Think Like a Synth with Anthony Marinelli - Music Production Podcast #434

podcast
Written By Brian Funk

Anthony Marinelli is a legendary composer, performer, and synthesist. He worked with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on Thriller, James Brown, Kenny Loggins, Van Halen, and many more. He worked on the scores for over 90 original film score soundtracks including War Games, Stand by Me, and one of my favorites Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. He shares his knowledge on his YouTube channels and his in-depth courses Think Like a Synth and Bass DNA.

I spoke with Anthony about how he breaks down sounds for synthesis and visualizes his sounds in his imagination rather than in technical terms. Anthony spoke about getting his start working as a synthesizer player and programmer as a teenage, and what it was like working with legends Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube

Links:

Thank you for listening. 

Please review the Music Production Podcast on your favorite podcast provider!

Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:09.545)

Anthony, welcome to the show. It's a real pleasure to have you here today.

Anthony (00:13.036)

Thank you, Brian. I'm happy to be here.

Brian Funk (00:15.489)

Yeah, you you've got, I mean, such an impressive career. You've shaped music in general and it's really amazing that you're sharing it so much on your YouTube channel and you've got your course, Think Like a Synth and the Upcoming Course Base DNA. it's really kind of you to take these secrets that you've picked up along the way and techniques and share it with the world. So I've been enjoying your work for a long time. I know a lot of people all as well have. So we're really thankful to have you here today.

Anthony (00:45.068)

Well, that's very nice to hear. I mean, I really appreciate it. I didn't realize it until I started making the videos, you know, how valuable it could be for other people but also for me, because it's just the accelerated my my learning curve.

It seems like the more you share, the more you wanna learn and the more comes back to you and then I'm interacting with people that have great ideas. I mean, it's it's just been a really good two way c kinetic experience for me.

Brian Funk (01:20.397)

Hm. That is the surprising thing about teaching, right? How much you wind up learning along the way.

Anthony (01:26.496)

Yeah, because when you're distilling down to say something so that someone can understand it, 'cause it's like even a relationship, you know, you learn how to speak clearly and y you wanna understand, but then you learn to understand the person you're talking to. And then all of a sudden s things start coming back to you and you go, Well, that's a new perspective on what I thought I knew. That's what happens to me.

Brian Funk (01:47.48)

Hmm. Right. Yeah. Well, you've got so much experience and you know, working I think at a time too when synthesizers were very mysterious, kind of these magical machines that not a lot of people understood. They were out of reach for a lot of people as well. and then you come along, working with people like Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones. it's

It must have been quite an adventure going through that time with this new technology that was really becoming a part of mainstream music.

Anthony (02:24.287)

Yeah. Well it was you're right about all that. It was a little bit mysterious to most people. And it just as a kid it it the exposure to synthesizers is what kind of kept me kept me going, wanting to learn more and more about music. 'Cause there was just something about those instruments that I liked. And I mean I really liked the piano because of the expressivity, but

I for I don't know, back like I I don't have a problem practicing now and later on in life, but when I was a kid, I just wanted to play sports and I just did not wanna be sitting at the piano practicing. You know, I felt like that the the outside light was calling me to be active. And then when I heard the first synthesizer album, my first the first one I heard was switched on Bach. Then I thought, Well, what is that? I wanna play that thing.

And and I figured out a way, you know, I got a electronic organ and I was trying to make synth sounds on an organ, you know, like frying it through an amp, and just anything I could do to get those kinds of sounds. And then I finally figured out a way to get an ARP 2600 synth when I was in high school. And then I just read the owner's manual over and over and over. It's such a good owner's manual. I learned synthesis through that owner's manual.

And I had a a synth teacher that I would he kinda took me on on as a student. He was like one of the few people that was a session musician on synthesizers, playing on movie scores and record dates. And that's how it kinda how it happened for me because he was so busy doing it because of the mystery of it. Everyone wanted it to d had the sound somewhere on their album, you know. He was so busy he didn't want to turn anything down because there was make maybe one or two other people. He didn't

want him to get the job. So he sent me. Because I could do the gigs. But I was like, I couldn't even drive. I was like, my parents were driving me to the lessons. So they drove me the first session I ever did ever did was with Lamont Dozier, like of Holland Dozier Holland, you know, like the Motown, the number one writing and producing team from Motown. And I'm like sixteen years old, like doing a session.

Brian Funk (04:14.357)

Yeah. Nice.

Anthony (04:38.175)

And what an experience, you know, and then telling my friends, my sixteen year old friends, what I just did. And then he char he asked me to charge double scale on the union rate. And they're like, You're a kid and you're charging double scale. And I go, I have to. Because he didn't want you know them to hire me at single scale and stop hiring him. So anyway. But he was so generous. I mean, his this I should say Clark Spangler.

Brian Funk (04:38.557)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (04:56.823)

Hm. Yeah, right.

Anthony (05:06.219)

He's he was the one that kinda changed it for me and really motivated me and and then started getting me to like learn Bach organ works on synth and really play, you know, 'cause he was an organist by he was a church organist. That's how he fell into synths, 'cause it's kinda related. And then he I got serious, you know, and then got into a conservatory and college and really learned music, every everything I could possibly learn.

Brian Funk (05:36.341)

That's amazing to have somebody like that to pick up from and follow. And I I think it's so important for people listening now that might not be familiar because we can call up these presets. We have all this access to sounds just within a computer or DAW or even any modern synth you might pick up.

But you didn't have that in those days. So it was just this machine that how do you make it make the noise? How do you make it make the sound that we want to hear?

Anthony (06:07.371)

Well, you break it down. Yeah, and y and you learn about how sounds are constructed. You know, and it was that's how it was for me. Just everything I heard I broke down. And that's how I came up with my method. The think like a synth thing was just like I was learning to think like a synth all the way back then. And I developed this teaching method through my real life experience and that's that's the really the method that I've used for everything. Every film score

Every record that I played on, every T V commercial, whenever I created sounds with synthesizers, I just break down I it used to be like what I would hear, you know, but in that now it's like what I what's in my imagination. And I think that's kind of it. It's just you know, I dream of sounds and textures and stuff like that.

So it's not that hard when you break it down, because it's just small pieces. You know, like if you looked at a mixing console and it looks like this gigantic thing, but then you go, well, there's like thirty-two of them are the same. Then you just narrowed it down to the strip, and then you start focusing on the different parts of the strip, you know, and that's kind of what I do in my mind. I just kind of break it down into its components. So the the first course was think like a synth. The second one is

called bass DNA because I people always wanted to know like how did you make that bass sound, you know? And to me there's like a DNA of the bass sound. But almost everybody reaches for the filter. And that's not how I make bass sounds. I I create the oscillator configuration. That's the core of the bass sound. And then you filter that. And I think that's the missing piece why maybe someone's bass sounds thin.

Or doesn't deliver, you know, doesn't cut through or doesn't have a personality. And anyway, these are all the point of it is these things that just came from how I developed this system, you know, and it was a somewhat of a survival thing because I wanted to ha I wanted to work. So I had to have methods to put somebody would put a record on and go, I like this sound, make this. I was like, there's no one to turn to. There's no there's there was no method or anything.

Brian Funk (08:22.71)

Yeah, right.

Anthony (08:26.143)

So I just figured out, you know, I put all the pieces together and then it's great to share it though. And we're we're also at a university now. We're at Youngstown State University. It's taught there as an academic class for for college credit for units. And also this fall it will be at Young University of North Carolina, Greensboro. So yeah, hoping to get it in more and more colleges and in that was kind of my dream too, because in college they didn't really have like a legit pedagogy for synthesizers.

Brian Funk (08:45.178)

wow.

Anthony (08:55.415)

'Cause there's a lot to it. It's so important and there's ear training, like not just hearing timbre, but just no you know, knowing the harmonics and knowing how to hear the intervals so that you can create sounds using the overtone series. So you have to have good ears and then so I'm coming up with a course now an ear training course developing for musicians. So it's like it's music theory. It all comes rack around and then you're gonna learn orchestration, arranging, you know.

How to make your song better, how to clear out, leave space, breathe, phrasing, expression. This is all like neglected. But through synthesis, I think it's going to be a way for a new generation, I think, to learn all the really important building blocks of music that you learn in a conservatory. But through their songwriting and synthesis, because I just feel it. Like I know from talking to people, they keep wanting more. And more is going to lead to that.

theory, orchestration, counterpoint, arrangement, you know, and then it gets into the technical stuff, recording, mix, right? That's how I see it. And I'm I'm so excited. We're in a golden age.

Brian Funk (10:08.958)

It is a an exciting time to be getting into music at all. and that that's a really good point. When you think of ear training, I think people think mostly pitch and the instrument you might be learning that on, whether it's a voice or piano or something, is already making the sounds. But with synthesis you're really listening

to multiple frequencies within it. You're listening to fundamentals, like you said, overtones and what we're filtering out. But it's a much more complex kind of listening really to

Anthony (10:42.143)

It can be, yeah. It's the whole picture. It's it's three dimensional 'cause it's pitch, tamper, duration, volume. So, you know, you're you're listening to is first pitch is like is it a high pitch or is it a low pitch? This is like the basic. Tambre, is it bright or dull? Right? duration, is it long or short? Amplitude, is it loud or soft? And then you work into the nuance. You keep digging and keep digging into it.

Do I hear a harmonic? Do I hear a sub? Now you're creating the overtone series for that sound. And even even the rhythm is important, like short, but then ear training is also being able to hear rhythms and bring them back. Because with a synth, there's all kinds of things that are rhythmic, you know, sequences, and you can you can produce sound in variants of the beat, you know, and so you want to get your ear developed there.

So you can become a complete musician with these tools, I think, instruments.

Brian Funk (11:42.644)

Hmm. And it is nice that it's getting embraced by more traditional academic settings, like you're in the colleges now. I'm seeing that a lot in universities where electronic instruments are being embraced as the actual instrument of study. That it's really cool that you're getting into that. When you are talking about breaking down a sound.

Do you mind taking us through some of those little steps, some of the things? I know you you kinda mentioned like timbre and and frequencies and all that. but when you're when you're thinking that just I know this is what we're what you get into in the course a bit, but it's interesting to hear your approach when you you're gonna design the sound that you heard or that you're trying to create.

Anthony (12:18.271)

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Anthony (12:28.533)

Yeah. Well, I mean it's the the big four to me is pitch, timbre, duration, and volume. And you can pretty much create any sound with those four. So pitch is I'm I'm gonna listen to let's let's say what are we trying to make the sound of? A cricket. Okay, so what's the pitch? Is it low? Do crickets go, No, that's a frog.

Right. So now we're starting to distinguish what's the difference between a frog and a cricket. Well, one has a lower pitch, one has the other. That's not enough. But that's a good start. 'Cause if I don't get the pitch right, I'm gonna be fooling around with a lot of other things and it's not gonna get there. So your ear tells you that. So then you now it's like hi, well what's high? I mean there's and that's where like I would know where to go through experience and that's from practicing. Just like if you're a guitarist.

You know, you know you know what to do through experience, but you kind of get in the right realm quickly, right? So I'm gonna get in the right realm if I'm gonna be in high frequencies, high pitches. Okay, then we're gonna go to timbre. Well, what's the waveform of a cricket? Is it fluety? Is it bright like a guitar string or a violin? You know what's what's the characteristic of the sound of a cricket?

And then is it gonna be long or short? The notes of the per kick. You know, they're they're gonna be like, well, what I hear is there's amplitude to it. They pulse, they go in and out. Like you get volume increase and volume decrease, right? They go. So I'm starting to say, like, well, that's the duration, that's the shape. What's so then when you start to convert it into synth land, pitch

is frequency. So now you're starting to think like a synth. You're in in this world of humans, but you don't say pitch necessarily with a a synth, it thinks frequencies. So now you know how to convert pitch to frequency, you're thinking like a synth. And then you go into the timbre, same thing. That's waveform or that's filter frequency. At what frequency are we cutting off? At what what's the slope of the cutoff? Is it

Anthony (14:56.957)

6 dB per octave, is it 12 dB per octave? Is it 24 dB per db per octave? Is there a resonance to the sound? So as it's sloping down, are we emphasizing the cutoff frequency? Do we hear that? So you slowly you have to take these one at a time, right? Because I can start overwhelming with all these terms, but you just take them one at a time and then you listen to the cricket and you go, there is a little bit of a shape to it. It starts a little bit dull and then it gets bright as it pulses.

So not only does the volume pulse, but the timbre pulses. So it goes, yeah, it gets brighter. So if you get brighter at the right pitch and you pulse, now there's a few things missing. Right? I hear something else in the cricket because it's rubbing its legs together, right? To make the sound. So there's something that's non-pitched to it. So on a synth, if I'm gonna think like a synth, I'm gonna use a non-pitch thing like noise.

It just goes shh. But the cricket doesn't doesn't it just doesn't go shh. I gotta filter that noise. And I gotta bring it in. And what I notice is it's kind of irregular. So what I do is I modulate the pitch with a little bit of noise. So the pitch is not because the cricket doesn't sound like a machine, right? Its pitch kind of goes right. It's a little bit. So if I modulate the pitch with noise, which is irregular.

'Cause I understand that, you know, I and in the real world noise is just like wind. But you have a noise generator when you're thinking like a synth, you have a noise generator and you can modulate the pitch. So now when I get the sound to be at the right frequency, the right brightness, and the volume pulses, so the duration goes in and out, and you put that together and we're in the now we're in the ballpark. And you just keep going. So I'm trying to give you just like the one one.

And then what happens is sure enough, you're just walking around in the world hearing things. Like, you know, when you speak a language, you don't translate it. Like when I s if in Spanish I see a dog, I let's say I see a dog, I don't just think dog perro. If I speak Spanish, I just know perro. I just know that's the dog. So you start thinking like a synth, you know, and you can just like if you're a great orchestrator, you know, in the old school way, you know, you know.

Anthony (17:21.803)

how to put the orchestration together, you know, with strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion. You know how to do it. And you know the function of those things and how they work together. And that's the analogy. But I think through synthesis, we can have a whole generation that's going to be excited to like, you know, learn all this stuff and create music that's going to be deeper with the same level of expression as you know, an orchestra. Because that's that's our next step is expression. That's what I feel.

And then in my bass thing, bass CNA, I have a a separate little course on expression because I think that's so important. You know, what makes one guitarist or bass player different than the other is their personality. And it's just it comes through in the expression. It's something other people can feel. That's what I think. And that's what makes it interesting. So we want that in it, not just synthesizers that just are like sequenced to the click. Right? We want to have expression, personality.

Brian Funk (18:18.386)

Right.

Anthony (18:21.643)

You know, it's a real instrument. So that's what I'm trying to put together and I feel there's just a lot of enthusiasm right now. So I'm as long as there is, you know, wake up every day. Keep keep at it. It's like that two way streets going.

Brian Funk (18:40.778)

Mm-hmm. That's a great way to break it down and it's a fun example, the cricket too, because it is it's like a non it's not a musical instrument like we normally think of, but you're able to identify that it does have these musical properties to it, and you can recognize that just like you might with a piano and notice that it hits very loud and then it fades out and you're kind of identifying it that way.

Anthony (19:07.231)

Yeah, you're starting to think like it and and then the world becomes a symphony for you.

when you're hearing it, how all these these landscapes are put together when you go into a forest or if you go to the beach, there's a different landscape there. You got the noise of the the ocean that's undulating and in cycles and the seagulls that come through and all of it. It's like these beautiful they're like symphonic landscapes. And then you start to understand them. And it's like it's a beautiful thing. You know, it's the whole sound of the universe really that that can can come out you you can appreciate it in other words.

That that's the idea. You'll never really understand it.

Brian Funk (19:44.521)

Right. That's true. Now when you're talking about expression, are you thinking about maybe something like P E or other levels, different

Anthony (19:56.331)

For sure.

It's as simple as a wa pedal and a volume pedal, or not just setting a sound and then leaving it, like playing the keyboard and and moving the knobs. But yeah, MPE, I mean, there's like insane levels of expression that those things can deliver. Yeah, more nuanced. And I'm really excited about it. And new controllers besides keyboards. Yeah.

Brian Funk (20:26.814)

Yeah, I'm big into Ableton Live and Push Three, their grid controller. it has MPE pads and it is it's a lot of fun to be able to hold down, say, a pad and maybe just on one note. Slide your finger and the filter opens just on that one note. And everything else kind of stays its same, or you might be doing

Anthony (20:45.718)

Right.

Brian Funk (20:49.908)

pressure slightly differently with your fingers and just by laying your hands on it, you get so much expression that really couldn't do as or I definitely can't do on a keyboard myself. I'm I come from playing guitar, so that's I don't have the chops.

Anthony (20:58.625)

Yeah.

Anthony (21:07.945)

Yeah. And guitar's a big advantage. The the perception of pitch is is you mean even though it's fretted, you can bend the string and get a lot of the in-between stuff and that's what makes certain players have different personality. The keyboard most of these keyboards are fixed pitch. And your pitch perception is kind of everything. That's that's like one of the most exp 'cause we humans we know if somebody's really happy with us or sad like how they deliver the the word with pitch.

So I think that's another big step forward with synths is having these controllers that can have more variable pitch in them, like you're like you're talking about, you know, with the push. Cause you can also do that. You can and also just one of the notes in a chord or you know, like a string quartet. They don't just lock in like a piano on it. They they find the note. You know, that's there's a thing to that, the feel.

Brian Funk (21:57.599)

Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. It's s sometimes with keys it's just dink. We're like right there, all together. And to be able to almost bring the notes, th the voices of even a single instrument like they were separate instruments together opens up so many doors.

Anthony (22:22.698)

No, you s that's really perfectly sad. Like they're separate instruments. That's and that's kind of emulating something that's been really expressive and a beautiful thing, you know, like having four people in a string quartet. But when you're playing string pads like like you're doing on on push, you start to feel that, that they're they're separate now. They they c they can move together, but they can move separately. And that's our ear picks that up.

Brian Funk (22:50.538)

Hm. I think so. I think that's something we like is a little chaos, little randomness that 'cause for me when I first started working in a computer, I came from like using four tracks and things like that and wishing I could play on time perfectly and wishing I could sing and pitch. And then when we got the computer and some of the new technologies we quantize it, we can auto tune it. It was right, but it didn't feel right.

Anthony (23:10.252)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony (23:20.566)

Yeah, I mean I I think we like that like in life some tension and release. You know, that's part of storytelling. You you gotta be on the edge of your seat and then and then you let go. And I think we like we like that journey.

Brian Funk (23:35.622)

I can see from some of the materials you have on YouTube and also the little clips and stuff that I've seen on the courses that you get into that a lot. You're not just you're not talking about it in as as almost as a technical way as I almost thought you would. 'Cause

Anthony (23:54.508)

Ha ha.

Brian Funk (23:55.878)

I you know, like like here's the filter and we're gonna cut down the frequency to one K. Like I don't I didn't hear you say that even once. The numbers never really came up. It was more like listen, it's like a mouth. It's like a voice, it's like breath here or it's it's a cool way to look at it 'cause sometimes we c and on the screen too, when you see the numbers, you see the pitch, the frequency, you can get caught up in like one point two K needs this and not really feeling it.

Anthony (24:26.45)

So true. I mean, I'm glad you y you picked that up. Yeah, you you assign the numbers and the metrics afterward. That's not music is thinking, you know, you you you have to keep your mind on the flow and the feelings and and keep emptying it so that new things could come in. So if you're dwelling on numbers, your like mind is on a number and it's just like I c I don't w really work in a DAW alm almost never. I don't record. I mean I I just have

I've been fortunate, but I mean I've always worked this way 'cause it came from the old days with an engineer. So I never look at the screen. Cause I start the music starts I see the grid and then I see the waveforms and all this, and then I start getting affected by it. So I just want to stay in my imagination where it's just like black and just keep emptying out. You know, that's I think so I can be ready to receive the new it the new things to be inspired, you know. So yeah, I don't

But I'm not that technical. I'm not really computer savvy or anything. I just I fell into synths from a a music and imagination place and I stayed there. And so that's you're picking up on that. I mean we we we kind of all need to go back and forth a little bit, but I think there's a f I'm I'm sensing this from so many comments and because you know, we we get a ton of comments and stuff.

There's seems to be this there's definitely a romantization of the old days of working, which was not always as great as you romanticize it, you know. People got screwed out of money and there was all kinds of they make it sound like it was all amazing and everything that came out of it was like the best thing in the world, you know, live tracking and there was some garbage, you know, like we only see the good stuff. But I think there is a lot of desire though to like not be alone all the time.

Brian Funk (26:04.809)

Yeah.

Anthony (26:20.128)

And to collaborate more and to get the feeling like of a tracking date. You know, we're y it's exciting and you get nervous. And that comes out, right? And then you get one and you just know it and everybody knows it. It's like when you score a film and you got certain music comes together with picture and everyone knows it. Like there's a lot of functional stuff. It's like, yeah, picture can be enhanced by having sound with it, right? Probably the most important thing.

Like sound you don't necessarily need picture. But picture can really benefit, you know, when you're just looking at like let's say Jaws or something with no sound. I don't know, it's not that scary. There's just a lot of things like and I think there's a desire now for people to get that kind of magic experience when they're creating music. 'Cause there's so much just working alone. Or you're now AI AI is your new assistant and friend or something, you know, but it's like kind of self indulgent too. I mean

Brian Funk (27:00.221)

Right.

Anthony (27:19.158)

And I use all this stuff, but that's what I get in a lot of the comments. Like, and I'm going, well, just do it. Just call your friend. I mean, we're in the age of connectivity, right? You can connect way better, way better. You can even do virtual sessions with anyone in the world. But you still have like people just keep falling into, like, they're in the dark, they don't go outside, they just get on the computer and they start, I'm I'm writing. It's like, okay.

Brian Funk (27:31.955)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (27:46.345)

Yeah.

Anthony (27:46.435)

There's no pencil, there's no paper, you're just like you in a computer and a and a grid. You know, so you know, that's what I'm feeling. And I just keep telling people, try it. Just if you wanna do it, you're saying you wanna do it, get out of the the the box for a second. Then when you come back in, you'll have a new perspective, maybe. I don't know, what do you think about that? Doop do you sense that or

Brian Funk (28:10.309)

I I agree, yeah. I mean, we are kinda isolated in the age of connection, right? Where music used to be you had to play with other people to play music. You had to interact and I grew up that way playing in bands and little by little I got to do more and more recording and then the next thing you know, like everything I'm doing is by myself and there was some fun in that because I guess

you know, you get to be the dictator and you get to have those parts played exactly the way you wanted them to be played and not have to deal with someone that has a different idea and won't do it your way, but

Now as I've gotten older and had that time to be alone and get my way, I love getting together with other people and hearing how they're gonna interpret it. And sometimes it's wildly different than what I wanted, but it makes me then go to a new place as well. It triggers something that never would have been triggered in me, a new decision, a new path. And

Anthony (29:11.67)

Yeah. Well yeah. And you can mix and match any of these things. You can do that and then come back to your your cave and screw with it. I mean, that's just so many options now. But I kind of love it when, you know, somebody like you said, they take it somewhere maybe I didn't think of, but then if you're at if you're live, you can steer it back. And it's interesting how you're listening to it and it's coming back not your way, but it's like

Brian Funk (29:19.954)

Yeah.

Anthony (29:41.175)

the combination of what you gave them and what they did, now it's coming back to you. And then you can send out another signal and then they're gonna respond to it. You know, and then you bring more people into it. And it it just you can't predict it's the unpredictability is really appealing to me. But then I still I still use all this technology. I'll bring it back too. I'll say, Great guys I mean I I think that's how Daft Punk did that

That last album, the the live one, just

Brian Funk (30:11.088)

Yeah, random access memories, right?

Anthony (30:14.166)

Yeah, they'd like recorded all this great stuff. Some of the some of them with the gut people together, sometimes even the drums are like all by themselves. You know, I've heard Omar Hakeem say I just played drum beat to a click and then I heard the song on the radio. It's like But they experiment with these kinds of ideas of you know, the I don't even know if they're two worlds. It's really a continuum. We don't have to look at it as two worlds. It's not. There's all kinds of in between.

Brian Funk (30:28.816)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:38.662)

Hmm. Right.

Brian Funk (30:45.628)

Yeah, absolutely. yeah, I I feel that way about even analog digital kind of debate people find themselves in. it's nice that we have this we can dip into anyone we want at any time, mix and match. No sides need to be taken.

Anthony (31:03.404)

Yeah. yeah. I know it gets kinda it c I I I've for the first time started embracing MIDI. For the first time. I I didn't use MIDI until like a few years ago for anything. Yeah, I didn't like it. It wasn't

Brian Funk (31:19.612)

Really?

I've seen you using Doctor Click, I think is is his name. Yeah.

Anthony (31:25.238)

Yeah, that's not yeah, not MIDI. It's just I used to use I just use gates, triggers, and control voltages. That's all I've ever done. No MIDI, and I just play the keyboards. I can play, so I just play and it does what I want. But once expression like MIDI was like the the delivery format for higher level of expression, it got my ear. And now I'm getting into it because there's some MIDI instruments, there's some MIDI software.

That allows me to be really expressive in real time and and I'm helping develop some of this stuff. And I'm really excited. That's back to what you're saying about MPE and expression. That's it's driving me. And so I'm gonna probably end up in front of a doll a lot more often. but I don't have to put it on a grid. I don't I'm not I'm not there. Cause I don't I don't hear music that way. You know, you know, and I

Brian Funk (32:16.72)

Right.

Anthony (32:24.384)

I played on a lot of dance tracks, so I'm not saying, but I I try not to look at the screen when I do. I just I just want to feel the lock. That's that's that's kind of where I where I'm coming from. but I am gonna be in front of a doll more often, and I and I like what MIDI can do now. It's so ironic because I I think of all the things I always thought of it as MIDI hell, where where stuff didn't work and people are like I I imagine like seeing people bent over.

Brian Funk (32:34.632)

Right.

Anthony (32:53.9)

Like behind stuff. Just Yes. That's that's what my my imagination like for MIDI was. Following tracing cables. Like, why doesn't this work? But you know, it's a little bit

Brian Funk (32:55.664)

Right, following the wires and cables and

Brian Funk (33:03.622)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:08.658)

Yeah, that there's there's a element of that to modern music production, just why isn't it making the sound? And then you take out your acoustic guitar and it feels like a futuristic technology 'cause I didn't have to charge it, I didn't have to plug it in. Yeah.

Anthony (33:17.388)

Exactly.

Anthony (33:21.421)

Yeah.

Exactly. It feels futuristic. It's 'cause but but fortunately I think it's way more streamlined and it's smooth now and we've it's kind of antiquated the way I'm looking at it. It doesn't have to not work. It it can work and it can be reliable, as reliable as anything. So I'm yeah, I'm just real excited about all the stuff that's that's going on and and we're talking about the core part of it is the actual creation part of it. You know, that's

I don't know about all the business and just seems like it's never great. Like I don't I don't glorify the business of the past. People like there's so many things about how bad the business is and you gotta sell t shirts to survive. But I mean I don't know. I knew a lot of musicians that didn't survive then either, and they made a lot of money for the record label. Now you have a chance you can be in control of your own destiny a little bit more. And if you sell the shirt you get the money. You know, it's like it's just a different flavor of struggle.

For an artist.

Brian Funk (34:24.59)

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, there's no shortage of those horror stories of bad contracts and people never you know, you would think would be on top of the world for what they did and never got there. Yeah.

Anthony (34:37.964)

Yeah, and then they're they're broke after, you know, the last album.

That was not that uncommon. Yeah, there were there were like the smart ones. But it wasn't just like set up where everybody could be kind of okay and you didn't have to be a smart one to figure out how to have s any money left in the end. Yeah. And

Brian Funk (34:55.816)

Yeah. Yeah. You didn't get deceived and cheated.

Anthony (35:04.524)

Yeah, or or or make unhealthy choices, you know. That that happened too, 'cause it's the struggle led to just you know, I don't know, frustration or turning to drugs or turning to not taking care of yourself. You know. We have everything now, the technology to to do all that, to be healthy and take care of yourself and

create on the spot, create by yourself, create with other people, connect with other people, instruments that can for very little money, you know, do amazing things. And now we have computers that are, you know, little Raspberry computers for thirty-five bucks and you can make them do what you want. And then we have artificial intelligence and then we're on the verge of artificial creativity. Like I don't know what that's gonna do. I mean the people I'm talking to about that are just

you know, boggling my mind with what it can do. Brain to brain connection, instantaneous that back and forth that I'm saying it just happens like in a nanosecond.

Brian Funk (36:10.482)

Yeah.

Well, one thing I'm not too worried about with all that, and I th I think you embody this in a lot of your teaching. you love making the sound, you love creating it, you love the experience of doing it's not just that you wanna get there.

Anthony (36:30.666)

No. Yeah.

Brian Funk (36:31.484)

Right, you like getting there, the journey of it. And that doesn't seem like something that can really be manufactured for us. I like creating the song and struggling through it and producing it and even the stuff that gets frustrating and difficult and frust you know, all that. There there's definitely like a hard, difficult side to it all. But

That's part of the fun too. It's the challenge. It's it's the puzzle that you're solving. It's not always just I want this song to be done. I want this thing to be produced, product, whatever.

Anthony (37:08.61)

Well, that's often the problem is the artist doesn't even finish. You just stay in it for the forever song. But totally the proof of concept is like then even when you do finish and you're done, then you just do another one. You just you know, and I I know so many people they don't even like listen, they might tour it, but then they don't really they just want to move on and do do it again. Like what you said is the you know, it's like the forest gump part where he just keeps running.

Brian Funk (37:12.902)

Yeah, it's true. Right. You can't yeah.

Brian Funk (37:36.252)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Anthony (37:36.749)

Just you just want to be out there running, you know, and that that's what it is. I want to be in the sun, doing it. Like literally, I mean, I like being in the real sun, but it's like this is a different kind of sun where you're you're feeling that same brightness that you get, you know, like that rush of energy that you get when you're in the sun and vitamin D and everything. There's a like a moment of creativity.

you know, you get. And it is kind of like the sun because you can only take so much of it too. And then you need rest. You need shade. Yeah. I see it all connected. You know, the whole universe thing with the sounds and the cycles and the groove of a song. And I mean, i i I think it really is on a continuum. And we're able to see it better now with the technology. We're seeing it for the first time 'cause we can graph it and

Brian Funk (38:13.583)

That's good point. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony (38:33.868)

you're s starting to see like the inside of an atom looks the same as something else. Like you you do a close up and it's like, my gosh, that looks like notes or something. It's all kind of coming together. So I mean, I guess that's for the for the learning part. But for the experiential part, like you know, what you said, that's just a feeling. You just do it and you figure out the numbers later.

Brian Funk (38:58.969)

Mhm. I like that approach. sometimes I find myself getting overly technical and a thing I like to do lately is if I do a lot of sound design inside of Ableton Live and you can build your instrument racks with your macro controls and

You could name it frequency, you know, filter frequency or resonance. but I I like naming them abstract things. You know, like well just maybe like fog. That's this is this knob is called Yeah, yeah. So like when you're programming the instrument, you might be connecting a filter and a reverb to one macronob.

Anthony (39:27.456)

Really? Tell me about that.

Anthony (39:33.023)

Rename it?

Brian Funk (39:42.866)

But rather than call it like f low cut filter reverb or something, call it like amnesia or or you know, purple dragon. Something just to make it abstract. So like kinda like you said, you're you're doing it with your mind, you're doing it with your imagination and not the screen or the numbers as much.

Anthony (39:51.244)

I love it.

Anthony (40:07.16)

I mean, that was Quincy to the T. He would just say this stuff sometimes just to mess with you, just to get you out of anything. Like if if you were like new to the whole scene with him, to get you out of like, you know, well, what are you looking for? What do you want? 'Cause he wanted you to bring your imagination to the thing. He'd go, I'm looking for something really blue.

And then yeah, after you worked with him for a while, you cut we're like, okay, you're gonna let me do what I wanna do. You know, you want my best thing. You want some but then then there are be other words that there would be a thing to it. Or you'd watch his hand and he'd be like, I want something kind of like a mm. So I'm like, he wants an emphasis on the four. You know, and you start, but it's like you can't define it anyway. You know, you could define it afterward, you could analyze it.

But before, like when somebody's trying to tell you how to be, it's pretty hard to describe it. So you just it's better. I it's like a legal contract. The more specific you try to be, kinda sometimes the worse the contract is. Like the best contracts sometimes are just the most general thing. Like you can't come here ever. That's a great contract. You know, there's no all these nuances, you know. Yeah.

Brian Funk (41:29.063)

No gray area. Yeah.

Anthony (41:31.158)

Yeah, takes out that whole legal whenever how many times I heard a an attorney say gray area? I'm like, dude, I'm not paying you to tell me everything's a gray area. But yeah, that's I think I l I love what you're doing. I think that's you gotta do that as much as possible. And visualize it. Yeah, you'll get way better sounds and 'cause you're not looking at numbers when you're moving the fog button.

Brian Funk (41:55.984)

Right. Yeah, you're just listening for that emotion to happen. That that feeling. Yeah. I think theory can be like that too, yeah. the I'm going to the four, to the five, to the flat seven you know, like you can really get technical about that kind of thinking too, whereas this chord is sad.

Anthony (42:01.431)

Yeah, how foggy do you want it? Yeah. I can't see versus

Brian Funk (42:22.843)

that's sometimes just a much more important word to use. Go here, 'cause it this is this has like a melancholy to it.

Anthony (42:28.94)

For sure.

Anthony (42:33.814)

Yeah, and and if you're just like all the the sevenths and ninths and the flat sevenths and the sharp ninth and all this, like all it really is is a basic structure and then there's a melody moving across the top too. So then you don't have to name it like all those different things. It's just that you could have just a triad with a seventh, but then the ninth and the eleventh and the thirteenth are just like how the melody moves across it.

So you don't really name them. It's like, there's a tension note moving to a resolve note. And you can analyze it later. You know, for sure there's really huge value in analyzing it later. No doubt. And then you can convey that to somebody else and then they could play what you did. But when you're doing it, if you're just thinking in the melody and you're not thinking like, I'm doing this thing with flat nines, it's like, I don't care. I just want to can I sing that back? I mean, what's that?

Brian Funk (43:29.019)

Hmm. Yeah.

Anthony (43:30.06)

That's my I don't know. I just look at it I'm trying to find an analogy like not giving numbers and metrics while you're playing. Yeah, just just it's more just about pitch, timbre, duration, volume. You know, and in musical terms it's like bass, chords and melody, you know.

Brian Funk (43:51.939)

Yeah, there's almost some parallel to when if you listen to maybe like a communication expert explaining like how to talk to someone you're close with in a relationship, techniques you can do, technical things, but really what you're trying to do is create the emotion and it's hard to

Tap into that stuff, those technical approaches, while you're actually present and feeling what's going on.

Anthony (44:22.454)

Yeah, but you that's great that like what you just said, I totally relate to that because one of the top simple communication techniques is mirroring. And when you're in music, if you're just playing with somebody, if you mirror what they do, they're almost always going to look at you and smile. Because you just communicated. They know they were heard and understood. And you do these techniques, it's really huge. You all of a sudden now the person's gonna want to mirror you.

Brian Funk (44:41.658)

Right.

Yeah.

Anthony (44:51.596)

Which means in order to mirror you, what do they have to do? They have to listen to you. So now you have two people in the same room that are ac 'cause sometimes musicians get together and they just start playing. Give me a groove. Okay. Yeah. At the same time. You gotta listen to two things at once or you know, and then you might start to do a back and forth before you know it. And they're like like you said, they're not now at the same time. They're it just goes there though. That's

Brian Funk (45:01.432)

Mm-hmm. At the same time. But not together. Yeah.

Anthony (45:19.072)

Great though, like you're saying relationship things, it it's a continuum. It it applies. Like good music is good communication. Then the audience feels it. The audience starts smiling, you know, when they see the musicians actually talking to each other. Usually

Brian Funk (45:37.851)

Hmm. Yeah, that you like seeing them have fun together. You you wanna that's an it that's a contagious energy and when you're playing music you're putting out incredible energy. Usually a loud volume where it's almost the only thing you can pay attention to. I think that stuff translates. Obviously it does, yeah.

Anthony (45:57.512)

Yeah, it does.

Brian Funk (46:01.242)

Now, I have to ask you, like, I mean, you were working, if we take you to the thriller days, I mean you were here you are working with one of the most successful musical collaborations ever, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones. I mean, are you seeing do you see these things and in those types of interactions when you're working, when you're just observing? anything lessons that stood out to you?

Anthony (46:31.852)

Well yes. Yeah, it kinda had all that in it. Like I mentioned the Quincy part, like image image image thinking and Michael was all about that. I mean his strongest communication tool with me was his movement, 'cause he was a dancer and watching his body move. He was always moving. You know, he was really young then and he was just always moving, like beautifully moving and

And you can you you you would always want to keep that happening in the room. Like he he was just working on a different level. It wasn't always about words. So but also was a it was a time where like there was kind of the best specialist at every aspect of the music. You know, Rod Temperton was a great composer and arranger. So he was there like arranging, you know, like this goes here, this goes there, we need this. Michael was there vibing on.

The big picture, the message, you know, all his writings, like he would write about who he wanted to be and what he wanted to say and what the song really meant. And it was the age of the advent of of MTV, you know, and and visual music, and which is one of the reasons I was there coming from film. So it was like a lot of a coming together, but it's kind of a lot of the stuff we talked about. It's core at

Great music creation and communication of that, you know, to to an audience, to others. But he they kept that so that that communication was internal too, between the arranger, the rhythm section, the producer, the artist. There was that communication, you know, where one person would speak, everyone would listen, vibe off of it, come together. Quincy kept the happy part, like you're saying, the

kept it kind of in line. It it it takes that consciousness. Those guys had that consciousness. That's the strongest thing probably. It it from Michael and Quincy. Rod was a different beast, you know, cigarettes and coffee, you know, ashtrays and just like late nights and just just getting these incredibly inspired things out. But Quincy would reel it all in and see the big vision with Michael. But you ha you have that.

Anthony (49:01.716)

So I think yeah, if you want to get to that level, you gotta think like that a little bit. Or it just is just if you're just built that way and then you don't have to, it just but not everybody is because it's so many hats for one person. That's crazy. Like that's why Michael could be Michael, because he didn't have to do like an artist today has to do way too many things. He could focus on his dancing and singing. He was like getting vocal coaching in the day.

while we were working and then he would do vocals at night. But if he had to deal with the Daw and MIDI and keeping all this and calling musicians and then figuring on what they're gonna play and sitting with them and like, how do you focus on being the that level of artist? You know, he he needed time, like I said, to be in the shade where he could just close his eyes. You if you're in the sun like the whole time, you're gonna overheat. You can't. It's just an overload and it's just or you're just gonna

Stuff's gonna suffer. Does that make any sense what I'm saying? I'm getting a little abstract but

Brian Funk (50:04.939)

no, I love it. It it makes a lot of sense and actually the more abstract stuff it feels more applicable, I guess. because we it's more of a like you're saying, a big picture thing too, where I'm kind of thinking a little bit about how

Anthony (50:14.604)

Good. Good.

Brian Funk (50:27.881)

the goal sometimes when I play with my friends with in my band, it's not so much to get the part my part right or my thing or my idea. The real goal is to keep playing music together. To keep it going. So this this stuff makes a lot of sense and if yeah, a lot of modern people and if you're at home

producing music even, you are wearing a lot of hats. You're doing a lot of different jobs where you're speaking about a time where we had the best of the best in each one of those hats that a person today might be trying to wear all of them.

Anthony (51:08.886)

Yeah.

Anthony (51:12.662)

It's a big ask. I have so much respect for these artists that can emerge and really put something great together and they do a lot of it themselves. They're incredible. You know, and we've evolved just like pro athletes, you know, like the baseball players are way better now than they were. They're throw you know, the musicians are way better now than they were. I know people don't think that, but they can do like the artists, let me put it that way, the artists

Brian Funk (51:14.618)

Yeah.

Anthony (51:42.189)

Maybe not the musicians, because the the you know, a sevent you know, eighteenth century virtuoso like Franz Liszt, there's not a lot of those. There were more of those back then, where they just only practiced they all they did was play the instrument. That's it. Nothing else in their life, you know. But the artist now is way more developed. There was no like artist like that now where they can do everything and sing, dance.

act, they know visuals, they communicate lifestyle, they communicate like you know, there's so much that like people that follow them can can buy into about them. The whole image and view of the world and all that. That's that's evolved a lot right now. But then, you know, if you still want it like how's that guy gonna put down like a screaming bass part or something?

Too much. It's just too big of an ask. It's like we kn we all need each other still. We haven't we haven't AI'd our way out of that yet.

Brian Funk (52:46.263)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a good point because it does put a lot of pressure on people. And you did mention it is nice now that we have some control over it, right? Like you said you sell the shirt, you get to keep the money, but you had to also design it and print it and have it sent down. Yeah. Yes. Right.

Anthony (53:05.27)

Yeah, it's exactly now you're a shirt designer. You're a graphic designer. And then you know how to use Canvas. I mean it's like getting ridiculous. It's like how many apps do I need to know? I mean, I wanna go deeper into one, not just be like like horizontal on a five hundred apps and you know, and then have to buy all these subscriptions. This is draining your your profits. You know, that's

Brian Funk (53:14.702)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:31.169)

I would bet that was probably worked for you, right? Like getting started with synthesis, right? Like you didn't have twenty seven synthesizers and fifty two plugins and all of that, right? I mean you you

Anthony (53:43.033)

I had this one. That's it. This is the same one. That's the ARP twenty six hundred. It's the same one. And I spent all my time on it for years and years and years and years, all the way to now. So it's still the one I know the best. It's my main instrument. It's got speakers in it. I don't need anything. I don't need an amp. Remember it's funny, we used to have to have amps to play synths. We didn't people didn't have a home studio when we

Brian Funk (53:47.791)

That's the R.

Anthony (54:12.034)

had a synth back then. You need an amp. Nobody uses an amp anymore, but it's like it's a it synths sound great through amps. They're they're designed to to go through amps. I mean they can go through

Brian Funk (54:13.796)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (54:23.375)

Were you guys micing these synths back in these days? Or yeah, okay, so not necessarily direct. Yeah. That's something I've gotten into a lot recently is sending my a my synths through my guitar amps.

Anthony (54:27.68)

If you went through an amp you did. But most of the time they would want to go straight in, you know, so yeah.

Brian Funk (54:40.959)

I I really like the I I don't know what it is, but it might just be the physical movement of air being picked up by a microphone, where sometimes things can sound a little flat if it's only inside the computer and never got out.

Anthony (54:41.035)

yeah, do it.

Anthony (54:57.078)

Yeah. Nothing wrong with that though.

Yeah. Hey Brian, we should wrap it because we're the team is like I was telling you the team I this is really great. I you're really I'm enjoying it a lot. I mean I I love where we went.

Brian Funk (55:04.889)

Yeah. Sounds good. I know you got some things.

Brian Funk (55:15.961)

Thanks. I I mean this is a real treat to speak to you. I appreciate it very much. You've you know shaped our world with your sounds and I love that you're sharing it and I love that I had a f the little time with you to ask specific questions. it's it's been a treat. So I'll make sure people know to go check out Think Like a Synth and Base DNA and your YouTube. anywhere else you wanna let people know they should head.

Anthony (55:45.368)

I mean that's the basic right now is where the course. I mean I could have Selena send you some if you can use any images or anything, that would definitely help us. You know, we the reason I mean we it helps us survive, you know, with so we can keep doing it. You know, so that's Thanks so much. No, you're you know, you're you're way too kind with all that. But yeah, well let's stay in touch. I I really love the conversation. I'd like to

Brian Funk (56:00.857)

Right. Yes. And I I want you to keep doing it. So we'll get out there. Yeah.

Anthony (56:12.086)

know deeper, you know, what what you're up to in your stuff. You just just keep in touch. It's great what you're doing. I I it's awesome. Thank you so much though for this opportunity too. You know, we your audience is great and and you know, let's connect with ours. Let's

Brian Funk (56:17.549)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (56:22.553)

Yeah, thank you.

Brian Funk (56:28.897)

Absolutely. We'll definitely talk more. Thank you very much and thank you everyone for listening.

Anthony (56:35.331)

My pleasure. Yeah, okay. See ya soon.

Brian Funk
Next

Writing a Song in 2 Hours with Ben Burnes - Music Production Podcast 433