Rodney Mills

My Audio Recording Mentor & Hero Special Guest Rodney Mills!

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai – excuse typos
Welcome, welcome and welcome to another episode of Mike Stewart dot live. So glad to be able to do this. Oh, I’m excited about today’s show, as people are getting in their seats, I’ve seen people getting in their seats right now. You know, if you look over my shoulder, I always remember there it is over there. You folks that know me know, I’ve been around music business a long time. And, you know, that’s a lot of people have asked me over the years, they said, is that really your gold record? And I go, Well, yeah, it’s the only one I ever got involved with a project with a couple friends of mine, Jerry Buckner and Jerry Garcia, and they had a novelty record. In fact, you can see it back there, Pac Man fever. And it was a big hit record and it was recorded in Atlanta at Studio One, which was the home of Atlanta rhythm section. And it was the home of so many big story, songs, big hits. And this is a person that I want to have today. So he let me tell you why I wanted to have this my good friend Rodney Mills on this episode today. Number one, when I was a kid, and he was already involved with so much music that I loved at the time, he was the engineer at Doraville. Studio One Doraville is a suburb of Atlanta. So Doraville was basically Atlanta. And, and because I got involved with the Bill Lowery group, and some of the artists that bill had, especially one of my dear friends taught me row, I got to come to the Atlanta rhythm section studio to work on a record. And that’s the Rodney I met that day there. He was in front of that Harrison board. And he was the guy and I didn’t know all the things he did but but you know, Rodney was involved with so much music that came out of Atlanta all the way back into the 70s. You can see that he was a he and Al Cooper did sweet home and all that Alabama, not Sweet Home Alabama. But yet what was Sweet Home Alabama, but the Leonard Skinner records. So Rodney was just the real deal. He was the first real audio engineer that I ever met. And God, he was so nice to me as a kid, he you know, I’d ask him questions. And we, you know, we were interested in, you know, how did he do something, what microphones did he use and things like that? And he always answered questions. And so he became a friend and a colleague. And in fact, we built a studio, about two or three blocks away from where Rodney studio is. Well, you know, Rodney is still doing mastering In fact, if you want to know how to get in touch with Rodney, you know, guess what? He has Rodney mills.com there he is still in front of the board still got the most amazing ears ever. And I mean, I could just brag on him all day. In fact, look at this ticker tape. He did color and father for the Winston’s and probably one of the most famous things that he taught gets interviewed about is the amen brother break. He he was the engineer of Sweet Home Alabama, Freebird Atlanta rhythm section 38 special, I mean, my gosh, I don’t even know all the records that he’s played on or produced. But Ronnie is my mentor. He’s my friend. He’s just an amazing, high, talented, amazing engineer. And, you know, he was the Atlanta audio guy, you know, I claimed to be the internet audio guy. But basically, he was the Atlanta audio guy that was my hero from back in the day. So I wanted to have him come on here and just talk a little bit about you know, microphones and audio and what mastering is and how that could apply to what we’re doing online these days. And of course, if you have any questions you can always go to you can always go to the comments box and leave some questions you know later for for Rodney if you think of some things they so I’m gonna bring to the virtual stage here. My good friend and audio engineer extraordinary Mr. Rodney Mills, let me get rid of this picture here. Give me a second. I’m gonna pull that down. And here he is. Rodney Mills all the way from Florida. How you doing, buddy?

How are you good.

Well, you know, this thing that I’m doing here, most of the folks that that come in and watch this. And we’ve got we’ve got nice little audience showing up here. I notified them that I was going to have you and and of course we I want to talk about the music business and maybe a couple of little fun stories. I know two fun stories I want to get documented here. But what most of the folks do here at my show is they record narration. And you know, for podcasts for voiceovers for YouTube videos for what we call sales videos. So talk about when you use to record voice what we’re doing little tips and tricks that you used to do to get the best quality vocal sound all the way back to the beginning. You know what what type of microphones and and what are some inexpensive microphones you know today that could be used for those

things?

Well, in the beginnings I had the opportunity when I first started really engineering and opportunity to work with Nueman microphones, and think that that was a kind of a curse to a certain extent, because I, I took for granted how, how good they sounded, because it was kind of like, they were there. When I went to work full time recording studio. Maurice will forever live forever sound in Atlanta, and he had all Telefunken 47 and four vocal mics and, and those things gonna work good no matter how bad I was. So, you know, this guy like, so? Yeah. So when you start off with something that well, you know, you I think you can’t take it for granted a little bit. So I think it was more challenging. When I when we built Studio One, I did not have all those microphones around me, but still working with vocalists and everything. It’s all according to the genre of music, how, you know, you have to take each vocalist kind of on their own, because some vocal is, that have done a lot of recording, they certainly have more mic savvy than somebody that’s never done much recording. And, and I think the people that I’ve worked with had a lot of history of singing in a recording studio, they naturally know how to get the sound of their voice sound good in their headphones and everything. And they can kind of help you out as an engineer, because they say things that really quiet. They know to lean in just a little bit and think something loud, they go back up just a little bit. So those are the people, those people I enjoy working with goes like kind of like kept me from working so hard.

So did you know we used to when I would start talking about microphones to people who are not music people. Because the majority of the people that I worked with for the last few years in the internet world, we’re doing just narration just spoken word. And, you know, I used to say, you know, to get the best quality you want a large diaphragm microphone microphone that has a big sound capture, which is the diaphragm was so that was true. And for folks that don’t know what a Norman microphone or a Telefunken those were those amazing, extremely expensive German microphones that have been around since Frank Sinatra was the first Norman Telefunken that we know what they still kind of look the same today.

Yeah, they think that I know about a friend of ours that’s passed away now Mike Clark, you know, he, he actually collected a couple of moments, I think we’re probably manufactured in the late 40s or mid in the 40s they will have model top where they called bottle top and then you actually see some of Adolf Hitler’s us speakers. And, but those, those microphones for the human for the voice for a vocal and everything where it’s spoken or Sung, or just a great sounding microphone. The fact is most of those microphones have such a great proximity effect. And the proximity effect is when you get in really close on a microphone it makes your voice sound bigger and and sometimes too big. So you but that you know as a sound that those those mics can handle real well. And you and you can you know working with a singer whether it be a singer or a decider voice over everything I think you would work with them to find that magic spot to where they’re it’s like radio guys you know the now switch they know when their voice sounds bass in relationship to the microphone. And so that’s something you work out over a period of time and I don’t think it ever got to a point where I if I had to start with one microphone it would probably be an omen ua seven and but there are certainly tons of microphones out there the sound real good. I’ve kind of stuck with those over the years not only own three microphones one of the Norman u 87. ones a Shure SM seven and the other ones like just the sure 56.

So well and for folks that don’t know the the the to shore microphones, which is spelled sh You are IE, the seven is it’s not that expensive. I think it’s three $400

it’s not that expensive and I’ve I’ve, I’ve leaned over a microphone and I’ve had to do some really tough vocals. The vocals did not sound real good. Coming through other microphones now. foreground experimented and everything and SM seven seem to be kind of a band aid that you could use in difficult situation. That’s a good all round microphone no matter what you use don’t.

So so the a lot of podcasters which are people that watch this, this live stream, the SM the short, SM seven is good for you could make a record with it. You can make a record today and it will be quality enough to for a master recording.

Absolutely. In fact, it’s got a built in windscreen and you can do rollouts or boosts on the microphone itself. It’s quite versatile in itself, addition to being able to process it through a console or something.

So are you still recording vocals there in your studio? Are you just mostly just doing processing, which you call mastering is doing these days?

Well, the majority of the work I do nowadays is mastering whereas people send me their recordings, they’re already recorded. They’re already mixed. And usually they send me a stereo file just like what whatever you make with a WAV file of the song. And I take that try to make that sound as good as I can make it sound. Good friend of mine, Jeff Galeazzi played with 38 especially. And I tried to explain it to him many years ago, and I was telling my oldest EQ, I do hear compression here and there. I play it before and after. And he says I got it. It’s like a loudness. But no, my stereo makes it sound better. I said no. Well, yeah.

I think it’s a lot more a lot better than just loud. Well,

it’s according to who, you know, sometimes the stuff I get is a is done really well. Sometimes it’s, it’s not, it’s kind of like it’s me trying to dig in there sometimes see if I can kind of help the whole process a little bit.

Well, a mastering engineer is a guy who listens to something that is a finished product. In other words, it’s it can be all the instruments of the music, all the vocals. So do you have a lot of control over fixing things and, and well, changing things?

Well, the thing that you can do, I’ve got enough stuff to really screw somebody songs. I can slowly get in there dig around in and everything inflected, as they say there’s not enough bass and there’s too much kick, then it’s trying to really kind of find these little, little areas, frequency areas that you could kind of pull up, pull down, or you need to compress this little frequency range more than others. You need to add some equalization maybe a little bit to to improve the clarity of the thing. demands kind of like mine, my I listen to stuff and I listen to it really loud. You know, it’s kind of like Wow, sounds I can hear everything but not everybody listens like totally loud. So you got to kind of get things sounded pretty good. A lower level everything so and every genre musics a little bit different. You know, it’s kind of like rock and roll sort of a different than say, hip hop, rap. And, and this. So it’s kind of like that. It’s not like totally ahead of them. You got these things pigeonhole. This is what I want to do to it because it’s this genre of music because a lot of times like, I can’t really, in my, to my ears, I can’t pick that genre, exact genre they’re in. So it’s kind of like you just adapt yourself to that music while you’re working on everything you try to get it sounds good, you can usually the best they may send it to people sometimes it’s kind of like I got my fingers crossed because I’ve changed it the way it sounds quite a bit. And a lot of time most of all the time. It’s an improvement that really appreciate what I’ve done to kind of help them with the overall process.

Well the thing in

my shoes Don’t call it

that shows.

Yeah, the main thing that that I just wanted to, you know, let folks know about is that there’s, you know, when we started recording, it was all analog tape. And there wasn’t a whole lot of computerization programming, and there was no computerized processing, that there was, you know, a piece of equipment that now has become software. So you pretty much all software controlling now or do you still not

quit not not totally, but I’m a lot more there than, than I’ve ever been made. Because we got a few pieces of gear in Atlanta. That’s a little bit too cumbersome to bring down here. But I have the equivalent of that hardware piece and software. And the two things that most of us have compared them and both they sound really close to software stuff is really close to the hardware. And whether it’s the same, I’m not, I don’t know about that. But it behaves in the same way, if I turn a knob up on the software, it does the same thing to my ear that if I forgot it’s turning the actual hardware piece, though, either boost or cut a frequency select all it is very similar.

Well, the computer stuff, you know, to my experience in my ear is just, you know, amazing what they have figured out how to plug in to computers. And and they actually I don’t know, if some of the ones you have, they actually have animations of the actual equipment. So that when you’re controlling it, you’re actually feel like you’re working with the old hardware that we were used to 30 and 40 years ago. And so So the thing is, is the equipment, the equipment, or the at least, here’s what hasn’t changed the tools and the software and the computers have all advanced, but the ears and the the the ability to know whether it’s I mean, just because you have equipment doesn’t mean it sounds good. I mean, there’s something folks you got to know about this man you’re witnessing today. And I’m so glad he’s sharing his wisdom with with you today. And you better ask him some questions in the comments area, because I don’t know if I’ll ever get him to come back.

And doing what I do and everything, Mike, I think it’s always thinking, I guess, us thinking analog terms, you know, it’s kind of like, so it makes it a little bit easier. Fortunately, most of these plugins and everything, have kind of made it kind of user friendly to people that have old enough history, they can remember what the real stuff did. But there’s some of the newer stuff too, that does things that none of the old analog gear did. So you have to kind of some of those things, I have to kind of get get them and kind of go through a process of learning how to use them the best way and sometimes in my mastering chain, they can find a place but most often they can’t go like this doesn’t really sound any better what I’m already doing. So I just kind of pasal just pick a plug in or whatever.

Well, the talent that Rodney has, and mastering engineers is they have the ears to know when it’s right. And when it’s wrong. And and that’s that’s what I mean, you know, I was I’ll be honest with you that was before this new you were coming on. I went back and listened to a bunch of old stuff that you did. And I thought my gosh, it still sounds good. I mean, I listened to most of the Winston’s album. And I mean, your 20s when you recorded that. And, and ironically, I mean, you can hear everything. Now there’s a lot of music things that a lot of the folks that watch this show don’t know about but I remember there was like a bass all the way on the one side of the speakers. I mean, it seemed like I think in the 60s and 70s it was cool to really make things stereo put.

Well, to be honest with you that you know you go back to the Winston’s was 1969. And their whole album was done on four track including the big hit single we had the name of the four track and I always tell the story know that we had recorded the basic rhythm section we’re done. So long thing then we had the boat boat was to come in, they had their own lead vocal had their own track, but we bounced this stuff and all we can do in the last track with assembled a fool a horn slash section and a string section violins, violas, etc. in live musicians in the studio as well as for background singers. And one of the background singers play tambourine behind the back because And that was all a one track one pass. Yeah. So everything had to be gotten together, everybody knew their parts, there are parts of good skills a messed up or screwed up or anything, you had to redo everybody involved in that track back back to the beginning, so to speak. on that particular big hit song we had called color and father, there was no space that you could actually punch in anywhere. There’s stuff going on all the time. So I’m somewhat amazed that we were able to do the things we did, and I don’t. And to me with my thinking nowadays, there’s no way I could reproduce that now. goes up my mind. Well, let me go there, you know, that’s what back then that’s what you had to do. You’re limited, you’re limited, but you didn’t know that.

You know, you just tried to make a good sounding recording a good sounding record. I do not make mistakes. And you know, it’s amazing. You know, there’s, if you go on YouTube right now, I don’t know if you’ve seen this. Pete there must be some software that lets you isolate tracks out of mono mixes. And I’ve listened to Beatle isolated guitar parts and bass parts and, and songs that I love. The guitars are really out of tune. But I don’t care because it’s just it’s just magic. It’s still magic to me. Well, I’m gonna I’m gonna do a little this is this is a little sponsorship. I’m going to talk about right now on February 13. This This show is brought to you by next level PCL marketing.com that is a live marketing event that I’m doing with my good friend Rodney. Did you ever hear of Milton crab Apple will bill Okay, so well how Coleman is Milton crab apple and he’s my partner in the next level PCL marketing. Well, we do online marketing. In fact, we’d love to have you as a guest I’ll send you a link to it. But anyway, go to next level p Seo marketing.com. It’s going to be a full virtual event on how to use the internet and how to use my parts how to use audio and video to market houses How to say the right words. And he still melt grab Apple, but his real world is his teaching bug guys how to improve their business. So there’s our little

a little older show. Recording without back in the day. We went to Nashville. Yeah.

Did you work with the session of john Willis and? Yes, okay.

Steve, Nathan. Oh, no.

Well, you know, I did a session up here recently with john Willis and we were talking about milk crap. I when he said, I play it on all his records. He In fact, how had a record called the bird, which was a big hit for Jerry Reed. And john played on that. So I didn’t know you knew john, but that Hey,

does he play them? Everything I’ve done at Nashville.

Oh, he’s amazing. What an amazing. I’ll tell you one thing you throw a rock in the city, you had a guitar player or a singer. They’re amazing people. All right. So I figured what we do is I’d like to at least do two more things and then I’m going to respect your time. But what let me ask you another little technical question. Isn’t your audio engineer? What do you do to keep from you know, popping the microphone what do you what what did you use to recommend to people? Did you back in the day have pop filters or did you get them to stand back? What What was your toy you know,

the only pop filter I had back in the day say out of a Norman youe seven and there was a windscreen is made out of foam that you could push up over the windscreen and everything and I hated the way that sound so hated the way it sounded. So always I would not use a windscreen of any kind, I would kind of turn the microphone make try to find that place and everything so when they did it a plosive you know, like a pop You know, it would jump out at you try to find you know, even from singing alone, you know, do a live session okay? You need to turn your head just a little bit when you say that word or we just need to find that permanent position that you’ve got an angle into that microphone so you do not hit that capsule straight out. If you hit it straight on this what’s gonna call us calls that that pop real loud pop now and when I get stuff and everything I listened to vocal tracks and solo and his pops in there I can digitally go in there and kind of control those so you don’t hear lips.

Oh. But see that creates creates a whole lot of work if there’s a bunch of men there, man.

Yes. So, but but I use a windscreen now you know that’s a little bit more transparent. Then the then the whole, that big phone thing gets you stuck on the microphone icon like, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, even with that, you know, you still got to kind of somewhat times create an angle. The Best Sound of me is when you are singing straight on. But it’s just quoting who the singer is and how many pops they do. And all that stuff nowadays is kind of like I won’t travel risk, the choice of a performance, because there’s a poppet if what they perform sound real good, I’ll just remove the pop digitally and take the performance.

But that that just goes to prove that no matter you know, how good a microphone it is, and and how conscientious engineer it is, if a burst of air gets onto that capsule, it’s just going to make that loud. Pop third,

yes, you rest with the thing. With a condenser microphone thing, if you get too much more stir on that capsule, it’s going to crap out, it’s going to either stop working or start sounding distorted and everything and and I had to send away a couple of normal USA items to get recondition because they’ve gotten so much spent on so to speak over the years. But I’ve tried to warn vocalist without those things for a long time. And of course, now you got an infinite variety of windscreens that you can use will help that situation.

I want to document a couple of fun stories that have nothing to do with internet audio. They’re just, they’re just a couple of fun stories and then anything that you want to contribute. And then if we have any questions, we’ll take them. And I tried to keep the you know, we’re almost at a half an hour here. So I don’t want to take up much more your time, Ronnie, but I’m just okay, we’re good. I just I’m just so honored to have you here. So number one, you know, when you were a kid, and the Winston’s came in to Lefevre studios there in Atlanta, Georgia to cut that album. And they needed beside. They recorded the old Amen. I guess that was a spiritual I don’t even know if it was a public domain song or not.

Yeah, it was fingers public domain so you could republish it, whatever.

And it was an instrumental

come into the studio just to cut the song cover and father, which was r&b Song of the Year. That year was really so so everybody thought that was a hit song. And nobody ever thought well, we will release a single you got to a side and you got to be sad. We normally put a different song over beside so people buy the 45 they’ve got something else to listen to other than just the main Bert main version of one song. So we cut cut the track on the car and father’s And finally, you know, somebody said, we got to kind of beside so what do we got? They didn’t have any more original material. I think my manager I have when I was playing in a band. He was involved in that project. His name is Johnny B. and john abuse in the control room. He says Why don’t you guys play that instrumental thing that I heard y’all play the other night some club they were performing in. So that was the emphasis cut. Amen. Amen. Brother. And I had no idea what we were getting into, or what would become of that later on. Because I had completely forgotten that song and recording till somebody called me and said, Ronnie, you know, you recorded the biggest breakbeat in music history. I said what are they asked me said, you know the significance of the beside of color and father I said no, I don’t remember. I don’t remember what it was. And he proceeded this guy out of North Carolina, he came down and he bought a CD, there was like 51 cuts on there. That that beat, there’s eight measures of drummer playing right by himself that that was incorporated in as a sample and these 51 different songs that he played me, little pieces up. And it’s mind blowing. I had no idea

until 30 years later. So when you recorded that beside now was it already was already set up from coloring father, did you have a different session? Oh,

I don’t necessarily remember that. It was I just remember we if it had to be pretty close around there. You know, it’s kind of like I don’t know where we’ve gone through the whole process of recording and overdubbing everything on color and father. Probably a little bit of that. And the drums are usually set up in the same place in the studio. So what is the big deal? to kind of set everything back up and record that song, and basically, it was the only one or two takes of that song that we did. And it was done, you know, go, that’s pretty much live performance anyway.

You know, I bet you kids today cook that really are into hip hop, which you can see, you know, I’m not much of a hip Hopper, but yeah. But do you remember, you know, did you have a lot of microphones on the drums or because, you know, the snare drum and the bass drum are, are pretty pronounced in that drum break? Which is, which was the appeal to the, to the rappers. But do you remember how you set up the microphones that day? Basically,

do you remember where those exact microphones with the lafeber sound, whether it was recorded, there was a small choice of dynamic microphones and a large choice of condenser microphones. So So the combination of both most most everything is like, basically my, you know, like, snare, one mic on the toms, maybe, maybe two mics, one mic on the kick drum. But it was kind of an ambient situation also that there was other musicians on the bass tracks over the came time for the drummer to take that break. There was a lot of interplay from just the ambience of the room around this noun, and it’s a very distinct sound. And once you hear it in any, any song, it’s immediately identifiable. And it spawned a whole genre music over in England called jungle. And it’s all based that that genre of music is all based around those eight measures.

That drummer and you had no idea what you’re creating that day in it.

No, it’s just a something they did it but a blade, those who didn’t do anything extraordinary. It’s just, you know, the, you can hear the ride cymbal, the snare and kick really well. And it’s just, it’s almost a phenomenon. When you put it in with other instruments and add instruments around, you can still get that.

Right, right. There’s a documentary on hip hop that talks about the significance of it, and it’s just, it’s just I just wanted folks to know that you’re, you’re hearing a guy that was there the day was now I’ll tell you something else that’s that the world loves and knows that that you witnessed and and I want you to tell it tell the story of of what Ronnie Van Zandt said to you on that, you know, Ed King, who just we recently lost and he was living up here in Nashville. He was one of the writers of Sweet Home Alabama. And did he play the opening guitar licks on his Telecaster guitar?

Yes. Yes, it was Telecaster.

And the opening guitar licks to Sweet Home Alabama are just, you know, iconic.

I mean, what else could play that riff?

With the minute that comes on to be a three chord song, yes. But you hear two notes, three notes of it. You know what’s coming up? Oh, yeah. So talk about what Ronnie says and what he’s a blow Blow there. Blow people’s minds of what he was saying to you. When he was doing his vocal that day?

Well, the thing was, you know, it’s kind of like he would cut the track and I don’t remember how many overdubs we’ve done on the track of that. That that time and everything but it was time for Ryan to put a vocal track on there. And so so I had the vocal mic set up outside of the studio and I think Ronnie went out there basically put on his headphones and when the music started on the playback he said turn it up and and the meaning I got was turns his balls up a little bit more to hear real loud and that got an owl Cooper had the you know the whatever it was, you know, kept como room it’s gonna leave that on the intro the song and everything is not an iconic thing. And when you hear that it it’s twofold. You know, I know the real meaning of that. But the real you know, what is perceived as real meaning of that is rock and roll baby Turn it up.

But he was asking you to turn these

headphones bit.

Well, and there’s one other story that you told that I want you to tell right now that we’re you. You got to be the voiceover intro of an allen Tucson record. tell that story well,

Alan Tucson, the great songwriter, musician, producer, from New Orleans, and he came up he and his partner Marshall seehorn came up to a fabric sale and they kind of liked the sound they were kind of trying different studios because they were having some pretty good success. Some artists Allah was producing enough they got to Atlanta with a fiber sound that’s they decided that’s where they were going to kind of settle down. So every month or so they’d come up spend a week, low fiber sound. And so we would kind of lead Dorsey and who is a pretty, pretty big artists and everything and so so as an engineer, I made the console and it’s not like digital now where you see time in front of you can kind of instantly go to anywhere in the song back then you put it you slated the tape, which put it a low frequency tonal there, and you and you vocally slave what take it was, is like, this is everything I do from from Now don’t be funky. Thank you. And it’s kind of like so I didn’t think anything about your speaker. I just got off the turnip wagon from South Georgia. So everything I do from now which is the opposite. But I like to

eat we

go and to this day anybody listens that song? I’m still on the intro that song doing that? I don’t I never got a royalties.

So

leave doors to the artists and he had a big sitting near Macaca. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple of pretty big hits. Before that. And Alan tusshar used the instrumental band called the meters as his rhythm section. And so could a couple albums only meters and, and several different artists and Tucson also wound up producing mala forevers first first album.

Well, we have one good question here. We’re gonna wind it up. But this is from my good buddy, Jeff herring. And what do you what is the biggest audio change you see coming in technology or the way way things are recorded these days? What do you see anything on the horizon? That’s

big. I think the digital stuff will keep expanding to the point that that any, any soul music, you can, you can kind of make it happen without actually somebody sitting there performing anything, I think the the kind of, you know, using the sampling or using the loops or doing adding this or that it’s still it’s just like, the will, I think it will contain to be worth all that is improved and improved on to the point where maybe kids got less all this stuff, the bottom line is kids are going to listen to this stuff and everything. And then they don’t really know what they’re missing from the old stuff. So I think they’re, but they’re still there. You know, they’re, they’re impressed by what they hear. And I think stuff will keep on getting better and better. The fact the way we are living right now and everything during this COVID stuff, that’s a lot of people just kind of watching at home. And it’s kind of like you have all the tools in this digital format that allows you to do a lot of things. I don’t think it’s necessarily a change, just an improvement. And as we go along, I think some people actually go back and listen to some of the old stuff. And then that still has some relevance, it has relevance to me because that seems like you’re in the 70s. And we kind of got to a point where things started sounding really good analog. And I think there is still that mystique of balance less try to recapture What’s so good about that analog and not to the point that opened our eyes will go back to analog. It’s just that everybody there’s a smart people that know what, how, what how that the analog sound came into being what was the what was the process that happened to make it sound analog and make it sound good. You just got the knowledge to develop plugins and software and everything and replicate that. So I think that I don’t think we’re going to go to a point where Everything is going to start soon. It’s so good. It’s completely different than what it was in the 70s.

No, I thought I totally agree. I mean, it’s just I remember George Martin wrote a book that I read called, all you need is ears. And that’s what I think a lot of people are depending on technology and software. But they’re not developing their listening skills, their hearing skills and the comparative skills to what’s really, really good. I mean, I know one of the things that that I did when it especially when it comes to music, is I put something up on my speakers that I know was good, or at least in my opinion, and to see that then I’d compare it to how far I’ll follow. And, and that, that just made a huge difference. Huge difference. I must be watching this on Facebook, she put a link up to the amen break. So if anybody in Facebook goes to our links here, you’ll be able to see those. And, and one of the things I’m going to tell Jeff is, and I don’t know if you’ve come across it, but there’s no way that I know of the internet speeds are not fast enough to do virtual synchronization. Meaning when it comes to podcasting, we’re we can have a dialogue and record it. And we don’t know that there’s a millisecond time delay. But when it comes to having musicians playing together over the internet, I don’t know, have you come across anything that

I have not been involved with any of that. So I know that it’s possible. Some people do that, but most, most of the time is it’s not an interplay between musicians and everything, through the internet. Everything’s piecemeal.

Well, what people are doing is they’re sending their parts to one another, and then on their own machines, but there’s no there’s no way for musicians all over the world to hook up and, and record at the same time, like you, you and I used to do with people coming into a studio and playing. So I had a friend who is a Microsoft computer expert. And he said that it is physically and timewise impossible to synchronize. Because even if the speed of light, which is what the speed computers connect that it’s not fast enough to get everybody completely insane. So maybe, maybe somebody will figure out a way to make that thing.

There’s no substitution my past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to up Nashville several times I work in primarily I’ve worked in bourbon, anywhere from six to seven live musicians in the studio at the same time playing off each other. And that’s an experience. I would not trade for anything. Those musicians themselves. I absolutely love that also. Nowadays, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s just, you know, you play a few tracks, put it together, you pick this part from that part. Okay, that sounded good there. So let’s copy and paste it there. So, so it’s more of a how you go about making a record now as opposed to dealing with a live musician performing

well, there’s something to the magic of human beings getting together and, and feeding off the energy of each other. And listen to music and and you witnessed a lot of and engineered a lot of great music. And I’m gonna wind this up, because we’ve already gone 45 minutes. But this, you know, I could talk to you all day and and I look forward to seeing you again, my friend. And thank you for sharing your life with with this interview. And folks, I’m telling you go to Rodney mills.com. I’m telling you, I used to get people all the time, Rodney saying, Can you make this recording more intelligent to hear you know the words, they had a recording and they they wanted to eliminate the background noise and stuff. And I think maybe some things that folks need to know, go to Rodney Mills calm because you’re very reasonably priced for your talent. I’m going to tell you that,

well. I’ve kind of gotten that for my life. My poor, I’m self sufficient, almost, you know, and it’s kind of like so I don’t have to worry about escalating or competing or anything like that. I’m just maintaining.

You maintain amazingly, and I just can’t thank you enough for being here. So folks, go to Rodney mills.com. And, you know, Google Rodney Mills, check him out. Listen to some of these things. Look at the links that Mary put up. And we’ll see you in a couple of weeks with another episode of Mike Stewart dot

live

Everything audio and video for the internet. Bye bye rod.

Bye Bye Take care of my

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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