 Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well welcome to this live show. I'm super excited about this one I've been excited about this ever since I arranged it a couple of weeks ago Because as you'll know from the title of this show, I'm going to be interviewing one of my favorite youtubers and I genuinely mean I'm not just saying it this guy is super inspiring to watch Really gives you know encourages me to keep going with my channel. I'm influenced by him I have to say now before we get into that I just want to say a big hi to everyone who's already in joining us on the chat there Welcome guys. Make sure you say hello. Make sure you tell us where you're from It's just it's just really interesting for YouTube is to kind of connect with people who are watching Find out which part of the world they're from so always love to hear about that Also for the people who are already watching at the moment can I ask you a big favor? Can you hit the like button right away if you haven't already done so? apparently So I understand if you do that it means that YouTube will tell more people about the show and they'll come and join And they'll watch and that's what we want the more the merrier now during this show apart from talking to my special guest I will all we will also be taking questions questions from you guys in the audience So don't fire them off right away because we may lose them in the chat But a little bit later as we get into the show definitely ask questions Okay, that's gonna help us because we'll have something to talk about now I'm sure we will have something to talk about before I actually bring our guest on to the show He is mr. Sanjay see and I just want to play you a little bit of what he's all about in case you haven't Actually seen his channel and also if you haven't seen his channel check the link for his channel in the description Find it there. It's awesome Let's have a look and see what he does mark to gives you easy access to your DAW and Arturia's analog lab, but does it really improve your workflow? Let's find out I've tested seven USB mics available right now In this video, I'll show you how to set up your machine plus from scratch and make your first beat I've got six subwoofer solutions for your home studio here today I asked you real people Producers and musicians what Windows computer do you use for music production? 100,000 we just did it This is the biggest redesign of my studio since I began this YouTube channel the desk the keyboards the synths the Interfaces microphones the whole setup is new if you like this video hit the like button and subscribe Keep making the music that you love and I'll see you guys And There he is with his own catchphrase Mr. Sanjay see keep making the music you love. How are you? Hey Mike? I'm well. Thank you so much and thank you for having me Well, my absolute pleasure man. I've just noticed how much closer. I am to the camera than you I look enormous compared to you. I can get closer It's a scoop Sanjay see is very very tiny No, you're a God you're you're a huge man I'm it's such a pleasure to have you on the show. You're really really busy, right? I Am busy, but I really like making time for this kind of stuff I think the best part about being a youtuber and part of this music community and stuff is connecting with people right and Seeing the the kind of music they make and the difference you can make and I know you have these experiences too And that's just the best part. So I love this. So thank you so much for having me and also. Thank you for that intro That was so cool. I need to use that as my channel trailer or something Yeah, well, I knocked it off in a couple of hours today You know, I was gonna say and I totally forgot but for people who haven't seen your channel Not only are you a composer? You're a musician. You're a singer. You're an engineer videographer now You've added that on there as well technician entrepreneur loving husband. Oh, yes That's important You're probably an astronaut as your full-time job, I'm sure I that's that's what I Believe if someone told me One of the things that I really sort of well one of the things I noticed as I was looking at other interviews about you It's mean you have something in common Now okay, we have something quite significant in common in fact Would you like to guess what it is before you guess try and guess what it is? I'll give you a multiple choice I've planned this multiple choice, right? I think I don't know Should I wait for your multiple choice? Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is it okay? Give me is it a We're both Indian and speak fluent Hindi Okay B We both have full-time jobs as exotic dancers or See we both took an extended break from music at some point Okay, I didn't want to reveal the exotic dancer part, but No, it's it's see Yeah, absolutely. Tell us about that. How long did you have a break from music? I took a 10 year break from well. Yeah. Wow Yeah, that's like half of your life apparently I wish but yeah, it was a 10-year break and You know, I always thought that I'm Not a day went by when I didn't think of like wow I should really get back to playing the piano or writing something and You know it after you've been out of it for a while. It's hard to get back in so I needed a reason to and So I did a couple of things to get myself back into it one was I changed my DAW and the other one is I Decided to kind of put it on YouTube to document my new journey on YouTube and that kept me motivated Very very cool. You went from logic to Ableton. Yeah, that's right Yeah, so it was and I was using logic back when it was with he magic not Apple So it was in the really really early days and yeah I was using that actually produced a couple albums out there with with bands even some solo stuff that I did But then yeah, then a 10-year break and then when I came back. Yeah, I decided I need a I need a complete change in Workflow and so I chose Ableton It's an amazing thing alright, I'd sometimes wonder If it isn't a good thing though to have a little bit of separation from music at some point, you know What are we gonna sing about if we don't just live life? Absolutely, you know, you're completely right Sometimes it takes that break to Reset your creative workflow. I think for me I get stuck in ruts I get stuck with I opened I opened my DAW and I choose the same old instrument to start with I Kind of tend to create the same drum beats and I you know start writing lyrics in the same kind of flow And sometimes you need that break to reset that and to say Let me try something different I forgot about this or remember when I used to create like this and try those other methods and usually that sparks more Interesting creativity it makes the process more fun too. You're not in You know, you're not in the rut that you're always going back to you're trying something new and creative and fun Yeah You you mentioned, you know, you touched a moment ago about, you know, writing lyrics writing melodies and things I'm just interested. Are you a lyrics guy or are you a music guy? I? am Not a lyrics guy Every every now and then I get lucky every now and then I get lucky and like wow that line is awesome I'm gonna write a whole song around it But most of the time writing lyrics is kind of difficult for me When you're listening to music is do you latch on to lyrics or is it music? No, I hardly ever listened to the lyrics every now and then I'll hear the hook of the song I'm like, oh, wow, that was a nice phrase. That's cool That's why that song is a hit that came up with a really cool catchphrase in there But I think it's the music the music gets me Yeah, I Suspected that because it's something about the way that you sing and so I thought this guy's about music It's melody. I think he's into melody and rhythm. That's that was my feeling watching you But my my partner Susie who sings on some of my videos. She's same as you I mean, she's different to you in many ways, of course, but She's shorter for a start, but she she she she sings extremely well in my opinion I love you. She's got a beautiful But she has no concept of lyrics and one day I kid you not she was walking around the house People killing people dying children hurt. I'm saying, you know, that song's about people killing and people dying You're not supposed to be so happy about it Susie, but there is I mean, I'm a lyrics guy I could care less sometimes. Yep. I really am. Yeah, and it means that I listen to some artists who people regard as being quite dreadful And I wouldn't care a bit if the lyric was poetic to me. Yeah So if you folks watching if you wanted to know what the difference is between me and Sanjay, there you have it I'm much more deep than him Yes, I'm very shallow. Give me a catchy tune. I'm good enough for me. It's no man. It's cool. There's It's just we're all different places in different in different things in music. It's Music can love us all so Exactly. No matter whatever gets you into it. That's good enough Yeah, whatever gets you there creating and keeps you inspired that is good enough Now I wanted to ask you and you know, that brings me just your attitude there Um, for people who haven't seen sanjay's channel, you know, you should see it Um from from just from this interview. You're a very positive guy um Now, you know Common sense says nobody's positive all the time. Everybody has bad days Everyone gets grumpy. I'm sure the hearty if she's there will tell us, you know, that before your first cup of coffee or something You're not a nice guy. She is here Hey She didn't take much encouragement I jumped right in like if you want me to be in the spotlight, I will surely be in the spot Tell us a little bit of an inside scoop about this positive guy. What makes him not so positive Hmm, what makes him not so positive. There's a lot of stuff where to begin. Let me tell you When he was actually working in the office Having to shake people's hands People just coming up to him and just being like very aggressive like shake my hand sort of a thing He hates that because then he gets sick right after And you know, it's like not everyone washes their hands and now we've learned through the pandemic That's really important. You should a little OCD in that way Yeah, so I was like, yeah, and some of these people are just like I saw you this morning I'm shaking your hand again It's the most hilarious thing. I feel like I hear that along but I mean he doesn't really get upset that much I think like If there's injustices even like someone parking the wrong way taking up two spots or like I'm hearing OCD here Oh, yeah He likes things in place, but I can see that from the video I can see that from the V-roll I can see that. We're both kind of like that though. So he's lucky he has me We would get along in that way because I'm a little bit Yeah, but me very like aggressive, you know, like on that subject of positivity and and I want to I want to sort of touch on Dealing with negativity a little bit because as youtubers we sometimes now I don't oversell this because I'm sure like me. It's not a big part of what I do I don't get a whole whole bunch of hateful comments. Most of what I get is is love And the reason I bring this up is to help the viewers a little bit because although they're not all youtubers They're going to be exposing their music to the world and they're going to get all kinds of opinions about that After they stop showing it just to their mum and their friends, right? Right, then they're going to get some real opinions. So When you get that negative comment in you under your videos How do you deal with it first in two different ways emotionally and practically? in whatever Okay This is such a good question And I want to kind of give you the real side of it as well as how I deal with it, right? Because first is the reaction And no matter how many times I get positive comments the negative one sticks out And that's the one that I that that it just keeps playing in your head and um But I mean that's with anything you do in life You can attempt to focus on uh, you know the negative criticism more than the positive, but So yeah, I it does happen. It does get in my head, but I need to remind myself Of the positive stuff the people that did leave something good to say something good But maybe you know, if you're a starting artist You might not have enough of an audience where you have a good balance of the two. You do need criticism You do need some construct constructive criticism is good Um, but you might not even be getting that good balance yet And and when I and at times and even when I started my youtube channel I I didn't have tons of followers immediately So how did I know that how did I keep on going with some of those negative comments? I had to just trust what I was doing and trust also That I could find my audience or trust yourself that you can find your audience Not everyone you meet is going to love the content that you produce But if you keep if you believe in it And if you're making something that you love, I believe there's an audience for everything out there for everyone out there And it might not be an audience of millions could be a small audience But if you believe in what you do and you love what you do find that audience that appreciates what you're doing If you do want an audience of millions you might want to start looking in to creating content That's more mainstream. So right But yeah, the negative comments will come negative criticism will come Believe in what you do take the constructive criticism try to make make yourself better through it But try to focus on the positive and just keep going make the next thing Keep just moving forward That's that's what and how about and that's wonderful. But how about practically, I mean, are you do you would you respond or I mean, some people will be some people are like they you should engage and be really nice to them So, but how do you deal with that practically if it's if it's constructive criticism? I do respond. In fact, some people have given me tough constructive criticism and I I need to take that I I need to be And and you know what it might not even be something that I'm like, okay I'm gonna change what I what I do because that one person said so It may not be what I want to do with my channel or my music, but I do I respond to constructive criticism. I don't respond to just nonsense criticism. I ignore it I also feel though on my channel that everybody has a right to their opinion So if they really disliked what I said or my opinion about something they can totally say that So I never try to delete those comments or hide them or anything People's opinions can be out there. But but of course, yeah, if it's just nonsense, I just ignore it Yeah, yeah, I mean I I think that um For me personally if it's all caps, I probably don't get through half of a paragraph I can't just Yeah, I know what this is all about and if it's just full of swearing or something. I do delete that I'm just like that. That's not what I need in my community And I think the to anyone who's sort of building a community Um communities are not just about rules and imposing rules. They're all also about building a culture within that community So I feel with creative source that it's just got a positive culture now part of that is because I do weed out The really bad stuff. I just get rid of it. It's just a way of saying I shouldn't have to educate you on in good manners that you know, your parents should have done that I'm not going to spend time on it gone But also the other thing I'd suggest and sorry to answer your question for you Is is be too busy for it. I mean, yes, you know this, right? Absolutely, you can't spend all of your time You know debating with really angry people you've got to get on with creating Whatever you're creating whether you're recording a song or you know and artists these days You're not just recording songs, right? It could be photo shoots It could be all kinds of different tasks you've got, you know Involved in what you're doing. So be too busy to get to get involved in silly squabbles with people Yeah, it's so much more important to keep moving on with your craft Then getting stuck. It's something that some of you say. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely Um now, uh, YouTubing Let's talk about YouTubing for a moment It's always nice to talk to another YouTube because I'm like Finally somebody understand I feel the same but, um I'm interested in How is the creative process of YouTubing? If that's a word Affected your musical creative process How does it impact for them? Huge huge impact Um What in one really good way You know how I know a lot of musicians do this a lot of producers do this, uh composers You start creating a piece of music and you you know, you write a few bars or you get a nice loop going And you build it up with a few instruments and then You don't know what to do with the next you kind of just set it aside and maybe move on to the next thing I get to use all of that content for my videos That's one huge benefit. So I could just come up with this really nice loop I'm like, wow, this has got a great groove to it. I don't know what else to do with it But guess what? I can put it in my youtube video Use it for background music do a tutorial on it. So that's one really good thing At the same time it means I have tons of unfinished beats unfinished pieces of music And time doesn't always permit me to complete things. So youtube does take a lot of time But I really enjoy it and it's kind of one of the choices that I made Right and I continue to make I know this could change but for now I really enjoy your youtubeing part of things I enjoy making little short beats and then you know sharing the instruments I used for it Or hey, I use this new piece of gear for this and I love doing that and right now I'm just having so much fun doing that The the completing songs and putting them out on spotify as you know as taking like second tier, but Yeah, it if I had more time for it YouTube is something that does take a lot of time. So yeah, the creative work takes like a backseat is taking a backseat for now But I hope to change that soon But the creative process for for youtube now I'll tell you another huge benefit Is having deadlines Yeah, because I need to get that video out on saturday or whatever This beat has to be finished and if it's not to the level that I want it to be Too bad It's due it's got to get out as it is and I think that's valuable Because having too much time to keep tweaking a beat is not good If you give yourself a deadline and since I have a self-imposed deadline, it's usually beneficial I had before I started the channel I had this collection of about six or so songs which I'd recorded over the previous four or five years, you know, yeah And they were just never They were finished really but I'd never committed to saying they were finished and at some point I had to make some a series of videos where I needed to demonstrate some completed songs Yeah, and I just had to finish them off and Master them and release them. They had to be out there and I was like I felt so light after that I thought I'm like ready to write my next six songs now because they're kind of their history now. They're gone I can't do anything else about them. It's really worth having deadlines And I'm I wasn't saying especially now where we can release things so easy You could literally record a song today You could master it in the evening and you can jump on distro kid and release it honestly You could do that and it's a really healthy thing to do. First of all, it just gets rid of That sort of preciousness what we sometimes have about our music, you know And it just makes you make quick decisions. Yeah, that sounds good I'm gonna run with that and you go with it. You're not second guessing everything. So I think um Deadlines dead sounds so boring doesn't it sounds like sort of thing an accountant would say deadlines But it works the practical. It just works. It works. Yeah Man, I'm just gonna pop a few of the comments that we're getting a lot of comments through here Um, I'm just gonna pick them at random here. Um, here we go. What about this one? Josie music, you know watching tutorials by both of you They really helped me but I kind of feel that we're focusing too much For all this technical stuff and less on music. What is your opinion on that? That's really really good We actually we touched on that a little bit private in our pre-show. Didn't we Sanjay? So yeah, I'll let you go ahead with that one um, I completely agree um with what you're saying that yes a lot of this stuff can get too technical And it may take away from music, but it's up to you to not let it do that so There are tons of videos out there and some can be hugely technical and some just give you the surface and kind of What I do with my channels I try to like aim every video at somebody who might just be starting out and has no idea about any of this stuff And I want them to get from Open this plugin and by the end of this video. Hopefully you're getting some use out of it And it's making a difference to your music and that's enough Um, so yeah, you can it depends on I think what you're trying to do next with your music Some of the technical stuff is fun. And yeah, Mike and I were talking about that. Yeah, we like to geek out on stuff Sometimes but it has to come back to the music because that's why we're here And that's what we're aiming for in the end is to make music that impacts somebody that that moves somebody that touches somebody And yeah, it has to come back to that I don't mind having those geeky conversations and getting technical and sometimes I like understanding the intricacies of a device or a plugin But it has to translate back to making better music So I agree with you if you if you don't have time for the technical stuff, that's cool, too You know, if you're into just loading a plugin and going through the presets There is nothing wrong with that going to use a preset because you are actually creating music and getting to that final point I'm really into that as well. I mean and and I sometimes feel that We can lose fact of what music is really about It's one of the few things left in life, which is purely for enjoyment And it's almost entirely an emotional experience, right? Even if that's just, you know, some EDM which gets you dancing That's that's the music's done its job. It's got you in that mood where you want to dance, right? Or maybe a comedy track that's made you laugh, right? I'm not when I talk about emotional I'm not always talking about heavy emotions or whatever, but anything that evokes some kind of emotional reaction That's what music is about. That's why we're doing it Absolutely. I mean the rest of it's fascinating and they're all tools, right? but lose sight of it and It becomes really tedious to me personally. There you go. I'm going to say hi to some people here. We have Hi-Fi MIDI here Hi-Fi MIDI has got a great channel. I've watched so much of his stuff He's a great player by the way Sanjay if you haven't checked out his channel He's writing to virtual instruments and things but he does live videos He demonstrates like he's doing all the key switches on the guitars and things. He doesn't lie. It's like he's got four hands or something Right, so cool. You know, hi hi-fi MIDI. I'm going to check out a great channel Um, I'll also say hi to Mimo Japan Mimo Japan's really interesting. He's one of my devoted followers and I know he watches hi-fi media as well And I know he watches you as well. Um, he lives in Japan. He's a great musician He used a lot of virtual instruments But he's one of the guys that I think of When I think that we shouldn't lose sight of this as youtubers. He lives in Japan Usually they live in small apartments over there, right? So although he's a keyboard player He can't afford to have he can't have one of those big 88 key keyboards, right? He's not going to have a he's not going to have a subwoofer and You know So people in different situations around the world don't always have the luxury that You and I may have a space and Year and things but they make it work. He makes fantastic music Absolutely. By the way, I love Japan my favorite place in the world We did have a little discussion about that Yeah, I recorded my first music video of the song that I wrote in Tokyo. So yeah, that's Is that on your channel? That's on my channel. The song is called undone Undone Yeah, that was uh, my first and is this one of those things that you Is it one of those things that you spent a lot of time on and then everybody ignored it when you released it? This one actually got a decent response and people continue to watch it No, we Mike and I were talking before we started this live stream About some spending tons of time on certain youtube videos if it's just fall flat nobody watches And some of mine have been cover songs that i've done and shot this like a very cool music video style And I love the the outcome but nobody watched it. It was just always disappointed me So true so so true Another just quick shout out to ed thorn another good youtuber is ed. He's sort of new to the game Me and him chat a lot. Um, and he's got a great panel really nice channel. He's english So he's not quite as happy as we are But uh, he does he does have a great channel north northern english there So we will get back to some of your questions and things later guys Um, I've got a little sort of segment or two to go into here sanjay Okay I'm gonna start living on the edge a little bit. I thought Hang on. I've got to prepare this. I've got to press some buttons and do some things here I thought we could have some fun And we could look at my channel and you could give me some advice About where i'm going wrong on a specific subject God And hopefully we can expand that to how advising other people not about starting just a youtube channel But starting a community around their music and and things like that and a little bit of social media advice Okay, okay, and then I thought it would be fun if I could give you if I could humbly Give you some suggestions From some observations. I've made So here we go Let's do it now. I've got a problem sanjay. I've got a problem Okay, and I'm going to explain it with some visuals I'm putting out these videos and we we want to be on top right with the search ranking particular terms I want to be but I'm often finding myself at number two or number three. I'll give you a demonstration here So I'm going to bring up this. This is a search term for youtube Of course complete 13. I made a video about complete 13 Um, let's just see what actually happens when you search for complete 13 On youtube there. I am at number three. I'm at number three. Yes, you should Somebody's above me here to just the two spaces above me on those on that search ring. First of all A video you did for native instruments is beating me here. All right. Yeah And there you are at number one there. Just you're sort of dominating me here. Okay, just say just say Now before hold off on the advice for a moment. Hold on. Okay. Okay Go to work. I want to go to a second example here to kind of give you a real I want to give other people an insight of Of you really as a person Oh dear Okay, this one Arturia key lab 88 mark two wonderful keyboard. By the way, I bought one I know you you like it, but you you actually use the s 88 don't you as your everyday keyboard That's 88 to my main keyboard. Yeah, and that's cool as well. I love that one too But I did this one. I made a video about it I got number two in the rankings this time Number two in there. I don't know if you're seeing a pattern emerge here But um The amazing thing is people you can see Sanjay is at the top there He made the video a good probably 10 months before me and he had the Huge difference Right. He had the foresight to add that yellow arrow to point at my video Yes, and my question might i'm stating simply the best and he was answering me like ahead of time He's got like time travel capabilities Pointing down and he was saying is this the best keyboard? so One final example for you But do you see that's something I should point out my arrow is pointing to your video? I know exactly. I'm suggesting your video, right? I know it's incredible and you knew to do that ahead of time Last example, so I thought Well, he can't beat me every single time. I don't think he can beat me every single time. There must be a search term Where he's not going to pin me down and beat me up with a baseball bat metaphorically I'm sure you would never do that in real life, Sanjay I don't know actually. I've never met you in real life, but anyway moving on. So this search term is where I went next Why is Mike from creative source? awesome I've been working on this video Yeah, well exactly right exactly. That's what I thought. I thought he wouldn't have and what look at this Look at this top result there Top result and there you are with that arrow again Look at the third position here. This is Ed. We said hello to Ed earlier. He's a previous guest on the show I don't think I'll be having him on the show anymore After this and then we've got peak johns down here. Yeah peak johns. He's a great guy A friend of mine had my babies. So I guess That's absolutely so I guess the serious question is here I mean, is this something that you really focus on is this something you spend a long part of your day on like You know, what should I make videos about? What should their titles be? You know, do I spend a lot of time on it? Not as much as I should so I'll say this So I'll let me address the artoria one I had that video out of the long before Your video came on right so that's a difference in the view counts I do spend time on Thumbnails and titles because according to the youtube algorithm. That's what matters most And it kind of makes sense right if you have a catchy title and if you have a thumbnail that catches people's eyes And it makes them interested to know Well, what's he or she going to say then people are going to click on it and youtube rewards that so Yeah It doesn't always work because sometimes, you know, it's really I I sometimes make content that I think is truly valuable But it's difficult to come up with a title or a thumbnail that I there's really going to grab people And sometimes I don't like the youtube algorithm for that reason because I know they're not going to show this video to tons of people But I wish they would because people would really like it but Yes, I do and and the reason I do spend a lot of time with the titles and thumbnails and really Strategically thinking about the videos I make is because I want this content to reach people And we have to deal with the youtube algorithm and if if we don't Play the game of the youtube of youtube's algorithm Our videos just don't get served up to even our subscribers youtube won't show it to our subscribers Or once it won't suggest it to our subscribers if it doesn't gain enough traction to begin with So there is a lot of thought that goes into it. But again, not as much as I should I wish I could I wish I would spend more time on that because So so do you think you know for those guys and you know, I haven't I have done this actually I had a music channel years ago You know where I'd released my songs and and I got like 10 views from my mum or something like this You know, that's a really hard space to be in actually Promoting your music out there So, you know, is there a parallel there, you know, should we be advising people? Hey, maybe you do have to start off with some popular covers first because That's how people are going to find you because nobody's searching for you otherwise Yeah, and you know reality and it's it's the hard reality it is and Yeah, I think even when it comes to music, there's popular genres out there. There's popular music They're cover songs people will search will google a popular song and your cover of it Will show up and a lot more search results than your original song because people just don't know to look for you yet So there are ways to build traction with anything creative that you do and sometimes you bite the bullet and you do What the audience wants to see because that brings the audience to you so that you can deliver another message And that's kind of what I tried to do with my youtube channel and you can do with your music as well Get the audience through the door first and sometimes that means Saying hey, uh, like I do with my Saturday news reports at first it was me saying Hey, I found another free plugin you can download so come and watch this video But once the audience came in the door and they started understanding what i'm conveying In my video then they were like i'm going to tune in every week for this because it's interesting And i'm not just coming anymore just for the freebie just like your audience might not might stop coming just for the cover songs And might and would get introduced to your original music. It's so important. And you know, it's it's hard and Especially for people who are super creative to say i've got to do something just to Please the audience right now. Um, I know everybody even successful artists struggle with this because they don't want to go on Stage every night and just play the hit song that everyone wants to hear But it's it's a fine line you know such a fine line though, isn't it because If we all have that attitude, I mean, I'm not in the business of trying to be popular music wise but if we were all in that sort of attitude of Um, let's do what's popular, you know things have become a little bit bland And then once in a while someone like billy eilish comes along and goes I'm not gonna do stuff like anybody else and you're gonna love me and Wow and to me That's a little bit about instinct as well, isn't it? Yeah, she just knew when or her and her brother knew that as they were creating that music Hey, this just does sound good even though it's not exactly what everyone else is doing Yes, uh, I I totally agree and you know what every now and then there are Artists who truly bring something extremely unique and they come with it at the right time When the audience is ready to to take in something like that and everything lines up beautifully And I think that's partly what happened with billy eilish But also if you go back to some of our early stuff like ocean eyes ocean eyes was much more mainstream And the production is much more mainstream Compared to the stuff she's putting out now So even if you go back to some of the original stuff she did Ocean eyes wouldn't stand out to you right now as hey, that's a billy billy eilish song Her voice is a little distinctive but the production is kind of similar to some other stuff that was happening at the time So I would kind of say that she also She and her brother kind of use the same tactic of Let's get something that Is going to resonate very quickly very well with the audience and then let's push them some other really cool unique stuff That they've never heard before right Right, it's true very good. Um, I'm just going to throw up some questions before I forget as well From I did ask people before the show to to Submit some questions, and I just realized that I haven't asked any of them I'm a rude host so Let's throw this one up first of all Walter Randall. What would you say is the most? Overlooked part of song production. What part doesn't get enough attention for its importance Or what gets too much emphasis? This is a good question Walter. Thank you You know Let me I'll speak about my experience in writing songs and what I figured out was overlooked in my own production, I think I really overlooked for a long time. I'm trying to train myself differently now. I overlooked instrument choice to start Like the starting point of the song instrument choice I would just go in there Just start throwing instruments at that song because I came up with an interesting hook and then just piling stuff on without thinking Well, I've already got this guitar this You know taking up this frequency range and now I'm throwing a piano in there. Oh, I'm just going to keep doing it I'm just pile stuff in there and it just becomes a hodgepodge and just a muddy mix And and it you you lose inspiration very quickly that way because you're not reaching what you're what you're hearing in your head um, I always Pull back now. I say I'm going to just choose these four instruments I'm going to go with that and then get to arrangement that helps me move move along much quicker so These days it's so we have so many plugins You know within reach that we can throw everything at any little piece of music But I think that gets overlooked these these days in particular before you just had a four person band And all you had was a bassist guitarist and a vocalist and That's your song But now we can we can put violins and strings at home on a laptop So and we tend to try to do that with everything I think pulling back is something that it gets overlooked these days and I do it myself. So I think that's where I'm learning and I think other people it's kind of resonated with my audience members as well Yeah, right interesting. Um, I'll throw another one up here quickly. This is from Isaac Wells now Quick disclosure here Isaac is actually my godson Um, and it's really funny because I I I lived for many years on a place in a place in England called the Isle of Wight a tiny little place And while I lived there, um, I was very good friends still am with Isaac's dad Simon. Good day, mate And Isaac was born and I became his godfather But I moved away from there and I moved to a different part of the uk and then I moved to Australia So I haven't actually really been around Isaac as he's as his godfather But we've kind of got to know each other a little bit through My youtube channel and because he's an extremely enthusiastic musician He's a great guitar player and I think at the moment he's kind of getting into the sort of orchestral Um, or sort of watch they say like film music game music that kind of thing Is is where he's heading at the moment. So anyway, just a little bit of disclosure Isaac Pleasure to put your question up. What technical skills are essential to become a media composer And what equipment music tech should an aspiring composer have as part of their toolkit? Okay, uh, lots to answer there a technical skills You know what if I always tell people you don't need to know music theory. You can make music without it Comp classical and film composition. I think Des benefit from some music theory knowledge So if you can spend some of your time doing that, I think it will Benefit you Also, because if you are aspiring to get to the level where you can actually Conduct the orchestra on making this this music and not just make it on your keyboard and on your laptop then Being able to talk the talk to speak their language would be incredibly useful So start learning now. I think um, so Yes for film composition I would say maybe music theory would be a good place to start start learning now because you you have a lot to a lot to learn Once you've got that I think as far as technical tools Or what was the question what equipment or music tech, right? These days, uh And I heard this I don't remember where I heard it But somebody who was in the film who was a film composer was talking about this and saying that You can't get by with low quality if you're doing film composition and pitching your tracks You can't get by anymore with low quality Strings that came free with a bundle that you bought that you that with your audio interface You have to go out and get quality sounds The good thing about that is quality sounds don't have to be extremely expensive anymore A native instruments has quality strings now They you don't have to buy the $1,000 spitfire collection of orchestral tools to be able to do that start small Cone your skills first, but know that once you do start pitching they're expecting a certain level of quality Even for video games even for and especially for films So you need to work yourself up to those quality of sound collections in your arsenal Doesn't mean go and spend your whole paycheck on it now. You have to build up to that Start you can still start learning those skills right now and build and invest in yourself as you go along and get to different stages of that music career Absolutely, you know, we've touched on that that dirty and darkest of words music Words two words music theory there And and I'm often sort of finding myself wanting to say this to people Um, and I think I've developed a little phrase. I don't know if you'll like this or not, Sandra But remember that music theory is descriptive not prescriptive. Yes, and it describes what we do with music It doesn't tell us what to do So don't think of it as this big bad thing that's going to tell you you must have Disharmony here and you must do this. No, it simply It explains what happens in music is is essentially what it does. It doesn't Tell you what to do you can do what you exactly exactly. I'm so I'm classically trained So I understand that stuff. But when I sit down to my keyboard and start to write a piece of music I'm not thinking okay quarter note half note. No, I'm not thinking like that What comes out what feels right? What sounds good to me and we'll take it from there Now if I did need to translate that to another musician who came by who knows music theory I can speak the language. So it doesn't make it easier. Exactly. Exactly Precisely. Good stuff. I will get back to some more questions later folks We're going to go into the second part of this segment here where I'm going to give Sanji see some advice First of all, I was advised not to include this segment My lovely partner Susie. So sorry about this in advance. Your segments are scary. I never know what to expect Well, this is this is fun to put together I've been busy with some Photoshop and I'll tell you why Because I noticed amongst some of the other successful youtubers around and there are many of them I noticed a few things about them. But first of all, let's just bring up again Let me just I've just got to do something here with the The whole I don't know how to do the technical. Oh, there we are. We're back to here. Yes There's Ed. Thanks Ed Chat there So, um, so I thought it'd be interesting I noticed a few things Sanji and I'm just going to humbly give you advice and we'll think of this as a makeover I've been busy in Photoshop here. Nice. I can't give you advice about music or or your personality You've got a glowing personality. You're a very talented person So I thought well, we would just go so I asked you to send me some photos So you sent me this photo and some would say that was your first mistake It's sending me sending me a photo here So I thought look we could do some little updates here Um, the first thing I I wasn't sure about the suggestion you as a keyboard player were making here that the guitar is dead Okay, I was looking at your t-shirt here. You guys have been alleging this since the 80s. It hasn't come true yet So, um, I thought I'd just do a quick update there for your t-shirt Just oh much better Much much better much much my t-shirt companies were stuffed up with the perspective there Now I've been looking for inspiration because you've done very very well on your channel I think what are you on 270 odd thousand subscribers or something at the most? 280 right a few days ago See they fly by you can't even keep up with them But there are still a few guys who are bigger than both of us and have been around a bit longer And I thought what's the trend? What's the thing that they all have in common? And I found that it came down to one thing And that's hair Yeah Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean I could take some lessons here as well So I've got some suggestions hairstyles here and they have been inspired by Uh, some of our counterparts. Um, so the first one I've I've given them names as well I've given them names. So the first one that I have for you here. Um, this is called the hewitt Okay, okay, and it looks like this I I think Look at that. Look at that. I've even it should you come out already just looking at that. I want to do this to my hair right I want to and look by not giving Your academy's got a name there produced like a bro, which I think Oh It's good, huh? And it suits you. The sideburns to the sideburns. Yeah Yeah, there you are But it was the next one because I thought you can't wear this forever. You're gonna like me you're gonna get older at some stage and uh, so for when you're Moved on a little bit further. Uh, the next one I have for you is called the biata Oh And this one really suits you I have to say Looks like this. Look at that. Oh, wow Look at that Distinguished Distinguished distinguished comes to mind. Yeah, what do you think I like that style? It's good, isn't it? Yeah, if you can get some gray hair die, you know that I used to have a lot of hair I used to have long hair like down to here for years Yeah, did you did you really I do long hair Long hair because that's funny. You should say that My wife's looking for an old picture right now. You'd mentioned you'd mentioned in one of your interviews I can't remember you sometimes At some certain point you forced yourself to play a different kind of music And I thought you may have that happen in the future. So should you decide That's the san jc youtube channel is going to take more of a rock feel Right Yeah, then the next one I have for you. I'll tell you the name of it first It's called the fricker Oh nice And it looks like this I think it's adorable How about that just doing this like the whole day I love I don't know. I don't know if Glenn's got that copyright or anything there I may get into trouble for that in this video. I'll be demonetized or something but look at that It's got something going if you I'll tell you what if game of thrones hadn't already happened You could have auditioned for it on the basis For all my beard out and have that hair and that t-shirt done Free advice free advice Can you just send me these pictures? I'm going to put them on my instagram Just careful to hearty especially with that last one because the ladies will be coming That's right. Oh, yeah They want to stroke the stroke of those locks. So good stuff there. Thank you for taking that on the chin san jc It's always a goal of mine to humiliate my guests when they come onto the channel. I love it. He made me look better Well, I'm sure that's not true. It's all right, but So one of the questions I wanted to ask you the last of my questions You found a picture Oh, you didn't find my super long hair. Okay, which you found this uh, I Here here here the camera shows that. Oh, wow. We can see the hair. That's the important Air. Yes beautiful I also had long hair at once and I had a beard and a long hair People used to say I looked like Jesus quite a lot. Oh, nice. That's a couple No um, so Um, one of the questions I wanted to ask you because I like to talk about this because I want to talk about gear for a moment now I know we're supposed to say at this point being good modern youtubers It's not about the gear the gear doesn't matter, but let's face it open up that package peeling off the the plastic It's exciting. I don't want to ask you about gear you've already got But what have you got your eye on or what do you think might be coming? Which you're salivating over Okay Okay, what always gets me is uh Synths Even though I you hardly ever see you talk about synths on my channel. They're excellent synth channels out there So I don't do a lot of synths but they started to really really get me excited and There's one thing that I actually have So this is new no in my audience doesn't even know this but I actually got and this is something so exclusive to the great sauce right now. Yeah I actually got a new addition to my studio and it's the melatron and not the old original one. This is one of the new ones But there's a new one. I was thinking yeah, it's it's it's the new one. Is it the m4 000 mini? It's Anyway, it'll it'll be on my channel eventually And I was thinking I waited so long to get it because I was like Does this make sense to just hang on a second thing is just low enough samples Does it work with types and things or is it some it's just no it's just sample base So I was thinking uh, it's kind of like something I could just get in plug-in form But the instant that I turned that thing on I started to play it just felt different and it just felt inspiring And they got it right with the way that they uh mix two sounds So they're still based on the original sounds from the original melatron And those original recordings, but now they're an electronic sample for don't play strawberry fields on it. That's yeah That's like a guitarist playing stairway to heaven. Isn't it surely? But they got it right and that was the thing that so it was one of those that I'd had my I am for a long time and I finally got it and cool. It was worth it. But uh, yes, since really do it for me Um microphones as well if I could get So the mics are the tough thing too because they can get so expensive And then there there was just those iconic microphones out there that everybody just wants to have and so do I And I'll give you an example just like an omen uh u87. I mean, that's just something I exactly It's in everyone's U87 c414 The the classic stuff, you know, I'll tell you this though every now and then I keep thinking I I don't want to just go out and get the the best of every or the most iconic of everything Uh, I'd stop Wanting and and very and I have so much fun researching this stuff. I have so much like, you know thinking about and dreaming about this stuff And maybe it would be disappointing though Wouldn't that be the worst thing because I mean for many many years, you know The only mic that I recorded with was the road nt1a It was the only I mean it just did its job for me and when I bought it. I thought it was expensive at that time I thought that's nice proper stuff, right? Yeah Now it's just to be ordinary, but I still use it I still for some reason if I just want to record something real quick or just do a do a rough track It just seems like oh, yeah, I can grab that. I know what it's gonna do. But what if I got a u87 and I went Oh Yeah, all right. I know And you know, you know, you know, you can't just get it. Yeah, I know You can't just get a u87. You've got to get a really good preamp as well to go with it and then um and and proper advice um I've definitely heard of people saying that they got it And then they got rid of it and got one of these Because at home they were in an untreated room And you 87s don't like untreated rooms. So right And but you're using the shore sm7b, right? Yeah, that's an excellent microphone too. And it's not that extensive That's another reason why I sometimes wait on this stuff because shore makes excellent microphones I mean excellent you hear them on commercial, you know hit songs out there With this sm7b. It's such a great mic and you know $4,000 versus what's that $400, right? I mean, yeah, I don't know about american dollars this yeah, but yeah, I think $400 or something. So, yeah, you know I'm with you on the microphone. I I'm guitars, you know, they still Don't tell susie because I bought about five or six of my dream guitars already this year And I've been telling her that I don't need any more, but there's been one that's been on my mind, but uh Which one is that? It's just a classic old gretch. It's a 6120. Um, it's just like an old fifties thing and it just is It's just I don't I wouldn't even probably really play it that much But I just grew up and some of my idols and I've got a nice gretch You'll see in my video this green guitar and it's lovely since I've got a beating joint so much But you know, this is more like I mean we're talking Yeah, well, I don't know in american dollars probably Two to three thousand for a new one get an old one 25 30 thousand dollars You know pick your number they can go up there crazy, but I don't know You know the vintage synthesizers really get me too and and for the same reason Oh, you know, uh, what is what do you have? I have the Roland Juno 106 and yeah that one You can get a decent deal on ebay or you know on the used market you can find those You know, they aren't that expensive Um, and it was it it exceeded my expectations completely But I'm of course now I want a jupiter right at jupiter eight and and those are astronomically expensive Crazy large crime Look Arturia Mike right Arturia do some great. They do they they do You know You can If you go either the Arturia route or even Roland has their plug-in versions of they do that's right That just sound awesome. Nobody's gonna hear the difference But I will say this that when it comes to the hardware versus software thing Some keyboards some pieces of gear are inspiring to To just handle to play when you play them and The melton was one of the things that surprised me and and the Roland Juno 106 too When you play it when you're there playing it versus loading up a plug-in it The connection to the instrument is there and uh, I would say the same thing about a fender roads electric piano there's a connection to the instrument that they get right and When that happens, you've truly got an inspiring instrument on your hands Not just something that sounds exactly like the old vintage thing that you're playing on a mini keyboard Is a little difference that brings us to a question from someone called moe who submitted this question I think on facebook or youtube um Does real gear like compressors is is it worth it? He's saying um, I mean is it better than vst's and he says and this co-lab is legendary Lots I've learned from both of you much love. Thanks moe So yeah, is things like compressors or what have you used much output? Yeah, I think I see some on your desk I have a little I have an outboard compressor. I have a personal audio la2a right there, which is one of those old iconic Compressors. Yeah, um, so my immediate answer is no because when it comes to outboard gear like that that is So that has been Replicated emulated in software form so much um, I think They make really great plug-in versions of that right now. I don't most people won't be able to tell the difference you're gonna get You're gonna get something that's good enough and and I'll say good enough for commercial Spotify release You know, so don't worry too much about it. Well the hardware is going to make a difference It does A little bit but for most people I don't think it's it's worth it. Is it nice to have? Yeah, it's great The one piece of hardware I would say that does make a difference is a preamp That really colors your microphone and treats your microphone in a way that software just can't Do I or not yet software can't do yet So my preamp I have a ba 1073 which is a modeled after the neve 1073 And the moment that I plugged that in and I and I heard myself through the mic. I was like, yep, totally worth it So, you know, that's ready for your for your u 87 now. I think you should treat yourself to that u 87 Okay, all right. You're ready to hear that babe I'm gonna get the u 87. She's all um. I want to do a shout out. I think he wants. Wow. Okay. Whoa I'm doing it today Okay, we better turn the cameras off for that now moving I can't believe I said that ricky Is a great supporter of the channel. Thank you again ricky You've made several donations in the past and I'm so grateful to you man and to everybody who makes donations To pay power and of course my patreon people of that It's just it's such a great gesture. I mean, I don't want to go on about this too much But I'm sure you find the same So the fact that people would part with their hard-earned money To support people like us is incredible. Um, so thanks again to ricky. So moving on to another question here I'll try and get through some of them Looking at the time here because we're getting towards the end of our time This was an interesting one. Look to in fairness. I don't think you'll be able to answer this But you may be able to answer it. It's going to be fun to see if you can it's got two parts to it here This is from I'm not probably going to butcher the name. Um asray. Nozuki. Hi Sanjay Mike. I'm from asray from Malaysia just started Getting into production things. So I'd like to ask your opinion about what is the best mike position to record wait for it French horn or yeah By the way, I'm currently using bearage sl 84 c dynamic mike for recording. So I'll let you take this one sanjay Okay, the french horn because I'm an expert at the french horn Um, I'm I'm actually not sure about that. I don't I don't play the french horn I've ever recorded any horn of any of the uh, any type of horn. So I I don't know what the best position is. Um, I would suggest maybe, um Uh, let's check on youtube to do a little googling to find out what's uh, what's the best position would be I don't know. I've mike. Do you do you know the answer to this? Well, I happen to happen to be an experienced french horn Mike recorder We see it all over your youtube channel. That's right. That's why I have it first of all though. I will say that um I love the french horn. It's a great instrument. It's it's just it's very very different to other brass. Um It hasn't got that blast to it. It's it's got um more subtle to it in my opinion. It's mellow and nice But I had no clue. In fact, I thought I thought oh Maybe I'd probably go a dynamic microphone not too close to the bell I was totally wrong. I was totally wrong. Do you know what's interesting about the french horn? The reason I've included this question is because it's so fascinating what we do and there's new challenges all the time And you may just come up against this at some point. You never know Most if not all other brass points forward But the french horn the bell points more like backwards and sort of off to the side And so apparently when they record it they're focusing and I think this is probably true of a lot of orchestral instruments Because you don't see them close mike things, right? They're much more into capturing The the room that they're in I mean and and that's a part of the sound the concert hall or or what have you so You know specific concert halls will have specific sounds but the thing about the french horn Which I learned by watching three youtube videos on this subject today Um was was that when they record it they they record the reflections So they they may some people it looks like will put something like an sm 57 pointing towards that Interesting. Yeah, but they'll use one or two other microphones This is the main thing that I was going to say to as asray. You probably by the looks of it want more than one microphone One guy was suggesting one behind one in front and a number of people in fact I even saw a guy on a video. He had like a a wooden board in front of him And then he had a little I'm trying I can't see my hands on the camera here. Oh, no, that's no good But anyway, he had a small a small diaphragm condenser pointing away from the horn And pointing towards this board board and actually recording the reflection off this wooden board That's interesting. Really interesting, isn't it? Yeah Wow. Yes This stuff gets me. I I love all this stuff. I love learning about this stuff And I learned something you say good. Yeah me too me too If it wasn't for this question I would never have researched that on youtube in a million years because I would have reached for my french horn vs ti every single time But uh, yeah fantastic question, let's go for something else here Oh, this was an interesting one. You may have an answer on this. There's another unusual question Official I I'm going to butcher this name, but you have a go at this name for me sanjay official It's a kartik ti yagi Oh, good. Oh before we get into the question. I'll let you it's kartik ti yagi Kartik ti yagi Good good, uh before we go to this question. So what's the c stand for in sanjay c? Ah, you'll never know Creative it stands for creative. Okay sanjay creative Okay, okay, okay. So how can streamers connect to condense the microphone guitar both using reverb and delay effects separately via sound card and using backing track. So I think What he or she is pointing out towards here is when you're streaming How can you use effects such as reverb and delay? any any ideas on that if you're streaming, I mean if You know, I've never done this myself, but I know that there are depends on what mic you're using but okay, I'll I'll just say Uh, what's the name prisonis has a new mic called a revelator That here's a usb mic. That's especially for streamers and they have Effects built into the software that works with the mic and it has things like reverb and everything Which is great. It's excellent for if you're doing like live performances like that. So Karaoke live or something and if you're doing karaoke means that you're mixing music in as well live, right? So it's got a built-in mixer So you have your karaoke music you have your voice you can add effects on your voice and send all that out to your stream Just from the one mic. So this is yeah, it is a very cool All-in-one kind of solution It sounds like for what you're doing and other companies do have some things like this, but I think Prisonis did it in a very simple way So if you're just trying to stream trying to throw some effects on there I think they have a really good solution and it's not that expensive either. It's called the revelator The revelator hadn't heard of that one Yeah, and I'll be emailing. I'll be emailing my contact at Prisonis tomorrow. Yeah, you should check it out It's really nice. I'm sure you're doing a lot of review on that one yet I didn't do a review. I did a comparison where I included the revelator So if you look on my channel, there's a video about the top usb mics And one of them I reviewed was in that comparison is the revelator But definitely check it out because it seems to be the solution for exactly what you're doing I'll just quickly say that The simple solutions you can get some very cheap little mixes I can't remember the sort of brands and things you'll see them about And if you had one of those before you went into your Audio interface, then you would have the opportunity to throw something on the other solution is and three things come to mind My own audio interface, which is a prisonis studio 192 does have on board dsp effects. So I've got reverb and those ones delay I'm using it at the moment. So I've got a little bit of compression on my voice at the moment I'm doing a little bit of ecu as well. So You can definitely do that kind of stuff. That's a that's a reasonably expensive solution The other company that springs to mind that have on board dsp of course is universal audio And I'm not quite sure how possible is you you may know you you use universal audio So yeah, whether their effects could be applied in real time. I think I'm certainly could be yes They totally can but yeah, it's a much higher and much more expensive much more expensive solution If you're going down that way on the cheaper end and I haven't tried it My good friend ed who was in the chat earlier. I know has reviewed it on his channel But I think steinberg. I think the you are is at the ur 22c Yeah, you 22c that little interface they do that's got some on board dsp Effects as well. And that's a that's quite an affordable solution So, you know, I like I like the suggestion of just throwing in a mixer that has some Onboard effects on it. So it's such a cheap solution and it just it works no fuss at all Mackie makes a really good one Mackie has one that has a bunch of on board effects reverb and everything it sounds great I I use it for my synths and Use the on board effects just to when I'm playing around with my synths on that thing cheap solution and it works And it's it's handy. I think if you're streaming as well If you can just have something at your fingertips and there's just buttons to switch on a delay or a reverb Or whatever you want to turn a knob. Yeah, you know, that could be a really nice solution Um, I'm going to go to the chat here. Ah, the people have been busy in the chat tonight I've I've been a little bit negligent of it Um, I'll ricky ricky tea browns in there. Um, I'm just going to pop him up on the screen I don't know if you know, um ricky tea brown at all. Um, he's Sort of in a lot of the facebook forums to do with recording just An awesome guy. Anyway, nice one. Uh, sanjay big respect one of my go-to reviews. Absolutely I mean, that's the thing about if if you want to find out about sort of home recording tech guys Sanjay is definitely one of the channels to go to and and you've touched upon it a couple of times We haven't talked in detail about it But your news segments that you do um, do you have a regular day for those? Yes, so every saturday morning eight a.m. Eastern time eastern u.s. Time Um, I release a news report where I talk about the latest releases in the music gear world Whatever new plugins there are out there new hardware coming out or new announcements. Um, and then I also Uh, talk about deals, right? So if um, if I don't know amazon just dropped the price for one of my favorite mics To say hey now it's time to go buy that or native instruments having a big sale on their plugins Um, and then I always also include some free plugins in there but I think My most my favorite part about the news report is that I feature other artists So usually in my videos, I make the music and I feature my music. I talk about my songs But on the saturday news reports My wife actually curates beats that are submitted and we get to feature independent artists out there who may not You know have a big following yet and we get to feature their music and talk about them a little bit and give A little link to their instagram and that's my favorite part of the news report But yeah every saturday watch my news report And can I just encourage the audience members to do that whether it's myself or sanjay send us your music Like one of my great pleasures On a sunday morning or something is to open up an email and someone says hey Just I'd send you this song that I've recorded. Could you check it out? And me and Susie will usually have a listen to it and oh i'm blown away by some of the music I get There was one guy last week who and people really hide this stuff He'd written these amazing orchestral pieces right and he's never released them to anyone He's saying what do you think are they okay? And I'm like Okay, they're just amazing really really good. And uh, I'm forgetting people's names now I feel really rude about they'll know who they are Um, there's a gentleman towards the end of last year sent me this song which broke all the rules You know, it's like a prog rock song. It was eight minutes long It it just didn't it's not music today and and I loved it I enjoyed every moment of it. It had surprises in it. It had timing changes It had key changes and unexpected melodies and great, um, you know arrangements in it and um and you know, it's just a pleasure super talented, uh, super Hardworking people out there who are who've got amazing music and honestly I Another reason I I started having that segment in the news report where we you know feature Another artist music is because People need the motivation to get their music out there. Like you said, this guy was composing this amazing stuff But you hadn't released any of it He was kind of just sitting on it And so one of the things that we always like to encourage people to do is put your music out there You don't have to think it's the best thing out there or our ad doesn't have to be to You know, just start putting your your stuff and sharing your stuff to uh with the world that it's such an important step You have to take Next question. Um, I know you get asked this a lot along with are you Indian? Do you still have your nine to five job, you know, when I did that little the little bit, um At the beginning where we had the multiple choice if you remember, you know, yeah We're we're both Indian and speak fluent Hindi or we both have full-time jobs It was such a shame that one of the first two wasn't true, wasn't it? It wouldn't be great if I revealed That we could just both sit here and we could have done this whole thing in Hindi Anyway, what a disappointment that we just both took time off of music So, you know, Sanjay, do you still have a nine to five job? I do you still have a nine to five job? Yeah, it's still do you think it's going to change at any time or do you just want to keep this as fun and enjoyment? you know, um It made may change eventually, uh right now my nine to five job, you know helps pay the bills and Yeah, you gotta you gotta do that and I'd I'd love for it one day to be I'd love for this YouTubey music thing to be my full-time gig um, so Yeah That hopefully that day will come Well, we'll see but for now. Yeah, still got to pay the bills with the nine to five if you want the u87 you've got to keep that day exactly I'm like this is the thing that really kind of jerks me off about you. This is the thing that annoys me about you I look at your content And I think I'm doing this full-time right and and it some of my videos take about three days And I I've sometimes I do two or maybe three in a week, but most a lot of weeks at the moment It's just one um, and that's because once I've done those And I look I want to be careful what I say here because I never want to sound like I'm complaining about this absolute privilege position, right? This is this is going to be a bit of a sort of a privilege westerner kind of winch But but it takes time it takes time to research products or to research ideas I I do kind of script My videos I don't stick to the script rigidly, but it helps me to Kind of I think of videos as a story like a song, right? It's got to make sense from beginning to end and you've got to help walk people through that story So it's it's not a haphazard. It takes a lot of time. How do you do that with a full-time job? How do you figure that? You know what it is? It's not easy It does take a lot of time does get very stressful sometimes, but I've kind of got into a rhythm now of where I know And and here's what I've done because you said early on in this in this live stream that I learned now music video production as well And yeah, that was a new thing. I had to learn to make youtube videos What I try to do nowadays is try to think of all the things that are a bottleneck for me All the things that get in the way from me being as efficient as possible with this creative process And I try to eliminate those things So do you answer all your comments? What would you say you answer all your comments? No, not all of them. I try to get them nowadays. What I do is actually when I when I release the Video I actually spend like a couple hours answering comments So so and I kind of tell my viewers that too. Hey when I'm releasing a video I'm going to be hanging out for a while so come and you know leave your comments I'll try to answer as many as I can but I do try to get to as many of the comments as as I can It's a really tough one, isn't it because I always feel like You know, I would never want people to feel that I take them for granted because you know first creative source fans I adore you. Um, I'm always overwhelmed by Just how giving they are and how encouraging they are. I mean, it's just amazing Um, but there is always this kind of balance of if I answer every email and every comment and every facebook post And everything I won't be able to make the videos for you because they do take A certain amount of time. It's it's a tough one. It's a tough one It is I love the comment section and in fact on youtube I'm so much more active in my youtube comments than on instagram dms or anything like that and You know, but yeah, I don't answer every single one because sometimes I've got somebody who asks Hey, does this device do this and I'm like, you didn't watch the video I covered yet For those ones. I'm kind of like, uh, no, you got to watch the video You know, that's what you should be doing. I'll make the video for you Um, I just want to say hi Just I'm going to put up his comment. This is loney rocker. Um, and he's just saying ricky tea is a gem We mentioned ricky tea earlier. Um Dan at loney rocker if you were to search, um on youtube for Acoustic treatment or diy acoustic treatment. He's like he's defined that search term. He is the search term He's just got the whole thing going on there great guy from canada Just yeah, and and and I'm really hoping that myself and him can do a collaboration soon Um, uh, just a very cool. I got a nice channel. Yeah, definitely check it out. Super nice guy as well Um, the next shout out I'll do is too. I'm just gonna randomly go here. Is anyone you want to say hello to sanjay Yeah, I'm yeah, I just switched over to the comment, uh thing here. So I'm saying at all. I'm saying satya. I'm seeing eddie Who else is in there? Somebody was asking earlier on Oh, where was now I'm scrolling through. Wow. I didn't even realize all these people were in here. I know I know people have been real busy It's so great And what I'm looking for here is Scott Randall What's this one about I'm gonna put this one up. Is this an inappropriate? What's the musician's number two status symbol a wife with a job number one status a wife with two jobs I'm not sure I get that one. I tell you what it does remind me of a joke though What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? homeless Oh, that's a sad truth for so many of us musicians so so rude If ron had an interesting question here, can I throw this one it? Yeah, can you can you put them up? I don't even know if you can put them up Give me it doesn't really give me an option to do anything with all right. I'll see if I can follow it ron asks ron asks Uh, what do I think of my barefoot speakers? So yeah, those speakers that you see back here. Those are barefoot footprint And I love them They are a huge upgrade. They're expensive speakers, but the footprint. Oh ones are actually I think they make an o2 now. That's a little cheaper. What did you have before? Before this I was actually using presonus eris 4.5. That's right. They're super awesome values Excellent. I still sometimes miss mixing with those because the mix did translate it actually worked So if you're looking for like a budget set of speakers $200 for the pair you can't go wrong with the presonus 4.5 But these yeah, these are just bigger Basier and clear. They also have this really cool trick It comes with a little controller where you can change it from It models different speakers. So you can just have the barefoot One sound you can have the hi-fi stereo sound you can have the sound of yama and s10s And you know those classic So similar to what sona a bit like sona sona works are doing that aren't they Something like that too, but now this has it right on the control and it just changes the frequency Yeah, super interesting. I really like them. I would highly recommend them So yeah, if you're thinking about those and you've got the money to spend on some speakers like that Yeah, they're really good. I You know, I don't want to say this because I know that people are on different budgets or budgets At different times of their life and I don't ever want to make them feel that they should Put everything on hold until they can afford this or that piece of equipment It's totally not the way to go Right like and I think I seem to remember a time in the past when I think I you know, obviously Like most people started off with some hi-fi speakers and you know what you can get used to the sound of certain speakers in your room And you can make decent decisions once you get used to them in your room but for many years I use the I had some rocket eights k rk stuff and then I guess it was about a year and a half ago now that I've got the adam audio 8 tvs. Ah, it was mind-blowing. It was just mind-blowing the difference and I still appreciate them now Um, they've just sent me a subwoofer as well, which I haven't reviewed yet I'm kind of interested and a bit scared with subwoofers really about How to advise people about them, but I'm going to give it a good go for a month or so first Um, but yeah, I totally agree with what you were saying is just now that don't wait for the gear that you think you need Yeah, definitely There there's pretty much nothing there Honestly, if all you've got is your laptop and a set of earbuds You better start making music with your laptop and those earbuds right now and get to know them or you're in your door I mean Yeah, there's so much you can learn and so much you need to start doing now If you wait for the that gear to come you're going to be way behind Start doing music now releasing it now. You're going to keep getting better and the gear will come in in the right time And do you think because you know, we get choices perhaps other people don't people send us stuff to review and what have you We're extremely privileged in in that way, but I kind of feel like for example, we talked about Complete earlier because we've both done reviews of complete which I just think you could have just that one library and You if you tried to use all of the instruments and effects in there you you'd be there for years just Exploring it all really. It's so vast now if you get that and then you also get I don't know The I think the IK multimedia is something called the studio total studio. Yeah Oh, yeah, there's a total studio Total studio right if you had complete and then you had total studio and then you had Arturia's v collection or something as well Honestly, it's too much You know, I know we should be trying to you know affiliate links guys But but but honestly it's too much. You'll never you'll never explore all of it. You won't Yeah, it'll actually overwhelm you in some ways I I I agree with you on that. I think You don't need everything. I think it's nice to have the choices out there, right as a musician You could be like, uh, well the complete bundle is good for me because I do some Composing and it's got these the machine expansions that I like to do use as a beat maker Then great that that's that's great for a certain type person If you're into the vintage sense, then yeah, the Arturia v collection is the way to go It's nice to have all these choices. But yeah, if you have all of them It's It can actually how many do you really use? I mean, I find myself after all of these years reaching for Alicia's keys That's just like a standard piano sound for me. I'll I'll just start there. Maybe I'll swap it out for Maverick or something a little bit later, but Alicia's keys. I know that will sound okay on those songs I mean, yeah, I tend to be honest with you. I tend I mean You know, I think I've got superior drummer and uh, addictive drums Addictive drums too is really old now. I still keep going to I just think it's it's just so it works and you go as well Because that's another thing, right? You get something new you have to learn it So you can use your time just collecting these things and keep learning this up Are you going to spend your time making music and if if you do something that you're gonna do that And you do like you're saying with uh, you said studio drummer, right or whichever You throw it in and it does the job And it does it quickly and you can get to the the song and get to the inspiration part and the finishing of the song faster Use that You're fine And all the drummers in the audience are saying no, you don't use either of them Is my phrase is making well in this way make the music you Love yeah, right you and and that's absolutely it doesn't matter. There are no rules Invest out of interest. Let me do a little confession for you And then I'll this is to put you at ease because you may have an equally embarrassing confession The first single that I ever bought. I think I was nine years old And it was money money money by abba I don't know why a nine-year-old boy was buying such but what was your uh, what was the first sort of memory of something? A piece of music that just hit you for some reason, right? I'll tell you the I think the first cassette that I album that I bought was uh, alvin and the chipmunks christmas album That's truly embarrassing, man. You shouldn't know we can cut this out later. It's okay. I'll edit that out We're good I still have that I think when I started collecting music. I actually started collecting the Beatles Yeah, it hit me that So I was I was already learning classical piano But once I started hearing the Beatles I'm like this is opening up things that I've never I never imagined and had got me Delving into the sound and the production like I'd never listened Before and the songwriting all those things that that's when I think I really started getting really serious about the crap and Yeah, I started really collecting once it came to the Beatles are such an interesting example And I know there's going to be people and and I don't blame them for this who are you gonna? Oh Beatles You know and you don't have to like the Beatles, but I think just from a musicians point of view On the face of it They appear to be so easy like all good pop songwriters On the face of it. It's almost like nursery rhyme like where you go. Oh, I could write a song like that easy And then but when you really explore what's going on, especially with harmonies and things with them Then you you the more I learned about the Beatles music the more I'm going wow I just didn't realize what was really going on there when I listened to that song a million times It's inspiring, isn't it? It is it totally is and I I keep discovering new things. I keep learning I think I keep learning about the importance of simplicity. I get reminded about that when I listen to the Beatles songs too of You know, stop stop trying to throw everything at this and stop trying to be Everything else sometimes the simplest solution is the most memorable and the and if it's impactful to me And it was done in such a simple way. Yes, they they get super complex But they can also be so simple and elementary almost but effective That's all that matters There's a lot to be said as well. I think I don't know when I watch them When I watch Paul McCartney, particularly interviewed it's almost like he's still that little kid Who's just mucking around with this and having fun with it, right? Yeah, I think yeah, that's where it's at for me. I want I just want to be that 12 year old boy I was just muck around that guitar for the first time and just going this is fun You know, yeah, but if I was mucking around and coming up with tunes like Paul McCartney That'll be worth the time I don't remember the doc. I don't remember the documentary. It was about a recording studio sunset sounds or something like that with Dave Grohl was in it and he he was working. He had Paul McCartney come in and they jammed together Yeah, yeah, and they jammed on this song and Dave Grohl was there and I think I don't I'm sorry. I don't know the guy's name but the The bass player from Nirvana as well was there and they jammed with Paul McCartney and at the end of it Dave Grohl went Oh, wow. I wish it was always that easy and Paul McCartney turned around. He said he is There's something to be said about that attitude though I think we get into our heads sometimes right about how we believe our music should sound how we believe our youtube videos should be Get out of our head about it and just have fun with it Do something we believe in And and put that out there. Maybe that's enough. Just maybe absolutely Um going to I'll embarrass somebody else here. So what have we got here? Oh chris, that's embarrassing me because I didn't know this fellow's name, but thank you for that big I was actually clicked on the wrong one there Isaac's back again the first album I bought was the simps the simpsons sing the blues. I'll have to check that one out I didn't know the simpsons had a had a blues album, but uh, yeah good stuff Look, I think we're gonna start to wrap this up now sanjay Um, and it's been pointed out to me that your internet's getting a little bit. You're getting pixelated It's clear. Oh, it's clear again. Okay. That's who's helping me out here. Oh, and she found me me the old picture of me Can you put that on your instagram? Oh, look at that. Oh wow, look at that air But his hair used to be down to be even longer, but yeah, that's how I knew him most of our earlier relationship Can I go back to the photos the photos that I put up earlier? Yeah, just to ask you darty. Uh, I'll just I'll just go over to here. Here we go Who's responsible for the cardigan? He is she doesn't like the cardigan. I like the cardigan You know when I was in college, maybe the professor look would be cool. And I don't want to say that too But some of his cardigans are really sexy and some Yeah But he hasn't been doing a cardigan for a while. Have you? No, I haven't done the cardigan. He's out of that look at this Sanjay looks like he's Hey You've been a great sport with all of this stuff. I've totally totally enjoyed chatting with you I hope we can chat again one of the most fun interviews I've ever had this is such So much fun. I love your little segments in between. It's hilarious. I'm so glad to hear that Thanks as well shout out to the hearty there. Um, and you guys are doing some You are so Let me compliment you. I know you're interrupting you, but you are so fun I love your personality and like he said the segments that you did I hope you're I mean, I'm gonna be watching all your interviews from now And this is a lot of pressure for you Add stuff on and maybe even games and stuff and have your own talk show maybe one day You never know you're awesome at it Oh, thank you so much. That's that's a huge compliment. It's not really what I want to do But yeah, I'll leave that to let him he did a good job. I can't really top it But um, but thank you so much. You guys are doing some I've noticed you're doing more Sort of live streams together. Are you doing that on any regular days at all? Um, no, it hasn't become a regular thing yet But i'm gonna try to do a few a few more of those I wasn't I was hardly doing those last year at all But i'm gonna do a few more of those because people seem to really like it and it's so fun to interact with people Alive it's uh, it's awesome. So there'll be more of those for sure I love them because I like just Before we go. I just want to I I don't know if any of your Subscribers have been over to this channel to watch this. I hope they have if they did. Thank you so much for joining us Yes, definitely I would I would humbly ask you to consider subscribing to my channel and checking out some of my videos For all the guys from my gang I'm sure you'll be convinced after this interview already But if you haven't done so already check out the link to sanjay's channel in the description And uh, definitely go over there subscribe to him. Just don't think about it subscribe to him You are going to get good quality stuff coming through in your feeds to the people who are watching the replay of this Please do ask more questions in the comments and I'll invite sanjay to come back and Perhaps if he's got time to answer one or two of those as well, and I'll definitely try and get in there Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day sanjay. Thank you to everybody who's been watching from around the world Last word is to sanjay see Thank you mike so much for this opportunity to be on your channel and to your viewers Yeah, check out my channel And on this video hit the like button put your comments below. I will check him out And uh, I always say in my videos and I always recommend this to you make the music you love you love Yes, thank you