren'tdoing it and it seems to be fine
is the weird truth. So I don't know.
I mean, again, without consumer demand, none of us really know
(09:29):
what we're talking about or knowwhat know know what to how to
feel about this. Let's say you know, and the
conversation with especially like an indie band, like labels
us. Let's let's forget about label.
Label's always won everything, but let's forget about that a
minute. But like, you know, you've got a
band come along, they've hustledtogether a little money on
credit cards or from Uncle Rudy or whatever.
(09:50):
Somehow we're making this record, right?
And you know, when it comes timefor the mixed conversation,
like, OK, well, look, with with the, with the sort of dough that
we've got left, let's utilize the best we can so we can spend
this amount of time in the mix. We can kind of, we can do this
and this and this and this and the Atmos is always going to be
an afterthought for that indie band.
(10:12):
Right now I feel like because there's really no value add
other than, you know, there's, there's this like there's this
carrot dangle of better playlistplacement on streaming services
and that's real. And I've seen it happen.
Like I've, I've had, I've, I've done some mixes of some of some
bands that, you know, I'm no one's heard of.
(10:32):
And because there was an Atmos component, it ended up on, you
know, whatever the, the alt country Atmos playlist for a
couple of weeks. And because it had an Atmos
component, it was alongside, youknow, they've seen bands
alongside Taylor Swift on, on, on playlists on Apple Music and
(10:53):
you've never heard of that. So there's, there's a strategy
at the moment, you know, to get a band on board to do the Atmos.
But I don't know, it's, I just kind of keep coming back to the
thing where like, I just feel like I'm, we're all kind of in
this funny holding pattern. And as much as I want to be just
hype and jazz and like, fucking let's go.
Because I feel like that artistically, I love mixing and
(11:13):
surround. I love records and surround.
There's so much potential to like, you know, you can put the
listener right in the middle of the song.
And I've had more people in in this seat listening back to a
song and crying than I've been ever before, you know, like
it's, it can be so emotionally sort of engaging.
(11:35):
Useful. Useful.
Yeah, it's super engaging, but I've always got this disclaimer.
I feel like when in these conversations like, but we're
just where's the consumer demandand where's the consumer
affordable, affordable consumer device to drive that demand?
And we're all sitting around. I feel like we're all sitting
around going, I don't know, I thought this was going to be a
(11:56):
gold rush. And so far it kind of hasn't
been, you know what I mean? Like it's been a little extra
work for everybody and that's. Great.
I think, I think you make a veryfairpoint.
I think it's very similar to historically with a lot of the
transition between mono to stereo and how art forms were
intended for the format that they were experienced in or at
(12:20):
least that they were created for.
So for example, I mean, if we'recreating stereo music, then a
lot of our methodology, our thought process might be with
the context of stereo. I I do agree that a band that is
approaching with, you know, a history of working in a format
that they're comfortable with, that they know how to
(12:42):
essentially, you know, make tangible it it makes sense to
work on stereo and not necessarily prioritize Atmos as
an afterthought. It is in also the other context
that if you work for making something that is designed for
Atmos, and I think we need more of that, we need more the
(13:03):
content that was created for theformat that isn't just A tag on,
because otherwise then I guess it will never really have its
own place in the audio world, ifthat makes sense.
All that's perfectly. Yeah, that's very, very, all
very, very well said. And what I'm talking about, I
(13:24):
suppose, is a lot of, I guess what I'm where I'm coming from
though, is I'm having a lot of first interactions with people
about Atmos. You know, so you sort of become
the defective salesperson for a technology, which is not
necessarily what you're trying to do, but you're just, you
know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm legitimately excited about this
thing and I want, I want to see other people.
(13:45):
But what's interesting, you know, but then sort of the next
step, and maybe I'm just not there yet with, with any of my
clients. I haven't been around the next
album cycle yet, but everybody that sits here and either I play
them some stuff or we do an Atmos passive, their record now,
their whole mindset of, of what recording music has changed.
And the next album cycle they'regoing to be, you know, and I'm,
(14:09):
and I've done a couple of those sessions lately where where I
guess I say I haven't done it. This has happened a couple times
lately where we've gone in the studio and set up a quad
listening situation for trackingjust so you can get a sense of
arrear to inform overdub decisions.
And yeah, and like I'm saying, once you've once, I have yet to
meet a band who is meh about Atmos.
(14:31):
Like you show them some great mixes and do a great job with a
couple of their songs or the whole record or whatever.
A lot of I've had a lot of a lotrecently, I've been doing a lot
of just let's just do the singlein Atmos.
Let's just do one song in Atmos.And because we can't afford you
know what's what's. Again, like money's tight, but
(14:51):
every time a band has that firstAtmos experience, it just
changes the way everyone's goingto think about overdubs on the
next round. And I guess that's as much as
I'm waiting for speakers at BestBuy.
I'm also kind of jazzed for the sort of next round of clients to
come around with their next project having had Atmos in
(15:11):
mind. And I think that you know it to
your point, it takes a minute tosort of settle into it
Absolutely new format. And these are all the consumers
are settling in. We're waiting for consumer
products to hit shelves that we can afford.
And we're also waiting for artists to sort of get their
heads around the thing here at once and then go back into
overdose with that in mind. And now we're going to start
(15:32):
getting very, very exciting and serious, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely there has got to be some delay
time to the impacts of what the technology can do, right.
So yeah, we are in a way kind ofin a limbo, but it's it's it's
looking ahead that there is the potential there.
I do see like there's a light atthe end of the tunnel for all of
(15:54):
this kind of stuff, but. Yeah, yeah.
And no part of me thinks this isgoing away.
I mean, there, there's, there are, there are sort of like
peers going how you know, there's always the naysayers are
like, oh, I don't buy it. And we've we've tried surround
before and blah, blah, blah. I think we're well past that
point. Like this shit is integrated in
streaming services that again, you know, I think, I think is
when there's an affordable speaker array, consumer demand
(16:15):
will drive a whole new pair of this and well.
It's a very, it's a very practical way of also thinking
about where you're at. I mean, like it's good that you,
you evaluate what the technologyis and where its impact lies.
I think that's a very good thingto do.
I think in most cases, it keeps you grounded in what what
(16:36):
matters in in a project. It's kind of the same way saying
in a way I could, I can almost say it like this.
Like if you're, let's say, for example, you're going to record
any dialogue for a movie, like on set and you know, production
audio that that might turn out OK or it might turn out bad
because the day had a rainfall or there was a plane that flew
(16:59):
overhead or whatever. But if you were to go and go and
tell the director, Hey, let's just do all the dialogue again
in the studio for the entire movie without even like using
the good stuff that was on production audio, I'd say that
that's also like a lot of waste of time, a lot of wasted effort
when stuff already is working right in some ways.
(17:21):
So gauging how much of the technology that is cool and
wanting to implement versus, youknow, what's the practicality of
people also, you know, listeningto the format, getting exposed
to the format. Those are all fair questions.
I don't I don't disregard that. I think it's a very smart thing
to think about. I'm actually, and you, you know,
this a little bit about myself as an educator.
(17:44):
I, I teach about Atmos and you know, audio over everything,
like fundamentals to advanced. But in between all of that, I do
find it very important for a lotof students when they're diving
into audio production. Not only do they understand the
fundamentals because the principles of stereo and mono,
(18:04):
they don't go away when you do Atmos, they just actually become
more enhanced. And those matters of learning
those fundamentals is so pivotalto even getting across to even
producing an Atmos that that's abarrier of entry for content
creators too, right? Like where are you in your
(18:25):
process, right? I wouldn't recommend like a
newbie starting off and doing Atmos necessarily.
I would say probably learn how to put a microphone where it
needs to be first. So for.
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
You know, fundamentals of everything.
And yeah, I mean, I mean, but again, surround mixing, people
get real hung up on surround mixing and think like it's this
(18:47):
new thing and it's also special.I mean, it's just like
everything. If you spend some time listening
and find a bunch of records thatyou really like, like really
study what some people that camebefore you were doing with
surround. There's some example, there's a
bunch of examples out there of really, really, really well done
surround albums. And you can, I think that you
can absorb that with a relatively limited knowledge
(19:11):
sort of sort of skill set. You can absorb just the, you
know, the, the feeling and that and that and maybe just that
what you would imagine the process would be to creating a,
a good surround mix. But yeah, putting the cart
before the horse, I don't know. Yeah.
If you don't know where to put the microphone on the kick drum,
I don't know why we're talking about mixing right now.
Yeah, exactly. So, and, and so that's what I'm
(19:33):
saying is that there's, there's always a learning curve and this
is in terms of priorities for creators.
I mean, like the foundation has to be first and that usually
already takes a very long time for people to, you know, get
their bearings. But even then, I mean, this is
2025, I feel like we've already had digital audio for the home
(19:55):
studio, you know, ever since like the double O 1, you know,
tools and design. So that's about almost 20 years
of technology. That we've been working in the
home studio. So I'm you're, I think nowadays
you're starting to see the home studio become, you know, more
akin to the professional studio in many ways, right?
(20:18):
Commercial facilities have downsized quite a bit in the
rise of home facilities, but still, then there is the, the,
the, the, the purpose of like needing to understand your,
your, your, your basics to even get that far.
So it's such an interesting conversation, but what do you
think now this, because this hasbeen, I feel like a very good
(20:43):
conversation of why Atmos is hard to get into.
But there's also still the aspect of if you do get into it
and you, let's say you don't have all the resources, have you
had the experience at all of just trying to see how far you
got with like doing binaural? What's what's your experience
with that? I'm just curious.
So I know, yeah, there's, I knowthere are some, there's some
(21:05):
folks that are trying to do at most mixes in binaural or, you
know, even, I mean, honestly, I,I know several people that have
tried and, you know, then come, come over to listen to that mix.
And it's, and you can even hear stuff on the Apple, on the Apple
Music store, for instance, when you're kind of just scrolling
around that you go, oh God, thiswas, this was obviously a mixed
(21:27):
in headphones. And you just, you just know it,
you know, like everything's on the side.
It's, you know, you just can't, you can't, it's not possible to
make good decisions for what a speaker array is going to do
from the headphones. The inverse is true.
Or I think that if you spend most of your time in speakers
and have have done a few mixes and kind of get to know what to
(21:49):
expect from the binaural render,you can sort of set up a speaker
render and then put on the headphones and not be shocked.
But I know for sure that if you make a mix in with the
headphones on in binaural and then assuming that it's going to
sound good in speakers, it's I, I don't, I can't imagine that
going well. Like it's going to be you have
no idea. And so you just don't know.
(22:09):
So I mean, I've done a thing, but I've been trying to help
people out. I mean, and I get that, you
know, the barrier to entry in this, it's it's brutal to buy 14
speakers or whatever, you know, like that's a horrible situation
for everybody. But speaker manufacturers,
speaker manufacturers are love fucking Atmos and we all go, you
know, God, oh. Yeah.
You know, but there's always Reddit.
I mean, I've set up my room. I I've got a site up called
(22:32):
listening room dot LA. That's my studio here and Ioffer
it up. You can book our 4 hour blocks
or whatever as a as a mixer. So you could do you could
absolutely. And I've got several friends
that take me up on this. You can absolutely start your
mixes in Atmos and kind of, I'm sorry, in binaural, just kind of
get the lay of the land and get things kind of functioning and
then come in and just do a quicktrim session in the speakers.
(22:54):
And that can be super. That's a super effective way to
go without dropping all the money on the speakers.
And I think there's maybe, I think we're going to see more of
that, maybe some commercial studios setting up a little
Atmos room and book it for, for sort of like trimming sessions
and you know, show it off to theband sessions.
Hopefully I'd like to see that happen.
That's, that's, that's a great point.
(23:15):
And for, you know, people like, you know, yourself and I who
have gone that we dived into Atmos, you know, fully
integrated in our studios, that that's another source maybe for
revenue for studio owners. And that that's, that's very
interesting that you point that out.
It, it, it, it's a small but very, I think, communal edition
(23:40):
to the services that the studio can provide.
It's been a funny thing about Atmos though.
The communal part of Atmos has been profound for me.
And it's, I don't know if this will, I don't know if this is
that interesting, but there havebeen a, it's, you know, the
technical, the technical challenges of getting an Atmos
room going and figuring out the renderer and your arm wrestling
Dante and sort of doing all the things, especially early on in
(24:00):
Atmos when we had two computer systems going, those were crazy
setups we were doing. And it, it did create a thing
here in LA, we created a group of mixers.
We call it the dam, but it's digital Dolby Atmos mixers
network. But we're, you know, we're just
a bunch of we're, I don't know, 50 Atmos mixers or something,
all sort of in a group. We have a little zoom session
(24:22):
every week, but it's really created a bunch of friendships
and relationships with other mixers that would have never
come about. I don't think for a bunch of us,
it's very, very cool there. There is a cool communal aspect
here in LA anyway. And, and we're, and, and that's
starting to grow into, into the East Coast a bit.
And there's a couple of members,there's a member in Germany and
(24:42):
a couple members in the UK. And, you know, the, the, this
network of ours is growing, but there is a communal aspect to
the that's, that's kind of been spawned on by the technological
challenges of getting a getting a room going.
That's been very, very cool. That's, that's actually my
favorite part of Atmos so far isThe funny thing.
And I love mixing Atmos. And, you know, I, I shouldn't
say that the artistic part is amazing, but there's this whole
(25:04):
other layer outside of that, which has been this sort of
communal thing that's been really, really kick ass.
Yeah. Well, yeah, I I I found
mastering in the format to be extremely tedious.
Very complex, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a
game of averaging your metadata implementation, you know,
(25:27):
optimization, translation, it's all of this.
It's all of this. It is a lot.
It's a lot of technology to get your head around and a lot to
keep when you're just trying to get a song to feel good and like
move you. It's a lot of technology to stay
mindful of simultaneously. A lot more than stereo mixing,
of course, you know. Yes, and and it almost seemed to
me that mastering in Atmos was almost to the point of are you
(25:52):
using Atmos the correct way? Not necessarily just, you know,
coloring the signal to make it sound better, but it's also just
like it's use case. Have have you filled in really
all the checklists that make this at its highest fidelity in
this format? It's very interesting.
Yeah, and there's and there's very you know, there's very,
very strict technical sort of milestones got to hit too, like
(26:15):
you got to really there's a very, very small dynamic window
you need to be within. There's a lot to it.
The mastering aspect of it. I, I'm not sure that, you know,
this is a bit, this has been a big conversation sort of in our
group is that, you know, mastering engineers are trying
to stay valid basically in, in an age of Atmos.
(26:36):
But I don't know that it's, I don't know that a mastering pass
is really, I guess it kind of depends on on how your project's
coming along, but I'm not sure amastering pass isn't really that
necessary for the Atmos components anyway, you know, and
that's it just kind of depends on how what your workflow turns
into. Like I really like to do the
stereo pass, master it and then take those masters and create my
(26:59):
Atmos sort of versions with thatas my reference, like not just a
pretty good mix. You know, I'm trying to, I've,
I've tried a couple times to do it all in one and that's a whole
other conversation. But you know, what seems to work
out best for me is to do the stereo pass, master it, output
(27:19):
stereo stems or, or output stems, however I need.
However, I want the stems to do the Atmos pass and then do my
Atmos pass from stems. I'm just getting better Atmos
mixes that way. And maybe that's just maybe I'll
grow out of that. And I don't know, that might
just be that it's that it's new to me.
And that's if there's a little bit that there's sort of a it's,
(27:40):
it's an easier translation in a way.
I, I, I think I understand and, and one of the, the one thing
that I, I guess can relate to onthat, which was when I was
making my record that released last year, it was a lot of
stereo stem work that I've done because this album, it was in
the works for like got like 10 years.
(28:02):
It was, it took a long because it was a whole concept and
everything. I've heard something.
It's cool as shit, yeah. Thank you.
It's it's very like it's got a whole novel attached to it.
So it took a whole while to makethe concept, but with the the
mixes itself, I mean like I started this project before I
ever dived into Atmos. So a lot of the.
(28:24):
Decisions when we started the project, yeah.
Exactly. A lot of those decisions that
were made were because of stereodecision making, and so I
started basically on that foot first.
I went through, you know, analogsumming and all that stuff, and
I had to sort of stem it out from those things.
(28:44):
By the time it got to Atmos, it was essentially trying to keep
it similar to stereo because it was already existing.
So I was coloring Atmos in a similar way, but you know, with
some slight tweaks. And when I'm doing Atmos now,
when I'm starting off in Atmos versus in stereo, it feels more
(29:07):
to me like the re recording phase of a movie, not
necessarily like I'm mixing a record and it's going from
mixing to mastering. That's.
Kind of how it feels to me because it all happens all at
the same time in a sense. So, and that really was evident
to me when I had to sort of throw away the concept of a
(29:28):
mixed bus essentially because there's not really a lot of that
happening in Atmos, especially with objects and versus beds and
the differences between those two entities.
So that that was very eye opening for me that hey, you
know, maybe we are now exploringin a way where it's not about,
(29:49):
you know, that mixed bus compression that I'm going to
lean into, but it's more so transient information that maybe
I want to preserve or, you know,the loudness is not necessarily
akin to how it is in stereo. It's much more dynamic.
And I have to, you know, keep that in mind.
Those are certain things that I came kind of walked away with
(30:09):
that whereas approaching from stereo first versus of Atmos
first, there were definitely disparate decisions that I had
never really experienced before working the format that that was
very exciting. That was very new, very fresh,
very good for my creative imagination to sort of explore
(30:30):
and and you know, sometimes I feel in a sense very, very, very
glad that when I went to AES last year in the Jacob Javits
Center in New York, Bob Clear Mountain before man, all the
stuff that happened in LA. Is just but.
The when he was in New York at power station, he was talking
(30:55):
about his experience on working with the format and leveraging
the center channel versus just keeping things in the left and
right, especially things like vocals.
Using the LFE as an artistic tool, not just as based
management tool for monitoring and these sorts of approaches
(31:16):
that I felt like I was already doing intuitively as an artist
trying to make it for that format.
And I, I, it was very nice to see that there were some
similarities of working the process intuitively with not a
lot of direction from others versus exploring feedback and
seeing what other people have done and how there were a lot of
(31:39):
similar approaches in exploring the format too.
There's a bunch of approaches. I mean, there's a lot to impact
there. So there's a bunch of ways to
approach the Atmos mix, but the most fundamental, I think sort
of separator is like, I've, I'vegone back and done some
catalogue stuff, you know, and then just sort of done at most
(32:01):
passes some records we did yearsago.
And that's, that's one mindset. And that mindset is, you know,
you're very beholden to the stereo mix.
You're not no one's looking to sort of reimagine a song that,
you know, fans aren't looking for a a new version or and a new
feeling from songs for the most part, I think, you know, and so
(32:22):
I think a lot of us approach catalogue stuff in being very
beholden to the stereo mix. But sort of just taking.
I was kind of thinking of takinghis taking and sort of
stretching the stereo mix into the room and left and right's
about the same and sort of like relationships are about the same
from from sort of instrument to instrument, but you're just able
to sort of create this front to back feeling and sit in the
(32:45):
middle of that front to back feeling.
And I love that, you know, and that's so that's that's one
approach and that's got a lot ofthat approach has sort of got it
got built into it. A lot of limitations.
Like there's a lot of things you're not going to do in that
approach and you want it to folddown and feel a lot like the
stereo mix. So that's that's a lot of
limitation. But I limitations great like
(33:06):
that, that that gives you very, very hard sort of goals in your
mind. But then I'm like, I'm saying
the thing that I'm so excited about is then these new projects
come along now that had Atmos sort of in mind from the start.
That's a whole other conversation where, you know,
you can almost, I think what you'll see a lot of us doing is
(33:28):
making the Atmos mix, sort of the Focal mix and then just
making sure it folds down OK, you know, and just, and I love
that I'm here for that. I haven't done that much yet,
and I don't think many of us have, but that sounds very
exciting, you know? But again, I think we're waiting
to get a little deeper into consumer involvement and all
(33:49):
that stuff before that's really going to be a reality.
But I'm very excited about it. That's going to be great.
Oh my gosh, yeah. I'm actually, well, I, I
mentioned the novel, but I'm turning it into an audio book
and it's actually an immersive. So it starts off really with the
narrator right in the middle andthere is a bunch of sound design
that happens as if you are watching a movie, but it's all
(34:10):
in your SO. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's another way of I'm looking at the format and
expanding, you know, the possibilities of the creative
individual. I mean, I'm, I'm coming at it as
a content creator, right? I, I don't do a lot of
engineering on other people's projects.
I mostly work on my own creations.
(34:31):
And then I also educate in, in institutions about the, you
know, technologies and recordings and all this kind of
stuff. So most of my experience
actually came from working like broadcast live sound, a lot of
that in my past and then mastering as an intern in in in
the city. So those were parts of my
(34:51):
development, but I always find myself and I've always been like
as a kid, just like an artist. So I kind of went back to my
roots in that sense. But anyway, the whole point is
just to say that, you know, with, with the consumer side of
things, sometimes I feel like wedefinitely can be in our own
bubble, right? Which is why it's really
important that you're saying what you're saying.
(35:11):
And I'm so glad that you broughtit up because we do have a bit
of a waiting game here for the technology to catch up, for
everybody else to really enjoy the format as it's intended to.
But you know, I do see that likeyou, like you've pointed out,
you know, when when Apple came on board, you know, even like
title, of course, like doing Atmos as well for streaming.
(35:35):
These are platforms that have a lot of influence in the game.
So it's definitely pushing manufacturers to implement the
technologies. And now I also hear Google and
Samsung are trying to join forces on making a open source
immersive format. That's kind of in a way, I guess
(35:58):
similar to flak, but I guess would be.
Oh, in terms of open sourceness,yeah, right, right, right.
Yeah. And who knows, you know, we're
all kind of waiting to see what Spotify is going to do.
Spotify is the biggest market share too, right?
And they're, they haven't announced yet what they're
doing. And I don't know, there's of
course speculation that maybe they're going to pick up this
Google format. I, I'm sort of speaking out of
(36:19):
turn. I, I don't, I don't understand
that Google format yet. I've read a couple of papers and
I just don't get it. I I think the idea is that you
can take in your, your Adm, yourAtmos mix and convert it into
that format. But I'm not I don't think
anyone's clear on what. I don't think it's necessarily.
I don't think it's necessarily that.
I think AD MB WF is already an open source format, so I I think
(36:43):
it's just essentially doing likewhat DD plus Jock for Apple
Music is is it'll take all the object data but it will render
it I guess in its own way it's. Not that's only just to get
bandwidth down to stream it right?
Like that's, that's mainly just getting the bandwidth down.
Hopefully. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I guess in a way, sort of.
(37:03):
And that's the that's the idea. Hopefully it'll be sort of the
same idea where you can you can create your Adm, however you
create it. Maybe, maybe there'll be some
other, some third party that comes along and makes a
renderer. It's better than Dolby's, I
don't know, or some other, some other cat, some way to capture
your your Atmos. But yeah, I'm from there.
I mean, look, as a mixer, I justwant to make the mix.
OK, Tell me how to capture it. I'll capture it however you
(37:24):
want. And then on the back end, all
this, all the streaming services, it doesn't pay enough.
None of us can afford to spend any money on streaming services
because they don't pay anybody anything.
So that's on them. Like they can, you can compress,
you can bundle, you need to bundle objects together and you
know, get real lossy on the height speakers.
You do you. You do whatever you need to do
to make that happen. I'm going to be in my studio
(37:45):
making kick ass mixes. Like that's right.
Exactly. Yeah.
And and that's that's where I feel like, you know, all of this
kind of comes together with making content as good as you
can make it still doesn't take away from the golden rules.
I mean, like it's always going to start off with, you know, a
good song, a good story, you know, these are just tools that
(38:12):
depending on your artistic interpretation as a, as a
creator, like how do you want to, you know, tell your story?
So at the end of the day, it still has to make us move.
It has to give us goosebumps, right?
So, and I, I, I just, I feel like it's, it's a very
interesting conversation. Sometimes people just forget
(38:32):
that the format is just a format.
It's not necessarily going to tell the story any better than
the director can tell it. Yeah, I mean, a bad chorus is a
bad chorus. A drum sound that's kind of
floppy and not that compelling is a drum sound that's floppy
and not that compelling. It doesn't, it doesn't matter
that it's coming out of 11 speakers, you know, it's still,
you know. Yeah, it's, you mention a thing
(38:55):
we can go back to as well a minute ago about the bus
processing. I don't know, does this, do you
guys get pretty technical on this broadcast or is this a
little more kind of hypothetical?
I mean it can you, can we, we goany as far deep as we really
want to go. So technically, I mean, there's
a, there's a lot of people feeling like you can't do bus
compression in Atmos. And it's true that there's not
(39:19):
like a bus to throw a compressoracross in Atmos.
But I mean, in, in films foreverwe've been doing, we've been
sort of mocking up sort of bus compression by creating a, an
array of STEM masters, right? And then having and then ganging
in in, in Pro Tools. Anyway, if you can, you can, you
can make a group that enables the plugins to group as well.
(39:42):
So across those, those, So what I do, what I've been playing
with a lot, I've got a few different Atmos templates.
We could get into object beds and all that.
But you know, even from a, an all object workflow and, and I'm
kind of, I kind of vacillate. I've vacillated back and forth
between what I think is best. A few times because it is, it is
(40:05):
new and there's sort of a lot, there's a lot of parts to sort
of be mindful of, right, in terms of choosing what's going
to be a best. And especially when you talk
about how objects are going to bundle in the DD plus Jock and
blah, blah, blah. But let's just say for a second
that today I feel like an objectonly approaches sort of the, the
(40:26):
approach that's going to have the longest life.
I'm never going to kick myself for doing an object only
approach. I might kick myself for doing
object beds if suddenly there isa brain implant from Elon or
whoever that suddenly you know those object beds are have less
spatial resolution than a whole bunch of objects, would you
(40:47):
follow? So if we stuck with that object
only approach to an Atmos mix, I've had great luck with just
making. I just make 128 master faders at
the end of my session, group them and I'll put a bus
compressor and a bus EQ across all those objects.
And then it's just a game of keying that bus compressor with
(41:09):
everything with keying it properly so that it's kicking
back the same way that so that so that all those, all those
iterations of the same compressor are kicking back the
same way that one of them would across a stereo bus.
And it works great. We've been doing that in film
forever in order to get stems tonull with a stereo with with
your two mix, it's totally doable and it sounds great.
(41:32):
And you know, there's a bunch ofthere's an SSL compressor that's
got a key input. You know, you could you have to
use a compression that's got a key input.
So that limits a lot of your choices.
But like, you know, Waves makes a good SSL compressor that I use
a lot. You can't use it.
The, the UAD stuff I don't thinkever has a key input, but you've
got to see, you know, you have to make decent decisions.
But you can, you can absolutely mock up a stereo compressor and
(41:54):
a stereo and a, or sorry, a, a bus compressor, we'll call it
across all your objects with EQ and it feels just like you're
mixing through a bus. It's, it's awesome.
I don't know a lot of people doing it, but it's very it's it
is doable. I think some of the and, and
that's a very cool way of doing I, I, I think that from what
I've discussed with other folks about doing master bust
(42:17):
compression in Atmos, it, it kind of does something weird to
the atmosphere of exploring likethings around you and having
that compression enabled where Idon't know if that's just
something that is. I have, I haven't had that
experience with genre. People have people have all
sorts of experiences. Look, I don't know, I'm, I'm
(42:39):
just saying I've had a lot of luck.
I've been especially with like heavier music, you know, like
really open sort of dynamic music is kind of a no brainer.
It's very an orchestral piece, apiece of under score.
Oh my God, the world is your oyster for in terms of kind of
moving it around the room and it, and it's sort of finding
various ways to sort of cohes a a piece of music around the room
(42:59):
and, and feel like you're sort of in it and you can create all
sorts of illusions now with, youknow, that that's easy.
The hard thing is for me is likea, a, a it's like a rock track,
you know, with like aggressive drums and gritty guitars.
And you know, it's, it's, it's, it's really fun to sort of have
all of this space to differentiate different guitar
(43:20):
layers and that's easy. But getting the thing to be
impactful and have the like, to like hit you in the gut is very,
very tricky in Atmos. And it's, it is this sort of bus
compression trick that I, that'shelped me a lot to, to
especially get more aggressive music to feel like, to hit me
(43:41):
the way the stereo mix does. And like turn it up a bit and
feel it, feel it hit me, get hitin the stomach a little bit
Without, without playing with some sort of bus compression
alternatives in Atmos, I would really struggle.
I feel like I'd struggle gettingthere.
I have struggle struggle gettingthere.
Yeah, I, I, I definitely understand that too.
(44:01):
I, I, I felt well with my, my, my album that I was just talking
about it. I was doing bus compression on
all of those tracks because I, I, I, like I said, I was trying
to emulate what was kind of doing in stereo.
But I, I did find, you know, some success using it.
It wasn't, it wasn't as like some people have mentioned to
(44:23):
me, like, oh, you know, like, you know, compression in the
rears for the reverb versus the front.
But it's like I was already doing loud music.
So it felt already very like immersive that way.
So I guess it's stylistic in some ways.
And I guess it really just comesdown to intention, right?
Like how do you explore the nature of what it is that you're
(44:46):
trying to do if you're trying tocreate size and all this stuff
but in a different way, rather than using, you know, certain
parameters, etc. So that's so.
We're all we're all trying to figure it out, you know, like
we're all yeah, and we'll all continue to kind of figure out
new tricks as it's a it's a brand new, it's a brand new
format, you know, so we'll all I.
Think that's so cool. That's really exciting.
You know, it's like it's, it's testing us on how, how far can
(45:09):
we go with this kind of stuff. And I think that's definitely
one of the most beautiful aspects of working with the
format too. I agree I.
Agree. Well, Todd, this is so this is
so much fun and I, I can probably talk your ear off on on
all this stuff even further. But you know, I just want to
really thank you for coming on today's show.
The adventure podcast is is elevated with conversations like
(45:33):
these. Here at Metal Mastermind, we not
only talk about, you know, rock and metal, but we also explore
audio production as well as justthings in life generally too.
And is there anything that maybeyou'd like to say to our
listeners for like one last piece of advice at least maybe
(45:55):
from your experience in the world?
I mean, yeah, I mean, to to anyone out there who's trying to
come up these days, I think as aas a mixer or as sort of an
engineer. I mean, the game has changed an
awful lot from when I was comingup and there was sort of a much
clearer trajectory of sort of getting a gig at a studio and
coming up that way. And that's all sort of changing.
But you know, I think the best thing that anybody can do is
(46:17):
just, you know, strap in and getgood at what you do.
However, that is, you know, findbands in your town to record
like, however, you just need to get your chops together.
It used to be much easier. It was more clear trajectory
when I was in my 20s, where the trajectory was to come out to LA
and establish your chops by working in a studio and seeing
other, seeing the older guys work and kind of see them
(46:40):
succeed and fail and learn from that.
So there is this sort of new situation where, you know,
there's a bunch of talking headson YouTube and sometimes I'm one
of them is the truth. And I don't, I think it's
important to sort of take all that with a grain of salt.
And you know, that's, that's thepart from of, of like, if we
kind of think back to how I cameup, that would be the part of
(47:02):
being an assistant engineer and watching people succeed and fail
and kind of get to know how other people work.
But that's a long way from that.That's such a minor part of you
know what, what you're needing to get accomplished.
So you know, however, and you'vegot for, but you know, platforms
like yours are really important with some instructional content
here and there. That's all good shit.
(47:22):
But the main thing is just to record everything that you can
and just fuck it up and learn from it and do better next time
and do that 10,000 times. And at some point, you know,
you'll probably start getting a little bit of self-confidence.
And somehow I feel like, you know, once you get, once you get
your skill set together, I don'tknow, I like to think that the
(47:45):
work just kind of comes, you know, that somehow the universe
just tends to send everybody what they're able, what they're
ready for. And I don't know, I think
there's some, some beauty in believing that and just working
on yourself and really doing whatever you can to get your
skill set together and not really worrying about the rest
of it. And like, let let it come.
So that's. Wow.
Well, wise words wrap up a simple things.
(48:08):
I think that's beautiful. That's beautiful.
Well, thanks again. And for anybody on the Metal
Mastermind platform, you can always check out Metal
mastermind.com For more information about the courses
and information and resources that we provide for metal and
rock musicians and producers. And until then, as we always say
is create your own sound.
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Metal
Mastermind. And here I am with a very
special guest. Todd Burke is on the Metal
Mastermind platform. So Todd, why don't you just say
hello and give a little introduction about who you are,
what you do, etcetera? I guess, yeah.
My name's Todd. I I'm out in Los Angeles and
(00:37):
I've been making records for a billion years.
I've been going since like 1994 or something in, in LA and I've
kind of transitioned over the years from I made records for a
long time. You know, things have changed in
that business. So I kind of spent a lot of time
doing film scores these days as well as records.
And I don't know, I'm just another grey beard kicking
(00:58):
around trying to keep food in the dog bowl and music, right?
I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at.
That's amazing. Actually, Todd, you're, you're
way too humble. You've done some amazing work.
I think one of the biggest I think claims to fame you have is
actually Gary Jules with Mad World.
That's. That song went really wide.
(01:20):
Yeah, yeah. That's a that's a pretty amazing
tune to work on. And I've also seen Donnie Darko
as well as on your credits list which is so cool.
That's all particular. That's, that's all a particular
era of stuff I was doing with a composer named Mike Andrews.
He's a very old friend, a dear friend.
And we had a show called Freaks and Geeks that maybe you saw, I
(01:43):
don't know if anyone, people whoknow Freaks and Geeks love
Freaks. There was one, there was one
season and it was cancelled, butit it, it sort of spun the
careers of a whole bunch of SethRogen and James Franco.
And there's a whole bunch of actors that came out of it was,
but it was around that time thatwe also did Dunnie Darko.
And Madrid was, of course, a part of a part of that.
(02:06):
Wow, that is so cool. I feel like the 90s was a very
special era in music and film. So like this part of your
history is very intriguing to mebecause there are, there are
many, many different, you know, engineers that I'm sure that you
also admire that come from before the 90s.
(02:27):
But there are a very select few engineers that I really, you
know, respect and don't get to really talk too much about their
experience in the 90s. And I just want to say that
that's very cool because I'm a 1992 baby.
And so that's going on with someof this stuff that you've
already you've worked on. And so I was graduated.
(02:49):
High school. I graduated high school about
that. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, No, I know what you're
saying. I mean, you know, and, and those
of us kind of. So I'm, I'm 50 and I don't know,
I feel like I'm sort of a memberof a kind of a weird group of
our industry that like I watchedthe whole game change, you know,
more so than I think like you'reyou kind of remember maybe the
(03:13):
computers being new, but not really.
Like I remember no computers. I remember making records with
no, you know, there, there wasn't a Mac to be found and I,
you know, so we all the I'm of that I'm of that sort of age
bracket. I suppose that's still, you
know, can still hear I could still hear above 10K, but I also
remember what it was like to record to analog tape.
(03:35):
So I've seen a lot. All that to say, I've seen a lot
of changes those. Yeah.
And that's a very interesting topic to kind of lean on today
because you're also very forwardthinking with a lot of your own
technology in your own studio. You kind of jumped into
immersive kind of earlier than most people would.
(03:57):
And so you're always in a sense looking to expand the
possibilities. Can you can you talk a little
bit more about, you know, why you got into the spatial audio
game? How did that?
What happened? When did that happen for you?
When did you decide? It was like this is what I have
to do. Yeah.
I mean, where, where are we 25 now?
(04:18):
So it must have been, it was, well, it was in the pandemic,
kind of kind of mid pandemic. There was a moment when Apple
announced that they were going to carry Atmos.
And in my mind, and I think in alot of people's minds, like, OK,
this is no longer. So this takes this takes this
from the fringes and into something that is not only
(04:39):
obviously going to become a delivery requirement from
labels, but we should just get on this.
It's time. And I was in a position at the
time like I've been, you know, like I'm saying, I've been kind
of bouncing back and forth between records and, and films
for so long. I've been mixing 7/1 for, I
don't know, 20 years at that point.
So for me, I, I've, I've been 7/1 for ages in my room.
So I in my mind, I was like, well, I'm gonna need to hang
(05:01):
some height speakers and then sort out the kind of this, you
know, get to figure out the Dolby renderer there.
There was some technology to figure out, but in terms of
like, you know, wrapping my headaround surround, it really
wasn't anything new. And I don't know, you know, I
don't really, I don't really differentiate between 7151 and
Atmos and it's all, you know, it's just all immersive.
(05:24):
The ability to pan up. That was exciting.
I think we all get really excited, like, oh shit, height
speakers. Wow, I got AI got a like AZ
plane that I can be and you know, I've heard some I've heard
a few mixes that utilize that ina real cool way.
I don't know, I've, I've, I've, I'm a little bit losing my, I'm
(05:44):
losing my, my fucking zest for, for height speakers.
I feel like, and not because I don't not because I don't think
it's effective, but like, I don't know, I guess I'm just
trying to say I don't, I don't see this atmos revolution as all
that groundbreaking because a lot of us have been doing, doing
surround for a long time. You know, I'm very excited to
see the potential for consumers to get on board more so than
(06:07):
just kind of like, you know, middle-aged theater dorks and
don't. And I love those guys with my
heart. I'm, I'm with, I'm, I am you.
I'm not saying that, but, you know, that's not, that's not a
tremendously large user base. So, you know, this idea that
and, and, and, you know, this idea that we are maybe on the
cusp of, of actual consumer demand for surround records.
(06:31):
I'm very excited about. I don't know that we're there
yet, but I, I, I think that every year we get a little bit
closer, you know? Yeah, I think and don't we have
like what almost over 3 billion like Dolby enabled devices at
this point or something like that?
I heard I've. Heard some specs that I've heard
(06:52):
some specs that sound really large, but then I've yet to have
a client come along that's able to listen to, you know, listen
to an Atmos mix at home or in their studio, you know what I
mean? So I guess, you know, I'm sure
that that stat most definitely involves because now every
MacBook Pro you buy will do it kind of a kind of a render.
(07:16):
And actually, if you put your head right over the keyboard,
it's kind of, it's kind of something, you know, I mean, if
I don't, there's all of these solutions that I just don't
think are, we're not like it's nothing to write home about yet.
You know, and there's this, there's this, it's easy to get
really excited about a thing in its infancy.
I'm very excited about Atmos, don't get me wrong.
But until, you know, until I getcalled by, until I'm working on
(07:39):
a record with a band and we get to that point in the mixers are
like, OK, this is feeling prettygood.
Are you guys interested in Atmos?
And then the next sentence is when you run to Best Buy and
pick up, you know, just pick up 4 Airpods and stick them in your
studio so you can hear this. Let's go just year after year
after year after year, Christmases just keep ticking by
and I keep thinking like maybe this is the year that there's
(08:01):
going to be some speaker solution for consumers and it
just keeps not happening. So it's a funny moment right
now, you know, where there's a lot of hype amongst guys like us
and like kind of inter industry hype and some, I think pretty
inflated numbers coming from Apple and Dolby who have a lot
of skin in the game. But there's just until there's,
(08:21):
until there's a consumer speakerto go by.
I, I, I sit around all day just just on my front porch just
kicking the can, like, you know,yelling at the neighbor, like,
what are we doing? You know, consumers can't go by
speakers. What are we, what are we even
doing? So it's, it's a funny moment
right now, right? And I know that's not what that
was not the question, but that'swhere we went.
(08:42):
No, no. It's actually very interesting
perspective because it begs to ask the question is, are you
doing Atmos for future proofing or preservation instead of, you
know, actively, you know, responding to, oh, well, people
don't have this right now, so why am I going to make it?
But you still make the content still.
(09:03):
For for a few, a couple of yearsago, it felt like there was a
lot more demand from labels. Everything that came through,
there was a there was a deliveryrequirement for Atmos and I've
and and that's it's not that that's not still the case, but
like a lot of people just aren'tdoing it and it seems to be fine
is the weird truth. So I don't know.
I mean, again, without consumer demand, none of us really know
(09:29):
what we're talking about or knowwhat know know what to how to
feel about this. Let's say you know, and the
conversation with especially like an indie band, like labels
us. Let's let's forget about label.
Label's always won everything, but let's forget about that a
minute. But like, you know, you've got a
band come along, they've hustledtogether a little money on
credit cards or from Uncle Rudy or whatever.
(09:50):
Somehow we're making this record, right?
And you know, when it comes timefor the mixed conversation,
like, OK, well, look, with with the, with the sort of dough that
we've got left, let's utilize the best we can so we can spend
this amount of time in the mix. We can kind of, we can do this
and this and this and this and the Atmos is always going to be
an afterthought for that indie band.
(10:12):
Right now I feel like because there's really no value add
other than, you know, there's, there's this like there's this
carrot dangle of better playlistplacement on streaming services
and that's real. And I've seen it happen.
Like I've, I've had, I've, I've done some mixes of some of some
bands that, you know, I'm no one's heard of.
(10:32):
And because there was an Atmos component, it ended up on, you
know, whatever the, the alt country Atmos playlist for a
couple of weeks. And because it had an Atmos
component, it was alongside, youknow, they've seen bands
alongside Taylor Swift on, on, on playlists on Apple Music and
(10:53):
you've never heard of that. So there's, there's a strategy
at the moment, you know, to get a band on board to do the Atmos.
But I don't know, it's, I just kind of keep coming back to the
thing where like, I just feel like I'm, we're all kind of in
this funny holding pattern. And as much as I want to be just
hype and jazz and like, fucking let's go.
Because I feel like that artistically, I love mixing and
(11:13):
surround. I love records and surround.
There's so much potential to like, you know, you can put the
listener right in the middle of the song.
And I've had more people in in this seat listening back to a
song and crying than I've been ever before, you know, like
it's, it can be so emotionally sort of engaging.
(11:35):
Useful. Useful.
Yeah, it's super engaging, but I've always got this disclaimer.
I feel like when in these conversations like, but we're
just where's the consumer demandand where's the consumer
affordable, affordable consumer device to drive that demand?
And we're all sitting around. I feel like we're all sitting
around going, I don't know, I thought this was going to be a
(11:56):
gold rush. And so far it kind of hasn't
been, you know what I mean? Like it's been a little extra
work for everybody and that's. Great.
I think, I think you make a veryfairpoint.
I think it's very similar to historically with a lot of the
transition between mono to stereo and how art forms were
intended for the format that they were experienced in or at
(12:20):
least that they were created for.
So for example, I mean, if we'recreating stereo music, then a
lot of our methodology, our thought process might be with
the context of stereo. I I do agree that a band that is
approaching with, you know, a history of working in a format
that they're comfortable with, that they know how to
(12:42):
essentially, you know, make tangible it it makes sense to
work on stereo and not necessarily prioritize Atmos as
an afterthought. It is in also the other context
that if you work for making something that is designed for
Atmos, and I think we need more of that, we need more the
(13:03):
content that was created for theformat that isn't just A tag on,
because otherwise then I guess it will never really have its
own place in the audio world, ifthat makes sense.
All that's perfectly. Yeah, that's very, very, all
very, very well said. And what I'm talking about, I
(13:24):
suppose, is a lot of, I guess what I'm where I'm coming from
though, is I'm having a lot of first interactions with people
about Atmos. You know, so you sort of become
the defective salesperson for a technology, which is not
necessarily what you're trying to do, but you're just, you
know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm legitimately excited about this
thing and I want, I want to see other people.
(13:45):
But what's interesting, you know, but then sort of the next
step, and maybe I'm just not there yet with, with any of my
clients. I haven't been around the next
album cycle yet, but everybody that sits here and either I play
them some stuff or we do an Atmos passive, their record now,
their whole mindset of, of what recording music has changed.
And the next album cycle they'regoing to be, you know, and I'm,
(14:09):
and I've done a couple of those sessions lately where where I
guess I say I haven't done it. This has happened a couple times
lately where we've gone in the studio and set up a quad
listening situation for trackingjust so you can get a sense of
arrear to inform overdub decisions.
And yeah, and like I'm saying, once you've once, I have yet to
meet a band who is meh about Atmos.
(14:31):
Like you show them some great mixes and do a great job with a
couple of their songs or the whole record or whatever.
A lot of I've had a lot of a lotrecently, I've been doing a lot
of just let's just do the singlein Atmos.
Let's just do one song in Atmos.And because we can't afford you
know what's what's. Again, like money's tight, but
(14:51):
every time a band has that firstAtmos experience, it just
changes the way everyone's goingto think about overdubs on the
next round. And I guess that's as much as
I'm waiting for speakers at BestBuy.
I'm also kind of jazzed for the sort of next round of clients to
come around with their next project having had Atmos in
(15:11):
mind. And I think that you know it to
your point, it takes a minute tosort of settle into it
Absolutely new format. And these are all the consumers
are settling in. We're waiting for consumer
products to hit shelves that we can afford.
And we're also waiting for artists to sort of get their
heads around the thing here at once and then go back into
overdose with that in mind. And now we're going to start
(15:32):
getting very, very exciting and serious, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely there has got to be some delay
time to the impacts of what the technology can do, right.
So yeah, we are in a way kind ofin a limbo, but it's it's it's
looking ahead that there is the potential there.
I do see like there's a light atthe end of the tunnel for all of
(15:54):
this kind of stuff, but. Yeah, yeah.
And no part of me thinks this isgoing away.
I mean, there, there's, there are, there are sort of like
peers going how you know, there's always the naysayers are
like, oh, I don't buy it. And we've we've tried surround
before and blah, blah, blah. I think we're well past that
point. Like this shit is integrated in
streaming services that again, you know, I think, I think is
when there's an affordable speaker array, consumer demand
(16:15):
will drive a whole new pair of this and well.
It's a very, it's a very practical way of also thinking
about where you're at. I mean, like it's good that you,
you evaluate what the technologyis and where its impact lies.
I think that's a very good thingto do.
I think in most cases, it keeps you grounded in what what
(16:36):
matters in in a project. It's kind of the same way saying
in a way I could, I can almost say it like this.
Like if you're, let's say, for example, you're going to record
any dialogue for a movie, like on set and you know, production
audio that that might turn out OK or it might turn out bad
because the day had a rainfall or there was a plane that flew
(16:59):
overhead or whatever. But if you were to go and go and
tell the director, Hey, let's just do all the dialogue again
in the studio for the entire movie without even like using
the good stuff that was on production audio, I'd say that
that's also like a lot of waste of time, a lot of wasted effort
when stuff already is working right in some ways.
(17:21):
So gauging how much of the technology that is cool and
wanting to implement versus, youknow, what's the practicality of
people also, you know, listeningto the format, getting exposed
to the format. Those are all fair questions.
I don't I don't disregard that. I think it's a very smart thing
to think about. I'm actually, and you, you know,
this a little bit about myself as an educator.
(17:44):
I, I teach about Atmos and you know, audio over everything,
like fundamentals to advanced. But in between all of that, I do
find it very important for a lotof students when they're diving
into audio production. Not only do they understand the
fundamentals because the principles of stereo and mono,
(18:04):
they don't go away when you do Atmos, they just actually become
more enhanced. And those matters of learning
those fundamentals is so pivotalto even getting across to even
producing an Atmos that that's abarrier of entry for content
creators too, right? Like where are you in your
(18:25):
process, right? I wouldn't recommend like a
newbie starting off and doing Atmos necessarily.
I would say probably learn how to put a microphone where it
needs to be first. So for.
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
You know, fundamentals of everything.
And yeah, I mean, I mean, but again, surround mixing, people
get real hung up on surround mixing and think like it's this
(18:47):
new thing and it's also special.I mean, it's just like
everything. If you spend some time listening
and find a bunch of records thatyou really like, like really
study what some people that camebefore you were doing with
surround. There's some example, there's a
bunch of examples out there of really, really, really well done
surround albums. And you can, I think that you
can absorb that with a relatively limited knowledge
(19:11):
sort of sort of skill set. You can absorb just the, you
know, the, the feeling and that and that and maybe just that
what you would imagine the process would be to creating a,
a good surround mix. But yeah, putting the cart
before the horse, I don't know. Yeah.
If you don't know where to put the microphone on the kick drum,
I don't know why we're talking about mixing right now.
Yeah, exactly. So, and, and so that's what I'm
(19:33):
saying is that there's, there's always a learning curve and this
is in terms of priorities for creators.
I mean, like the foundation has to be first and that usually
already takes a very long time for people to, you know, get
their bearings. But even then, I mean, this is
2025, I feel like we've already had digital audio for the home
(19:55):
studio, you know, ever since like the double O 1, you know,
tools and design. So that's about almost 20 years
of technology. That we've been working in the
home studio. So I'm you're, I think nowadays
you're starting to see the home studio become, you know, more
akin to the professional studio in many ways, right?
(20:18):
Commercial facilities have downsized quite a bit in the
rise of home facilities, but still, then there is the, the,
the, the, the purpose of like needing to understand your,
your, your, your basics to even get that far.
So it's such an interesting conversation, but what do you
think now this, because this hasbeen, I feel like a very good
(20:43):
conversation of why Atmos is hard to get into.
But there's also still the aspect of if you do get into it
and you, let's say you don't have all the resources, have you
had the experience at all of just trying to see how far you
got with like doing binaural? What's what's your experience
with that? I'm just curious.
So I know, yeah, there's, I knowthere are some, there's some
(21:05):
folks that are trying to do at most mixes in binaural or, you
know, even, I mean, honestly, I,I know several people that have
tried and, you know, then come, come over to listen to that mix.
And it's, and you can even hear stuff on the Apple, on the Apple
Music store, for instance, when you're kind of just scrolling
around that you go, oh God, thiswas, this was obviously a mixed
(21:27):
in headphones. And you just, you just know it,
you know, like everything's on the side.
It's, you know, you just can't, you can't, it's not possible to
make good decisions for what a speaker array is going to do
from the headphones. The inverse is true.
Or I think that if you spend most of your time in speakers
and have have done a few mixes and kind of get to know what to
(21:49):
expect from the binaural render,you can sort of set up a speaker
render and then put on the headphones and not be shocked.
But I know for sure that if you make a mix in with the
headphones on in binaural and then assuming that it's going to
sound good in speakers, it's I, I don't, I can't imagine that
going well. Like it's going to be you have
no idea. And so you just don't know.
(22:09):
So I mean, I've done a thing, but I've been trying to help
people out. I mean, and I get that, you
know, the barrier to entry in this, it's it's brutal to buy 14
speakers or whatever, you know, like that's a horrible situation
for everybody. But speaker manufacturers,
speaker manufacturers are love fucking Atmos and we all go, you
know, God, oh. Yeah.
You know, but there's always Reddit.
I mean, I've set up my room. I I've got a site up called
(22:32):
listening room dot LA. That's my studio here and Ioffer
it up. You can book our 4 hour blocks
or whatever as a as a mixer. So you could do you could
absolutely. And I've got several friends
that take me up on this. You can absolutely start your
mixes in Atmos and kind of, I'm sorry, in binaural, just kind of
get the lay of the land and get things kind of functioning and
then come in and just do a quicktrim session in the speakers.
(22:54):
And that can be super. That's a super effective way to
go without dropping all the money on the speakers.
And I think there's maybe, I think we're going to see more of
that, maybe some commercial studios setting up a little
Atmos room and book it for, for sort of like trimming sessions
and you know, show it off to theband sessions.
Hopefully I'd like to see that happen.
That's, that's, that's a great point.
(23:15):
And for, you know, people like, you know, yourself and I who
have gone that we dived into Atmos, you know, fully
integrated in our studios, that that's another source maybe for
revenue for studio owners. And that that's, that's very
interesting that you point that out.
It, it, it, it's a small but very, I think, communal edition
(23:40):
to the services that the studio can provide.
It's been a funny thing about Atmos though.
The communal part of Atmos has been profound for me.
And it's, I don't know if this will, I don't know if this is
that interesting, but there havebeen a, it's, you know, the
technical, the technical challenges of getting an Atmos
room going and figuring out the renderer and your arm wrestling
Dante and sort of doing all the things, especially early on in
(24:00):
Atmos when we had two computer systems going, those were crazy
setups we were doing. And it, it did create a thing
here in LA, we created a group of mixers.
We call it the dam, but it's digital Dolby Atmos mixers
network. But we're, you know, we're just
a bunch of we're, I don't know, 50 Atmos mixers or something,
all sort of in a group. We have a little zoom session
(24:22):
every week, but it's really created a bunch of friendships
and relationships with other mixers that would have never
come about. I don't think for a bunch of us,
it's very, very cool there. There is a cool communal aspect
here in LA anyway. And, and we're, and, and that's
starting to grow into, into the East Coast a bit.
And there's a couple of members,there's a member in Germany and
(24:42):
a couple members in the UK. And, you know, the, the, this
network of ours is growing, but there is a communal aspect to
the that's, that's kind of been spawned on by the technological
challenges of getting a getting a room going.
That's been very, very cool. That's, that's actually my
favorite part of Atmos so far isThe funny thing.
And I love mixing Atmos. And, you know, I, I shouldn't
say that the artistic part is amazing, but there's this whole
(25:04):
other layer outside of that, which has been this sort of
communal thing that's been really, really kick ass.
Yeah. Well, yeah, I I I found
mastering in the format to be extremely tedious.
Very complex, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a
game of averaging your metadata implementation, you know,
(25:27):
optimization, translation, it's all of this.
It's all of this. It is a lot.
It's a lot of technology to get your head around and a lot to
keep when you're just trying to get a song to feel good and like
move you. It's a lot of technology to stay
mindful of simultaneously. A lot more than stereo mixing,
of course, you know. Yes, and and it almost seemed to
me that mastering in Atmos was almost to the point of are you
(25:52):
using Atmos the correct way? Not necessarily just, you know,
coloring the signal to make it sound better, but it's also just
like it's use case. Have have you filled in really
all the checklists that make this at its highest fidelity in
this format? It's very interesting.
Yeah, and there's and there's very you know, there's very,
very strict technical sort of milestones got to hit too, like
(26:15):
you got to really there's a very, very small dynamic window
you need to be within. There's a lot to it.
The mastering aspect of it. I, I'm not sure that, you know,
this is a bit, this has been a big conversation sort of in our
group is that, you know, mastering engineers are trying
to stay valid basically in, in an age of Atmos.
(26:36):
But I don't know that it's, I don't know that a mastering pass
is really, I guess it kind of depends on on how your project's
coming along, but I'm not sure amastering pass isn't really that
necessary for the Atmos components anyway, you know, and
that's it just kind of depends on how what your workflow turns
into. Like I really like to do the
stereo pass, master it and then take those masters and create my
(26:59):
Atmos sort of versions with thatas my reference, like not just a
pretty good mix. You know, I'm trying to, I've,
I've tried a couple times to do it all in one and that's a whole
other conversation. But you know, what seems to work
out best for me is to do the stereo pass, master it, output
(27:19):
stereo stems or, or output stems, however I need.
However, I want the stems to do the Atmos pass and then do my
Atmos pass from stems. I'm just getting better Atmos
mixes that way. And maybe that's just maybe I'll
grow out of that. And I don't know, that might
just be that it's that it's new to me.
And that's if there's a little bit that there's sort of a it's,
(27:40):
it's an easier translation in a way.
I, I, I think I understand and, and one of the, the one thing
that I, I guess can relate to onthat, which was when I was
making my record that released last year, it was a lot of
stereo stem work that I've done because this album, it was in
the works for like got like 10 years.
(28:02):
It was, it took a long because it was a whole concept and
everything. I've heard something.
It's cool as shit, yeah. Thank you.
It's it's very like it's got a whole novel attached to it.
So it took a whole while to makethe concept, but with the the
mixes itself, I mean like I started this project before I
ever dived into Atmos. So a lot of the.
(28:24):
Decisions when we started the project, yeah.
Exactly. A lot of those decisions that
were made were because of stereodecision making, and so I
started basically on that foot first.
I went through, you know, analogsumming and all that stuff, and
I had to sort of stem it out from those things.
(28:44):
By the time it got to Atmos, it was essentially trying to keep
it similar to stereo because it was already existing.
So I was coloring Atmos in a similar way, but you know, with
some slight tweaks. And when I'm doing Atmos now,
when I'm starting off in Atmos versus in stereo, it feels more
(29:07):
to me like the re recording phase of a movie, not
necessarily like I'm mixing a record and it's going from
mixing to mastering. That's.
Kind of how it feels to me because it all happens all at
the same time in a sense. So, and that really was evident
to me when I had to sort of throw away the concept of a
(29:28):
mixed bus essentially because there's not really a lot of that
happening in Atmos, especially with objects and versus beds and
the differences between those two entities.
So that that was very eye opening for me that hey, you
know, maybe we are now exploringin a way where it's not about,
(29:49):
you know, that mixed bus compression that I'm going to
lean into, but it's more so transient information that maybe
I want to preserve or, you know,the loudness is not necessarily
akin to how it is in stereo. It's much more dynamic.
And I have to, you know, keep that in mind.
Those are certain things that I came kind of walked away with
(30:09):
that whereas approaching from stereo first versus of Atmos
first, there were definitely disparate decisions that I had
never really experienced before working the format that that was
very exciting. That was very new, very fresh,
very good for my creative imagination to sort of explore
(30:30):
and and you know, sometimes I feel in a sense very, very, very
glad that when I went to AES last year in the Jacob Javits
Center in New York, Bob Clear Mountain before man, all the
stuff that happened in LA. Is just but.
The when he was in New York at power station, he was talking
(30:55):
about his experience on working with the format and leveraging
the center channel versus just keeping things in the left and
right, especially things like vocals.
Using the LFE as an artistic tool, not just as based
management tool for monitoring and these sorts of approaches
(31:16):
that I felt like I was already doing intuitively as an artist
trying to make it for that format.
And I, I, it was very nice to see that there were some
similarities of working the process intuitively with not a
lot of direction from others versus exploring feedback and
seeing what other people have done and how there were a lot of
(31:39):
similar approaches in exploring the format too.
There's a bunch of approaches. I mean, there's a lot to impact
there. So there's a bunch of ways to
approach the Atmos mix, but the most fundamental, I think sort
of separator is like, I've, I'vegone back and done some
catalogue stuff, you know, and then just sort of done at most
(32:01):
passes some records we did yearsago.
And that's, that's one mindset. And that mindset is, you know,
you're very beholden to the stereo mix.
You're not no one's looking to sort of reimagine a song that,
you know, fans aren't looking for a a new version or and a new
feeling from songs for the most part, I think, you know, and so
(32:22):
I think a lot of us approach catalogue stuff in being very
beholden to the stereo mix. But sort of just taking.
I was kind of thinking of takinghis taking and sort of
stretching the stereo mix into the room and left and right's
about the same and sort of like relationships are about the same
from from sort of instrument to instrument, but you're just able
to sort of create this front to back feeling and sit in the
(32:45):
middle of that front to back feeling.
And I love that, you know, and that's so that's that's one
approach and that's got a lot ofthat approach has sort of got it
got built into it. A lot of limitations.
Like there's a lot of things you're not going to do in that
approach and you want it to folddown and feel a lot like the
stereo mix. So that's that's a lot of
limitation. But I limitations great like
(33:06):
that, that that gives you very, very hard sort of goals in your
mind. But then I'm like, I'm saying
the thing that I'm so excited about is then these new projects
come along now that had Atmos sort of in mind from the start.
That's a whole other conversation where, you know,
you can almost, I think what you'll see a lot of us doing is
(33:28):
making the Atmos mix, sort of the Focal mix and then just
making sure it folds down OK, you know, and just, and I love
that I'm here for that. I haven't done that much yet,
and I don't think many of us have, but that sounds very
exciting, you know? But again, I think we're waiting
to get a little deeper into consumer involvement and all
(33:49):
that stuff before that's really going to be a reality.
But I'm very excited about it. That's going to be great.
Oh my gosh, yeah. I'm actually, well, I, I
mentioned the novel, but I'm turning it into an audio book
and it's actually an immersive. So it starts off really with the
narrator right in the middle andthere is a bunch of sound design
that happens as if you are watching a movie, but it's all
(34:10):
in your SO. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's another way of I'm looking at the format and
expanding, you know, the possibilities of the creative
individual. I mean, I'm, I'm coming at it as
a content creator, right? I, I don't do a lot of
engineering on other people's projects.
I mostly work on my own creations.
(34:31):
And then I also educate in, in institutions about the, you
know, technologies and recordings and all this kind of
stuff. So most of my experience
actually came from working like broadcast live sound, a lot of
that in my past and then mastering as an intern in in in
the city. So those were parts of my
(34:51):
development, but I always find myself and I've always been like
as a kid, just like an artist. So I kind of went back to my
roots in that sense. But anyway, the whole point is
just to say that, you know, with, with the consumer side of
things, sometimes I feel like wedefinitely can be in our own
bubble, right? Which is why it's really
important that you're saying what you're saying.
(35:11):
And I'm so glad that you broughtit up because we do have a bit
of a waiting game here for the technology to catch up, for
everybody else to really enjoy the format as it's intended to.
But you know, I do see that likeyou, like you've pointed out,
you know, when when Apple came on board, you know, even like
title, of course, like doing Atmos as well for streaming.
(35:35):
These are platforms that have a lot of influence in the game.
So it's definitely pushing manufacturers to implement the
technologies. And now I also hear Google and
Samsung are trying to join forces on making a open source
immersive format. That's kind of in a way, I guess
(35:58):
similar to flak, but I guess would be.
Oh, in terms of open sourceness,yeah, right, right, right.
Yeah. And who knows, you know, we're
all kind of waiting to see what Spotify is going to do.
Spotify is the biggest market share too, right?
And they're, they haven't announced yet what they're
doing. And I don't know, there's of
course speculation that maybe they're going to pick up this
Google format. I, I'm sort of speaking out of
(36:19):
turn. I, I don't, I don't understand
that Google format yet. I've read a couple of papers and
I just don't get it. I I think the idea is that you
can take in your, your Adm, yourAtmos mix and convert it into
that format. But I'm not I don't think
anyone's clear on what. I don't think it's necessarily.
I don't think it's necessarily that.
I think AD MB WF is already an open source format, so I I think
(36:43):
it's just essentially doing likewhat DD plus Jock for Apple
Music is is it'll take all the object data but it will render
it I guess in its own way it's. Not that's only just to get
bandwidth down to stream it right?
Like that's, that's mainly just getting the bandwidth down.
Hopefully. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I guess in a way, sort of.
(37:03):
And that's the that's the idea. Hopefully it'll be sort of the
same idea where you can you can create your Adm, however you
create it. Maybe, maybe there'll be some
other, some third party that comes along and makes a
renderer. It's better than Dolby's, I
don't know, or some other, some other cat, some way to capture
your your Atmos. But yeah, I'm from there.
I mean, look, as a mixer, I justwant to make the mix.
OK, Tell me how to capture it. I'll capture it however you
(37:24):
want. And then on the back end, all
this, all the streaming services, it doesn't pay enough.
None of us can afford to spend any money on streaming services
because they don't pay anybody anything.
So that's on them. Like they can, you can compress,
you can bundle, you need to bundle objects together and you
know, get real lossy on the height speakers.
You do you. You do whatever you need to do
to make that happen. I'm going to be in my studio
(37:45):
making kick ass mixes. Like that's right.
Exactly. Yeah.
And and that's that's where I feel like, you know, all of this
kind of comes together with making content as good as you
can make it still doesn't take away from the golden rules.
I mean, like it's always going to start off with, you know, a
good song, a good story, you know, these are just tools that
(38:12):
depending on your artistic interpretation as a, as a
creator, like how do you want to, you know, tell your story?
So at the end of the day, it still has to make us move.
It has to give us goosebumps, right?
So, and I, I, I just, I feel like it's, it's a very
interesting conversation. Sometimes people just forget
(38:32):
that the format is just a format.
It's not necessarily going to tell the story any better than
the director can tell it. Yeah, I mean, a bad chorus is a
bad chorus. A drum sound that's kind of
floppy and not that compelling is a drum sound that's floppy
and not that compelling. It doesn't, it doesn't matter
that it's coming out of 11 speakers, you know, it's still,
you know. Yeah, it's, you mention a thing
(38:55):
we can go back to as well a minute ago about the bus
processing. I don't know, does this, do you
guys get pretty technical on this broadcast or is this a
little more kind of hypothetical?
I mean it can you, can we, we goany as far deep as we really
want to go. So technically, I mean, there's
a, there's a lot of people feeling like you can't do bus
compression in Atmos. And it's true that there's not
(39:19):
like a bus to throw a compressoracross in Atmos.
But I mean, in, in films foreverwe've been doing, we've been
sort of mocking up sort of bus compression by creating a, an
array of STEM masters, right? And then having and then ganging
in in, in Pro Tools. Anyway, if you can, you can, you
can make a group that enables the plugins to group as well.
(39:42):
So across those, those, So what I do, what I've been playing
with a lot, I've got a few different Atmos templates.
We could get into object beds and all that.
But you know, even from a, an all object workflow and, and I'm
kind of, I kind of vacillate. I've vacillated back and forth
between what I think is best. A few times because it is, it is
(40:05):
new and there's sort of a lot, there's a lot of parts to sort
of be mindful of, right, in terms of choosing what's going
to be a best. And especially when you talk
about how objects are going to bundle in the DD plus Jock and
blah, blah, blah. But let's just say for a second
that today I feel like an objectonly approaches sort of the, the
(40:26):
approach that's going to have the longest life.
I'm never going to kick myself for doing an object only
approach. I might kick myself for doing
object beds if suddenly there isa brain implant from Elon or
whoever that suddenly you know those object beds are have less
spatial resolution than a whole bunch of objects, would you
(40:47):
follow? So if we stuck with that object
only approach to an Atmos mix, I've had great luck with just
making. I just make 128 master faders at
the end of my session, group them and I'll put a bus
compressor and a bus EQ across all those objects.
And then it's just a game of keying that bus compressor with
(41:09):
everything with keying it properly so that it's kicking
back the same way that so that so that all those, all those
iterations of the same compressor are kicking back the
same way that one of them would across a stereo bus.
And it works great. We've been doing that in film
forever in order to get stems tonull with a stereo with with
your two mix, it's totally doable and it sounds great.
(41:32):
And you know, there's a bunch ofthere's an SSL compressor that's
got a key input. You know, you could you have to
use a compression that's got a key input.
So that limits a lot of your choices.
But like, you know, Waves makes a good SSL compressor that I use
a lot. You can't use it.
The, the UAD stuff I don't thinkever has a key input, but you've
got to see, you know, you have to make decent decisions.
But you can, you can absolutely mock up a stereo compressor and
(41:54):
a stereo and a, or sorry, a, a bus compressor, we'll call it
across all your objects with EQ and it feels just like you're
mixing through a bus. It's, it's awesome.
I don't know a lot of people doing it, but it's very it's it
is doable. I think some of the and, and
that's a very cool way of doing I, I, I think that from what
I've discussed with other folks about doing master bust
(42:17):
compression in Atmos, it, it kind of does something weird to
the atmosphere of exploring likethings around you and having
that compression enabled where Idon't know if that's just
something that is. I have, I haven't had that
experience with genre. People have people have all
sorts of experiences. Look, I don't know, I'm, I'm
(42:39):
just saying I've had a lot of luck.
I've been especially with like heavier music, you know, like
really open sort of dynamic music is kind of a no brainer.
It's very an orchestral piece, apiece of under score.
Oh my God, the world is your oyster for in terms of kind of
moving it around the room and it, and it's sort of finding
various ways to sort of cohes a a piece of music around the room
(42:59):
and, and feel like you're sort of in it and you can create all
sorts of illusions now with, youknow, that that's easy.
The hard thing is for me is likea, a, a it's like a rock track,
you know, with like aggressive drums and gritty guitars.
And you know, it's, it's, it's, it's really fun to sort of have
all of this space to differentiate different guitar
(43:20):
layers and that's easy. But getting the thing to be
impactful and have the like, to like hit you in the gut is very,
very tricky in Atmos. And it's, it is this sort of bus
compression trick that I, that'shelped me a lot to, to
especially get more aggressive music to feel like, to hit me
(43:41):
the way the stereo mix does. And like turn it up a bit and
feel it, feel it hit me, get hitin the stomach a little bit
Without, without playing with some sort of bus compression
alternatives in Atmos, I would really struggle.
I feel like I'd struggle gettingthere.
I have struggle struggle gettingthere.
Yeah, I, I, I definitely understand that too.
(44:01):
I, I, I felt well with my, my, my album that I was just talking
about it. I was doing bus compression on
all of those tracks because I, I, I, like I said, I was trying
to emulate what was kind of doing in stereo.
But I, I did find, you know, some success using it.
It wasn't, it wasn't as like some people have mentioned to
(44:23):
me, like, oh, you know, like, you know, compression in the
rears for the reverb versus the front.
But it's like I was already doing loud music.
So it felt already very like immersive that way.
So I guess it's stylistic in some ways.
And I guess it really just comesdown to intention, right?
Like how do you explore the nature of what it is that you're
(44:46):
trying to do if you're trying tocreate size and all this stuff
but in a different way, rather than using, you know, certain
parameters, etc. So that's so.
We're all we're all trying to figure it out, you know, like
we're all yeah, and we'll all continue to kind of figure out
new tricks as it's a it's a brand new, it's a brand new
format, you know, so we'll all I.
Think that's so cool. That's really exciting.
You know, it's like it's, it's testing us on how, how far can
(45:09):
we go with this kind of stuff. And I think that's definitely
one of the most beautiful aspects of working with the
format too. I agree I.
Agree. Well, Todd, this is so this is
so much fun and I, I can probably talk your ear off on on
all this stuff even further. But you know, I just want to
really thank you for coming on today's show.
The adventure podcast is is elevated with conversations like
(45:33):
these. Here at Metal Mastermind, we not
only talk about, you know, rock and metal, but we also explore
audio production as well as justthings in life generally too.
And is there anything that maybeyou'd like to say to our
listeners for like one last piece of advice at least maybe
(45:55):
from your experience in the world?
I mean, yeah, I mean, to to anyone out there who's trying to
come up these days, I think as aas a mixer or as sort of an
engineer. I mean, the game has changed an
awful lot from when I was comingup and there was sort of a much
clearer trajectory of sort of getting a gig at a studio and
coming up that way. And that's all sort of changing.
But you know, I think the best thing that anybody can do is
(46:17):
just, you know, strap in and getgood at what you do.
However, that is, you know, findbands in your town to record
like, however, you just need to get your chops together.
It used to be much easier. It was more clear trajectory
when I was in my 20s, where the trajectory was to come out to LA
and establish your chops by working in a studio and seeing
other, seeing the older guys work and kind of see them
(46:40):
succeed and fail and learn from that.
So there is this sort of new situation where, you know,
there's a bunch of talking headson YouTube and sometimes I'm one
of them is the truth. And I don't, I think it's
important to sort of take all that with a grain of salt.
And you know, that's, that's thepart from of, of like, if we
kind of think back to how I cameup, that would be the part of
(47:02):
being an assistant engineer and watching people succeed and fail
and kind of get to know how other people work.
But that's a long way from that.That's such a minor part of you
know what, what you're needing to get accomplished.
So you know, however, and you'vegot for, but you know, platforms
like yours are really important with some instructional content
here and there. That's all good shit.
(47:22):
But the main thing is just to record everything that you can
and just fuck it up and learn from it and do better next time
and do that 10,000 times. And at some point, you know,
you'll probably start getting a little bit of self-confidence.
And somehow I feel like, you know, once you get, once you get
your skill set together, I don'tknow, I like to think that the
(47:45):
work just kind of comes, you know, that somehow the universe
just tends to send everybody what they're able, what they're
ready for. And I don't know, I think
there's some, some beauty in believing that and just working
on yourself and really doing whatever you can to get your
skill set together and not really worrying about the rest
of it. And like, let let it come.
So that's. Wow.
Well, wise words wrap up a simple things.
(48:08):
I think that's beautiful. That's beautiful.
Well, thanks again. And for anybody on the Metal
Mastermind platform, you can always check out Metal
mastermind.com For more information about the courses
and information and resources that we provide for metal and
rock musicians and producers. And until then, as we always say
is create your own sound.
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