Mike Gillilan Interview

2:02 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I am Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Mike.

2:11 Luke F. Walton an incredible mastering engineer and recent angeleno so welcome to the pod i'm so excited to talk to you about mastering audio your musical journey what kind of led you into this and just go deep dive into it so what's up mike

2:25 Mike Gillilan Thanks, Gabe. Glad to be here. Yeah. You know, my journey with music goes way back to when I was a kid, really. I started playing drums at like age 10, drums and bass. Um, with

2:42 Luke F. Walton It's good conflict.

2:42 Mike Gillilan Ledden. Yeah. You know, a

2:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

2:45 Mike Gillilan lot of drummers play bass and vice versa. Um, and that led me to study music in college, uh, where I studied drums, uh, at the University of Miami. Um, and interestingly, I was not interested in audio engineering or really knew about it. And I

3:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

3:08 Mike Gillilan was really focused on like wanting to be a drummer. Um, and when I finished school in 2010, I moved back to Chicago, which is where I'm from.

3:21 Luke F. Walton cool.

3:22 Mike Gillilan And uh kind of dove into the music scene there um

3:28 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

3:29 Mike Gillilan i started working at reckless records which is sort of like uh chicago's amoeba it's like the biggest indie uh record store shout out

3:42 Luke F. Walton Is

3:42 Mike Gillilan reckless records

3:43 Luke F. Walton it still around?

3:43 Mike Gillilan oh yeah there's

3:45 Luke F. Walton Okay,

3:45 Mike Gillilan three

3:46 Luke F. Walton I gotta

3:46 Mike Gillilan there's

3:46 Luke F. Walton go there next time I'm in Chicago.

3:47 Mike Gillilan three locations in chicago um so

3:50 Luke F. Walton Got it, I'm booking it.

3:51 Mike Gillilan i worked there for like six years um in addition to playing drums and bands during that time and going on tour uh and just like soaking up

4:06 Mike Gillilan musical knowledge like i thought i knew a lot of music when i was in music school Yeah.

4:15 Mike Gillilan and then and then i got to the record store and realized there's so much music uh that i just became a sponge there um and In 2017, I think it was, a good buddy of mine needed a sound engineer at a club in Chicago. And

4:37 Luke F. Walton Oh,

4:37 Mike Gillilan he said,

4:38 Luke F. Walton so this

4:38 Mike Gillilan hey,

4:38 Luke F. Walton is my, to start with live sound?

4:39 Mike Gillilan yeah,

4:40 Luke F. Walton yeah. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:42 Mike Gillilan I mean, I had already been producing music a little for myself, like, you know, nothing, just mostly me messing around. I put out a couple of tapes.

4:53 Mike Gillilan uh but so i had some you know the fundamentals of you know audio engineering i didn't just totally jump in blind but also in a sense i did uh

5:07 Luke F. Walton Okay. Yeah.

5:08 Mike Gillilan so in 2017 yeah i started working live sound at this uh great club called the whistler in chicago

5:18 Mike Gillilan um you know really good music um and that just taught me how to like since i'd already toured i'd seen it from the other end as as a drummer um and now i was the engineer and it taught me how to interact with the musicians and be professional and learn how to work under pressure kind of read the room uh

5:46 Mike Gillilan you know learn how to filter out what's not as important as to what is more important and

5:54 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

5:55 Mike Gillilan then like you know I really wanted it to sound great and I think people could see that and or hear that rather and it started to give me the confidence like hey I can I can do mastering, like, because that's

6:18 Luke F. Walton i mean something that's

6:19 Mike Gillilan I've,

6:19 Luke F. Walton a that's a big leap though like how do you go from your you know engineering live sound to being like i want to do what is considered by many the like black box of music the rarefied

6:29 Mike Gillilan totally.

6:30 Luke F. Walton air this like other thing that's like i send my mix over there and it comes back and it's better now you know like how did you make that leap

6:37 Mike Gillilan Well, I've always been interested in mastering. It's always fascinated me. Like, you know, working at the record store, it's

6:48 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

6:48 Mike Gillilan like I would just hear albums and records for 10 hours, you know, every

6:54 Luke F. Walton Yes.

6:54 Mike Gillilan day. hearing different versions of the same record like okay here's now we're listening to the original lp okay now this is the 90s remaster

7:05 Luke F. Walton Ooh,

7:05 Mike Gillilan uh

7:06 Luke F. Walton that's interesting.

7:06 Mike Gillilan you

7:07 Luke F. Walton That's

7:07 Mike Gillilan know like

7:08 Luke F. Walton a cool, yeah.

7:09 Mike Gillilan okay now here's the 2012 remaster here's the one from the 80s whatever just like uh i think i really you know my my buddy at work was like, Mike, you really like honing in on like the sounds a

7:27 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

7:27 Mike Gillilan lot. Yep. So that was one thing, like working at the shop and just hearing music constantly and being like, what makes like a record finished or sound great or not so great. And another thing that's sort of started me on my mastering journey. was my sort of, I would say, obsession with compression.

7:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yes. I've got some big news, everybody. My vinyl record is out. We didn't make a ton of these. These guys are going to sell out. And I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope. They're so dope. And it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and special stuff, the things that really went into making this record.

8:20 Luke F. Walton And I want you to get your hands on it. So go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the show notes or the bio or wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy. You know, they're going to sell out. We really did not make very many of these and I want you to have it. It's like a collector's item.

8:39 Luke F. Walton So thank you. Thank you for supporting my music and I can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl. Enjoy the rest of the episode.

8:46 Mike Gillilan And that probably started in 2013 because

8:51 Luke F. Walton Cool.

8:51 Mike Gillilan I was just making music and logic and like I started to get curious like what is this tool I'm putting it on but I don't. Know what it's doing true

9:05 Luke F. Walton So for somebody that's listening and they're relatively, you know, outside of the music making process, how would you describe, obviously this is kind of a difficult thing to describe, but compression just as in terms of like, what did you think it was? How is your conceptualization of it evolved? Like what is its purpose? Why do people talk about it so much? Why is it so important?

9:25 Mike Gillilan I don't really know what it was You know, one of its purposes is to reduce the dynamic range of audio, which essentially, you know, says, okay, we're going to pull down the really, really high parts so that then we can bring up.

9:48 Mike Gillilan the overall volume by then being able to bring up the lower parts it's like by by bringing uh down the top we can then bring up up everything a little bit so

10:02 Luke F. Walton Yes.

10:02 Mike Gillilan uh for the music to translate to like a record or or whatever the medium is it's like a tool for you know taking audio and uh just helping it to to fit within the confines of the meat the media Um,

10:22 Luke F. Walton Mm

10:22 Mike Gillilan so

10:22 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

10:22 Mike Gillilan it's like, it took me probably three or four years before I could really, really hear it. And I, I thought about it a lot, like,

10:40 Luke F. Walton Yes,

10:40 Mike Gillilan just

10:40 Luke F. Walton yes.

10:41 Mike Gillilan trying to hear it, study it, use it. It's like, first and foremost, it's a tool. It's not like a magic box or anything like that. It's a tool that you can use. And it's also a tool that you can really easily mess up the music with if you

11:10 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:10 Mike Gillilan don't know how to use it.

11:12 Luke F. Walton Yes.

11:13 Mike Gillilan Or if you can't hear what it's doing, yeah,

11:17 Luke F. Walton I have done that. I think everybody has, you know, you over compress, you under compress. There's a sweet spot. There's a Goldilocks zone of, you know, you suck out all of the vibe and the dynamics of something or you leave it too raw and now the record's like got too many peaks and valleys or you change the tonal, the timbral kind of essence of the thing by, yeah.

11:40 Mike Gillilan there's a lot of you know, different parameters and it, uh, you know, the main being, being the threshold, which is like, you know, the, the peak level that you set that says, hey, if anything goes over this, uh, the compressor is going to pull it down.

12:06 Mike Gillilan Um, and then the ratio is basically uh how hard it's going to pull it down uh like how much of that information it's going to push down uh like a lower i tend to use lower ratios especially

12:24 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

12:24 Mike Gillilan in mastering uh a lower ratio is going to be more transparent a higher ratio uh brings it more into what is called limiting and that

12:38 Mike Gillilan uh is also useful but can be less transparent um and then not all compressors have uh attack and release but Yes. that is another big part of it um and i think that part really excited me because i re i realized Oh, you can use that to the advantage of the music. Like I'm a drummer, so it's important to me that music feels good, has a great groove.

13:11 Luke F. Walton Mm

13:11 Mike Gillilan And

13:11 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

13:11 Mike Gillilan I learned that, so basically for those who don't know, the attack is how quickly the compressor clamps down on the signal.

13:26 Mike Gillilan after it passes over the threshold and then the release is you know how long it takes for it to go back to normal being uncompressed and that has a time component so if the music has a groove And your compressor hasn't attacked and a release.

13:50 Mike Gillilan If you're listening carefully, you can set it in such a way that it works with the groove, enhances the groove.

14:03 Mike Gillilan You can also try to make it stay transparent and just get out of the way and maybe you don't want people to hear it at all.

14:12 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

14:14 Mike Gillilan But it is cool in that rhythmic sense of like, oh, you can use it to take like take something that's already got a groove and enhance it more.

14:26 Luke F. Walton Yes. And I feel like some people have heard that, especially like dance music or music that's got a really loud kick drum. I've seen on subreddits and stuff where people have been like, why does the cymbal get so quiet every time there's a kick drum?

14:41 Mike Gillilan Sure. And yeah, that would be what's called actually like people sort of use the term side chaining loosely. People will say you've got a side chain, you know, the bass to the kick or whatever. Technically, the side chain is just whatever is whatever.

15:06 Mike Gillilan signal is triggering the compressor to work uh usually that's the incoming audio uh so it's like working on what's coming in but in the case of dance music uh you're now telling the compressor uh i don't want it to compress uh Say the bass part,

15:35 Mike Gillilan bass for example, that's like bass and kick are a common a common duo I don't want the compressor to compress the bass depending on what the bass is doing you want to set I want to set the input sidechain input

15:59 Mike Gillilan as the kick drum so now the compressor is um clamping down and opening up to the kick drum instead of the bass and that uh gives the music sort of this sense of uh almost push and pull or or you know some people say breathing if you if you really do it extreme but that technique you

16:28 Mike Gillilan is sort of like what really helps like edm and electronic music pop because it's like every because every time the kick hits it's sort of pulling everything else down to make room for the kick uh to hit so the kick can hit harder uh

16:41 Mike Gillilan it's sort of pulling everything else down to make room for the kick. to hit so the kick can hit harder sure

16:49 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm. And you can approximate this also without a compressor and just using faders. And so like you can take your fader and write it down every time a kick happens, or you can set a sidechain on the compressor, they sound slightly different because the compressor is doing different things and it has, you know, certain amount of saturation and stuff like that.

17:06 Luke F. Walton But you can literally like that this is something that, you know, some people do they'll draw in autumn volume automation is what it called is called so that

17:15 Mike Gillilan yeah

17:16 Luke F. Walton every time a kick happens there's nothing in the way because you want to hear the full impact of that kick and kick driven music so it's punching you in the chest and you don't want another big bass part kind of in the way of that because then it all just gets muddy and and kind of less uh transparent um and so you get that you know kind of sound symbols and all that stuff it's cool

17:36 Mike Gillilan that's what you just did with your hands is like a good is a good visualization of compression like almost almost like a you

17:46 Luke F. Walton Yes.

17:46 Mike Gillilan know like that that's the attack and the release happening uh or like here's a signal going up and then the compressor is pulling it back down you know it's like

18:00 Luke F. Walton Yes,

18:00 Mike Gillilan Um,

18:00 Luke F. Walton the

18:01 Mike Gillilan oh,

18:01 Luke F. Walton extension and the and I actually think that release is not talked about enough. Attack is very obvious.

18:07 Mike Gillilan let's talk, let's

18:08 Luke F. Walton Let's

18:08 Mike Gillilan talk about

18:08 Luke F. Walton talk it. about release because attack is like you do something loud. I want it to react really quickly or really slowly. But then the release that that pumping nature the the return back to zero like you were calling it. I think that it's I think that it's not thought about enough, especially by a lot of bedroom producers and a lot of times they set it to auto. I actually don't even really know what Otto does.

18:29 Mike Gillilan Me either.

18:29 Luke F. Walton So I'd love to talk a little bit more about release. Yeah.

18:35 Mike Gillilan Release is interesting. I mean, it's like, if you listen, if you just, I mean, okay, so In general terms,

18:48 Mike Gillilan a quick release is going to bring the signal back to uncompressed more quickly at the expense of more distortion, which means you can get a louder sound, but it's going to be more distorted. A slower release, depending on the program material, is going to...

19:15 Mike Gillilan let the signal come back to normal in such a way that it's uh less distorted it's like because less processing has to happen less quickly i

19:28 Luke F. Walton okay i

19:29 Mike Gillilan guess is one way you could look at it um

19:31 Luke F. Walton guess it like pulling out of plugins does like thinking about like how the actual hardware worked is that is that true for something like 1176 like the classic like fast uh compressor

19:42 Mike Gillilan totally so if you have an 11 uh if you have an 1176 um you know and you put it it's great that's great on bass i feel like

19:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:53 Mike Gillilan once

19:54 Luke F. Walton Agreed.

19:55 Mike Gillilan once once i sort of learned the sound of that you can hear it on so many records from the 70s it's like so

20:04 Luke F. Walton That's crazy.

20:05 Mike Gillilan on that compressor when you put it to a fast attack it adds like this beautiful fuzzy distortion um

20:14 Luke F. Walton Mm.

20:14 Mike Gillilan that's like pleasing um and that would be like that compressor is like a colorful you know aggressive compressor it's it has a the possibility to have a really quick attack and then a lot of people like to set the release

20:38 Mike Gillilan um at the fastest possible uh which just leaves it with just yeah a nice a nice pleasing distortion that sounds

20:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:52 Mike Gillilan great

20:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:54 Mike Gillilan Um,

20:54 Luke F. Walton and it's

20:55 Mike Gillilan oh

20:55 Luke F. Walton funny talking about distortion is sounding great too because i feel like to some non-musicians they think like oh distortion is like a negative or it's it's like rock guitars but it's like no there's there's distortion on pretty much everything you hear it's just yeah, controlling

21:08 Mike Gillilan distortion

21:08 Luke F. Walton it yeah

21:09 Mike Gillilan is, can sound good or bad. And a lot of it has to do with not just like what you're running the audio through, although that does make a difference. In theory, if you are to run audio through any piece of equipment, whether it is digital or analog, if it's going in the outputs or in the inputs and out the outputs, the signal will be degraded. Some

21:43 Luke F. Walton Hmm

21:43 Mike Gillilan way. Some people will say, you know, this is the completely transparent compressor or whatever effect, but really everything imparts a little tiny bit of distortion, which could then be thought of as like the color, a color to the sound or a sound character. And distortion like naturally has, you know, what's called harmonic overtones.

22:22 Mike Gillilan And these are these notes that start to happen above the fundamental note of the source.

22:36 Mike Gillilan When you have what's called second and third order harmonics, that's like a natural, you can hear that out in nature. That's like it happens naturally and it accentuates the sound and makes it sound pleasing and warmer.

22:56 Mike Gillilan And then there's distortion that might hurt your ears because it's doesn't have those same overtones or it's adds a lot of harshness in the mid-range my

23:13 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

23:14 Mike Gillilan ears are really sensitive to that and that's a lot of what I listen for in mastering is the mid-range and I feel like that's where

23:28 Mike Gillilan human ears are most sensitive to distortion like if there's if there's like a not so good sounding distortion in the mid-range like

23:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:37 Mike Gillilan that's the kind of thing that's going to make your ears start ringing at a concert at least

23:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right, right.

23:43 Mike Gillilan for me so

23:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, no, I get it.

23:50 Mike Gillilan distortion Light compression is also a tool. It's like it happens whether you want it to or not, but then it can also be used as a creative tool, whether

24:07 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

24:08 Mike Gillilan it's like a fuzz box for guitar, which is like just going to distort something into oblivion or...

24:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Love it.

24:20 Mike Gillilan The stuff that the processors that I'm using in mastering are way, way much more subtle. It's not making stuff sound blown out. It's just enhancing things, making it sound a little warmer, which helps it translate better to, say, a phone speaker or...

24:46 Luke F. Walton Sure, right. Good point.

24:49 Mike Gillilan you know, whatever you're listening on.

24:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, and that's a really, I think that's a good segue to talk a little bit about kind of your process and some of the goals that you go into mastering trying to achieve because I think that's a really interesting,

25:01 Luke F. Walton you know, modern ever moving target is what are people listening to the song on and like how do we optimize to make it sound good on that but also still on hi-fi headphones and speaker systems and stuff like that. Just curious about yeah, the goals that you set out and then kind of kind of the process that you you try and work through to be able to you'll hit those goals yes

25:22 Mike Gillilan My goal is to help the music shine. Sound as good as it can. I know that that's relative, but it's

25:36 Luke F. Walton it's the best kind of goal the best kind of goals are relative it's it's you know you don't want to just be a hammer looking for a nail

25:42 Mike Gillilan um you know people's music is going to be listened to on all different sorts of speakers so i want to make sure that it sounds great on all of those uh granted like a crappy phone speaker isn't going to sound as good as a nice stereo setup but

26:07 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

26:08 Mike Gillilan i am of the belief that if you make a good master for like if it sounds great in my studio on a full spectrum system um that's gonna sound the best on a phone like just the music is great it's gonna sound the best on whatever um

26:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

26:31 Mike Gillilan so if there's just one song i'm gonna take One approach, and if it's a full album, I'll take another approach,

26:44 Luke F. Walton Okay.

26:45 Mike Gillilan which also is important to bring up, like,

26:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:49 Mike Gillilan I see a lot of tips online that are like one mastering, do this, always do this, and I think it's like really important to take that stuff with a grain of salt. And even my... My humble advice, because every song I master, I approach it differently. There's not really a one-size-fits-all approach to mastering, but I'll listen to it and

27:25 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

27:26 Mike Gillilan just really focus in. try and take note of what sounds great if there's any things that you know poke out at me as like sounding a little off and then I'll usually have a conversation with the artist kind

27:51 Luke F. Walton Okay.

27:52 Mike Gillilan of like asking what they think and setting my intention like hey I'd like to maybe work on this area a little bit I think if I say try to bring the vocals forward a little bit that will help the music translate better or

28:13 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

28:13 Mike Gillilan I think the bass is a little out of control I might try to reign it in a hair um

28:21 Luke F. Walton and

28:21 Mike Gillilan um

28:21 Luke F. Walton are you talking about this in terms of like where you're going to have your process or kind of giving like mixed notes that it would kind of help you like with interaction

28:31 Mike Gillilan that's

28:31 Luke F. Walton or a little bit of both yeah

28:32 Mike Gillilan what that depends on like

28:34 Luke F. Walton cool

28:34 Mike Gillilan how like one i guess like the deadline how much time the person has uh if there's something that i think would be better fixed in the mix uh

28:46 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

28:47 Mike Gillilan i'll have that conversation and be like if you have the time i think you know you should try to fix this thing in the mix rather than me doing it in mastering um you know i'll i'll master anything i'm not gonna say i'm sorry i i can't master this for you it's like uh cliffhanger or you know i i'd rather it not be but uh it's like sometimes

29:20 Mike Gillilan i have to discern whether or not i say hey hey you should try and fix this in the mix or you know what it's probably actually going to be best if i just sort of follow my intuition and and fix fix it on my end so

29:39 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

29:40 Mike Gillilan mastering is really I think it's highly intuitive I

29:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:47 Mike Gillilan think people look at it as like this really technical thing and it does have that element to it of hitting like loudness targets or you know stuff like that but i

30:08 Mike Gillilan really think it's like um there's a great interview with a great mastering engineer dave kutch uh who's done um some of beyonce's records and you know he's like

30:29 Mike Gillilan I think Dave from Sada asked him, you know, how do you know when it's, what's your process? And he's like, you know, it's don't overthink it. You know, he's like, close your eyes and listen to it. And if it feels good and sounds good, then it probably is, you know.

30:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

30:54 Mike Gillilan Anyway, if it's a whole album, say it's like 10 songs,

30:58 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

30:59 Mike Gillilan I'm going to take those same ideas of listening through, noticing what I like, don't like, I shouldn't say don't like, but like what needs to be addressed and

31:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

31:14 Mike Gillilan then sort of note that on a song by song basis and

31:19 Luke F. Walton Okay.

31:19 Mike Gillilan then um because with an album i want it to sound cohesive that's

31:27 Luke F. Walton exactly

31:27 Mike Gillilan really important it's

31:28 Luke F. Walton yes uh yes

31:29 Mike Gillilan like someone could have recorded three of the songs in one studio three

31:34 Luke F. Walton good

31:34 Mike Gillilan in another uh

31:35 Luke F. Walton point different

31:36 Mike Gillilan different

31:36 Luke F. Walton producers different mixing engineers oftentimes yep

31:39 Mike Gillilan mixers all mixed um and My goal is to give it like this sense of cohesion

31:48 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh. Right.

31:49 Mike Gillilan that makes

31:50 Luke F. Walton You're not because no one else will.

31:52 Mike Gillilan everything gel better, you know,

31:56 Luke F. Walton Yep.

31:56 Mike Gillilan I don't want to like make things that are unique go away, it's just sort of about giving like a polish that brings everything together. um yeah

32:10 Luke F. Walton i mean i've been in that position as a mixer is like i i'll mix two or three of the 10 song record and just pray that the mastering engineer knows what they're doing because it's like please i don't want mine to sound totally different than everyone else's or like the low end is feels completely different in the middle of the record or something like that um it's it's a little stressful from the mixing engineer perspective yeah

32:32 Mike Gillilan yeah yeah sometimes sometimes i'll start just with gain Um,

32:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:37 Mike Gillilan like,

32:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:39 Mike Gillilan I feel like that's such an underrated tool, maybe the most important, just turning up the volume or turning it down. It's like if you're delivered 10 mixes for 10 songs from three different mixers, like just from my personal musical taste. uh i'm gonna go through and maybe turn some of them up or down a hair uh

33:11 Luke F. Walton Yes.

33:11 Mike Gillilan before i even add eq or compression uh

33:15 Luke F. Walton Totally makes sense.

33:15 Mike Gillilan so you know it's like the vocal sort of sound similar from you know they're not like just sort of bringing things making little adjustments so it sounds like everything's just more cohesive volume cohesive volume wise

33:16 Mike Gillilan just so you know it's like the vocal sort of sound similar from you know they're not like just sort of bringing things making little adjustments so it sounds like everything's

33:34 Mike Gillilan I think that's a great starting point.

33:37 Luke F. Walton I agree. And I mean, I feel the same way with mixing where it's like. before you do all the fancy stuff it's just like make sure your game staging is in like this is going into this is going into this is not all screwed up make sure that there isn't something that's blowing everybody else out make sure there isn't some rumble or weird thing in a place that is not intended to be you know just set the table for yourself before you start you know cooking or whatever make

34:00 Mike Gillilan Yeah

34:00 Luke F. Walton sure that do the easy stuff like do the do the simple foundational stuff before you end up like having to use a tool will to solve a problem you could have solved at

34:09 Mike Gillilan Yeah.

34:09 Luke F. Walton the very beginning of the stream kind of thing yeah

34:12 Mike Gillilan It's definitely a less is more. I think less is more is important with mastering. When I started, I was probably doing more. And I think that I'd like to think that I have like a producer's ear.

34:27 Mike Gillilan I mean, I make music and You know, I love all genres of music and I'm just a huge music lover and I'd like to think that some people maybe hired me with that in mind, knowing like he might add a little bit of that producer ear to it instead

34:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:54 Mike Gillilan of just doing a really clinical mastering approach.

34:59 Luke F. Walton Right.

35:02 Mike Gillilan Now I'm more landing somewhere in the middle.

35:05 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

35:05 Mike Gillilan Like I'll take a liberty if I think that I need to, but I don't want to change the sound too much.

35:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:18 Mike Gillilan So, okay, I listen through, take note of the things that I think need tweaking. And then I'll usually then pick if it's a group of songs, the first song to start on, maybe that's like the single sort of use that is a reference volume for the other tracks.

35:43 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

35:44 Mike Gillilan If I'm mastering just one single for an artist. I don't have other songs by that artist to reference by, so I'm just sort of going off of, say, trends, like, and, you know, just like genre

36:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:01 Mike Gillilan dependent,

36:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

36:03 Mike Gillilan you

36:03 Luke F. Walton genre-dependent trends, yeah.

36:05 Mike Gillilan know, like a hip hop track, I wouldn't want the master to be really quiet. I'm going to base the loudness of it off of other records that are already released as finished.

36:19 Luke F. Walton Yes.

36:20 Mike Gillilan records um so i work with like a hybrid setup that's analog and digital so i will usually first do any like corrective stuff in the computer like if there's some frequencies that are popping out uh or eqing that needs to be done uh

36:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

36:48 Mike Gillilan or de-essing uh which i don't always use but sometimes and for those who don't know de-essing is essentially compression for a very specific frequency range that correlates to the you know the s's and the

37:10 Mike Gillilan you know different people's voices have have more of a s or not and uh that doesn't always translate

37:18 Luke F. Walton squeaky acoustic guitars i just recorded a very squeaky acoustic guitar and i used ds to really tame that sucker and i'm glad

37:27 Mike Gillilan yeah

37:27 Luke F. Walton i did

37:27 Mike Gillilan de-essing de-essing works well on acoustic guitars too um you can overdo it i want i've learned that the hard way from a client telling me you know like

37:39 Mike Gillilan uh my vocals sound a little weird to me um you know so it's like that's very small frequency range uh can sound bad if it's like the way that it translates to vinyl or your phone or whatever you know it'll distort in a way that's sort of like not always flattering but

38:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:09 Mike Gillilan then sometimes it's good to leave it in as part of this part of the singer's sound maybe they want it left in uh so i'll do like corrective things first in the computer um and then i'll send send it out to my analog

38:32 Mike Gillilan chain um i want to take care of that stuff first because it's like the analog chain is what kind of makes things more flattering uh

38:43 Luke F. Walton Mm.

38:44 Mike Gillilan adds sort of like a little more depth uh maybe warmth or or a nice like sheen or polish so it's like i wouldn't want to do that and then D.S. I just

39:03 Luke F. Walton like

39:03 Mike Gillilan want to like anything that's like anything

39:05 Luke F. Walton that and

39:05 Mike Gillilan that's like a problematic I kind of want to just take care of Yeah, and the computer and then oh

39:14 Luke F. Walton sometimes those analog transistors and stuff can pull make those problems worse if you don't deal with them on the front end you can

39:21 Mike Gillilan Yeah

39:21 Luke F. Walton like run something through a bit of kit and then now it's you know blown

39:24 Mike Gillilan I

39:24 Luke F. Walton out

39:24 Mike Gillilan mean a big part of mastering Is making tracks louder? Like, I'm not going to lie, it's like probably

39:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:33 Mike Gillilan every master that I deliver is going to be at least a little bit louder than what was sent to me. That's sort of common practice, unless it's like, you know, a genre that doesn't really need that. But there is an element of wanting things to be competitive and punch.

39:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:57 Mike Gillilan Not sound weak next to the other tracks on a playlist.

40:00 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go into the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify.

40:19 Luke F. Walton Under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithm. The algorithm's all that stuff to share it out with the world.

40:28 Luke F. Walton I know that it's a lot to ask, but if you could please, please, please, just please just hit those three dots and a five star would really help us out and helps us, you know, get the get the word out and spread the love of music. So thank you. If you're listening on YouTube, you know what to do. Like, subscribe, all that good stuff. Thank you so much. And here's the rest of the episode.

40:44 Mike Gillilan Let's see. What were we just talking So about right

40:46 Luke F. Walton so

40:46 Mike Gillilan before that?

40:47 Luke F. Walton we're talking about you fix the stuff in the computer, de-essing and some

40:50 Mike Gillilan OK, yeah,

40:51 Luke F. Walton of the yeah, things yeah. when you hit the go for analog.

40:54 Mike Gillilan so if you yeah say you have something like a weird frequency or something that needs to be de-essed um if

41:04 Mike Gillilan you make it loud if you don't address that and then make the track louder like then

41:08 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

41:09 Mike Gillilan you're just going to make that louder so

41:13 Luke F. Walton Right.

41:14 Mike Gillilan it's like an artist might not hear that that stuff uh and if i don't treated or adjusted to taste like i might give them if they want a loud master they're gonna hear it hear

41:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

41:28 Mike Gillilan that

41:29 Luke F. Walton totally.

41:29 Mike Gillilan that particular micro thing that maybe someone might not notice but maybe it drives them nuts that thing is going to get made louder so it's like yeah i want to take i want to take care of that before um I add the flattering stuff in analog, you know, like, which is like, you know, light saturation, compression, EQ, limiting, sometimes clipping.

42:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I'd be curious to dig deeper into clipping,

42:06 Mike Gillilan Oh,

42:06 Luke F. Walton but we can get there.

42:07 Mike Gillilan yeah, yeah. I mean, for those who don't know, clipping is like, I mean, clipping is essentially just distorting something that I believe like if distortion is a range, a spectrum, so like saturation, soft saturation would be considered like light distortion.

42:34 Mike Gillilan And clipping could be seen as more uh of like hitting the hitting the you know more heavy distortion although there's some like soft clipping too so i shouldn't say

42:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

42:51 Mike Gillilan if

42:51 Luke F. Walton yeah,

42:52 Mike Gillilan something's

42:52 Luke F. Walton yeah.

42:52 Mike Gillilan if something's clipped it's gonna sound nasty uh but

42:59 Luke F. Walton But

42:59 Mike Gillilan Yeah.

42:59 Luke F. Walton I feel like that's that's maybe just how the most people would perceive clipping, you know, like think of clipping is like this like

43:06 Mike Gillilan If

43:06 Luke F. Walton that kind of square wave looking thing just in their stereo

43:09 Mike Gillilan someone sends me a mix that already has clipping, that means that there's like... I'm talking about digital clipping, like hitting the

43:20 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

43:20 Mike Gillilan digital ceiling of zero dB full scale of like you're at the top of the DAW, the DAW.

43:31 Luke F. Walton Yep.

43:33 Mike Gillilan So kind of like how I said, if there's an imperfection or something annoying, clipping could fall under that. It's like if there's... If there's clipping in the mix, that means I'm just going to amplify that. I won't have room

43:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:56 Mike Gillilan to sort of bring the level up without also amplifying this unpleasant sounding thing. And mastering...

44:12 Mike Gillilan clipping tends to more refer to if you're if you're using i mean you can do an analog or digital but the practice was more started in analog coming back into digital of clipping your analog to digital converters

44:35 Luke F. Walton Interesting. It's a converter thing. I didn't know that.

44:38 Mike Gillilan Yeah, I mean, yeah,

44:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah, or at least it's some of its inception. I didn't know that.

44:43 Mike Gillilan I mean, to be honest, I don't know. I'm sure that word was probably used pre-digital. But in mastering and today, I think that's what a lot of people think of. And there's a lot of like plugins now that are sort of emulating that practice. Now, what's important to understand is that not... all converters uh are

45:10 Luke F. Walton Yes,

45:10 Mike Gillilan created

45:10 Luke F. Walton totally,

45:11 Mike Gillilan equal um

45:12 Luke F. Walton totally. And they are expensive when you get up there. The converters are like a good exponential growth

45:19 Mike Gillilan they they

45:20 Luke F. Walton chart.

45:20 Mike Gillilan they do get expensive um and and mastering yeah clipping would be like i'm going to hit The converters on my capture. So it's like if I have the song in my computer, I'm

45:38 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

45:39 Mike Gillilan going to send it out to analog and then recapture it back in to digital. And that's my master more or less. So the clipping would be hitting the ceiling of the analog to digital converter on the capture. And it's a genre-dependent thing.

46:04 Luke F. Walton Okay.

46:04 Mike Gillilan And

46:04 Luke F. Walton Interesting.

46:05 Mike Gillilan it's also, like I said, I have the converters that I use can handle it well, so I can use it more liberally without having there be like inverse effects. But most converters, if you hit the ceiling, it can sound kind of nasty, you know, you start to get some. you know so

46:29 Luke F. Walton Okay, yeah.

46:30 Mike Gillilan not not so nice sounding sounds but really it's a tool it's

46:39 Luke F. Walton Right.

46:39 Mike Gillilan a tool a tool to get loudness to more transparently shave off peaks and add a little bit of soft saturation that just helps give a louder punchy or master i

46:56 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

46:56 Mike Gillilan think

46:57 Luke F. Walton Do you think

46:57 Mike Gillilan one no

46:57 Luke F. Walton that this is, oh, sorry.

46:58 Mike Gillilan no go ahead oh

47:00 Luke F. Walton Do you think that this is part of the loudness wars in terms of like, was that part of what, I know that CDs were also a big part of it and the radio stuff, but do you think the clipping A to D or going from analog back to digital was a key component of kicking off those wars?

47:19 Mike Gillilan In the modern sense, yes.

47:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah, the modern

47:22 Mike Gillilan I

47:22 Luke F. Walton sense. Okay,

47:22 Mike Gillilan feel

47:22 Luke F. Walton cool.

47:23 Mike Gillilan like loudness wars has always existed, you

47:26 Luke F. Walton That's hot

47:27 Mike Gillilan know,

47:27 Luke F. Walton take.

47:27 Mike Gillilan because

47:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:28 Mike Gillilan it's like if you put on if you throw on an LP like or a 45 from the 60s like like there are tracks there are masters from the 70s that like are as loud as loud modern masters, you know.

47:48 Mike Gillilan the loudness wars is about wanting to have a competitively loud master but i think that that's something that people have always wanted so it's like certain certain records that are older like the vinyl when you play it it's like gonna sound a little more distorted because they were pushing it for a louder master um

48:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:13 Mike Gillilan but in the modern sense the loudness wars yeah it does refer to partly to clipping your converters and trying to squeeze out as much loudness as possible to keep things competitive which

48:28 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

48:29 Mike Gillilan is sort of like this you know endless loop it's

48:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:35 Mike Gillilan like clipping in the loudness wars is sort of like a polarizing thing

48:45 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

48:46 Mike Gillilan Where some, I think some engineers will say you should not clip, don't do that, that's bad practice, you're just degrading things. I think the reality is, is that it's really genre dependent and

49:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:06 Mike Gillilan certain kinds of music, like, for example. There's something called normalizing now, which is common to sort of after the master's delivered have the streaming services adjust the volume so everything kind of sounds in the same ballpark.

49:27 Luke F. Walton Yep.

49:28 Mike Gillilan So they're saying, you know, you should deliver your music at this level because we're going to turn it down to this level if it goes over it. But the reality is...

49:41 Mike Gillilan A master that is above that level and then turned down is going to sound different than,

49:48 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

49:50 Mike Gillilan you know, one that's just sent in at the lower volume.

49:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:58 Mike Gillilan So it's like clipping, clipping is a tool to achieve transparent loudness. it's it's a useful tool i don't always do it um but i have converters that handle it nicely and It has become part of my workflow, but I don't always choose to use it.

50:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah. And I think, I mean, that's where I think the loudness wars. ultimately kind of got us to an interesting place i know that people say they're they're done and that's not true um but

50:36 Mike Gillilan Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, loudness won. It's all I think loudness is loud.

50:44 Luke F. Walton the door's

50:45 Mike Gillilan Loudness

50:45 Luke F. Walton never

50:45 Mike Gillilan is going always won in terms of like. popular music it

50:52 Luke F. Walton It sounds good.

50:53 Mike Gillilan sounds

50:53 Luke F. Walton I like loud stuff.

50:54 Mike Gillilan yeah

50:55 Luke F. Walton I don't know. Come at me, audiophiles. I like loud stuff.

51:00 Mike Gillilan i mean i i like dynamic masters too

51:03 Luke F. Walton Me too.

51:03 Mike Gillilan uh

51:03 Luke F. Walton Me

51:03 Mike Gillilan it's

51:04 Luke F. Walton too. But I like both.

51:04 Mike Gillilan all it's all good yeah it's just like you can appreciate both i

51:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

51:09 Mike Gillilan i

51:09 Luke F. Walton totally.

51:09 Mike Gillilan don't i don't like the the idea of being like You know, you should not do this.

51:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Cardinal rules.

51:17 Mike Gillilan I didn't study audio engineering in school, so my approach is like more feel based than

51:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

51:26 Mike Gillilan like, I mean, I obviously have like the audio engineering fundamentals, but I'm not.

51:37 Mike Gillilan trying to hit like this exact number and not go over that or anything like that it's like what sounds good and feels good is is what I'm going to send the client Um.

51:51 Luke F. Walton And I think that there's also the psychoacoustic element of the whole thing. What the meters read versus what it sounds like are sometimes two different things. You were talking about mid-range information and low and all these different things that are perceived differently, that are carried through on different sound systems differently.

52:08 Luke F. Walton It can really change the way that loudness is perceived beyond just like luffs or whatever, you know, true peak, whatever you want to do. I mean, it's just, it's a number versus a feeling, you know, I don't know. It

52:22 Mike Gillilan Yeah,

52:22 Luke F. Walton just,

52:23 Mike Gillilan totally,

52:23 Luke F. Walton yeah.

52:24 Mike Gillilan totally. I mean, like the metering unless is useful information, but it's not the end all be all. It's like. It's just a reference. I mean, granted, certain genres tend to fall more like

52:41 Mike Gillilan Okay. in certain areas, but like, you know, for a streaming service to say like, deliver your music at minus 14 less is kind of a little ridiculous to me because like that's

53:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:01 Mike Gillilan That's just not that might not sound right for the song

53:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:06 Mike Gillilan And then they can turn it down if normalizing is turned on and then It'll be turned down, but it'll still have the characteristic that was imparted by making a ladder master

53:21 Mike Gillilan You know, maybe which has more distortion which can come across as more excitement And that sort of thing. So yeah, loudness is an interesting thing. It's like things don't have to be loud. That is true in theory. In theory, no one could clip and music could be quieter. I don't know if that would necessarily be a better thing. There's advantages to it. I think like archival reasons, fear

54:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:07 Mike Gillilan fatigue, but like a good mastering engineer that like makes a loud master. It's not going to sound like, it shouldn't sound fatiguing. Like, I

54:23 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

54:24 Mike Gillilan feel like the best mastering engineers, like, are going to be making something that, if they're trying to deliver a loud master, they're going to do it in a way that sounds really good. Like,

54:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

54:40 Mike Gillilan it's

54:40 Luke F. Walton right.

54:40 Mike Gillilan not like, it's not just about turning up the volume. Um, making something louder is a little harder and more complicated than just doing that. And the mastering engineer is there to, to tastefully turn, make things louder in the best way possible, uh, because as you make things louder, you do get, uh, additional things like distortion.

55:11 Mike Gillilan and stuff like that so it's just about doing things tastefully and like intentionally um i think like one

55:26 Mike Gillilan thing i want to touch on too that is important with mastering is that it is like the mastering engineer is hearing the music for the first time so

55:40 Mike Gillilan I think it's really important to hand your music off to someone to have it mastered because

55:47 Luke F. Walton I agree. Very much so.

55:50 Mike Gillilan my listening environment is really, really accurate. I'm used to it. I know what music sounds like and it's very detailed. I can hear into the music things that other people might not hear.

56:11 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

56:12 Mike Gillilan And if someone's been working on a song and... for six months and

56:18 Luke F. Walton yeah they've great

56:19 Mike Gillilan been mixing it and remixing it it's really easy to to lose your perspective completely like is this even good anymore like i don't even i don't even know um

56:29 Luke F. Walton it's part of the reason why i like to work fast is because i'd like to avoid that that like you've listened to the demo 52 times and now it's time to make the real now i'm going to listen to a rough mix 52 times then i'm going to do a mix you lose yourself in it you have no more objectivity you're just like i don't know if it's good i don't know if it sounds like Sounds like crap. I don't know. It's

56:46 Mike Gillilan I

56:46 Luke F. Walton kind

56:46 Mike Gillilan try it. Yeah.

56:47 Luke F. Walton of, I guess.

56:47 Mike Gillilan I try, I try to listen to the track probably

56:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:51 Mike Gillilan the least number of times because

56:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:53 Mike Gillilan I Right. don't, I don't, and if I feel that I'm starting to lose that sense of being objective, I'll take a break.

57:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:04 Mike Gillilan But I'll hear someone's music in my studio for the first time and it's Now, easier for me, objectively, I'm not emotionally connected to the person's music.

57:16 Luke F. Walton yep

57:16 Mike Gillilan I

57:17 Luke F. Walton i

57:17 Mike Gillilan think that's important to like,

57:18 Luke F. Walton agree totally

57:19 Mike Gillilan you

57:19 Luke F. Walton that's important you need somebody down the chain that is able to look at it just like professionally exactly

57:25 Mike Gillilan know, I, I care about music greatly. I want it, I want it to sound great, but I'm not like in the band or I'm not like, you know, with the artists like.

57:39 Mike Gillilan So, I mean, some artists come in, but it gives objectivity, even though there's still elements obviously that are subjective, such as taste and

57:53 Luke F. Walton Of course.

57:53 Mike Gillilan such, but my really detailed listening environment coupled with hearing something for the first time.

58:03 Mike Gillilan um makes it you know being a room also that i'm really familiar with makes it obvious to me like straight away when i put something on like oh it sounds off like something sounds kind of off in this frequency range um you know it's just like intuitive like i'll just write that down on my notes you know um And it might not be a big tweak, like I

58:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

58:36 Mike Gillilan try not to, I try not to make big moves like, you know, half a dB is like a good practice,

58:46 Luke F. Walton yeah

58:46 Mike Gillilan you know, if something needs to be cut or boosted, maybe less frequently one dB.

58:57 Mike Gillilan If it's a situation where I'm putting the producer hat on a little bit more because that's sort of like what's what I'm getting from the artist that they want that maybe I'll maybe I'll go above that. But if I get like a great sounding mix, I don't want to mess it up. So I'm making small, small moves.

59:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

59:24 Mike Gillilan that like subtly almost felt the music it's like

59:32 Luke F. Walton tilt i like the that's a good word for it tilt the music yeah

59:35 Mike Gillilan it's like if you want your music to translate to come out of the speakers and sound like a record you know people will be like why isn't my I don't get it like why doesn't it sound like an album And sometimes it really is just like a super subtle tweak, like that helps the music over into sounding like a record, you know,

60:05 Luke F. Walton Yes.

60:06 Mike Gillilan whether that's adding just a tiny bit of limiting or some EQ just to help. like the vocals or the important elements you know make sure they're front and center and or

60:27 Mike Gillilan if it's like beat based music you know adding just a little bit of punch if it needs it um yeah it's a it's like a tilt a tilt and into the realm of like This is not quite done. I'm going to make the

60:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

60:48 Mike Gillilan minimum amount of adjustments necessary to make it sound done and then I'll send it to them and then, you know, they might ask me to change some things. That's like common, you know, if I'm lucky, they'll say, hey, that sounds great. You know, how do I pay you,

61:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

61:13 Mike Gillilan you

61:14 Luke F. Walton exactly.

61:14 Mike Gillilan know, and I don't have to go back, but it's common to go back and make some tweaks, do some revisions, that's common, and then when it gets to a place that sounds done, it's, you know, that product will then... Translate to the streaming platforms like CDs, LPs, just better.

61:47 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes. And I think all of those just like tweaks and stuff help artists get that elusive sound of it sounds like a record. It sounds like it.

62:00 Luke F. Walton deserves to be in the marketplace or up against my heroes that was always the hardest thing and i you know i've closed that gap a little bit um but that that's one of the hardest things is like a home producer or whatever is to get get over there and mastering engineers are invaluable um

62:16 Mike Gillilan Yeah,

62:16 Luke F. Walton part of

62:17 Mike Gillilan I

62:17 Luke F. Walton that

62:17 Mike Gillilan mean,

62:17 Luke F. Walton but

62:17 Mike Gillilan that's partly their expertise, but I think really a big part of it is like just having that. um more

62:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:26 Mike Gillilan more neutral uh objective like like if you're a big artist um you know you're you're gonna want to you need to trust the mastering engineer that's

62:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

62:43 Mike Gillilan another big part of it it's like it's having a relationship of trust that i know that this person is going to do what they need to do uh Not mess it up. Hopefully make it better.

62:57 Mike Gillilan And I can have my faith that that's going to happen without getting all worried.

63:02 Luke F. Walton Yes, exactly. Okay.

63:06 Mike Gillilan Oh, go ahead.

63:06 Luke F. Walton I just want to ask you one last question. This is usually how we kind of close the pod

63:11 Mike Gillilan Oh,

63:11 Luke F. Walton is,

63:11 Mike Gillilan let's do it.

63:12 Luke F. Walton so the show's called Love Music More. This is Love Music Why. And it just is a moment for me to kind of ask you like, why did you choose this? Why do you continue to choose this? Why do you wake up every morning and go, I'm excited to master, I'm excited to work on music. What keeps drawing you back to it? What's the why behind what you do?

63:32 Mike Gillilan I think the why has always just been a feeling like being excited by sound, being able to express myself through sound and mastering, I think the why is because I get to help other artists bring their vision.

63:53 Mike Gillilan to a to a point where it's going to resonate with other people uh more you know connect

64:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

64:00 Mike Gillilan i want people to connect to the music um and i like connecting to music and it fascinates sound fascinates me but just as much so like connecting with the music on a you know um maybe a spiritual level even uh

64:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

64:24 Mike Gillilan is like i love music and i want to help other people uh with their music because i because i love it and i want to share that

64:38 Luke F. Walton I love it. Me too. No, and it's a beautiful thing. I think that the thing I'm most jealous of mastering engineers is the sheer volume of music that you're able to touch and put your imprint on is remarkable to be like, hey, here's 10 songs. It's like, okay, great. I'll get on it.

64:53 Luke F. Walton It's like, that's awesome to say, hey, mix 10 songs for me or produce 10 songs. It's like, oh, God, okay, you want me to like clean out the month, you know?

65:00 Mike Gillilan Yeah, that sounds scary to me.

65:03 Luke F. Walton You know? it's really cool and and i i do think that um you get to share that that you know love of music and and make a bunch of things sound like sound like you across a bunch of different genres i think that's a really cool thing

65:14 Mike Gillilan Yeah,

65:14 Luke F. Walton and and i think

65:15 Mike Gillilan yeah.

65:15 Luke F. Walton i think admiral

65:15 Mike Gillilan It's

65:15 Luke F. Walton kirk is cool

65:16 Mike Gillilan about the artist. It's not about me.

65:17 Luke F. Walton yes

65:18 Mike Gillilan I just want to help make sure that the artist is coming through and that, you know, people can feel what they're trying to convey. So I'm just like a piece in their process. I'll, you know, bless the music and

65:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

65:38 Mike Gillilan release it, but it's not my music.

65:42 Luke F. Walton But you're part of it, you know, and I think that's a unique blend, you know, and being able to take your taste and your intuition and add that to somebody else's product is like, I don't know, that's just a really cool, cool thing to do and a cool thing for both sides.

65:57 Mike Gillilan Yeah.

65:57 Luke F. Walton How can people reach out to you? How can they book you?

66:01 Mike Gillilan What would be the best way? You can find me on Instagram at giltone mastering. You can book me just through direct message on there.

66:10 Mike Gillilan Cool. My email is mike at giltone mastering.com. My website is giltone mastering.com. Yeah. Anyone, if you're interested, just reach out and I'll get back to you and we'll start the conversation.

66:29 Luke F. Walton Love it. Awesome. I hope they do. Anyway, great, great chatting with you. That was super, super fun. Have a great rest of your day.

66:37 Mike Gillilan Thanks. Thanks so much for having me Scoob. Really appreciate it.