March 18, 2025 • 37 mins
What happens when you finally get an ADHD diagnosis at 39 and start noticing real changes in how you work? Or when you realize you’re craving more human energy in a music world that’s feeling increasingly robotic? In this episode, Carl and Ben unpack the creative shifts they’re making—from Carl’s deep dive into remixing in unexpected ways to Ben’s push for more live, unpolished recordings.
Discover:
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Discover:
- Carl’s approach to remixing
- Why Ben is moving away from rigid, overly edited music and focusing on live energy
- The small creative experiments that lead to real breakthrough
- How AI might actually be pushing musicians back toward imperfection and organic performances
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's scratched itches at the time, but some of those
itches are no longer itchy, and I have a bunch
of new itches. That's so really gross. I took that
metaphor a little too far.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi. I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and you're listening to
Secret Sonics, honest conversations chock full of tactical advice to
help you build your dream career in music and audio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Whether it's skill development, mixing mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's get started. Hi, Ben, Hi Carl.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Getting caffeinated? So that's good? How about you?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I want to start this off real quick and give
a little update because today it might be weird or
it might be great.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Find out.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So two weeks ago, for those listening chronologically, two weeks ago,
we did an episode talking about the time management techniques
that didn't work for us, you know, and things that
may work at a vacuum or for people without kids
or the people that are not neurospicy, but as somebody
with kids and somebody that was I was pretty sure
(01:15):
I have undiagnosed ADHD. We had a lot of things
that we had tried over the years that didn't work well. Coincidentally,
the morning that we recorded that episode, after the episode recording,
I had a doctor's appointment and I actually finally got
a diagnosis of ADHD. And I actually just started on
some meds for the first time ever at thirty nine,
(01:38):
you know. And I feel like when I started figuring
this out in therapy a couple months ago and kind
of like piecing things together, it came as a complete
shock to literally nobody that has ever met me or
talked to me or heard me on a podcast for example.
So yeah, I'm sure anybody listening is like, well, yeah,
(01:58):
Doug Carl and I was. I was joking that the
only person that was surprised was the man in the
mirror because I'm just kind of like, you know, the
fish that couldn't see the ocean or whatever. I was
just so like in it had no idea. But that said,
I feel so much more like a functional human, way
more than I ever have. And it's it's been great.
(02:19):
And I just wanted to say that so that if
you know, I sound a little bit different, hopefully in
a good way. And if I'm able to actually stay
on task for a longer period then I normally could.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That is why that's sick. I'm happy for you because
I feel like knowing is better than not knowing. And
then then there's stuff they could do about it, right, like, then, yeah,
try out some medications and see if it. Yeah, maybe
I'll try it one day. We'll see and thin.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I think like it's not that the medication was attempted
number one of trying to deal with it. It's like, Okay,
I spent all these years trying to figure out how
my brain works, trying to figure out what I can
do that works for me, and I I think that's
probably why it's been so successful so far, at least.
I mean, I'm only like a weekend, but like, so
far has been working. I think because I've been developing
(03:09):
so many like self awareness skills and like trying to
check in with my body and all these things. So
I feel like it's the actual like work I've done
for myself is just making the medicine more effective. I
think that's that's how I feel, anyway, I don't know
if that's actually true. Maybe it's psychosomatic. I don't know,
but that's what it what it feels like.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Wow, Well, here's the bright horizons for you and for everyone.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So just before the call, you mentioned an idea that
you had to talk about today, So I want to
let you tee it up and maybe give your first
example too.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Sure. Well, I was thinking about new directions, speaking of
bright horizons, new directions that we might want to pursue,
and then what are some of the steps that we
can take to try to achieve those new directions. I
don't know. I'm like super inspired by the new Wulfpeck
stuff and music that's just like less on the grid,
more alive, because I've done so much that's just on
the grid and not that, and that stuff really resonates
(04:02):
with me. Also, as Ai, my little theory is like
as Ai kind of takes over different domains. There's like
more of like a desire on the parts of humans
to consume art that is really human and to do
things that are really human and like playing live and
not having things be super chopped up or whatever I
think fits that bill. So like live recordings or sessions
(04:24):
where some of it some of it is live or
drum and based in the room or not being editing
fiends or whatever. So that kind of stuff is really
resonating with me and I, you know. And now I
have a new studio which is super fun and it's
much bigger than my old studio. It's not massive, but
I already did a drum session in here. I got
some space. So this is something that I want to
kind of pursue doing more live style recordings, which I
(04:48):
used to do a lot of also back in the day,
and I want to do them again. I don't know
exactly how it's going to play out, but so I
wanted to think about, like, how can we go about
making that happen. In the past, I've done interesting things
to sort of do that. I did this thing called
the Live Session Challenge once and me and a video
guy we got together and we said, you have one hour,
come in the studio. Whatever you get, you get it's live.
(05:10):
I think the most we had a couple of big bands,
but mostly it was just like a solo act or
you know, a duo or whatever. And I think we
did like eight of them or something, and like somebody
went home with you know, one to four songs depending
on how tight the band was and what they were
cool with, and it was just a great way to
get someone through the door and familiar with you. And
like we offered it like a really cheap price, So
(05:32):
you get a video and a song for this price,
but it's not like a produced song. It's like a
live thing. That's like something that maybe I'll try to
reiterate and like also showcase the new studio. And I
was even thinking to do something like that with my
new studio mate, and we could do something outside or
show what we can both do together, which might be cool.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I want to jump in for a second because I
just sparked an idea. So what you that before? Was
it for the video for like YouTube? I'm guessing yeah,
so when was that?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Like what years?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
This is like in the heydays? I don't know, Maybe
this is like twenty sixteen, seventeen, maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So really before social media became as like ubiquitous.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
For artists to use MAB.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I'm just thinking, like my brain is going, like, oh, well,
what if you pitched it? Like, yeah, you're gonna do
as much as you can in an hour, but like
the goal might not necessarily be to get you know,
full YouTube video performances, but like hey just get like
a get a whole bunch of clips for your social media.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, that's a great idea. But I do like the
point of getting a full song because that is that
is still the inspiration. Like the inspiration is a live recording,
something that's magical that happens in the room together with
live musicians, you know, the vultetec vibe, scary pockets, that
kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But yeah, but that's a great secondary thing. Like if
I you know, whoever the video person is, we can
like put together like a bunch of like cool like
you know, reels and teasers for these artists to put
on their on their Instagram. That's like really great idea. Yeah,
like also showcase the studio. Yeah, so it's just exciting,
Like this is sort of what I want to be
(07:06):
doing more of now that I have a space out
of my house a little bit more room. Combine that
with like the AI revolution and wanting to do something
that's a bit more human. Yeah, that was like my
first step maybe that I was thinking about. I thought
i'd share it on the air. That's number one. Yeah,
that's been in a nutshell, what about you, Carl, what's
a new direction you want to go in and maybe
like a way that you like, what's a good like
(07:27):
input goal to try to get there?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So I guess the question would be like for my
mixing or for my like education.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Let's say mixing, Like maybe there's like a new genre
you want to work on or a new kind of
tier of artists that you want to work with, or
I don't know, simdenly that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, I've been I've been getting back into remixing lately
for artists, which has been so much fun, so much fun,
and also the artists are unbelievably great and the songs.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Are really really really great.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So that's been a fun challenge, especially knowing that I
got my start in production doing that, like you know,
ten plus years ago and kind of revisiting that with
some of those same bands, which has been really really fun,
like you know, ten years later.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Really wow.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
But one of the things that I've been really experimenting
with in the past couple that I did, I did
two that are there not out yet, but I was
going for a bit of a different style and I
normally do because the way that I approach remixing in
general is I don't want to just take the vocal
part and then like add a you know, four on
the floor kick drum and like a splice piano loop
(08:34):
and then call it a remix.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Like that's not my my vibe.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I have a very I almost do like method acting
when I'm remixing.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
This is gonna sound really weird.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I don't know how to describe this, but I go
very deep into trying to figure out how can I
take you know, not just the vocals that are there,
but also as many little elements from the songs, like
little percussion loop noises that only happen for like four
measures in the bridge, but it's like so rad how
can I make that the found foundation of the song?
You know, like trying to take these like little pieces
(09:03):
and like rearrange them and chop them up, and then
also adding my own things to it. But I always
try to figure out, how can I make this sound
like this was the original? It's not like, oh, this
is clearly just like a dancy version of another song
that you hear when you're at Global or something.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know. I don't are like a roller skating rink.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That's just that reference totally over my head, but I'm
rolling with I'm rolling with it.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You've never gone glob bowling.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I've gone global, but I've never gone globaling.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Globaling global. Yeah, glow bowling.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Anyway, Oh, glow bowling. It's like a type of bowling.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, well they have.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Oh my gosh, it's like, this is small town. I know,
this is what I did when I was I was
probably in like middle school. But you go to a
bowling alley on like a Friday night or a Saturday night.
It would be like still like an ald age thing,
but they would have black lights set up. All the
lights would be off. They have all these like black
lights on and like you know, like cheesy DJ lights,
(10:01):
and they would just play dancy pop music from like
a radio station or something really loud. So it was
kind of like almost like glowing the dark bowling, Like
you know, when you're in seventh grade. It's like the
coolest place you could when you're when you're in seventh
grade living in like Amish country, it's the coolest thing
you could possibly do.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's contextually I'm not going to knock on bowling. Bowling
is fun. I always enjoyed bowling, so I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
But this is where the adderall is going to say, Hey, Carl,
remember you were talking about dance music and not doing that,
So look at that.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We're all coming back to it. I'm not getting off track.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh yeah, we got we got our what's it called
one of those things that keep the ball from going
in the gutter?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Oh the bumpers?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
You got bumpers? Oh yeah, yeah yeah, analogy time with Ben.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Wow, well done, sir.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Oh I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, bowling
bumpers for the conversation. So I don't want to just
add to make everything one hundred and twenty bpm like,
that's not my goal. I really do want to make
it feel like if you've never heard the original song,
you would think that this is the original, right. I
wanted to be completely standalone. That's kind of the goal,
(11:09):
which is not easy, especially if I'm trying to take
it into a style that is like completely reimagined and
not like the original was. So the two that I'm
doing are these two I kind of recently there were
more on like the metal core side, the originals, and
I grew up listening to a lot of like industrial music,
(11:30):
like a lot of like early ninich nails and gosh
even like KMFDM skinny poppy that kind of stuff. And
I also, you know, I also loved straight up house
music and big poppy like dua lipa dance music. So
my thought was, you know, these are both around like
the low one twenty ish bpms. What if I tried
(11:53):
to turn these into like industrial dance tracks, like try
to keep all of the four on the floor house
music sort of rhythmic foundation, but sonically it's all like
really aggressive guitar driven that I chop up to make
it rhythmically what I want it to be. There's lots
(12:15):
of you know, like eighties drum machines going through some
pretty intense distortion and fun stuff, and like really seeing
how can I add the texture and grit and that
like discomfort that you get from the guitars and like
you know, heavier metal like metal core stuff and also
from the synths in industrial, but try to present it
(12:39):
in a way that is rhythmically a lot more in
line with like disco. So like industrial disco, I don't
know how to discrib it, and holy shit, it's been
so much fun that challenge and making it sound like
this is the way that the song was originally written.
Like that's kind of like the ultimate goal that I have,
So I want to keep exploring that because I grew
up listening to metal like grip listening to this, you know,
(13:00):
really aggressive styles of electronic music and of heavy metal,
and I am really enjoying this attempt to blend it
with the catchiness and the hookiness and the thoughtful arrangements
of really really exciting pop music.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, sounds really fun. First of all, what's the great
is that you're passionate about it that already is giving
you a leg up bend. It's going to like get
you in your go get or mindset. But what are
some more steps that you can take to like get
more of this kind of thing going on in your life?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, I mean, I can just do more outreach for it.
Like both of these artists. One of them is a
band that I'm actually helping with some like brand identity stuff.
But the other one is a much bigger band, like
much much bigger band that i've you know, I've loved
for a while and I met through a friend. I
don't want to like give the names away because this
(13:52):
song's not out yet. It's probably going to be part
of a deluxe version of their album that's going to
be coming out. I think later this year.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You mentioned this one. I think to me a couple
of weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Where we could go that's a different one.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, that's Carl you busy.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Oh, I know, I've done like it's so what I
just like I did like five in the past couple
of months, two of which are these kind of like
they're originally metal bands that I kind of made into
like a dancy thing. But this other band is, like,
you know, they've got like three or four million monthly listeners,
like you know, touring the world all the time. So
like when that comes out, that's gonna be a big,
a big one. But I just met the guitarist through
(14:27):
a friend, through like a producer friend, and I think
he actually like bought one of my courses a couple
of years ago. So like we just like met through
that and it's gonna be fun. So I think once
I have those two songs out, it's gonna be a
lot easier for me to just start sending some dms
to bigger bands that I want to do this with
that I think could be a good fit. But until
I have some things that I feel very confident to
(14:48):
show them and things that I like am able to
show them because they're released, I kind of don't know
exactly how to go about pursuing that side, like the
industrial kind of side.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right, it's your own genre. It's it's the Carl genre.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, It's like it's like a genre that like, I
don't know it. It works so well, and it seems
like this should be an obvious thing, but when I
try to find other bands doing it, they're just not.
They get really close and then they just start to
go too much further into the experimental side or into
like the droning like art piece side.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It's such a specific niche like, you're not going to
like find artists to produce yourself, right, this is that
would be? Would that be like a step too far
for you to like get into like production of this
kind of a genre bringing in singers.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I don't know if I'd I mean, honestly, I don't
know if i'd really enjoy that as much.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, you like that the song is done and then
you could just reimagine the song.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, And that comes down to I think my strengths
and passions as a producer, Like I am definitely a finisher,
not a starter. So if I were responsible for like
starting from scratch and building something like it's a very
very very very small percentage of artists that I actually
feel like I could do a pretty good job with that.
And even then I'd have to have a really good
(16:06):
collaborative relationship with the artists because they would be doing
a lot of the heavy lifting, like lyrically and maybe
some of like the basic chordal structures, and then I'd
be taking that and like running with it for the
actual like sound design and the production and the arrangement,
and that's that kind of stuff. So I don't feel
like me starting my own artist project doing these kind
(16:27):
of things from scratch, at least, you know, for the
foreseeable future. I just don't think that's more.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You start a partnership, you start a duo with someone
else who's better at writing lyrics and chords and stuff,
and you're better at like putting it all together in
like a interesting package, and then it's an artist. So
that's the direction you could take it, so they could
take Yeah, you don't, and I don't. I don't think
you want to take that option. But I'm just saying
(16:53):
that is an option, like, yeah, you could hypothetically that
could be a future.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, if the right situation kind of fell into my lap,
then yeah, you know, I'm I'm somebody that likes to
jump at exciting opportunities, but it's always a calculated risk,
especially when we're late thirties, get about to be forties
in less than two months, and you know, with you know,
multiple children, Like that's the kind of yeah, that's the
(17:18):
kind of like diving head first situation you do when
you're twenty five. Yes, and I think right now, you know,
me doing a remix for a bigger artist like that
is something that is a lot more predictable and contained
as far as like the amount of time that I
need to put into it, and it allows me to
only do the parts that I really really love, which
(17:38):
is like taking an idea, flipping it on its head,
developing that doing the mix massive part that I am
the best at. Anyway, So I could have an artist project,
but I don't think i'd enjoy it. I don't think i'd.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's enough of a reason not to do it. I
was just thinking, like, if you did something like that,
then that could be like another way you could even
diversify your artistry and your and also your income. And
like maybe it gets streaming revenue from something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Hey, Ben, I I have something.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
To tell you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
People don't make money from that show.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, it's twenty twenty five, Ben.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
If you think that I'm going to start and that
was a good time for me to start an artist project.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Goal of diversifying your income.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, And it's hard to get artist project that has
no built out audience with somebody that I haven't even met.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
The right part a revolutionary you don't know, you don't
know yet.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I'd rather focus my revolutionary energies into something bigger. One
of the things I've noticed over the past twenty years
being in the industry is that audio school usually leaves
most graduates completely unprepared for entering the industry. I mean, sure,
you learn how to rewire a patch, bait or sleep,
but they probably won't teach you how to stand out
and attract the kinds of artists that fuel your passion
(18:49):
for recording. I appreciate what you bring to the table,
let alone pay their rates. You want to get paid,
And YouTube university is full of people telling you that
their way is the right way, and it doesn't help
you apply things to you your unique struggles, personality and
ideal clients. So I've been building studio land to fill
those gaps. We use structured learning paths. We leave love
of classes in a private community of other pros to
(19:10):
help you discover how to turn your technical expertise into
a thriving business that attracts the right clients at the
right rates.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Try it out for free the links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So hypothetically, I don't know, I'm just like dreaming for
you this episode for I like this, If you do
some more successful remixes in this very specific style, what
kind of opportunities do you think that could open up
for you in the mixing department, Like, do you think
like that will also carry over into kinds of mixing
you know, artists that you work with, client level whatever,
that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, Well, I mean the way that I got my
first production clients and mixing clients were from people that
heard my remixes ten years ago whatever. And I still
have people tell me that they heard one of my
remixes from like twenty fifteen, and that's how they found me.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So it's one of those things where it's probably not
going to be always at wrecked like one to one
kind of like transition. But you know, the more stuff
that I have to show people obviously, like you know,
the more confident I'm gonna be in having those conversations,
the more new audiences are going to hear me. And
I think especially in twenty twenty five and you know,
(20:16):
and beyond compared to maybe ten years ago, Definitely compared
with like twenty years ago, there are a lot more
people that listen to heavier metal stuff and pop stuff,
you know what I mean. Like I feel like a
lot of people that get into pop have a metal background.
You know, Like a lot of the people that I've
(20:37):
met in the recent years that got into like pop production,
especially like they grew up listening to metal. So I
feel like there are gonna be a lot of people
that like kind of from both ends that are going
to like appreciate or potentially appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just going to
be fun stuff that I can do.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know, some more names on my resume, building the
portfolio out a bit, but like, ultimately I just have
so much fun doing it, and they celebrate and passion project. Well,
so it's if it's going to be a passion project,
I mean as well do a passion project with you know,
with bands that have a couple of million monthly listeners,
and I can just like go to town on a
(21:14):
song sick, Like that's just like the obvious thing for
me at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, No, I like it. You kind of have clarity
about what this is and how and how you're doing it.
So that's great. So you're gonna do some more and
then hopefully it lead to lead to more remixes and
you know, within the scope of of what Carl wants
to do, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, because I honestly I have no real desire to
like learn how to do DJ sets, you know, like
do that whole thing. Like they're just not something is.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Not going on tour anymore. Come on, people.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It would have to be such a perfect situation, like
there would have to be so many like not just
like the planets in our solar system aligning, it would
have to be a bunch of like adjacent solar systems
also aligning with it for me to want to go
back out.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
That's a very very specific thing.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, in two billion years, I'll reach out. I'll check in.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
As a drummer. It's a bit of a different conversation.
You know, a lot of planets still have to align
for me to want to do it. But like, that's
something that I spent so many years doing, and I
I did really enjoy it and really love it. It's
just it doesn't scratch. It scratched itches at the time,
but some of those itches are no longer itchy, and
I have a bunch of new itches. That's so really gross.
(22:27):
I took that metaphor a little too far.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I like this metaphor. I'm all about itchy itchy metaphors.
My roommate in college his name is Ysy, and we
had a Bukharian landlord who called him itchy, and I
thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So
we actually wrote a whole song about him being named itchy.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Were you scratchy?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well I wasn't. It was just a song about itchy.
It was I'll send it to you. It was. It
was funny. It was good stuff. Okay, it was like
Flight of the concourd.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, okay, I'm not gonna let
this go. You have the Whig commercial theme song.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yet, yeah, that's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That had to send me there was. The other one
from the other week was a parody song about it
was a Coldplay parody song. Oh yeah, and now you
have a song about it, Like you're building this like
release this plan.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Like I'm dude, I'm just like quirky dude, and I'm
like and I and I have all these little things
that like don't actually put on the podcasts, but like
this is like sort of what what I live for
is like the silly jokes and you know, puns and
dad jokes and all that kind like this is this
is where I'm at. Yeah, I'll send you that. I'll
find it.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I just thought of something as far as like, you know,
you ask me what I could do if I wanted
to pursue this, and I just had an idea, and
I thought i'd mentioned it. Not that I necessarily plan
on doing this, but for somebody that might have a
bigger goal, they don't know really how to approach it,
you know, with like making new connections or new clients
without a feeling like a gigantic step forward. Like me,
(23:54):
if my next goal is to do remixes for you know,
even bigger bands or like a lot more bands in it,
like you know, three to five million monthly listener kind
of range, you know, there are still some steps I
could take to like at least get better at it
along the way that wouldn't be a huge time sink.
And this is something I've told some of my my
coaching students that that are like producers, especially in electronic music,
(24:17):
I challenge them to just say, like, look, set a
timer for fifteen minutes and make an measure loop and
just like screen grab it while you're doing the process,
and then turn that little like eight measure loop into
a real you know, just something to put out. So
it's just something that is like you don't have the
(24:37):
pressure of a full release. It can just be something
that you do once and you just put it out there.
And the goal isn't to try to go viral with it.
The goal isn't to try to get a bunch of
fans or a bunch of clients out of it necessarily.
The goal is just to It's like going to the
gym for your production skills. But also it's just another
way for somebody that's checking out your profile to get
a little insight into, you know, how you think about music.
(25:01):
It's like a little blip of seeing how your musical.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
P It's like your sonic you know, fingerprint or whatever. Yeah,
that if someone is searching for you like, oh, this
is the kind of thing they do, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And then if they really love it and like oh no,
this really could be like a full thing.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Great.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
But I think going into it with the goal just
being I want to make a fifteen second clip that
I can post on Instagram just to show people the
kind of sounds that I think are cool, it can
be that that simple. I think that's a really healthy
and also less intimidating.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
For a step.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Maybe's something you could do now.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I mean I did it for a little while. I
had a couple weird, fun little mini series that I did.
This is maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago. Now,
this was before our second daughter was born. I did
a series of like mash up remixes, but instead of
mashing up like you know, a Sabrina Carpenter song, like
(26:01):
what if Sabrina Carpenter sang over chreple roon whatever. I
took two, sometimes three songs that I worked on like
clients of mine, and because I have all the mixed
amps obviously, so I did like a little remixed mashups
where I would take parts from one artist's song with
you know, parts of another artist song. I would try
(26:23):
to find a way to like mix them together, and
it would be like, you know, a pop punk artist
from la and a like a rapper from London or something,
and I would try to like see how I could
fit it out to find them, you know, try to
figure out if I can get them like close enough
in key that I could pitch shift them and get
them to like be in the middle and not feel
super weird, close enough in tempo that I could stretch
(26:47):
them slower or faster without it feeling like the vocals
are happening one thousand miles a minute and feel unnatural.
So that was a fun little challenge that not only showcased,
you know, the way that I think about those like
kind of remixes, but I could be like, you know,
what if I took this song I mixed and mastered
and this song that I also mixed and mastered and
(27:08):
smash them together in a remix. So it was a
way to like do make something cool to showcase the
artists that I'm working with, so I can also tag them.
They're gonna like it, comment share it to their friends.
Same thing for the second artist. And then also I'm
creating this like third whole new thing that's just showcasing
how my brain works. So that was a it was
a lot of work for a single post.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, but it was a.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Really good, like kind of training exercise because I gave
myself very specific constraints with.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You yeah, and it also teaches you stuff. It also,
you know, teaches you new skills, like doing those like
fifteen minute things. I want to do more of those
I used to do. Like there was a period it
was about nine years ago that I was doing like
these mini grooves. It was like you know, variation on
the eight bar groove. But it was like there would
maybe be like a minute and a half or whatever.
It was just like what can I do in about
thirty minutes to an hour? And I came up with
all these like little grooves, you know, and it was
(27:59):
great training ground for me. To get better at production
and just like to make a bunch of stuff. You know,
I don't know, it's fun. Yeah, I think it's good.
Like there was a guest on the show, Damian Taylor.
He says, like you should wake up every morning and
do something like that. Like I don't do that, but
I maybe should.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I think when the kids are out of the house,
we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, they'll maybe There'll be another time in my life
when I have more energy in the morning. I'm looking
forward to that.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And also I've done some where I did like these
like five minute ten minute like meditation type of things
where I was just like my goal, I'm just gonna
I'm gonna set a ten minute timer. Usually I did
like a five minute timer and then another five minute timer.
But I would just say, like I'm gonna make something
just like Lo Fi and Chill. I'm just gonna make
it all from splice. I'm just gonna create something something new,
(28:42):
Like especially if it was night time and it was
snowing outside, I would just be like I look out
the window and I would just say, Okay, I'm gonna
spend five minutes find like a basic four measure or
eight measure chord progression that I like, a vibe that
I like, an instrument that i'd like, and then once
I get that, then the next five minutes is going
to be me, you know, adding some detail and like
(29:03):
tweaking things. So it's like the first five minutes is
just gathering the ingredients for the recipe, and then the
second five minutes is like kind of portioning them out,
and then whatever I have, I have and sometimes they're terrible,
and that's okay, you.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Know, yeah, crumple it up and you throw it in
the garbage.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, but it was only ten minutes. It wasn't going
kind of bringing this back to why I was saying
these like little baby steps towards a bigger goal things,
ceter all these uh taking these baby steps like it's
a ten minute exercise and if it's great and you
want to keep developing, it awesome, and if you don't,
it's okay. It was ten minutes that you probably want
to spend doom scrolling anyway, so you can do these
(29:41):
things and not have to feel like you have to
commit to doing a three minute song when you feel
already like you're not inspired, you feel like it's not
really working and then you get in your head and
you start to like tell yourself that you're not good
at this. Yeah, you don't have if you said a
ten minute time or you don't have time to tell
yourself that you're not good at this. Yeah, Okay, Ben,
you talked about the things that you, like you want
(30:04):
to start doing more of. I've talked about the things
I want to start doing more of, and I talked
about some of the things that I can do to
start that. So let's go back to you and say, so,
what are some things. What are some like first steps,
some like low barrier to entry things that you can
try to start doing more of that like human element,
live in the room kind of stuff at your new studio.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah. I think it's going to start with my friends. Actually,
I think I'm going to just like invite some of
my close musician friends over and maybe, you know, start
jamming together and see what happens and just like go
back to like twelve years ago when I maybe did
this most recently, and just like I don't know, try
to come up with a song and like, you know,
twenty minutes with a friend in the room and see
if together we could do something or maybe put up
(30:49):
a camera and record like a cover of a song
with a few friends and just just see what happens.
And now that we have the space, can I fight
you and something?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Instead of trying to write a song in twenty minutes,
try to write a chorus twenty minutes. Because if if
you just put your focused energy into like one section
that ends up being like really cool and you're inspired,
then you know to keep on going. But if you're
like trying to you know, meet the assignment by having
like two verses and a bridge, then you're much less
(31:16):
likely to stubble upon something actually cool and worth developing.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Cool good advice. Yeah, So I don't know, I want
to try maybe doing a little bit of like making
our own music. And I'm also open to like covering,
doing like a cover in here with like some cameras.
And also I was thinking about making like an event
with my room. My studio mate saying like, well, we're
going to do like, you know, a live session day,
and like if you want to come in, what We're
(31:42):
gonna have all a bunch of stuff set up, maybe
even outside you know, like outside the studio because it's
like in a cool spot and there's like a view. Yeah,
so I don't know that kind of a thing to
do like a day of like hey, like come on by,
we're gonna we're gonna be recording if you want, like
like what I did back in the day, like you know,
for one hour. We're gonna charge this. We'll have a
video person and you'll get some video that you could
chop up or do whatever you want with.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Could you this is just kind of spitballing. Could you
even maybe treat it kind of like not like an
open mic in the open to anybody's sense, but just
kind of say, hey, we're gonna do this thing kind
of like an invitation only open mic where you know,
if you come, you know, you can play a song
or two. We're going to record it and film.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It, and everybody else is there is going to like
be supportive in an audience, you know, and that's a
great idea.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And witness you know, be be part of the energy
of it, to be an audience for it. Yeah, And
it's just kind of like almost like a round table
where it's like, you know, everybody has a chance like
that everybody's gonna either be like up on stage joining
their song, or they're gonna be in the audience being
supportive and like hanging out. So it's gonna be like
a kind of a communal collaborative thing, which I think
will also get not just have them have the memory
(32:48):
and the experience of you know, being there and doing
that thing and having the recording, but also like they'll.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Remember the communications that they had and.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Like meeting new people, reconnecting with people that they haven't
talked in a while.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But the community.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, Like, and that's all going to be based on
you know it kind of like censored around your space.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And yeah, I think that's the really your vibe that
you and your studies.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Thanks, Matt, I appreciate that hopefully exciting new directions that
we're going to go take.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, and sorry, I really don't want to feel like
I'm I don't want to come across like I'm like
telling you your business and telling you what to do.
I'm just like, I'm excited for you, and I think
it's cool and I'm jealous that I don't have I
have no interest in doing tracking for sure, but also
the fact that all of the people that I collaborate
with the most live usually on like different continents, so
(33:32):
the in person community is not essential, not as much
of a thing for me.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, yeah, I think it could be cool if my
studiomate does the tracking and I do the mixing. That
could be like a good way to also separate it
because he's, like, you know, it's a little earlier in
his journey than I am, and maybe he'd be more
interested in doing that. Anyways, Yeah, I don't know thinking
about it. Because I had to like take this leap
and get out of the house because of necessity, I
might as well try to do stuff that I'm really
passionate about. Also while I'm here. The question is like,
(33:58):
you know, the time and figuring out how to make
living doing it. But we have to try and give
it a shot. So we're gonna take some steps and
see what clicks.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, and especially if those steps that you take and
the things that you try aren't humongous time sinks, Like
if you can do these kind of like low pressure
experiments and not make your first baby step a humongous leap.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah no, no, no, we're not doing like.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Them tracking and like multi camera and like it's.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Gonna be like Theo's record. Maybe in a year from
now or half a year from now. But first let's
start with like just a couple of small things and
see what clicks and what's working. So but we definitely
want to take those actual steps and work towards that
goal of doing more, more live things. So anyways, I
gotta wrap. But Carlos is so fun and a great conversation,
and I think we went in directions. I didn't even
(34:48):
think we weren't go in but lots of like stuff
to think about, and I'm like kind of inspired about.
Also just like the creation process of like you don't
have to have this is not the goal of this
of this conversation at all, but like just like the
practice of making stuff doesn't have to have a purpose.
It could just be fun and fulfilling and building skills
(35:09):
and just getting your creative hitch out.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I would say, I would say that it is relevant
because if the conversation that we're happening, the topic was
to be about, you know, these new directions. What you're
saying is that going in a new direction doesn't require
a full one hundred and ten percent energy shift to
try it out. Like you can try you know, you
can experiment, do little things and just going to see
what actually inspires you and and excites you, and then
(35:35):
you can decide where to really you know, deep dive
as opposed to spending so much time planning something and
then never actually doing it, which I am very very
guilty of doing a lot. But yeah, that's definitely me
kind of talking to myself there.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
But yeah, I think it was. I think it was
really relevant time. That's not that's not even an expression. Yeah,
I don't know what it's.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Don't drink. Don't drink.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
You don't have to have the whole bowl of soup
at once, you know, you could just have a couple
of spoonfuls. I'm gonna stop. I'm just stopping.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Who I mean, who eats a couple of spoonfuls of
soup and then doesn't eat the rest, like if it's
gonna get cold? You like as soup is one, Yes,
you have to pace yourself. You can't guzzle steaming.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Hot soup bullet, but you can't.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Spoons And then just like wait, okay, so now now
this I would argue, this is a very very off
topic getting into fights about the speed of which one
needs to eat soup.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
But put my analogies out of out of commisionybody.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Out of their misery. Yeah, it's not any worse than
my increased itchiness metaphors. So, Ben, you're the man. I
appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I'm glad to see you, and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
That's the plan.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Bye Ben, by Carl.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.
If anything here resonated with you, please share this or
your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
At Ben Wallace Music, and at Carl Vonner.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Until next time, Bye Ben.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Bye Carl. That's good. I think the outro is great.
It's scratched itches at the time, but some of those
itches are no longer itchy, and I have a bunch
of new itches. That's so really gross. I took that
metaphor a little too far.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi. I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and you're listening to
Secret Sonics, honest conversations chock full of tactical advice to
help you build your dream career in music and audio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Whether it's skill development, mixing mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's get started. Hi, Ben, Hi Carl.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Getting caffeinated? So that's good? How about you?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I want to start this off real quick and give
a little update because today it might be weird or
it might be great.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Find out.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So two weeks ago, for those listening chronologically, two weeks ago,
we did an episode talking about the time management techniques
that didn't work for us, you know, and things that
may work at a vacuum or for people without kids
or the people that are not neurospicy, but as somebody
with kids and somebody that was I was pretty sure
(01:15):
I have undiagnosed ADHD. We had a lot of things
that we had tried over the years that didn't work well. Coincidentally,
the morning that we recorded that episode, after the episode recording,
I had a doctor's appointment and I actually finally got
a diagnosis of ADHD. And I actually just started on
some meds for the first time ever at thirty nine,
(01:38):
you know. And I feel like when I started figuring
this out in therapy a couple months ago and kind
of like piecing things together, it came as a complete
shock to literally nobody that has ever met me or
talked to me or heard me on a podcast for example.
So yeah, I'm sure anybody listening is like, well, yeah,
(01:58):
Doug Carl and I was. I was joking that the
only person that was surprised was the man in the
mirror because I'm just kind of like, you know, the
fish that couldn't see the ocean or whatever. I was
just so like in it had no idea. But that said,
I feel so much more like a functional human, way
more than I ever have. And it's it's been great.
(02:19):
And I just wanted to say that so that if
you know, I sound a little bit different, hopefully in
a good way. And if I'm able to actually stay
on task for a longer period then I normally could.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That is why that's sick. I'm happy for you because
I feel like knowing is better than not knowing. And
then then there's stuff they could do about it, right, like, then, yeah,
try out some medications and see if it. Yeah, maybe
I'll try it one day. We'll see and thin.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I think like it's not that the medication was attempted
number one of trying to deal with it. It's like, Okay,
I spent all these years trying to figure out how
my brain works, trying to figure out what I can
do that works for me, and I I think that's
probably why it's been so successful so far, at least.
I mean, I'm only like a weekend, but like, so
far has been working. I think because I've been developing
(03:09):
so many like self awareness skills and like trying to
check in with my body and all these things. So
I feel like it's the actual like work I've done
for myself is just making the medicine more effective. I
think that's that's how I feel, anyway, I don't know
if that's actually true. Maybe it's psychosomatic. I don't know,
but that's what it what it feels like.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Wow, Well, here's the bright horizons for you and for everyone.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So just before the call, you mentioned an idea that
you had to talk about today, So I want to
let you tee it up and maybe give your first
example too.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Sure. Well, I was thinking about new directions, speaking of
bright horizons, new directions that we might want to pursue,
and then what are some of the steps that we
can take to try to achieve those new directions. I
don't know. I'm like super inspired by the new Wulfpeck
stuff and music that's just like less on the grid,
more alive, because I've done so much that's just on
the grid and not that, and that stuff really resonates
(04:02):
with me. Also, as Ai, my little theory is like
as Ai kind of takes over different domains. There's like
more of like a desire on the parts of humans
to consume art that is really human and to do
things that are really human and like playing live and
not having things be super chopped up or whatever I
think fits that bill. So like live recordings or sessions
(04:24):
where some of it some of it is live or
drum and based in the room or not being editing
fiends or whatever. So that kind of stuff is really
resonating with me and I, you know. And now I
have a new studio which is super fun and it's
much bigger than my old studio. It's not massive, but
I already did a drum session in here. I got
some space. So this is something that I want to
kind of pursue doing more live style recordings, which I
(04:48):
used to do a lot of also back in the day,
and I want to do them again. I don't know
exactly how it's going to play out, but so I
wanted to think about, like, how can we go about
making that happen. In the past, I've done interesting things
to sort of do that. I did this thing called
the Live Session Challenge once and me and a video
guy we got together and we said, you have one hour,
come in the studio. Whatever you get, you get it's live.
(05:10):
I think the most we had a couple of big bands,
but mostly it was just like a solo act or
you know, a duo or whatever. And I think we
did like eight of them or something, and like somebody
went home with you know, one to four songs depending
on how tight the band was and what they were
cool with, and it was just a great way to
get someone through the door and familiar with you. And
like we offered it like a really cheap price, So
(05:32):
you get a video and a song for this price,
but it's not like a produced song. It's like a
live thing. That's like something that maybe I'll try to
reiterate and like also showcase the new studio. And I
was even thinking to do something like that with my
new studio mate, and we could do something outside or
show what we can both do together, which might be cool.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I want to jump in for a second because I
just sparked an idea. So what you that before? Was
it for the video for like YouTube? I'm guessing yeah,
so when was that?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Like what years?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
This is like in the heydays? I don't know, Maybe
this is like twenty sixteen, seventeen, maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So really before social media became as like ubiquitous.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
For artists to use MAB.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I'm just thinking, like my brain is going, like, oh, well,
what if you pitched it? Like, yeah, you're gonna do
as much as you can in an hour, but like
the goal might not necessarily be to get you know,
full YouTube video performances, but like hey just get like
a get a whole bunch of clips for your social media.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, that's a great idea. But I do like the
point of getting a full song because that is that
is still the inspiration. Like the inspiration is a live recording,
something that's magical that happens in the room together with
live musicians, you know, the vultetec vibe, scary pockets, that
kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But yeah, but that's a great secondary thing. Like if
I you know, whoever the video person is, we can
like put together like a bunch of like cool like
you know, reels and teasers for these artists to put
on their on their Instagram. That's like really great idea. Yeah,
like also showcase the studio. Yeah, so it's just exciting,
Like this is sort of what I want to be
(07:06):
doing more of now that I have a space out
of my house a little bit more room. Combine that
with like the AI revolution and wanting to do something
that's a bit more human. Yeah, that was like my
first step maybe that I was thinking about. I thought
i'd share it on the air. That's number one. Yeah,
that's been in a nutshell, what about you, Carl, what's
a new direction you want to go in and maybe
like a way that you like, what's a good like
(07:27):
input goal to try to get there?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So I guess the question would be like for my
mixing or for my like education.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Let's say mixing, Like maybe there's like a new genre
you want to work on or a new kind of
tier of artists that you want to work with, or
I don't know, simdenly that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, I've been I've been getting back into remixing lately
for artists, which has been so much fun, so much fun,
and also the artists are unbelievably great and the songs.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Are really really really great.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So that's been a fun challenge, especially knowing that I
got my start in production doing that, like you know,
ten plus years ago and kind of revisiting that with
some of those same bands, which has been really really fun,
like you know, ten years later.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Really wow.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
But one of the things that I've been really experimenting
with in the past couple that I did, I did
two that are there not out yet, but I was
going for a bit of a different style and I
normally do because the way that I approach remixing in
general is I don't want to just take the vocal
part and then like add a you know, four on
the floor kick drum and like a splice piano loop
(08:34):
and then call it a remix.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Like that's not my my vibe.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I have a very I almost do like method acting
when I'm remixing.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
This is gonna sound really weird.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I don't know how to describe this, but I go
very deep into trying to figure out how can I
take you know, not just the vocals that are there,
but also as many little elements from the songs, like
little percussion loop noises that only happen for like four
measures in the bridge, but it's like so rad how
can I make that the found foundation of the song?
You know, like trying to take these like little pieces
(09:03):
and like rearrange them and chop them up, and then
also adding my own things to it. But I always
try to figure out, how can I make this sound
like this was the original? It's not like, oh, this
is clearly just like a dancy version of another song
that you hear when you're at Global or something.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know. I don't are like a roller skating rink.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That's just that reference totally over my head, but I'm
rolling with I'm rolling with it.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You've never gone glob bowling.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I've gone global, but I've never gone globaling.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Globaling global. Yeah, glow bowling.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Anyway, Oh, glow bowling. It's like a type of bowling.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, well they have.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Oh my gosh, it's like, this is small town. I know,
this is what I did when I was I was
probably in like middle school. But you go to a
bowling alley on like a Friday night or a Saturday night.
It would be like still like an ald age thing,
but they would have black lights set up. All the
lights would be off. They have all these like black
lights on and like you know, like cheesy DJ lights,
(10:01):
and they would just play dancy pop music from like
a radio station or something really loud. So it was
kind of like almost like glowing the dark bowling, Like
you know, when you're in seventh grade. It's like the
coolest place you could when you're when you're in seventh
grade living in like Amish country, it's the coolest thing
you could possibly do.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's contextually I'm not going to knock on bowling. Bowling
is fun. I always enjoyed bowling, so I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
But this is where the adderall is going to say, Hey, Carl,
remember you were talking about dance music and not doing that,
So look at that.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We're all coming back to it. I'm not getting off track.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh yeah, we got we got our what's it called
one of those things that keep the ball from going
in the gutter?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Oh the bumpers?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
You got bumpers? Oh yeah, yeah yeah, analogy time with Ben.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Wow, well done, sir.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Oh I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, bowling
bumpers for the conversation. So I don't want to just
add to make everything one hundred and twenty bpm like,
that's not my goal. I really do want to make
it feel like if you've never heard the original song,
you would think that this is the original, right. I
wanted to be completely standalone. That's kind of the goal,
(11:09):
which is not easy, especially if I'm trying to take
it into a style that is like completely reimagined and
not like the original was. So the two that I'm
doing are these two I kind of recently there were
more on like the metal core side, the originals, and
I grew up listening to a lot of like industrial music,
(11:30):
like a lot of like early ninich nails and gosh
even like KMFDM skinny poppy that kind of stuff. And
I also, you know, I also loved straight up house
music and big poppy like dua lipa dance music. So
my thought was, you know, these are both around like
the low one twenty ish bpms. What if I tried
(11:53):
to turn these into like industrial dance tracks, like try
to keep all of the four on the floor house
music sort of rhythmic foundation, but sonically it's all like
really aggressive guitar driven that I chop up to make
it rhythmically what I want it to be. There's lots
(12:15):
of you know, like eighties drum machines going through some
pretty intense distortion and fun stuff, and like really seeing
how can I add the texture and grit and that
like discomfort that you get from the guitars and like
you know, heavier metal like metal core stuff and also
from the synths in industrial, but try to present it
(12:39):
in a way that is rhythmically a lot more in
line with like disco. So like industrial disco, I don't
know how to discrib it, and holy shit, it's been
so much fun that challenge and making it sound like
this is the way that the song was originally written.
Like that's kind of like the ultimate goal that I have,
So I want to keep exploring that because I grew
up listening to metal like grip listening to this, you know,
(13:00):
really aggressive styles of electronic music and of heavy metal,
and I am really enjoying this attempt to blend it
with the catchiness and the hookiness and the thoughtful arrangements
of really really exciting pop music.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, sounds really fun. First of all, what's the great
is that you're passionate about it that already is giving
you a leg up bend. It's going to like get
you in your go get or mindset. But what are
some more steps that you can take to like get
more of this kind of thing going on in your life?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, I mean, I can just do more outreach for it.
Like both of these artists. One of them is a
band that I'm actually helping with some like brand identity stuff.
But the other one is a much bigger band, like
much much bigger band that i've you know, I've loved
for a while and I met through a friend. I
don't want to like give the names away because this
(13:52):
song's not out yet. It's probably going to be part
of a deluxe version of their album that's going to
be coming out. I think later this year.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You mentioned this one. I think to me a couple
of weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Where we could go that's a different one.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, that's Carl you busy.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Oh, I know, I've done like it's so what I
just like I did like five in the past couple
of months, two of which are these kind of like
they're originally metal bands that I kind of made into
like a dancy thing. But this other band is, like,
you know, they've got like three or four million monthly listeners,
like you know, touring the world all the time. So
like when that comes out, that's gonna be a big,
a big one. But I just met the guitarist through
(14:27):
a friend, through like a producer friend, and I think
he actually like bought one of my courses a couple
of years ago. So like we just like met through
that and it's gonna be fun. So I think once
I have those two songs out, it's gonna be a
lot easier for me to just start sending some dms
to bigger bands that I want to do this with
that I think could be a good fit. But until
I have some things that I feel very confident to
(14:48):
show them and things that I like am able to
show them because they're released, I kind of don't know
exactly how to go about pursuing that side, like the
industrial kind of side.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right, it's your own genre. It's it's the Carl genre.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, It's like it's like a genre that like, I
don't know it. It works so well, and it seems
like this should be an obvious thing, but when I
try to find other bands doing it, they're just not.
They get really close and then they just start to
go too much further into the experimental side or into
like the droning like art piece side.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It's such a specific niche like, you're not going to
like find artists to produce yourself, right, this is that
would be? Would that be like a step too far
for you to like get into like production of this
kind of a genre bringing in singers.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I don't know if I'd I mean, honestly, I don't
know if i'd really enjoy that as much.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, you like that the song is done and then
you could just reimagine the song.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, And that comes down to I think my strengths
and passions as a producer, Like I am definitely a finisher,
not a starter. So if I were responsible for like
starting from scratch and building something like it's a very
very very very small percentage of artists that I actually
feel like I could do a pretty good job with that.
And even then I'd have to have a really good
(16:06):
collaborative relationship with the artists because they would be doing
a lot of the heavy lifting, like lyrically and maybe
some of like the basic chordal structures, and then I'd
be taking that and like running with it for the
actual like sound design and the production and the arrangement,
and that's that kind of stuff. So I don't feel
like me starting my own artist project doing these kind
(16:27):
of things from scratch, at least, you know, for the
foreseeable future. I just don't think that's more.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You start a partnership, you start a duo with someone
else who's better at writing lyrics and chords and stuff,
and you're better at like putting it all together in
like a interesting package, and then it's an artist. So
that's the direction you could take it, so they could
take Yeah, you don't, and I don't. I don't think
you want to take that option. But I'm just saying
(16:53):
that is an option, like, yeah, you could hypothetically that
could be a future.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, if the right situation kind of fell into my lap,
then yeah, you know, I'm I'm somebody that likes to
jump at exciting opportunities, but it's always a calculated risk,
especially when we're late thirties, get about to be forties
in less than two months, and you know, with you know,
multiple children, Like that's the kind of yeah, that's the
(17:18):
kind of like diving head first situation you do when
you're twenty five. Yes, and I think right now, you know,
me doing a remix for a bigger artist like that
is something that is a lot more predictable and contained
as far as like the amount of time that I
need to put into it, and it allows me to
only do the parts that I really really love, which
(17:38):
is like taking an idea, flipping it on its head,
developing that doing the mix massive part that I am
the best at. Anyway, So I could have an artist project,
but I don't think i'd enjoy it. I don't think i'd.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's enough of a reason not to do it. I
was just thinking, like, if you did something like that,
then that could be like another way you could even
diversify your artistry and your and also your income. And
like maybe it gets streaming revenue from something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Hey, Ben, I I have something.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
To tell you.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
People don't make money from that show.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, it's twenty twenty five, Ben.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
If you think that I'm going to start and that
was a good time for me to start an artist project.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Goal of diversifying your income.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, And it's hard to get artist project that has
no built out audience with somebody that I haven't even met.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
The right part a revolutionary you don't know, you don't
know yet.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I'd rather focus my revolutionary energies into something bigger. One
of the things I've noticed over the past twenty years
being in the industry is that audio school usually leaves
most graduates completely unprepared for entering the industry. I mean, sure,
you learn how to rewire a patch, bait or sleep,
but they probably won't teach you how to stand out
and attract the kinds of artists that fuel your passion
(18:49):
for recording. I appreciate what you bring to the table,
let alone pay their rates. You want to get paid,
And YouTube university is full of people telling you that
their way is the right way, and it doesn't help
you apply things to you your unique struggles, personality and
ideal clients. So I've been building studio land to fill
those gaps. We use structured learning paths. We leave love
of classes in a private community of other pros to
(19:10):
help you discover how to turn your technical expertise into
a thriving business that attracts the right clients at the
right rates.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Try it out for free the links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So hypothetically, I don't know, I'm just like dreaming for
you this episode for I like this, If you do
some more successful remixes in this very specific style, what
kind of opportunities do you think that could open up
for you in the mixing department, Like, do you think
like that will also carry over into kinds of mixing
you know, artists that you work with, client level whatever,
that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, Well, I mean the way that I got my
first production clients and mixing clients were from people that
heard my remixes ten years ago whatever. And I still
have people tell me that they heard one of my
remixes from like twenty fifteen, and that's how they found me.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So it's one of those things where it's probably not
going to be always at wrecked like one to one
kind of like transition. But you know, the more stuff
that I have to show people obviously, like you know,
the more confident I'm gonna be in having those conversations,
the more new audiences are going to hear me. And
I think especially in twenty twenty five and you know,
(20:16):
and beyond compared to maybe ten years ago, Definitely compared
with like twenty years ago, there are a lot more
people that listen to heavier metal stuff and pop stuff,
you know what I mean. Like I feel like a
lot of people that get into pop have a metal background.
You know, Like a lot of the people that I've
(20:37):
met in the recent years that got into like pop production,
especially like they grew up listening to metal. So I
feel like there are gonna be a lot of people
that like kind of from both ends that are going
to like appreciate or potentially appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just going to
be fun stuff that I can do.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know, some more names on my resume, building the
portfolio out a bit, but like, ultimately I just have
so much fun doing it, and they celebrate and passion project. Well,
so it's if it's going to be a passion project,
I mean as well do a passion project with you know,
with bands that have a couple of million monthly listeners,
and I can just like go to town on a
(21:14):
song sick, Like that's just like the obvious thing for
me at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, No, I like it. You kind of have clarity
about what this is and how and how you're doing it.
So that's great. So you're gonna do some more and
then hopefully it lead to lead to more remixes and
you know, within the scope of of what Carl wants
to do, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, because I honestly I have no real desire to
like learn how to do DJ sets, you know, like
do that whole thing. Like they're just not something is.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Not going on tour anymore. Come on, people.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It would have to be such a perfect situation, like
there would have to be so many like not just
like the planets in our solar system aligning, it would
have to be a bunch of like adjacent solar systems
also aligning with it for me to want to go
back out.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
That's a very very specific thing.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, in two billion years, I'll reach out. I'll check in.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
As a drummer. It's a bit of a different conversation.
You know, a lot of planets still have to align
for me to want to do it. But like, that's
something that I spent so many years doing, and I
I did really enjoy it and really love it. It's
just it doesn't scratch. It scratched itches at the time,
but some of those itches are no longer itchy, and
I have a bunch of new itches. That's so really gross.
(22:27):
I took that metaphor a little too far.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I like this metaphor. I'm all about itchy itchy metaphors.
My roommate in college his name is Ysy, and we
had a Bukharian landlord who called him itchy, and I
thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So
we actually wrote a whole song about him being named itchy.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Were you scratchy?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Well I wasn't. It was just a song about itchy.
It was I'll send it to you. It was. It
was funny. It was good stuff. Okay, it was like
Flight of the concourd.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, okay, I'm not gonna let
this go. You have the Whig commercial theme song.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yet, yeah, that's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That had to send me there was. The other one
from the other week was a parody song about it
was a Coldplay parody song. Oh yeah, and now you
have a song about it, Like you're building this like
release this plan.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Like I'm dude, I'm just like quirky dude, and I'm
like and I and I have all these little things
that like don't actually put on the podcasts, but like
this is like sort of what what I live for
is like the silly jokes and you know, puns and
dad jokes and all that kind like this is this
is where I'm at. Yeah, I'll send you that. I'll
find it.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I just thought of something as far as like, you know,
you ask me what I could do if I wanted
to pursue this, and I just had an idea, and
I thought i'd mentioned it. Not that I necessarily plan
on doing this, but for somebody that might have a
bigger goal, they don't know really how to approach it,
you know, with like making new connections or new clients
without a feeling like a gigantic step forward. Like me,
(23:54):
if my next goal is to do remixes for you know,
even bigger bands or like a lot more bands in it,
like you know, three to five million monthly listener kind
of range, you know, there are still some steps I
could take to like at least get better at it
along the way that wouldn't be a huge time sink.
And this is something I've told some of my my
coaching students that that are like producers, especially in electronic music,
(24:17):
I challenge them to just say, like, look, set a
timer for fifteen minutes and make an measure loop and
just like screen grab it while you're doing the process,
and then turn that little like eight measure loop into
a real you know, just something to put out. So
it's just something that is like you don't have the
(24:37):
pressure of a full release. It can just be something
that you do once and you just put it out there.
And the goal isn't to try to go viral with it.
The goal isn't to try to get a bunch of
fans or a bunch of clients out of it necessarily.
The goal is just to It's like going to the
gym for your production skills. But also it's just another
way for somebody that's checking out your profile to get
a little insight into, you know, how you think about music.
(25:01):
It's like a little blip of seeing how your musical.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
P It's like your sonic you know, fingerprint or whatever. Yeah,
that if someone is searching for you like, oh, this
is the kind of thing they do, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And then if they really love it and like oh no,
this really could be like a full thing.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Great.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
But I think going into it with the goal just
being I want to make a fifteen second clip that
I can post on Instagram just to show people the
kind of sounds that I think are cool, it can
be that that simple. I think that's a really healthy
and also less intimidating.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
For a step.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Maybe's something you could do now.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I mean I did it for a little while. I
had a couple weird, fun little mini series that I did.
This is maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago. Now,
this was before our second daughter was born. I did
a series of like mash up remixes, but instead of
mashing up like you know, a Sabrina Carpenter song, like
(26:01):
what if Sabrina Carpenter sang over chreple roon whatever. I
took two, sometimes three songs that I worked on like
clients of mine, and because I have all the mixed
amps obviously, so I did like a little remixed mashups
where I would take parts from one artist's song with
you know, parts of another artist song. I would try
(26:23):
to find a way to like mix them together, and
it would be like, you know, a pop punk artist
from la and a like a rapper from London or something,
and I would try to like see how I could
fit it out to find them, you know, try to
figure out if I can get them like close enough
in key that I could pitch shift them and get
them to like be in the middle and not feel
super weird, close enough in tempo that I could stretch
(26:47):
them slower or faster without it feeling like the vocals
are happening one thousand miles a minute and feel unnatural.
So that was a fun little challenge that not only showcased,
you know, the way that I think about those like
kind of remixes, but I could be like, you know,
what if I took this song I mixed and mastered
and this song that I also mixed and mastered and
(27:08):
smash them together in a remix. So it was a
way to like do make something cool to showcase the
artists that I'm working with, so I can also tag them.
They're gonna like it, comment share it to their friends.
Same thing for the second artist. And then also I'm
creating this like third whole new thing that's just showcasing
how my brain works. So that was a it was
a lot of work for a single post.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, but it was a.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Really good, like kind of training exercise because I gave
myself very specific constraints with.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You yeah, and it also teaches you stuff. It also,
you know, teaches you new skills, like doing those like
fifteen minute things. I want to do more of those
I used to do. Like there was a period it
was about nine years ago that I was doing like
these mini grooves. It was like you know, variation on
the eight bar groove. But it was like there would
maybe be like a minute and a half or whatever.
It was just like what can I do in about
thirty minutes to an hour? And I came up with
all these like little grooves, you know, and it was
(27:59):
great training ground for me. To get better at production
and just like to make a bunch of stuff. You know,
I don't know, it's fun. Yeah, I think it's good.
Like there was a guest on the show, Damian Taylor.
He says, like you should wake up every morning and
do something like that. Like I don't do that, but
I maybe should.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I think when the kids are out of the house,
we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, they'll maybe There'll be another time in my life
when I have more energy in the morning. I'm looking
forward to that.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And also I've done some where I did like these
like five minute ten minute like meditation type of things
where I was just like my goal, I'm just gonna
I'm gonna set a ten minute timer. Usually I did
like a five minute timer and then another five minute timer.
But I would just say, like I'm gonna make something
just like Lo Fi and Chill. I'm just gonna make
it all from splice. I'm just gonna create something something new,
(28:42):
Like especially if it was night time and it was
snowing outside, I would just be like I look out
the window and I would just say, Okay, I'm gonna
spend five minutes find like a basic four measure or
eight measure chord progression that I like, a vibe that
I like, an instrument that i'd like, and then once
I get that, then the next five minutes is going
to be me, you know, adding some detail and like
(29:03):
tweaking things. So it's like the first five minutes is
just gathering the ingredients for the recipe, and then the
second five minutes is like kind of portioning them out,
and then whatever I have, I have and sometimes they're terrible,
and that's okay, you.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Know, yeah, crumple it up and you throw it in
the garbage.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, but it was only ten minutes. It wasn't going
kind of bringing this back to why I was saying
these like little baby steps towards a bigger goal things,
ceter all these uh taking these baby steps like it's
a ten minute exercise and if it's great and you
want to keep developing, it awesome, and if you don't,
it's okay. It was ten minutes that you probably want
to spend doom scrolling anyway, so you can do these
(29:41):
things and not have to feel like you have to
commit to doing a three minute song when you feel
already like you're not inspired, you feel like it's not
really working and then you get in your head and
you start to like tell yourself that you're not good
at this. Yeah, you don't have if you said a
ten minute time or you don't have time to tell
yourself that you're not good at this. Yeah, Okay, Ben,
you talked about the things that you, like you want
(30:04):
to start doing more of. I've talked about the things
I want to start doing more of, and I talked
about some of the things that I can do to
start that. So let's go back to you and say, so,
what are some things. What are some like first steps,
some like low barrier to entry things that you can
try to start doing more of that like human element,
live in the room kind of stuff at your new studio.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah. I think it's going to start with my friends. Actually,
I think I'm going to just like invite some of
my close musician friends over and maybe, you know, start
jamming together and see what happens and just like go
back to like twelve years ago when I maybe did
this most recently, and just like I don't know, try
to come up with a song and like, you know,
twenty minutes with a friend in the room and see
if together we could do something or maybe put up
(30:49):
a camera and record like a cover of a song
with a few friends and just just see what happens.
And now that we have the space, can I fight
you and something?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Instead of trying to write a song in twenty minutes,
try to write a chorus twenty minutes. Because if if
you just put your focused energy into like one section
that ends up being like really cool and you're inspired,
then you know to keep on going. But if you're
like trying to you know, meet the assignment by having
like two verses and a bridge, then you're much less
(31:16):
likely to stubble upon something actually cool and worth developing.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Cool good advice. Yeah, So I don't know, I want
to try maybe doing a little bit of like making
our own music. And I'm also open to like covering,
doing like a cover in here with like some cameras.
And also I was thinking about making like an event
with my room. My studio mate saying like, well, we're
going to do like, you know, a live session day,
and like if you want to come in, what We're
(31:42):
gonna have all a bunch of stuff set up, maybe
even outside you know, like outside the studio because it's
like in a cool spot and there's like a view. Yeah,
so I don't know that kind of a thing to
do like a day of like hey, like come on by,
we're gonna we're gonna be recording if you want, like
like what I did back in the day, like you know,
for one hour. We're gonna charge this. We'll have a
video person and you'll get some video that you could
chop up or do whatever you want with.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Could you this is just kind of spitballing. Could you
even maybe treat it kind of like not like an
open mic in the open to anybody's sense, but just
kind of say, hey, we're gonna do this thing kind
of like an invitation only open mic where you know,
if you come, you know, you can play a song
or two. We're going to record it and film.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It, and everybody else is there is going to like
be supportive in an audience, you know, and that's a
great idea.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And witness you know, be be part of the energy
of it, to be an audience for it. Yeah, And
it's just kind of like almost like a round table
where it's like, you know, everybody has a chance like
that everybody's gonna either be like up on stage joining
their song, or they're gonna be in the audience being
supportive and like hanging out. So it's gonna be like
a kind of a communal collaborative thing, which I think
will also get not just have them have the memory
(32:48):
and the experience of you know, being there and doing
that thing and having the recording, but also like they'll.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Remember the communications that they had and.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Like meeting new people, reconnecting with people that they haven't
talked in a while.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But the community.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, Like, and that's all going to be based on
you know it kind of like censored around your space.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And yeah, I think that's the really your vibe that
you and your studies.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Thanks, Matt, I appreciate that hopefully exciting new directions that
we're going to go take.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, and sorry, I really don't want to feel like
I'm I don't want to come across like I'm like
telling you your business and telling you what to do.
I'm just like, I'm excited for you, and I think
it's cool and I'm jealous that I don't have I
have no interest in doing tracking for sure, but also
the fact that all of the people that I collaborate
with the most live usually on like different continents, so
(33:32):
the in person community is not essential, not as much
of a thing for me.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, yeah, I think it could be cool if my
studiomate does the tracking and I do the mixing. That
could be like a good way to also separate it
because he's, like, you know, it's a little earlier in
his journey than I am, and maybe he'd be more
interested in doing that. Anyways, Yeah, I don't know thinking
about it. Because I had to like take this leap
and get out of the house because of necessity, I
might as well try to do stuff that I'm really
passionate about. Also while I'm here. The question is like,
(33:58):
you know, the time and figuring out how to make
living doing it. But we have to try and give
it a shot. So we're gonna take some steps and
see what clicks.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, and especially if those steps that you take and
the things that you try aren't humongous time sinks, Like
if you can do these kind of like low pressure
experiments and not make your first baby step a humongous leap.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah no, no, no, we're not doing like.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Them tracking and like multi camera and like it's.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Gonna be like Theo's record. Maybe in a year from
now or half a year from now. But first let's
start with like just a couple of small things and
see what clicks and what's working. So but we definitely
want to take those actual steps and work towards that
goal of doing more, more live things. So anyways, I
gotta wrap. But Carlos is so fun and a great conversation,
and I think we went in directions. I didn't even
(34:48):
think we weren't go in but lots of like stuff
to think about, and I'm like kind of inspired about.
Also just like the creation process of like you don't
have to have this is not the goal of this
of this conversation at all, but like just like the
practice of making stuff doesn't have to have a purpose.
It could just be fun and fulfilling and building skills
(35:09):
and just getting your creative hitch out.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I would say, I would say that it is relevant
because if the conversation that we're happening, the topic was
to be about, you know, these new directions. What you're
saying is that going in a new direction doesn't require
a full one hundred and ten percent energy shift to
try it out. Like you can try you know, you
can experiment, do little things and just going to see
what actually inspires you and and excites you, and then
(35:35):
you can decide where to really you know, deep dive
as opposed to spending so much time planning something and
then never actually doing it, which I am very very
guilty of doing a lot. But yeah, that's definitely me
kind of talking to myself there.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
But yeah, I think it was. I think it was
really relevant time. That's not that's not even an expression. Yeah,
I don't know what it's.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Don't drink. Don't drink.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
You don't have to have the whole bowl of soup
at once, you know, you could just have a couple
of spoonfuls. I'm gonna stop. I'm just stopping.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Who I mean, who eats a couple of spoonfuls of
soup and then doesn't eat the rest, like if it's
gonna get cold? You like as soup is one, Yes,
you have to pace yourself. You can't guzzle steaming.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Hot soup bullet, but you can't.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Spoons And then just like wait, okay, so now now
this I would argue, this is a very very off
topic getting into fights about the speed of which one
needs to eat soup.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
But put my analogies out of out of commisionybody.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Out of their misery. Yeah, it's not any worse than
my increased itchiness metaphors. So, Ben, you're the man. I
appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I'm glad to see you, and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
That's the plan.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Bye Ben, by Carl.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.
If anything here resonated with you, please share this or
your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
At Ben Wallace Music, and at Carl Vonner.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Until next time, Bye Ben.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Bye Carl. That's good. I think the outro is great.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com