Doing More with Less (Art and Grit)

0:19 What's good everybody, this is Scoobert Doobert, welcome back to Love Music More.Today I want to talk about making the most of what you've got.So I was reading the audio engineering subreddit as one does, and somebody was asking a question.And I just thought it was like the perfect little thing, a little microcosm of all of art.And he was asking, I want to record drums.

0:44 What's the minimum that I need to record in decent sounding?Professional, super high-fi, decent sounding drums.Most people responded all of the top comments where go to a professional studio,spend your entire budget on a professional studio, professional engineer.Don't even try.And then one of the other comments was, hey, no, like you should try,but what you're going to need is at least 12 microphones.

1:08 And detailing all the different places that you have to put all these microphones.And I responded, and I was trying to say like,really you just need to, or maybe even one, put a mic somewhere in a room.Try and make it sound cool.Oh, that doesn't work at another microphone.Maybe rent some microphones.But if you place two microphones around a good drummer and a good drum kit,

1:33 you can get a really cool sounding drum kit.And then you can use digital tools to fill in the gaps.If you don't have the budget to do all this stuff,you can put it in a virtual room,like using Sound City, this universal audio plugin that I'm loving right now.And like 1%, you know, just the tiniest hint of professional room.Just tiniest.Those things go a really long way,

1:57 and they save you from having to spend $35,000 on room treatmentand then another $50,000 on microphones and preamps and compressors and all these things.Now, just go the absolute minimum that you need to preserve the vibe,the emotion what you're going for.And I've been thinking about it a lot and it's like,I just want to spread this message far and widefor not just audio engineering, but for all things.

2:26 You're the one that's holding yourself back.Don't.Don't let the gear and the other things hold yourself back.You can produce an entire thing on your phone.I went to a panel and they were talking about how they were making their first beatson their PlayStation 2.You can make beats on a Tesla.My buddy was rented a Tesla and he made a little beat on it.

2:55 I'm just saying like, there are opportunities when you're renting a car,when you're on your phone, and iPad, Chromebook.The technology is there now.So creating these barriers in my mind that, oh no, I have to get it perfectbefore I even start.It just prevents you from ever even starting.And I think a lot about that where like how much time I've wasted in my lifeby just not starting, not just doing it.

3:30 I was watching the Super Bowl and I was kind of touched and it was funnybecause I wasn't really rooting for Kansas City just because they're division rivalswith my chargers.But Patrick Mahomes, in the very beginning, he was talking to his teammates and he goes,how bad do you want it?How bad do you want it?And you know what, I made me be like, oh man, I can't really root against you

3:55 because that's like, that's it man, that's what I, you can overcome so muchjust by wanting it enough, by going for it.You can overcome the lack of quality gear.I've been doing it with my music and I'm leveling up quality every year,every paycheck, every royalty statement from Spotify or whatever.It all goes right back, builds me up just a little bit.

4:19 And the beauty of doing it slowly too and not having like an unlimited budgetjust to start off and build your dream recordings to do you.So you can identify the stuff that you actually use and then buy it in time.You can find those gaps.You can be like, oh man, this sounds almost as good as I wanted it to.But not quite, you know what, it's missing, maybe another microphone.

4:37 But instead of just going right to 12, starting at two,now you can identify like, oh, you know what, I wanted my drum kit to soundpunchier.So maybe I need to have something like a, a FET style microphonethat I can put around the drum kit and the kick, maybe,they can handle a lot of loudness, high SPLs, that's what it's called.And then you invest in that one specific thing,

5:04 one really nice thing to put in the right placebecause you felt like it was missing.And guess what, by not spending all of your money and going to a studio,which there are times and places to go to studios, I can be wrong.But instead of doing that and you blow your whole budget there,if you instead invest in yourself with time,then maybe you buy the bit of equipment that you use on every record from then on.

5:26 So instead of that thousand dollars just kind of poof, it's gone.It's now turns into something that's like a tool for you forever, an asset.But it's hard to identify those assets from the beginning.A lot of people waste a ton of money by doing that.This is something that I'm playing with with my my next record.I'm going to list a little bit more of the gear that I'm using just so that,

5:49 you know, if somebody hears the guitar sound and I'm like,I really want to do that.Maybe they can buy the exact guitar, you know,none of my stuff is crazy expensive.It's attainable.You know, one of the main, both the guitars that I'm using around 13 hundred dollars each.Obviously, that's not cheap.But attainable, especially with 48 months, 0% financing.Thank you very much, Sweetwater.

6:14 That is unlocks some things for me.So they're not a sponsor, but, you know, maybe someday.Maybe someday they'll be able to give me 64 month zero percent interest.But it's the whole idea of like, I don't have to max out that credit card.I make a defined, clear, actionable within my budget investment.See how that goes.Identify the next gap and then make the next investment instead of doing it all once.

6:41 And having the confidence that like, hey, it might not be perfect.But that's not what I'm going for anyway.And if I was going for perfect, that's like paralysis.Perfection is paralysis because what do I, what do I do with that?I need to grow.I need to change.Also, I want to be different than everyone else.So if I want to go for this perfect recording, I got to hire everyone else.And that's okay.

7:09 But then I have to have a ton of money.And it's kind of fall short because I didn't put in the time and the effortand paid the dues, whatever, to get to that place.And your definition of perfection changes over time too.So instead, I like to think of it the exact opposite.It's like, okay, what do I have?What makes me me?What makes my songs, my songs?

7:27 My guitar playing, my guitar playing, and try not to flatten that out.Instead try to lean into it.Like, I have some just things that I do with rhythm that I'm not saying,like, oh, my great, whatever, I'm actually saying negative things that I do with rhythm.A push pull that's inherent just in my, in my, my playing.And like, I could go into the computer and I could chop it all up.

7:53 Move it all exactly where the computer's lines say it should go.Or I could do in an Ableton, which a lot of times I don't record guitars into Abletonbecause it's too easy to fix things.I like the difficulty fixing things, so that don't fix things.And then just smash it, turn it into the computer's version.And sometimes that's cool.Sometimes I do that because it's an effect.

8:14 But at the same time, like, when you come see me live,don't you want to hear the same thing?So if I instead lean into my quirks, then when you come hear me live,it's like, oh, it sounds like that because you heard my,my musical fingerprints on it.And you can get more of that sometimes by doing less.By maybe not having the best plugins or whatever,just the stock plugins.You're not getting the color from the plugins.

8:42 You're getting the color from the way you're playing it.Knowing that you have nothing else to fall back on.And that's a beautiful thing.But it's also a beautiful thing when you understand your toolsand you get the tools and you use the tools to make the artthat you have in your head.So it's a fine, it's a fine balance,but what I like is the dance between the two.I will always have limited resources.

9:02 But hopefully gradually over time,as I understand what my vision is more and more,the resources become more and more.And I'll close with one of my favorite kind of waysthat I've been thinking about recording.And I think the recording is greatand I'll look to everything else.It can be any art, really.Using the medium that all other people,older people had as creative constraints

9:28 because creative constraints are always great.So like say, for example, you're a painter.What if you painted using only period colors?Stuff that you could only find in certain time periods?Or in regards to music,I have a limitation of about 22 minutes per sideof an album, 18 to 22.And thinking about that in terms of the segments,the phases of those music kind of like pieces.

9:59 Like when do you turn the page, so to speak?Like you have a book.It's a certain length of pageand trying to find a rhythmat which that page is turned.And there's a palette cleansewhen you're flipping an album.Thinking like that helps unlock something in digital musicwhere you can literally have an album of 600 songs.Like Mac DeMarco did, which is awesome.But at the same time, I don't know,

10:23 I like the creative constraints in the same waythat two track recording or four track recordinghas terrible constraints,but also incredible advantages.And that's the reason why a ton of artists,you know, can find themselves to that,especially when they're hitting a creative wall.They say I'm only allowed to do this.Finding those things is one way to do it.Being forced into it because you don't have enough money

10:49 is another way to do it.But looking at them is the same gift, the same thing.Like I don't have multiple rooms to record my music in.But I have a room now before I just had a bedroom.And then before that, I was renting a different space.Before that, I was renting a different space.The rooms were changing.The things were happening around mebecause I couldn't afford that place,but I could afford this place.

11:11 And that's part of the fingerprint of that record.You know, one of the things I like about,like don't worry and mess and monsters,like that whole big hug little hug kind of erais I lived in a place with really,I was really old, had bad insulation.And there's like a bunch of ivyall around the apartment, like ground cover.I guess maybe it would be a better word, describe it.

11:37 And it was just riddled with crickets and frogsand lizards and slugs, slugs were the worst.But you'd hear in the records, like if you wear headphones,you can hear it on some of the songs of just crickets.And somebody would be like,cool, he's being so low-fi,adding crickets into his music.I was like, no, I just had crickets all over the placeand my windows didn't shut properly,

12:02 so there's crickets in every recording I did.Or like can't imagine feeling betterwhen I'm singing the chorus.If you isolate the vocal track, it sounds likethere's a cool white noise filter on it.And I leaned into a little bit and added a little phaser upon the like top eight killer hurt frequenciesand above on the shaker and all this kind of stuff,little phasing.

12:25 And it's like, oh, what's that cool white noise he added?Oh, it's my landlord watering outside of my doors.I'm doing my recording.But like the whole song is like,you can't yuck my kind of vibeand that's what it was.It got across.I was literally singing it to him.Like, go away.I'm singing a song right now, recording this thingthat ends up being in a commercial and changing my life.

12:46 Uh, but maybe you can hear that stuff.Maybe that stuff is what makes the song the song.And taking it and putting in a professionalpristine recording environment might take the thingthat made it it out of it.Not to say that, you know, never do it.Like I look forward to the daysthat I can do professional recordings sometimes,but not always.There's a magic to changing the environment,to having limitations.

13:17 And the magic is inside of that Patrick Mahomes thingof how bad do you want it?What are you gonna let stand in your way?I also saw the Kobe statue unveiled outside of Staples Center.This weekend before the Super Bowl,went to a Laker game, which was amazing.I usually try to go to one a yearbecause they're so expensive.Um, it's like my gift that my sister and I give each othergo to a Laker game together.

13:49 And we saw the Kobe statue.And, man, it's like emotionalbecause he has obviously tragic passing and Gigiand everybody else is on the look after his.That's obviously heavy, heavy emotional weight.But there was a different kind of emotional weightat the statue unveiling because it was likethe whole community of LA was aroundto celebrate the greatness and the effort,the mentality that created the mythos of Kobe Bryant.

14:25 And it leaned into it on the stuff, the quotesand things on the statue.I recommend you check them out.But it really sat with me of he didn't have all of the tools.He didn't.Yeah, he's very talented.But the way he was built, he couldn't spin a basketballon his hand.I think he had problems pulming the ball too.Obviously he had big hands.He was able to be basketball player,like one of the best basketball players.

14:56 But I really like basketball playersthat just sheer force of will take themselvesto just that S tier at highest, highest echelon.And it's mentality and it's refusing to let,like, oh, I might not be the fastestor jump the highest.Not letting any of that get in your wayinstead finding like, okay, maybe my hands are smaller,so maybe I can shoot better like a Steph Curry.You know, these kind of shifts,

15:27 I'd say this detriment can now be in my advantage,in sports and arts and life.Anyway, and thinking about that a lot,and trying to apply it to this recordthat I'm working on right now.And I hope I hope that this little rantlands in your life in some way.I've got some really amazing guests coming upon the pod here this month.Really, really excited to get all of that outand in to your ears.

16:00 Had a really fun one just earlier todaywith Bermuda, Bermuda Schwartz, Weird Al,Yankovic's drummer, and they've been working togetherfor like 40 years or something like that.So I got to talk all about his journeyand how he became a multi-platinum drummer,producer, recording guy, everything.And it's fascinating to see how much of itis just showing up being down for the adventure

16:30 and being diligent and never letting anybody take your job.You know, caring so much, investing in relationshipsand just never letting anybody take that spot.So I'm really excited for you to hear those.So definitely invite you to subscribe to the podcast.And also if you can rate it, five starsthat would be much appreciated.It helps other people see it.And you know, share with friends.

16:52 If somebody, you know, that's a creative or anything,chef, whatever, good benefit from this kind of talk,please send it their way.I hope that some of these little findingsand musings can influence more musicand more art out there in the world.That's the whole reason why I'm doing it.And as I'm trying to blaze my path up the mountain,hopefully by talking about it as I'm doing it,rather than just like after I do it,

17:20 gives a different perspective.I'm not a legend.I am very much a work in progress,but my goal is to do this full time and leave a legacy.Just like Kobe, Patrick Mahomes and all these people in their fields,I want to do with music.And some people will say that's crazy,or that I don't have the tools,or that I need to go to a professional recording studio.But I'll just ask them, how bad do you want it?