Doug de Angelis - From the Midi Room
Doug de Angelis is a producer, composer, musical director and music supervisor. He’s also the Chair and Co-Founder of A3E - the Advanced Audio and Applications Exchange.
He began his professional career at age 18 in Boston while studying music synthesis at Berklee College of Music - and found himself in a recording session that became the groundbreaking Nine Inch Nails album Pretty Hate Machine.
Doug’s career from there has been at the leading edge of music and entertainment technologies, working with some of the world’s biggest artists, composing for TV and inventing new formats for music.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
music, people, working, record, berkeley, realise, mtf, pilot, artists, moved, innovation, interesting, doug, years, studio, version, bubbling, tech fest, guitars, trent
SPEAKERS
Doug de Angelis, Andrew Dubber
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Andrew Dubber. I’m the director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast. Now one of the things we were going to do this month until what with one thing and another we certainly weren’t going to be doing anymore. At least not until further notice was to host the MTF innovation stage at music mess of Frankfurt, which is Europe’s biggest trade fair for music with like 10s of thousands of visitors coming from all over the world. Normally wonderful opportunity to rub shoulders with brilliant musical minds. Spring 2020 not so much with the shoulder rubbing please. But last year we were there running MTF Labs and the MTF, Labs, innovation masterclass for industry execs drawing on the expertise, experience and creative tech skills of the MTF, community beatboxer and more recently in neuroscience and AI researcher at reaps one joined MTF, Labs, Michela Magas, to lead the MTF Labs and there was some pretty brilliant people in the room from innovation managers for national airlines to large festival organisers and Hollywood cinematographers. And one of those people was a man called Doug de Angeles, who’s the co founder and conference Chair of a three a, an industry body dedicated to the future of advanced audio applications, music and entertainment technologies, and new content creation tools and an educational partner to Nam. So Doug’s had a career in the music industries that most people could probably only dream of his big start and the whole thing was fairly auspicious, recording the first Nine Inch Nails album with flood in the middie suite at Berklee College of Music, and he’s gone on from there to spend a couple of decades working with the likes of new order. Michael Jackson, Queen Latifah, Chaka Khan love and rockets, Alicia Keys, no doubt, as well as writing and producing music for TV shows like bones alias Cold Case CSI er, and one of my favourites lie to me starring Tim Roth for which Doug won a BMI Music Award. Now, music Messer when it moves, moves pretty fast, and Doug had things to do and places to be, but I took the opportunity to sit down with him after the innovation masterclass and have a bit of a chat. So from Frankfurt last year, and looking forward to getting back there when that’s a sensible thing to do. Here’s my conversation with Doug de Angeles. Enjoy. Doug, thanks so much for joining us on the MTF podcast. My pleasure, um, you are here, I guess, as a representative or chair of a three,
Doug de Angelis
yes, I’m one of the two co founders of it. And I’m the conference chair,
Andrew Dubber
one of the three A’s,
Doug de Angelis
the advanced audio and applications exchange. And this is it. So a three was born out of the idea. After I was living in Los Angeles, I started doing a lot of television score. And I started working on my own a lot instead of you know, more traditionally working in the studio with a lot of other people. And when it came time to do another conference, I had done one earlier and you know, kind of figure out what it should be about. I felt like, it should be about developers, I felt like I had watched over the years of the music industry evolving. So many of the great session players I knew from New York and Los Angeles, going and becoming, you know, creating sample libraries and building all these amazing, you know, being part of building these incredible tools that we as composers, we’re using making music now is all packaged into plugins for us. And I just thought, wow, I mean, developers are your co writers. Now. I mean, they’re just in the studio with you all day making music and you’re, you know, you’re lying, if you don’t say that you pick certain plugins and certain things for certain creative applications, because you know, right away, it’s going to get you a third of the way through the job. Sure, you know, so you absolutely go to things by what they do musically, you know. And so I just felt like, Wow, it was really important to bring, you know, technology focused musicians together with developers, the people who are really behind us and supporting us in creating the tools that we were really using now all the way around. So that was the birth of a three. So the applications part of it was, what are the applications are developing? What applications are there for the things they’re developing? So that started in in 2013? Boston, actually, okay.
Andrew Dubber
We’ve just walked out of the MTF Labs, the innovation master class, what happened?
Doug de Angelis
Oh, wow. So happened. That, you know, it’s a lot happens when you’re in a situation like that, first, your frustration level just you walk into any situation. And I think when you when you’re somebody who’s has so much kind of on your mind all the time about all this, you’re always in this sort of state of, even if you don’t realise it, but you’re in this sort of state of tension. Because you just, you just want,
Andrew Dubber
right you want there’s a gap between where things aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Yeah, and
Doug de Angelis
you just want Yes, you want everything But you don’t you don’t even need to define it. You just want Yeah, and you know, you get in there and at first you just want I want to get started I want to know what these guys do. And well, I want this and then all sudden, you know, somebody starts to talk, in this case rapes. And you just realise, okay, you don’t need to think like that anymore, because everybody in here gets this, right. So we don’t need to be in a rush to get anywhere right now we all get it, and we’re going in a direction. Okay, good. I don’t need to feel this way anymore. And that’s a really amazing feeling in a room like that. So we all see it totally different. I mean, no question. When I listen to each person in that room talk, we all, we all grab on to different things, we’re all moved by different things. There’s things that some people are totally moved by, in this world that I’m not at all that don’t even touch me, and not things that other people are, that just blow my mind. And maybe the person sitting next to me doesn’t quite feel it the way I do. It’s how it works. But you all realise that you all have that childlike desire to want to feel that in the thoughts about how to keep going and going and going. So it’s, it’s tricky, because when you’re outside of that environment, and you try to do that, you’re often surrounded by people who don’t want to keep up with that they did it because they just it’s exhaustive. You know, they don’t have that same desire to want like that. So they kind of just keep going, can we finish? You know, it’s like, no, not till it’s done.
Andrew Dubber
So to be clear to people who who weren’t in the room, you know, what happened? And what did you think you know, what, that that’s kind of interesting.
Doug de Angelis
Well, I thought, you know, reaps one was giving a talk that was really brilliant on breaking down your own mental barriers in order to get from where you are to the next place, right. And he was using technology to kind of show how that can be done in the different mindsets of that he was taking you through the mental paces of that, which I always say to people, you know, when they ask what a three is, it’s a psychology show to me. It always has been, it’s not a music technology show. It’s a music psychology show. And it’s about the mental paces of what takes a person from point A to point z. Right. And every it’s always different for everybody. But I never want to talk about the equipment. I want to talk about what the the mental process behind doing it. And I think with him, what was so interesting about it is he’s doing it with his voice. Yeah. So you don’t have a piece of gear getting in the way.
Andrew Dubber
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But it’s about mindset. So
Doug de Angelis
there’s a very, he’s a great spokesperson for it, not only because he’s so articulate and brilliant with it, which he is, but there’s also a purism to it with him because there is no piece of gear. There is no turntable. There is no set of pads. There’s nothing in there that you’re kind of going Whoo. That’s his little magic wand. You know, it’s like, it’s just there and
Andrew Dubber
yet there’s innovation going on.
Doug de Angelis
And music. Yeah, incredible music. I mean, amazing to hear what he’s able to do. Yeah,
Andrew Dubber
for sure. Yeah. Well, speaking of music, let’s start at the beginning. You’re 18 years old your Berklee College of Music. what’s what’s the game plan?
Doug de Angelis
Well, it wasn’t Berkeley. I love Berkeley. Yeah, I wanted to go there so bad. But the truth was, I grew up in music like pop music. And I grew up loving synthesisers. I mean, I started riding my bike to the music store when I was eight years old to play with synthesisers
Andrew Dubber
every single day you one of these pieces of sense on the wall, dx seven.
Doug de Angelis
Oh my god. Yes. I mean, even many mugs, I still have my first the guy who taught me who worked at that music store when I ride my bike everyday later on gave me the Korg monta poly that was the first one that I learned on. I still have it in my studio now. So this is like, you know, late 70s. Yeah. And then I got into the early 80s I fell in love with new wave music and electronic music. I mean, so just jump on any Linux in the room in there. And I’m just going Ah, you know, these are my people in here now. Yeah. So Berkeley, it was a strange environment for me and I didn’t know that till I got there. That’s the truth. I mean, that the truth was, I was sitting in rooms with people who were you know, Wynton Marsalis kids, right. And I was, you know, Simon Labonte bastard child. Guard, Nick Rhodes. Really?
Andrew Dubber
Yeah. So that you know, and but that was about being a virtuoso more than it was about expression through
Doug de Angelis
Yes. And, and so what moved me musically was layers and textures and the intricacy of that early synth work and how it all interact together and all that that fascinated me, not Bebop scales and those things and you know, that’s fascinated me more and more as I got older when we’re at 17 years old at this point, you know, yeah. So for me, Berkeley was a, it was great, but I very quickly found myself going to a studio and getting an internship and I was a good programmer. So I immediately started running their, what they called the MIDI room. We had a MIDI room. Yeah, the weird room down
Andrew Dubber
it was downstairs. Yeah. And the smaller than all of the other rooms little tiny
Doug de Angelis
it was the mini room. Yeah. Like it was like mini almost, you know as the MIDI and Mini. were confused at the time. Yeah. So I were in the MIDI room. And that studio was owned by the band the cars that they had just sold it to two gentlemen who were one was a record producer, who I had been working with. The other one was also record producer, who now is still I think one of the heads of the MPC department at Berkeley. Okay, the Mendelssohn brothers. So I worked for them. And that was kind of where I got my start. And they taught me a tonne. And I had a great programming background already. So I was the guy that could work the E three and work all those things and play with digital audio and samples and all that stuff. So
Andrew Dubber
yes, it’s really interesting to me that you mentioned textures, as part of music miking, because it’s something that I you know, as a teenager was, was always fascinated by. And when I hit like, a hole came out, I could point to it, you know, the Nine Inch Nails record and say, This is what I mean, when I talk about textures. And you recorded that. Mm hmm. Now, tell me how that came about.
Doug de Angelis
That came about from the MIDI room. MIDI room? Yeah, I know, is a great room. You know, I was working with all different artists in Boston, that were kind of experimenting in electronic stuff, and rock, you know, regular stuff, too. And I got a call one day from his manager saying, Can we book time with you in the middie room? Yeah. And he was obviously that was the first record so he was no different than anybody else on the planet. At that
Andrew Dubber
point. He was no different than any. He’s just some guy. I’m Trent just some
Doug de Angelis
random thing, you know. So we got in to do the random thing. And what came in with the random thing though, was flat.
Andrew Dubber
Right? Okay. Yeah, that’s not quite that random. No.
Doug de Angelis
And I didn’t even know he was gonna be I had didn’t know much about the project at all to be honest, I got there to do the job and, and in walked Trent, and flood. And flood was just a meanest beast. We did five straight days with no breaks at all. I mean, I imagined I’ve been mixed quite loud to never left. We never left it was just in the room. I mean, it was it was asked kicking to be totally honest, it was a really asked kicking thing. But it was a you know, it was interesting. When you talk about innovation, sometimes you don’t realise, because you’re too new to know what innovation even is. Right? So I think I was just really lucky, because I walked into some of my earliest recording projects, that being one of my earliest ones. And, you know, we’ve even came back plus, with digital performer which was performer at the time, right? It was just it was pretty much just a triangle and, and, you know, in a pause button, right. But Trent was doing he was loop. I mean, if you listen in like terrible Ly, there was these weird little voices and things that were being looped in, it was the first time I’d ever seen anything be looped, you know, and, and, and the programme was quite sophisticated. Obviously, flood is a brilliant programmer, too. So you know, you were in there with people that were trying at the time was actually working at a studio in Cleveland, okay. He wasn’t also an engineer, he worked at a but he was like a project studio guy at a Cleveland studio. So we all were everybody kind of was and they were just such innovative minds. And you didn’t really realise how, what, that that’s not how normal stuff happens. Right? Right. You’re not in you’re not learning. They’re making, you know, a sort of a album oriented rock maybe or pop jazz album for and it’s the same way. 55,000 times it was like this has been done really differently. And you don’t even know because it’s new.
Andrew Dubber
Yeah. Because it wasn’t I mean, outside, particularly outside of sort of the sort of German industrial scene. There wasn’t a lot of things that had kind of touch points with no. So it’s, you must have felt like kind of inventing something on the spot
Doug de Angelis
you are doing you’re not knowing you were Uh huh. And but we like I remember recording the guitars on it. We used a Yamaha rx 50 remember that box? It was sort of like an XP x 90, but it was flat was a tabletop version of it. All right. It was like a very it was like an sp x 90 light. Right? It was a tabletop version. It had just had a patch that was distortion. That was all those guitars on headlight. Whoa, that’s just straight through that box. No, there’s no amps. It was just a tweaked out version of that processor. making those just ripping tones you know, and so much of it was just the way it was processed the way it was done. I remember my favourite part of that whole session. If you know that record in the song terrible I there’s a moment where everything mutes for a second then comes back on it literally it’s pauses. That was a mistake. Trying to hit the mute button hitting the solo button by accident. And it wrote in the automation, right and that weird move stayed all the way through the final version of that and it’s still in there. And I always blows my mind because you know, that’s one of those moments where it’s like so much of innovation comes out of accident you know, and it’s my favourite song on the record so so much weird stuff comes out of accidents You know,
Andrew Dubber
that’s that’s amazing. So but, but but you kind of tell the story is if you sort of stumbled into this, this you know, Trent Reznor flood kind of experience but you know, had that been the case it would have been a one off, but then you’ve got Camilla T for Michael Jackson. No, I mean, give me the list.
Doug de Angelis
Yeah, there’s a lot of them. So you know, that turgid in New York. So I did. You know,
Andrew Dubber
it was a lot. It’s a lot of them. New water shaniwar
Doug de Angelis
Yeah, shot a lot of Chaka Khan stuff. Madonna stuff. Pet Shop, boys. I mean, just some early hip hop, like the jungle brothers and stuff like that. Jungle brothers. I can’t tell you right now. But all the way back at the beginning. I mean,
Andrew Dubber
and no doubt, no doubt. Yeah. So there’s this there’s a bit of a Korea there isn’t? Yeah, there’s a project which, you know
Doug de Angelis
what, that all had a reason to, yeah, that wasn’t really related so much to the Nine Inch Nails thing that was really related to the fact that right after Nine Inch Nails, I got asked to do to go on this tour for this artist called inner city, right. And inner city was not so popular in America, but over here, like in Britain and Zealand, it was all in the clubs. It was huge. So it was supposed to be this little short tour. And, and it was at the time, like, you know, when they said we’re gonna do house music, and you were like, whose house?
Andrew Dubber
You know, what does that even mean? Was house music, you know, concert, somebody’s living room. Yeah,
Doug de Angelis
cuz we didn’t know about it in America. You know, it was big over here with s Express and bands like that. But
Andrew Dubber
it was invented, right?
Yeah, of course.
Andrew Dubber
Somebody knew about Yes,
Doug de Angelis
yes. But not in Boston.
Andrew Dubber
Right. Okay. In Boston, we
Doug de Angelis
did not know about it. But it was just bubbling a little bit, you know. So when I went on this tour, and the idea was to take that record and play it live with all people. So to be the way to do that was to play it while with sticks and pads because it was so rhythmic and there was such a sound to it. So we built this whole band around all these pads and sticks, the bass player played pads, the drum played pads, and we had, it was great. And so we went on the road, it was supposed to be a couple weeks long, and it wound up being like 10 months, we were on the wrong that long, long time because they kept having another single another signal, another signal just kept going. And from that. Then I started working in New York with Kevin Saunderson and the whole Detroit techno gang I, we lived in a loft with them. And then when I moved to New York, it was really that background, it was really being one of the very few people in America that was really exposed to that music at that level. That led to all the remixes and all that stuff. Honestly, that’s more where it came from than anything else. Because underground music was starting to bubble in New York guys like Danny snavely, and Roger Sanchez, and those, you know, deep dish and all those artists were that was a bubbling thing Chicago house was already going on. It’s been inner city was really Chicago house was the girl was from Chicago. So it was kind of bubbling and and that led to working with like Arthur Baker and those different DJs. And then the Lewis and the Chicago guys sit and bid, all we did was, you know, there was just only a dozen of them. of us that was small, it was a little community, you know, so you just I worked on those records,
Andrew Dubber
kind of responsible for a lot of stuff happening though, that small group of people
Doug de Angelis
yeah, it was a small group, though, I really was. I mean, now it’s a massive group. But back then it was quite a small group. And there was, and so and there was more of the DJs than there were the support system of the DJ. So there was less of us than there were them. There wasn’t many of us, we’ve got shared between them. So the guy who could programme the cits. And, and, you know, get all the production work done with them, they could have an idea and you could facilitate the idea and get it down on tape for them as a DJ. Those guys we’re not, we’re pretty few and far between. So we shared it would sort of be 60 days to one. That’s how it kind of worked and it was me and there was a guy named Dave Darlington, and it was a bunch of different guys and we all had different ones. We all Didn’t you didn’t mess with each other once. So, so that’s really how it worked. And it was a it was an interesting thing,
Andrew Dubber
you know, can I ask just to sort of backpedal even further What did you parents do and how did that affect what you ended up?
Doug de Angelis
Nothing. My parents were both teachers. Uh huh. They were no musical background at all.
Andrew Dubber
So no, no, not a musical family. But no, so where does all come from as a just, you know, kind of, I guess out of the music store.
Doug de Angelis
Yeah, I was in love with it from the time I was little. And then I just started playing in bands when I was 12 and 13. And it was really not a great thing, actually, between me and my parents at all. I didn’t. My my parents were so academic. They didn’t want me to have anything to do with that. So they just totally rejected it. It was the people that like the guy I told you gave me that early sense that got that helped me get to Berkeley and kind of get my foot in the door with all that and see kind of had a mentor.
Andrew Dubber
Yes. Outside of that. Yes. Which is kind of interesting. But basically, you’re still rebelling?
Doug de Angelis
Yeah. Well, I think we’re all just like kids. I’m waiting to get older. I still waiting to grow up. I’ve been waiting to grow up since then. You know,
Andrew Dubber
that is a little bit overrated. But But yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting journey. When did the TV music thing kick in?
Doug de Angelis
so late 90s. I had been in New York a long time. At that point, probably 10 years or so most. It was almost 2000. I went to LA because I had been producing. I would probably be producing them for about four years solid. I moved to LA. In the late very late 90s. I had produced an album for love and rockets. And I was still very close with those guys. I wound up doing a tour with Peter Murphy who I met through them. And Kevin Haskins from loving rockets. And I started a company together and we started kind of, we had we just kind of connected really hard making that album. Yeah. And so we just kind of carried on with that. And in through that I started doing a lot of music for TV. I mean, honestly, that that was how I started doing television. A music supervisor back then called me and said, I’m trying to licence this song from this love and rockets record here, one of the writers, can you help me? clear it? And I think record can be gone out of business. There’s It was a weird,
Andrew Dubber
sorry, what year was this?
Doug de Angelis
- So I can’t wait. Yeah. And I said, Nobody. I don’t know how to I have no idea. But I can make another one for you if you want. And she said you can I said of course. You know, it’s like, I haven’t run out of salt. It’s like when that are the first. Okay, so I just did it again. You know, I just made it other it was for chase scene or something like that in a television show. So I just did it that night and sent it to her the next day. And honestly, that’s what started it because then she kept coming back. And then her friend started to come to me, can you do something like this? Can you do something like that? Can you bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Yeah. And so my really entrance into Television Music was doing, you know, records that they couldn’t do. And then Kevin and I, we we wound up scoring a television show, we submitted music or cyber how it happened. But it was Michael Mann, director, Michael Mann, yeah. And we wound up working for him. He was the first TV show and it was a really, again, you don’t know when you’re dealing with an innovator because you’re just starting. So you’re clueless, and you have no idea what you’re dealing with. But he was very innovative. You know, he always always has been obviously. But it was it was a really interesting entrance into all of it. He was intense. And he would talk into a dictaphone like this right? Now. He never talked you, you’d all go for the meeting, you wouldn’t look at any of you, he just sit, watch the screen talking to the thing, and you’d get it in the mail at night, it would get delivered to your door, all the notes. And so you’re up all night 24, seven, revising and making notes and doing things and that was kind of my entrance into film and television, music. And then I I did that for about 15 years
Andrew Dubber
is the appeal of that, that instead of selling things to lots of people for small amounts of money, you’re selling to one person for a large sum.
Doug de Angelis
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, the music industry, obviously, around that very same time. 1999 obviously took a massive hit. But television and film didn’t what was what was interesting about it was 15 years later, moving from Los Angeles to Nashville, right. And now all of a sudden, you’re in the city where musics pure. You don’t you’re not a musician, for the television industry. You’re a musician for the music industry. And those are very this this purity in that
I guess in my mind
Andrew Dubber
how emanated You are the first person to pop your music industry and the same thing. Yeah, well, if I do get what you mean. Absolutely. Yeah.
Doug de Angelis
And so it was hard, though, to see. You know, by the time I moved to Nashville, they had really been hit by the whole country music lasted a lot longer than the rest of it. But But Nashville is not country music anymore. Not for ones that changed. They got hit by it just like everybody else
Andrew Dubber
in the country still there. Absolutely. But it’s not just country.
Doug de Angelis
Absolutely not. You know, no, not even. It’s can it’s a very balanced subset to the whole music community there now.
Andrew Dubber
In fact, this there’s been a big discussion recently about some of the country music that is like, is this country or is a trap you know? Like, where are the boundaries anymore?
Doug de Angelis
Right? Yeah, is it? Yeah, I mean, you know, when you’ve got kelsea ballerini work with Chainsmokers, and Marin, Morris, and Zed, and all those kind of as soon as one does it, and it does what? The middle? Did. Everybody’s gonna do it. I mean, it works. Yeah, country music started turning into pop music years ago, it worked great. And it’s going to keep going farther and farther in that direction. There’s no doubt about it,
Andrew Dubber
right? Which is kind of interesting, because there are always people who are trying to preserve a tradition. And I get that. But I’m always excited by when people kind of take the barriers away. And go, what else can we mix with us? How, what are the sorts of hybrids? Can we create? And I think that’s where a lot of the kind of particularly musical innovation starts to kick? Yeah. I’m kind of really interested in one show in particular, which is kind of a seminal, I guess, from a music perspective is mind to me. Yeah. Tell me about your approach to that show.
Doug de Angelis
My approach that show when I think about my approach that show, it’s from the pilot perspective, because that that was one of the shows that I started from pilot, when when you start a pilot is just such a messy process. You know, there’s nothing, there’s no filthier word to composers than pilot, it just makes us quiver. Because, you know, we were interesting, we were talking about this at Nam with it with a whole group of composers, and the audience was really fascinated by it. But when you do pilots, you, it’s not when you do your first one, it’s when you do about your 15th. One that you realise what a pilot is a pilot is, is a script that’s been written over the course of like years, and then shot over the course of a long time and then edited 8 million times before it ever gets to you. And so you’re getting it fresh. And you’re just have all these creative ideas, and everybody else is so already done, over done, redone. 15 times, and their their perspective is like, you know, yeah. And there’s also a lot of problems with it that they’ve heard along the way when they’re writing this line, or that actor is not very good. So they, they’re always well, we’ll fix it with music. That was one I actually did with a couple of great producers named Sam Boehm and Dustin. The name escapes me right now. They were a production team I’ve worked with before on the show called the evidence. And I remember when they sent me the pilot, and it was just so to me, the whole musical tone of that show, I think of as the pilot, I think of as that opening scene to the opening pilot when there was this is the the airport scene. Yes. All right. Yeah. And then going into that sort of first, like interrogation room. And just that whole thing was just how do you kind of bring that whole thing to life, and I remember working, I remember so clearly, like working on that so much. And just trying to find a really dark kind of gritty, but percussively kind of thing for it. And so it
Andrew Dubber
was the pilot the first episode, because that’s not always the case. It was the first episode, right? Okay, cuz that’s that scene where basically, I don’t know if people listening have watched it, but I recommend it. But basically, somebody who can tell when somebody is lying is, is about to pretend, essentially, to be somebody who is lying so that he can get caught and right, you know, with that without spoiling too much of the story, but it is a really interesting setup. And it’s in this kind of airport security context. And there’s there’s a tension in that, but there’s a comedy in it, as well, which is, which is really nice, which
Doug de Angelis
there was a lot through that show. And that’s one of the hardest things to work musically is tension and comedy at the same time. It’s a very tricky thing. It’s when you learn how to use space really well. You know, you’re supposed to learn it just making music. Yeah, really learn it when you’re doing comedy and stress at the same time, because it’s very hard lines to walk. And particularly with an actor like that when you’ve got a guy that’s very dry like that. So he can go from serious to comedy without any without it there being a beat at all to even play with, you know, just in a look. And so you’re really always walking this really tough line. But yeah, I really enjoyed that show. I always really enjoyed working with those two producers. I think Sam now does like Chicago Fire and those things. He’s gone on and done a lot of things see some very, very talented guy. Yeah.
Andrew Dubber
games on the on the agenda. Is that next? I did a little bit of games back in the day. Yeah. You know, that.
Doug de Angelis
The Tech, I had to kind of make a choice between games and TV, to be honest, because when I started doing games, get the engine was changing so much. And you would have to keep up with it. It was like all of a sudden there was scripting and you had to go to, you know, up to Microsoft, and they give you this gigantic book to learn all this stuff and you had to deliver on all these new formats. And so if you weren’t really dedicated to that there was no way to keep up with that. Because the temple Yeah, no, you couldn’t dabble back and forth between TV and those, they were moving way. I mean, this is a huge issue for me. And we can talk about this forever. But I it’s funny, because I never thought about it in this perspective like this. But what I felt at the time was, there’s no way to keep up with this. Because these people move really fast. They keep changing their engine, in their engine is how music is made. I mean, physically how we make the music is tied to this engine that they keep changing.
Andrew Dubber
Yeah, well, that
Doug de Angelis
engine is why they make a shitload of money, that engine changing is why they are able to keep young audiences engaged for you know, and growing from Pong to you know, fortnight. Yeah, that’s why, you know, and that was the early look at it, but that’s why should we do.
Andrew Dubber
But they basically reinventing the musical instruments, so reinventing, they
Doug de Angelis
re invent everything along the way, if you told game developers, they had to work on a platform for you know, they had to release their game in the same platform that it was released 15 years ago, they would die. I mean, they’re just joking me. So they’re, they’re always reinventing the technology to support the experience, the reinventing the delivery system to up the game, for the experience to up the experience, which is why kids are so dialled into the experience constantly growing and they and that’s why they thirst for it. So it’s the next challenge. For me from here forward. Honestly, the challenge is figuring out how to do that for music. That is the absolute challenge. From here on. I’m good with everything else. I love making music, I’ll make it forever. But for me from here forward, it’s how do we do what the game industry did, from a from an innovation standpoint, to make music and experience that’s worth paying for? For Kids, not live music? I don’t want anybody to be confused that I’m talking about live music. I know people pay for live music, and uh huh. But let’s look at that, as well. Think about concerts from back in the day, to Coachella in South by Southwest in those things. The evolution of concerts has gone from two bands playing in an arena to 60 bands in the field with a tech festival and a book festival and this and everything going on around it. It’s a full on experience. And they’ll pay money for that, because that’s that suits the the experience drive,
Andrew Dubber
right? But how do you get out of all right, we need to make it kind of really appealing and, you know, potentially lucrative for a young audience without them going to live without making it gimmicky.
Doug de Angelis
So I think that you’ve got to really break the mould, like the way we’re working on it, is to say it’s not about the music, I have no problem with the evolution of musics fine. It’s the delivery system that’s not able to keep up with the kind of delivery systems that keep young audiences engaged. So to me, the starting point was to reinvent the delivery system. And so since we all have a powerful computer in our pocket, why not use that and reinvent the delivery system. So what we did was we actually from the ground up designed an engine that can playback an album, a single in a multitrack format, as well as two remixes of the single in a multitrack format. But then be able to combine all the parts from all three of those versions, and let you automate it, let you manipulate it let you add your own parts to it let you marry it to video, let you marry it to pictures let you post it straight to social media let you run contests with it, lets you seek out things online and put together video clips that make a trailer and then marry it together with your own remix of the song from that movie, and then win tickets to the movie. All sorts of experiences with music that help it like kids perceive music right now as part of content. All right, kids are content creators. Now I don’t I don’t see young people striving to make music. They want to make content and musics a component of content. Yeah. So let’s give them the ability to do that with music. let’s let’s let’s get them paying artists and buying music in a way that they’re comfortable doing it. You know, they’re never, they’re never going to go back to buying music. We’ve told him it’s free. So but they’ll pay for everything. So wouldn’t the way we do it. We do it all with virtual currency. So you earn your way through to being able to unlock all different experiences that help you build all cooler content and help you then enter all these challenges and do all these things. And really, as you’re earning that, or buying it you’re actually paying for debt, what would be like double what it would be for downloads. So you’re actually paying the artists
Andrew Dubber
but it’s participatory. Very participatory.
Doug de Angelis
Yeah, it’s all about putting you into it. You kids have to be part of things they have to be it’s, it’s about being able to personalise it, share it. And, you know, really, yeah, customise it. And you know, it’s fascinating when you show somebody and you say, hey, you just created your own version of that song you love to want to buy it for 99 cents. There’s no other way to keep it. Go. Yeah,
yeah,
Doug de Angelis
right there. net, why would you ever buy it for 99 cents when you can stream it’ll be there again, tomorrow to stream
Andrew Dubber
Yeah, but not your version that you’re proud of,
Doug de Angelis
that you’re proud of. And it’s a way so the way we did it was also a way that artists could function with because it’s all material that’s, you know, curated from the artists. So it’s, it all works, it all sounds great. And they don’t have to worry about it. So it’s very pure to an artist. And so what I’m really excited about is to go back now and start working with artists in that format, on as a single not as a single and remixes. But to be able to say to an artist, you have all different ways you perform this song, right? You could do it acoustically. You could do it electrically, you could do it this, well, let’s do them all. Yeah, and make it all work. And you’ll have all three versions in the law interact, and everybody can sit and make all their own anything they want. So it gives you kind of all the fun of everything. And it’s also a cool learning tool. You can plug in a guitar and play to it and you can chords are there and the lyrics are there. And you can, you know, you can learn about effects and all that stuff too. So,
Andrew Dubber
and it’s called stylists, and testing dog. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.
Doug de Angelis
I’m so glad to be here. Thank you. Cheers.
Andrew Dubber
That’s producer, composer, engineer, musical director, music supervisor, conference chair and inventor, Doug de Angelis. And that’s the MTF podcast. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at Dubber and MTF Labs at Music Tech Fest all one word. In fact, pretty much everywhere. It’s just Music Tech Fest. The MTF podcast is out every Friday. So if you haven’t already, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts, overcast Spotify, or whatever your favourite podcast app might be wherever actually, you’re listening to this. And if you like what you hear, you can share rate and review us. It really helps other people who might be into this sort of thing to find us. Don’t wash your hands. Be safe, be healthy. Have a great week, and we’ll talk soon. Cheers.
