Jill Zimmermann: 1:22

I wasn't thinking in roles back then, like I remember, when I decided that's it, that's it's gonna be. I just knew I wanted to be in the room and make music.

Benedikt Hain: 1:34

This is the Self-Recording Band Podcast, the show where we help you make exciting records on your own wherever you are DIY style. Let's go. Hello and welcome to the Self-Recording Band Podcast. I am your host, benedikt Kain. If you are already a listener, welcome back. If you are new to the show, welcome, so stoked to have you. If you are watching on YouTube, please know that the show is also available on your favorite podcast apps, and if you are listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever, please know that you can also watch this on YouTube. So I'm just saying this because we figured that some people weren't aware of this. Alright, now today we've got a very, very special episode for you because it's an interview with an amazing guest, and the guest is Chil Zimmerman. Chil Zimmerman is an accomplished audio engineer working at Jukaza Recording Studios in Hamilton, ontario, canada. She's originally from Germany and her story of how she ended up in Canada is pretty exciting. What's also exciting and very impressive is her credit list. She's worked for artists like Alice Cooper, alex is on Fire, three Days Grace, july Talk, protest, the Hero, silverstein, harrison Kennedy and many, many more. Records she's worked on have won Juno Awards or hit number one on the Billboard chart and Chil is going to be a speaker at this year's studio scene or studio scene event in Germany, in Hamburg, showing how she produced vocals for the Hard Rock Band Rise and Vein, and her masterclass will cover the remote recording process on that record, insights on vocal editing, how to create a great vocal arrangement and how to coach and guide singers in a studio session At least that's what I was told. So I'm so stoked to have you on our podcast, chil. Thank you for taking the time and welcome to the show.

Jill Zimmermann: 3:22

Hello, yeah, thank you for having me.

Benedikt Hain: 3:25

So was this introduction correct? Did I miss anything? Do you want to add anything to that?

Jill Zimmermann: 3:30

No, I'm not going to add anything.

Benedikt Hain: 3:31

It's all good, it's all good, yeah, so I was just hoping the info that I got about the masterclasses and all was correct. But we're looking forward to that very much. And, as always, I'm not doing the salon here, I'm with my friend and co-host, also from Canada, malcolm Owen Flutt. So hi, malcolm, how are you?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 3:48

Hey, jill especially. Yeah, so excited to chat with you. I didn't know that masterclass topic yet. That sounds really, really exciting. I'm super excited to check that out. I was doing some research on you in advance of this and it seems like vocal production is a particular area of expertise for you, so I think that's going to be pretty exciting to see how you go about approaching that, especially hearing some of the records that you've engineered. It's not easy to get vocals sounding that way, especially with sometimes doubled vocals and complex arrangements. So, yeah, that's going to be very cool.

Jill Zimmermann: 4:28

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Benedikt Hain: 4:30

So I want to start with a quote here that I've heard you say on the podcast, I think, and that quote was I played the violin, so that means I can tune your vocals better. Can you tell the audience what that is all about and what you meant by saying that?

Jill Zimmermann: 4:46

Yeah, so I learned, like when I learned instruments back when I was a kid, I started learning the violin and I played it for 10 years and although I don't see myself being on stage because I can't really get lost in the music, like for me I always get stuck on the middle mistakes I make. So I was very focused on intonation the whole time playing violin rather than the overall performance. And now I noticed, like relatively early in my career, that I can listen to intonation and generally pitch a little bit more defines than a lot of other people, mainly because I've had so much practice. Right, because you have to do that constantly on the violin and keep in check if something is in tune. So it's not just for vocals either, it's also guitars, bass and even for drums. You have to make sure things are in tune and stay in tune. And I mean with vocals you can usually do a lot afterwards to an extent. But yeah, it's just overall. It sounds better when things are in tune.

Benedikt Hain: 5:55

Yeah, definitely for sure. And so when did you like? Not when you told us or for how long you played, but why? Did you choose the violin.

Jill Zimmermann: 6:05

So in first grade I was in some after school class where we just learned general music, like how to read notes and all that stuff. And after one year my parents took me, just like my other siblings at that time too, always to an open house, at the music school, and you could try any instruments and I don't know why, but I wanted to play violin and my eldest sister played violin too, so it wasn't too far away Like it's something I've heard growing up and later as a team telling you it's a pretty good weapon against your parents. So if you have to try to practice those runs you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you're angry, you can just say you're practicing, you know.

Benedikt Hain: 6:48

Yeah, exactly Now did the violin train your ear, and then it started like bothering you more when things were out of tune and you became more of a perfectionist, because that's something that you were just born with, and you discovered that through playing violin.

Jill Zimmermann: 7:06

I think more the second. Like I don't have perfect pitch, like I can't tell you that's that note and it's this many sends off or whatnot. But my violin teacher always told me that it's great working with me because I can at least hear when I'm off, while some of his other students didn't hear the difference. So I guess more the second. But then obviously, like, once you train more, you get a little bit more. You know you hear things better, especially when you do like from the one note with a finger onto the other, like you have to hear intervals as well to make sure that those work. And yeah, Great.

Benedikt Hain: 7:48

Now what do you say to people who are like there's a lot of people who believe that and I'm not judging at the moment, I just want to give you an opinion. A lot of people say like modern music is like overly edited and everything's tuned and everything's quantized and music was so much better when we didn't have all these editing tools and tools and when we didn't tune vocals and all of that. What are your thoughts on this?

Jill Zimmermann: 8:16

I mean there's a bunch of other differences too. Back to the music back then. Right, people love the Beatles. Well, yeah, but the Beatles had also very different medium to work on. Yes, sure, they didn't get over edited, but another thing too is they had to commit to certain balances right away and sounds, because there wasn't just Pro Tools was with a million tracks where you can just keep everything in every take right, Like you have what a four track tape machine at some point, and you just have to dump down and put it all together and mix it while you're recording. It's a lot of differences like that. Plus, a lot of bands back in the day did record in big studios. Now it is a lot of people do it themselves or go into other spaces where more editing is needed because you have to get the room acoustics out or because maybe the people recording it had less experience with certain setups. I mean, it's just sometimes you're compensating and sometimes you're just trying to get it better, in the sense where things are a little bit cleaner. And it depends per genre too. I mean, if you have bluegrass, it's still pretty organic, you know. It's the same with jazz Usually. I did a jazz record and I didn't touch the vocals Like I'm not going to tune that I actually tried because I was just interested and it sounded so much worse. It's weird how, like in jazz, it has to be slightly different, it has to be like not even off, it's just there's monowals to the right pitch at that point. Yeah, for sure.

Benedikt Hain: 9:56

But like it's hard to argue against the fact that in modern rock, for example, guitars need to be in, tune and that you need to tune, like in between takes, and that it's like really even the details really matter, because there's like there's nothing better about an out of tune chord and out of tune guitar or somebody fretting too hard or maybe playing a guitar that they're not used to, with bigger frets or something that causes these problems. There's nothing better about this right. So I wish that more people would embrace that and not like fight it just out of principle, basically, and sabotaging themselves, which is often the case.

Jill Zimmermann: 10:33

I mean there is also just like a line to cross. I mean with guitars. Especially if you have quadruple guitars, which is very normal in rock nowadays, and they're all in a different pitch, well, you're going to have a big mess and it's not going to sound good. If you want it to sound big, you want them to stack onto each other, and that's the same with timing, because if, like your, four guitars playing the same part but slightly different timing, it's not going to sound good. So it's more about the whole arrangement. Nowadays it's more compact and there's a lot more to fill in and that has to just work with one another. It's not like back in the day you had the whole band in a room and they play it once or twice and that's it, like there's a lot more production being involved. However, there is some people that go maybe a little more than I personally would, especially with backing vocals. Like there's people that do them so tight that by themselves they sound so butchered. Wait, for me it takes it a little away and it's more like an instrument rather than backing vocals. But it's just a taste thing. I mean, there's nothing wrong, nothing right, as long as other people listen to it, right?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 11:44

Right. So, jill, what interests me is because you've worked on such a wide range of genres very successfully something that I've struggled with when engineering multiple genres is turning off that part of my brain that wants to be uber precise, like so. For example, you mentioned that jazz. Like if you were to be too picky on the pitch of all of those instruments, it just wouldn't sound like jazz anymore. But on the flip side, if you're not picky enough with big quad layers of guitars and dense vocals, then it just turns into a mess. Do you have any tips or tricks for just turning off that part of your brain, or did it take a while to learn that, to adjust your expectations and acceptance of intonation issues with different genres of music?

Jill Zimmermann: 12:34

The way I see things, I mean generally in those genres like jazz and stuff, they do tune themselves without you even having to tell them, the better players do, so you don't really have to do much there. But sometimes you just have to trust your musicians or the producer in the room, just let them do their thing, as, unless it's really really often disturbing, you know, like I know what I can fix afterwards. So that helps me just to be a little bit more calm and not be over eager to just get everything as tight as possible. Like knowing I can fix certain things, like especially timing wise, I'm less worried in the moment and then I have time to revisit to see if it's even needed to be as tight, right, and I think it just helps. Like I mean, it comes with experience too. The more you do it, the more you know what you can do and where your limits are and what you would rather have redone ideally in the moment, because you don't want to have people come back because of something that could have been unright away.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 13:41

Right, yeah, that's a great point. I've always thought that, like anybody that's a singer should learn to tune vocals not even so that they can do it themselves just because I think tuning vocals really gets you hearing pitch very accurately and start you sort of noticing things about your own voice by doing it as well. It's just like a shortcut to picking up on your like common phrases that you sing incorrectly and stuff like that, and I would imagine that's very similar to how violin has paid off for you. It's just like these intervals and stuff like that when you get it right you hear it, and when you get it wrong you go. Oh, that's not the same. It could be close, but it's just not quite the same.

Jill Zimmermann: 14:23

Yeah, the only thing is, when you're singing it sounds different than what other people hear, right oh?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 14:29

right.

Jill Zimmermann: 14:29

That's the one big difference that like vocalists have struggled with. I've even had somebody in and he told me he has to relearn how to sing because he had a vocal teacher and they told him that he's consistently pitchy and he just heard it himself right. So he had to relearn how to listen to himself, because while you're singing it's really hard to just sometimes make a pitch because it's a lot more body that's resonating. While listening back, you know, it's a little easier to see it from the far.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 15:05

Yeah, yeah, that is rather fascinating and kind of terrifying as well. Hard problem to solve.

Jill Zimmermann: 15:12

But the good thing is that if you close, it's usually fixable right and the performance is always more important. Like that's the one thing that I tell people when they get super self-conscious and a little nervous, because vocal time is always a little hard for people because, you know, people are in the room, everyone's judging them, but they can't do it better because they can't just jump in and do the same vocal sound because they have a different vocal right. Like with guitars, like another guitar player can come in and just play that part if they want it to, but it's really not that possible with vocals. So it's a very personal and intimate thing, also because it's your own voice, like it's literally in you. So a lot of people get very nervous and it's more important to get them to perform well than to be very, very conscious about the little things on pitch, because you can fix the pitch. You can't fix the performance.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 16:09

I mean you can comp.

Jill Zimmermann: 16:10

But you need good performances to come from too. Yeah, totally.

Benedikt Hain: 16:16

On that topic, like I actually got a couple of questions on this before we get back to your backstory, because there's some questions too, but like that topic is really interesting the whole vocal conversation and so some people have a hard time, like many people actually from my experience with working with especially like more inexperienced bands and also coaching people, and many people have a hard time coming up with harmonies or vocal arrangements in the first place. Like they write their vocal main melody, like their lead vocal and maybe the odd backing vocal or something. But like building a real vocal arrangement and create, coming up with harmonies, knowing what a third or a fifth is, like the theory, or even if they don't know theory, some people can just do it intuitively. But some people have a hard time coming up with anything at all and even if I try to explain it to them, if I don't show it to them, if I don't sing it to them or like create a fake harmony and then they can sort of follow along, they have a very hard time doing that themselves. Do you have any tips for people on how to learn that, how to learn how to come up with harmonies, vocal arrangements, vocal stacks?

Jill Zimmermann: 17:24

Yeah, I think the best thing you can do is, when you listen to music that's out, try to only listen for the harmonies, like when I was a teenager, at some point I knew the harmony is better than the main vocal, because I just always just sang them, I kind of like singing with the person that you're listening to, kind of thing right, because I used to be in the choir, so I was originally in soprano and then I went into alto, so I was only doing harmonies and I noticed it was kind of hard, especially the closer you get to the main vocal pitch wise, like note wise, I mean the more likely you're to jump into the melody line, which you shouldn't do. So it sometimes helps to just listen to songs you love and only listen to the harmonies and only sing the harmonies. Just sing loud, like you hear the song, sing loud, sing the harmony, sing your own harmonies. That could have maybe fit, and you know what, it's not going to work a lot of times and you're going to be just laughing about how bad it sounds. But that's how you learn, you know, just even just having a note off and being like, oh, why didn't that work? Okay, yeah, you know, you don't really need the theory as much, because a lot of time you can just do a pedal harmony where you just go in the same note. Right, like something easy. Sometimes works too. You don't have to go all crazy and just construct them. You can just what feels good, because a lot of times you don't necessarily need harmony everywhere, right, yeah yeah, that's the other thing, of course. You have to know when to stop.

Benedikt Hain: 19:03

Yeah, yeah, totally. Do you feel like it helps to be able to play at least some basics of an instrument like piano or something? Because at least that helped me with, like, I could play a lead melody, a vocal melody on the piano, and then I just went. You know the third up, or I just went, even if you don't know what that is like, you can just find the note sort of the starting point, and then you can sort of figure out the harmony just with those basic skills.

Jill Zimmermann: 19:28

Maybe that is something that people can try if they can play guitar or piano or some instrument, If they can play an instrument, but sometimes they can't, and in that case you know you can just use plugins and just you know, put it through Melodon and just put it up. It's not going to line up perfectly, because it's not going to keep it in the same key, but you know, just to get an idea on the starting note, Because sometimes all you really need is the starting note and then you just go from there, Because for me it's just always about like, where do you want to start? And then you just go your own way. A harmony doesn't have to be the same as the melody line, but up or down, you know you can play around with it.

Benedikt Hain: 20:09

So another aspect to this whole conversation is the producer role versus the engineering role, sort of, because from at least from what I've read in your credits list, it looks like you're mainly engineering but you do vocal production, like Malcolm says, and you probably have produced records as well. But do you when you're an engineer, do you ever have to like coach vocalists in that regard? Or is it really when you are the producer and doing the vocal production? Or who is the person in the studio who actually guides vocalists and helps them? You know saying the right way or you know put the right emotion into the takes or get yeah, helping them get the most out of their, out of their music and out of their takes, because I think that a lot of home recording people, a lot of DIY producers maybe not don't have the same understanding of the process that you have working in a commercial studio, where it's like a producer and engineer and then an assistant engineer and other people, and for many people, the engineer and the producer are sort of the same and in a home recording scenario, you are maybe the producer, engineer and the one singing the take, you know. So in your case, like, what's that like? Do you do that when you're an engineer? Is there a different person who does just that, or how does that work?

Jill Zimmermann: 21:26

So there's very strict roles and you have to abide by them. Now there's obviously the odd person that gives you a little bit more leeway and tells you you know, I want your input. If there is an external producer, I don't even say anything, I just do the technicalities, just setting up the mic, making sure it sounds good. Also asking if the producer is okay with the mic choice, because sometimes they have a certain idea, sometimes they don't care, they're just like whatever you want, but the coaching of the vocalist itself the external producer would take care of. If the band is self produced, which is always a funny thing, then I produce basically Because well, I mean to an extent, because generally I've never had really many bands that self produce and then actually take care of the vocalist themselves too. This is the odd time. They encourage each other to go a certain direction, but they're not the ones comping the takes, they're not the ones giving each other advice, right, so maybe they already do some harmonies because they practice them ahead of time. But in general, if there's not an extra producer whose job it is to take care of that, I step into that role as well, if the band wants that. They have been times when the band says they want to and then you know they're a little pushing back too much, where you're like, okay, do my job as an engineer and let you do your thing. But in general, yes, there is pretty strict roles. I would never step on the like. I would never get up with an idea for a vocalist if there's a producer in the room, because that's his role and, out of respect, you know, unless it's only me and him in the room, I wouldn't dare do that.

Benedikt Hain: 23:21

Yeah, that's very interesting, because I really think that a lot of people are not aware of that these days, because in many cases, especially with smaller artists, those roles don't exist anymore and it's like one at the same person, basically, or the band does one of those roles or all of them, and so it's very interesting to hear that, because there's a reason that it is that way, because the producer is sort of the I always compare it to like a movie director, the one with the creative vision and the one in charge of the whole project, basically, and then there's an engineer like you who are in charge of like making sure that you know the mic is positioned correctly, the patch is correct, the gain structure and like how that the vision of the producer actually comes out of the speakers right, and so everyone has their role, which is very important because then you can focus on those things and so I think it's a luxury and good that people can do it that way.

Jill Zimmermann: 24:13

It's not just that, though. Like what people sometimes forget. Like when I, for example, work with a band and they don't have an extra producer and they I haven't heard the vocals at all the whole day, and then the vocals go in. I usually don't come up with a harmony right away because I'm too technical, Like the technical side of the brain and the creative side of the brain are not on the same side, so sometimes it is a little hard to just like focus on okay, it's the gain structure, Okay, you know how is it sounding, and then jump into a whole nother thing which is really arrangement and composition. That's why there is different roles and you have to also be able to trust each other. Like if a producer were to take my job away and be like I need to do this, then that means I really messed up Right. Like that doesn't happen. Usually the producer, unless their hands on and start from the beginning, they the only thing that they do is they're like the only thing they tell you is every now and then like ah, yeah, I want the kick to be a little different, I want this sound to be a little different, but they don't just go in and do it right, Because they don't want to get too technical in order to have this whole broad idea. And on top of that, a lot of producers meet with a band ahead of time. So there's a little bit more trust between the singer and the producer. It's a little bit more of a stronger bond they have. So listening to somebody that you know has your best interest in her mind is a little different than somebody you might have met the day off, Right Like. There is a lot of different reasons why there is roles like this and why they also make sense.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 25:49

Yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 25:50

Yeah, absolutely. Now, when you're engineering what, how, like, how much of what you are able to capture is like the performance and the musician and the instrument and how much is like things you do in the engineering, or like, how much more can you do when what happens in front of the mic is actually great versus, you know, mediocre performance and maybe a bad instrument? And then you have to solve it, like, how, how important is all of that that happens in front of the mic?

Jill Zimmermann: 26:22

I Mean it starts before the mic to. It starts with where do you place them in the room? And then also, you usually tell people To maybe switch an instrument if the instrument isn't that great like there is Ways like that you can do. Or if the drums don't sound great, I personally go and tune them up if I have to, you know. So there's a lot you can do ahead of time to make it better or just change the strings. You know, a lot of times people come with really old strings, like I've done that too, like during the sessions, like, okay, gotta, change your strings because this is not gonna happen.

Benedikt Hain: 26:59

That's like a mantra on this podcast is fresh drinks this is like this is like a running gag here because, like I think the one thing we've mentioned on on all of our 177 episodes is like use fresh strings, you know.

Jill Zimmermann: 27:12

So very very grateful for you saying that, things like that, or even if the snare doesn't sound good, well, maybe you have to change the head, like it's sometimes easy solutions that you have to do before they even play, or when they perform and you rig realize something's not right. You have to check what it could be, and a lot of times it is something easy and fixable, right. Or it could just be that you want a different mic because of the way they play. That can happen as well. But aside from that, the performance trumps All of it, except for you can Get a Okay perform, can actually get a good performance out of a bunch of okay takes, and I've seen that a lot of times with guitar solos. When people don't write a solo and they play you 20 solos and all of them were like, yeah, I don't know about that. I can usually get something good out of it. I'm not saying great, but good to the point where people can't really hear. It was literally notes taken from different parts of wherever. So there is a certain amount you can do for sure. But I mean honestly, if it's already played, great, you don't have to do much.

Benedikt Hain: 28:30

Yeah, that's what I was hoping to hear. I wouldn't be. That's something we really, really teach people here, because that's the one thing that musicians can work on most and should work on Most. I think it takes a long time to get really good at the technical stuff. It takes a long time to become a good producer, but start with becoming a really good musician first and then try to just capture that, because, yeah, that's, that's just half the battle.

Jill Zimmermann: 28:54

Yeah, plus, the thing is, if you're really good at what you do, you have more time Focusing on other things because you don't have to redo it and redo it and redo it to get something. That's great, so it's just. It's more fun, first of all, but also you just get a better product and you can allocate the extra time that you would have used on the three other times you had to play the songs, which is another 10, 15 minutes For something completely else, like maybe you try out a different pedal and you know you go a little crazy and creative, which, if you are struggling to even play your parts, you're not gonna have much time to be creative and get. You know. Such a good point, yeah, yeah, that that happens.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 29:36

I remember when I first got Pro Tools anybody that's just started on Pro Tools or really any DAW, but I think especially Pro Tools it's like what am I even looking at on this computer? I can't figure out how to make a track or route anything like it's. It's a steep learning curve and when you think you're just gonna get a DAW installed on your computer and start recording the song right away, you're like you'll quickly start feeling like sober and doxy. It was like I can't even make noise, I can't figure out how to turn the click track off or change the tempo. And getting proficient at your DAW Is like just a mandatory skill so that you can actually have time to build a tone, to think about playing your part correctly or think about you know what, what other instruments are going to be in arrangement and production. So it's like I think for self recording bands especially, you have to think of a DAW as an instrument as well that you also have to be proficient at, which is a whole other thing, or what I tell people like if you have to record yourself.

Jill Zimmermann: 30:31

I mean the problem once again. You know, creative side, technical side, is always on the other side of the brain. Set it all up ahead of time, like get a vocal sound, you know, so you don't have to like get your gain and the compressor and everything like set in like half one that works for you. Maybe make photos so every time you go to the studio. Maybe make photos so every time you go back. You know, okay, this mic, this distance, this pre, if I set it all up this way and I give myself a little headroom, I should be fine. This way you don't have to think technical anymore. Have a good setup that is prepped so you don't have to think technical because it's hard enough to press record and then go and do your instrument. That's hard enough as it is, because then you know you go from one's free to the other but you can have everything else prepped, like there's nothing wrong with that. Like I had somebody come in and all of his demos that the vocals were just Overloaded and he's like, yeah, I don't know, like I can't really record myself singing, but I always have the best takes when I don't really think about the technical side. Yeah, because then you actually perform, so set it up ahead of time, make screenshots, like take your photo, make photos of everything and then just have it set up. You don't have to like actually go in and touch everything the moment you're singing, like just have a set it and forget it.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 31:56

You know, yeah, that's, that's a great tip. I worked with a band that did self-produce their own vocals, but they actually did like it wasn't me Then producing their vocals I actually wasn't even there, but they, we kind of set them up with a vocal booth in their space and then they sent me test recordings and I give them a thumbs up, which is actually similar to something I want to talk to you about, because I know you had Kind of similar experience. But but then once I gave them the thumbs up, they just all they had to do is vocals. So it was just always set up. They didn't have to to, you know, rebuild the booth every time, refind that gain structure. It was just like that's the only thing. That recording setup was going to be used until that record was done and it worked like a charm.

Jill Zimmermann: 32:38

Exactly. It's better than they constantly having switching back and forth between all these different things. So you have to. You know, especially people that record themselves don't have the amount of pre-s that it almost that you would have, so they have to reuse it. So instead of constantly, you know, trying, and then every song is gonna be different too if you do that. So Make sure it's all the same, yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 33:05

Yeah, yeah, totally All right. So now, finally, back to your backstory, because I already said at the beginning. So Funny enough, I heard again on another podcast that I've been listening to that you were on that Hans Martin Buf was actually one of your professors or mentors or something in Germany, which is funny because he's gonna be the next guest on this podcast after in the series yeah and and yeah, give us the the backstory there. There's one again. I want to give you one, one quote that I found really, really interesting and I'm gonna let you tell the story, and that quote that's that stood out to me was Once I'm there, I'm just gonna make myself indispensable. That was something that I heard you say about you going to Canada, to the studio you're working at right now. So how did you end up there?

Jill Zimmermann: 33:51

So I was first at the SAE in Cologne, which is where I met Hans Martin Buf. He was one of my professors for a week, and After that I felt like I wasn't ready to work yet. I felt like there's a lot of things I have to learn, which now, like looking back, there's still a lot of things I want to learn but I mean, that's the life of a producer, I guess. So I went to the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf and In the program there was one Practical practical semester. So I thought, well, yeah, I could just work. But I already had four part-time jobs aside from university. So I thought it's kind of, you know, it makes no sense for me to just do a year and just work. So I applied to a bunch of places in the US and that would have been a few places I could have gone to, but it would have been strictly just an internship for six months. And then Jucasa was actually the only studio in Canada I Happen to reach out to. I don't even remember how it came about. My Google search, but it came up. So, you know, I applied and they were the first ones coming back and saying we actually need an assistant engineer and not an intern. But we would need that in six months all the time. It would be perfect.

Benedikt Hain: 35:08

And just so people know, an assistant engineer is actually better than an intern, because that means you got a Real job and you actually get to do things.

Jill Zimmermann: 35:15

Yeah, like an intern is basically In an ideal world an intern just does coffee, cleans up, is not even in the room, like you don't see an intern really in sessions and an assistant engineer is the person that sets everything up for the engineer. They have a little bit more say, but not really, because in the end they are subordinate to the engineer. But they can't help the mode if the client is not in the room or you know, they can record little things here and there, but an assistant engineer still pretty just you in the room. At least you know it's a big step forward, yeah. So I said, well, perfect timing, I have six months, I'm eager, I'm gonna learn it. And then I basically sold myself to saying, look, if I move to Canada, I don't know anybody, so I don't have any social obligations. There's not like a birthday party. I have to go to a whatnot, I'll be working all the time. I have four jobs while being in university, I can handle the workload and I basically, you know, set all these things. And they said, well, we can try it out. So it was a six month internship before it turned into an assistant engineer, but mainly to see if it works out, because you know it's, it's quite the. They can't just like take anybody for a full-time position. That's a little much. And yeah, as soon as I was there, I just knew, you know, it's just easy, like, if you think about it, if you're valuable, people won't get rid of you, right? Yeah, so that's basically what I always thought. That was like well, if I make myself indispensable, then I'll definitely stay. So I, you know, helped reorganize the patch bay and I organized all the outboard gear and of course I did all the other things like cleaning and whatnot and editing, which that was already more than an intern usually does. But I did so much, so consistent, that I, even at the end of my internship, I was just the one patching everything in, so the engineer didn't even really look at the patch bar anymore. And it came to the point where it's like, yeah, I mean, why wouldn't we keep you on? Because it would be way harder to train somebody new. And we know that you know all the space because you rearranged it all and, Like, you just have the understanding. Plus, I was always available to work. That wasn't a time I said no, you know yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.

Benedikt Hain: 37:52

Like I mean, I don't know how many people would would just jump on a plane, go to Canada to see if it works, you know, and then try, try it out and do the internship and then have the confidence to know, just, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the assistant engineer there, whatever it takes. So that's really really impressive. Also, I don't think a lot of people like when you do, when you go to, it doesn't matter if it's like SAE or any other, like audio school. I don't think many of the students there actually end up getting a job right away. So I think a lot of them don't, and so chances of success are pretty limited, I mean, unless you are really willing to put in the work and make yourself indispensable, like you did. And so I think this is really really remarkable that you've. You've done it that way. Interesting and out of curiosity, what did you like? What was the class called that you studied at the University in, in this little dove?

Jill Zimmermann: 38:42

Median technique, but I focus on audio.

Benedikt Hain: 38:44

So yeah, that's, that's funny, because I studied media and technique to and I thought that that would be it, but I didn't finish it. I dropped out after three semesters because I already had my studio and I was. It was like either Study hard for basically the electrical engineering part, because that was really advanced from for me, like the math involved and all that, or Like focus on the studio. That was already working and I chose the studio and and so I dropped out and yeah, that was years ago and I haven't regretted it. But Could I ask you for finishing it because it was hard, the audio part was easy, but the math and the math and physics, and electrical, electrical engineering, that's that's what I found easy, because I wanted to study math and physics anyways. Oh.

Jill Zimmermann: 39:32

But it really helped me in the long term because I wanted to actually Quit being at the University, because as soon as I knew I'm moving to Canada, I Mean after the practical semester was still one more semester and I had to. So it was a little bit more work, cuz I was three semesters to go and I went to one of my professors and I was like yeah, so can I just finish in like one semester instead, and he was like no, not gonna happen. So I went to my acoustic professor and he remembered me because he said I was one of the few people that even finished his physics.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 40:07

And.

Jill Zimmermann: 40:07

I also had an a, so he was like, yeah, I'll do the bureaucracy for you, like I do all the paperwork but you have to put in the work, because I Basically, with one semester to go, I didn't have any buffer to fail any tests and I had to do three semesters in one. Well, the practical semester. I just had to work more over time afterwards and then I had to write my bachelor thesis in the fifth semester.

Benedikt Hain: 40:33

So yeah, for part-time jobs. Yeah, three semesters and one, you know all of that. And then yeah, it's just.

Jill Zimmermann: 40:43

I handed in my best thesis and did my oral the same week that I moved to my parents, and I think I packed the suitcase the night before.

Benedikt Hain: 40:55

You really, really wanted this right, so yeah, I mean this just no like for me.

Jill Zimmermann: 41:01

I'm a big overthinker, so if I don't have time to overthink things, it's better for me, right, like I wasn't even afraid because it was just so. I was so stressed out, but like positive stress, so it's not that bad, but I was so Busy that it didn't really get to think. Like I've never even been to Canada before, you know, like some people would be Afraid of that, but for me, just not having time to think about that, it was just better that way.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 41:28

You know that's quite fascinating. actually I've got a out of curiosity question as well because most people getting into this field end up wanting to be producers and I think like that's where I First gravitated to and did for a long time producing and engineering, often that kind of combo that you commonly see now. And then I think it was the same for Benny and at this point Benny and I are both primarily mixing, but I wonder if that's the same for you. It was that producing music that first interest you, or were you instantly captivated by engineering?

Jill Zimmermann: 42:03

I Wasn't thinking in roles back then, like I remember, when I decided that's it, that's it's gonna be, I just knew I wanted to be in the room and make music. I'm not gonna be the one that plays the instrument, but I want to be a big part of the music. So that was my main, I would say, goal. So it's still very fluid, like I'm not just, I don't think I will just engineer, but I think engineering is a very good background to have because it helps you get sounds and Get things going quicker, because a lot of things are like for me if you work with bigger clients and artists, they do not want to wait, they don't have the patience, like if they are inspired. You sometimes just have to press record, even though things are not fully set up, like you know, like all the little nice things that you usually would do is like no, we just got to run right now, because that person feels that they have an idea, you just got to go. So I feel like engineering is very substantial for that. It's like a good bridge, but I mean it can go either way. It's not like I chose this. I just, you know, happened to work at a studio where you generally engineer more.

Benedikt Hain: 43:17

Do you think for up-and-coming engineers, producers or musicians turning into producers or whatever, do you think it's a good idea to Go broad or to niche down or maybe do one and then the other? Because for, like Malcolm said, for us it was or for me it was I was a musician and I just happened to become like sort of this producer, engineer type of Role, just because, yeah, it's happened organically in a way, and I just happened to have my studio at some point and I did everything, and then I niche down and now I'm exclusively mixing, for example, and not only that, I exclusively mix and I only do certain genres. So I have a really like narrow niche that I work in and but I know a lot of people, obviously, who are Really broad in in terms of like services they offer, things they do and also the genres they work in. So what's your personal opinion on that as someone who's done it all? Basically because you've done radio and live sound television, engineering, vocal production and all of that and you've done it successfully. So I just want to hear your thoughts on on like niching down versus going broad.

Jill Zimmermann: 44:18

I would say in the beginning you should always be broad because there might be a different Hard that you like a lot more, but you didn't know before because you've never done it or you maybe didn't meet enough people that did that type of job. And I feel like it's very important to be broad because, like in the beginning at the very least, because this helps with communication, expectation and planning. Like if you're a producer but you have no idea about engineering, you have no clue how long things take to set up. You don't know how to talk to the engineer, so when you refer to certain things, you use the wrong words, which can be very like. There's a lot of words that people just Misuse. Right, like when somebody says put the bass up, I'm talking about his guitar.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 45:07

Yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 45:10

Yeah, if you mean the kick drum, it's fine, but some people say bass drum and then they say bass well, I'm sorry, there's two bases. Then, like this is a lot of those things where people just don't really know how to communicate properly and it just Creates a lot of frustration, I would say, because then whatever you wanted to, which would be a quick, easy fix, is now a conversation that you didn't want to have, right, or you didn't notice what they put on. You're like why is the bike? Like, why is the guitar so loud? Like, well, do you told me to put the bass up? No, the bass drum. Like you know what I mean. Like things like that can happen where, like, it could have been an easy fix if you just use the right words. So things like that are easier when you've done it yourself, even just to an extent, because you are in the position where those things happen to you and then you know, okay, that's why there's different. You know ways to refer to things and Especially like, like the most producers that I worked with that are pretty big, they have engineered before, like a lot of times, they just choose not to because, like I said, they want to stay in the creative realm. Plus, it's just hard to you know focus on everything, like focusing on your levels coming in and why maybe one of the mics cut out, while you're also focusing on the performance, is not easy. So a lot of bigger producers they don't engineer, but they have engineered before they know it. So they know how to just put a EQ on a console or just like step in and just like get a good vocal sound on Pro Tools and just put a few plugins in, like they know it. Usually I've rarely met an engineer that's just a producer that has never engineered like it's very rare. So when people come from the musician side, they have to learn the engineering, otherwise they will not go far.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 47:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, good answer On the flip side, I think being able to if you're just going into it as an engineer, and I wonder if this? Well, I mean, you played violin, Jill, but you didn't really work in rock bands as a violinist, so did you have to learn how to communicate with different musicians, Like, because that's the whole thing too. If you want to communicate to a drummer, what you need it's kind of a whole other language, isn't it?

Jill Zimmermann: 47:31

Oh yeah, if you tell a drummer how to play differently, you have to kind of know how drums work too. So that's something I had to learn along the way, because in the beginning I can't beatbox you the beat. But if I want you to play a little different, you know, I have to be able to just like tell you what I want. If I can't play it, hit harder, or yeah, or that works actually sometimes because people, if you don't hit the drums hard, they don't sound the same at all Thank you.

Benedikt Hain: 48:01

For rock.

Jill Zimmermann: 48:03

No, we use the same drum kit for a lot of indie bands and you can tell when you have a bad drum sound day, it's because the drummer doesn't hit the drums. You're like, why do I have to put the gain wop then? Usually, like I usually use this, my combination, oh yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 48:19

Yeah, yeah, it sounds amazing Nine days, and then on the 10th day it sounds totally different.

Jill Zimmermann: 48:23

It's like well the drummer changed.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 48:25

Okay, that's what's up, I know.

Jill Zimmermann: 48:27

That's usually the case. But I mean, for rock you have to hit hard, like the harder the better. I mean, yeah, it sounds so good when you have people that just slay. I mean I've even had. I had one drummer kill two of our SM57s, just decapitated them.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 48:46

Yeah, okay, I heard this. I heard that that is like the most mind blowing thing ever, because I've never seen that they don't break they don't break.

Jill Zimmermann: 48:56

I actually kept them because I was like, well, history is well made, but also it sounds good, right. So no, but it's good to start broad, right, but you should niche off at some point because it's hard for people to understand who you are. Right, like, if you do everything forever, it's going to be hard, like I master, but it's not something I generally advertise as a fun. You know, yeah, yeah, please, I would love to, but I'm not really specializing in that as much. So it's, it's. It would be weird if I do everything because you can't do everything perfect.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 49:42

Right, that brings up a thought, because niching down does come with some benefits in that you start really diving into, like advanced techniques inside of that genre. Perhaps, like, for example, you did, you've worked with protest the hero, which is some blazingly fast music. Right, it's busy, fast and I love it, but that's not easy stuff to record usually. Usually, the faster and more notes that are squeezed in on every instrument, the harder it is to make it sound good. So I'd be really curious to hear how you've learned how to engineer music that technical and if you enjoy working at with music that technical and dense it's kind of anything on that topic. It's totally fascinating to me.

Jill Zimmermann: 50:31

Yeah, I mean I love it For the engineering, like the guitars were done first. There was yeah, there was pre-programmed drums and they tracked to that. And there's the producer for the record I worked on for protest the hero. He was also doing pro tools at the same time. But how it worked with protest the hero was it was done in little chunks, one, two bars at a time, because it is so fast and they write the music instead of jamming it. So it's it's incredible music, but it is so complex. So when they were playing it they were basically also practicing for life at the same time because they have to actually play it all in one through. But for the studio it's mainly one, two bars and they have it also pre-programmed so they listen to it, so they know where in the song they are, because it is kind of easy to get you know, forget where you are when you do it in smaller chunks. But to do it accurately and very tight to the click too, it was better to just split it up in like a lot of little pieces and the drums were done afterwards. I know there was a discussion if they even needed real drums, but I'm glad the drummer at the time, mike, was like no, I want to play this. So for me I was. I was just editing the whole time in the background because once it was all set up and it was like recording and it was more a matter of just getting the takes, I was just editing everything and he was doing such a great job. He was actually done before time.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 52:16

Oh, awesome Wow.

Jill Zimmermann: 52:18

Because he really wanted to be on the record, I mean of course, if you're part of the band and then you hear, maybe you get somebody programmed. It was really great programmed drums. I'm not going to lie Like it sounded pretty, pretty accurate, especially since in that genre a lot of people use triggers. It was kind of harder to tell it wasn't a real person, but after Mike played and it was edited it sounded so much better. Cool, it was worth it, yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 52:46

I love for harder guitar music, you know. But where does that come from? Because you've worked with a lot of like not that complex and technical necessarily but, like the harder stuff punk rock, grunge, some metal. You know all that. Where does that come from? Is that something you love actually? Is it something you just do for work? Yeah, no.

Jill Zimmermann: 53:05

I always loved punk and you know heart music in general over anything and I was a teenager that was my music and I was actually very I put myself in a corner and said I only like that music until I was in New Jersey and a friend of mine. Yeah. But a friend of mine said, no, jill, there's more music out there, because he listened to hip hop and R&B. And then I remember during lunch he always put two pack on my ears. He's like you got to listen to this. And after a few weeks I was like you know what this more good music than just hard guitar. You know rock. It's just different. And that's when I started to actually just open up and just listen to music for what it is, cause that's also one of the reasons why I don't niche genre wise, like it's easy to do that. But for me music is music and if it grips me I love it. But if it doesn't grip me I have to figure out what's wrong, like sometimes it's just a tempo or you know the key it's in. But yeah, it's just. For me music is just a great. Music can reach anybody really yeah, totally yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 54:18

For me the niching down is not really something that is intentionally in terms of genre, it just happened because only those bands tend to come to me. For some reason. I would love to work on some other stuff too. It's not that narrow. I mean, I do guitar music in general, but like if it's something I love, even if it was something completely different, if it's something that that it's interesting to me, I would do it, but it just happens that a certain type of bands tends to come to me for mixing and so. but I totally agree and I personally listen to a lot of other stuff. Actually, most of the time I don't listen to. The music that I work on in the studio is as weird as that sounds, I mean, I still do that. But I listen to a lot of other music intentionally, because that can sometimes help me do unconventional things or approach the mixes a little differently or like, use influences from other genres and try to combine those things. I don't know what it is, but it just keeps. It feels like it keeps me fresh a little bit, compared to just listening to one thing.

Jill Zimmermann: 55:14

Yeah, definitely.

Benedikt Hain: 55:16

Yeah, interesting, okay, but so you love that and that's because you grew up with that music as a teenager. That was just something.

Jill Zimmermann: 55:24

Yeah, that's the music that got me into music.

Benedikt Hain: 55:27

So I heard this funny story not that funny, but kind of funny because it didn't go that bad, luckily. I heard the story where you crashed your bike because you were listening to music. You were so distracted by whatever was on your headphones that you closed your eyes and then had an accident, which is not funny, but you know Well, that's the moment I decided it has to be music because before I wanted to study math and physics.

Jill Zimmermann: 55:52

So then when that happened, I just decided you know what, like it seems to grip me so hard. I need to do something with that daily for the rest of my life. And that's when I went to you know the job center when I was in high school and asked what kind of jobs that are technical about music? I don't want to be on stage. And they were immediately like, yeah, audio engineer, you can be an audio engineer. But I had no clue what that is. That was a learning curve for sure. Yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 56:24

So it's such a cool, such a cool story, but it seems like you decided to do that and then it's all that you wanted and you followed through and now you're where you are Really really cool.

Jill Zimmermann: 56:33

Yeah, a lot of people say you need that holy shit moment where you like realize that's why I do music, like that's why I'm in it. You know, a lot of people have some kind of moment or period of time which define why they wanted to go into this. Because I mean, statistically it's the worst thing to go to university for Right, like most people don't really get a job.

Benedikt Hain: 56:56

So you know I was about to ask you this because I mean it worked out for you, but is it something you would in general recommend to people? But this is like a polarizing thing. There's many engineers and producers who say, like, don't go to all your school, don't waste your money, don't waste your time, just get an internship or start your own thing, work your way up with bands that you like or not, your friends bands, your own band. And then there's the others who say, no, go to school, learn the basics, learn how it actually works and the theory and all, and then go from there. Like what is your opinion on that?

Jill Zimmermann: 57:30

For me, mainly also as an engineer speaking you should go to school, because there is times I see other people make something and they don't know what phase is. You know, or they don't really understand, that if you just double a guitar on a separate track, that that's not doubling. Like they don't understand the physics behind it, right, Like they don't understand that. Well, you just make it louder, like you?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 57:55

who.

Jill Zimmermann: 57:57

So for me it's just a lot of basics that should be covered. However, you have to like, look this, like especially in North America, there's a lot of schools that are only one year to teach you just the basics you really need, rather than but then they don't have like a bachelor degrees or whatnot. Right, like you have to see, like you don't necessarily need a high degree, but you should have learned the very basics, even acoustics, to see why certain things sound better a certain way. Because there have been times when I'm working with people and it's just you realize, oh, they don't really hear that, or they don't really know what to listen for, or they don't understand signal flow. You know some things that if we had an intern, we wouldn't take one without a schooling, because then you have to teach a lot more, right, like it's just a lot more work, and for me I wouldn't want to have an intern to teach them full time, like that's a lot more commitment than I have time for and it wouldn't be fair to them either. So that's why I recommend schooling if you really want to. But yeah, I understand that. I mean also schooling can be great another way. For example, when I studied media and technique. A lot of my friends that went to the same program I did and maybe wanted to also end up with music. They changed their course for the better. They found what they actually wanted to do. You know, like, because media and technique is so super broad, I wasn't even once in the studio media in the University of Applied Sciences because it was impossible to get into the studio, which was a little ridiculous. But I mean, aside from that, they teach you so much other audio stuff where you can pivot to. You can just literally just realize, oh my God, I like movies way better. Or I like the whole measurement of things. Like I want to do you know something like that. Or programming, I want to program audio stuff. Like there's so many other program applications, so many other audio applications that you can follow that you didn't even know existed. So it can be good to go to school for that. You know to just see what else is available, and there's also more jobs outside of the studio music side, to be honest.

Benedikt Hain: 1:00:20

Yeah, I agree I enjoyed my time at the University. Actually it was a short time but I enjoyed it and it was a lot of. I didn't I wasn't really interested in all the other parts of like media and technique, but it was still interesting. I met cool people there and also collaborations to this day still exist, because some went into video, some went into other creative fields and then we happened to do cool projects together later where we went, you know specializes in certain things. So just for that, the network and like the experience it was, I have to say it was great. It was not the typical audio school like you, but it was a university in that. But that was really really, really cool and I happened to even it's funny too I didn't finish it, but I'm giving lectures at that same university now today. I don't think I'm even allowed to do that technically. But they say oh, whatever, you were good at the audio stuff, just teach them Way to go yeah. I do it for. The funniest thing is I do it for the master students and I've never even been where they are Like. I've never been in their position because I dropped out before that, but I do it's just mixing, lessons. So yeah, nice.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:01:25

Well, don't tell them to like stop yeah exactly those were my thoughts.

Benedikt Hain: 1:01:29

That was actually my only question that I have. Like, if they asked me what to do, should I tell them to like quit because it worked for me and I would like no, I didn't want to do that no, yeah, interesting, that's really interesting.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:01:43

Well, plus the university is free in Germany.

Benedikt Hain: 1:01:45

Yeah, that's a big plus.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:01:46

It's not like they have to pay as much we're in North America. Things are very expensive to go to school for yeah At least you know. It's not like you're wasting money. You're actually networking and if you don't like it you just stop. I mean, you didn't really lose anything.

Benedikt Hain: 1:02:01

Yeah, that's the luxury we have really here, and I'm very, very grateful for that, because otherwise that would have been a very expensive experiment.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:02:08

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Benedikt Hain: 1:02:11

Now. You're obviously in the studio right now and we see this beautiful console behind you, which I think is an SSL right. Yeah, it is, and obviously good gear makes a difference. I have some good gear here as well, but on the other hand, I also believe that it's not a necessity, at least not for all situations. It always depends. But I want to ask you is there a hope for people with cheap gear Is like, do you need to have all the things you have at the studio, for example, and as nice as it is, but is it like how do you view this? Because I heard you say good gear makes things so much more effortless, and I agree. But also, is there a hope for home studio people who don't have access to something like that?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:02:51

Yeah. So for me, good gear makes a big difference. Like I noticed that whenever we have a new piece of gear which is really, you know, something I wanted for a while, and then I try it out and all of a sudden, oh my God, I have to do so much less ekewing because I use this compressor now. Like it really helps a lot, because then you can just focus on other things. However, one mistake a lot of home studios do, in my opinion, is they just buy too much cheap gear. If you, instead of having six units that are all cheap, put that money together, you could have bought something that's nice. It doesn't have to be like one of the top ones, but it can be something that's respectable and a studio would use. Like there's a lot of gear I wouldn't even want to use in the studio because I know it's just not even built well. We have a tech too, and sometimes it comes with horror stories of like some of that cheap gear and he's like, oh my God, you won't believe what they put in those things. And it's fine. I understand that money is obviously the deciding factor, right? Because if somebody won the lottery, they would probably not opt for the cheap gear. So I do understand that. But I see a lot of home studios with like racks full of just stuff that I wouldn't necessarily use myself. But if they just, instead of buying all these, just bought one, good, you know, and it doesn't, like I said, it can be something that can be several things in one, like a six, one, 76, they're not super expensive. It is a pre and a comp right. Like you, you can do a lot with that. It's a very versatile thing. Well, yeah, if you only buy a preamp, it's maybe a little less than you need, because you might need an EQ or you need a compressor, or go with the lunchboxes, because you can, you know, slowly add up and they don't have a big footprint either. I mean, it doesn't look as luxurious maybe, you know, in all those photo ops people do, but there's a lot of really good sounding gear that you can plug into those. So, instead of focusing on a lot of gear, focus on little good gear, and it doesn't have to be super expensive. Like I said, like six, one, 76, it's like three grand.

Benedikt Hain: 1:05:04

Yeah, one good chain, one good chain, one good front end, and then and then and then even like, and then mixing in the box will work so much, will also work so much better if it, if you have that good front end to begin with. I mean, I'm still, I still think that a lot of people have proven that it's possible to make records with even less than that, if they really know what they're doing and if the performers are great and the instruments are great and all of that. So I really think it shouldn't people shouldn't be discouraged or shouldn't think they can't start if they don't have something like that. But if they want going to spend money, I agree that rather buy a few nice things than like racks full of like mediocre or cheap things.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:05:41

Yeah, and another thing too, like if you are just getting into all of this because of a certain record you're doing, maybe rent gear you can go to well. In Canada you can go to Long McQuaid rent something for really not that much, but for that amount of the record which is like maybe a week or two, you have good gear that you didn't have to spend so much on. You just need like to have a buffer day before you actually start recording to understand how to use it right, or you can practice ahead of time in store or whatnot. Like there's so many things you can do. Yeah, sure you don't have to buy the biggest gear, but like it does make a big difference. Like certain things are hard to get unless you put a lot of plugins on and even then you just don't get the feel of the real gear. I don't know, it's really hard to say, but it's also a workflow thing, probably for you when you're probably engineering, at least to me.

Benedikt Hain: 1:06:38

It's like when I'm mixing I like the in the box workflow. I sometimes re-amp things. It's not re-amping, but I sometimes run things through analog gear printed so that I can then stay in the box and don't have to recall things when I mix. But for mixing I like this. But for engineering I got my gear still from the time that I was still engineering because I liked the workflow of it. I just felt like I could have gotten similar results otherwise, but I recorded different things differently and I did different things when I was just able to grab the EQ and do it or like I don't know. It's not so much not only the gear itself, but it's the way I use it. Basically, if that makes sense, yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:07:15

And you have more headroom in a different way, like sometimes, for example, with a Neve pre, I like to drive it a bit and then, you know, have less output afterwards because we have a sidecar. So like you just drive it a bit and it sounds just full or more saturated. You can't get that with shitty gear and you can't get that with plugins, because that's like full on, just driving it a little bit more. That's just you know. Obviously you can't use that everywhere. It depends on what genre you're working and it depends on what you're going for. If you use a lot of effect plugins, afterwards, anyways, yeah, it hides the gear. Let's be honest, if you use just a bunch of, you know, or if you have a guitar sound with a bunch of pedals on that completely sound, that changes the sound of the guitar, like yeah, you don't hear the gear as much, right, while if you have an acoustic guitar or a piano like a real piano, or you have a vocal, that's when you actually hear the gear more you know, and obviously, if you just play a keyboard like I mean, yeah, I would put it just straight through some DI, like it doesn't have to be Right. Sure, it's nicer if you have like a fancy DI, but yeah, we can save there.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:08:30

Yeah, that's good to prioritize what gear you're investing in for sure.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:08:33

Yes, and like for guitars too. Let's be honest, you just with a 57 you get pretty far, yeah, so you don't have like for guitars, you don't really need to have you know the fanciest mics like, yeah, use 67, some people use that sounds great, but the difference is so marginal to the price difference that exists. Right, I talk to some people and like in the end almost everybody still uses a 57. Yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:09:02

Yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:09:02

Don't waste your money on fancy guitar mics, if that's one issue right.

Benedikt Hain: 1:09:08

Totally so, Joel. As I said, I want to respect your time and we've got some listener questions too, Of course Do we have time for those. Yeah, no. Yeah, of course, oh, perfect. So before the final thing, before we get there is just two records or like a handful of like records, but it's basically one question that I want to ask you about. Yeah, some of the stuff you've worked on, and that is there was a record you did with Howard Benson, like as a he was the producer and I think it was the Three Days Grace record, where you recorded and I think it was sort of a pandemic record where you recorded outside of the studio and you built like a vocal recording studio somewhere else. And I find it funny not funny, interesting and relevant for our audience because you had to do it without the producer in the room, right, and you, like Howard Benson, had to approve like the recording quality before you moved on, basically, and can you talk about that whole process a little bit, because that is something that is relevant and interesting for our audience, I think.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:10:10

Yeah. So what happened is a pandemic hit. And for those who don't know, between the border of the US and Canada the borders were closed so you couldn't just come over. And he lives in LA. Half of the band well, three quarters of the band was in Canada. The guitar player, barry he still lives in the US so he was able to record in LA, but for the rest of the band we had to do it in Canada. And an extra particular situation too is that Matt the singer, he was expecting a baby, so it wasn't like he wanted to drive three hours to a studio and just stay there for a week, because it could have come any time. So what we did is we went up to Neil Sanderson, the drummer's vacation home up north and built a vocal booth and a walk-in closet. We did that a few weekends ahead of time so we could try and test it out and see if something else is needed, in case you needed to buy more. You know, just baffles or something. So obviously the downside was there was no AC, so it got really hot. We needed a few breaks for Matt, but it was because it was a walk-in closet. It was relatively spacious and it had a high ceiling so we were able to just really get the sound going and we went through the wall with the cable so you could close the doors and brought a bunch of gear up there too. So it wasn't like we just recorded to an Apollo, but we recorded to through is U67, a Neef Preamp 1176 BlueStripe and then to the laptop. And there was this amazing. I don't know if it was before the pandemic when they started having this plugin, but it was called Listen2.

Benedikt Hain: 1:12:01

And we use it all the time.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:12:03

So it really helps. I mean before that, like when we did the first test before we actually recorded, we had Matt just sing a few things and send it to Howard and he approved it. There wasn't even any issues. But we also made sure it's first up to our standard before he even heard anything of course. And then once he knew, okay, what we're getting quality-wise like just quality-wise is great. He was able to just listen to, or listen to and just focus on the performance itself. And we had him going through out to the singer so Matt could hear him too. For him it was because the booth was I mean, there was a light, but there wasn't a window or something that he would have looked out of. For him it's basically just as if Howard was in the other room. He heard him in his headphones, he talked back, the communication was established. So that was the main thing really, because in the end, they have worked together before. So, like I said, there's this trust. They know what to get from each other and Howard also really knows the limitations of Matt. Like sorry, not limitations, that sounds bad.

Benedikt Hain: 1:13:15

No, I know what you mean.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:13:16

He knows when his voice is prime right and he knew when to stop for the day because he's like you're getting too gravelly, like I want you to do it tomorrow, like not limitation. But he knew like the sweet spot of his voice. So it really helped having the communication that well established. And it also happened that this home had I think it had fiber internet, so we weren't having issues that way. So that really helped. Yeah, and then just recording the vocal booth, but that was only the vocals. Anything else was done in the studio.

Benedikt Hain: 1:13:50

Yeah, and what's also interesting to me was that I mean it makes sense, but, like I think it's also something that a lot of people might not be aware of, is that Howard Benson comped, and that's pretty common that the producer like comps and chooses the takes before you send it to the editor. Because a lot of people think and I've experienced that as well when people sent me stuff to edit and mix and I have my assistant and my partner at the studio here just the editing for me Sometimes people send me stuff and then I realize, oh, they don't want me to just edit this or us to edit this, they want us to choose the takes. And then I'm like, well, exactly. And then I'm like you are self producing or maybe you have a producer, but whoever is the producer here has to make a decision and then send it to us and then we edit it, because otherwise, like I can turn this into whatever I want, but it's probably not going to be your record or your vision. So I found that really interesting and important for people to hear that the producer makes that decision before an editor.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:14:48

Yes, 100% Because the producer is the one sculpting it, like he has all the raw material and he chooses what vocal inflection goes where it's very important. So for him to. I just remember we also had Zoom set up so he could see my proto session the whole time on top of the listen too, so he was also aware what goes where that I didn't delete takes. He told me ahead of time very well, very detailed, how he likes the setup, because everybody works differently and I basically just follow his instructions and do exactly how he wanted it, because this way when I send him the proto sessions he already knew what's coming and where it was. Because sometimes it helps for the producer to like see which take he preferred on which one, not because he makes note on his end. So it wasn't like he was blind and then got like to listen for the first time again. Right, like he basically saw exactly what I saw. So it's kind of like he was over my shoulder.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:15:46

Yeah, that's a really, really good use of technology, for sure. I would love to segue this into how much communication you have with the producer and or bands leading up to a session to establish anything you need to know to be able to do the job. Like, do you and whoever the producer is going to be, say Howard Benson, have an advanced chat describing the vision for the album down to how it's going to sound, or anything like that?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:16:16

So generally it's the producer you talk to, not the band per se, unless the band reaches out or you've worked with them before. Obviously that's a very different story, but it's the producer and they let you know if they have certain choices they want to have, like certain mic choices for certain instruments. They let you know what instruments are happening. They generally let you know and about schedule, about like you know, we're doing this on that day, that on this day. So you're a little prepared and they just want to know the lay of the land, like what is the? You know, what is your expectation on this whole record. But they don't really tell you like the full vision, because that's really if you are a strict engineer, that's none of your business. Like you just need to know if they say I want it to sound like that, that's okay. Like you don't need to know if there's anything else, because that's happening the day off when they're in the room. They'll basically let you know little things. But I mean, it happens very often too where producers say you know what it's four-piece rock bands. They sound about like this here's maybe a clip of something they've done. Just set up what you would set up. Like a lot of them, give you a lot of just free reign, but everyone's different so it's kind of hard to predict All right, all right, cool, all right.

Benedikt Hain: 1:17:44

So final question and then a couple of listening questions. That should be quick to answer. The final question for me would just be again, I find it very impressive, like the records you worked on and also how, even if they are, we said that there are a lot of like heavier or like guitar records, but they're still so different in terms of aesthetics and vibe and everything. And I've picked like three that stood out to me just because I found it really interesting. I wanted to ask this question. There was the Alice Cooper record, the Detroit stories, then the three days, grace explosions and July talk, push and pull, and if I take those three records, we have this very like old school kind of raw sounding Alice Cooper record which is almost which sounds quite sort of imperfect compared to like modern records in a good way or in a certain way, you know, there's like loud, loud hi-hats up the middle, like loud, kind of harsh symbols. Everything is sort of you know the way it used to be like years ago, but you know like it's what it's supposed to be for that genre. Then there's like three days grace, with pretty quiet, very smooth symbols but loud, punchy shells and like a modern Polish production more or less. And then July talk completely different again, completely different aesthetic. And my question is there's obviously production and the choices the producers make and the artists, but like, how do you adapt to this and how do you know which approaches, techniques, microphones and so on to use to get that sort of vibe and the static? And like, how do you approach completely different sessions like that? I know it's a broad question, but I've just found it fascinating because it's such a wide range of vibes, but all of them work so well for the artist.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:19:23

You have to understand, as an engineer you have to bring the producer's vision to life, and it's not necessarily the band's vision, but it's the producer's vision, because he's the one wrangling all of the bands together to get them onto the same path. And the reason why those albums sound different is, well, the Alice Cooper Detroit stories. It's kind of like Detroit, a little gritty, a little, you know, not dirty, but, like you know, it has like a certain vibe. While three days, grace is, is very, just clean. But arena rock, just, you know, just mainstream rock, it's just, you're good, that's what rock is really. And then July talk is a little bit more in the alternative, and we also recorded that one to tape. So that also would change the sound and it also changed a lot of, I would say, the performances, because performing to tape was a very different experience too. Right, well, it's a little bit less edited too, because they wanted to keep the feel. So, editing wise, they're all very different. Recording wise, they're all different. It's just, um, you have to adapt to the producer and you have to understand that you learn from the producer, like a lot of times you learn from the producer, because they have certain visions they can help you with Mike, mike placing too. Sometimes they tell you, well, let's just change that up a little, I want it a little bit more mellow, okay, well, what does that mean? Then you figure it out and then you just change things up. Or what July talk, the producer straight up told me I want calls 40, 38 on the overheads, nothing else, like I mean there was other drum mics, but like for the over as a cell.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:21:09

There was no option for other like you know substitutes.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:21:13

Yeah so that was his choice and he said that's always what I use on overheads and I want that for this record. So there is not even me like considering asking for a change, Just like, okay, let's try it out. You know, so things like that happen where somebody has either very direct requests and then you roll with it and see how it sounds, or you just change while you're recording. I mean, you can't always have the same start, like you have a certain starting point you go from, but it does change the direction you're going with, you know.

Benedikt Hain: 1:21:51

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, it's. I mean, it's fascinating that you were able to pull that all off and work with that those different kinds of producers and bands and always adapt to the situation. It's not easy and yeah, so thank you for answering that You're welcome so and people. Please check out the discography so you know what we're talking about. Really fascinating if you think about it that way and you go through those records and you realize how different everything sounds and how you really hear the artist and also produces vision and, yeah, and your job is to make all of that work and not like have your own sort of sonic footprint that's on everything you do. That wouldn't make sense in that case, right? So very, very cool.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:22:35

Well, you take your ego out, right, like it's not about me at all really, I'm just like the medium, like I'm trying to facilitate whatever you want. It's yeah. So it's not about me, really never. So, for engineering, like, and it's just exciting because you get to just change it up all the time and the drama changes too, like, once again, you know, like if, if you know Neil Sanders and the band no three days grace, he hits hard, you have moon craters in the snare after.

Benedikt Hain: 1:23:09

Yeah, so that changes the sound.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:23:11

I'm not going to lie.

Benedikt Hain: 1:23:12

Yeah, definitely does, definitely does Okay. So finally listener questions, if that's okay, mako, but do you? Is that okay? Can I go?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:23:21

through this. That's awesome. Yeah, please, all right.

Benedikt Hain: 1:23:25

So the first one, the first questions, are from from Wayne. Wayne Colson is the editor of this show. He he joined our coaching program a while ago and then he turned into a team member here and he's now doing content for me, editing the podcast. And very cool guy from the UK. So he asks the government has announced the new law, there are too many microphones and we're sick of it. From now on, there's just going to be one type of mic and that's it. They're saying so. They come to you for advice what microphone do you choose to be the only mic that can ever be manufactured and used from now on?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:23:57

Like Mike or Mike type.

Benedikt Hain: 1:24:00

The only microphone, I think. One microphone, one microphone, we can only have one.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:10

Well, I'd say 87.

Benedikt Hain: 1:24:13

All right, it's a good choice.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:15

It just works on a lot of things.

Benedikt Hain: 1:24:17

The old one or the AI, then a new one, newer one, or just doesn't it?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:21

mean, do I have to go that Just to skip all the 87s? Just like all the 87s, just skip all the 87s.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:24:26

Yeah, yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:30

No it's just they sound good on like acoustic instruments, but you can also put it in front of a guitar. You can put it in front of bass, if you have to. You know, yeah, if you have to, some people do it. You can put it on a lot of things. So great.

Benedikt Hain: 1:24:44

It's very versatile. Cool Next one's also quick Favorite stock plugin.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:50

Stock plugin Like from Pro Tools stock or?

Benedikt Hain: 1:24:55

Yeah, I assume you're in Pro Tools, yeah, yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:24:56

Yeah, yeah, I would say Q1 like the Q1 is the one that just look at out. Great answer. Great answer, great answer. Favorite fancy plugin Um oof Decapitator.

Benedikt Hain: 1:25:21

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Such a good choice. So far we agree. I think of those things Nice. Good choices. If you could work with any artist, either from history or the present, who would it be?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:25:32

Well, it would be the band that got me into music, and that's Nirvana, not Foo Fighters.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:25:38

I mean I would work with them. I would work with them. Scratch up on the record.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:25:42

It's not the same.

Benedikt Hain: 1:25:44

Dave Grohl, if you're listening, don't call her, she doesn't want to work with you.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:25:50

I would work with them too.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:25:51

No, it's just the voice of Kurt Cobain just really just grabs me. And that is, yeah, it's gone.

Benedikt Hain: 1:26:00

What are you currently listening to?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:26:02

Not listening to much music. It's weird, but I started listening to what's on the radio, weirdly enough to see what even people listen to. Because one thing that I learned in the SAE is that if you want to be successful, listen to what's in the charts, which I never did in Germany because there's a lot of. I don't like Schlager music, I'm sorry, so I was not really into that kind of stuff, but I realized that you can listen beyond the music, so you can just listen to what kind of sounds are in nowadays and you hear that a lot where people change up the direction they're going to. Because if you want to sound contemporary, like something from today, you should also get it to sound that way. And I feel like listening to the radio kind of helps sometimes, but there's nothing in particular, because generally after a day of work I don't listen to much music after.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:27:02

And you're like a weekend off. I mean audio engineers. Told the understands when somebody says I don't know I'm not listening to music right now.

Benedikt Hain: 1:27:12

For me it's just podcasts, audiobooks and kids music when the kids are on the spot. Yeah, my playlist is all like Power Rangers, Ninja Go and Unicorn songs for my daughter. That's, that's my playlist. Okay, cool Now. Next question is one that it's probably not not that quick to answer and I don't know. I just felt like we should talk about that too. I would have asked that as well. How challenging and Wayne asks that, but I'm interested as well how challenging have you found being a successful female in a profession so heavily populated with males? Do you think you've had to work any harder because of that, because of not being male? Was there any resistance from, from peers or anything that we can't imagine as male engineers, because it is still, for whatever reason, such a male dominated industry?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:28:06

It wasn't like a hard barrier where I would say, you know, it was really hard. It's more I'm very open about this where, like, I don't really take things as personal as other people might, but there is times when people make some weird comment or something and then you kind of just pick well, not anymore, but more in the starting up. But that could also have to do with me being young, right, like if I was a guy, maybe they would have just commented on me being young. So there's a lot of things, like especially starting up, where you're underestimated because of the way you just are being perceived by others. Right, being female is just one of the aspects, but there's other ones that would have maybe also led to similar comments. I guess it is, I think, easier for me to just after a day of just being like a little pissed about it. I usually take that and say, well, whatever, like I don't care, you know. But I've also noticed that a lot of people that do doubt you in the beginning First of all, then not the most professional people I've never had like any of the higher tier you know, engineers, producers, artists even mention I'm a woman because they don't care. They care if I mess up, then I would be in deep shit if I do right. So it's more about that Exactly, it's more the amateurs, and I feel like it's more because they're nervous, right, they maybe haven't been to the studio a lot of times. And then generally, if they see somebody that's a little bit off from the expectations of the role that they're working with, they might just be more nervous and that will be portrayed in them just making remarks, right Like it's mainly people that just need to. I don't know it's mainly their own issue and not mine, but generally if I don't, like, I don't really combat it and I don't get like aggressive about it. And then when they work with me, generally after they've worked with me, they're bigger fan of me than generally the people that haven't doubted me, right, like it's yeah, like I've even had job offers from people that thought, oh, you can use Pro Tools. Like, yeah, I guess, I don't know, I've used it for so long so I guess I can use it. But, like, after they've worked with me or seen me work, they're like a lot more fan of me than before or other people because it's something that they didn't expect.

Benedikt Hain: 1:30:46

That's such a mature and like very cool attitude that you have towards this, like to be able to say like that's their problem, not mine, and like they are nervous and like that's just the way you know to be able to take it like that, that you know that takes like character and a really cool attitude.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:31:02

Because it is that way, and it also when you work with, yeah, but then you also won't get far, because when you work with a producer, there's a lot of times they unload their frustrations on you, like not like they're screaming at you or something, but like there is times when, like, they get a little short because they, you know, didn't necessarily get the artists to do something the way they wanted to. So you're just like the middleman kind of thing, like you can take things personal, unless people you know say personal stuff to you. That's a very different story, but that doesn't usually happen, like it's just people and I'm the same way, like when I'm stressed, my, my answers get very short, you know. Yeah, it's just it's communication. And some people are just it's not even like they. They meant to say something like that, they just blurped out their first thought.

Benedikt Hain: 1:31:58

Which is still, which is still wrong, and weird that it is even their first thought. So I think there's still a problem there somewhere. You know so, and that's why I don't know. I'm sometimes I'm a little in between there, because I think that there is, there must be, some sort of problem in the system, that and maybe there's something we all should and could do about it as a community. And then, on the other hand, I sometimes think I'm not. I'm sometimes not so sure if if talking about it a lot actually helps or just makes it seem even more special or perceived as uncommon and instead of just, you know, being a decent human being, and then it shouldn't even come up, you know, but that's just, apparently it's not that easy. So I'm, I don't really know what. Do you think there? Is there something we could and should do? Or is it? Is there a problem in? Or there is? But like what are your?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:32:46

thoughts on that. It starts way earlier. I think it starts way earlier because it's not just audio engineering, right, it's in the STEM, it's hard labor. Like it's just for me. I think it was mainly my mom why I never thought about this. Like I never was raised to think of I'm a girl so I can only do certain things. That was never, ever coming up ever when I grew up. Like my mom is very hands on, like if she needs to get something, then she does it. It was one of these people like, oh, I need to get the light bulb changed. Honey, can you change the light bulb? You know what I mean. Like some women are like that and it's for the kids. They grow up thinking, wow, I can't do that, why can't you do that? Because she's a woman and that's ridiculous. Like it's just a lot of kids need to learn there is no limitation unless there is a physical limitation. Like I mean I need glasses, so I'm not going to be a pilot. Like there is certain limitations. There is. You know, I'm afraid of heights. I'm not going to be an astronaut, like things like that exist, yeah, but aside from that, like gender is generally never for me, it was never even a thing. I guess I never thought about being a girl as much as when people told me I am Like. I remember like in in audio school, yeah, that's when like random people like oh, I guess you're the only girl in the class, I'm like I don't know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:34:11

So I don't know, I just didn't notice, like it's just not the big of a deal. I think that's so like such a great part about getting to have you on and like you being a speaker at a studio Zine and it's like you're a role model. I'd like like your mom was for you. That kind of just proves that like, yeah, anybody can do it. It doesn't matter what gender they are at all. And like Benny and I have talked about this before, like we looked at our podcast stats recently and it's like only 2% female listeners and it's just like why I guess, because we're two guys talking about running or something I don't know, like what, like we're just boring. We wanted to be more inclusive in a huge way and then, you know, encourage more females to get into this business and have fun, you know, recording, because I know for a fact that females are definitely just as musical. So, yeah, bridging this gap is something that I really hope does happen more, and having positive role models like yourself is so important.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:35:17

Yeah, I mean first of all. Yeah, I didn't even know that job existence, so it really helped getting to be put in that direction from the job center when they recommended that. But they never even said, well, there's not many women, you shouldn't do that. You know, like there was never anybody. But that's said because you're a woman, you shouldn't do that. Like it never came up and in the end it actually helps. It's weird but I've heard from a lot of guys like full guys bands. They're like, yeah, it's nice having like a woman in the room Like Lester Stostrow on around Cool. I don't know, because I guess I don't know, but I was told that guys talk differently among guys and that sometimes it's not very helpful in the creative scene. I don't know. And sometimes it helps and especially female singers really enjoy having you know, like a little bit more trust in that person Because they feel more comfortable with me being a female. But, like I said, for me personally it I've never thought about it much. It's just. It's not something that should hold you back, and I know that it sounds easy, but I think a lot of women are just shy. You know which would be better here than on stage? Yeah, yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:36:36

It's a good rule for it. Yeah, all right, thank you for this.

Benedikt Hain: 1:36:40

This was an important question, I think, and so very inspiring again hearing how you handle this and how you see it all. So next question comes from Jan Jan Polemans. He's also a coaching student of ours, from the Netherlands. He says and I know exactly where this question is coming from have you ever had just one singer, one like one vocal track, one take for the lead vocal, that's it. Like no vocal arrangements, no doubles, no harmonies.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:37:09

Like a one take.

Benedikt Hain: 1:37:10

Yeah, I don't know if it means one take, but I know where this is coming from because I have to give some context here. Because Jan is a songwriter and he writes good melodies and good lyrics and good chord progressions and everything. And one feedback that I sometimes gave him on songs he sent me, when it was not just acoustic guitar and a vocal but like a full band thing, that I sometimes would love to hear some sort of vocal arrangement in the chorus for example, to open it up to when the chorus kicks in and it's like this big thing and I'm missing like at least some harmony or doubles or something that makes a difference compared to the verse. And so I'm just assuming tell me Jan afterwards if I'm wrong here, but I'm assuming that's where this is coming from he wants to know if you ever had just one singer, one take for the lead vocal. That's it basically, because I know that he wants to do that.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:37:58

You want to do that? I mean first of all once again jazz. A lot of times there is no extra arrangement. Right, it's very bare. And a lot of singer songwriters. If it's just acoustic guitar and vocals, you can get away with it at times, but the song has to call for it, because even the double sometimes just sounds nice tucked under to thicken it up a bit Not that you hear that there is a double, but just to have it For Rock. No, I've had people do one take and that's the lead vocal, but then there's still other arrangement on top.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:38:38

So no, I guess yes or no it depends on the genre depends on the vibe. That's a great answer, though, yeah exactly what I expected Great answer.

Benedikt Hain: 1:38:48

And yeah, I'm sorry if I got that wrong, but that's how I interpreted it. But yeah, I think if the song calls for it and it's an intimate acoustic guitar song or something, then it could work. But yeah, thank you for answering that.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:39:00

Right.

Benedikt Hain: 1:39:02

Next question is any tip. I mean, we talked about that a lot in the sprawl question, but maybe there's one tip that comes to mind. What tips do you have for a DIY recording artist? What would you do nowadays if you were to start out recording at home? One thing, the most important thing.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:39:21

Don't expect to record right away, like set up first, even just to listen back, especially when you do vocals, and you just think this is the final take and you just go for it. And then you listen back and the technology of it is not right there, like if the quality of the recording isn't good and you might have to redo it. It's really hard to sometimes redo great takes, you know, unless you're very, but even then like it's really hard to capture that same thing. So, before you even get in the mindset of going to record, get the technology set up and like make sure that it sounds good, because like, especially like vocals, like you have to find a good spot, so like wherever you are in the room that you don't have too much reflections and too much room sound, or take a mic that is also maybe less room sound, like if you had a U87, you know you have a lot more room sound than if you have an SM7B, for example. Like things like that you have to consider in your choices and then, just once you're set up and you're confident it's set up, you can just go for it. And I also mean, like when you record yourself to test sing at the volume you'd sing or play at the volume you'd play Like the amount of times you have like a drummer, you get drum sounds and then they just like play really soft and then they hit it really hard during the recording. Well, that's kind of hard to get like everything dialed in because it sounds very different you know, so sing play at the same volume you would when you're performing.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:40:59

Yeah, this is a good opportunity for me to circle back to a question I missed, but I would love for you to talk about the vocal booth you built for the three days. Grace vocals there, like how? Because that's kind of exactly. This is like you did the setup. You didn't just go and all right, this is the walking closet, that's record and then send Howard you know really roomy vocal, right With the door open to the fridge and stuff Like it's like you prepared in advance, and I would just love to like know how far you went with that, what that actually looked like.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:41:34

It was a whole weekend we had to outfit it, so we bought a bunch of how's that called this like acoustic foam.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:41:42

Oh yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:41:43

We were all around but we left like it was a high ceiling but it was slanted, which is great for acoustics. You don't want to have anything that's parallel. So we left some of the ceiling open so we have a little bit more room, because otherwise it's too dead and it's really hard to sing in a very dead room. But around him was all baffled, the door and the floor was also happened to be a carpet, so that's pretty handy, and then we make sure that any kind of holes that were anywhere were completely closed, so there's not more outside noise. And I was listening on headphones, I wasn't putting it on the speakers to have even less possible travel to him.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:42:23

You're going listening very closely then.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:42:25

Yeah. Cool, but then afterwards listen on the speakers, because I'm more used to the response of speakers.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:42:32

Right, yeah yeah, yeah, okay, that's awesome yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 1:42:37

Yeah, thank you. And in terms of like, get what you have to do before you even get into the mindset of recording, that also includes probably, like you know, making sure that the songs are actually finished, the arrangements, like demos, pre-production, anything like that, because some people start the actual recording when they're actually not ready to record it yet, probably right and then they get demo.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:42:58

It is. Yeah go further. Yeah, no, it helps to have a very different Demo's net setup, but like a different time when you do the demos? Yeah, and then the rest cool. It may be not polish, the demos too much.

Benedikt Hain: 1:43:15

Yeah, exactly, just move on polish the demos too much.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:43:18

It's so hard to because then you already like what you're hearing, yeah, and it's really hard to like see what you elevated. The result will be when you actually record, yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 1:43:29

Yeah, cool, thank you. Now. Next one's from Ryan flair donor. He says what's your view on the timeline and how long music should take to finish? One of the things I struggle with is trying to finish music fast while also not compromising artistic integrity and quality. Where's the line in your opinion? Any tips for those of us who struggle with that? And Ryan is also a coaching student of mine and he's a great metal guitarist, very technical death metal stuff. He programs drums, plays all the instruments himself and sings himself too, and it's it's very hard to play that type of music. Well, so it's. It's similar to what we talked about before. It's like a bar by bar, part by part thing, and he's good at that. But obviously it also takes a while to get a song like that done, especially with a lot of guitar layers, and so what do you think like? Where's the line and how long should it take to record a song like that? Or write and record or whatever like finish?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:44:23

music he says just to add to this question. I think this is like such a fascinating question actually. Thank you, ryan, for the question, because we have listeners that listen to this podcast that probably think they could book a day in the studio and record an album. Versus the albums you probably work on Jill, where often you're booking, you know, weeks for an album or even longer, or or like, and you probably have had some records that have just been knocked off in no time at all but, like there's this huge Difference of opinion on how long it takes to do a really professional record. So, yeah, I'd really love to hear, like I mean, you made some Juno award-winning songs like how long did that take?

Benedikt Hain: 1:45:05

And how long is too long? Also because we all know that it's probably longer than people think. But in the Ryan's case is probably the opposite. He struggles with taking too long, he wants to be faster without compromising like quality.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:45:17

So so For Ryan, I think it's a different situation, because he's doing it himself, right? He's not going to a studio.

Benedikt Hain: 1:45:25

He gets it mixed professionally and edited, but the tracking is done on himself.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:45:29

Yeah yeah, it's a little different because you don't have also the money Limit, I'd say, to even book time and you can just do it forever and it's not gonna be good because in the end you'll start doing things that you don't need to do Just because you can. I would say, if you were Only doing your music right, like as in, if you come to the studio and that's the only thing you do, which, if you do it by yourself, you can get distracted with life. Really there is different ways to work. Some people love working quick, creative, love to have the pressure, like when we did the Alexos record. It was done in, I think, eight days and then a few days over dubs and that's it For the first three days. Grace record I worked on it was six weeks and then there was a few extra days for vocals too, and it's just a different pace. Some people love to have the pressure. You know, kind of like the people when when you have to an essay do and they do it the night before. They work better that way because they need the deadline. But then there's people that like to be prepared, that relax and then use that extra time for creativity and you know same with some other bands. Like I worked with a silvestine that was another six weeks. They golfed every day right Like they wanted to have that kind of pace where it's not just Studio ten hours. Let's do this every day.

Benedikt Hain: 1:47:03

The record where you built like the mini golf course or something in the studio I heard about that Cause we had a rainy day yeah, so they couldn't go golfing outside. Yeah, you should go golf outside. From what I remember is like you built something in the studio, so they could golf inside instead, which is so cool.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:47:19

That's my type of band.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:47:20

It's not the same, but it's similar yeah, but it's just, some people have a different idea of how they like to work and how they work best too. And the main important thing is you need some kind of deadline. I Mean, yeah, you need to figure out what is a good timeline. But then figure out, like, do you like the pressure and do you work better on a pressure? Then put yourself a smaller deadline With maybe one or two buffer days and that's it. But if you like to just leisurely, go at it and I don't mean leisurely, as then you don't get anything done. But when you have more time, you have a little different of a recording experience, like when bands come to the studio. You actually get to know the people way better, because it's not this time crunch, we got to just work, work, work, work, work. But you actually get to know people. You hang out a lot more and they feel a lot more comfortable because they're in a good environment, Because they're not just with strangers that just record them doing very, you know, like songs are very intimate, like it comes out of you. So it's. It's some people like that, where they just feel comfortable and then use that extra time to be creative because you know Silverstein like they don't need six weeks. They're all really good musicians like they could have knocked it away quicker, but it's just. They wanted to have that experience and just feel like they're at home, right, like some people just need that and the same with three days. They could. They could have done it way quicker if they needed to, but I mean it's more about Do you need deadlines or not? I mean we all need one deadline, but how quick for Alexis. They work way better all together like creative to when they're like let's just do this right now and they will all just do in music. That's the only thing they did. There was nothing else going on but us creating music.

Benedikt Hain: 1:49:19

Interesting. That's a fantastic answer.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:49:20

Fantastic answer, very helpful. Thank you so much.

Benedikt Hain: 1:49:23

Final question, and this comes from Toast and Winslow is from Germany, so I think we have like, what do we have like a German, uk, us?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:49:32

Netherlands.

Benedikt Hain: 1:49:33

Yeah, very cool international audience everywhere. Yeah, exactly. So Toast is asking how can? Again really good question how can something you be created in music production or mixing If each and everyone is working with reference tracks, while working about, while mixing or producing? So yeah, let's leave it like that.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:49:55

Yeah, reference tracks are just reference to certain things. I love when musicians tell me oh, like, yeah, we sound like this band and you listen to it. Nope, you don't. Certain elements, yes, right. Like maybe your guitar sound is similar or maybe the way you drum on it is different, but there's no band that sound exactly like another band. So that's what I always take out of reference tracks, like how do they want it to feel, how do they want it to sound? For certain elements and for mixing, for example, it's like for me, how is the balance of the instruments? A lot, how is the pan, how wide are things, how deep are things? That's for me a reference track, not necessarily how things sound, but how they sound in relation to chip, to each other. And then for recording and producing too, it's, I don't know, like for me, a reference is not like we don't want to sound like these people. It never is, because it can't be. First of all, it's love times very just not happening, but then also just figure out what they like about that reference and just ask questions like okay, what do you like about it? Is it maybe the guitar sounds? Is it maybe the fullness of it like? Is it maybe how the bass plays? Because a lot of times it's like the bass can just play the part, or the bass can be very interesting, right, like like red or chili pepper space is very different than just, like you know, any type of rock pan bass which literally the notes yeah, like this, just differences and so many things like what do you like about this? And then go more into detail, because a lot of times when I've mixed like and people don't like certain things, I'm like let's figure out what you don't like Because you think you don't like anything, and then it's just the snare that's too loud. You know what I mean. Bands just usually don't know how to properly express themselves, which, yeah, talking about music is freaking hard. Like you know, it's not easy. Even now I struggle still, but figuring out details why they like. Do you like the vibe, just the feel you get? Do you like how things are sitting in the mix? Do you like just the effects that are being used? That can be all it.

Benedikt Hain: 1:52:20

Being able to speak that language, the musicians language is so important in our job because, like someone saying we want louder kick drum, louder bass, louder guitars and louder vocals can just mean turn the snare down, as you said or you know, and sometimes they just use different words for the exact same things that we use other words for, or even just.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:52:40

Can you put the vocal up and I put it louder?

Benedikt Hain: 1:52:44

no, the pitch like Ah, yeah, yeah, okay, sorry, okay, that's what you mean you know, like or just oh, you want less reverb on it.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:52:54

Like this, things like that, where people just don't really understand. The like little things, yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 1:53:02

I mean, how could they? That's our job to know that stuff, and we have to translate.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:53:05

Yeah, but it's our job to like ask those questions, right?

Benedikt Hain: 1:53:08

Exactly, exactly, and so that means when you're listening to reference tracks. Because, back to George Tosen's question. Basically, if we listen to reference tracks. The goal is not to try and copy everything in that track and sound exactly the same. The goal is to figure out what you like about it and then make sure that and then use whatever how to say this. Only use the things that could also that also make sense in the context of your own song. Or make sure that you're in the ballpark. Basically, you don't want to have like way too much or not at all enough low end, or you don't want to be wanted to be way too narrow or way too wide or whatever. It's just about the ballpark and and adapting the things, like adopting the things that work in the context of your song, but not trying to copy whatever the other song is. And it's dangerous because, even though we know this, if I listen too long to a reference track, I might start questioning my mix and I might subconsciously getting closer and closer to that mix until I've ruined what I've had before. So it can happen, you know.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:54:03

So yeah, I don't listen to a reference. When I started mixing, no I generally listen to it ahead of time. Yeah, and if people don't give me a reference ahead of time, well, that's yeah. Me too.

Benedikt Hain: 1:54:14

I kind of calibrate my ears before, and then I just go without a reference and maybe in the end I check it quickly, but not too long, because I don't want to question myself, I want to be confident in my decisions, yeah like, if I get sent a reference it's like you said, jill, just like I need to clarify what they're actually looking for from that song they sing.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:54:32

Sometimes they just send a song they like they're like here's three songs.

Benedikt Hain: 1:54:35

They're like yeah, three songs. They like yeah, all. So something like you yeah, exactly, exactly yeah.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 1:54:39

But sometimes it's just like, oh, that effect on the guitar, like that's what we wanted for the solo, and it's like, okay, so I only need to hear that there's a flanger. That's all I need to know. I don't need to know anything about it other than that there's a flanger on the guitar and then so, like knowing that, so I can just go look at just that and, like you said, ideally before the mix, and then the only other time I'll pull up the reference mixes when I finished, like my first pass in the mix, and then I just need to make sure that my mix sounds like a good mix behind, beside anything else I know is a good mix, like so it doesn't have to sound like the song they sent. Just this is a good song. Here's my song. Oh yeah, we're good.

Benedikt Hain: 1:55:14

Fascinating thing actually. That happened this week. A band sent something to Thomas. The engineer was working with me at my studio here. He was editing everything for me and prepping the sessions and what not, and he's really, really great at this and a band told him they didn't want to edit, want their drums edited. They didn't want the drums edited at all, basically, or part of the band, like. There was a discussion in the band and they said they want, they like organic drums and they don't like edited drums and it's all machine gun and unnatural and they don't want that. And then, after having a more deep conversation and listening to a bunch of references and stuff and and Figuring it all out, it turned out that they actually absolutely wanted edited but they didn't like the very consistent velocity, machine gun type of fills when you use samples that are not too dynamic, and they thought that was editing and they didn't really talk about timing. They they were talking about the sound and the certain aesthetic of some modern metal bands that they didn't like. It was a hardcore band and so Thomas ended up ended up editing it all and they loved it because the sound was still the same or did I keep. Even if you use samples, it's like still sounding like the drums that they love, but it's on time and they have no problem with that. But in the beginning we thought they didn't want to add it at all and they were talking about timing, but they were not so.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:56:29

Yeah, that is really hard because people don't really even understand what editing is right, like. But it's the same when people tell me oh, we don't want to click track, we wanted to sound organic, like, yes, it's gonna sound organic. When you play to a case track, you probably listen to something that was edited to the grid. You don't like that. But no drummer unless you're the best drama in the world is gonna play so tight to the click, so it's gonna sound organic. You know, don't worry, you can play to a click and even then we can still edit, like you can also edit things within a certain amount of being on right, or even say that you know you don't want the fills to be edited to the grid. That's very normal too, where you have a little push and pull on the fills so it sounds more natural. Yeah, but even then you'd still have to edit it.

Benedikt Hain: 1:57:20

Awesome questions answers and awesome questions too, guys, both awesome questions and awesome answers chill. That was really, really helpful. So what can people expect, other than what I said in the beginning, from your master class at the studio scene event, because we're gonna meet in person there, which I'm looking forward to a lot. This whole event is gonna be awesome and you're gonna have this master class and you're gonna be around, I guess, for the time of the event. I don't know if you're there for longer.

Jill Zimmermann: 1:57:45

I'm gonna be there for, I think, all three days, like walking around and then obviously on my day two and just I'm super excited about the master class. So I feel like there's a lot of things that people don't know yet about vocal producing, because I've gotten those questions all the time and especially because this had a remote aspect to it, that particular session I'm going to talk about. I think it will help people to venture out and maybe work with the people they want to work with, even if there's a little bit of distance, because nowadays with technology, you can really get way better results and just get what you need and what you want in your music. And I feel like a lot of people are still very shy when it comes to singing and just doing all that kind of production. And I want to encourage people to understand that, as a singer, for example, understand there's all of these tools I have afterwards like it's what you sound like when you sing it in. That moment is not going to be final. You know I can calm something else in there, I can time things, all your snacks can be taken out, like you'll sound great, but you just have to trust the person you're working with and yeah, it's going to be exciting.

Benedikt Hain: 1:59:01

Yeah. So if you want to be part of that, please get your tickets for this event. It's going to be a really, really cool thing. There's going to be Jill, there's going to be Warren Hewer, there's going to be Jason Chashra, there's incredible engineers, producers, mixers from all kinds of genres from all over the world. And Jill, we're looking forward to your master class there a lot. The vocal production, I think, is also one of those things that's relevant for almost everybody, like no matter if you're like a home producer or if you're a professional engineer or producer. This is just so important and there's so many things to talk about there and so many important things to understand. So we're looking forward to that a lot. How is, like the whole? You said in the beginning like being on stage is not necessarily your thing, or there might be some stage fright and stuff. Is that also something that is, you know, a problem with that? Not a problem, but are you thinking about those things when you give master classes like that, or is that because? Does that come normal to you?

Jill Zimmermann: 1:59:56

Well, I'm always a little nervous ahead of time, but once I'm in it, because it's something I know really well, I get more comfortable, right, it's just like the initial thing where I'm just like, oh my god, what if I black out? What if I forget all these words, which can happen? Yeah, but usually people help you and they don't really mind, because I guess everyone has those things happening. And I also noticed that the more nervous I am, the more mistakes I make. So my brain is like, hey, you have to be less nervous because otherwise you mess up. So it's just weird, but it's fine, I'm getting used to it, but yeah.

Benedikt Hain: 2:00:33

Are you gonna do it in German or English?

Jill Zimmermann: 2:00:36

Don't know yet I think Mark wanted to tell me yeah ahead of time and I'm fine doing it in German. I just have to learn all the words in German again Because I will be in Germany like a week and a half ahead of time, so hopefully my German will have less English accent by then. And yeah, it's mainly just like accused when people use the German words and I'm like what the heck is that? and then like you know. Oh yeah, yeah, I know that it's just the terminology that I haven't heard as long, but it's gonna be fine, I'm not that worried I mean, I've been in Germany for 24 years, I'll be fine.

Benedikt Hain: 2:01:20

Yeah, in the way, like hearing you explain all these things on this long ass podcast today here, and like hearing you how well you explained all this and how great your answers were to these questions, I have zero doubt that this is gonna be an absolutely amazing masterclass and that people are gonna take away a lot from that, and so, yeah, get your tickets for this event. It's the studio scene, or studio scene is actually the name. I should mention the German name because it's like studio scene in Hamburg in October, and precisely which states is it actually?

Jill Zimmermann: 2:01:52

Just so I give the correct dates here I think it's 17 to 19th.

Benedikt Hain: 2:01:55

That sounds about right. Yeah, that sounds right 17 to 19th October. I'm just confirming. But yeah, you're right, exactly Tuesday till Thursday, 17th to 19th October in Hamburg, germany. This is gonna be such a good time and, yeah, looking forward to seeing you there. Alright, if you go to the show notes of this episode, there's a link where you can buy the tickets from the studio studio scene website. There's several tiers, I believe, including and excluding the masterclasses, and one day, two day, three days tickets and stuff like that. It will all be under this link, like, just go to the show notes and click on that. As always, the show notes are the surfrecordingbandcom slash, the number of this episode, so, or just the surfrecordingbandcom slash podcast, and then you have all the episodes and the podcast description on your app. You can't miss it. It's everywhere. Just click on that link and get your ticket. And also everything that we talked about to chill today will be in the show notes as well. If there's, like things we mentioned, things you want to link to, there's gonna be all the resources for you to look up. There's gonna be Jill's discography on her website and all the records we've been talking about, so you can actually listen to those and get an understanding of what it is that we were talking about. And so, jill, is there anything you want to add here, any thing you want to tell our listeners or you want to where you? I don't know if people want to work with you, want to hire, you want to contact you. Is there a good way to do this? Or anything else you have for us?

Jill Zimmermann: 2:03:26

Yeah, so on my website there is a contact. Just reach out and you know, I'm sure we can find a solution. I mean, I've worked with people on several things outside of the studio as well, because I don't only work at the studio, and Interesting, I'm just looking forward to everyone reaching out. but also, just, you know, if you're recording yourself, don't be afraid to ask people. Even if people don't answer, you know, just reach out to professionals and ask them, like I've even helped people building vocal booths In their basement. You know, is it gonna be perfect? No, is it gonna be way better than you just recording?

Benedikt Hain: 2:04:06

Yeah, it is.

Jill Zimmermann: 2:04:08

So just don't be afraid, you know. And also a recording doesn't have to be final. Just try it out, you know, let's go for it so cool of you as offering this.

Benedikt Hain: 2:04:20

thank you so much. All right, website is what is the website actually?

Jill Zimmermann: 2:04:25

jelsamermancom easy as that to and, at the end, for the people. Big issue I'm fighting with, but yeah. I'll keep it that way awesome.

Malcom Owen-Flood: 2:04:38

Yeah, thanks again, joe, this was amazing yeah, thank you.

Jill Zimmermann: 2:04:41

Thank you for taking out in Germany yeah, I can't wait to meet you guys. It's like what, in three months, four months?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 2:04:48

yeah, yeah, four months, three months.

Jill Zimmermann: 2:04:51

Three. Oh my god, when July?

Malcom Owen-Flood: 2:04:53

yeah yeah, yeah, like almost three months beyond halfway now for my yeah, I haven't met.

Benedikt Hain: 2:04:58

Malcolm in. We've been working together for four years, of been doing this podcast together for years, and I've met him the first time like two weeks ago when I was in Canada for the first time and I'm gonna meet him twice in one year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jill Zimmermann: 2:05:11

Well, pandemic is over, so, yeah, you can fly again. Exactly it's nice nice, oh yeah definitely yeah, okay, well, thank you for having me on and looking forward to meeting you.

Benedikt Hain: 2:05:23

Yeah, absolutely same. Thank you so much.