Collaborating and Producing with Raul Sotomayor - Music Production Podcast #352

Raul Sotomayor is a musician, producer, and DJ from Mexico City. Raul makes Afro-Caribbean electronic music as Tonga Conga. He has a record label and studio named Kaya Records and produces music for a wide range of artists.

Raul and I had a great time talking about his work as Tonga Conga and his background as a percussionist and DJ. He shared some thoughts on building a studio area that is comfortable and conducive to creativity. Raul detailed his insights on collaboration and helping artists reach their creative goals.  

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Show Notes:

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.119)

Hello and welcome to the music production podcast. I'm your host Brian Funk. This is the show about all things making music. Today's show I am featuring Raul Sotomayor and Raul makes music as Tonga Conga. I got it okay, right? Thanks. So you're making music as Tonga Conga, which you described as Afro Caribbean electronic music, which is a cool combination of genres.

Raul Sotomayor (00:13.676)

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (00:30.562)

You've got Kaya Records, a studio you're building. It's awesome to have you here. We met through our, we should shout out our mutual friend, Lyndon Williams, AKA Divorce Court, who put us together. Lyndon was on the podcast a little while ago, and he's been a friend through, a virtual friend, I guess. We haven't actually met in real life, but it's great to talk to him. And he spoke so highly of you. I got into your stuff, and it's really great that we're getting a chance to talk now.

Raul Sotomayor (00:59.596)

We can make the whole podcast just about Linden, basically. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:02.39)

Yeah, we probably could. I think we both have enough nice things to say about them. So it's great to have you, man. Welcome. Thanks for coming.

Raul Sotomayor (01:08.492)

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Raul Sotomayor (01:13.745)

Oh, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Brian Funk (01:17.878)

I've been listening to your music and really like it a lot. I mean, I don't understand a lot of it because it's in Spanish. So a lot of it goes over my head, but some of my like high school education, Spanish classes, I pick out certain phrases and stuff. But I was really drawn to a lot of the rhythms you have in there. There's so much great movement. And a lot of times it's not because there's a ton going on either. There's...

Raul Sotomayor (01:25.136)

Hehehehe

Brian Funk (01:46.794)

You're really effective with the elements you put into your music. I've really appreciated that a lot about your work. And I think you're a percussionist. Is that your original way you started into music?

Raul Sotomayor (01:57.037)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the instrument that I'm less worse at. Yeah, I started as a drummer and then it turned into DJing. Like DJing is like my main thing. Like that's what I'm really good at because I've been DJing just for so long. That, yeah, it just, it's like really easy to me. And I began to understand music by the process of understanding DJing.

Brian Funk (02:14.252)

Mm.

Brian Funk (02:22.347)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (02:28.768)

and getting to read people and what makes people dance and how you could make music just with two turntables, you know, like not knowing anything about music, just how can we make a bit out of sampling something or just trying to make similar songs to the ones that you loved because you're going to play them in a DJ set or something. So it's like doing everything backwards because instead of just going to school and

Brian Funk (02:37.869)

Right.

Brian Funk (02:50.83)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (02:56.557)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (02:59.316)

learning music theory was like the opposite. Like, let's try to figure out how we can make music if we don't know how to make music. And that's how we're here.

Brian Funk (03:03.826)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (03:11.971)

That's, you know, I never thought about DJing in that way, but I guess you get to really pay attention to how the music is making people feel first. Whereas, like you said, like if most people learning music will learn some theory, learn some technique on the instrument, and it's usually a very long time before you ever get in front of an audience to watch them react to what you do, but that's got to be really helpful I guess for the...

Raul Sotomayor (03:33.386)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (03:40.246)

like a lot of the production work you're doing and as far as like recording other people and collaborating to have that first because that really is the first and most important thing I think about music when we make it, right? Is how it makes us feel.

Raul Sotomayor (03:55.084)

Yeah, I think it's so crazy because when you talk to kids that are just starting the production thing, it's very technical. Like, they want to know the secret sauce, you know, like, how to make that kick sound huge or side compression or just things that really doesn't matter that much. Like, people that listen to music, they don't even know what a compressor is.

but they understand the storytelling part of music, which is basically the most important thing, like what...

It doesn't even matter if it's like an instrumental song, it's gonna tell a story. You know, like if you're making lo-fi beats, it's gonna tell a relaxing story or a poetry story about, you know, sunrise or whatever. You know, it's like so important, like how you're going to talk about something that has meaning to you first. So it has meaning to some people. And in my world, it has always been like...

making people dance, like how I can make this beat that is going to make people dance and have groove. And then how we can tell a story like the reason why all the songs are in Spanish mainly is because as a Latin American producer, it was like really important for me to tell that story of where I come from and you know, just making sense out of it of the Latin American flag. So it's kind of important for me to

Brian Funk (05:27.125)

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (05:29.444)

to take that into music. You can listen to it and you will know sort of where it is coming from. So that's also part of the storytelling and the concept of music. It's not just making sick beats, you know? It has, there's a lot of things happening in the other side for music to be coherent and for people to understanding and to start loving it as much as you love it when you made it.

Brian Funk (05:44.123)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (05:59.402)

Yeah, right, because a good piece of music that tells a story can live on its own, but a sick beat on its own. It's like, cool, okay, we heard it loop around maybe two or three times, and now you're kind of expecting something else to come out of it, something to develop.

Raul Sotomayor (06:09.304)

Exactly.

Raul Sotomayor (06:20.6)

Yeah, exactly. It's so crazy. And the more I start to understand music, because I think that you will never end learning about music, the more I see that how the storytelling is like the most important part. You have something to say. It doesn't even matter how good you are in an instrument or, you know. You need to also have something to say.

Brian Funk (06:42.412)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (06:50.88)

Like right now I'm really into this under 3000 flute record. And I, I just, I just saw, I think everyone saw the GQ interview and it's so awesome to listen him talking about music and seeing so much similarities in what he says, said. And the thing that touched me more was the part where he says like

Brian Funk (06:56.702)

Me too, I love it. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (07:19.964)

I tried to make a rap album and it didn't came out of me. Like, I had nothing to say there, but I had some other things to say in music. Like how he sees life now and how he sees playing flute and just going to the street and play and how this album was made just by improvising and how he's just making the music that he wants to make and how important is that in life.

Brian Funk (07:27.469)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (07:49.168)

It's not just trying to make music that will get thousands of streams in Spotify. It's also very important to make music that you love and that people can relate to.

Brian Funk (08:04.094)

Yeah, I think that's the title of one of the tracks, like that last 45 seconds of you talking. That's, he's got, he, it's all instrumental. I didn't see the GQ interview, so I got to check that out. Um, but he puts a lot of the story in the title. Some of those titles are like almost paragraphs. And I, I was really curious to hear it too, cause I think I saw like some headline on social media, something like that or

Raul Sotomayor (08:07.912)

Yeah. Hahaha. Yeah, I see.

Raul Sotomayor (08:20.76)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (08:33.23)

People were shocked and people can't believe it. I was like, well, cool. It's fun to see somebody really taking a risk like that, especially because I think it's been quite a while since he's released music too. And he really does tell stories in the music. And I've found it really enjoyable when I'm like out walking around, walking the dog or going for a run. It takes you somewhere.

Raul Sotomayor (08:45.444)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (09:03.038)

And the titles are almost a funny, I don't know if he did it with humor, must have I think. It had some humor in there just to kind of, I'm going to explain it in the title. And one of those is like, I tried to make a rap song, but it's like an apology for not making rap music. But

Raul Sotomayor (09:07.1)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (09:14.577)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (09:21.316)

Exactly. Yeah. No, and it's... the music is very good. Because kind of the same happened to me, like... I saw that there was a new Andre 3000 album and it was like... Like... I do like Outkast and... But it's not like I want to run and listen to what he did. Then I listened that it was a flute album and it was like... Really? Like, why? But then you listen to the music and it's... it's really good.

Brian Funk (09:35.126)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (09:49.952)

like it's a very well done album.

Brian Funk (09:54.31)

You can tell why when you listen to it. You get it. I think pretty quickly, you go, oh, like you can hear the excitement and fun that's being had with it. Um, it's also just really cool. Even like production wise, I think it's a lot of like electronic fluid in there and a mixture. And, um, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (09:56.495)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (10:11.704)

Yeah, and a lot of scenes and soundscapes and it's because in the interview he says that he improvised everything.

But there's a lot of production and composition and there's a lot of work going on the album. I know that he stood in front of the mic and he improvised stuff but there are really powerful hooks and there are, you know, there's a lot of work.

Brian Funk (10:28.702)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (10:39.274)

Right. Yeah, this direction for sure. I could imagine maybe that's how the songs were born, some improvisation, but then probably pulling them together a little because it's, yeah, it's such a cool thing to happen. I love that. Because it gives everyone permission to just like, just do what you want, do what you feel, follow your heart. And, you know, don't worry about, we live in like a world nowadays, I guess, where

Raul Sotomayor (10:47.79)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (11:00.41)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (11:09.782)

The audience is so vast and everyone's attention is so divided into a million directions that if you kind of just go with something you really feel, there's got to be somebody else out there that's going to feel that too.

Raul Sotomayor (11:23.704)

Yeah, for sure. For sure. That's... I feel sometimes as a producer or as a beat maker or as a musician, like you feel kind of lost because you don't know where to go. And most of the time is because you have to struggle with this idea of failure. Like what happens if I put this out and no one likes it or no one listens to it or... And that album puts that in perspective very good because even him...

even under 3,000 thinks that this was gonna fail like epically. And it's like the most important album of the year, you know? It's crazy.

Brian Funk (12:03.39)

Right. Yeah, it is really funny. And what a risk. And yeah, I mean, I could tell you what happens when no one listens to your music firsthand. Nothing. Nothing happens, you know. And you still feel accomplished. To me, it's like you did the impossible every time. It's magic. You made something out of thin air. It wasn't there. It didn't exist.

Raul Sotomayor (12:16.231)

Exactly.

Brian Funk (12:33.374)

I really try to remember that when I go through it. It's pretty much magic. Like, yeah, there's like technical things you do, but it's so incredible when it happens that it almost doesn't even matter how good it is. Even just that from the discipline side of things that you followed through on something, it's so rare that we do that. People...

Raul Sotomayor (12:41.496)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (13:00.546)

do that, that we have an idea and we see it through. If you get there, like, congratulations, I think. And if it's well received, that's amazing, but that's something you can't really control. And so you might as well just do what you feel.

Raul Sotomayor (13:17.072)

Exactly, you just gotta keep making it because...

Brian Funk (13:21.055)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (13:23.28)

You know, it happens to me a lot that I work with artists, like me producing their albums. And when it's their first album, that's always like a really important topic because sometimes it happens that they have like a song where they recorded, you know, like a guitar part and they are really reluctant to deleting that part or to changing it or, you know, and it's like...

Brian Funk (13:47.679)

Uh huh. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (13:51.48)

You kind of need to understand that if you're going to make a career out of this, you're going to make 5,000 songs, you know? So you also need to be able to let it go, like, tomorrow I'll do another song and tomorrow I'll do another and eventually there's going to be one that is good, you know, because you're going to improve and get better. You have to be able to enjoy the process because that's...

ultimately the fun part like you're like when you get to make an album at a studio and just be there for a week and working with another musicians and record and that's really the fun part of this that's the thing that you're gonna remember years later how you made those songs and how you interacted with other people and how fun it was to

to listen to the final tracks, you know? So you need to be able to enjoy the process. Doesn't matter if the songs are gonna get listened to or be a success or not, or you need to be able to enjoy the process.

Brian Funk (14:53.805)

Right.

Brian Funk (15:08.434)

It's so true because it comes out in the final product anyway. You can't really control that as much how it's received, but you can control how you enjoy the work. It's such a metaphor for pretty much everything else, isn't it? Like life. Even when you get to the end of the process of making an album, it's exciting and it's great but then that's it. So then it's...

Raul Sotomayor (15:25.132)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (15:37.57)

the next one and the next one. And you have to be into that. And if you are stressing out about like those little parts, like I can't get rid of that part, you'll take all the fun out of the fun part. And good luck with the rest of the stuff. That's so unpredictable and scary.

Raul Sotomayor (15:48.848)

Exactly, exactly.

Raul Sotomayor (15:53.843)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (15:57.676)

Yeah, totally.

Brian Funk (15:59.798)

You've been doing a lot of that recently, I believe, right? This is kind of a big focus of yours. You worked with a lot of people on your, your record, Heavy, J-E-V-I, which thanks for cluing me on like a new slang term too. I like that. Um, but, uh, that's been kind of something you've been doing. I'm sure it teaches you a lot about other ways of working as well as how you work and things like that, I imagine.

Raul Sotomayor (16:09.944)

Yeah.

Hahaha, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (16:26.264)

Yeah, well, I think the pandemic was kind of like a transforming year for me. And I think for everyone in the world. But for me, especially, it meant like a really huge change in what I was doing, because before the pandemic, I was just focusing like on my own projects. And then the pandemic was really hard on me because...

Brian Funk (16:35.19)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (16:56.7)

I put out an album February 2020. So that's like basically the worst possible day, like worst timing ever. And it's an album that I love, but it really didn't do well, because it was a very difficult time for everyone. Like no one was paying attention to music. So...

Brian Funk (17:01.342)

Nice. Worst timing ever. Yeah.

Brian Funk (17:20.238)

There's a lot in the news, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (17:25.836)

After that, it was really hard for me to go and make music again. Like you will see on Instagram, like people, like if they were on vacations, you know, like, yeah, lockdown, like I'm going to go and make beats, you know? Like finally I have time to make music. And for me it was like, man, that's what I do every day. Like today I really don't want to go and do it again if I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Brian Funk (17:53.983)

Right.

Raul Sotomayor (17:54.208)

Like it was kind of hard and then suddenly people start reaching out to me to help them produce their music. And that kind of took a lot of pressure from me because it was like, okay, now I just have to make the music, right? I don't have to put it out. That's going to be your problem. So it kind of took like a lot of pressure from me because it was like, okay, I just have to do the music and that's...

Brian Funk (18:18.562)

Hahaha

Raul Sotomayor (18:24.088)

That's awesome. And I started to produce albums from another artist and it ended up with this studio because before this, my studio was in my apartment, like just like the living room, like the whole living room was the studio. And it was a nice spot and I loved it and I worked there like for eight years.

But having a studio makes things easier because sometimes when you're producing other artists, like if you're making music for a rapper, there will be like 10 people in your house. So it was kind of like weird to have them in my house. And now it is a studio. So, and everything is more controlled because before I was only able to do like pre-productions.

because it will be like, okay, we can record scenes and we might be able to record vocals, but maybe not final takes. But if I wanted to record drums or percussions, I will have to set them up like literally on my living room. It was kind of weird, like acoustics were not the right thing for those recordings. And now here, I can just do whatever. Like I have a room where I can record drums.

or final vocal takes. And it also helps with the process because before that it was like, okay, we have to make a pre-production and then we're gonna need to go to a studio and rent a studio and have a week where we will re-record everything that needs to be re-recorded. And now that I have a studio, like decisions can be final. Like you can go and play drums and...

That's basically what's going to end up in the record because everything is under control and we already set up the mics like we wanted and we have the correct performance. And so it's making the process like something where we can go faster and also where we can experiment more because.

Raul Sotomayor (20:44.14)

It's like a space really suitable for composition because sometimes when you go to a big studio, like you, they will have the giant SSL console, but you know, but nothing works. Like, yeah, there's all these things, but they don't work and we don't know how to connect them, you know. So here, here everything is just like everything is already working. So if you kind of feel like sitting on the roads and just playing something.

Brian Funk (20:55.083)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (21:04.053)

Right.

Raul Sotomayor (21:12.912)

It's already sounding like I just need to hit record and we will start working. And that's also something that is improving the creative process and just getting into making music faster. And yeah, that's, that's where I am at this point.

Brian Funk (21:16.855)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (21:31.554)

Right. Yeah. You have things, you don't get caught up in that. Inspiration is so fickle. It slips away so fast and sometimes even just connecting things and moving some seats around and then you don't, you almost lose it or you don't feel like it anymore. Or if you have to figure out what's not connected, right. It can really, you can lose it all like that. You have to set up things to.

Raul Sotomayor (21:46.895)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (21:51.607)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (22:00.886)

protect it. Your studio is really beautiful from the pictures you sent. I love that it's there's a lot of space. There's not a lot of clutter anywhere. It seems very neat. I love that. You've got like drawers kind of for synthesizers and drum machines. That looks like it was invented. Was that like custom piece of furniture just for that? Because that's like where do you find that thing?

Raul Sotomayor (22:02.34)

Yellow.

Raul Sotomayor (22:25.252)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (22:28.651)

I don't see that at IKEA or anything, right?

Raul Sotomayor (22:30.185)

Yeah. Well, the thing is that I, I am an industrial designer. I went to school for that. That's what I actually did study. So I kind of did kind of design everything and then an architect helped me just to build everything. So yeah, everything is like really. I think.

Brian Funk (22:38.716)

Oh cool.

Brian Funk (22:51.989)

Wow, that's perfect.

Raul Sotomayor (22:56.488)

I thought a lot how that was going to work, so before making it. And like the panels, like everything is movable, like everything is on wheels. So if we are doing like a live session, I can just move things around and just fit them to the perfect position. And since this is an apartment that I'm renting, if I need to move out, like I can, I can just take everything out from the walls.

Brian Funk (22:59.565)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (23:05.998)

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (23:25.684)

instead of having everything just perfectly acoustically made so yeah that's kind of... i can give you guys like a quick turnaround of the...

Brian Funk (23:33.038)

Nice. Yeah, this.

Brian Funk (23:40.426)

Yeah, those sound absorption panels are great, beautiful.

Brian Funk (23:50.966)

All right. I like the music too.

Raul Sotomayor (23:50.982)

That's basically that's that was a quick tour.

Brian Funk (23:57.15)

Yeah, there's a lot of nice natural light in there too, which I'm sure just adds to the ambiance. Yeah, I can see that you have a sense of design. This is something I don't have. So when I see it, I'm like, wow, how did they figure that out? You know, there's no continuity in anything I do.

Raul Sotomayor (24:08.676)

Hahaha

Raul Sotomayor (24:17.388)

Well, there's also... there's... like, studios are dark places because, like, no windows, because that's not gonna help for acoustics. But I... As you said before, sometimes it doesn't help, like, for inspiration or things. Sometimes it helps more to just be in a place where you actually feel good about making music. So that was also, like, something really important to...

Brian Funk (24:25.888)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (24:41.706)

Right. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (24:46.608)

to just have like this cozy place where you really want to be all day just working because that's also like the funny part of this that we are actually working it doesn't seem like... but yeah

Brian Funk (24:53.176)

Right.

Brian Funk (24:58.707)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (25:02.646)

Well, that's something that you don't realize, I guess, getting into it, that it is work. You're in a place for a long time and you're focused on something. It's probably the fun work you wanna be doing. It's not data entry or things like that, but it is a type of work. So it's nice to be comfortable. And I agree with you. I'd rather have.

less than ideal acoustics and get some natural light in there. I'm in the basement of my house and it's dedicated to studio work and washing and drying machine. Those are the two jobs of this area. They're hidden behind that curtain behind me. Don't tell anyone. But I do have a door over here that...

Raul Sotomayor (25:45.94)

Hehe

Brian Funk (25:59.454)

I made sure it had like a window in it. It wasn't just a, it used to be a solid door. Um, because a lot of times it's a nice day out and I hate being cooped up in the basement when it's nice out. So to get the light in there, it really helps a lot. It just makes it feel more cozy. And I think it's so much. It's a really, it's a fair trade in my mind. I'll deal with some poor acoustics for the comfort.

to be in a place where I want to be, that I can feel comfortable to actually write music and play and not feel like, okay, I gotta do this so I can get out of here.

Raul Sotomayor (26:28.82)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (26:40.468)

Yeah, yeah, it's... It's as we were saying, like sometimes you get lost into the technical aspect of things and sometimes it doesn't matter that much. Like there's this other album that I love, well this band, Crank Bean, we're going into pronunciation, but this instrumental band, and they are from Texas and they recorded the album just like in a barn.

Brian Funk (26:49.002)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (27:09.771)

Hmm

Raul Sotomayor (27:10.336)

I don't know if you saw that but it's just a barn. Like the picture from the drums, you could see cows. And they just set up like a studio there because that's where they wanted to record. And you know, it's no one is actually... Like music is not gonna change just because it was recorded in a barn. So...

Brian Funk (27:18.922)

Nice.

Brian Funk (27:26.388)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (27:35.734)

Right. Well, I believe Neil Young did Harvest in a Barn, if I'm not mistaken. I think I saw some videos of that. That's one of my favorite albums. Oh yeah. Like where he's recording is gorgeous. They're like overlooking the water. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's a really great video of them playing live up there and uh,

Raul Sotomayor (27:41.932)

Yeah, I... Or the Taemin Pala albums. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (27:52.044)

Yeah, it's just like a... it's like a ma... yeah...

Brian Funk (28:02.394)

over, I don't remember who made it, what it's for, but it starts out like daytime and then it gets dark by the end and it just looks like such a great place to be. So cozy. It's just a house, I guess, but...

Raul Sotomayor (28:13.249)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it was a house that they rented like for a month and they recorded there. And the session was like for like an anniversary of the release of the album. So they just played the whole album, just like they made it, like same instruments, same mic-ing. Because, you know.

Brian Funk (28:21.186)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (28:28.926)

Okay. Yeah. Cool. Right.

Hmm. I love the way those records sound. And that's one of the first things I noticed about Tame and Paolo records. It's just right away, he like the sonics of it is so cool. So interesting and unique. So.

Raul Sotomayor (28:51.108)

Yeah, I'm crazy about the drums, so I'm always geeking just how were those drums recorded. And like his process is really interesting, like really just a few mics, you know, drums in his bedroom, like nothing fancy, just go and record it with whatever you have.

Brian Funk (28:55.562)

Yeah, me too. Dryin'.

Heh.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (29:08.706)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (29:18.89)

Right. They have spirit. Those recordings. There's, this is something we were kind of talking a little bit about before we pressed record and I was kind of like, we better start recording. Because you were mentioning your studio, Kaia Studio. Is it Kaia Studio and Kaia Records? Right. They both have the same name.

Raul Sotomayor (29:20.8)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (29:29.712)

Hehehehe

Raul Sotomayor (29:39.148)

yeah well yeah it's like just like kaya and then it's the records i prefer it to yeah so kaya yeah man and also a

Brian Funk (29:45.088)

Okay, gotcha.

So that's the name of your dog, right? And my dog is right behind me, sleeping behind me here. And we were talking a little bit about how sometimes they get into the albums, making noise and stuff. And I've always allowed that because I've wanted to record, re-record stuff a few times. There's one recording in particular I was mentioned in my, I do a sampling class with Berklee. I always tell them about it where,

I was recording a quiet classical guitar and I had a cat at the time. And he, like all cats gets interested in you when you get busy doing something else. So I'm trying to do this real quiet part. And he walks between my legs and his little chain on his collar starts jingling, totally noticeable in the recording. And I almost recorded over it with made another take, but I decided to leave it.

Raul Sotomayor (30:29.317)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (30:45.79)

And now that's such a little special touch for me on that song. To just hear that, I remember where I was, what was happening, exactly how I was sitting in the room even. And I can hear my cat again and he's in there and you know, he's, he's since, you know, passed away and I still have that connection, still can kind of like call him up a little bit and there he is participating. I think that kind of stuff is.

Raul Sotomayor (31:01.721)

Hehe

Raul Sotomayor (31:10.809)

Hehehe

Brian Funk (31:15.678)

I don't know that anyone else would know that, but I think it does bring something nice to the recording, life, and some kind of vitality, some kind of spirit or something that gets put into your music when you let that stuff in sometimes. You might not be able to do that all the time when you're working with other people and they're hiring you to do it, and they want to get those sounds out of there and keep it clean, but I think it's something...

worth considering not to just scrub away all of the life out of our music like we so easily can now.

Raul Sotomayor (31:51.892)

yeah like it's i think it might be the reason why we abuse the sampling part of music because everyone just wanted you know like to be perfect like you wanted

Brian Funk (32:01.747)

Uh huh.

Raul Sotomayor (32:09.272)

You want to have the best quality in your music all of the time and sometimes we confuse quality with spirit. You know, like, there's like a middle point where you can have the perfect amount of quality in a recording and not taking the soul out of it. No, it doesn't matter if you made the song in your bed, you know, or in your bedroom, it does, it, you don't have to be in a really expensive...

Brian Funk (32:20.419)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (32:38.12)

studio full of gear in order for you to make good music like that's like when you're starting music there's always that feeling in your mind that you need to have the best quality and be in the best studio and with the best producer that's not gonna make your music good at all like that has to come from you and it's gonna come from different places

Brian Funk (32:59.299)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:05.73)

I agree. When I first got some decent recording equipment, moving up from like a four track cassette recorder, it was so exciting. Like, wow, it sounds so much better. And I don't even know what I'm doing. So then I got into mic placement and EQ compressor. And so I got really started getting into that stuff and it got too technical. And I wasn't making as much music. I was just setting up microphones all the time.

And finally, it was when I said, I'm not even gonna worry about it because it's gonna be so much better than what I had before anyway, even if I screw everything up along the way. It's gonna sound way better than anything I could ever do before. And letting that go allowed me to just finish stuff and learn along the way. Like, hey, you know what? Yeah, that wasn't the great mic placement, but I can make up for it maybe in how I record this part. I can change something here.

Or just next time I won't do it that way. But at least I'm going through it and hearing how it works into the big picture and finishing stuff so that you can have something to work on the next time. And it was a big moment for me. I'm really vividly remembering just deciding to like, all right, let's just stop worrying about all this stuff for a little while, just see if we can make something.

Raul Sotomayor (34:08.312)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (34:30.352)

Thanks for watching!

Yeah, I think something that happens a lot of the times is like you work like on a vocal part and you start processing it and you know, it suddenly has like a bunch of effects and it sounds awesome. And there's a huge part of like replacing recordings in the process of producing an album. And sometimes you try to recreate it and it doesn't sound like the first take. You know, like...

Brian Funk (35:03.011)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (35:03.852)

Sometimes it's, I don't know what that crappy vocal that we recorded in the phone has, but that one's the one that's working. Like, why do we want to change it? Just because we are going to do it with a more expensive mic. Like, let's just keep it and you know, some, sometimes it's like that.

Brian Funk (35:11.608)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (35:25.202)

Yeah, I guess you have like that spirit. You know, you're just starting, you're excited, all that stuff, like comes through your voice and through your fingers and your hands when you're playing instruments. Um, to speak of Neil Young again, I heard him talk about when he records with his band, Crazy Horse, he doesn't really let them learn the song completely before they start recording. They, like, they don't perfect it anyway.

Raul Sotomayor (35:27.536)

Thanks for watching!

Brian Funk (35:55.138)

he gets it to a point where it sounds good and then they record. And it's not going to come out perfect, but it's going to come out with some energy and some spirit and where in a way that it's being thoughtfully delivered instead of trying to be precise.

Raul Sotomayor (36:16.26)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (36:16.351)

Sometimes the precision costs you the emotion.

Raul Sotomayor (36:25.549)

Yeah, it's so crazy. Like there's this other part that happens a lot that I call it the demo tities. I don't know if it translates to that. Just, you know, sometimes the artists just listen to the demo like so many times that he loves it how it is.

Brian Funk (36:35.51)

Demo, demo-itis, demo-itis. I've heard that, yeah.

Brian Funk (36:50.059)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (36:50.964)

And I'm as a producer, I'm just trying to delete everything. And it's like, you know, if maybe it's good just as it is, or maybe not, but that's just part of the decision of just trying to move forward with what you're doing. And I see it how you put it on how not letting the artist to have the full song before recording it because something magic is going to happen. Like...

Brian Funk (37:18.84)

Mm.

Raul Sotomayor (37:19.744)

It also happens like the other way around. Like sometimes they gave a first take and then they are trying to just improve. And sometimes it doesn't flows like that. Like the first take was the good one. Or sometimes it does like I've seen it. Like that's sometimes you learn the song and then you will be able to give up a better performance, you know, because maybe just when, when you just grow it, you sing it and

Brian Funk (37:30.147)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (37:43.767)

Right.

Raul Sotomayor (37:48.96)

It wasn't the best performance. Sometimes there's room for improvement. And sometimes there's not, but there's, there's also where the work of the producer comes into place, like there's, there has to be someone that has the, the assertiveness to say, okay, this is what we're going to do. So yeah.

Brian Funk (37:54.275)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (38:05.922)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (38:10.942)

Yeah, I was thinking that's probably where your job gets tricky because there is something you can, when you know a song, then there's some fun you can have with it. You can play around, but when you don't know a song, you're kind of making decisions, decisions emotionally based on how it's making you feel in the moment. And it's, as the performer, it can be really tough to be able to tell which way is right, which is working.

Do you have any, because so much of being a producer with other people is not even about music, it's more psychological stuff, right? Like making. Yeah. Do you have any kind of approaches you take with people, any ways you like to communicate with them maybe? Because you don't want to upset them.

Raul Sotomayor (38:52.765)

Like Rick Rubin will say, yeah.

Brian Funk (39:08.954)

insult them or probably the worst thing you can do is make them feel like inadequate. Like, you know, no, it's not good. Like you don't want them to feel like they can't do it.

Raul Sotomayor (39:21.644)

Yeah, I... It's... The most difficult part of the process, I think. But I have kind of a couple of tricks, let's say. Hahaha. Like, for example, I try to let them... If you're composing a song, I'll try just to let them play around with the instruments. Like, sometimes they expect the producer to just grab the guitar and...

Brian Funk (39:29.838)

Thanks for watching!

Raul Sotomayor (39:50.592)

start making the song. And it's like, it's not my song, it's your song. So just go and play it. And it will be like, oh, but I'm not a pianist. I don't know. Like, it's like, nothing's judged here. Like you play it and then we'll see if it works, or you know, like. So that's kind of the approach that I try to have. Also to always listen to their ideas. Sometimes.

Brian Funk (39:56.055)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (40:04.994)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (40:20.888)

the artists.

are not able to see how the product is going to be at the end. So sometimes that makes them delete ideas very fast. Like they will say, like, I, what if we record a guitar? And then they will be like, no, it's not going to work. And it's like, how do you know that it's not going to work? Let's just give it a try. Like record it first and let's see what happens. Like.

Brian Funk (40:45.823)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (40:52.248)

But as a producer you always need to listen to them first, like, and not go and say like, no, we are not going to record a guitar because, you know, like, if you have an idea, let's try it and then let's see if it works. Sometimes you're not working just with an artist, it's a band. So it's three people giving ideas. And there's always a conflict of ideas. So you need to...

Brian Funk (41:04.034)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (41:18.084)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (41:20.876)

be able to listen to everyone and just everyone give their positive or negative feedback and try to get to a middle point. There's also these things I didn't learn them like on my own. Like I learned this by working with other producers and just seeing them work and interact with people and see why that works. You know? Like I think that the best producers that I work with are the ones that

Brian Funk (41:30.882)

Right.

Brian Funk (41:42.958)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (41:50.82)

really listen to you, they are paying attention to what you do and what you want to get out of music because I see the producer work as that. My work is to make the artists shine. It's to take the best out of them and put it into music. So that's hard to see. For example, I...

Brian Funk (42:16.726)

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (42:19.36)

I've worked with producers that are obviously older than me and that have been working in music for a lot of years. Sometimes for them it's hard to understand the technological DJ approach to music. They see Ableton push and they won't understand what that's doing. They will see me like the crazy guy pushing buttons. The great producers...

Brian Funk (42:34.312)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (42:39.326)

Right.

Brian Funk (42:44.306)

Uh huh.

Raul Sotomayor (42:48.88)

we see that they don't understand as something that they want to learn too. Because it's a process where we're just feedbacking ideas. So as a producer, you need to also be able to learn from the artists stuff. You know, it's not like you are the only one that knows how to make the song. So it's a process.

Brian Funk (43:11.789)

Right.

Brian Funk (43:16.93)

That's something that happens to me every time I'm collaborating. I will hear ideas sometimes and be positive it's not gonna work. You know, like, no, that's not a good idea. No, no, no. You know? I usually do go with it, I think. I think I'm pretty good about that. Pretty open-minded, but I will know like in my heart, like, all right, we're just gonna do this because

Raul Sotomayor (43:28.15)

Yeah

Brian Funk (43:44.414)

It's, I'm working with other people, we gotta be fair, right? So let's give everything a shot. And there's always a number of times in those situations where I was so wrong. Like, that actually sounds pretty good, it works great. And that kind of humbling experience of finding out like, yeah, no, you had it wrong. Like, as much as you believe that wasn't gonna work, listen how good that sounds. And it's a great.

thing to have happen to you because it only expands your possibilities. It makes you see new ways to do things. Uh, there's definitely no reason to get too, um, attached to any idea you have or, or any idea against someone else's idea, you know, any, any opinion against any other idea, because you really don't know until it happens is

Brian Funk (44:44.116)

That's the conclusion I've come to is it's, everything is kind of a little bit of guesswork and we might know things that kind of work well in certain situations, but nothing works every time and nothing never works either. There's always a surprise along the way.

Raul Sotomayor (45:02.624)

Yeah, it's... I don't know if... I think it's also part of like modern production because maybe in the 70s you wouldn't try an idea because it was expensive. Like you couldn't say like, okay let's record a different guitar part. It was gonna take like a huge part of the tape so it's gonna cost money and time and we don't have time, you know. But in today's...

Brian Funk (45:12.535)

Cough.

time and money. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (45:32.048)

production work, it's just gonna be an Ableton track that you can just mute or delete. So, you know, just go for the idea and record it. I remember a lot having teachers when I was in the design school telling me just when I entered to school that

Brian Funk (45:38.739)

Right.

Brian Funk (45:44.855)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (45:59.392)

It doesn't matter that you had like an idea for something that you need to put it on paper. Like you need to make a drawing of the idea. Like, yeah, let's make this chair to only have three legs and to be round. And, you know, in your mind, it sounds awesome. But once you, once you draw it, it's like, no, this is, this is not going to work, but you, you need to see it. And in the production world, it's kind of the same thing.

Brian Funk (46:08.27)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (46:20.57)

Right. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (46:29.068)

Like, okay, let's record the idea first and then we see if we delete it or not. Or maybe that idea brings you to this different idea that's awesome, you know? So you have to be able to catch those moments.

Brian Funk (46:29.468)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (46:47.486)

Right. That's a funny way to think about it too. I got started thinking about like those MC Escher drawings of like the impossible staircases and stuff. Because sometimes in your head you have this idea, yeah, it's gonna be really cool. And then you try to put it down and you realize you have all these contradicting things trying to happen at the same time. You can't have physics of it won't work. The way you're thinking is just impossible. You know, it's gonna...

Raul Sotomayor (46:56.72)

Yeah. Heh heh. Yeah.

Brian Funk (47:17.038)

too many things in the low end or something like that, or there's just no way to do it, but you do need to see it sometimes. I bet, do you find that sort of design background has helped you musically, putting things together?

Raul Sotomayor (47:34.4)

Yeah, I think with the creative process, because designing is just like music, it's just kind of solving a problem. Like where are you going to sit or how can you make something to sit? So you need to solve that problem going from nothing to something. And music is just the same.

I don't have nothing and then at the end you have a song. There's a process that can help you get there, a creative process. And I'll say that's what I'm actually prepared to do because that's what I went to school for. And I try to apply that idea all of the time in how I make music because...

I think when you are starting in music, something that happens a lot is repetition. Like once you figure out how to make a song, then all of your songs start sounding kind of the same. Because your process is kind of the same. Like I always start with a drum beat and then I'll go to chords and then bass. And these are kind of my sounds. And then you make 10 beats in a week and they are all basically sounding the same.

And sometimes it's because your process is not changing. So I try to change how I approach music every time. Like today, instead of doing it the way I do it, I'll try to start with a sample. I will just listen to a vinyl and let's see if I can sample something. Or today I listen to this song and I'm gonna try to just copy it, but not copy the song, maybe just copy the structure because I love how...

how the song starts and how it has like this bridge in the middle. So I'll try to make a song that has this same structure. Or sometimes it's like, I'm just gonna try and make this song on the synth because I haven't used it in a while or something. And let's just see if there's something that inspires me here. And you know, just going to different places will always brings you to different results. Like...

Raul Sotomayor (49:59.968)

Let's start today with writing the lyrics and then we'll see how we make music to that. So the creative process is really helpful in developing music and developing a sound and ultimately making an album, which is something that doesn't happen much in these times because it's just making singles. But when you're an artist or you're trying to be an artist,

making a bunch of songs that make sense together. It's what ultimately end up making a project, you know, like if it's a band or even if it's like your DJ project, just being really clear with the type of music that you make, that's gonna happen by making an album because just a compilation of songs that can go together.

Brian Funk (50:37.058)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (50:55.446)

Yeah. So you're starting a lot of times with some kind of vision, some kind of maybe even challenge, it sounds like. I'm gonna try something a little different. I guess, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Raul Sotomayor (51:09.121)

Yeah, because...

Yeah, the blank page is trying to read the blank page. It's the hardest part.

Brian Funk (51:14.879)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (51:20.39)

when you're designing something. So I'm trying to make a comparison here now, because sometimes I like to come down. Where am I gonna do today? I don't know, let's see where it takes me. Let's just pull something random out here and here. And a lot of times I make nothing, right? And now I'm trying to compare that to a design thing. Like if I'm gonna build something today. All right, let me just grab this piece of wood here and I'm gonna stick it to this piece of metal. Like.

Raul Sotomayor (51:27.044)

Hehehehehe

Raul Sotomayor (51:37.848)

Yeah, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (51:45.996)

Settle.

Brian Funk (51:49.314)

what are you, where are you going? What are you gonna make? And I guess maybe at best you can come away with like some kind of abstract sculpture and maybe that's almost the same with music. Maybe we'll get something weird abstract, but if you decide like, I wanna make a chair, today I'm gonna make a chair. So many other things are now just off the table. Like the page is no longer blank as soon as you just say that.

Raul Sotomayor (51:51.504)

Exactly.

Raul Sotomayor (52:09.232)

Exactly.

Brian Funk (52:17.51)

make a chair or for the song I want to make a song as a bridge like this song then there you go you've wiped away so much of that blank page so many decisions don't need to be made anymore and you can start solving that problem

Raul Sotomayor (52:33.164)

Yeah, it's... yeah, and that same thing is basically why design is comparable to producing music, not to making music because...

When you're producing music, the problem is very clear. We need to make a song or a record or no, because not everything in music is making a song. Sometimes it's making a soundscape for, I don't know, for a museum, you know, or sometimes it's just performing, which is something that I think to me, because of how I started in music and because of design.

Brian Funk (53:06.188)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (53:16.256)

Like I tend to see music like you need to have a final product and sometimes music is not like that. Sometimes it's just awesome to go and jam with your friend, you know, and make noise for two hours and then go back home. You know, it's and for me, it was hard to see it that way because I've always been like, we make songs here, so we need to be productive. And sometimes it's just fun to go and play since.

Brian Funk (53:26.86)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:32.639)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (53:41.863)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (53:45.724)

for two hours and just making a patch that goes nowhere, you know, and because making music is also fun just to play it and to perform it and sometimes we get lost in this world where Instagram and Spotify is so important that you feel that you need to be productive. Like even if you are just jamming, we need to make a video and upload it, you know, and sometimes that...

Brian Funk (53:47.019)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:50.527)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (54:09.31)

Right.

Brian Funk (54:13.982)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (54:15.664)

doesn't matter it's just like how we started this podcast was just like having fun and it's same thing

Brian Funk (54:26.306)

We ruined it by recording it. Well, you know, it's true. A lot of times I'll notice when I do podcasts, we'll kind of start talking, you know, that's kind of nice and natural. And then as soon as I say, hello, everybody, and welcome to the music production, then it gets all weird. And I keep saying, I think I've even said it on the podcast that I...

Raul Sotomayor (54:29.1)

Hahaha, basically.

Raul Sotomayor (54:47.344)

Thanks for watching!

Brian Funk (54:52.99)

I'm really considering not doing that anymore and finding some other way. Maybe I'll do the intro afterwards and stick it in the beginning, but because sometimes it does change the feeling like, okay, now we're like performing this conversation and it's going to be a product and it is a lot different. There's a part of me, you know, when I growing up, like before I got into recording very early, but it was.

kind of more so that I could just have some chords to practice my pentatonic guitar solos over, you know? So it wasn't really going anywhere, but that experience of just playing a guitar and letting it just resonate out into the air and go away and it's over and then put it away. And it was all about just the moment and the action of playing the guitar. And...

Raul Sotomayor (55:28.46)

Hehe

Brian Funk (55:49.45)

It didn't need to get recorded and now so often everything I do, there's a record button somewhere. There's, even if it's just my phone, just to remember stuff, there's always this sort of idea like maybe this will be something. Maybe I can make it into something. And sometimes it does take a little bit of the...

I guess like momentariness of it, the just doing the thing for the sake of doing it. Is there a design equivalent to that, to like jamming, to just playing your drums for no reason other than just playing for an hour or just design a synth patch for the sake of just fooling around and passing the time?

Raul Sotomayor (56:26.245)

Hahaha

Raul Sotomayor (56:37.561)

I think it might be like just sketching, you know, like drawing. But I've also seen how, like I was like really respectful, like with Ableton as the dog, you know, like if we're going to hit record, it's because this is serious, you know, and now I see it more just like a sketch board, like.

Brian Funk (56:40.386)

Catching, yeah, doodling, yeah.

Brian Funk (56:53.282)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (56:58.303)

Right?

Brian Funk (57:02.722)

Alright.

Raul Sotomayor (57:03.448)

Let's just drop a bunch of ideas there and it doesn't matter if this end of being a song or not. It's... You know, because it feels like that. Like when you compare like the arrangement view with the clip view, because that's something that's like really particular with me. Like I like to start in the clip view. Like I will record clips, midi clips, and then I'll arrange them into a song. So I don't go to the arrangement straight away.

And there's people that only works in the arrangement view. And with the arrangement view, you have to be really respectful with what you're doing. The idea has to be really clear, what's gonna happen and why you're gonna record it. And the other one is the messy part, where you can just have your ideas and it feels more like a sketchbook. I also think that's why I...

Brian Funk (57:33.017)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (57:40.96)

Right.

Brian Funk (57:57.164)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (58:01.592)

really like Ableton and what I am.

Raul Sotomayor (58:07.564)

Why I'm good at it, it's because of that messy part that it has, that it feels more like a sketch, like Pro Tools, it's just like, doesn't work like that at all. Like, straight away you need to have a name for the project, tempo for the project, you know, like, already know, like, yeah, exactly. Like.

Brian Funk (58:19.058)

Yeah, right.

Brian Funk (58:29.058)

That happens when you create a session, right? If I remember, I've used it in a long time, but that's where I started. And yeah, you have to put in the time signature and the tempo. And

Raul Sotomayor (58:40.32)

it's like how but i don't i don't even know what i want to do it's already asking me all of this stuff so yeah

Brian Funk (58:44.514)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:47.766)

Yeah, it's a different mindset, I guess. If you even thinking about writing, normally you just kind of use like a notebook to just write, free write, jot down ideas, and then you go to your documents. Maybe you even outline first, maybe. I'm like you, I like to start in the clip view and play around, come up with ideas. It's my palette, I think of it like a palette for a painter and then...

Raul Sotomayor (59:05.402)

Hehehehe

Brian Funk (59:17.334)

the Canvas' session, sorry, Arrangement View. But sometimes I will start in Arrangement View just because I can hit record and forget I'm recording, and then play with all the toys and just put stuff down, and then find moments that I will turn into clips. And now I'm in Session View again, playing around, and then eventually I'll go back with the arrangement for, you know, switch to Arrangement View to get the...

kind of song together, but it can be fun. It's nice to sometimes just let it record for maybe half an hour, 45 minutes. So I don't even really remember I'm recording anymore. And then go back to 17 minutes and 30 seconds where that cool thing happened. And that will be like a beat that I'll use. Sort of like sampling yourself, sampling your sketch into a clip.

Raul Sotomayor (01:00:11.737)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:00:16.908)

Yeah, and I even think like the guys at Ableton from the design process like, yeah, we're gonna make new futures in Ableton. Like what are we gonna do? And they are, what they are trying to do is to capture exactly that you were saying, like how can we make this live part of performing translate into MIDI? You know, because sometimes just let a scene to record and you will have...

filter automations or you will just maybe you play something wrong but it sounds awesome you know and just these little accidents that happen when you just let it record and when you have MIDI that basically doesn't happen and it feels like really computer-ish and so they are designing things that will help you make the MIDI not sound computer-ish but ultimately that's what

what they want to translate into music, like how we make it feel alive by just letting it flow.

Brian Funk (01:01:21.899)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's the, I think they're very careful in what they put in and what they leave out. Like right now, Live 12 is in beta and I don't know if you played with that at all?

Raul Sotomayor (01:01:40.92)

I haven't because...

Brian Funk (01:01:42.946)

You're too busy making music.

Raul Sotomayor (01:01:44.684)

But well that and because of the software, because my computer is running on Catalina and I need to be at least in Monterrey, well the computer that I have like for the studio because I have my laptop which I use for performing and...

Brian Funk (01:01:50.303)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:01:59.032)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:02:03.146)

Right. Yeah. So you want to stick with what works.

Raul Sotomayor (01:02:04.8)

And that was it.

or buy a new computer. You know, it's... But I...

Brian Funk (01:02:09.874)

Yeah, right. Well, no, there's a lot, a lot to be said about that. I have that part of me that wants to be up to date, the latest this and that and everything. But so often when you do that, then you realize, oh, my interface isn't working. Now what, oh, this thing isn't, and I'm not making music. I'm troubleshooting. I'm looking at forums. I'm downloading drivers and that can

be pretty detrimental to the creative process.

Raul Sotomayor (01:02:43.097)

Yeah, and for me right now it's like I'm working in some albums that I haven't finished. So if I just change my computer, maybe I'll open the session in a month, I will be like, oh shit, these plugins are not working anymore and it will be like, yeah, I have to give it a little bit more time. But I yeah, I've been close to.

Brian Funk (01:02:48.61)

Yeah.

Right.

Brian Funk (01:02:59.04)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:02.286)

Sure.

Raul Sotomayor (01:03:09.464)

the people in Ableton for a couple of years. And I think I've been part of the beta testing group since Ableton 10 or nine. And I really like to be the first one using the new features and just seeing what works and what doesn't work.

Brian Funk (01:03:21.878)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:29.515)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:03:32.76)

I even remember one part of my life it was like I'm just working on beta and it doesn't matter if it's buggy or whatever it's just we're working here until it's official and right now as you say I haven't had the time not even with the push tree because I got the push tree like maybe a month now and

Brian Funk (01:03:44.974)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:04:01.715)

I saw your video.

Raul Sotomayor (01:04:03.224)

Yeah, I'm also making a video like a longer one, but I like a dream of mine has always been to be able to play without the computer because the computer is the part that always fails. It failed me, you know, on stage in front of 10,000 people, you know, it's just like computers.

Brian Funk (01:04:16.287)

Mm-mm.

Brian Funk (01:04:19.967)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:04:24.351)

Oh no.

Brian Funk (01:04:27.998)

Yeah...

Raul Sotomayor (01:04:32.848)

just do what I do without the computer. Or just how it changes like in the studio, like being able to have Ableton, like instead of being in front of the computer, now you can be in the couch and someone can have a guitar in the couch and you can just be jamming there. And that part of it is awesome. Just...

Brian Funk (01:04:36.183)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:04:47.542)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:04:57.419)

Yeah, it is.

Raul Sotomayor (01:04:58.872)

It's not that easy to... Like, what's happening to me with the push tree is that everything is in the wrong place. Because I have like my... Like, I already know how to search for stuff. And when you are just in the push, it's like Ableton decided, like, how you have to search for things. So there's like a learning curve.

Brian Funk (01:05:06.854)

Right. You gotta transfer.

Brian Funk (01:05:25.536)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:05:25.776)

to getting used to it and be fast with what you search for.

Brian Funk (01:05:31.178)

Yeah, I agree. I'm learning it still and it is pretty awesome. I spent, when the weather was warmer, I was sitting outside with it and some headphones and it was just like, this is cool. It was just, again, like the atmosphere thing we were talking about, the environment. It was really fun to just be outdoors, not holed up in the basement and just...

Raul Sotomayor (01:05:31.757)

But I really like it.

Raul Sotomayor (01:05:59.392)

Yeah. No, and again, just. Yeah, and hitting the inspiration point again, because like I'm a huge like OP one. Nerd and. And what I love about it is how like how portable it is. And for example, I also have the digital act. And it's so hard to work on it like.

Brian Funk (01:06:00.935)

You know, different music comes out that way.

Brian Funk (01:06:07.054)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:06:11.715)

Oh, me too. I love it. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:06:28.408)

because it has to go to just needing a power supply. Like you need to be next to it. Like it has to be already set up and working for you to be able to use it. And that's like, it became to me like such a big barrier between me and the instrument because.

Once you set it up, you don't even wanna use it anymore. And the OP one is like so fast, it's instant satisfaction. You just turn it on and you're ready to go and you can make something. It's also not that easy to work because in the OP one you have to record it in the tape, which is hard because there's no like sync or quantize. You...

Brian Funk (01:06:53.762)

Thanks for watching!

Brian Funk (01:06:59.839)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:07:11.522)

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:07:19.392)

need to do it the old school way so it's not that easy to actually make a whole song on it but

Brian Funk (01:07:27.463)

Yeah, it presents different challenges.

Raul Sotomayor (01:07:30.104)

But just it having a battery and not needing to be hooked to something helps a lot. And that's with the push tree, I think I see that as one of the most interesting parts of it. Like, yeah, you can be in the beach making a song. You should not be doing that, but you can.

Brian Funk (01:07:45.771)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:07:49.003)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:07:52.974)

You good? I have some really nice musical memories with my OP-1. I've sat by streams in the woods recording, even the stream as it goes by and layering that in. I've sat by a lake while I was on vacation, New York Lake George recording.

I did an EP of like punk rock songs where I just had a 57, SM57 plugged into the mic input and headphones. I was walking around, put the mic up to the drums and just played a beat. I played the bass. It was so fun to just, I'm going here and I'm going here and just no connection to anything, just my headphones in and the mic in. And those are.

Raul Sotomayor (01:08:27.088)

Hehehe

Brian Funk (01:08:41.426)

inspiring moments when you can just work like that so fast and be so untethered to the technological stuff. And it sounds, you know, I think sometimes I hear myself thinking like, uh, I don't know, I don't feel like setting that up right now. I don't feel like setting this piece of gear. It's like one plug I have to do. Like all you have to do is plug the thing into the wall, right? And it does feel like a lot sometimes. It's

Raul Sotomayor (01:09:08.152)

Yeah, exactly.

Brian Funk (01:09:12.134)

It's such like a 21st century complaint. It's like the digit tag. It's like such an amazing piece of gear, but I gotta plug it in. It takes... It's funny. Sometimes my acoustic guitar feels like magic because I don't plug it in, I don't turn it on, it doesn't need a battery. It just, it's like, wow, this is what we're striving towards. We're striving towards like...

Raul Sotomayor (01:09:23.466)

Exactly. It's so crazy.

Brian Funk (01:09:40.894)

an instrument that we've had for hundreds of years.

Raul Sotomayor (01:09:45.58)

Yeah, it happened to me with another piece of gear, the HAPAX from SQUARP instruments. I don't know if you've seen that one. It's just a sequencer. It's basically the Ableton push, but for analog gear. And I bought it because I had this same idea that I don't want to use the computer on stage. So...

Brian Funk (01:09:52.91)

Hmm. I don't think so, no.

Brian Funk (01:10:00.752)

Oh cool.

Raul Sotomayor (01:10:08.42)

this seems like the perfect solution because I can have all my scenes and all my midi clips just sending to analog instruments and it's awesome. And it's so difficult to use because you do need to have the analog scenes hooked up working all of the time. So it's like I just made this problem huge now because in order for me to be able to have just a couple of sounds, I need to have a drum machine.

and the Prophet and another scene making bass, you know, and like a thousand cables and a mixer and you know Yeah, but Yeah

Brian Funk (01:10:45.258)

Yeah, right. That's so funny. That reminds me of what we were talking about before we hit record, where I have a friend that does a lot of zooms through his video game expo that he runs and he always jokes with me, like, you know, you music people are always so complicated. You always have a problem, because your mic isn't working, your camera is off. And meanwhile, I zoom with somebody that just uses their phone.

no my headphones or anything, and it's only like 5% lower quality than what you're giving me and all the trouble you go through. It's so true, over complicated sometimes and it makes everything fall apart.

Raul Sotomayor (01:11:21.172)

Exactly.

Yeah, I know it's...

Raul Sotomayor (01:11:31.512)

Yeah, just for this podcast, I was going to have like a U87 hooked up to the NIF preamp and just a really nice camera going through a 35 lens with a DreamFX filter. And it didn't work on my computer and I ended up just doing it on my laptop. And, but yeah, that's exactly it. And it, but it's weird because for me, it's like, come on.

Brian Funk (01:11:52.871)

That looks great.

Raul Sotomayor (01:11:59.564)

I'm at a studio, I should be able to just hook a microphone and I wasn't able.

Brian Funk (01:12:01.96)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:12:05.274)

Well, you probably wouldn't have been able to give us that nice 360 tour if you had all that gear up. Like I can't really move my camera to show you anything else right now. They have big production. I'd never be able to get it back to where I have it.

Raul Sotomayor (01:12:09.429)

Exactly.

Raul Sotomayor (01:12:22.849)

you need more cameras and a video switcher. And... Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Brian Funk (01:12:25.127)

Oh god, I know.

Brian Funk (01:12:29.79)

I know I had a video switcher actually recently and I sent it back because I was like, no, this is getting out of control. It was like, this isn't going to work. It's not, it was slowing me down so much because I was trying to learn how to use it. I was just like, what am I doing? I caught myself before I fell over the edge of that complexity.

Raul Sotomayor (01:12:42.148)

Hehehehe

Raul Sotomayor (01:12:48.836)

Yeah. What? Ha ha ha.

Raul Sotomayor (01:12:55.228)

Which one did you have there, Temi?

Brian Funk (01:12:58.122)

Yeah, yeah. It was, to me, mini something or other. Um, it was cool. I mean, if I was a TV studio, it'd be great. I could sit there and like change the, but I can't do that. And then play music and perform and talk to the camera. And it would be like so distracting to what I'm, I'd be talking about. I'd be like, all right, hold on a second and pressing. Okay. Now I'm over here.

Raul Sotomayor (01:13:19.852)

Hehehehe. Hehehehehe. Hehehehe. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:13:27.326)

It was just silly. The extra professional equipment I felt made it look so much more amateur.

Raul Sotomayor (01:13:38.125)

Oh yeah, yeah. I... a couple of months ago I was in the same place because I'm that guy that is looking at gear in Amazon and just, you know, that has this gigantic wishlist of things that wants to buy and I'm that guy looking at tutorials of things that I'm never gonna have, you know. Yeah, yeah, let's see this tutorial about this pack of size lenses for...

Brian Funk (01:13:48.527)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:13:59.687)

Yeah, I know that feeling.

Raul Sotomayor (01:14:06.388)

a camera that I don't have, you know? Like, why? Hehehehe

Brian Funk (01:14:08.734)

Yeah, I'm thinking about it.

Brian Funk (01:14:14.25)

Well, I've managed to save myself a lot of money by doing this sort of like two week, um, holding period. So, cause sometimes I get on a whim and like in a weekend I'll be like, I need to buy this whole new rig of things. And you know, you find the one thing that seems pretty cool that requires seven other things you gotta have to make it work properly. So I always tell myself, let's give it two weeks. Let's see how I feel about this.

And almost every time, by two weeks, I've already forgotten. Like I've moved on. I'm the obsession changed. A lot of times really what it is, is I'm just trying to avoid doing the work. Doing the creative work. I'm thinking I can make it easier if I set this up and get that thing, but it would just be easier to just start doing the work, but that's the scary part. Right? Like, I don't know if the work is going to come out any good. I don't know if what I make is going to be decent or not.

But I know if I order this thing on Amazon, it will get here by Tuesday or whatever. And that's like a success. Guaranteed it's going to work.

Raul Sotomayor (01:15:18.648)

Hahaha Yeah

Raul Sotomayor (01:15:28.344)

It happens to me a lot with plugins. Like you see a plugin and you really want it. And yeah, a lot of the times you buy it and then you use it one time and then you never use it again. But with Jira, I found it different, at least with synths, which is the thing I have the most. Like I do see synths inspiring to...

Brian Funk (01:15:32.343)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:15:57.296)

the work. It's not that I'm making excuses to just buy things. Sometimes it does help to have a different palette of sounds or just since that works differently, it will improve your workflow somehow. It doesn't happen with a lot of other stuff. Like with microphones, it's weird because it's like you have to spend a lot of money in a microphone that maybe...

Brian Funk (01:16:02.202)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:16:09.142)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:16:22.968)

It's going to be awesome if you record horns, but maybe you record horns once a year, you know, like you don't need that ribbon mic. But yeah, it's... You need to be really objective on how to spend money. And in Mexico is hard with gear, because it's not like in the US, like I can't buy a microphone and then return it if I didn't like it. Like here it's going to be...

Brian Funk (01:16:28.896)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:16:50.244)

hard to get, more expensive, I'm gonna have to pay taxes, I'm not gonna be able to return it. Sometimes you won't be able to have like even a warranty just because you're in Mexico. So yeah, cheer is hard here.

Brian Funk (01:17:02.05)

Really? Wow.

Brian Funk (01:17:07.914)

Maybe that's kind of a good thing. It's hard to figure out that balance though, because yeah, sometimes like you said, like a new palette of sounds can really change everything. But yeah, most of the plugins I have are like covered in digital dust and they're in folders that I like, I hardly even know I have them. At least.

Raul Sotomayor (01:17:11.491)

Maybe.

Raul Sotomayor (01:17:35.524)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:17:36.662)

At least the synth, like I see it, I can touch it, it's here. But the, the plugin is somewhere buried in the virtual space. Doesn't take up any real room. Um, it can be easy to forget you have stuff. And also it's a learning thing too, right? Like you have to figure out how to use it now. And a lot of times when I'm in the heat of the moment and I'm excited, it's like,

I know I have that new thing, but I just want to get this track recorded and done. And so a lot of times I don't reach for them because of that too. So again, they, it's a tough thing to know what you need and what you think you need.

Raul Sotomayor (01:18:12.816)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:18:20.88)

Exactly because with plugins it happens this thing to me like oh this mastering plugin looks amazing And it's like but I don't do master like I will always send the master to someone else like you know or Yeah, like if I if I only had that multi band EQ

Brian Funk (01:18:34.894)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Raul Sotomayor (01:18:42.688)

I will be able to do mixes by myself, you know, like, and it's like, but you don't do mixing, like, you have to be like really clear with what you do, which most of the time will be just dropping a compressor and, you know, if you have sound toys, you're good to go. If you, if you have the capitator, you don't need anything else.

Brian Funk (01:18:59.55)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:19:06.026)

Honestly, if you just have Ableton Live, you got sweet, especially like that. That was a big point for me. Cause when I first started doing stuff on the computer, I got obsessed with downloading everything I could find. And I learned all the ways to crack software. I was like a, you know, becoming like a professional pirate of software. And I'd spent like months doing it and making no music.

Raul Sotomayor (01:19:08.972)

Yeah, basically. Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:19:22.532)

Hehehehe

Raul Sotomayor (01:19:28.14)

Hehehehe

Brian Funk (01:19:34.09)

And then I had all this stuff I didn't know how to use. And I made the decision like, look, I've got this cracked version of able to live. Why don't I learn that first? And then I'll figure out what I need. And also is starting to feel guilty about all of these things I had on my computer. Um, so I got rid of it all and just focused on the stuff in live. And I've learned so much. I learned how to use all that. And.

Still to this day, like if I'm grabbing an EQ, I'm grabbing EQ8, I'm grabbing compressor out of live. There's a couple I guess that are fun for like coloring stuff, but most of the time I'm grabbing that stuff, grabbing that delay and I just know it now. I know what I'm gonna get, I know how to get to where I want to go. The other stuff that I have is a little more like for fun and...

Raul Sotomayor (01:20:30.456)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:20:30.999)

but when it comes down to like getting work done, like I know what to do with this one. Here we go. Let's just move on.

Raul Sotomayor (01:20:37.292)

Yeah, no, and there's like the drum boss, for example, is like irreplaceable. Like if you're mixing a song in Pro Tools, good luck. There's no drum boss. Doesn't exist. You know, like most of the plugins are designed to work in all of the platforms. So that's why they work as they work. But some of the things that life has are like really unique. Like the

Brian Funk (01:20:44.119)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:20:47.458)

Heh heh. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:20:58.231)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:21:05.503)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:21:05.648)

The other one that I love is echo because I'm just crazy about space echo. Like I would love if we could put a space echo into other people's conversations just for fun. And that one's kind of.

Brian Funk (01:21:08.148)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:21:17.528)

Yeah.

Yeah, I really wanted to get one of those actually, like a hardware one for a little while there, until Echo came out. And that kind of quenched that thirst, thankfully, because anyone I know that has those is constantly getting them repaired. They... They sound great. They really do. I mean, if anyone wants to give me one, I'll take it, but... But Echo, like, kind of really, like, helped me get over that.

Raul Sotomayor (01:21:43.468)

Hehe

Brian Funk (01:21:49.006)

because you can do some wild, fun stuff with it.

Raul Sotomayor (01:21:52.908)

Yeah, that one is my favorite for sure. And I'm the same. Like I've been trying to get a space echo, like a real one since ever. I've even had some opportunities to get the very expensive ones, but I resist the urge. I...

Brian Funk (01:21:56.61)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:11.095)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:22:18.052)

Yeah

Raul Sotomayor (01:22:21.3)

I have the pedal that is like digital, but it works just perfectly. And Echo sounds just the same. And it does much more like how you can move the EQ or the damping for the vocals. And you can just make the automatization. And if you didn't like it, you can change it because with the real thing, it's like you need to commit to whatever you recorded.

Brian Funk (01:22:23.275)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:22:27.822)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:22:39.383)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:48.83)

Yeah. And they have, they're always noisy. And at least Echo lets you put the noise in and if you don't want the noise, it doesn't have to be there. It's, it is a really sick device. It's, um, there's a lot in there. I'm any DAW is really like that. There's they're loaded with really powerful tools. If you have any DAW out there, you have more than

Raul Sotomayor (01:22:54.009)

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:22:58.896)

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe hehehe

Brian Funk (01:23:16.498)

anyone has ever had in the history of recording music. It's, you're, you're far and away past what anybody had for a long time. And, uh, we're just lying to ourselves if we think we need anything. It's a really good way to avoid the hard work of actually creating and actually making music. And I fall for it all the time. So, um.

Raul Sotomayor (01:23:20.735)

So basically, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:23:46.05)

I intellectually understand this, but it's easy to say.

Raul Sotomayor (01:23:50.828)

Yeah. My biggest crush at this point is that I want to have a console. And I, at the beginning of the year, I was like this close to buying one. And it's so crazy because I want to have a console so much, but it doesn't even fit into my workflow at all.

Brian Funk (01:24:00.974)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:24:17.662)

Yeah, it'd change everything, right? Yeah, right.

Raul Sotomayor (01:24:18.82)

but I don't feel the need to have. Yeah. Like, how are we gonna connect it and how, like, it doesn't fit into the workflow, but I don't think that I need that NIP console in my house. Ha ha ha.

Brian Funk (01:24:33.863)

Right. Especially like building a studio, it's the centerpiece. It really adds to the look.

Raul Sotomayor (01:24:44.097)

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Brian Funk (01:24:48.574)

I know the feeling. Um, yeah, I'm glad I don't have room for that. There's something nice about having limited space and just limitations forced upon you so that you can't get involved in certain things. Cause you can just go in so many directions.

Raul Sotomayor (01:25:10.708)

Yeah, yeah, you can. Thank you, man.

Brian Funk (01:25:13.034)

Your space is beautiful though. Like it really is, it's clean, it's neat, it's minimal to a degree, but you got tons of stuff as well. I think that that's a fresh looking space for the creative mind too. Sometimes when there's too much stuff around, it's overwhelming. And I think when, you know, the way our mind works, like you look at something and you're really taking in

million things at once in any given glance in any given direction. And to have a space that's kind of neat and clean, to have fewer things, fewer inputs come in, I think keeps you focused.

Raul Sotomayor (01:25:57.504)

Yeah, it's the same as we were saying with the plugins, like you need to have the bare minimum, at least, you know, working. Like with synths, I have a lot of synths, but 99% of the times I'm going to use the Prophet 6 because it's the one that works. So just make sure that one's connected.

Brian Funk (01:26:18.562)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:26:22.506)

Yeah, I love the Prophet 6. It's right next to me. I was a very well worthwhile investment for that one. It's given me a lot in return.

Raul Sotomayor (01:26:31.616)

Yeah, I...

Yeah, I have a Prophet 8 and I used to love it but Prophet 6 is way...

Brian Funk (01:26:46.358)

Profit Aid is the one that's got two voices you can kind of put together, right? Like two kind of presets. I think, yeah, I had that and I sold that when this one came out to help finance that.

Raul Sotomayor (01:26:54.188)

Yeah, like two layers, yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:27:00.804)

things that 8 is really hard to use like it's like it's like so powerful but it's like hard to use because it has like 64 LFOs and you can do like just matrix like send this LFO to this thing or whatever you have like this matrix option of just how you build sound and Prophet 6 is not like that it's like have the oscillator the filter

Brian Funk (01:27:05.266)

I found it was hard to use, yeah.

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:27:30.26)

and this one LFO so it's like really fast to use so it's basically the same machine but just how it's laid out to work with it the Prophet 6 it's like outstanding and like presets in the Prophet 6 like it doesn't matter in which preset you are it's gonna sound awesome

Brian Funk (01:27:47.379)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:27:53.418)

Yeah. It has that one button. Um, I think it's called preset. Just the preset button that turns off the preset. And then the knobs are just what they are. And I love that. Just want to see what's happening. And you couldn't do that with the profit aid. It was always, you know, wherever your knobs were, it didn't matter. Cause your preset, you had to turn them to kind of figure out where things were. And.

Raul Sotomayor (01:28:02.899)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:28:17.74)

Yeah. And something really crazy happened to me that I had like a gig outside the city, like in Acapulco, which is basically the beach. And then like a couple of months after it, we were like, these presets are out of tune. Like, like weird, like, why is it out of tune?

And then I discovered that there's... that you have to tune the Prophet 6 regularly. Like, just... you press two buttons and it starts tuning the oscillators. Because the oscillators are adjusting to the temperature of where the synth is. So... it's so crazy to know, like... like, it's sort of alive. Like, you have to be caring for it, like, just watering a plant.

Brian Funk (01:29:12.053)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:29:16.27)

Right. I see I've, I haven't had to do that. I don't take it anywhere. It stays right here. So I guess it's kind of consistent. Um, I do have another one here. It's a, um, concert mate, Moog realistic MG one. Um, Cherry audio makes a really good plugin version of it, but this thing, it was like, um, a Moog that they sold that.

Raul Sotomayor (01:29:16.293)

You need to be tuning it regularly.

Brian Funk (01:29:45.238)

Radio Shack stores, so it wasn't like pro audio, it was more like consumer synthesizer. It sounds so cool, it's a great thing, but mine is like, you know, it's like 30 something years old and it's, it just does what it wants to do. Like, and I, and it's kind of broken in a nice way right now where I can work with it and it's got these weird quirks and.

Raul Sotomayor (01:30:01.636)

Hehehehe... Yeah.

Raul Sotomayor (01:30:08.725)

Okay.

Brian Funk (01:30:12.546)

you move like the sliders for the filter and sometimes it just cuts out and in and out and you can almost make rhythms with it. But it's, I just, it is, does what it does. I let it kind of be itself, you know, where as some other stuff, like you, they're precise, you know, plugins are super precise. You can always count on them being exactly what they're supposed to be. But there is that kind of fun about the analog domain that it's got like an attitude.

It's got feelings. It's like a plant. You got to water it. You got to... You just... It changes a little. It gets temperamental. With that one, I just have, you know, resigned myself to letting it be whatever it wants to be. And that's the day... On that day, that's what I'm going to get out of it.

Raul Sotomayor (01:30:45.764)

Hehehe

Raul Sotomayor (01:31:02.704)

I think that's also kind of awesome. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:31:06.57)

It is, it's kind of like a person like, oh, he's in a bad mood today, but we'll still keep trying to make something. It's a little cranky.

Raul Sotomayor (01:31:14.208)

Exactly.

Raul Sotomayor (01:31:19.332)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:31:19.598)

So I've had you a long time. I wanna respect the rest of your time for today. But like I said, music is great. And I went through the playlist of songs you sent me that you've produced and such cool stuff. Let me before I wrap it up, I do have one question I meant to ask you is about like your rhythms and your percussion and your grooves especially. I noticed that

It's very natural feeling. There's even the program stuff, the stuff that I think it's programmed. Anyway, is, um, it's got this, doesn't feel quantized to the grid so hard. Um, I was just kind of curious, like what your approach is to do that. Cause, um, sometimes stuff gets a little robotic and stiff, but your stuff really has like a kind of laid back vibe. Even I would say in general that I really enjoyed that about it.

Raul Sotomayor (01:32:16.728)

Yeah, I...

Raul Sotomayor (01:32:20.544)

I think there's two parts of it because most of the time it's gonna be like some digital drums and some real drums. Like with what will be like the percussion. Like there's gonna be a NATO 8 and a snare of some kind and there's gonna be real percussions. So for the real percussions I've been trying to record them always. Like sometimes I'll grab...

like a sample from a library or Splice or whatever, and then I'll re-record it so that I can have like fields or just having the sound that I want, or sometimes just for it not to be the sample because I'm getting to that point. I know that's a sample and I don't want it. So, and for drums...

Brian Funk (01:33:06.987)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:33:10.763)

Yeah, right.

Raul Sotomayor (01:33:16.248)

What changed my approach to that was Ableton Push basically, because I've had the push, I even had the first one. And I think that one was like my first like big purchase because I bought that like the first batch with the suite, the complete suite. Like I, before that I used to have also the cracked Ableton.

Brian Funk (01:33:26.795)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:33:35.566)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:33:44.256)

And I like to put the samples into a drum rack and play them. And that's why it sounds like someone actually played them. Like I, I don't like to spend many time arranging MIDI. Like I know that for some people that's, that's even that's fun. For me, the fun part is playing it, like finger drumming it.

Brian Funk (01:33:56.136)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:34:02.925)

Mm-hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:34:14.12)

And like I already have some sort of groups and I know what I'm looking for.

And it gave me like the most pleasant experience because sometimes I will just say like, okay, let's do drums. And I'll open a drum rack and then I'll start like, okay, let's pick some kicks. And I'll put like four kicks that I like and then four snares and then a couple of hi-hats and then maybe these sounds that I don't even know what.

Brian Funk (01:34:51.863)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:34:51.988)

something random and then I'll start playing it and start figuring out like combinations like okay this maybe from these four kicks the one that I really like is this one and I'll start building the groove through that you know and having different snares that sometimes when you're making let's say that you're making the drums differently like you're doing them in the

this kick and putting four kicks and then putting this snare in the position. Like everything sounds the same always because it's like already programmed to be like that if you need to play it, then there's where different rhythms and different stuff starts happening. And that's basically why it sounds like that. And since I'm sort of a percussionist.

Brian Funk (01:35:33.101)

Mm-hmm. It is the same, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:35:42.584)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:35:50.776)

that's where I'm paying more attention. That's the part that I like the most. So that's the part where my music, like my anthropology music part comes into place because.

I started as a DJ, so like the hip hop turntable is, so the first thing is like breaks, like where does this sample came from and where does this break comes from and who was playing it and how can I have it, you know? Like.

And then it became that part like.

When I was working with people from around the world, like percussionists from Venezuela or from Puerto Rico or from Colombia and just getting to learn these different rhythms from around the world and how they make cumbia in Colombia and how that's different from cumbia in Mexico and how they make African rhythms in Peru.

and how that's different from the African Caribbean rhythms and what are the instruments that they are playing and why that sounds like it sounds. And it started with me just, you know, looking at YouTube videos and sampling things from YouTube. And then it become the real deal. Like there's an album of Sotomayor that we recorded in Puerto Rico. And it was going to Puerto Rico and having the...

Raul Sotomayor (01:37:25.292)

like really good percussionists coming into the studio and recording the drums that we wanted and just discovering like this percussion world kind of blew my mind. And that's what I'm always looking for, just these rhythms. And then like it started with, let's look for Latin rhythms. And then it went, let's look for Afro rhythms, you know, and it's been like a transition from Cumbia to...

Brian Funk (01:37:35.324)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:37:54.76)

Afro Peruvian to Afrobeat to I'm a piano to you know just

Yeah, trying to get...

whatever will get people dancing in the world that we are living in, you know, because it's so funny to me to see how trends are changing, like how maybe this...

In this period of time, all the DJs are trying to make these songs that sound Brazilian. And now we are in a point in the world where all the DJs are trying to make these songs sound like African, like Nigerian. And then we don't know what's going to happen. Or with Reggaeton, for example, which would be... Suddenly Reggaeton just took over the world and everyone is trying to have the Reggaeton sound.

Brian Funk (01:38:42.71)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:38:55.38)

So yeah, I could be talking about drums and sampling drums forever, but that's... Yeah, it's like this approach has come for the love of this, the sound of the percussions and also how are these songs made because at the beginning I think I was telling how I started making music by...

Brian Funk (01:38:58.826)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:39:23.928)

just figuring out what I could do with two turntables. And that led me into sampling and breaks and just trying to be like a good turntablist and scratching and...

Raul Sotomayor (01:39:39.264)

It's something that fascinates me about music, our albums like the Discovery from Daft Punk, which is basically just like samples, like how instead of giving an artist instruments, you give him records and suddenly they make one of the most awesome albums in history. And it's just samples. And I remember when I listened to this

like sample source record that they released that had all the original songs that Daft Punk sampled. Like I felt like, like betrayed, you know? Like my first feeling was like betrayal, like listening to songs like Robot Rock, which is basically the same as the sample. It was like, like why it felt to me like they were cheating. And then, then I kind of understand it. Like, no, the thing is that

Brian Funk (01:40:32.534)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:40:38.296)

They made these awesome things just by sampling stuff. And that's genius. Like they made these songs out of other songs without having any resources really. You know, and that's awesome that you can do that. You can just get this idea and make it better and make it something different and make it your own and bring it to your world.

Brian Funk (01:40:44.677)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:41:06.576)

It's just this so different approach to making music because the world of music is like really hard on people sometimes. Like you feel like you have to be like the best bass player in the world in order for you to go and make a song. And that's not how it works. It really doesn't matter if you know how to play the instrument at all, you know, because there's so many ways to actually make a song.

Raul Sotomayor (01:41:37.744)

Yeah, I think we derailed a little bit of the original question, but that's kind of why all these parts start, like these building blocks start to arrange like sampling and drums and breaks and genres and how we can just put everything in a blender and make a song.

Brian Funk (01:41:42.493)

Ah, no.

Brian Funk (01:42:02.414)

Hmm. Yeah. You can take all those approaches and it's so cool. Like you said, like, cause it can be really intimidating, right? Like sometimes I play my guitar and I feel like, Oh, I don't know if I can hold my own here. You know, like I should be faster or smoother or whatever it is. But when it comes to actually making a song, recording, producing a song, it's less important, I guess.

But it's, I guess it's just one means of getting there. And it is really fun to combine all these approaches.

Raul Sotomayor (01:42:40.116)

Yeah, it's... yeah, yeah. It's also important to note that I'm not saying like, yeah, you don't need to know music theory at all, because that's not true. Like, learning how to play an instrument and knowing music theory is gonna help you so much to go faster and to comprehend the universe. But you need to know that that's not the only thing. There are so many other things that...

Brian Funk (01:42:50.562)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:43:01.846)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:43:06.422)

Right. And it's almost the way, if you're like a master guitar player, it's still good to learn some production. It's good to learn some other aspects of making music too. That'll just open so many doors. It's really fun. I see a lot of people that are really solid musicians in one area. And when they start learning live or something and they learn their DAW and then

Like their music is immediately like up here compared to someone else that's just learning because they've got, they're bringing so much else to the table. So if your production is already up here and you start learning an instrument, it's going to, that's going to also come a much faster. You can understand how the instrument functions better than somebody that doesn't have that background.

Raul Sotomayor (01:43:57.1)

Yeah, totally. And...

Brian Funk (01:43:58.478)

It's like you said in the beginning, you can never stop learning about all this stuff.

Raul Sotomayor (01:44:03.988)

Yeah. Totally.

Brian Funk (01:44:10.198)

the unsolvable, unfinished puzzle of music. It's what keeps us all coming back, right?

Raul Sotomayor (01:44:14.98)

Hehehehehehe

Yeah, it's...

Raul Sotomayor (01:44:23.136)

I don't know. I see myself as a romantic when I talk about music. Like I don't know. I think it's because we love it so much that we are really passionate about everything. So, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:44:43.018)

Yeah, I'm excited to hear what kind of stuff you put together in the future. Cause I think having that kind of passion and love and curiosity about all different kinds of music is only going to make you continue to grow and create new things that you haven't even dreamed up yet and that we haven't heard yet. I think you're already doing awesome work. It's fun and it's exciting. It's energetic.

And I'm just happy to have had a chance to talk to you about how you see things. It's inspiring and anybody that has the kind of passion that you do about this, it's no wonder the music that's coming out of your studio is so cool and that you're having such success working with other people. And I'm sure it's only going to draw more people into what you're doing. So well done. Keep it up.

Raul Sotomayor (01:45:38.224)

Thank you very much man. Thank you very much.

Brian Funk (01:45:41.278)

And thank you for taking the time to be here. Um, let me ask you, um, there's a lot of places, I guess people can find you. Do you like to send people anywhere in particular? Is there a hub you have of, uh, when people say, we're going to check out your music.

Raul Sotomayor (01:45:59.05)

I think my Instagram will be first stop, which is just Tonga Conga. Because I have different projects, but the one that I see as my main is Tonga Conga. And from there I'll think maybe listening to the first Tonga Conga album that's called Heavy, that's on every platform. And then...

Brian Funk (01:46:04.939)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:46:13.014)

Nice. Cool.

Raul Sotomayor (01:46:25.348)

just go everywhere else. I've been making, I have this like lo-fi project called Flora Vida and I have this band that I do with my sister called Sotomayor. There's just a lot of stuff going around but Tonga Conga is kind of like the main character at this point.

Brian Funk (01:46:27.382)

Nice.

Brian Funk (01:46:49.498)

Cool. Well, I'm gonna put it all in the show notes. So anyone listening, you can just click on wherever you get this and I'll make sure you get right there. They can check out what you're doing. Thanks again so much. Raul, it was really awesome talking to you. I'm glad that Lyndon hooked us up.

Raul Sotomayor (01:47:04.58)

Thank you, man. Same, same. Linden is also awesome. Because we've been working, I think he told you, but we've been working in a short film for Ableton for almost a year and a half now. And it's been awesome to share my vision with him. I've met him.

Brian Funk (01:47:23.777)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:47:30.883)

Hmm.

Raul Sotomayor (01:47:33.916)

couple of times here in Mexico and he's awesome and yeah thank you for getting us together.

Brian Funk (01:47:39.07)

Yeah, I look forward to that. That's, yeah. Yeah, thanks, Lyndon. Well, thank you very much. And thank you, the listener for tuning in. Definitely check out Tanga Kanga, Roll Sato Mayor's work, and we will get you hooked up with that. Thanks so much. Have a great day.

Raul Sotomayor (01:47:44.944)

Hehehe

Raul Sotomayor (01:48:01.136)

Bye.

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, raul sotomayor, tonga, conga