Latest / Chaos and Creativity / We Don't Have to Be Good at Everything

Transcript

We Don't Have to Be Good at Everything · Chaos and Creativity

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Kimmy.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Lou.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I sound better.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: You sound great.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's different?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd ask that as if I don't, as if we have this at length.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is like pulling the fully baked cake out of the oven right now.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um So our our title for this episode is potentially going to be Best Laid Plans of Disaster.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um you suggested what?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Optimization.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Optimizing to a fault.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Optimizing to a fault.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I in I don't know if this is a boy thing or an obsessive compulsive thing, but I decided to make a sound booth in the closet of our office here in uh Northern California.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it didn't go well, as you can probably hear from the last two episodes.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did, I mean, but like I it I spent probably$400 on this stuff, right?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I put corkboard up and sound panels and the full Monty, and it was quiet as a church in that little booth.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then it sounded horrible.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, it was like very mocking.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like box.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know I was like, are you not you are using a different microphone?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's happening right now?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, the only thing that I've changed is that I've moved into this thing, and then I was like, well, you know, that is like an art form to like soundproof something.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it so acoustics are are definitely an art form.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Acoustics are a crazy art form.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think, especially like in smaller rooms like that room that you had, which is basically a closet, like it it's like putting the right things so it's that it's enough air that it still sounds natural, but not too much.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but it is it is interesting because I I do that with so many things where either AI um I'm like, oh, this costs a lot of money to get done, so I think I'm just gonna do it myself.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that works, but like I think we're in this era of everything being on YouTube.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is like, just DIY it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, some things you should just not be DIYing, some things you should just be having someone else do it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like a great example of that is um if you have vintage synthesizers and you're not an electrician and you've literally never worked on vintage synthesizers, you should most likely not try to fix your own vintage synthesis like that.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just rule of thumbs.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Something from experience for you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: May or may not, may or may not be talking from experience.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's been multiple times where I've like been like, oh, I bet you I could just like open up the back of this pedal and figure out what's wrong.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I opened it up and I'm like, nope.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I close it back.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what am I doing?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I don't know.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just now starting to learn a little bit more about like electronics and everything, but I'm like, some of these things, it's it's not enough to just watch a YouTube video.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just that is not enough.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to actually know more than just a single thing.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I it is interesting because I do watch this a lot, like people being like, I just DIY'd it myself.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, and I'm like, it's not as great as no, it's not as simple as you think.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and acoustics, especially.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I did a little bit of a deep dive, which means I know just enough to be an idiot now.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And acoustics is fascinating.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like for I there's a a weird, I mean, this is so random, um, but it will kind of it's sort of a semi-segway into where we're gonna go with this.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: But um, there's a subwoofer I have here in the office for our stereo system, and if you put it on the opposite side of the room, you have to make it out of phase from the speakers that are facing you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I'm still not even sure what that means, but I I I throw it out there like I'm gonna do it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm like a musician for a thousand billion years, and when people are like that's out of phase, I'm s I know it has to do with like the the frequency things, but I can I think it's like the waves of the frequencies that they're not on top of each other, but I actually like don't I know what it visually what it looks like, I know what it it like represents.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know actually what why it's bad.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, exactly.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which then got me thinking about movies and sound in movies and sound design.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So here we are struggling with real life and phase and neta phase, and all of a sudden I was looking at a movie and you're recreating real life in a movie.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the complexity of that, as I started really digging into, especially sci-fi movies, was oh my gosh, that is a lot.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think there's like the traditional sort of cliche of like the foley artist like with a pair of shoes on his hands or her hands and stomping on some gravel in a studio space with a microphone near it.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's way beyond that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is so, so far beyond that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the the amount of stuff that the sound engineer, I think also in your business and what you do, has to keep in their head as they're putting all this stuff together with all these billions of sliders.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I don't they don't even use those sliders anymore.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do they just use No, I don't think so.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because sometimes also I've tried to DIY like DIY things or be like, oh, my friend, I'll just have my friend who kind of knows what they're doing build it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, by the time I spend everything on like material and et cetera, it's like not that much more than if I would have just like had somebody professional do something, you know?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And most likely I have to like rebuild it at some point or it doesn't sound good.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is interesting, and I think that's like getting older for me, is I'm starting to be a little bit less.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say like my punk rock ethos is dying.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still, you know, punk to the punk to the end.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I understand that people that there's certain things that are just people's craft and that they've been honing for a long time, and that most likely they're gonna do a better job than I am.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're like living in a world of people who are um we don't have so many specialists anymore.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have people who are multi, what's it called?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's that called?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Polyglots when you're like or um polymaths.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Polymaths who like, you know, lots of people do things, a lot of things okay, but very few people do one thing on a master level, you know.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's quite interesting.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um yesterday I was um hanging out with my friend and uh my friend John, and he's like a pretty crazy DJ, and he is also who taught me how to make music.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever I hang out with him, we always end up going to like meet very cool people, and all of them are very nerdy and like very specifically good at one thing, and he's just like that too.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're all just like geniuses.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we went to his friend Stefan's house, who is a master, he's an amazing DJ, a musician.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Pole, but he also is does mastering, vinyl mastering specifically.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um honestly, until I went to a studio, I really didn't have like insight to this, like how much goes into vinyl mastering, like good vinyl mastering, because he actually has like a he like masters it and then he has like the record thing and he like makes a master record to see how it sounds.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's this whole process.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And but he's like, Yeah, this is you know, nowadays so many kids are just doing things on their on their laptops, but then when it goes to being pressed on vinyl, they actually can't get the the proper sound because or have it be as loud because they're no longer using these like old tools, they're using modern techniques for kind of analog um uh uh media, which is vinyl.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was super fascinating because I didn't, you know, I hadn't really thought about that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even like for me, sometimes I just put a mastering chain on my stuff, but I also am just putting it online.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, Oh yeah, if you want to do vinyl, you kind of do have to go to someone if you wanted to sound really good, who and it was he's like, Yeah, I've been doing it for 30 years, you know.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember our um interview with Lewis Posen at Hopeless Records in Los Angeles?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I will put a link in the show notes to that because he said one of the things that um punk artists are still making money on is vinyl, that they they make a a lot of their our a lot of their income is coming from vinyl production.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I and it's it's a really it's a fascinating sudspir.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and sort of it's funny that you brought up the name Stefan because I'm proposing that we do a couple of episodes just on audio and we're gonna get an interview with a sound designer for movies, and we're also going to seek out an interview with a guy named Stefan, and all he does is record nature.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he turned it into like a business for himself.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: He has his own app, and you know, recording nature is really difficult.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like how do you record nature so it sounds like it's really nature, you know what I'm saying?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I also want to kind of reach out to an audiophile, see if we can find an audiophile because there are these guys that go so deep into you know, speaking of vinyl, they will get a$15,000 turntable.
• 9:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's like perfectly balanced and can survive earthquakes and still play your music right.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to get a little bit of an insight into what drives that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where does that come from?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is like what I mean.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I do love when people are really obsessed with what they're obsessed with.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's when you have a special interest.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it's like a collecting thing or like they get really into audio.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think for me, right now, I just want like the best person in their field to work on anything that I need.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I'm at with because I have my entire life have also just been like, I'll just try to do myself and it's fine.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I really, after you and I talked about the doing the paneling, I was really thinking about this because I'm like, how many times in my life have I like taken this shortcut thinking, oh, I'll save some money and I'll just do it myself and like adding myself on the back of like how amazing I am that I did it myself.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then later being like, you know, it's not actually what I fully wanted.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just accepting this right now because I did it myself.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's something to be, yeah, there's something to be said for investing your time and emotional energy into something where you're bringing value to something crappy.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know what I mean.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, I'm like, how much time did I spend on some of the stuff that I would have rather just spent on making music?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I understand actually when you're coming from a place where you're like, well, I actually can't afford to do anything else.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: But for a lot of the things that I've done, it's like I could have actually afforded for a couple extra hundred dollars to have someone do it for me and have it been done right.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it is a it's like this thing, I think, of just like you have to like make that mistake enough times.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, no, no.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a recurring mistake.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: This this happens forever.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like you never really figure it out.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you kind of have to do the dumb thing.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the rest of your life.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's like once every two years you got to do the dumb thing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's I don't know why it's a human condition, but I think we're cleverer than we are.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: We I do think we are delivered.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: We live in a delusional state.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: We do live in a delusional state.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's like our uh that's the next episode.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a delusional state and we just talk about all the delusional things that we've done.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: However, to sort of counter that because everything is sort of yin and yang, that sometimes you kind of have to jump in too.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, truth because you may find something new about yourself, but maybe not a day.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the thing.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think there's a difference also between doing something that you need for yourself and then just starting from the beginning because you want to learn something, you know, and and want to get better at it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I this is my first project and I'm gonna keep doing it.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the difference.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like, I'm starting, let's say, music, you're like, I've never done this before, and I want to make music for my videos, but I really want to learn how to make music.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, then start doing music for your videos and really suck at it for like a couple of years and then get really good at it because that's like everybody.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, anyone who starts is gonna suck for a little bit.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that's an interesting point, actually.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever think that there's a component, um, sort of speaking outside, you know, or existentially, do you think this component as you get older you realize that there's less time, so there's less time to actually make those leaps and try to get lost in something new?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, 100%.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Less less time to start and abandon and start and abandon.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you start thinking, like, okay, well, if I need that painted, or if I need that built, or if I need something done, um, you know, I I just want to pay for it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just want to pay for it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have that now, like where I'm like, what can I, what, what is my time worth?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what are the things that I like want to spend my time on, and what are things that I want to not spend my time on?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think when I was younger, I had a lot of time.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It just had a lot of time on my hands.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think about sometimes I just think about like being like in my early 20s, and I was like, how did was it, what was I doing to survive?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wonder now, because I do think it was also a different time, obviously a hundred thousand years ago when I was a 20-year-old, um, where it was like quite easy to live and survive off of nothing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like you didn't, I didn't have to have a full-time job um to live in San Francisco in 2003.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I could just like sell vintage and like be a party hostess.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're all not seeing me doing quotes, but I'm literally doing quotes party hostess, which maybe just makes it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Someone paid me like a hundred dollars to come and hang out and drink uh alcohol and bring all of my girlfriends to like a party.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was a job that I had.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that might that was like a fucking amazing job.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: What an amazing job to just be like, your hostess, and all that means is that you get like to get your friends drunk and have fun.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just, you know, at that time I was like, oh yeah, I have endless time to start projects.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like doing so much.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was like drawing, I would be like making videos, I was making so much art, even art that maybe isn't like completely in my, I would say like nowadays in my view, so to speak.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I I would love to have that time again.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to just like have time to just sit around and and I'm trying to make more time.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also like I try to get Instagram off my phone because I understand my phone takes a lot of my time from me.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in general, but in general, I feel like there's not enough time for all the things I want to do.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So of course I'm gonna like hand off.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Even this, even this podcast this morning, you sent me a text message and and you it's you know summertime in Berlin.
• 14:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you're kind of like, it's beautiful.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, can you get in an hour early so I can go out and and enjoy this beautiful weather?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the different things start shifting as to what becomes more important.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and thank God that you said yes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was it was all about the Richmond Bridge for me, honestly.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like, maybe, maybe not.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll make in time, maybe not.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so it I I do actually that's a really good um thing with the time and getting older that we just yeah, we we we don't have to we start valuing what we can do really, really well, and we don't want to dilute that with stuff that we don't do very well.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we hire people who do do very well.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually the best way to like exit.
• 15:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: You just run right now.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone, do the things you do well, and if you have a lot of time, do the things you don't do well.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have a lot of time, hire somebody to do the things you don't do well.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Always good to see you, Jimmy.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Always good to see you, Lou.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.