LW Sonics

0:00LW SonicsHey. Hey. No. Where are we? Where are we? We are at LW Sonics Studio, which is my studio, where I will show you guys today how I work for bands, show you stuff of my basic workflow, my instruments that I use, the gear that I use, and also my main microphones I use, and some other stuff. So keep watching. Keep watching. Let's start with some guitars and basses. So this is basically stuff that does not come in the door with musicians. This is a baritone guitar, which is in between a regular guitar and a bass guitar. And what gets mostly used is the lower string, which in this case is a G or an F. This is now an F. I don't know if you can hear it, but it's basically like a very low tuning to make overdubs between guitars and basses and make them glue more together, which is cool for production work. Then the second one is like, or the third one in this case, because the first one is just like an electric guitar, a very basic, cheapo electric guitar that just provides some heavy chords sometimes with two hamburgers. And that's about it. So nothing fancy to this one, standard tuning. And that's also like the third one is a basic, basic rock guitar, which is a Les Paul Jr. from Harley Penden, to be honest, with a basic P90 pickup to make overdubs with a basic mid-rangey, barky rock guitar, because I don't need like a Les Paul or like

1:44LW Sonicsa Stratocaster or like a Telecaster, because they come in the door anyway with the musicians. I need this kind of thing, because people usually don't bring it. So this is my overdub guitar. Then the fourth one is also rather special again. It's a Tele, but it's tuned in Nashville tuning, which means that the first four strings are one octave higher. So it's, I don't know if it's tuned, but sounds higher. And it's kind of the same sense, like the baritone guitar, but like on the top of the range. So like to add on, like have this, this mandolin feeling and put this on top of guitar layers. Because I do only guitar music, so I don't do so much synthesizer keyboard stuff. I do guitar oriented alternative rock music. So I need guitars. And there's like an older acoustic Western guitar for overdubs. So I think it's not in tune. And it needs new strings, which are around somewhere I'm going to put on before the next session. I use it for sure. We're going to have just a bureau of you putting it for the ending, for the ending. Exactly. Just I cut it and then put on new ones. And this is one of my studio basses, which is, I didn't like the color of this plate. So I put on this black gaff tape and I thought it looks way cooler and way more worn down now. And it's basically like this is now a precision bass. If you only put up this one and put off this one, can be kind of a jazz bass if you put on the second one. And I think if you only put up this or like you can split this by, yeah, by pulling this one. This is the tone knob. And so it's very versatile instrument. And it's not actually a Fender because I don't really like the Fender basses because they usually don't have a good bridge. And this one does. And I think it's very important to have a good bridge that you can adjust and keep the instruments well in tune or like, yeah, so like the notes are the right notes, which is pretty important. And let's have them serviced. And there is still one left, which is now, there's two left, but the other one is on the other side of the room, which is a five string because sometimes you need the lower B. And like for the big, big bass tones. And by the way, this is a cool trick. I put all of my string instruments. I put this foam beneath it because sometimes when you have all them open, like not with foam beneath and you stop the recording or just stop the playback and it goes like in the room. So I always have this foam beneath it. And yeah. And to get to my main bass, which is actually on the other side, because I do play bass, which is a 95 Music Man Stingray with one pickup, nothing fancy to it, but I do really love this instrument and play it a lot. And it has great character and you can just turn down the top band and turn down the midranger bit and it just blends in with every type of music. And if you like want to be the focus point of the band of the recording, then you just put on all the EQ flat and the bass sound cuts through the mix. Yeah, like Music Man's, like Music Man basses are known to and it has very distinctive sound. Just listen to Rage Against the Machine. It's all more or less like the popular songs, the older songs are all recorded with Music Man basses. So which is your favorite guitar? This one? This one. This is the one. This is definitely the one, yeah.

5:38HostThat's why it's separate there, standing in the corner, away from all the...

5:41LW SonicsAnd I had to move it because there was no more space in the rack.

5:45HostAnd which ones do you use the most or they're all equally, like it depends on the situation probably.

5:51LW SonicsI can tell you what I use the least. The least one I use is this one because this is... Usually the people that bring guitars in, they bring whatever this would... What we would use this one for. And also like the five string because usually I don't... Bands I work with usually don't have lower tunings. They're all like standard E or maybe E flat. So I don't use this one much. But the other ones get used pretty often. And it's very important that also like those stringed instruments like guitars and basses, they need to be serviced. They need to stay like in tune, which is very important. And oftentimes even those cheaper instruments, if they're serviced properly and they're tuned well, they do sound... They can sound way better than expensive instruments who've never been serviced. So this is why this stuff is here. And yeah, I don't have really the popular guitars because... Yeah, musicians tend to have the popular guitars that everybody plays. So this is more the stuff that, as I say, that doesn't come into the door. Yeah, usually.

6:56HostAnd usually musicians book for you and you just tell them like... They ask probably what should I bring and you say...

7:01LW SonicsYeah, I ask them what they want to bring and what they have at their disposal and what they can use or what they want to use. Or if they rent something sometimes for the sessions. And so that we just know beforehand what is here and what... With brushes we need to make the painting. To make the proper sounds, exactly. So yes, so these things are now all around because this is very handy.

7:25LW SonicsAnd yeah, let's move forward. Let's move. So there's some stuff that you kind of need. Some picks. And also for bass players, pretty important to keep your nails in check if you play with fingers. Because if you have too long nails, you can hear it.

7:39HostI know some people don't cut their nails, but for a specific sound...

7:43LW SonicsYeah, if they want it, then they don't. Yeah, exactly. Then my wife said it's not a studio if you don't have a pinball machine. So there's a pinball machine. All right. Which actually works. So you can put the ball over here.

7:58?And start playing.

8:04HostSo many shots can be a thumbnail for you too.

8:08LW SonicsMusician shows the hidden secrets of the good production. Yeah. Then this is your water. This is my sugar. I love eating dates.

8:19?For...

8:20HostNatural sugar, yes.

8:21LW SonicsNatural sugar, exactly. Some stuff where I put my water, that's water. And more interesting stuff starts here again because these are now real amps.

8:32?That I still use.

8:33LW SonicsAnd usually this is like... These are again different colors because people tend to have the Marshalls and Defender amps. And so what I use is this Jet City, which is a modded Marshall version in there of a J7800. But a bit more, has a bit even more bite to it. And the Riviera has two channels. And the first one is also like a modded J7800, which is a bit more spongy, a bit more mellow. And the second one is actually like a Fender amp. And this can also be adjusted into so many different versions. And you can pull the switches and have a boost or cut in there. And the Presence one, there's a different one, which is Focus mode, which kind of narrows or kind of tightens the low end or the lower midrange again. And so this I use when people send in guitar tracks that they did themselves. And when they put some sounds onto it, like with plugins or whatever, and they didn't really know their way around. Or it just doesn't sound like it should to fit the mix afterwards. Then I just reamp those tracks using this. So I just put the DI track out of the workstation into my amps and record them again, but not with a speaker. I can record them with a speaker because I still do have speakers in storage that I can bring over and mic them up. Or use this two-notes captor device, which is basically like a reactive load. So it pulls voltage and pulls power just like a speaker would. And you can recognize this when you're playing like palm woods, this chunky stuff. Then you recognize that it would still like a real speaker after an amp would behave differently. And now those two-notes guys implemented this behavior into their devices. To be honest, I don't really care much about it. I just can say that it sounds awesome and I can move my mic around with the mouse. Or like, you know, it's even a Bluetooth app on the iPad where you can drag your microphone around and switch mics and caps. And load your own IRs onto it and do like way more that I use it for. I use it to be like a standard vintage 30 speaker with an SM57 on it. And that's for 90% what I need. And yeah, then we can enter the... Yeah, sure.

10:59HostSo, like I haven't seen this before. I mean, I'm not like a musician, like a guy, right? But I don't remember these, like, is it like a new thing?

11:12LW SonicsNewer, I think. Newer, yeah. Yeah, like, I think the first version, but the black ones, those are around since I guess... I really put it in the comments. I don't know. Like, I guess like seven, eight, maybe ten years. And these are now like out for two years or something. The white ones, the new ones, as far as I know. And this is like the speaker in, so you, like, you have to match your own. So, I think, yeah.

11:36HostIt comes probably with the app, like all of them. Yes, of course.

11:39LW SonicsYou do have the app and you connect it with Bluetooth and then you can just... You can store, I think, five, no, six presets you can store right here, which are the first six. Yeah, yeah.

11:50HostI just wanted to like, because I have never seen this.

11:52LW SonicsYou take your amp and you put it into here and then you put in your XLR cables. And you have to power it up. One minute to tour.

12:04LW SonicsExactly. So, this is really important because this is my doorbell. Yeah. Because in the studio, I don't have a glass door and I don't know when people come in behind me. So, they're supposed to ring the bell. Yes. So, I know that somebody's coming because if you're mixing and you're listening to stuff and it's loud or whatever and you can't, and somebody touches your shoulder, you die. You die. I know. This is what I need the doorbell for.

12:30HostPlus, glass doors are bad for the sound, right? Yeah.

12:34LW SonicsWhatever. Like, there is a glass door, but there are two doors. The first one is glass and the second one is shut. Really? So, yeah. I needed for people to tell me that they want to come in. Yeah. I learned this from experience. Then, like, so this is a second monitor. Nothing fancy about it. Like extended screen. Let's get to speakers, which is cool for the studio guys out there. Because these are very, the first very, very popular speakers from a long time ago. And these are the famous Yamaha NS10 Studio Edition. And I just put them up because they are too, I had them in storage for too long. So I thought, okay, I'll just put them up again and listen to it. And I listened to it. And then I knew why I had them in storage so long. Because they really don't sound that great. But if you make them sound great, it tends to sound great everywhere. Which is the big myth about the speakers. And this is the reason why they are still here. So I don't really mix on them. I just, when I think I'm done, I listen as a reference again. And then most of the time I adjust my vocal level again. Because it's just too crazy how honest these old speakers are still.

13:41HostSo basically you need like a quality test to see. Yes, exactly. Different perspective. Yeah, different perspective.

13:49LW SonicsAnd just final touches. And then when you then go back to different speakers, it was pretty obvious that you had to do that. Which is still surprises me. But yeah. So I just put them up and I just leave them here now.

14:03HostDo you saw other equipment? Like you do a test, for example, you put it on a small speaker iPhone or something?

14:08LW SonicsNot that much anymore. Not anymore? No, not that much. Like this, I do have one real reference stuff where I work a lot on. And these are nowadays, it's, I say it's 7%, 70% is on headphones.

14:23?Mm-hmm.

14:24LW SonicsAnd 30% on these monitors, those KSD monitors, which I love very much. Because those, I tested a lot of speakers when I moved to this room, because this room is rather small now. The room before had about 80 square meters.

14:37?Mm-hmm.

14:38LW SonicsIn the other studio. In the other studio. Yeah, exactly. And this now has 15. And I had pretty large monitors for the bigger place. But they produced so much low end that this room was just full of it. I had so much bass going on. And so I, I did everything I could do physically to position the speakers like at a position where they would produce less. And also work with DSP methods to get rid of the low end. And, but I needed smaller ones. And so I tested a lot of speakers. And those KSD guys, they, I had an email contact with them. They just said, okay, we're going to send you those. Mm-hmm. You put them up for two weeks. And then you just, no questions asked. I could return them.

15:22?And then I turned them, as I put them up. I turned them on. I put them on. And they sounded like a really cool live PA from the start. So I really, nothing did bother me.

15:34LW SonicsI knew that something was kind of off frequency wise. But the, the, the, the sound texture and everything was really cool with them. So I really liked them. And so I instantly knew that, yeah, I just wrote them an email that they should send me an invoice. And they won't get it back. So it was pretty, pretty fast.

15:50HostThat's, that's, that's, that's easy with the, with the musicians. I would say, especially with sound engineers, is that you just like, you tell them like, I think you told me about the cables once. Like the, some, some cables. Yeah. With the other speakers.

16:02LW SonicsBut those are still those cables.

16:04HostYeah. And you just like, you just plug it in and then you hear it. And then that's it. Yeah. And then you hear it. Yeah.

16:10LW SonicsYou hear it. And then you're like, okay, I can not, not have it. And know it's out there. Yeah.

16:17HostAnd know that you're like producing lower quality. Yeah.

16:20LW SonicsIt could be, it could be. Yeah. So yeah. This was the cable thing. You just send more shit to you and then if it makes your life better. Yeah. If it, but it's very important to test, especially speakers in your room. Because it's like they say, it's 50% speaker, 50% room. It's very important to get the stuff into your studio and just have longer hours with it and just see, does it make sense? And then whatever you, you mix on them, listen to it and other stuff. And, and, and usually it's not really that much of a frequency thing, but it's just like, if you do something that sounds good somewhere else, then yeah, there's some use to it.

16:55HostYeah. I never asked, but do you have like this warm up time for your ears? No. For example. Not anymore.

17:01LW SonicsI do this for like more than since 2009. It's about 20 years now.

17:07HostSo you just plug it in. I just, I just come in and do. But sometimes you just need to like, for example, with like, like any creative, whatever work, you just need to like warm up a little bit, see it. Or the other question then, do you, do you get tired? And then your ears like become so windy, you know?

17:24LW SonicsYes, I do. And I found a cool method, which is this, is it called Pomodoro timing stuff? Yeah. So you just set half an hour. Yeah. And then when this thing goes off and rings, you just stand up and go out and do something.

17:38Host10 minutes break.

17:39LW SonicsYeah, whatever, whatever. Do pushups. I don't know, but just stop. You have to like, stop. It's very important. I do. But this, this helps a lot, because otherwise you just, after like one hour, one hour and a half, you just redo stuff. You just question decisions you already made.

17:57?Yeah.

17:57HostYeah. And just come back with a new fresh perspective.

17:59LW SonicsExactly, exactly. Yeah.

18:01HostAll right. So I stopped you at the speakers.

18:03LW SonicsNo, the speakers, yeah, we went through it anyway. And the other one, what I use a ton, are now those Hi-Fi-Man headphones that I got.

18:12?New?

18:13LW SonicsMore than one year now, I guess. Okay. For me. These are the Hi-Fi-Man's Aria Organic, as it says. Shout out to Kopfhörer Boutique in 5th District. They let me set up a little laptop station in their shop and I tried headphones for, I guess, four hours with my own DAW and my own deck amp and everything.

18:38HostWhat did you listen to?

18:40LW SonicsIn the end, I listened to, I wanted to hear like very defined guitar chords, because this is important for music that I do. And I listened to a live version of Hotel California, but basically in the end, I had it on loop for like five seconds. Always the same loop and listen to guitar stuff like on this and on different headphones. And just, it was really fast in listening and unplugging and plugging in and another one up, another one up. And so, and I spent a lot of time there and they were very nice. And then I bought these. And I then bought the different cable and which is very important. I also bought a different deck amp. Exactly, yes. Yeah.

19:23?So this is also, I use it on, on Mac, you can have like an aggregate device. So you can have multiple interfaces.

19:30LW SonicsSo now I use the Apogee, which is behind there and this one and can just, and the main window, I can switch on my master out. I can switch if I want to listen to the speakers or if I want to listen to the headphones. And there's also like this EQ curve built in, which is also in there. So I don't have to mess around with any software. So I just put the clean output to this deck amp and listen on the headphones. And yeah, works great for me. And I have a very, very cool listening environment. That's really, really, really accurate.

20:04?Mm-hmm.

20:05LW SonicsThen like main workstation, for me, it's, I do use Reaper since like my, my professional day one, since I never was confronted in, in doing something and earning money with it. I was, I kind of had to, to, to get a software. I was thinking about a different one and a friend of mine turned me on to Reaper. And I stayed there like for, for many years now. And I really do like a lot. It's very customized. Like this is my version of Reaper with all the stream deck and all the shortcuts and everything. And I really do, do love my Reaper.

20:38HostI also use Reaper, but. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, for my podcast. Yeah. And I knew that it's really customizable and all the actions and everything. How long did you use it as a demo version?

20:51LW SonicsNo, I bought it right away. Right away? Yeah, because I kind of felt like now I have to own something.

20:56HostYeah. Because. It was not expensive, right?

20:58LW SonicsNo, back then it was 60 euros. And the thing is, you get two versions. Like if it's like Reaper V3, when you buy it, you also get V4. And you have to buy the second, like you have to buy V5 again. So, and I now, Reaper 7, I had to buy again. And I bought the big version, which is now $200. But I really like the program and I do earn money with it. So it's fine.

21:23HostNo, I mean, everybody says, like even who's the guy, Deadmau5, right? Deadmau5 said, like if you want to go like pro, like proper. Like if you can figure out Reaper, you can figure out anything. Yes, you can. Because it's really complicated. I mean, it depends what you need. Yeah, exactly.

21:40LW SonicsAnd I think that other doors, like the big one, like Pro Tools, are very important. Because if you work like in a production system with multiple studios and controllers, like for film production, it's its own environment. And it's very important to have because this is kind of the standard. But for what I do working with bands, and I don't really share my system. So there's no need for me to work in Pro Tools. So yes, but I did all the certificates. And back in the days when I did my SAE, I did all the Pro Tools stuff.

22:13HostOh, you mean to show that you're a pro?

22:15LW SonicsYes, it was part of the education. So you had to do it. And still, some shortcuts are the same like they're in Pro Tools.

22:21HostYeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you can set it up completely how you want.

22:24LW SonicsYeah, yeah. But you can't do with Pro Tools. They are standard. So you can't change shortcuts. Well, at least back then you couldn't. Yeah. So yeah, but there's nothing much to it. Like that's the Mac Studio M2 Max still, but runs great. Maybe more interesting, there's still some outboard in here that I like the only one that I still use, which is like the SPL Transient Designer. Ah, that's also very important. Four channel version and just attack or add sustain or put away attack or put away sustain. So it's like the stupidest, easiest version of the compressor there is. And it still behaves differently than plugins do. Like because plugins emulate hardware stuff all the time. And I haven't yet found, if you know one, put it in the comments below. Please. No, if I, but I never found it. So I really route audio out of my DAW, put it through there and re-recorded it. And actually I just did a YouTube video about it. Like in this Headrockers mix rundown, which is on my channel. There you can hear it where combined like bass drum in, bass drum out, snare top, snare bottom mic and run those through this and reprint them into my DAW. So I always work like it to record the output of the hardware and then use this in my DAW because then I can reproduce it. So it's, it's, it's, it's recallable as they say, because then it's printed into your session and you can listen to it without having this on and running and having run through it. Exactly. And then there's this, uh, universal audio compressor. Uh, sorry. It's a preamp. No compressor. Um, that I only use for line. Sigma is not for mics anymore because it's got a tubic cue with a top shelf and bottom shelf. And this one I use for mastering. So when I do analog mastering with the tape machine there, what we will go, uh, come to soon. Um, I sometimes before the tape, yeah, some, mostly before the tape, I run it through here and saturate it a bit. Maybe do some EQ moves like, uh, boosting top end because you boost top end before the tape because tape makes hiss. And if you boost top end after tape, you increase the hiss. So this is like, if you decide for something that needs more top end, then I tend to boost the top end a bit before I go to tape. So that I don't decrease the hiss afterwards.

24:51HostOh, that was a good tip.

24:55LW SonicsExactly. Then again, speakers, yeah, equally on the other side.

25:02HostIt's the same speakers on this side, look at it. Imagine you're like, and you have like, like, like, like something weird. Like, like, like, like, and there's like a speaker from like, like, like, like train station, you know, that I use only for special, like, okay. Something weird.

25:19LW SonicsNo, they're measured like with, with, with laser and stuff. And like, this is my spot to sit it.

25:25?All right. Very important.

25:27LW SonicsNo, those are all measured, obviously. And the other thing, which is back there behind the speakers, which is a pretty important to me. I have to get the remote because, yeah, the word is also remote because I work a ton remotely. And so I have light back there for my streaming setup.

25:47HostActually, let it be. Okay, we can use it.

25:50LW SonicsSo I have this one back there to make it a bit more soft, as they tell me. And this one is turned down a bit. So because usually when I stream, the laptop is here, the webcam is here. And so they have a nice lighting and all the other lights are off. But this is also very important with me and not to set it up every time. I just have it very convenient. Oh, no, I let it be. Exactly.

26:13HostWhat kind of percentage you consider yourself an influencer at this point?

26:18LW SonicsNone at all. I, please, I don't want to be. None at all. So that's not a profession. I mean, it's really cool that you said like, subscribe or whatever. Yeah, I started my YouTube channel now. No, but sometimes. Last time you didn't say that. But last time you don't know who's watching and maybe people have great ideas about equipment.

26:39?Yes.

26:39LW SonicsAnd sometimes they think about it and then, ah, nah.

26:42HostThey don't write, yeah.

26:43LW SonicsAnd I say, okay, if somebody knows like a bigger, like a better plugin for the SPL.

26:48?Yeah.

26:48LW SonicsHey, put it in there. I want to know. Yeah. So I just started my YouTube channel.

26:53?Yeah.

26:54LW SonicsSo you can check out the LW Sonics YouTube channel, which is a lot of production stuff up there and pre-production videos for bands to watch before the record. Like, because I work so much with DIY bands who do it themselves.

27:08?And when it gets to mixing, then they kind of run into problems that they could have fixed, like all way, way before the whole recording stage.

27:17LW SonicsAnd so I ran into so many issues like this that I just started making videos about it. Yeah. And just tell people. So like quality increases. If they watch it.

27:29LW SonicsExactly. No. So, so this is also like the webcam here is pretty important because I make a lot of videos for clients and send them out like for, for feedback and everything.

27:38HostHow, how many, what's percentage of online and offline people that come in here?

27:45LW SonicsI mean, like how many people do it online? There are actually many productions where I never actually in person meet the people because we just have everything on, on, on, on, on, on, on video meetings. And which is also pretty cool because when I do a zoom and talk about the recording situation. So when they show me the rehearsal space, because this is then somewhere very remote. And I'm in Vienna, so I can work all over the place. And then I just record this video session and send it out to them again. So they have their customized video about the recording situation. And they don't have to write down stuff, which is pretty handy. And sometimes at other productions, just like I did with Los Tonos recently or Die Änderung or Painted Desert or many bands now, is that they come in for drum recording at the bigger studio over there. And then they do like guitars and all the synths and all the overdubs and everything on their own. And sometimes we do vocals together or sometimes they even record vocals on their own. It's like all under my supervision, if you want to say. So we have like, we have, we are in conversation all the time. They send me files and I say, okay, now maybe put the mic there or just two or three more things and then record again. And so like the learning curve is very steep and, and they can have cool results. And we can have established like a cool relationship to work together because everybody knows what they can do on their own. And as soon I always tell bands, so it's very different with every band. And I always tell them like, where, where's the point where you just feel like you're wasting time that you could use for songwriting or like for rehearsing or whatever. So is, is editing a part that you want to do or is it a part that I should take care of? Like, like editing stuff, like editing drums, editing guitars, whatever. And so this is very different from every project to project. But for the question, then yeah, sometimes I see the people when they come in recording, sometimes I don't see them, but I can really name a percentage because this is how I work with every band and it's just different with every band. And sometimes people are in like in Vorarlberg and they just come in for vocals. Like, like Sven of Festloff did this last week. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah.

30:00HostAnd so you started this online thing probably like with the Corona stuff. This is when you started and then Fitkick started everything.

30:08LW SonicsYeah, this was the time when I started doing the streaming stuff. I just went into streaming and just, I was on Twitch and did some production sessions on Twitch. But I ran into the problem that I can't show anything because the stuff I work on is unreleased. And bands don't want you to show unreleased stuff. No, of course. But I set up all the lights and everything and the camera stuff I got for that. And then I started with some other tools that were invented more or less during this time or that people started using, started using it and started to set this up. And then I was able to move in this very small space.

30:44HostI remember that during the Corona time, I think somebody like musicians discovered some, I was watching some interviews. There was like a plugin or something that you can record live session while everybody is at home. Yeah. And there's something cool because there's lag is something cool about it, but...

31:05LW SonicsYes. Yeah, there were many... Maybe it's more for a jam situation, not for recording properly.

31:12HostYeah. But I just remember it was like something back then that's just, wow, there's a new thing. Yeah.

31:17LW SonicsYeah. They're all searching for it, but whoever gets it right will win. But there is still like this technical stuff because it's latency.

31:24?Yeah.

31:24LW SonicsThey, it's still up to now with all the internet speed, as far as I know, it's impossible to have something latency free because you, it has to, at least at one point, has to be converted from analog to digital, which takes like tiny, tiny, like a third of a millisecond nowadays, which is nearly nothing, but it has to be decoded on the other side as well. Mm-hmm. And it has to be sent. And whatever the sending part is, it's as soon as it hits like seven milliseconds. For me personally, as soon as it hits two milliseconds, I hear it. Yeah. I feel uncomfortable. This, for me, it's, I'm kind of special there, but usually you can go up to 10 milliseconds or maybe for people that are not so much used to it, you can even go higher, but I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah. And it's still not out there, but the thing is when I do the streaming, I just send my mix out to clients. So they have like a Zoom session where they are live with me in the streaming session.

32:21LW SonicsAnd this is like a basic OBS setup, like every game I use is the same, like it's very easy to set up. And I just, it's just one direction. So I send my master bus to the listening environment of the musicians. And this, I didn't think about it before, but there are two main advantages for me, which are like, if they're, because usually they go to studio, they do the mix, and then they go home. And then when they go home, they listen to it on their earbuds or Bluetooth things or whatever. And then at home, or they put it into the car stereo or at home on the stereo. And this is where the realist judge, because this is the place where they are used to listening to it. And then you get the, okay, now we need the snare louder, we need whatever changed. And if I do it in the stream, they can already listen there. They don't have to go anywhere. And this is like the first big advantage. And the second big advantage that I ran into was if one of the people in the band has a non-ideal listening environment. And one... Like one speaker on the floor and the other... No, whatever. Or like a difficult room or anything. Like if, like one certain note really, there's a room mode about it. So like this one note is way louder than all the others. And it's like, okay, whenever we hit the chorus at the first stage, like there's an G or whatever, then it all gets so boomy and it's all so loud and everything. And I just wanted to tell them, hey, that's your listening environment that you're in, because it's not like that. But then I'm like the studio guy who is like condescending or whatever. And I really don't want to be, but it's pretty cool if like band members now tell like, no, it's fine for me. And so they can improve the listening environment. Have a real nice proof about it that it's actually fine. And however they are listening, it's not that ideal. So this is something that I didn't think about, but it happened and I really liked it. So this is also another advantage for people. So they can also like judge their own place better afterwards. Yeah. Exactly. And this is one of the methods already. And again, it doesn't have to do anything with audio, but this is now a 5K display. 5K? Interesting. Because macOS is in 5K. Really? And if you have a 5K display, then all the pixels are all right and all fine and all nice. And you can read those tiny, tiny texts.

34:52HostIt is important. Yes. When I switch to 4K monitor, it's a big difference. Yeah.

34:56LW SonicsAnd the thing is, in the end, as much as I do music, I sit in front of a computer a lot of the time. Yes. And this made a big difference for me to finally have a 5K display. Like those other ones, all 4K. But yeah, I had this one as my main display before and I really love having a 5K monitor now.

35:16?Cool.

35:17LW SonicsNow let's go over to some analog stuff again, which is just for the way in, just to implement it into a recording. And this is all nice right here. The most important thing for me is this one. This is the recallable version. I don't care about it. It's just a sense amp. This is like the most used distortion, especially for bass. There is. And I know that the Darkglass stuff is also great and newer and more modern. But every time when I use this one, I still think I really don't need the Darkglass. And also Darkglass is something that people bring in all the time. And they don't bring in sense amp that much. So it's cool to have. And this is my favorite distortion because I always was a big Lemmy and Motorhead fan. And this was the pedal for me that just got me that sound. Like very mid-rangey, very boosted and pretty heavy distorted. So this is like, it starts getting white. It's pretty old. But I use this a lot. And just some synth stuff, some octaver stuff. And also one very fun thing if you want to use autotune. But usually I use it more for instruments than for vocals. This is its own preamp and has this autotune algorithm in there. And you can just record with it. So this is a pretty cool thing. That I use for sometimes if you record percussions, which have to be in tune. You just set this to the right scale and just record it and it will fit. So this is pretty cool. And then, like from top to bottom, this is now the other guitar side that I use. This is Line 6 Helix. And this is what I use mostly when I record guitars in here. This now emulates like being in this case like a distortion pedal, an amp and a speaker. And what I do is like there is like a floor, like a monitor wedge back there that I set up here. And people can play just like on stage. And I directly put this output to the monitor and like with the Apogee mixer, also with the playback. So people can play to it without having headphones on. So we can communicate well. And it's loud at their place and not where I'm sitting, which is also cool. So I'm not the whole day in this very loud area. But they can be, they can produce feedback with the guitar because it's actually loud. But coming back to this, this is like, to be honest, like as the state we are right now in, like in the end or like second half of 26. There is Neural DSP, there is Head Rush, there is Line 6 and there's obviously Camper. And I think that if you use it right, they all sound great, like really good.

38:19?And this is great for having like basic guitar sounds. When people bring in fancy equipment or whatever they like, or they bring like their amps or whatever, then I use the amps with the cap that we had before. But when I start tracking guitar, I use this one now. And the thing is that I discovered is that it has to be very basic. So I don't do any multi-band compression, delay, sending into reverb, whatever stuff in here. This is always like here, Mesa Rectifier. So this is like, there's a Tube Screamer pedal before it, which is now off. And there's a Mesa Boogie Rectifier.

38:58LW SonicsAnd there's a Mesa Cap 4x12 with vintage 30s with an SM57 on it. And that's the basic guitar sound. And if I put this into my mix, I really like it. So it's really, really basic. So yeah. And I also use this live with my band, but mostly it's here.

39:17LW SonicsAnd yeah, some stuff like you can deactivate the volume knob, so this has no influence. So it can be on max all the time because it looks way cooler up here. And yeah, that's about it with this unit. And obviously I have like, I don't know, unlimited amounts of amps or whatever is in there. Like way more than I, because I use the Mesa, I use the Marshall, I use a lot of VOX AC30 and some Fender type amps, which is basically the VOX amp.

39:49LW SonicsAnd know all the effects, maybe some delay because you play differently with the delay because you adjust your timing to the delay, then it has to be in here. But usually all the other effects like reverbs and everything I do in the mixing stage afterwards. And this one is also connected via USB. So I have like the deck amp, the Apogee and this one in an aggregate device. And I just can choose in my DAW whatever input I want to use. So it's all plugged in all the time. And there's this cable right here. So it's ready to go.

40:21LW SonicsExactly. And then lower. This is recording stuff. This is still two compressors. This is like a usual 1176 style compressor from Warm Audio that I really think is very okay for the cost especially. And it works great. And the other one is how they call it the Swiss Army knife of compressors is the Distressor, which is very, very popular for good reason. And it has a cool lighting show when you turn it on. So look at this.

40:54LW SonicsSo yeah, that's another reason.

40:57HostYou switch off the lights in the whole studio just for that to show the clients.

41:03LW SonicsNo.

41:05LW SonicsAnd these are four of my favorite preamps that turn out great over the years and record well and you can switch the impedances. Sorry. Yeah. But I always kind of have it on this one, the second one, which is the classic ISA. How do you call it? 110. Exactly. So yeah. And the main chain, so to say, is like preamp compressor converter. Exactly. And this one lower here is one of the first or the first dynamic equalizer that were ever built like from BSS. Where you have four bands that you can either compress or expand.

41:53LW SonicsAnd so this was used a lot of times live. When I was touring with bands, I still brought this in my rack because this made a great sound and has no latency because it's analog. And nowadays I sometimes use this for recording bass. This is where only those two bands are engaged. And now it's engaged to control low end when recording bass guitar. If you just play, I do play with a pick. And if I hit the strings really hard or whatever, then the low end gets all over the place. It's not consistent. And so I use also this stage before I hit the compressors. I have two compressors in a chain when I record bass. And usually the bass goes in straight here from the instrument, sometimes with the distortion beforehand.

42:38LW SonicsAnd yeah, that works great for what I do. And there are some like usually the patch cable stuff. This is a bassman, like this was used a lot to play live. It has like this basic hue and chorus effect for bass guitars on it. But I don't use it that often. But these two are pretty cool. Those are vintage reverbs. And if you're into it or if you want to, if you think about it and you ever can buy an SPX 90 Rev 1, then do it because this cost me 50 euros. And it's awesome because people just don't use it anymore. And it has some very, very popular reverbs on there, which do sound very vintagey because it is so old. And I still use this to, again, maybe send in the snare drum or a bass guitar for the chorus. I think that this is also like the Duff McKagan, Guns N' Roses bass sound. This is an SPX 90. And Andy Wallace, a very famous mixer, used a ton of them back in the day when this was kind of the thing. And later on there came the SPX 900, which has basically some higher resolution and some way more presets in there, way more storage in there. But this one I also got for 70 euros, I think, and I just bought it because it's cool. And this one is already stereo, so you can go in stereo and come out stereo. And this one you enter with a mono signal and it generates a stereo signal. Cool.

44:11LW SonicsYeah, exactly. So I use these a lot. I can also show you some examples for those. And let's go over to my main baby, which is Hannelore, as I call her. And it's an Atari BTR-10 tape machine that I use, still use, because it's a pretty modern tape machine.

44:34LW SonicsAnd it's a quarter inch, two track. It's a master machine, like BTR means broadcast. The M was multipurpose, I think. And B stands for broadcast, so all the motors are pretty accurate and pretty fast. And I've done some awesome masters with it so far. And what I do is actually, there is a video online from Todd Urban from Softube. He interviewed me about it and I did four songs for him and he made a pretty cool video about the use of tape. Maybe we can link it, whatever. You will find it.

45:09LW SonicsAnd this is about my workflow with tape. In short, it's just like when I get the mix to master, I listen to it. And then I transfer it to tape. And what I do is like the first round, I put it on tape, so it gets recorded with the recording head right here. This one. And the tape only moves to here and this reproduction head, the repro head, just picks it up again. So it only goes this short way over the tape till it gets recorded again.

45:41LW SonicsAnd this is now in my DAW and I do call it like the first generation.

45:47LW SonicsAnd then I wound back the tape because it's obviously all on this side. I wound it back, put it into play, not into record image, just hit play. And re-record it from this head a second time. And then it's even a bit more saturated. And it's very, very tiny amount, but I do hear it and clients do hear it. And then I use whatever I record back, like whatever I choose then, I use for the mastering process, which is then all digital again in the DAW. Again, to be able to do maybe a revision or change something afterhand and to just imprint the tape sound once. And this is what I still use it for. And right now I think there's still, because it changes a lot, there has to be Deadman Dale, which was the last master I did. And I can play it to you because it's already released.

46:44LW SonicsSo it's still on there. I can use the tape for like 20 times. Then I have to change the tape because it wears off.

46:53LW SonicsExactly. But this is part of my, like a lot I do is analog tape mastering. I implement this and also do mastering a lot of international stuff.

47:06?Exactly.

47:07LW SonicsYes. And right here, there's just like storage for important stuff that you need, like cables, power cables, audio cables, adapters, whatever. Then this one is about headphones, all different headphones for people, cable extenders, whatever. This is usually on the tape machine. This is a headphone preamp because this is my vocal station where we get to Zoom. This is stuff here. These are Q-tips to clean the tape heads.

47:36?Yeah.

47:37LW SonicsTapes, strings, some flat ones for the Fender type bass, kind of put on Zoom. And whatever singers need. So great tip for singers. I do love like this vegan gummy stuff because it's a lot of sugar. So you get activated and it makes great saliva. And you have to drink water as well. And of course also these things people know, singers know. So I have this at hand and other stuff. Yeah. Like this is also very, if you have a tape machine, this is also very important. Or if you have to clean stuff.

48:17HostMm-hmm. So, yeah, yeah. The dirt, right? And they call, to get rid of the dirt.

48:22LW SonicsYeah, exactly. So with the Q-tips. So this is all right here. And then like something I do a lot in here also is with bands is recording vocals. And therefore I use this GA Custom, which is built by a friend of mine. And this is his Telefunken ELA-251 style microphone, which is one of those three Holy Grail mics. And it really sounds amazing. And I don't want to get into the rabbit hole of comparing clones with originals because, to be honest, I never heard an original. Like I heard on recordings, but I never worked with one. Because they are now up to, I think, like 17,000, 20,000 or something. So I'm not sure if I had one, if I would really put it up. Not like just have it in storage, in a safe somewhere. No. But this sounds fantastic. And this was the first mic I ever got to do vocals with, where I didn't have to EQ anything after. It sounded great. And it's now on so many records out there. And it's just like a good, nice vocal sound. So I don't have to do as much. This is more dependent on singers. And I can, it's kind of always the best mic for every singer. The only thing is like, I couldn't use it with Konsti from Los Tonos because he was just so loud that it couldn't take it. So he had like an SM7B in his hand standing right there. Yeah, you don't do it. We started with this and I was like, okay, no. He had just too much air pressure coming out. Yeah. Because it's very, very aggressive music. You should check it. Los Tonos. Shout out. But yeah, I couldn't use it with him. But otherwise, it's like the vocal mic I use all the time. And as I said before, this goes into the Focusrite preamp, into the Distressor, into the Apogee. And that's the sound. And I did start years ago of compressing vocals on the way in, which is something that you should know what you're doing. Because usually it's easier and better to just record without any compression, like the whole dynamic range. But as soon as you know what you're doing in the mixes all the time, as soon as you know what kind of character the vocal needs to be, then it's pretty cool to capture all the distortion factors and everything the Distressor does already on the way in and also start coloring when you record it. But this is very much for more experienced engineers, exactly. But the pros all do it. Yeah. And I had many seminars and workshops and whatever and to say, okay, I'm going to get into this now. And many years ago, I started doing it. It's awesome when you know what you're doing. And yeah, basic headphone setup. And I think that's the whole way around. There's a couch. Yeah. Behind you guys. Which is important.

51:17LW SonicsSo yeah, thanks for coming.

51:21LW SonicsI can subscribe.

51:23HostA quick question. How often do you update your gear? Are you a gear psycho?

51:31?Not anymore.

51:31HostNot anymore.

51:33LW SonicsThis stops when you start to use it a lot. And it was way more important for me to find ways which are very good and that I use all the time and that just work for me. And so what was your last big acquirement or maybe the most recent thing were the KSD speakers, which are only like I don't even like have them for one year now. But yeah, there's speakers.

52:04LW SonicsSo this is nothing new. This is just a different thing of something. But I do tend to buy more instruments now or just like this stuff like people like stuff that sounds interesting and that makes cool textures and that people usually don't have that I bring as a producer. And this is more valuable for me to have than like I'm not interested anymore in shooting out preamps because I had this phase and it was a very long phase. And now I have like the mic, the preamp, the compressor and everything that just works. And when singers come in, I just put it on and it sounds great. And if something is off or I need something else, then I still have ideas and stuff that I can use. But this is just the stuff that I use.

52:53LW SonicsAnd no, not really like the last thing I bought were the speakers. And let me think about it. No, like different kinds of strings for the guitar or like those flat ones that make a different sound. This is more the type of stuff I'm into now. And obviously the other stuff is it's all digital, like plugins. I still like plugins as much as I condense them down to just stuff that just like on the top layer of the Stream Deck that you use all the time, like the Pro EQ 4 from FabFilter or stuff that gets used all the time. But if there are, like now plugins come out a lot with AI features, especially like gates where you have like a track of a tom-tom of drums. And there's usually a lot of bleed in there. And it's just like annoying to cut it out and then taking care of it because sometimes it's not only the tom, there's also the cymbal which is right there playing at the same time. You just only have to cut out the tom. So you have to also get rid of the sound which is in there. And there is some AI stuff around now, which really gets amazing. So this is some stuff that I purchased. And I still do all my editing by hand and I still, but this is like the some 10% better. So this is also stuff I'm pretty interested still. And basically I think we'll never stop being interested because this is still development. But all this guitar analog stuff and especially for the music that I do, this is around a long time. So why change it?

54:24LW SonicsYeah. And yeah, something like this fan fret thing for thing wall basis. This is still impressive or maybe interesting, but I haven't got it into that yet because I still play my music man all the time. And whenever I look at videos and think, okay, this would be great. And whenever you feel like buying an instrument, it means you should practice more on the instrument you got.

54:46HostYeah, I know it means that you haven't figured it out. Yeah, exactly.

54:51LW SonicsSo yeah, a tip that I can give to people is I got myself an iPad mini because of all the notes you take during sessions. And if you're working on longer projects and you want to take a look at your notes, then I had always had to put holes in them and put it into folders and everything. It works great. It works great. I just bought one of those paper like things so that the writing is actually a better experience now. And I use this iPad only for writing stuff down. And yeah, I really like it. That was kind of also like one of my last purchases. So it's more workflow orientated.

55:31HostSo you're like a plug-in digital guy, but with the touch of analog, right? Yeah. So mainly analog stuff is for the poly or for extra touch.

55:42LW SonicsThe analog stuff is especially the tape. Yeah, we didn't go down that rabbit hole or whatever changes in the sun when you use real tape because there are tape plugins out there. I do use them, but for different purposes. And the other thing is when you work a lot with tape, you kind of get to know what it does. And so you can start working into your digital workflow to get certain aesthetics in there of sound. But the real deal is still the tape. And so what I use all this analog stuff for is just to reprint or to record through it and just get it into my DAW and then stay digital. But I think that the analog stuff still has big value. And in good gear, there's still some great quality in there that you just don't get otherwise. Like on this level. And so for me personally, it works very good to have it like this because I have to be recordable.

56:40LW SonicsAnd also like even the gear, like there's some tube equipment stuff that you can't just put it on and use it. You have to wait till it's warm.

56:49?Exactly.

56:50LW SonicsAnd that's the same thing again. So like if I use this tube universal audio stage before the tape machine, this has to be warm and whatever, like warmed up and work properly. And then I just whatever put through it, I re-record it and it's in the computer and the DAW and I just use it from there on. But I still am not fully digital because otherwise this stuff wouldn't be here.

57:15LW SonicsBut yeah, I think that some great new tape plugins came out through the last two years, I think. And I tried all of them. But yeah, nothing beats the tape. And also like the calibration of the tape and getting tapes still because those quarter-inch you can still order at bigger music houses. They still sell them. The formulas are great. I got a new reference tape because this machine, there's a very, like for older people and engineers, they know because they had to work with tape. But there is a very specific workflow in calibrating and aligning a tape machine.

57:54LW SonicsAnd yeah, like there's some minor, minor movements of screws and stuff. They mess it all up again. So yeah, I taught myself that with some great people who did some Zoom sessions with me and also like in Seattle, there's a guy who is big into tapes again. And yeah, it was very helpful to me to figure this all out and I really, really dig it and really like it.

58:24HostYour opinion on AI?

58:27LW SonicsI like it very much.

58:28?On AI?

58:29LW SonicsYes, as a creative tool. But when I tell Suno to program a song for whatever whose birthday it is, I did that once. And it was from a musical standpoint, it was scary because it's like, what?

58:48LW SonicsAnd, but for like working with it, I heard like in some podcast, I heard that Spotify does put music down to very, very small digital quality for you to stream it everywhere. Also with bad connections worldwide. Not, not all people have good internet like we have in Austria, somewhere in Europe. Internet around the world can be pretty bad. But Spotify should play there anyway. So those files are pretty small and it's their own codec and they don't tell anybody it's fine. But because everything that's released is used for machine learning. And so also the machines like Suno and whatever, they think that those imperfections are part of the sound. This is what I heard in a podcast of some AI programming music guy. And so it has those, it could sound pristine, but it doesn't because it thinks like this is how stuff is supposed to sound. So this is why I can't use it.

59:46LW SonicsAnd the other thing is a copyright thing. So if I work with people's music that is unreleased, I'm not allowed to put it in there. I, there are ways around that, like just like covering it yourself with your own instrument and whatever and just, but I never do that. And the other thing is, that's the creative point and the AI mixing and AI mastering. I don't, I'm not scared of that, to be honest, because I do have a people business. I do work with musicians that want to make like their honest alternative kind of music, like whatever they feel is right. And if you listen to the stuff in my player on my homepage, it also, all bands sound different. They all have their own aesthetics and how they want to sound. They all sound good, obviously, because it has to be in a certain standard or whatever, but it's their own thing. And they are not interested in AI. They want to work with a producer, with a mixer, with a mastering studio that knows what they're doing. Because I'm a musician myself, I play in bands since I'm, I'm 14 years old and I know all of it. I made all the mistakes. I went through all of that myself. And so I like to work with people and their emotions and their songs. And AI can be so great of a tool for some stuff, but for the music writing, I never use it. No, no. But I'm not that much scared of it. It's just a tool that if you can use it, right, you can do cool stuff with it.

61:14?Yeah.

61:16LW SonicsOkay, so thanks so much for coming by and visiting my studio. If you want to get in touch, all the accounts are called LWSonics, like the Insta, the YouTube, the TikTok account, or my full name on Facebook. And reach out if you're interested. And thanks so much for coming by.

61:33HostAnd then look in the camera.

61:36?In my camera.

61:40LW SonicsI always, yesterday it was already some social media where I did this and it looks so stupid so I have to do it like in...

61:47?No, man, no, no.