An interview with Slau

Interview: Slau

Slau is an American singer/songwriter/producer living in New York City. He’s worked with a few of my previous guests, including George Hrab and Caleb Hawkins. I asked for a a chance to interview him, given his depth of experience and the technological transformations (such as producing very high quality music video recordings) that he has navigated exceedingly well.

2021-04-23 - An interview with Slau

Transcript

Daniel Schauer: [00:00:00] All right. So we are joined today by slouch. He is a well, he's a friend of a few people that I've actually interviewed on this podcast already. He is a music. Produce her a podcaster. He kind of, was semi famous in the podcasting community. Several years ago when he kind of made a big foray into what's called music, safe podcast or podcast safe music, where basically he was saying, you know, if you're a podcast, you want to use this music, go for it.

[00:01:14] You don't have to worry about royalties or riots or anything like that, which was. Pretty freaking cool. I've heard and read that he is, it's been nominated for awards, although I'm not sure exactly which albums he's worked on that word nominated. So we'll definitely get into that. And you know, I think the first time that I heard his name was the many times that George Trop had mentioned him.

[00:01:34]I know that, so I was worked with George on many projects, but the one that I'm the most familiar with is I believe he helped him shoot a YouTube video of the song. You don't know what you think, you know, which I must have watched a hundred times, I want to say probably a hundred times to, to learn that song.

[00:01:50] And that's how I learned that song. And it was really well produced. So yeah, I mean, thank you for joining me today. Sly, how are you doing.

[00:01:57]Slau: [00:01:57] Very good Daniel, thank you very much for inviting me. And it's a pleasure to be here. And to your, to this last thing that you mentioned, I have to laugh because like so many colleagues of mine who are producers and engineers and stuff like that all the time face this. And I think this is perhaps.

[00:02:16] Perhaps the first time I've ever had this happen to me, I had absolutely nothing to do. Do you don't know what she thinks? Yeah no. And this stuff happens all the time. It's you know, somebody might say it once and then it gets repeated and stuff like that. I had nothing to do with that video.

[00:02:37] I had nothing to do with the song because it hasn't been recorded yet on any album. He had done probably you know, something by himself, you know, in garage band or whatever. I mean, he does a lot of that stuff for his podcast of course, but it wasn't anything official. And so I, you know, I hate to just, but I had nothing to

[00:03:01] Daniel Schauer: [00:03:01] Oh, no. It must've been the other George Rupp song that I'm also very familiar with. It's a,

[00:03:06] Slau: [00:03:06] Well, there are

[00:03:06] Daniel Schauer: [00:03:06] you don't know what you think, you know, it's a when I was your age, did you do a

[00:03:09] Slau: [00:03:09] Oh, yes. Yeah. That, that we recorded BA yeah. And he did do a video for that. I would imagine he's done a lot of, you know, videos is very popular, you know, on YouTube and stuff like that. And but yeah, so I've worked with him for many years. He's done. Geez. What, seven albums, eight albums. I've lost track, but it's been geez, 20, 20 something years now that we've been working together, so

[00:03:39] Daniel Schauer: [00:03:39] seems like a great relationship. Yeah. That's something to be envious of for sure.

[00:03:44]Slau: [00:03:44] He's so much fun to work with. We have a blast you know, back in the day you know, w we would just. I'm, you'd be rolling on the floor laughing because he, first of all, he's hilarious and he ages cracks me up and we'd have so much fun. You know, we've gotten to the point where we're we work a little bit more efficiently these days and, you know, he sort of knows what to expect working with me.

[00:04:06] I know what to expect working with him for the most part. And so today these projects go a little bit faster and stuff like that. So we don't have as much time to kind of screw around, you know, but but it's still always a pleasure to work with him.

[00:04:23] Daniel Schauer: [00:04:23] you know, that's definitely one thing I want to talk to you about, because I you're probably, I don't know if I can say this with certainty, but you're near the top in terms of level of experience in actual music production slash engineering, like the tracking slash mixing. You know, the nuts and bolts

[00:04:43] Slau: [00:04:43] It's my day job. Yeah.

[00:04:44] Daniel Schauer: [00:04:44] Right. So I guess I wanted to know how. How fast is the learning curve to, like I assume at this point, like for instance, for a George Rob song, you might have an FX chain for his voice that you are, is a go-to that you start with. Is that the case, or do you start from scratch all the time?

[00:05:03]Slau: [00:05:03] I personally start from scratch all the time. And that's just simply what works for me. I mean, some people have typical recording chains and I might I mean, when I record music when I'm recording, let's say a vocal or any musical instrument, really for the most part, I generally tend to just capture audio and. If there's going to be something that's going to be sort of added later in terms of effects, instead of in terms of compression equalization, any T any stuff like that, I'm usually doing that after the fact of course going in, I try to get a good signal, a clean signal, et cetera. If something doesn't sound right, we'll reposition a Mike or swap out a mic and stuff like that.

[00:05:56]But I, I don't have a sort of like a go to but I have common starting points, you know? Like for example with George, Rob there's one particular mic that I've used on him, Pretty much since day one. And so is pretty much been the same mic. We've done one or two things where it might've been a slightly, you know, a different Mike or whatever, but generally it's, I know what the starting point is going to be.

[00:06:28] Yeah.

[00:06:30] Daniel Schauer: [00:06:30] sure. May I ask what my key is?

[00:06:32]Slau: [00:06:32] Well, years ago I S I started using an Audio-Technica 40, 33. On him which is a cardioid co you know, it's large diaphragm is technically, I think, sort of between medium and large diaphragm, but it's considered large diaphragm. Right. And you know, I just, we sort of worked with that for the most part and pretty much all the time.

[00:06:56] I, I think it's always been that microphone, I think for one, one his songs, he wanted a little bit more vintage kind of sound, and it was a big band kind of, tune. And we went with a ribbon mic instead to give it a kind of a an older more classic type of yeah, exactly. And I don't know that anybody would ever necessarily perceive it that way.

[00:07:20] Exactly. In the end it worked and no complaints. Yeah,

[00:07:27] Daniel Schauer: [00:07:27] right. Yeah, it is. Yeah. There's a lot of fuss that goes on in the music recording industry, especially about mikes. And I'll be honest with you. I have. Used and am currently speaking to you on an M X L V6, 3m. I think I paid 60 bucks for the stupid large diaphragm condenser. And it honestly, it's a workhorse.

[00:07:48] The thing just works, ideally. Yeah. Have another mic. So you can, you know, record multiple the same source multiple times and maybe get a different character out of it or things like that, but it's not necessary. You don't need to drop $3,000 on a microphone to get a good recording.

[00:08:03]Slau: [00:08:03] No you, sir, I certainly agree with the fact that you don't have to, sometimes you do for various reasons, but it's not. It's not the, it's not because you need to. Okay.

[00:08:23] Daniel Schauer: [00:08:23] Right? It wasn't the roadblock keeping you

[00:08:25] Slau: [00:08:25] right. Ex exactly. Yes. Yes. It's not, you know, I mean, some gear in terms of let's say microphones specifically I adore microphones and I've collected a great number of them over the years. I love their differences, their qualities. I love experimenting from time to time with them trying different things or just simply, yeah. Like I said, just simply experimenting. But, you know, okay. Cheap, you know, the best mic to use is the one that's closest. You know, it's like the thing with the camera, what camera is best, you know, the best camera to use for some it's the one that you have in your hands when the, when you need to take that shot that picture.

[00:09:13]And it's the same with microphones. A cheap microphone is perfectly capable, most cheap. I'm not going to say all of them, but many of them are perfectly capable of capturing sound perfectly well. You know, a more expensive microphone might sound better in terms of its off-axis response.

[00:09:35] That's kind of a typical thing. But if you're primarily capturing one thing at a time, like a vocal, let's say like that most people are recording, then the off-axis. A coloration isn't terribly important. Really. You might get a microphone that's, you know, that might fail on you at a certain point if it's a cheaper microphone, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

[00:10:04] Really. As far as considerations, I mean, you know, if you can spend 3000 on a mic say for example, I mentioned audio technical, they have the their series the 5,000 series. So I mentioned the 40, 33, well, they have the 50, 40 I believe 50 40 is the model number. It's a series of four square capsules.

[00:10:25]And because of its dimensions, it's the equivalent of a two inch diaphragm in terms of surface area the. The noise floor on that microphone is extremely low. It's got a great sound. You know, but it's it's probably a $3,500 microphone. So I mean, you know, it's great if you could afford it, fantastic microphone, but geez, you know, nobody's going to hear that difference in terms of the end product, you know?

[00:10:55] Yeah.

[00:10:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:10:57] but this is a great opportunity to just remind everyone who's listening, that you could be a patron of the show. And then I could afford the $3,500 microphone. If you go to patrion.com/democratizing music, boom seamless. All right. I I just wanted to, you know, I know I've heard, I always do my best to listen to all previous interviews that I do with my guests and try to research them because.

[00:11:22] Odds are like if you're not listening to the show and you saw I was interviewing slouch, you probably listen to those other interviews and you don't want me to ask the same question. Also slap probably gets asked the same question a lot if he does a lot of interviews. So I want to avoid having him go forward.

[00:11:38] I mean, that's no fun. So let me phrase the next question with with kinda like a preamble. I've heard that you were a pop star of sorts and in Ukraine before you came over here, were you producing music before you you kind of made the hard transition and making that your full-time job or what was the trigger there?

[00:11:57]Slau: [00:11:57] Well, just to clarify, I mean, I was born here. I wasn't you know, I'm not from Ukraine. My parents were from Ukraine. A lot of the I mean, there's a huge Ukrainian community in North America in the United States and Canada and stuff like that. But sort of my parents' generation immigrated around world war II or after world war II.

[00:12:19]But I was born here now given that this was the cold war culturally speaking the emigre community really try to instill a Ukrainian culture because they were essentially, you know, exiled.

[00:12:34] Daniel Schauer: [00:12:34] taken

[00:12:35] Slau: [00:12:35] Yeah exactly. And people were being jailed and, you know, and lost their lives because of their, you know, Ukrainian identity or promoting Ukraine's independence, stuff like that.

[00:12:47] So that was a big thing in our community to preserve the culture. And so as a kid you know, I mean, as children of sort of like my generation growing up in the you know, 60 seventies, eighties We would we would go to we would attend Ukrainian like a Saturday school where we would be taught Ukrainian grammar literature history, geography, that kind of thing.

[00:13:14]So that was, you know, I look back on it now and I think it was great that, you know, I had that opportunity and that upbringing, of course, as a teenager, like any teenager you rebel. And there were years where I just, you know I didn't want to speak the Ukrainian language. I didn't, you know, I was just, you know, I rolled my eyes at it.

[00:13:36]And then when I was in college and sort of became a little bit more aware, sort of, Politically, I guess, you know, it sort of meant more to me, you know, that when I started to understand what was going on during this cold war

[00:13:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:13:57] Your parents, weren't just being like, we want to use your Saturday. They were like, they were doing something deeper that you maybe didn't understand. Is that what you mean?

[00:14:05] Slau: [00:14:05] By the time I was in college, it was like,  then it was coming from me wanting to be involved in in, you know, this this political struggle really. And, you know, and to raise awareness of Ukraine's identity outside of the Soviet union, you know? And so anyway Being a member of this Ukrainian student association I was attending an event and met someone who was also attending and we started talking music.

[00:14:36]Her name was dark D a R K. And we started talking about music and stuff. There was an upcoming event an evening in honor of Ukrainian political prisoners. And there was going to be a a program that evening. And there was going to be some poetry reading. There was going to be some, you know, a bunch of different things and we thought, Hey, let's maybe we could do something together, musically.

[00:14:58] And so we did several songs that night and it really went over very well. We were very excited about the prospect of maybe recording this, you know, and We that, that's what it ended up, you know, moving toward, you know, we decided to demo some songs. We did that with a little four track recorder that we borrowed from a friend.

[00:15:21] And then before we knew it, we were recording an album. And then before we knew we were recording another album and we had taken on some musicians made a little group and then eventually we went to Ukraine for the first official Ukrainian pop music festival that was in 1989. And we came away with the favorite international band award from that festival, which was a shock.

[00:15:48] And yeah. And so over. Yeah. So over there you know, there was, you know, we were recognized in certain circles and even here in, in New York, there was a woman from Ukraine who was she was like a home health care sort of aid for one of our neighbors. And and she was from Ukraine and she like was walking down the street with this old lady.

[00:16:11] And she like, you know, saw me on the street and like eyes popped out of her head. She goes, Oh my God, are you slouch quality? Like she recognized me. And the only reason is because she's from Ukraine, nobody here would recognize me and who would care, you know? But over there, you know, we had some, you know, some degree of recognizability and it's the kind of thing that wouldn't have amounted to anything as far as career, unless we lived over there and I, I.

[00:16:43] Was not interested in living in Ukraine, you know, but I've been back many times since to record orchestras and and it's it's wonderful. It's especially Kiev the capital city is fantastic. I love it there.

[00:16:58] Daniel Schauer: [00:16:58] I've heard it's beautiful country.

[00:17:00] Slau: [00:17:00] Yeah. Yeah

[00:17:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:00] yeah, I guess that was the bit that I hadn't caught was that I had, somehow my brain thought that like you were living in Ukraine for awhile when you got that award or participate over there, but yeah. Cool. That's it. Thank you for clarifying.

[00:17:13] That was that your, you said it was your first recording as part of that project. It was a digital four-track recorder. You said.

[00:17:21] Slau: [00:17:21] it was just before digital. This was like, I mean, it wasn't before digital recording per se. Digital recording had been around for a while, but I mean, you know, the first time. My ex-wife and I recorded a demo that was like a Tascam, what? Two, two 44 or something, you know, it was a four-track cassette.

[00:17:44] Yeah. It was

[00:17:45] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:45] Nice.

[00:17:45] Slau: [00:17:45] just the cassette multi-track those were the days things were simple.

[00:17:50] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:50] Yeah, you got to really commit to the punch in,

[00:17:53] Slau: [00:17:53] Yes.

[00:17:54] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:54] those old tapes that's for sure. W how do you think you established or got got what I guess is best described as industry credit? I get the impression that you had a steady stream of work these days. So do you just attribute that to your experience and the word of mouth, or have you had any major successes that you've been able to do?

[00:18:13] Slau: [00:18:13] Yeah. You know, I, when I first got into sort of recording. You know, let's say serious demo recording. It. It was really for as so many people in the industry, you know, it was to record my own material. And I became more and more interested in the technology side of it. You know, the production aspect.

[00:18:40]At a certain point I had an opportunity to go to school for it. I ended up going to five towns college in Dix Hills, long Island. And it's funny. I just said that and motioned with my head to the right, because it's in that direction, that's just. One of my wife always laughs at me because like, when I say something, I said, well, in Manhattan and I, you know, gesture always, I just can't help it.

[00:19:06] So anyway, out in Dix Hills I went to five towns college, which at the time when I went to school was had a really great audio program. But the thing was, it really was a music degree with an audio recording concentration. So anyway, yeah, I went through that program. It was a four year program.

[00:19:25] And before I even went to five towns, I was already, I had already gotten to the point as many people do where I was recording friends material. And then before, you know, it friends of friends and mind you, I had my ex wife and I had already recorded a couple of albums. Well, two albums, let's say by the time I was in school.

[00:19:53]And so in the Ukrainian community, at least you know, I was being approached by people to record albums for them and stuff. So when I finished school, it really I was just working full time recording other people's material. I, at that point I kinda, I mean that for me, that paid the bills.

[00:20:17] So I just went with it. And with, as with so many areas of life, you know, success begets success, you know, and

[00:20:25] Daniel Schauer: [00:20:25] yeah.

[00:20:25] Slau: [00:20:25] Before you knew it, you know, somebody heard something that I had recorded and would contact me and ask me, Hey, would you know, would you take on this project, et cetera, et cetera. And I just just continued from there.

[00:20:38]And you know, it's funny because you never know what's going, like what project will lead to, you know, what any project will lead to let's put it that way. B because yeah, absolutely. You don't know, you have no idea. And and that's why each project is, you know, you have to treat it with, you know, with respect and, you know, and.

[00:21:08] I assume that, you know, if you screw it up, you know, it's not going to be a good thing. You want to make sure that even the smallest project is going to be the best that it can possibly be. And you never know, like the people that you recording who they're going to be in five years or whatever, you know what I mean?

[00:21:30]And you know, one particular project that,

[00:21:32] Daniel Schauer: [00:21:32] a marker cause that's some great, fantastic advice right there

[00:21:35] Slau: [00:21:35] okay.

[00:21:36] Daniel Schauer: [00:21:36] so I can go back and make that the opening quote. Cause honestly you never know where that person you're helping out right now is going to be in five years and treating every project as though your career depends on it.

[00:21:47] Those are great pieces of advice. You were going somewhere though.

[00:21:51] Slau: [00:21:51] Yeah, no, I it's just, I, you know, Two things come to mind, but I, the first thing is I was and I don't even remember how I how I came to record this one local sax player also played flute. And I would just, you know, she asked me if if I'd record some stuff for her, and it turns out that it turned out that you wanted us to do an album.

[00:22:17] And I said, yeah, sure. Whatever you need, you know, and I don't think she had done much recording of her own she'd recorded in other ensembles and stuff like that. And I did this album for her and you know, she had gotten a friend of hers to do the liner notes and he.

[00:22:36] Said wow. You know, this sounds great. You know, where did you record it? And she says, Oh, I've recorded it with this guy, slouch. He's in a story in my neighborhood. And he said, Oh, I should reach out to him because I have some stuff that I wanted to record. And that, that guy, this gentleman, I've now recorded probably 25 albums for him now.

[00:23:00]He's he's a prolific you know, producer who does a lot of Broadway and, you know, kind of cabaret type music, but just because of working with him, I've worked with you know, in the theater world, in the sort of like the Broadway world with actors with like phenomenal Broadway credits and.

[00:23:25] Well known singers. And as a result of my working with him, I'm going to be working on another project with you know, with, you know, again, a huge name who's bringing in other huge names. I mean, it's just, you know, you never know what it just, the little, you know, phone call might lead to, or an email, you know, in terms of, you know, Hey, would you be willing to re you know, are you interested in recording this project with me?

[00:23:54] And I say yes. I'll record anything.

[00:24:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:24:00] Yeah, that's fantastic advice, especially for people that I think there are a lot of people out there that probably have their own recording equipment, probably have a recording or two have a project of their own under their belt, probably know friends that are interested in recording.

[00:24:15]And for whatever reason you know, can't convince their friends to even give it a whirl. Yeah, I think that those piece of advice would definitely be helpful to them, at least as far as, you know, not accepting failure and not, you know, not allowing yourself to put a subpar thing out.

[00:24:31]That's the kind of thing that makes it so that your friends don't just act as your friend, but like maybe come to you with something more serious as well.

[00:24:39] Slau: [00:24:39] right. I mean, everybody's different. Has their unique temperament, you know, some people are easy to work with. Some people are more challenging to work with, and this goes both ways. You know, there are recording engineers that are. Not so easy to work with. And there are others who are just a great hang and you just enjoy being around them.

[00:25:00] So they're easy to work with same thing with artists, of course. But as far as from a technical standpoint, from from the standpoint of the people on artists chooses to work with, as a recordist or, you know, or as a producer audio engineer any body on that front you know, aside from, you know, trying to be you know, pleasant and professional and all that kind of stuff.

[00:25:28] I mean, if you treat. Their project and it is their project not yours. You know, their name goes on the product, not yours. You may get a liner note if you're lucky, you know, a credit in the liner notes, whatever. But it is theirs. But if you treat that with respect and you try and you really do your best to make their product the best that it can be, they will appreciate that and that'll keep them coming back.

[00:25:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:25:57] yeah.

[00:25:58]Slau: [00:25:58] And it's a great feeling when you get those repeat customers, repeat clients and sometimes just for one reason or another, that artist might just simply want to change and they might not come back to you for their next album, but that's okay. I mean, it's it's all good, you know, because chances are if they've had a good experience, They will mention it to somebody and or somebody will ask them about you, you know, as a recording engineer or a studio owner or whatever, and a best advertisement, you know, it's word of mouth really is

[00:26:37] Daniel Schauer: [00:26:37] absolutely. One thing I'll throw out there as someone you know, I've recorded a lot of my own stuff, but I did go into a recording studio for a handful of songs once just to see if there was going to be like a huge difference or whatever. And. And while I didn't notice this stark difference in the output quality.

[00:26:54] What I did notice is that as an artist who had been basically handling all aspects of the recording from start to finish in the writing of the song, like he had a fresh set of ears and was like, Hey, what about during the second chorus? What if we just had you like, do another overlaid vocal part where you were just doing something a little different, just repeating the first three words, like over and over again.

[00:27:15] Maybe that would sound cool. Let's give that a try and you know, it, wasn't a five minute exercise for me to give that. Right. I didn't have to switch out of, put my guitar down in the switching to the recording mode and then add a track and then make sure it's all routed properly. And then now put my guitar back on and that crap, the idea's gone,

[00:27:33] Slau: [00:27:33] yeah. Yeah. It's a totally different, completely different experience recording yourself, as opposed to, you know, being in a situation where you're not the recordist, all, you're the, you know, you've you have your musicians cap on? I mean, he just reminds me when I mean, okay. So I, I.

[00:27:56] Although I am a studio owner and I am an engineer and a producer I've certainly put out. I mean, aside from the stuff that I mentioned, you know, that that my ex wife and I did many years ago I did put out an album of my own 20 years ago. And all this time I've sort of had songs that have been accumulating and I decided I'm going to record a second album of my own material for no other purpose than, you know, my amusement and everybody else's amazement.

[00:28:27] That's all. But it was always on the back burner and I, it was never my priority. So it got delayed so often. But finally, a couple of years ago I decided, you know, let's I call George Robin. I said let's book a session, you know, for you to do drums, we set a date.

[00:28:44] And I knew that day. I did not want to deal with technology. I want it to have my producer's cap on and I didn't want to deal with running pro tools or anything like that. So I set up all the mikes and I you know, had everything set up the way I wanted to capture the drums. But then I had a friend come in who was a an accomplished engineer himself and a studio owner here in New York city.

[00:29:09] And I just had him deal with anything that was, you know, anything to do with, you know, watching the levels and, you know, stuff like that. And it was, you know, I don't get to do that. That often. I'm usually the one that has to really deal with the with the technical aspect and in this case I didn't want to at all.

[00:29:30] And so it is a very different experience. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:35] Daniel Schauer: [00:29:35] Yeah. And yeah, it's just, it's kind of hard to switch between the two modes too, you know, that is a hard transition to make for

[00:29:44] Slau: [00:29:44] Yeah. Yeah, because he could so easily lose inspiration and, you know, it's that whole left brain right. Brain to for what that's worth, you know, to, to whatever degree that is true. you know, to have to think about some kind of technical aspect, like why aren't I hearing that? What, Oh, you know, I forgot, I never, you know, switch the channel on this or change the routing or whatever it is.

[00:30:12] And you just, you lose the mood, you know? I find that if I am working on something where I have to record I mean, like for example, from. For my album which actually it, the album, the recording, everything is done. It should be out, Oh, I dunno. Certainly this summer it will be out for sure. But when I was recording, you know, myself of, for any kind of guitar, parts, keyboard, parts, anything like that, I just made sure that I was never setting stuff up the day that I was going to be recording that material.

[00:30:48] So if I was going to be recording guitar, I'd set up, you know, I'd set up an amp, I'd set up a DEI. I would get my levels and everything the evening before. And then the next day, all I have to think about is turn on the gear and start recording, you know? And then it's, I'm not dealing with technology anymore.

[00:31:12] That point I'm, I've got my. Guitar player cap on and that's all I'm dealing with. And that's I find that it really helps to try and separate as much as possible. Those two

[00:31:27] Daniel Schauer: [00:31:27] Do you ever, yeah. Speaking earlier, you were mentioning how, when you were working on your own album, most recently, you didn't want to have the engineer's cap on where you're having to monitor levels and things like that. Some people may not know, but I mean, you're visually impaired. You don't see the red light blink on your mixing

[00:31:45] Slau: [00:31:45] right. No. I I mean, in terms of, yeah, any, I am blind. I mean, I have really no usable vision. I've lost my vision over the course of many years, but at this point I, I have really no useful vision. And so for example, when I'm working with pro tools I use a screen reader on the Mac.

[00:32:06]To give me feedback as to, you know, what controls I'm accessing or where I am, for example, in the timeline say, for example in, in pro tools right now on this machine here. Yeah. So I, you know, 41 minutes, six seconds or whatever, you know, it, basically the screen reader tells me this information.

[00:32:30] So in terms of accessibility of this stuff I've been working for years with avid, the makers of pro tools to help ensure that there that pro tools is accessible for blind users. Same thing with Sabellius their notation software. I was on the beta team for that as well, and that is really fully accessible for blind users.

[00:32:53]And so yeah, there, there is that challenge too. But it, you know, if anything, because of that challenge, I have to be that much more on top of the game. Especially when it comes to other clients, because to my clients who come into the studio you know, some, sometimes they laugh at how, you know, they hear voiceover, the built-in screen reader in the Mac, they hear it, you know, I'm navigating very quickly and it's kinda, it sounds like gibberish to them because the speech is at a fast rate, you know?

[00:33:26]And they just go, wait, you know, they so often say, God, how do you understand that? You know how, I don't know. I don't know how you do it. And you know, they mean it as a compliment you know, w you know, they come in to sit like, how do you know what buttons to press or whatever.

[00:33:40] It's just, it's a typical kind of a thing. But with the added you know, knowledge that I don't even see the stuff that I'm, you know, that I'm accessing and pressing the buttons on and stuff like that. But that makes me know the gear that makes me, sorry, sorry about that.

[00:34:01] Daniel Schauer: [00:34:01] it's all good.

[00:34:02] Slau: [00:34:02] my phone.

[00:34:02]That, that makes me sort of try to know the gear that much better so that when I'm working like there's less room for error, you know, and again, you know, MIS mistakes, of course everybody makes mistakes. And for me, if anything I make the same mistakes that a sighted engineer might make.

[00:34:27] You know, it, it really doesn't have anything to do with you know, me being blind or something like that. I might, I, how many times do people forget to plug in the case of care? You know, this is silly, things like that. You know what I mean? It's a, you know, is the AC plugged in now for me you know, where that becomes a little bit more of a challenge because the blind is because I don't see that.

[00:34:50] That PO that indicator light. I don't, you know, I don't see that display light up. So I have to verify with different means. You know, whether something I could tell physically if something is plugged in, of course, but when it comes to you know, operation you know, if a pre-emp is on, I have to assume that, okay, it's plugged in.

[00:35:13] I turned on the power the Phantom power is, you know, the, that button is pushed in, et cetera, et cetera. I have to assume at that point that everything is working. And if anything, isn't, then I have to assume that it's something else. And 99.9% of the time. Yeah. It's something else. I might've forgot to to change a patch cable or something like that, which anybody could forget, you know?

[00:35:37] Yeah.

[00:35:39] Daniel Schauer: [00:35:39] the classic forgot to record enable the stupid track that you were supposed to be recording. I do that one all the time.

[00:35:46] Slau: [00:35:46] You know, things happen. And you have to sometimes make you know, these kinds of considerations, you know, can influence your workflow. I mean, you know, certainly, well, probably any workstation can do, you know, CA has this option, but for example, in pro tools you can set it so that when the track is not recorded enabled, you could still monitor.

[00:36:05]But for me, I specifically make it so that if a track is not armed, I don't hear anything because I could be fooled into thinking if I can hear the thing, then yeah, okay. I press record I'm recording, but that might not necessarily be the case. Whereas if I, you know, I use it in such a way that it will only record if the track is armed or I can only hear it.

[00:36:33] If the track is armed, if I make a

[00:36:35] Daniel Schauer: [00:36:35] monitor without recording or gotcha.

[00:36:39] Slau: [00:36:39] Precisely. I mean, I sometimes do switch modes when I'm getting levels or something like that, because I need to, you know, I, obviously I need to hear stuff I'd like to hear stuff while I'm taking levels, but when it comes to recording, I'm in auto input mode.

[00:36:57] So that if the transport is rolling and I hear nothing, I know that I'm not recording. So know there are various things like that as a as a blind engineer that, that I have to sort of, you know, account for. And it's second nature to me at this point. I don't think about that stuff even, cause that's just how I work.

[00:37:12] Yeah.

[00:37:14] Daniel Schauer: [00:37:14] Oh, for sure. Specifically do the screen reader say clip light or something? Clip, gain, limit reached. If that light does go off.

[00:37:22]Slau: [00:37:22] Well, there are, you know, you have clip indicators, right. But and you have level meters on a track, you know, so for example you can navigate to a meter and see what your current level is, what your peak level is. And you can you can sort of query whether zero DB has been reached.

[00:37:44]I'm one of the I'm one of a few people that, that develop some open source software called flow tools. And it's specifically geared toward blind users of pro tools or which helps Really make the workflow of pro tools a lot more efficient for blind users. Like for example, before I pressed a a particular key combination to say where I was in the timeline here in this pro tool session. So I'm at the like 48 minute Mark, whatever. But on my pro tools up here, I have a screen above is out of your site right now. But I have the mix window open now, a sighted person. If they were looking at that window they would not be able to tell where we are in the timeline, but like these scripts that we created for pro tools Gets its information from the edit window, which could be totally in the background.

[00:38:37] So for me, as a blind engineer, instead of going to the edit window, going to the counter display cluster, interacting with in going to the main counter, it like it's such a tedious process. Yeah. Yeah. There are a bunch of commands you know, that you can utilize to help work full like that, you know, because, you know, I mean, look, we all know a picture's worth a thousand words, right?

[00:39:01]So you can imagine, you know, taking a look at you know, a session file that has, you know, 60 tracks and X number of plug-ins per track, or, you know, whatever it is. And when you look at that, You soak in a ton of information in a matter of three or four seconds. For me, I have to sort of query it a little bit, you know, in a more systematic fashion, I have to, you know, basically figure out how many tracks are in here.

[00:39:36] There's a key command that I can use to you know, to let me know that information, which are there any tracks hidden are, you know, are et cetera, et cetera. You know, th there's a whole, there's a whole slew of commands that I can use. And it'll take me longer to sort of assess the situation because I'm not doing it visually.

[00:39:56] It's you know, one thing at a time as opposed to 10 things at once that you're soaking in But again, it's one of these things that I've gotten used to that way of working. And so now because of that, you know, I've developed a sense of sort of memorizing a lot. You know, like if we're working on a big project and a producer says, Oh, you know, let's go to the bridge.

[00:40:20] And I, you know, I'll say, Oh yeah, that was bar 49. Let me boom. I'm there like, Oh, you know, he wouldn't have known that. I might not have even thought of that, you know?

[00:40:29] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:29] right.

[00:40:30] Slau: [00:40:30] but it's, it makes for, again, working more efficiently, the more I can sort of memorize certain things the better.

[00:40:40] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:40] absolutely. Yeah. Your hot keys. I bet are

[00:40:43]Slau: [00:40:43] Sure. Keyboard shortcuts. Oh,

[00:40:45] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:45] no.

[00:40:46]Slau: [00:40:46] That's I have to know all of them and there are too many, but yeah. I mean, there are some that you use all the time. There's some that are more esoteric, so those, I sometimes forget, but but anyway, yeah. Keyboard shortcuts.

[00:41:03] Daniel Schauer: [00:41:03] Oh yeah. Well I know I set aside an hour and we are approaching there. I want to make sure to put you through the torture of the lightning round. So I hope you're ready. Here it goes. Here's a wonderful little sound effect. Hopefully you hear it.

[00:41:17] Slau: [00:41:17] Oh, nice. Sure. Okay.

[00:42:35] Daniel Schauer: [00:42:35] Cool. So is it worth it in your opinion to buy a fancy unbalanced quarter inch patch cable for connecting a tar to an app I'm talking about gold play connectors, like troop, super ultra, triple shielding. And it's like as thick as a rope, that sort of thing worth it, or a waste of money.

[00:42:56] Slau: [00:42:56] waste of money.

[00:42:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:42:57] Cool. What about the same sort of question, but now we're talking about a balanced quarter-inch cable to connect speakers or a connection recording equipment. Does that make a difference now? Is it a waste of money or is it now, is it worth it?

[00:43:14] Slau: [00:43:14] well, you said I couldn't I couldn't elucidate on that. I would say it's not worth it. No, not worth.

[00:43:20] Daniel Schauer: [00:43:20] Welcome to question two is a lightning round where you instantly feel regret about how you have answered the car. That's the pretty typical

[00:43:26] Slau: [00:43:26] no, it's just what, you know, when you're only given to ch you know, it's like you say, is it worth it? And there, there are always degrees, of course. Right. But I'll say it's not worth spending a lot of money on that I can say with confidence. Yeah.

[00:43:40]Daniel Schauer: [00:43:40] Would you drop a lot of money on a fancy balanced XLR patch cable? Although I guess they're all balanced. Aren't they worth it or waste the money?

[00:43:51] Slau: [00:43:51] Well, I'm going to have to say can I ask you something when you say a lot of money, what's a lot of money

[00:43:58] Daniel Schauer: [00:43:58] Let's say you're

[00:43:59] Slau: [00:43:59] for a 25?

[00:44:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:00] 60 bucks on a 20 foot cable. What'd you pay that?

[00:44:04]Slau: [00:44:04] No, that's okay. And again, I hope we circle back.

[00:44:09] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:09] we will. We will circle back.

[00:44:10] Slau: [00:44:10] Yeah. Yeah no. It's not worth spending. What would you would consider a lot of money? No, yes, I would. I would not spend it if it, if you consider it a lot of money.

[00:44:20] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:20] Okay. Okay. Got you. If you call 60 bucks a lot of money. I gotcha. Cool. Is is it worth the money to buy an external preamp? This one is a little bit different worth it. No matter what, just buy an extra preamp. Don't use the cramping recording interface that you plug into your computer worth it based on your mic or what audio interface you might have, or just don't buy an external preamp, not worth it.

[00:44:43] Waste of money.

[00:44:47] Slau: [00:44:47] Boy, man, you either you're making it tough because it, it really, okay. So if you have an interface that has a built-in pre and you haven't spent. $20 on your interface then you know, you know, if you're, if your preempt is not noisy,

[00:45:11] Daniel Schauer: [00:45:11] gotcha.

[00:45:12]Slau: [00:45:12] Then you know I would not know. I would not S I would not say, I would say it's not essential to have an external preamp.

[00:45:21] Daniel Schauer: [00:45:21] okay. I call it. I'm going to put you in the middle of the road there. I feel like, because it sounded like you were saying based on your audio, audio interface, like if it had bad preamps, you might want an extra preamp because

[00:45:33] Slau: [00:45:33] Yes. Right, right. So I think it is important to have a good preamp. Sure. But these days, I mean, you know, you know, a Behringer you know what I dunno what they call them. The two I twos, or I don't know or personas, or you're like, eh, so many of these interfaces that have one or two channels or whatever. They're really good. They're good. Preamps. I mean, they're not bad at all. So I, you know, I would not say that an external preamp is critical. No,

[00:46:09] Daniel Schauer: [00:46:09] cool. Do you use mostly stock plugins in your recording scenarios, or do you use third? A lot of third party plugins? Like generally, if you had to be one side of the fence or the other stick to stock or buy some third-party worth of money.

[00:46:25]Slau: [00:46:25] Well, I'll tell you this, you know, if you can't mix a song with like stock plugins, then I it's like that thing you said before. You know, if you're if you're I forgot what it was that

[00:46:38] Daniel Schauer: [00:46:38] it was the mic. Isn't it? The mic is not the

[00:46:40] Slau: [00:46:40] It's not the pro. Exactly. It's not exactly. Yeah. It's the same kind of thing.

[00:46:45] I mean, the stock plugins in pro two in any of the workstations these days are really good. You know, if you're looking for more interesting sounds or you want to process, you know, your audio in, you know, some kind of more interesting or unique ways, you know, sometimes third-party plugins are just kind of like a little bit out of the box.

[00:47:11]They they have certain controls and certain presets that'll get you there faster, I, you know, still if you know what you want, you can do them with stock plugins. Now that said, I do and I'm sorry, this is not lightening. Cause I'm slowing it down. Aren't you?

[00:47:27] Daniel Schauer: [00:47:27] we'll get to which plugins you like. I'll ask. That's a separate series of questions

[00:47:31] Slau: [00:47:31] You got it. You got it? Yep.

[00:47:33] Daniel Schauer: [00:47:33] learning. I, I think B sharp seniors, do you guys do the video and or any streaming during COVID? Have you guys done any streaming?

[00:47:39]Slau: [00:47:39] No, I've had unattended. I've had a lot of unattended sessions, but no, no streaming stuff. I don't get involved in video. No.

[00:47:48] Daniel Schauer: [00:47:48] Cool. I'm going to skip over any question pertaining to streaming and moving on, I heard you mentioned pro tools earlier. Is that your preferred DAW, just in general, do you use multiples

[00:47:59] Slau: [00:47:59] I really only use pro tools.

[00:48:01] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:01] Cool. Let's see. I imagine you probably don't have a preferred video conferencing solution.

[00:48:07] Although I will ask how bad was Zencaster to join accessibility wise,

[00:48:12] Slau: [00:48:12] Oh, well, it was okay because it was basically you know, right within the Google browser and after, you know, saying okay to the Macco S for, you know, like wanting to use my Mike wanted to use the catalog, all that

[00:48:25] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:25] the permissions. Yeah.

[00:48:26] Slau: [00:48:26] yeah. Granting the permissions and stuff. Yeah. It's you know it's a very easy, yeah.

[00:48:31] There's not nothing to do. Yeah. So it was very easy. I like the experience is good.

[00:48:38] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:38] All right, let's get to these these plugin or manufacturers of plugins specific questions. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions about some plugin, common plugins, selves, or manufacturers of plugins. And I'm going to ask you to rate them from strongly disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree.

[00:48:55] I am actually trying to collect some data here as a somewhat scientific exercise, which is why I'm limiting you to multiple choice. So in your opinion, isotope RX a, is that a suite of cost-effective tools to get audio that's, you know, broadcast ready, whether that be for the radio or streaming services and maybe repair some problem or snafu that occurred.

[00:49:18] Slau: [00:49:18] okay. So I, is it a cost effective way to get the, you know, Oh, okay. This is not lightening. Is it still

[00:49:26] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:26] it's supposed to be, but

[00:49:28] Slau: [00:49:28] okay? Okay. Okay. No, I

[00:49:30] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:30] is still rolling for a long time at

[00:49:32] Slau: [00:49:32] run. Okay. Okay. Now I love isotope RX. It is phenomenal. I love it. I use it all the time to restore audio unforeseen things happen, so I love it. It's great. The cost-effective thing again,

[00:49:55] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:55] or agree. Oh, okay. Yeah. The

[00:49:57] Slau: [00:49:57] well,

[00:49:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:57] thing is

[00:49:58]Slau: [00:49:58] It's seat

[00:49:59] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:59] talking to probably people like at home recording.

[00:50:01] Slau: [00:50:01] Right. I mean, and so there's, you know, there's the RX there's RX advanced, you know, it's more expensive. I mean, to me, RX advanced is worth the price. You know, do I think it's cost effective? Yes. I strongly agree.

[00:50:15] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:15] Okay, cool.

[00:50:16]Slau: [00:50:16] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:17] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:17] Yeah, that's totally fair.

[00:50:19] Slau: [00:50:19] I suppose I should only talk from my perspective. Yup.

[00:50:22] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:22] That's a pretty good general rule. When filling out a survey do you ever use isotopes, ozone tattooing mastering? Or do you do mastering out

[00:50:29] Slau: [00:50:29] I don't. I do master reluctantly. It's not my favorite thing in the world to do, but it's just these days, you just have to be able to,

[00:50:38] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:38] Yeah.

[00:50:39] Slau: [00:50:39] I do not use ozone products. I mean,

[00:50:42] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:42] Strongly disagree or disagree.

[00:50:45] Slau: [00:50:45] wait, what's the question? Exactly.

[00:50:47] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:47] it a cost-effective suite of tools to get

[00:50:49] Slau: [00:50:49] Oh, I can't say I don't own it.

[00:50:52] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:52] Neutral. No problem.

[00:50:53] Slau: [00:50:53] Okay.

[00:50:54] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:54] filter. Are you a fan of found fat filters? Plugging

[00:50:57] Slau: [00:50:57] I don't use fab filter.

[00:50:59] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:59] neutral, cool waves. Do you use waves?

[00:51:04] Slau: [00:51:04] I use a few waves products. I used to use them more these days. I have sort of, I've wandered away from the waves ecosystem.

[00:51:19] Daniel Schauer: [00:51:19] Okay. So if you let's say you didn't own RX or isotope rocks and you didn't add waves, would you buy, it sounds like maybe isotope to solve some of your problems and maybe you stock plugins today to the reverbs.

[00:51:31]Slau: [00:51:31] Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:51:33] Daniel Schauer: [00:51:33] Are there any specific go-to plugins that are like in SLAs toolbox of, Oh, I got this problem.

[00:51:39] Boom. Go solve it with this.

[00:51:41]Slau: [00:51:41] Well, I mean, I don't necessarily think of when you say plugins, you know, I don't, I, the first thing I think of is not solving problems. Right. So I just have to say that.

[00:51:53] Daniel Schauer: [00:51:53] or something like that.

[00:51:54] Slau: [00:51:54] Right. Right. So if I'm looking for you know, let's say a particular kind of, you know, a chorus effect or whatever, you know, it's I'm thinking of them more as processors. Rather than problem-solvers. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:10] Daniel Schauer: [00:52:10] I think of him in both ways. Absolutely.

[00:52:12] Slau: [00:52:12] yeah. I mean, certainly there are, I mean, you know, look, there's, you know, pitch correction, you know, that's a utility, you know, there, there are those are like tools, you know, but then, you know, there are the other category of just, you know, sound shaping Oh, tools you could say still tools, but are the, there are two packages, well, aside from the stock plugins and like the avid complete bundle, because I'm I have, you know, pro tools ultimate, whatever.

[00:52:39] So it comes with, you know, extra plugins and stuff like that. They're sweet. They're complete suite aside from those. There are two packages that I sort of, own that I subscribe to. One is sound toys. Sound toys has excellent. You know, so it's this, whatever it is up to now sounds was five or something like that.

[00:52:59]Daniel Schauer: [00:52:59] Right.

[00:53:00] Slau: [00:53:00] that is, yeah, that's it. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. And the other one that I I just love is a plugin, the plugin Alliance plugins the yeah the, their annual subscription, which I mean, for all of their plugins, which is well, over a hundred, if I remember correctly it's, you know, I mean, it depends on how and what plugins you own already for them, whatever, but it's generally around 250 per year or something like that.

[00:53:31] Two, two to two 50. I don't know. I don't remember, again, it's a business expense, so

[00:53:36] Daniel Schauer: [00:53:36] yeah.

[00:53:37] Slau: [00:53:37] I, you know, to me, I, that's just, it's just the cost of doing business, you know? So I don't consider that expensive for some people. I, you know, it might be of course, But to me to have

[00:53:48] Daniel Schauer: [00:53:48] of a lot cheaper than waves. Mercury plugins suite is to cost

[00:53:51] Slau: [00:53:51] Okay.

[00:53:52] Daniel Schauer: [00:53:52] $3,000 for a one-time drop and like they'd update it every

[00:53:56]Slau: [00:53:56] Oh, an update. Okay. Yeah, sure. You know, so I mean, but the thing is with that with the waves thing you're paying and you have the waves update plan, but if you don't do your update, you still have all your plugins perpetually,

[00:54:10] Daniel Schauer: [00:54:10] yeah, exactly.

[00:54:11] Slau: [00:54:11] plugin Alliance, that's a subscription. You do not own those plugins.

[00:54:14] If you don't pay your subscription, you don't have those play right now. They do that said they give you a voucher for every year that you see. Now you pay $250 or again, your price may vary a little bit or whatever, but you basically you pay. Your annual subscription. And then they give you a $250 voucher, which you could apply to the purchase of any plugin of theirs.

[00:54:44] And you can use that voucher when they have their  and they have several sales per year where, you know, it might be plugins as low as, you know, $10 or $29 or 40, you know, like you could buy up a whole bunch of plugins that you can then just own perpetually outright, you know? It's a fantastic deal, I think.

[00:55:08]And I love their plugins. The, you know, the stuff is just phenomenal. A lot of their plugins are, you know, they're exactly the same as a lot of the UAE plugins, you know, it's made by the same yeah. Made by the same people and stuff. So I, I really do the plugin Alliance stuff.

[00:55:28] Daniel Schauer: [00:55:28] Excellent. I am, I I make captain is what they call me, I guess, for studio. Once I host a monthly meet up of a PreSonus studio, one DAW users and I've been using their DAW for years. So one of the things that comes up on, on those calls fairly often is the topic of the room correcting microphone, right?

[00:55:51] So it's like a special microphone that you put it in the room and like you run it through a plugin and it now has a made an E Q profile of your room. So then you apply to your mix and make it subtract your room from the sound. Have you had experience with those? I've heard very strong opinions on squarely on both sides of that fence.

[00:56:11] And I wanted to know what you thought of him.

[00:56:13] Slau: [00:56:13] yeah I have not used that particular you know, sort of. I don't use studio one, first of all, but I don't have any experience with the, that specific thing. You're talking about room correction software

[00:56:29] Daniel Schauer: [00:56:29] Yeah, I want to be clear. This is not part of studio one, which yeah, this is just any room correction. Sorry.

[00:56:34] Slau: [00:56:34] Right, right. Okay. So room correction software, you know, there are a few different flavors in there.

[00:56:40] A few different approaches. You know, there are different hardware solutions and stuff. I'll tell you what I've been in studios where they've used this, you know, kind of a scenario I've never felt that it sounded Any better. And if anything sounded a little bit strange to me when we sort of like a bead, you know, so I'm not a big fan of that.

[00:57:08]And I'm not saying that it doesn't work. It just, I just, I was never impressed by it now that said I have a JBL surround like a 5.1 surround system here. And the F this particular series, well, this, you know, they've had, you know, several series that have had this. It has their kind of like room.

[00:57:29] I think it's like room mode, correction, RMC, whatever technology. And, you know, you have a measurement microphone, which you put in mixed position, and it does sweep tones and stuff like that. And applies, you know, I don't know, 512 different filters or something like that, you know, like a graphic IQ, you know, And I've done that sweep in this control room.

[00:57:52]And I've engaged it now, mind you, my room is treated and you know, I spent a lot of time sort of, you know, I have diffusion on the back wall, you know, and I have you know, bass traps and stuff like that. And high-frequency panels and stuff like that. And when I've engaged the RMC on these speakers, I really don't hear a difference.

[00:58:19] I really, I if you turned it on and off to me, I would never be able to tell the difference and I've done it several times.

[00:58:27] Daniel Schauer: [00:58:27] So either the technology doesn't work or your room is perfectly treated

[00:58:32] Slau: [00:58:32] well, I would never say that it's perfectly treated, but it's treated well enough that it does not require you know, S, you know, significant correction or any sort of like perceivable noticeable correction. Exactly. You know, for some people, I, you know, I could see maybe it works, you know, better, and maybe it does solve a particular problem.

[00:58:56] And if it, and if you're, if you become accustomed to that, I mean, like really, I mean, you could work in almost any scenario in any room, as long as you're familiar with the sound of that room and it, and your mixes translate, you know, to other systems, if that makes sense.

[00:59:18] Daniel Schauer: [00:59:18] Yeah, I think there is, there's one other approach that I've heard of, which is like basically the opposite of trying to correct for your room sound and basically add a bunch of noise to your final output bus to make it as though you were sitting in a car with, you know, driving on the freeway. Right.

[00:59:35] Which involves a lot of pink noise going on in the background and basically simulates how your mix would sound in a car or in other sorts of environment. Have you ever tried any of those?

[00:59:46] Slau: [00:59:46] no, I understand what you're saying and I understand why some people try that because it, it makes a certain sort of common sense, but at what that is addressing, however, is more of a balancing issue rather than is the bass heavy. Do you know what I mean? So in other words, a lot of people, yeah.

[01:00:10] They might have. Standing waves in a room and bass frequencies are canceling and they have no. And as a result, since they're not hearing that base, they tend to crank the base quite a bit, you know, or you could have the

[01:00:28] Daniel Schauer: [01:00:28] The room is lying to them. So now they have a bass heavy mix or something

[01:00:31] Slau: [01:00:31] Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. Or the opposite, you know, they might have an uncalibrated or a poorly calibrated subwoofer and the base is pumping and they're fooled into thinking that they're, you know, that their mix is balanced.

[01:00:47] And now when I say balanced here I'm saying in terms of frequency content, and, you know, you played in a different room and somebody yeah. And somebody says four where's the bass you know, but th that whole sort of like using a pink noise or something in a mix. That sort of addresses more of a you know, is the vocal loud enough or is that guitar you know, overbearing?

[01:01:11] Yeah it's a different kind of balance, you know, more sort of instrument balance versus frequency content balance. So I don't ever do that stuff with noise that is, but I do reference on a few different monitors that have, you know, aside from the JBLs I have NS tens and mixed cubes of Antoni, you know, they're sort of like the Auratone type, you know, speakers.

[01:01:35]I always check on headphones. You know, I using the

[01:01:39] Daniel Schauer: [01:01:39] close back. That

[01:01:40]Slau: [01:01:40] Open back. I have a pair of the sure. What are they the 1870s I believe there is that the model number eight, 1870s, I

[01:01:49] Daniel Schauer: [01:01:49] two main model numbers for me to

[01:01:51] Slau: [01:01:51] Yeah. Yeah. And I can't keep track from there. I think they're used to, I think they used to be called the eight seventies and I think they're called the 1870s.

[01:01:57]And I do have a very cheap pair of like Tascam. I I think they're like T H two's like task. It's probably stands for Tascam headphones too. Literally.

[01:02:09] Daniel Schauer: [01:02:09] chromium. Absolutely.

[01:02:11] Slau: [01:02:11] Yeah. And they're like, I mean, they're cheap are they're like 29 bucks, but those are closed back. And you know, I might once in a while again, in the mixed process, only at the mix stage, I might throw those on for a moment just to, again, just from my.

[01:02:28] Information. I never make critical decisions. W you know, w with headphones, but sometimes I literally, I just put the headphones down to, you know, on the desk to my right. And I just listen through the, I mean, through those headphones, just from far away just to see if I'm, if something is really standing out and you'd be surprised at how you know, something that you thought was not that loud and a mixed, suddenly, like really stands out and jumps out at you, you know, sometimes these things happen.

[01:02:59] Yeah.

[01:02:59]Daniel Schauer: [01:02:59] I agree, actually. So that reminds me of two different things. Number one, a time I was playing, I was doing some mixing and and playing a song while doing some dishes, which is the next room behind me. I'm pointing. And you can't see, and neither

[01:03:12] Slau: [01:03:12] Yeah.

[01:03:13] Daniel Schauer: [01:03:13] listeners,

[01:03:14] Slau: [01:03:14] That's okay. The viewers can, yes.

[01:03:16]Daniel Schauer: [01:03:16] But like it's right there. And like I noticed, wow, vocals are like the only thing I can hear right now, that's weird. And that was a key that like, clearly something was wrong with my room configuration that I was not getting a proper mix there. And I went back and made a few adjustments and it turned out right.

[01:03:34]The other thing it reminded me of is the classic. My mix doesn't sound good in my car problem. You may be familiar with this, right. And I always drive my car when I was listening to my music. Cause I'm not going to subject my other family members to listening to my own CD 50 times.

[01:03:49] Right. So it's ah, I'm the only one and I'm in the driver's seat. So like I'm in what position? Slightly to the left and right next to a window. Right. So like my mixes were a little lopsided as a result of that, because I was never in the passenger seat, listening little things like that can happen for sure.

[01:04:04] Slau: [01:04:04] Yep. Yep. A friend of mine who's no longer with us famous engineer, ed charity who, you know, Grammy winning sort of, engineer had worked on several albums for Bonnie Raitt. Okay. He told the story of how, like they were doing these mixes and they were just like bouncing down cassette copies for Bonnie to here on her way home.

[01:04:27] And you know, and she would come in the next day and say something like, yeah, you know, that, that guitar, you know, whatever guitar, maybe it was her guitar one or the other rhythm, the rhythm guitar two or whatever it was. It's I'm just, you know, it's, I'm not hearing it, you know, and they're going like really, they'd bring up the mix, you know, like from the day before, I mean, the console is still cause they were just working on it the night before, bring it up and stuff like that.

[01:04:49] And they're listening to it and he's saying. I don't know what she's talking about, man. That guitar is like perfectly fine, you know? And so they would,

[01:04:56] Daniel Schauer: [01:04:56] in my face, if I turn it up. Yeah.

[01:05:00] Slau: [01:05:00] and they would just work on it, you know, a little more or whatever. And this has happened like consistently for a couple of these rough mixes that they did for her.

[01:05:08] And then finally one night, you know, when they were, when she was about to drive home he went out with her to the parking lot in the studio and you know, pop the cassette in the car at eight, you know, he's sitting in her. Seat in the driver's seat, he pops it on. Hey, you realize, is that her, that left is totally dead.

[01:05:27]There was no sound coming out of it. What so ever. of course she's not hearing it. And and by the way for that album, and I think this was the second album already that she won that he won like best engineered album best engineered album, Grammy, you know, they were really doing well and stuff like that.

[01:05:48] And so basically for her birthday they bought her a new car with a brand new stereo, so she could hear her mixes properly for the next album. It's

[01:05:58] Daniel Schauer: [01:05:58] so funny.

[01:05:59] Slau: [01:05:59] yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:00] Daniel Schauer: [01:06:00] not what I thought. I thought the story was going. Like he checks her stereo setting. It's okay, well you got everything faded up to the front end and on the right hand channel only, or something like that. But

[01:06:10] Slau: [01:06:10] right. You know, sometimes these things happen. Yeah. Sometimes these

[01:06:13] Daniel Schauer: [01:06:13] Oh, for sure.

[01:06:14] Slau: [01:06:14] You know, every,

[01:06:15] Daniel Schauer: [01:06:15] young boys. So I fade all my audio in my car up to the front.

[01:06:19] Right. Because they complain, they want to watch their show in the back or whatever.

[01:06:23]Slau: [01:06:23] Sure. Yeah. Everybody has their own sort of listening experience in their own listening environments. Some people love listening to music all the time and it's something that they love, but for whatever reason they consume music in their car or let's say on earbuds you know, consistently or some people on the laptop.

[01:06:42] I mean, it could be anything. And that's one of the challenges these days, you know, for mastering engineers is that you have to make that music are you try your best to make it sound good on everything. And you know, it's never going to sound good on absolutely every system, categorically, but try to cover your bases.

[01:07:03] Yeah.

[01:07:05] Daniel Schauer: [01:07:05] Right. Wow. So we're 120 minutes. I want to be respectful of your time. I thank you for saying nine with me. Do you have time for two more questions though? Cause I like

[01:07:14] Slau: [01:07:14] Yeah. Yeah,

[01:07:14] Daniel Schauer: [01:07:14] With same questions. I'm really interested to hear your takes on these particular ones. Because you've just got so much experience and worked with so many different people.

[01:07:24]And probably I had, if I had to guess though, we didn't specifically touch on this topic, a lot of different environments, you know, probably just not in your studio. So I wanted to know maybe you could tell us a scenario or a, what was like the most challenging recording setup you had to like, figure out how to do or conversely, like maybe a funny story of you want me to do what sort of thing

[01:07:50] Slau: [01:07:50] Oh, I see. Well, I'll say that the most challenging w I would have to say the first time I recorded an orchestra and that was not here in this studio, but I was overseas in, in Kiev. And I had recorded some large ensembles and everything. But this situation came up where I was being recommended.

[01:08:15] I was recommended to a producer who needed to have this orchestra recorded in Kiev. And I being somewhat fluent in Ukrainian given the background of going to that Saturday school and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah. I had the qualifications to help. Translate for this producer who was more of a, an executive producer rather than like a music producer, per se, but the people in Kiev warrants that fluent in English.

[01:08:48] And so I fit the bill in that respect and the second thing was they weren't terribly happy with the recordings they had gotten last time. So they were kind of, you know, looking for somebody else to kind of, be responsible for making sure that they got you know, the best possible recording they could get, et cetera.

[01:09:08] So I really was flying by the seat of my pants. And so I read as much as I could. I spoke with as many engineers as I could, who had experience recording orchestras and. I, you know, everything that I knew by the time I was going over, there was theoretical knowledge, which is great to have. But yeah when I got there, it's not as if I was the only, like it's not as if Mike placement was purely up to me, there was a recording engineer there that, that had recorded orchestras before.

[01:09:53]But in terms of what this particular client needed, they needed a recording to play back in, in auditoriums, in large venues for a dance group, a dance troop that used to tour with an orchestra and now their budget didn't allow for that. So they would tour with these recordings. And the recording is unfortunately had tons of reverb on them.

[01:10:21] So you take a recording of an orchestra with tons of reverb and you play it back in a 6,000 seat auditorium, and it's going to sound like

[01:10:31] Daniel Schauer: [01:10:31] It's mud. Yeah.

[01:10:33] Slau: [01:10:33] Precisely. And so what I was telling Anne, and I had no experience with this, but I figured just common sense as an audio person, you'd say, Oh, well, what you really need is the driest part possible orchestral recording and let the theater add its own ambiance. And so just armed with that I, you know, asked that the microphone's be placed a little bit closer. We want to kind of dead in the room a little bit more. This was at a film lot in Kiev. It was a very large soundstage. It wasn't particularly terribly live, but they did have sort of these gigantic think of them as you know, carpet rolls, you know, like when you go to a carpet store and they have these big rolls of carpet, it's exactly what it was.

[01:11:24] It was like these big things of like thick material that you could pull down like a shade, in other words, by the walls and it would help control the ambience of the room. So we deadened it as much as we could and moved in a little bit. And so that was a challenge where I didn't know whether I was going to be successful as it turned out.

[01:11:46] Luckily I made the right call and the client was extremely happy. They went on tour. They called me from Australia.

[01:11:55] Daniel Schauer: [01:11:55] Oh, wow.

[01:11:56] Slau: [01:11:56] like I got this call from the producer, he was calling from the, or, and he said, man, this sounds so fantastic. And he said, the sound engineer said, wow, this is like the best recording I've ever heard of an orchestra in that theater.

[01:12:08] So that, that doesn't mean that's the best recording of an orchestra you ever heard, but in the theater, you're typically not E if you're playing back, you know, an orchestral recording, it's going to be an orchestral recording with ambience. So it's never going to sound great, you know, especially at loud volumes.

[01:12:26] So anyway but yeah, I mean, and I would, the other. Thing that comes to mind is, you know, I was doing a recording of a jazz group, you know, so it was live in, in, in the studio here, you know, musicians playing together at the same time not an overdub situation or anything.

[01:12:41] And I was recording a sax player for he's been with steely Dan for 20 something years or whatever he's playing a tenor sax and this thing. Yeah. And the drummer showed up to the session without his drums. And that like really threw me off. And I asked him to come early so that he could set up, you know, and everything.

[01:13:05] And then he shut up like about a half hour before downbeat. And and I said, where are you? Where are the drums? He goes, Oh, I didn't, was I supposed to bring them? I was like, Yeah. Yeah. I

[01:13:16] Daniel Schauer: [01:13:16] What did you think you were going to set up?

[01:13:19] Slau: [01:13:19] you know, and the thing is I have a set of drums here, but they were packed away. They were not set up or anything like that because normally the drummers like to bring their own drums

[01:13:29] Daniel Schauer: [01:13:29] Pretty specific. Yeah.

[01:13:30]Slau: [01:13:30] And you know what, it happens both ways.

[01:13:33] I mean, sometimes they just use the drums that we have at the studio too. Right. But we agree on this in advance so that I know to either set up the drums or strike that, whatever. And it was agreed that he would bring his drums. I told them, bring, you know, you know, everything you need for the session anyway.

[01:13:49] So I was a little

[01:13:50] Daniel Schauer: [01:13:50] might want to break some sticks too, man sticks are going to be key.

[01:13:54] Slau: [01:13:54] Right, right, right. And And I was just really thrown off and I was, you know, I got everything set up as quickly as I could. I, through the Mike's were off to the side, ready to go, you know, because I was figuring as soon as he set up his drums, I just bring in the mix, you know, just position them we're off.

[01:14:11]Well, I didn't even have a lot of time to get levels on the drums, but I just kinda, I just told him, just play the whole kit, you know, and I was getting levels and and I was thinking to myself, well, yeah, you know, th we got to the point where we're starting to record and they did a first take a second take.

[01:14:32] And I'm sitting here with with my at that time, my intern was in on the session and she was sitting here and I'm like going through the various tracks, you know, and saying, Oh yeah, here's the kick, you know? Cause she wanted to. No, if she could hear the stuff while we were recording.

[01:14:49] And I said yeah, sure. This is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get to the snare gone. Wow. That snare sounds very distant and he was playing brushes and stuff like that, but it really sounded distant. And then I realized as I'm sitting here and they're doing take three public going, Holy crap.

[01:15:08] I never moved the snare mic all the way to the snare. It was like still, I was like, ah, shoot. So the guy's finished take three. And I just very calmly, I didn't say anything just as they were discussing and whatever. I just walked out there. I went over to the floor, Tom, you know, reposition the mic a little bit.

[01:15:30] Ah, I'm sorry. I really didn't. I mean, I put my hand on the mic. I really didn't move it, but I was just kinda like

[01:15:34] Daniel Schauer: [01:15:34] Yeah.

[01:15:35] Slau: [01:15:35] a fake adjustment.

[01:15:36] Daniel Schauer: [01:15:36] Yeah.

[01:15:37] Slau: [01:15:37] Then I kind of, you know, got on my knees in front of the kick again, another fake the adjustment. And then I just, as stealthily as I could. Right. And as stealthily as I could, I just took that snare mic the snare mic, which was like over by the, you know, one of the symbols and I just moved it, not in a perfect position cause I didn't want to fiddle around with it too much, but I put it, you know, generally where it needed to be and went back into the control room, you know, didn't say anything and you know, they did a take four and they did a take five of this particular tune and that's the one that they ended up using.

[01:16:13] So the snare was fine

[01:16:14] Daniel Schauer: [01:16:14] you mean that it would take one on tech two? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:16:17] Slau: [01:16:17] What's that? I'm sorry.

[01:16:20] Daniel Schauer: [01:16:20] They did a retake one, a retake two. It sounds like to

[01:16:23] Slau: [01:16:23] Well, yeah, well, well, yes. I mean, I, as far as I was concerned, you know, but to them it was, you know, take five was the one and it didn't matter to them, you know, but to me, I was just like, Oh, thank goodness. They didn't go with it. Now, the thing is I had a good sound on the overheads and we could have easily used take one if need be.

[01:16:46] But just, you know, the feeling inside is Oh, I hope they don't choose that one. And then, you know, there, there are obvious reasons why they did take three and take four. And I take five because they're, you know, they're tweaking the song, the arrangement as they're going along, whatever. And so more, exactly more often than not, they're going to take the last take, but there are certainly instances where the band will say, yeah, no, the first one felt the best.

[01:17:16] Or they'll only do one take of a particular song. I mean, thank goodness that didn't happen on this occasion, you know, but,

[01:17:25] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:25] that's a great story though. Last week I was interviewing at a Craig Anderton and and I, the tr. I have a dryer, my, my utility closets in the back of the, of my current room. And I had the clothes dryer running without realizing it for half of the fricking interview, man. It

[01:17:40] Slau: [01:17:40] Oh dear.

[01:17:41] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:41] I realized it, I was like, Oh Craig, give me a second.

[01:17:45] And I go, I, you know, I opened the door on the dryer to make it stop running. I come back and retrain the interview. And luckily for this, another advertisement for isotopes RX that came to the rescue, it was able to save that recording. But yeah,

[01:17:58] Slau: [01:17:58] Well, I've noticed

[01:17:59] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:59] about an interview is it includes a lot of room noise, as long as you don't actually meet yourself in between the questions.

[01:18:06] Slau: [01:18:06] Right, right. No doubt. You're going to have that in the recording. Yeah. I mean, speaking of which I see my laptop has been on occasion, you know, because I'm not using like a webcam or anything like that. I just simply have the laptop here on the stand and stuff. You know, I could certainly, you know, hear the fan kicking in.

[01:18:22] So my audio might have a little bit of that in the background, so sorry.

[01:18:26] Daniel Schauer: [01:18:26] ah, yeah, I'll clean it up. I'll clean it up. Don't worry about it. That was you covered both of the two final crust questions really with those answers. So thank you. Do you want to promote do you have a website for B sharp studios that you want to promote or a Twitter account?

[01:18:37] Anything like

[01:18:38]Slau: [01:18:38] I am on Twitter slouch B sharp. So SLA U B E S H a R P. I think that's my hand. Yeah. Yeah. It is sloppy, sharp. I, you know, I. I do still have the old you know, podcast website, which I've been threatening for years now to relaunch the podcast. And I think I will.

[01:18:58] Daniel Schauer: [01:18:58] I wasn't sure if it was a sensitive subject slab. I didn't bring it up.

[01:19:02] Slau: [01:19:02] no. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, so many people have reached out so often over the years Oh man, when are you going to do it again?

[01:19:09]And it's not for lack of wanting to do I, you know, I want to, but it is time-consuming mainly because of the way I chose to do a lot of those episodes, you know, the episodes tended to include a lot of, you know, location, audio, or excerpts from a session or something like that. And just putting that stuff together took so much time.

[01:19:32] And for, you know, mind you, you know, for a podcast that I wasn't monetizing in any way. It was a lot of work. Even if it was just even an an interview, like I did a couple of interviews, you know, even that, you know, you end up, you know, taking out the ums and the, and all that kinda stuff. And before, you know it, you get obsessive about that.

[01:19:52] Now you're spending, you know, two hours, three hours editing, you know, it's just. And that's why I just, I couldn't sustain it. But if I, you know, do it again, it'll I'll probably change the format a little bit. But so I, you know, that's sessions with slouch.com. So there are, I don't know what 20 episodes, 20 something episodes, which are older, of course that's still there, but I will be launching a new site, which will be slouch.com which I've had that domain free for years.

[01:20:25] But I know that's sort of more focused on me and not the studio per se. And so since I didn't have anything to promote, I didn't develop anything for that domain. But now that I got the new album coming out I will have a new site and that'll probably you know, include links to the podcast, which may be, I'll do a you know, a podcast episode about the recording and the production of that, of the album and stuff like that certainly would make sense to do and yeah, and then I should probably doing for the studio itself, but it's yeah more work. And, you know, like I said, the word of mouth is the best advertising. I don't need to you know, I don't feel that I need to advertise anything for the studio because I have a good amount of work that's consistent.

[01:21:14] And I have clients that I work with consistently and it's good. I don't want to sort of, you know, fill up my schedule too much, you know? Yeah. That's the reason why I hesitate about the studio thing, but I do get questions so often about just all, you know, just general inquiries that I should probably point them at a studio site, which I probably will do at some.

[01:21:35]Daniel Schauer: [01:21:35] I mean, I do really like that show. It's been a while since I think the last episode was back in 2015 or something like that, so

[01:21:41] Slau: [01:21:41] Oh

[01:21:41] Daniel Schauer: [01:21:41] Yeah. It's been a while, but. I like how you had music playing throughout. Most of it, you know, like it, it was a pretty well produced show. And one thing I'll throw out there is that a lot of those those things that you didn't like about editing a podcast, like removing the ums and UHS you can like that you can replace all those automatically with things like D script right now, which also transposes it into a written transcript for hearing

[01:22:06]Slau: [01:22:06] Right,

[01:22:06] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:06] which is something that I'll be doing with our interview, by the way.

[01:22:09]So like I'll be posting this as text that anyone who can't hear can at least enjoy the interview for themselves.

[01:22:15] Slau: [01:22:15] but can it distinguish between ums and ah,

[01:22:18] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:18] yes, it can. It does. It does a remarkably good job. It's very and related to deep fakes it I've trained it so that if I have completely said the wrong word, at some point in this podcast, I can go in, just delete the text of the transcript, typo a new word, and it will sound just like I said, the right word.

[01:22:35] Slau: [01:22:35] No,

[01:22:36] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:36] Yes really convincingly it's a little concerning if you think about it I'm not sure how I feel it. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. A lot of that stuff did get a lot easier over the last few years. And I would love to hear another show from you and I can't wait to hear your

[01:22:52] Slau: [01:22:52] Oh, thanks.

[01:22:52]Daniel Schauer: [01:22:52] Definitely send somebody a link when

[01:22:54] Slau: [01:22:54] yes. Yes, of course.

[01:22:56] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:56] I'll I'll push it out. All my social media is to try and boost it, but I'd love to just listen to it myself, you know,

[01:23:01] Slau: [01:23:01] Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll definitely give you a heads up and then send you a copy for sure.

[01:23:07] Daniel Schauer: [01:23:07] Well, thank you so much for the time.

[01:23:09] Slau: [01:23:09] thanks so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure to speak with you and stuff and share whatever I, you know, whatever I had to say. And.

[01:23:16] Daniel Schauer: [01:23:16] Yeah. Have a great nightmare. Great weekend.