Transcription
Hey, how are you? I'm good, man. How about you?
Good, good, good. Warren Joe. So, do we call you Joe, or do we call you Otis?
You can call me whatever you want. Most people call me Otis. My real name is Joe Bigail. Joe Bigail, Joe Bigail. And all my fans know that that's my real name, but everybody calls me Otis. Some people call me Jodas. Jodas, yeah, yeah.
So it's Otis McDonald?
Otis McDonald. That's your YouTube channel? That's your artist name?
That's correct, but your Joe, and that's how I produce and also mix records under that name as well.
Well, it's a great-looking room. We got a little bit of a history lesson on just how many incredible records were made here in this room at Hi High Street.
Yeah, this is Studio D. This is Studio D. I moved to San Francisco 22 years ago, 'cause I was a—from where I'm from—Rochester, New York originally. That's the reason I got that Steve Gadd doll over there. I'm a drummer as well. See, New York, Steve Gadd, man. Come on. Oh, come on. This is this is worth a look at that Steve. Look, me, if you're a drummer from Rochester, New York, it's hard to find a better drum—you know, I'm more of a hero than Steve Gadd, you know.
Yeah, but I I moved here 22 years ago 'cause I did have family that was out here, so I had a connection here, but I was obsessed with all of Herbie Hancock's funk records: Head Hunters, Thrust, Manchild, and Secrets. Yeah, I came out here because I was obsessed with that Bay Area funk sound: Sly Stone, Herbie, Tower of Power.
All good things to be obsessed with.
Exactly. And I started the Otis McDonald thing about 10 years ago, and when that started to take off, and and I actually started to make some money, my wife and I had a—our first kid—and we were feeling a little more secure. And, of course, my studio was at home in one of our bedrooms in our two-bedroom flat, and we were anticipating our son going to—he was going to need a room—and so I went on Craigslist and just went into the rental market and typed in "recording studio." Up popped Studio D, uh, Hi Street—the room where Herbie Hancock made all those records.
Yeah. I had kind of heard through the grapevine that there was a room available, and I had never been here before. I uh, I used to work at Coast Recorders, and I worked a lot at Fantasy. In fact, I have some gear that came from Fantasy when they closed. I called Jack, our studio manager. Yeah, and I said, "Hey, I'm in New York, but I'm going to be home in two days. Is that room available?" And he said there was one other uh party looking at it, which I heard ended up being like an adult film company or something, so that would have changed the vibe in the building.
Uh, that wouldn't have been a good idea. So my wife and I came here with our two-month-old and his stroller, and and I walked right in here, and I was like, "Oh, man. Yeah, this like feels like a, you know, like a Bill Putman room," which I I don't know if you know the story of this particular room.
I don't know the story of this room.
So okay, so Wally Heider, you know who was a protégé of Bill's, uh, was working at uh what is now East West Studios. I believe it was called Western back in the day.
Yeah, there was United and Western, and there was Western.
Yeah. Wally's favorite room there was Studio 3.
Sure, which is where the Mamas and the Papas, you know, and and the Beach Boys made Pet Sounds and uh and other timeless records. And so when he closed the shop in LA and moved up here to open up Wally Heider Studios, he cloned that room, Studio 3.
Ah, well, okay. So look, it's a it's actually a mirror image, so the entrance would be on this side with the ramp going down, and the dimensions—do you want to come in here?
Yeah.
The dimensions of this room are identical. It's just the interior is different, but you have the jagged wall on this side, the flat wall on this side. You can see the ceiling is slanted down going the other direction that it does at Studio 3. Uh, and then, of course, the floor is flat, but yeah, nothing parallel, even—oh, sorry—even the way uh this is set up and the way it looks going into the control room. I love it. This a gorgeous room. It's a gorgeous room. They call it a shoebox shape. Sorry, you saw all my storage back there.
No, no. Unfortunately, the room didn't come with a lot of storage, and I had a lot of equipment when I moved in here.
It's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing that I had most—much stuff to talk about. You got pair of D9s on the drums here.
Oh, well, I'm a huge Beatles nut, man. D9s. I got a D20 on the kick drum here. And is that Altec?
No, man. That's an RCA. It's a BK1A from the 40s. Yeah. And actually, funny story about those. I have a pair of these—this is one of the pair—and uh that came from my good buddy Scott—a SP1—I mean, it came from my good buddy uh Scott Amendola, legendary drummer in the Bay, who's grandfather used to play in The Tonight Show big band with Steve Allen—that Tonight Show—and those were the microphones on the desks for the guests, and he sold them to me a few years ago. Oh, and uh wonderful. So it's it's a nice pedigree, and but uh a lot of people know me for my drum sounds. They're always wondering how I get my drums to sound as fat and funky as they do. Drums is my main instrument. The main thing's back here. Cole's back there. John's method and sort of—yeah—a hybrid of it. But uh these drums I started on when I was 7 years old. I've been playing that that same drum set uh amazing my whole my whole life. So that's really part of the drum sound. Camco, Camco, man. Well, that's uh Daniel Li is a Camco as well, doesn't he?
Oh, does he? Yeah, yeah. When we were there, he had—they don't make them anymore—and those are early Camcos from the early 60s before they adapted the round lugs, which then DW uh bought. So D19 over the top.
Mhm. D19 on the snare. Yeah, that's a that's a different-looking one.
Well, that's an AKG D19. This is a Telefunken D19. Same thing. And have another one of the Telefunkens. Yeah, another one of the AKGs. And then I just bought Warm Audio's uh clone of the D19. It's pretty good. I mean, it sounds totally different than these, but none of them sound alike.
Yeah. No, no two sound the same.
Mm, no, they don't. And uh and I just got back from NAMM where I Bossers hooked me up with some new symbols. Those high hats over there, which were really fun to play while I was performing. Cymbals, which—C—wonderful symbol. That was my first symbol when I was a kid. You you start off with an Lable?
Yeah. Well, I started off with these drums. My dad was a drummer, or still is a drummer, so he had taste. Yeah, we had—yeah—we either had Camcos or Gretsch set up in our house, so I was very lucky to start on a nice nice gear when I was a kid.
I think every drummer on—you started off with uh the cheap Pearls, the Max—
Oh, sure. Yeah. Actually, the story of these drums: So my dad was a high school music teacher, and it was a private school in Rochester, New York, and they—that school—was replacing these Camcos with those Pearls here, talking, and they used to have a garage sale every year. They called it the Harley Sale. The school was called the Harley School, and uh and my dad knew what those drums were, and he's like, "I tell you what, I'll give you 20 bucks for those, and I'll give you 25 if you throw the snare in," that was behind it, which was a Radio King Slingerland. So for 25 bucks he got the kick, the rack Tom, and the matching snare, which is back there. Yeah. And then when I was 16 and getting pretty serious about drums and getting ready to audition for colleges and everything, uh he knew I needed my own drum set, and then I found a matching floor tom in Santa Cruz, actually, of all places, and ordered it on—do you remember this publication was called The Not So Modern Drummer?
No, but I love it.
And they had a classified ads in the back, and so I—I spent $400 on that floor tom. Oh, look at this. Yeah, gorgeous. '78 Mustang. Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's a favorite. John Patitucci likes that one when he comes by. That's a that's a good—that's a good base. And then back here. Yeah, a B15N, '67. '67. And I did actually have a D12 on here, but uh Universal Audio sent me a bunch of these mics, so I'm I'm kind of checking out their—so far so good—their emulation. Yeah, it sounds great. Hey, it's hard—I mean, this amp sounds great, so it's, you know, we we've got a whole Universal Audio video of all of their mics—of all their mics. Yeah, I I did some with the drums just to kind of—how did you feel? It sounded pretty good. I actually used that same mic next to the D20, but it kind of more emulated a D12, so it it sounded different. The D20 is a lot fatter. Yeah, that actually came from Fantasy when they closed. I I bought that that microphone. You ever had the D30?
No, the big boy? No, I've never come across it. We used that I think on the Thrills record with Dave Sardi.
Oh, wow. Yeah, it just looks like that, but on steroids.
Oh, that sounds awesome. Yeah, amazing. And then of of course I like keyboard, guitars, and Periscope. Oh yeah, they're fantastic, aren't they? 'Cause they've got that sort of built-in limiting.
Go, so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really really fun to just blend in, especially in a good sound room. This this room sounds great. There's no ugly reflections in here. I mean, sounds like a—
So do you ever do a Pet Sounds kind of thing and fit like the full band in here and brass and everything and cut it all at once?
No, I'm kind of taking up too much space as it is. It's really it's really just set up for me. I mean, I bring in I bring in musicians on certain records. I produced Aloe Blacc's uh album last year, and that I I had musicians coming in and out of here, but most people know me just just for playing all the instruments myself. And so if you watch me on YouTube and do my weekly live stream, I'm I'm just kind of moving around the room and playing all the various instruments.
Well, we will make sure we we uh put a link to it. So Pais Suos—is this a new one?
Uh, those are actually identical amps, and they belong to my good buddy Eric Crno, a great guitar player. I produced the last couple of records for him, and while we were working on his album, um Phil Lesh's Club Terrapin closed down, and he was keeping them there for anytime he would guest spot. And so Phil's uh tech brought him over here. This was a couple years ago. I moved in here with the Fenders. I I've always been a Fender guy. That's a Princeton reissue, and that's actually a '90s Deluxe Reverb that my brother actually had gutted and redone just like a vintage one.
And uh that sounds like an old one. It sounds like a '60s.
Yeah, the '65s are phenomenal, aren't they?
Yeah, they're fantastic. You can see I'm a little obsessed with the Beatles. I I see the Rickenbacker.
Yeah, yeah. Three violins, but this is kind of my my main axe. I actually built this one when I was 20, and I've been uh—this is probably the instrument I use the most. Oh, Bellinis. Yeah, I put the Bellinis in 10 years ago when I first built it. I just had some some cheap Chinese pickups. This started off as a kit that Saga Instruments produced. Um, the headstock was just like a box, so we had to cut it and shape—save it—back here a little bit, but I never did a finish. I just used a wood buffer on it.
Love that. Yeah. And then I put a different pickguard on it, and then I changed out the pots a couple of years ago.
Car kind of—yeah, of course. Yeah, I'm into that that funky, tight sound. All my basses have flatwounds on it, with exception to this Rickenbacker and a—bucker copy—the Aria. You know these guys?
Yeah. I love—love Aria. I mean, that was—that when I was a kid, probably the same for you—was pretty much one of two or three only affordable guitars you—
Exactly. Yeah. This this is great. You know, it's that same finish as the McCartney bass as well. And, of course, I'm a huge Yes fan and Chris Squire fan, but it doesn't have the stereo—the uh what do they call that—the Ricochet or something?
Ricochet sound?
Think it was. Yeah, but it's funky. Got you three different violin basses. Only one real Hofner, but this is like the uh kind of like the first one that was given to Paul that got stolen. Do you know about that story?
I do, and he got it back recently.
Um, so they started remaking these back in like the early 2000s. That's what this is. Yeah, we bought a Reisch as well. We love it. It's great. It's great. It's great. But actually my favorite of all the violin basses that I own is this Japanese one from the '70s—a National—a National, but not to be confused with the resonator guitar company that makes—yes—but uh but this guy is is sweet, and I just really love this tortoiseshell pickguard. And '70s Japanese guitars—just across the board—acoustics, basses, electrics, everything—are super superb. And I kind of like that it's a bolt-on neck as opposed to glued on, 'cause it it's just more balanced. It's not top-heavy like my other two, although this guy is cool. The Jay Turser. That's that—that's just like a—was never—was never an expensive instrument.
No, not at all. I mean, I know they're worth thousands if they're original, but you know, they were affordable. They were affordable. The Beatles were playing them in Hamburg for a reason. It's—they could afford—and to, you know, complete the whole Beatles bass thing, of course, I got a B6 here.
Yeah, lovely. Although I was just playing—you know—Nova guitars. M—did you see them? Were you at NAMM?
We were at NAMM. Did you go by their booth at all?
We didn't. We we spent more time in Pro Audio, unfortunately. So they they made a uh a six-string like a Bass VI style thing, and it actually—it feels quite a bit better than this. It was a lot easier to play. It's also not as heavy as this, too. I really really enjoyed playing it and hoping to check it out some more. And then, of course, I've got some great instruments. This is a Mark I, '69 Rhodes. Amazing. I got this actually from the school I used to teach at um in Berkeley—the Jazz Conservatory. Yeah, and it's just beautiful sounding. It's pretty pretty dialed in. In fact, the guy—a shame we already got these little tiny mics on it—but that is gorgeous sounding. Do you know this—the Wurlitzer—700? This is from the early or late '50s? '58 maybe? It's um it's basically the same engine as a Wurlitzer 120, which was like the Ray Charles—the—you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. That's wonderful. It's a great—great—they're both very clean. This in particular, I didn't know it was on. Yeah, very clean. Yeah. This one you can kind of hear—you can hear that—yeah. But actually I need to switch out some of the tubes in it, 'cause it's it doesn't sound as fat as it's supposed to sound. Yeah, but this is clean as a whistle. Yeah. In fact, the guy that um that serviced this for me before I moved in here, he tried to buy it from me after servicing it. I've never heard one that's clean. Did you know that was on before he played it? Yeah, it's such a great great instrument. Love it. The vibrato is beautiful. I love the suitcases because I like the speakers on this side—on that side.
Yeah, I agree. Great. And then this is an A100 over here. Lovely. And uh the Leslie is actually all the way in the back corner. Uh, and then I just use those giant Goos to kind of make it an isolator room. Uh, it's not on, but we can turn it on. Yeah, I want to hear it. Although you won't hear the Leslie, but we—it has its own cabinet, so we can—can you hear this one? Eric? Sound like an engine pulling up here. All right, so we'll come to this side. Not quite the—the same thing as the—you can hear it—there it comes—on all the way in the back, but it's, you know, sounds good down [Music] here. And then yeah, obviously the Juno 106 that's not running through right now. Uh, and actually I have to service that guy. And then the Six Track made by Sequential that came out the year I was born—1983.
Wow. Yeah, great great synthesizer. And uh yeah, just I just run all that stuff in mono. And then, of course, yeah, lots more in here. I have a pretty funky workflow, um which is why I started going live on my channel when I I wanted to show people this room, but um when I moved in here is when I first started checking out Ableton. Yeah, and uh and I came across this artist out in—I want to say he's out in the Netherlands—his name is Beats, and he he would upload these videos of him recreating like classic hip-hop beats by like J Dilla and Madlib, but he was doing it all with live instruments, and but he was so quick, the way he was looping—but I wasn't seeing, you know, how—looping pedal—you have to hit it on the way in and on the way out, but he wasn't doing that. He was just hitting it once, maybe laying down two bars of drums, and it would loop back, and then he might play four bars of bass, or—I was—how is this guy doing this? And and then I I saw some people commenting, "Well, it must be Ableton, but you can't see his computer," right? And then finally Ableton did a uh did an interview with him, and uh and then he talked about this this plugin that he and his friends built in the Max for Live software.
Oh, wow.
And they call it the Bank Looper. Yeah, and he was giving it away for free on his website. So I downloaded Ableton, got the looper, didn't know how to use Ableton, and I've been using Pro Tools for 22 years, so it was very foreign to me, but what I was able to do is is essentially turn my whole recording studio into like one giant looping pedal, and I walk around the room with my iPad. Yeah, and I use this uh software called TouchOSC Pro. Yeah, and uh basically my my template inside Ableton with everything miked up and ready to go is I could sit down at the drums, and I have it templated for four bars, eight bars, or 16 bars. Usually I do the 16 bars, and the—are you familiar with Ableton enough?
Okay. So you know in Clip View, they call it scenes—like all the way to the left there's like Scene 1, Scene 2—but I just think of it like, "Oh, a section, B section, C section," right?
Nice.
And so I would lay down 16 bars, and to me that's not a loop—that's like a section of music, right?
Absolutely.
And then what's happening is it's it's coming back right away. I press the button, and in one measure's time it record-enables it, it sets the loop length, it launches it, and if I don't like what I did, I press it again; it deletes the whole thing and starts over the process in one measure. And so as soon as I'm done playing, it's playing back, and I'm like, "Oh, that sounds great," and it's weirdly old school because I'm not seeing wave files or anything, and generally if I play something and I stop and then I walk back to the control room, that's enough time for me to sabotage the whole thing because I'll start to procrastinate and be like, "Oh, it's not good," you know. But when I hear it back right away, I'm like, "Wow, this is very—this is cool. I'm going to move over to the bass now," and I'll lay it down, and so I'll work on one section at a time and then piece it together. And once I figured out that workflow, I was like, "Oh, man, the—now it's like a faucet's just turned on, and it's not going off." And then I set up the camera setup, and now people watch me do that. And so I start everything in Ableton, and I move really fast, and then now I edit it in Ableton because I've learned how to edit in that program, but I still bring everything back to Pro Tools. This is something I did on one of those live streams and uh so cool. And I was just actually running it through—so this is a custom-made console uh that was made for me. You can see it's got my logo in there. There's this guy locally, his name is Cesar Deli. He's out in Oakland. This guy makes microphones, he makes preamps, he makes EQs. Yeah, and he made me a console, and he also makes cymbals, so like what could be better for a drummer who likes to record and um so he made me this custom console that was was built for my workflow and to integrate into the Apollo architecture.
What's his name again?
His name is Cesar Deli.
Cesar Deli, correct. And so he designed each one of these 500 modules, he hand-wired them. Uh, these are kind of like vintage API 312 flavor—that's—it's not an API clone, it's his own circuitry, but it's it's got more of that punchy aesthetic to it, but the mastering section over here is is almost kind of like a like a Quad 8 kind of vibe. Yeah, and what he did is gave me three aux sends, which right now I'm running over there to this old funky spring reverb, as well as I have this uh this delay—this Tonal Recall made by Chase Bliss—and so I can send my drums—all right, so actually what's really beautiful about this is so you have—you got your your record levels up here.
Yep.
Uh, your input transformer, right? And so on the input side you can switch it to line level, and then all of a sudden it's outputting, and it's only going through the output transformer. So, you know, like large-format consoles are large because one side is tracking, one side is mixing, but I don't have to mess with my input settings. I can just quickly flip over and start summing in the box. I can insert these EQs, and so they are full channel strips, but my desk isn't that big, so we just decided to do it this way, you know. And then on the back side he added uh 16 more channels of dub, so I can actually sum up to 26 channels on this little console.
Wow.
And uh and run it all through the mastering section, and then I have a master insert as well, and that can go to this, and this is kind of like an SSL 4000 style compressor. This was just some guy I found on Reverb. It was like a a kit. I don't even know the name of the fella, but it is really great sounding. And uh yeah, so I can like—I right now I'm running the drums through here just through this channel, and let's see—we can—this is kind of like mastering-grade EQs. They sound real good. We could do some—add some high-end—make it nice and crispy—that's those drums you see out there—and then we could send it to the [Music] reverb. Yeah, just—is this—this is that spring—that Sansui you see on top right here? So yeah. And so you can turn—you can adjust this—this would make it tight. You can see the colors are tighter, right? And this just starts to open it up. This is sustain, and this would have been for Hi-Fi—for Hi-Fi systems, you know, 'cause if you wanted reverb on your Hi-Fi—
Yeah, yeah. 'Cause who doesn't want reverb to add reverb to records that didn't want you to add it? But then it's fun to kind of dub things out a little bit. You ever played with these guys?
Chase?
No, they make really really cool stuff. That's actually in time. [Music] I mean, you know, it's it's a delay. Yeah, you can sync it up and do all kinds of fun stuff, but then we could just monitor through the mastering [Music] section, and there—that's where we get into this guy. Yeah, there you go. Actually, let's go over to 10. Yeah, that's probably where I would have—oh, yeah, it's wonderful. We take it [Music] out, bring it back in, using the Twin for everything. How—what?
No, no, no, no, no. The Twin is just kind of like my my main control. No, over here I have an Apollo 16. Okay, 16 x Y, and then an x8p, and then this was the first one I got years ago, and it's still in there. Everything's chained together. Great. Uh, but yeah, the the the main interface is the x16. I'm running in through there. I can't help noticing that you do have a LinnDrum up here.
I do have a LinnDrum. It's not patched in right now, but obviously I'm a big funk head. I love Prince and everything. I love Phil Collins. I love Michael Jackson. I made some tracks like that with uh some LinnDrum emulations back when I was first uh creating music for the YouTube Audio Library. Yeah, in 2016 uh the San Francisco Chronicle did an article on me, and one of my fans that used my music—a lot—happened to live in San Francisco—had no idea I lived in San Francisco—he emailed me and he said, "Hey, look, I'm a big fan of your music. I have something that I think you would like, and I would like to give it to you."
Wow.
And he had this sitting in his closet, and he brought it over to my house and gave me the LinnDrum. You know, they only made a couple thousand of these. Yeah, and it didn't work. Whole thing was—it powered up, but it didn't work. I contacted Roger Linn because he lives in Berkeley, across the bay, and I said, "Hey, do you know how I can fix these things?" And he put me in touch with this guy Bruce Forat down in Studio City. Do you know Bruce?
Bruce Forat?
Uh, I think that's how you pronounce it—F O R A T.
Okay. So this guy was F A—as—Forat—Forat.
Yeah. He invented the Forat machine.
Yes, I know who he is. And he also worked on the original LM-1.
So that's why Roger put me in touch with him. For—he's a genius. So he had like this huge sample playback machine that all the guys used in the late '80s and early '90s for all those big records that had drum samples on were all triggered by the Forat.
Oh, get out of here! That guy's a genius. He was—he was—he was Quincy Jones's drum machine tech. He was Prince's drum machine tech. Very smart guy. So he brought the whole thing back to life for me, and and then he added extra tuning knobs for me, so I could tune the side stick separately from the snare, and then he added MIDI on the side, and so uh so yeah, I can run MIDI. And a lot of times when I'm programming it, I'm actually doing it from over here using the Arturia BeatStep. Shout out to Arturia. They sent that out to me a few years ago. 'Cause with Ableton or Pro Tools or anything, you can now program it infinitely. However, I did just buy the Behringer LM-1 drum, and I mean, it sounds exactly like mine. Does it?
Yeah. Well, Bruce, he he actually burned me PROMs from the LM-1, and then he made it interchangeable, so I could take out the the LinnDrum or the LM-1 chips and put them in there. Yeah, and it's—I mean, it sounded great, and it's got pads on it, so it kind of—
Feels a little rather than just on/off buttons. Buttons, yeah. And it's really thin and so much smaller than that, and it's only $400. So it was like, it's kind of almost like a disposable LinnDrum. I hate to say that; that's a very first-world thing to say. However, that thing, I could sell for a lot of money. I would never sell it because it was a gift to me. And so what I would do is probably put it away in a case, and uh, and let people know—I mean, people know I have it. Kanye West has Ed that from me before. I've been producing one of Nicholas Payton's latest albums, and we've been using that thing. Like, if people want to use it, I'll pull it out. But if I'm going to use something uh, over and over, I'll just—I'll check out the Barringer for a little bit and see what that's like.
Amazing, amazing. This is like my childhood.
That's my childhood too. I started on that machine when I was 11 years old, and I still have my tapes from when I was—I started on this tape machine and this drum machine, the Yamaha RX1, RX7, R, rx5. Look at you, you a POS. I had the first one I ever had was actually my bass blares was an rx21, I think it was.
Oh, is that right? Which was about this big.
Oh, okay. But it was still great. I mean, when this came out, it was like, oh my God, revolutionary.
Yeah, it was just like, actually sounded like a drum. Didn't go—it actually went, and it does that kind of 12-bit degrading sound like you can do with the LinnDrum too, which is cool.
Fraction of a fraction of a cost.
Oh my gosh, way cheaper.
Yeah, my dad—that was my dad's machine, and that tape machine was his, and he—he started teaching me how to use all this stuff, and I caught in the bug really early.
Nice. And then, of course, I, you know, because I was obsessed with the Beatles, I just wanted to become a recording artist and producer and do all those things.
Springs back so much memories.
Yeah. Great preamps down here. I got these from Fantasy; these are NE 1073spx. Stuff that was modular, right? And so when Fantasy closed, he retired and sold off his equipment. So the D20 was his; the NE 1073s—I got these for four grand.
Nice. Four of them.
Four of them. That's amazing.
Yeah. And so I moved in here with those, and then V72s—these are Seamans; these are clones of those, actually. The Stam ones—have you seen these?
I haven't. Are they any good?
Yeah, they're great. They sound pretty identical, which is great. And, oh, obviously a fraction of the cost, although I still use these. My kick drum is running through those, and—and then the microphone on the bass guitar amp. They definitely have a low-end thump, don't they?
Oh, yeah. I used to run my kick drum through one channels of these, and then I kind of A/B'd it, and I was like, wow, this is much more—that sound that I want. It's—it's kind of fat and almost like throaty, you know, because that tube sound. And then these are great, the PM 1000s, Yamaha.
Yeah, I remember them well.
Yeah, those were—those were modified for me; the EQ section was modified just to have the same EQ curves.
Sounds yes, exactly. Is it the Fe boys? But I think—I think I might actually get rid of those. I haven't been using them ever since I got these EQs made for me for the—to go with my console. Yeah, uh, but I really love, especially the way they would—it would saturate and get nutty sound in.
Yeah. There—I mean, growing up, you know, we're talking about the Max Wins or the, you know, this affordable gear, the Japanese guitars of that period.
Yeah, they're all amazing now. What do they call it, the Japane—Japan?
Yeah, that was—that was the nickname for it. Hey, it's sounding good. Say, what else you got hiding down here?
Rhythm A.
Oh, yeah, man. The Rhythm A; that's like the early—early analog drum machine, if you like Sly Stone.
Yeah, that's—this guy is—is pretty great. What's the one we have? Eric, the—is it the Rhythm King?
Rhythm King. Oh, the Rhythm King. That's the big one.
Yeah. And it's—that actually is the Sly Stone one; that's what he used. Yeah, this has like a lot of the similar presets. This kind of started the whole sound—the Otis McDonald sound for me back in 2012, 2013. I was on the road with Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead. I was the lead singer and organ player in his band, and—but I would play synthesizer and stuff. So anytime we'd have a day off, I would go to like Guitar Center and check out—yeah, this instrument. I was really interested in it, and I never bought it until that—that band ended, and I started making all this music under Otis McDonald. I was like, oh, I need a cool analog synth, and this is the sound of all the early—for me, and—and actually kind of my go-to mono analog synth if I—if I need something. It is—it's such a great instrument. The fact that you can save your settings is really, really great.
Arturia sent this big guy to me a few years ago, um, the MatrixBrute, which, to be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time learning it because it is—it doesn't like a bit of a learning curve. It is huge, man. But I'm actually—I have it set up with MIDI through this just to kind of like expand the board on this one. Um, I love this; this is kind of my favorite synth that I use. Hey, if you know it well—this thing is really cool, the Barringer Poly D. You know, it's kind of modeled after a Minimoog, but it's paraphonic as opposed to polyphonic.
Paraphonic. Do you know what paraphonic means?
You tell me.
All right. So if we have it set over here on poly, it's not actually poly, but you'll notice anytime I hit a note, it activates an oscillator, right?
Yeah.
Okay. So what's kind of wild, right, is if you adjust these to match—all right, so we have a C major 7 chord—ooh, it sounds out of tune.
Right. It is analog.
Yeah. Um, now what's really cool is it will assign the oscillator based on the order in which you hit it. So if I hit it like, say, starting on E, and now the C is going down there and the G's there. But what happens is every time you change it—or I'm sorry, every time you—you hit that same chord over and over, it's going to adjust the—to each voice or each oscillator differently. So—
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Let's go up here. [Music] So I'm just hitting the same position, C major 7, and you hear it moving all around. Well, then you can get really crazy if—if you just start changing the range, and you change the sine—W, or the wave [Music] form, I'm sorry. It's so distorted. And then you can get in here; it's got a Juno-style chorus on it. God, that sounds so out of tune, though. [Music] That sounds [Music] better. See, you really have to tune each one.
Yeah, yeah. There we go. Isn't that cool? It's such an—an interesting thing. So you could—you could play some sort of chord progression that you are used to playing, but it's going to come back sounding completely different. And then if you add the portamento to it, you can get all kinds of wild vibes. So it's cool. I mean, it—you know, it feels—cheers probably pennies. Yes, that thing—it's like 500 bucks. And then I've got underneath here—what you got hiding under here?
Oh, okay. A Prophet Rev2. Yeah, this is kind of my—well, I mean, I use this as a MIDI controller as well. So I figured if I'm going to spend money on a MIDI controller, why not spend money on an analog synth that has nice keybeds in it, right? But it's—it's great, and it's always—all Sequential—a local company, aren't they?
They are. They're over in North Beach, like, just here in the city. And so you can get into—I've been making my own sounds. You know, [Music] I like that kind of bubbly [Music] sound. Uh, let's see, what is another one I just made? Yeah, for all the LOI lovers. See, I call it [Music] lowii. Yeah, it—it gets pretty funky-sounding. Yeah, it's—this thing is—I'm starting to understand it a little bit more after spending some time with Sequential and checking out all their other instruments like the Prophet 5 or the 10. I was like, man, I kind of want one of those. But it was really just because I instantaneously got a sound that I wanted. This is a much deeper synthesizer, so it's taking me some time to learn how to use it. But thank God to YouTube University, I've been learning a lot more about its functionality, and uh, and it's—it's a great instrument, and it's a great MIDI controller as well. And then if you want to see one other cool, funky little guy—you remember an E-Peebles?
I can't stand the R.
Okay. So that drum machine, the MASA sonic electric bongos—that's what this is modeled after. So we get—so I'm using—I'm using the trigger out into this, and this guy in Brooklyn, he built this thing. He found the schematic—well, his buddy actually had a MASA sonic, so he opened it up, and there was—was a schematic in there, and he—uh, well, obviously he could—he could look at the schematic and look at the machine and trace it back and forth, but he also put the mutes in it as well. So actually kind of like it more open. Yeah, but because it's in here, I can step-sequence it and create these really kind of funky patterns, and then I'll go out and play the drums to that and get all these really—so cool.
Yeah, funny vibe. It's—it's pretty fun. What we got going on here? We have some 560As.
Oh, yeah, gosh, man. To be quite honest, I don't even mess around over here anymore.
No, you moved post-that? Well, some guy sent me this—this EQ, which is all—you know, it's all based on tilts, which is really cool. Okay, and I've messed with it. Well, these actually were—were—are on loan; these compressors are on loan from Studio C. They just brought them over here 'cause they were like, they weren't using them, and they saw I had a 500 back here. This is nice for a little—on the kick. Yes, I've used this on the kick or on the bass guitar. Yeah, um, I'm a big Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fan, and I know they were using these in the 80s when they were working with like Jeff Lynne and stuff. So—so that actually is kind of what got me interested in that. And then, of course, I mean, I love 1176. I thought, Clark Tech did a really nice job with this. I mean, it sounds like an 1176; it's just not as noisy as the old ones and not as expensive—not nearly as expensive. Do you know about these guys, though? What is this? So brand-new noise—is this—this company—this was an example of Facebook ad or Instagram ads going incredibly right for me. Okay, I came across these guys. So—so this is like a little sampler. So check this out. I could go like—like uh—all right. And so if it's on this switch, if it's over here, it just plays one time, but you can loop it. Wasn't a great loop, but it's based on how much light gets into this little laser here. Watch. So the less light, it goes down; the more light, it goes up and pitch. And then it has an output jack. And now this box right here is kind of similar, yeah, but—uh, let's see what I—all right. So this is me singing. So this has like a delay built into [Music] it, but then it also—you can pitch down, pitch up. But if you are looping it—playing back the loop—and you press record here—let me turn the delay off—this will scrub it. So you could kind of like scratch, you know? And then they make this other cool guy. What's the name of the company?
Brand New Noise.
Brand New Noise. Yeah. And then they make this big guy back here. This one is really cool. So it's a tongue drum. You flip it up here to [Music] record, come back here, and then it's got a pitch up, and then it's got a delay. [Music] Yeah. See, I like to make samples and then chop it up and put it in Sodo Sample, and then that acts as like the conductor for me. And then I run around the room and start playing all the various instruments. So these are—I'm always looking for great ways to start some sort of randomness that I can just use my ears and react to it as I would if I was improvising with a group of musicians.
That's amazing.
That's how I do it, and that's how I make all this stuff. Like, this track up here was made uh, on a live stream. So it started with me making a sample—that—and I'm using like a Melron flute. So the first part of it, you watch me make the sample, and then usually in the beginning of the track, I'll give it to you so you can hear it. But then I chop it up in Sodo Sample, and it becomes this like—this is the sample that I chopped up. I pitched it down; it's got this guy in there, obviously. And then I just go out and play all the other instruments to it—live drums, live keys, live [Music] bass. Oh, I put guitar on this one [Music] too. And this is—this is going out to Meta to their sound collection. So I do the live streams just to kind of hold myself accountable to make something new every week, you know?
That's amazing.
Uh, 'cause I also have tons of deadlines for other artists that I'm working with and everything and different projects. But I like to do these live streams 'cause I know like, all right, I'll have a new Otis track. I can sell it to Meta, and then I can also put it out on, you know, Spotify and make records out of it, and—and uh, yeah, that's my sound. But that's—those drums out there—all in the—everything's just mixed in the box right now.
No—no analog summing.
Yeah. But those—those drums sound good, right?
Sound fantastic. That's—that uh, that Periscope. Nice and crunchy, big sounds. Yeah, and I've been messing with—do you know about this guy, this Air Windows? So I've—obviously have to open it up into this thing—like the most unflattering-looking plugins—this is maybe the coolest tape plugin I've actually messed with. It is so good. Called in D. Yeah, ex—hopefully people are getting the spinal T room. Say, yeah. So you can download—all his plugins are for free; they—the whole thing is free. And this is—this guy—all right, uh, well, I just know his company's called Air Windows, but you can find him on YouTube demonstrating all his stuff. And this Two Tape 7, man, it's—going to get a photo so I don't forget. Yeah, Windows. Check this out. Like, if I'm—so using Blue Cat Patchwork to—yeah, to run it inside Pro Tools. I wish Pro Tools could do VSTs. That guy, Gum's great.
Yeah, French guy.
Oh, yeah, that does Blue Cat.
Yeah, yeah. He's awesome. All right, so like, I love messing with the bias in this. Ah, already amazing. Already amazing, right? And the fact that it has a head bump on it, like an old machine, you can really get a lot out of it. And like—and that just kind of makes it almost linear. Like, just listen to what that would do to that track if I took away the sample. See, I should have done this actually for a section. Oh, it's so good. And I think that's the—I have one album that I put out on vinyl.
Yeah.
You listen to records, of course. Oh, let me give you one before you leave. It's an album I put out in 2019. So it was actually before I had this studio. The only thing I did on that record in here—here—uh, was—or the only thing I did in here on that record was record horns. It was the first thing I did when I got here. But the rest of it—like the drum sounds were from my old bedroom. So it's not—not quite as good-sounding as I got it now, but it's still—you know, I—I'm very proud of that record, and I had Bernie Grundman master it and everything.
So wonderful.
Yeah, yeah. And uh, and that was a fun process—that—to make that record because I had already kind of built up a big YouTube following at the time, and I decided to—in 19—I released 15 snippets once a week—just a one-minute snippet of 15 different song ideas. And I was like, you vote on which ones I should put out as an album, and I'll do it based on likes, comments—that whole bag. And I really, you know, I went in and measured it all, and I'm like, all right, these 10 songs were the ones that everybody picked. And so I put out an album, and I called it People Music—also a nod to Herbie Hancock—a great song called People Music. But I was like, the people help me make this—you guys are helping me create a career, and uh, and then I put that out in December 2019 and was getting ready to play a bunch of shows, and then the whole world shut down. So wasn't the best timing. But in 2020, I started releasing a new song every Friday on Spotify, and uh, and I started doing that, and—and it, you know, it really helped; the numbers started to take off.
Amazing.
And now I'm starting to run ads—ads on uh, on my songs and a playlist. I'm just trying a whole new strategy, and I talk about it all the time on my live stream just to tell everybody like, look, you know, you can make a living doing all this. You got to do all the jobs that a label would do for you.
Oh, I know. We know.
Yeah. But—but you end up—you know, I mean, look, I mean, this is an astronomically expensive city to live in, and somehow, you know, I have two kids.
Where you guys live?
We live—we live in Potrero Hill, which is—yeah, in the city—it's just south of—of uh, the downtown area. It's up in the hill; it's—it's beautiful. It's—we've lived over there for 14 years, and we have two kids.
Great.
And uh, we have an apartment and have a studio, and you know, our—our kids are eating, and we're—we're eating as well. So can't complain. Thank you ever so much, Joe.
Otis—Jotus—is that Jus Otis?
Otis McDonald's.
Yeah, yeah. Check me out, please. There will be a link down below, and we'll come back and do something. [Music] [Applause] [Music]