TSRB 102 - Automatic Episode Transcript — Please excuse any errors, not reviewed for accuracy (click for full transcript)

[00:00:00] Benedikt: It will be less stressful. The whole chemistry in the band will benefit from that. more you have to ask people to do things and remind people of things, the, the weirder it gets sort of, so, it's just, it's just good for any band to have skills like that as well. Hello, and welcome to the self recording band podcast. I am your host then at the time, and I'm here with my friend and cohost Malcolm Owen flood. How are you? Malcolm? 

[00:00:36] Malcom: Hello? I'm great. Benny, how are you? 

[00:00:39] Benedikt: I'm great as well. Thank you. 

[00:00:41] Malcom: Fantastic. 

[00:00:43] Benedikt: I'll spend your week, but what's new

[00:00:45] Malcom: Oh, it was a very exciting one. My twin brother, actually, I guess many listeners probably don't know that I'm a twin 

[00:00:52] Benedikt: I didn't know for 

[00:00:53] Malcom: of twins. It's actually a really weird, we have an outrageous amount of twins in the family. Um, [00:01:00] and, uh, yeah, my twin brother just had a baby, 

[00:01:03] Benedikt: Oh, that's exciting. 

[00:01:04] Malcom: I'm very excited. I am an uncle. It is pretty cool. 

[00:01:08] Benedikt: bad is really cool. Cool. Awesome. So is it an identical twin? 

[00:01:14] Malcom: Uh, no fraternal for me, but my mother is identical. 

[00:01:18] Benedikt: Oh, really?

[00:01:20] Malcom: So like I said, it goes back further than that. And there is now twins, a generation younger than me as well. So it's crazy. 

[00:01:30] Benedikt: All right. Yeah. Congress then that's that's. That's cool. so you visited your, uh, your brother or

[00:01:36] Malcom: I haven't yet. Um, we're, we're just a matter of days here. So with, with COVID and everything and, you know, just newborn babies, just given, giving them some space, they just got back to their place. Uh, and, uh, so yeah, we're going to go over this weekend though and, and get to meet the little guy. 

[00:01:54] Benedikt: no, that's awesome. Very, very cool. Is your brother also into music or does he have anything music[00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] Malcom: I mean, uh, he, he loves music, but he does not play or, or do anything music. No. Um, I'm the only one in my family that seems to do that other than I've got a very musical cousin or two, but, um, for, uh, immediate family, 

[00:02:15] Benedikt: Okay. Okay. All right. So. 

[00:02:17] Malcom: I also got some new gear though, 

[00:02:19] Benedikt: Okay. Okay. Talent. Tell us about that. 

[00:02:21] Malcom: Yeah. Now I'm going to expose you and say that. you decided you, weren't going to talk about your new gear, but I want to talk about mine. We're both guilty. I feel like ever since we did the don't buy gear podcast, we've just been buying stuff, man. 

[00:02:35] Benedikt: Yeah, probably right. That's probably right. What did 

[00:02:38] Malcom: Um, uh, I bought, uh, it's called a shirt. Axion digital wireless system. It is, it's like literally the top of the line wireless system available. It's so fricking snazzy and cool what it can do and how well it's meant to work. I am waiting on just like one little stupid adapter to be able to make the whole thing work. [00:03:00] But, uh, once I have that, I'll be using it and I'm very excited to try it. 

[00:03:05] Benedikt: I don't know about this. That is really cool. So what do you use it for? What exactly? Or like,

[00:03:09] Malcom: I'll be using it to, to wire up a lab mix on talent. Um, so on film sets and, and record them. But it's like the technology is just getting kind of better, better and better. This one's like a fully digital system where usually there was some analog and digital kind of hybrid stuff going on. Um, so the audio quality. Is now pretty uncompromised and pretty well impossible it'll store it because we're operating at such a high bit float now, um, bit rate and, uh, there's all sorts of cool new features in this thing. Like being able to change the frequency wirelessly, you know, like, so pretty much rather than me having to go up to the actor and dig up their mic pack, which is usually hidden somewhere deep inside of their crotch or, but, you know, it's somewhere in their pants. Um, and, uh, instead of having to dig that out, pull it [00:04:00] out of whatever protective stuff I've got on and like, mess with it and change the settings on the device. I can just do it from where I'm standing now. Which is really amazing because I could potentially do it without stopping the camera from rolling. You know, if somebody else is talking and somebody's got an issue, I can fix them before anybody even knows. So it sounds, it's kind of hard to understand why that would be so amazing without being in the business, but it's going to be amazing. I'm very excited. 

[00:04:26] Benedikt: Okay. Very, very cool to hear. Um, yeah. I have no idea about these things. I mean, a little bit, because I did live sound at some point, but like technology has changed since then. And I was, I was just wondering if it's actually, because of new features that you really need, or if it's just because you wanted something better or, or I don't know. 

[00:04:42] Malcom: it is, it's mostly new features. It is meant to be a more robust like RF. Um, which just means that the signal strength is sturdier and should get more range or less dropouts at far range. Which is yeah, hugely important to me as well. Um, but like the stuff I was using already was still top of the line. [00:05:00] This is just like the latest and greatest 

[00:05:02] Benedikt: I'm not sure if I can approve the scheme purchase, then it's really

[00:05:06] Malcom: yeah, no, it's, it's full gluttony. 

[00:05:11] Benedikt: everything that actually makes your results better or faster. Anything is allowed. Anything else is like, oh, I'm not so sure.

[00:05:18] Malcom: okay. but there there's one redeeming thing it's that it's not replacing gear. It's more channels. Right. So, so this brings up my total channel account, which was absolutely necessary. 

[00:05:29] Benedikt: Okay. Okay. Okay. Approve then approved, 

[00:05:31] Malcom: Thank you. 

[00:05:32] Benedikt: I said, I can't talk about mine yet because I'm not sure if I can approve my own purchases yet. If those are to have been justified or not. We'll see.

[00:05:41] Malcom: We'll see. Yeah, We'll report back on Betty's gear.

[00:05:43] Benedikt: Yeah, I didn't make some efficiency changes though, as well. I got a stream deck. Finally. I used to use my, my iPad for that, with the stream deck app. But now I have to the proper stream deck controller, which is better. And, um, so I did some efficiency things as well. Well, we'll see everything else we'll maybe talk about [00:06:00] in a future episode. All right. To today's episode, we're going to talk about collaborating as a band. So this is not really about recording or anything technical, but this is something that every band and I think everyone of our listeners that's, that's, who's collaborating with other people should know. And I'm, I'm, it's been top of mind for me because I'm in the process of starting a new band or more or less starting a new band. I was invited to join a band, a new project and. We just, we had a bunch of songs that were already written and we recorded them. And then we decided to actually be abandoned, release them. And while we were doing that, we were just chatting back and forth in a group chat and that group check out longer and longer and longer. And now that we're closer to the actual launch of the band and the release, and I can't still talk about the band because it doesn't exist yet officially, but the closer we got to the actual launch, the more problematic our unorganized approach has become because. 

[00:06:56] Malcom: Um, 

[00:06:57] Benedikt: We were just chatting in this long group chat [00:07:00] and we had no system to really assign tasks or even keep track of tasks and things that need to be done or have been done already. And we would miss yeah, we would have constantly have to ask for our assignments or things that need to be done and stuff like that. So we decided to come up with a very simple system that we can use, to make things easier. And we've done that now. It's not complete, but it's something we can use and it works. And, um, I was thinking that probably a lot of your listeners might be in the same boat, or maybe you have used WhatsApp or something like that, food forever. And haven't thought about setting up a proper system to collaborate. And I just realized how important that actually is. So if you're recording your own stuff, if you're collaborating, if you're booking shows, if you're releasing music, whatever you do, whenever there's more than one person involved, you, you gotta have some sort of system I think. And that's why we wanted to talk about this in this.

[00:07:51] Malcom: Absolutely. Yeah. I've encountered it so many times where the band is so disorganized that we can't even get to work. They reach out. They've [00:08:00] got good music. They, they want to do it. They even have the money. It's all good, but they just can't get their shit together. And it's is like, you just, you guys just can't communicate and this is never going to happen. And it's such a shame because it's really easy to solve this and it makes your life so much better. It makes it so you can create more music and do the stuff you actually like doing. If you just put in this tiny little bit of effort and time at the beginning, everything else falls into place because you've built the systems that allow for it. 

[00:08:30] Benedikt: absolutely. Let's start with the group chat thing that I've already mentioned most, most bands, I assume, um, at least have something like that. It could be Facebook messenger or WhatsApp or signal or whatever there is out there. So, well, I think most people use that. I don't think it's ideal. It's kind of necessary though, because you need an easy way of communicating. I think it's something you need to have something that everybody has on his phone and then they're on their phones and that's easy to access. And so I think you should use that. And just [00:09:00] wondering what your thoughts on that are because you sat Malcolm that WhatsApp is something, a band you work with uses and it's been good. So how did, how do you know, like what did they do that, that makes you think that this worked for them?

[00:09:13] Malcom: Um, okay, so, so Yeah. we're, we're assuming that everybody does this, but if you don't, this is so crucial, you just have to have one recurring thread where your band can just chat. And, and we're going to talk about deeper levels of communication later in this, but this is. Literally the chat, you know, somebody is like, Hey, where are you guys? I went to get food and you guys aren't at the venue anymore. Like, you know, like stuff like that, just little communications. And like, oh, sorry guys. I'm 10 minutes late for band practice that goes into there. Um, it saves you from having to text them all individually and like type in their names every single time. It just saves a lot of time that ways. And, and you'll just kind of build this, you know, you need to go check something out, you know, where it is that the conversations all in one place. So, so Yeah, there's, [00:10:00] there's tons like my band use Facebook, which is fine. Um, my biggest argument against Facebook right now is that every time you open Facebook, you probably end up looking at a bunch of useless stuff. If you're me, you're on marketplace, looking at guitars and amps and stuff that I have no intention to bind, but just like to look at, and it just eats up my time. So anything that gets me away from Facebook is a good thing. Now, yeah. This band Voke villains showed up to those fellows. I'm about to start mixing their album. They use, uh, an app called WhatsApp, which I'm sure most people have heard of. And I like it just because it's not on Facebook, it's not on a social platform that can distract me. That's really the biggest benefit. I also like how it works, like the search engine inside of it is good. If I need to find something, I can search all of my messages or I can search inside the single thread. Um, and the file sharing seems to be pretty good too. Just like for uploading audio files and stuff to it better than Facebook, Facebook. Sometimes you upload something to it and it just like doesn't work. I've found. so WhatsApp seems to be [00:11:00] really good for all of those reasons. Um, now I think, honestly, it doesn't really matter what you choose, as long as it's something that's easy to access and probably on your phone. What's more important to talk about with the topic of group chats is actually the boundaries about how it's used and when it's used, um, there is no communication methods. That should be a 24 hour mandatory thing that everybody's on. If you send me a message on Sunday, I might read it. I wish I hadn't, but sometimes I just open it by habit. Uh, but I will not reply. Like I should not reply. Don't expect me to reply. My weekends are mine kind of thing after 6:00 PM. Probably not going to reply either. Sorry. Like it's, you just need to have working hours essentially. And I think bands need to do this as well. You know, it's different if you've got a gig that night and you're all working that night, but you need to have home time or, you know, just time when you're not available. Um, and communicate that also communicate what the chats for. So it's [00:12:00] not just a bunch of useless dribble, you know, sometimes like if you want to have a conversation with your drummer about motorbikes, this is me and Marcus and my bad. Uh, he's the co-host of the, my other podcast. Your band sucks at business. And we actually talk about this kind of stuff all the time, by the way. But like we, we got into motorbikes and we probably just, we're always talking about that on the wrong forums where I should have just been texting him individually, you know, like that's, that's when I should be messaging Marcus as an individual with his cell phone number, not in the group chat because that's not nobody else. If you essentially, what actually happens, this is actually serious. If you misuse the group, chat people, stop checking it. And then the whole thing is useless, right? 

[00:12:39] Benedikt: Yup. Agreed. We actually, with a different band that I've been in, or that actually still exists, but we're kind of dormant net right now, but, um, we actually created a separate chat with the same bank members, but this chat was only for banter and nonsense and funny pictures and stuff, you know? So we created a separate chat for that big B, just because of that reason. So I [00:13:00] totally, I'm totally with you there. I want to touch on something that you said that, that I think is interesting and that is the hours or the when to expect somebody to reply and not because I think this can be pretty difficult and I haven't actually figured that out yet. Uh, what, what's the best way to go about this because when you do it professionally and your band is your job, then yeah, for sure. Um, you got to set boundaries and hours and stuff, but assuming that all, if you have a full-time job and your band is something you do on the side, you sort of have to do it after your standard working hours. So you can't really, it's hard to say my evenings are mine and my weekends are mine, but every, like all the other hours I'm working. So I also can't reply, you know? So you gotta have gotta have figured that out and it gets even more complicated. If some of you are doing something, music, create music related as a job and other stones. So in my case, it's a little weird because I spent time talking about music and two musicians and bands all day, and like working on music all day. So I'm glad if I don't have to [00:14:00] do that in the evenings with my band, but everybody else in the band just starts thinking about music when they leave their jobs. So there's, it's, it's kinda difficult to, to navigate that, to be honest. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on.

[00:14:12] Malcom: Uh, honestly, I would just like, it doesn't need to be a blanket rule for everyone. That was just for me. Like, that's how I like to treat my life is weekends are mine, evenings are mine. And it, but it does like if, if that wasn't the case and I worked and then had time and I wanted to work on. music in the, in the evening, that's when I would be engaging with the thread. But you can't expect you Benny say we're in a band. And I was that guy that was working on music in the evening. I'm I can't expect you to share the same schedule. So you would communicate with me and other band mates. Hey, I'll be replying to things during the day. You guys get back to me. In the, in the evening like that, like, that's just gotta be how it is. You have to respect everybody's boundaries and, you know, if you're going to be in a band together, there has to be some overlap. You know, you do have to work together at [00:15:00] times and have, you know, conversations in real time as well. But that's, you know, a phone call or, uh, other stuff we're going to get into in this chat or in this episode is we'll come up and cover that for sure. Um, but just establish those boundaries for everyone. And you know, it doesn't have to even be strict. Sometimes I do respond to messages on the weekend. If I'm already thinking about it or some reason I'm working or something I totally do. But it's just like, Hey, just so you know, I try not to do this on the weekend, so, you know, don't get upset and if you really need me, if it's urgent, you just call me. 

[00:15:30] Benedikt: Yeah, for sure. You've definitely replied to mine and that's partly because I think we record podcasts on Monday mornings usually. So if I have a last minute thing you got a Saturday or Sunday, I sort of need your reply.

[00:15:42] Malcom: no, no, that's fine. I, I replied all sorts of stuff on the weekend. It's actually something I need to do less of. I need to be stricter with myself. Yeah, 

[00:15:49] Benedikt: Yeah, I mean, it's a priority thing also. Like so many things are, so for me, I can only speak for myself, but for me, for example, Before noon during the week, these are my [00:16:00] focus hours and I won't reply to anybody. And I won't even look at my phone. I don't do phone calls and all of that. Um, so the mornings are my, where I'm really productive. Then the afternoons, I might respond to two chats and stuff like that. And then on the evenings, I typically don't. And on weekends, I don't too, but that's just because my, my work and my family. So the, the mornings when I work and the evenings with my family are like my top priorities and a band that I do in addition to that now is not at least not yet. As much of a priority. I have to be honest about that. Like my, my family, my job at ARN, number one and two, and then the band comes out, comes after that. So I have to sort of protect my most important hours for, for that. And it's different for everybody, but it's, it's like a priority thing as 

[00:16:43] Malcom: You have to, I love how you said protect your priorities. And it's so true. You know, I actually get asked about relationship advice by people in bands all the time, which is hilarious. I don't know why I put that off that I'm like, I'd ask about that. I've been, I've been in a long-term successful relationship. So I guess I'm not doing terribly, but like, I [00:17:00] don't, I've never advertised that. I'm like a love guru, but it happens an odd amount of time. But uh, like, honestly, this is like one of the first things I say is like, oh, you have to prioritize them. Like, there's no way around that. If you prioritize the band over them, then it's the, is going to reflect that. And that's, if that's what you prioritize, that's totally fine. You know, maybe that's the way it needs to be if you that's what you care about. But in my case, That's not no. Um, so, so it's like, okay. That time with, with bath after 6:00 PM and before 7:00 AM, um, through the week is, is me and bath time. And your second fiddle, if you want that time from me. 

[00:17:41] Benedikt: Yup. Yup. Okay. That's cool. Let's move on to the next point or actually one, one tiny thing I wanted to add is just in case people don't know. And I've I've I know that some people don't know there, there are desktop apps for all of these messages as well. So if you don't want to do it on your phone, or if you want to type on your keyboard or you're working on something and have the chat open [00:18:00] at the same time, there is a WhatsApp desktop app. There is a signal desktop app. There is a messenger standalone app that you can use without Facebook. So there are apps for all of these things that also work on your computer. So you don't have to do email on your computer and text on the phone at the same time. So you can there's even apps that can handle all of that in one application. But that that's just too much for now, I think, but you can handle all these, these group chat things from your computer as well.

[00:18:26] Malcom: Yeah, one more thing. Uh, just in keeping with boundaries, uh, on these, uh, I highly recommend turning off all notifications for all of these apps, really all apps, you don't need notifications other than your cell phone ringing. And then because otherwise you're going to just end up checking it and replying, whenever somebody messaged you, because it literally beeps at you and tells you to do that. So just turn it all off and then check it at the same time. Like Benny says before noon not looking at it afternoon, he can open it up and see what's there. 

[00:18:55] Benedikt: Yeah. That, that requires you to have these hours for yourself though, to actually look at it because [00:19:00] otherwise you will miss stuff. So that only works if you really have an, an email hour or something during the day that you 

[00:19:05] Malcom: true. 

[00:19:06] Benedikt: So yeah. But I'm with you. I do that. I do that. Um, so I, I totally agree. All right. So the next thing that's basically also, yeah, basic level mandatory thing is some file sharing system. And I think most people know and use Dropbox. Which works well. And I think we both recommended over Google drive or anything else you can use whatever works for you, but just drop boxes. I mean, you know, we, we hate Google drive, 

[00:19:28] Malcom: Yeah, you can use whatever you want, as long as it's Dropbox and not Google drive. That's totally, 

[00:19:32] Benedikt: exactly, exactly.

[00:19:35] Malcom: um, you know, I will admit I've had way less problems with Google drive in the last year. I don't know if that's because people are figuring out how to use it better or if they fix some of their permission stuff. In any case, I still find it really slow to download stuff. I'm not sure what that's about. 

[00:19:48] Benedikt: Yep. There's two things. The first is when you want to download a folder, you have to wait forever till it sips it and then downloads it. And so that is one thing. And actually today I had the permissions issue again, um, [00:20:00] uh, an artist that I'm working with that I'm coaching uh, sent me some, some songs and she sent me like five or six or whatever links and none of them had their permission set so that I could actually listen to it. so 

[00:20:13] Malcom: And so frustrated, it takes so much. Yes. We hate it. We hate it. And we 

[00:20:19] Benedikt: way, if you don't, if you're not aware, so, sorry, I just wanted to add if you're that aware, but just because I mentioned it right now, I'm still doing the coaching. I haven't pitched it in a while, but you can still book free coaching calls if you want. So just to say that we're not bringing in new people until a few weeks out or so, but you can still book the coaching costs the free ones. So that's still a thing. If you go to the self recording band.com/call, you can do that with me. That being said, let's move on.

[00:20:42] Malcom: Cool. Yeah. And Benny will teach you how to use Dropbox over Google drive if you want. I'm sure. 

[00:20:46] Benedikt: exactly. 

[00:20:48] Malcom: I'll probably volunteer my time to do that. Get rid of that stuff. Um, but I mean, Dropbox has an issue in itself in that sometimes we'll try and like, make it seem like [00:21:00] you have to make an account to check out the files and stuff like that. But I feel like most people, uh, like mid age and young people are savvy enough with the internet to figure it out that you could, there's usually like a little ax or some way to get past that window. If you're listening to this podcast and you have a band, which, I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a musical project at the very least. You probably do need a Dropbox account again, if you have a different one, that's fine. But anyways, you get that account. And why do we need a file sharing service as a band? Benny? What's the advantage here? 

[00:21:33] Benedikt: The advantage is that you can share demos. You can share artwork that you work on together. You can share all sorts of fast, basically, because I mean, you can put an MP3 in a chat and you can send whatever, video messages or something, or you can upload pictures of the artwork there, but it will be lost in the thread. You have to search for it. You'll, won't find things. It's not going to be organized. You cannot comment on a certain thing, um, because it will be [00:22:00] somewhere else on the thread. So I think you need a centralized, like a place, a hub for all the, where all the fights live, like where all your, and you need a folder structure. There are two, I think so. Demos preproduction, um, final mixes or masters. So as soon as you get your files from, from a mixing engineer for weeks, for example, or if you do it yourself, you're your own mixes and masters, they have to live somewhere. You got to know what is the demo? What is the final thing, which I don't know which way file goes, where when you finally release it and you, you probably have a lot of files that you just share and where the whole band that the whole band has to, to be able to look at. And I think there's no way around using some sort of shared folders system and the easiest way to do that is something that Dropbox, because even if you use say we transfer something and not your chat, it's still going to. Tedious and not really, um, is that a great workflow to have, to send everything to somebody or to a bunch of email addresses, it's better to just move it to a folder and everybody has that folder. You share it. And when somebody [00:23:00] updates something it's already on your computer as well. So a sync system like that is just the easiest way to do it. I think it's, I, I don't, I can't imagine working without that. We actually had that at the group chat from the beginning. So that was the first thing we had with the span as well, because I wouldn't even be, I wouldn't even be able to, to, I wouldn't have been able to listen to the songs that were written and the demos and all that.

[00:23:21] Malcom: totally. Yeah. Delegate this, the job to the most organized person in the band of just creating a folder structure inside of your shared Dropbox folder. So a shared Dropbox folder for your band, you know, it's just so everything pertaining to your band goes in there. Um, but then a bunch of folders inside of that that are organized as best as you can. You'll figure it out, assess a system you like. And, but you know, every time somebody would record a voice memo on their phone of a new song at practice that should get uploaded to the same folder so that everybody just can go check that you don't have to ask for the link. You don't have to ask, Hey, where's that saved? Or can you send it to me? And please don't put it in the group chat because the whole thing we're trying to avoid here is [00:24:00] trying to have to scroll back through the group chat, to find. That is a time killer and it's so annoyed. So a shared folder or, you know, honestly email for anything, anything that needs to be referenced. I'm a big fan of email over a group chat. 

[00:24:15] Benedikt: Yeah, well, we don't, we actually don't send us emails back and forth. I mean, for some things, maybe if we invite somebody to a new tool or something, but usually we stick to group chat and the Dropbox, but I agree like professionally, yeah. Use email over chats any 

[00:24:28] Malcom: Yeah. But, but, uh, in this case it's not even relevant because it would be in a shared Dropbox. So everybody's got access to it. Everybody knows where it is. 

[00:24:35] Benedikt: Yep. Yep. So the next thing on our list here is something that I just created for the band. It's very simple, but it's a game changer. Totally. Um, and it's, it's a, an app called Trello. We've talked about it on the, on the podcast before it's a free app, a free software that you can use. There's paid plans of it as well. But I think the free version is enough for most people. And it's hard to explain how it works. You have to look at [00:25:00] it. I think it's, it's basically lists simple. You can use it as a to-do list. You can, um, use it for all sorts of things. But what it basically is, is it's a board with separate lists that are next to each other and on these lists are cars, what they call cards and you can write something on a card and then you can drag it from one list to another, just as you would with post-its on a wall, for example. So you have to imagine that like columns. With post-its on them and you can grab a post-it and put it on another column. You, and you can move them around basically. And the way we set this up was inspired by Jesse Cannon. I use Trello for everything in my business as well. So I'm used to using Trello, but in this case I created a new board and you workspace and a new Trello board. That's what it's called. And I set it up the way that Jesse Cannon recommends Jesse Cannon is, has been on your podcast, Malcolm. Uh, he's amazing. He does all sorts of creative things and he's a podcast as well. He's a mixing and mastering engineer. He does, he does so many things. I don't know how he does it, but he's just an [00:26:00] amazing and very productive dude. And he has a YouTube channel called muse formation. And I'm on the channel. There is a video it's actually one of the nutso popular videos. I wonder why that is, I guess bands are maybe not into organizing things, but, but, uh, the video is called how to manage your band. So it gets things. And, um, he explains a very basic Trello setup and I just took what he chose us there and used it for my band. And the way it works is we on our Trello board, we have one list, one column for each band member. So it's Benny's tasks. And if you and I were in a band together, that would be one that's called Malcolm's tasks. And so and so on. And, um, we can just write on the cards on our own lists, so to speak, we can write the things that we need to do. So this is the most basic thing. Then there is another column, another list here that's anybody can do this. [00:27:00] So there are tasks that don't have not been assigned yet. And if you feel like you can address this, you can take care of this. You can just take the tasks task and move it over to your list. And then it's yours and you can. Yeah, you can take action on that. So, and then there is a band tasks list that has all the tasks that everybody needs to do. So if we need to discuss something, if everybody needs to look at something, if we do a poll or something like that, that happens in the band tasks, that's things everybody needs to do. Um, and then there is. A done list where we move all the things that have been done so we can monitor our progress. You can do one for each band member. We just have one where we move everything. So we can just see what's been done already. Just feels good to see the progress there. And then there is a finalist that's called links, accounts, et cetera. So on this list, we have all the links and Xs and, and, uh, things we need, when we're going to access some part of our system. So our district kid account [00:28:00] our, uh, band email, our Dropbox, our, um, whatever, like everything we share, uh, where we need a certain link or our Instagram, our band camp, all of these things are on that list so that nobody has to ask in the group chat, like what's our like, link again to this and this portal or whatever, it's all there. Um, so basically all of that lifts in Trello and the beautiful thing about Trello is it has so many cool features. Uh, inside of these cars. So these cards can have checklists. These cars can have, you can comment on a card, you can do polls, you can integrate other apps, you can sync it with your calendar and you can put due dates on these cards. You can do all sorts of things. You can keep it very simple, but you can also like build it into a productivity system. Basically it integrates with everything because it's such a popular app. so it's just really cool and it's free. So we, we use that for now. And, um, I think it's something that even not so computer savvy people can learn really quickly and it's just [00:29:00] intuitive and easy to use.

[00:29:01] Malcom: it's actually fun to use. Like it's very visual. It's, it's kind of a fun way to. To be productive. My, my other podcast actually has an episode on this. It's called, uh, the secret to getting shit done, project management software. It also, wasn't a hugely popular episode for us. People just don't want to hear about how to be organized, but it was probably one of our most actionable, I know a few bands that developed like project management systems for their bands after listening to that episode. So like, it's, it's pretty cool. And they're still using it. They're still organized bands that I talk to. So it's great. Um, and it doesn't have to be Trello. There's alternatives out there. I think there's one called Monday. Um, there's a whole bunch I'm sure. But, uh, Trello is a really simple and free one and honestly, like it's pretty hard to have to pay for it. Like it's the three features that are, there are great 

[00:29:55] Benedikt: Yeah. Also works on your phones, Android and apple. It works on the EAM and tablets like [00:30:00] everywhere. So 

[00:30:00] Malcom: Yeah. So you already mentioned this, but checklists which you can put on cards in Trello, big fan of that, please do it. Uh, actually inside of Trello, again, you can make some automations so that whenever you add, move a card from one list to another, it adds whatever you want. And that could be a checklist. Um, so say you had, uh, like a show prep column or something, and you're like, oh, we got a new show, make a new card in that, on that list called, you know, this date, this venue, whatever, and automatically makes a checklist for you with all the stuff you've pre-planned like, alright, send our stage plot to them. Contact sound, guy figure it out load in time. Like all of these things that you have to do for every gig, it just makes a checklist for you to make sure you never forget them. Amazing. 

[00:30:46] Benedikt: Yes, absolutely. Totally agreed. Also I think that that is something I had to learn. Some tasks are not tasks, but projects. And it's important to make that distinction because if you put something like book a show on there [00:31:00] as a task, or create a lyric video or release your first EP. Those are not tasks. These are clearly projects. They consist of many multiples, tiny tasks, and I would always have a checklist or a list of steps there down to really the next, like, what's the next action. What's the next action that I can do right now to move this project forward because otherwise you'll get paralyzed if you have, it looks like only a few tasks, but if you actually want to start take action on something like that, you're like, okay, what do I need to do first? And then you think about the whole project and you probably think in 10 steps ahead, when you have every single step in front of you, you just have to put one foot in front of the other and do the next action on to move that project forward. So most things that bands think about and need to do are projects and they consist of multiple tasks and I wouldn't do hundred, um, cards on a Trello list. I would do them. I would, I would put the project on the cards and then have a checklist inside with all the steps. [00:32:00] And that way, it's just much more organized. And I had to learn that distinction because a lot of things in life are actually projects. Like even things like, I don't know, getting a haircut is not a task. Like you have to make an appointment and you have to go there. You have to do, you know, like there's even the smallest things have several next actions and it's not just one task and complex things like creating a video, recording, a record, releasing something. These, there are multiple steps involved and if you have to think about them every single time, it's just way slower than just think about thinking about them once putting down all of the steps and then just take an action.

[00:32:34] Malcom: totally. Yeah, it it's break it down into the crucial step-by-step process. It's just so essential to do that. 

[00:32:41] Benedikt: Yep. 

[00:32:41] Malcom: All right. So, 

[00:32:44] Benedikt: that okay. Yup. 

[00:32:45] Malcom: yeah. Yeah. Do you want to take this one? 

[00:32:47] Benedikt: No, no, go 

[00:32:47] Malcom: All right. If you haven't already done this, which, you know, actually you probably have, because you've made a Dropbox account and you've made a, a Trello board. Um, but if you haven't, maybe we should have mentioned this earlier. Hopefully you're listening to this episode, then doing these [00:33:00] steps. You should make a band email address. So just your band name@gmail.com or whatever. You know, if you have a website, you could do it and contact@yourbandname.com or whatever. But just one email address for the whole band. And this is what you want on all your socials on all of your contact forms and stuff like that. So anybody trying to reach to the band goes to the same place. But it's also handy. If somebody in the band needs to send something to the band, they can just email their, their own band's address. And it just goes somewhere and makes sure that everybody has access to this email again, so that everybody's getting the same news at the same time. So if somebody does reach out with a gig off. You all know about it. You all have the details. You don't have this middleman time-wasting thing where one person has to now tell the band, all of the details. Everybody can just do their homework and read the email. 

[00:33:47] Benedikt: Yeah, I think it depends on the size of the band. At some point it might make sense to have different email addresses for different things like booking or whatnot, and then delegating those rules to different band members. But for most bands, especially when you're starting out or when you're just a [00:34:00] smaller band, one email is enough and actually better, I think. And yeah, you can, you should use that email to sign up for all these different social media platforms and stuff. Just it's just easier than because I've seen so many bands use. Personal emails to create an Instagram account, and then everybody else needs to go through that email. And then you like, what, what if that band member leaves and then just have a, just have a band email. I mean, with Trello and Dropbox, we actually use our individual emails because you can invite people and then everybody can have, has their own account. And then you can collaborate. So with Dropbox and Trello, we use our individual emails, but for band camp, district, kit, Spotify, all these things, we have one band email that we use and it's connected to our webspace. So it's male at bat name that whatever. So.

[00:34:48] Malcom: That makes sense. Yeah. I think my band had its own Dropbox account under the band email, but thinking back that's pretty stupid because I already was paying for Dropbox. We could have just used, made a folder of my account. 

[00:34:59] Benedikt: [00:35:00] Yeah. Yeah. So we do exactly that. Now the next one is interesting because we haven't set that up yet for this spend, but I have used it with another band in the past, and I think it's useful. I don't know if you've ever used that on Malcolm. It's a shared calendar. So most people, I think. I would hope at least use some sort of calendar in their lives. So, um, I have, I haven't for a long time, so I'm not so sure, but like, I couldn't live without one now and I have different Google calendars for different things. So I have a calendar that has my family private stuff on it. I have a work calendar that's synced with my bookings scheduling software that I use for work and stuff like that. So I use some advanced things here, but I also need a separate band calendar. So I don't see all the, all the things all the time. That's one reason. I just want to go to my Google calendar and be able to view certain calendars and not all of them every time. And then it's also cool to see. Have something that is sinked with everybody else, without them seeing your private appointments and work schedule and whatever. So I think there's, at [00:36:00] some point, there's no way around that. If you want to start booking shows, blocking out vacation time or whatever. It's so easy, if you have a calendar and so complicated, if you don't, because what will happen is somebody will, you've got a show requests. You've got to answer quick because 10 other bands want that slot. And if you'll first have to ask every single band member, if they have actually time and then they have to ask their family and what not. And until you get the reply from all five people, the opportunity is probably gone. So if you have a calendar and you're disciplined about it and everybody puts in the time that is available at the time that it's blocked, you can just reply to requests pretty immediately, and just know that you can trust the calendar and that the dates are actually available. So this requires some discipline and you have to keep them up to date, but it's way better than having to hold a meeting for every single thing that you want to put in your calendar.

[00:36:49] Malcom: Yeah. Yeah. It's just another central communication form. Confirm a gig. It goes on the calendar. Now everybody sees that it's there. That day is booked for them. You know, there's not going to be something missed down the [00:37:00] road. It's just literally on their phone that they're all using. And, uh, you know, w If you get to a press cycle where you are booking, like you've got a publicist booking, a bunch of interviews or something for you they can just put the interviews right into that calendar. And all everybody sees, oh, we've got an interview with a station at this time where we've got an interview with a magazine this time. It just is, again, that banned email address, linked to a calendar account, super critical.

[00:37:24] Benedikt: Yeah. If you bring it back to music production, not come. I believe that it's also more likely that you get things done in time and actually finish your productions and meet your deadlines and the release date and whatnot. If you have a calendar and if you put all the steps and all the due dates on a calendar versus just saying, we'll record that. And once it's done, at some point we'll release it. Like usually those type of projects tend to take forever versus the ones that are on the calendar actually get done. So I think, I think that that helps there too. Right.

[00:37:56] Malcom: Yes. Putting things on a calendar and writing down due dates, you can do this [00:38:00] in Trello, by the way, you can set due dates. Um, and on the calendar, you could also write them in, um, both write in like a thing on a day. Do you know, drums editing do or something, but also schedule, you know, on each day that you plan to do the editing trauma, editing, drum, editing, drum, editing, you know, like stuff like that. Just anything you can do like that, it, it just works. It's like a little brain hack, but your, your brain is like, okay, that's what I'm doing today. I have to do it. 

[00:38:27] Benedikt: Yeah, agreed, agreed. It's something I teach in my coaching as well. And in my online courses and it's something, people are always surprised about that. Surprised about that. I say like, um, I asked them things like, have you put all the steps? Like when, when are you going to do a pre pro pro? When are you gonna set up your, um, your, your actual studio? When are you gonna record? When do you want the mix to be done and all that? Have you put that on a calendar and. People don't know why they would do that. Right. They should do that. They just think they just move on with the project. And at some point it will be finished, [00:39:00] but I actually teach to not wing it and to actually plan it because then it will get done. And you also realize when you over or underestimating things. So I think just thinking about a timeline, putting it on a calendar, it makes you realize how long things actually take. So you're setting a more realistic release date. Maybe you have to push things back a little bit, because it really becomes apparent once you look at it on a calendar, I think.

[00:39:26] Malcom: Yes. Yeah.

[00:39:27] this isn't on our list, but I have in front of me, a paper productivity planner, um, and it's pretty much just a checklist for every day. With inspirational quotes included 

[00:39:38] Benedikt: Yeah.

[00:39:39] Malcom: and like all sorts of other stuff. And I don't even use, like, I've kind of figured out my own method for using it. That's different than it kind of wants you to, I guess, but this has been like the single most life-changing piece of technology in my life. And I love it so much. I'm like two years into using a paper planner. Um, as my primary, I honestly, I don't really use Trello other than a couple of [00:40:00] projects, like large, like a full album project I'm doing with villains. We have a Trello board and stuff like that. Almost all of it lives in this paper book with me. That's just always in front of me. And I like, I write down everything. Like if I want to exercise, it goes down. I literally write down breakfast and. 'cause I'm pretty bad at making sure I eat those. I'll just work through them. If I don't, if I don't write them down, I'm just going to work through it. And, uh, like I write down everything I meant to, I, what I try to do is write down rather than breakfast and lunch, it would be have breakfast, have lunch or make breakfast, make lunch, whatever you want to write it down. It's another little brain hack. Write it down as a task rather than a subject. So don't write down drum editing, right? Complete drum editing for the song. The more detailed, the better, the more likely it is to get done. 

[00:40:45] Benedikt: Absolutely agree with everything you just sat there. Um, there's just, I dunno for people interested in, in these, this, these sort of things, there's a system called getting things done by David Allen, that I I've read the book and I've implemented a lot of what [00:41:00] he teaches, not the whole system, but a lot of what he teaches and it really helped me in part of, and part of it is pretty much what you just described there. And I mean, that's a lot more to it, but the fact that you write things down as a task and not just the subject is part of it. And, um, so if you're into that, check that, check out that book, it was really helpful for me. And it's interesting because I just got into a paper planner as well. Um, I just started last week, but. I used to, I actually don't have one. I have one for blood personal stuff. It's like a journaling thing. And the other one is, um, for business stuff. And I I've been journaling for two years or so, but I used an app for it. And now I switched to a paper-based journal, which is just cool because in the evenings, when I do it or in the mornings, when I do it, I don't have to look at a screen again. I do that all day anyways. So that's nice. The downside is you can't search things. So it's been cool in my app to just search for whatever I did two years ago on that day or so it's just easy 

[00:41:53] Malcom: that. is cool. 

[00:41:55] Benedikt: But at the same time I found it a little. I don't know it. I found it at some point I [00:42:00] found it a little weird that I have that my journal entries are on a software that potentially other people could read as well. It feels, it feels better to have it on a piece of paper that just, I have. 

[00:42:09] Malcom: Right. Yep. I get 

[00:42:10] Benedikt: dunno. Yeah. So I I'm just moving to paper-based as well. I still use Trello for a lot of things and I, I, I, at least for now I can't live without it, but at least my day to day, they, the, the really the next steps, those live on my paper planner now, and also sort of a weekly review or overview thing is there, I mean, that's, that's too much for this episode, but just so you know how important this is for the two of us, because, because I think without those tools and without the, the mindset behind why we use things like that, we wouldn't be able to do all the things we do. I think.

[00:42:43] Malcom: Oh, no, not at all. Yeah. If I, occasionally I kind of do laps out of my systems as well, you know? Like I just, like, for some reasons don't pick up my, my planner here for a couple of days and those days are terribly unproductive when I review I'm like, oh wow, didn't get [00:43:00] anything done. 

[00:43:01] Benedikt: Yeah. Yeah. What do you do actually, when you'll look at your things, but still don't do what's on there because that can happen as well. Sometimes I know what I'm supposed to be to do, to be doing, but for some reason I do other things that are more appealing or more fun or whatever, and that can happen with your band as well. So you might have a Trello account that you share. You might have some sort of checklist and whatever, but for some reason you keep doing other things. Instead of doing the things that really matter, we had a discussion in the band yesterday, actually not a discussion like one of the band members. And I were just having a chat where we were like, it's cool that things are moving forward. Everybody does things, but sometimes, and that's all of us. That's not a particular bank member, but all of us sometimes go down rabbit holes. We'll discuss things that are completely irrelevant right now, instead of doing the one thing that we need to, to, um, to, in order to be able to do everything else, you know, but for some reason we just have, you all have this shiny object syndrome where something interesting comes along and then we focus on that and totally forget about what we're supposed to do.

[00:43:59] Malcom: [00:44:00] Totally. I mean, well, one of the huge benefits of having a Trello board or a planner like this, um, is that those things don't get forgotten about. They just get ignored, but you still get reminded because you look at your list and you review that you got everything done and you see a that's still lingering there. I didn't do it. And you knew, but like now it's still there and you have to decide, and this is honestly the best part about it is you have to decide what you're gonna do about it. You have to decide, do you like, do I write it on the next day? Like, cause I can see, you know, I've got Wednesday here and Thursday there. So do I write it on Thursday because it's a task that still needs to be done that didn't get done or do I admit that it's not actually important? And that I'm not going to do it. Like I have to make a decision as essentially at this point, it's like, is it still something I planned to do? And if so, let's schedule it again. Or is it something that, you know what, I'm actually just not going to do that? Like, let's just take it off the list and it just gets crossed off. usually, you know, I feel like I try to only write down things that I actually want to do, so that's [00:45:00] pretty rare, but by continually happening in the face, it eventually I do it. 

[00:45:04] Benedikt: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And you get better with this. Um, over time, I think in the beginning, everybody just, I think overloads their, uh, to dualistic, you put too many things on there because you think you can get all of that done in a day. And then you soon realize that you only get a fraction of it done. And once you realize that and you, you start putting less on your daily to-do list or your Trello boards or whatever, then it feels less stressful. At least that was the case for me. I always thought when I was planning my days and weeks and projects that I could do all these things and I realized that I can't do them all possibly. So 

[00:45:35] Malcom: Yeah. it's amazing. So my, my, like, again, I thought a guided planner, um, which is pretty cool. I, I quite like it. And it's like, the first thing that asked me is if you only did this one thing that you'd be satisfied. That's the first thing I got to write down. Sorry. Okay. So like, if I've got a bunch of songs to mix, it's like, okay, I'm going to mix this song. And if I get a mix done in a day, that's great. That's a product product, date, productive day, but there's like four spots under that for more [00:46:00] tasks. And I always fill out all of the spots, you know? So there's that mixing a song literally on my list today and then four more tasks plus all of my, like I use the note section to write down breakfast, lunch, workout out all these other things, and there's no way I'll get them all done. It's like, if I get five things done in one day, it's amazing. it's amazing. You know, 

[00:46:23] Benedikt: Are you a key though with not getting the other things done or is it stressing you out? Because you miss things every single day?

[00:46:32] Malcom: Yeah, it doesn't really stress me out. No, it doesn't because the way this planner works is that at the start of the week, I have, uh, like a five most important things. So that's five work days of, if I just get this done, I'm happy. And as long as I hit those, um, w we really don't care that another thing going to take me, like, you know, a little bit longer, or I'm going to knock it out on the weekend, or, or wake up early one day just to get this stupid quote out the door or whatever, you know? And it's also [00:47:00] amazing that by making me prioritize my tasks like this into, for secondary and additional tasks, that the things that are under those primary tasks really don't take long. If I sit down just to do it, and I'm not just like dithering and wasting time with Facebook open or something, I knock out, like, it might take me all day to do that mix, but then steps two through five are like done inside of how to half hour, you know, So I get more done than I would if I didn't write them down, but I also it's. Okay. Like, I didn't get one Jessie, I'm sorry. I haven't exported your stems for you yet. That's coming today. I think. But like, it's like, it's like, okay, like, you know, it's not going to really matter if that happens tomorrow, but getting that mixed delivered did. 

[00:47:47] Benedikt: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Okay, cool. Thank you then. Um, I mean, you might be wondering what that has to do with self-reporting bands, but I can say a lot because I re I've witnessing this all the time. Like how unorganized people sometimes are and [00:48:00] how long things are taking. Um, and how, yeah. And I've, I've seen it now, myself, that there's no way around a system like that. And, um, I, I'm pretty sure that your output as a band. We'll definitely benefit from that. You will be able to release more music. It will be less stressful. The whole chemistry in the band will, will benefit from that. The, the more you have to ask people to do things and remind people of things, the more the, the weirder it gets sort of, so, yeah, it's just, it's just good for any band to have skills like that as well.

[00:48:33] Malcom: I got one more thing that I think is relevant because like you said, there's going to be some tasks on the Trello board, especially you set up like Benny did where everybody's got their own list of their tasks and there's just something there. Don't be afraid to call the other band member out on it, you know, politely and be like, Hey, that's just not getting done. Like what, what are we going to do about it? Don't let it just sit there. That's really what it comes down to. Don't let it just sit there and deleting. It is actually an awesome thing. Just being like, you know what, it's not going to get done. It's not important enough to [00:49:00] do, because like, if that might be the reason it's not getting done is because you're constantly having to prioritize other things. And if that just means that it's like, you know what, we're just not going to build that page on our website. It's just not that important. And we've got all these other things to do, delete it. Don't leave it on the list. Just be like that. That's a valuable decision, the decision that is not important. And shouldn't be, there is an awesome thing that is checking it off in my books. I was like, that is the same as doing it. 

[00:49:25] Benedikt: A hundred percent or you do something, um, like David Allen suggests, then who's getting things done, framework, sort of where we are, where we have this someday maybe list. So you're not deleting it, but you have a list where you can put all the things that don't matter right now and what, in case you get to it, you can do them. But if not, it's fine. So I, I have a someday maybe list for my personal stuff, but also for business, which is cool because then I don't have to delete it completely, but I, I know it's there. So if I want to get to it and if I can get to it, I can have a look at this list. But it's still not, it's not priority. It's a way, you know, so I like to have this someday, [00:50:00] maybe.

[00:50:01] Malcom: I dig that. I'm going to turn the back page of my book into a someday. Maybe that's a good idea. 

[00:50:06] Benedikt: Yup. Yup. Yeah. All right, cool. So the next thing on the list here is basically something that I think you have to be careful with. It's important, but don't overdo it, I think, and this is meetings or video meetings. So I think it's important for a band to meet in person or at least on video, if you're working remotely, just for the band chemistry and vibe and everything. I mean, we make cool things with cool people, ideally. So we want to meet each other. It's fun, you know, so obviously have meetings and don't just text. And if you have a jam space and you practice, that's obviously also part of it, but in our case, we don't even have that because we don't live close to each other. So we do everything remotely. So we have to do video meetings and, and real life meetings are very, very rare. so it's important just for being a band and feeling and making it feel like a proper band. But at the same time, I think most people are busy with things we have, I don't know, families, jobs, other things, [00:51:00] and every single meeting, personal band, job, whatever, every single meeting takes longer than you thought it would. So it's like every single time. So I think meetings are important, but make sure you have some sort of, um, I don't know, some sort of outcome that you want from that. Make sure you schedule enough time and you don't, there's not a, you're not in a rush or it's not a, I mean, sometimes you have to do a quick rush meeting, but usually I prefer band meetings to be fun and a little more open-ended and like, you know, I would rather have less meetings, but then have fun on the meetings then, then having a meeting for everything and always being in a rush. And then there's always somebody who's actually who actually doesn't want to be there. So I don't know. It's this weird thing with meetings, especially these days where we do a lot of assume and video chat. yeah, I think it's important to talk in person, but not everything has to be discussed in a meeting. And it's important that you don't kill the vibe and you, you make sure it's, it's still fun to be a band. I think.

[00:51:59] Malcom: Yeah. [00:52:00] Yeah. If it can be solved with an email, use an email, but if it requires a conversation between everybody, you know, it might be quicker to have that, that video chat. Um, and like you said, there is the moral aspect to take into account of just getting people communicating face-to-face ish.

[00:52:18] Benedikt: Yeah. Also also know when you don't have anything valuable to contribute or when you don't have an opinion on somebody on something, or when you just trust the rest of the band to take care of something, you can say, I'm not going to be in this meeting, but I trust you just do your thing. And then it's enough to, if you have two or three people there and everybody else is fine with whatever the outcome is, that can also work. So you don't have to be in every single meeting maybe, or you don't have to. That's a general thing. I think also in Trello, you don't have to have an opinion on everything. Maybe there's some things that you're just not good at, but other people in the band are then let them, let them just do their thing and trust them and resist the urge to comment on everything. Even if you don't really know what you're talking about, that that's sometimes hard for me because I'm so passionate [00:53:00] about all the things that I do, that I want everything to be the best it can possibly be. And I have a vision for everything, but oftentimes it would be better for me to just don't say anything and let somebody else do it because they can do it better than I can.

[00:53:12] Malcom: Hold the thought. Yep. That is, Yeah. It's just a waste of your time and their time to have one more body in the cloud and things up. Yeah. Let them know. Um, and, but make sure you get updated on what happened. 

[00:53:27] Benedikt: Yeah, exactly. Now. And that's also what the Trello board is for, because then you can check off tasks, you can comment on things, you know, you know what 

[00:53:34] Malcom: At ideas as they come up. Yep. 

[00:53:36] Benedikt: Yeah. Now the final thing is, um, I'll let you talk about that. Uh, because you, you brought that up and that is tracking expenses. We haven't figured that one out yet. So as of now, somebody just does something pays for it and then collect money from the rest of the band. And it's not really systemized. Yeah. So, so w w what do you use adjust.

[00:53:54] Malcom: So the best way of course is to like half your band as a business and [00:54:00] then get a bank account and your own expense card for the bad at that. And everything that's for the band goes through that same account. And that simplifies things a lot because then you can just, you know, upload receipts to a single folder, you know, that what they apply to and, and somebody is just delegated into making sure that the balances get paid off and, and, you know, handling bookkeeping essentially. Trickier. If that is not like a reasonable possibility, you know, making legitimizing your band into a business and getting its own account is kind of a process. And I'm sure it's different depending on where you live as well. In that case, I still think as much as possible, you should try and have expenses go through a single point. So it was just like somebody said, Hey, I've got the biggest credit limit. I'm the one that'll put it through and you guys pay me on time or this band's not going to exist. Um, like reimburse me. and that person will probably also handle income, right? So if you get paid for a gig, they take it in and they can keep [00:55:00] track. There has to be a lot of trust in that situation, but it's, it's just gotta be done some way or another. But what I wanted to talk about is as far as like, uh, systems that really simplify. Was for us. We, um, they, my band, when we were touring a lot, you know, we're driving around north America in an RV, we're stopping for gas a lot. We're stopping for coffees a lot. We're stopping to get guitar strings all the time. You know, there's just so many things and meals. What about hotels? All of this stuff. And we just needed to keep track of our expenses for tax purposes, right? These are business expenses that we can claim back against our income. And keeping the paper receipts in the glove box, wasn't working, they were getting destroyed, faded. People were forgetting them. They ended up with a wallet lost, you know, somebody used it as a coaster for their beer. Can it, that it wasn't working. So we set up a Dropbox folder and like in our shared Dropbox again, and just called it receipts. And [00:56:00] with like Dropbox and a million other apps, you can just scan a receipt right off your phone and upload it to that folder automatically. And newer to Dropbox, you can actually set automations for an individual folder to automatically add the date in whatever you want or add whatever really. But date is very handy because then it just, you know, if you need to reference something, you just say, oh, that was on Tuesday. The fourth go find it kind of thing. And so you uploaded something and it automatically labels the date there for you. You're good. My own company right now, same thing. I'm always buying stuff like new wireless systems. It, uh, I use a app called DExT and it'll actually, I upload it to there. It sends it to it's a little database Tylee free, by the way. And it actually pulls all of the data for me. It pulls the date, the company, the GST, which is the tax. Um, if your, your taxes holds up the different in your country, uh, and like itemizes it all automatically just by somehow a computer reading the receipt. But essentially [00:57:00] you're just gonna be buying a lot of stuff and you need to keep track of it. And that's how I would do it to make it work for everybody having their own expenses. I would probably just have a folder for every person throwing it in there. 

[00:57:11] Benedikt: Yup. Yup. Agreed. That's really interesting. We haven't thought about any of this. Yet for the band, but I can S I can totally see the value in it. And it's, it's getting more important. The bigger the bank gets, I think in the more expenses and income you have of sleep, you might think about a budgeting app or something like that, but it's definitely something can be a spreadsheet in the beginning. I think definitely just something to track expenses is really helpful because even at this point, now we're in the very early stages of starting to spend. And there's only a couple of things that we had to pay for, but even now I kind of forget what I actually already have paid for and what I need to collect money still for like webspace, you know, like a subscription to district kid or whatever, like, you know, all these things. So it just makes sense to have some system and yeah, a band is a business. So in most countries, I [00:58:00] think you actually have to. Turn it into an official business because otherwise you are not paying your taxes correctly and, or the government is assuming you're making money and you're not paying taxes, which is even worse because then they will estimate how much tax you owe. So I've seen that happen, like, and I don't know that's different for every single country, but I always advise bands to actually treat it as a business and do the taxes properly. Even if you don't really earn money at the moment, because I've seen instances where people didn't care about that. And then the government like, or a whatever institution is responsible for that in your country, they can ask the mate how much you, you have made with your band.

[00:58:41] And they just assume that you have made, I don't know, 50,000 euros last year. So now you have to pay the tax so that, but you haven't even made that and you have to explain them and you know, all these things. So just do it properly and treated like a business, even if it's just smaller.

[00:58:54] Malcom: Yeah. Track your income and your receipts, because if that happens, you'll be able to easily prove that you're abandoned. [00:59:00] So obviously you spent way more than you made, 

[00:59:04] Benedikt: Exactly. 

[00:59:04] Malcom: and as long as that's the ratio that are normally pretty happy with you. 

[00:59:08] Benedikt: Yes, exactly. Exactly. All right, cool. That was a little different for today. I'm a little different kind of episode, but I just think a helpful word. I think a helpful one, because what we talked about today can be applied to almost everything else we talk about because like being organized and having systems and making sure things get actually done are, yeah. Is important. It's like everything else will be easier, faster and more enjoyable if you get that down. So.

[00:59:35] Malcom: Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, we did want to say on today's episode that we would love if you're listening to, this, that you come hang out with us on Instagram, come check out our profiles. We, we do have a self recording band one, but it's more so just like a, a page it's not really where we hang out, 

[00:59:52] Benedikt: no, I'm going to turn it into some sort of landing page at some point where it just leads to the website because I can't handle two social [01:00:00] media accounts at the moment. I've just do it from my, my, my Bennet tine 

[01:00:03] Malcom: Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you want the self recording band, the best places, of course, the Facebook community, the self accordion band.com/community. And yeah, that that's on Facebook and that's where, you know, there's like everybody can have conversations and topics and stuff like that coming up. But Benny and I both get pretty active on our Instagrams and stuff. So if you want to see what we're up to and also self recording band stuff go find our accounts on there. Mine's just under my name, Malcolm own flood. I I'm the only one in the world, as far as I know what that long ass named, um, Bennett, your yours is your name as well. Isn't it? 

[01:00:34] Benedikt: Yeah, it's been at a time just been anytime. No. And nothing else there and yeah, at Benedictine at Malcolm own flat follow us on Instagram. and I just wanted to mention that because I've seen people tack the surf recording band or yeah. Um, tell people about the self-regarding band Instagram, but if they go there, they won't see much. So 

[01:00:54] Malcom: Yeah, yeah. Tag us instead tag us instead. for 

[01:00:56] Benedikt: tag us instead. Yeah. Take our personal list and 

[01:00:58] Malcom: seeing stuff like that. [01:01:00] You'll also see just an enormous amount of cat and studio photos on my page. So get ready for that. 

[01:01:06] Benedikt: Yep. For sure. And, and I already knew about your new wireless thing you before you mentioned it today because I follow you on Instagram.

[01:01:13] Malcom: Yeah. You've got sneak peaks and all the gear I buy. There you go.

[01:01:18] Benedikt: Yeah. Or if you want to see Malcolm and the mountains and some weird remote place in the snow, holding a bait microphone, boom. Like Instagram's the place for that? 

[01:01:27] Malcom: Yep. Absolutely. 

[01:01:29] Benedikt: Alright. Cool. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next week. 

[01:01:34] Malcom: Okay. Take care. 

[01:01:35] Benedikt: Take care. Bye bye. 

[01:01:36] Malcom: Bye.