How can you work for Dizzy Reed (Guns N Roses,) NASA, and record an orchestra
overseas, without even knowing how to do the things that these projects require???
And then delivering 100 percent on them??? Well stick around, we’re gonna find out!
All right welcome back everyone thanks
for being here this is the
narcissistically named
Adam Clairmont show i’m still your host
Adam Clairmont
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now let’s get on to our guest today
we’ve got
jason achilles mozillas and jason’s
email signature
sums him up perfect for me rock and roll
musician
nasa researcher not too many of those
out there
so jason’s an artist he’s phenomenal
musician and composer studio owner and
yeah no kidding nasa researcher
uh going to mars in fact so we’re gonna
get into that real soon
so jason thanks for being here today uh
my
pleasure it’s good to uh talk to you and
uh
should we give them the disclaimer yeah
it’s been so long since we’ve talked
[Laughter]
like so uh yeah so just just as a
very brief recap we’ve had to uh we’ve
had some technical issues and so we’re
we’re doing this again so yeah
it’s our own version of groundhog day
yeah as if we weren’t already well
acquainted enough
yeah but yeah so you know no one i’d
rather do it again with i suppose
wow that’s all right we’ll talk
afterwards
yeah but uh yeah so you know a little
more insight into jason’s personality
uh rolls with the punches uh super easy
to get along with and yeah i appreciate
you man so
thanks for being with us i’ll tell you
what you know what i think this is
actually a really interesting lesson for
for maybe your audience is is um when
you hit technical snags
and uh like adam and i have gone through
some difficulties left
last couple days and you know he was
like hey do you want to redo this or not
and and i said yes for two reasons one i
very much wanted to do this with you but
also too
you know uh when you’re venturing into a
new technical direction
um anywhere in and in the studio and
especially
like every session i do there’s always
something that
some snafu i never dealt with before but
you have to get through it
you can’t you know that’s the only way
to build you know your confidence it’s
the only way to know that
you know like like i play when i play
live i play
as a two-piece with my drummer we use
tons of loopers i think we’ve
encountered
almost every conceivable technical error
you could possibly have
including my whole looping mechanism
completely failing in front of an
audience
in spain you know uh
where or or uh or you know
getting my power my you know getting my
power conditioner blown up because i was
on 240 instead of 120 and and
plugged the wrong thing in and you know
forgot where my
you know so like yeah don’t give up if
you screw something up just just
do it again and you’ll you’ll feel a
thousand times better
yeah i appreciate that man you know i
said all the time uh
yeah well it’s one thing when when gear
fails like you’re looper that really
sucks
um but it sucks in front of an audience
yeah
yeah well exactly and uh you know
there’s nothing you’re gonna do about
that but like i’ve always told people
like you know the bigger the mistake
the less likely it is you’re gonna make
it again because you’re never gonna
forget
that moment that mistake how much of an
ass you felt like in that moment when
you made the mistake
well then i could have traveled off a
dozen of them easily right now
and things i’ve never done again but but
you’ll also be surprised by how you
thought that was the biggest mistake
that could have been made and then
another one comes along it’s like oh no
no no
you just erased you just erased the
entire session
and uh didn’t back it up and like oh
yeah whatever
you know oh yeah that was the biggest
[Laughter]
time mentally i’ve one time i erased a
guitar track
i was working on a eight-track tape
machine and i erased a guitar solo
that the artist had done and i actually
had to spend
i spent two days recreating the guitar
tone
and we we had had like a rough bounce of
it so i was able to
i’d had to learn the solo myself record
it and replace it
without the artist ever knowing and it
worked
did you ever come clean or no no no no
never i think i came clean to the
i came clean to the to the artist but
not to the guitarist
you know uh but yes the the uh the
guitarist um
never found out
but uh yeah that was and that was on
tape that was
that was tricky yeah well you know what
you got to do
um anyway that’s cool so let’s let’s
talk about the tape thing because you
know i mentioned your studio owner so
you’ve got a really cool spot in l.a
um organic audio recorders you you love
tape
uh i do love actually i love
this is going to sound weird i love the
smell of tape um i had
this i had this young kid who wanted to
check out the studio and
and uh i had i put the i’ve got a one
inch 16 track and i i put the thing into
rewind and you know anytime it’s fast
forward and rewriting you’ll you’ll get
this
rewind you’ll get this smell if you get
close to it and i was like dude put your
head over that like take a breath he’s
like what are you talking about like do
it
he’s like whoa like right it’s like new
car smell right he’s like yeah it’s
incredible
it’s a different but it’s like that i
don’t know man i like the sound of it
people like the smell of gasoline too i
do yeah and diesel
also because it reminds me of greece
when i was a kid going to greece because
everything’s diesel over there
oh yeah oh that’s interesting i don’t
know if everyone who likes to smell of
gasoline has that same kind of
connection though
yeah it’s you know well i grew up on a
farm in michigan too so
if i smell gas makes me think of the
tractor we had when i was a kid and
stuff
you know so but um yeah but tape
tape is uh tape’s fun man i think uh you
know what
i think you you’ve never there’s there’s
no quicker way to
feel like you’ve earned your um
recording credentials than to
hack up a drum take with a razor blade
with no backup
yeah you know no one do which right
which yeah which i suppose these days
there’s not really much excuse for but
like you can always back it up but i i
don’t know when i was working on my
first record i
i didn’t back anything up until final
cut so
literally yeah so i had a drum track and
i remember i i hacked it and i cut it
like
you know you always want to err on the
side of caution where you know
if you’re not entirely sure on that
downbeat you give a little
you give yourself a little extra because
you can you know shave off a sliver so i
ended up shaving off like another
millimeter or two millimeters of tape
to get the the cut the edit timed just
right
but um you don’t want to go the other
way because splicing millimeters of tape
you know at a diagonal cut back together
yeah
now you know i just realized how much is
a real tape these days i don’t even know
so one inch isn’t that bad and that’s
actually one of the reasons i stuck with
it and never got a two inch machine
um plus well it’d be nice to have more
tracks i guess but uh
i can get them for like 100 bucks for a
basically
what they call new meaning it hasn’t
been used but it’s been sitting around
in a locker for 30 years yeah
um i mean there are people making new
tape though right i mean i know for a
while i think it was like the early
2000s quantity like they went belly up i
think and there was also
this big shortage of tape right i’ve
just you know i’ve steered clear of it
because i’ve never
heard like a solid review that’s like
this stuff works great there’s always
somebody who’s like yeah maybe
so i use quantity 499 and i swear it’s
so funny i’ve got a guy in la
and i meet him i’ll meet him on a street
corner here in the valley and it’s like
a drug deal i hand him cash and he has
me however many reals
and we literally like we meet on the
corner of uh
this place over into hunga here and
and uh and we’ll catch up real quick and
i’ll be like all right
i’ll see you later see you next time and
bye
yeah yeah it’s it’s really funny it’s
usually like boiling hot you know
in the sun you know it’s like a scene
out of pulp fiction you know because
when it says you know it got no friends
in the 8-1-8
[Laughter]
um that’s where i do my tape my tape
deals
yeah yeah but it’s not too bad yeah it’s
100 bucks or less
all right there you go you know hard
drive right i guess
kind of so no i bought a lot more tape
than i have hard drives
uh um so with with your studio you’re
doing a lot of your own stuff right
that’s kind of
the bulk of what you’re working on yeah
right now yeah i’m finishing up a record
i’ve been
working on for a year and a half with uh
dizzy reed who’s a keyboard player for
guns n roses
cool which has been really really really
cool but that’s pretty much the only
album project well it’s definitely the
only long-term album project i’ve got
going on it’s sounding really good i’m
really
pretty we actually i just finalized the
last two tracks
for mix last night so oh awesome
finish finish line yeah and um
but mostly i’m working on my own stuff
now uh now that we’re in
lockdown i started doing a remote
recording session with my drummer
where he actually recorded the drums of
his studio on a computer and sent them
to me and then i did all my stuff
at my spot but what i did is i set up a
camera so everything i did was a live
take
yeah even though it’s we’re just a
two-piece uh so
i have to layer everything you know but
i i uh
um i could send you if you want to post
the link i can share that
yeah you know with folks too but it
turned out really really good
and there’s a band called uh wolf pack
wolfpack
that a lot of course people might be
into yeah and and i actually
i got pretty inspired by some of their
recording um
and i actually reached out to corey
corey wong uh
who was nice enough to write me back a
while ago and i was like how did you get
that snare drum sound on
i don’t remember if it was dean town or
it was one of these sort of
live sessions it was you know they do
everything with a one camera sweep
oh it was like dude that was he’s like
yeah that whole drum kit was two mic so
i was like what
why and so that makes me feel great
right
yeah what did you do dude i put up it
was one like
well it was it was cool because like it
really sounds great and and uh
and it was also inspiring you know it’s
like oh yeah that’s right you can do
this stuff and
and it’s sort of he and then a couple
like alex skolnick put out a recording
recently
they were doing like he’s been doing a
lot of um recording at home stuff and
he did a thing with i think it might
have been um
oh damn it what’s the the drummer from
anthrax charlie
oh charlie bennett daddy yes
damn it was either him or john tempesto
one of these guys
uh um and they’re both friends so i
always get them
mixed up which is bad but um they put
out a live recording doing a rush cover
i think it was charlie and it was
it wasn’t even a little decorate but
battle aero no that’s not right no
okay charlie i’ll give up better now
the point is it sounded really good and
these things have been inspiring to do
they inspired me like i hadn’t been like
really excited about recording a long
time and
turning the camera on is like it’s
pressure but it also forces you to like
get it right you know yeah and uh i
think
with everyone doing everything at home
and remotely
it’s it’s cool that you can still
capture the authenticity of that
like people can tell you know if you do
a live recording i guess if you tried
really hard you could fake it and make
people think it’s live when it isn’t but
you know generally it’s you can usually
tell if you’re watching the nuance of a
performance and
and uh i mean you could definitely tell
with the mistakes that i
that i left in at least operating
without a safety net though because
you’re
going to create and you’re going to
think in a way that you absolutely
wouldn’t
if you knew like well i guess i can
start over you know if you can’t start
over
you’re going to have this focus that you
just don’t have there’s no faking
at that point the way i do it is like i
can i allow myself a redo but
it has to be a full take yeah so um
although
actually the one that uh i’m gonna show
you uh
or that i’ll post for a few people to
see all those were
first takes um but like
i practiced a lot before i did before i
turned it on
or inevitably like like one of them i
recorded the part five times and then
when i went back and listened to it i
used the first one because
exactly you said it was there was an
energy there and it was like yeah
there’s mistakes but
it’s cool i think it’s cool that people
can even in this
time of isolation people can still
experience
a live moment so for me it’s actually
weirdly enough the lockdown this whole
experience has been really inspiring
for that yeah you know i’ve been
you know saying this for a few months um
because
we’re recording this it’s july now but
since march i guess
man people are getting so creative and
thoughtful
how they’re doing it we’re gonna see and
hear some of the most creative
inspiring things over the next few weeks
a few months whatever
it’s from all this you know people just
bottled up just like thinking of shit
i hope so i mean what i’ve yeah what
i’ve seen so far has been inspiring you
know
and uh it’s also that that new track’s
the first one i’ve ever put out of my
own stuff where we recorded it
purely digitally and we did it that way
because
we i know right uh we had to um
i mean i still ran all my stuff through
my console and you know and mixed it
down there and everything but uh cool um
but it was nice to not be so afraid of
that i was gonna like lose my
juju in the digital medium you know yeah
um
i think especially because it it does
have a different character like if you
listen to this track versus all the
stuff i’ve done in the studio
like the drum sound is definitely much
different
and um but because it’s being filmed and
presented as a live format your i think
your brain accepts that
cool you know um or at least mine did
don’t know what i don’t know what oh my
brain compares to anybody
my brain will be the judge of that yeah
well that’s your brain is a
better judge than mine um
what about you have you been mixing a
lot remotely like since you this all
started
mixing no for me my life has been mostly
um not a lot of mixing a lot of like
production
and editing and like podcasts and
storytelling that way
yeah yeah cause i mean well you got this
podcast going during this
whole lockdown yeah exactly this is a
perfect example do
yeah well i’ve been working on so many
other people’s podcasts i was like
why really i’ve only one of those for
how long
well that’s the same thing with me
producing other people’s records it’s
you know i didn’t move to la to produce
other people’s records i mean i fell
into it you know and
it turns out i’m good at it but that’s
not why i came here you know
yeah uh well i mean but there’s
something to be said for that you know
you follow
what goes in front of you and you know i
mean it’s like yeah but it’s very easy
to get distracted in la
from your path and and i’ve i’ve seen it
happen to so many people that
had a lot of talent or could have i
don’t know they just
you know they fall off the path and it’s
not often you see them get back
get back on the horse i guess it depends
on if they’re miserable or not if
they’re enjoying it you know
i know my life is not about sex you know
you know just well you’re a happy guy
look at you
your smiles every time i talk to you
sorry i’ll cut that out
yeah watch it over there
uh so i wanted to ask you uh kind of
circle back so
you know i heard this story once i want
to hear it again
um how did you come about working with
uh dizzy reed so yeah we were talking
about the princess bride the short
short version uh yeah it was introduced
through
my bass player in an old band i was in
uh was also playing bass with him on his
solo material
and dizzy had had a record that he had
recorded
with a we’ll say problematic engineer
and he had tracks that had been sitting
on for years and he just couldn’t find
the right person to mix it
and take the project seriously and um
yeah and so i met him and i said
basically we yeah we met in a pizza
joint
and uh and i said i’ll i’ll do it
you know and i sent him something i’d
worked on where which gave him at least
i think enough
confidence to be like all right well
we’ll we’ll try what i said was like i
do there’s a lot of people too i’m like
let’s do a song you know if you like it
you pay me and then we’ll do more and if
not you know don’t worry about it and
normally
i wouldn’t you know that’s a lot of work
to do to maybe not get paid for it uh
yeah
at the time this was a little while ago
too it was a few years ago and i was
for me it was worth it especially with a
guy like that who’s like you know this
could be
good you know yeah and i mean besides
liking him as an actual human which he’s
dizzy’s awesome
oh good you know but i also you know i i
also knew it would be like this would be
a really cool thing to work on and it’s
going to
be good for me you know i want this gig
and i fi
i i killed myself man i learned how to
do
i mean there were drum tracks that were
entirely missing where we’d have
like the engineer before had sound
replaced stuff but then lost the
original track so all i had was a sound
replaced version
and then or like he had overheads but
the tom mics were just gone so i had to
reconstruct toms using sample
libraries of stuff i’d never done any of
this i didn’t know how to sample and
replace i’m an analog guy you know yeah
and i and i was like oh yeah i can do
all that stuff i had no idea do i had to
do any of that stuff
you know i think we this something we
talked about before it’s like the
success in in the music industry has a
lot to do with being able to look
somebody dead in the eye and lie
like absolutely i can do that for you no
problem
but but come through yeah yeah just to
finish that off because speaking of
which i’m making sure you’re going to
get very far
you just lie and then you know take off
yeah well yeah
well you can get something right but
yeah so
um i lied i told him i could do it and
then i figured out how to do it um
which uh which is the same way i got the
you know the nasa
gig that you that you mentioned earlier
was i it was bold face lies
just absolutely i can do this stuff and
then
you know what uh what did i just do yeah
but anyway that was so i mixed dizzy’s
first record and then he asked me
to fully produce his second one because
the first one
really turned out good so oh that’s cool
and now a year and a half ago we started
the second one yeah and it’s almost done
and it’s almost done that’s awesome yeah
first single comes out in september
i think and now if anybody ever needs uh
drums uh sound replaced
oh god call this guy this guy he’s right
here
not this guy
we’re going to say those sorry cheers
all right well
let’s get back to that cliffhanger you
just dropped on everybody
how do you nasa how do you pull the wool
over nasa’s eyes because uh
i wouldn’t mind uh working for something
going to mars yeah so it turns out
uh i think we were talking about this
before that it’s um
the dealing with the music business
side of the music industry is actually a
pretty
impressive proving ground for trying to
annoyingly cold call and harass people
in any other industry
because pretty much nobody is more
horrible at
telling you to go screw yourself than
the music industry
so if you can if you can handle you know
cold calling labels and booking agents
and
and you know the mountain of very
not let’s say not polite rejection you
get if i mean you’re lucky
if you get a no that’s like they said no
i heard back yeah so
uh wow yeah
oh dude so anyway yeah so the scientific
community is not quite as used to
um people sort of randomly emailing them
and calling them
uh government uh especially because
nasa’s government organization so
a lot of their information is publicly
available including emails on
pdfs of uh some proposal that a
scientist wrote that you’re trying to
get a hold of and uh
anyway so you dig some of that up
i did some digging and um you know and
i’ll
and put together some you know pretty
well thought if
they’re a little bit open-ended pretty
well thought proposals on
how i felt i could be of
assistance in sending a microphone
to mars which has been attempted before
but never
never succeeded and so um the short
version is i found out they were going
to do this this was something i’d
already been
looking into and so i i sort of was like
uh that’s that’s that’s my gig i want i
want that gig
and um amazingly enough uh it worked out
yeah so i was when i when i got the
the call as it were which came about a
month later um
i was on tour promoting my first solo
release
uh this was summer of 2016
august i think and i was uh it was early
morning
in a backyard at my buddy brian’s house
brian robinson and uh
and my bandmates were like completely
passed out
probably still drunk from the night
before i was a little hungover myself
um and i’m on his backyard patio you
know
uh where he was very nice to let us all
you know crash on his couches and floor
and
and i’m trying to you know get a cup of
coffee so i can have this
discussion with uh with with a pretty
high like very high ranking member of
the
the mars at the time it’s called mars
2020 rover
i mean this guy was like pretty high up
the food chain
and um
yeah and it’s and it’s him and me and
this and a consultant uh
cesar garcia who i had hired just prior
to that like out of my own pocket
just in case nasa called back and they
called back like four days later after i
hired this guy like he was as
in disbelief as i was wow um so it’s the
three of us on this phone call
and uh we ended up talking about
football for like
20 minutes and at some point we would
like football
i i’m 49ers man oh it’s been a little
bit
it’s been a tough couple decades um
but we’re talking for like i don’t know
15 20 minutes if not more
and then at some point i’m like i find
i’m like so are we gonna um
we’re gonna talk about the gig and then
basically it was like yeah so do you
want the gig and you know i’m like wait
what
and it really was i don’t know sometimes
things are so
informally put forward it’s almost more
scary
because then you realize they’re just
they’re just completely putting the ball
in your court and
you would think it would be the opposite
like oh but it was like you know this is
a
multi-billion dollar spacecraft you know
and and uh
this is a chance to do something
nobody’s ever done before or hear the
sound on another planet it’s never been
done
yeah not not real true actual sound that
hasn’t been tweaked
and um he’s like okay and and he was so
casual about it like it made me more
scared
um like one of the things i’ve learned
in the studio
or just anytime like if i’m doing a
video shoot for example
uh you know you hire a director and you
put this whole production together
and if i look over and the director is
like freaking out and really
nervous about everything then i can
relax because i’m like okay
somebody’s paying attention you know
somebody’s got the angles covered
yeah um if i look around and nobody’s
nervous
then i get nervous because like wait
uh somebody’s probably not paying
attention
because this is obviously a big deal so
that first phone call was
i was visibly sweating by the end of it
and then
um and then the the uh dave gruel was
his name the guy
over at now saying he gets off the phone
so now me and uh
me and caesar left on the phone together
and
i’m like what just happened he’s and
he’s like sort of laughing the
background is like i think he just got
the gig i’m like
yeah it was a really cool it was
definitely one of those moments you’re
you’re not going to forget yeah so
and then 2017 i had to start a company
so i could get hired and then
basically um got hired as an independent
consultant in 2017 and it’s
uh continued to this day as an
open-ended open-ended
consultant position for the microphone
which is flying
uh in a couple weeks now yeah so
describe a little bit of the microphone
like how
like what did it need to do well i can
tell you exactly
it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a bnk 4006
capsule um which has been uh this
company called dpa
yeah familiar with that one yeah yep so
dpa
basically rebranded k to like a more
consumer level thing
but it’s the 4006 capsule it’s a half
inch
pre-polarized condenser it’s about the
size of your thumb and it’s a lanyard
mic
so it’s this it’s this little mic then
that goes into the
mma digital audio interface thing that’s
about
yay big so the microphone will be on the
outside of the rover
you know the little thumb piece and then
that goes into the rover and then
the preamp is housed on the inside uh
where it’s going to be more protected
from you know thermally
thermally protected radiation shielded
and then it’ll feed into
uh one of the many
computers like sort of secondary
computers on the rover so it’s like a
backup
recording well they so one of the
reasons
one of the previous missions to mars had
a microphone on it but it was
wired directly into the main computer
and they didn’t turn it on because they
discovered that there was a possibility
that it would cause some sort of
there was like reset of the
it was a windows update yeah basically
and you know and windows update
if you have a 0.01 chance of something
causing a hard reset on your you know on
your rover uh
on your rover on mars you don’t do that
thing so um
so that was never i’m just checking my
audio
stream right now um so it was never
turned on
well so it was this yeah does this
actually have to be turned on once they
land
it’s going to turn on before they land
it’s going to it’s going to turn on
during the landing sequence
so it should be really good turn itself
on and all that
yeah i don’t know i’m not involved with
the programming aspect of it so
but it will be activated at some point
within the
it’s called the seven minutes of terror
six or seven minutes of terror they call
it where you get this sort of like
information blackout as you’re crashing
through the
limited magnetosphere of the planet but
oh wow you just get all kinds of
ionization and
you know uh science you know
yeah it’s it’s you know but it’ll be but
there’s gonna be video cameras recording
it and then there’s gonna be the one
microphone to catch all the audio
it i mean i give it a 50 50 chance at
best it’s even going to work
yeah because it’s just an off the shelf
component i mean that’s
at the end of the day that’s what they
could afford this was a very dave really
spearheaded this because he really
wanted it to be there but there was no
extra budget for it
but he you know he wanted audio to go
with those with that video for
good reason you know thank god somebody
appreciated that
yeah um so finally one for the audience
it’s not yeah i mean it’s not customized
though at all really i mean it’s
we we we offered some customization
procedures that could have been done to
help make it you know more robust and
and get a better signal but
they just didn’t have the budget to
implement any of those things so
if it works uh certainly future
audio design for mars could be made to
work a little better but
i i mean it’s a really good mic you know
4006 is
it’s that’s yeah it’s super flat
and um i tested one out here at my place
just to make sure everything you know
see what it sounded like you know before
we recommended it i was like god this
thing sounds really good
um stamp of approval so what yeah what
do you expect we’ll say that mars to
sound like
what i mean you must have done some
tests and kind of gauged you know what
you’re expecting yeah people have been
writing
papers for decades i mean that phoenix
lander
the mars phoenix lander that was sent
back in the late
so late 90s early 2000s well mars polar
lander was supposed to have one and that
was 97
i think so ever since then people have
been doing scientific studies
of the atmosphere and how they thought
sound would travel so there’s a lot of
but yeah it’s basically it’ll be kind of
like you basically everything above 10k
gets totally cut off
for the audio engineers out there yeah
and then there’s like a weird there’s a
bit of a
of us well everything you get a gentle
roll off
of basically all the high frequencies
that from like
even below 1k and above everything just
starts rolling off pretty quickly
as you s with distance um
within the immediate vicinity of the
rover it should sound pretty good
you know like if you’re well if we’re
able to hear the wheels on the surface
when during a drive or something
you’ll hear it crackling it’ll sound
kind of muffled you know but it’s going
to be a weird sort of muffling because
there’s chemical properties in the
atmosphere that are theorized to
actually give you a a high-end boost
sort of between five and 10k um
oh man so yeah you know i mean
uh i barely have eq figured out on earth
i couldn’t imagine dealing with it
right did we talk about that movie at
astra before did did
yeah yeah so that’s amazing right yeah
yeah so i i was i got to i was an
informal technical advisor for
a very brief mars landing sequence in
that film uh
for the sound designer gary ridestrom um
it’s ben bert and gary ridestrom are
like i think
like that’s the two guys yeah in the
world and uh
for a long time they’ve been stopping
yeah
what was i saying like the guys oh he’s
won seven
academy awards and i mean that’s just
the amount he won
for sound design but anyway yeah he had
i i i got a tour of skywalker
sound and when i met gary he was working
on that and asked if i had any
input you know on what that might sound
like and so i you know
i was like yeah i got lots of input
absolutely and if you watch the
landing sequence uh in the movie it’s
very
it’s just a quick shot of a rocket
landing but i i think
i i think he got it pretty close i think
that i would well i would be trying to
find out for real
i saw that film is on hbo now and i just
got hbo now for a little while
so it’s everybody’s going to be i’ll be
honest with you
it’s not a great film but the landing
sequence is awesome
well it’s funny because the not fast
forward yeah well the
the director of the film really wanted
to be very realistic you know like sort
of 2001 style
but then there were apparently a lot of
conflicts with the studio and i think
the studio wanted more
you know action movie so it’s
interesting because like there’s like a
lunar rover chase
sequence um and there’s points where
there’s external audio i mean they
muffle it a lot but
it’s still there and you’re like okay
obviously this is there’s no
sound on the moon anywhere right but you
can tell where like you can tell the
battle
between the guy who wanted it to be true
and the sound designer who i’m sure was
totally behind him and then the studio
that was like no it’s got to have
explosion sounds and so like they’re
sort of muffled and tweaky
but it also makes for a shorter day for
the sound designer if he wins that
battle
oh yeah he’s like this is great
absolutely
you know there’s no sound on the moon
yeah you know
i mean a lot you know yeah
well you you cheat that a lot of times
by like giving the sound that you’re
that your astronaut would hear in his
suit right and like so you can still
sort of have some audio design in
but anyway it’s uh yeah but the mars
sequence i think is actually pretty
close to what it would sound like so if
anybody wants to know that’s my
suggestion because that’s the one i
contributed to that’s awesome
so that’s supposed to launch uh later
this month i believe right
right now it’s been pushed back to the
30th 30th um
yeah there was a problem with the there
was a some sort of
safety sensor sensor
there’s some sensor issue with the
rocket actually that’s going to fly it
which is an atlas 5 rocket
i believe the rover itself is ready to
go i don’t think there’s any issues with
that but
uh launch has been delayed to july 30th
as last heard and there’s about a
two-week window they can get it up in
the air so
yeah no kidding
yeah oh god yeah but i’m doing i’m doing
a the talk
um we’re doing we’re doing a big talk
i’ve got i put together a panel
with a bunch of people from jpl that
i’ve met over the last few years
and we’re going to be that’s going to be
on tuesday the 14th this
coming tuesday if anybody sees this
before then
tuesday the 14th july 14th so yeah so
you’ll give me a link i’ll flash that on
the screen you’ll see it
right in here yeah yeah it’s going to be
cool like it’s just q
a nobody’s giving any speeches or
presentations we’re just taking
questions from these are the people that
that built the rover that are going to
be operating the systems on the rover
um and uh know all about the red like
anybody if anybody has any technical
questions or about sound
um but about the cameras about the
rockets it the rocket itself
um there’s gonna be six of us total and
i put
we put together a great crew that
encapsulates
um if kids want to tune in they’re the
uh
this woman becca who helped uh
coordinate
the naming of the rover which they did
with kids all around the world
um she’s part of the panel and uh
it’s gonna be really cool yeah so please
tune in and send questions in ahead of
time
oh so so tell me uh in your studio there
have you ever
fit an orchestra in there or you maybe
had to go i don’t know overseas to
well yes adam it’s funny you should
mention that um
yeah so i uh what adam is referring to
is
uh for those that are watching i i had
written oh gosh a long time ago
when i was in college i had written two
pieces for orchestra but i just wrote
them in piano score format because i
didn’t know how to orchestrate anything
in my head they were always meant to be
orchestral
and and they were written that way but
the notes were actually just in piano
score format
and i was doing a session and over it in
that room that adam is
sitting in right now on the other side
of the country and i met an orchestrator
there who was he was doing a remote
mixing uh recording session in prague or
budapest
i believe the the symphony was in prague
there was an animated feature that he
was working on that he scored
and he scored and he’d been going over
there for all these sessions and
basically he wanted to
you know save some miles i guess he’s
one he just didn’t want to make the trip
this time and he wanted to see if it was
possible to just monitor
with source connect so we set him up so
yeah he monitored that session that
session here
that’s right right i don’t know is that
the same orchestra that you you worked
with i think was called
it would be if it was harmonic p-h-i-l-m
film harmony yeah it’s pretty cool is
there a p i thought it was just f
i thought they weren’t quite that they
weren’t american i’m just using that
with
the band film the band film which i was
playing
on tour with yeah the polar opposite of
that was um
dave uh dave lombardo yeah yeah that was
fun i think that’s the thing
that uses those the film harmonics the
filmheart prague film harmonic yes so
uh we did later end up traveling to yeah
andy brick is his name right amazing
phenomenal credits yeah a lot of disney
a lot of video games
under his belt he’s really well he’s
definitely one of my favorite humans
he’s a really
wonderful guy and if so smart and so
good and patient
he’s like he’s you know tall
sort of big hands very calm soothing
voice guy but like dude i heard him lose
his shit a few times and like
i’m glad i’ve stayed on his good side
you know
um but he uh anyway yeah he and i
traveled to prague together and i hired
him as my orchestrator and and
i hired the orchestra i saved up all
summer and
and spent a lot of money and um and then
i was like well
i guess i’ll take my hand i’ll i’ll take
a crack at mixing this you know
when i got back to la because i figured
well i could save some money that way
too but also
you know how else are you gonna learn
yeah um and andy was awesome i would
you know he’d refer you know reference
my mix and send stuff back and give me
tips and
that’s great and uh so we’ve done that
twice now and uh
i will say i think the second mix the
second one we did was in prague the
first one was in budapest i think the
second one turned out better
maybe just because i learned how to mix
a little better
um but uh that’s so cool though so i
mean
this is why i love your story though
because you’re somebody who just
you know you know the whole thing people
say like luck is
you know you’re so lucky or preparation
meets opportunity but like
well you gotta i’ve always said like
it’s not it’s not as simple as
preparation meets opportunity because
the last step that i feel like
more people skip out on than any other
thing is
actually seizing that opportunity like
you know so many people
just blow it off you know like or just
make an excuse on why i’m not oh
that’s that’s too much work or they’re
not gonna want me or blah blah blah and
you just
you go for it well yeah you’re not
qualified
that’s the best time you can i was
qualified what would the fuck
figure it out right well i remember like
i remember when i met andy
and i my first sort of feeling was like
i got really excited i just i knew he
was my guy like
this is it i’ve had this dream for a
long you know many many years
this guy’s my ticket and then all of a
sudden
i got like sort of terrified because i
was like wait a minute
you know i’m gonna have to pay for this
it’s gonna be many thousands of dollars
um you know and then you’re sort of like
what if it goes wrong you know and then
like you know
i don’t know you just at the end of the
day it’s kind of like well who cares if
it goes wrong but you know when you’re
it’s easy to rationalize that from your
chair but when you’re
when you’ve just hired 50 people
[Laughter]
in an orchestra that are giving you two
hours of their time
and literally not a second longer like
they stop
if it’s mid take and the time’s up they
they put down their instrument and they
walk out
it’s gnarly and uh
you know that was the big thing andy
actually cautioned me for anybody who’s
thinking about doing an orchestral
uh recording session is that time
management
is everything you know it’s it’s not
about getting perfect
it’s about getting through it and as you
find later on getting through it
is perfect because you can you can do
more with editing than you think you can
uh with an orchestra it’s it’s like
splicing drums together you think
you can’t splice a drum track but
actually as long as
the symbol crashes are sort of in the
right place and
there’s so much going on and then by the
time
you add the reverbs and things like that
to a drum take add your snare reverbs
and your
drum whatever your room and the
compression it smooths out a lot of
edits and with an orchestra you
basically
you cut and piece an orchestra as if it
were a stereotake
so you’ve got 40 mics or whatever but
you just there’s cutting everything
as a stereo as a oops as a one-line edit
and you’re you’re adding all this reverb
and stuff at the end anyway so like
as long as the timing is because there’s
no we didn’t do it there’s no click
track or anything
you know we just free-handed it so as
long as the
tempos are consistent from one take to
the next
um you put it together it was the whole
thing was
absolutely terrifying and
when we finished the first session both
sessions actually but when we
finished the first one i i thought it
was a complete disaster
i was so distraught that i
i i wept i i was i mean in a corner
where no one could see me but i actually
like i was so beside myself oh man
that i was so absolutely convinced that
my 20
like you know many years
dream was shattered that i had blown it
it was gonna sound terrible
and andy who had done this a million
times and knew what we had
and you know we went out to dinner he’s
like we’re gonna go out to dinner we’re
gonna have some drinks
you did great it’s gonna sound amazing
okay um but well that helps out
something like that in your corner
oh my god it was the only thing that
kept me from like jumping off the
whatever bridge was nearby they have a
couple big bridges no i was so
i was just completely devastated i
thought it was absolutely horrible
and then i had to go on tour immediately
which is when i was on the tour where i
got that call from nasa this all
happened at the
like it was like crazy i didn’t realize
this was all that’s
this all happened in the exact that’s a
good window of time
it was insane and so but i never
i didn’t have a chance to even listen to
the audio tracks for another
month and a half like six weeks before i
got home
from all my touring and traveling and i
was able to sit in the studio and find
out what i had
and it was only then that i like i took
i spent i think
two days editing and mixing it and by
the end it was like
oh my god this is actually really good
that’s great um you know i’ll give we’ll
we can post that link too i’ll put that
on there
because i got a video of it as well
but um the first 45 seconds are a little
like interview
and you if you look especially for
people that know me you can see how
terrified i am it’s
it’s pretty funny um i’m trying to like
smile
and you know but uh well anyway
there you go no it’s a great story man
and i think it’s
important for people to hear stuff like
this because i mean you
you know you’ve you’ve had these pieces
you’ve been working on these pieces for
a long time but it wasn’t like you were
you know in the studio
that day working on someone else’s
project thinking
in the back of your mind like oh i got a
figure i got to find a composer i got to
give her like that wasn’t real like
right i mean that was you had told me
about him beforehand
you were like you told me oh there’s
going to be a guy here so i i actually
did
weirdly enough i was a little bit
prepared for it because for some reason
i had this like
all right so that conversation ahead of
time got you thinking more like maybe
this can happen
well what you did is you put yeah you
put it in my head that where i started
thinking about like you know you were
talking about opportunity
and the opportunity i was thinking when
am i going to be in a situation where
i’m going to be in a studio where i’m
not just a schmuck in there i’m actually
producing a session
and i’m going to meet an orchestrator
who works with orchestras overseas and
i’ll
be in a position where i’ll have the
credibility where i can approach him and
he’ll take me seriously
ah there we go yeah so a lot of it
i’ve learned it has to do with how you
approach people
yeah but i but i i did prepare myself
and
i mean i didn’t know him i didn’t know
what his personality was going to be
like but
but i definitely normally you know
i don’t know when i meet somebody i’m
just like hey dude what’s up you know
and
when i met him i i was sort of a little
more composed i was like
very nice to meet you you know
it was a little more like that you know
and i mean we’ve
andy and i’ve been drunk together a few
times now so
everything’s everything’s out in the
clear but it was really funny when i met
him it was sort of like
i don’t know it’s like going on your
first date with somebody you know you’re
just kind of like
this is you’re not i’m not giving you
this isn’t fake this is just maybe
the edited this is the nicer edited
edited parts
of me
[Laughter]
so i’d say seizing opportunity is
is about your presentation of self as
much as it is about
what you’re doing it’s it’s i like that
showing that people can trust you
and i’m and i actually i apologize
because i just realized um
i need to go in a minute for uh all
right yeah
let’s wrap this up yeah but i want to
just make this point that
i think you’ll agree with completely is
that um
uh in our business if you’re a producer
or an engineer
especially in the music world but in my
case i guess it translated to the
science community as well
you need people to trust you um if
somebody’s paying you to mix their dream
project or produce their dream
song or you know get their creativity
and their
emotions onto a permanently recorded
medium that they will have to listen to
the rest of their lives
they’re putting a lot of trust in you
and um
and if you can get yourself across
in a way where you have sold
you’re sold that trust to them from from
the downbeat as we would say from from
the moment you meet them
and you you just you put yourself across
in a way where they feel that you
understand what they’re going for uh
that’s that you’ve
like won half your battles i think right
there that’s awesome man what a way to
what a way to end an interview yeah
go get them yeah no you nailed it no i’m
glad i said that that that’s fantastic
and and i love that and you can tell
that you are living that just by the way
you mentioned
uh earlier how you know you’re talking
about well let’s not do a whole record
let’s figure out
are we going to work together well you
know like let’s gain rapport with the
person you’re working with
and i’ve blown it i’ve blown it a number
of times i mean
i don’t have a lot of bad experience as
clients but i’ve had a few and i could
tell that i lost their trust and it was
like
oh god it aided me for months every time
that
that’s happened so well you gain the
trust and you gain a client for life too
it’s way easier to keep a client than it
is to get a new one
yeah that’s you know that’s and they’re
the ones you want to get rid of
but the quickest way to blow it is just
by blowing them off and not
like putting yourself into that project
and they’re quickly like you just
mentioned they’re going to lose your
trust if you’re not
in it everybody can see that you know so
you know
you said you’re killing yourself for
these these projects because it’s that’s
just what you do
you know well it’s cool to see that
develop too like you know going back to
the dizzy read
thing you know like um now that we’re on
producing his record now i can tell
he’s a lot more comfortable uh
with you know i mean a lot there’s a lot
more decisions that are made together
and
you know i have to challenge him
sometimes you know if he’s putting down
a melody that he’s just come up with and
and if i feel it can be stronger if i
mean
it’s going to be a battle every time
especially if you got a strong-willed
client but
yeah and they might not appreciate it at
the time but they’ll go home they’ll
think about it and they’ll appreciate
you for it
and you know i like one of the things i
like to say is i don’t need to be right
i don’t care if it’s my idea or your
idea it just needs to be a good idea so
if it’s
so either if something’s not working i
always tell people
okay either either find something better
or sell me on it
like convince me you know you know like
that
those those memes where the dude’s
sitting in a chair and says fight me you
know
it’s like fight me like it has to be
good at the end of the day i don’t care
where it comes from we are a collective
unit but what we’re putting out there
you the artist me the producer
whatever you know it’s got to be good
so that’s the best of our collective
ability
you know yeah well listen thanks so much
for
for doing this yeah again oh and you
thank you
good sport thanks for forever yeah
thanks for having me
one more time so tuesday the 14th is the
talk where you can
ask questions of jason and other people
involved
uh on the the perseverance right so it’s
called
perseverance rover all aspects of the
rover i mean yeah
the driving the rocket how it’s getting
there the quarantine they went through
to build it yeah
everything yeah so that’s tuesday we’ll
put up the link um
for more information on jason uh you can
go to jason achilles.com
uh please narcissistically named
narcissistic names
that’s that what a coincidence your
website the same as your name wow
uh yeah so so go there check him out
he’s got a lot of cool cool videos
and awesome music um we’ll put some
links in the description below
don’t forget adam claremont.com workflow
pick up that free pdf guide i know
there’s a lot you can get out of that
i’ll be working a lot more productively
more efficiently with your time
because who wants to waste time thanks
again jason
thanks everybody for watching give us a
thumbs up like subscribe
all those great things and see you next
time
Adam Clairmont 