Corey Baker - aka Kill Paris, Musician, Producer, Ableton Certified Trainer - Music Production Podcast #379

Corey Baker is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and Ableton Certified Trainer. Corey made a huge impact on the electronic music scene and toured the world as Kill Paris. He shares his workflow and techniques in his tutorials and courses, and hosts a weekly sample flip challenge.

I spoke with Corey about his music, educational community, and production techniques. We discussed some of the newer features in Ableton Live 12.1, as well as the process of learning complex software to create music. Corey shared how being discovered by Skrillex on SoundCloud changed the course of his career.

This episode is sponsored by Baby Audio, makers of incredible music software. Use the code MPP15 to save 15%! https://babyaud.io 

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube

Takeaways:

  • The early days of using Ableton Live involved a supportive community and tutorials helped in the learning process.

  • Transitioning from hardware to digital plugins allowed for more flexibility and experimentation in music production.

  • The MIDI tools and scale awareness in Ableton Live 12 provide a user-friendly way to explore music theory and create musical compositions.

  • Balancing technical knowledge with creative exploration is important in music production

  • Breaking the rules and trying new things can lead to unique and interesting results.

  • The standalone version of Ableton Push has improved workflow and allows for a more immersive and enjoyable music-making experience.

  • Reacting and responding to what you are creating in the moment is important for staying in a creative flow.

  • Simplifying your setup and focusing on using default Ableton devices can help avoid getting caught up in technical details and allow for a more fluid creative process.

  • Challenging oneself and embracing the struggle in the creative process leads to a deeper sense of satisfaction and connection with the music.

  • The energy and process put into creating music can be felt by the listener, even if it's not consciously recognized.

  • Bringing energy and enthusiasm to live performances is crucial for creating a great show and engaging the audience.

  • Creating a comfortable and engaging atmosphere can help build a connection between the performer and the audience.

  • Playing for smaller venues allows for more eye contact and a sense of community, while larger crowds can create a domino effect of energy.

  • How platforms like SoundCloud and YouTube have played a significant role in the success of many musicians, providing opportunities for exposure and collaboration.

  • Gamification and metrics in music production can provide valuable feedback and motivation for producers.

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Thank you for listening. 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:02.145)

Welcome aboard Cory. Good to have you,

Corey (00:03.458)

Hey, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. As I was saying before we started recording here, I just can't believe that we have never met in person before.

Brian Funk (00:12.36)

Yeah, yeah, I've been, you know, enjoying your work for a long time and seeing how it's changed a bit and somehow, I don't know, maybe we were just like slightly off timing or something, you know, but

Corey (00:28.0)

Yeah, well when did when did you start using Ableton?

Brian Funk (00:32.874)

I started using that probably around 2009. I had been in a band and the band broke up and so was getting a lot more into just doing my own thing and I wanted to be able to play live. So live, you know, comes along and I had like an old version from like a Pro Tools that I bought years before and

Corey (00:51.726)

Send the name.

Brian Funk (00:58.036)

kind of checked it out but all the tutorials as I was telling you before, everything was like Ableton Live, Ableton Live, looking up like how do you use a compressor? Well in Ableton Live, it was like the community was so good and I got pulled into that really.

Corey (01:10.966)

Yeah, so what version would that have been of live?

Brian Funk (01:15.754)

I think I managed to get my hands on version 7, but 8 might have been out. But you know, in the dark corners of the internet, it was easier to find 7.

Corey (01:25.855)

Yeah. Yeah, well, there weren't that many dark corners, so there's only a few places you had to look.

Brian Funk (01:34.9)

Yeah, well at that point I was pretty good at figuring that out. I've confused making music with downloading software, you know.

Corey (01:45.228)

That's a great descriptor. I'm sure a lot of people will sympathize with. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, because I so I think it was around the same time that I got into it because seven was the first one that I had. And then I think the first one I bought was eight.

Brian Funk (01:48.519)

Yeah. I think a lot of us go through that. Yeah.

Corey (02:05.825)

Back in the day, actually, I was just talking about this the other day, like when you used to buy software back then, and especially Ableton, it came in this big box. And because there wasn't like YouTube, there wasn't like I'm sure they had like a PDF manual, but the man you actually got like a thick manual like in, you know, the box. And that was like how you would, you know, learn like a lot of things because there just wasn't, you know, that many like resources back then.

Brian Funk (02:34.024)

Yeah, all those DVDs. That's what happened when I got Pro Tools, because you really couldn't find Pro Tools and you needed the hardware to run it too. they kind of had you, you know, that way. And I think the first version I bought was nine, maybe it was eight, but I think it was nine, but I got digital. Yeah. So I never got the box and the manual.

Corey (02:55.031)

Yeah.

Corey (02:58.902)

Yeah, yeah, I think I still have my box somewhere. I know I because I had my. Yeah, well, I had because, you know, we talking about logic like a little bit earlier, because like before I found out about Ableton, I was on logic. And that was the time of the dongle.

Brian Funk (03:02.855)

Yeah, I've seen people have them all like lined up and...

Brian Funk (03:17.582)

Yeah, me too.

Corey (03:22.69)

Like the version that I was on was like the last version that where you had to have like the dongle is like basically like their version of like an I lock. And I remember it being even like so annoying at the time because like on had one of those like white plastic like MacBooks. And you know, it only had two USB ports.

But you know, that was like another thing. It's like there is a box like you got like a box with it and it had like a manual and everything. And I think I still have that somewhere too.

Brian Funk (03:53.44)

man, I'm so glad we don't need dongles anymore. It's just so annoying. I have to be honest, like even iLock sometimes I'm just like, I don't want to do this. I've not downloaded things because it had iLock attached to it.

Corey (03:56.202)

my god. Well now there's

Corey (04:07.612)

Yeah. Yeah, I think like, which I'd be curious to hear kind of like where you're at now as far as like your like music making process. But I feel like I'm especially with the updates of Ableton that we've gotten in the last couple, you know, with 12 and then now the you know, the 12 .1. I'm like more and more just using.

trying to use or figure out how to use, you know, just like Ableton stuff with maybe, you know, a few extra like VSTs, but it's like nowadays with all the subscription services and you know, the updates and stuff like that. It's, it's so real like headache or even try to trying to use like a plugin from, know, like five years ago that now like doesn't work on Apple Silicon. And then you go and, you know, try to open that up and like, I don't know.

Brian Funk (04:37.97)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (05:01.864)

Yeah, when I was first using live and playing live, when I first got into live, was like, you know what? I've got all these illegal plugins now and like, I don't know how to use any of them. So I really focused on just learning what was in live. I got rid of everything. I think my conscious caught up with me and I was like, I'm just, I'm going clean and I'm going to learn this stuff and then I'll figure out what I need from there. And I really didn't need a lot. You know, there were certain things, but

Corey (05:20.033)

I'm going clean.

Brian Funk (05:30.226)

For performing live, really wanted to keep it as able to native as possible because that's tends to be where things go wrong. You know, the stuff inside of live is pretty stable, but when I'd have, you know, various plugins, especially if they were found on the dark corners of the internet, you know, you're you run into issues. So, yeah, there's stuff I'd like. Yeah, right. Yeah, all those like.

Corey (05:48.193)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (05:51.947)

The old the old wave shell.

Brian Funk (05:58.794)

Torrentsites, Hanging out seedy characters. Yeah.

Corey (06:00.054)

Yeah, so classic.

Corey (06:06.914)

I remember, yeah, there's just there was just so many things of like the you know, the the answer and like response thing and then there was like ways to like get around that by like, you know, shutting off your internet for a time or like copying the yeah, that was like an interesting like underground like thing. I know that stuff's like still going on, but it was like back in the day like, yeah, I maybe we shouldn't be talking about that, but it was was a bit. It's a part of the history. Yeah.

Brian Funk (06:31.603)

Well, that whole time period, you know, of the internet, we were used to getting everything, you know, music, movies, like you just kind of, that's what you did, or you knew somebody that knew how to do it and they would hook you up. But we came a long way and starting to get used to paying for stuff. And, you know, we really pay very little for any of it. If you really think about what you're getting.

Corey (06:42.409)

Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Brian Funk (06:57.802)

especially if you think about some of the plugins compared to the hardware, what that would cost you. Music, everything for 15 bucks a month is kind of silly.

Corey (07:08.768)

It's wild. like as. Yeah, it's like as an artist, like there's a lot of things that like suck about it, but like as a consumer, that's like, holy shit, like.

You have like everything. It's so crazy. Even just the other day, I was like chatting with a friend about like music. And it's like to share an album like nowadays, like if you know whether it's Apple Music or Spotify, whatever, it's like you literally just like share like in a text message. And it's like, here you have the album now like this thing that, you know, back in the day, I don't want to sound like old people, but, you know, back in the day, you had to like really search for things and like.

Brian Funk (07:46.6)

Yeah, like bring it over. I'll come to your house. Yeah. There was a value to that though, right? Like you, I mean, I'm sure you remember like albums growing on you. I don't get that as much anymore. It sort of has to get me the first time. And then if it doesn't, like, why am going to put it on? have every other album in the world to listen to.

Corey (07:48.47)

Yeah, bring it over.

Corey (07:59.107)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (08:10.09)

Yeah, yeah, I actually I was thinking about that this morning

on my bike ride because last year I went through for the first time like a Beatles phase like because I've never I've always been one of those people's like I don't like the Beatles. So I got to just I don't get it. And growing up had, you know, one friend specifically who is like obsessed with them always had had like every single thing that was never released. And, you know, all the side projects and all that stuff. But for some reason, last last year, I kind of like went down the rabbit hole

and found that the the Wings album for Paul McCartney, you know, and Wings Band on the Run like that album, I for some reason like gravitated towards and started to like listen to it a little bit and kind of was getting into it and then like just almost forced myself to kind of keep listening to it. And then now, like I was just listening to it today and thinking about that, about how

Yeah, like you don't really have that chance unless you force yourself to like listen to something over and over to let it like really, you know, hook you where like that back in the day, you would just listen to stuff over and over because that's all you had to listen to. So it's like, well, I could go listen to the other album that I've heard a million times or try to like, you know, listen to this some more and figure out what it is that, you know, is special about

Brian Funk (09:36.488)

Yeah, yeah, like I spent all my money on this album. So I'm going to try real hard to like it. There's got to be a song in here somewhere, you know, so you put a little work

Corey (09:41.913)

Hahaha

Corey (09:50.293)

Yeah, what was like your early music that I guess drove you to being in a band or just pursuing music? What were the artists or albums?

Brian Funk (10:02.907)

It was a lot of 90s alternative Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer's first album, first two albums. Those are some of the big ones. I think those bands kind of made you feel like you could play in a band, but you could play guitar, you know, because I learned so much off of this guitar tab book of Nevermind by Nirvana. And I was like...

Corey (10:19.373)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (10:30.654)

I can kind of do this, you know? Yeah, you think it's easy, right? But like, then you start to realize some of the intricacies of it. that stuff seemed way more approachable than like, you know, some of like the metal that was, hair metal that was going on before with like big guitar solos and stuff. Yeah, like the punk stuff was like, yeah, we don't care if we're good at instruments. So it was

Corey (10:32.19)

This is easy. Power cords. Interesting.

Corey (10:52.641)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (10:59.922)

an attractive thing for me.

Corey (11:01.998)

Yeah, it's funny as you as you're saying that I feel like that time as well, like if you're starting out, because you did you start with guitar? Is that your OK? Yeah, so that's about the same. I was thinking I was like 16 when I started playing guitar, but it's funny that it guitar at that time it was like your so your introduction to music is like through the guitar, but then like.

Brian Funk (11:05.948)

Ahem.

Brian Funk (11:11.081)

Yeah, at like 14.

Corey (11:26.068)

The gear introduction I feel like is when you're trying to play some of these like Nirvana songs, but then you're like, wait, why doesn't my guitar sound like this? And then you learn about like distortion, right? So your first time like learning about distortion, like, wait, what is that? It's like, you get a distortion pedal and you buy some. I at least for me, it was like I bought some like cheap, you know, thirty dollar.

You know, guitar pedal, like distortion from like musicians friend. I was like, this sounds like shit. Like this doesn't sound like them. And then you go down like the gear rabbit hole of learning about amps and then all of, you know, this other stuff, which that, you know, once you get into electronic music, I feel like that just bleeds into like.

Brian Funk (11:52.893)

Hmm.

Corey (12:04.366)

Okay, you have like the stock stuff, but then, okay, what does that sound from this, know, Depeche Mode album or whatever? And you're like, oh, it's this like, you know, it's a sequential aid or whatever. And you're like, oh, okay, well, those are $4 ,000. Okay, well, how do we get there?

Brian Funk (12:21.332)

Yeah. Yeah. Guitar pedals were probably like the first gear, you know, and like getting into recording and then you say, I need like reverb.

Corey (12:32.782)

Yeah, what's reverb? Echo flanger. Wait, why do I had a real like aha moment in I think it must have been like 2011 when I could fight. mean, not to make this like a whole story, but I worked at Sweetwater after college for about like two years because like where I grew up in Indiana, like the Sweetwater headquarters is like.

like 40 minutes south of where I grew up.

Brian Funk (13:03.581)

And that's quite a spectacle, right? Like you can go in there

Corey (13:06.966)

Yeah, and I haven't seen it in a long time, but when I was there, even when I was there, it was like a spectacle, but it's constantly growing. It's like its own city, like wild. Yeah, but I got a job there in the warehouse, like minimum wage job, and basically just worked my way up to get a job in the store and...

Brian Funk (13:17.341)

Yeah, like Disney World for musicians.

Corey (13:33.78)

You get like the discounts that you get as an employee there, even when you work like in the warehouse, whatever is crazy and like the discount, I don't know if they still do it now, but the discount for UAD stuff was like you get a discount on the hardware. But then as long as you continue to work there, you basically get an NFR for all of their plugins. Like for free and it just like re I don't know, re -ups like every year, like you have to like do a form thing or whatever, but

But tying this into guitar pedal stuff is

You know, growing up, like one of my favorite bands was Incubus and they would use a lot of like, you know, flangers and like phasers and stuff. And I was like, that's like such a cool sound. And then you use like, you know, like the Digitech, like multi effects pedals, you know, that was like one of my first like guitar things. It's like the flate, the fans are flangers and phasers always just sounded like shit. And then when I started using the UAD stuff, they have the MXR, you know, like kind of the goat of like, you know, flanger phaser.

Brian Funk (14:22.994)

-huh.

Brian Funk (14:29.351)

Yeah.

Corey (14:36.96)

And I remember turning that on for the first time in Ableton, putting it on something. I was like, this is what flanging and phasers are supposed to sound like. Yeah, this is a good sound. I don't know. It's just funny, the journey of, especially our era.

Brian Funk (14:46.622)

Right, there's that sound, yeah.

Corey (14:58.286)

when digital was still like so new and everything was turning to digital and then they're making these recreations of things are just like didn't you know shitty like i feel like the the old like digitech like pedals are such a great example of like you know something that has like 200 presets but it's like they're all pretty terrible like and just sound just thin and like like shishy i don't know i don't know

Brian Funk (15:23.786)

huh. Yeah, they kind of hurt your ears a little.

Corey (15:25.824)

Yeah, they hurt they hurt but then but at the time you're like you're just flipping through stuff like yeah, dude, like this is This is sick

Brian Funk (15:31.847)

Mm

Yeah, I had like a, the DOD FX7. It was like every effect, including grunge was like their effect. And it was just, you know, multi -effect. And I think it had like three different presets you could switch between. And then the banks, you could put like three pedals and they were all just like so shrill, you know, and like biting. And when you switch to like a different sound, there's like a whole second of silence.

Corey (15:42.623)

yeah.

Corey (15:50.732)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (16:04.694)

So it's almost unusable in like a live context. But there were a lot of effects that I just thought were just stupid effects. Like Phaser was one of them that I'm like, why would I ever want a Phaser ever on anything? But then like getting into synthesis and stuff and trying it in those contexts with like better Phasers, even digital ones, you're like, okay, this is kind of cool. I get it now.

Corey (16:30.38)

Yeah, well, yeah, and understanding like dry and wet like that's kind of like a big it's you know, it doesn't sound big like to anybody who's been making music for, longer than like two years, but like.

Brian Funk (16:34.894)

Mm.

Corey (16:44.782)

That's a good example of like, like, you know, phasers and flangers. It's like, yeah, if you have them cranked up, like just like on all the way, like a lot of like, you know, those shitty like effects pedals would have like, yeah, it give, you know, puts a bad taste in your ears really. But then like learning like a little bit about mixing is like, oh, if you just have like 10 % like wet of like a, you know, a flanger on anything, like it usually.

can do a lot and like sounds good. yeah, you don't really until you kind of start to understand what's going on. You don't really have any like reference point of what something is, you know, useful for.

Brian Funk (17:26.098)

Yeah, that blending idea was a revelation because a lot of pedals are just like all or nothing. You you just, you don't get the clean in there because it kind of doesn't make sense with a lot of guitar sounds. yeah, it's funny when you think back to like little concepts like that, but how important they really are, you know, stuff you just sort of take for granted after a while.

Corey (17:31.565)

Yeah.

Corey (17:49.794)

Yeah, I I vividly remember when I understood what limiting was and just like how much of a revelation that that was of like.

Because in my mind at the time I was like, now I can push things as hard as I want and it'll keep it, you know, sounding good. That's what I thought, like at the time, which isn't really true. But still like that. And then like the first time you learn about like sidechain compression, that was like a huge one. It was like, that's how like movement and the like that sound like.

Yeah, it's wild. And reverb too. Reverb is like a huge one of like when you understand or not even understand, you just like have a reverb that you can use and you're like, wait, like this sounds amazing. Like on anything, like everything sounds better. What the hell?

Brian Funk (18:44.188)

Yeah. Well, the side chain compression was interesting for me because it reminded me of the way tape interacted. Cause if you like on my four track cassette recorder, if you had like a super loud kick drum on track one, it screwed up track two. It had an impact on it and just kind of pushed it out of the way. was almost just ducted automatically.

Corey (19:02.156)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (19:10.218)

But then inside the computer everything is so independent. know, it's the digital stuff. It doesn't matter what's on track two when track one is going. That interaction is important and I think even in like really subtle amounts you can get like some life in a track. Just having things kind of affect each other a little bit. You've seen a lot of that with like dynamic plugins now, like EQs even, that just sort of react to each

Corey (19:14.22)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (19:40.226)

Yeah, yeah, which is huge. I remember Wolfgang Gardner saying in an interview like forever ago, like when they're asking him like what, you know, how to make stuff sound good like his or whatever. And he, you know, said he's like sidechain everything to everything. And I was like, that's that's interesting. Like, but it makes sense because you do need like least the way like when I teach, I try to tell people that like you want.

There to be like you're building an ecosystem and you need things to like interact with other things and like certain parts where This thing is going to come out more. But then when that goes away this thing You know comes back up and finding ways to like modulate things together or have them affect each other I feel like breathes you know life into a track and a lot of that is like side chaining or You know, like envelope followers or you know stuff like that. And yeah, it really does like

make a huge difference.

Brian Funk (20:40.457)

That's what happens when you play with other musicians, right? Like you definitely interact and I think the sound itself just kind of interacts a bit too. But if everyone's getting a little softer or quieter, like, okay, like you kind of, you have to, you have to react a little.

Corey (20:56.491)

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Because yeah, because I guess that like if you don't play.

you know, in a band or like jam with other people, just thinking of like people starting out today or, you know, even people that have been working for like the last like five years or whatever. Like it is hard to know to not just be like the God figure, you know, at the computer, like, you know, building your city, you know, like, yeah, knowing.

Yeah, that's that's interesting because that yeah, like you're totally right when you jam with somebody or play like you have to be You have to be playing but more importantly you have to be listening And the other person hopefully is doing the same thing and that's how things you know move and feel organic and have Contrast, know to each other

Brian Funk (21:47.048)

Yeah. And you've, really notice it when somebody's not, you know, they're just kind of going full blast and everyone's like trying to bring it down or, even lift it up and they're just not coming along for the ride. It's like, it's hard. That's a whole other skill, you know? I mean, I wasn't in band or I didn't like learn to read music or any of that stuff. It took some guitar lessons. That's about it.

Corey (21:52.296)

Yeah. It's like, OK.

Corey (21:59.468)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (22:14.01)

And I found it kind of surprising when like some of the kids that were in bands that did have this formal training would come into like my world where we're just kind of bouncing things off of each other and interacting and they kind of didn't know what to do. They couldn't, what do I play? Like where are the notes or how do I know when to get quiet or loud and stuff that we were just kind of doing by feel, you know, from just

being in that experience without somebody like kind of waving their hands around and pointing at us to get quiet.

Corey (22:49.388)

Yeah, yeah. yeah, that's yeah, that's interesting because I've been thinking about this too of like, you know, when students like ask me like if you know, you know, how much music theory do I need to learn or like what's you know, where do I go and learn music theory? And I mean, this might make me like a bad teacher, but I always tell people it's like it's more important that you

Train like your ears and listen to what you like and understand try to at least understand what you can about like what that is Versus you like looking at music like it's more important to hear music and know You know find your place like in that or even in like a jam like setting or in a setting where you don't have like music theory, but you're training your ears on like, you know, whether it's by playing or Just listening to other things and trying to figure

like what that is. mean, I like in the long run that's a much more valuable skill set. And it's also very hard to teach someone how to improv or just jam to something. But I feel like that's the creative part, really.

Brian Funk (24:01.566)

Yeah, to recognize if what you're playing is fitting, if it's working, or if it's competing with other stuff, or if it's even just the right note or not.

Corey (24:08.332)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (24:13.086)

That's a tricky one, you know, because music theory is definitely helpful. mean, you kind of need to know, or at least understand some of it on at least some basic level. But it's, it's not else. It's not everything either. And so there's, a balance to find, I guess.

Corey (24:23.992)

Yeah.

Corey (24:38.594)

Yeah, well, there's also so many other things that if you're a music, yeah, if you're a music producer specifically, if you're like using Ableton or FL Studio, whatever it may be, like music theory is kind of the least of your worries. So like as you're starting out, like because just understanding what's going on on the screen and how to interact with all that stuff and get to the sound you like and all that. Like, I feel like that's such a big like hurdle. But then also it's like

Brian Funk (24:42.151)

It's not just that, yeah.

Corey (25:07.67)

At least with where Ableton's at now, the music theory stuff, if you're somebody who has no music theory and doesn't want to learn it, man, there's never been a better time to jump in and just play with stuff. Because there's so many ways in that it puts the bowling bumpers.

Corey (25:31.83)

Like when you go bowling, like there's so many ways to set things up to have those like key and scale like bumpers to where you can just kind of chuck stuff and see, you know, what happens. to me, that's like one of the most exciting things about this whole like scale awareness thing. And even the new like auto shift of like.

Let's do some really wrong things, set up like the, you know, put on our pads first before we do it. And let's just see what happens. Yeah, exactly. so, yeah, I feel like kids these days, they got it good. Let me tell you.

Brian Funk (25:57.629)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Keep us out of the gutter. Yeah.

Brian Funk (26:09.2)

Yeah. Well, it's nice that you can just say no bad notes, no out of key notes. And you know, that's where the theory comes in. Cause then you can know when an out of key or out of scale or borrowed note really makes a point and helps, you know, create some emotional impact. But to have that stuff is pretty cool. And yeah, I like that.

I like what it's done to the MIDI tools, like the MIDI devices in live, because stuff like the chord device, I never really had a lot of use for, because if you set it up and the chord device is just going to take whatever MIDI note you play and add intervals to it. So if you set it up to play like a major chord, you play a C, it's C major, play D, it's D major, E, it's an E major. So you're always getting these just major chords. So it's not in a key, really.

Which I think is one reason you hear a lot of that in some like dance music, electronic music where these kind of just, maybe it's just minor chords or just major chords. I forget what that term is called. It's like parallel or something like that. But now like you can set up those intervals in the chord device, play the C, you get the major, play the D, you get the minor chord because it's going to constrict everything to the scale. And I think where it gets really interesting is when you start adding

some higher extensions to it. Now you got these kind of like more jazzy chords that are being kind of fit into the key. And I think that device, especially the chord, it's really exciting

Corey (27:35.0)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (27:47.572)

Yeah. And it's funny that you bring that up because when I live, when I moved to L .A. the first time and it was after I became a certified trainer, like leaving Sweetwater and moving to L .A. to go do the music thing, like I was like teaching, you know, basically to like make a living for the first.

Like year or so in the first person who I did a session with he was the son of the guy who played the guitar on Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On, the like wah guitar. And we like met like in his like studio, like in Burbank, like super cool. But he showed me, he was like, like we were going through some stuff and I don't even know how we got on the topic, but he was like, he's like, you could do that like chord trick. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, you just like grab like

and then you put the scale after it and set it to you know the key whatever key you're in and then basically do like what you're saying and do now what 12 does with like the the scale awareness but he like showed me that and I was like whoa like just having the scale after it yeah just like opens up like you know everything and that was like pre

Brian Funk (28:52.403)

Yeah, correct the scale after, yeah.

Corey (28:59.502)

You know the X for like Cthulhu plugin that's like a know big like chord bank thing and has you know the single note chords that you can do you just set to the key and you know it has like a chord bank whatever. Yeah that sort of thing that's yeah that is like something that's super exciting like in 12 of just everything now having.

you know, the that scale awareness with it and the MIDI tools and even just because that's the thing is you can still just chuck things like at the wall, but now having the ability to like transpose stuff, but like transpose it within the key of like like you were saying, it's like it might go to this chord that doesn't quite sound right. Well, now you can just kind of shift that, you know, down within the scale and figure out like if that sounds better than what it was.

you know, before as opposed to like trying to figure out it's like, okay, I'm gonna move everything down like three. And then we'll now that fifth like isn't hitting a key. Now we got to move that up and do that whole, you know, song and dance. Yeah.

Brian Funk (29:55.527)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, like the arpeggiator, it's another good example. Like when you add the steps to the arpeggiator, the only interval I would ever choose was an octave. Cause why do, if I'm going to choose like two steps, why do I want this to play the three notes I'm holding down and then two steps above and then two steps above that? it's, it never worked musically.

Corey (30:11.16)

Now.

Brian Funk (30:24.158)

I mean, you could do the scale thing you're talking about, but now that it's just gonna do that in the key, like you get some like interesting accidents almost, you know, there's, there's a cool interaction that happens. even if you understand the theory, like it's nice to just have these things kind of that you wouldn't play. And then you can like, kind of, you know, put in your, your notes or hold down some keys and listen for interesting things.

Corey (30:44.631)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (30:53.468)

opens a lot of doors.

Corey (30:53.516)

Yeah. Yeah, because I think at least for me, and it might be the same like for you, but it's like as you've been working with Ableton and, you know, just music in general for so long, I feel like the thing that I'm always trying to get back to is that like beginner's mind, you know, they talk about like in Buddhism of like not having any preconceptions or anything and just like

trying things where you don't know what the outcome is going to be. But when it's like good, then that sparks like your inspiration and creativity. And that's kind of like the spark to get you, you know, on your way to like finish something or, you know, make something cool. And I feel like a lot of this like scale stuff, at least for me, like offers that because then you can just really be like an experimental mode. But again, experimental mode with the bumpers on that's going to kind of keep things, you know, still like musical as opposed to just like

Brian Funk (31:45.405)

Yeah.

Corey (31:50.273)

Well, like, what the interaction that is happening here is really cool, but it's like the sound that's coming out is not cool because like it's not like in key and it's not like usable where I feel like now. Yeah, you just have a lot of ways to like.

again, just chuck things like almost like a like a quanta and what quantize like cheese grater or something that's like quantized to the scale and you can just chuck whatever cheeses you want like through it and then get this like beautiful blend, you know afterwards, I don't know.

Brian Funk (32:20.67)

Yeah, well, I think that's one of

danger sometimes when you learn the theory and you learn the rules is that you kind of just adhere to them and you're not in that beginner thing where there's so many times in my life where I've played with people that don't understand they don't know what the notes on the guitar are say and they therefore do things that you're not really supposed to do but it sounds cool and you're like yeah listen to that yeah I wouldn't have done that because I'm following the rules too much

So to have stuff now that lets you just kind of play and forget it a little bit, and then you can kind of come back and bring your knowledge. It's a really fun place to be. It's inspiring. sometimes I think, know, when we were talking about The Beatles, Paul McCartney, think said like, he didn't want to learn too much music theory or learn how to read music or something because it would take the magic out of it. And there is like a magic.

Corey (33:01.984)

Now clean it up. Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:22.44)

And sometimes when you learn something too well, you start to just see the techniques. If you like get into filmmaking, you start to like notice the panning that makes you feel emotional when it gets in on the, and you're thinking about that instead of like the movie and the moment, you know? So it's nice to have

Corey (33:40.514)

Yeah. Yeah. And that's tough as it's tough as, you know, not to become like a like a master or anything and not for that to sound like to like, like boastful. But it's like any time you spend a lot of time doing something, you understand like how basically, you know, how the sausage is made. Yeah. Trying to find like new ways to like explore and let go of that. And I feel like

I feel like Ableton, again, sound like a Ableton shill and I am like to a little degree I do have the, you know, the tattoo. It's real. yeah, I just feel like with 12 and then now with like with the auto shift, like a perfect example to kind of tie like a few things together here. Something I ran into last week was using on

Brian Funk (34:18.069)

Cool.

Corey (34:36.274)

some sound like I have like a discord and I think it's probably linked some here like on this like episode whatever but

Brian Funk (34:42.813)

Yeah, we will.

Corey (34:43.354)

We've been doing this like sample flip challenge like every week where like we basically on Mondays get a sample and then everybody gets to like do their own flip and I challenged everybody a couple weeks ago to make everything from a snare sample so You had to have bass you had to have chords you had to have you know like drums and stuff But it had to in some way you had to extract that like from this like snare sample. So

was just doing a bunch of things like trying to get some stuff going. And I ran into this thing of like, if you put a flanger or a phaser and crank like the feedback up and you basically get it to do the whining thing where it goes all the way up and then all the way down. So if you do that, like with a sound, but then put the auto shift after it to basically quantize those notes.

Brian Funk (35:32.825)

cool.

Corey (35:36.93)

and then freeze and flatten that and then do a slice to MIDI and then use the use of the seed generator.

And you could basically, I made a whole like, like basically a melody line, like out of those like pieces. And again, that's like another like fun thing. I've never like done that before, like thought about doing that. But again, now that like auto shift is like built in and you have the scale awareness and all that, it like opens up these new like wrong techniques that you can somehow mangle into an actual, you know, thing.

Brian Funk (36:12.19)

Yeah. That's where it gets exciting for me is when you start using things the wrong way in

Berkeley class that I teach is a sampling class too, similar stuff. Like one of the big things that we talk about is like warping. And warping is like meant to keep your stuff in time when you change tempo with limited artifacts and all that. But if you warp something too far, it gets all grainy and weird. And that's actually what we're after in the sampling class, because you get all these cool textures and the thing that's wrong can actually be what's right. So.

Now, I didn't even think of that with that annoying flanger whine, like you said, is kind of the best way to put it. It's kind of a terrible sound, but if you start tuning it, then OK, now it gets interesting. And that's some of the fun now with having that as a native effect, like the auto shift, which is their auto tune. I'm so much more likely to pop it in.

Corey (36:56.64)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (37:20.029)

You know, especially if I'm on push now, standalone push, which I've really gotten lost now and having the mic in there and they made us a couple other nice changes to push where it's just, it's a little bit more fun on its own and you can get lost in there.

Corey (37:36.814)

Yeah, I feel like with the because are you on the beta you must be like on the beta. Yeah, I feel like That the the 12 .1 beta like for push. It's like the push is actually now Like the like this is like the it's the beginning of like the final form of like like the push three Because I feel like before Then there was you know, there's still like a lot that you could do with it There's some quite crucial things, you know that were like missing and that made it like kind of annoying to like work on

Brian Funk (37:39.751)

Yeah.

Corey (38:06.78)

times but it feels like now it's like you're starting to see like as like a standalone you know Ableton device it's like really it's upped just the usability and the the fun ability you know about it too

Brian Funk (38:24.017)

Yeah, like to have that stuff baked in is really nice. I guess that takes time. It's almost like developing your own workflow as a musician. You know, they probably needed to see how people were using it. They probably had to play with it. They probably had to get feedback and then like, yeah, we should definitely change that. Like how come I can't, you know, arm exclusive, like some of the simple features are like

Corey (38:46.454)

Move a track.

Brian Funk (38:51.965)

auto select on launch, you know, that was like really difficult on push. you're trying to do something and then you stop a clip and then that track gets selected. It was like, come on. now my recording is lost. And I guess you just sort of need to go through it. And that's something I've been really picking up on myself with just writing even like.

And I heard it somewhere and it just clicked. It's like writing is really reacting to what you've just written. And same thing with making a song. I have to do something first. I can't sit around and think about it. And I do that so often. What am I going to do today? I'll just make this. But so often my song ideas come when I'm trying to make a pack and I'm working on a sound and I like, this is cool. And I get distracted from the job of making the pack and now

Corey (39:26.101)

Hmm.

Corey (39:33.624)

Hahaha

Corey (39:43.832)

They were, okay.

Brian Funk (39:49.149)

doing that or you're just playing around with noise and now, yeah, let me, you have to like be using your hands and making it and you can't just like plan it out in your head. you gotta kind of, yeah, there's too much unknown. Like there's nothing there yet. Just the other day, my wife and I went to

Corey (40:03.67)

Yeah, never. It never works.

Brian Funk (40:16.969)

place in our town where you can select like a piece of pottery. Like it's just a blank white piece of pottery, like mug or a bowl. We picked bowls and then you paint it and you make whatever design you want. Then they fire it and you get it back like a week later. And I didn't know what the heck I was going to do, but I had to just start doing something. As soon as I started, I was like, okay. All right. I see where

You know, like I couldn't just conceptualize it. And she did the same thing. It was like, well, let me just try this. And then once you try this, okay, now I can do this to go with that. And so much of that is like how we write, you

Corey (41:00.652)

Yeah, well you need something for there to be like something else like you need to even if it's just like a like a sine wave like okay well now that we have that like let's start to shape it in a way or let's bring in another sound to like contrast with that like there has to be the point it's like there has to be more than like one part or like one piece and you got to start with something like two and I think

For me, I was never interested in the Push workflow before, like with the Push 1 or Push 2. I used them a little bit in the studio. when they announced the standalone thing, I was like,

Okay, like this is like actually like something and I think because like at the time I was I went down to the modular rabbit hole and the gear the doll this whole thing like went all in like big time and it was fun but when I saw like the push three standalone I was like, okay, like it's time to like get serious and I basically basically got rid of all the modular stuff and I'm kind of just back to like using Ableton but a big part of that is like

just being able to interact with like Ableton devices in a different like interface and away from the computer. Cause like you don't make the same decisions that you do when you can see, you know, like the entire, you know, everything, the gray abyss as I call it. And I'm finding like just things that I didn't even know like existed before, like the dry clip on Ableton's Echo. I never knew that that was like a thing and that you could basically use the Echo as like a mini like distortion or like

You know thing and also like getting into like learning operator and FM stuff. So I think Having you know, basically you have Ableton but it's now it's in a much smaller thing You can't really get to everything too, which I think is also kind of like a plus for like the writing process You know because you're limited to what you can do but everything that you can do in there It's all with the same, know devices and stuff that you've you know, like used before so

Corey (43:16.374)

Yeah, I think it's been a hard sell for a lot of people, but like coming in as like a, you know, long time, like Ableton user, it's been so fun and nice to just have something that isn't, that doesn't have all your plugins and doesn't have like the internet, you know, I mean, it has the internet, but you know what I mean? You can't like.

Brian Funk (43:36.625)

Yeah, you're not going on YouTube or wherever, social media.

Corey (43:39.564)

Yeah. Yeah. And the I think the biggest thing, which is what I always tell people when they're asking like, hey, should I get a push three or, you know, do you suggest like the NPC stuff or, you know, the the electron stuff?

And like, always tell people, like if you're using Ableton, like the real selling point, at least for me, is the ability to make something on it, on the Push 3, and then instantly get it into Ableton, where with any other piece of gear, regardless of what it is, that like transfer process.

is just never straightforward. Like regardless of what even even with like an outboard like synth like you got to set up the midi or you got to play it then you got to record it in you know if you have an idea whereas like if you do something on the push you can literally you know

Brian Funk (44:25.619)

Yeah.

Corey (44:31.862)

You can just transfer it instantly and it comes up as a session and everything. So I like the idea of it being something away from the computer, but then you can still bring it to the computer if you want to do that. that process is pretty painless.

Brian Funk (44:48.209)

Yeah, yeah that's a big hiccup with a lot of gear. You know, just how do you then get it to the next stage?

Corey (44:56.77)

Yeah. And that kills for me, at least that kills creativity and like that just that little bump of like, okay, like I really like this, like where it is now, but now I'm going to spend a half an hour or even five minutes of trying to get it in. And then once it's in now, for some reason, it's like something different or there was some, you know, break and flow to where now that it's here, I'm like, well, now I don't know. I'm not really, maybe we'll try, you

blending this around a little bit and then it's like, it just kind of goes to shit from there, you know.

Brian Funk (45:32.138)

I'm hyper sensitive to anything that's even the smallest interruption to that flow because it doesn't take really anything to ruin it for you like a couple seconds I mean I even it seems so silly like when I say it I sound like such an idiot but I've got like these Siri compatible outlets

in in here now and it used to be I come down and there's like four power surge switches I have to turn on what is that you know are we talking like 20 seconds maybe but putting them on that thing and then just to be able to ask I don't want to say it because it's going to turn off everything but to tell that uh assistant to tell her to turn all this stuff on

Corey (46:09.417)

You

Brian Funk (46:28.265)

is so nice. it is probably the difference sometimes between doing it and not doing it. So there have definitely been times I noticed myself just being like, well, you know what, I'm not going to turn on the speakers. I'm just going to, you know, just, let's just, it's literally like get up and take three steps and push a button. But there's something about that that, you know, cause I guess if you have enough of those five to 10 second interruptions,

Corey (46:56.978)

they had

Brian Funk (46:58.122)

Yeah. And if you add all that up over the course of a year, which this is like a really depressing thing I've gotten into is evaluating like how much time I really spend doing things. Like how much time do I spend commuting to work? Oh, like in my career, I'm going to spend like three years in a car driving or something like that. And you're just like, what? But adding up those small 30 second interruptions, even like

you know, using like the search for the browser to find something and type it in, that saves you 10 seconds every time you had a device. You're getting like sessions back. You're getting like days of work back every year if you do that stuff. And you're also getting a lot of, you're avoiding a lot of those little hiccups that make you lose the flow and the inspiration.

Corey (47:50.338)

Yeah. Yeah. And I think to echo that, that no pun intended, but using default Ableton, you know, devices for me, at least in spending more time building, you know, whether it's templates or, you know, effects and stuff like effect racks or presets of.

What I would describe as like foundational things that like I know I'll kind of need kind of regardless of what type of you know track I'm working on or even what kind of like session it is even if it's like a play session like I'm gonna need you know one a kick drum or something like that or and yeah all that's just to get to the thing like faster or just like in a

Maybe it's like preparing yourself to come to the thing in a better mood or like in a better like state of being like to get to like the flow state as opposed to like dealing with a bunch of, you know, technical shit where you're then like frustrated or that might bring up like other drama and trauma like in your life. And then if you do even come across like the inspiration, like you're not in a, you know, mental or like spiritual state to be able to like

accept and continue to move forward like with that, you know, idea. So, and I think that differs for everybody, but that is like a big thing of just coming into the space like open and, you know, free flowing, if you will. Hopefully that makes sense. I don't know.

Brian Funk (49:30.813)

Yeah, it does because it's a fragile state. It's, like to think of inspiration, like you have water in your hands and like, if you don't drink it, it slips through your fingers and it doesn't take long. Like you have to act on it. If I need to like reach for something while I got that water in my hands, I just very easily lost most of it. So any kind of interruption is, it's all a challenge.

Corey (49:39.452)

Okay.

Corey (49:53.153)

Done.

Brian Funk (50:00.851)

you know, just being prepared for that stuff. And I try to notice when I get caught up in things like that and correct it so that, you know, I'm just ready for it when it happens. It helped a lot playing in a band, you know, I play with like a three -piece rock band and we got like, as we've been playing more and more and just every time we practice, I try to

you know, make it a little bit easier to slip right into stuff, to have like a template that'll record. I just open it up and hit record and we're going. Like it's not a production. Like all the inputs are labeled so that I know what's what. Otherwise like stuff doesn't get done. It's just so easy to not do something.

Corey (50:49.55)

There's way more ways to not do something than there are to actually do something, because doing something means you commit to a certain path. know what I mean? Whereas to not do something, yeah, limitless options on which way to go that way.

Brian Funk (50:52.186)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (51:05.757)

Yeah. And they're all in this fantasy state and they're all magical and perfect. And they can even like coexist. Like I could do this and that like things that are impossible to happen at the same time happen in the realm of possibility. But as soon as you decide, even if it's just like, I'm going to use this snare drum sound, now you've cut off the entire universe of possible perfect snare drums for this imperfect one you've picked.

Corey (51:25.74)

You're done,

Corey (51:34.378)

Yeah, I like to describe and like tell students like when they're kind of starting out and just understanding the lay of the land and how things work and how your, you know, your ability to

Just knowing what you need to go to to do something or even like what track where the track volume is like, that's different from the track on and off whatever is describing it to them in a way that it's like you're basically trying to get to a place where You're like the thinking or like talking part of your brain doesn't have to think or talk in your head about what you're doing you just do it because it's already like

I know it's already mind information that you have. So there's no reason to be like, okay, I want to go turn the volume down and that means I need to like go here. It's like, want as much of that stuff to already kind of be like, you know, in the system, like in your brain so that then you can focus on and like be open to again, like exploring or, know, just getting done, like what you want to get done as opposed to getting lost in the weeds of the, know, whether it's arranging or just where things are.

routing like and whatnot. But that's it is like a big hurdle. I mean for anybody even no matter how long you've been doing it because there's just so much like within any program but especially Ableton like there's just so many rabbit holes to fall down and things to try and different ways to do the same thing and yeah it's a lot.

Brian Funk (53:08.425)

Yeah. Yeah. Like which one of these things is the volume to just know that it's, I guess, like when you learn to ride a bicycle, you're thinking about all that stuff, but then, you know, you get on it after some time and you just ride it. Well, my grandmother got a computer. It was like, I don't know, 2010, maybe.

Corey (53:12.909)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:31.797)

and she never had a computer before, you know, and she wanted to like go online, Facebook, email, whatever. I told her, okay, grandma, like click on that icon over there. She's like, click? yeah. Well, she didn't even know that if you move the mouse, this arrow on the screen is where you pick things and you press a button to select it. Like stuff that you just.

Corey (53:47.175)

click. Even stopped a click. Wow.

Corey (53:53.981)

Hahaha

Brian Funk (53:59.881)

You know, we just know because we grew up around this stuff, but things like you said, like the volume, like you just know it because you've done it 7 billion times by now. But that first time, like I'm in a range of view, how do I do the volume here? How do where is it? And if you're caught up in that all the time, it's really hard to stay in like any kind of flow. And I think if

You can do that to yourself even after your experience by getting too much new stuff at once or changing your session around, remapping your controls or something. Doing that before a show is always a bad idea. This doesn't do what you thought it did anymore. You gotta learn that.

Corey (54:30.71)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (54:40.47)

God.

Corey (54:45.684)

Yeah, and I think for me and where I'm at and coming from doing, you know, the modular stuff and like outboard gear and all that, like I.

got to almost like this like claustrophobic like state like in the studio of like I want to like make something but now like there's all these extra things kind of crowding my you know space and my my creative space you know as well like mental and also like physical that I'm enjoying more of the like keeping things as simple like as possible and

Like the focus that that kind of like brings to like what you're like working on. And then also, mean, a big thing again in Ableton 12, like the freeze and flatten in one click thing, like for me personally is like so huge. I think that's got to be my favorite feature.

because it just allows like to get get something going and then just immediately like freeze and flatten because like that then there's nothing else like I can play with it again with effects and stuff or you know do the slice to MIDI stuff but as far as like tweaking and getting lost in that whole thing it's like no just like commit and then let's like move on and like go you know to to something else so it's just interesting the the the journey of being like a creative person like

There's you you start out you're just like learning like a few things like we were talking about the guitar pedals and everything and then you acquire certain pedals and then that leads into this and that and then you before you know it you have this amazing like huge studio but it's like it's too much to manage and then things start to get like smaller and then you come back to just like you know, just being the guy in the bedroom, you know working with what you have and I've been really enjoying that again. That's why like push three has been so fun of like

Brian Funk (56:28.071)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:34.274)

Yeah.

Corey (56:39.586)

Okay, I don't have any VSTs. don't have access to any of that stuff. Like, let's figure out a different way, you know, to do it or, you know, play with something that I've never like played with. Like again, in all the years using Ableton since version seven, the only thing I ever used operator for was what used to be called the hip hop sub bass RIP. That is now the basic sub sign. But in the last like six months,

Brian Funk (57:03.879)

Yeah.

Corey (57:08.652)

I've just been diving into it and like not fully understanding, know, like what's going on, but like getting some really like again, like exploring again, something that's been there the entire time that I've just never, you know, really looked at. And the same with the analog synth and Ableton. It's another one that I've been playing with recently. And it's like, dude, there's

You have all the we already have all the building blocks to make just about like anything. It's just a matter of figuring out what the you know what the process and ingredients are to get to that, you know, sound and everything.

Brian Funk (57:45.629)

Yeah. Well, that was big for me when I had all those plugins. You know, I had spent months like just getting whatever I could and I had all this stuff and I didn't know how to use any of it. I had like this really surface understanding of all of it. As soon as I got rid of it and started digging in, then I really learned stuff. I learned like, this is...

this is how a compressor works. This is what it does instead of like just some fancy emulation or something like that. Not understanding why I would even want that. And it lets you go deep on the stuff that way. That

Corey (58:24.524)

Yeah, and I think too, I've been thinking a lot about this recently of the.

Again because of my discord there's so many kids that are on like FL studio and like if you look visually at FL studio It's a very like it looks cool Like and like the UI is like different colors and it's like this shiny You know thing and all their instruments have these like really cool names and it's like if you come to Ableton Again, it's the gray abyss like there's nothing visually stunning There's literally nothing visually stunning like in Ableton. I can't really think of any

one thing that even the spectrum, or the spectrum that's on EQ8 does not look nice. But I think the benefit of that is...

There's got to be and I don't know what the data is on this, but there's got to be something to where your ears may be more in tune with less visual feedback of what's going on. Like your brain is processing less visually. And so you may be able to like hear better, maybe not better,

maybe you have more like bandwidth for like hearing and creating and, and that's one thing that I've really come to like love about Ableton is how boring the interfaces and how just everything is the same to where like, yeah, it's just not, I'm not thinking about like, wow, how like, how cool like that looks. But then when you do use, some like VST or something or some, you know, effect it's like, especially nowadays, like the user interfaces and like just the

Corey (01:00:02.978)

the UI designs are like so cool, you know, looking, there's definitely something to that of even as I'm sure, you know, it's like, you sit down at a synth that just like looks cool. You like feel cool, like go into it and be like, yeah, I'm going to, yeah, do like the van Halen, you know? Yeah. But I think there's gotta be something to like not getting as much like visual feedback and that like allowing again, just, think just more bandwidth for listening and hearing.

Brian Funk (01:00:13.511)

Yeah. Right.

Look at this thing, yeah.

Corey (01:00:31.798)

Maybe, I don't know.

Brian Funk (01:00:33.5)

I think so because when I was downloading all those plugins, when I was using Logic even, every device was like a new spaceship I had to learn. All like a knob is different now, you know? But I mean, you have the knob tattoo on your arm, right? So like a knob, that's how they look in life and a story. And you can recognize them. it made me see like, that's a filter and that's a filter in that sense. they all have filters.

Corey (01:00:49.26)

Yeah, it's all the same.

Brian Funk (01:01:02.877)

These envelopes, I get it now. It's not just this like mysterious like lever inside this other spaceship that I was trying to figure out how to fly. And I was able to see the individual components so much easier, which is some uniformity. Like, yeah, it was maybe not as exciting, but it was familiar.

Corey (01:01:14.508)

Yeah.

Corey (01:01:27.264)

Mm hmm. Yeah. And I like after doing it for at least for me after doing like the modular thing and getting into like that world and.

Brian Funk (01:01:28.946)

I like that a

Corey (01:01:38.53)

just understanding patching like in like the physical form, think coming back to Ableton after that has opened up some new ways of like seeing and like thinking about Ableton more in that like modular way, especially with all like the, you know, the LFO and even the new or the updated like envelope follower. And there's like obviously some other stuff, but it's all just.

It's all just pieces and little ingredients and there's ways to arrange those pieces to do basically whatever you can dream up because everything's so bite -sized like an Ableton, like the...

You know, like what used to be again, RIP, the simple delay that is now just the delay like that. Like I've been playing a lot with that recently and just learning like, OK, like a delay can be many, many things or it can interact with many different things, you know, depending on where it's at in the chain and what you have fed into it and where it like goes from there. And yeah, it's just interesting. Like after.

Brian Funk (01:02:25.779)

Yeah.

Corey (01:02:47.518)

for so long like using you know the same like software and same like plugins to then like I don't know just see things in a different light and just start to just start to see the individual pieces and what those actually mean in the context of like a bigger system or a bigger like you know patch or effect rack whatever it may be and yeah it's it's just wild

Brian Funk (01:03:11.059)

Hmm. Yeah. How you can do that. Like, I think like something like your sample challenge with, make a song with a snare really forces you to figure out what you can do with all that stuff. Like you said, would you have tried that flanger thing with the auto shift? If you could have just opened up something else that would have had you halfway there or at least like playing melodies already.

Corey (01:03:29.784)

Definitely not.

Corey (01:03:38.669)

Yeah, yeah, definitely not. like the. Because kind of kind of like the way that we do the sample challenges is that like I like stream on Twitch like Mondays and Wednesdays, and basically that's me doing like the sample challenge like on my own and, you know, showing, showing like how I would go about it, you know, depending on what the sample is. But with that snare one, like I was telling everybody, it's like the.

My process, like at least is like thinking about it more like a scientist of like, okay, we have this like whole sound. So you could think about that as like a, I don't like a structure or like a planet or whatever. And basically what we need to do is just like break it down to the atoms. Like we need to break it down to like where we can get a wave out of it that then we could use, you know, somewhere else. And that was one of the challenges is like, well, I want to use the vocoder to

you know, kind of repitch like, you know, this sample after it's in granulator. And it's like, well, in order to do that, like we need something to send, you know, into the vocoder to repitch things. So we need, you know, a wave of some sort that's tuned like properly, you know, which honestly with any sound, it's like pretty easy to do. We put it in a simpler or a sampler and just make it small enough and then tune it, you know, freeze and flatten. Yeah. But yeah,

Brian Funk (01:04:57.873)

Yeah, zoom in like all the way.

Corey (01:05:03.758)

It's interesting that again with as long as you have a sound could even be noise. You can generate anything from that. It's just about again pulling pulling it down to it's like the the smallest bit. And then once you have that that's where you can just start to build you know like everything from it. It's weird that music is like that or sound.

Brian Funk (01:05:31.134)

Yeah, I never thought of it that way. Like atoms, right? The building blocks of matter. How you

Corey (01:05:37.794)

Yeah, well it is like in a synth like, you know, like a wavetable synth or even like a, you know, digital synth. It's so, you know, single cycle wave and then you're just pitching it in a certain way. And then from there, like everything else kind of, kind of happens the same with like noise, like.

Brian Funk (01:05:58.183)

Yeah. That's a fun way to think of it though. It's almost like the construction of the universe. Like you said, like it's this atom that you're now changing and it's like reproducing in a new way to create something else bigger and different. But it all comes from that smallest piece, then some imagination, you know?

Corey (01:06:26.07)

Yeah, some reverb. Just give it something to bounce off of, really. It's like put it in a space and let it bounce.

Brian Funk (01:06:27.133)

Maybe some spice. Yeah, exactly.

Brian Funk (01:06:37.799)

Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's weird because, I guess we, cause you can go and get, you know, loops, say you go to splice, you can just grab like seven loops and have a track. And those are like kind of these full form things, or you can kind of go more the opposite way and just start from scratch with just a wave form and see where it takes you.

Corey (01:07:04.096)

Yeah, and you again with with teaching people and some people come from that, you know, I think a lot of people come from it like nowadays of like you were just describing like grabbing, you know, handful loops from slice and you kind of arrange it and then that's like your like song. But there needs to be for better or worse, there needs to be.

I think in any like valuable or worthwhile creative endeavor, like you need to struggle and be challenged along the way to then feel at the end of it, or even while you're working on it and while things start to like happen and sound good to you, like that is the...

the return on investment of hitting that challenge and struggling. And like when you're just pulling stuff, even presets for that matter, like presets on serum or whatever it is, like it might sound great, but then like at the end of the day, at least for me, I know for me, if I do stuff where it's all just like samples and yeah, it might sound great, but at the end of the day, I'm like, well, what did I really do? Like, where's my like voice in this? Like this wasn't hard.

You know to do so I don't really love it or like identify with it like at the end of the day So I think yeah and pose imposing some sort of like it's kind of like just like exercising or like lifting weights like you can't just be Lifting 10 pounds, you know and do 10 reps every day And be like, like I worked out today and it was great Like you got to keep kind of adding to that or Yeah

Brian Funk (01:08:39.507)

Yeah, no growth without that challenge.

Corey (01:08:43.114)

Yeah, switching it up or trying new things and yeah, because I mean, I think that's when like the best stuff happens, at least for me is like just challenging myself to do something different and whether it happens on that try or like, you know, a year down the line where that process like is re embedded in my brain as I'm like messing with stuff and then all of a sudden like something happens and I'm like, wow, this is like great and I have no idea how it happened. But we got here.

Brian Funk (01:09:11.059)

Hmm. Yeah. We figured it out. Yeah. Without that challenge, nothing improves. You don't develop. And, it got me thinking again about painting the bowls. they had, and to me, this is almost like your sample of a splice. They had these stamps, you know, the kind of like cute little things you could

Corey (01:09:37.687)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:09:39.635)

dip in the paint and then just kind of like press them against the bowl and it would have been really nice clean.

Corey (01:09:46.646)

Mm

Brian Funk (01:09:48.837)

I know I wouldn't have, I've almost like wouldn't have cared, you know, but instead, like what I decided to do was like paint our dogs, like little like versions of our dogs that took a long time, you know, rough around the edges. But I know like, I like it way better. If I, I could have got a dog, maybe even a dog that looked like our dogs.

Corey (01:09:53.133)

Yeah.

Corey (01:10:00.556)

You're welcome.

Brian Funk (01:10:17.534)

And just kind of stamped it on there, but then it was like, cool. did that. yeah, like, same thing with music. If, I'm so much happier with like a beat that I came up with, and if I use a loop and it's just kind of, yeah, it sounds great. I mean, it's awesome. And I guess you could look at like AI too, that kind of stuff. Like you can generate really good sounding music.

Corey (01:10:21.56)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:10:47.177)

So what is kind of like how it feels at the end, you know? Like maybe you'll laugh, but kind of so what? Like the personal satisfaction is just so much greater. I don't know if it will be any cooler to anyone else, but I have a feeling like the bowl that I painted compared to the one I could have done with stamps, I think if somebody saw it, they'd be like, that's cool. You know? It's like, it's got character.

Corey (01:10:48.416)

Yeah.

Corey (01:11:16.514)

Yeah, interesting interpretation.

Brian Funk (01:11:18.641)

Yeah, like, yeah, you're not an artist, I guess, but it's kind of cool that you made that. with music now, so much like what is good, you know, what is a good production? Sometimes that's so subjective. Like you got like so much music that's very lo -fi now. It's very popular.

Corey (01:11:23.256)

He's on his way. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11:48.761)

It's almost easier to make the slick stuff by just dragging those samples in and man, that sounds really slick. Every one of those samples is like worked out perfectly and processed right where it needs to be.

I don't really have any interest in doing that myself.

Brian Funk (01:12:13.673)

that yeah, that's something nice about fighting for it a little bit. Even if it comes out a little bloodied. Some scars.

Corey (01:12:21.218)

Yeah, well, it's like the difference

getting a like a pre, you know, like a meal kit from like Hello Fresh or Blue Apron or whatever. It's like the difference of that, which sure you can make a great meal. It can be convenient. You and your partner can just have a lovely evening and still have time, you know, watch Netflix, whatever it is, watch the murder show or which obviously this takes a lot more time. But if you had your own farm and were basically you grew all of those ingredients, you know, you raised the cattle, whatever it is, and then made

that same meal with all of those ingredients. Like if you could somehow measure the like dopamine as well as just the overall like sense of wellbeing, like I imagine the farmer, even though they would be very tired, I'm sure would much more enjoy that meal.

Brian Funk (01:13:19.635)

You know, we get HelloFresh. And, you know, yeah, it's convenient. It's nice. It kind of tells you what to do and you can enjoy yourself on that level, right? But whenever my wife makes them, she's always modifying it somehow. does, and it's always so much more fun when she does that. And to go even further, I'm not a big gardener. I want to be like kind of somewhere in me, but I'm not.

but I have in the past grown some vegetables and use like the compost from our food garbage. And there was a day where I think it was like a cucumber or a tomato or something. And I was eating and I was like, wow, like this thing is like the wastes from our food was put into the dirt and we grew this thing

ate the part of it and it's going to go back in the compost. And it was just like, holy cow. Circle of life kind of moment. like, I'm part of this thing now, you know, instead of like, just kind of being here on the planet, I am the planet, you know? Like it was, it was just like universal experience of like oneness that was really cool. And, you know, it might sound funny,

The dopamine for that, whatever it was, carrot or tomato or cucumber, that was like one of the most enjoyable vegetables I ever ate.

Corey (01:14:56.595)

Well, yeah, like having a process, you know, behind it and a story, even if like, and that might be where, you know, because music like is so subjective and, you know, people are going to hear certain things that like, even if it is just a bunch of splice samples put together, like that they might like, like and connect with. And that's like fine. But as like a way to kind of measure things, I think as the person who's making music,

Like you yourself will have a better reaction or at least like a more maybe a deeper reaction when doing like you were just describing with gardening with like making music of like really pushing yourself and gathering these ingredients and even if you do use some splice stuff like transforming that into something completely different like that's something you could really like take pride in and like feel good about and I think that that also translates into

I've had this theory like forever. Like you may be on the same page, but I feel like with music there's something.

that kind of gets like transmuted and like coded into the music of like your mind space, like at the time that you're working on it. And like when you do find those real free flowing, you know, flow states or you, you know, brought just like love and energy to a track or an album or whatever, that those are the things that like people, when they listen to that, even if they can't like recognize it, like pick up on that or connect with that.

like in some way. So I think that process of whatever the process is, just having a process that is, you know, challenging, unique to you, that allows you to make something like out of that, that you put, you know, work into in your own like touches. Like if you're doing that and feeling like accomplished and everything that will translate, you know, to the listener in some way, again, whether they're conscious of it, you know, or not.

Brian Funk (01:16:57.193)

think so. I think that's real. your enjoyment somehow, it gets into the music. It might not be obvious, but I think you feel it. I think it's kind of like when you're talking to somebody on the phone and they're smiling when they talk. don't see that, but you pick up on it. You we recognize that. And you can tell if somebody's talking to you like with a really angry face. Even if...

Corey (01:17:22.243)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:17:24.825)

it's not apparent what they're saying is angry like something comes across that is a little bit hard to quantify but there's there's like a life in

Corey (01:17:38.668)

Yeah, well, yeah, especially when you're making like electronic music, you know, on a computer, it's hard to. It's hard to verify that that is taking place, like that that's getting, you know, coded into the music, even if there's nothing that you have directly like recorded into, you know, the song. But I still feel like there's. I don't know, there's at least all of the songs that I've had that have been semi successful. That's all ones that like, yeah, there was something.

Very real about the process of making it and I was like tuned in while doing it were things that I might have been frustrated as I was working on and to me You know might sound great, you know and have its place like they don't people just don't like connect with You know that stuff. So I think yeah, there's We can't prove it yet with modern science, but one of these days

Brian Funk (01:18:30.439)

Yeah. And I think with like the AI stuff I've heard, there's that's not there. like you can AI song, Brian Wilson sings, you know, Bon Jovi or whatever you want. They have a better example exists than Bon Jovi, but it's like, I don't care. Like when I hear it, it's like amusing, but

Corey (01:18:56.994)

That's fun for a minute.

Brian Funk (01:18:59.56)

I'm never even gonna finish it really. Like Frank Sinatra sings Nirvana. Okay, that's kind of funny to hear, if he really sang it, I'd be like, that's kind of cool. What's he gonna do with it? But he didn't. It's like that part of it's not there.

Corey (01:19:17.676)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:19:22.449)

I hope that's real. know, I think it is. just feel like maybe like you said, there's been too many experiences where you could just hear like we were having fun when we made that. We, it was a good time. And I think I've picked up on that kind of stuff a lot when, while playing like my more electronic music live where I'd have like clips and I'd arrange them on the fly and sing over them and play some instruments over

Corey (01:19:24.375)

You

Brian Funk (01:19:52.603)

And it kind of surprised me that even though those clips were the same ones every night, something was different depending on how I was or how the crowd was. And I'd listen back and like, this was a good night and this wasn't. And there's almost nothing that's really different, but it's just like those little things, those outside things that don't really even exist in the recording.

Corey (01:20:23.16)

Yeah, yeah, that's a weird thing of having. So you have a DJ set or whatever. You play it one night here. Obviously, there's certain transitions might be different. this first night just

A great set, right? You say it's like, it's not a great set. It's going to be the same set. You go play a different place. Something else. There's something in the room or with who's who's there like that human ping ponging of energy that happens like at a show. And then it might be like the best show, you know, like ever. But again, it's like roughly the same set. And then again, you go to the next place and that's a bad set. Like again, but it's the same

Brian Funk (01:21:08.073)

It's like I was in a better mood that night. With a band, it's harder because you could say like, yeah, know, the bass player was off tonight or the sound of the PA was weird or, know, whatever it was, like, you can kind of, there's too many like variables to really know. But when you know that that's the same audio file going over and over and

Corey (01:21:10.255)

Yeah, or something. Yeah.

Corey (01:21:30.978)

Yeah, it's weird.

Brian Funk (01:21:34.717)

There's like a different sort of energy going on. The magic wasn't there tonight.

Corey (01:21:39.884)

Yeah, that's very strange and frustrating sometimes like as a performer

Brian Funk (01:21:45.752)

Yeah, you have to be all in, you know, got to be enthusiastic. Like that's always something I've tried to recognize in playing is that like you can't not bring it. Like you got to turn it on and you're really dictating like the energy for everybody else. You have this like kind of like magic weapon of energy with having all the sound power.

Corey (01:22:13.472)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:13.807)

And I mean, there have been shows with bands that I've played that really weren't very good, but we had a good time and you know, people enjoyed it or where we played really well, like, I don't know, we were nervous. We were uptight about

Brian Funk (01:22:31.319)

It's almost secondary sometimes how well you actually play compared to your attitude about how you played.

Corey (01:22:39.372)

Yeah, I mean, you gotta start the fire for the show. can obviously feed off of the audience, but there's a certain thing that has to happen before they're gonna give you the energy back. You almost have to prove to the crowd that like...

Brian Funk (01:22:49.128)

Ahem.

Corey (01:23:01.11)

I'm here and we're doing this like, this is going to be like a good time. You have to like make people feel like comfortable in that way and like start the fire so that they could partake. And like that's I mean, that's when a show is like really good when you can feel that like immediately or you just push to that place as quickly as possible and get everybody in. And then from there, you can just, you know, go to the moon with that sort of a, you know, vibe and feeling.

Brian Funk (01:23:25.661)

Hmm. Well, I imagine you've played for some pretty seriously large crowds. Do you find that there's like a sweet spot? Does it get too big that it's almost hard to connect or is there something else in the air?

Corey (01:23:50.573)

I think even big crowds can be good, but I, for me personally, I've always enjoyed the like the smaller venue type thing. Again, just being able to like, it's more of like an eye contact thing. I think of if you can make eye contact with almost everybody in the room, like

I don't know you can because you can lock eyes with somebody when they're like feeling it and then you like pointing like yeah you know what's going on like you get it and then that amps them up and if you could do that you know throughout the set so like you know a bunch of other people I feel like that I don't know there's a real like community like feeling to that where you can still do that you can get away with the same thing at like a you know a big show but again like you

You got to be able to like reel them in and make them feel comfortable enough to like, you know, pop off on their own. And I feel like I don't really have the language to like describe what I'm trying to describe, like at the moment. But like, you know, you have to like do something or like.

I don't know, just make them feel comfortable enough to like be there and like let loose and, you know, give their energy. Like you have to be willing to give your energy to let them know that they're safe to like, you know, give their energy back. And then if you can do that, but I think it's a little bit harder in bigger places. But again, it can also be like a domino effect in big places where if you can connect with a few people in the audience and then they're able to like then spread out. it's almost like energy fields, right?

connecting with this person and then once they're connected then their you know bubble gets bigger and then everybody else kind of like goes you know from there but yeah it always always depends on there's like you were saying earlier there's so many different factors like to you know a live show and whether it's good or bad

Brian Funk (01:25:23.741)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:25:42.474)

Yeah, I guess there's so much more space to dividing you from the people at a larger place. A lot of my, I mean, I've never been in that kind of situation, but a lot of my favorite shows were like when we're on the floor and they're on the floor right here, know, cause like you're right there and you're in your face. like, that's just like, you can't deny that when that's working.

Corey (01:25:59.307)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Corey (01:26:09.826)

Mm

Brian Funk (01:26:09.959)

in those situations, it's just too, it's too close. It's too much energy like in one spot.

Corey (01:26:17.558)

Yeah, again, just making people feel like

a part of what's happening and like validating. I not to go too deep on it, but it's like you're validating their existence right there in that moment and like looking to them, be like, like, yes, like, like we're here. This is happening. It's you could be as loud as you want. You could dance however crazy you want. Like that's what we're like here, you know, to do. And yeah, in smaller places like that, if you can get to that place with everybody that's there, like there's.

There's really nothing better than that, in that feeling.

Brian Funk (01:26:56.007)

What year was it about when like all this like, you like your kill Paris days and when that kind of like hit off for you, like was there some kind of buildup and like some stuff happened that forced that into action?

Corey (01:27:08.866)

Looks

Corey (01:27:15.342)

Well, I so I had moved to LA like in 2000 I think it might have been like the end of 2010 or 2011

It was teaching and stuff, but also just like like working with because I had kind of always played in bands and, you know, lived in Nashville like prior to that and, you know, playing played bass and like some country groups and stuff and just kind of doing every every odd music job that was kind of like available while never because again, back in that day, like there weren't.

You know, 2008, 2009, there wasn't a lot of examples of like solo artists, like even DJs. I feel like here in the US, because like DJs didn't really start to become like mainstream or you didn't start to like see that stuff until like the mid like 2000. So like really like in places that you could actually like get to. So I think they're just kind of hit a point where I was like, you know what? Like I'm going to just going to start.

doing my own thing. Like I'm to give myself permission to just like do my own thing. And I started doing that while I was in LA, while I was also working with some other guys in this like group that we were doing. And then just started, you know, SoundCloud, like releasing stuff, doing these like bootleg remixes. And then Skrillex actually like messaged me on SoundCloud and was like, dude, he's like, I've been like playing some of your tracks, like would love to, you know, chat or, know,

you know, release something. And it was actually funny. The day that I got that message, it was hilarious because I went to like, I had a lesson and like I used to like drive to people's houses like in L .A. like because I was just trying to make money like any way that I could. And I was like, I'll come to you like, yeah, I'll come to you like 50 bucks, whatever, you know, an hour. Like, let's do it. So I went to this guy's house and it was like Pacific Palisades, I think really rich.

Brian Funk (01:29:09.459)

Fun place to drive, right?

Corey (01:29:21.47)

spot like this, was like a younger guy and his parents just, you know, paid for whatever. And I was really hung over from the night before. And it was just like a really bad lesson. Like with this, you know, guy who didn't really have any interest like in doing music, it seemed like, or just, I don't know, like one is something else. And it was just like a rough day. And I kind of came home like feeling like, dude, what the fuck am I doing? And then I opened up my SoundCloud and it's like

Skrillex and I like is this real like what is happening right now? Like this can't be like the real thing and I tracked his page and everything It's like no, was like him. So that kind of from there. That's kind of like what set Everything off and I had kind of started doing shows a little bit like around like LA But yeah, then from there like you started doing tours like my first we did like the ows la tour which was

It was like Machine, Kill the Noise, some other people on that. think that Monster, who now, I don't know if they're still making music, but I Am Monsters, I think is what their thing was. yeah, there's just a handful of like the early like Al's La people. And then my first like real tour was with Zedd on his first like US tour. We did US and Canada. And then from there,

Like to earn with Big Gigantic and all that stuff. Yeah, so it kind of it was weird. It was a weird like a leap of faith type of like time like in my life, because I again, I was working at Sweetwater before and had finally just got the position like in the store. And if I wanted to, I could have just stayed there and kind of continue to work and eventually get commission and like, you know, make like loads of money, kind of. But like I would have been.

in Indiana where I grew up, which I left. I graduated high school early to get out of Indiana, like to leave and go to college, you know, for recording and engineering and everything. So, yeah, once I started to like tour, it was like a real. It just meant a lot to me because I had taken all these chances to like make something happen and actually like, you know, happen, which was, you know, pretty awesome. Like I think.

Brian Funk (01:31:43.117)

yeah, I mean that's amazing. I maybe I should go through my SoundCloud messages again, but I only get like hot babes that want to make me famous on some playlists. It's always like some bikini girl like, hey, I've been listening to your new tracks. It's so much spam.

Corey (01:31:52.898)

Yeah, you're the people.

Corey (01:31:59.959)

Yeah, I love the, like we want to monetize your Facebook page. Like there's just so many weird, you know, spammy things. Yeah. RIP SoundCloud.

Brian Funk (01:32:07.186)

Yeah, it's awful. guess that's, yeah, I guess like those, there was a social aspect to it back then, you know, where you did interact. I don't, I love that you can comment on spots on the audio and stuff and share things very easily. But the, that side of it is like for me, non -existent anymore.

Yeah, I get a lot of nonsense. At this point, if I got that Skrillex email, I wouldn't believe it.

Corey (01:32:43.481)

Well, there was a time, mean, there was a time again, it was because I remember when Spotify like became a thing, but it was like SoundCloud for, you know, music producers like that was that was the spot and there wasn't a ton of people really on it. But it was like a place you could literally you could upload something and then like.

You just meet people or and I mean, I think that's how I found, you know, your stuff like back in the day, too, of like, like, here's like another like Ableton guy. And then also like the YouTube stuff again, it was just like a much smaller, you know, smaller group and less. Yeah, a lot less spam, like obviously a lot less like bots and, you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, it's it sucks that

has kind of gone away. Just that idea of having like music communities and you know stuff, places for people to go.

Brian Funk (01:33:41.191)

Yeah, well, I guess that's what you're doing though. You're trying to reclaim a bit of that with you've got like that discord and you've got the kind of like weekly challenge that pulls people in. I mean, I've been trying to do community stuff for a long time because it's so valuable. It's so nice. mean, it's a lonely world sometimes like sitting. It's so weird, right? Because like music used to be like you had to be with other people. Even

in my lifetime, it was like that. But now you can just like, you can do everything by yourself and never leave the house. and I am a kind of person that leans that way to begin with. but to, it's so important to find people like that you can talk to that, just understand this stuff a little bit. So that's a big reason why.

Corey (01:34:17.549)

Yeah.

Corey (01:34:23.479)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:34:36.443)

I do this podcast is you can talk to people. lot of people in my life are very supportive and will say good job, but they don't really know. We can't talk about putting the auto shift after the flanger. That's a very select view. So it's really nice to have groups and communities. can talk to people. And I've learned a ton from

Corey (01:34:51.692)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:35:05.971)

you know, just seeing what people are doing and sharing stuff. And that's a nice part too, is like to just share the work you're doing with other people that are like interested in that kind of

Corey (01:35:18.09)

Yeah, yeah, and I think, know what I'm because that's kind of my like main like focus now is just like, you know, this this discord thing and in Twitch and building like basically kind of setting up like the community.

And the way that I'm starting to think about it is kind of like a gym membership before producers, like in a way that we have these like tasks that we do, but also just having a space where people can, you know, not only just like be working on the same thing, cause I think that's something that is really valuable about this, weekly sample challenge thing is that we're all given the same, like, you know, resource of like, okay, we have this, you know, one sample let's like see what everybody, you know, like does.

but then also just a space where people can they have something to do, which I think is also tough with music like these days and being a producer, it's like, you don't really know what you should be working on or yeah. And like, where is it going to? Yeah. And where is it going to go to? Because that's like another thing people are like, well, how do I, you know, share my music? How do I get my music out there? Because again, we grew up in the day that like all of the

Brian Funk (01:36:13.543)

Yeah. What am I going to make today? Like, you can do anything.

Corey (01:36:28.926)

DSP stuff and SoundCloud and YouTube, all that was so new that we had these, you know, it's kind of the same tools that are around today. It's just there wasn't a huge audience or there wasn't a bunch of like other things happening in those places like YouTube as a perfect example of that. Like there wasn't.

There wasn't like a ton of like product reviews like back then, you there wasn't like you could find some like gear review stuff where there wasn't like people reviewing like Ikea desks and chairs where like now so much of YouTube is just this kind of review, you know, like thing. So.

That's what I'm trying to like make and like build right now. We already we have like a great start to it But it's been really fun to just have people who you know, there's people that submit every week There's like new people that like come in and it seems like everybody's enjoying just having a place to like

You know, getting just building a little community around it and places for people to actually get their stuff heard. You know, even if it's from like, you know, 10 people, like still they'd like did something, they had something to focus on that week. And then, you know, people get to hear it. They get feedback and yeah, cause I, I just think that's kind of missing like these days. Like it's so hard to like,

As somebody starting out, I think it's got to be so hard to just feel comfortable on you made something and then now you're just you're going to upload it even just getting to the upload part like can be like incredibly scary because like obviously like we know the internet is.

Corey (01:38:03.448)

you know, a lot of things and sometimes not kind, depending on, you know, what's going on. So it can be like scary and, know, there's all this comparing yourself to other people and, and all that. So that's, that's kind of my work moving forward. I feel like it's just trying to, you know, build and curate a community to give people that like space and, getting to give people things to do, you know, like,

Brian Funk (01:38:10.801)

Yeah, right.

Corey (01:38:31.212)

Like I had mentioned in our email before this is like, I'm really interested in finding ways to gamify the production process and music process. Because I feel like that.

is something that's heavily lacking from like Ableton or FL Studio or anything like that. Like I would just love like a, I don't know, a box that I could open that would say you've been using Ableton like for this many days, like this amount, like how many times you've used like delay or how many times you've used, you know, EQ, how many exports you've done is just like a lifetime like thing just to get.

some sort of feedback on like what you've, you know, been doing because you basically you don't. I mean, it's a blessing and a curse because you're just open to do whatever you want, however you want, but.

some sort of feedback I feel like would be great to just know even if you had like for each session you know each track like this many hours was spent like in this you know session so that's like how long it took you to do it like some of the I just feel like some of those metrics would be really really helpful for for me and also I feel like probably for other people as well

Brian Funk (01:39:42.641)

Yeah, I think there's some Macs for live devices out there that'll tell you how long you've been working on a project. You kind of just drop it in and it keeps track of that. But what you're saying is, is a pretty cool idea and almost like, you know, like, Snapchat has like streaks and, like I teach, I teach kids, so I see what they do on Snapchat a little bit and they're just sending.

each other snaps. They just send each other snaps just to keep the streak on. And half the time it's like their head, their forehead and the ceiling. And it's nothing. I've watched my nephew once, like he looked all stressed out. He's on his phone. Like he's like 14. I'm like, what are you doing? Like consulting, the corporate headquarters here. Like you look really stressed out. Yeah. He's like, I got 77 snaps I got to send. I'm

Corey (01:40:35.115)

Stocks stocks are not looking good today

Brian Funk (01:40:41.513)

Why? Like I don't get it, but to them it's important. know, like a lot of things are important to me that seems stupid to them, but to have that like could be really helpful. Like, you know, you've exported a track every for the last seven weeks in a row. Like, Oh man, like I got to do that. Or I, you haven't exported a track in seven weeks and you haven't finished anything and you've been compressing that snare drum for 14 hours.

Corey (01:41:10.766)

Yeah, or like, you know, it'd be a, dude, this would be a great metric to have that would be, I'm sure baffling to so many people. But if you had a thing that showed you how many like unused samples are like in your library, which I'm sure that's a Max for Live device could definitely do that now that the browser in 12 is, you know, set up to analyze everything. But imagine like.

Brian Funk (01:41:11.059)

just to get a little screen time feedback.

Corey (01:41:37.792)

It's showing you, okay, how many projects you've made versus how many samples you have and how many of those samples have actually been used across those. I bet that would be a baffling number of how many unused samples and audio files are on your hard drives.

Brian Funk (01:41:47.774)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:41:56.425)

Oh, it'd be kind of sick if you could set it up like you haven't used a sample in a year. Do you still want it? Oh, I'd love that. I always fantasize about just like deleting everything and starting. Cause it's just, I'm dealing with the clutter of, you know, 15, 20 years of having a computer, just the same operating systems, the files, you know, just kind of, all right, copy it to the new computer and just.

Corey (01:42:01.581)

Yeah, that'd be great.

Brian Funk (01:42:25.679)

Some of the the stupid decisions I made in those early days are still following me. But that would be kind of cool, right? Like just you haven't opened this plugin and this long. What do want to do?

Corey (01:42:38.956)

Yeah, just some like...

Because it's like, don't know if you play play many video games, but like on on PC or even on Mac, like Steam, which is the for most PC games, like that's like the storefront that you like buy stuff from. And it tells you like you can arrange your library by like most recent played or like never played. And it shows you, you know, basically how many achievements you've gotten in that game and how many hours you've played, you know, that game. And I feel like that.

Again, whether it could even be like, you know, effects in instruments like telling you how often you've used, you know, this instrument or how many presets you've saved, you know, in this enter, like how many times you've opened operator and, you know, use it. And I'm sure the data from there could get even, you know, more.

kind of like micro in that it could be like, you know, the amount of tracks that you've exported that contain, you know, an operator synth or that contain, you know, a flanger or a reverb or whatnot. I just feel like that would be really helpful and, you know, motivating or at least like kind of change your, give you the ability to see some data that would maybe make you make different decisions in that you would be like, well, I haven't

the vinyl delay or the vinyl distortion you know in eight months like maybe we should try something with that

Brian Funk (01:44:07.603)

Yeah. Fire that up. Yeah. I would love that. Cause yeah, it would make me make decisions. I would say, yeah. I haven't done that yet. I've been, wanted to do that. was so excited. now, you know, like so many things, new features come out or devices. And I mean, man, even like just thinking about like those spectral blurs and the spectral resonator things that they got like.

really excited about those and just kind of forgot. You know? That would be fun. That's a great idea. They will send this portion to somebody. Yeah.

Corey (01:44:44.984)

We just need some coders. Yeah, somebody smarter than than me. Please figure it out. Figure it out.

Brian Funk (01:44:51.505)

Yeah, I don't want to work on it. I don't even know how to work on it.

Corey (01:44:57.334)

Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Just something, just some sort of... Just let us know what we're doing and what we're not doing.

in ways to, because I feel like also for teaching, it would be so huge to have some sort of, you know, tracking leaderboard like system or something that, you know, you could, I mean, imagine that, imagine, because I'm kind of thinking like a fitness tracker of sorts, but for, you know, production or like for Ableton where you could add, you know, friends on it and see, you know, they've exported out this many tracks, they've used this many instruments, you know, whatever

spent this amount of time. I feel like some of that stuff would be incredible, like in a classroom setting or even like an online class would be incredibly incredibly useful.

Brian Funk (01:45:48.797)

Yeah. Well, like you said, like the gym membership kind of thing. Like if you've ever taken like an exercise class of any kind and you're, you know, you're getting tired and you're like thinking, maybe I'll take a break. And then you look and like, they're all still, okay, I can't quit. know, and they're probably the other people thinking of the same thing, like, if he's not going to quit, can't. Yeah. You just, but you push yourself so much further. There's, there's something really nice about having.

Corey (01:46:03.649)

Yeah.

Corey (01:46:10.986)

Yeah, I'm not gonna quit.

Brian Funk (01:46:18.011)

other people involved and seeing like their progress too. And knowing like, well, if I just keep doing what they're doing, probably we'll. Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing the same stuff. So maybe I'm getting better too. That's cool stuff. You've also got a, an Ableton live intro course, right? So you've got to kind of get people in if they want to see that online

Corey (01:46:23.278)

Mm

Corey (01:46:26.678)

Yeah, they can do it. I could do that. Like, I can do what they're doing.

Corey (01:46:34.413)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:46:47.133)

The Discord is really cool. I love the sample challenge. It's awesome. I'm doing like a similar thing, a weekly music mission where it's some kind of a, yeah, it's fun. And it gets me doing stuff sometimes. I should probably be more disciplined about it, but I think I spend too much time talking about making music like we are right now.

Corey (01:46:55.446)

I saw that. saw that. Yeah, that's great.

Corey (01:47:09.428)

You got to be careful about that. I found that when there is a stretch when I was during the modular sort of sort of era and also when I was teaching kind of the most I was making a lot of YouTube videos and then I came to realize I'm like.

I'm kind of just like talking about making music, but I don't actually I'm not actually making like anything. So I think this, you know, this sample flip challenge thing, I was just thinking this the other day. I'm like, man, if we continue to do this, like at the very least, because on this this last one that we did, like I have because usually it's like the maximum of like 90 seconds. But we kind of change the rules. I'm like, if you end up making a full song like, yes, like that, that will count. And like with this one, I.

kind of taking it to like the final thing and it's going to be something like I'm going to release. so just having again, exercises that lead to like finishing things I think is like the ultimate, you know, like goal and a good way to like, again, if you could set things up to where like it helps other people, but also keeps you motivated. It kind of keeps you like, disciplined and kind of put your ass on the line. Like, I think that's like really

that can be really good too, because you obviously want to finish music, you know, too, and like be making stuff. And yeah, the content thing is like I've struggled with that for years of figuring out how to make content while also being able to make music and how to blend those two and not having them separate, you know, things like, I'm to make some content here and then then I can go and like make, you know, the music.

Brian Funk (01:48:37.745)

Yeah, that creates.

Brian Funk (01:48:48.721)

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. That was like, cause every year in January, we do the January thing where you make something every day and it's a very productive time. And it's because everyone's doing it and you want to keep up and you've done it four days in a row. can't miss it now. And doing this weekly thing is another like, every day is kind of unsustainable. You know, at the end of January, you're like, glad I don't have to do anything today.

Corey (01:49:17.334)

Yeah, geez, I'm gonna take a take a break.

Brian Funk (01:49:19.966)

Yeah, but it does also prove to you that you can. So weekly is like, all right, that's not too bad. I can make something happen here. So I'm with you on that. I'm trying to do the same exact thing. Like don't forget why I'm doing all this stuff. You know, I'm making all these sounds like I want to use them one day.

Corey (01:49:24.397)

Mm

Corey (01:49:38.038)

You

Corey (01:49:42.253)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's hard to yeah, it's hard to keep keep track of that and keep focus of that. And, know, like today's again, the content world, because at the end of the day, at least for me, like I'm never happier or more content than when I'm just making music like the act.

in the process of making music like that is my favorite you know thing like above anything there's nothing else that really like compares to that you know to me so finding

Again, if you start doing all this other stuff on the other side, it's taking away from like that and vice versa. can like just kind of get messy and maybe just kind of lose yourself like in it. So that's I feel like that's a struggle for all of us. Like these days is, you know, figuring all that out and how to navigate it and stay sane and stay like motivated and not burn out on it. You know.

Brian Funk (01:50:35.837)

Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's something you're excited about. So you want to talk about it. You want to learn about it. You want to, and there's no shortage of stuff to learn. I mean, every single day I can open up my YouTube and find dozens and dozens of things to learn from and watch. But I've made it a point a little bit like I can't consume until I create like trying to do that. I'm not

doing a really great job at following that, better. It's getting better. And just the more I can remember that. The answer is not more anything. It's just to do

Corey (01:51:16.834)

Yeah, think the way that I think about it is like.

Like imagine that you're going like hiking or you're going like on a trail and that trail and that hiking path is like to go like create something like I think taking like a few things like with you like consuming some content or you know learning like a few things and then immediate and then go on like grab a few things and then go off and like do it because you can get I mean there's so many times actually a great example of this is Dennis DeSantis is a book the

Brian Funk (01:51:40.595)

Go.

Corey (01:51:50.318)

What is 64 things or I've.

Brian Funk (01:51:51.609)

Yeah. Yeah. 74 make music, making music it's called. Yeah. Which is free online. You can, yeah, you can get the whole book. I'll put a link.

Corey (01:51:56.837)

Yeah, every time I op - it is.

Holy shit. But that's a great example of something that like I've had that book forever and I've never read through the entire thing because every time I open it up, I'll read like it could even be just a sentence. And immediately, my brain goes, wait, what if we try like this? And then I put the book away and then I go off and

You know, like do something where and maybe if I were to continue just reading through that, it's like, well, that's a cool idea. But let's see. It's kind of like the YouTube feed thing or like doom scrolling, right? If you're learning stuff, but then you just keep going.

Brian Funk (01:52:36.403)

Yeah, what's next? What's next? Yeah.

Corey (01:52:39.902)

Yeah. And then if you think of like the backpack analogy, like before, know, you're in tight, you're just like carrying a camper on your back and you're like, OK, let's go create something like you can't do it. Yeah. You just need a little again, a little, little spark, a little, fire starter. And you need to also be able to recognize, you know, like when those moments happen and kind of like act on it, you know, at least for me, that's that's what I've learned in my own processes.

Brian Funk (01:52:46.865)

Right. Can't get anywhere. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:53:02.417)

Right.

Corey (01:53:06.274)

Finding little things that and recognizing that little inspiration spark and then just just go for

Brian Funk (01:53:12.037)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's smart because it's tempting to just to build the whole fire But you can't until you actually make something. Yeah as soon as you feel that little thing I heard I hear that's like how Neil Young is, know, he's so prolific and Like he'll drop anything and it's just like sorry gotta go Yeah, I'm Neil Young gotta go be Neil Young

Corey (01:53:18.614)

Yeah.

Corey (01:53:35.662)

Yeah, got an idea.

Brian Funk (01:53:41.905)

Yeah, that's cool. Let's try that next time I have a work or something. Out of here.

Corey (01:53:47.096)

Sorry guys, I got a brilliant idea and I must see it through. It's gonna be huge.

Brian Funk (01:53:52.083)

Gotta see what happens. Yep.

Brian Funk (01:53:57.053)

Well, cool, man. think I might have kept you a little longer than we said. I apologize for that. But a lot of fun talking to you, finally. So we could, you got, is like your main site, would you say it's the fun things, funlife .com? That's a cool site by the way. And your Instagram is great. A lot of cool stuff there.

Corey (01:54:01.901)

No, it's fine. It's great.

Yeah, you too, man. Thanks for having me.

Corey (01:54:14.134)

Yeah, yeah. Thanks.

Brian Funk (01:54:23.146)

I got a whole bunch of links I'll put in there, but I guess if they want to check out your course especially, how do you tell them to get to Discord? Because I bet there's a lot of people that would want to do

Corey (01:54:31.526)

Well, yeah, I don't know if I sent you if the fun things fun life there's a if it's I don't know if I sent you the proper link, but it's fun things fun life dot com slash links. And that's basically it's like my link tree is just built into the website. And that has like basically everything all the pertinent pertinent information.

Brian Funk (01:54:46.744)

okay.

Brian Funk (01:54:50.821)

perfect. Yeah. I've been meaning to do the same thing. It's like, why do I need a link in bio? I want them to come to my page anyway, so I should just have a link.

Corey (01:54:59.766)

Yeah, mean, yeah, that's the thing. It's like, ideally, if you can. And that's all my wife. She's like a marketing mastermind. And she helped me with my website. And she was like, well, this is actually what we're going to do is we have your link tree, which now is changing. And then we're going to integrate that into the website because then they're already going to be there. I'm like.

I really don't know what you just said, but it sounds really great. And I'm really excited that you have figured this out for me. This is great. Let's let's roll with it. Yeah, you're smarter than me. So.

Brian Funk (01:55:27.325)

That's cool. Yep. Whatever you say. One less thing to think about. Yeah, that's cool. It's cool to have like that kind of interaction too. So that's awesome, man. Well, I'll let you get to the Yankees game, right? So.

Corey (01:55:43.969)

Yeah, yeah, Yankees and in the Rays, which actually the Rays are like my second favorite team. I lived in Tampa for a while and they have like a such a like rag tag team like there. If you look at like the payroll of like the Rays versus the Yankees, it's like it's unbelievable. Like they're paying the Rays are paying like their entire team, like a fraction of what Aaron Judge is getting to, you know, do an at bat. Like it's just I know it's a fun, fun little.

Brian Funk (01:55:55.788)

huh.

Brian Funk (01:55:59.901)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:56:08.339)

So funny.

Brian Funk (01:56:13.637)

Yeah, that's cool. Well, I guess either way you win, right?

Corey (01:56:14.392)

fun matchup.

Corey (01:56:18.604)

Yeah, well, it depends on if my wife is watching next to me because she doesn't. She's like Yankees or die. Well, cool, man. Well, I'd love to like chat again like sometime or just like obviously I'll keep up on on what you're up to. But yeah, man, I'm glad we finally got to like talk and spend a long time comment. And also, you know, you just had Francis on and he's because he's here in Austin and I met him like

Brian Funk (01:56:24.329)

So share that. Nice.

Brian Funk (01:56:32.997)

Absolutely, yeah.

Corey (01:56:49.208)

I don't know, probably like four or five months ago and him and I have become like really close and we're starting to like hang out every week. He was at our last little like jam thing on Tuesday or on Monday. That was yeah, that was on Monday.

Brian Funk (01:57:01.032)

Nice.

Corey (01:57:03.38)

So yeah, it's cool to kind of reconnect with some of the Ableton nerds and have a little bit of a tribe and everything. again, just following you for so long and being familiar with your work for over a decade at this point, it's cool to finally like.

Like me and also I meant to ask you this at the beginning of the episode is funk really your last name or your real last name fucking bastard. What the it's so good.

Brian Funk (01:57:29.671)

Really is. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, this is a whole other can of worms. Maybe we'll save it for another time. But like, I know you've gone through like the name thing, right? And, and for me, like I've always avoid using my name. One is like a teacher, you know, just want to keep that separate. but also I don't make funk music. So I thought that was

Corey (01:57:42.552)

Mm -hmm.

Corey (01:57:54.288)

That's a letdown.

Brian Funk (01:57:55.035)

would be confusing. Yeah. So then, you know, I got into monikers and other things, but now it's, I think this might be another, like I said, thing that I think we can, we can, riff on a bit. Yeah. Well, cool. We'll wrap it up and, say goodbye to everybody. Thank you for listening. Show links in the, you know, links in the show notes. So check that out. lot of cool stuff and have a good day.

Corey (01:58:05.709)

Yeah, it's a whole nother can of worms. It's next time. Cool man. Is there

Yeah, thank you.

podcastBrian FunkCorey baker, kill paris, music production podcast