This time, we're joined by talented keyboardist and Dream Theatre member Jordan Rudess. Facing the challenge of choosing only six items for his studio, Jordan shares studio stories of working with David Bowie and Tony Visconti, what he’s been up to with ChatGPT and which new instrument he’s taking with him into the studio for Dream Theatre’s next record.
This time, we're joined by talented keyboardist and Dream Theatre member Jordan Rudess. Facing the challenge of choosing only six items for his studio, Jordan shares studio stories of working with David Bowie and Tony Visconti, what he’s been up to with ChatGPT and which new instrument he’s taking with him into the studio for Dream Theatre’s next record.
Season 5 is sponsored by Audient: audient.com
STUFF WE TALK ABOUT (SPOILERS AHEAD!)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpvXNiIsPKv/
In The Studio with Dream Theatre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXyaFYkL0w4
https://www.beartracks-studio.com/
Bear Tracks Echo Chambers: https://youtu.be/bJd8606oNNk?t=430
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/mac-studio
https://zoomcorp.com/en/us/digital-mixer-multi-track-recorders/
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/morphwiz/id377345348
https://faustharrisonpianos.com/
https://earthworksaudio.com/piano-microphones/pm40/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oSm4iW1ZRU
https://www.expressivee.com/2-osmose
https://audiomodeling.com/
https://www.genelec.com/game-audio/8341-and-7380-immersive-system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Subotnick
https://www.tangerinedreammusic.com/
https://www.moogmusic.com/products/minimoog-model-d
GeoShred: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/geoshred/id1064769019
GeoShred Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2sGpqipggw
https://twitter.com/eriktnorlander?lang=en-GB
https://riffler.app/
https://store.lavamusic.com/
Chris Barker
I'm Chris Barker.
Will Betts
And I'm Will Betts and this is the music tech, my favorite studio podcast brought to you in partnership with adient.
Chris Barker
In this podcast, we speak with musicians, DJs engineers and producers about their fantasy forever studio,
Will Betts
the imaginary studio that our guests dream up today will be one that they must live with until the end of time. But even in the world of studio forever them, we have some rules. Yes, the
Chris Barker
rules. So our guests get to select a computer, a DAW and an audio interface. Those are three items, we let everybody choose those, then our guests will choose just six other bits of studio kit, plus one non gear related luxury item.
Will Betts
But there's one more rule isn't there, Chris? Yes.
Chris Barker
Nope, bundles. That's right. Choosing something sold as a package of separate software or hardware as a single item is not allowed.
Will Betts
This time, we're joined by one of the most talented keyboard players on the planet.
Chris Barker
Yes, our guest this time is not only a member of the progressive metal band, Dream Theater and a solo artist. He's also an enormous gearhead.
Will Betts
That's right if you're into since you have doubtless seen our guests demoing the latest and greatest instruments all over YouTube, and perhaps at NAMM, but with so many cents at his disposal already. How will he find slimming down his studio to just six items?
Chris Barker
Well, let's find out. This is my forever studio with Jordan Rudess. Welcome.
Will Betts
Welcome, Jordan.
Jordan Rudess
Hello, guys. How's it going?
Chris Barker
Very, very good. How are you?
Jordan Rudess
I'm doing well. Just happy to be home in the middle of some touring. We've been running around. We've just got back into Europe a couple of weeks ago, and have a break. Gonna go out. And do NAMM. Which I'm happy about and then we'll be off to Asia to do a whole bunch more shows.
Chris Barker
Wow. So it's nonstop. Yeah. I mean, nobody's complaining about it after the pandemic. Everybody's glad to be back out there and doing things, aren't they? It's? Yeah, no, no moaning about touring anymore.
Jordan Rudess
No, no, it's all good. We actually had a really good time floating around Europe, even though it was winter time. And I was a little bit on edge about the idea of traveling through all these seven countries in the dead of winter. But it actually, I guess, thanks to big global warming and such we we did Okay, nice. It was all smoke.
Chris Barker
And what about recordings? I mean, is it is it altering this year? Or are you constantly finding time to be in the studio as well?
Jordan Rudess
Well, I actually I was just spending some time in the studio to some writing a piece for the MIDI Association's 40th anniversary. So working on a kind of global composition, if you will to perform at the at the NAMM show your concert there to celebrate the 40th. It's so big, big event.
Chris Barker
It's so funny with MIDI isn't it for years, and it's not that much has changed really?
Jordan Rudess
In a way the MIDI is MIDI, right? It is what it does. Yeah.
Chris Barker
We like it. I mean, that's kind of why it's cool. Right? Right. So I mean, you heard a bit of the intro there about the podcast. And for anybody listening in, we can see Jordan on zoom here. And there's a lot of kit behind you already. So it's gonna be interesting to see. And that's just what we can see behind you. For anybody. I mean, you can check out your studio, there's various shots of it on YouTube and online isn't there, but I'm sure it's gonna be interesting to see you slim this down to the Forever studio. So before we get before we dig too hard into the gear, yeah, let's let's talk about where in the universe, you would have your perfect Studio, you know, sky's the limit and where, what what that vibe would be like, what would it look like inside? What how would it be designed? What's What's your ideal vibe?
Jordan Rudess
Well, what's interesting about the whole idea is that although I have a ton of instruments and you know, spaces to put them I don't really have a beautiful, like, seamless sound studio as part of my home situation would be nice. This never been something that I you know, really focused on put together. You know, I have more of a I call it like a man cave where I go and I do my work and my computers there with a key word and a bunch of keyboards and you know, that's just kind of like what that is. So thinking about, Oh, if I really could, like, buy the place and check it out. It's kind of a cool, cool thing.
Chris Barker
So did the mancave just get out of hand? Or did you actually go right? This is gonna be the studio when you win like, Well,
Jordan Rudess
what happened in my life of gear and just being home and all the things I do is that my man cave actually, at one point years ago, there just became too many things to put in it too many keyboards. For some reason people like to send me keyboards, so I have a hard time saying no. I feel like I better learn to say no suit. So I'm running out of space, but it's a tough problem. Let me tell you gal Yeah, gotta sneak in the keyboards, right. Nobody else sees him come in. But anyway, so yeah, so too many things were there. And then I had to kind of expanded into, I guess what would what was formerly a living room. But now it's a piano room because the centerpiece of the of my room right now is my nine foot Steinway grand. Yeah, it's sitting right I'm looking at it. It's right in the center of this room, which is surrounded by another ton of keyboards and cameras and lights and stuff like that. And guitars as a whole, I'm working on my guitar collection. Actually, just pretty crazy.
Chris Barker
Stop sending keyboards start sending guitars. That's what you're saying. For anybody tuned in.
Jordan Rudess
Actually, I just got an amazing guitar yesterday from Indonesia, which is a lot it has LEDs in it, it lights up, and all these cool different colors. So if you check out my Instagram, I posted the unboxing of it. It's really fun. That sounds cool and amazing creation. But yeah, that's kind of like my thing. So I have one room where I do like my live streams and my piano playing. And, you know, nowadays, I'm practicing my osmosis technique, the new expresscv instrument. And then the other one where you know what, it's time to actually record something I kind of sneak out there and I'm in my little cave. But yeah, so where would I want it? I'm imagining like, you know, some like the hilltop or mountaintop in like Hawaii, like why not? Right? Yeah, yeah. windows overlooking the water. You know, nice, airy open space. And yeah, I think that that might be my choice, at least for today.
Chris Barker
It's interesting that this conversation with our guests that we have on the show generally goes one or two ways it's either people that want a windowless like bunker. Like an Uber yet yeah. Oh, interesting. Or people that want loads of natural light and Windows. It's quite extreme, isn't it? Well, like you see the choices. Yeah. Interesting.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah. I'm totally into the open, you know, just beautiful view. But that would be my my type of thing.
Chris Barker
How would you like to work? You'd like to be sort of unbothered and remote or do you like to be part of a community or near you know, near life? Such?
Jordan Rudess
Oh, I wouldn't mind being as long as that my internet was really like, you know, happening, which in this dream studio, of course, it would be flying flying best. Of course. Yeah. superfast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I could just be wherever.
Chris Barker
Okay, so you're not you're not concerned with like, needing to be near bars and coffee shops and whatever, like that kind of life.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, probably a little bit of life would be good. Again, down to the Starbucks or whatever, and get it get my fix, but But beyond that, the general kind of stuff, it could be quiet, just might be useful.
Chris Barker
And what about design wise, like? Obviously, we've got, you know, acoustically, but have you ever been in studios in your career, like commercial facilities or friends and you've gone Wow, this? I love the vibe in here. I mean, can you tell some stories about some of the places you've walked into or worked or recorded?
Jordan Rudess
Well, an old friend of mine, I don't know might be 20 years ago gets to know it was Frank climatology. You did did a lot of the design building of like the hip factory and stuff like that back in the day. Wow. And in those days, we would hang out and I just remember walking into the rooms and going on it's really beautiful.
Chris Barker
That's the Hit Factory. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Jordan Rudess
Dream Theater. Actually, years ago when I first joined the band we recorded at bear tracks studio, which was up in kind of near me up near in Rockland County, New York beautiful stone, like house building. That just the vibe was really really awesome.
Chris Barker
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember reading it like you know, great studios kind of coffee table kind of book and isn't that the one that had that the kind of the well that you could lower the mic into and it had like they had a reverb sort of Well, are we making that up?
Jordan Rudess
I don't know. It sounds like that could have been that place but i don't i don't know specifically
Chris Barker
I think they had like a speaker in the in the bottom of the well wide and they had a patched in the studio and then a microphone and you lower the microphone and obviously like reamp signal and this and get like that. So this is
Jordan Rudess
the studio with Dream Theater recorded scenes from a memory right. Okay. And six degrees of inner turbulence. Okay, good. Is that a nice vibe? Was this an old stone house which kind of at the inside looks almost like like a church or something like that. Okay, this is really warm and kind of nice vibe. But I also like, I also like mod when I'm picturing the studio, we're talking about picturing more of a modern kind of a vibe very clean open, you know, not not a lot of unnecessary stuff. in it. They'll be like light colors and just kind of very pick us open was to vibe,
Chris Barker
some maybe also stone in church like on the outside and kind of modern and minimal on the inside. There's always
Jordan Rudess
like the stone in church thing. But in this particular fantasy actually I'm thinking more just future modern kind of, okay. Look
Will Betts
like on the edge of a cliff. I'm always trying to upsell people on being on the edge of a cliff and underpinned
Chris Barker
will lives his life on a cliff edge. That's why
Jordan Rudess
the cliff thing sounds a little precarious these days, especially right, but hey, I suppose you had a lot of viewers gonna dream. So that one falls down the clip. So they get another one? Yeah,
Chris Barker
exactly. That's true. So the next little three items we have that every guest gets before we get started, because we feel like every studio sort of has them on needs them. And that's a computer a DAW and an audio interface. So these are your free items. These don't eat into your item budget. So tell us what these three would have in your forever studio?
Jordan Rudess
Well, I'm a Mac guy. So I mean, I probably just go for the most blown out. iMac computer, yes. Human Lee or physically possible. And I already like I'm a logic guy. So I don't want to learn anything new. So let's stick with that. Yeah. And also, one of my very close friends is the logic Project Manager for Apple. So that always helps when you're in deep in these programs. Like, I'm not getting any sound. Hello, yeah, what's wrong with this? Which button? Do I press? Yeah. And then, as far as audio interface? That's a really good question. I mean, I'm actually just, I was just visiting my buddy Steven Wilson studio in the UK. And he was, he was kind of letting me hear some of his new music. But, um, and it's all you know, he's very big into the Atmos thing. So it made me think, oh, man, I really got to do that. But that's like the next step, you know, to try to figure out how to position all that. But, um, as far as which, you know, so, you know, I obviously would want to be set up with this in the new in the new environment. So, I honestly don't know, like the names of the models of the audio interfaces, but you know, probably some kind of Apollo interfaces that would allow me to run all the channels that I need.
Chris Barker
Do you have like Atmos compatible interfaces? Or is it literally just an output issue? I mean, do you just need something with loads of outputs? So you can just assign speakers to outputs? And then you've got some kind of middleware that deals with all that.
Jordan Rudess
That's it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that sounds that sounds about right.
Chris Barker
Oh, that's good. That's good. That knew that.
Jordan Rudess
Good work. Yeah, you passed that test?
Chris Barker
Because that was just a complete? Yes. I just didn't, I didn't know whether you need like a Dolby Atmos certified or do your audio interface kind of thing. But no. Okay. Right. So you just need loads of outs
Jordan Rudess
just to run all the speakers and everything. Yeah, right. Right.
Chris Barker
What I mean, what do you run out?
Jordan Rudess
Right, now I have a zoom. What is it a zoom mixer, that is the audio interface. In my studio, that kind of does the job.
Chris Barker
It's interesting to see, this is another thing with guests on the show that I'm just buying pants here. The more like musical, which you very much are the guests, the less they care about the the sort of, you know, the the technology of the interface. It's just about instruments and sound. We had this with other guests as well. Like, I mean,
Jordan Rudess
honestly, like, it's funny, my, my musical technical life is interesting in the sense that I am deep into tech, music tech stuff. Like I have a company that makes apps and you know, all kinds of cool stuff, physical modeling and sampling and all the different things. But but as deep as I am into that, I'm also not that into some of the other tech stuff. But yeah, if it's an audio if it's like an audio interface, and like I say to my studio tech, what do we need to do what I want to do? Yes, more kind of into that side of it. Oh, well, here's a link you know, this go check out this interface. I'm like, okay, cool.
Chris Barker
So what we think you for the Atmos thing which we get we're gonna go through a universal Universal Audio. That seems to be a classic choice, or I mean, well, do you want to upsell some dreams here? Yeah. Nice.
Will Betts
So if you wanted to stay in the Universal Audio family, you could go up to Apollo x 16. That's their biggest with the most line outs Oh, there's
Jordan Rudess
the dream studio. So I might as well up it to the highest end. You know, Apollo interface is
Chris Barker
done. Alright. Sold locked in. So that's what you've got already in the studio. You've just got those three things. Right. So item number one. What are you thinking for your studio?
Jordan Rudess
Well, it needs to have, you know, an incredible piano in there. So we either need to just get the one that I have in my place delivered Be there or just get another one.
Chris Barker
So tell us when you got the the one you've got there and you know, it's a big day, like getting a nine foot.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, right, right.
Chris Barker
How long have you had it?
Jordan Rudess
So this piano I got, actually from my 50th birthday, which was a while ago. And actually funny, funny story about this piano is that, but around the time, we had bought this piano and decided that okay, you know, I've been playing the piano my whole life and my wife and I were like, Let's just, let's just invest into like a really amazing piano. About the same time as I got this piano, I was also developing morph whiz, which was the first iOS app that I was that I kind of put into the world. And I was playing with the iPhone a lot. The original one didn't make any good sounds didn't have any good visuals audit, it was kind of the experience was, you know, kind of crappy. But go for what it was back then. But I was sitting around a lot running my finger on the screens, just making like a sine wave sound. And my wife one day said to me, what are you doing? We have that amazingly beautiful piano and you're sitting around making this stupid sound on the on your iPhone. I was like, no, no, no, it's okay. I got something in my mind. I got an idea. And I mean, that maybe was the one time I was right. But that year, I came out with Morpheus, which one the billboard Award for the Best Music app? Yeah. So after that came out, then I spent more time on my piano. Yeah, so this piano, so the piano I have is a really beautiful piano. I wouldn't mind just having this this will this piano was a dream come true. For me, so it's pretty high level. But it's it's a Steinway piano, which was rebuilt by Faust Harrison, which are probably some of the most famous piano rebuilders, at least in our countries. And it's really, it's gorgeous.
Chris Barker
And is that this particular model of Steinway, or
Jordan Rudess
to Steinway D is a D. Okay, that's the nine put grand piano. Nice, right? And, you know, so that would definitely have to be the studio. But the other thing that has to be in the studio, if I'm going to have that piano was a good way to record it. Right. So, so in the piano right now, I have I don't remember the model number, but there are some earth earthwerks piano mics,
Chris Barker
so we're going on to item number two, so we're locking the piano? Yeah, item number two, we're looking at a microphone, or are we looking at items number two and three, for microphones? For you to help me. This is where it gets complicated. You're gonna get to your six very quickly. So I see
Jordan Rudess
what you're saying. Well, let's just get one model microphone. And so you're still thinking earthworks. Yeah, love. It. Sounds awesome. Yeah.
Chris Barker
And do you know which earthworks model is we go that nerdy on here? Is the bar
Jordan Rudess
you know, it's like a bar that sits in the piano. Maybe it's the PM 40. Oh,
Chris Barker
these are stereo pair that come as a pair. We allow that as a bundle that we will
Jordan Rudess
still piano it's a stereo pair. And I'm having a think you really think it's the PM 40.
Will Betts
So it's the proper piano mic system that is designed specifically for and they'd like ultra miniature?
Jordan Rudess
Yes, that's right. That's right.
Chris Barker
That's not a bundle. And well, that's allowed. We're allowing that right.
Will Betts
I mean, that is it's a system to system, right. But it's bundle adjacent, but it's not a bundle. So you've absolutely you've hacked the system.
Chris Barker
Now you get both of those.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, the stereo. Yeah, recording microphone thing. So yeah, I mean, as far as microphones go, we'll need those because we got to capture the piano. So this is only six things I might have did not do any vocals in the new studio, but
Will Betts
just sing into the piano mics. You could just open the lid.
Jordan Rudess
See it hold down the pedal write it down? Yeah. Like, yeah, I did a session with David Bowie years ago. And there was an acoustic piano I think was a Steinway baby grand. And there was an upright one of these really tall uprights, and I walked into the studio getting ready to do the piano track that day. And I thought oh, I'm you know, I'm definitely not playing the Steinway when I got into David said, no, no, no, we want you to play on the the upright as what? Okay, whatever you want. So I started to play in the upright and then Tony Viscardi and Davey came and said no, no, it doesn't quite sound doesn't sound right. Try the other piano so I played the grand piano the baby grand whatever it was, they came in said no no sorry to get like self conscious about you know what's going on. And they they said okay, we got an idea and they move the upright piano really right up against the the baby grant, and they tape down the sustain pedal on the upright. They put the mics up against the open upright piano. This is now now play. So what they ended up doing is recording a big part of the sound was recording the resonance from the upright piano Hmm, right just from the from my playing the baby grant. And that's what they said. They said it was an old Brian Eno trick. They were very excited about it. Wow.
Chris Barker
That's great. That's amazing.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, this guy is good. So
Chris Barker
they're physically touching the to like pianos.
Jordan Rudess
Pianos are right. Yeah, they put the upright piano right up against the other one and just make the open, you know, as one of these really tall upright pianos, and then just record it that way, then they were very happy.
Chris Barker
Yeah. Amazing. What track was that?
Jordan Rudess
The track is called slip away. It's up to hedon album.
Chris Barker
Awesome. We will be will be checking that out.
Jordan Rudess
Spawn tracker of vintage bogey. So Nick?
Chris Barker
Yeah. And yeah, if anybody's been trying to nail that piano sound now they're like, oh, that's why I don't own two pianos.
Jordan Rudess
Right. You go. Okay, so
Chris Barker
we've got the bikes, we've got the we've got the grand. So item number three.
Jordan Rudess
Well, we need to have definitely some synthesizers in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's pretty important. I think based on my recent keyboard passion, I would want to have an osmosis keyboard in there, because I don't know if you guys heard about
Chris Barker
that. But I've heard it, but I don't know much about it. Tell us more about it. Okay,
Jordan Rudess
so the osmosis, I was just talking to the two guys who were locked up a couple of the main guys that created this instrument this morning, actually. And I was singing praises to that, really, because what they managed to do was to take the traditional keyboard, the black and white keyboard, and really bring it to a level that probably nobody thought was really possible, the keyboard now and the osmosis can be thought of as like a continuous instrument, continuous meaning we're like a boat instrument or a wind instrument, or even a human voice. And, you know, that's a big statement for a keyboard. Because most, you know, in history, keyboards are more like on and off switches, especially according to Roger Lin, who basically sometimes has said that, you know, and I get that, you know, piano recital, the key and hammer hits the string, and that's, you know, then you the sitting around, enjoying the sound of it, hopefully, if it's a good piano, and synthesizer, you know, you press the note makes contact with the, you're at the bottom of the key press, hopefully, and, and then you got your sound, and it's very much up to the synthesis of it, how it evolves over time, and all that kind of good stuff, or maybe have some sliders or anything like that. But on this instrument, you know, it's a, they really built something that you know, is, is an augmented keyboard. So it does a bunch of cool, amazing things like you can just put your finger very lightly on this keyboard or at the top of it, and just start to press down the slightest bit ever so slowly, and it'll track your finger. So it feels so perfect, that you can just bring in notes really, really slowly and accurately. And every note is completely independent, because it's an NP e style synthesizer. So it's just really, really cool to feel the feeling of it. And I've never experienced that really on a any kind of a keyboard before maybe it's a little similar to what my friend Roland lamb, you know, invented in the seaboard, because that's, that's also a great invention, you know, where your finger can be resting on it, and then slowly start to push down, you get sound. But this again, is on a traditional, kind of like, looking keyboard. So that's a tremendous part of it, that kind of the ability to press down like that. But the other things about it is that in our keep a lot of keyboards have after touch, and some of your lucky will have polyphonic aftertouch, which is more in the spirit of the kind of instruments that I weigh mostly with the MPC style instruments. But on traditional kind of like synthesizer keyboards, you get to the bottom of the key and then you keep pressing and you're not really moving anywhere, but you're like triggering after touch. And it's generally not a very pleasant feeling beer hands or anything, it's it's kind of an annoying, to the point where I'll just turn after touch off, believe it or not on a lot of my keyboards when I'm recording because I don't want to bother to that weird feeling and hitting it by accident or anything like that. So with the osmosis, one of the engineering beats that they managed to do is that you can press the keys down, and you feel like they're going down to a normal kind of like, distance or spot. You're not really even thinking about it. But then when you stop and push a little more, there's this mysterious kind of cushiony area that you actually feel and it actually feels really pretty cool. And there's a lot of expression that is almost like, hidden beneath the surface, if you will, because it's it's not interrupting your general play of the instrument but it's the When you want it, and I told the guys this morning, I was like, How the hell did you do that that must have taken a lot of experimentation, because it's a real physical, physical thing. And they were saying that, you know, their approach to building the cosmos was that they wanted to build a classic instrument, almost like a cello maker, somebody built a cello, they weren't trying to build like just a modern design kind of thing they were trying to take in classical and instrument building approach, and make something that would at the same time be cutting edge. So that was the mission behind the thing that they were saying, which I thought was really cool. But the other thing about the Osmosis is that it the keys actually move side to side. So you can, it's not when your finger goes down on it, it's not looking at where your where your finger is location wise, in the space of a key, like some technology, we've seen the strips that can go over some keywords, it is literally looking at the pressure on either side. So if you push the key left or right, it can you can you can program in how much pitch distance you want, you can say I want it every time I move left, you want it like two octaves or, you know, 48 semitones. Or, generally I have it set for like a half a semitone. Because I want to do vibrato, and I don't want it to get out of control. So you know, three years ago when I saw this, the, like the prototype of the thing, you know, and they showed it to me in a hotel rooms that were part of the part of the challenge of a lot of these instruments that do stuff like that, whether it's a continuum eigenharp A seaboard or whatever, or the osmosis, you don't, nobody wants to play out a tune. That's just not fun, you know. So you think about something that's a wiggling and you go a ship, what's going to happen here, I'm going to always play out soon. But they kind of took, you know, the advice from people like me and other people, and they, you know, built in a stabilization parameter that, I think is probably mostly kind of time based. So when you're just playing, it's not like the pitches going all over the place, because he can't keep your finger right in the middle without pushing a little bit. So it ends up being Yeah, you need to have some control, you need to be able to handle playing a keyboard. But but but it works and it's really, really cool.
Chris Barker
And is it does it have sound built into it Oh, one
Jordan Rudess
one more physical jet or two more physical gestures. And I'll get try to get through this more quickly. One is that the there's a release element to so you can actually create sound on the release. Ah, but the other thing that is probably one of my favorite things about it is this thing called press glide, I guess it's part of the Egan matrix, which is originally was originally designed for the Hakan continuum, but press Glide is an awesome, awesome feature, what it means is that you can set up a you choose a particular interval, and when you choose that interval that turns that spacing on the keyboard into a monophonic zone. So in other words, you choose like a semitone. So you that means you can't play like C and C Sharp together. But you could play like C and D together. So the reason you'd want that is because now if I play like, you know, two notes on the keyboard, let's say a fourth apart, I can move one of them like bit like almost like a lap steel kind of thing just by playing legato. So for any keyboard as served visions out there, if I played like a B with my pinky, you know, and then I played an F sharp with my index finger and I played legato from F sharp to G. I could I could bet basically, it sounds like it's bending the pitch from F sharp to G. And the amazing thing is about the portamento on the Osmosis is that the speed of the portamento is all controlled by the pressure and the release of the different notes. So if you're you could play like you know, like C to G and go Bo bomb or if you go down. So it was how fast you let go of your, your source note into your target and it's like a seesaw. Yeah, doing this thing. It's really, really cool.
Chris Barker
I mean, obviously with with the rolly stuff and and other stuff, there's been some kind of exploration of this. So you've played instruments like this before, but do you find yourself getting to grips with it relatively quickly?
Jordan Rudess
Well, the one of the advantages of this instrument is it's based on a keyboard.
Chris Barker
I mean, well, I'm looking at now it looks just like a keyboard like as Yeah,
Jordan Rudess
except for it's got all the it's got all these things that I've described as part of it. So the guys, in my opinion, these guys hit a homerun with like, you know, just taking something that you know, is a classic kind of design that everybody knows, you know, for so long the traditional keyboard and augmenting it and making it really do what we want it to do.
Chris Barker
So how does it interact? Is it is it only The NP type plugins that you can add those features for or
Jordan Rudess
like so now to answer that question, so it has a built so it has a built in sound engine, it's based on the Egon matrix, which is Ed Egan and you know, with the work that he did with LiPo pocket and so they I guess they have a relationship with them that they were able to put this sound engine inside of the instrument is basically built on like physical modeling kind of technology, although I think there's a little bit of other stuff kind of mixed in to the, to the whole there. And it works really, really well with this kind of playing experience the physical modeling, because it can be so organic, sounding like I don't know, if anybody out there who is experienced with really good physical models knows that is a different experience in playing with samples, like some of the swamp stuff that is out there from audio modeling, which is actually a partner of mine in GeoTrail, that those kinds of instruments, you just feel like, they're just so real, you know, even like playing the cello, I'm on G or shred. It's an incredible feeling, right. So similarly with the awesomo, see, play some of these models, whether they're like a wind instrument or a string, and you just feel like they're incredibly organic. But the fact that they built that sound engine, with this physical keyboard is a great marriage, it really, really works. That's part of the success I feel with this instrument.
Will Betts
And so how are you finding that it's altering your, the way that you play in could you envisage that style, if there is a different style working its way into music, you're recording?
Jordan Rudess
I mean, it's all kind of like an opening of the mind. Because, you know, it's a new experience for me, and it's opening up new possibilities. So I mean, I'll surely bring it into like the Dream Theater sessions. You know, it's see how I can do cool stuff with it. But uh, you know, one of the things I've been really enjoying is playing like old classic songs, I mean, old classic, like, songs from movies, or like, show tunes, or like playing summertime by Gershwin and, like doing all the bending and I mean, it's the kind of thing where I can't imagine doing a solo concert on like, if they ever come out with the an osmosis 88 Or take two of them and have one hand on each shirt. I mean, it's just so you know, it's all about like, performance and just this whole thing, but yeah, I think anybody who plays it if they're really like, if they're really open to it, there's a lot of things to discover and new techniques and therefore maybe like some new music that can come out of it as well. Besides that, I don't really like the keyboard but
Chris Barker
the music tech my forever studio podcast is supported by audience, makers of the EVO 16 and EVO SBA interface, as well as the EVO expanded system.
Will Betts
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Chris Barker
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Will Betts
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Chris Barker
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Will Betts
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Chris Barker
Three more left. And yeah, if you haven't any speakers yet, just
Jordan Rudess
I know there's no speakers. And I was just I've been thinking about speakers lately. I really loved the sound that that Stephen had in his studio. This, those Genelec speakers sounded amazing. So I was thinking well, let me let me get some of those. What model he had. Exactly. I don't recall there the smaller ones that he had kind of like positioned all over the room. I'm sure. I don't know if I had unlimited resources. Maybe I'm making a bad choice. So I don't know you have to get you guys your advice.
Chris Barker
Genelec shout out are a pretty popular choice. I've got I've got some there. Yeah.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, I mean, they sounded incredible. Seems like wow, this is a good sound. I don't know
Chris Barker
whether that built into Atmos. I'm sure it does. Sometimes they've got that some technology, haven't they this, Sam? Yeah. Oh, that can like model to the room as well.
Jordan Rudess
Oh, nice. Nice. So yeah, maybe if the general people hear this thought, make that dream come true. Yes. Let's do Gen X. Right.
Chris Barker
Yeah. If you're listening and Finn I'm getting a message
Will Betts
you really enjoyed the Atmos experience. But what was it about that more specifically, that was amazing?
Jordan Rudess
Well, I mean, I grew up playing classical music, but then I, you know, after I discovered the mini mug, which was probably one of the instruments SIM in a similar way to osmosis that really like blew my mind and changed my life. Then I started, but I started, I wasn't playing the minimum organ, the traditional way, I was playing it with one hand on the keyboard and constantly one hand on the knobs because I was listening to a lot of Morton subbotnik. And, like, Tangerine Dream, and you know, just kind of things that were very, very spacey and cool. And in a feeding my mind and my musicality with all kinds of other things, too, that were, shall we say, mind expanding. So the so the whole idea of moving sound around in, you know, the early days, it wasn't so much about moving sound around the room, it was more about just creating these cool Sonic spaces. So you know, I'm perfect like candidate for somebody to be in that world of moving sound around the room. And in my mind, I imagined, like, you know, when I get this all set up doing an album that is very much about the experience, not just like, oh, we'll place the vocal in the middle of them, we'll put this here, we'll put that there and do a nice little thing. I'm imagining, you know, a little bit and the riffs that just kind of fly by your head and, you know, doing real cool things and using it more as an experience. So,
Chris Barker
yeah, it seems to work perfectly with the keyboard you've chosen as well, though,
Jordan Rudess
I think so you know, the one thing that my friend David Earl was the logic project manager, he was telling me is that you use it mostly when your tracks are kind of like, done like you do the track. You when you put a you guys probably know, when you put something in the utmost mode is, it's like a totally different mode of operations, it's almost like the piece needs to be done. All the trucks are there. And then you can sit and be in an Atmos mode, and then start playing with things. What I and I'm sure everybody else really wants is I want to be able to draw like automation when I'm when I'm working. So I know that I want to, yeah, make a line similarly to what you can do after the fact now but you know, it's frustrating to me. Yeah. Well,
Chris Barker
I can app with a 3d kind of you're swiping around a space on an app in real time.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, during the process, work of creating the music, not not imagining it. And then later on going, Oh, I think this was the sound that I wanted to go to spin around your head, you know,
Chris Barker
or being able to assign things as well, like, even like you were saying with that keyboard, but being able to sign sections of it to different spaces. So as you move to certain notes or certain things, you know,
Jordan Rudess
yeah, I mean, you you can do all that. But it has to be after afterwards, when you're in that mode in the Atmos mode.
Chris Barker
I mean, that's got to come hasn't it was there's so many more spaces being built. I know in the UK, especially there's lots so many more like interactive Atmos and those kinds of 3d kind of spaces and and performance areas, whether it's really or audio as well. And they've
Jordan Rudess
got to be Yeah, that's got to be working on that ability. For sure. Yeah. It's coming.
Will Betts
And have you tried much of the spatial audio that Apple's doing if you tried, that's that any of the head tracking stuff, or?
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, I have a pair of the air. What do they call the pod Max? Something like that. Yeah. Matter of fact, David was just telling me that, that we should try that. I should give that a try. Of course, it's by neural binaural array when you when you do all that. So but that'll be the first experiment.
Will Betts
Before we send the system out to your Hawaiian Islands.
Jordan Rudess
I mean, probably I was still Well, let's not cancel the system. Yeah. Order yet. Keep that in place. Right. It will be possible.
Chris Barker
Yeah. So we go in for Gen X. Big, big, big nice, gentle Atmos system. Right. Let's do they're locked in.
Jordan Rudess
Yes, I think that'd be a nice improvement.
Chris Barker
So two more items left. We've got we're on to item number five now. Well, let's see, do we were able
Jordan Rudess
to make sound right, and I can play I just want to make sure the basics
Chris Barker
are covered. Yeah, it makes sound and you can hear sound? Yeah, this is
Jordan Rudess
probably a funny choice for some people. But for me, it's a logical choice. I definitely need to have an iPad Pro on this in the studio with me. Okay, so many of the things I do are touch based app experiences. So that's one of my main kind of instruments.
Will Betts
Well, we're skating dangerously close to this being unbundled. So I feel like you want this to have many apps on it. Would it be right in thinking you're you want this to be an app filled iPad Pro, if you just had to pick one app?
Jordan Rudess
Okay, can we each app is a different is a different thing. Like I'm going to run out of stuff in the studio pretty soon.
Will Betts
But what's the what's the decision making process? What are the options in your mind? What are you bouncing between here?
Jordan Rudess
Well, if I only had to have one app, I guess at Have to have geo shred, which is my creation that plays all the beautiful physical models and everything. So let's do that. Okay,
Chris Barker
I pad geo shred locked in.
Will Betts
Yeah, for those who don't know geo shred, tell us about it.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, so. So geo shred is an instrument that I designed in partnership with a team that was out of Stanford University's karma division, which, of course, is the place where they invented physical modeling. And they also invented FM synthesis, and my partner Julius Smith, who's one of the inventors of physical modeling. So it's his team of two other guys PET scan, Dallas, and Nick Porcaro. They're the they're the team that I developed geo shred with. So what it is, it's an interesting marriage of playing surface, and sound design. And it really works. I tried to make an instrument that you could fit one of the first goals was, was on an on a smaller iPhone, and I wanted to make an instrument that you could play from the bottom of the range to the top, even though such a small surface. So there's some interesting features, which let you play like on the same audio can almost think of it as like string or row, where it'll play through or an arpeggio from low to high, like really amazing, kind of like cool cycling of notes throughout the entire range. But the instruments are the instruments physically model based, but the cool thing about it is the pitch intelligence. So the pitch intelligence is something I've been working on since the beginning since morph was what I wanted to be what I always wanted to be able to do. And what you can do in geo shred really well is you can slide and do all the fretless kind of playing stuff. But when your finger lands on a note anywhere on the screen, and it first lands there, it's going to be rounded, and in the amount of time that you decide in the programming. But basically, you can think of it as your hand lands in a spot, it's going to play the note in perfect intonation. And then as soon as you move your finger, then it starts to track and then it doesn't start it, it will track your finger. And so you can do a really beautiful vibrato. And that's only half of the half of the equation. But what happens when you go from point A, or from A to point B like you play see it's perfectly in tune, you have a Rado and then you go and you want to slide up to the G. Well, okay, so then we figured out a way so when your finger gets to the G and your finger kind of like comes to rest for a moment, it will pull it in, and it'll be perfect intonation again until you move your finger. So what ends up happening is you've got kind of this like magic music machine that lets you do all these, what I like to call like, you know, Steve Vai, Jeff Beck kind of like pitch bends like really amazing stuff that only certain guys could do like with their whammy or their pitch wheel or something like that. So you get all this unique control. And what happened with geo shred actually, very interestingly is that we put it out. And then the Indian music market, the Carnatic, musicians picked up on it, because they can do all the if you ever seen anybody playing like geo shredding the Carnatic style, it's absolutely mind blowing. I didn't know about this, when I conceived of this instrument with my partners, we didn't know. But these guys like people, like artists like Mahesh raga, and you know, just doing mind blowing stuff like articulations and phrasings and this is so much pitch control. And metaphoric geo shred has been the kind of like, well, geo synth before that. But geo shred has been kind of like the, the instrument app that I work with to show when I when I advise other companies, as far as like, being able to have a fretless instrument that can be also in tune. Yeah, I use GE or shred because the algorithm that that does that kind of magic, almost magnetic pulling to the note and then tracking your finger is probably the best of any of the any of the instruments that I've played on. And again, I've been working on this for how many years but but it's kind of like the model if you want to do that. You have to study how that how that really tracks but it's a fine
Chris Barker
balance, isn't it? Like, like you said before where you want all the expressiveness, but nobody wants to be out of tune.
Jordan Rudess
You don't want to be out of tune? Yeah, absolutely. So geo shred does does that. But the other thing that's kind of cool is that you can have it locked down so you can have it quantize to a scale. But even when you quantize to a scale when you did it at night and you run your finger and you stop on a note. You can still Broto it. So that's a little cool. Yeah. Minor musical miracle. So yeah, that's what geo shirts about.
Will Betts
So it sounds like there's a lot of overlap there and what you've been describing in geo trade with what you've We're describing on the cosmos as well.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, well, it's about it's, for me, one of my missions in my life and my music is, is using technology to push the art of expression. You know, when, when I grew up, and you guys know, when, when electronic instruments first came out, there were all these people saying, oh, it's not expressive, you know, that's just, it's not like a not like a real instruments like a piano or a violin or this or that. But you know, what, we've come a very, very long way, where now that we're using technology to a point where it's, you know, in many ways, much worse sensitive to our physical, you know, tactile sensibility than anything else, and anything in the, you know, acoustic kind of world not to take away from like, you know, a violin or piano or any of that, I think I've, you know, my respect for those instruments is as high as it could possibly be. But my respect for technology and expression and pushing the boundaries of what's possible, is also, you know, completely engaged.
Chris Barker
And it's about finding those tools that work, that service, the music that you're trying to create the or the art you're trying to make. It's yeah, it's yeah, it's pushing things on. And it's not necessarily deleting things of the past.
Jordan Rudess
No, no, no. And basically, what the main thing that needs to be said, I guess, is that the old argument that electronic instruments are not expressive is is for anybody who knows anything about what's going on is out the window doesn't apply. So be hear anybody say that just walk out of the room? It doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. Yes. You know, not what, it's not what's happening. Now we've come to a point, you know, where they're very, very sensitive to your touch. You know, it's pretty cool.
Chris Barker
We're on the final item. Before we have a little rundown and get to luxury items. So what's the final item of the studio going to be now?
Jordan Rudess
I think that I would need to have my mini mug with me. Now a sense just to complete the complete that kind of circle of life. You know,
Chris Barker
is this the same one that blew your mind that changed things? Yeah, the
Jordan Rudess
original, you know, mini mug. That's the one you know, so
Chris Barker
What year was this when you purchases this? 70 stickers.
Jordan Rudess
1973 When I got my first one, and the one that I think is right, and Bakmi still in great condition. Yeah, well, that one. Okay, so thanks to my buddy, Eric Norlander, he, he found that one for me. Okay. Basically, I had some I had like a Voyager and classic, a couple of things that Moe had made years later, which are cool. But I was like, I really want to have an original MiniMo because, you know, back then at some point, I sold it.
Chris Barker
Oh, so that's not the original. Okay, so you sold it? Ah, yeah, that's not my
Jordan Rudess
original. Right. Right. This one is an original one. Yes, this was work, you know, just re kind of reconditioned and brought up to a beautiful place was it was in good condition as it was. So tell us
Chris Barker
the story of if it's not too personal about why you sold it. And was it for something that you thought was going to be because a lot of people replace that gear with, you know, something digital with loads of presets, or you know, things like that.
Jordan Rudess
Oh, yeah. Well, I sold it
Chris Barker
well, there is that that's why I said you know, it could just leave it at that. All you needed to eat and pay the rent. Yeah, there's that you know, yeah. Yeah,
Jordan Rudess
right. Right. It wasn't the best move I ever made. Let's put it that way. Yeah. But now nowadays, I can't part with any of my keyboards and that's part of the problem. I think after selling that mini mode. I was like, What the fuck was the stupidest move ever? Right. So now you have to drag keyboards out of my house.
Chris Barker
Sad. Alright, then John. Well, Will is going to do a little rundown of what we got. While he's doing the rundown. Take a listen and think about what you will have as your luxury item. Your luxury item isn't something it's not a piece of gear. It's just something else you might want in the studio. And it can be eccentric or as wild or as something that you've always had in studio studio. So we'll do as a little rundown. Now, listen, listen to this. This what you got so far. Okay.
Jordan Rudess
I should take notes.
Will Betts
We're on a Hawaiian mountaintop in your studio, which is full of natural light. It has views over the water through giant Windows as a clean, modern aesthetic. Inside your studio for your free items. You've chosen Jordan, the biggest and best MAC studio. We've gotten the studio just because it's got the latest chips in your interface. We've chosen a Universal Audio x 16. For your da W we have chosen Logic Pro X and then onto your items. Your first was a Steinway Model D rebuilt by Faust Harrison piano. Your microphones are a pair of earthworks PM 40 piano mics your first synthesizer is an expressive e Osmose. For your speakers, you've chosen a Genelec Atmos system I've made the call to, for that to be an 8341 and 7387. One for Atmos system if you don't mind.
Chris Barker
Charles knife. I love those numbers.
Will Betts
Numbers. Row row. So your penultimate one is an iPad Pro loaded with geo shred. And your final choice was the Minimoog. Model D. How does that work? Do you think if your studio
Jordan Rudess
I think I can be quite happy. Nice, I think yeah, I think that's pretty good.
Chris Barker
And are we gonna go for the mini mug that you sold? We'll get that back for you.
Jordan Rudess
Oh, yeah, we got it. Yeah, it was the right one. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Get that back. Thanks for thinking. We need to find it. Yeah, exactly. As much as I like this one. That one was even better.
Chris Barker
So that leaves us with the final item, your luxury item. Now? Is there anything that you've moved from studio to studio that isn't a piece of gear that you always have? You know, something on the wall? Or? Or do you want to create the most eccentric choice? You know, we have that too?
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, I think I think I think what we need to do is create something really amazing and have a like every wall that's not the window, that really large window that we're imagining has to be a video wall has to be a high resolution video wall where I could put any environment any I can even take some of the tracks I'm working on instead of looking at whatever monitor I could use the the wall as my monitor.
Chris Barker
So it's like a 4k video screen everywhere. So it looks like yeah, like yes,
Jordan Rudess
yeah, like something you'd go see in like a Disney exhibit or something.
Chris Barker
Well, all those all those filters, film studios, they're doing now with those. What's the one we've got one pin? Is it in Edinburgh? I think that it's like an LED curtain that's like, 8k or something. And then they project well. So instead of doing Green Screen Actors are in like an environment, but it's kind of like, but it's such good quality that when you film it just looks like it's there. Well, since
Will Betts
that's how they shot the Mandalorian as well. Yeah.
Chris Barker
Oh, is that the Mandalorian? That's how they did it. Okay. Yeah.
Jordan Rudess
So there would have to be my final. My final idol.
Chris Barker
That is that's a good choice. That's a classy choice as well. Yeah. Very nice. That's
Will Betts
an expensive choice or cool. Yeah.
Chris Barker
Excellent. So luxury, isn't it? So luxury. Well,
Jordan Rudess
I'll have to you know, what I have to do is I have to use AI to design the studio. Like, I'll type it in text damage. Yeah. Yes. See what it looks like.
Chris Barker
We should do that. Well, actually, we should. We should ask the chat GPT to wish some of the guests that we haven't had on the show. We should get it to predict eDreams studio and write us what it is. And then see if it matches up. Oh, see how smart this guy is. So
Jordan Rudess
right right. Whoever's back up decision. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Will Betts
Have you been playing with this then Jordan? If you've been investigating the AI stuff much?
Jordan Rudess
Well, yeah, I'm totally in the chat. GPT a matter of fact, I'm gonna have it write all the new lyrics for the next Dream Theater. No, I'm kidding. Champa churches nightmare. Although we had I had some fun because we were on the bus and I said like write lyrics. I forget what the topic was, like write lyrics about the beautiful sunny day of the style of John Petrucci from Dream Theater. And of course, you know, check GBT, this does it out. And there's so many amazing things that Chad GBT can do.
Chris Barker
It's gonna come out that it's not it's not AI. It's just like a warehouse full of like, unemployed dudes.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, well, I joke, I joke with some of my friends who are working on AI like, that we should have I could set up a little space in my house like, so like your house and say, I want to have a piano piece that's like, really moody. It's about, you know, two minutes long in the key of G with a beautiful melody, and a nice moving chord progression over time. And then, you know, so like, it comes to me. I see it, I improvise something for two minutes, or whatever you said, I said it back and they go, Oh my God, this AI is incredible.
Chris Barker
Well, they actually that that did happen, though, didn't it was a lot of like a lot of startups in the kind of FinTech kind of stuff. And that kind of where they say, Oh, we're gonna find out investments and all this and they just literally had huge call centers in both in developing countries of people just like running the mass and running all the stats manually. And then they go, yeah, you just put it in this machine and it comes out but it's basically like exactly like what you said, just like an email to a load. Guys, yes, amazing. It's a way to get the investment. And then the goal, we should invest more in this amazing technology. It's called loads of people.
Jordan Rudess
This is a new, there's a new piece of technology that I've kind of invested my time and I'm going to show it at NAMM two it's it's this thing called riff Fleur, it's with a very nice gentleman from the UK, his name is John Bell. And he's been working in AI music for a while. It's and this is kind of AI related, although he's not really AI, it's more like many, you know, 1000s of lines of code that make it do what it's doing. But the basics of it are that you can use repeller to create riffs. So you can put it like in a, you can put it in a category, like in the beta version we have would never come out this way. But in my beta version, we have like Dream Theater as a category. And you can go into like a song like endless sacrifice, and hit play, right. And it literally will play a riff that's very much like that endless sacrifice, but not the same. And then you can hit Create riff, and every time you hit the Create riff button, it will create another F, that's very much like it, but it's different. And then you've got some parameters, like you can set the rhythmic gap, you can set the range, or you can set how many runs you want within the riff. So maybe if it's, you know, playing like a basic riff, all the sudden it'll add some like faster notes to it. We're training it now to play in Jordan, kind of like mode to do like leads and stuff like that. And in fact that the NAMM show will show it, where you can have like, endless mode, which is just basically started and every time it reaches its for a bar, or whatever it is ending point, it automatically starts the next riff that it just created. So it'll do like the riffs and you could put the leads with at the Jordan, kind of Jordan style leads and have them in sync. Put them both in endless mode and go have lunch. It's It's sick.
Chris Barker
And is it outputting audio or MIDI or either or both. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Jordan Rudess
If you guys are at the NAMM show, stop by Yeah. I'll be a Triple G ventures. Okay, actually showing that incredible piece of technology. It's mind blowing. And like, I think that what's going to happen is all the companies out there when they see what it does, they're gonna want it. Want to license it? Because it's really phenomenal.
Will Betts
And it's this way, you've bought so many guitars recently.
Jordan Rudess
Yeah, that's a good quote. Well, why did I buy so many guitars recently? I don't even know. I gotta but I got this guitar bug all the sudden, yeah, the cell wanted really want to learn how to play. One of the interesting guitars that I've played, which relates to our music technology talk is the is the lava guitar, the lot of this company called lava music. And they're, they're doing some great things with guitars. They have they have a guitar that almost looks as good as an iPhone in it. Right? Yeah, really cool. It's a very cool, so it does more than you would think it could do. But it has, you know, obviously, it's got a tuner built in. It's got a speaker built in some kind of old mic that picks up the sound. It's got effects, built ins, reverbs and choruses and October's and all the stuff and the model that I have, or the model they put out, it's like an acoustic guitar. It's made from carbon fiber, I think it's kind of weather proof, if you will. But I'm having a really good time with it as practice mode. So it'll like you can test your ear, it'll play a note, you'll hear it. And then you have to play the right note back and it'll keep score and tell you if you're right. Or it'll look at your rhythm, it'll tell you if you're you can strum like in time, as well. It's got a looper in it, you can like just start looping or recorder. Really, really cool stuff. I mean, I was I was the way I found it as I was, you know, being into technology as I am as they can get and it makes so much sense. Like, you know, for a guitar to have what you need built into it. Like why don't we need to have a separate, you know, distortion box or a chorus or this or that, like
Chris Barker
most guitarists hate all that they don't know. And this is the thing it's they've tried to do this. I think it's coming around slowly, but they've tried for so long. Like I remember reviewing the mu guitar and like, that was amazing. Yeah, right. And you know, there's been lots of guitars like that with built in effects and really cool stuff and smart tutorials. Yeah, and yeah, and Gibson had that one as well that had like an output for every string, which was kind of interesting. Yeah. I remember taking a look at that. That was great. And they were all like flops and it's a shame like hopefully, they think people are coming around like, but I think a lot of old school guitarists like having like all the little pedals and like collecting them all and Yeah, but
Jordan Rudess
there's also which which is interesting there's a certain mentality in guitarists that they like things to be fairly simple yeah so for me like when I pick up this this lava guitar, I love it is I pick it up if I want to plug it into anything and I've got like reverb and chorus coming right out of the guitar. Yeah, it's like a real pleasure you know, it's so simple. I'm not I don't have any wires is no amps need external amps. I'm just playing it and it's, it's like joyful. If you bring it to a campfire, you got the effects you need coming right out of the thing. So to me that makes, it's almost like the reason I like certain like iPad apps because I've got my iPad Pro and I can just, it's got, you know, it's big enough that the speakers are actually pretty good. And I can play I can have G or shred or whatever and be jamming and it's got all the events and and sounds great. And I'm walking around with my instrument. That's this iPad, you know, yeah, interesting. Now
Chris Barker
it does make a difference. So it's why like, I like having like, even if it's kind of a crappy keyboard, a keyboard that just you switch on and it just play sound out of it. You can play piano on it, or obviously a real piano would be nice, but it's, you don't want to have to switch on the computer. And yeah, plug stuff in when you just want to play. Yeah, right.
Jordan Rudess
That's why I like my Steinway. Yeah, turn
Will Betts
it on. That's great flex as well. Yeah.
Chris Barker
It's a great. It's a case of top flex. Well, that brings us to the end of the show anyway. But thank you so much for joining us, Jordan. It's been a real pleasure and a real insight as well. And some some unique choices that we've not had on the show before, which is always great. So awesome, guys, all that's left to say is thank you so much. We'll either see you at NAMM. We'll see you on the road in 2023.
Jordan Rudess
See you on the road. That's my line. And
Chris Barker
well, thank you so much Jordan, another amazing podcast filled with Hawaiian island cliches. But we got grand piano and high technology in there as well as we expect from Jordan. So yeah, love it. Would you reckon? Well,
Will Betts
yeah, I'd love the having the geo shred in there. I know. It's his own app. So yeah, surprising that will allow it will allow it Yeah, but you should definitely go and check out in the show notes. We've put in a link out to some microtonal music made on Geo shred which is super interesting. But I will say and this is just going forward. The Atmos system is becoming a trend feels like a rule band not sure how I feel about it. But
Chris Barker
go when think about it well locked down as rules.
Will Betts
We might have to we might have to lovely. Well all that's
Chris Barker
left to say is thank you so much for tuning into my forever studio podcast. And we will catch you next time for more adventures in studio for them. Goodbye. Bye bye