Kristian Kohle: 0:00

You just got to keep on working and got to keep on learning and getting better until you have come up with a feeling or understanding of what's good and what's not good in your world. The more mature you become as a musician, the easier it will be to make those judgments.

Benedikt: 0:16

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'm your host, benedikt Hein. If you are new to the show, welcome. So stoked to have you. If you are already a listener, welcome back. Just know that this show is available on all the podcast platforms, but also on YouTube. So, depending on where you discover this, you might want to switch to your platform of choice. You can watch the video or just listen On the go. Now, today, we have a very, very special episode for you because, as you can already see if you're on YouTube, I'm not just here with my friend and co-host, malcolm O. We're joined today by Christian Kohle. Christian Kohle is an audio engineer and producer working out of Kohle Keller Studios in the frost-bitten, dark, cold Odinwald, germany. No, I've actually been there. It's beautiful. Honestly, it's like a beautiful area, but anyway, some of the most brutal metal is being made there these days. I think so, christian. If you're not aware, he's worked with bands like Aborted, bnighted, power Wolf some hardcore bands too. You know some really heavy hitters in the metal and hardcore world. I'd say Check out his credits. Just Google him. You'll find all kinds of amazing records, so I'm very, very stoked to have him on the podcast. Kohle also just you know, I don't know how long ago actually we're going to talk about that Also founded an online education platform called the Kohle Audio Cult, or Cult, which is amazing. I just had the chance to dive into this, watched a bunch of courses already. It's great, so we're going to talk about that as well. Welcome, christian. Thank you so much for taking the time Welcome.

Kristian Kohle: 2:02

Thanks for having me. There's a lot to talk about, I assume, right? Yes, there is.

Benedikt: 2:07

Great to be on the show. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you for taking the time, and also, malcolm, how are you? Great to see you as well.

Malcom: 2:13

Oh, I'm great. This is fun. We all saw each other. What three weeks ago now, I think, in Hamburg for Studio Zene. So it's awesome that we're getting into all of Reconnect online and have this chat. Yeah, Christian, thank you so much for coming.

Benedikt: 2:25

Christian? Do people call you Christian or Kohle? What's the common thing?

Kristian Kohle: 2:30

I used to say that only my mother calls me Christian, but it has changed, like with all the YouTube thing and more and more American people trying to call me something. Yeah, so usually Kohle is my nickname, that's what people call me, but this seems to be quite hard to pronounce for some Americans, so that's why the Christian has come up again. So you just choose whatever you want Christian or Kohle.

Benedikt: 3:00

All right, all right, do whatever you want All right, cool, perfect. So give us a quick backstory please, if you don't mind, just for the people who are not familiar with you, or your discography, your career. So what is Kohle Caller Studio, what have you done in the past and how did you end up doing the Kohle Audio Cult? Just a quick, you know, if possible, quick question.

Kristian Kohle: 3:20

So there's maybe two stages of this. There's a very, very long, first stage of 20 plus something years of me being a producer, audio engineer, here at Kohle Caller Studios. I've been working with countless bands over the years, I would say from all kinds of metal genres, like from hard rock to death metal. So that's what I've been doing pretty much my entire adult life until I did something called Nail the Mix. You know, this is where producers show their skills in an online academy. That was for URM Academy and I did that for with a band, aborted. I think that was something like four years ago now or five years ago before the pandemic, and that's how I found out like, wow, I can be on camera and people actually enjoy listening to me and stuff and I'm not too bad at explaining things, and that's how I kind of stumbled into both making educational content and eventually my own academy, but also the YouTube channel, and I think these days most people actually know me from, you know from being a guy on YouTube or a guy doing courses or releasing products and all that kind of stuff. So the last few years have been really different, with me doing the studio work but also a lot of other online funny online stuff and it's exciting.

Benedikt: 4:43

Yeah, totally. That's actually one thing I wanted to ask, chris, and you know, considering all the things you do, do you? It always feels like when I watch your videos it feels like you're still experimenting a lot, you're trying, you know, for example, different speakers and you're swapping out speakers and different guitar caps, and then you try in different mics and you have to create all the examples, of course, for the videos as well, and stuff. So I always wonder how do you find the time to still mix records and produce but then also educate and then also do the experimenting and learning yourself while you're doing that? Because we're doing something similar and I know the struggle, it's real, so but you seem to do a lot there and I always wonder, like, how is the balance these days and how do you get this all done?

Kristian Kohle: 5:26

These days I'm doing less studio work. It always depends on the month. So right now, and in December as well, I'm doing actually a lot of studio work again, but it's less than it used to be. I also have two more people working at the studio here, so I don't have to do all the heavy lifting, so that gives me some time to do other stuff. In the beginning, when I started doing the videos, I was really like doing two jobs at once and that quickly became too much. Yeah, on the other hand, I got to say doing both like doing videos, doing courses and doing real studio work is the perfect combination for me, Because I don't know, it gives me the credibility for the courses. If you're a person only doing courses, if you're only being a teacher and not being a producer anymore, it's easy to lose that touch to the real thing. And on the other hand, if you do those especially YouTube videos, but also the courses you can experiment with stuff you don't have the time for in real productions. I can swap guitar speakers when I'm doing a real guitar soundcheck, or you don't have the time to try a lot of stuff just for the sake of trying it if you were on a paid job. So I'm actually using especially the YouTube part for trying stuff that you can do if you're just working on professional productions, Of course.

Malcom: 6:54

Yeah, that's very cool. I was going to ask if educating has helped you improve your skills, which it evidently seems like it has, because you're using it so wisely. But that is doubly impressive to me. I, just over a year ago now, started a YouTube as well, and it takes an enormous amount of time, as you are certainly aware. But what really takes an enormous amount of time, and that I'm so impressed by with your channel in particular, is that you do so many like very thorough comparisons. So you'll shoot out a bunch of different snares and you know you have to set them all up, you have to make them, you have to do that recording process and then the post process, and it's just like I can't imagine how much time those shootouts take. I haven't tried something like that myself.

Kristian Kohle: 7:37

On the other hand, it always depends on what you're used to. People always say, wow, you're using like real amps and cabs and mics and stuff, and that's so much work compared to using plugins. And for me it really isn't, because I'm, first of all, I'm used to that, but I also have the luxury of having that room behind me where I can set things up in a few minutes. I own the mics, I can even record loud drums at night if I want to, so I have the environment, so to say, to do all that kind of stuff. And then again, if you do real work, if you do real productions, with budgets and schedules and deadlines and all that kind of stuff, you actually use to being fast, working fast, making compromises, because that's how the real world is, and I think that's the difference. Sometimes I do see YouTubers and I can immediately tell, hey, this is interesting, but they have never done a real production on a real schedule.

Benedikt: 8:38

Most of them, I'd say almost, not most of them, but many of least. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Yeah, totally, that's fascinating. So how did you do it before the education started? So did you set aside time to practice and experiment outside of the actual projects? Because what you said before is very true you can't really do that on the client's time basically right and on their budget, so you have to do it kind of outside of that, and I think that's valuable for our audience here as well, when they record themselves. I think it. I want to hear your thoughts on that. But is it good to do all the experimentation during your actual sessions, during the project, or should you do that separate from that? Or how did you do it?

Kristian Kohle: 9:20

I would say you can't. I mean, sometimes maybe you can, but only up to a certain certain amount. So what I recommend is to do experiments in your spare time, in your free time, and then you should just know like, ok, if, whatever, if this microphone sounds too dark, I might go for that microphone because you've tested it before. Or if that preamp sounds too bright, I go for the other one. So you have those options available, because you're not going to be able to try five different microphones because you don't have the time for that. So you should be prepared for all those different options. And yeah, it's like having some kind of road map, so to say so, and then you can maybe try two mics on the sessions, but the other five, you know, you should know by heart. And this is the same about all the gear that you use, about the guitar amps, about the cabs, about everything, because you can't try everything. So you know one thing doesn't work and people want you to go in a certain direction. It really helps to know where to go.

Benedikt: 10:22

Totally, totally, yeah. So I think that's that's very, very good advice there. And also, even if it's your own sessions, I think it's good to be able to just be intuitive and quick and react to the music and try to capture the moment, rather than trying to figure out and test all the things you have available while you, while you actually supposed to create art. So yeah, keep that separate.

Kristian Kohle: 10:44

That's what I mean. One thing is just the limitation, the time limitation, that you don't have the time to experiment a lot. The other one is that most singers just you know they are energetic and they want to start recording, so they want, don't want to do. Mike showed outs for two hours, even if you think that's that's kind of interesting and nerdy, and you know. So, yeah, you should keep keep the, the musicians happy, the artists happy, and you should keep the session always needs to have a good atmosphere and with too much testing you will destroy that, even if you have the time for it Totally.

Benedikt: 11:20

Absolutely Like. One thing I'm very interested in hearing also is Christian. Do you work on a lot of things outside metal these days? I mean, sometimes you do have seen I don't remember the name of the band, that's just the one example that came to mind there was one band with, I think, drums and an organ or something. If I remember correctly, that one was pretty fun. It was still kind of heavy and dirty, but it was not exactly like death metal. Is that common? Do you do these things often these days? Yeah, I do.

Kristian Kohle: 11:49

No, no, and I think to be honest, I think most metal people stay metal for whatever reason. Yeah, they do. Yeah, I mean, I have like, if you look at maybe the like the three biggest bands I work with, they're like all that would be, at least in Germany it would be Power Wolf and Electric Callboy and Hematom, a band that I think nobody out of out of Germany knows, and then you can also take a board maybe. But those are very different genres of metal, very different from power metal to some kind of pop metal up to very brutal death metal. So at least I have the advantage that I was never like, like linked to a certain certain genre. So I really do everything from, yeah, from hard rock to to black metal or something, but it's the same for everyone. Like metal people stay, you know, adumed to be metal.

Malcom: 12:41

I don't know what yeah they are for sure For sure, yeah, yeah, I just I never, I very, very rarely, into metal, but like it always comes back to rock. You know what?

Kristian Kohle: 12:53

Like metal people always want to, they, they, they are like like a little jealous, like they also want to do some rock stuff and some stuff that is more, a little more mainstream. But on the other hand I just talked about that with Warren Hewatt he says like there's no such scene as as the metal scene anywhere else in the mainstream world or somewhere else. And we should appreciate that, because the metal scene is awesome.

Benedikt: 13:16

I gotta say that it's awesome.

Kristian Kohle: 13:17

It's very passionate, it's it's very loyal, the fans. Very loyal, right, and it's really a lot about about the music, about the art. It's not very commercial like money driven or something. It's a great, it's a great scene, so I'm not going to compete with this.

Malcom: 13:32

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. It's also progressive. In like recording techniques, it's always changing every every year it gets a little further, and I think it's probably moving at a faster pace than a lot of other genres.

Benedikt: 13:45

That's actually the next point on my list here. Do you think that, considering how challenging it is to mix metal properly I think at least I think it is Um, there, you know do you think that people outside of metal can learn from you, know metal engineers and watching them work? Because for me certainly. I mean I do a fair bit of metal, not exclusively, but a fair bit of it, and to me I always thought that the metal kind of tutorials, courses, the mentors I had and people in that genre I could learn so much from that. I could also apply to other things. At least that was my experience. It seemed like there's an attention to detail. There is like certain um I don't know what it is, it's just it always to me. I found it very, very helpful to learn that, even in other areas. Do you agree, or is it the exact opposite in your opinion?

Kristian Kohle: 14:30

Oh yeah, I mean in general, I think it's always good to work on other genres and to to be out of your comfort zone and to do other stuff. That's always inspiring. I mean the band you talked about before with organ and drums, that was the band called Alligator Wine and I learned a lot doing those productions because they just they were just, you know, bringing in different gear, different techniques, and I learned stuff that I could use on metal productions. But coming back to metal, I think you're right about that, that metal is one of the most demanding genres to work on. It's because it's, I think, the modern metal production is very far away from from the actual acoustic sound of the band in a room. So let's say, if you recorded jazz band, if you just throw one mic into the room and record that, you know it's going to sound like a jazz band more. Or less. Maybe it's even sounds okayish or something Same about a scar band or a reggae band. And if you mix a reggae band, live, even if you get the faders wrong, it's still going to sound all right, but not with metal. So metal needs a lot of processing, a lot of treatment. You have to tame the beast. That's why I call it so working on a metal mix usually 50% is, you know, is correction and just getting things right before you can actually start listening to the song. So that's very demanding and very tough. So that is maybe also one of the reasons why the metal engineers are so jealous, because you know they also just want to mix something where they can throw five mics in a room and pull them up and go like whoa cool, yep.

Benedikt: 16:02

Yeah, totally, totally agree. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, no metal band sounds like they sound on the record if you're standing in the room with them.

Kristian Kohle: 16:10

That's why they never win those band, local band competitions. They always sound like shit.

Malcom: 16:15

Battle.

Benedikt: 16:15

the bands are no good for metal bands and also, it requires a certain, you know, skill level in terms of, in terms of playing as well. I mean jazz, too, and other genres. But I think metal is like there's a technical aspect to it. It's like some metal drummers also guitar players. It's almost like they are athletes, you know, in a way, it's like there's a very technical aspect to it and, to be honest, many bands just also can't can pull that off really well, so there's only a handful that are really really good at this. So this is like a very challenging thing to get right. But if you do, you can also apply this knowledge to other areas, I think. So, yeah, cool, you said earlier that you were are used to, of course, like working with real drums, real cabs, amps, stuff like that. Do you still embrace the other side of it, like the way many people make records these days, like programmed drums, amps, irs, all that? Is that something you embrace, you use a lot, or, whenever possible, do you go back to the quote, unquote real thing.

Kristian Kohle: 17:20

Yeah, whatever, whatever works, I guess whatever works I can. Like I mentioned earlier, I do have the luxury of owning a lot of gear and having the rooms you know to do all the fun stuff in, so that's why I prefer to do the real thing. But there's nothing wrong with amps, especially if you don't have, you know, the space. If you're sitting in your whatever your living room and have to do a record there, that's totally fine and it's in the end it's more about getting inspired, and whatever inspires you, you know, gets the job done. But for me personally, I feel like working with musicians in this case drummers, or also, in my case, working with real tube amps and cabinets and microphones and all that stuff inspires me a lot more and usually makes me try new things and be more creative, whereas the digital side of things I do have. Right right down here there's a, there's a Kemper with maybe 150 of my own profiles and they all sound fantastic. So the digital side of things sounds great, but I tend to repeat myself. I will just use Kohler, dietzl, preset three and it's going to sound great, but it's just going to sound like many other records. Same if I go for the latest whatever tune track or you know snare drum or kick drum or something. So, yeah, I feel more inspired if I really go to the source and craft the sound myself and I think that's like, with all those really great sounding tools available these days like drum samples, ampsims, irs, all that kind of stuff, also presets it's less and less about sounding good, it's more about sounding unique or different or creative or something. I think you get that a lot easier if you you know mic up a real snare and do your own thing, compared to using tune tracks, snare number, if you.

Benedikt: 19:25

Totally, totally. But I'm glad you said that, though, because that means that it should not be something that holds people back if they don't have access to all these fantastic tools Like oh no this is very cool and this is also probably one of the reasons why I mean you wouldn't do something like the Kohler Cult Academy, if you know. if you wouldn't be, you wouldn't want to empower people to make their own music and try it with whatever they have. So I think it's really really cool that you're helping out people like that and that you believe that you can start with a little, basically, and build from there.

Kristian Kohle: 19:57

Also. Also in the end like talking about the Academy, I think it's in the end, it doesn't really matter what you use. It's all about understanding how to create something, and I did like one course called High Gang Guitar Tone Crafting, where I talk about all the different components for a metal guitar tone and how I do that, and it's the same thing. You can use an amp sim for that, you can use IRs for that, you can use a real thing or any kind of combination, a real amp with an IR player and a load box or something that doesn't really matter. It's all about learning you know, learning how to get there, and not the tools.

Malcom: 20:35

Well, I was just going to say, like you know, throwing the mic up on a real cab and getting to play in different real amp heads is going to be the most creative, probably, and unique, like you mentioned. Trying to get something unique is really such an underrated idea these days, but you can still be creative with these other tools. So if you are limited with just like the one Neural DSP plugin and you've got your three amps on there, it might seem limited but you can still push it. You know, it's just you got to. It's going to get you somewhere really quick. But maybe trying not to settle is my advice. For people out there is just like, ok, this sounds good, but how can we make it unique and take it that step further?

Kristian Kohle: 21:16

And it's also like in digital you can do a lot of crazy stuff you know so much for some plug and plug and combinations. It's just me, you know, I'm old so I have just learned to do it the analog way and that inspires me. But yeah, people out there can get inspired by combining plugins that have never been combined before. I'm just saying I don't recommend to go for the generic standard stuff all the time, even if it sounds great. You can do that for doing the songwriting or something you know where you just want to get creative, but if you want to find your sound, try to stay away from that. That way you're probably not going to sound better, but different and hopefully more interesting Totally.

Benedikt: 21:58

Totally, I mean, you can think of your DAW kind of as a giant pedal board. If you want, you could put all these plugins in front of M's, behind M's, in between, wherever you want. You can experiment with that stuff, which is which is really cool, and you can come up with unique things for sure. So one thing I really enjoyed about the academy, like the Kole Cult Academy, was that you can you just said you were talking about these different components of a guitar tone, for example One thing I really enjoyed was how you always explain the why more than the what. Basically, it's not so much about the specific tools, it's about the why behind the decisions and how you break it down into these different components, like you said. For example, there's a lot of your tutorials in there, where the EQ tutorials for example, the snare drum EQ course that I've watched, and then the guitar EQ course you were using just a FabFilter Pro-Q and then you also showed some pull-tech tricks, but that's basically it. You didn't use anything very fancy and the way you explained it was such a cool way to think about it, where you divided a guitar tone or a snare tone into its components. Basically, you said okay, here's the fundamental, here's the ring. This is kind of an overtone that you might want. This is one that you probably don't want For the guitar. Here's the tone, here's what to do to make it feel louder. Here's the noisy part the way you explained it makes so much sense and it equips you with all the tools, basically, that you need to then turn it into whatever you think is appropriate for the record, and that's an approach that I really enjoy. It's not this here's how to EQ a guitar, but it's like here's what the spectrum is made up of and, depending on how you set the balance there, you can achieve different things. And it makes so much sense and you can apply that to whatever EQ you're using, and I really, really thought that it's a great approach and it's empowering, because everyone has a stock EQ or something like Pro-Q or whatever and can do exactly those things.

Kristian Kohle: 23:54

Thank you very much. Great to hear that. Actually, those are what I call the bread and butter boring courses, but they are actually the most important one. We have others where you can actually mix a motorhead song or where you see some other fancy mentor mixing a cool band or something, which is also important, but the really important stuff are, I think, those basic courses, and I will be adding more and more of those courses. We just hear one guitar track and I walk through the different frequency areas and try to explain what I'm hearing, and try to explain the how and the why. And once you've learned that, I think that empowers you to just have a different understanding of what you are listening to, which, in the end, is all that matters as an engineer, like training your ears and your brain and making them sink in a way that you can achieve things that you want to achieve, if that makes sense.

Benedikt: 24:51

And yeah, actually, when people ask me, those are the courses that I recommend, those basic snare EQ or drum bus compression or guitar EQ yeah, I started with those intentionally, just because I wanted to see that side of it basically for our audience, especially because we, you know, many of our listeners are beginners or like DIY people, of course, and I wanted to see what they can take away from doing that, because, as you know, guys, if I'm going to recommend something, it's something that I've used and love and really can stand behind, and this is the case with the Academy. That's why I wanted to check out the courses first, and so I can 100% say it's great, it's really, really awesome, and especially these beginner courses, but then also, if you're a little more advanced, you can still take something away from that and I wouldn't call it beginner courses.

Kristian Kohle: 25:40

You're right. You're right totally.

Benedikt: 25:41

It's just the fundamentals, but it's important for everyone, like I certainly took away something from it too. And then also there are, like what I wanted to say is there are, like, more advanced things, like the mastering course that Ermond did, where you know it might be a little more challenging for people to hear some of the differences and to get what he's talking about. So there's something in it for all kinds of levels and even as a pro. There might be certain things that you explain in those fundamental courses that still makes you question the way you did it or it still reminds you of some things Sometimes. You know we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.

Kristian Kohle: 26:13

I'm getting feedback all the time. Sorry for interrupting you. I'm getting feedback all the time from actual pros who actually watch those courses, and even me. If I do the courses and really dive into everything once again and try to explain it and try to you know, I even sometimes find out certain things or learn something about this. I think it's really interesting for everyone, and it's not just. We also have like the more fancy stuff like the other with external, like other mentors showing how they mix something, which is also what I did back then at Nail the Mix. But one of the main reasons for starting this academy was that I felt like things need to be explained, and especially the why needs to be explained and a lot of the other courses I see elsewhere and on YouTube. We have, like, great engineers doing great mixes, but they some of them don't either don't know why they're doing something which they don't have to. You know they come up with amazing results, but they can't explain this, so they're not good teachers or they don't even know what you're doing. You know, in a way, that and Nolly might be the opposite of that Like he's one of the guys who can really tell you why he is doing what, and so that's. That was the direction I wanted to go to, so people actually learn something and not just get a bunch of fancy tracks and you know, and because that doesn't make you learn anything.

Malcom: 27:49

Absolutely. I want to mention one video in particular of yours and encourage people to check it out. I think it might be your most popular video, but it's like EQing heavy guitars and you know, do you think you're going to go in and find like some crazy curves and really narrow little filters, cleaning things out, whistles and stuff like that? But all it is is you using a low pass filter and totally transforming the guitar tone with just one filter in different settings and but, like I think a lot of educators would have stopped at the first one, be like, look, I cleared it up, see how tight that sounds. But then you change it and you see, okay, what about this? And and by the end of it I was like, okay, I'm hearing filtering in a totally different way on distorted guitars. And like you trained my ear with one video, with one piece of an EQ. It was so good that one's great.

Kristian Kohle: 28:37

Great, great to everybody. Thank you very much. Check that out. That one is actually a part of one of the courses, so that is the high cut filter part of the course and the entire course shows like all the other filters. And yeah, great to hear that. Thank you, incredible, totally totally.

Benedikt: 28:53

I highly recommend watching that, and so one important or interesting aspect also about the Academy is that you teamed up with a lot of other sort of heavy hitters in this industry and in the metal world, so you'll find courses by, like I said, ermin Homidovich, the mastering engineer. You have courses by Ulrich Wilde is in there, who else, like like a lot of you know, you know.

Kristian Kohle: 29:20

Dan Weller did like a modern metal thing. We got Cameron Webb, who worked with Motorhead and NoFX and Pennywise and those bands and yeah, we got some really amazing guys coming up.

Benedikt: 29:32

That I can't talk about.

Kristian Kohle: 29:33

But we I try to cover like the entire range of heavy music there as well. So we got people like Dan Weller. He mixed a band called Cascades like, which is the like super modern pop metal kind of stuff. And then we have people like Bob Marlett, who did a drum course for the Academy, who worked with Osio Osborn and Eddas Cooper, and you know people like that, bands like that. So that's also something that I wanted to make sure from the beginning that we're covering all kinds of metal genres, whatever from more stoner rock or a goth metal or all, and not just whatever is being fancy at the moment, including some niche stuff and it. And if and again, if there are cool people doing something, like Ulf, for example. Ulf from some people might also know him as Swedish producer from Ulf Gromberg from the Hobo Rec YouTube channel. He's like he did like a live recording course. He does a lot of that really filthy sounding HM2-ish stuff and you know he's not like a super well known producer, but he is amazing and he's great. So he did a course and that course did really really well. So it's not always about doing the super hip and super popular stuff. It's about doing the interesting stuff and that's what I'm totally, totally.

Benedikt: 30:54

How did you build that kind of network with those people, is it? I mean, of course Warren Hewart is like a partner of yours, like we all know, like how great of a networker he is and all that, but I guess that's also a lot of work actually to get in touch with all these people, make sure they film their courses, get some sort of agreements, and you know there's, I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes to even make something like that possible. So how did you, how did you turn that idea into reality? I mean, of course you can't talk about everything, but just a general idea. It's just my personal interest basically now asking Because we're in the same situation now too, where? we bring. We bring in guest teachers to. We've done it before, actually, but we're bringing guest coaches and teachers to into our academy and into our coaching program and I just know how much effort it takes to make sure it actually happens to nail people down when he comes to appointments, to come deadlines and stuff, and you know all this kind of stuff. So. So how did you do it and did you get help with that, or how did you manage them?

Kristian Kohle: 31:51

The hardest part is actually when you, when you want to make a course with a well booked producer to make, to actually make them commit, because they will tell you yeah, awesome, we're going to do that, let's do that next year or something you know, and then that's never going to happen, not not because they don't want it, but because they're in that mixing hamster wheel and I used to be in the same place I always, but maybe that's the difference. I know how to how to get them out of there and I can tell them my story and you know, but but you do that personally, basically you reach out to those people. Yeah, yeah, I do that personally, not not everything. We also I got Warren sometimes, so sometimes he knows people and sometimes I know people. We also have some other people working for us, but mostly I do reach out because you know I like people's work and I got to say I know a lot of people from my career as a producer. But then also the whole YouTube thing and the Academy thing has really helped. So I have the I'm fortunate enough or that that when I reach out to people they usually know who I am and have seen me and I've watched this stuff, so I don't have to explain much, which really helps. And I got to say, on that part, youtube has been amazing because even if you are like a very famous, very famous producer, people mostly don't know what you look like. You know they don't if they don't follow you on social media or something. You know you're just a name somewhere in the credits. So YouTube has made that a lot easier because you know people know my face now and right, yeah, but it's again it's like sometimes it's really difficult to especially to pull, pull those guys out of their hamster wheel of mixing another 55 records in the next six months or something. Yeah, yeah.

Benedikt: 33:33

It's the reality, it's totally. That's why I'm asking so yeah, it's impressive what you pulled off there. So so kudos to you and it's a really cool thing that you, that you've built there. By the way, guys, if you want to check this out, I should mention it at this point. I think if you go to the self recording bandcom slash KAK so just three letters call it audio cult, basically. So the self recording bandcom slash KAK you'll find the link to the KOLA Academy and you can sign up there. And, as like kind of a bonus thing, malcolm and I are going to throw in two completely free bonus workshops for you. So you'll find those two on this page. One is about how to create a heavy bass tone heavy, distorted, mean, nasty sounding bass tone from trust, the DI, and the other one is how to use key spikes, which is something Malcolm does to trigger drum samples. So it's an approach that Malcolm uses that works very well for him and it's different from what I do, but I've learned a lot watching his workshop. So it's great Bass, aligned key spikes.

Malcom: 34:31

Yeah, phase line key spikes.

Benedikt: 34:32

Exactly that's the key, yeah, so get those two workshops completely for free If you go to the self recording bandcom slash KAK and, of course, sign up for the KOLA Audio Cult Academy. Highly recommend this.

Malcom: 34:45

Yeah, so I've got a question that might not make the edit here, but I feel like we've had the opportunity to talk to other great, amazing producers, but most of them don't have a YouTube audience or like an authority, as an individual, like you've developed for yourself, so I feel like this is a great opportunity to ask this. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on. Let me rephrase this actually, I am personally fascinated that more bands don't try to build YouTube channel, essentially to to produce, like promote an engaged audience, and you know it's different. They're not going to teach stuff as educators on YouTube. But I wonder, based on your own experience with YouTube and the value that you seem to perceive from developing your YouTube channel, do you think bands are crazy for not trying to use YouTube as like a primary platform?

Kristian Kohle: 35:33

I Would say depends. I mean, I would say for some bands the magic could go away If, if you get too close to your fans. You know so sometimes you just want to want to have that Magical distance, and for other bands it might just be great, but I Can just just still encourage people to try, because I had to be forced to do that, because I also had my reservations first. So In my case it was the URM Academy channel. They asked me to do videos on their channel. I would have never started the YouTube channel on my own, so they basically said, like hey, can you do videos on our?

Benedikt: 36:12

channel and I said okay, I'm gonna.

Kristian Kohle: 36:14

But even there was like, ah, youtube, and I was then back then I was afraid of is that gonna look stupid or something, and and and then a lot of producers are also afraid of giving away their secrets and stuff like that, which are turned out to be to be nonsense. But then in the end you got to find out if that is something for you or not, because in my case I also I didn't know if I was, if I would enjoy to be on camera to talk to people, also like English not being my native language, and because before that I was a producer, you know nobody could see me here. I was, you know, and turned out I Enjoyed it. Turned out people also like watching my stuff. That's another thing you know. You never know. So you better try. It's not for everyone.

Benedikt: 37:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that aspect, that whole aspect like people enjoying your videos is Huge because they don't just enjoy it for the content content's great, of course, but they enjoy it because I think you're, it's just fun to watch you explain these things. You just, you know, yeah, that's that makes such a difference. There's some people who just are not very likeable Camera, you know, this is not the case for you, but I've seen, I've certainly seen videos with great content, but I just can't stand the person teaching it, and so it obviously helps, if you know. If you're with the creator as well, and even being to your studio. You were hosting a meetup at some point and I was there. It's just you're a cool guy to hang out with and it's it's. It's fun to talk to you, it's fun to listen to you, and and so I think that's that's a big part of it. And I think bands, who, who can do that, who can create that kind of connection with their fans, just because they are, as people you know, cool to hang out with and to watch, that that obviously helps, I mean, and those are probably the people who should give it a go.

Kristian Kohle: 37:59

So Absolutely, absolutely. So if you are like, like, like, how do you call that? Like open enough or something to do something like that, and if you are not afraid of you know of, of showing that side, you should go for it. But you're right, they're actually funny enough. I also I also met a lot of youtubers in the last two years, obviously, and I got to know quite a few people where that I really liked, where I do hate their YouTube personal Person the character on you was like oh that guy is so annoying, even if the content might be good or not. Then you meet the guy in person is like, oh, actually quite nice. So yeah, but that's a fun part. Youtube is full of people and yeah, so you can. If you don't like me, you'll find somebody else you might enjoy.

Benedikt: 38:46

Yeah, that's a great point yeah, different learning styles totally, and it's also something I really appreciate about you and also Warren the fact that you know the reason why we're doing this here is because we believe in I mean, technically we could, we could be like a competitors, but I don't care Like, I just want to bring people stuff that that is valuable for them and I don't believe in competition in this case. It's just and this is so, so cool about Warren and you as well because Warren has had his own thing before. He teamed up with you, but he was not afraid to you know, you know, do the partnerships like that and and even also and we were talking to him in Hamburg just a few weeks ago it's just totally. He's totally open and and there's, there seems to be enough, you know, room, enough space for everyone, and I think the the people Consuming YouTube or courses, or hiring mixing engineers or whatever they are gonna choose, whatever they resonate with. Anyways, they are gonna, you know, if they don't, if your stuff doesn't work for them, they go somewhere else. If my stuff doesn't work for them, they go somewhere else, and it's fine. And and yeah, I just appreciate that and I think it's really, really cool that you do it that way.

Kristian Kohle: 39:50

We're in me, actually got together because we have the same spirit. Like we never do anything exclusively, you know so, which I think is stupid. So we work with all kinds of people, and also when I, when people do something for the Academy, you know, I never tell them, hey, but now you're not allowed to do the same thing with somebody else. I don't care, you know, I don't care, I just want to do something cool and that way, that is the cool thing about this modern Internet Business, or something that there's so many cool options for collaborations between YouTube channels, between companies about. So why should you limit yourself? And so that that's what I liked. About what baby? What we liked about each other, warren Hewitt and me, from from the first moment, and but I would also say I mean Knowing that guy personally. I think that, talking about YouTube personas, I think I'm not, and Warren too we are not very different from how we are. No, on the channel, both of you, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and some other people are, which is fine too. You know you're so yeah yeah, totally agree, totally agree.

Benedikt: 40:56

We had like fun conversations with Warren and Hamburg and also we met on Hamburg and we're talking and it's just like you know. It feels familiar, although we don't really know each other well, but it feels like it because it's not, it's the same as it was great.

Kristian Kohle: 41:08

It was great to meet you, because I we kind of kind of lost touch right for some reason, and then we just ran into each other in Hamburg. We hadn't met for since, whatever before COVID or something and so I'm Then. You know, then you forget about people, but I'm really happy to be back because always enjoy Remember listening to your podcast a few times and always enjoyed it. So I'm really happy that this.

Benedikt: 41:32

I'm very glad to hear. Thank you.

Kristian Kohle: 41:33

Yeah, me too.

Benedikt: 41:34

Me too I've got in the way and but I'm very glad we get to do this. We've wanted to do this for a while, but and maybe it's even better that we do it now, now that the Academy is like this, far ahead and everything right so right.

Kristian Kohle: 41:46

So there's always a right time for everything.

Benedikt: 41:48

So let's get to a few things that are that I wanted to ask for our Just because I know our audience is curious and it's gonna be very helpful for them. So do you think that there are situations where Self-recording, the DIY approach, is definitely not the right choice, the right option, where it would be better for people to just hire a Producer or go to studio, go to a mixer, like what were, like? Are there any situations like that that you can think of where someone should definitely seek out the professional sort of help?

Kristian Kohle: 42:21

Absolutely yeah, so yeah.

Malcom: 42:24

I mean there are all kinds of situations.

Kristian Kohle: 42:26

But one one situation might be that you In German we say you don't see the forest because of all the trees. So sometimes you lose focus because you've worked too long and on your own songs and you've, like, you've too deep inside Some kind of rabbit hole and you're basically not able to to judge anymore. This can be about songwriting, about arranging, this can be about guitar tones or mixing or whatsoever, and in those moments I mean it's it's difficult to realize maybe, but in those moments Somebody, a good producer, will step in from the outside and will make those decisions within seconds and and if you're open for that, that usually boosts the whole thing a lot if you're in a situation like that. But again, it always depends. There are other situations where it, where it, makes no sense at all. Then there are situations where you just feel like, hey, I want to focus, I really want to focus on my performance, I just want to sing and I don't want to tune my vocals, I don't want to choose the takes, I don't want to comp them together, I don't want to, you know, do all the boring work and do my headphone mix and, you know, feel uninspired by that. I just want to perform and there can be some sort of luxury.

Benedikt: 43:40

But you know, some bands feel like they perform better and in that case hire someone and, yeah, there are all kinds of situations and different people and yes and yes, I agree, I agree totally and I mean it's still if you want to learn it yourself, you can do it, but it takes a long time. You can't expect to just be able to do it overnight. And if your goal is to make a really fantastic record now, then you should probably you know hire someone. And if you have time and one experiment and want to try and learn it yourself, then by all means do that, or ideally, do both and practice on the side until you're good enough to beat the professional result right.

Kristian Kohle: 44:16

So, whatever you know, yeah, whenever you feel like like you want to reach another level, if you're hitting the roof with what you do, if you feel like, okay, this is what I can do, but I want, more than maybe it's time to, to find somebody else instead of repeating yourself. You know, take, take, go to the next level. And this can be both technically that you just feel like, hey, if we're gonna go to somebody who is, who can dial in better guitar sounds, that might help you. But it can also be just a musical thing or a performance thing that you just want to. You want to record vocals with someone, because that's why a lot of people record vocals with me. Not because I own better mics, because they know I'm gonna push them and I know I will have ideas, and they just feel comfortable in that situation somehow and that's why they booked me. Not because the vocals actually sound technically better.

Benedikt: 45:09

Yeah, so absolutely, absolutely, and I think that I Don't know it's, it's.

Malcom: 45:18

Hmm.

Benedikt: 45:19

Yeah, no, you're right, I'm not in that year.

Kristian Kohle: 45:23

It's redundant, but I want to.

Benedikt: 45:25

I want to say something else, christian, and that is, if you, if someone wants to learn it themselves and they, they think I don't. I just know that's the case for a lot of people. They think they can achieve professional results but in reality they haven't developed the ear yet to really be able to hear what's going on. So I get it often where people think, yeah, we made this thing and it sounds absolutely fine and we love it and we're gonna do everything ourselves now, and then you listen to it and it's actually pretty far from like Professional. So how do you know when it's actually good enough and what can do like? What can people do to kind of train their ears and to get a more realistic Perspective and not be delusional, because that's just the reality of it, and I've been there myself. Like 15 years ago when I started I thought my shit sound killer, like when it's clearly wasn't.

Kristian Kohle: 46:10

So, yeah, no, I think the answer is. The answer is you gotta, you gotta get some kind of professional feedback then, either by working with somebody or by joining my academy and by sending me your mix which is, by the way, another part of this that people can upload their mixes and get get a feedback and I'm still able to to provide a feedback for every mix, because I think a lot of people are actually afraid to upload Still manageable right now. And, yeah, that's the thing. So somebody gotta it's gotta open your eyes, somebody you'll, you'll trust, can be me, can be somebody else. So somebody needs to put it into perspective and that can be painful sometimes, but it usually is helpful and we've all been there and I think it never stops that you just revisit stuff that you've done and realize, oh, it could be better here, it could be better there. Then you sleep bad for two nights and Get back to work and try to improve it. But that's how you, that's how you get better. But if you just, you know, in your own, in your own bubble, you know, like, like convincing yourself how great you are, that's not gonna get you anywhere. So listen to what other people say and, preferably yeah. Get a professional opinion.

Malcom: 47:36

Yeah, I think yeah, two tips on that would be yeah, number one Professional opinion, somebody that you know can actually make things that sound good. It's kind of a prerequisite. And then another is make sure they know that you're actually wanting real feedback. Like if somebody just sent me a mix and we're like, hey, check on my new song, I probably wouldn't tear apart their mix on instinct. I just be like thanks. You know like if it was like really like, hey, I'm actually looking for criticism on this. Yeah, I would change the the response and it's not difficult.

Kristian Kohle: 48:09

Usually, when I listen to, to the mixes inside the Academy, it usually takes me 20 seconds, yes, to find like the three biggest flaws, and that's already enough work, so we don't have to go into detail. Yeah, totally. On the other hand, I'm I'm like like most of them, kind of blown away how good the quality inside the Academy is. I gotta say it's Pretty pretty good people in there. But but still I just listen to this and for me it's quite easy because I have the ear and I know and I can just tell hey, kick drum this problem, base guitar that problem, maybe try that, try that. And it's not difficult. But for them yeah, you know, they most of the time they haven't even paid attention to that. So it's, it's really, really helpful.

Benedikt: 48:49

Yeah, and I've had the experience that when you go, when you give two detailed feedback, it's actually sometimes not even helpful in the beginning because they, as you said, like they don't even know what to work on. First. They don't. And if you give them like the two, three most important things sort of the 80, 20 Cut kind of thing, where you like, fix, fix these, these things and then it will be 80% better, basically that is, that is awesome and that also gives people a quick when it builds momentum and then from there you can always take it further. So with an in our Academy is the same thing in our coaching program. When I give feedback in the beginning, I tend and that's the German and me probably I tend to, you know, get very detailed and like very analytical and like give Every single thing that I spotted. It was just overwhelming for people. And now I do exactly what you said I give them the most important stuff first, let them work on that and then, you know, get more detailed as we go on.

Kristian Kohle: 49:40

So I love that approach and that is that is so precious these days, that people have the opportunity. I'm still amazed by, by. We got quite a lot of people inside my Academy, but maybe I would say maybe 10, 15% of them actually do that and upload the stuff for a review. I don't know why, because I mean that was not possible.

Benedikt: 50:03

I, when I started, like 15 years ago, what you?

Kristian Kohle: 50:07

mentioned, you know.

Benedikt: 50:08

So that is Priceless it was the game changer for me. Like for me the first thing time, at the first time I experienced this was when I worked with an external mixing engineer for the first time, when I started out, and this was like, also 1213 years ago. Like was the first that that that was the first time I've worked with a professional External mixing engineer on a record together and I was sending him my recordings that I've produced a record, I've engineered it, and I was kind of nervous. And then this guy sort of not only mixed the song but gave me feedback in the process, gave me feedback on my, on my source tracks, help me make them better, before he could even start mixing. And that was so valuable, that was so precious and and I would like looking back, I would have paid for that so much just because it is, you know, as part of the project, but, like, that was invaluable to me. That was the when everything changed, basically more or less, and this so, and these days you have access to that through things like our Academies, and this is incredible, yeah, incredible, totally Okay, if you don't mind, cool. I got a few questions from our audience.

Kristian Kohle: 51:10

I like how you switch between Christian and Kodak. Just kidding about that.

Malcom: 51:15

Exactly Krista Kodak. I just still don't know what I want to say, Cool.

Benedikt: 51:19

So the first one is not directly a question that someone left for you, but it just recently came up and I wanted to ask you because I know you got a great answer to it. And that was in our community. We were discussing drums and drum room mics and drum overheads and one of the problems that came up was the kick drum in the overheads and the rooms and how to deal with that. So people had the problem that sometimes, you know, they get the snare center in the image, but then the kick drum was like kind of on one side and they couldn't get both sort of center. And then other people had a problem of the kick drum always being too loud and too dominant in the rooms. They loved how the toms and snare sounded, but the kick drum was just annoying in the room. Basically, and for some reason there was a discussion and we talked about kicks and there was one part of it was in the Facebook community and the other one was in our coaching, and so I know that you I've seen you do a certain thing with kick drums where this is not a problem anymore. But also I want to hear your thoughts on that.

Kristian Kohle: 52:22

By simply not recording a kick drum Exactly, but also I want to hear your thoughts on that Is that something you also ran into.

Benedikt: 52:29

Is there easy ways to fix it, like, how do you approach it? And what's the one thing that I've sort of hinted to?

Kristian Kohle: 52:35

Yeah, the first thing you mentioned is that for most of the extreme metal stuff I do, or as soon as bands start playing like double kick patterns or something, I usually don't record a real kick anymore. Everything else is acoustic drums but I have some kind of kick pad and it is silent in the room and I just record the output of that kick pad and turn it into MIDI, which makes the whole recording process and the editing process way easier on those fast metal music. So that's one thing, and in that case of course the kick drum does not matter because you won't hear it in the room. On the other hand, I'm kind of surprised because usually what you want from room microphones is to pick up the drum shells. You don't want to have the sizzle from the cymbals, you want to have that wade from the toms and the kick and the snare. So having a boomy kick on the room mics is something that you usually want. So I'm kind of that kind of sounds weird to me.

Malcom: 53:37

Just to jump in. Was this on the room mics or the overheads, benny, in your conversation.

Benedikt: 53:41

So that was the room. I like the two part In the Facebook community I think you saw that where we were talking about overheads. There the problem was that the person always had the kick on like one side of the stereo image the attack of the kick, and that was annoying to him. So that was one part of the question. And the other thing was the room mics, because they loved the snare and the toms. But when they got them to a certain level that they liked in the mix, the kick was just too loud and they didn't have Overwhelming. Overwhelming, they didn't have trouble.

Kristian Kohle: 54:08

I've never had that problem. But it should be easy to fix by either just EQing it out, because the kick is like the lowest, deepest instrument. So maybe you can just lower the bass and get rid of that and in case that affects the toms and the snares too much, you can sidechain the kick to the room mics so whenever the drummer hits the kick you can have some kind of multi-bund compression, like getting rid of the low end in the room mics. That should fix it. The other issue is definitely a placement, a mic placement issue, where you should experiment with moving the microphones. You could measure the distance to the kick drum so both mics have the same distance, Otherwise just move it. Then again, I think having the snare in the middle for some reason is more important than having the kick drum in the middle. You can hear that on a lot of the drum libraries as well. If you listen to the room mics, they're very often like especially if you have like spaced pairs, like the kick is Very, very shifted and it doesn't matter, especially for rock and metal mixes where the close mics really dominate the kick sound.

Malcom: 55:15

So, just. Ignored If I had to venture a bet in that scenario if you weren't happy with the kick in the room. There's a chance that you don't like the sound of the kick, Like the kick's probably not tacked the way that it could be, because the kick should sound awesome in your room mics.

Kristian Kohle: 55:31

That's correct. Get things right at the source. Yeah, correct.

Benedikt: 55:34

Okay, great, thank you, amazing. So the other questions are questions that we also asked guests before you, I think, including Warren actually on this show, and a couple of others, and I'm curious to hear your answer. So I hope you haven't listened to those episodes yet. And then Cool, awesome, not Warrens, at least Awesome. So let's see. The first question comes from Wayne, and it's funny like I just like asking the same questions to people just because it's interesting to have these different opinions here. So the first question is from Wayne. He says the government has announced a 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 come to you for advice what microphone do you choose to be the only microphone that can ever be manufactured and used from now on? Like one specific mic or like a type of one. Like a type of one there can only be one Okay, there can only be one.

Kristian Kohle: 56:30

Maybe this one here, really. Or like the bigger brother, like the Austrian audio condenser mic, because, despite using a 57 on a lot of stuff and like for most metal people, it's also my favorite guitar cab microphone, this one here, the Austrian audio OCE818. That's the bigger brother. The multi pattern version of it is, I think, the microphone that is the most versatile in my world. I use it for vocals because it works. It's like a good sounding SM7. It works for all kinds of vocals, also the aggressive vocals, but sounds a little more hi-fi than a SM7. And it's also my drum overhead mic. It can also be used on a snare, even, and sounds pretty cool as long as the drummer doesn't hit it. It's great on guitar cabs. So, yeah, I guess that would be my Desert Island microphone. Austrian audio OCE818.

Benedikt: 57:23

Great, Great answer. What's your favorite stock plug-in? You use Cubase right?

Kristian Kohle: 57:28

Yeah, do I use any of the Cubase stock plug-ins? I think I don't use any of the Cubase stock plug-ins like on a regular bass. Today I just use the distortion plug-in because it's really cool. For some reason the Cubase distortion plug-in doesn't shift the phase at all, so you can just blend it really nicely and I use it for slightly distorting overheads and stuff like that. Do I use any? I sometimes use reverence.

Benedikt: 58:04

Oh yeah, I use that too.

Kristian Kohle: 58:07

Reverb IR impulse response reverb plug-in. But no, Okay, I'm still on Cubase 10.5, so I don't even know all the new stuff.

Benedikt: 58:21

Thank you for saying that. We just had that discussion as well. 13 came out and people were kind of well, not too long ago I just bought 12 and now 13,. Such a bummer, and should I upgrade? I was like well, have you done everything you can do with 12 already? Some people are still in 10 or 11 or whatever, and it still works great. So I'm glad to hear that.

Kristian Kohle: 58:45

Yeah, don't change your running system. I actually 13,. I looked at it and I really didn't understand why I should upgrade. I also saw a post from Urban, where he said something like where he said like how do Steinbeck always make people pay money for not changing anything?

Malcom: 59:03

Whatever, there's exactly one. Everybody's mad at all the dolls.

Benedikt: 59:09

There's just one feature, honestly, that I would love to have. It's the one thing that all the other dolls have for a while. Usually, Cubase has what the others want, but like this is one thing that all the others have, and this is you can now just click a track the mono stereo thing, exactly. This is the one feature I want that I can click a track and turn it into mono stereo.

Kristian Kohle: 59:26

But other than that, which is correct, Everybody said that that was the only interesting add-on. If you ask me, Anyway, I even own Cubase 12. I got the license but I don't really use it. I'm on 10.5. This computer here in my main control room still runs on Windows 7. Wow, it's 10 years old. 10 years old. Spotify always tells me hey, your system is too old.

Benedikt: 59:50

It's actually connected to the internet as well. That is brave on a Windows 7 system.

Kristian Kohle: 59:55

I got a pretty stable system and I only use Spotify and I got pretty bad at Firewall to keep it safe. So I don't do any other stuff there. But then again, the metal mix I do today hasn't really changed from the metal mix I do 10 years ago. I have enough power. I know I got a switch at some point, but maybe that's just a little message to people out there. It's just like when people talk about converters and then they tell you hey, how can you compare a 10-year old converter? It's like, hey, people, there are great sounding records from 10 years ago. No, problem.

Benedikt: 1:00:34

My converters are 10 years old. They're not great, but I would switch them.

Kristian Kohle: 1:00:38

People sometimes have a feeling if they use an amp-sim that is five years old, it's outdated or something. Of course, with certain types of software there's a faster pace. If it sounded great five years ago. Most of the stuff I'm using has been around for a long time and still works.

Benedikt: 1:00:55

And if it sounded great five years ago, it will probably still sound great today, so why wouldn't it? Amazing Cool. What's your favorite fancy plugin, then?

Kristian Kohle: 1:01:03

like any plugin, basically Any plugin- I mean, I think one game-changing plugin and I'm pretty sure Warren said the same thing, in case you ask him would be Suve. I think that was a real game-changer and it's like an industry standard by now, which is great. I don't use many plugins. I use the FabFilter stuff for the bread and butter kind of stuff. I use quite a few TC electronic plugins because I'm still a big finalizer fan, so I use all their dynamics and stuff. I love Altiverb, which is a quite expensive plugin, but I really like that. I like the sound toys stuff, but I tend to whatever. I can have a door with 20 plugins and I'm happy. So I try to limit this a little bit Totally.

Benedikt: 1:02:07

And again going back to your course, what you can do with just FabFilter is amazing. And then maybe add a Pultec, which is also included in most DAWs, or get a free version of that or whatever, just for the curves, and you're good in terms of EQ. Basically, oh yeah.

Kristian Kohle: 1:02:22

These days I use the Softube Pultec version, which sounds great and also adds some harmonics and stuff. It's not totally clean sounding. It's like an actually pretty good analog modeled plugin.

Benedikt: 1:02:35

I think, added a Pultec now in 13 actually. No, that was you saying that? Right, they did that.

Kristian Kohle: 1:02:40

I don't know if it's a clean sounding one or if it's just a curve, or if they also added, like the analog part of it, the Softube TubeTec Pultec, sounds really good. That's what I'm using now, so that one and FabFilter or any other type of like good, well programmed digitally Q and I'm happy, awesome.

Benedikt: 1:02:58

Great. Now, if you could work with any artist, either from history or the present like time travel is totally allowed who would it be?

Kristian Kohle: 1:03:09

Oh, my God, I just I'll give you a funny answer, because I just did an interview for the German Rock Hard magazine. They asked me the same thing and I said, like I want to work with Doropesh because she's, you know, doron, like the Hard Rock or German Metal Queen, because she's the one who actually, you know, turned me like into the heavy metal direction when I was nine years old with her back in the days, band Warlock. And so the title of that interview was hey, doron, I'll do everything for free.

Benedikt: 1:03:43

And so far she hasn't, so I'll try again, right?

Malcom: 1:03:46

So, I still here waiting for you. I want to work with you. I'm not asking for money.

Benedikt: 1:03:52

That's just a great answer, cool. Do you guys know Doron over there Not come?

Malcom: 1:03:58

No, no, I'm at Warlock.

Benedikt: 1:04:00

Awesome. Okay, and then you mentioned Spotify. What are you currently listening to? Like, not for referencing, maybe, but like you personally, what do you enjoy listening to?

Kristian Kohle: 1:04:11

Oh, I don't really listen to music.

Malcom: 1:04:15

I'm not surprised at all. I'm not surprised at all.

Kristian Kohle: 1:04:18

It's really like all my Spotify algorithm is totally screwed because I'm mostly referencing, I'm listening to music eight hours a day and then the evening I'm listening to music forever from bands who want to work with me, or I listen back to mixes from the Academy and stuff like that. Maybe it sounds stupid, but I want to stay away from music as much as I can.

Benedikt: 1:04:45

It's so relatable. Mine is full with power rangers and kids stuff from my kids, the stuff that they listen to. That's my Spotify algorithm power rangers, theme songs and stuff like that. Oh yeah, nice, I can relate. That's fine.

Kristian Kohle: 1:05:02

That means you don't have girls, it's totally the cliche actually.

Benedikt: 1:05:05

No, it's actually really the cliche. I have a boy and a girl and if you look at my Spotify, you see the power rangers theme songs and then you also see unicorn songs and stuff like that.

Kristian Kohle: 1:05:14

BBT, bbt. I enjoy that.

Benedikt: 1:05:16

It's the complete cliche, honestly Okay. So another very interesting question is what is your view on the timeline of making a record and how long should music take to finish? One of the things I struggle with Ryan is asking he's a coaching student of ours. One of the things I struggle with is trying to finish music fast while also now compromising artistic integrity and quality. Where's the line in your opinion? Any tips for those of us who struggle with that? So how long should it take to make a song, record a song, write a song, and what do you do if you're struggling with that?

Kristian Kohle: 1:05:55

Oh, that's a tough one, Hello Brian.

Benedikt: 1:05:57

Ryan, sorry, Ryan.

Kristian Kohle: 1:05:59

I'm sorry, without the beat, ryan. So I guess it depends, as usual. So sometimes or again, it's just you just got to keep on working and got to keep on learning and getting better until you have come up or with a feeling or understanding of what's good and what's not good in your world. I guess that's the best answer, and the more mature you become as a musician and as a producer, the easier it will be to make those judgments. Just say, ok, this is all right, now I'm going to stop here on this mix because it feels all right and it makes no sense to go on, or I'm going to take a break and I'm going to listen back and then I'm going to make that decision and I think there's no, there's no shortcut here. And but once you get there, then sometimes you can write a song in five minutes and sometimes it needs a lot of work. That's what happens to me. You know, sometimes I do stuff really, really fast, and then I just especially with songwriting or creative ideas, and then I know that if I had taken two weeks it wouldn't have become any better. And then there's other stuff that I do where I really know like, no, this needs to be improved. This needs to be improved. You've got to learn what's good and what's good enough for you, and once you've learned that and can make decisions, then you will find out. Was that a good answer? It is good.

Malcom: 1:07:25

No, I think I think there's this arc of like people start and we mentioned it earlier in this, the same podcast episode that there's not knowing, that it's like you think it's good but it's not good enough, and then you get some advice and you figure that out, but then you're going to go too far eventually.

Kristian Kohle: 1:07:40

But that is the real maturity, that's the difference, like of thousands of hours of doing this kind of stuff, is learning these kind of things. It's kind of part of it there is people on YouTube always tell you hey, there's a quick trick to, but there's no clear answer. Hey, you've got to take 10 minutes for this and two hours for this and three days for that. That's not how it works. Yeah, it depends, and that's why it's so interesting to get these answers because you'll find the whole spectrum if you ask people.

Benedikt: 1:08:06

There's famous producers who take two weeks to just get a kick drum right, and then there's other people who you know mix it or like produce and mix the whole song in just one day, or you know maybe five songs, I don't know. You get everything and everything in between. So there's. I think there is no right or wrong, really. Yeah.

Malcom: 1:08:23

Yeah, totally.

Benedikt: 1:08:24

Cool, Thank you. So very important question from me here Are you going to do a meetup again at some point at your studio?

Kristian Kohle: 1:08:33

Oh yeah, absolutely so what's?

Benedikt: 1:08:35

the call. It called Be informed if that happens?

Kristian Kohle: 1:08:38

Yes, yes, it will be. It will be the call all your call people hopefully many of them but it will be public again. I want to have a lot of people there. It's either going to be here again, actually, this time directly in the same village where I have my studio, where we found a really cool place, where they just build a really cool place for this.

Benedikt: 1:08:58

There is another option right now, but I can't Sorry. They built a place for a calling meetup. Yes, of course. Yes, yes, of course.

Kristian Kohle: 1:09:07

They got to name the village after that.

Malcom: 1:09:09

It really is a call. It is a call.

Benedikt: 1:09:13

It's right at the Kole Plaza or somewhere like in the center of the.

Kristian Kohle: 1:09:17

Yeah, yes, and then there is another option. There might be something else happening that I can't talk about, which might shift the meeting to a bigger German city, but there will be something happening next year and I try to make it as fancy and cool as possible to get like all the, because last time it was nice, right, I think 70 people or something came together from six different countries or something.

Benedikt: 1:09:44

Each drank about 70 beer as well.

Kristian Kohle: 1:09:47

Oh yeah, I think I never got that drunk in my entire life. It was really painful, but yeah, so that also makes me a little afraid, but I want to repeat that.

Benedikt: 1:10:00

That sounds super exciting.

Kristian Kohle: 1:10:02

That's going to happen next year and that's going to be a public thing.

Benedikt: 1:10:05

Very cool. Yeah, that was so much fun. Also, your studio is just amazing. An amazing place as well, very unique tracking room. We haven't even talked about the room with Boom there. The concept, like the room itself, is not that big, but it's very high and so it sounds massive and there's a lot of daylight and there's like, yeah, just it's a really beautiful studio, sounds great in there. It's also, by the way, I'm always impressed when you do these videos and podcasts, where in your control room you can be so far away from the mic and it sounds like you're right next to it. That obviously speaks for the room as well.

Kristian Kohle: 1:10:41

So it's a nice. There's another control room now that you haven't seen like completely new built basement there, or like the bottom. Over there. I'll show you next time. It's difficult to explain. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benedikt: 1:10:53

You'll see it next. Cool, yeah, because I know that you had a second room on the same floor, but then there was also one below, I think, if I remember correctly. Yeah, anyway, great studio, great great thing that you have going there, awesome. One more thing on my list here, and that is I. Sometime ago I can't even remember where I found this probably was an email of yours I downloaded a snare sample from you and that was the. I think it's called a concrete Kolek rec, something like that.

Kristian Kohle: 1:11:24

It's four Ks, not three. Okay.

Benedikt: 1:11:26

What was it? What is it called exactly?

Kristian Kohle: 1:11:28

I don't remember, but I made that mistake of doing like a three.

Benedikt: 1:11:33

K thing and really fired back quickly.

Kristian Kohle: 1:11:36

So you know, don't don't get me wrong, I'm far away from being a right wing guy, but that was just something. As a European, you don't really have that in, you know, and so that's why we added the fourth something. Yeah, I think that was exactly. That was snare. Was we talked about the new room? So that snare was recorded on the building side, like the empty concrete room before we added all the acoustic material. Awesome. But what was the question?

Benedikt: 1:12:04

No, I just wanted oh yeah, there's a question. So I downloaded that and it's one of my most used one shots to this day. I always like, I use it very often because it sounds awesome. I just, whatever it is, I really use it on its own, but I would like to blend it in and I think the reason is because it's it has a length to it, a very nice kind of there's a room, but there's also a length to the snare itself. That sometimes, when the snare is too pokey to just transient heavy, if I blend in a little bit of your snare, it makes it more natural, a little bit longer, and it does in a very organic and natural way. I can even leave the one shot enduring some of the fills, which is not always possible with some of the one shots, because it just works even for more organic stuff. And so my question is is that still available anywhere for people to download? Yeah, yeah, there's like.

Kristian Kohle: 1:12:49

Like, if people want that, like all the free stuff that I have piled up over the years on YouTube is on my discord server. So what people have to do is they have to subscribe to my email list and sell me their souls, and if you do that, you get an email to the discord server. It's a little complex, so then you can go there and then there's like 4000 people on that or 5000 or something on that discord servers and there are nice discussions about all things metal and but there you can download like a lot of different, all the free stuff that I've done over the years samples and I ours and other stuff, including that snare. But that snare got downloaded many, many times, thousands of times, and I got a lot of positive feedback. So in hindsight I thought like I should have turned that into like a multi-sampled version. It's great. But again, it was just a fun thing where I was like hey, we got that room. Now it kind of sounds cool, let's record a snare, let's film this. So you know, whatever you did there, rather it just works, it's, it's. I can't repeat it. You know the room is gone, so yeah, anyway, it's like just get that sample, guys, because it's the perfect.

Benedikt: 1:13:55

You know there's a little bit of missing blended in. It's awesome.

Kristian Kohle: 1:13:59

But you should also check out the now that you are in the academy, you should also check out this pool thing that I did when I went into that empty swimming pool. That also right now it includes some kick drum samples are really nice. They're like multi samples, as TCI is including that pool verb, which is huge and nice for certain effects, and I'm going to add the snare samples soon and they also sound pretty badass.

Benedikt: 1:14:26

So I will. And there's another email actually yesterday with some snare samples to where there was one, free, I think, from you right.

Kristian Kohle: 1:14:32

Brady Brady. One shot, that actually three. Okay, it's a three shot, so to say. Very cool and very cool, awesome.

Benedikt: 1:14:40

So, yeah, lots to talk about. And, by the way, if people sign up for your email list they would like, when do they have to go to do this? Because we again put the link to all of that in the show notes and the description and there will be the link to the Koya audio cult. But is there a certain place where they can sign up for that, or?

Kristian Kohle: 1:14:58

Yeah, you have to add the link and I think under every one of my YouTube videos you will find that link. It usually says sell your soul to the devil. That's where you want to go, and then I can annoy you with a few emails.

Benedikt: 1:15:11

Did you get at some point like a very angry response email from someone telling you that you know the whole sell your soul to the devil thing, where they got really upset about it? Oh yeah, there's no joke.

Malcom: 1:15:20

That's all that. That's a lot of this. That's a lot of this.

Kristian Kohle: 1:15:24

Actually I mean always coming from Americans obviously like sometimes really really stupid people, but sometimes also very sophisticated, well educated people who really feel you know, who don't get the joke, because I'm not actually worshipping Satan, I'm not doing that, it's just fun, it's metal, but you shouldn't make fun of that. Yeah, but I won't stop doing that.

Benedikt: 1:15:55

And I mean you know what you're getting yourself into. If you put it right in the description, you know, then just don't sell your soul if you don't want to.

Kristian Kohle: 1:16:00

Exactly, there were actually some people who went like oh my God, because then it says, it says like thanks for selling your soul to the devil, and they were like, oh my God, I'm doomed. So they tried to get rid of you know to get rid of that contract again. Yeah.

Benedikt: 1:16:17

You should put a funny unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email, something that's a way to get your soul back, basically, yeah.

Kristian Kohle: 1:16:25

Return policy for you.

Benedikt: 1:16:27

Anyway. So I feel like that's been done before at some point in history. But yeah, okay. So, Kristen, thank you so much for your time. Is there anything? we forgot to talk about, where, again, the description has all of the links. If you're on YouTube, just go to the description. All that is there. If you're watching on, if you're listening on your favorite podcast app, go to the podcast podcast description. This will also go out via, via email, and if you just want to hear the URL again, go to theselfrecordingbandcom and sign up for the Kole Audio Cult and get our free workshops on top of it as a bonus.

Kristian Kohle: 1:17:07

That's all. I hope to see you guys either on YouTube or inside Kole Audio Cult Perfect, many of you hopefully. Thanks, awesome, yeah, thanks so much Kristen.

Malcom: 1:17:18

We'll have you back for episode 666.

Kristian Kohle: 1:17:21

I'll be back, thank you.

Malcom: 1:17:23

Thanks.