An Interview with ABI THE PRODUCER

2:11 ABI THE PRODUCER Oh.

2:11 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? This is Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More, and I am joined with Abi, the producer. Welcome.

2:18 ABI THE PRODUCER Hey, thank you so much for having me.

2:19 Luke F. Walton So excited to chat. So I was just listening to your show. You have a podcast as well. How did you get started with that?

2:26 ABI THE PRODUCER Oh, my goodness. So if we go back a little bit, I will say I do host the Safari Pedals show, which is a podcast under the umbrella of the plug-in company Safari Pedals. I'm the A&R there. So the show, how did the show start? So I'll give a little background story that'll tie in because I think it just makes the whole concept of the show makes sense. So

2:47 Luke F. Walton Cool.

2:47 ABI THE PRODUCER Safari Pedals, the plug-in company, is based in a really big studio complex called Pluto Studios in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv just a bunch of different recording studios and Pluto Studios also has an audio school where I was a student.

3:00 Luke F. Walton Oh, no way.

3:01 ABI THE PRODUCER Oh yeah.

3:02 Luke F. Walton Cool.

3:02 ABI THE PRODUCER So when Safari launched, the

3:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:05 ABI THE PRODUCER whole company launched about like two years ago, I was a student there. and

3:09 Luke F. Walton Wow.

3:09 ABI THE PRODUCER I didn't know I didn't know what a plug-in was like which way was up but when Safari launched they had a launch party and everyone was posting about it on Instagram and it just looked so fun if you go and like look up the company all the plug-in like skins are super colorful and whatnot and like I was super intrigued and fast forward to the end of the year right when I was about to finish I was doing a lot of thinking about okay

3:38 ABI THE PRODUCER Hey, I really want to kick off a music career. And I want to dive right in. Like, how can I make this happen? I was thinking of different industry jobs and in Tel Aviv in general, because it's such a small scene, there's not too many things. And then it hit me, oh my goodness, I should reach out to Safari. I DM the Safari Instagram page and was like, hey, I'm Abi. I'm like a student here at Pluto.

4:01 ABI THE PRODUCER I'm just about to finish. I love what you're doing. If you have any jobs. i'd love to kind of hop on and see what i could like do for you and nom the founder immediately hit me back and said basically like this is amazing i'm a one-man operation at this point like one

4:19 Luke F. Walton Oh my

4:19 ABI THE PRODUCER plug

4:19 Luke F. Walton God.

4:19 ABI THE PRODUCER in out it

4:20 Luke F. Walton No way.

4:20 ABI THE PRODUCER was yeah it was

4:22 Luke F. Walton What

4:22 ABI THE PRODUCER like

4:22 Luke F. Walton was the first plugin? What was the first plugin?

4:23 ABI THE PRODUCER gorilla drive yeah

4:24 Luke F. Walton Gorilla Drive. Okay. Which was like a smash. I bought Gorilla Drive.

4:28 ABI THE PRODUCER but it's like super it's like crazy to think of safari with one plug-in

4:32 Luke F. Walton Hey, totally.

4:32 ABI THE PRODUCER but he's like yeah and he was like let's just like have a meeting and I'll see how I can help you so we met at the studio and we had a great chat he just gave me advice on like being a freelancer and like that whole kind of aspect of being a producer and he said listen I'm gonna do some thinking and like when I have a job I'll keep you in mind and this was in June so fast forward to like October November I get a message one day and he's like hey Abi what's up like you have time to come down to the studio

5:00 ABI THE PRODUCER studio I have an idea I have like something for you and I was like oh my goodness like what is it like I'm really excited and he's like okay so I have this idea for a podcast I don't know what I want it to be or how I want it to look but like come chat and so I eventually made my way down to his studio and he said I really want to do a podcast that Safari will have like some really like kind of

5:27 ABI THE PRODUCER valuable content in the audio space but

5:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

5:29 ABI THE PRODUCER I don't want it to be like there's so many podcasts that come from this perspective of people that have like been in the industry for a while and he said I want it to just be like Abi's world that's how he said it needs to be Abi's world it's like I don't care what you call it what you do but it should just be from your perspective and I was a little spooked as much as I was excited because

5:52 ABI THE PRODUCER you just finished audio school and

5:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:54 ABI THE PRODUCER I don't know what the hell I'm doing I like barely like I just found out like what a compressor was like three weeks ago and now you want me to just kick off an audio podcast but that's kind of the history so we filmed the first episode together and it took a little bit of time but then It kind of found its groove, and it is what it is today.

6:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

6:16 ABI THE PRODUCER That's

6:16 Luke F. Walton that's

6:16 ABI THE PRODUCER the background.

6:17 Luke F. Walton beautiful. I think there's a lot of stuff in there too for listeners that might be trying to figure out their way in music because like music products and audio products and software, physical, everything, there's all of these other interesting jobs that can easily connect into like whatever your main thing is and amplify it and network and build that and just

6:38 Luke F. Walton just shooting your shot and putting yourself out there and getting it early like all of those are I think great lessons for people that yeah maybe aren't in LA or New York and they're trying to figure out like how do I make it in my local scene

6:51 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah and I think something that I want to like echo to the viewers that I think could be valuable and this is something like that I kind of like learned just going through it is that there are so many jobs in the music industry that

7:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:06 ABI THE PRODUCER can support you and give you the freedom. to create the art you want like I think when I went into the job at Safari one of my fears was oh is me having like a job in the industry but like a job nonetheless is that going to take away from my creative output and

7:24 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

7:24 ABI THE PRODUCER I'm sure people might be having those same fears like I want to be an engineer is being an A&R at a company gonna like brand me the wrong way like there's so much value in just having something to do that's in your industry like you said networking and having people in the industry know you that it really just betters your creative output that's what I found that

7:46 Luke F. Walton Cool

7:46 ABI THE PRODUCER also other people that kind of do what I do in a way where they're producers engineers but also have different roles in the music industry whether that's developing plugins or doing content for other plugin companies and whatnot it really aids you and doesn't hurt you even though from the outside it might might seem that way.

8:07 Luke F. Walton totally well time time is a weird resource right like if you have too much of it sometimes it does the opposite effect and if you have too little of it it also hurts but if you can find that really good balance where you can have somebody that you're working with that's like entrepreneurial and different and driven you can actually

8:24 Luke F. Walton feel like you output more because you're in that environment you're around people like that you're being creative in a bunch of different ways and that can fill up your cup rather than just drain from it i found yeah

8:34 ABI THE PRODUCER Absolutely. Absolutely. That's been like 100% true on this journey. Like you said, because like we can't create from a place like on empty and also like the freedom to take on projects that drive you and move you rather than you're kind of like. Oh, I'll just take anything.

8:55 Luke F. Walton that's

8:55 ABI THE PRODUCER Like I'll record

8:56 Luke F. Walton so

8:56 ABI THE PRODUCER like a

8:56 Luke F. Walton real

8:56 ABI THE PRODUCER chimpanzee

8:56 Luke F. Walton totally

8:57 ABI THE PRODUCER at the zoo if that's what's needed.

8:58 Luke F. Walton those recordings will never be heard by anyone else but it's like you need the money you got to figure it out and that like that's valuable too but like you're saying like in order to really make something of your career that you feel really proud of you need to give yourself a little bit of space and room it's really hard to do that if every recording project is just like where can i get my next audio book or voiceover or somebody that just like wants to record their kids

9:19 Luke F. Walton not that there's anything wrong with any

9:21 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah.

9:21 Luke F. Walton of that like that's all valuable work but if you're really trying to make it as a producer as an artist as somebody that's beyond just like the technical like deep into the creative you got to find things that you feel passionate about that can push you that can push music itself yeah

9:36 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah. And circling back to the title of the show, it did make me love music more.

9:41 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah, let's go. That's awesome. Yeah, let's go. And just to kind of build on what you said, I would also say like, shoot your shot.

9:49 ABI THE PRODUCER like there are so many cool companies out there like plug-in companies I didn't even know existed so if you kind of are like okay I want to maybe do some more research into what they spoke about on the podcast and like maybe find a job and there are so many companies like don't be afraid to it can seem really scary to just like go and DM people and send cold emails and messages but I really do think

10:16 ABI THE PRODUCER um it's the way and if there's anything that I've learned just like being an A&R at Safari Pedals that there are so many people not sending the message there

10:25 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

10:25 ABI THE PRODUCER are so many people not sending the email that are so happy when you reach out so I

10:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

10:29 ABI THE PRODUCER think that if you just kind of take the leap like a little bit of courage and just do the thing that you never know what can happen

10:37 Luke F. Walton that's really nice and i think seconding that if you have the ability to go to like a large collection of musicians like like the nam show is like a good example of something like that if there are there are these great resources for people like there's a gen x program for you know students or whatever you can go to the nam show they can subsidize part of the cost and you just be there and there's like 5 000 music brands and you can like talk to people and

11:03 Luke F. Walton like that's a crazy resource and it exists in certain things like there's there's pedal showcases that go around

11:09 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah.

11:09 Luke F. Walton the world those all those kind of things like it doesn't matter what age you are you don't even have to just be a college student but if you're trying to break into music like try every which way and all these collections of people like they're just there they're just people if you're cool and you have some value to offer like you can make it happen

11:28 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah everyone just wants to hang and

11:30 Luke F. Walton That's

11:30 ABI THE PRODUCER like be

11:30 Luke F. Walton so true.

11:30 ABI THE PRODUCER a friend everyone are just people and um

11:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:34 ABI THE PRODUCER and that goes for like people doing like it can seem like intimidating like Yeah, you said i really think

11:39 Luke F. Walton totally.

11:39 ABI THE PRODUCER that if every if anyone has the ability to do at least one nam like i would go all in but like you said there are so many like different showcases and things like there are so many cool hanging spots just Come and be a friend and like you just never know what will happen for sure

11:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah, that's great advice. I'm so curious about the pedals that you have behind you. And I also think something that a lot of, I don't know, people that listen to music and love music, but they don't know all about how guitar pedals have infiltrated production.

12:13 ABI THE PRODUCER They

12:13 Luke F. Walton And

12:13 ABI THE PRODUCER have infiltrated.

12:14 Luke F. Walton like, it's so cool. I love it. It's outboard gear. Can you talk about that a little bit? Maybe enlighten some people?

12:20 ABI THE PRODUCER For sure. I love the way they use the word infiltrated. That was spectacular.

12:24 Luke F. Walton Thanks.

12:25 ABI THE PRODUCER They have, in fact, infiltrated. I actually only became like guitar pedals have become, I think, at least three quarters of my personality at this point. And it's really because of Noam Safaree's founder, his whole shtick was mixing with pedals.

12:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:40 ABI THE PRODUCER And in my brain, when I was in audio school, I was like, I wanted LA2 in my house.

12:45 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

12:45 ABI THE PRODUCER Like. Who would have like thought guitar pedals, I think, for producers, especially if you're starting out and are not just about to drop thousands of dollars on

12:56 ABI THE PRODUCER Right. an 1176. these little things are just like I don't know I see them as like boxes of inspiration if you just invest in a little like re-amp box you can get such interesting sounds out of your sounds and like take things out of like computer brain

13:12 Luke F. Walton Uh

13:13 ABI THE PRODUCER because

13:13 Luke F. Walton -huh.

13:13 ABI THE PRODUCER when we're looking at a screen like you know when you're sitting and you're trying to produce something and then your eyes are getting fried because you've been on the same sound for four hours just being able to turn to the side Turn some knobs have some kind of like

13:26 ABI THE PRODUCER physical to sound reaction and pedals are so like cool sounding I feel like they're so underrated they're definitely a lot of fun to to work with if that I hope that long-winded thing answered uh the

13:38 Luke F. Walton no

13:38 ABI THE PRODUCER question a

13:39 Luke F. Walton no it totally does because like like you're saying there's uh all this outboard gear it's like two to six thousand dollars a unit and you it's not just a unit you have to like buy the rack and everything to route it in and out and you have a patch bay it's like it's like oh my god okay now whoops i have a hundred thousand dollars of musical equipment i could have bought a house but instead i have this

14:01 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah instead i have like two distressors because i wanted them in stereo for sure and underratedly by the way why are the racks so expensive like you can go way more broke on getting a rack than actually buying the compressors like you said it's a slippery slope but there are so many just like cool budget guitar pedals and i actually think that like

14:22 ABI THE PRODUCER the you can say cheaper or less expensive like they're all just like you have kind of the ability as an as a sound artist to get lots of different paints for not a crazy price like I think the most expensive part of the whole ramping operation is the ramp box which

14:39 Luke F. Walton yeah can you talk about what that is and what it does for people that might not be hip to it

14:42 ABI THE PRODUCER I actually have it over here.

14:43 Luke F. Walton hell yeah

14:45 ABI THE PRODUCER so i use the franklin ra10 reamp box and pretty much basically to to keep it very simple the the guitar pedal like the signal needs to be amplified so you can like hear things and that it doesn't sound too lo-fi so this allows you to kind of get a healthy signal back into your interface and also get way more high quality audio rather than i tried to like finagle a bunch of different like tricks with like the gain on my

15:11 ABI THE PRODUCER interface and all these different like weird like patching things and not have to get a reamp box but things were sounding lo-fi and

15:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

15:19 ABI THE PRODUCER a

15:19 Luke F. Walton yeah,

15:19 ABI THE PRODUCER little too crunchy so

15:21 Luke F. Walton yeah.

15:21 ABI THE PRODUCER I got this and what's great is that it's passive you don't have to plug this in you can bring it with you anywhere I love Franklin Audio and it just allows you to really go crazy there are so many also cool little pedal companies out there that you can just get in touch with try out some cool stuff and and get some crazy sounds.

15:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah, that's one of the things I love about pedals is it is very much a I started in my garage kind of business. Obviously, there's huge.

15:50 Luke F. Walton digital effects pedal companies like a line six or whatever boss or whatever that he's multi-national kind of conglomerate type things

15:57 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah,

15:57 Luke F. Walton but then you can also just be like i made this i soldered together some like weird chips and i thought it would sound cool like i've i've done that with my grandpa and it sounds cool i made like a crunchy fuzz thing

16:08 ABI THE PRODUCER that's

16:08 Luke F. Walton it's awesome um love that pedal but it sounds nothing like i could get on the computer there is no possible way that even my coolest like fuzz emulator stuff on the stuff on the computer just does not react the same way to varying degrees of loudness and gain pumped into this thing yeah

16:25 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah and um and something that i want to like add on what you said like you have your own unique thing that no one else has and if you think about it we're for the most part we're all using the same emulations of the same thing so it's like we're all using the same one compressor the same one reverb globally so like you said you could really just set yourself apart

16:45 ABI THE PRODUCER art and even if something sounds scary and spooky as hell and

16:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

16:49 ABI THE PRODUCER a little like messed up there's so much magic in that too

16:52 Luke F. Walton Well, it's the Jacob Collier thing of like. There are no wrong notes. It's just like placement.

16:59 Luke F. Walton It's Yes. the same thing like with like timbre is you can have something really spooky or weird or out there but if it's in the right moment or the right vibe or whatever it can still be a pop song. It can still be a happy song like transitions. You can do anything you want in a transition if it goes from like a verse to a chorus like whatever.

17:17 Luke F. Walton I've done I've done children like yelling at a playground a decapitator and like devil lot kind of thing sidechain.

17:25 Luke F. Walton and it's just like whatever you know this is and then you get in the chorus and you're happy so it's like just a little touch of dissonance in a different way before you get paid off but yeah that's like that's the that's the beauty of the pedals you can add a little like dash of chaos if you want to totally

17:38 ABI THE PRODUCER absolutely and i love that transitions are lawless territory guys it

17:43 Luke F. Walton totally yes

17:43 ABI THE PRODUCER is the way it is no man's land out there so build that build that fuzz pedal for sure

17:48 Luke F. Walton yeah hell yeah I've got some big news everybody my vinyl record is out we didn't make a ton of these so these guys are going to sell out and I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope they're so dope and it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and you know special stuff the things that really went into making this record and I want you to get your hands on it so go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the show notes of the

18:22 Luke F. Walton the bio or wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy you know they're gonna sell out we really did not make very many of these and i want you to have it it's like a collector's item so thank you thank you for supporting my music and i can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl enjoy the rest of the episode

18:39 Luke F. Walton It's pretty much I was going to do a delay pedal like an analog delay pedal and that sucker is sat in my garage. It's like a million little solder points. I'm like, I'm not not about

18:51 ABI THE PRODUCER Was

18:51 Luke F. Walton that.

18:52 ABI THE PRODUCER it a hard circuit to like hook up?

18:54 Luke F. Walton It was crazy. I tried. I started. I'm like, I'll come back to that.

18:59 ABI THE PRODUCER eventually

18:59 Luke F. Walton maybe i'll be like maybe i'll be like 60 years old like all right it's time

19:04 ABI THE PRODUCER you come in and it looks like a spaceship that's how I'm imagining it kind of like on life support like all these different

19:09 Luke F. Walton yes yes exactly exactly it's like a mini game yeah i'll stick to fuzz that's like six solder points and we're good

19:18 ABI THE PRODUCER six we can handle no

19:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

19:20 ABI THE PRODUCER but respect the people that solder because I have a distortion pedal on here that I went to a pedal workshop to build and whoever has it in them to build a pedal I just like gained a whole new level of respect because I was there I'm telling you like a single drop of sweat trying to I was so determined to get this to work because it was such a small workshop and everyone's was just like breaking and I was like I have to be the one

19:44 ABI THE PRODUCER Where I walk out with a pedal that works and I was like tons of respect if you can pull that off at home

19:50 Luke F. Walton totally such a cool hard small business so

19:53 ABI THE PRODUCER Yes, it is I'm

19:56 Luke F. Walton i'm so curious what did what did uh audio school like look like what did it teach you what are some of the things that you like walked away being like i use that all the time or like i never think about that when i'm actually producing

20:07 ABI THE PRODUCER That's such a great question. Well, I will say just in general about the course I took, what was special, the reason I went to study at Pluto Studios.

20:16 ABI THE PRODUCER To me, it was very different than all the other audio school options here in that it's the biggest studio in Tel Aviv that's recording the records. So to me, it was a school inside of a studio rather than I go to, let's say, there's a really big music school in Jerusalem called Ramon, which is kind of like the Berkeley of

20:38 Luke F. Walton Okay.

20:38 ABI THE PRODUCER here.

20:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:39 ABI THE PRODUCER And they do have audio production too, but it's... like having a studio in a classroom so that was the first reason I went to Pluto and I would say the biggest things I walked away with um from that course was just like the technical they trained us so well like I was in the production course I learned Ableton they trained us so well in the program that I was able to leave school and not have to think and

21:02 Luke F. Walton That's nice.

21:02 ABI THE PRODUCER break my head on the program so just having like that basic technical know-how I was like by no means like an able an ableton wizard by the end they just really prepared us to start doing if that makes sense so i would say that was one of the biggest takeaways and also we had a teacher that

21:24 ABI THE PRODUCER His kind of classes were a lot more on like the business end of being a producer and he makes a lot of content about being a freelancer and how he runs his business. So just kind of getting seeds planted in my head of how life will really look. That's something I took with me. Like I feel that I went into the music industry with kind of.

21:45 ABI THE PRODUCER realistic expectations and understandings of what this career path will require of me in terms of basic things of like setting up my finances in a way that will like making money work for me as a freelancer learning

22:00 Luke F. Walton Oh, yeah.

22:01 ABI THE PRODUCER a little bit about like taxes and maybe like the unsexy stuff because I want to talk about music things all day but that really helped me propel myself better out of school and the things that I don't think about at all i think that a lot of our teachers like in a great way showed us a lot of their approaches and how they record things and how they do things um

22:25 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

22:26 ABI THE PRODUCER but one thing that was missing for me was that they would always say well this is what i do but like do your thing i feel like the one thing that was missing and that i didn't really take away was that like we didn't deep dive too much on learning like how to find our own sound it

22:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:44 ABI THE PRODUCER was kind of like oh well this is how I record an artist like they would bring someone in we would record the vocals and then he would like mix it in class and it was like well but you just go find your sound I was like that's really fluffy and wonderful but what does that even mean

22:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:59 ABI THE PRODUCER so um it's not something that I there wasn't any skills that like we learned and I walked away and I was like I'm not engaging in this it was more kind of like I wish that

23:09 ABI THE PRODUCER we had done a more deep dive on that because I think like finding your sonic fingerprint and understanding who you are as a artist producer engineer is so important and just getting your career started because then if you kind of have a basic understanding of what your sonic fingerprint is then you can brand yourself better market yourself better understand aesthetically what speaks to you from the jump rather than

23:35 ABI THE PRODUCER have to go through the journey of kind of more trial and error. So that's my take on it. But it was a good experience overall.

23:44 Luke F. Walton I'm really curious about that last part. I was just, I did a podcast, I don't know, a week or two ago with a film composer and we were talking about is a lot of what he does is his whole goal is to not hear himself in the end product. he's

23:59 ABI THE PRODUCER Hmm.

23:59 Luke F. Walton trying to make the music like authentically this thing um so he tries to abstract himself so he doesn't hear his like go-to's or whatever and i'm like i am literally the opposite like i i am trying to make something that's like only i could have made that you know like i i very much value the like sonic fingerprint in that way of

24:22 Luke F. Walton almost maybe to a fault where it's kind of hard for me to like follow a brief or something like that where do you fall on that what do you think about that especially as a producer because i'm really curious about that journey that you did after school until kind of now

24:36 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah, well, I will say that like. so i'll i'll kind of give my take and then i'll backtrack

24:41 Luke F. Walton Okay,

24:41 ABI THE PRODUCER a bit i'll

24:41 Luke F. Walton yeah,

24:42 ABI THE PRODUCER say

24:42 Luke F. Walton yeah,

24:42 ABI THE PRODUCER like from the jump that i'm definitely more in your camp of

24:45 Luke F. Walton yeah

24:45 ABI THE PRODUCER sonic fingerprints and like the only i could have made that type thing um and that's kind of been like a really big part like of my journey for me like finding that and also i think that in the end that's also why i'm working with the people i'm working with now i think that like all camps are welcome but i think if you choose a camp and kind of go all in on it,

25:08 Luke F. Walton Mm

25:08 ABI THE PRODUCER you'll

25:08 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

25:09 ABI THE PRODUCER be able to find people that appreciate that. and

25:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:12 ABI THE PRODUCER will want to work with you but I will say that also having the ability to shut that off is important I think it kind of works together I think go all in and having your sonic fingerprint but also have the ability to take yourself out of it because that's also helped me like there have been production gigs recently where I've been brought on not as the executive producer but to kind of assist the producer and doing vocal production drum programming and these are songs that

25:40 ABI THE PRODUCER that i would have really never come to by myself like i tend to be i would say songs that are a lot more gritty and textured and this was very kind of bright latin pop retro pop super cool sounding records but i really had to be like okay Abi we're shutting down fuzz brain and

25:58 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

25:58 ABI THE PRODUCER now it's time to bring out the really clean modern reverbs like my valhalla vintage verb i don't think has ever been set to modern but now is the time and so knowing how to

26:10 ABI THE PRODUCER how to make both work but I definitely am way more in on the camp of if you're like the executive producer and you're working with an artist obviously I don't want to like overtake what the artist needs and their creative vision but I definitely do think you having a sonic identity and being sure of yourself and kind of your sound will only help working on other people's music so that's my take on the matter gavel

26:36 Luke F. Walton I like it. It's a good take. And I totally agree. I think that the best thing to do is both. Like if you can. And yeah, if you had to pick, I would pick fingerprint more.

26:47 Luke F. Walton But I feel like the more you develop your fingerprint the harder harder it is to shut it off you know at least for me other people might be better at i do think a lot about like why would somebody hire you you know is it because you're the best multi-instrumentalist or something like that okay maybe not fingerprint if it's like is it because you're interesting and you're an artist and like you make something different it's like okay well now people are hiring you because they couldn't hire anyone else or they tried to hire someone else and they're like that didn't work

27:16 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah,

27:16 Luke F. Walton You

27:16 ABI THE PRODUCER I

27:16 Luke F. Walton know exactly

27:17 ABI THE PRODUCER guess I'll go with them.

27:18 Luke F. Walton like come back

27:20 ABI THE PRODUCER If there's anything that I found to be true, and this is something, this goes back to the Safari Pedal Show. When I was just starting to interview people, and this is before I had worked on any songs, had any catalog.

27:33 ABI THE PRODUCER all these different producers and engineers who were doing like amazing records were saying to me like Abi it's really about who you are not what you do like

27:41 Luke F. Walton Mm

27:41 ABI THE PRODUCER you

27:41 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

27:41 ABI THE PRODUCER have to be able to push all the buttons and know what the hell you're doing because this is a job that you need to do and you're serving an artist but it's really about who you are and kind of your question on like why would someone hire you only now like that's a piece of advice I've only really understood in like the past like three four months that it really is about

28:00 ABI THE PRODUCER who you are because there are so many people that can put like snares on the two and the four there are so many people that have a unique sonic fingerprint so it's not necessarily that i'm just like a unicorn that's fallen out of outer space but i do think that when people do like come and want to work and hire me i really do think it's like i don't know if the way i am it's like it's a very flowery answer but i think that and also kind of like the things that come around just the music like

28:30 ABI THE PRODUCER organization communication skills like really basic things like accountability showing up on time I think just being open to ideas I think the reason people hire me and I think the reason people hire anyone in music just from also observing other people's production scenarios play out is just that it's really about like the person and like the soft skills rather than

28:55 ABI THE PRODUCER um recording a vocal because i think we put a lot of weight maybe sometimes an audio content like recording it's like this like big important like getting the right

29:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:03 ABI THE PRODUCER vocal sound

29:04 Luke F. Walton yeah,

29:04 ABI THE PRODUCER getting

29:05 Luke F. Walton yeah.

29:05 ABI THE PRODUCER the right drum sound like there's so much pressure on these things like it's all good it's a mic like it's not gonna it's not gonna hurt you the mic's not gonna hurt you and the mic is not gonna stop you from getting hired it's being nice or not nice or answering someone's email in a timely manner like if someone sends you a message you answer answer

29:23 ABI THE PRODUCER like in a timely fashion that does show something you don't understand i did a episode with my dear friend jeff ellis in the beginning of like the podcast and he said you'll get so far on basic accountability and i was so new at the time i was like okay i'm gonna take that but it's so true dudes just showing up on time to the studio not being late being empathetic if like to to someone if like an artist falls off a little bit and they're communicating well then suddenly

29:52 ABI THE PRODUCER lay there kind of dipping yo dude like what's going on with you is everything are you all good like having that extra level like that can get you so far like i can't even i can go down that rabbit hole of like yelling at clouds for hours on that but definitely the surrounding skills for sure

30:10 Luke F. Walton like i feel like a lot of people get attracted to music myself somewhat included because it is like alternative lifestyle you get to be more free and creative and all this kind of stuff but that also makes it so you set yourself apart if people can believe that you're going to be there for them believe that they'll feel comfortable around you and they can actually like give you a good vocal take or something like that because it's scary being in the studio especially if you're a newer artist and you're in front of somebody and you're having a sing and you're under a microscope and you're they're soloing you

30:39 Luke F. Walton playing you and like dialing an eq

30:40 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah.

30:40 Luke F. Walton and you're just naked out there in front of them if you can make them feel comfortable that's so much more important than the vocal tone because the performance trumps microphone preamp any day of the week It's

30:54 ABI THE PRODUCER it's

30:54 Luke F. Walton always better

30:54 ABI THE PRODUCER true

30:55 Luke F. Walton to have both.

30:55 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah if

30:56 Luke F. Walton If you only

30:57 ABI THE PRODUCER you have

30:57 Luke F. Walton have the one,

30:57 ABI THE PRODUCER best of both

30:57 Luke F. Walton pick the

30:57 ABI THE PRODUCER worlds

30:58 Luke F. Walton voice.

30:58 ABI THE PRODUCER if you can like hannah montana like by

31:00 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

31:00 ABI THE PRODUCER all means for sure um and yeah like what you said and if like you're not fun to work with and someone comes and records like i don't think they're gonna drop like a whitney houston vocal take on that day if they're feeling like trash because xyz vibe that like i think that like as producers um and i can't speak for

31:23 ABI THE PRODUCER speak for my engineer friends but maybe they also feel the same like i really think that our job at the end is i call like we're ultimate vibe curators like

31:30 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

31:30 ABI THE PRODUCER that's

31:31 Luke F. Walton Nice.

31:31 ABI THE PRODUCER our job like

31:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:32 ABI THE PRODUCER we're we're like the the grand wizards of aesthetic like setting setting the vibe setting like the the sonic world and vibe of the song like and what goes into that is like you said creating a comfortable space where people will want to be

31:48 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah. And then I think that if you're just fun to work with and you can have a vocal take that sounds listenable, people will want to just work with you and want to have you around.

32:01 ABI THE PRODUCER want to have you around i really think that that's i don't know i feel like it's not spoken about enough in the audio podcast world maybe you feel the same that it's like underrated just be nice yeah

32:11 Luke F. Walton yeah well like i love gear and we like there's just such a fixation on a lot of the micro you know and it's good it's important but like you said a lot of us are using the same tools A lot of us have similar workflows, similar templates, similar programs. What's the difference then? Like why does some people's stuff sound better than others?

32:35 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah.

32:35 Luke F. Walton Like if it's the same tools.

32:37 ABI THE PRODUCER It is for sure. I think it's like who you are. And I think that it's also just your taste at

32:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:45 ABI THE PRODUCER the end of the day. Like that's also what people pay for your

32:48 Luke F. Walton Your vision. you know like you

32:50 ABI THE PRODUCER Mm-hmm.

32:51 Luke F. Walton know where things are going or know where you want them to go maybe is even better of like i hear where music is the song's not going to come out for six months if i'm lucky where do i want the music industry and the vibe and the taste and everything to be like rooted in what's going on rooted in what the artist is but also like thinking like commercially like where would i love for people to be excited

33:13 Luke F. Walton about a certain genre tweak or whatever it's like i want to make something thin and a lot of stuff that i make i try to think like two years down the line because you know like people listen to my music but it's not

33:24 Luke F. Walton it takes them a while i put out a lot of music so i think sometimes it takes a lot of people a while and i'll have people like reach out to me like i love this song like dude i just dropped that like four years ago you just you just found out about it now like i'm glad that though in this year it held up or at

33:40 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah i

33:40 Luke F. Walton least in some weird way felt like 2025 i don't know

33:44 ABI THE PRODUCER love that perspective like i've never thought that's new for me like what you just said to kind of think i'm gonna like implement that like to think ahead like three four years like what will people be listening to in two years i'm going to take that that's awesome

33:56 Luke F. Walton but it also it's kind of freeing because you're you're like still trying to be commercial but you're able to like invent a future for music thanks

34:05 ABI THE PRODUCER that's fascinating dude what an interesting perspective i love that for

34:08 Luke F. Walton thanks i hope it goes somewhere yeah that at least keeps me going i i've been thinking like that for a long time because it it's really hard to trend chase it's really hard to do what other people do better than you like the sonic fingerprint thing and there's a lot of temptation to do it because there could be money there

34:26 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah but the trends move so fast it's like by the time you hop on the trend it's like by the time you get to like the tiktok dance there's

34:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:35 ABI THE PRODUCER a new

34:35 Luke F. Walton right.

34:35 ABI THE PRODUCER one i'm like being mindful and demure like when that meme was popping up i was like i felt like my life was overtaken and then three days later there was a new thing i was like but but i didn't even get to use the last line and now there's more and same with music it's like there are so many like freaking music trends and so like you said like it'll take so much pressure off of you to just do the alternate route

35:00 ABI THE PRODUCER rather than try and fight.

35:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:04 ABI THE PRODUCER Everyone else in the arena for for the trend or

35:06 Luke F. Walton Right, right.

35:07 ABI THE PRODUCER the yeah

35:08 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go onto the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify.

35:27 Luke F. Walton Under there it says rate show and you go and you click it. five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all this stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and then a five star it would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode and it's not saying like okay i'm just not gonna be commercial it's like i still want to be commercial like i like pop music i want people to sing along

35:59 Luke F. Walton along to my song i want people to make tiktok videos of my song i want that but like it's a lot more freeing to say oh you know maybe they'll discover it in two years when they're ready or something i don't know opens

36:11 ABI THE PRODUCER wakes

36:12 Luke F. Walton the door

36:12 ABI THE PRODUCER up suddenly your TikTok is just like there's a dance

36:15 Luke F. Walton yeah you can dream

36:18 ABI THE PRODUCER For sure. I have noticed a few different artists sign to major record labels and then suddenly there's TikTok dance. It's like, hmm.

36:28 ABI THE PRODUCER Very hmm. Could that have been on purpose? Can I? Yeah, but there's so much and that's something I also learned like from kind of like safari pedals on that note like

36:38 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah, there's so much marketing and things that go into like you said like the TikTok dance is suspiciously showing

36:46 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah, up like so much goes into these things it's crazy like the behind the scenes goes nuts with

36:51 ABI THE PRODUCER totally. these different products. And it's pretty unfathomable about how much some people spend on marketing.

36:58 ABI THE PRODUCER and like i don't know from a musician's perspective it's really tough because you only make like three hundredths of a penny per stream and so you're like okay if i spend like ten dollars to get somebody to listen to my song it's like oh god they gotta stream that a lot of times but if somebody was selling like a $20 product or a plug-in and he spent ten dollars to get somebody to buy a $20 plug-in it's like hey

37:22 ABI THE PRODUCER let's do another ad and so like that's how those marketing budgets yeah can be so

37:26 ABI THE PRODUCER for crazy high but it's tough when you're like on the like the smaller end to be able to make those those kind of things work yeah

37:32 ABI THE PRODUCER sure like the the whole like if you think about it being like an artist and not even a producer just like an artist it's such a there's usually in other businesses ways kind of like methods to just like quantify and expand your business but like being an artist like i like I can't imagine like like the the odds are set against you in terms of like how much you're getting paid for streams and it's like

37:55 ABI THE PRODUCER well in a plug-in company like you said or any other business or even as a producer like you have a product you're a service and then you there's kind of like a margin but

38:04 ABI THE PRODUCER Right. like when you're don't even have a margin to make back your it's like a crazy world

38:08 ABI THE PRODUCER It is a crazy world. It is a crazy world. So much of, yeah, artistry is like just like trying to print enough lotto tickets that one of them might hit slash diversify into some things that might have a margin so you can support the other things that don't.

38:22 ABI THE PRODUCER but it is it's like a math problem it's it's a tricky one uh it's crazy that people are able to do it but i've seen them do it and so it gives you just enough hope and also it's not really about that it's like you have to do it too yet it is a fascinating thing it's like a really hard problem to crack and i don't know if it's solvable it just is

38:41 ABI THE PRODUCER it just is and it's like such a unique position to be in too because i can't think of any other industry where

38:47 ABI THE PRODUCER Right. like even like a like a painter like you can still sell a painting for a certain price and it's like oh yeah that makes sense like they put in that many hours for the painting the painting looks that good so they can sell it for a high price but The way that we think about music is so different.

39:04 ABI THE PRODUCER well It's we don't like, really yeah, have like scarcity we kind of have the opposite

39:06 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah, like there's just millions of songs every single day and so yeah like a painting it's like there's this is the painting here

39:13 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah. it is there's one do you want it like there's just a supply demand situation flashlight painting like you could paint a house I can't music a house

39:23 ABI THE PRODUCER true you cannot music a house in fact or maybe you can and we'll find out after this episode

39:28 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah exactly actually I do have some friends that have been getting into uh building uh sound panels and studio treatment I think that's genius of like uh you know you're you're producer you're engineer you're trying to like diversify do different things it's like yeah what if like studio retrofitting slash sound treatment for movie theaters and people's houses and stuff like that so smart there

39:49 ABI THE PRODUCER heck yeah and it goes back to kind of what we spoke about in the beginning like there are so many jobs that

39:54 ABI THE PRODUCER are so many jobs exactly and guess and and and doing sound panels for that'll also give you the creative freedom kind of like we said to just do whatever the hell you want and bring the best

40:04 ABI THE PRODUCER what art they're forth hanging out with producers and engineers because they're putting studio panels in their house so

40:09 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah. it's like a networking vehicle too so i like applying the creativity to the business stuff that's some of the stuff that's some of the vibes i'm getting off of you i really like that

40:18 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah i i and i and it's only something like i did not fall out of the sky like with any business sense that's literally just been like really thanks to like the guests on the safari pedal show because i going into it like business to me just like what a scary word dude

40:34 ABI THE PRODUCER Uh i'm -huh. like i would say to my i'm like so much adulting to like make this all happen i gotta figure this out but

40:40 ABI THE PRODUCER like you said if you kind of approach it in your own way with a lot of curiosity it can actually be just as creative like the way that I think about like running Abi the producer as a business in terms of being a producer and getting jobs like I think about it in like with the same amount of like creativity and fun that I go to make like go to produce songs and I think it really can be a lot of fun if you just

41:06 ABI THE PRODUCER go off the beaten path a little bit and kind of do do your thing like the people doing the panels like maybe building panels doesn't speak to you but there's something that does that'll be just as fun for you to sit and kind of crack your head on okay how can I make this like side business work but you're still really passionate and excited about it like it doesn't have to feel like a drag at

41:27 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah. all I think Yeah. And I like those kind of ideas because it's not about the idea. It's about like the mindset. it's

41:33 ABI THE PRODUCER Yeah. not the position same thing with like guitar pedals it's not even about like hey put guitar pedals into your mixing work workflow it's like think outside of that box that everyone else is in or think modular or think like what do you need to mix it up for your process to get more fun it's not that you have to just like take notes and copy because that's what i remember when i was super early on it was like you go on gear sluts or something like that and you'd like be like

41:59 ABI THE PRODUCER oh they use like this compressor oh yeah and then they like routed it's it in patched

42:02 ABI THE PRODUCER this EQ like this and this preamp is cranked exactly at 12 o'clock and that's it it's the record's done guys okay i'm gonna go home that's

42:11 ABI THE PRODUCER done code cracked it that's been kind of like the most earth-shattering like realization is that like none of this has to feel like it doesn't have to be so heavy

42:21 ABI THE PRODUCER Mm-hmm. like it can be really challenging and hard but heavy it really doesn't have to be and i think that if it's feeling heavy that's just information for you as a person that maybe there's some things that need to be tweaked and maybe you need some like fun or or a guitar pedal or like it can be such like simple things but Like if you feel like kind of like a drag in your workflow and one guitar pedal makes you smile,

42:48 ABI THE PRODUCER it can just like, I don't know, it's all information. You run drums into guitar pedals?

42:55 ABI THE PRODUCER I do. It's like the other I said pedals were like three quarters of my personality. That was the last quarter, like drums and drums and pedals for sure.

43:04 ABI THE PRODUCER it's such a cool crazy crazy sound snare snare drums into guitar pedals Do but you have a favorite like pedal to run snares through in terms of like are you a fuzz on snare a reverb on snare?

43:17 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah um so there's a there's a thing that i've really enjoyed doing which is running into a fuzz pedal a tube screamer before it so i just completely overload the fuzz pedal in like a really weird way so it's kind of like got that like warm tube screamer-y overdrive thing pushed into just like a gnarly fuzz and then i usually blend it afterwards try and do my best to like cut out some of the phase cancellation and stuff but

43:42 ABI THE PRODUCER um that's for some rocky kind of stuff like i worked with this japanese band called bed this tokyo band and i did some of that kind of cut it in there because it's fun you know why not

43:55 ABI THE PRODUCER this sounds wild I have to try that out it's I weird it's cool haven't i i thought of

43:58 ABI THE PRODUCER agree yeah that's just overdriving a fuzz like because a lot of times fuzzes are in the beginning of the chain and it's just like just make it even grosser let's

44:07 ABI THE PRODUCER crazy I'm gonna do some crazy Frankensteining go i after this let's go i have such a hard time uh keeping my pedal board like intact because i'm like oh what if i then i get to the end of the day i'm like what have i done

44:21 ABI THE PRODUCER And then before you know it, like the Velcro just like Velcro gets sad when Velcro gets

44:26 ABI THE PRODUCER you, sad the Velcro does get sad, in fact, it's for so strong sure. at first it's all just like never move me

44:34 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah dude there's nothing like a fresh pedal board I fully know. intact and you put that down and you're like let's go and like you said that one idea hits you it's like i can't i can't pat the price we pay for fun ideas goddamn

44:47 ABI THE PRODUCER Yes. Yes. oh Having a crisp pedal board that's such a status symbol. yeah but uh i think my velcro it isn't too sad yet but maybe after this episode after i start like fuzzing and I'm overdriving my snares, maybe. I'll keep you updated.

45:05 Luke F. Walton so i i have this uh one question that i always like to ask every every guest i was wondering down so this show is called love music more and the segment's called love music why question's really simple but take it wherever you want to go Abi why do you love music

45:24 ABI THE PRODUCER such a good question I thought about it because I had tuned in to a few episodes before and I actually like spoke about it with my mom I was like ma like why do I even love music like I had a conversation with her earlier this morning and I think my best answer and it might sound like so like overly unicorn fluff and cliche but I really like it's just the way that I see the world like it's just the lens from which I

45:50 ABI THE PRODUCER view everything so I can't imagine like life without music like it just it just adds so much like it's brought so much goodness into my life and it just is the way that I see things the way that I feel things um and I think that's why I love it so much it's like this all-encompassing thing that I can't explain and that sounds so like woo woo goddamn and I'm usually not like overly fluffy like that but that is my very fluffy answer

46:19 ABI THE PRODUCER I love it. And I mean, of all things to be able to be a little fluffy about, it's like you've dedicated so much of your life to it.

46:26 ABI THE PRODUCER True. We can be fluffy about music. Yeah. We Yeah. can. And while not making fluffy music.

46:32 ABI THE PRODUCER True. True. Absolutely. Yeah. I am really excited to make some more distortion heavy music versus the bright Latin music. I

46:44 ABI THE PRODUCER yeah crunchy like the perspective of like crunchy, I think is what you said. I like crunchy music.

46:50 ABI THE PRODUCER very i am a fan of crunchy music but like you said all about like kind of also like you like on the note of like fluffy music like it's all about embracing what is trying things out and that music is it's a really big like gift to the world like wherever you believe it came from so i think just like enjoying going all in super important for sure oh

47:15 Luke F. Walton So where can people get in touch, listen to Safari Pedals podcasts and listen to your music too?

47:22 ABI THE PRODUCER my goodness so um in terms of safari pedals you can find like all the podcasts fun things linked on the safari instagram page or just look up safari pedals on youtube

47:32 ABI THE PRODUCER You can find me on Instagram at Abi the Producer and also like my website's linked in my bio if you ever want to hear anything that I've ever worked on. It's all there. So go wild if you'd like.

47:46 ABI THE PRODUCER Well, thank you so much for joining. Love the conversation. I'm Thank you so much. This has been really, really fun.

47:52 ABI THE PRODUCER so glad. Until next time. Yes.