An Interview with Matt Meyer

2:18 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I am Scoobert Doobert, and I am joined with Matt Meyer, and we are going to have a great conversation about everything from gear and vintage king to touring and music streaming platforms and everything. So, so excited to meet you, Matt, and we're going to have a great conversation. Welcome to the show.

2:37 Matt Meyer Thanks, Ruben. Thanks for having me, man.

2:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally. So first off, I want to talk about drums. So I love talking to drummers and I actually just was talking

2:47 Matt Meyer Nice.

2:47 Luke F. Walton to somebody earlier today about one of the reasons why I like talking about drummers is that you have such a limited...

2:55 Luke F. Walton toolkit but also an unlimited toolkit in terms of all the little things that you can change like

3:00 Matt Meyer Yeah.

3:01 Luke F. Walton oh let's tweak the heads let's change the kick drum beater the microphones all these things i

3:05 Matt Meyer Oh,

3:06 Luke F. Walton i'm

3:06 Matt Meyer yeah.

3:06 Luke F. Walton just so curious about like how was your progression as a drummer uh did were you always into the little things or did you get deeper and deeper is it was it like a rabbit hole or how did how did your progression on on kit and and your conceptual conceptualization of kit evolve

3:23 Matt Meyer Oh, man. Well, it. It definitely did not start microscopic like Oh, I dang. was very big picture really how it started was my it was in middle school and

3:33 Matt Meyer Okay. my band instructor was like hey we need somebody we're going to need a drummer in eighth grade like we have nobody that has a kit nobody really knows how to play drums like you should get a kit and if you do like

3:43 Matt Meyer Great. I'll get you some music and you know learn some songs and play in this jazz band so it was really jazz band like eighth grade like you know in just I was in a small town of like 3500 people

3:53 Luke F. Walton Wow,

3:54 Matt Meyer out

3:54 Luke F. Walton that is small.

3:54 Matt Meyer in illinois so

3:55 Luke F. Walton Right.

3:55 Matt Meyer super small and you know the cool thing was that um and that's all credit to my dad really he uh he was working and had a christmas bonus that year and uh we went to the guitar store you know went to the music store uh it was guisardo shout out to guisardo's and rockford which i don't i don't think they're around anymore but you

4:13 Luke F. Walton Oh, like the one.

4:14 Matt Meyer know we went there and he was like hey you know i had been playing some drum sets and um really i saw like I think it was like a VH1 rock, hard rock live, like Peter Frampton was playing and he had Sean Pelton from SNL drumming for him and just hearing that I was just like so into it. So I wanted to go get the drum set, do everything and

4:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:34 Matt Meyer my dad spent his Christmas bonus on it and let me know like, hey, I totally want to do this for you. So he opened up that door and it was just a cool little Tomah rock star kid and I just started out playing.

4:46 Matt Meyer you know instead of a stereo like i was very bare bones like just had a stereo that i blared my

4:51 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:51 Matt Meyer family was totally cool for letting me do this and just played without headphones just played to aerosmith on the stereo so i'd play like aerosmith or metallica or alice cooper or whatever it was and just learn by ear and then you know as a as a kid you get a piece of gear and you don't know it's not good so you break a symbol after a month and then you know You know, feeling like, well,

5:13 Matt Meyer you know, you could really go up on this. So it kind of started from there were a couple symbols broke, a

5:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

5:18 Matt Meyer bass

5:18 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

5:19 Matt Meyer drum pedal broke.

5:20 Luke F. Walton Mm

5:20 Matt Meyer And

5:20 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

5:20 Matt Meyer it's like, okay, then I got, you know, all the catalogs coming in. And that's kind of where my love of that came in, because I'd sit there and look at like Tama and DW catalogs

5:30 Luke F. Walton at Yes.

5:30 Matt Meyer night and then be like, oh, okay. I'm going to get this snare drum. Like what does Danny Carey from Tool use?

5:35 Luke F. Walton yes

5:35 Matt Meyer Okay, I'm going to get a 7x14.

5:36 Luke F. Walton that's huge yeah exactly like looking at okay i love this you know like i love tool so it's like okay what does that mean let's go deeper like

5:44 Matt Meyer yeah

5:44 Luke F. Walton you know yes what i like like you're like okay let's figure out exactly what snare drum he uses what sticks does he use like how does he hold the sticks like how does he sit like all those little things yeah yeah

5:53 Matt Meyer and and just like any musician you know you have to start somewhere so i was in an original band doing my own thing but you know we all we all cop some stuff from people we love and you know we have influences and everything so it was very much the journey of like starting there and it was great having my original stuff stuff because Mm you

6:11 Luke F. Walton -hmm. Yeah.

6:11 Matt Meyer know I wasn't trying to sound like Tool I just loved the the energy and the the complication that Danny Carey played with and all the polyrhythms and that stuff so you know it let me kind of put in some more interesting things and then when I went to college like being around so many great musicians and everything just

6:29 Matt Meyer really up to my musicianship and communication so that you know made me even more intricate with with drum set and not really so much focusing on gear but focusing on like the musicianship so

6:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:41 Matt Meyer that was like always my base was you know not like what gear can I get you know I needed stuff so I could do whatever I wanted to do and play like tool songs if I wanted to but I was very much you know musician first like what do i need to play my drums and

6:57 Luke F. Walton Totally.

6:57 Matt Meyer you know get into some good sticks that i liked and everything and then just kind of concentrated on on music and then i think all the gear stuff as it might tend to do comes later when you know you start having a career i was working at apple so making you know halfway decent money and being able to afford more stuff than like a high school kid but oh man i love the journey is the best part so i mean as a musician like if anybody's listening out there as far as like

7:21 Matt Meyer like wanting to be like a developing drummer or musician or anything just the big thing is just playing and playing with people and just doing what you can do in the means you can like you don't have to wait till you have thousands of dollars to get something great like And Josh Freeze, you know, he plays with Nine Inch Nails and Sting and all these guys, Foo Fighters right now he's touring with.

7:41 Matt Meyer And yeah dude, he could have sat down in my eighth grade Tom of Drum set and it probably would have sounded, you know, exactly like what he plays on just because of how he is as a drummer and how he hits. So the gear is not everything, but it definitely helps, but it's always talent and musicianship first, you know, with that stuff.

7:56 Luke F. Walton yeah and i mean i as a recording engineer producer like i always think the closest just to the source you can fix the better like you

8:05 Matt Meyer 100%. Yes.

8:06 Luke F. Walton know if if you can make that the way that you're hitting the snare drum that's bigger than the snare drum itself which is bigger than the microphone which is bigger than the plugins you know just kind of the more you can do closer the less you have to do later or the more options you have to do later which can be really fun you know if you're just having to clean up it's like oh this room sounds terrible it's like okay well that's going to be hard to get out of it you know

8:30 Matt Meyer Yes. And, you know, it keeps the creativity going too.

8:33 Luke F. Walton yeah

8:33 Matt Meyer You know, when you don't have to do so much after the fact, like you said, you have a lot of options if something sounds great in the first place, but it also saves everybody a lot of time. So you can just move on, do everything. You don't have to sit there and like bring up a program to like take some stuff out or overcompensate for something. So I agree with you 100% on scooper. The source is key.

8:53 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah and you want things to be able to sound like what they are it's like oh that's sounds like a tom like like toms are one of the hardest things in the world to record uh to just make them sound

9:02 Matt Meyer Yeah.

9:02 Luke F. Walton like a tom like not even like the craziest tom or exactly like ringo or something like that but just to have it not just sound like flubby mess even if it's a good drummer uh toms are just a beast to tune and to just mic everything yes

9:17 Matt Meyer Yeah. And you know, this is funny that you say that because when I got that drum set, it came with a Tama setup video that had like Kenny Aronoff and

9:27 Luke F. Walton cool uh

9:28 Matt Meyer Mike Portnoy and all these guys on there. And it was funny because living out in LA, Kenny will sometimes play at the baked potato,

9:35 Luke F. Walton yes

9:35 Matt Meyer which

9:36 Luke F. Walton of course baked

9:36 Matt Meyer is a great jazz club

9:37 Luke F. Walton potatoes

9:37 Matt Meyer out awesome here.

9:37 Luke F. Walton yes i

9:38 Matt Meyer Fusion, I

9:39 Luke F. Walton never

9:39 Matt Meyer would say,

9:39 Luke F. Walton went there

9:40 Matt Meyer you

9:40 Luke F. Walton yeah

9:40 Matt Meyer know, more than jazz. It's a lot of rock and great music. so if anybody hasn't checked it out please check it out but it was funny because i told him when i saw him the first time i saw him play there i was like kenny i'm like man you helped me set up my drum set when i was in eighth grade and

9:52 Luke F. Walton That's awesome.

9:52 Matt Meyer one of the things they did was you know he he sat there and like you know they actually in real time would would take the heads out of the box put it on the drum set and you'd have these drummers who had been in sessions for years playing you know kenny was with the smashing pumpkins at the time just telling you how to tune stuff and

10:09 Matt Meyer It was just super cool that Tama would do something like that. So as a drummer, that was another thing that I looked into was tuning the drums because

10:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

10:18 Matt Meyer like we just talked about, man, if your drums aren't tuned well and luckily because I was listening to so much music and heard all the good stuff as far as I had good role models and whatever,

10:31 Luke F. Walton Uh

10:31 Matt Meyer I

10:32 Luke F. Walton -huh. Right.

10:32 Matt Meyer naturally kind of tuned my toms and intervals, which I had no idea. yeah

10:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

10:35 Matt Meyer it just like i just wanted like a boom boom boom boom boom boom like that to me was like okay i'll just do that and you know that's something that you know later on you know you learn okay maybe tune the drums to the key of the song but you know having pleasing intervals with your toms and not some weird interval where it all sounds you know out of place the tuning is super important and i had like tom i made um it was i actually have it in my closet it was called a tuning watch

11:01 Matt Meyer Or

11:01 Luke F. Walton Okay.

11:02 Matt Meyer it's just a little tension or as a tension watch so you put it on there and tell you what tension the Tom was so you take it around each lug uh

11:08 Luke F. Walton nice

11:08 Matt Meyer move the drum key and it tell you oh your your toms at 65 and you know you just use your ear after that because you want to make sure like each little tension rod is about the same pitch um

11:18 Luke F. Walton yeah same

11:18 Matt Meyer maybe like

11:18 Luke F. Walton concept

11:19 Matt Meyer the bottom heads yeah exactly and you know maybe there's a difference preference what's

11:23 Luke F. Walton am i correct

11:23 Matt Meyer that yeah

11:24 Luke F. Walton like opposite from each other just in case somebody's not watching the video so like 12

11:28 Matt Meyer exactly

11:28 Luke F. Walton o'clock and six o'clock you're kind of going side to side

11:31 Matt Meyer that and you can go a good thing to do is like go on google take a screenshot of your phone or something and if you're a drummer like yeah have a have a nice picture of that i still do that as

11:43 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:43 Matt Meyer a drummer because i have a 10 lug snare drum that's from dw and i i can never like you know i'm like one two three four five where's

11:51 Luke F. Walton which

11:52 Matt Meyer so

11:52 Luke F. Walton one was yep

11:53 Matt Meyer i'm just always i have that open as a reference so it's that's a great thing to have but yeah super important yeah

11:58 Luke F. Walton that's really smart i like that i'm gonna steal that yeah

12:00 Matt Meyer please do yeah

12:02 Luke F. Walton That's

12:02 Matt Meyer Good

12:02 Luke F. Walton a good one.

12:02 Matt Meyer stuff.

12:03 Luke F. Walton No, I just, I don't know. There's something about the drum kit in particular that sticks out. in terms of just pathways i think um ways that you think about gear ways you think about musicianship um and like i almost feel like with guitar my primary instrument um

12:22 Matt Meyer Mm

12:22 Luke F. Walton we

12:23 Matt Meyer -hmm.

12:23 Luke F. Walton have the opposite problem where you can go so rabbit hole into gear so quickly so early that it i know which is awesome i love pedals but that it's so addictive and it can be be destructive rather than constructive to your musicality and just your ability to like can you play this instrument acoustically or just plugged in clean it's like some people are like no i play pedals which is fine uh but

12:48 Matt Meyer Yeah.

12:49 Luke F. Walton it's better to do both in my opinion i don't

12:51 Matt Meyer know Yeah. You can get into, you know, you can get into chasing sounds really easily. So yeah, it's just, you know, it's just kind of self-discipline and having. I guess like having a North Star was always a good thing.

13:05 Luke F. Walton Cool.

13:05 Matt Meyer Like where

13:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:05 Matt Meyer do you want to go as a musician? And

13:07 Luke F. Walton There's

13:07 Matt Meyer I

13:08 Luke F. Walton no wrong answer.

13:08 Matt Meyer just, yeah,

13:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:09 Matt Meyer there's no wrong thing. Just try to get there, you know, and man, you know, one of the great things is that we have so much stuff like that. Like I got into analog synths not that long ago and I visited, oh dude, that's a huge rabbit hole. I was in Asheville, visited Moog out there.

13:27 Luke F. Walton Cool.

13:27 Matt Meyer For anybody who doesn't know,

13:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:28 Matt Meyer it's definitely Moog. Moog.

13:30 Luke F. Walton Okay,

13:30 Matt Meyer Don't pronounce good, it Moog. It wasn't

13:31 Luke F. Walton good.

13:31 Matt Meyer Bob Moog. It was Bob Moog. But Moog's sense are awesome. And,

13:35 Luke F. Walton I mean,

13:36 Matt Meyer you know, went down a whole delay pedal rabbit hole,

13:39 Luke F. Walton yes.

13:39 Matt Meyer but the cool thing is that, man, you have some cool effects on there. You don't need to play complicated stuff and you can make some really interesting sounding things. So that's kind of a cool way to go as far as like just making some textures. But yeah, definitely making sure you can, you know, play your instrument and everything is a key thing.

14:00 Matt Meyer But man, there's so much cool effects and stuff out there. Like I don't blame anybody. for you

14:05 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

14:05 Matt Meyer know wanting to come wanting to like check out some stuff and get some pedals and you can make some gnarly stuff and

14:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:11 Matt Meyer some really cool things and man there's just that's the great thing about today there's just so much cool stuff out there you know you almost don't know where to start so if you know places like you know you have a good person that like a vk or somebody like that you can definitely get get a little more focused in that and kind of just Think of what sound you're going for and man,

14:33 Matt Meyer what's what's have you do you have like a favorite like a go-to kind

14:37 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

14:37 Matt Meyer of pedal or two for guitars that

14:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

14:39 Matt Meyer you love

14:39 Luke F. Walton no, I have a I have a few. So the one that I'm most excited about right now is the Game Changer Audio Sustain pedal. I think that's what it's called.

14:49 Matt Meyer Oh, cool.

14:50 Luke F. Walton It's basically like a sustain pedal like you would see on a piano.

14:56 Matt Meyer Oh, okay.

14:56 Luke F. Walton and uh all it does is it's it's kind of like a freeze delay but not exactly so it allows you to hold out a note but as you depress that pedal you can still play stuff over the things that are being frozen um and i really like it because you can kind of toggle it in really weird ways which i'm not sure there might be a little off label use kind of thing for it in terms of what it's trying to do um but you can do really cool like glitch effects with it so i'm really excited about

15:22 Luke F. Walton about that just as a i don't have anything in the computer in the box that can replicate that kind of expression pedal stuff um so i've been using that a lot especially on like solos and

15:34 Matt Meyer More avant-garde kind of things, yeah. Nice. I just looked it up while we were talking because I hadn't seen it yet, and it does look awesome.

15:40 Matt Meyer Just to see where you're at. Thank you. I'm going to bookmark that thing.

15:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

15:44 Matt Meyer That's awesome.

15:44 Luke F. Walton no, for sure. 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 through the streaming services, these .wav files.

16:03 Matt Meyer files they sound the best they absolutely do it is science i'm actually going to be posting a vlog article about why waves sound better than mp3s and that leads me to my next topic i started a vlog and we are pressing vinyl 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

16:30 Matt Meyer all of it 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 but until then you gotta you gotta jump on it 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 so for example i just did a pod

16:56 Matt Meyer odd not too long ago on musical notation throughout the history be kind of cool to see like what it actually looks like throughout history right and that's that's what the blog's here for it'll 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

17:24 Matt Meyer Hopefully subscribe to that substack. You'll find the link in my show notes or you could go to lovemusicmore.substack.com to sign up today and we'll send you some emails. So enjoy the music and enjoy the rest of the episode.

17:38 Luke F. Walton And, you know, I love the different JHS color box. It's really fun to mess with kind of like into the board, but kind of sounds for guitars and vocals. And then...

17:55 Matt Meyer I also really like Zivix Fuzzes. Oh, cool. And because that's another thing that I, okay, actually, I came really close to being able to get a fuzz sound that sounds like a analog chip. Very, very close, close enough if it's not like a full on lead instrument, like a supportive instrument. And it's through a

18:19 Matt Meyer model of Benson amps and I want to make sure that I've got is I think it's wave factory wave factory let me double check this online

18:26 Matt Meyer Okay. here mix wave that's what it is that's a different Mixwave. mix with Okay. a company called waves factory which is also very good mix wave so they have this benson chimera collection uh great guitar amp uh simulation one of the best i'm actually considering selling my guitar amp because their sims are that good um and just Wow.

18:46 Matt Meyer run my computer on stage uh which you know it's kind of lame but also kind of cool and it's got a fuzz it's got like a germanium fuzz in there that's That sounds like plugged into a germanium fuzz, which has been my elusive holy grail, hard to find computer, you know, sound.

19:03 Matt Meyer Can't replicate it. Got to have the analog. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But now it's like, oh, I don't. I can do that in a hotel room. Sign me up, you know?

19:11 Matt Meyer That's I don't awesome. want to carry pedals in my backpack like I usually do. Now

19:15 Matt Meyer I that is, will say, you know, as speaking from a drummer to a guitarist, the main advantage guitarists have, and I'm always super jealous, is you just bring your axe with you, plug in some headphones, and no, you could just go in the computer with something.

19:28 Matt Meyer Oh, yeah. And I just love that, like, you know, being able to be around your instrument all the time and play it. it has a super huge advantage you know as a drummer you know we can get an electronic set you

19:39 Matt Meyer yeah know and maybe Practice do some stuff pads but and i yeah, can't you can't like do everything

19:42 Matt Meyer take things to an apartment and play a drum set in there um they've come better ways you know they've gotten like some mesh heads that can like deaden the volume a lot but i've always been super jealous about that i'm just like man if i could like play the drum set for like you know 12 hours a day every day that'd be awesome so i will say for your guitarist please take advantage of that

20:01 Matt Meyer that you know you can plug in some headphones and keep practicing and and like you said you know now uh geez you can get some amazing sounds even if you have like an ipad or your phone by you or you know a computer um so that benson germanium is a good example that amp model or you know like how far things have come

20:20 Matt Meyer And this just came out like in the last year.

20:23 Luke F. Walton I've played some of the other ones. They're good, good, but I like playing clean tones, slightly overdriven tones.

20:29 Matt Meyer tones i don't really like the big old scooped line six kind of just Mm-hmm. doesn't speak to me as much um this was the first time and i've been using them i grew up playing line six and that like i did this um they

20:43 Matt Meyer Oh, nice. had like this little you remember the little pod things those red things that look like a bean did you ever see those they're like

20:50 Matt Meyer Yeah. this is an old school the one of the first like guitar amp sims um they made a version of that where you could plug it in with usb for the computer for the computer and that's how i learned all my first guitar solos was

21:01 Matt Meyer Nice. playing into the computer and would kind of like grade you um and you could play along and backing tracks and stuff um

21:07 Matt Meyer What a cool idea. yeah It reminds me of Guitar Hero, only like absolutely actually

21:11 Matt Meyer practical. practical i know i was so glad that um Yeah. i don't know i grew up in a time where i had access to those things um crazy you know super lucky uh but even back then i was like this doesn't feel like playing in an amp the feedback response is so different it like

21:27 Matt Meyer Yeah. having an amp like you feel the strings like come alive the sustain all these things so i almost felt like i was doing myself a disservice if i played in the box too often because i didn't really feel like i was playing the real instrument these amps uh make me not feel that anymore for the first time in 2024 i guess late 2023 was when i first played it and it was like there it is they did

21:50 Matt Meyer Wow. it yeah And that's awesome. Better late than never, obviously, to yeah get there is really cool. When you were doing that old Line 6 thing, was there latency back then you had to worry about or was it just kind of all okay?

22:02 Matt Meyer there is some but uh they like the buffer size and stuff was not crazy and i think that that's part of the reason why um it sounds so much better now is i'm running a it natively on m1 pro you know that thing is is flying and

22:17 Matt Meyer Dude. I mean it's I'm certain that it's using a ton of processing they would have just nuked my computer if I used it back in whatever this was 2011 2011

22:26 Matt Meyer I will yeah tell you like those new like if anybody people, you know, call up asking about computers all the time and dude M1, I have an M2 Pro right now. I upgraded from a 2017 MacBook Pro I had.

22:39 Matt Meyer nice yes And, you know, I'd worked at Apple for like 12 years. So very like all about their stuff and very into.

22:45 Matt Meyer to everything apple and man going to that m1 pro when i was on my 2017 i'd like open up logic and just already the computer be like with the fans and everything and i've been recording so much multi-track stuff using a ton of outboard gear many tracks in a song i haven't heard my fans come on once on like this laptop so shout out to those to the m you know to the apple processors like man

23:12 Matt Meyer they're game changers and I do voiceover stuff as well and you know one of the things is not having that little fan noise on when you're recording so

23:21 Matt Meyer Good point. I've been doing all sorts of things to like be in my vocal booth but you know I couldn't have the computer near me and now it's just nice to like you know have something right there instead of having some kludgy workaround thing and that's that's a huge huge thing so you know there's fans in them but I've never heard it come on and um i used to just have to do my ipad in there but man

23:43 Matt Meyer Yeah. the that's the other thing is that computers like i had a pc back in the day that like died on me after like two years so i went all apple after being in college and seeing all the friends do that so i mean computers have just come such a long way too like it's it's just a great day to be recording music yeah

24:03 Matt Meyer I love that. And I totally agree. And because it's so much simpler and that I feel like computers are another example of like at the source, you know, this is, I felt that I upgraded, I got a Apollo X6.

24:15 Matt Meyer Oh, sweet. That was a big upgrade for me from a twin. Yeah, yeah. No, you can still use that twin as a monitor controller, which is cool

24:24 Matt Meyer And too. I'm still using the two DSP. dsp chips on Yeah. there uh linked up through um through the usbc on the back um so i'm psyched about that um but yeah now now i've got all of this processing power and uh I have yet to hit the limit and it's kind of cool. Okay, this is actually something I'd like to talk to you about.

24:45 Matt Meyer Sure. I actually think that there is benefit in scaling up over time in terms of the quality of your gear, even though obviously it's better to have good quality gear, but yeah. But learning little things like having crappy laptops that will crash if you put too much processing on it gets you to like commit resources and freeze tracks and learn proper workflow.

25:06 Matt Meyer Oh, that is still baked in. I still do that even though I have a ton of processing, but

25:10 Matt Meyer Yeah, it's almost right. this mentality of conserving resources, building on ideas, committing to them like you would have to if you were using tape or outboard gear saying this is the thing, record, and then building on it rather than what I see some people that are starting out right now with this abundance of processing power is they don't make any decisions.

25:31 Matt Meyer Yeah. Decision paralysis. leave it yeah because you can you know you don't have like you almost you had to make decisions and you're having to make less and less and i actually think that that hurts you you just like almost an abundance over abundance of resources can go can go the other way if you don't like develop the right habits

25:49 Matt Meyer I agree with that personally. You know, I feel like you should definitely, I mean. you know work within your means work with what you have and there's some saying i'm not going to say it eloquently but there Yeah. is something along the lines of be happy with what you have not

26:05 Matt Meyer Okay. with like what you are Yes. you know not trying to get the next thing all the time so just be happy with what you have and learn how to use that stuff like you were saying uh to its fullest potential um

26:16 Matt Meyer Mm-hmm. which is hard to do now even if you have one piece of ua gear you might have like you know 20 plugins and you're like damn but really you know if somebody's just starting out if you're in if you're in high school or something like that oh if you have a mac with logic on it like open up logic and use their stock plugins which are awesome learn

26:33 Matt Meyer Totally. you know about the different compressors and everything but But I totally agree. And the other nice thing about that is that you kind of learn what you like and

26:42 Matt Meyer Yes. you learn what you need. And then, you know, you're when you're getting stuff. you you know you're like you're getting something that's a deficiency in your

26:50 Matt Meyer Yeah. game or that you know you want to upgrade rather than like oh my friend said to get this and then you know all of a sudden you're looking at getting five things and you know then there's a whole financial side of it too so it's like you know you could definitely just you know work with what you have and you can do a lot of damage with a laptop and a couple plugins you

27:12 Matt Meyer Yep. know so start with what you have you know and and just go from there i completely agree and even even if you have like uh let's say you just have fab filter stuff man

27:21 Matt Meyer Yeah, cool. they have an eq video uh i watched a couple of them a couple years ago just when i was you know just kind of trying to go back to basics almost and man there was just a half hour video on how to use the eq and you know they were using an ssl board as like a great kind of hey here's like you know kind of what the q is on this and everything and

27:42 Matt Meyer and they just got so granular into it and it kind of reminded me like of that exact thing I just kind of stopped using everything I had and for a period of a good couple months I was just like let me just use the computer and some fab filter plugins and see how my mixes translate and

27:58 Matt Meyer Mm-hmm. I'll tell you everything got a lot clearer because I was also using EQ and everything is more of a subtractive sort

28:06 Matt Meyer Yeah. of thing than like additive so Yeah. really trying to work on carving out mixes i just did this today where um there was a bass and a kind of weighty piano that you know were kind of fighting with each other and right in there you can see you know you can see in real time where their frequencies are so they

28:24 Matt Meyer Mm-hmm. have this nice thing that shows you where they clash and you can visually see it and just took the keyboards down a little bit then all of a sudden things became clearer so you know really if you just want to give yourself a cool exercise like open up an EQ and a mix and sculpt for a little bit um man there's so many cool things you could do with just a couple a couple things and learning those so

28:45 Matt Meyer A hundred percent. Love it. I totally agree. And like what you're saying, you end up identifying gaps and you end up identifying like, I have a problem. This is the answer that I usually solve this problem that's not working anymore.

28:57 Matt Meyer Yep. Or you get to the end of it and you go, okay, I'm starting to make a little bit of money on music, hopefully, you know, for everybody.

29:05 Matt Meyer Yep. What are the things that could take me to that next level?

29:14 Luke F. Walton uh eq resonance filter and all this kind of stuff uh you don't really need that you don't need a but it's really nice to have i use it i mean like like the the example

29:23 Matt Meyer Yeah.

29:23 Luke F. Walton that you just gave there's a plug-in called track spacer like I'm horribly abused and I've seen it horribly abused and heard it horribly abused but basically what it is is it's a um

29:34 Matt Meyer A widener?

29:35 Luke F. Walton no no it's a it's a it's a you bus one sound that's fighting with another sound into it and then it's basically like a multi-band compressor of

29:45 Matt Meyer No,

29:45 Luke F. Walton the

29:45 Matt Meyer cool.

29:45 Luke F. Walton other sound um so Nice. I I don't I don't use it a ton but like when I will will be like if I If I get a mix with a very dense arrangement, like really a lot going on, there's there's an artist named Garvey that I work with a lot if anybody wants to check out that music. Sometimes the vocal, no matter what I do, there's just so much going on the vocal just won't pop.

30:07 Luke F. Walton And so finding the elements that are fighting with the vocal, of which there will usually be many, busing

30:12 Matt Meyer yeah oh

30:12 Luke F. Walton them into an area and then putting that track spacer on all of those fighting elements saves me like 20 hours of work.

30:19 Matt Meyer dude it kind of sounds like it's using everything else as a as almost like a side chain and

30:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

30:24 Matt Meyer and the vocals are kind of like hey okay anything you know when the vocals are coming on kind of Make space for

30:30 Luke F. Walton yeah exactly

30:30 Matt Meyer the vocals that

30:31 Luke F. Walton as

30:31 Matt Meyer are coming through.

30:31 Luke F. Walton as they're as it's happening you can set attack and release from it you can

30:35 Matt Meyer That's

30:35 Luke F. Walton also set very high

30:35 Matt Meyer cool.

30:36 Luke F. Walton and low pass filtering but it's a dangerous thing it's so powerful that you can totally ruin a mix if you don't know what you're doing and so it's a lot better to do the 20 hours version before you turn it into the 20 minutes version even though it sucks it's a lot better to like learn what it's actually what you want it to be doing so you can assess like is it doing the thing that i

30:55 Luke F. Walton But I ultimately, if I invested all of that time, would, you know, have the same result. So you know where you're going to, you know, the solution that you're trying to find, and then you're finding a tool that helps you get there faster.

31:05 Matt Meyer Yeah. And, you know, that's another good point, too, is that, man. dedicate some time just to learn some stuff because you know we can all be rushing and

31:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:15 Matt Meyer you know myself i really have a couple maybe in like an hour or two hours at night where i can really sit down and get into things um and you know we can be it can be such a thing of like i don't know how to use this but let's just i'll look at it for five minutes and this will this will be yeah let's do it and you know we just want to be able to like learn stuff really quickly and just use it and it's like oh okay it looks like this so i'll just

31:36 Matt Meyer let's just i can but if you do sit there and and you know just take a little bit of time i i'm i'm maybe in the minority of reading manuals and stuff like that yeah

31:46 Luke F. Walton it's especially like universal audio we were just talking about them their manuals are top notch they explain to me how tape works like i know how to take how to work a tape machine because i've read their manual and it's really good it's not that hard you know it's great it's awesome cool

32:00 Matt Meyer man and shout out to uh i used to work at apogee and and

32:04 Luke F. Walton Cool.

32:04 Matt Meyer um or we had a guy roger there that that did all the manuals

32:08 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

32:08 Matt Meyer and his manuals were just amazing and you know it's it's very cool because and this is actually they have these for like all their plugins and everything i mean you can sit there you could not know anything

32:21 Matt Meyer about this plugin and then by the time you'll have read this manual which are not very long you'll know everything there is about it and tips from the engineers and stuff so people who write manuals we do love you we do read them and

32:33 Luke F. Walton Yes, we do.

32:33 Matt Meyer and and by the time you know you you go through and use those and and you read the manual and you go through and revisit the plugin again like you said it takes more time you had to spend the time to learn it and everything but uh man you can just

32:47 Matt Meyer you can just do so much more and you can be more effective as a mixer so yeah there are some things where you should definitely spend some time on there are some things it's like okay well you know you can learn some stuff but

33:00 Luke F. Walton yeah and

33:01 Matt Meyer learning how to use your stuff is huge

33:02 Luke F. Walton it's great to just like try stuff too it's but it's it's great it's great to do both like it's like i got this tape machine what happens if i turn it up all the way and like blow it up it's like oh that's pretty weird like maybe i'll use that someday but like i've done it And so now I know what that sounds like.

33:16 Luke F. Walton So if I need to reach into my bag of tricks and have an overblown tape machine, I have, you know, now I've done the things that we were talking about. I have purchased virtual tape machines over time because I've grown out of them or I found that this one introduces frequencies that I don't like. But now I've got a bag of like.

33:33 Luke F. Walton probably 10 or 12 different tape emulations and i know them intimately well because i had to save up to buy each of them and

33:41 Matt Meyer Nice. Yeah.

33:41 Luke F. Walton they're

33:42 Matt Meyer There you go. Yep.

33:42 Luke F. Walton good for different situations you know that's what people end up paying me for is like

33:48 Luke F. Walton i've got years and years of experience of all these stupid virtual video machines like i know what you want to put your stuff into you know and and but that's that's through that labor of love is like oh it's not quite doing what i wanted to let me go back to the manual figure that out okay no i need to buy something else i buy something else digest that you know that

34:04 Matt Meyer Yeah.

34:05 Luke F. Walton makes sense

34:05 Matt Meyer I mean, that's why there's multiple brands out there because otherwise we'd all just be buying one EQ and one compressor and we'd all sound the same. But yeah, there's just, it's very cool finding out. you know those little mojo sort of things

34:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:18 Matt Meyer like what works great for what like when i heard api stuff on drums

34:22 Luke F. Walton Yes.

34:22 Matt Meyer it was just like oh my god

34:23 Luke F. Walton Like,

34:23 Matt Meyer like that's

34:23 Luke F. Walton it's that's that.

34:23 Matt Meyer enough that's a great like that's my rock sound that i've been that's the aerosmith thing that i've been listening to all that sort of thing and you know you said something that was really cool um just about experimenting and that's something that i really want to you know just people who are starting out and whatever definitely just experiment Then don't let somebody tell you that something is really wrong.

34:44 Matt Meyer Now, if you're clipping your DAW by like 12 dB,

34:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:48 Matt Meyer that may not sound the best. So maybe back that off. But other than that, experimentation is awesome. And there's been so much cool stuff out of experimentation. So break the rules. Don't let people tell you what to do. And there's a lot of times where something could be wrong, but then somebody wins a Grammy for something, then all of a sudden it's... and it's right or

35:09 Luke F. Walton Mm

35:09 Matt Meyer it's

35:09 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

35:09 Matt Meyer made it on an album or whatever so that's the other thing is is experiment with your stuff push things to the limit um you know and that's where some really cool things come from and i get very I get very excited doing that where,

35:25 Matt Meyer you know, I'm like, oh, let me just try to push this thing to the limit. I've been doing like a lot of like Rupert Neve design stuff and I've been demoing their 50-60 centerpiece for a bit. You know, it's all about pushing that thing to the limit so you get a bunch of glue on your mix.

35:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:38 Matt Meyer You know, everything sounds really gelled, but your DAW isn't clipping like it normally would be. So, you know.

35:45 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement.

35:50 Luke F. Walton for myself for this podcast um what i 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 under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all this stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please

36:16 Luke F. Walton please please just please just hit those three dots on a five star it would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode

36:30 Matt Meyer just uh just experiment and do do wacky things and like you said you know maybe you get some sound that's kind of weird but maybe you save it and then you're working on a project later and it calls for that and then like you said you have a a little bag of tricks for the preset or whatever it is or a recall sheet and man

36:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:46 Matt Meyer that's all that's all just cool stuff and it makes makes us all unique and you know we all have our different things we like and i mean that's that's a cool thing of that's why i've listened to so many things and um it's just because everybody does stuff differently and if you know how to manipulate everything you can do something totally different than the other person and you'll still get something that sounds amazing

37:08 Luke F. Walton Agreed. And get people throughout the process, all the people that you're collaborating with, who are on the same tip. Like a good

37:16 Matt Meyer Yeah.

37:17 Luke F. Walton example with what you're saying about clipping the DAW. I don't like that either. I don't like the way that sounds.

37:22 Luke F. Walton Most people don't. It sounds very brutal. That's the classic digital distortion just slammed against the wall sound for the listeners. You've probably heard meme videos if you're on TikTok and Instagram that blow out your ears, that kind of sound.

37:34 Luke F. Walton um but i had one friend his name's robel uh and he made a tune that just did that uh and because the mix engineer and the mastering engineer uh my same mastering engineer that i use riley knapp we're like okay let's do it like let's go hard it's

37:54 Matt Meyer Yeah.

37:54 Luke F. Walton cool like whatever what's what can we do with it it

37:57 Matt Meyer And does it sound good? Like if it, you know, if

37:59 Luke F. Walton kind of did at the end

38:00 Matt Meyer it sounds good, then okay. You know, if it, yeah.

38:03 Luke F. Walton i don't know if it sounds good but it's like it's like it's cool it sounds cool you know like but it's because everybody along the process was just like okay like, I'll take what you're going for and just push it a little bit further. I've been in other situations, especially as a younger musician, where people kind of just tell me no, like, that's not the way that's done. Stay

38:23 Matt Meyer Right.

38:24 Luke F. Walton back in, make it sound clean or you're... too many s's on this vocal or whatever you know like go re-record it um

38:31 Matt Meyer Yeah.

38:32 Luke F. Walton and finding people that that are in your same headspace uh in addition to the gear i think is is critical to being able to help those extreme decisions

38:44 Matt Meyer Yeah,

38:44 Luke F. Walton I mean, that

38:44 Matt Meyer I mean,

38:45 Luke F. Walton is

38:45 Matt Meyer having

38:45 Luke F. Walton interesting.

38:45 Matt Meyer that was one of the best things about going to college or university in Miami was having just that kind of stuff there where you had friends that were in the same mindset, but you also had professors and famous musicians or whoever would come in and guest that like, you know, had been in the industry and knew what was up. So he kind of had that nice, nice.

39:05 Matt Meyer stretch and barometer of things of like well you know we're thinking of this and you know you had that great thing of experimentation and kind of knew where the limits were and that is super important to have like have your role models listen you know do your you know favorite stuff find out you know who who mixed it or who produced it or whatever listen

39:23 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

39:24 Matt Meyer to their you know listen to interviews with them see what they do and you know use that as a nice barometer and then have your friends are experimenting like that's just a great i mean I think I think that's something that I never get out of I'm always in that phase of like having you know idols that I have and people that I love their stuff like

39:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:41 Matt Meyer I think I just I was listening to Mandy Wallace videos who did like Jeff Buckley grace and all that sort

39:46 Luke F. Walton Oh,

39:46 Matt Meyer of thing and

39:46 Luke F. Walton yes.

39:46 Matt Meyer I was like man I've listened to all of his stuff but I've never really and I don't think he does a lot of interviews but um I was on like I think it was mix of the masters or pure mix or something like that just checking some stuff out yeah you know

39:59 Matt Meyer and i i'm always a learning person i i personally am just like let me keep learning new stuff all the time i don't really just sit back and i'm like oh i know all this let me just you

40:10 Luke F. Walton Good.

40:10 Matt Meyer know and that's that's part of my thing too like being in the pro audio industry you kind of have to keep moving forward with stuff and know what's coming up but um yeah i agree it's so cool to have and you know there's so many resources so but yeah surrounding yourself with friends that

40:27 Matt Meyer have that same vibe that like maybe you know they do something that you know either challenges you or that you really love and you guys can collaborate on it like there's nothing better than that oh

40:36 Luke F. Walton Agreed. On the forward thinking thing, I'd love to talk a little bit about Dolby Atmos and immersive audio, kind of what you're seeing in the market. Do you think that everything's coalescing on Atmos or do you think that some of these other, you know, I'm hearing like Sennheiser's got kind of their own thing? and you know or it's

40:54 Matt Meyer Right.

40:54 Luke F. Walton somebody does too or do you think

40:56 Matt Meyer Sony

40:56 Luke F. Walton it dolby's

40:56 Matt Meyer does too?

40:56 Luke F. Walton gonna kind of capture it where do you think all this stands i'm just curious yeah

41:01 Matt Meyer Well, you have, I mean, you have people that, you know, there's not 100% agreement on Atmos. I'm personally all for it. I know there's, you know, there's tons of mixers doing it right now. And I think it is something that, you know, it's not like 5.1. where you know i think the big thing with Atmos is all the support it has like

41:23 Luke F. Walton Okay.

41:24 Matt Meyer a from a consumer standpoint you go into like best buy you see something that says Atmos so

41:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:29 Matt Meyer you go on to apple music you see Atmos consumers

41:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

41:33 Matt Meyer who aren't into pro audio know what Atmos is they're like oh yeah that's i go i go listen to that at the movie theater um so that's a big thing is that it has the consumer push and you know with using apple as an example If you have AirPod Pros or AirPod

41:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

41:49 Matt Meyer Maxes, you're

41:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

41:50 Matt Meyer exposed to Atmos and you can listen to Atmos as a listener, which is huge because as a kid growing up in high school, I didn't have the money to go out and buy an AV receiver with 5.1, get a sub and five speakers and wire all the crap. Like that just wasn't, I didn't have the means to it.

42:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:07 Matt Meyer And, you know, with Atmos, you can kind of go anywhere. You can do it on those AirPods or AirPod Maxes, other headphones. you can do you know sony's thing of course um and then you know you can of course have a room with it um

42:20 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

42:20 Matt Meyer and i think the biggest thing too is that you know dolby what i love about their stuff what they did with the renderer is that you can have you can have any number of speakers you could have 714 or you could be in a movie theater with like 64 speakers and the renderer just uses the computer to know exactly it has objects which are basically let's say you're you're at a movie

42:43 Matt Meyer a movie theater and there's this piece of dialogue maybe there's a whisper that's supposed to kind of come near your right ear so

42:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:49 Matt Meyer you can hear it a little bit better or just be an effect in the mix the renderer will be able to play that pretty exactly whether you're on 12 speakers or 64 or headphones so the way that it does that is just very future-proof and i think it's exciting uh there's many companies that have really um gotten behind it and i mean

43:12 Matt Meyer I will tell you when I was at Apogee listening to, we had the great fortune of working with Bob Clear Mountain, who was still

43:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:18 Matt Meyer there and doing awesome stuff and, you know, doing his mixes. And I just remember going over to his place and hearing his Atmos mixes and the cool thing about it was not that, you know, you're not trying to make things kind of swoosh around like you would in a movie theater where you can, because maybe there's a helicopter circling

43:36 Luke F. Walton Yes.

43:36 Matt Meyer or something like that. But at most he played like some live Bob. bob marley and it just felt like i was at the concert and

43:44 Matt Meyer and that's the big thing with Atmos is you just feel immersed in the music

43:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah, and Mm-hmm.

43:49 Matt Meyer it's just a whole different feeling than stereo so you know a good example is you know when you're mixing you might pan stuff so as a person person listening it doesn't all sound like you know just muddled everything coming from one spot your brain can pick stuff out better if it's panned in different places to me atmos also lets you just localize things a lot better because

44:12 Luke F. Walton There's

44:12 Matt Meyer there's so many different places things can come from so forward thinking technology i think atmos is definitely here to stay through the long term i don't think it's a fad and You know, there's plenty of people out there right now. I know, you know, if you submit a Atmos mixed Apple Music, you're going to get priority, you know, on there on Apple Music. So there's

44:34 Luke F. Walton Oh, that's great.

44:35 Matt Meyer incentives right now. There's a lot of people who, you know, just want to say, hey, this is the new thing in music. And it's, it's super forward thinking and I want to do it.

44:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:44 Matt Meyer So I mean, Man, I don't know of a technology, I'm trying to think of one that's been such a huge advance in like the sonics of music and movies.

44:55 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

44:56 Matt Meyer You know, I think the last time like maybe Dolby Digital came out or something like that, but I just think it's going to be a huge thing for the industry and, you know, VK, we do have an Atmos room. in our la showroom that

45:09 Luke F. Walton Cool.

45:09 Matt Meyer people can come in and actually hear and experience Atmos

45:12 Luke F. Walton Yes.

45:12 Matt Meyer so that is a really cool thing um

45:14 Luke F. Walton Yes.

45:14 Matt Meyer and again you know just for people being able to in any sort of budget be able to experience Atmos and with the support that it has i just see it as something that you know it's getting to be

45:28 Matt Meyer It's very known right now, and I think we're just going to find out more about it and consumers will be subjected to it much, much more throughout the years. And as far as which format, I don't know. I don't know if they're all going to conglomerate

45:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

45:42 Matt Meyer or if Sony is going to stick with their thing, Dolby is going to have their thing. Who knows? I have no idea how that's going to go. I'm just stoked that there are people willing to try different things. And it is kind of the Wild West. There's no... with a to z like here's exactly how you have to do an Atmos mix

45:58 Luke F. Walton No.

45:58 Matt Meyer people have different approaches and again they they you know they'll get great sounding stuff even though two people maybe took exact opposite approaches so it's also a really cool creative format again if you have logic on your computer the render is built right in there so you know find a mix online

46:18 Luke F. Walton They

46:18 Matt Meyer import

46:18 Luke F. Walton just added

46:19 Matt Meyer it into logic

46:19 Luke F. Walton it to Pro Tools. That's in the most recent update

46:23 Matt Meyer And yeah,

46:23 Luke F. Walton Okay

46:23 Matt Meyer it's now it's baked into Pro Tools too. I forgot about that. Yeah. So, you know, either of those platforms, you have a renderer built in, bring in a mix and just, you know, put on some headphones and try a binaural mix in there and, you know, you can, of course, make your own objects and kind of have them pan how you want. Yeah, it's super awesome.

46:42 Matt Meyer And going to the movie theater, I mean, I've always been a movie theater type person. And I mean, I remember hearing like, I think Ghostbusters, the newest one was one that I saw on Atmos was just

46:53 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:53 Matt Meyer like, man, like this is awesome.

46:54 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:55 Matt Meyer So

46:56 Luke F. Walton Hello.

46:56 Matt Meyer love it yeah oh

46:58 Luke F. Walton That's great. That's the pep talk I need. I got Atmos certified and I haven't been doing a ton of Atmos yeah mixes. So I need to do more of that. And yeah,

47:08 Matt Meyer well and there's a really cool you can go to like Dolby's website there's a document they have called the Dolby dart it's d-a-r-d-t and you know if you have some speakers and whatnot it's it's pretty cool you can fill out what you have the dimensions of your room

47:24 Matt Meyer and you can get your room certified for Atmos so they'll actually tell you like okay your SPL is fine you set kind of like your listening distance from you know your main speakers

47:36 Matt Meyer um like i said you put your room dimensions in there they have all the speakers kind of like as drop down so

47:42 Luke F. Walton Yep.

47:42 Matt Meyer you can put exactly what you have what

47:43 Luke F. Walton Cool.

47:44 Matt Meyer spl you want to listen to and

47:45 Luke F. Walton Cool.

47:46 Matt Meyer it'll say okay you're you're all green here it'll give you a little red it's an excel spreadsheet so it'll give you a little red cell and be like hey you might need two subwoofers and so if anybody is trying to do all that stuff you can definitely help out with that um but that's kind of the cool thing is you can kind of see how close you are to like adobe certified studio go and

48:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:04 Matt Meyer you can either go all the way or you know if you're just kind of checking things out doing things for fun you're just like okay well you know i'm just going to stick with what i have and maybe do some room treatment or get another speaker later or whatever but um there's there's a lot of great resources out there now too um so i i love it i think um

48:23 Matt Meyer I think it's an awesome format and I've heard the correct people mixing in it to

48:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:28 Matt Meyer know that it

48:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:30 Matt Meyer will work and it's a valid technology.

48:33 Luke F. Walton I love that. Uh,

48:34 Matt Meyer yeah yeah

48:34 Luke F. Walton um, I would love to, uh, talk a little bit more about that vintage King LA showroom and kind of just introduce people to the space and invite them over.

48:44 Matt Meyer sure i mean i will tell you what i started there as a customer um because i was a i was getting into voiceover wanted to do some audiobooks and i wanted to get a microphone uh but i wanted to hear the microphone that i was going to get and i i was you know and i'm in i'm in la now i'm not in my little fifth 1500 town or 1500 person

49:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:03 Matt Meyer town in illinois so i was like where can i go and hear a microphone and i googled this is like 2015 Vintage King came up and man there was just uh they had a vocal booth with like 12 different tube mics and you know some other stuff as well and they it was so cool i went in there and they they helped me record stuff i they were able to put it record everything gave me the files on soundcloud and

49:31 Luke F. Walton Oh, right.

49:32 Matt Meyer i went back and listened you know to see like what worked with my voice because i couldn't critically just sit there and go through 12 mics so

49:38 Luke F. Walton Totally.

49:38 Matt Meyer um it was so cool and you know fast forward to me actually working there now same thing in la like we've it is the best showroom maybe in the world i will be bold and say that um especially in los angeles we've got racks of outboard gear

49:55 Matt Meyer the uh we have the same mic booth with a bunch of awesome mics in there that's tied to an api 2448 or there's outboard gear we can patch into but we can do the same thing bring in your vocalist have them record over a track we'll sound cloud it to you or you know use we transfer or whatever um but we're out by um we're out by the airport by the burbank airport so

50:16 Luke F. Walton Cool.

50:16 Matt Meyer 2636 ontario street um

50:19 Luke F. Walton Nice.

50:19 Matt Meyer is the address and it's

50:20 Luke F. Walton Near SI, what's

50:21 Matt Meyer an

50:21 Luke F. Walton the, what's the center staging?

50:25 Matt Meyer oh yeah yeah i mean there's a bunch of awesome stuff out there like it's uh there's some really cool shops out there uh man perfect circus down the street from us like

50:33 Luke F. Walton Perfect

50:33 Matt Meyer there's

50:33 Luke F. Walton circuit,

50:34 Matt Meyer still yeah

50:34 Luke F. Walton definitely school too. Yeah, totally.

50:35 Matt Meyer um so you know again we're active outdoor gear um we've got you know some cool stuff uh tons of pedals that you can kind of come and try we've got some cool teenage engineering stuff we've got uh four different consoles you know we've got a a neve 5088 which is uh friggin awesome we've got the api 24

50:53 Matt Meyer 2448 an ssl origin in there and a neve 8424 so if you've never gotten a chance to see these consoles definitely come in and check them out if you're in the mood for monitors geez we've got a critical listening room with over i think 15 different pairs of monitors in there everything

51:11 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

51:11 Matt Meyer from atcs to genelecs to focal you know so just tons of different stuff tons of gear It is definitely something people need to come and check out. And my favorite thing about it,

51:25 Luke F. Walton Mm

51:25 Matt Meyer you

51:25 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

51:25 Matt Meyer know, these days you can watch a ton of videos, read things on the forums till you're, you know, just till you're so confused. The great thing is that almost everything in the store is fully demoable. So the thing that I love is that people will come in and be like, hey, I'm looking to grab, you know, a mic or a monitor. I'm thinking of this and we're like, cool, like let's hear that.

51:45 Matt Meyer And then, you know, maybe we'll suggest a couple other things. I want to say 60% of the time people come in and they're, you know, on the thing that they, that they're thinking they want and they're like, okay, this sounds good. And then we might recommend something else. And all of a sudden it's just like, Oh man, like that's the sound that I was looking for. Like that's, that's what I want.

52:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

52:04 Matt Meyer And then, you know, it'll change to something that just we had there that somebody didn't know about that they actually heard that they got to experience and that, you know, connected with them and that, that they're like, Hey, that's my sound or that's what I want to hear. hear from my music with

52:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:18 Matt Meyer monitors let's say so that's the cool thing about is that you can take you can save all that time just come into the showroom with people who you know love the gear and and and you know we're not there to you know upsell people and whatever we just want to give like whatever you're looking for we want to be the people to give you that creative solution and we're local in LA we do work with people around the nation and around the world so you know we have techs that'll build up studios

52:43 Matt Meyer We will go from anywhere from somebody buying their first audio interface, buying their first microphone to fully, you know, setting up and kidding out Dolby Atmos setups and specking everything from the ground up and contracting and having our techs go out and actually do all the wiring setup. So we are a fully functional pro audio store and it is definitely something that people need to check out.

53:07 Matt Meyer I'm there every day, Monday through Friday, 10 to 6, basically our showroom is Monday through Saturday, 10 to 6. So we got plenty of hours, you know, people can come in and book stuff. And again, like just to be able to get ears on, I think

53:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

53:23 Matt Meyer is the

53:23 Luke F. Walton yeah

53:24 Matt Meyer most important thing, you know, so definitely come check out Vintage King LA.

53:29 Luke F. Walton And it's such a cool thing. I don't know if everybody realizes this, but when you play music, when you play an instrument, when you record stuff, you're supporting an industry of people that absolutely love music products and bringing

53:40 Matt Meyer Yeah.

53:40 Luke F. Walton them to you. Like we're talking about the people that are writing manuals, you know, the people that have showrooms, all of these, there's no, there's nobody that's just doing this just to clock in or punch a card. Like everyone's in it to help you succeed as a musician and they love it and they love hearing you succeed.

53:55 Luke F. Walton music cd they love hearing you find that sound so that's just such a special thing i mean from the local music store that you were talking about buying your first drum kit like

54:01 Matt Meyer Yeah,

54:02 Luke F. Walton there's

54:02 Matt Meyer it's

54:02 Luke F. Walton so much huge. passion and

54:04 Matt Meyer And that's, you know, that is something I've never forgotten any of that stuff. My dad buying the drum set or my salesperson at Gazzardo's like, that is just ingrained in me. It was a life experience.

54:14 Luke F. Walton yes

54:15 Matt Meyer It opened the door for me being a musician, which is huge. So I mean, yeah, it's just.

54:21 Matt Meyer you know like you said i that's one of my favorite calls of somebody who's like hey i want to do this like it's been my dream for you know since how long i'm ready to make it a reality and that's what we love to do is just make somebody's dream a reality or you know give them the sonic uh you know if they want something super you know uh specifically in sonics they're like hey this is what i'm looking for we want to be able to match that you know

54:48 Matt Meyer have them hear the sound that they're hearing in their head,

54:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:51 Matt Meyer actually hear it through the monitors or their equipment. So that's super huge. And yeah, I will tell you, it is a passionate team. We love what we do. So very true. No true words have been said. There's anybody who's there is, you know, we love gear, we love people and we love to help people out. So it's an awesome thing. And to be able to come in and get hands-on.

55:14 Matt Meyer on with stuff in the showroom and i mean it's kind of taken aback the first time you walk in because it's just kind of overwhelming honestly every time you go in but it's super awesome if anybody's into music it's definitely a place you have to check out in la yeah

55:27 Luke F. Walton Great. Can't wait to come by. And one last question that I'd love to hit you with before we go. So this show is called Love Music More. This little mini segment is Love Music Why? And it's just an opportunity for you to just opine a little bit about why do you keep coming back to music? Why does that?

55:43 Luke F. Walton thing this playing music sparked so much joy in your life from you know age 10 or whatever getting your first drum kit all the way up to now just seeing the the excitement in your eyes what what is it about music why why do you love this thing

55:57 Matt Meyer It's just something that... And I've been, you know, into it since my parents were playing Michael Jackson, you

56:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:04 Matt Meyer know, really when I was a really young age and got into rhythm and everything. And I don't know, it's just something that is it's intangible. It's something that spoke to me as a creative person, as an artist, wanting to be able to express myself in different ways, whether it's through words or music or whatnot.

56:22 Matt Meyer Seeing concerts was just friggin awesome. Like that was one of my favorite things is seeing live shows. So. So I would say just, you know, that that intangible thing that happens, it's cathartic. It's almost like.

56:35 Matt Meyer it's almost like an experience you know it's like a go to another world like when I first listened to Tool and put on Lateralis that was like a CD my brother had that I put in the car when we were going to a Cubs game I was just in my own world for like 90 minutes and it just took me it's like playing a great video game or watching a great movie you're just taken to another place or you know it's something that matches your emotions or something that you know lets you be cathartic like with a drum set I was able to get out aggression without

57:03 Matt Meyer without getting into you know doing anything that we you know be considered sometimes like bad behavior or whatever you know i i had it i had an out you know i had things that were like going wrong or that i had a bad day or whatever so cathartic artistic expression um you know just all that and and just being able to see talent and hear talent and i don't know i i get excited about everything about it and nowadays the

57:28 Matt Meyer The creativity that you have to express yourself and get out ideas and do it quickly, just all of that excites me. So I'm a very creative person and I love, you know, being around anything like that. That would be my main answer, I think. I will also add for anybody who's still listening, the Vintage King, we do have a location in Nashville too, so I don't want to leave my Nashville peeps out either.

57:53 Luke F. Walton yeah for sure that

57:54 Matt Meyer Detroit is our headquarters, so VK is not just in LA, but yeah, that's what I would say about music though. Freaking love it. Awesome.

58:02 Luke F. Walton was a great answer thank you so much for chatting matt i really do appreciate you taking the time i hope everyone enjoyed it

58:08 Matt Meyer You got it, Scrooge. Thank you so much for having me.

58:10 Luke F. Walton Thank you.

58:11 Matt Meyer Peace.