Sound Design for Timbaland and Ableton with Sound Oracle - Music Production Podcast #365

Sound Oracle is a music producer and sound designer. He has worked with the heavy hitters in the hip-hop world, and his sounds have been used in Grammy-winning songs by Timbaland, Jay-Z, Drake, and more. His latest packs Golden Era Hip Hop Drums and Trap Drums are featured packs in the new Ableton Live 12 update.

Sound Oracle and I had an inspiring conversation about his work as a producer and sound designer. He shared how he broke into the music scene when Timbaland discovered his sounds.  This episode is littered with tips about organization, workflow, and maintaining healthy working relationships. Sound Oracle also shared some of his favorite tools he uses in his productions.

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Show Notes:

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:01.55)

Sound Oracle. Welcome to the music production podcast. Great to have you here, man.

Sound Oracle (00:07.067)

And man, great to be here.

Brian Funk (00:10.158)

You've, you're in a really exciting time right now. Some big news just happening. Do you want to share that with the people here?

Sound Oracle (00:18.587)

Sure, sure, sure. So the thing that I'm super excited about is Ableton Live 12 just came out and I am fortunate enough to have partnered with Ableton and I have 46 drum racks of mine that are included with Ableton Live and it's kind of a bucket list thing for me. Anyone who knows me knows I am a complete Ableton nerd.

and to be able to be embedded in the software forever is one of my bucket list things. So I am over the moon about it and I would like to talk about it as much as you can stand.

Brian Funk (01:01.55)

You found yourself a fellow Ableton nerd here that likes to talk about sound creation. So I'm definitely looking forward to that. Those are the golden era hip hop drums and the trap drums, those packs.

Sound Oracle (01:15.099)

That is, that's correct. It's 20 golden era drum racks, 20 trap drum racks. Then I actually did four drum racks for the core library. And then there are two 808 selector racks that come in Ableton. I did those as well.

Brian Funk (01:31.245)

Oh, cool. I didn't see those. That's nice. So that's like a selector where you got the drum rack, I'm assuming, and you can turn a knob just to get different drum samples coming up. Nice. Those are always handy. You can just create your pattern and then tweak as you listen until you find what you like.

Sound Oracle (01:34.105)

They're in there.

Sound Oracle (01:42.491)

Correct.

Sound Oracle (01:51.269)

that is one of the best things about drum racks. And I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but when it comes to Ableton, that is one of the best things about drum racks. Once I found the ability to be able to put multiple sounds on one pad or one thing and then scroll through, it was a whole new day.

Brian Funk (02:08.973)

Hmm. Yeah. Cause you know, I'm always thinking about like being productive, moving forward and you know, trying to just make decisions and go. And sometimes you spend too long. I know I do anyway, picking sounds, trying to find things. So if I can get something that's relatively close and then get an idea down and then just easily switch it out if I need to, it's just improves the workflow so much.

Sound Oracle (02:38.555)

That is a fact. I'm a super workflow buff. And I feel like it works that way of thinking that you described works in both ways, in terms of sounds and in terms of patterns. It's cool sometimes to just have a pattern, then scroll through the sounds until you find what you want. And it's also cool sometimes if you have the sounds and you want to just scroll through patterns, you know, and I find it able and just allows you to do pretty much anything you want.

Brian Funk (03:02.349)

Mm.

Brian Funk (03:09.165)

Yeah, yeah, that's true, because getting different clips in there. For a lot of music, for a lot of music I make anyway, there's a lot of pretty basic standard beats I tend to go back to. So I should probably have some of those. I should be saving those just for the next time I make just a simple back beat for a rock song or something. There should just be stuff ready for me.

Sound Oracle (03:39.387)

Oh yeah, you should have MIDI drum patterns on deck at all times. I would say in terms of what I do, I'm 90 % prep in organization. If anyone's ever seen me, sometimes I go on Instagram Live and I kind of cook up on live and it's like I'm making 50 beats at one time and it kind of looks like I'm DJing. I'm not really looking, the music never really stops.

Brian Funk (03:43.755)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (04:05.627)

And people are like, well, how are you doing that? And it's 90 % just prep. My loops and things are always trimmed perfectly. And they're always where I need them and I can load them up really fast. And that came from being in the studio, you know, with a lot of, a lot of decent people that you don't want to disrespect their time. And you also want to be seen as highly proficient at what you do. So just having that level of organization and prep.

over the years has helped me tremendously.

Brian Funk (04:41.037)

Yeah, and that's, like you said, respect the time. I know you've worked with Timberland, and I watched his master class. And was one of the things I took away from that was just like, get the idea down, move forward, take it, go. And he would just kind of like mouth out what he wanted. And then people produce that for him. There it is. He doesn't have time to wait for you to.

learn how to run your software.

Sound Oracle (05:16.411)

It's a very fast -paced environment. And as you know, vibe is everything. There was one point we were working on three albums at one time in a studio over a few months. And it's just idea after idea after idea. And you could get like 20 rough ideas or 20 rough song sketches down in a day. But that just comes from everybody being really, just really efficient at how they do things.

Brian Funk (05:44.653)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, all that preparation, organization, knowing where your tools are.

Yeah. You have any hot tips, anything that saves you a lot? Any particular organization methods that you'd like to come back to?

Sound Oracle (06:03.579)

Oh, for sure. Okay, let's start with this one. Can you tell I was ready? I have a pocket full of them. Yeah, so one of the main ones when it comes to, this could be for any sound, but we'll say with drums mostly, everyone's heard of having your go -to drums and that's cool. So what I do is I'll have go -to drums.

Brian Funk (06:07.212)

I figured you did. Yeah, I'm ready.

Sound Oracle (06:32.507)

that I'll have saved in one particular folder and I'll revamp it every six months or so. And with like my go -to drums, I'll have folders, kicks, snares, clothes hats, et cetera. And I'll have no more than 20 to 40 of each individual sound in a folder. That way, because when you have go -to drums and as your style expands, your taste,

change and you started this folder two years ago. Well, now you just have a folder of 200 snares and 200 kicks and then it becomes kind of a useless folder. So having some type of maintenance schedule over your go -to drums is, it's kind of cool. Sometimes I'll just take some sounds out. Sometimes I'll put some sounds in or sometimes I will just start it over and I'll just save my old go -to folders. And it's also a good way to get a snapshot of how your style has changed.

over time too. I like to save things chronologically and you get to see your progression or your taste change over time. But the key is though, if you do that for every sound, once you hit your limit for every sound that you put in, you have to take something out. It helps you be decisive. You can't go over whatever that limit is. So that's one thing that has helped me tremendously when it's come to organization.

Brian Funk (07:51.021)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (08:01.061)

I also make drum racks out of those sounds and I'll make selector racks. So it's just go to drums and that's where the random button comes in. Great, you get these kits just automatically made. It's your favorite drums. It takes a lot of the thinking out of it because everything should just be, to me, everything should be a vibe. The minute you start to think too hard,

It's like turning the hourglass upside down, your momentum and your creativity just starts to drain when you're thinking and looking and searching. So that's one of my organization tips, but I got a million of them.

Brian Funk (08:44.813)

Well, we got some time. I love that. I tell people all the time about saving your own sample, saving your own devices, whatever it is you're doing. So you have like your collection and you get kind of your unique sound that way. But I don't preach so much about the limitation, which is really good because I have a way of saving all of my stuff where I just put my initials in the name. So I can search command F, BF, and then everything comes up.

Sound Oracle (08:46.587)

Oh

Sound Oracle (08:59.355)

Oh yeah.

Brian Funk (09:13.676)

But I've gotten to the point now where thousands of things come up. Like you said, it's almost no good after a while. So having that kind of strict, you know, exclusive club of my best sounds, that's again, gonna save you all that time searching.

Sound Oracle (09:20.035)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (09:35.227)

And you have to be decisive to it. It teaches you a bit of uncomfortable discipline because you got to think these are your favorites. So if you put something in and you're at the limit, something has to come out and that's very, it's easy when you first start doing it. But after a while it gets very tough because like I can't get rid of that snare or that snare or that snare. You know what I mean? It becomes that right? Yeah.

Brian Funk (09:53.837)

something I love. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta let go. I think more and more I do this. That's the key word is decisions. It matters almost to me less what decision I make, just that I make one. And then once I have something, the path I'm going on, then I can be creative to make it work and make it fit whatever I'm doing. But,

I notice in myself when I get stuck, when things get unfinished, it's because I'm just not deciding. I'm in limbo for too long.

Sound Oracle (10:31.419)

Yeah, I would say too in situations like that, the one thing I learned to tell myself is it doesn't really matter. Just make the decision. If you use snare A or snare B that are very similar to each other, it's not gonna improve or collapse the world. But it will collapse this session and it will collapse whatever the potential of this thing is that you're making if you don't, like you say, make a decision. So a lot of the things we...

soil over aren't really that important. All they do is just drain our creativity.

Brian Funk (11:04.301)

Yeah, the more sounds, the more samples, the more gear. They're all kind of these new decisions, new choices you have to make. I think I made, I was my most productive when I had a four track cassette recorder and a microphone when I was a teenager because I had a guitar. And so let's record it. The end.

Sound Oracle (11:23.771)

Yes.

Sound Oracle (11:28.637)

Man, yes. For me, it was an MPC 2000. To be even more specific, the MPC 2000 before I had a Zip Drive, when you were dealing with the floppies. Ooh, you talk about limitations. But lo and behold, got it all done.

Brian Funk (11:52.364)

Yeah, you know, it's something I love about the OP one. I think I see that new, if I'm not mistaken in your, in your background, is that the new teenage engineering sampler they got?

Sound Oracle (11:57.179)

you

Sound Oracle (12:03.291)

It is, and we can talk about that in a minute too.

Brian Funk (12:05.804)

Yeah. Well, those, if you read a lot of the comments, the sampling limitations on the OP one, it was like, how could that be? It's when it came out, it was like 2010. It's like, what is this? It's 2010, but it was so helpful because it had like the cool like radio sampler. And if I didn't have like the 15 second or whatever it was limitation, I would have been scrolling the radio all day long, trying to get more and more samples. But.

Sound Oracle (12:25.883)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (12:34.796)

I just found whatever I got and went with it. It was a really productive way to work, just having that.

Sound Oracle (12:41.051)

There you go. I mean, it's no mystery. Everyone knows or should know that limitations are just a breeding ground for creativity. Oh man, listen. I didn't know that about the OP one, by the way. I was looking into getting one of those and the 15, it was really a 15 second limitation. I kind of liked that.

Brian Funk (13:00.972)

you

It's something like that. It's pretty short, at least the old one. I have the original. They have a newer one now. Um, but yeah, it has a lot of limitations. You wouldn't think were necessary. Even just the amount of actual audio you can record at a time. There were a six minute, it was like a four track, but it was like six minutes or so that you could have. And then you had to either dump it off your OP one to the computer or delete it and.

Sound Oracle (13:21.115)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (13:34.011)

you

Brian Funk (13:34.604)

Again, like it was like, all right. Well, that's done. I'm moving on. Time to go.

Sound Oracle (13:40.283)

Now, can you save it via USB transfer or do you have to physically track it?

Brian Funk (13:45.452)

Yeah. No, you can take the files off of it. So it's pretty quick.

Sound Oracle (13:54.171)

Okay, now the KO2, you pretty much have to physically track out. You can save sounds via the browser app that they have, individual sounds you can save, but your track or your beat or whatever, you have to track it out. And I would see comments about it and the limitations of it because it's only 64 megabytes of total sample time.

Brian Funk (14:00.234)

Mm.

Sound Oracle (14:23.803)

You know, and it, it's a lot that you can't do. And that's one of the reasons why I love it. I think people run into problems where they see a thing, they complain about the limitations because they're trying to get that thing to do more than it's actually capable of doing. And when you have things and you know their limitations, then you can kind of put them into slots of purpose. Like this thing serves this purpose. It's not an NPC. It's not.

SP404 for instance I use the KO2 for one shot drums just one shot drums because you can quickly scroll with the plus or the minus around all your drums they're easily organized and you can have 99 patterns per bank so now you have a whole bunch of one shot drums and a whole bunch of patterns so I just have a whole bunch of patterns on there you MIDI it to Ableton have it come in on its own track

Brian Funk (14:55.885)

you

Brian Funk (15:08.3)

you

Sound Oracle (15:22.363)

and now it's just synced up with Ableton. You can just go to a pattern. You have some drums playing. Like we said, now you can just scroll through, find the sounds that you want or find a different pattern and then you hit record on that track in Ableton and now you have a drum track, a two -track drum track. As opposed to trying to chop up a whole song on it and make a whole beat on it with the A section and the B section and all of that. That's when you become frustrated because you're trying to...

Brian Funk (15:36.076)

you

Sound Oracle (15:51.003)

too much, but if you give things a purpose that fits within their limitations, now becomes a fun, creative thing that you use in tandem with other things.

Brian Funk (16:00.301)

Right, because yeah, I guess you could probably put different samples on all those pads, melodic loops and things, but you have live, where you can do that stuff really efficiently. But that's a great use of it. That's really smart, too. It's sort of like my clips, kind of what I was saying before, like my MIDI clips that I want to come back to and just run those right in.

Sound Oracle (16:03.707)

you

Sound Oracle (16:08.347)

you

you

Sound Oracle (16:24.859)

There you go, a one shot in pattern machine. The Korg Micro Sampler is one of my favorite tools to use. It's a very limited sampler too. A lot of people can't get with it. They're kind of hard to find now, but I love that thing for how limited it is. It's like a super limited baby ASR 10.

Brian Funk (16:44.909)

Yeah, right, so you just can't do too much, but what it does, it does well.

Sound Oracle (16:48.443)

you

Yeah, I was into them back in the day. I even got Timbaland and Polo to both start getting into them. And I used to give them sounds on there. And it got to the point where we all had like four of them. Like every person had four. Yeah, and I would just fill it up. But good songs came out of that. Songs like Tom Ford and other songs straight off the cord micro sampler because it has a certain type of sound if you know how to.

Brian Funk (16:54.655)

you

Brian Funk (17:03.012)

It filled up.

Brian Funk (17:18.784)

Mm.

Sound Oracle (17:22.331)

manipulate it, it has a sound that I just simply can't replicate. And I'm pretty cool in enabling, especially with replicating stuff. It's just something about it, I cannot replicate that sound.

Brian Funk (17:30.93)

Yeah, some things just have like the charm that kind of thing go in form. I have an eight track reel to reel right here, right next to me that I've been having so much fun with because of these limitations where there's only eight tracks. And I'm really, I could bounce. I could, you know, we could run.

Sound Oracle (17:45.203)

Nice.

Brian Funk (17:58.027)

things through live and all that, but I'm just using kind of live as like a processor and recording things to the tape and then recording directly to the tape from there. No edits, nothing. And I was doing vocals. I'm not a singer, but I sing in my band, you know, like one of those kind of singers. And it was so much easier to do it when I knew like, I pretty much, I'm just going to have to have one pass with these vocals. That's, that's just what I'm going to get.

Sound Oracle (17:59.803)

Oh yeah.

Sound Oracle (18:25.787)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (18:27.625)

So I'm going to take kind of like the best cumulative process, you the best take in one. And it wound up being like the second one. And I'm so glad I didn't over edit, go back because this is what I would have done inside of the computer. I would have got every line, every word, every phrase, and, you know, take in a lot of soul and kind of emotion out of it. But it's kind of nice not having that feature. It's like the feature that.

Sound Oracle (18:40.053)

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That that's right. I mean, but think about how much soul is.

Brian Funk (18:57.512)

You know, the feature is it doesn't have that feature.

Sound Oracle (19:04.637)

is in older songs from back in the day because they were recorded real to real. I mean, if you just listen to any given song, the amount of imperfections in all of these hit songs is amazing. And that's kind of what makes those songs what they are. Imagine if they had the chance to just edit every syllable. The more you could do that, the more sterile the song starts to sound. So it's cool to have those limitations. And by the way,

Brian Funk (19:05.105)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (19:33.399)

The reel itself, it's an eighth inch.

Sound Oracle (19:33.917)

Do you mind if I ask you what brand and what size tape is your reel?

Sound Oracle (19:42.853)

Yeah, that's the best kind. No, that's the best kind. I don't even know.

Brian Funk (19:46.794)

is I'm not sure. I'd have to get back to you on that. But yeah, honestly, I use it over and over again. I record over it. You know, they're getting you can actually get them more now than you could when I first got this machine about 15 years ago. I got this machine when no one wanted them, you know, and just lucky. But yeah, I don't even know. It's just eighth inch tape.

Sound Oracle (19:59.701)

Yeah. Man. That's nice. Oh, I meant what kind of quarter, what kind of, what brand is the machine?

Brian Funk (20:16.092)

Eighth inch, I'm sorry, quarter inch, quarter inch, not eighth inch. It's Taskam 388.

Sound Oracle (20:26.141)

I went through a period of collecting reel to reel so I'm a reel to reel lover specifically quarter inch. Quarter inch must have a fuss. Just because back in my I finally got enough money to buy stuff off eBay days it was just a lot of quarter inch reels around and this was in Craigslist days and people would just have more quarter inch reels that they were willing to.

Brian Funk (20:30.441)

You're a real, real -to -real lover. Quarter inch specifically? Why is that?

Brian Funk (20:46.869)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (20:55.101)

like in downtown Atlanta and I would go pick them up and I just kind of got stuck like I have a false sex on the desk over there I have a massive Otari 5050 somewhere in the back I have a TASCAM somewhere I just became like such a fan and like you I don't I don't care about how clean the tape is the real is I just keep recording over and over and the more I record over it

Brian Funk (21:05.518)

Okay.

Brian Funk (21:22.698)

hmm

Sound Oracle (21:25.485)

the more the worse it gets and I love it. And then I'll make sample packs. Like I've made a couple of like cassette drums and cassette drums too. And some of those came off of my task game, you know, cassette deck. And then I have others that come off of the reels and the worse the tape is, like the better it sounds to me.

Brian Funk (21:48.49)

I'm right with you with that stuff. I've done samples on there and synth presets and I use VCRs a lot too, which are just another flavor, you know? They've got that kind of like, they don't really stay stable. They kind of like, but I think the wildest one I ever did was like, do you remember the micro cassettes? The like kind of like...

Sound Oracle (21:55.901)

Oh.

Sound Oracle (22:16.349)

Oh yeah. Right, right.

Brian Funk (22:17.033)

the people would walk around like, this is my novel idea. But a little like answering machine tapes. So I did a pack on those and I mean, there's no denying it sounds terrible because those things, they record the motor of the machine and you know, it's hard to hear even what it recorded. But once you start sampling things and put them in a sampler and like...

Sound Oracle (22:27.769)

ooooh

Brian Funk (22:46.857)

It's one of my favorite packs I've ever done. The Micro Cassette Pack is just...

Sound Oracle (22:52.317)

That is awesome. I have, now you've inspired me to go out and go grab some micro cassettes and obviously something to record them on because I do not have that. Let me ask you this. Now, I know you're the one doing the interview, but let me ask you a question. The difference between recording on a, let's say, real and VHS, can you like just describe the...

Brian Funk (23:02.121)

Yeah. Yeah, thrift stores.

Sound Oracle (23:22.109)

the difference to me.

Brian Funk (23:25.194)

Well, the reel has a lot of the normal tapas you would think about, you know, just kind of that sound that they all have. But there's something with the VHS that's kind of like, I don't know how explain it, but it like sounds like it's coming out of an old TV. You know, you probably have memories of watching like VHS movies on like little TVs and it's got that kind of feeling. This...

Sound Oracle (23:35.229)

you

Sound Oracle (23:46.109)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (23:55.338)

I think also the way the EQ is, I don't think it gets a lot above 12K. I think that's just kind of where VCR tapes just sort of roll off. And it just seems less stable. Like the reel to reels like holds it together a little better, but the VHS, and it probably depends on your VCR, but it has this kind of like dreamy, you know, funny feeling.

Sound Oracle (24:01.513)

Oh, that's nice.

Sound Oracle (24:25.201)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (24:25.514)

It's got like this filter on it that's kind of magical.

Sound Oracle (24:34.843)

I'm going to the thrift store after this. Just to let you know.

Brian Funk (24:37.77)

Nice. Yeah. Well, I know you've got a cool pack, the real world effect that is Ableton Live Effect Rack that does a lot of tape emulation. You got some cool presets too, like Tame and Pala. Love that sound of that band. I love that band, the cool sound.

Sound Oracle (24:53.657)

Everyone likes that.

Sound Oracle (24:59.325)

Same. I was like, oh, this is a, whenever I was naming them, that name just, it really fit in more ways than just being a cool name of the band. Whatever was going on at the moment, it really just, it was some animal thing going on and it was a tamer version of another preset that I did earlier and it just kind of fit. But thanks, man. That, I didn't know you checked that, didn't know you checked that out. I love that rack, to be honest with you.

Brian Funk (25:30.185)

That's the kind of thing that get a lot of use. Some of the stuff are very specific for maybe it's a genre or just like a type of energy you're going for, but that kind of flavoring, I mean, I think that works all over the place. And I like a little grit in my music, things a little rough around the edges. So.

Sound Oracle (25:40.701)

you

Sound Oracle (25:52.605)

and it's very extreme. It's super.

tape sound, this is in your face kind of tape sound. And it's one of the things, one of the more recent things that I made in Ableton that allowed me to just completely, just completely nerd out because I study tapes and cassettes and reels and I've been a fan my whole life of them. So to get in there and do my attempt at recreating these sounds with stock Ableton things.

That's a joy for me, just to get to nerd out like that.

Brian Funk (26:27.714)

Yeah. That's great to be able to do that. You know, having the know -how with the devices that you have. I've found one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's kind of this organization thing that you were talking about too. Just, you know, when I first got a computer, I just went to all the dark alleys of the internet and downloaded everything I could find, you know, very unethical.

Sound Oracle (26:54.621)

Yes, sir.

Brian Funk (26:56.966)

time in my life, but it was It was fun and exciting and you getting all the stuff. I had no idea how to use any of it. So Once I started using live I've kind of been bouncing around DAWs and I made the commitment like I'm gonna learn this first So we get rid of all these plugins if I ever want them I can get them again but I'll learn the stuff and so so important to just get those basics and

Sound Oracle (27:06.639)

you

Brian Funk (27:25.13)

not have to rely on things that you don't understand. And then you realize like you don't need that stuff. You can kind of do it your own way.

Sound Oracle (27:30.813)

you

Yes. So I'm pretty sure you've done this and I do this sometimes. You'll get a VST or you'll just simply hear about a VST and having knowledge of your stock plugins, you're like, okay, I can figure out exactly what this is doing. I can kind of throw together my own version of this type of thing and then change the things that I like or the things that I wish that it did.

Brian Funk (27:59.491)

Hmm

Sound Oracle (28:02.237)

And that becomes like a fun game to me. So I'll buy the thing and then try to make my own version of the thing out of just, you know, my stock stuff. And a lot of times you'll find you don't really need the expensive things. They're all kind of relying on basic fundamentals. And you actually have most of the parts to do that. You may not have the GUI, but you have the parts to make that.

or something similar with your own signature flavor on it. And that's a fun pastime for me, actually.

Brian Funk (28:36.747)

Yeah, I've been inspired just by the press releases and all the headlines about it and just like, let me see if I can do something like that. And I don't even know what it sounds like yet, but you're just kind of using that almost like a prompt to create something.

Sound Oracle (28:54.877)

Yes, exactly, exactly. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you another thing. In terms of being creative and being technical, where do you lie in that spectrum? Are you dead center, more creative, more technical? Like, where are you?

Brian Funk (29:14.154)

I probably rely on being creative more, I think. I know there's so much technical stuff and all the stuff I know, I know goes really deep too. Even just using like a compressor, something kind of like a basic skill, even an EQ.

Sound Oracle (29:34.429)

Mm -mm.

Brian Funk (29:37.012)

There are some times I watch people use these devices and I'm just like, oh my God, I know nothing about that. I haven't used them for like half my life and I just learned something that I never realized. That's so obvious.

Brian Funk (29:54.057)

I like the creative side more, personally. The technical stuff is always, I guess, the tool, the kind of way to solve the creative problem.

Sound Oracle (30:05.213)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:06.25)

But I've to a point, I guess, the technical stuff where I understand what's going on, but there's also been times where I sort of draw the line. Do I need to know exactly how the phasing is affecting the sound with the filter I have on? Like if I can't hear it, I'm like, you know, if I can't hear it, like I could go down these rabbit holes and look at wave.

Sound Oracle (30:31.585)

Right.

Brian Funk (30:36.042)

arms and if I don't notice it though I just stop worrying about it.

Sound Oracle (30:36.541)

you

Smart move. You have to know when to tap yourself on the shoulder. Give it up. It doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. On that spectrum, I, like you, enjoy the creative part more, but I think as a person, I am probably dead center. And that's why I love Abel and so much is because it's like the perfect

Brian Funk (30:46.25)

A little bit, yeah.

Yeah, what about you?

Brian Funk (30:59.85)

you

Sound Oracle (31:10.173)

balance between science and art. I can be as technical as I want to be while simultaneously being as creative as I'd never thought I could be. All at the same time. And depending on which side of the brain I want to use at any given time, I can reach the same result and lean more this way or more that way. And I'm still in the same, the same DAW. Now, when I create things, it's always from a...

It's always from a creative standpoint, meaning when I'm doing things, I'm not really thinking. I don't like thinking and analyze the numbers when I'm doing everything. It's complete flow state the whole time. And the technical stuff, because I enjoy learning it so much, it kind of becomes like back of the mind. It's getting executed, but it's not being thought about. But there's never been anything probably in life.

that allows me to be so extreme with the technical, so extreme with the creative and still feel centered all at the same time, if that makes sense.

Brian Funk (32:11.484)

you

Brian Funk (32:15.81)

Yeah, that's a good point because you can really get in there and I think it has encouraged me to become more technical but it is a very friendly tool for just the songwriter in me, the creative part that when I first started getting into the computers with music and I was using hardware and I had eight assholes.

machines at one point. I got Pro Tools because that's the only thing I knew about.

Sound Oracle (32:51.421)

Right.

Brian Funk (32:52.498)

2005 and I always felt like I was making music against Pro Tools. Like despite all the technical stuff that I didn't know at the time, you know, I was working like against it to get my work done. And it wasn't really until I got to live where I was like, oh, this one's like my partner, this is my friend, it's a collaborator. It kind of, it's a little more angled, I think, towards creating and songwriting.

Sound Oracle (32:58.749)

Interesting. Wow.

Sound Oracle (33:16.155)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:22.346)

That's how I felt with it.

Sound Oracle (33:24.701)

Yeah, it does lend itself to being like if you're in just the creative zone, it is it is it. I've never used anything where I just I never have to stop the transport from playing. And this is one of the first things I noticed when I started using Ableton eons ago is that this it's been playing the entire time.

Brian Funk (33:38.6)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (33:49.482)

Mm -hmm.

Sound Oracle (33:49.533)

I'm not stopping and starting. I'm doing a lot and a lot is happening. And this thing is just, it's just playing. And that kind of blew my mind once I realized that that was happening. So, I mean, it's amazing. And also if you're a technical person, when it comes to like prep and workflow, I say I'm 90 % prep. That's when you can be very, very technical down to making things. So when you are just in a super creative state,

the thing you load up is technically sound already. And that way your performance of whatever you're doing has little room for user error because you got your technical thing going on when you were prepping it.

Brian Funk (34:35.882)

Yeah, that's such a good point to keep things going. And that was a big thing they really wanted us to do. When I got my certification through Ableton, they were like, why do you guys keep stopping the transport? Just let it play, let it play. And a lot of times when I'm making stuff, I find it's been playing for like 45 minutes and I'm just building, adding stuff, switching scenes. And it's a great way to not...

Sound Oracle (34:50.589)

You

Brian Funk (35:03.85)

lose the flow to just stay in that moment where you're, you know, just going, just doing stuff.

Sound Oracle (35:07.261)

Oh yeah.

Sound Oracle (35:11.613)

Yeah, I mean recording and deleting and you're doing everything and it's just, it's just still going. It's amazing. Yeah.

Brian Funk (35:19.145)

Yeah. Yeah. It keeps you in that creative mode. I'll tell you what, maybe a good way to know where my technical stuff ends, you know, where I drew the line was I never learned much about Max for live programming. There's enough people doing that. I can use their devices. I don't need to know how, you know, a car runs to drive it. So I don't need to know how this, so that's kind of where I was like, you gotta, you can't do everything.

Sound Oracle (35:40.829)

You

Sound Oracle (35:48.957)

man listen, you are just speaking to my heart at this point. So people are like, I'm sure you know, Max for Live and how to make Max for Live devices. And I'm like, no, not at all. Part of the reason is that's just too deep of a rabbit hole for me. Knowing myself, I would lose half a lifetime, like really getting in there and learning it. So I just, everything that I,

tend to create is mostly like racks like you were talking about real world and all that. And it's just stock able to plug -ins, just stock able and devices. No, uh, you know, no max for live device that I made. I would love to one day, but I'm just so scared. Now, on the other hand, the max for live device library, I browse that like people browse Instagram or, or tick tock. Like that's my, it's like a whole social media thing for me going through those devices.

Oh, and downloading new ones or buying new ones. Oh, that's joy. That's heaven right there.

Brian Funk (36:54.633)

Yeah. You got any favorites that you use a lot?

Sound Oracle (36:57.785)

Ooh, yes. And if they can't come to me in 10 seconds, we'll circle back around. But I will say, most of my favorite things are going to be our utility devices. I think there's one called like audio treasure that's kind of cool. It just kind of records in the background, like a buffer type of thing.

Brian Funk (37:01.351)

I'll you on the spot.

Brian Funk (37:12.488)

Yeah, me too, probably.

Brian Funk (37:26.536)

Is that kind of like capture for MIDI that's always listening to the MIDI play? Nice. Audio treasure.

Sound Oracle (37:29.309)

Exactly. Exactly. There's one. There's one called remove silence. That's really dope. So I'll record something and it has three buttons on it. You could chop, split or trim. I usually use the trim. You just set a threshold and it will remove the end, the silence at the beginning and the silence at the end, depending on the thresholds that you set to automatically like crop your stuff. There's an exporter one.

I think it's just called a exporter where you can just put it on a track, you select the first clip in that track and it'll just export to a folder. Because the thing about live is you can record something into a clip, but getting that wave to be somewhere specific in just a wave form was a little difficult. You know, could crop it and all, but then you go into the crop folder and you have to do a whole bunch of stuff with this export.

it to wherever you want, set the bit depth, set a fade in or fade out if you want, and you just drag in a folder where all of those clips go and it just makes wave files out of them. So you have remove silence and exporter. There's also one called renamer that'll rename everything on the track. So I have those three things on my default audio tracks at all times.

So I could just record, record, record, record, record with the crazy names that I get, then name everything uniformly, trim everything, and then export it to a folder, which helps me stay organized because that folder I export them to is right there in the browser. And now I could just use them like any other sounds. And that's just three. It's a million of them that I can name.

Brian Funk (39:13.671)

This.

Oh, those sound like really good for sample creation too, where that's the nitty gritty tough stuff of finding where the sample ends and the silence and then exporting and naming. Those are the tedious tasks. It's cool. I didn't kind of heard any of those, so I'm going to check them all out. Remove silences.

Sound Oracle (39:32.453)

Exactly.

Yeah, and there's some more creative ones. I'll think of those at another point. But yeah, the utilities are really what floats my boat, if you will.

Brian Funk (39:48.904)

That's a good one. I have one that I use all the time called Clip Gain. And Clip Gain is just, it's the gain control on the clip, but you can map it to MIDI controller or your keyboard. So I got like two keys on my computer keyboard that don't do anything in live. So I can just raise the volume, lower the volume of clips. And it's great for, I use it especially on vocals where,

Sound Oracle (39:55.805)

Oh.

Brian Funk (40:19.496)

my voice, probably better singers are more consistent with their volume, but I'm all over the place. So, so I can get it to hit a compressor kind of evenly. I'll just go and like separate them minus, minus, minus, plus, plus, plus, whatever I got to do. Um, it's really nice for balancing and getting like a consistent level, like, whereas a compressor, it's just the, the, it's too dynamic for a compressor. It'll like,

Sound Oracle (40:33.053)

That's kind of fire.

Brian Funk (40:47.944)

really loud stuff but then all the other stuff is too quiet so it kind of is how I prep it before it gets compressed.

Sound Oracle (40:55.425)

That's dope. Okay, you bring to mind a Maxwell Live device called Volume Buddy. Have you ever heard of that one?

Brian Funk (41:04.776)

Volume Buddy. Is that the compensator? So that's the one where it compensates for your plugins? Are we talking about the same thing?

Sound Oracle (41:09.149)

Yeah, yeah. Yes, that comes in. Yes, you're absolutely right. And that comes in handy because you start to put plugins on things and it sounds good, but a lot of times things are just getting louder, which makes it sound great. Yeah, so it just keeps it at the same volume as the input. So you can really hear what the plugin is doing versus the raise in volume. So that's one of my...

Brian Funk (41:26.376)

Yeah, loud, yay. Sounds great, yeah.

Sound Oracle (41:38.973)

And they update that one. They've updated it like two or three times. So that's one of my favorite ones to use too.

Brian Funk (41:47.112)

I love it when plugins have that feature. I wish it was as common as bypass, some sort of volume regulation. Because you're right, you put stuff on, you're like, yes, it sounds awesome because it's louder. I just naturally prefer that. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (41:49.469)

you

Sound Oracle (41:58.977)

It just tricks you man, it tricks your brain so bad. Okay, I'm not gonna spend a million years on this, but there's one where you can load MIDI clips in and press a key and play the actual MIDI pattern. I forgot the name of it, but that's a cool one too. Yeah, whole MIDI performance is.

on one key and it's so you just load up a whole bunch of MIDI patterns and now on your keys you can just play the MIDI patterns and swap out whatever the sounds are and that that's fun fun time and once you start to automate that that becomes a whole nother ball game yeah yeah oh yeah

Brian Funk (42:34.76)

Okay.

Brian Funk (42:41.896)

Hmm. Nice. That sounds interesting. Yeah. Cool. I mean, there's so many, that's the fun thing, right? There's all these add ons and new stuff you can try. Keeps things exciting. There's even one I really like. I'll give you one more. It's just a cool idea. Elephant makes it. Do you know him? Elephant Thomas Glendening.

Sound Oracle (42:54.851)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (43:01.181)

I know his devices.

Brian Funk (43:10.376)

Yeah, it's called Inspire, and it's just a little prompt. It's like a little text box. It just gives you a little prompt, something to give you an idea. I love that kind of stuff.

Sound Oracle (43:20.041)

He has a lot of cool YouTube videos, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right, that's right. Shout out to Elephant. Yeah.

Brian Funk (43:25.256)

Yeah, he does. He works for Ableton. So he's got, um, he's in a lot of the official videos. It's his voice and a lot of the new videos that came out for live 12. Yeah. Cool guy. Yep. He's been on the show a couple of times now. So, um, yeah, definitely a good guy. He makes great stuff. I love his design too. He's got this really simple, clean look to his stuff. Like.

I can't figure that out. I know it just looks like crazy even when I try to go minimal.

Sound Oracle (43:56.789)

Some things you just see other people do over here, like, I'm gonna leave that to you and I'm just gonna use your stuff. Oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

Brian Funk (44:04.424)

Yeah, right. That's what you got to do sometimes.

Brian Funk (44:10.408)

I gotta say, man, it's really cool that when you go onto the Ableton website and they're telling you all the new things about Live 12 and they have four packs on there and two of them are yours.

Super cool.

Sound Oracle (44:26.749)

Yeah, man, I am super, super excited about that. And it was a long time coming to me. Like I said, it was a bucket list thing, but not just props to me for getting accomplished, like props to Abel and I've, you know, I've had relationships with people in the company for years now. And one thing I can say is they,

They are a company that listens because it's not like they were like, oh, we need this and that for Live 12. Who could we get to give this? So this was me coming to them like, you know what would be really cool or what would be what's really needed? Because I'm tapped into the community as much as I'm tapped into the creative side and ableness. And it's not like a fight to explain things. And I'm like, you know what? You're right.

Like let's let's let's do it. So I mean just kudos to to them for just listening and making making good moves Yeah Yes, Houston was one of the he was probably the first person at Abel and that that worked for Abel and that I met Yeah, I met met Houston then I met Cole then I met

Brian Funk (45:36.073)

Hmm. So you working with like Houston for that stuff? Houston Singleton? Yeah. Cool.

Brian Funk (45:48.969)

Mm -hmm.

Sound Oracle (45:53.917)

Jesse and then Gerhard and a lot of different people. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (46:02.441)

That's nice. And I'm really impressed with these racks you made. I was going through, especially the MPE once. Yeah, MPE is like all the rage now, push three, you can do all that fun stuff. But I had to like, and this is what I do with like everything to learn, right? Like I'm in there opening up your racks, dissecting, and I'm playing the pad. I'm like, if I move up the pad, like with the slide, MPE slide, they call it.

Sound Oracle (46:21.989)

Yes, sir.

Brian Funk (46:31.402)

I get like different sounds and like the effect is changing. I'm like, how the hell would you do that? I mean, look in here and like, I'm digging around and it took me a long time to realize like all your, where you had it, like inside the return tracks of those drum racks. I was really blown away with the, how slick that programming was. It really nice.

Sound Oracle (46:33.889)

Oh, yeah. Thank you. And I'll let you I'll let you in on a secret. Prior to this, I was not an MP guy.

never used MPE, never really thought about it like that. But of course, when making something like this for an official release of Ableton, MPE is important in the Ableton ecosystem right now. So there was like, yeah, you think you could do some MPE stuff? And I'm like, sure. I mean, it just gives me the opportunity to learn and try something new. And I talked to Jesse, shout out to Jesse, creator of Push. He's like an MPE.

master. So he's just like hyping me up on MPE and shout out to Janis on the sound team. He taught me a really cool trick. But aside from those two things, I just kind of went in there, kind of like how I started my whole music production journey, not really knowing how other people did it or how it's supposed to properly be done. And just making this

random way of doing it. So it's cool when somebody like you is like, I looked at it and it's really cool the way you did it because I was just like, this is kind of intuitive to me, but I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to be doing this. And of course they're like, no, you do it the way that you want to do it. And I'm like, okay, great. I'll just learn MPE and I'll figure it out and I'll figure out a way to implement it. So thanks.

Brian Funk (48:19.657)

Yeah, because like you've got on a say like a hi hat. That was one was playing with it. It was a hi hat. It was a snare. But as you play in different spots on the pad, it gets like kind of like bit crushed, you know, like a kind of like phaser effect. Like, oh, how's this happening? Digging in there. And it's really some clever use of something extra live devices just to access all that MP stuff and then map it.

Sound Oracle (48:27.105)

Yeah Yeah

Brian Funk (48:47.497)

to the different parameters that you want to control. But I love that it's not just to sort of showboat the feature. It's not like, oh, cool, listen, that turns into like a laser beam and then it goes to like an elephant noise or whatever it does, right? But it's very playable. It's very musical. It's stuff you can actually use. And sometimes when you get like a new VST or something, it's loaded with

Sound Oracle (49:03.925)

Right.

Brian Funk (49:16.775)

presets and they're kind of there to just show you how awesome the VST is but like you're never gonna use that sound. One key it plays like a whole song and like how am I gonna really use that? But I think you struck a really nice balance of getting that stuff right.

Sound Oracle (49:24.913)

Right. Right.

Sound Oracle (49:36.059)

Thanks. It's one thing I wanted to make sure I stuck with was that it should all be purposeful like the MPE stuff. It should be practical. It should be playable. And most importantly, it should be authentic to the genre. So for the golden era ones, it's not going to be like, like, for instance, a laser beam type of thing. That's not going to happen because that's not hip hop. That's not boom, bap hip hop. But bit crushing is.

Brian Funk (50:01.289)

Yeah. All right.

Sound Oracle (50:05.309)

a little bit of reverb or a little bit of filtering is. So I tried to make sure whatever I did with MPE, it would make a dope effect, maybe an unusual effect, and it would have to make sense to the genre.

Brian Funk (50:18.633)

Was there a lot of, like, did you know you wanted to do golden arrow and trap drums or was there some kind of like time period of taking an idea and bringing it to that concept? You know what I'm saying? Like refining it.

Sound Oracle (50:30.633)

Nah. No, it was more so, especially with the golden era, the boom bap one, like that's my heart. I make a whole bunch of different styles of music and I work with a whole bunch of different types of artists, et cetera. But I'm just a boom bap hip hop crate digging guy at heart. So I was like, this is the perfect time.

to just put it all together because I understand the sound. Like to all the fundamentals, all the elements, the history, I just understand the sound. And with trap, also, of course, it's not as old as boom bap hip hop, but still I understand the sound and there's a huge community of trap producers and a huge community of boom bap producers.

Brian Funk (51:05.129)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (51:27.677)

who use Ableton and Ableton is so vast in terms of everyone in the world, across the world uses it for all these different genres of music. And I just wanted to get in there for the hip hop producers, the boom bap guys and the trap producers to have something that really is for us and showcases like the power.

of Ableton. So it's just as good for those genres on the surface as it is for EDM or ambient or whatever other type of genre there is. So everything just kind of lined up in perfect timing.

Brian Funk (52:08.105)

Yeah, that's cool. Especially even that idea of just like representing and bringing the genre in. I mean, I come from playing like in rock bands my whole life and the initial impression everyone has when I tell them I use Ableton, they're like, but that's like for EDM, like you're a guitar player. Like, and I'm like, no, you know, there's a lot you can do here. And truthfully, I think it brought a lot of...

Sound Oracle (52:18.269)

Right Yeah

Brian Funk (52:37.253)

EDM kind of aspects into my music that I might not have done otherwise, just because it's sort of there and you start playing with it and you just go, oh, that's kind of cool. And I love that you're, you're taking that. Like I think even for like rock musicians, there still needs to be something like they got the guitar amp, which was a nice touch. And some of the drum kits they have are really nice for.

Sound Oracle (52:48.093)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (53:04.097)

Right. Ableton is one of those things where if it was a huge store, it's like, oh, it's not, it's a, an EDM store. Well, no, they have some hip hop things in there. There's some over there and some over there where it's

Brian Funk (53:05.961)

for rock music, but I still think the conception that people have needs to come along a little bit.

Brian Funk (53:28.009)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (53:28.669)

If you just come in and you just make a section dedicated to those things and put them all in one section and then throw a couple of new products in that section, now it's not so much a, you have to hunt around for it or even know that it can be used for these types of things. So it's just to make it more, make it more prominent.

Brian Funk (53:42.793)

Right.

Brian Funk (53:48.137)

Yeah. Yeah. Cause there, you know, there's 808s. There's a lot of like the kind of classic sounds that you might use, but you kind of have to know to look for them. And you've said, go here. Organization.

Sound Oracle (54:00.957)

Yes, yes, they're all right here. Now, I love sample packs. I create sample packs, obviously, but I'm also a huge consumer of sample packs. I buy sample packs as well. But it's just something about less is more sometimes. I'm always like, what if I only had this laptop and I only had Ableton? Can I get it done in the way that I want to get it done? And if the answer is no, then.

how can we fix this and put those things in there? That was kind of the thought process with this.

Brian Funk (54:38.345)

It makes a lot of sense and I get the feeling you're probably like me on this. It used to be if I was going to download a sample pack, it'd be like, oh, two gigs, four gigs, awesome. I'm getting a lot. And now to me, that's like, oh no, that's too much. I don't want that anymore. And your kit, like, you know, it's a drum based sample pack and I'm just looking at the golden era right now and it's got...

Sound Oracle (54:52.597)

you

That is a fact.

Brian Funk (55:07.049)

234 samples. That's a lot, but it's not, you know, there's other, you could, I don't even know how big the pack was, but it wasn't like all day to download it. It was quick. It was.

Sound Oracle (55:15.517)

you

Sound Oracle (55:19.861)

No, it's like a couple hundred megabytes if that. Very small. Yes. Yeah, I like to say all thriller, no filler.

Brian Funk (55:23.881)

very focused.

Brian Funk (55:30.473)

All thrill and no filler. Good way to be. Cause when you start trying to fill, like just go for size. I told you, I teach high school English and it's like the same thing with like the way kids write. They think good writing is more writing. I'm like, no, it's the exact opposite. Choose your words.

Sound Oracle (55:32.877)

Yeah, cuz

Sound Oracle (55:51.645)

That's right, be concise yet effective. There it is. Now I will say this though, when it comes to making sample packs like that, because a lot of my sample packs are around that size. And in terms of just sheer file count, especially when it comes to drums, like you said, that is a lot. But out of the 200 and...

Brian Funk (55:54.505)

Yes, exactly. So you've got that, living by that philosophy. It's a really good way to look at stuff.

Sound Oracle (56:21.245)

30 something, 220 something, however many sounds there are, I probably made like 600. And then just cut it down. Yeah, I always make at least four or five times more than I need. And then that way, like I'm just cutting it down to the best of the best.

Brian Funk (56:39.721)

That's important because I've got a lot of packs, sample packs of mostly stuff I'll never use. Like I was saying with the presets, these are just here to make a number.

Sound Oracle (56:51.485)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (56:57.241)

Right, right. You feel good when you see how many, like I have a lot of stuff in my arsenal, but you don't use most of that. And like I said, I'm of the thought process, if you only have this one thing, how good can this one thing be so that you're like, I can get it done with just this one thing if I've never had another thing ever. And if you can, if you can,

Brian Funk (57:03.081)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (57:25.405)

check off all the boxes with that, then in my mind it's mission accomplished. Without the bloat. Without the bloat, then it's mission accomplished.

Brian Funk (57:34.377)

Yeah, it's kind of the modern producer's biggest problem is we just have too many options.

Sound Oracle (57:41.133)

Yes.

Brian Funk (57:43.387)

I have to set these confines. I have to make rules. I have to limit. I use my collections inside the browser just to make palettes for songs just because otherwise you get lost.

Sound Oracle (58:00.005)

Man, it is super tough. How often do you use the collections? Like are you a super collections type of guy?

Brian Funk (58:12.457)

I use them pretty much a lot, I guess. I've got one for hardware stuff. So that's like external instruments and mics that I have like on my drum kit. So I can just, I don't have to set up the mics. I don't have to set up the tracks. I just drag in a group of tracks. It's a session and that's my drums. Or if like I want to play like one of these synths next to me, it's already got an external audio that's in a rack with some...

filters and delays and stuff in there. That saves me so much. It's the difference a lot of times between me using that equipment or recording drums or just being like, I'll just find a loop.

Sound Oracle (58:55.805)

Good point, that is a very good point. I wanna use my collections more. I just found it getting out of hand. I'm more of a folder structure type of guy. And one workflow tip, in case anyone's listening, I always name my stuff after whatever I would be thinking about if I were to look for it in the future. So it's always something in the name or the...

Brian Funk (59:21.001)

Mm -hmm.

Sound Oracle (59:25.117)

the syntax to where because I'm a I'm a I'm a Control F or command F type of guy anytime looking for something just control F and I start typing there it is double click and You know, I'm there with it as opposed to going through the browser. So I would always encourage people to name things in a way that When you're looking for it in the future, whatever your mind would think that's in the title somewhere

Brian Funk (59:54.985)

That's smart. That's kind of similar to what I do when I lose something around the house. If I can't find something, I make its new spot the first place I looked. You know, if I can't find like the scissors, like they go in the drawer that I picked to look first. But it's so helpful because it's, yeah, it's just like your mind is telling you where to put it. You just didn't realize it till now.

Sound Oracle (01:00:07.965)

Genius.

Sound Oracle (01:00:14.717)

But it makes life easy.

Sound Oracle (01:00:24.157)

It's exactly the same thought process. That's exactly what it, even when it comes down to folder structure, like, oh, it's in here, it's in drums, well, what type of drums? Drum patterns or break beats and blah, blah, blah. You know, just whatever the first, your instinctual thought is, that should be the name or that should be the location. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:00:45.097)

Yeah, it's a great way to go and just whatever that kind of triggers in your mind. I guess that's a good way to use the tagging now that they have in 12, which I've not fully embraced yet. I'm kind of having some growing pains with the new browser just because I've gotten so into the old way. But...

Sound Oracle (01:00:53.853)

Let your primitive self take over.

Sound Oracle (01:01:11.677)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:01:15.721)

That sounds like a good way to use it. Mood type tags even. Feelings and.

Sound Oracle (01:01:24.733)

I'll be honest with you, I feel like I'm going to end up making too many tags and it's gonna render the whole system useless. The whole tags. Because there's a lot there. But I'm like, okay, well I could just, in addition to what's there, maybe this additional tag will help me locate these types of things better. And then I just see myself doing that over time a lot and then I'm just staring at a wall of tags. Like, what is going on here? So I'm a little apprehensive, but I...

Brian Funk (01:01:32.553)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:01:47.429)

Yeah. Might need to get some kind of like community consensus. Like what kind of tags are working and find out what people are doing. I liked the collections for that reason because they were limited. You get seven and...

Sound Oracle (01:01:53.373)

do know if done properly and with a little bit of discipline, it could make things a lot better.

Sound Oracle (01:02:15.005)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:02:15.837)

You know, even I have one called try me and that's where I put like when I get something new I want to explore and that's kind of the miscellaneous bin for whenever I Don't know what I'm doing today. Let's try something new. Yeah

Sound Oracle (01:02:31.261)

I like that. I like that. I only use two collections. The yellow really is the main one I'll use. If I make a rack and then I'll, I may make some variation of that rack or update it over time and one will be from last year. But this is the new one, the one that I use, the official one or the newest one, I'll always tag it yellow. So that way when I load up,

Let's say Oracle dirty reverb, for instance, and there's five of them staring at me. I know like, oh, this is the one. And if need be, I could actually get rid of all the other ones. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:07.017)

Yeah. Right. Yeah, I guess pruning is a part of your process. Getting rid of that stuff. Yeah, I need to take you that advice. That's where I'm messing up.

Sound Oracle (01:03:14.557)

It has to be. Has to be. Listen, you will be overwhelmed in no time. And I assume you're the type of person that does a lot. You create a lot of stuff, whether it be sounds, patterns, songs, whatever. So you are a prime candidate to just become overwhelmed. Like.

Brian Funk (01:03:26.569)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:43.197)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:03:45.501)

victim of your own creativity.

Brian Funk (01:03:45.897)

I know, right? Like it's a great thing to do, but you, it's everything's like that, right? Like you just take it too far and then next thing you know, you're in trouble.

Sound Oracle (01:03:56.637)

Yeah, because that genius thing that you have is kind of useless now. You're kind of almost back at square one mentally one way or another. And I try my hardest to avoid that at all costs. Because you just have to dig yourself back out. And it's too much time.

Brian Funk (01:04:00.401)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:04:13.033)

Yeah.

Right? So you've had a lot of cool experiences working with people, household names. I'm wondering if you have any good takeaways or maybe common things you've noticed in some of the people that are just tearing it up, things they do that tend to be something they have in common or just a...

powerful lessons you took.

Sound Oracle (01:04:47.773)

Um, yeah, I do. The one thing that I noticed is that, okay, I'll give you a situation that comes to mind a lot. I forgot the year, but we're in New York and we're working on...

Justin Timberlake 2020 album, Jay -Z, Magna Carta and Beyonce album all at the same time in Alicia Keys studio at Jungle Studios in New York. And so a lot of the people that were there are just people I'm around a lot, but you just, all of the people that you see in this state, in this state, in this state, they work on this, work on that. Everyone's kind of just there. And I look around and the realization is,

Everybody is so good at what they do. No one looks like they're trying. Amazing things are happening, but it's whatever that person does is second nature to them. And when you make a team of people or you're working on a project or just the circle of people you want around you to get something done, that should be like the default mode or just the default personality or way of working of all of those people. Like,

whoever's playing the keyboards is just keyboard insane and can tell you everything about a keyboard that's ever been known. Me with the samples or creating sounds or creating drums or just whatever, second nature. It's all second nature. Even writing like Justin, for instance, coming up with songs and melodies. Just everything is so second nature that all this amazing stuff is happening effortlessly.

20, 30 times a day just because everybody's so tapped in with their gift. And it just took me that instance to look around over those couple of months like, wow, this is really amazing. So I would encourage anybody, if there's something that you do wanna do or something that you do well, just...

Sound Oracle (01:07:02.973)

better at it, just make it second nature, like muscle memory almost, and know as much about it as possible, because when people see you as an authority on something, they'll remember you forever. And I still, to this day, it's just people that I'll meet, and oh, I remember you from such and such, or I heard about you, you're the guy that knows all the...

Brian Funk (01:07:08.457)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (01:07:29.117)

the names to every sample in the world or you the guy that knows how to make all the sounds or just, you know, that type of thing. And it's just from being a nerd and knowing so much about stuff and doing it so like, just normally that that's how you get a name for yourself. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:07:47.625)

It's specialize. Find your thing and just dive in.

Sound Oracle (01:07:53.437)

Yeah, yep. And also, I was gonna avoid this because it sounds cliche, but I mean, just really, I'm gonna say it. Go with your gut and do what you wanna do. We, especially with music, people want to be successful. And, you know, so you might hop on a trend or whatever. And you could, whatever's going on now could...

not really be what your thing is. And I've always been a person so I'm like, I want to do my thing. So whether I'm working with a pop artist or working in this environment, all of my techniques are boom bap techniques that I developed as a kid on the MPC 2000, even though I know how to apply them to the pop session or apply them here. And in terms of chasing trends, I've never been a trend chaser, but you stay relevant by...

looking at whatever the trends are. And if you do wanna have some type of successful fit in, just figure out what elements or what foundationally makes people like those trends. And that way you can kind of compartmentalize them and then take those things and put it into whatever it is you do or put your own spin on it. So now it's your thing, but it's familiar to whoever you're trying to woo in that moment.

And that way you can kind of chase the trendy thing if you want to, but you're not compromising yourself because one of the worst things that could happen is you get stuck doing this trendy thing and it works for you. Well, you don't even really like it, but now that's what people come to you for. So now you may be having some level of success, but just on the inside, you're not happy now. So there's still like a disconnect. I feel like there's always a way.

to learn more, do more, appeal to more people without having to compromise yourself at all in the process.

Brian Funk (01:09:55.273)

Right, and that way success is the curse. Now you can't shake that, right?

Sound Oracle (01:10:00.025)

Exactly.

Yeah, you made the death metal country thing and now you're stuck with being the death metal country guy. Right.

Brian Funk (01:10:08.009)

He's the guy. Call him up. He's like an actor getting typecast or something, right?

Sound Oracle (01:10:17.051)

Exactly.

Brian Funk (01:10:19.721)

Sometimes those actors, you know, it's like an actor like Tom Hanks, it comes to mind where when he first came out, you know, it was all comedy and and it was I really remember when he started getting serious roles. You're like, what? But that's what he did. I mean, he was that good, but he had to go with that. And probably a lot of people telling him, no, don't do that. Or they recently just heard.

Sound Oracle (01:10:20.079)

Exactly.

Sound Oracle (01:10:43.995)

Yeah. Yeah.

you

Brian Funk (01:10:48.073)

I listened to Arnold Schwarzenegger's book. What is it called now? Be Useful. Be Useful. Yeah, it's really good, man. I don't know if I would have expected that, but I mean, when you think about it, of course, right? But he talked about like when he did Twins. Do you remember that movie Twins with Danny DeVito? The comedy?

Sound Oracle (01:10:56.445)

Really? That's the name of it? I like that. I like that title.

Sound Oracle (01:11:11.901)

Oh yeah, with Danny DeVito, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11:14.025)

Nobody wanted him to do comedy. He was the big muscle man action hero and They said we think we have a good idea. We'll do it for free. We just want money on the back end and Twins became a huge success. It's it's his most lucrative movie he ever did and it was all about like taking that chance and trusting himself and going for it and you know think of just like how that expanded how we think of Arnold Schwarzenegger is like a

person and a brand or whatever you want to say.

Sound Oracle (01:11:47.901)

And he didn't get typecast. He avoided being typecast.

Brian Funk (01:11:50.441)

No, he refused it. Yeah. Yeah, pretty cool.

Sound Oracle (01:11:55.325)

I mean, that's, yeah, that's just, that's just good for, that's something good to do for yourself. You never want to get stuck. And a way to do that is to develop a reputation of being versatile. Just, yeah, having a wide set of skills and being able to showcase them. Just even when people don't necessarily ask you to, just let people know that you can do it.

Brian Funk (01:12:03.017)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:12:11.209)

Mm -hmm.

Sound Oracle (01:12:25.063)

It's there. I can do that. I can do this. I can do that. So shout out to the Govinator.

Brian Funk (01:12:31.049)

Yeah.

When was the first time you made it? I don't know made it, what does that mean? But when you found yourself in one of these situations where you're like, oh wow, now I'm really with some serious cats here. We're really getting into it. Because I'm curious how.

you came to just trust yourself in that situation, because I'm sure it's easy to kind of just try to fit in with it. Does that make sense?

Sound Oracle (01:13:11.773)

It does, it does. One of the things that people would ask me or have asked me in the past is like, oh, when you started working with, let's just say Timbaland or whoever, like, were you nervous? And I never thought about it, not for a second. I couldn't wait to show people what I could do. It like, nervousness never crossed my mind. But to answer your question, the first time...

I came to Atlanta in 2008 and I'm not gonna go into the whole story because it's quite a lengthy story but my girlfriend who's now my wife, her and I, we came here with nothing and the plan was I was gonna make it in music. It's like the most crazy plan ever. But hey, we both believed that I was that good. So what I would do is I would go...

It's a spot in Atlanta called Northside Drive, a lot of the studios there and I would go to the same studio every day. I would go to all the studios at the same time for each studio, knock on the door and I would just talk to whoever was at the front desk. I had no connections and I got cool with the front desk people because I would just show up every day at the same time and eventually I got let in. I got to play my stuff for people and the first person that took the first major person that took a meeting with me was Polo, Polo the Don.

And as I'm playing them music, I came just to be a producer. He's like, these beats are crazy. But he was like, where do you get these sounds? I had never thought to myself about that. I just made a lot of sounds and I sampled a lot of sounds because I made a lot of beats. So it's just my own insatiable appetite. And I didn't even realize that making sounds was not like a common thing.

for people to do. And that was the first time I was looked at or even thought about myself as a sound designer. So he was like, well, can you do, can you make sounds for me? Well, you know, do sounds for me. I'm like, sure, here's some sounds. He's like, no, like every month. I'm like, okay, all right, great. So, and the funny thing is in terms of the making it, he was like, well, how much do...

Sound Oracle (01:15:38.845)

You know, I'll take some, a lump sum here and then how much do you want each month? I have nothing. I'm like, oh, okay. And then I just named some astronomical price and he's like, great. I'm like, oh, okay. So I started doing that. Oh man, I swung for the fences. And he was like, yeah, great. That's cool. So then he ended up going to LA.

Brian Funk (01:15:54.405)

You just took a swing, huh?

Brian Funk (01:16:02.215)

Wow.

Sound Oracle (01:16:07.965)

kind of moving out there and there was a studio across from Interscope Records called No Excuses and in that studio was three studios, Timbaland, Dr. Dre and Polo. That's it. So I'm telling the story one day in the kitchen and it's a funny story and Polo was like, oh, I gotta tell my, you gotta tell my man this story. This man walks in and it was Tim. I was like, oh, okay, great. This is, oh, good to meet Tim, it's cool. And Tim came in the studio, he heard.

the new stuff that Polo's doing and same thing, where do these sounds come from? And he's like, this guy right here. So Tim called me that night or the next day or something like that. He's like, I don't know what you're doing for Polo, but can you do the same thing for me? And that was probably the moment where I was like, wow, okay. Being a producer was like my only focus. But now it's the sound designer thing is in addition to it and the best of the best.

Brian Funk (01:16:38.526)

you

Brian Funk (01:16:59.71)

you

Sound Oracle (01:17:05.573)

are asking, they're inquiring about this and they're like, how do you do this? And can you do the same thing for me? And that was the, and in the midst of that, I'm working with, I think at that time, it might've been 2009, so I'm doing a record for like 50 Cent one day to produce a record for like Christina Aguilera the next day and doing sounds for, I don't know, like Kerry Hilsen's record. It was just a whole lot going on. And I think around that time, I was like,

I think I made it. I think I made it. And it wasn't so much about money. And it wasn't really so much about the people or what I was working on. But it was like, these people are considered the best of the best at this thing. And they're asking me for that thing that they're known for being the best of the best at. And that was a feeling I've never felt. And it kind of rocked my brain a little bit.

Brian Funk (01:18:04.268)

Well, that's a good sign, right? Asking you the questions and... I... probably...

Sound Oracle (01:18:05.917)

Okay, you're onto something. For all the stuff you've been doing all these years, with no rhyme or reason, just doing it for yourself, you've been really onto something the whole time and just had no clue until you showed it to the people that are the best of the best at this and they're like, no, you got it. And that was it for me. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:18:34.62)

Took a little bit of, you know, just to recognize that is a big thing too, to realize like, oh hey, this is what they're looking for from me. Like I got something to adjust the path a little bit, to just recalibrate, you know, some swift thinking.

Sound Oracle (01:18:48.157)

Yeah. I did things in reverse. A lot of people, well now sample packs and sound designers are a thing. They weren't really a thing when I was doing it. And a lot of people want to start here and then eventually make it into the industry. I did it backwards. I was a sound designer for like the people that are known for the greatest sounds and drums ever for like six years before I decided to.

Brian Funk (01:18:58.508)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:19:06.2)

you

Sound Oracle (01:19:17.769)

pivot and then start serving like the greater community. So I just kind of did it in reverse, which is a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Brian Funk (01:19:26.023)

Yeah, that's cool though. I mean, that's like a more natural organic way for it to happen. Let me take you to the moment when he says, how much do you want? When Polo says that to you. To swing for the fences, take some guts, right? Cause he could just say, no, see you later buddy. But I'm sure you want, you probably would have done that job no matter what, right? Whatever they paid you.

Sound Oracle (01:19:49.057)

Yeah, I knew it was gonna be something and it was gonna be something significant but the definition of significant at the time in comparison to what I had it could have been almost anything. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:20:01.123)

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm just wondering how you, what you said to yourself to say, you know what? It's because I think I'd be like afraid to blow it. I'd be like, Oh, you know, I'll do it for whatever, you know, but, uh, to take the swing.

Sound Oracle (01:20:18.013)

I was. I was, I was super afraid. Not only that, there was like a, there were people in the room. There were people there. So it was like, oh, I could blow it. I could blow it in front of all of these people too. So I thought of a number and I was like, let's just go.

Brian Funk (01:20:28.357)

Right, so you

Brian Funk (01:20:37.559)

Right.

Sound Oracle (01:20:47.197)

higher than that number and see what happens. But the okay that came back, it came back faster than I could finish the number. So that also gave me an indicator as to the industry and the resources that I was about to get into because in my mind at the time, that was an astronomical number and he didn't blink at it.

Brian Funk (01:20:57.899)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:21:16.843)

Yeah

Sound Oracle (01:21:17.885)

and nobody else blinked at it. I was like, oh, all right, I need to figure out where I am a little bit more because I'm in here like, oh, this is more money than I've ever had in my life. And they're like, almost like, that's it? Okay, great. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Right, but it worked out. It taught me a lot too.

Brian Funk (01:21:25.803)

Yeah, right.

Brian Funk (01:21:30.731)

That's a bargain. Right. I don't even have to consult anyone on this. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:21:43.659)

sure, but opening those doors is invaluable too. Yeah, what a cool honor to have someone like that, like Timbaland, to be like, hey, how did you do those cool sounds? Can you do that for me? The guy known for cool sounds.

Sound Oracle (01:21:51.281)

Right. And I had I'm so into samples and sound creation when when I got with him, I was just eager. I would tell him about things that he used and I would tell him certain things about it that he might not even know. Oh, yeah, this.

I know you got this and there, but you know, it's originally from here and it does this. It's like, wow. Okay. So it became also just making the, my thought process was how can I take something that's great or consider the best and make it even better? And a lot of that was being useful in ways that people didn't know that they needed you to be useful, which is, all right, you may use a sample or you may have a sound.

Brian Funk (01:22:17.931)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:22:36.427)

Okay.

Sound Oracle (01:22:45.241)

And you don't remember where it came from or you did something to where Like you just didn't know and then later on you're gonna be like, how did I do that? And I'm like you did this that this that and the third. Oh Wow, you you saw that like Yeah, I saw it or all your sounds on your keyboards or whatever Yeah, let me let me put these together. Let me organize these Let me put them into a way to where they're easy to find and you just hold down a couple keys and that's the whole like that's the

Brian Funk (01:22:55.903)

Hmm

Sound Oracle (01:23:15.049)

the foundation of the beat type of deal. Things that people didn't know that they necessarily needed. Yeah. Yeah. And I kinda, when I'm working with people, I kinda like to see people not being as efficient as possible. I like a fixer -upper, as they say. Like, oh man.

Brian Funk (01:23:17.531)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:23:21.387)

Right, so you're kind of like looking for ways you can improve the kind of production here and say like, hey, I know you're going to love this.

Brian Funk (01:23:41.291)

Uh, okay. Right. Yeah. Well, that's a strength. I mean, it's, it's, uh, that's an important skill, you know, to be organized, to have your stuff together, to know what, where your things are when you need it. It can be the difference between finishing and not, or falling out of that groove that, you know, like your excitement.

Sound Oracle (01:23:43.133)

You could be saving so much time. Give me that. Give me that. Watch this. I'm one of those people, so yeah.

Brian Funk (01:24:10.027)

The inspiration slips away in those moments. So to be able to patch up those moments and move forward, that's a valuable person to have around. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:24:12.673)

Yeah. It's a good trait. It used to get on my nerves and then I realized it was valuable to other people. I used to not like that about myself when it came to certain things, because sometimes you just want to have stuff and not worry about how organized it is or, you know, you just want to have it. I'm like, no. God.

take tomorrow and organize this and find a better method of whatever you know but it became useful over time.

Brian Funk (01:24:39.139)

Yeah, it's a worthy investment. And now you're helping not just yourself, but others and you're putting your name on popular music. You've got your sound out there. It's pretty awesome, man.

Sound Oracle (01:24:47.773)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:25:03.301)

Yeah, but circling back around to the whole Ableton thing, you're right to see the packs on the site with my name on it. I'm like, wow, that's a lot for me, for sure. To come from being a consumer and somebody who just loves something to being a part of it. And as -

Extreme as it sounds I constantly say I am now embedded into the able to software forever and that's that's the thing That's a legacy thing for me Yeah

Brian Funk (01:25:36.831)

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, countless people are going to be throwing those into their tracks. Kids, you know, for the first time making beats, professionals, you know, putting out hits. I mean, you're going to have your fingerprints on a lot of things. That's like you said, legacy is a good word for it.

Sound Oracle (01:25:57.157)

Yeah, yeah, it feels it feels great. It's something that will that will live on and an infamy forever. And if you can make something that that has the potential to be around longer than than you will something that you are proud of. I mean, that's that's a win in in the grand scheme of what's important in life and what's considered a win or success in life. To me, that's like a major.

Brian Funk (01:26:06.973)

the

Sound Oracle (01:26:25.353)

real -life win. Yes sir. Yes sir and the first. I'm taking pride in being the first to have not one but two signature collections in a major Ableton release. Like this is you know.

Brian Funk (01:26:27.371)

Well man, like I said, there's four on the site and you've got two of them. That's pretty bad ass.

Brian Funk (01:26:44.715)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (01:26:50.513)

It's a big deal. It's like you see someone who's really into like collecting stamps and to use just a whole bunch of stamps. But to them, they're like, this is the 1924 like, I'm like, oh man, this is great for me. That's right. Right. Exactly.

Brian Funk (01:26:58.123)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:27:02.563)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm one of those people. I'm like, oh wow. This is the golden era. Look at this. Dissecting, I'm pulling apart. Look at how when I play the different part of the pad, the sound changes.

Sound Oracle (01:27:18.109)

Like, oh, the midi clip, if you put the midi clip with this kit and all of that, man. Making those midi clips was fun, I will say that. Yeah. Yes. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. That was kind of, that was fun. Yeah. Yep.

Brian Funk (01:27:26.955)

Yeah. Do you do the, the music too? The audio demos? Awesome. They sound great. Yeah. That. Yeah. That I always love that part when I'm doing a pack, when I finally get to play with it, you know, sometimes you have to almost resist when you're working on stuff, you know, I kind of know if I have something good, if I start getting lost in making music when I'm trying to make it.

Sound Oracle (01:27:49.401)

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's like the best part though, you sit and listen to it a million times.

Brian Funk (01:27:56.139)

make my actual pack, but I, yeah, that's, it's a good sign. And I tend to let that win. Usually like if I get inspired, I feel like that's more rare. That's harder to come by. Whereas there's a technical aspect to designing sounds too. So if I'm not super creative,

inspired I can go to that and still enjoy it.

Sound Oracle (01:28:29.265)

Yeah. Do you have, and I do, so I'm assuming other people do too, do you have like personal cues, things that you do whenever something is just right or you make something and it just sounds right and it feels right? Do you have like things that you do or like celebratory things? Because I do.

Brian Funk (01:28:52.651)

Like a dance or something?

Sound Oracle (01:28:56.815)

Yeah, something like that. If I'm making something and it's whether it's a beat or a sound or a loop or just something. If I find myself getting up and walking around. I'm like, oh no, this is this is something and it would usually happen. I'm already up and I'm already around before I even realize it. And I do this weird thing, too, where I'll turn something up and I'll go listen to it from another room.

Brian Funk (01:29:22.927)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:29:25.039)

nothing technical about it, but it's just something that I do. So I start walking around and if I go to another room to hear it, just playing from the room that it's playing in, that's how I know I'm like, oh, I'm in love with this thing and it's probably good.

Brian Funk (01:29:40.755)

Yeah, this desk I'm sitting at is a standing desk so I can raise it. And I like to be standing when I create more and more. And sometimes you just start like dancing. Like it's kind of hard to like dance in your seat, you know? You're kind of, so if I find myself moving a little bit and like, when it gets physical, you know, that's often when I know.

Sound Oracle (01:29:49.705)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:29:57.221)

That's right, that's right.

Brian Funk (01:30:09.195)

But I love doing that thing with the different room when I'm kind of testing a mix. I'm trying to figure out if it's any good just because I can sort of listen to it without focusing on it. And sometimes if something's really off, it really comes through the walls, you know, through the other door. So sometimes that lets me know a lot of, uh,

Sound Oracle (01:30:15.773)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:30:29.295)

That is true.

Brian Funk (01:30:36.907)

doing other things while I'm listening back helps me figure that stuff out. Cause it's like a half listening experience.

Sound Oracle (01:30:45.709)

Yeah, it's true. It's more of an instinct taking over, less looking at the thing. Now, do you make music, are you mostly isolated by yourself or are you often in a collaborative?

Brian Funk (01:30:54.859)

I guess, um, kind of a mix these days, um, probably mostly alone, but you know, I play in a band, three piece garage rock type of thing. So there's a lot of collaboration going on there. And what I love about that is I guess growing up.

Sound Oracle (01:31:13.565)

nice.

Brian Funk (01:31:22.731)

most of my music making was with other people in bands. And I'd always be like, kind of frustrated, like, I want this part to happen, this one, I want you to play it. Like you kind of knew what you wanted everyone to do. And then bands broke up probably for those, not surprisingly with that kind of attitude, right? But I had a lot of time to do it solo where I got to do everything I want. So now I'm at this point.

Sound Oracle (01:31:33.181)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:31:43.453)

Ugh.

Brian Funk (01:31:50.315)

playing with a band, it's really nice to not think about what everyone else is doing and just let them do it, trust them and work off of them more. So I think I've come to probably like a more mature way of playing with other people where it's not so much like I want you to do this thing so my thing works. It's more like, oh, I'm going to react off of what you do and it'll be something totally new now. So I like that.

Sound Oracle (01:32:11.293)

Right?

Sound Oracle (01:32:17.607)

That's definitely a sign of maturity. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:32:21.387)

Yeah, I like this kind of, if I need to be the dictator and in control, I work alone. And if I'm going to collaborate, like I want it to be a collaboration. Like even with our band, I don't bring songs to the band. I don't like write songs and bring it. It's whatever happens when we're together. You just let it happen, kind of unfold. It's less pressure too, you know, it's more.

Sound Oracle (01:32:42.685)

last night.

Brian Funk (01:32:51.083)

adventurous and it's a good way to just let everyone shine in their own way.

Sound Oracle (01:32:59.485)

That is nice. I'm mostly 90 % by myself, but there is something about when I am collaborating, because it takes less time to realize that something is nice or really good or great. And it happens more often. Yeah, it does. Because the thing is, when you're...

Brian Funk (01:33:21.419)

in collaborations.

Sound Oracle (01:33:26.813)

doing things for so long, you have a set way of doing things. So you may do something that is amazing or is dope, but to you, it's just a thing that you always do. So you'll, you know, forget about it or you won't think it's anything. I did that for probably a decade or so before somebody else were here to be like, that is insane. You're like, well, that I do that like 80 times a day, but it's just cool to me. But when you have that,

collaborative setting and you could hit one note or do one thing and then you all kind of look at each other. It just takes that one connection, you're like, oh, we're on to something, let's cook. As opposed to if it was just me, like, is it really something? Maybe it's not, maybe it is, you know. I gotta collab more, you've inspired me.

Brian Funk (01:34:03.563)

Yeah

Brian Funk (01:34:16.747)

I love that, exactly what you're talking about where your energy levels move around a lot when you're working, right? And sometimes I'm by myself and you know, maybe it's just like getting tired or hungry or who knows what and just a little bit out of it. But when you're with other people that are excited too, sometimes you can look at them like, he's still excited. So it kind of gets you like feeling good and like this.

Oh, they said they liked it when that happened. Oh, good. All right. So I had some verification because you lose touch with reality a little bit on your own. Kind of like don't know what's what.

Sound Oracle (01:34:48.873)

Oh, a lot, a lot. Another thing about, well, the collaboration sparked something in me, which is a piece of advice. People are often asking me, I'm big on finding your own sound or having your own sound. I just feel like I'm from a time where being authentic or not being like other people is.

highly rewarded and the alternative is shunned. And when it comes to having your own sound, I always tell people look for the things that people often compliment you on. Like if you play something for somebody and they're like, man, those drums are hard or that drum pattern is crazy. And then, you know, you play something else for somebody else or somebody else. And then you just keep getting this compliment about your drum patterns or how your drum sound.

Double down on that. That is one of your strengths. And then you just look for those things that you receive more than one, two, three compliments about. Double down on them. Make sure you do those in everything. And after you get enough of those things, that's how you develop a sound. Just from the things that random people on different walks of life just all found as like the common denominators on what they like about your stuff.

But the only way to know that is to play your stuff for people. And as musicians, if you don't have like an album or you're not putting things on Spotify or you're reluctant to post on social media, the only way that you'll know about these things is to collaborate with other producers or other musicians. And you can still, as a matter of fact, you'll get those compliments will actually come with detail, more detail about.

why people like it and that's a fast way to develop your sound. But if you're a lonely island all the time and you're reluctant to play stuff for anybody, there are things that you do that are part of your sound that you may not do enough because you just don't know that everybody likes this from you. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:37:05.995)

Good advice. Yeah, you gotta find personality in what you do and lean into it. A lot of times it's your quirks. It's like the things you do a little weird or funny. I think that's kind of the, like, we, were we talking about this maybe like right before we started, just we like things gritty and dirty and a little messy.

Sound Oracle (01:37:31.067)

Oh yeah.

Brian Funk (01:37:32.011)

You know, like we can all get it perfectly quantized. We can all get it perfectly in tune now. And that's almost just mediocre or average, right? But it's these kind of human things we bring to it now more than ever, I think, especially now that AI is going to be able to do half of this stuff. We've got to really lean into our humanity. Like that's our strength.

Sound Oracle (01:37:52.957)

Ah, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:38:01.387)

quirks and weirdnesses.

Sound Oracle (01:38:03.943)

There you go. Humanity is a lot of imperfection and character comes from imperfection, especially in music. To me, all the character is in the imperfection. Always.

Brian Funk (01:38:19.051)

Yeah. And that's a hard thing sometimes to recognize in yourself because you're, if you're performing, you're probably trying to be as good as you can and perfect it as much as you can. So you can miss the good stuff that's in the problems of what you're doing.

Sound Oracle (01:38:39.375)

That's a fact. I mean a lot of it is just letting go of Don't be so serious about it and don't be so hard on yourself when you're creating things and notice that if something's not done right kind of Look at him like it was it was done wrong But was there any right in that wrong? Like you know what I mean? Like maybe this could be the new the new way to do this the the wrong way, but that also comes with

Brian Funk (01:38:58.219)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:39:07.453)

having some type of passion driving you to have your own sound. You start to look for the things that you're doing wrong and the wrong gets replaced with different. The things that you do differently than other people. And now you start to cling to those things and you start to pull from those things. So to me, when I started SoundOracle .net, there's a tag, it's on the shirt.

Tagline, be different, be dope. It's not just a tagline. I look at it as a set of instructions. It's just reminds you of what to do. Be different, stand out, be as authentic as possible. But some people, that doesn't mean just be left for the sake of being left. We've seen people do that too where they just make something that's so weird. You're like, it's different, but it's not it. That's where the second part comes in. Be...

Brian Funk (01:39:56.171)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:40:05.515)

that dope.

Sound Oracle (01:40:06.973)

Be dope. Yeah, whatever your thing is that makes you you that you do differently, just be damn good at it. I like to use the example like I may not be into sushi, but you could listen to somebody talk about sushi or watch them prepare sushi and you would be like, oh, you're that guy or you're that girl when it comes to sushi. Like I don't have to know anything about it, but I can look at you, your passion.

how you're able to describe it, you know the history or how you're able to just do it effortlessly, but great, you're dope at this. And even though it's not my bag, you're so good at it, I just recognize that you're that dope at it. That's how I feel that you should be with music. Even if you make music that no one, it's not their genre, they have to just give you respect. Like, I don't like this, but you are really good at doing this. And to me, that's like...

That's what the instructions are. Be different, be dope. And that's how you get recognized. That's how you get respect from other people. And that's how you become better.

Brian Funk (01:41:14.219)

Yeah, people can recognize excellence without having to...

Sound Oracle (01:41:21.725)

Yeah, yeah, excellence is obvious. It's like when people talk about star quality or the it factor, it's just glaringly obvious. That's what you should strive for.

Brian Funk (01:41:34.219)

Yeah, and I like what you said, don't be so serious too. I always remind myself it's called play music. It's not work music, it's not force music. You know, it's, we say play and that tends to be when the best stuff happens. When I'm trying to be technical and smart and clever, I just, nothing good ever happens.

Sound Oracle (01:41:48.797)

That is great.

Mmm.

Brian Funk (01:42:01.739)

I question everything. That's where that leads me. I get too critical.

Sound Oracle (01:42:02.365)

Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:42:07.079)

Too much thinking. That's why you have to make things second nature. One thing that gets overlooked, especially with computers, doing more computers now, is muscle memory.

Muscle memory is one of the greatest human traits ever. I go back to the MPC 2000. I had a MPC 2000 as people know that the screens on those were notoriously forgetting, were notorious for getting those lines on them. And then you get so many lines on the screen, you could barely like see anything on the screen. I had an MPC like that for at least a year, cause I couldn't afford to get a screen or how to fix it. And this is way back, but I would still use it and I could use it.

with like almost no visibility on the screen because of muscle memory. And you just, you don't have to think about it. Your hands have done whatever before you can even think about what needs to be done. And when you can reach that level of muscle memory and flow state with whatever you're doing, that's when you stop making those mistakes and you stop overthinking things and life becomes more fun.

because your mind and your body have taken over the thinking process of the technical stuff and now you're just in such a creative zone. That's why I would say whatever you get and whatever you use, learn it. Learn it in and out because that's the less thinking and guessing you have to do because we all know that is what kills creativity every time.

Brian Funk (01:43:43.089)

Yeah, thinking. Even athletic performances, right? Like, as soon as I start thinking, like that's when free throws get missed in the big game and all that stuff. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:43:55.805)

Right, you're thinking about how you're gonna catch this ball that's coming at you. You don't think about it. You just move. There it is. Man, listen, muscle memory is one of my biggest things. You gotta have muscle memory. And when you have hardware, things that are more tactile and have buttons and all of that, that's of course the best. When it comes to computers, you can still develop muscle memory.

Brian Funk (01:44:00.465)

Yeah, routine fly ball. He falls on the ground.

Brian Funk (01:44:11.913)

Hmm.

Sound Oracle (01:44:23.261)

but it just takes a little bit more. That's why I like, I have several computers and monitors and all that and everything I have is touchscreen. And I try to use everything like I use my phone. I zoom in, I do that as opposed to mousing around.

Brian Funk (01:44:36.337)

Yeah, I saw you doing that in a video on Instagram. I guess you weren't on a Mac zooming in on Ableton. Yeah.

Sound Oracle (01:44:44.381)

Right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm a PC guy. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:44:48.785)

Yeah. But that's good. You've got that kind of just way of working. So that's about so much what it's about. It's knowing your tools, knowing what you're doing. It's not like you have to use one software or the other. Just get familiar. Know it.

Sound Oracle (01:44:56.733)

Yeah, it's just more touch.

Sound Oracle (01:45:07.997)

Yeah, there you go. And figure out ways to make things work the way you want them to work. The reason why I do the zoom in and zoom out on all the screens, because just one day I'm like, things would be so much better for me. I just wish there was a way that I didn't have to use this mouse so much. I didn't have to use this keyboard so much. And I'm like, well, what programs could I use? What types of monitors could I use? And you just start finding ways to link things together. And now I have a system where, like I said, the computer works like your phone in terms of.

and pressing and all of that. And then you get monitors, you can turn them, you know, tall and now you really just have a big phone if you really want to do that. But yeah, and that became my preferred way of working.

Brian Funk (01:45:46.577)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:45:54.449)

It's pretty cool.

Sound Oracle (01:45:57.341)

Yep. I'm just zooming in right there. Zooming in right there. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:46:03.089)

But yeah, that's awesome, man. I'm so happy for you. When I saw your video you put on Instagram saying you like unlocked a new level, getting into live, like into the program and put your stamp on it. It was just made me feel good and happy. And I was like, I gotta talk to you. We gotta get this going. So I was so glad you were down.

Sound Oracle (01:46:20.141)

Nah, I appreciate it. Nah, I appreciate it. I was familiar with your podcast and like I told you, man, I'd be honored. By the way, could you tell I was proud in the video?

Brian Funk (01:46:37.488)

Oh yeah, yeah, I felt it right through the phone. But I gotta imagine that's a big part of your success too. You've got a lot of positivity to you and hanging out with you now for the last almost two hours. Time really flew. That's just such an important part that you don't get taught that a lot, I think.

Sound Oracle (01:46:55.253)

you

Yes it did.

Brian Funk (01:47:07.281)

Be exciting, be enthusiastic, be fun to be around, pleasant, you know, really good qualities.

Sound Oracle (01:47:13.757)

Yeah, you gotta have a good nature about you. I told you, I was like, oh no, I'm going to be fun and I'm going to make it engaging. But just because I love it, I'm overly positive and passionate about what we're talking about. And like I couldn't be any other way, especially when discussing this. Oh man, forget about it. Forget about it. This is my only mode when it comes to this.

Brian Funk (01:47:20.977)

Yeah, he did say that.

Brian Funk (01:47:36.287)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:47:41.776)

What a way to be. It's awesome.

Sound Oracle (01:47:43.421)

Happy to be here.

Brian Funk (01:47:45.68)

So listen, we got to send people to soundoracle .net, of course, right? There's lots more you can get there, not just what's inside of Live. Plenty of packs. Like I said, I really recommend the real world effect rack and stuff. You got courses too, don't you?

Sound Oracle (01:47:50.013)

Yes, we do. Yes.

Sound Oracle (01:48:07.837)

do beat mixing courses, vocal mixing, mastering courses, a lot of sample packs. And it wasn't until maybe last year before last that I started making Ableton specific things or Ableton versions of packs. So pretty much everything I'm coming out with moving forward will have an Ableton version of it. I probably should have done it a long time ago, but so it's Ableton stuff on there. But for non Ableton users, there's almost like a

Brian Funk (01:48:12.273)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:48:24.77)

All right.

Sound Oracle (01:48:37.213)

a non -Ableton version of everything too.

Brian Funk (01:48:39.664)

Yeah, that's good.

Ableton stuff myself.

Sound Oracle (01:48:44.557)

Oh, yes sir, yes sir. Big things coming.

Brian Funk (01:48:47.984)

Great man, anything else before we go? Before I let you leave finally?

Sound Oracle (01:48:52.861)

I'm not gonna lie, I think we covered a lot of ground in this interview. The only thing I would say is follow the instructions. Be different, be dope.

Brian Funk (01:49:06.514)

I love it. That's a great motto. I think that's all of our superpower, you know, that are what makes us different and unique and leaning into that is one of the big keys and some of my favorite musicians are not my favorites because they're technically the best but it's because they're just who they are. You just like them.

Sound Oracle (01:49:28.221)

And yes, exactly, exactly.

Brian Funk (01:49:32.178)

Cool, so be different, be dope, everybody.

Sound Oracle (01:49:36.669)

There it is.

Brian Funk (01:49:37.138)

Cool. Thanks so much. And thank you to anyone listening. Appreciate it. Go check out soundoracle .net. There'll be plenty of links in the show notes, too. And have a great day.

Sound Oracle (01:49:48.765)

It is, thanks for having me.

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, sound oracle