#181: Can AI Really Revolutionise Music Production? Music Industry Insights and Tips with Dan Giffin
February 11, 2025 • 45 mins
In episode 181 of Inside The Mix, I’m joined by Ableton Live expert and music production mentor Dan Giffin to discuss the key elements that take a producer from hobbyist to professional.
We dive into the emotional side of mixing, the power of mentorship, and how evolving technology—including AI—is shaping the future of music creation.
Whether you're perfecting your productions or preparing for a live music performance, this episode is packed with valuable insights to elevate your workflow.
What You'll Learn:
- How Ableton Live can be used for live performance and stress-free setups
- The impact of music production mentorship on career growth
- Breaking down the future of AI in DAWs—is there a DAW with AI?
- How to prepare for a live music performance without the overwhelm
- The importance of emotional connection in mixing over technical perfection
- Lessons learned from Dan’s journey, including humorous real-world experiences
Tune in to learn how to refine your craft, embrace new technology, and make music that truly connects with listeners!
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Plus, one lucky question will win a Starbucks voucher each month!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan Giffin (00:00):
When it comes to like mixing, some things I've
really learned is like it's moreabout how it makes you feel
than just trying to get yourkick drum perfect or whatever.
You know what I mean.
Like in the end of the day.
I've heard some really shittymixes and those are some of my
favorite songs because theenergy's there, because the
music just hits.
It's a good song.
Marc Matthews (00:20):
The composition is well made.
So I say composition, beats,mixes every time for music
(00:40):
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to theInside the Mix podcast, or
(01:00):
welcome back if you are areturning listener.
Before we dive into thisepisode, it is an interview.
Today I've got a question foryou, or rather, have you got a
question for me?
I should put it that way.
I'd love to hear from you.
Click the link in the episodedescription it's a speak pipe
link and submit a question andget featured on the podcast.
Each month, myself and TimBenson are getting together and
(01:21):
we are answering your questionson the podcast, anything music
related.
Click on that speak pipe link.
You don't need a fancymicrophone, you don't need an
account.
It's literally just sending mean audio message and each month,
one lucky winner will win acoffee voucher on me.
If you don't like coffee, justgive it to someone else and
pretend that you bought it forthem.
So click on that link.
(01:41):
If you want to know more aboutthat format, check out episode
175, what's the Secret to MixingWithout Muddiness, where you
can hear an example of how werun that.
So that's that bit out the wayToday.
I am excited to welcome my guesttoday, dan Giffin.
He's a producer, performer andAbleton certified trainer who
(02:04):
has worked with Grammy winningartists like Mac Miller and
Machine Gun Kelly.
Dan teaches Ableton Livethrough his platform,
liveproducersonlinecom, and alsohosts the Ableton Music
Producer Podcast, sharinginsights with the global
community of producers.
Dan, that is a lot for mesaying right now.
(02:25):
Welcome, and how are you?
Dan Giffin (02:28):
Man, that was a solid intro.
Also, thanks for pronouncing myname right.
People love to throw an R inthere.
Everybody thinks it's Griffin,so like A plus to you, man, you
nailed it.
Marc Matthews (02:37):
Yeah, that's one for me there For once.
I'm on the other side.
Sometimes I get the surnameincorrect and then I get
corrected off it.
Usually before the episode Idouble check, but I was like you
know what, I'm going to rollwith it.
But it's always nice havinganother podcaster on as well.
Dan Giffin (02:56):
Yeah, for sure, man.
I mean, thank you for yourservice.
I feel like it's a lot of workrunning a podcast, so shout out
to you for continuing to do this.
What episode number will thisbe?
How many have you donecontinuing?
Marc Matthews (03:04):
to do this with this.
What episode number will thisbe?
How many have you done?
This will be 181, uh, thisepisode, so when this drops,
it'll be 181.
A shout out to you as well.
So, uh, running a podcast, thatis, I don't want to say labor
of love.
I I love doing it, I love thiscontent creation, this content
medium, but, as you say, as youknow it is, there's a lot that
goes on behind the scenes thatpeople don't hear or see.
(03:24):
To put this, together.
Dan Giffin (03:25):
Oh for sure, man.
Yeah, just like digging throughlike a previous hour of audio
and then like doing the intros,the outros, the editing.
You just got to find somebodyto do that for you.
That's the secret is.
Then you just show up and youhang out and let somebody else
do all the work.
Marc Matthews (03:38):
That's the real part, yeah exactly Exactly that,
and then you chuck video inthere as well, and that just
adds a whole new nuance to it,true, yeah, yeah.
So I've got a bit about yourbio here.
I've already mentioned a bit,but I've got a bit more that
I've got to read off.
So you began your musicaljourney as a jazz drummer Super
cool.
You later evolved into livedrumming for electronic music
(03:59):
performances and in 2018, youfounded LiveProducersOnlinecom
performances.
And in 2018, you foundedliveproducersonlinecom, offering
Ableton live training for bothstudio production and live
performances.
I think, to segue here slightly, you might be the first
individual on the podcast whospecializes in Ableton, as in
like an interviewee, which is,which is quite cool.
It's been a while since I'veused Ableton, so we're going to
(04:20):
dig into that a bit later in thechat today.
So you've got a project.
Uh, this is why I hope Ipronounce this correctly, philia
, did I?
Dan Giffin (04:26):
pronounce it right, nailed it yep that's perfect.
Marc Matthews (04:29):
Two for two right now, uh, which blends jazz with
bass music and has a, andyou've shared the stage with
artists like tiesto, cool andslushy at festivals such as
electric forest.
So, folks, today I'm rambling abit.
Now Dan will be sharing expertstrategies for improving music
production workflows, creativemixing and live performance
(04:52):
setups using Ableton Live.
So I thought it'd be fitting tostart with the question what
inspired you to start liveproducers on livecom?
Can you talk about how teachingshaped your approach to music
production and performance?
Dan Giffin (05:07):
yeah, man, that's a loaded question and also like
thanks for having me once againon the podcast and uh, yeah, man
, it's always, um, it's alwaysfun nerding out with other
people who are into this kind ofthing.
So, but yeah, as far as yourquestion goes, like I was
teaching at the lodge recordingstudios in indianapolis um, that
was like I was teaching at theLodge Recording Studios in
(05:27):
Indianapolis.
That was like shortly after Imoved to Indy, after living in
New York City, where I studiedat a school called Dubspot.
Rest in peace, it's not thereanymore, but it was a great
school.
That was like the place foranybody who wanted to learn
Ableton Live at that time, andthat was in 2013.
At that time, and that was in2013.
Um, and that was like like I gotreally lucky to learn from some
(05:48):
of the the real OG badasses ofof electronic music production
and teachers from all over theworld, like DJ shifty and Kiva
shout out to Kiva Um, he'sworked with a lot of the great
like dub artists Um, and so,yeah, man just nerded out and
learned there for like sixmonths and then I tried to stay
in New York, but I was just likea broke artist.
I just ran out of money, whichI think like is a story for a
(06:09):
lot of people who live in NewYork city, cause it's just
stupid, um.
So, yeah, man, I really got tolearn from some great people Dan
, danny Wyatt he's worked withlike Nora Jones and old dirty
bastard and, um, like even didsome work with like Aretha
Franklin and a lot of the greatsback in the day, and so he had
a cool studio in Greenpoint ornot Greenpoint, it was like
(06:33):
north of Manhattan, anyway, Iforget the name of the place,
but yeah, I used to go thereoccasionally and learned a lot
of mixing stuff from him.
But then, yeah, like I said, Iwas broke, moved home with the
family for a period of time justto save up a bunch of money and
then invest it into a studioand move out of the parents'
basement, cause that's nobody'sdream, um.
And then I ended up uh, yeah,man, just got to learn from some
(06:57):
really cool people taught a lotof um.
Actually, I got a big boy jobworking at insurance, doing
marketing, cause that was my, mydegree.
My undergrad was doing marketingat a small school before I went
to New York, um, and then afterthat, I started teaching at the
lodge recording studios.
They wanted to start a musicprogram there, and this is like
in 2014, um and 15.
(07:19):
And so I, through that exposure, it was kind of like a hidden
gem of a studio in the city so alot of big artists touring
through there, like John Legendor like Ariana Grande, mac
Miller that's where I got tomeet him for an evening and got
to teach him some Ableton Liveworkflows.
He was just getting into thatfor making his beats I think he
(07:39):
was coming from Logic, but, yeah, super awesome, nice guy and
got to learn a lot through thatexperience, just teaching, and I
feel like I've learned the mostjust by teaching, because
people will ask like really goodquestions and you're like shit,
I don't even know, and then youhave to go research and then
hopefully give them a goodanswer.
So after doing that for yearsand years, I started thinking
(08:04):
about like there was a lot ofstudents it was an expensive
program at the lodge, so I waslike well, there's a lot of
broke people like who are comingout of high school or like
finishing college who want to domusic and like Live Producers
was basically built out of that.
Liveproducersonlinecom is mywebsite and I have a lot of like
beginner content, peoplegetting into Ableton live who
(08:26):
want to go a little bit deeper.
Um, and so I just startedcreating an affordable training
website for people to learn asan alternative to taking like a
full six month course at thelodge.
That was pretty expensive atthat time.
Um, yeah, and then there was,like you know, some politics and
stuff got involved.
So I ended up leaving the lodgeat one point and, uh, started
(08:49):
investing a little more in thesite and I was like you know, a
podcast would be cool.
Like nobody had a podcast basedaround Ableton live at all at
that time and I was like kind ofsurprised by that.
And so I was like maybe Ishould start one.
And then I had no idea it wouldturn into what it's turned into
today.
And then it just got to thepoint I was like I wonder who I
could actually get on thispodcast.
(09:11):
So I just started aiming forthe stars and reaching out to
like some really cool peoplelike Sylvia Massey and other,
like big engineers, and they'relike, yeah, I'd love to be on
the podcast.
And I was like cool, I don'tknow why, but let's hang out.
So it was fun.
And now here we are today.
So, yeah, I guess like it's ajourney.
(09:31):
You asked like how it shaped myapproach to music production and
like what's inspired me.
I guess like having goodmentors has been a huge thing
for me as far as like learningand growing.
I think it's important foranybody, especially those
starting out, having a reallygood mentor to like guide you
and hold your hand, because alot of times you don't even know
(09:51):
the right questions to ask.
You know when you're startingout, and so that can be kind of
hard and then you just get lostin like a black hole of
YouTubing and then you have towatch a bunch of ads that suck
and then you're just like notactually getting the answers,
because some guy's talking abouthis music or like promoting
himself for the first fiveminutes and then you just get
stuck and you don't know whereto go.
So I'd say like having I hadgreat mentors starting out,
(10:13):
which I think really helped me,and it's funny because I'm
unlearning a lot of stuff that Ilearned back then where it's
like this is what you do and nowI'm like doesn't even matter,
like it doesn't none of thatmatters.
So I don't know like I've.
I think teaching has reallyhelped me grow.
Having like a curiosity forlearning, I think is like one of
the most valuable skills orthings anybody could have is
(10:35):
just staying curious on gettingbetter, because then you look
back, like hopefully every twoyears you look back and you're
like, damn, like my mixes or mytracks are better than they were
two years ago and that's reallyall that matters.
Marc Matthews (10:50):
Yeah, fantastic stuff.
There's lots of unpacked there.
So you mentioned there, youstarted out in New York and then
you moved to Indianapolis andthis was back in 2023.
You went through this processof delivering this course and
then, kind of out of necessity,you started delivering a more
accessible course for those whomaybe didn't want to spend that
larger amount of money.
And also, like you say, whenyou uh, I did something kind of
(11:11):
similar with the podcast.
I thought you know what?
I'm going to create a podcast.
That sounds like a good idea,so you do it.
And then, in doing so much likewhen you're delivering a course,
you get asked the questions.
And then I often I alwaysroutinely, weekly get asked
questions.
I'm like you know what?
I don't actually know theanswer, but it's a very, very
good question that I probablyshould know the answer to, and
then you can go off and then andthen investigate that and then
(11:32):
regurgitate it to the audience.
But I love what you said thereabout having a mentor and also
what you said about unlearningwhat you'd done.
Uh, there's a learning exampleI have for this, which was when
I picked up the guitar and I wasself-taught, and that it wasn't
until I actually had a tutor,mentor, that I realized my
technique was crap and then Ihad to undo everything that I'd
(11:56):
done previously to actually getto where I want to be.
And it also kind of mirrors myjourney in terms of music and
music production, when Ilistened back to productions
that I might've done a few yearsago and listen to where they
are now and you notice thatprogression.
But one question I do have foryou, ableton, was that due to
the environment you were in?
Is that the reason you choseAbleton?
(12:18):
Or was it a sort of a consciousdecision because of the music
you were creating?
Or had you tried other DAWs andyou thought, no, ableton.
Dan Giffin (12:24):
That's the workflow for me yeah, honestly, like I
think it was a youtube and justlike googling thing, I was just
looking online to see what wasout there because at the time in
like 2012, 2011, I was doing abunch of remixes and like garage
band and pro tools and I waslike this workflow sucks, like
there's got to be somethingbetter than this.
(12:46):
And, um, I was.
I was taking those remixes andtrying to stem them out and it
sounded terrible back then, likeit was bad and I would just
play drums on top of it and thenmake these videos I was
uploading to YouTube and some ofthem were doing really well,
and so I was like, well, if Iwant to take this to the stage
and start performing theseremixes with doing live drums uh
, mostly like I was reallygetting into electronic music
(13:07):
Because dubstep was reallypioneering and exploding in 2010
, at that time, 2011.
And so I just really got intothat Because I had a jazz
background.
But I was like, how are theycreating these crazy alien
noises?
This is so cool Sonically.
It was so fascinating to me.
And then I just kept seeingvideos on youtube and like just
(13:30):
a bunch of stuff on google andforums of people talking about
ableton, ableton, ableton.
And so I was like, okay, I needto check this out.
I downloaded it, played with itfor a week, took me like a
whole day just to figure out howto get sound out of it, and I
was like I need, I need to goactually learn from people who
really know what they're doing,and DubSpot was really the only
school at that time that waslike the world-class standard.
(13:52):
So that's why I chose that.
Marc Matthews (13:55):
That makes perfect sense, and I have
dabbled with Ableton in the past.
I went down the route of usingMax MSP.
It wasn't necessarily to createmusic at the time, but I was
creating my own plugins and Icreated an emulation of the
Space Echo using Max MSP.
I went down a proper rabbithole, man, by Ableton and this
integration and I did use it.
(14:17):
Did I use rewire with Abletonor was that with Reason?
It might have been with Reason.
You could.
Yeah, I think you can, can't you?
Yeah, yeah, and I remember aswell when I used Ableton.
Once I also used it to do alive, a real-time reenactment of
the scene from Terminator 2 inthe LA Viaduct using triggered
sounds.
(14:37):
That was good fun.
I really do need to get backNow.
I'm saying this aloud.
It's made me think you knowwhat this year I'm going to get
back into using Ableton and thatperformance element of it.
Dan Giffin (14:46):
Yeah, it's not too late, man.
Yeah, I know exactly that.
Marc Matthews (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, totally, man, Totally.
So audience listening you gotto hold me accountable to that.
Now, Slight segue here.
You mentioned about the podcastand I haven't got this in my
notes here and you were reachingfor the stars, for guests to
come on to your podcast.
I'm gonna put you on the spot abit here.
Who is sort of like yourfavorite guest or maybe?
(15:09):
What episode would you sign ppost the listeners to listen to?
Dan Giffin (15:13):
damn man, that's a tough one because there's been
so many good ones.
Uh, that's hard to pick.
You know, it's fun because,like every person has their own
take or things that they want totalk about.
So like I'll have notes goingto episodes and then like half
the time we don't even touch onhalf of the notes, like we just
end.
Every person has their own takeor things that they want to
talk about, so I'll have notesgoing into episodes and then
half the time we don't eventouch on half of the notes, we
just end up going off the rails.
But I did have a.
(15:39):
Frequent was a fun one.
Frequent was a good time.
He had some really goodconcepts on just creating music,
music in general.
We didn't get as nerdy as I washoping we would, because some
episodes are real, we go realdeep, and other ones are just
more like light and conceptual.
Um, his was really good.
Uh, flostradamus was a fun one.
(16:01):
Uh, flostradamus had a greatepisode that was like maybe like
120, 130.
Yeah, um, sylvia massey was fun.
We didn't really go deep intothe audio but she talked about
how she like recorded a bunch ofchickens and like she created a
whole graph on like how toproperly mic a chicken.
She talked about how she thiswas like way back in the day
(16:23):
this might have been episodelike 60 or 70 or somewhere
around there.
Uh, but she, she talked a lotabout um, like she just bought a
million dollars worth ofvintage microphones and so she
had this semi trailer that shebid on at an auction and got
like like an old gramophone.
It was like one of the firstgramophones ever made.
She got like this really oldmic that she didn't know how to
(16:46):
use or even properly set up, soit was like one of the first
ever made.
So she goes into a little bitof like fun stories with that
one.
Um also talked about how shelike took a garden hose and then
like taped a 58 sm58 to it andthen um like basically used it
as a mic overhead and then justslammed it through a bunch of
(17:07):
compressors really hard and likebecause of the way the sound
was traveling through the hosewith all the compression, it
just made the transients likecrazy intense.
Um, and like she's she's reallycreative.
She talked about recording inan old nuclear Russian submarine
with like a rock band.
Marc Matthews (17:25):
Like yeah, man, I'm all over that.
That would be amazing.
She's fun.
Dan Giffin (17:30):
She's like the mom of like audio engineers, like
she has that motherly vibe, butshe's done it all, man, she's
cool.
Marc Matthews (17:37):
The great thing about that.
It kind of exemplifies the ideathat there are like, yeah,
there are rules and you kind ofgot to know the rules to break
the rules, but ultimately youcan do whatever you want when it
comes to creating sound andbeing creative.
The whole like micing chickensand going on.
A Russian nuclear sub oh, matethat would be amazing.
I'd be all over that I was goingto say.
(17:58):
It kind of segues into my nextquestion and this is more to do
with sort of like, thedevelopment within DAWs, but
maybe you could share one toolor feature you wish existed in
Ableton Live or any other door,for a matter of fact.
That could make musicproduction even better Damn dude
your workflow better.
Dan Giffin (18:17):
How much time do we have?
I think, like one of the one ofthe things I talked about
recently on the podcast um, Ithink it might've been with
Alberto Chapa.
He's like the head of sales forAbleton.
He was on the podcast recentlyand he's a good friend of mine.
Shout out to Alberto.
But he and I talked about likeAI tools and things that are
(18:39):
coming.
I thought it'd be really sickand maybe exists, I just don't
know of it If there was like aMax for Live device that could
run in Ableton or if there wassome kind of plugin or tool that
could help you finish fullsongs or compositions based off
of the material you already have.
So let's say that like this ismore from a production
standpoint.
But if I'm producing and I'vegot like 16 bars or maybe like
(19:01):
30 seconds to a minute of atrack made and I'm working on it
, but I get stuck Like this is asuper common problem for
anybody Like you get stuck andyou're like where do I go from
here?
And you could just have thistool that you like pull in.
Maybe it's a BST, maybe it's astandalone app, I don't know,
but it can just take the contentand it can just copy and paste
across all the tracks, the clips, and say here's a cup, here's
(19:25):
like AD, different variations ofwhat you already have, and
let's just finish this into athree minute full song, like I
think that would be anincredibly valuable tool for
people.
You could bust out music so fastif you had some kind of
compositional AI buddy or toolthat could help you just bang
out tracks like that.
And I know there's some stufflike out there.
(19:47):
There's like this max for livedevice that can kind of help
with some of it, but it doesn'treally doesn't finish the song
necessarily for you andobviously you could probably
still mix it.
But compositionally, if you hadsomething to help with that
process, I think that would behuge and I think it's coming.
Um, I think there's a lot oftools like that that are on
their way.
Marc Matthews (20:06):
Yeah, I would agree with that, and it's kind
of like having it's going theharking back to when you have
another musician in the room andlike being able to bounce ideas
back and forth with them andjust having this generative
approach using AI.
And it's kind of like chat GPT,isn't it when?
Or other platforms whereby youput in a prompt and they'll give
(20:26):
you two possible answers,whereas within this instance
it's going to give you a fewmore.
I was chatting to somebody onthe podcast recently and they
did allude to a platform.
I use Splice myself and I don'tthink Splice have it.
Splice is very good, whereby youcan put in an eight-bar loop
and then it will, does itgenerate?
Does it take that into accountand then start to piece a track
(20:46):
together for you, I kind?
Dan Giffin (20:48):
of remember.
Marc Matthews (20:49):
I might be totally making this up and I
might have dreamt this, but thisindividual alluded to it.
I'm going to have to go backand listen to some previous
episodes and look at some notesto whether or not this exists,
that'd be cool.
It would be.
It would be very cool.
Dan Giffin (21:03):
I know that Spice has something called Bridge
where you can listen to samplesinside of the DAW, but I don't
know if it actually canreplicate existing content in
your DAW.
No, I don't think it does.
Yeah, but it'd be cool if therewas something like that.
I mean, the other thing that Iwish Ableton Live specifically
had that FL and Logic has, issome kind of stem separation, so
(21:27):
if you have a full wave trackyou could just rip out the drums
or the vocals.
I know they have that built innow and I think it's coming for
Ableton Live, but it's not quitethere yet.
And I think that with therelease of the new Live 12,
they've rolled out a lot ofreally cool features like better
(21:48):
organization in the browser soyou can quickly find stuff.
It can detect whether somethingis like a one-shot sample.
It has similar sounds.
So if you find a good snarethat you like, it can like
basically sonically show everyother snare on your computer in
your library that has a similarsonic quality to it.
So there's like little thingslike that in workflows they've
(22:08):
updated in the new 12 release.
Another thing that would bekind of cool is if there was
some key auto-detection.
So in other words, if you'researching for samples or stuff
in your browser, then you couldautomatically say okay, this is
the key of A, this is the key ofD, whatever, okay, this is the
key of A, this is the key of D,whatever.
They have done a lot withupdating their new Live 12 with
(22:32):
the what's it called?
Basically, just you can choosewhat key you're producing or
working in and then you can lockin the MIDI clips to that.
Or there's certain devices thatwill automatically like the
chord effect, so you can justthrow a chord effect on there.
It'll automatically play MIDInotes in key.
(22:52):
There's like a bunch of stufflike that.
Scale awareness is what it'scalled.
So it's scale aware now, whichis really cool.
But it'd be awesome if there was, like some you know, a mixed in
key.
Live is great.
It's a plugin that canbasically detect anything on
your sound card, on yourcomputer, so it'll tell you what
key you're in right away, whichcould be helpful if you're like
(23:14):
trying to do some kind ofharmonic saturation and you want
to like tune stuff or your kickdrum, you know like you can do
that really easily.
Or if you're like looking for asong on spotify because you're
creating a live dj set orsomething, it'll just tell you
exactly all the harmonics beingplayed and what key you're in
the tempo.
So Mixing Key Live is a coolplugin that does that inside and
(23:35):
outside your DAW.
But yeah, it'd be cool if thatwas built in.
Marc Matthews (23:40):
Nice.
The Stem Splitter in Logic Prois very good and I wish I could
remember what episode of thepodcast it was where I did a
demo of it.
So, audience listening, go backand listen.
I want to say it's episode 150something of the podcast where I
went through the Logic Pro stemsplitter.
But very, very useful.
Yeah, it came out in Logic Pro11, but you have to have the M1
(24:04):
or M2.
You have to have basicallyApple Silicon processor M1 or M2
, you have to have basicallyApple Silicon processor.
But that's a conversation.
Yes, yes, I put a YouTube shortout on that and I regularly
have comments on there withregards to that and people
finding that out quite quickly.
Yeah, but going back to whatyou said about tuning kick drums
, because I do that manually, Ido it by ear.
So having a process to automatethat and do that for me would
(24:26):
be very nice and do it likeimmediately for me would be
great.
I mean, that being said, I wasgoing to say I enjoy tuning by
ear to an extent.
I think it depends on what partof the workflow I'm in and what
day I'm having when it comes totuning things by ear.
But you mentioned there aboutlive.
So this kind of moves on to mynext question For producers,
(24:47):
just getting into liveperformance setups what are some
essential tips for building asolid live rig setup in?
Dan Giffin (24:56):
Ableton?
Just like don't suck, I guess.
No, I'm just kidding, it's agood one, just don't sound bad.
That's my best tip.
I think that there's twodifferent angles I would answer
this question.
The first would be for theartist and the second would be
for the person actually doingthe playback tech or the
(25:17):
engineer.
I think if I've done some work,um, with some like pretty
bigger name artists and helpingwith their live rigs, and for
the artists I'd say, like, makeit as simple as you possibly can
, um, because you don't want tothink on stage, you want to be
able to perform and just enjoythat flow state of performing
(25:38):
and engaging with the audience.
So the less you have to thinkabout what you're doing, the
better.
Ableton Live was originally madefor live performance.
Obviously it's the industrystandard for performing from
small to big shows.
Laura Escudet she teaches aclass called Master Track and
you can look up her team calledelectronic creatives.
(26:00):
I took her master track andshe's worked.
She works with all like thebiggest names.
She does playback tech for thegrammys, um, and like pretty
much everybody in that world.
So I learned a lot from her andher approach with redundancy.
So from a playback techstandpoint I'd say, like know
your hardware inside and out.
Um, for larger shows.
(26:21):
If you're playing a bigger show, maybe like 1000 plus people,
whatever use a redundant rig,because you just never know,
maybe it's too hot, your laptopfan burns out, you get like a
little sputter and audio orsomething happens.
You definitely want to use aredundant rig for a big show,
and so she specializes in that.
So basically, you have like twolaptops that are like fed a
(26:43):
tone to each other and so if,like any audio blips or breaks,
it immediately switches overwithout any latency, so that
there's no cut out in audiowhatsoever.
Iconnectivity interfaces arereally made for that and are
really easy to use.
So they have like their audio,whatever interface it's called.
That's really popular.
(27:06):
I'd also say, like plan ahead,like you can't over plan on the
tech side for a show, so likestress, test the hell out of
your setup.
As far as like the sound andlive playback tech, I'd say it
really depends on the livesituation and your budget, but
having more control over thesound is like preferable for me
whenever I played shows andstuff, because I like to play
(27:27):
with live instruments but I kindof do a weird mix where I DJ
and I have live instrumentsjumping in and out, like I'm
playing a show in a month andI've got a sax, a keyboard
player, a guitar player and keys, and then I'm also playing like
a drum, hybrid electronic setup, and so I'm actually just doing
a left and a right, I'm justhanding a left and a right to
(27:50):
the sound guy and I have it alldialed in.
It's an outside show whichhelps with the acoustics, but I
know my sound and I know thatI'm practicing enough with the
(28:11):
band where we have it dialed in,and I can control all that
through my Apollo interface andwith my laptop and my Ableton
Live setup.
Marc Matthews (28:15):
So if you don't have a traveling sound man that
really knows your music, that'sa preferable setup for me.
I was going to say a lot ofwhat you've said there.
It kind of echoes back when Iwas in a band and what you
mentioned there about right atthe end, about having a sound
guy.
Towards the end of our tenurein the band we had a sound guy
for that particular reason.
He knew our sound and he wasable to take control of the desk
where possible.
I found this was when we werein a metal band and some venues
we went to there were some soundengineers got a bit salty when
(28:38):
you pushed them off, but thenagain I thought to myself it's
giving you a night off.
Surely you're still getting paid, but then again, some were a
bit a bit precious over that.
Stress testing as well, ismassive.
I think we we often did that.
And redundancy, like I learnedthat having a spare guitar, um,
in particular strings break,goes out of tune and as much it
transcends genre, doesn't itreally, when it comes to like
(29:00):
these, um, these tips and flowstate as well.
That's why, coming from thesort of the metal background
that I do, uh, you'll see thingsas as granular as the, the, the
guitar tech, just triggering apedal, turning a pedal on and
off when there's a clean ordistorted section.
Dan Giffin (29:16):
So all really really really good advice I would also
want to say one more thing toois like as far as the stress
testing, like I'm always reallycareful about using third-party
plugins for any live instrumentpatches and stuff because
that'll definitely strain yourCPU.
So I try to stay as native aspossible and you can.
If you do have like anOmnisphere or something patched
(29:38):
in the original recording thatyou want to use live, say on
your MIDI keyboard, then thereis a Max for Live device that I
created with a brilliant guynamed Toby Hunka.
He has his website,abletondrummercom and he's
brilliant with Max for Livedevelopment.
But we created something calledResampler Pro.
You could just go to LiveProducers Online or type in Live
(29:59):
Producers Online, resampler Pro, and it's a free download and
it basically automates thesample pack or plugin patch
creation process for you.
So you could say, okay, I needfour octaves of this plugin
sound in Omnisphere and then youjust hit go and it just records
a note and you can just set thesustain, attack, release time
(30:19):
or whatever and then recordevery single individual note.
Because if you just try torecord one note and then you
shift that up or down as you'replaying on a keyboard, then
you're stretching that audiowaveform and it's actually going
to degrade the quality.
So this allows you tomulti-sample every single
individual note and then you candrag and drop that into ableton
sampler instrument and whenthere's a tutorial, when you
download the, the free devicethat shows you how to do that.
(30:41):
But that's a good option.
If people are playing a bunchof patches, live with
third-party plugins that are apain in the ass as far as CPU.
Marc Matthews (30:51):
Amazing.
Where can they find that again?
Where can the audience findthat again?
Dan Giffin (30:54):
Yeah, it's on my website, if you just go to
Google and type in liveproducers online and then type
in resamplerpro.
Or I think it's yeah, I thinkthe actual URL address is just.
I think it'sliveproducersonlinecom.
Slash resampler.
Dash pro Cool.
Marc Matthews (31:15):
Well, I could put it in the show notes for the
audience listening.
They can click on that and I'vegot to throw this out.
Did you say it was a freeplug-in, did I?
Dan Giffin (31:23):
hear that correctly.
Yeah, just give me your emailand I'll just send you a bunch
of spam.
No, I'm just kidding.
Marc Matthews (31:28):
I won't do that.
Dan Giffin (31:29):
I hate that I won't do that to you.
Marc Matthews (31:31):
It's very kind, man, it's very kind.
Yeah, we're already halfway inand, as I said, I know, like you
mentioned right, that we get it.
Invariably you don't getthrough all the questions, but
there's one question I do wantto ask you before before we wrap
things up.
So you've searched on, you'vecollaborated with some big names
and performed at majorfestivals, and continue to do so
.
Can you tell us about onestandout experience or lesson
(31:55):
from those moments that havethat has shaped your career.
Dan Giffin (32:08):
Hmm, yeah, uh, I definitely have some standout
moments that are fun.
Uh, I'll tell a fun story realquick.
So basically, uh, it was my, Iwas just out of high school and
I was playing drums and I gotpicked up by some like really
shitty band but they were payingme really well and so so we did
like a Midwest East coast tourin the in the U?
S and one of the biggest showsI ever played.
At that time it was likeprobably a thousand people and I
(32:28):
was so excited that I we wereopen up for the headliner and I
broke a drumstick and, ratherthan just being a normal person
and tossing a drumstick to thecrowd, I chucked it as hard as I
could and it hit some18-year-old girl in the face and
she did a little backflip andfell.
And if anybody knows anythingabout drumsticks, they don't
split in a clean way, it's likesharp wood, right.
(32:49):
So I just straight up hit herlike you would try to kill a
vampire, and just hit her.
She did a backflip.
We didn't see her the rest ofthe show, Like the band stopped
playing for two seconds becausethey saw it happen.
They all just turned at me likewhat the fuck?
And so she might be dead, wedon't know.
But that was a lesson learned.
It's like if you are a drummer,don't like throw sharp wooden
(33:14):
drumsticks really hard into thecrowd.
If you're going to do it, justbe a normal person and toss it
lightly.
So that was a.
That was definitely a um, alesson experience and something
very memorable in my career.
Um, I thought that was kind ofa crazy moment but yeah, that's
amazing, I love that.
Yeah, but I'd say like most ofthe opportunities come from like
(33:35):
word of mouth and like onequote that I really liked is
it's not about who you know, butrather who knows you, and so,
like I just encourage people toput your name out there.
It doesn't matter if you know abunch of people.
If nobody knows who you are,you're not going to get a phone
call necessarily, or peoplearen't going to hit you up.
So like, don't be afraid tolike get out there If you're
wanting more work, just likemixing and mastering, don't be
(33:56):
afraid to give away stuff forfree, at least in the beginning,
because you got to build thatportfolio, you know.
I'm thankful now where I'vebrushed shoulders with some
people where, like you know,people know who I am to a
certain extent, but like, don'tbe afraid to put yourself out
there and to be able to do somethings for free, especially if
(34:16):
you're interested in it in thebeginning, and and like, always
give more than you take.
I think that's just like astandard universal rule that I
really subscribe to is, um, ifyou are generous with your time
and your energy, it'll come backto you, and reputation is
everything, especially in themusic industry.
Um, so just be a good personand like, try to get into social
(34:37):
circles with people that youwant to connect with.
And just be a good person andlike, try to get into social
circles with people that youwant to connect with and just be
a real person.
Um, and then, when it comes tolike mixing, some things I've
really learned is like it's moreabout how it makes you feel
than just trying to get yourkick drum perfect or whatever.
You know what I mean like yeah,in the end of the day.
(34:59):
I've heard some really shittymixes and those are some of my
favorite songs, because theenergy's there, because the
music just hits.
It's a good song.
The composition is well-made.
So I say composition beatsmixes every time.
But I think that if you canhave a great composition and a
great mix, that's like a, that'sa big selling point and that's
going to be a song that hits thehardest.
(35:19):
But I'd say, like, in the endof the day, if you're playing
with it more than three timesand you don't know if it's
better or worse, then just like,you're fine, move on.
Because I've gotten lost in thesauce of just tweaking the same
thing over and over.
So that's my golden rule if youtouch it more than three times,
you still don't know if it'sbetter or worse, it's fine.
Marc Matthews (35:37):
Yeah, just move on yeah, wise words, my friend,
wise words.
So a few things.
Obviously there's the one withthe drumstick.
Don't don't throw full force ofdrumstick at someone in the
crowd.
Uh, which is amazing.
Try to think of my drummer everdid that.
I know he fell off his stooland didn't get back up.
I remember that um yeah, yeah,he was too pissed and he fell
off.
He just that was it.
(35:57):
That was a life lesson.
We said mate, don't drink tothat extent again yeah, I'll do
it.
But the second part youmentioned about sort of it was
essentially networking andputting yourself out there and
doing um services for free justto build up that portfolio and
and meet people and rubshoulders with the right people,
moving the right circles andwhatnot, and reputation is
(36:18):
everything and also give morethan you, uh, ask for.
I thought I paraphrase it mightbe a really bad way of putting
it, but it echoes what well,rather echoes the conversation I
had with a mix engineer calledelliot glenn on episode 178.
He said the exact same thingand I may have even put a post
out on social media this weeksaying reputation is everything
from that episode.
(36:38):
And he said the exact same whenwe had a really good
conversation about it.
And also the go-giver mentalityof just give.
That's kind of what we do withthe podcast.
Really, it's just conveyinginformation, giving it out, just
giving and giving and notreally asking for anything in
return.
Because I think as soon as youstart doing that, it gets a bit
I don't know, it gets a bituncomfortable, I think if you
start giving with the idea thatyou're going to get something in
(37:00):
return, immediately, you know.
Dan Giffin (37:02):
Yeah, I think there is like a point, a crossover, at
some point, though, where youdo enough of that work and
eventually your reputationbuilds, your portfolio builds,
and then you don't want peopleto take advantage of you either.
So you need to recognize yourworth.
Marc Matthews (37:20):
Yeah, most definitely, and also just the
the.
The final bit you added there,um, right at the end, which I
really liked, was about thethree touch rule, um, about if
you touch it three times and youstill don't know whether it's
better or worse than to leave itand move on.
Because I think that reallyhelps because, like you say
there, you mentioned and and Ido as well you can quite easily
(37:40):
get stuck in the weeds and justget lost in, lost in what it is
you're doing and then realize anhour or two later it sounds
worse than it did before, and soI think that's a really, really
good one for the audiencelistening, um, cool man yeah,
it's easy to get.
Dan Giffin (37:55):
It's easy to get lost in the sauce.
Yeah, I've done it I've done it.
Marc Matthews (37:58):
And then I remember I've had many
conversations on this podcastwith individuals saying they're
on like mix iteration 20, 25, 30, I'm thinking I I'm not
entirely sure that's going to beconducive to uh, it's going to
make it any better.
I think you've gone way pastthe point of diminishing returns
.
Dan Giffin (38:13):
Yeah that's true.
At that point you just need toleave it and then come back
later.
Maybe wait like a week or acouple of days and just let your
ears take a break, becausethere is something about that
Like you start perceiving thingsthat aren't even there when you
start to listen to somethingtoo much, because your ears will
definitely play tricks on you.
Marc Matthews (38:32):
Yeah, I was going to say I do that generally in
life.
Dan Giffin (38:35):
I perceive that makes me sound quite crazy yeah,
I was thinking, shall I saythat?
Marc Matthews (38:40):
shall I not say that?
But I said it.
I live in a very old house andI'm sure it's haunted, but
that's a different oh, that'scool yeah yeah, it's really old,
the uh it gets a bit macabre.
But the guy who we bought itfrom I say bought it from he
died in there, so unfortunatefor him.
Dan Giffin (38:55):
Oh wow, that's fun, man.
You could have like a Halloweenparty at your house every year
and like do some like ghosthunting.
Marc Matthews (39:02):
Yeah, I'd love to go on a ghost hunt, I really
would.
I almost went on a ghost hunt,but they cancelled it last
minute and I never, never, tookit up again that's wild yeah, I
know it would always be.
I'm dubious, I'm skeptical, butI want to like.
If I saw one, I'd be.
I don't know what I'd do.
Anyway, that's a topic foranother episode.
(39:24):
That's like a side quest ofmine ghost hunting on the
podcast.
Dan Giffin (39:28):
There you go, yeah, yeah, I think that would be good
fun.
That sounds fun.
I grew up in Ohio in the US andit has like the most haunted
sites in the US the state, Ibelieve.
So I think it still does.
And yeah, some wild stories.
Me and my friends, like in highschool, would break into these
really old homes that weresupposed to be abandoned.
Yeah, some weird stories.
Marc Matthews (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, I remember doing that sort of
things.
There was an old mentalhospital just outside of where I
used to live and we went thereand it was like something out of
like 28 Days Later or theWalking Dead, and it was just
like one day everybody just leftand there was just like
documents and stuff all over thefloor and some other weird shit
, and then invariably the alarmwould go off, the police would
(40:10):
turn up and we'd just lag it,but I'm enough and we just like
it.
Yeah, but I'm not gonna saywhere it was.
I'm sure the individuals whoare in that land aren't
listening to this podcast.
Dan Giffin (40:19):
But in case, yeah, I think either.
I think both of us do notcondone breaking and entering,
because I think yes yeah, I justwant to put that out there.
Yeah, thank you, don't supportdon't support breaking and
entering at all.
Marc Matthews (40:31):
Yeah, please don't see that yeah, oh, I heard
it's a good thing to do,because this place might be
haunted when did you hear that?
Dan Giffin (40:37):
Yeah, don't do that.
It is fun though, yeah, yeah100%.
Marc Matthews (40:40):
Dan, I think I know you've touched already on
your website, but maybeopportunity now.
Where can the audience, where'sthe best place to find you?
Have you got anything coming upthat you want to share with the
audience?
I'll pass it over to you.
Dan Giffin (40:53):
Yeah, once again, thanks for having me, mark.
This is super fun.
I could do this all day.
I did build a new AI chatbotspecifically to help people with
Ableton Live, and so it'strained on all the manuals.
It's trained on all my podcastepisodes.
It's trained on my favoriteplugins and Macs for live
devices, for mixing or whateverelse you can ask it for specific
(41:15):
help with mixing.
Like you know, how do Iproperly use a DS or what
plugins would you recommend?
Um, you can do a lot ofdifferent things with it, and so
I'm actually really stoked.
Um, it's in beta right now, butpeople can still access it and
play with it, but it's going toget a lot smarter in about a
month from now.
Um, I'm going to be updating it.
I'm working with a reallybrilliant programmer who's
(41:35):
helping me with it right now, sohis name is Abe and you can
access him on my website,liveproducersonlinecom.
There's like a membership plansbutton and you can see Abe has
like his own plan.
But then I've got other coursesthat are more intro level to
Ableton Live or mixing.
If you want to jump in thereand you're interested in getting
(41:56):
into Ableton Live for liveperformance or just producing,
there's a bunch of stuff inthere and Abe can help you as
well.
My music is Philia, so if youwant to hang out, I'm mostly on
Instagram.
You can either look up AbletonPodcast or Philia Music.
P-h-i-l-i-a Music.
(42:17):
Yeah, I would love to connectwith you guys.
Slide into my dms, say what'sup, say hello and, um, yeah,
check out the ableton podcast ifyou want to, if you want to
listen to be pretty cool amazingstuff, that that chatbot sounds
incredible.
Um yeah do you want to ask him aquestion real quick?
Marc Matthews (42:32):
yeah, let's do it .
Dan Giffin (42:33):
Let's do it, yeah, yeah, it'll take like no time
here.
Ask him a question what quick?
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it, yeah, yeah, it'lltake like no time here.
Ask him a question what wouldyou ask him?
Marc Matthews (42:38):
oh, what's the question I get asked the most in
the podcast?
Um how to improve um kick bassfrequency balance okay vague.
Dan Giffin (42:52):
But so I asked him how do I improve my kick bass
frequency balance?
Okay, let's see who says he'sthinking.
Nice, it says to improve thefrequency balance between your
kick and bass, consider thefollowing strategies eq, text
techniques um, I hope he's stillgoing.
(43:13):
I'll summarize this becausethere's a lot in here.
Eq techniques Bass control Usepeak EQ with the center
frequency around 100 hertz toboost the punch in your kick or
bass drum sounds.
It can help in defining the lowend presence.
Mid control Adjust the midfrequencies to ensure clarity.
You can use a three-wayswitchable boosting EQ to set
(43:34):
the center frequency and range.
It helps managing the overlapbetween kick and bass.
Treble control Use a shelvingEQ with a cutoff frequency
around 3.3 to manage highfrequencies.
It can help reducing theharshness and add clarity.
Compositional approach Think ofyour kick and bass as single
compositional line.
Avoid playing bass notessimultaneously on top of the
kick.
Instead, create a bass linethat fits between the kick, drum
(43:55):
patterns, offbeat bass notes ittalks about different genres
and, where that applies,additional tips Sub switch Use a
low shelf filter to boostfrequencies below 200 hertz if
needed.
Be cautious of muddying the mixin this frequency range.
Dry wet balance, side chaining.
It talks about side chaining,relationship between kick and
(44:15):
bass and compressor settings.
Impressive man.
Yeah, there's some more stuffin there, but we don't need to
keep going into it.
Marc Matthews (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's fantastic.
Lots of really great stuff inthere.
There you go, audiencelistening, so do go and check
that out.
Head over to liveproducerscom.
Dan Giffin (44:33):
Yeah, liveproducersonlinecom to
lifeproducerscom and check thatout.
Yeah, lifeproducersonlinecom.
Marc Matthews (44:35):
Online.
There we go.
I'll get something wrongeventually on it.
Dan Giffin (44:40):
It's fine You're so close man you always have, I
know I always got all the way tothe end and then I messed it up
.
Marc Matthews (44:46):
And yeah, go check out, abe.
That sounds incredible, mate,but Dan, it's.
When it comes to like mixing, some things I've
really learned is like it's moreabout how it makes you feel
than just trying to get yourkick drum perfect or whatever.
You know what I mean.
Like in the end of the day.
I've heard some really shittymixes and those are some of my
favorite songs because theenergy's there, because the
music just hits.
It's a good song.
Marc Matthews (00:20):
The composition is well made.
So I say composition, beats,mixes every time for music
(00:40):
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to theInside the Mix podcast, or
(01:00):
welcome back if you are areturning listener.
Before we dive into thisepisode, it is an interview.
Today I've got a question foryou, or rather, have you got a
question for me?
I should put it that way.
I'd love to hear from you.
Click the link in the episodedescription it's a speak pipe
link and submit a question andget featured on the podcast.
Each month, myself and TimBenson are getting together and
(01:21):
we are answering your questionson the podcast, anything music
related.
Click on that speak pipe link.
You don't need a fancymicrophone, you don't need an
account.
It's literally just sending mean audio message and each month,
one lucky winner will win acoffee voucher on me.
If you don't like coffee, justgive it to someone else and
pretend that you bought it forthem.
So click on that link.
(01:41):
If you want to know more aboutthat format, check out episode
175, what's the Secret to MixingWithout Muddiness, where you
can hear an example of how werun that.
So that's that bit out the wayToday.
I am excited to welcome my guesttoday, dan Giffin.
He's a producer, performer andAbleton certified trainer who
(02:04):
has worked with Grammy winningartists like Mac Miller and
Machine Gun Kelly.
Dan teaches Ableton Livethrough his platform,
liveproducersonlinecom, and alsohosts the Ableton Music
Producer Podcast, sharinginsights with the global
community of producers.
Dan, that is a lot for mesaying right now.
(02:25):
Welcome, and how are you?
Dan Giffin (02:28):
Man, that was a solid intro.
Also, thanks for pronouncing myname right.
People love to throw an R inthere.
Everybody thinks it's Griffin,so like A plus to you, man, you
nailed it.
Marc Matthews (02:37):
Yeah, that's one for me there For once.
I'm on the other side.
Sometimes I get the surnameincorrect and then I get
corrected off it.
Usually before the episode Idouble check, but I was like you
know what, I'm going to rollwith it.
But it's always nice havinganother podcaster on as well.
Dan Giffin (02:56):
Yeah, for sure, man.
I mean, thank you for yourservice.
I feel like it's a lot of workrunning a podcast, so shout out
to you for continuing to do this.
What episode number will thisbe?
How many have you donecontinuing?
Marc Matthews (03:04):
to do this with this.
What episode number will thisbe?
How many have you done?
This will be 181, uh, thisepisode, so when this drops,
it'll be 181.
A shout out to you as well.
So, uh, running a podcast, thatis, I don't want to say labor
of love.
I I love doing it, I love thiscontent creation, this content
medium, but, as you say, as youknow it is, there's a lot that
goes on behind the scenes thatpeople don't hear or see.
(03:24):
To put this, together.
Dan Giffin (03:25):
Oh for sure, man.
Yeah, just like digging throughlike a previous hour of audio
and then like doing the intros,the outros, the editing.
You just got to find somebodyto do that for you.
That's the secret is.
Then you just show up and youhang out and let somebody else
do all the work.
Marc Matthews (03:38):
That's the real part, yeah exactly Exactly that,
and then you chuck video inthere as well, and that just
adds a whole new nuance to it,true, yeah, yeah.
So I've got a bit about yourbio here.
I've already mentioned a bit,but I've got a bit more that
I've got to read off.
So you began your musicaljourney as a jazz drummer Super
cool.
You later evolved into livedrumming for electronic music
(03:59):
performances and in 2018, youfounded LiveProducersOnlinecom
performances.
And in 2018, you foundedliveproducersonlinecom, offering
Ableton live training for bothstudio production and live
performances.
I think, to segue here slightly, you might be the first
individual on the podcast whospecializes in Ableton, as in
like an interviewee, which is,which is quite cool.
It's been a while since I'veused Ableton, so we're going to
(04:20):
dig into that a bit later in thechat today.
So you've got a project.
Uh, this is why I hope Ipronounce this correctly, philia
, did I?
Dan Giffin (04:26):
pronounce it right, nailed it yep that's perfect.
Marc Matthews (04:29):
Two for two right now, uh, which blends jazz with
bass music and has a, andyou've shared the stage with
artists like tiesto, cool andslushy at festivals such as
electric forest.
So, folks, today I'm rambling abit.
Now Dan will be sharing expertstrategies for improving music
production workflows, creativemixing and live performance
(04:52):
setups using Ableton Live.
So I thought it'd be fitting tostart with the question what
inspired you to start liveproducers on livecom?
Can you talk about how teachingshaped your approach to music
production and performance?
Dan Giffin (05:07):
yeah, man, that's a loaded question and also like
thanks for having me once againon the podcast and uh, yeah, man
, it's always, um, it's alwaysfun nerding out with other
people who are into this kind ofthing.
So, but yeah, as far as yourquestion goes, like I was
teaching at the lodge recordingstudios in indianapolis um, that
was like I was teaching at theLodge Recording Studios in
(05:27):
Indianapolis.
That was like shortly after Imoved to Indy, after living in
New York City, where I studiedat a school called Dubspot.
Rest in peace, it's not thereanymore, but it was a great
school.
That was like the place foranybody who wanted to learn
Ableton Live at that time, andthat was in 2013.
At that time, and that was in2013.
Um, and that was like like I gotreally lucky to learn from some
(05:48):
of the the real OG badasses ofof electronic music production
and teachers from all over theworld, like DJ shifty and Kiva
shout out to Kiva Um, he'sworked with a lot of the great
like dub artists Um, and so,yeah, man just nerded out and
learned there for like sixmonths and then I tried to stay
in New York, but I was just likea broke artist.
I just ran out of money, whichI think like is a story for a
(06:09):
lot of people who live in NewYork city, cause it's just
stupid, um.
So, yeah, man, I really got tolearn from some great people Dan
, danny Wyatt he's worked withlike Nora Jones and old dirty
bastard and, um, like even didsome work with like Aretha
Franklin and a lot of the greatsback in the day, and so he had
a cool studio in Greenpoint ornot Greenpoint, it was like
(06:33):
north of Manhattan, anyway, Iforget the name of the place,
but yeah, I used to go thereoccasionally and learned a lot
of mixing stuff from him.
But then, yeah, like I said, Iwas broke, moved home with the
family for a period of time justto save up a bunch of money and
then invest it into a studioand move out of the parents'
basement, cause that's nobody'sdream, um.
And then I ended up uh, yeah,man, just got to learn from some
(06:57):
really cool people taught a lotof um.
Actually, I got a big boy jobworking at insurance, doing
marketing, cause that was my, mydegree.
My undergrad was doing marketingat a small school before I went
to New York, um, and then afterthat, I started teaching at the
lodge recording studios.
They wanted to start a musicprogram there, and this is like
in 2014, um and 15.
(07:19):
And so I, through that exposure, it was kind of like a hidden
gem of a studio in the city so alot of big artists touring
through there, like John Legendor like Ariana Grande, mac
Miller that's where I got tomeet him for an evening and got
to teach him some Ableton Liveworkflows.
He was just getting into thatfor making his beats I think he
(07:39):
was coming from Logic, but, yeah, super awesome, nice guy and
got to learn a lot through thatexperience, just teaching, and I
feel like I've learned the mostjust by teaching, because
people will ask like really goodquestions and you're like shit,
I don't even know, and then youhave to go research and then
hopefully give them a goodanswer.
So after doing that for yearsand years, I started thinking
(08:04):
about like there was a lot ofstudents it was an expensive
program at the lodge, so I waslike well, there's a lot of
broke people like who are comingout of high school or like
finishing college who want to domusic and like Live Producers
was basically built out of that.
Liveproducersonlinecom is mywebsite and I have a lot of like
beginner content, peoplegetting into Ableton live who
(08:26):
want to go a little bit deeper.
Um, and so I just startedcreating an affordable training
website for people to learn asan alternative to taking like a
full six month course at thelodge.
That was pretty expensive atthat time.
Um, yeah, and then there was,like you know, some politics and
stuff got involved.
So I ended up leaving the lodgeat one point and, uh, started
(08:49):
investing a little more in thesite and I was like you know, a
podcast would be cool.
Like nobody had a podcast basedaround Ableton live at all at
that time and I was like kind ofsurprised by that.
And so I was like maybe Ishould start one.
And then I had no idea it wouldturn into what it's turned into
today.
And then it just got to thepoint I was like I wonder who I
could actually get on thispodcast.
(09:11):
So I just started aiming forthe stars and reaching out to
like some really cool peoplelike Sylvia Massey and other,
like big engineers, and they'relike, yeah, I'd love to be on
the podcast.
And I was like cool, I don'tknow why, but let's hang out.
So it was fun.
And now here we are today.
So, yeah, I guess like it's ajourney.
(09:31):
You asked like how it shaped myapproach to music production and
like what's inspired me.
I guess like having goodmentors has been a huge thing
for me as far as like learningand growing.
I think it's important foranybody, especially those
starting out, having a reallygood mentor to like guide you
and hold your hand, because alot of times you don't even know
(09:51):
the right questions to ask.
You know when you're startingout, and so that can be kind of
hard and then you just get lostin like a black hole of
YouTubing and then you have towatch a bunch of ads that suck
and then you're just like notactually getting the answers,
because some guy's talking abouthis music or like promoting
himself for the first fiveminutes and then you just get
stuck and you don't know whereto go.
So I'd say like having I hadgreat mentors starting out,
(10:13):
which I think really helped me,and it's funny because I'm
unlearning a lot of stuff that Ilearned back then where it's
like this is what you do and nowI'm like doesn't even matter,
like it doesn't none of thatmatters.
So I don't know like I've.
I think teaching has reallyhelped me grow.
Having like a curiosity forlearning, I think is like one of
the most valuable skills orthings anybody could have is
(10:35):
just staying curious on gettingbetter, because then you look
back, like hopefully every twoyears you look back and you're
like, damn, like my mixes or mytracks are better than they were
two years ago and that's reallyall that matters.
Marc Matthews (10:50):
Yeah, fantastic stuff.
There's lots of unpacked there.
So you mentioned there, youstarted out in New York and then
you moved to Indianapolis andthis was back in 2023.
You went through this processof delivering this course and
then, kind of out of necessity,you started delivering a more
accessible course for those whomaybe didn't want to spend that
larger amount of money.
And also, like you say, whenyou uh, I did something kind of
(11:11):
similar with the podcast.
I thought you know what?
I'm going to create a podcast.
That sounds like a good idea,so you do it.
And then, in doing so much likewhen you're delivering a course,
you get asked the questions.
And then I often I alwaysroutinely, weekly get asked
questions.
I'm like you know what?
I don't actually know theanswer, but it's a very, very
good question that I probablyshould know the answer to, and
then you can go off and then andthen investigate that and then
(11:32):
regurgitate it to the audience.
But I love what you said thereabout having a mentor and also
what you said about unlearningwhat you'd done.
Uh, there's a learning exampleI have for this, which was when
I picked up the guitar and I wasself-taught, and that it wasn't
until I actually had a tutor,mentor, that I realized my
technique was crap and then Ihad to undo everything that I'd
(11:56):
done previously to actually getto where I want to be.
And it also kind of mirrors myjourney in terms of music and
music production, when Ilistened back to productions
that I might've done a few yearsago and listen to where they
are now and you notice thatprogression.
But one question I do have foryou, ableton, was that due to
the environment you were in?
Is that the reason you choseAbleton?
(12:18):
Or was it a sort of a consciousdecision because of the music
you were creating?
Or had you tried other DAWs andyou thought, no, ableton.
Dan Giffin (12:24):
That's the workflow for me yeah, honestly, like I
think it was a youtube and justlike googling thing, I was just
looking online to see what wasout there because at the time in
like 2012, 2011, I was doing abunch of remixes and like garage
band and pro tools and I waslike this workflow sucks, like
there's got to be somethingbetter than this.
(12:46):
And, um, I was.
I was taking those remixes andtrying to stem them out and it
sounded terrible back then, likeit was bad and I would just
play drums on top of it and thenmake these videos I was
uploading to YouTube and some ofthem were doing really well,
and so I was like, well, if Iwant to take this to the stage
and start performing theseremixes with doing live drums uh
, mostly like I was reallygetting into electronic music
(13:07):
Because dubstep was reallypioneering and exploding in 2010
, at that time, 2011.
And so I just really got intothat Because I had a jazz
background.
But I was like, how are theycreating these crazy alien
noises?
This is so cool Sonically.
It was so fascinating to me.
And then I just kept seeingvideos on youtube and like just
(13:30):
a bunch of stuff on google andforums of people talking about
ableton, ableton, ableton.
And so I was like, okay, I needto check this out.
I downloaded it, played with itfor a week, took me like a
whole day just to figure out howto get sound out of it, and I
was like I need, I need to goactually learn from people who
really know what they're doing,and DubSpot was really the only
school at that time that waslike the world-class standard.
(13:52):
So that's why I chose that.
Marc Matthews (13:55):
That makes perfect sense, and I have
dabbled with Ableton in the past.
I went down the route of usingMax MSP.
It wasn't necessarily to createmusic at the time, but I was
creating my own plugins and Icreated an emulation of the
Space Echo using Max MSP.
I went down a proper rabbithole, man, by Ableton and this
integration and I did use it.
(14:17):
Did I use rewire with Abletonor was that with Reason?
It might have been with Reason.
You could.
Yeah, I think you can, can't you?
Yeah, yeah, and I remember aswell when I used Ableton.
Once I also used it to do alive, a real-time reenactment of
the scene from Terminator 2 inthe LA Viaduct using triggered
sounds.
(14:37):
That was good fun.
I really do need to get backNow.
I'm saying this aloud.
It's made me think you knowwhat this year I'm going to get
back into using Ableton and thatperformance element of it.
Dan Giffin (14:46):
Yeah, it's not too late, man.
Yeah, I know exactly that.
Marc Matthews (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, totally, man, Totally.
So audience listening you gotto hold me accountable to that.
Now, Slight segue here.
You mentioned about the podcastand I haven't got this in my
notes here and you were reachingfor the stars, for guests to
come on to your podcast.
I'm gonna put you on the spot abit here.
Who is sort of like yourfavorite guest or maybe?
(15:09):
What episode would you sign ppost the listeners to listen to?
Dan Giffin (15:13):
damn man, that's a tough one because there's been
so many good ones.
Uh, that's hard to pick.
You know, it's fun because,like every person has their own
take or things that they want totalk about.
So like I'll have notes goingto episodes and then like half
the time we don't even touch onhalf of the notes, like we just
end.
Every person has their own takeor things that they want to
talk about, so I'll have notesgoing into episodes and then
half the time we don't eventouch on half of the notes, we
just end up going off the rails.
But I did have a.
(15:39):
Frequent was a fun one.
Frequent was a good time.
He had some really goodconcepts on just creating music,
music in general.
We didn't get as nerdy as I washoping we would, because some
episodes are real, we go realdeep, and other ones are just
more like light and conceptual.
Um, his was really good.
Uh, flostradamus was a fun one.
(16:01):
Uh, flostradamus had a greatepisode that was like maybe like
120, 130.
Yeah, um, sylvia massey was fun.
We didn't really go deep intothe audio but she talked about
how she like recorded a bunch ofchickens and like she created a
whole graph on like how toproperly mic a chicken.
She talked about how she thiswas like way back in the day
(16:23):
this might have been episodelike 60 or 70 or somewhere
around there.
Uh, but she, she talked a lotabout um, like she just bought a
million dollars worth ofvintage microphones and so she
had this semi trailer that shebid on at an auction and got
like like an old gramophone.
It was like one of the firstgramophones ever made.
She got like this really oldmic that she didn't know how to
(16:46):
use or even properly set up, soit was like one of the first
ever made.
So she goes into a little bitof like fun stories with that
one.
Um also talked about how shelike took a garden hose and then
like taped a 58 sm58 to it andthen um like basically used it
as a mic overhead and then justslammed it through a bunch of
(17:07):
compressors really hard and likebecause of the way the sound
was traveling through the hosewith all the compression, it
just made the transients likecrazy intense.
Um, and like she's she's reallycreative.
She talked about recording inan old nuclear Russian submarine
with like a rock band.
Marc Matthews (17:25):
Like yeah, man, I'm all over that.
That would be amazing.
She's fun.
Dan Giffin (17:30):
She's like the mom of like audio engineers, like
she has that motherly vibe, butshe's done it all, man, she's
cool.
Marc Matthews (17:37):
The great thing about that.
It kind of exemplifies the ideathat there are like, yeah,
there are rules and you kind ofgot to know the rules to break
the rules, but ultimately youcan do whatever you want when it
comes to creating sound andbeing creative.
The whole like micing chickensand going on.
A Russian nuclear sub oh, matethat would be amazing.
I'd be all over that I was goingto say.
(17:58):
It kind of segues into my nextquestion and this is more to do
with sort of like, thedevelopment within DAWs, but
maybe you could share one toolor feature you wish existed in
Ableton Live or any other door,for a matter of fact.
That could make musicproduction even better Damn dude
your workflow better.
Dan Giffin (18:17):
How much time do we have?
I think, like one of the one ofthe things I talked about
recently on the podcast um, Ithink it might've been with
Alberto Chapa.
He's like the head of sales forAbleton.
He was on the podcast recentlyand he's a good friend of mine.
Shout out to Alberto.
But he and I talked about likeAI tools and things that are
(18:39):
coming.
I thought it'd be really sickand maybe exists, I just don't
know of it If there was like aMax for Live device that could
run in Ableton or if there wassome kind of plugin or tool that
could help you finish fullsongs or compositions based off
of the material you already have.
So let's say that like this ismore from a production
standpoint.
But if I'm producing and I'vegot like 16 bars or maybe like
(19:01):
30 seconds to a minute of atrack made and I'm working on it
, but I get stuck Like this is asuper common problem for
anybody Like you get stuck andyou're like where do I go from
here?
And you could just have thistool that you like pull in.
Maybe it's a BST, maybe it's astandalone app, I don't know,
but it can just take the contentand it can just copy and paste
across all the tracks, the clips, and say here's a cup, here's
(19:25):
like AD, different variations ofwhat you already have, and
let's just finish this into athree minute full song, like I
think that would be anincredibly valuable tool for
people.
You could bust out music so fastif you had some kind of
compositional AI buddy or toolthat could help you just bang
out tracks like that.
And I know there's some stufflike out there.
(19:47):
There's like this max for livedevice that can kind of help
with some of it, but it doesn'treally doesn't finish the song
necessarily for you andobviously you could probably
still mix it.
But compositionally, if you hadsomething to help with that
process, I think that would behuge and I think it's coming.
Um, I think there's a lot oftools like that that are on
their way.
Marc Matthews (20:06):
Yeah, I would agree with that, and it's kind
of like having it's going theharking back to when you have
another musician in the room andlike being able to bounce ideas
back and forth with them andjust having this generative
approach using AI.
And it's kind of like chat GPT,isn't it when?
Or other platforms whereby youput in a prompt and they'll give
(20:26):
you two possible answers,whereas within this instance
it's going to give you a fewmore.
I was chatting to somebody onthe podcast recently and they
did allude to a platform.
I use Splice myself and I don'tthink Splice have it.
Splice is very good, whereby youcan put in an eight-bar loop
and then it will, does itgenerate?
Does it take that into accountand then start to piece a track
(20:46):
together for you, I kind?
Dan Giffin (20:48):
of remember.
Marc Matthews (20:49):
I might be totally making this up and I
might have dreamt this, but thisindividual alluded to it.
I'm going to have to go backand listen to some previous
episodes and look at some notesto whether or not this exists,
that'd be cool.
It would be.
It would be very cool.
Dan Giffin (21:03):
I know that Spice has something called Bridge
where you can listen to samplesinside of the DAW, but I don't
know if it actually canreplicate existing content in
your DAW.
No, I don't think it does.
Yeah, but it'd be cool if therewas something like that.
I mean, the other thing that Iwish Ableton Live specifically
had that FL and Logic has, issome kind of stem separation, so
(21:27):
if you have a full wave trackyou could just rip out the drums
or the vocals.
I know they have that built innow and I think it's coming for
Ableton Live, but it's not quitethere yet.
And I think that with therelease of the new Live 12,
they've rolled out a lot ofreally cool features like better
(21:48):
organization in the browser soyou can quickly find stuff.
It can detect whether somethingis like a one-shot sample.
It has similar sounds.
So if you find a good snarethat you like, it can like
basically sonically show everyother snare on your computer in
your library that has a similarsonic quality to it.
So there's like little thingslike that in workflows they've
(22:08):
updated in the new 12 release.
Another thing that would bekind of cool is if there was
some key auto-detection.
So in other words, if you'researching for samples or stuff
in your browser, then you couldautomatically say okay, this is
the key of A, this is the key ofD, whatever, okay, this is the
key of A, this is the key of D,whatever.
They have done a lot withupdating their new Live 12 with
(22:32):
the what's it called?
Basically, just you can choosewhat key you're producing or
working in and then you can lockin the MIDI clips to that.
Or there's certain devices thatwill automatically like the
chord effect, so you can justthrow a chord effect on there.
It'll automatically play MIDInotes in key.
(22:52):
There's like a bunch of stufflike that.
Scale awareness is what it'scalled.
So it's scale aware now, whichis really cool.
But it'd be awesome if there was, like some you know, a mixed in
key.
Live is great.
It's a plugin that canbasically detect anything on
your sound card, on yourcomputer, so it'll tell you what
key you're in right away, whichcould be helpful if you're like
(23:14):
trying to do some kind ofharmonic saturation and you want
to like tune stuff or your kickdrum, you know like you can do
that really easily.
Or if you're like looking for asong on spotify because you're
creating a live dj set orsomething, it'll just tell you
exactly all the harmonics beingplayed and what key you're in
the tempo.
So Mixing Key Live is a coolplugin that does that inside and
(23:35):
outside your DAW.
But yeah, it'd be cool if thatwas built in.
Marc Matthews (23:40):
Nice.
The Stem Splitter in Logic Prois very good and I wish I could
remember what episode of thepodcast it was where I did a
demo of it.
So, audience listening, go backand listen.
I want to say it's episode 150something of the podcast where I
went through the Logic Pro stemsplitter.
But very, very useful.
Yeah, it came out in Logic Pro11, but you have to have the M1
(24:04):
or M2.
You have to have basicallyApple Silicon processor M1 or M2
, you have to have basicallyApple Silicon processor.
But that's a conversation.
Yes, yes, I put a YouTube shortout on that and I regularly
have comments on there withregards to that and people
finding that out quite quickly.
Yeah, but going back to whatyou said about tuning kick drums
, because I do that manually, Ido it by ear.
So having a process to automatethat and do that for me would
(24:26):
be very nice and do it likeimmediately for me would be
great.
I mean, that being said, I wasgoing to say I enjoy tuning by
ear to an extent.
I think it depends on what partof the workflow I'm in and what
day I'm having when it comes totuning things by ear.
But you mentioned there aboutlive.
So this kind of moves on to mynext question For producers,
(24:47):
just getting into liveperformance setups what are some
essential tips for building asolid live rig setup in?
Dan Giffin (24:56):
Ableton?
Just like don't suck, I guess.
No, I'm just kidding, it's agood one, just don't sound bad.
That's my best tip.
I think that there's twodifferent angles I would answer
this question.
The first would be for theartist and the second would be
for the person actually doingthe playback tech or the
(25:17):
engineer.
I think if I've done some work,um, with some like pretty
bigger name artists and helpingwith their live rigs, and for
the artists I'd say, like, makeit as simple as you possibly can
, um, because you don't want tothink on stage, you want to be
able to perform and just enjoythat flow state of performing
(25:38):
and engaging with the audience.
So the less you have to thinkabout what you're doing, the
better.
Ableton Live was originally madefor live performance.
Obviously it's the industrystandard for performing from
small to big shows.
Laura Escudet she teaches aclass called Master Track and
you can look up her team calledelectronic creatives.
(26:00):
I took her master track andshe's worked.
She works with all like thebiggest names.
She does playback tech for thegrammys, um, and like pretty
much everybody in that world.
So I learned a lot from her andher approach with redundancy.
So from a playback techstandpoint I'd say, like know
your hardware inside and out.
Um, for larger shows.
(26:21):
If you're playing a bigger show, maybe like 1000 plus people,
whatever use a redundant rig,because you just never know,
maybe it's too hot, your laptopfan burns out, you get like a
little sputter and audio orsomething happens.
You definitely want to use aredundant rig for a big show,
and so she specializes in that.
So basically, you have like twolaptops that are like fed a
(26:43):
tone to each other and so if,like any audio blips or breaks,
it immediately switches overwithout any latency, so that
there's no cut out in audiowhatsoever.
Iconnectivity interfaces arereally made for that and are
really easy to use.
So they have like their audio,whatever interface it's called.
That's really popular.
(27:06):
I'd also say, like plan ahead,like you can't over plan on the
tech side for a show, so likestress, test the hell out of
your setup.
As far as like the sound andlive playback tech, I'd say it
really depends on the livesituation and your budget, but
having more control over thesound is like preferable for me
whenever I played shows andstuff, because I like to play
(27:27):
with live instruments but I kindof do a weird mix where I DJ
and I have live instrumentsjumping in and out, like I'm
playing a show in a month andI've got a sax, a keyboard
player, a guitar player and keys, and then I'm also playing like
a drum, hybrid electronic setup, and so I'm actually just doing
a left and a right, I'm justhanding a left and a right to
(27:50):
the sound guy and I have it alldialed in.
It's an outside show whichhelps with the acoustics, but I
know my sound and I know thatI'm practicing enough with the
(28:11):
band where we have it dialed in,and I can control all that
through my Apollo interface andwith my laptop and my Ableton
Live setup.
Marc Matthews (28:15):
So if you don't have a traveling sound man that
really knows your music, that'sa preferable setup for me.
I was going to say a lot ofwhat you've said there.
It kind of echoes back when Iwas in a band and what you
mentioned there about right atthe end, about having a sound
guy.
Towards the end of our tenurein the band we had a sound guy
for that particular reason.
He knew our sound and he wasable to take control of the desk
where possible.
I found this was when we werein a metal band and some venues
we went to there were some soundengineers got a bit salty when
(28:38):
you pushed them off, but thenagain I thought to myself it's
giving you a night off.
Surely you're still getting paid, but then again, some were a
bit a bit precious over that.
Stress testing as well, ismassive.
I think we we often did that.
And redundancy, like I learnedthat having a spare guitar, um,
in particular strings break,goes out of tune and as much it
transcends genre, doesn't itreally, when it comes to like
(29:00):
these, um, these tips and flowstate as well.
That's why, coming from thesort of the metal background
that I do, uh, you'll see thingsas as granular as the, the, the
guitar tech, just triggering apedal, turning a pedal on and
off when there's a clean ordistorted section.
Dan Giffin (29:16):
So all really really really good advice I would also
want to say one more thing toois like as far as the stress
testing, like I'm always reallycareful about using third-party
plugins for any live instrumentpatches and stuff because
that'll definitely strain yourCPU.
So I try to stay as native aspossible and you can.
If you do have like anOmnisphere or something patched
(29:38):
in the original recording thatyou want to use live, say on
your MIDI keyboard, then thereis a Max for Live device that I
created with a brilliant guynamed Toby Hunka.
He has his website,abletondrummercom and he's
brilliant with Max for Livedevelopment.
But we created something calledResampler Pro.
You could just go to LiveProducers Online or type in Live
(29:59):
Producers Online, resampler Pro, and it's a free download and
it basically automates thesample pack or plugin patch
creation process for you.
So you could say, okay, I needfour octaves of this plugin
sound in Omnisphere and then youjust hit go and it just records
a note and you can just set thesustain, attack, release time
(30:19):
or whatever and then recordevery single individual note.
Because if you just try torecord one note and then you
shift that up or down as you'replaying on a keyboard, then
you're stretching that audiowaveform and it's actually going
to degrade the quality.
So this allows you tomulti-sample every single
individual note and then you candrag and drop that into ableton
sampler instrument and whenthere's a tutorial, when you
download the, the free devicethat shows you how to do that.
(30:41):
But that's a good option.
If people are playing a bunchof patches, live with
third-party plugins that are apain in the ass as far as CPU.
Marc Matthews (30:51):
Amazing.
Where can they find that again?
Where can the audience findthat again?
Dan Giffin (30:54):
Yeah, it's on my website, if you just go to
Google and type in liveproducers online and then type
in resamplerpro.
Or I think it's yeah, I thinkthe actual URL address is just.
I think it'sliveproducersonlinecom.
Slash resampler.
Dash pro Cool.
Marc Matthews (31:15):
Well, I could put it in the show notes for the
audience listening.
They can click on that and I'vegot to throw this out.
Did you say it was a freeplug-in, did I?
Dan Giffin (31:23):
hear that correctly.
Yeah, just give me your emailand I'll just send you a bunch
of spam.
No, I'm just kidding.
Marc Matthews (31:28):
I won't do that.
Dan Giffin (31:29):
I hate that I won't do that to you.
Marc Matthews (31:31):
It's very kind, man, it's very kind.
Yeah, we're already halfway inand, as I said, I know, like you
mentioned right, that we get it.
Invariably you don't getthrough all the questions, but
there's one question I do wantto ask you before before we wrap
things up.
So you've searched on, you'vecollaborated with some big names
and performed at majorfestivals, and continue to do so
.
Can you tell us about onestandout experience or lesson
(31:55):
from those moments that havethat has shaped your career.
Dan Giffin (32:08):
Hmm, yeah, uh, I definitely have some standout
moments that are fun.
Uh, I'll tell a fun story realquick.
So basically, uh, it was my, Iwas just out of high school and
I was playing drums and I gotpicked up by some like really
shitty band but they were payingme really well and so so we did
like a Midwest East coast tourin the in the U?
S and one of the biggest showsI ever played.
At that time it was likeprobably a thousand people and I
(32:28):
was so excited that I we wereopen up for the headliner and I
broke a drumstick and, ratherthan just being a normal person
and tossing a drumstick to thecrowd, I chucked it as hard as I
could and it hit some18-year-old girl in the face and
she did a little backflip andfell.
And if anybody knows anythingabout drumsticks, they don't
split in a clean way, it's likesharp wood, right.
(32:49):
So I just straight up hit herlike you would try to kill a
vampire, and just hit her.
She did a backflip.
We didn't see her the rest ofthe show, Like the band stopped
playing for two seconds becausethey saw it happen.
They all just turned at me likewhat the fuck?
And so she might be dead, wedon't know.
But that was a lesson learned.
It's like if you are a drummer,don't like throw sharp wooden
(33:14):
drumsticks really hard into thecrowd.
If you're going to do it, justbe a normal person and toss it
lightly.
So that was a.
That was definitely a um, alesson experience and something
very memorable in my career.
Um, I thought that was kind ofa crazy moment but yeah, that's
amazing, I love that.
Yeah, but I'd say like most ofthe opportunities come from like
(33:35):
word of mouth and like onequote that I really liked is
it's not about who you know, butrather who knows you, and so,
like I just encourage people toput your name out there.
It doesn't matter if you know abunch of people.
If nobody knows who you are,you're not going to get a phone
call necessarily, or peoplearen't going to hit you up.
So like, don't be afraid tolike get out there If you're
wanting more work, just likemixing and mastering, don't be
(33:56):
afraid to give away stuff forfree, at least in the beginning,
because you got to build thatportfolio, you know.
I'm thankful now where I'vebrushed shoulders with some
people where, like you know,people know who I am to a
certain extent, but like, don'tbe afraid to put yourself out
there and to be able to do somethings for free, especially if
(34:16):
you're interested in it in thebeginning, and and like, always
give more than you take.
I think that's just like astandard universal rule that I
really subscribe to is, um, ifyou are generous with your time
and your energy, it'll come backto you, and reputation is
everything, especially in themusic industry.
Um, so just be a good personand like, try to get into social
(34:37):
circles with people that youwant to connect with.
And just be a good person andlike, try to get into social
circles with people that youwant to connect with and just be
a real person.
Um, and then, when it comes tolike mixing, some things I've
really learned is like it's moreabout how it makes you feel
than just trying to get yourkick drum perfect or whatever.
You know what I mean like yeah,in the end of the day.
(34:59):
I've heard some really shittymixes and those are some of my
favorite songs, because theenergy's there, because the
music just hits.
It's a good song.
The composition is well-made.
So I say composition beatsmixes every time.
But I think that if you canhave a great composition and a
great mix, that's like a, that'sa big selling point and that's
going to be a song that hits thehardest.
(35:19):
But I'd say, like, in the endof the day, if you're playing
with it more than three timesand you don't know if it's
better or worse, then just like,you're fine, move on.
Because I've gotten lost in thesauce of just tweaking the same
thing over and over.
So that's my golden rule if youtouch it more than three times,
you still don't know if it'sbetter or worse, it's fine.
Marc Matthews (35:37):
Yeah, just move on yeah, wise words, my friend,
wise words.
So a few things.
Obviously there's the one withthe drumstick.
Don't don't throw full force ofdrumstick at someone in the
crowd.
Uh, which is amazing.
Try to think of my drummer everdid that.
I know he fell off his stooland didn't get back up.
I remember that um yeah, yeah,he was too pissed and he fell
off.
He just that was it.
(35:57):
That was a life lesson.
We said mate, don't drink tothat extent again yeah, I'll do
it.
But the second part youmentioned about sort of it was
essentially networking andputting yourself out there and
doing um services for free justto build up that portfolio and
and meet people and rubshoulders with the right people,
moving the right circles andwhatnot, and reputation is
(36:18):
everything and also give morethan you, uh, ask for.
I thought I paraphrase it mightbe a really bad way of putting
it, but it echoes what well,rather echoes the conversation I
had with a mix engineer calledelliot glenn on episode 178.
He said the exact same thingand I may have even put a post
out on social media this weeksaying reputation is everything
from that episode.
(36:38):
And he said the exact same whenwe had a really good
conversation about it.
And also the go-giver mentalityof just give.
That's kind of what we do withthe podcast.
Really, it's just conveyinginformation, giving it out, just
giving and giving and notreally asking for anything in
return.
Because I think as soon as youstart doing that, it gets a bit
I don't know, it gets a bituncomfortable, I think if you
start giving with the idea thatyou're going to get something in
(37:00):
return, immediately, you know.
Dan Giffin (37:02):
Yeah, I think there is like a point, a crossover, at
some point, though, where youdo enough of that work and
eventually your reputationbuilds, your portfolio builds,
and then you don't want peopleto take advantage of you either.
So you need to recognize yourworth.
Marc Matthews (37:20):
Yeah, most definitely, and also just the
the.
The final bit you added there,um, right at the end, which I
really liked, was about thethree touch rule, um, about if
you touch it three times and youstill don't know whether it's
better or worse than to leave itand move on.
Because I think that reallyhelps because, like you say
there, you mentioned and and Ido as well you can quite easily
(37:40):
get stuck in the weeds and justget lost in, lost in what it is
you're doing and then realize anhour or two later it sounds
worse than it did before, and soI think that's a really, really
good one for the audiencelistening, um, cool man yeah,
it's easy to get.
Dan Giffin (37:55):
It's easy to get lost in the sauce.
Yeah, I've done it I've done it.
Marc Matthews (37:58):
And then I remember I've had many
conversations on this podcastwith individuals saying they're
on like mix iteration 20, 25, 30, I'm thinking I I'm not
entirely sure that's going to beconducive to uh, it's going to
make it any better.
I think you've gone way pastthe point of diminishing returns
.
Dan Giffin (38:13):
Yeah that's true.
At that point you just need toleave it and then come back
later.
Maybe wait like a week or acouple of days and just let your
ears take a break, becausethere is something about that
Like you start perceiving thingsthat aren't even there when you
start to listen to somethingtoo much, because your ears will
definitely play tricks on you.
Marc Matthews (38:32):
Yeah, I was going to say I do that generally in
life.
Dan Giffin (38:35):
I perceive that makes me sound quite crazy yeah,
I was thinking, shall I saythat?
Marc Matthews (38:40):
shall I not say that?
But I said it.
I live in a very old house andI'm sure it's haunted, but
that's a different oh, that'scool yeah yeah, it's really old,
the uh it gets a bit macabre.
But the guy who we bought itfrom I say bought it from he
died in there, so unfortunatefor him.
Dan Giffin (38:55):
Oh wow, that's fun, man.
You could have like a Halloweenparty at your house every year
and like do some like ghosthunting.
Marc Matthews (39:02):
Yeah, I'd love to go on a ghost hunt, I really
would.
I almost went on a ghost hunt,but they cancelled it last
minute and I never, never, tookit up again that's wild yeah, I
know it would always be.
I'm dubious, I'm skeptical, butI want to like.
If I saw one, I'd be.
I don't know what I'd do.
Anyway, that's a topic foranother episode.
(39:24):
That's like a side quest ofmine ghost hunting on the
podcast.
Dan Giffin (39:28):
There you go, yeah, yeah, I think that would be good
fun.
That sounds fun.
I grew up in Ohio in the US andit has like the most haunted
sites in the US the state, Ibelieve.
So I think it still does.
And yeah, some wild stories.
Me and my friends, like in highschool, would break into these
really old homes that weresupposed to be abandoned.
Yeah, some weird stories.
Marc Matthews (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, I remember doing that sort of
things.
There was an old mentalhospital just outside of where I
used to live and we went thereand it was like something out of
like 28 Days Later or theWalking Dead, and it was just
like one day everybody just leftand there was just like
documents and stuff all over thefloor and some other weird shit
, and then invariably the alarmwould go off, the police would
(40:10):
turn up and we'd just lag it,but I'm enough and we just like
it.
Yeah, but I'm not gonna saywhere it was.
I'm sure the individuals whoare in that land aren't
listening to this podcast.
Dan Giffin (40:19):
But in case, yeah, I think either.
I think both of us do notcondone breaking and entering,
because I think yes yeah, I justwant to put that out there.
Yeah, thank you, don't supportdon't support breaking and
entering at all.
Marc Matthews (40:31):
Yeah, please don't see that yeah, oh, I heard
it's a good thing to do,because this place might be
haunted when did you hear that?
Dan Giffin (40:37):
Yeah, don't do that.
It is fun though, yeah, yeah100%.
Marc Matthews (40:40):
Dan, I think I know you've touched already on
your website, but maybeopportunity now.
Where can the audience, where'sthe best place to find you?
Have you got anything coming upthat you want to share with the
audience?
I'll pass it over to you.
Dan Giffin (40:53):
Yeah, once again, thanks for having me, mark.
This is super fun.
I could do this all day.
I did build a new AI chatbotspecifically to help people with
Ableton Live, and so it'strained on all the manuals.
It's trained on all my podcastepisodes.
It's trained on my favoriteplugins and Macs for live
devices, for mixing or whateverelse you can ask it for specific
(41:15):
help with mixing.
Like you know, how do Iproperly use a DS or what
plugins would you recommend?
Um, you can do a lot ofdifferent things with it, and so
I'm actually really stoked.
Um, it's in beta right now, butpeople can still access it and
play with it, but it's going toget a lot smarter in about a
month from now.
Um, I'm going to be updating it.
I'm working with a reallybrilliant programmer who's
(41:35):
helping me with it right now, sohis name is Abe and you can
access him on my website,liveproducersonlinecom.
There's like a membership plansbutton and you can see Abe has
like his own plan.
But then I've got other coursesthat are more intro level to
Ableton Live or mixing.
If you want to jump in thereand you're interested in getting
(41:56):
into Ableton Live for liveperformance or just producing,
there's a bunch of stuff inthere and Abe can help you as
well.
My music is Philia, so if youwant to hang out, I'm mostly on
Instagram.
You can either look up AbletonPodcast or Philia Music.
P-h-i-l-i-a Music.
(42:17):
Yeah, I would love to connectwith you guys.
Slide into my dms, say what'sup, say hello and, um, yeah,
check out the ableton podcast ifyou want to, if you want to
listen to be pretty cool amazingstuff, that that chatbot sounds
incredible.
Um yeah do you want to ask him aquestion real quick?
Marc Matthews (42:32):
yeah, let's do it .
Dan Giffin (42:33):
Let's do it, yeah, yeah, it'll take like no time
here.
Ask him a question what quick?
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it, yeah, yeah, it'lltake like no time here.
Ask him a question what wouldyou ask him?
Marc Matthews (42:38):
oh, what's the question I get asked the most in
the podcast?
Um how to improve um kick bassfrequency balance okay vague.
Dan Giffin (42:52):
But so I asked him how do I improve my kick bass
frequency balance?
Okay, let's see who says he'sthinking.
Nice, it says to improve thefrequency balance between your
kick and bass, consider thefollowing strategies eq, text
techniques um, I hope he's stillgoing.
(43:13):
I'll summarize this becausethere's a lot in here.
Eq techniques Bass control Usepeak EQ with the center
frequency around 100 hertz toboost the punch in your kick or
bass drum sounds.
It can help in defining the lowend presence.
Mid control Adjust the midfrequencies to ensure clarity.
You can use a three-wayswitchable boosting EQ to set
(43:34):
the center frequency and range.
It helps managing the overlapbetween kick and bass.
Treble control Use a shelvingEQ with a cutoff frequency
around 3.3 to manage highfrequencies.
It can help reducing theharshness and add clarity.
Compositional approach Think ofyour kick and bass as single
compositional line.
Avoid playing bass notessimultaneously on top of the
kick.
Instead, create a bass linethat fits between the kick, drum
(43:55):
patterns, offbeat bass notes ittalks about different genres
and, where that applies,additional tips Sub switch Use a
low shelf filter to boostfrequencies below 200 hertz if
needed.
Be cautious of muddying the mixin this frequency range.
Dry wet balance, side chaining.
It talks about side chaining,relationship between kick and
(44:15):
bass and compressor settings.
Impressive man.
Yeah, there's some more stuffin there, but we don't need to
keep going into it.
Marc Matthews (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's fantastic.
Lots of really great stuff inthere.
There you go, audiencelistening, so do go and check
that out.
Head over to liveproducerscom.
Dan Giffin (44:33):
Yeah, liveproducersonlinecom to
lifeproducerscom and check thatout.
Yeah, lifeproducersonlinecom.
Marc Matthews (44:35):
Online.
There we go.
I'll get something wrongeventually on it.
Dan Giffin (44:40):
It's fine You're so close man you always have, I
know I always got all the way tothe end and then I messed it up
.
Marc Matthews (44:46):
And yeah, go check out, abe.
That sounds incredible, mate,but Dan, it's.
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