We're both involved in NARAS/Grammy stuff. What about somebody who's not involved. Why should they get involved?
There are so many reasons; just the advocacy of what they're doing in Washington for rights. MusiCares; No matter how indie you might be, they're there to help for any problem, whether it's medical or rehab, or anything. It just doesn't cost that much for all that you get out of it. Especially in a chapter like this, that's this strong. The P&E Wing has been good just for fighting for producer and engineer rights, royalties and credits. A lot of people don't think that they qualify [to join NARAS], but they've made it much easier. Just have a couple of releases. Online releases count now.
It even used to be a hurdle; you had to have six credits on a nationally distributed record.
It ruled out a lot of indies. That's what we're doing in Nashville, just raising awareness that you can be a member, and all the benefits that come with it. 90 percent of what's done out there is guys with no budgets, shitty bands, in shitty studios and trying to make the most out of that. It's so backwards. When you're young and fighting your way up, you're working with rougher bands at shitty studios and you've got no gear. Then when you start to make it, all of a sudden you're working with great bands in great studios. Instruments are amazing, the whole thing.
Yeah, the mandolins stay in tune.
Yes. It should work the opposite. The higher up you get, the shittier situations you should be given.
I like doing the NARAS events and stuff. We've done some in my studio. They'll bring some beers in and we'll talk about stuff.
Yeah, they pony up and pay for it. Anything that you can think of to do, you just approach them with the idea or ask for help with an event.
You've been nominated for Grammys?
I've actually had nine nominations for Best Engineered, Non-Classical. No wins. I've got nine Grammys [from other awards]. There were two years that I had two records in there. I'm very fortunate. Usually I'm in there with a very small record. It's tough, because you get in there with a Norah Jones production or some other huge record...
That's the part that does frustrate me about the Grammys. It's a sales / popularity contest.
Definitely when it comes down to those final five nominations, it's going to go to whatever's the big record.
You have a group of engineers that meet to listen to submissions?
Yes, every year we put together a list of five guys. Now I'm trying to reach out to some guys doing cool indie records. This year is the first one we put a mastering guy on. Now the award also goes to them. We definitely need to include the mastering engineers.
Have you dabbled between Pro Tools and Cubase?
I still track a lot of projects in Pro Tools just because that's what's there most of the time. I went with Nuendo because it sounded so much better, just straight up. Every time we had a seminar, we'd do a couple of engineer and producer listening sessions, just rotating everybody through. Hands down, Nuendo would win all the blind tests. Then it got a lot closer with HD, but I did one of these three months ago over at SAE, they ran the same six channels of audio with Pro Tools and Cubase, and it wasn't even close. It was fucking bizarre. The depth on Cubase... I thought there would be no difference, because shit's all the same you'd think. I just kept saying, "How can that be?" It was the same thing. The room was unanimous. You hate to say that because everybody in the world is on Pro Tools, but when we did this, everything I love about depth and space to me is just much easier to achieve on this. I don't have to work as hard. That's really what I hear. I guess it's just how things tail out.
That's interesting.
Also, anything that you work on, you can make it work well if you're a good engineer. I'm always blown away by great Pro Tools cats. I've spent a lot of time on Pro Tools, but I always feel like I'm more a programmer than a music engineer. Now Pro Tools is doing it, but all of my esses or whatever, I can just pull them down. There are hundreds of those on every vocal, and I do my rides here and sort of have to do very little on the fader. Or for low notes that are buried in the chorus, I know that I've got a high-pass filter right there and it's done. I'll have a couple of those and another one if I need to brighten a word.
Is it rendering it when it does that?
Yeah, but the fact that it's so easy to get back stuff.
That looks faster than Pro Tools.
It is faster. It's immediate. I don't even have to look at it.
I mixed a record in Nuendo with Viva Voce at their home studio once and I thought it sounded really good without any outboard summing or anything.
It sounds really good.
What's the difference between Cubase and Nuendo?
They're pretty much the same. Steinberg moved me off Nuendo and into Cubase because Cubase jumped ahead. Plus, Nuendo is now much more of a MIDI and programming-based software. I don't know if I could move back to Nuendo or not. There'd be no point. It's the same thing. I definitely program all the quick keys so that it's the same as Pro Tools. My assistant who works on Pro Tools a lot can jump in on this and not spend a half day learning how to do other shit. It's also easy for me to jump into Pro Tools, because I need to be efficient wherever I go. It helped me to set it up very similar to Pro Tools. I've seen Pro Tools move to this. All the great features of this is now what Pro Tools is planning. Pro Tools still, the only thing that seems better to me is the way that the playlists work. Here it's lanes, and it's lanes and now there's a playlist, but how they incorporate it I'm not quite up to speed on.
The one in Pro Tools I really do like when comping a vocal or something.
It's huge. Lanes [in Cubase] is very similar. Some parts of it are better. I don't have multiple vocals on it, but some aspects of it are easier than Pro Tools, but in the long run... I'm changing stuff all the way through the mix. I'm still working on the comp. I'm comping until the record is out, and that's not quite as efficient to do in Lanes. I've had a couple of great assistants. Actually, they've all been great. I've only had four or so in the last 20 years. It's easy to check out on anything difficult to do until one of them has to leave the country or something.
Your assistant right now I think also works for my friend Craig Alvin.
