S2 Ep9: Maor Appelbaum on Collaboration and Keeping Culture & Community Alive

Ken Candelas and Maor Appelbaum discuss the importance of bringing people together, the universal language of music, putting meaning behind your work, and building a community to support a culture of collaboration.

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Metal
Mastermind podcast. I'm Ken Candelas, your host, and
today we have brought back a friend of Metal Mastermind, a
fantastic mastering engineer, someone who has so much
experience and cares a lot abouteducating the next generation in

(00:35):
what's the best way to go about making music.
So let's give it a round of applause for Mauer Applebaum.
It's good to see you, Mauer. Why don't you just say hello and
introduce yourself? Hi, my name is Mauer Applebaum.
I'm a mastering engineer. I work in Los Angeles and thank

(00:56):
you for having me on the show. It's always a pleasure for me to
share my experience and opinionsand my knowledge.
And I think it's very important that we have this community
where we can talk and, and sharewith the experiences and, and

(01:16):
pass around all that stuff so, so the community grows.
Yeah, we have. Here at Metal Mastermind, we've
been very much about keeping things at a very grassroots
level where we're focused on really trying to create a better
community for artists, especially, of course, with what

(01:37):
we love, which is rock and metal.
But it's really open to anybody who cares.
And in this case, it's somethingthat is an important
conversation because fun story for all of you little back story
to what's going on lately at metal Mastermind.
We're we're building a lot of content and my war.

(02:00):
He had offered his gracious timeto just take a listen and
provide some feedback and it turned into it a much more
collaborative effort where one of our own Nixie, who's mixing
one of these upcoming courses and contents that's going on

(02:21):
right now, he is, you know, listening to feedback from the
band. He's listening to my production
notes and he has also got mastering notes mowers included
in that. And so as we started to develop
this a little further, we came back with such an amazing

(02:44):
reflection on the process. And this is one of the reasons
why I wanted to bring on My War to this podcast episode
specifically to talk about the power of collaboration and what
it can do for you and for your legacy.
If you consider your art, your legacy, why it's so important to

(03:08):
have someone like a mastering engineer or a producer or a
assistant or a musician who's going to play on your record.
I mean, these are all aspects ofcollaboration and it comes from
the top and the bottom of the entire process.
So, my war I'd like to hear someof your thoughts about

(03:30):
collaborative, you know, approaches to creating art and
why you focus so much on that asart.
I look at it as you know, there's a saying the the whole

(03:52):
is greater than the sum of all parts.
OK. Everybody brings something to
the table. And at the end of the day, that
result is a combination of everybody putting their time,
effort, experience, skills, talent.

(04:14):
Everybody's responsible for it, OK?
And it's the combination. And I think a lot of great
records were done that way throughout history.
OK. I think that also we develop
better as we collaborate. Because if you're doing one

(04:36):
thing and you're doing it all the time, you might improve, you
might gain experience because you're doing it more and more
and getting different situations.
But still it's a circle. Maybe maybe when you're doing
this and going around, maybe you're you're trip is carving A

(04:58):
thicker groove in that circle because you're gaining
experience. But when you're collaborating,
you're getting experienced knowledge, showcasing different
stuff that each person brings tothe table, and you're improving

(05:19):
the ability of the of the community which you're involved
with to strive. Because if we take our jobs, as
this is our only thing, we don'tcare what others do and we don't
collaborate, then we will still work.
But there's also a limitation tohow much it's going to happen

(05:42):
for a while. Like you might be busy so you'll
get the jobs, but there's so much things out there and
there's always trends and connections, relationships and
doing that by, by collaborating,you're expanding your

(06:05):
relationships, your connections,and you're being part of
something bigger. OK, Just like if if there were
only four bands in the world, then there were only people who
would work with that, you know, for those 4 bands.
But there's a bunch of bands, OK.

(06:28):
And if the bands wouldn't be touring with other bands, then
you wouldn't see the other bandsunless you knew you knew them,
OK. And if the bands weren't friends
with other bands, then they wouldn't help each other grow.
Even if it's a competition, it'sa friendly competition, OK?

(06:51):
So look at it that way. It's always bigger than it looks
because one affects the other. If you have a band that's
touring with another band and they like them, then they talk
about stuff and they're influenced.
And, you know, if you're a smaller band on a bigger bill

(07:13):
and you're like, oh, I want to be like them.
And they're like, OK, what did they do?
OK, now you're aiming to that. So I remember that as a kid, you
know, as a teenager, going to shows, you know, and clubs.
And then I had bands of my own and I was like, oh, I want to be
one day like them, OK. And then in time, we were
sharing the stages too, like, oh, OK, now we're friends with

(07:35):
them, OK. And then we're sharing other
stages. So that's how it kind of works,
you know, like, and I think we need to do that more and more
nowadays because technology let's us stay in one place and
forget about everybody else. You need good drum tracks.
OK, guess what, There's good drum samples.

(07:56):
Yeah. You need good guitar tones.
Guess what, there's good, you know, IR packs or whatever, you
know, there's even some templates.
This is. This is such an amazing thing to
hear because it's very much in away like if you're going to be,
I look at technology as a good way to help bridge certain

(08:19):
things, right. But here's the thing that I
really resonate with is that youhave to at some point, I mean,
this is really a people industry.
You go out, you meet with othersand you naturally be are, are,
are exposed to new paths in life, decisions and all the
stuff that contribute to the journey, right.

(08:42):
So you're always on a sort of like quest, right?
And I feel like a lot of people who are in a sort of solo, like
at home kind of set up, it can get very cave like and you start
getting studio head and you start getting in your own world
and you're not spending quality time building these

(09:06):
relationships that can also explore new opportunities for
you. And I feel that it's a huge part
of not just as your profession, but as a person in growth.
I think it's also important thatway because you gain wisdom, you
gain knowledge, right? If I'm not talking to guys like

(09:27):
Mahor, you know, I'm not gettingthe kind of information that I
otherwise would have not known that I'd need it, right?
So exposing yourself is vulnerability, but it's also
incredibly courageous and it's anecessity and moving forward.

(09:49):
So I I really resonate with thatmessage.
Mawar, And do you think that I mean you, you've explained a
little bit of your back story onthe last time we had this
podcast, but your journey into mastering I've, I'm quite
certain that if it wasn't for meeting people along the way in

(10:10):
your journey, it would have never led to this point, right?
It's 100% right. Like if I wouldn't be going out
there meeting people, connectingwith mutual, you know, people
who have a mutual connection in terms due to what they do is the

(10:33):
passionate, you know, the, the, you know, it aligns with the
people, you know, and the peoplewho I met throughout the years
who were passionate about what they do.
And they saw how I'm passionate about it and, and what music
and, and what stuff we work on and all that, you know, it
aligned together. And then it made sense that

(10:55):
there's a kind of a chemistry here, a connection that leads to
work. Now, you know, friendship can
lead to working relationship andworking relationship can lead to
friendship with that. And that's what's interesting is
I made a lot of friends during, you know, these, all these years
of working with people. And also at the same time, I've

(11:18):
developed working relationships with people who I was friends
with. So it's both ways.
I give an interesting perspective.
You might remember this because we're an older generation.
When I was a teenager and I wanted to know about bands, I

(11:39):
couldn't look for them in the Internet because we didn't have
Internet. And I couldn't look for them in
magazines because we didn't havewhere I live magazines.
And we couldn't we we barely could find information.
So what? What would I look at to know
about bands? And it was the thank you list on

(12:01):
the CDs or records or cassettes.And in the thanks list, the
bands will thank the bands that they were friends with or tour
with. And I would see the names and
then I would remember. And then I would go to record
stores. And if there was a record from a
band of that name, I would know,Oh, I should check that out

(12:23):
because they're affiliated that these guys who maybe they're
similar style or maybe you know what I mean.
Of course there's records of bands you don't know and
sometimes you want to discover them, you know, from like you go
through the LP's and oh, that's cool, Let's go check out the
CD's, right. But the bands were that were
that have the names that I wouldremember.

(12:44):
Those were the first ones I would check because there was an
affiliation and that help me understand early on that there's
a community. There's a reason why they thank
these bands. It's not just, you know, maybe
they're influenced by them, maybe they're friends of them.

(13:04):
Maybe they tour with them together.
Something is holding that together, you know, something
bonds them. And then of course, later on in
time when we had Internet and magazines, then you discover
others and then you find that these bands actually had members
of these bands, you know, it allworked together.

(13:25):
So that really showed me that just like a local scene is like
that where I was that we knew each other's, you know, the
bands that we knew. There's local scenes other
places and international scenes too.
And that it that affiliates as well to the professional side.

(13:51):
That's where you see producers working with certain mixing
engineers or engineers that working with certain producers
or mastering engineers or later on they were editors, you know,
like Pro Tools editors. There was a time where Pro Tools
was a separate thing where the recording engineer and producer
would work on on the tracking and then they would hire a Pro

(14:14):
Tools guy to edit for them. You know, it's called digital
editing or Pro Tools editing or editing.
And they were programmers. These were the people who would
make sequences, you know, on MIDI or, or program orchestral
or arrangements for them. And yeah, you start seeing all
these professions, you know, different assistant engineers.

(14:36):
One would track here, one would be the assistant there.
It was, you know, guitar tech, drum tech, all these things that
they, it was very interesting, you know, growing up reading
these notes in the credits, you know, when there were those.
Yeah, in in some cases it's it'ssuch a different way of

(15:00):
consuming music in general because with the limitation of
only having the packaging, like you basically had to just look
at it was almost like I spy likeI want to find all the details
and quirks about this because this is all I got right.
So you, you know, I mean, these are back in the days when you're

(15:21):
basically on the on the John, looking at magazines and all
this kind of stuff. And sometimes you'd look at
records and CDs and credits lists and all this really fun
information that makes you connected to the artist.
And yeah, for sure, when it cameto streaming, we lost a lot of

(15:42):
that. And it's so encouraging, though,
to see that the pendulum does swing the other way.
Where looking at the RI AA like chart numbers of what the
industry has been doing as a whole and looking at the
resurgence of things like vinyl.I think that's a really, really

(16:04):
exciting way of a trend to see that people are looking for
something tangible, something that connects them, right?
Because I think in a crazy worldlike we have today, people are
looking for solutions on how to escape reality.
And I think music is a big part of that.
So it's a big responsibility forus as creators and engineers

(16:29):
and, you know, people of servicein this industry to make the
best possible solution for thesepeople because it is one of the
ways of how we can be better, inmy opinion.
Is it it's through music. I think music is a very
universal thing that connects people all across the globe in

(16:53):
ways that politics and, you know, words don't on their own,
and we can't diminish that. This is one of the reasons why
we have this podcast in the first place.
In terms of physical product, I agree with you.
It connects the fans, connects the people to the artists on a

(17:16):
deeper level because they own something of them now.
It's not in a cloud or in the, whatever you call it, Internet
space. It's in their hands.
They can decide to put it, not put it.
They can move it. They can put it in AI don't know
in a frame, whatever. I think that the best format for

(17:37):
everybody actually is the CD format because it's the most
affordable format to create It'snot expensive to make it.
You can make small amounts and big amounts and the prices at
the end of the day, they're they're easy to handle in terms

(17:58):
of the creation of them because you can really make a small
amount just for your super fans or a big amount.
They're not heavy, so it's easy to ship them around.
You know, if you have fans in different places of the world,
you don't have to buy special casings, can put it in good
padded envelopes, doesn't have to have special carton boxes.

(18:22):
The sound quality is much superior to any other, you know,
cassette or vinyl format. And not only that, it's actually
sounding better than most of thestreaming services because it's
not running through different algorithms that change the
sound. We don't have control on what
type of of processing each streaming service has and some

(18:47):
of them might not have much, butwe never know.
And CD, you just get one format and that's depended on your CD
player, you know on the quality of your CD player in your
amplifier. But the format is fixed in 16
bit 44 one. And I can tell you a lot of
times I prefer to listen to ACD at 164416 bit 44 one kHz than to

(19:14):
listen to a streaming that mightbe a higher sample rate than bit
depth because it sounds less good to me.
A lot of times because there's more things in the chain that
will affect the sound. You know, from the algorithms
they use to how the computer is getting it to whatever in the
chain. Another thing is you can sell C

(19:35):
DS at a show or to your fans andstill make a really good profit,
profit on it. You know, think of it, it's cost
you about two, two, $2.00 approximately to make one and
you sell it for 10 or 15. You know, that's a good profit
there, you know, and besides that, you can personalize it,

(19:56):
you can sign it, can add, I don't know, additional pics and
you know, and and I don't know, you can sell it to a fan with
stickers and patches and whatever.
You know, it's something really unique.
If you look at in the big picture of today, you know, back
in the day, we would get excitedwhen an album is out.
We would go to a record store, stand in line.

(20:20):
You know Juice, you know, hopingthey still have copies left of
it. You know, think about it.
You get excited to do that. That was like your trip of the
day. You know, that was like your
highlight. Tomorrow I'm going to the record
store. I'm going to get the new record
by this band that I love. You know, now you have an
occasion. Now, you know, you go out there

(20:41):
with your friends. You know, you have something to
to get excited about. You have something to look
forward to. You know what will be now?
OK, we're looking for the streaming.
Let's let's be ready and just press play when when it's on the
server, right? Like you don't get really

(21:01):
excited about it. This is this is all about
changing the focus, changing thething about being independent
and being more just about community.
And I think there's been a lot of that mindset happening from,

(21:22):
I think I want to say the 20 tens and on.
I saw a lot of people shift their mindset into like hustle
mode online and all this kind ofstuff and everybody's out for
themselves to try and, you know,get their bag and all this
stuff. And you don't really, you didn't
really see a lot of people's trying to say, let's try and do

(21:44):
this together. And we see that it has I think
quite a lot of psychological effects on on on the industry
here. And you see it just by people
saying, well, you know, all I can just record mix master my
all myself. I can do this and save money,

(22:06):
right? And like, OK, yeah.
But then we come back to like, what are you losing?
You know, when you when you do that and it's community, you,
you lose the part that it's all for.
And that's kind of funny to, to think of it that way now,
because it's like it makes perfect sense as to that's the

(22:30):
focus here. It's it's about making sure
we're in this together. So, you know, I, I, I, I think
that's such a beautiful message that is not harped on enough.
And guys like really like, I mean, think about it, right.
If you're even look at guys likeDanny Elfman, you know, famous

(22:52):
composer, who does he work with all the time?
It's like Tim Burton. Well, why?
Because Tim and Danny, back in the day, they got together and
they made things like Beetlejuice, and it was a
relationship that grew into Nightmare Before Christmas and
Coraline and all these other movies, right?

(23:13):
And it's a history. It's a relationship that
happened. So if you feel like you're in
this position where you're starting from the ground up
while you're in a great positionto collaborate, so get with
somebody who also wants a similar thing that you do and

(23:34):
use community to find those people.
We have one here at Metal Mastermind.
We have a discord for people to associate themselves with, or
you can find it on other forums in the metal community.
We're just one of many, but that's the part that people
forget. And I'm so glad we're having
this conversation because it really emphasizes this point

(23:58):
that you're really not alone. There's a lot of people who feel
very similarly, even maybe to themselves might be thinking
about this quietly, but not saying the loud, you know, the
thing out loud, that we do need more of this stuff.
And yes, it might be more economical for you to do it
yourself, but you don't get the best result that way.

(24:22):
You simply don't because you're just your own echo chamber.
If you get someone to help bringyour vision to life, not only do
you gain perspective. You're right.
I, I look at it, when you gave that groove example of cutting
your own groove, it's like having new grooves when you have
people on your team, right? And those are things you may not

(24:44):
have seen before them. So it all leads to something
better. And I feel like all the best
artists in the world, that was their secret.
It was that they weren't doing this alone.
They did this with other people.You know, you, you said an
important thing here. I mean, everything you said was
important, but there was one point that I got AI got a

(25:07):
refresh for a second. When you say for economical
reasons, say, well, I'll do it on my own for economical
reasons. I'll share with you something
very interesting. A lot of times you're actually
not making more money doing it alone.
And I'll tell you why, because when you say to someone, oh,

(25:29):
this mix is 500 bucks, OK, I gave a good number, OK.
And someone else says, oh, I charge for a mix, I don't know.
Someone says he charges 300, butin it includes mastering.

(25:49):
The person doesn't when he see hears 300, maybe he thinks for a
second or 300 mix and master that's a big deal.
But inside the fat, if you thinkabout the value of that mix is
not 300 anymore, it's less because now he includes
mastering. So something's got to give.
OK, So if he's doing mix and mastering, then maybe the mix is

(26:12):
250 and the masters 50, or maybethe mix is 200 and the masters
are. So anytime you try to be
economical, you're you know, youcan look at it, it's fast food
meal. You know when you go to a chain,
a fast food chain, and you see you can buy the burger for $5 or

(26:32):
you can buy the meal for 6 bucksand you get this and this and
now we are like, wait a minute, if only $1.00 is added, how much
value is that actual burger equal now?
OK, OK, so when you say an economical reason, look, you're
also downplaying your yourself because now you're showing that
you're giving more for way less.So how much is what you're doing

(26:55):
actually worth? And the second thing, when you
work for really, really cheap, because you have to be
economical with it, then it means you have to do a lot of
work in order to get the money, unless your overhead is really
low. And that's a different case.
How much time can you spend on everything, right?
So you also have to take that inconsideration.

(27:15):
But here's something that a lot of people are not aware of.
When you work with different people and you collaborate on
that level of worksmanship, which means you hire other
professionals. Some of these professionals
develop a working relationship with you and they can feed you

(27:38):
work back. Not everybody, but some can do
that. I've done that with some mixers
or basically I've developed a long running relationship with
them that if someone needs work as a mixer and some you know and
a band is looking for a mixer and they fit on a style wise,

(28:02):
budget wise, all the box checkedfor what fits, then I can refer
them to them. OK, so think about this way.
If they were economically working and not sending it out
to me, I wouldn't know their work in terms of communication.

(28:23):
I would not just only know results of what I see here
online, but I wouldn't know the rates or I didn't wouldn't know
how they like to work and the process.
So I would not know if to refer people to them.
But because I work with these people, I know how they work.
I can refer people to them. OK.

(28:44):
And the reason I'm saying this is the, the deeper you go into
this industry and the deeper yousee the connections, you'll see
that it's very common for certain engineers to connect
engineers with engineers or connect people with people.

(29:04):
You know it. Reciprocates.
Yeah. So on an economical level, you
can actually make even more money that way because you would
get a referral. And not only that, if someone's
helping you to improve your product and your product sounds
better, more people probably will connect to you, You know,

(29:25):
to get that product if you do something and it sounds good,
but another guy who gets probably similar results to you
on his own, hires another professional to get better
results and now he sounds betterthan you.
They don't know that it's because he collaborated with

(29:46):
someone. They look at it as this is what
this guy does, even if it was mastered by someone else, OK,
but that's the result he got. They listen to the result and
say, I hear what this guy does. I hear what this guy does.
And if this guy only works aloneand this is the Max that he can
achieve, and this guy is on the same level, but he achieved a
higher result, OK, maybe they would go for him.

(30:09):
Maybe. I'm not saying because there's
still people who would choose the same person based on the
bands. They like that he's done, you
know, or maybe they like the sound that he's done, or maybe
they just met him and communicated with him well.
But overall, what I'm saying is on economical levels, you can

(30:29):
actually expand and either because you can sound better and
make your work more exciting forpeople, or you can actually get
more referrals too, which can bring the money into.
It's, it's like price versus cost, right?

(30:49):
It's, you know, you, you pay a low price, but your, your cost
in the end is actually quite high because it could mean that
it'll break down. It could mean that it will take
a long time. It, it could mean a lot of other
things that cost you in the future rather than pay, let's

(31:11):
say a higher price and your costis actually quite low because it
is a better product overall. And it doesn't, you know, just
have, let's call it single, you know, one hit wonder issues.

(31:32):
Hopefully, right 'cause that's the, that's the price of, of,
of, you know, making or decisions like that.
I, I, I always believe that if you're going to make art, you do
it because it's what's sacred toyou.
And in that was actually from a friend of mine who said that his

(31:53):
name is CJ Ortiz, Awesome, awesome brother.
And he was talking about making it sacred and treating what you
do as a lifelong mission and those kinds of approaches to, I
think making art. No, no bounds when it comes to

(32:14):
the people you work with. And that's where, you know, I, I
go back even again to my Danny Alfman thing, right?
Which is like, meet people around you who want to aspire,
who want to do better and want to build a relationship.
And then at the same token, though, seek people who can help

(32:35):
you in Bay in ways that you can't do yourself.
Right. That's what's going to do it and
it's going to take time, right? It's just the nature of your
journey. But that's also the beautiful
part of it because you meet different people along the
journey. Yeah.
My award, this is this is a really, really special episode.

(32:57):
Thanks for coming to talk on on the Middle Mastermind podcast.
Do you want any last words to give our audience to think
about, or what say you? I would say, you know,
especially because this is a metal podcast, OK?
I would look at metal. It's not just the music, OK?

(33:18):
Metal could be a lifestyle. Metal could be conglomerate of
things. A lot of times metal fans are
actually musicians. There's a lot of them, you know,
in other types of music, a lot of times the fans are not the
musicians as much. But in metal, you'll find that a

(33:39):
lot of them play an instrument. Of course, there's there's fans
who don't play any instruments or or not musicians, and there's
ones that used to be musicians and stop.
But it in the field of metal, you'll have a lot of people that
are very involved in the community, could be musicians,

(33:59):
engineers, promoters of shows, DJs, podcasters, journal music
journalists, you know, we have alot of that in the middle.
And I've done a lot of metal records, you know, from, you
know, from all styles, you know,from, from Rob Halford's Halford

(34:22):
Band to, you know, Sepultura and, and Voivod and you know,
Sabaton and you know, it's a lotof great bands, you know, and,
and even if the styles are different and the aesthetics are
different, the community is the community.
Like, it's not like it's, you could be fans of different

(34:47):
things and have your circles, But in general, the metal
community, it's a metal community.
It's like something that stands big all around the world.
And no matter how much the streaming, you know, brought,
you know, sales down and no matter how much other genres,

(35:08):
you know, have maybe more, you know, publicity, you look at the
festivals, they're packed, OK? They're events.
You know, metal is thriving. There's old school type, there's
new schools type. There's kind of in between.
So it's great to see this and what my message that I'm trying

(35:31):
to convey from this is support the system.
It doesn't mean things can't happen.
It doesn't mean like things are not going to be against you.
You're always going to be fighting.
You know, you're working with people and people have their own
thing. You know, some people could be
great supportive of, you know, and supportive of you and then

(35:53):
move along. And you know, there's no doesn't
have to be a loyalty or anything.
But if you're part of a scene and you want to bring to that
scene, bring to it because just like band members change and
move to different bands and thenyou have new bands.

(36:16):
That happens also on the technical level of us being
service providers. If it's live sound engineers,
monitored engineers, producers in recording engineers, mixers,
mastering engineers, all of that.
We share the same thing. We all are, you know, working
very hard to keep our name thereto, to keep the ball rolling to

(36:37):
get this profession working and to support that style of music.
And even if we do other styles of music, you know, for a
living, but we want to do this and support this.
So I, I want to convey that it'simportant to keep doing that.
And one of the things I learned back in the day when I was in

(36:58):
the pro audio retail for a shorttime, I had to do that.
When I came to here, I, you know, I took a small day job for
a quick time is it's always a rotating door.
People move from one place to another.
They're starting in one store, they're moving to a different 11
company, moving to a different company.
Same with bands, one band movingto a different band or working

(37:21):
at a local venue, going to a different venue.
Now they're in an international touring.
These are connections, these arerelationships, and it's
important to respect that and toinvest in that.
And I think that what you're doing, for example, when we are

(37:44):
interviewing different people indifferent professions in the
metal community, that's showcasing what's out there.
And people need to know that because it helps them gauge the
situation and aspire them and inspire them to bring even more

(38:09):
to it. Well, thank you more.
I really appreciate your words of wisdom today.
I certainly feel more connected in this very moment, and we'll
leave it at that. Thanks everybody for coming to
Metal Mastermind today. If you are looking for resources
on how to be better at collaborating with others, we

(38:32):
have an entire discord on our community.
Just go to metalmastermind.com and you'll find all those
resources as well as ways to learn how to do your craft even
better than you do today. So thank you everybody and
goodnight.