Hey, what's up, guys? This is your host Dan given. Just want to say thank you for checking out the podcast. I've had random people hitting me up lately and saying they love the podcast means a lot to me that you guys are out there listening. Love to hear your thoughts and comments. If you have ideas for new podcast episodes, or just to say hey free to shoot me an email Dan at life producers online.com. Love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. Cast ideas whatever also if you are an instagramer like myself there is the live producers online Instagram account. I would love to hang out with you there this go to at live producers online or if you're a Facebook kind of person that's cool too can check out that page and we posting more tips and tricks and you doing some Instagram live stuff. So it's a good way to connect with me. If you want to I have been doing webinars with my website live producers online.com for only $10. You can support me and also learn tips and tricks in Ableton Live on a variety of different topics. I recently just gave one away for free. It's about the basics of mixing and Ableton Live. I walk through a queuing and saturation and compression and tips and tricks that I've learned over the years using ableton's tools and other 3rd party plugins out there. So if you're interested in checking that out go to live producers online.com / free mixing webinar. Touch just like produces online.com / free mixing webinar and check that out. Yeah. It's about 40 minutes long because there's nothing more depressing than making a great song and having it sound like crap today's podcast episode. I'm really excited about it's with Craig anderton dudes amazing. This is probably one of the most fun times I've had on the podcasts guys really great. Thanks for listening guys much. Love everyone. Well, you know a lot of a lot of people think that that that they should be able to just sit down at a dawn make it work because they know computers, you know, and I've never I don't know anybody who goes to Qatar Center buys a Stratocaster and a mailbag method but comes back a week later and says, hey, I don't play like Jimi Hendrix the Stratocaster sucks as a guitars has to practice scales. You need to practice your Daw. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ableton music producer podcast. I'm your host Dan Griffin. And today we have Craig Anderson with us. And Craig is an internationally recognized musician. He's a journalist. He's written some great books. He's an expert in the music technology industry. He's played on produced and mastered over 20 major label recordings. Like I said, he's authored a lot of books here and he's written some great articles. He has an awesome blog on Craig. Anderton.com go Check that out Craig. Thanks for being with us today, man. Oh, it's my pleasure in and by the way, I worked on the manual for Ableton Live to so yes. Yes, and I remember you mentioning that send me when we first met a gear Fest a few months ago and I was blown away. I was like, oh wow, that's awesome. I mean you jumped in the game way before I did when it comes to enables an user which is always respectable. I'm using a since version 1.0. So yeah, it's it's a great program. I'm you know, it's not the only program I use but it's the only program I use for live performance. Yeah, I saw your presentation at Craigslist and I marched up to you or not Craigslist. I had a beer fest and I marched up to you afterwards and I was like Greg I loved what you had to say. You talked about modern science songwriting workflow, which I thought was really cool talk a little bit about the psychology behind songwriting. You've obviously worked on a lot of music and a lot of tracks. I'm all about the psychology of music, you know, Innovative tips for just working faster is always helpful for producers and musicians. Songwriters so I kind of wanted to spend some time today talking to you about your process behind that and tips that you have for our listeners. But before we dive in and no doubt about all that good stuff. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started with music and real quick? How did that lead you to where you are today? Oh boy. Well, that's that's the least interesting part because what's happening now is the most interesting part, but know when I when I was 10 years old, I saw Andres Segovia play and I just was blown away. Way by the guitar, and I wanted to learn how to play guitar. So for my 10th birthday, I got a guitar and I got a transistor radio kit and that's it my life and stone looking forward during my teenage years. I was in a band called Mandrake back in the 60s and did the whole touring thing and albums and all that and I we got just famous enough that I realized that that's not what I wanted to do. So after that, I became a session musician in New York did a lot of work there did some production and also, Got very involved in electronics. And that's where the book electronic projects from musicians happened then again to recording and one thing led to another did a lot of production work in the 80s a lot of engineering and in the 90s, like course face. I also co-founded electronic musician started that magazine and then fast forward to the turn of the century. I was doing a lot of work over in Germany a lot of live performance with DJ's but I was on guitar so that was interesting. I was I was thinking everything up to MPC. These and using the adrenaline. So that's so I have a legitimate interest in the whole live Ableton type of you know, the mindset the loops and things like that and then Loop libraries and I mean, there's been a lot of detours along the way but in the meanwhile here I am, you know, I have always been independent. I wear I did I did to have an actual job at one point. I worked at Gibson for four and a half years and learned more about it. Yeah. I learned a huge amount about guitars. I mean it was it was sort of like going to graduate school. Yeah. Now I'm back to doing the you know, the writing Consulting type of thing. I do work with a lot of Manufacturers about how to how to use their gear. So that's where a lot of these tips come from. Sure. Yeah. I've seen a lot of endorsements on your website with like Alesis and some other ones and there's a lot of really good brands out there that I know you've bumped shoulders with I'd be terrified working for a manufacturer like Gibson or as a drummer for like DW because I feel like my entire paycheck would just go back to them. Well, you know, it's it's a different it was a different kind of situation and Gibbs. And because the time they had a lot of different divisions and I was involved in with all of them on some level, you know with the speakers with Carrick and all that. But the other thing is that what I do is not really endorsements. It's much more along the lines of my boss of the people who read my stuff, you know, not the companies you're right and and what I'm finding out about a lot of companies is that they just want you to tell what's really happening. They don't want you to go out there and say oh, this is the greatest thing ever. Oh, I love it so much they want they want me to do is say here. So I use it. Here's what it's good for here's here's what to do with it to make it make the kind of sounds you want. That's what they really want out of things, which is very comfortable for me. You know, it's like I mean every time I go into the studio, it's I'm basically doing R&D. So that's you know, yeah, that's not bad either. That's a great job. Yeah for sure. You can wake up every day and play with new musical toys and make a living out of that. That's a great day. Well, let's kind of dive in a little bit to your presentation that you had a gear. Fest you've shared some really awesome songwriting workflows and tips. I know that we could sit here and talk about gear for Endless amount of days, which I've maybe we'll do another time. But yeah, I loved what you talked about with the psychology of music and you kind of started off with that in your presentation. One thing you mentioned was about how the brain processes data in two ways related to music you talked about like the left and the right side of the brain and East you mentioned that the left brain does not. It's not part of the songwriting itself. It's more about like prototyping the songs not producing them. I thought that was that's very true. That's interesting. Can you kind of expand on that a little bit? Yeah, actually I'm less interested in talking about gear because gear is relatively unimportant, you know in the in the process what ultimately you have to look at what your desired result is, and the desired result is to have an emotional impact on the listener, you know, the listener one of the things I said at the seminar was no radio station ever called me. Up and said, you know we were going to play your CD but you use the solid state mic preamp now, they just they just don't do that. But in terms of in terms of the hemisphere thing, okay, so, you know one is constantly improving one's craft and ones art. I mean, otherwise, what's the point of doing it and I've always been looking for that Holy Grail of how to have creativity go as smoothly as possible into something finished and lately. I've really made some progress along those lines. I'm now doing songs that in An entire song blocked out in an evening and finished in a couple days and you know mixed and mastered within a week and this is very unusual for me and a lot of it is because I have been analyzing what goes into the creative process and what's Paramount is to be able to work rapidly. So when there's an inspiration you have to be able to really run with it right then and there you can't get hung up on, you know, fixing your computer rebooting things or whatever. Right? And the other thing is that you want to just keep going while you're in that zone and The reason why that's so important is why how the brain processes information? There are two hemispheres in the brain the right hemisphere the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere is more about colors and images and emotions and things like that. Whereas the left side of the brain which is controlled by the right hand is more analytical. So the analogy I use is that the right brain is a Macintosh gooey and the left brain is MS-DOS, you know, it's very nice. Yeah makes sense. So you need them both, you know, but the thing is that what what's interesting from a creative standpoint is once you're in one side of the brain, it's hard to switch over to the other one so you can be in your right brain mode. You know, you have some you have some great idea for a song some great Groove going and you're really In the Heat of creativity and then something happens that causes you to switch over to the left brain like he get a phone call or there's a problem with the computer or you know, you have to re patch things or whatever and now when you try to To go back into that creative space, it's gone. Yeah, I know and that's that that is the biggest problem. I think in terms of the songwriting process. So there's there's two approaches you have to take one is to have as smooth and efficient a setup as humanly possible and I went through a lot of the details there. I mean one of the things that I always say is your interface should have way more inputs and you ever think you'll need so that everything can be patched up all the time and you never have Is a patch Bay. I have no patch Bay in my studio. If I want to record something. I record enable a track it's ready to go. The levels are set. It's all good. Yeah. The other thing is that we're using the beautiful thing about Dawes is at their nonlinear. So if you have a great idea for a chorus, you can work on the chorus, you know, and if you have a great idea for a lead line, you can put that, you know, five minutes down the timeline and bring it in when you want it. Yeah, and I've sometimes sometimes I'll have like some really, you know, No song will start with A Chorus and I'll work on the course. I'll do the vocal of put on a baseline. I'll do that and then after hearing that enough times it almost suggests a verse and then I'll work on the verse and it all is a very smooth continuous process. And that's how the song gets blocked out in an evening. That makes perfect sense. I can I can totally speak to that from experience this having my Moog already run into my Apollo and my vocal mic and like a lion for my bassist and everything else just ready to go and yeah. Find that I call that process when it's blocked like musical constipation. It's like you you have this moment where like you you have that burst of inspiration and creativity as you were saying and for me personally and I think a lot of other people there's a very small window where that's going to live and then once it passes it's hard to get back into that zone for sure what exactly it's I mean and one thing to me the Muse is a real thing, you know, it's not it's not just an abstract concept. To me. They're the muses is a real idea. There is something that that comes and takes over and that if you're if you respected an honor it and work with it and don't let it get impatient. You can keep you know, you can keep doing it. So, I mean, that's something that that does matter, you know, yeah for sure. You know what one other thing about the left brain right brain thing, you know, there's there's a there's a nerve Highway between the two hemispheres called the corpus callosum, and it's Pickering musicians than in most people which to me imply. Yeah, which is interesting because we are constantly shifting back and forth between the two I mean music is mathematical at its heart and but the ability to stay in a hemisphere is important and one of the one of the questions people ask me a lot is, you know, there's music from the 50s and the 60s and 70s at that. That's Immortal. You know, this is this is the first time that I can think of a generation not rejecting the music of its parents. It's you know, I mean I see I see people are teenagers are there listening to a CDC there listening to Led Zeppelin, you know. Yeah, I mean that has not gone away and our Buddy Holly for that matter. I mean Buddy, Holly Holly is still current and look how you know, he's but that's almost 50 years old. Yeah more than 50 years old. So, you know people think oh, my, you know must be the console or must be that these vacuum tubes or must be you know, this or that I think that the reason why those things were Classics aside from the fact that they were collaborative. Nature the artist got to stay in the right brain the whole time. They didn't have to worry about aligning the tape recorder or rewinding the tape the engineer took care of that the engineer lived in the left brain the whole time and the producer who made the most money off the project had to live in both had to be able to jump between both hemispheres. And that's a difficult thing to do and that's what makes a good producer that they can listen to something and gauge the emotional impact of it and also gauge the technical merits of it. Yeah. So I think that that kind of workflow in that that way of working promoted better music and and more emotional music and the ability to do it faster. We've all heard the stories about, you know, Beatles albums being cut in a week or whatever. And so that's why it's so important to have a setup where essentially itself engineering. You know, she keyboard keyboard shortcuts markers, you can jump between being really familiar with your dog means you can engineer without having to think about it. Yeah. And that's really I could not have said that better myself. That was really well. But obviously you've been doing this a while one thing, you know, a lot of our listeners here kind of have to wear all those hats there. They are now the the engineer and the producer and the musician seems like there's a lot of those out there now that people are all in the box and then the doll with like Technologies. It's evolved since those times back in the day. Yeah. I think you one thing I tell students. I have taught and you know, my experience is Is being able to kind of develop that muscle memory so to speak where you get to the point of where you do all the left brain work. So you actually know how to get the results when the right brain is kicking in with the creativity. So, you know, it's like doing your homework. If you don't know how to use the dog really, well, you know, it's not you can lose those moments of inspiration where that music kicks in and so I find the more practice I do with like my left brain of maybe what some people would say is like the boring agonizing work of like learning. The doll and like practicing and making absolute crap, you know, then like once you have that right brain creativity kick in you have that muscle memory. So to speak to where you can start getting those results really quickly and being able to you know, bust out music faster like you were saying well, you know, a lot of a lot of people think that that they should be able to just sit down at a dawn make it work because they know computers, you know, and I've never I don't know anybody who goes to Guitar Center buys a Stratocaster stir and a mailbag method book comes back a week later and says, hey, I don't play like Jimi Hendrix the Stratocaster sucks. You know, it just doesn't it just doesn't work that way. Yeah what people just don't a lot of people just don't understand is that today's Daw sitting in that computer is equivalent to like a million dollar Studio A couple of years ago, you know, I mean all those instruments all those synchronization options and bussing and routing and preamps and the back line in the compressors and you've got all these signal processors. You need to learn in Virtual. It's not all that. It's an awful lot. I say to people it's very much as if you walked into record plant in 1969 and the engineer said hey, I've got great news and I've got bad news the great news. I'm only charging you two dollars an hour to use the studio. The bad news is no one's going to be here. Here are the keys good luck, you know people would be totally lost and and they're lost a lot with Dawes. So this is as a guitarist has to practice scales. You need to practice your dog ice. Spend one of the one of the really fortunate aspects of my gig is that I do a tip every Friday for PreSonus for the PreSonus blog about using Studio One, and I also do a monthly column for sound on sound about Cakewalk. So I'm essentially getting paid to learn the programs which is a really which is a really good deal. So I'll go yeah, I'll go deep into rabbit holes. And but the other thing is that when I go deep into those rabbit holes, I'm always recording because you never know when inspiration is going to strike and there. So many times that I've been like working on the DAW and being like totally, you know, totally left brain and trying to learn something new and I'm playing guitar keyboards are coming up with a synth patch and massive or you know, whatever. Yeah and all of a sudden like it's like wow, I like that and instantly I'm in my right brain and I'm gone, you know, it's like I can I can finish the article later. Yeah. So you need to be sensitive to those moments. I mean, that's that's another thing so many times. People get into into a creative block, you know. Oh what can I do just do anything just just sit down and play. You can't go wrong by playing something will happen might be good might be bad might being different. I'm not one of those people who you know rights 50 songs and two of them are good and I work on those pretty much everything I start I actually finish and turn into a song because because I'm not being conscious about I'm not trying to write a song it comes to me and I just just With it. Yeah. Yeah. I find when I have more of a playful mentality where I'm not trying to write a hit. So to speak my best work comes out where it's it's really just almost playing for the sake of the love of it and having fun rather than trying to force it. You know, I I find that I write better that way when I'm not overthinking things and I'm just enjoying the moment. I've never made more music and I've never had more fun playing music that I am right now. I mean, I mean I loved being on sigh look when I was doing 200 live dates a year. I love being on stage. I love that, you know two hours of being on stage, but all the stuff in between really, you know all the traveling and then the, you know sleep and yeah, the legalities the accounting the the maintenance, you know, just just all that stuff is just not fun, you know, but but the other thing is that okay, though. Let me just get off on a little bit of a tangent. Which is go for it. I really think that we're entering a golden age of like personal music because if you think about it for a second music is only been we've only been capable of freeze-drying music and reconstituting it later for like a hundred thirty years or so before recording all music was transitory. It was ephemeral if you miss Beethoven's 3rd you missed Beethoven's 3rd, you know, I mean just that that's just the way it was you weren't going to go online and here it wasn't going to be Leaked with an MP3 it existed for that moment. Right and and so is a novelty early. It music is always been a personal thing and people play instruments because they like to play instruments before TVs became popular every home will not every home and most homes had a piano, you know, people played guitars School taught you how to do things and it's only it only became warped into this concept of being a business and the 60s and actually lessen the 60s but in the 70s and 80s He's really became like oh, this is a way to make money. This is gig, you know and and the emphasis got off the fact that it's a voyage of personal Discovery. It's a creative thing, you know, and so like I see people I see the Old Guard basically, you know looking at people with Ableton Live and on a laptop in their bedrooms and they sort of go look at the kids pushing buttons with Ableton Live and it's like no man. This is like they're they're discovering music. They're like really having a good time. They're becoming lifers in this, you know, yeah. Yeah, and so, So and so the thing is and although ever make any money at it. Well if they won't make any money if they like fishing or bowling or going to the movies or anything else, you know sure it's an and I'll tell you the process of making music for me every time I do a song. It's like a Rorschach, you know, I see myself coming back at me. I learned so much about myself and I have such an interesting time doing it that even if someone came to me and said no one else will ever hear your music ever again, I would I'll keep doing it just the same, you know that to me. It's about it's a personal thing and I'm glad and I'm glad to see it's getting back to that and I'm thrilled that somebody can go on YouTube and get a hundred subscribers. You know, I mean, that's great that I don't I don't look down at that all. Mmm-hmm. Yeah. No absolute them times. I have the same mentality as you and that is you know, I think when you start to take something as creative and expressive and is vulnerable. His music and you're putting it out there as yourself me that's not really easy to do and you start out because it is a big piece of who you are, you know, you create something you put a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears into make something that you're proud of or you think you're going to be proud of and you put it out there. It can be a little it can be a little scary like invulnerable and and it's therapy in the end of the day like for most people like music really, is there be above all else and yeah. It's what you have to do. I mean a lot of times people come up to me after seminars. It's like hey, you know, what can I do to be successful and my answer is always you have to be yourself. And the reason why is because the odds of syncing up with the rest of the population to where they all love you is incredibly remote, but if your yourself and people like what you do, then you have a guaranteed career because you're not using artifice. You're not using focus groups, you know, you're not you're not Not making up stuff you are who you are people like who you are and they'll love it. If on the other hand, you're always calculating and try to think. Oh, what should I do or should I you know should be like this or should I try to be like this or whatever then you're basically doomed you make it one hit out of it, but you won't have a career. Yeah, that's good. You know, it took me a while to actually start sharing my music when I first got started like on social media with my friends. It was almost like well, I've got to create this page and have this huge image. Like now just share it with people that mean a lot to you and see if they like it and they'll share it and then see what happens from there. You know. Well, I gotta I gotta tell you something that happened to me at age 18, which was the most valuable thing ever. I was doing a concert in Philadelphia and back then they had, you know morning and afternoon papers and we did this concert and when the reviews came out one of the paper one of the papers just / the two ribbons. They thought it was horrible as this incredibly negative review the other / was incredibly positive it was like this is great. I've never heard this is so fantastic. And so okay, but what was interesting to me was that they Through their judgments based on the same things, like for example, the negative one was like so this group just got up in a play for an hour and a half of it in her interact with the audience or anything. He has kind of standoffish in the positive review is like thank God. They just went up there and played music. No, they didn't they didn't say hello, Philadelphia. And yeah, and and when I was playing the synthesizer, this was back in 68, I guess. Yeah, so I was playing it synthesize that made on stage negative you was like, I'm the worst part was when the guitar player sat down. Down at this box and made these sound and then the positive review is like and the best part was when the guitar player went and made these cells. I'd never heard before that's eunos and to me that was like the most valuable lesson ever which was just put it out there because some people are going to hate it and something people are going to love it. Yes, he do it for the people who love it and for the people hate it they have plenty of other things. They can listen to yep haters will always hate just remember that. Yeah always be haters and and they don't matter no. Now and they shouldn't that's that's really funny. That's true and music subjective. You know, it comes down to everybody has their own tastes and styles and interests and you know, you don't there the world doesn't need another dead mouse, you know, or whoever else there already is one so and even more and even more so in the age of YouTube, I mean I used to be with, you know back back in the day record companies would do like, you know, they want to find out find me the next Springsteen find me the next Prince or whatever, you know, but now It's and Springsteen are click away. You know, it's like it's like none of that. None of that stuff ever goes away now. So you have to be original you have to be different and you have to rise above the signal to noise ratio, if you want to be successful, right, but you know, but the other thing is that when you're doing it yourself, you have no constraints like so I do an album project every year and the one I did in 2016 was called Neo and it was that was short for Neo psychedelic music for the 21st century and the Prem and the premise was is psychedelic music had never been invented. Someone did it now. What would it sound like and then the one for 2017 was completely different was called Simplicity and it was like all songs. They all told stories. The voice was up front. There was a lot of acoustic guitar there was like even ukuleles, you know, things like that, but they weren't done in traditional. Ukulele style of course, and it was the premise for that was like, okay. What if Buddy Holly had been born in 1995, you know, what kind of stuff would he do in the studio? And then the one for for 2018 was a continuous mixed cultural de vivre and it's like Half EDM half Rockies like EDM meets rock and I knows and I know it's successful because EDM people say, oh man, it's too much like rock for me and The Rock people say hey, it's too much like EDM for me. Okay. So the people like EDM and rock thinks it's fabulous. And what I'm working on right now is a collection of singles were every song is completely different. I'm right now. I'm the song I'm working on right now. What I was doing just before you called was I'm actually doing a cover version. I hardly ever do cover versions, but Brian hard Grew From Look enemy and and I are going to be collaborating on walking on doing a collaboration of a cover version of walking on the moon very clean. And so I'm doing this version of walking on the moon and I'm like blocking it out. So we have a prototype to work from and I really slowed the tempo down. It's got like really heavy guitar chords. I mean it's a very different thing so, you know it's and then but the song before that was almost like a ballot. I mean, they're all they're all different now and I can do that. You know, that's a record companies nightmare, but for me, but for me, it's incredible. Amount of fun, you know? Yeah. Yeah for sure, you know, and I heard so many times when I first started making music it was like find your sound be original find your sound but I was like, but what is my sounds you know, I I used to like country music and then I got into like jazz and then I was like really into Funk and then I really got into EDM and then I was in the future base and then I was into like indie rock and like it just a little bit and so I produced literally all of those genres now that I've done all of that I look back for myself and I'm like, you know, I think I found my original sound because I've practiced all those different genres and I find little pieces of those that kind of suck out and it's like now I really know what I like to produce at this moment and it will probably change in the future to not exactly the thing about being involved in all those forms of music is that they inform what you're doing now, like I was doing one song on the Simplicity album and it needed a guitar solo in it, and I thought you know I pulled out like a Wes Montgomery type of thing, you know for my jazz days and it's great. You know, I've also I've also produced a lot of classical stuff. There's a there's a harpsichord is named Kathleen McIntosh is fabulous, and I close Mike to harpsichord instead of doing traditional harpsichord Mikey and she loved the way that sounded and we did an album of Solaris sonatas and also Bach and the way that she plays it. It's not like a reverend museum piece. Thing it's like Bach came over that day and said hey Kathy, I got a new song check it out. Let's go and she plays it that she plays it like it's so alive and vital and when you close Mike it when you know when you know rock and roll piano miking techniques and you applied to a harpsichord all of a sudden the thing sounds contemporary and real and big as I'm awesome. I'm gonna do that. I said to me eventually I would love to hear that. Well, yes at give me your give me your address and I'll send you a copy of the CD. Yeah, please do that'd be really cool. I'm always in for new tricks like that that just sounds fun and and non conventional instruments are so fun to play with. Well the ukulele stuff that I'm doing is okay. Here's how I got into ukulele owes Windows was doing an update and it was like taking forever and I have this ukulele that's been sitting around the got it got it in France like years ago or something. Yeah, and I was just playing it and all of a sudden this song started coming out and then I learned that you know, if you might get correctly and you know do interesting processing with it and you can you know, you can throw anything. On that I get thrown a guitar when people hear the music with the ukulele, they don't think it's a ukulele they think it's like some ethnic instrument that I found or something, you know, because they're just not used to hearing it used in that context. So the classical stuff works its way into what I do. Like, I do a lot of Court substitutions and things like undiscovered version of walking on the moon. There's a lot of chord substitutions in their relative minors and things and it's you know, oh and I'll tell you another it was another thing Brian and I did a project once LDV to it was a live performance project with just the two of us and he played drums and I played guitar but the guitar that I had was a Gibson HD 6X which had every string available as a separate output. So I took the two bottom strings and put them through October dividers. So I had base. I took the top four strings and put them through a chorus for kind of like an Andy summers are all the same and then I had pickups that I that I put through Distortion and because I was I started off on classical guitar play with my finger so I could articulate bass and rhythm. Leads at the same time on this guitar and then we both put our vocals through DigiTech Harmony things. So he sounded like a full band with just two people. That's what but what was really cool about it was that I didn't have to worry about having the keyboard player or the bass player follow along or anything if I wanted to extend a solo or not extend a solo or switch songs or anything as long as Brian can hear me? We were we were good to go. Yeah, and I mean that kind of experience is fantastic to I mean, If I frankly if if I was given a choice that I could only be in the studio for the rest of my life or only play live for the rest of my life. I would choose playing live because that's when you get to collaborate. That's when you get to interact with an audience, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just now starting to play a lot more alive than I ever have and I love it. It's great way to meet people and find new artists that you potentially want to collaborate with in the future from other bands and musicians that you share the stage with it's a lot of fun. You know, I had a happy accident. Then kind of similar to what you're talking about with the guitar and all that crazy stuff. I I was playing my electric drum kit my role ends and I had an external instrument in Ableton already queued up and I had midi running through that and so I didn't even think about that that channel is armed and my Moog sub 37 was running into it, but the midi that was being played on my electric drum set was actually triggering notes from the Moog and I didn't even realize that and I ended up like playing some really crazy preset. That was like, Boot up on my drums and it became like this really cool lead line for one of my songs like complete accident. And I think that's one reason. I love Ableton so much is just because it's full of happy accidents like that that I discover along the way and any dog really but like when you just have non-conventional ways of things happening, it's there's all kinds of results. I can you know take you in a direction. You never expected that's new and fresh and creative. Well, did you see did you see the seminar where I was doing the harmonic editing? And playing the one guitar chord over the EDM track. That wasn't the songwriting when I was in I don't think yeah that no, that's right. It was the second one. Okay now I mean now that was something that was something kind of this harmonic editing stuff in Studio One is is mind-blowing. Yeah. My premise at the seminar was that anything sounds better with an acoustic guitar if you have an acoustic guitar in the background and he it's token as a true guitarist. You know, it just I mean, so I and I said even EDM yeah, I said EDM sounds great with an acoustic guitar and people look to me like, you know what I said, and so I said but let's suppose you only know one chord. So I queued up this EDM track and I just played one cord all the way through and of course, it sounded terrible because it would be going through these chord changes and stuff like that. So I drag the Baseline up to the cord track and Studio One it parsed out what the chord progression was and then I had the guitar follow that so the guitar follow Along with this chord progression provided this deriving sort of sound in the background, you know, and the fact that I could do that and then I can change the courts like if I want to go from a g to an E minor I can just change it in the cord track and it's not midi. We're talking about polyphonic audio here. I can play a part on rhythm guitar and the Polyphonic audio is actually program figures it out and says, oh here's the chords you're playing and and you can take that and then you can do things like pitch drum. So especially if they're symbols and you know something that sustains like that so on. I'm finding between that and sidechaining which I'm also a big fan of doing with sense is is you can actually have like three or four tracks but it sounds huge because there's so much going on because they're so tightly synchronized, you know? Yeah, and that's it. That's another one of my that's another one. I think switch that I truly believe that every time you add a track it diminishes the importance of the other tracks. So you really need to think about it, you know. Yeah. Well Ableton has some Max for live instruments that do their amazing. To the yeah, I mean there was even a I've never tried it with guitar doing what you were talking about. But there's a creative extensions pack that has something called pitch and it actually pitched shifts the audio in real time, which could probably do something similar. Yeah, the thing about Studio one that's different. Is it does it polyphonically so it can actually go inside like a c-major chord on a guitar and turn into a G major 7th Hmm. This is really which is really bizarre. And of course when you're transposing like that it does make some tamper old temporal. Differences but that made it work better with the EDM because I had sort of this electronic edge to it. But Ableton, I mean the thing about Ableton that to me is like the strongest thing about it are the scenes, you know, and the other thing about Ableton that I love is that everybody uses it differently when I will rip, you know, there was one time there was one time I was in the at the Frankfurt music show and I heard somebody was playing with Ableton Live, you know, it was like one of the one of the people there and they were making the same kind of music that I did same kind of approach same kind of Like sound and everything, but when I looked over his shoulder he did it in a completely different way. Yeah, I mean completely different but the end result was the same. I'm very much into for live performance. I'm very much into having all looped all the loops going all the time connected to a fader box and then I bring the loops in and out and mix on an individual seeing that I'll switch to another scene and then I'll be mixing those in and out. So it may just starting to so the scene will have like 16 Loops going. Yeah, but the scene will come on with only one or two Loops then I'll start Building stuff up and taking back and all that. So it's really more like a performing mixdown type thing. Yeah, one of my friends he's done some webinars with fly producers online my website and he uses Cliff ex-pro. You've ever heard of Cliff X, which is just basically a scripting language that hacks able to basically do anything able to isn't it doesn't already do and he does some heated some crazy live looping stuff in session view that like, I haven't really seen before and he's just a mad scientist. Of of Abelson hacking so yeah, but he did a cliff up X webinar on our website and recently I saw he was creating his own Cliff X commands to do some looping that is just like crazy. So yeah, I mean, you're right though. Everybody uses Ableton differently in different ways. And I think that's one thing that makes it so fun. And in the why I continue to want to be a learner above all else, you know, there's always I think something that we can learn from other people just you know, even even if you've been doing it, A hundred years or 10 years, you know, I think everybody has kind of their own approach and we can all just learn from each other and find new ways of doing the same thing, which is just fun. Well, you know, the other thing about Ableton that's intrigued me from a business standpoint is for many years. I mean until push came along they were really a one product company and yet there are a Powerhouse in the industry in terms of sales, you know, and so what what they did, I mean what they did is brilliant, they they created a market and then have a hundred percent Market. No, I mean, yeah, really cool. Yeah bailing bit League really tried there for a little while and I don't I don't know how they're doing. But I tried playing with the wig for a little bit and I just have to be honest. I wasn't the biggest fan. I was like, they tried to recreate Ableton but Ableton works fine for me the way it isn't how so ableton's like SEO, you know, it has roots that go back to what 2000-2001 something like that. Yeah. So, I mean if you're into Ableton you're into Ableton your you know, I mean, it's yeah, and it's You know, there's a there's a time there to Ableton stories were rise talking with Gerhard one wasn't a version for they were about to introduce Smitty and I said, oh God get hurt don't you know people are gonna want event views and staff and notation and it's going to be this and that and stand to what you're doing now or what you're in any and he put his hand on my shoulder. He said don't feel like Craig we do it the Ableton way and he did, you know, I think mid he's really done really well in Ableton and they are Yeah. Oh, yeah, when seven came out he said hey, why do you think of all the new features and I said, you know, I really don't want to insult you. But I only use a fraction really of what Ableton does because it does that's exactly what I need to do. I know it really well live is a great program. And so, you know, I'm sorry, but I really haven't checked out some of these things and I thought it would be kind of like, you know, I thought he would kind of make not angry, but I thought it'd be a little disappointed that I didn't go into it further, but instead his Dude was like that's perfect. You know we give these we give these tools and people use different tools for different things. You know. Yeah, that's very true. And you know, I've heard the argument that well why wouldn't she just want to produce in the same doll that you could perform him, but to be honest with you. I don't know too many people that start a project with the song finish that song in that project mix and master the song in that same project and then perform it live in that same project that doesn't really happen. From what I see. Oh the other the other thing is that I mean Ableton Live the audio engine just doesn't quit. I mean, you know, I joke with people but it's really true. The only way to get it to crash is to take your laptop and drop it 10 feet onto a concrete floor and then he and then even then the audio engine might still be going even though your screens cracked, you know, so I didn't hear it. Yeah, I mean that and that in reason to me are like two of the most outstanding programs anything else is a risk live. I mean, I mean now granted, you know live there are are compromises in order to obtain that audio engine I get that but they're not compromises that affect me for a live performance in there and they enabled me to do live performance. I've never had a problem with it, you know knock on wood, but in terms of songwriting I find Studio One to be fastest and most efficient by far. It's like, you know, it's like a sports car, you know. Yeah Ableton Live is Ableton Live is like a private jet and you know studio and is like a sports car and Cake Walks Like an SUV and Cubase and with Cuba. I mean think about Cubase is you can do anything in Cubase. I mean if Cubase can't do it. It probably can't be done. But trying to figure out how to do it. You know, you really have to get deep into that program. Yes. I mean if we're talking about Dawes for transportation and my mind's and I know people are going to hate me for this and I don't care. I see Pro Tools as like The Flintstones car. It's been around for a really long time Pro Tools Pro Tools is like that big friendly dog that comes up and like she but isn't too bright, you know. It's nice enough and you know, it doesn't doesn't poop on the floor to Mansion. Yeah, I look prototype Pro Tools is you know, no it's not my favorite program, but I get why people like it and I'll tell you what when when folks are first transitioning from two-inch tape to computers and then asked me what to do. I'd always say by Pro Tools because the Paradigm was so similar to what they were using. You know, it's very easy to figure out it does it still does the busing thing really? Well? Yeah, I think about Pro Tools is Take forever to do stuff. But when they do it, they pretty much do it, right like the elastic audio. They were late with that. They were late with the clip gains. So, you know and Pro Tools was really designed for mixing and for tracking right and that's it. Does those things very well? Exactly if that's all you use it for then more power to you. That's great. So ya know it's I mean everything everything has a reason I mean like Mixcraft. Okay, a lot of people who use like really nice Dawes and big expensive things that kind of look down and Mixcraft because it's like 99 bucks 100 bucks or whatever but Mixcraft has this incredible on demand sample and loop library and I told people it's the cheapest needle drop music library, you'll ever find and the most versatile because if you need if you need to put together a Bossa Nova thing for a travel agency 60 seconds spot Mixcraft is going to do it faster than anything else, especially You then have to turn around and do a scene where the detective walks into a club and there's a punk rock band playing something. You know, it's it's great that you can put you can put together anything in like seconds, you know, so yeah, I mean it they all they all have different things that they do and I totally agree. I think it comes down to the train of thought of you know, in my mind it's use the tools available to you that you have to achieve the result, you know from the end of the day. Yeah. It's about the journey, but I think in The end of the day it's about getting the end result. And if if you want to do something and you have the tools that can get you there, you know, don't buy a bunch of things and then not really know how to use them really well and get distracted by trying to learn something new without knowing what you have and you know in the plug-in world's the same but dude, I have so many plugins that have been given to me and that I purchased that I haven't really spent time learning or using and and I think you know if I was to go in and try to 10 all my hours learning every single one at this point. Like I would know all of them kind of half-assed. I've yeah. Yeah, but what would make a loop but it wouldn't make any difference on the ultimate emotional impact. I mean, you know, but people ask me what's what you know, it's what's the best thing they could upgrade their studio and I and I joke, but I'm serious when I say write a better chorus, you know, I mean, that's the cheapest upgrade ever and as far as plugins are concerned and I was talking with one guy uses Studio One and he's like, oh man. I wish I had a pultec equalizer. Eliezer in there, you know, I'm going to have to buy a pultec because you know, I really like the sound of pultec. So I love the sound of pull text to I mean I was in a video I was in I was in the studio when they were new, you know, so, I mean I'm used him for a long time. Yeah, and I said you can get a full text sound with the equalizer in Studio One just lower the queue and I showed him I said here look here's here's what a here's what a curve would look like with a pultec here. We can do that same curve with with this EQ but because it didn't say pultec on it and a den of a button that said, you know prices for the poll tax and it wasn't an I think what a politic actually does and just saying. Oh, yeah, of course, I can do that. Yeah, that's funny stuff funny. You say that a similar story where somebody was like man. I just I need to go out and buy an SSL compressor and I was like, well, you know that like Ableton Luke compressors modeling this a cell right and like wait, what was like, yeah don't need to go out and spend like a couple hundred dollars on this compressor like that's used you could just use this it's given to you. It's going to give you a similar end result. You're always off better using the bundled stuff anyway, because it's that way when the version, you know, x y z comes out it's still going to be compatible and you know, you know, it's still going to work with your operating system. And that kind of thing like when I use Cakewalk, I have their their C A2 which is an la-2a compressor type thing. Yeah. I love the sound of that thing, but Studio one has one two, so rather than insert the Cakewalk plugging in Studio One. I just use the one that's in Studio One and you really can't tell any difference between the two because ultimately, you know, it's the vocal that you're listening to. Not the compressor. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you know for me personally when I collaborate with people I love getting stems. So usually when I'll have somebody that's a musician kind of start and just record the idea whatever they're using and then I'll take those audio. I'll take that audio and I'll chop it up and have fun with it almost creating a remix out of something that's already existing. I finding having content when collaborating with somebody that you said just like recording and coming up with ideas and then taking that Somewhere else but having something to start with rather than just jumping into a studio with a complete blank canvas having an idea to start with is always something to build off as much easier. Yeah, and you know, it's so for me I've been talking mostly it would sound like I'm talking mostly about like conventional songs and guitars and things like that. But Parker that is a return to form. I mean, I had an all-electronic band Back in 1970 called anomaly and it was like all just homemade instruments electronics patch cords things like that. I did the With with Linda Cohen, the classical guitarist with like electronic backgrounds and things like that. So I've done a lot of electronic stuff. Yeah life and I've done a lot of the and the playing with the DJ's over in Germany and all that and that's but that's a very different type of collaboration than songs because with songs you do have somewhat of a structure you can play off of you know, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and I've heard some of your tracks and it's very cool stuff. I love the non conventional approach that we were talking about earlier. With you just messing around with that guitar and running it through pitch shifting and all kinds of stuff. I think that just makes for an original sound and I just I think it's fun. I love what I've been hearing and I'm stoked to hear more of your music that you're doing in the future. But you were talking about this was that the harpsichord or something like that. Yeah that that those were actually those are the two albums that I did. I'm not I don't know anything planned with her in the near future. Okay move I've moved away now, but I mean I probably will at some point. I mean the thing that interests me right now. Is I was putting a solo on the Walking on the Moon thing and I'm really getting into sculpting lead guitar solos. Like for example, there's one part where there's a run of notes and they sort of all mushed together because they were distorted and I just split the at the notes added a little DK to them. So now they're all like very distinct and individual and then the other thing I'm I've gotten into is what I call fo feedback which is like I have a note that's that that dies out at the end of the solo. And what I did was I took that note I stretch it out. So it was twice as long bumped it up 19 semitones and then fade it in and fade it out. So there's that like feedback wine that comes in Italian. Oh, I love that. So it's this writ and I also transposed a couple notes. So then you do something a little more interesting. Melodically. It's and shifted the timing around a little bit and not always putting it on the beat exactly because if you know, if you put it ahead of the beat at Russia's it a little bit get ya adds to the energy. Oh, that's another thing. So here's we could go on forever. But here's here's something that that's a really important takeaway for people which is I was talking a lot in my seminars. Oh the compelling mixes one. That's the one. Yeah, you didn't see that one. Okay and compelling mix. I talked a lot about Tempo changes. And if you analyze songs from the pre click era there were Tempo changes for sure, but they weren't really random and I put up a screen shot of the tempo track for Papa's Got a Brand New Bag. Egg and what's fascinating about it is the consistency of the tempo variations is uncanny and the whole thing has a linear speed increase over the course of the song. But every time it goes into Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, it speeds up then it comes back down again, but there's a little semi speed up a slight dip in the major speed up before it says Papa's Got a Brand New Bag and it's consistent every single time. I mean the other another fascinating one was Pat Benatar where the tempo basically tracks Picture of her voice as she sang higher the see this Temple would speed up a little bit and when she went down it would slow down and there were alone he had and it's not I mean, it's not random at all. Now the problem is that when you do recording to a click it's it's really hard. I think it I think it's damn near impossible actually to have Tempo changes as you're in the process of writing a song on a multitrack project. Yeah. I was going to say that would Be really hard. Yeah, that's the bad news. Here's the good news. So what you can do is when the song is mixed what I do is I take the song I bring it back into Studio One, which uses, you know, elastic Pro like Ableton does and Cake warping. Yeah. Yeah and what I'll do is I'll make up a fictitious tempo for the file say, okay. The song is 90 beats per minute or hundred beats per minute or whatever and then I'll create Tempo variations in the tempo track so I can speed up the song and slow down. Song just like you would with regular as if he'd done it from the beginning. So I'll have that little speed up just before the course. I'll have that little speed up just as a guitar solos getting her for the end and it just makes all the difference in the world when I demoed I just figured this out a while ago it so I demoed the first song where I really had that realized in the compelling mix of seminar. I did that in Madison. I did that in gear Fest. I've done that now in different places and at the End of that song The People burst into Applause. This normally doesn't happen when you're just showing an example of something, you know. Yeah, but I'm convinced that those Tempo changes made it a much more compelling and emotional experience for people. Hmm. That's really interesting. I'm going to start trying doing some more of that. That's yeah bouncing out the track and then bring it back in and doing those Tempo variations. That's cool because you're right. I mean Tempo does drive a lot of the energy of the song which is why you have a lot of bands that want to Pump It Up two or three BPM when they play live well in the other thing the other but the other it's the variations. I mean, yeah, you can see it up and that's cool. Right but right but it's you're creating a journey with the energy levels really at that point. That's exactly that's so cool. That's great. If you want to hear if you want to hear that but that particular song is the most recent song. I posted on my YouTube channel. So if you want to hear what it actually sounds like when applied to like a real world song it's in there like right now, but from now on believe me almost it makes you want to Go back and redo every single song recorded and it makes it a nightmare for anybody that wants to remix your song or try to detail it live. Well, there's always the version that doesn't have the tempo change it but the things that's true, but they are subtle they are subtle, you know, and and they're not at the beginning and end where you going to do beat matching. Anyway, yeah, you know and and but I'm also kind of considerate sometimes like on Schwab untoward video of the last cut was actually going to go into something at 133 and the cut was at 122 and over the As 30 or 35 seconds It sped up literally from 120 to 130 three and it's a big jump. It's a huge jump, but you don't feel it. I play for people and I'm and and you you feel it. You don't hear it. You don't say oh, it's speeding up. You just all of a sudden you're like getting more excited. You don't know why that's really cool. That's a fun hack. Yeah, that's good stuff. Now, I'll definitely be playing some more of that in the future. I love that idea of doing that I've done Tempo changes but not gradually like that. It's usually kind of faded with short parts of the song but you know, you should see you should see the tempo map for the song Pump. There's called my butterfly and that you should see the temple map for it. I mean, it looks like will include will include a link to that as well as links to your YouTube channel and website in the show notes of this episode. So if you guys are listening right now go ahead and check out the show notes. You'll see links down there for this. I can send you a screenshot of the activity screen shot of the temple map if you're interested. I think you'd find it interesting. Sure. Yeah, we can include that as well. That would be really cool. Okay. Yeah Craig. This has been really fun. I've really enjoyed this. Yeah, I loved what you had to say at your presentation at gear Fest. I think, you know you have a lot of wisdom that you can share with a lot of people and you were in some great books. I encourage everybody check that out. I if Apple haven't subscribed to your blog people need to do that Craig anderton.com. We'll have a link in the show notes. Like I mentioned already the YouTube channel definitely check that out and I believe you'll be possibly offering some courses or things in the future excited stay tuned for that everyone. Yeah. Actually I have a digital storefront on reverb.com is going to go live soon. And one of the things I'm planning to do in the near future is to do an actual course on recording because a lot of people Hard time getting started with it, you know and it's something that can that can go on, you know, there can be a lot of topics that are covered. So yeah, there's that but but as you mentioned Craig Anderson.com is where you're going to find what's happening. So that's a good place to check out. You know, what what books are coming out personal appearances where I'm going to be in your area that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned everyone. Thanks Craig. This has been great. It's been a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll have you back on the podcast in the future sometime and can stay connected with the future happenings of what you're doing and thanks again for being here and joining me. And yeah, I look forward to seeing more. Yeah. It's a lot of fun and it's a lot and I probably ran too long, but hey, no, no you can edit. Honestly I could sit here and talk for hours. But I have a meeting so I have to go I know but no I absolutely love chatting with you. And if you ever come to the Indianapolis area, please hit me up and we'll hang out and I don't know if you're a coffee drinker or not or will find some. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I have to go through Indianapolis to get Beerfest yeah, that's true. I'm down the road. You can come hang out at my little my studio. I have a good time. Yeah, cool. All right. Well, I really enjoyed this and I hope people get something out of it. Oh for sure. I know I have and I'm sure everybody else will too. So thanks again. Enjoy the rest of your week. I'll talk to you soon Craig. Thanks again, right? Thanks. Take care. All right, take it easy. This podcast is sponsored by live producers online.com a community of Ableton Live users connecting you to the pros to learn today's music. auction
Listen as Dan and Craig Anderton discuss all things related to songwriting and the psychology behind producing. Episode discussion highlights include: audio editing tips, how your brain processes music, discovering your original sound, the evolution of Ableton Live, and other topics. Craig is an internationally recognized engineer, educator, and music technologist. He's authored over 35 books, mastered hundreds of tracks, played Carnegie Hall, written for magazines like Guitar Player, Keyboard, Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician, Pro Sound News, Mix. He's consulted leading companies like Gibson, Microsoft, Steinberg,  Roland, Acoustica, E-Mu, Peavey, Alesis, Akai Professional, Native  Instruments, Cakewalk, Ableton, Avid, and dozens more. Click here to watch Dan's Free Mixing Webinar mentioned in the episode. Join the Live Producers Online membership to get ongoing help on your Ableton projects with Dan Giffin  Follow Craig Anderton at the links below: craiganderton.com craganderton.org instagram.com/craig.anderton twitter.com/craig_anderton  facebook.com/craig.anderton.3  Listen to Craig's My Butterfly track mentioned in the episode with tempo changes   ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/AbletonLive/support 