[Music]
how did I get
here I have zero musical Talent when I
was 9 years old I was given a musical
aptitude test by the Ontario
Conservatory of Music my older brother
took the same test and pass with flying
colors and went on to become a very
accomplished organist me well I was told
that music might not be for you and at
that time I didn't even care so how do
you go from being branded as having no
talent for music to getting to do music
production on YouTube as a full-time job
and ultimately installing a
$100,000 mixing console into your own
Studio simple when they tell you you're
not good enough don't believe it as a
9-year-old I had zero interest in music
however when I was 14 I heard Judith
priest's electric eye and that changed
the course of my life I knew I wanted to
do music in some capacity so I got my
first guitar at 15 and it became
apparent very quickly that I was never
going to be a virtuoso and I'm fine with
that however when I went to college for
media arts at 19 I got to mix succession
on their full-size console and I fell in
love with the process however after
graduation surprise surprise nobody in
the industry was hiring take notes kids
that was in 1993 and it's only gotten
worse if you think college is going to
get you a job please for the love of
Crum do some research before you take
out a loan now after graduation for me
that meant going home to Windsor H what
I do with all that education why Roofing
of course and then stamping bumpers and
then finally just when I thought it
couldn't get any worse it did Chrysler
called here's your job have fun with it
and we'll see you in 30 years well
even though I had the most mind-numbing
job on the planet I was determined to do
something with music so I started saving
and reading everything I could get my
hands on about recording recording
magazine EQ mix sound on sound tape up
you name it I read it and in 1998 I
opened my first studio and I immediately
learned that this was going to be way
harder than I ever anticipated in 2005 I
started hanging out on the Andy sne
Forum where a really amazing bunch of
creative people hung out and we all
shared production tips with each other a
lot of those people who hung out on that
Forum all have careers now guys like
Joey sturis and Lassa Lamour bands you
might have heard of like periphery or a
storm those guys all came out of that
for and in 2012 I put out a video on
YouTube called how to get your band
ready for the studio originally so Forum
members could share it with their
clients as I'd seen bands make the same
mistakes so many times now I got two
reactions from that video the first was
you're going to ruin your business
business and the second was do more the
problem was that I had said what I
wanted to say and it took me a couple of
years to figure out what to do with
YouTube but in 2014 after working as a
Director of Photography on a local indie
film and getting fired for chewing out
the director for being an idiot and
wasting everyone's time I thought okay
let's try doing this YouTube thing
seriously and the first video I released
after that was ax effects versus the
real deal and I have not slowed down at
all since then fast forward to last fall
and I reached out to Sweetwater and
proposed the idea of doing some kind of
deal on a NE console I got to visit the
ne guys at their facility in England
last summer and I was utterly Blown Away
by the capabilities of the Genesis black
console and for some insane reason the
guys at Sweetwater said yes wo this is
going to get
interesting oh that is pretty
big it's down and in one piece
yeah that's great right there man well
that went a lot smoother than the last
one that's good that's
good okay time for an epic
[Music]
unboxing just saying you know 21 years
ago almost to the day I moved into this
place and we built this studio over the
winter of
2003 here we are 21 years later and I'm
installing a Neeve console never in a
million years did I think I'd ever be at
this point in my life and I've got you
guys to thank for it so I am grateful
for
that wow I got a big silver
[Music]
bag okay
they said it was very well protected
they weren't kidding look at that oh boy
that's a lot of bubble wrap and look
they even threw it a great big snack for
the base
players how's it going
Steve we finally got it on the stand and
yeah wow
that took a bit of coaxing so this is my
good friend Walter riggy he owns a
studio just down the street I don't know
if Walter's actually been on the show
Watcher I'm a faithful Watcher I've seen
like every episode minus
one and uh yeah he's going to give me a
hand to take the plastic off this thing
I'm drooling so hold on a sec sorry
about that sorry about that I drooled
again I drooled
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again
[Music]
o I want to do that all day can't wait
to get this thing hooked up and start
running some audio through
it one eternity later so why go to all
the trouble why spend all that money on
something that you can do with a DOT
because we have all heard spectacular
mixes that have been done completely in
software and a lot of that software can
emulate one of these the short answer
speed working with a console forces me
to use a certain workflow option
paralysis is no longer thing because I'm
no longer tempted to audition 17
different eqs for 20 minutes on every
single freaking Channel with the board
you get one EQ and it's top of the heat
actually with this board I'm going to
swap out the stock 88r eqs on the last
eight channel
for 1084s which are a bit more Musical
and will be great on guitars and vocals
now just sitting here getting used to
the controls and seeing how everything
works it really does allow me to
rebalance and mix within seconds without
having to click everything individually
with a mouse that's a massive timesaver
and I've even got a touchcreen here that
allows me to manipulate the EQ controls
without even having to move out of The
Sweet Spot that's freaking amazing now
just to be clear there's absolutely
nothing wrong to mixing with a mouse
I've been doing it since 1998 and if
you're doing four to five projects a
year it's great but if you have to bust
out multiple mixes per week every week
like when you're doing YouTube content
you're looking to speed things up in any
way you can and as for Sonic advantages
there's pros and cons to this way of
working the board is analog but
digitally controlled now I explored this
method of working last October with a
look at the mcdsp analog processing box
and I got probably the best mix of my
life with it
[Music]
take me
away that was super easy to work with
and get great results and it's also one
of the reasons that I pulled the trigger
on the KNE the other thing I've noticed
is that you can really hit your outboard
processing a whole lot harder than you
can coming out of a digital system units
like VCA and fet compressors like to be
given a lot of signal and when they work
hard they sound good now I've started
working with some Sal channels and
they're great but it's like the
compressors are barely engaged when you
hit them with a digital signal in my
cran board 500 adad the ne on the other
hand lets me hit it as hard as I want
and I can set and forget my outboard and
use the sends from the mixer to
determine how much level things get and
the computer here makes it recallable
for every single session I recall this
about 20 minutes ago and I've just got
kick snare and overheads going this is
just with the board processing no Reverb
no nothing going on check this
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out now I've had this pair of Stam 11
76s over here for the last couple years
and they've been pretty good but now
that I've got them hooked in the board I
can hit them a whole lot harder and now
what they do on room mics is just well
check this
[Music]
out wow that's in insane and if we go
back to the original mix there just kick
snare and overheads and we bring in
those rooms crushed check this
[Music]
out yeah that's what I'm talking about
yeah these are the kind of drum sounds
that I've been listening to on records
for years and wondering why I've never
been able to get them the inherent
problem with digital is that when you
hit zero you've got nowhere to go and
that means you can only turn up your
output signal so far and a compressor is
only going to get so much signal here
the signal is coming out of the
converter and then it gets fed through
the board and Amplified again on the way
to the channel set you can go way over
zero and it's going to sound good
because the signal saturates instead of
Clips little side note here when sack
came out back in 2006 or 07 something
like that it was called software audio
console and it was one of the first live
software mixers and a colleague of mine
warned me that I'd need a much more
powerful amp to run the PA because once
you hit zero you got nowhere to go and I
learned two things from my first gig
doing live sound with him number one he
was absolutely right and number two
musicians love to about the sound
at live gigs but never want to pay
anybody to actually mix for them and
that is why I don't do live sound after
doing some very basic rudimentary mixes
on the KN it's becoming very clear as to
why most of the engineers that I look up
to like Andy sneep Colin Richardson and
Frederick Nordstrom still work on analog
consoles not to mention that most of my
all-time favorite albums were mixed in
analog now for all you guys who are
working with software let me be very
clear this is not a Magic Bullet this
will not automatically make your mixes
sound amazing you still need a solid
grasp of the basics and knowing how to
get what you want out of this thing that
comes from experience and of course
there are some serious disadvantages to
working with a console as well first and
foremost at 300 lb it's heavy it's hard
to move around the two of us barely got
it in here and then of course there's
the price let's put it this way Jared
dyes took his YouTube money and bought a
Hellcat Stevie bought a McLaren I
thought about buying a nice car and then
I realized I was looking at nothing but
nice new cars every single day of my
life for 27 years straight so um yeah I
think I've got my feel of that besides
in Canada the weather's terrible for
half the year and you wouldn't want to
drive one of those in the snow anyway
with a Neeve I can use it all year
around and the insurance is way cheaper
than what you'd pay on a Porsche
[Music]
911 it all really comes down to
priorities if I get to work on a KNE I'm
more than happy to only drive a minivan
so after 6 days of wiring this Beast up
debugging things making sure all the
signals going to where it's supposed to
go and then learning it I've taken one
of my favorite mixes that I've done in
my original system and put it through
this and here's what I
got
[Music]
that is the kind of mix I've been
dreaming of getting for the last 20 some
odd years and I was able to dial that in
in about 2 hours and that's after coming
in with knowing almost nothing about how
to to work this system that's intuitive
that's great and that helped me get the
results I'm after very very quickly now
if you like the guitar sound on that and
would like to know how to get something
like that make sure you hit the
Subscribe button because I'm going to do
a full breakdown on that in a couple of
weeks and show you guys my big Eureka
moment when it came to getting great
Rhythm tones make sure you don't miss
that one there's going to be a lot of
great information in there if a guy who
was labeled as having no musical Talent
at 9 years old can get this far anyone
can do it as long as they apply
themselves think in the long term think
about your goals and how to achieve them
but it will be baby steps it's not going
to happen all at once and above all
learn to recognize an opportunity when
it comes along because they rarely come
gift wrapped now I've got to give a
great big shout out to Sweetwater for
making this happen no they did not just
hand me this console I did have to send
them the biggest check I've ever written
in my entire life but they were a big
help let's just put it that way now I'm
going to be clear here I love doing this
show and I want to put what I've made
back into it and make better content for
you guys this year is going to allow me
to do the audio production end of things
a whole lot faster and I got to point
out that Sweetwater was absolutely
fantastic when it came to getting any
issues with the install of this thing
sorted out I had tons of questions and
they were really great when it came to
answers and that's why I like working
with them they can handle anything from
the basic beginner setup to help you get
started to a top of the Heap full-on Pro
level setup like this if you need
something contact Sweetwater and ask for
Jeff Allen he's been my sales guy for
years and he's absolutely fantastic and
I've also got to give a massive thank
you to everybody at Neeve they've been
utterly magnificent as well they've been
very tolerant of my questions I'm sure
they've just been roolling their eyes
for the last week really isn't that
obvious because switching over from a do
to a console isn't as simple as one
might think my only gripe with NE is
that their software authentication on
the website does need a major rethink
seriously guys guys it shouldn't be that
difficult maybe start by putting the Mac
driver for the touchcreen on the
freaking website so we can actually
download instead of having to beg
somebody to mail it to us really guys
that's not a big ask and for all you
guys are going Glen you're being so mean
to the KN guys no that's me being nice
that's me holding back there were some
curses uttered in here once or twice
during the install trust me on
this now ultimately my goal here is to
step up my mixing game to the next level
and maybe one day get to mix a major
band maybe a group from the new wave of
British metal days or maybe somebody
from the San Francisco thrash scene it
should be cool to get to work with diad
or death angel or somebody like that and
yeah it did take me a lifetime to get
this far but it's certainly been an
interesting Journey especially for a guy
with absolutely no Talent at
all