Why I Started NFTy Tunes, a Web3 application changing the value model for music.

I moved to New Orleans in August of 2019 after 35 years in New York City as a composer, producer and mixer, ostensibly for the major labels. I had my greatest successes crafting pop songs with amazing artists like The Notorious B.I.G., TLC, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Prince, Jay Z and many, many others. It was always my dream to build a studio and start a production company, so in 1997 I built my first studio, Numedia, in the Keith Haring building.

That building also housed Rawkus Records, which produced Talib Kweli, Common, Mos Def, and of course, Kanye. I liked the idea of being close to an independent scene, one that was presenting an alternative to the mass consolidation of the labels into multinational corporations. As the labels were becoming more faceless and corporate, there was a burgeoning of independent labels that were doing 50/50 distribution deals with artists with much more flexible terms than the arcane and imposing multi-year ownership deals the majors were offering. 

As the indies were creating more flexible terms for artists, the majors were creating more restrictive 360 deals that gave them an even bigger slice of all the revenue the artists created. Everything was commissioned: touring, sponsorship deals, publishing, TV appearances, you name it. And the artists were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the deals. Of course, the labels were investing millions of dollars marketing and promoting the artists’ work. So they were, in a sense, gambling on the success of the artists, using all the levers of control vertically integrated media can muster: TV, film, radio, internet, and news agencies. These were all controlled ,in many cases, by one centralized corporation.

I guess it worked, sort of. But all this debt was laid on the artists, who had to pay it back with their 10-12 point deals. Of course, no one ever recouped their debt, so artists never received any royalties. Not ever. During that time, I was a little cog in a big machine helping these artists make their records. I remember thinking, how come these artists are selling millions of records and a lot of them were perpetually broke? I knew something was wrong and that this system was gamed to benefit the labels, managers, attorneys, agents and all the middle men who benefited from this system of exploitation. I have to include myself in this system, as a well-paid producer and mixer for these companies. Big mix fees. First-class hotels and plane flights. I was riding high. At least, for a while…

In 2006, my partner and I noticed that our recording work was dropping off. While we were still working, it wasn’t as intense as it had been years prior. We were also all file sharing, using Napster, Limewire, and other decentralized software to share songs with each other. I loved it because I could search rare concert tapes of my favorite artists and also send them to my friends. What we didn’t realize, nor did the labels, was that it was about to come crashing down on all of us. A simple file-sharing protocol created by a high-school kid brought a $50 billion entertainment business to its knees. It wasn’t just the music business, but Hollywood as well. 

I loved my neighborhood. Tower Records was three doors down on lower Broadway and I spent thousands of dollars on new music every year. In July of 2006, as I was walking to work from my East Village apartment, I noticed that Tower Records On 4th and Broadway was covered in brown paper and the entire building was for rent (it’s now a Soul Cycle).  I thought to myself, that’s odd, I thought business was great. In the months that followed, Virgin Records on Union Square and HMV at 34th would also close. It turned out file sharing was really pervasive. Everyone was doing it, even us. Within a very short time labels were firing large amounts of their staff and not paying their bills. They were hunkering down for a brutal awakening and possibly their own demise. We were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars for long-term work we had done. We couldn't pay our bills, either. Two months later we were bankrupt and selling our gear at ten cents on the dollar. 

Months later, the financial markets would be rocked as the effects of the collateralization of real estate debt caught up with the investment banks and sent the global economy spiraling. In quick succession, the record companies, who had blocked Steve Jobs and iTunes for years, all lined up to lick his boots and offer up their titles for online distribution. That was the first pin to drop. The .99-cents iTunes single. iTunes helped the labels, sort of. They never really hired back all the people who were fired. They became contractors with no salary or benefits. The value of mixers’ work like mine cratered from $4000 or $5000 per mix to $250, $500, $100 a mix.

The industry is still at that point. almost 20 years later. The steady devaluation of artists’ works and engineers’ value continued to decline with the ascendance of the streaming networks like Spotify. Spotify provides a user interface to search and listen to music, and that’s about it. They don’t provide budgets to record, or for tour support, publicity, hotels, or any of the services the labels provided. They take 99.7% of the profit from every transaction with you. And the artist gets, well…nothing, practically speaking. 

Enter NftyTunes.

I know this was a long, drawn-out intro for a little tech company, but stick with me. This is a good story.

About a year ago, I started noticing the NFT (non-fungible token) emerge with doodles and graphic pictures being auctioned off for 1 ETH (roughly $3000). These were the same pictures that three years ago were being bought on Fiverr for $30. What was happening? Well, my best guess was that all the young idealistic people had invested in crypto years ago when it was cheap, and were now crypto millionaires, and they wanted to buy stuff. Well, what could they buy? Crypto credit cards weren’t quite here. They could buy these cute pictures! All at once, graphic art was being valued at 100x. This has now become the greatest financial craze since tulip bulbs. 

As I was observing this I thought to myself, if art is being revalued like this, why not music? And while we’re at it, why is all the art on OpenSea and Foundation silent? In a blast of inspiration I conceived of a new NFT product, the Nftyloop, a fusion of animation with a hip-hop loop. Having spent decades making rap records, I knew a great two-bar loop was gold, and rappers and listeners alike could groove to a great loop for hours. It has a hypnotic quality. I speculated that with such a groovy beat, people might linger on the art a bit longer. I started creating them in Logic Audio and testing the loops on my friends on Instagram. People really liked them. 

A couple weeks later, I was in New York working on a mix and my manager and I were having breakfast. I told him about my NftyTunes idea.  He said, “I want you to meet this guy Kush I grew up with, he’s helping me with my DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). He’s a Web3 developer and he might be able to help you.” The next day, I met Kush at the studio and pitched him. He loved it. Kush was employee number one and is now the co-founder of NftyTunes. We now have a much bigger crew of developers, graphic artists and web designers.

There are now many friends and associates in this space who share our enthusiasm. One is Scott Page, an award-winning musician and tech evangelist. Like so many people in the Web3 space, Scott immediately got what we were doing and invited us to share his launch at SXSW. Scott and I jammed all night at the Speakeasy in Austin. Many people posted it was the best party at SXSW this year. Who knew that jamming over video loops could be so fun? There were also quite a few venture capitalists at the party who shared our enthusiasm. The next day, with the company being all of three days old, we got two offers for funding.

What we are building is nothing less than a completely new architecture for art, and a new economic mechanism that places the value of the artist at the top of the pyramid.

We are doing 93/7% splits on all transactions. That’s roughly a billion times what Spotify is offering. As our committee grows and our partnerships increase, we are confident the word is going to spread like, well, a virus. If that’s the case, we are happy to infect the word with goodwill and respect for all artists. Join our movement!

www.nftytunes.app

Check me out in Gambit!

Yesterday, on Mardi Gras Day, I was able to celebrate having my first published interview in print! I am honored to be featured in New Orleans’ Gambit and am excited to share the digital version of the story below. Check back soon for more big news from my NFT venture, but in the meantime, you can catch a glimpse of what I’ve been up to by reading the story!

Photo by Khaelyn Jackson

The Gambit Interview: 'Bassy' Bob Brockmann

The Beatles: Distortion and Transcendence

I spent a good 40 hours watching Get Back, the new Beatles documentary faithfully restored and presented by master storyteller Peter Jackson. Listening on my home surround system in the living room, not only is the film visually incredible with the AI-based colorization of the amazing outfits the lads wore, but the sound… man the sound is unmistakable. The impact that EMI and Abbey Road had on the progression of recording and pop music is vast. During the time the Beatles were recording at Abbey Road, the EMI audio scientists created hundreds of custom pieces of audio hardware for equalizing, compressing and saturating audio. Almost every day they were showing up at their session with a new amazing-sounding piece of hardware. 

I called this piece “Distortion and Transcendence” because it’s partly about audio distortion and partly about emotional distortion and the way the Beatles utilized both to create some of the greatest music of all time.  It is not a secret in the film that this documentary represents the last month in the existence of the Beatles as a band, and the tensions that all the members are feeling are on full display. George is the most obvious case, with simmering resentment at being bossed around and suppressed as a writer by Paul and John for years. Paul is obviously feeling the band falling apart, and is desperately trying to wrestle as much music as he can get out and as many performances as he can out of the band. The other lads are not feeling it. John is obsessed with his new wife, and is dabbling with heroin, and showing up late almost every day for rehearsal. John is more or less faxing it in part of the time, until Paul gets him going and they are screaming bloody murder at each other and otherwise fucking about. Ringo is obviously exhausted by all of this and often looks tired and worn out. Nonetheless, they transcend. They achieve something remarkable. They make a brand new album of songs when the original intention was to rehearse previous songs (for a yet-to-be-announced concert) at the end of the month. In this metaphysical and artificlal world of Twikingham Film studios, they are trying to make music despite the fact that initially there are no microphones, or recording gear. Many more bourgeois bands would refuse to play with no support, but the lads sit down a few feet away from each other on Day 1 and begin jamming. The extraordinary thing is that bit by bit, gear starts to arrive…

It starts initially with a young boy on set with a Nagra film recorder and a boom mic that’s constantly being flung about as the group moves to different parts of the room. It’s almost comedic, and the band makes full use of the absurdity of the moment. Within a few days a couple of mics arrive as does a PA system. It’s almost as if the gear are like weeds that start to spring up as the days of rehearsing and recording progress. In time, Paul and John lobby Sir George Martin to leverage his connections with the label to get an 8-track recorder and an EMI desk into the studio so Glyn Johns can begin documenting their efforts. From the perspective of any engineer or producer like myself, who has spent their life documenting art and making records, this film is an extraordinary document of not just the personal lives of these four artists and their families. It’s a time stamp of the turning point in the very sound of music. This equipment they were using, the Neumann tube microphones, the EMI console, the Vox PA system, the whole setup is as high-fi as it gets, even by today’s standards.

For anyone who studies the sound of the Beatles records, the immediate sounds you are hearing in this film are unmistakable. Also, the fact that there’s no isolation — they’re singing through a shitty PA that’s constantly feeding back, and yet they still create magic, sitting 4-5 feet away from one another.  The way that Ringo deadens his snare and toms with tea towels, George’s guitar sounds and effects, John’s way of playing with his voice until he finds the right sound for the song, and Paul’s mastery of not just the bass and guitar, but piano and voice as well, are inspiring. Paul McCartney may be the greatest vocalist of this generation. He is already the most prolific and deepest songwriter. While the other three guys are coming and going, Paul is relentlessly working out the kinks or a large number of possible songs for the album. There he is sitting at the piano for hours, rehearsing, running them like trump cards. “Let it Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “Two of Us,” as well as older songs he and John started but never recorded.

The Beatles’ contributions as musicians and singers are incredible, and of course, there is the distortion. The distortion of the sounds is part of the magic sauce of record-making. 

What the fuck is distortion?

noun

noun: distortion; plural noun: distortions

1.
the action of distorting or the state of being distorted.
a distorted form or part.
"a distortion in the eye's shape or structure"

2.
the action of giving a misleading account or impression.
"we're tired of the media's continuing distortion of our issues"

3.
change in the form of an electrical signal or sound wave during processing.

Distortion is a hard thing to describe with words. You have to hear it to appreciate it, and of course in most cases, to the average listener, you don’t hear it at all. To the untrained ear, people mostly ignore it and focus on the talking or the music, on the radio, in a bar, or in a large venue. Distortion is a part of life. 

Since the beginning of recorded sound, starting with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, scientists were experimenting with ways to capture sound.  The earliest systems, the wire recorder and the phonograph, were both using motion and pressure to capture sound with a cone, much like the logo of RCA Records, with the dog and his master’s voice. The musicians or singers would make a sound and the cone would amplify it and it would vibrate to a needle that would cut into the rotating wire or vinyl disk. They would literally be cutting a record. The most obvious observation when now listening to these old recordings is how much distortion there is; it’s almost so distorted you can hardly hear the music at all, yet millions of people were captivated by these early recording devices. It was very easy for them to make the association between the singer, and the recording of the singer as being the same thing. Even with the most advanced processors and chips and hardware available today, we still hear distortion all the time. 

Welcome to Citibank

My favorite example of distortion is the on-hold music for Citibank, this saccharine, pseudo soft -rock song with a wilty sax player. It’s been their theme song for a decade at least, and it’s always been distorted beyond all recognition. Trillions of dollars in transactions and shitty hold music. Definitely not a Grammy contender. Grammy is of course slang for gramophone, the first phono recorder, and playback device manufactured by RCA Records. You also hear modulation distortion all the time when getting too far from a radio station tower, or moving away from a few clicks from the center of the dial on your car radio. Get far away enough and the distortion overtakes the music and it’s just noise. 

Why is distortion so fucking great?

So, if this noise is so bothersome to some (audio experts like me), how come people don’t complain about it? Well, A. Distortion is a part of life and B. People love distortion. Listen to any Jack White record, or any major pop record these days. Regardless of the style or genre of music, there is a lot of distortion in the music (guitar amps, tube mics, tube amps, discreet amps ) or even more distortion in the processing of the sounds. This is because distortion is the ultimate spice combo for sound.

Like salt and seasoning on food, distortion is seasoning for sound

Most music heads want to freak out when they hear anything distorted. Like when Jimi Hendrix feeds back his Marshall amp, or any great rock guitar player does, distortion does funny things to our nervous system, and like the drugs we like to take, we like taking in distortion as well. Jack White now has his own pressing plant and manufactures his own custom distortion pedals. Distortion is cool. 

What happens when you distort sound? Well, if you examine sound through a scope, you can see what a pure sine wave looks like and what is begins to look like when you amplify or saturate it. This can be done in many ways. You can plug it into a guitar amp and crank it up. You can also process it in a number of ways, by passing it through one of many pieces of audio gear that make it sound wonderful. What you see on the scope as you crank up the juice is that spikes and square shapes start to appear in the otherwise pure sine wave. That is the sound collecting and gathering harmonics as it gets more saturated. Harmonics are a natural part of nature, you hear them everywhere, as screen doors creak in the wind, and wind makes higher frequencies when it blows faster. The same thing happens when you begin to distort a voice. The grain and crud of the voice become more apparent, and the voice sounds warmer and less clinical.

When people, people like John and Paul scream into the mic, it gets really distorted, and it sounds amazing. They were well familiar with blowing up a mic after years of experience making records. So the entire experience of watching them make this record, from almost no gear, to bringing in gear to the film studio, to ultimately transferring mid-rehearsal to Apple studio their new facility, is a study in distortion and recording. Everything is distorted, Ringo’s drums through the tube mics, the vocals, Billy Preston’s keyboards. Everything. Everything is lovingly compressed and distorted by the incredible gear Glyn Johns is wielding in the control room. The amazing thing about this particular doc is that of course watching the process they go through to create is fascinating, but to hear it in hi fidelity is the ultimate experience for a true music head like myself. 

Overcoming the ultimate obstacle

The next part of the story of this documentary is the thing that is emotionally the most inspiring to me. Making a record is one of the hardest things you can do. Not because it’s hard to get a great drum sound, or get a great vocal performance, or capture the intricacies of the sounds. That’s all hard, for sure. But what’s really hard, is getting out of your own way, and letting your baggage not get in the way of creating something of greatness. The thing that is most inspiring about this film is seeing these four people, with the support of a very small staff, deal with all the emotional baggage that they obviously had with themselves as well with each other; and despite all that, find a way to love one another and create something that transcends their own mortality. Two of the Beatles are no longer with us. In time Paul and Ringo will pass away. But the love and the humor and passion that they share with one another despite their differences and insecurities is one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen in my life. I have spent thousands of days of my life in various studio situations with all kinds of emotional challenges. Ultimately, music, like sports, is a mind game. The goal for the artists, as well as the engineers and producers, is to do something great and best your previous record, even though by any standard it seems impossible.

Why do people bother to achieve? It’s hard to say, but all people who we admire share one ideal: That they do it and succeed with it despite people’s lack of belief or even their own lack of belief. The Beatles, all of them are undeniable geniuses in their own right. But the way in which they interact with each other is an amazing thing to see and hear. Most of the time they don’t even count in the songs, one just starts paying and the others fall in instinctively. Lyrically, to see John and Paul riffing on the right way to sing a line, or which words to use is a thing of beauty. They also employ chaos theory, often launching into games where they sing the whole song through their teeth, or with a silly Scottish accent. Of course, another great way to make something even better is to add another party. In this case, phenomenal keyboardist and singer Billy Preston, who brings the grease and funk and musicality. They never sounded better than with Billy’s additions. At one point Billy is reading the local tabloid while laying down the funkiest part with his right hand.  I can only imagine that while they appear to be fucking about, they are in actuality stitching together the ultimate version of the line or words. Getting away from it in your mind is a pathway to discovery. These guys were the masters of getting out of their own way. 

It takes a village for sure to make records, and George Martin and Glyn Johns don’t say much, but occasionally they come with the butters. The moment when Glyn and George Martin present Paul with the idea to perform on the roof of Apple is captured in ultra slow motion. You see the recognition, then the unmistakable smile and excitement that Paul has found the perfect scenario for their last concert in history. Also Glyn guides Paul in real time thorough the refrain of “Let it Be,” minutes before Paul teaches the sequence to the rest of the band. It doesn’t get any better than that.  Then there’s Mal, the band’s trusty roadie, making sure to get down all the permutations of the lyrics with John and Paul, documenting everything on paper, lugging all the gear around the room, and ultimately negotiating with the angry officers downstairs, as the lads are making history on the roof. This film is, in my humble opinion, the greatest music documentary I have ever seen. The way in which the cameramen quietly captured one of the greatest collaborations in history is truly a thing to behold, and an incredible listen as well.

Chaka Khan & the mic technique

 We now live in a world of Digital Audio Workstations, or DAWs for short. Protools, Logic, Luna, Ableton; each one has its own sound, and they all give you different ways to deal with mixing, particularly vocals. We can apply 1000 gain moves and level moves to a vocal to make it “speak,” making sure you hear every whisper, and also don't have your hair peeled back by a loud scream. But how was vocal recording done before digital audio? 

For one thing, as the recordist you had a daunting and awesome task: to get all that information on tape and not blow up the tape. Because if you did, your signal would distort on tape, and also blow out much of the high end and detail of the performance. It was also a grave sin to fuck up a vocal recording. So, for that reason only the best engineers cut vocals, because it was the most important part of the recording of the record. 

Certainly, getting it on tape as an engineer was job #1, but there is a secret technique that all the singers in history are aware of, and that's mic technique. What is mic technique, you ask?

Mic technique is the way seasoned studio singers used the awesome power of the amplification of the mic (about 80db) to “create the sound of the performance.” 

A good example of a master of mic technique is Chaka Khan. I had the good fortune to work with Chaka with producer Dave Gamson of Scritti Politti, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Chaka Khan fame. We were actually recording lead vocals for what would be the last record in her contract with Warner Brothers. For me to watch Chaka manipulate space and her body to produce her performance was a true thing of awe and beauty. Chaka was always smoking when she sang. Like Billie Holiday, I imagine that smoking was part of the amazing deluxe gravel and grit in her sound. Chaka would creep up an inch from the capsule and deliver the sexiest whisper delivery of the verse lines. Then when the track would kick in, she would take a drag of her cigarette, and lean back three feet and unleash a power line that blew your face off, and made your whole body erupt with goose bumps. 

Of course, not only was the performance a thing of beauty, flawless in its delivery, but it was the perfect level on tape, and for the mix. In that way, Chaka was able to “produce” the performance to the degree that it was really effortless to record. That is one of the great joys of recording, to witness a historic moment in recording, and count your lucky stars that you got to be there. Over the years, I’ve worked with many, many great singers who employ mic technique to create their vocal sound. 

From a recording standpoint the other thing they all know is “proximity effect.”

Proximity effect is the build up of low end that happens when you get really close to the microphone capsule.

You can hear it as an annoying “woof” sound, especially when the class principal gets too close to the mic when making announcements. In the hands of a skilled singer, they can create warmth and sexiness to the sound, or add low end warmth to a belt line if it's just the right distance from the mic. Analog recording is so fun. 

One of the first big producers I got an opportunity to work with was Kashif. Kashif had just built a huge studio on 37th Street called Marathon. It was two buildings down the street from Nile Rodger’s studio. There were studios all though that part of Manhattan. Most of the big producers used the A-list session singers. For Kashif, it was Tawatha Agee, Lisa Fischer, Sandra St. Victor, and Audrey Wheeler. All of these women went on to have huge solo careers as well, but at that point of time they were “the section.” If it was a Luther Vandross, David Bowie, or a Rolling Stones record, they were the section you called. When they arrived at the studio, they arrived. They weren’t in sweatpants and flip flops carrying their bed pillow, that's for sure. They would arrive in high heels, dressed to the nines , with the latest handbags and jewelry. They all looked, (and of course sang) like superstars. They were all divas, and they loved to chatter and gossip about fashion, relationships, and other such topics. It would drive Kashif crazy. He would yell at them to keep quiet in between takes, but he never succeeded. I loved it secretly, all the juicy gossip and jokes were amazing and fun. Great vibes.

What was more amazing was that when the track rolled, they snapped into formation like a military unit. All four of them would creep in close to the mic and sing “shoop”...or whatever. The harmony was perfect, pitch was perfect, and pronunciation was flawless. When they would rehearse they would look at each other carefully and watch and work with their hands on how they would pronounce every word. It wasn’t  the producer, it was really them. They would just figure out how to sing a line, and they would dance and groove together while they were watching each other's lips. When they were ready, they'd give me the high sign “we’re ready.” Then they would just deliver it, boom. 

It was really an extraordinary thing to witness. As Chaka did, when they needed to belt, like all seasoned singers, they would back up three feet and belt it. The even more incredible thing was that they would figure out who had the strongest voices and place themselves appropriately close or far depending on what they were doing. The soft girls would be a couple inches away. The loud and lower girls would step back. The balance was always perfect, because they balanced themselves…

In so many ways it was a blessing to work with so many seasoned musicians in those early years in New York City.  The funny thing is, I still teach young singers how to “work the mic” every time I produce a vocal, which is pretty frequently. This new singer Goldie Scott, who I imagine will be a big star by the time I finish writing my book, had no technique when I met her. But she took to it incredibly quickly. And now when I do remote sessions with her in NYC, she sings perfectly at the right spot on the mic. It all comes back to efficiency for me. It’s much easier to take a little time to get the performance really great, rather than let singers do a bunch of takes and assume you can fix it in the edit. That always takes way longer and is usually less exciting and immediate. 

The Kindness Doctrine

Wake-up call  

So, the latest revelations from Francis Haugen about the social media algorithms used by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have got me thinking about old-fashioned ideas like decorum, respect, dignity, and empathy.

Is it possible any longer to have a discussion with a person with an opposing viewpoint without attacking or killing them?

It’s a serious question to ponder. I think of the early days of the nerd-hippies in Palo Alto, creating the internet. There was a utopian view that the Net could be better than real life. I think many of the original builders believed that idea to be possible, that there would be a respectful code that people on the net would follow that people in real life didn’t. Of course, that was fucking naive, and we ended up with a cruel narcissist running our country, inciting everyone to behave like our pettiest worse selves, or egg on others passively. That setup helped elect a complete homicidal lunatic into the most powerful office on the planet. Now are we to believe things will be better off inside a pair of goggles where the attacker is running at us with a digital machete instead of trolling us with hate comments? It would drive any sane, decent person to fall into hopelessness and drink themselves to death in response. 

Hopeful signs

 A dark thought for sure, but the opposite of that are recent writings and appearances by thought leaders (and even politicians!) advocating for civility. It’s a small group of people at this point, maybe 1%, but i see it as an indication of little sprouts of enlightenment showing up after a decade of hate, intolerance, and violence. It’s been an understanding in even the highest level of media that if it bleeds, it leads. There is also editorial restraint for sure, but the social networks not only aren’t holding back bad behavior and violent ideas, but encouraging them for profit. There are more things of importance than just profit. There’s the little idea of having a peaceful and happy citizenry in this country and others. That has to be more important than sheer greed. We even manifested it, at least to a limited degree, after WWII, when most people in the US were making enough to have a comfortable life, and live in relative peace. 

Cause and effect 

Being a record producer, mathematically minded, and a Nicherin Buddhist, I think about interactions socially and in business in terms of what creates the greatest good.

Based on the law of cause and effect (Myoho), every interaction between people, planets and molecules yields a net positive or a net negative. The Law of Cause end Effect basically says if you think, speak or act in a way that’s harmful or hurtful to another person, you are inevitably hurting yourself because you’re interconnected,  depriving yourself of happiness and peace. The simple reason is that energetically if you take an aggressive posture against someone, you will inevitably be the victim of blowback at some point. For so many interactions I’ve had in my career with companies, and fellow writers and clients, there is always a negotiation. What am I getting, and what are they getting? Where is the value? You both have talent, they might be spending money, and you may be providing a service, and even think you’re pretty awesome. So how do you divide the ownership of what’s being created? Many famous negotiators have said, “If both parties feel shitty at the end of a good negotiation, it’s a success.” I personally take exception with that zero-sum game philosophy. I think if you apply an additive model to any interaction, where you put focus on the desires and needs of the other party, then it is possible to have a win-win negotiation. How do we go about that? Is that an excuse for being a doormat and getting steamrolled? The answer is no. Having respect for the dignity of the other party, and employing wisdom and compassion in your perspective does not mean that there’s no boundary, or that it’s OK to be fucked over. In fact, to employ the Law in your negotiation would be to show ultimate respect for your position AND the other person’s position. I think a structure that honors the desires and goals of both parties is the pathway to success. I try as much as I can to listen and internalize the desires of the other party before deciding what I want. That is employing the idea of value creation, which is another Buddhist ideal. 

Value creation

Am I throwing all my passion into producing this singer’s vocals for the money, or for the love?

I think if it’s just about the money, it’s hard to truly fulfill your job of creating value for the artist.

I say this because going beyond the expectations to create something great goes way beyond getting paid. It falls into the category of creating something of greatness for both of you, something that is long-lasting and brings value for a long time, not just for today! I feel bad for a certain politician who attacks almost everyone all the time because he’s so terribly insecure. How said is that life, and all the suffering it engenders? It’s great to have friends! This is the essence of the greatest collaborations in art, technology, and business.

Respectful interaction

It is so clear the effect disrespectful interaction on and off the web is having on our society. There are wars of aggression and military takeovers of countries based on misinformation and incendiary posts that pit one group against the other of completely marginalize a group of people. That kind of behavior as well as ideologies around business and the military of crushing, dominating, destroying, or overwhelming the other side are animalistic ways of thinking about interaction. Because we are all energetic beings at our core (electrons) we effect others and ourselves with our actions. This is obvious when you observe soldiers or gang members who have harmed or killed others. Shakespeare is full of observations of what happens when you harm others, verbally or otherwise. Its a stain that is impossible to erase. Often human beings can’t take the blowback and end up harming or killing themselves. Again, it’s impossible to harm others without harming yourself. So why do so many people choose to insult and attack others with such great regularity? Well, part of the reason is you get rewarded for it. Whether it’s media attention, or likes, or popular adulation, there are multiple short-term benefits of being aggressive. You might even start your own cult! 

I can’t do much about flame throwers, but I am noticing a new trend in society away from that kind of behavior towards a more respectful and compassionate way of communicating. I dub this “The Kindness Doctrine.”

In my interpretation kindness is not weakness, but a way of expressing your ideas without attacking the other person or group. For the most part in my career over the last 35 years, I have often chosen to lose an aspect of an argument or negotiation in favor of preserving a relationship long term. It is worth it to take a money hit on a record that goes multi-platinum and builds a lifetime friendship and working relationship.

So, my employing the Kindness Doctrine of not disrespecting or insulting the person even though you may disagree with them, you open up the space where you both have the opportunity to create remedies down the road, or re-negotiate down the road when you’re both having success. There is a lot of good and bad being represented in the climate negotiations at COP26. This is one global negotiation where, if people focus only on winning, we are all going to lose. The rules have changed.  All intelligent players in the game realize it. Like all humans are connected because of the laws of energy, we are likewise connected by the complex weather systems and temperature systems that govern our planet. If we choose to not cooperate sufficiently when we are a major violator of pollution and carbon limits then we are not only harming everyone else, but ourselves as well. Young people inherently understand this interconnectedness of all people. I am very inspired by new model writers and politicians who are advocating for a more nuanced and respectful tone as a way to win and get more accomplished. I’m also advocating for limiting the ability of powerful AI machines to dictate what we are exposed to. Like other self-fulfilling prophesies, the more violent and aggressive content you are intentionally exposed to, the more violent and dangerous our world becomes. 

The path forward

I believe the ultimate path forward to save our planet and take care of our fellow neighbors is for each of us to embark on a radical campaign of self-improvement called Human Revolution.

The concept is from Buddhist philosopher and leader Diasaku Ikeda. Many will say “I’d be fine if those people just stopped doing that.” The problem in that calculus is that demanding others to change is not something we have the power to do. But changing ourselves is something all of us can do. Even showing a little compassion when a lady is having a total meltdown at a store, instead of shaming her into submission, might actually enact a big change in that person’s life. Simply judging people never will lead to systemic change in society. Shaming people when they’re already upset and confused only radicalizes them and drives them further to the other side. I am choosing to follow this path. It has really served me well in my life and career, and I can sleep at night, knowing that I didn’t intentionally make enemies in this lifetime, but good friends. When we all become friends, even though we sometimes disagree, we all WIN.

Madonna, Buddhism, and The Relationship Economy

In my long journey as a mixer, producer, teacher, and mentor, many young people have asked me what’s most important in my career. Based on my experience in the music business, the answer to me is clear: friends. I might add that friendship is not only important in your career, it's important in your life. From the perspective of my Buddhist practice, there is nothing more precious than friendship and the bonds you create with other human beings in your life. Since all the material gains can’t fit inside your consciousness, you also “can’t take it with you, as the saying goes. If you subscribe to the belief that life is eternal, then one thing is clear: the impact that you have on others and the ways in which you help others and minister to their sufferings is indeed the “treasure” that you take to the other side. 

So what is the relationship economy? It is the strength that comes from fostering strong bonds of commitment and giving with people you encounter on your journey. My career over the past 35 years has included big successes, stratospheric highs, and devastating lows. That is the story for most people I know and have read about. So what is the most important thing when you’re successful, and more importantly not successful? It’s the friends you share these ups and downs with. I’ve spent years in the studio with world-famous, incredibly talented musicians and singers, and often what I've discovered is that the more famous they get, the more money they generate, the more isolated and unhappy they become. At a certain point, all the fawning and spending doesn’t bring them the happiness they crave. Soon they don't know who to trust, and they end up in a self-destructive cycle, doing drugs and pining for the good old days when they were broke and happy. This is not a trope, it's a well-documented real world situation.

Like any financial annuity, the relationship economy requires regular attention to mind the friendships that are your greatest asset.

I remember reading an essay about Christina Onassis, the daughter of the billionaire shipping magnate Aristotle, who married Jackie Kennedy after her husband's death. She lived on an isolated Greek island and had to fly her “friends” in and bribe them to spend time with her. She was terribly lonely and had inconsolable depression. At one point she was so lonely she contemplated suicide. All that money and so unhappy. Why? Because money doesn't bring happiness. Neither does having 10,000 followers on Instagram. Both of these concepts have been well documented. 

My experience as a young engineer in New York City was a clear example of how important friends are. My first roommate in NYC was a drummer and fellow classmate at the University of Miami music school, Graham Hawthorne. Like me and other UM grads, we were all hustling around NY for gigs and supporting each other by attending each other's shows and looking out for opportunities. Shortly after Graham and I moved into this shithole basement apartment in Chelsea, Graham started working as a drum programmer for Fred Zarr, a producer in Brooklyn. Yes, there were drum programmers who were drummers in the ‘80s. Fred was the music director for Madonna, who at that time was the biggest artist on the planet. Among other things, Fred was famous for playing the string intro to “Papa Dont’ Preach” on the Emulator.  After a couple sessions at Fred’s home studio in south Brooklyn, Graham suggested to Fred that I also work for him as an engineer. At that time I was a lowly assistant cleaning toilets, answering phones, and making lots of coffee. I wasn't able to engineer there and I was hungry for action. 

Fred invited me to join Graham the next weekend at his studio. When I arrived and looked around Fred’s basement studio, all I saw were posters for all of Madonna’s records and movies. They were all signed by her, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was in the “Big Time.” Our first song was not for Madonna, it was for Fred’s high-school girlfriend, who happened to be a terrible singer…the worst. Her name was Betty, and we worked on recording vocals for her song for months, which at the age of 23 seemed like an eternity. Weekend after weekend, I would go to his studio and suffer through tortuous vocal sessions. When I’d get home, I would complain to Graham that it was the worst gig of my life. I wanted to quit. “Man, I'll never get a gig with Madonna!” I would shout at Graham. As any good friend would, he counseled me to hang in there and that something better would materialize, so I took his sage advice (though I still grumbled). 

A couple months after that fateful conversation Fred called me up and asked if I could come over and do a rough mix for a 14-year old artist he was developing for Atlantic Records named Debbie Gibson. I went over that Saturday and whipped up a decent blend on the song “Only in my Dreams,” and printed it to a DAT and forgot about it. Fred paid me $50 and I thanked him for thinking of me. Months later, Graham were at our favorite burger joint in the West Village, the Corner Bistro. As we were sitting in the booth waiting for our burgers I heard this song coming out of the jukebox. I recognized the intro riff…”dum, do dum, dayup..dum de dum, dayup..." I walked over to the jukebox. I remembered Fred had this long clap, that went “kawwww,” like the one in Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy.” My creative contribution to the rough mix was to put it in an auto panner, so every time the clap hit it would pan from right to left. Sure enough, I’m standing in front of the jukebox listening to my mix. “Holy shit! This is my demo mix. How did this happen?”

I called Fred straight away, and told him I’d heard it in a jukebox. Fred replied, “of course, Bob. It's a hit on Billboard!” I replied, “What’s Billboard?” Fred said, “Bob, go to a newsstand and get Billboard magazine and open to the centerfold, the HOT 100.” Sure enough, there was a newsstand right down the street from the Bistro and when I opened to the center it was “Only in My Dreams,” number four with a bullet. I stood there on the corner in shock. How did this amazing thing come to happen to me? 

The foolish person would say “This happened to me because I’m fucking amazing and I deserve it,” but the contrary is the truth. This happened because my friend and roommate vouched for me. Also, a new DJ on the scene — Little Louie Vega — had done an extended remix of the song, and after catching fire in the Miami clubs, the remix worked its way up the East coast until it became a number-one dance hit. Atlantic Records realized their good fortune and commissioned a radio single. They had to act fast, so they checked the vault and found my lowly $50 mix and mastered it. The rest, as they say, is history. Couple weeks later, I got fired from both my assisting jobs (they assumed rightly that I'd been working at competing studios) and I was summarily put on the street. Like it or not, I was now a freelance mixing engineer. Shortly thereafter I was commissioned to do several other records that also attained high chart positions, and I was on my way to success.

There are so many experiences I’ve had that led to more success and they were always the result of a friend vouching for me. I went on to do all of Debbie Gibson's hit singles, and when it came time to do a remix for the B side of “Foolish Beat,” it was my friends, Graham Hawthorne and Andy Snitzer, who I called to play drums and sax. 

Fourteen years later, Graham would call me again. His buddy, Tony Shanahan (who played with Patti Smith and other notable rock stars) was contracting a session for Trevor Horn, one of my favorite producers of all time. When I showed up for the session at the Hit Factory, there was Trevor Horn along with Diane Warren (probably the most successful songwriter in history), as well as Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer for the film Pearl Harbor, with Ben Affleck. Also there was the artist Faith Hill. The song was “There You’ll Be.” At the time, I had built a studio in Lower Manhattan called NuMedia. Trevor booked my studio and we ended up competing all of Faith’s vocals at my place. After that he flew me to Los Angeles to finish the tracking. For the orchestra, Trevor hired orchestrator David Campbell to write the score for a 140-piece orchestra. I remember commenting to the assistant that he looked an awful lot like Beck. He said “that's because he’s Beck's dad.” Wow. What an idiot...

Not only was the whole experience amazing, but the song was nominated for an Oscar for best song of 2000. Shortly thereafter, 9/11 happened. I was actually on my way to Los Angeles for the Latin Grammys. I was grounded in Detroit metro airport, and ended up in a motel near the airport. The song that I heard on the radio all day long was “There You’ll Be.” None of this would have happened if not for my long abiding friendship with Graham, who is still a close friend to this day. 

The moral of this story is that it is truly the relationships that you cultivate in life that bring you the greatest success and happiness. Of course, friendship is not a one-way street. Friendships need to be nurtured, and that means giving as well as getting. As I get older, I realize more and more that there is more to life than Gold records and chart positions. It’s very important to cultivate a life outside of your career. I learned this tough lesson after decades of workaholism. When the music business crashed and all the recording studios shuttered (including mine) I had to do a lot of soul searching to find meaning in all the wreckage. What I discovered (much to my surprise) was that my friends were my greatest gift and benefit during those difficult times. I also learned how important it was for me to be a good friend.

What is Music Mixing?

It’s incredible how many times I’ve been out at a party or a bar and someone has asked me what a mixer does. Often they think I am a DJ, because DJs also refer to themselves as “mixers” because they mix records together into a cohesive playlist. It’s confusing for people, and apparently, the federal government doesn't know what a mixer is, either.

Any job search for mixers on Indeed will yield no results for what I do for a living, unless you’re interested in getting to the cement business. “Music Mixer” is not considered a job, even though thousands of people have done it historically and do it every day in the music business. How can it be that the work guys (and girls) who shepherd the project to completion in a $20 billion business do is not considered for a job category? Well, in the dark ages, musicians were not given a burial…they were not worthy. Wayne would be so sad. 

It might be easier to understand what a record producer is, partly because many record producers have been portrayed in movies and TV shows, and it's an easier thing for people outside the business to understand.

A music mixer, I have often said, is a conductor with total control over the balance and sound of every instrument and voice in a song.

A mixer is literally the person tasked with mixing together all the sounds of a completed production into a cohesive stereo mix of the song. Every song you have ever heard on the radio or a streaming service was mixed by somebody. 

When I was in college at University of Miami, my buddy Jerry Placken and I used to spend hours, and hours, and hours hanging in his room (which had an amazing homemade sound system), and pick apart every record in our collection. Of course, we were listening to the performances, and the arrangements, and the sounds, but mostly we were picking apart the mixes, the way a saxophone player listens to and transcribes a jazz solo. 

We listened to every aspect of these records: the drum sounds, the vocal sound, the position of the backgrounds, and placement of each percussion and keyboard instrument. The bass sound, and EQ of the bass, the relationship between the kick drum and the bass. We were obsessed.  We were also fanboys of the best mixers in the game: Bob Clearmountain (Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie), Geoff Emerick (the Beatles), Glyn Johns (Led Zeppelin), George Massenburg (Earth, Wind & Fire), Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson). Though mixing is an obscure artform that very few people outside the business know of, it was our obsession, and these guys were some of our heroes. 

Mixing is an esoteric practice that involves listening to all the sounds in a production and carefully placing them in a three-dimensional space that eventually becomes the stereo mix that you hear in your iTunes collection or radio station.

There are distinct elements to mixing. They are identified as a selection of processes that you can apply to sound. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is the one that I used back in the day when I was running my Elements of Mixing seminars. They are volume, pan, EQ, compression, distortion, saturation, delay, reverb, modulation, and time compression/expansion. All of these techniques bring out a particular part of a sound or obscure it, depending on what the goal is. I will discuss all these processes in greater detail in future posts.

I have always thought of mixing as a bit like musical chairs, the game we all played as grade schoolers. Mixing is often the job of packing an extraordinary amount of information into one space. Once you become a bit further on in the mix process, simply pulling back one thing, like the background vocals or a keyboard part, will open up a whole new balance in the mix as the musical chairs again fill up. Each part in the mix is always vying for visibility. The important questions are what do you feature and what do you obscure?

Truth be told, everything is important: the drums , the bassline, keyboards, strings, horns, guitars, and percussion are all important. But, nothing is more important than the lead vocal (in my humble opinion). The lead vocal is the holy grail of recording, and mostly the reason we go into the studio to record; to create wallpaper to go behind the vocalist. It’s also how most of us make a living. This is not, of course, true for instrumental music — but for the time being we're talking about pop records with singers. I have read interviews with many famous mixers who build their mix around the lead vocal. I share that philosophy and have always made the vocal the focus of my mixes. There are many rule-based philosophies about where to place the vocal, and they often fall in to styles of a time, and genre of music. Most ‘70s and ‘80s rock, for example, tend to feature the guitars and a massive drum sound, while de-emphasizing the bass and vocals. In many great rock mixes, the beat and the guitars drive the attention and the vocal sits neatly tucked away inside the mix. In some pop and R&B, as well as rap, the vocal is king. Many listeners get “goose bumps” when they hear a particularly compelling performance from a diva like Aretha Franklin, or Whitney Houston, or Adele. Every bit of the gravel and breath and tiny bits of ad-lib have been meticulously manicured to make it easy for the listener to identify (and connect with) what the singer is doing.

I would say making the artist, producer, mixer or listener have goose bumps is pretty much job number one. Goose bumps are what typically happen to people on their arms when they connect in a particularly emotional way to a moment of a song. It can be enhanced by a brilliant string arrangement, or a particular dramatic break in the song which exposes the lead vocal by itself. Like the lead actor in a film, the lead vocal is typically the focus on a pop record. It’s all about engaging the listener and creating an emotional connection with them. If the producer has done his/her job, and the singer has performed admirably, and the mixer brings out all that is special in the performance, then you might just have a hit record. I’ve had a few, and I always knew it was a hit before it left the studio. Why? Because I got goose bumps.

Puff Daddy, who was one of my earliest and long-standing clients, often used to look at my arms to see if I got the bumps. The right arm was R&B and the left was pop, and if they both lit up, it was a cross-over smash. Music is all about emotion, and collecting it and bottling it properly can make a lot of money.

Is Mastering Your Music Necessary?

The whole process of recording a record, producing, engineering and ultimately releasing it can be daunting to new and established artists in this DIY wilderness. One question I often get from clients is “do I need to master?” That’s understandable given the options available in the new marketplace. For example, there are several online AI-based mastering platforms that are quite inexpensive. 

AI Mastering

How do they stack up? My personal opinion is that spending $20 dollars on an unassisted master from an AI robot after spending up to $10k to use the best players, best mixer and producer to dial in every nuance of your song, only to get it crushed and lose all that nuance, seems to me selling yourself and your project short. Having examined most of the online options as well as software and plugs, I have to say there’s no comparison. (Full disclosure: I have consulted for several companies that develop mastering AI).

Part of the reason I started mastering my own mixes for clients was that I got disillusioned by seeing my work trashed by a bad algorithm.

That’s not to say I’m a Luddite or against technology. I often use AI as a starting point when I’m mastering, but the operative term is “starting point.” It’s a starting point because many of the algorithms are geared towards maximum loudness, which often leads to all the beautiful low end and warmth of the mix being sacrificed for maximum volume.  

Loudness Wars

MS (or “middle sides”) processing can alter the spatial aspect of the song by enhancing the out-of-phase information which usually represents noise or reverb. By using more out-of-phase information, the mastering engineer can make the stereo wider, make the reverb more intense or present or enhance the noise (distortion) to make the edge “edgier” on the song. Mastering in that sense is as musical and creative as mixing, even though you’re processing a stereo or spatial signal. I think the best mastering is when you can show the producer or mixer or artist another conception of the song. 

Streaming Requirements

So…

Given that streaming services have their own thresholds and loudness rules for uploaded music, do you even need to master or should you just upload the mix?

My opinion is that the mastering process is extremely important for at least one reason: you don’t want your mix sounding boring or dull in comparison to other well-produced records in a playlist. The same goes for any other playback medium (DJs, radio, etc.). For your production to be successful, give it the best shot for success. The best mastering engineers bring your song in line with other great sounding records. Don’t short change your hard work!

Examples

Below are a couple examples of recent masters I’ve worked on. All of these are of other mixes not done by me. For my mixes, I tend to “pre master” my productions so there’s less dramatic difference when I master my own stuff. I think what you’ll hear is that not only are the mixes louder, but hopefully they’re more open, less harsh, and more engaging than the bare mixes. I’d love to hear your comments and feedback.

It’s All About the Publishing

When I was a young kid growing up in New Orleans, I would listen to music relentlessly. I also watched as many movies about music as I could. Many things attracted me to music. There were the obvious sex, drugs, and rock & roll. But there was also the glamour of traveling all over the world and making money doing the thing you love the most. Long before the tech-bros came to dominate the world’s attention and suck up all the money, there were musicians…

Musicians were not only cool, but they were rich. They lived in massive mansions and castles. Many in fact still do. There is a lot of money in the music business, but where does it all go, and who gets it (mostly)? Well, record companies and distribution companies certainly get a lot of it (about 97%). There are also contractors in the business: musicians (side-men), composers, songwriters, engineers, mixers, and producers.

Here’s a “Jeopardy” question for you… of all those people involved in record-making, who makes the most money?

The simple answer is songwriters, and there’s a good reason for it. Artists, bands, producers, mixers, and everyone else involved in the creation of the actual record are paid in “points.” Points is legal shorthand for percentage points of the net profit of the sales of mechanicals (vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, etc.) to the music fans. So if you worked on the record as a producer or a mixer you would frequently get an upfront fee, and also points on the record. If the record was a blockbuster, like Michael Jackson’s Thriller; or, in my case, Ready to Die (The Notorious BIG), or The Score (The Fugees), or Secrets (Toni Braxton), you’re talking about millions of records or CDs sold. So you would think if you are participating in the back end you would be a millionaire. The sad truth is that less than 1% of mixers and artists ever made a dime of royalties. That is because the record companies have always used an arcane method of accounting called recoupment. 

Recoupment is the process labels use to make sure all the bills are paid before any royalties are disbursed. In other words, no one gets paid until ALL of the expenses are recouped.

So of course that involves studio time, travel, hotels, gear rental, transportation, marketing (blow and drugs), promotion (hookers and trips to strip clubs), and of course lots of expensive executive dinners that run into the thousands of dollars. Yes, all expenses must be covered before anyone gets paid. And of course, if they haven't spent enough money marketing the music (that includes payoffs/payola to the DJs to play the record), there are always imaginative ways to spend more money, which is at the discretion of the record company. In most cases, this game goes on for years, and in many cases, decades. There are many cases of famous bands (like The Byrds, who testified to Congress about songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which sold millions of copies as a single) who have never been paid out a cent in decades. Not a cent. This same magic accounting practice is also still employed by the movie studios, which is why Joel Silver, the producer of the first Batman movie, famously said, “Fuck you, pay me $1 million and no royalties. I know I’ll never make a dime from you cocksuckers.” Colorful accounting is usually met with colorful language. 

So who makes money when a single or album sells millions of units, or gets millions of streams? The songwriter (and the publisher), that's who. In the case of The Byrds, Bob Dylan wrote the song and had already recorded it. The Byrds did a “cover” of “Tambourine Man.” So why is being a writer better than being a performer?

Royalties for songwriters don’t go through the money fraud mill of the record companies, because the money is collected separately by a PRO — a Performing Rights Organization like BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC.

These are the ones for America, but there are PROs for almost every country in the world, with the exception of a few. China, Iran, and North Korea do not have PROs. But South Korea does, and k-pop pays out billions of dollars to bands and the songwriters who pen their hits. Songwriters get paid directly from the sales and airplay of the songs, as well as when they are performed live (except in the US). 

So you might say, “Hey Bassy Bob, are you an idiot? Why did you spend 30 years engineering, mixing and producing pop records, and not just become a songwriter?” It’s a fair question. In some ways I was an idiot, but I was really good at mixing and producing, and I loved it, so I followed my heart. I did get involved in songwriting pretty early on. I signed my first publishing deal with BMG Germany in 1991. I was signed by Hartwig Masuch, who is now the global head of BMG rights management. I was writing all the time, making beats, working on songs with fellow songwriters in NYC. But when it came time to, let’s say, write an interlude for a major record like Mary J Blige's My Life, and you’re already working for the producer (who in this case was Puff Daddy), you had to ask for songwriting. That’s where the music business can get pretty gnarly. You see, the person who controls the publishing, whether they ever touched a keyboard, or programmed a beat, or came up with a vocal hook, makes the money. And in this case, making that ask might have gotten me fired. So I bit my lip and kept it moving. In the case with Puffy, I would go on to do scores of records and remixes with him, and I did get paid very well as a mixer and producer, well enough to live a good life in NYC, but; But, no long-term income. So this is a cautionary tale to all you talented musicians, engineers, mixers, producers just starting your careers:

If you make a contribution to creating a work of art, get publishing (or writers if you can).

You won’t regret it. In most cases these days, I negotiate a publishing stake on everything I work on, regardless of what it is I do for the song. Even if I have to negotiate a lower fee and get publishing, I go for the publishing, because those little crumbs over the years add up to your retirement!