Harmonies of Tomorrow Dave Cody Interview Part 2

A lot of great feedback from our first part of this interview here on Wife's Thoughts. We're going to continue now with part two of our interview with Dave Cody, kind of a renaissance man in the audio industry, as it were, and I think you're going to find it very interesting as we touch on topics such as AI's influence in the music industry, not only from an artist standpoint, but from the standpoint of those working behind the scenes, producers, music suppliers, et cetera. I think you're really going to enjoy this. So let's get ready to dive in to part two of our interview here on wife's Thoughts with Dave Cody. It's time for a virtual campfire sit down with Terry Weiss. Will come to Weiss's thoughts. I agree with you there is some fidelity laws. I think there is some loss of what the artists were trying to convey. Like you said, I remember you started talking about speakers. I had a pair of bows nine oh ones, remember those bad boys. Yeah, and then I had both six so ones. I had the you know and I had the big you know well ken Wood, and then I stepped up into better home receivers and separate components. And a guy I remember, a guy who used to work with in the in the early nineties, invited me and a couple of guys from work over to his house. Him and his girlfriend. He had a Macintosh stereo system which were I mean, this is like back in the day high end. You know, you're talking, you know, thous right, And he said yeah. He says he had these speakers that were probably about three foot high and they were separated, you know, right, and spaced right up on little risers, you know, little rysers or pet floor pads. And he says, I want you to listen to this. And he put in a CD. And this is back when CD players were still a few hundred dollars, you know, four or five hundred dollars or so. And he put in a CD. I believe, I'm trying to remember who was I'm not sure. I think it might have been Led Zeppelin or a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It was something where it wasn't heavy, hard hitting. And he put this on and he played this and he says, I'm just gonna put the volume on two and this I've been trying to remember but the song came on. The first thing that struck me is, oh my god, this isn't loud and hurting my ears. This is like, holy shit, I'm sitting right next to the band in the studio. I feel like I'm right there. You know, I'm the virtual Yoko Ono watching everyone record. You know, I'm here hearing it. And he said, yeah, he says, that's my fifteen watt receipt, you know, my fifteen watt amplifier. I'm like, that's fifteen watch he goes yeah. He says, I can't put it about four. It'll blow the windows out of here, you know. But it was expensive as hell, but that it was crystal clear, like you were witnessing a live performance by those guys setting up, Like if you're playing with your band and you guys are going to make the music. It blew me away. And that's one of the things that's encouraging is you know, most I'm at fifty three years old, I'm practically a senior citizen at Sweetwater, making me feel bad because I'm older than you. Most of my co workers are my kids age. They're they're under thirty and and you a lot of them closer to twenty five, okay, and it's it's fun because, yeah, their whole studios, they have some phenomenal monitor speakers. Uh, they're they're buying turntables, and they're they're buying old vinyl and they're you know, and they're discovering to vinyl. Yeah right. My daughter is too. She just to jump in real quick. She wanted she wanted records last Christmas and some stuff, you know, some eighties stuff, you know, Madonna and Haul and Oates some stuff from that that you can still you can track. The vinyl is making a comeback. Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, you know, not everything is bits and bites. It's out selling CDs, yeah quite a bit. And now of course nobody's buying CDs, you know, and it's it's vinyl and and uh, you know, streaming services. But like you said, even on the streaming services you look at Title, you look at Apple Music, you look, uh they're growing and and the uh services that are where the quality is lower. Right, so you know, there's there's a reason to be encouraged. And and you know, like you said, the the you know, the gentleman, uh you know, uh, the North of Richmond, Oliver Anthony, Oliver Anthony, Yeah, uh, you know you're looking. It doesn't have to be high fidelity, doesn't have to be you know, in a two million dollars studio, you know, or Sun Studios or you know, absolutely and you know, speaking of studios, you know, if if the Beatles had what most of us have in a spare room in our house, you know, home most home studios, just the and I'm not talking high end home studios like you might sell to some of your clients, you know, where they go for you know, the Universal Audio Apollo twenty four with the you know, you know and the everything like that. I'm talking about the bare, basic, bare bones where they have a good a decent dog, whether you know it be Logic pro or you know, what have you or even some of the other ones out there, just having that and in a basic interface, you know, like a Scarlet two I two or something. If the Beatles had that, they would be blown away by the music. Because what we can make in our bedrooms and in our air quotes are I'm saying home studios blows way what they had at Abbey Road Studios back in the day. Well, and that's another thing, uh tie into AI. And and here's the tie in. You know when you talk to these Neve consoles or you tell you know, SSL consoles or you know, these these certain things. Yeah, and we love we love the sound of it. We were used to it. You know. It's funny because, uh, the engineers and you know at the time, Rupert Eve and then you know, these wonderful engineers that that put these things together hated them. Yeah. They they wanted it to be transparent, they wanted it to be to not affect what was being recorded. You know, Uh, record to tape, you get a little bit of compression, right. We like depression. We like the way that sounds. It tightens everything up and makes everything clearer. And you get that. And recording with tape and so uh you know, you know in your dar, you know, there's a whole bunch of different tape emulations to simulate what recording on tape sounds like. Uh. That's where I think another future of AI is going to be really interesting, is you know, and the not too distant future, we'll be able to take existing media and we'll be able to take media that's being produced at the time and sit there and go what would you know? We already have the ability to say, what would this sound like if it was recorded in Abbey Road out there? Absolutely, but what if we take the recording Ope, we lost you there, Dave. We take Abbey Road out of the equation, and now you're just sitting in a room listening to John Paul and Ringo play right. Yeah, that virtual experience right where you can sit there and go, Okay, it doesn't sound like the console at Abbey Road. It doesn't sound like the room at Abbey Road. Yeah. What would it sound like if they played in my backyard or or in my living room or you know what, family room or something they were just sitting around shooting the shooting the breeze. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, that's coming. Oh I can imagine. Yeah. And you know, things like you know we touched about like Oliver Anthony and there's been a few other people that have gone viral with just minimal you know, making something short and simplistic and that, and it's all about you know, it's all about touching that human emotion, connecting with people. As you know, we've talked about it. I do voiceover work a lot too, and one of the big concerns too. With A is the voiceover industry, audio books, commercials, you know, e learning things that that our industry does. And the problem is, like with anything with any tool, whether it's the Internet or off the Internet, you have some folks, some organizations that are not shall I say, they don't have a high degree of integrity. And there's been instances already where voice actors and voice artists voices have been cloned and stolen, and you know they I'm in a few forums where they've come across. I don't recalled voicing that video or doing that commercial. I didn't have a contract, I wasn't paid for that, and that's where I think. That's where you know and I'm not and you know as well as I do. I'm not a big government guy. Me. I'm I'm a child of the sixties and seventies, like you, man, government, leave me alone. You know I'm liberal in that, and leave me alone. Let me live my life. I'll obey the law, but just you know, keep off my back, let me be me. But in this instance, I think there has to be harsh consequences for intellectual property theft when it comes to a I because it's so easy to do. You know, it's and and in your issue, you know, whether we're talking Oliver Anthony and recording and you know, or whether we're talking somebody putting together a rap hip hop album, you know, and in their bedroom using fruity loose. That's awesome, that's you know, we all agree, that's cool. You know. It becomes about intent, you know. Uh, When the intent is, hey, I can knock this thing out fast, cheap and and make more money, that's a problem. Whether it being having somebody you know using AI voice simulator to sound like Morgan Friedman is is you know, or whether it's you know, somebody putting together a low, low rent hip hop you know, viral, or whether it's and this is the other one that we're starting to see and it's gonna get really, really really bad. Is uh your professional musician And I'm not talking you know, touring musician. I'm not talking you know, well known celebrity. I'm talking you know, my buddy who did the music for Duck Dynasty, Tony Pasco. When you can sit there and have AI play you know, the background music for your show, one argument becomes, well, hey, it's gonna become a lot easier to produce shows and people that otherwise wouldn't be able to who are going to be able to put out content and it will be you know, entertaining and good content. And that's a solid argument. But the reality is a guy who's an industry professional has been over thirty years. Uh, if we're not careful, she's going to be you know, put out of a business. Musician, he'll be put out of a job. And you know this is not a guy that is filling arenas, but the the background music for television, for network television has been what what you know, keeps the lights on, what keeps him buying gear, what keeps me employed? Right? Even people who score movies too, Okay, like people are John Williams and all these other composers that you know. Now you can take your movie and just go to the computer and say, I want you to make emotional crown music to go with my drama that is set in the nineteen fifties about a small child. But you just give chat GBT a few prompts and there you it'll it'll score the whole damn film for you. And now you've just probably put two to four hundred people out of work. You know, Yeah, the John Williams of the world will be fine because he's John Williams. You know, well he's bank well, he's banked money. But I'm saying, what about that? You know, right, that's it, Yeah, that's it is twofold one. You've just you've denied, uh, you know, the Dave Cody's, the Tony Pascoz, the Terry Winklers. That are musicians that are doing you know, music for commercials, that are doing music for you know, uh intro and outro of your local news, right, that are doing you know that kind of that kind of music. Now all of a sudden they can't do that. They're you know, you're shifting the industry. You're shifting the industry and forcing now you know again, but and again, and it's it's not like we're down on AI. You know, it has a lot. I mean in the medical field, I mean it helps it analyze disease and treat disease and offer alternatives or better diagnostics than ever before. And in the medical industry. Hell yeah, you know definitely, that's that's something that we want, you know, because where you'd have to take you know, you go in for tests and say I, I you on my foot's to aching and the doctor I don't know what this is. I'm going to have to you know, reach out and consult with seven other doctors. You could plug that right into a computer, you know, along with your lab results and you know a little bit of your medical history and then hey it's you know, a new form of athletes or whatever. And then okay, boom. Now you just saved maybe weeks or months of a labor intensive stuff for those medical professionals where they can now concentrate on people that really need their urgent service. Is okay. And you're not backlogging that whole industry and you're you're making it better for the patient. So stuff like that absolutely, Like I said, it's definitely a double edged sword with AI. And and you know, the industry is going to transition, many industries already are transitioning. And you're your local musician that makes the ad for you know, uh, Bob's you know car Barn no longer can make you know, is no longer making money doing music for Bob's Carbarn. So therefore, come July fourth, when you have your Fourth of July celebration and fireworks and and every community has their their community days and they have the tent out and they have you know, vocal artists and then some art you know, some major label artists that you know as their highlights. One you've denied that that local musician the chance to uh, he's not going to be playing your fourth of July Fest. He can't anymore. He's got to get a different job because he's no longer doing Bob's car Barn, and he doesn't have the chance to grow into the musician who is your headliner later that night because you've denied him the opportunity. There is no you know, right, John Williams is fine, but the next John was in the middle of the road folks, and the people that are still honing their craft and learning from different experiences and uh, you know and having that those other a creative outlets, you know, because there's been musicians that started writing commercials and jingles that went on to you know, cut an album and that you know throughout time exactly. Yeah, I was I was just going to say, you know, and and again you know, absolutely the synthesizer, all these things with computers, you know, and I understand and I agree with you people have, they're always going to say, with any new technology and anything, Oh no, it's the end of it's at the end of everything. I'm not I'm not here and I don't think you're here to say that AI is the end. Oh my god, it's the end of the world. You know, we're all going to die next week because it's gonna, you know, release an airborne virus. God hope, I hope not, but we have to. Maybe you're right. But but the thing is is that the thing that scares me most about AI and and with it is that it's a tool that throughout history most a lot of tools that the human race has developed. Sometimes we we just we don't know how to control ourselves, you know, and we go, we go over the top, over the edge, over zealous and all in without again, like I alluded to earlier, kind of trying to take a let's take a take a pause, let's take a nice deep breath, and let's say, Okay, here's the good things, here's some of the bad things, here's what can happen, and let's proceed down this road with a little bit of caution in mind and a little bit you know, while being open minded you know, and that's the thing. You know, everybody's oh, do this. I mean I was doing some AI searches. I mean, you can get it to make videos for you now. For YouTube. You can get it to make the biggest thing on YouTube now is faceless channels. With AI, you basically go type in some chat GBT parameters. You can have it create topics and create you know, and you can create a faceless channel. You can use another tool to go in to create the video for it. You put them together, put a little music bend underneath it, put it up there. You can put up three hundred videos in fifteen minutes, and if you're lucky enough to catch on with your niche and go viral, you can make a shit ton of money. I mean, there's ain't no other way to say it. There's channels on there that you know, some of their videos are getting, you know, eight hundred dollars was in a million views, and it's like ten second things, you know, little proverbs or little sayings or self help or little goof you know, a cat dancing backwards or something, and it's just like, you know, it's never been easier, I guess you know, well, but it comes down to the same thing, right, what's what's the goal right here? I can do this quick and grab a lot of cash, I can, ye know, right, And it's and can you really call yourself an artist? Though? That's the thing that you know, there's the fine line because I am more of the old school, like you've got to put in your sweat equity, you know, you've got to You've got to earn your There was a great movie I don't know if you remember back in I believe it was in the early nineties with Ralph Maccio called Crossroads, remember with Steve VII and I remember, you know he was a Ralph Macchio And folks, if you haven't seen Crossroads and you like music and you like just to kind of a little story around music, it it's dated, okay, you know we're in the twenty first century. It is dated. And Ralph Macchio looks like he's about seven years old in it. But he looks well, yeah, well yeah, seven with a fat seven. Sorry, Ralph, a chubby's seven. I'm sorry. I don't want to fat shame anybody here on the show. But it's it's a story about how he's you know, he's a classically trained musician going to do I don't know what was it. The music school was there, and Juilliard, I want to say Juilliard. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I was I was heading down the right path. So good great minds think alike. And he wants to but he loves the blues and so he, you know, hooks up with this guy. And I don't want to give away too much of the movie, but there's a thing in there with this blues man that he hooks up with during the movie. And and the blues man who's been around the block quite a few times. He's elderly, you know, he's he's just kind of in his final few miles of life tells this little young pup. Listen, man, you've got to pay your dues. You can't just read this in a book book, or you know, sit down and watch a couple of videos or listen to a couple of you know, cassettes or whatever and think, you know, just because you know all the chords and everything, there's got to be feeling and soul in it. And I thought, wow, that's good writing, because that's true. You know that is true. You got to you gotta have some skin in the game. Yeah. Uh, overall, the future is the future is scared. Now, the future is scary, but it's bright. Yeah, I'm optimal. I'm cautiously optimistic about AI, especially in the entertainment industry as far as even with music is concerned. I think there's a lot of opportunity there, especially I think with learning. I think AI could be a great virtual learning tool. You know, people now are are in again and probably put guitar and you know, musical teachers out it, but they can do a virtual lesson, put on a headset, you know what I'm saying, and maybe do a virtual lesson with somebody in the privacy of their own home, or maybe they can connect with a teacher virtually and they both put on headsets and meet in a room and go. You know, it's it's one of these of to that extent, music education wise, we're in a golden age because oh, we're gonna go a lot of misinformation, right. Yeah, But if you lived in yah, mylen Tennessee, where my parents are from, Uh, there was Elliott's Music and you know, I'm sure, uh somewhere there's there's an independent music teacher. But you know, Elliott's hasn't offered lessons for decades, and and you know, you had a limited number of teachers you could go to even if you could find a teacher, and and you know, I tell folks all the time of you know, ideally find that local teacher, right, but but even that is not ah, the end all be all. You find that local teacher, and now you can go online and you can sign up for uh online course study and YouTube videos and zoom videos and zoom lessons, and you know, and and the idea is that you can go and capture you know, not only your local guy who might be a you know, a very skilled musician. But depending on where you live on live at, there's probably very little chance that he's a world class musician. Or it might not be the genre that that that ignites your passion too. He might not be versed in that or skilled in that, right, So you guys might not just gel right, Yeah, we had that. I had that happen. And you know, a few years back, me and one of the other gentlemen I played guitar, we decided we wanted to take some lessons. And I've never been a big proponent and again, like they say, you're mileage may very music lessons. I think traditional music lessons where you sit in a room and you pull out the I don't even know if they're still around the Melbay books and say, Okay, here's a bar, here's a staff, here's a rest, here's a quarter. I have myself, personally, have never been able to learn. I can't read. I mean, I know what a note is and stuff. But if you ask me to read music, ain't gonna happen. Okay. Paul McCartney doesn't read music to this day, as far as he's admitted, he still says, and he's up now at eighty something years old, never reads music. He learns it, he hears it. He watches Hey show me that court? Yeah, how do you show me how that court? He hears it in his head, you know, and et cetera. And I'm and I'm not conser Paul, I'm not comparing myself to you, but that's how I learned visually, hands on learning. But we tried with a music teacher. And this guy actually went to Woodstock, not as a performer, but went their old school music. But he wanted me and the other guy here to go through the book and do it. And we did it for about three or four weeks, and you know, God love him. He's a great guy, very affable and everything, very pleasant, you know, jovial. But we told him listen, and I'll just say his first name, Mark. I said, listen, Mark, nothing against you, nothing against your knowledge and your personality or anything. It's just that we're used to kind of just sitting there and going He says, no, I get it. Some people come here and they take to this and they use it as a tool to augment what they already have in knowledge. And some people just come like you guys, and say, you know, I'm able to kind of feel this out and see what it's about and say, eh, this isn't the right no soup, this isn't my flavor soup that I like. No hard feelings, you know. And we still kept in touch with him for a number of yearsuntil he moved away out of town here. And yeah, like you said, Dave, the internet, I have learned more bass songs by watching YouTube play along videos and slowing them down and looking and listening and focusing and just doing little little chunks and then going back listening to the original recording and saying, okay, are they being true to the original recording? And the most though that I've learned, the most that I have learned is by jamming with other musicians. Believe it or not, Sure I have learned, you know, And that's probably the best thing, because right there then it's it's is it more pressure? Well, it depends on the setting. I guess. If you're all sitting around the back porch having a couple adult beverages, and it ain't no big deal. But if you're at an open mic night or what have you, and you're jamming, you know, or playing, you know, then it's like oops, if something happens like guitar cable craps out on you, or an amp starts crackling, or are you oh, geez, I missed that chorus? You know, that's just makes you better, you know, like a diamond isn't made by coddling it. It's made by pressure, you know. Sure, No, it's an interesting thing. Paul McCartney has synesthesia. It's not well known for those of them who don't know what that is. What is that synaesthesia? It takes on a couple of different forms, but typically it's when somebody hears the tone of someone's voice or a note, or they associated with a color. You know. Uh. Several years ago, there was a some one of the crime dramas and uh, the person is going on a killing spree and they have synaesthesian as people talk or something one of those seventeen if the letters were read, he had to kill them, you know. Uh yeah, But you know, I've had some clients that I work with here at Sweetwater that have synesthesia and it's it's basically when there's a note or there's a tambore of someone's voice or you know, anything that's melodic, right, it's associated. These folks will actually see color. Amazing and uh yeah, I mean it's it's interesting to me. Of I you know, for the record, I have never taken narcotics, not my thing. But it's like one of these things that you sit there and go, Man, if there was a drug that that could do that, and I understand there are some that do interesting acid, it would be interesting. I've never taken that either, you know. I mean, you know, I'll pound back a few beers with you and if you know, if they're passing a little mother nature around, I may partake of that, although I know I find as a gaining years, I even that, you know, I just I'm more of a relaxed partygoer and not you know, my younger days. Forget about it. But that's that's a show and the stories for another time and for probably more well, a more mature audience, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, seeing the colors. The other thing too, what I found with me. And I don't know if this is with you, but I've talked to quite a few people throughout the years, and I've come across a fair amount of people that have it, the term earworm, you know, you get that in your head. Like I'll be walking around the house, or I'll be out in the backyard picking up sticks or something in the spring, clean up the yard, and I won't even you know, i won't even have the head I'll have the headphones on just to block out the sound or something. I won't be listening to music, like I'll shut it off after a while and I'm and I'm just and I'll start humming something and I'm like, oh, well, this sounds kind of cool. And then I'm like and if it and if it's something that I know I haven't heard before that I'm just kind of humming something together, and if it really strikes me, I'll run in the house and grab the guitar and put the phone on and record and say this is kind of a cool chord progression. I'll work it out real quick, you know, and then maybe use that to make a song or present it to some of the guys and say, hey, what do you think of this? You know? Or what have you? You get those earworms, you know, the famous one that we're going to give everyone an earworm for already, the baby Shark, And I know some of you out there listening and are going, oh god, damnitary baby now great, thanks, thanks, I thought I thought you were going to do this one. My voice went yeah, oh yeah. That was popular for a lot of commercials too. Yeah, yeah, oh my god. Yeah you know, and well that's what they do in advertising. They want to get that ear worm, you know, I mean, and that's a great example where if it's used right, speaking of cis law and order. Yeah, yeah, my wife gets mad when they don't do too. We only got one dune. I said, well, what can I tell you? Maybe they're cutting back Hey, thanks for gathering around the virtual campfire with me today as we were talking with Dave Cody. I hope you got a lot out of it like I did. Truly an interesting man. And remember visit my website Terryweiss dot com. Just spill the name right wy Ce Terry Weiss dot com. There you can see samples of my work. N CWI can help you with your next audio project. Also, if you found some value out of the podcast today, won't you please leave us a positive reading and review. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback for me, just shoot me an email. It's mail m ail mail at Terrywiss dot com or mail at Weiss's thoughts dot com. Check out the social media channels at Terry Weiss on x formerly known as Twitter, if you can look for me on YouTube at Terry Weiss, or you can search for Weis's Thoughts on the YouTube channels, and of course I am on Facebook at Terry Weiss and at Weiss's Thoughts as well. Until next time, my Brad, remember be good to yourself, be good to others, be kind to animals, and we will gather yet again around our virtual campfire real soon