Welcome to another episode of Virtua. Mastermind co-founder co-host here, Jason Stallworth and we've got our other co-founder of metal Mastermind, and co-hosted a great tank in Dallas, what up my friend brother kin we are here. Oh dude, we've got some cool stuff that, you know, we just pretty much talked about the podcast that we Were filming right now, we should have just
filmed our conversation. You know, we got to do it over again but the guys we're all about gearjunkie today, this is all about gear and the core of the topic because Ken and I both have some very personal and very like recent experiences going to talk about Hardware versus software, you know, processing versus amps. Plug ins versus, you know, the hardware units, blah, blah, blah, all that good stuff. So, I'm going to talk about Black Star, the the Black Star
amplification company. So you know, I just got they're amped three and they're these camps and a box. But you know, before we talk about that and I just got sponsored by them. So we'll give that quick plug in here too. So thank you guys. If you're listening, this will talk about that because I want to talk about my experience with you know, with the amped free which is it's a real amps power amp vs. Are real. Fire. Which, again, the amp three is a real amp.
But versus, you know, a tube amp with a cab mic'd up in versus using plugins. So I want to get into that. But dude, you brought up something that's like that's gold because you're finishing up your album and you are looking to kind of like, you know, perfect everything, the big picture here, right? The overall mix and stuff. Yeah. And instead of using software where you went out and bought a Peace. And I don't think people are buying a lot of these Hardware
pieces. So let's talk about this man. Cuz I'm interested. Sure. Well, it's kind of one of those things where well before I get into that, I guess it's important to preface all of this with what is the modern like studio, right? Because everybody that ever used to do any type of recording back in the 80s or 70s or any of that time era. Let's say the Golden Era of rock, right? You had million dollars Studios with all this analog gear. And that was like expected nowadays, right?
Nobody really has a million-dollar Studio unless they really got it like that. And if you have a studio in home, in your bedroom, you're probably all digital because digital is super convenient and it allows so much accessibility and I think over the last 20 years this In between, you know, going from analog to digital, you actually have some people that were like, like, I teach at universities, right?
So, I have young students who have never touched a lick of analog gear before, which is kind of wild to me. Yeah, I know. Right now, you're starting to feel a little old. I'm like, dude, what the hell, you know, and I want to talk about some of my experiences that I had actually yesterday, too, because I why just expose some students to the SSL console and I was just performing.
How does it feel to? You know, actually like process things right there and then as you're recording and the students, do, you know, they were like, blown away because they're so scared to to actually commit to just say, hey, this is a certain sound that I'm after, and that's how it's going to be when it's recorded, you know, they're like, oh, Why not? Just, you know, record it really flat and natural so that, you know, you can mix it later and I said, hey, you know, you can do
that. But you know if you're after our particular sound, why not just get it right there and then and you know what that takes confidence, it does. So here's the thing, right? So we're in a digital world now where everybody's just kind of honing in on just creating the The cleanest recording possible and I was of course involved in that world too. So I'm making all these decisions and you know, you know Jason I've been working on my album for like eight years at this point.
So all of my my growth as an educator as a performer, it's really grown alongside with this album and towards the more recent years when I started to Really get more access to certain things like plugins, right, as an educator, we have some of those benefits. So I started gaining access to a lot of these Advanced plugins. And I was using that I'm like, oh my God, this sounds just great.
I'm super stoked about it and I'm thinking I'm getting real close to this Final Mix. And then I said, you know what, let's try something new something different and so I got an e Nev summing mixer. And I said, okay, well one I've always revered the legendary Neve consoles. They have a history to them. They have a classic sound to them because, of course, they set the standard back in the 70s. So I'm like, okay, one of my dreams is always to ever have something that resembled that,
right? And so I got one, I was like, okay, we got it now the first day, I was just like, what if I just ran my NYX through this and When that happened I was like, oh yeah, this is done. I just had this realization that, no matter how many awesome emulated plugins you can use, there's really nothing like the real thing and that's why some
audio engineers and producers. They will always say, you know, analog is King and most people use analog in their instance of like, on the way in, for most projects because As you know, they can commit the sound right into the recording and then they'll just mix it in digital. But, you know, when you work also with mixing and analog, that's a, that's another layer of tonality that you're achieving to and, you know, it's
it's amazing. It's really, it changes your workflow also changes your mindset. On going into that mix because now you have to make decisions that you have to commit to. Because if you want to recall all that information again especially if you got something like what I'm using and has you know, volume knobs and you know, auxiliary sends and all this kind of stuff so you can use other types of gear. Oh man, you know, recalling.
All that information is more of a pain in the butt because now you got to take notes. You got to take pictures and yeah. That's not like you can just recall it like a plug-in. So yeah that that that's where you go. Like okay I need to make sure that when I do this this is it you know it's an interesting process I get that dude I met I had a very similar experience recording you and I both are working on our albums right now like we're in a race as he releases it first.
I've already committed to some post album stuff happening in August so I have got to finish my album and get it out. Out, you know really mid-july like latest so I'm I'm I put my back against the wall anyway so I recorded I went back and recorded the tracks with my evh amplifier. Great amplifier, mic'd up Good Ol sm57 you know found the tone. I lied course. It takes a few times. Like you said, you've got to be confident.
You also have to be a little patient and really be able to work with the gear to nail down what you want. Well, going back, when I went as I'm writing lyrics and vocal Melodies, I'm like, okay, well, there's Parts that I want to change. There's like two or three songs with parts that I want to change one song completely changed.
After I wrote the vocals I'm like hey this is gonna sound better well now I've got a quote unquote recall that information on my Eva champ that I recorded what six months ago and I can't do that. There's no buttons like here you go. So what I did do though, can I documented my settings though, I think I shared them on YouTube as well, but I got a blog post and I took some pictures and I
documented everything. So, I'll just go back, and it might not be exactly the same, but that's okay, I'm fine with that. It'll be close enough. But I me and it's not even because I'm old or maybe it is, I like knobs, man, I like faders. I like, knobs, you know, sometimes it kills me to be in the doll having to move everything around with the mouse. It just I know it really shouldn't be any different but is so much easier to reach over
and turn a knob. When I play my live acoustic shows I've got A little mixer over there, you know, and I'll move stuff around. I think it's the Mackey Pro FX 10 V3, something like that. And I've got the knobs right there. I know by memory because it's just a few channels is my vocal my guitar and my wife, she sings some time. So I know the EQ. I know I've memorized I've got that visual in my head.
So if things get moved around in the bag and setting up and tearing down, I can just tweak those knobs, I know exactly where they need to be. But I don't know, I just for some reason, I like that. Now I've also got this new, you know, I recently got sponsored by Electro-Voice I got their new column system, they sent me and there's no mixer, the mixer is actually on my phone. So I'm having a little trouble
with that. I mean, it's very convenient and use go to the phone and, you know, you know, fade the little things with your finger at each Channel or whatever. But I don't know, I'm just still, I still like the idea of just having that physical knob and physical fader, Or it's just a bit easier. Yeah, you know, and even as as an engineer for touring, I did, you know, several years with a band they were called the cringe. It was a great over a like alternative rock type stuff.
And I was touring with them as their monitor engineer, and what they were using was an Allen & Heath Q pack. I think it was called and it's like this rack unit that you can put into your system. It has like some buttons on it but it's very, very, you know, Compact and small. So you really the full feature set is using the iPad or something like that. And you know, you get used to it
after a while. But man, when I, when I, if I were to choose between using acute pack like that and having to mix this entire like live show with an iPad versus using an actual fader with a natural knob, you know, I choose the full on Console every single time, Man, it there's there's a Psychological Association with actually just using tactile
feel. There's there's nothing like it and you know, going back to that whole idea of using the SSL I got sounds that I wanted quicker because I just I had a tactile feel on what was I actually doing to the sound itself.
You know you don't really get that same feeling when you're using a plug-in like you're Link to it and you can you can make the same judgments but the feeling is different and you almost like when I'm working on an SSL, I don't need to look at M I don't need to look at at screens I just listened and if it sounds good I don't even care. You'll even see on my board it'll be overloading and you won't even really hear the overloading because it just
sounds edgier. It just sounds cooler and that's what it's doing. Its meteor. Right. That's the that's the beauty of analog. It's like soft Distortion. It's not like clipping Distortion, Like you get with the computer. So this I totally am there with you man. And it's, and it's just an incredible experience and it just reinforced that concept to me here in my own home studio because, you know, you know, I'm here with Antelope audio and they got great converters.
They got great plugins to and I'm like dude, I love this stuff but holy crap was Not using it to its full potential until I actually started something with it because the quality of the converters that's great, but if you're not using them, you're not getting the benefit out of them either. So I love that. I think it's just a wonderful experience and it's important to talk about it because people forget that, you know, it doesn't stop with just the
digital world. If you're at a certain point in your either career or you're just Our growth as a producer or just as a musician investing in quality gear Hardware gear. There's nothing like it. You get real Transformers you're running through real electricity right? There's something about running real electricity through a unit that does something to sound. I don't know. It's just it's magic. Let me ask this question. Can we do? This is kind of a tough question
here. Maybe it's not Relevant relevant. Maybe it is though. Do you feel like that? A lot of people tend even the younger generation? They tend to listen to older music more now know if you go on the charge, you know, and look at Spotify as top 10, whatever, it's all the new stuff, but when you actually go out and about and talk to people, especially in the Rock and metal world, like forget about pop and all that stuff, right? It country or whatever.
But you, when you talk to people, like real people in the Rock and metal World, they tend to listen to Older stuff more than newer stuff? Do you think this technology craze everything being digital do, you think it may have something to do with that? Where is the old records? And I'm not saying we need to go back to tape and all that,
right? There's there's a, there's a fine balance between progressing with technology and it may be kind of overdoing it and the new stuff can't quite do what this analog equipment that we're talking about this vintage equipment were talking about. Can do, do you think that has anything to do with? With with how people listen to music and what they prefer to listen to.
Yeah. Let me let me phrase it to you in this way and maybe it will make a little bit more sense even if you don't do this kind of work, let's just go to photography for a second. Okay. Okay, the different a different world aside from using Square so submerged in music. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to look outside the box, write a list. So let's take a look at the world of Photography, right? ADI, they can get a new camera, a new camera body, right? It can film in 4k, it can film in 6K.
It can film an 8K. If your film and 16k they got all these different types of resolutions. And what happens when you buy the body of the camera typically? It's almost obsolete. The moment, you buy it. Yeah. Right. Because there's always going to be something that comes out. That's newer. That's fresher. But you know what? Always stays the same. The lens. Hmm. The lens always grows in value because the lens uses a different type of Technology.
It uses Optics, right blasts, real glass, and you can't emulate real glass, right? It will always retain its value. So now let's go back and relate this to music and audio. Let's talk about all the classic amplifiers with the real tubes that they have with the real electric circuitry that they have. Let's talk about microphones. Why do we still use microphones? That were back in the 60s? Because a great Point, dude, they had real real, real Electronics. You had Transformers, inductors
capacitors. All these different types of electronic components that sure we could try to emulate Traditional. But at best It's an attempt because digital does not look at things the same way inherently that analog does. And there's a limitation to digital because the computer can only store so much information. So the finite differences, right?
For example, for every I think There are a couple of voltage steps that happened in between a conversion and they can only be estimated between like something to the degree of like 6 decibels or something of that sort. So for every one of these sort of voltage steps that we're using there is actually an inaccuracy and we call this quantization error, where the computer literally has to round the information to the closest.
Burr that it can process because it just doesn't have the finite or infinite depth that something like electricity or analog does. So it's inherently going to be inaccurate, just because we're using an imperfect system, despite the fact that it's very convenient and despite the fact that it's replicatable, and all these sorts of benefits that we get with digital, that's what it does. Great. But Digital. It's it it's a different language inherently. It doesn't understand.
The physical world, we have to use a Rosetta Stone to turn the physical world into digital. That's what a converter does. And that converter that's like saying, hey man, you know, you got a different buddy who speaks a different language, right? And you need an interpreter but that interpreter, you know, they're not perfect. You know, they'll interpret certain things a certain way from that person to you, from
you to that person. And You'll get the idea what they're saying because you have a friend that can interpret for you. But maybe, you know, there are certain words that, you know, the person who sang it in their language, they mean it in a more slang way or, you know, they needed in a more formal way. And then the person who is interpreting has to try and convey that in your slang or your formal way, right? And that might be some inaccuracy. So you're absolutely right,
dude. I deal with this all the time and speaking tiling or, you know, I'm probably intermediate, lower intermediate in Thai language. You know, I'm reading and writing a little too, but no, I know exactly what you're saying. There are some slang words in English language that the ties do not have. So they'll just say it with their own accent, right? And vice versa. There are some words that just they don't cross over in the vocabulary.
They have similar meanings but not exact meanings even down to the tones and tie like an rrsp. Say in certain certain ways the constant start and tie it sounds like an S to us and it is but
it's really not. It's really something else, it's Veron. So now I totally totally understand what you're talking about and by the way guys Ken is totally nerding out here on the analog versus digital and I love it and I've never I've never heard anyone explain like you just explain the differences and it's just Really, really odd the way that we think digital was so much better. I'm not saying it's bad. I mean, you nailed it. When you said convenience, I don't own a camera, a video,
camcorder NES stuff. I use my iPhone for everything. Not so much because it's better or worse or the same but it's just convenient to whip it out. Start filming. I'm going to film, you know, a YouTube video. I'm going to film content for metal Mastermind, so stay tuned for that, right? I'm going to film it all of my
eye. Phone just because it's convenient and speaking of conversion, even if I filmed something in this whatever 160 million K right I'm being honest, Patrick Beverley once you want you dump it down to the editing software and then put it on the platform. Whatever. You're putting it on I think it kind of compresses it anyway, right. So yeah. It's like you do you go through all that work? Just like it's got to be and honestly what I find especially in the YouTube world with you
and I can is yeah. Yeah, people want the quality, the quality needs to be there, but it doesn't have to be overboard. They care more about. The content is the content helping me is a quality good enough so that I can listen and watch and it looks good right? Who cares? Who cares? If it's 4K or 16k or whatever, unless you're like producing, you know, this Epic movie or something, which right? We're doing here, you know, it's all about the content.
But no, I love the way you dug in and explained all that, man, that's a good stuff. Well, thank you. I mean, it's just, I'm trying to put it in perspective, right? Because there's and I'm a big fan of analogy. So I love the idea of getting a little bit outside of the norm, right? Because when we have this conversation and you've had this conversation with so many guitars on your channel, it almost feels like, all right?
We keep talking about, its redundant redundant, but it's not because it's actually spreading some sort of Some form of awareness to our audience that, hey, there is actually a physical difference here. It might be important to you or not, and that's fine, right? You don't have to, you know, just because we're talking about it here and we're just like, yo, man, everybody needs an eve, it's like not everybody needs.
My need somebody might want something different for what they create, you know, they might decide that. It'll actually is fine. You know what's actually something interesting about digital versus analog digital is too perfect, sometimes with the makes and actually when I listened and I think we even shared a little bit of this together to I made I sent you a like, some demos. And I was like, hey, let's do a comparison.
And I've heard this from other my friends buddies to, they're like, hey, there's a, the both, makes it sound great, but the digital one sounds more glue Glued together and read that. Yeah. And it's like, you know what? That's true because there is no imperfection with the digital Spectrum, right? Which inherently sure, it makes things more clear and all that kind of stuff. But when you start using the analog, the analog does something a little bit different and it's got something to do
with phase, right? The timing, the How-use make the spread go between left and right, the crosstalk that happens between channels, right? And that's saying, you know, a little bit of the left side is bleeding a little bit into the right side or the right side is bleeding a little bit to the left side. There's, there's all these sorts of circuitry, right? And when you run electrical units, you're also creating at the same time, a magnetic field.
That's that's why we call it electromagnetism, right? Because they Exist together in the same, they're sort of perpendicular to each other in a sense and when you use this kind of gear, you're going to have certain anomalies and those anomalies can smooth out transients. They can make wave sustain a little bit longer just by inherently running through something like a transformer. For example, right. What is a Transformer? It's just an iron. Core with wires wrapped on each
side and what does it do? It changes the amount of voltage that you have going from one end to the other end. So the difference when you are running through that you're getting something called magnetic flux and that magnetic flux is very very similar to tape. So when you overdrive tape your over emphasizing this magnetic flux. Which creates what we call saturation, right? So, that's saturation adds
color. And that is why when I run through something like Annie, I'm like, oh, it sounds so much more exciting. It sounds thicker. It sounds Fuller. It may not be as glued and perfect is digital, but I feel The Vibes more from the knee than I did with the digital, and that is more important to me. This situation, then what I was seeking for, with the digital mix. So that's that's why I did that,
right? Somebody might say the digital was actually what they were looking for in the first place and if that's okay, if they wanted the clean mix that had the, the perfect, you know, stereo perception or a you want to and here's the thing you can't do analog with Atmos or anything like that. So you your, if you want to do at most, yeah, you Got to do a digital but that's the thing, right? So you can't do Atmos but you
get the Vibes without a log. But if you do you know digital you get at most you get all the benefits of using that, you know, that world. It's fascinating that just the stark contrast on what things can be useful for. And that's the thing. You have to know the limitations of what your system can do. Something being very clean in
the digital world. You know, maybe perfect for some situations, but it may not Be the best route for something else and, and in my opinion, Rock and metal were always like analog heavy beasts. So I love anything Hardware, right? That's why the best records in the 80s were worked on an SSL. The SSL they started using compressors on the entire mix bus and they started to have pressures on every single Channel. And that's why we created such a beefy sound coming out of the
80s. That we revered even till this day. I love it. Do it in that kind of jumps right into guitar tones. There again, there are a lot of great metal albums out there so many, but sometimes I hear the guitar tone and it just, it sounds like papery. I don't want to say then but it just sounds. It almost sounds too perfect. And it's just like, okay just it sounds process.
It sounds overly process. I there are countless albums like that, whereas the ones that you can't, Were recorded with a real amplifier and maybe not a whole lot done after that because I think sometimes people might record their tracks with a live man upright with a tube amp mic'd up but then they do so much stuff to it in the post processing. It just kind of kills the vibe of the real amp, right?
So I've heard you hear the difference between guitars and certain album songs, and such and even even between albums, like you can even go back to and I think Metallica probably uses, you know, they probably still Mike there.
Amps and all that good stuff. But even with that using the same strategy you can tell they're sound from kmol really raw man that and Ride the Lightning to go into an album like justice, you know, the tone completely change, you know, one's not really better than the other but the justice is a little bit cleaner. Right now. Of course, that was, that was all real amps, but you get into some of these bands that are recording with plugins.
And look, my I'm not knocking that guy's my last three albums Masterpiece, I recorded those with a Sims with positive grids. They're Mesa amp Sim and it was what I had at the time. My heavy metal workout series albums, those were recorded with the same thing positive grid. My first album apocalyptic dreams, I recorded that with the Pod hd500. Their Engel Sim right? Was sounds Nothing Like an Eagle aunt but it served the purpose for the time now I'm looking at
this album here. Well I'm like you know what I want to I want to do it differently, there are things in my album so I'm like okay I'm not Really sure if I like the tones. You know, I'm not knocking my own albums, but maybe in a way I am. But you do use, what you have to do, what you need to do, right? If you're recording with plugins right now, maybe you don't have the budget to go out and buy a tube amp. Maybe you don't even want one. Hey, go for it.
Me on the other hand though, I'm like okay well this album is going to be recorded with a live, a almost done but it brings me to to this recent sponsorship with black star. I got they're amped 3 and for those who have Who watched my unboxing? Apologies for the disaster, there is some what I call ID 10t error, write that out. I D 10 t on my part in getting the same, but I've learned how to use it. And of course, by at this time on my channel, I've got, you know, a few videos out there
with the black star. But to me it was kind of like the perfect. Almost a perfect. Because I I'm somewhere in between liking it and sort of loving it. You know. I do like it a lot, but I'm not in love with it. It quite yet. So any case though I'm still playing around with it but it's like the like the perfect balance or 88 balance. At least between miking a tube amplifier because the amp three is a real a 100 watt amp you can you can connect it to a cap and not need a power source.
It is an amplifier or you can use it in your Daw or run through a soundboard and you're using the real amp but you're also using their cab simulation right there. I ours. So that's kind of that's kind of where Mixing hardware and software together, and I realize it's not feasible for everyone to mic up a tube amp, you got to, you know, you got to get them up pretty loud, right, to get that signal and to get the breakup and all that. Now, some of the modern amps, like the evh 5150.
Three, I guess, it's not so modern anymore. It's been out for a while, but that does not need a booster. And I can get like the perfect Distortion tone. Even at a low volume even at one. Now a one on a 50-watt tube amp is still is not. Soft as this pretty loud, right? But I get a good sound out of that but even then those it's not always feasible to Mike that up. So this little product here, the amp three, you know, I like it, I mean is cool.
It's a real amp. I get that get that feel of the amp and when I went back and listen to some tracks, you know, recorded with the amp three because I just recorded a few demo tracks, few things for the YouTube videos. I would listen to those in other sources headphones and car Here to older tracks. I've recorded with a Sims.
There's really no comparison that the Sims and I've tried them all, guys I've you know, I'm not knocking Sims are great, use them if you want, I still use them, I probably always will to some capacity, but for certain things like this album, well, I'm going to use probably a mixture of the ebh and the, a 3-2 to finish this up, you know, so I know there's a difference that makes it, that makes a lot of sense and it also depends on where you are in your process to write.
So, So like when you're working on your album and you're trying to get ideas down like why go through all the effort of doing analog like that, that that makes that makes no sense. Because now you're still in a formulation phase of trying to create your ideas and cement those once you've got those cemented and you're like this is what it's going to be and now I just need to make it the best it can be.
Then that makes more sense about like okay let's go and you know you know let's record and the case with the blacks. Rm3. Right? You know, you might just use the IRS in the beginning just because you want to get some tone and you're just recording them to for songwriting, but then when you're ready to like re-amp it, and you want to put it in the studio, you got your settings that, you know, it has the amplifying process right in the, in the Box itself. But then, it can go right into a
speaker. You can choose to put it on, you know, like some Celeste Jian, freaking, like woofers or whatever. And then use the microphones that you Ali want in the studio, right? You can go to a studio and record it with that. You can you can you can take it up the Wazoo as much as you want. You could record it through an SSL L, you know. But this this kind of like idea of like hey like do I need analog you don't need analog but does it enhance the process? Sure.
So um yeah, it's just a matter of. Where are you in your process? And How important is it to you to make it happen? Because and you know, I've known like I've also worked in a Mastery Studios to and I stumbled across people who were strictly mastering like digital purists like they didn't, they did not touch analog and they did it for a very specific reason, right? Which is that every time you convert a signal, you actually
damage it, right? Actually I explain this a little bit before I called it, quantization error, where the computer it has to round the information to the closest Value that it can process right? So when you do that inherently it's an inaccurate representation because it's rounding the information. It's not the exact information that it was given so by putting that into an analog realm just by converting it, you've got you've damaged the signal technically right this soup. Crazy.
Do I feel like we're almost talking about the whole Quantum field here? But well it is it is super like a super geeky detail Heroes. There are certain. That's why certain mastering Engineers don't do it because the the entire philosophy of mastering is to not damage the source, so by doing that they're like okay I've inherently damaged it right and getting into a Log. Now, you've got to also deal with like noise like gear has noise. Like that's just part of it.
Um, and you know, yeah. You'll have some other benefits to it but man, it will do certain things to your signal and you have to deal with that. Like I did it realize how freaking noisy this thing can be until I actually started running my digital mix through it and I was like you know, when it's quiet I hear the noise and Hey, you know what? I had to make the decision that I was okay with that because at the end of the day, The Vibes that I was getting from this.
I was like it's worth it and it's the same thing. Why people? And they go like, oh yeah, you know it's like that tape hiss, you know, when you're listening to old records and your hearing or your just decided. Hey I want to record on tape. Well, you're going to have to deal with the That you hear when you run through tape because that's literally the tape scratching over the tape head.
No, screw, you know it but that's, that's part of the process of doing analog and that's why some mastering Engineers when they're after, like, you know, a clean master, they don't they don't even touch analog. So I understand the sentiment and, you know, again, it's not to say that Anna digital is inferior or analog is inferior.
It's That they're different and you you have a nothing is without like a give and take you know if you go digital you just know that there are certain things that if you're going to try and emulate analog stuff on it, it's not going to be quite the same as actually using analog, right? And vice versa, right? Trying to try to get analog to be as clean as digital good luck. Yeah. You know, because that just doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea.
You see I don't. I'm so not a Purest really in anything I you can you know what you and I talked about this and I'm not going to mention the evil word politics, but pretty much in most things in life, I'm very down the middle. Now some people will give me crap for that. We go to choose one. I'm like, why why do I have to choose one? I don't want to choose one. So I'm not going to which brings me to the point is, you don't necessarily have to be a digital Puris or an analog purist.
You can merge the two. The two can live in the same world together, you know, in my opinion, like, for example, Got my rhythm guitar tracks with an E VH amplifier. A Mite up amplifier right now my lead tracks will just have recorded yet I might will more than likely use the amp'd. Three by the time this podcast comes out.
I hope the lead tracks are done. We always film these like two weeks in advance but I might use the amp 3 which is a mix of hardware and software because you've got the cabin emulation. Now, for bass guitar, I may use a base Sim that were recording the bass or, you know, I'm Can it may be working with Rich gray on that? And I, you know, he'll probably send the DIA and I'll run it through an amp or I might just use whatever, you know, process used.
So all that said, you know, and then going into doing vocals, you know? Right now I'm just running into an interface. I may get a better mic preamp but I'm still going to have some plugins on those vocals. I'll have a little Reverb. Well, that's gonna be a plug-in that's going to be digital. I'll have a little delay in a compressor that's going to be digital can. So I believe you can merge all these things to Together. If you want that, if that's what you want.
I don't really see the point in saying, well I'm going to be all analog. Everything's gotta be a like where I'm going to be all digital. I would rather folks look at is like what what do you want? I mean, if that's what you really want, go for it. But why do you want it, right? What's the benefit? So, I'm a big believer in just doing what works best for you. It might lean. One way more one way, right?
Maybelline. More digital than analog or more analog, but if you can use them together in just Make things great and convenient at the same time. Hey, why not? Yeah, and I want even tag on a little bit there. I mean, one of our other sponsors opulence, what they're doing. They're you know, right? We talked about NF tease the digital side of things of ownership, right?
But if you decide that you want to buy one of their aunties, you also can get a plaque for it. That's like Google, isn't it? So cool though, like you you get a digital file and then as a reward for having that digital file, you can Have a physical representation of that in the real world, right? That's weird. So yeah, that's like that's like a great way of comparing living digital and analog together they
can coexist. It's it's really unhealthy for us to look at certain things as just one or the other. Like we have to live, you know. Together we there's there's no reason to separate the two honestly. We hurt each other by doing that. The more we can understand how they coexist the better. Will be and the more, you know, honestly future-proof will make everything exists because I love like I got into analog in my career much later. I started for a very long time,
just with digital, right? And I'm looking at my rack here, which you can't see. But I just started with digital for a long, long long, long time. And when I got into the analog world to in integrate into my hybrid, now hybrid, It was just, it was just a big reveal for me, and it added to my process. And then if in the beginning, when I started using digital, I was like, yeah. Like why use analog? I got all these plugins, and I was ignorant because I didn't actually really learn the
difference. I didn't, you know, when I was learning how to do recording, back in college, they were teaching us stuff using mostly digital equipment. Aunt, I went to a community college and then when I got into a other college for a four year college, I learned more of the difference on what analog can do.
But I looked at Analog at that time as okay, I would record with analog, but I would mix entirely with digital and I didn't really ever try mixing analog with my record back with the first homeric album this time around. I said, let's mix with that along. Because let's see what that will do and oh my gosh, it did so much more for my for my process and I'm super excited about
that. But yeah, man, I totally, I totally 100% agree with you analog and digital, you know, you don't have to throw one away for the other. They can live together and you can do it within your own budget to. There's analog gear out there. That's very affordable, and it actually adds quite a bit of character. To anything that you run through it, you could even use something as simple as just a high-quality preamp and just use that to color your signal.
So I was going to ask you about the, like we're like, for vocals, for example, and this is mainly for me, guys, but it will help everyone listening. So, when I go to record vocals, I'm looking at using this Electro-Voice, again, I'm, you know, this is a sponsorship here.
I've got there re 20 Mike, it's a broadcasting, Mike, but like, the sm7b also broadcasting Mike. Well, a lot of people do vocals, especially metal So what preamp, what type of preamp would you run a microphone through for vocals? Because right now, I'm just running it through my interface and using plugins, but there there's probably a better method, right? Well, you know what, I would say is there's different types of preamps with different types of
components, right? I mentioned knee of. And the way I like to look at Nev is it's like a, it's like dark chocolate. It's rich and it's got a lot of It's gotta it's got a lot of like a lot of meat to it, right it's heavy, right? But when you're using something let's say like like an API that's like more of like mint ice cream, right? Because it's got an open mid-range it opens your nasal nostrils, right? So you're that you're listening and you're, you're tasting the
buds of all that, right? So each one has its own Both signature sound. I think it really just depends on you playing around and just trying out some different priest. That's why a lot of people really like something called, like these, like 500 series analog rack units, and they're like these little tiny modules, right? And it goes, yeah, and they slide into an entire rack, right? So that's a very, very good way of getting an affordable.
High-quality preamp or You can you get compressors, you can get eqs and stuff in that form factor to, but a lot of people like to just, you know, collect a couple of different preamps and what they'll do is, they'll just they'll just run stuff through that, you know, get two of each, right, get to needs, get to apis, get to ssl's, get to, I don't know, Burl's, whatever you want, right? And try them out.
And that's a great way. And if you don't like them, sell them, they people will buy them, they're these analog, people will buy Yes, yes, analog gear will always retain value unlike digital, okay, because digital moves forward so fast the moment, you buy it, it's already archaic right? Try selling an old digital interface that you have you're probably going to get 50 bucks for it, you know, it's gonna be outdated. Go ahead one preamp.
Do You Feel It by one preamp? If like, okay can you can only choose one preamp for vocals and maybe running guitars through as well if you're Mike and amps, what would you choose? I'm just curious, honestly. I love Nev just as a as I'm a biased Nev lover but SSL is such a good Contender to that to man.
You know, SSL actually released I think a new interface that that has I think 32-bit native recording which I very very interesting, I think is called the SSL 12 or something like that interested to Yeah, and it sounds Bonkers, man. It's so good. I mean the pre is on an SSL are just fantastic. You really can't go wrong. I like what I like about an SSL. Is there is a toughness but versatility to it. It's kind of like, how would I say it if Nev is like Dark chocolate.
I guess you could say SSL is like, Peanut butter. Okay. Yeah, you know, if you get a difference between those two, right? You got peanut butter and dark chocolate? Which one do you prefer more? You know, it depends on what you're after. I love SSL for guitars. I really do. I love chocolate. I'm going dark chocolate, dude. So just I need sounds fantastic to. I mean the thing about what an eve does and as the cells has to have Transformers in To.
But Nev was really the first to really, like hit the market with these and they did it in such a way but like with Transformers do is that they entice like third order harmonics, like the odd harmonics in a signal. So when you're listening to that kind of stuff, think about it in a musical intervals, right? That's like your s your 7, it's all the more dissonant stuff. And what that does is it adds Edge right in music? Yes, it's the same thing here, but tonally with musical sounds
with frequencies and harmonics. It's the same idea. So, when you're listening to Nev or an SSL, you're getting that like juice that that edginess, that we like, and we incorporate into all of our mixes at some point, you know, that's why we like, to boost things like six kilohertz. Well, you know, because six kilohertz is Rika Neji when it comes to guitars or 3 kilohertz or and their octaves apart, right? But they're edgy harmonics. So yeah man. I mean if I had to choose like a
desert island preamp. Yeah. It'd probably be like a Nev like a like a like a 5500 series or a You know, one of their like Sheldon I believe is shelford shelford eq's. I think it also has a pre on it as well, inspired by the 1073 sort of original circuitry. So you're getting you're getting a lot of that with with the shelford but it's it, you can't go wrong with a need s to that. An SSL 4000 preamp, just it's the classic. Like metal and rock rehab that you heard on so many records.
After that, I'd probably go API. Okay? Like if 31 looks good to know because I I'm looking for something for my vocals. You know? And I may just stick with the PreSonus. What is called the XXX M, ax x max, I can't remember the name of their preamps and they're decent, they're not horrible by any means. But maybe I might want something a little bit better than that, though.
So, we'll see ya. I mean, I think for anybody who's interested in learning, what analog can do for them, definitely the first thing I would say is just get a, get a quality preamp and and start there because you can do multiple things with that pre-owned, not only can you record with it. You could also run your mix through it and get the two sides left and right, and then we'll
Cordon do can on the preamp. So man, so if you get a really good preamp and you're going to record, That get you're going to run your microphone through that preamp. But are you good then going to run, you know that preamp through your interface? Go into your Daw. Is that get is that going to make? Is that going to devalue the signal at all? Well like I said every conversion would do that but you know in this case you know just run the main mix through it just
for color. Okay. That would that it's very very small and miniscule. I'm talking dude like within a person. Aunt. Okay, so you want you to notice you won't you won't, you won't really notice it. You'll notice the temporal change of running through the preamp way more than you would ever notice. The quote, the conversion quality degraded gotcha. Gotcha, okay, okay cool. Yeah, I like that. Well guys, this has been a very interesting conversation.
Can I learned a lot today man, I hope everyone listening learned a lot as well, so it's it's extremely intellectual. Precision, kind of above my head, dude. So I know that's why I'm, that's why I partnered with Ken is, he's a bit smarter than I am saying and younger. So, you know, all my pleasure man. But guys, hope you hope you learned some cool stuff today. I hope you took away some cool stuff and remember you know you don't you don't have to be all analog or all-digital.
You know you don't have to do that. A lot of times, I think when we're trying to be what's called a zealot well this is the way, right? You can you can tag this to anything, especially nutrition, know this diet works for everybody. Everybody needs to do this or this, or that you need to meditate for five minutes or 8 hours or whatever. I'm making stuff up now, but just be careful with that kind of stuff when you're tempted to go.
Just one extreme way because what I think that might do especially in the music world and early anything, it may hold you back a bit, right? It may hold you back unnecessarily. Like if you're like what Got to go all digital. I can't do analog, you might be missing out on something right? Would have some of that analog what if it feels better what if it sounds better to you? Vice versa? Well I'm all analog I'm a whether they called purist or whatever, right?
Well you might be missing out on something that could help you, right? You just never know. So everything has its Pace. Everything has has a place, right? So anyways, thought through those two cents at you guys Ken. Thanks for all the knowledge man and hope you guys. And Each time we get as get a lot out of this podcast. We enjoy doing this for you
guys. Don't forget to go check out metal, Mastermind.com or website, check out our courses Ken and I we have made several recent upgrades to our songwriting course, metal songwriters Forge several courses on there. So go to metal Mastermind.com. Can you know, we're talking, let me throw this in real quick man. Now, we're talking about, you know, the studio and set up and all that just reminded me of your course called metal Studio designer. You know, you've got a course.
Beer, that helps you design down to like the mathematical dimensions and all that stuff of your studio. Even if you followed half of that course, you're going to come out with it with a really cool Studio your home. So I just thought I'd throw it out there. I know that, that course we really haven't been promoting that, but I know some of you really want that professional studio. So that's a great course to get
it again. That's metal Studio designer, can you have a fiery course out there guys, we got guitar courses. Local courses. So we got a base course coming out soon as well. So check out metal Mastermind.com guys. Thank you for listening until the next time is always create your own sound. Local courses. So we got a base course coming out soon as well. So check out metal Mastermind.com guys. Thank you for listening until the next time is always create your own sound.