#224: Why Imperfect Recordings Feel More Alive | Abby Griffin on Creative Truth (Recording Studio Rockstars) - Music Production and Mixing Tips for Beginner Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix

Episode Transcript
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Marc Matthews (00:53):
You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast
with your host, Mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials, andinsights to help you level up

(01:13):
your music and smash it in themusic industry.
Let's dive in.
Ho ho ho, welcome folks, to theInside the Mix podcast.
A big festive welcome to you,the new listener.
And of course, a big festivewelcome to the returning
listeners too.
This episode is the secondinstallment of my favourite
podcasts that I'm sharing withyou.

(01:34):
And this time it is my goodfriend Lidge Shaw at Recording
Studio Rockstars.
Now, Lidge featured on thepodcast episode 168, and it's
titled Mastering MusicProduction Insights and
Strategies with Lydge ShawRecording Studio Rockstars.
And uh go and check thatepisode out because we talk
about things along the lines ofmixing essentials, mixed

(01:56):
templates, creative lyricwriting, effective workflow
tips, and stress-free recording.
And this episode I'm going toshare with you a highlight, a
highlighted episode, if youwill, from Recording Studio
Rockstars this year.
The episode I'm going to sharewith you is episode 520 of
Recording Studio Rockstars, andit's with Abby Griffin, and it's

(02:17):
titled The Next Generation ofSongwriting and Recording.
In this episode, I'm readingfrom the description here, Abby
shares her personal journey fromfalling in love with music,
inspired by artists like JoniMitchell and Taylor Swift, to
navigating the challenges of theindustry, the music industry.
Abby opens up about asongwriting process, the
influence of her family and lifeexperiences, and how technology

(02:38):
is transforming the way wecreate music.
Most importantly, Abbyemphasizes the importance of
staying true to yourself,couldn't agree more, and
embracing your individuality.
That's enough for me, folks.
So here we go.
This is episode 520 ofRecording Studio Rockstars, Abby
Griffin, the next generation ofsongwriting and recording.
Enjoy.

Lij Shaw (02:58):
This episode of Recording Studio Rockstars is
brought to you by Isotope,Native Instruments, Atom Audio,
and SAE Institute.
You're hearing my voice rightnow, mixed through Isotope,
Ozone, and Velvet on Atom Audiomonitors and headphones.
Make sure to get my free mixingcourse at Mixmasterbundle.com,

(03:20):
and please check out our awesomesponsors using the links in the
show notes.
And please like and subscribeto this YouTube channel because
it's a great way to help supportthis show.
Now get ready to rock.
You get to go back in time andyou get to find young Abby and
say, Listen, Abby, normal.
I've come back to give you thisone bit of advice.

(03:40):
Here's the single mostimportant thing you need to know
to be a rock star of the studioyourself one day.
What advice do you feel likeyou'd like to go back and give
yourself if you could?

Abbie Griffin (03:49):
Be the weird girl.
Embrace being the weird girl.
Like they call you Abby Normalfor a reason.
Nobody who has ever beenanything has been somebody
normal.
And I think like being theweird girl, you've got to really
embrace that and not even letthe be yourself, but be as weird
as possible and have fun doingit.

Lij Shaw (04:23):
I'm Lyd Schum and this is the podcast created to help
you become a rock star of theRecording Studio.
From synths to strings tostudio guitars, Complete 15 has
it all.
Native Instruments flagshipbundle gives you everything you

(04:45):
need to create pro music in anygenre with cutting-edge
instruments like Contact 8,Massive X, Battery, Guitar Rig,
and Session Guitarist forlifelike electric and acoustic
guitar parts.
Use our code ROCK10 for 10% offat NativeInstruments.com or get
started with Complete Starttotally free.

(05:06):
Howdy Rockstars, I'm Lyd Shaw,your host, and welcome back to
Recording Studio Rockstars,bringing you into the studio to
learn from recordingprofessionals and sometimes
aspiring recording professionalsso that you can make your best
record ever and be a rock starof the studio yourself.
My guest today is Abby Griffin,an engineer, singer, guitarist,

(05:28):
and bassist, and a student ofrecording arts and production at
Montclair State University inNew Jersey, where she studies
audio engineering,post-production, and live event
audio.
At 22 years old, she says she'salready been performing for
nearly two decades.
She loves to make music and hasreleased her first record live

(05:48):
from Oni's House, inspired byJoni Mitchell, one of an artist
she's a big fan of, to quote hergreatest inspiration, her
musical grandmother, quote, thesaddest yet happiest songbird
you'll ever meet with thatsmile, quote.
Um, I met Abby at Nam when sheattended a meetup that I hosted
for recording studio Rockstars.

(06:09):
Um, we were also hosting onefrom working class audio and
mixed down online.
And um, when she came up to meand said hello, the first thing
she said when she came up wasthat she was a fan of the
podcast, and so was her dad.
And I for me, it's so cool tohear that the podcast is

(06:29):
reaching a wider and a youngeraudience, and it's able to
inspire and help those who arejust starting out in their music
and audio studies and career.
And today we're gonna find outwhat it's like to be a young
student of recording, to be amusician and a songwriter.
We'll find out what she'slearning in school, what she
thought she needed to learn, andwhat music means to her.

(06:51):
We'll also discuss where shethinks music is headed from the
perspective of the nextgeneration of music makers that
are going to ultimately shapethe future of music.
We'll also explore the rapidchanges in music technology with
AI and how the definition of aproducer is evolving for the
next generation.
Please welcome Abby Griffin toRecording Studio Rockstars.

(07:14):
Abby, are you ready to rock?

Yes, I am ready to rock.

Lij Shaw (07:18):
How do you feel about that?
I mean, you've been listeningto the podcast, and now I'm
asking you personally.

That's kind of crazy.
And on my drive down, too, Ihad a couple episodes playing.

Lij Shaw (07:27):
Oh, did you really?
Now it's me.
Do you remember who you werelistening to?
Um I know it's that's throwingyou under the bus right there
already.

It was like a whole, I think I listened to
just the your top um couplevideos.
That was my first drive of um,that was like probably the first
three hours of 16.
So I liked camera maps.

Lij Shaw (07:49):
So you are in New Jersey, but you've come down to
Nashville for a visit down here.
You're going to check out someplaces, meet some people, and um
we get to have you on thepodcast, which is really cool.

Yeah.
And I was on a little uh tourexpedition.
I wasn't gigging myself, but Iwas like managing one of my
friends who's an artist.
And so we went to Penn Stateand then we went to Oberlin
College, and then from Oberlin,they went back to New York and I
drove down here.

Lij Shaw (08:16):
Oh, that's cool.
I've got a niece who'sgraduating from Oberlin, so I'll
be up there for a graduationceremony.
Oh, cool, yeah.
It's it's a cute little town.
It's a beautiful place too,yeah.
So uh why checking out allthese different different stops
on the way?
Are they um is this like nextplans for you as a student?

I think well, so a little bit.
I am feeling a a kind of apre-post grad dread because I've
I have a lot of older friendsthat have like just graduated
last year or maybe two yearsago, and they're feeling the
post grad stress, and I alwaystry and um you know jump the gun

(08:54):
for everything.
So I'm feeling the post-gradstress when I graduate in May.
Um yeah, but I'm kind offiguring out where I want to
place myself, like live, andthen see what kind of industries
are around any place,basically.
I went to Nam, California,yeah, and I went to you know,
San Diego around there and LA,Anaheim, and I felt the energy

(09:18):
there.
And so this whole, you know,next semester for me, like from
January to May and the summer,is for me to explore different
areas to see what the musicscene is all around the country.

(09:48):
Um, maybe I kind of want to goto Spain and see how that is,
European market.
I don't know.

Lij Shaw (09:53):
Yeah, do you like Spanish music?

Yeah, and my dad speaks Spanish, and so I I
taught I knew it know a littlebit though.

Lij Shaw (10:02):
I'm trying to learn it a little bit because I want to
do some traveling too.
Yeah, exactly.
You're the third person to sayDuolingo is has his students I'm
writing it down finally.

Literally, yeah, you gotta.
The owl, he's a little scary.
Oh, there's an owl?
Yeah, he gets aggressive if youdon't do your lessons.
But I've been basically tryingto see what kind of vibe I feel
the most resonates with mebecause I always was a New
Yorker-nothing kind of girl.
And then I went to Californiaand I'm a little uh I I think

(10:36):
I'm questioning my NewYork-ness.

Lij Shaw (10:38):
You know, New York is loud and it draws a lot of
attention and it's a wonderfulplace.
But um the world is a big placeand there's a lot to explore
and discover.
So that's pretty cool.

And I'm learning that.
And I never really went verymany places.
I went a couple places in highschool for choir.
Like I I went to Disney, I wentto Chicago, Montreal, and I
loved Montreal.
Chicago, not so much.
Um, but I really like seeingthe different types of people
that are around and seeing who Iresonate with and what kind of

(11:11):
energy speaks to me the most.

Lij Shaw (11:12):
Okay, cool.
So you started out, you weredoing the choir thing.
Um now, as a singer, uh, whatkind of stuff did you feel was
useful about studying vocals inthat way and how has it helped
you?

So I think I didn't realize what was helpful
for me when I was going throughit.
Um but now looking back, Ithink my biggest takeaways are
learning how the voice functionslike physically and like how
resonance works.
Uh there's this one website, itwas like it's like the pink

(11:46):
something, but it you can movearound the pieces of the voice.
I wish I knew what the websitewas called, but you can like
move the tongue placement and its sounds like how it would
sound in somebody's mouth.
It's a it's an app.
It's a website, I think.

Lij Shaw (12:05):
Wow.

Yeah.
And it's like the pink noise.

Lij Shaw (12:08):
So if you're trying to figure out how to do a certain
um vocal tone or sound,something you maybe heard
before, you can go try this out.

Yeah.
And what do you think it'scalled?

Lij Shaw (12:19):
Do you remember?
Well, you just keep going andI'll I'll I'll like, you know.
It's like the I use the powerof the AI to find it as a pink
tube voice website.

I don't know.
But it looks weird.
It sounds weird, and it isweird, but it's so informative
on how the anatomy of the voiceworks and like how dropping and
then moving up your larynx andthen um, you know, soft palate
rising, lowering, and tongueplacement can all affect a vowel
sound.

Lij Shaw (12:49):
Right.

Um, and that's really important when you're
doing different genres ofthings.
And I knew it was importantwhen I was, you know, studying
the lab.

Lij Shaw (12:57):
Pink trombone, is that it?

Pink trombone.
Look at that.

Lij Shaw (13:00):
Amazing technology.
Right?
It's my new AI assistant.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's one another one thatsays uh vocaberia is a voice
training app awesome, offeringcustom lessons for pitch and
feedback.
So this one it says it sayspink trombone.
This interactive web-basedapplication simulates the human
vocal tract, allowing users toexplore how different vocal

(13:23):
tones are produced.
So it's funny, you know, it'slike, you know, you think about
like AI stuff, which we'll talkmore about that here in a bit
too.
But but we think about howit's, you know, we're training
it to do stuff.
And now here's an example ofit's actually training us how to
do stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe that's a good, maybegood part of the feedback loop.

It's like integration of technology with
the human body, literally, andthen how it's informing us uh
intellectually.

Lij Shaw (13:49):
Yeah.
Okay, so now choir, stuff Iremember about choir was um so
so specifically I rememberlearning things like blend your
voice with the other voices,don't be louder or too or
quieter, you know, try and be inthere.
I remember learning thingsabout, you know, hide your

(14:10):
consonants and your siblants andthings like that.
Um and I don't remember whatpitch things I really learned.
I feel like that's just sort ofyou you just sort of learn it.
Although I do know a bigchallenge in choir was knowing
where your starting note is.
Because if you don't have areference beforehand, you're

(14:32):
like, where am I supposed to be?

I luckily had a really good couple of choir
teachers, and they would trainus on like um pulling like
audience, um, and so auditingyour starting note before
singing.
Audiating.

Lij Shaw (14:48):
The auditor.

Yeah, the auditor.
That's like my I'm gonna usethat.
I don't know on what, butthat's a good one.
Do it.
I'll write it down.
Um but audiating like um A440in our brains, and that's what
we would start like our warmupson.
Um and then What does thatmean?

(15:09):
So it means like hearing thenote in your brain and making
the um it was kind of like thatthat mind-body connection before
you actually sing and releasethe note.
So your positioning in yourbody, like vocally through the
pink trombone aspect, would formthe note of the A, whatever it

(15:36):
was.
Yeah.
Um, and then she would be like,all right, audiate the before,
and then cue us in, and we wouldall go and cue and sing the
same note.
Well, with with within octaves,you know, for the yeah, I think
it's interesting.

Lij Shaw (15:50):
And and what's fascinating to me, you know,
I've been doing this for solong, and and yet still I feel
like I'm just like a beginnerstudent all the time.
So, like learning things like,you know, you you you're
familiar with the term like A44,A440.
You're like, oh that's that'sA, that's like your tuning
reference, you know, the tuner,make sure it's in 440 or

(16:11):
whatever.
But you know, when do you stopto think about it?
Like, what exactly is A4040?
And it my guess is it'sprobably um smack dab in the
middle of the human voice range,right?
Pretty much probably why it'srelevant.

I think so, yeah.

Lij Shaw (16:26):
Because every instrument is relevant to the
human voice, you know.
It's it's lower than what thehuman voice is, it's higher.

Or like how the violin encompasses the exact
quote unquote like tambourinerange of the human voice.
Yeah, and then you'll notes inthere too.
Well, if you think about likethe operatic sopranos and stuff,
that's really right withintheir range, too.
Um, and usually it's it'spretty much within like a
soprano twos-ish range.

(16:55):
Um, but that's why like leadlines for fiddle and violin and
like you know, that that kind ofthing, strings can make you so
emotional because it's theinstrument that closely most
closely resembles the humanvoice.

Lij Shaw (17:07):
Badass.
Rockstar, you see why I wantedto have Abby on the podcast
after meeting her.
Um because I like yourenthusiasm.
Like you seem very um, you seemvery clear on your interest in
this in music and everything andto be driven.
So so for example, we were atthe meetup and you were asking
about mastering, and I was likeso much.

I like word vomiting at you.
I was crazy anyway.

Lij Shaw (17:32):
Well, it's all right, it's all right, but but my point
is like, you know, youmentioned that you were doing
production and stuff, but youneeded a good mastering
engineer.
I was like, I just I just methim, you know, I was just
chatting with an engineer here,and of course, and so I'm like,
You want to meet him?
It's like you're like, sure,great.
And so we go over and Iintroduce you to um um uh
Brandon, I think it was, right?

(17:52):
And so uh, and so you know,then you meet him, and then
you're like, What kind of stuffhave you done?
He's like, Well, we just wonlike all the Grammys for
everything, you know.
You're like, Oh, I was like, ohcool, yeah, yeah, but um, but
it's cool to see that kind ofenthusiasm.
And I've I've seen enough of itin the music business, or at
least in my experience, to knowthat the thing that carries, I

(18:16):
mean, talent has got to bethere, but the definitely big,
big driver for what carriespeople from the beginning to you
know, great amounts of successis just simply the the desire
and the motivation and the umconfidence, you know, being
willing to, you know,self-believe in what you're
doing and and go for it.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (18:37):
Well, fingers crossed.
Carry on, carry on.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (18:40):
Um, so all right, so those are some fascinating
things about singing in a choirnow.

And sight reading too.

Lij Shaw (18:45):
And sight reading, right?
Okay, so you really learn howto do that.

Yeah, and even like I'm not the greatest
reader, I do most everything byear anyway, but when needed, I
can really like lock in and it'salmost muscle memory at some
points for sight reading certainthings.
Guitar gets really hard, butlike for rhythm sight reading
for when I played drums, Ididn't realize that I had like

(19:10):
that sight reading chops kind ofin my act.
Uh yeah, a little bit.
I really miss playing drums.
I haven't played in a while,but I like it.

Lij Shaw (19:21):
Well, then you're off to a good start because uh one
of the things that happened tome and probably happens to a lot
of people is the moment youstart building a studio, you
know, maybe you start out withbeing interested in one
instrument, but then now I'vegot some different instruments
in the studio.
I'm like, well, I'm gonna learnhow to play this, I'm gonna
learn how to play that.
So, you know, sitting down, uhI always was really fascinated

(19:42):
by learning how to play drums.
So I'd sit down and startplaying a lot more bass.

It's hard.
You have like all your limbsgoing octopus arms at once.

Lij Shaw (19:49):
That's true, yeah.
And then also like learningwhat kind of stuff actually
helps the song versus just getsin the way.
And the more you record stuffand produce, the more you have a
sense of that.
And then you know, then you'llsit down at the drums and like
you might surprise yourself.
You might find that you have amuch easier time playing to a
click track and playing asimple, awesome part than a

(20:11):
drummer who doesn't know thatstuff yet does.

Yeah.
Or like uh creating spacewithin the track of things to
add versus things to take away.
Like I remember we were doingscratch drums for one of my
friends' songs, and I washearing something in my head
that was very different thanwhat she wanted, and I was like,
Oh, we don't have a drummer inhere.

(20:35):
And then I was like, wait aminute.
I forgot that I took drumlessons, so I hopped on and then
it was scratch.
We didn't have the mics set upfor anything, so we had two
overheads and then like ain-between mic and maybe a
snare.
Um and I played the groove andshe was like, That's exactly it.
I didn't know I had that in me,but I think it's really good.

(20:58):
Yeah.

Lij Shaw (21:00):
And I And was she supposed to be the drummer, or
were you you just didn't knowwhat you were gonna do?

We were only doing guitar vocal that day and
we were doing scratches forThree of her songs because we
wanted to do like a little EP,but she didn't have any real
demos besides like voice memos.
So I wanted to get her in, andwe were talking about like uh
the kind of vibe that shewanted.
And so we really had one songthat we were focusing on, and

(21:24):
that was the song that we endedup, you know, adding more parts
to.
Um, but we didn't know wherethat was gonna take us, and we
just wanted it to be uh uh likea a let's see how we work
together tracking day.
And then we started to getgoing and the ideas kept
flowing, and then she was like,I think I really we have to

(21:45):
decide on a drum thing.
And I was like, Okay, let'ssee.
And we were talking and talkingand talking, and it just ended
up being like, you know what?
We have to lay down something.
Let's let's go in.
And we had I had my twoengineer team, and I was like,
How many mics do we have?
Can we kind of mic up this liketerrible, disgusting drum kit

(22:05):
that's in the school studio thatlike it's not tuned, it's
terrible, but it was there forus to kind of get the framework
of the song.
And so we talked about it.
I hopped in.
I only did four passes of it,and I did something a little bit
different every time.

Lij Shaw (22:22):
And then we got into a lot of these kind of you
mentioned being interested insort of um muted drums, I think
was the term you use, right?
Yeah.
When we were walking around thestudio earlier, yeah.
And so, as opposed to like rockdrums, which I think rock drums
kind of need to sound like aconfident drummer in a real drum
kit in a real room a lot oftimes.

(22:43):
But for the songwriter-y stuff,it's much easier to get away
with away with um, you know,something less demanding from
the drum kit in terms of I don'twant to m that to be
misinterpreted, it's still gottafeel great.

Yeah, but it has to have some nice lay-down
rhythm.

Lij Shaw (23:00):
Yeah, but like you could you could kind of pillow
up the drums and put mute thesnare and keep it tight and and
a couple of simple mics.
Yeah.

I think I had my phone in my wallet on the snare.
Yeah.
And I might have been using, Ihave like these light pink jazz
sticks.
Yeah.
And so I was going really lighton it.
We wanted like a I don'tremember what kind of vibe, but
it was like that kind of bedroompop Claro.
Um, what else?
Like uh Gracie Abrams almost.

(23:29):
Yeah.
Right, which is much simplerthan some some little shuffle
kind of energy, not very manysymbols.
I think I used the bell of theride, and that's that was
probably it.
Yeah.
And I did some um a lot of myjazz drumming is from my um my
drum professor.

(23:50):
I wanted to do like just basicrock drums, and he made me learn
like rhythms, and a lot ofwhich was on the uh rim of the
floor tom, and so I would I hadlike cross stick action, some
bell action, some um rim of thefloor tom, and then you know, a
couple little fills.
Yeah, but mostly it was likeauxiliary percussion using the

(24:13):
drum kit, which was cool.

Lij Shaw (24:14):
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(24:38):
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And now have you tried buildingloops from that stuff?
Because that can be likeincredibly powerful too.
Yeah, a little bit.
Like the the the simple act ofhaving some something mic'd up,

(24:58):
you know, like you could haveone mic.
You could have two mics, youcould have one in front of the
kick and one on top above thedrums in the snare, and that
might be all you even need.
Yeah.
And then you just play like acouple of simple beats, loop it,
you know.
Um, you can really build thetrack cool that way.
And the nice thing about doingthat is if you get something
that feels kind of right, all ofa sudden you don't need a click

(25:20):
track to play everything to.
Like that's the thing that justputs everything in the pocket.

I am not good at following the click track for
the whole song.
I am so terrible at it.
So that's exactly what we did.
I played it for the verses, andyou know, I did three
repetitions of the beat that Ihad going, the whatever rhythm.
And then I had a different onefor the chorus, a different one
for the bridge.
Smart, you were thinking ahead.
Yeah, yeah.

(25:45):
And I tried going through it.
That's why we only did it fourtimes, because the first two
times, my engineers, they werelike so mad at me.
They were like, Abby, you'renot following this click track
at all.
And I said, Okay, just put mein for the verse.
Okay, just put me in for thechorus.
And then we only did, you know,eight bars of each rhythm, and
then we looped.

Lij Shaw (26:04):
I mean, you'll be amazed.
You can you'll you might findthat like one bar of everything
is and each part is all youneed.

I think we ended up cutting it two and then
repeating because I could notstay on the rhythm because I'm
not a drummer, but I could doenough.

Lij Shaw (26:18):
But I think this is great because there's so many
people um, you know, who arelistening who might be in that
boat where it's like, you know,there's a it's a common thing to
want to record more music.
Maybe all you've got isyourself to get it done.
So how are you gonna get itdone?
And you know, we can lean ontools like um, you know,
addictive drums and logicdrummer and all these other

(26:38):
things.
Kyle, but but they're alsolimiting, you know, they're also
like they're it's they're bothpretty amazing and kind of
limiting because you know, youdon't have quite as much control
over the feel, the subtletiesof of what it does in a way that
you do when you just can youknow play one bar of something
yourself.
Yeah.
So so to that point, um, maybewe should talk a little bit more

(27:01):
about that.
But a couple of ideas that cometo mind for me are what you
said, which is like go playalong with the verse, and you're
just looking for like one goodbar that you can.
Exactly.
Um, you can always use thetools to tighten it up just a
little bit more, and that'seffective.
And then go play in the choruswhere the feels a little
different, and you can do one ofthat.

(27:21):
If the symbols are a problem,like if you're like symbols
don't, you know, because one baryou might you don't want a
crash to happen every one bar.
So you can just overdub thecrash and stuff like that, or
you can even overdub the ride.

Exactly.
Um I don't think I even usedthe symbols at all.
They put me in for differentfills, and I would go back over
for like the transitions betweenverse and chorus.
Exactly.

Lij Shaw (27:46):
That's what I was gonna say.
That's so brilliant.
You already got the ideafigured out.

Locked in.

Lij Shaw (27:51):
So then you just like, yeah, you just take those
loops, play along to it, or umjust play another pass and just
do transitions or whatever, orjust just put an empty hole at
the end of the verse going tothe chorus.
And that's like just do a bunchof them and then comp in the
best one, and there's your drumfill going from one second.

Advances in technology, you don't have to,
you know, cut the tape.
You can whatever uh go aroundyour project.

Lij Shaw (28:15):
You're going way back if you're gonna if you're gonna
reference tape and like as iflike you know, boy, things are
easier for Abby now.
I mean, you know, tape's gonnabe a big thing.
For me with my long uh tape'sbeen gone for for quite a bit.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (28:28):
Um well, no, it's still good.
It's still here.
Sorry.
I would I would like it.
I would like it.
It's still here.
I'm just saying that like, youknow, you grew up uh where well
let's talk about that.
So like at 22, when you first,you know, what do you feel like
is the stuff that you grew upwith?
When you think about like theway things used to be, it might

(28:48):
be a tricky question becauseyou're also aware of how it used
to be before you were music.

Like personally for me, um my dad had a little
baby home studio.

Lij Shaw (29:00):
Okay, cool.

Um still does, but it's it's you know, caught
up with the times now.

Lij Shaw (29:05):
Your dad, who's also a fan of the podcast.
Hi dad.

Hi dad.
He's gonna be he is 100% gonnabe watching this, probably on
repeat.

Lij Shaw (29:13):
I've got I'm drinking uh in honor of that.
I'm drinking from the mug withme and my daughter today, which
is she actually looks a bit likeyou and this one right there.
Although we're making goofyfaces.

No, that's me and my dad too.
And you have a beard in thatone.
My dad is like king of beard,yeah.
Yeah, right.
Um, so he started with um hehad Daws and things, and he had
his like little Mackey mixer, 16channel, whatever.
Um, and he had like a a micsetup and everything, but we did

(29:44):
a lot of CD stuff and he did alot of CD burning.
Right.
And well, so I was born in2003, and the reason why is
still rocket CDs at that pointfor sure.
Yeah.
And two decades is becausethere's recordings of him doing
mic tests in his studio with meas a little baby singing, like
um, with in the headphones islike the um karaoke track of

(30:08):
part of your world from TheLittle Mermaid or Pocahontas or
Cinderella songs and stuff, andso he would do like his mic
tests with me as a little kid,and it was definitely so if I
compare that to now, it was alot more um slower kind of.

(30:30):
I don't know.
Um we were just talking abouthow digital studios versus
analog is like you have a wholenew set of issues.
And to me, I mean, I know I wasa little baby, but even when I
was like in middle school, Idon't really know if we had that
kind of the same kind ofproblems and the same kind of

(30:51):
advantages because we did a lotof he recorded into a DAW too.
Um, but my dad is likeanti-digital mixer still to this
day.
Yeah, he like hates them.

Lij Shaw (31:02):
Um so wait, so but you might be using or he might be
using a computer to actuallycapture the music and play it
back, but he's using it morelike a tape machine.
Yeah.
So then so then is he mixing itback through the Macy mixer?
Yeah, which is a great sound.
I mean, it's the funny thingabout this stuff.
Like, I remember the Mackeymixer comes along.
We get really excited, we'relike, holy shit, you can get

(31:22):
this cool mixer, and it's youknow, uh kind of generally it
was affordable back then.
And um, and then you use it,and I was really excited.
I had I had my 1604 and we hada 3208, I think it was, or
something at the studio atAlex's Great.
And then um, and then then it'spasse, and then it's when

(31:43):
you're in the computer, it'slike, ugh, that's an old Mackey,
right?
Yeah, and then it comes backagain.
And then it's like, oh theMaggie, what we do, what we
think it was so cool, you know?
That's what my dad says everytime.

He's like old faithful, they always come back
to it.

Lij Shaw (31:55):
Exactly.
Yeah, one of the things thatthat got me re-interested in the
Mackie was uh when a friend ofmine was pointing out that that
was like the Daft Punk sound,all the early Daft Punk records.
That and uh an Elise 36.
What was it, the 3630?
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry, Rox, there's just been aminute since I said some of

(32:15):
these model numbers.
Um, you know, it's just a goodreminder.
Now, um, does that give us allpermission to be pack rats?
You're not there yet, but youyou might be down the future,
you know, and like havebasements full of gear we're not
using because it might comeback around one day.

Well, that's how my dad is.
Yeah, like the shelves ofstuff.
He has 29 guitars, and so it'sgot me beat.
Really?
Well, he he's a freak about it,that's why.
But he has like so much stuffthat my mom was like, Mike, can
you get rid of that, please?
And then within the last yearor something, I've used it in

(32:52):
every like shoot or in everyYou're using all the stuff.
I literally use all of hisstuff, and then he's like, see
guys, I told you.

Lij Shaw (33:02):
That's awesome.

I don't I don't know if you should subscribe to
that, but all right.

Lij Shaw (33:06):
Well, so tell us about some of the old stuff that you
really like.
What have you been digging?
What do you what are youpulling off the shelves?

Well, this is this one's gonna be like a
pretty basic one or like a fanfavorite.
Um, but he had these vintageU87s that say made in West
Germany, and I like had no ideaabout them before I went to
college because I like knew somesome audio things.
I knew a lot of from in frontof the mic, not necessarily

(33:35):
behind the scenes.
I knew a lot about the livestuff, and I did a lot of
theater stuff, but he had thesemics in the cases, and I was
like, Oh, those old oldmicrophones and the whatever,
and the cases are like, youknow, the foam is
disintegrating, and um then whenI needed mics for things at
school, I was like, oh, uh U87.

(33:57):
Oh, wait, there's a U87 in thisold shoot with Elvis.
Oh, Whitney Hu.
Oh.
Oh, and then we used it, andthen and then you go open it up
back at your dad's house.
And I was like crumbling theholy crap, this is the vintage,
you know, matched pair,whatever.
Um and the and the crumblingfoam syndrome is the worst.

(34:18):
Dirty melt on your face.
Then you're like, what do youhave on your neck?
Yeah, and it's black pieces ofthe headphone foam.
But the same thing happenedwith these too.
You would open it up, like it'sthese old, disgusting, beat-up
cases.
Then you open it up, it's likea beautiful, like, amazing.

(34:39):
They're one of them is a littlemore beat up than the other.
Um, but I remember using, wewent into the studio and we
compared the new one, the youknow, newer-ish 2015 model of
the U87, which is very differentfrom the old one, like
character-wise.
And I was like, My dad has hadthese, two of them, and he did

(35:00):
not let me use them.
And then I went back home and Iasked him, Dad, hey, uh, do you
think that I could like maybeborrow the U87?
He was like, You could haveone.
You can use one.
Come back to me.
If it's anything is damaged,anything is dirty, you will
never be able to use it again.
And now we're pretty chill.
We're pretty cool.

Lij Shaw (35:20):
So, what do you how do you describe what it is about a
U87 that you like uh other thanpictures of famous people using
it?
Is there some is there a wayyou would describe what it
sounded like to you?

So for me, the hot take, I don't know if it's
my favorite vocal, Mike.

Lij Shaw (35:39):
It doesn't have to be.

I like I think it's like an industry favorite,
but I don't know if it's likefor personally my voice, if it's
the best, or in general, Ithink it's a good um, like not
baseline, but I think it'sreally clear.
I think the clarity, like onthe high end and your kind of
transient level, you know, thatend of the spectrum is really

(36:01):
clear.
And yeah, the frequencyresponse, but also the color of
it is has got that condenserclarity, open air kind of sound.
So everything just soundsreally clear and really well
translated.

Lij Shaw (36:14):
What kind of instruments sound good to you on
that?
Your acoustic?

Because some vocals do.

Lij Shaw (36:20):
Some vocals do, yeah.

But I usually like a warmer vocal sound, so
like a 414, which is also maybea hot take.
Um, or the the Austrian audioOC 818, yeah, which is you know
414-esque.
Yeah.
That has become my next newfavorite, but I think the 414,
yeah, it's good on vocals.
And then the U87s are reallygood on like overheads, I've

(36:46):
been hearing.
Um then guitar acoustic.
Because we I had done like alot of pencil condenser, you
know, small, small diaphragmcondenser things on acoustic
guitar, which sound really nicetoo.
And I've done like a coupletrial runs of certain acoustic
guitars with U87, and I thinkacoustic guitar is really,

(37:10):
really nice, you know, mic'd upon the 12th fret.

Lij Shaw (37:13):
Um 87.
Yeah, so I pulled up afrequency chart.
I'm trying to I'm trying toreally demonstrate my ability to
screen share in a moment'snotice here.

Exactly, with the the at the 10-ish K.

Lij Shaw (37:27):
Yeah, so this comes from the record
recordinghacks.com site.
But um, you could see thesedifferent uh frequency
responses, and I don't know ifthat's the standard roll-off
there or if that's with aroll-off.
Um, but I'm guessing this onemaybe is with a higher roll-off
if it has different roll-offs.
And then you've got this 10kboost, so that kind of clarity,

(37:48):
which isn't necessarily what youmight want as a female singer,
you know, maybe, maybe, maybeum, because I feel like
sometimes the mics that appealto us for different use cases
are like um uh, you know, awoman's voice maybe has highs in
it, and so we want to mic beshrills in the other parts too

(38:10):
much high from your mic, youknow.
Whereas a male voice might nothave the highs, so we might like
the highs.
Exactly.
The other mic.

I haven't done too much with male voices in the
studio, and that's kind of likeI I feel like I need to
experiment so much more withdifferent types of voices
because I've had a lot of typesof female voices, and not so
much in the male category.

Lij Shaw (38:34):
Well, and that makes sense.
I mean, you know, you startout, I think, by uh working with
and recording the people thatyou know, your friends, yeah,
because they're the first peopleyou get to.

And I have a lot of male guy friends who are
instrumentalists that are likereally good.

Lij Shaw (38:46):
So we've been So they don't want to sing, they're not
ready to sing, but they're readyto back you up on some
instruments.

Yeah, or they're ready to like, you know, sit in
the studio with the drum kit,test out things for hours, but
trying to get somebody behindthe mic, a guy to sing, has been
hard.

Lij Shaw (39:00):
Um, so now do you have a studio of your own too?
Or you have something that youcall yours, which you're using
to record and make music rightnow?

Well, that's been like my newest expedition to
find somewhere to ha call homebase, kind of.
I've been floating around um,you know, Montclair and New
Jersey, northern-ish, to figureout places to go and like, you
know, somewhere to work out ofas a producer.

(39:27):
Because I I'm you know,straying from the engineer kind
of aspect because I know that Iwant to be a little more heady,
a little more creative, a littlemore um that kind of thing.

Lij Shaw (39:36):
But I think it's really valuable to know the have
the laptop and some kind of ofcourse.
Yeah, what what app do you liketo use to make music right now?

Well, so my like basic setup is literally my HP
laptop, which Windows.
Um some people might uhdisagree with that, but that's
where I started.
That's that's a that's a my dadthing too.

Lij Shaw (40:01):
Um is a Windows I don't really know what the
dollar goes a lot further whenyou go Windows.

And like the upgrade like DIY do yourself
version of like if I needed moreRAM or you know drive space or
anything.
Um Scarlet 2I2 plugged into mynew upgraded.
I got Genilex, um, what arethey the the 1030s?

Lij Shaw (40:26):
Um those are great.

Yeah.
Those I bought off a reverb,and they're two different um
generations, but they're thesame model, but two different
generations.
So the switches are like on theopposite side, the screws are
different.
It was like whatever, but it'sa good way to start.
And I've I talked to one of myprofessors, and he was like,
that's a great investment if youstart off with the with

(40:49):
whatever Gen Elixir you're gonnahave them for the rest of your
life.

Lij Shaw (40:52):
But if you think they're not really matched, you
can always just flip flop yourleft and right every once in a
while.
Just kind of I think they'repretty good.

They're like pretty even.
Um, just visually, maybe not.
Um and then I have my mics likeswitch around.
I had the road um What is it,the NT1?

Lij Shaw (41:11):
Um classic starter mic right there.

Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a yet again, my dad,uh Chris's gift.
Um, I was like, I need, I needsomething, please.
I need a condenser because Iwas just using the scarlet, the
one that comes on the thestudent kit with the headphones
and the everything.

Lij Shaw (41:27):
And you got your uh your eye on any um upgrade mics
in the future one day?

Well I'm I want to get some 414s and I want that
to be my go-to because I thinkthat they're they have presented
themselves to me in the mostversatile manner because I've
done you know things with tomsand guitar cabs and bass amps
and overheads and vocals andacoustic guitar all with the

(41:55):
414.
Um and I think that that's agood they're not the most
expensive, but they're veryversatile.
And so that would be my nextgo-to.
And I think it's a littlesimilar to how the NT1 sounds.

Lij Shaw (42:11):
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(42:32):
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The 414.
414's a classic mic.

(42:53):
It's a great, great choice.
Um there's a big differencebetween some of the newer and
older ones.
And I have an old B U L S one,which is uh pretty darker,
sounds really beautiful on voicesometimes, you know.
Um and then, you know, someother similar mic options.
You messed m uh mentioned theAustrian audio, so that's that's

(43:15):
another great one.
And the um the Lewitt LCT 640TS is another, it's similar to
the the 414 in that it's gotthat versatility.
But um, you know, in probablyhalf the price of those two are
the Roswell Pro Audio mics,which um don't have the

(43:35):
switchability if you want likepolar patterns, polar patterns
and stuff.
Some of uh I'm trying toremember some of them do, like I
think the um the Delphos does,uh, but they can sound really
great too.
And then Jay-Z microphones isanother fun one.
These are these are both miccompanies that I'm very familiar
with.

Lower price points?

Lij Shaw (43:53):
And there's a ton out there too.
And then um Vanguard.
Oh, yeah.
Oh yeah, I've heard great.

Oh, I think I stopped by them at the show.

Lij Shaw (44:00):
Yeah, Derek uh has been on the show as well.
So um those are those are greatmics, and they're they're well
within the uh cool, you know,affordable range for for studios
too.
And it's all relative, youknow, everybody's version of
affordable or expensive is justtotally relative.

Well, when I'm on that that post-college student
budget.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lij Shaw (44:20):
And you know, in the end, you know, it's all about
like how you use the stuffanyway.
It's yeah, we're listening tothe music.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (44:26):
Um, so you know, do you have some examples of
musicians that have made recordswith um low budget gear um that
you're familiar with thatreally got you excited?
Anybody that really inspiresyou?

Honestly, oh my okay, this is kind of straying
for the mic thing, but LazyMcAlpine, her engineer, found a
toy guitar and like filled it inwith resin and put pickups in
it, and like, you know, tookliterally thrifting toy guitar
from the goodwill or wherever,and used it on her album and the

(45:03):
song that I was listening tobefore Spring into Summer, that
low end, I'm pretty sure he usedit on that one.
Um, but the her most recentalbum, there's like this
saturated, warm, beautiful,distorted guitar sound, and it's
made from a homemade DIY toyguitar electric upgrade.

Lij Shaw (45:25):
Wow, that's cool.

And that that is the thing that most prominently
sticks out to me.
I know there's a lot of otherthings that I've listened to
that are lower budget.

Lij Shaw (45:33):
And there's that difference, or there it's not
difference, but like there'sthat awareness of um DIY home
building the instrument, becauseyou know, in that case, we're
just trying to make a sound thatwe like.
Yeah.

And um either less expensive uh or you know
left of center, you know,unusual thrift store find
recording gear, microphones oryou know, tape machines or
that's it's definitely like adifferent beast when you're

(46:05):
thinking of you know, recordinggear versus instruments, because
instruments could kind of beanything, I think.
Um in a way.

Lij Shaw (46:13):
Right.
You can go play uh sounds outof the kitchen.

You could spoons, like that's an instrument.
Like they you have spoonsplayers in bluegrass bands.
Yeah.

Lij Shaw (46:21):
Um and the cool thing about uh singing too is you can
just there's so much expressionin the human voice.
You can make so many differentsounds and you can evoke.

Well, I think like thinking outside of the box
is really important to do, evenif you're doing uh like stuff
with mics and recording.
I think instruments is reallyimportant to do that.
And I think like that's youknow, you don't need the top of
the line, you know, playerseries, whatever, guitar.
You don't need your, you know,I think things are unique in

(46:53):
that way if you get the top ofthe line, top-notch thing, but
um what's really unique is thecharacter of everything.
And so, you know, lower budgetmics or even stuff recorded like
Billie Eilish, she sits in thestudio next to her brother and
records on a 7B.
So like that's the sure SM7.

(47:13):
The sure SM7B, yeah.
And it's it's like so it'sthat's not as you know low
budget, but it's a basic mic.
Or she does literally a 58 witha windscreen on it, just
sitting there.
Um, and that's what she did fora lot of her most recent album
and like her song Bad Guy, andthat was a lot of it's it's just

(47:35):
her in the studio.
If you listen to the isolatedvocal tracks, um it you can hear
the bleed from the speakers.

Lij Shaw (47:40):
But because uh headphones, necessarily.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (47:44):
That's cool.

Sometimes on some stuff, but yeah.
I think and that is like, youknow, those shore mics are your
like even your 57s are your um,you know, in economy stable
dynamics, yeah.
Yeah, dynamics.
Um they're like basic.
Everybody uses oh, throw a 57on it.

(48:06):
Oh, we could use it, yeah,yeah.
Who's you've got an extra mic?
It's probably a 57.
Yeah, it's been run over fourtimes.
It's or like the 58s in the oldin your bars in uh open mic
kind of atmosphere.
They're dented in.
They're like bring your own miccleaner.
Yeah, exactly.
I when those windscreens neverwashed, ever, probably.
Yeah, they don't even know.

Lij Shaw (48:26):
I've got a horrible story about that.
About I have taught so manypeople.

I was like, Do you know that you can unscrew it
and take it off?
They were like, What are youtaught?
Don't break it.
And it the whole thing comesoff.
And I'm like, You're supposedto watch this.

Lij Shaw (48:40):
Yeah, you want to hear the gross, my gross story.
All right, so we were doing wewere doing a song, uh, it was
called the chemistry song in inmy band in college.
And um Rich Scubish sings allthese great funny lyrics, and at
one point he's singing a songabout like mixing all this stuff
together as a chemistrystudent, and then he ends up
with a test tube full of air.

(49:00):
Last like that's the punchline.
And so we're doing the um, andI'm singing harmony with him,
and I get to the end, and justbefore he says air, I thought
like, oh, I'm gonna make like anair sound.
But instead of blowing on themic, I inhaled, I was like, like
that, and all the stuff thatwas in that mic came right out

(49:22):
of it, right into my mouth.
That is so disgusting.

Oh god.

Lij Shaw (49:27):
So lesson learned.

You actually actually that's really gross.
Yeah, it's really gross.

Lij Shaw (49:35):
But I did it for the team, you know.
I took one for the team.
Now everybody knows.
Yeah.

Now that I'm now never doing that.

Lij Shaw (49:39):
I mean, it took me 30 years to make the podcast and
finally get it out there, butnow everybody knows that, you
know, don't suck on themicrophone, don't inhale on it,
blow on it if you gotta make amake a you know, special sound
effect.

Okay, um that's really gross.

Lij Shaw (49:55):
So let me uh let me pivot for a second.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
One of the things youmentioned, okay.
We'd have to go long on this,but I just thought it really
caught my attention is um alongwith your interest in music and
recording, um, you also didn'tyou say you were also like doing
strength training or weightweightlifting and stuff like
that?

Yeah.
Yeah.

Lij Shaw (50:13):
So what's that all about?

Well, so I do yoga every day.

Lij Shaw (50:17):
Okay, cool.

And I was a part of my weightlifting, like
Olympic weightlifting program inmy high school.

Lij Shaw (50:24):
Olympic.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (50:24):
And so it's that's the name of the style of lifting.
Yeah, yeah.
You guys weren't in theOlympics.

No, imagine that would be I would be way cooler
if that was the case.
Um, no, but it's like usingkilos and doing like traditional
deadlifts or uh like cleanjerk.
Yeah.
Um you know, sumo deadlift uharticle.
Clean jerk.

Lij Shaw (50:43):
That seems like another cool name to use for
something like that.

Like a like a band name like name of a record
clean jerk.
Clean jerk studios.
Hmm.
Nobody take that.
Um but uh yeah, so I did a lotof strength training when I was
in the middle of doing, I waslike a three-season athlete and
I did a lot of theater and musicstuff all at once.

(51:05):
Right.
And I kind of strayed away fromthat, starting college.
And as soon as I got back intoit and doing, you know, focusing
on my like health and fitnessand that kind of thing, this
past like calendar year, um,it's really impacted my level of
creativity based on cool likeday-to-day stuff that I've

(51:27):
noticed and um focus too.
And my dad, yet again, has awhole philosophy on like the the
body and mind connection.
And through starting my yogayogi journey, um and you know,
going to the gym and andlifting, it's really made me

(51:47):
have has allowed me to makedecisions creatively, like when
I'm in the studio as theproducer, with like in a in a
snap and an instant to rely onmyself and my own instincts,
because I think the stress andthe anxiety kind of leaves, or I
can deal with it in a bettermanner because I have literally

(52:11):
less stress in my body throughdoing the weightlifting and
fitness and stuff.
And also because it just likemy back hurts a lot.

Lij Shaw (52:20):
So I've noticed that too.
The more I lift too, like well,actually, I don't think like
it's the lifting that's hurtingmy back.
It's when I it's the in-betweenwhen I do like the full body
ones without weights.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
And then I'm like, ah, my backkind of aches after that.

And then you do like my recovery for that is
more yoga.
Just doing more of it.
And if I keep up with it, ifI'm in a routine, then my daily
routines follow in like a nice,I don't know, organized kind of
setup manner.
So why would I it's really whenI take breaks is when I notice

(52:54):
things are like really wrong andeverything just feels wrong.
And I like my friends noticewith me too.
They're like, you're beingweird today.
I'm like, forgot to do yogathis morning.
So yeah.

Lij Shaw (53:08):
Yeah, so I think that's great.
And it's good to hear thatyou've got that attitude or that
um understanding of exerciseand health and stuff like that.

And I've been trying to do self-disciplined
stuff too.

Lij Shaw (53:19):
It helps with a lot of stuff.
And you know, like for me, Iput in a decade initially of
making records where it was likeseven days a week, morning, you
know, wake up to sleep.
And it's not a healthy way toto live, but I think that the
fact that every time I took abreak, it was like go work out,
eat dinner, back to the studiokept me able to deal with it

(53:42):
all, you know.

Yeah, and I learned the hard way a little
bit uh last summer because Iwould go, you know, early in the
morning.
I was teaching this songwritingcamp, and we would go from
eight to one or nine, nine toone-ish.
So it wasn't the worst, but Iwould wake up early because I
had to take the train in, and Iwould wake up at whatever

(54:05):
six-ish to take the train, thenI would go teach, and teaching
is like, you know, on your feet.
You have to be really into itwith all the kids to try and
control that classroom, and thengo straight to the studio to
attempt to record my my album,which that is a separate story
too.
Right.
Um but then I would go home andif I just like laid around,

(54:28):
laid on my couch, didn't doanything, I would be so
unproductive the next day, and Iwould be off my game with the
songwriting and trying to getthese kids to be really
interested in the you know thecraft of creating music.
And then in the studio, I wouldlike have a really hard time
trying to get my ideas across.

Lij Shaw (54:46):
Right.

And then so last semester, I like totally
disregarded everything that Ilearned in the summer of like,
you know, it's really importantto take care of yourself because
like to keep yourself going,you have to take care of your
needs and your not just what youwant and not just your goals.
Because having that strongfoundation will help you propel

(55:08):
for for further forward.
Um and I like let myself burnout again, and I really had to
take the time to step back andunderstand what I needed and
eliminate some things that werecausing me problems or some
things that weren't really likenecessarily serving me.
And focusing on my fitness andstuff was a really good way to

(55:29):
help um get that foundation ofyeah, like solid to have me
propel forward.
Right.
So that's that's been myexpedition.
Now a lot of trial and error.

Lij Shaw (55:41):
Now you're in you're just finishing up school and and
recording music and everythingand getting getting a degree and
all that.
Uh what how do you want todescribe what it's been like to
be in school for recording?
What kind of stuff do you feltfeel like you've learned there?
What kind of stuff did youthink you were gonna learn?
And um what is uh what are thethings about a school

(56:04):
environment that you think havebeen really helpful?

I think so.
My expectations for learning, Ididn't really have that many.
I joined a brand new programand I was already at college for
a year, and then the programcame to fruition.

Lij Shaw (56:20):
You're like, oh yeah, that's for me.

Yeah, and I like had ideas of it being a thing.
Otherwise, I was gonna go intoyou know, film and TV, do
communications, something likethat, and then try and focus in
the audio.

Lij Shaw (56:31):
Next thing you know, that you'd be standing in front
of a mic in front of a houseburning, yeah, I don't know.

Or meteorology or like something.
Meteorology.
I don't know.
I don't know where I was gonnago.
But then they were like, oh,it's gonna be a recording thing
with like pop music, and it'llbe half in the music school,
half in the communicationsschool, so film and TV and that
kind of stuff.
And I was like, okay, that'sreally perfect.

(56:57):
Um, so my expectations were,oh, I'm gonna learn how to
record my own stuff, and I don'tknow how much I care about
really getting into it.
I just want to learn how to getthe technical side to work for
me.
And then as I was going throughthe whole, you know, you have
to take this elective, this isyour coursework, this is your

(57:19):
everything, these are yourrequired classes for the major.
I kind of realized I did a lotof post-production.
I did, you know, music for myfirst year, first two semesters.
Then it was a lot of post andlive stuff.
And then this year, senioryear, I kind of got to branch

(57:40):
out and do more of what Iwanted.
Um, and through experiencing alittle bit of everything, that
was the point of our major too,is kind of picking, choosing
your lane of where you want togo and experiencing a little bit
of everything so that you areaware of what's out there.

Lij Shaw (57:55):
What what lane did you feel like was most interesting
to you?

I thought that it was gonna be um live.
That's how I came in too.
I was doing a lot of theaterand I was doing a lot of live
band um live soundreinforcement.
And then I got into post, andthe way that I was in post, I

(58:18):
decided that I hated doing sounddesign editing.
I hated editing on Pro Tools,and I hated when I had a teacher
like telling me what to dobehind me.
And so then in all theclassroom environments, I would
kind of have a creative, morelike out-of-the-box um

(58:38):
perspective.
And I made roles of a producerfor me in every class because I
did not want to do the technicalwork.
And I didn't realize that thatwas happening until this past,
you know, fall semester, becausethen I could actually start
doing the producer roles and Imade like, you know, my own

(58:59):
independent study kind of thing.
I was working with TV classesand I was producing on that
aspect.
And so, you know, my major'srecording arts and production.
Right.
But I didn't know whatproduction meant.
I knew of famous producers, youknow, going into college.
I knew of some people that werefamous for that, you know, like
George Martin and like the theold heads kind of um, but I had

(59:23):
to learn what that meant nowtoo.
And school didn't teach methat, it came out of what I
didn't like through school.
And the same with like theopportunities that school gave
me.
Um, I would have neverconnected with some of the
people that I work with now, andI would have never had some

(59:45):
experiences that were likepivotal in me figuring out what
I wanted to do, and less of likethe education, I think it's
really important.
And I think that you know,getting educated in something
and committing to that andfinding out what you like and
where you fit, or if you hate ittoo.
I think finding out what youdislike is maybe more important

(01:00:08):
than finding out what you dolike, or finding out what you're
bad at, or like your pitfallsis probably more important than
figuring out what you're goodat.
Yeah.
Because then you can work onit.
Um, but definitely production,the lane, because I figured out
that I hated the tech.
I hated it.
Right.
I thought I would love it beingalone sitting, but no, I can't.

(01:00:31):
I'm I'm too people person.
I'm too, you know, I I zoom outtoo much.

Lij Shaw (01:00:36):
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Howdy Rockstars, we're back nowfor the jam session, aka the

(01:01:40):
second half of the show.
My guest today is Abby Griffinjoining us here at ReadyToRock
Studios.
And uh are you ready to jam?

Abbie Griffin (01:01:49):
Yeah.
All right, cool.
Definitely.

Lij Shaw (01:01:51):
So now um when I met you at NAM, you were also there
with one of you were there withuh a very close friend of yours
that I think you're making musicwith.
And then also her dad was alsothere.
Yeah.
Um, but you've been making uhso shout out to you guys.
And uh we've been or you'vebeen making music now a bunch.
So let's talk about that alittle bit.

(01:02:12):
Uh do you know, do you guyshave you formed sort of a band
you want to talk about?
And then um, you know, what isit that you really love about
songwriting?

Yeah, okay.
So my my band has been reallyfluctuating.
I had like that never happensto anybody.
Yeah, right.
That never changes.
You never have problems withband members ever.
Um but you know, your yourinterests and the path of
things, I think can reallychange within.

(01:02:43):
I mean, you know, when we wereall young too, and I was working
with a lot of different peopleand people in my program and
other things like that, and thenour goals didn't really align.
And I had a couple of set bandsthat I was working with, or we
would sit and write together.
Um, so we had like, you know,songwriting things and

(01:03:04):
performance things happeningthrough school and outside of
school a little bit.
Um and I always find it hard toget a good gel of people, which
I mean also is not a uniqueexperience.
Right.

Lij Shaw (01:03:19):
In other words, you find somebody that you think you
might be able to play with, butthen they don't necessarily
play well together.

Or they play well together, but then the
personalities might have issues.
Right.
Like, you know, it might belike really great vocal
pairings, or one person playsbass really well and one person
plays guitar really well, andyou think like, oh yeah, this is
gonna go really great.
And then one person is like, Iam gonna shoot for the stars.

(01:03:45):
Like Timothy Chalamet justwanted to he just said, I am
inspired by all the greats and Iaspire for greatness.
Um, and so there are somepeople like that, and then there
are other people that are like,you know, I'd be fine with
playing basement shows for therest of my life.
And then there are other peoplethat are like, I don't ever
want to be on stage ever again.

(01:04:06):
Sorry, guys, bye.
Which is fine, all of that isfine too.
But kind of figuring out whereyour goals are, and what I was
saying earlier was like figuringout what you're not good at
versus what you are good at andyou know what you're what you
want and what you don't want isreally important because
probably changes.

Lij Shaw (01:04:26):
Yeah, it changes, it's a different experience when
you're younger.
When you're younger,everybody's figuring themselves
out.
You get a little older, andit's like people are sort of
familiar with what where they'reat, and that's exciting.
Although that can be verylimiting too.
And then there's a classic umstory of people maybe in their

(01:04:47):
twenties embarking on it, andthen they start families, and
then that changes everything,and so then there might be
somebody who's in the band who'sready to go off and really hit
the road, and somebody elsewho's like ready to settle down
families.

Somebody's starting a new job and then
can't practice at the same timethat practice used to be.

Lij Shaw (01:05:05):
Right.

And you're like, well, maybe if you uh didn't
pick up that thing, then wecould have been at the gig that
I planned three months ago.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Or like the yeah, uh, exactly.

Lij Shaw (01:05:19):
Well, and that's the beauty of um, you know, gig
economy and you know, drivingUber and doing the the you know
food deliveries and stuff likethat is it gives everybody that
flexibility to work withfreelances.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (01:05:32):
Yeah.
So I really encourage um rockstars who are thinking about,
you know, maybe at that stage oftrying to figure out how am I
going to do the combination ofthe studio stuff, the music
stuff, and work, you know, takeadvantage of those apps.
Yeah.
Now, I'm saying that I didn'tquite do that because it didn't
exist when I was coming up, butI did deliver pizzas and that

(01:05:53):
gave me a bit of flexibility.

Well, like I wait tables, and so if it's on, you
know, not uh the craziest nightof the week, you know, I make
the most money waiting tables onFriday, Saturday, which is
usually gig days too.
But if I can do a workaroundand work the other nights of the
week, I still pretty much makethe same and then I have enough

(01:06:15):
time, or if I work the dayshift, it'll be like 11 to 4,
and then my gig starts at 7.
Perfect timing.

Lij Shaw (01:06:21):
If you've if you're one of those people that can go
to bed late after a gig andstill get up early for the
coffee shop.

Oh, I did that too.
Oh, that was hard.
Getting up for like 5 a.m.
Yep.
Oh man.

Lij Shaw (01:06:32):
I had an intern in the studio, Mark Primo.
Shout out to you, Mark.
Um, who he had that morningroutine at Starbucks for a lot
for a long time.
But of course, he also liked itbecause Starbucks was one of
those places that would give youat that at that time they'd
give you health insurance too,or something like that.
Yeah, my job is that too.
Um, so now talk talk about songor songwriting.
What do you love aboutsongwriting?

(01:06:54):
You do I know you wereinfluenced by Joni Mitchell.
Like who inspires you in musicand songwriting?
Because and I just want topreface this by saying, you
know, there's the there's themood and the tone of music that
we like too.
But at some point, you know, ifyou get interested in songs,
you become really interested inlike what a song is and what

(01:07:17):
what are what goes into thewords of a song and stuff like
that.
So, what does that all mean toyou and and what gets you
excited about it?

So for me, like I'll start with my inspirations,
Joni Mitchell, for sure.
But that's kind of a morerecent one, actually.
I was like, I guess raised on alot of Beatles, like, and I
probably everybody says that,but it's so true.
Like both of my grandparents,Beatles diehard fans, and my

(01:07:45):
first album I ever had on CD wasthe white album.
And then I had one day that itbroke, the disc two broke, and
it was my worst nightmare.
I cried, it was so sad.
Um, and Michael Jackson, a lotof my mom's lucky number is
eight, and that's how manyGrammys he won in 1984.

(01:08:06):
I think she said, depending onhow many Grammys he wins, that's
gonna be my lucky number, andit ends eight.
Um and so that's you know,Beatles is for a lot of lyrical
stuff in their earlier things,like, you know, the Meet the
Beatles or White or Rubber Soul.
Um, that kind of vibe.
I also uh very much enjoy AbbeyRoad too, which you know, I'm

(01:08:27):
Abbey, and I have the Abbey Roadposter hanging in my room um at
home.
Uh so yeah, Beatles, MichaelJackson, a lot of Elvis too.
And um that's my main likeorigins kind of.
Um, those are all male singer.

Lij Shaw (01:08:44):
Well, Joni Mitchell's female singer.

But then if I go and think about my newer kind of
rebirth, because I I feel asthough my songwriting can be
broken up into sections of whenI was just learning, starting
out I was 12, whatever, with mybrand new ukulele, and then like
my own.

Lij Shaw (01:09:02):
Well, sometimes we start with songs that are just
learnable, right?

Yeah, and I would learn Taylor Swift's songs, and
because they were C G A minor Dor whatever the basic four
chords that she used in, youknow, like 60% of her songs of
the Fearless album.
That was one of my biggestinspirations.
And some people are, you know,haters, but I think as a little

(01:09:27):
girl growing up in like afarmish town, I was like, she
sees me, she knows me.
Right.
So my starting out was a ton ofTaylor Swift.
Let me ask you that.

Lij Shaw (01:09:39):
Yeah, what do you think it is about what she does
in those songs that hits themark just right?
That you as a girl growing upon a farm felt like she sees me,
she is she hears me.
Well, what is it about that?
Because I mean that's a kind ofan important thing, right?

Yeah.
Um for me personally, she hasthis her song 15, and it's like
about her going to high schoolfor the first time and like
learning new things.
But that song came out when Iwas in second grade, but her
best friend's name is Abigail,and that was one of the first
songs I ever heard by her, and Iwas like, she's literally

(01:10:18):
speaking to me.
And then once I, you know,maybe two years older than that,
fourth grade or whatever, on myiPod shuffle, green, green
little guy.
Um, I think her rawness in herkind of heartbreak loneliness
vibe was really speaking to meas you know, a little girl on a

(01:10:42):
farm.
She has a couple of songs thatare very wistful and very like
yearning.
And I was bored a lot.
And somebody has a quote, Iforget who said it, but it's
she's every 13-year-old girl'sbest friend when they're going
throughout, you know, a breakupor you know, you belong with me.

(01:11:04):
I felt that so hard, you know,before I had crushes or
anything.
I was like, oh man, that'sthat's kind of how I feel about
wanting to be everybody'sfriend.
And I was a little bit of aweird girl too.
Like I had I was a littleoff-kilter.
Um, but I think everybody feelslike that, or majority of

(01:11:25):
people feel like that in theirown way.
I still feel like it.
Yeah, I mean, I definitelystill feel like that.
I always feel weird, weird girlvibes all the time.
Everyone's like, You're soweird.
Well, oh, one of my lunchladies when I was growing up,
her nickname for me was AbbyNormal.
And so on the playground.
I just used that quote on thepodcast recently.

(01:11:45):
Do you know what it's from?
Yeah, yeah.

Lij Shaw (01:11:47):
Young Frankenstein.
Yeah, it's crazy.

What kind of brain did you put in there?
Uh Abby something.
Abby Normal.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think she, even in herinterviews and stuff, always
felt a little off and a littleweird.
And she just wrote that in hersongs.
And I think that some peopledon't like them because they're

(01:12:10):
not necessarily too complex, atleast her older things, like you
know, her debut album, herfearless album, Speak Now, or
whatever.
Um, they're very plain andsimple.
She's telling a story, how ithappened to her, and literally
how it made her feel.
And I think that's like thebasis of all songwriting is how

(01:12:30):
it happened, telling the story,how it made you feel, and then
from that, you release that oror perform it or whatever.
And that's exactly what theaudience is gonna tell you, and
what the audience is gonna feel.
They're gonna follow that storyin their brain of something
that resonates, like a littlepart of them that resonates with
that, and how that experiencemade them feel.

(01:12:52):
It's not gonna be the sameexperience that the writer had.
It's not gonna be the samefeeling that the writer had.

Lij Shaw (01:12:57):
But is this is this sort of to the point of you
know, show don't tell?

Mm-hmm.

Lij Shaw (01:13:02):
I think when you describe and show something in a
song lyric, then somebody itevokes an image and then they
write their own version of it intheir head.

I really think that that's important, but show
don't tell was always a littleweird for me because I was like,
well, I want to tell them aboutmy experience.
I want to tell them about mylife.

Lij Shaw (01:13:24):
And like what do you think of when you when you think
of that?
Are there example lyrics thatever come to mind?

Well, if I think about if we're going on the
Taylor Swift thing, I think it'sa really good, easy bass line
to think about songwriting, islike the song 15 is the line
with Abigail.
Like you sit in class next to aredhead named Abigail, and soon
enough your best friendslaughing at the other girls who
think they're so cool.
We'll get out of here as soonas we can.

(01:13:50):
And she that song is literallylinear talking about her story,
and it's telling the audience,but it's the song that resonated
with me the most.
And then there's songs like Idon't know, if we're going on
her or like a Beatles song.
I think those are very plainand simple as well.

(01:14:11):
Like, drive my car, like babyyou can drive my car, I guess
I'm gonna be a star, maybe youcan drive my car, and maybe I
love you.
And it's that's that's it.
Um and everyone's like, youknow?
Yeah, um, however, you get intothings that are I think that's
a lot of telling and lessshowing, and I think showing can

(01:14:36):
be in the way of you're showingthem the the things that you
went through, um, and showingthe the story because of your
describing what happened.
Um and like for me when I washearing that Taylor Swift song,
I was thinking, oh well, I I'mthe Abigail.

(01:14:59):
Who am I the Abigail of?
What story is this gonna be forme?
Oh, I want to have you knowthose experiences like that when
I was growing up.
I was like, I want to be likethat, like I wanna choose my own
kind of thing.
And then I think about songsthat are like based on poetry,
or even for my own songs.
I wrote um, I composed themusic for two-headed calf, and

(01:15:22):
it's based on a poem by LauraGilpin, and it's completely
poetry.
All of the lyrics, they're noneof mine.
Um, but that song is telling astory about how the calf was
born with two heads and thendied the night that they were
born.

Lij Shaw (01:15:42):
And is that on live from Oni's house?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool.
So, Rockstars, we have thatlink in the show notes.
So if you want to check out themusic Abby's making, um, you
know, she's got a great soundingvoice, you know, nice um
acoustic guitars.
It's a very simple thing.
It sounds like it was in themoment.

Well, that we can go into that too, of how I
recorded too.
Sure, if you want, yeah, yeah,tell us.

Lij Shaw (01:16:04):
But for like isn't one of the songs, isn't there just
a voice memo?

Yeah, it is literally.
Um, but for songwriting,there's a poetry aspect, and so
that poem, I was inspired bythat because I saw somebody make
a TikTok or something about it,and they were like really
analyzing the words because Ihad read the poem in high school
and I was like, oh, okay,whatever.
I was always into Shakespeare,and that's what I do too, to get

(01:16:28):
inspiration and to kind of takea break from listening to the.

Lij Shaw (01:16:31):
Can you quote a Shakespeare line right now?

To be or not to be that there you go.
Um But there's a sonnet toothat I was inspired by for one
of my other songs that isn't outyet.
Um, but I sit and read a lot ofpoetry, and I think that's a
lot of showing, not telling.
Shakespeare, some people mightdisagree with that he tells a

(01:16:53):
lot, but because of his plays.

Lij Shaw (01:16:55):
Well, it's because of the way he says stuff you said.
What is it?
What's the idea?
I'm gonna mess this up, but uh,if music be the food of love,
then play on, play on.
That the appetite in surfitingmay so sicken and die.

Yes.
What a line.
Yeah, wow.
That's right off the items.

Lij Shaw (01:17:15):
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But a lot of his stuff was meant to be performed
and was meant to be stageproductions.
And whereas his sonnets are alittle more poetry-based, a
little more rhymey, have they'vegot the iambic pentameter.
But like for uh two-headedcalf, it's telling you the story
of the two-headed calf, butreally it's showing the

(01:18:33):
experience of the scarcity andimportance of life as it is.
And there's a whole differentfeeling that comes from the
words.
The words are about, you know,the calf spending its life with
its mother, and its life was,you know, fleeting.
It's one day or, you know, amorning and a night.

(01:18:53):
Um, or it was born in the nightand then, you know, died before
the dawn.
And there's something beautifulabout the showing ability and
how those lyrics about a literalfarm animal can resonate with
somebody and be like, oh, youknow, this story reminds me of

(01:19:15):
this one day, or it reminds meof my grandpa, or it reminds me
of the hardships that I've hadto go through as like being a
weird girl, but it's a storyabout a farm animal.
So show show not tell to me, Ikind of almost disagree with it
because I think you can show alot by telling somebody

(01:19:35):
something.

Lij Shaw (01:19:36):
Right.
But so you're you use theTaylor Swift verse as an
example, and and maybe we canreview that again, but it's kind
of a version of showing, right?
It doesn't, did she say in theverse, this is the way you're
supposed to feel?

I think that's where people get confused, too.

Lij Shaw (01:19:52):
Right.

No, not at all.
I think telling the audiencehow they're supposed to feel
what who are you to tell?

Lij Shaw (01:19:59):
Right.

There's this thing that um my acting for the
screen teacher, she used a lotof like, well, this is this is
going a little off the path, butlike Uda Hagen, and you're not
supposed to have in the stagedirections, you know, the
actor's gonna feel like blank.
The line and getting intocharacter is gonna tell you how

(01:20:22):
the actor would, you know, howyour character would react to
something like that.
Like acting is reacting.
And I think in songwriting it'sthe exact same thing.
If you want your audience toresonate, I think you've got to
like not put the feelings in thestage directions.
So not putting the, you know, Ifelt sad today kind of song.

Lij Shaw (01:20:45):
Um unless you're being ironic.

Unless you're like weird owl or like somebody.
Um but I think leaving the I Istruggle a lot with trying to
find the the root of the meaningas a songwriter of other songs.
And I have arguments all thetime about like what songs mean,
but really it means somethingunique to everybody if it

(01:21:08):
resonates with you in a certainway.
Way it does, but I think as awriter, I get kind of
intellectual about certainsongs, and I'm like, I want to
know the real, the real one.
And how are you?

Lij Shaw (01:21:17):
Are you good with words?
Do you do you sort of know allthe words to songs?
I mean, you just quoted TaylorSwift.
So that to me is something I'vereally noticed.
There's a difference.
Um, I've known particularlywith women, I've known people
who are great at knowing whatthe words are.
And for me, I'm like, what arethe words to that song?
You know, and I and I discoverthem at the sometimes I'll

(01:21:38):
produce a record and I get tothe end of the record, and I'm
like, oh, those are now I getit.

I just talked, I just had an interview with Pat
Metheny, and I just talked withhim about that.
And he said when he was workingwith Joni Mitchell, he was
like, you know, she's all abouther lyrics, but honestly, when I
was playing guitar in hertracks, I had no idea what she
was saying.
And so some people are talkingabout the sonic elements and

(01:22:03):
phrasing and how that affectsthem emotionally.
And I think other people, like,you know, if you compare Pat
versus Joni, Joni is like gonnatalk about California, gonna
talk about her relationships,like same as Taylor Swift.
They're gonna talk about, youknow, stories and things that
happen to them.
Meanwhile, like Pat Methaneycan play guitar on the track,
not know anything what'shappening, but know exactly how

(01:22:26):
it makes it feel.
And that's a little bit of theshow and tell aspect that push
and pull musically.
I think you can show a lot.
Yeah.
And I think there are ways oftelling things musically by
using like your, you know, one,four, five, go through the
motions of a sad song and you'regonna use minor chords, or you

(01:22:47):
could leave that up tointerpretation of, you know,
your lyrics are gonna be sweetand your music's gonna be minor,
and then it's up to theaudience which meaning they take
from it.

Lij Shaw (01:22:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating.
When so let's rewind a sec.
You just said I had just had auh interview with Pat Matheny.
Yeah.
Does that mean you werelistening to one, or did you get
a chance to no?

I got a chance to sit down with him.
Really?
Yeah.
It's tell us all about that.
So I don't know where it'sgonna be posted.
Uh we gotta figure outsomewhere.

Lij Shaw (01:23:13):
But keep it out of context.

Yeah, yeah.
So I got a chance to sit downwith him.
And we I had a lot of questionsfor him that were like, you
know, from from the production,and they wanted to know some
specific things about like hisopinions on stuff, but I really
wanted to know how you knowthings affected him on a
creative and emotional aspectbecause he had been talking, you

(01:23:39):
know, at my school.
Um and he was at like animmersive residency program
thing.
So he was doing a lot oftalking about chords and
technique, and I wanted to knowhis philosophies more.
And so I got a chance to sitdown and talk to him, and he
brought new perspectives tocertain things that I had not

(01:24:00):
even thought about.
Um, and one of the things thatresonated with me the most was
he talked about kind of stickingto his guns and being the most
himself from day one.
And he was talking about how hesees his musical journey as a
song, as a storybook, and eachalbum as a chapter, and like

(01:24:26):
that chapter can't really everbe edited again if he were to go
back because he's constantlychanging, but it'll all still be
in that same book and that sameit's still him, and he's been
him from day one, and he told mea story of how once he released
his very first album, he waslike, All right, okay, this only

(01:24:51):
sold 800 copies.

Lij Shaw (01:24:53):
Was that American Garage?
Do you know?
I think I mean then you might Idon't know if you know his
discography very well.

It was I'll look it up.

Lij Shaw (01:25:02):
I'll look it up while we're chatting.

Um, but he talked about it and he was so
disappointed.
He was like, All right, I guesswe're gonna go on to the next
one.
We're gonna see, see what elseI can do.
I think I have to do somethingdifferent.
I maybe, but he really justfelt confident that he put it
out.
He was like, All right, it iswhat it is.
A radical acceptance, andthat's what my therapist says

(01:25:26):
too.
Um, but I I'm gonna radicallyaccept that it just only sold
800.
And then he said 15 yearslater, people were coming to him
after he had released, youknow, two or three or four or
whatever more albums, and he sawthat it went, you know, gold,
and they resonated it resonatedwith it like crazy.

(01:25:47):
People come up to him aftershows and be like, I remember
when you put out that firstalbum, and that like changed my
life.
And he told me when he lookedback and it only made 800
copies, how much that didn'tmatter because as long as it
resonated with somebody, yeah,that was the point.

(01:26:08):
Yeah.
Um and then he told me tosometimes yeah, exactly.
Well, he told me to like stickstick to what makes you you and
being yourself, and it'll likebe fruitful as long as you stick
with that.
Like if you're constantlychanging and pandering towards
other people's, you know, idealsor anything, you're never

(01:26:31):
really gonna find your fitbecause you'll be floundering a
little bit.
Right.
Um, but he told me too.
I was like, I don't I have lessthan a thousand streams on
every single song that Ireleased, and I released like
six of them.
Um, and I felt reallydiscouraged, or in my recording
process, like I didn't evenrelease anything, and my mom was

(01:26:54):
like, Oh, those songs are sogood, we've got to put them out.
And they didn't really resonatewith me.
Um thanks, mom.
Yeah, yeah.
Thanks, mom.
Moms are the best.
Yeah, she she was like, Oh, whydon't you just release that
song like already?
And I'm like, get her.
She doesn't want to be great.
She does sound like um, shesounds just like me, actually.
But he said, Well, just stickwith it because you don't know

(01:27:17):
if in 15 years it's gonna gogold and you're gonna have
people coming up to you likingthat album more than your most
recent one.
You have no idea.

Lij Shaw (01:27:24):
So this says if his first one was 1978 Pat Matheny
group, second one was AmericanGarage.
Um, I when when I was in highschool, yeah, he was playing in
Providence, Rhode Island.
So I had my grandmother's umold conversion van and I filled
it with my friends from highschool.
Yeah.
We drove down there for anight.
That's awesome.

(01:27:44):
The song next to her, which wasreally wild, really wild.
They had like two ofeverything.
Yeah, Coleman was playing withhim.
That's awesome.

And he had he told me, he was like, Oh yeah,
you know, like Chickory Hurry,Herbie Hancock.
He just played with so manygreats, and I asked him a
question about um if that reallyinfluenced you and your, you
know, your further um works.
He was like, honestly, I thinkit influenced those works, and I

(01:28:13):
think I'm still me.
And that was really interestingto me.
And he was like, I think I lookback and I see a lot of growth
from myself, but it's still allvery me.
And I don't think I ever reallychanged fundamentally who I am
as a person because of who I'vemet, but I think that you know,
emotionally it has influenced myjourney.

(01:28:36):
Um but he was like he he justsuch a unique thing.
He was like, I know I'm justalways me all the time.
This is just how I am, this ishow I play, this is what I've
got to do, and I'm gonnaconstantly, you know, evolve and
create and improve, but it'sgonna be me concretely all the
time.

Lij Shaw (01:28:55):
Yeah.

And I struggled so much with that.
And then I released this lastproject, and it it was like, you
know, if I if I could talk alittle bit about that, it was we
me and my engineer.
He I sent him a voice memo, andit was of me, my grandma, and
my dad singing and playing oneof the songs that my grandpa

(01:29:20):
wrote out on our front porch, onmy grandma's front porch, and
he was like, You have to recordthis.
Uh I don't know, maybe do Irecord it?
Blah blah blah blah.
I don't know if it's thegreatest song, blah, blah, blah.
He was like, No, you're we'resitting down and recording it.
So we sat down um on just rightbefore two days before
Christmas on that Sunday beforeDecember 2024.

(01:29:43):
Um, and we sat down for likesix hours and recorded five or
four songs, and then we sat downthe next week and recorded, you
know, two more.
And then I had a voice memo ofa song that my grandpa just
wrote.
But we sat down and we capturedeverything with mixed free six

(01:30:05):
in my grandma's living room, andmy whole family was around me
setting up for Christmas andcleaning, and they were eating,
and there was like laughing andtalking and everything.
Everybody was around, and wewould have all right, everybody
quiet for four minutes as we'regonna record this song, and then
you can come go back tochatting and yapping and
whatever.
Um, and we did multiple takesof stuff, but it was really

(01:30:27):
super live and super in themoment, very as is.
We're not gonna edit anything,we're gonna do barely any
processing, we're gonna put ittogether very, very live, very,
very natural, organic sounding.
And I wanted it to live in itsown moment.
And so then when Pat said it'sa storybook and a chapter, that

(01:30:50):
to me was the best chapter Icould have put out as my first
one because it was like myfamily origins, my everything,
but it was so lived in thatmoment and like a little pocket
in time.

Lij Shaw (01:31:04):
Yeah.
Um and this so the beauty ofthat, so some things have come
to mind.
One is the wonderfulness abouthow when you're young and you do
recordings and sessions,they're such a big they
represent such a big chunk ofyour experience.
Yeah.
You know, when you get a likeafter you do many, many, many,
many, you know, they they you doyou're just uh, you know, they

(01:31:26):
they come uh occupy maybesmaller parts of the I do feel
like a little baby when I waslike, This is my first ever
brother.
But it's great, but then alsolike you know, to your point,
it's like even if you could havedone a better version later,
you can't go back and get thatand have that moment again.
So that's why it's really niceto capture moments and just do
things when it's the time, youknow.

And the number I had like divine timing or
something because the day thatthat released, my grandmother
passed away.
Oh wow, and she sang on thetitle track.

Lij Shaw (01:31:58):
Oh, aren't you so glad?

And my whole family had that to listen to and
to process and to while wewere, you know, grieving from
that, and it's still really hardnow.
But like I if I hadn't donethat, I would have never had
anything.
Or she she also had she was anartist and she had like a

(01:32:21):
recording contract kind ofthing.
She had a duo when she wasyounger, and it was like when
she was in college, like my age,22-ish.
Um, and then like her partnerleft, and then it was a whole
big drama thing, and then shemoved to New Jersey and never
really did music again, besidesin church and for, you know,
singing odds and ends here andthere, and she never got to
release anything.
And so if I didn't sit down andjust make it happen right then

(01:32:45):
and there, you know, commit tothat being a moment, she never
would have released anything.
And she released her first eversong ten hours before she
passed away.

Lij Shaw (01:32:58):
Wow.

And so like that's very poignant.
I I had no idea that I wasgonna it was gonna be timing
like that.
I had no plan.
We had no idea.
She was 72 and we had no ideathat it was gonna like, you
know, things were gonna take aturn for the worse or whatever.
But yeah, like if I hadn't donethat, I you could never ever go

(01:33:23):
back.
Like you can't, you know, Ithink with like digital, it the
undo button, like there isn't alife undo button, and taking
things in stride like as theycome to you is really important.
And I learned I my my thingabout my life is I learned
everything the hard way becauseI have to go through it.
I kind of have to suffer allthe time, and you know, I'm not

(01:33:45):
you know, woe is me about it,but I do have to do things in uh
I've gotta do it and experienceit.
People can't tell me I won'tlisten.
I've gotta do it and live it.
And that was like the biggestexperience that I could have had
in that way of doing thingsnow.
And no matter the quality, Iwas like, you know, my my song

(01:34:09):
Mother was not my greatestperformance, but I talked with
my engineer and I I said, wehave to put this out because you
know, I wrote it about her whenI found out she had breast
cancer uh one whole year before.
Um, and that's not even whatshe passed from.
Um I sang it in my kitchen inher kitchen to her after going

(01:34:30):
into the city as she gottreatment for it, and that's the
day like that she found out.
And I was like, so that storybehind it has to be on this
album or live from Oni's houseis we sat there, it was the last
time before, you know, it wasthat time my family was
together.
On Christmas, my family wastogether, and then the week that

(01:34:51):
she passed, my family wastogether.

Lij Shaw (01:34:52):
Well, that's the thing about, you know, as we get over
two families, you know, familygatherings.
Yeah.

Yeah, unfortunately.
But if we hadn't created that,it would have never Yeah.

Lij Shaw (01:35:05):
No, I think it's great.
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Um, so so to that point too,let's talk about the songwriting
some more, too.
So, like what what do you feellike is your daily songwriting

(01:36:13):
routine?
Um, where do you findinspiration for what you want to
write about?

From anywhere.
I know I feel like a lot ofpeople say that, but from things
that make me feel a specificway, or like any any way that
feel makes me feel strongly.
So if I see, you know, thelight just streaming through the
windows at the exact perfectshade of color through like with
a pattern, that'll inspire meto write a little thing in my

(01:36:40):
notes app.

Lij Shaw (01:36:41):
What's what is the notes app?
Is it like a phone thing?

Like literally.

Lij Shaw (01:36:44):
I see you've got your phone right there.

On my on my iPhone.

Lij Shaw (01:36:47):
I've got um so you just like jot down an idea for
something and then so okay, sonow you have I title my notes
songs.
It's great, and it's it's agreat um, it's a common way to
capture things.
But then the next part of thestage is like, but then you have
to go back through the stuff.
If you just have a collectionof stuff and you never go back
through it, right?

(01:37:08):
Sometimes I never go backthrough.
So what do you what do you whatdo you want to say about that?
What works for you or doesn'twork, or where do you beat
yourself up, all that stuff?
Like all this.

So uh sometimes I have an idea and I'm like uh
last week I was practicing formy guitar concert, and then I
made a wrong note and I made aweird riff, and I kept repeating
it, and I had stuff to do thatday.

Lij Shaw (01:37:31):
What's your guitar concert?

It was like uh strings and piano or a guitar
class whatever you call it.
Classical night, and it wasliterally I performed on a
Wednesday with you know in my inthe concert hall at the time.

Lij Shaw (01:37:46):
Was it like a classical piece you had to learn
in a traditional style?

It was gonna be, and then my guitar lessons
usually are just therapysessions, and I show him my
songs, and he was like, You'regonna perform that.
Don't even work on whatever wewere just working on, you're
gonna perform that.
And so I was practicing anoriginal, and then it sparked a
different original based on theriff, and then I like was

(01:38:11):
supposed to go and do my work,and I have a problem with um
doing music instead of doingwork.
That's kind of what I'm doingright now, right?

Lij Shaw (01:38:18):
Right, right.

Um, which is awesome.
It's my favorite thing to do,not do work and do music instead
of doing it.

Lij Shaw (01:38:23):
I like doing music so much more than I like doing
work.

So much better.

Lij Shaw (01:38:26):
And I I get caught thinking I gotta do all this
work so I can do the music, andI and I feel like sometimes
that's false thinking.

Yeah.
So I sat down, canceledwhatever I had, and for the next
two hours I sat and wrote thewhole song start to finish.
And I'm gonna go back and editit.
But the most recent songs havebeen sit down.
It I feel like a conduit forsome kind of emotion is speaking
to me through this guitar riff,through the way the window
looks, through where I am rightnow.

(01:38:54):
And if I don't get it out, I'mnever going to again.
And you know, Paul McCartneyhas a thing about he, you know,
woke up in the middle of thenight and writes some stuff that
he was imagining in his brain,or there's so many stories of
you're writing on a dinernapkin, and there's a lot of
things like that that I do withmy notes app, and they never

(01:39:14):
become anything, or I have thosekind of inspiration moments.
And you don't you shouldn'twait for inspiration to strike,
but I keep the log of those songideas so that when I'm in a
mood to sit down or I have thetime or I book out time like in
my schedule to sit down and goback through and write things,

(01:39:36):
or if I have a chorus, I'll goback through my little Just pick
one of them.
Yeah, my dad calls them seeds,song seeds, and I'll see what
kind of resonates with thatemotion or that feeling, or I
have a chord progression that Ireally like, and I'm like, let's
see if something can come up.

Lij Shaw (01:39:52):
So there's some and it's like when you plant six
seeds and then you pluck all theones that didn't grow very
much, toss them and just go withit, go with the germinating.
Looking pretty good.

Yeah.
I'll and some of them I'llleave, like most of them I just
leave as they are, and some willbe two sentences of like
something weird, and I can usethat as the start to a chorus,
or I'll repeat that, and thenit'll become its own song, or
I'll have moments where I sitdown, I have a chord

(01:40:23):
progression, and I have a waythat the song is gonna go, and
then I'm searching through allmy seeds to see what I can plug
in into the song.
And that's a little moregranular, a little more
intellectual than like ainspiration hits moment.

Lij Shaw (01:40:39):
Do you feel like there's an obligation to always
use and plug in what's alreadybeen started?
Or do you feel uh do you feellike it's easy for you to look
at something that's in the songseeds notes, think, oh, I'm
gonna work on this, but thennext thing you know, you're just
writing new stuff.
Is that tricky sometimes?

Yeah.
Um a lot of the time I'll takea seed and I have, you know, um
like a my moleskin kind ofsongbook, and I'll take a seed.
seed, write out that seed onone side and do a free write
kind of any words that come out,stream of consciousness vibe,
and I'll have the chordprogression and the structure on

(01:41:22):
the other side and I'll seewhat works.
But it all comes from that oneseed.
And then if I'm getting reallystuck, I'll go back through
those either that free write orother stuff that I've written in
the past, other seeds, and mixand match and then free write
out of that.

Lij Shaw (01:41:39):
Yeah.

Um or sometimes it'll be like full pieces of
poetry that I write in my notes.

Lij Shaw (01:41:46):
So you mentioned having a mole skin notebook.
So a couple of thoughts come tomind.
One is the moleskin notebook isalways the one that costs like
three times as much as the thethe cheap you know composition
book sitting right next to it.
Yeah.
But maybe you know people whodo this often and well seem to
get stuff like that.
And maybe there's somethingabout like the preciousness of

(01:42:08):
it that makes it like you'redoing something that's valuable.

One of them has my name on it from an
ex-boyfriend many years ago.
But that's like the emotion isso fueled in that thing.

Lij Shaw (01:42:20):
Right.

Um from like a lot of different a lot of
different angles from in therelationship and then out of it.
But I think I'm a very tactileperson and I think it can depend
to I some people just write intheir no tap only.
But I feel as though writingwith my like leathery book with

(01:42:42):
thicker pages with a black DixonTiconderoga pencil.
Thanks dad um no you you mighthave a different brand you've
got to upgrade because the DixonTiconderoga is so smooth.

Lij Shaw (01:42:55):
Wait, does mine say Amazon special?

Does this is this Amazon basics?
But having um it's like aritual kind of thing.
Yeah.
And I I've been doing a lot ofrituals like my yoga stuff but
um sitting down and yeah.

Lij Shaw (01:43:09):
To that point what makes a lot of sense to me now
just thinking about it, becauseI'm just going to steal all your
good ideas on this do thatbecause it's like so the the app
on the phone is perfect becausein the moment that the thing
happens the seed idea you justthat's all you have with you.
So why not use it and put it inthere very complicated.

(01:43:30):
But in the moment when you'resitting down to work on stuff
it's an intentional moment.
So that like in that moment weknow that we're going to be
doing it so it's not hard for usto grab the notebook and the
pencil and have everything withus.

And then you've got the two open the pencil the
page both pages open and thephone and other seeds like if I
have I also am a lover ofpost-it notes too.
And that'll be any pen, anypencil, any notebook, any
whatever seed somewhere.

Lij Shaw (01:43:58):
And I lose track of a lot of them because well also
don't wait don't um serialserial killers and and like you
know like crack detectives alsolove post-it notes.

Yes no literally yeah exactly um well songwriters
serial killers detectives all alittle crazy yeah I think
anyone who does music for aliving at screen office office
max.

Lij Shaw (01:44:24):
So that's cool.
So then um what about the uhlike you know you get into
writing something and you getit's easy to get like I would
pick up the guitar and some fora long time I'd play the first
chords would be like an A and aD.
And I'm like I gotta playsomething different on the
guitar.
So how do you stir things upand deconstruct your own songs?

Okay.
Um my favorite thing to do isweird tuning.
Well and then Joni Mitchellsays if you're struggling in one
art form, you have to go take abreak from that art and do
another form of art somethingelse.
And so she did a lot ofpainting um and it can be
different instruments you pickup and then you learn something

(01:45:05):
new on the drums and you mighthave a better insight into
somewhere something else thatyou're gonna play on guitar.
Or for me my go-to is differenttuning.
I have a lot of songs in dropD, open D.
I love open D.
And I've been doing like open Cand another tuning that is like

(01:45:26):
almost every single string is Cbesides one I think is a G.

Lij Shaw (01:45:29):
Do you remember to tell yourself what the tuning is
when you record it or do youcome back later and you're like
what in the hell is I doing mostof the time it's a what in the
hell am I doing?

Um but sometimes like if it's a sit down right
moment like I have I also have acandle that's inspiration.
It's a very specific scent soI've pavloved myself into
whenever that candle is lit, Ifeel like I really want to write
a song.

Lij Shaw (01:45:51):
Good call.

Yeah.
It there's a lot ofphilosophical uh psychological
things that I do for myself.
But I try and write down asmuch as possible or for
experimenting on new stuff ifI'm feeling stuck in a guitar
riff um a lot of the time I willlisten to songs that are

(01:46:13):
similar and chord progression oranything.
And I'm like, oh is that asuspended chord?
Oh is that a what differentvoicing can I use up the neck
that's maybe different?
Or is there a riff somewherethat sort of fits and I do a lot
of voice memo recording myvoice memos on my phone app is
like 49 gigabytes.

Lij Shaw (01:46:34):
Do you like the new feature where you can overdub on
your voice memo app?

So I haven't updated my iOS yet but I heard
of that feature and I freakedout because that's I have been
so what I do is I use I play theriff or the chords or whatever
over and over and over and overagain and see what else can be
done with it.
Or I listen to that thing onlyand like I don't have a lot of

(01:46:59):
listening minutes on Spotifybecause I listen to so many of
my voice memos on repeat.
And I think overlaying thingslike playing a second guitar
part over your first mightchange that first one or you
might find a different chordvoicing that you could use and I
think it's a lot of listeningand experimenting and doing

(01:47:21):
things on repeat too.

Lij Shaw (01:47:22):
And plus uh it gives you the ability to double a
vocal and stuff like that.
Yeah I mean I mean and thevoice memo it's a little bit
more or like playing guitar andthen vocal over top track one
and track two so it's not tons.
But like doing the vocal overit.
I just did one for um just justnow just today or yesterday I
did it it was my stepdad'sbirthday so I I sang happy
birthday and then I sent it tomy brother then he put an

(01:47:44):
overdub on it and now I'msending that to my sister so she
can put a harmony on it.
Yes.
Because we're in threedifferent places and we'll send
it to him.

Yeah.
I used to do like the exportthe voice memo to the garage
band app and then repeat andthen would sing oh it was like I
know it's just too complicated.

Lij Shaw (01:48:01):
I tried that stuff too and it's like it just drives
you bananas.

And I don't want to get out my whole interface
but now that feature is reallygreat because before I would
literally be listening to it onrepeat and wish I could record.

Lij Shaw (01:48:14):
Well and the other thing that it does I believe is
it integrates now this wholeSTEM technology.
So basically because you'reyou're you don't have to use
headphones so you just you'relit you're singing along to the
speaker recording you knowspeaker off your iPhone and it's
recording your voice and it'srecording the bleed of the
guitar coming back through butit knows it then it then it you

(01:48:35):
know stem extracts and isolatesthe voice so that it doesn't
sound like a total disaster.

I have to upgrade my phone to do it.
I've done it on one of myfriends' phones too and mind
blown um but I know that that'sgoing to be so so useful.

Lij Shaw (01:48:50):
It'll be interesting to see in what ways people come
up with like nobody ever thoughtof that.
I can't believe that's how whatyou came up with super
brilliant.
So let's talk let's stay onthat so um discuss the rapid
change and difference or excuseme yeah and difference of music
technology with AI and the trtraditional versus modern

(01:49:11):
description of what a producerdoes.
So that's a long-windedquestion there.
But basically you know we'resurrounded by so many cool new
tools that are coming along thatstem extractor one is to me is
a great example of I've usedthat a lot.
Well it gets it gets presentedas if you're gonna pull the

(01:49:34):
vocal out of something and thenlisten to the vocal and go, wow,
that's just the vocal and thenyou know you might hear it and
be like oh that doesn't quitesound like a real recording the
voice then you get stuck I feellike you get it's easy to get
stuck on um uh being critical ofthe wrong aspect of a new tool
not realizing that it can beincredibly useful for something

(01:49:56):
else.
Yeah.
For example like in a voicememo and vocal demo you know I
put on the the vocal stemfeature and remove the guitar
and it leaves just the voice orremove the voice and leave just
the guitar and it was like wowthat really works well for part
of the you know particularly forpre-production processes for
songwriting things like that.

(01:50:17):
So you know what what kind ofstuff gets you really excited
right now?

I have had a lot of experience using that feature
in the opposite way in thepost-production.
So I did like you know someclips of editing together like a
sizzle-ish reel of um RoseanneCash and I took out some of her
um interview things and she hassome really great great quotes

(01:50:42):
that were overlaid with one ofher songs of acoustic guitar in
the background or drums in thebackground and I did a lot of um
Serato Pro has uh like stemseparators and so I did that for
vocals and I took out thespeech from the guitar and there
was some overlap but if I hadanother guitar track playing

(01:51:02):
underneath it was reallydisguised and that was awesome
to work with.

Lij Shaw (01:51:06):
So you were able you were left with the music without
the voice talking the other wayaround.
I was left with the voicetalking without the music in the
background which you didn'tneed in that moment.

That was exactly perfect for what I needed um so
I want to see how I can workwith that in the in the
songwriting way.
I haven't really tried it yetbut I think you're giving me
inspo to to do that newterminology rock stars that
probably means inspiration.

(01:51:35):
It does mean inspiration.

Lij Shaw (01:51:37):
For those of you that aren't 22 um yeah yeah and so
what other kind of tools I meanlike you know another common
discussion of AI is is thingsthat make the music for you or
then people you know inevitablysomebody comes along and says oh
I want AI to do my laundry andmow the lawn not make my

(01:51:59):
creative arts for me.
Yeah.
And it's an easy one to likethat's an easy punch to pull I
think yeah and as I think aboutit more I'm like yeah but um it
you if you want to focus on thecreative side you can use these
tools to help you do the laundryand the lawn mowing that you
didn't want to do or vice versa.
Maybe there's somebody outthere who's great at the laundry

(01:52:22):
and the lawn mowing and doesn'tand you know the creative part
is the part they don't want todo.

So anyways like um I think AI should be used as
a tool the most to help thecreative process.
I think there is some someinterest in you know in using AI
for a creative thing.
Like you know the the AI arthave you seen um like visual I

(01:52:50):
think that can be really cooland I think that can be like a
fun expression.
But I think a lot of the timethat kind of stuff takes away
from the artists who you knowreally dedicate time to
developing their craft and putin the you know the the 10,000
hours that I think really isirreplaceable with AI.

(01:53:13):
I really don't think thatsomeone should be able to like
make money off of using it as acreative tool like you know
putting in um a prompt like I Ithink that there's a lot of
things about creating art withAI that you have to be really um
like articulate about what youwant right going in like if

(01:53:38):
you've used Chat GPT like well Ihave with college and
definitely not answers forstuff.
But you have to be veryspecific on what you want and I
think there's a skill in that.

Lij Shaw (01:53:49):
Don't worry this will come out after you receive your
diploma.

Please um yeah hopefully um but I think there's
a lot of things that you canuse for tools especially in
post-production and especiallyin music recording and editing
there's a lot of AI tools andthere's a lot of um things for
dialogue I've used the most forum like uh you know the

(01:54:15):
cancellation the stem separatingand that has been so helpful in
the pursuit of a creativeproject and really using AI as a
tool generative or or not AI Ithink are you recording your own
music or other people's musicin your studio but you're having

(01:54:36):
trouble figuring out how to getyour mixes to sound great?

Lij Shaw (01:54:39):
Do they sound weak and distant or lack punch and
clarity?
Well I've got a gift for you tohelp you take your mixes from
sounding like basement demos tosounding a lot more like
professional mixes.
And it's my free course calledMixmaster Bundle.
This course will show you howto get pro sounding mixes from
your home studio with free andstock plugins and pro tools and

(01:55:00):
the best part is these mixingtechniques will work for you in
any DOW whether you're in Logic,Cubase, Presona Studio One,
Reaper, or anything you canthink of.
Are you ready to make your bestrecord ever?
Then go to Mixmasterbundle.comto get started for free now and
you can find the clickable linkin the show notes of this
episode.
Well I think it's easy to sayuse the example of oh somebody

(01:55:22):
put in their 10,000 hours andnow somebody you know an AI
thing comes along and steals itfrom them.
So A, I don't think it exactlydoes that.
No I think it's I think it umjust evokes something that you
know feels like that thing wewant in a lot of situations.
And B, you know the nextquestion that comes to mind is

(01:55:43):
is why doesn't the artist go usethe AI as part of their tool
set unless they just don't wantto and if you don't want to if
you want to do everything with apaintbrush and paint and that's
not your thing then that's finego do that well like even in
Photoshop I've used the um likeAI generative fill for creating
different backgrounds on thingsand it's really it's been really

(01:56:03):
helpful right for stuff likethat.
Right.

But I know what I want I know the vision and I
know what I want it to looklike.
I want to know the feeling thatit evokes I want to know that
kind of energy and I think thatis where the AI, you know, it's
not gonna steal our jobs.
I really don't think so maybebut I don't think it's like a a
doom terrorizing the robots aretaking over thing.

(01:56:28):
I think it is supplemental.
Right.
And I think like yeah with thefeeling and the artist putting
in their 10,000 hours they haveto have the insight and um
wisdom to know what they wantand so putting in the prompt or
using the AI in their tool setto get to that destination.

(01:56:48):
I think you still have to havethe the skills to know what it
is that you want.
That's the whole thing aboutthe producer thing and to like
integrate that to is theproducer you have to put
together all the puzzle piecesto find that end result of that
collaborative goal of what youwant.

(01:57:11):
And I think that's how anartist or someone who's using AI
can use it in conjunction withthe things that they already
know about.
Yeah.
And even even my productionstuff like if I can't play the
drums the right way I'll bringin somebody else to do it for
me.
And that their intelligence andtheir wisdom about that

(01:57:33):
instrument with my prompts ofsaying oh can you do sixteenth
on the hat and then give it a60s whatever surf rock kind of
vibe but they'll then createthat of their own.
I think that's the exact sameas using AI in a the creative
process.

Lij Shaw (01:57:51):
Right.
Well I mean you know you havealso an ever-changing landscape
of technology.
I mean it's like you know ifyou if you focus entirely on one
chapter of technology and thatbecomes your thing and then the
tech inevitably you know it'llalways change yeah the world
keeps moving keeps movingwithout us so it's like you know

(01:58:13):
it's it's always up to us to touh adapt and change and try and
like look forward and try andand if we don't want to do
certain things you know figureout how to focus on the things
we do want to do and make themwork.
Exactly and things come aroundin cycles too we were talking
about you know the the Mackiemixer earlier and you know the
idea of analog tape and thenalong comes the home studio and

(01:58:37):
digital and then you know analogtape starts coming back again
and you've got got Chris Marawith Welcome to 1979 who very
intentionally built a studio onNashville who's like I'm just
gonna really stay focused on youknow this the a snapshot of
1979 and make that the thing andthey're and he did he's doing
it very well.

And there's a place for that.

Lij Shaw (01:58:58):
Right and then vinyl records you know if you're if
your focus was all vinyl andthen along comes digital and
they make CDs of the vinyl andthen you're just like you know
and now people go shopping forlike oh I have the coveted LP of
whatever favorite artist likeit's like a aesthetic trend
thing.

But for for so long it was obsolete.

Lij Shaw (01:59:18):
So to me like you it's much more interesting to think
about you know the the new toolsthat are coming and how to
still be creative with thembecause you know we still bring
what we want.
It's all about that process.
So what what kind of tools doyou think of now?
Like what which ones are youexploring and have you found
interesting as far as makingmusic?

(01:59:40):
I think I mean you mentionedthe stems and chat GPT.
And uh do you know people thatare using the you know the Suno
AI and the music maker ones toactually help them make music?

No.
I most of my I mean I guess inmy circles or whatever, people
are leaning more and moretowards older kinds of
technology.
Right um and maybe it's justbecause of like I guess how old
I am people are likerediscovering the things that
have been around for forever.
Yeah um what do you think ofwhen you say that like me and my

(02:00:16):
friend group have a real likefascination with tape and tape
heads and the tape saturationand how it sounds um and we are
all like in love with that soundum and of how it works and the
functionality and everything.

Lij Shaw (02:00:32):
Do you find plug-in versions of tape fascinating?

Yeah I think there are some that are like
cool.
I haven't really used many umI've been focusing on trying to
get the analog sound like fromthe source really good but I
think in searching for there'ssome waves plugins that are
pretty good for um there's theone it has like it it changes

(02:00:57):
the tape um what it looks liketape form and you can pick yeah
and that one's really cool Iused that one most recently in
my mixing the Abbey Road onemaybe yeah I think so there's
that one and then there'sanother one

Lij Shaw (02:01:10):
Um it's a lot of tape emulators out there.

Some of those are pretty good though.
Um and then in other technologylike I've used the most is um
DX Revive Pro.
And so that's really good forisolating, and that's more
post-production, not necessarilymusic.
Um, but DX Revive is reallygreat if you're wanting to
separate, or if you haveheadphone bleed too, you can

(02:01:37):
it's it has that stem isolationkind of separator.
And it's really good for that.

Lij Shaw (02:01:43):
Um now do you have friends um or do you yourself
get excited about the idea of anold tape machine and recording
to that and then sort of likethe computer?

Yeah, definitely.
I want to experience more ofthat.
Um, but one of my professorshad me at his studio clean all
the tape heads, the everything.
He had me clean and then takeup take it apart and put it back
together.
And that was a really goodexperience because it was so
different than anything I'dtouched ever before.

(02:02:14):
Um because it's like, I don'tknow, it's it's similar, I
guess, to cassette in a way ofthe you know, the playback and
record.
And yeah, yeah.
Um, yeah.
That was the Michael Jackson wehad um the radio with the
cassette player.

Lij Shaw (02:02:31):
Uh but do you have a way to do you have a cassette
that will record so you canrecord onto it and play it back
for a second?
Yeah, yeah, that's a fun one.

In my in my dad's rack.
Um I haven't yet, but I w Iwant to get into that, the older
stuff.
I a lot of it's like questionmarks for me because me and my
friend group is so we're all sointo learning the Pro Tools and
in the box and that kind ofmixing because it's so much
easier in the accessibility.

Lij Shaw (02:02:58):
And there's a lot to think, is like, you know, I walk
into my studio and I lookaround at all the stuff I've got
sometimes, and I'm like, goodlord, there's not enough.
I couldn't have enoughlifetimes to really learn and
really know it.

Yeah.

Lij Shaw (02:03:10):
And now with the digital, even just in the
digital world, there's so muchto learn.

It's like option paralysis sometimes of which
thing do I dive into next, andwhat do I like have time for?

Lij Shaw (02:03:21):
And that's one of the beauties about starting with the
the song seed, you know, it'sthe idea of the song, it's just
coming back to that, having thathome base, you know.
Yeah.
Figuring out what it is thatyou're really interested in.
So let me ask you thisquestion: where do you see
yourself in five years?
That's a good question.
Mom, dad, you're gonna lovethis one.

I've been trying to figure it out.
Um I don't know.
I felt like I had a very cleardirection in where I was going.
Um in the fall, I was like, I'mgonna be a producer.
I don't know how, I don't knowwhere, I don't know what.
Um, and then I had like the rugpulled out from under me.
Um and how so?

(02:04:01):
Well, when my grandma passedaway, she's the reason why I did
everything music-wise.
And all she wanted was like forme to be happy.
And I hated everything that Iwas doing, like in the fall and
last year.

Lij Shaw (02:04:15):
And was that related to a lot of the technical
engineering side of stuff?

Yeah, and like the relationships that I had
with not necessarily people, butthe ways in which I would do
things was not the wasn'tserving me, wasn't making me the
happiest.
Right.

Lij Shaw (02:04:35):
So then like tracks, too many, too many robotic
things.

Too many, like, yeah, too many things that were
maybe too concrete because Ihave a problem thinking very
black and white.
Um, and I think likediscovering the gray is my next
mission.
So next five years is right nowI'm doing a lot of traveling
and uh doing a lot of like uhsoul searching kind of vibe, but

(02:05:04):
I really want to have a lot ofthings released that I care
about and that I'm passionateabout, and you know, they say
that if you do something thatyou love, you'll never work a
day in your life, and that'sreally what I want to do.
I am not working for the man,you know, and then catch me in

(02:05:28):
five years from now working forthe man.
I don't know.
I hope not, I really hope not.
So five years from now I wantto be doing my passions, um
living somewhere too that I havelike a really strong community
because that's really important.
Found family and community isreally important to me.
And, you know, getting up everyday and doing my yoga and then
doing what I really love to do,which is like songwriting,

(02:05:52):
recording, everything.
I live, breathe music, and Iwould like to continue to do
that.
I don't know where, I don'tknow how, but not working for
the man, doing my passions andreally enjoying what I do every
day is where I'd want to be.

Lij Shaw (02:06:08):
So this is probably an impossible question to answer,
but what about 10 years?

Ten years?
What's 10 years from now?
I'd be 32.
Um, I do really want a familytoo.
Um, so I'd be thinking aboutthat.
I'd probably be starting tothink about that at 32.
Um, but uh yeah, I'd I'd wantto figure out I'd want to spend

(02:06:32):
like the next 10 years figuringout location-wise where I would
end up, quote unquote, and thensort of center my life a little
bit more around that.
Uh I don't know if it's NewYork, I don't know if it's
Nashville, I don't know if it'sTahiti, I don't know if it's my
one friend moved to Vietnam.
I don't know.

Lij Shaw (02:06:49):
It's a good time now to go explore.
Exactly.

And so that's kind of what I want to do.
Um, and then yeah, when I'm 32,I wanna, I wanna have, you
know, my own little familyprobably, but what's most
important to me is the art andhaving by then, you know,
something concrete that I canlook back and be proud on.
Yeah.
Proud of.
Yeah.

Lij Shaw (02:07:11):
Yeah.
Um, okay, so now this questionis hypothetical, um, as were the
others, but this wasparticularly hypothetical.
Yeah.
And this is one I love to askall the guests on the show.
So, and you probably heard itbefore, but we're gonna take the
way back studio machine, whichI don't know how far back would
you want to go, but um, you havebeen performing for 20 years,
so you can probably go backpretty far if you wanted.
And you get to go back in timeand you get to find young Abby

(02:07:34):
and say, Listen, Abby, normal.
Um, I've come back to give youthis one bit of advice.
Here's the single mostimportant thing you need to know
to be a rock star of the studioyourself one day.
What advice do you feel likeyou'd like to go back and give
yourself if you could?

Be the weird girl.
Embrace being the weird girl.
Like, they call you Abby Normalfor a reason.
Nobody who has ever beenanything has been somebody
normal.
And I think like being theweird girl, you've gotta really
embrace that and not even letthe be yourself, but be as weird

(02:08:17):
as possible and have fun doingit.
Be be the weird girl you knowyou are.

Lij Shaw (02:08:22):
Yeah, and what do you think about the the potential
moments where you you try andembrace that and then you know
you open your eyes andsomebody's laughing at you.
I mean, we all feel that.

We're all we all fear that yeah, and I have been
in that many times.

Lij Shaw (02:08:38):
Um I remember it in the seventh grade dance.
Yeah, I remember I remembergetting down to sticks cranking
over the stereo system.
Yeah, and I was dancing sohard, I was like, I probably
look like a Muppet.
My arms are flailing, my head'sback, and I and I and I come up
and I look and and and like thekids are like pointing and
laughing.

(02:08:58):
And they I probably was funnyand I just didn't know it.
Yeah.
And I look down and my shoesare untied.

Yeah, or like your pants are falling down,
like yeah.
Or everybody's had the the likenaked in front of the school
dream, like oh yeah, but I thinkin the hallways, yeah, yeah.
Terror nightmare.
Um, but if those people arelaughing at you, find the ones
that can laugh with you and thenget through the hard times with

(02:09:24):
you.
If a lot of it is about findingthose people that are there for
you through when you cry, whenyou have crash-outs, and when
you're, you know, feeling themost self-doubt and will be
supportive of you no matterwhat.
And when you're your weirdest,they they match your weird.

(02:09:44):
The the kids say, match myfreak.
You have to find the peoplethat match your freak.
And so if those people arelaughing at you, their loss.
Like, I guess they're just notabout that life.
And so that like you've got tostick with weird, weird's gotta
stick with weird, you know.
Yeah.

Lij Shaw (02:10:02):
I love it.
Well, Abby, this is amazing tohave you on the podcast.
What a what a blast.
I knew you you'd just kill itand do great.
Um, let the rock stars knowwhere can they find out more
about you, where can they golisten to their music, your
music.
Um, and uh yeah.

All right, so my Instagram is Abby EGriffin or
Abby Griffin Music.
I'll be posting there more.
Um, then I have a YouTubechannel that's also Abby
Griffin, and it's A B V I EGriffin.
That I'm a little unique.

Lij Shaw (02:10:33):
No normal.

Just no no normal, no Abby Normal, just
A-B-B-I-E-G-R-I-F-F-I-N.
And I have Abby GriffinMusic.com.
Um yeah, Abby Griffin Music.comand Instagram and YouTube and
Spotify is Abby Griffin.
Listen to Little Bird Live fromOni's House.

Lij Shaw (02:10:50):
Do you feel like your name is fitting?
I mean, it's you're a lion withwings.

Yeah.
Well, I think that I I don'tknow that the my people have
always told me, oh, you havesuch a such a good name because
I have a lot of double lettersin it.
Right.
Um, but I was Abigail, and thenmy dad, when on my first
birthday, wrote on the cake Abbywith IE.
And I love having to tellpeople, oh, actually not with a

(02:11:16):
Y, it's an IE.
Right.
Um, and I think also my Abigailmeans father's joy too.
Yeah, like literally, and Ilove when like the the found of
people in my life, they telltheir people, oh, it's not a Y,
it's an IE.
And so I love that.
And I think Griffin is like,well, it's a Abigail means

(02:11:40):
father's joy, and Griffin is amythical creature.
And I've been told that I'm aweird mix of everything, and you
know, me and my dad are likethis, and I've been told I'm
like weird girl enigmatic, whichsometimes has been used as an
insult, but I don't care.
I mean, a line, it's it is alion with wings.
That's true.
Yeah, it is.

Lij Shaw (02:12:00):
Yeah, you're king of king, king, or queen of the
jungle, and you know, you'retaking it and you've got wings.
You can go, you're gonna goplaces.

I guess so.
That's pretty let's hope.
But I do think it's fitting.
I always resonate with my name.

Lij Shaw (02:12:13):
Right on.
Um, Rockstars, thank you somuch for joining us on another
episode of Recording StudioRockstars.
Make sure to hit the subscribebutton so you don't miss any
more interviews with us.
And uh kick that like button.
Kick it.
Can you give us a good kick?
There you go.
Awesome.
And we'll see you in the nextepisode.
And uh drop a comment in tooand let us know if you got any

(02:12:36):
questions or want to give us ashout out or say hi to Abby, or
you know, you got thoughts aboutthings we said about
songwriting.
Um, you know, I guess a goodquestion.
What's a good question for therock stars to answer about
songwriting?

Hmm.
What's your songwriting ritual?
I want to know.
I want to know what otherpeople do.
If they have a inspirationcandle or a mole skin or what
pencil you use, yeah, let meknow.

Lij Shaw (02:12:59):
I love it.
All right.
We'll see you in the nextepisode.
Cheers.
Thanks so much for listening toRecording Studio Rockstars.
If you enjoyed the show andwant to help make it better,
then please share this episodewith your friends on social
media and leave a rating andreview on iTunes to help the

(02:13:21):
podcast reach more rock starslike yourself.
You can click directly over toiTunes or go to rsrockstars.com
slash review for an easyexplanation.
And remember to hit thesubscribe button to keep up with
weekly episodes.
And if you're ready to makeyour best record ever now, then
head over to Recording StudioRockstars Academy, where you can
start with my free course atmixmasterbundle.com.

(02:13:42):
Thanks so much for listeningand thanks for being a rock
star.
I'm Lyd Shaw, and this isRecording Studio Rockstars.
Now, go make great music.
Recording Studio Rockstarswould like to give a big thank
you to our awesome sponsors whohelp make this episode possible.
Isotope Native Instruments AtomAudio and SAE Institute.

(02:14:04):
And remember to take advantageof our special coupon codes at
isotope.com andnativeinstruments.com.
Use the coupon code ROC10 for10% off any plug-in purchase.
And don't forget, you can startmixing right now with my free
course at mixmasterbundle.com.
If you enjoyed recording studiorockstars, please check out our

(02:14:27):
sponsors using the links in theshow notes.
These are all things I highlyrecommend for your studio.
They're gonna help you makeyour best record ever.
Also, please like and subscribeto our YouTube channel because
it's a great way for you to helpsupport this show.
I'd also like to thank ourfantastic team here at Recording
Studio Rockstars, VladWeselchenko and Liz Hulitskaya.

(02:14:48):
Thanks so much for watching andlistening, Rockstars.
We'll see you in the nextepisode.
Cheers.

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#224: Why Imperfect Recordings Feel More Alive | Abby Griffin on Creative Truth (Recording Studio Rockstars)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#224: Why Imperfect Recordings Feel More Alive | Abby Griffin on Creative Truth (Recording Studio Rockstars)