Mastering Music with Science and Simplicity | Sam Fischmann, CEO and Co-Founder of Musik Hack

0:00 SPEAKER_00: What's up, Ohio? She Shreds with Rassanne. And I am super stoked today. I have somebody who is an industry expert with me who we're going to talk to about really cool products that he has for mixing and mastering for all of you musicians out there who are recording and putting together your own music. So I'm super excited. Sam Fishman, CEO and founder of Music Hack. Hello. Sam, thanks so much for joining me.

0:26 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure. Glad to be here.

0:28 SPEAKER_00: So if anybody is not familiar with Music Hack, they have some products that helps with mixing and mastering. And they create audio plugins that are designed for maximum ease of use and a no-compromise approach to professional quality. And they're the makers of the Master Plan, Fuel, and Sweet EQ.

0:48 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. That. And we've we've recently released an online mastering service called Hi-Fi and uses the same kind of processing as Master Plan, but it's it's made so you can kind of just sort of drag and drop a track if you don't have access to a DAW or or whatever it is you're doing.

1:07 SPEAKER_00: Okay. All right. Nice. And I know that you are uh pretty well versed in talking about the mastering part. So we can uh look at that and go into the product that you have. I know a few of them you said that they can kind of work for kind of interchangeably, if if that sounds correct. I mean, I'm not a tech person, but um, before we get into that, why music hack? What made you form Music Hack? What was behind that idea?

1:36 SPEAKER_02: So I was a programmer. I I went to school for music, did a whole bunch of stuff, and then I was a programmer just working in a completely different industry. Uh, it's called embedded systems, but it's basically like the computer chips that are inside of cars and airplanes and stuff like this. But I wasn't really interested in it that much. I just was kind of doing it for a job. And then, like many people, when COVID hit, I reassessed what I was doing with my life and was like, wait a minute. Like I spent all this time in music, and then I have this career that's totally unrelated, but could be related.

2:09 SPEAKER_02: And so I drew the two together, started doing a whole bunch of research and, you know, applying all of this skills that I had learned working for a different industry to music software. And I met Stan Green, who's my business partner, who's a mixing engineer that had worked with some, he's just like one of these top names, and he's worked with some really, really, really big artists and people, and we got along really well. And the first thing that we worked on was Master Plan, because he had a series of things he was doing when mastering that he was like, we can turn this into a product and it will sell because it makes the audio sound great.

2:43 SPEAKER_02: And so we worked on that for about a year and then released it and founded Music Hack to release Master Plan through and then made kept making products after that.

2:52 SPEAKER_00: Okay. Did you find that there was a lot of competition out there when you released the master plan?

2:57 SPEAKER_02: There's a ton. There's like a lot of stuff, and it's a very crowded, it's just a crowded industry. There's a lot of stuff out there because there's just a lot of things you have to do as a musician or a mixer or a mastering engineer. There's different opinions about what does and doesn't work. And, you know, we wanted to make something that would cut through the noise and not not tell people they weren't good enough. I think that that's something that we really dislike. And so we wanted to make tools that the way that they stood out was that they took something that was very stodgy and pretended to be some kind of black magic and say, like, it isn't really, it isn't really like you can do these things.

3:35 SPEAKER_02: We all we have to do is if we do the hard work to kind of rearrange the way that the audio processing works and give you knobs that tell you a lot more about what it's gonna do to the audio directly instead of describing an electric circuit, then that would make a lot more sense to people. Yeah. And so, you know, as crowded as it is, we knew what our job was. Uh so you know, I think we're doing a pretty good job of making a name for ourselves that way. In the in the mess.

3:59 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's you're right. It's it's very crowded with just all kinds of things out there right now. And uh it's nice to be able to talk about something that is not AI related. This is something, you know, uh a tangible product that you can get. So can you explain a little bit about the master plan?

4:18 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh basically one one of the problems I think with with uh mastering is is this mystique, but it's also this obsession with analog is good as opposed to analog is a is is like a flavor. And not only that, as the years have passed by, digital stuff has gotten more and more able to do the things that uh make people like what what analog gear sounds like, which in turn makes stuff much more accessible to people, you know, that felt kind of out of the loop because all this gear was complicated and expensive, and it didn't, doesn't really need to be.

4:53 SPEAKER_02: So I guess the experience behind it is that Stan used to work for a big pop studio, hip-hop, pop, RB, rock, all this stuff in LA called Larrabee Studios. Um, and so some big names kind of came out of there Jason Joshua, Manny Merricken, that's who Stan was interning under, worked under, and like built up all his stuff. And this is one of these big studios that has all this really expensive stuff for mixing and mastering, like all this crazy gear. And he learned when working there that uh essentially, like any business, this has become a factory for doing what it does well, right?

5:27 SPEAKER_02: So despite having all this gear, there was this kind of a standard process that you would go through when you mastered a track. It's not to say that they didn't, you know, do little tweaks, but the analog part of it, the part that supposedly needs all this expensive gear, was almost exactly the same every single time. And then they would tweak it digitally. So when he left that job, like he knew he was gonna leave it, he spent a long time with all the stuff he could get digitally. Uh, we're called this in the box or on your computer, right?

5:55 SPEAKER_02: And his whole thing was like, how do I get the same sound as I'm getting at this big studio, but you know, using whatever plugins are available to me digitally, so that when he took his business and made his own business, he could um he could replicate that sound without having to buy an insane amount of gear and be like some rich dude. So so he did that. And it his music sound, I mean the music that comes through his his uh his studio, architect tells really, really great. He's got some big hits under his name.

6:23 SPEAKER_02: And so basically what we were gonna do is distill that into a product that kind of put all that knowledge together, right? And that's what master plan became. So there's these these general things you want to do when you're when you're doing a master. And I think it's been clouded by A, the mystique, and B, just like people trying to sell you stuff. And I'm not gonna lie, like business, like I'm trying to sell stuff, but like honestly, most of the stuff out there is just like whatever. You could use one of many tools to get what you want.

6:54 SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I believe I'm making the best thing for you, but you know, it's music is is a lot about your vision and your taste. And those are things that I cannot, I cannot make, I cannot replace. I can give you what I think is the best uh tool for for uh executing those things. But if whatever ergonomics I have uh isn't right for you, you're gonna pick something up. It's the same as a guitar, right? I bet your listening audience has like, there's like you pick 10 different people, they'll have 10 different opinions about what guitar and whatever to use or how to mic it.

7:23 SPEAKER_02: Like there's no right answer to this stuff in some way. But I think I've put together something that can get you to all of these different things you need. So when you're mastering, uh kind of the most important thing is uh to know to know what you want out of it. And almost everybody, what they want out of it is to make the music sound kind of louder and more expansive without changing anything about how they've uh mixed it and produced it up to this point. Because at mastering, that's the very last part of the stage, and your job is to make sure that it sounds good on everything.

7:53 SPEAKER_02: Like in a car, you might hear that some part of it's missing. I mean, your poor bassist is gonna be pissed off all the time anyway, because one of two things is gonna happen. Either it's gonna totally just appear in a car. Say again.

8:04 SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty of that, having my bass turned way up.

8:07 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, no, it's it that's the thing, is like in a car, you really only have two scenarios. One, you turn the bass all the way up, but your car is really just gonna play like it's just gonna resonate at some note that's the same all the time. Or the opposite, you don't do that and you can't hear the bass at all. So, like, part of what people are doing when they're mastering, and sometimes it's impossible. So just make sure that the mix sounds good on as many systems as possible. And a lot of times listeners are listening on jam boxes, you know, those little Bluetooth listening boxes in your car.

8:36 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which is that don't have the best sound systems. And it has to sound good on a great sound system, but it's got to sound good in a car and on a jam box too, because guess what? Like that's you know, a cookout, like things outside, like people want to feel the impact of your music no matter where they are, right? So in mastering, it's about let's get that music up to a loud listening level without removing the impact of what's there, and then also just make it make it just it's you know, it's like getting the right amount of salt on something, right?

9:05 SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of what we're trying to help you do. Uh but there's a lot of stuff out there that tries to do a lot more. And at the mastering states, that's not really something you should be doing because you kind of take something that you really like and then you just start messing with it too much, and you know, okay. And it's trying to change the EQ a lot or like really changes the feeling of what you're listening to by making it kind of breathe differently or suck in and out, you're doing too much.

9:30 SPEAKER_02: You know, you just let's let's take what you got and let's make it the car's washed, let's wax it, you know. Like that's kind of the deal.

9:38 SPEAKER_00: Well, and and just hearing you how you explain it, I mean, it's no wonder that uh, you know, you have studio engineers and a large variety of all kinds of ways that you can mix and record music because some people probably approach it as a science, and some people just try to go at it naturally, but with a lot of like a million different variations in between. So huge, very vast.

10:03 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. And and I think that's a really good point you bring up about the science versus the vibe. I know everyone's tired of the word vibe. So we'll do the science versus like the feeling of it. And I'm a very, very like, I write software. So my instinct is always the scientific stuff. And that's why it's really good that I'm I'm not just making these products for myself. I'm making it with a really greatly experienced mixing and mastering engineer. And what that does is I can attack things from the scientific angle for like, ah, this is theoretically the purest, best way of doing this.

10:34 SPEAKER_02: And he can say, like, yeah, but it's not useful. And then we just throw it away. Or on the other end, he can say, like, I really like the way this sounds, but it'll be like, okay, but there's all these scenarios where it will fall apart, like if you have a base heavy passage or whatever. And then we can solve these problems together and get the best of both worlds. Because, you know, there are many tools out there that can do great work, but they just have these really bad weak points. And so, you know, we want something that we can make that will that will, you know, that will give the most amount of people the best sound with the least fuss, you know?

11:06 SPEAKER_02: It's just there's so much stuff that you can do that is not robust. So we're trying to help with that.

11:12 SPEAKER_00: It's cool too. You know, it sounds like you guys balance each other out because you have, you know, one end, you know, both ends of the spectrum, and you're able to kind of, you know, come together and and talk about that and and you know, say why it would work or why it wouldn't. Would you say it would be pretty scary out there if nobody looked at mixing and recording, mastering without uh the science behind it?

11:35 SPEAKER_02: Knowing. So I think it's really hard because in in my opinion, uh mastering is important for that kind of translatability step. And, you know, obviously I I think it's important to want to help people do that thing that makes their music sound like live and radio ready, but it's not as important as the composition, it's not as important as the production, it's not as important as the mixing. And I think a lot of the problems with mastering have to do with uh people creating fake problems and selling them to you.

12:07 SPEAKER_02: And and in that respect, the scientific aspect of it has been harmful because it's very easy to to look at a theoretical mathematical problem and then say, look at this, look at this problem, you're doing this wrong, and then sell someone a solution to it when nobody could have heard the difference to begin with. And in some cases, you're asking them to do something that's complicated and difficult and won't benefit and might even harm the sound of your music. And um so, you know, part of me wants to say that the scientific angle of it and all that stuff is useful for the toolmakers to make tools better and more responsive and easier with like better ergonomics so that they just feel right.

12:50 SPEAKER_02: That that's good. But I think when people that are making music try to approach from a scientific side, the opposite can happen, where instead cynical people can take advantage of you and say, you need to do this now, but you don't have the tool to do this. And so blah, blah, blah. Think of like a like Gordon Ramsey or some kind of chef selling you a pan that you don't need. You know what would help a lot more? Like cooking 30 steaks over the course of a month until you get it. Like the pan you use isn't going to start to matter until all that other stuff you start to understand.

13:22 SPEAKER_02: So it's it's hard. And it puts me in a weird position here because, again, I make tools, right? Like I should be doing the opposite thing. But I really do think that it's it's tricky because artists will always do art the best, and science or engineering people always do engineering the best. And the trick is to work together to come out with something really good rather than it is for people to overstep. As soon as an engineering type person starts to insist that they know how to make better art, and as soon as an artist steps around trying to say that they know how to engineering something better, you start to get it into a little bit of trouble, which isn't to say we shouldn't try to understand each other, but we shouldn't, you know what I mean?

13:58 SPEAKER_00: Like there's You might just think I was thinking in your own lane.

14:00 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like not completely. Like you've got to try to understand each other. You're you're totally right, though. Once you get out of that lane, you can start to harm yourself by insisting on something that you might not know enough about to get the the full picture. And that's really hard. It's also true that some engineers are terrible too. I mean, every discipline has people that know what they're talking about and people that don't. But like focus on what you really perceive when you're working with the sound.

14:24 SPEAKER_02: If it sounds not better to you or not good, it literally does not matter what anybody tells you. Don't use it. Like it's just if it sounds worse, don't use it, you know.

14:35 SPEAKER_00: So it all comes down to common sense in the end.

14:37 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it comes down to common sense in your taste. I uh, you know, the other thing is your taste really does matter and you have to have confidence in it. And if you don't, that's going to allow people to tell you what to do. And then you end up in a trap where you buy stuff you don't need or listen to people that just have a perspective that's not helping you make the art that you want to make. And so that's why I'm trying to make stuff that like isn't trying to tell you what you have to do. It's just trying to make it easier for you to get to this, you know, this this thing that most people want at this stage in the music production.

15:06 SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, I'm not saying too many words here, but yeah.

15:08 SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.

15:10 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

15:10 SPEAKER_00: What kind of feedback did you receive from customers when you did come out with master plan?

15:16 SPEAKER_02: So we're sitting in this middle space, and everyone's like, who is this for? You know, because people essentially were looking for one of two different tools. There's the very heavy knob tweaky tools, and those tools appeal to people that love to have a lot of control over very detailed things. And and either they know what they're doing or they don't. No judgment on there. And again, like I'm a very engineering type person, so I love all the knobs, right? Because then I'm like, ooh, I got this.

15:44 SPEAKER_02: And we weren't for that because we don't have a million knobs for everything. And then there's people who want like one knob. And one knob people are like, I just want the thing that does the thing. Let me turn the one knob, right? And and people didn't know what to think of Master Plan because it was kind of this in-between ground. Because what we're trying to do is give people only the expressive tools. Like, and this is very hard to do. Great example of this is guitar pedals. They have they have a they have a very specific purpose.

16:14 SPEAKER_02: Good ones only have a few controls and they're legendary. The really legendary ones don't have 32 knobs on them, they've got four or two. Oh, right? An on-off switch. Say again. I said that would be pretty scary. Yeah, it'd be scary and intimidating. And that intimidating thing about gear with the with the kind of airplane cockpit thing, it does help some people who really want to have a lot of control. But to some people, it scares them into thinking that they don't know enough about what they're doing, that they need to buy this thing and and like tweak it all.

16:47 SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, like you, first of all, you don't need to do that. And second of all, it's not that the gear is lying to you. It's that there are some people that really love this and like this is what they're obsessed with. Sometimes more than the sound of the music being what they want, just the ability to tweak it in all these detailed ways and be an expert. Which I understand because I like to be an expert in sound too. That's what I do all day long. It's just instead of knobs, I'm writing computer code.

17:12 SPEAKER_02: So the feedback that we got when we originally did Master Plan was let's see, there's no true peak limiting, which we'll get to. There's either not enough or too many knobs.

17:23 SPEAKER_03: Okay.

17:24 SPEAKER_02: And what else did we get? There's not enough meter, like meters showing you things about the sound.

17:30 SPEAKER_03: Okay.

17:30 SPEAKER_02: Those are the three main, those are the three main things. I'm proud of where we got to with the knobs because I think we did a really good job, given how much you may want to do at this stage, just showing you what you kind of need to do, which is tiny EQ fixes, trying to push up the loudness without messing up the sound and giving a little bit of extra width to the sound in if you want that kind of expansive, like 3D feel. And then all the lines of buttons at the bottom are just to solve very particular problems that you shouldn't put on everything.

17:59 SPEAKER_02: They're just there if you hear something very subtle that you want to clean up. I think in probably the most useful button, useful two buttons down there for hard rock, hardcore, metal, those kinds of genres would probably be clean because you can get kind of a buildup of muddiness in the low, like above the bass, but like, you know, low mids that can happen during the mixing stage because that uh frequency range is really important for impact. Like if you're trying to get the key to just poke through a little bit and all these other things, but but you can get too much energy buildup on there from the guitars and the high range of the bass, and it can make it sound what people describe as muddy.

18:38 SPEAKER_02: So we have a you know, a little button for that. And then maybe calm, because when you do a lot of the inbox mixing and you have a lot of bright sounds, that can start to build up. So a way to kind of carve out a little bit of that energy so the sound doesn't sound harsh in the ears. You know, if you've got like a high mid-sounding, like a particular type of guitar sounds, and you're smashing on cymbals and like someone's screaming, a lot of energy can build up in the high range, especially as each participant in the band wants their part to be heard.

19:11 SPEAKER_02: If you could dial it up too much overall in the mix, you might just want to like just give it a little bit of a, you know, just let's calm it down a little bit so that we can listen at a louder volume without it hurting our ears, right? Okay. Loud genres want to be heard loud, but when you do that, we have to be uh cognizant of what happens when we listen to loud music for a long period of time. And so, you know, calming it down a little bit is sometimes a good idea. But you don't need it for everything, you know, you don't need to use every tool for every job.

19:41 SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, I don't know. Yeah, it's just everything gets a little bit crazy and messy.

19:46 SPEAKER_00: Well, like you said, you know, just because you, you know, you have all those options there doesn't mean you have to use every single one every single time.

19:52 SPEAKER_02: What's this thing? Uh just because you can doesn't mean you should.

19:56 SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean you should.

19:57 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. It's an oldie but goodie.

20:00 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely. Well, speaking of oldies, I was checking out the blog that you wrote in July about superstition and where you were doing kind of some myth busting on rituals. And it was really interesting, um, especially for somebody, say, from my perspective, to, you know, read the examples. And there was some science behind those, behind the mythbusters. And when you hear the science, it completely made sense on why people for all these years believed these myths. What led you down that path, that that blog, in talking about some of the superstitions?

20:36 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that one's I really just I care about a positive message that tells people to focus on their taste and what they're looking for in music. And a lot of noise around stuff is just telling people that they should be scared of various problems and what to do. And in doing that, lots of things have come up that people have confused because of these marketing messages. This might have to do with terms that listeners might think of in terms of like, again, there's the true peaks, dithering is another topic that's misunderstood, influencers trying to get attention by talking about word clocks and bit depths and all sorts of crazy things.

21:12 SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I'm not talking about, you know, wearing a certain pair of socks when you go on stage or whatever. Like these are helpful superstitions, or we don't even need to call them superstitions. That's such a negative word. They're helpful like they're they psych you up, they're helpful like rituals, they get your message. You know what I mean? I those things are like I'm not coming after that at all. I'm coming after things like insisting that, you know, you need to dither something before converting it to an MP3, or like I need to hit some particular number before I go to a Spotify or Apple, Apple Music, or you know, these things that are based on what sounds like something technical, but they aren't, and then they just get kind of repeated by word of mouth.

21:56 SPEAKER_02: And what bothered me is a lot of these things start up as marketing. Marketing or misunderstanding sometimes of a technical paper, but usually that's marketing someone has cynically used to misquote a technical paper and scare everybody into thinking they need something. And then they get repeated without people thinking, right? And it and it's it's sort of similar to like, I think some of the examples I was using in the real world was like, well, I can use one that everyone knows, it's bloodletting, right?

22:24 SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean? They didn't really weren't able to really prove that that worked. And it actually, you know, made people sicker, but doctors were just repeating it to each other, and the public was like, well, the doctors are saying, and then everyone repeats it. And it just becomes true by virtue of people saying it. And that's really harmful towards. Well, in the medical science, it was harmful towards progress. I don't believe in progress when it comes to music, but I do believe that you can, again, scare people into things that don't help them.

22:50 SPEAKER_02: And so I want, I wanted people to be in a mindset where you recognize that some things that you swear by might not be necessary. And to and to just, it's okay to not know why something worked and come back to it later when you might have a better understanding. Rather than insist that like you needed to buy something and other people need to buy something, and you know so much about X, Y, and Z, it's okay to be like, there was a ghost in the machine, something wasn't feeling or sounding right. I did this thing to fix it.

23:20 SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure why. I'll come back to it later. Like, take a minute, and it's okay if that's wrong. And I'll tell you, as a as the guy that makes stuff that's supposed to sound good, this happens to me all the time. And rather than just be like, oh, I know why, I'll go do some deep research until I understand it better before I go out and tell other people. It's even okay to hold on to something for yourself for a bit, but I just really don't like that effect where, you know, the lie spreads halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on.

23:54 SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so that's what I'm trying to remind people like, just hold on a minute. Yeah, that's why I wanted to write that article. And I'm happy to give specific examples of why, of a specific myth, if you'd like me to in audio.

24:08 SPEAKER_00: Yes. I would like, I was really interested in the ice cream story that you shared.

24:12 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So this is this isn't about audio, but it's a real engineering problem in cars. And it became famous in sort of nerd communities. And it's kind of one of those stories where it's it's lore at this point. So we don't really know the details of the story in reality. But there's a famous uh university for people in computer engineering called Carnegie Mellon, and it's kind of it's kind of immortalized there, but it was told to me in a slightly different way because, you know, whatever. But essentially, this is about cars.

24:41 SPEAKER_02: And there was this guy that had, I think it was a Pontiac, and I guess his family, they had this ritual where after dinner they would vote on an ice cream flavor, and then he'd drive out to the store, buy the ice cream flavor, and go back home and they'd all eat dessert. And he had this problem where if he bought vanilla ice cream, the car would not start. And he was insisting that this was the problem, that like some somehow the vanilla ice cream, the car knew he was getting the vanilla ice cream and it wouldn't, and the car wouldn't start.

25:08 SPEAKER_02: And they couldn't figure out why. And eventually, you know, a mechanical engineer came down and was trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and they figured out that the vanilla ice cream was essentially always on sale at the front of the store because it's such a common flavor. But if he had to get something more complicated, he'd walk to the back of the store, he had to find the different kinds of ice cream, and then he had to, you know, walk to the front of the store, buy it, all this stuff like this.

25:30 SPEAKER_02: And the real difference was the amount of time it took for this person to leave the car, turn off the car, and turn it back on again. And there's a real phenomenon called vapor lock, which was a problem in older cars. And I don't understand much about it because I'm not a mechanic. But if the car was at a certain heat level, this problem would cause them to not be able to start correctly. And since this guy was in a cold climate, you know, there was the the amount of time for him to do this extra time that allowed the car to cool down enough, or this wasn't a problem.

26:00 SPEAKER_02: Now, again, this may be a story that was made up around the phenomenon. So it's kind of like I don't know if it's true or not, but it's one of those examples of it's still repeated. Say again. It's still repeated. Yeah, it's still repeated. There is some way, sometimes you think that you figured something out, but it just happens to correlate with the reality. In the reality, it was just the amount of time between when you turn your car off and turn your car on again matters because of this problem with the car.

26:27 SPEAKER_02: But the only time that happened in your real life is when you went and bought ice cream. So you are associating with the ice cream. This happens in audio all the time. And so it's just like think about how crazy that is. You might end up in this crazy situation, and it's not your fault. Unless you build cars or engines, you would have no idea why that's the case. And and there are things in audio that are like this. And so I was just using that as an example because it's a common engineering example that we get as engineering nerds, and and and uh it's just kind of told to us as part of a rite of passage.

26:59 SPEAKER_02: Everyone has their stories. Like in music, there's the brown MMs, uh, the brown MM writer for what was the band? Damn it, I can't remember.

27:06 SPEAKER_00: You've heard a few stories where they they request certain colors of MMMs.

27:10 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it all comes from one story. I can't remember the band. It's it's right in mind, but the whole point is if they get that wrong, what else did they get wrong? It's not that they care a lot about brown MMs, but the point is like, you know, this this sort of phenomenon happens in different ways. That's a little different because it's like, all right, it's done on purpose. But the point is it's a type of story that's that's built up like this one. But there are real ones too. Bloodletting is is an example, you know.

27:34 SPEAKER_00: Yes. And bloodletting, you know, has historically caused uh some divisions because, you know, that the term redneck came from that also. I did not know that. It did, yeah, because they were red, and so they would bloodlett, thinking that they had too much blood.

27:53 SPEAKER_02: Wow. I I did not know that. Yeah. But in terms of illness, in terms of illness, it doesn't uh it's more likely to harm you, I think, from a medical perspective.

28:03 SPEAKER_03: Yes.

28:03 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There may be other reasons people did it, and I'm sure I think that there's still like one or two medical procedures where there are problems with blood, and leeches may be the best example, but not like you have malaria. Yeah. Yeah. Not gonna help.

28:17 SPEAKER_00: It it um I'm always astounded in learning what they what they did, you know, in the past centuries for medical procedures because they just went based off of they just didn't have enough experience in uh we have to learn, you know, the medical training wasn't there. They had to learn, right? They yeah. Very elementary type learning. So, what would you say are some things that uh musicians should think of? Say when they're coming to they're starting to, you know, put together some songs and EPs and they're ready to record.

28:52 SPEAKER_00: What kind of advice would you give to them for things that they should have an ear out for?

28:57 SPEAKER_02: So I'm not as well versed in the in the recording uh process because there's a lot of stuff there. But I think I think that your stuff does matter. Like you get, you kind of get your basic skills and and tips about like, all right, like what is what is like the way that engineers tend to do microphone placement? What's the difference between recording directly in to an interface or console versus using a, you know, like in a direct box versus amping uh micing an amp and all these other things? But a lot of times there isn't like a right, a right answer, and you don't need a particular piece of gear.

29:30 SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of the most legendary albums are not recorded in the best rooms with the best equipment. In fact, a lot of them weren't because the artists weren't known at the time where the thing that they were making was so unique that no one wanted to take a risk on them and give them a ton of money to use a fancy studio. Like your songwriting and your taste and your ability to connect with other people matters a lot more than the quality of the gear that you are working with to begin with. And I think basic tips from people that work in studios are a really good way to learn.

30:00 SPEAKER_02: YouTube has a bunch of stuff, but it's really the basics that matter the most and kind of getting those down rather than the quality of the gear that you have. And then you can, then you once you kind of get that down, you can you can try different stuff. I do a lot of in-the-box stuff, meaning things in the computer. And I I I don't spend a lot of time in in in raw. I'm most of your audience is like rock and metal. Yes. Yes. And like I think that there are there are more potentially dangerous things in that because of the high levels of electricity between the cab and the amp and stuff like that.

30:33 SPEAKER_02: Like those things, it's just like you guys probably already have them right, but those things matter a lot, you know, because you don't want to start a fire by using like a crappy instrument cable between the cab and the amp. Just like, oh, I can't carry the electrical load and things like that, right?

30:45 SPEAKER_00: But like Although they although let me say they could probably just, you know, say it was pyrotechnics. So Yeah, if that's true.

30:53 SPEAKER_02: Except for who would hear the guitar after that. Uh anyway. Yeah. That would be pretty sick, actually, to do it on purpose in a controlled way.

30:59 SPEAKER_00: Be like, oh my god, yeah, they probably make some really good content out of that.

31:02 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the lab be like, it just like freaking sets fire to it. Yeah.

31:07 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

31:08 SPEAKER_02: Not safe. Please don't do that. Like, this is not a good idea. It is not safe. Yes. I am not advocating for this. Yeah, no. But like, yeah, basic, the basic techniques of that kind of stuff, which I'm not an expert in, but focusing on that's really important. And then, you know, there's a lot of things where you'll start to get into the religion of various uh detailed topics. And what you'll find is different people have different religions. I uh, you know, drum micing is a good example. And those religions actually don't matter because people have different ones and they're they're effective, right?

31:42 SPEAKER_02: So what's more important is picking a path that you can stick with and get better at, because if you keep changing your mind all the time, you won't be able, you won't be able to improve at your craft, right? So if you kind of pick one that seems to make sense to you and you and you use it and kind of try different things within someone's framework, that's that's a good way to start. But the most important part we all know of making music is like making a cool song, you know? Like if you don't have a cool song, like it kind of because that's that's not saying I can help you help you do, but don't get distracted by all the gear stuff yet.

32:17 SPEAKER_00: Then okay. I think that is probably Sam. I think that is a really good point that you said. Just don't get distracted by all of the gear because, like you said, there's so many things out there coming. I feel sorry for the the musicians um out there just because of all the products that are out there, and uh that could take you off course instead of you know you being able to stay focused.

32:40 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like finding something you love to work with is what it's about. You know what I mean? It's like it's like anything else, you know, it's not like, oh, this one, you know, guitar like it was the example with the guitars. You know what I mean? Like no one's right about what the best one is. Like you find, you find your baby and then you take care of it. And it becomes your ability to express increases as you play that thing because you just you pick it up and you know how to move it, you know how to work with it, right?

33:12 SPEAKER_02: And the same is true for any tool, any tool at all. And so sometimes it's like what will make you sound better is committed because once you once you feel something and understand it, you stop thinking about how to use it and you are more your mental space is taken up by more how to express yourself through it, right? And um that's the big deal, right? It doesn't mean you'll never find a guitar that you'll like more, but it does mean focusing on your ability to grow with something and express yourself through it will help you understand how to do that and will remove that from what's going on in here.

33:49 SPEAKER_02: You can only do so much in here at once, believe me. Everyone eventually gets a headache or or throws something down in frustration. We all do. So not even having to think about that and just flowing through it is kind of where you want to get. And the more your gear gets in the way of that, the worse it is, no matter what it is you're using or how high quality it is. If it's getting in the way, find something that isn't. I think that's my two cents. There, there is better gear for you. It just doesn't mean it's better for everyone.

34:17 SPEAKER_02: And your job is to find something that gets out of the way and basically disappears while you're making your music. If you find that, keep using it.

34:26 SPEAKER_00: I think that is really solid advice, actually, just you know, because like I said, all there's just too many things out there these days. So, you know, to get started, a DIY band or something like that, it can be very easily too many, I guess, rabbit holes that you know they can through marketing and and all that, instead of just finding yourself, what works for you and knowing why it works for you.

34:49 SPEAKER_02: Right. So I will say that's why we focus on kind of the sound ergonomics. That's like a big weird word, but for me, like just the feel of using something so that we think the most amount of people can get to that state where like, I don't have to think about it. Loud makes it louder, wide makes it wider, high makes the high pits go up. You know, like let's focus on how does it, how do we make it easy for people to get what they want and have it sound great? Like, let's take care of the weird problems that crop up if you don't do these detailed things under the hood, so that you know, the tool can disappear.

35:20 SPEAKER_02: That's our job too. So that's why I'm saying this. We try to make things that that help you do that, but if you try to do it and it gets in your way, like knob twiddler uh minds, to them, they might need the knobs in order to make them feel that comfort level that then allows them to forget the tool because it's they still get to that point. Everyone needs something different.

35:43 SPEAKER_00: Makes sense. I would probably pass out if somebody's taken me into a recording studio and had me stand behind the soundboard with a thousand knobs and all the volumes and adjustments and things like that. I mean, just looking at it uh gives me an anxiety attack sometimes. Yeah. So kudos kudos to the sound engineers.

36:03 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. And to bring and to bring AI into the picture, uh, I think the thing is there, that's where your taste disappears, and that's the thing I'm saying is most important, right? So while we want tools to be easy enough that they're simple to use, once you once you give it up to AI, you lose your expression. And that's that's the other side of the thing. You're selling yourself. You're like, I I guess I would say you're selling your soul. You are, you're erasing your soul. It's even worse than selling it.

36:31 SPEAKER_02: You're literally saying, I don't trust it, let's get rid of it. Yeah, here you go. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you're selling, you're erasing it. And I think that's the that's the thing. It's like you want something to be ergonomic so that you can forget about it, but you're not, but you're still using it to get what you want rather than just saying do it again over and over again. So you're like, that's pretty good. So anyway, you know, and it's not to say there isn't good uses for AI, but they aren't when you're replacing yourself, your sense of self, your sense of creativity, your spirit, all that stuff.

37:02 SPEAKER_02: That's where I think it's like it's way out of line.

37:04 SPEAKER_03: It yeah, it is. It has gotten there.

37:07 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Grow a pair.

37:10 SPEAKER_03: Yeah. Believe in yourself.

37:12 SPEAKER_00: But you know what? Tell them, tell them to get some uh goat testicles. Yeah, that's right.

37:18 SPEAKER_02: You're referring to like a um one of the. You're referring to your block. Yeah, is that that was another crazy one, way crazier than the the bloodletting even. But this guy was like, Yeah, you'll be super yeah, you'll be super fertile if I just like like cut you open and stick some goat testicles in you and then start you back up again.

37:37 SPEAKER_00: See, just so I know the stuff that they tried back then was just so crude and horrible. I mean, it was like, are these elementary kids coming up with these procedures or what?

37:48 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's sort of like one of these things where you can see why they thought that. And that's why I think in audio, right? There's there's examples so like bit depth. Like you've all probably heard 16 bit, 24 bit, 32-bit. And you know, people hear that and they think like, oh, that's some level of like goodness, and the higher the better. And so then all these weird things start to happen around that that aren't true, right? It's just sort of like, well, go testicles are testicles, so if we put them in a person, then they have more testicles.

38:18 SPEAKER_02: Testicles, like whatever. You're not only too gross here, but like that makes you more manly, right? And it's just sort of like, no, more testicles doesn't make you more manly, just like more bit depth doesn't make your music better.

38:29 SPEAKER_03: I mean I wonder if I hope this is appropriate for your audience.

38:34 SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry if it's not.

38:36 SPEAKER_00: No, no, hey, anything goes on this, so you know. But you know that mythical creature that exists too, where it's half man, half goat. I wonder if that was born out of that procedure.

38:46 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I think that they were what are they called? Saturn is a T Y R Sat Satyr or something like that. I think Yeah, yeah, something like that. I don't know. I don't know where this guy I didn't go any deeper than like reading that it existed, and then I was like, there's I have to write this down because it's too insane.

39:06 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that was really I definitely learned a few new things when I read that. Yeah. So before we end the show, I want to ask a couple of questions, and these are just kind of random QA's, so nothing that you have to think too hard about. All right, so if you could only mix one instrument for the rest of your career, which would it be?

39:27 SPEAKER_02: Man, probably bass. Like I I have a lot of fun with bass, both synthetic and real, because it's it's challenging in a very specific way that I enjoy. Because I don't mix a ton and I do mostly mastering. I think that there's a lot of challenges with making bass louder without messing it up. But that also means it's really fun to sort of mess bass up a little bit on purpose to give it more like hair on its chest. And in in genres that I work with often than metal, like hip-hop, RB, pop music, it's really common to use these like kind of pure bass tones from a drum machine called an 808.

40:06 SPEAKER_02: Um and it's sort of like a legendary instrument now, and so all the different flavors of it are really cool. So that's what it would be.

40:13 SPEAKER_00: Okay. Are you familiar with uh the band Lip Biscuit at all? Yeah, they were I when I was yeah, like he changed uh the way bass is played a little bit, I think, with how he plugged his in. If that sounds correct, I could use one.

40:26 SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I I remember like listening to the band, but I don't remember the details of that. I'll look it up after the show for sure, though.

40:34 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just made me think of him, only because I saw them recently too. They were here uh we got to see Lint Biscuit close out a show. So that's pretty cool. Fantastic.

40:41 SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.

40:42 SPEAKER_00: On top of the awesome uh stage outfits that he wears too. Cool. All right, next question analog or digital?

40:50 SPEAKER_02: Digital. I mean, obviously it depends on what you're what you're doing. Like if you're playing a guitar, like analog. I don't want MIDI guitars, no, just no. But like, um, you know, once you get once you get the stuff, once you're at this stage of recording, past the instrument itself, I would say, I would say digital. And synthesizer's even somewhat digital, but I like analog synthesizers just fine. I have a few behind me. Uh I think that even Neil Polk, uh, who's a really crazy, like he's an insane number of Grammys.

41:22 SPEAKER_02: He's mixed like just a bunch, just so many acts. And he started mixing in the early 80s, you know, and you know, he's a lot of his mixed from the 70s, and it was all, all analog, all because they didn't have the digital stuff then. I mean, he does most mixes in the box now, and he's like, I don't miss, I don't miss the analog stuff really. And he's someone who spent his whole life doing that. And the reason is that that's not what makes him good at his craft. So he uses an SSL, which got famous in the 80s and has a particular sound to it.

41:51 SPEAKER_02: And so when he mixes in the box or in his computer, he uses SSL-based plugins, but not because the plugins, you know, sound better or worse than the gear. He said he doesn't even compare them. The point is the ergonomics of it, the way that the gear disappeared, because those plugins are sounding, trying to sound generally the same as the board, he doesn't have to relearn his muscle memory for how to mix. And so it's fine. It's making more Grammy records, right? Like, who cares? And so, you know, the box, there's nothing holding you back in the box.

42:26 SPEAKER_02: And it's way, way, way less fussy. You ask any engineer who's transitioned from analog to digital to be like, I can do the same stuff and it's not as much of a pain in the ass, and I can't permanently break everything the way that I could with analog and it, I just why would I bother? There's still being very specific sounds that are easier to get from analog or whatever if you really want them, but like they're not the difference between people liking or not liking your music between your music being high or low quality, between your music sounding good or not.

42:54 SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter. And so for the convenience of it, digital's just better. Not sorry about that. But again, like I don't mean it for everything. I I still think that for the most part, really micing an amp and and playing a real guitar is is still fairly different from using a direct box or going directly into an interface and using um amp simulators. Not always, they're getting better, but like it's it's still not. Because you're pushing intentionally very heavily into distortion, it's just it's hard to do that as perfectly in in software.

43:30 SPEAKER_02: We're better, much better at it now. And eventually maybe. But there's also the visceral reality of analog. It's the reason that I like synthesizers, it's the feeling of it. It feels much better. It feels like I'm have more control than when I have a mouse and I'm moving a knob. Or even when I have a and I think that that effect is very important when you're making music because it makes you feel away about what you're making and that it helps you whatever. And I think. In a lot of cases, that's what's giving you the love for the analog more than the the actual sound.

44:06 SPEAKER_02: Not always, but it really does matter because again, how you feel when making music informs a hell of a lot of what it ends up sounding like.

44:15 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Yeah, it definitely the creativity. I can't overstate that enough. Like that is very real. What about headphones or studio monitors?

44:27 SPEAKER_02: I think studio monitors are some are probably better, but headphones are still possible to mix in. And I've heard this from several engineers, but even the ones that do mix in headphones when they have to prefer monitors. The problem with monitors is like, look at this room right here. I've got hard brick walls, it's reverberance. Monitors require you to, you know, position them well. And so there's more room for mistakes and errors with your room setup. And so I think that in that case, you know, like headphones make certain things easier, but I do think also that headphones are more likely to give you a not very honest impression about how the sound will translate to real physical space, right?

45:12 SPEAKER_02: Like again, in the car, jam box, stuff like that. You have to get very familiar. And those ergonomics when you're mixing are another thing, right? I just described Neil Pogue just because he's like a guy who has lots of credits. But you know what he he's just talking about, though you get used to the listening system that you have, and that is what's going to ultimately get you to be able to make good mixes. And every mixer has something they're more used to. I still say monitors are probably best because hearing music in real space is like a thing that matters and and and feeling, but it doesn't mean headphones are impossible.

45:46 SPEAKER_02: You could make that choice. Stefan Brown is a mastering engineer for Abbey Road, who he he, I think does much more industrial metal rock alternative mastering, and he swears by mastering in headphones. So there's there's somebody who who's living in living in a world, living in your world, and he, you know, that's what he does. His is a contemporary of him named Ma'or Applebaum, who mast who I know is here in LA, he masters a lot of stuff also in the same genre. He did all the stuff for Mike Pat for Faith No More.

46:17 SPEAKER_02: He did a lot of that.

46:18 SPEAKER_01: Okay. I love that band.

46:19 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amazing. And he he would probably actually, I've sat with them together at dinner, and I think that they talked about this. I really definitely a speaker guy, but he does have very good headphones because it's very important to listen in headphones to see how the Nix translates. And he has them the same headphones for both himself and the client, I think, so they can listen together. So I just don't want to disparage you if you are using headphones. It's not that that will prevent you from making good mixes, but on balance, I'd say that that monitors are probably more versatile or better.

46:52 SPEAKER_02: It's just you gotta, you know, kind of set them up.

46:55 SPEAKER_03: Okay. Let's see. What other oh favorite album mix of all time.

47:03 SPEAKER_02: God, I don't even know if I can answer that question.

47:06 SPEAKER_00: Um well then let's just let's just go with a favorite album that you have.

47:12 SPEAKER_02: I'm just trying to think. I that's hard. I don't know. I don't know. I have really a hard time picking favorites, even with movies.

47:20 SPEAKER_00: I've uh Okay, I get it because sometimes some somebody will ask me, like, who's my favorite band? And I really don't have one.

47:26 SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think of like what I've been listening to like an awful lot lately. I listen to a lot of electronic music. So I could probably tell you my favorite, my favorite artist is like this crazy wacko named Apex Twin, who's just uh he's invented genres of music basically. He's kind of legendary and it's kind of created a lot of different sounds. And so I really like him. And he's and as by he makes very complicated stuff sometimes. I tend to like his less complicated stuff, but also that means that the mixing is is really impressive.

47:57 SPEAKER_02: It'd be hard for me to pick a favorite song from him, but like he's he's very, very heavily electronic and and and crazy. Okay. As far as a best mix album, it's not even a listen album that I listen to very much at all because it's just not it's just intense more than it is, like it's it's intense more than it is like a like a really like I wouldn't listen it to psych me up for anything. I wouldn't listen it to it to feel emotional way about a thing, I wouldn't listen it to it to feel nostalgic or whatever.

48:28 SPEAKER_02: But in terms of like raw impressiveness of like the talent of the mixing, I think two artists I would listen to. So there's this album ISAM, I-S A M by by another electronic artist named Amon Tobin, which is just it's crazy. It's just like weird sounds most of the time. And then another artist who's really good at mixing. Sadly, she's passed away, is uh Sophie, all caps, S-O-P-H-I-E. I don't know if I and that one, um, what's the album name? Probably it's that album is probably it's a crazy name, Oil of Every Pearl's Un Insides, which is uh quite a mouthful of an album name.

49:04 SPEAKER_02: But I think that's one of those. I just like really intense, kind of extreme types of things. And so most people, when they're talking about Grammy winning mixes and all this stuff, it's about like the perfection of all these, all these subtleties and all the stuff. I just like like who can make me feel like the most, like, wow, like how the hell is that possible? So I wouldn't, I wouldn't uh I wouldn't take my examples as like I need to listen to these right now, and as much as like, okay, if I want to listen to some crazy stuff.

49:37 SPEAKER_02: And it's definitely going to be different than the music that most of your listeners are used to. I will say that the two first albums I bought, because I'm so insane, at the same day at the same CD store, I think it was actually I don't even know. I think it was actually a Rasputin music in on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, uh, was Janet Jackson's Janet album and Metallica's Black album, same day. Like I hadn't figured out what I liked. And there you couldn't be more different, I think, unless I had bought Kenny G or something like that.

50:05 SPEAKER_02: So I just love music and I listen to all kinds of stuff, but I ended up listening to a lot of electronic music kind of in my heyday. So that's sort of where, that's sort of where I kind of ended up, even though it's not what I listen to all the time now.

50:17 SPEAKER_00: Okay. Well, and that was one of the questions I was gonna end up asking you too, was like, you know, is there a mix that you kind of made you to stop and say, like, hey, how the hell do they do that? So, like with Sophie and the other.

50:28 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, with Sophie more Yeah, maybe listen to uh face shopping. Just like it's just an exercise, I think, in how can you make the most intense sound possible? I mean, like this person is making she's making like like a crash with broken glass sound rhythmic in a way that you don't want to fight it. Like you believe in it as it's happening, and it's very I don't know, it's great.

50:58 SPEAKER_03: Awesome. I'll have to check it out.

51:00 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was just wow, how do they do that? How does she do that?

51:04 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I thought it was interesting to ask you that, you know, because you're you are in tune with the products and uh just the experience that you have. So you could be looking and listening for something different than, you know, a music fan myself. So I'm always interested in that.

51:22 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and by the way, it's okay to hate anything that I said because everyone likes something different. But if you get something interesting out of it, even if you don't like it, like I would never listen to this, that's still worthwhile. You just be like, okay, wow, what? I don't need to hear that again, but now I know it exists. It's out there. Like something you've taken, you know.

51:41 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely. I want to check the artist out though, just so I can listen to it and you know, try to uh take the perspective of hearing the mix and and how it was put together.

51:51 SPEAKER_02: It's like candy that shreds your mouth. Let's let's call it that. Yes, yeah, Captain Crunch. Pop rocks. Pop rocks, yeah, yeah. But like way, actually, there's like, yeah, except for you bleed.

52:03 SPEAKER_00: Now you're starting to sound like a metal fan, Sam.

52:05 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, hey, you know, yeah, we all get we all get uh idea of aesthetic, but even if we're not living it, no one, no one should be a poser.

52:12 SPEAKER_00: Right. Well, and you know what? We're we're in one, I think, one of the best fields ever in the world, and and that's just the music space. So it doesn't matter, you know, whether you're creating it or you're uh an artist or lyricist or you know, whatever. It's it's just the contributing to music because look at just all the different benefits and ways that people can enrich their lives for music alone. Yeah. So thank you so much for what you and uh Stan have put together, um, especially for the musicians and you know, the uh just all the time and energy.

52:47 SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've had uh some blood, sweat, and tears along the way and frustrations, but you kept at it and look at where you're at now.

52:54 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Everything, everything difficult is built. Yeah, is built on it's built on a lot of sweat.

53:01 SPEAKER_00: So uh is there anything coming up? Uh I guess any new directions that music hack that's planning to take over the next year or so?

53:09 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're gonna focus more on the online stuff because there's certain types of tools and processes that we can make easier there for all kinds of people, because I'm really deeply technical into sound. And so there's all sorts of stuff I've realized like like this is really hard for people to do. And sometimes it's it's it's really not even it's not even related to to creative stuff. It's just annoying things people have to do before they even get to do work. Um, and that's not it's not as relevant to artists.

53:37 SPEAKER_02: It's more like, you know, people that have to edit or or do things ahead of time or like the work a mixer might have to do before they even start mixing, just to kind of get everything organized. So we're gonna be doing some of that. We have on top of the podcast that we have, uh, we have uh a new behind the scenes one with Stan. Stan works mostly in hip hop and RB, so most of the artists are making music, but he's gonna be releasing a lot of footage, working with our tools behind the scenes with artists.

54:05 SPEAKER_02: We have that is coming out, and then I don't know, just just trying to find a way to grow. I think there's a lot of good things we can make, but we just have to stay alive and keep doing our thing. And, you know, hopefully we can just keep doing this forever and making cool shit.

54:20 SPEAKER_00: So well, and all of your information is available out there on uh musichack.com. You're also on YouTube and Instagram. Yep. All right. Well, Sam, is there anything else that you want us to know about Music Hack before we head out of here?

54:36 SPEAKER_02: No, I just think we just want to make tools that make it easy for you to express yourself without having to think too much about it. After all, like it's the expression that matters most, you know.

54:47 SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and being able to give that to the fans and help them feel that as well.

54:53 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. In your music. Exactly. Because if you're not, yeah, if you're not able to give them who you are, then they're not gonna want to see you do your thing. So focus on that. Yeah.

55:04 SPEAKER_00: All right. Well, Sam, thanks so much again. And ladies and gentlemen, this has been Sam Fishman, CEO and founder of Music Hack. You'll have to check him out on musichack.com. And uh, we have a little giveaway that we're gonna be giving here too, to the first 10 uh comments, people that comment. Uh, Sam, what are we giving away?

55:22 SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't know, some combination of music hacks, uh master plan, and fuel. So those are the ones I think are most directly like, bam, you can use them right off the bat.

55:33 SPEAKER_00: Sweet. Well, thanks so much. And uh thank you for coming on here and educating us and uh supporting the music scene. Of course. Yeah. All right, cheers. Okay, well, Ohio and beyond, you heard it first here. She shreds with her sand. Keep it loud.