After Mastering 16,000+ Albums, Here's His Advice For Artists feat. Alan Douches

Alan, if you only had one minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could, one minute on the clock, what would you say? >> Well, my my first advice has always been it's more from a technician standpoint, but I think it it holds true to most artists anyway, including, you know, drummers and bass players or whatever. It's just just like to learn piano. um you know piano uh and I don't mean you know Shopan or you know Bach interventions but I mean just be able to sit down at a piano and just put out some kind of musical you know moment you know um it's just such a virtual instrument into everything we do in the studios that if you have some kind of understanding about how to play a piano part chord structure you know um even maybe some just major and minor scales. I just think it helps essentially throughout the rest of the rest of your career, you know, the recording process, etc. So, that's that one thing. The second thing I would just say is like if if not now, when is my my second thing, which would which I think is Whoops. Is it was perfect timing. Was that my minute? Am I up? >> No, no. Keep keep going. Let's just >> Okay. Um if not now when you know I I over you know gosh decades here you know um you see artists put out or finish up records and they they just don't put them out you know they they they're waiting somebody the band's not together again or whatever. >> It's just you know we have some tremendous stories of people that have just put out their music and had tremendous success with it. you know, even though they maybe they didn't have the band ready yet or they didn't have the management or whatever it was, they didn't have a label, put it out there, let people hear it. That's what music's about. >> Agree 100%. And honestly, you're you're kind of the Mr. like put stuff out like you you've apparently I think I saw the number online you've mastered 16,000 albums which is such an absurd number to think about in terms of like >> of just like catalog of works that you've been on >> and and we'll get into that but like you know just so everyone watching if you're like who's this Allen dude um one you've you're a Grammy awardw winning mastering engineer you've mastered 16,000 albums plus you've worked with uh Dillinger Escape Plan And you worked with I think I saw Michael M Romance, Master Dawn, Train. Yes. Fleetwood Mac. >> Um, you mastered one of my favorite albums, The Discovery. At least I think I saw on discog. >> Yep. Yep. >> That um so you worked with Warren Osiris as well and um tons and tons and tons of other artists. Angel. I mean, there's also like solo artists. Angel Olsen, Sufian Stevens, you know, Mitchell, you know, there's there's just a ton of people that, you know, I've had the pleasure of of helping, you know, helping get their music to where they want to get it to. >> What would you say, like, is there any kind of trend or or habit or or something that you've seen for the artists you've worked with that are super duper successful versus the ones that aren't, I guess? Um, well, I mean, I I don't know if I could put it into a trend or, you know, or categorize it, but I think, uh, one thing that the ones that make it through, you know, more than a record or two or maybe three that have sustained careers, um, you know, they're always they're always doing something different but yet authentic. you know, um, you know, often when you're putting out a record, you know, you're you're being influenced by music that could be 2 years old, 5 years old, 20 years old, whatever it is, you know, but when you put out a record, it sometimes has to have legs and it takes a while, as you know, to get the momentum building. Um, so you've got to kind of be honest with yourself about why why am I doing this part, you know, why am I doing this guitar part, you know, are you influenced by something, you know? Um, so I think most artists and um, you know, >> plenty of them, it's obviously easily to, you know, play the, you know, Monday morning quarterback or whatever they say, you know, where it's like, you know, in hindsight, oh yeah, Sufian Stevens was a genius because look at what h, you know, but I will say he was ve always has been very authentic to what he's doing and doesn't really try to copy anybody, >> you know. Um, interesting. So, I mean, I I I actually got a piece of advice once um from Russ Titleman. He was a VP at Warner Brothers at the time, and he had said, you know, always trust your feelings because if you're copying or guessing, if you actually become successful, you'll probably fail on your next goround. But if you trust your feelings and you get there and you become successful, you'll always know what to do, which is trust your feelings. >> That's a it's an interesting observation. A lot of people watching this, they're like, I, you know, I don't work with anyone else yet, or I don't have a a label team or or marketing person yet, or I can't afford to hire someone like Andrew or whoever, right? It's like, and so they are their own marketing person and their own label and their own manager, >> right? Um, and so a lot of artists uh express their frustration that they they they wish they could just be an artist and just do the art when nowadays you're kind of forced to wear like 17 hats and learn all these other skill sets that you you never really wanted to have in the first place, >> right? Well, I mean, I think assembling even even though you may be starting off early in your challenge, um, you know, assembling a team, you know, I mean, you know, as simple as that is, obviously, if you're a band, you know, have one person dealing with the social media, somebody else dealing with the the gigs or the shows or merch or whatever it is. Um, yeah, it's it's hard. There's no doubt. But I, you know, there's I have a saying which is also like, you know, uh, 99% is a pain in the butt. 100% is easy. you know, if if you do something to the hundth percentile, somehow you don't seem to mind because you really gave it your all. Um, but if you just hold back that little bit, I think you always regret it, you know, and and that drives, I think, a lot of artists, too. And and I believe in that. Like, you know, when you decide to say, "This is it. I'm done." How are you going to feel about it? you know, >> um there was an artist I worked with years ago, >> um that put a lot of their I'll just say life savings into a recording, you know, especially when it was exp more expensive to record. And um I remember seeing him several years later after they released the album and stuff and and nothing happened and I thought he'd be bitter, you know, I thought he was going to be like music, you know, and but he was just like he was just kind of playing solo guitar doing like covers on the Jersey Shore and I was just like, "Wow, you know, you know, I'm surprised." And he was just like, "I had a shot." He said, "You know, I I know that my stuff was heard. I know that it was in rotations. I know that it was this that the other thing he said and it it didn't work out, you know. So, he had no regrets, but he also I'm not suggesting go out and spend, you know, you know, the family estate on anything, but I mean, but he went for it. He went 100% in, you know. >> Yeah. >> So, that is the sad reality of it is that most artists who try to make music their their day job, so to speak, their career uh don't. And that doesn't mean they don't work in the music industry. Like I know a lot of people who who are producers or mixing engineers or mastering engineers or marketers or label people who like originally they started off where they wanted to be an artist, right? >> And then something either they saw the business side or production side or like I love that or it was like I can make money doing this while I'm funding my artist career and the artist career never worked but then that ended up turning into a job, >> right? Um, but that is just the reality of it is like not every artist in the world will become this like massive thing that people want to see live and spend their hardearned dollars on. Um, at least not to the point where it could be sustainable and and and it's sad, but like if if you try because of that >> shame. Yeah. But we also do, you know, our share of vanity records, you know. Um um and I'm I'm finding that there's quite a few, you know, 50 plus year old people that just never put their record out and now they're in a maybe in a financial situation where they can and then they finally do, you know, and >> yeah, >> you know, it it's kind of that thing, you know, don't die with your music still in you, right? I mean, if if you've got a song to sing, if you've got, you know, some emotion to kick out, whatever it is, and you know, and I don't mean it has to be a sweet song. It could be you could be, you know, angry as hell about something and I want to hear about it, you know, but there's a there's also a specialness that we place on our artists, you know, in quotes, you know, I mean, you know, just because you can record something doesn't necessarily mean you're an artist. And I I I kind of chose those words earlier where I said where an artist taps into the consciousness of the masses. Um I think that's key. I think that they have to speak for us sometimes when we don't want to speak or they have to show us a viewpoint that we weren't really seeing, you know, >> and that's been since you know, you know, I guess since forever, right? I mean, it's easy to go back to the 60s and see that happening, but I think it was happening in jazz, too. There was a lot of there was a lot of music that was being created that was showing the the times, the emotions of the times and stuff. >> I I've I think I told you about this last time we talked, but like uh for for a month I did this like thing where I only listened to music on vinyl for like a month, >> right? Yeah. >> And I did that because I wanted to like kind of see why people listen to vinyl because my band is working on releasing a vinyl record. Right. >> Right. And the interesting thing was even though I had way like in Spotify I have every access to every song that's ever released essentially, right? And uh my music consumption because I use this thing called Last FM to track I've been using it since 2007 to track like what I listen to over time, >> right? >> Because I'm that type of nerd. And um my music consumption like quadrupled. >> Wow. >> Which I found was kind of interesting. the amount of music I listen to in a day went up by a factor of four after I had less music I was listening to and part of it was the excitement of a format I've never used like oh this is cooling things but but it was like um I don't know when when it was like oh I'm just going to put on this album and listen to it while I like get some work done instead of like opening up Spotify and seeing all these algorithmic playlist and stuff and then be like eh >> I don't nothing's like exciting me >> and listen um I have some very dear friends that are pretty highbrow vinyl geeks. Um, you know, I remember when vinyl was starting to make a comeback, I was just kind of like, you're kidding me, you know, like really, do you realize that this format is far inferior to 2496 at the time or whatever it was, you know, never mind 192, but you know, signal to noise ratio, left and right separation, harmonic distortions, all these things that you could that you measure how clean something can represent a signal, right? And so vinyl just fails on all of those >> in devastatingly, you know, but what you learn is that the process, the tactile process of having a fan enjoy the music, it kind of puts it there and it's like, no, I can't skip. You know, nobody really, not nobody I know puts on a side of a vinyl record and listens to the first 10 seconds and then say, I don't want to listen to this record. you know, obviously you made a choice. You wanted to put this record on and it was a little bit interactive aside or bside, right? In a sense. Um, then once you put it on, you're kind of committed. You could be committed for 20 minutes, 24 minutes max, you know, depending upon what you're listening to. Um, >> and that's that's a commitment into the artist. And that's why I believe and I know and that that um vinyl has make made a tremendous comeback because it's the fan and the artist connection. It's a a lot firmer and stronger there than it is through just some kind of streaming device. >> There's this this label I found uh they're very unique. They're called Wax Vessel and they're actually the label that they've been making basically like MySpace Death Core albums from like forever ago and putting them on vinyl and they never would have been impressed. >> And um what the the whole ethos behind what they do is they consider like a vinyl record they call it a wax vessel because it's like they consider it like almost like a time word like a >> is it time box? Not time box. >> Like a time capsule. Yeah, >> a time capsule. Yeah. because it's like, you know, I mean, it's kind of ironic, but like because they're not biodegradable most of the time. Well, >> they're like they're like you could as long as it's reasonably taken care of and that thing might be playable in 150 years, right? Whereas like a CD might have bit rot, hard drives decay, >> servers get wiped and lost. Um, and even like cassettes and stuff, if there's like a strong magnetic field can wipe the tape. >> Yep. >> And a half life of tape, too. I mean, you're just going to start losing high-end as soon as you record it onto the tape. you know, ever so slightly it starts decaying. So, >> but the the vinyls are like these little these little wax time capsules in a way, which is I thought was kind of like a neat way to think. It's like this thing that's like from the band. It feels more personal and it feels more connected and you know, it's it's silly and it's a little like it's a little I don't know what they're like woo woo so to speak, but like when you actually experience it, it's like I kind of you kind of just get it. >> It's miraculous. I I gotta say, you know, that like, you know, there are so many steps involved in pressing vinyl that um you know, if if you any one slight error along the way can completely ruin the disc, right? I mean whether come the lacking the plating you know the the pressing how long do you leave what temperature water heating and cooling you know the the puck the the vinyl puck you know there's so many factors um that it's kind of it's kind of amazing that when you get this thing through and you play it >> that it actually and you know I mean there's interesting facts about why vinyl can also sound better than digital and that has to do with that as a mastering community, you know, mastering engineers in a sense, you know, we all kind of realize like, wait a second here. We all really kind of hate the volume wars, right? The wars of it. Like we all we all love a good robust, you know, master, but um the thing is that doesn't work on vinyl. And because you're not competing with vinyl like maybe in the 80s or so with radio, um you can put a more dynamic, you know, master on the vinyl. So, you know, so very often, you know, we'll do separate mastering for the vinyl that just allows the performances to be more dynamic. We're not worried about that overall volume level by one or two dB, which is a whole, you know, we could take up an hour conversation on that alone as to what what's going on with, you know, playback normalizations and and all that kind of stuff. But but vinyl is just allows the artist to be the artist. It's it's a great great medium. Yeah. How does the whole volume minus 14 dB lus thing that Spotify wants things master at like what do you what do you do for that? Because I there's a ton of I think misinformation online about how people master for streaming specifically like Spotify's rules. I've heard people say you you want to be exactly minus 14 dB less. There are people saying you don't want to be louder than that and um from what I know both of those opinions are wrong but I'll give you >> well there yeah I mean specifically there is no right answer for that there you know they tried um you know um and and we'll probably at some point talk about um Atmos and spatial audio and immersive but you know it they followed a little bit more from the film industry which kind of followed from the broadcast industry which like literally the FCC said listen here's the amount you can pass through that's it over the airwaves you go one bit over this, we're finding you, you know, and we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of of money that they're finding a a broadcasting company. So, it kind of worked for that. And I think um you know, Dolby being a film company, you know, and you want to normalize the playback experience in theaters across the world. So, you know, Dolby working with theaters said, "Okay, listen. Let's work together. Here's our operating level." It makes sense. Um, when it came to the wild wild west of streaming andor downloads and even CDs, you know, louder was just always better. Um, up until we hit a certain point where louder was no longer better, but we kept going louder and louder and then certain tool sets were made for us so that we could go louder and louder. Um, but when it comes to these these reference levels that either Apple is recommending or Spotify or or title or any of them, um, you really just have to work on how does the song feel on its own. You know, if if it feels exciting, then it's got to be at least minus4. That's that's professionally speaking what I would say. you know, you you've got to put it in a place where you don't want some other software messing too much with it. Um, >> if it's quieter than minus14, then Spotify is going to essentially like limit it. >> Well, if it's louder, it's going to bring the volume down. And we see that all of them do. They all have some kind of volume normalization that looks at metadata and says, how loud is this song? And if it says, oh, it's at minus, you know, 5.5 loops, it's going to be like, all right, we're going to bring this down, you know, what, nine or uh, you know, 8 and a half dB to normalize playback. And, you know, the thing about it is that that's again, it's it's a good thing, right? If if you're a consumer, if you're a fan of music, you don't want to always have to be adjusting your volume. >> So, so with that being said, most people are in favor of volume normalizing. Uh it's just how are people cheating it because louder is better. And when you think about these loops levels and things, it's like they're taking, you know, an accumulation very often of the entire song. And so if you have, you know, twothirds of your song is quiet, but the last third is really loud, then you can effectively make your song ending really loud. It may not make the beginning loud, but it's going to bring the overall song up. So it has greater impact, you know, and there have been some very successful records that have that impact that, you know, that are tremendously dynamic, but the loud parts are just out of control, you know. What is mastering? So I want to let's let's do a little bit of educational thing here. I mean, so you there's there's these different things that people will do to make their album or their song. For example, there is recording, there is producing, there is mixing, there is mastering. Um, and you you your your your biggest thing is probably mastering, but you also do mixing and you also do recording. Um, so I guess just explain what are all these different stages and why are they important, >> right? Well, I don't really have a whole lot of patience for recording anymore. Um, but uh but mixing and especially mixing in Atmos, absolutely. But from a mastering standpoint, I mean, realistically, I mean, let's just not even go down history because that's a little, you know, that's written up and there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of information on that. But mastering is really, you know, kind of getting a fresh set of ears on your music. Um, that has that fresh perspective of being able to say, you know, I think that's too loud. I think you've you squashed it too much. I think, you know, I say things like, you know, I don't care how much you played that sax player to play that solo. It's too loud. You know, and then we then, you know, a discussion could be had about whether or not it was supposed to be that loud. Um, you know, some people would say that mastering is about transferring to the proper formats and that happens at the same time, you know, but but that's a lot easier to accomplish now, you know, just with your basic DAW, you're going to be able to export a file that is properly formatted for uploading. So, so that's not really I mean, you know, we export for different resolutions for different purposes. Um, you know, different compression, different limiting for different purposes. Um, but I think the the real reason why mastering is still going is that, you know, artists just get caught up in themselves. They're they're working on their record for months, if not years, right? And and there's they really don't have that fresh perspective. Um, if you were signed to a label and you had an ANR department or, you know, something, you know, you would get opinions from them. You have a manager, you know, but a lot of times bands are just on their own. So, we kind of step up a little into that role and try to help, you know, educate from the format standpoint, but also try to be that sounding board. You know, I'm listening to rough mixes or early mixes on projects all the time. You know, when I'm checking emails in the morning, I'm letting the tubes warm up and things. I'm just putting on people's uh, you know, their their first mixes and if anything, you know, strikes me as I'm listening, I'm like, "Oh, that's a little strange. Let me talk to them about that." You know? So, it's that's I mean, you know, like I said, there's all these classic examples of what mastering is, but from from I think most of the mastering engineers that are still, you know, working well and doing great records, I think it comes down to working with the artist and being that fresh perspective, being that person that, you know, just doesn't care how it got to be where it is. Let's talk about it. You know, >> I listen back to some of the stuff that I mix for my project and I'm like, whoa, my guitar and my vocals were really loud, right? And I didn't in the moment like it it's just like I think it's just a subconscious thing like you're you zoom in on these things so much that then you it kind of messes with your with how you position things and that's you're not even though like you've done 16,000 records like you're not immune to >> to that either, right? It's a human thing. >> Yeah. Well, you know, um I have a I've I've spoke spoken a little bit about this, but I think this is an interesting thing to bring up is that when I'm working first on a project, I don't like I don't listen for what's wrong. I listen for what's right and and make sure that that doesn't get lost in whatever processes that I'm doing. Um, I tell a little bit of a true story, which is that like when I was first off mastering, I was doing a lot of uh Lower East Side hardcore bands, alphabet city bands, you know, and and there was really nothing, you know, everything was wrong. So, you had to find something to to grasp onto and say, "Okay, that's what this record's about, you know." Um, but I find also that, you know, if every day I wake up and I have to work on what whomever's record, you don't want me coming in saying, "Okay, what's wrong with this record?" you know, you want me to say, "Okay, what's this record about? Let me hear. Let me let me listen and see what is, you know, endearing in here. Let me and let me make sure that that doesn't get lost, >> you know." And I think that's the role that I mean, obviously we we we only have certain tools that we can help keep that intention from. But, um, you know, and that's the production parts part, you know, that that people very often don't get that kind of feedback while they're recording. >> Well, anyways, Let's talk about Atmos. Um, and which is which is every every person that owns a studio or does like production stuff that I know that is like their their most excited thing that they they want to talk about. I know several people who own studios and they're just they're always so giddy talking about Atmos. So, kind of wonder what your take's going to be. But, um, Atmos is an interesting thing and a lot of people might not know what it is, >> right? Um, so I guess if you could kind of walk through like what what is Atmos? Uh, who is it for? Like who should consider having their music uh remixed, remastered in Atmos? And what are the advantages of doing so? >> Yeah. Well, I mean, Atmos is basically a multiformatted file. Um, you know, it is a wave file that contains um individual channels. 127 I think 20 128 if you count maybe Cynthy in there. um and a ton of metadata and that metadata works with your playback device, you know, and there's 3.3 billion of these in the world, right? So, it's not like you've got to go out and buy something special for it to communicate with. So, once that file connects and says, "Ah, I'm listening on a phone. which sets of this metadata should I apply to all these tracks so that it performs the best for that device? And the same is true of a receiver where it might be hooked up to a, you know, a soundbar and a subwoofer or if it happens to be a tablet or if it happens to be a laptop. It's a very intelligent playback file format that helps give the end listener the best possible solution in their listening environment. And the key factor here is that also includes headphones. So, you know, the one of the biggest misconceptions is that if you want to hear or appreciate Atmos that you have to have, you know, 14 speakers in your room, you know, and >> yeah, >> true, that's a pretty awesome experience, but that's a minute section of the the listening environment, uh, listening audience. Um, but the real beauty is the headphone uh response and that it is more as they say immersive and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Apple holds a very firm line on minus 18 loops for their volume level. You cannot exceed that. You cannot exceed that and you cannot exceed minus one peak. Now, that's all taken from, you know, a 5.1 rendering, and there's a there's technical reasons as to how to get to that number and why, but and it just allows the the the soundsscape to be more dynamic and it gives you this space to put, you know, things that actually sound like they're from behind you in headphones or in front of you in headphones, >> you know. So, so that's a big plus. And again, it's one file format. It's one mix down. you don't really, you know, and many people derive their stereo directly from their Atmos mix. And we try to invite engineers to talk to us before they're mixing an album and say, "Okay, wait." And again, the other key factor is all of the DAWs, all of the software companies have a way to mix in Atmos without you having to spend any more money. you know, most of it's done via headphones, but then the mastering, a big part of the mastering step for Atmos is making sure that it translates across 51, you know, 71.4, whatever speaker configurations there are. Um, you know, you want to just double check it on on a set of a good set of speakers in a well- definfined room. But, um, the fact that, you know, you can have a more dynamic immersive soundsscape for your music, whether it's, you know, we're doing an old Dee Raone record right now, you know, and it's balls tothe-wall punk, but it's got fantastic space in it, you know, you you don't feel like it's all just inside your head. But if that's what you want, you could do that, too. You know, it's and that's all contained within that metadata. Um there are other benefits from you know um copyright issues, AI issues that make you know um Atmos a lot harder to you know to rip off and for AI to learn from. Um you know so there are advantages there as well. Um but the real the real thing is like what is it? It's it's a multi- formatted file that will play back in tremendous kinds of ways on different systems, you know. interesting that I've never actually heard it explained that way because typically you hear Dolby Atmos and you immediately think Apple spatial audio and you think about the whole head tracking thing like the 3D space but but like at the end of the day that's that's just one thing that Atmos can do at its core. just a standard for you you mix one version of a song mix master one version of a song and it can play on anything whether it's a phone speaker or it's a room with 150 speakers in it it'll it >> because it's the in that metadata it's positional information so you know in this particular room you know if I wanted to send something to that side left side speaker you know it's not actually storing that information as that left side speaker it's storing it as like a vector saying okay I want it coming from that direction. >> Now, if you happen to have uh, you know, a 7.1.4 system and that's where it's playing, then yeah, it's going to come out of that speaker. But if you only have a 51 system, it's going to make a phantom image there. If you're wearing binaural, >> it's doing it all with math. >> It's doing it all. And like when you think about it, it's like how fast computers can crunch numbers, you know, and rather than just play two bit streams of 44.1 kHz, you know, 16 bit samples, it's really it's a no-brainer, you know. >> Um, and so that's that's the real beauty of it. And it's futurep proofing it now too because now you you know depending upon whether you have you know a stereo system or you have a a TV you know with two speakers and you bought you know a soundbar for it now as well you know that's the the other thing is that all the manufacturers are now getting very hip to this and they're putting firmware updates in all of their hardware devices be it a phone a flat panel TV you know um you know maybe it's a soundbar maybe it's a 5.1 system maybe it's just a Bluetooth speaker. JBL apparently is allowing you to get together with your friends that all have Bluetooth JBL speakers and as you join forces in one room, it becomes an Atmos system. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, but that's, you know, that's again it's it's allowing the creative process also to unfold for the artist. Like, how do you want your stuff heard, you know? >> Hell yeah, man. Yeah. Well, for everyone watching that wants to find more about you, uh, I'll have a link down below, but you can go to westwestsidemusic.com. But what do you want to leave the people with and um, you know, what's your pitch for for maybe why they should hit you up? >> Oh, I mean, you can hit me up for anything. You know, obviously, you know, we are very DIY uh, independent band friendly. We have a process called mix assist, you know, where we you send us your mix sessions, so if we feel there's anything wrong in there, we can adjust them. uh you know and I I think that uh you know we post our rates on our website you know we're we're fairly affordable you know if this is what you're looking for um but I think you know that objective viewpoint you know that that new fresh set of ears um and also understanding the technology you know we wind up being like product managers with people right you know you know what is this format how do I get this what what do I need for this you know um you know especially when it comes to vinyl you know like people just don't know what to expect from that, you know, having somebody kind of that knows what they're doing with that. Um, you know, it's just, um, I'd say, you know, hit us up. We we talk to people all the time, you know, and we love new artists. I mean, that's kind of we made a commitment on that probably about 15 years ago, you know, where, you know, we were kind of in a position where we could have taken on more major label work, but it would have been more expensive. So we, you know, we just we we really enjoy working with the uh the ind indie artists. You know, to me, it's the same amount of money that I make in a sense. You know, it doesn't really matter. Um I just enjoy finding new and creative people. >> Yeah. And you know, just for everyone watching, like um Allan's working on something for me, so I'll probably talk about more of that in the future. So, he's got my seal of approval, but also when like when I first I heard about you from from Jesse Cannon, you know, because we have a weird podcast together. You guys have known each other for a while. >> Um, and uh I I was looking at I won't say their name because I don't want to say anything bad about anyone, but I was looking at another big mastering house for prices and stuff and I was like, whoa, this is going to be expensive to get this album like remastered for vinyl. And I looked at your rights and I was like, oh, this is like way more like normal. because like they had some awesome credits behind their name and everything too, but like they were kind of insane. And I looked at yours and I was like, "This seems very >> a lot more friendly for indie artists, right?" And the other one seemed like it was almost designed for like major labels or something. They're like, "Oh, we know you're a major label, >> so here's this ridiculous rate." And they never talked to you. It was all like, "Send the file." And you get an email back with the file and >> Oh, yeah. There there's a lot of that. And you know, again, it's I don't know. I don't want to that's not the way I want to live my life, you know. Um yeah, >> you know, I don't I don't love mastering. I love working with artists. I love working with musicians. It just so happens that this is a >> you know, this is a, >> you know, a set of tools that I've learned how to use and help create for people. Um, but I don't I don't want to just sit in a room and twist knobs for music without anybody around. That's that's kind of I don't know. That's not what we do. >> Um, right. And I think I think the other takeaway and this is probably not just pertinent to us but you know any professional that you work with even if it's a producer recording engineer studio you know talk to the people because there's always ways to save money you know you know like I say especially with Atmos you know yeah you know we we're doing a couple projects where you know we we're transferring from 2-in tape and we're basically mixing from scratch because the 2-in tape didn't store any of that outboard gear right and so you know that that's expensive right But if you're looking to get, you know, your album done in Atmos, you know, we'll show you how to do stems and export to stems. And like I said, the mix assist pro process >> very often we can just get right into your mix and just pull out the things that need to be pulled out. >> Good. Honestly, that I have the same thing with the the mastering or sorry, not mastering, the marketing side for my agency, too. If someone comes to us and they're like, I have this much money, I want to do this. And it's like usually we would only do something like this for like this much money, like more than what you you planned on spending. Um >> but like if if you if you supply the ad creatives instead of us doing them for you, if instead of us doing testing five songs from your album, we only test three songs in the ad for your album. Or instead of, you know, we can kind of like >> chop things up in a way where like we can make things cheaper, right? Um to to customize to a budget. You can always do it, of course, right? Well, you don't you don't you don't I mean it you don't want to cheapen what people do, you know, but there are ways, you know, like gosh, I can't I remember so many times we were working on a project and you know you know everybody in the band needed a CDR reference CDR and then there you know their girlfriend had to have a copy of the CDR or some you know and you know it's like guys you just doubled the cost of your mastering because you needed 12 CDRs to pass around to the you know to the road crew and the girlfriends. It's like, you know, there's plenty of ways even today to save the save the money, you know. >> So, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well, thanks for coming on, man. Oh, >> my pleasure. Anytime. You know, the more information out there, the better off we all