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Welcome to another episode, episode 327.

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How are you?

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Where are you?

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And what are you wearing?

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The rain has arrived, ending a brutal dry season in Queretaro.

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I learned just how dusty this town can get this dry season.

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So I’m happy about the rain.

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I hope you’re getting a little rain where you are.

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This weekend, I’ll begin celebration of another year of marriage to my best girl.

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We’ve been married so long, it doesn’t feel like it, but we’ve been married so long, we remember things like the Dewey Decimal System, phone books, paper maps.

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We met the old fashioned way, in a bar.

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So happy anniversary upcoming to my sweetest wife, my only ever wife, Sammy.

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My guest in this episode is Timothy Reid, a musician and video game composer based in Osaka, Japan.

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He’s English, actually.

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Timothy transitioned from his careers as session and performing guitarist to become a video game composer kind of recently, working at a major AAA game studio before moving into freelance composition for indie game developers.

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He’s also done a lot of online music collaboration work through platforms like Compose, which if you’re a long time listener, you may be familiar with that platform.

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This marks his second appearance on the podcast.

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We last spoke in January 2021 about his experience with online music collaboration.

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In this episode, Timothy shares his journey from session guitarist to working at a AAA game studio and how recent industry layoffs led to what he calls, the best thing that could have happened, discovering the world of indie game development.

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We explore the creative differences between large studio structures and freelance composition work, the learning curve of adaptive music and sound design, and how traditional musicianship skills translate to the gaming industry.

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So if you’re a musician curious about video game composition or interested in navigating career transitions and creative fields, Timothy’s insights offer valuable perspective on finding new opportunities within an industry in upheaval.

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Without further ado, here is me speaking with Timothy Reid.

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I thought you were going to be checking in from that swanky studio.

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No, it’s too dark, man.

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Like I was going to, but we’ve got like, there’s no real light in there because it’s in the basement underground.

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So it’s really dark.

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And then also it’s like underneath the main road.

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And then underneath that is the subway train station.

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So you get so much like rumble from the, yeah, so it’s a great studio, but it’s like just the problem is like any kind of a recording that with microphones, you just have to get rid of like, you have to like low pass, like all the low end, get rid of all the low end.

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No kidding.

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Otherwise, it’s just like rumbly, like crazy.

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Oh, wow.

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That must be a bummer a little bit, but yeah, it’s a cool looking studio.

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Yeah, it’s a very cool studio, man.

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So we do like DJ lessons there.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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So it’s like, that’s what it was originally.

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It was like a DJ school.

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And they had one in Tokyo and I think another one in Nagoya and another one in Osaka.

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And then they have some pretty cool Guinness World Records actually.

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They have like the oldest ever professional DJ went there.

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And the youngest ever professional DJ went there.

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They hold both of those records.

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Like the youngest guy is like something like six or something.

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And then the oldest guy is in his nineties or something.

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And they’re both like, they’re both playing like clubs.

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And like, I mean, I’m not 100% sure, but I think the old guy, like his guarantee for how much he needs to get paid for playing is like a lot.

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Because like he has a lot of medical bills because he’s an older guy.

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Cover all those bills, you know.

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I thought you were going to say, because he has a fantastic draw, but he must have a draw if he asks for a lot.

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Yeah, I think he’s a techno DJ as well.

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So if you want like a 90 year old dude DJing techno at your club, it’s going to cost you money.

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That’s a trip, man.

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That is a trip.

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How’s the music scene in Osaka these days?

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Yeah, it’s good.

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So a lot changed, you know, a lot changed.

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I think the last time we spoke was like before COVID.

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So I mean everything.

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Yeah, everything changed everywhere, I think.

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So there was a time, there was a point where everything kind of like dried up, you know, when obviously we couldn’t get people together.

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So getting crowds together was just like nothing anymore.

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And I was still doing the like guitar demonstration stuff around that point.

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So going to music stores and going to like expo’s and doing seminars and doing product demonstrations there.

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And then that just slowly stopped being a thing because we couldn’t get people together.

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There was the idea of maybe doing it via like some kind of webcam or something, but that just didn’t work either.

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So slowly but surely we got the dreaded e-mails from companies saying, can you send us the five guitars that we lent you back, you know?

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And it’s like, I was dreading that for a long time, man, because when COVID happened, it was like the first year.

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It’s like, okay, do I need to send the guitars back?

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But then like, they didn’t send me the e-mails.

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So I was like, oh, I think I’m still okay.

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So I can still use these guitars to record, you know?

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But then sure enough, like a couple of years in, and it was like, yeah, we’re not really earning any money from these demonstrations.

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So you send them back.

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So I had to send all these beautiful guitars back.

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And so that dried up.

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Unfortunately, that was like the same with the shows as well, really, like live shows also for the first couple of years, just wasn’t really a thing.

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We already have like a mask culture over here.

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I don’t know if you have that where you are.

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I don’t think you do, but we already have like a mask culture over here where people wear masks anyway.

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Usually like if you are sick, you wear a mask to stop other people getting sick.

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So it’s not that like you’re trying to stop yourself getting sick.

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And so we already had the mask thing anyway.

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So that was no issue, but it was just getting people to get, and that was kind of the problem really.

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That stopped.

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So shows kind of stopped for a while as well.

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And so that was it, like I had to think of other revenue streams, how I could kind of earn a bit of cash.

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And so that was why I thought getting more into music composition.

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I remember we, our original meeting we did was like on online collaboration.

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Yeah, we were acquainted, I guess, because of Compose, or because you found the podcast, but we definitely had Compose in common, right?

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Yeah, yeah, definitely.

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So yeah, I think it was, that was it.

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I think we played on the same song.

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I can’t remember for the life of me what the song we played on was.

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No, no, you and I did not.

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But, well, you know what?

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We probably, did you work with Peter Rand ever?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.

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So I think that was the commonality we both done.

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I did a song based on one of his keyboard composition.

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So we had that and it started with just a little bit of dabbling on compose.com.

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And then I was like, hey, would you mind if I release, use that to put together a single?

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Would you want to work with me on it?

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And for him, it was mostly just trimming that track a little bit and giving me some notes and stuff.

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And I did the rest with a couple of other musicians.

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And yeah, so that was kind of a cool process.

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Yeah, that makes sense.

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Yeah, because that was probably, when was that?

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That would have been like 24 or 5 years ago.

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Shoot.

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Let me see.

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I can tell you when we spoke.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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We’ll look that up while we’re talking here.

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Yeah.

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So do you still do compose?

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No.

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So I got into the compose with the idea that I could do online collaboration and it doesn’t really matter about where people are in the world or getting people together in a studio or anything.

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So it was perfect for the whole COVID thing.

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But my thing is I’ve always been like a band guy.

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I always like playing in bands.

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And when I was doing the demonstrations and the seminars for the guitar companies and stuff, that was all solo stuff playing with myself plugged in as a backing track.

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And it’s easy because you can do it anywhere you want.

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But at the same time, it’s not very fun.

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After you soundcheck and then you have to go for lunch on your own.

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And you go find a nice coffee shop, sit in there for the next 30 minutes, and then it’s like, okay, now I’ll go back on my own and then kind of stand there and play.

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And I was always a band guy.

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I always much preferred being around with some people in a band and friends and that kind of comradity.

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So I wanted the same thing out of online collaboration.

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I actually didn’t want to just collaborate and then that be the end of it.

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I actually really wanted to have to do something with a bit more longevity.

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And so I think I probably had about, I mean, I probably played on, I want to say over about 500 songs.

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That’s amazing.

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Yeah, because I changed computers since then.

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And when I was changing computers, I had that daunting task of, do I copy over the online collaboration folder?

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And I opened it up and I highlighted all the songs.

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And there was definitely over 700 songs in there.

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But out of the 700 songs, how many of them were actually released?

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How many of them actually turned into actually finished songs?

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How many of them were songs?

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Because this is the other things, how many of those were songs that I played on, but then my guitar parts were rejected?

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I don’t know.

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But on Compose specifically, you get like a little, on your profile page, you have a kind of like ratio that tells you your like hit to miss ratio in regards of how many of your files were accepted.

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And I think I had a pretty good like ratio in regards to the guitar parts that were accepted.

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So I’d like to say, yeah, I definitely probably played on, probably recorded way over like 700 songs.

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Out of those 700, 500 of them actually turned into actual songs.

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Like I have no idea.

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And then out of them, probably three were released.

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Well, I know more than three were released because I released like, I actually released specifically like about probably four or five albums on my own.

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Now more than that, probably about 10 albums, where I was actually like involved not just in the guitar, but also in publishing and recording and sending the tracks off to get mixed and mastered and things like that.

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And so probably about 10 of those albums were done.

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And then out of those 10 albums, we did videos for, I had one band that did videos for, I think two of the songs.

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Another artist I brought over to Japan and we, we did a kind of tour.

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And so I was always just trying to take it to that next level basically where it was like, I know this is online collaboration, but I want it to be like a real band thing, which is, which is great.

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I just, but yeah, unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to the point where it was like, you know, I couldn’t convince anyone to move to Japan, start a band with me.

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Yeah, yeah, it’s well, it’s I mean, that’s a lot of productivity, first of all, on your part.

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Peter Rand was kind of the same way.

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He he’s put a lot of stuff on there and he’s.

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I think he published a little bit before we did the collaboration and published that and then after that, or about the time that we were working on it, he seemed that he was doing more publishing and I haven’t kept up too much.

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But anyway, that’s it’s it’s interesting to hear the ratio, you know, of all the contributions with things that actually got released.

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So but did you did you ever visit the site after they redid it?

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They kind of made it nicer?

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I just revisited it right now, just because I spouted out all those numbers and I honestly wasn’t sure if they’re true at all.

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And I just looked in and it’s like totally different.

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You, we spoke on January 29, 2021 the first time.

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Okay, 2021, right?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:46.140 –> 00:13:47.760
So like what, four years ago?

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Yeah, I meant to look it up.

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And I was actually, I don’t do transcripts for all the episodes, but I started doing them and they’re like, I was like, wow, this is too much work.

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I mean, you know, even with all the, the tools have improved, but it’s, you know, still going through and trying to get it right is a lot of work added onto the whole process.

00:14:10.440 –> 00:14:20.380
And but now Apple is probably one of the best things that happened is that Apple started doing auto-generated transcripts that are pretty good on Apple podcasts.

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So that’s been helpful in different ways.

00:14:22.600 –> 00:14:30.620
But I just happened to have had a transcript that I personally edited for your episode.

00:14:30.620 –> 00:14:35.440
And so I was able to go through and kind of look at some notes from that, which was very handy.

00:14:35.440 –> 00:14:37.080
So that’s cool, man.

00:14:37.140 –> 00:14:42.560
I appreciate you going through and you actually hand, well, I don’t say hand-wrote, but you hand-tight.

00:14:42.560 –> 00:14:42.920
Yeah.

00:14:42.920 –> 00:14:47.140
So I had an auto-gen tool back then.

00:14:47.140 –> 00:14:52.880
But then I had to go through and identify, well, I think it would identify speaker one, speaker two.

00:14:52.880 –> 00:14:59.420
So putting, saying it was me versus you or the guest, any guest was a piece of cake.

00:14:59.420 –> 00:15:07.780
But just going through and correcting things, you know, were either misinterpreted or just made no sense.

00:15:07.900 –> 00:15:13.400
You really have to read the whole thing and go, but you’re basically proofreading it.

00:15:13.400 –> 00:15:14.020
Yeah, totally.

00:15:14.020 –> 00:15:17.700
Yeah.

00:15:17.700 –> 00:15:25.720
Technology improved so fast because obviously, I changed to the computer game industry in that time as well.

00:15:25.720 –> 00:15:27.800
And you were not doing that before.

00:15:27.800 –> 00:15:28.220
Is that right?

00:15:28.220 –> 00:15:29.980
No, I wasn’t doing that before.

00:15:31.300 –> 00:15:50.460
But obviously, moving to that industry, there’s a lot of technology in that because the computer games are pretty much on the forefront of technology, you know, with having any kind of like AI generated stuff as well, you know, for characters and content and all that kind of stuff.

00:15:50.460 –> 00:16:19.660
And we, when I was working, I mean, I still am working, but when I was working for the bigger company, like a AAA games company, we used to have online translation, because obviously I’m based in Japan, and so I’m working with primarily Japanese companies, people, but we would have meetings with like people in America, in India, and so we would have the online translation at the bottom of the screen as it happened.

00:16:19.660 –> 00:16:31.140
Even just in the four years I was in those meetings, it improved to the point where it was like I wasn’t needed anymore, because a lot of my job was translation too.

00:16:31.140 –> 00:16:31.540
Oh, really?

00:16:31.540 –> 00:16:39.380
I would just feel, they would be like this moment after someone would say something, where everyone would look at me and I’d be like, yeah, it was good.

00:16:39.380 –> 00:16:40.500
Move on.

00:16:41.680 –> 00:16:52.220
I don’t need to, it’s this spot on, even to the point where it was like conversational stuff, where it’s like normally I would have to translate something that was like, I don’t know, some kind of idiom or something.

00:16:52.420 –> 00:16:56.420
It was like a phrase that doesn’t really translate well.

00:16:56.420 –> 00:17:00.340
Even that stuff will be translated really nicely.

00:17:00.760 –> 00:17:08.760
Of course, you can prompt stuff as well now that you can ask it, can you translate this in a super easy to understandable conversational way?

00:17:08.760 –> 00:17:12.960
It will translate it in a way that’s really easy to understand.

00:17:12.960 –> 00:17:18.720
So even just in the four years I was there, it improved so much.

00:17:18.720 –> 00:17:21.260
Yeah, I’m witnessing some of that myself.

00:17:21.340 –> 00:17:34.100
I mean, just reflecting on the transcript technology and talking about transcripts, by the way, reminded me like, hey, why don’t I just download the Apple podcast transcript and stick it on my website?

00:17:34.100 –> 00:17:37.160
So I’m going to do that because it’s just like that is an easy step.

00:17:37.160 –> 00:17:38.480
And there’s pretty good.

00:17:38.480 –> 00:17:40.880
I’m not I’ll probably just put a little disclaimer there.

00:17:40.880 –> 00:17:43.180
You know, God bless Apple.

00:17:43.220 –> 00:17:44.480
This is auto-generated.

00:17:46.300 –> 00:17:48.740
But, you know, yeah, it should be cool.

00:17:48.740 –> 00:17:57.840
So can you share any like insights about the creative process at a AAA video?

00:17:57.840 –> 00:18:01.240
It’s funny, I’m not very familiar with the industry.

00:18:01.240 –> 00:18:04.960
So I believe you said AAA video game company.

00:18:04.960 –> 00:18:05.820
I know the name of the company.

00:18:05.820 –> 00:18:06.780
I don’t know if you wanted to mention it.

00:18:06.780 –> 00:18:09.800
But can you share some insights about the creative process there?

00:18:11.040 –> 00:18:12.660
Yeah, sure.

00:18:12.660 –> 00:18:19.740
So I came into video game music from being a recording guitarist.

00:18:19.740 –> 00:18:22.560
Because in that time, I was a product demonstrator.

00:18:22.560 –> 00:18:42.180
So I would go into stores and go to music expos and perform guitar songs and explain what the type of wood on the guitars were and what the type of amplifier sounds that are inside, some big pedals were and things like that.

00:18:42.180 –> 00:18:46.560
And then after that, I moved into online collaboration.

00:18:46.560 –> 00:18:51.940
And I tried to make that work, as I said, as kind of like a kind of modern day session guitar player.

00:18:51.940 –> 00:18:57.600
Back in the day, like a session guitar player would go over the studio, obviously, and sit with the musicians and record.

00:18:57.600 –> 00:19:00.800
And then obviously with online collaboration, can do all that from home.

00:19:01.240 –> 00:19:04.060
So I was like, okay, maybe I could make the session guitar thing work.

00:19:04.060 –> 00:19:07.000
And I just looked up how many songs I played on Compose.

00:19:07.000 –> 00:19:10.660
I closed the browser because I didn’t want it to drain our internet connection.

00:19:10.660 –> 00:19:13.780
808 collaborations I joined.

00:19:13.780 –> 00:19:14.940
808.

00:19:14.940 –> 00:19:15.840
That’s what it says.

00:19:15.840 –> 00:19:17.060
That’s funny.

00:19:17.060 –> 00:19:22.740
Peter Rand had 800 or 800 plus when we spoke the first time too.

00:19:22.740 –> 00:19:22.980
Right.

00:19:22.980 –> 00:19:23.660
There you go.

00:19:23.660 –> 00:19:24.020
Yeah.

00:19:24.020 –> 00:19:26.000
808 collaborations that I joined.

00:19:26.000 –> 00:19:29.060
And like I said, out of those, how many actually were published?

00:19:29.160 –> 00:19:31.080
I don’t know.

00:19:31.080 –> 00:19:47.400
But there was a point where it was like every day, I would kind of sit down and be like, okay, let’s do a song and have a look and see what songs there are and be like, okay, this one, I think I could do this one and record that.

00:19:47.400 –> 00:19:51.520
And yeah, like I said, I couldn’t really make that work financially.

00:19:51.600 –> 00:19:59.040
I mean, just, yeah, people weren’t willing to pay consistently for a session guitar player really online.

00:19:59.040 –> 00:20:02.560
And so then when COVID hit as well, I had to look for the revenue stream.

00:20:02.560 –> 00:20:05.960
So I just, I’ve been writing a lot.

00:20:05.960 –> 00:20:08.140
I write all the time as a composer.

00:20:09.160 –> 00:20:14.320
And so I just saw the opportunity for video game music.

00:20:14.320 –> 00:20:19.060
I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid, since the early 90s.

00:20:20.040 –> 00:20:25.820
I started on Sega Mega Drive was my first console.

00:20:25.820 –> 00:20:28.100
Sega Mega Drive, yeah.

00:20:28.100 –> 00:20:35.040
And after that, it was a Nintendo 64, which I actually recently repurchased.

00:20:36.900 –> 00:20:40.860
Which has been a blast from the past.

00:20:40.860 –> 00:20:43.240
And so I was into video games anyway.

00:20:43.240 –> 00:20:46.520
So I didn’t really know what I would be getting into in a video.

00:20:46.680 –> 00:20:50.760
I didn’t know if video game music, film music would be the same thing.

00:20:50.760 –> 00:20:52.640
Essentially, it kind of is these days.

00:20:52.640 –> 00:20:54.880
There’s no real difference between.

00:20:54.880 –> 00:20:57.100
I mean, there are certain little things that are different.

00:20:57.100 –> 00:20:59.120
Like the process is very different.

00:20:59.120 –> 00:21:11.060
But in regards to the actual music that you’re writing, it’s not like back in the day where you had four, you know, two sine waves, a triangle wave and a noise generator.

00:21:11.280 –> 00:21:23.560
These days, the hardware is so good that you, you know, you can record a song in a DAW like Pro Tools or Logic, and then that song can be bounced and used in a video game.

00:21:23.560 –> 00:21:27.000
There’s no real limitations like that.

00:21:27.000 –> 00:21:31.680
And so it was pretty easy for me to, for me to get into, to be honest.

00:21:31.680 –> 00:21:38.760
I originally joined the company as a transcriptionist.

00:21:38.820 –> 00:21:39.080
Really?

00:21:39.960 –> 00:21:42.260
Yeah, for transcribing music.

00:21:42.260 –> 00:21:46.160
They needed someone at the company to actually write the music out.

00:21:46.160 –> 00:21:47.320
They didn’t have anyone.

00:21:47.320 –> 00:21:47.620
Yeah.

00:21:47.620 –> 00:21:50.960
They didn’t have anyone who could put pen to paper and write music out.

00:21:50.960 –> 00:21:58.780
Well, I say pen to paper, these days, it’s all, everything’s on the computer, you know, like with Sibelius, I’m going to use Scara, something like that.

00:21:58.780 –> 00:22:01.380
So I originally joined by that.

00:22:03.100 –> 00:22:18.800
And then kind of work my way more into things like composition, and implementation, and sound design, like sound effect design, which is like just making sounds for like a UI or something.

00:22:18.800 –> 00:22:23.240
So when you push a button, you need some kind of confirmation that says you push the button.

00:22:24.860 –> 00:22:28.400
And if you don’t, it can be really like unfulfilling.

00:22:28.400 –> 00:22:32.220
When you push a button, it doesn’t give you any feedback.

00:22:32.220 –> 00:22:38.040
So like creating sounds that feel really, really fulfilling.

00:22:38.040 –> 00:22:38.840
That’s good.

00:22:39.180 –> 00:22:43.620
Even sounds that aren’t really supposed to be fulfilling, because it might be telling them that you can’t do something.

00:22:43.620 –> 00:22:46.080
You want to go through a door, you’re not allowed to go through the door.

00:22:46.080 –> 00:22:57.960
It’s like, okay, how do you make the player feel like, well, I feel really fulfilled, and I feel satisfied that I can’t do what I want to do, which is a weird concept, but that really is the thing.

00:22:57.960 –> 00:23:04.040
And then the other thing would be foley sounds as well, which is going out, I don’t have anything.

00:23:04.040 –> 00:23:05.660
Oh, yes, I do have something.

00:23:05.660 –> 00:23:19.440
Going out with stuff like this, this bunny rabbit looking TASCAM, and we’re on a big stick and recording the sounds of, I don’t know, cars or birds or footsteps to be used.

00:23:20.100 –> 00:23:20.460
In game.

00:23:20.460 –> 00:23:27.060
So these, these were things, those were three things that were totally new to me, the composite, but the composition was something that I’d always been into.

00:23:27.060 –> 00:23:30.700
So it was kind of like everything led to another thing.

00:23:30.700 –> 00:23:35.360
So I kept went in there as a transcriptionist because I also speak Japanese.

00:23:35.360 –> 00:23:36.260
So that was another thing.

00:23:36.260 –> 00:23:38.100
It was like, okay, so you can help for the meeting.

00:23:38.100 –> 00:23:42.640
So it was transcribing music and also transcribing speech.

00:23:42.640 –> 00:23:47.500
And then moved into composition, which was something that I was kind of already confident with.

00:23:48.060 –> 00:23:52.780
And then was like, okay, can you also do sound design, which is kind of similar to composition.

00:23:52.780 –> 00:23:57.200
It’s just you might be creating a sound that’s 0.3 seconds long.

00:23:57.200 –> 00:23:58.400
It’s just literally a click.

00:23:58.400 –> 00:24:06.780
But it’s like, if you’re a creative person, creating sounds is very similar to composition really.

00:24:06.780 –> 00:24:10.100
Someone shows you a door and it’s an old door.

00:24:10.100 –> 00:24:14.120
It’s like as a composer, it’s like looking at an old drum kit.

00:24:14.120 –> 00:24:14.780
You know what I mean?

00:24:15.760 –> 00:24:20.940
You don’t see an old drum kit and think of modern triggered kick drum sounds.

00:24:20.940 –> 00:24:24.620
You think, that’s going to be more of a warm, boomy kick drum.

00:24:24.620 –> 00:24:26.540
It’s like you look at a door, it’s an old wooden door.

00:24:26.540 –> 00:24:28.900
It’s like, okay, so it’s going to be rustic.

00:24:28.900 –> 00:24:31.280
It might have some creak to it.

00:24:32.760 –> 00:24:34.320
It might not open perfectly.

00:24:34.800 –> 00:24:36.840
It might rattle a bit.

00:24:36.840 –> 00:24:38.100
So that was the same thing.

00:24:41.000 –> 00:24:42.240
So it’s all super interesting.

00:24:42.240 –> 00:24:44.000
I don’t know if you’ve ever done anything like that.

00:24:44.000 –> 00:24:44.580
No.

00:24:44.580 –> 00:25:01.460
In fact, because of my very limited experience with video games, but even some websites, for various reasons, will use some of those same concepts in the UI experience or the UX.

00:25:01.460 –> 00:25:03.900
So I know what you’re talking about.

00:25:03.900 –> 00:25:06.860
For me as a user, it’s just there.

00:25:06.860 –> 00:25:07.740
It’s part of the experience.

00:25:07.800 –> 00:25:09.400
It’s not something I thought about.

00:25:09.400 –> 00:25:12.020
And so to hear you describe it, it’s very cool.

00:25:12.020 –> 00:25:16.440
So the gaming industry, I understand, has had, has seen significant layoffs recently.

00:25:16.440 –> 00:25:24.660
From your perspective, what factors contributed to the changes in the industry or whatever was driving it?

00:25:24.660 –> 00:25:27.620
I mean, there’s a lot.

00:25:27.620 –> 00:25:31.900
I have a lot of personal ideas on that, some of which I probably can’t get into here.

00:25:32.780 –> 00:25:45.520
But, well, I mean, one big thing is that games went from being tangible objects to being downloadable, very similar to music.

00:25:45.520 –> 00:25:50.380
In the gaming industry, did that came after the digitization of music, kind of?

00:25:50.940 –> 00:25:51.300
Yeah.

00:25:51.340 –> 00:25:52.960
Because the console was still a big thing.

00:25:53.780 –> 00:25:56.080
And then eventually media.

00:25:56.080 –> 00:25:57.960
I mean, is the console still?

00:25:57.960 –> 00:25:59.280
Well, obviously, the console has to be.

00:25:59.680 –> 00:26:01.740
You have like special controller things.

00:26:01.740 –> 00:26:08.460
So it was just that everything’s, like you said, it’s online as opposed to well or downloadable.

00:26:08.460 –> 00:26:09.420
Yeah, exactly.

00:26:09.420 –> 00:26:20.700
So I think the benefit of having stuff online is that back in the day, if they released a game, and let’s say they had a limited time to do that game.

00:26:20.700 –> 00:26:27.940
Let’s say they had like, I don’t know, three to five years and they spent four and a half years developing this game.

00:26:28.060 –> 00:26:30.800
They had issues, they had setbacks.

00:26:30.800 –> 00:26:37.700
And so they only had a very small window to actually bug test the game for any issues or problems.

00:26:37.700 –> 00:26:41.380
And they may not have even had a team that was that big to be able to do that.

00:26:41.380 –> 00:26:50.640
And so they might have had, let’s say they had for like a AAA company, let’s say they had a hundred or around a hundred game testers worldwide.

00:26:50.640 –> 00:26:55.000
And so they would do their best to play that game as much as they can figure out some issues.

00:26:55.000 –> 00:26:59.420
But once you released it, you know, you have way, it’s worldwide.

00:26:59.420 –> 00:27:08.620
So you have essentially like play testers now, testing it from all corners of the world, trying to do things that the game wasn’t invented for.

00:27:08.620 –> 00:27:10.720
And so someone breaks the game.

00:27:10.720 –> 00:27:13.600
It’s kind of like, well, there it is.

00:27:13.600 –> 00:27:18.680
It’s broken and that people are going to exploit that now and there’s nothing we can do about it.

00:27:18.680 –> 00:27:38.560
If it was like a really big problem, like it would delete your saved data or something, then you would have to spend a lot of money to send out some kind of metal letters in the game magazines back in the day on the internet to say, can you send us back those disks or cartridges?

00:27:38.560 –> 00:27:43.800
We’re going to do a fix and we’ll send you another cartridge or something like that.

00:27:43.800 –> 00:27:44.780
Wow.

00:27:44.780 –> 00:27:52.380
So they just want to get those off the market completely and just put something back that would help the original idea.

00:27:52.380 –> 00:27:53.280
Exactly.

00:27:53.280 –> 00:27:59.040
So moving to digital means that that’s way easier because you can just put out a day one patch.

00:27:59.040 –> 00:28:05.060
So you can be prepared day one, as soon as it goes out, someone will find something within day one that’s broken.

00:28:05.060 –> 00:28:08.840
So you can all be there in the studio and say, okay, can someone fix that?

00:28:08.840 –> 00:28:12.020
Fix it, then put out a patch.

00:28:12.020 –> 00:28:12.740
Doesn’t take long.

00:28:12.740 –> 00:28:22.740
Everyone, when they log in the next time, their PlayStation or their Xbox, whatever, their Nintendo will re-download the latest version of the game with the fixed patch in it.

00:28:22.740 –> 00:28:23.160
No problem.

00:28:23.160 –> 00:28:24.420
They don’t have to worry about anything.

00:28:24.420 –> 00:28:40.640
So that was the digitalization that really improved that, which is great because it means that everyone gets a product, at least maybe not straight away, but eventually they’ll get a game which has all the problems kind of leveled out and everything.

00:28:41.400 –> 00:29:05.220
The issue though there is that it means that you don’t have to put out a perfect game, which actually causes problems because it would be the same as if you’re a musician and someone said, oh, can you just put down a demo guitar part and we’ll release that and then we’ll come in later when you’re free and record the guitars again and then we’ll do that.

00:29:05.220 –> 00:29:12.620
And they’re like, well, that tiny amount of people who listen to the demo version, it’s okay, we’ll do it later on.

00:29:12.620 –> 00:29:20.380
But actually, that’s kind of as someone who’s working, you might need the money from recording the main guitar part.

00:29:20.380 –> 00:29:23.920
That might be revenue or something like that.

00:29:23.920 –> 00:29:26.800
And it’s the same with the video game industry, basically.

00:29:27.080 –> 00:29:31.480
So there’s a lot of companies who are kind of there.

00:29:31.480 –> 00:29:40.200
They’re not really worried too much about the quality of the initial games as much as they are about the sales of the game.

00:29:40.200 –> 00:29:45.220
They can fix it later in post, as they would say.

00:29:45.220 –> 00:29:54.640
And yeah, and so that’s a big issue with people not wanting to buy games, especially-

00:29:55.080 –> 00:29:56.660
Oh, when they first come out.

00:29:56.660 –> 00:29:57.880
Yeah, exactly.

00:29:57.940 –> 00:29:58.500
Yeah.

00:29:58.500 –> 00:30:20.360
A lot of people will either wait or they are moving more towards indie games, which is something that I also kind of moved more into from doing the AAA games, because indie developers have more of a kind of, they’re more directly involved with the people who are playing their games.

00:30:20.360 –> 00:30:26.680
So if they release something that isn’t finished, they’re going to get direct messages telling them.

00:30:26.680 –> 00:30:38.580
So there’s more incentive to actually finish a game and release them as good, as opposed to a game from a big company where the guy at the top is responding to someone else and someone else and someone else.

00:30:38.580 –> 00:30:47.460
And so you’re being told to put something out that you don’t feel is finished, but you don’t really have any say in it because it’s up the chain, it’s up the ladder, you know.

00:30:47.460 –> 00:30:56.500
Yeah, so the AAA companies have adopted the sort of general software, Silicon Valley, sort of just put it out and we’ll get it fixed as it goes.

00:30:56.500 –> 00:31:06.340
But these indie companies remind me, I just heard a very short conversation, kind of a business conversation on indie labels.

00:31:06.340 –> 00:31:12.140
You know, like they’re much better, their advantage is they can identify talent much better than the big labels.

00:31:12.140 –> 00:31:15.960
They don’t have all that spending power, but it’s just, it’s kind of the same thing.

00:31:16.020 –> 00:31:22.360
They’re just closer to, I don’t know, the end of the audience in a way, you know, the user, I guess.

00:31:22.360 –> 00:31:22.860
That’s it, 100%.

00:31:23.360 –> 00:31:23.740
Yeah.

00:31:23.740 –> 00:31:26.860
There’s a lot of connections like that with the music industry.

00:31:28.180 –> 00:31:30.860
And like you say, you know, that’s exactly how it is.

00:31:30.860 –> 00:31:44.660
And with the technology these days as well, technology is so good these days, is that I meet indie developers who are using pretty much the exact same software as the AAA companies to develop their games.

00:31:45.100 –> 00:31:48.840
Yeah, it’s and they can do it all from home.

00:31:48.840 –> 00:31:55.360
When I was doing the music, I was working from home too because I had a studio.

00:31:55.360 –> 00:31:57.980
You mentioned before you saw the studio.

00:31:57.980 –> 00:32:01.580
I have a studio that I can go and that I can work from, which is great.

00:32:01.580 –> 00:32:08.040
And I have multiple speakers and you know, multiple different things that are great.

00:32:08.040 –> 00:32:24.280
But essentially as long as I have some headphones and some reasonable speakers, I can just do everything from home and then I can spend one day, half a day, even just a morning in the studio, just checking the sound, making sure it all sounds good.

00:32:24.280 –> 00:32:25.380
That’s nice.

00:32:25.380 –> 00:32:26.960
And my job is done basically.

00:32:26.960 –> 00:32:27.500
Yeah.

00:32:27.500 –> 00:32:28.140
That’s cool.

00:32:28.140 –> 00:32:44.220
So you mentioned to me when you recently reconnected that you’d lost your job with the bigger company, but then in a follow up email, you told me the good news, you’d picked up a couple of the gigs and you said is actually losing that job was actually the best thing that could have happened.

00:32:44.220 –> 00:32:50.440
I was wondering if you could elaborate on that perspective and how it’s opened up opportunities for you.

00:32:50.440 –> 00:32:50.980
Yeah.

00:32:50.980 –> 00:33:05.580
So when I was working at a bigger company, I was one person in a group of, I want to say, between 10 and 20 people, like a music team, sound music team.

00:33:07.060 –> 00:33:13.760
And we are responsible for everything, but we all had our little parts that we would get.

00:33:14.120 –> 00:33:15.780
You do this, you do this, you do this.

00:33:15.780 –> 00:33:17.480
And then some days it will be different.

00:33:17.480 –> 00:33:34.100
And you would have a selection of tasks that you have to complete, basically, whether that be, like I said, composition, whether that be sound effects, whether that be sound recording, foley, or whether that be implementation, actually like putting the sounds in game.

00:33:34.500 –> 00:33:43.020
You know, you would separate those tasks between the members, and then you would all have your specific task, which is great because it makes things easy to do.

00:33:43.020 –> 00:33:48.060
You can compartmentalize everything, and you can work on your specific thing.

00:33:48.060 –> 00:33:57.760
The problem is, if you have someone in the team, let’s say, whose their thing is this, and that’s all they do, then you might never get a chance to be able to do that one thing.

00:33:58.920 –> 00:34:21.080
And so, like, I felt that way specifically about implementation, which is actually putting sounds in-game, which is something that, yeah, as just like essentially a rock guitar player, there’s no reason for me to ever have to do that, you know, actually figure out, okay, how can I put this sound into game?

00:34:21.080 –> 00:34:24.840
How can I have it triggered when it needs to be?

00:34:24.840 –> 00:34:29.860
And then what are the other things that might happen that might make it triggered in a different way?

00:34:30.120 –> 00:34:50.960
You know, for example, if you have a sound, someone talking, but let’s say they’re talking, and then they change into a different room while they’re talking, you need to then make that sound not only sound far away, but you also need to make that sound, you need to make like an inclusion, like it has to be within a room, so you have to filter it.

00:34:50.960 –> 00:34:52.360
What does the wall change?

00:34:52.360 –> 00:35:00.840
The wall is going to get rid of a lot of the high frequencies and only leave the low frequencies, which is kind of cool because it’s stuff that you think about as a musician.

00:35:00.840 –> 00:35:11.340
You think about reverbs, you think about how much high end you want on a sound, but you don’t really think of it in terms of like, okay, there should be less high end because this guitar is in a different room.

00:35:11.480 –> 00:35:18.540
When you’re recording, I think we’ve always had that same idea that it’s like everyone’s in the same room, essentially.

00:35:18.540 –> 00:35:22.120
The drummer should sound in the same room as the guitar and the bass.

00:35:22.120 –> 00:35:22.780
That’s what you want.

00:35:22.780 –> 00:35:24.360
You want it to have a similar reverb sound.

00:35:24.760 –> 00:35:33.680
There are occasions in, for example, dance music where you might want the vocals filtered in a section and then you won’t want to filter them out.

00:35:33.680 –> 00:35:40.800
But you’re not really thinking of it in an actual visual way where the singer is going into a different room.

00:35:40.800 –> 00:35:42.420
It’s just all sonic.

00:35:42.420 –> 00:35:44.720
So that was something that I really wanted to get into.

00:35:44.720 –> 00:35:48.320
But being part of a big team, there wasn’t really much of a chance to do that.

00:35:48.320 –> 00:36:06.020
So when I made the jump from a big company to an indie company, all of a sudden, rather than being in a team of 400 people with, I don’t know, 20 to even like, there could be 100 people working on sound and music.

00:36:06.020 –> 00:36:10.140
It’s just one person in an indie company often.

00:36:10.140 –> 00:36:17.560
There might be 30 people on a game and the sound might be one person, and they’re responsible for everything.

00:36:17.560 –> 00:36:26.340
That was really daunting for me in the beginning, coming into a video game where it was like, okay, so you’re responsible for absolutely everything.

00:36:26.580 –> 00:36:28.420
Do work your magic.

00:36:28.420 –> 00:36:36.520
But it was super fulfilling because I think the other thing as well, and this might not be the same for everyone.

00:36:36.520 –> 00:36:38.480
I mean, you can tell me if this is the same for you.

00:36:38.480 –> 00:36:45.960
When you play in a band, do you ever have ideas of what you would like the guitar player to do, or what you would like the drummer to do, or what you would like the singer to do?

00:36:45.960 –> 00:36:46.900
Do you ever think about that stuff?

00:36:48.140 –> 00:36:50.360
Yes, and especially lately.

00:36:50.360 –> 00:36:54.220
I’ve started performing as a singer, not playing drums.

00:36:54.980 –> 00:36:56.020
Wow, okay.

00:36:56.020 –> 00:37:01.360
So I especially think about the drums, and to a lesser degree the guitar.

00:37:02.620 –> 00:37:04.840
I think, you know, I don’t know if I would on the…

00:37:04.840 –> 00:37:08.220
And these are just like straightforward kind of rock bands.

00:37:08.220 –> 00:37:13.220
I don’t know if I would think the same about the bass, given the right circumstances.

00:37:13.220 –> 00:37:20.180
But the circumstances I’m with is I’ve worked with two guys that are just have been superb, you know, at that part.

00:37:20.180 –> 00:37:22.900
And the other guys are good too.

00:37:24.300 –> 00:37:26.000
But I just noticed them.

00:37:26.000 –> 00:37:44.760
And I think it’s fair to say I noticed drums and guitar more than I do bass, but I love bass and love like, you know, noticing cool bass lines or, you know, listening to isolated bass tracks and stuff, more than probably than drums, you know, that kind of thing, but for some reason.

00:37:44.760 –> 00:37:46.700
But yes, I know what you mean.

00:37:46.700 –> 00:37:54.200
When you were a drummer, and you thought about singing, did you ever think like, oh, if I was a singer, I would sing in this way.

00:37:54.520 –> 00:37:57.580
I would have this much rasp on my voice as opposed to clean.

00:37:57.580 –> 00:38:00.960
I would hold the mic as opposed to using a mic stand.

00:38:00.960 –> 00:38:03.420
You know, did you think about anything like that?

00:38:05.240 –> 00:38:17.260
Sort of, but not so much about like what I would do, but I would just sort of project on in a way like, you know, I wish they would, or I might recommend they try, you know, something maybe different approach.

00:38:17.260 –> 00:38:26.100
Like lately, I’ve also been working in a project where we brought in a young woman who’s singing like American blues for the first time in her life.

00:38:26.100 –> 00:38:29.520
She’s got a great voice, but blues is a different animal.

00:38:29.520 –> 00:38:42.800
And we’re so early into it, but I have one of the other players though has been, and he has a better relationship in terms of his ability to make these suggestions.

00:38:42.800 –> 00:38:48.400
Not to say I don’t have a good relationship with her, but he has a working relationship with her where he feels more comfortable doing that.

00:38:48.400 –> 00:38:56.720
But I definitely think about her, like I probably could coach her a little bit to try these things.

00:38:56.720 –> 00:39:08.360
Now, but outside of that, like the first thought I had when you asked me the question was I’d just be like, oh, I wish they would play it this way or a little bit better.

00:39:09.760 –> 00:39:11.300
But that’s the extent of that.

00:39:11.300 –> 00:39:13.240
But I’ve been lucky to play with a lot of good guys.

00:39:13.240 –> 00:39:25.240
And I wish I could just tell people, well, I could tell people all the time, but I always want to tell people that I work with, like, look, I know I’m not God’s gift to music, drumming, singing or anything.

00:39:25.520 –> 00:39:35.980
And so when I offer critique or ask suggestions or give feedback or something, I understand that I know.

00:39:35.980 –> 00:39:36.520
Yeah.

00:39:36.520 –> 00:39:38.180
I mean, no, no, I totally get it.

00:39:38.180 –> 00:39:45.480
And the reason I bring it up is because when I was playing in bands, I still do play in bands, but obviously not as much as I used to.

00:39:45.480 –> 00:39:51.300
I used to think about that stuff a lot, especially because I was only playing guitar back then.

00:39:51.300 –> 00:40:03.860
So I used to think like, man, like, for example, I’d work with a singer and the singer would like take the mic off the stand, put the stand over there and I’d be like, man, if I was a singer, I’d sing the second song with the stand.

00:40:03.860 –> 00:40:13.200
And then I’d put then the third song, I’d take the stand over there, and then the bass player would like, I don’t know, play slap bass for a full song.

00:40:13.200 –> 00:40:20.240
And I’d be like, if I was the bass player, I’d only play slap in the chorus and I’d make a big deal out of it.

00:40:20.500 –> 00:40:26.080
I’d go to the front of the stage and do some Level 42 stuff and show off.

00:40:26.640 –> 00:40:31.640
And as a drummer too, I’d be one of those drummers who had no toms.

00:40:31.640 –> 00:40:33.100
I’d have a super minimal kit.

00:40:33.100 –> 00:40:36.420
I’d have snare, kick, cymbal, and that would be it.

00:40:36.420 –> 00:40:44.260
And all my fills would be based on the relationship between the kick and the snare, super creative and dynamic.

00:40:45.480 –> 00:40:53.060
And so I would think about all that stuff and I was really in a different instrument, even though I couldn’t play them, I can’t play drums to save my life.

00:40:53.060 –> 00:40:55.980
But I love writing for drums and I love writing for bass.

00:40:55.980 –> 00:40:57.880
I love writing for vocals.

00:40:58.260 –> 00:41:02.680
And it’s very much the same as how I felt when I moved into the video game industry.

00:41:02.680 –> 00:41:06.800
It’s like I was doing composition and I would hear people doing UI sounds.

00:41:06.800 –> 00:41:09.120
And I’d be listening to them.

00:41:09.120 –> 00:41:11.060
I’d be trying to focus on my own thing.

00:41:11.060 –> 00:41:13.600
And I’d be just listening to these beeps coming from them.

00:41:13.600 –> 00:41:17.880
And I’d be like, man, if I was them, I’d low fire that beep.

00:41:17.880 –> 00:41:21.280
I’d put it through a guitar amp rather than so clean.

00:41:21.520 –> 00:41:24.240
I’d have it edgy sounding.

00:41:24.240 –> 00:41:29.780
And so going into an indie company, the joy there was, it’s like I’ve got free range.

00:41:29.780 –> 00:41:34.560
It’s like a kid in a candy store where you can try, just try everything.

00:41:34.560 –> 00:41:43.120
And so I am right now having a really good time trying to figure out all those different aspects.

00:41:43.120 –> 00:41:44.940
And it’s a learning curve.

00:41:45.820 –> 00:41:58.380
It really is a learning curve because even with the stuff that is familiar to you, like music, there are things that are not, like I said, not really thought of even within music.

00:41:58.600 –> 00:42:07.900
Like adaptive music is a big thing in the video game industry, which is where music basically changes depending on the experience of the player.

00:42:07.960 –> 00:42:10.620
So, which is really nice.

00:42:10.620 –> 00:42:16.020
I don’t know if there’s anything that like musicians could take from that, or even me going back to just writing standard music.

00:42:16.020 –> 00:42:18.420
I don’t know if there’s any influence I could take from that.

00:42:18.420 –> 00:42:22.640
But the idea might be like you have a layer of music that’s happening.

00:42:22.640 –> 00:42:23.540
You could do it in two ways.

00:42:23.540 –> 00:42:26.160
You could do it horizontally and you could do it vertically.

00:42:26.160 –> 00:42:31.460
So horizontally, you could have four bars of music that are looping.

00:42:31.460 –> 00:42:45.940
Then once you collect this item, the music changes to four new bars, which is not dissimilar to dance music, where you’ve got 16 bars, which might be 16 bars of just a kick.

00:42:46.000 –> 00:42:50.360
Then you got another 16 bars where you add a little off-beat, high-hit hat in there.

00:42:50.360 –> 00:42:54.600
Then you might have the next 16 bars, you add a clap in there.

00:42:54.780 –> 00:43:04.680
So it’s giving the listener the idea that stuff is moving forward and stuff is evolving, which is exactly the same as horizontal video game adapted music.

00:43:04.740 –> 00:43:15.900
Then you’ve got the vertical adapted music, which is like, if you imagine that would be, if you had the same analogy, you had dance music, you had a high hat, a clap, and a kick drum.

00:43:15.900 –> 00:43:21.140
But they were all playing, but the volume fader was on zero and then you can bring the fader in for the kick.

00:43:21.140 –> 00:43:26.720
I mean, at any point you want, you can just slide the fader for the high hat.

00:43:26.720 –> 00:43:28.800
You might see people dancing and having a good time.

00:43:28.880 –> 00:43:32.000
So you might think, okay, I’m going to hold off on the fader for a little bit.

00:43:32.000 –> 00:43:37.940
And then, you know, they might start to think, okay, I want to up the energy so you could slide that fader up.

00:43:37.940 –> 00:43:42.620
And so those faders being slid up, they could be triggered by something that happens in game.

00:43:42.620 –> 00:43:45.220
You enter a new place or you pick up an item.

00:43:45.220 –> 00:43:53.360
And so adaptive music is this really cool kind of thing that isn’t a new thing by any means, but it’s new to me.

00:43:53.360 –> 00:44:01.080
And it’s inspiring to me as well to be able to figure out how far you can push that, because it doesn’t just have to be the volume that’s attenuated.

00:44:01.080 –> 00:44:05.760
It could be equalization, the EQ could be attenuated.

00:44:05.760 –> 00:44:15.420
It could be that going to doing something makes a sound sound more reverbed or more delayed or more distorted.

00:44:15.420 –> 00:44:17.080
There’s so many different musical elements.

00:44:17.080 –> 00:44:23.780
And all of those effects that I just mentioned as well are all things that I think musicians in general are kind of familiar with.

00:44:23.780 –> 00:44:26.380
We know what reverb is because we experience it.

00:44:26.620 –> 00:44:34.520
We go to a big venue and we play and all of a sudden our punchy snare drum doesn’t sound as punchy anymore.

00:44:34.520 –> 00:44:40.400
And we’re like, man, I need more volume because it’s getting soaked up by this big room.

00:44:40.400 –> 00:44:50.640
I mean, you play in a tiny little room and all of a sudden your voice sounds really thin and you’re like, man, I need delay or something on my voice to make myself sound bigger.

00:44:50.640 –> 00:44:53.440
So these are all effects that we’re very used to working with.

00:44:54.180 –> 00:44:58.780
It’s almost like going from TV to film, you know what I mean?

00:44:59.260 –> 00:45:05.240
Or black and white to color or doing a spot and then going to an Olympic level at that spot.

00:45:05.240 –> 00:45:16.000
Not in regards to the difficulty, but in regards to seemingly what is important and how it’s the same skills, but they might be in a different way.

00:45:17.380 –> 00:45:25.360
For example, in a judo tournament, the important thing is using the right moves to beat the opponent, but in the Olympics, it might not be that.

00:45:25.360 –> 00:45:33.720
It might be like staying out of the way for most of the time because you’ve got X amount of matches that you have to do that day.

00:45:33.720 –> 00:45:42.900
So the more important thing rather than beating all your opponents is keeping your energy so that you can at least do reasonable in everything over the full course of the tournament kind of thing.

00:45:42.900 –> 00:45:50.240
And so that’s very much how I feel about going to the video game industries, is the same skills just in a different setting.

00:45:50.780 –> 00:46:14.020
Yeah, and it sounds expanded because as you started describing that I am reminded that if you’re lucky enough to play in a band for a long time and then you’re lucky enough that that band has a good dynamic such that, I’m going to use the word twice, they’re really good at dynamics, they can read a room really well and just spontaneously do things.

00:46:14.200 –> 00:46:20.220
I think I’ve maybe noticed guitar players, some who are more attuned to audiences.

00:46:22.120 –> 00:46:28.620
This includes bands I played in the past where they will change it up because they see something in the audience.

00:46:29.820 –> 00:46:49.960
I think also even down to song selection based on some set list that you have that sort of kind of predefined but you’re adaptive for the crowd because well, I think that one’s that let’s just keep it up, keep the beat up for a while and then we can see if playing some of the slower stuff works out later or we can play it if the place thins out and want to just indulge ourselves.

00:46:49.960 –> 00:47:01.420
But yeah, but imagine with all these different elements of video games that you’re describing, it’s just like an opportunity to really develop those skills, right?

00:47:01.660 –> 00:47:02.760
Yeah, 100 percent.

00:47:03.100 –> 00:47:14.180
That’s a perfect analogy with the exactly as you said, with the audience and like a live house and how if you’re a guitar player, you watch and you’re like, okay, let’s drop that the next ballad.

00:47:14.180 –> 00:47:15.880
Let’s drop that because they’re all having a good time.

00:47:15.880 –> 00:47:17.260
We don’t want to play a ballad right now.

00:47:17.260 –> 00:47:17.940
They’re dancing.

00:47:18.480 –> 00:47:20.500
Don’t send them to their chair.

00:47:20.500 –> 00:47:21.140
Exactly.

00:47:21.140 –> 00:47:22.720
Yeah, that’s exactly it.

00:47:24.820 –> 00:47:34.320
And I think the other thing that helps with that is as well, is like my studio that I work out of, as I mentioned earlier, is also a DJ school.

00:47:34.320 –> 00:47:48.160
And so I’m not a DJ per se, but being around DJs and kind of having a basic understanding of what a DJ does, that helps as well, because that is essentially, that’s exactly what you just described.

00:47:48.160 –> 00:47:54.440
I mean, a DJ is essentially someone who, they’re not really playing the music as much as they’re playing the atmosphere.

00:47:54.440 –> 00:47:56.080
They’re playing the energy of the room.

00:47:56.080 –> 00:47:58.800
And that energy could be, yeah, it could be anything.

00:47:58.800 –> 00:48:01.120
That energy could be, it could be high energy.

00:48:01.120 –> 00:48:02.280
It could be low energy.

00:48:02.280 –> 00:48:04.300
It could be a cafe playing jazz.

00:48:04.980 –> 00:48:07.300
And you’re trying to keep the energy down.

00:48:07.300 –> 00:48:12.380
And that’s an important skill, because you have to look outside of yourself.

00:48:12.380 –> 00:48:13.240
It’s not about you.

00:48:13.240 –> 00:48:14.560
It takes the ego out of it.

00:48:14.560 –> 00:48:16.900
It’s not about how you feel.

00:48:16.900 –> 00:48:21.960
You might feel like you want to get up and dance, but if this is it, everyone wants to chill and relax.

00:48:21.960 –> 00:48:28.000
It’s like, okay, so I got to maintain that atmosphere and that feeling.

00:48:28.060 –> 00:48:37.980
And yeah, the video game thing definitely has connections to that, because you don’t really choose the type of video game that you’re working on.

00:48:37.980 –> 00:48:40.420
I mean, I think at a certain level, you probably can.

00:48:40.420 –> 00:48:48.740
If you’re established enough and you’re known for a specific sound, you can probably at that point start working specifically on video games to do that.

00:48:48.740 –> 00:48:56.520
But especially for me personally, at the level I’m at, I can’t really choose the type of video game I’m working on.

00:48:56.600 –> 00:48:59.820
So it could be a family party video game.

00:48:59.820 –> 00:49:04.400
It could be a really dark detective story.

00:49:05.820 –> 00:49:15.000
At that point, I might be listening to, I don’t know, Tears for Fears or something, but I have to decide to myself, well, Tears for Fears is too dark for a family game.

00:49:15.000 –> 00:49:21.960
They don’t need a dreary synth pop for that.

00:49:22.020 –> 00:49:39.860
So I have to do something more like, I don’t know, some kind of more like reggae kind of type thing, which has some kind of happy, syncopated like bop to it as opposed to, and that might not be something that I’m super into at the time, but it’s what works in that video game.

00:49:39.880 –> 00:49:41.700
Yeah.

00:49:41.700 –> 00:50:07.640
I guess I should mention one other thing just for the musicians that are listening since it came up also, you were kind of describing those situations where you’re in the large environment and you wanted to make a suggestion on something, but there was something about the way you’d, I think you started by asking me a question and describing that scenario, but this is a little bit of luck to from playing with so long and then, you know, having a good fortune to play with nice people and stuff.

00:50:07.640 –> 00:50:15.360
But I’m always very quick to say, hey, what if, how do you feel about trying this for this part?

00:50:15.640 –> 00:50:18.960
And I say I’m lucky because everybody’s always really receptive to it.

00:50:19.360 –> 00:50:25.860
And lately with this thing where I’m performing as the singer, I get a lot of, as you wish, man, you know, how do you want it?

00:50:25.860 –> 00:50:30.080
So I’m actually having to work with the guys to say, no, I want your opinion.

00:50:31.980 –> 00:50:34.360
Let’s not just do it the way I want it.

00:50:34.360 –> 00:50:35.200
That’s cool.

00:50:35.200 –> 00:50:36.060
That’s really cool.

00:50:36.060 –> 00:50:39.120
So I’ve never, I’ve never performed as a singer.

00:50:39.120 –> 00:50:40.680
I performed backing vocals.

00:50:40.680 –> 00:50:51.880
I started performing backing vocals probably about five years ago, mainly because I was a lead guitar player for a long time, like as I was, so I did the product demonstration thing, right?

00:50:51.880 –> 00:50:53.760
And that was a very technical thing.

00:50:53.760 –> 00:50:55.420
So people wanted to hear the amp.

00:50:55.420 –> 00:51:02.940
They wanted to see guitars put through the kind of, put through the run, you know, they wanted to see them really used and how far can you push them?

00:51:02.940 –> 00:51:03.680
How fast?

00:51:03.680 –> 00:51:05.260
How hard can you play them?

00:51:05.260 –> 00:51:09.740
And so there was an amount of like technicality that I had to do.

00:51:09.740 –> 00:51:13.480
And so that was how I managed to get that job because I was a technical guitar player.

00:51:13.480 –> 00:51:18.140
But it got to the point where like, I don’t know if it was age, I don’t know what it was.

00:51:18.140 –> 00:51:28.860
I kind of wanted to get away from the technical thing and just enjoy playing in bands without actually having to worry about, do I have to warm up?

00:51:28.860 –> 00:51:30.440
Do I have to practice?

00:51:30.440 –> 00:51:32.120
Am I going to make a mistake?

00:51:32.120 –> 00:51:49.920
And so the part of the reason for getting into backing vocals was because if I get in a backing vocals, it shifts the emphasis from worrying about that stuff because I’m not a singer to being like, well, actually, that stuff, as hard as it is, is the stuff that I’m good at.

00:51:49.920 –> 00:51:59.600
Doing like a harmony in the chorus that’s like a third up or a sixth, you know, like a third below, that’s the stuff where I actually have to stop the band at the end.

00:52:00.340 –> 00:52:10.340
And can I just have like 10 minutes, just me and the singer, to just sit here and just make sure that we’re pitching those harmonies perfect?

00:52:10.340 –> 00:52:17.940
And so it shifted the emphasis onto that, which was really good because it stopped me worrying about the other stuff.

00:52:17.940 –> 00:52:25.860
And so as I’ve been back in vocals, I often think like, I wonder if I was a lead vocalist, how would I approach that?

00:52:25.860 –> 00:52:36.540
And so it’s really interesting for me to hear that you made the shift to be in a singer, because I think I probably have a dream every once a month where I’m a singer in a band, and then I wake up, I’m really good in my dream.

00:52:36.540 –> 00:52:41.040
And then I wake up and I’m like, man, and so I think about that stuff a lot.

00:52:41.480 –> 00:52:46.820
And so like as a singer, as a singer, like, what’s your thought process?

00:52:46.940 –> 00:52:50.540
Is it completely different from when you were a drummer?

00:52:50.540 –> 00:52:56.280
Because that thing that you mentioned there about giving people, can we try this?

00:52:56.280 –> 00:53:02.400
I know what you mean, because hearing that from a drummer and hearing that from a singer, for me personally, I don’t mind.

00:53:02.400 –> 00:53:07.620
And I’m at that stage now where I’m happy to take any kind of advice or suggestions from anyone.

00:53:07.620 –> 00:53:19.680
But I do remember that as like, when I was in high school in a band, it’s a lot easier to take, not criticism, but to take those kind of suggestions from a singer, because they’re sat on top of everything.

00:53:19.680 –> 00:53:20.720
You know what I mean?

00:53:20.720 –> 00:53:25.560
It’s almost like if you’re in a car, I know a drummer is essentially driving the car.

00:53:25.560 –> 00:53:30.840
But in that situation, it’s kind of the singer’s choice as to where you’re going, right?

00:53:30.880 –> 00:53:38.100
Like the singer is being like, well, look, guys, I’m, I don’t know, I’m the guy who’s going to be at the front when we go there.

00:53:38.100 –> 00:53:40.580
So I don’t want to go to that restaurant, because I don’t want to talk to that.

00:53:40.580 –> 00:53:45.280
So I want to go to that restaurant, because I’m the guy who’s going to be talking in order in the food as opposed to driving the car.

00:53:45.280 –> 00:53:47.520
I mean, how do you feel about that?

00:53:47.520 –> 00:53:49.320
Well, it’s funny.

00:53:49.320 –> 00:54:06.700
Now that you put it that way, if it’s true in my situation currently, I was pretty unaware of it from that perspective, partly because I’ve always been willing to make suggestions with bands even when I’m playing drums with anyone else, just because I think it would sound cool.

00:54:06.700 –> 00:54:14.680
The situation now though is on top of the fact that I’m the singer and maybe there’s this thing that’s working in the background that you just described.

00:54:15.220 –> 00:54:15.860
I really don’t know.

00:54:15.860 –> 00:54:16.760
I hadn’t thought of that.

00:54:16.760 –> 00:54:25.560
But what is a driving thing is I decided, it didn’t start this way, but I decided I’m just going to name this project Robonzo.

00:54:25.560 –> 00:54:27.320
It’s not going to be a band name.

00:54:27.340 –> 00:54:29.080
Of course.

00:54:29.080 –> 00:54:37.480
That gives me the appearance of driver’s seat, and that and some other little things like getting the gigs.

00:54:38.740 –> 00:54:42.840
I imagine some of it is just like whatever you want, boss kind of thing.

00:54:45.980 –> 00:54:52.060
I’m not really that way when we’re putting the show together.

00:54:52.060 –> 00:54:54.200
I really want to be collaborative like I always have.

00:54:55.100 –> 00:55:15.060
I just wanted to have the reason I said we’re just going to name this whole thing Robonzo is because I realized, well, there’s a lot of working musicians around here, and to hold them in a band sometimes is hard, especially if you’ve got some ideas about playing in frequency or places or whatever, and these guys are busy with other gigs too.

00:55:15.060 –> 00:55:15.960
So there’s that.

00:55:15.960 –> 00:55:27.680
Then also when you run into the unfortunate situations where something’s just not working out, I feel more able to just make a change, and I think everybody’s cool with that.

00:55:27.680 –> 00:55:28.380
Yeah.

00:55:28.920 –> 00:55:32.060
Do you change the keys to songs?

00:55:32.060 –> 00:55:33.780
Try not to.

00:55:33.920 –> 00:55:53.300
Usually, thank goodness, the band, if they feel that it would better suit me and that the key is changeable to a degree where it’s not even going to make any difference, they might happen a couple of times, maybe three or four times, like, hey, you want to try this a half a step down, it might be more comfortable for your voice.

00:55:53.820 –> 00:55:55.420
I try to take that.

00:55:55.420 –> 00:56:04.000
Part of me is like, I want to sing it in the original key, but I also take that as I should try it because they’re listening to me and they can hear that I’m struggling a little bit.

00:56:04.000 –> 00:56:04.900
Yeah.

00:56:04.900 –> 00:56:06.360
That was one thing that I noticed.

00:56:06.360 –> 00:56:24.520
The more I started working with more professional vocalists, the more the keys started to get changed to the point where, yeah, pretty much by when I was probably at the most, when I was performing with the most well-known people that I played with.

00:56:24.520 –> 00:56:24.720
Yeah.

00:56:24.720 –> 00:56:26.200
It was like every song.

00:56:26.200 –> 00:56:31.360
It would be very rare that I would get a set list of songs all in the original keys.

00:56:31.360 –> 00:56:34.460
They would all be shifted down or up.

00:56:34.540 –> 00:56:37.400
And then even on the day.

00:56:37.400 –> 00:56:42.800
I was going to say, at least you knew ahead of time, but I’ve played with some guys who have to deal with that.

00:56:42.800 –> 00:56:49.720
Yeah, I’ve had that before, especially the stage kind of, what do you call it?

00:56:49.720 –> 00:56:55.360
Not singer-songwriter type people, entertainment kind of, entertainment type of singers.

00:56:55.360 –> 00:56:57.360
So the people who came from stage shows.

00:56:57.360 –> 00:56:58.620
Yeah, exactly.

00:56:58.620 –> 00:57:02.000
People who came from stage shows, musicals, things like that.

00:57:02.800 –> 00:57:06.840
I found that they are very good at shifting the…

00:57:06.840 –> 00:57:13.820
not good at shifting keys, good at suggesting, I think we should change the key, because I have a call today.

00:57:13.820 –> 00:57:16.440
So can we move the key down a whole step?

00:57:16.440 –> 00:57:19.080
Yeah, just a very experienced singer, right?

00:57:19.360 –> 00:57:21.260
Yeah, it’s super smart.

00:57:21.260 –> 00:57:34.160
And it feels really annoying at first, but it is really important, because it’s like if I had a guitar and it only had four frets, and it was like, okay, there’s your four frets.

00:57:34.160 –> 00:57:35.320
Play your show.

00:57:35.320 –> 00:57:36.600
And then someone chooses a key.

00:57:36.600 –> 00:57:38.860
It’s like, I don’t have that fret.

00:57:38.860 –> 00:57:40.920
You know what I mean?

00:57:40.920 –> 00:57:41.960
So there’s two choices there.

00:57:41.960 –> 00:57:46.380
I can ignore the fact I don’t have the fret and make a mistake or not do it.

00:57:46.380 –> 00:57:49.180
Or I can be like, guys, I don’t have that fret.

00:57:49.900 –> 00:57:51.120
We need to change here.

00:57:51.120 –> 00:58:00.860
And if you’re the person who’s kind of, like I said before, if you’re the person who’s you’re going to be taking the rep for everything, because you’re the person everyone’s listening to as a singer, that’s usually who it is.

00:58:00.860 –> 00:58:04.580
Yeah, there’s a good reason there to suggest change in the key.

00:58:04.580 –> 00:58:08.220
And so, yeah, suggestions are important.

00:58:08.220 –> 00:58:21.800
And even suggestions to the point of just thinking of something and not even suggesting it, I think is a really important experience for musicians, especially in the video game industry.

00:58:22.380 –> 00:58:36.480
That was part of the reason that when I changed from the big company to the small company, that was part of the inspiration, was that someone asked me, okay, I’ve got this project, can you do sound design?

00:58:36.480 –> 00:58:49.900
And I’m like, I’ve never done sound design, but I’ve sat there and watched this person do sound design for the last three years, watched their process, and then thought to myself, I would do that differently.

00:58:50.240 –> 00:58:51.920
I changed that.

00:58:51.920 –> 00:58:56.940
And I might not have voiced my opinion, but I thought it and I took a mental note of that.

00:58:56.940 –> 00:59:01.860
And so when that person asked me, it’s like, okay, I remember that person doing that.

00:59:01.860 –> 00:59:06.560
Yeah, I can just do what they did, but I’m gonna change that, do that slightly differently.

00:59:06.560 –> 00:59:11.080
I mean, you might do it and realize that that person had a reason for doing it that way.

00:59:11.080 –> 00:59:13.880
You realize, that’s why that doesn’t work.

00:59:13.880 –> 00:59:18.680
And I’m glad I didn’t say that, because it doesn’t work, or it might be the total opposite.

00:59:18.680 –> 00:59:25.520
You do it and you figured out a way in your own head to make that process way easier.

00:59:25.520 –> 00:59:40.680
Yeah, you know, you didn’t even mention this as a motivator, but I was gonna say for also for the listeners, but for you, if it never struck you, but what a additional marketing asset it is to be able to sing and, you know, back up.

00:59:40.680 –> 00:59:41.560
I mean, that’s huge.

00:59:42.200 –> 00:59:48.300
I had a drummer play with me at a couple of shows who I’d gladly have do more.

00:59:48.300 –> 00:59:51.160
And he sings harmonies like a bird.

00:59:51.160 –> 00:59:57.120
And I was like, man, I feel kind of bad that I haven’t worked harder at that as a drummer.

00:59:57.120 –> 01:00:09.200
I mean, I’ve sang as a drummer, but I’m have shied away from trying to do harmonies because I just I find it difficult a little bit because just the racket of the drum, I mean, and I’ve used in ears the whole thing.

01:00:09.400 –> 01:00:15.400
I don’t know, maybe I just don’t have good, I can’t focus enough or just confidence more than anything, I’m sure.

01:00:15.400 –> 01:00:19.920
But he inspired me to just work harder at it.

01:00:19.920 –> 01:00:27.280
In fact, I’ll have my next opportunity later next month with a band that I’m seeing a lot of harmonies in and some lead stuff.

01:00:27.280 –> 01:00:33.720
So I’ll have a chance to really work on that and be more sought after musician.

01:00:33.720 –> 01:00:35.340
If I’m playing drums.

01:00:36.380 –> 01:00:48.360
If I had any advice to any kind of starting out musicians or anything like, it would be start singing as soon as you can and get over the embarrassment of singing.

01:00:48.360 –> 01:00:49.780
Because it’s hard to sing.

01:00:49.780 –> 01:00:52.440
Because you can’t really choose your voice.

01:00:52.440 –> 01:00:54.120
You can choose your instrument.

01:00:54.120 –> 01:00:58.040
You can choose down to nowadays with synthesizers.

01:00:58.320 –> 01:01:01.340
You can edit and you can choose it.

01:01:01.340 –> 01:01:04.020
You can make finite choices to make sure that it’s perfect.

01:01:04.420 –> 01:01:05.540
You can’t really do that with voice.

01:01:05.540 –> 01:01:10.760
You’re set with your voice, especially in a live performance setting.

01:01:10.760 –> 01:01:28.420
But the sooner you can get over that worry that maybe your voice isn’t as good as this guy or that girl or whatever, soon as you can get over that and start singing, it benefits everything to the point where if you’re a drummer, you realize now why a fill is there.

01:01:28.420 –> 01:01:31.680
Because more often than not, there’s no vocals there.

01:01:31.800 –> 01:01:33.600
It’s like, oh, that’s why the fill is there.

01:01:33.680 –> 01:01:36.860
Because, yeah, sure, there’s a big space there.

01:01:36.860 –> 01:01:42.780
And if you’re not aware of the vocals, you might just think, well, I can just do that fill anywhere.

01:01:42.780 –> 01:01:43.860
It doesn’t matter.

01:01:43.860 –> 01:01:47.280
When an actual fact, no, no, there’s a real reason for that fill being there.

01:01:47.280 –> 01:01:51.860
And it’s the same with guitars and chords, like this chord leads to that chord.

01:01:51.860 –> 01:01:58.060
And you might hear that and think, well, I’m not really sure why it does, until you start to sing the vocal.

01:01:58.100 –> 01:02:09.940
And then you realize it like, oh, okay, the vocal is doing something that is in the chords that’s leading it to, like either in regards to the melody, or it might be like the same as the drums.

01:02:09.940 –> 01:02:11.620
There’s actually no vocals there.

01:02:11.620 –> 01:02:15.200
So if I just play this chord, it’s just a chord.

01:02:15.200 –> 01:02:18.780
Whereas actually, because there’s no vocal there, you can spice things up.

01:02:18.780 –> 01:02:19.860
There’s no rules.

01:02:19.860 –> 01:02:22.560
There’s nothing telling you what you have to do.

01:02:22.560 –> 01:02:26.020
So the sooner you can start singing, everything improves.

01:02:26.020 –> 01:02:37.340
Your timing, your rhythm, the melodies, the harmony, your understanding of structure and why structures are in a certain way.

01:02:37.340 –> 01:02:38.620
All of that stuff.

01:02:39.020 –> 01:02:41.020
That’s true.

01:02:41.020 –> 01:02:59.380
I would say maybe add only that one thing I’ve noticed with a lot of players I’ve met, worked with, a lot of them, when they do sing, it might be for some very limited amount, but they don’t really treat their voice like an instrument, like they do their primary instrument.

01:02:59.380 –> 01:03:08.400
It’s sort of secondary and I think, there are certain things you got to do to get the most out of it.

01:03:09.740 –> 01:03:15.760
The first thing is just realizing it’s an instrument, I got to treat it as such.

01:03:15.820 –> 01:03:28.180
Yeah, 100% and then the other thing as well is treating it like an instrument that has its own good things and maybe things that it doesn’t work that well for.

01:03:28.180 –> 01:03:35.860
Understanding that and being able to frame it and use it in a setting where you feel you’re getting the most out of it.

01:03:35.860 –> 01:03:38.120
It’s very much the same with guitars.

01:03:38.120 –> 01:03:43.800
You could have a one watt guitar speaker, which you think, this is pointless, I can’t use this anywhere.

01:03:44.260 –> 01:03:57.900
But like I said before, there might be a UI sound, a click or a beep and you just want it to sound way more analog and way raw and you want it to be less in the way.

01:03:57.900 –> 01:04:06.120
So put that through a one watt speaker and all of a sudden, you’ve got this sound that sounds like an old Sanyo calculator or something.

01:04:06.920 –> 01:04:08.480
It has its place.

01:04:08.480 –> 01:04:10.440
Everything has its place.

01:04:10.440 –> 01:04:11.840
That’s great.

01:04:11.840 –> 01:04:13.120
I’m still learning a lot of this stuff.

01:04:13.120 –> 01:04:26.640
If you mention a few things like it has dawned on me that I have a different awareness for timing as a singer that has taken me by surprise than as a drummer.

01:04:28.220 –> 01:04:36.980
I’m discovering limitations in my voice, still trying to find my real voice.

01:04:36.980 –> 01:04:38.800
So yeah, it’s a discovery process.

01:04:38.800 –> 01:04:44.660
So when you mention these guys that are really good at suggesting when to change the key, that’s a lot of experience.

01:04:44.660 –> 01:04:46.600
That’s a lot of experience.

01:04:46.600 –> 01:04:47.180
Yeah, totally.

01:04:47.180 –> 01:04:52.620
It’s a lot of inward looking and being like, how do I feel?

01:04:52.620 –> 01:04:54.760
How did that show go?

01:04:54.940 –> 01:04:55.840
I didn’t sing as well.

01:04:55.840 –> 01:04:58.100
Why didn’t I sing as well as I wanted to?

01:04:58.100 –> 01:04:59.420
Maybe the key was too low.

01:05:00.740 –> 01:05:03.800
Like you said, experience is key really for them.

01:05:03.800 –> 01:05:05.180
Well, you know what I’m going to do?

01:05:05.180 –> 01:05:10.540
Something that I keep saying, you know, I really should is I’ll just start recording myself rehearsing and listen.

01:05:10.760 –> 01:05:21.120
Because that’s the few times I’ve done that is like it’s such a great way to hear if you think you’re struggling or maybe you’re not aware you’re not sounding right on something, you know, to sort of figure out what’s going on.

01:05:21.120 –> 01:05:32.540
So, hey, for musicians interested in breaking in the into video game composition, do you have any advice based on the experience that you’ve garnered so far?

01:05:34.440 –> 01:05:40.560
Yeah, so, like I said before, there are crossover skills, you know what I mean?

01:05:40.560 –> 01:05:41.740
There are crossover skills.

01:05:41.740 –> 01:05:52.580
So, there are things that as a musician, you know and you think of as being really kind of normal things that in the video game industry aren’t as normal.

01:05:52.580 –> 01:05:57.980
They’re really important skills, but they’re skills that not many people think about.

01:05:57.980 –> 01:06:12.540
So, the thing that really helped me was making the most out of those skills and then understanding that there are other things that I’m not familiar with and that’s where I can spend my time.

01:06:12.540 –> 01:06:16.800
But not getting too caught up on the fact that like I don’t understand them.

01:06:16.800 –> 01:06:25.460
Going back to the stuff that I can do and kind of being fulfilled and satisfied in that, okay, I can do this.

01:06:25.460 –> 01:06:29.660
I have a place here and this stuff will come if I give it time.

01:06:30.220 –> 01:06:32.560
But the stuff that I can do, I can use that.

01:06:32.980 –> 01:06:39.920
And eventually, the stuff that you need to learn will kind of creep into what you do.

01:06:39.920 –> 01:06:45.520
So for me, like I say, I’ve never done Foley recording before.

01:06:45.520 –> 01:06:46.940
I’ve never gone out.

01:06:46.940 –> 01:06:47.980
I’m a homeboy.

01:06:47.980 –> 01:06:53.680
Man, I sit at home and play guitar and then I don’t walk, I don’t go out.

01:06:53.680 –> 01:06:59.040
I go to the gym, but it’s an indoor gym with machines and air conditioning.

01:06:59.520 –> 01:07:01.420
And Pepsi and the vending machine.

01:07:03.360 –> 01:07:06.120
I’m not a walking person, you know.

01:07:06.120 –> 01:07:08.740
But obviously Foley recording, you need to do that.

01:07:08.740 –> 01:07:12.040
You need to go and record Wilderness.

01:07:12.040 –> 01:07:15.480
You might need to go and record a stream and stuff like that.

01:07:15.480 –> 01:07:19.440
But it’s no different than making up a singer or making up a drum kit.

01:07:19.440 –> 01:07:24.620
Or if you do podcasts, making up your vocals, it’s the same process.

01:07:24.620 –> 01:07:26.580
You just need a good microphone.

01:07:27.360 –> 01:07:29.400
You need a good environment.

01:07:29.400 –> 01:07:31.740
You don’t want to be next to a building site.

01:07:31.740 –> 01:07:32.520
You know what I mean?

01:07:32.520 –> 01:07:38.860
If you’re trying to capture the nice ambient sound of a forest, make sure you’re somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

01:07:38.860 –> 01:07:43.860
You might take a train out somewhere, move away from the train station, find somewhere nice.

01:07:45.780 –> 01:07:48.800
You might want to wait a bit before you start recording.

01:07:48.800 –> 01:07:53.220
Just like in a live house as a guitar player, you don’t want to push record and then start playing straight away.

01:07:53.220 –> 01:07:54.400
You might want to push record.

01:07:55.080 –> 01:07:56.800
Okay, let’s just give it a minute.

01:07:56.800 –> 01:07:58.440
Let’s capture the ambience of the room.

01:07:58.440 –> 01:08:00.940
Let’s capture the crowd sound.

01:08:00.940 –> 01:08:03.600
Let’s capture the sound of us go walking onto the stage.

01:08:03.600 –> 01:08:06.440
Someone might say something.

01:08:06.440 –> 01:08:07.240
It’s the same thing.

01:08:07.240 –> 01:08:18.460
You might push record, but you might wait, sit there, and let maybe the birds forget that you’re there, so they start tweeting, all of that stuff.

01:08:18.460 –> 01:08:31.260
Then also, you might leave longer at the end, just like you might want the sound of you walking off stage, putting the guitar down and the audience dying down, and the BGM, the background music being faded back in from the DJ or whatever.

01:08:31.260 –> 01:08:31.740
It’s the same.

01:08:31.740 –> 01:08:39.920
You might leave it a little bit longer than you normally would walk over and stop recording and stuff.

01:08:39.920 –> 01:08:49.840
If you can think about it in terms of that, what are the skills that I already know, and how can those cross over into these things, then it’s not that big of a challenge.

01:08:51.560 –> 01:08:58.640
There are things that are difficult like implementation, which is more computer-based.

01:08:58.640 –> 01:09:02.540
That’s using middleware software.

01:09:02.540 –> 01:09:09.080
There’s a few different middleware softwares out there to actually put sounds in game.

01:09:09.080 –> 01:09:23.660
That requires some knowledge of certain, not coding per se, but it requires knowledge of the system that they use to put those sounds in the typed file types and things like that.

01:09:23.660 –> 01:09:34.940
Something that always confused me in the things that I’m doing now is that I think it’s changing, but a lot of people were referring to reverb as volume.

01:09:36.160 –> 01:09:46.960
Yeah, that confused me because when they say that, and this is a really specific reason, I was having this big conversation about reverb and the guy kept saying volume, and I kept thinking to myself, the volume doesn’t matter.

01:09:47.580 –> 01:09:49.360
It’s the reverb that’s the issue.

01:09:49.360 –> 01:09:58.300
Then I realized by volume, he was talking about the volume of sound in a space, which is reverb, essentially.

01:09:58.400 –> 01:10:04.080
So it’s just like, those are the things that exactly, that’s what you learn.

01:10:04.400 –> 01:10:06.940
Those are the things that you will know what reverb is.

01:10:06.940 –> 01:10:14.880
So as soon as you realize that a volume of sound, the volume of a sound is reverb, then it’s really easy.

01:10:15.240 –> 01:10:20.680
It would be really hard if you didn’t know what reverb was or how a reverb should work in a room.

01:10:20.680 –> 01:10:23.240
You know, that would be really difficult.

01:10:23.240 –> 01:10:36.460
But because you already have that knowledge of what reverb is as a musician playing in different shapes and different sized live houses and concert halls, as soon as you figure out that, okay, this software refers to reverb as volume, got it, volumes.

01:10:36.680 –> 01:10:37.400
That’s what it is.

01:10:37.700 –> 01:10:39.940
You can make sense of it kind of thing.

01:10:39.940 –> 01:10:55.520
So my advice for people getting into, yeah, video games is just to try and take the skills that they already have and figure out how they can use those skills to achieve the things that are needed in video games.

01:10:55.520 –> 01:11:03.300
Then also, don’t be worried to take skills that are maybe not common in video games and use them.

01:11:03.300 –> 01:11:17.320
There’s been a lot of moments where people have been trying to do certain things in video game software where I’ve thought to myself, I could do that really easy in logic or in Pro Tools.

01:11:17.320 –> 01:11:18.160
Like that’s so easy.

01:11:18.160 –> 01:11:20.580
I could do that really easily.

01:11:20.580 –> 01:11:27.600
Again, it’s that moment, like I said before, of thinking that and then you have the choice whether or not you want to actually say it.

01:11:27.600 –> 01:11:35.720
But just thinking that and acknowledging it in your own head, means that down the line when it comes to you doing that, you’ve already thought about it.

01:11:35.720 –> 01:11:40.580
Just like being a drummer and a singer, you’ve already thought what you want the singer to do.

01:11:40.580 –> 01:11:41.200
It’s the same thing.

01:11:41.200 –> 01:11:48.600
I’ve already thought, well, I would do that in this software rather than in that software, because it’s way quicker, and you try it, and it works or it doesn’t work.

01:11:48.600 –> 01:11:53.380
But it’s all like a process in your own head.

01:11:53.380 –> 01:11:54.260
Super interesting.

01:11:54.740 –> 01:12:03.620
As has been the conversation, I learned a lot today about the whole video game scene and where music lives in there.

01:12:03.620 –> 01:12:10.520
And it strikes me that, yeah, there’s so many commonalities to just like playing in a band.

01:12:10.540 –> 01:12:13.160
It was some of the things that you’re thinking about.

01:12:13.160 –> 01:12:24.240
And certainly, although recording experience has undoubtedly had a huge impact on your ability to sort of see and hear and think about all those things.

01:12:24.240 –> 01:12:25.580
It was super interesting, man.

01:12:25.580 –> 01:12:26.280
I really appreciate it.

01:12:26.280 –> 01:12:29.080
And I think listeners are going to enjoy it a lot.

01:12:29.080 –> 01:12:31.320
Yeah, it’s definitely an interesting experience.

01:12:31.320 –> 01:12:35.600
And it’s something that I’m still very much early on my path on.

01:12:35.880 –> 01:12:39.040
I’ve only been doing this for four years.

01:12:39.040 –> 01:12:41.140
So that’s still very early.

01:12:41.140 –> 01:12:45.160
I mean, if you think about it in terms of playing the guitar or violin, how good are you after four years?

01:12:45.160 –> 01:12:50.220
I mean, you know, it’s very different from 14 years or 24 years.

01:12:50.220 –> 01:12:51.220
You know, everything changes.

01:12:51.220 –> 01:12:58.920
So I’m sure we’ll probably speak again and I’ll probably go against everything that I have said in this video and be like, oh, no, it didn’t work, man.

01:12:58.920 –> 01:13:00.760
It’s all wrong, you know.

01:13:00.760 –> 01:13:02.760
But that’s the enjoyment, isn’t it?

01:13:02.760 –> 01:13:05.260
The enjoyment is just having fun along the way.

01:13:05.580 –> 01:13:08.960
And, you know, and realizing that it is a journey.

01:13:08.960 –> 01:13:10.940
It’s not just a dead end.

01:13:10.940 –> 01:13:12.560
It’s not just a stop at the end of the tracks.

01:13:12.560 –> 01:13:17.920
It’s a consistent journey and things change and things move in different ways.

01:13:17.920 –> 01:13:27.780
And yeah, I’m sure next time we speak, I’ll probably either doing something totally different or maybe I’ll be doing this same thing and for a bigger company or even a smaller company.

01:13:27.780 –> 01:13:28.320
I don’t know.

01:13:28.640 –> 01:13:30.200
Who knows?

01:13:30.200 –> 01:13:31.480
Well, good luck with the gigs, man.

01:13:31.480 –> 01:13:32.840
It sounds like you’re having fun.

01:13:32.840 –> 01:13:34.100
It sounds very challenging too.

01:13:34.340 –> 01:13:39.340
So yeah, best of luck and I look forward to talking again, it’ll be great.

01:13:39.340 –> 01:13:39.800
Thanks, man.

01:13:39.800 –> 01:13:44.820
Yeah, and I’m really looking forward to hearing Robonzo in regards to the Robonzo band.

01:13:44.820 –> 01:13:46.260
Okay, I’ll send you some clips.

01:13:46.520 –> 01:13:48.260
Yeah, I can’t wait, man.

01:13:48.260 –> 01:13:48.640
Thanks, man.

01:13:48.640 –> 01:13:50.020
It’s good talking with you.

01:13:50.020 –> 01:13:50.400
All right.

01:13:50.400 –> 01:13:52.700
Take care, man.

01:13:52.700 –> 01:13:55.600
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01:13:55.600 –> 01:13:57.640
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01:13:57.640 –> 01:14:00.480
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01:14:03.240 –> 01:14:12.160
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01:14:12.160 –> 01:14:14.480
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01:14:29.540 –> 01:14:34.080
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01:14:45.040 –> 01:14:49.340
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01:14:49.340 –> 01:14:54.080
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01:14:54.080 –> 01:15:04.860
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01:15:04.860 –> 01:15:08.960
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01:15:11.480 –> 01:15:12.860
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01:15:12.860 –> 01:15:15.060
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