TALK 894 - NI & InMusic, Soothe 3 & AI

(Music)

Nick: Hello everybody, welcome to Sonic Talk, episode 894, recording today on 27th May, at

the end of May, in fact. Gosh, yes, and you'll notice, I mean, a slightly different

surroundings here. This is actually my house because it's that time of year where

the office becomes, or the studio becomes uncoolable. And so I'm here sitting under

my weak air conditioning. I've figured out, I could use, I've got a cuckoo style, I

can kind of show you that, well, my view. So I've got a nice view of the back garden

and trees and whatnot. So there I am. Welcome everybody. Well, before I get into

the, I often have to say this at the start of the show, that this is not a UK

weather podcast. We actually are here to talk about music technology and the whatnot

and the like. And before we get into introducing our guests, I'll just do a bit of

housekeeping. I just want to let you know, coming up, check out the current

competition that's running. You can win an Ovation base station 2, Swiftie Edition,

which is the sort of specially designed by the legendary urban.

Artist, I guess, Ian Swiftie Swift.

Episode 3 of Sonic Retrocast is up with Ravi Abbot. That's Paulie's show, host of

the retro hour and pirate radio. So they have an interesting chat about 90s pirate

radio, which was a really big thing in the UK. I don't know if it's translated

across the world, but it was it was a sort of precursor or I guess just maybe around

the same time as the rave scene, maybe a little bit later. We've got a Korg 7000,

700 S, five minutes with coming up from Chris. That'll be going to members only

tomorrow.

And there's a don't forget to check out the enjoy electronics to feel an elf. Elf.

Elf. I think that's how you pronounce it. Video that mouse has done for us. If that

mouse has got a video coming up live tonight, three Atlantices, a pulsar and a bunch

of other stuff. Jam that is doing. If you want to check out his super stuff. Mass,

mass, mass on YouTube about five thirty. So straight after the show, I'm not sure

how long it's going to be, but he asked me to mention it. So I have few. There we

go. Right. Before I get into the guest, I'll do the one last thing, which is play a

plug for our Patreon and YouTube memberships, because I do encourage you to join.

We've got a lot of stuff going up there at the moment. So here we go. Well, let's

let's welcome Amanda, because Amanda, Amanda Whiting-Gestle, who some of you may

know, I would say I probably know Amanda for a very long time. I think she was the

first 20 years, 20 years, 20 years. Yeah. 20 years. The working at Roland, I think,

was the first time we met you, right?

Amanda: Yeah, maybe at Roland and maybe even at Emadio. I was at Emadio and then Roland.

And yeah, so I've been in the music technology and pro audio industry my whole

career doing marketing. So I've had a lot of fun showing off new synths, new

keyboards, new products.

And always a highlight of that is the visit to Sonic State and seeing Nick and Annie

at the shows. Yeah. Well, it's great to be on the show.

No, well,

you're welcome.

Nick: I've been sending myself, I've been sending invites out for ages and we finally

managed to persuade Amanda to come on. Amanda is also doing her own. I guess you're

independent marketing and PR and strategy.

Amanda: Yeah, so I'm doing an independent marketing consultancy. So I'm doing strategic

marketing for music, tech and pro audio full stack. So yeah, so I do brand comms,

but I also do full funnel audits of people's marketing and working with a lot of

founders actually who are bringing products to market for the first time.

And, and yeah, I'm my, my, you know, I worked at Roland, Splice, Universal Audio,

some big companies doing a lot of go to markets and product launches. And so now I'm

trying to take that knowledge and bring it to people who are trying to bring their

products to market, especially in this very interesting time we're living in. Yeah,

a crime. It's fun. It's exciting. And I am, I am just super, super jazz to be here.

Nick: Nice. Well, I'm always a pleasure to have you. Well, this is the first time. So I'm

a pleasure to have you. And I was also got Ty, Ty, I can't believe it. Ty, two weeks

in a row. What's going on? Never

Ty: a pleasure to have me.

Yeah, what is going on? Two weeks in a row. I'm not on for forever. And then two

weeks in a row. So, so don't worry. I won't trouble your door for a while now.

Maybe, maybe Christmas.

Have you muted yourself again?

Nick: I have. I don't know what it is. I've got the heat.

I'm going to say it's the heat. Yeah. Ty, of course, media composer and always busy.

Just, just, I just got the album out with Midjure. Yeah. How's that going? Is it on

any charts? What sort of charts would it be on? I have

Ty: no idea. I have no idea. I once it's done, I literally have no idea. All I know is

the general reviews have been fairly amazing. Actually, they've been really good.

The general feeling about it is very positive. So that's good. It means I did

something right for a change. So, so yes, so all good, all very good. Although right

at this moment, I don't know. They said last week, I was working on some BBC

documents. I don't quite know where I stand in that moment. Because having has

having never walked from a project or been sacked from a project ever in my life. I

don't quite know where I stand with it. This right at this moment, I may have

walked, I may have been sacked. I may still be on it. I may still be on it. And I

genuinely don't know. Oh, no, it's a good thing. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, it was

basically because it was a particular project that wasn't going well. And, and you

can only deal with idiots further up the ladder.

To a certain extent. And then eventually you have to kind of open your mouth and

kind of push back.

And I opened my mouth and kind of push back. Honestly, some of the stairs I was

getting were hilarious. I mean, at some pace, there's a when we see when I know they

were hysterical. I mean, beyond, you know, it's like when you're dealing with people

who know nothing about nothing, it was a bit like that anyway. So anyway, so I don't

know where I stand, I could be on it. I could be sacked. I could have created

prompts. I really don't have a clue. But I can all I can say is I feel great because

of it. Because otherwise, I'd have had to kill myself for the last week. And I can't

be and so I'm so happy about it.

Nick: Well, that's good. I mean, I guess in seeing that that's a good thing, right? I

mean, I know it's very much good. Yeah, I've spoken to a couple of people like this.

I mean, I guess you probably get this as well. I mean, based at your base in San

Diego, right? But which is close enough to to Hollywood.

Amanda: It's close to Santa Cruz is Northern California, but I'm down there quite a bit. So

it's all good.

Nick: Santa Cruz. Right. I'm sorry. That's why I was thinking, is it really that cold? But

Santa Cruz is further north, isn't it?

Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, like project based stuff.

Nick: Yeah, it's interesting. I was talking to somebody not that long ago, and they said

they were working on, I think it was an Apple TV thing. And it got to the point

where they were having these meetings with everybody apart from the director, who

had an opinion on what the music should be. And like, they're the musicians. And

it's like, well,

didn't you hire me because you like what I do, not because you want me to do

something that somebody else.

Ty: In this particular, in this particular instance, you know, kind of the, I can't

really obviously go into too much detail, but the spoken I personally spoke to high

upon high admitted that they didn't understand music and knew nothing about music.

And they were really feeding back from the person who was higher than them, who

admitted they knew nothing about music, and still trying to make music.

Amanda: Can you make it more sparkly, please?

Ty: Oh, no, that's fine. I can do sparkly. I can do sparkly. But yeah, I can't go into

too much detail, because if I go to too much detail, it becomes very specific, and

they will absolutely know who. But all I'm going to say is the reference, the

artists and the tracks they were citing were just, it would just leave you in

disbelief to the extent. And again, I can't say who, but when I spoke to the

director, the director and I, almost every conversation after one of these, these

things were cited, almost every conversation started with us both in complete

silence, until one of us would go, okay, then that would be after about 20 seconds

of silence, because neither of us could get their heads around what was being

suggested. And it literally did get to the stage where I was going to have

essentially six days of killing myself with no sleep, not knowing what I was going

to do. Not knowing, not understanding what they wanted, and where they wanted or

what they wanted, because it was so contrary. And it literally did just get staged

with it going, no, no, no, I've done this. It's not worth the hassle, basically. So

I feel great about it. So congratulations.

Nick: Thank you. I don't know if I've told this story before, but I once, I was once

working in, I think it was a, I can't remember which one it was, one of the big New

York Studios, Power Station, I think it was, and we were working with a, shall we

say, a long in the tooth girl band who were, who the record company had seen that

we'd had a bit of success with some urban type stuff in the UK and said, we want you

to apply this to revive the careers of these, these lovely individuals. They were

really nice, but it was literally every day they'd come in and listen, you know, so

we'd be working on stuff. They'd want them. We'd have to then stop at a certain time

just to do a board mix so that then we could then play it to them so they could give

us feedback. And after about three days of this, I mean, this is really early in my

career when I wasn't used to dealing with this kind of situation.

And we got to the point where it's just, I just, I don't really know. So we got it.

I got in the lift. And as we came, as we came down,

the guy in question came in and started going, and I said, look, honestly, we don't

have it. I don't understand what it is you want. Why don't you go upstairs and work

with the guy and get what you want and then play us that because I just don't, I

don't understand. Needless to say, it wasn't, wasn't a smash, but it was, we were

retainers. That was my first experience of that. And it was quite as guys, I was

only in my early twenties and I was sort of like, is this all right? It feels like,

but I was so cross. And you just, you just think it's such a waste of time. Anyway,

that's, I guess that's by the by, but this is all interesting inside information.

You know, people, I don't think people often understand what happens, the creative

interface, you know, and I suppose this could lead us on to a very interesting

experience. It could lead us on to some aspects of what we're going to talk about.

Ty: But bear in mind, you know, I've been doing this for whatever it is 35 years and

I've never, I've never ever got to this situation. I've never got to the state of

I've never walked. And I've never, it's never ever got to the stage where it, you

know, kind of the, it's just impossible. It was just impossible. That's basically

it. And so in 35 years, I think I've done well, but I also think, to be fair, I also

think back, you know, kind of 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I would have been more

bothered about pleasing people and taking the money. And do you know what I mean? I

think I would have had more patience then, but you kind of get to a point as you get

older where you just go, this is not worth it. And that's where I'm at.

Nick: I mean, the show must go on, isn't it? That's sort of so much the thing, you know, I

mean, and Andy, you're a DJ as well. So, I mean, you get that whole thing and there

are, you know, you've got the deal, you've got the deadline. And I think, I mean,

You do the thing and you just white knuckle it. Some of those deadlines are

absolutely horrific and it's like literally, right, coming to the studio now, we'll

finish it tonight. It's got to be in at 10 o'clock in the morning sort of thing.

Amanda: Yeah, you white knuckle it and then you just go and get it done and then you never

call them again.

Absolutely.

Right. That's what I, that's how you get the paycheck and run.

Ty: Believe me, there are two people, there are two people on my list of this that it's

just like people to never work with again. These two people are very much on that

list. Anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to bring this today.

Nick: Well, that cheery note.

But I mean, one of the reasons that we have you two on again, that's certainly Tyne

again and Amanda again is because we, we, we sort of spoke about the, the Native

instrument situation. Obviously we know,

Native instruments went into liquidation or went into receivership or whatever the

German equivalent is, I'm not entirely sure, you know, it's something along those

lines. And then because they own isotope and they own, what was the other thing?

Plug in the lines. Plug in the lines. That's right. It was kind of complex. And

there was this sort of moment where people were thinking, gosh, what happens if it

goes away? You know, what happens if the servers that, that, that, you know, say the

licenses are valid for my entire orchestral library that I'm in the middle of

scoring a film for or whatever go away? What, what then? And it sort of felt like

almost inconceivable this concept of too big to fail was a sort of, I think with a

pre approach to that.

Amanda: Yeah, definitely. And from a, from, from music standpoint, there's just so many

tools that musicians and, you know, media composers and everyone use every day. And

also, there's a whole ecosystem of indie developers and sample companies that rely

on contact for their sample libraries that they sell independent plug in. And

independent plugin developers that use plugin alliances, like a third party dealer

for their plugins. So it was like on both sides of the equation,

really existential. It was quite a, quite a cloud at the NAMM show for sure. For a

lot of people being like, wait, what's happening? Okay. So I need to go figure out

what I'm going to do with my contact libraries that I'm selling. Right? So yeah, it

was, it was, it was quite, quite the thing.

Nick: It's interesting, isn't it? I mean, I think, I think we, I mean, now we know,

obviously in music have stepped up. There was one of the, I mean, we were riffing on

this stuff in past discussions and in music seemed like one of the most obvious ways

to go. But I know, Ty, I mean, I was thinking at one point, you know, it's like,

okay, we need to get Zimmer, we need to get a few of these really big composers

together, Danny Elfman, and just go buy the server that's got the licensing stuff on

it so that it doesn't go away, you know, need some sort of cool. And it was, it was

so but now that's okay, right? I guess.

Ty: No, it is okay. I, I, the only reason I wasn't worried was for exactly the reason

that you exactly what you've just said, because there are, we all know the one area

of music that really does kind of make money, really is, is film, TV composer,

that's one area that, you know, continues to pay royalties and continues to make

money. And almost every, I mean, I was I would say everybody, but almost everyone I

know that does this relies heavily on contact. I mean, the rest of the NI stuff is

fantastic. And we all you know, we own the complete editions. And it's all great.

But the one thing here that you have to kind of concentrate on really is contact.

And we've all invested huge amounts of money on library. I've literally just looked,

I've just opened up my NI, I think, a couple of years ago, and I was like, I'm going

to do this. I opened up my NI thing. We all know that with contact, you have two

areas, you have the player instruments, and then you have the non player

instruments. So the non player instruments are basically anyone can release those

for contact. And I've got, I don't even know how many thousands of libraries I've

got in those, but thousands and thousands and thousands of libraries in that. But

just in the contact player,

I've, which are the ones that are registered within NI. You have to have the cereals

to work. In other words, if they're so if those cereals disappear from their

servers, we're screwed. I've got 979 libraries just in just in contact player. Okay.

So you can imagine if they go, I would be screwed. The only good thing is because

everybody that uses contact, everybody that does what I do, and is fortunate enough

to make money out of it, the ones really high up who make huge amounts of money out

of it. They they use contact as well. So there was always this belief for me, that

it would never go under because the contact wouldn't even if n I disappeared

somebody exactly as you say somebody with the money would step in and save contact,

even if they couldn't save the rest of NI, they would save contact. So I always

thought contact was was fairly safe long term. The rest of it, I wasn't sure about

in music. I mean, look, what they've they've done what they promised with Akai,

they've done what they've done with the company. What they've done what they

promised with move, they've, they've kept their word and not gone in and completely

screwed everything up, which some people did because they didn't do a great job with

a lysis, let's be honest. So, so so I mean, as someone to come in and buy, I

honestly couldn't really think of anyone better to come in and do the job, to be

fair, as long as they keep their word of basically staying fairly hands off with it.

Amanda: Well, yeah, and you know, they already had some signal that there was already

partnerships happening, right? Partnerships partnering, you know, native instruments

and and Novation, I believe we're we're already the MKM, MPC integration already.

Yeah,

exactly. So they already were in talks. So it was kind of like, okay, so in music

seems like a very likely buyer. The big question that's floating around in my brain

is, you know, in music does a lot of amazing, great stuff with hardware, but how

much have they done on the software side? So this is like a big challenge and

opportunity in the for in music to integrate this software portfolio with their

hardware portfolio. So it, it could be really great, right? It could really ground

out the round out how they're, you know, the offerings they bring to market as well

as just more integrations with software and hardware in general, right? The big

thing really is, is, you know, isotopes, isotope products are very heavily used,

right? And and developed, you know, native as well. And it's a matter of like, can

in music keep those people on board who make those products, right? The developers,

right? Because that's 20 years of of real deep software development. And so the the

way it can be successful is they keep those people on board and keep developing and

because because if they if they leave, they're not going to come back. And that's

going to be the hard part to keep because software is more than just a more, more of

an evolutionary product than hardware, right? And so you really need to keep it up.

And and they had the hands off approach, then then maybe that'll maybe a little

happen.

Nick: I wonder, yeah, I wonder, I should press this because this was actually what I was

going to do, which was that's to mark the topic. Let's talk about native

instruments. So it's marked now anyway, at least. But what I was saying that you

know, that there's a quote from Jack O'Donnell, who is, it's interesting, because

those who perhaps don't know, in music is, as far as I can gather is privately

owned. And previously, isotope and the whole sound wide that began rebranded as a

native instruments, because it seemed to be of cockat was, was more of a VC kind of

funding type of thing. And we ended up in a situation where I feel I expect much of

that sort of stripping out of the unnecessary things like development, which I don't

believe isn't necessary, but maybe some of the the edge cases of that has already

happened. So maybe the good news could be it sort of works as an entire thing, it

just goes bang straight in. And it's like, hey, we've got a sort of match fit

streamlined development team with no dead wood in it. And we can just power on

ahead. Which would be, which would be awesome. And Jack O'Donnell says, and there's

a quote of the tools you rely on today will keep working. The tools we like, you

will rely on tomorrow are being are actively being built. Which is, I mean, what a

great piece of marketing. I mean, that's like that. I think you'd have been proud

and say better with that line. Yeah, it's true or not. I'm not sure. But that's the

thing. I think one area that is interesting is the DJ side of things, obviously,

tractor is a massive sort of DJ engine. So lots of people use that. Whereas they

also own new Mark and Denon already. So there's this hardware, hardware, less of an

issue. I mean, and I do their own hardware. So I'm guessing maybe the hardware will

go away like machina and things like that. And then the other one will be less

supported. And all of that stuff will come across to maybe be more working on the on

the already existing hardware.

Amanda: Yeah, there's definitely redundancies there with the other NPC and the machina

stuff. But yeah, there's dedicated users for both. So it'll be really interesting to

see how that works. Because, yeah, she has like a good following as well. The thing

that's so interesting, you know, I'm a DJ and like Pioneer is just they just got the

hold on the DJ market with their hardware and the clubs and having the controllers

that kind of like move up into the clubs. So, you know, this is with with a tractor

coming into to end music. This is the first time it's like, all right, maybe we got

enough on this side to really make something because because the the software on

Pioneer side is their Achilles heel. So now with and they have instruments, tractor

software is really great. So so there could be opportunities there. We'll just have

to see.

Nick: Yeah, be interesting. I guess I also did you get into machine of time. Sorry.

Ty: I stopped with machine. I got to machine. I got studio machine, a machinist, you do

whichever one that was. And I went up to the I've kept upgrading it. But I went

through a stage of using it. And then when it became the machine of three,

I just kind of I just yeah, it's like everything you kind of has a life and then you

kind of get to a point where you kind of go, okay, I'm not really using this now as

it should be used and you kind of have to at some point jump ship. So I kind of

stopped at machine studio really.

What I had, you know what, since I did the last last setup, I haven't even

reinstalled it in here. So that kind of should tell you everything. But same with

push. I haven't even put my push back in either. So I kind of Yeah, I've just kind

of stopped going down that route bit. I did. The one thing I did want to just say is

I I always I found and I'm not saying this is why and I was struggling. But when

they did the whole buy up of isotope and plugging Alliance.

I don't know what was going on there. I don't know whether that was just feeling a

bit. I don't know whether we're getting too big for their boots. But I I use I I

bought more or less everything that plugging Alliance did and and I still do. Do to

be fair. And same with isotope.

And I've been isotope user since day one of ozone one. And I've literally been there

all the way through it. And when they signed, you know, kind of in the built up by

an eye. It all just suddenly just something changed in the way the whole thing was

marketed and pushed and direction and also the pricing of upgrades and all that kind

of thing. And it all went. I think the technical phrase is a bit tits up. And it

just it just start everything changed and it suddenly felt wrong. And it's like the

thing is about, for example,

ozone and our ex is the fact that the upgrades were always reasonable. They were

always worth doing because they were always worth, you know, kind of. And then they

suddenly just the you're looking at the upgrades going, hang on a minute. All of a

sudden, you're not you're not taking into account that I've been a user. I've got

all the versions leading up to this. And you're now telling me that the price I've

now got to pay from here to here is what and what exactly do I get? Where there was

none of that before it was all it all seemed quite fair. And then once it was bought

up by an eye, all the upgrades suddenly took it. And also the fact that everything

is suddenly integrated into the thing. And I was getting multiple. You're getting

multiple emails from everybody from plug in Alliance from ozone from and I all

saying the same thing. And sometimes even offering you different upgrade grade paths

and all this kind of thing. And you're thinking all of that just needs to be either

just split off again, you know, kind of ozone isotope needs to very much not be part

of an eye in this in this bio and plug in Alliance needs to not be part of an eye.

And I is one thing, isotope is another thing. And plug in Alliance is another thing

and just keep them separate, keep them their own merry little go in their own merry

little way so that you people users like me that use all of them, don't get

bombarded with this completely conflicting information, and also go back to making

upgrades actually fair and decent rather than trying to prep money off.

Nick: But I think I think this I think this is probably the difference, isn't it? Because

I mean, ultimately, when you're, when you're funded by VC, there's no kind of real,

there's no real general sort of generally a feel for the creative industry, it's

that you return on investment. And once you've once you've taken the money, you

don't really you don't get to steer the ship anymore. And that's what you know, the

people want the return on their investment is because I've I've I've spoken to many

people about this, it's actually getting money, VC money into creative industry. And

so the real thing about the industry is, is not as hard as it was probably harder

than it used to be, but it used to be the sort of the cool thing to do. So it's easy

and easy sell, but a terrible deal at the other end of it. So you can get the money,

but then all sorts of bad stuff happens because they just don't get it. And I'm

guessing that probably the end of it, you know, maybe maybe the people isotope

decided they wanted to exit strategy and it's like, okay, we're done. Maybe they

thought AI is coming. Some of these tools, some of this noise reduction stuff is

becoming less exclusive to the industry. It was less exclusive to us, you know, I

don't know what.

Amanda: Well, a big big thing about it was the timing, right? So you have to remember when

the sale happened was the height of pandemic. And so that was when plug in sales and

music equipment sales went through the roof. So valuations for every music company

was sky high, so it was It was a great time if you're going to sell to sell to a VC

folks who don't understand what the actual baseline for music products industry is.

What we've had to endure the last few years is the hangover effect. They did a

leveraged buyout. They did 10X the debt over what the yearly revenue was for those

companies. There was no way. That's why the upgrade, the pricing, they were just

trying to get as much money as they could, but they were never going to be able to

make as much as they could that they bought it for. There was just no, the math

wasn't there.

This was an inevitability from when that deal happened. Now we're in a place where

it's back in the music products industry. We have a few years of baseline knowing

what the actual revenue stream is, if everyone's not staying at home making music.

There is a really, to your point, a really great opportunity to have products being

made, products being sold, a right-sized team,

and making money again. Because they're good products and the industry needs them

and in music saw that. I think there's reasons to be optimistic moving forward.

Nick: Yeah. Well, that's a great point for me to insert a crass advert in here.

Ty: Nick, can I just say, what are you doing two weeks in a row bringing in people who

really, really, really know their shit and know what they're talking about? What are

you doing? I'm not used to this.

Nick: It's a new thing.

Ty: I know this is a new thing you're trying out.

Nick: Well,

back to me who doesn't know what they're doing. I'm going to bring an ad from our

friends. We'll be back shortly after this. Right.

Yeah, I think I know this is sort of outside of our usual fare, but we often don't

have people with such specific and core interests in such a specific topic. I mean,

obviously there's more to life than just these particular things.

I think so. It feels like what we're thinking is it's probably a good it's probably

one of the better outcomes. I really like the idea because one of the things that I

find so just tasteful about VC is they've I think they've figured out how to they

they monetize the buy, extract the value and then monetize the debt afterwards. So

you end up making money at both ends of it. And it's just a really horrible way of

because there's no product is there? It's just like here's a load of cash sitting

around and they got as much as they could. I mean, Jack O'Donnell is a pretty hard

nosed businessman. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have paid a decent price. There is no

record of what was paid. So, I mean, I would like to think that maybe some of those

VCs lost a bit of cash that they can't put into somewhere else, I guess. But I don't

know. Maybe you know more, man.

Amanda: Yeah, they I'm sure they they lost money in the deal. But yeah, it doesn't matter

for VC. But what it does matter is for the people who work there. Right. And so it's

it's because because the people who work at these companies care a lot. It's not

just a job for many of them. So it's like really hard to be in that environment. And

so I definitely give my hats off to the people who've been working under that

environment and hope that, you know, in music can can kind of level it and get in a

place where they they feel less of that pressure. They're they're out from under

that debt pressure now. And so that's that's really exciting, actually.

Nick: And I suppose the big thing also is we want to make sure that the people who maybe

were left holding holding on to a debt from, you know, the last Black Friday sale

that hadn't gone through the royalty systems for their small sample company are

going to get paid. I mean, that's a really big and important thing.

Amanda: It's a big one. It's a big one. Like, like the folks, you know, there are plugging

companies that plug in Alliance is a big part of their their revenue stream. And so

they were up in the air. It's like, I don't know if I'm even going to be able to

sell my plug ins in three months. Right. And so now it's like, OK,

we have we have the system. You know, there's still a lot of unknowns. But but yeah,

things are things are better now than they were when they were kind of kind of up in

the air for sure.

Nick: And I suppose, you know,

to leave it on a more positive note, it feels like, you know, the trajectory is a

positive one. And so I mean, I guess, you must get like, hey, new library out of

you. Has that stopped happening or are you still getting kind of notification?

Ty: No, I mean, I have to say it has slowed down in the last few months. It has it has

slowed down slightly.

I tell you, I'm noticing there's loads more libraries that have been not developed

for contact. There's suddenly been developed for sandbox, the audio thing. Is it

audio thing? I think it is audio thing.

Yeah, a lot more libraries being developed.

Well, I don't think it's ported over. It's just libraries that you know naturally

would have gone on to contact and now going on to sandbox. The sandbox is great. I

mean, it's a free it's a free player. But I mean, it's got a fraction of the amount

of capabilities that that contacts got. But no, I mean, the contact libraries are

still coming. But they see what you also understand, have to understand is contact.

There's a lot of companies that develop their own players.

They claim a lot of it is because of they want to develop things differently and

whatever. But the reality of the situation is they develop it because if you're

going to develop a library for contact player, you have to pay them a license fee.

And I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the figure. But it's not cheap. And so

there are people like kind of Spitfire and

sound paint that you were to work with. People are developing their own players. And

I'm sure some of it is because they want to do specific things. But I think most of

it is just because they don't want to be paying the licenses to contact. I

appreciate that and understand that. So there's a lot of libraries coming out.

But yeah, and contacts still still contact still the main one at the end of the day.

And it's still the best one, I'm sorry to say, because I've got all the other ones

and they're all great and they all have their own place and do their own thing. But

contact is still is still the best one for me anyway. So yeah.

Nick: Yeah. OK, well, so so we've done we've done native instruments. I'm just thinking

we're going to the other thing that we're going to talk about, which I think is

interesting. Maybe we'll have a slight amuse-bouche just because this is this. We'll

throw this one in here and then we'll come back to our next one so that we're not on

to back to back heavies. So this one's really interesting. This is the new Oak Sound

sooth 3, which as far as I can

Speaker 2: tell, it's with great pleasure. And after a ton of research and development that

we're releasing soothe 3. This video is meant for those who are already familiar

with soothe 2. We're going to go over what's new and what's changed in this new

generation of soothe. You can also check out our I

Nick: won't play it. Or there's a load of really good little short videos out there at the

moment, which is like this is what basically a crappy sounding acoustic guitar can

sound like. And here's the boxiness and here's what soothe does with it and just

removes everything and makes it all lovely. And it's not cheap. I mean, it's two

hundred and fifty nine bucks. I mean, it's a premium plug in, but it's one of those

ones that seems to have to be everywhere. Whenever I see people talk about it

everywhere, because it's great for just sort of taking fairly crappy sound sources

and smoothing them out, even the making them easier to mix. You could use it live as

well for suppressing resonant frequencies and stuff. I don't know, Tyze, it's

something that you've come across. I mean, I guess most of your stuff is going to be

pre processed if it's in sample libraries. It's already sounding nice. So it maybe

doesn't need as much of that sort of work. But I'm not sure this is something you

are familiar with.

Ty: Well, I'm going to say that Midge's album would not existed without soothe,

basically.

Well, I wouldn't. I mean, it's it's I've been there again since day one with soothe

and then soothe two and now soothe three.

I can't even I can't recommend it highly enough. It's you know, you know, sometimes

when you see these bits of software and they show the before and after and the

bypass and then you actually get it and you're there going, really? This isn't quite

as it was on the demos. This is the opposite of that. Everything, all the magic

stuff that it does on the demos,

it does in the studio for you. It's just it's all so many issues and so many

problems. And yeah, well, when I was doing the album, it was it was I lost a number

of track how many had soothe on just to mainly to do with vocals and guitars and

bass and a few bits of drums, whatever. It's just but it's also it's not just a

problem solver. You can do creative, amazing creative things with it as well.

Yeah, because it's basically got soft and hard and especially on the new one, soothe

three, the soft mode is basically they they've redeveloped it. So it's really

transparent and basically does this really fantastic kind of combination between

compression and dynamic EQ. And and it's it's really does it really transparently,

but does the job. And then you put it into the hard setting and it can completely

change the sound and all the all the artifacts that if you're trying to do

transparently, you don't want from a sound creative point of view, you can get some

really fantastic kind of pumping and sidechaining kind of effects. And yeah, soothe

cannot recommend it highly enough. Absolutely fantastic.

Nick: I think they seem to be one of the sort of software superstar successes.

Ty: Oh, I mean, again, spiff. They do spiff as well. They do spiff as well by sounds and

all of that. All of their plugins are just fantastic.

Nick: Yeah, I think you can run it in real time across inputs as well. Is it something

you've come across? I mean, I guess working in, you know, the industry that you are,

you will be aware of this. People must be referring to it

Amanda: 100 percent. Like soothe is definitely known as one of those plugins like, oh, yeah,

it's a lot, but it makes everything sound really good. Right. So people people use

it a lot. It definitely comes across. And it's a really interesting way of solving

problems, right, instead of this kind of surgical. You're you're dialing in using

your ears like this is kind of it's a bit of an intelligent helper. Right. It kind

of just smooths it out. So it's like those those big changes you still do. But it's

it's kind of like that final polish, you know. And I think I think this one has a

new low latency mode.

Nick: So yeah, that one makes it better for almost almost zero milliseconds. I'm like, oh,

wow, possible. Yeah, yeah, that's quite low. I'd say that's low latency. That's a

little low.

Amanda: It's a little low. Yeah, exactly. So so so, yeah, I mean, it's been primarily a

mixing tool, but but now kind of opens it up to be more of like a live performance

and tracking tool, which is phenomenal.

Nick: I think I've seen it running to be able to run on the big digital design live desks.

I think that's where where that was formerly TDM, whatever the whatever that is

these days, I don't even know. Hey, hey, hey, X is it. I don't know. Yeah, I don't

even know what it is.

So many. Yeah, that stuff. But yeah, that's going to be really handy. Anyway, just

throw that in there.

I thought it was. But also, I mean, guessing a lot of what's happening here is

machine learning and that stuff, which people I mean, they don't bang on about it

being AI, which I think is kind of pretty positive because there might be some that

they would, you know, the algorithmic and machine learning, which I think is

probably more true of a lot of what is masquerading as AI than we would expect.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah, the term AI has gotten pretty toxic. And it's been around longer than

people think, like a lot of the isotope, our ex stuff, you know, they have a

assistance or machine learning. You know, it's been in for over a decade and it's

been something that's been supporting musicians, you know, so but that's gotten a

little more controversial these days.

Nick: It has was interesting when that does sort of take us to another topic, which I

wanted to put those in between, but this kind of links up pretty nicely, I guess. So

what we'll probably do is I'll run a bit of this that I've also got another ad to

get in there, but I'm aware of this sort of stuff can go on. So this was just

acceptable uses of AI. This was actually here we go. This is time of music where you

use your voice. It's a library. It finds sounds.

Amanda: Oh,

yeah,

that one's really cool. It's like you're yeah, Tambor just launched this month.

Right. There there's there's been finally some movement in the direction of

assistive things that are helping workflows. And so that example was Tambor's

librarian. They have a voice activation where you can actually at least from the

demo from percussive sounds, give a percussive sounds and then it searches your

library for samples that that that match that.

So so, yeah, I'm I'm really excited with some of the things that are coming out.

Tambor has that's a creative suite that also has samples, some some a generative

samples as well.

Sample library they made and the librarian as well as voice assisted in orbit audio

is another one that's like in the beta stages, right? There they're doing sign up

for early access and they're really looking to solve the problem of your creative

workflow, like putting music, putting a layer on your computer that read your sample

libraries, regardless of what program you're using and just starting to take take

note of your creative workflows and how it can can help. It also has voice

activated. Hey, I'm looking for like a distorted, you know, kick drum here and it

gives you those samples and find similar ones. So so, yeah, I'm I'm pretty excited

about this because as you could see, I'm like already jumping into it. The the

conversation has been overtaken by generative, right? Generative music and a lot of

companies that I frankly call them tech music companies, not music tech companies.

These are people who have scientists who have developed generative, a generative

music and then look for a problem to solve. Right. They're like, how can we sell

this? Right. And I'm really interested. I really think we need more music makers

making music products that are solving actual workflow solutions for people. So

that's like my whole soapbox. Right.

So so, you know, I think like in orbit, Tambor Roax is a great one that does

similar to isotope, but but more automated mixing

and mastering, which is really, really great, as well as as file leaders. It's more

utilitarian and that one's more.

Nick: Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, the file is where you can just. But I mean, I

don't know, you have to deliverables. I imagine the cues and then the submixes and

the kind of like, do you have to do? Do you have to deliver all of that stuff? I

mean, I'm guessing. I mean, let's let's be one thing that's very clear is where this

is not about maybe giving generative AI. Any kind of platform, I don't think any of

us any of us are interested in that. And I don't think our audience are either. But

my umbrella topic was was kind of OK, it's a technology that we can use. What what

uses would it be useful for, I suppose, if you were to use that sort of stuff?

Because we probably all are anyway, to a degree, without even knowing it, whether

it's in searches or whatever. And I was just saying, so deliverables. I mean,

finally, it seems I mean, I

Ty: think that would be a fantastic use of it if you if you could in terms of stems and

yet just deliverables, if you could just literally turn around and give it a project

and without having to do all the sorting out all of the.

The dirty work that takes forever, just when you when you're working on a cue,

because the reality is when you're working on a cue, you'd be and you're doing it

really quickly. The last thing you'll want to do when you're working on pieces of

music very quickly is sit there going, now I must group them together so that when I

come to produce the stems in next week, I, you know, kind of they're all together

and they're all collected on the same folder. When you're working quickly, that's

the last thing you're thinking about. If there was somewhere, someone some way that

I could do that with you all the way, that would be fun. That would be really

helpful in terms of the sample searching thing. I've bought it, but I've never used

it. Is it is it called XO? The by who the excellent audio. Yeah, the audio. So so I

mean, I bought that because I saw a demo of that. Oh, my God, that looks really

useful.

I installed it and I've never used it. But again, that that if it could do that kind

of thing, but in a more kind of

accurate way, that would be fun.

Amanda: Why haven't you used it? Why haven't you used it?

Ty: Because I don't I don't have time to fart. Never mind. Leaving things to analyze my

hard drives of which are just ridiculous.

But yeah, that's that's all it is. I kind of I love the idea of it, but I genuinely

just haven't had time to. And I bought it ages ago. And if I'm honest, I bought ages

ago, had all the best intentions and then just forgot about it. And it's only whilst

talking about this. Because as as Nick said, I mean, everyone knows anyone that

cares.

My views on AI generally as an umbrella are it is shite. I never want to have

anything to do that. It should be shot at birth.

That's very much how I see. I actually had the conversation with someone today.

Basically, we were talking about tech and about AI and about deep fake stuff in

terms of within money and general people, you know, being scammed and all this kind

of thing. And honestly, if I had my way and I do really mean this, if there was a

way that you could box up all the AI in the world and go, do you know what, we tried

it and it hasn't gone so well. We'll just put it all back in the box and we're going

bury it somewhere and then cover it with, you know, kind of 300 feet of concrete.

That's how I would do with AI, because I understand its benefits in terms of

medicine. Fantastic. But in so many other areas, it's like everything in this world,

it will be misused. And sometimes it's for scamming and for doing bad and criminal

activity. And in my case, the way that AI is used at the moment, generally speaking,

and is really, really encouraged, is all about generative, because apparently

musicians, we don't as musicians, we don't enjoy, remember, do you remember this

statement? 100%. We don't enjoy making music. At the same time, if we can just put

generative stuff to one which I think is literally the work of the devil, if I can

in some way incorporate it, that's going to make my life easier in a just speed

things up kind of way. And it means that if I could turn around and go, just say, I

want a baseline that is, you know, kind of resonant filter, you know, kind of band

pass, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it gives me some suggestions. That's fine. It's

not doing anything for me. All it's doing exactly what I would do, except rather

than me taking half an hour to find the right sense and with the right settings and

then work on it. It's basically doing it for me.

That I can even that I can just about cope with that. And it really is in my head,

because the other half of my brain is going, hang on a minute, I've learned to do

this since I was 14 years old on my first and I've learned synthesis, I've learned

all of this. And there is a bit of me begrudgingly going, I've spent 30 odd years

learning this and now I can just turn around and speak to it and it'll do it for me.

Amanda: And there's a bit of me going. I know it's like learning how to beat match on vinyl

and now there's a sync button. You're just like, why? Why did you do this to me? But

at the end of the day, it's like that's technology for you. It's like we used to

ride horses and no one knows how to ride a horse anymore. Right. Yeah.

And so it's like, you know, but to your point, I feel like the conversation has been

owned so far by folks who aren't musicians and the party tricks.

Nick: And so it's like party

Amanda: tricks to raise funds for VC folks who also don't know anything about the industry.

And so and there's some really great folks who at some of those bigger companies

that are developing really great things for musicians, but it's really hard to

bubble up those product ideas when the people at the top maybe don't see, you know,

you right now, I think we're at a point in technology, in music technology, where

you really need to have people with a point of view, right? People who are making

products with a point of view who have had to tear their hair out for a particular

problem at 2am and be like, why hasn't someone solved this, right? Co-creating those

products with people who know how to make music products and have done it for a long

time, right? And funding those kind of companies, right? Those grassroots companies,

they're not as shiny and party trick is, hey, we just made a whole song for you. But

this is these are the kind of technologies that are be helpful and useful day to

day, day in and day out. And people will can't live without them. Right. And so

that's, that's the stuff I'm. So excited about.

Nick: I agree. I think the problem is because of the level of investment that's gone into

the sort of general AI rather than specialized, which would be, you know,

specialized would be audio and light.

Amanda: Need specialized. Yeah, totally.

Nick: Whatever is the amount of money it costs to fund to run the computers to access

those models. It makes a niche product like this sort of almost unattainable. You

know, it's actually cheaper to have a human do it really. Good point. Because it

would cost. So I think that's where where things are, where things are changing. I

think where things are going to change and they're going to change pretty rapidly

is, you know, we've been certainly in the States and in other other nations have

been sort of running headlong into massive data centers and these huge points of

failure and power and everything. Whereas we've all got extremely powerful computers

at our, you know, many of us have very powerful computers at our fingertips that

could be used for local stuff. And then that's where the key is. And also, I mean,

it's like what you're describing, Ty, is we need, there needs to be something that

kind of is interfacing with the door at a level that understands your way of

working. So you would describe it as, you know, if you just said, look, all I've got

time for is to color the tracks for base blue and the other things like this. And so

if you just, can you just do that? So just take that input and do this with it,

please. Yeah, that would be enough. But the mundanity. Yeah, yeah. But ultimately,

you still need to have it give it some kind of structure because it cannot be in

your head. You can't look at it and go, you know, that's a base sound, I think. And

it's like, no, it's not. It's it's not.

Ty: The thing is, it wouldn't be difficult to do that, because all you have to do is

give it some past work you've done without that level and turn around and go, OK,

analyze this. This is how my head works. This is how I color my tracks. And it would

take nothing to learn that because there would be continuity because we will. I do.

I tend to go for the same colors, you know, kind of from

Nick: a template, presumably as well.

Ty: Absolutely that because we've had this conversation before. Everything that I ever

do starts from a template. So all it needs to do is analyze the templates and it

will see the common themes and it will know what to do that that I absolutely that

would that kind of stuff. Yes, that would be great.

Amanda: I can't imagine if you're like having you're doing your session and it's recording

your session, your how you do your session and then it just knows how you do your

session. Yeah.

Ty: Yeah. I mean, that that kind of stuff is is is fine. It's just trying to very much

separate that from things like Suno and trash like that. You know, kind of, you

Nick: know, that's I suppose that they're the kind of they're the shiny objects that get

people talking about it that raise the funding. I think part of the problem is is at

the moment we're in a really bad situation where money is made from products that

don't exist yet. And then all this fun. Just kind of is the bubble. The bubble in

the US is is absolutely terrifying. It's really, really interesting. There's a

really interesting analogy. I listen to a couple of different podcasts. One of them

was just about the way that China is doing similar things in terms of, you know,

massive AI. But the way that they do it is very different to the way that states

like the US do it. One of the US does it in capitalism is in a litigious form. So

it's it's restrained and it's kept kept in check by rules which tend to favor the

people who are not who have got more money. Whereas in China, they just go have at

it, help yourselves. It's all free. And then they help the top ones. So it's just a

different it's a different approach. And it seems to me that I think one might be

better than the other for some reason.

Ty: The biggest problem I have more than anything else with with things like Suno,

because that's the one that I know that I've encountered from other people.

Point me in the direction of it for different reasons. It's more to do. I think it's

actually a social thing because it's more to do with the fact that you just read so

much of these people that are I'm going to use this in vertical as writing songs or

producing tracks on sooner. You're not don't be an idiot. Anyway, whatever you're

doing on Suno, they they honestly think they sincerely think that they're producing

music. They sincerely think that they're writing this and no matter how much you

want to turn to go. No, you're not. You are not doing anything. You're putting in

some text and giving it some reference points to then go and rip off the people that

have done it in the because through learning and legal learning because this music

should never been able to be ripped off in the way that you're ripping off. That's

all you're doing. That's and then you're that's that's that's another whole point

that this music should not be accessible. And eventually this legally, this is all

going to go completely ballistic. And someone is going to win a case where their

music can't be nicked. And then the floodgates are open. And then this entire thing,

Suno will go back up its own ass and it will not be soon enough. And everyone that

writes with Suno and honestly believes that they're writing music or writing tracks.

You are delusional. You are. Well, let's you. You are money.

Amanda: Let me let me push back on that a little bit. Right. Oh,

no. Oh, no.

Gloves are off. All this sweet California girls just ruining your day. OK, so.

No. So 100 percent correct. They have ripped off the entire catalog of human music

to make these tools and legally and all of this is a quagmire. It's a nightmare and

it's already wreaking havoc on your job. Lots of jobs and all that. So I'm putting

that whole bundle of I agree with you to the side. Right now. And and there are we

are now seeing a new persona, a new group of type of music makers who don't know

what it means to make music. Right. These are people I kind of see them like DJs,

right? Like DJs, curators, right, who are curating music and making things, but but

not at the granularity and the level. But I think this could be an amazing step

stepping stone to make more music makers. Right. Because that work from being coming

a DJ and a music curator to a music writer, that step is huge. I've taken that step

and it is very hard. So we now have this intermediate step of that. And then now we

have generating stems. Right. You can do generative stems. And so then you can

generate some stems. Oh, and then maybe I can practice making my own drum beat or I

can practice a piano or I can sing into it. And so the studio is kind of like a

gateway drug to being able to break apart those stems. And once you start

understanding music and then starting real music makers will use this as a stepping

stone to actually become real music makers.

Ty: Right. Real music makers would bypass this completely. That's the bottom line. Real

music.

Nick: Well, only if they already know. I know. It's 12 years old.

Amanda: If they're 12 years old. Absolutely.

Ty: I started playing piano. I was eight years old. I've got friends whose kids are

five, six, seven years of learning music. Real music. Real music.

Amanda: But they're not drummers. They're not bass players, right? My daughter's a drummer.

Right. No, I'm saying, but like a piano player, you're starting playing piano,

you're not going to necessarily be a drummer right off the bat too. So you're going

to maybe generate some drums to go on.

Ty: You learn the same way that I learned to drum the same way I learned to play guitar.

And I learned to play saxophone. And the same way that real music makers learn to

play instruments.

Nick: No,

I think there's some value to both of those arguments, but I'm going to have to

interject because I have an advert to play, but I've got to come back to you later

as well. Be back after this.

Right. I wanted to come back at the time because just purely, interestingly, Mark

Tinley, who's been a regular guest on this show,

he's had lots of life shit that he's had to deal with. He's been a musician for

years and years and years. He's written lots and lots and he's been posting pieces

of music that he has

had in the back pocket for a long time. So he's had sort of songs that he's written

that hasn't finished arranging them. And he's been feeding them into things like

Suno Studio and using aspects of what it spits back at him from his own material to

reframe, rearrange and finish some of those arrangements. And I think, and he's sort

of said, I don't know how I should feel about this because I wouldn't have finished

this song. Now I've got this and I think it's quite good because it's my lyrics, my

melody, some of the other aspects are this sort of hybrid thing. So there is this

sort of gray area. I mean, I know, you know, that that's the I suppose that's

something that's kind of interesting. I wonder what you think about that in terms

of.

Ty: Look, I should just say I. So I've got a friend who was in a very long term marriage

and she very suddenly got taken Hill and unfortunately, three months in she passed

away. She used to write poetry and his way of dealing with the grief was he used to

put the poetry in to Suno. They used to they used to give the reference points of

all the music that they've loved over the years. And Suno used to produce these

tracks. Now he will be the first to admit that those pieces of music are amazing.

What came out the other end are truly incredible. They sound the vocals are

unbelievable. The string writing is unbelievable. Everything about it is fantastic.

But he he as a musician appreciates that this is it's not real music. It's basically

it is for him. It's therapy. And so that kind of use that kind of use. I appreciate

and the way that Mark, you know, kind of you're absolutely right. Mark's had to deal

with a whole load of crap in his life. And so that is as much therapy for him. I

would honestly say, I think it is the fact he's got these things finished. That kind

of usage, I have to sit here and go, that has its that has its use. That has its

value. That has its purpose. The reality is, I honestly think the the amount of

people citing people like my friend and like Mark are make such a small percentage

if people that and the thing is, my friend actually comes in admitting that before

his wife unfortunately died, she did actually turn around and go, whatever you do,

don't play any of this to tie because tie will go ballistic.

And knowing my view on all of this, but I what I'm saying is in those instances, as

everything in life, there are always exceptions. And there are always valued

exceptions. I all I know is that percentage would be so you then I because I've

looked at all the sooner sites, you look at the people who genuinely believe that

they are writing, you know, it's their music and they are geniuses. And you look at

them, and they're the ones you kind of go, no, it is not you are not go and learn to

play an instrument or go and do it the way that we've all had to do it. God, I sound

like an old man.

Nick: I mean, I am I am getting back to the fifties and rock and roll, you know, it just

sort of feels a little bit but there is a little but I know

Ty: even then, even then it still all came back to me. This is the thing it all came

back to if you travel back from from everything from 2000 backwards, before loops

before AI before all of this. Yes, music changed. And yes, every generation went all

that music's crappy, never it's not like it used to be. Every generation's done

that. But the reality is, it was all done on human beings learning instruments for

hundreds of years.

Amanda: And now it isn't from machines have no soul.

Remember that? Remember the bumper sticker? Of course. Machine have no soul.

Nick: That's a really I mean, but Amanda, you know, I was I was thinking, you know, I,

I started out in music because I could sample things and sampling. Yeah. Yeah. And

that helped me put together rhythm tracks that I couldn't possibly have played or

programmed.

And that's a stepping. So I'm using the machinery to kind of aid me. So I suppose

there's a thing. And I think your point is, I know you you've mentioned at least at

some point, the problem that we have is that the fact that it what the data it's

trained on, I wonder if there's room for this this notion of ethical training, where

you know that you're not it's not the combined body of work, it's just something

else or specially commissioned. I don't know. Is there a difference? I mean, oh,

Amanda: absolutely, absolutely. And there are ethically trained data sets out there. Tambour

has generative AI in their product. And it's all trained on sample libraries that

they built, right? So there are ways to do it.

But but yeah, it's still the

thing. Is it yours, right? And that and that's, that's always that's always the

tricky part. That we have to do out but there are there are 100% ethical ways to do

this. It's just wasn't the fast and easy way for these companies to do it. So and

they just did it. And that is one of the biggest sins of the 21st century.

100%. You know, but so getting back to the show title there, Amanda, it is the

biggest sin of the 21st century is stealing the entire conglomeration of human

thought and and and capitalizing on it. It's the worst thing ever.

And it'll give us great things and and terrible things and but assistive tools. So

here's here's my here's my wish list. Automation assistance, I would like help with

automation. I hate writing automation. I just don't like it, especially over

multiple tracks. And if there's some way that the computer can do that for me, I am

happy. I am I write electronic music, I DJ, I only have a couple hours a week in the

studio if that so automation, please, right? Vocal enhancers, not replacers, right?

There are a ton of vocal replacers out there right now. I can sing. I was in choir

for four years. I have a voice. It's not a great voice, but it's a voice. And I want

to use it, but I want it to sound like I want it to sound, you know. So if there's

ways to use AI tools to to enhance the voice, I mean, Melodyne and Auto-Tune, those

are those are great. I mean, we need a new Melodyne. Melodyne needs a new Melodyne.

There's there's great opportunities in there to to really shape your own vocal in a

way that could be a lot more elastic than I think it can be now. And then just like

mix coaches, like there's a lot of automagical mixers and mastering solutions, but

I'd love a coach. I'd love someone to just be like, hey, you know, why don't you try

playing with this at, you know, 20 dB or 2 dB and see if it sounds better, right?

Those sorts of things. I think we're really close to that. Just the audio analysis

thing. I think that's pretty close. Yeah. And yeah, the voice activation in the

studio, I think that's something we're already starting to see and could be really

helpful and could be also really frustrating. It's just like yelling at your intern

producer friend, right? So it's a double-edged sword there. So those are those are

that's my wish list, you know, so all of

Ty: those are totally, totally justifiable. But I tell you the way I kind of see this, I

kind of hope in a way, if I'm honest, I kind of see it. Do you remember,

oh God, 2000, whenever it was, when was the iPad invented? 2010? Would it be 2000?

Ish? Yeah. Ish. Okay. Do you remember how all of a sudden there was a move within

the world that everything was? How to be an app? Do you remember? I just remember,

you know, kind of, it's when like the Raven came out and all of a sudden you don't

need a mix and desk. You don't need a screen, the touch screen, everything was touch

screen. And same with cars, everything and cars, everything is touchscreen. And just

like the way it's gone with cars now, and just like the way it's gone in terms of

controllers, because for years, there was suddenly everything was touchscreen

controllers. Now, everyone wants it to go back to knobs. Everyone wants physical

controllers. Everyone wants to realize that touchscreen is not the be all and end

all that we thought it was going to be. And I honestly would love to believe, and

I'm probably totally delusional. I'd love to believe that a lot of the crap that

we're getting at the moment about everything is AI, every single thing is AI, skip

forward 15 years and everyone will turn around and go, God, have you seen this

thing? It's just, it's just a mixer. It's called a guitar. Yeah, exactly.

It's just a, it's just a mixer. You have to do everything yourself, you know.

Amanda: I have 100%. I 100% agree with you. The safest place to be right now is a live

performing musician.

Absolutely. 100%. Recorded music is going to be just a nightmare. But, but, but, you

know, working at a speaker company would be great right now, right? It's just like

people will always want

community, you know, community and playing music together.

There's going to be a virtual world where that's much more possible on the

electronic side of things. But on the acoustic side of things, I think there's, I

think we're going to see a great resurgence in art and musicality, because if

anybody can make a song, who's going to want to listen to a DJ? They don't even know

if they wrote the song or not. Right. So live performance is going to be where it's

at. So yeah, I 100% agree with you on that one.

Ty: That in itself is awesome.

Nick: Yeah. Well, we do need a resurgence of venues, certainly in the UK. And I've seen

it.

Amanda: Yeah, I yeah, 100%. I think yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think, I think it's coming. It

might be a second, but, but I agree.

Nick: Yeah. Well, that'd be good. Hey, that feels like a positive note. It feels like a

good note to actually maybe consider drawing things to an end. It's been absolutely

amazing. I want to thank very much our chat, chatties for being in there, hanging in

there with us. I know it's not been the usual list of topics, but I think it's been

a fascinating discussion. I want to say thanks to Wagyu for the excellent work with

moderating. I haven't seen anybody banned or anything. So we obviously, maybe we

haven't done our job properly. Maybe, maybe, maybe we should have actually got

people a bit more.

Amanda: Oh, well, there he is.

Nick: Maybe I should go in the chat. I'll get banned.

If you were there, he'd probably ban you. Fantastic. I would.

No, Ty, thank you so much for joining us. It's great. And I mean, in a way, I hope

you do have more time as a result of your current situation, but I kind of want you

not, not to have lost the gig, you know, so I don't quite know how to, no, no, no,

no, please.

Ty: I very much do want to, seriously, in all seriousness, I very much do want to,

because the thought of going back onto it now is really not appealing. So I'm very

much resigned to the fact that, you know, kind of that's, that's fine. I'm good. So

I'm very, very good about it. Absolutely.

Nick: Maybe that's the thing that you should be using AI for, you see, it's like the gig

that you don't want.

Ty: Joking aside, I spoke to another composed friend who turned around and went, you

should have just got AI to do it. That's literally what you do. Get AI to do it.

It's the kind of music that they don't know what they want. It's absolute rubbish.

It's trash. What they're suggesting. I love it really well.

They do.

Nick: Anything that they tell you they want, you just put that in the prompt. So that's

what you said.

Amanda: The thing is, I might, you literally type it in. And so you'll see what you'll get.

Ty: The exact words I used were I'm really sorry, but I'm not willing to write the music

of an 18 year old that knows nothing about music written on a laptop in his bedroom.

And, you know, that's exactly why words, which I'm not. I'm not willing to do that.

So I'm good. Believe me, I'm very, very good. And I will enjoy the time. Well, the

time off doesn't exist because the deadline, the dub was tomorrow. So the dead is

gone.

Nick: I've done that. But there's that thing, isn't there? There's that thing that

happens. It happens with us. We got offered back in the day when I was doing

remixes, we got offered a brim full of Asher.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Nick: Wow. And we just couldn't we couldn't see it at all. We're just like, I'm just not

seeing it. And then Fatboy Slim did his thing and it's like, ah, okay. Yeah. Oh,

well.

Ty: Can I just can I just one thing which is not to do with anything, because I know we

need to go. But one of the subjects we were going to do was about, you know, the SD

card shortage, and you may well do this week or something. Let me just tell you one

very quick thing about that. So I've been I wanted to buy. So this is like not this

March, the March before so March 2025. There was an eight terabyte SSD internal that

I wanted to buy. At that time, it was 650 pounds. And I didn't buy it because I

thought, Oh, do you know what? No, no, no, I'll wait a bit. I was changing the

system. Skip forward to March this year, the exact same drive was 1300 pounds for

exactly the same drive. forward to today, I went and checked because obviously it's

one of the subjects. Today, it is 2300 and something pounds for exactly the same

drive that last March was, you know, kind of 600 ish.

Nick: Yeah.

Well, this was one of going to be one of the topics because this is one of the

things because all the AI data centers are eating all it's not necessarily eating

the SSDs that eating the manufacturing process, absolute capability for making those

wafers, which are the, you know, whatever they're going to be made into. They

probably would be SSDs at that size. This is another thing that we're having to deal

with because in a way, we're being forced to use cloud because that's where they're

the only people who've got any hard drive space. Yeah, we haven't got any because we

can't afford it. I don't know how computer manufacturers are. Do you know if I was

a, if I was a computer shop that sold, you know, hard drives cases, the only thing

they've got in stock, I'm told is cases these days and fans. Yeah. That's kind of

it. Yeah. It's kind of scary, isn't it? Anyway, so I wanted to live on a positive

note, but I can't.

Ty: And I'm really happy in the fact that I haven't had to buy it and I'm really happy

about it. Yeah.

Nick: Eventually you've saved even more money than you would have if you bought it.

Exactly. So that's, that's what I guess that's a positive smiley face. Amanda, it's

been lovely to have you. I guess you're at the beginning of your day over there in,

what did I say it was? You said it was, it's not Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz,

it is Santa Cruz, California. No doubt. I've got a big productive day ahead of you.

I hope you have a great week. Anything exciting coming up that we should watch out

for from you? Are you doing any gigs?

Amanda: Goodness. Yeah. I am playing a show in Santa Cruz on Thursday, June 4th. I'm

actually playing my melodic project, Nicene. So I'm really excited about that. I'm

going to play some original tunes and melodic techno. And yeah. So if you're in the

area, come on down to Cat Alley street.

Nick: Excellent. Lovely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you everybody in

the chat. Thanks for hanging in there in this hot weather, wherever you are. And do

get, if you can get some personal air conditioning or put your feet in a bucket, I

think that can help too. Feet in a bucket. Because then it will drip all over your

technology and you'd be cooling your wrist.

Amanda: Thank you. And thank you so much, Nick, for having me. This has been so fun.

Nick: You're welcome. Cheers everybody. I will press the button to shift it and that will

end the show. See you later, everybody. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.