Gustav Brunn Interview

2:44 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? Welcome back to Love Music More. I am Scoobert Doobert, and I am joined with Gustav Brunn, who is going to take us on his journey across live bands and his love of Southern California all the way from Southern Sweden and then take us into the studio and across live sound and just this varied musical career, all in the goal of making you guys love music more. So welcome, Gustav.

3:10 Luke F. Walton Thank you for joining us.

3:12 Gustav Brunn Amazing. Thank you. Well, I have to deliver as well, right?

3:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah, no,

3:16 Gustav Brunn I'm

3:16 Luke F. Walton you do.

3:16 Gustav Brunn going to talk shit for more.

3:19 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

3:19 Gustav Brunn Amazing. It's great to be here. And like I told you before, it's my first podcast. Be gentle, be

3:27 Luke F. Walton Yes.

3:28 Gustav Brunn nice.

3:28 Luke F. Walton Oh, I will. This podcast is known for hard hitting hot takes and a lot of tension.

3:34 Luke F. Walton So how did you get started with music and also where are you right now just so the listeners can get a sense of the global nature of this conversation over the internet?

3:43 Gustav Brunn Absolutely. So I am located, I am located, yeah, I'm in Lund in the south of Sweden. Count of Skåne, which is like the Texas of Sweden, just geographically mostly. But the very south of Sweden in my studio, I mostly do mixing and mastering here. You can see some guitars, you can see some other shit. But so that's where I am and like how I started with like what I where I

4:16 Luke F. Walton yo what hooked you how'd you get the bug

4:20 Gustav Brunn The music bug.

4:21 Luke F. Walton You The

4:21 Gustav Brunn know,

4:22 Luke F. Walton music bug.

4:22 Gustav Brunn I've been thinking about it many times and I remember like like none of my parents were musicians. My father had a guitar tuned in an open chord so he could play slide guitar and it was also kind of good to it was easier to play because it would like be a major chord if you just held your finger.

4:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:45 Gustav Brunn So I guess, you know, it was standing there and of course I was intrigued. And then he made me like the first, he told me the first song I played was, it's a Rolling Stones song. It's like, take me to the station, put me, got no expectations, it's called. It's like five, five, five, five, zero, five, five, five, five, seven. 5-5, yeah, that's great.

5:11 Luke F. Walton Perfect.

5:12 Gustav Brunn And my mother, she played a lot of music at home. She grew up in Brazil, so there was a lot of Latin music coming from her speakers, and both had vinyl collections with the big...

5:30 Gustav Brunn covers that were intriguing you saw them standing there like what is this so there i mean i had access to music and this is by the way in the 40s i'm 90 years old no but um yeah so it was like vinyls i'm born 87 so cassettes and vinyls and cds but we had mostly vinyls um and You know, both were like music consumers, listeners, music lovers, but nothing more than that. And then I, okay, this is it, two movies,

6:12 Luke F. Walton Two movies.

6:14 Gustav Brunn Terminator 2.

6:15 Luke F. Walton Yes!

6:18 Gustav Brunn and Wayne's World you

6:20 Luke F. Walton Yes.

6:21 Gustav Brunn know because I was I think both came in 93 94 92 94 some somewhere in between and I was like five six and we could watch you know we watched Alien so like my parents would let me watch anything but but Terminator 2 I think it guns and roses the the the shot where Arnold Schwarzenegger rides the motorcycle down the LA River and It's like a Guns N' Roses song from the from

6:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:49 Gustav Brunn Use Your Illusion, I think. I can't remember which one, but it's like how can you not just, you know, love it? And of course, and Wayne's World. I remember clearly you've seen Wayne's World.

7:05 Luke F. Walton Yes, of course. Party

7:05 Gustav Brunn Amazing.

7:06 Luke F. Walton on.

7:06 Gustav Brunn Otherwise, I would just hang up on you. But when they go to the Alice Cooper concert, and I remember feeling like, what am I? What is this dangerous

7:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:17 Gustav Brunn thing

7:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:18 Gustav Brunn that sounds cool and looks like nothing I've ever seen? And I remember me and my, I have a big brother. He's like 20 months older than me, so quite close in age. And I remember we had these like teddy bears, like what do you call them? Goose ear. cuddle bear whatever Yeah, yeah

7:42 Luke F. Walton teddy bear like stuffed

7:43 Gustav Brunn and

7:43 Luke F. Walton animal.

7:43 Gustav Brunn and we and we took pencils

7:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah

7:46 Gustav Brunn and uh and started a band with our uh with our teddy teddy bears so like you could play guitar if you had it like this and then he had like two so he could play drums and then we like played to played along to songs that had a band called

8:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

8:00 Gustav Brunn the Fuzz Bears don't

8:01 Luke F. Walton The Fuzz Bears.

8:02 Gustav Brunn steal it if you go on Spotify there's probably seven bands called the Fuzz Bears one is a stoner rock band with a um and

8:12 Gustav Brunn so we were and like me and my brother we were yeah you know you you just want to discover stuff and music and And we grew up quite poor, so we couldn't go and buy CDs. Like a CD was 150 kroner. That was a lot of money for us then. But we lived on top of a secondhand vinyl store. Like really,

8:37 Luke F. Walton No

8:37 Gustav Brunn this

8:37 Luke F. Walton way. Really.

8:38 Gustav Brunn is the entrance to our apartment

8:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

8:39 Gustav Brunn and to the left is a secondhand vinyl store. So I remember when I, I think I turned 10 and I... or like nine or eight or whatever I am I wanted the Alice Cooper album hey stupid

8:52 Luke F. Walton Cool.

8:53 Gustav Brunn I think I think I didn't get it I think I got like best of Alice Cooper and

8:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

8:59 Gustav Brunn the song wasn't on it it was like schools out like from the 70s I'm like what is this lame thing I wanted hey stupid anyway I'm super grateful anyway and I think I

9:11 Gustav Brunn And from there it was like you would go down there and just browse the hard rock and

9:15 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

9:15 Gustav Brunn be like Iron Maiden, like what is like the most beautiful artwork,

9:19 Luke F. Walton Yes.

9:19 Gustav Brunn colorful, dangerous and you just I could stand there for just watching. I had no clue but then my best friend, the guy I told you we're going to segue into that later who moved to San Diego, he lived on the same street as me and he had an even older brother who were like into...

9:38 Gustav Brunn So he would play music and we would like steal his when he wasn't home we would sneak into his room and like put on He had like of course bridge against the machine I

9:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah

9:50 Gustav Brunn Think every generation goes through a Rage Against the Machine phase and

9:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

9:57 Gustav Brunn like a

9:57 Luke F. Walton totally.

9:57 Gustav Brunn Nirvana phase but

9:58 Luke F. Walton Of course, yeah.

9:59 Gustav Brunn but and like bad religion and and a bunch of other stuff so then it quickly like then I knew like okay I'm gonna play guitar I need to I need to learn how to make this these crazy sounds from

10:12 Luke F. Walton was it

10:13 Gustav Brunn that

10:13 Luke F. Walton that original guitar that made you be like i want to play guitar out of all the you know instrumentation like this stuff has got really heavy drums it's got vocals all these things what was it because you had access to that guitar that made you be like i want to do that

10:26 Gustav Brunn great question i never actually thought about it but it's a valid question i think it must have been Because like my dad had an electric guitar.

10:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right. Access.

10:35 Gustav Brunn It's a good question. Because my brother started playing the drums later, maybe because if we both play guitar, it's hard to have some, I don't know.

10:45 Luke F. Walton Right.

10:45 Gustav Brunn But it's a good question. And then... From there, like I know, and then I when my my grand my grandpa he passed in like 97. I was 10 or 11 90 I think 97 or 96 then my dad got like out yeah some money from from his what do you hear what

11:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:07 Gustav Brunn do you call it

11:08 Luke F. Walton Inheritance.

11:08 Gustav Brunn inheritance exactly not

11:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:11 Gustav Brunn a lot but but i think the first thing he did was to go to the music store and get me a squire stratcaster and like a fender frontman i love him for that changed my life and then i would just plug in my guitar and like turn the game all the way up and then just and then just do like like this imagine with like tons of gain and do like and

11:38 Gustav Brunn it would almost sound like in we mountain almost and then I of course you sort of play like do do do do do do like breaking

11:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:49 Gustav Brunn the law and like one note stuff like

11:51 Luke F. Walton Right.

11:51 Gustav Brunn Black Sabbath stuff so

11:52 Luke F. Walton Yep.

11:54 Gustav Brunn that's sort of how I It was the hard rock got

12:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

12:02 Gustav Brunn me

12:02 Luke F. Walton yeah.

12:02 Gustav Brunn into music, I'd say, like wanting to play music. and

12:06 Luke F. Walton i love

12:06 Gustav Brunn from there

12:07 Luke F. Walton yeah

12:07 Gustav Brunn yeah go

12:08 Luke F. Walton i

12:08 Gustav Brunn ahead yeah

12:08 Luke F. Walton love how you um kind of like highlighted these things like music as these like little magical items these like artifacts you like hold up this vinyl i feel like sometimes you know we lose that or we lose that childhood wonder or whatever when you like pick up an instrument be like the magic that's inside of this thing or um the danger of like hard rock music and like the aggressive colorful album covers like all that stuff it's really cool it's like

12:32 Luke F. Walton like fun to like rethink of that because i felt the same thing but sometimes you lose that you like lose like that's what it was like looking through the eyes of a child

12:39 Gustav Brunn at yeah exactly there's

12:40 Luke F. Walton this thing that we still do yeah

12:42 Gustav Brunn also just a dramatic me but but also like talking about it makes me go back and I love it you know for such such big moments

12:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:51 Gustav Brunn for me and

12:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:52 Gustav Brunn and then like and then my my best friend who lived on the same street who had a brother with a bad religion record that moved San Diego that guy he

13:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:00 Gustav Brunn he also started playing guitar and he got a black I got a white like off-white square strat and

13:08 Luke F. Walton Cool.

13:08 Gustav Brunn he got like a black square strat I was like man yours is black mine is white but and then we started I think in like fifth grade we you started having music lessons in third or fourth grade I think oh and it takes me back I remember we would in the music class we would like learn how to play guitar so like Like 15 kids would sit in a circle with

13:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:32 Gustav Brunn an acoustic guitar and

13:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:33 Gustav Brunn play like Hang down your head Tom Dooley hang down your head and cry like DG a7 and I remember it's fucking hard so

13:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:48 Gustav Brunn i would like i would wait on the d until it came again you know like hang

13:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:53 Gustav Brunn down your head tom cry and then i would eventually learn like the ecg and then yeah whatever now i fucking shred hell's

14:04 Luke F. Walton Hell yeah.

14:05 Gustav Brunn getting but um And then we started a band and we found some classmates and we wanted to play like hard rock and they were like, we want to play blues rock and they were like, so lame. So we took some like

14:21 Luke F. Walton Get

14:21 Gustav Brunn of that and found another drummer and a bass player and then we had our first band in year 2000, I think, 13,

14:32 Luke F. Walton heavy.

14:32 Gustav Brunn yeah. then quickly it segued quickly because we never had a singer i remember we we had my brother played drum no a guy named nils played drums and my no nils played drums i mean uh like a drum drums two guitars bass and we're like no one can sing like bruce dickinson what

14:51 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:51 Gustav Brunn are we gonna

14:51 Luke F. Walton right

14:51 Gustav Brunn do

14:52 Luke F. Walton yeah what are we gonna do

14:53 Gustav Brunn i'm

14:53 Luke F. Walton we need

14:53 Gustav Brunn not i'm not even gonna try and we're like how do we find someone who sings

14:57 Luke F. Walton you know we're

14:58 Gustav Brunn how can

14:58 Luke F. Walton trying to make an iron

14:58 Gustav Brunn we even

14:59 Luke F. Walton maiden style band we need an iron maiden style singer

15:02 Gustav Brunn Exactly. And then, so we probably were this amazing place called Hemgården, which is like a youth center.

15:08 Luke F. Walton Okay.

15:10 Gustav Brunn We're going to talk much more about that later, but where we found the practice base cost like nothing to be like a member for two dollars per year and then you

15:21 Luke F. Walton that's cool.

15:21 Gustav Brunn know, subsidized.

15:22 Luke F. Walton That's great. Yeah.

15:25 Gustav Brunn And then like we had like you have a lot like allocated time like

15:29 Luke F. Walton Mm

15:29 Gustav Brunn Tuesdays

15:29 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

15:29 Gustav Brunn at 7

15:31 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

15:31 Gustav Brunn and so the the band who came in after us every week were like these like, you know crust punks, you know like fucking leather jackets and like all these yeah back patches and like, you know discharge and once

15:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:45 Gustav Brunn like they came like came into our room and then like the other guys in their band were late so we're like can we just play one with them and then we like it was like good vibes no no hard feelings but

16:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah,

16:01 Gustav Brunn then we're like hey wouldn't you like I was like I have this new riff like can't you just take the mics and like I don't know scream or something and

16:10 Luke F. Walton yeah.

16:10 Gustav Brunn it was like a more of an up-tempo thing and we played it and they just because they had just renovated the practice space it was like this this it was in the basement so like this window up here and

16:24 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

16:24 Gustav Brunn you have to take like off this thing to access the window and like the the guy who installed like the handyman had written like lift up pull out but in Swedish luft up luft up drag out and and like

16:43 Gustav Brunn had written a message like you know please take kids please take care of your practice space it's lovely and renovated kind regards the handyman so there would be like like It's up to you!

16:58 Gustav Brunn like really like and just like that's verse one and the chorus and that was amazing and then we and then they joined our band and we we became up and we became a punk band

17:07 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

17:07 Gustav Brunn instead which was amazing

17:08 Luke F. Walton Amazing. I love that.

17:10 Gustav Brunn That was my first two bands.

17:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:14 Gustav Brunn Now for a quick commercial break music.

17:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

17:16 Gustav Brunn But yeah.

17:17 Luke F. Walton Hey everybody, Scoobert Doobert here. I'm excited to announce my new record, I, as in the letter I. It is available on all streaming platforms now as well as on Bandcamp with high-res .wav files. So usually you hear the compressed MP3s or things to the streaming services, these .wav files, they sound the best. They absolutely do. It is science. I'm actually going to be posting a blog article about why.

17:41 Luke F. Walton Hey, waves sound better than MP3s and that leads me to my next topic. I started a blog and we are pressing vinyl.

17:48 Luke F. Walton So whoever is subscribed to the blog is going to get first dibs on the limited edition vinyls. We're talking like some super, super limited edition. I think they're only doing like 10 or 15 of the, you know, top shelf stuff and then there will be other really cool colorways as well. But the whole vinyl run is not that big because I'm not that big, you know, hopefully someday we'll be able to press more.

18:07 Luke F. Walton But until then, you got to jump on it now. Now, so join the blog, join that mailing list. It's all free and then you'll be able to get first dibs on that vinyl of I as it's being pressed. And on that blog, we're also going to be doing stuff for like show notes and other musical topics that require a little bit more visual component.

18:26 Luke F. Walton So for example, I just did a pod not too long ago on musical notation throughout the history. It'd be kind of cool to see like what it actually looks like throughout history, right? And that's what the blog's here for.

18:38 Luke F. Walton It will hit your emails just like every Tuesday morning is kind of what we're looking at, and it'll just be a nice extra little way to love music more, expand the understanding from the podcast, and also hook you up with some exclusive perks like first dibs on vinyl records. So anyway, check out the new music. Hopefully subscribe to that sub stack.

18:58 Luke F. Walton You'll find the link in my show notes or you could go to love music more dot sub stack. dot com to sign up today and we'll uh we'll send you some emails So enjoy the music and enjoy the rest of the episode.

19:11 Luke F. Walton I mean, that's also like a great example of like the community that those community spaces or practice spaces in my situation, it was like churches.

19:17 Luke F. Walton We would have these like little rec rooms and churches and we'd take them over and beg people until we could finally get the keys so then we could come in after hours and like play and then you'd get kicked out of that church because you did something bad and you got to go to a different church because we didn't really have practice spaces where I was at.

19:35 Luke F. Walton But I love the idea of like, just you have built-in community if you have a community location that you're all shredding in, you know?

19:43 Gustav Brunn Yeah, that was amazing and because it was like a youth center and yeah like but it was of course they were like you know adults and like people working there but everything was so very DIY and like community feeling in terms of you have to become a member for nothing and then you

20:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:04 Gustav Brunn had access to everything like a pool table you could do whatever you want and and then they would they wouldn't organize like they would sometimes organize like fishing trips but then would be like they would just ask the kids so so where do you want to go and they would be like where do you want to go so I don't know to like to that

20:26 Gustav Brunn place there the lake okay let's go to lake so they would i don't know if it's sort of a special type of uh what do you call it like uh

20:36 Luke F. Walton instruction or teaching or method

20:38 Gustav Brunn yeah yeah

20:38 Luke F. Walton or whatever

20:39 Gustav Brunn method of teaching like to just you know and that was such a powerful uh

20:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah

20:47 Gustav Brunn thing as a as a child it's a child but like a teenager to be like be given all this responsibility because

20:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:57 Gustav Brunn and like and and so eventually like they had concerts but like like when we started putting on like hardcore punk concerts with like touring bands from sweden and abroad like

21:07 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

21:08 Gustav Brunn we would organize it and like they were just like you can use space here's the pa and everything and like but we would be the organizers and when i was i don't know 16 17 we were putting on shows ourselves like you know entry fee we need to calculate so they wanted 200 so i think we could pull like 30 40 people so what would be You know, it's just amazing.

21:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

21:31 Gustav Brunn Yeah, but

21:31 Luke F. Walton I love

21:32 Gustav Brunn that taste

21:32 Luke F. Walton that.

21:32 Gustav Brunn was amazing.

21:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I always think, I think that this kind of stuff is so interesting, especially with Sweden because Sweden

21:41 Luke F. Walton punches like way above its weight in terms of impact in the music industry and like the total population versus its total impact and so i love looking at these little things about um like the youth groups or these like knowledge circle things that i heard that you guys can do where you can like have like four or five people be like we're all gonna learn this hobby and you get a grant from the government or

22:03 Gustav Brunn exactly yeah yeah yeah i

22:04 Luke F. Walton it's cool

22:05 Gustav Brunn mean for

22:05 Luke F. Walton it's

22:05 Gustav Brunn me that's

22:05 Luke F. Walton so different

22:06 Gustav Brunn like that's like normal like

22:07 Luke F. Walton yeah

22:07 Gustav Brunn how can it not be but but of

22:09 Luke F. Walton We're

22:09 Gustav Brunn course

22:09 Luke F. Walton on our own over here except for

22:10 Gustav Brunn except except for churches but but that's a if you

22:13 Luke F. Walton churches have right.

22:13 Gustav Brunn a that's a culture on its own right

22:16 Luke F. Walton It

22:16 Gustav Brunn like

22:16 Luke F. Walton is absolutely certainly

22:17 Gustav Brunn you sort of grow the absolute absolutely best at least drummers no but you know musicians

22:22 Luke F. Walton yeah

22:23 Gustav Brunn and

22:23 Luke F. Walton no

22:23 Gustav Brunn because

22:23 Luke F. Walton seriously yeah

22:24 Gustav Brunn that's like you you kick our asses in in that field um in terms of like virtuosity exactly

22:31 Luke F. Walton virtuosity and and yeah and having having church spaces that cultivate that and pass that on where

22:36 Gustav Brunn yeah

22:36 Luke F. Walton you have like elders in the church to play in the church band teaching the younger drummers it becomes its own little community center but it's interesting because that's because there's like a void there's there's a gap that we we just lack

22:49 Gustav Brunn Yeah,

22:49 Luke F. Walton Okay.

22:49 Gustav Brunn exactly.

22:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

22:50 Gustav Brunn No, but, but Sweden is great. And I have two kids now. I have a daughter who's, she's turning four and my son is turning two and I'm like, you know, I just sort of, of course I want them to, to want to, to play music, but I'm trying not to choke them. I'm like, I have a, I have like a. Philly, Philly Corda, like the organ,

23:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:17 Gustav Brunn the small one,

23:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:18 Gustav Brunn and like a ukulele and they like look at it and like sometimes, but I think if I try too hard now it's definitely not gonna do it later. It's just gonna be, it's gonna be there like a Chekhovian rifle. You get that reference?

23:34 Luke F. Walton It's got

23:35 Gustav Brunn You get that reference?

23:36 Luke F. Walton to go off. You can't.

23:38 Gustav Brunn amazing I love it no but exactly it's got to go off after like before act three it's over but it's just gonna be hanging there on the wall for now anyway I don't know why I said that but now you know I have kids as well but but but yeah

23:57 Luke F. Walton No, but I hear what you're saying in terms of like the differences in cultural experience and access and then also yeah like trying to raise a kid like you're trying to do a little bit of what brought you to music, which was your own curiosity and having these things the access and the curiosity and then the cultivation. Exactly. Yeah,

24:18 Gustav Brunn Exactly.

24:18 Luke F. Walton if you try and force it on somebody, it might almost shut off the magic, it might make it

24:24 Gustav Brunn It

24:24 Luke F. Walton never seemed like something that is attractive yeah

24:26 Gustav Brunn just needs to be accessible.

24:29 Luke F. Walton yeah and then you went then you went from that formed additional bands and ended up touring I saw that you played like three four hundred shows with Atlas losing grip which I listened to before taping and I really enjoyed it and it did it reminded me of SoCal and I wanted to ask you about that I was like

24:52 Gustav Brunn Yeah,

24:52 Luke F. Walton It's like, this sounds like some SoCal.

24:53 Gustav Brunn exactly.

24:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

24:55 Gustav Brunn No, but like, so I had like my hard rock era and then came the punk era and like hard core punk era, just kidding about the eras, but there was, I think I, later on, we started that band in 2005. When I was, what is 18, I think it was 17 going to turn 18 in

25:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:21 Gustav Brunn the same youth center, like an older guy,

25:25 Luke F. Walton Cool. Sweet.

25:25 Gustav Brunn he's like he was seven years older than me and he was a fucking shredder on guitar and he also loved heavy metal so it's like can we just go down and play guitar and it would make me play the

25:37 Gustav Brunn like the rhythm guitar for like Iron Maiden songs so we could just go off and shred on

25:42 Luke F. Walton top Sweet.

25:42 Gustav Brunn it's

25:42 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

25:43 Gustav Brunn like wow man he was such an inspiration and then and years later we I can't remember exactly how but like a bunch of different bands formed with the same members in that group of friends and you know but then we sort of we need to like we would uh we really need to start like a skate punk band because at

26:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

26:08 Gustav Brunn that point i was really into like bad religion and no effects and like lagwagon and all these bands it's

26:14 Luke F. Walton And when did Tony Hawk Pro Skater come out? Because I feel like that.

26:17 Gustav Brunn okay oh yeah or not yeah thanks thanks for mentioning it i think that was must have been 1999 i think exactly no actually you're you know more about me than but but that was such a that was such a such a you know big thing and

26:35 Luke F. Walton Totally.

26:35 Gustav Brunn because exactly that's how it was i was really into hard rock and then like tony hawk came and everyone at youth center played it like there was this line to play and like you would hear like goldfinger mill and colin all these uh all these things and i would like be like fuck i really like this is kind of soft but it's like it's almost like like have you ever listened to german power metal like halloween or No,

27:00 Luke F. Walton Uh

27:00 Gustav Brunn yeah,

27:00 Luke F. Walton -huh.

27:00 Gustav Brunn so I fucked a lot with that and I was like this is the exact same melodies and chord changes only that it's not a double kick It's just a single kick and

27:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:10 Gustav Brunn like the tempo like like dragon force is skate punk with a double kick drop

27:14 Luke F. Walton Cool.

27:14 Gustav Brunn You know

27:15 Luke F. Walton Yes.

27:15 Gustav Brunn in

27:16 Luke F. Walton Love that.

27:16 Gustav Brunn my opinion and

27:17 Luke F. Walton That's a great way to put it.

27:19 Gustav Brunn It really is though not this thing but anyway so yeah and

27:25 Luke F. Walton Mm then-hmm.

27:26 Gustav Brunn when Tony Hawk came I was like yeah this is fucking awesome and then of course the whole skate culture was really intriguing I never I tried to skate myself I sucked I sucked at sports maybe that's why I succeeded in music can you say really succeed no but just kidding but but sports wasn't for me I had I hadn't still have asthma like pollen allergy like going on a football field was I tried but you know I could run 20 meters and then I collapsed so I

27:53 Gustav Brunn I just retreated back to the practice

27:55 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

27:56 Gustav Brunn space,

27:56 Luke F. Walton Yes.

27:57 Gustav Brunn turned the gain up.

27:58 Luke F. Walton Yep.

28:00 Gustav Brunn So then we started a skate punk band. My brother was on drums, Stefan played first play guitar, and then we recorded a demo at first. And this is sort of how I got

28:18 Luke F. Walton How'd

28:19 Gustav Brunn into recording.

28:19 Luke F. Walton you record it? How did you record it? Yeah.

28:21 Gustav Brunn So let me think we had it we did a demo in in 2006 I think I did that actually like

28:26 Luke F. Walton You did that?

28:27 Gustav Brunn the Cool. band the band I had before

28:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:30 Gustav Brunn Sort of we like there was this this guy at the youth center was working there and I really looked up to him a lot. He played in punk bands play guitar And he got this four sticks, like poor us studio cassette

28:46 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah for

28:47 Gustav Brunn recorder,

28:47 Luke F. Walton that little digital yeah did it have did it have the um cd burner built into it because one of my friends had one of those okay

28:53 Gustav Brunn cassette.

28:54 Luke F. Walton this is cassette okay

28:55 Gustav Brunn Like even, I think it was a Four Sticks or Tascam, it could have been a Tascam. But I think you could record four tracks and then like you could ping over the tracks to like save up tracks. I'm

29:05 Luke F. Walton That makes sense, yeah.

29:06 Gustav Brunn to this day I'm not sure how it works but he would record our the band before and then at that point I had started is high school like year 10 11 12 or

29:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:19 Gustav Brunn Yeah,

29:20 Luke F. Walton 91011

29:20 Gustav Brunn so I

29:20 Luke F. Walton or 12 usually

29:21 Gustav Brunn really sucked in school, like up to ninth grade, and the only thing that, like I loved music, but I would be like a total jerk and like the clown of the class and I wouldn't pay attention or do my homework. But when I realized, so... To get into music high school I need to have like a certain amount of points

29:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:48 Gustav Brunn what

29:48 Luke F. Walton grades.

29:48 Gustav Brunn do you call it like

29:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:49 Gustav Brunn grade

29:49 Luke F. Walton yeah.

29:49 Gustav Brunn exactly like decent grades. So that would that would be the only thing to motivate me to actually do my homework Otherwise, I would just play guitar and eventually I remember I got into music high school. It's like fuck. Yes what was i saying uh

30:10 Luke F. Walton We were talking about your first recording journey and like

30:13 Gustav Brunn exactly

30:14 Luke F. Walton learning

30:14 Gustav Brunn no

30:14 Luke F. Walton the

30:14 Gustav Brunn no exactly

30:14 Luke F. Walton guitar.

30:14 Gustav Brunn so then at that point i had started high school so and they had a studio i was sort of like hmm looks interesting and then we had recorded once with this guy and not sure why but i really i was really sucked into that as well and i think it has to do with like manipulating sound and like Having control over something.

30:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally.

30:38 Gustav Brunn Like initially. And then the youth center where we practiced and hung out, they in 2005 they built a studio upstairs with like a Digi 002 interface and like a powerful PC and like one outboard reverb and then I would learn Pro Tools.

31:00 Gustav Brunn Exactly. And then in high school I had like I did I had the the course was like a recording course in

31:11 Luke F. Walton Cool.

31:12 Gustav Brunn in high

31:12 Luke F. Walton Incredible.

31:13 Gustav Brunn school and

31:13 Luke F. Walton That's

31:13 Gustav Brunn and they

31:14 Luke F. Walton cool. Love it.

31:14 Gustav Brunn had a this HD 24 you would like record onto a hard drive that was like a just like a military grade you have to pull this thing out like a NAS or whatever I know what it's called but and they would have an analog desk and I would I would do my I would my like exam work would be like record a song and then I recorded my own band Atlas

31:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

31:34 Gustav Brunn Losing

31:34 Luke F. Walton great.

31:34 Gustav Brunn Grip that was our first recording and I remember dialing in the sounds on this analog desk not an SSL but a shitty I don't know Allen Heath whatever and like you would

31:50 Luke F. Walton Alan

31:50 Gustav Brunn have the

31:50 Luke F. Walton catches

31:50 Gustav Brunn mix

31:50 Luke F. Walton strays.

31:50 Gustav Brunn on you would have the mix on there and And then they would like, okay, then you would record it onto the hard drive, like the two track you would print.

32:00 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

32:01 Gustav Brunn And I was like, fuck, it sounds great. And then my brother played drums and it

32:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:08 Gustav Brunn was like, when I wasn't looking, he would be like, kick drum. like push up a favorite and he told me like afterwards i got a like a on that anyway but i didn't i didn't really notice but it was just such a big move to like he's like yeah i'm a kick drum that's kind of funny but

32:33 Luke F. Walton That is funny.

32:34 Gustav Brunn then so i'm all over the place but then that was our first recording and then we i recorded our first proper demo in the studio at the youth center and

32:46 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

32:47 Gustav Brunn then I recorded the for the second demo and the first album we got the guy who used to record my old band to do it but from that point

32:58 Gustav Brunn I did most of the recording and production for us and then I at the same time I started like recording when I learned the ropes in Pro Tools and like okay I was really bad but I wanted to do it and I recorded all the other bands in the practice space first

33:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:16 Gustav Brunn you know I think I for my first job which actually I don't know if you can see but I have I have like my wall of records up here. I'm going to show you later. But this, you

33:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:30 Gustav Brunn can see it's like proper crust punk.

33:35 Luke F. Walton It's

33:35 Gustav Brunn It flickers.

33:35 Luke F. Walton sick.

33:35 Gustav Brunn It's like a, but this was my first paid job.

33:39 Luke F. Walton Cool. Awesome.

33:40 Gustav Brunn I think, I think it is. But, and I charged $1 per hour.

33:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

33:46 Gustav Brunn And we recorded 24 songs in a day and then I mixed it for them and I was sort of I think I was at that point

33:55 Gustav Brunn there's something with like having a sound in your mind and then you know in the beginning you have a hard time dialing it in because you don't know how EQs and compressors work and all that and I was like I was trying to sort of make them this is like you know like D beat. And I was like trying to make them sound like Toto. So they said like, and I thought back then you would like burn the sound, burn it to a CD,

34:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:25 Gustav Brunn give it to them.

34:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:26 Gustav Brunn And then they said like, it's fine, like we can rip it and put on more distortion at home because they want it to sound like a vacuum clean.

34:36 Gustav Brunn It was too clean like I know that now And that was

34:43 Luke F. Walton Sorry

34:43 Gustav Brunn quite easy.

34:44 Luke F. Walton 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 into the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify.

35:02 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 and all that stuff.

35:10 Luke F. Walton 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 in a five star 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 yeah

35:27 Gustav Brunn So I started recording all the other bands and Mostly punk rock, hardcore, metal.

35:35 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm. What did you learn during that time? Were you like learning like what are some key insights that you might be able to give of like, was it learning how to put microphones in front of things? Was it learning how to decide what you're going to process later? Were you trying to do like on the amp, like anything that kind of like came out of those early sessions?

35:54 Gustav Brunn Yeah, like most... most things sound it sounded like shit like

35:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

35:58 Gustav Brunn because

35:59 Luke F. Walton totally.

35:59 Gustav Brunn it was a shitty interface i

36:00 Luke F. Walton Totally.

36:00 Gustav Brunn didn't know it at the time but the interface was shitty we had like you know sure my x57 beta 52 blah blah all the standard stuff but and the like my room here i think this is like 25 square meters the recording room was like you

36:17 Gustav Brunn could barely like you could fit a like a a drum kit in there but then no one else could stand in there

36:25 Gustav Brunn But somehow you learned too how to manipulate that as well, but this I just need a sip

36:36 Luke F. Walton No problem.

36:36 Gustav Brunn of water.

36:40 Luke F. Walton You might, I'll tell you why you're taking this up. My first, one of my first recording things was we have a college here in North County, San Diego called MiraCosta and they started a recording program. This is like maybe like the first year of this recording program. So they put out a call for local bands and I jumped on that thing. We had about like 25 different students all trying to mic up our gear.

37:03 Luke F. Walton It was absolutely just like a mess, like people were dropping mic. microphones and like students are running around and getting tangled and cables and breaking stuff but it was great because i got to like kind of watch the process and then also hear the professor guy like critiquing all of their decisions and i i got a ton out of that recording session which was for free just by almost being like a student as i was being recorded and then we got to keep all the tracks and take it home and mess with it manipulate it with

37:33 Luke F. Walton with by ourselves it still doesn't sound very

37:34 Gustav Brunn Right.

37:34 Luke F. Walton good but like at least that was like a nice little trial by fire without us having to be like on the hook as um the people that were getting paid to do it

37:43 Gustav Brunn Yeah.

37:43 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

37:44 Gustav Brunn And that's amazing. I think what helped me was, because I was doing rock music, I

37:52 Luke F. Walton right yes

37:53 Gustav Brunn recorded actual instruments. So I never, it's like... i never used like i was yeah i had a kick drum it sounded like shit i had to you know eq it like a swiss cheese to make it sound good so i would just you know and i think that's i

38:13 Gustav Brunn think i i sound i'm gonna sound so old but a lot of people who only work with samples you know they have a great sounding kick coming you know straight from splice sounds great mix ready it says like blah blah blah mix ready But, and why would they go and record a kick when they can get a kick? You know, I

38:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:32 Gustav Brunn couldn't get a kick from Splice.

38:34 Luke F. Walton No,

38:34 Gustav Brunn If I exactly. could, I would probably put it in there. But I think what was good for me was, I don't know, I think I did a hundred recordings between 2006 and 2012 over the course of six years. And, you know, that's a hundred different drummers, a hundred

38:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:51 Gustav Brunn different drum kits in

38:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:52 Gustav Brunn the same room.

38:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:54 Gustav Brunn Same mics and I would try different techniques. I remember like one of the later recordings. I was like I started like realizing okay It's it's because it's such a small room it's never going to sound huge how

39:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:07 Gustav Brunn would you use reverb and shit but then i just realized or i think the older guy i told you about earlier is like why don't you just open the door to like the control room which is like bigger than the actual recording room put two mics there you can sit with headphones and just shut up during takes and then i did that and like put a waves c1 you know the the worst compressor in the world

39:31 Gustav Brunn that was what I had access to and like compressed the hell out of it I'm like it's starting to sound like drums you know so I don't know like I guess

39:42 Gustav Brunn experimenting of course I'm not a big experimenter actually I'm more of the type of I find something that works and I stick with it and I might adjust

39:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

39:51 Gustav Brunn but I'm not really the adventurous discovering type of experimenting engineer but uh i'm more methodical and and uh i guess but otherwise i don't know what to to tell anyone just go out and do it and don't be scared to do it it's gonna sound like shit for many years and just keep doing it and and know that you will end up if you if you have the

40:20 Gustav Brunn uh the will and the grit and the and the you know you need to persevere you just need to persevere and just you know march on i

40:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:34 Gustav Brunn guess

40:35 Luke F. Walton Then

40:35 Gustav Brunn You

40:35 Luke F. Walton I

40:35 Gustav Brunn don't

40:35 Luke F. Walton love

40:36 Gustav Brunn get put off

40:36 Luke F. Walton the

40:36 Gustav Brunn by yeah, right

40:37 Luke F. Walton tenacity kind of aspect that you're saying and then also adding that in with almost like experimental design where you're keeping these things static and then changing other things like the drummer or the drum kit but you have the same mic locker you have the same room and so now you're able to understand like okay given this input I expect that output and then over time you get to know all the different tools so intimately and that's one of the reasons why I recommend

41:02 Luke F. Walton meant to people to like embrace not having budget in the beginning because

41:06 Gustav Brunn Yeah.

41:06 Luke F. Walton yeah if you can buy a million different microphones you're not going to learn them all you're just going to have a whole bunch of different microphones you'll see whatever people on gear slots or gear space say um like hey use this on snare and you're like oh i will be prescribed and i will use that on snare instead of like getting to know your own mics if you only have a 57 if you only have a 58 if you only have like two mics that's great get to know them intimately try them on everything and then

41:28 Luke F. Walton add as you as you like develop and master something then you can add on more tools rather than trying to add every tool at once and thinking you need have everything to be a real studio it's like you kind of need the skills more than the tools yeah

41:43 Gustav Brunn exactly one thing I just realized is when when I started like I wanted my drums to sound huge but I couldn't and then At that point there were no like slate trigger, what's

41:57 Luke F. Walton yeah right this

41:58 Gustav Brunn this case thing called like chromagog,

41:59 Luke F. Walton sound replace just

42:00 Gustav Brunn I remember.

42:00 Luke F. Walton for

42:00 Gustav Brunn Do you know chromagog?

42:01 Luke F. Walton the listeners just for the listeners who don't know what this is they're these little sound replacing things so like a trigger like you hit an actual snare drum and then now we can go on splice and pick out a million different types of mix ready snare drums and then every time that the drummer hits their snare drum even just a blend of that mix ready sound

42:18 Luke F. Walton can be um triggered can be added in in that exact moment so sorry did run just

42:23 Gustav Brunn No,

42:24 Luke F. Walton then

42:24 Gustav Brunn no, that's good. And then, but when I started out, there was like this shitty thing called Ramagog,

42:29 Luke F. Walton yeah

42:29 Gustav Brunn and it

42:30 Luke F. Walton drama

42:30 Gustav Brunn wouldn't

42:30 Luke F. Walton god i

42:30 Gustav Brunn work, it would

42:31 Luke F. Walton don't

42:31 Gustav Brunn be

42:31 Luke F. Walton know that one

42:31 Gustav Brunn like,

42:31 Luke F. Walton i

42:32 Gustav Brunn you don't know it?

42:33 Luke F. Walton don't know no i'm a little i'm a little bit younger than you are but this is a trigger was my first uh foray into uh

42:40 Gustav Brunn That's

42:40 Luke F. Walton into

42:40 Gustav Brunn good. But then I think Trigger came in, I think I got it in. 2011, 2012,

42:47 Luke F. Walton Something like that.

42:48 Gustav Brunn I

42:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:48 Gustav Brunn think 12, I think. But

42:49 Luke F. Walton I was probably a little later to that game.

42:51 Gustav Brunn I refuse to sound replace, even if I could do it like manually, of course, I could like copy a great sounding drum.

42:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:59 Gustav Brunn But I refused. I was like, I'm going to learn how to mix drums because if I start using samples,

43:04 Luke F. Walton Yep.

43:04 Gustav Brunn I'm just, you know, I'm shooting myself in the foot because

43:07 Luke F. Walton Totally.

43:07 Gustav Brunn I'm shooting myself in the foot.

43:08 Luke F. Walton then everything's going to sound the same like one of the things that's weird about triggering is that you lose so much of what the player's actually offering like a kick drum in particular kick drums are so hard i still have trouble with kick drums uh especially if they're not recorded very well but like there's there is nuance to kick drums that like drummers play with a ton of dynamics and you want to be able to capture all that when you start triggering stuff it just goes squish yeah

43:31 Gustav Brunn Exactly. And you need to do it with style, I think. I think actually

43:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:36 Gustav Brunn that trigger is actually quite amazing because it has like it detects

43:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it's the velocity stuff.

43:43 Gustav Brunn and triggers like okay this is a soft hit and there's like infinite amounts of hits so it's actually quite natural but I just refused to I said like okay I'm going to learn to mix drums and then I deserve to use trigger.

43:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

43:58 Gustav Brunn And now

43:58 Luke F. Walton There you go.

43:59 Gustav Brunn when

43:59 Luke F. Walton I like it.

43:59 Gustav Brunn I can actually mix drums well,

44:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:03 Gustav Brunn I'm like, I might use it. But usually if it's like, usually I just trigger like a room mic sample of a kick and a room mic sample of a snare and just blend it in just to give it more. you know a room and

44:16 Luke F. Walton natural

44:17 Gustav Brunn and just exactly

44:17 Luke F. Walton and yeah yeah i

44:19 Gustav Brunn um

44:19 Luke F. Walton did the same thing with melodine with this project with Scoobert Doobert like tuning vocals i didn't let myself for a long time even go there because i just wanted to like get good at actually singing and like you know like actually delivering the song and i was like you know what like nobody really cares nobody's really listening like i'm making this project i'm making this music for me and like more recently i do it more because it

44:42 Luke F. Walton because i want it to sound a little more modern but it's more of like a stylistic choice rather than something that i was using in some other projects more it's like a crutch like this is a hard melody i'm going to go into it knowing i'm going to tune the vocals it's like no like go into it like you're going to sing it live same thing with drums like figure out a way to make it sound good and then yeah you can add in some sweetener you can take it to the next level if you need to if you want to if it's stylistically appropriate yeah yeah

45:06 Gustav Brunn Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get you. back then i only had like autotune and that would be i hate like back then it would be like autotune was like pop and we wouldn't use that for rock

45:17 Luke F. Walton For sure.

45:18 Gustav Brunn but and and there were some some some bands were like super triggered and and i i didn't want that i wanted to be more organic sort of

45:28 Luke F. Walton Very like

45:29 Gustav Brunn like

45:29 Luke F. Walton new metal

45:30 Gustav Brunn so i

45:30 Luke F. Walton sound.

45:30 Gustav Brunn i recorded all these like no exactly but i i am We're recording my band, recording all these bands, starting that, and then we started touring in 2009, I think,

45:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

45:45 Gustav Brunn 2008.

45:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

45:47 Gustav Brunn And then, like, we disbanded in 2016, I think, so over eight years with, I think we played three, around 300 shows plus minus,

45:58 Luke F. Walton Incredible.

45:59 Gustav Brunn plus probably. that was all we did and then when I was home I would be recording bands and doing some lives I started doing the like because we would be putting on shows in

46:13 Luke F. Walton Mm

46:13 Gustav Brunn our in

46:13 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

46:14 Gustav Brunn that youth center with like hardcore punk bands and

46:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:18 Gustav Brunn and I think there was like in the the punk rock and hardcore scene was such a great community as well because it's sort of you know sort of a niched subculture sort of but

46:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

46:36 Gustav Brunn and everyone would know all the bands and you would be you would sort of be someone because you you don't the world is not your audience but the the

46:45 Luke F. Walton yeah,

46:45 Gustav Brunn nerds who are into this is the audience so

46:48 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:48 Gustav Brunn and then

46:48 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

46:51 Gustav Brunn So we would be like touring and playing we like invite bands to come play our

46:55 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

46:55 Gustav Brunn venue and you're helping It was sort of kind of nice actually and

46:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:59 Gustav Brunn then people would sleep sleep in our flats and and we would stay in people's houses when we were out playing

47:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

47:10 Gustav Brunn It depends

47:11 Luke F. Walton No,

47:11 Gustav Brunn if

47:12 Luke F. Walton that's interesting. And then so what did you find was different between kind of like live live sound versus recorded sound? did you see overlaps with some of your skill set that you like had eqing drums and things like that did you go like oh i know what i'm doing or were you like learning on the job do you have any mentors how is that transition for you

47:32 Gustav Brunn Like I think a big because it's it's it's a huge difference doing sound you know in a small room like the room we had like a official capacity was like for 50 people but we would be like 120 people in there sometimes but then you had like you had the PA the

47:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

47:51 Gustav Brunn stage was so small so it's like okay vocals kick and a de-eyed bass is in the PA and the rest is the amps in the room because

48:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:01 Gustav Brunn it makes no sense to try and make a perfect balance of in the PA you know because then we'd have to turn down the amps like makes no sense so I think and at first I only did sounding like small venue so I think I learned how to actually listen to the music and not try to if you

48:22 Gustav Brunn yeah and that's one thing just listening to what is actually coming out and what do I do I really need to mic the guitars because

48:31 Luke F. Walton Right.

48:32 Gustav Brunn you're listening like in the center of the room you have a hundred watt Marshall amps you don't need to turn them down to put them in the PA like you just make a good balance of it I think listening

48:44 Luke F. Walton So

48:44 Gustav Brunn i mean

48:44 Luke F. Walton many like people

48:44 Gustav Brunn no

48:45 Luke F. Walton don't do that though. It's crazy because they like have to mic everything or whatever.

48:49 Gustav Brunn you

48:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

48:49 Gustav Brunn would have like

48:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah

48:50 Gustav Brunn plexi walls no no but uh no i guess and you know i guess it's like i'm sitting on the answers i don't but um

49:03 Gustav Brunn I think if you go to school, you just have to go out there and try it in the real world. And I'm not the first to say it, and I'm not the last one to say it. There's no school who can teach you. These days, if I do a show where I'm not bringing my desk and I need to make a soundcheck from scratch. Which I sort of did the other week.

49:33 Gustav Brunn I was in Paris in London doing a show where I wasn't with a band at the production rehearsal, so I had to do the mix during soundcheck. But you can't listen to the kick drum for five minutes and make the perfect EQ. I think that's...

49:55 Gustav Brunn That's a common like because you would usually have like from left to right drums You know so like you'll be hearing like can I hear the kick and then like a drum is like after 12 hits is just bored and you try to and it makes no sense makes

50:11 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

50:11 Gustav Brunn more sense to like okay what's important like we're like usually you're on a time crunch right so you put up the vocal faders there's there is gonna be bleed like you can't isolate everything

50:24 Luke F. Walton Yes.

50:24 Gustav Brunn uh

50:24 Luke F. Walton Right.

50:25 Gustav Brunn so use the bleed it's like put up the start with the vocal mics you're gonna have symbols in there they're gonna sound pretty bad but then when you start sound checking the other shit you you're not gonna you know high shelf plus five dbs on the overheads you might because do

50:42 Luke F. Walton you're going to

50:43 Gustav Brunn the get opposite

50:43 Luke F. Walton all that

50:43 Gustav Brunn but

50:43 Luke F. Walton that's

50:43 Gustav Brunn you have this yeah it's

50:44 Luke F. Walton a good that's

50:44 Gustav Brunn like

50:44 Luke F. Walton a good point that's a really good point

50:46 Gustav Brunn what i wanted to say was uh i don't know I sound so old when I talk.

50:52 Luke F. Walton no no it's uh what you're saying is is a valuable there's a there's like a there's music and then there's audio there are some things that can be taught there's textbook-y stuff but then there's other things that can only be learned which is like a very paradoxical weird thing to say but in audio some most things cannot be taught it can only be learned you have to go do it you have to play with it and that little insight is a perfect example and one that i think anybody who's listening to this is going to go do live sound should

51:19 Luke F. Walton should consider yeah what's actually what can you not deal with there's always going to be bleed and so you're going to have all this high-end gross stuff that's going to go into all the vocal mics and especially if you have a band with a ton of singers sorry like there's gonna be tambourine everywhere so

51:36 Gustav Brunn Exactly.

51:37 Luke F. Walton do you really need like a big tambourine mic do you have to like focus on that too much it's gonna be everywhere yeah

51:42 Gustav Brunn Exactly. No, because yeah, and what I wanted to say, thank you for making me realize the difference between studio and live work is in live you have a time crunch.

51:51 Luke F. Walton cool yeah

51:52 Gustav Brunn can't listen to the kick drum for five minutes.

51:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

51:55 Gustav Brunn You need to work fast and make it work. And then during the first song in the event of, you know. doing a sound check and then you know but you know these days i tour with my desk and we have production rehearsal so i have time to rough but but usually when you start out you don't you just go somewhere plug in the door i'm gonna do sound today and i think no

52:16 Luke F. Walton and they're like yeah come on in only one speaker works the sub's broken have fun

52:21 Gustav Brunn no no been there been

52:24 Luke F. Walton been

52:24 Gustav Brunn there and

52:24 Luke F. Walton there too

52:24 Gustav Brunn that's a big big difference

52:30 Luke F. Walton Yep.

52:30 Gustav Brunn There's a lot of stuff that you learn. I think also because the way I think when I mix live sound these days is not so much, and I sort of, you know, I've been mixing in Pro Tools for... 20 years it's

52:50 Luke F. Walton Whoa.

52:50 Gustav Brunn a long time it's it's a really long time but but and in the beginning i just remember i didn't have like a fader i could touch and and ride you'd like write the automation with your mouse and

53:02 Luke F. Walton Yep.

53:02 Gustav Brunn i still do you know when you're just going to grab a section and bump it up but what i started doing is i started you know writing things and because that i got that from from live doing live sound is like These days I do a lot of master fader, you know, okay,

53:21 Luke F. Walton Cool.

53:22 Gustav Brunn chorus is coming up, you know, just

53:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:24 Gustav Brunn to, I want to, I want to, I'm mixing for my 13 year old self in Yeah. the audience watching my God playing and I just want to be overwhelmed and run over by a bulldozer. I just want the emotional. overwhelmless of

53:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:45 Gustav Brunn if the act calls for that but usually there's you know moments but and I try to you know I know where my failures are usually you know I have like usually I have the this is my lead vocals and this is my either like music group or like if it's just a DJ and a vocal so it's like I always it's always the same the muscle memory is the same And I recommend that as well.

54:11 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

54:12 Gustav Brunn And I know exactly where everything is, which means I don't have to look down. I can just, you know, be in the show and try to just, you know, okay, take it down, you know, now we're going to push the faders and now we're going to, and I usually have a. space echo like a roland guitar

54:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:35 Gustav Brunn pedal uh with batteries sounds

54:37 Luke F. Walton Cool. Wow.

54:38 Gustav Brunn better sounds better

54:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

54:39 Gustav Brunn on batteries especially when they're on 50 percent it

54:41 Luke F. Walton Yes.

54:42 Gustav Brunn distorts so nicely i love it but uh and i i usually because i'm not the guy who's like standing there putting the levels and then like sounds pretty good i'm you know i'm there all the time and like if i have nothing to do here i'll just you know I usually the lead vocals,

55:02 Luke F. Walton Mm

55:02 Gustav Brunn the

55:02 Luke F. Walton hmm.

55:03 Gustav Brunn send is up all the time, but then on the SpaceX we have the input knob,

55:07 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm. Mm

55:07 Gustav Brunn so

55:07 Luke F. Walton hmm.

55:08 Gustav Brunn it's sending all the time, but I can throw in the words with the inputs and

55:12 Luke F. Walton Oh, cool.

55:13 Gustav Brunn then

55:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:13 Gustav Brunn I

55:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:15 Gustav Brunn tap it and you usually see me standing, I don't trust, I don't tap once and then trust it, I tap. Because somehow that tap is like it restarts with every tap so it

55:26 Luke F. Walton Okay.

55:27 Gustav Brunn would be like it

55:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:28 Gustav Brunn would jump into the right tempo and

55:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:29 Gustav Brunn then I just throw in the words and I try to just make some because if you have like a rapper and

55:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:36 Gustav Brunn on a backtrack some some acts I tour with or like that it's like you can you can build like these eighth note ad-libs with like

55:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:45 Gustav Brunn you know that you

55:47 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

55:47 Gustav Brunn know i just i try to add stuff to

55:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:50 Gustav Brunn it not

55:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

55:50 Gustav Brunn not yeah. you know not you're not across the border of you know it being silly and you're and i you know i just and to this day i don't think anyone ever told me not to do it like or do it less because i i'm really mindful of of you know it's not like if it's like a uh 16 bar you know just

56:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:12 Gustav Brunn gonna do it on the last word on every but i tried to make it like okay so and then oh my god i hate my voice you need to talk someone what okay let's talk about you just kidding no but uh i don't know i'm just talking but um

56:28 Gustav Brunn That's

56:28 Luke F. Walton I

56:29 Gustav Brunn interesting.

56:29 Luke F. Walton think it's interesting to talk about different takes on what live mixing looks like, ways that studio can influence live mixing and vice versa. And I love the idea of writing those faders, being an active participant of the music and recognizing that music is this dynamic living thing. I think it's very weird for live mix engineers, I hate it personally as a performer, when they just disappear. They're like...

56:56 Luke F. Walton like sounds

56:56 Gustav Brunn It's

56:56 Luke F. Walton good

56:56 Gustav Brunn like,

56:56 Luke F. Walton job's over it

56:58 Gustav Brunn oh my god,

56:59 Luke F. Walton happens all the time man and it sucks you'd be like a festival or just a house mix engineer you know and they just are gone um and it's it's it's like disrespectful to the music itself because yeah it's it's growing it's changing things can shift at a moment's notice and when you have someone like you you feel so much more supported and in the same way that like i

57:22 Luke F. Walton I sometimes have a problem now that I've gotten pretty decent at recording and mixing.

57:28 Gustav Brunn Yeah.

57:28 Luke F. Walton with live stuff as a performer because I can hear all the stuff you know like I and I'm like I know how important the little things can be between sounding really stupid and really badass and it's it's like it's subtle shit like oh you use too much delight not cool anymore oh like this this vocal is like too wet not cool anymore too dry not cool anymore and these things shift from section to section like all these things they're But important

57:54 Gustav Brunn then it's also... but

57:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:54 Gustav Brunn then it's also because i remember playing it like doing sound and when we were touring and then like the drummer would always be like why don't you like go talk to him and like and i'm like i want to i want to be the guitar player

58:07 Luke F. Walton I know. Totally.

58:09 Gustav Brunn like sometimes i would

58:10 Luke F. Walton Absolutely.

58:10 Gustav Brunn but i tried to shut that off like and just because i think it's equally important I

58:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

58:17 Gustav Brunn mean it's not cool to walk out of there but it's equally important to have a good relationship because

58:22 Luke F. Walton Absolutely.

58:22 Gustav Brunn you're going to be there all day together

58:23 Luke F. Walton Yes.

58:24 Gustav Brunn I guess

58:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

58:26 Gustav Brunn even if they walk out and are being jerks you both want it to be a good show I

58:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

58:32 Gustav Brunn guess maybe not the song guy who walks out as much but and I think like if i would like if you would be like two can you put it at 1.6

58:46 Luke F. Walton I know.

58:46 Gustav Brunn hall

58:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly. No.

58:47 Gustav Brunn preset three

58:48 Luke F. Walton What I want is somebody I can just trust on the other side that I know that I can't hear everything because I'm just in my in-ears or in the monitors. They're hearing what the music actually sounds like. I trust you. You're doing it. That's what I want. And that's the thing that makes like playing live right now not feel very fun because I have to set up.

59:07 Luke F. Walton the video cameras i have to get the band right i have to figure out my own stuff and i'm working with like a house engineer all those things together make it be like oh i can't even like have the brain space to perform and just be present

59:19 Gustav Brunn That's why you when when you like reach a certain level you get your own sound Absolutely. sound so yeah

59:27 Luke F. Walton For sure. Like before almost anything else. That's why like,

59:30 Gustav Brunn no no

59:31 Luke F. Walton you know, yeah,

59:32 Gustav Brunn because then you can actually perform better because you don't have to think about it but i think also like i think i become a better mixer in the studio and

59:44 Luke F. Walton Mm

59:44 Gustav Brunn especially

59:45 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

59:45 Gustav Brunn live sound engineer because I've been on the stage I know what it's like I know what and this also segues into my interest of or like the inevitable thing that is like group dynamics and the psychology of things that is so important And I think if, like during the pandemic, I was like out of live jobs especially, but then the studio kicked off really well.

60:17 Gustav Brunn But I was like at a weak point, I was like, I might have to go to school and learn a proper job. Then I would be thinking about like psychology, studying psychology, because that's the thing that interests me in music as well.

60:36 Gustav Brunn Like how like I know like half of these records I made you know with pretty shitty musicians you would have like a great drummer and then like the second guitar player is is like you know he's kind of put down his parts and he's Bad, he's not that good and it sounds like shit and he can't tune his guitar. I have to make him perform so that's like the the you know old school record producer me

61:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

61:04 Gustav Brunn but

61:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

61:05 Gustav Brunn i was like that and engineer and you know way back you would have different guys of course but but but i really enjoyed i enjoyed but it was like part of what i had to do of course but to um okay just like like see like okay how can i how can i like keep

61:25 Gustav Brunn you know the the keep track of the time like we can't run out of time when it's be finished tomorrow you have to put down seven guitar solos and like rhythm track rhythm guitar too on all these tracks I'm like okay and if you're too stressed he would freak out Yeah, and you know you

61:44 Luke F. Walton yeah.

61:45 Gustav Brunn have to you have to I think you have to be sort of gifted in uh social encounters if you're gonna succeed in especially at least you know especially like if you're a recording engineer i guess a lot of bigger sessions you would just be a recording engineer and there would be some sort of producer executive producer in the back and you would just be the you know pro tools operator mostly but but if you're actually gonna produce and record you need to have people skills like people skills above

62:19 Gustav Brunn technical skills will

62:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:21 Gustav Brunn make you more money in the end I I'm sure of it you need to be yeah you need to learn how to read people and and and leave space when it's needed and push them when you have to do that in the right way yeah it's interesting

62:45 Luke F. Walton I'd love to know kind of how you navigate now your work-life balance, you know, father to how do you manage, you know, telling somebody like me with no kids, like, how do you how do you go about that? How do you keep the keep the music flowing while keeping your life?

63:03 Gustav Brunn How old are you by the way early

63:05 Luke F. Walton I'm in my early 30s.

63:07 Gustav Brunn 30s okay I mean my mid to late 30s but anyway I think I was really scared before getting kids of like how, you know, I'm used to like working a lot and like many hours and people are expecting things and I'm the worst at setting boundaries really. I'm super afraid of conflict and like people pleaser is like You can, you know, yeah, whatever.

63:43 Gustav Brunn But when I finally had kids, I was forced to make it work. And Yeah. to me, it's sort of, in how I am and my personality is, if it's just forced upon me, I just, you know, I have to make it work. It's like these days I, most days I leave my kids at... what do you call kindergarten what

64:09 Luke F. Walton What's

64:09 Gustav Brunn do you call it

64:10 Luke F. Walton uh,

64:10 Gustav Brunn it

64:10 Luke F. Walton yeah kindergarten

64:11 Gustav Brunn yeah at nine

64:12 Luke F. Walton whatever.

64:12 Gustav Brunn I

64:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah

64:13 Gustav Brunn bike to the studio and I work for six hours and then I pick them up at 3 30 so I have six hours to do like eight projects it feels like I like I'm always constantly juggling eight projects like mixing and mastering when I'm not touring as well as a songwriter but I have an assistant. It

64:34 Luke F. Walton Mm

64:34 Gustav Brunn helps.

64:34 Luke F. Walton -hmm. Mm-hmm.

64:36 Gustav Brunn He receives the stems for mixes and he has like a produce template with like just the routing and the sort of. standard stuff and effects it's

64:50 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah.

64:51 Gustav Brunn always laid out the same and it's I had to like be efficient and when he patches for me I don't know or puts it on the hard drive and I can just open it and start mixing and the the rough mix would be in metric a B is wonderful

65:06 Gustav Brunn plugin you can like and I have a I have this dream deck and I just it's got he programmed programmed it for me it's

65:12 Luke F. Walton I just got

65:12 Gustav Brunn like a a yeah but you have the big one I just have the small one but I have my logo he

65:19 Luke F. Walton Ooh, that's cool. That's cool. I

65:21 Gustav Brunn did

65:21 Luke F. Walton got

65:21 Gustav Brunn that he

65:21 Luke F. Walton to do that.

65:21 Gustav Brunn did that as well he's

65:22 Luke F. Walton I

65:22 Gustav Brunn amazing

65:22 Luke F. Walton want to do that. That's awesome.

65:23 Gustav Brunn anyone born 96 and later you're tech freaks I don't know how you acquire all the information but it's amazing to have one on the team and he's great But I have to be efficient and it's there there's some it's not Murphy's law,

65:44 Gustav Brunn it's a guy's law that says like like it will take as much time as you I'm really misquoting now, but some some guy's law. Do you know this law?

65:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

65:55 Gustav Brunn It's

65:56 Luke F. Walton basically

65:56 Gustav Brunn called like

65:56 Luke F. Walton it fills the vessel that you give it.

66:00 Gustav Brunn Exactly.

66:00 Luke F. Walton I did.

66:01 Gustav Brunn So if you have 10 days to finish it, you will finish it in 10 days.

66:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

66:05 Gustav Brunn But if you have one day, you will finish it in one day and you'll make it work.

66:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

66:10 Gustav Brunn It's just like I'm constantly on, you know, some days I sit here and I don't get up. I get up to pee and have my lunch. I usually have the same lunch. I have like a... a blender that I do a sort of smoothie with stuff in and

66:26 Luke F. Walton Nice.

66:27 Gustav Brunn so I don't have to leave this room which

66:29 Luke F. Walton Yes.

66:29 Gustav Brunn sounds depressing but there's

66:30 Luke F. Walton No,

66:30 Gustav Brunn nothing I

66:30 Luke F. Walton it's not

66:31 Gustav Brunn mean this

66:31 Luke F. Walton depressing.

66:31 Gustav Brunn industrial area there's

66:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

66:32 Gustav Brunn not much around anyway and I can I can spend the mornings with the kids and we can hang out and I work

66:42 Gustav Brunn Then I pick them up and then we play and then we have dinner and of course sometimes I go here if I'm if I have a lot of deadlines I might work in the evenings and weekends and but but so like I work only 30 hours a week but it will be probably 40 with when I'm away touring so so I don't work a lot I don't work 80 hour weeks you don't have to like in the beginning like back in the day I would

67:10 Gustav Brunn Totally. And I just tried, I'm just super fast and efficient and I have great speakers.

67:15 Gustav Brunn Yeah. It Uh-huh. Cool. helps. What That speakers helps do a you, lot actually. what speakers do you prefer?

67:21 Gustav Brunn Maybe I can prefer, Yeah. I have these, maybe I can, let's see if I can show you.

67:27 Gustav Brunn Yeah, take me on a ride anybody that's on video is about to get a little dizzy. Ooh,

67:32 Gustav Brunn Okay. nice. So these are Yeah GeneralX 8351Bs General X. Yeah cool with a W371A maybe, subs. They're not called subs because they're called low-end extenders or something. But yeah, and they cost a fortune.

67:53 Gustav Brunn but when I got them it's like I there's no guesswork and I'm not in a perfect room so you can see I have like these kick acoustic things I just put up because I'm I'm in this room on a like a limited like eventually they're gonna tear it down and try to build apartments but until then I can rent it for like nothing yeah I'm just I just failed my camera let's see this is gonna work

68:24 Gustav Brunn It's gonna... Ah, here we go. Beautiful. Back here. So great speakers help. Yeah. Yeah.

68:31 Gustav Brunn But in the beginning I was always working on shitty speakers and I learned those and that's I think you can give the beginner listener. And in the first years I tried to make gold out of crap and I...

68:49 Gustav Brunn I did the best I could and some of the stuff I did back then it doesn't sound horrible at all it's just maybe not as luxurious and but

68:58 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

68:58 Gustav Brunn still you're like it's it's not the Sonics you know always like

69:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

69:03 Gustav Brunn sonically it might not be as sexy as today but but it's it's giving the emotions and like especially with the hardcore punk rock stuff it's mostly like

69:13 Gustav Brunn It's mostly like Uh, you

69:15 Luke F. Walton yeah

69:15 Gustav Brunn know, yeah,

69:15 Luke F. Walton that's what you want that's what you want as

69:17 Gustav Brunn exactly.

69:17 Luke F. Walton part of the and like the the stuff that you've you've shifted to and you have in your catalog you've got a lot more like open and acoustic and like like natural and but also futuristic like all kind of like modern but with naturalistic elements like acoustic guitars and soundscapes that stuff requires great sonics otherwise it sounds like crap you know those are like high wire acts in in in some respects with mixing

69:42 Gustav Brunn but but and if you and I've also went down I don't know if it's the right expression but

69:48 Luke F. Walton Huh?

69:48 Gustav Brunn went down the rabbit hole of trying to change stuff too much and if you're on if when when you're on good speakers if you're on bad speakers in a bad room there will be like frequencies and stuff that like standing waves that you just want to get out of there because but they're not there there's it's just your room and your crappy speakers fooling you

70:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

70:11 Gustav Brunn So like now I can really tell okay, is this does this need a fix or you know Will it will it float to

70:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

70:19 Gustav Brunn make a David letterman? No, but I think it's hard though like the hardest thing is to know when to not do anything because

70:33 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

70:33 Gustav Brunn you you want to work you

70:35 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

70:35 Gustav Brunn want to i'm paid to mix this does it sound good especially

70:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

70:39 Gustav Brunn with mastering sometimes it's

70:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

70:40 Gustav Brunn like they're they're paying me to change it or are they you know then maybe they just want my opinion and maybe they just want me to push the limiter 1 db sometimes but but then and i'm also guilty of sometimes just i probably need to Do something with it

70:59 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

70:59 Gustav Brunn but but the hard the the thing that takes the longest and most you know, you have to sort of mature as a person to realize when not to and like I think that's a

71:12 Gustav Brunn when you're confident enough and you have enough work and and I don't know when when not to mess with it, you know,

71:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

71:21 Gustav Brunn I guess

71:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I

71:24 Gustav Brunn especially

71:24 Luke F. Walton like that a lot.

71:24 Gustav Brunn with mastering and mixing these days you know I'm sent sometimes it's stuff that the producer wants to wants me to impose a sound on but sometimes it's really do nothing to

71:40 Luke F. Walton it Yeah.

71:40 Gustav Brunn like then sometimes the mixing is basically mastering but with a second pair of ears

71:48 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

71:50 Gustav Brunn Now that's interesting as well.

71:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, that is interesting the way that it's evolved. And also I think it's interesting that there's kind of an interesting curve.

71:59 Luke F. Walton that as you get more established and successful as a mix engineer the tracks that you sent your we are sent generally go up in quality too so it's this like feedback effect where you have

72:10 Gustav Brunn It's full like

72:10 Luke F. Walton to do less yeah

72:11 Gustav Brunn right-wing economic politics. It's like the better you get, the less you work, which

72:17 Luke F. Walton right right that

72:18 Gustav Brunn is kind of weird.

72:19 Luke F. Walton is

72:20 Gustav Brunn But like,

72:20 Luke F. Walton weird yes

72:21 Gustav Brunn you know, I've worked many hours in my life.

72:24 Luke F. Walton dues have been paid

72:25 Gustav Brunn I deserve this house.

72:26 Luke F. Walton Yes. Right.

72:28 Gustav Brunn I deserve this, you know. Okay, I'm guilty of, in audio I'm a super right-wing person. No, but it is like that. Like the higher level you reach, the less you have to do. But then the higher the stakes are as well. So the gamble, you know, sort of, the gamble, but the... you have to have a lot of more like the nerves or like yeah

72:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

73:00 Gustav Brunn it's

73:01 Luke F. Walton I've got two more

73:01 Gustav Brunn true

73:01 Luke F. Walton questions for you. One is on that. I wrote down that I wanted to talk to you about the nervousness from big jobs and the lessons learned from losing gigs.

73:14 Gustav Brunn yeah good segue as well I think even to this day I

73:20 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

73:20 Gustav Brunn you know 90% of the work that comes in it's like just you know I see I come in I sit down I'm like okay yeah I'm great I'm the best and sometimes of course you I'm not I don't feel that confident or even with smaller stuff always but usually it's like okay I know what to do I'm making this better definitely better but then

73:44 Gustav Brunn I had just the other week, I was like part of a mixture with an incredibly huge artist. I'm not going to mention who, but I think it's in the realm of 22 million monthly on Spotify. Huge Latin artist.

74:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah,

74:03 Gustav Brunn And I know the producer well, we worked a lot, but it's like... I get nervous and

74:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah

74:13 Gustav Brunn it's I get so mad at myself because I'm like then you start like second-guessing like is this what I want would they want this I'm like and it's it's it's horrible but I you know you sort of need to and then I did like a mix I can't remember if I I don't think I sent it but I returned the other day maybe and like And then I was still like,

74:39 Gustav Brunn okay, I couldn't, you know, but then I sort of got myself together and like shook it off and like, okay, I'm just going to do my absolute best, what I usually do, what I think is needed, and then just send it. And then I at least, at least I know I did everything I could to.

74:59 Gustav Brunn to like be true to myself sort of because otherwise i would be like if i i didn't get it but that if i wouldn't have done that and didn't get it i would be like maybe it was because i didn't you know so at least you know just trust yourself in in high school there was this course in um something i can't remember but it was such a good that i still like to tell uh younger people who are like starting out

75:30 Gustav Brunn when it's about nervousness it's like for performing or doing whatever but imagine a plank on the floor and you can easily like walk on it and balance on it right it's like you know it's like this wide it's fine like you can walk on it if you put one meter up It feels a little bit harder, but you're doing the exact same thing.

75:54 Gustav Brunn You're just walking on it and it won't wobble, there's no, you know, it's the exact same thing. But it feels worse. Put it 10 meters up in the air. It's still the exact same thing you have to do. You just have to walk on the plank and there's no wind, there's no wobbliness, there's nothing. Yeah, it's... the exact same thing but it feels harder but

76:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

76:15 Gustav Brunn you're just gonna walk on it and i think that was just that stuck and this is 20 years ago and i think that's so powerful and i try to i try to tell myself that sometimes as well and from there segwaying into losing gigs i think that's the best lesson because with this gig that i that i didn't get i don't feel bad about it

76:40 Gustav Brunn um it's i learned so much from it uh i'll get the next one you know it's fine or the one after that but i i was struggling during the pandemic because i i you know uh i lost like back then like my live shows were like 80 percent of my business um and now it's like the opposite like now the studio is 80 percent and live is 20 percent but then i was like i got this this full album with a swedish artist

77:09 Gustav Brunn and I it was the communication with the producers was lacking and I didn't I sort of looked up to them so I didn't want to you know what I would love to do was be like go on the phone with them

77:24 Gustav Brunn talk about it but they were so busy on like the next record with another huge artist so

77:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

77:28 Gustav Brunn I didn't want to bother them so I had to like okay I want I think we need to communicate so I know what to do and or know what not to do and then I just sent and then I did the mistake of asking like do you want me to send a limited version as a reference or like no limiter and they were like no no keep it dynamic and then I did like and then my mixes were weren't as loud as

77:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

77:52 Gustav Brunn their minus seven ref and I of course it's never gonna sound as good even if my mix was way better so I just and I learned so much and I was for for like a week I was like really out fuck and because they call me like man we're just gonna go with this other dude we always use because I was so bummed about it and but So like you have to lose a bunch of gigs because

78:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

78:18 Gustav Brunn you're gonna end up and you need to learn it's like you know breaking up with girlfriends or boyfriends partners whatever you need to get your heart broken a bunch of times to learn about that and I think maybe that's why in the beginning I was so hard for me I don't know because I'm a sensitive guy but

78:41 Gustav Brunn I think that's such a good lesson because then you can sort of think back and just get better. So then I learned like, okay, I need to communicate. Even if I'm being the, I don't know, I talk a lot. Like maybe they'll think I'm annoying, but then I can actually deliver what matters in

79:02 Luke F. Walton Yep.

79:03 Gustav Brunn an amazing mix in

79:03 Luke F. Walton Yep.

79:04 Gustav Brunn the way they want it.

79:04 Luke F. Walton Yes. That's great. That's a great story. And on that, I'm curious, how do you get up the levels? This is a bonus question. When you're doing mixes, do you end up basically mastering your mixes when you're sending out to like a big client like that?

79:22 Gustav Brunn Yeah, absolutely. I think, because why wouldn't I? So the way my sessions are set up is everything goes to a... like to a master aux where I have the processing and

79:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

79:35 Gustav Brunn my my hardware insert like I have a hardware chain and with all the hardware stuff it's like one one chain left right out and comes back and then I print that it's not limited and then I I have the second stage with this mastering stage and then I print that and then so then I do like overall like if I'm If there's something, because usually I don't change the mix bus too much.

80:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

80:05 Gustav Brunn I might like shelf more highs or shelf more lows going into the hardware to make it work as I want.

80:11 Luke F. Walton sure.

80:11 Gustav Brunn But then I would like to apply my... mastering stuff and which is like goes through my cultural tube thing and like distorts the hell out of it

80:20 Gustav Brunn Yeah. and I just blend it in a bit and then I print so it's kind of an annoying process because I have to print like one mix is like print real time and then print real time again and Yeah. then I'll bounce with limiters and it's like clipper clippers and limiters like volume stuff last

80:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

80:39 Gustav Brunn but I absolutely and I try to match or beat the rough mix level

80:45 Luke F. Walton Cool.

80:45 Gustav Brunn because I learned that losing a job but not doing it So and sometimes my mixes without limiting is minus 11 laughs They're quite dense and if you know if it's a full

80:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah, the arrangement.

81:00 Gustav Brunn Instrumentation

81:01 Luke F. Walton Right,

81:01 Gustav Brunn song but

81:01 Luke F. Walton for sure, for sure.

81:02 Gustav Brunn they're quite loud and I can get loud without it being squashed with all my analog stuff because it's transformers and tubes and it won't sound like the compressors are hardly working like I sometimes see the needle work I don't want to compress the two bus too much, but

81:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

81:18 Gustav Brunn it's still giving it, you know, and

81:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

81:25 Gustav Brunn stuff. But I definitely like pre-master or master sometimes.

81:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

81:33 Gustav Brunn Like the mix one is mastered and ready to go to

81:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

81:36 Gustav Brunn the ether and

81:37 Luke F. Walton Yes.

81:38 Gustav Brunn happened the other day. I was like really you don't want to change? I might want to go back. Okay sure just put up. So

81:45 Luke F. Walton Love

81:45 Gustav Brunn it's pretty neat

81:46 Luke F. Walton it.

81:46 Gustav Brunn in

81:46 Luke F. Walton Captain

81:46 Gustav Brunn that sense and

81:47 Luke F. Walton Magix.

81:47 Gustav Brunn it's part of my proposed, what do you call it, of my business offer is

81:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

81:53 Gustav Brunn like

81:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

81:54 Gustav Brunn I mix and I master and I offer free mastering for all the mixing clients. Yes,

82:00 Luke F. Walton Yes.

82:00 Gustav Brunn if you want just a master it's this but

82:02 Luke F. Walton Yes.

82:02 Gustav Brunn and it's just I will do it anyway so

82:06 Luke F. Walton You're right.

82:06 Gustav Brunn it's

82:07 Luke F. Walton That's a good point.

82:07 Gustav Brunn it's free it's free included you know it's a good sales pitch sort of but now it's debunked okay

82:16 Luke F. Walton I love it. All right. To my last real question. So this is the final final. So the show is called Love Music More and this section is called Love Music Why? And this is a section for you.

82:29 Luke F. Walton To just talk about why you love music Like what is it about music that makes you excited to come back the next day and hit the studio or makes you excited to like just keep going and staying in this field What is it that you continue to love about it? What it's about music

82:47 Gustav Brunn Wow, it's a it's a big question.

82:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah, there's

82:53 Gustav Brunn I don't know I just I

82:54 Luke F. Walton no wrong answer

82:54 Gustav Brunn I just love music no, but that's a boring answer, but I don't know, I've done this for so long, like back in the day it was a hobby, I just want to do music and some people ask me like, oh don't you miss playing in bands? And I'm like, this gives me, maybe not equally, not like being on a festival stage and performing, it's not the same, but it gives me the equal amount of creativity and...

83:22 Gustav Brunn the emotions I can enhance and or detract from the music and you know maybe I'm just a master manipulator I want to manipulate your feelings while listening sort of but I don't know why I do it yeah yeah that's going to be my answer very vague yeah

83:50 Luke F. Walton That's good. It's a vague question.

83:52 Gustav Brunn but Like I'm blessed to work with music every day and I want to keep doing it and I can pay my bills doing it, it's great even if I wouldn't I would still be you know doing music somehow maybe then I would be back in a band if I had a proper job during the evenings after the kids fall asleep, I don't know. But I'm blessed to to do this and I want to keep doing it

84:24 Luke F. Walton Oh, that. So where can people find you? Where can people hire you?

84:28 Gustav Brunn Don't hire me. I've got enough work. I don't want more work. I want to have some time off in the summer.

84:38 Gustav Brunn No, but I guess my my website is AllinAudio.se Or my Instagram is at GG Beroen, B-R-U-N-N, at GG Beroen. I mostly post pictures of my dog, my kids and records I worked on.

84:58 Luke F. Walton Okay.

84:58 Gustav Brunn But feel free to join in on the fun.

85:01 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

85:02 Gustav Brunn And send me an email. You can find everything on the website.

85:06 Luke F. Walton Cool. And I'll also link to that great Spotify playlist that you had the, what is it, museo

85:12 Gustav Brunn Yeah,

85:12 Luke F. Walton .ai

85:12 Gustav Brunn yeah. Exactly,

85:13 Luke F. Walton thing.

85:13 Gustav Brunn the discography. That's amazing. You should check out, you need to check out, I'm not affiliated, muso.ai, I think, because they sort of automatically AI find all your credits and it's amazing. I think I'm going to soon have reached a thousand songs mastered. I think I'm on like 908. 80 so

85:32 Luke F. Walton Cool.

85:33 Gustav Brunn okay i might need some mastering jobs Yeah. in the next weeks so i can hit a thousand okay i'll give out free mastering you're the first one to hear free mastering for the thousand clients no i don't know i'll

85:46 Luke F. Walton I love it.

85:47 Gustav Brunn give you a free mastering you'll get a free mastering hey

85:49 Luke F. Walton Thank you. I'll take you up on that. I make a lot of music.

85:51 Gustav Brunn you're welcome um amazing this was really fun i you know it's going to be a lot of me talking about myself but i love it i love talking about myself invite me to your podcast i can talk about myself for hours yeah

86:06 Luke F. Walton well thank you so much and i i hope you have a have a great one and i will um i'll definitely take you up on that free mastering and

86:12 Gustav Brunn yeah sure whatever

86:13 Luke F. Walton sneak

86:13 Gustav Brunn you have my email address

86:14 Luke F. Walton sneak into your spotify playlist yeah looking forward to it well thank you so much for joining

86:24 Gustav Brunn Oh