Episode 033 with Andy of Team Banzai

Andy is a music producer, a recording engineer, a geek, a nerd, a weirdo, and a damn talented creator. He's currently an engineer at Black Diamond Recording Studio in Portland Oregon - but also creates and designs as part of the alias 'Team Banzai'. Naturally interested in technology and seeing how things work, at the age of 10 he began fiddling with hi-fi and reel-to-reel tape machines with his dad and was onto running soundboards by middle school. We trail his journey into dj'ing house parties by 16 and moving to Japan by 18. He tells some of the tales of DJing as a foreigner in another country at various dive bars and themed events, we talk about the everchanging and quickly rinsing of the 'hottest' song trends and how they've changed over the years. Andy and I explore an explanation of the different types of professional Dj's, producers, and sound designers as well as offer advice to students of the craft. We talk about explicit language, as well as the language of music - which is a skill awarded with dedicated time and precision. Andy weaves his jobs and experiences together and explains how they all overlap and create his creative enjoyable working lifestyle, and we both find important agreement on feeling the "vibe" - even in a professional music relationship. The intimate creative relationship formed to produce a final artful and fruitful product is certainly a two-way street - and can become a layer more or less complicated the farther or closer personal styles of creation drift. Mr. Shartle shares his views on youtube tutorials, making more with less, hands on learning, making beats and his creative process using modular and analog synths, VSTs, Plugins, sampling and creative sound design. I've been grateful to have Andy as a mentor and person to come to with audio questions. He's miles and years ahead of me but teaches eye to eye. Checkout Team Banzai's latest album ADHD wherever you get your tunes. Cheers. (This episode was recorded March 30th)