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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Says Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is producer, engineer, technical wizard George Massenberg. George,

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Speaker 1: you wanted to talk about skiing.

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Speaker 2: I'd rather talk about AI.

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Speaker 1: You'd rather talk about AI? Tell me your thoughts about AI.

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Speaker 2: I think most of the public conversation has been misled

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Speaker 2: and is misleading. Kind of summarize it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but let's sort of buy for Katie here. Are

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Speaker 1: you on the side of AI is scary or the

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Speaker 1: hype is too heavy.

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Speaker 2: I'm certainly of the opinion that some tech millionaires are

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Speaker 2: making a lot more money promoting AI, and I've recently

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Speaker 2: found out a little bit more of the dollars where

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Speaker 2: the dollars move. But I'm not scared of anything. I

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Speaker 2: love technology. The misuse of technology I have problems with.

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Speaker 2: But I love fixing things. I love getting things to work.

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Speaker 2: And for the past couple of years, my programmers and

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Speaker 2: I have been working with AI to suggest code and

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Speaker 2: it speeds things up. By the way, it also gets

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Speaker 2: about half of what it states is fact wrong. That

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Speaker 2: is code that doesn't work or code that causes things

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Speaker 2: to crash, and code is code. I mean you have

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Speaker 2: to run code, and if it's wrong, it crashes. So

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Speaker 2: we have to be as careful as we are with

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Speaker 2: AI generating code. We don't do any generative AI with code.

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Speaker 2: We use it to wire controls in some of these

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Speaker 2: development applications.

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Speaker 1: So, George, you just sent me a document saying why

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Speaker 1: does AI generated music sound so shitty? So why does

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Speaker 1: it sound so shitty?

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Speaker 2: Well, there are a few reasons. Well, I guess the

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Speaker 2: reason at the top of my head is that we've

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Speaker 2: been years trying to make incrementally better music as we

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Speaker 2: learn how to live and how to communicate, how to listen,

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Speaker 2: how to spread out our interests that we allow other

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Speaker 2: kinds of music, other cultures in And it's certainly what

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is to make is to understand

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Speaker 2: better how to communicate with music, how to help artists

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Speaker 2: make music better, communicate what they're trying to say. And

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Speaker 2: by the way, that presumes that artists always have something

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Speaker 2: to say. And you may have an opinion on that,

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Speaker 2: but the bottom line is we love making music. This

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Speaker 2: group of seven of us, and you've interviewed half of us,

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Speaker 2: I think, but I've lived a life of music in

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Speaker 2: its group Bob, It's brought me tremendous joy when I

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Speaker 2: stumble on something I've been working very hard at and

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Speaker 2: finally I make it work or it clicks or it

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Speaker 2: has some magic, and it it affirms my life. It's

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Speaker 2: the best thing I could, best way I can put it.

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Speaker 2: I love music. Okay, that's your general philosophy. But just

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Speaker 2: restating the question, why does AI music sound so bad? Well,

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Speaker 2: here's the list. I'll work my way from the bottom up.

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Speaker 2: Missing the feel.

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Speaker 1: AI.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if you think of it in terms of

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Speaker 2: what AI doesn't do. It doesn't copy paste happiness. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't doesn't do joy. Joy is very personalized, its individual.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't have the tools yet to tell a story

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Speaker 2: in time, Bob. You know groove as well as any

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Speaker 2: of us. Groove is, in one way of looking at

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Speaker 2: groove is a story between musicians and time. Musicians for me,

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Speaker 2: musicians in the studio where a great guitar player proposes

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Speaker 2: a groove to somebody else in the room, and it's

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Speaker 2: what can you do with this, Bernard or whatever that

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Speaker 2: might be. Groove is a story in time, and you

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Speaker 2: hear groove that's written to me everywhere. Mariacchi, you know

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Speaker 2: the feel of mariachi is the feel of the groove.

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Speaker 2: How something to the uninitiated sounds a little bit like

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Speaker 2: a lurch off the forela, and that's groove, or in

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Speaker 2: one way of looking at that's groove. And AI doesn't

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Speaker 2: do groove. Now maybe eventually you could learn. But the

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Speaker 2: very heart of AI, the heart of AI, is nothing

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Speaker 2: but a machine that does a comparative analysis and a

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Speaker 2: thing called correlation, auto correlation, relative correlation. And the reason

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Speaker 2: it soaks up so much power is the way I works.

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Speaker 2: And you've heard it put this way. I know where

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Speaker 2: you take two call them data sets, and you sort

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Speaker 2: on the correlated parts of two data sets. I'll get

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Speaker 2: I'll get a lot simpiler in a minute, two correlated

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Speaker 2: parts of data sets, and you're building a large model library.

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Speaker 2: By the way, that's the expensive part of AI, is

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Speaker 2: building the large model library. But all you're doing is

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Speaker 2: finding commonality. And you're doing on more than this, but

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Speaker 2: it's very core. You're finding a commonality between data sets

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Speaker 2: and what I would propose in its most rudimentary form,

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Speaker 2: it's turning all of these different data sets looking for

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Speaker 2: commonality into mush into beige mush. Nothing too surprising. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't do anything terribly extraordinary or terribly Monday. Actually it's

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Speaker 2: all Munday, and if you want to look at it

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Speaker 2: that way. But it's selling some kind of genius that

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Speaker 2: I'm just not seeing. I think there's been tremendous room

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Speaker 2: for we practitioners who use AI to take an idea,

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Speaker 2: see what AI has to say about it, and then

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Speaker 2: adds something of our own. And one thing that I

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Speaker 2: would suggest is there's a lot of room to add

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Speaker 2: it of our own feeling and knowledge. And it's sets

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Speaker 2: of music and joy. There's no joy. Yeah, AI doesn't

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Speaker 2: do joy. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm running on of

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Speaker 2: no no, no, no no no, I have these is

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Speaker 2: all going to get cut.

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Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no no, this is this is genius.

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Speaker 1: Keep going. How'll come? Insiders like you and Don was

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Speaker 1: have no fear of AI and music and everybody on

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Speaker 1: the business side, and those who are not on the

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Speaker 1: inside creatively are freaking out.

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Speaker 2: I love Don and for all the times that we've

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Speaker 2: been in the studio together, and you have to remember,

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Speaker 2: because you've been here with this, I know where we

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Speaker 2: spend about five minutes hacking, hacking, doing work and doing

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Speaker 2: some edits and then the next fifty five minutes telling stories.

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Speaker 2: And Don's stories are great, and he's worked with everybody,

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Speaker 2: and I just love working. He's a great guy to

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Speaker 2: hang with. Why does Don tend to think about it

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Speaker 2: the same way? It's the first I've heard of it.

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Speaker 2: I haven't talked to Tom in a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 2: and I would say that he's a thinking man's producer.

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Speaker 2: He's the thinking man's producer with a great, great field.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm surprised you haven't haven't heard that he's out

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Speaker 2: with us.

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Speaker 1: With the Don has told me. He said, AI is

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Speaker 1: a tool, just like with the lin drum. He had

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Speaker 1: Lynn drum number three I think it was, and he

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Speaker 1: asked Roger len who had number two? Because Roger had

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Speaker 1: number one. He said Prince. And then Don messed around

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Speaker 1: with it, couldn't figure out any great thing. And then

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Speaker 1: he heard princes when doves cry. And then he says, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I see what you can do with it. And he

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Speaker 1: feels the same way about AI that yes, I feel this, Ye,

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Speaker 1: it will have us, but it's not going to replace

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Speaker 1: the underlying music.

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Speaker 2: It's not going to replace the inspiration. So again you

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Speaker 2: know if you scroll to the bottom, no real intentionality.

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Speaker 2: AI doesn't get into a gig with the intention of

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Speaker 2: a quality even reviewing its quality. To ask another add

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Speaker 2: I think it was chat GPT if there was any

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Speaker 2: recycling of data in LIED and said, no, there's none.

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Speaker 2: But that's that's a lie. It does recycle data because

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Speaker 2: it does need to study its recommendations and make sure

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Speaker 2: it's not echoing one of those early completely racist AI

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Speaker 2: agents that put out like the worst recommendations, the worst language,

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Speaker 2: hateful speech. And you've read about that, and it may

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Speaker 2: have been early Meta that did that, just hateful, hateful speech,

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Speaker 2: and they went in and started fishing for ways to

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Speaker 2: limit that, they being the few programmers that really understand

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Speaker 2: how the AI algorithms were. So what I would what

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Speaker 2: my mind jumps to is is how great Prince was

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Speaker 2: because he you know, we all worked with Prince. In fact,

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Speaker 2: you remember Cavala Ruffalo, they managed Prince and they got

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Speaker 2: me the gag mastering some of the Prince stuff because

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Speaker 2: Bernie Grutman couldn't deal with it what Prince was making

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Speaker 2: him do. May he may rest in peace because he's

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Speaker 2: he was the genius. He was on with true independent inspiration.

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Speaker 2: But but that thing that he discovered because we saw

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Speaker 2: him use the drum machine, he used stock Lynn Lynn

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Speaker 2: Allen one. We saw Ellen one when when David David

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Speaker 2: Foster asked Roger Lynn to show it to him. So

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Speaker 2: that was that was number one where it was still

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Speaker 2: breadboards and uh boy, you could you could see the possibilities.

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Speaker 2: And Prince saw it in three D. He was musically

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Speaker 2: and I want to say, emotionally and technically a study

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Speaker 2: in real creativity. Let's go back to the beginning of George.

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Speaker 2: So where do you grow up? All over the place.

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Speaker 2: My father was an Air Force surgeon, so I grew

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Speaker 2: up in four or five different cities. My father was

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Speaker 2: from Macon, Georgia, mother was from at that time Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 2: My grandfather was a mukeeting bucket Exxon which was called

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Speaker 2: Standard Oil. And so the most memorable times in my

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Speaker 2: life were going to after they divorced, visit my father

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Speaker 2: in Macon, Georgia, and have this experience with Southern radio

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Speaker 2: that changed my DNA at the very heart is growing

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Speaker 2: up listening to when I was in Macon, listening to

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Speaker 2: race radio, listening to early black radio, and as near

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Speaker 2: as I can figure. My father was a surgeon for

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Speaker 2: the better part of the black community of Making, Georgia.

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Speaker 2: I don't know whether he was the surgeon for notable musicians,

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Speaker 2: but he might have been. So I've got something you're

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Speaker 2: going to have to cut out. My father was the

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Speaker 2: only surgeon in town that would put his hand up

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Speaker 2: a black man's ass to check for growths. And why

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Speaker 2: do we have to keep out? Oh? I love you

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Speaker 2: more and more, Bob Okay, use it. But he was.

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Speaker 2: He was. The quarter of his year was charity surgery.

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Speaker 2: He was, in my mind, a hero. Even though he

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Speaker 2: was a terrible alcoholic and hated being a doctor. He

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Speaker 2: did use it. But growing up in Making, Georgia expose

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Speaker 2: me to the early bird groups and I would turn

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Speaker 2: on the radio and I as a seven year old,

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Speaker 2: which is her raw sex pour out of the radio,

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Speaker 2: And I said, well that's for me. I didn't know anything,

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Speaker 2: but I loved music, and that was a side of

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Speaker 2: music that I wouldn't have heard any other way. So

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Speaker 2: that was Making. And we were also Scottsfield, Arizona, and

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Speaker 2: be fifty twos flew Over and my brother and my

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Speaker 2: nephew are service families in the Navy. My nephew is

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Speaker 2: an air boss on an aircraft carrier, and my brother

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Speaker 2: rose to I'm so proud of my brother. We grew

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Speaker 2: up miles apart. My brother went into service and was

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Speaker 2: in naval Rotzzi and interviewed with Rumsfeld. He was one

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Speaker 2: of the top ten guys in service. And we never

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Speaker 2: spoke for years and years and years, and then when

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Speaker 2: we did, we realized how much we loved each other.

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Speaker 2: But now I'm really getting farfield. I was a family

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Speaker 2: and I was you've interviewed ry Cooter would refer to

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Speaker 2: him as I was always a George. I was always

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Speaker 2: a marginal person. I felt that way. It was always marginal.

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Speaker 2: I was a terrible student. It was horrible.

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Speaker 1: Wait a second, Okay, so only two kids in the family,

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Speaker 1: you and your brother.

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Speaker 2: Well, we have an extended family yet cousins and nephews,

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Speaker 2: and well in the primary family was my brother. And

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Speaker 2: who's older you or your brother? I was older and

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Speaker 2: I was a monster. I would I would fight with

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Speaker 2: my brother and do terrible things. But yeah, no, I

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Speaker 2: was older.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you must have been somewhat of a good

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Speaker 1: student if you got into Johns Hopkins.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but boy. I didn't get along with anybody, and

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Speaker 2: I didn't realize until I tried to go back and

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Speaker 2: teach at university. I was at McGill for thirteen years,

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Speaker 2: and I view those years largely as misdirected and maybe wasted.

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Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, just to be clear, your years at

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Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins or your year's teaching.

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Speaker 2: My years A year and a half at Johns Hopkins,

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Speaker 2: and I finally left Johns Hopkins. I quit Johns Hopkins

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Speaker 2: at about the same time that everybody else was smart

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Speaker 2: was quitting university, and I got a job at a

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Speaker 2: recording studio. Okay, But later at McGill, I found that

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Speaker 2: it was very difficult to reach kids. I wasn't there

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Speaker 2: to serve the kids. I was there to serve the

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Speaker 2: administrative layer at the university. And when I fought it,

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Speaker 2: I was not welcomed. Okay, So when you were at McGill,

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Speaker 2: why was it so hard to reach students. I wasn't

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Speaker 2: silenced early, but I assumed that I could change the agenda.

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Speaker 2: And I came to McGill having just started doing video

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Speaker 2: in the studio, because at that time I had already

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Speaker 2: demonstrated as well as I could that video directors. We

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Speaker 2: were missing a lot, and so I wanted to do

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Speaker 2: it on my own. So I bought some professional cameras

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Speaker 2: and started taking doing video and the recording studio. This

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Speaker 2: would be very quick, don't worry. Started doing video on

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Speaker 2: the recording studio. My second engineers would double as videographers.

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Speaker 2: Would take one let's roll. They would put down their

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Speaker 2: clipboard and pick up a camera and shoot the session.

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Speaker 2: And I had a completely different experience with video, where

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Speaker 2: I focused on the music and the performance and not

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Speaker 2: what I came into it as a producer. Angry, an

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Speaker 2: r person or whatever forces push a session over on

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Speaker 2: its face. So I took that to mcgil where I

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Speaker 2: was trying to make clear that we had a tremendous

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Speaker 2: resource at mcgillan's and Music. We had some extraordinary performance

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Speaker 2: and we had recording facilities one of the pre eminent

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Speaker 2: recording programs in the world mcguil Sound Recording, and I

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Speaker 2: tried to put it together. We had a tremendous director

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Speaker 2: of the opera, Patrick Hanson, and we had wonderful donors

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Speaker 2: Joe and Ivory and gave me discretionary use of some

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Speaker 2: funds and so I could buy enough video to do

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Speaker 2: pro video, and we changed video in Canada, I would

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Speaker 2: submit where you know, we would keep keep it as research.

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Speaker 2: Everything about about what I learned was about research, conducting

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Speaker 2: research and doing it poorly, I mean, not good at it.

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Speaker 2: But and I'm inconsistent and I'm lazy, But I did

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Speaker 2: find that musicians were far better videographers far better. And

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Speaker 2: this is way before anything Instagram or TikTok or anything issues.

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Speaker 2: Make better videographers because they follow the music. They follow

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Speaker 2: the music, and as videographers on a live presentation, they're

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Speaker 2: irreplaceable because they know where the music is going, they

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Speaker 2: know where the action is going in opera, and this

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Speaker 2: is lost on the better part of the school and

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Speaker 2: a professional context. You know, I was not very well accepted,

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Speaker 2: and maybe it was my attitude. I still have a

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Speaker 2: bad attitude.

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Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait wait, bad attitude is the essence of

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Speaker 1: rock and roll. But I want to and ask just

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Speaker 1: a little bit more, what was the problem with connecting

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Speaker 1: with the students.

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, Well, this is going to be hard to admit,

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Speaker 2: but I'm not a nice person when things go wrong,

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Speaker 2: and I'm aggressive and more likely to be angry and

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Speaker 2: accusatory and just awful and I hate me in the

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Speaker 2: recording studio, and if you ask any of my second engineers,

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Speaker 2: they would have to agree. And with students it worked

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Speaker 2: less well because they thought, they felt strongly and rightly

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Speaker 2: so that they were paying for an education. They were

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Speaker 2: looking for their education. Why why they were looking for

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Speaker 2: their idea what an education was or is? And what

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Speaker 2: I needed is for students to pay attention and survey

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Speaker 2: your academics bomb and ask them what their biggest problem,

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Speaker 2: the biggest problems were and are. And it's the challenge

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Speaker 2: in my mind and my book is the challenge of

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Speaker 2: getting students to pay attention. That's extraordinarily difficult. And when

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Speaker 2: I could capture the attention of and this is this

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Speaker 2: is a graduate level course. Sound recording is a master's degree,

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Speaker 2: three year degree, which is when I could get somebody

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Speaker 2: on board with how to think about telling a story

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Speaker 2: in video, because it's all about telling a story, same

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Speaker 2: thing as music. We're there to tell stories. And that

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Speaker 2: idea of coherence over time that first thing that an

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Speaker 2: AIA agent has to deliver. On that list I sent

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Speaker 2: you coherence of a story over time? How to get

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Speaker 2: a story to hang together? I turned a couple of

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Speaker 2: my graduates into the direction of being professionals, and they're

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Speaker 2: all working and they're making a fuck ton of money.

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Speaker 2: I think they are. But the ones I could reach

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Speaker 2: I did extremely well with. So I was encouraged to

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Speaker 2: think that this Jacqueline Hide demeanor would get a student's

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Speaker 2: attention and allow me to move it move. The conversation

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Speaker 2: on that was just mean, Okay, if.

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Speaker 1: We've pulled back the lens, people from our generation all

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Speaker 1: figured it out for themselves with your experience, how do

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Speaker 1: you feel about music education on the road to creating

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Speaker 1: professional artists?

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Speaker 2: What a brilliant question and one that I should have

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Speaker 2: been prepared for. We're still looking for brilliant artists, so

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Speaker 2: let's start at the end and work our way back.

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Speaker 2: Our challenge these days and finding in discovering brilliant artists,

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Speaker 2: And I mean there are not many of them, Prince.

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Speaker 2: There's he's one in ten million I haven't met, but

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Speaker 2: a small handful of true geniuses and pop music, by

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Speaker 2: the way, I know you watched the Billy Joel thing.

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Speaker 2: I was so impressed with Billy Joel, and I've did

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Speaker 2: a record with him and didn't see certain sides of

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Speaker 2: him as far as writing went, and was very close

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Speaker 2: to Phil Ramona, and I know what Phil brought to

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Speaker 2: Billy Joel, and it wasn't always Billy Joel's idea. But

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Speaker 2: to fill the point I was trying to make, or

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Speaker 2: trying to lead into, is the idea that there's so

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Speaker 2: much noise out there, and the industry is smaller and

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Speaker 2: in competition with sports and with video games and with

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Speaker 2: God knows what that you're likely to draw off how

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Speaker 2: to find that brilliant person again, find that what on

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Speaker 2: terms that I could I could relate to this, This person,

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Speaker 2: Jimmy well Web is a good example of somebody, ah

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Speaker 2: who I am in awe. The way he puts moving

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Speaker 2: tones together and by the way he puts music, he

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Speaker 2: puts lyrics together is idiosyncrasies. And there are men, there

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Speaker 2: are many others that you and I have known that

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Speaker 2: we would have to call brilliant, but they're harder and

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Speaker 2: harder to find. I did. I started a record Tammy Emmanuel,

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Speaker 2: who is that kind of idiosyncratic, complete genius, independent way

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Speaker 2: of expressing himself and God knows where it comes from,

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Speaker 2: but you know right away that this is a transcendent artist.

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Speaker 2: So that's the problem. And the other thing is nobody

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Speaker 2: picks me as a producer anymore. You know, I have

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Speaker 2: this thing that I do where I'll do it once.

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Speaker 2: When I got out of Earth Wind and Fire many

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Speaker 2: many years ago, I had a lot of offers and

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Speaker 2: I did a couple of them and realized that they

348
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Speaker 2: didn't want any innovation whatsoever. They just wanted me to

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Speaker 2: repeat what they thought were my ideas with earth Wind

350
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Speaker 2: and Fire. And I didn't do the heavy lifting with

351
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Speaker 2: her from the Fire, Marys wife did and I couldn't

352
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Speaker 2: fulfill that dream, so I stopped taking work. I still

353
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Speaker 2: won't answer the phone. But Tommy Emmanuel persisted, so I

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Speaker 2: had to work with him. Also, he was brilliant, so

355
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Speaker 2: I had to work with him. Linda persisted. A lot

356
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Speaker 2: of these artists persisted, and that worked with him.

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Speaker 1: Okay, there was a great explosion of artists in the

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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies into the eighties. What you talked about

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Speaker 1: the competition for interest sports and video games in the Internet.

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Speaker 1: But do you believe the what is the problem that

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Speaker 1: we're not having artists? Is there not dedicating the time?

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Speaker 1: We can't find it, we can't amplify it. What is

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Speaker 1: the real problem.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. Problem. Well, I think the challenge

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Speaker 2: is allowing marginal people, is allowing a ryecoiter. For me,

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Speaker 2: it was getting to know loll George and how he

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Speaker 2: would craft a story, and how he suffered from music

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Speaker 2: with this, with this incomprehensibly narrow view that he had

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Speaker 2: to change the world with the song. I've put it

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Speaker 2: like that before. Nobody's argued with me. But that's the

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Speaker 2: why I saw old George and what he did to live.

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Speaker 2: His music was idiosyncratic and independent, and people would pay.

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Speaker 2: Bob you wrote some checks. People would pay for that

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Speaker 2: in the sixties and seventies, and then people tried to

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Speaker 2: simplify it and gave it to accountants. With the turn

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Speaker 2: of the nineties and the experience of having artists like

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Speaker 2: Michael Jackson go for what did he go for forty

378
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Speaker 2: points to Walter forty five points? You know, and the

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Speaker 2: artists took control, they took their music back, and they

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Speaker 2: didn't they couldn't do that formula anymore where one out

381
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 2: of twenty would fund the other nineteen. But you know,

382
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Speaker 2: Michael wouldn't allow that. And then Braca, you should interview

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Speaker 2: John Braga Braco wouldn't allow that.

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Speaker 1: Well, I know, Brinck, I've talked a little bit. That's

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Speaker 1: a good idea. Let's go back to Lowell. George, tell

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Speaker 1: me about him suffering for the music.

387
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Speaker 2: Well, first, it's well known that he overindulged, and that

388
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 2: was not his about his friend. I mean when we

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Speaker 2: did the rate you've heard about the Rainbow sessions that

390
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 2: we did that turned into Waiting for Columbus, which it

391
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: turned out to be a great record, and everybody had

392
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Speaker 2: a hand in it. Who I want to say mattered,

393
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: but he his his his wife Liz, had to sequester

394
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Speaker 2: his funds so they wouldn't buy a lot of really

395
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 2: nasty drugs. So before the Wednesday night show at the Rainbow,

396
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 2: you could see loll in the lobby with an armful

397
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Speaker 2: of T shirts selling T shirts for half price so

398
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Speaker 2: he could make enough money to buy blow. And And

399
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 2: that was the story of the the downfall of the

400
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Speaker 2: production of the Rainbow.

401
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Speaker 1: That was Lowell.

402
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 2: That had to do with Lowell's imagination and what he

403
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: could get away with, what he should get away with,

404
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 2: what he shouldn't get away with. But he told a

405
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 2: great story and he lived, He lived his he lived

406
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 2: at the edges of his imagination. He's a great, great

407
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: recond and a fisherman, loved to fish. He and jenneddiad

408
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 2: bonded over fishing. So I don't know where I started

409
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 2: that answer, I help, it didn't get to.

410
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Speaker 1: Okay, how did you meet Lowell? George?

411
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Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good story to it. The artist of

412
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 2: my life was began as Emulou Harris, and I was

413
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 2: a small recording studio in Hunt Valley, Maryland early on,

414
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 2: and word got to Washington, d C. Where Tom and

415
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:59,719
Speaker 2: Emmy Lou lived, and she was doing her thing, playing

416
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 2: her songs out of the folk scare of the late sixties,

417
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 2: and I got to know, I mean, I did a

418
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 2: couple tunes for her, and shortly thereafter she heard from

419
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: her friend Lindron said that Lindron said was sick and

420
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 2: she was going to come to do this record with

421
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Speaker 2: John Starling, the leader of the Seldom scene. You probably

422
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: never heard that name, but he had the great bluegrass

423
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Speaker 2: and I come out of bluegrass. Bluegress in classical music

424
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 2: and the bluegrass were a lot of these early bluegrass artists.

425
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 2: Live to two track, where I really learned how to

426
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 2: mix live to two track for Rebel Records, Country Gentlemen,

427
00:32:51,520 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 2: the Osborne's Seldom Scene and and John Starling was no

428
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 2: was throat doctor. And when Linda fell ill on the road,

429
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 2: she went to stay with she. She canceled her gigs

430
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 2: and this is seventy four. Canceled her gigs and went

431
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 2: to live with John Starling and his wife, Issue Starling,

432
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 2: also wonderful singer. And during that time We'll quit Little Feet,

433
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 2: I'm out, fuck you guys, and was hanging out with

434
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 2: Linda and so Lowell on this hiatus from Little Feet,

435
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 2: wanted to get a song with Mike Aldridge, the dobo player,

436
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 2: and he had this wacky tune called Everybody Slide is

437
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 2: all about slide guitar. And just hung out and that's

438
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 2: how I met Old George and we got to be friends.

439
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: He was impressed that, rather then yelling at people to

440
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 2: be quiet in the control, that I put on a

441
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 2: pair of headphones and carried on. Nothing stopped me. And

442
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 2: had proposed that we worked together, and we did a lot.

443
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: Let's go back a little bit, fill in some detail.

444
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: So what kind of kid were you. Were you like

445
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: a member of the group playing sports? Were you a

446
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:28,280
Speaker 1: kid in your room reading and tinkering and book.

447
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 2: Kind loath sports, and when I found out how to

448
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 2: make gunpowder, I was making explosives and homemade rockets that

449
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 2: didn't really produce anything, but didn't kill me either. Now

450
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 2: I fiddled around with electronics. So my earliest experience was

451
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 2: who was I was just talking to somebody about this

452
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 2: is early on as a kid, I was talking to

453
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 2: Jimmy Douglas. And if you have an interview Jimmy, you

454
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 2: gotta know he's one of the greats. Jimmy Douglas and

455
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 2: I are doing a podcast, and I'm and I tell

456
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 2: this story, and he said, wait a second, that happened

457
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 2: to me too, And as a three year old. As

458
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 2: a four year old, he was wondering how light bulbs work.

459
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 2: So each of us had the same experience where we

460
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 2: unscrewed the light bulb and stuck our finger in the

461
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 2: socket and got blown down, blown on our backs, but

462
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 2: experienced the universe. I don't know how to make it

463
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 2: more trivial sounding, but we learned a lot about electricity.

464
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 2: So I was always impressed with this great power that

465
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 2: electricity had. It. When I got my first piece of

466
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 2: shit tape recorder, it was five years old, and it

467
00:35:58,920 --> 00:35:59,399
Speaker 2: was just.

468
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: We just slow down a little bit. You're five years old.

469
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: It's the early fifties. This is long before the compact

470
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: is set. What kind of cape recorder you get? And

471
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: why do your appearance buy it for you? Well, it

472
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: was a piece of shit. It was one of those

473
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: thirty dollars recorders that had friction drive all the take

474
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,879
Speaker 1: up takes. But before then, I was fixing radios when

475
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: I was five or six year old.

476
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 2: One of the.

477
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: First plait you're five or sixey, I got a soldering.

478
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 2: Where does all this team I fix anything? Wait a second,

479
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,399
Speaker 2: I didn't fix anything. I just poked around and took

480
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 2: things apart, and would generally lose all the screws and

481
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 2: just poke around or replace the batteries, or there's a

482
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 2: loose wire and I'd solder a wire. And I didn't

483
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 2: do anything that was valued. But I had a soldering

484
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 2: iron and by golly, and put it put it to work.

485
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:13,439
Speaker 2: But yeah, do you get the tape recorder? I got

486
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 2: a tape recorder and it was a piece of shit.

487
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 2: It's horror. I mean I was already doing sound in

488
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 2: Baptist Church and I was away from my follower and

489
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 2: moved up to Baltimore. I was at a church and

490
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 2: they lost their sound engineer.

491
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: In the.

492
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 2: Baptist church would do a radio broadcast and I would

493
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 2: sit back by the mixer, off the main secretary and

494
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 2: just run, run, level, run the radio broadcasts. It got

495
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 2: me out of going to church, which I have never

496
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 2: really felt very good about except for the music. I

497
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:02,280
Speaker 2: love Catholicism for the music. You love Judaism for the justice.

498
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 2: I tried to convert and it was too hard. But

499
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 2: but early on I would anything that touched sound I

500
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: thought was a miracle. And that's where I wanted to

501
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 2: quote enturity, because his, his, his, his, his, His line

502
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 2: was the music must be a miracle to be able

503
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 2: to put that feeling through a wire. And that resonates

504
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 2: me still with me still, Okay, I was. I wasn't

505
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 2: good at anything. Wait a second, I don't want to

506
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 2: claim to be good at anything. I didn't. I mean

507
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 2: only occasionally when I fixed something and it was by accident.

508
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: But were you the type of kid who had heath Kids,

509
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: et cetera.

510
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 2: Oh I did. I had one of the early heath

511
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 2: Kid catalog computers, but also as early as high school

512
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 2: when we're talking about over thirteen. I would be on

513
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 2: the stage crew, and mostly it was an excuse to

514
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 2: sneak backstage and smoke, which my mother discovered one day

515
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 2: I was cutting French class and she happened to look

516
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 2: in the auditorium where at my feed up on the

517
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 2: balcony railing of smoking ball boy. That ended that. So

518
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 2: I would I would do early stage crew, an early

519
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 2: audio crew, and mixing.

520
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:47,240
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're involved with this, you know, stage crew stuff.

521
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: Are you listening to music?

522
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, listening to classical music, mostly classical music. One

523
00:39:55,760 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 2: of the earliest experiences was my mother and she had

524
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 2: a subscription to a seventy eight music service and a

525
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 2: thirty three to third music service, and I would wear

526
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: records out. Earliest experience as we're listening to classical music

527
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 2: on on shellac.

528
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: Okay, how about Elvis and what came after Elvis? Was

529
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: that something they interested you? The first forty five not

530
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: at all. The first forty five I bought was Del Shannon. No,

531
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: it was a ballad of New Orleans. Ballad of Ballad

532
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: of New Orleans. Yeah, now I've forty five. But mostly

533
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: I listened to radio pop radio and R and B.

534
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: Baltimore had the greatest jocks in the world. They had

535
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: a guy named Fat Daddy Paul Johnson, I think it

536
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: was his real name, and you would have heard of

537
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: this guy who was the hot DJ W W I N.

538
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: And I remember coming home from when I was still

539
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: in college, and this is a good story and so

540
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,479
Speaker 1: but I'll make it quick, coming home from the late

541
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 1: night card game at AEPI API. Mostly we smoked pot

542
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: and played cards, but I remember an all night poker

543
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 1: session and I wasn't particularly good at poker, but I

544
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: didn't lose too much either. But I remember coming home

545
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:34,280
Speaker 1: at six point thirty in the morning, driving home and

546
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: Paul Johnson was playing Stay with Me Baby Lorraine Ellison

547
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: and played it over and over and over again, five

548
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: six times in a row, and every time just raved

549
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: about what a great record. But it really struck me

550
00:41:53,080 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: as how to connect how to connect that kind of

551
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: performance with radio, because I know you remember the song.

552
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: Everybody remembers the song, and everybody tried to do it.

553
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: Linda tried to do it, and nobody could quite do

554
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: Lauren Nellison. And by the way, that's a whole interesting

555
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: story because that was a Phil Remont record where Frank

556
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: had the studio booked. It was an early an R

557
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: on forty eighth R recording and an ar got the

558
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: call to do this session for Frank Sinatra, and so

559
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: they booked an orchestra a band because it was all

560
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,399
Speaker 1: about room. And the day before.

561
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 2: Frank canceled, and he canceled with the now famous line

562
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 2: not today baby. And Phil gets the call. I've written

563
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 2: this up if you want to read it. Phil gets

564
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: the call, calls Jerry Ragvoy. You know it, says Jerry. Jerry,

565
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 2: I've got the studio courtesy Frank for an afternoon. Can

566
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 2: we put an act together? Do you have an act?

567
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 2: And Phil and Jerry put together the Lauren Allison record

568
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 2: off the cuff. They say some charts were written. I

569
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 2: don't believe it. I think it was all head off,

570
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: off the off the floor. But that's one of the

571
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 2: great stories of Lorraine Allison was in the right place

572
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 2: at the right time and knew the right people, and

573
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 2: Frank was going where Paul Springs to get married. How's

574
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 2: that for a story that one I haven't heard?

575
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: So where were you when the Beatles broke? And what

576
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: do you think about that?

577
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 2: I didn't like the Beatles. I mean I watched it,

578
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 2: watch the two early in Sullivan shows and recorded them.

579
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 2: I had a better tape recorder by then and recorded,

580
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:03,399
Speaker 2: but I didn't didn't understand it in terms of what

581
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 2: they were doing with my favorite tunes, you know, the

582
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: he they did, like Twist and Shout and Isley's and

583
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 2: they did some a lot of a lot of covers,

584
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 2: and I didn't. I didn't get to really appreciate the

585
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 2: Beatles until until Sergeant Pepper and what they did with

586
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:32,879
Speaker 2: that record, and then I got to work with him

587
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 2: and we did a Boy. One of the records we

588
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: did was got to Get You Into My Life. And

589
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 2: I had known George pretty well by then because I

590
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 2: had built his automation system for uh their at the

591
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 2: Oxford Circus, and he had sued Neve. He among others,

592
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 2: had sued Neve form ninety six, and so I was

593
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 2: famous in the business for having got up in these face.

594
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 2: But I don't think I gave him what he wanted

595
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 2: on that record that he was with the Beg's and

596
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 2: Peter Frampton, which was the first record I knew of

597
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 2: to return platinum. Yeah, and you know the record it

598
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 2: was not a good record, but it was a copy

599
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 2: or an emulation of a pooky Valentine to the Beatles,

600
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 2: where they just kind of copied Beatles arrangements and copied

601
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: the Beatles sounds. And we did, we did got to

602
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,879
Speaker 2: get You into My life and from scratch arrangement, and

603
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 2: we did it. I remember playing it for George, who

604
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 2: immediately took it to Paul, and Paul listened to it

605
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 2: over and over and over again for a whole Sunday,

606
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 2: just listening to Maurice's vocals and the arrangement. And now

607
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 2: I'm way off track, But the but the I didn't

608
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 2: really like the Beatles until until George and realizing how

609
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 2: much influence Georgie had, and for a while that was

610
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: who I wanted to be. See. I think the notifications

611
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 2: are a gift from God. Every time I say something

612
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 2: I could really state as a fact, it goes off.

613
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, not the middle of the screen.

614
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, stay center, stay centered in the screen. But

615
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: as we're sitting here and you're getting phone calls and notifications,

616
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: A are people looking for you all day long? And

617
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: bybe you like that or do you find it interrupts

618
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: your work?

619
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 2: It very much interrupts my work, and so when and

620
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 2: I don't know why I let it go like this,

621
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:46,800
Speaker 2: because when I used to mix extensively in this room,

622
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 2: I would figure out a way to make sure the

623
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 2: phones were turned off in other rooms and cookie doing

624
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 2: what was happening my wife, And I don't know why

625
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:02,240
Speaker 2: did I not do that? I'm terribly sorry.

626
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: Guys just drilled down on something. You said you built

627
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: an automation system for George. Are you talking about something

628
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,399
Speaker 1: like the board flying fingers that type of thing.

629
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 2: Well, it's flag faders and that was pretty much lifted.

630
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 2: But that was a guy named Joe Martinson who saw

631
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 2: the success I had with gm A automation and we

632
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 2: were the first system that actually worked. Ask anybody, and

633
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 2: especially when he came out he six failed and me

634
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 2: was sued. Mark Crabtree was sued and developed the Red

635
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 2: Hot Hatred for me. That was unequal in my life.

636
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 2: And one thing he did was to offer me, however

637
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 2: much money to buy my company, and then when I

638
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 2: would sell it, he collected enough money from Joe Martinson

639
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 2: to just copy my system, and that fun A little bastard.

640
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 2: Joe Martinson tried to patent one of a broad array

641
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 2: of ideas. Because we were building from scratch. We hated

642
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 2: DeCamp ninety six, so we built the fader from scratch,

643
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 2: built the hard disk processing from scratch. I programmed a

644
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 2: Unix like automation system from scratch so that whenever you

645
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 2: rolled tape, the system would locke into where you were, which,

646
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 2: among other ideas, turned into ideas that stuck. And I

647
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:37,439
Speaker 2: didn't patent that. It was like the equalizer. I didn't

648
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 2: patent the parametric I didn't know it was worth patenting.

649
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 2: I should have. And then rained Olemy came along and

650
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 2: copied parts of it, and that was another story, another nightmare.

651
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 2: So all of these, I think at some point you're

652
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 2: going to say, this guy is so full of shit.

653
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 2: So I did bring my paper on autom and so

654
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 2: I can show you that. I could show you the

655
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 2: parametric equalizer paper that I delivered at seventy two.

656
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: Let's go back before this, Okay, let's start with a

657
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 1: parametric equalizer. How did you come up with the idea

658
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: for that?

659
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 2: A group of us came up with the guy I

660
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 2: was working with, a guy named Burgess McNeil. I eventually

661
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,399
Speaker 2: started a company with had an idea and I had

662
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 2: an idea and a friend of mine that had gone

663
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 2: to Princeton, Bob Beushaw eventually worked for NSA had an

664
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:32,399
Speaker 2: idea and I put them together. But there was one

665
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:36,359
Speaker 2: thing missing and I had to make that work. It

666
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 2: was the queue control or the width of a peak,

667
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 2: and I figured it out and it took a lot

668
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 2: of work, but that's what made the parametric equalizer unique

669
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 2: and would have made it patentable. And it just came up.

670
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 2: I came. I was recording music at that time I

671
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,280
Speaker 2: had done. I was running a directed two track studio.

672
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 2: What did I do that you would have heard it?

673
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 2: I did the demo for arthur' connelly that he took

674
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: to Memphis and Steve and he wrote sweet soul music.

675
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 2: But the demo that he went with where you lead me,

676
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 2: I will follow. So that's the record we sold to

677
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 2: Stacks and I did that in Baltimore, directed to track

678
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 2: and so I was doing music when I wasn't doing commercials,

679
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 2: and that was my recording studio experience. When I dropped

680
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 2: out of Hobbins, I got a job doing commercials for

681
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 2: Lean Shapeer, Golding Bank and car commercials, package commercials and

682
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:41,400
Speaker 2: learned how to how to work in the studio, but

683
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 2: a lot of it. We invented the mixer. It was

684
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 2: a two mixer that sounded great. Listened to Philadelphia records,

685
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 2: listened to New York records. Early all the pop records

686
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 2: were bell sad and a handful of studios. Later, an

687
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 2: R much later, An R And figured all these records

688
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 2: sound great because there's some piece of equipment that I'm missing.

689
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 2: And so I built all this stuff. And it wasn't

690
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 2: the equipment. It was the musicians and the arrangements and

691
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 2: the writing, the songwriting. So I learned a lesson there.

692
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 2: But there was a studio called it I Studios, Recordings

693
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 2: in corporate and then it TI. So I'm really jumping around.

694
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 2: So this must be very hard. Stop making excuses. You

695
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 2: come up with the idea of the Pyrami metric equalizer

696
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 2: with these other guys. Did you then have it manufactured?

697
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 2: Oh no, I did it.

698
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:51,839
Speaker 1: I did.

699
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 2: I did all the design except for one piece of it.

700
00:51:56,920 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 2: The mechanical design was done by another team. The company

701
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 2: that we went with, which was a video manufacturing They

702
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:12,839
Speaker 2: manufactured video tunes for early merchery missions. And they had

703
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 2: a team and they were out of market, and so

704
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 2: they bought a recording studio and that was my recording studio.

705
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 2: It turned it too it TI so you see it.

706
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 2: I in early parmetric eq so that was that was

707
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:28,760
Speaker 2: my equ and I did it. I did the hard

708
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 2: the almost impossible to realize how to vary the queue

709
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 2: with a Vernier.

710
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 1: Nob but I know that.

711
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 2: We went to the guy that wrote the audio op

712
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 2: and cookbook, TODG Shung Tomjong, who worked at Aircraft Armaments

713
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 2: around the corner, and he looked at it and said,

714
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 2: this is impossible. To do something else and I stuck

715
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 2: to it and did it. So I did. I did.

716
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 2: I generally am the one to stay up around the

717
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 2: clock and figure out software, figure out design, and I

718
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 2: just enjoy it.

719
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,839
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you decide ultimately to get into the

720
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: hardware business.

721
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,479
Speaker 2: There was a piece missing, same thing as as now

722
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 2: is something doesn't work, or there was a piece missing

723
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 2: something doesn't In the case of an equalizer, it was

724
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: I'm in the studio with a graphic, a seven band graphics,

725
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 2: seven thirty one seven band graphic, and it's well, you know,

726
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 2: the figures are sixty two one twenty five two fifty

727
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 2: something something something. None of them were sharp enough to

728
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 2: cancel a residence in a snare drum or an acoustic

729
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 2: guitar or taken note excuse me, take a note out

730
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 2: of a piano. So that was the gig is. I've

731
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 2: got to build my own equalizer because we didn't have

732
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 2: any money. We couldn't afford anything. And I built my

733
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 2: own four track just because I needed one. But I

734
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 2: didn't learn it from anybody. Got to work.

735
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: What's your viewpoint on analog versus digital?

736
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 2: Now, it's funny. It's funny that you should mention because

737
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 2: I still have a very strong viewpoint on how to

738
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 2: improve digital, and it has a lot to do with

739
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 2: how good analog is. And I didn't bring up any

740
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 2: of my examples, but I can show you some work

741
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:43,800
Speaker 2: I did on well more of the compressive of the

742
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 2: DRC which I have. I think it's the best dynamic

743
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: range controller ever made, very slow to teach people how

744
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,399
Speaker 2: to use it because it doesn't do that crunchy thing,

745
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: and that's what people think a limitter does. Any rate

746
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 2: back to an equ so the EQ was going back

747
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 2: to the RCA Radio handbook and picking out a circuit

748
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 2: called a te filter two resisters two capacitors, and all

749
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 2: depending on how far apart the pastors are spread, you

750
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 2: can make a sharp notch or a broad notch or

751
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 2: broad them to a very wide range and move the

752
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 2: game up and down on the notch and you have

753
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 2: variable Q. Well, nobody had tried that before, and that

754
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 2: was where I got into trouble at Hopkins, because I

755
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 2: wanted to learn something in my first year systems course

756
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 2: and the professor was, ah, was what I hear lately?

757
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 2: Real warfare? Stupid? I mean, these the assistant professors were

758
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 2: just fucking idiots, and I just had to get out

759
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 2: of there. But I knew what I had already done,

760
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 2: and he said, well, that's a possible and I use

761
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 2: a circuit variation called a gyrator to turn a cheap

762
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 2: capacitor into an adductor. It trans transforms is not the

763
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:17,839
Speaker 2: right word transforms. Reactants turned a deductor, which is why

764
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 2: are around the back accord into a capacitor, which is

765
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 2: two plates. He said, well, you can't do that, that's

766
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 2: only a theoretical abstraction. Well, I've got one, and you're

767
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 2: an idiot, so that wasn't very good. I didn't say

768
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 2: you're an idiot under my breath. But all this stuff

769
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 2: is there, Bob. You know everything that you see smart

770
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 2: designs in plugins, it's all there. Apple and these other

771
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 2: companies put it out there, put the tools out there

772
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,320
Speaker 2: for free, and you had to do something with it.

773
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:57,000
Speaker 2: So we built plugins. It's changed a lot, business has

774
00:56:57,080 --> 00:56:57,760
Speaker 2: changed a lot.

775
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:00,760
Speaker 1: But let's go back. You had a few point ana

776
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:02,400
Speaker 1: line versus digital.

777
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,400
Speaker 2: Well, and here's the key thing about music, and I

778
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 2: knew I would have to circle around the music, is

779
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:13,000
Speaker 2: that all our recording sounded not only better, much better,

780
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 2: much better. The first digital machine I heard was Tom

781
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 2: Stockin's Honeywell data recorder with a really awful front end,

782
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: and I remember playing something back for Jeff Bercaro and

783
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 2: at Sunset Tom Stockher was trying to make a business

784
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:34,400
Speaker 2: out of digital and there's a story before that, but

785
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 2: at any rate, we Jeff would walk into the control

786
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 2: and say, hey, man, where's the high hat And we

787
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 2: had to say, well, it doesn't go up that high yet, Jeff,

788
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 2: because it didn't. It had a fifty k badwidth sampling

789
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 2: and high hat didn't sound like I had and it

790
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 2: was sixteen bit, so all of that digital direction that

791
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 2: I took was in response to hearing something that sounded

792
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 2: awful emas awful awful fiddles didn't sound like fiddles. And

793
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 2: I had just come out of real musicians playing on

794
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 2: great microphones to an Ampex three hundred through a console

795
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 2: that we built tube console using high trans conductance twelve

796
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 2: A y sevens. It's pureless K two forty one D

797
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 2: had put transfer. Its amazing And I remember this shit

798
00:58:33,480 --> 00:58:38,200
Speaker 2: and it was immersive and small eye immersive, and I'm

799
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 2: getting chills still remembering going out and doing remotes at

800
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 2: the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where I'd take out a couple

801
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 2: of mics and do a feed, an FM feed to WBL,

802
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 2: the FM station in town, and nobody listened. So I

803
00:58:53,280 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 2: could do anything. I could put the microphones anywhere I wanted,

804
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 2: and the experimenting with an orchestra, I'd never lost that

805
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:02,800
Speaker 2: lust of experimenting with dorks room.

806
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 1: So okay, the original sixteen bit digital was bad, but

807
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: digital was improved after that.

808
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, it wasn't sixteen bit. That's

809
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: the key. The early Sony machines were, if you're lucky,

810
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 2: twelve or thirteen bit monotonic. The digital goes like this

811
00:59:23,240 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 2: up and a step. Well, early non monotonicity was what.

812
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:28,680
Speaker 2: It goes up, it goes way down that it goes

813
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,440
Speaker 2: up and then goes way down. It's not monotonic. So

814
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 2: you're lucky if you get twelve bit accuracy out of it.

815
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:38,440
Speaker 2: So I knew right away that they were all fucked,

816
00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 2: and unfortunately I would have to tell them and made

817
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:49,560
Speaker 2: friends of the Ajax men of science who thought they

818
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 2: knew everything and they didn't and couldn't because they were

819
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 2: blocked blocked in they're thinking. So I got a better

820
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:06,560
Speaker 2: converter from Renee at DBX had done a different kind

821
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:08,680
Speaker 2: of converter, and I bought blocks from what we made

822
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:11,360
Speaker 2: our on converter. It started to sound better. But that's

823
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 2: all I ever hoped for is if you can work better.

824
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 2: I have a direction, that's what hey round up the posse.

825
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 2: That's where we're going. I know the direction now it's

826
01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:24,280
Speaker 2: not there yet, but I know where we've got to

827
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 2: go with it. And so I'm working with Serus Semiconductor

828
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:33,440
Speaker 2: these days, who are really great engineers and sort of

829
01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 2: discovering the border borders of where I can go with

830
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 2: design and digital. It's still is not there, but I

831
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 2: love three eighty four. We did the Tommy Emmanuel one

832
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:48,320
Speaker 2: nine two, and I can say that I feel the difference.

833
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 2: So I've got let me brag for a minute. So

834
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 2: I've got the best headphones I can get. These are

835
01:00:56,680 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 2: automatic research and I've also got well you've seen Audies.

836
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of audis and all these are

837
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 2: these guys that our audience can't see them, but I

838
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:14,520
Speaker 2: can flash them. These guys are you've seen these?

839
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 1: I have them.

840
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 2: This is the you have them? There you go. Well,

841
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 2: I'm mixed the last two, three four dozen records I've

842
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:26,960
Speaker 2: done on these and I'll listen to them on speakers.

843
01:01:26,960 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 2: I've got genleis now I'll listen to them on speakers.

844
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 2: But this is where I do the critical listening where

845
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 2: you can hear the grass grow. You know, I hear

846
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:41,320
Speaker 2: digital clicks, You're going to hear them first on Audies headphones.

847
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm friends with those guys. If I help,

848
01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 2: If I help these guys that have built something brilliant

849
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:57,959
Speaker 2: get the word out there, we're friends for life.

850
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:02,040
Speaker 1: Okay, If I said you could use state of the

851
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: art digital or I gave you as much tape as

852
01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: you wanted, Which would you choose?

853
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 2: Well, I honestly if I had enough tape, and I

854
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 2: don't think I would have enough tape, but if I did,

855
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:22,440
Speaker 2: I'd use both. And we did that with the earliest

856
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 2: we did a director I did director desca tuc sacs

857
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 2: where we had We were recording both on on this

858
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 2: new got this another long fucking story, this new technology

859
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 2: called DSD or direct steam stream digital. It was an

860
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 2: engineer at Sony that I got to like. Cold Taka

861
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 2: was the smart guy at the Shubora Jubbara factory and

862
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 2: he was the that it talks on you Sodia to

863
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 2: putting money into this black project in the corner of

864
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 2: the factory. And we both discovered that the very earliest

865
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 2: good converter, which was a crystal something crystal converter was

866
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 2: a company before it was Cerrus. And discovered that one

867
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 2: of the pins was the output of a modulator and

868
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 2: if you took that pin, that one pin out of

869
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:32,800
Speaker 2: the chip and just ran it into a filter, that

870
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 2: was the DDA converter was a resistor and a capacitor.

871
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 2: It was the DDA converter coming out of a digital

872
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 2: digital stream which was pulse with modulation, and so a

873
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 2: talk and D show turned that into a product before

874
01:03:55,720 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 2: uh Shaboya the Home office was ready and set the

875
01:04:00,440 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 2: samp or a too fucking low. So there were better

876
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 2: DSD processes that came out that were faster sabary. But

877
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:10,800
Speaker 2: here's the takeaway is that no matter how fast we went,

878
01:04:11,560 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 2: and of late we're doing three eighty six and DSD

879
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 2: times sixteen, which is sixteen bits wide at sixteen x

880
01:04:20,960 --> 01:04:26,040
Speaker 2: fs sixteen times two point eight megaarants sixteen times, you

881
01:04:26,120 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 2: can imagine the data rings and it's pretty fucking hard

882
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:34,480
Speaker 2: to hear. So I'm gonna have to say that eventually

883
01:04:34,480 --> 01:04:36,840
Speaker 2: it'll get there, and maybe there'll be another way to

884
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 2: do the converters. But the guys at Cerrus are about

885
01:04:41,320 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 2: the best I've heard so far, So I mean, I'm

886
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 2: liking digital. It's so much more convenient. If you have

887
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:53,200
Speaker 2: a mistake, we've learned how to LaVey attract together to

888
01:04:53,280 --> 01:04:58,240
Speaker 2: fix one little mistake that casts this long shadow over

889
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 2: a performance. But she had she had one note wrong

890
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:08,280
Speaker 2: in the chorus, and that colored her thinking. And I'm

891
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 2: talking about a female artist, now you can guess that

892
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 2: colored her thinking about the whole track, and a lot

893
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 2: of artists are like it that you're one thing and

894
01:05:20,640 --> 01:05:26,520
Speaker 2: forget about the track. So so early on I got

895
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 2: really good at and I'm going to brag about it

896
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:35,120
Speaker 2: because we all got good using a Sony thirty three

897
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 2: forty eight edit takes together before there were workstations. Before

898
01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:43,480
Speaker 2: there was It's about the same time as Sodic Solutions,

899
01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:45,680
Speaker 2: So there was a Sodic Solutions workstation, but it was

900
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 2: very expensive and the converters were terrible, but I stayed

901
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 2: friends with him. For you, that's Andy Moohr, who was

902
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:57,480
Speaker 2: one of that handful of digital engindeers that invented everything.

903
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:02,240
Speaker 2: Andy Moore sort of the when he worked for George Lucas,

904
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 2: he invented this machine called the sound Droid, and he

905
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:12,040
Speaker 2: did it so that he could do one performance of

906
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 2: the deep Note. You remember the Deep Note the t checks.

907
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 2: He that was Andy Moore, the musician said now I

908
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:27,920
Speaker 2: could if I just had a powerful enough computer. So

909
01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:31,120
Speaker 2: he got George to invest in Sprocket Systems and he

910
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 2: was going to build at the edit Droid, at the

911
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:39,120
Speaker 2: sound Droid, and uh, he's he's really my bottle of

912
01:06:39,160 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 2: a great university professor. He was at Stanford for all

913
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:46,760
Speaker 2: those years, and everybody remembers, and he wrote the basic papers.

914
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 2: We still talk and he stole a musician. The point

915
01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: is is that he was always pushing the boundaries and

916
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 2: it was an inspiration. There was always something better. So

917
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 2: I'm constantly throwing the baby in the water.

918
01:07:11,640 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: Let's talk about playback. What do you think about? Okay,

919
01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: this Vinyl revival. Louder is better. Let's simplify this, louder

920
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 1: is better. Okay, the Vinyl Revival.

921
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 2: This first studio that I got a job of, it

922
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 2: had an early mentor press, had a record press, and

923
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:36,280
Speaker 2: shortly thereafter and I'm just in a high school at

924
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:37,920
Speaker 2: that point, and I'm going to go to work at

925
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 2: this place of the summer, and I got introduced to

926
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:45,840
Speaker 2: their pressing plan, and so early on I knew how

927
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:47,680
Speaker 2: to master because we had a lath that was a

928
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:50,520
Speaker 2: model laith, but I invented the digital pitch. Since then

929
01:07:50,520 --> 01:07:56,480
Speaker 2: it became the standard. You're welcome and a record press.

930
01:07:56,480 --> 01:08:00,760
Speaker 2: It later had two fabels and two fine builds in

931
01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:04,760
Speaker 2: the dirtiest environment ever in Pratt and Paki Street in

932
01:08:04,920 --> 01:08:12,240
Speaker 2: downtown Baltimore, and I did labels and jackets wherever there

933
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 2: was a need, I say, well, I could do that,

934
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:18,040
Speaker 2: and learned printing in graphic arts because I had to

935
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:21,559
Speaker 2: do it, and process photography, you know, the big cameras

936
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 2: of the whole rooms process photography. In other words, anything

937
01:08:28,240 --> 01:08:33,360
Speaker 2: that came along that interested me. I would try to

938
01:08:33,400 --> 01:08:39,600
Speaker 2: fill a need and build something or make something. And

939
01:08:39,640 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 2: I'm bragging, but I don't know any other way to

940
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:46,320
Speaker 2: put it. I learned how to press records. We learned

941
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:51,040
Speaker 2: how to master records of very automatic variable pitch systems.

942
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 2: We had a better system, and eventually was Jerry Block

943
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:57,640
Speaker 2: who really came up with the working system. He was

944
01:08:57,720 --> 01:09:01,840
Speaker 2: chief engineer of Sigma Sout for a long time. What

945
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 2: you're getting under the idea that this life is in

946
01:09:06,040 --> 01:09:09,680
Speaker 2: the technical world is a world of relationships. And I

947
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:15,040
Speaker 2: can't stress that about all of these different ideas were

948
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:18,719
Speaker 2: relationshipships that we had with other energy. The latest relationship,

949
01:09:18,760 --> 01:09:25,080
Speaker 2: let's balance the one thing that the okay, but this

950
01:09:25,280 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 2: latest relationship that is in an actually relationship. Barcodiari who

951
01:09:31,800 --> 01:09:34,960
Speaker 2: was head engineer at Real World for Peter for a

952
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 2: long time. Okay, carry on.

953
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:40,599
Speaker 1: No, no, no, okay. If you talked about being McGill

954
01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:47,599
Speaker 1: and you described your personality. How you're angry, you're diffident, okay,

955
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:52,919
Speaker 1: and distracted, which it implied that way you were working

956
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 1: and you were on the line as opposed to teaching.

957
01:09:56,000 --> 01:10:00,559
Speaker 1: It has to be right. You're a guy who calls

958
01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:04,479
Speaker 1: its street. There are many people who've worked, absolutely work

959
01:10:04,600 --> 01:10:09,759
Speaker 1: behind the board, who have never created equipment. Never mind

960
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:14,880
Speaker 1: theorized how many people are on your level? Who can

961
01:10:14,920 --> 01:10:17,200
Speaker 1: you talk to and have a fulfilling conversation.

962
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 2: Well, I just met a couple of guys who now

963
01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 2: work for Bows, and we tried to interest them in

964
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 2: the idea of supporting our show because we're looking for

965
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:33,200
Speaker 2: donors give us a bunch of money. And there are

966
01:10:33,240 --> 01:10:38,360
Speaker 2: a couple of really smart guys still at this company

967
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 2: that Bosbolt called McIntosh. Remember Macintosh amplifiers. Of course, when

968
01:10:42,920 --> 01:10:45,000
Speaker 2: you heard a good system, you look behind the curtain

969
01:10:45,040 --> 01:10:51,200
Speaker 2: and hey mc seventy five five. And so I had

970
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:55,439
Speaker 2: a conversation now four or five weeks ago with Chris

971
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:59,160
Speaker 2: and Mike, and you couldn't get us off the phone.

972
01:10:59,200 --> 01:11:03,400
Speaker 2: We were talking about old designs that made Mackintosh special,

973
01:11:03,520 --> 01:11:07,759
Speaker 2: especially the output transformer. And there aren't that many guys

974
01:11:07,800 --> 01:11:12,719
Speaker 2: to talk to, And I want to say. I keep

975
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:17,599
Speaker 2: looking for them because I did find a young kid

976
01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:22,200
Speaker 2: three years ago that was recommended to me as an

977
01:11:22,320 --> 01:11:24,960
Speaker 2: analog engineer. The kid wants to be an analog engineer.

978
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:26,679
Speaker 2: All I want to do is take him to lunch

979
01:11:26,720 --> 01:11:30,760
Speaker 2: and say, are you fucking kidding? You know that you'll

980
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:34,719
Speaker 2: never make any money. Nobody will understand a word you say.

981
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:37,480
Speaker 2: And he and I have been working together on new designs.

982
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:41,280
Speaker 2: So I have to invent the people to talk to.

983
01:11:42,040 --> 01:11:45,600
Speaker 2: I have to go out and find somebody that I

984
01:11:45,600 --> 01:11:51,200
Speaker 2: could train. And this this kid is brilliant. He's brilliant.

985
01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:52,280
Speaker 2: Somebody will seal him.

986
01:11:52,320 --> 01:11:56,040
Speaker 1: How about everyday life? Do you spend most of your

987
01:11:56,080 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 1: time alone? Or do you have a social life in

988
01:12:00,160 --> 01:12:01,280
Speaker 1: What are those people like?

989
01:12:02,960 --> 01:12:06,840
Speaker 2: I have a wonderful circle of friends in Nashville, and

990
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:10,960
Speaker 2: you will have heard of many of them. And you

991
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:16,680
Speaker 2: have read the story about Randy Travis doing the Redo,

992
01:12:17,160 --> 01:12:21,960
Speaker 2: which was ai of a song that he had written

993
01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:24,920
Speaker 2: and that my friend Kyle Lenning had produced. Kyle Letning

994
01:12:24,960 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 2: is good, and I go back to the beginning, back

995
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:31,759
Speaker 2: in time. Kyle Lenning bought one of my early automation

996
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:35,360
Speaker 2: systems when they cost ready for this one hundred and

997
01:12:35,360 --> 01:12:39,519
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand dollars. It made some money. It was

998
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:43,639
Speaker 2: one of the few things I didn't make money. And

999
01:12:43,880 --> 01:12:47,360
Speaker 2: Kyle bought the idea and it wasn't his idea. It

1000
01:12:47,400 --> 01:12:51,800
Speaker 2: came from an art the record company. Generally, I'm not

1001
01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:54,479
Speaker 2: keen on talking about record companies in any kind of

1002
01:12:54,520 --> 01:12:58,320
Speaker 2: positive way, but had the idea, well, why don't we

1003
01:12:58,360 --> 01:13:00,240
Speaker 2: try to do that? But we do it right and

1004
01:13:00,439 --> 01:13:04,040
Speaker 2: right meant that Randy had to be involved with the song.

1005
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:06,680
Speaker 2: So we're circling back to AI. Randy had to be

1006
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:09,519
Speaker 2: involved with the song and it had to get past

1007
01:13:09,720 --> 01:13:15,040
Speaker 2: Kyle because Kyle it's an old analog engineer. It's not old,

1008
01:13:15,080 --> 01:13:19,120
Speaker 2: but he's in my my group. Mike Reid, you've certainly

1009
01:13:19,200 --> 01:13:21,839
Speaker 2: heard of Mike Read and one day you should interview

1010
01:13:21,920 --> 01:13:24,759
Speaker 2: Mike Reid. I'll tell him about it because we've all listened.

1011
01:13:25,160 --> 01:13:29,680
Speaker 2: We talked about it. Mike Reed, you recall, is the

1012
01:13:29,720 --> 01:13:33,719
Speaker 2: guy that went to uh Penn Penn State with Paterno

1013
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:39,439
Speaker 2: and was writing string quartets and playing football. Mike Reed

1014
01:13:39,920 --> 01:13:43,160
Speaker 2: went to the what team did he go to? But

1015
01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:48,679
Speaker 2: head played three seasons in the NFL and then wrote songs.

1016
01:13:49,280 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 2: Was and still is a songwriter and a the funniest

1017
01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:59,559
Speaker 2: guy I've ever met in my whole life. And so

1018
01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:02,360
Speaker 2: we get together every Friday morning with Bill Stay. I'm

1019
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:06,200
Speaker 2: surprised Bill didn't talk about this. I see Bill every

1020
01:14:06,200 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 2: Friday morning. We used to get together in Los Angeles

1021
01:14:08,360 --> 01:14:11,680
Speaker 2: every Tuesday and then every Thursday night. Now we get

1022
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 2: together here and have coffee every Friday. So Bill, Bill

1023
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:22,080
Speaker 2: is if you'll allow me to rave about Bill, He's

1024
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:24,240
Speaker 2: He's who I would like to grow up to be.

1025
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:30,160
Speaker 2: Is Bill Stay is a mixer because he is all musical, bustle,

1026
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:35,799
Speaker 2: Every twitch of his fingers, every twitch of his body

1027
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:43,000
Speaker 2: is musical, is performing. He's my hero.

1028
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:47,919
Speaker 1: Let's just go back playback. What's your viewpoint about vinyl

1029
01:14:48,080 --> 01:14:50,719
Speaker 1: versus other methods of playback today?

1030
01:14:52,760 --> 01:14:56,479
Speaker 2: Well, right now I'm listening to a one hundred ninety

1031
01:14:56,479 --> 01:15:00,000
Speaker 2: two k D day. I find that if you play

1032
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:03,160
Speaker 2: a CDs back and up sample them to one hundred

1033
01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:07,360
Speaker 2: and ninety two, they sound better. So my favorite playback

1034
01:15:07,640 --> 01:15:11,679
Speaker 2: I can tell you is not Spotify. And the only

1035
01:15:11,720 --> 01:15:13,639
Speaker 2: reason I would go to Spotify is if I can't

1036
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:16,000
Speaker 2: find a song any other way. But that guy's the

1037
01:15:16,160 --> 01:15:22,120
Speaker 2: dem Daniel act. Somebody should shoot him in the back

1038
01:15:22,160 --> 01:15:27,000
Speaker 2: of the dick. Okay, your favorite playback platform is Oops,

1039
01:15:27,040 --> 01:15:30,160
Speaker 2: my wife read that you have to be invented. My

1040
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:38,360
Speaker 2: favorite platform would be a super high rate converter one two,

1041
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:45,200
Speaker 2: three four with actually with an analog app that we've

1042
01:15:46,520 --> 01:15:48,280
Speaker 2: just built for the back end of a d d A,

1043
01:15:48,640 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 2: so it has yet to be invented. It's called a

1044
01:15:51,320 --> 01:15:54,840
Speaker 2: DAC follower. It is that little piece of linear gear,

1045
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:59,160
Speaker 2: linear silicon go on the other end of digital analog

1046
01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:04,840
Speaker 2: converurner and everybody does it with the same circuitry, and

1047
01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:06,880
Speaker 2: we think we can do it better at doing it analog.

1048
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:10,479
Speaker 2: So is there a place for analog? Yep?

1049
01:16:11,439 --> 01:16:15,120
Speaker 1: Okay, So, but in terms of what's commercially available today,

1050
01:16:15,680 --> 01:16:18,760
Speaker 1: cubas or co buzz, do you think, well, how do

1051
01:16:18,800 --> 01:16:22,559
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Shaking your head.

1052
01:16:23,240 --> 01:16:25,599
Speaker 2: What I heard a couple of years ago? Yeah, because

1053
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:30,000
Speaker 2: it sucks. What I heard a couple of years ago sucked. Certainly.

1054
01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:34,599
Speaker 2: The only service that does immersive right is a service

1055
01:16:34,680 --> 01:16:39,240
Speaker 2: that does not use a codec. As soon as you

1056
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:44,960
Speaker 2: neck down data streams, you're throwing away stuff, you know,

1057
01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:50,880
Speaker 2: the whole, the whole. All these guys that did that

1058
01:16:51,120 --> 01:16:55,720
Speaker 2: work in codex did the FP three and it was

1059
01:16:55,840 --> 01:17:01,600
Speaker 2: Carl Heinz Brandenburg and James Johnston and another guy that

1060
01:17:01,640 --> 01:17:09,960
Speaker 2: did most of the codex are. They're okay guys, especially

1061
01:17:10,080 --> 01:17:14,439
Speaker 2: James Shaunston. He's a really good scientist. Data scientist. Carl

1062
01:17:14,479 --> 01:17:19,080
Speaker 2: hides is hopeless. But it sounds like shit. And they

1063
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:23,880
Speaker 2: did it based on what's called perceptual coding. Everything that's

1064
01:17:23,920 --> 01:17:28,719
Speaker 2: wrong about MP three's is because they depend on perceptual coding.

1065
01:17:30,000 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 2: You want to guess what that is, I'll just tell you.

1066
01:17:32,479 --> 01:17:36,800
Speaker 2: It's that you know, it sounds enough like music so

1067
01:17:36,840 --> 01:17:39,719
Speaker 2: that we can pass it off if a listener isn't

1068
01:17:39,760 --> 01:17:43,560
Speaker 2: listening too carefully, that's perceptual coding. Perceptual coding is a

1069
01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:46,840
Speaker 2: little like how many animals are in this picture? Well,

1070
01:17:46,840 --> 01:17:51,320
Speaker 2: there's a bear behind the tree, isn't there? That's perceptual coding.

1071
01:17:51,400 --> 01:17:56,160
Speaker 2: And it just sucks. And at the bandwidth and data

1072
01:17:56,200 --> 01:17:59,120
Speaker 2: sizes or capabilities that we have now, there's no reason

1073
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:03,120
Speaker 2: for it, and they're still doing perceptual according the best

1074
01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:07,880
Speaker 2: work I've heard has been Morton Lindberg at L two Records.

1075
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:13,160
Speaker 2: L two Records. So you run through you were you

1076
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:17,920
Speaker 2: see the immersive Gravvy Ive wought a couple and I'd

1077
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:20,080
Speaker 2: have to say that Morton Ledbergh, that's the best work

1078
01:18:20,120 --> 01:18:24,880
Speaker 2: in the field, and he is relentless about quality and

1079
01:18:24,920 --> 01:18:28,400
Speaker 2: nobody knows it. So next time you see Morton Lindbergh,

1080
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:33,760
Speaker 2: imagine that you could get one of his productions and

1081
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:36,479
Speaker 2: listen to it. But that's what I'd use. I'd use

1082
01:18:36,880 --> 01:18:40,719
Speaker 2: a Morton Lindberg inspired system and a Morton Lindberg source.

1083
01:18:41,560 --> 01:18:44,000
Speaker 1: How about the fact that you know, listen in the

1084
01:18:44,200 --> 01:18:47,479
Speaker 1: late sixties and seventies, the goal was to get the

1085
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:51,400
Speaker 1: best stereo you could have, and then we hit the

1086
01:18:51,520 --> 01:18:56,120
Speaker 1: leading yah ladies in nineties were a boombox became your stereo,

1087
01:18:56,920 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: and then.

1088
01:18:57,520 --> 01:18:59,520
Speaker 2: Airplans in the two stereos.

1089
01:19:00,240 --> 01:19:02,479
Speaker 1: And needless to say, a lot of records are kind

1090
01:19:03,479 --> 01:19:06,400
Speaker 1: cheaper than they used to be. But you have these

1091
01:19:06,439 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 1: records were going on here about You're trying to get

1092
01:19:09,120 --> 01:19:12,360
Speaker 1: the sound exactly right and the people are listening on

1093
01:19:12,400 --> 01:19:17,000
Speaker 1: these inferior playback systems. Doesn't that make you crazy?

1094
01:19:21,080 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 2: Well, something must make me crazy. But one of the

1095
01:19:23,520 --> 01:19:25,559
Speaker 2: things that you might have talked to Bill about is

1096
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:30,519
Speaker 2: we had just listed his Telby Houston record. I was

1097
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:38,200
Speaker 2: on the original what was called the National Recording Board,

1098
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:45,000
Speaker 2: the National Recording Preservation Board with my friend Eric Schwartz,

1099
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:50,599
Speaker 2: and this last year we listed the Telby Houston record. Now,

1100
01:19:50,720 --> 01:19:52,680
Speaker 2: you must have talked about that with Bill, because it

1101
01:19:52,720 --> 01:19:57,439
Speaker 2: was book in our minds. It is in our minds

1102
01:19:57,479 --> 01:20:01,400
Speaker 2: and our ears and our hearts. That was Shining City

1103
01:20:01,439 --> 01:20:05,080
Speaker 2: on the Hill and it was so good, and he

1104
01:20:05,240 --> 01:20:08,000
Speaker 2: was such a good live mixer that he could capture

1105
01:20:08,040 --> 01:20:15,840
Speaker 2: that off the floor. So there's so many stories I

1106
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:18,040
Speaker 2: couldn't even beginuse. You should get built to tell them.

1107
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:24,360
Speaker 2: But all our audience were high fi stories back when

1108
01:20:24,360 --> 01:20:26,000
Speaker 2: there was such a thing as a high Fi store,

1109
01:20:26,720 --> 01:20:30,519
Speaker 2: and that seduced us into thinking that it could be

1110
01:20:31,240 --> 01:20:35,719
Speaker 2: possibly the difference could possibly be heard by anybody. Now

1111
01:20:36,120 --> 01:20:38,360
Speaker 2: at the same time we're trying to do this, we're

1112
01:20:38,360 --> 01:20:41,599
Speaker 2: trying to do great music. So we have a couple

1113
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:44,759
Speaker 2: of different tracks here that we're trying to satisfy because

1114
01:20:45,479 --> 01:20:49,240
Speaker 2: we learned pretty quickly that if it's just a technical

1115
01:20:49,360 --> 01:20:57,479
Speaker 2: presentation of some piece of shit music, then it's hopeless

1116
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:00,280
Speaker 2: that it has to the music has to be there

1117
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:04,080
Speaker 2: as well, which means everything about the music, the writing,

1118
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:09,360
Speaker 2: the arrangement, the performance and the recording all have to

1119
01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:13,559
Speaker 2: all have to work. So here's where we come to

1120
01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:19,160
Speaker 2: the part in our story where John McBride at Blackbird

1121
01:21:19,280 --> 01:21:21,559
Speaker 2: Studios and you've been here, have you seen my play?

1122
01:21:21,640 --> 01:21:24,120
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about your room at Blackbird.

1123
01:21:24,800 --> 01:21:25,439
Speaker 1: I've been there.

1124
01:21:25,960 --> 01:21:29,160
Speaker 2: Well, it's not my room. John paid for it, and

1125
01:21:29,880 --> 01:21:31,720
Speaker 2: I'll do anything for job because he.

1126
01:21:32,600 --> 01:21:34,719
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I talked to John about it. He followed,

1127
01:21:35,120 --> 01:21:36,360
Speaker 1: you know, he gave me a tour.

1128
01:21:36,960 --> 01:21:40,280
Speaker 2: But that's but this was the other thing that a

1129
01:21:40,320 --> 01:21:44,280
Speaker 2: lot of rooms suck. You know, in Los Angeles, there

1130
01:21:44,280 --> 01:21:46,400
Speaker 2: are a handful of rooms that kind of work. Sony

1131
01:21:46,439 --> 01:21:50,960
Speaker 2: Studios works well, the Barbers Transit station works well. But

1132
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:54,960
Speaker 2: uh so I thought, well, I've been dreaming this thing

1133
01:21:55,000 --> 01:21:56,920
Speaker 2: for years. I'll build a room so that too. So

1134
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:01,559
Speaker 2: there's no part that I haven't tried to prove. That

1135
01:22:01,720 --> 01:22:03,479
Speaker 2: was the answer to a question three times ago.

1136
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:07,320
Speaker 1: Well I have to ask you, you know, for those

1137
01:22:07,320 --> 01:22:10,800
Speaker 1: people haven't been there, the studio that you designed at Blackbird,

1138
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:14,559
Speaker 1: where there are a number of studios, essentially there are

1139
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:20,000
Speaker 1: all these It's not a flat surface, they're different I'd

1140
01:22:20,040 --> 01:22:23,679
Speaker 1: say probably one inch by half inch like a ruler

1141
01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:30,920
Speaker 1: size rods that come out from the side very densely. Okay, okay.

1142
01:22:31,120 --> 01:22:34,280
Speaker 1: Did it achieve the goal that you wanted it to.

1143
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:45,200
Speaker 2: Depends on who I was promising or with. John said,

1144
01:22:45,240 --> 01:22:49,040
Speaker 2: if you come with me, I'll build the studio and

1145
01:22:50,200 --> 01:22:55,400
Speaker 2: support you. And I opened the studio in two thousand

1146
01:22:56,880 --> 01:23:02,160
Speaker 2: four or five, and the town took a collective yawn

1147
01:23:03,160 --> 01:23:06,360
Speaker 2: when they weren't hostile, and most people were just hostile.

1148
01:23:06,880 --> 01:23:09,680
Speaker 2: You know, I can't work in there. What are you crazy?

1149
01:23:10,240 --> 01:23:14,320
Speaker 2: That's not music. And they're making, as Nashville has done

1150
01:23:14,400 --> 01:23:18,960
Speaker 2: over the years, some of the worst sounding drek I've

1151
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 2: ever heard, and defending it, you know, and dissing me.

1152
01:23:23,800 --> 01:23:26,200
Speaker 2: You know, I did not. I arrived here on the

1153
01:23:26,240 --> 01:23:30,120
Speaker 2: back of the trio record, which I think to this

1154
01:23:30,200 --> 01:23:34,160
Speaker 2: day is a marvelous record. Is Dolly, Linda and Emmy,

1155
01:23:34,280 --> 01:23:40,000
Speaker 2: which I produced, is a marvelous record, and so many stories,

1156
01:23:43,400 --> 01:23:46,280
Speaker 2: And so they hated me when I came to town.

1157
01:23:46,360 --> 01:23:50,320
Speaker 2: They thought that I was could acclaim that I could

1158
01:23:50,320 --> 01:23:52,680
Speaker 2: make this kind of record for anybody. There were a

1159
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:58,800
Speaker 2: couple of artists that did roots records. Mary Chapin Carpenter

1160
01:23:58,840 --> 01:24:02,759
Speaker 2: did that kind of record. Others did that kind of record.

1161
01:24:02,800 --> 01:24:06,360
Speaker 2: But they're just not getting back to getting back to

1162
01:24:06,479 --> 01:24:10,960
Speaker 2: some kind of innovation, and they're still making these god

1163
01:24:11,400 --> 01:24:15,799
Speaker 2: awful records, these god awful country records, and the business

1164
01:24:15,880 --> 01:24:20,000
Speaker 2: is long gone, that country music radio, the radio record,

1165
01:24:20,080 --> 01:24:23,599
Speaker 2: that radio hit record long gone. You know that you've

1166
01:24:23,600 --> 01:24:27,080
Speaker 2: written about it, and they just won't let go of it.

1167
01:24:28,360 --> 01:24:30,439
Speaker 2: So finally there are a couple of vacus. Oh what

1168
01:24:30,600 --> 01:24:34,280
Speaker 2: is Jack White? Jack White recorded in the room next

1169
01:24:34,280 --> 01:24:38,599
Speaker 2: to it, and he loved showing people around the room

1170
01:24:39,320 --> 01:24:42,760
Speaker 2: the studoc when he was doing some of those other

1171
01:24:42,840 --> 01:24:45,479
Speaker 2: records that he did. He's a good guy, by the way,

1172
01:24:45,560 --> 01:24:50,639
Speaker 2: Jack White. I love Jack. He invests from his heart

1173
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:57,680
Speaker 2: to your original question about about Blackbird is John has

1174
01:24:57,720 --> 01:25:00,320
Speaker 2: poured his heart into it, and I don't I think

1175
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:04,240
Speaker 2: that he is really delivered on his promise because I

1176
01:25:04,280 --> 01:25:07,880
Speaker 2: didn't delivered to John McBride what I promised him. I

1177
01:25:07,920 --> 01:25:12,040
Speaker 2: promised him that the studio would work, and it did.

1178
01:25:12,960 --> 01:25:15,719
Speaker 2: But what it did best was to provide a listing

1179
01:25:15,800 --> 01:25:20,559
Speaker 2: room in a totally immersive environment, a diffuse, a purely

1180
01:25:20,600 --> 01:25:23,080
Speaker 2: diffuse room. And it wasn't my idea. I mean I

1181
01:25:23,120 --> 01:25:28,599
Speaker 2: had an initial idea. Peter D'Antonio of RPG, and I

1182
01:25:28,680 --> 01:25:33,200
Speaker 2: seeded his thinking early on, but he did the best

1183
01:25:33,200 --> 01:25:34,680
Speaker 2: he could do. I did the best I could do,

1184
01:25:34,760 --> 01:25:39,200
Speaker 2: and that's what I decided to go teach because nobody

1185
01:25:39,520 --> 01:25:43,919
Speaker 2: liked it, nobody until recently.

1186
01:25:45,320 --> 01:25:53,840
Speaker 1: Okay, So, over this career of engineering producing having GML,

1187
01:25:54,120 --> 01:25:56,040
Speaker 1: did you make any money?

1188
01:25:56,880 --> 01:26:01,519
Speaker 2: Nope? Oh well yeah I did a couple of times. No,

1189
01:26:01,640 --> 01:26:05,920
Speaker 2: that's not true. I would say no, because, like everything else,

1190
01:26:06,080 --> 01:26:13,519
Speaker 2: just unpredictable. So I have made when when music failed me,

1191
01:26:13,640 --> 01:26:16,600
Speaker 2: I made money with gear when gear fe failed me,

1192
01:26:17,560 --> 01:26:20,439
Speaker 2: teaching was a pretty good gig, and so there was

1193
01:26:20,479 --> 01:26:25,280
Speaker 2: always something I can do. So it's only recently where

1194
01:26:28,600 --> 01:26:32,960
Speaker 2: you know, these bastards have devalued recorded music to the

1195
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:38,200
Speaker 2: point where nobody pays engineers like the until Alicia Keys

1196
01:26:38,200 --> 01:26:42,519
Speaker 2: came along and a hired Eric and I and Michael

1197
01:26:42,560 --> 01:26:47,360
Speaker 2: Romanoski to do her catalog. And it was Anne Mitchelli

1198
01:26:47,560 --> 01:26:51,479
Speaker 2: whose vision it was to remix her catalog and it

1199
01:26:51,600 --> 01:26:56,879
Speaker 2: was hideously hard to do. That's that's that's a recipe

1200
01:26:56,880 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 2: for failure, trying to remix multi as immersive interfuse. I

1201
01:27:02,840 --> 01:27:05,160
Speaker 2: did my best, and I think I failed so much

1202
01:27:05,200 --> 01:27:09,000
Speaker 2: that I owed a lot of money because I think

1203
01:27:09,040 --> 01:27:13,720
Speaker 2: I failed and it's my responsibility. I told him we

1204
01:27:13,720 --> 01:27:18,400
Speaker 2: could do it. We didn't, So I'm sorry, and I'm

1205
01:27:18,439 --> 01:27:22,280
Speaker 2: sorry Alicia. And by the way, if you haven't interviewed Alicia,

1206
01:27:22,800 --> 01:27:26,479
Speaker 2: she is the most extraordinary artist of the geniuses that

1207
01:27:26,520 --> 01:27:33,000
Speaker 2: I mentioned, she's at the head table. She is completely brilliant.

1208
01:27:34,040 --> 01:27:39,439
Speaker 1: Okay, we're, you know, old in age, but historically did

1209
01:27:39,479 --> 01:27:42,599
Speaker 1: you just sit at home and wait for the phone

1210
01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:45,080
Speaker 1: to ring or did you beat the bushes for work?

1211
01:27:49,280 --> 01:27:53,680
Speaker 2: The funny you should mention because when we developed the equalizer,

1212
01:27:54,680 --> 01:27:57,760
Speaker 2: or when ITI wanted to put a product out, the

1213
01:27:57,800 --> 01:27:59,920
Speaker 2: parametric Equalizer, I was the one that walked to the

1214
01:28:00,040 --> 01:28:02,920
Speaker 2: round to studios. He got my engineer and this is

1215
01:28:03,000 --> 01:28:06,040
Speaker 2: seventy four to seventy five, got my engineer friends to

1216
01:28:06,720 --> 01:28:10,479
Speaker 2: listen to it, and that was hard to sell. So

1217
01:28:10,600 --> 01:28:15,160
Speaker 2: I've always been able to introduce ideas and introduce gear

1218
01:28:15,240 --> 01:28:20,160
Speaker 2: and sell stoff. With the equalizer, guys would look at

1219
01:28:20,240 --> 01:28:24,640
Speaker 2: it and say, well, it's interesting, but it needs clickstops.

1220
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:28,120
Speaker 2: Is completely the opposite of what it was designed for.

1221
01:28:29,720 --> 01:28:31,840
Speaker 2: And it took a while, but it took guys that

1222
01:28:31,880 --> 01:28:38,760
Speaker 2: were particularly inspired to see the possibilities of having variables

1223
01:28:38,960 --> 01:28:42,760
Speaker 2: frequency and be able to tune a dip equalizer to

1224
01:28:42,840 --> 01:28:46,160
Speaker 2: take out a harmonic that was just driving you crazy,

1225
01:28:46,280 --> 01:28:49,840
Speaker 2: or a fundamental of a guitar, or the fundamental of

1226
01:28:49,880 --> 01:28:52,800
Speaker 2: a snare drum, so you could get that big fat

1227
01:28:52,840 --> 01:28:55,360
Speaker 2: snare drum. You're welcome.

1228
01:29:04,680 --> 01:29:08,559
Speaker 1: What about the AFIX World exciter? What was going on there?

1229
01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:11,840
Speaker 2: That's a guy named Marvin Caesar, and I had a

1230
01:29:11,880 --> 01:29:16,200
Speaker 2: big fight with him as well because it was bullshit. Oh,

1231
01:29:16,240 --> 01:29:19,559
Speaker 2: but the bigger bullshit was Q sound. It was the

1232
01:29:19,560 --> 01:29:22,679
Speaker 2: guy that was trying to voiced Q sound.

1233
01:29:22,720 --> 01:29:26,760
Speaker 1: So let's slow this down. You had to give a

1234
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:32,280
Speaker 1: credit on the record on a fix didn't do anything Afix.

1235
01:29:33,040 --> 01:29:36,360
Speaker 2: No, yes, yeah, it was like it was an equalizer,

1236
01:29:37,400 --> 01:29:39,439
Speaker 2: and it had a particular kind of curve that you

1237
01:29:39,479 --> 01:29:45,200
Speaker 2: could call unique. It had a very steep filter, and

1238
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:47,960
Speaker 2: there were problems with the filter. But at the end

1239
01:29:48,000 --> 01:29:51,800
Speaker 2: of the day, it didn't do enough to warrant a

1240
01:29:51,800 --> 01:29:54,719
Speaker 2: point on the record. Say as Q soun, he wanted

1241
01:29:54,720 --> 01:29:56,960
Speaker 2: a point on the record. Guy that did that.

1242
01:29:58,400 --> 01:30:03,040
Speaker 1: Q sound. The famous album was the Immaculate Collection, and

1243
01:30:03,439 --> 01:30:07,520
Speaker 1: you could hear something It did not sound like traditional

1244
01:30:07,560 --> 01:30:13,400
Speaker 1: stereo the whole thing failed, but it definitely sounded different

1245
01:30:13,439 --> 01:30:14,639
Speaker 1: from traditional stereo.

1246
01:30:16,000 --> 01:30:23,960
Speaker 2: But the idea of having what are called HRTF pinot cues.

1247
01:30:25,160 --> 01:30:29,639
Speaker 2: HRTF has head related transfer functions, and right now Sony

1248
01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:34,240
Speaker 2: vm ME three sixty, which you've written about Sony VMB

1249
01:30:34,360 --> 01:30:40,439
Speaker 2: three sixty, which alleges at doing a good job of

1250
01:30:40,520 --> 01:30:42,639
Speaker 2: storing these samples, and they do a pretty good job.

1251
01:30:42,640 --> 01:30:46,000
Speaker 2: But that's an idea Sony that we've been pushing for

1252
01:30:46,200 --> 01:30:50,280
Speaker 2: years and finally formalized it in Sony vm ME three sixty.

1253
01:30:51,880 --> 01:30:54,599
Speaker 2: What that is is something that was around even then

1254
01:30:54,840 --> 01:30:59,679
Speaker 2: and was around as a product with the roland RSS reverb.

1255
01:31:00,479 --> 01:31:02,640
Speaker 2: And so the way Peter Asher and I busted that

1256
01:31:03,040 --> 01:31:07,040
Speaker 2: is Boostin had a party at his house post Medata,

1257
01:31:07,800 --> 01:31:12,920
Speaker 2: and I fed Peter Asher, who was also very smart,

1258
01:31:13,880 --> 01:31:17,599
Speaker 2: exactly what that was, what HRTF simulation was. And the

1259
01:31:17,680 --> 01:31:22,320
Speaker 2: day before or maybe it was Lenny, one of the

1260
01:31:22,320 --> 01:31:27,280
Speaker 2: two had to sign the contract for points on Q sound.

1261
01:31:28,240 --> 01:31:33,080
Speaker 2: Peter went to a dinner party at most it was Christmas,

1262
01:31:33,520 --> 01:31:40,200
Speaker 2: He's Jewish party and told them that it really wasn't

1263
01:31:40,240 --> 01:31:42,280
Speaker 2: worth it, that the idea had already been patented by

1264
01:31:42,360 --> 01:31:44,960
Speaker 2: roland In RSS, and that was the end of that.

1265
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:51,280
Speaker 2: So that's something that I love, really love to do,

1266
01:31:52,560 --> 01:31:57,280
Speaker 2: is the guys that are disinclined to be honest about inventions,

1267
01:31:58,360 --> 01:32:05,320
Speaker 2: disinclined to be clear about where IDs came from, disinclined

1268
01:32:05,479 --> 01:32:13,839
Speaker 2: to be respectful of patents. A boy, I'm at their throats.

1269
01:32:15,280 --> 01:32:16,360
Speaker 2: I think that's my job.

1270
01:32:17,080 --> 01:32:21,640
Speaker 1: Let's switch gears a little bit. You married, you have kids.

1271
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:26,439
Speaker 2: Well, no, I gave all my money to two ex

1272
01:32:26,479 --> 01:32:34,320
Speaker 2: wives and have of the most wonderful person in my

1273
01:32:34,360 --> 01:32:37,040
Speaker 2: life now and wish I had married her first, but

1274
01:32:37,120 --> 01:32:42,600
Speaker 2: I would have had to be robbing the cradle, and

1275
01:32:42,760 --> 01:32:47,120
Speaker 2: wonderful things happened to us every day. But the ex

1276
01:32:47,200 --> 01:32:51,679
Speaker 2: wives got the houses well especially. Oh here's a tidbit

1277
01:32:51,880 --> 01:32:56,439
Speaker 2: that you'll have to love. X two is a singer name,

1278
01:32:56,720 --> 01:33:01,200
Speaker 2: well sort of a singer name, Renee Armand, who was

1279
01:33:01,320 --> 01:33:05,160
Speaker 2: in John Denver's road band, but she also had some

1280
01:33:05,240 --> 01:33:07,960
Speaker 2: records on her own, and she got into the business

1281
01:33:08,280 --> 01:33:16,639
Speaker 2: as a writer. She married San Francisco Bay Captain talking

1282
01:33:16,640 --> 01:33:22,639
Speaker 2: about Captain Noah, very captain, nice guy. Her second marriage

1283
01:33:22,760 --> 01:33:30,320
Speaker 2: was to Jim Gordon. Her third marriage was to Jim Horne.

1284
01:33:32,320 --> 01:33:37,839
Speaker 2: Her fourth marriage there was a woman in here somewhere,

1285
01:33:37,880 --> 01:33:40,360
Speaker 2: so she married a woman in there. But fourth and

1286
01:33:40,400 --> 01:33:47,400
Speaker 2: fifth marriage was me and then she married a stock

1287
01:33:47,520 --> 01:33:50,840
Speaker 2: and security salesperson. So I've had a personal life all along.

1288
01:33:51,200 --> 01:33:55,040
Speaker 2: I just kept going for it. I can't but for

1289
01:33:55,240 --> 01:34:00,400
Speaker 2: the X two, the X one was loved by life.

1290
01:34:00,520 --> 01:34:06,400
Speaker 2: When just after I had designed the equ and we

1291
01:34:06,479 --> 01:34:08,519
Speaker 2: no longer did that, it was the next of years.

1292
01:34:08,560 --> 01:34:10,160
Speaker 2: I just had to get out of the country. What

1293
01:34:10,280 --> 01:34:12,800
Speaker 2: to do well? We moved to Paris and I lived

1294
01:34:12,800 --> 01:34:16,240
Speaker 2: in Paris for two years. Couldn't speak French to save

1295
01:34:16,280 --> 01:34:18,320
Speaker 2: my life. Do you speak French? Mom?

1296
01:34:18,479 --> 01:34:18,559
Speaker 1: No?

1297
01:34:18,640 --> 01:34:21,600
Speaker 2: I do not. You seem to me to be a

1298
01:34:21,640 --> 01:34:23,439
Speaker 2: guy that would be willing to learn.

1299
01:34:24,240 --> 01:34:27,160
Speaker 1: Well, the only thing in France now it's not like

1300
01:34:27,280 --> 01:34:29,240
Speaker 1: the seventies, not like the old days. A lot of

1301
01:34:29,240 --> 01:34:32,120
Speaker 1: people speaking English and they're not as denigrating as they

1302
01:34:32,240 --> 01:34:36,400
Speaker 1: used to be for those who can't speak French. But

1303
01:34:37,240 --> 01:34:40,080
Speaker 1: to what degree did your two marriages break up? Because

1304
01:34:40,120 --> 01:34:42,559
Speaker 1: the nature of the studio work is your work?

1305
01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:46,759
Speaker 2: In twenty four son, it was used at his excuse

1306
01:34:46,880 --> 01:34:51,439
Speaker 2: and it's still a challenge when I tell my wife

1307
01:34:51,560 --> 01:34:55,920
Speaker 2: that I'm going to do something and it's become chimerical.

1308
01:34:56,120 --> 01:35:00,680
Speaker 2: It just drifts off into the ozon. I really have

1309
01:35:00,760 --> 01:35:03,400
Speaker 2: to I have to be responsible. I've had to grow up.

1310
01:35:04,439 --> 01:35:08,320
Speaker 2: I just had a double fusion operation and I was

1311
01:35:09,240 --> 01:35:14,439
Speaker 2: fucked up. I had I have spinal synosis from lifting

1312
01:35:14,479 --> 01:35:17,840
Speaker 2: all that ship for all those years, and had two

1313
01:35:17,880 --> 01:35:23,040
Speaker 2: procedures and a labinectomy in a ten eleven hours day

1314
01:35:24,479 --> 01:35:29,720
Speaker 2: under propofault, and she coaxed me back to life, but

1315
01:35:29,880 --> 01:35:34,120
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it. Take the exercise, will

1316
01:35:34,680 --> 01:35:37,800
Speaker 2: whatever it was, take the this horrible drug that they

1317
01:35:37,880 --> 01:35:40,640
Speaker 2: got paid. So I'm just coming out of that and

1318
01:35:42,439 --> 01:35:44,320
Speaker 2: I owe my life stenosis.

1319
01:35:44,320 --> 01:35:48,559
Speaker 1: You can't. You have to get the operation. But when

1320
01:35:48,560 --> 01:35:53,759
Speaker 1: you marry who's been married like three or four times before,

1321
01:35:54,520 --> 01:35:59,639
Speaker 1: this is like what's his name? King? You think it's

1322
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:02,240
Speaker 1: going to be different with you? Well, what makes you

1323
01:36:02,320 --> 01:36:04,280
Speaker 1: think that the pattern's going to change?

1324
01:36:05,760 --> 01:36:08,760
Speaker 2: Because I'm supposed to be able to design that. I

1325
01:36:08,920 --> 01:36:12,160
Speaker 2: designed this other stuff and I was. I'm not that

1326
01:36:12,240 --> 01:36:14,320
Speaker 2: way anymore. I've got to work for it now. But

1327
01:36:14,400 --> 01:36:18,599
Speaker 2: I used to think that I could design my life

1328
01:36:18,800 --> 01:36:24,160
Speaker 2: and I can't. I couldn't and I can't. What I

1329
01:36:24,160 --> 01:36:27,200
Speaker 2: can do is be good as good as I could

1330
01:36:27,200 --> 01:36:30,720
Speaker 2: possibly be to my friends and the guys that have

1331
01:36:30,800 --> 01:36:34,160
Speaker 2: worked for me. I've got a guy doing manufacturing in Gmail,

1332
01:36:34,320 --> 01:36:37,479
Speaker 2: been with me for almost forty years, and just give

1333
01:36:37,520 --> 01:36:42,200
Speaker 2: him whatever he needs. Or my young assistant Kasrie Orrai,

1334
01:36:42,680 --> 01:36:45,600
Speaker 2: who I taught at Berkeley, and she said I'm going

1335
01:36:45,680 --> 01:36:47,479
Speaker 2: to move to Nashville and get a gig, and that

1336
01:36:47,680 --> 01:36:51,160
Speaker 2: was almost thirty years ago, and nobody would hire her,

1337
01:36:51,479 --> 01:36:53,080
Speaker 2: and I had to hire her, and every time I

1338
01:36:53,120 --> 01:36:56,400
Speaker 2: gave her something to do, she would excel at Kasri,

1339
01:36:56,560 --> 01:37:01,040
Speaker 2: could you learn photoshop? Yeah? How about my next Friday, Casri?

1340
01:37:01,280 --> 01:37:02,360
Speaker 2: How about Final Cut Pro?

1341
01:37:03,000 --> 01:37:03,479
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1342
01:37:03,640 --> 01:37:08,040
Speaker 2: Wednesday? And these people that have been so good to

1343
01:37:08,080 --> 01:37:12,479
Speaker 2: me and worth everything you had.

1344
01:37:12,479 --> 01:37:17,439
Speaker 1: This recovery from the operation and fusions are really you

1345
01:37:17,479 --> 01:37:19,280
Speaker 1: know it was just rated because I know somebody else

1346
01:37:19,400 --> 01:37:24,880
Speaker 1: had it is the most painful. But other than this interlude,

1347
01:37:25,680 --> 01:37:28,960
Speaker 1: what's keeping you busy? Into? What degree are you working now?

1348
01:37:31,840 --> 01:37:35,040
Speaker 2: Our work? Every day? I around two companies and we're

1349
01:37:35,080 --> 01:37:39,240
Speaker 2: doing I haven't talked about Studio Confidential, but you understand

1350
01:37:39,360 --> 01:37:44,679
Speaker 2: from Adam at Shortfire, who's been great, that we are

1351
01:37:44,680 --> 01:37:45,360
Speaker 2: doing a show.

1352
01:37:46,000 --> 01:37:48,959
Speaker 1: Talk about this show, this shows you're doing in February,

1353
01:37:49,040 --> 01:37:50,160
Speaker 1: How did this come to be.

1354
01:37:51,720 --> 01:37:55,479
Speaker 2: Well, it came to be what would have to admit

1355
01:37:55,680 --> 01:38:01,679
Speaker 2: by default, because we adjusted that how to do great

1356
01:38:01,720 --> 01:38:04,800
Speaker 2: immersive recording. I want to say that because we were

1357
01:38:05,840 --> 01:38:10,719
Speaker 2: brought together by Phil Ramon to do these projects which

1358
01:38:10,760 --> 01:38:18,080
Speaker 2: were which became DTS five point one, which became at

1359
01:38:18,160 --> 01:38:23,000
Speaker 2: most except that ATMOS is not very good. We came

1360
01:38:23,040 --> 01:38:26,519
Speaker 2: together and we couldn't get any work anymore. So I'm Elliott,

1361
01:38:26,520 --> 01:38:30,320
Speaker 2: and I've been friends with Elliott forever because we mix,

1362
01:38:31,000 --> 01:38:33,640
Speaker 2: We're of like minds and like hearts. The way we

1363
01:38:33,760 --> 01:38:36,720
Speaker 2: mix and the way we the way we listen, and

1364
01:38:36,800 --> 01:38:39,400
Speaker 2: I just have so much respect for him that he'll

1365
01:38:39,439 --> 01:38:44,200
Speaker 2: never suggest anything that I say, I can't do that. Never, never,

1366
01:38:44,240 --> 01:38:46,839
Speaker 2: I can't think of the thing. So we got together

1367
01:38:47,439 --> 01:38:51,880
Speaker 2: in this group run by another buddy, kind of a

1368
01:38:51,920 --> 01:38:56,759
Speaker 2: manager of the group, and the seven of us, all

1369
01:38:56,840 --> 01:39:01,280
Speaker 2: seven would get together have meetings that we'd have actual

1370
01:39:01,360 --> 01:39:05,440
Speaker 2: meetings at ah shows and then we'd have virtual meetings.

1371
01:39:05,479 --> 01:39:09,960
Speaker 2: But every time we got together there would be endless laughs,

1372
01:39:10,520 --> 01:39:14,400
Speaker 2: especially for med Journey, who's the funniest guy on earth.

1373
01:39:14,640 --> 01:39:20,720
Speaker 2: Before that Al Schmidt and before that Phil Ramon, and

1374
01:39:20,840 --> 01:39:25,599
Speaker 2: it all came from you know, at the show one

1375
01:39:25,680 --> 01:39:28,040
Speaker 2: year in two thousand and too, Phil mentioned it to

1376
01:39:28,080 --> 01:39:30,599
Speaker 2: a bunch of guys and then Al said, yeah, that'd

1377
01:39:30,640 --> 01:39:33,960
Speaker 2: be a good idea, and then and helped move it

1378
01:39:34,080 --> 01:39:39,200
Speaker 2: to Narris to the Recording Academy. Now it's the P

1379
01:39:39,360 --> 01:39:41,479
Speaker 2: and E Wing, But that group that we got together

1380
01:39:43,439 --> 01:39:48,839
Speaker 2: exists today as the Meta Alliance Music Engineers Technology Alliance

1381
01:39:49,920 --> 01:39:54,840
Speaker 2: and Elliot and I did a book that Jim sort

1382
01:39:54,840 --> 01:39:56,639
Speaker 2: of liked the idea. I don't think it did very well.

1383
01:39:56,800 --> 01:39:59,000
Speaker 2: It was the Drum Book How we all did drums.

1384
01:39:59,240 --> 01:40:01,720
Speaker 2: Thought that was going to be be great, didn't make

1385
01:40:01,760 --> 01:40:05,280
Speaker 2: any money, And then we did in the studio with

1386
01:40:05,400 --> 01:40:11,760
Speaker 2: the guys and we do demos back when Ed and

1387
01:40:12,360 --> 01:40:18,799
Speaker 2: Al Schmidt were participating, and then and then Phil died

1388
01:40:19,360 --> 01:40:24,719
Speaker 2: and looking for other people, and I chose Nico Bolas

1389
01:40:24,880 --> 01:40:28,559
Speaker 2: and and not in the pushy ways. So nobody thinks

1390
01:40:28,560 --> 01:40:32,320
Speaker 2: it's my idea. It was my idea, and Nico, you know,

1391
01:40:32,560 --> 01:40:39,200
Speaker 2: did Neil for all those years Bill Young and and

1392
01:40:39,240 --> 01:40:48,000
Speaker 2: then and then after Ed died, I've always wanted to

1393
01:40:48,120 --> 01:40:52,400
Speaker 2: invite Jimmy Douglas and had also talked to Sylvia Massey

1394
01:40:52,439 --> 01:40:55,880
Speaker 2: and they weren't ready, but then they were ready. So

1395
01:40:56,080 --> 01:41:00,640
Speaker 2: the seven of us now include Nico, Bolas, Jimmy and

1396
01:41:00,720 --> 01:41:09,120
Speaker 2: Sylvia Massey. And in the studio with the guys didn't work.

1397
01:41:09,160 --> 01:41:12,559
Speaker 2: So Elliott and I proposed doing sitting on stage and

1398
01:41:12,600 --> 01:41:16,960
Speaker 2: telling stories, which everybody hated. So Elliott and I said,

1399
01:41:18,920 --> 01:41:21,519
Speaker 2: this is a great idea. Let's just do it without

1400
01:41:21,560 --> 01:41:26,800
Speaker 2: the guys, and so we designed it and funded it,

1401
01:41:26,880 --> 01:41:30,920
Speaker 2: and eventually the guys fell in line, and we did

1402
01:41:30,960 --> 01:41:33,599
Speaker 2: a show at Bridgefield a year at the Ridgefield Playhouse

1403
01:41:33,680 --> 01:41:40,640
Speaker 2: in in Ridgefield, Connecticut, which we designed. We kind of

1404
01:41:40,680 --> 01:41:43,479
Speaker 2: we kind of scripted, but we scripted in the sense

1405
01:41:43,479 --> 01:41:46,800
Speaker 2: that we organized telling stories. I kept them on a

1406
01:41:46,840 --> 01:41:51,440
Speaker 2: spreadsheet and could work off a spreadsheet. And it was successful.

1407
01:41:52,000 --> 01:41:59,439
Speaker 2: It was the proof of concept, and I would be

1408
01:41:59,479 --> 01:42:03,280
Speaker 2: surprised if you hadn't seen it, because we were encouraged

1409
01:42:03,320 --> 01:42:08,000
Speaker 2: to do it by everybody we talked to, including my

1410
01:42:08,120 --> 01:42:11,080
Speaker 2: next door neighbor Gary Getzman, from when I lived on

1411
01:42:11,200 --> 01:42:21,000
Speaker 2: Valley Vista in Sherman Oaks. But we never really we

1412
01:42:21,120 --> 01:42:24,800
Speaker 2: never pursued it until we did it at Richfield, and

1413
01:42:24,840 --> 01:42:27,320
Speaker 2: then Elliott and I said, well, what the fuck, because

1414
01:42:27,320 --> 01:42:31,880
Speaker 2: we're both old, We're two old guys, and I had

1415
01:42:31,920 --> 01:42:35,800
Speaker 2: to do it. And so that's what Machine Center. The

1416
01:42:35,880 --> 01:42:39,160
Speaker 2: thing at Machine Center is a boy, Bob. If you

1417
01:42:39,200 --> 01:42:43,639
Speaker 2: could help us do anything, we would be in your

1418
01:42:43,680 --> 01:42:44,760
Speaker 2: debt for all time.

1419
01:42:45,040 --> 01:42:49,200
Speaker 1: Okay, you know I got the press release, but since

1420
01:42:49,240 --> 01:42:53,439
Speaker 1: I have you, yeah, because it talks about a window

1421
01:42:53,520 --> 01:42:55,679
Speaker 1: from February second to sometime later.

1422
01:42:55,640 --> 01:42:59,240
Speaker 2: In February March. First, how many shows are there going

1423
01:42:59,320 --> 01:43:03,599
Speaker 2: to be? Twenty eight? They're going to be twenty eight shows?

1424
01:43:03,680 --> 01:43:06,600
Speaker 2: And what is going to be different about those shows?

1425
01:43:07,600 --> 01:43:11,120
Speaker 2: Different stories and different ways of approaching it In this

1426
01:43:11,280 --> 01:43:16,120
Speaker 2: last in this last show we did we did Ron

1427
01:43:16,240 --> 01:43:20,160
Speaker 2: Robin seven stories. Each of us told one, and then

1428
01:43:20,200 --> 01:43:23,519
Speaker 2: in the second half we kind of loosened up a

1429
01:43:23,560 --> 01:43:28,000
Speaker 2: bit and told some stories that we couldn't fit into

1430
01:43:28,040 --> 01:43:32,240
Speaker 2: that fixed time. And this time, in one of the

1431
01:43:32,360 --> 01:43:38,280
Speaker 2: promo passes, we asked the audience if they had anybody

1432
01:43:38,320 --> 01:43:42,080
Speaker 2: that they'd like like to hear about, and some gentle

1433
01:43:42,120 --> 01:43:45,120
Speaker 2: souls said Phil Ramond. And we've each of us got

1434
01:43:45,160 --> 01:43:50,280
Speaker 2: about ten Philramonds stories, including that one I told you

1435
01:43:50,320 --> 01:43:55,400
Speaker 2: about Stay with Me Baby. So the way we do

1436
01:43:55,439 --> 01:43:59,280
Speaker 2: it is we get together on these calls and we

1437
01:43:59,400 --> 01:44:02,920
Speaker 2: just entered tain each other, and I write down a

1438
01:44:02,960 --> 01:44:06,840
Speaker 2: short version of the idea on a spreadsheet, and then

1439
01:44:06,840 --> 01:44:09,920
Speaker 2: we get together and decide which ones to be serious

1440
01:44:09,920 --> 01:44:13,360
Speaker 2: about and which ones to rehearse. And once we rehearse them,

1441
01:44:13,400 --> 01:44:16,360
Speaker 2: we know what kind of time they'll take and how

1442
01:44:16,400 --> 01:44:20,679
Speaker 2: to fit them in. So we're doing this, this show,

1443
01:44:20,960 --> 01:44:24,560
Speaker 2: and we're basically at living it, which just about everybody

1444
01:44:24,600 --> 01:44:28,880
Speaker 2: has told us won't work, and we don't think they're right.

1445
01:44:29,800 --> 01:44:33,519
Speaker 1: We just so we understand. Is it twenty eight? Is

1446
01:44:33,560 --> 01:44:37,720
Speaker 1: it like a Broadway play? Were there twenty eight performances

1447
01:44:37,760 --> 01:44:39,960
Speaker 1: of one show? Or is it different every night?

1448
01:44:40,560 --> 01:44:44,120
Speaker 2: It can be different every night, but that's a stretch.

1449
01:44:44,320 --> 01:44:49,240
Speaker 2: If we're lucky, each of us has well. We started up,

1450
01:44:49,280 --> 01:44:53,160
Speaker 2: I said everybody has to have one hundred shows. Couldn't

1451
01:44:53,160 --> 01:44:55,639
Speaker 2: do that, So then we got down to each one

1452
01:44:55,640 --> 01:44:59,960
Speaker 2: of us has to have thirty shows. That was too much.

1453
01:45:00,640 --> 01:45:03,200
Speaker 2: We finally got down to every one of us has

1454
01:45:03,280 --> 01:45:06,839
Speaker 2: to have at least eight shows, where we could rotate

1455
01:45:06,880 --> 01:45:10,519
Speaker 2: them if we feel so inspired, or we add one,

1456
01:45:10,960 --> 01:45:14,760
Speaker 2: but we give ourselves a break in that we've got

1457
01:45:14,800 --> 01:45:17,559
Speaker 2: one that's well rehearsed and we could just roll that

1458
01:45:17,680 --> 01:45:21,080
Speaker 2: story out, because you know, at the end of the day.

1459
01:45:21,479 --> 01:45:23,840
Speaker 2: That's what we did in the studio. We could tell

1460
01:45:23,880 --> 01:45:29,400
Speaker 2: stories and because you had to make people, there are

1461
01:45:29,400 --> 01:45:32,160
Speaker 2: a couple. Here's one of the things that AI doesn't

1462
01:45:32,160 --> 01:45:33,960
Speaker 2: do is it doesn't know how to tell a joke.

1463
01:45:34,280 --> 01:45:38,960
Speaker 2: So I started with AI asking an AI agent to

1464
01:45:39,000 --> 01:45:42,680
Speaker 2: tell me a joke, and it couldn't. But it could say, no,

1465
01:45:42,920 --> 01:45:45,320
Speaker 2: you tell me a joke, which meant that it was

1466
01:45:45,360 --> 01:45:48,880
Speaker 2: taking my joke and stealing it. And so I didn't

1467
01:45:48,920 --> 01:45:55,599
Speaker 2: tell any jokes. But AI doesn't do certain things at all.

1468
01:45:56,560 --> 01:46:05,160
Speaker 2: It does not do well this thing of coherence of

1469
01:46:05,240 --> 01:46:08,200
Speaker 2: a story, like a song, where you can have a

1470
01:46:08,360 --> 01:46:11,120
Speaker 2: last verse that wraps it up like a Jimmy Webleer,

1471
01:46:12,880 --> 01:46:15,639
Speaker 2: and I love you more that says, and I love

1472
01:46:15,640 --> 01:46:19,000
Speaker 2: you for all time. It's bad English that he famously repeats.

1473
01:46:19,520 --> 01:46:23,760
Speaker 2: But it's something today I couldn't do. I love you

1474
01:46:23,800 --> 01:46:26,000
Speaker 2: more than need I love you more than need you,

1475
01:46:26,040 --> 01:46:28,640
Speaker 2: but I and I need you for all time A.

1476
01:46:28,800 --> 01:46:31,439
Speaker 2: I couldn't do that because it dismays the laws of grammar.

1477
01:46:32,240 --> 01:46:35,680
Speaker 2: Couldn't do that. I can't do good vibrations, could not

1478
01:46:35,720 --> 01:46:39,240
Speaker 2: do good vibrations. Even if it did good vibrations. It

1479
01:46:39,240 --> 01:46:43,479
Speaker 2: couldn't imagine the way Brian Wilson put that together. So

1480
01:46:44,640 --> 01:46:47,360
Speaker 2: we can tell a story, we can tell sort of

1481
01:46:47,439 --> 01:46:51,280
Speaker 2: fucking Phil Remond, you'd be working. We did the second

1482
01:46:51,400 --> 01:46:57,200
Speaker 2: Duets record Lennon Segon some frack tracks, and we got

1483
01:46:57,200 --> 01:47:00,720
Speaker 2: started with with Phil Remone. Came to Northern California, we

1484
01:47:01,200 --> 01:47:06,200
Speaker 2: started recording, or we thought, but no. Bill Vermont started

1485
01:47:06,240 --> 01:47:09,680
Speaker 2: telling stories at eleven or twelve in the morning, and

1486
01:47:09,720 --> 01:47:12,280
Speaker 2: about the time six or seven o'clock rolled around and said, well,

1487
01:47:12,280 --> 01:47:14,840
Speaker 2: we got to eat dinner. We'll finish after dinner. Got

1488
01:47:14,880 --> 01:47:19,240
Speaker 2: back to it, hadn't recorded note one and Phil turns

1489
01:47:19,320 --> 01:47:21,080
Speaker 2: to us and said, well, are we going to get

1490
01:47:21,120 --> 01:47:28,840
Speaker 2: anything done today? So that kind of story. I've got

1491
01:47:28,840 --> 01:47:32,599
Speaker 2: a Linda's story about Linda eating a cherry pie off

1492
01:47:32,600 --> 01:47:38,840
Speaker 2: the floor, a cherry pie with a lard crust that

1493
01:47:39,000 --> 01:47:42,520
Speaker 2: she had the cook that we had in Northern California

1494
01:47:43,000 --> 01:47:45,200
Speaker 2: bake and do you think there's a lot of lard

1495
01:47:45,280 --> 01:47:51,120
Speaker 2: in Northern California. So I mean, we've got stories. So

1496
01:47:51,800 --> 01:47:52,840
Speaker 2: we've got stories.

1497
01:47:53,080 --> 01:47:56,320
Speaker 1: How many seats will be available? And does it cost

1498
01:47:56,400 --> 01:47:56,680
Speaker 1: to go?

1499
01:47:58,760 --> 01:48:01,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? It does. But you know we're having Trump with you,

1500
01:48:02,040 --> 01:48:05,040
Speaker 2: I can tell the truth because you've been here. It's

1501
01:48:05,080 --> 01:48:09,679
Speaker 2: been a challenge selling tickets. You know, we've got guys

1502
01:48:09,680 --> 01:48:13,280
Speaker 2: that have never done Instagram. Well what has Jimmy Douglas

1503
01:48:13,280 --> 01:48:14,160
Speaker 2: has and Sylvie has?

1504
01:48:14,200 --> 01:48:14,600
Speaker 1: But I have.

1505
01:48:15,400 --> 01:48:18,400
Speaker 2: So we've now got to dig deep into stuff that

1506
01:48:18,439 --> 01:48:21,280
Speaker 2: we can roll out and get some promotion to get

1507
01:48:21,360 --> 01:48:25,439
Speaker 2: people to come and pay from eighty to one hundred

1508
01:48:25,439 --> 01:48:29,080
Speaker 2: and thirty seat. Well, we've had to add students at

1509
01:48:29,120 --> 01:48:34,599
Speaker 2: half price. We've had to do a week of of

1510
01:48:34,880 --> 01:48:38,639
Speaker 2: prep work. Maybe we have a couple of free shows

1511
01:48:38,720 --> 01:48:42,280
Speaker 2: the first week. But it's been a struggle and very

1512
01:48:42,320 --> 01:48:45,920
Speaker 2: slowly we're selling tickets. But you know, we've got to

1513
01:48:45,920 --> 01:48:48,799
Speaker 2: get the word out there because we're not reaching our audience.

1514
01:48:49,560 --> 01:48:51,960
Speaker 2: We know we haven't. We have an audience.

1515
01:48:51,960 --> 01:48:56,960
Speaker 1: Okay, the press release talked about video distribution. What's going

1516
01:48:57,000 --> 01:48:57,479
Speaker 1: on there?

1517
01:48:59,000 --> 01:49:02,000
Speaker 2: Well, the very first thing I did when we did

1518
01:49:02,479 --> 01:49:05,800
Speaker 2: Ridgefield is I know how to do video, how to

1519
01:49:05,800 --> 01:49:08,960
Speaker 2: produce a director. So we did. We spent some money

1520
01:49:09,000 --> 01:49:13,439
Speaker 2: with good cameras. I did the rough edit we got

1521
01:49:14,880 --> 01:49:16,920
Speaker 2: We've never done a finished show out of Ridgefield, but

1522
01:49:17,000 --> 01:49:21,920
Speaker 2: I did the mastard and from that we got the

1523
01:49:21,960 --> 01:49:25,560
Speaker 2: sizzle reel. So that's the one that I'd hope you'd see,

1524
01:49:25,960 --> 01:49:32,160
Speaker 2: and eventually you saw it. Yeah, So that sold everybody.

1525
01:49:32,720 --> 01:49:35,920
Speaker 2: So then I went to my insiders. I went to

1526
01:49:35,960 --> 01:49:39,400
Speaker 2: Gary Gatsman and he's so busy he didn't have time

1527
01:49:39,439 --> 01:49:44,160
Speaker 2: for it. And we'll go back to Gary, and we

1528
01:49:44,160 --> 01:49:48,960
Speaker 2: were well positioned to pass the idea off and have

1529
01:49:49,080 --> 01:49:54,439
Speaker 2: somebody else do it. But I've never had that kind

1530
01:49:54,479 --> 01:49:59,000
Speaker 2: of involvement with a director where I trust them, because

1531
01:49:59,000 --> 01:50:04,160
Speaker 2: they all fucked me over the largest largest portion of

1532
01:50:04,200 --> 01:50:06,479
Speaker 2: my career. One thing I could say is that every

1533
01:50:06,960 --> 01:50:11,080
Speaker 2: video director I've ever worked with should be buried under

1534
01:50:11,200 --> 01:50:13,639
Speaker 2: thirty feet of sand at the bottom of the marrier

1535
01:50:13,920 --> 01:50:19,559
Speaker 2: this trench. They're just got off and I keep trusting them,

1536
01:50:19,600 --> 01:50:24,919
Speaker 2: and I've said I'm not trusting director any well unless

1537
01:50:24,920 --> 01:50:29,880
Speaker 2: it's certain classic guys. So well, so we decided to

1538
01:50:29,880 --> 01:50:32,519
Speaker 2: do it on a all but we didn't have enough money,

1539
01:50:33,240 --> 01:50:35,720
Speaker 2: so we thought put on a show.

1540
01:50:36,240 --> 01:50:39,000
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, I saw the sizzle reel send to

1541
01:50:39,120 --> 01:50:44,320
Speaker 1: me from the PR person. Is that sizzle reel on YouTube?

1542
01:50:45,320 --> 01:50:47,760
Speaker 2: We've tried to keep the stories off of YouTube so

1543
01:50:47,800 --> 01:50:49,160
Speaker 2: that they'd be fresh at the show.

1544
01:50:49,800 --> 01:50:51,759
Speaker 1: But I thought this is going to be different stories

1545
01:50:51,760 --> 01:50:53,559
Speaker 1: from the Ridgefield thing. Are they the same?

1546
01:50:55,160 --> 01:50:57,240
Speaker 2: It is, but we didn't want to show that one

1547
01:50:57,280 --> 01:50:59,640
Speaker 2: off because we might go back to it, particularly the

1548
01:50:59,680 --> 01:51:02,559
Speaker 2: one out deal Young and the red Neck.

1549
01:51:02,920 --> 01:51:06,360
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm gonna give you a place because it's my nature.

1550
01:51:07,840 --> 01:51:09,040
Speaker 2: Ah, you're good at it too.

1551
01:51:09,720 --> 01:51:13,680
Speaker 1: People go to see the band and to hear the

1552
01:51:13,720 --> 01:51:18,719
Speaker 1: same song multiple times. People would go to Hamilton multiple times.

1553
01:51:18,960 --> 01:51:22,800
Speaker 1: People are watching K pop demon Hunters. It is so

1554
01:51:23,439 --> 01:51:27,599
Speaker 1: hard to reach people. You of all people, and you're

1555
01:51:27,640 --> 01:51:32,000
Speaker 1: sitting with in the studio. I've heard the same stories

1556
01:51:32,080 --> 01:51:37,080
Speaker 1: multiple times and still laughed. You know. We have to

1557
01:51:37,479 --> 01:51:42,839
Speaker 1: so to put out something where people get a taste

1558
01:51:42,880 --> 01:51:46,200
Speaker 1: of it and spread the word. What you were doing

1559
01:51:46,520 --> 01:51:50,800
Speaker 1: is unique, But you're first going to appeal to an

1560
01:51:50,920 --> 01:51:53,960
Speaker 1: older demo that is hard to reach, who we're going

1561
01:51:54,040 --> 01:51:58,200
Speaker 1: to be unaware of it. So you have to literally

1562
01:51:58,360 --> 01:52:02,759
Speaker 1: do everything you can to reach these people. Don't hold

1563
01:52:02,840 --> 01:52:05,599
Speaker 1: anything back, Bob.

1564
01:52:06,160 --> 01:52:08,640
Speaker 2: If only I had talked to you in October, but

1565
01:52:08,760 --> 01:52:12,840
Speaker 2: I did so right now, we're redoing some of these

1566
01:52:12,880 --> 01:52:16,160
Speaker 2: so that we could connect better. So you're right, Oh,

1567
01:52:16,240 --> 01:52:16,639
Speaker 2: I can.

1568
01:52:16,560 --> 01:52:18,600
Speaker 1: Say, I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna go

1569
01:52:18,680 --> 01:52:21,200
Speaker 1: a little bit further because it's not necessarily too late.

1570
01:52:21,920 --> 01:52:27,360
Speaker 1: You know, Todd Rungren is on TikTok telling how he

1571
01:52:27,439 --> 01:52:31,160
Speaker 1: recorded and wrote some of these songs. Okay, for a

1572
01:52:31,160 --> 01:52:34,280
Speaker 1: long time people wouldn't talk about that. Let's not talk

1573
01:52:34,320 --> 01:52:38,120
Speaker 1: about whether you should or shouldn't do it. Now. Jackson's Brown,

1574
01:52:38,280 --> 01:52:42,960
Speaker 1: of all people, is on TikTok telling his stories. Okay.

1575
01:52:43,280 --> 01:52:46,320
Speaker 1: So if each of you got on there and told

1576
01:52:46,320 --> 01:52:50,800
Speaker 1: the story on TikTok, the way the algorithm is, some

1577
01:52:50,880 --> 01:52:54,400
Speaker 1: people are gonna find it. And if you find something

1578
01:52:54,439 --> 01:52:57,760
Speaker 1: you like, you're gonna tell other people. You have to

1579
01:52:57,880 --> 01:52:59,880
Speaker 1: give yourself a fighting chance.

1580
01:53:01,280 --> 01:53:03,960
Speaker 2: You're right, You're right. By the way, I've got a

1581
01:53:03,960 --> 01:53:08,639
Speaker 2: great Jackson Brown story because he and all we're best friends,

1582
01:53:08,640 --> 01:53:12,559
Speaker 2: and we pretty much invented how do the modern vocal

1583
01:53:12,640 --> 01:53:17,360
Speaker 2: overdobe with Jackson and Old George a multi track.

1584
01:53:17,560 --> 01:53:22,200
Speaker 1: Jackson was famous for comping that infinitum.

1585
01:53:22,560 --> 01:53:26,479
Speaker 2: So that's what we turned it into. And what is

1586
01:53:26,560 --> 01:53:31,960
Speaker 2: your take on that? Well, what he didn't do was

1587
01:53:32,040 --> 01:53:35,840
Speaker 2: to avoid punching in a word in the chorus that

1588
01:53:35,960 --> 01:53:38,759
Speaker 2: if he just got down to it, he would punch

1589
01:53:39,000 --> 01:53:41,960
Speaker 2: a word or phrase of the course, which invariably didn't

1590
01:53:42,000 --> 01:53:46,160
Speaker 2: work because it has the wrong phrasing, the wrong breath,

1591
01:53:46,720 --> 01:53:49,479
Speaker 2: the wrong place in your voice where it comes from.

1592
01:53:49,800 --> 01:53:53,519
Speaker 2: And what we did with Lowell and Jackson was to

1593
01:53:53,560 --> 01:53:58,479
Speaker 2: record whenever we could a bigger track. So if we

1594
01:53:58,640 --> 01:54:01,840
Speaker 2: had one phrase that was wrong in the first chorus,

1595
01:54:02,560 --> 01:54:06,559
Speaker 2: we would never spin it, fly it a copy it

1596
01:54:06,560 --> 01:54:11,639
Speaker 2: from courts to chorus. We would also encourage the singers,

1597
01:54:11,680 --> 01:54:13,639
Speaker 2: which were Lola Jackson, to sing it from the top

1598
01:54:13,680 --> 01:54:16,200
Speaker 2: every time, even if you have just one line you

1599
01:54:16,240 --> 01:54:19,840
Speaker 2: need to fix, get lost in the song, sing the

1600
01:54:19,920 --> 01:54:23,080
Speaker 2: song again. So I could get on today and tell

1601
01:54:23,080 --> 01:54:26,080
Speaker 2: that story and get people to listen to it, and

1602
01:54:26,520 --> 01:54:30,200
Speaker 2: you would still cop and it became the Handley Cop.

1603
01:54:30,240 --> 01:54:33,440
Speaker 2: And there's a story in doing Handley Cops because he

1604
01:54:33,720 --> 01:54:38,880
Speaker 2: was just I mean, if Jackson was obdurate, Handily was crazed.

1605
01:54:40,120 --> 01:54:45,720
Speaker 2: Guys was JD. Southern And there's no better voice in

1606
01:54:45,760 --> 01:54:49,320
Speaker 2: the world than Henley. But boy, working for it is

1607
01:54:49,360 --> 01:54:54,240
Speaker 2: a drag. Never say yes again. But I can't say that.

1608
01:54:55,560 --> 01:54:56,720
Speaker 2: They never speak to me again.

1609
01:54:58,520 --> 01:55:03,640
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'll just talk one Henley's story. They

1610
01:55:03,720 --> 01:55:08,520
Speaker 1: had these shows before a COVID at Dodger Stadium, and

1611
01:55:08,560 --> 01:55:10,840
Speaker 1: then on the East Coast they called it the Classic

1612
01:55:10,960 --> 01:55:14,320
Speaker 1: one or some whatever, and that was the first time

1613
01:55:15,040 --> 01:55:18,840
Speaker 1: that the Eagles were out with Vince Gill and they

1614
01:55:18,880 --> 01:55:22,640
Speaker 1: were great. Oh, I remember that, okay. And then I

1615
01:55:22,720 --> 01:55:24,640
Speaker 1: in the next day, because there's a two day fair.

1616
01:55:24,680 --> 01:55:28,200
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Irving and I said, what did Don

1617
01:55:28,280 --> 01:55:30,720
Speaker 1: have to say, because you and me both know Don's

1618
01:55:30,760 --> 01:55:37,480
Speaker 1: a perfectionist, and he said, Don said that the monitor

1619
01:55:37,600 --> 01:55:42,280
Speaker 1: mix wasn't perfect and the horns were too aloud on

1620
01:55:42,360 --> 01:55:46,880
Speaker 1: a specific song. And I was very close. There's fifty

1621
01:55:46,920 --> 01:55:50,640
Speaker 1: thousand people there, and I could hear it a little bit.

1622
01:55:51,840 --> 01:55:53,800
Speaker 1: So I say to Irving, I say, you know, I

1623
01:55:53,960 --> 01:55:58,160
Speaker 1: heard that a little bit. I don't think anybody would notice.

1624
01:55:58,720 --> 01:56:03,920
Speaker 1: And he said, those little tiny things what make the

1625
01:56:03,960 --> 01:56:07,880
Speaker 1: difference between good and great? What makes it to like

1626
01:56:07,920 --> 01:56:11,120
Speaker 1: it average? To it really touches you. And I'm telling

1627
01:56:11,160 --> 01:56:16,120
Speaker 1: the story years later because yes, as my psychiatrist says,

1628
01:56:16,160 --> 01:56:20,120
Speaker 1: sometimes you change one thing and the whole picture changes.

1629
01:56:21,520 --> 01:56:24,440
Speaker 2: And you know what that particularly pertains to is one

1630
01:56:24,520 --> 01:56:27,360
Speaker 2: note out of tune in the chorus is somebody in

1631
01:56:27,400 --> 01:56:31,440
Speaker 2: the business, here's this one, and the whole vocal is attitude.

1632
01:56:31,600 --> 01:56:34,200
Speaker 2: She can't sing in tune. That came back to us

1633
01:56:34,240 --> 01:56:36,520
Speaker 2: any number of times, just one note. And when we

1634
01:56:36,800 --> 01:56:40,480
Speaker 2: went to doing autotune, well, when we went when we

1635
01:56:40,600 --> 01:56:42,600
Speaker 2: learned how to do autitude, well all you had to

1636
01:56:42,680 --> 01:56:48,440
Speaker 2: do was fix that one note flawlessly invisible weaving, and

1637
01:56:48,480 --> 01:56:52,320
Speaker 2: you change everyone's mind altitude. But you know what what

1638
01:56:52,400 --> 01:56:56,480
Speaker 2: this goes back to with Don is he was right, exactly,

1639
01:56:56,600 --> 01:56:59,320
Speaker 2: He's right. I've done vocals vocals with Don where he

1640
01:56:59,480 --> 01:57:03,360
Speaker 2: do a hard like a bizarre harmony that he would

1641
01:57:03,360 --> 01:57:09,840
Speaker 2: write that just me, you know, like a Jimmy Webb harmony.

1642
01:57:07,560 --> 01:57:07,640
Speaker 1: H.

1643
01:57:09,560 --> 01:57:13,560
Speaker 2: Two's and nines and elevens and just open harmonies and

1644
01:57:14,720 --> 01:57:17,760
Speaker 2: nail it, nail it. Maybe he say you to a

1645
01:57:17,800 --> 01:57:22,080
Speaker 2: bass guitar and nail the pitch that you gotta respect,

1646
01:57:22,120 --> 01:57:25,440
Speaker 2: that you gotta you gotta. I mean, Linda, is that

1647
01:57:25,600 --> 01:57:26,280
Speaker 2: kind of opperate.

1648
01:57:27,280 --> 01:57:31,480
Speaker 1: The other thing about it is most people don't care

1649
01:57:31,680 --> 01:57:35,680
Speaker 1: that much. There's a complete opposite philosophy of let's do

1650
01:57:35,760 --> 01:57:39,320
Speaker 1: it quick, down and dirty. Okay, but if you worry,

1651
01:57:39,440 --> 01:57:42,600
Speaker 1: most people are not willing. The other thing is you

1652
01:57:42,720 --> 01:57:48,280
Speaker 1: talked about Lowell George suffering. These people are suffering. For

1653
01:57:48,400 --> 01:57:50,920
Speaker 1: their art. It's not like they're going home putting their

1654
01:57:50,960 --> 01:57:53,920
Speaker 1: feet up on the couch and watching television and are happy.

1655
01:57:54,480 --> 01:57:56,080
Speaker 1: They're consumed by this.

1656
01:57:58,040 --> 01:58:04,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would I would argue that Linda has

1657
01:58:04,720 --> 01:58:08,520
Speaker 2: made the right choices. And when we started over see

1658
01:58:08,600 --> 01:58:12,240
Speaker 2: all the early records, Peter and Linda would do only

1659
01:58:12,320 --> 01:58:19,960
Speaker 2: live vocals. So part of why Linda kind of push

1660
01:58:20,000 --> 01:58:22,400
Speaker 2: for me going back and doing your work was that

1661
01:58:22,560 --> 01:58:27,920
Speaker 2: I had done you know, those earth, wind and fire vocals. Yeah,

1662
01:58:28,840 --> 01:58:32,400
Speaker 2: they they they I directed pitch from the control room.

1663
01:58:33,200 --> 01:58:37,760
Speaker 2: I did an overwhelming amount of work making those rand again.

1664
01:58:38,400 --> 01:58:41,680
Speaker 2: They remember the guys, remember, so asked Larry Dunn when

1665
01:58:41,680 --> 01:58:48,720
Speaker 2: you eventually interviewed Larry Dunn. And they didn't sing in

1666
01:58:48,760 --> 01:58:51,760
Speaker 2: tune until we really got a hold on how to

1667
01:58:51,800 --> 01:58:54,120
Speaker 2: direct their performance in the studio. And of course they're

1668
01:58:54,160 --> 01:58:57,640
Speaker 2: brilliant performances. Don't get me wrong, I can't sing, but

1669
01:58:57,760 --> 01:59:00,280
Speaker 2: why do I have it here? From pitch and for

1670
01:59:00,360 --> 01:59:04,680
Speaker 2: harmonies and how to make harmony's buzz. So so getting

1671
01:59:04,720 --> 01:59:07,560
Speaker 2: those right had a lot to do with that sound

1672
01:59:07,560 --> 01:59:10,360
Speaker 2: of earth, which let me go way out the limb.

1673
01:59:11,200 --> 01:59:14,760
Speaker 2: Change the sound of R and B markedly and quickly

1674
01:59:16,240 --> 01:59:19,600
Speaker 2: R and B was one thing before we did Earth

1675
01:59:19,640 --> 01:59:23,960
Speaker 2: Wind and Fire and another thing after not quickly. It

1676
01:59:24,080 --> 01:59:25,640
Speaker 2: was a different game. You know.

1677
01:59:26,680 --> 01:59:31,040
Speaker 1: One thing you did with Linda you cut a cover

1678
01:59:31,960 --> 01:59:36,040
Speaker 1: of Tom Petty's The Waiting, which is just phenomenal.

1679
01:59:37,440 --> 01:59:40,880
Speaker 2: Well, except that the background voices were wrong. Boy, I

1680
01:59:40,960 --> 01:59:44,360
Speaker 2: tried to redo that. That's an example of getting wrong.

1681
01:59:44,440 --> 01:59:48,160
Speaker 2: We got the background voices are so weighty that it

1682
01:59:48,600 --> 01:59:52,880
Speaker 2: just it was never bright because that bright happy thing

1683
01:59:53,040 --> 01:59:56,680
Speaker 2: had to play against the idea of the waiting is

1684
01:59:56,720 --> 02:00:01,720
Speaker 2: the hardest part, and it should have been more iron Boy.

1685
02:00:01,560 --> 02:00:03,280
Speaker 1: I wanted to read you this, but you've got a

1686
02:00:03,320 --> 02:00:08,879
Speaker 1: great performance out of her. Okay, we're gonna leave it here, George.

1687
02:00:09,520 --> 02:00:12,520
Speaker 1: I wish you luck with these performances. I say, I've

1688
02:00:12,520 --> 02:00:15,440
Speaker 1: seen the Sizzle Wheel. The stories are great for those

1689
02:00:15,480 --> 02:00:18,280
Speaker 1: people who you know, who are not insiders. This is

1690
02:00:18,480 --> 02:00:21,520
Speaker 1: just gold. This is stuff he can't get anywhere else

1691
02:00:21,920 --> 02:00:24,960
Speaker 1: that in most cases never been anywhere else.

1692
02:00:25,320 --> 02:00:27,280
Speaker 2: And never will go unless we do it.

1693
02:00:27,480 --> 02:00:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's a tragic loss with al

1694
02:00:31,760 --> 02:00:35,160
Speaker 1: and Ed, especially Ed long before his time, but a

1695
02:00:35,280 --> 02:00:37,640
Speaker 1: character he was before.

1696
02:00:38,600 --> 02:00:41,680
Speaker 2: But Bobby, you're so patient. Thank you so much for

1697
02:00:41,680 --> 02:00:43,720
Speaker 2: getting me the opera. I wanted to talk to you forever,

1698
02:00:44,040 --> 02:00:46,800
Speaker 2: back when I was talking about that thing that we knew,

1699
02:00:46,840 --> 02:00:50,160
Speaker 2: that that Quincy did on the Brothers Johnson, I really

1700
02:00:50,200 --> 02:00:53,000
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to you about all these experiences i'd had.

1701
02:00:53,400 --> 02:00:57,360
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm sorry, I'm so long with I'm

1702
02:00:57,440 --> 02:01:00,200
Speaker 2: so ash.

1703
02:01:00,280 --> 02:01:03,640
Speaker 1: It is the spice of life. It's that's where that's

1704
02:01:03,680 --> 02:01:06,200
Speaker 1: where the new guy is. That's that's where the good

1705
02:01:06,240 --> 02:01:09,240
Speaker 1: stuff is. When people say I shouldn't go any deeper,

1706
02:01:09,320 --> 02:01:11,480
Speaker 1: I should go, that's where the stuff you want to hear.

1707
02:01:12,240 --> 02:01:15,760
Speaker 1: So there's still, you know, tons I want to hear,

1708
02:01:15,920 --> 02:01:19,120
Speaker 1: but we're gonna leave it for today. George, thank you

1709
02:01:19,200 --> 02:01:22,880
Speaker 1: for taking this time of my audience. Till next time.

1710
02:01:23,480 --> 02:01:25,000
Speaker 1: This is Bob Left sets