{ "schemaVersion": "v1", "slug": "back-from-japan-black-friday-plug-in-vst-deals-building-the-home-studio", "title": "Back from Japan, Black Friday Plug-in/VST Deals, Building the Home Studio", "kind": "solo", "listenUrl": "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Back-from-Japan--Black-Friday-Plug-inVST-Deals--Building-the-Home-Studio-e2cfs9u", "publishedAt": "2026-10-14", "source": { "provider": "whisper", "model": "faster-whisper:base", "normalizedSchema": "v1", "transcribedAt": "2026-06-09T08:26:00.437Z" }, "paragraphs": [ { "startSec": 2.96, "endSec": 29.61, "text": "What's good guys, Scoobert Doobert here, I just got back from Japan, and I am super excitedto talk to you guys about some of the stuff that I explored over there, as well as Black" }, { "startSec": 29.61, "endSec": 50.33, "text": "Friday, Cyber Monday, some great deals that are out there right now, and this is notlike a paid promotion thing, this is just some of the stuff that I'm super excited aboutcoming into the music world.I mean, some of these plugins are kind of blowing my mind.So first of all, I want to talk a little bit about Japan, I want to talk a little bit" }, { "startSec": 50.33, "endSec": 74.13, "text": "about my new recording space and these plugins, but I'd first like to invite you to subscribeto the podcast and rate it five stars, that really helps get the word out, and we aretrying to grow this and grow this into the new year, so we really appreciate you takingthat time to spread the podcast, spread the word, and rate it five stars if you haven't already.So did Japan." }, { "startSec": 74.13, "endSec": 97.49, "text": "So I was just working with some awesome bands, one is called Bed, another one is calledBrother Sun Sister Moon, and of course Chi, who was just announced as one of Spotify'sVanguard artists or something like that, they just had a big billboard, put up digital billboardin Times Square, super excited for them, and I'm really excited about kind of what's" }, { "startSec": 97.49, "endSec": 125.21, "text": "going on in the Tokyo underground scene, and what I'm hearing from music over there, it'sinteresting.I think music in Tokyo that's being sung in English, and I think the approach to lyricwriting and the approach to influence is very inspiring to me, because I think that non-negativeEnglish speakers approach the language from a different, more like phonetic, less expected" }, { "startSec": 125.21, "endSec": 146.73, "text": "kind of way, so for example, in speech there's just almost like a map that you're alwaysnavigating under, and there's a right turn and a left turn forward direction, and eachof those is almost like probabilistically rated in terms of which way are you goingto go next?" }, { "startSec": 146.73, "endSec": 168.53, "text": "It's likely for me to say this after that, and non-negative English speakers don't havethat same sense of internalized probability or expectation that maybe a native Englishspeaker would, and I find that really fascinating and somewhat liberating in the context of" }, { "startSec": 168.53, "endSec": 188.77, "text": "lyric writing, because they're thinking more in terms of vowel shape and overall imagethan implied pattern or the stuff that you would normally hear.So I'm trying to apply a little bit of that to my own lyric writing, and my own just kind" }, { "startSec": 188.77, "endSec": 210.61, "text": "of process is how can you use, you know, things like gobbledygook, just nonsense wordsto free yourself a little bit from the standard expectation of what comes next lyrically?And where do you lean in and push off against those types of expectations?" }, { "startSec": 210.61, "endSec": 236.29, "text": "And that's a holistic thing that, again, with influence in Japan, they have an entirelydifferent, as every culture does, a set of popular music canon, you know, like the westerncanon, that kind of idea of it, like everybody has their own country, be it folk music orpopular music that never really broke out of that country, and I think Japan is really" }, { "startSec": 236.29, "endSec": 257.97, "text": "fascinating in that way, because people are discovering things like city pop and otherJapanese music that was made in the 80s as a response to western 80s for the domesticaudience, and now you're kind of hearing it and you're going, hey, this sounds very familiar,but very different at the same time.It creates that little emotional aha, like, oh yeah, that sounds like what I like, but" }, { "startSec": 257.97, "endSec": 279.37, "text": "it also sounds like nothing I've ever heard before, and that combination is really interesting,especially when you take all of that that is, you know, native, in terms of like in yourunder musical understanding, that's from your history, like of just growing up, the stuffthat you heard on the radio, the stuff that your parents listened to, and then you applyit to, like, what do I want to make?" }, { "startSec": 279.37, "endSec": 298.85, "text": "And you're like, okay, I want to like make rap music or something, and you take all of theseunconscious biases in the same way that I was talking about language, and you apply itto something else, whether or not you know that you're doing it, you, that's part of you.And collaborating with other people from other cultures ends up melding those things," }, { "startSec": 298.85, "endSec": 323.01, "text": "and exposing you to different things, and also exposing you to your own fishbowl a littlebit, like, what am I bringing to the table that I take for granted?Some of which is super cool, and some of which may not be, and might not be appropriatefor the situation, and so it's like, it's like understanding that that I think yieldsreally fascinating those aha moments for people that's familiar, but different." }, { "startSec": 323.01, "endSec": 347.21, "text": "And moving on, so I've got this recording studio now, and hopefully it's sounding a littlebit better in here.And finally got my panels up, and I had a podcast a little bit ago about building my spacein kind of the way that it's all oriented, still not totally done by any means, but I'vegot about 25% coverage now with acoustic panels, so hopefully a noticeable difference on" }, { "startSec": 347.21, "endSec": 369.69, "text": "the microphone, it'll get even more so when I get some more panels into fusion goingon in here.But really, the idea of what I want to impart is talking about different priority pointsin the music creation process, so number one priority point is like what I was talkingabout with language in Japan, all the stuff, the song, the idea, musical idea." }, { "startSec": 369.69, "endSec": 379.21, "text": "You can capture an amazing musical idea in a really bad way, and it can still be dope,and might even make it cooler, like, if you listen to 1920s recordings and stuff like" }, { "startSec": 379.93, "endSec": 406.09, "text": "that, or like Delta Blues, there is an element of that that is just baked into the recordingtechnique and the fact that it's so bad, you know, like, it's so bad, it's so good.That idea is not really like that you want to record things poorly, it's that if the ideais good enough, it will shine through any medium, it will shine through any weaknesses." }, { "startSec": 406.09, "endSec": 428.69, "text": "So that's where you start, but of course, this is all feedback loop, especially todaywith digital music, like what we are recording, we are then overdubbing, and when you'rein the overdubbing process, if you are just layering bad on bad on bad, it is demoralizing.It's really hard to think of the next good idea, and one of the real central strengths" }, { "startSec": 428.69, "endSec": 451.73, "text": "that we have in the modern era is the ability to write the song kind of as you go for free,and that like Bruce Springsteen used to write songs in the studio, but it cost them hundredsof thousands of dollars.It's a really cool thing to do is like you're playing with the band, you're laying somestep down, you're reacting to the medium itself rather than just the notes, because all" }, { "startSec": 451.73, "endSec": 470.41, "text": "of these notes translate differently onto a microphone and translate differently ontoa tape machine, all that kind of stuff.Now we can do all of that virtually, and then react to it and write something evocativeon top of it, be a guitar part, synth part, whatever, vocal like writing the entire song,you're able to react to what's actually there rather than what you conceive of it being," }, { "startSec": 470.41, "endSec": 497.69, "text": "or what's just on your acoustic guitar, it's like that extra dimension.So if it sounds bad, it's really demoralizing to find that next kind of step, that layerdeeper.So where do you start?You start obviously with the great idea, and then you're going to make a decent roomso that you can transmit that great idea, more mediocre idea, and then that room doesn'tdemoralize you because it's in a decent space." }, { "startSec": 497.69, "endSec": 525.33, "text": "And the more acoustically pure or dead the environment, that's when you start to openup the next level of tools, and that's what I wanted to get to with this Black Fridaystuff.Because oh my God, guys, it is potent, what we're able to do, and it's funny, I've got allthese little problems that I have in my studio, right?I mean, I've got a little bit of a hum on my microphone, I don't know why, I'm workingit out." }, { "startSec": 525.33, "endSec": 549.37, "text": "But at the end of the day, is it going to be a game changer?Probably not.There's stuff I can do with my tools now to deal with it a little bit.It's the same idea as just priority on anything.What is going to get you the most bang for your buck?So number one, decent room, decent microphone, cutting out the deal breakers." }, { "startSec": 549.37, "endSec": 572.05, "text": "The things that are super hard and it's just going to drive you crazy trying to get out.It's possible to get like bad reverb sounds out of audio source, but it's really hard.It usually degrades the audio at least a little bit.Stuff's getting better though.So anyway, you try and get rid of those things that will cause you downstream problems.And then after that, you go, okay, where are the tools?" }, { "startSec": 572.05, "endSec": 602.89, "text": "The coolest tool that I'm seeing is in virtual spaces.So Sound City just did a thing with Universal Audio and I smashed that by button.And basically what it is is it allows you to take a drive recording and put it into SoundCity Studios.And this is like famous recording studio.I've got the same thing for Capitol Chambers, the reverb chamber in Capitol. Hitsville whichis the Detroit Motown spot." }, { "startSec": 602.89, "endSec": 633.13, "text": "And basically what I'm doing is I'm leveraging the fact that my studio is fairly dry.It's not perfectly dry.I was fairly dry and it'll get drier.And then I'm able to use the digital processing to transform it.And for the price of, you know, I think I spent 50 bucks on the plug-in.For 50 bucks, I have access, unlimited access, 24.7 to 90% as good as actuallygetting the studio and recording there.Does that 10% matter?" }, { "startSec": 633.13, "endSec": 652.77, "text": "Of course it does, but there's other tools that I can use to get it even closer, youknow, virtual tape machines, blending.And the coolest thing that I can do, and this is what I couldn't have done if I was inthe actual studio, is I can use a mix knob and blend and turn things on and off so thatI can snap in between like my whole thing, low-fi, high-fi, Wi-Fi." }, { "startSec": 652.77, "endSec": 678.09, "text": "I can snap between those three things in different sections.So say I have a perfectly dry drum kit that I'm playing and I record it.I can have it perfectly dry in the verses, really tight, small, bedroom, vibes.And then the pre-chorus, like, what if I start blending in a little bit of a professionalstudio so that when you get to the chorus, it's full on the professional studio?You can hear the A to B transition." }, { "startSec": 678.09, "endSec": 699.73, "text": "That's like crazy magic.Think about what you would have to do to do that in like the real quote-unquote world,the old school world.You'd have to record two drum parts, identical drum parts, like two the T, which would bealready super, super hard to pull off, and then blend from one of the next.That's where chamber reverb comes in.But I can do that too." }, { "startSec": 699.73, "endSec": 729.23, "text": "And I can do all of that in tandem so I can have some chamber blending in.I can have some just standard room tone blending in and then I can have it snap allaway and go perfectly dry in like digital precision in a way that I would need 15 differenthands, all turning knobs, now automated, all control it all, and you can set cool stufflike LFOs or whatever to turn these tools that are very straightforward." }, { "startSec": 729.23, "endSec": 749.91, "text": "Take your audio, put it into a different space, but you can turn it more musical, likean LFO, which is an oscillator, you can change it so that the reverb is coming in and out andlike a weird crazy way, or I can run that reverb into a new tool that I just saw thatmight have been out for a while, but it's an emulation of a rotary speaker." }, { "startSec": 749.91, "endSec": 776.87, "text": "So a Leslie speaker, you might know is the thing that the Beatles invaded to use in Geoff Emerick on vocals.And so you normally would take an organ in and go, it's a little speaker that spins aroundin a cabinet, and you put a microphone on and you hear it in the same way that if youwere swinging the microphone around in circles, it's, I'm coming in out, you know, thatkind of thing." }, { "startSec": 776.87, "endSec": 801.63, "text": "There's a very good digital model of that by Universal Audio as well, so I can take mydry signal.I can run it in to Sound City, and I can also run it into Capitol Chambers, and I can runall of that in to a rotary.Come on.That stuff that would take so long to pull off in the real world.I can just try it, see if I like it, print it done." }, { "startSec": 801.63, "endSec": 827.83, "text": "And then mangle it, like that, then the fun thing is that, like, now you can do allthe stuff that sounds like the real world, right?The approximation and the access to things that I would never have had access to, becauseit just simply would have been too expensive, but then you can take that stuff, and youcan run it into, like, what was the plug and call?I think it's called Morph by Zynaptiq." }, { "startSec": 827.83, "endSec": 855.75, "text": "Have you seen those things that Morph 1 face to another?It's like using AI, so it face shifts somebody to the next, like all of the presidents goingfrom one to the other, or just like a Morph cut, it's like the basic, most simple thingin Premiere or After Effects, where you like instead of fading in from one to the next,you Morph from one to the next.And so it works better on, like, a similar-looking shape." }, { "startSec": 855.75, "endSec": 880.43, "text": "But AI does its best to turn one into two.They got that for audio now.It's crazy.And I am freaking out, because, like, in the beginning, I used to use this thing calledFormant Shifting, and by, in the beginning, I mean, like years ago, like not that manyyears ago." }, { "startSec": 880.43, "endSec": 901.35, "text": "But basically, what Formant is, is it's the idea of, like, mouth vowels, more or less.So instead of saying everything like I am right now, I'm going to say it all througha new sound.Did it kind of sound like this?So I'm going to say it all through an E sound, didn't it kind of sound like this?You know, that's morphing through Formants." }, { "startSec": 901.35, "endSec": 925.67, "text": "So now you can do that, but then also Morph from one sound to the next, an A to a B.And you can create, what do they call it, characteristics of both A and B, like a circlegradually turning into a square, singing guitars, dogs that speak or cymbals made out of hum,the choices are endless.It's crazy.It's crazy the stuff that I can do." }, { "startSec": 925.67, "endSec": 948.15, "text": "So at the same time, we are progressing in both the hyper-realistic and a hyper-unrealistic.But those tools are blowing my mind, and I'm loving it.There's a bunch of stuff.It's on Black Friday, so right now, if you guys want to do it.And if you're not, like, no worries, like maybe you don't make this stuff, but I am exploring" }, { "startSec": 948.15, "endSec": 977.19, "text": "it heavily and getting a lot of these things for like $50, $80, that simply didn't existlike even like a week ago, you know, some of this stuff just dropped.And it is re-establishing kind of like tools that we've always had in a digital space.It's like re-approaching them.So instead of a fade-in fade-out, you have a morph cut.But like, what's next?What's after that?" }, { "startSec": 977.19, "endSec": 1004.15, "text": "And that's where the conversation that I'm going to have next week comes in.So I chatted with Riley Knapp, who is my mastering engineer.He's also a CEO of a really cool AI company that is doing AI the right way.And some of these tools are doing AI the right way, my humble opinion, where it's takingthese algorithms and these advanced kind of, I like looking at AI in terms of how canit react?" }, { "startSec": 1004.15, "endSec": 1041.47, "text": "You know, like AI does unexpected things unexpectedly, and rather than algorithm does expected thingsunexpectedly, and allowing that room for, like, for example, I'm trying out a de-esser.What a de-esser is, a de-esser, it takes away S's.And what that is is usually it's like a little tiny reactive EQ.Here's 7,000 Hertz, 7 kilohertz up there, and it gets rid of it reactively.They've got new stuff that does it with AI." }, { "startSec": 1041.47, "endSec": 1063.55, "text": "And so what it's trying to do is it's like looking at it and saying does this look likethe family of S's that I've been trained on?If so, I will approach it in this way that has been deemed to be most musical by thepeople that trained the data.It's cool.That's a cool way to do it.Instead of just like the boring, like, little dynamic EQ, let's think about it in terms" }, { "startSec": 1063.55, "endSec": 1087.07, "text": "of the platonic ideal of what an S should sound like, and then let the computer do itsthing.It saves me time, helps the listener enjoy music more.Awesome.ADAPTIVERB is another really cool plugin that I'm trying, but also by Zynaptiq, whichis a company I just heard about.They re-approach Reverb from, it's a reverb typically here in a room, and there's reflections.That's Reverb." }, { "startSec": 1087.07, "endSec": 1109.47, "text": "There's a series of early reflections, late reflections, they sum it up, it goes aroundyour head, creates the impression of space.They somehow built this thing without any reflections.I don't even really understand how it works, but it sounds really cool.So I'm not the engineer, I just get the tools and I try and figure out ways to use themand evaluate them and see, like, could they work into my workflow?" }, { "startSec": 1109.47, "endSec": 1140.23, "text": "Having a reverb that doesn't sound like human space that is purely digital, that's attractiveto me, because that means I can make music that sounds like nothing that's ever comebefore.And they combine that with some really great plugins by Waves, the old school company.They made one called Magma Springs, I think, that I've been all over.And it's got a really great spring reverb, it sounds like a 1950s guitar amp." }, { "startSec": 1140.23, "endSec": 1167.39, "text": "And so the magic of a recorded in a room, tambourine, one of the oldest instruments thereare in the world of tambourine, ancient Egypt used tambourines, run through a 1950s stylespring reverb, alongside a guitar that is going into a reverb that's never existed before,that isn't actually a model of physical space." }, { "startSec": 1167.39, "endSec": 1193.23, "text": "Alongside a drum kit that alternates between being in a perfectly dry bedroom style environmentto a multi-million dollar recording studio, the drop of a dime, with all of it being ableto be morphed in and out of another song.It's crazy, crazy stuff, it's the blending of old and new at your fingertips in a waythat we've never had before, and also, like, I've never had the processing power that" }, { "startSec": 1193.23, "endSec": 1214.39, "text": "I have now, and it's just a laptop, it's not like I've got some big external thing.I'm finally able to run more native stuff on my laptop, like it used to have to be onexternal DSP digital processing units, they're letting me finally use it all on my laptop.I've yet to run into any sort of errors or anything like that, I've got the M1 Pro," }, { "startSec": 1214.39, "endSec": 1240.62, "text": "it's not even the latest, and I've never had tools like this, I've never had accesslike this, I'm so thrilled to make music with it, and I'm so excited to see what comesnext.I know that like a lot of this AI stuff is scary, but that's part of what I'm going to talkwith Riley about next week, is how do we actually turn this into good?And this is it, give me the tools, give me the options, and then eventually automate" }, { "startSec": 1240.62, "endSec": 1267.14, "text": "out some of the crappy workflow, because I'm still having to do it.How do you save me time and save other creators time so that we can make more stuff?And then you guys can enjoy more things, it can be more gradients of emotions.And so that's my Japan studio and Black Friday update here.I hope you got some interesting things out of it, and I hope that as you approach music" }, { "startSec": 1267.14, "endSec": 1290.86, "text": "in this new year, I hope you start to hear some of these things, or it's like, I've neverheard anything like that before, because if you write a classic song, again, doesn't reallymatter how it's being recorded, but you can access different parts of your brain andyour soul reactively.Like, I'm going to play different guitar parts than I've ever played before in thesenew tools." }, { "startSec": 1290.86, "endSec": 1319.62, "text": "It's just going to bring something out of me.I know it will.I'm going to sing different lyrics into that reverb, just going to happen.No choice.It's like walking into a different room, do you notice that you talk differently, shiftingbetween the hallway and the elevator, or how like a pastor talks in a big church versushow they talk to you after the service?It's that natural, just adapt, adaption." }, { "startSec": 1319.62, "endSec": 1345.94, "text": "You know, you adapt to that environment, and you do so musically.You do so on a different guitar, you do so in a different space, and accessing thesespaces that have never before existed and do not exist outside of a computer will allowus to access different places creatively and artistically.I think that it will be the perfect medium and venue to talk about the modern world problems." }, { "startSec": 1345.94, "endSec": 1367.18, "text": "But yeah, definitely subscribe to the pod and check out next week.We're going to be talking with Riley about how he's using AI for good, how he's also battlingwith AI for mastering because he's a mastering engineer and there's a bunch of AI masteringtools.And so he's done these shootouts for clients and stuff like that.It's a super fascinating conversation.It's actually a two-parter.So I hope you enjoy that." }, { "startSec": 1367.18, "endSec": 1382.26, "text": "And once again, thank you for listening, feel free to share the part of your friends.Subscribe.Five stars.All of that stuff.Thank you so much.And I hope you have a great holiday season.I'll be checking in again very soon.Take care." } ], "correctionsApplied": [] }