An Interview with Harper James

0:21 Luke F. Walton Scoobert Doobert with Love Music More. I am joined with producer, mix engineer, musician extraordinaire Harper James. Welcome to the show, man.

0:29 Harper James Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

0:31 Luke F. Walton We're going to have a great conversation about all of the above, making music, mixing music, the modern world. We were just talking about kind of how the mixed note processes evolved with all these new tools and stuff. But before we hop into all that, my favorite thing to talk about is just kind of how you came up. How did you kind of fall in love with music? How did you get into this bizarre career? that uh

0:56 Harper James totally

0:56 Luke F. Walton pursuit yeah

0:57 Harper James i feel like it's one of the things where i i wind up sort of talking about this my sort of like introduction to all this stuff a lot and it's like every time i try and like hone it down to like a less ambling version so this like doesn't take 40 minutes so i initially was like a total like jazz head in high school and i was one of those people i would go in my basement and practice like eight hours a day and

1:22 Luke F. Walton guitar guitar what was what was your where'd

1:24 Harper James guitar

1:24 Luke F. Walton you start yeah Yeah,

1:24 Harper James yeah

1:25 Luke F. Walton yeah.

1:25 Harper James and i was in some sort of like you know bands and in like middle school but but sort of like end of middle school high school i got really into it um and i ended up uh studying jazz and really sort of being disillusioned with it in just sort of like the not the music but in just sort of like the way that it seemed like it was playing out

1:51 Harper James with the people who are teaching me who are my idols the cool thing about jazz is like you can have your favorite living jazz player you can go to their show and they'll give you a lesson for like 60 you know

2:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

2:02 Harper James and

2:02 Luke F. Walton yeah.

2:02 Harper James so I had access to these people who I idolize and I ended up feeling like you know a lot of it especially now and I think every generation gets harder so even some of the guys who had cool careers and were touring and on Blue Note or whatever like they were the last the last of a certain kind of generation like joshua redman and you know like

2:22 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

2:22 Harper James this guy peter bernstein i really like and it seemed like the more years that passed the more it really just disappeared as like a career and it became more of a teaching thing and i think teaching is great but i sort of

2:34 Harper James felt a little bit alienated by like oh it's just this sort of like self-fulfilling cycle of like you learn it and then you teach it and it didn't

2:40 Harper James Yeah, really seem like right. there was a lot of options for a career outside of you know maybe just gigging around at restaurants and maybe if you get lucky getting on like crisscross and they'll send you to europe for a week and you make like a thousand dollars or whatever at the best at

2:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

2:55 Harper James the top

2:56 Luke F. Walton right.

2:56 Harper James you know and there are those exceptions you know like

2:58 Luke F. Walton Of course.

2:58 Harper James but but yeah but generally I just sort of felt like oh maybe this isn't really a life that I want even though I love the music and so I had a period of time where I was a little bit just like lost and playing in bands and being the kind of like de facto logic you know engineer for

3:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

3:15 Harper James bands because

3:16 Luke F. Walton yeah,

3:16 Harper James no one else wanted

3:16 Luke F. Walton exactly.

3:16 Harper James to do it and then having some good experiences and bad experiences in studios that led me to sort of have that like miss sort of guided thought of like hey maybe I could do this better you know and of course when you have that thought you can't but it can lead you down a path where eventually maybe you can and

3:36 Luke F. Walton That's good wisdom.

3:36 Harper James so I sort of had that thought and it was got me into some trouble but it ended up like where i kind of ended up like recording and mixing some like indie pop indie rock you know eps

3:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:49 Harper James and one of the situations got me in a in a place where actually this guy michael brower was mixing it but

3:57 Luke F. Walton Nice.

3:57 Harper James something that i had like produced right like

3:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:59 Harper James i didn't know what i was doing i just had recorded a few things and it was the band and the band sort of was like you know nothing but but they had a manager who knew a lawyer who was michael brow's lawyer and i guess our ep got to him and um he was like this is cool and it was like we couldn't really afford his rates but he's like if you come in like next weekend i'll just do it and it was cheap you know and i mean relatively cheap i can't remember exactly how much but between everybody

4:23 Harper James I mean, it was fine.

4:24 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

4:25 Harper James And I was like, you know, you have those moments when you're like, what is this? This is cool. You know, and I think I so I walked into Electric Lady and I knew enough to know like this guy, you know, Michael Brower.

4:38 Harper James uh had done some Coldplay records that I liked he done a John Mayer record and back in that he'd done some like cool solo stuff like a Luther Vandross thing that you know I'd heard that was cool and it was like very much one of those like transformative experiences where like I'd never been in front of like a large format console I'd never really talked to someone who was like in the middle of it you know and he's a character and like

5:03 Harper James you know still an inspiration and and it turned out to just be this fortuitous thing where even to this day i'm still very interested in like his workflow and anyway

5:11 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

5:12 Harper James you

5:12 Luke F. Walton Me

5:13 Harper James know he

5:13 Luke F. Walton too.

5:13 Harper James had uh an assistant ryan gilligan who's a good friend of mine who i kind of became friends with over the weekend and then stayed in touch with a little bit and i had reached out to him at some point and i was like hey man like i'm kind of just like working at a restaurant doing some live sound gigs uh kind of hating life you know but

5:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for sure.

5:33 Harper James i really like you know and i'm kind of like over the band thing and i'm kind of i don't know what to do but i really had a great time mixing this record and he was like you know

5:43 Harper James you know you should like apply to this program mix with the masters which didn't have a website at the time some people have heard of this for people who haven't it's essentially like an educational website where they talk to the great engineers of our day and get them to give you sort of tips and tricks and inside scoops or whatever but at the time it was actually michael brower's i think idea to get a bunch of kids

6:04 Harper James Oh, people together I didn't know that. to just teach and it was the i think the first or the second ever year so it was just this like like summer camp for like

6:12 Luke F. Walton Cool.

6:12 Harper James grown-ups basically victor

6:13 Luke F. Walton Was Victor involved? I think Victor,

6:16 Harper James yeah

6:16 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah, yeah.

6:17 Harper James yeah victor yeah yeah in fact yeah victor's funny uh but like yeah so and and at the time it was it was very much like invite only kind of thing and

6:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:29 Harper James it wasn't clear that i would be able to go because i wasn't really a professional a lot of the guys who end up going they had grammys and they had mixed number one records like the students right and i was just like some kid who like thought mixing was cool you know but because i had worked a little bit with

6:43 Harper James brower i i sort of got like just sort of ushered in as like a kind of a guinea pig like you're the one who's in the band like we can kind of like make fun of you and

6:52 Luke F. Walton whatever Yeah,

6:52 Harper James and

6:52 Luke F. Walton sure.

6:53 Harper James you had that experience of actually having your record mix which never got released whatever but still like i you know i could stand in for the artist basically

6:59 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

7:00 Harper James but So I went and like, it was one of those rare, like, again, sort of like reorienting experiences in life where I remember my main thought was like, so I have half of the shit I don't really understand, but I'm very interested in it. And I felt like. I had found my people like

7:23 Luke F. Walton Cool.

7:23 Harper James there was a kind of combination of like creativity and like nerdiness that

7:27 Luke F. Walton Yes.

7:28 Harper James I felt really comfortable with that I did not sort of feel so aligned with a lot of the sort of like musicians and bands and artist vibes that you hang out with in the green room or whatever like there because I think one of the things a lot of producers and engineers have in common is they don't actually want to be the center of attention and

7:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yes.

7:45 Harper James I found that to be nice like I don't want to be the center in either

7:50 Luke F. Walton Mm

7:50 Harper James exactly i mean i am in a band now with my brother but like sort of conveniently i'm the as they say what's that movie uh uh you know uh almost

8:01 Luke F. Walton like 10 feet from the

8:03 Harper James almost

8:03 Luke F. Walton almost

8:03 Harper James famous and

8:04 Luke F. Walton famous yeah

8:04 Harper James they get in this argument where the guitar they print the t-shirt or the record cover and the guitar player is out front and the singer is like oh i'm just like the out of focus guy that's great he's like really pissed because like he's not but i'm like i want to be the out of focus guy you know uh and i feel like the producers are totally you're like you're in the band but you're the out of focus guy you know and i felt like way more comfortable in that relationship to music

8:27 Luke F. Walton Mm

8:27 Harper James and

8:28 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

8:28 Harper James the kind of i i realized that my like jazz stuff interest in like really deep harmony and functional harmony all the kind of nerdy technical stuff there was a huge aspect of that in mixing and so my my brain i was able to sort of make that changeover actually like that was when i kind of fully had found the next thing you know

8:49 Harper James and so anyway i'm sorry i'll fast forward i ended up basically having that experience but then i came back home and it was sort of a letdown because like great now what you know and i had made some friends who were in new york and some of them were like super cool and great engineers and one of them had worked on like you know a bunch of like i think beautiful dark twisted fantasy and one of them had a bunch of latin you know stuff he done was really cool but even so it's just like i didn't really know what to do with myself i kind of had a network of support but

9:18 Harper James nowhere to be an engineer so my partner who's still my you know partner basically was like dude you're depressed you need to like do something why don't you get a job at a studio and i was like well you know that's not how it works anymore there is no there are no jobs whatever so she sent me and at some point she maybe passive aggressively or maybe it was an earnest thing sent me like a link to a studio opening announcement and sonic scoop which was justin coletti is a pretty big sort of like youtube tutorial like

9:47 Harper James guru type online person now but he had a cool blog and he's a mastering engineer

9:53 Harper James called tonic scoop and it had listed degrasse sound as a new studio opening and i realized that i knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who like knew ben donor

10:01 Luke F. Walton Oh,

10:01 Harper James i was like that's my in you

10:02 Luke F. Walton know yes.

10:02 Harper James so at the time i didn't want a job i just i emailed him and genuinely was like i had this experience with brower and it really inspired me and then i've been sort of like practicing on my own i come from i'm a musician i've been in bands i'm a jazz cabler but like i'm new to the studio world my main question is like i'd love to meet with you and just ask you should i pursue this do this like

10:22 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

10:22 Harper James what do you think as someone who's like been doing it and he sort of told me later that he was getting lots and lots of like emails from uh you know every day from colleges for like to place assistants and would just delete them but with mine somehow he thought he knew me like the informality of like how i reached out and the fact that i wasn't asking for a job i just wanted to say hey at first he was like yeah i opened it because i thought i like you were a friend of mine from like back in the day when i had a studio at my house or whatever and

10:52 Luke F. Walton Cool.

10:52 Harper James then he realized oh no he's just like a random person but it was too late you know he said so he said sure come on by and you know i came by the studio and i i flatter myself maybe but i think we ended up having like a great like three-hour conversation about life and music and everything and he sort of was like okay fine and come back monday and like let's see i don't really want to get an assistant i don't really want whatever but you seem cool we had a good chat come on back and like you know i have been here every single day for like 10 years and

11:21 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

11:21 Harper James over that that time i ended up evolving into more of less of like an engineer and whatever and more of like my own production career where

11:29 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:29 Harper James i'm not like engineering on i started assisting and then i was engineering bands and stuff and now i sort of have my own space and do that but we're still every day hanging um and it's great to have that friendship and like collegiality in a profession that can be kind of isolating honestly sometimes

11:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

11:47 Harper James you know just you and your computer screen and artists and clients but having that kind of colleague on call in their next room is has been a good a good thing and part of the reason I stayed here for so long

11:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah, that's

12:00 Harper James So

12:00 Luke F. Walton really cool.

12:00 Harper James I did not cut it down.

12:02 Luke F. Walton It

12:02 Harper James That was probably

12:02 Luke F. Walton was good. It was good.

12:03 Harper James a longer version.

12:04 Luke F. Walton I love that there's like a million things I don't want to dig deeper into in there too. So don't feel bad. You actually gave me a really good table of content for the rest of this podcast.

12:13 Harper James Yeah, I think it just set the scene

12:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

12:14 Harper James so exactly. it sort of makes sense and then we can just talk about whatever.

12:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for sure. I'd love to talk about That kind of mix of the masters is that did you feel like you were kind of like networking with people? Are you still in contact with some of these people just just curious

12:28 Harper James You

12:28 Luke F. Walton kind of how

12:29 Harper James know,

12:29 Luke F. Walton that I'm evolved

12:29 Harper James like, you know, someone who's super skeptical of all of the like educational content online. I think a lot of it does more harm than good. And ironically, I think some of the technical stuff that I was gleaning from Mix of the Masters, like might have been too much too soon and

12:46 Luke F. Walton Cool.

12:46 Harper James set me off on

12:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:46 Harper James these tangents

12:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:47 Harper James of trying to like browerize stuff

12:48 Luke F. Walton Right.

12:49 Harper James and whatever and

12:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

12:50 Harper James so you know whatever I learned technically and whatever relationships and networking I did there you know was less important than being inspired and one of the things about that sort of situation in particular is it was really it was

13:08 Harper James it's now it's sort of an institution and it just had that feeling you know when something is but like before it becomes a thing but like right before there's a kind of energy and like I said I you know I don't know how it is now but like literally in my class it was like the guy who had produced this record for Train that actually Brower had been I think

13:28 Harper James maybe like almost mix but then they went with like chris lord algae or something

13:32 Luke F. Walton You're

13:32 Harper James instead and

13:33 Luke F. Walton right.

13:33 Harper James so he mixed like some train he did like mixed it himself and was like well this is what i would have done and another guy was like really had like multiple like latin grammys another one had worked on a bunch of you know massive records i was like so out of my depth and it was great you know it was like one of those rare just you know it was like kismet or whatever i just was at the right

13:55 Harper James time in the right place in the right series of events and just kind of like allow me to have the privilege of this kind of like really eye-opening opportunity and meet these really cool people but I have to say it's funny when I came back to New York it really felt like I was kind of back at square one and it was through this another sort of series of just like funny little circuitous turn

14:13 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:13 Harper James that i wound up here and

14:14 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:14 Harper James i'm still friendly with all those guys and

14:17 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

14:17 Harper James ryan is a great mixing engineer out in la who's very much like in my generation and community and i'm still friends with him and

14:23 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:23 Harper James he's yeah people like that who like are around your age but have been doing it longer are a great resource in the beginning and so i've definitely like called on people but more is just like help with

14:34 Harper James questions about career and engineering managers and all this kind of stuff that you run into.

14:39 Luke F. Walton Yes, it's funny that you should say that. So one of the people that I talked to.

14:45 Luke F. Walton before i kind of went this direction with with my music and mixing and all this kind of stuff was john stork who designed electric lady studios forever

14:54 Harper James Oh, yeah.

14:55 Luke F. Walton ago and i was That's talking to him

14:57 Harper James awesome.

14:57 Luke F. Walton about like how you know this kind of stuff it wasn't a podcast i wish it was but he was talking about that kismet that serendipity that that like literally the best thing you can do is go where you're led and go there Absolutely.

15:09 Harper James yeah yeah

15:10 Luke F. Walton And how that, yeah,

15:11 Harper James i

15:11 Luke F. Walton I keep hearing that from person after person after person. It's not really luck. It's something else. It's like this kind of channeling that you

15:18 Harper James think

15:18 Luke F. Walton follow

15:18 Harper James it's

15:19 Luke F. Walton like that

15:19 Harper James a you it's

15:19 Luke F. Walton reward it. Yeah.

15:20 Harper James a deep clarity of purpose like

15:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

15:22 Harper James i think even

15:22 Luke F. Walton yeah.

15:22 Harper James like and i think that's when i say like that experience of like getting to work with michael bauer before i really had any you

15:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:29 Harper James know reasonable reason to be doing so and then doing this little sort of you know training program it was more like it clarified in me what I wanted on a deep level I don't know how to get it so I kind of felt like I'd see there but I think it was like it was like every day became a search for how am I gonna like express this desire to like become more a producer engineer on the other side of the glass thing and it was just like any little opportunity like

15:59 Harper James you know to sort of like check out was of interest to me but it did take uh my lovely partner sort of goading me to actually make a move but

16:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

16:09 Harper James i think that aside i just i it was eventually i was gonna have to do something because I knew and I think

16:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:15 Harper James that was like that's often I think at the the heart of why things kind of work out it's just because you know what you what direction you want to go in you might not know how but there's I think a lot of my life I'm very unclear about what I really want specifically in this context or that context but in that time of my life I think it was clear I needed to sort of like make a change and I I had I identified the direction I just didn't know what to do about it and so

16:42 Harper James when the opportunity presented when ben asked me to come back on monday i

16:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

16:45 Harper James heard in my head i'm here for the rest of my life like it was just like you just like i don't even know that he really meant that but i took it because i was so i was like sure whatever you need me to clean the bathroom whatever you need me to you know and i i've noticed talking with young people who maybe want to be in it and do some work with me or an assist or whatever which which happens that there's people where it's like they're

17:09 Harper James they're very unclear as to whether they really want to do this or

17:12 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

17:18 Harper James does this make sense with my schedule? And then there's the people who were just like, okay, I will, you know. I'll just quit my job and move to the stage

17:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

17:28 Harper James you know they're like so gung-ho even if I'm like okay I don't quite have that spot I have no doubt that they're gonna find something because there's just that like there's that clarity you know of of what they want I want to be in a studio I wanted to be in a studio every day you know what I mean I think I realized

17:43 Luke F. Walton Yep,

17:43 Harper James that and

17:44 Luke F. Walton I

17:44 Harper James I was

17:44 Luke F. Walton get

17:44 Harper James like you

17:44 Luke F. Walton you.

17:44 Harper James I

17:45 Luke F. Walton I feel

17:45 Harper James need

17:45 Luke F. Walton that.

17:45 Harper James to be in a studio every day my

17:46 Luke F. Walton Yep.

17:46 Harper James studio someone else's studio as a band as a producer but that's the place that I feel like I want to be you know

17:53 Luke F. Walton I feel that very deeply. And

17:55 Harper James Yeah.

17:55 Luke F. Walton having that kind of North Star that helps make those hard decisions easier.

18:01 Harper James Yeah.

18:02 Luke F. Walton Like, yeah.

18:02 Harper James And I think it was, yeah.

18:04 Luke F. Walton No, no, you go for it.

18:05 Harper James And it wasn't like, I want to be a famous engineer, producer,

18:09 Luke F. Walton Right.

18:09 Harper James hero. I don't, it was like, I just want to be in a studio every day. It was, and it still is very, it's like a very like, you know, mundane, you know,

18:19 Harper James ambition. And I definitely have other ambitions too, but really at the at the core of it the thing that i've never wavered on is just like i need to figure out a situation where i can just be in the studio every day Yep. and like everything else will kind of sort itself out you

18:31 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

18:32 Harper James know yeah

18:32 Luke F. Walton Exactly. No,

18:33 Harper James yeah

18:33 Luke F. Walton I resonate deeply with that where it's like my North Star is I have a lot of musical ideas and I need to express them and it's through studio. It's like it's not really like live is fun, but that's fun. It's like what I need to be doing is like making these ideas real so that people can have them. have them.

18:52 Harper James exactly you know it's funny I think for me it's like even more amorphous because I'm not I

18:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:56 Harper James am in a band and I have a side project but I'm just sort of like I want to be in a studio

19:00 Luke F. Walton I

19:00 Harper James and

19:00 Luke F. Walton love it. I

19:01 Harper James it could

19:01 Luke F. Walton love

19:01 Harper James be my it. idea or their

19:02 Luke F. Walton Yes,

19:02 Harper James idea and

19:02 Luke F. Walton exactly.

19:03 Harper James I think that's probably what makes me more of like a producer and less of a you know an artist or whatever in terms of just like the way things do even in my own artist projects I'm just like I just sort of like playing around in the studio and I think like it's like I feel a bit almost like as and one of the things that's that's for me is like building my own little room I mean

19:22 Luke F. Walton Yes.

19:22 Harper James it's a very small space but I've spent a lot of time just like really getting it to be the like the sort of like creative like embodiment or reflection of like the inside of my own mind and I feel like you know I love this little space and it's like exactly how I want it and it's sort of weird and an eclectic sort of stuff but it just I feel like really happy here you

19:47 Luke F. Walton Yes.

19:47 Harper James know most

19:48 Luke F. Walton Oh,

19:48 Harper James yeah. of the time when it's not 3 a.m and i'm like doing like mix eight or something yeah

19:53 Luke F. Walton Exactly. There's always doubts.

19:54 Harper James yeah

19:55 Luke F. Walton But I hear you. I mean, my space is not ideal. I'm in my bedroom. But I've, you know. produced and mixed several things that have gone in movie theaters and

20:07 Harper James yeah

20:07 Luke F. Walton major labels on tv all this kind of stuff in my little bedroom but it's because i kind of like figured out i need this much everything else would be really nice but like i've got

20:16 Harper James no yes no space is ideal like my space isn't ideal at all but it's like my space and i think it's like i it's like every inch of it is like exactly the thing that emerged out of my particular version of of crazy or whatever

20:30 Luke F. Walton Right.

20:30 Harper James and I think like you know that was important to me like in some ways one of the I don't know I could go on but yeah so I think it was like it was like just this wanting to be in a studio so when it was when I was an assistant it was in the tracking room every day I just wanted to be there making coffee setting up mics whatever and it evolved you know but like

20:50 Harper James Yeah, it's always sort of been that, you know, being in that creative physical space, I just love, you know.

20:57 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah i i i resonate with that i'm curious i wanted i want to dig into what you were talking about like youtube tutorials because i think a lot of people think like oh i could do this all on my own or i don't need collaboration i don't need the physical space i'm just going to grind youtube tutorials and like um i see a lot of people that do reproductions like they break down a mix or an arrangement and they

21:18 Luke F. Walton like build it back up themselves i see value in a lot of that kind of stuff but i'm curious where kind of where your

21:23 Harper James Yeah.

21:24 Luke F. Walton take is and your your your take on like learning in general especially in such a nebulous thing like production

21:29 Harper James 100%.

21:29 Luke F. Walton yeah

21:30 Harper James Well,

21:31 Luke F. Walton right

21:31 Harper James the classic thing right around when I was looking was that the model was switching over from like an apprenticeship model to a more like you're on your own kid model.

21:38 Luke F. Walton totally

21:38 Harper James And it was like you have to prove to the world that you're capable of making something cool in your bedroom. room and then someone might take notice and kind of mentor you but it

21:47 Luke F. Walton still Mm.

21:47 Harper James won't be this official one-on-one year-long to year-long relationship and

21:50 Luke F. Walton Yep.

21:50 Harper James I kind of had a few moments where I thought maybe if I like reached out I could probably have a chance of getting sisters and I sort of decided not to I I don't I think it was ego I think I was like I just want to make my own shit now I don't want to wait two years and be someone's like whatever and I was young so it was just like I don't know who knows I don't have any regrets but I think I think at this point it's like that

22:12 Harper James that ship has sailed. And so it really leaves the question of how do you learn stuff?

22:18 Harper James And I don't think the answer is probably going to school for it not that you shouldn't because i think there can be relationships that you build uh but it you know reminds me a lot of like jazz school where it was like the kids who were good when they graduated were good when they got there or they just hold themselves up in their room and just practice like more than anyone else that was the only thing there was nothing there was no one who was like oh if you take this class like you're gonna it was very much you know this kind of like uh you yourself in yourself figuring it out i think and then you had teachers

22:52 Harper James But I think, okay, so I think my like philosophy around it is learning is really personal and like intimate,

23:05 Luke F. Walton Yep.

23:05 Harper James like everyone learns how to do stuff in a different way. And, you know, my metaphor is.

23:11 Harper James it's like learning from someone else can be like someone giving you directions when they don't know where you're at so they're like oh it's easy the ghost stories that go out you know take a left another left and go straight you're like but you don't know where i am so if i follow your directions i'm going to wind up in the fucking you know in a lake or whatever and so the the issue with like a youtube tutorial is the person there's you know a lot of issues but but one that i think you can't really get around is that the person

23:38 Harper James saying it doesn't know you and doesn't know where you're at so

23:41 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

23:41 Harper James they don't know how to give you directions to where you want to go because they don't even not know where you're at they actually don't know where you want to go so like I think that it's an art finding resources that you know will work for you and in a weird way the skill that you have to develop is identifying the people and the resources that just kind of you you have an intuition that I can trust this person because

24:05 Harper James they're kind of speaking from a place that's a little bit like where I'm at or speaking to people who are like me but that's like not something that is um you know out there as information like you just have to like deduce that from contacts and from experience But I also think the idea that this kind of thing can be taught is

24:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:29 Harper James to some degree like wishful thinking because, man, wouldn't it be great if someone could just kind of tell you how to mix because

24:36 Luke F. Walton Great.

24:36 Harper James it's so hard,

24:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:37 Harper James you know, and I think I think partly it's out of like a desire to just bypass the torturous self-doubt and failings and stuff that are just just always part of it

24:50 Luke F. Walton Yep.

24:50 Harper James like mentor or not and

24:51 Luke F. Walton Yep.

24:51 Harper James like i think partly it can just be a distraction from sitting with what's in front of you and trying to really see what's there and like using your ears and your imagination and the tools you have at your disposal to make the next best choice which is essentially what everything ends up being and like there is no like promised land of figuring it out as far as i can tell there's just

25:15 Harper James is just getting better and better at like flying by the seat of your pants where you're just i feel like for me the thing that's really changed other than my monitoring getting better which

25:25 Luke F. Walton Right.

25:25 Harper James was helpful the

25:25 Luke F. Walton That's helpful.

25:26 Harper James thing that's changed that i that i've learned is to be better at zooming in and zooming out on problems so Yep. like when i'm working with like a you know an artist who's maybe like mixed their own song and it's like help me it's a mess you know and they'll bring it in like 90 of the time i'll just be like all right well your kick drum's like 12 db2 loud and they're

25:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:49 Harper James like oh my god you fixed it

25:49 Luke F. Walton All

25:50 Harper James you know right. and it's because I just zoomed out

25:51 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

25:51 Harper James for one second because they're in there doing all the stuff and I'm just like zoom out you know all right you pick MC a lot you know and then you just learn by sort of like unconscious like

26:03 Luke F. Walton Mm

26:03 Harper James accumulation

26:03 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

26:04 Harper James of experience like how to be better but

26:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

26:08 Harper James I think that like the idea that someone can speak to you that

26:12 Luke F. Walton Right.

26:12 Harper James information and then you can kind of like now know at best it just confirms what you already know so the best teaching experiences have been when I sort of suspected something and someone I really respect and trust has basically said something that makes me feel like okay I'm not crazy I'm on the right path

26:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

26:28 Harper James as I was continued you know like that it can just be reassuring to hear someone else

26:34 Harper James is thinking about in a similar way but man i feel like my whole life i've been really into learning how to do stuff like first it was guitar and then it was engineering and when i was a kid i wanted to speak french so i really like you know

26:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

26:47 Harper James i

26:47 Luke F. Walton yeah.

26:47 Harper James don't know why it's like a person i like work but the thing i've learned about learning is it's like it's a lonely experience when it's done right you know i think to some degree it's a very like or it's not it doesn't have to be lonely but it's it's a singular it's an introspective thing it's not a looking for the right tip thing and

27:08 Luke F. Walton Right.

27:08 Harper James yeah i think a lot of the a lot of the tips educational stuff comes out of a economic

27:15 Luke F. Walton Mm

27:15 Harper James engine

27:15 Luke F. Walton hmm.

27:15 Harper James that needs content and it's very easy you know i know i have like a tiktok account where i you know i try not to give tips but i just talk about music and how i think about stuff

27:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

27:26 Harper James but even then i sometimes catch myself being like wow i can kind of like wind up a good story about almost anything it doesn't necessarily mean it's helpful do you know what i mean so i gotta kind of like watch my that sort of tendency to just kind of talk about stuff because it's fun and interesting but is it helping someone you know i don't know so i have to like i definitely i definitely think about that

27:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:49 Harper James You

27:49 Luke F. Walton Well,

27:49 Harper James know,

27:49 Luke F. Walton and I think you're hitting on like the deductive versus inductive kind of, is it logical or is it actually illogical, these steps,

27:57 Harper James yeah,

27:57 Luke F. Walton where you have to almost learn by osmosis, you have to learn by doing.

28:02 Harper James yeah,

28:02 Luke F. Walton It's not, there's like a funny phrase that I've used before, it cannot be taught, it can only be learned. It doesn't mean consent and colon,

28:10 Harper James yeah,

28:10 Luke F. Walton like you have to do it, you have to learn it yourself.

28:12 Harper James yeah.

28:12 Luke F. Walton It hasn't, and like you're saying, it can be led. in certain directions and that can help and there is like a logical underpinning that you have to kind of understand like how to use the tools the keyboard shortcuts like how to troubleshoot

28:24 Harper James Yeah,

28:25 Luke F. Walton like they're they're they're linear logical things that are built in but that's not the thing itself those are like the the the nuts and bolts

28:36 Harper James when i when i it's really funny and i think

28:38 Luke F. Walton Yes,

28:38 Harper James the truth is those things that can be taught are very easy to learn i

28:41 Luke F. Walton I agree.

28:42 Harper James mean you know everything's relative but like actually i you know yeah at first you got to like understand compression and learn how to use a compressor and you got to learn how to use your daw like your software but that actually doesn't take very long like almost anyone can spend like a month and kind of learn learn how to do that stuff and then and then at that point it's like it's almost like

29:05 Harper James the the the on ramp just ends and

29:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:08 Harper James you're just in a field and

29:10 Luke F. Walton You're right.

29:10 Harper James you just got to start walking in a direction like

29:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:13 Harper James and i don't know that there's a way around it and i'm almost glad that there's not because it means that everyone who arrives i think when you're like when i was starting had this idea that all of the greats at any given field

29:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

29:25 Harper James had like arrived in the same room and they were all in this room over there and talking to each other and i'm over here in my room and i just know how to get into that room rub so

29:32 Luke F. Walton Mm

29:33 Harper James i can like

29:33 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

29:33 Harper James do what they do turns out they're all just totally spread across the globe in different places and a lot of the times like you know my take is like okay you know if you're talking about mixing engineers like someone like chad blake or manny marijuana or michael brower cannot do and does not understand what the other people are

29:50 Luke F. Walton Yep.

29:51 Harper James doing they're doing their own thing and if you were to try and ask them to like do this other thing it would be like asking someone you know who played guitar to play the same thing on a tuba they most

30:01 Luke F. Walton Right.

30:01 Harper James most of them would just be like i don't do that that's

30:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:03 Harper James not what i do i do something else yeah so we all have to just come to our own arrival and there's no one who's going to tell us that we've arrived anywhere like so it is kind of got this like zen paradox you know quality to it where it's like there is nowhere to arrive you know and there's like there's nothing to arrive at and

30:22 Luke F. Walton Mm

30:23 Harper James yet somehow

30:23 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

30:23 Harper James and there's there's no direction that's progress and somehow we all have to just walk in a direction and say that it's progress and then say we've arrived somewhere and that's all there is to it you know we just have to believe it and i think so much of like the journey is of creativity or art or anything is just convincing yourself through your experience that indeed you can be trusted your impulses

30:47 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

30:47 Harper James are right

30:48 Luke F. Walton Right.

30:48 Harper James and it's that weird

30:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

30:50 Harper James experience that sometimes it takes 10 years to look back and be like man that work I was doing like way before I knew anything was pretty good and some of the stuff I was doing when I thought I was learning stuff was really bad you know like the intuition got sucked out of it and that's that like weird learning graph or whatever where it's like you

31:08 Luke F. Walton The Dunning-Kruger.

31:09 Harper James you gotta yeah exactly some version of that Right.

31:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah. And I hear you like most of my first mixes at Scoobert Doobert were me just being like, I don't have any money.

31:22 Luke F. Walton I'm just going to finish it and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not even necessarily trying to be a mixing engineer. I'm just doing this because it needs to be done. And then at a certain point, do you know, do you know Sam? Is that a little bit, he's the guy that connected us to

31:38 Harper James Oh,

31:38 Luke F. Walton do this

31:38 Harper James I

31:38 Luke F. Walton podcast.

31:38 Harper James don't know him personally,

31:39 Luke F. Walton Okay,

31:39 Harper James just cool. from

31:40 Luke F. Walton Cool, cool, cool.

31:40 Harper James that,

31:40 Luke F. Walton Cool.

31:41 Harper James yeah.

31:41 Luke F. Walton I was wondering. So he actually, I paid to have somebody else mix my stuff and he's like, it's worse.

31:47 Harper James Yeah,

31:47 Luke F. Walton yeah and

31:48 Harper James yeah.

31:48 Luke F. Walton that

31:48 Harper James That always happens.

31:49 Luke F. Walton was

31:49 Harper James Yeah.

31:49 Luke F. Walton the moment of like okay i guess i gotta become this thing and then i fell

31:53 Harper James Yeah.

31:53 Luke F. Walton in love with it absolutely fell in love but i had to get over the hump of like i'm not this like i don't deserve that

32:00 Harper James 100%. Yeah.

32:00 Luke F. Walton and then it's like no actually like i do i can't i can't

32:04 Harper James I

32:04 Luke F. Walton make those

32:04 Harper James spent like my entire career trying to figure out how to actually improve on people's demos and not make them worse.

32:11 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

32:11 Harper James I feel like most like 90 of professionals make the demo worse and

32:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:18 Harper James that was my experience as an artist and like the ability to take something that really is an idea that someone had that works that has an artistry to it that just but for whatever reason doesn't quite how do you expand on that in a way that feels connected to the creativity of it and not just turn it into like a professional version job of

32:44 Luke F. Walton Mm.

32:44 Harper James the mix like

32:46 Luke F. Walton Mm.

32:46 Harper James and i feel like i think the reason that i work is because that's like been my focus so i sort of like have managed to like avoid the i mean knock on wood but the like constant like oh but the demo it's like because i think partly my the hard lesson that i've learned is respect the stuff that's cool don't

33:07 Harper James mess with it and don't don't tell artists like when people will like oftentimes like when

33:13 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

33:13 Harper James someone like will call me to like mix something like

33:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:17 Harper James i had this happen they'll be like man i i did this myself blah blah blah like you know can you listen to it and what do you think i very often will just be like it sounds really good and

33:28 Luke F. Walton Cool.

33:29 Harper James then like okay but do you think it could be better i'm like yeah totally could be better you know because i don't want to be the one who like is like oh man i don't know your snare sounds weird because then then i'm gonna be the guy who told them their shit sucked and then i get into the the actual doing of it and i realize oh shit actually there's kind of a thing here that's kind of cool but i told them that so like i'm very cautious about thinking of myself as like

33:54 Harper James It's like a professional.

33:58 Luke F. Walton Okay.

33:58 Harper James Do

33:59 Luke F. Walton Okay.

33:59 Harper James you know what I mean?

33:59 Luke F. Walton I like it. I get it. I get

34:00 Harper James I've

34:00 Luke F. Walton it. I get it.

34:01 Harper James just done the thing way

34:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:04 Harper James more hours.

34:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:06 Harper James That's all.

34:06 Luke F. Walton Uh

34:07 Harper James But

34:07 Luke F. Walton -huh.

34:07 Harper James like as soon as I'm a professional, I start making stuff sound lame. Do you know what I mean? I totally. start doing the things. I start notching 300 out of a kick drum just because I saw

34:16 Luke F. Walton Because that's what you do.

34:17 Harper James it in a YouTube tutorial or whatever.

34:18 Luke F. Walton Yes.

34:18 Harper James Like, you

34:19 Luke F. Walton Right.

34:19 Harper James know, and I think it's, you know, and I think I'm at a place finally now where I feel a little bit more like, okay.

34:49 Harper James that part of it that part

34:50 Luke F. Walton Mm

34:51 Harper James of it's

34:51 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

34:51 Harper James just like the good stuff is always just random and chaotic and then the skill isn't taking something identifying what's wrong with it and then fixing it it's like just finishing the the gesture in

35:03 Luke F. Walton Yes, right.

35:03 Harper James the best possible way that you can and

35:05 Luke F. Walton Very good.

35:05 Harper James that doesn't there's just like not rules there and like it's like such a cliche but it's like it's one thing to be like well you know there's no rules but like obviously there's rules it's like no no no there's like no rules like

35:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

35:19 Harper James we're

35:19 Luke F. Walton hmm.

35:19 Harper James totally just like free floating and fucking space like

35:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

35:21 Harper James this is why references are problematic to me and comparing your mix to here and there it's

35:27 Luke F. Walton Agreed.

35:27 Harper James just like what you realize is you have 10 references and they all sound more different to each other than your mix does to the reference so you're what are you going to do about it you know there's

35:37 Luke F. Walton I'd switch

35:38 Harper James nowhere

35:38 Luke F. Walton to.

35:38 Harper James to go so yeah

35:39 Luke F. Walton I've switched to asking artists to be like irregardless like regardless of this tune what are you listening to right now you're super excited about yeah

35:47 Harper James yes what do you like i i think the funny thing is like i i have this experience like way more than i should where someone will come to me and oftentimes it's someone who's more in like the mainstream pop world because they're such like a

36:02 Harper James Puppy mill of just like cranking out that kind of song in like the music industry or whatever that it's like

36:11 Harper James what happens is people are like i would like to be a musician and then some manager is just like here you go boom and they just shove him a room with like somebody who like makes a beat in ableton and they sing over it or whatever not there's anything wrong with ableton but and like they've never asked themselves like do they like that style of music is it the genre that they wanted to do when they were a kid is it what they thought in their mind that they would be doing it's like so i will sometimes be the first person to ask someone who maybe has a career

36:38 Harper James like

36:38 Luke F. Walton Mm.

36:38 Harper James so

36:38 Luke F. Walton Mm.

36:38 Harper James like how do you feel about like the music you've made so far and what music do you like to listen to and is there any overlap and if there's not does that bother you like

36:49 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

36:50 Harper James and and most of the time they're like oh yeah it totally bothers me i don't really like the genre i'm in i just sort of thought that that's like what i had to do and i'll be like well it's not it's not it's not And they'd be like, I guess it's not. And it'd be like, I mean, so we could just rethink things here and try to do something that you might like.

37:09 Harper James And oftentimes it's like interjection, but can be a little bit scary because it's like, you know, and so anyway, I don't know, I'm just spiraling, but like, I think that there's something to.

37:26 Harper James the way that we learn and the way that things have become so accessible in terms of like tips and tricks and you know that that help that can kind of put us at a distance from like what we always knew which is that we have our taste we have the stuff we like and then that's the thing that's going to like guide us and that you just yeah you're going to learn what an EQ is you got to learn what whatever is and once you start to really get into it you can start looking at like loudness and like how low end you know eats up more headroom but doesn't give you as much perceived loudness

37:57 Harper James and now i'm mixing and i'm thinking i do some technical knowledge that i can apply and

38:01 Luke F. Walton Yep.

38:01 Harper James do you know what i mean and like okay

38:03 Luke F. Walton Totally

38:03 Harper James because like

38:03 Luke F. Walton know what

38:03 Harper James what a multi

38:03 Luke F. Walton you mean.

38:04 Harper James -band compressor does oh i can sidechain a multi-band compressor you know so you can learn things but they're actually

38:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:09 Harper James none of them are hard to learn the

38:10 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

38:11 Harper James technical goobly gook that people who aren't engineers won't understand on this podcast turns out good news it doesn't really matter like

38:17 Luke F. Walton Yes.

38:17 Harper James understanding it isn't necessary to even make a great production like

38:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

38:22 Harper James it's just like yeah yeah

38:24 Luke F. Walton well i mean it's it's a the thing that clicked for me that made mixing start to make sense was when i listened to something from dave pensato and he was like stop using equal equalization so much start using more compression start using more saturation use

38:38 Harper James yes

38:38 Luke F. Walton use use some tools that are meant for this for that and then once i started doing that i'm

38:43 Harper James i'm

38:43 Luke F. Walton like oh

38:43 Harper James like surprised dave gave such good advice on his show that's

38:47 Luke F. Walton yeah i know right it was good it

38:48 Harper James really good good

38:49 Luke F. Walton was really good it's

38:50 Harper James no

38:50 Luke F. Walton really good advice

38:50 Harper James he's great Great.

38:51 Luke F. Walton and then i got to i got to attend a workshop thing with derek ali and it was like same kind of deal watching him i got to go in the studio we're sitting near the console watching him do his thing i'm like i am soaking up a bunch of knowledge just by being in this room watching him reach for different tools identify a problem reach for a different tool and it's not necessarily the tool that the textbook or the tips would be like that's what you use here he's instead knows what he gets out of it and he goes hey if i mix this in you

39:18 Luke F. Walton And it's going to achieve the same, you know, addition of presence on this decapitator setting or whatever instead of reaching for an EQ like you start using things that are out

39:29 Harper James yeah

39:29 Luke F. Walton of box.

39:29 Harper James yeah

39:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:30 Harper James yeah i mean one one good experience for people to have i feel like is meeting someone who like you you sort of idolize and trying to be like so like when when you're using like you know like your bass and your kick do you ever like send the then the kick to like the bottom end of the multiband compressor to sidechain that and they just look at you like dude what the

39:50 Luke F. Walton Yes.

39:50 Harper James fuck are you on man like relax you know

39:54 Luke F. Walton Yep.

39:54 Harper James and like i've had that happen to me a few times in different ways and it really just like you're like oh you don't even know what i'm talking about and you're the guy with the you know the billboard or whatever so it's like you know the billboard hits or whatever and it's like you I think that like that's what people need more

40:09 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

40:10 Harper James than the YouTube videos telling

40:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:11 Harper James you how to do all the shit that no one could actually understands anyway because they're just having fun playing

40:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:16 Harper James around,

40:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:16 Harper James you know.

40:17 Luke F. Walton And understanding like they develop this develop their sense of taste, their sense of taste works and then they do whatever it takes to get there.

40:24 Harper James Yeah. Yes,

40:26 Luke F. Walton exactly.

40:26 Harper James exactly. And being honest with yourself,

40:28 Luke F. Walton Good,

40:28 Harper James like, yeah, like being honest with yourself about what you like. And I think that sounds obvious, but most people aren't.

40:36 Luke F. Walton No, no, it's not obvious at all.

40:38 Harper James You know, most people actually they know what they like, but when you when they tell the story of what they like, there's there's all kinds of

40:46 Harper James you know stuff that's in there to protect their ego or to make them tell a story that's more interesting about themselves or whatever it is like we have all these motivations for but like the truth is like i really like third eye blind self-titled record and i will never get over it you know and for a while i was like embarrassed by that until i realized that eric valentine who did it is like the greatest living engineer and it's trained all of the cool guys like he's him and tony berg

41:13 Harper James are responsible partly for sean everett who does all the cool killers and war on drugs and phoebe bridgers and you know like then i was like oh that is a great all-time record you know and what but you know just an example it's like so i think like even the idea of a guilty pleasure obviously is like sort of a harmful idea but like because the whole thing is like just understanding our own like on our own taste and

41:39 Harper James and i think i don't know like there's nothing intrinsically wrong with like giving mixing tips on youtube but like i think that it's not what's needed most of the time you know yeah

41:48 Luke F. Walton And I think it speaks to that like AI kind of mentality that's out there in the ethos right now where,

41:54 Harper James yes

41:54 Luke F. Walton you know, they're so focused on like, what is the problem set that gets us from A to B rather than being like,

42:00 Harper James yeah

42:00 Luke F. Walton wow, that's not even the point. Yeah.

42:03 Harper James Right, exactly. Yeah. And also, like, again, honesty, I honestly don't

42:07 Luke F. Walton Yes.

42:07 Harper James believe that people like stuff that AI makes like the full stuff.

42:11 Luke F. Walton Yes.

42:11 Harper James People will say they like it. I just don't believe that they're telling the truth because it's not very good yet. I think there's a kind of like, there's a kind of like, you know, rose tinted glasses because people want it's like everyone's a futurist now they want all the technology to be great when it's not yet.

42:25 Harper James I mean, and then the idea is, you know, every Silicon Valley tech bro, their whole thing is thing is oh don't just you wait and

42:31 Luke F. Walton Uh

42:31 Harper James against

42:31 Luke F. Walton -huh.

42:31 Harper James just you wait it's gonna be great and you're just like why don't you just wait until it is great and

42:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:37 Harper James then you can let us know and then i'll be interested because i have nothing like i have nothing theoretically against ai i don't actually i think it'll probably just be used as a tool by people but i i find it amusing like people like man have you seen this like someone was showing me like dolly like a while ago and

42:54 Luke F. Walton For sure.

42:55 Harper James he was like have you seen this can't remember it was like uh some kind of ai version of a famous artist i think it was um something sort of obnoxiously like modern or whatever but anyway so he showed me like the ai version and

43:14 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

43:14 Harper James then he showed me like you know what it was imitating and i was like what it looks really similar and I would say they both have a lot in common. The one thing I'm noticing about the AI thing is that it sucks, you

43:30 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

43:31 Harper James know?

43:31 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

43:32 Harper James That's the only difference I can sort of point to is it sort of sucks, you know? Everything else though, nailed it.

43:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:38 Harper James Vibes, style, color, genre, all that stuff is good. It just sucks. And I don't know why it sucks, but it does. But I would postulate if you've managed to figure out how to make something look sound... don't feel exactly like another thing but you haven't figured out the suck part that's like a really bad sign because i'm not

43:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:57 Harper James sure what you do at that point how

44:01 Luke F. Walton Totally.

44:01 Harper James do you unstuck something when you've nailed all of the superficial characteristics there's not like an unstuck program and i think partly there's like a paradox here which is that we've forgotten that like art is for humans so you can't it's like the blade runner like slogan uh where they have made these like robots or whatever and it's called more human than human is like the slogan which

44:24 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

44:25 Harper James of course is a silly oxymoron

44:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:27 Harper James or whatever but this is i think where people's heads are at it's

44:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:31 Harper James like we don't

44:32 Luke F. Walton Right.

44:32 Harper James want more human than human that's

44:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:35 Harper James not a real thing and

44:36 Luke F. Walton Yes.

44:36 Harper James so it's like all of these kind of like futurist fantasies we have about like sort of transcending ourselves ourselves

44:46 Harper James end up in the same problem which is like we don't want things that transcend humanity those

44:50 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

44:51 Harper James are like nightmarishly ghoulish scenarios

44:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

44:54 Harper James and uncanny valley problems and all this stuff and so i don't see like theoretically where this is going because it's like

45:02 Harper James we already have humans are incredible machines like our brains are you like unsurpassable devices right and so it's like we're clearly not making machines that are as sophisticated as like a human mind or a body mind integration we're

45:18 Luke F. Walton That goes back to doing the inductive

45:19 Harper James something else yeah yes

45:21 Luke F. Walton deductive thing. We can create something that is more deductively powerful than the human mind. Absolutely. You can do way more calculations, way better math. math but can we make something

45:30 Harper James yeah

45:30 Luke F. Walton that's even close to as inductively powerful as a human mind that's

45:34 Harper James yeah and

45:35 Luke F. Walton like fundamentally

45:35 Harper James those deductive things are only useful when a brain a human mind is using them so if they create output that somehow transcends humanity they will be of no use to us and they'll just be trash so like there has to be you know it's a little bit like my problem with a lot of like cutting edge physics that sort of defaults to like well

45:54 Harper James we don't really understand conceptually fundamentally what like the double slit experiment means but it doesn't matter because it's predictive and the math works and i'm just like so as soon as science gives up trying to explain like reality and trying to be symbolically meaningful then it's just a thing to build weapons basically because the only thing that we use science for now is basically like building bigger bombs and like all the science that we have to like feed everyone forever and so like what is like there we don't

46:23 Harper James we don't need more so the only reason to do it is to like get a better conceptual window into the nature of reality and as soon as physicists are out there basically being like well don't worry too much about like what the big bang actually looked like just know that we've done the math or don't worry too much about like what you know quantum entanglement actually conceptually is but like we've done the math i'm just like

46:47 Harper James well then what's left of value really do you know what i mean other than just like these systems that like do shit that we may

46:56 Luke F. Walton or Yeah,

46:56 Harper James may not want or need or like anyway not to whatever

46:58 Luke F. Walton no, no, but I'm

46:59 Harper James i feel like there's i feel like you know it's very all of this stuff is related we want to live on mars because we don't want to take responsibility for the planet we want ai to solve all our problems because we want to live in a problemless reality where our comfort is maximized and whatever we want

47:14 Harper James you know we want to believe that you know that carbon capture technology is going to allow us to pollute as much as we want indefinitely and solve the problem they're just fantasies do you know what i mean like

47:26 Luke F. Walton Yes.

47:26 Harper James they're just fantasies and it's like i think the youtube tutorials are like a light fantasy of like i want to just watch something that's going to tell me what to do and it's just a fantasy that's not how that's not how it works and the discomfort of learning is unavoidable i think you

47:44 Luke F. Walton yeah and

47:45 Harper James know yes

47:46 Luke F. Walton the discomfort maybe just discomfort is unavoidable but like uh something that uh another guy that's part of this this regular performer he talks about he's he's kind of you know futurist we're already in this technology but i love it because he always pushes back way harder than a lot of artists do and he's like if the coolest thing about the art is how it's made it's not cool like

48:08 Harper James Exactly.

48:08 Luke F. Walton if you have to tell me that ai made it and now i'm like oh that's neat

48:13 Harper James Exactly. Exactly. this is where i say i don't believe when people say they like it i say you know that ai made it and you're grading on a curve you're

48:23 Luke F. Walton yeah okay

48:23 Harper James grading on a curve

48:24 Luke F. Walton i like that that's good that's a good way to put it uh

48:26 Harper James it's just like yes we all know that ai has like you know struggles with doing stuff that isn't a parody and so when it sort of succeeds we like give it a big pat on the back but it's it's not real like it's like this sequestered little thing where we're all patting ourselves on the back for making these cool technologies but They're not that useful like to me yet at least

48:46 Luke F. Walton Well,

48:46 Harper James you

48:47 Luke F. Walton some

48:47 Harper James know, I yeah

48:48 Luke F. Walton of it's the mentality. Like if they had the mentality of we're making a tool to help you go faster or to help you like solve the worst parts of what you do in the mixing process, we will help you do that.

49:01 Harper James and i don't understand like the real technical lines between

49:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

49:04 Harper James different types

49:05 Luke F. Walton uh

49:05 Harper James of artificial intelligence because i'm not even sure that we have like a standard definition of what it means but i would just say like ozone or autotune like are already implementing like smart you know actions or whatever where they're like you know that's what autotune was it was like the first tuning ai it's basically when you turn it into auto mode it's sort of saying all right the pitch manual pitch correction stuff which is under the hood we're just going to do a really quick

49:27 Harper James like quick version of that based off of like you know some kind of machine learning so

49:31 Luke F. Walton Mm

49:31 Harper James we

49:31 Luke F. Walton hmm.

49:31 Harper James already use it so there's no conceptual problem with it it's like that's what i mean when people talk about ai they're really talking about this like futurist fantasy that they have that isn't connected to like any of the actual plugins or tools it's like the thing that people are worried about is really the thing that they want you know oh no a world where ai like does everything for us oh no it's like i mean that wouldn't actually be bad we could all just like hang out and we can get you know universal basic income or whatever

49:56 Harper James more whatever

49:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:56 Harper James but unfortunately that's not gonna happen just like we're not gonna go to mars we're not gonna solve you know global warming by by making it making pollution go away like you know what i mean like we have to just if you want to solve climate crisis you have to burn less fuel use less plastic like you have to do less you're light you have to be more uncomfortable and maybe just billionaires have but someone has to be less comfortable

50:24 Harper James right

50:24 Luke F. Walton Mm

50:24 Harper James like and i think like this is mars is not a solution right like it would take more resources to like terraform mars than it would to just like fix our planet for sure and like i i think like yeah anyway so yeah yeah it's

50:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, no,

50:42 Harper James all

50:42 Luke F. Walton it's it's

50:42 Harper James fun fantasy but i don't find but i don't think it's like useful you know

50:47 Luke F. Walton Right.

50:47 Harper James Yeah.

50:48 Luke F. Walton But I think that these kind kind of conversations are important, especially for technologists and stuff to listen to, because they need to hear the way that their tools are being used and are

50:59 Harper James Yeah.

51:00 Luke F. Walton interesting by the actual people that end up creating with

51:04 Harper James Yeah.

51:04 Luke F. Walton them. And by tuning them out or trying to automate them out, I think that they're ultimately cutting off. the like outcome

51:11 Harper James yeah

51:12 Luke F. Walton that they're looking for like a profitable cool product that people use yeah

51:15 Harper James exactly and the truth is all the products the musical ai stuff that i've come across are like are like goofy like

51:21 Luke F. Walton totally

51:21 Harper James they're like they're dragon bass line where they automatically do your base it's just like some midi thing where they like can deduce the key using some kind of like key finder or the root finder and then just like put the midi notes in and they have some presets it's just like this is not a cell on ai replacing you know humans or whatever or whatever and

51:39 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

51:40 Harper James i still don't particularly i've never seen like the ai art stuff i think it's because it's not music it's like you know you go on there and you try and have it draw the thing you want it to draw and see how far it gets you i

51:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

51:53 Harper James at one point wanted it to like do a compressor and like it couldn't it just couldn't do it you know and i was like okay so i guess not gonna be useful here you know like

52:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:05 Harper James so i don't know yeah i'm

52:07 Luke F. Walton gotcha

52:07 Harper James just a little i feel like yeah i'm like i'm like not impressed you know so far you

52:12 Luke F. Walton yeah no and that's uh

52:14 Harper James know

52:14 Luke F. Walton i i

52:15 Harper James and i'm i'm open to being impressed but i'm also not impressed by people promising me that i would be impressed or i will be impressed or i should be impressed that also doesn't impress me i actually have to be impressed i have to like something you know made in that way yeah

52:28 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah i like that um in terms of we were just talking about uh kind of mixing sessions and I know that after

52:35 Harper James Yeah.

52:35 Luke F. Walton the pandemic there we get we get these new tools so that people can can pipe in and and see what you're doing or or comment in real time you can video share can you talk a little bit about kind of like the way that the mixing notes and revision processes has evolved over time for you

52:50 Harper James yeah so i'm funny with mixing like like

52:53 Luke F. Walton Cool.

52:53 Harper James i said i do a lot of i'd say like a lot of productions and mixes and then probably 30 25 is just like pure mixing stuff for people that's happening more and more i think that happens as you go on in your career like that so like uh the way i do it emerged it did emerge out of like remote producing in the pandemic and it was it was funny i just had this idea and i was like i want

53:16 Harper James something that will allow me to just send like a stream of what i'm working on to someone and so i just like googled that and lo and behold this happens sometimes right there was a thing called audio movers listen to that did that and it was i kind of like new this is like 2018

53:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it

53:31 Harper James or

53:31 Luke F. Walton was.

53:31 Harper James 19 yeah and so it was not it was just catching on in like la uh where everything you know they would get all the tech stuff first but yeah so what i ended up doing was was basically trying to create like a virtual

53:46 Harper James session experience so it was like facetime on a phone and then i would send a listen to stream from my session of like a live feed of exactly what i was working on to their computer and so we'd be on a phone like this chatting and they could see the inside of the studio or whatever and

54:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:01 Harper James uh and see what i was doing and they would be hearing with a small delay right what i was doing on the other end and you know so they could just in real time talk to me about what i was that i was playing this works best when i'm doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of recording but

54:17 Luke F. Walton Makes sense.

54:17 Harper James it can also work the other way around where someone can send me a listen to their session and i can kind of comment on it the

54:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

54:22 Harper James real only downside is like what you know zoom fatigue or whatever like

54:26 Luke F. Walton Yes.

54:26 Harper James i can't do 10 hour sessions like

54:27 Luke F. Walton No

54:28 Harper James that so

54:28 Luke F. Walton way.

54:28 Harper James what i ended up doing is identifying like the fact that okay mostly in like a production session um

54:38 Harper James mostly in a production session I am getting to like what the thing is in the first part of the process so it's like once

54:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:46 Harper James you throw those like four key ideas down you're really locked in to like what it's going to be which can be good because it means that at that point the artist can say I really like this direction this is super cool do your thing I'm going to go in and do all my editing and lay down some ideas and then maybe I send them a bounce and they have some notes and we get back together on another remote thing so it's sort of like this on again off again like thing where I'm

55:07 Harper James i'm minimizing the amount of like zoom fatigue and like six hour phone

55:11 Luke F. Walton Right.

55:11 Harper James calls or whatever but still for those really important like foundational setup things you get them in in the virtual room with you um and for mixing that so for mixing like i actually am a weird person where i'm like pretty split between I actually like having people here sometimes and

55:31 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

55:31 Harper James like while I'm mixing just looking over my shoulder

55:34 Luke F. Walton Cool.

55:34 Harper James and I do like it because I doesn't bother me I don't feel like some people are like anxious or whatever I think it took a little confidence you know but like I think that I'm I'm confident enough now that like

55:49 Harper James i'm not i'm not embarrassed about my process which i think i probably was before because it probably involved a lot of guessing and or whatever but i think as i became like less embarrassed about the process and just more like yeah this is how i do it and if this feels weird to you it's probably just because like you haven't sat down on a mixed session or i'm just doing it a little differently not because i'm like faking it and just like you know anyway so when when i sort of felt a little more confident about this stuff i started inviting people into the session who were

56:16 Harper James who are local and

56:17 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

56:17 Harper James it felt sort of cool and i was able to take way bigger risks in mixes

56:22 Luke F. Walton Okay.

56:22 Harper James so

56:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I

56:23 Harper James like

56:23 Luke F. Walton get that

56:23 Harper James i

56:23 Luke F. Walton for sure.

56:24 Harper James could halfway through be like hey can i try and recut the bass and they'll be like i mean sure and i do it and sometimes it's like oh my god that's that's the whole game because it turned out the other you know original performance just like wasn't didn't have the feel and embedded

56:41 Luke F. Walton Totally.

56:42 Harper James in it no matter what i did it would work but like so in some ways i feel like i think like about mixing sort of like a producer more than most people probably where my first thing is what's the thing that's going to make this as good as possible mix or not i just want to know in my head like what i what do i really think about this and sometimes it's like you

57:01 Harper James you know it's basically like okay the whole rhythm section really in an ideal world needs to be redone and that's not always an option but

57:08 Luke F. Walton No.

57:09 Harper James then when i'm mixing i understand that that's what i'm up against and so but if the client's there i can say can you can we try and like just like find some different drum sounds here see

57:20 Luke F. Walton Yes.

57:20 Harper James what you think and

57:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

57:21 Harper James i found those are oftentimes discussions people walk away being like oh my god thank you we fucking saved it and so the in-person mixing stuff or the people even a remote mixing session if someone's on the listen to while i'm starting a mix i can kind of show them how i'm thinking about it like hey i think we can place the guitars like way up front or

57:43 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

57:43 Harper James we can put them back and it can be more of like a rhythm section forward thing do you have and

57:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:48 Harper James they'll sort of be like no no i want the guitars loud because like that's my thing i'm like good i'm glad i had you here because 50 50 i could have gone this other direction

57:55 Luke F. Walton Yep.

57:55 Harper James and like my worst nightmare with that stuff is like committing to like a fucking cause and getting it really great and being stoked about it and then being like you do get the oh this is actually really good but like it's not the

58:07 Luke F. Walton Yes,

58:08 Harper James thing that i wanted and you're just like oh no because your whole brain has been rewired to like hear it in this one way so i really try to avoid that at all costs and sometimes the extreme version is having in there and then the remote mixing notes is great instead of doing eight back and forth i just i'm like like get on the line how

58:25 Luke F. Walton Yep.

58:26 Harper James loud do you want the backing vocal tell me when there okay good versus too loud too quiet a little too loud and you need that six bounces right that's like a whole day so I feel like the remote mixing in person is like amazing because it just you just get it right and they're listening on the thing that they used to listening to it on so it's sort of like it's not like it's almost better than being in the studio for notes where they're like yeah your speaker sound great on everything I don't know

58:52 Harper James this way they're like okay I'm listening to my earbuds that's what I know and okay so

58:56 Harper James yeah I get that and it is it is important how you know everything in a mix affects everything else so yeah like a big

59:02 Harper James yeah bold decision like is it guitar heavy like are we pushing the speakers or is that bad

59:08 Harper James yeah things you know in the little exactly and blurry sometimes it's like hey what if I rant your guitars through this tape machine and

59:14 Harper James cool yeah yeah it's for so sure cool for sure but I mean I'm never gonna do that if they're not in a room it's too much of a risk and it's like

59:19 Harper James Totally. You know, I don't have the license to do that. Right. Yeah. Right. And that's a good point. Like thinking like the producer where, yeah, a lot of people that are just writing that mixing lane, they're polishing, they're not making like that huge, bold decision,

59:32 Harper James Yeah. but that can be the magic sometimes. Yeah. yeah well and there's a real split i mean Yeah. like the reason i like i mean my favorite mixers are more heavy-handed mixers like i like like chad blake or michael brower and you know um i have a friend andrew marry who's like a shout out who's like i really love his mixes and i've worked with him you know a little bit and like he's i always like his stuff because

59:57 Harper James he's i'll sort of be like hey i'm just like up to my eyeballs can you please do this i'm lost and he'll just do whatever he just grounds up everything and it's just like you get back like some different thing but it's great and obviously i'm sure there's situations where he's doing more commercial stuff where he doesn't but i know that he's had as it has it in him and i think a lot of the people that i know now who are full-time mixers and not producers they're literally just like

60:23 Harper James you know it's like really stem mastering and Yeah, yeah. the the remit is like do not change this the producer signed off the anr signed off

60:32 Harper James Yes. the label signed off the artist you know signed off like you're gonna go there and you're gonna like reinvent reinvent it good luck with that like never

60:38 Harper James gonna Yeah. get an approval and that's not what i'm interested in doing you know and i always thought of that as almost like mastering but i think that we're in this weird place where professional mixers full-time mixers really don't have a lot of wiggle room to to improve stuff

60:55 Harper James Yeah, you just know the like one genuinely reason. improve that Yes. the soul of it you

60:58 Harper James Yes. know they're Yeah. just trying to create more headroom basically Right. they're

61:02 Harper James Yeah. There is that trying to get another issue. 2db of volume yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that.

61:07 Harper James Yes.

61:07 Luke F. Walton Um, so to close out the pod, I have one last question. It's kind of the opposite of the AI question. So the podcast is named, uh, love music more, and this is love music. Why?

61:18 Luke F. Walton So basically the concept is pitching somebody that's like a 12 year old, 13 year old, why they should love music, why it was so impactful in your life, why, you know, we give so much to it. It's like almost like a, you know, a stump speech or an appeal. feel to music itself and so i just want to hear in

61:36 Harper James yeah

61:36 Luke F. Walton your own words like why do you love music why why do you grind for this why why is the studio your like your home like what makes you tick what drew you in

61:47 Harper James so i think i think there's two sides to it one is being a fan of music which i think always almost always comes first like you love other people's music and then you decide i want to do it and then there's the

61:59 Harper James why is it that i found my particular thing in the studio and stuck with it you know despite it being just long hours and hard to make it work and all that stuff and like i feel like for a young person this is what i would say you know you're born and you get one or two parents right and like those are those are the adults in your life that's the perspective right But I don't really think that's enough.

62:29 Harper James Like I think as a kid, you need. like you need to be like you need to experience other sort of grown-ups now it may be that the grown-up is like 22 or whatever but like other people in your life who have a perspective or something to add that's freed from your little world you know and so like people think of music as an escape but it's what it really is it's like a portal into somebody else's universe and because music is

62:59 Harper James is all about someone telling you who they are it's a really great way to just connect with somebody different and i think those are like it's almost when you know when you're younger i mean i remember it's like it's like maybe you haven't done psychedelics but it is like a psychedelic i mean when you're 12 but it is like a psychedelic experience like being being

63:22 Harper James in a space in your headphones with like some grown-up like pouring their heart out and telling you how they feel about their fucking life and their fucking girlfriend or their whatever and it's just like as you get older I think it's a different relationship because it's like you're out in the world and some of this is less alien and strange and less sort of trippy because like you're like I know about that I had my heart broken once too or whatever but like I think getting those perspectives

63:50 Harper James early in a safe way right in headphones you're not having like and from all these like people out in the world like trying to be their true self i mean i think that that's what it's about like i always feel like at the end of the day even though i'm like one of those you know song it's all about the song or whatever it's really all about the artist or the person at the other end of the telephone basically and it's like

64:17 Harper James these people and their work end up really forming who you are I think to some degree that and your parents if you're lucky you know and your sibling or whatever but it's like it's like that access to a different world it's not your peers it's not your parents you're just escape into some other world it's like reading you know some people get into really reading for that reason it's like my dad talks about he you know

64:43 Harper James He grew up in, you know, South Louisiana and, you know, Lafayette and felt pretty alienated. He was like just.

64:52 Harper James not always having a great time but he escaped into books and books literally were his ticket out of town he got out he made a life for himself you know he married my mom whatever like he transformed himself largely by basically having the voices of all of these authors like imagine you're like you know 14 and you're in the deep south and you're feeling like no one totally understands you because you're the kid who's like sitting in like your class

65:19 Harper James reading a book like in your binder and you know you get sent to the principles for reading in school you know like and you're just like what am I doing here but on the other hand you've got like you know um the voices of like all of these like really worldly grown-ups right

65:40 Harper James in front of you who are telling you about a different way that you can be and showing you there's a possible different way of being and thinking and you know that there's a big world out there so i think music is just like a more of a visceral like mainlined version of that escape into other worlds you know so anyway and then the reason i like studio is it's like it's about play it's about like having fun it's about creating a space of just like

66:05 Harper James We don't get to play as grownups, you know, like everything is fucking serious and there's rules, you know, and I think.

66:11 Harper James this is again why like maybe coming back to some of the like more formulaic ways of teaching and learning are are detractive because they they set up the illusion that there are these like guard rails or these rules or these best practices in when the whole point is it's like the one time in your life when you don't have to do it one way or another and i think that like that is probably what keeps me coming back more than anything about like man it feels so great when you just like rip a great mix

66:39 Harper James it mix and it sounds and it feels you know and a great song that's all good but i think it really is just about having a place to like play you know sorry

66:48 Harper James I love that. I love that. Great answer. i went on but That i was good. That's what i'm

66:54 Harper James i here for. do go on i think like talking is a defense mechanism for doing really long sessions and not being able to work consistently through the whole time so i've got to like just You got to fill the dead space while you recalibrate or whatever. So I always just turn around in my chair and then talk to someone about whatever.

67:12 Harper James I love it. Well, I really appreciate feels all like of that your, and it was good. It was good. I really appreciate all your insight. I think that, you know, this kind of thinking can really help somebody that's trying to figure this out in a mindset shift rather than a skill shift. And I think that that was important to pass on. Yeah.

67:31 Harper James yeah all of my big proudest moments were about that it wasn't like I finally got good at something I just looked at it at a different angle and was just like oh that's what it is you know

67:42 Harper James Yeah. and i think like so much is like that like singer is trying to find how they're the best way to sing it's like everyone thinks they need to take lessons they get better and better but it's just like you need to like take a step back and and understand your own voice and how it works and

67:55 Harper James Yeah. then when you do that i think you can just sort of like fall into place you don't actually have to get good at anything but that's like what getting good is or something you know i don't know it's weird it's

68:04 Harper James Yeah, it is weird. like letting go of the idea of there being a good that you have to get to then you realize you but it's you you can't fake it you actually have to like come to that genuine

68:14 Harper James Yes. conclusion or Yes. something and then maybe you have a shot you know at doing something cool but

68:19 Harper James Yeah. Yeah, there's its own little hero's journey of shedding. yes joseph Yeah. Yeah,

68:26 Harper James campbell Yeah, exactly.

68:28 Luke F. Walton Well, thank you, Harper. I really appreciate it. Thank you for everybody tuning

68:31 Luke F. Walton Of course. Where could people, you know, connect with you or book you or what would be the best place for people to find you?

68:38 Harper James Totally. I have a website. It's harperjamesmusic.com or social media harperjamesx and harperjamesx on TikTok.

68:48 Harper James Perfect perfect There's another harperjames somewhere. I don't know. Cool. Yeah.

68:50 Harper James The x in the name. Awesome. Well, thank you so much really appreciate you coming on and I hope everybody enjoys

68:55 Harper James Cheers. Yeah. And let's you and I stay in touch. Yeah, absolutely. I'll be in I'll actually be in New York next month in October. So If you're Hit around all else

69:05 Harper James me up. fails, you got it. All right, man. Yes. Thanks Okay. so much. Bye.